east eats

tamarind, tahini and turmeric

Mar 03, 2026

Readers, this shoulder season of late winter, early spring is bumming me out culinarily. Now, I love a soup. I love a deeply roasted veg. I am all about a steaming bowl of pasta. But I am bored of the same old flavors and preparations of those dishes. So to kick me out of my food funk I’m looking to the East for bright, spicy, salty, warming foods to get me through the rest of winter and beyond.

Today’s newsletter contains the books I’ve moved from my shelf to my kitchen counter to excite and inspire me to punch up my meals with different spices, sauces, arrangements and combinations than I usually reach for. My typical cooking style has sort of an Italian/Middle Eastern/Mediterranean bent with a sprinkling of Mexican but I’ve got an M2M/HMart down the street calling me to brighten up my meals with pickled ginger and miso, lemongrass and tamarind, sambal olek and chili crisp and curry and cardamom. Whose with me!?

As always with cookbook shelves, I must include a plug for the eat your books website which helps you remember all the recipes in your cookbook collection and a reminder that you can get cookbooks from the library to try them out before you buy from your local indie bookstore.

Get smacked with flavor with one of these.

A SPLASH OF SOY by Lara Lee

everyday food from asia

Inspired by her Australian/Asian background, Lara Lee brings a “riotous clash of culinary cultures” to reader’s kitchens with a book that, while not focused on tradition, still seeks to honor it. Lee blends cuisines with an ever present goal of flavor and ease for the home cook, with “minimal mess, minimal stress and minimal thinking in mind” and I am all about these inventive, playful dishes.

Lee’s open and experimental approach shows up even in her chapter titles as the recipes are divided into lively sections like Punchy Brunches & Lunches, Big Salads & Light Bites, Steaming Broths & Mouthwatering Curries, Sticky, Grilled & Glazed, Noodle Slurps, Pickle-Me, Fill-Me, Sauce-Me and Sweet Sensations. The book ends with a section on The Asian(ish) Kitchen which walks newbies through some essentials, tools, tips and skills and, of course, a chapter on why soy sauce is always the answer. This is a treasure trove of uncomplicated, inspirational meals with Lee’s smart, friendly voice sharing notes, stories and essays along with the recipes. Glossy photos of tables filled with vibrant, textured dishes as an eccentrically dressed Lee looks on made me want to add many new dishes to my repertoire and more pants with fried egg graphics to my closet.

some recipes of note

miso and gochujang butter roast chicken
lemongrass chicken noodle salad of dreams
fragrant chicken larb
root vegetable oven-roasted satay with peanut sauce
pad krapow1
fish stick and lap cheong stir-fry
peanut butter, sesame and maple slaw
gochujang butter charred corn with parmesan
miso tahini carrots
sambal patatas bravas
vietnamese-inspired coffee panna cotta
tamarind caramel brownies
kue lapis basque cheesecake2

I love the way you can paint a dish with soy, drawing on each ingredient like a canvas, each application creating a different effect, like the unique stains of an ink blot. I like to think of each recipe in this book as an orchestral score of interweaving parts that will awaken your senses and invite you to participate in the intoxicating fragrance of Asian spices that slips under your skin, the crackling crunch of nuts, the sizzling wok, the slippery chew of gelatinous rice noodles, the colorful palette of ingredients and the depth of flavors that strike the delicate balance of sweet, sour, salty, umami, bitter and spicy, which is so key to Asian cookery.

TO ASIA WITH LOVE by Hetty McKinnon

everyday asian recipes and stories from the heart

i love this cover, the chopstick’d ‘o’ tickles my fancy

This is another Hetty McKinnon tome3 that overflows with exciting recipes, lively photos and a warm, inviting voice. Here and always4, McKinnon brings true emotion and a peaceful, capable, creative approach to her recipes that never fails to inspire and enchant me. She notes that this book is for the home cook and she hopes to minimize intimidation and to ‘challenge you to think differently about the possibilities of cooking modern Asian flavors at home.’

This book opened my eyes to using tahini in Asian cooking, which I, stupidly, hadn’t considered before even though sesame seeds and sesame oil feature in many dishes. It opens with a note on the photography, explaining why Hetty chose to take the film photos herself in her Brooklyn house to ‘capture a strong sense of home’. The book is then divided by whimsically titled chapters: A big breakfast, Lucky noodles, Dumplings and other small things, Rice is gold and all the things to eat with it, Salads for life and Not too sweet. Besides her approachable, vegetarian recipes and sweet, personal essays she also includes many extra sections meant to help the home cook along so there’s really no excuse not to jump right in. She walks readers through How to cook Asian food any day of the week, The everyday Asian pantry, a primer on Asian greens and some Noodle know-how sprinkled among the recipes, each of which is accompanied by a photo which is always a plus when cooking along a book.

some recipes of note

scallion pancakes
tomato and egg ‘shakshuka’
egg, pea and ginger fried rice
soy sauce chow mein with a fried egg
cacio e pepe udon noodles
cold peanut butter green tea noodles with cucumber
crispy tofu and cilantro balls
cumin tofu stir fry
smashed cucumber salad with tahini and spicy oil
tamarind apple crisp

The flavors in this book are not strictly Chinese, but they are Asian(ish). To Asia, With Love offers recipes that are rooted in the East, with hints of the West. The recipes are Asian in origin, but modern in spirit; they are inspired by tradition, with a global interpretation. Many of the recipes represent my exploration of my personal culinary roots as a Chinese girl born in Australia, and as an adult living between disparate cultures. Most importantly, this book is a celebration of how flavor can so powerfully connect us to our past and create pathways to our future.

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FRESH INDIA by Meera Sodha

138 quick, easy and delicious vegetarian recipes for every day

Vibrant, eye-popping and mouth watering, Meera Sodha’s ode to the ‘Gujarati5 way of thinking’ includes recipes that are not aimed solely at vegetarians but instead are created to ‘inspire you to cook a different, fresher, vegetable-led type of Indian food.’

The book begins with a page on weights and measurements, a ‘how to use this book’ section and a list of ‘Ten Ways to Raise Your Game in the Kitchen’ before diving into the recipes. Divided into the sections Starters + Snacks, Roots, Squashes, Tubers + Other Things, Aubergines6, Salads, Eggs + Cheese, Pulses, Rice, Bread, Pickles, Chutneys + Raitas, Puddings and Drinks, there’s a lot packed in here! Accompanying the recipes are adorable, neon bright graphic designs, photos for most recipes (though not all) and some location and how-to shots. Scattered around are a few essays, ideas and more in depth instructions on plating, how to cook specific ingredients and variations on the recipes. Sodha’s memories, ingenuity and passion for this cuisine shines and… great. Now my stomach is growling.

some recipes of note

blackened sweet corn chaat
leek, pea + mint samosas
new potato + chickpea chaat
shredded roti with red cabbage and carrot
cauliflower korma with blackened raisins
savoy cabbage, black kale + potato subji
spinach, tomato + chickpea curry
lemon rice with peanuts + curry leaves
tamarind + caramelized red onion rice
corn roti
strawberry + cardamom lassi

extra credit: Meera Sodha’s excellent essay on burnout from a couple years ago : I was a bestselling recipe writer - then burnout killed my appetite for food, and life. This is how I found my way back

l’ve written Fresh India … because I want to show you another type of Indian food, one that is vegetable led and packed with bold flavours. This is the food I love, which is influenced by how Gujaratis think about food but also by each and every state of India and occasionally Sri Lanka too. 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 have met along the way, from home cooks to street stall vendors, temple cooks to chefs in top restaurants. Others have come from my experiments in the kitchen, taking classic Indian techniques and flavours and imagining something new. After all, I’m sure I’m not the only one who has wondered what an Indian salad could look and taste like.