Plenty More – Yotam Ottolenghi

As most of you know by now, we are HUGE Ottolenghi fans. We love his creative use of simple ingredients, especially vegetables and is combinations of Middle Eastern spices.

Plenty More has been out for a while now. It’s the sequel to Ottolenghi’s immensely popular Plenty. The book has been categorised into cooking methods, again with the most tantalising and beautifully photographed recipes.

The best way to review a book, in our opinion, is to cook out of it. And that’s just what we did! We made the Fig Salad for lunch and it was just delicious. Here is the recipe:

Yotam Ottolenghi’s Fig Salad

Ingredients
2 small red onions (200g in total)
3 Tablespoons olive oil
50g hazelnuts, skin on
60g radicchio leaves, roughly torn
40g basil
6 large ripe figs (300g in total)
1 Tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
salt and black pepper

Method
Preheat the oven to 220 C.

Peel and halve the onions, lengthways and cut each half into 3cm-wide wedges. Mix together with 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil, a pinch of salt and some black pepper and spread out on a baking tray. Roast in the oven for 20-25 minutes, stirring once or twice during cooking, until the onions are soft and golden and turning crispy in parts. Remove and set aside to cool before pulling the onions apart with your hands into bite-sized chunks.

Reduce the oven temperature to 160 C. Scatter the hazelnuts on a small roasting tray and toast for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and, when cool enough to handle, roughly crush with the flat side of a large knife.

Assemble the salad on four individual plates. Mix the three leaves together and place a few on the bottom of each plate. Cut the figs lengthways into four or six pieces. Place a dew fig pieces and some roasted onion on the leaves. Top with more leaves and continue with the remaining fig and onion. You want to build up the salad into a small pyramid.

In a small cup, whisk together the remaining olive oil, vinegar and cinnamon with a pinch of salt and some black pepper. Drizzle this over the salad, finish with the hazelnuts and serve.

Chefs Notes
We loved the salad, fresh, sweet and full of flavour. We think it can do with a little mor roasted onion, but that’s a personal preference.

Publisher: Fontaine Uitgevers

Author: Yotam Ottolenghi

Price: 29,95 euro