COMFORT FOOD – COURTESY OF OTTOLENGHI

Regular readers will know that I’m a great fan of Yotam Ottolenghi’s recipes (and if you follow  @aca_jee on instagram, you’ll see a lot of my food that’s been influenced by him). 

With perfect timing for those autumnal days when we start to crave comfort food, he’s produced another fabulous cookbook, aptly named COMFORT. 

Published last month by Penguin Random House, it’s his first new cookbook since his era-defining Ottolenghi SIMPLE and Ottolenghi FLAVOUR.   This new book is the work of ‘four hungries’ – Yotam Ottolenghi, and colleagues Helen Goh, Verena Lochmuller and Tara Wigley – and they all bring their own memories, childhoods, and travels with them to explore what comfort food means to them. Mac ’n’ cheese, chicken ramen, schnitzel, sausages and mash, pizza, chicken noodle soup, lentils, and rice, dhal, dumplings: the definitive comfort food for many, certainly, but there is no one-comfort- food-fits-all. The team explored the four elements of comfort in the book: ‘Who we eat with’; ‘Why we eat’; ‘What we eat’ and finally ‘How we eat’ – as important as what we are eating in the first place.

With over 100 recipes, including classic new takes on pasta and potatoes, traybakes, noodles, curries, soups and sweet things, Ottolenghi COMFORT is full of dishes that feel both nostalgic and novel, familiar yet fresh – this is at the heart of the Ottolenghi interpretation of comfort.  It will make a great Christmas present, but why wait? It’s worth treating yourself now so that you can practise the dishes in time for festive entertaining.  It’s £30 for a lovely hardback, with photography by Jonathan Lovekin.

Here are a few of the delicious recipes,  to whet your appetite:

Chicken with Steph’s spice

1 tsp whole allspice berries (aka pimento)

2 bay leaves, roughly torn

1½ tsp hot chilli powder

1½ tsp paprika

½ tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp mixed spice (the sweet one, like pumpkin spice)

25g light soft brown sugar

1½ tbsp runny honey

1–2 green jalapeño chillies, finely chopped

1–2 red Scotch bonnet (habanero)

chillies, finely chopped

1 small red onion, cut into 1cm dice (100g)

2 spring onions, finely chopped (30g)

50ml olive oil

1kg chicken thighs, bone in, skin on 2 tbsp white wine vinegar

Salt

“Steph was a Jamaican chef Helen worked with many years ago in Melbourne. A lot of time has passed since the recipe for Steph’s roasted jerk-spiced meats was handed on – passed around the kitchen, scribbled down on a scrap of paper – but it’s been with  Helen ever since. Recipes, like postcards, flying around the world  with the scent of a place on one side, scribbled greetings on the other.

We served the chicken with a simple slaw made with half a small cabbage and a quarter of a pineapple, both thinly sliced, some  freshly flaked coconut, sliced jalapeño, spring onion, coriander and mint. It’s dressed with olive oil, lime juice and maple syrup.”

Serves 4, with rice and salad

Put the allspice and bay leaves into a dry pan and toast them for  1–2 minutes, until the bay leaves have blistered. Using a pestle and mortar, crush to a powder, then tip into a large bowl along with all  the remaining ingredients apart from the chicken and vinegar. Add  1 teaspoon of salt, mix well to combine, then add the chicken. Massage well, so that all the thighs are coated, then keep in the fridge, covered, for at least 6 hours (or overnight).

Half an hour before you are going to cook the chicken, take it out of the fridge, add the vinegar and toss to combine.

Preheat the oven to 180°C fan.

Spread the chicken out on a large parchment-lined baking tray, skin side up. Bake for about 45 minutes, rotating the tray halfway through, until crisp and golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to rest for 10 minutes before serving.

Puttanesca-style salmon bake

200g fine green beans, trimmed 6 spring onions, cut widthways into thirds (75g)

200g mixed cherry tomatoes, halved 

6 skin-on salmon fillets (about 720g)

salt and black pepper

Tomato anchovy oil

85ml olive oil

8 anchovies, finely chopped (25g) 2½ tbsp tomato paste

1 tsp chilli flakes

2 tsp coriander seeds, lightly bashed in a mortar

8 garlic cloves, very thinly sliced 2 preserved lemons, flesh and pips discarded, skin finely chopped (20g) 2 tsp maple syrup

Salsa

60g pitted Kalamata olives, halved 60g capers, roughly chopped

1 preserved lemon, flesh and pips discarded, skin thinly sliced (10g) 10g basil leaves, roughly chopped 10g parsley leaves, roughly chopped

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tsp lemon juice

If you make the tomato anchovy oil a day ahead here, you can then delight in the fact that a midweek supper can be on the table within 20 minutes. The fuss-free cooking method – all hail the traybake!

– plus the dialled-up flavours – all hail puttanesca! – makes such a winning combination.

Serves 4

First make the tomato anchovy oil. Put the oil, anchovies and tomato paste into a small sauté pan and place on a medium heat. Once the mixture starts to simmer, cook for 5 minutes, stirring from time to time. Add the chilli flakes and coriander seeds and cook for another minute, until fragrant. Remove from the heat and add the garlic, preserved lemon and maple syrup. Stir to combine, then set aside to cool.

Preheat the oven to 220°C fan.

Place the beans, spring onions and tomatoes on a large, parchment-lined baking tray. Drizzle over 3 tablespoons of the tomato anchovy oil, along with ¼ teaspoon of salt and a good grind of pepper. Toss to combine and place in the oven for 12–13 minutes, until the beans and tomatoes are starting to soften and taking on a little colour. Meanwhile, arrange the salmon fillets on a plate and, using a spoon, drizzle the remaining tomato anchovy oil (as well as all the solids) evenly over the fillets. Once the beans and tomatoes have had their time in the oven, nestle the salmon fillets among them and bake for a further 8 minutes. Set aside for 5 minutes, out of the oven, to rest.

While the salmon is baking, mix all the ingredients for the salsa in a small bowl and season with a good grind of pepper. Spoon half the salsa over the salmon and serve the fish warm (or at room temperature, which works just as well), with the rest of the salsa in a bowl on the side.

Cheeseball lemon rice with chilli butter

8 cloves

6 cardamom pods, bashed

1 lemon: shave the skin into strips, then juice to get 2 tbsp 125g ricotta

150g feta, crumbled

125g hard mozzarella, grated 25g Parmesan, grated

1 egg, beaten

400g basmati rice, rinsed and drained well

75g pitted green olives, cut in half 100g unsalted butter

½ tsp chilli flakes

¾ tsp Aleppo chilli flakes

½ tsp sumac

5 spring onions, sliced on the diagonal into 1cm pieces (50g) salt

“There’s something really reassuring about a rice traybake. Add the right amount of water, seal the dish well, pop it into the oven, and forget about it. This is as comforting and delicious as you’d expect cheesy, briny, chilli-butter-doused rice to be. It’s the perfect side to something simple like a roast chicken, or else can be eaten as a main, with some wilted greens.“

Getting ahead: The rice wants to be eaten fresh out of the oven but  can be taken up to the point just before the hot water and aromatics are added, if you want to get ahead.

Serves 6

Preheat the oven to 200°C fan.

Pour 750ml of water into a medium saucepan and add the cloves, cardamom pods, lemon strips and 1½ teaspoons of salt. Place on a medium-high heat, bring to a simmer, then remove from the heat.

Meanwhile, put the four cheeses and the egg into a medium bowl and mix well. Using your hands, divide the mixture into 12 portions and roll them roughly into balls, approximately 40g each. They don’t need to  be perfect, as they will spread once in the rice.

Scatter the rice on the bottom of a high-sided baking tray or dish,  24cm x 32cm (or a 28cm ovenproof sauté pan, for which you have a lid), and scatter over the olives. Pour over the hot water and aromatics. Shake the tray gently to spread the rice evenly, then deposit the cheese balls in the rice. Cover the tray tightly with foil (or lid), to keep the steam in, and bake for 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave  to settle, covered, for 10 minutes.

While the rice is resting, melt the butter in a medium saucepan on  a medium heat. Add the chilli flakes, Aleppo flakes and sumac and  cook for 2–3 minutes. Add the spring onions and cook for a further  20 seconds. Remove from the heat, add the lemon juice and set aside.

Uncover the rice and spoon the chilli butter all over just before serving.