Cookbook Reviews - Prashad

Prashad, the Leeds based Indian restaurant, published a cookbook a few years ago and it's become one of my all time favourites. Which is pretty amazing given all the recipes are vegetarian! But, when it comes to Indian food, I actually like to go vegetarian. There's something about fresh, light and spicy food that really works for me. 

Prashad cookbook is my go-to book for midweek teas as the majority of the recipes are super quick and easy to cook. Now that I have all the spices in, they're all pretty cheap too. Having said that, they're still bloody tasty and I've served some of the dishes up at dinner parties. Another good thing about the recipes is that I can prepare them in advance, and just reheat on the day - which is why I decided to cook from Prashad when I had family round for dinner recently. 

I kicked off with poppadoms and dips. Sadly I did end up using ready made poppadoms, rather than make my own (have you ever tried frying these things? They can smoke a whole house out!). I did, however, make a coriander, chilli and garlic relish along with a raita from Prashad. I also made a mango and chilli chutney from Floyd's India (RIP King Floyd).

Then we moved onto spicy paneer skewers which are chunks of paneer, peppers and onion, marinated overnight with a fair amount of spices and coriander and then grilled. These are really tasty and make the perfect starter.

For mains I cooked the aubergine and potato curry (a true favourite of mine - it's so quick and easy), the chole (a little more fiddly, but beautiful thanks to the cinnamon in there) and the tarka dhal (I could live off this stuff...) from Prashad, along with their chilli, carrot, cabbage and pepper salad. And, because I also quite fancied a rich and meaty curry I cooked the mutton curry from Floyd's India (RIP King Floyd), but used lamb shoulder rather than mutton. 

I have to admit to cheating when it came to dessert as I'd spotted some tins of gulab jamun on offer at Tesco... but it all went down very well and I can safely say that Prashad didn't let me down one jot!

I honestly cannot recommend the Prashad cookbook enough - to meat eaters as well as vegetarians - stunning food that's quick, easy and pretty cheap to prepare.