World Vegetarian

World Vegetarian

Clarkson Potter, 768 pp., $40

Madhur Jaffrey worked for 10 years putting together her latest book, a heavy tome of more than 650 meatless recipes taken from the cuisines of people across five continents. Her work, aptly titled World Vegetarian, may initially be off-putting to those used to salivating at the pretty pictures in cookbooks instead of reading detailed recipes. But with a little perseverance, readers of World Vegetarian should fall captive to the book's global charm.

Jaffrey, of course, is a veteran author. With more than a dozen cookbooks and three TV cooking shows to her credit (not to mention a slew of films), this Indian-born dynamo doesn't need a bunch of glossy photos or clever illustrations to shore up her brilliance in the kitchen. As she explains in the book's introduction, she loves well-seasoned foods and is eager to share her knowledge of intriguing, lesser-known ingredients -- chickpea flour, for example -- with those eager to expand their vegetarian cooking repertoire.

Although Jaffrey is a huge fan of beans and split peas and covers them in detail in a chapter along with nuts and lentils, she also insists in her introduction that World Vegetarian is a book about vegetables, counting more than 200 vegetable recipes. Many of Jaffrey's vegetable recipes, it should be noted, are simple sautés or stewed vegetable preparations. The section on eggplant, however, stands out for presenting an amazing variety of ways to treat this dense purple gem. Jaffrey lists recipes from Hong Kong for cold eggplant with two different dressings. She includes eggplant creams from Turkey and India, features stuffed eggplant, stir-fried eggplant, eggplant "salsa," eggplant pickle, eggplant curry, and eggplant stew.

Jaffrey's continent-hopping recipe collection saves itself from absolute chaos through carefully divided chapter subsections -- eggplant recipes are found in the "Vegetable" chapter, couscous preparations under "Grains." Each recipe benefits from a short, informative header that describes the dish, where Jaffrey experienced it, and gives technical tips and ingredient substitutions. Jaffrey has given each recipe a name of her own, but interestingly, she also lists the dish's native moniker whenever possible. Finally, the recipe's country of origin figures prominently in the upper-right corner of each page.

In my opinion, the most ambitious chapter in World Vegetarian is the one titled "Dairy." Now I know this section is of no service to vegans, but for vegetarians who "do" dairy and for the rest of us, Jaffrey has compiled a fascinating number of recipes. Think of Sunday brunches in particular, then peruse the chapter for things like egg curries and soy- or tea-braised hard-boiled eggs, eggs poached in exotic sauces from Iran, Korea, Japan, fried eggs and scrambled eggs, omelets, both savory and sweet yogurts, and homemade cheeses.

I recently blended up a batch of Jaffrey's super simple Cold Avocado and Buttermilk Soup, which is inspired by South Indian buttermilk dishes. It had been years since I'd done much with buttermilk beyond transforming it into crème fraiche, and the result was refreshing and delicious. Best of all, Jaffrey's recipe was complete in a matter of minutes. Looking back through the pages of World Vegetarian just now, I realize that most of the book's recipes are quickly prepared. For me, this means on the table in less than an hour.

World Vegetarian isn't the kind of book that reaches out and grabs you, but it is one you'll grow to love. I've had it for less than three weeks, and already I find myself flipping through its pages in search of inspiration from afar -- vegetarian recipes that can I put together with relatively minimal effort, but that still make me feel like I've accomplished something when they're complete. As Jaffrey explains in the book's introduction, "A part of me is still answering the question posed to me by a woman in Springfield, Illinois, a few decades ago. "What do vegetarians eat? Lots of boiled broccoli, I suppose!" World Vegetarian is Jaffrey's answer, and her book should be kept on hand as a constant reminder of just how varied and desirable vegetarian dining can be.