Following on from his popular vegetarian book Plenty, Yotam Ottolenghi attains cookery superstardom with Plenty More, delivering another staggering collection of hearty, fresh, and incredibly more-ish vegetarian recipes. (French toast brioche anyone, I’ll put us all down for ten shall I?)
This is a very new addition to my cook book collection and has quickly become a favourite. Trust I me I’ve heard all the hype (lord, the hype! ) and it absolutely lives up to it. Though I’m not vegetarian I do try to keep my meat intake to a minimum, so even though this book should be a staple for vegetarian households I think omnivores could equally appreciate it. Plenty More sheds new light on vegetables, separating the book into methods of preparation enables Ottolenghi to showcase new and exciting methods of preparation.
Were you tortured with Brussels sprouts as a kid? Be prepared to be blown away by the “Brussel sprout risotto”. Plenty More has a range of dishes from the easy week night meal to the complex dish for the experienced home cook. At the very least it will give you something to work to – I found out caramelised fruit is not as easy as it seems!
To put the accessibility of this cook book into perspective, after a quick afternoon flick I was able to plan and execute almost my entire weekly meals, as I already had half the ingredients. Now I am at most an enthusiastic but amateur cook with terrible time management and tiny simple kitchen. However everything turned out perfectly and I have some firm new favourites including the Caramelised Fig and Orange salad, Crumbed Olives and tomato and watermelon gazpacho ( I can not recommend that last one highly enough, it is a ridiculously refreshing delicious summer soup). Honestly if I see another boring vegetarian option it will make me very sad. There is no excuse.
Say it with me now “You CAN make friends with salad, you CAN make friends with salad”.
