Vegetarians Recipes

Remember ! After preparing any of these Vegetarian Recipes, please offer the food to lord Krsna before serving. Here is a summary of the procedure.

1. Do not taste the food while cooking.

2. After cooking, place the food on a plate for offering to Kresna. This plate should not be used for any other purpose.

3. Set the plate before a picture of Lord Krsna. You may use the one in the color section on this book.

4. in a devotional mood, ask the Lord to please accept your offering.

5. repeat several times the Hare Krsna maha - mantra - Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare hare / Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.

6. Afterward, remove the food from the offering plate. This food and any fod remaining in the cooking pots may now be served.

Almost all of the ingredients in this cookbook will be familiar to you and readily available at most food stores. A very few items, however, may have to be purchased at specialty shops.

• hing - also known as asafetida, this spice is used in several of the recipes, and can serve as a substitute for garlic an onions, which are not offer able to Lord Krsna. Hing may be purchashed at most Indian, Chinese, or Middle Eastern specialty shops.
• garam masala -  a mixture of spices, typically including ground coriander, ground cumin, and ginger, available from Indian specialty shops.
• garbanzo bean flour -  available from Indian at Indian specialty shops, where it is called " besan flour." Garbanzo bean ( or chickpea) flour may also be found at Middle Eastern specialty shops.
• tofu - this protein - rich, cheese like substance prepared from soybeans is a avilable from most health food  stores and Oriental specialty shops.
• Chinese sesame oil - this roasted sesame seed oil, with its unique nutty flavor, is available from most Oriental specialty shops.
• filo - thin sheets of pastry available from Middle Eastern or Greek specialty shops.

Specially Prepared Ingredients

Curd and ghee are two easy - to make basic ingredients of many recipes found in A Higher Taste. They have no substitute. Curb is a light, natural, protein - rich cheese. Ghee is the purified essence of butter. The butter you bring home from the store is eighty - percent butterfat, eighteen - percent water, and two - percent protein solid. If you slowly cook the butter, the water boils off and  the protein solid separate from the butterfat.

Finally, you are left with a golden liquid that you can use for deep - frying. The advantage of ghee is that it does not smoke, bubble, or burn, as butter does, at high temperatures. Also, ghee does not require refrigeration for storage. No cooking oil can match ghee for its pleasant taste and ease of digestion.