Family Feast New Year's Day 2013

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January 01, 2013
Oakland

Cheese, Tapanade, and Crackers
Olives

Blood Orange and Gouda Salad

Cioppino
Acme Bread










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By Popular Demand

Ottolenghi's Lemon and Eggplant Risotto

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Risotto is such a delightful dish. Comforting, creamy, simple, stable.  
And I amahugefan.
As in, I will make me a risotto any chance I get, with any sort of ingredient you can imagine. It doesn't matter--any season. 
Spring--lemon and peas; 
Summer--tomato and parmesan; 
Fall--mushroom; 
Winter--butternut squash and pancetta. 
If it's in your fridge, you can put it in this Northern Italian rice dish.

However, you will want a very specific kind of rice--a high starch, medium- or short-grain rice--in order separate this delicacy from any other rice dish. The high starch means that as you cook it, it releases its starch, making that requisite creamy smoothness to risotto.
The most popular risotto rice in the United States is, hands down, Arborio rice. This short-grained rice isn't as starchy as some of its popular Italian counterparts, but it is the most easily procured. However, a great article from Fine Cooking that details other risotto rices that are becoming more readi…
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Ottolenghi's Lamb Shawarma

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Summer. Summer. Summer.

Hello Summer. How I  love you. How I am delighted to meet you again after you have been away for a year. How I have plans for us. Big plans. Most of them involve books and napping, but still big plans. Some of my plans also include cooking. So much cooking. Stay tuned for pasta dishes, peanut butter shakes, ceviche, pastry cream. It looks like's going to have fun together, Summer.


One of my first plans was to make Yotam Ottolenghi's Lamb Shawarma. Shawarma is the Arabic fast food of choice that is closely related to the Greek gyro, the Turkish doner kebab, and the Armenian tarna. It is also big on heavenly goodness and is brought to you from Jerusalem via London from the dear, sweet, culinary mind of Ottolenghi.  What a good man.

From the Turkish word Ã§evirme, which means turning, shawarma can be made from chicken, veal, goat, lamb, even fish. We're going to focus on the lamb--which Ottolenghi ensures will get us as close to authentic shawarma witho…
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Ottolenghi's Salmon Steaks in Chraimeh Sauce

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Oh, what a sauce this is.   What a glorious, glorious sauce.

And it comes from our new Jerusalem cookbook, from one of this blog's favorite chefs and current culinary darling, Yotam Ottolenghi.  I need not detail that this blog has featured recipes from Ottolenghihere and here and here and here,  but I will anyway because, whoo boy, I love these recipes. 

This sauce comes from the Sephardic Jews, who resided on the Iberian peninsula until the Spanish Inquisition.  After their expulsion from Spain in 1492, many Sephardic Jews were folded into the Mizrahi communities in Northern Africa and the Middle East.  Such intermingling of people and cultures has produced some culinary superstars; this being no exception.  Indeed, you can taste the Spanish, Moroccan, and Libyan influence on this sauce.

Sephardim pride themselves on their chraimeh recipes, and often serve them at Rosh Hashanah and Passover celebrations (whereas Ashkenazim might serve gefilte fish).  The husband father's f…
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Whole Roasted Celery Root from NOPI

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Okay.  This almost doesn't qualify as a recipe.

But I'll admit, I have never made celeriac this way.

Yes, it took Yotam Ottolenghi to convince me to do something simple. And perfect.


I am not going to mess around here. I love celery root. I have sung its praises here, here, and here.

It is not a pretty little root vegetable, but if you can get beyond its humble, knobby exterior, it smacks of the bright, freshness that one expects from celery (which is, really, just the stalk of the plant) and the nutty, earthiness of something that comes from beneath the ground.


This straightforward recipe comes from Ottolenghi's latest cookbook, NOPI, a collection of restaurant-approved recipes from London's powerhouse foodie and his partner and NOPI Head Chef Ramael Scully.

Yes, it's true, I am a bit of a fan-girl when it comes to Ottolenghi, and next time I am in London (whew, it has been a long time since I was last there), you better believe I plan to pop by one of his eate…
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Potato Pizza from The Cheese Board

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Pizza has always played a substantial role in my life, yet for many years I even reported that I did not like it much. And it’s true that there are pizzas that I don’t care for: those with thick, spongy crusts and pooled oil on the surface. I like crispy, light crusts straight out of a wood-fired oven with a smattering of veggies and rich cheeses on the surface. Lucky for me, such pizzas are easier and easier to come by—from the CheeseBoard and Pizzaiola to Piaci’s and Zachary's*—and are just as easy to make at home, even sans a wood-fired oven.

*Okay, Zachary's is stuffed pizza, but I make an exception for Chicago-style pizza, especially in the Bay Area.

As many of you know, I spent two years of my undergraduate days flipping pies at a pizza shop in central Ohio, so I have a lot of definitive opinions on pizza making. Thankfully, the Cheese Board’s take on pizza falls right in line with my own. Or perhaps, one should say my own way of thinking falls right in line with that o…
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