Recipe: Make Sami Tamimi’s Sumac-Spiked Plums for Dessert (or Breakfast)

Sami Tamimi’s new cookbook Boustany is a love letter to his homeland, Palestine. Tamimi – who co-founded the Ottolenghi restaurant and deli empire in London and co-wrote bestsellers Falastin and Jerusalem – continues his focus on bold flavours with more than 100 bright, vegetarian -forward recipes.

This recipe is a perfect example: a simple yet delicious serve of roast plums spiced with sumac and cardamom, finished with whipped cardamom cream and candied pistachios. The fragrant dessert will fill your kitchen with comforting aromas. “Nothing beats the scent of warm, spice-spiked fruit filling the space around the table after dinner,” Tamimi writes.

A hot tip: double the plums when you cook – future you will be grateful for it. “Have some of the leftovers for breakfast with yoghurt, or on warm toast spread with labneh or cream cheese,” Tamimi suggests.

Sumac roast plums with cardamom cream and pistachio

Serves 4
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

8 plums (366g)
3 cardamom pods
1 tsp sumac
3 tbsp runny honey
Zest of ½ orange
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tbsp water
300ml double cream
3 tsp honey
¼ tsp ground cardamom

Candied pistachios
45g caster sugar
3 tbsp water
¼ tsp ground cinnamon
⅛ tsp salt
70g pistachios

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C fan.

Halve and stone the plums, then place cut side up in a roasting tin or ovenproof dish in which they can lie snugly in a single layer.

Crack the cardamom pods, then tip the seeds into mortar and use a pestle grind them to a fine powder. Mix with the sumac, honey, orange zest, lemon juice and water, then drizzle this mixture over the fruit. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until the plums are almost collapsing.

Meanwhile, make the candied pistachios. Line a baking tray with baking parchment, and have it ready next to the stove. Put the sugar, water, cinnamon and salt into a large sauté pan, on a medium heat. Cook until the sugar has almost dissolved, stirring occasionally. Add the pistachios and continue to cook for 3–4 minutes, stirring occasionally (to avoid the nuts browning too much), until all the liquid has evaporated and you can see crystallization forming on the nuts. Tip the nuts on to the lined tray, and quickly spread them out to separate them. Leave to cool completely.

Place the cream, honey and ground cardamom in the bowl of a free-standing mixer, with a whisk attachment in place, and whip the cream on a medium speed for about 3 minutes, or until soft peaks form.

When ready to serve, divide the fruit and whipped cream between four plates and add a generous scattering of the candied pistachios.

Images and text excerpted from Boustany by Sami Tamimi (Ebury Press, $65.00). Photography by Ola O Smit. This is an edited extract.

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