Today’s hottest cookbooks don’t just tell you how to boil rice. They take you on a journey that begins with your palate and ends on the dinner table

Almost every foodie is a fan of Jamie Oliver and Anthony Bourdain, as well as Nigella Lawson. One can’t help but stare in amazement as these master chefs prepare scrumptious dishes. It’s one thing to watch a show and hastily jot down the recipe that flashes at the end, but it’s another thing to buy a cookbook and go through it in leisure.

There’s a cookbook for every kind of person. So pick a category — housewife, vegetarian, working woman or the ultimate foodie. We’ll tell you which books to buy if you want to create culinary delights.
 
Housewife – If you’re the stay-at-home kind who loves experimenting, we recommend 50 Great Curries of India by Camellia Punjabi and How to be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson. “Through her book, Punjabi gives you a crash course on the philosophy of Indian cuisine. She’ll teach you how to plan an Indian meal in the traditional way, how to colour your curry and use spices the way they’re meant to be. She’ll also plan meals for you. The book is perfect, especially if you don’t know a thing about cooking,” says newlywed homemaker Neena Balse. Finish these meals off with some comfort food — desserts baked the Nigella way.

50 Great Curries of India – Rs 469

How to be a Domestic Goddess – Rs 2,200

Vegetarian – It’s true, there aren’t as many options for the truly vegetarian. But there’s hope too, for there are more than a hundred ways to cook a vegetarian meal. We recommend 100 Vegetarian Dishes by Mallika Badrinath and Samaithu Par by Meenakshi Ammal. Samaithu Par (‘cook and see’ in Tamil) is for the staunch South Indian who prefers to serve steaming hot rice and sambar, and maybe a mor kozhumbu or togaiyal on rare days. Meenakshi Ammal will not only tell you how to make it tangy and spicy, she’ll also teach you how to grind spices right at home. Mallika Badrinath, on the other hand, is Bangalore’s own culinary genius. “Her measurements are exact — follow them to the T and you’ll make the most delicious meals ever. Nevertheless, her North Indian fare is a tad South Indianised,” says bank officer Sunieta Rajan, a staunch vegetarian.

100 Vegetarian Dishes – Rs 217

Samaithu Par – Rs 170
 
Working woman – Every independent woman on the go must have a cookbook tailored to her needs. We recommend Vimla Patil’s Working Woman’s Cookbook. Each section is a planned meal of simple dishes — maybe a kootu, jeera rice and some curry with chapatis. It has recipes for both vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes, and sometimes the two are mixed and matched to create a well-rounded meal. “My husband usually gets home earlier than me, so I just handed him the ladle along with The Working Woman’s Husband Cookbook by Robert Tichane. Tichane understands a man’s innate inability to quickly make something complicated, and provides recipes for dishes that any working girl will love

after a long, hard day,” says software engineer Reshmi Sampath.

Working Woman’s Cookbook – Rs 1,520

Working Woman’s Husband Cookbook – Rs 807
 
Ultimate foodie – This is the kind of person who not loves the food, but also its history. We recommend Madhur Jaffrey’s A Taste of India and Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook. Freelance writer Ramesh V is a fan of both. “Jaffrey gives you a kitchen lesson on each and ever region in India, its unique taste and smell, before giving recipes for a handful of its best dishes. Bourdain, on the other hand, will poke fun at you if you can’t recognise his ingredients. All their recipes must be tried with care and caution, and once done well, they’ll transport you to food heaven,” he says.

A Taste of India – Rs 940

Les Halles Cookbook – Rs 1,158

Namrata Iyengar/ DNA-Daily News & Analysis Source: 3D Syndication