Vegetable Simple

Vegetable Simple: A Cookbook

by Eric Ripert
Genres: Food
Published on April 20, 2021
Pages: 256
Format: eARC

From one of the world's most renowned chefs, 110 essential recipes that bring out the beauty of vegetables, simply prepared.
Eric Ripert is the co-owner of the acclaimed restaurant Le Bernadin, and the winner of countless Michelin stars. He is well known for his exquisite, clean, seafood-centered cuisine, but now, in Vegetable Simple, he turns his singular culinary imagination to vegetables. Lately, Ripert has found himself reaching for vegetables as his main food source--and doing so, as is his habit, with great intent and care.
In the 110 recipes in this book, Ripert brings out their beauty; their earthiness, their nourishing qualities, and the many ways they can be prepared. From his sweet pea soup to his watermelon pizza, from his fava bean and mint salad to his mushroom Bolognese and his roasted carrots with harissa, Eric Ripert articulates a vision for vegetables that are prepared simply, without complex steps or ingredients, allowing their essential qualities to shine and their color and flavor to remain uncompromised. A gorgeous guide to the way we eat today.

One of my major complaints about eating out as a vegetarian is the lack of dishes based just on vegetables. A lot of times you go to a restaurant and the only vegetarian option will be something with a faux meat just standing in for the meat in their regular dish. Many of these dishes rely on the meat for flavor so when you take that it you end up with a bland, tasteless dish.

That’s why I was so excited to see this cookbook. I want recipes about vegetables. This cookbook came out of the realization that the author was cooking fish in minimalist ways to best show off the flavor of the fish. He decided to take that same approach with vegetables.

The recipes here are very simple. Each is designed to show off the ingredients at peak seasonality and flavor. There are several I would like to try. Watermelon pizza is similar to a watermelon and mint salad I make but arranged in pizza form. There is a apple dish slowly baked in caramel that sounds amazing. I want to try Flash-Cured Cucumbers and making my own Mushroom Consumee. There are simple ways to try some vegetables I don’t eat a lot that make me want to try them. Endives and bok choy get seasoned and grilled. Plantains get sauteed instead of fried.

The photography is also amazing. It isn’t the typical beauty shots of each finished dish. There are close ups of parts of the dish or portraits of the vegetables used. It is a beautiful book to flip through.