What is Reddit's opinion of Classic Indian Cooking?

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This looks fantastic, especially the rice. I know from experience it's not always easy to make the grains long and lovely like that. I recommend getting this cookbook. It's easy to follow and the finished product is always delicious. My boyfriend's parents used to have an Indian food catering business and they gifted us this cookbook! I think the trick to good Indian food is having the right spices and being REALLY patient when you're browning the onions.

the recipe i use is from a cookbook i got as a child that is currently packed in a box, but i think the book is "Classic Indian Cooking."

it is a pretty typical indian recipe though. the biggest difference from online recipes is that you finish by making tadka by frying whole cumin seeds, garlic, and onions, then dump the whole thing in with the lentils. the book has a lot of small details like this that add to the end result that the google recipes seem to skip. overall you don't have to do anything too complicated to red lentils though.

personally i either use extra virgin olive oil (don't heat it above medium on the stove) or a mix of extra virgin olive oil and homemade yogurt in my own cooking. the book is also how i learned to make yogurt, coincidentally. obviously you can't fry in yogurt, but you can still mix it in afterwards. personally i don't like to have a ton of oil in my food, so i like to substitute yogurt for some of the oil if i have it on hand.

https://www.amazon.com/Classic-Indian-Cooking-Julie-Sahni/dp/0688037216/ This is the only book you'll ever need on Indian cooking. Every single dish I made from this book was just perfect. It has no pictures, only a few drawings but if you stick to the recipe you'll be rewarded with the most delicious Indian food.
http://www.juliesahni.com/

There are 2 volumes and she talks about history, locations etc... recommended http://www.amazon.ca/Classic-Indian-Cooking-Julie-Sahni/dp/0688037216/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1423194732&sr=1-9&keywords=indian+cooking

Get yourself Julia Sahni's Classic Indian Cooking book. It's a great place to start. If you're primarily into veg, another place to go would be Devi's Lord Krishna's Cuisine which is a positively massive cookbook that is great and vedic (no onions, etc. only hing).

Also, Manjula's Kitchen has some good videos.

this is a classic for indian food. http://www.amazon.com/Classic-Indian-Cooking-Julie-Sahni/dp/0688037216/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1298170481&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Classic-Indian-Cooking-Julie-Sahni/dp/0688037216/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274321578&sr=1-6

This is the book I used to learn to cook from for my husband. It is authentic Indian cooking. I tried quite a few books and websites but once I started cooking from this book my husband stopped complaining about my attempts at Indian cooking so it must be pretty good. This book and this website, http://www.youtube.com/user/Manjulaskitchen. I have found it isn't just having a good recipe but also understanding how it is cooked.

For basmati rice, I usually use the recipe from Julie Sahni's classic Classic Indian Cooking, considered by some to be one of the "cooking bibles" within Indian cuisine. Roughly:

• Wash the rice in cold water: Put the rice in a container, fill with water, stir the rice a little bit with your hands, then dump the water. Repeat several times until you see that the water is not getting as cloudy anymore.
• Let soak in the last batch of water for at least 20 minutes, 30-40 is even better. Rinsing and soaking gets rid of much of the soft starch surrounding the rice kernels, so that only the harder, less sticky core is left.
• Put the rice (with the water it's been soaking in) in a pan and put on high heat. Make sure there is enough water, it should rise a few cm above the rice in the pan (I never measure, sorry).
• Add a small amount of a neutral-flavoured oil and stir.
• When the water starts to boil, start a timer. Let it cook on high heat for 3 minutes.
• (You can do a taste test at this point; it should be "al dente", not hard.)
• Dump the rice in a sieve and spray it with cold water from the faucet for 4-5 seconds. This cools the outside of the rice and stops it from cooking. Get rid of as much water as possible by throwing the rice around in the sieve.
• Dump the rice back in the pan.
• Put the stove on very low heat, covered. To avoid overcooking, insert a metal divider between the stove surface and the pan at this point; it's supposed to be warm, not hot enough to make the rice sizzle.
• After about 5 minutes, remove from heat.

A lot of steps? Actually it's simple than it looks like. This results in rice that is completely dry, and which will "roll" when you pour it from the pan.

The pilaf method mentioned by /u/dstz also works very well.