Roast Tomatoes and Leeks with Chickpeas, Black Olives, and Parsley

Ready, get set, let's go traybaking

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Today’s recipe is a riff on a dish by the excellent Yotam Ottolenghi.

If you’ve never come across him, let me introduce you. Ottolenghi is one of the very finest celebrity chefs in the UK right now — and one of the only ones I can actually stomach watching on the telly.

He is famous for his Middle-Eastern food and has a healthy obsession with vegetables. Which is great, because I have an obsession with them too. Especially in the summer when the thought of deep roasting or simmering big hunks of meat for hours leaves something to be desired.

And FINALLY, after weeks of moaning to y’all about the British weather, I’ve moved to Porto where it’s hot. Like 39C/ 100C hot.

The move also means I’ve got access to good produce again. A few weeks ago I was watching all these chefs all over Substack and Instagram wax lyrical about tomatoes when I was still stuck with underripe, mushy imports in my local British supermarket.

No longer. This is what my local market now looks like:

Fresh local produce grown under the Portuguese sun and sold to me for cents by old women who are friendly enough to entertain my terrible Portuguese.

I’m bragging a little bit because I’m so damn excited. Spain may have the reputation for the best produce in Europe but let me tell you, its neighbour would give it a good run for its money.

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Speaking of tomatoes, they form the basis of today’s summer dish. I dared to put the oven on for 30 minutes to roast them up with leeks, garlic, chickpeas and a — what I thought would be dubious—mixture of olive oil, balsamic vinegar and maple syrup. But in this house, what Yotam says, goes. I trusted him and I’m pleased I did. The balsamic vinegar gives a hit of acid which is extremely welcome in the heat. It’s also nicely balanced by the maple syrup.

Top it off with a lemony, herby, olive-y, fennel-y sauce and you my friend, have a dish worthy to call itself Summery.

I’ve stuffed in a ton of variations for how to make this dish your own below including some ideas to make it more of a main dish. Having said that, I polished off a whole bowl of this with sourdough on the side for mopping-up purposes and I didn’t want for anything.

Good plant-based food will do that to you.

Serves 4 as a side or 3 as a main