I had expected to end up cooking more curry-type dishes when we started this vegetarian thing. Those cuisines which are traditionally vegetarian seemed to be the most obvious direction to go in. So it has been a bit of a surprise to find that we have hardly ventured in that direction at all. I suppose that’s because we haven’t looked much at traditional recipes … mostly due to my falling in love with Anna Jones and her ‘modern’ take on cooking.
I’ve been trying to identify what it is makes her style ‘modern’ but, not being particularly experienced in analysing cooking, I’m struggling a bit. She has a lot of recipes where everything is together in one dish with no one star part of the meal at the centre of the plate as generally happens in a meal containing meat and can also happen in vegetarian cooking sometimes with something vegetarian as substitute (the nut roast school of veggie cooking). In fact, there are very few occasions when what she’s making is asking for vegetables or salad on the side. For quite a few weeks, the broccoli and carrots and potatoes and salad I always automatically buy have been unused until I suddenly realised I needed to do something with them, and I don’t know the last time I broke out the frozen sweetcorn. Is this what makes Anna's cooking ‘modern’?
I suppose it’s healthy too and in a way that’s different from the dense, heavy wholefood vegetarian cooking of the seventies. I think then their task was to have people believe that you could have a vegetarian meal that was as filling as a meat meal and today we don’t necessarily believe that that bursting at the seams feeling is what you’re looking for in a meal. There have been occasional meals where I have felt not entirely full after dinner, but not many and I’ve never woken up starving. The portion sizes can be a bit askew at times and I think perhaps even though the meals look complete in themselves, it would be good to put bread on the table too or have a salad afterwards. It’s a different way of thinking about food. Which is fine by me. I do like to think about food (as if you haven’t noticed!).
And as to curry – we had a pretty great Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
recipe this week, from his book Veg Every Day. It was a kale and new
potato curry, yellow with turmeric and warmly spicy rather than hot.
Kale’s a funny vegetable, isn’t it? I’m sure the supermarkets never used
to sell it. I think it must be one of those things that they grow for
cattle feed, or else only people with allotments grow. It’s a vegetable
that you couldn’t possibly just steam or boil and have on the side of
the plate in the traditional British way. Too tough, too bitter. But in a
curry like this it doesn’t wilt like spinach would. You can fry or
roast it crispy or put it in a bubble and squeak, add it to a smooth
soup to give a texture contrast and a little bitterness. I feel sure it's good for you. I like it
steamed in a bowl of miso soup and noodles – takes no longer to make
than a sandwich.
You can find the complete menus from week nineteen
here.
Claire
Watts and her family are cooking vegetarian for a year. You can find
out why - and why 'cooking vegetarian' doesn't always necessarily mean
'eating vegetarian'
here.
Claire Watts writes and edits books for children.
She's currently working on making something beautiful with fairy tales.
Find out about her
Snippets project and how you can help on her
Patreon page.
