Plenty of Veges with Yotam Ottolenghi

I decided several months ago that I don't really cook vegetables well. I do eat plenty of vegetables, but because our veges are sooooo gggggoooooddddd here in NZ, I haven't found the need to cook with them much. I tend to steam them a bit, just to bring out their natural flavour, and that's about it. An abundance of flavour and freshness has meant that I haven't developed a vege-skill. Is it the same for you?

So, I decided to invest some time in learning about vegetable cooking. This is, of course, a lifetime project, but I decided to start with one of the best: Yotam Ottolenghi. Mr Ottolenghi is the Guardian's Weekend vegetarian columnist and a London restauranteur and chef. He's not a vegetarian, mind, but he does do a well-regarded line in vegetables in that fine city. It seems that Mr Ottolenghi has more heritage than Stonehenge – Israeli, Jewish, Turkish, Italian personally, plus an Arab boyfriend/cooking partner (I think that's right). And he draws liberally from them all – plenty of aunts and others are referenced.

So, I bought his book “Plenty” – which includes plenty of his columns from the Guardian and some additions. It's a very pretty book and the cover is padded (ooo, ahhh). 

 White is clearly a bit of a silly colour for a book to leave lying around my kitchen, but I'll cope.

A friend already had the book and when I told him I had bought it, he simply said “have fun chopping”. It's true that there's lots of slicing, chopping, crushing and dicing to be done, but I'm up for that! Bring it.

Pav and I spent a week on Waiheke to start our summer holiday, so we took the book along to be our eating guide. We had previously made the Black pepper tofu – which was very very (very) peppery, as warned.  But this time we went further.

You may have heard of my aubergine complex: I love them, but find them difficult to cook (partly, I think because I fear the amount of oil they can soak up). Mr Ottolenghi's Aubergines with buttermilk sauce were a delight. They turned out just like the picture (which is always exciting on the first go) and were delicious – full of the earthy richness of aubergine and the slightly tart tang of buttermilk and yoghurt, plus sweet/sour of pomegranate. 

Pomegranates are around at the moment so get some and make this.

I'm not using his words here, so any trouble is my fault:

Aubergines with Buttermilk Sauce, and Pomegranate
Turn the oven to 200C. Line a baking tray with baking paper or tin foil.

Halve as many aubergine as you have people from tip to toe – then slash parallel lines in the flesh in two directions to make diamond shapes. Don't cut the skin. Brush each half with about 20mL of olive oil. Yes, that seems like a lot, but it worked wonderfully. Lay them in the baking tray, flesh side up and sprinkle with 1.5 to 3 teaspoons of lemon thyme leaves (they don't sell those on Waiheke, so we used ordinary thyme) – season with salt and pepper.

Bake for 35-40 mins until the flesh is soft and brown and looks like it wants to be eaten.

Meantime, make the sauce (this is the part Pav did for us).  This makes enough for 3 aubergine:

Whisk together:

• 140mL buttermilk
• 100g Greek yoghurt
• 1.5 T olive oil
• 1 small garlic clove, crushed
• pinch of salt

Now, for us the raw garlic was a bit full on. If you're into that sort of thing, cool, but otherwise you could try to use garlic infused olive oil, or you could roast the garlic with the aubergines and squeeze it into the sauce.

Serve the aubergines with

• the sauce,
• sprinkles of dukkah (Mr Ottolenghi instructs us to use za'atar, which is much the same),

•  the seeds of a pomegranate – one fruit for every 2-3 people. To get the seeds out, halve the fruit around its equator; place the cut side on your hand over a bowl and then bash the round side of the fruit with a wooden spoon or equivalent to release the seeds into your hand and the bowl – start bashing gently and gradually increase as required and as your confidence improves; pick pith out of the seeds.
• some more thyme sprinkled
• and a drizzle of olive oil.

Absolutely delightful.

We also made two excellent meal-styled salads: Marinated pepper (by which he means capsicum) salad with pecorino and Courgette and cobnut salad (sans cobnuts, almonds instead in our case). Both were delightful ways to use everyday vegetables in a new way.

Plus we made Green pancakes – pancakes full of spinach, spring onions and chillies, served with lime butter (more raw garlic if you don't mind). They were spectacular – spicy enough to be exciting, but without distressing anyone. And the lime butter is a new favourite. 

We will definitely be exploring more of the book and next time I'm in London I'll be sure to check out one of Mr Ottolenghi's several restaurants – assuming I can get in!

These are just a sample of the delights of the book, so you might even consider buying it yourself. If you do, let me know what you make.

Let's keep enjoying the bounties of the vegetable patch as the weather brings so many things to ripeness. And happy new year!