This book is equal parts mouth watering, heart warming and identity forming. A tender and soft love letter to her family, that spans three continents. Connecting us with our ancestors, the soil, our roots. Celebrating what South Asians have known for centuries, that vegetables are an entire meal. Just like Ravinder this book is generous, open hearted, Beautiful, sexy as hell and DELICIOUS. I want to eat it all' * Anita Rani * Raw, modern and sensual, Comfort and Joy applies Ravinder's creative ingenuity to approachable veg-centric recipes for home cooks. The vegetarian option will never again be relegated to second choice. Born in Kenya, to Indian parents, Ravinder Bhogal's food is inspired by her mixed heritage and the UK's diverse immigrant culture. Ravinder is a journalist, chef and restaurateur. Her debut restaurant, Jikoni, was ranked 56th in the UK by the National Restaurant Awards within 7 months of opening and achieved a coveted place in the Michelin Guide in the same year. It's well-proven that a diet centering fruits, vegetables, beans, grains, and nuts is healthier for us and our planet, but talks of decreasing global meat and dairy intake have for too long been tied to narratives of culinary sacrifice. Ravinder Bhogal, award-winning chef and self-described “half-woman, half-hummus,” knows better. In Comfort and Joy , she radically reclaims vegan and vegetarian cooking in all its abundance, with decadent, craveable recipes that bring together crisp okra fries with curry leaf mayonnaise, earthy roasted beet salad with blood orange and creamy burrata, whipped feta with tomatoes confit, and so much more.

It's well-proven that a diet centering fruits, vegetables, beans, grains, and nuts is healthier for us and our planet, but talks of decreasing global meat and dairy intake have for too long been tied to narratives of culinary sacrifice. Ravinder Bhogal, award-winning chef and self-described “half-woman, half-hummus,” knows better. In Comfort and Joy, she radically reclaims vegan and vegetarian cooking in all its abundance, with decadent, craveable recipes that bring together crisp okra fries with curry leaf mayonnaise, earthy roasted beet salad with blood orange and creamy burrata, whipped feta with tomatoes confit, and so much more. I recommend this cookbook to anyone who wants to make small batches of food. As much as I love desserts and comfort food as the next person, sometimes, I think I prefer small portions of it so that I won't have to eat the same food for days. Because if I make less of one dish, I can try more of other dishes. No? Just me? From the IACP award-winning author of Jikoni, a cookbook celebrating indulgence in vegetarian and vegan home cooking. A gorgeous and enticing marriage of styles and flavours that is uniquely Ravinder's' * Claudia Roden *At a corner table in Jikoni – where ingredients are British and inspiration global, and where one has to make impossible decisions between dishes such as whipped feta with beetroot Gujarati cake, butternut squash pakoras and crispy aubergine with Sichuan caramel – Bhogal is brimming with enthusiasm for her latest project. This month, she publishes a plant-based cookbook, full of recipes so imaginative and luscious that (and I say this as an omnivore) you’d never know they didn’t contain meat. A gorgeous and enticing marriage of styles and flavours that is uniquely Ravinder's' - Claudia Roden Ravinder is one of the best food writers in Britain today, and interwoven throughout these recipes are stories of a life led by the feel-good, life-enhancing power of vegetarian food. She has authored two books; her last Jikoni: Proudly Inauthentic Recipes from an Immigrant Kitchen ,(Bloomsbury July 2020) won an IACP award for Best Restaurant Cookbook and was been shortlisted for the André Simon Award, and a Fortnum and Mason Award for Best Cookery Book. Her debut book Cook in Boots (HarperCollins, 2009) won the Gourmand World Cookbook Award for the UK's Best First Cookbook and was awarded the first runners-up prize of the World's Best First Cookbook at the Paris Cookbook Fair in February 2010.

Comfort and Joy is a fresh take on vegetarian and vegan cooking; not geared towards health or denial but indulging all the senses with a decadent global larder. From the IACP award-winning author of Jikoni , a cookbook celebrating indulgence in vegetarian and vegan home cooking.

About the contributors

This is not a book about food but a source of comfort. Bhogal writes with care and an inviting hand, bringing us not just into her kitchen, but her present, her histories, her intimacies' * Caleb Azumah Nelson * It's strange that vegetarian food has a reputation in the West for being insipid fare, when every Indian knows its flavours can be explosive. Ravinder brings the textures, colours, and tastes of this cuisine to life, adding surprising twists along the way. With this book she shows that she is nothing less than the most original cookery writer in Britain today' * Sathnam Sanghera * A revelation-you will never look at "the vegetarian option" in the same way after diving into her inventive, bewitching and mouth watering book ' - Meera Syal