Born in Southern Taiwan, vegan chef Ching He Huang brings a lot of the flavours of her childhood to her cooking – including recipes with bamboo (inspired by her grandparents’ farm) and plenty of stir-fries.

From growing up chasing her grandmother’s chickens to travelling around China with fellow chef Ken Hom, these are Huang’s food memories…

Some of her earliest memories of food are…

“I grew up mainly on my maternal grandmother’s side, and I saw her cook for like 24, 25 of my great uncles and aunts and our extended family. We would sit in the courtyard and share our food – it was really nice. It was like a big banquet, every breakfast, lunch and dinner – it was lovely, like a little commune.

“Everyone had their vegetable patches just off the back of each home. The tofu bean curd lady would come on her bike and ring her bell if you were interested in freshly made tofu that day – the sweet bean one was so good; the silken bean curd with sugar syrup was magical, but we weren’t allowed that every day because it was naughty.

“My grandfather [a bamboo and orange farmer] would have to go out on his motorbike with this big trailer at the back and he’d take oranges and freshly cut bamboo to the local wet market in the village. Then he’d come back with all sorts of stuff that we didn’t grow – fish and meat. My grandmother would always scold him and say: ‘Oh, you didn’t bring me water chestnuts, they’re in season at the moment. He didn’t bring me goji berries, I wanted this and that.’ So they would have a little scolding session.

“Everything was done by hand – she would dispatch chickens; she would cut fish. Me and my brother were just a hindrance running around, trying to catch the chickens.”

Her culinary highlight…

“I loved travelling around China with Ken Hom [for the BBC show Exploring China: A Culinary Adventure]. This is in 2012, and it was just amazing. Five and a half weeks of exploring. I love travel, I love feeding people, I love cooking, I love being thrown in the deep end and all of that.”

Huang’s worst kitchen disaster has to be…

“There have been a few. The first time I made a vegan cake, it was maybe not the worst ever, but it just didn’t rise. I think I used bicarbonate of soda, and it was just horrible and bitter. I’m not a natural baker. So it was just pants really, horrible. It was really not good, I had to start again – but I’ve got better, I really have.”

Asian Green: Everyday Plant-based Recipes Inspired By The East by Ching-He Huang, photography by Tamin Jones, is published by Kyle Books, priced £20. Available now.