Broccoli & gorgonzola pie

July 8, 2018

We hosted the winter edition of Ottolenghi club this year, giving us the opportunity to bust out something a bit more complicated (we're usually constrained by needing something that will hold up to bike transport). Somehow this indulgent broccoli pie from Plenty has never caught our attention before, and it fit the bill perfectly.

It's a bit of faffing around, especially if you're anxious about pastry (I called in Cindy for the tricky bits), but the effort definitely pays off. I mean it's hard to imagine a pie filled with double cream and fancy cheese is ever going to let you down, but this on really delivers. The gorgonzola is rich, but the baking tones down its pungency a bit and it combines brilliantly with the creamy mustard leek and the chunks of broccoli. I'd definitely recommend splashing out on some more expensive pastry for this one - the beautiful golden crust was a highlight. 

Our guests brought along some excellent accompaniments - the orange and date salad and the barley and pomegranate salad were fresh additions to all the richness of the pie. Stay tuned to see what Cindy made for dessert!

Broccoli & gorgonzola pie
(from Yotam Ottolenghi's Plenty)

~500g all-butter puff pastry
2 broccoli heads, cut into florets
25g butter
4 leeks, trimmed and sliced
150ml double cream
80ml water
15g chives, chopped
15g tarragon, chopped
3 tablespoons grainy mustard
1 teaspoon salt
black pepper
200g gorgonzola, cut into rough cubes
1 egg, beaten

Ottolenghi says that you can make the filling while the tart is baking, but I found it much easier to do all the filling prep first, so I've rejigged the recipe here - it takes more time, but I would have found the alternative way too stressful.

Bring a large pot of water to the boil and blanch the broccoli for about 2 minutes - you just want them to have gone a tiny bit tender. Drain and rinse with cold water.

Melt the butter in a frying pan and fry the leeks over low heat for 15 minutes, until they've softened right up (but not caramelised). Add the cream,, water, herbs, mustard, salt and some pepper and stir it all together. Take the leek mix off the heat and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Roll out two-thirds of the pastry into a circle big enough to cover a 25cm pie tin (it should be about 2mm thick). Make little holes in the pastry with a fork.

Cover the pastry with greaseproof paper and fill it with baking beans. Bake blind for 15 minutes, until it's light brown. Take the paper and beans out and give it another 5 so that it goes golden. Leave to cool.

Spread the leek mixture over the bottom of your pastry case. Gently press the broccoli florets into the leek mix and then dot with the gorgonzola chunks.

Roll out a lid for your pie with the remaining pastry and then brush the edges of the pie case with the beaten egg before laying the lid on top. Try to make a good seal between the lid and the base, trimming off any excess pastry.

Glaze the lid with more of the beaten egg and bake the pie for 30 minutes, until golden brown.

Sweet soy Brussels sprouts & tofu

March 30, 2018

Easter brought with it another meeting of our regular Ottolenghi club. It was typically indulgent, with a baked blue cheesecake, pea and mint croquettes, lentil and asparagus salad and a fancy tart that Cindy will post about soon (photos of the whole shindig are on our facebook page). My contribution was this weird-sounding recipe from Plenty. It's rare that I'll take on a dish that doesn't have a photo in a cookbook, but this seemed like a rare simple dish from ol' Yotam so I decided to give it a shot. 

Sweet chilli sauce is not the kind of ingredient I imagine Ottolenghi reaching for very often, but it works nicely in this dish with the soy and sesame oil flavours. The real stars are the sprouts though - you've really gotta get them to caramelise for the full effect. The tofu and shitakes added some nice variety and, despite the rather brown visual aspect, this got the Ottolenghi-club tick of approval.

Sweet soy Brussels sprouts & tofu

(from Yotam Ottolenghi's Plenty)

2 tablespoons sweet chilli sauce

1.5 tablespoons tamari

3 tablespoons sesame oil

1 teaspoon rice vinegar

1 tablespoon maple syrup

3/4 cup sunflower oil

150g firm tofu

500g Brussels sprouts

Small bunch spring onions, sliced

1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes

100g shitake mushrooms, quartered

15g coriander leaves

sesame seeds (to garnish)

salt

Slice the tofu into flat squares, about 4cm wide. Mix together the sweet chilli sauce, tamari, 2 tablespoons of the sesame oil, rice vinegar and maple syrup in a flat container and marinate your squares for an hour or so, flipping them over halfway through.

Trim the bases off the sprouts and cut them in thirds longways so you get relatively flat pieces.

Heat 4 tablespoons of the sunflower oil in a frying pan over high heat. Throw in half the sprouts and a few shakes of salt and cook on high for a few minutes. You want to get them nice and charred - almost to the point of burning them - so don't stir too much. Repeat with the other half of the sprouts and set them aside in a bowl.

Add another couple of tablespoons of sunflower oil to the pan and stir fry the spring onions, mushrooms and chilli flakes for a few minutes. Pop them in with the sprouts once you're done.

Now fry the tofu squares - pop them flat in the pan for a couple of minutes on each side, until they're nicely caramelised (you might need to do a couple of batches and top up the oil).

Once the tofu is cooked, kill the heat and stir the sprouts, mushrooms etc in with all the tofu.. Pour in the leftover marinade and stir through half the coriander leaves and remaining sesame oil.

Serve warm, garnished with the rest of the coriander and the sesame seeds.

Roasted sweet potatoes with caper vinaigrette

December 25, 2017

Our second Christmas Day side came from Ottolenghi's Plenty. It's a lovely mixed tray of roasted vegetables - sweet potato and onion wedges, a whole head of garlic, cherry tomatoes - tossed through with herbs and dressed in a tangy caper vinaigrette the moment they come out of the oven. There's supposed to be parsnips involved as well, but I've not had much success baking them at home and I was planning to halve the recipe, anyway.

Initially I stretched the sweet potatoes, onions and garlic over two baking trays, then once they were becoming tender and I needed the extra oven space for sausage rolls, I piled the vegetables up in a single high-walled tray. They were going swimmingly until, 20 minutes before we were due to eat, our oven's heating element expired! The sweet potatoes and onions were tender enough but not as caramelised as I might've liked; the garlic was perfect; the tomatoes were near raw. It could have been a lot worse, and I'll be interested to see if I can recreate this a little better now that our oven's repaired.

Roasted sweet potatoes with caper vinaigrette
(adapted from a recipe in Yotam Ottolenghi's Plenty)

600g sweet potatoes
2 medium red onions
1 bulb garlic
70 mL olive oil
4 thyme sprigs
2 rosemary sprigs
1 punnet cherry tomatoes
juice of half a lemon
2 tablespoons capers
1 teaspoon maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
salt and pepper

Preheat an oven to 190°C.

Peel the sweet potatoes and chop them into wedges. Peel the onions and slice each one into six wedges. Slice the garlic bulb in half horizontally, Place the sweet potatoes, onions and garlic in 1-2 baking trays. Drizzle 2-3 tablespoons of the olive oil over the vegetables and toss it through a little. Roughly pull the thyme and rosemary leaves from their stems and scatter them over the vegetables. Roast for 40-50 minutes, until cooked through. 

While the vegetables are roasting, slice the cherry tomatoes in half. Make the vinaigrette by whisking together lemon juice, capers, maple syrup, mustard, and the remaining 1 tablespoon of oil, seasoning with salt and pepper.

When the vegetables are roasted, add the tomato halves and bake everything for a further 10 minutes. Pour the vinaigrette over the vegetables as soon as you remove them from the oven, and serve them warm.

A very full vegetable tart

March 20, 2016

I've clearly been dominating the dessert division at our Ottolenghi get-togethers, because I felt a teensy bit flummoxed at the prospect of making a main. I lounged around with Plenty and Plenty More and some little ripped bookmarks, looking out for picnic-friendly autumn-appropriate dishes. I had plenty of time to plan and shop and cook. Michael nudged me into making the Very Full Tart - it looked like a ripper centrepiece and unlikely to be any the worse for being served at air temperature.

Ottolenghi recipes are notoriously effortful, and this is the rare one where you can actually bring extra work upon yourself. In Plenty, the recipe simply demands that you procure 300g of shortcrust pastry. Welp, I made my own. With a food processor on hand it's not too much of a drag, and I called on this ol' pumpkin tart recipe for (butter-heavy) quantities.

From there it was a long, slow procession of chopping and roasting vegetables - capsicums in two colours, eggplant, sweet potato, zucchini and onions. Layered up in the tart crust, they're topped with feta, ricotta and cherry tomatoes; thyme, too, if you can remember it. (Not me.) It's all bound together with eggs and cream. Though 45 minutes is theoretically enough to set the eggs, I found that the vegetables (especially the tomatoes) gave off extra juices and the tart was very bubbly.

Cooled down and cut up in the park, it wasn't as quiche-y as I expected. True to its name, vegetables tumbled all over, coated in a creamy gravy and not a set custard. Everything felt on the brink of collapse, yet each vegetable and cheese chunk held its own, and their pastry casing stayed crisp. If you're not self-consciously saving a piece for photos, it's a dish you can make a wild mess of, safe in the knowledge that it'll still taste great.

A very full vegetable tart
(slightly adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi's Plenty)

crust
1 1/4 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon salt
120g butter
3 tablespoons iced water

filling
1 red capsicum
1 yellow/orange capsicum
~100mL olive oil
1 medium eggplant
1 small sweet potato
1 small zucchini
2 medium onions
2 bay leaves
120g ricotta
120g feta
2 eggs
200mL double cream
7 cherry tomatoes
salt and pepper

Preheat an oven to 180°C.

Place the flour and salt in a food processor. Roughly dice the butter and drop it in too. Blend the mixture together until the butter is thoroughly mixed through. With the motor still running, slowly pour the water in one tablespoon at a time, until the mixture comes together as a dough (you might not need all of the water).

Turn the dough onto a large sheet of plastic wrap. Place another large piece of wrap on top. Roll the pastry out to fit a pie dish. Put the top wrap off and ease the pastry into the dish; remove the second piece of wrap and trim the pastry to fit the dish. Dot the base of the crust with holes using a fork. Line the crust with baking paper and dried legumes, or another pie weight of your choice. Bake the crust for 10 minutes, then remove the pie weights and bake the crust for a further 10 minutes. Allow the crust to cool.

Turn the oven up to 220°C.

Use a small knife to remove the stalks from the capsicums, and any membranes you can reach. Shake out any seeds still inside the capsicums. Place the capsicums on a small baking tray, drizzle them with a little of the olive oil, and bake them on the top shelf of the oven.

Dice the eggplant into 3cm cubes and place it all into a large baking tray. Stir through about 4 tablespoons of the olive oil and some salt and pepper. Bake the eggplant for 12 minutes. Peel the sweet potato, dice it into 2cm cubes, and add it to the eggplant when it's done. Bake them together for a further 12 minutes. Halve the zucchini lengthways and slice it into 3cm lengths. Add it to the eggplant and sweet potato pieces when they're done, and roast all three vegetables together for a final 12 minutes.

By now the capsicums should have collapsed with brown skins. Retrieve them from the oven and cover them with foil to steam as they cool. Allow the other roasted vegetables to cool as well. 

Turn the oven down to 160°C.

Thinly slice the onions. Saute them with the bay leaves in 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan over low heat. Stir them regularly, cooking until they're caramelised, around 25 minutes. Turn off the heat and discard the bay leaves.

Remove the foil from the capsicum dish and peel off their skins. Dice the roasted capsicums.

Spread the caramelised onions over the pie crust. Spoon in all of the roasted eggplant, sweet potato, zucchini and capsicums. Dice the ricotta and feta and arrange these over the roasted vegetables. Whisk together the eggs and cream with some salt and pepper, and gently pour them into the tart. Halve the cherry tomatoes and arrange them cut-side-up over the tart. Bake the tart for up 35-45 minutes, until golden and set. All it to rest for at least 10 minutes before serving.

Chickpea sauté with Greek yoghurt

June 27, 2015

The fifth gathering of our semi-regular Ottolenghi potluck posse was booked in for Saturday night, part of a ridiculously busy weekend for Cindy and I. We scaled back our usual ambitions and found an uncharacteristically simple Ottolenghi recipe in Plenty as our contribution. By the time we'd done our grocery shopping, dinner had been called off due to illness, leaving us to enjoy this dish without having to share.

It really is surprisingly straightforward given the usual rigmarole involved in an Ottolenghi meal - you can do it all in one pot over about 25 minutes and the ingredient list is  modest dozen with only sumac falling outside our standard kitchen stocks (thankfully we'd been given a little take home stash of sumac at Maha on our previous visit, so we were good to go).

For all its simplicity, this is a lovely meal - we were generous with the garlic (just one clove, but a really ginormous one), which I'd recommend, while the lemon, herbs and caraway seeds mean every mouthful is bright and interesting. The dollop of yoghurt on top is nice, but not essential - we took leftovers with us the day after with just the sumac sprinkled on and it was still excellent. File this one away for an occasion when you want to bust out one of your Ottolenghi books but don't have the time or energy for anything complicated - its a simple, satisfying winner.

Chickpea Sauté with Greek Yoghut

(a recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi's Plenty)

1 small bunch silverbeet

1/3 cup olive oil

4 carrots, peeled and diced into 1cm cubes

1 teaspoon caraway seeds

2 cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1 large garlic clove, crushed

2 tablespoons chopped mint

2 tablespoons chopped coriander

1 tablespoon lemon juice

salt and pepper

Greek yoghurt

sumac for sprinkling

Cut the silverbeet into stalks and leaves

Blanch the stalks in a large pot of boiling water for 3 minutes. Throw in the leaves and blanch for another couple of minutes. Drain and refresh with cold water. Squeeze the water out and roughly chop it all up.

Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan. Throw in the carrots and caraway seeds and cook for 5 minutes. Add the silverbeet (stems and leaves) and chickpeas and cook for another 5 minutes, stirring all the time. Add the garlic, herbs, lemon juice, salt and pepper and stir through, before killing the heat.

Serve immediately, topped with a dollop of Greek yoghurt and a sprinkling of sumac.

Ottolenghi eggplant fest

January 25, 2014

Cindy returned from a couple of weeks away keen to get back into the kitchen and eating some veggie heavy dishes. We turned, inevitably, to Ottolenghi and came up with a couple of recipes to fill up our Saturday. 

Both dishes involved roasting eggplants over an open flame, not something I'd ever been brave enough to try before. It turns out to be reasonably straightforward - get your gas burners going and pop the eggplant on top, turning it every few minutes to ensure that the whole thing gets charred. The skin will blacken and start to peel, but you really need to give it a good 20 minutes of cooking - I got worried about over-cooking with the first one and found that much of the flesh under the blackened skin had yet to really soften up. If you do it right, the filling comes out really soft and takes only a bit of mushing to turn into a smooth paste.

The first of the dishes was Ottolenghi's slightly fancy take on baba ganoush, a roasted eggplant dip with a dash of tahini and lots of big fresh flavours from the veggies, pomegranate and herbs. Once you've roasted the eggplant, this is just a simple 'stir everything together' recipe, and it's well worth the effort. We smeared it on fresh bread for a very satisfying lunch.

The second dish was dinner - a lentil and eggplant dish with Ottolenghi's usual load of veggies and herbs to keep things interesting. The star here was the eggplant. It's incredibly simple, just roasted to an almost liquid softness and seasoned with vinegar and heaps of salt and pepper, but the smokiness and hint of vinegary sharpness really shine. The lentil base is good too - make sure you don't overcook the cubed veggies, a bit of texture amidst the soft lentils is key. 

We continue to find treasures tucked away in Plenty - these are a couple more that we'll be returning to in future.

Burnt eggplant with tahini

(a recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi's Plenty)

1 medium eggplant

1/4 cup tahini

1/4 cup water

2 teaspoons pomegranate molasses

juice of half a lemon

1 garlic clove, crushed

3 tablespoons parsley, chopped

1/2 cucumber, diced small

6 cherry tomatoes, halved

seeds from half a pomegranate

olive oil

salt and pepper

First up, roast the eggplant with the skin on. I talked a bit about how to do this above. Make sure you really blacken the skin and get the eggplant completely mushed. Halve the eggplant and scoop out the flesh. Drain the flesh in a colander for fifteen minutes or so.

Once it's drained, chop it up a bit so that it starts to turn into a paste. Pop it into a mixing bowl and add the tahini, water, pomegranate molasses, lemon juice, garlic and parsley and mix everything together well. 

Add the cucumber and tomatoes and stir them through. 

Season with salt and pepper and serve drizzled with a splash of olive oil and a sprinkle of the pomegranate seeds.

Lentils with grilled eggplant

(another recipe from Plenty, also available at The Guardian)

2 medium eggplants

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

200g puy lentils

3 small carrots

2 sticks of celery

1 bay leaf

3 sprigs thyme

1 small white onion, halved

3 tablespoons olive oil

10 cherry tomatoes, halved

1/2 teaspoon brown sugar

1 tablespoon chopped parsley

1 tablespoon chopped coriander

1/2 teaspoon dried dill

salt and pepper

yoghurt for dolloping

Preheat the oven to 140°C.

Roast the eggplants over a gas stove. Once the skins are completely blackened and the flesh has collapsed into softness, slice them open and scoop the soft innards out into a colander. Leave them to drain for 15 minutes, and then sprinkle them a heaps of salt and pepper and half a teaspoon of the vinegar.

While you're roasting the eggplants, get the lentils sorted. Put them in a saucepan with plenty of water, plus one of the carrots and half of a celery stick (both cut into big chunks) along with the bay leaf, thyme and onion. Bring it to the boil and simmer on low heat for about 25 minutes, until the lentils are cooked.

Drain the lentils and remove the veggie chunks and herbs. In a mixing bowl, combine the drained lentils and the rest of the vinegar, 2 tablespoons of olive oil and plenty of salt and pepper.

Cut the leftover carrot and celery into 1cm cubes and combine with the tomatoes, a tablespoon of olive oil, sugar and salt. Cook in the oven for about 20 minutes (if you time this right, you can have the veggies cooking while you simmer the lentils).

Add the cooked veggies, and the coriander, parsley and dill to the lentils and stir together. 

Serve by building a little pile of the lentil/veggie mix on a plate, topping it with a generous few blobs of the eggplant and then dolloping a few tablespoons of yoghurt and a drizzle of olive oil on top.

Edamame noodle salad

November 7, 2013

I've enjoyed edamame at Japanese restaurants for many years, but only just picked up a packet to cook at home for the first time. (Thanks to Johanna GGG for pointing out Yahweh Asian Grocery in Carlton as a source.) They proved easy to handle, defrosting quickly, boiling happily, and slipping - shiny and green - from their pods without too much fuss.

We plonked them into this noodle salad from Ottolenghi's Plenty. Though the ingredient list is characteristically lengthy, the cooking time is short and the two of us had this sorted in perhaps 20 minutes. I loved the herbs and the lime and tamarind, and ate as many of the fresh red chilli slices as I could stand. I picked out the larger chunks of galangal, though - it's got a lovely fragrance but I find its flesh a little acrid. I might use ginger next time.

We supplemented the salad with a seared mock cod fillet, which had a surprising pungency of its own.

Edamame noodle salad
(slightly adapted from Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi,
and previously published in The Guardian)

300g bag frozen edamame in pods
200g rice vermicelli
2 tablespoons sunflower oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 green onions, thinly sliced
handful of green beans, trimmed and chopped into 5cm lengths 
1 large red chilli, finely chopped
3 tablespoons coriander, chopped
3 tablespoons mint, chopped
salt
sesame oil

sauce
2 tablespoons galangal, grated
juice of 4 limes
3 tablespoons sunflower oil
2 tablespoons coconut palm sugar
2 teaspoons tamarind concentrate
1 teaspoon tamari
1 teaspoon salt

Defrost the edamame and set a large saucepan of water on to boil. Boil the edamame for 5 minutes and drain them, reserving the hot water. Place the vermicelli in the saucepan of water for 5 minutes to soften, then drain them. When they're cool enough to handle, pop the edamame from their pods and discard the pods.

In small bowl, whisk together the sauce ingredients.

Heat the oil in a large frying pan or wok. Add the garlic and white parts of the spring onions, stir-frying for a minute or two, until the garlic just begins to turn golden. Turn off the heat, add the noodles and the sauce, gently stirring everything together. Add the edamame, green beans, remaining spring onions and chilli. Return the pan to the heat for less than a minute, to warm it all through. Add salt, to taste. Stir through the coriander and mint, shake over a little sesame oil and serve.

Bánh xèo

March 2, 2013

Last Saturday was my favourite kind, spent cycling around sunny Brunswick eating delicious things, picking up some groceries and returning home to cook together and kill some zombies. Inspired by our recent visit to Fina's, we tried our hand at bánh xèo. There are recipes all over the internet for these rice flour pancakes but we wanted to start with Ottolenghi's version, even faithfully shopping around for the precise herbs and vegetables in his filling.

The filling is really about patiently shredding and picking a whole lot of fresh veg. Mint is a must and I really liked the daikon, but you could otherwise mix up the greenery to suit yourself. The sauce is a sweet and spicy delight, faintly recalling fish sauce but not all-out mimicking it. The pancake, I typically find, is the tricky part. (As an aside, I was surprised to see egg in this one as I think the restaurant versions I've eaten have been vegan.) No two of mine were quite the same, and I panicked over every flip. I think the aim with this recipe is to use medium, rather than high, heat. You want the batter to sizzle a little as it hits the pan, but then spread out smoothly and take a while to really set through before the high-stakes flipping. I preferred the pancakes that were a solid 2-3mm thick over the more crepe-y ones, they really soaked up the sauce.

Bánh xèo is a lovely summer meal, and we're having just the lovely extended summer to enjoy it in. While we chose this as a bit of a project, there's potential here to pare things back to a simple lunch - a rice flour/coconut milk batter, whatever greens are around, kecap manis, chilli and perhaps a little vinegar would just about do it.

Bánh xèo
(a recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi's Plenty,
also available at the Guardian)

filling
1 large carrot
1 daikon
4 spring onions
1 green chilli
80g snow peas
15g coriander
15g Thai basil
15g mint
100g mung bean sprouts
100g enoki mushrooms

sauce
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 1/2 tablespoons sesame oil
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon kecap manis
2 teaspoons minced ginger
1 red chilli, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon salt

pancake
200g rice flour
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
400mL can coconut milk
a splash of sunflower oil

Start with the filling. Peel then shred the carrot and daikon - Michael did this all with the vegetable peeler. Slice the spring onions. Slice the chilli and snow peas into long, thin strips. Pick the herb leaves. Set it all aside, with the sprouts and mushrooms too.

Whisk together all the sauce ingredients.

Place the rice flour, egg, salt and turmeric in a large bowl. Whisk in that egg slowly, gradually pouring in the coconut milk as you go. Keep whisking until you have a smooth batter.

Splash the sunflower oil into a non-stick frypan and bring it to medium heat. Slowly pour a quarter of the batter into the pan, allowing it to spread out into a large circle. Cook the pancake for 3-5 minutes, until it's browning a little underneath and set on top. Gently flip it over to brown the other side.

Slide the pancake onto a plate. Arrange a quarter of the filling ingredients over half of it, spoon over a tablespoon or two of the sauce, fold over the pancake into a semi circle and spoon over more sauce. Repeat with the remaining ingredients to make four pancakes.

Lasagne of unprecedented extravagance

November 10, 2012

I've been revelling in our recent couple of obligation-free weekends. We've done a lot of exploratory eating, and on Saturday we scheduled my ideal combination of unhurried sunny-day cycling, eating out, browsing markets and op-shops, then lazing at home and spending a few hours in the kitchen trying something new.

We'd picked out a mushroom lasagne from Plenty for dinner. Lasagne is a bit of a project at the best of times, and Ottolenghi consistently leans towards the lengthy and the complicated. To wit: this lasagne involved four kinds of mushroom and five kinds of cheese. We committed, raiding the market delis for fresh lasagne sheets and fancy dairy, and the organic aisle for herbs and fungi. And after we spent money, we spent time; soaking and chopping mushrooms, whisking up two cheese sauces, grating yet more cheese, cursing dry lasagne sheets and carefully layering it all together, then not-quite-patiently letting it all melt and bake into the monstrosity you see pictured above.

It was a delicious monstrosity. I'm fond of mushrooms in cream sauce, and this has allowed me to eat them all week (and a whole lot of rocket besides). While the lasagne has been a pleasure, I can't help wondering if those five deli-sourced cheeses might have brought even more if we'd rationed them out and appreciated them individually. But then I'd've lost the pleasure of a weekend cooking project, I suppose.

Lasagne of unprecedented extravagance
(aka Mushroom Lasagne in Yotam Ottolenghi's Plenty,
recipe online here)

mushrooms
15g dried porcini mushrooms
400mL lukewarm water
60g butter
1 tablespoon thyme leaves
200g portobella mushrooms, 420g Swiss brown mushrooms, 240g button mushrooms
2 tablespoons chopped tarragon
4 tablespoons chopped parsley

lasagne
60g butter
3 shallots, finely chopped
60g plain flour
550mL milk
375g ricotta
1 egg
150g feta, crumbled
170g gruyere, grated
400g lasagne sheets
150g mozzarella, grated
50g parmesan, grated
salt and white pepper

Place the dried porcini mushrooms in a small-medium bowl and cover them with the lukewarm water, leaving them to soak for 5 minutes. I used this time to prepare my herbs and other mushrooms. When the porcinis are soaked, drain them and reserve the liquid. Finely chop them up.

Melt the butter in a very large frypan. Add the thyme and all the mushrooms, including the soaked porcinis. Stir the mushrooms occasionally as they cook. When they've softened and are just starting to leak a bit of water, take them off the heat (Ottolenghi estimates 4 minutes, but I reckon ours took at least 10). Stir in the tarragon and parsley, plus some salt and pepper. Transfer it all to a large bowl.

Use the frypan to make a bechamel sauce. Start by melting the butter and cooking the shallots in it for a few minutes. Add the flour, stirring it all together to form a paste and cooking for another couple of minutes. Gradually whisk in the milk, trying your best to smooth out any lumps. Strain the mushroom liquid and leave aside the last bit, which probably has grit in it. Whisk the mushroom liquid into the sauce too. Whisk in a little salt and pepper. Bring the sauce to a boil, then turn down the heat to low and simmer it until thick (Ottolenghi reckoned 10 minutes but I reckon mine took half that!). Take the sauce off the heat.

In a small bowl, stir together the ricotta and egg until well mixed, then fold in 3 tablespoons of the bechamel and all of the crumbled feta. Add the gruyere to the remaining bechamel in the frypan, stirring it through until relatively smooth.

If you're using dry lasagne sheets, pour some boiling water over them and allow them to soak for a couple of minutes. Drain them. 

Preheat an oven to 180 C. Find a large baking dish to assemble the lasagne, ours is about 25 x 35cm and it was bursting at the seams with this recipe.

Pour one-fifth of the bechamel into the baking dish and spread it out. Cover the sauce with a layer of lasagne sheets. Spread over one-quarter of the ricotta mixture (I had to dab it around, it wasn't going to spread as a thin layer), spoon over one-quarter of the mushrooms, then one-quarter of the mozzarella. Repeat the bechamel-pasta-ricotta-mushroom-mozzarella process three more times. Pour over the last of the bechamel and sprinkle over the parmesan.

Cover the lasagne loosely with foil (so that it doesn't touch the top) and bake for 40 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for a further 10-15 minutes, until the parmesan top is golden. Allow the lasagne to rest for 10 minutes before serving.

Mixed beans with many spices

August 5, 2012

   

Cindy's already summed up our afternoon Ottolenghi-inspired cook-off, so you know the kind of kitchen environment that this meal was prepared in. Most of the recipes in Plenty are complicated, multi-potted rigmaroles that would only have resulted in tears and frustration in a kitchen stuffed with four other people hard at work. Luckily this relatively simple bean recipe is tucked away towards the back, providing a straightforward but interesting dish to add to the afternoon's festivities.

Of course, even with this dish Ottolenghi doesn't make things simple - we hit up the Preston Market in an attempt to round up the necessary ingredients (and also as an excuse to visit La Panella), but still had to swap snow peas for sugar snaps, borlotti beans for broad beans (completely out of season) and coriander for lovage (because what even is that?).

   

The borlotti beans in particular were kind of a treat - they come in beautiful purple and white pods and are pretty attractive themselves (at least until you simmer away their swirly purple markings).

   

I don't think any of these were hugely problematic substitutions, although the borlotti beans were probably a bit tougher than broad beans would have been. The whole dish had a relatively mild flavour, with the earthy spices adding depth and warmth to beans and tomatoes. Given the array of other fancy dishes we had lined up this worked pretty well, but I wouldn't recommend making it the centrepiece of a meal - it's much better suited as a solid and veggie-filled side dish.

Mixed beans with many spices

(adapted from a recipe in Ottolenghi's Plenty)

3 tablespoons of olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

4 garlic cloves, minced

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1/2 - 1 teaspoon each of ground cumin, turmeric and coriander

1 teaspoon each of ground ginger and cardamom

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1 x 400g can of chopped tomatoes

1 teaspoon sugar

100g snow peas, trimmed and halved

300g green beans, trimmed and halved

250g of shelled borlotti beans

3 tablespoons chopped coriander

salt and pepper

Heat the oil in a large non-stick frypan and saute the onion for about 5 minutes, until it starts to soften. Add in the garlic and fry, stirring frequently, for another couple of minutes.

Spoon in the tomato paste, spices, salt and pepper and stir everything together, cooking for another minute or two. 

Pour in the can of tomatoes and stir through all the beans, along with the sugar. Stir together and bring to a gentle simmer. Cover and keep the simmer going until you're happy with the texture of the borlotti beans - I reckon we had it going for half an hour or so, but another 10 minutes may not have hurt.

Add salt and pepper if necessary and stir through the coriander just as you're taking it off the heat.

Serve with rice. And a whole bunch of other amazing dishes.

Ottolenghi cookalong

August 5, 2012

   

It took almost a year to make it happen but AOF and I were determined to reconvene in a kitchen somewhere, to cook and eat together. This time the Moody Noodles joined us in an effort to veganise and, where needed, deglutenise the recipes of Yotam Ottolenghi.

   

AOF committed first, to a celeriac and lentil salad with hazelnuts and mint from Plenty.

   

K fried a wokful of black pepper tofu with minor substitutions.

   

Michael made a spicy bean stew and I, a cauliflower salad. (We'll post recipes and photos of them soon.) With a mound of brown rice to soak up the stray dressings, it was a fine plate of food.

   

Ottolenghi doesn't publish a lot of dessert recipes, but we concocted something in the spirit of the day. Toby baked his first ever cake! He boldly replaced the lemons in this polenta cake with mandarins to great effect.

   

Meanwhile, the coconut cream and baked rhubarb I'd been plotting turned out to be this cake's ideal complements. (Yep, I'll post those recipes too.)

Winter is a little lovelier when you can spend a Sunday in a warm kitchen with north-facing windows, fresh food and friends to cook it with.

____________

AOF has some reflections on the meal here.

Quince & gorgonzola salad

April 21, 2012

   

This is definitely a sister salad to the fig & goat's curd one I made earlier this month - Ottolenghi expertly teams a limited-time-only fruit with fancy cheese and lots of green leaves. Truth be told, I'd been secretly waiting for J to announce quince time for a couple of months. Just for this salad.

Quinces typically get poached slowly in lots of sugar but here also peppercorns, bay leaves, orange zest, lemon juice and red wine - lovely. This ensures the quince segments retain a little bite and they're beautifully teamed with a pungent, creamy gorgonzola. Lots of greens and some pistachios keep it all from being too rich.

The poaching juices are ingeniously used in the salad dressing, but there are plenty more to enjoy after this salad's finished. I still haven't decided what to do with mine - any suggestions?

Quince & gorgonzola salad
(very slightly adapted from a recipe in Yotam Ottolenghi's Plenty)

400mL water
300g castor sugar
15 black peppercorns
4 strips of orange zest
2 bay leaves
juice of 1/2 lemon
200mL red wine
2 medium quinces
1 teaspoon wholegrain mustard
2 teaspoons cider vinegar
4 tablespoons olive oil
80g mixed leaves
120g gorgonzola
60g pistachios
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 140°C.

In a medium saucepan, stir together the water, castor sugar, peppercorns, orange zest, bay leaves, lemon juice and red wine. Gently warm them until the sugar has dissolved, then take them off the heat.

Peel and core the quinces, adding these scraps to the saucepan of syrup. Slice the quince into segments and add them to the syrup. Transfer the quinces and syrup to a casserole dish, cover it up and bake for about 2 hours. When the quince segments are completely tender, remove them from the oven and set them aside to cool.

To make the salad's dressing, whisk together the mustard, vinegar, oil, 4 tablespoons of the cooking liquid and salt and pepper to taste.

Set up the salad by layering the greens and quinces on a plate, interspersing them with teaspoons of gorgonzola and sprinklings of pistachios. Spoon the dressing over the top.

Herb crumbed pumpkin wedges

April 18, 2012

   

When a pumpkin turned up in our vege box, I got a hankering for my grandmother's scones. Once that was dealt with we still had three-quarters of the orange beast to eat! Ottolenghi's Plenty came to the rescue, with a relatively simple embellishment on roast pumpkin that cleared up our supply in just two meals. Breadcrumbs, chopped herbs and grated cheese pressed into the surface add a bit of texture and savouriness to a vegetable that can otherwise disintegrate to sweet mush in the oven.

With the recommended dollop of dill sour cream on top, I think these would make a lovely autumn entrée (does anyone out there make entrées at home?). We heaped up a big side salad and called it dinner, though I think these would fare even better as a main with some couscous or quinoa.

Herb crumbed pumpkin wedges
(a recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi's Plenty)

Preheat an oven to 190°C. Slice a pumpkin (or fraction thereof!) into thin wedges (keep the skin on) and lie them across a paper-lined baking dish. Spray or brush them lightly with vegetable oil.

In a small-medium bowl, mix together grated parmesan, breadcrumbs, lots of finely chopped parsley and a little finely chopped thyme, some crushed garlic and grated lemon zest. Sprinkle the crumb mixture over the pumpkin wedges, pressing it in gently, and bake the wedges for about 30 minutes, until the pumpkin is tender.

While the pumpkin is baking, finely chop a little dill and stir it into some sour cream, adding salt and pepper to taste. Spoon the sour cream onto or next to the pumpkin wedges, to serve.

Fig & goat's curd salad

April 9-10, 2012

   

I've been conscious for the last few weeks that figs are in their short season, and anxious to make this Ottolenghi recipe with them at home. The fabulous fig salad we enjoyed at the Newmarket Hotel extended my sense of urgency to Michael and we made sure we were all set for it before the Easter weekend completely disappeared.

The idea isn't too complicated - a bed of mixed green leaves, juicy sweet figs, tangy goat's curd and an even tangier dressing of mustard and pomegranate molasses. Ottolenghi thins the dressing out with a lot of olive oil and coats the leaves in it. This approach didn't have quite the bite I was after (and our cheese was pretty tame too) so on my second attempt I skipped the olive oil, added just a drop of water to loosen up the molasses and dripped my punchier dressing across the entire plate. That did the trick.

I wasn't scrupulously loyal to the original quantities so I'm keeping them vague in my recipe below. The most important thing is to get the freshest, ripest, finest quality produce possible - there's nothing much extra here to flatter them.

Fig & goat's curd salad
(based on a recipe appearing in Yotam Ottolenghi's Plenty)

Scatter handfuls of mixed green leaves and torn basil over a plate. Slice fresh figs longways into quarters and arrange them on top of the greens. Dot the plate with teaspoonfuls of fresh goat's curd and snip over a few chives.

In a cup, whisk together a small amount of Dijon mustard with at least double the quantity of pomegranate molasses. Add salt and pepper to taste, and whisk in a little water or olive oil to thin the dressing out. Drizzle the dressing over the salad and serve.

Black pepper tofu

November 12, 2011

When Michael first bought me Plenty a year ago, we were both immediately drawn to the photo of black pepper tofu. It's taken us quite some time to try it out. In the meantime Carla and K veganised it and offered their thoughts - the most important one being that the original recipe uses more pepper than anyone can stand!

The original ingredient list is certainly packed with pungency: 5 tablespoons of black pepper, 8 chillies, 12 shallots, 12 cloves of garlic and 16 spring onions. Admittedly we cut a few quantities down, but most of the subduing and sweetening is performed by a long, gentle fry in lots of butter. Our tofu was deeply savoury, with a heat level I could happily handle.

Ottolenghi's recipes are rarely short or simple, and the other notable process here is shallow-frying cornflour-coated tofu cubes. They develop a nice golden crust, all the better for the sauce to cling to. That said, I'd also be tempted to try quickly stir-frying the tofu sans cornflour.

The black pepper tofu was loved by all who ate it. We served a fancy Ottolenghi salad on the side but it was completely upstaged. This dish needs nothing more than steamed greens and rice to support it.

Black pepper tofu
(adapted from a recipe in Yotam Ottolenghi's Plenty,
recipe available online)

~1/2 cup vegetable oil, for frying
1kg firm tofu
~1/3 cup cornflour
120g butter
12 shallots, thinly sliced
6 mild red chillis, thinly sliced
12 cloves garlic, minced
3 tablespoons ginger, minced
5 tablespoons kecap manis
5 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons castor sugar
3 tablespoons coarsely ground black pepper
8 spring onions, cut into 3cm segments

Pour oil into a frypan until it's 5mm deep and bring it to medium-high heat. Chop the tofu into 2cm cubes, tossing each cube in cornflour and placing it in the hot oil. Cook the tofu cubes for a minute or two top and bottom, until lightly browned, then transfer them to absorbent paper. It took me about 4 batches to fry all the tofu.

Remove all the oil from the pan and clean any sediment from the bottom. Return the pan to low-medium heat and melt the butter in it. Add the shallots, chilli, garlic and ginger, sautéing gently until very soft, about 15 minutes. Add the kecap manis, soy sauce, sugar and pepper, combining everything thoroughly.

Add the tofu back into the frypan, stirring it through to coat it in the sauce. Stir in the spring onions, then serve it all with steamed greens and rice.

Sweet potato wedges with lemongrass creme fraiche

September 29, 2011

Cindy and I sat down on Thursday morning to brainstorm dinner ideas. Despite dinner for the day being entirely my responsibility (I was working from home so could sneak off to the markets after breakfast and do any prep that was needed throughout the afternoon), we somehow ended up eating wedges as our main meal. I'm still not quite sure how Cindy convinced me, although I suspect her use of the magic word (Ottolenghi) had something to do with it. We made a pretence at being healthy by having this salad on the side, but it was really all about the wedges.

At least these were interesting wedges - the sweet potatoes were nicely offset by the creamy and very citrussy creme fraiche sauce. I'd have liked to get a bit of crunch into the wedges somehow, but our sweet potatoes seemed like they were just going to keep browning until they burned without ever really changing texture. Still, this was a success - I'd definitely make them again, although probably as a side or a snack rather than for dinner.


Sweet potato wedges with lemongrass creme fraiche
(recipe from Ottolenghi's Plenty)

2 large sweet potatoes, washed but not peeled
1 tablespoon ground coriander
salt
olive oil
250g creme fraiche (the recipe said 200g, but I just used the container up)
1 stalk lemongrass, chopped as finely as you can
1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, grated
juice and zest of two limes
salt
chilli flakes
a handful of coriander leaves

Preheat the oven to 210°C.

Cut the sweet potatoes in eighths longways - you want long and skinny wedges.

Lay them out in a prepared baking tray and brush with olive oil. Sprinkle with the ground coriander and salt and then bake for 25 minutes or so. You want them to start browning up and, ideally, going a bit crispy on the outside.

In the meantime, make your sauce - just combine the creme fraiche, lemongrass, ginger, limes and salt in a bowl.

When the wedges are cooked, serve them with the sauce and a sprinkling of coriander leaves and chilli flakes on top.

March 13, 2011: Gado gado

I got stuck into more Ottolenghi on a Sunday afternoon. I've had my eye on the gado gado since the day Michael gave me Plenty but the recipe's quite involved and was destined to produce questionable leftovers.  

The satay sauce took an hour, maybe an hour and a half, to prepare but it was other-worldly in its deliciousness.  It was as if the ingredients queued up patiently to be tasted one by one as this rolled across my palate.  Fragrant galangal and lemongrass, sour tamarind, the sweetness of sugar and coconut, then the garlic, peanuts, and a final gentle chilli burn.  Just astounding.

The salad itself is a fun and filling mix.  Cabbage, beans, sprouts and cucumber get rounded out with turmeric-dyed potato chunks, boiled eggs and tofu, dressed with the peanut sauce and then showered with fresh herbs and crunchy-fried bits.  It is a hassle to blanch everything separately and in future we might pick-and-choose what to include; I'd prioritise fresh greens, par-boiled potatoes, tofu chunks and the convenient crispy-fried shallots.  For the other crispy-fried treat (Ottolenghi nominates cassava chips, croutons and wonton skins as options) I dug out the garlic chips we bought at Minh Phat last year.  They were terrific but might have been more effort than they're worth.

The leftovers were far more palatable than I'd feared (...even the cabbage!).  This dish will definitely reappear in our kitchen, though it might take a few goes to find the version that best suits us.

Gado gado
(from Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi,
also available on The Guardian website)

sauce
4 cloves garlic
1 stalk lemongrass, roughly chopped
2 1/2 tablespoons sambal olek
2 small pieces galangal
4 medium shallots
1/3 cup vegetable oil
225g roasted peanuts
450mL water
2 teaspoons salt
90g sugar
2 teaspoons paprika
2 tablespoons tamarind concentrate
200mL coconut milk

salad
1 teaspoon turmeric
2 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
1/4 large cabbage, cut into chunks
70g bean sprouts
100g green beans
1/2 medium cucumber, sliced
4 hard-boiled eggs, quartered
100g tofu, sliced
garlic chips (or something else crunchy and deep-fried)
3 tablespoons coriander leaves
crispy-fried shallots

In a food processor, blend together the garlic, lemongrass, sambal olek, galangal and shallots until they make a coarse paste; add a little of the oil as you go if it needs help pastifying. In a medium saucepan over low-medium heat, pour in the remaining oil and add the paste. Turn the heat down to low and cook the paste, stirring regularly, for 40-50 minutes.

Roughly crush the nuts - I did this with a mortar and pestle but you could also briefly pulse the nuts in a food processor. Transfer them to a frypan, cover them with the water, and simmer the nuts for 20-25 minutes, until most of the water has evaporated.

While the peanuts are simmering, the paste should be almost done cooking. When it's ready add the salt, sugar, paprika and tamarind concentrate. Stir everything well to combine and cook for a further 10 minutes. Add the peanuts and coconut milk to the sauce and stir everything well to combine. Set the sauce aside, ensuring it's warm come serving time.

Bring a medium-large saucepan of water to the boil and add the turmeric; boil the potatoes in this water until tender. Bring more water to boil in a second pot and blanch and drain the other vegetables in turn - the cabbage should only take a minute, the sprouts half a minute, and the beans about 4 minutes.

Finally, pile everything up on plates (or a single large serving platter). Layer the blanched vegetables, cucumber, tofu and eggs; spoon over the sauce and then sprinkle over the garlic chips, coriander leaves and crispy-fried shallots.

February 6, 2011: Spicy Moroccan carrot salad

We had a summer Sunday bbq to attend and had been tasked (along with a few other guests) with contributing a salad. One of the attendees had called first dibs on our favourite quinoa salad recipe so we delved straight into Plenty for new ideas.

Ottolenghi is a master of delicious and interesting looking salads so we had options galore - in the end we went with the second recipe in the book - spicy Moroccan carrot salad. This was a pretty simple to make, just a quick cooking of the carrots and onions and then a whole lot of stirring. The pay-off is a stunningly flavoured salad - the raw garlic and spices really power things up. To be honest, it would probably be a bit much as your only side salad, but combined with all the wonderful dishes everyone brought along, it was a taste sensation. Ottolenghi wins again!


Spicy Moroccan carrot salad 
(courtesy of Ottolenghi's Plenty)

1kg carrots
80ml olive oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 teaspoon castor sugar
3 garlic cloves, crushed
2 medium green chillies, finely chopped
1 green onion, finely chopped
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1-2 tablespoons chopped preserved lemon
1 bunch of coriander
120ml yoghurt

Peel the carrots and cut them into half moons, about 1 cm thick. Simmer in salted water in a large saucepan for about 10 minutes, until they've soften a bit but still retain a decent crunch. Drain and set aside.

Heat the oil in a frying pan and fry the onion for 10-12 minutes, until soft and starting to brown. Add the drained carrots, followed by all the remaining ingredients except for the coriander and yoghurt. Stir well, fry for a minute or so, kill the heat and season with salt and pepper.

Just before serving, stir through the coriander. The recipe suggests serving the salad in individual bowls with a dab of yoghurt on top (as pictured), but we took the salad to the picnic with the yoghurt stirred through it, which worked just as well.

February 2, 2011: Sweet potato patties and cucumber salad with smashed garlic and ginger

One of Cindy's workmates has been growing more cucumbers than she can eat, so we found ourselves with a couple sitting in the fridge that we had no real plans for. I'd been eyeing off Ottolenghi's cucumber salad, which he pitches as a dairy-free alternative to yoghurt or sour-cream based sauces. We followed the recommendations in the book and made sweet potato cakes to serve with the salad.

The cucumber salad is very, very flavoursome - raw ginger and garlic pack some pretty powerful punches (Cindy refuses to eat this at work for fear of overpowering her colleagues). It's also a cool and tasty treat, that really added to the fairly starchy sweet potato cakes. I'm not sure it's really a direct substitution for the lemon and yoghurt sauce originally intended to serve with the patties, but it definitely works with them, cutting through with pungent, cool deliciousness.

The sweet potato patties themselves were pretty simple and tasty enough, but they'd be a little doughy and bland without something like the cucumber to offset them - I'm not sure they'll end up in our regular burger rotation. Both recipes are pretty straightforward, although they do both include hour long rest periods (for drying the sweet potato and combining the cucumber dressing), which means you can't just throw them together at the last minute.

Cucumber salad with smashed garlic and ginger 
(via Ottolenghi's Plenty)

4 cucumbers, peeled
2 green onions, thinly sliced
1 thumb sized piece of ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
2 large garlic cloves, peeled (maybe drop this down to one unless you're a big fan of raw garlic)
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
3-4 tablespoons chopped coriander
salt
3 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
2 teaspoons caster sugar
2 tablespoons sunflower oil
2 teaspoons sesame oil

Whisk together the vinegar, oils and the sugar in a mixing bowl. Add in the green onions and set aside to marinate.

Pound the ginger in a mortar with some salt. Add the garlic and keep pounding, until everything is broken up but not pureed. Scrape the smushed garlic and ginger into the dressing bowl and leave to sit for about an hour.

Cut the cucumbers into little angled half-moons about 1/2 cm thick. Combine the dressing and the cucumber in a bowl, add in the sesame seeds and corainder, stirring well to make sure everything is well combined. Leave to sit for 10 minutes or so for the flavours to really combine.

You can carefully tip some of the excess liquid away before serving, but we were happy just scooping out the solid bits and leaving a puddle of dressing in the bowl.



Sweet potato cakes 
(also via Plenty, and accessible from Ottolenghi's Guardian column)

1kg sweet potato, peeled and cut into large chunks
2 teaspoons tamari
100g plain flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon caster sugar
3 tablespoons chopped green onions
1 red chilli, finely chopped
Sunflower oil for frying

Steam the sweet potatoes until they're almost falling apart with softness and set aside in a colander to drain for an hour or so (this can correspond with the hour the cucumber dressing marinates for!)

Mash the sweet potatoes in a large mixing bowl and then add the rest of the ingredients.

Mix everything together until you've got a nice smooth dough (this is easiest with your hands). It should be a bit sticky and not at all runny - if it's liquidy (ours wasn't), add more flour until it's dough-like.

Heat the oil in a frying pan. Mush together little dough-cakes 5-10cm across and about 1cm thick and fry over medium heat, about five minutes on each side. Soak up any excess oil on some paper towels and then serve, with the cucumber salad beside (or on top!).

January 3, 2011: Quinoa salad with Persian dried lime

I know, I know - more Ottolenghi. This book's getting a real workout!  The quinoa salad became a must-try after I bought Persian dried limes in Dandenong.  Instead of going the usual route of piercing the limes and having their fragrance infuse a liquid, they are ground to a powder and used as a seasoning in this recipe.  Powdering the limes is easier said than done, as Ottolenghi hints in his preamble.  Michael went through several rounds of food-processing, mortar-and-pestling and sieving to yield 2 tablespoons of coarse powder. It's also very heady stuff, with Michael complaining of some dizziness (and olfactory hallucinations the next day!) from the intense aroma.

The dried lime lends a unique edge to another salad that's bursting with grains and herbs. Preparing the elements takes some energy (we cooked the three grains separately, as well as roasting the sweet potatoes and prepping the herbs), but there's lots to share around once its done and it keeps well for packed lunches.  (We ate pomegranate tofu on the side, which added further to the prep effort and lunch bounty.)  For a vegan version I'd recommend replacing the feta with cubes of smoked or marinated tofu; chickpeas could work well too.

Quinoa salad with Persian dried lime
(slightly adapted from Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi; recipe also appears here)

700g sweet potato
1/2 cup olive oil
1/3 cup wild rice (needs 1 cup water)
a generous 3/4 cup basmati rice (needs 1 1/3 cups water)
1 cup quinoa (needs 1 cup water)
4 garlic cloves, minced
3 tablespoons sage leaves, finely chopped
3 tablespoons oregano, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons dried and powdered Persian lime
6 tablespoons mint, finely chopped
4 green onions, green part thinly sliced
juice of 1/2 lemon
200g feta, broken into chunks
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Peel the sweet potatoes and chop them into inch-length cubes. Spread them over a baking tray or two, drizzling over half the oil and sprinkling with salt and pepper. Bake the sweet potatoes until tender but not disintegrating, about 20 minutes.

While the sweet potato bakes, cook the wild rice, basmati rice and quinoa in separate saucepans.  In each case we covered the grains with the required water, brought them to the boil, and then simmered until tender.  The basmati rice and quinoa absorbed their water completely, but we drained the wild rice once ready.  Transfer the cooked grains to a large mixing bowl.

Heat the remaining oil in a frypan.  Sauté the garlic until lightly golden, then add the sage and oregano and stir-fry for a minute more.  Pour the mixture over the grains in the bowl.  Gently stir in the sweet potato, lime powder, mint, green onions, lemon juice, feta, and some salt and pepper.  Serve warm or at room temperature.