Recipes

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

This rösti draws its inspiration from a NY-style deli with three quintessential additions: spring onion cream cheese, pickled cucumber and everything seasoning. Serve this for brunch with some smoked salmon or a poached egg, if you like.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

This dish sits somewhere between Rome and the eastern Mediterranean, where herbs are used with abandon and olive oil is never held back. Chicken thighs, marinated simply with garlic and oregano, are fried until their skin turns deeply golden, then paired with a sauce built slowly from pancetta, tomatoes and fennel seeds, rich and slightly sweet, sharpened at the end with vinegar. Fresh oregano is fried until crisp, lending a brittle, aromatic finish. Serve with bread to mop up every last bit of the oil-slicked sauce.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

Sweet potato cooks quickly, so it’s ideal for a speedy supper for one. Feel free, however, to swap it for another vegetable, such as aubergine or courgette. This serves one, but the sauce can be easily scaled up if you’re cooking for more, or batch cooking. Serve with rice, couscous or a bowl of greens.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

You might think this recipe doesn't sound right. It didn't sound quite right to us either when we came across it on the highly useful recipe site, Epicurious. The idea of adding maple syrup and sultanas to an (already) sweet potato and then mixing lots of herbs and spices in as well just couldn't be right - unless you're an American. But we were somehow tempted to try it and it did work, creating a vivid and intense mix of tastes and textures. This version boasts additional old favourites of ours: chilli and coriander. Try it as a side dish at your festive table or as a picnic salad.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

Perfect for a late brunch. It's best to drain the yoghurt overnight, to give it time to reach the desired rich and creamy texture (four to six hours will just about do, though the labneh may not be as thick). Either way, give the yoghurt bundle a squeeze a couple of times while it's draining. If you want to avoid draining altogether, use a thick Greek or Arab yoghurt as it is - the finished dish won't be as rich and dessert-like, but it will still be wonderfully fresh.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

This sunny dish celebrates the wonderful union of courgettes and tomatoes, that get along especially well in any context, but particularly when paired with creamy labneh and sumac pine nuts. Make this vegan by swapping out the labneh for dairy-free yoghurt, or omitting it completely - it’s still as delicious without.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

A simple and gratifying dish that looks great and is very easy to make. Lay out on a flat serving dish and bring to the table. It doesn't get much more Christmassy than this. Goes well with almost any main course.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

We seriously urge you to give this a go, even if it sounds overtly over the top, what with all that fat and cloying sweetness. The actual result is wonderfully crispy, salty and gently sweet.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

This cut of pork, slowly cooked, offers the best contrasting textures. The crackling skin and fatty meat, along with the mellow spiciness of anise and sharp sweetness of orange. It's the ideal festive centrepiece for the inexperienced or kitchen-shy; if you follow the instructions, it's hard to get wrong, yet is highly impressive. Goes well with french beans and roasted potatoes.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

This dish features celeriac in two very different ways – slow-roasted and pickled – giving it textural contrast and flavour complexity which enables it to take centre stage in a vegetable feast. You can make the dressing a day ahead, but don’t mix in the fried chilli and garlic until you’re ready to serve. You’ll make more pickle than you need, but it keeps in the fridge for 3 days and is great stuffed into sandwiches and toasties or tossed through a salad.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

When I cooked this recipe to camera I had a home crowd watching me I couldn't have dreamed of. That night a group of Aussie women checked into Roberto's tiny country hotel. It turned out they landed in Italy that morning arriving from London, where they visited the restaurant of their favourite chef; and that chef is your humble servant. So the one night they are in Ottolenghi eating the food and the next night they are in Sardinia watching him cook to camera in the courtyard of a small hotel in in small town. Most people would probably not be able to get the wild flowers I used in Sardinia to spread over the salad at the end. They look great but they aren't essential. You can leave the out, substitute with other edible wild flowers that are in season and local to you, or replace with some more picked herbs.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

Early spring is the perfect time for leeks. After the cold winter frosts, they develop a natural sweetness that, when roasted at high heat, creates deep, rich flavours. Here I serve them with a citrusy crème fraîche and hazelnut, orange and sumac salsa. It’s perfect as a side for roasted chicken or fish.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

In this lamb centrepiece, the marinade of tamarind, coriander and lime develops into a glossy sauce which is sweet, sour and rich, thanks to the golden raisins (you can also use sultanas). We add large green chillies here, which are about 10-15 grams each and not too spicy. If you can’t find large chillies, use less of them in your marinade.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

I can't emphasize enough how crucial it is to choose good, sweet, squidgy figs, no matter what you do with them. It makes all the difference.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

The combination of fish and tahini is one we find hard to resist, but this works just as well without the tahini sauce if you’re looking for a shortcut or want to keep the focus on the lemon. Either way, this is as close to fast food as you can get. It’s a 15-minute meal to make, beginning to end. Possibly even less time to eat.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

All the intense flavours lavished on the poor chicken – arak, mustard, fennel, clementines with their skins, brown sugar – somehow manage to come together in a sweetly comforting dish you will always want to come back to. Serve with plainly cooked rice or bulgar.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

We spent three nights in Haifa on one of our trips and spent two of those eating supper at the same restaurant, Fattoush, in town. The reason we went back two nights in a row was because we ate a version of this salad the first night and then went to bed dreaming about it. We went back the next night and duly ordered a whole portion each. All the elements here are delicious in and of themselves: the combination of all three is positively wonderful.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

On holiday in Sri Lanka a few years ago, Helen got very into the little pot of dukkah mix which was often on her table in the evening. So into it was she that there soon appeared two pots each night. On the last night of her holiday, the chef – Madhura Geethanjana – scribbled the recipe down on Helen’s napkin, calling it his ‘nut crumble’. It’s such a lovely image and act of sharing – a recipe being written on a napkin, continuing its journey. Dukkah keeps well in the fridge for 5 days (or longer in the freezer), so make more than you need. It’s lovely sprinkled over all sorts of things: soups, roasted vegetables, chicken (see page 128), grilled fish, leafy salads.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

This festive side would make a wonderful addition to your Thanksgiving table, but would equally be great at a Sunday roast, alongside a roast chicken or baked pumpkin. Get ahead by making the chestnut topping and garlic yoghurt the day before, bringing them back up to room temperature. Be sure to leave your browned butter to just before serving though, as it will solidify as it sits.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

Every so often, there's a recipe you find yourself making over and over - the kind that slips effortlessly into rotation because it hits that perfect balance of effort and reward. Here's one for your collection. Aubergines go from sometimes-difficult to almost buttery when given enough time in a hot oven, butterbeans develop golden crusts (keeping their creamy interiors), and cherry tomatoes collapse into sweet puddles that bind it all together. The magic ingredient is our Calabrian Chilli Pesto – it does all the heavy lifting in terms of flavour. Serve with some rice or flatbreads for scooping up every bite.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

This is a winning recipe to make for friends as everything can be prepared in advance – the aubergine can be roasted, the saffron yoghurt put together, all the nuts and herbs ready to go – and then just simply assembled before serving. It’s also big and bold – both visually and in terms of flavour – which helps add to the ‘wow’. When dressing roasted vegetables with thick sauces like this, we tend to use a large slotted spoon in our shops. scoop up the sauce with the spoon and then, holding the long handle in one hand (and making sure the spoon head is over the platter), use your other hand to firmly bash the handle a few times. This will, with a tiny bit of practice, help the sauce to fall through the spoon evenly and elegantly on to the vegetables.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

All the various components of this dish can be prepared a day in advance, if you want to get ahead. Keep all the elements separate and in the fridge, bringing everything back to room temperature before you assemble the dish. When you next see some fresh curry leaves, grab hold of them – they are sometimes around but then they disappear from the shelves for a while. Freeze what you don’t use so that they’re ready for when you next need them. Lightly fried in a tablespoon of oil, they make a wonderfully aromatic addition to this dish, sprinkled over with the pomegranate seeds before serving. If you’re going down the curry theme for the rest of your meal and have some poppadoms fried, these are great crumbled over. If you do this, you won’t need the almonds.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

This is a fun aubergine dip, almost a deconstructed baba ganoush, but the star of the show has got to be the carob syrup. The bitterness of the burnt rosemary, the sweet tang of the molasses, and the oily richness of the aubergine all pair so well together. Using just one oven tray and one bowl, this is one of the best last minute dips you can throw together to get you out of a pinch.

Yotam Ottolenghi · Ottolenghi.co.uk

There's a natural versatility to this tart. Choose your vegetables according to season (leeks, aubergines, broccoli, mushrooms) and you can keep or omit the cheese; you can even top with a scattering of pumpkin seeds for a more luxurious look.