Time was, when you talked about Britain’s global reach, you were referring to colonies, not cuisine. Though the empire ranged far and wide, you would never know it from the chip butties (a French fry sandwich) and mushy peas on plates back home; we Americans took particular joy in poking fun at that.
Then, in the 1990s, the food revolution spearheaded by the likes of Delia Smith, Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson and Nigel Slater changed the way the British cooked. Suddenly, we were all of a seasonally driven, artisanal, farm-to-table piece.
Now, two new cookbooks — Yotam Ottolenghi’s “Plenty More” (to be released by Ten Speed Press next month) and Diana Henry’s “A Change of Appetite” (Mitchell Beazley) — indicate that British cooks may have surpassed us with their inventive flavor combinations and adoption of international ingredients.
Mr. Ottolenghi and Ms. Henry have mastered the art of combining familiar and global flavors in ways that take us just past our collective culinary comfort level without inflicting anything too bizarre. Scented with rose petals and fresh curry leaf, and spiced with red chiles and black mustard seed, their dishes are thoughtful, vibrant, inventive and instructive. I learned something from every recipe I tested, playing with ingredients that were new to me (pandan leaf and pot barley), mixing flavors I would have never thought to combine (beets and rhubarb) and discovering techniques (whacking whole cucumbers with a rolling pin to break them apart before massaging them with salt and spices).
With Mr. Ottolenghi, none of this should come as a surprise. He already tantalized Americans with his best-selling books “Jerusalem” (written with Sami Tamimi) and “Plenty.” In those volumes, Mr. Ottolenghi drew a cult following for his effusive cooking style, which embraced and reinterpreted Middle Eastern and Mediterranean flavors.
“Plenty More” is farther flung. It gathers all of his previous influences and widens its grasp to include the Caribbean, India, Japan and Thailand, sometimes all at once, with generally excellent results. Humble scrambled eggs are livened with chiles, cardamom, caraway, cumin and tomatoes; while not reflecting any one culinary tradition, the dish is aromatic, comforting and mouth-searing at the same time.
So, too, is the bracing salad of sprouting broccoli, edamame and coconut, spiced with curry leaves, black mustard and lime, which, once I got over my hard-won struggle with a fresh coconut (ouch, watch your thumbs while wielding the hammer), I was able to fully enjoy. I liked the leftovers, sprinkled with a little fish sauce for extra punch, even better.
The only real miss was with the rather fussy tamarind and spice-stuffed potato cakes, which fell apart and stuck to the pan. But it made for a very tasty mess that I renamed tamarind potato hash and happily served to my family.
The elaborate chefiness that characterize several of the recipes in “Plenty More” is entirely absent from Ms. Henry’s book of down-to-earth recipes. Although not well known in the United States, Ms. Henry is a celebrated food writer in Britain, with a column in The Sunday Telegraph Stella Magazine and six well-received cookbooks.
Her latest book documents the change of appetite that occurred when she started seeking out a more healthful, vegetable-based diet. Unlike Mr. Ottolenghi’s strictly vegetarian (but not vegan) book, Ms. Henry offers recipes for meat. But she keeps the portions small and focuses on fish, seasonal produce, whole grains and plenty of legumes, all seasoned with the likes of togarashi pepper, harissa, dried limes and borage flowers.
The thing about Ms. Henry’s recipes is that if you didn’t know they were supposed to be good for you, it would never cross your mind. In every one I tried, the flavors sparkled, the colors on the plate glowed, the dishes truly satisfied. As she writes in the introduction, for her, eating well isn’t so much about weight loss. It’s about celebrating the foods she loves: fresh, whole, unprocessed foods in season.
Her recipes are in no way abstemious. There is a gorgeous butterflied leg of lamb with a Persian mint syrup, chile and garlic crab, and fragrant lentils with roasted tomatoes and a runny-centered egg. Desserts include an irresistibly moist almond cake made with spelt flour and juicy cherries.
It’s fresh, well seasoned and highly unusual cooking we have not often seen on Yankee soil. Until, thanks to Ms. Henry and Mr. Ottolenghi, now.
An earlier version of this article misstated the publisher of the cookbook “Jerusalem.” It was published by Ten Speed, not Chronicle.