Photo by Nassima Rothacker
It’s not good to start the new year with regrets, and so I won’t dwell on my lamentable lateness in coming across Tim Anderson’s books, but just be grateful that I have Vegan JapanEasy to cook from now. It is, quite apart from being a ravishingly beautiful book, full of recipes that make even this meat eater hungry and happy. It’s also something of a primer on flavour, pointing the home cook towards one taste sensation after another. There is just so much in it that I’m impatient to add to my repertoire: Citrus-Pickled Radishes; Red Pickled Ginger; Sweet Miso-Roasted Beetroot; Cucumber and Wakame with Seasoned Vinegar (which I have in my fridge right now, and is gorgeously uplifting); Kimchi Miso Hotpot; Cauliflower Katsu Curry; Yakisoba; and the rather wonderfully named Rough Night Rice; Soy Sauce Butterscotch Brownies. I could go on. And on. But the recipe I have chosen to share with you is for the Kimchi and Tofu Gyoza which I made over Christmas — I must confess to using a dumpling press, rather than forming them by hand — and which are wonderful. Actually, I made only a half quantity of gyoza, using the rest of my kimchi and tofu mixture in a really fabulous stir-fried rice, but I could eat it just as it is. Still, the gyoza are wonderfully absorbing (fiddly rather than difficult) to make, and that seems like a good thing right now.
Vegan JapanEasy by Tim Anderson, (Hardie Grant, £22.00). Photography: © Nassima Rothacker.
