This particular Yottam Ottolenghi recipe was winking at me for quite some time, but I never had the exact ingredients on hand so I kind of hesitated… Well, this time around I cast my hesitation aside as the fridge was kind of empty and whatever I cooked on the weekend as usual for the week was finished. This time I’ll make do with what’s available in the fridge and in the pantry, for the rest I’ll come up with some suitable substitutes as I always do. So, what we have here is Grilled Tomatoes and Onions with Feta and Harissa, a flavorful and delightful Middle Eastern dish. It will most likely go into our regular rotation.
The ingredients huddle. Shepherds peppers, two kinds of onions roughly cut in eights thru their core, a garlic head halved as seen, pine nuts, cherry tomatoes, harissa, sheep’s feta and San Marzano tinned tomatoes. I did not have cilantro so I substituted parsley for the green stuff and caraway seeds for a bit of zing. Also in for a bit more aroma and spiciness are coriander and chili flakes.
The dish is done in essentially 3 rounds of oven roasting at 450F. We’re looking for a bit of charring, not much, just to give the result a “grilled” aroma. First to go in are the onions along with the pepper and the garlic which is left exactly as shown, I’ll get on the reasons why shortly. Everything is tossed with salt, pepper, olive oil and set in the oven for 20-25 minutes. Every 10 minutes or so pull it out of the oven and toss it slightly so everything gets a little charring on.
Here’s why in this case the garlic has been roasted like this, unpeeled. Oil is getting inside the cloves so the roasting is done on their own juices plus the oil, the result being pure gold. You can essentially squeeze them out with ease, add them back to the casserole where they will get mushed with everything else. Tasty stuff!
The next step is to add the tomatoes, coriander, caraway seeds and the parsley. I never throw out parsley stalks as they are filled with flavor just begging to be released, so I simply mince them and in they go. This is a good opportunity to adjust the seasoning to your liking. I found it needed a bit more salt and pepper, plus, in my case just a hint of brown sugar. I wonder how something like thyme honey would be here…. probably smashing. The mix gets back in the oven for another 20-ish minutes with 10 minute intervals for gentle mixing.
If you were wondering where the Harissa comes into play, here it is: the pine nuts are browned a bit separately then the Harissa gets mixed in. This gets set aside and will be added as garnish in the end.
For the last trip to the oven, the halved cherry tomatoes and the feta are added. Around ten minutes later pull it out and garnish the dish with the harissa pine nuts and some parsley. It works served hot or cold with couscous or rice or… We had it with garlic toasted ciabatta bread so we could mop our plates clean. It was dynamite, Sandra loved it, one of those vegetarian dishes you forget about being vegetarian.
Recent Comments