Masala Lab: The Science of Indian Cooking

It is a great enjoyable read with mild humour to make the read more interesting and enjoyable.... some did make me smile. If you are looking for a cookbook of recipes, then this is not it. There are loads of them elsewhere. But, if you are looking for the why and how to do it better with valid reasons, then this is that book. I always wanted to know why this order or that and why sometimes my cooking goes bitter. I learned that Indian cooking has layers of flavour to give that depth. Now, it makes sense. And now I can use this with all my other cooking ideas and cookbook recipes and adapt it with what I have now learned to make it taste better than before.

I had this sent to my daughter in England. She'll read it first. My turn will be in November. I heard the author talking on BBC radio and thought the book might be interesting, and not just applicable to South Asian food.

Pros, well written amusing book about the science of food cooking generally. The downs, well that's my own fault, I fell for the news story that making biryani is a science, not the authors fault as that's not what is promised by him, what he does do is explain the science and mechanics of a good biryani and many other dishes but sadly not the magic recipe, but that is hard as there will be many versions of it. Hopefully my pursuit of the perfect biryani will be helped by the science I have learned. Great for beginners, but I think old hands in the kitchen know this through experience( I am an old hand), but you are never too old to learn something new. Buy it to understand the cooking process of all food items, don't buy it for the magic biryani recipe if that's all you are looking for.

Any cookbook that quotes Douglas Adams gets my vote.

Writinen in a funny way. Interesting information is there

Just waffle and total theory (some call it bollocks?). This is just a waste of money and valuable life wasted if you even bother to read this all the way through. You'll never get that time back. Better curry books out there tbh. Sent back.

Superb book … but I got to page 164 and instead of page 165 it went back to page 5! I got pages 5-36 then it jumped to page 197.

This author PROMOTES GMOs and other things like unfermented soy on his social media, then when people tell him they were personally harmed by soy, he says this is a question for your doctor. Hard Pass

A fascinating book that’s definitely worth buying and owning.

Somewhat detailed, but really interesting

Good content, it’s not a reading book, it’s a studying book so the book needs to be much bigger to be practical, double of the size, to make easier to compare and to see better the many charts provided.

The sheer writing style and elegance that Krish Ashok has in conveying food-related topics is fascinating. Great read for evenings after a long work day.

Interesting read , lots of scientific data and facts provided visually