By Gurpareet Bains, Trafalgar Square Publishing, $19.95, 216 pages
“Indian Superfood is designed to stimulate both your health and taste buds, making for an altogether original meal-time experience.”
If you enjoy Indian foods AND you are into phytochemicals (specific foods with assumed health benefits), Indian Superfood is a good addition to your cookbook collection. In a five-page foreword and introduction, Bains extols the benefits of certain foods and spices that could help your body fight diseases, and in general make you healthier. The remainder of this cookbook lists a large number of mostly Indian recipes in seven sections: breakfast, lunch, dinner, sides, snacks, beverages and sweets. The recipes are well written, easy to follow and most use fairly few ingredients. However, you must have a source for many either in an Indian grocery store or Asian market having an Indian section.
Each recipe gives its antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties, also its percent of recommended daily antioxidants. Many recipes include a brief cooking tip. Beautiful full- or half-page photo illustrations spice up the text.
The cookbook was written for the British market with many Indian-inspired British-style foods, and ingredients with British names (courgette, aubergine, rocket). Unfortunately, all measurements, including oven temperatures, are given only in metric units. The index is brief and not useful (Baby Spinach with Tofu only appears under B).