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Critics' choice: Vegetable Literacy by Deborah Madison
Deborah Madison, the acclaimed queen of vegetables, is in a leafy, ethically cultivated league of her own. She has written many books about plants, but I reckon ‘Vegetable Literacy’ is her best work on the subject of shoots and roots. Don’t hit the snooze button just yet; even for the most stubborn of sceptics, Deborah has a knack for romanticising vegetables.
This book is as much a vegetarian cookbook as it is a book about vegetables – while it includes over 300 recipes, it’s more importantly a celebration of vegetables and a guide that’ll change the way you think about plants. In each chapter, she introduces a vegetable family, suggests basic flavour companions, throws in tips to using the whole plant, and adds in bits of kitchen wisdom. Example: In the carrot family chapter, she suggests using celery leaves in soup stocks and adding celery root to your mashed potatoes in a grand recipe titled ‘Celery root mash flecked with celery leaves’. Who would’ve thought those bits were good for any more than compost?
She leaps into these little surprises all across the book, and the joy one gets from devouring them is akin to unravelling a plot twist in a mystery novel. Parsnip and cardamom custard? I have to wrap my eggplants before refrigerating them? Peas with baked ricotta and bread crumbs? Rhubarb and buckwheat are related? Chilling onions will reduce their fumes when cutting? Cauliflower soup with coconut, turmeric and lime? These little delights jump out from just about every page of this magnificent 400-page book.
It helps too that Deborah is gentle and accommodating in her writing – it’s a trait that accentuates her coddling of ingredients rather than her cooking of them. She writes the way one imagines she speaks – with a nurturing softness that’s a bit lacking in clever phrasing but more than makes up for it in short, to-the-point sentences. All the better for you to curl up in bed and imagine picking heirloom tomatoes with Deborah, on a late summer afternoon, after which the both of you roast them with flecks of smoked sea salt. For someone who is easily roused by vegetables, I often comfort myself with this fluttering fantasy – and with a book as lush as this one, I don’t see why you wouldn’t too.
Ten Speed Press, RM139.90.
Plenty: Vibrant Vegetable Recipes from London’s Ottolenghi by Yotam Ottolenghi
One of England’s most exciting chefs, Yotam Ottolenghi manages to balance the tricky task of concocting vegetable recipes that have as much substance as their meaty equivalents. His Israeli background means plenty of modern Middle Eastern tendencies.
Chronicle Books, about RM144 on www.bookdepository.com.
Eat Your Vegetables: Bold Recipes for the Single Cook by Joe Yonan
This is the book to get if you’re living alone and still want to cook yourself vegetarian dinners, especially if you’re equipped with a can’t-be-fussed attitude. As it promises, it’s bold but never bossy.
Ten Speed Press, RM86.
River Cottage Veg Every Day! by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is so much more than his terrible book covers and titles because boy, are his books ever flooded with bright recipes. He also touches on store cupboard meals – dishes you can whip up without having to run to the grocers all the time.
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, about RM132.
Tender: A Cook and His Vegetable Patch by Nigel Slater
Everyone’s favourite garden-tending Englishman knocks it out of the park with simple, weekday recipes like roasted parsnips with sesame and honey. His gardener-next-door charm and inexplicable wit are bonuses that make this book an absolute treat.
Ten Speed Press, about RM170 on www.bookdepository.com.
Top five vegetarian cookbooks
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