Tim Spector’s 11-Plant Orzo
This plant-packed meal from Tim Spector and the team at Zoe boasts 11 different plant varieties, helping you to tick off a third of your recommended weekly plant count in just one dish. Inspired by the Catalan recipe bacalao a la llauna, it's an easy one-pot wonder with orzo, peppers, beans, leeks and olives in a tomato sauce.
From the book
The Food for Life Cookbook: 100+ Recipes Created with ZOE
Tim Spector and the team at ZOE share over 100 delicious, plant-forward recipes
Improve your gut health and pack your plate with plants
With plant counts and fibre quantities listed on every recipe, this is the ultimate cookbook to help you improve your nutrition
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Introduction
The inspiration for this dish comes from a Catalan dish I love, called bacalao a la llauna, where cod is baked in the oven with a mountain of Mediterranean vegetables. Without the cod, it’s full of fibre and plants, but feel free to add your own grilled or salt cod here if you prefer. Adding peppers of two different colours will improve the mix of polyphenols and plant diversity.
Ingredients
| 2 tbsp | extra virgin olive oil |
| 1 | onion, finely chopped |
| 3 | garlic cloves, roughly chopped |
| 2 | peppers, different colours, deseeded and thinly sliced |
| 2 | courgettes, sliced into ½cm thick rounds |
| 1 | leek, halved and thinly sliced |
| 2 x 400g tins | chopped tomatoes |
| 1 x 400g tin | haricot beans and their liquid |
| 120g | orzo pasta |
| 100g | pitted olives |
| 1 tsp | paprika |
| 1 tbsp | miso |
| 30g | fresh basil leaves, torn, plus a few to garnish |
| juice of ½ lemon | |
| salt and pepper | |
| Top-ups: | |
|---|---|
| sauerkraut | |
| cod | |
| Swaps: | |
| any beans for haricot | |
| nutritional yeast for miso |
Essential kit
You will need: a large casserole dish (30cm diameter or similar).
Method
Heat the olive oil in a large casserole dish (30cm diameter or similar) over a medium heat. Fry the onion for 3 minutes until softened, then add the garlic and fry for 30 seconds more.
Stir in the peppers, courgettes and leek, cover with a lid, reduce the heat and gently cook for 5–8 minutes until just softened. Add the tinned tomatoes, haricot beans and their liquid, orzo, olives, paprika, miso, basil and a pinch of salt and pepper and stir until the vegetables are thoroughly coated with the sauce and the orzo is evenly dispersed.
Bring to the boil, lower the heat and simmer with the lid on for 10 minutes, then turn off the heat and allow to rest for 10 minutes to allow the orzo to fully cook and absorb the stock. (If you are serving with cod fillets, nestle these into the orzo 5 minutes before the end of cooking time, then turn off the heat and leave to rest, being sure not to remove the lid.)
Squeeze the lemon juice all over before serving.
Contains 5-10g of fibre and 11 plants.
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