Yotam Ottolenghi - Ottolenghi Flavor A Cookbook

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am often asked how I carry on creating new recipes for home cooks after more than a decade of publishing cookbooks. The answer is that I dont. What I did create (with many others) is an environment that I am tremendously proud of: the test kitchen that sits under a railway arch in Camden, north London, and the Ottolenghi restaurants, including NOPI and ROVI. These are the places where new dishes are shaped, and its the people who work in them that come up with the ideas that find themselves, in print, on peoples kitchen counters.

In Camden, alongside Ixta and Tara, Team Test Kitchen is blessed with Noor Murad, who grew up in Bahrain and is the unofficial expert in Middle Eastern feasts, tamarind, and everything rice related, amongst countless other talents. I am also immensely grateful to Gitai Fisher, whos good at everything, and is often the one with the clever idea that helps us crack a troublesome dish.

Other constant contributors are Calvin Von Niebel, Verena Lochmuller, Paulina Bembel, Neil Campbell, Helen Goh, and Esme Howarth. I am grateful to them all. I am also grateful to Claudine Boulstridge for her priceless appraisals.

I would like to thank Jonathan Lovekin and Caz Hildebrand, my long-standing creative partners, for being so incredibly good at their jobs, Wei Tang for the props and honesty, and Nishant Choksi for the clever illustrations. Thanks also to Sam Carroll and Sytch Farm Studios.

Thanks to Felicity Rubinstein for standing by my side, often having to hold my hand, through old challenges and new, and to Lizzy Gray for her intelligence and infinite patience.

A massive thank-you to Noam Bar for his continual presence behind every single project, to Cornelia Staeubli for her unconditional support, and to Sami Tamimi for his friendship.

I am also extremely grateful to the team at Ebury: Joel Rickett, Sarah Bennie, Celia Palazzo, Stephenie Naulls, Catherine Wood, Vanessa Forbes, and Catherine Ngwong. Across the Atlantic, my deepest thanks to Kim Witherspoon, Aaron Wehner, Lorena Jones, Kate Tyler, Windy Dorresteyn, Sandi Mendelson, Jane Chinn, Kelly Booth, Emma Rudolph, Doug Ogan, Mari Gill, Robert McCullough, Lindsay Paterson, and Carla Kean.

Thanks also to Mark Hutchinson and Gemma Bell and her team, and to Bob Granleese and Tim Lusher.

Finally, but most important, thank you to the love of my life, Karl Allen, and to the two monkeys, Max and Flynn. Thanks also to Michael and Ruth Ottolenghi; Tirza, Danny, Shira, Yoav, and Adam Florentin; Pete and Greta Allen, Shachar Argov, Garry Chang, Alex Meitlis, Ivo Bisignano, Lulu Banquete, Tamara Meitlis, Keren Margalit, Yoram Ever-Hadani, Itzik Lederfeind, Ilana Lederfeind, and Amos, Ariela, and David Oppenheim.

YOTAM OTTOLENGHI

Thank you to my parents, Nicolas Belfrage and Maria Candida De Melo, for love that knows no bounds, and for the unforgettable adventures through Brazil, Mexico, and Italy that shaped the cook that I am today.

To my sister Beatriz Belfrage, for wisdom and support I can always turn to.

To my cousin Moby Pomerance, for nurturing a love of food in me.

Thanks to Claudia Lazarus, my partner in crime in most food-related endeavors outside of Ottolenghi. Thanks to NOPI restaurant, where I met Claudia across a crowded kitchen, and where my Ottolenghi adventure began.

Thank you to Alex Intas, for his unwavering love and support, and, more important, for his unwavering willingness to eat.

Thanks to Lauren and Felipe Gonzalez, for giving me a copy of Plenty More all those years ago with a message in it to the tune of follow your dreams. I could never have dreamt of this!

To Noor Murad, thank you for being a constant source of light and inspiration.

To Jonathan, Lizzy, Celia, Annie, Caz, Wei, and Nishant, thank you for helping make this first venture into the world of book-making a joyous one.

And, most important, thank you to Yotam for the opportunity of a lifetime, and for being a fiercely patient, intelligent, and kind teacher.

IXTA BELFRAGE

YOTAM OTTOLENGHI is a seven-time New York Times bestselling cookbook author who also contributes to the New York Times Food section and has a weekly column in the Guardian. He lives in London, where he co-owns an eponymous group of restaurants and the fine-dining destinations NOPI and ROVI.

IXTA BELFRAGE formally began her culinary career at NOPI restaurant before moving to the Ottolenghi Test Kitchen to work with Yotam, contributing to his columns in the Guardian and the New York Times.

FLAVOR BOMBS

We had various working titles for Flavor throughout the course of writing it. One of them was The Ottolenghi F-Bomb. It was never going to fly, we knew, but the idea of flavor bombs is one that was with us every step of the way. Stocked up with a little arsenal of flavor-packed condiments, sauces, pickles, salsas, infused oils, and so forth, a meal full of flavor will only ever be just a few steps away. This list is our arsenal. Theyre all recipes-within-recipes from the book but useful to reference on the following spread as well, to see how stand-alone and versatile they can be. You dont need to make all of them, but having one or two or three in your fridge at any one time is really useful. Five-minutes-made scrambled eggs will never be the same once youve drizzled them with smoked cascabel oil or served them with a bit of charred chile sauce alongside.

A couple of practicalities: If you are making a batch of something for a recipe, its often worth doubling or tripling the quantities so that you have some at the ready. Shelf lives and keeping notes vary depending on what you are making, so see each recipe for details. If you are scaling up a recipe, youll probably need to increase pan or bowl size and cooking time accordingly. We always give a visual description of what you are looking for, so use those as a guide if quantities have been increased, rather than sticking religiously to times given. As always, trust your instincts and have the confidence to be your own judge. If you think something is looking, smelling, and tasting delicious and ready, then, chances are, it will be.

Oils, butters, and marinades

Sauces, salsas, and dressings

Condiments and pickles

Nuts and sprinkles

MEAL SUGGESTIONS AND FEASTS

Vegetable-focused meals are flexible by their very nature. There isnt a natural hierarchy or a clear order in which things need to appear at the table. The notion of a main course and sides, on which so many of us rely, simply doesnt lend itself so easily to a meal in which meat or fish dont occupy center stage. Though we arent big fans of any form of fixed meal structure, even when we serve meat or fish, we are aware that the freedom that comes with the plurality of options of a veggie menu can bring with it some confusion.