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Included on my holiday gift wish list for my husband this
year were two books by the same author, Yotam Ottolenghi. The first, called Plenty, is all vegetarian. The second,
called Jerusalem, is co-written with
someone of Arab descent (Sami Tamimi), and the recipes are from Jerusalem. Well
I couldn’t wait for Chanukah and went out and bought both books for myself back
in the fall (first Plenty and then Jerusalem). I wasn’t sorry, as we were
able to make several dishes from Plenty
over the holidays and they were very well-received and quite delicious.
Yotam Ottolenghi is an Israeli-born chef who came to cooking
late in the game (started culinary school at age 30). Ottolenghi owns and
operates (with Noam Bar and Sami Tamimi) four restaurants called Ottolenghi, in England (http://www.ottolenghi.co.uk/). The restaurant has been an amazing success which doesn’t
surprise me at all since every recipe we have attempted has been unbelievably
delicious. The King of Soup’s cousin Paul, who lives in Amsterdam, has been to
Ottolenghi and raved about it to us. He was the first person to recommend the
cookbook Plenty to us. Since then we
have recommended it to countless people including my brother (and sometimes
blog -contributor Jonathan), the King’s brother Simon, and the King’s Auntie
Barbara – all great chefs in their own right.
Ottolenghi also writes a column for the Guardian and that’s
where I first discovered him – I was looking for vegetarian recipes online and
came across his recipe for parmesan and panko-encrusted pumpkin wedges. I asked
the King of Soup to make them for me for my birthday dinner – we used squash
instead of pumpkin (because we are the King and Queen of substitutions) and it
was amazing and delicious. I kept checking the Guardian Saturday column for
more good eats from Ottolenghi – and then cousin Paul informed me that he had
published a book.
Although I have been looking at the recipes in Jerusalem, I hadn’t tested anything
until now. Yesterday was a holiday in Ontario, Family Day, and we spent the day
playing with the kids, building Lego, cuddling the dog, and cooking. I decided
to make a dish called mejadra –
mostly because we had all the ingredients in the pantry and most stores were
closed yesterday. This particular dish is one that is “...popular throughout
the Arab world...”, and the authors labelled it as comfort food. I have to say
that I agree with them – I just had a steaming hot bowl of mejadra for lunch
and I was indeed comforted on this cold, wet, Toronto winter day.
It was easy to make and there are not too many ingredients,
although there are several spices that some might not have handy in their spice
rack. Nice to note is that this dish is completely vegetarian, and also gluten-free (as long as your lentils don't have anything added to them - check the packaging). Here is the recipe and my comments/edits as usual.
Ingredients:
1 ¼ cups green or brown lentils (I used one 14 oz can of
brown lentils)
4 medium onions (I used 2 large sweet onions)
2 tbsp all-purpose flour
About 1 cup sunflower oil (I used between 2/3 of a cup and ¾
of a cup of vegetable oil)
2 tsp cumin seeds (I used 2 tsp of ground cumin since I didn’t
have seeds)
1 ½ tbsp coriander seeds (I used 1 ½ tbsp ground coriander
since I didn’t have seeds)
1 cup basmati rice (I used brown basmati which increased the
cooking time)
2 tbsp olive oil
½ tsp ground turmeric
1 ½ tsp ground allspice
1 ½ tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp sugar
1 ½ cups water (I used more than this to help cook the brown
rice – I will describe in the methods below)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Methods:
If you are using dried lentils, the authors direct you to
put them in a small saucepan, cover with water, bring to a boil, and cook for
12 – 15 minutes (until they have softened a bit but still have a little bite to
them). Drain and set aside. Since I used canned lentils, I didn’t do this. I
just drained them and set them aside.
For the crispy onions, slice them very thinly. Then place
them on a large plate or tray. Sprinkle them with the 3 tbsp of flour and 1 tsp
salt. Toss them well with your hands.
You’re going to cook them in 3 batches.
Heat a medium-sized saucepan on high heat and put about one third of a cup of the oil
in the pan.
Toss in one piece of onion and wait for it to start sizzling – this
tells you when the oil is ready – you want the onion to really sizzle when you
drop it in. Once the oil is ready, place one third of your sliced, tossed onions
into the saucepan, reduce heat to medium-high and fry for 5 – 7 minutes. Toss
it around a few times while cooking and keep a close eye on it so they don’t
burn.
Once they are crispy enough, scoop them into a paper
towel-lined colander and toss some sea salt on top. Cook the remaining 2
batches of onions using the same method (add oil each time and sprinkle salt on
them in the colander). I ended up using between two thirds and three quarters of a cup of
the oil – definitely not the full cup.
The next set of instructions tells you to wipe out the
saucepan and toss in the cumin and coriander seeds. On medium heat toast the
seeds for 1-2 minutes. Since I didn’t have seeds, I just dropped the ground
spices in a stirred them for a minute or 2. I switched pots for this step – I had
used a frying pan for the onions (because I really like this particular pan)
but I needed a pot with a lid for the remaining steps.
After you toast the spices, add the rest of the spices, the
sugar, the rice, the olive oil, ½ tsp salt and plenty of freshly-ground black
pepper. Stir it all up to coat the dry rice.
Then add the lentils and the 1 ½ cups
of water. Bring it all to a boil and cover it with the lid, reduce the heat to
low and simmer for 15 minutes.
15 minutes is enough to cook white basmati rice.
If you are using brown basmati rice, you will need to open the pot at this
point and add another 1 ½ cups of water. Stir it up, put the lid back on and
leave it for another 10 minutes or so. Check the texture. Repeat these steps
until the rice is to your liking.
Then quickly remove the lid, cover the pot with a clean tea
towel, put the lid back on, remove the pot from the heat and let it sit for 10
minutes.
Remove the lid and the tea towel and taste your creation.
Add salt and pepper to taste. Then take one third to one half of the crispy
onions and toss them in with the mixture. Fluff it up, and place it on your
plates. Top with some more of the crispy onions.
Serve hot!
P.S. It tasted even better the day after. I had two helpings
for lunch today (and yes, now I have a belly ache).
Links to both books below:
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