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

About the Book

Vegetable small plates are the very heart of this mouth-watering debut book from Rob Howell. With a focus on sustainability and using the very best of ingredients, Rob showcases over 100 recipes from the award-wining Bristol waterfront restaurant for you to mix and match at home, creating greedy feasts for family and friends – or even just for yourself!

Although not central to the book, meat and fish recipes abound to satisfy even the hungriest of carnivores, and the desserts are not to be missed. There is something for everyone within these pages. Recipes include:
Welsh rarebit toasts
Buttermilk fried celeriac
Cauliflower bhajis with cashew butter and pickled orange
Tempura spring onions with sweet chilli sauce and peanut crumb
Chicken schnitzel with sauerkraut
Spiced monkfish tail with 3 sauces
Doughnuts with carrot jam
and Sherry panna cotta

With stunning photography to accompany every dish, this is a cookbook to be devoured at once, and then read and cooked from time and time again.

Table of Contents:

Foreword by Josh Eggleton
Introduction
Snacks
Cheese
Vegetables
Meat, fish and shellfish
Desserts
Index
About the author

About the Author :

Rob Howell is the head chef at Root, a veg-centric restaurant housed in two shipping containers which opened in Bristol’s Wapping Wharf in 2017. Rob was previously head chef at Josh Eggleton’s award-winning pub, The Pony & Trap, winning a Michelin star in 2011. Previously he worked at Ondine in Edinburgh and Goodfellows in Wells, as well as completing stages at Studio in Copenhagen, Elystan Street in London under Phil Howard and at Restaurant Nathan Outlaw in Port Isaac.
In the 2018 Restaurant Magazine Restaurant Awards, Root burst onto the scene at number 57 in the listing of the best restaurants in the UK.

@RootBristol / @robjhowell

Review :
For a long time, the vegetable has been seen as the accompaniment but in this book, beautifully written and put together by Rob Howell, it rightly gains its position as being the centrepiece. Beautiful cookery, fantastic ingredients with a bit of chef technique for everybody to do at home. Rob Howell has the omnivore’s balance just right – leading with seasonal plants, with a bit of well-chosen meat and fish ‘for special’. And he knows a thing or two about making them all delicious. Playful, inventive, interesting and, most importantly, delicious. I feel so lucky to have an insight into all-things Root and be able to cook Rob Howell’s food at home. So good to see a young cook writing a very inspiring first book. I want to eat the food off the pages; they’re just such delicious recipes. Fantastic recipes using the very best of ingredients, this book is a stunning celebration of vegetables. Congratulations, Chef. This fabulous restaurant is the best of modern British cooking and in its own, laid-back, unshowy way, provides further proof of just how far British food and cooking has come in the past ten years. Much to be proud of. And proof, in these strange and uncertain times, of the ever-unifying power of serious good food [Rob] transforms his restaurant favourites into simple home dishes that can be completely vegan or vegetarian if you want to tweak them... And while there are plenty of very tasty, utterly healthy dishes to be found, there is also an entire chapter dedicated to cheese. You’ll never have vegetables as just a side dish again... Selecting just three recipes out of over 100 glorious feasts for family and friends was hard (the desserts are not to be missed), but let these tasters at least begin to change your mind about the humble veg... British cuisine isn’t all about ‘meat and two veg’. Rob Howell shows how to create a simple but delicious spring feast starring the UK’s seasonal vegetables. [Rob] does veg beautifully, imbuing humble green things with delicacy, panache and intrigue. A beautifully shot recipe book with the kind of imaginative and just-cheffy-enough recipes that will appeal... Vegetable-led recipes are to the fore, while there are meat and fish supporting acts on display too. It makes me want to head to Howell’s restaurant Root ASAP.