More Ottolenghi - Marinated Buffalo Mozzarella and Tomato

Yesterday I wrote a bit about how fussy Yotam Ottolenghi can seem when writing about his recipes in his book, Plenty. So fussy that it would almost put me off trying some of his recipes, actually. But I decided to give myself a challenge and see if I could do his Marinated Buffalo Mozzarella and Tomato any justice using bog-standard, supermarket-bought ingredients. After all, I figure that this is what most people will end up using. I actually went one step further and bought the cheapest mozzarella I could find, just to be bad! (Um, ok, and to save money...) So I tried this recipe using Tesco Everyday Value mozzarella and Tesco 'juicy cherry tomatoes' (that's what the box said they were!). All other ingredients were for the marinade, and I had all of these on hand, with two exceptions. I had no lemon to get lemon zest, so instead I opted for a splash of lemon juice from a bottle (shock! Horror!), and I didn't have any fresh oregano, so I used dried instead (remember to always reduce the quantity if you're using dried herbs as an alternative to fresh, as the flavours are intensified).

Now, I have to give top marks to Mr Ottolenghi on the simplicity of this recipe. It really is extremely easy to prepare and takes hardly any time (if you don't count the 15-30 minutes' time that the mozzarella is to sit in the marinade - which I don't). I'll give you a quick run-down of how I made this, so you can get an idea of just how easy-peasy it really is.

My makeshift mortar and pestle!

The first step is to dry-fry 1/2 a teaspoon of fennel seeds until they pop - at this point, transfer to a mortar and pestle and crush the seeds. I don't have a mortar and pestle (hint hint, if anyone wants to buy me a present!), so I just crushed the seeds with a teaspoon in a ramekin (but any small bowl could be used), and this worked very well. Tip into a small bowl (if you have crushed the seeds in a bowl rather than a mortar and pestle, then obviously just keep them in that bowl, and congratulate yourself on saving on a bit of washing up) and add the following ingredients: grated zest of one lemon (or a splash of lemon juice), 15 finely chopped basil leaves, 2 teaspoons of chopped oregano (or 1 teaspoon of dried), 2 teaspoons of extra virgin olive oil, 2 teaspoons of rapeseed oil, 1 garlic clove (crushed), 1/2 a teaspoon of sea salt, and black pepper. This is your marinade.

The marinade

Ottolenghi suggests ripping the mozzarella (250g) into chunks and then smearing these with your marinade. But to me, it makes a lot more sense to just add the mozzarella chunks straight into the bowl and mix it up a bit to ensure all the mozzarella is covered by the marinade. That way, no marinade is wasted and also it's a less messy process. Win-win!

You then let the mozzarella sit in the marinade for 15 to 30 minutes, then chop your tomatoes into wedges and serve together with the mozzarella. The recipe suggests drizzling with extra olive oil, but I didn't do this, partly because I was so excited to try out the salad that I forgot (oops) and partly because I don't really feel it needs any extra oil.

Mozzarella in the marinade

So what was the verdict? I really enjoyed this. I had originally intended to taste some tonight so I could blog about it and take the rest into work for my lunch tomorrow, but it was so good that I gobbled it all up!  (I hasten to add at this point that I had only made a half portion, so although I am greedy, I'm not as greedy as it may have just sounded.) The fennel really shines through and gives the dish an unusual taste, and it looks beautiful, with all the ripped up basil (and I'm sure if you had fresh oregano it would only look even better).

The finished product - delicious!

But what about the 'poor' quality of my ingredients, I hear you cry! Well, I have to say, that with the mozzarella the star of this dish, I might buy slightly better quality cheese next time. But it would all depend on the occasion. If it were just to be a lunchbox filler, I'm quite happy with the cheap mozzarella - it tasted nice enough to me. But if I were serving it to guests, I'd probably prefer to know I was serving slightly higher quality fare. And the tomatoes? Actually, I really enjoyed my straight-from-the-fridge tomatoes in this salad! Yes, I'm sure it would be absolutely delicious with a lovingly homegrown fruit instead, but honestly, I wouldn't waste any time or money searching for the perfect tomato for this recipe. Go with a type of tomato that you enjoy, and you'll be fine. I am not a huge fan of regular-sized tomatoes, so tend to substitute the sweeter cherry tomatoes in a lot of dishes that call for ordinary tomatoes. So doing the same here worked just fine.

Marinated mozzarella and tomato 

I am hoping that perhaps I can get some tomatoes growing in my wee patch of garden next year, so perhaps at that point I will try this recipe with home-grown tomatoes instead and see what I think, but I can't imagine it making that much of a difference. What do you think? How important is the quality of ingredients to you? And does anyone grow tomatoes (or anything else that could grow well in a pot in the harsh Scottish climate) that could give me some tips? (I'm not the most green-fingered, but I am enthusiastic and hope I will learn quickly!)

Yotam Ottolenghi's Lemon and Aubergine Risotto

So, tonight I decided to try a new recipe from a book that was given to me as a birthday present: Lemon and Aubergine Risotto from Yotam Ottolenghi's book, Plenty. This is a beautiful book, which I love looking through (I sometimes just read cook books for fun, as nice bedtime reading...!), but the one criticism I would make is that sometimes the recipes seem to call for quite obscure ingredients, or time-consuming techniques. Ottolenghi does also seem extremely bothered by the quality of his ingredients.

Now, I'm not saying this is a bad thing - of course it is great to be cook with the freshest, best ingredients you can find, or afford, but sometimes he just seems to take things to extremes. For example, in the introduction to one recipe, he states that he "would ditch the idea at once if [he] couldn't get a ripe, summery tomato, juicy and sweetly intense, a tomato that has never seen a fridge or a chilled truck, only soil and sun". I don't know about you, but that kind of puts me off even trying to make that recipe. Would I really have the time and energy (and possibly money!) to go off on this massive search for the perfect tomato before I could even contemplate making what is essentially a tomato and mozzarella salad? I don't think I would. I have decided to give the recipe a go at some point anyway, with 'average' ingredients and see what I think.

But tonight was all about one of the recipes that seems at first glance a little too time-consuming, but after thinking about how delicious it would probably be, I decided to give it a go. It was also recommended by the friend who gave me the book, and I always love a recommendation!

The time-consuming part of this was the burning (yes, you read that correctly - burning!) of one of the aubergines. This can be done on the flame of a gas hob in about 15 minutes, apparently, so this makes the recipe immediately more appealing if you have a gas hob. But, as you may have guessed, I do not have a gas hob. So method number two it was, then. Method number two involves grilling the whole aubergine under the grill, turning occasionally, for about an hour. See, I told you it was time-consuming! But I have to say, the taste of the flesh that you scoop out of this burnt aubergine is just amazing, and completely worth the effort. My tip for this part of the process, if you have an electric hob, is to do this step in advance - I actually burned my aubergine on Monday afternoon as I had the day off work and thought I'd take advantage of some extra kitchen time to prep! I then stored the pre-burnt auberine in the fridge for a couple of days, only scooping out the flesh tonight when I came to that step in the recipe. This really made a difference to the amount of effort I felt the whole dish took - it was great having that first, annoying step right out of the way already! This actually links in to an idea I saw another - much more established!! - vegetarian blogger (Gemsmaquillage) talking about on YouTube, about prepping all your food at the beginning of the week. I want to talk more about this in another post, but in the meantime, head over to Gemma's blog when you've finished reading this, as it has lots of great ideas!

The rest of the recipe involved cooking a basic risotto (one onion, two cloves of garlic, 200g arborio rice, 120ml white wine [ok, I never measure wine, so there may have been more in my risotto!] and 750ml vegetable stock). Again, Ottolenghi likes to suggest that his readers make their own stock from scratch. Perhaps I am lazy, but when I have been at work all day and just want to make a nice meal for myself, the last thing I feel like doing is making the stock from scratch when I have some stock cubes in the cupboard. So I reached for the trusty stock cubes tonight, I have to admit. Right at the end, two tablespoons of lemon juice, the zest of half a lemon, butter, the aubergine flesh, parmesan and a little salt are added to the risotto. This is left covered for five minutes, and then to serve, a little parmesan, the other half of the lemon zest, some basil leaves, and some fried aubergine cubes are sprinkled on top.

I love risotto, and I love aubergine - if it is properly cooked - but I would never have thought to combine the two. I thought this was absolutely delicious, and looked pretty too. My boyfriend wasn't too impressed when he tasted a bit of the aubergine - but then, in fairness, he has always hated aubergine! This was my last-ditch attempt at converting him. I guess I failed there :-(

Another failure tonight was my camera and my phone camera - unfortunately, my phone is playing up a bit at the moment, so although it seemed that I was able to take a few nice pictures of the risotto, when I actually went back to the gallery, only one had saved. I then got out my trusty camera....but the batteries were dead and I couldn't find any new ones. So, sadly, the picture above is all I have to show for my efforts (well, that plus the leftovers in the fridge). 

I would definitely recommend that you check out Plenty - although I do think some of the recipes seem a little more complicated or time-consuming than I would normally choose, they are great for when you are in the mood to be a little bit more creative in the kitchen. Plus, you can always adapt and incorporate time-saving ideas (like using a stock cube instead of making stock, that kind of thing) to cut down on the time/effort required. And like I said before, it really is a beautiful book to flick through and be inspired by.

I would be really interested to hear what anyone else thinks of Yotam Ottolengi's books/recipes - do you have any more recommendations for me? Or any other good time-saving tips in the kitchen?

Thank you for reading my first ever blog post, and I hope you come back soon for more from my veggie kitchen!