Bring on the comfort food

Ottolenghi's newest book comes just in the nick of time. Here's a review-in-progress, with a recipe that's, you know, comforting. And delicious.

Nov 09, 2024

Hello, resilient cook,

When the world stops making sense, the kitchen is a natural comfort zone. There we can tap into what sustains us, what makes us feel okay (and more than okay). There we can — slowly, patiently — lose ourselves in aromas and textures and transformations and conjure something marvelous. A soulful braise, a batch of cookies. Something to nurture ourselves and those around us.

As long as we can do this, we’ll be all OK. Right?!

And so, Yotam Ottolenghi’s newest book, Ottolenghi Comfort,* published last month in the U.S. and the previous month in Britain, comes not a moment too soon.

What exactly is comfort food for Ottolenghi and his band of authors — Helen Goh, Verena Lochmuller and Tara Wigley? They sought dishes for this collection that are novel as well as nostalgic. Because the four are from different parts of the world, their recipes are informed by the idea of migration and how that plays on personal food culture.

Besides explaining all that, they also parse in their intro why we cook and eat: “To provide structure, to soothe, to feel grounded and safe.”

Last weekend, I started cooking from the book; at this point, I’ve made four of its recipes — mostly with success.

What I’ve tested

None of what I’ve made so far is particularly photogenic. Comfort before beauty? OK by me!

A Silky Zucchini and Salmon Salad was the prettiest of the bunch. It’s not a dish I’d normally be attracted to, but the mention in the intro that authors Wigley and Lochmuller make it all the time convinced me to give it a try. Plus, I love the idea of “silky zucchini” (reminds me of this).

Honestly, I don’t know if I’d make the salad again (not really my aesthetic), but it turned out really well — to coax zucchini to silkiness, you grate it and cook it slowly down with olive oil. The silky zucchini goes in dollops around the salad. (Dollops are big chez Ottolengh these days; see the dairy dollops below in the two braises.) The salmon fillets are quickly roasted (I did mine in the toaster oven). Between some lemony quick-pickled sliced shallots and the olive oil in the zucchini and on the fish, the salad kind of makes its own dressing. Smart! The recipe serves 4; Thierry and I ate half of it for dinner, and then — amazingly — the leftovers were still perfect for lunch; the arugula didn’t even sog out.

Oh, and that silky zucchini on its own is kind of brilliant. That part, I’ll definitely make again — it’ll be perfect with any simple fish dish, or a million other things.

Sausage and Lentils with Mustard Crème Fraîche and chard is wintry comfort in a hurry — a good flavor to effort/time ratio. Soaking the lentils while you brown the precooked Polish sausages and prep and cook the vegetables speeds up the cooking process; the book says the lentils will cook in 30 minutes, but mine were tender in 17. Blitzing some of them with an immersion blender results in a sauce with lovely body. Not lovely to look at, though!

My favorite so far has been Braised Lamb with Butter Beans and Yogurt.

I got a rocky start on the recipe, which called for lamb neck, cut into chunks. Sounds like maybe the lamb should be boneless? Or is it bone-in? Probably boneless, but it would be nice to tell us. In any case, I couldn’t find boneless lamb neck (not surprisingly); I bought lamb neck with bones and trimmed them out. Could I have used leg of lamb? That was easy to find boneless. Next time I’ll probably use lamb shoulder chops, and cut the bones out of those, which’ll be easy.

Also, toward the end, the stew was getting dry in the oven — I had to add more chicken broth about an hour into the braising time; the original recipe didn’t suggest checking on that. I’ve added it into the recipe below, along with a missing instruction to transfer the second batch of browned lamb out of the pan before the veg goes in.

Otherwise, the recipe went great; you can give it a spin yourself — find it below.

One delightful note about all the above recipes: Seasoning levels were perfect, no adjustments needed. Much appreciated! And a small missing thing in most of all of the recipes involving an oven: Although both metric and English measurements are given throughout, for oven temps only the English is given. Is that purposeful, or an oversight?

One dud

What I won’t provide here is the one sweet recipe I tested, GF Caramelized White Chocolate and Macadamia Cookes: They flopped, turned out flat and spread-out. No cookie specialist moi, I read about what can make cookies do that. A few possibilities: too-high baking temp; butter that’s not chilled enough; too much butter or sugar; not enough flour; baking soda that’s not fresh enough. The oven temp did seem a little high, and there’s a LOT of butter in these, half of it melted, also a lot of brown sugar. The GF part was an option; I used the AP flour suggested as an alternative (the headnote suggested doing that if you don’t need GF), along with the rolled oats blitzed in the food processor. The recipe said to chill the dough two hours or till firm before scooping and baking, which I did.

I’d only baked off the first eight, so I tried again two days later; maybe their longer fridge sojourn would help (the recipe says the flavor’s even better after a couple fridge days). I made some tweaks in the baking — instead of 10 minutes at 400 (turning after 7 minutes), I did them at 375, turning halfway through. Result: a little better, but still pretty flat. Could my baking soda need replacing? Serious Eats says that’s as likely as alien abduction. I thought I could completely trust Ottolenghi on the sweet side, as he started life as a pastry chef. At least they taste good. I formed the rest of the dough into balls, which are now in the freezer. When we need a sweet treat, I’ll try baking them straight out of there.

Still to cook (maybe, or this might change):

• Matza ball soup. Because while my chicken soup game is strong and I love matzoh balls, I’m no matzoh-ball maven. Selling point: Two of the authors, Goh and Ottolenghi, have deep feelings about matzoh balls, and this is a “Goldilocks version" — neither too fluffy nor too dense. (Note: Thierry calls them “shmatta balls” or “moth balls.”)
• Cucur udang (Malaysian shrimp spoon fritters). While I shy away from deep-frying, I find fritters empowering, and these appeal mightily.
• Salmon fishcakes with chermoula remoulade. Because fishcakes! Concern: The recipe calls for store-bought chermoula, which goes in both the fishcake and in the remoulade. What’s store-bought chermoula, a sauce like home-made? A powder like what I’m seeing online? My search so far has yielded more questions than answers.
• Meatballs with nuoc cham, cucumber and mint. Meatballs and nuoc cham are both irresistible to me, and these get wrapped in lettuce leaves. (Yes!) Observation: Butter lettuce is shown in the photo, but iceberg lettuce is called for in the recipe. Butter lettuce seems better with this — could they not decide? Why the inconsistency?
• Caponata with celery and burrata. I usually find caponata too sweet and mushy, and the headnote describes this as “less sweet than is often found.” Plus raw celery is added at the end, which sounds really nice. Concern: The recipe, which serves 6 as a starter, includes nearly a cup of pitted kalamatas. Sounds like SO many olives. But maybe it’ll be great.
• Rice vermicelli with turmeric fish, dill and green onion. Seems like a fun spin on chả cá lã vọng.
• Roasted hispi cabbage with miso butter. (Miso butter! Cabbage!) Problem: I have never seen hispi (a.k.a. sweetheart cabbages) in markets where I live. I might try this using a different type, maybe Savoy, which is suddenly everywhere in my neck of the woods.
• Chicken and lime leaf curry with noodles. Looks and sounds great, but concern: It calls for 8 fresh lime leaves — not something I find. Unless I can use makrut lime leaves, which I have growing on my balcony. The recipe doesn’t offer guidance on this count. Probably I’ll try it with the makrut leaves.
• Stroganoff meatballs. This calls for either beef or pork, and is finished with chopped dill pickles, which sounds brilliant.
• Leek, cheese and za’atar rugelach. A savory rugelach is such a wonderful idea, and this leek, cheddar, cream cheese, lemon and za’atar filling sounds fantastic.
• Carrot and vadouvan quick-bread. I would have made this first, but I need to order some vadouvan (French-style curry powder).
• Apple, blackberry, and ginger crumble cake. The headnote sold me: “Baked in an ovenproof dish and brought directly to the table while still warm, this is a gorgeously cozy cake.” Concern: It requires a stand mixer, which seems crazy for such a humble-sounding dessert. Our kitchen now has one (Wylie left his with us when he decamped to grad school), but I don’t believe it’s something cooks who aren’t baking specialists should be required to have, so I always try to offer an alternative when a recipe doesn’t bother to. Perhaps I’ll try it another way and see how that goes.

I hope to have a proper review (with three or four recipes) ready soon, once I test a few more recipes. If there are dishes that sound great to you, let us know, and I’ll consider testing those!

Braised Lamb with Butter Beans and Yogurt

Adapted from Ottolenghi Comfort. A couple things to note:

~ To toast the coriander and cumin seeds, place them (not all together) in a small, dry sauté pan over medium-low heat, and, shaking the pan now and then, let them toast until they’re fragrant.

~ The recipe calls for canned butter beans. If you’d rather use dried large white beans — such as Corona beans — simmer up 1/2 pound / 227 g dried beans, soaking them 4 to 6 hours first, if you like. That should yield the same as the 25-ounce jar the recipe calls for. Drain before using, but don’t throw away the delicious bean broth — save it in case you need to add more liquid, and drink the rest or use in something else.

~ Boneless lamb neck may not be easy to find. If you buy bone-in, be sure to buy quite a bit more than the weight called for, as the bones are heavy. Save the bones in the freezer for soup or sauce. I’m thinking lamb shoulder chops, which I often find, would actually be perfect, and not too hard to cut the bones out of those.

~ I’ve kept the recipe’s original wording for browning the lamb, and wondering, why not just say brown the lamb? Do people no longer know what that means? Interesting!

Serves 4.

• 2 teaspoons coriander seeds, toasted and roughly crushed
• 2 1/2 teaspoons cumin seeds, toasted and roughly crushed
• 1/4 teaspoon flaked sea salt
• 1 3/4 pound / 800 grams boneless lamb neck, cut against the grain into rough 3/4-inch / 2 cm chunks
• 1/4 cup / 60 ml olive oil
• 2 onions, quartered and root end trimmed off
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 lemon: finely shave the zest to get 6-7 strips, then cut into wedges to serve
• 6 garlic cloves, peeled and lightly smashed
• 4 anchovies, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon thyme leaves, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon rosemary leaves, finely chopped
• 9 ounces / 250 grams cherry tomatoes
• 1/3 cup / 80 ml white wine
• 2 cups / 480 ml chicken broth, or more as necessary
• 1 25-ounce / 700 g jar of good-quality butter beans, drained and rinsed (3 cups cooked beans, which you can also get from cooking 1/2 pound / 227 grams dried beans)
• 1/2 cup / 150 grams Greek yogurt
• 1/3 ounce / 10 grams parsley, roughly chopped, to garnish
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

—> Heat the oven to 375 F / 190 C. Mix all the coriander seeds and 2 teaspoons of the cumin seeds in a small bowl and set aside. Put the remaining cumin into a separate small bowl, along with the flaked sea salt, and set aside.

—> Put the lamb in a large bowl with 1/2 teaspoon of salt and a good grind of pepper. Toss well with big spoons to distribute the seasonings.

—> Put 2 tablespoons of the oil into a large cast-iron sauté pan for which you have a lid (or a Dutch oven), and place on medium-high heat. When hot, add half the lamb — don’t overcrowd the pan — and cook for about 6 minutes, turning so that all the sides form a crust. Transfer to a plate, add another 1 tablespoon of oil, and repeat with the remaining lamb. Transfer that the the plate with the rest of the lamb.

—> Add the remaining 1 tablespoon of oil to the pan, decrease the heat to medium, and add the onions, bay leaves, lemon strips, and garlic. Cook for 6 more minutes, stirring a few times, until the onions have taken on some color. Add the anchovies, the coriander-cumin mix, the thyme, rosemary and half the tomatoes. Cook for 1 minute, then return the lamb to the pan. Cook for another minute, then add the wine. Let it bubble away for 30 secons, then add the stock, 3/4 teaspoon of salt and a good grind of pepper. Stir, increase the heat to medium-high, and bring to a simmer. Cover with the lid and place in the oven for 1 1/2 hours, until the lamb is very soft and the liquid has reduced by quite a bit. (An hour into the braising time, check and make sure there’s enough liquid; if it has nearly evaporated, stir in another splash or two of chicken broth and continue braising.)

—> Remove the lamb from the oven and add the beans and remaining tomatoes. Stir, cover and return to the oven for a final 20 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and set aside to rest for 15 minutes.

— When ready to serve, give the stew a good stir before spooning dollops of the yogurt on top. Sprinkle with the cumin salt and finish with the parsley. Serve the lemon wedges alongside.

🍂

That’s all for this difficult week. Maybe this weekend make something soothing for friends or family? We’ve been invited by dear friends for Sunday lasagna supper, which sounds like a warm, delicious hug to look forward to — just what the doctor ordered.

Are you making something comforting this weekend or next week? Do let us know in a comment!