Anna Jones - A Modern Way to Eat

All my friends, whether or not they are vegetarian, want to eat more simple, seasonal, vegetable-led food. As the number of vegetarians in the UK slowly creeps up, the number of people reducing the amount of meat in their diet is sky-rocketing. We all know that eating lots of meat may not be the best for our bodies or the planet. For me being vegetarian is easy and how I live; for you it might be different, a few nights a week without meat maybe. However it works for you, I think we all need some new ideas.

We are reaching a middle ground, bridging the gap between heavy cheese- and stodge-laden vegetarian restaurant offerings, and the nutrition-led green juice diets. We want the best of both worlds, mind-blowing flavour that does us good: a stacked-high burger that is super tasty but also healthy, a brownie that is devilishly chocolaty but boosts our energy too, a breakfast pancake that feels like pudding but is packed with nutrition.

But I also believe that eating should be joyful and as soon as rules, pressure and diets are linked in with eating we lose track of that joy. While I eat healthily almost always, I also feel strongly that eating is one part of our brilliantly fallible humanness. So there is a place for the odd too-good-to-pass-up chewy salted caramel brownie alongside a clean bowl of grains and greens.

I want to eat in a way that satisfies but leaves me feeling light and happy at the same time. Too much healthy food leaves me miserably hungry but equally I don’t like to rely on a lot of heavy carbs or dairy to fill the gaps. I use spice, texture, flavour and easy-eating grains to satisfy without heaviness.

So in this book I have tried to bring together a type of food where clean and healthy meets delicious, where sustainable meets affordable, where quick and easy meets hearty. These recipes will make you and the planet healthier; they will make you richer and won’t mean you need to spend hours in the kitchen. This is a new way of eating, the way I eat, the way my friends want to eat and, I believe, how we will all move towards eating in the future.

A change in how I cook

My cooking changed when I became vegetarian – all of a sudden I had to look at cooking in a completely different way. The building blocks that I had grown up with and the rules I had learnt as a chef didn’t quite fit any more. So the challenge to find new ways to add texture, interest and flavour to my food have meant using a new palate of ingredients and some new techniques in the kitchen.

I am led by the things that got me so excited about cooking in the first place. The haze of citrus oils spritzing off the skin of a freshly zested orange. The deep purple brilliance when you slice into an earthy beetroot. The warming scent of ginger and brown sugar baking into a crumble, the Willy Wonka magic of melting chocolate over a bain-marie, and so many more moments when my taste buds start dancing and my heart beats a little faster.

When I write a recipe or cobble something together for dinner I always have three things in the back of my mind that shape my cooking: how will this taste? How can I make it most interesting to eat by layering up the textures? And how can I make it look the most beautiful on the plate?

Taste for me is about making the most of the ingredient I am cooking. Sometimes that means a little scatter of Anglesey sea salt and nothing else. Other times it means balancing herbs, spices, sweet and sour, backing up the natural character of a deep dense caramelly piece of roasted squash with warming spices or spiking a tomato sauce with a hit of vinegar.

Textures are often forgotten in cooking but to me they are just as key to a good plate of food as flavour, particularly in vegetarian food. I think about how children respond to food – we are tuned into texture just as much as flavour. Toasted seeds tossed into a salad, charred, oil-drizzled bread next to a bowl of soup, the crunch of some peppery radishes inside a soft taco. It’s texture, just as much as flavour, that hits the taste buds and tells your brain that this is delicious and helps you to feel satisfied.

The beauty bit comes from my day job as a food stylist. For the last ten years I have been making food jump off the plate and getting you to want to eat what is on the page at that exact moment: the slick of chocolate drooling out of a chocolate fondant, the drops of water on a freshly washed leaf of the freshest, crispest salad, the melting cheese and crumble of perfect flaky pastry around the edge of a tart. I know that when I cook for friends the simplest salad put on a plate with a bit of thought, or an easy bowl of pasta topped with some bright herbs and a flash of red chilli, means we start eating before we’ve even got a fork in our hands. But even when I’m just making a quick breakfast or hurried lunch, I take a few extra seconds to make the food I have cooked the very best it can be.

My final consideration is a top note, a finishing touch. I almost always finish a plate with a final spoonful of something. A slick of yoghurt to top a chilli spiked dahl, a drizzle of quick herb oil on a bowl of chilli, some toasted hazelnuts strewn on a bowl of soup. To me, it’s these final considerations that set a good meal apart from a great plate of food. Usually the quickest thing to do, these finishing touches layer flavour, add colour and create a contrast of hot and cold. These top notes make food look more thought out, they give a final boost of taste and they make you look like a bloody good cook without really having done anything at all.

A new set of ingredients

As I started cooking in this lighter and healthier way I started to understand more and more the importance of variety. Using toasted nut butters in place of butter in cookies, coconut oil for buttering toast, and quinoa or millet in my morning porridge. Using an ingredient where it fits and tastes amazing, not solely for its nutrients, makes me push myself to step outside the reliable old recipes.

In my kitchen I look to more unusual, exciting and flavoursome ingredients to add depth and interest to my cooking. The spelt flour in my ginger and molasses cake adds structure and a deep toasted malty flavour and is naturally easier for us to digest. The almond milk in my morning coffee, which tastes incredible, boosts my protein intake for the day and provides the healthy fats my body needs. Or the coconut butter which I use to temper spices for curries, which can be taken to a higher heat than olive oil, making it perfect for releasing the flavour of the spices, with the added bonus of the subtle coconut flavour working beautifully in a south Indian dhal or a dosa potato cake.

That said, flavour, above anything else, informs my cooking, so if I think butter will do a better job I say so; if a cake needs a little sugar, I go for it. But on the whole I keep my recipes whole food focused.

I have, as much as possible, used different and interesting grains, as I believe that all these grains deserve a place in our diets and are often easier on our bodies. Just like fruit and veg, it’s important to vary the grains you eat too. Each grain has a different flavour and texture and provides your body with different sorts of vitamins and nutrients. Along with the rainbow of fresh produce in my fridge and fruit bowl, the bottom shelf in my kitchen, below the plates and platters, is a colourful spectrum of jars containing red quinoa, black rice, yellow millet, golden amaranth and dusky pearl barley. Alongside them are jars of good pasta and spelt bread flour too, but for those trying to eat less gluten, my recipes have suggestions and ideas for delicious ways to sidestep them, and the gluten they contain, if you prefer.