Ottolenghi Recipe Book - what's the big deal?

[TangBloodyFastic]

Posting for traffic

I'll start by saying I am no chef!!!

I am competent in the kitchen, I enjoy cooking for me and my family and will always make something from scratch if we have visitors coming. I am probably middle of the road with regards to being adventurous with the recipes I use. I don't attempt much far east (Japanese/Thai/Chinese) cuisine but will have a good go at an Indian curry.

So, to get to the point, I have just signed up to the eat your books website, which is great, and was browsing other recipe books and came across some books by Yotam Ottolenghi - which is the 3 most popular books owned by other members of the website

I'm intrigued but I also don't like wasting money. There's clearly a reason why they are so popular????

Can anyone who has any of these books, Plenty, Jerusalem and Simple, tell me why I should buy one of these books? What's so brilliant about them? Are the recipes "wow" or are they just easy? Are people buying them because others have?

I'm not a vegetarian and tend to always have meat with a meal but am not opposed to any meal if it's really good - meat or not!

I have two under two so I don't want 5000 Ingredients for a mediocre meal but put in the effort for a recipe which is really good!!

Sorry, rather long winded

I think his recipes appeal across cultures, or (if within the same culture) to a universal palate. I'm from Singapore and have clashing tastes with my British-born and bred DH but his food satisfies both of us - or "meets my standards" according to bitter DH! V fresh and flavourful

I've made this a few times and it us seriously delicious.
No need to make the aubergine or lemon yoghurt IMO, just do the bulghur and serve with sausages and salad or crusty bread.
A dollop of Greek yoghurt or cream will bring the flavour down for even the fussiest child. It's soooo good

Re the ingredients, I find many of them can be approximated
Pomegranate molasses? Normal molasses or treacle plus vinegar, maybe some wine or red grape juice
Preserved lemon? can boil a normal lemon in vinegar water and add vinegar, or just lemon juice and vinegar and salt
Kaffir lime leaves? Anything green and a squeeze of lime juice
I often google 'substitute for ...' and use that suggestion. Some ingredients are essential but many can be skipped and the food doesn't suffer much if at all

Best recipe books in my opinion

You can get pomegranate molasses and preserved lemons in many supermarkets. The odd ones I remember is black garlic and dried iranian lime.

I think he's also a really popular nice guy in his field.works hard.good to his chefs.makes interesting and certain flavorful food. His passion for it is always clear.and knowledge on his stuff.

I really enjoy Raymond blanc books recently.some beautiful recipes.many pages turned over!

If you’re looking for easy(ish) but delicious recipes, what you need is one of the Roasting Tin books.

I'm not convinced by the need for recipe books to cook anything

I completely disagree.

I'm a competent cook. My friends and family say I am an excellent cook, but if I want to ring the changes I still like to look for inspiration in new recipes. I like to cook a lot of Asian food and have a spice cupboard full of spices, which I do experiment with, but I still get my old Madhur Jaffrey books out to get the exact spice combination for certain dishes.

I can rustle up a some simple sponges fairy cakes or a Victoria sandwich cake without a recipe, but if I want to make something a little more complicated I still need my Mary Berry baking books.

I would never have thought of using cooked aubergines and making little involtini with them filled with paneer and serving them in a dal (a recipe linked to upthread). And this is someone who can cook.

Anyone who can't cook and wants to learn has to start somewhere by following a recipe, whether it comes from a book, online or watching it on YouTube.

I love him and foresee a blissful era in my future when kids are older eating from his books and ones like dishoom.

What I’d recommend for you right now is the roasting tin books. Some of them need adapting a bit to personal taste, but some really yum dinners all in one pot in the oven so you can leave the stove.

I am coeliac and two I find useful for that are cook once, eat all week and gwynnie Paltrow’s it’s all good which was written with a fabulous food writer called Julia turshen.

I'm not convinced by the need for recipe books to cook anything

I can certainly rustle up some nice tasting stuff by looking in the cupboards/fridge or having half a thought when I'm shopping. But it's very easy to fall into a rut and I like to look up a recipe to try something a bit different.

And someone like Ottolenghi is really useful for making me think about different flavours together. Though I have to be in the mood for it - I looked at his soup recipes in the guardian the other week and thought - I'll just do my usual throw together bean soup which I can practically make in my sleep instead.

So I guess I should start a new post and it should be titled, what new recipe book do I need???
This! The website is amazing as well.
www.amazon.co.uk/RecipeTin-Eats-recipes-Australias-favourite/dp/1035020971/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3DRHN6MJPFPSV&keywords=recipetin+eats+dinner&qid=1674727516&sprefix=recipeti%2Caps%2C373&sr=8-1

I'm not convinced by the need for recipe books to cook anything

@NeverDropYourMooncup I can look into the fridge and cook something for the family. I often do that when plans change and I need to cook something in a hurry, or I don't have the ingredients to cook what I plan for.

However, I really love cook new stuff. I love trying out recipes for flavour combos that I will not normally do myself. I try to plan to follow a new recipe a week.

For example, I am not convinced you can make a chinese new year cake unless you already know how to make something very similar. (I hope most of you know what I mean by that). I could bet most likely you can't even tell what flour you need to buy from tasting. I made a red and a white one, similar to what's in this article on Hong Kong new year cake this year. There's a water chestnut one too and I've only made it once and I can't recall what ingredients are needed without looking it up.

He has great recipes in the Guardian every Saturday. We had his Sardine Curry with Ginger and Chilli last night. Very quick, very cheap, very tasty.

www.theguardian.com/food/2023/jan/21/easy-midweek-meal-recipes-yotam-ottolenghi-sardine-curry-glossy-pork-frittata-pickled-celeriac

It's the combination of herbs and spices which make his food worth making. The pasta alla norma (with aubergine) in Simple is a favourite meal for my three children who are a "give me meat!" meat eater, a vegan and a vegetarian (just need to watch the use of Parmesan).

It sounds like you would benefit from the 'roasting tin' books, there are a few versions. Easy and not too 'exotic'

Do you mean like mochi? Glutinous rice (or flour for the quickest prep time), sugar and water, cornflour to stop it sticking. That doesn't require a twenty or thirty quid book and won't feed the kids in itself. Same way it doesn't require the purchase of a book to make turkey and courgette burgers - you can make them with turkey mince, a courgette, spring onions, salt, pepper, maybe chilli flakes, maybe garam masala or cumin, depending upon what particular flavours you like and maybe some herbs, along with an egg or other binding agent like some of the juice from a tin of beans or chickpeas to hold it together. And if you don't want flat burgers, you can make them into meatballs instead. Or sausages.

They're a recipe, but they don't need a recipe book to do them.

Try meliz cooks if you like similar.

They are what I am currently using - and enjoying them

I'm using them at the moment and I made the orzo and cherry tomatoes recipe the other day, unbelievably tasty for so few ingredients and very very easy to make
Even both kids had a few mouthfuls each - winner!!

It's purely a class signifier 😆

I have a cupboard full of herbs and spices so that isn't an issue, it's the complexity of some of the recipes which would undoubtedly put me off as I'm rather busy with the girls.
Parmesan wouldn't be an issue as my eldest (2) eats it by the handful if I am grating it to put on a meal

That counts me out then!

@NeverDropYourMooncup only the red one (New Year cake) is with glutinous rice flour and no cornflour.

The white one is turnip cake and I used rice flour and wheat starch, though many recipes have conflour instead of wheat starch.

The yellow ones are water chestnut flour.

They aren't mochis and made differently.

And recipes come in many medium. The point I'm making is that I wouldn't know where to start except following someone's recipe. It's no different from people who used to learn it in the kitchen from their mothers and grandmothers. With books, and then the internet, we are now able to learn to cook from words and videos.

@NeverDropYourMooncup
I totally get what you mean and there is sometimes no need for a recipe book to make some things and I agree!
But
Using a book takes away the need to think about what I need to make dinner for us all as it is decided for me
My head is full enough with working and two young children and the daily hectic-ness of getting out the door on time and the bedtime being at an acceptable time.
Recipe books make life easy for me when I have the need to make something new