Once the broccoli is dry, toss with 3 Tbsp of the olive oil and season generously with salt and pepper. Place a griddle pan on high heat and leave for 4 to 5 minutes until smoking hot. Grill the broccoli in batches on the hot pan, turning to get grill marks on all sides. When ready, transfer into a bowl. A] book that has barely left my kitchen…the fact that Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi have been generous to put their recipes in a book is something I had long dreamed of’ Nigel Slater, The Observer Magazine

The cookbook requires several ingredients which I don't usually buy, but, because there is a great deal of repetition between recipes, I didn't feel like I was left with a product that I wouldn't ever use again: Sunflower oil, hazelnuts, Muscavado sugar are a few examples. (Additional advise: If you decide to work through these recipes, buy a big bag of sweet potatoes as they are used several times!) :)

Ottolenghi’s ground-breaking classic cookbook, which captured the zeitgeist for using imaginative flavours and ingredients, is relaunched with a contemporary design. All the recipes I tried turned out great: cauliflower fritters with lime yogurt, sweet potatoes with raisins and maple citrus dressing, eggplant with fresh oregano, a salad of french beans and mangetout. Mangetout? Snow peas. This is a British cookbook so there is some celsius conversion to do, and measurement in grams but easily overcome with a kitchen scale. Ottolenghi is an award-winning chef, being awarded with the James Beard Award 'Cooking from a Professional Point of View' for Nopi in 2016, and 'International Cookbook' for Jerusalem in 2013. In 2013 he also won four other awards for Jerusalem.

I love Ottolenghi’s previous cookbooks, but I thought he had more or less exhausted what he could do. As he says, “how many ways can there be to roast an eggplant?” But this cookbook is an evolution from his previous work. Where most of his previous recipes have been focused in Middle Eastern cuisine, this cookbooks is… not “fusion,” which to me implies a mixing of different cuisines, but rather post-national cuisine. With the help of Ixta Belfrage, Ottolenghi is now into using ingredients with big, bold flavors. Sometimes this is in context of the cuisine they come from, other times, like with the cascabel chile oil with butter beans, it’s just because that’s the big flavor they want to play with for the dish. Very nicely presented and just the right length of preamble to chapters and recipes to add context but not detract from the main purpose of cooking. This is a hard cookbook to rate with fairness because of the delta between what can be learned as theory and what can be used in practice. Intros to the chapters feels very comparable to Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat but without so much of a clear direction, so probably unlikely to reuse these for reference. This is a very informative cookbook that in many ways resembles a textbook in that there is so much text. Recipes are well done and distinct and there is a photo for each. While the recipes may be described as "low effort," this does not mean fast. In fact, only five of the recipes can be made in under thirty minutes or in one pan. Most take more than an hour and involve multiple steps and pans. You have to really want to make these dishes. Many recipes focus on less common vegetables such as rutabagas and celery root. Recipes all seem highly unique and creative but tend to run on the exotic side. Fans of Ottolenghi will love this book.

Retailers:

That being said, I would not suggest these recipes for beginning cooks. These dishes are elevated and elegant, the equivalent of meals from a four-star restaurant, and the ingredients he uses as his go-tos are hard to find on the shelves of many local American grocery stores. These are intermediate to expert dishes, with the refinements that come from many years of cooking. But there is nothing wrong with getting the cookbook to read and aspire to, trying one of the simpler recipes to add a dramatic flair to a holiday dinner or dinner party, and then working up to the more complicated recipes. This one is a real winner, coming from Yotam Ottolenghi's latest cookbook, concisely entitled 'Ottolenghi: The Cookbook'. It is a simple recipe, and it gives precise instructions, so you have the feeling that you are able to follow it more or less exactly Ruth's mayonnaise - Wonderful! I love unique aiolis and this was so easy, I think I may never buy store mayo again. This one has quite a lot of garlic, and we left out the cilantro for our purposes. It makes a lot... It might be worth sharing with a neighbor, even though it lasts for two weeks in the fridge. The book has straightforward recipes that seem complex but are actually very doable even for a novice cook, if the recipe is followed correctly. Some ingredients may be a little difficult to find but can generally be substituted. I haven't had the need to tweak any recipes...well, except the spice levels, as I'm not a big spicy person.