East Meets Vegan

Starred review from February 15, 2019
An Oxford medical student with the time and talent to compile a 90-recipe Asian vegan cookbook? Everything's possible, especially with the commitment and knowledge Gill brings. Growing up in Singapore of Indian and Eurasian heritage, Gill converted first to vegetarianism before committing to a 100 percent plant-only diet in her teens. Her embrace of this lifestyle is wholehearted?and she demonstrates her love of Indian, Thai, Malaysian, Chinese, and Japanese cuisines through an enthusiastic narrative and details that cover even the most basic of questions, such as how to extract moisture from tofu and how to make samosas (the latter displayed in elegant, easy-to-understand line drawings). The vegan substitutes are amazingly creative and true to the original foodstuffs. Though recipe directions can be lengthy, Gill's joy is evident in the descriptions, like for spinach curry with crispy tofu, creamy carrot halwa, Thai-style ocean cakes, and Shanghai soup dumplings, among others. An innovative appendix guides home chefs to mix and match leftovers like bean paste or bao dough. A prescription for great taste.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)