Ottolenghi: The Cookbook

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Amazing and unique flavor combinations that blow up your tastebuds. Ottolenghi's creative writing and informative advice with how-to help is appreciated. I feel that this book makes anyone who reads it and cooks through it a better chef.

Yotam Ottolenghi arrived in the UK from his native Israel in 1997 and set out on a new career in food, after having completed an MA in Comparative Literature whilst working as a journalist in Tel Aviv. In London he attended The Cordon Bleu after which he worked as a pastry chef in various establishments. In 2002, Yotam and his partners set up Ottolenghi, a unique food shop offering a wide range of freshly made savory dishes, baked products and patisserie items. There are now four Ottolenghi's, as well as NOPI, a brasserie style restaurant in Soho, London. 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. 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. 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. I love Ottolenghi’s previous cookbooks, but I thought he had more or less exhausted what he could do. As he says, “how many ways can there be to roast an eggplant?” But this cookbook is an evolution from his previous work. Where most of his previous recipes have been focused in Middle Eastern cuisine, this cookbooks is… not “fusion,” which to me implies a mixing of different cuisines, but rather post-national cuisine. With the help of Ixta Belfrage, Ottolenghi is now into using ingredients with big, bold flavors. Sometimes this is in context of the cuisine they come from, other times, like with the cascabel chile oil with butter beans, it’s just because that’s the big flavor they want to play with for the dish.

He is a regular contributor to The Guardian, author of bestselling cookbooks and a regular face on television. Sami moved to London in 1997 and worked at Baker and Spice as head chef, where he set up a traiteur section with a rich Middle-Eastern and Mediterranean spread. In 2002 he partnered with Noam Bar and Yotam Ottolenghi to set up Ottolenghi in Notting Hill. The company now has four stores and two restaurants, NOPI and ROVI, all in central London. Intros to the chapters feels very comparable to Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat but without so much of a clear direction, so probably unlikely to reuse these for reference.

To add to a collection of books you might cook a few recipes from for very special occasions = 4 starsOttolenghi’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

I'm not yet finished with the recipes I initially marked, and there are many more that I intend to add in very soon. There are a few that I've already made twice and will probably become staples.Very nicely presented and just the right length of preamble to chapters and recipes to add context but not detract from the main purpose of cooking. Sami Tamimi was born and raised in Jerusalem and was immersed in food from childhood. He started his career as commis-chef in a Jerusalem hotel and worked his way up, through many restaurants and ethnic traditions, to become head chef of Lilith, one of the top restaurants in Tel Aviv in the 1990’s.

Ruth's mayonnaise - Wonderful! I love unique aiolis and this was so easy, I think I may never buy store mayo again. This one has quite a lot of garlic, and we left out the cilantro for our purposes. It makes a lot... It might be worth sharing with a neighbor, even though it lasts for two weeks in the fridge. I love his use of ingredients and style of cooking, which suits our climate so well (not the adaptations for England, so much), and because of our very diverse population it is easy to get all the middle eastern ingredients he uses and fuses so well. Yotam Ottolenghi is an acclaimed chef, food writer and restaurateur. He is the owner of four incredibly successful ‘Ottolenghi’ deli/restaurants in central London as well as his new restaurant venture, NOPI in Soho. Yotam made his TV debut in the critically acclaimed BBC documentary ‘ Jerusalem on a Plate’, winner of the Kate Whiteman Award for Work on Food and Travel at the Guild of Food Writers Awards.

I want to cook almost everything in this book - it's rare for me to want to make such a high proportion of the dishes. I have been searching for great ways to eat garlic that don't involve cream and cheddar cheese--healthy ways to eat this vegetable that is widely available year round. I have had a very good summer of eating what is available in the Farmer's Market, keeping to a more vegetarian, sometimes even vegan meal plan, and the key to long term success, for me, is to have a lot of choices about how to cook the raw ingredients, especially once winter comes and the options do not include flavorful tomatoes and corn on the cob any more. Yotam Ottolenghi’s four eponymous restaurants—each a patisserie, deli, restaurant, and bakery rolled into one—are among London’s most popular culinary destinations. Now available for the first time in an American edition and updated with US measurements throughout, this debut cookbook from the celebrated, bestselling authors of Jerusalem and Plenty features 140 recipes culled from the popular Ottolenghi restaurants and inspired by the diverse culinary traditions of the Mediterranean. So, I always thought rating cookbooks was strange. But I have actually read this, and cooked some of the recipes and planning to do more. I am hooked. In his position as the executive head chef, Sami is involved in developing and nurturing young kitchen talents and creating new dishes and innovative menus.