vegan feast: Ottolenghi cookalong

When The Guardian gave a column to a vegetarian-friendly chef a few years back, I was excited. Was the zeitgeist shifting and vegetarian food becoming mainstream? I didn’t mind if he was an omnivore (after all, I’m a pescetarian but a huge promoter of vegan food), anything that makes a plant-based diet sexy is good enough for me.

Melbourne foodbloggers adopted Yotam Ottolenghi with gusto. I wanted to love him but the more I scoured his recipes, the less accessible I found them. Being dairy-free rendered 70% of his dishes inaccessible without a lot of adaptation. (And I hate to admit it, I carry a bit of a grudge that the aforementioned column segued from vegetarian to meat-centric a while later).

When Cindy suggested the next cookalong be Ottolenghi themed, I thought it was time to tackle my difficult relationship with his work. Once more I requested Plenty from the local library and poured over the padded tome. It was difficult. So many of his ingredients didn't lend themselves to our seasonal availability. But I figured with celeriac in season, I’d give his Celeriac and Lentil Salad with Hazelnuts and Mint a go.

While I could source all of the ingredients at Vic Market, the simple salad rung up a hefty toll – puy lentils (or the equivalent) $11 a pop, bunches of thyme and mint, celeriac (two small organic left little change from a tenner), red wine vinegar, hazelnuts…I drew the line at hazelnut oil and substituted with some macadamia I had at home.

The recipe is not officially online but has been reproduced by others in the blogosphere. This version’s authentic, though the blogged recipe is not metricized. From memory the Australian edition of Plenty called for about 600gm of celeriac).

In a (hazel) nut shell the recipe is simple but rendered unnecessarily fussy. Toast the hazelnuts (60gm) in their shells, cook the puy lentils until al dente, boil the celeriac and mix together in a dressing made with olive oil, hazelnut (or in this case macadamia) oil, “high quality” red wine vinegar, salt, pepper and lashings of fresh mint. The recipe called for cooking the lentils with thyme and bay leaves, which didn’t really add any extra flavour.

Overall the salad was healthy but lacking in zing. An entire bunch of mint didn’t particularly enliven the dish (perhaps in summer the essential oils in the herb would pack more punch but then celeriac would be difficult to find) and the dressing needed more acidity. Some roughly chopped parsley instead of mint, an extra slug of vinegar and a heavier hand with the salt may have made it a little tastier.

The entire meal, however, was a raging success. Last year five of us got together to make an vegan, Indonesian-themed shared lunch. It was lovely to chop, cook, chat and eat with a bunch of healthy-food minded people. This time Cindy and Michael hosted and  Kristy and Toby came along to fire up the wok. Who’d have thought you could get five food bloggers in the same kitchen and cook without ego or (too much) chaos?

We feasted on Ottolenghi-inspired gluten-free, vegan food. Michael quietly whipped up a borlotti and green bean masterpiece, Cindy made a bejewelled roasted cauliflower salad and Kristy fried up black pepper tofu in a tasty sauce, while Toby veganised this polenta cake using egg replacer and olive oil.

But wait there’s more.

Cindy roasted rhubarb and whipped coconut cream* flecked with lemon zest (oh my what a heart stopping vegan treat!), which went perfectly with Toby’s polenta cake. It was one of the best vegan desserts I’ve eaten in a long time.

So am I an Ottolenghi convert yet? If I was Joyce of Hot Or Not fame, based on the lentil salad alone, for me Plenty is a definite “not”. But I loved everyone else’s dishes, the camaraderie of the kitchen, Michael’s thoughtful Flying Nun heavy play list and those wonderful desserts.

* Serendipitously Jess Cox posted this simple recipe for whipped coconut cream this morning. A simpler version but just as rich. My gallbladder would like to warn you that delicious as it is, limit it to a very small serve.

Kohlrabi for the uninitiated

Being such a startling purple, I had to buy it. Sitting perkily on the organic stall’s shelf next to the celeriac they struck me as a pair, like a bride and groom at some kind of vegetable wedding. It was something to do with their ‘head gear’, royal purple tentacles coming off one and an erect green sprout topping the other. In the end I couldn’t part them up and for the first time ever, kohlrabi came home with me, nestled in the trolley next to the more familiar celeriac.


The SE had a flash camera to play with so I sent him off to take a photo of the pair, now wilting slightly from a couple of the days in the fridge. I should have checked it first, before I started chopping! Sorry no after pics, it is dark at dinner time now!

It is two years since I extended my acquaintance with the not-so-ugly celeriac. Now, it was kohlrabi’s turn.

First I had to taste it. As I peeled off her finery to get to the crisp flesh, I felt a little saddened to be loosing the vibrant coat but was rewarded with a slice of surprisingly sweet, slightly cabbage flavoured goodness. Kohlrabi is almost apple-like in both consistency and flavour. The pigeon pairing on the shelf made me want to keep celeriac in the mix somewhere and a remoulade-style dish was the obvious place to start.

Well lets not get fancy here, it evolved to more of a slaw.

But first a confession. I know how to make mayonnaise and it is not solely laziness that prevented me to make it from scratch - rather health. I get overwhelmed by the vast quantity of oil that goes into making mayonnaise and as you can’t just make a teeny bit of the stuff it means in a short period of time you find excuses to hoe your way through a couple of cups of very nice vegetable oil. Not today thank you. But please feel free to whip up your finest

Kohlrabi and celeriac slaw

1 kohlrabi, peeled
1 celeriac, peeled
1 lemon, juiced
1 tablespoon of good quality mayonnaise (preferably homemade but I cheat with Thomy)
1 tsp fennel seeds

Grate the vegetables, and then mix in a bowl with the lemon juice followed by the mayonnaise and fennel seeds.

Result: A tasty side dish to celebrate the marriage of celeriac and kohlrabi. A little grated apple next time could be a good variation.