Recipe of the week: side of greens with crispy garlic

“Serve with a side of greens” is a suggestion we’ve often repeated in Ottolenghi cookbooks, say Yotam Ottolenghi and Noor Murad. This dish is the “side of greens” you can easily add to your weeknight dinners: tasty enough on its own, but humble enough to not take away from the main event.

Feel free to swap out the chard for other leafy greens such as spinach, kale or cabbage.

Serves four (as a side)

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Ingredients

• 90ml olive oil
• 2 red onions, peeled, halved and cut into 1cm-thick slices (300g)
• 1 tbsp sumac, plus ½ tsp to serve
• 750g rainbow chard, stalks cut into 3-4cm lengths, leaves very roughly torn in half
• 5 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
• 65ml lemon juice (from 3 lemons)
• 40g golden raisins
• 5g picked dill leaves
• salt and black pepper

For the crispy garlic:

• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 5 garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced

Method

• Heat three tablespoons of the oil in a large sauté pan on a medium-high heat. Add the onions, a ¼ teaspoon of salt and a good grind of pepper, and cook, stirring occasionally, for 12-15 minutes or until softened and browned. Turn the heat to medium if they get too dark too quickly. Stir through the tablespoon of sumac and transfer the onions to a bowl.
• Return the pan to a medium-high heat along with the remaining 3 tablespoons of oil. Add the chard stalks and a ½ teaspoon of salt and cook for 4 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until starting to soften and lightly colour. Add the crushed garlic and cook for 30 seconds more. Now stir in the chard leaves, a third at a time, along with a ½ teaspoon of salt and a good grind of pepper, and cook for another 6-7 minutes or until wilted, and most of the liquid has evaporated. Remove from the heat and stir through half of the lemon juice and all the sumac onions.
• Meanwhile, make the crispy garlic. Put the oil and the sliced garlic into a small frying pan and place it on a medium heat. Cook for 8 minutes, or until the garlic starts to turn golden and crispy. Drain in a sieve set over a bowl, reserving the garlic and its oil separately. Add the raisins to the warm garlic oil and set aside. When cool, stir through the dill.
• Transfer the chard mixture to a large platter with a lip and spoon over the remaining lemon juice. Top with the raisin mixture and sprinkle with the crispy garlic and extra sumac.

Taken from Ottolenghi Test Kitchen: Extra Good Things by Yotam Ottolenghi and Noor Murad, published by Ebury at £25. Photography by Elena Heatherwick. To buy from The Week Bookshop for £19.99, call 020-3176 3835 or visit theweekbookshop.co.uk.