Comfort Food – Courtesy of Ottolenghi – Regular readers will know that I’m a great fan of Yotam Ottolenghi’s recipes (and if you follow @aca_jee on Instagram, you’ll see a lot of my food that’s been influenced by him). With perfect timing for those autumnal days when we start to crave comfort food, he’s produced another fabulous cookbook, aptly named COMFORT.
Published last month by Penguin Random House, it’s his first new cookbook since his era-defining Ottolenghi SIMPLE and Ottolenghi FLAVOUR. This new book is the work of ‘four hungries’ – Yotam Ottolenghi, and colleagues Helen Goh, Verena Lochmuller and Tara Wigley – and they all bring their own memories, childhoods, and travels with them to explore what comfort food means to them. Mac ’n’ cheese, chicken ramen, schnitzel, sausages and mash, pizza, chicken noodle soup, lentils, and rice, dhal, dumplings: the definitive comfort food for many, certainly, but there is no one-comfort- food-fits-all. The team explored the four elements of comfort in the book: ‘Who we eat with’; ‘Why we eat’; ‘What we eat’ and finally ‘How we eat’ – as important as what we are eating in the first place.
With over 100 recipes, including classic new takes on pasta and potatoes, traybakes, noodles, curries, soups and sweet things, Ottolenghi COMFORT is full of dishes that feel both nostalgic and novel, familiar yet fresh – this is at the heart of the Ottolenghi interpretation of comfort. It will make a great Christmas present, but why wait? It’s worth treating yourself now so that you can practise the dishes in time for festive entertaining. It’s £30 for a lovely hardback, with photography by Jonathan Lovekin.
Here’s a recipe, that’s just perfect for this time of year, to whet your appetite:
Butter beans with roasted cherry tomatoes (Serves 4)
500g cherry tomatoes
85ml olive oil
1 onion, finely diced (150g)
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp thyme leaves, roughly chopped, plus a few whole thyme leaves to garnish
1 tsp fennel seeds, toasted and lightly crushed
1 fresh bay leaf
80ml dry white wine
2 tsp smoked paprika
1 x 700g jar of good-quality butter
bean, drained and rinsed
salt and black pepper
To serve
75g thick Greek-style yoghurt thick slices of sourdough (or any crusty) bread, toasted (optional)
Source the larger butter beans, or judiones, for this, if you can. They’re softer, more buttery and much creamier than the smaller ones (which come in a tin). This dish works well as part of a mezze spread, or can be eaten as it is, with something like crumbled feta or olives on top.
Keeping notes: Once made, the beans keep for up to 3 days in the fridge: just bring them back to room temperature before serving. The crispy tomato skins are a great thing to have around as well, to add to salads and pasta dishes. The recipe comes from a restaurant called Bar Rochford in Canberra, Australia, where they’re served with fresh green beans. They keep for a week in a sealed jar.
Preheat the oven to 210°C fan.
Toss the tomatoes with 2 teaspoons of the oil and spread them on a parchment-lined baking tray. Roast for 20 minutes, until the skins have loosened and the tomatoes are soft and have shrunk a little. Remove from the oven and transfer the tomatoes, along with all their juices, to a shallow bowl to cool.
Re-line the baking tray with a fresh sheet of baking parchment and reduce the oven temperature to 100°C fan. Once cool enough to handle, pinch the skins off the tomatoes and place the skins on the lined baking tray. Return the tray to the oven for about 45 minutes, until the skins are dry and crisp, giving them a good stir a couple of times during baking. Set the skinless tomatoes aside.
Put the remaining 75ml of oil into a medium saucepan and place on a medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, oregano, thyme, fennel seeds and bay leaf and cook for 10–12 minutes, until the onion has softened but has not taken on too much colour. Add the wine, simmer for 2 minutes to reduce, then add the paprika. Cook for another minute, then add the reserved tomato flesh, along with 1 teaspoon of salt. Simmer gently for about 15 minutes, stirring often so that the tomatoes break down. Add the beans and a good grind of pepper and stir to combine. Cook for a couple of minutes, just to warm through, then remove from the heat.
Spread the yoghurt over a serving plate and then pile the beans on top. Crumble over the dried tomato skins, finish with a sprinkling of thyme leaves and serve.
Puttanesca-style Salmon Bake
200g fine green beans, trimmed 6 spring onions, cut widthways
into thirds (75g)
200g mixed cherry tomatoes,
halved
6 skin-on salmon fillets (about
720g)
salt and black pepper
Tomato anchovy oil
85ml olive oil
8 anchovies, finely chopped (25g) 2½ tbsp tomato paste
1 tsp chilli flakes
2 tsp coriander seeds, lightly
bashed in a mortar
8 garlic cloves, very thinly sliced 2 preserved lemons, flesh and pips discarded, skin finely chopped (20g) 2 tsp maple syrup
Salsa
60g pitted Kalamata olives, halved 60g capers, roughly chopped
1 preserved lemon, flesh and pips
discarded, skin thinly sliced (10g) 10g basil leaves, roughly chopped 10g parsley leaves, roughly
chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp lemon juice
If you make the tomato anchovy oil a day ahead here, you can then delight in the fact that a midweek supper can be on the table within 20 minutes. The fuss-free cooking method – all hail the traybake!
– plus, the dialled-up flavours – all hail puttanesca! – makes such a winning combination.
Serves 4
First make the tomato anchovy oil. Put the oil, anchovies and tomato paste into a small sauté pan and place on a medium heat. Once the mixture starts to simmer, cook for 5 minutes, stirring from time to time. Add the chilli flakes and coriander seeds and cook for another minute, until fragrant. Remove from the heat and add the garlic, preserved lemon and maple syrup. Stir to combine, then set aside to cool.
Preheat the oven to 220°C fan.
Place the beans, spring onions and tomatoes on a large, parchment-lined baking tray. Drizzle over 3 tablespoons of the tomato anchovy oil, along with ¼ teaspoon of salt and a good grind of pepper. Toss to combine and place in the oven for 12–13 minutes, until the beans and tomatoes are starting to soften and taking on a little colour. Meanwhile, arrange the salmon fillets on a plate and, using a spoon, drizzle the remaining tomato anchovy oil (as well as all the solids) evenly over the fillets. Once the beans and tomatoes have had their time in the oven, nestle the salmon fillets among them and bake for a further 8 minutes. Set aside for 5 minutes, out of the oven, to rest.
While the salmon is baking, mix all the ingredients for the salsa in a small bowl and season with a good grind of pepper. Spoon half the salsa over the salmon and serve the fish warm (or at room temperature, which works just as well), with the rest of the salsa in a bowl on the side.
Cheeseball Lemon Rice with Chilli Butter
8 cloves
6 cardamom pods, bashed
1 lemon: shave the skin into
strips, then juice to get 2 tbsp 125g ricotta
150g feta, crumbled
125g hard mozzarella, grated 25g Parmesan, grated
1 egg, beaten
400g basmati rice, rinsed and
drained well
75g pitted green olives, cut in half 100g unsalted butter
½ tsp chilli flakes
¾ tsp Aleppo chilli flakes
½ tsp sumac
5 spring onions, sliced on the
diagonal into 1cm pieces (50g) salt
There’s something really reassuring about a rice traybake. Add the right amount of water, seal the dish well, pop it into the oven, and forget about it. This is as comforting and delicious as you’d expect cheesy, briny, chilli-butter-doused rice to be. It’s the perfect side to something simple like a roast chicken, or else can be eaten as a main, with some wilted greens.
Getting ahead: The rice wants to be eaten fresh out of the oven but can be taken up to the point just before the hot water and aromatics are added, if you want to get ahead.
Serves 6
Preheat the oven to 200°C fan.
Pour 750ml of water into a medium saucepan and add the cloves, cardamom pods, lemon strips and 1½ teaspoons of salt. Place on a medium-high heat, bring to a simmer, then remove from the heat.
Meanwhile, put the four cheeses and the egg into a medium bowl and mix well. Using your hands, divide the mixture into 12 portions and roll them roughly into balls, approximately 40g each. They don’t need to be perfect, as they will spread once in the rice.
Scatter the rice on the bottom of a high-sided baking tray or dish, 24cm x 32cm (or a 28cm ovenproof sauté pan, for which you have a lid), and scatter over the olives. Pour over the hot water and aromatics. Shake the tray gently to spread the rice evenly, then deposit the cheese balls in the rice. Cover the tray tightly with foil (or lid), to keep the steam in, and bake for 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave to settle, covered, for 10 minutes.
While the rice is resting, melt the butter in a medium saucepan on a medium heat. Add the chilli flakes, Aleppo flakes and sumac and cook for 2–3 minutes. Add the spring onions and cook for a further 20 seconds. Remove from the heat, add the lemon juice and set aside.
Uncover the rice and spoon the chilli butter all over just before serving.
Extracted from Ottolenghi COMFORT by Yotam Ottolenghi, Helen Goh, Verena Lochmuller and Tara Wigley (Ebury Press, £30). All photography by Jonathan Lovekin.
The Seasoned Gastronome