Kearney Jackie - Vegan street food: foodie travels from India to Indonesia

Vegan

Street
food

Vegan

Street
food

FOODIE TRAVELS FROM INDIA TO INDONESIA

JACKIE KEARNEY
FOOD PHOTOGRAPHY BY CLARE WINFIELD

Senior Designer Megan Smith

Editor Kate Eddison

Production Controller Mai-Ling Collyer

Head of Production Patricia Harrington

Art Director Leslie Harrington

Editorial Director Julia Charles

Publisher Cindy Richards

Prop Stylist Tony Hutchinson

Food Stylists Jackie Kearney and Emily Kydd

Indexer Vanessa Bird

First published in 2015 by

Ryland Peters & Small

2021 Jockeys Fields,

London WC1R 4BW

and

341 E 116th St

New York NY 10029

www.rylandpeters.com

Text Jackie Kearney 2015

Design and photographs

Ryland Peters & Small 2015

Map illustratration ()

Lee James

E-ISBN: 978-1-84975-910-6

ISBN: 978-1-84975-650-1

10 9 8 7 6

The authors moral rights have been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

US Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

NOTES

Both British (Metric) and American (Imperial plus US cups) measurements and ingredients are included in these recipes for your convenience, however it is important to work with one set of measurements and not alternate between the two within a recipe. Spellings are primarily British.

All spoon measurements are level unless otherwise specified.

When a recipe calls for the grated zest of citrus fruit, buy unwaxed fruit and wash well before using. If you can only find treated fruit, scrub well in warm, soapy water and rinse before using.

Ovens should be preheated to the specified temperatures. We recommend using an oven thermometer. If using a fan-assisted oven, adjust temperatures according to the manufacturers instructions.

contents

DEEP-FRIED FRITTERS AND FIERY PICKLES

CREAMY CURRIES AND HOT AND SOUR SOUPS

VEGETABLE DUMPLINGS AND SPICY SAMBAL

Index

Acknowledgments

INTRODUCTION

A map showing some of the places the familys travels took them, hand-made by Jackies husband, Lee.

WHEN I WAS SIXTEEN, in between wanting to be an international show jumper and a vet, I wanted to be a chef. I loved food and cooking. Most of all I loved cooking for other people. As a teenager, I was always discouraged from pursuing a career in food. In the mid-eighties, it was considered low-paid, low-status work with terrible hours. For many, it is still very much like this. But my foodie ambitions never went away. Throughout my academic career I dreamed of opening a little caf, well aware that many people dream of this (like moving abroad or going travelling) and many people fail at this. Once my comfortable research career was carved out, it was even harder to change the direction. But that didnt stop me thinking about it. A lot. Some would call it an obsession.

As young children, my parents had enchanted me and my sisters with stories of their travels to faraway places during the fifties. My mum was a beautician and my dad was a hairdresser, and they took off around the world working on a cruise ship together. I used to gaze at the black and white photo of my mum posing in her bikini on a remote beach in Fiji, and wonder what it would be like to travel so far away from home. It certainly had an impact on the kind of food we grew up on, too. My mum was making curries and other considerably exotic dishes for the early seventies, although she nearly did us all in with the hottest vindaloo Ive ever tasted in my life. I think I was about six, and I remember my dad had to go and brush his teeth because his mouth was on fire. Back then, who knew a glass of milk would have done the trick?

When I met Lee, we shared a mutual interest for wanting to explore the world a bit more. The idea of a gap year for travel is usually seen as a choice during the heady days of singledom and youth; yet the opportunity is at a time when money and appreciation are in much shorter supply. I had always wondered about this, but especially after we had children. How can a 20 year-old possibly appreciate a year off when they have barely spent any time working or shouldering responsibilities? We fantasized about quitting our jobs and staying away until the money ran out (well actually, I was thinking about opening a little caf on a Lombok hillside and not coming back at all). But then along came our twins, and we found ourselves wondering if wed ever get there. Eventually the idea of a gap year as a family started to take shape. We worked and saved hard, and before we knew it, we had one-way tickets to Delhi and passports full of visas.

THE IDEA FOR THIS BOOK

This is a collection of recipes inspired by the food and flavours that we came across and loved during our travels. Throughout our journeys, I would jot recipes and menu ideas on the back of napkins and spend my time snacking my way around the nearest town or village. We ate together as a family for virtually every meal for an entire year. That was something new for us, too.

Its no secret how much I fell in love with Asian food, and, as a passionate cook, I was inspired to pursue my restaurant dream when we returned home. It was at that point I applied to take part in the BBCs MasterChef. I wanted to find out if my cooking was good enough to make a living from and open my own world food-inspired caf. Finding the courage to travel across Asia with my family had given me the courage to try to change my working life and pursue my passion for cooking.

I love everything about the Asian culture of food. I love how accessible it is and how central it is to peoples lives regardless of their background. Food, family and community come together every day, and, for us, food played a huge part of our experiences travelling as a family. I love the fresh flavours and how adaptable the food is to local and seasonal produce. And, as someone with a passion for vegan, vegetarian and sustainable food, I found that it re-ignited my love of cooking.

I have never really wanted my food to be labelled as vegetarian or vegan. Its a personal choice that I eat this kind of food. My passion is for food that tastes great and keeps us and our environment healthy. I want to create recipes that are adaptable to different produce and seasons, and that tell something about our journey along the way. Or maybe its the other way round, to tell the story of our travels and something about the food along the way.

SO WHY A VEGAN BOOK?

Generally, vegan food has a poor reputation when it comes to flavour, texture and substance. There are some fantastic recipes out there, but they tend to be hidden among meat and fish ones. Or they are dishes that could be easily tweaked to be vegan, but ideas for substitutions are thin on the ground, simply dont work or are just too samey.