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"Plenty: Vibrant Recipes From London's Ottolenghi" by Yotam Ottolenghi


Rieux

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Made the Lentils with Broiled Eggplant last night, pretty much following the recipe in the book, although I didn't use quite as much cilantro. Don't love it quite as much as Ottolenghi apparently does. It was delicious! One tweak I'll do the next time is cook the carrots a bit more so they're a little softer.

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Made the black pepper tofu. All the ingredients were easy to find at the Adams Morgan Harris Teeter, except the ketcap manis which I got at the eden center. The dish was great, but I made two modifications. First, there is zero reason to use 11 tbs of butter! I used about five tbs, and it was more than enough. Second I used half the black pepper called for. It was still plenty spicy bd delicious, with some forbidden rice on the side. If you like ma po tofu or major umami bombs, try this!

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First, there is zero reason to use 11 tbs of butter! I used about five tbs, and it was more than enough.

I find this to be true of many of the recipes in this book. The amount of butter/other fats called for is ridiculously high. One can easily halve the amount and still really enjoy the dish -- maybe more so, since it's not dripping with oil.

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I made the Sweet Potato Cakes from Plenty last night and thought they were great.  It was kind of on a whim, and I didn't have much in the way of sweet potatoes, so I halved the recipe. (It calls for 2 1/4 pounds, and I had a pound less than that.)  By the time I was getting the meal on the table, I was tired and punted on making the dipping sauce for them.  I used a little of the ranch I had out for salad instead.  I think the yogurt/sour cream dipping sauce would be great with them, though.  Next time.

Instead of using all-purpose flour to bind them, I used the last bit of some chickpea flour I had mixed with dukkah a while back as a coating for something.  That gave them an extra element/dimension that worked well, so I have to remember to do that again.  I also omitted the sugar the recipes calls for, as it didn't seem necessary.

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I made the Swiss Chard, Chickpea, and Tamarind Stew (pg 148) several months ago.  I followed the recipe exactly except that I served it over long-grain basmati rice and accompanied it with Greek yogurt and chopped cilantro.  With the rice, it was a complete meal.  It's quite simple and doesn't take very long (well, except for the the time to cook the beans and assuming you've already made tamarind paste, which I had).  The tamarind provided a tangy note and the caraway added a pleasant infusion of its flavor through the whole dish.  I liked it, but didn't love it (MrB loved it), although I did love how healthy and easy it was.

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I made the Shakshuka (pg 87) for dinner awhile ago.  As I do with all Ottolenghi recipes, I significantly reduced the amount of oil to about 1/4 cup and that was plenty and the finished dish was not at all oily.  I used canned tomatoes as I didn't have any fresh.  Except for the time-consuming process of slicing the onions and peppers, it came together very quickly and was very simple.  The biggest problem I had was that some of the eggs were overcooked.  The saffron was key -- it gave a wonderful flavor to the whole dish.

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I forget if this was from Plenty or More Plenty (they tend to blend, but I am preferring More Plenty the more I use it).  Anyway... there is a roasted brussels sprout recipe in one of them with grapefruit segments that is outstanding.  It's a little savory and a little sweet/sour.  Definitely a keeper for the sprouts recipe rotation.

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