East: 120 Easy and Delicious Asian-inspired Vegetarian and Vegan recipes

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Meera Sodha gives such precise and accurate instructions, which is very reassuring to less experienced cooks. I had been soothed by my first congee in Hong Kong and had my taste buds electrified in London’s Chinatown by a bowl of dan dan noodles.

To finish, there’s a chapter of luscious puddings like salted peanut and jaggery kulfi alongside carrot halwa and pistachio cake.When the rice is tender (ie there is no chalkiness in the centre), take it off the heat and spoon into a serving bowl. Drawing from her ‘New Vegan’ Guardian column, East also features plenty of brand-new recipes inspired by a wide range of Asian cuisines, from India to Indonesia, China to Singapore, by way of Thailand and Vietnam.

I begged Wichet Khongphoon, the owner-chef of the Thai restaurant Supawan in central London, to show me how to make a tom kha gai soup; and Shuko Oda, the Japanese chef, to teach me how to make her walnut miso.And then there are showstoppers such as daily dosas with coconut potatoes, roasted cauliflower korma, sticky mango paneer skewers, wild mushroom upma and lime pickle rice with roast squash and red onion.

With a reputation for being notoriously bland, I was curious to see how Meera treated this favourite amongst veggies. Meera explains in the introduction that this recipe persuaded her to finally fall in love with kale – and persuasive it is. Chances are you’ll find Meera Sodha lurking in your kitchen somewhere – and no, I don’t mean that in an alarming way. Because of the ingredients, together with simple, straightforward and comprehensive instructions, you can’t really go wrong with these recipes.The biggest limitation of the past two years was not being able to travel to the countries whose food I wanted to explore, as I had for my Indian cookbooks.