Good As Green: five delicious vegetarian recipes to cook at home
Is it really January without the promise to start the year on a greener note? Whether your resolution is to go veggie, reduce your meat intake or sharpen your culinary skills, you’ve come to the right place. We’ve revisited the stories from our food series, ‘The Modern Menu’ and ‘Chefs at Home’ and cherry-picked five delicious vegetarian recipes for you to make at home. Courtesy of our friends at Towpath, Brat and more, these dishes will make sticking to your new-year cooking regime that little bit easier. Eating green never tasted so good.
A recipe for northern Sri Lankan turmeric dhal from Dom Fernando’s Paradise
How to brighten up a particularly grey January day? With this bright, warming dhal, of course. This recipe is from Dom Fernando’s restaurant Paradise in Soho, London. Book yourself a spot at the brutalist-inspired space and you can expect to enjoy plates inspired by Sri Lankan home cooking – and this beautiful dhal is no different. “When working on the food for Paradise, I thought back to my grandmother’s cooking. She made very simple, comforting Sri Lankan or Asian food, using the simplest of ingredients,” Dom told us when we visited his restaurant. Perhaps the best thing about it? It’s impressive, yet incredibly simple to whip together – ideal, then, for amateur home cooks. Spices at the ready.
Anna Barnett’s homemade tagliatelle with braised fennel and peas
Home cook Anna Barnett knows a thing or two about, well, home cooking. So, when we visited her place in Hackney, we asked Anna to share a recipe for a comforting dish for you to try at home. We certainly weren’t disappointed when she responded with her method for homemade tagliatelle with braised fennel and peas. Although Anna makes hers with a pasta machine, she says: “you can also roll this out with a rolling pin, just ensure you roll out the pasta until it’s almost transparent and gently flour and fold into four before slicing it into tagliatelle.” Kitchen cheats (no judging) may wish to fast-track to the braised fennel and peas before and then add to store-bought fresh pasta. For a fennel substitute during these colder months, braise celery or chicory with peas instead. If you’re doing veganuary this year, serve with a vegan alternative to parmesan.
Brat’s Tomos Parry cooks grilled wild mushrooms with confit egg yolks and barley
Vegans – look away. It’s near impossible to muster a green alternative to confit egg yolks, but we couldn’t resist including this scrumptious recipe in our vegetarian round-up. Tomos Parry of London restaurant Brat shares his tricks and tips for cooking up grilled wild mushrooms with confit egg yolks and barley. This plate is sure to impress guests at future dinner parties as not only does it taste good, but it looks like it’s taken serious skills to prepare it, too. A word of advice from Tomos: “Take care to keep the yolk whole so diners get the pleasure of breaking the yolk themselves.” Serve with bread and grilled red peppers.
Bocca di Lupo’s Jacob Kenedy on artichoke malloreddus, plus a seasonal substitute
Another brilliant pasta recipe. This time we’re making malloreddus, which, as Jacob from Bocca di Lupo tells us, means “fat little calves” in Sardinian dialect. “The pasta is as cute as the name,” he says. “To shape them, you will need either a ridged gnocchi paddle, a finely woven basket or, at a pinch, a table fork.” Just like Jacob, who serves his malloreddus with artichoke, we love the spiny vegetable – however, you might want to bookmark this particular recipe until June, when they are in season. In the meantime, we suggest replacing artichokes with thinly sliced leeks for an equally delectable winter alternative.
A recipe for asparagus with ajo blanco from Laura Jackson and Lori de Mori of Towpath
To conclude this series, we turn to Towpath’s Laura Jackson and Lori de Mori. When we visited them at their waterside eatery on the De Beauvoir stretch of Regent’s Canal, they served us asparagus with ajo blanco – and it was divine. “Ajo blanco is most commonly eaten as a chilled soup in Andalusia. ‘Ajo’ means garlic but the real flavour comes from the almonds. Marcona almonds are fatter and wetter, more delicately almondy than your average almond. It is important to use a high-quality almond when making this sauce,” says Laura. While we eagarly await the return of sunny asparagus season, try their ajo blanco over broccoli, which isn’t miles away in flavour and it can be cooked in very similar ways too. Bon appétit!
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