Anna Jones’s recipes are, for me, the culinary equivalent of a pair of faded vintage Levi’s or a biscuit-colored cashmere jumper—endlessly adaptable staples I turn to again and again and know, without question, will make me feel good. The dishes in her new cookbook, Easy Wins, are no exception; each of its 12 chapters is themed around a basic pantry item that overdelivers on flavor, from capers to tahini, miso to vinegar, with the majority of the recipes simple enough to whip up on a rainy Tuesday evening when your mental battery levels are hovering at 2 percent yet impressive enough to serve on a Summerill Bishop-draped table at your next dinner party.
“This book was written during an intense and busy time in my life,” Jones tells Vogue now. “I wrote the recipes while I was pregnant after many rounds of IVF, then I had the baby and put the book together and shot all the pictures with a little one at my feet. The recipes reflect [where I was in my life while working on the cookbook]. [Right now] I want [to make] unreasonably delicious food without too much fuss—basically, knock-out meals in just 20 or 30 minutes.”
Below, find three of her personal favorites from Easy Wins.
One-Pot Pasta Al Limone
Pasta al limone. I can’t think of a plate of food that shines a light on lemon flavor in quite the same way. Pasta, lemon, and Parmesan come together in alchemy to create something worthy of any table.
I tested out a lot of pasta al limone recipes before I landed here. Some had cream, some had finely chopped lemon but none came close to the creaminess of this one and none were as easy. The one-pan method (where you cook the pasta and sauce in one pan) was made for pasta al limone. The starchy water it creates is exactly what is needed to thicken the lemony sauce and coat the pasta. I like to keep this pretty simple. I have suggested some basil as an option at the end, but these lemony noodles are enough on their own and a true pantry pasta. If you like, you could add some greens or even stir through some warmed cannellini beans.
Serves 4
- 400g spaghetti or linguine
- 2 large unwaxed lemons
- 1 clove of garlic, peeled and bashed but kept whole
- 100ml olive oil
- 1 teaspoon flaky sea salt
- 50g salted butter or vegan butter
- 40g Parmesan or vegan Parmesan-style cheese (I use a vegetarian one), grated
- ½ a bunch of basil (15g), leaves picked and torn (optional)
Fill the pasta pan
Put 400g spaghetti or linguine into a large lidded saucepan. Grate in the zest of 2 large unwaxed lemons and add 1 clove of garlic, peeled and bashed but kept whole, 100ml olive oil and 1 teaspoon flaky sea salt.
Add water and cook
Add 1 liter boiling water, cover with a lid, and bring to the boil. As soon as it boils, remove the lid and simmer for 8 minutes, using a pair of tongs to turn the pasta in the thickening pasta water every 30 seconds or so as it cooks.
Add the lemon juice
Once the pasta has had 8 minutes, squeeze in the juice of one of the zested lemons and simmer for a final 2 minutes with the lid off.
Finish the pasta
Once almost all the water has evaporated, take the pan off the heat, stir in 50g salted butter or vegan butter and 20g grated Parmesan or vegan Parmesan-style cheese and leave to sit for a minute or two, so the pasta can absorb most of the remaining water and form a lemony sauce. Taste and add more salt, lemon juice and butter or olive oil as needed. Tangle into 4 bowls and finish with the rest of the Parmesan and ½ a bunch of torn basil leaves, if you like.
Cheese And Pickle Roast Potatoes With Chilli-Dressed Leaves
Serves 4
A tray of these for dinner is just about the best thing I can think of to eat. Squashed crisp-edged potatoes, tossed and baked in pickle brine to give them a subtle but important chip-shop-vinegar feeling. Once hot and crisped, the potatoes are topped with cornichons and cheese and finished with a chili and bitter lettuce salad, though the potatoes are also good just on their own. Pickle brine is often thrown away but it is highly seasoned gold. It is acidic, a little salty, and usually a little sweet, so it instantly adds depth like a splash of vinegar would but in a more mellow way.
- 1kg new potatoes, scrubbed clean
- 10 cornichons (35g), roughly chopped, plus 100ml of the brine from the jar
- 100ml extra virgin olive oil
- 3 fresh red chillies
- juice of 1 unwaxed lemon
- 100g Comte cheese or vegan mature Cheddar-style cheese
- 1 head of radicchio or other bitter lettuce
Preheat the oven and parboil the potatoes
Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan. Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil, add 1kg scrubbed new potatoes, and cook for 10-20 minutes, depending on their size, until they are just cooked. Drain and leave the potatoes to steam dry in a colander.
Season and roast the potatoes
Tip the potatoes into a roasting tin, toss them with 50ml cornichon brine, 2 tablespoons olive oil, and salt and pepper, then roast for 15 minutes.
Remove the tin from the oven and, using a potato masher, squish the potatoes until they crack and expose some of the soft, fluffy insides. Pour over another 2 tablespoons olive oil and return to the oven for another 30-40 minutes, turning the potatoes halfway, until golden and crispy.
Make the chili dressing
Prick 3 fresh red chilies with the tip of a sharp knife. This stops them exploding when they are cooked. Using a pair of metal tongs, hold the chilies one at a time over a gas flame until they’re blackened and blistered all over. If you don’t have a gas hob, you can do this in a dry frying pan.
Once they are all blistered, put them in a small bowl, cover and leave for 15 minutes. This way they will steam in their own heat and the skins will peel off easily. Once cool enough to handle, peel the chilies, open them up, and scrape out all the seeds.
Discard the seeds and finely chop the flesh. Put in a mixing bowl with the remaining olive oil (70ml) and the juice of 1 unwaxed lemon and mix well. Season to taste with sea salt and black pepper.
Finish the potatoes and dress the leaves
Once the potatoes are golden and crisp, add 50ml of cornichon brine while the potatoes are still hot, then toss with 10 roughly chopped cornichons and a generous grating of Comte or vegan Cheddar. Tear 1 head of radicchio into bite-sized pieces, season with salt, and toss in the chili dressing.
Sesame And Chilli Oil Noodles
Serves 2 as a main, 4 as a side
Lucky Joy is a Chinese-influenced restaurant local to me with brightly painted walls and food that slaps you in the face with flavor. For the last year or so I’ve been eating their sesame noodles most weeks. This is a quick version of cold sesame noodles I made when I was craving them but they were shut for a holiday. It uses tahini as opposed to Chinese sesame, which is not traditional in any way, but it is what I always have at home so...
- 150g medium dried egg noodles
- 1 tablespoon peanut butter
- 2 tablespoons tahini
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce or tamari
- 1 clove of garlic, peeled and finely chopped
- 2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
- 2-3 tablespoons chilli oil or chilli crisp
- a bunch of spring onions (about 6), trimmed and finely sliced
- 4 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds (white, black or both)
Cook the noodles
Cook 150g medium dried egg noodles in boiling salted water for a minute less than the packet instructions, until al dente. Drain and rinse under cold water.
Make the tahini sauce
Whisk together 1 tablespoon peanut butter, 2 tablespoons tahini, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, and 1 finely chopped clove of garlic. Add 2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil and between 75ml and 125ml room-temperature water (depending on the thickness of the tahini) and whisk until you have a smooth, pourable sauce about the thickness of double cream.
Toss together and serve
Toss the cold noodles in the tahini sauce and scoop into bowls, then top each with 1-2 tablespoons of chili crisp, adding a little at a time until it’s the right kind of heat for you (you can always serve extra on the table). Scatter over a trimmed and finely sliced bunch of spring onions and finish each bowl with a tablespoon of toasted sesame seeds.
Extracted from Easy Wins: 12 Flavour Hits, 125 Delicious Recipes, 365 Days of Good Eating by Anna Jones, published by 4th Estate. Photography by Matt Russell