Thursday, August 16, 2012

Ottolenghi cookalong

August 5, 2012


It took almost a year to make it happen but AOF and I were determined to reconvene in a kitchen somewhere, to cook and eat together. This time the Moody Noodles joined us in an effort to veganise and, where needed, deglutenise the recipes of Yotam Ottolenghi.



AOF committed first, to a celeriac and lentil salad with hazelnuts and mint from Plenty.


K fried a wokful of black pepper tofu with minor substitutions.


Michael made a spicy bean stew and I, a cauliflower salad. (We'll post recipes and photos of them soon.) With a mound of brown rice to soak up the stray dressings, it was a fine plate of food.


Ottolenghi doesn't publish a lot of dessert recipes, but we concocted something in the spirit of the day. Toby baked his first ever cake! He boldly replaced the lemons in this polenta cake with mandarins to great effect.


Meanwhile, the coconut cream and baked rhubarb I'd been plotting turned out to be this cake's ideal complements. (Yep, I'll post those recipes too.)

Winter is a little lovelier when you can spend a Sunday in a warm kitchen with north-facing windows, fresh food and friends to cook it with.
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AOF has some reflections on the meal here.


4 comments:

  1. Mm, all the dishes look delicious, Cindy! My mouth is watering!!! The celeriac lentil salad sounds pretty interesting. I should give that a try when you upload the recipes :)))
    Binny

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    1. Hi Binny! We'll only be posting the recipes that Michael and I made on the day, but AOF has helpfully suggested this site for accessing the lentil salad that she made. :-)

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  2. Oh yay - I love Ottolenghi! What a fantastic-looking feast! Everything looks really delicious. I've also been looking for a lemon polenta cake recipe for ages, so thank-you for the link!

    The first Ottolenghi book has a huge dessert/baking section - I can highly recommend the chocolate fudge cake, the meringues and the blueberry crumble muffins! :)

    xox Sarah

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    1. Sarah, I'll have to flick through that first book! Plenty just has a 'fruit and cheese' section at the back (not so helpful for a vegan day) and there aren't many desserts on the website either. Thanks for the tip. :-)

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