Ching-He Huang - Asian Green

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Hello! Thanks so much for choosing Asian Green. I hope it will inspire you on your plant-based journey and give you some fun when it comes to those important meal times!

The recipes are designed with busy people like you in mind, to help you either go more veggie or completely plant based. They are simple enough for everyday, yet sufficiently gourmet for entertaining too, with all the ingredients widely available from major supermarkets. Perhaps most importantly of all, they have also been designed for optimal health, mindfulness and balance. These recipes are not going to cost you the earth, or Mother Nature. A win-win!

The dishes use mainly fresh produce but also ingredients such as tofu, seitan, pulses, beans and grains to give you nutritionally balanced meals. I have categorised them into Satisfying Breakfasts & Morning Drinks, Nourishing Soups, Fresh & Exotic Salads, Fast & Furious, Warm & Comforting, Sharing Plates and Sweet Tooth.

My husband, Jamie, is vegan. From birth, he suffered from asthma and eczema, but, in 2017, after adopting a plant-based diet which he continues to follow, his symptoms disappeared within three months and to this day havent returned! Having experienced first-hand the transformation of my husbands health, I am more than ever convinced by the age-old Chinese maxim that food is medicine. The healing power of plants and their ability to reduce inflammation, restore, nourish and replenish are the inspirations behind this book.

Good health starts with healing ones body (and mind) with pure food that is kind to the planet and us. Whether you are already plant based or just starting out on your journey, I have you covered for flavourful eating, with lots of tips and tricks to help you along the way.

The dishes are varied and wide-ranging, as Ive taken inspiration from all across Asia. Whatever your reason for going plant based, I wish you success and I hope this book helps to increase your cooking repertoire.

A green lotus flower is deemed as a beautiful gift for anyone trying to improve their life and start good habits. I hope you see this as my small sharing gift to you. Lets get started.

Love, Ching xxx

For a few years now, I have been toying with the idea of becoming fully vegan. Initially, I was very tentative, but gradually the benefits of a plant-based diet seeped into my consciousness. Two things in particular had an overwhelming impact.

First, it was the documentary Forks Over Knives, which showed how two doctors, Dr T. Colin Campbell and Dr Caldwell Esselstyn, cured their patients chronic heart disease and reversed their diabetes within three months by encouraging them to cut out saturated animal products and follow a plant-based diet.

Then my husband, Jamie, became vegan. He had been going through a tough time and had begun focussing on more spiritual things. Reading books such as Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch and Adventures Beyond the Body by William Bulhman gave him a deep compassion for animals. Before you close this book and say, Chings become a real hippie, the changes I saw in Jamie were too incredible to ignore!

Jamie had suffered from asthma and eczema since birth. From the time I began dating him, he never left the house without worrying about whether he was carrying an inhaler, not to mention the need to take his preventative too. However, within three months of switching to a plant-based diet, his asthma disappeared together with his eczema! Going vegan profoundly changed both his health and the quality of his life.

It got me thinking so much about what we dont know about the power of plants.

Plants are usually seen as weak, but their power is clearly transformative, as is demonstrated by Jamie, who is now stronger than ever. The improvement in his health has been a huge source of inspiration to me and thats why I wanted to write this book. On a deep level, Jamies search and journey to optimal health were a result of the committed and often challenging choices he made every mealtime, every day, 365 days a year. When he started, he experienced peer pressure, not only from me, but from his family and friends. We quizzed him at almost every meal we shared together. I know it was very difficult for him, but he had the courage to follow his natural instincts.

For Buddhists, the lotus flower symbolises rebirth and enlightenment. Out of muddy waters, this incredible plant re-blooms each morning without residue on its petals. Its seed can lie dormant for 2,000 years, and then germinate and grow a truly powerful plant! In many ways, it symbolises the potential in us all to awaken, no matter how long it takes, and the patience that is required to reach ones destiny. Jamies daily journey in search of health reminds me of the challenges of the lotus seed. He was surrounded by delicious temptations (my meaty cooking!) yet undeniably his health wasnt just improving: it was blossoming, like the lotus flower. All of which made me consider the transformative possibilities for our health, society and our planet: if we were all like the lotus flower, how beautiful could the world become?

To see it happen to Jamie was one thing, but I also had to experience it for myself. It isnt difficult for me to eat a more plant-based diet. I love vegetables and Im a chef by profession, so I know how to prepare and cook them. I have also always been conscious of the need to eat well and have felt a responsibility to create recipes that are healthy and balanced, using seasonal ingredients that are as kind to the planet as possible. Id soon got tired of cooking two different meals, one for Jamie and one for me, so Id settled into being flexitarian, cooking and eating vegan at home, except when testing recipes or researching new ones. For the past few years, I have eaten a plant-based diet about 80 per cent of the time, and for the rest always used good-quality meat or fish.

At the time of writing the synopsis of this book, I was happy with the idea that I would always be a flexitarian, having the best of both worlds and being able to eat meat whenever I had a craving for it. However, when I came to write the book, and particularly after Covid-19 and lockdown hit the UK, I began to think seriously about who I am, my fragility, the world around me, and what my work means to me. Also, more importantly, what I stand for, my contribution to the planet, and how to live a more meaningful existence! In a video I watched on YouTube, the Indian yogi Sadhguru talked about love, and how, during lockdown, if we could improve ourselves and make ourselves 10 per cent better than when we started, this would be a good time to take action. All my work dried up because of Covid-19 my teaching classes, demo events and public appearances were all cancelled. My recipe development work also came to a natural end as projects reached completion. Everything just stopped, except delivering this plant-based cookbook. It was as if the universe was challenging me to stop procrastinating and find out whether I could become fully vegan. I had begun to feel I was being slightly hypocritical doing a completely plant-based book when I wasnt all-in myself, and, I reasoned with myself, I was almost there wasnt I?