Good Asian vegetarian dishes

[themadman]

Am I the only one who's curious that true vegetarian specialties in South-east Asian food are much rarer compared to their meaty companions?

I'm starting a South-east Asian restaurant here in Bangalore, India. To cater for the larger percentage of vegetarians in this country, we need more veggie dishes than you might find in USA, for instance.

While creating my menu, I wanted to showcase dishes that weren't just "tofu-ised" versions of meat-based dishes. That is, I wanted to avoid things like "Som Tam without fish sauce or dried shrimp" or "Sayur Lodeh without belachan" or "Mussaman curry with fried tofu". I was surprised by how comparitively difficult it was to find true-blue veggie dishes in the region (compared to say, Indian cuisine)

You folks got any suggestions? What are your favourite veggie dishes from Indonesia, Malaysia/Singapore, or Thailand? (That means pure vegetarian.)

[skchai]

TheMadman,

Sorry for this late and inadequate response to your very interesting inquiry. I think one reason there haven't more replies is, as you mention, vegetarianism is still fairly rare in SE Asia.

The main exceptions, I suppose, may be the foods found in Thai Buddhist temples. I unfortunately don't have any recipe books and am not aware of any in English. And, as far as I know, even high caste Balinese Hindus eat meat.

Your best bet may be Nancy McDermott's Real Vegetarian Thai. I don't have this, but do have her previous book, which was quite thoroughly researched. However, it does not catalog temple cuisine, but rather McDermott's adaptation of meat dishes, which may not be what you want.

The publisher's blurb reads:

Traditional Thai cuisine includes meat, fish, and seafood. In Real Vegetarian Thai, McDermott carefully adapts her recipes as needed to create great Thai dishes for the vegetarian kitchen. By omitting nahm plah, the ubiquitous fish sauce which seasons virtually all savory Thai dishes, and replacing meat, fish, and seafood with a cornucopia of fresh vegetables including portobello mushrooms, Japanese eggplant, sweet red peppers and butternut squash, McDermott transforms classic Thai dishes into vegetarian feasts, sure to please guests and family members whether they are vegetarians or not.

I did manage find some recipes on the web under the "East Asia" (sic) recipe index page for the International Vegetarian Union. Most of these also seem to be adaptations of nonveg dishes as well, but that may simply be the norm for vegetarian food in SE Asia.

Good luck with your restaurant!

[anil]

Actually each country in SEA has a few dishes which are vegetarian in some sense - i.e they contain no meat; but then again they are cooked in meat or fish stock.

You could make 'roti kanai' with vegetarian curry instead of chicken; have a Viet rice noodle soup with fresh vegetables. Good luck on your restaurant - and do keep us posted on it's progress..

[mudbug]

themadman,

This is an indirect response to your post... because I am mostly accustomed to Chinese cuisine. There are a couple of books you may be interested in checking out which may give you some insight on how to approach the food from other countries: Chinese Vegetarian Cooking by Kenneth Lo and Classic Chinese Cooking for the Vegetarian Gourmet by Joanne Hush.

Another good resource for you might be the "Asian Vegetable Forum".

:)

[Pan]

You could make 'roti kanai' with vegetarian curry instead of chicken

In case he's looking for it, it's actually roti canai or roti chanai (in old spelling).

[ecr]

"vegetarianism is still fairly rare in SE Asia"

Not so .... and you don't have to go to a temple to find veggie fare. There are veg. restaurants (truly veg --- ie no fish sauce) all over Bangkok and many here in Saigon as well. A fair number of Vietnamese Buddhists go veggy 15 days of every month, and most do for a full month around the Autumn Moon festival (just finished). Many Thai Buddhists go veg during the vegetarian festival (now), the most well-known festivities are in Phuket.

I would wager that, given their primarily Buddhist populations, vegetarianism is not that rare in Cambodia, Lao, or Burma either.