For those of you who like your vegetables, if you haven’t discovered London’s star chef Yotam Ottolenghi’s recipes floating around the ‘net, it’s about time you do. For awhile, from December of 2008 on, he wrote a column for The Guardian, called “The New Vegetarian“, and some of the recipes that appeared each week were pretty spectacular. The column hasn’t been updated since September of last year, and even that was seven months post the previous recipe, so it looks to be a defunct source of weekly inspiration. [Edit: Contacted by tweet from the restaurant, the column still exists just under the chef’s name, and is no longer just vegetarian but a mix of his recipes.] But not to worry – Ottolenghi’s just published his new book Plenty: Vibrant Recipes from London’s Ottolenghi (he’s got two other recently released books, Ottolenghi: The Cookbook and Jerusalem: A Cookbook, that don’t focus on his vegetarian cuisine) that collects together in a convenient hardcover or, yes, ebook, not only all or most of the recipes from his column, but many more to boot.
One of the things I particularly like about the book is that it’s not preachy. First off, Ottolenghi is an unapologetic omnivore. Actually, who knows, that may be part of what ended the column, he makes a point that he and the newspaper received a lot of what amounts to hate mail from the hardcore vegetarian set, decrying everything from his lack of commitment to his unabashed use of dairy, eggs, and flavorful ingredients – you know, making things taste good. I suppose that particular subset of humanity will never get that they’re not going to attract more people to a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle by being, well, dicks. I just had a similar experience – I was trying to setup some classes with a noted raw food vegan chef while I’m going to be in NYC in May, wanting to increase my knowledge of the subject and add some variety to our diet – after finding out I wasn’t committed to an all out conversion of my eating and cooking habits he got pretty abrasive on the phone and I haven’t heard from him since even though I followed up. Yeah, that just gets me all excited to learn more.
So back to the book – I have the ebook version, and it’s laid out beautifully, with great color photographs of the majority of the dishes. The recipes are easy to follow, and pretty enticing. I’d already tried a few of them in the past from reading his column and finding recipes online in other spots, and jumped right in.
Overall a great book, I love that it’s organized by vegetable rather than by cooking technique or type of dish – it’s a delightful way to look at one particular ingredient and then have several ways to prepare it featured right in a row.
If you’re into vegetables, pick this one up.
Hey, just got onto this post via the backlink in your newest post on Ottolenghi . I got the book in paperback when I was over in Germany for Christmas. It had great recommendations and I needed inspiration for my vegetarian girlfriend so I gave it a try. So far I liked most of the recipies, and I find that they are often more flavorful than they sound from just reading thru, anything you would recomend I try out in particular?
thanks and keep up the good work!
I haven’t found a recipe in the book I didn’t like – the soba noodle dish that I pictured is still my all time favorite. Also a big fan of some of the side dishes, like caramelized fennel with goat cheese and the endive with gruyere. Not from the book, but online, he has an amazing tart that I like to make with a polenta crust and a swiss chard and comte cheese filling.
Thanks, I will try these out, the tart looks wonderful. Just yesterday made the halloween souffles and the quinoa, bean, avocado salad and again I was surpised how good it was…
[…] two years ago I reviewed the book Plenty by chef and author Yotam Ottolenghi, and it’s still one of my favorite “go to” […]