Very disappointed by this recipe. I followed it to a T and while I appreciated the textural lightness from the zucchini and bulgur, I wish there had been much less of both as the end result was somewhere between a crumbling kibbeh and a veggie burger with a hint of lamb. The caramelized onion top looked incredible (what can\’t caramelized onions elevate?) but was not especially tasty and didn\’t integrate at all with the flavor of the meatloaf itself. The yogurt sauce was bland and added a nice mouthfeel, but much like the onions, didn\’t really complement the taste of the shawarma. I ended up adding tahini to the yogurt sauce for more shawarma flavor. In general, I\’ve found the more recent Ottolenghi recipes to have room for improvement – which was not the case with his few cookbooks, which produced magnificent, incomparable results every time – and unfortunately they seem to be getting worse with subsequent publications.
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