Elevate your vegetables to new heights this holiday season.

During the holiday season, thanks to all those big roast dinners, we’re often confronted with the worst of vegetables. Actually, this is probably a peculiarly British problem. We do like to boil things, don’t we? But though mushy sprouts, crunchy carrots and their ilk will have been present on many a dining table in the past few weeks, you will never find them anywhere near Mr Miles Kirby’s series of Caravan restaurants, the latest of which opened this autumn on London’s Bankside. Mr Kirby, originally from New Zealand, is Caravan’s executive chef and head roaster, and co-founded the restaurant in 2010 with creative director Ms Laura Harper Hinton and operations manager Mr Chris Ammermann.

At his new joint, a 140-cover space housed in the former Metal Box factory on Great Guilford Street, you’ll find a menu stuffed with old favourites such as jalapeno corn bread and baked eggs with tomato pepper ragout and greek yoghurt, but also an overwhelming range of tasty vegetable dishes, from smashed cucumbers with soy tahini to spiced cauliflower, confit fennel and more. Given that Mr Kirby is clearly a man who knows how to bring something of a wow factor to the table when it comes to vegetables, we thought we’d ask him for some tips on how to cook them. Scroll down for his recommendations on four ways you can take your beans, legumes, pulses, roots and more into the stratosphere.

“Charring is a great way to quickly cook any vegetable that requires very little cooking or could otherwise be eaten raw. My current favourite charred item is Turkish green chilli, but other good options include stem broccoli, asparagus, green beans, courgette and aubergine. The contact point where the vegetable touches the hot grill creates an intense level of caramelisation, which can taste smoky, sweet and delicious, particularly when cooked over wood or charcoal. I usually leave the Turkish green chilli on the grill until it is soft in texture (six to eight minutes) and starting to bubble with black charred patches. A great tip is to toss the charred vegetables in a bowl with a splash of vinegar and a handful of fresh herbs after removing from the grill.”

“We use our clay pizza oven at Caravan to roast all manner of interesting vegetables. A current favourite is a Japanese variety of squash called red kuri squash, although great results can be achieved with other varieties, namely onion or butternut. The intense heat of the pizza oven means we can achieve excellent levels of caramelisation around the edges and on any isolated tips where the vegetable in question has been cut. (A good oven set at about 220ºC will also work.) Dark roasted pieces offer extra sweetness as the sugars caramelise. I always strive to maintain the integrity of shape when it comes to roasting, meaning that we cut the vegetable in a way that is sympathetic to its natural form. Roasted vegetables love a fresh salad to lift them and the introduction of a bold flavour to make a rounded dish out of the vegetable. Roasted squash, basil and blue cheese… Yum.”

“Pickling prolongs the life of vegetables and introduces healthy bacteria into your diet. In October, we always pickle a load of wild mushrooms so we can use them well into the new year when crops dry up. Girolles are particularly good when pickled, and we use a really simple recipe with chardonnay vinegar, mirin (sweet rice wine) and raw garlic. Not all pickles have to take time to develop. We make a lot of quick pickles in the restaurants that involve simply heating a pickling juice and pouring over the item to be pickled. Once the liquid has cooled, it’s ready to go. If pickling for much later use, be sure to sterilise your jars well or all the hard work can go to waste if infiltrated with bad bacteria.”

“A great sauce or dressing can bring an otherwise plain vegetable to life. At Caravan Bankside I have two dishes on the menu in which the vegetable becomes a great vehicle to deliver the punchy flavour of the dressing or sauce. We lift simple roasted carrots with a smoked paprika yoghurt, sea salt and lemon juice, and baby kale salad leaves are elevated to new heights with a simple dressing made from Japanese umeboshi plums, truffle oil and red wine vinegar. Both dishes also rely on other ingredients to enhance their texture, such as dukkah on the carrots and shaved pecorino on the kale.”