Plenty More

Starred review from October 6, 2014
Ottolenghi is a food writer for the U.K.’s Guardian, as well as the owner of three gourmet delis and London’s Nopi restaurant. The heart of his operation, though, is a test kitchen nestled in a railway arch in central London, where he and his colleagues perfected the 150 recipes found here in his fourth cookbook. Offered as a sequel to his 2011 bestseller Plenty, the book is fairly dazzling in its use of obscure vegetation in the service of highly creative dishes. Barley rusks from Crete, known as dakos, are mixed in a salad with tomato and feta. Upma, an Indian semolina porridge, is flavored with ginger, peanuts, and lime pickle. Candy beets are simmered with lentils and yuzu. And familiar flavors turn up in unexpected places, as with the eggplant cheesecake and the Brussels sprout risotto. The dozen chapters are named for various cooking methods, and taken as a whole represent pretty much everything that can possibly be done to an unsuspecting veggie: tossed, steamed, blanched, simmered, braised, grilled, roasted, fried, mashed, cracked, baked, and sweetened. Cracked refers to the addition of eggs into the dish, such as in the membrillo (quince paste) and Stilton quiche. For those who prefer to hunt by ingredient, a comprehensive index points the way, from 11 recipes that employ almonds to seven options for zucchini.