– there’s spring lamb, softshell crabs, and shad roe – but nothing like how a heap of ramps at the farmers’ market announces spring’s arrival or how endless punnets of tomatoes on a table at a roadside stall signal summer. When the leaves begin to turn, you won’t spot aubergines at the market. When you’re still wearing your thermals, you won’t find spring garlic, with their purple-speckled bulbs and pert green stalks, no matter how hard you search. And that’s OK. In fact, I quite like it.
Life would be boring if you could have everything at any time. I like the limits that the seasons impose. I like having something to look forward to. I don’t even mind when nature disappoints me with a bad year for corn or tomatoes. You develop an almanac in your head – like, ‘Oh, tomatoes were so bad that year.’ When great ones return, you get to think, ‘Finally, lovely tomatoes!’ Vegetables make you happy when they’re there, and you miss them when they’re gone.
When I told a friend that I was working on a vegetable cookbook, he said that this made sense, since vegetables have become so trendy. I had a good laugh at that. I guess I must have lost the plot somewhere along the way, because I still don’t think beetroot, carrots and asparagus are cool. I do, however, think that they’re delicious. That’s good enough for me.
But I suppose I see what my mate meant. Lately, you’ve got people like Michael Pollan and Mark Bittman making the case with science and common sense that we should all cut back on meat, for our health as well as for the planet’s. Chefs have been taking up the cause, treating veg with the love and care once reserved mainly for rib eye steaks and lamb chops. My motivation is more about passion than scruples. I’m not trying to make a statement. I just love the way boiled broccoli raab sort of bites the back of your mouth. I love how creamy properly cooked aubergine gets. I could shuck corn all day, thinking about how sweet it’ll taste.
Vegetables have some practical advantages over meat, too. For example, while pork shoulders and legs of lamb need to be cooked softly, you’re not going to braise an artichoke for hours. Still, I don’t like to think of cooking, eating, and enjoying vegetables as something you do while you’re not eating meat. While this book is about vegetables, not all the recipes are vegetarian. I like cooking my collards with lots of bacon. Anchovies give so many veg a lift. Some vegetables even turn meaty on you. Red onion gives sauces and soups a meatiness that other onions don’t. Mushrooms give off an inviting aroma as they sear, which makes me think of veal kidneys. Artichoke hearts have a fleshy texture. Boiled asparagus can be juicy. I’m not saying vegetables should aspire to be like meat. I’m just saying that meat eaters will appreciate these qualities, and that vegetables can satisfy you the way meat does.
the farmers’ market
Before you cook, you must shop, and there’s no better place to shop than the farmers’ market. Your goal is to find the best vegetables that you can. The higher your standards, the better your food will be.
First off, have a brisk walk through the market without buying a thing. This is especially true for markets that are new to you, where you don’t know the vendors well. Because while it’s tempting to jump at the first bunch of radishes you spot, not all veg, no matter how lovingly they’re grown, are the same. What a shame it would be to buy radishes at one stall only to come across even perter, more peppery ones elsewhere. You want to make your walk brisk – really get a wiggle on! – so you can get back to any bunches and baskets that struck you earlier, before they get snapped up.
If you have the opportunity to taste what you see, please do, though you should ask your farmer nicely first. Taste everything you can. In the summer, taste cherry tomatoes until you find those that are thrillingly sweet-tart and explode when you bite them. In the spring, taste peas. I like to visit every stand and ogle the bins of peas, looking for the prettiest ones. Then I’ll pick out a nice plump pod and pinch it open. Pop a pea in your mouth. If it’s candy sweet and barely starchy, grab a bag and fill it up. Taste rocket from this stall and that until you find the one that aggressively bites the sides of your tongue.
Have a chat with a farmer. You might learn that her pumpkins are especially sweet thanks in part to a frost. She might turn you on to an oddball mushroom that she tells you tastes a bit like crab, or you might encounter so-called over-wintered broccoli raab, which is especially sweet. And don’t forgot to snap pictures of celebrity vegetables, such as the hard-to-find Rosa Bianca variety of aubergine (squat and ridged with mottled light purple and white skin), so you can look at them during a dull moment in your day or while planning a dinner, and get reinvigorated.
It should go without saying that you should never pick anything that’s bruised, spongy or bendy. But perfect-looking vegetables don’t always taste perfect. Selecting great vegetables comes with experience. When you taste something at the market, or later as you’re cooking, take a close look at it. Wonder what was it about this courgette – perhaps it was a big honking thing – that might have warned you that it would taste so bland. What was it about this tomato – perhaps it was evenly coloured, even near the stem, and heavy for its size – that could have told you it would be so sweet and meaty?
This way, you’ll develop preferences. One of my preferences, in general, is for small to medium-size vegetables. I don’t care for spindly, sprouty asparagus, but I’m not into fat stalks either. Tiny courgettes are adorable, but so small that you don’t get to enjoy the vegetable’s character. I could live without baby fennel, which is too small to serve as crunchy slices or to be boiled to a creamy, meaty texture. Large pea pods seem tempting until you realize that the biggest ones tend to be starchy. While you might be tempted by a massive carrot, thinking you’d only have to peel that one, keep in mind that smaller carrots tend to taste sweeter and have thin skin that you don’t need to peel at all.
Certain vegetables need to be used as soon as possible. Peas, corn, and green beans are sweetest just after they’re picked. As they sit, the sugars turn to starch. So when you find sweet corn at the market, cook it for dinner that night.
Of course, vegetables don’t always cooperate. Then you must adapt. If you’d like to make salad but the tomatoes are nearly bursting from the skins, consider making sauce instead. If you can’t find tomatoes that meet your standard, change your plans on what to cook for dinner. You never want to go to the market stubborn.
the simple things
Often I find that the least exciting way of cooking actually leads to the most wonderful place. In fact, I like lots of vegetables – artichokes, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower – just boiled in salty water and served with a glug of olive oil and a sprinkle of chilli or a tender squeeze of lemon. If you’ve got perfect veg, there’s no need to manipulate it. There’s nothing wrong with finding broccoli raab and just blanching it. Maybe you’re thinking, ‘Blanched broccoli, that sounds like the worst thing in the world.’ But if your product is amazing and you don’t cook it to buggery, then just blanching it can be the most beautiful thing.
In fact, part of me thinks that unless you’re a practised home cook, you should treat all vegetables like this, though a list of stuff I like to boil wouldn’t make for much of a cookbook, now would it? Nor would it go over well at my restaurants if I served only plates of boiled swede and boiled carrots. That’s why in this cookbook most of the recipes go much further than plain old boiling.
Yet because the simplest preparations deserve attention as well, I’ve sprinkled throughout the book a handful of not quite recipes for some of my favourite vegetables. I wanted to share with you the way I eat ingredients like tomatoes, corn, and potatoes at home, when I don’t have to please anyone but myself. They’re so simple that they don’t require full-on recipes. Instead, they’re more like little road maps encouraging you to play around and find your own way. Whatever you do, you want your potatoes to still taste like
