Ottolenghi Simple Too – Hey, fellow Ottolenghi fans, I have some great news for you … there’s a new book just published: Ottolenghi SIMPLE TOO – and it’s really fabulous!
For the three million home cooks around the world who loved Ottolenghi SIMPLE, Yotam and his co-author, test kitchen colleague Verena Lochmuller, set themselves the task to further pair down processes and ingredient lists, while keeping the vibrant, multi-layered, surprising signature flavours. Many of the dishes, such as Braised halloumi with tomatoes and beans, or Smoky tomato and feta prawns, are made in one baking tray, with no preparation at all, ready to put on the table in about 30 minutes. They’re for feeding family and friends or just yourselves; classics reimagined the Ottolenghi way using flavour-enhancing ingredients such as za’atar, tahini, harissa and garlic. Whatever your barriers to cooking, this book brings you into the kitchen with a promise that even the simplest of meals can be full of flavour and joy. So stop, take a minute or two, listen to the soup bubble or the egg crackle… and discover the pleasure of keeping things SIMPLE TOO.
“SIMPLE TOO is an extension of SIMPLE, but the two years I spent working on it also felt like a response to where our lives are right now, in this noisy and bustling world; a world full of options that can sometimes feel distracting or numbing. We wanted to carve out a space that allows people to relax a little more in the kitchen, to use the pantry they’ve already built and the knowledge they already have.” says Ottolenghi.
The book is published by Ebury, at £30 for a glorious hardback – one that is sure to be a top seller this Christmas. Photography is by Jonathan Lovekin.
To tempt you to invest in the book, here are a couple of tasters:
Breakfast Potatoes – Serves 6
Prep time: 10 minutes, Cook time: 1 hour 5 minutes
“This is a combination of two great Spanish potato dishes: patatas a lo pobre (poor man’s potatoes) and huevos rotos (broken eggs). Traditionally both fried, here we bake: not to be virtuous, it’s just easy. One tray, one mandoline (if you have one, it makes light work of slicing the potatoes and shallots), and you have easily fed a crowd.”
1kg Yukon Gold, Maris Piper (or other floury) potatoes, unpeeled and thinly sliced
2 red peppers, deseeded and thinly sliced (300g)
4 oregano sprigs
3 large banana shallots, thinly sliced (200g)
1 head of garlic, top 1cm removed
1 tsp sweet smoked paprika
150ml olive oil
6 eggs
fine sea salt and black pepper
- Preheat the oven to 190°C fan.
- Put everything apart from the eggs on a large baking tray (about 28cm x 40cm x 4cm), along with 1¼ teaspoons of salt and plenty of pepper. Mix together well and bake for 30 minutes.
Remove from the oven, turn everything over and bake for another 30 minutes (turning the vegetables over again halfway through), until the potatoes are soft and jammy and the peppers
and shallots are frazzled. Remove from the oven, squeeze the garlic cloves out of their skins and fold them through.
- Crack the eggs into a jug, season with a pinch of salt and some pepper, then lightly break with a fork: just enough to burst the yolks. Create a few small pockets in the potato mixture, then pour in the eggs.
Return to the oven for 5 minutes, or until the eggs are just cooked through.
Fennel, grape and olive tarte Tatin – Serves 6–8
Prep time: 10 minutes, Cook time: 1 hour 15 minutes
“If you think that a bowl of mixed nuts is more than enough to welcome your guests before dinner or a party, or that you’re definitely not the kind of person who might serve a homemade savoury tart to
go alongside drinks, please think again! This looks sophisticated and you might think complicated, but it’s easy (really!). Serve cut into squares as a snack or as a light dinner option, with a leafy salad.”
4 fennel bulbs, trimmed, halved lengthways and cut into 3cm wedges (750g)
2 tsp fennel seeds, lightly crushed
100g red seedless grapes
80ml maple syrup
85g unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
75g pitted Kalamata (or other black) olives
325g sheet of ready-rolled all-butter puff pastry
fine sea salt and black pepper
- Preheat the oven to 230°C fan.
- Put the fennel, fennel seeds, grapes, maple syrup, butter, 1½ teaspoons of salt and lots of pepper on to a parchment- lined 23cm x 32cm shallow baking tray, making sure the paper is slightly larger than the tray, and mix together. Bake for 40–45 minutes until starting to catch around the edges, turning the
fennel over halfway through, then remove from the oven.
- Reduce the temperature to 200°C fan, stir in the olives and place the puff pastry on top, tucking the edges in as much as you can. Use a knife to make 4 or 5 small slits in the pastry (to let the steam escape) and bake for 25–30 minutes, until puffed and golden brown. Leave to rest for 2–3 minutes, then invert on to a serving platter or wooden board, cut into squares and serve.
Extracted from Ottolenghi Simple Too by Yotam Ottolenghi and Verena Lochmuller
The Seasoned Gastronome