Week 19: Vegetables For One

The book: The Microwave Gourmet (Barbara Kafka)

The recipe: p277, "Vegetables For One"

Barbara Kafka is trying to ruin my life. It's the only possible explanation.

This week in Randomville, we make a regrettably swift return to The Microwave Gourmet, where any hopes of encountering something more tangible than Apple Butter are duly stomped on. Page 277 is the first page of a section entitled "Main Course Vegetables". As Babs herself puts it: "It isn't just vegetarians who from time to time relish making a meal out of vegetables." Hard to argue with that, right? And having just got back from a holiday where my diet consisted primarily of crisps, Cruzcampo Sin and Smash, the prospect of something fresh and healthy is a fairly enticing one.

What's more debatable is her definition of the word "meal".

I say that because this week's random pick is a dish called "Vegetables For One". Not even How To Boil An Egg would dare to come up with so demoralising a name. It conjures up visions of frozen ready meals placed on the Iceland checkout belt as, defeated in life, you try your hardest not to make eye contact with anyone around you.

Good start, then. On closer inspection, however, "Vegetables For One" turns out to be a culinary revelation, combining tasty produce with a unique... oh wait, no, it's just a load of vegetables microwaved for five minutes.

 

I'm not even kidding. The "recipe" (I use the word loosely) requires you to prepare and assemble assorted vegetables of your choice in a microwave-friendly dish, top them with assorted herbs of your choice, then zap them for five minutes on high. And that's basically it. Even the dots of butter are "optional".

And Barbara Kafka has the nerve to call this a main course. "Vegetables For One". Served with a garnish of salty, anguished tears.

*sigh* Fine. The random gods have spoken. Let's do this, I suppose.

The prep: The feng shui-like simplicity of "Vegetables For One" would obviously be compromised by anything as useful as a list of actual ingredients, so I'm left to interpret the "assorted vegetables" as I please. In her defence, Barbara does add a footnote about which vegetables are "slower-cooking" (carrots, green beans, red cabbage, broccoli florets, cauliflower florets, peas, mange-touts, cherry tomatoes) and which are "quick-cooking" (asparagus, red onions or spring onions, mushrooms, courgettes, red and green peppers). Not that that narrows it down much. We're talking about some very different flavours here.

Still, with our pretentious organic veg box delivery having arrived the same morning, I have no shortage of options, so I decide to go with some celery, red pepper, Swiss chard, carrots and mushrooms. Should be a tasty enough combination.

Similarly, Barbara offers very little guidance when it comes to the seasoning, satisfying herself with "2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh herbs, such as basil, chives, dill, parsley or tarragon". Again, those are not the same thing, Barbara. Using chives is going to give you a pretty different outcome to the one you'd get from a Scandinavian suffision of dill. I'm starting to think the author might not have my best interests at heart here. Regardless, I go with basil and parsley, mainly because they're among the few things Lewisham Sainsbury's hasn't run out of by the time I get there just before closing.

The making: The "trimmed, peeled and sliced" vegetables are arranged in a pie dish "with slower-cooking vegetables towards the outside". The chopped herbs are scattered across the top, salt and pepper are added and - because I'm feeling especially daring - the whole thing is garnished with the "optional" dots of unsalted butter.

The dish is then tightly wrapped in microwave cling film and cooked on full power for five minutes. On establishing that this hasn't really achieved much on the "cooking" front, I blast it for another two minutes. Then another two minutes. Then I give up. This is evidently how it's supposed to be, and who am I to argue?

Let's play a little game of spot the difference. Here's "Vegetables For One" before being cooked:

 
Here it is after being cooked:

And here it is, lovingly plated up:

Nope, me neither.

I had been naïvely wondering if the microwaving process would release some kind of magic, but it really is just some undercooked vegetables and herbs on a plate. Swimming in some watery butter.

I am fucking furious with you right now, Barbara.

The eating: Here's another thing I find particularly bizarre about this "recipe": there's no serving suggestion. At no point are we told that these underwhelming vegetables might go well with rice, or pasta, or even some crusty bread. It seems like we're just expected to eat them as is. So I do. Where this cookbook is concerned, I'm determined to take things as literally as possible, because it deserves nothing more.

Quoth Babs: "There is no simpler way to satisfy a craving for a dish of crunchy, assorted fresh vegetables, with absolutely no work involved."

Well, you could try not microwaving them in the first place, for all the difference it makes. And of course "Vegetables For One" is simple, because this isn't even a recipe.  

IT'S JUST SOME BUTTERED, SLIGHTLY SOFTENED VEGETABLES ON A PLATE. 

I mean, it's quite nice to eat, because the vegetables were nice in the first place, and I suppose it's weirdly reassuring to know that I can use the microwave to quickly make an inferior version of a side dish masquerading as a main course. But really, why is this even a thing? Barbara might as well have written "if you have any vegetables, blast them for about five minutes on full power then see if they're done or not". Even with the most generous of interpretations, this is a cooking tip, not a recipe. I am utterly bemused.

The front cover of my edition of The Microwave Gourmet features a quote from Jane Grigson describing it as "an extraordinary, comprehensive book". I'm only now starting to realise that "extraordinary" doesn't have to be a compliment.

One-word verdict: Vegetables...?