Curry Compendium: Misty Ricardo's Curry Kitchen

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This beautiful cookbook will educate everyone – from beginners to seasoned cooks – on the basics of British Indian Restaurant Curry (BIR) including spices, pantry supplies, and most importantly, step by step photographs to making perfect curry every time. Sayce has included a chapter on making premixed spices at home so they can be at the ready whenever someone craves curry, and also how to precook the meats for curries. No need to use jarred sauces (which really aren’t very good anyway). Once a few recipes are followed in this book, having to go out for curry will be a thing of the past. There are also recipes for traditional accompaniments, such as Onion Bhaji, pakoras, and samosas. This cookbook also includes gorgeous photographs. From escaping to the Lakes and taking in the majestic mountains and a trip across Ullswater on the famous Steamers, to destination dining at one of the Michelin-starred restaurants in the North, it’s time to regain our senses; smell freedom in the air and taste good food and drink once more.

Let’s talk about my successes though! I successfully made pilau rice, naan, the base spice mix, the base for curry, and vegetable samosas (kinda)! (see below pictures) Not only were they successful but they tasted good too – well, I didn’t taste the base sauce, but it smelled good! I ended up having cooking nights with a few different people (COVID-safe of course), so it was fun even with all of the complicated things and having to fudge ingredients. The naan was the easiest thing I cooked, it didn’t take too long from start to finish, and it tasted delicious. I can’t wait to make it again & try incorporating different flavors. There is nothing better than soft bread, and this definitely hit that spot. Add a second 75ml of base sauce, stirring and scraping the bottom and sides of the pan once when first added, allowing the sauce to reduce again without unnecessary stirring. Share 0 One in seven people prefer fast food as their festive feast versus the traditional roast – but would you opt for a curry banquet with your family? Here, Richard Sayce, author of Curry Compendium gives us alternative recipes for the big day.curries. Whilst not as sophisticated as my other base gravies from my book Curry Compendium, it’s a very convenient compromise, both in terms of time saved and the ingredients required. You can double or triple the recipe to make a larger batch if you wish. Richard Sayce, the man behind the Misty Ricardo’s Curry Kitchen, has many years of experience in the world of Indian food. To date his two Gourmand award-winning books, Indian Restaurant Curry at Home Volumes 1 & 2 have sold 50,000 physical copies. Overall, Richard Sayce’s (aka Misty Ricardo) Curry Compendium is an excellent book to teach you how to prepare and cook delicious BIR (British Indian Restaurant) style curries in your home kitchen. I like that each recipe has pictures included so you can see what you're making. I'm confused why Sayce refers to the base of a curry as gravy and a few other points, but the recipes are thorough and helpful. There's a lot of information on how to learn to cook BIR food. This is by far the best curry cookbook out there. Anyone who wants to master good curries at home will consider this a “must have” cookbook. It will be used over and over and will keep curry lovers happy with new curries for months on end.

I like the style of the book, there is a good amount of explanation of the methods and reasons why and the variations you can try, it feels knowledgeable and flexible, rather than the rigid 'do this, do that' you sometimes find. A hot, savoury, tangy, smooth, tomato-based curry that’s a firm favourite. My recipe recreates a typical Madras you would eat in a good Indian restaurant. As a Kindle book, it was unreadable. I lost count of the number of times parts of two sections were juxtaposed within each other, so that neither made sense. Or that the font suddenly changed mid sentence so that the 8- or 10-point paragraph suddenly became a column of single words in 48 point. Or a 4-step recipe showed us only step 1 and step 4. Curry Compendium includes starters, side dishes, curries, rice and bread, along with a generous portion of traditional and street food style recipes. Readers benefit from supporting YouTube tutorials for the majority of recipes, each with a QR code to scan with a smartphone/tablet to watch online instantly.

Anyone who has eaten at one of the many hundreds of Indian restaurants in Britain knows how fabulous the curries are there. And believe it or not, in Britain there are even excellent curries in the deli cases of the larger grocery stores (very unlike what you get in US grocery delis – the curries are actually edible and delicious). Up to now it’s been quite difficult to make good British curry at home, but Richard Sayce, who is considered an expert on British Curries, has made it easy in his excellent cookbook, Curry Compendium: Misty Ricardo's Curry Kitchen. The varieties of curry in this book are endless, and include traditional and unique new curries. This is one of the most in-depth types of cooking I have ever tried to do, and when I succeeded I felt like the most successful person in the world, but when I struggled I wanted to give up cooking completely. Now, that’s not the fault of the cookbook – that is just the nature of the food being prepared. This book gives step by step instructions, with all of the measurements needed at the beginning of each recipe for ease of mise en place (“put everything in place” aka prep for those who don’t watch a ton of cooking shows like me), before starting cooking. However, the cookbook does have a few quirks that requires some getting used to – especially if you aren’t using this book a lot, or like me, you don’t use the metric system (darn you U.S. schools!). The beauty of many of the recipes in Curry Compendium is that they can be made in advance,” said Richard. Now add the chilli powder, spice mix, kasuri methi, salt, and 30ml of the base sauce to help the powdered spices cook without burning.

World Cookbook award for best UK Self-Published Cookbook, 2019 and 2020 respectively, and have sold

Overall, if you love a curry and would love to recreate the taste of a takeaway or restaurant meal then Richard Sayce’s (aka Misty Ricardo) Curry Compendium is definitely the recipe book to own. It is simple and straightforward to read and understand, without being pretentious, and explains all the steps in detail as well as the reasons why things need to be done a certain way. If you read this cookbook/guide carefully, you will be able to churn out Tikka Masala, Rogan Josh and a whole host of your favourite dishes. Be prepared for some high heat for your taste buds as well as in the kitchen as you serve up some of the delicious recipes in this very well written cookbook. British Indian restaurants to form the basis of the spicing. This is the recipe I most commonly use, which I find gives a good foundation of flavour to all curries. My thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this cookbook in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley, Misty Ricardo’s Curry Kitchen, and Richard Sayce for an Advanced Copy of this book as well as letting me participate in this book tour. All opinions in this review are my own.