Cooking with Katie
by Katie R. Irani.
Illustrated by Wodin.
Ahmednagar: Blue Bus Books, 2001
Reviewed by Kendra Crossen Burroughs
What a delight this book is--a treasure chest spilling over with the secrets of Katie’s delicious home cookin’ plus a dozen anecdotes of Katie’s life with Meher Baba. The spiral-bound book is very well designed with easy-to-read type and charming cover art and interior line drawings by Wodin—and you get all this for the unheard-of low price of seven dollars! I have a drawer stuffed full of Indian cookbooks, and believe me, this is a classic!
I suspect that there are going to be some people who will buy this book and just love it, without ever trying any of the recipes. It might be just as much fun to read them and pretend to be making a dhansak masala (Parsi spice powder), a kitchree (soft rice and dal cooked together with spices) that Baba enjoyed, a nut curry, a dal cooked with dried cherries or fresh mangoes, East-West Vegetable Pasta, Persian Omelette, Cheesy Potato Soup, Parsi Lamb Curry, Garlic-Ginger Chicken Salad, or Tuna Treat (a novel recipe made by sautéeing canned tuna with garlic, onion, chilies, cumin, mint, and tomatoes). This is certainly not a typical Indian cookbook. Even Katie’s kheer (rice pudding) is different, produced by puréeing cooked basmati rice (instead of cooking the rice raw in milk as in other cookbooks).
There’s something for everyone here, and there are plenty of vegetarian recipes for those who may not want to even read a recipe like Stir-Fried Liver with Lemon Juice. However, if you omit reading any part of this book, you might miss out on some interesting tidbits of knowledge. Did you know, for example, that “mutton” in India refers to goat meat? (not to worry, lamb may be substituted).
This is not precisely a beginner’s cookbook, although the directions are clear, all the necessary information is given, and a few of recipes seem very easy. Some recipes call for ingredients that are unusual in the West (substitutes are given where possible, such as zucchini for doodhi squash). Most of the spices are familiar ones (like cumin seeds, turmeric, cloves, and cilantro leaves), while the slightly more exotic spices—such as black mustard seeds, hing (asafoetida), and curry leaves--can be found at an Indian grocery. Some of the dals are Indian specialties (like split mung without the green skins and chana dal, the small yellow Indian “chickpea”), but the more easily found red lentils or yellow split peas can often be used. It will be important to notice, as Katie explains, that measurements are based on Indian ingredients, which are often smaller than Western equivalents, so that some recipes specify, for example, “15 garlic cloves (4 big Western cloves).”
Katie is fond of certain combinations—garlic-ginger paste, fresh mint leaves, and fresh dill turn up in quite a few recipes. Personally, I found that the use of mint sometimes made me feel as if some Dr. Bronner’s peppermint soap had accidentally gotten into the pot, so I reduced the quantity. I also omitted the hot chili peppers, and we didn’t miss them a bit. And I find that the indication of the number of servings for a dish can be very generous—what is said to feed 4 sometimes seems to me to be enough for 6. It definitely helps to have some experience with Indian cooking, so that you can make adjustments to the recipes according to your taste or available ingredients.
But even if you can’t boil water, you still might enjoy this book, even if only to feel like you’re there in the kitchen with Baba peeking into the cupboards or tasting the dal.