Tag: yotam ottolenghi

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cookbooks cooks food

my favourite cookbooks of 2012

my cookbook shelf, december 2012

I look forward to writing this post every year; a chance to reflect on the year’s cookbook shelves. Polpo gave us a travelogue round Venice’s cicchetti bars, Madhur Jaffrey returned to explore the UK’s curry scene, and LEON released their fourth impressive volume.

As baking fever truly took hold, with Jubilees and the like to celebrate, the market groaned with cupcake and muffin recipe manuals designed to capture Great British Bake-Off mania. It sometimes felt as though this was the only part of the market churning out books! From the non-cake section I’ve compiled my favourite cookbooks of 2012 that have in turns entertained, educated and enlightened me.

3. Jerusalem – Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi

Yotam Ottolenghi has become one of those chefs for whom I pay close attention. Whatever he’s up to I’m interested, as it will certainly have an unusual angle that is completely new to me.

And this book goes some way to explaining why. Part holiday guide, part autobiography and all good eating, Jerusalem is a culinary tour of his and long-term collaborator Sam’s childhood home, knocking on all the doors of their youth and exploring the complex political and religious web that covers the city. They grew up in opposite corners of Jerusalem and their “same but different” upbringing is a fascinating story.

Most recipes have some potted history alongside it, and the recipes themselves are of course outstanding. Packed with bold flavours and its sings of people making the most of what little they have. In many cuisines crowd-pleasing dinners have peasant roots; warming, familiar, generous. These qualities abound throughout the book.

Perfect for: adventurous types with a love of aubergines!

Standout recipe: Aubergines with lamb and pine nuts

2. Jamie’s 15 Minute Meals – Jamie Oliver

Some may well groan at this inclusion – I imagine like 30 Min Meals it has set some sort of sales record – and the same tired old moans about adhering strictly to 15 minutes as an absolute time limit will surface no doubt.

But I cannot ignore this book. Like its almost slothful predecessor it had genuinely changed the way I prepare the evening meal, freeing me of the usual rules and conventions encouraging me to think in more adventurous ways. Deconstructing a chilli con carne, not in the modern British way so loved by Masterchef finalists, but in a sensible way to separate all the elements you love about it and bring together at the end is simply brilliant. This approach echoes throughout the book, touching on loads of great world cuisines along the way.

There is a reliance on kitchen gadgetry but none of it is gratuitous. It is sensible and well-judged. I defy anyone not to take at least one of these great recipes into their weekly repertoire.

Perfect for: people looking to do more in less time.

Standout recipe: 15 minute chilli con carne meatballs

1. Everybody Everyday – Alex Mackay

This came out of nowhere. I was a little familiar with Kiwi chef Alex Mackay so had almost no expectations for this book. I knew it was going to be great when I’d got about half way through my first flick-through and had to stop putting post-it notes against the ones I wanted to make, because ten is too big a for a to-cook list.

The premise is simple: take one ‘mother’ recipe, then spin it into five proper meals. But not in a prissy, cheffy way. Each one is approachable, and broken down to a very low level. Every description has steps in there for how children and babies can have the same food (for all his professional training with Raymond Blanc and Delia Smith, Alex runs many cookery classes for children, and it shows). Do you know the best thing about the recipes? They are all for two people. This is the number I cook for most often, so it’s so appealing to have recipes easily multiplied up.

But that’s all technical details, what about the food? It’s all just excellent, home-style food with influences from every continent. There are stir-fries, roasts, pizzas and many more. I’ve learned so many things from this book that I’ve stuck straight into my everyday repertoire – like how to cook a potato pancake perfectly every time, I must’ve made nine times this year. Or how to make an unctuous and delicious sauce like I’ve always dreamed of.

It is a book that reads very well, and eats even better. It’s smart cookery, by spending a lot of time on the base recipe you can have five very different meals with it, all of which are great. This is a truly good cookery book – add it to your shelf now.

Perfect for: everybody, everyday. Cheesy but true.

Standout recipe: Burger with red onion and red wine sauce

Such great books to choose from this year. What was your standout cookbook this year?

Categories
aubergine food lamb pine nuts

aubergines stuffed with lamb and pine nuts

I make no attempt to hide my love of Ottolenghi’s cooking. Since Plenty swept on to my bookshelf in 2010, his recipes and techniques have informed the way I cook on a weekly basis. It’s the tastes and combinations alien to my palette that interest, as his heritage brings with it exotic and fun flavours.

In his latest book, Jerusalem by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi (Ebury Press, £27), he and long-time partner Sami retrace their shared childhood growing up in Jerusalem. A town that is politically complicated, cross-pollinated with religion and pilgrims from all over the world cannot help but produce a diverse and fascinating culinary history. Sami and Yotam grew up either side of the city and had simultaneously very different and very similar upbringings.

The book is at once a cookbook, cultural snapshot and history of this unique city. The personal affection for their childhood haunts radiate from every page, and this love transfers to the food. Pistachios, pomegranate molasses and parsley abound, with spices and herbs packed into every dish.

Aubergines feature prominently, as in this recipe with lamb and pine nuts. It’s spicy, sweet and sour and very meaty. I made a slight adjustment to the original, making more of the sweet-sour tomato sauce that accompanies it. There was also call for tamarind paste but I know I’ll use it once then it will rot away in my cupboard, so I used a little brown sauce instead, which is essentially tamarind processed just enough to make palatable to the English. It’s just the thing for Autumnal nights, and makes great leftovers the next day too.

Aubergines stuffed with lamb and pine nuts (serves 2 with plenty left):

2 aubergines halved lengthways

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon smoked paprika

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 onion, finely chopped

300g lamb mince

30g pine nuts

Parsley, chopped

1 squirt tomato puree

1 tablespoon caster sugar

1 tablespoon brown sauce

2 cinnamon sticks

500g passata

  1. Preheat the oven to 220°C. Brush the aubergines with oil, salt and pepper and put skin side down in a roasting tray. Roast for 20 mins and put to one side.
  2. While the aubergines roast fry the onion in a little oil. Add half the cumin, paprika and cinnamon. After the onion softens add the lamb, pine nuts, tomato puree, sugar and season. Cook for a further 10 minutes.
  3. Turn the oven down to 180°C. Spoon the lamb mix on top of the aubergines, and then in the frying pan add the passata, brown sauce and remaining spices. Bring to a simmer and pour around the aubergines. Cover with foil and bake for a further 1 hour 30 minutes until the aubergine are completely soft. Serve with creme fraiche and rice.


Gary Fennon

Categories
bacon courgettes food lemon turkey

turkey and courgette meatballs

In another one of my recipes for students, I’ve taken inspiration from the wonderful Ottolenghi. In his latest book (Jerusalem by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi (Ebury Press, £27)) he and long-time collaborator Sami Tamimi return to their home town of Jerusalem to reminisce on the food gems of their youth. It’s full of wonderful recipes and ideas, and generally speaking most of the recipes are thrifty and homely in nature.

This recipe is inspired by “turkey and courgette burgers with spring onion and cumin.”  The meatballs are so substantial they don’t need any carbohydrates; if you need to make it go further serve with pasta or rice. This meal is relatively expensive but you’ll make tons of meatballs that freeze well, and extra tomato sauce which keeps in the fridge for a couple of days

Approximate cost  for main ingredients, excludes storecupboard ingredients (prices from Tesco.com 7th Oct 2012): £4.13

Turkey and courgette meatballs (makes about 20):

For the meatballs:

500g minced turkey

2 rashers bacon, diced

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 cream cracker, bashed to dust

Zest and juice of 1 lemon

1 large courgette, grated

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1 egg

For the sauce:

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 tin tomatoes

  1. For the meatballs, combine all the ingredients in a bowl and mix well with a pinch of salt. With damp hands form into chunks the size of golf balls.
  2. Heat a large frying pan over a medium heat with a little oil, and a normal saucepan over a high heat with a little oil. Add the meatballs to the large pan and brown them on all sides for about 7 – 10 minutes. You should do this in batches if this is going to crowd the pan.
  3. Meanwhile in the other pan crush in the garlic and then immediately add the tomatoes. This will spatter and bubble so watch out. Add a pinch each of salt, sugar and pepper. You should continue to simmer this sauce until when you draw a wooden spoon through it leaves a channel, so it is thick and rich. At this point tip the meatballs into the sauce and cook for a couple more minutes to cook through.
Categories
cake food lemon orange polenta

revani

I spotted this little gem on the pages of an Ottolenghi article in Waitrose magazine and made it immediately: it’s a squidgy and sweet Turkish cake. Surfing around it seems to be a very popular and traditional dish and when you taste it it’s not hard to see why. It’s kind of like a drizzle cake in that you bake a sponge, then slice it up and pour over a syrup while it cools. And definitely follow Yotam’s advice: it improves immeasurably overnight as the cake soaks up more and more of the lush, sweet juice. Perfect with a cup of tea.

You are supposed to use marmalade in the batter but I used some leftover orange jelly.

You know the other clever bit? Cutting the cake into diamonds. No messing about with even slices, just merry little diamonds which are easy to eat and cute for the virtue of being different.

Revani (makes about a 20 piece cake if cut into diamonds):

5 eggs, separated

100g caster sugar

50g plain flour

100g semolina

Zest of 1 orange

50g butter, melted

50g marmalade / jelly

For the syrup:

250g caster sugar

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 teaspoon vanilla paste

1 orange, halved (the one you zested above)

  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease a 21cm springform tin and line with greaseproof paper. Beat the egg yolks and sugar together until pale and then incorporate the flour, semolina, pinch of salt, zest, butter and marmalade. Continue beating until smooth.
  2. In a separate bowl whisk the egg whites to soft peaks and then gradually fold into the batter. Pour the batter into the tin and bake for 20 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
  3. While the cake is in the oven make the syrup. Put all the ingredients in a saucepan with 300ml water and bring to the boil. Simmer for 10 minutes.
  4. While the cake is still warm and in the tin, slice it into diamond shapes about 3cm wide. Pour the syrup over the cake – it will look like too much but it will take it all! – and leave to cool and let the cake soak up the juice. You can eat it straight away but it’s so much better if left overnight.
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