Books & Audiobooks
I committed to eating vegetarian a few years ago now and haven’t really looked back. Last year a coworker recommended that I try more Indian food because of how many options there were, and it opened a culinary world for me. There were a lot of Indian foods I knew of, but there were many more that expanded how well I could eat. Ina Garten taught us that store-bought is fine, but Ragini Dey reminds us that home-made is delicious. If I had a book like Vegan Indian Food when I started navigating Indian food more in-depth, cooking would’ve been less complex and enjoyable from the get-go. It is nothing short of an indispensable introductory guide (if you’re wanting something more advanced, check out the recommended books below for Anita Jaisinghani’s book).
I have a few go-to South Asian recipes but have been looking for more to add to a flavourful repertoire. After reading Ragini Dey’s book, that small number has expanded my recipe file, and I’m so glad. The reason I love this book so much (and hope to cook as many of the recipes in it as possible) is because the ingredients are so simple, but most importantly, they are fresh and so good for you. The recipes work for long and lazy weekend meals, or busy weeknights, so eating well won’t come at the cost of efficiency. Many of the recipes are easier to navigate than the ones I found online, so I would recommend saving yourself some time by borrowing this book. Vegan Indian Food is additionally very leftover-friendly, even if your leftovers are from different recipes in this book. There are also helpful note sections in the recipes that will give readers greater confidence in their skills, as well as helpful parameters within which to get creative. The ingredients are also all super easy to find at any South Asian grocer and are great for your budget (not to mention gut health).
The recipes I’m most looking forward to trying out? Jackfruit kohlapuri, okra do pyaz, vegetable samosas (Dey’s recipe looks fantastic), mushroom and coconut shorba, sambar dal, rajma dal, vermicelli pudding, and last but not least (not even close to least) is watermelon and radish poha (also because I’ve wanted to try cooking with charmagaz since reading about their benefits and flavour). There are more, but I won’t spill all the tea in this review. You’re just going to have to read it for yourself!
The book is not only filled with great recipes, but it provides readers with prep and cook time, as well as how many it serves (a gold standard that not every cookbook adheres to). There are also ample notes to help with cooking and using alternatives or different preparation styles. The Hindi at the top of the recipes gave me a chance to practice mine, which was great (even though my Hindi is not so great…yet). The Devanagari script also ensures that those from India or other South Asian countries will recognize the recipe names as they are, rather than as folks might understand them in North America where names of recipes are often tweaked slightly to translate well for English-speaking audiences. The Hindi may also help you find the items you need to cook Indian food, where for example, you won’t see spinach, but you will see the transliteration “palak” far more often, if ingredients or items are not listed in English; Rajma being the name for red kidney beans is another example. You’ll still find the ingredients, but learning the Hindi names for food is important because colonialism and European-English naming conventions impacted South Asian culture profoundly. In this sense, I appreciate Dey ensuring that the cookbook is still by and for South Asian audiences, without feeling a need to fundamentally change the recipes for any audience. If someone is seeking an “authentic” cooking experience of a culture, I wouldn’t use this as your metric either, as ensuring that the Hindi names for Indian food (though there are many languages spoken in India: Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Tamil, Marathi, Punjabi, and Telugu, among others) is more resistance to culinary imperialism than it is reassurance of authenticity.
What was most important to me were the stories that Dey included throughout the book. It is one of my most cherished parts of reading good cookbooks. She brings you into her kitchen and tells you more about her journey as a chef and culinary artist, which gave the book the feel of being given a personal tour through a home recipe book. India’s history with British colonizers changed politics, social relations, and landscapes, all of which impacted the nuances of and details of culinary plates, which Dey gives great treatment to in certain recipes. Readers will learn about ingredients that were introduced to India (like tomatoes, by Portuguese colonizers), or that soups weren’t common until British colonial cuisine introduced them in a more significant way. There are regional differences in cuisine and flour choices (for example, the use of Atta in some geographies over others) and more that Dey offers her readers. It’s a cookbook, but it’s also an excellent story.
Cooking is a profound method of self-care for me. I think so fondly about spending long summer afternoons in the kitchen last year after trail runs, working on getting my moong dal chilla and sweet potato paratha recipes just so. They still pale in comparison to restaurant quality, but looking forward to making great food was how I got through many busy and stressful days last year—and a cookbook like this is a little bit of a mental health salve for amateur chefs like me. In short: Ragini Dey has written an excellent book. It will certainly go the distance if you appreciate and cook a lot of Indian foods or are looking for ways to eat a variety of vegetarian or vegan foods.