Ottolenghi: The Cookbook

Product Information

However, what makes lemon and garlic such a great metaphor for our cooking is the boldness, the zest, the strong, sometimes controversial flavors of our childhood. The flavors and colors that shout at you, that grip you, that make everything else taste bland, pale, ordinary, and insipid. Cakes drenched with rose-water-scented sugar syrup; piles of raw green almonds on ice in the market; punchy tea in a small glass with handfuls of mint and sugar; the intense smell of charred mutton cooked on an open fire; a little shop selling twenty types of crumbly sheep and goat’s milk cheeses, kept fresh in water; apricot season, when there is enough of the fruit lying around each tree to gorge yourself, the jam pot, and the neighborhood birds. Nearly 1/2 of the book is devoted to breads and pastries and other carb-heavy items. This is the problem of writing a cookbook based on a restaurant--restaurants sell all sorts of foods that shouldn't be eaten on a regular basis. Not much healthful here. I will probably make 3 recipes from this book on a regular basis. Also, I tried his "guaranteed best method" for roasting eggplant--not so fast with the superlatives, Chef! Pairings of ingredients can also add depth of taste, from adding sweetness to the Butternut, Orange and Sage Galette to adding acidity to Rainbow Chard with Tomatoes and Green Olives. Adding fat can add flavor to Kimchi and Gruyere Rice Patties, and chili heat can add pungency to the Spicy Berbere Ratatouille with Coconut Sauce.

This isn't a cookbook for the beginning chef. Many of the recipes are advanced, most of them require extra preparation time, and a great deal of them use ingredients that aren't easily accessible. We both ate a lot of street food—literally, what the name suggests. Vendors selling their produce on pavements were not restricted to “farmers’ markets.” There was nothing embarrassing or uncouth about eating on the way to somewhere. Sami remembers frequently sitting bored in front of his dinner plate, having downed a few grilled ears of corn and a couple of busbusa (coconut and semolina) cakes bought at street stalls while out with friends.

He was born and raised in Jerusalem, the son of an Italian father and German mother and had always been expected to follow his father into the world of academia. However, when Yotam first came to England in 1998 he took an unexpected turn, and aged 30 decided to indulge his lifelong love of food by studying at the Cordon Bleu. My daughter spent her hard-earned money buying me this book for my Christmas present. She was fooled by its trendy looking cover and colourful photos. Ottolenghi’s ground-breaking classic cookbook, which captured the zeitgeist for using imaginative flavours and ingredients, is relaunched with a contemporary design. Ebury Press, Ebury Press

The book has straightforward recipes that seem complex but are actually very doable even for a novice cook, if the recipe is followed correctly. Some ingredients may be a little difficult to find but can generally be substituted. I haven't had the need to tweak any recipes...well, except the spice levels, as I'm not a big spicy person. Grouping together multiple recipes steps in one bullet point is a real bugbear of mine - I don't like one step in a recipe to be a dozen lines long with a dozen substeps and taking several hours to complete. Feels like a case of trying to hide the complexity when the recipe could also afford to be a little simpler.

This is a hard cookbook to rate with fairness because of the delta between what can be learned as theory and what can be used in practice. Less regionally focused and tradition-based than Jerusalem, but almost as good. Delicately aromatic, satisfying, beautiful food. Good and good for you. If, in some sense, Jerusalem was hindered by its focus (it most assuredly wasn't, by the way), this book would be the best kind of response. And those who are looking to elevate their vegetarian or vegan cooking will definitely find new ideas that can expand their cooking horizons and inspire new levels of taste and texture. The gorgeous photos used liberally throughout the entire book will entice and encourage all readers to try new recipes for their meat-free nights or side dishes. The book begins with a few trademark Ottolenghi vegetable dishes -- unusual but brilliant combinations of flavor and texture -- but there's not many of them here. Many of the recipes call for expensive (in my world) nuts (hazelnuts, macadamias, Brazil nuts) and this book features a love affair with butter that's making me shudder: they actually suggest dressing a beautiful herb salad with warm butter—this dish is recommended as a "light" dish to serve after a heavy meat dish. (Accompanied presumably by a Malbec and a call to your cardiologist.)