Sasha Gill
March 5, 2019
The Experiment
Blurb: A vibrant tour of Asia in 90 vegan recipes
When Sasha Gill went vegan, she wasn’t about to leave her family’s home-cooked favorites behind. Pad thai without fish sauce? Curry without ghee? In East Meets Vegan, Sasha proves that Asian cooking can be plant-based—as well as easy, affordable, and delicious! Here are:
- Veganized favorites: Spring rolls, red bean pancakes, shiitake ramen, mango lassis
- Can’t-believe-it’s-vegan twists: Tandoori cauliflower “wings,” pineapple fried rice, jackfruit biryani, “butter chicken,” a sushi feast to feed a crowd
- Mix-and-match pairings: Combine leftovers for your own take on Asian fusion.
Bursting with more than 100 sumptuous photographs, this is your passport to a culinary adventure—from the comfort of your kitchen.
SASCHA DARLINGTON’S REVIEW
In the week after New Year, I saw a statistic that a huge number of people had decided to become vegan in 2019 and that 2/3 were expected to stay vegan. For most it was concern for the planet that was making them change their diet.
The good thing is that if books like East Meets Vegan by Sasha Gill continued to be written and published, the transition to a vegan diet will be much easier.
East Meets Vegan takes many loved Asian recipes and makes them vegan. I think it’s the fact that so many people think of the foods that they love and will be missing that makes it hard for them to stick to a vegetarian or vegan diet. Gill takes that problem away.
She substitutes tofu, jackfruit (which I’m still on the fence about because I’ve had one good and one bad dish using it), TVP, mushrooms, and cauliflower in place of meats. Also, she offers replacements for common sauces like oyster sauce.
If you’ve ever cooked Indian or really any Asian dish, you know that the list of ingredients can run quite long. That’s one element that’s still the same, but necessary. Most the ingredients are easy to come by and sometimes go by different names so you might want to look unfamiliar ones up before hitting your store or shopping online. For instance, I was unfamiliar with Makrut lime leaves, but when I Googled saw that they were the Kaffir lime leaves that I have cooked with in the past.
The layout of the book is by country and includes India, Thailand, Singapore & Malaysia, China, and Japan. For those of you who think you’ll miss sushi, she offers some interesting recipes for handrolls and sushi.
The photography is bright and artistic and shows the recipes to their advantage.
I am very excited by East Meets Vegan and can’t wait to try out some of the recipes. Butter bean tikka curry, anyone?
I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
East Meets Vegan will be on sale 3/5/2019. You can preorder it here.
rating: 
5 out of 5 butterflies
Once again, thank you for reviewing vegan/vegetarian cookbooks and giving this lifestyle choice publicity. I became vegan, not for my health, although that’s the cherry on my coconut ice cream sundae, but because I love animals and eating them seems incongruent with that love. It was hard at first giving up cheese (I’d been a vegetarian for decades before taking that final step to a plant-based diet) and I looked for “substitutions,” which for the most part were nothing like cheese. Once I gave up the idea that I had to “substitute,” I became much happier and cooking vegan became much easier. And one thing that makes it easier to stay vegan is adopting the AA philosophy of not looking too far into the future. In other words, denying myself cheese (for instance) for the rest of my life is too daunting. But giving myself the freedom to eat cheese if I want takes away that pressure of “never.” And remembering why I’m doing this is the biggest incentive to stay on track. Four years now and it’s pretty easy. Meat/cheese/dairy just isn’t on my radar anymore and with so many delicious plant-based milks, it’s easy pretty darn easy to make most anything, from sweets to savory. And I can look all the animals I love in the face without guilt. 🙂
I’ll continue to review all vegan and vegetarian cookbooks that come my way. I’m glad that you have enjoyed the reviews!
As a vegetarian, I haven’t missed many of the things that I thought I would. The only time when I feel slightly put out is when there is nothing substantive on a restaurant menu to eat. A small green salad, tyvm. 🙂