Recipes

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

For best texture, use oat milk that is not the barista grade (this will make them claggy) to make these fluffy pancake. Top them with the miso butter pear above, or with any other pancake topper that you like.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

If it’s in season use forced rhubarb here: the hot-pink colour of the slender stalks looks stunning once cooked. Regular field-grown rhubarb, though, available throughout the year, is also great. The custard and fruit mixtures can be made a day in advance and kept in the fridge until ready to assemble. Serve this with some shortbread alongside, if you’re looking for crunch.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

This magnificent pudding was made with the purpose of showcasing winter lemons, their bitter flesh a great way to cut through an otherwise decadent eating experience. As happy accidents go, this was tested alongside a separate dish which included a maple-butter sauce. A squeeze of lemon and a generous amount of maple butter was spooned over the pudding because well, why not, and it suddenly dawned on us that lemon-maple butter had been the missing component all along. Lesson learned: sometimes that which is very, very wrong can turn out to be really quite right.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

Forget couscous salad and a similarly bland fare at the supermarket; this is the real thing - warmingly spicy and bursting with sweet and astringent flavours. The ingredients list may seem long, but there is actually little effort involved here. Serve it warm to four very hungry people.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

This salad started life in our delis, where layers are everything—flavour, texture, colour. Roasted cauliflower forms the base, golden and caramelised from its turmeric-spiced yoghurt coating. On top, a mint and cardamom salsa and a herby salad add freshness and crunch.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

These are fried eggs but with a very eccentric wardrobe, thanks to the turmeric and chilli, which make them as good to eat as they are to look at. You can serve this easy, vibrant breakfast as it is, or alongside the potato rösti, as part of a brunch spread.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

Cooking the vegetables in stock, much as you would a risotto, gives them a real depth of flavour and great tenderness. You’ll need to allow 30 minutes, and don’t be tempted to skip or speed up the process. This also works without the cheese, if you prefer.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

Now you see them, now you don’t. That’s the fate of these meatballs in our Ledbury Road branch. As soon as we bring them out to the shop they disappear, as if by command of a magician’s wand. They are that good!

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

The creamy sumac sauce served with these burgers is fantastically sharp and will go well with most non-red meats (chicken sofrito, for example) and also with grilled vegetables and fritters. You can make it in advance, or double the quantity, and keep it refrigerated. After a day the flavours will mellow so you may want to reinvigorate it by adding extra sumac and lemon juice. The burgers are very portable. You can have them as a snack from the fridge and they are also ideal for taking over to friends or in a lunchbox for work.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

This soup is a meal in a bowl that will give you all the nourishment and intense flavours you could wish for. Different takes on the theme are widespread, with tinned tuna and olives often served instead of the egg, or alongside the soup.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

This savoury pie is often made using several layers of filo pastry, but I like the robustness of puff. The pie keeps well, so it's a great dish to have in the fridge over the Easter weekend. If you can't get chard, use spinach or another green.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

This is all about the tomatoes, so get as many different varieties as you can: red, green and yellow; baby plum, cherry and vine. They also look great if they are not cut in uniform fashion: smaller tomatoes should be halved, while larger ones should be cut into wedges or sliced. You can prepare all the elements for this in advance; the wasabi and herb-filled mascarpone, the pickled shallots, the chopped tomatoes, the toasted nuts. Just keep them separate and put the dish together just before serving.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

This is my go-to salad right now. Eat it on its own with crusty bread to mop up those gorgeous juices, or as part of a meze-style spread. The quality of the tomatoes you use will make all the difference, so use the ripest and sweetest ones you can find. The addition of a few chunks of ripe avocado is a welcome variation.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

This makes a very quick and easy lunch. The confit garlic, here, makes the dressing extra special. This recipe makes extra confit garlic, use the rest for roast vegetables or to make garlic butter. If you can, use in season tomatoes for the best flavour.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

The group of old ladies that were brought to teach me how to thread tomatoes together into a fine bunch were the funniest lot of pensioners I have ever met. They were animated, self deprecating and sarcastic in just the right quantity. I could spend hours listening to old time stories but they had to be whisked away from the scene for me to make this soup to camera. It was wonderfully sweet – the crew devoured it – and would have done me proud with my old lady friends.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

This tastes like a homemade version of a high-street classic. The habanero adds a hot, fruity and smoky complexity that we love, but remove it entirely if you want to make the dish child-friendly, and use only half if you don’t like too much heat. The spiced and crunchy simit croutons are perfect to dip into it.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

This salad is all about the quality and range of the tomatoes involved, so make an effort to get hold of as many different kinds, colours and sizes as you can, making sure they are all good and ripe. Elderflower is still just in season, so if you have any nearby, do go out and pick some: it makes the finished dish look even more stunning. I’ve kept this dairy-free, but it also works very well with some soft goat’s cheese dotted on top. With thanks to Esme Robinson.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

This is definition of freshness, with its sweet and sour late-summer flavours. It is also an utter delight to look at. But the most incredible thing about it is that it uses a few ingredients that we've been lovingly cooking with for many years, and believed we knew everything there was to know about, yet had never thought of mixing them in such a way. That is until Yotam travelled to Istanbul and came across a similar combination of fresh tomatoes and pomegranate seeds in a famous local kebab restaurant called Hamdi, right by the Spice Bazaar. Use four types of tomato here to make the salad more interesting visually and in flavour. You can easily use fewer, just as long as they are ripe and sweet.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

These are great picnic fare. Pack the filling and lettuce cups separately, then assemble them in situ, or serve as a salad with the lettuce chopped up and the tofu mixture stirred through it. The filling keeps well for up to three days, so can be made well in advance, if that helps.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

We had a broccoli-off when choosing the right dressing for this dish: the other fresh and sharp and this one creamy, spicy and unctuous. We were split down the middle at the OTK, so we asked the internet (via Instagram). The votes were neck and neck, but the majority was for this creamy, spicy, unctuous peanut dressing and, dear internet, you chose well.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

Flan is the Spanish-speaking world’s answer to creme caramel. Custard is a tricky thing to get right at the best of times: cornflour can make it too floury if it’s not cooked properly, while eggs curdle if the heat is too high. But you can cheat by putting all the custard ingredients in a blender and blitzing them for 30 seconds: even a trained patissier wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. You can use orange instead of tangerine, though the latter tastes rather special.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

With the help of a few simple pantry ingredients, the unassuming chickpea can be transformed into a hearty meal fit for any weeknight supper. If you want to make this with tinned chickpeas rather than dried and soaked ones, cook the sauce ingredients separately with about 600ml water until thick and rich, and add the drained tinned chickpeas for only the last 20 or so minutes. And if you can’t find tamarind, use two tablespoons of lime juice and half a teaspoon of sugar instead.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

The recipe for this first appeared in an article written about Helen Goh when she ran her café, the Mortar & Pestle, in Melbourne. Rather intimidatingly for Helen, the headline for the article was: ‘World’s Best Chocolate Cake’. Nothing like setting the bar high in terms of expectation! All these years on though, it still stands the test of time. It could actually be called lots of things: ‘world’s easiest cake’, possibly, requiring nothing more than one large bowl to make it all in. In our shops, however, it just goes by the name ‘take-home chocolate cake’. This is because we make it as a smaller cake to be shared by four people after a meal. The name lives on though, even in the recipe for our larger version here. The cake keeps so well that customers would still be able to take home a whole cake, even if there were only four people at the first sitting.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

Incredibly simple way to upgrade your hummus with a little extra tahini, a spicy touch and nutty pine nuts.