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A review by perfect_leaves
East: 120 Vegan and Vegetarian recipes from Bangalore to Beijing by Meera Sodha
informative
medium-paced
5.0
Nearly every single recipe is fantastic. It is rare for cookbooks to have even a handful of smash hits, let alone an entire book full. Meera Sodha delivers on her promise of flavorful, inexpensive recipes. I can find the majority of the ingredients at Kroger or Walmart, which makes these recipes very accessible as well. I had to go to a local Asian market to find lemon grass, black vinegar, and a few other herbs but in some places, even these are available in large, local supermarkets.
About the title of my review: I HATED beets before trying this book. I find them to be too earthy, and I dislike white vinegar so I had a hard time finding good beet recipes. Sodha uses a combination of rice vinegar (which is more mellow) and seasoning to make these dishes palatable. I was scared to try the Sri Lankan beet curry, but I had no reason to worry. I was less scared to try the beet and ginger soup, but I gulped it down. Now I'm actually excited to try the beet and yogurt rice, as well as the clay pot noodles with beets.
About the salt: I cook with course sea salt and I know from experience that I need to use about half as much salt as the recipe calls for. My intuition was correct here. I suspect Sodha uses kosher salt, based on the quantities given.
My main gripe is that the book lacks an adequate table of contents. If I want to find a specific recipe, I have to rely on bookmarks or keyword searches. It would have been lovely to see all the recipes in a list.
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ADVANTAGES OF THE BOOK:
- truly easy-to-find ingredients (and all condiments get used repeatedly, making them worth the investment)
- flavorful recipes
- vegetarian recipes are easily made vegan
- no meat or seafood required
- no fancy kitchen equipment is required
- very few wasted vegetable pieces
DISADVANTAGES OF THE BOOK:
- no real table of contents (there's an "alternative" table of contents that does not list all the recipes)
- chopping the vegetables into small pieces can be time consuming
- does not specify the type of salt, so you need to use "chef's intuition"
- the recipes calling for Sichuan pepper are gritty. I recommend using a fine grind instead of a coarse one
FAVORITE RECIPES:
- overnight soy eggs
- Thai salad with grapefruit and cashews
- silken tofu with pine nuts and pickled chiles (I omitted the pine nuts)
- carrot achar
- salted miso brownies (I recommend using a neutral oil instead of coconut oil, but this is personal preference)
About the title of my review: I HATED beets before trying this book. I find them to be too earthy, and I dislike white vinegar so I had a hard time finding good beet recipes. Sodha uses a combination of rice vinegar (which is more mellow) and seasoning to make these dishes palatable. I was scared to try the Sri Lankan beet curry, but I had no reason to worry. I was less scared to try the beet and ginger soup, but I gulped it down. Now I'm actually excited to try the beet and yogurt rice, as well as the clay pot noodles with beets.
About the salt: I cook with course sea salt and I know from experience that I need to use about half as much salt as the recipe calls for. My intuition was correct here. I suspect Sodha uses kosher salt, based on the quantities given.
My main gripe is that the book lacks an adequate table of contents. If I want to find a specific recipe, I have to rely on bookmarks or keyword searches. It would have been lovely to see all the recipes in a list.
-----
ADVANTAGES OF THE BOOK:
- truly easy-to-find ingredients (and all condiments get used repeatedly, making them worth the investment)
- flavorful recipes
- vegetarian recipes are easily made vegan
- no meat or seafood required
- no fancy kitchen equipment is required
- very few wasted vegetable pieces
DISADVANTAGES OF THE BOOK:
- no real table of contents (there's an "alternative" table of contents that does not list all the recipes)
- chopping the vegetables into small pieces can be time consuming
- does not specify the type of salt, so you need to use "chef's intuition"
- the recipes calling for Sichuan pepper are gritty. I recommend using a fine grind instead of a coarse one
FAVORITE RECIPES:
- overnight soy eggs
- Thai salad with grapefruit and cashews
- silken tofu with pine nuts and pickled chiles (I omitted the pine nuts)
- carrot achar
- salted miso brownies (I recommend using a neutral oil instead of coconut oil, but this is personal preference)