A word from Yotam Ottolenghi

"If you can read, you can cook." Yotam Ottolenghi

The above quotation is one that I have on my Home page, so it obviously reverberated with me. And actually it's even easier than that. These days you don't even have to be able to read. You can watch a video on You Tube or stream a cooking program from the TV, stopping and starting as you go. Not that I do that. Although I really don't mind watching cooking programs. Not that I do that either because my husband doesn't like them. And yes, of course, I could record them and watch them some other time but when would that be? I refuse to watch television during the day.

But really this is not what I was going to talk about. It's actually a rather surprising quote from Yotam Ottolenghi who is famous for long lists of weird ingredients in his dishes. And his food is distinctively different - more like Greg Malouf than anyone else I can think of - but then, again, I don't go to the restaurants in Melbourne that serve this kind of food - a very Middle-eastern/Mediterranean vibe. He is Israeli born with an Italian father, but now lives in England - London to be specific where he has half a dozen restaurants and delis, and a flourishing website where you can find some of his recipes and lots of exotic things to buy - for a price. He is also proudly gay and a dad. But most importantly is credited with the popularity of Middle-eastern/Mediterranean food in England. He is now so famous and such a success that I'm betting he does not actually cook much in his restaurants, although doubtless he has a huge hand in deciding what they do cook. I doubt you would find him in the kitchen there though.

This post came about because I just bought his latest book which is tantalisingly called Simple. And I will do another post about this particular book and what he means by simple.

I haven't made many of his dishes, but when I have they have always been tasty. In fact I made one of his cakes from Simple for my lunch party last Saturday and very delicious it was too. Blueberry, lemon and almond cake it was called. And it was simple too. I would make it again. Indeed he exhorts you to stick to what you know if you worry about cooking.

"I think if you make something really, really well, just keep on doing it, because it gives you a lot of satisfaction and none of the angst involved in mastering the next culinary trend. I think that’s a waste of time and very negative energy.”

If only meatballs weren't so labour intensive!

He himself though is a professional and therefore invested in experimentation. I think I read somewhere that he spends most of his worktime in his test kitchen in Camden trying out new things. Well that's what I think all the top chefs do anyway. They sort of have to don't they? Although I believe a lot of them also have to keep on cooking certain dishes because their customers want them to.

"Every time you approach a dish, at least when I do, it feels slightly different. It seems to be asking for a little alteration, for the addition of this or the removal of that. I try to stay attentive to this. I guess this is what makes real food."

"The Ottolenghi way. The bold surprisingly intense flavours that became synonymous with the name, the irreverent blends of ingredients, the vibrant colours on the plate, the generosity of spirit and big gestures, the curiosity and somewhat restless approach to food (always looking for the next ingredient, a fresh combination or a radically different method)" Yotam Ottolenghi

Indeed ingredients are what he is famous for. Not only the emphasis on vegetables - though he is not a vegetarian, but also the long lists of ingredients and the difficulty in finding some of them. Black garlic is one of his favourites for example. But actually you can get this in Coles ($150.00 a kilo! - well $6.00 for a small tub of about half a dozen cloves). I should try it some time, although I suspect he may be the only cook to use it - I wonder if this is an indication of his popularity here. He is credited in England with the ubiquity of hummus and sumac and preserved lemons. Probably not true. Surely no one person can do that. So he must be a canny publicist as well as a good cook. It's interesting is it not how some good cooks become household names and some do not. I'm willing to be that there are other chefs as good as he - indeed he praises to the heavens various of his business and creative partners, and yet they are not as famous. So he wrote a column for The Guardian, which may be what launched him. Or was it his cookbooks - Ottolenghi, Jerusalem, Plenty, Plenty More, Nopi, Sweet and Simple. It's quite a few - and they always seem to be written in partnership with somebody else - so much so that you wonder how much he writes himself. I have three of them and would buy more if they turned up on Readings bargain table.

Be that as it may the man is certainly famous and his recipes are very appealing. I should try more of them. David has requested a barbecue for his special meal tomorrow. Maybe Ottolenghi has a vegetable side that I can use.

In the meantime I leave you with a selection of quotes and urge you to buy at least one of his books. Simple maybe - for it is pretty simple.

“I’ve never felt that fire in me to campaign for something; you need to be a certain kind of person that I’m not.”

"an environment where a team of professional cooks labours for a few hours in preparation for a short pinnacle, the famous service, in which hundreds of dishes are served in short succession to a very large crowd. It is the complete opposite of the way we cook and eat at home." Nopi

"At the centre of every dish at the beginning of the thought process, is an ingredient, one ingredient - not just any ingredient but one of my favourite ingredients. i tend to set off with this central element and then try to elaborate on it, enhance it, bring it out in a new way, while still keeping it in the centre at the heart of the final dish."

"Cooking, for me, has always been about abundance, bounty, freshness and surprise. Four big words to expect from a plate of food, so a single sprig of parsley was never, really, going to cut the mustard."

Before restaurants he had delis - indeed he still does. This one is in trendy Notting Hill.

And finally a quote from his website on the Philosophy page. I have no idea whether he wrote it himself or whether a publicist did. I guess it sums up the aim though.

"Simply put, we are very serious about making people happy through our food. To look at, to taste, to eat in-store or to take-away home, to order products on-line or when dining in our restaurants, the food that we create is often described as ‘sunny’. It’s full of harmonious contradictions: it’s vibrant and bold yet familiar and comforting; it’s beautiful to look at yet close to its original form; it’s full of surprising drama yet always comes together as one; it’s noisy yet peaceful, lip-smacking yet warm, simple yet daring. We are still cooking the food that we and our customers delight in and it’s still making us proud, happy and full of beans."

All of which is wonderful, but judging from his retail locations only the rich are able to afford his actual food. You can buy his ten favourite ingredients for £35 online! But you can buy his books and have a go yourself. You can even have a go at the restaurant stuff - Nopi - is, by his own admission, restaurant food, and probably not for the faint-hearted.