Yotam Ottolenghi
Yotam Ottolenghi is an Israel-born British chef and the patron of the Ottolenghi group, which started in 2002 in Notting Hill in London as a shop/bakery/restaurant and now has many restaurants. His recipes are rooted in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisine but are inspired by ingredients from around the world. “My food very much reflects the sort of ingredients that grow in a very sunny climate, so there are strong flavours and colours, and there’s a lot of freshness,” Ottolenghi explained in his Five Books interview with us.
Ottolenghi is the bestselling author of a number of excellent cookbooks, particularly notable for their ability to turn vegetables into a highlight of the meal. Ottolenghi’s early books—starting with Ottolenghi in 2008—were so exciting in their flavours and ideas that they inspired people to have ‘Ottolenghi dinner parties’ and spend hours preparing a feast. More recent books, especially the Test Kitchen series, are better suited for those looking for simpler, day-to-day recipe options.
Books by Yotam Ottolenghi
Ottolenghi Test Kitchen: Shelf Love
by Yotam Ottolenghi
Ottolenghi recipes are phenomenal, but some of his earlier books were quite demanding in terms of time and ingredients required to pull them off. The Ottolenghi Test Kitchen books—including Shelf Love (2021) and, more recently, Extra Good Things—are a great way to get good recipes while being more realistic about what most people can achieve in the kitchen after a long day's work. Guides at the back of the book lead you to recipes that (say) can be made in under an hour or are kid-friendly, vegetarian or vegan or easily-veganized etc.
Simple
by Yotam Ottolenghi
Simple (2018) is a wonderful cookbook. Who would have thought you could get so excited by Brussels sprouts that you'd want to eat them week after week? The book promises "pared-back brilliance," Simple standing for Short on time, Ingredients: 10 or fewer, Make ahead, Pantry, Lazy, Easier than you think. This is still Ottolenghi though and, as one friend has pointed out, Simpler would perhaps be a more accurate title. Recipes that work well include: hot charred cherry tomatoes with cold yoghurt; pumpkin, saffron and orange soup; mustardy cauliflower cheese; sweet potato chips; anchovy and samphire spaghetti and chicken Marbella.
Plenty
by Yotam Ottolenghi
Plenty (2010) is Yotam Ottolenghi’s vegetarian cookbook, based on recipes he published in the Guardian newspaper. It was followed by another vegetarian cookbook: Plenty More (2014). These are complex recipes, with many ingredients, perfect if you have lots of time and energy to make a wonderful meal. (If you’re not a purist, or don’t have the time, it may also be worth looking at some of Ottolenghi’s recent books, especially the Ottolenghi Test Kitchen series. These are easier to follow and while not exclusively vegetarian have a guide at the back for vegetarian and vegan meals)
Ottolenghi Flavor: A Cookbook
by Ixta Belfrage & Yotam Ottolenghi
***🏆 A Five Books Book of the Year ***
“Ixta, his co-author, is a significant influence here and she has a really global background, with a lot of roots in Mexico. So, there’s a lot of Mexican influence in here. Chilis pop up a lot. Ottolenghi has always been global, but with a Middle Eastern bias. In this book you get a lot more Mexican and Indian food. And there’s Thai stuff. I found that personally really exciting, too, because Indian is my favorite cuisine. They are unabashed about fusion, which has become like a dirty word in food and food media, as if it’s just diluting or just throwing stuff together. They point out that there are lots of cross-cultural hybrids and that this is what happens when food travels around the world and that, if you’re combining things have having respect for different cuisines, it’s totally OK. Don’t feel bad about it.” Read more...
Becky Krystal, Cooks & Food Writer
“His tastes and aromas are very similar to Persian cooking. Especially one recipe, which I cooked and enjoyed – chicken in harissa sauce. It really brings the chicken to life. The layers of taste are not overwhelming. There are lots of salads with fruit, nuts and different kinds of greenery. I found out about zatar through Ottolenghi. He makes zatar and chicken.” Read more...
“It’s one of my favourite books. It’s full of delicious, delightful things. But more than that, it’s about Jerusalem’s food and its eclecticism, its hybridity and the syncretism of the different sorts of food that you find. There are Yemenis, Germans, Palestinians and Turks. There are Georgians and Armenians. I could go on. It is the universal city.” Read more...
Simon Sebag Montefiore, Historian
Interviews with Yotam Ottolenghi
Yotam Ottolenghi recommends some of his Favourite Cookbooks
Yotam Ottolenghi, the accomplished chef, bestselling author and owner of several high-end London eateries, names the cookbooks he loves the most.
Interviews where books by Yotam Ottolenghi were recommended
The best books on Jerusalem, recommended by Simon Sebag Montefiore
Jerusalem is one of the most beautiful cities in the world and a place of longing for three faiths—and yet we know it mostly as a place of strife and conflict. British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Jerusalem: the Biography, recommends books that capture the historical ups and downs of this ever-changing city, but also its vitality, including its irresistible cuisine.
The best books on Persian Cookery, recommended by Jila Dana-Haeri and Shahrzad Ghorashian
In this interview two celebrated chefs discuss the best books to help you capture the complex flavours and colours of Persian food. Along the way they describe their favourite Persian treats, including mouth-watering lattice window syrup cakes and rice with saffron and morello cherries.
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1
One Tin Bakes: Sweet and Simple Traybakes, Pies, Bars and Buns
by Edd Kimber -
2
The Flavor Equation: The Science of Great Cooking Explained in More Than 100 Essential Recipes
by Nik Sharma -
3
Vegetable Kingdom: The Abundant World of Vegan Recipes
by Bryant Terry -
4
In Bibi's Kitchen: The Recipes and Stories of Grandmothers from the Eight African Countries that Touch the Indian Ocean
by Hawa Hassan & Julia Turshen -
5
Ottolenghi Flavor: A Cookbook
by Ixta Belfrage & Yotam Ottolenghi
The Best Cookbooks of 2020, recommended by Becky Krystal
The Best Cookbooks of 2020, recommended by Becky Krystal
If nothing else, 2020 has at least given many of us a lot of time to experiment in the kitchen. Here Becky Krystal, lead writer for the Washington Post’s Voraciously, recommends cookbooks relevant for a year in which grocery shopping has been complicated and the world has become more interconnected than ever.
