Gluten Free Cookery
Author: Peter Thomson
This title is a guide offering clear descriptions and suggestions for using the wide range of foods that can be enjoyed as part of a gluten or wheat free diet. It contains both recipes and background information on the ingredients, including where to buy them.
Book about: Cookout USA or Full Bodied And Peppery
Raji Cuisine: Indian Flavors, French Passion
Author: Raji Jallepalli
When Raji Jallepalli was a child growing up in India, she loved to sneak into the kitchen to carefully observe the cook and ask questions about whatever happened to be on the stove. Her parents discouraged such behavior--since Indian ladies did not cook. With a career in the kitchen unthinkable, Raji immersed herself in a career in microbiology. Years later, she visited France and fell in love with French food and wine. On first tasting the food she thought, "This is nice, but it could use some of the assertive flavors of my homeland as well as some lightening up."
Three important influences--her Indian upbringing, scientific background, and love of French cuisine--inform Raji's cooking and account for her incredible success as a chef, and a self-taught one at that. Her eponymous restaurant, Restaurant Raji in Memphis, Tennessee, was nominated for a James Beard Award in 1996 and 1997 and helped establish Raji as one of this country's hottest culinary stars. She has been called "a major player" by the New York Times, and her restaurant was dubbed "one of the most exciting in America" by Food & Wine. Raji defines her brand of fusion as "a rather quiet combining of vastly different cultures, philosophies, and cooking techniques." In her kitchen she retains the basic principles and balance of French cuisine while introducing the profound bouquets of Indian cooking. As star chef and Raji fan Charlie Trotter writes in the foreword, "Hers becomes one cuisine--not a melding of two. It is completely natural, there is nothing contrived about it."
All the recipes in Raji Cuisine come from Raji's restaurant but are adapted for the home kitchen. A full glossaryof Indian spices appears, along with a primer on techniques and notes on choosing wine to accompany Raji's uniquely flavored fare.
Outstanding, easy-to-follow recipes, gorgeous four-color photographs, and Raj'i's own reflections on her incredible journey to stardom in America's foremost culinary circles--all combine to make Raji Cuisine a welcome and remarkable debut from an extraordinary talent.
Washington Post
Jallepalli is no ordinary Indian chef. Brought up in an aristocratic South Indian home, where her family had two cooks, entertained regularly and made frequent trips to Europe, Jallepalli arrived in the United States in 1971 with a highly sophisticated palate. French haute cuisine in particular impressed her. The much-praised food fusion food she serves at Restaurant Raji in Memphis taps into that personal history. There, and in this book, she combines robust Indian flavors with French principles and techniques, and what emerges is an internationally admired personal cuisine.
New York Magazine
As far as we're concerned, there are two compelling reasons to visit Memphis- and only one if you're not a loyal subject of the King. Indian-food fanatics make pilgramages to sample the fusion fare of Raji Jallepalli, whose first career as a microbiologist undoubtedly laid the groundwork for her signature merging of French techniques with ingredients like garam masala and ghee... Save on airfare by trying one of the recipes in her first book, Raji Cuisine, in which she adapts dishes like lamb stew with vindaloo psices, tomatoes stuffed with potato korma, and caradmon creme brulee for the home cook. Plus, a very welcome wine suggestion accompanies each recipe.
Publishers Weekly
HA native of Hyderabad, India, and chef/owner of Restaurant Raji in Memphis, Jallepalli fuses Indian flavors and French technique with well-seasoned verve. A succinct introduction covers essential pantry ingredients, spices, oils and fats, and techniques. Jallepalli assures dubious gastronomes that Indian-French fusion is not a hapless combination of foie gras and curry, emphasizing instead a spice-accented symmetry of complementary flavors. Sundry spices--cilantro, tamarind, turmeric, ginger, cumin, cardamom, among others--lend an exotic sensibility to such French classics as Tamarind Consomm or Baby Lamb Racks with Curry Leaf-Black Pepper Crust and Curried Blackberry Sauce, both less complicated to make than they sound. There are easy-to-make dishes (Fettuccine with White Truffles and Curry Leaves) as well as creative hybrids (Antelope Chop with Blackberry-Ginger Chutney and Anise-Flavored Chocolate Meringues). Recipe instruction is clear and straightforward, often incorporating traditional Indian cooking techniques, such as toasting spices, blending sauces and marinating meats. Oenophiles will appreciate Jallepalli's wine recommendations for most dishes. A thinking-cook's chef, Jallepalli in his first effort delivers an admirable range of innovative and vibrantly full-flavored dishes, accessible to inspired home cooks. (Mar.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.
The New York Times - A. Hesser
Jallepalli accomplishes something rare with her cooking. As she puts it, she "retains the basic principles and balance of French cuisine while introducing the profound bouquets of Indian cooking." She may no longer be a home cook, but she is a good cook who should connect with any sensible one, home or professional.
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