Reviews
This 208 page book was written by a London-based cookbook author and food stylist who specializes in recipe development, packaging and editorial needs. You'll find curry dishes to suit every palate, including Filipino Green Papaya Curry, Spiced Prawn and Pineapple Curry and Bangkok Sour Pork Curry., 150 Best Indian, Thai, Vietnamese and More Slow Cooker Recipes packs in a recipe collection that holds variety and ingredients that lend to the slow cooker, and are a pick for any slow cooker enthusiast. Heat ratings accompanying each dish tell whether to dish will be mild, medium or hot while serving tips accompany dishes ranging from a Fruity Egg and Chicken Curry to Filipino Green Papaya Curry, Balinese Yellow Fish Curry with Potatoes, Massaman Lamb Curry, and more. A centerfold of color photos accompanies a wide variety of delicious dishes perfect for any ethnic or slow cooker collection., One thing I really like this book is that it calls for authentic ingredients like tamarind paste or curry leaves, or whatever -- instead of dumbing down the recipes. Alternatives are given, but I like being offered recipes with the slightly more off-the-beaten-path spices. If you are looking for more ways to use your slow cooker and you like some Southeast Asian flavors, I think this book is worth checking out., If you love Indian and Southeast Asian food, chances are you've wished there were an easier way (besides takeout) to get those flavors on a day when you have to work late, shuttle the kids around, and generally deal with your busy life. Sunil Vijayakar's 150 Best Indian, Thai, Vietnamese and More Slow Cooker Recipes offers lots of options. Sure, it's a bit more complicated than throwing some meat, potatoes and carrots in the slow cooker and walking away for six hours. And there are some recipes in the book that simply have too many steps for this style of cooking. The chicken and red lentil curry, for example, requires soaking the lentils for an hour and then cooking the chicken, onions and spices in a wok before throwing it all into the slow cooker for five hours. You kind of wonder, what's the point? But Vikayakar, a London-based cookbook author and food stylist, includes others, like the Madras Fish Curry, the Chicken Massaman or the Sindhi Beef Curry, that seem slow-cooker easy and sound delicious. There are lots of vegetarian choices as well., When I think of crock pots I think of soup or beef or chicken. So I had never thought about adding some international flair to the old crock pot! But I am glad I did. These are some delicious recipes so far -- and totally breaks the crock pot same old same old. Interesting flavors and cuisine -- and some are really healthy too! The book is broken into organized sections and I love how it gives tips on servings or what to serve with. It tells you variations or substitutions (like substitute cod if not available -- or check your local asian grocery store) It also notes if it is a vegan recipe. Super helpful. I would recommend adding this to your cooking crock pot repertoire for sure., In a nutshell: We get into a rut with our slow-cookers: chili, stew, soup. Soup, stew, chili. When we go out to dinner and have a lovely Indian or other meal, sometimes it doesn't dawn on us that those meats, beans or vegetables have been slow-cooked, too. This book bridges that gap, bringing authentic dishes within mostly easy reach. The Portland area -- particularly the west side -- has numerous Indian grocers, making ingredients easy to find; Asian grocers are even more accessible. And even in hot weather, not all these dishes are blow-the-top-of-your-head-off spicy. Using a slow-cooker won't heat up your kitchen, either. What's hot: There's plenty of variety among the recipes; numerous tips; substitution suggestions; many vegetable dishes; and heat ratings on all recipes., The author is London-based Sunil Vijayakar, who has written several cookbooks and is a food stylist. He says in the book's introduction that slow cookers are the perfect appliance to prepare many of the signature dishes of India, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia and Myanmar, among others. Dishes in the oversized paperback, some of which are illustrated with mouth-watering color photos, are grouped by ingredients, beginning with the meats - from Beef Madras and Cambodian Pork and Lemongrass Curry to Lamb Biriyani and Goat and Potato Curry. Poultry and egg dishes follow: all curries from Bombay Chicken to Sri Lankan Egg. There's also a collection of fish and shellfish dishes, like Masala Fennel Shrimp and Spiced Coconut Mussel Curry. Sections on vegetables, fruit and nuts and rice and pulses (legumes) follow. The book concludes with accompaniments -- Sweet Mango Chutney, for example, and Spiced Carrot Pickle., Today, I'm excited to tell you about 150 Best Indian, Thai, Vietnamese and More Slow Cooker Recipes by Sunil Vijayakar. I was immediately intrigued by the concept since I use my slow cooker year-round...even in warmer months. During summer, it heats up my kitchen much less than turning on my oven. Besides...a slow cooker is a busy cook's best friend: assemble everything and let the slow cooker do the work for you while you take care of other errands! It had never occurred to me to use my slow cooker to cook Indian and Asian food...but Sunil says it's a natural fit. The longer, slower cooking process is perfect for allowing the spices in curry-based dishes develop...and even cheaper cuts of meat turn out juicy and tender in the process. I thumbed through the cookbook trying to decide what to feature, and so many recipes from around the globe caught my eye. I ultimately decided to try a recipe I've always been curious about but had never cooked: chicken adobo. This is Filipino comfort food at its best: simple ingredients cooked over low heat until the flavors combine into something that's way more than the sum of their parts! Chicken is essentially braised in a mixture of chicken broth, soy sauce, cider vinegar, lots of garlic, and a few spices. The initial prep takes about 20 minutes, and then the slow cooker does the rest. If your slow cooker has a timer and a stay-warm setting, you can put this on before work - and dinner will be ready when you return home. I made this after work last night since Michael was working late -- by the time we were ready to eat at 900, the chicken was fall-off-the bone tender...and my kitchen smelled amazing!, 150 Best Indian, Thai, Vietnamese and More Slow Cooker Recipes by Sunil Vijayakar, reflects the slow cooker revival and the curry trend. As Vijayakar explains in the Introduction, referring to dishes from South Asian and Southeast Asian cuisines: What better tool than the slow cooker to prepare them? Long, slow cooking allows spices to release their essential oils. Meat becomes beautifully tender and vegetables absorb tasty zing and zest. Following the introduction and a useful general section called Slow Cooker Know-How, the book is divided logically into sections on meat dishes, poultry and eggs, fish and shellfish, vegetables, fruits and nuts, rice and pulses and accompaniments. It is well indexed according to recipe titles and major ingredients. There is a section of full colour photographs in the middle of the book, illustrating 12 of the recipes and some typical ingredients. Recipe pages include information on the number of servings, preparation time (a rough guideline at best), the size of cooker to use and a rating of one, two or three flames to indicate the level of spicy heat. Sidebars provide additional information about ingredients that the reader may be unfamiliar with and suggested substitutions. The recipes are, of course, the most important part of any cookbook. The ones that I tried were relatively easy to prepare, they worked and the dishes were tasty. In all cases I toned down the heat to suit our tastes. The Trivandrum Chicken and Coconut Curry comes together easily, cooks in only 2 hours on high and tastes good with rice and chutney. We took a shortcut, using commercial mango chutney, but could have followed a recipe in the book to make our own., Despite the unwieldy title, his new cookbook -- 150 Best Indian, Thai, Vietnamese and More Slow Cooker Recipes -- is full of very approachable recipes. Most of the spices should be stocked by Asian specialty markets., What can I say...I'm an ethnic food foodie! And, one of my favorite kitchen gadgets is a slow cooker; so put the two together and I'm off to the races. I decided to test an Indian recipe, a Thai recipe and a Vietnamese recipe from 150 Best Indian, Thai, Vietnamese and More Slow Cooker Recipes. My Indian test was Lamb Biriyani. The marinade consisted of the usual yogurt plus cilantro, garlic and ginger. After six hours of tenderizing the lamb, I stir-fried the lamb with onions and spices consisting of coriander, cumin, turmeric and cayenne. Tomatoes were stirred in and set aside. The rice portion of the dish was basmati with onion, cumin seeds, peppercorns, cloves, cardamom pods, and cinnamon stick. Now comes the slow-cooker part; thin layers of lamb mixture and spiced rice were spread in the container. This was all covered with boiling water and cooked on low for three hours. Oh my!! The smell in the kitchen was to die for! And, the end result was so, so, good. Did it match what we've had at the local eatery? Yes, and even more so. For the Thai recipe I decided to test Hot and Sour Thai Fish Curry. Thank goodness for the jasmine rice to break the heat of the dried chili peppers! The combination of spices, lemon grass, garlic, fish sauce, turmeric and tamarind paste and the addition of pineapple gave the salmon filets a very distinct flavor. The fish flaked after two hours on high and was served immediately. The end result was good but I didn't find it excellent. For us, there was just too much heat from the chili peppers and it interfered with tasting the salmon. My Vietnamese choice was Vietnamese Spiced Beef and Noodle Broth. The broth was made up of previously prepared broth (I used organic, purchased broth) and added whole cloves, peppercorns, gingerroot, cinnamon sticks, star anise, and green cardamom pods. This combination was cooked in a slow cooker for three hours on high, by which time the broth was permeated with the spices. The rice noodles were then cooked enough to soften. These were placed in the bottom of the bowls and topped with thin beef tenderloin slices, bean sprouts and green onions. Garnish was a combination of mint leaves, cilantro leaves and lime wedges. We decided to skip the red chili pepper. The broth was very tasty; spicy yet palatable. We loved this dish and I will certainly make it again. It was easy to make and using a slow cooker gave me time to do other things rather than watch the pot simmering on the stovetop. I do give 150 Best Indian, Thai, Vietnamese and More Slow Cooker Recipes two thumbs up for being easy to follow, uncomplicated and for using ingredients that could easily be found in the ethnic section of many grocery stores., I love my slow cooker and I adore experimenting with recipe books. So naturally when this one came my way I saw a great opportunity to introduce my family to Indian and Thai food. I have never ever made Indian food before and my family is not accustomed to this style of cooking, so what fun! Anyways this amazing recipe book is all Indian, Thai and Vietnamese. There are over 150 different recipes. The book is published by Robert Rose. It is new and the author is Sunil Vijayakar. We tried Beef Madras. It was a treat. The recipe book was filled with curry recipes and pilaf and Dhal and Masala. I am so into the fact that I can make all of these in my slow cooker. Anyways the beef madras was delicious. A lot of ingredients required, so it took me a couple of days hunting for cilantro and curry powder (mild) and coconut milk. The kids and my husband liked it, but they did find it a bit spicy. My one daughter: Mom, my lips are on fire. My husband and I were both pleasantly surprised by the recipe I tried. It lasted two days and he took it for lunch twice also. So it made a couple of batches, really helpful for my schedule. Anyways one of my readers can win this one also. Tell me one different food your kids like. This one gets a $$$$$ out of $$$$$ because it is full of great recipes and invaluable. This is a paperback by the way., Creating fragrant, tantalizing Indian, Thai and Vietnamese dishes right in the comfort of your own home, even when pressed for time, has never been easier! Going out for this type of fare can be expensive, and the dishes can be made affordably in your own kitchen with the help of a slow cooker. Just released this month, The 150 Best Indian, Thai, Vietnamese and more Slow Cooker Recipes by Sunil Vijayakar an exciting array of vegetable, fish, poultry, meat and rice dishes to suit every palate. The cookbook contains mostly curry recipes in all forms, from main dishes to side dishes. Slow cookers and curries really are a perfect match made in culinary heaven, because slow cooking spices allows them to gradually release their essential oils and fragrance, creating tantalizing and aromatic sauces while even the most economical cuts of meat becomes succulent and tender. You'll also find delicious and creative twists on accompaniments, such as Apple and Mango Chutney or Chile and Tomato Chutney, along with slow cooker know-how such as preparing various types of food for the slow cooker. You'll delight in the authentic, sumptuous dishes, not to mention the vast amount of time you'll save in the kitchen., In the theme of me making huge diet changes in my life I knew that I was going to have to explore a lot more in the world of food. A notion that I found both exciting and yet scary all at once. Apparently eating like hubby the last four years has made me fearful of new foods, I am not nearly as adventurous as I once was. All about baby steps though and I thought that this cookbook could be a great way for me to explore somethings I hadn't yet. I always loved Indian food, haven't had it in years since sweet baboo isn't much for curry. Thai and Vietnamese though are two areas I hadn't explored yet so I knew I was going to be in for a treat regardless. Plus it isn't like I make Indian food either...again sweet baboo isn't much for curry. Sunil Vijayakar did a really great job putting this together as a professional cookbook writer and food stylist based in London. I bet that is why his Indian recipes spoke so much to me lol, I hear curry in London is to die for and his Spinach and Paneer Curry definitely did that for me as it is one of my fav dishes when I hit a restaurant you may know it as Palak Paneer. I think it is my natural weakness to cheese that gets me every time and paneer is one of my favorite types of cheese. There are also a large amount of great lamb dishes in here I would love to try, since I am a vegetarian now that isn't possible. They sure sound amazing though and I can just alter all the recipes to just not include meat really easily so I am not worried about adapting anything. If you like spicy things too this is a GREAT book too cause there are a ton of great sweat inducing meals in here. Remember spicy foods help to rev your metabolism! Each recipe in this book even comes with its own catered tips to help you get threw any problems or things to substitute, easiest way to double the recipe etc... The more tips the better too cause every kitchen is different and everyone's tastes are different as well! This is a great little find that I can add to my ever growing new cookbook collection!, Who would think that there were Thai and Indian slow cooker recipes? Well Sunil Vijayakar has developed 150 of them in his new cookbook 150 Best Indian, Thai, Vietnamese and More Slow Cooker Recipes. It's a fantastic cookbook for anyone who wants to cook authentic tasting Indian, Thai and other Asian cuisines, but doesn't always have a lot of time. This cookbook shows you how to do turn wonderful Thai, Vietnamese and Indian food into easy crockpot recipes. How fantastic is that? Now these recipes, like most of the slow cooker recipes you find, do take a bit of prep work and a bit of sauteing ahead, but then you simply put it all in the crock pot and let it work it's magic. Now, even if you have very little cooking time, you can come home to the rich, aromatic smells of Indian and Asian food cooking away in your own kitchen., Let's face it: some slow cooker books are kind of...safe. You know, another chili, more soup...beef stew. Not that I don't love all those things, but I always wanted a slow cooker book that ventured way out of the ordinary and delivered exotic cuisine with great flavour. Somebody heard my wishes! As the book covers many countries and regions (all of them delicious!) many different styles and ingredients are covered. There are even some pickles and chutneys at the end of the book to go with your fabulous dishes. I don't know if I ever told you -- before I moved to the coyote-infested suburbs I lived in a largely South Asian part of Toronto. Submerged in the fabulous cultures, my tummy was always my guide and I learned to love the infinite variations on curries there are to be had. And what better way to make a curry than in the slow cooker? First-you don't have to heat up your house, and curries are perfect for the old crockpot-prep them in the morning and have sumptuous, exotic, and fragrant dishes ready for dinner!, Each recipe has a heat rating, and there is advice on how to lower or increase the spicy heat component. These are mostly curries, with an assortment of 40 pilafs, accompaniments and chutneys. And of course, you don't actually need a slow cooker to do the dish: they can all be modified for oven use. There is a good range here, with preps from three different regions, foods from meats to seafood to veggies, and all with differing heat levels. Try goat xacuti curry, Cambodian pork and lemongrass curry, or sindhi beef curry. Preparations have their ingredients listed in both metric and avoirdupois measurements, but there is no table of metric equivalents. And, of course, the large type is extremely useful in the kitchen., I've tried so many crock pot cookbooks over the years. They always seem to produce the same results-palatable, but bland meals. So, you can imagine my hope when I saw 150 best Indian, Thai, Vietnamese and more Slow Cooker recipes by Sunil Vijayakar. When the cookbook arrived and I opened it up, I was pleased. The formatting was so easy to read and follow. There was a heat rating for each recipe. The pictures were appealing, though I noticed that they photographed ingredients as well as dishes. Curries strike me as not the most photogenic of dishes. Several of the recipes do require various curry pastes. I chose to fix several recipes which did not use them. The first recipe I tried was The Bombay Chicken Curry. My mom, who came to live with us last October, has told me before that she doesn't like curries. But, I knew my husband loves them, so I hoped she would enjoy it. Before I go any farther, my whole family (husband, me, my mom, 3 kids...) all loved it! The curry powder I use is mild and it was a very mild curry, but my husband was able to spice it up with cayenne. If your whole family loves spicy food, just add more spice while you're putting the recipe together. My mother in law happens to be a vegan who loves curries, so I invited her over for lunch after church and tried two more recipes-a sweet potato curry and a cauliflower curry. These two curries were well liked by all of the adults in the room, though not as favored by my children. I think it was the looks of the curries that put them off a bit. The cauliflower curry looked unusual and children are quick to judge foods by how they look. I did make some small substitutions on these recipes. I wanted the sweet potato curry to be milder, so I substituted some Ancho Chile powder for the 2 hot chiles that the recipe calls for. I didn't make any alterations to the other recipe. I would make both of them again. My husband felt very good about eating so many vegetables. There is only one caveat I want to mention-I read another reader's review of this cookbook and it mentioned sticking to the cooking times for the recipes. I took this advice and I'm glad that I did. I did modify the cooking temp (high/low) and time based on what I know of my crockpots-I do not have a medium sized one. I have a large and a small. It is rare to find flavorful crock pot recipes, but I believe this cookbook contains some! I feel like a schoolgirl who wants to stand up and yell, Yippee! Yippee! I am so thankful to add this cookbook to my collection. It has refueled my hope that I can find even more truly flavorful crock pot recipes. This cookbook by Sunil Vijayakar is a great find!, As people here have had more chances to travel and more chances to experience foods of other cultures, most of us are becoming more culinarily adventurous. Actually, in some ways that means going back and eating more like our grandparents, who did not turn up their noses at many foods -- I'm looking at you, pickled pigs' knuckles -- that tended to appall their grandchildren. Among the rewards of developing these new appreciations are curries, of which there are as many variations as cooks. Slow cookers are ideal for making curries, which are often cooked long and slow to meld the flavors and spices. Sunil Vijayaker's book, 150 Best Indian, Thai and Vietnamese Slow Cooker Recipes, helpfully offers substitutes for some of the ingredients that might be harder to come by locally. Curries go with beef, chicken, pork, seafood -- almost any protein -- and add tons of flavor to vegetarian or vegan dishes., Many years ago, while living in London, curry dishes from take-away Indian restaurants and Chinese food were staples of my daily diet, basically because the food was tasty and inexpensive. At the time, food from Britain's kitchens was inedible, to put it mildly, and cooking was not part of my daily routine. So, if I did not want to subject my palate to the vagaries of English cooking, I had to purchase Chinese and Indian dishes as well as the other quintessential East End staple, fish and chips. I now consider myself a decent cook, not to mention the fact that as a food and wine writer I get invited to taste dishes from some of the best kitchens, prepared by outstanding chefs. Yet I have retained my delight for slow cooked, tasty stews and curries and every so often I fire up my crock-pot, and start a recipe that will take overnight to cook but will create a palate-caressing plate. When I saw Sunilo Vijayakar's 150 Best Indian, Thai, Vietnamese and More Slow Cooker Recipe I immediately knew that this recipe book created for slow cooking i.e. using what is known as a crock-pot, would be an ideal reference for me. The recipes yields -- for 4 persons -- are sufficient to be able to invite another couple that also likes to try the more unusual Indian and Southeast Asian fare., 150 Best Indian, Thai, Vietnamese and More Slow Cooker Recipes is a complete bible on all things curry, with the added bonus of everything being easily prepared for the slow cooker. Authentic curry recipes that save time -- what a concept. I honestly can't think of a curry dish that hasn't been included in this volume, which has a wide assortment of everything to lamb, beef, poultry, seafood and vegetarian and vegan options. This book is the answer for those who are looking to expand their slow cooker repertoire, or find more authentic curry dishes. And while there are many dishes that include meat, there is enough in this book to satisfy vegetarian cooks.
