The Essential Goa Cookbook

Book excerpt: The spicy, succulent seafood of Goa is as famous as the golden beaches and lush landscape of this premier tourist destination of India. Traditionally, the Goan staple was fish curry and rice, but under Portuguese influence there developed a distinctive cuisine that combined the flavours of Indian and European cooking with local ingredients being used to approximate the authentic Portuguese taste. So fish and meat pies were baked with slit green chillies, assado or roast was cooked with cinnamon and peppercorns, pao or bread was fermented with toddy, and the famous baked bol was made with coconut and semolina. This innovated, largely non-vegetarian cuisine, was offset by the traditional and no less sumptuous vegetarian creations from the Konkan coastland, rich with coconut and spice. This cookbook showcases an entire range of Goan food, with special attention to fish, prawn, pork and chicken.