Book Review: Healthy Indian Breakfast Recipes

Who doesn’t like a healthy sumptuous breakfast to begin the day with? Especially for people like us, who skip lunch often during travel, breakfast is indeed the most important meal of the day. So when I found this book by Kalyon Subbarao in the Blogchatter ebook library, I downloaded it right away. Must say, I was not disappointed.

Also read: Best Indian Street Food and how to make them at home

About the author

I am thoroughly impressed by the author’s bio and wanted to share that with you as is.

Kalyon Subbarao is a passionate cook, he cooks from his heart and has a knack for turning basic ingredients into soulful meals.He did his Master’s from Aberdeen University Scotland and subsequently worked in diverse portfolios in his corporate career. Subsequently, he gave up his corporate career of 10 years to fulfill his dream of becoming a chef. He creates magic whilst cooking Indian and continental dishes plus can also bake a mean cake…!
Post his corporate stint – he delved into being a food entrepreneur. He was a founding member of Kitchari Katering: an on the wheels food providing platform supporting IRCTC ecatering platform to serve the customers passing through Mumbai suburbs. Simultaneously he was associated as Home Chef with GORB, a startup of ZEE livingfoodz.

You must check out his blog Food Opium – Food & Travel Blog and Youtube channel. You can connect with him on Instagram and Twitter.

About the book

The book begins with the quote by Andy Rooney “Food is the most primitive form of comfort”. And through simple healthy Indian recipes the author tries to provide us with that comfort.

 This comprehensive e-book provides a wide range of simple – enticing Indian breakfast recipes that deliver your daily requirement of nutrients and carbs for you to start your day and successfully navigate the day ! The book explores a wide variety of recipes from north to south and east to west of India. 

What I liked about the book

The author notes that in India the food habits change in every 10 to 20 kilometers, thus giving us the most diverse breakfast platter in the world. First of all I appreciate the choice of the author to go back to the roots and bring inot limelight the amazing variety of healthy (mostly vegan) Indian recipes.

While few of these are common, like aloo paratha or methi paratha many of these are things I heard of for the first time. Like Palak Thalipeeth, besan ki chilla etc. Even though many of the recipes are uncommon , the ingredients are not. These are made of common vegetables and staples that are found in every Indian kitchen like spinach, gram flour, wheat, rice, pulses etc. 

The recipes are easy to make and can be refrigerated for the next day. They also require less oil and have a lot of nutritional value. Most importantly these make fulfilling meals that will easily last you till late lunch-time. My favorite recipes are upma and different types of stuffed parathas which we can easily pack for road-trips.

For non-Indians this book is a gem that will introduce you to a whole new world of breakfast items. Forget yeast and re-processed breads because you are going to fall in love with the whole new worlds of Indian stuffed breads and rice-pancakes. The recipes here are mostly vegan but unlike most western vegan recipe books, the ingredients are not costly or rare. 

I loved the way the chapters are written along with the photos of the food items. The accurate measurements stating the duration of preparation and how many people it can serve makes it most useful. Having prepared some of these items myself , I can say that the duration mentioned is quite accurate.

Read: Picnic packing list

What could be improved

I really missed reading some background story of the dishes. Where it originates from, some trivia and personal anecdotes. One or two introductory paragraphs about the food before the recipe makes it a lot more interesting and insightful. This would also make it stand out from the other recipe books.

Second thing I missed was photographs of some intermediate stages. That will make it much easier for rookie cooks to follow.

Recommendation

I recommend all my readers to grab this book while it’s free. With COVID situation, homemade food is the way to go even for the most outdoorsy people. These kind of recipes can add diversity to your breakfast platter and help you start your day on a positive note. You can also take some of these on picnics.

Rating : 4/5

Other recommendations

You can also download my ebook “15 Days in Europe” from Blogchatter Library for free. I published this travel memoir and essential guide to planning a short trip to Europe from India in 2019. My second ebook “Postcards from India” was first published in Blogchatter Ebook Carnival in 2020 and later moved to Amazon and Notionpress (use code DISCOUNT25 for 25% discount) .  You can check my other book reviews here.

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