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| The cookbook - just released in the UK |
Anyone who follows the international food media – newspapers, magazines and blogs – would have read of the much anticipated “Jerusalem”, the third cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi that was published in the UK last month and is about to be released in the US. Fortunately, I was able to get a copy here in Hyderabad last week via the miracles of on-line retailing ... and it’s extraordinary!
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| The original "Ottolenghis" in Notting HIll, London |
Ottolenghi and Tamimi are the co-proprietors of the string of Ottolenghi restaurants and delicatessens in central London. They are also a publicist’s dream couple .... one an Israeli brought up in the Jewish west of Jerusalem and the other a Palestinian brought up in the Arab east side of the ancient city ... never meeting each other until 20 years later when they formed a culinary and business partnership in London.
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| Sammi Tamini and Yotam Ottolenghi |
Yotam Ottolenghi has the higher profile of the two. A former journalist and academic with a Masters degree in Comparative Literature, he changed careers when he moved to London and went on to become a successful chef, cookery writer and restaurateur. He has a highly popular weekly column in The Guardian newspaper and does most of the media for the businesses. Sami Tamini began working as a chef in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv before moving to London where he is now head chef of the Ottolenghi empire.
Their first book – the eponymously named “Ottolenghi”- is on the UK Amazon’s “ten best cookbooks of all time” list, and their second book “Plenty” - a modern day bible of Middle Eastern-influenced vegetarian cooking - this year received a second life when it was released to wide acclaim on the American market. (I just hate these guys!)
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| The Muslim quarter of Jerusalem |
“Jerusalem” is both a homage to their childhood memories of food and the relatives and friends that cooked for them and also an attempt to reflect the extraordinarily rich multicultural fabric of the city.
“Consider this: there are Greek orthodox monks in this city; Russian Orthodox priests; Hasidic Jews originating from Poland; non-Orthodox Jews from Tunisia, from Libya, from France or from Britain; there are Sephardic Jews who have been here for generations; there are Palestinian Muslims from the West Bank ... ; there are secular Ashkenazi Jews from Romania, Germany and Lithuania and more recently arrived Sephardim from Morocco, Iraq, Iran or Turkey; there are Christian Arabs and Armenian Orthodox; there are Yemeni Jews and Ethiopian Jews but there are also Ethiopian Copts; there are Jews from Argentina and others from southern India; there are Russian nuns looking after monasteries and a whole neighbourhood of Jews from Bukhara (Uzebekistan).”
From the introduction to “Jerusalem”
One of the key recipes in the book is hummus, which is included with a number of mouth watering variations. The authors write of the “hummusia fetish” in Jerusalem with many of the ethnic groups above claiming ‘source of origin’ for this chickpea-based dish: “Generally most people agree that it was Levantine or Egyptian Arabs who first made hummus, though even this is debatable!”
I have been struggling on and off to make hummus for the past 25 years ... and IT’S NEVER WORKED! From my early cooking days as a half-baked vegetarian student at Monash University in Melbourne, I have attempted this recipe every now and then and it has always come out as glug! It didn’t help either that this dish became a bit of a cliché in restaurants in Australia as we began to embrace Middle Eastern and Lebanese cuisine in the 1980s and 90s. At the end of a party there would be these plates of dried out, crusted hummus sitting next to the overflowing ashtrays and spilt plastic glasses of cheap red wine .... uuggh!
So I was surprised the other evening when I made the basic recipe that it turned out so perfectly. Maybe it was my home-made tahini paste that was lighter than the store bought stuff ... or maybe it was adding iced water rather than more olive oil to the blender that did the trick?
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| Hummus Kawarma is basically hummus topped with pan grilled lamb |
The add-on recipe that I cooked was “Hummus Kawarma” or Lamb with Lemon Sauce, which highlights finely chopped lamb pieces pan fried in ghee and olive oil served on top of a pool of hummus scattered with whole chickpeas and topped with a puckery lemon sauce consisting of finely chopped parsley, lemon juice, green chillies and white wine vinegar.
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| The Fattoush salad |
It was fantastic! We ate this with a bread and crisp vegetable salad (“Na’ama’s Fattoush”, also from the book) which involves marinating the ingredients in a home-style buttermilk made by ‘fermenting’ full cream milk and thick yogurt for several hours; the milk we get over here of course is from buffaloes and this only added to the creamy texture of the final dish.
I’ve only just started dipping into “Jerusalem” but the recipe titles give some indication of the style and substance of the book ... “Roasted sweet potatoes & fresh figs”, “Lemony leek meatballs”, “Braised quail with apricots, currants & tamarind”, “Saffron chicken & herb salad” and “Set yogurt pudding with poached peaches”. So far “Jerusalem” is looking like my favourite cookbook of the year!
Here’s the first recipe ....
“Hummus Kawarma” or Lamb with Lemon Sauce
first the basic hummus ...
Ingredients: 250g chickpeas 1 T bicarbonate of soda 250g of tahini paste (I used less) 4 T lemon juice 4 garlic cloves, crushed 100ml of iced water (I ended up using about 200+ml of water to lighten the chickpea paste after grinding)
Method: Wash chickpeas and soak in twice their volume of water in a pot overnight, stirring in the bicarb’ soda which helps soften the peas. Next day cook chickpeas in saucepan with 1.5 litres of water (for 20 to 40 minutes) until soft and tender. I use a pressure cooker to quicken this step ... and save gas from our bottle in the kitchen!
Drain and cool the chickpeas and place in large blender/mixer. Process until you get a smooth paste and then add tahini paste, lemon juice, garlic and 1 ½ t salt. Then you slowly add the iced water until you get a smooth, creamy texture. (I just added all the ingredients pretty much from the start as the chickpeas wouldn’t break down on their own in my mixer; I found I had to add twice the amount of iced water to achieve the proper texture.)
Leave aside covered for at least 30 mins.
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Ingredients: (1) the basic hummus recipe, as made above plus small cup of extra cooked chickpeas for garnish 3 T toasted pinenuts to garnish
(2) 300gm fillet of lamb, finely chopped by hand (I used about 500gm for 4 people) ½ t pepper ½ t ground allspice ½ t cinnamon pinch ground nutmeg 1 t zaatar spice mix or oregano 1 T white vinegar I t chopped mint 1 T chopped parsley 1t salt 1 t olive oil
Lemon Sauce Ingredients: 10gms flat leaf parsley, finely chopped 1 or 2 green chillis, finely chopped 4 T lemon juice 2 T white wine vinegar 2 garlic cloves, crushed ¼ t salt
Method: Place all the kawarma ingredients (no 2) - apart from olive oil - in a bowl and mix thoroughly, marinate 30 mins+ in fridge.
Just before cooking meat, mix all ingredients for lemon sauce together in a bowl.
Heat olive oil in pan to medium high and cook meat in batches. Recipe says meat should be slightly pink (cooked only 2 to 3 mins) but here in India I cook meat a little longer just to be safe!
Divide hummus between 4 to 6 bowls or plates and spread out, leaving a slight indentation in the middle. Spoon the warm kawarma into the middle of plate and scatter with the extra chickpeas. Drizzle over the lemon sauce and scatter extra parsley and chopped nuts over top. (I also drizzled some xv olive oil around edge of plate.)
Serve ... and raise a toast to hopes for peace in the Middle East!
P.S. which I guess translates in the near future to at the very least: Obama IN – Netanyahu OUT!
Tony saab/Hyderabad/INDIA Oct 2012
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