I can’t remember the first time I ever bought a leek, but I do know it wasn’t until my 20’s that I even knew what a leek was. My father has a rather strong aversion to onions - the smell and taste of them. So growing up, my mother never cooked anything with onions, and by extension, alliums of any variety. Even garlic hardly made it into our food. The closest she usually got was garlic salt.
To eat a leek, just a leek, would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. Now, a plain leek (with salt and harissa, of course), is something I crave.
In case your familiarity with leeks is also lacking, I must point out something Alison emphasizes in the book: leeks are always dirty. Their tightly wrapped layers of green and white trap dirt in hard-to-reach crevices. Without thoroughly cleaning a leek, that dirt will turn into a muddy seasoning for your food. Alison’s cleaning method is to trim the dark green parts of the leek off first, and then soak the light green/white part in a bowl of cold water. This allows the dirt to loosen, so you can rub it off easily as you inspect each layer of leek. This is an unskippable step.
My favorite step in this recipe involved slicing the leeks like party streamers. I first cut them in half lengthwise, and then, using the longest, sharpest knife I own, cut the layers into thin strips, leaving the base intact. I could have strung them on a piece of yarn and taped them on the wall like party streamers! Maybe I’ll do that for my birthday next year….
Before placing them in the oven to sizzle, I massaged the leeks with a harissa and olive oil mixture, making sure to get in between all the cracks and layers. I then seasoned them with salt and pepper.
Note: This recipe calls for 4 leeks. However, I could barely fit two in my large lasagna pan. If you buy four, be prepared to use two baking pans OR search for small leeks.
The trend with my new Chicago apartment oven is for things to take at least 5-10 minutes longer than indicated, and these leeks spent an extra 10 or so minutes in the oven to begin to achieve the same level of crispy as the picture in the cookbook. The leeks in the book have an incredible evenness to their caramelization, every strand looks equally frizzled. Perhaps if I tried to spreading the layers out more, this could have been achieved, but something tells me you’d need special equipment to achieve this level of perfection.
Evenly caramelized or not, the leeks were delicious. The harissa carried the right amount of heat, and the flaky salt and fresh lemon bits brightened up all of the oily goodness. Our dinner guests even loved them, too. The presentation didn’t wow, but the taste sure did.
I served this with Alison’s Overnight Focaccia, Tonight and Skillet Chicken with Crushed Olives and Sumac for another All-Out-Alison meal.
147 recipes cooked, 78 to go.
These are our Chicago pals, Christian and Elli!
