Maria Teresa Menezes was born in 1926. She completed her education at the Fort Convent and St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, where she her Bachelor's degree in English Honours. Fourteen years later, she went back to college for a Bachelor's degree in Education. Her interest in cooking was initiated by her mother early in her life. She was married to Henry Menezes, an officer in the Indian Navy. This meant that she travelled frequently and had to do a lot of entertaining. She has created many dishes, including the Coconut Velvet.Over two hundred recipes from one of the best coastal cuisines of India 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. The Penguin Essential Cookbooks are a pioneering attempt to keep alive the art of traditional Indian cooking. Each of the books is written by an expert chef who brings together the special recipes of a region or community along with a detailed introduction that describes the rituals and customs related to the eating and serving of food. A delicious mix of Portuguese and Konkani flavours, rich with coconut and spice. This cookbook showcases an entire range of Goan food, with special attention to fish, prawn, pork and chicken. The recipes include: Bebinca Goa Fish Curry Mutton Xacuti Oyster Patties Prawn Balchao Sorpotel Stuffed Crab Tiger Prawns in Fen Vindaloo.
