Make Your Own (vegan) Indian Recipes

Learning to cook your own food is a very empowering way to release yourself from having to buy expensive plastic-wrapped ready-meals and takeaways, often made with inferior ingredients. Choose your favourite cuisine, and master it yourself at home. Then every night is restaurant night!

Vegan Indian Food is a recipe book to help you make flavourful plant-based alternatives to almost 90 traditional Indian recipes including breads, curries, rice dishes and desserts. Vegan food and Indian cuisine are both popular in England, and this book combines both, freeing you from having to buy expensive plastic-wrapped ready-meals from supermarkets.

Don’t eat cooked rice after 24 hours. Before cooking, read up on food safety for people and pets (onions, garlic and spices are not safe near animals).

Bin allium scraps (onion, garlic, leeks, shallots, chives) as acids may harm compost creatures (same with tomato/citrus/rhubarb scraps).

The book draws on the author’s experience of wanting to make some of her favourite dishes vegan-friendly, but still respecting the history and authenticity of her heritage. Use traditional cooking methods and skills to create homemade samosas, pakoras, biriyanis and rotis.

The recipes are accompanied by beautiful photographs, plus helpful tips on how to master techniques for Indian cuisine. And the author’s reflections on food’s connection to memory, place and family.

Ragini Dey was born in the city of Mirzapur in northern India. Her family travelled through India, experiencing food from many regions, which led her to work in catering, after graduating in political science.

She taught Indian cooking for years in Australia following her husband’s move there, and eventually opened an Indian restaurant. Now considered one of Adelaide’s finest chefs, she still teaches cooking classes, which led to this book!

Vegan Recipes from India is a book to help you discover the rich and authentic flavours of Gujarati Indian cuisine. Where vegetables, grains and legumes (lentils and peas) reign supreme, in a vast variety of dishes, passed down through generations.

In this book, a mother and daughter invite you to explore the diverse and flavourful cuisine from this region of India. You’ll find tips throughout to explain each ingredient and technique, to understand their roles and uses.

Recipes include:

Vegetable Pakoras
Biriyani & Rice
Cauliflower Shaak
Dahl & Flatbreads
Mithai (sweets)

Natasha Tourabi became vegan around 10 years ago, and learned over time to adapt each recipe, to recreate the textures and flavours of her favourite dishes. Her mother Yasmine has co-written the book, offering her culinary expertise in preparing authentic Indian and Gujarati recipes.

How to Cook Perfect Fluffy Rice

Indian food obviously uses a lot of rice. So learn how to cook it well (never eat rice that’s been cooked after 24 hours, as it’s a food poisoning hazard). You’ve likely heard that some rice can contain arsenic (it can’t be that serious, or else everyone would be dropping dead, each time they ate a bowl of it).

But to reduce risk, rinse rice before cooking, then cook in a large amount of water before draining (this will remove most of it). And balance intake with other grains like wholewheat and quinoa.

To cook rice:

Use 1.5 cups of water for each cup of rice, then bring the water to a boil, cover and simmer until cooked. Try not to lift the lid while cooking, and let rice sit for 10 minutes after cooking, then fluff with a fork.

It’s good to use a measuring cup to avoid food waste, as rice can massively expand after cooking. Worth the investment, if you’re like the rest of us (cooking a ‘little pasta or rice’) then ending up with enough to feed an army, once cooked. Add a pinch of natural sea salt for taste, if wished.

If you cook rice in an Instant Pot, use a 1:1 rice-to-water ratio, and cook on high pressure for 4 minutes, then let the pressure release naturally for 10. Open the pot and fluff the rice with a fork.