Meera Sodha’s East: vegan and vegetarian recipes from Bangalore to Beijing

Meera Sodha’s East is a wonderful cookbook and one I’ve used a lot during lockdown so far. I’d seen this book at my friend’s house but this is my first time cooking her recipes. I bought it as a treat early in lockdown and have been hooked ever since. 

East features 120 vegan and vegetarian recipes from all over Asia, from India to East Asia and South East Asia. The book itself is a riot of colour with bright, tasty photography and easy to follow recipes. In her introduction, Meera talks openly at her joy at writing a vegan recipes column for the guardian (from which this book grew) despite actually not being a vegan herself. In fact, she sees this as a benefit, pushing her to create dishes which include “the textures, flavours and the ‘richness’ that [meat eaters] might miss”. I can only congratulate her on what she’s achieved because Meera Sodha’s East is not a veggie book, it’s a cookbook packed full of brilliant recipes that just happen not to include meat. 

So far I’ve cooked seven dishes from the book and we’ve enjoyed every single one. Often, I’ll cook a recipe to the letter and then write notes on how to tweak it the following time. I always tab them too, for future ease. These recipes work first time round – and as some one who has and uses ALOT of cookbooks, I can tell you that’s not as common as you’d think. 

An introduction to Meera Sodha’s East

The book is packed full of brightly coloured, inviting photography and every single recipe fits on one page so there is nothing too complex to struggle with. The chapters are sorted by the main component in a dish – eg pulses, flour and eggs, tofu, rice and so forth. Each chapter also features a useful intro with notes and where necessary, annotated guides. At the back, there’s also an ingredient glossary which can be handy when you’re learning about things you’ve not tried before, like chinkiang vinegar or kombu. 

Recipe testing

I thought I’d talk about a couple of the dishes I’ve made so far. First up, we have the food court Singapore noodles. The curry flavours and charred wok smokiness are exactly the flavours we tasted in the Singapore Hawker Centres and are also reminiscent of the Singapore house special noodles I often order from our local Chinese takeaway. We added extra chilli too, for a proper kick. 

Caramelised onion and chilli ramen

This one (in comparison to some other dishes in the book) is a labour of love. But, compared to making ramen from scratch, it’s actually a really simple and relatively quick recipe. And it’s delicious. The base stock is made by slowly caramelising onions and adding a miso and vegetable stock along with a few other ingredients including soy, chilli and of course, garlic. We added a dollop of crispy chilli oil too, because quite frankly, I eat that stuff on everything. I also made Meera’s soy eggs and although they were delicious, I prefer a stronger marination and tend to go with more soy sauce but that’s the personal opinion of a salt fiend. 

Honestly, this dish was stunning. It felt filling and luxurious and is something I’d consider making for friends. Admittedly, it was a bit fancy for two of us on a Tuesday night but hey, whatever you need to do to get through lockdown right? 

Potato, chard and pea curry

We’ve finally got to the end of our chard harvest (chardvest?) and this curry really helped. At times I thought we’d never get to the end of the seemingly never ending leaves and I was starting to put it in pretty much everything I made, whether it belonged there or not. 

The picture really doesn’t do this dish justice. You start by frying the potatoes flat side down to give them a crispy edge before building up the curry sauce around them. It makes such a difference both to the flavour and textures in the dish. Meera says that this dish “is a spin on saagu, a curry of whatever vegetables happen to be in season, cooked gently in a soothing, spiced coconut sauce. It’s filling enough to be restorative, quick enough to cook midweek and light enough to be good company on a summer’s night”. She’s right. The coconut milk lifts it from what could be quite a heavy bowl of soup and the ginger sings through the lightly spiced sauce.  If you don’t have chard, I’m sure spinach or even cabbage would work just as well. 

In conclusion… 

It’ll come as no surprise to you that I really love this book. I love the variety of the dishes, conveniently chaptered as they are by their main elements. Meera is a writer as well as a cook. Her words are beautifully written, making this feel more than just a collection of recipes. Hands down the best cookbook I’ve purchased so far this year. I’ll be using for many years to come! Why not get your own copy and see what I mean.