The Juhu Beach Club Cookbook: Indian Spice, Oakland Soul

Mistry, co-owner of the Juhu Beach Club in Oakland, Calif., debuts with this stellar collection of Indian-inspired recipes, along with stories of growing up in an immigrant family. Her creativity and enthusiasm for Indian cooking is apparent in each recipe. Her street-style foods blend American and Indian ingredients: pulled pork vindaloo, shrimp “po’bhai,” and potato chips with chaat masala. A chapter devoted to comfort foods reflects her parents’ Gujarati and Indian-African backgrounds (her father grew up in Uganda), and includes Guju chili, channa with eggs and sausage, and coconut carrot ginger soup. Mistry devotes a chapter to spice blends, the lifeblood of her restaurant. Once hooked, home cooks would do well to spend some time filling their cupboard with her signature blends, which include a smoky black cardamom masala, mustard fenugreek masala, and chutney masala. Her energy and passion infuse the entire cookbook, which is as exciting and inspiring to read as it is to cook from. (Oct.)