Dairy Free

The juicy crunch of a raw artichoke bears many of the qualities of a water chestnut. Few ingredients pack such snowy crispness. I use them in a parsley-flecked salad to add a snap to baked pork chops, but have also offered them at a Saturday bread’n’cheese lunch of Cornish Yarg and Appleby’s Cheshire. Lemon is essential if the peeled tubers are not to discolor.

Jerusalem artichokes share with the potato an ability to drink up both dressings and the fat in which they cook. Roll a still-warm steamed artichoke or potato in a sharp oil and vinegar dressing and it will soak up the liquid like a sponge. It is this quality that makes them a candidate for cooking in luxurious mediums such as bacon fat or, better still, duck fat. This contemporary twist on the sautéed potato is, as you might expect, something with which to garnish a steak. An ice-crisp salad of winter leaves (Belgian endive, radicchio, frisée, maybe) would slice the edge off its richness.

Elderly fava beans are possibly not on everyone’s shopping list, but in late July, when their sugar has turned to starch and their skins are as thick as writing paper, I have still made a good meal of them. They make a fresh-tasting hummus that always surprises people with its green notes. A silk purse out of a sow’s ear if ever there was one. There is another recipe for this in The Kitchen Diaries, but with dill. Good with bread, roast lamb, even alongside a piece of grilled fish. Like the popular chickpea recipe, somewhat addictive.

There is a Spanish stall at the market. Each Saturday in midsummer I wait patiently at the counter while the jamon is carved. I am unsure which is more beautiful: the long, elegant leg on its steel stand or the fluid, methodical way in which the carver slices the gossamer-thin morsels of meat from the bone. I never take much, its price is breathtaking, but once home I savor every mouthful, as much out of respect for my wallet as for the pig. If I find young fava beans, or the ones in the garden are ready to pick, I marry the two—a simple plate of densely flavored, fat-besplodged ham the color of dried blood and fresh, bright-green beans. There is usually soup on the table too, watercress or spinach or fresh pea, and some scraps of dry, mild-tasting Manchego.

I was wary of the idea of eating the pods until I grew my own beans; young vegetables tempt in a way that full-sized specimens often don’t. The recipe is only worth doing when you can get your hands on unblemished beans without the cotton-wool lining to their pods and no longer than a middle finger. If you can catch them at this point in their lives, then you can eat them whole, like mangetout (snow peas). Serve warm, with thick pieces of bread or as a side dish for roast lamb or cold ham.

Hot, clean, and vibrant, a mouth-popping stew for scooping up with soft, warm naan or, if you prefer, rice. Should you want something richer and less spicy, then stir in a carton of yogurt, about 1 cup (250g), at the end and simmer for a further seven or eight minutes.

A lovely, deeply flavored vegetable stew. This is one of those dishes that is all the better for a day in the fridge, during which time the flavors seem to mellow. I have kept it quite spicy but the final seasoning will depend on how hot your chiles are, and you will need to adjust it accordingly. Something to take your time over. I eat it with steamed basmati rice.

Za’atar is a mild spice mixture available in Middle Eastern markets and some supermarkets. Fragrant and green, it is usually prepared using dried thyme, oregano, marjoram, toasted sesame seeds, and salt. Some varieties may add savory, cumin, coriander, or fennel seeds.

Sicily’s cooks make much of the eggplant. They fry it in crisp disks, with mint and vinegar; bake it with tomato sauce and salty caciocavallo cheese; stuff it with anchovies, parsley, and capers; or grill it over charcoal before seasoning with garlic and oregano. Occasionally, they will roll up a thick jam of eggplant in soft disks of dough like a savory strudel, called scaccie, while all the time matching it to the Arab-influenced exotica of their cupboards: anchovies, olives, fennel, mint, pomegranates, currants, and pine nuts. The thin, Turkish eggplant with the bulbous end is the one they prefer, though you could use any shape for their famous caponata, the rich sweet-sour stew braised with celery, golden raisins, vinegar, and bell peppers. I can eat this fragrant, amber slop at any time of year, but somehow I always end up making it when the sun is shining, eating it outside with flat, chewy bread and maybe some grilled sardines flecked with torn mint leaves and lemon. If you make it the day before, its character—salty, sweet, and sour—will have time to settle itself.

The smoky, parchment-hued cream moutabal is one of my desert-island dishes. Few recipes can produce anything as soft and sensuous as grilled eggplant, mashed to a pulp, and seasoned with lemon and sesame paste. The lemon is essential, working an ancient magic when involved with anything charred and smoky. Many lightly bake their eggplant for this, but without a good charring they lack the mysterious, smoky back notes that I consider as much a part of the ingredients as the eggplant itself.

A sort of lazy guy’s ratatouille this, but better, I think, for its freshness and clean taste. I keep the chiles large here, which is partly why I have suggested using the milder varieties but, as always, it’s up to you. This works hot as an accompaniment to so many main dishes—roast lamb comes to mind—but as a warm salad too, and indeed, piled on hot toasted ciabatta as a weekday supper.

I am always on the lookout for simple but interesting side dishes to eat with cold roast meats. A little pile of grilled eggplants, their smoked edges moist with a vibrant green dressing, wakes up yesterday’s cold roast chicken or beef.

I often come home from Chinatown with a squid and a bag of choy sum. The fishmonger will have done most of the dirty work for me, leaving me to give the body sac a final rinse before slicing. Squid is ideally suited to this quick, high-temperature cooking.

Bok choy or, better still, gai lan will be perfect here. Eat it hot and spluttering from the pan.

On the right day, a deep bowl of lentil soup is all the food I need. The homey, almost spare quality satisfies me in a way fancier recipes cannot. The undertones of frugality, poverty even, are avoided by rich seasonings of unsmoked bacon, herbs, and good stock. The backbone of earthiness is given a fresh top note with mint and lemon juice. You can keep your beef Wellington.

Perhaps because of the thickness of its stalks, or the unruly tangle of leaves on the plate, chard always manages to exude a rustic quality. It is not really a vegetable for “fine dining.” Blanched and seasoned with young, mild garlic and a squeeze of lemon, the stems and leaves become a useful side dish for any big-flavored main course. Allowed to cool, they also work with cold roast meats, thickly torn chunks of mozzarella, wedges of warm savory tarts, or coarse-textured “country” pâté. In other words, a distinctly useful thing to have in the fridge.

I tend to use this chutney as a relish, stirring it into the accompanying rice of a main course. It is slightly sweet, as you might expect, but tantalizingly hot and sour too. Scoop it up with a pappadam or a doughy, freckled paratha (I have been known to use a pita bread in times of desperation). On Mondays I sometimes put a spoonful on the side of the plate with cold meats. Palm sugar (also known as jaggery) is used in Indian cooking and is available in Indian markets.

Young carrots, no thicker than a finger and often not much longer, appear in the shops in late spring, their bushy leaves intact. Often, they have a just-picked air about them, their tiny side roots, as fine as hair, still fresh and crisp. At this stage they lack the fiber needed to grate well, and boiling does them few favors. They roast sweetly, especially when tucked under the roast. The savory meat juices form a glossy coat that turns the carrot into a delectable little morsel. I have used a leg of lamb here but in fact any cut would work—a shoulder or loin, for instance. The spice rub also works for chicken.