Visit my new blog
ADD ALMOST VEGETARIAN TO YOUR RSS/NEWS READER!
ALMOST VEGETARIAN FAQ
Archives
Search Almost Vegetarian
Jamie’s Food Revolution and a vegetarian Jamie Oliver recipe
Given my recent rant about cookbooks with crappy recipes, you might wonder why I am reviewing another cookbook.
Even more, you might be wondering why I am giving you a recipe from it. A vegetarian recipe. A vegetarian recipe from Jamie Oliver, no less!
Well, you can’t paint all cookbooks bad because of one bad recipe. Besides, I adore cookbooks; the more the better.
Jamie’s Food Revolution
I love the underlying theme of this book: “… friends teaching friends how to cook good, honest, affordable food … ” Is that great, or what? But does this book do that?
What I love about this book
I love that there are instructions for really basic dishes, such as rice. And that there are plenty of good, clear food pictures. And that some of the recipes (not nearly enough) show variations on a single recipe. Very clever and handy.
And I really love that some of the recipes are clean and simple. So clean and simple, anyone should be able to do them, even if they have never cooked before. I’ve got one of those recipes, below.
What I hate about this book
I hate that some of the recipes are complex and unclear. So complex and unclear, that if you are not already a decent cook, you are going to be lost. The recipe for Aloo Gobhi, for example, instructs the novice cook to “Peel and finely chop ginger.” I remember when I was a novice cook. I asked “Peel? How do I peel this knobby thing?” (Scrape it with the edge of a spoon; this will let you easily get around the knobs.) And chop — how? Chop ginger too thick and you get really unpleasant strings that catch in your teeth (better to grate your ginger).
The recipe also tells the cook to “finely slice your chiles” but offers no precautions regarding the chile oil. Oh dear, someone is going to have burning eyes.
And it calls for black mustard seeds. Know any novice cooks with black mustard seeds in their kitchen? A musty two-year-old jar of onion powder is, heaven help us, likely all you will find. (Although, with luck, they’ll go buy some. But, after using a tablespoon of the stuff, there are no tips on what to do with the rest.)
Sigh.
But I especially hate that the directions are written in one enormous paragraph, instead of easy-to-follow steps, or even smaller paragraphs. This is very form over function, meaning it is pretty, but difficult to read. And, in a kitchen with a pot on the stove and a wooden spoon in one hand and a grater in the other, the last thing you want is more pretty and less clarity.
The bottom line
The intention is good. No, the intention is great! But I wouldn’t give this to a novice cook lest you scare him or her off. But, if you are, at least help them out by putting sticky notes on the recipes they should try first. The easy recipes. Such as this one.
Vegetarian Jamie Oliver recipe: Granola
2 cups quick-cooking oatmeal (not instant)
1 cup mixed nut (hazelnuts, almonds, walnuts, brazil nuts)
1/4 cup mixed seeds (sunflower, poppy, pumpkin, sesame)
3/4 cup unsweetened dried shredded coconut
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 1/2 cups dried fruit (raisins, cranberries, apricots)
5 tablespoons maple syrup (or honey)
5 tablespoons olive oil
Preheat the oven to 350. Put your dry granola ingredients including coconut and cinnamon, except for the dried fruit on a sheet pan. Stir well and smooth out. Drizzle with the maple syrup and a little olive oil and stir again.
Place in the preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes. Every 5 minutes or so, take the granola out and stir it, then smooth it down with a wooden spoon and put it back into the oven.
While it’s roasting, roughly chop up any large dried fruit. When the granola is nice and golden, remove it from the oven, mix in the dried fruit, and let it cool down.
You can store it in sealed container for about 2 weeks.
Another Jamie Oliver vegetarian recipe
We’ve visited Jamie before, so if you like his style, you’ll like this recipe:
Comments
Leave a Reply