Top tips from a roster of experienced curry-makers, from adding a dollop of yoghurt to experimenting with pastes

I want to make more vegetarian curries, but most call for a tin of coconut milk and I’m trying to cut down on saturated fats. What can I use instead?
Jill, via email
Coconut milk brings silkiness and sweet richness to curries, and also mellows spices, so any substitute will likely change the nature of the dish. That said, if you really want to avoid the white stuff, Karan Gokani, author of Indian 101, would simply replace it with vegetable stock. Another easy swap (if you’re not averse to dairy) is yoghurt, says John Chantarasak, chef and co-owner of AngloThai in London, which is handy, because “that’s normally hanging about in the fridge”.

Not all curries involve coconut milk, however, and it’s these that perhaps offer a better solution to Jill’s conundrum. “Once you get past that idea, you go into two realms,” says Sirichai Kularbwong of Thai restaurant Singburi in London, by which he means wet and dry curries. The latter involve frying curry paste (“usually containing dried chillies”) and seasoning with fish sauce (“in Jill’s case, a vegan fish sauce”), tamarind and sugar. “The consistency of the sauce is never thin, and you pair it with root vegetables and flat beans, and eat alongside rice,” he adds. Meanwhile, a favourite wet curry that doesn’t call for coconut milk is gaeng om, made with “a simple curry paste of garlic, chillies and lemongrass boiled with good veg stock and seasoned with vegan fish sauce”. Veg-wise, to that base you’d typically add pumpkin, mushrooms, maybe pak choi.

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Served with mustard aïoli, crisp chickpeas and a quick-pickled red onion and parsley salad, these root veg fritters make a satisfying dish that’s ideal for a weekend brunch

I’m a sucker for a rösti, and I truly believe it makes the best breakfast, brunch – or any meal, really. This one leans into the amazing varieties of root vegetables we have at our disposal, and it is especially stunning when layered and presented with all of the other elements: a bold mustard aïoli, crisp curried chickpeas, and an easy parsley and red onion salad that is quick-pickled to provide an acidic finish to a satisfying dish.

Ferment: Simple Ferments and Pickles, and How to Eat Them, by Kenji Morimoto, is published by Pan Macmillan at £22. To order a copy for £19.80, visit the guardianbookshop.com

An inviting combination of bright, warming flavours, all in a single tin

A brilliant, warming 30-minute traybake, all in one tin. I love the combination of roast sweet potatoes with crumbled feta and a bright, fresh pesto; adding butter beans to the mix brings another hit of protein, as well as getting more legumes into your diet – win-win! A jar or tin of chickpeas would work just as well, if that’s what you have in, and feel free to substitute the parsley for other soft herbs, should you wish.

Batch-cook weekday breakfasts in advance, and you’ll always have something filling and healthy to kickstart your day

The saying goes that you should breakfast like a king, and I’ve long found that the key to making that happen during the busy work week is to batch-prepare breakfast at the weekend. As we start a new year, the focus is back on balance, and these dishes offer both nourishment and flavour, while also being ideal for making ahead. The overnight oats are a source of fibre, the muffins are high in protein and the pie is a source of both.

Roll up, roll up for the yummiest start to the day with this tantalising TexMex mishmash of refried beans, eggs, potatoes. But just what goes in, and what should be left out?

Breakfast tacos should not be confused with tacos eaten for breakfast. Of course, they often are eaten for breakfast, but the stuffed flour tortillas eaten on both sides of the southern US border are quite different from the tacos mañaneros of central and southern Mexico, the rich, corn-based tacos de canasta (“tacos in a basket”) or the smoky beef barbacoa that Monterrey-born Lily Ramirez-Foran recalls being her dad’s favourite Sunday breakfast. Instead, Texas Monthly explains, breakfast tacos “marry the key elements of an American morning – scrambled eggs, bacon, potatoes – with the Mexican staples of salsa, cheese, refried beans … genius.”

Although they’re originally a Mexican creation, according to José R Ralat, the magazine’s taco editor (what a job title!), these $3 treats are now so popular north of the border that they’re the subject of regular taco wars, mostly between those who claim Austin as their spiritual home (often blow-ins, according to their fiercest critics), and those who know that no single city can take the credit. The fillings may vary, from pork chops to chilaquiles and beans to cheese, but Ralat maintains that all should be salty, soft and, above all, comforting, and told the Washington Post a few years ago that “the greatest breakfast taco is the one made at home”. Which, if you live 5,000 miles from the Mexican border, is good news indeed.

Bittersweet maroon leaves pair perfectly with juicy red wine in this elegant winter risotto served with a walnut pesto

Bitter ingredients are not to everyone’s taste, but, amid these darkest months, they make me feel alive. I love Seville oranges, grapefruit, brassicas, bitter greens, chicory and, most of all, radicchio. I like the burgundy-spotted castelfranco (great for salad with citrus and cheese) and the long-locked tardivo (best cooked with balsamic vinegar), but radicchio di chioggia is the popular leader of the pack. A chubby little cabbage-y nugget with a middle-of-the-road bitterness that becomes milder, sweeter and more delicious, especially when cooked alongside a large glass of juicy chianti and finished off with a snowy dusting of parmesan.

A booze-free mocktail that uses lemon juice to bring a bright sharpness to the earthy sweetness of beetroot and sumac

Traditionally, shrubs are made with vinegar, but for this one we use lemon juice to bring a bright sharpness to the base syrup, because it balances the earthy sweetness of the beetroot and sumac. A 0% gin brings some botanical notes to proceedings, but the syrup also works wonderfully just topped with soda water. You’ll need to start the syrup a day ahead.

Connor Wilson, head chef, The Kirkstyle Inn, Slaggyford, Northumberland