Last Updated on February 28, 2026
Extra Good Things is the second book in the Test Kitchen series
Extra Good Things (Ebury) is the title of the second out of four in the Ottolenghi Test Kitchen series. The first book, Shelf Love, appeared last year and encouraged readers to use up ingredients lurking in the back of their cupboards. The new book, co-authored with Noor Murad, aims to refill some of those shelves with sprinkles, pickles, sauces and creams – extra good things that each recipe contains as a topping or relish. These additions are integral to the recipe but are intended to be made in sufficient quantity to have leftovers to use on other meals as you wish. Suggestions are given for how one might make use of them. Extra Good Things is perfectly timed for autumn, the season when minds and stomachs turn to a well-cooked dish, and time spent in the kitchen as the nights grow longer. As with most Ottolenghi recipes, you need to set aside that time in your kitchen, as there are many long ingredient lists and several steps that need prepping on the way towards the completed meal.
For Ottolenghi devotees, the time needed to prepare the recipes is well rewarded, as there is as much pleasure in creating as in eating the dishes. I would advise, though, that you try not to cook some of the recipes as you get in from work unless you find a longer cooking time to be therapeutic. Extra Good Things is predominantly vegetarian, but there is a scattering of dishes including fish, chicken and lamb. A food processor will come in handy for the many side sauces.
I began my exploration of Extra Good Things one late afternoon, intending to make two dishes for dinner. By the time I had prepped the first – roasted hake with fenugreek onions and herby, yoghurt peas – I had chopped, stirred and mixed enough for one day. The fish dish was a mini triumph, it must be said, and certainly raised my midweek game to the sort of meal I would have been happy to eat in a restaurant. The fenugreek onions were mildly spicy and well caramelised, lifting the simple fish (I used cod as I couldn’t source hake) from what can sometimes be rather bland to dizzy heights of flavour. This was accompanied by the best peas I can recall eating, and I am certainly planning to use this herby yoghurt sauce to make a pea salad come springtime. I am not the greatest fan of peas, but my word, this sauce was just so good – garlicky, herby and with the mild kick from a green chilli, all mixed with lemony Greek yoghurt. If you serve this dish with the oven fries also in the book, you will have a gourmet fish, chip and pea dinner with which to delight your friends.
The next afternoon, I settled down to the second dish – one-pot chickpeas with carrots, dates and marinated feta. I began to understand the concept of the book – having an extra good thing – while making the marinated feta. It was quick and easy to prepare while the main dish was bubbling away. I found myself picking at the feta while I waited to eat dinner, and it certainly brought added personality to the gentle pot of legumes. As with most casserole dishes, it was even better reheated the following day. The leftover feta went into my fridge after the meal, and I ate it a few days later for lunch on a slice of toasted sourdough, but I could quite easily have added it to a salad, an omelette, a plate of roasted veg or many other options. If you love having tasty bits in your fridge to bring zing to your meals, then Extra Good Things is the book for you.
The next night, I made shawarma cauliflower with green tahini. This is an impressive-looking and utterly delicious vegan dish, and I had plenty left over for lunch the following day. The green tahini lasted even longer and pepped up dishes throughout the week.
In search of a side dish for a roast chicken, I spotted slow-cooked courgettes with pangrattato, which I could cook in the same oven as my chicken. These days, it makes sense to fill the oven with different dishes so as to make the best use of the electricity a hot oven uses. This vegetarian side proved very popular with my guests and will be made on many occasions as it is so easy to prepare and is packed with flavour. I had loads of pangrattato left over, which I sprinkled over other dishes in the coming week. You can find the recipe below.
Perhaps the most impressive dish of all was a brown sugar meringue roulade with burnt honey apples. I must admit that I complained loudly while preparing it, as there were several stages of preparation. Yet, the enjoyment on the faces of my guests was worth all the effort. I have made countless meringue-based desserts over the decades, but this was one of the most elaborate. The burnt honey sauce gave the dessert complex depth to the sweetness, which I knew had been contributed via the bay leaves added during cooking, plus a slight bitterness from the burnt honey. If I had eaten this dish in a restaurant, I would not have known why it tasted quite so good. Having the recipe let me into the secret of the development of flavour. This is the beauty of Extra Good Things. The complexity of the recipes results in layers and layers of flavour that leave your guests wondering just why the dishes taste so very good. You can say it’s an Ottolenghi recipe as I do (shortcut for ‘will taste wonderful’) or you could just smile mysteriously and soak up the accolades.
Slow-cooked courgettes with pangrattato
Ingredients
- 1 onion peeled and chopped finely
- 1 kg courgettes trimmed, cut on angle into 5cm pieces
- 6 cloves garlic peeled and crushed
- 5 grams oregano sprigs
- 1 1/2 tbsp tomato paste
- 150 ml olive oil
- 400 grams datterini or cherry tomatoes
- 2 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
- 10 grams basil leaves
- salt and pepper
- For pangrattato
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 35 grams panko
- 30 grams pine nuts roughly broken with mortar and pestle
- 1 clove garlic
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 160 C fan.
- Place onion, courgettes, garlic, oregano, tomato paste, oil, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt and good grind of pepper into a large ovenproof cast iron saucepan that has a lid. Put on the lid and place in the oven for 55 minutes. Give the vegetables a stir half way through. You want all the veg to have cooked down but the courgettes to still hold their shape. Remove from oven and increase heat to 180 C fan.
- Stir the tomatoes gently into the saucepan and then return it to the oven without the lid. Cook for 25 minutes until the tomatoes have burst and the vegetables have taken on some colour. Remove from oven.
- Pick out the oregano sprigs and then leave the vegetables to cool for half an hour. They are best eaten warm or at room temperature.
- While the courgettes are cooking you can get on with making the pangrattato Put the oil in a medium sized pan over o medium-high heat and then add the panko, pine nuts, garlic, 1/2 teaspoon salt and a good grind of pepper. Reduce the heat to medium. Cook for 6-7 minutes, stirring repeatedly until the mixture is a nice brown colour and is crispy. Place in a bowl for serving
- When you are ready to eat, stir the lemon juice and basil into the courgette mixture and dish it up in a serving dish that has a lip as there will be a lot of sauce. Sprinkle over a generous handful of pangrattato and pass around the rest in its bowl.
You can buy a signed copy of Ottolenghi Extra Good Things from their website or unsigned copies from good booksellers.
Looking for more book recommendations? I regularly review books for London-Unattached and post my favourites, together with a test recipe. You can find all my book reviews here
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