Cook Book Club: 23 July

The theme this month seemed easy: go to your bookshelf, pick out the cookbook you most recently purchased (or borrowed), cook something from it and tell us about it. Oh that is easy I thought… it is Samin Nosrat’s latest book Good Things, and as I had not made anything from it, thought this would be a good opportunity to do so. I started browsing and realised why I had not made anything from it: apart from meatballs, which I make anyway and these were not different enough, nothing else either appealed or was do-able. For example, a 4.5 to 5 hours cooking time ‘lazy sugo’ made from bone in pork shoulder and beef shine or containing hard to get/impossible to find ingredients. Our shops and pantries may have been Ottolenghi-fied with preserved lemons, pomegranate molasses and rose harissa but that doesn’t mean chipotle peppers in adobo sauce are easy to find.

So I had another thought, and wondered if actually the last book I bought was Alison Roman’s Something for Nothing which I have used before. It is winter here, so something suitable for the season was necessary.

There were parsnips, carrots, potatoes and an old fennel bulb in the fridge, and as potatoes can always go along other things, I focussed on the other three ingredients.

Nosrat features at various points in her books various matrices such as this one for roasted vegetables. Of course, roasting veggies is nothing new, but sometimes you can get a different combination or new ideas. Well, I ended up doing my usual of roasted parsnips, adding in the fennel bulb, and some black garlic honey like I would usually, but I might turn to her ideas on another occasion.

Roman offered up this spiced, butter roasted carrots with walnuts, which at least was a little different and also tasted excellent. I used regular carrots, sliced into rounds, since that is what I had. Preheat the oven to 220C or 200C fan. Toss the carrots, coarsely chopped walnuts and olive oil together on a baking tray. Add a little cinnamon, coriander (1/4 teaspoon for 450g carrots), chilli flakes and fennel seats and toss to coat. Scatter with butter, and cook until tender and browned, about 35 minutes or so.

We enjoyed our roasted roots with chicken and potatoes and a good glass of merlot. A perfect Sunday dinner.

Verdict? Well, roasting vegetables is something I do anyway, but I did like Alison Roman’s carrots and Samin Nosrat’s table is good inspiration.

Next month’s theme? Bread. Check out Brookford Kitchen Diaries for details and where this theme is moving to.

Thistles and Kiwis is a Wellington, New Zealand based blog written by Barbara, who likes cats, summer and good food. Thistles and Kiwis can be found on Facebook and Instagram @thistlesandkiwis