i’ve been reading a lot of cookbooks recently.
i spent the summer paging through the likes of Emmanuel Carrére and Marcel Proust, so it only makes sense that i’m yearning for something a bit more digestible.
cookbooks are great because:
you don’t have to pick up where you left off
you still learn something new
easy on the eyes
recently, i’ve been tucking into Sophie Gordon’s The Whole Vegetable. between it’s hardcover lies an in-depth guide to seasonal cooking, and how one can change the fate of onion skins, broccoli cores, and carrot tops alike into something other than compost.
equal parts inspired and motivated to embark on this new zero-waste way of cooking, i took myself and my cookbook to the farmers market. i spent the tram ride there bookmarking and photographing recipes that piqued my interest, to prepare myself for the culinary delights to come.
by the time the tram slinked into frankfurter tor, i had decided on two recipes, with wiggle room for a third (spoiler alert, the zucchini salad didn’t make the cut).
i returned home with a grumbling stomach and shoulders sore under the weight of my bounty. i put some bossanova on, got out my jar of cornichons (naturally), propped the cookbook up against the air fryer, and got to cooking.
the two dishes i planned to make were: “pan-fried Sri Lankan green beans and shallots” (144) and “jersey royals - straight up, parsley, garlic, tarragon” (112). with summer coming to a close, both dishes seemed like a pleasant way to bid farewell to the season.
tackling the potatoes first, the recipe called for first boiling and then baking them whole to completion. eleven minutes later, the potatoes were boiled and dressed to the nines in garlic, parsley, and flakey salt (discarded skins and stems already settled into a tupperware to then be made into stock for another day).
as the oven beeped to signal pre-heation (not a real word), a lightbulb went off in my head.
next thing i know, i’m crushing the potatoes with the bottom of an empty kimchi jar. i can’t pinpoint what came over me, but for some reason, smashed potatoes sounded much more appealing than roasting them whole as the recipe intended.
it felt good to break the rules a little bit, but that’s the beauty of a cookbook. its recipes intend to guide, not dictate. baking, on the other hand, is a different story, but cooking invites creativity that can make any home cook have a Thomas Keller moment (TKM).
i went a little more off the rails when it came to cooking the beans. for starters, i used double the amount of garlic, triple the amount of ginger, and who knows how much more garam masala than what the recipe called for. a handful of walnuts also made a guest appearance, and i couldn’t help but top it all off with a fried egg.
i am by no means a chef of any kind. i have been known to burn brussels sprouts, under season soup, and even fall victim to food poisoning from my own cooking (underdone chicken, don’t ask).
but that’s the beauty of a cookbook — it plants the seed of creativity by making something daunting into something digestible. unlike building an ikea table, you can go off script and improvise a little bit. its all a part of the fun.
the smashed potatoes came out fluffy yet crispy, my beans were snappy yet sweating with flavour, and all i have to say is that this was a sunday well spent.
