From The Mexican Vegetarian Cookbook to The Korean Vegan and Mississippi Vegan (a beloved staple in my household), plant-based cookbooks are really advancing to a new level right now. Even the honorary President of Vegan Cookbooks™, Isa Chandra Moskowitz, has a new release (Fake Meat) that essentially teaches you how to make dank vegan bar food at home (as if I need another reason not to go out). Books this niche might not have slayed in the mainstream market 10 years ago, but now, more people than ever before want to learn to make seitan pastrami (many of whom probably hadn’t even heard of “wheat meat” a year ago). The wave of veggie-focused culinary literature has highlighted food from all over the world, and one of the most exciting new(ish) volumes in the trend is Hannah Che’s The Vegan Chinese Kitchen, which came out last fall.
The Vegan Chinese Kitchen (opens in a new window)
Many of the most popular Chinese dishes stateside include Americanized recipes like orange chicken and crab rangoon (love ‘em) and, when it comes to more traditional options, meat- and seafood-forward options like mapo tofu (which often includes ground meat), Peking duck, and char siu. Hannah Che, however, is here to emphasize the perspective that Chinese food is actually a very plant-based cuisine.
When Che first started eating a plant-based diet, as she explains in The Vegan Chinese Kitchen, she was conflicted about what it would mean for her relationship to both food and her family. “I wondered if my commitment to eat more sustainably meant I was turning away from my culture,” she writes. But after moving to China and studying vegetarian cooking, she found that vegetables were not only essential, but emblematic of great Chinese food and culture. “I began this book thinking I’d write about vegan recipes, but along the way I realized that this kind of cooking was actually at the heart of Chinese cuisine: the inventive transformation of frugal ingredients like vegetables, tofu, and grains into a breathtaking variety of simple and delicious dishes,” she writes. At culinary school, she learned to highlight vegetables’ original flavors, rather than concealing them with heavy flavors or aggressive cooking methods. She absorbed philosophy about the three virtues of vegetarian cooking: that ingredients should be clean; that they should be properly prepared (no “tough, sinewy, or inedible parts”); and that one should find harmony among the ingredients of each dish.
Early in the book, Che offers the requisite basics: ingredients to keep in the pantry, how to prep aromatics, basic equipment (like a good wok), and a compelling argument for why MSG is an essential ingredient. Then, sections are broken up by ingredients like leafy greens, root vegetables, tofu, gluten, mushrooms, and congees and soups.
I cooked a number of dishes out of the book, and what struck me most was how simple and elegant everything felt; every ingredient felt necessary, and each step made sense. I’ve cooked dishes like mapo tofu and fish-fragrant eggplant out of other books (The Food of Sichuan is a classic), so I wanted to try the different ingredients and preparations here. The smashed cucumber salad was a perfect blend of savory, vinegary, and spicy (and it was the perfect opportunity to use my big ‘ol cleaver). The dish required me to make red chile oil, which was a less complex but just as tasty version as some others I’d tried. Also part of our starting course was the sesame noodles, which is deceptively basic, but packs a huge sesame-soy flavor.
The stir-fried oyster mushrooms and snow peas allowed me to use my new Joyce Chen wok, and the recipe really is a master class in clean, precise flavors. For this one, you make a quick Sichuan peppercorn oil, and then cook the veggies in that tingly sauce with scallion and garlic, finishing it with Shaoxing wine. The flavors of mushroom and pea are the stars here, and it’s a wonderful exercise in both the technique of cooking vegetables in a wok and the act of spotlighting great produce without a powerful sauce or intense spices.
The steamed eggplant with soy sauce and garlic was probably the most “flavorful” dish I made, and even that one relied on straightforward ingredients like Chinkiang black vinegar, toasted sesame oil, sugar, and red chile; but the combination of precise qualities—spicy, aromatic, savory, sweet—made the dish a real concert of taste. If you don’t have ingredients like black vinegar or Shaoxing wine on hand, a single trip to an Asian or international market should land you everything you need.
TL;DR: What’s so cool about this book and its recipes is how much goodness Che finds using a short list of essential, high-quality ingredients. It’s not about a “less is more” mentality, though; The Vegan Chinese Kitchen captures the essence of great plant-based cooking by letting veggies, tofu, condiments, and aromatics shine, and offering a huge variety of ways to cook them together. Whether you’re vegan, vegetarian, or just like good Chinese food, this is a thoroughly worthwhile addition to your cookbook shelf that you’ll find yourself reaching for over and over when the craving for sweet and sour tofu strikes.
Find The Vegan Chinese Kitchen on Amazon.
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