Entertaining with Madhur Jaffr

Specially chosen to suit the needs of busy people, every meal is nourishing, healthy and appetising: summer buttermilk soup, grilled red snapper with garlic and tomato, boiled new potatoes with turmeric-cumin butter or green beans with mustard and ginger. There are meals for every occasion: brunches, picnics, working lunches, light summer dinners, simple soup lunches, after-theatre suppers and pasta meals as well as Mexican, Korean, Japanese and all vegetarian meals. Madhur has included many recipes that she has collected in the course of her travels around the world, and in her introductions to the meals she reflects on how the recipes first came into her repertoire, and how she would sometimes invent recipes by improvising from leftovers when there was nothing in the fridge ...recalling her early days as a student actress in London. There are no lavish dinners here. Everything is fairly simple and light. Nor is it a book for the purist for Madhur cheerfully mingles the different traditions to which she has been exposed. As she says, "when a woman from India who has lived in Europe marries a man from America with a father from Kentucky" the ensuing cross-fertilisation is bound to produce some exotic possibilities. Madhur shares her enthusiasm for food and for entertaining in this book and it is her firm belief that every meal should be planned imaginatively, prepared with care and above all, enjoyed. Madhur Jeffrey is one of the world's authorities on Indian cooking. She was born in Delhi and has lived in Europe and the United States. Her previous books include "An Invitation to Indian Cookery", "A Taste of India", "Far Eastern Cookery", "A Taste of the Far East" and also a collection of Indian myths and folktales, "Seasons of Splendour".