Cookbook Club No.2

The most addictive Broccoli Larb Salad this side of Bangkok, from the book "Love Vegetables" by Anna Shepherd

In an attempt to eat the insane amount of protein that my new trainer insists will make me invincible, while also trying to keep my meat eating fairly minimal, the mysterious white block of soy curd, AKA Tofu, has come into my world. It’s full of protein, but if you don’t know how to cook and flavour it, can have the taste and texture of an old bath sponge … which is problematic.

Happily I know a lot of brilliant cooks, and so for this second cookbook club I have turned to the fabulous Anna Shepherd to cook a recipe from her first book - Love Vegetables that I PROMISE will convert the most ardent Tofu deniers.

Once you’ve mastered the techniques, it will be something you cook on repeat, and everyone who tastes it will declare you to be some kind of Tofu wizard. Fact.

Anna was kind enough to come and cook it with me in my kitchen, which was absolutely the highlight of my week. She also brought along her ridiculously sweet dog, which is ALWAYS a bonus in my dog-obsessed opinion..

We spent a couple of hours cooking, eating, and filming, all whilst trying not to trip over two dogs who were more than a little curious about the smells coming from the hob.

But, before we got cooking, I sat down for a chat with Anna to find out a little more about her book. I must confess that I did film the interview, but a badly placed mic meant that the sound is AWFUL so I have transcribed it instead. Every day’s a school day, right?!

What inspired you to write this cookbook?

I had spoken lots with friends and family throughout my years as a cook and recipe writer, and realized that people really wanted to cook more with fresh vegetables, but they had their five or six set recipes on repeat throughout the year, and most of them were using vegetables as a side dish. The hope with Love Vegetables is that it really puts veg as the starting point of every recipe. The way I cook at home is very much by opening the fridge and seeing what vegetables I have available and how I can build a meal around them, rather than thinking “tonight I fancy a Burger, what should I buy to make that happen”.

It’s all about trying to extract maximum flavour and texture from vegetables whilst having a really nourishing, filling meal that tastes delicious. Hopefully because my recipes are fairly straightforward, they’ll encourage people to give them more star power, and become part of their repertoire of how they cook. Some of the recipes also work well alongside something like a BBQ or roast, so they don’t always have to be stand alone.

What was the biggest challenge you faced putting this book together, and how did you overcome it?

One challenge was that I had a one-year-old, which was a bit of a palaver! Trying to wrangle a very small child was challenging, but it meant I was way more focused with my time - before I had a child I would let things take shape over days.

Also I think in terms of the book itself, it was challenging to work out a book concept that was different to what had come before. Something original, and something that was really useful for people. I think what I’m most proud of are the chapter categories that make the shape of the book. So rather than having an A-Z of vegetables, or chapters for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner, I categorised the vegetables in terms of their characteristics. For example, there is a chapter for Alliums, where you can swap out one vegetable for another depending on what you have in your fridge. Another example is Tender Greens - so you use the same base idea for courgettes as you do for Green beans, giving you a completely different meal each time, and also increasing your confidence in using each technique. Applying it to suit your own tastebuds and the contents of your fridge will hopefully mean becoming a more adventurous cook.

Which makes sense of your method of “first open the fridge and see what you’ve got.” You don’t have to shop for every recipe.

Exactly, my hope is that it will cut down on shopping bills and also cut down on food waste. Within each recipe there is a little key that suggests possible swaps to get you started.

So if you had to pick one recipe in this book that had a special meaning behind it, a story, behind it, what would you choose?

If I was forced to pick, there’s a really lovely recipe in the Potatoes and Creamy Roots chapter for Smokey Potato Chowder. I grew up in the States, on the East Coast which is where Chowders are a staple, and they’re generally a combination of Pork and Seafood. To give that smokiness you get from Smoked Pork I used smoked Paprika, and you also get a lot of smokey flavour from the charred sweetcorn. I added new potatoes for a real creamy richness. I developed the recipe over a few days when my Mum was helping me at home, so it was really lovely to be tweaking it and getting her to taste it each time, as she was tasting it with the memory of being in that area as an adult, whereas although I had nostalgic memories of chowders, I was a young child so I struggled to really pin the taste down.

And did she tweak the recipe to something she would recognise?

She wanted a bit of cream in there so we went with that. And I added a bit of lemon for balance - there was so much richness in there from the potatoes and cream it just needed a little extra brightness. It’s a really lovely recipe, with crunchy fried shallots on top instead of the more traditional crunchy bacon bits to mimic that palate memory and replicate why it felt so satisfying as a dish.

So what do you hope that readers will take away from your cookbook beyond just the recipes?

I hope that readers will first of all find the book really useful, and easy to cross reference. But also that people see that vegetables are much more dynamic than they’re often given credit for. They can be these delicious vehicles and incredible shape shifters, they don’t have to be the traumatic overcooked foods that you remember from school lunches!

For a long time we have treated them as something we “should” eat rather than something we can take incredible pleasure from eating. Often I find that people are a bit wary of embarking on a completely veg focused recipe if they’re used to cooking with meat that has been butchered and cured before it gets to their kitchen. Vegetables are still in the raw state, so it can be daunting to be responsible for every step between the vegetable and the finished dish. I want people to see that they can be more delicious, more exciting and more dynamic in terms of their transformation than meat.

And which recipe should be the first one any new reader cooks - do you have a favourite.

The one that I cook almost weekly, and that everyone asks for the recipe when I cook it for any demo’s I do, is the Fresh Spiked Broccoli Larb Salad. It’s the one I’ve picked to cook for your Cookbook Club, and I am so keen that everyone try it that I am giving away the recipe to paid subscribers below to download.

(If you’re not ready/able to sign up for a paid subscription just yet, ¹I totally understand. You can get redeem a single use unlock on this paywalled section instead to get the recipe card and watch the recipe video for free.)