Since buying, collecting, reading, using and dreaming about cookbooks is such a big part of my life and this blog, I have decided to dedicate some space to them here. Every now and then instead of sharing a recipe, I will share a cookbook profile from one of the books on my shelves. What books other people have, how they use them and what they cook from them (if at all) is endlessly fascinating to me so I hope you will enjoy taking a cookbook off one of my shelves and see how it has influenced me and my cooking.

The first book I wanted to take off my shelf for you is ‘Jerusalem’ by Yotam Ottolenghi & Sami Tamimi. With all the (much deserved) hype around Yotam Ottolenghi’s latest release ‘Simple’, it seemed only fitting to dive back into some of his earlier co-authored works. I also am unable to buy the new book as with it being so close to the end of the year, and having both my birthday and Christmas in December, I am always told by my family not to buy any new books so they can potentially give me them as a gift. So I am feeling an extreme case of FOMO at the moment, as everyday on Instagram I see another post about the book or about someone cooking from the book - and it all looks so good.

Not to mention Yotam’s new podcast ‘Simple Pleasures’, where he invites someone round to his place and they chat and enjoy dishes from his new book. I am already seriously craving the gnocchi he made for Nadiya Hussain on the first episode.

But until I get my hands on a copy, I still have the vast array of recipes from ‘Jerusalem’ to keep me occupied. See below for a little profile of the cookbook, and what I have made from it. It is definitely one I would recommend!

Bought at: gifted (I have also gifted this book to someone else as well I liked it so much!)

Recipes made: Shakshuka (p.66) & Clear Chicken Soup with Knaidlach (pp.144-5)

I really like making and eating Shakshuka, however this was the first actual recipe for one I have followed. Most of the time I just make it all up using a can of diced tomatoes, whatever else we have that will go with it, plus the egg. It can be quite a simple dish, and after I saw Molly Yeh demonstrate it at a Local is Lovely workshop a couple of years ago I knew I could replicate it at home. I imagine Yotam and Sami’s version is more traditional than what I often make, and includes harissa and ground cumin. It was really nice making a shakshuka without a can of tomatoes and having a slightly spicy chunky sauce to cook the eggs in (I actually found it easier to cook the eggs this way).

Adaptations: I reduced the amount of harissa to about a teaspoon as I’m not into really spicy foods, and reduced the amount of eggs as I was only serving one. I also used yellow capsicums as thats what we already had!

This chicken soup was my first ever attempt at making a Matzo Ball Soup over Passover. It is an involved affair, but worth it. My soup was not as flavourful as I had hoped, so I’m not sure if I should have cooked it longer or maybe it was the cuts of chicken I used (I didn’t 100% stick to the recipe on that one). I also used freshly ground matzo rather than pre-prepared matzo meal for the knaidlach so I think they would have been a bit lighter and smoother with the shop bought matzo meal. Definitely a recipe to go back to!

Favourite things about the book: This book is beautifully photographed and I really love the lifestyle photography from around Jerusalem. It really brings the essence of the city into the book and the recipes, rather than just showing photos of the completed dishes in isolation.

I also really like the fact that this is more than a cookbook. Whilst reading you take in recipes you want to try and discover dishes you might never have heard of, but you also get a history lesson through food. The introductions for each chapter and recipes are well worth reading as much of the cultural and religious or historical significance of a dish or ingredient are explained. And sometimes personal notes from both the authors are shared around specific recipes too.

Bookmarked recipes (to make later!): Swiss Chard Fritters (p.54) & Latkes (p.92).

Lifestyle photography in Jerusalem by Yotam Ottolenghi & Sami Tamimi — Lifestyle photography in *Jerusalem* by Yotam Ottolenghi & Sami Tamimi

Earlier this month I went to a cooking class at the Cornersmith Picklery with the Monday Morning Cooking Club (MMCC). The class was all about Jewish Comfort Food, and the day the class was held was so cold it was a perfect day to be cooking and eating warming comfort food. We all sat and watched three of the lovely MMCC ladies demonstrate each dish, then we got to sample them.

First we ate egg & onion dip with challah, a staple at the Friday night table. I have been wanting to make challah myself for years now and just never got round to it, but with the amount of it I eat I really should have had a go! The egg dip was super simple, boiled eggs grated and mixed with onions cooked until they were soft and golden with little salt and pepper. The combination doesn’t sound much, and this is probably why I’ve never tried making it before, but it was heaven. I knew I would be making both these things, very very soon.

We then had matzo ball soup, a traditional dish of Passover. I made some of my own over the Passover/Easter long weekend this year, and it was nice, but the MMCC’s one was so much better. I had used a recipe in Ottolenghi’s book Jerusalem, because it made a smaller quantity and used more herbs which I hoped would add more flavour to the soup. But I will definitely be using the MMCC’s recipe next time, as mine didn’t have nearly as much flavour as I had hoped.

We then ate brisket with a salad. Now, I haven’t eaten red meat in at least 20 years - I have never been able to stand the taste and the texture. But I did try the brisket and I didn’t mind it. The sweetness of the honey and caramelised onions was really nice, and sliced really thinly I could imagine myself eating it on a really good reuben sandwich.

Then came the Blintzes, a dish often served during the festival of Shavout. Consisting of individual crepes filled with a cream cheese filling and then baked with more cream, it was a decadent dessert and definitely worthy of the title comfort food.

As the MMCC ladies were making each dish, we heard tips and tricks they had for each recipe, sometimes learnt from the person whose recipe it had been originally or things they had worked out themselves after making it many times. The stories behind each dish were fascinating to me, as I love the history of food and the preservation of heirloom recipes. Which is of course in part why I love the MMCC so much. The stories contained in each of their books are just as interesting to me as discovering the recipes held within each book. Then the recipes themselves have opened up a whole new world of cooking and flavours for me and my family, that we now can’t live without.

To that end, and after being inspired by this wonderful class at Cornersmith, I decided the following weekend that it was finally time to make my own challah and serve it with egg and onion. Since I was cooking only for me, I made a much smaller quantity of the egg and onion, and once the challah’s had cooled I sliced them up and placed each loaf in a zip lock bag and froze them. I found they defrosted really well, and of course toasted really well too. The egg and onion also keeps well in the fridge if stored correctly.

Here are links for the MMCC’s Challah recipe and the egg and onion, but I have also included my paired down version of the egg and onion recipe here - something I have since gone on to make 3 times in about 2 weeks! For this recipe, the idea is to cater for one egg per person.

Egg & Onion

Ingredients:

x3 eggs, at room temperature

1/2 small/medium brown onion

2 tbsp vegetable oil

salt

ground pepper

Method:

Peel and dice the onion, and heat the oil in a small fry pan. Add the onion and cook on a medium heat for about 10 minutes, or until the onion is nice and soft and golden in colour.

Meanwhile, place the eggs in a medium saucepan and cover with cold tap water. Bring to the boil on a high heat, and continue to cook for a further 8 minutes once the water comes to a boil. The eggs should not be boiled for longer than 8 minutes. Once the eggs have cooked for 8 minutes transfer to a bowl of cold water.

Once the onions have finished cooking, take them off the heat and set aside.

When the eggs are cool enough to handle peel away the shells. Using a grater sitting in a wide but shallow bowl, grate the eggs into the bowl using the coarse side of the grater. Add the cooked onions to the eggs, allowing most of the oil to remain in the pan. Add a pinch of salt and ground pepper, and mix with a wooden spoon until combined and the salt has dissolved.

The mixture should lightly hold together if you try to roll it into a ball with your fingers, so if it is too dry add a little more of the oil from cooking the onions.

Serve at room temperature with slices of challah.

If not serving immediately, cover the egg and onion with plastic wrap ensuring the wrap is touching the mixture and directly covering it, not just covering the bowl.

Left overs can be kept covered in the same way in the fridge, and will last a few days.

These recipes can also be found in ‘Monday Morning Cooking Club - The Food, The Stories, The Sisterhood’ by Merelyn Frank Chalmers, Natanya Eskin, Lauren Fink, Lisa Goldberg, Paula Horwitz and Jacqui Israel (HarperCollins, 2013), pp.78 & 263.

Off the Shelf - ‘Jerusalem’ by Yotam Ottolenghi & Sami Tamimi

Monday Morning Cooking Club @ Cornersmith + Challah with Egg and Onion

Egg & Onion

recipes

Egg & Onion

Kulinary Adventures of Kath

Food Photography, Recipes & Baking