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Tiffin: 500 Authentic Recipes Celebrating India's Regional Cuisine
Explore the vast scope of Indian cooking in this comprehensive collection of regional recipes from renowned Indian chefs, named for the traditional Indian lunch pail.
Opening Tiffin unlocks for readers the diverse flavors of India. More than 500 recipes are organized by region and further by course, including vegetarian dishes, hearty meat-filled dinners, seafood, 10-minute appetizers, impossibly easy homemade breads, desserts, and drinks. Ingredients vary from coconut to tamarind to curry to masala and everything in between.
Chef Floyd Cardoz writes in the foreword, "I love Indian cuisine, the variety it offers, the cooking techniques, and the use of flavor and texture. I want the world to enjoy and celebrate this multiplicity in food that India has to offer."
Compiled by an Indian food editor from the collections of chefs who specialize in regional cuisine, these authentic dishes are rarely found in other cookbooks. With vibrant illustrations that represent the regional style and tempting photography of the dishes, Tiffin makes Indian cooking more accessible and authentic than ever before.
Opening Tiffin unlocks for readers the diverse flavors of India. More than 500 recipes are organized by region and further by course, including vegetarian dishes, hearty meat-filled dinners, seafood, 10-minute appetizers, impossibly easy homemade breads, desserts, and drinks. Ingredients vary from coconut to tamarind to curry to masala and everything in between.
Chef Floyd Cardoz writes in the foreword, "I love Indian cuisine, the variety it offers, the cooking techniques, and the use of flavor and texture. I want the world to enjoy and celebrate this multiplicity in food that India has to offer."
Compiled by an Indian food editor from the collections of chefs who specialize in regional cuisine, these authentic dishes are rarely found in other cookbooks. With vibrant illustrations that represent the regional style and tempting photography of the dishes, Tiffin makes Indian cooking more accessible and authentic than ever before.
496 pages, Hardcover
Published October 23, 2018
99 people are currently reading
362 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
September 4, 2021
I wanted to like it. The slick design drew me in. A beautiful book, but I find it a bit misleading and missing much of the care in editing, presentation, and explanation one would hope for in such a large undertaking.
Many recipes lack vital steps in preparation. For example, a salad suggests adding chana and moong dals without specifying whether or not they should be soaked or cooked before adding. No recommended temperatures for frying. No mention of the extremely high heats needed to make certain vegetarian dishes such as rasam and kuzhambu. Others include ingredients and tools missing from the otherwise seemingly extensive explanations of ingredients and tools in the initial chapters. And that doesn't even touch the confusion about ingredients and what they look like. A picture of American sweet potatoes stands in for suran/elephants' foot yam, a South Asian yam that actually looks like an elephant's foot, or perhaps its excrement. At the same time, ingredients such as drumstick, ragi, and bajra go unpictured and unmentioned, are featured in multiple dishes, yet jau/barley is pictured while I'm hard pressed to find a use of it because it's missing from the index. This type of clumsy oversight prevents an ambitious effort from becoming successful.
The preponderance of non-veg dishes also boggles the mind. Yes, I understand vegetarianism is not as widespread as some Indians would have us believe. But the sheer variety of Indian cuisine is more visible when highlighting those dishes. The hyper regional cookbooks printed in South India demonstrate this quite well. there are hundreds of varieties of rasam, pickles, podis, noodle dishes, and steamed dishes and fried savouries of which this book doesn't provide an enticing snapshot.
Many recipes lack vital steps in preparation. For example, a salad suggests adding chana and moong dals without specifying whether or not they should be soaked or cooked before adding. No recommended temperatures for frying. No mention of the extremely high heats needed to make certain vegetarian dishes such as rasam and kuzhambu. Others include ingredients and tools missing from the otherwise seemingly extensive explanations of ingredients and tools in the initial chapters. And that doesn't even touch the confusion about ingredients and what they look like. A picture of American sweet potatoes stands in for suran/elephants' foot yam, a South Asian yam that actually looks like an elephant's foot, or perhaps its excrement. At the same time, ingredients such as drumstick, ragi, and bajra go unpictured and unmentioned, are featured in multiple dishes, yet jau/barley is pictured while I'm hard pressed to find a use of it because it's missing from the index. This type of clumsy oversight prevents an ambitious effort from becoming successful.
The preponderance of non-veg dishes also boggles the mind. Yes, I understand vegetarianism is not as widespread as some Indians would have us believe. But the sheer variety of Indian cuisine is more visible when highlighting those dishes. The hyper regional cookbooks printed in South India demonstrate this quite well. there are hundreds of varieties of rasam, pickles, podis, noodle dishes, and steamed dishes and fried savouries of which this book doesn't provide an enticing snapshot.
May 29, 2019
Tiffin is more than just a cookbook. It’s a tour through India that sheds light on the country’s regional specialties and nuanced flavor combinations to demonstrate the culinary diversity of the country. As much a reference title as an indispensable cookbook. Seize the day and start with dessert; make the Banana Coconut Bake.
2019 CODES List Winners Announced
2019 CODES List Winners Announced
April 14, 2020
How exactly do you read a cookbook? By preparing food off it or by making a book? Still wondering. This is a must-have for cookbook collectors. Indian food Bible of sorts.
June 9, 2024
This is an astoundingly clear and organized Indian cooking encyclopedia, but also a cookbook. Each regional section contains a two page history and a small graphic showing the region's location and borders within India. Then two pages of photographs regarding food/markets/people in that region. Then, appetizer, meat and pork, eggs and chicken, seafood, rice and bread, vegetarian, dessert, and accompaniments. For 8 regions of India.
I'm going to buy this book. No, the intention is not necessarily to cook all kinds of recipes, but to get a reader friendly education about Indian food and its different cuisines, even if just to understand more of what is on the menu and on my plate at an Indian restaurant. This book is a steal at $35.00, it's worth every penny and more. Please check it out if you have any interest or curiosity about Indian food.
I'm going to buy this book. No, the intention is not necessarily to cook all kinds of recipes, but to get a reader friendly education about Indian food and its different cuisines, even if just to understand more of what is on the menu and on my plate at an Indian restaurant. This book is a steal at $35.00, it's worth every penny and more. Please check it out if you have any interest or curiosity about Indian food.
April 27, 2024
Full disclosure: I don’t cook much. Proceed, if you wish.
Our fabulous guide in India last year highly recommended this book. After observing multiple cooking demonstrations on our trip, with 30+ spices per dish, the long list of ingredients in many recipes in Tiffin didn’t surprise me at all.
I read this cookbook primarily as a source of further information about this fascinating country. (Visit India, if possible…you won’t regret it!) The introduction to the book and to each chapter were filled with relevant details, and the history, about the cuisine of each region. The photos of both the food and the people are gorgeous — for that alone, it was worth a five star rating.
Are the instructions clear enough? Are the ingredients easy to procure outside India, in cities or in smaller towns? Do the dishes turn out great? These are questions I cannot answer yet. However, somewhere in this HUGE selection, I imagine there are many recipes that will provide yummy results if prepared by a patient, experienced cook, following the instructions given. And there were even a few seemingly super-easy ones that I may attempt this summer as sous-chef to my sister, who definitely knows what she’s doing in the kitchen.
Our fabulous guide in India last year highly recommended this book. After observing multiple cooking demonstrations on our trip, with 30+ spices per dish, the long list of ingredients in many recipes in Tiffin didn’t surprise me at all.
I read this cookbook primarily as a source of further information about this fascinating country. (Visit India, if possible…you won’t regret it!) The introduction to the book and to each chapter were filled with relevant details, and the history, about the cuisine of each region. The photos of both the food and the people are gorgeous — for that alone, it was worth a five star rating.
Are the instructions clear enough? Are the ingredients easy to procure outside India, in cities or in smaller towns? Do the dishes turn out great? These are questions I cannot answer yet. However, somewhere in this HUGE selection, I imagine there are many recipes that will provide yummy results if prepared by a patient, experienced cook, following the instructions given. And there were even a few seemingly super-easy ones that I may attempt this summer as sous-chef to my sister, who definitely knows what she’s doing in the kitchen.
February 4, 2021
The most vibrantly and artistically and beautifully written Indian cuisine book !!! This is a perfect book to grace your coffee table and the greatest gift you can give for a Indian food over. I so badly want to make this book to my own collection. However this book don't cover basics of Indian cooking(tempering,tadkas,making makhni sauces etc) You have to have previous knowledge about that;or atleast had an taste of it: for that I would recommend reading Nik Sharma).
So you don't blame this book for not having ABCs of Indian cuisine. I wish they have prints from this book. So I can hang them to adore my empty walls ! So beautiful. And has done true justice to food found in every nook and cranny in India.
So you don't blame this book for not having ABCs of Indian cuisine. I wish they have prints from this book. So I can hang them to adore my empty walls ! So beautiful. And has done true justice to food found in every nook and cranny in India.
November 5, 2019
This book is a little expensive so I was hesitant to buy this at first but now that I have bought this I don’t regret it at all. This book is a collection of amazing recipes from all over india some even unheard of. I totally love this book and the recipes.
The only minus thing I feel is it has many non vegetarian recipes and very little vegetarian recipes.
The only minus thing I feel is it has many non vegetarian recipes and very little vegetarian recipes.
February 1, 2024
I got this through my library's ILL and ended up ordering a copy to have in my personal cookbook library! Between its gorgeous Hollywood covers are recipes completely inspiring and doable for home cooks. Do you like excellent photos and clear explanations? Real ingredients that you don't have to send away for? FLAVOR??? You'll want to get your hands on Tiffin.
February 14, 2019
such a range of recipes from all the different regions.
March 22, 2024
Está bastante bien, dividido por regiones de India y con explicaciones claras y fotos. Al ser recetas indias sin adaptación, son difíciles de hacer en general por falta de ingredientes o ser caros.
July 23, 2021
It's an exhaustive book covering recipes from all over India. I think it's one of the first attempts to collate pan Indian recipes and Kudos to Sonal for the exhaustive research she has done . We need more such books to preserve our recipes. This book has a mix of veg and non veg recipes . I only tried some vegetarian ones till now and still have to try many more. I felt South Indian recipes are so less in number and under represented. But I feel a North Indian person doesn't understand South Indian cuisine and it's upto someone knowledgeable to complete this unfinished job. Having said that this book is can and it's a good keepsake for those who are passionate about cooking
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews