Root: Small vegetable plates, a little meat on the side

For

Mum and Dad who together showed me

what is important in life.

Megan Oakley Howell

my best friend and wife.

My beautiful daughter Amelie.

Foreword by

Josh Eggleton

A foreword of sorts, a small story and a love letter...

Before we start the story, I first want to say that Root the restaurant belongs to Rob and Meg and would not exist, or be what it is, without them. They are its soul and beating heart and it gives me great pleasure to be asked to write this foreword.

Can I call them my protégés? It feels weird to me, but I guess they are. They are one of the most important parts of our restaurant and hospitality family. We have been working together for ten years. They both started at the Pony & Trap and showed great promise from day dot. We slogged it out there together for years and also went on to cook as guests in restaurants all over the UK and further afield. We found ourselves in huge pop up restaurants and food festivals. Most importantly we ate and drank together in pursuit of the perfect meal.

The eventual culmination of all of these food experiences was Root the restaurant – a simple concept, an idea I dreamt up driving to work one day. But more on that later.

Life in this restaurant is created from Rob and Meg’s experiences. They have the given knack to create perfect hospitality from within our quirky little sea container restaurant on the Bristol dockside. And all of us have learnt a great deal from their example. It is a great feeling to know that we are learning together and from each other in our kitchen classroom.

I guess in reality Root was borne out of a failure on my part. We had opened Chicken Shed – with everything we do we try to project a subtle message! The thinking behind Chicken Shed was cooking sustainable organic, high welfare chicken, using the whole bird with no waste. I love fried chicken but wanted to do it properly. It turned out that our supply of good fried chicken generally did not come from a high welfare bird – the legs had done far too much work. So, being unable to maintain a constant supply of the right standard of chicken combined with a struggle to maintain enthusiasm amongst the staff, maintaining customer interest and controlling the quality of the food led to something having to change. And having to change fast!

One day it hit me. All this chicken was crazy, maybe we all eat too much meat. I hardly eat meat at home so what were we doing in this business? So, we decided to open a restaurant with vegetables as the star of the show, with a small amount of protein on the side as an option. I wrote one menu and showed it to Rob. First thing he said was, can I change this? Of course, you can! Was it my opening menu? Was it hell? It was it littered with our DNA? Yes, of course, but now it had its own.

We told no one we were going to change from Chicken Shed to Root. We finished one Saturday evening and spent two and half days decorating and changing the logos and opened the following Tuesday evening. Everyone showed up for chicken, but we only had vegetables.

It’s fair to say the business exploded. I’ve cooked in Bristol for 20 years and have never seen that happen – and the amazing standards only ever get better.

The recipes in this book are a reflection of Rob’s life work and I’m so proud to have been a part of it. This will be a book for life and will cement itself into one of the classics. You will be able to use the recipes over and over or just simply learn some of the simple preparations that bring the dishes together. It is a great education in how to get maximum flavour out of vegetables. In my opinion vegetables taste better than anything else – you just need to know how to cook them. Root will show you how.

I have been lucky enough to have had people around me throughout my life who have made food a joy.

Growing up, my sister, brother and I enjoyed delicious home-cooked meals which were eaten as a family around the kitchen table every night. At weekends, wonderful roast dinners were placed before us to enjoy and relish. Looking back, I really don’t know how mum did it!

Our annual summer holidays were spent in the north of France. Though very young, perhaps five or six, I can clearly remember the wonderful time spent visiting the local shops for special treats and shopping at the supermarché gathering provisions for the days ahead. I was fast becoming fascinated by the many exotic local delicacies of Normandy and Brittany; the amazing cuts of meat in the butcher, the glistening shellfish at the dockside, the snapping of the crabs and lobsters in the fishmonger and the preparation of the freshly caught wriggling eels. Waiting for July to come around, to get back on that ferry across the channel, each year more special than the last with another regional delicacy on our minds. But my culinary fascinations had their limits at that age and so I tended to play it safe with an endless supply of filled baguettes!

At the age of 14 I started working in a local restaurant on Friday and Saturday evenings and for Sunday lunch, plating starters and desserts. After leaving school I went to catering collage for a year and then secured a full time job under chef Adam Fellows at Goodfellows. My first year was spent helping in the patisserie section alongside the talented Gunther Repper. I started my working day at 5am and finished in the afternoon, making everything from pastries to bread, operas to lemon tarts – and I loved it. I then moved over to the fish section in the small open kitchen, working alongside Adam Fellows and Adam Dwyer. To this day I still have the little the notebook in which I would write up the recipes and plan our menus.

After two years at Goodfellows I took myself off to London to work under French chef Pascal Proyart. My six-month spell under Proyart taught me not only about life in a full-on professional kitchen but also about full-on life! Working in a brigade of 12 chefs, most of whom were at least ten years older than me, was tough and challenging but ultimately rewarding. The passion the guys showed and the sheer hard work they put in was inspiring. I once watched three of the Italian chefs cooking a staff dinner with just a few fish scraps – they made a wonderful fresh pasta with a sauce of olive oil, chilli, garlic and red mullet off cuts. Watching them make the pasta and then using the pasta water to make an emulsion was a revelation. It was one of the best dishes I had ever tasted, and I remember thinking that this was proper cooking and that I really needed to learn how to become a proper cook. And so I went to France to work in a hotel kitchen in the French Alps for a season.

With my six-month stage in France over, I headed back to the UK and got myself a job in Edinburgh to work for another legendary chef, Roy Brett at Ondine. In Roy’s kitchen I became a real chef, confident and creative. I learned the importance of using the freshest of ingredients and how simplicity is the best friend to flavour. The passion and dedication of everyone in the restaurant was inspiring. The ability and the luxury to use the very best Scottish produce was a thrill. As young chefs we would spend all of our time cooking at work together and then cooking and eating at home together. I made friends at Ondine to last a lifetime.

I loved Edinburgh, Ondine, my friends and my social life, but I missed home and my family. Though growing up not far from Bristol, I was relatively unfamiliar with the city. I had heard of a pub just outside Bristol winning a Michelin star so I made contact asking if there might be a job going. They said there was and so two weeks later I was back living with my parents and working at the legendary Pony & Trap as a junior sous chef.

Working at the Pony & Trap for six years alongside owner and chef Josh Eggleton made me the chef I am today. At the age of 21, I became Head Chef, retaining the Michelin star which is held to this day. I made many friends there and learned cooking skills that would last a lifetime. It was also where I met my beautiful wife Megan.

While in Bristol I also got the chance to work at the outstanding Ethicurean. The Ethicurean Restaurant is tucked away in a Victorian walled garden with the most amazing views of the Mendip Hills. The Pennington brothers are serving modern British food in a beautiful location with a forward-thinking ethical approach. Watching the seasons come and go right in front of your eyes, and seeing the amount of work and care Mark the gardener put into growing produce, gave me a new-found respect for growers, producers and the vegetables themselves. Working alongside Matthew, Iain, Rich and Billy I was taught a whole new approach to cooking and preserving, and what a game changer it was.

This is the culinary journey which took me from family meals around our kitchen table to Head Chef at Root in Bristol, working hand in hand with Megan.

The idea that one day I would write a cookbook and that it would be published was nothing more than a distant dream. The dream is now a reality and if my book can get others to cook alongside friends and loved ones as I used to with my mum, and if new food horizons are discovered then I will feel that a job has been well done.

Happy cooking!

Root & the

Root cookbook

As I write this in the summer of 2020, Root has been open for a little over three years. We opened with the mission of creating a vegetable-led restaurant, neither vegan nor vegetarian, that would include on the menu a little fish, game and meat but with the explicit and stated aim of cooking vegetables brilliantly and making them the star of our new culinary show. This is the book of our show and it is a record of our recipes. Many of the dishes happen to be vegan or can be made vegan with simple adjustments. There is some meat and fish in here and, of course, desserts, but mostly vegetables.

The cooking at Root has become more pared down over the years. Perhaps not surprising given that Root is a restaurant based in a shipping container! We have two induction hobs, a fryer, a chargrill and an old oven. It is in essence a domestic kitchen. We usually only have two or three elements on the plate – the direct result of using just a few excellent ingredients and cooking them with minimal equipment in our minimalist kitchen in order to create something completely delicious. And so it is that the recipes in this book require no fancy kitchen gadgets or ‘chef’s toys’; they are simple to make, easy to assemble and wonderful to eat. These are the dishes that have been on our menu since opening and which have become firm favourites with our customers.

Food brings people together and is a constant joy. The recipes in this book will, I hope, open minds to the wonders of a vegetable-led diet, packed with wonderful flavours, and also help change people’s thinking about how best to eat our way through life. Indeed, there are few things you really need for a life well lived but good food is definitely one of them.

Seasonality

In this day and age, it is so easy to talk about seasonality and sustainability but less easy to practise it, especially when confronted by the shelves in your local supermarket where everything is available all the year round, shiny, pristine and perfect. Why would you not eat asparagus from January through to December? Yet once you start eating with the focus on supporting local producers, farmers, markets and grocers, you will soon discover the deep benefits of adhering to the seasons. Put simply, everything tastes better when in season. And yes, you will discover that there is nothing better than the first asparagus of the year, the early British tomatoes and the broad beans of high summer.

Cooking with the seasons allows vegetables to be showcased at their best. Winter calls for heavier heartier meals built around root vegetables perhaps. Spring brings fresh green vegetables to the table while summer displays all the colours in the rainbow and more. Autumn heralds mushrooms, berries and fruits, and then the year starts again and with it the glories of another round of wonderful seasonal produce to enjoy.

Seasonal favourites

to look out for

All year round

Beetroot

Cabbages

Carrots

Cauliflower

Celeriac

Garlic

Leeks

Mushrooms (either wild or cultivated)

Radishes

Winter

Apples and pears

Sprouts

Chestnuts

Jerusalem artichokes

Kale

Parsnips

Forced rhubarb

Salsify

Swede

Turnips

Spring

Asparagus

Broccoli

Elderflower

Kohl rabi

New potatoes

Spring onions

Watercress

Wild garlic

Summer

Aubergines

Summer berries

Brand beans

Courgettes

Cucumber

Peas

Salad leaves

Sweetcorn

Tomatoes

Autumn

Blackberries/brambles

Plums

Quince

Squashes and pumpkins

Leeks

Produce

Produce is all about quality, quality, quality. Fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, game, dairy, spices, vinegars, oils. Though you will spend a little more in your search for excellence, the extra expense will prove well worth it. Down in the West Country we are blessed with being surrounded by so many amazingly passionate growers and producers. My mantra is a simple one – buy little and buy often and get to know your producers so that you can discover that extraordinary something that makes their produce so special. Follow this simple rule and you will make food friends for life!

Seasoning

Season, season and then check the seasoning again. You can follow a recipe to the last letter but without due care and attention to seasoning your dish will always fall short. I remember when, as a young chef in the kitchen on a busy Saturday night, the Head Chef came over and asked me, ‘Is it seasoned?’ ‘Well, I put a pinch of salt and pepper in it so yes chef.’ He tasted it and shouted at me ‘No it’s not!’ The lesson learned was a simple one – the more often you taste your food when cooking, the more quickly you will learn about how to season and how to bring out all the wonderful flavours in the dish.

It took me a while into my professional career before I fully understood that seasoning didn’t just mean salt and pepper, but also fat, acid and heat. Balancing the seasoning of a dish – sweet, spicy, sour, creamy, salty is crucial to the overall success of a dish. Learn to season and you will have learned how to cook!

These delicious little vegetable snacks are simple to make and great all the year round. When frying be sure to have a selection of sizes as the little crispy parts are always the best. I have used regular flour here, but it will work just as well with gluten-free flour.

Vegetable bhajis

WITH CASHEW BUTTER & PICKLED ORANGE

MAKES 24

FOR THE CASHEW BUTTER

200g cashews

FOR THE PICKLED ORANGE

1 orange, peeled and segmented

pickle liquid

mint sprigs, to garnish

FOR THE BHAJIS

1 large cauliflower, leaves discarded and broken into florets

2 banana shallots, thinly sliced lengthways

4 spring onions, thinly sliced

2 carrots, peeled and grated

1 bunch of coriander, finely chopped

100g self-raising flour

220g plain flour

2 teaspoons cumin seeds

1 teaspoon chilli powder

½ teaspoon paprika

½ teaspoon ground coriander

2 teaspoons ground turmeric

2 teaspoons onion seeds

cooking oil, for frying

salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat the oven to 180ºC/160ºC fan/Gas Mark 4. Tip the cashews into a baking tray and roast for 15 minutes, giving them a shake halfway through cooking, until golden brown. Allow to cool.

To make the cashew butter, blend the roasted cashews in a food processor, adding a small amount of water at a time until you have a smooth paste. Season to taste and keep in a plastic container or piping bag until needed. (You might need to scale up the recipe to give you a quantity that will blend until smooth. The extra butter will keep in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days – it is delicious on toast or used as a dip.)

To pickle the orange, place the segments in a bowl or container and cover with pickle liquid. Set aside.

For the bhajis, using a mandolin slice the