Fresh India: 130 Quick, Easy, and Delicious Vegetarian Recipes for Every Day

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Soak the rice in water for 45 minutes, then drain and rinse until the water runs clear. Meanwhile, put the dal in a large pan of water and bring to the boil, skim and then turn down the heat and simmer for about 30 minutes or until just tender, then drain. Serve the biryani with the crispy onions, flaked almonds, sultanas and coriander or mint scattered on top.

Add the crushed coriander and cumin, followed by the potatoes. Cook for 10 minutes, turning every now and then until crispy. Add a couple of tablespoons of water, cover with the lid and cook for a further 5 minutes, until the potatoes are tender and no longer resist the point of a knife. The smell of roasted pumpkin, and curry leaves sizzling in coconut oil, is enough to make anyone want to go to Kerala, which is where a variation of this dish, known as “olan”, originates.At the heart of every one of my recipes is a place called Gujarat. It’s where, as long as anyone can remember, our family came from. And although my family has now settled in England, we are still Gujarati, and day in day out we talk, think, and eat like Gujaratis. Kaushy Patel deep-fries all her vegetables. Photograph: Felicity Cloake for The Guardian Baking and serving

Meera Sodha has made turmeric lattes and a type of mithai (Indian sweet). Rather apologetically, she notes that while things may seem to have gone a bit hipster cafe when we meet in her east London kitchen, both are old Indian recipes. She’d grown up drinking “golden milk” as a cure-all (though health claims on its behalf remain unproven, she hastens to add), and had been busy developing her own spice blend including turmeric, cinnamon and pepper. The sweets are khajur pak – traditionally made by heating dates and nuts, likely cashews, in a pan on the stove, but she blitzed them in a food processor before rolling them into balls and dusting with pistachio and cocoa. “And I added pecans because … well, who doesn’t love pecans?” This pursuit of flavour over tradition has contributed to the success of Fresh India, this year’s winner of Best New Cookbook. To finish, there’s a chapter of luscious puddings like salted peanut and jaggery kulfi alongside carrot halwa and pistachio cake. With Indian food, if you go too far with one ingredient or another, you can usually recover. Too much chile or salt? Add tomatoes or coconut or double the recipe to dilute it. Or embrace messing up: chefs say this a lot, but it is true-don't worry if you mess up, as you'll learn from it.

From the book: Fresh India: 130 Quick, Easy and Delicious Recipes for Every Day

With any cuisine, the big question is always how to hang it all together so it makes sense. For that reason I've included a few menu suggestions, which you'll find here. Sodha is a former vegetarian, and more than half the 60-million population who live in Gujarat eat a meat-free diet. “As a result, this incredible cuisine evolved that was very innovative.” Agricultural Lincolnshire was also an inspiration: “It’s like a giant larder.” Walk the streets of Ahmedabad or Rajkot and you’ll come across simple but heavenly potato curries cooked with garlic, mustard seeds, and tomatoes. Or sweet corn cooked in a deeply savory sauce of ground peanuts and yogurt and eggplants that have been smoked over red coals until they become deeply mysterious and creamy. I grew up here in England in a small farming village in Lincolnshire. Behind our house were fields bursting with potatoes, leeks, corn, and chard, and down the road, mustard, cauliflower, and all sorts of greens. Mum adopted and adapted, spicing all this produce to make our very own special dishes, from zucchini kofta to green bean bhajis, rhubarb chutney, and even rainbow chard saag. With every dish, you could see the Gujarati resourcefulness and creativity at work.