Kricket: An Indian-inspired Cookbook

Fantastic book.

A really beautifully produced and designed book. The recipes by Will Bowlby are incredibly imaginative and even to an inexperienced cook like myself, are so encouraging in their descriptions that I want to have a go. The photographs are beautiful as are the look of the dishes themselves, something that cannot always be said about Indian food! Will Bowlby’s background and inspiration for this book, are the two years he spent cooking mostly in Mumbai and then travelling around India gathering ideas and recipes. This really is a new take on cooking combining the spices of India with the best of British produce. The great Pierre Koffman writes in the Foreword: 'I never expected a young Englishman to show such mastery of Indian cuisine. I haven't asked him to tutor me,but I am hoping to learn a thing or two from this book'. Well said!

This is a wonderful cook book written by a truly talented and innovative young chef. I have eaten at the Restaurant (s) and am thrilled to have a chance to cook some of these amazing recipes at home. The recipes are written so that even a dunderhead like me can easily understand them and even translate them into something edible. Will Bowlby has invented an incredible fusion in his cooking and the tastes he promotes are truly remarkable. I would recommend this book wholeheartedly to anyone and everyone.

There are two types of cookbooks in my collection - the ones I use regularly and those that are more aspirational. This definitely falls into the second category. While the book itself is beautiful, with photographer Hugh Johnson's shots especially well done, the recipes themselves are fussy with many ingredients I've been unable to find even in gourmet food stores. The dishes that I have cooked were less a restrained fusion of Indian spice and Western ingredients than boldly spiced and slightly unusual amalgamations of flavor and textures. I'll enjoy browsing through the book, but can't see myself cooking from it very often. The book does make me want to fly to London, however, to try the real thing.

I love the Kricket restaurants so I was excited to purchase this book when it was first announced. The recipes look fab, and despite long ingredient lists, many are straightforward to prepare. However, I’ve noticed A LOT of mistakes when it comes to ingredients. Several recipes I’ve tried have asked for 80g of fresh curry leaves, I think it’s meant to be 8g as x10 this amount would ruin the dish. Similar with dried fenugreek leaves. The monkfish curry mentions 50g but this amount RUINS the dish so I think it should be 5g. The baby aubergine recipe asks you to make a paste which isn’t mentioned again in the recipe. I’m not sure how so many errors go through editing. That being said, I do like this book a lot and I’ve had great results when modifying recipes accordingly. The old Delhi chicken is delicious.