Vegan 100 is going to be a cookbook I don’t cook much out of; it turns out to be more pretentious than I tend to like, making it interesting to read but not practical to actually cook much from. It calls for sea-beans in a couple of recipes and I have never seen those in any local market within 75 miles of me. It also thinks I’m going to scratch make everything; I’m all for scratch cooking, the challenge can be fun, but not all day every day, who has that kind of time? Who wants to follow a recipe for a cheeseburger that has nearly 50 ingredients and 3 pages worth of instructions? Not me. I also dislike beets, one of very few veggies for which there is no good use, and Gaz Oakley seem to like them. Quite a bit.
I also have to question some of the decisions; the tofu katsu looks interesting except that there’s no marinade involved or even much of a sauce (curry mayo that really only calls for curry powder and chili powder isn’t going to do it for me); tofu is pretty flavorless without help, so I’m wondering why there’s no flavor involved in the actual main protein. The same thing almost happens with “Siracha Meatballs with Noodles and Grilled Vegetables” although this has some flavorings in the tofu including garlic, chili, and tomato, but it also includes buckwheat flour which is an incredibly strong flavor. I’m guessing that’s about all you’d taste, and I don’t think buckwheat and Siracha would be the best combination.
One thing I do like is how the book is set up, with staple recipes first, not last like a lot of cookbooks do. The issue for me here is that nearly all the dairy knock off’s (mozzarella, crème fraiche, cheese, cream cheese) are essentially the same thing (cashews, nutritional yeast, lemon juice, slat/pepper). This might be just fine for one of the replacements, but given how different the actual dairy things are, at least some of them aren’t going to turn out very close.
Ther are some unusual combinations that I question but won’t dismiss since there’s a chance for them; I mean things like a spring roll recipe calling for fennel, zucchini, carrot, beets (leaving that out), cucumber, mint, kiwi, lettuce, Thai basil, peanuts. The kiwi is the odd thing here.
Then there’s the inconsistencies; polenta “chips” are chips in the UK sense, yet there’s also a recipe for sweet potato “fries”; gravy by itself is not a ‘side’, it must have something specific to go on top of, yet the only two recommendation are multi-page effort intensive things like Wellington and “the ultimate vegan roast’. Why do chili dogs need 35 ingredients, some of which are entire recipes in themselves? Who thought calling a smoothie recipe “the Purp” was a good idea? There’s way too many ways that could be taken badly or mocked, and the recipe doesn’t sound that great unless you like beets, blackberries, cuke, spinach, and celery; I like some of these things individually, but together I question this.
The book is pretty though, and some of the recipes look striking, like “Peppery Purple Soup” which is actually cabbage based and might be pretty decent with the included onion, apple, vinegar, and I’m probably leaving out the fresh thyme. But why call it “peppery” when the recipe only calls for a pinch of black pepper?
