Waiting for Ottolenghi
The wood-oven cook in the Mediterranean Garden
The returning Morisco and Sephardim cooks, of Al Andalus, sing of the wisdom gathered along the spice road. They sing of the ovens and aromas of the holy lands telling stories of tradition and spice.
This ancient cuisine of Al Andalus, is transmitted not only as an oral tradition, or song; somehow you just kinda gotta be there to get the drift of the how much of the this and how much of the that—the this and the that—and even then, you must pay close attention for the moment will slip away; turn to observe the gathering of the olives and the tajine is in the oven.
“A year and a half questioning all the Mediterranean cooks who would listen: what can you bake in a wood-fired oven besides bread and suckling pig? What did your ancestors bake in a wood-fired oven.”
Christmas day 2013 brought us together with a wonderfully odd melange of Ex-Pats from across the northern hemisphere to the home of a beautiful couple of Chicago bond traders at their pied-à-terre in Madrid for brunch. Brunch poured into lunch into dinner—cases of the best Spanish wine with large salad bowls and platters of Sicilian lasagna—into whisky and snifters of Coñac and cigars smuggled out onto the balconies.
Our new Irish, Dutch, and German friends, who enchanted us at the party, came over a few weeks later with a copy of Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty — and an assortment of colorful vegetables to roast; chicken legs and thighs marinated overnight with saffron, onion and who knows what else. These colors — out of a Degas painting, decorated with fresh sage, rosemary, and thyme—and the recipes are all written down with careful measurements with photographs. Ottolenghi has stormed the building and life will never be the same. Just looking at the photographs in Plenty, and Ottolenghi, and Jerusalem and I know many of these originated in a wood oven. A year and a half questioning all the Mediterranean cooks who would listen: what can you bake in a wood-fired oven besides bread and suckling pig? What did your ancestors bake in a wood-fired oven.
I had a hot fire in the oven all morning in expectation of their arrival. We all hurriedly cut up the vegetables on three cutting boards with orders barked out like a sargent. A pleasant chaos enveloped the kitchen as mugs of cold beer enlivened the atmosphere.
The vegetables were roasted with extra-virgin olive oil; fresh rosemary; and thyme from our garden — then after roasting were bathed in a vinaigrette. The chicken was roasted and turned frequently to prevent burning — everyone else went for an enchanted walk by the river and a beer in the plaza. The chicken, thoroughly roasted, was then covered in the hazel nuts and honey baked in the iron skillet. The vegetables had to come out of the oven and cooled. The oven began at 300 then “fell” to 250C after 20 minutes; then 150 after the coals were removed.
