Baljekar, Mridula

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Baljekar, Mridula

PERSONAL:

Female.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Spice Route, 18A Thames St., Windsor, Berkshire SL4 1PL, England.

CAREER:

Spice Route (restaurant), Windsor, Berkshire, England, owner and chef; host of television cooking shows in Britain; consultant to food and spice manufacturers.

WRITINGS:

COOKBOOKS

30-Minute Vegetarian Indian Cookbook, Ecco Press (Hopewell, NJ), 1998.

Secrets from an Indian Kitchen, Pavilion (London, England), 2000.

Real Fast Indian Food, Metro, 2001.

Indian Cooking without the Fat: The Revolutionary New Way to Enjoy Healthy and Delicious Indian Food, Marlowe (New York, NY), 2001.

The Low-Fat Indian Vegetarian Cookbook, Thorsons (London, England), 2002.

South-East Asian Curry Cookbook, Southwater (London, England), 2003.

Curry Lover's Cookbook, Anness (London, England), 2003.

Curries of the World, Southwater (London, England), 2004.

Complete Indian Cooking, Lorenz (London, England), 2004.

500 Indian Recipes, Lorenz (London, England), 2005. Asian and Thai Curry, Southwater (London, England), 2005.

Great Indian Feasts: 150 Wonderful, Simple Recipes for Every Festive Occasion, John Blake (London, England), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Chef Mridula Baljekar is the author of numerous cookbooks of Indian and Asian cuisine. She learned traditional Indian cookery from her grandmother, but, as she explained on her Web site, in her own recipes she "blends the traditional with the contemporary, and aims to make Indian food quick, easy and healthy, and yet retain its traditional flavours."

Baljekar's books are aimed at a variety of audiences. Indian Cooking without the Fat: The Revolutionary New Way to Enjoy Healthy and Delicious Indian Food presents low-fat versions of traditional Indian dishes, but preserves the traditional, time-consuming methods of cooking them: instructions include grinding and roasting one's own spices, for example. "This is an excellent book for intermediate to advanced cooks looking to spice up healthy eating," concluded a Publishers Weekly contributor. Real Fast Indian Food, on the other hand, is intended for cooks who do not have the time, inclination, or skills for such labor-intensive cuisine. Each of the recipes in this book can be prepared and cooked in under thirty minutes.

Great Indian Feasts: 150 Wonderful, Simple Recipes for Every Festive Occasion contains recipes for the special treats that are traditionally served on Indian holidays. In addition to Hindu festivals such as Diwali, Muslim holidays such as Eid-Ul-Fitre and Christian holidays, including Christmas and Easter, are also featured. Reviewers commented that many of the recipes included are not as simple as the title implies, but still commended the book for presenting recipes and other information not found in standard Indian cookbooks. "With its descriptions of the customs surrounding each major festival," commented a Publishers Weekly reviewer, Great Indian Feasts is as much a cultural education as it is a recipe collection."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, January 1, 2001, Mark Knoblauch, review of Real Fast Indian Food, p. 894.

Library Journal, April 15, 2001, review of Secrets from an Indian Kitchen, p. 127; May 15, 2006, Judith Sutton, review of Great Indian Feasts: 150 Wonderful, Simple Recipes for Every Festive Occasion, p. 124.

Publishers Weekly, November 5, 2001, review of Indian Cooking without the Fat: The Revolutionary New Way to Enjoy Healthy and Delicious Indian Food, p. 63. March 13, 2006, review of Great Indian Feasts, p. 58.