Saturday Dinners with Yotam

Keeping with our enthusiasm for all things Ottolenghi and playing on Sunday Suppers at Lucques, we have been having dinner and a movie at home on Saturday and cooking from the Ottolenghi cookbooks.

So we finally got to try the "Roasted chicken with Jerusalem artichoke & lemon" when the farmer's market had some Jerusalem artichokes. We were probably a little too impromptu, because I gave it the minimum two-hour marinade instead of the ideal overnight, so we may not have gotten the full impact. Also, the pink peppercorns came through too strongly for my taste, whether because they were old or just because that's the way they taste. I'd cut back a second time. Lastly, we didn't get nearly enough tarragon, so that probably detracted as well.

It did nothing to dim our enthusiasm, however. We had better luck with "Lamb meatballs with barberries, yogurt & herbs." The Blue Rooster Farm supplied the ground lamb at its monthly visit to our farmer's market and Shemali's, the Middle Eastern store at Sutton Place, had the barberries, so we had a delicious concoction of meatballs, shallots and figs, topped with Greek yogurt. The sauce was rich and brown and the familiar combination of allspice, cinnamon, garlic and onions gave it all an exotic air.

The star so far, though, has been the "Chicken with caramelized onion & cardamom rice." As the authors say in the headnote, cooking the rice with the chicken obviates the need for stock and all the lovely flavors go into the rice. The 10 cardamom pods are not crushed or ground so the cardamom flavor remains very subtle, yet perfumes both the rice and the meat with that indefinable touch of the Orient. Typically, Ottolenghi and Tamimi flavor this at the end with chopped herbs -- cilantro, parsley and dill. Only on the second day -- because we make the full recipes so we really end up having Saturdays, Sundays and sometimes Mondays with Ottolenghi -- did we use the optional Greek yogurt and olive oil topping, and we'll never leave it off again.

We've also done some of the side dishes and I'll back to those another time.

Ottolenghi

The lamb shawarma recipe from Jerusalem is a prime example of why everyone is so wild about Ottolenghi -- it is a twist on an exotic Mediterranean specialty that turns it into a fresh and exciting dish.

We've been on an Ottolenghi kick and went to the book-signing he and his cooking partner, Sami Tamimi, did for Ottolenghi at the Sixth & I Synagogue. The interview, conducted somewhat ineptly by Joan Nathan, was not great, but did give you an impression of these two Israelis, one Jewish and the other Palestinian, who have taken the culinary world by storm with their London restaurants.

The lamb dish, which you have to all in love with when you see the photo, was the centerpiece of an all-Ottolenghi menu. The rub includes a baker's dozen of spices -- peppercorns, cloves, cardamom pods, fenugreek seeds, fennel seeds, cumin seeds, star anise, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground ginger, sweet paprika, sumac, sea salt -- that get in part roasted, then ground and all mixed together. Grated fresh ginger, crushed garlic cloves, chopped cilantro, lemon juice and peanut oil are added to make a rub for the leg of lamb, which ideally gets marinated overnight. Then it is slow-roasted in a 325 oven for 4-1/2 hours, adding 1 cup of boiling water after the first 30 minutes and covering with aluminum foil for the last 3 hours to keep the spice crust from burning. Be sure to keep water in the pan and baste it every hour or so with the liquid. We followed the suggestion to add waxy potatoes, peeled and in wedges, to the roast for the last 1-1/2 hours.

The meat was fork-tender and delicious. The spice crust gave the dish some zing but the full lamb flavor came through well. It was going to be dry in any case and timing for guests kept it in the oven longer, so I would be sure the next time to have more liquid at the finish to ladle over the carved meat. The potatoes, which were very tasty, absorbed some liquid as well.

As sides we served the marinated eggplant with tahini and oregano and the cucumber and poppy seed salad from Ottolenghi. The small eggplants get cut into wedges and roasted, then marinated in a mix of chopped red chile, cilantro, oregano, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. After this sits for at least 2 hours, you top it with green tahini sauce for serving. The cucumber salad calls for small cucumbers -- which by some serendipity Whole Foods happened to have -- mixed with sliced red chiles, cilantro, white wine vinegar, sunflower oil, poppy seeds and superfine sugar. These were also delicious and harmonized well with the lamb. We served a good Bordeaux with the meal.

In their talk, Tamimi (who like Simone Beck and Louise Bertholle tends to get forgotten in all the hullabaloo over Yotam Ottolenghi) emphasized that much of their cooking comes back to garlic and lemon. When someone lamely asked what tools they suggest for the kitchen, Tamimi gamely answered "a lemon squeezer and a garlic press." Enough said.