Hugo Arnold finds inspiration for autumn's crop of root vegetables, pumpkins, leeks and mushrooms in Denis Cotter's latest cookery book
Being seasonally driven is something many of us pay lip service to. In recent months it has been easy, as summer food demands speedy cooking over a barbecue - or, in many cases, no cooking at all, as we dine on salads and fresh fruit. Now it is time to shift down a gear, to follow the season that gives us leeks, pumpkins, glorious root vegetables, mushrooms and nuts.
Denis Cotter is a man wedded to vegetables. He is not so keen on the vegetarian label, preferring to describe himself as a cook who works with vegetables rather than meat. A distinction between cuisine végétale and vegetarian cookery. His book A Paradiso Year: Autumn and Winter Cooking (a companion to Spring and Summer Cooking) takes autumn as its starting point because, as Cotter points out, "some of my favourite vegetables come along in the next few months". Leeks and pumpkins are his bedrock, but he also highlights the change in approach the new season brings. "The chance to put away the salad tongs and get out some serious pots and pans. Buy some cream, even. Do a little reducing."
Cotter's approach is inspirational. It starts and ends with ingredients, his philosophy being to enhance and embrace rather than to embellish. Alain Passard, the French chef who shocked his meat-loving countrymen several years ago by refusing to cook red meat and largely ignored most other animal proteins in favour of vegetables, focuses on what happens in the ground. This means paying attention to soil, aspect and variety of plant, as well as providing plenty of care and, ultimately, love. As Passard says: "One sincere action from the garden is worth six skilled actions in the kitchen."
Cotter puts it slightly differently. "Work with the foods of the season, because they are your best chance of making really pleasurable food at that moment." How many of us struggle to cook supper only to be disappointed that there really isn't quite enough oomph. Or something looks fine but doesn't taste quite as we feel it should.
Two final important points Cotter makes, at the end of his introduction to Autumn and Winter Cooking, cover the need to support good vegetables with other good ingredients, such as flours, oils, vinegars, cheeses and grains. If these are not of equal standing, the whole process is likely to fail. And his parting words of wisdom, so often overlooked: "Two of the greatest sins in vegetable cooking are using random combinations of 'mixed veg', and careless cutting." How a vegetable is cut determines how it will behave in a dish. A thinly sliced carrot is suitable for a stir-fry but not for roasting.
A Paradiso Year: Autumn and Winter Cooking by Denis Cotter is published by Atrium/Cork University Press, €19.95