A glutton for punishment

During this strange time, sometimes, I want familiar and comforting things. Sometimes I crave novelty. And sometimes, the latter ends up with me making ridiculously complicated meals, of the kinds I would normally only order in restaurants.


Allow me to introduce you to the beetroot, za’atar and feta galette. This comes from a new cook book, Falastin, by Sami Tamimi and Tara Wigley. Sami was a co-founder of Ottolenghi, and this recipe certainly has Ottolenghi levels of complications. So, naturally, I chose to make it on a random midweek night.

The finished galette: a thing of beauty and deliciousness

Anyway, first off, you need to roast your beetroots – the recipe suggests wrapping them in foil individually, but I just wrapped them up in one parcel, with a drizzle of oil, which is how I always roast beetroot. It’ll take about an hour, depending on the size of the beets – mine were fairly small new season ones.


Then you need to make your pastry. You add oregano and thyme to it, so for the proper effect, you really do need to make your own. It’s an odd, very wet dough, but have faith, it does work – it end up very light and slightly flaky. Once you’ve made it, you roll it out, before folding and rolling again, to get the flakiness. It then needs to be refrigerated for at least an hour. This is definitely a recipe you need to read carefully in advance.


Once the beetroot is roasted and cool enough to handle, rub the skin off with a cloth. Disgard said cloth in bin, and contemplate your newly purple hands. You could of course peel them, but this works surprisingly well, if you don’t mind sacrificing a cloth. Slice the beets and set them aside.


Fry onion until soft, then add sugar, salt and vinegar, and cook until the latter has largely evaporated, then remove from the heat and stir in some za’atar, parsley and oregano. 


Now, retrieve the pastry from the fridge, and roll out into a circle on a well-floured sheet of baking paper (it’s too fragile to lift onto a baking tray by itself after it’s rolled out). Leaving a rim of 3-ish cm, start to add the filling – the bottom layer is supposed to be ricotta, but I didn’t have any, so I used feta whipped with yoghurt instead, with was fine (#ConfinedSubstitutions). Add the onions, then the beetroot, and finally some cubes of feta.

Half way through adding the fillings

Ready for the oven

Next, cut slits into the pastry border, so you can lift them up to cradle the filling. I was quite pleased with how this turned out. Now, refrigerate for another 30 minutes (I almost missed this bit), then bake for 30 minutes. When it comes out, drizzle with honey and sprinkle with more za’atar, before transferring to a wire rack to cool for a few minutes (to ensure the bottom remains crisp). Then – finally – you can eat! This was very good, although I can’t see myself making it that often.


In the same week as this, I also made two other slightly elaborate things I haven’t made before – roasted carrot kushari, a lentil/rice/pasta combo from Egypt (the carrots I don’t think are traditional) and Batata Vada Pav, essentially an Indian potato burger. The latter is a very substantial thing; I was very glad I had vetoed my husband’s suggestion that extra potatoes would be a good side dish.

Carrot kushari

Batata vada pav: not a light meal

After all this cooking, I decided that it was my husband’s turn to cook this weekend. Tonight, we will be having a second attempt at fish tagine, made by him. The first attempt was scuppered by the fact – and from previous discussions you may be sympathetic about this  - he didn’t read the recipe carefully enough to realise the fish needs to be marinated. I ended up making cacio e pepe again, which was good, but so much for my weekend off!