Hansa's Indian Vegetarian Cookbook: Popular Recipes from Hansa's Gujarati Restaurant

Don't be disarmed by the basic nature of the recipes. There are lots of mistakes in the book - after the first recipe I was left with a random pepper which I had no instruction for! References to page numbers for associated sauces etc are incorrect and at first glimpse it seems the recipes only use about five similar ingredients........however.....I made the best vegetarian biryani I have ever eaten and all subsequent dishes have been exceptional - absolutely delicious. I could not recommend this cook book enough!

First received this book as a gift after raving about the restaurant in Leeds. Bought this copy as a gift for a family member. Recipes are tasty and instructions are clear and easy to follow. Would highly recommend for anyone who likes vegetarian spicy food.

I’ve left my original 3* review at the bottom, this is a 5* book.This book is amazing! Everything I cook my 3 kids eat - not only eat they devour it. And it’s completely easy to make. Where have you been all my life. My kids have been veggie their whole lives, eating a lot of Asian food, but they’ve never raved about my cooking a pot of simple veg subji before, never, infect the opposite, sighs, eve rolling, eat s bit and fill up on bread after dinner when I’m not looking.I am a convert. I have fallen in love with this book. Recipes are easy to adapt to other veg of you don’t have the exact ones.Fabulous. Thank you Hansard, I’m definitely going to make the 3 hour drive to Leeds,Initial review;I was so excited to find this book, loving Gujarati food, I though I was finally going to cook like my Indian friends. Not so. This book is a bit of hybrid (imho), so the recipies are really basic, so in some ways it's like an intro to indian cooking; I expect a range of spices, not the same all the time. I think she's tried to keep it basic and usable and it's like trying to please 2 audiences. The mains (there are 8 main subjis which frankly is far too few). A couple are complicated and the rest of them are really similar, there is no proper chaunce, the instructions are basic. I've just made one and it's ok but the instructions didn't include the water, in the ingredients list.... (Ringam Mattar pg 65) I will try the biriyani which someone on here said is fantastic. A lot of the book has general stuff like puris and chapatis which frankly you can get in any Indian cookbook. I wish it had been a bit more Gujarati, had more varied spices and opened a window into the food culture, no lemon in sight (really?). For £15 there are far too few pictures. Tbh, I wish I'd spent the money driving to Leeds and having dinner there instead. I wish I could give it a better review and I'll edit this if I fall in love with it later.

We love cooking Indian food and this is a great book which we have now added to our collection, the recipies are fantastic and packed with flavour, this is a lovely book to own even if you are not a vegetarian as you can adapt the recipies to contain meat. Would recommend this book to anyone who loves cooking with spices.

Having been brought up Gujarati yet never quite managing to cook as well as my mother (how do mothers do that??!!) this book was perfect to get recipes from to give to the [English] chef for our Hindu wedding ceremony which had both English and Indian guests.