Hey, fellow Ottolenghi fans, I have some great news for you … there’s a new book just published: Ottolenghi SIMPLE TOO – and it’s really fabulous!
For the three million home cooks around the world who loved Ottolenghi SIMPLE, Yotam and his co-author, test kitchen colleague Verena Lochmuller, set themselves the task to further pair down processes and ingredient lists, while keeping the vibrant, multi-layered, surprising signature flavours. Many of the dishes, such as Braised halloumi with tomatoes and beans, or Smoky tomato and feta prawns, are made in one baking tray, with no preparation at all, ready to put on the table in about 30 minutes.
They’re for feeding family and friends or just yourselves; classics reimagined the Ottolenghi way using flavour-enhancing ingredients such as za’atar, tahini, harissa and garlic. Whatever your barriers to cooking, this book brings you into the kitchen with a promise that even the simplest of meals can be full of flavour and joy. So stop, take a minute or two, listen to the soup bubble or the egg crackle… and discover the pleasure of keeping things SIMPLE TOO.
About Yotam Ottolenghi
Yotam is the chef-patron of the Ottolenghi restaurant group, encompassing eight UK-based delis, as well as the NOPI, ROVI and Ottolenghi Geneva restaurants. He is the author and co-author of eleven bestselling cookery books which have garnered many awards, including the National Book Award for Ottolenghi SIMPLE and James Beard Awards for both Jerusalem and NOPI.
Yotam has been a columnist for the Guardian since 2006 and is a regular contributor to the New York Times. His commitment to the championing of vegetables, as well as ingredients once seen as ‘exotic’ has led to what some call ‘The Ottolenghi effect’. This is shorthand for the creation of a meal which is full of colour, flavour, bounty and sunshine.
Yotam lives in London with his family.
“SIMPLE TOO is an extension of SIMPLE, but the two years I spent working on it also felt like a response to where our lives are right now, in this noisy and bustling world; a world full of options that can sometimes feel distracting or numbing. We wanted to carve out a space that allows people to relax a little more in the kitchen, to use the pantry they’ve already built and the knowledge they already have.” says Ottolenghi.
The book is published by Ebury, at £30 for a glorious hardback – one that is sure to be a top seller this Christmas.
Photography is by Jonathan Lovekin.
To tempt you to invest in the book, here are a couple of tasters:
Braised halloumi with tomatoes and beans
“This is either a simple speedy supper for two, with rice or bread, or part of a spread to serve more. It works really well with any seasonal green veg. It’s also great as it is for a late breakfast, with a couple of fried eggs sitting on top.”
Serves 2/ Prep time: 10 minutes / Cook time: 35 minutes
350g cherry tomatoes (a mix of colours looks great), half cut in half and the remainder left whole
400g tin of black-eyed beans (or butter beans), drained (240g)
5 garlic cloves, 4 thinly sliced, 1 crushed
5–6 thyme sprigs, plus 1 tsp finely chopped leaves
1 lemon, zest thinly shaved to get 4 strips,
the remainder finely grated,
1 tbsp juice
90ml olive oil
250g halloumi, cut into 6 slices
1 tsp za’atar
fine sea salt and black pepper
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C fan.
2. Put all the tomatoes into a 26cm round (or similar) shallow ovenproof dish along with the beans, sliced garlic, thyme sprigs, lemon zest strips, lemon juice and 75ml olive oil. Add ½ teaspoon of salt and a good grind of pepper. Mix together and nestle the halloumi slices among the beans, making sure the cheese remains exposed. Drizzle the remaining tablespoon of oil over the cheese and bake for 30–35 minutes, until the tomatoes have collapsed, released their juices and the halloumi is golden.
3. Mix together the crushed garlic, thyme leaves, grated lemon zest and za’atar. Once the dish is out of the oven, swirl this through and serve.
Roast chicken and cabbage with soy butter
“There are many ways to make cabbage delicious but it’s hard to improve on butter. The result of adding nearly half a pack to the baking tray is the equivalent of liquid gold. Embrace it! Embrace, too, the spatchcocking of the chicken. You can either ask your butcher to do it for you or look online for tips. It takes less than five minutes and the time is more than made up for by how quickly and evenly the chicken then roasts. Serve this with plenty of steamed rice.”
Serves 4/ Prep time: 15 minutes / Cook time: 45 minutes
2 hispi cabbages, quartered (1kg)
2 heads of garlic, top 1cm removed
2 bunches of spring onions, cut into thirds (160g)
325ml chicken stock
70g ginger, peeled and cut into matchsticks
1 whole chicken, spatchcocked (1.7kg)
2 tbsp olive oil
100g unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
2 tbsp soy sauce
fine sea salt and white pepper
1. Preheat the oven to 220°C fan.
2. Put the cabbage, garlic, spring onions, stock and ginger in a high-sided roasting tray. Season the chicken all over with 1 teaspoon of salt and 1½ teaspoons of white pepper and sit it on top of the cabbage. Drizzle the chicken with the oil and roast for 30 minutes.
3. Remove the chicken from the oven and stir the butter and soy sauce into the tray juices until melted, then use the mixture to baste the cabbage. Return to the oven for another 15 minutes, until the chicken is golden and cooked through and the cabbage is tender and caramelised.
4. Squeeze out the garlic cloves, mix into the sauce and serve.
Extracted from Ottolenghi Simple Too by Yotam Ottolenghi and Verena Lochmuller
