Cookbook 204: Ottolenghi Test Kitchen: Shelf Love

After my previous dissatisfaction, though I did rate it highly, with an Ottolenghi’s cookbook, I thought I’d try again, and this time picked Ottolenghi Test Kitchen: Shelf Love. This was a success. I made four dishes, including a decadent and amazing dessert, and the recipes weren’t incredibly complicated or difficult. This book I do recommend, 4 stars.

Berebere spiced chicken, carrots and chickpeas (serves 4 – 6)

Ingredients

• 1 large onion, roughly chopped
• 6 garlic cloves, peeled
• 45g fresh coriander (stalks, and leaves, separated and roughly chopped)
• 2.5 tbsp berbere spice (recipe here or you can buy it here)
• 2 tbsp tomato paste
• 2.5 tbsp runny honey, plus a little extra for drizzling
• 3 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 90ml olive oil
• 800g carrots, peeled and cut into 4 – 5 cm lengths
• 2 400g tins of chickpeas (drained)
• 8 medium chicken thighs (chicken chops), skin on and bone in
• 2 – 3 oranges: 1 left whole and the rest juiced to get 100ml juice
• salt and black pepper

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200C fan (or 220C not fan)
2. Put the onion, garlic, coriander stalks, berbere spice, tomato paste, honey, 1 tablespoon of vinegar, 4 tablespoons of oil, 1 3/4 teaspoons of salt and a good grind of black pepper into a food processor and blitz to a smooth paste.
3. Put the blitzed onion mixture, carrots, chickpeas, chicken, orange juice and 150ml of water into a large roasting tin, roughly 34cm x 26cm in size, and toss everything together to combined. Arrange the thighs so they are skin side up and slightly nestled on top, then cover the dish tightly with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and return to the oven for 40 minutes more, rotating the tin halfway through, or until everything is cooked through and nicely coloured. Set aside to settle slightly, about 10 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, peel and segment the whole orange and then roughly chop the flesh. Put this into a medium bowl along with the chopped coriander leaves, the remaining 2 tablespoons of vinegar, the remaining two tablespoons of oil and a pinch each of salt and pepper, and mix to combine.
5. When ready to serve, spoon the coriander salsa all over the top and serve directly from the roasting tin.

Notes

• Spicy and very comforting. Definitely a great dish for a cold night.
• We froze the left-overs and had them a couple of weeks later. It reminded me that chickpeas do not freeze well, so we had a chickpea puree, carrot and chicken dish with a good kick.

M.E. mac ‘n’ cheese with za’atar pesto (serves 4 – 6)

Ingredients

• 300g dried cavatappi or fusilli pasta
• 600 – 700ml whole milk
• 65g unsalted butter (cut into cubes)
• 3 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1/8 tsp dried tumeric
• 1 1/2 tsp cumin seeds, toasted and roughly crushed with a pestle and mortar)
• 75gml double cream
• 150g mature cheddar, roughly grated
• 180g Greek feta, roughly crumbled
• salt and black pepper
• 45g crispy onions or shallots (store bought is fine)

Za’atar pesto

• 1 large lemon
• 2 tbsp za’atar
• 20g fresh coriander, roughly chopped
• 1 garlic clove, roughly chopped
• 40g pine nuts, lightly toasted
• 90ml olive oil

Method

1. Put the pasta, 600ml of milk, 350ml of water, the butter, garlic, turmeric, 1 teaspoon of salt and a good grind of pepper into a large saute pan on medium-high heat. Bring to a simmer, then turn the heat down to medium and cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 – 14 minutes, or until the pasta is al dente and the sauce has thickened from the pasta starches (it will still be quite saucy). If using cavatappi, you might need to add the extra 100ml of milk at this stage depending on how saucy you like your mac ‘n’ cheese. Turn the heat down to low and stir through the cumin, cream and both cheeses until the cheddar is nicely melted.
2. While the pasta is cooking, make the pesto. Finely grate the lemon to give you 1.5 teaspoons of zest. Then use a small, sharp knife to peel and segment the lemon and roughly chop the segments. Place in a bowl with the lemon zest and set aside. Put the za’atar, coriander, garlic, pine nuts, 1/8 teaspoon of salt, a good grind of black pepper and half the oil into the food processor and pulse a few times until you have a coarse paste. Add to the chopped lemon in the bowl and stir in the remaining oil.
3. Transfer the mac ‘n’ cheese to a large serving platter with a lip or a shallow bowl, dot all over with the pesto, then top with the crispy onions.

Notes

• An absolutely amazing variant on the standard mac and cheese. I did find the lemon a little bitter (which was probably the type the shop was selling) and so I would have preferred mine without the lemon flesh, but I’ll hunt out a sweeter lemon next time.
• I do recommend making this, it is incredibly tasty.

Smoky, creamy pasta with burnt aubergine and tahini (serves 4)

Ingredients

• 5 eggplants (1.25kg), 2 cut into roughly 3 – 4cm cubes, 3 left whole
• 165ml olive oil
• 1 onion, cut into 6 wedges (150g)
• 2 small vine tomatoes, left whole (200g)
• 1 red chilli, left whole (10g)
• 3 tbsp tomato paste
• 1 tsp paprika
• 7 garlic cloves, crushed
• 80g tahini
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 300g dried pasta shells
• 10g parsley
• salt and black pepper

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 220C fan forced (240C without fan). Put the eggplant cubes on a large, parchment-lined baking tray and toss with 3 tablespoons of oil, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and a good grind of black pepper. Roast for 30 minutes, stirring halfway through, until deeply browned and softened.
2. Grill your vegetables. Prick the whole eggplants all over with a fork and ventilate your kitchen well. Place a well greased griddle pan on a high heat and, once smoking, add the eggplants and cook, turning as necessary, for 35 minutes, or until well charred all over. Set aside to cool slightly. Toss the onion, tomatoes and chilli together in a bowl with a tablespoon of oil and grill in the same pan for 10 minutes, turning as necessary, until very well charred and softened. Transfer to a bowl, discarding the chilli stem. Once cool enough to handle, peel and discard the skin and stems from the eggplant and add the flesh to the bowl of charred vegetables. You should have roughly 320g of eggplant flesh.
3. Meanwhile, put the tomato paste, paprika, three-quarters of the garlic and 4 tablespoons of oil into a small saucepan on a medium heat and cook, stirring occasionally, until the garlic is fragrant and the tomato paste has turned a dark red, about 5 minutes. Transfer this and the grilled vegetables to a food processor, along with 3/4 teaspoon of salt and a good grind of pepper, and blitz until completely smooth. Transfer to a large saute pan and set aside. This is your sauce base.
4. In a small bowl, whisk together the tahini, the remaining garlic, the lemon juice, 70ml of water and a pinch of salt until smooth.
5. Cook the pasta in plenty of salted boiling water for 8 minutes, or until al dente. Reserve 275ml of the pasta water, then drain the pasta well.
6. Add the reserved pasta water and half the roasted eggplant to the sauce base and heat through on a medium-high heat. Add the drained pasta and stir to warm through, about 2 minutes.
7. Toss the remaining roasted eggplant with the parsley and the last 3 tablespoons of oil.
8. Transfer the pasta to a large serving platter with a lip, drizzle over a good amount of the tahini sauce, then spook over the eggplant and parsley mixture. Serve the extra tahini sauce alongside.

Notes

• This was really nice, though the eggplant charring took longer than I expected.
• A nice vegan dish that despite the number of steps, isn’t too hard to make.

Chocoflan (serves 10 – 12)

Ingredients

• 160g caramel sauce (store bought is fine)
• 1 tbsp whole milk

Chocolate cake

• 250g plan flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 70g cocoa powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 120g unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus extra for greasing
• 100g dark muscovado sugar (brown sugar will be fine)
• 125g caster sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 200ml buttermilk

Flan

• 1 tin of evaporated milk (400g)
• 1 tin of sweetened condensed milk (397g)
• 120g full-fat cream cheese, at room temperature
• 3 large eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla bean paste
• 1/4 tsp salt

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 160C fan forced (180C not fan forced). Liberally grease a 27cm bundt tin with butter, then coat the bottle with half the caramel sauce. Place the bundt tin in a large roasting tin about 40cm x 28cm in size and set aside.
2. For the cake batter, sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate, cocoa powder and salt into a medium bowl. Put the butter and both sugars into the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment in place. Beat on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time and beat until just incorporated, then turn the speed onto medium-low. Ad a third of the flour mixture and half the buttermilk and continue in this way, ending with the flour. Mix until everything is just incorporated, then transfer to the bundt tin, smoothing the batter evenly with the back of a spoon.
3. For the flan batter, put all the ingredients into a blender and blitz until smooth. Pour the flan batter over the cake batter, then cover the bundt tin with a circular piece of baking parchment, followed by a piece of oil, and wrap lightly. Add enough boiling water to the roasting tin to come about 2cm up the sides of the bundt tin. Transfer to the oven and bake for 1 hour, or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out almost clean. Remove from the water bath, removing the foil and baking parchment, and leave to cool for about an hour (it won’t be completely cool).
4. Invert the chocoflan onto a large round serving platter, shaking it slightly to release it from the tin, and refrigerate until completely cool, at least 2 hours or overnight.
5. To serve, thin out the remaining 80g of caramel with the tablespoon of milk and drizzle all over the flan.

Notes

• Perfect. The magic of cooking means that the cake rises to the top (bottom of the bundt shape once released) and so it is very magical.
• Mine took 70 minutes in my oven, so yours might be more or less.
• We took several days to eat this. It is very rich and there were only four of us (though 5 at the dinner). It keeps well in the fridge for a few days as long as it is covered.