I’ve been avoiding Yottam Ottolenghi.
I have two of his books, both gifts, and up until now I don’t
think I’ve ever cooked anything out of either of them. I had a big clearout of
cookery books fairly recently, and the only reason these two didn’t go out then
was that I didn’t feel I’d had them long enough to give them a fair chance. But
here’s the thing: Ottolenghi uses lots of
ingredients that just aren’t available in the shops we have here, far from a
big city. All supermarkets are much better than they once were; there’s plenty
of variety and fresh produce, but, depending where you are in the country,
there are some surprising gaps. You learn to substitute and leave out, or
ignore the recipes that stray too far from the basics. But it’s disappointing
to turn the pages of a book and think a recipe looks good, only to find that
there are four or five key ingredients that you’ll never get hold of.
There’s another thing too. I’m not keen on recipes where you
have to do a lot of different things just to make one dish. Chefy recipes, I
think of them, rather than ordinary dinner recipes. I love to eat that kind of
stuff, but there’s mostly only me in my kitchen, and I only have two hands and
a limited amount of time. Most of my favourite recipes are one-pot meals. All the
Ottolenghi dishes I’ve looked at seem to be those multi-stage recipes where you
end up with too many pots and pans to fit in the dishwasher.
So this week’s recipe, chickpea sauté with Greek yogurt, as shown
in the picture above was a bit of a fail. Firstly, Swiss chard was a key
ingredient. I think I’ve seen Swiss chard in our Tesco occasionally, but this
time we had to find a substitute. I swithered between pak choi (too bland) and
kale (too robust) and ended up picking the pak choi.
The second problem was that I wasn’t the one who chose the
recipe, and so I didn’t look at it before I came to cook it. Then I discovered
that it took far longer than I thought it would and also that it only made enough
to be a side dish, so I had to quickly make some paprika potatoes to go with
it. They’re quick to cook, we love them and they went perfectly, so that turned
into a win. The dish itself was really good, but far too much effort for
something that you’d have on the side. Maybe I’d feel differently about it if I
was making a mezze-style meal for a bunch of people, but for everyday dinner, I
don’t think I’ll bother again. That’s not to say I won’t bother with
Ottolenghi. I think somewhere in here there must be something that ticks all my
boxes.
Post script
Since I started writing this, I’ve had an Ottolenghi
success, of which more next week. It was so good that I may have to go and look
for the book of simple recipes he’s written.
You can find the complete menu from week twelve here.
Claire Watts and her family are cooking vegetarian for a year. You can find out why - and why 'cooking vegetarian' doesn't always necessarily mean 'eating vegetarian' here.
Claire Watts writes and edits books for children.
She's currently working on making something beautiful with fairy tales.
Find out about her Snippets project and how you can help on her Patreon page.
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