(Part 2) Top products from r/IndianFood

Hmmm interesting. Whatever I stated is from Indian Food: A Historical Companion by K T Achaya. It is a very detailed and well researched book.

I cannot vouch for the 100% veracity of all facts in the book, and I am not a historian, rather someone who is interested in food, food history, and food culture. It seems you are knowledgeable about ancient Indian history. You could very well be right about AIT/AIM multi-wave theory or perhaps this theory (and the DNA analysis) got debunked after the book was published.

If you are interested in history and its intersection with food, I would highly recommend reading this book. Review/summary here. It really is a goldmine of a ton of interesting facts and also appears to be very well researched and most facts/assertions are backed with references of which historic texts it was picked up from.

The ability to improvise comes with time, observation and willingness to experiment. Onions can add different texture and flavor to a dish depending on preparation. From crunchy, sulfurous, raw onions to sweet, soft, caramelized onions the spectrum of possibilities is quite broad. Use them raw, gently sautéed in oil, caramelized, fried, dried, pickled; cut lengthwise, crosswise, diced; etc. and build up a mental library of the results. I love reading about food, food history, preparation and food science but nothing beats actually getting hands-on with food.

That said, there are some books about flavor combinations and it might help if the concern is wasting food due to impractical experimentation. I own and enjoy Niki Segnit's The Flavor Thesaurus. It's not a mathematical table of A+B=C, but it gives classic and inventive combinations of various flavors. I can't vouch for these, but maybe read through the reviews and see if they sound interesting to you: one and two. I follow the blog of the latter two authors and it's quite interesting even if it is sometimes beyond the scope of home cookery.

I have used Savoring India by Williams Sonoma. Great pictures, cuisines from the different regions of India. Appetizers, main courses, sides etc. Nicely done.
Best part is you can buy it used for like $2 on Amazon

My friend's mom gave me a Jaffrey cookbook. It's not the one she learned from, but she said she still uses this one regularly. It's been great for me, too -- easy to follow and very tasty results. Highly recommended: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0811859010/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i2

There isn't one Indian cuisine. There's a few dozen, at least.
For a somewhat US focused book:
http://www.amazon.com/660-Curries-Raghavan-Iyer/dp/0761137874

For a somewhat worse printing, with better recipes: http://www.amazon.com/India-Cookbook-Pushpesh-Pant/dp/0714859028

Reading the reviews will probably help.

I like the "Essential Cookbook" series from Penguin. These are definitely closer to what I would eat at home than the recipes in the more popular cookbooks.

http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Kerala-Cookbook-Vijayan-Kannampilly/dp/0143029509

http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Marathi-Cookbook-Kaumudi-Marathe/dp/0143068024

http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Andhra-Cookbook-Hyderabadi-Bilkees/dp/0140271848

http://www.amazon.com/The-Pondicherry-Kitchen-Lourdes-Tirouvanziam-Louis/dp/9381626995

http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Sindhi-Cookbook-Aroona-Reejhsinghani/dp/0143032011

http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Cookbook-Maria-Teresa-Menezes/dp/0141000872

http://www.amazon.com/The-Essential-North-East-Cookbook/dp/0143030272

http://www.amazon.com/Saraswat-Mahila-Rasachandrika-Second-Paperback/dp/B00RWSJ7M0

SAMAITHU PAR (vol 1-4) is a book aimed at Tamil Iyer vegetarian cooking.

If you want authors more aimed at an occidental cook, I would suggest Madhur Jaffrey, Sanjeev Kapoor, Tarla Dalal, Vikas Khanna and Julie Sawhney

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/

Some of my favourites:

• The Indian Cooking Course (Monisha Bharadwaj)
  
  
• Made in India (Meera Sodha)
  
  
• Fresh India (Meera Sodha, note: completely vegetarian recipes)
  
  
• I Love Curry (Anjum Anand)
  
  Note: The authors are all British-Indians.

All indian curries that I cook have to be cooked on the stove for an additional 30 minutes or so to remove the water and concentrate the flavors. You could try to take out some of the water, but sometimes the water is needed to prepare the ingredients.

For instance, in punjabi chicken curry, you cook the curry, then add water, stir and boil the rest of the water off.

I would get a book that has recipes that are meant to be cooked on the stove top. I use this one: https://www.amazon.com/Anjums-New-Indian-Anjum-Anand/dp/0470928123

If you don't want to get a new book, try taking out some of the water and see how it goes. :)

Complete Book of Indian Cooking: 350 Recipes from the Regions of India by Suneeta Vaswani:

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Book-Indian-Cooking-Recipes/dp/0778801705/ref=la_B0034OXJZC_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1464899978&sr=1-1

Her book Easy Indian Cooking is also good.

I use this book for easy recipes - also it's written with an american audience in mind with suggestions for shortcuts if necessary. I like books more than online recipes, so thought I'd suggest it.

This cookbook is by a woman that grew up in southern Indian and immigrated to Georgia. There are a lot of crossover recipes, but the two that seem the most accessible to me are vindaloo with cardamom cornbread (in place of naan) and kerala-style fried chicken with cardamom waffles and chile-infused syrup. There are a lot of seafood recipes in here too, and I'm eager to try just about all of them. I think it's $20 well spent, myself.

I recently tried her mint masala (from the mint masala roast chicken) on braised pork shoulder. The flavor is good, but I would modify it to include slightly less liquid for braising. (I would also include less lime juice based on personal preference.) Instead of a garlic bulb halved around the equator with a fennel bulb, I just put extra garlic in the mint-serrano paste and threw some fennel seeds in the braising liquid at the last minute before I put it in the oven. *I mention this not because it's a crossover but because it's evidence that the author has gûd shit.

660 Curries by Raghavan Iyer is comprehensive. You can also try Indian Cooking Unfolded by him but it has only 100 recipes.

Similarly, an Invitation to Indian Cooking by the same author is what taught me a lot of what I know. That, and watching vahchef. I've never made a bad recipe from this book. I read once that some think she is a little light on spices, but I have not found that to be the case.

http://www.amazon.com/Invitation-Indian-Cooking-Madhur-Jaffrey/dp/0375712119

Tasting India

A Taste of India