There’s no limits to the kinds of vegetables that you can roast. Even things like cabbages take on whole new flavour dimensions when they are exposed to heat and caramelise. This happens in a process called Maillard Reactions, the same as when you toast bread and it goes through stages of light brown to eventually being completely carbonised, i.e. black.

This is a really crucial concept to grasp and have in your arsenal of cooking principles. Caramelisation is delicious. Use it to your advantage.

Oven-roasting is not dissimilar from pan-roasting in that you end up with more or less the same result — nicely caramelised veggies. The reason why you’d choose oven-roasting rather than pan-roasting really comes down to the quantity of veggies you are using. If you are roasting broccoli for a salad for two, then turning on the oven is not the greatest option from an energy perspective.

You will also get somewhat different results from when oven-roasting rather than pan-roasting things like courgette, aubergine and peppers. Again, this is where you simply need to experiment because the more you use the principles the better you understand them. And the better you understand them the more precise your ability to apply them effectively do create delicious dishes will be. And that in the end is what it’s all about. Food that brings deep joy and satisfaction. 

You might things, hah!, oven-roasting, how hard can it be?! And you’d be right. It isn’t hard at all, but there are mistakes that are commonly made which makes the results in a dish that’s alright or maybe even good — but not great. 

The THREE MOST COMMON MISTAKES that people make when attempting to oven-roast are:

• The temperature is too low, which ends up in veggies that are completely mushy before they take on any caramelisation. What you want are veggies that still have a good bite along with some nice caramelisation. This is of course a bit different for aubergine — the one veg that sort of in its own category when it comes to cooking it (it’s also, to the best of my knowledge, the only vegetable you can’t eat raw). Peppers as well are fine when soft, but things like broccoli, cauliflower and fennel you really don’t want to over cook. 

• The ingredient being roasted isn’t sufficiently coated in oil. The difference between baking and roasting is that ‘roasting’ means something is coated in fat. In order to get a proper transfer of heat and thereby caramelisation, which is what it’s all about, you need the ingredient to be evenly coated in oil. That doesn’t mean you need to use huge amounts of it, it means that instead of putting what you are roasting onto a roasting tray and then drizzling with oil, instead use a bowl to coat with oil and season. It’s that simple.

• Not leaving space between the pieces of vegetables. Hot air need to be able to flow all around each piece to get even and proper caramelisation. 

Here are the steps:

1. Turn on the oven to about 200-230°C and put the roasting tray you’re using in there.

2. Get out a bowl of a suitable size, that is, corresponding to how much veg you’re roasting.

3. Chop up the veggies you’re using in the desired shape. When roasting you’re going to want to make sure that the veg is quite chunky so they don’t dry out.

4. As the veg are chopped transfer them to the bowl. Once everything is in the bowl give it a good drizzle of olive oil along with some seasoning. You can also add hard herbs like thyme or rosemary at this stage - OR you add this towards the end of the cooking process if you want a ‘fresher’ final expression of flavours.

5. Your roasting tray should now be nice and hot, so use oven mittens or a dry tea towel when you take pour all the contents of the bowl onto the roasting tray. The reason you want the roasting tray to be hot, is because a lot of the roasting action happens when veggies meet hot metal and help get some nice caramelisation going.

6. Depending on what you’re roasting and the temperament of your oven, it’ll take anywhere from 10-20 minutes – and you’ll want to toss the contents in the roasting tray about a few times during the roasting process in order to get a nice and even result.