Don’t go pasta the vegetables
ELLA WALKER samples an Italian recipe book that’s all about celebrating vegetables
MILAN-BORN food writer Anna Del Conte is an institution in the world of cookery books. Nigella Lawson, for instance, is a huge fan.
Known for her simple, classic Italian approach to food and getting the best out of ingredients, she’s been writing and sharing recipes since her debut collection, Portrait Of Pasta in 1976. Vegetables All’Italiana by Anna Del Conte is not a book aimed at vegetarians (although they are well catered for, and most of the non-vegetarian recipes can be adapted). It features meat and fish; however, these snippets of guanciale, hunks of lamb and slippery fillets of anchovy are, at all times, there to enhance and amplify the veg, not obscure it.
So if you adore vegetables, and are flexible when it comes to animal products, it should work for you.
Anna wants us to get us cooking veg in line with the seasons, the crucial idea being to give your squashes, aubergines and peas “all the due reverence that they have in Italy”.
Most of the recipes use barely a handful of ingredients, and half of those you’re likely to already have in the cupboard (extra virgin olive oil is mandatory). And everything makes sense: Savoy cabbage stewed with sausages; baked asparagus wrapped in prosciutto; pumpkin gnocchi; fried courgette flowers – everything is gentle, achievable and not too time-guzzling.
The best recipes include the leeks baked with cream and cheese (super moreish), the grilled radicchio and chicory (very autumnal) but as an introduction might like to try the baked courgettes with mint and garlic.
■ Vegetables All’Italiana by Anna Del Conte, photography by Laura Edwards, is published by Pavilion Books, priced £20