Plenty

Yottam Ottolenghi

If you love the wonderful fresh vegetables available in the Mediterranean area, you will adore this book.  Collected from the author's regular 'New Vegetarian' column in the Saturday Guardian, the recipes featured are broad and varied, and include some never before published.

Israeli-born Ottolenghi's pure passion for food, ingredients and flavour shine through on every page, and the book is arranged in sections to celebrate the unique characteristics and tastes of individual foods - which he pairs with powerful and evocative seasonings in radical and highly effective combinations, to create extraordinary masterpiece meals.  Sure, it's unusual to have a whole chapter arranged around aubergines or mushrooms, but it's actually a very helpful approach when you are trying to base meal planning around whatever looked most appetising/in season at the mercado that morning, or if you have a glut of something from the garden to try and use in different ways.  Quality of raw ingredients is emphasised throughout, in fact readers are espressly advised not to bother with certain recipes unless they can obtain starting materials of worthwhile standards.  Some of the ingredient lists are long, but worth persevering with, and you'll find all the spices and things you need in Supercor or a big Mercadona.  With this book the food, not the chefs ego or CV, takes centre stage every time.

Drawing on traditions from around the Mediterranean climate, it's a perfect bible for vegetarians based in Spain.  Apart from some  unusual middle-eastern cheeses, you should be able to get all the ingredients locally - something I find frustrating whenever using cookery books brought with me from the UK - and substitutions are often advised. 

Some favourites we have enjoyed include the caramelised garlic tart - which whilst containing an astonishing quantity of garlic is amazingly delicate in flavour, containing 2 kinds of goats cheese along with thyme and balsamic vinegar.  It doesnt seem to leave one too garlicy the following day either, although this was not verified with any independent witness that hadn't had any!  The broad bean burgers are delicious, and if peeling the beans themselves is a bit of a pain then the smaller fingers of well-bribed children are an ideal food preparation tool (the burgers themselves are best cooked on a pan or plancha though being a bit floppy for the barbeque).

The grilled aubergines with lentils has a gloriously intense smoky flavour - though do your stovetop a favour and grill the aubergines on a finished-with barbeque the day before.  The book includes lots of lovely recipes for pulses and grains - some more unusual grains you may need a trip to the health food shop to get, but worth tracking down.  There are some wonderful salads in the 'leaves' section as well.  He's not afraid to fuse non-traditional ingredients and tastes to come up with something refreshingly new, such as coriander in an Italian-influenced dish.  Citrus fruits in all their variety feature heavily as well, enriching and enhancing a surprising range of dishes in ways ranging from subtle to keynote flavouring.

One thing to note, the author is not himself vegetarian - something some Guardian letter writers have found an unforgiveable sin - and some of his recommendations are for cheeses that are not obtainable in vegetarian form, for example.  He also recommends serving one of his salads with fried fish!  So if this would offend you, best steer clear.  The other thing is the heavy use of dairy products, which would not suit vegans.... however often the dairy elements are part of sauces or enhancement to the main event, and most vegan cooks are fairly adept at substituting effectively for suitable alternatives in receipes.

Johnathan Lovekin's stunning photography elevates this book to coffee-table status, something you will want to guard from kitchen splashes and leaf through lovingly in your meal planning.  A hefty, large-format tome, this book would make a wonderful gift for any vegetarian friend, or anyone new to working with fresh Mediterranean ingredients - it is as beautiful to look at the book as it is to eat the food.  The photography is often full-page close-up, and exploits the vivid colourfulness of the glorious fresh ingredients - forever exploding the myth that vegetarian food is brown and boring!  The passionate descriptions and gorgeous images complement one another perfectly.

In fact, if you are after the perfect vegetarian cookbook for Spain, then this is it.