ESSENTIALS

Mushrooms and herbs

If you’re fond of meat but want to cut down your intake, many mushrooms (notably gigantic field mushrooms) have a juicy, beefy quality that readily satisfies meat hankerings.

Golden chanterelles, delicate enoki, shaggy chestnuts and tasty porcini are just a few examples of the wide variety of mushrooms available, so celebrate the mushroom season and experiment. If culinary inspiration eludes you, just fry them in butter, garlic and herbs and enjoy them on toast. Heaven.

Herbs make cooking joyful, so treat them well. Robust rosemary, sage and bay leaves need time to meld with companions in the pot, so add them early in the cooking process. The tender likes of coriander (cilantro), parsley and basil go in at the end so their lovely oils don’t dissipate.

Vegetables and fruit

It’s easy to take these vegetarian staples for granted, but try not to. Tricky cooking and exotic varieties are not necessary — although I urge you to try the unfamiliar. Just buy seasonal, organic and ripe — and pause for thought if you’re inclined to cook on autopilot. You don’t have to steam them every time.

Have you tried sprinkling simple vegetables with toasted seeds or topping them with a knob of nut butter? It takes just moments to raise a dish from dull to delicious. And get to know your ingredients. Salad leaves have wildly different personalities that you can’t appreciate if you only know them as the contents of a plastic bag.

Soulful onion and her cousin, garlic, are kingpins of the vegetarian kitchen, and come into their own when cooked gently in oil or butter, slow roasted or sweated in a pan. Pots of this sweet onion ‘confit’ will keep in the refrigerator ready for use in other dishes, or can be enjoyed on bread with strong cheese.

Your kitchen armoury is also lacking without lemon. A spritz here or a shower of zest there can enliven, intensify or transform all manner of sweet and savoury dishes.

Legumes

These delicious pods — including beans, lentils, peanuts, peas and soya beans — range from creamy white and dappled pink through to vivid red and smoky grey, like nature’s own edible buttons and beads. Moreover, they’re low in fat, high in protein and rich in nutrients, especially Vitamin Bs, iron and calcium.

Cooking legumes isn’t onerous. Lentils and dried peas need no soaking. Pulses and beans do, for between 8 and 12 hours: just pour into a bowl of water before bedtime and they’ll be plump and ready to cook by morning. If you forget to soak them, cover with water and boil fiercely for a few minutes and set aside for 2 hours then cook as normal. Don’t bother salting the water – it toughens the skin.

Robust herbs and aromatic vegetables added to the cooking water will enhance any type of legume: then mash, purée, mould into patties or add to salads and casseroles as you wish. Slippery with flavoursome oil or flecked with herbs and spices, legumes also hold their own in the flavour stakes.

Nuts, seeds and oils

Nuts and seeds can be used in a range of culinary guises: toasted, ground, whole, sprouted, pressed into fragrant oil, whizzed into butter or transformed into milk. They can raise a dish from merely edible to one that sings with flavour, and add texture and depth of flavour to soups, casseroles and vegetables.

Nuts and seeds are tiny nutritional powerhouses: high in fibre, rich in nutrients and an excellent source of protein. The fat in nuts is now known to be largely mono or polyunsaturated – that’s the good stuff – so they find favour with nutritionists. In any event, only modest amounts are needed to impart substance to cooking.

Try using rich nut and seed oils in cold food or to anoint steamed vegetables, or add them to hot dishes at the eleventh hour so the piquancy is not destroyed by cooking. (Do give special oils a place of honour in a dark cupboard to preserve freshness.) Or, whizz up almonds, pecans, cashews, hazelnuts or macadamias into creamy nut ‘butters’. You can also blend various seeds to make mouth-tingling sprinkles.

Rice and grains

Rice and grains are comforting, economical, delicious and nutritious, as well as being the starting point for countless dishes and products as varied as wine, milk, pasta and noodles.

Know the basics and you can choose the most appropriate rice for your purpose. Thin and dainty long-grains stay separated after cooking and make fluffy beds for curries and sauces. Short- and medium-grains are plumper and starchier and stick together when cooked. Medium-grain rice is used in dishes like paella; short-grains makes creamy puddings and risottos.

Brown rice and wild rice (a misnomer, as it’s actually a grain) require more patience to cook than white rice, but the nutty, earthy flavours are worth the extra effort. Please forage in your health food shop and invite more of the unfamiliar grains into your kitchen: quinoa, amaranth, barley, burghul (bulgur)…

Decanting rice and grain into airtight containers is not just for those who like their cupboards neat: it helps prevent them going rancid. Remember that cooked rice or grain left at room temperature can encourage bacteria to multiply, so serve when just cooked or refrigerate within 1 hour of cooking.

Dairy and eggs

Milk, butter, cream, cheese and yoghurt are the cornerstone ingredients of desserts and baking, but also have a special place in vegetarian kitchens. A swirl of cream in soup, a gloss-inducing knob of butter in sauce, or parings of salty cheese on salad leaves: these add richness to food that might be otherwise underwhelming. A globe of burrata or oven-baked ricotta cheese will never leave a carnivore feeling deprived.

There are so many options. Some cheeses are divine eaten raw, others are meltingly transformed by heat. Yoghurt can evolve into cheese such as labne: made in a muslin mould, it emerges striated with markings and is beautiful to behold as well as eat. Some ingredients in this book, such as parmesan, are made from animal rennet, but alternatives suitable for vegetarians are readily available, so substitute if you wish.

Eggs add substance to a non-meat meal because they’re packed with protein and are therefore filling. But they are sensitive to heat and can be tricky to cook. The key is not to overcook them. For the best flavour, sunniest yolks and thickest whites, opt for free-range and organic eggs when possible.