Friday 16 July 2010

Yottam Ottolenghi can make ANYTHING taste good!

I was confronted with more swiss chard that is imaginable yesterday afternoon instead of the full to the brim bag of spinach I was expecting with my veggies.  Oh crap I thought...chard is not one of David's favourite greens and, well, sometimes it can be a bit bleurgh.  Never fear...Yottam Ottolenghi to the rescue (again) with a fantistic, if slightly time consuming, recipe for chard cakes! yes yes...cakes...think fish cakes, potato cakes...you get the idea?? Chard cakes! Blanched and finely chopped, the mounds of chard is mixed with bread crumbs, parmesean cheese, egg and some toasted pinenuts (although I used the chopped almonds in my cupboard...pinenuts are £3.50 for 100grams?? I don't think so......) and then formed into cakes and pan fried....yum yum yum.  The chard gets really crispy on the outside and was surprisingly filling.  Ottolenghi suggests making a sorrel sauce to go with the cakes, but I had half a tin of chopped tomatoes in the fridge so instead of made a makeshift ratatouille of courgettes onions and chopped tomatoes, the combination was ok.  I ate my last cake with sweet thai chili sauce, which was heavenly...but then again everything is amazing dipped in sweet thai chili sauce!


All of the recipes from Ottolenghi's PLENTY have been, at some point, published on the guardian website, so if you are interested in this recipe you can find it here!!

3 comments:

  1. What a fantastic way of eating your swiss chard and loving it; looks an sounds like something I would try.
    Rita

    ReplyDelete
  2. yum yum recipe, I love chard cakes :) Love the way you prepared them, it's original! Never heard of ottolenghi, but will be curious enough to go and look for it over my cook books :)
    Love,
    Annalisa

    ReplyDelete
  3. Rita...they were really yummy! i was impressed!! enjoy xx

    Annalisa...thanks for your comments! these were surprisingly yummy! :) xx

    ReplyDelete