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

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Put a tablespoon of oil into a large lidded frying pan over a medium heat and, when hot, add the cubes of paneer. Fry for a couple of minutes until golden on all sides, turning regularly, then remove to a plate. My first book, Made In India was named a book of the year by the Times. My second, Fresh India, won the 2017 Observer Food Monthly’s Best New Cookbook Award. The third, East, was called ‘fabulous’/ by Nigella Lawson. I live in London, where I’m currently working on my fourth book. Chef, food writer and best-selling author, Meera Sodha, shot into the limelight in 2014 with her debut cookbook, Made in India, introducing readers to fresh, vibrant and easy Indian cooking. Born in Lincolnshire to Ugandan Asian parents, her love for her mum’s home cooking and her desire to keep her ancestors’ food traditions alive led her to capture the recipes of her childhood. 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. Whether you are vegetarian, want to eat more vegetables, or just want to make great, modern Indian food, this is the book for you.

Fresh India: 130 Quick, Easy and Delicious Vegetarian Recipes

The recipes are unpretentious and were immediately promoted by my family of critics into must-makes for the monthly dinner rotation, new staples for a season of chill and damp." —Sam Sifton, The New York Times This is the best cookbook I've ever used. Recipes are all excellent, easy to follow and adapt to available ingredients. Has introduced me to loads of new ideas. 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. My second book, Fresh India, was published in July 2016 and is a celebration of India’s love of vegetables. It won The Observer Food Monthly’s Best New Cookbook.

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

To celebrate the release of Meera Sodha’s hotly anticipated cookbook, Fresh India, a team of Happy Foodies have been cooking from the book all week. Find out how they got on with Meera’s recipes in their kitchens at home. This is a book all about vegetables, but whether you call it a vegetarian cookbook is up to you. I’m aware I’ve written it at a time when a change is taking place in our attitudes toward both meat and vegetables. More of us are questioning how we farm, how we treat animals, and whether how we eat is sustainable, good for the environment and also for our health. But my aim with this book is not to preach or to write only for vegetarians: it is to inspire you to cook a different, fresher, vegetable-led type of Indian food. To honor the seasons and what grows in our fields, and also to celebrate the way that hundreds of millions of Indians eat, and the Gujarati way of thinking. 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.

Recipes – Meera Sodha Recipes – Meera Sodha

You may also opt to downgrade to Standard Digital, a robust journalistic offering that fulfils many user’s needs. Compare Standard and Premium Digital here. This is a beautiful book to look through! I love looking at great food, this has lots of very attractive pictures of vegetables and bright images of Indian art and illustrations. If you enjoy looking through cookery books for fun this is highly recommended. A great cookbook with such a wide variety of traditional Indian dishes which you won’t find at your local takeaway. Put the oil into a large lidded frying pan and, when hot, add the mustard seeds. When they pop, add the onions and cook for 12 to 15 minutes, until soft and golden brown. In the meantime, peel the potatoes and cut into 2cm cubes. When the onions are ready, add the ginger and garlic to the pan and cook for a couple of minutes, then add the potatoes and 200ml of water. Cover and cook for 10 minutes.

Method

Meanwhile, put 2 tablespoons of oil into a large lidded frying pan over a medium heat and, when hot, add the mustard seeds. When they pop, add the chillies and onion. Cook for 12 minutes, until the onion is soft and golden, then add the garlic. Cook for another couple of minutes, then add the beans and stir to mix together. Add the tomatoes and cook for a few more minutes until soft and jammy around the edges. 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. Discover everyday recipes using easy to find ingredients, delicious showstoppers and luscious puddings including: Some of the dishes in Fresh India have been passed down the generations in my family and haven’t seen the light of day outside our home until now. Many have come from my travels all over India and the people I have met along the way, from home cooks to street stall vendors, temple cooks to chefs in top restaurants. To prepare the chard, cut the stems from the leaves. Cut the stems into 4cm pieces and slice the leaves into 4cm strips.

Meera Sodha’s irresistible curry recipes - The Happy Foodie Meera Sodha’s irresistible curry recipes - The Happy Foodie

What I thought:Hara Bara kebabs are so easy to make with common ingredients and taste super delicious. All ingredients can be found in a local supermarket. 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.”

Use the additional contents to find First-Timer Recipes, 30-Minute Midweek Meals or Freezer and Store-Cupboard Cooking and follow the seasons with dishes that use ingredients in their prime. Gujarat, a small state on the western coast of India, has had a very big impact on Indian food culture. It all started in 269 BC when Emperor Ashoka banned the slaughter of any living animal in the name of peace. Since that time, the majority of the millions of Hindus in the state have been vegetarian. Over thousands of years, a rich and resourceful vegetable-first way of cooking has evolved. Home cooks, restaurant chefs, and street-food stallholders alike have all been creating simple but extraordinary dishes, using just what grows on the land and is in season. Change the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the “Settings & Account” section. What happens at the end of my trial? In Gujarat, cabbages and potatoes are near deities. In Lincolnshire, where they are the main crops, the same is true.