Twelve ingredients to amp up your vegetables

Most of us want to add more vegetables to our diet, but it’s easy to fall into a rut and end up bored by the same old recipes. Peter Meehan sets out to change that paradigm in his latest cookbook, Lucky Peach Presents Power Vegetables! You can read an excerpt from the book on the Lucky Peach website, in which Meehan lists a dozen ingredients guaranteed to “supercharge your vegetable cooking“.

First on the list is an ingredient you probably have in your cupboard: bread crumbs. While they are a humble ingredient, Meehan says that the process that goes into making them adds “to the understated flavor and unheralded texture they give to a dish”. Garlic is another pantry staple on the list, and Meehan recommends that you “confit it” to provide a more subtle flavor.

Not all of the ingredients that Meehan suggests are likely to be hanging around in your kitchen. He recommends using asafetida, which offers umami as its selling point. The scent of the raw product may not be enjoyable, but Meehan assures us that the aroma is not the same flavor that comes through after cooking. Read about the other nine ingredients that can transform your vegetables over at the Lucky Peach website.