NEW YORK, April 29 — Before buying April Bloomfield’s new cookbook, “A Girl and Her Greens”, ask yourself these tough questions:
When roasting Brussels sprouts, do you turn over each sprout halfway through the cooking time — or do you turn a few of them, shake the rest around in the pan and hope for the best?
When a recipe calls for snipped herbs, do you sometimes chop them instead if you can’t find the kitchen shears?
Do you occasionally ignore instructions about peeling tomatoes and throw them in anyway?
If you answered “Yes” to any of the above, you may enjoy the charms of this book (published by Ecco), but know that if you take shortcuts, the food you make from it may be missing something.
Because what makes Bloomfield’s simple food so satisfying — both at her restaurants like the Breslin and the Spotted Pig, and in her previous book, “A Girl and Her Pig” — are its pinpoint-perfect textures, flavours and seasonings. There are no extra ingredients or unnecessary steps in her recipes, but she is unabashedly fussy about each component. Salt must be flaky; mint leaves must be torn at the last minute; mushrooms caps must be peeled.
She gives a can of tomatoes the same kind of scrutiny she’d give a whole lobe of foie gras: Each part must be closely examined, its tough bits trimmed off, and any substandard specimens discarded. The perfect ones are cut with precision.
Vegetarians take note: Though no foie gras appears in the book’s 100-odd recipes, there is a separate section of vegetable-centred dishes that include ingredients like pancetta and bone marrow; lardo and anchovies show up throughout. Often, she simply treats a vegetable as if it were meat. Braising a whole head of cauliflower in tomato and anchovies, as if making an Italian beef stew, produces a richly satisfying entree; whole carrots, like lamb chops, are seared over high heat to brown the exteriors before roasting turns them tender and succulent.
Bloomfield cooks from a place of profound hunger for good food. More specifically, Birmingham in northern England, where she grew up in the 1970s and ‘80s just as English food reached a low point. Her palate, she writes, was shaped by frozen vegetables, fried breakfasts and processed food like canned baked beans and fish-stick sandwiches on buttered white bread.
The childhood food she now remembers most fondly are the plain potatoes served in her school cafeteria; at least they were a fresh vegetable, freshly cooked, rather than microwaved, thawed or unwrapped. Her homage to that dish is a basic but stunningly good recipe, with the hot potatoes thickly glazed in butter and brightened with lemon, garlic, fresh mint and cracked black pepper. And her recipes for other dubious British classics, like boiled Brussels sprouts, mushrooms on toast and mashed peas, redeem them from the netherworld of overcooking.
She got her professional start at the carvery station at a local Holiday Inn and soon moved on to London, California and New York, receiving an immersion course in the cult of produce at places like Chez Panisse and the River Cafe in London. Her shock and wonder at the Mediterranean pleasures of fennel, broccoli raab, tomatoes and rosemary is alive in recipes like zucchini stewed with basil and a salad that combines raw and roasted fennel to great effect.
Up next from Bloomfield: “A Girl and Her Fish.”
Recipe: Boiled potatoes with butter and mint
Adapted from April Bloomfield, “A Girl and Her Greens” (Ecco)
Time: 30 minutes
Yield: 3 to 4 servings
1 pound small potatoes, like fingerlings or creamers, all about the same size
1 tablespoon flaky salt, like Maldon, or kosher salt
4 tablespoons/2 ounces cold unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
1 small garlic clove, finely grated or shaved
A 5-finger pinch of whole mint leaves, preferably black mint
1/2 lemon
Coarsely ground black pepper
1. In a medium pot, combine potatoes and salt. Add enough cold water to cover the potatoes by a generous 1/2 inch and set the pot over high heat. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a vigorous simmer. Cook potatoes just until tender and creamy inside, 10 to 25 minutes depending on size.
2. Reserving 1/4 cup cooking liquid, gently drain the potatoes and return them to the stove. Add butter, garlic and reserved cooking liquid to the pot and set over medium heat. Bring to a simmer and cook, swirling the pan and basting as needed so that the liquid coats the potatoes until they are well glazed, about 5 minutes.
3. Tear the mint leaves into small pieces, stir very gently and take the pot off the heat. Squeeze on just enough lemon to add brightness, not sourness; taste as you go. Add salt and pepper to taste and serve immediately.
Recipe: Whole pot-roasted cauliflower with tomatoes and anchovies
Adapted from April Bloomfield, “A Girl and Her Greens” (Ecco)
Time: About 1 hour 15 minutes
Yield: 6 servings as a side dish, 4 as an entree
1 head cauliflower (about 2 pounds), white, green or Romanesco
5 tablespoons olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
3 medium garlic cloves, thinly sliced
3 whole salt-packed anchovies, rinsed and filleted, or 5 to 6 anchovy fillets
3/4 teaspoon finely chopped rosemary leaves
1 1/2 cups drained whole canned tomatoes, trimmed of hard and unripe bits, diced
1/4 cup dry white wine, plus extra for cooking
3 dried pequin chillies, or 3 large pinches red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon flaky salt, like Maldon, or kosher salt
1. Position a rack in the centre of the oven and heat to 450° degrees.
2. Trim any wilted leaves and brown bits off the cauliflower, but leave healthy leaves. Put the cauliflower on its side on a cutting board. As if coring a tomato, core the base of the cauliflower: Insert a small sharp knife about 1 inch into the base of the stem, make a circular cut to loosen the cone-shaped core, then pry it out and discard.
3. In a deep, heavy ovenproof pot (with a lid), large enough to hold the whole cauliflower, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the cauliflower cored side up; it should sizzle. Brown the exterior, turning it occasionally with tongs for even browning. This should take about 5 minutes; reduce the heat as needed to prevent scorching. Carefully turn over and brown the other side lightly, about 2 minutes.
4. Remove the cauliflower to a plate and add garlic, anchovies and rosemary to the pot. Stir until garlic is golden, about 30 seconds. Add tomatoes, white wine, chillies and salt. Stir well and bring to a simmer. Return cauliflower to pot, cored side down. Baste with the tomato liquid and pile some of the solids on top. Simmer, uncovered, 5 minutes to thicken the tomatoes.
5. Cover the pot, place in the oven and roast until tender, 30 to 45 minutes; a knife will go into the thick stems with almost no resistance. Check on the tomato sauce every 10 minutes or so; it should be punchy and intense but not too thick, so add a glug of wine if it seems to be getting too dry.
6. Transfer the cauliflower head to a serving plate or shallow bowl and cut in half, quarters or thick slices. Spoon on all the tasty stuff left in the pot. Add a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of herbs. Serve immediately or at room temperature, passing salt and red pepper flakes at the table. — Julia Moskin/The New York Times
