Happily eating my vegetables
Yottam Ottolenghi’s cookbooks make me want to become a vegetarian. All his recipes look and sound amazing, but it’s the lovingly photographed vegetable dishes that practically leap off the page with their color and crunch and freshness. I’ve made several of the Mediterranean-inspired recipes from both Plenty and Jerusalem, and they were all delicious. Their main drawback is that ingredients like pomegranate molasses and date syrup aren’t usual fixtures in my pantry.
So, while I was in London, I thought it would be fun to eat at one of Ottolenghi’s restaurants. It turns out he has several in different parts of the city, but it was not until my last night in town that I had the chance to taste his food. By that point, I was craving vegetables! Several days of pies & mash, fish & chips, English breakfasts, and too-ubiquitous sweets had put me in dire need of something green.
Ottolenghi has a 70-seat “deli” in Spitalfields, very close to where I was attending a blog-writing workshop. Some of the other participants had loved their dinner at there the previous night, so I decided to try it out for myself — the perfect end to my trip, I thought. And so it was, except for the fact that I arrived fifteen minutes before their Sunday night closing time of 6 p.m. Oh, no!
Not to worry, I was told: I could still get food to take away.
An obliging server helped me to a little of everything from the beautiful array: the famous eggplants with buttermilk sauce pictured on the cover of Plenty; green beans with some sort of greens (pea shoots?); roasted sweet potato with caramelized onions; rice salad with fried shallots; a red cabbage slaw with apple and green grapes; roasted herbed potatoes; roasted peppers with pine nuts and feta; broccoli with hot pepper. I carried this bounty back to my AirBnB and had a vegetarian feast. Everything was fresh, beautifully prepared and seasoned. A great treat!
Must stock up on pomegranate molasses, because I’ll definitely be trying more recipes from Ottolenghi’s cookbooks!
A blessing on Yottam Ottolenghi for his fresh, beautiful, and delicious food — and on all those cooks who make eating our veggies a pleasure,
rather than a penance!
6 thoughts on “Happily eating my vegetables”
Ah, Jenny.
Yotam’s place is to die for, I believe!
I’ve been again since Blog Course. This time it was for lunch and we were so enchanted we even finished with a dessert, which never happens more than once every three years. I think the green bean dish was with samphire, a special sea sourced vegetable. A particular favourite. Such a memorable experience as part of a memorable weekend.
Oh, Liz, I’m so envious! I wish I could be in London more often — and not just to revisit Yottam’s establishments. Samphire, huh? I’ve never heard of it but will check it out. Thanks for the tip!
I love veggies. And I would love to try some good vegetable recipes. Thank you for the info
Thanks, Karen. I usually cook some sort of vegetarian main each week, which serves as my staple. I’ll try to post something about next week’s endeavor.
The beautiful pictures of veggies made me proud to be a vegetarian. A lot of meat eaters feel that not eating meat means you have to survive on limp lettuce, so it’s lovely to read an article about wow recipies that prove veggies can be interesting! Loved reading this post and the pictures are beautiful.
Thank you, Julie! I still eat meat, but I try to focus most of my meals around vegetables. I find a visit to the farmers’ market can be a great inspiration. No limp lettuce!
I’m lucky to live in a foodie capital, but I wonder how vegetarians fare in other places. Do you find it easy to find veggie options when you go out to restaurants where you are (other than Ottolenghi’s)?
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