Recipes By Yotam Ottolenghi
117 recipes found
Walnut Cake
I have to thank a couple of people for this recipe: first, the chef Stevie Parle, of Dock Kitchen in London, who published the recipe to inspire this one, and second, the aunt of one of my recipe testers, who made such a standout interpretation that we all marveled over the leftovers the next day in the test kitchen. I just had to try my own version, and here it is, made a touch more celebratory with caramelized walnuts and lashings of whipped cream, both of which can be omitted if you prefer keeping it plain and dairy-free (thereby making it suitable for Passover). The cake is moist and delicious enough as it is. If baking for Passover, you should also be sure to use muscovado sugar (or dark brown sugar) and amaretto that are certified kosher for Passover.
Pomegranate and Rose Granita
The rose petals look lovely here, but don’t worry if you can’t get hold of any. With the pomegranate seeds there, the granita looks wonderful without them. Be sure to leave enough time for the liquid to properly freeze into crystals, about 8 to 10 hours.
Walnut, Cinnamon and Halloumi Baklava
The texture of the crispy phyllo and the crunchy filling are perfect here with the warm halloumi. Most phyllo is sold frozen; defrost it slowly in the fridge, and handle with care. Serve the baklava warm if you can — so that the cheese remains soft — straight out of the oven with some ice cream and a drizzle of the syrup. It also works at room temperature, with a coffee, but once it has cooled don’t be tempted to reheat it in the oven.
Butternut Squash and Fondue Pie With Pickled Red Chiles
Cheese lovers unite: This pie is seriously, intensely cheesy. Raclette is a semihard cheese from the Swiss and French Alps that eats well when melted. If you can’t get your hands on some, replace it with equal amounts of Gruyère. The heat and acidity of the pickled chiles help cut through the richness, but a zingy green salad would also pair well here. You can serve this pie warm, but it tastes just as good at room temperature, so it's a perfect bake-ahead option.
Spring Onion and Cheese Potato Cake, Two Ways
This potato cake is a great recipe to build on when seeking to feed a hungry crowd resourcefully, pulling whatever cheese, vegetables or spices might need using up. Here, I’ve included two variations, one using frozen peas and thyme, and the other using jarred peppers and harissa. You can get as thrifty as you like by making use of what you have: frozen spinach instead of the peas, for example, or some shredded mozzarella to replace the Parmesan. The recipe is yours: Make what you want of it! Serve this potato cake warm with crème fraîche, a squeeze of lemon and a side salad, if you like.
Sweet and Spicy Ribs With Cilantro and Cucumber
These ribs are a treat to put together, since everything cooks in one pan until the sauce becomes a sticky glaze and the ribs turn soft and tender. Some roasted potatoes or a potato salad would do well here if you’re serving this as part of a larger spread. Not to be confused with mango chutney, hot mango pickle is a traditional jarred condiment made by preserving mangoes and a variety of hot spices. It’s used most commonly in South Asia, and provides the sour and spicy qualities that give these ribs that special oomph of flavor. You can find it in the international section of many supermarkets or in other specialty markets.
Potato Gratin With Swiss Chard and Sumac Onions
This is not your typical potato gratin: The Cheddar and brown-butter pine nuts make it rich but not overly so, as the sumac onions and lemon juice lift the gratin to vibrant heights. Sumac is a tart and astringent spice used heavily in Middle Eastern cooking, adding sharpness to food where needed. These onions are great thrown into pasta and salads, or served with roasted chicken. The gratin can stand as a veggie main with a zesty salad alongside, as an accompaniment to your protein of choice or as part of a larger spread. Get ahead by making the onions and preparing all your ingredients (except the potatoes) well in advance, so they’re ready to be assembled together before baking. Once the whole thing goes in the oven, you’ll have ample time to get any accompaniments ready. You can serve this warm, but it also sits well to be served at room temperature.
Pan-Seared Salmon With Celery, Olives and Capers
The salsa that I spoon over the salmon here is an explosion of contrasting flavors – sweet, salty and sharp – common in Sicilian cooking. I like serving this with sautéed greens and some bread.
Fish Pie With a Sourdough Crust
This British fish pie deviates from the traditional potato topping by using sourdough bread as a crust. The result leaves you with a happy balance of crispy bread bits on top and softer bits where the bread has absorbed some of the creamy sauce. You can easily make this pie your own by swapping out the sourdough for any other good-quality white loaf, using other cuts of fish or seafood, such as cod, trout or baby squid, and playing around with whatever herbs you might have on hand. The English mustard is quite a dominant flavor here, and cuts through the richness of the pie itself. If mustard isn’t your thing, feel free to reduce the amount to 2 tablespoons.
Skillet Berry and Brown Butter Toast Crumble
This is a great way to use up all the bits: a bag of frozen berries, those oats in the back of your pantry, some bread that may be past its prime. Feel free to reach for whatever frozen berries you might have on hand, and cinnamon, cardamom or any other sweet spice in place of the star anise. You could serve this with Greek yogurt instead of the cream or, if you’d like, some homemade or store-bought custard. Serve this as a brunch dish or as a late afternoon treat.
Neapolitan Easter Bread (Casatiello)
This recipe is steeped in Neapolitan tradition: It’s made the day after the big Easter feast, as a way to use up leftover cheese and meat. An Easter Monday picnic is also a custom, so the fact that all the goodies are already wrapped up in the bread makes it a very transportable option. The herby pesto and Gruyère, though, are my own nontraditional additions. This can be baked and presented in various ways, but the ring both looks great and has some nice symbolism — the circle of life and renewal associated with spring in general and Easter in particular. A very large (10-inch, or 24-centimeter) tube pan with a flat bottom is perfect, but you can improvise with a cake pan, creating a hole in the middle with an overturned bowl or ball of aluminum foil placed in the middle of the pan.
Meatball Toad-in-the-Hole
This version of the British classic has meatballs instead of the traditional sausages, but feel free to revert to the original if you like. It is served with a rich onion gravy that is made in the oven, just like the main dish. The secret to a perfect toad-in-the-hole, in which the batter gets airy and crisp on the surface but remains soft and bready on the bottom, is making sure your oil is smoking hot when you pour in the batter, so be sure to heat up the oil well and then work quickly when adding the batter. This is best eaten immediately out of the oven, as it starts to deflate as it sits.
Sweet Spiced Mushroom and Apricot Pilaf
This pilaf scores all the points for being both gluten-free and vegan (provided you use vegetable stock), and for being robust enough for no one to notice. Star anise and cinnamon make this a warming (and winning) combination for a festive Thanksgiving spread, complementing roast turkey and just about any dish that finds its way to your table. It also serves well as a stand-alone main, with some lightly cooked greens to go alongside. Feel free to swap out the fresh mushrooms for whatever foraged finds you can get your hands on, just make sure to break them up into large chunks, keeping intact their natural “meatiness.”
Fish Koftas in Tomato and Cardamom Sauce
On first inspection, this dish looks like herb-flecked meatballs in tomato sauce, but the sauce is spiced, tangy and aromatic, and the meatballs are, well, fish balls, made of a combination of mackerel and sardines. We use tinned sardines here, for ease, but you can obviously substitute with fresh sardines, scaled and boned. You'll also want to pay attention to the total weight or volume of the mackerel: Some types are larger than others. All work here, but you may not need to buy as many fillets. Serve with some couscous or rice and a spoonful of yogurt, if you like.
Feta-and-Herb Phyllo Tart
Kathy Tsaples, the author of the cookbook “Sweet Greek Life: My Shared Table,” inspired this savory tart. The quality of phyllo dough varies hugely from one brand to another. It’s particularly important here to get a good-quality phyllo as there is so much of it. This is a sort of quiche with a twist, with the phyllo both acting as a casing and adding the extra crispness you get from blind baking. It’s a meal in itself, served with a simple salad. If you don’t have a tart pan handy, use a 9-inch cake pan.
Grilled Tomatoes and Onions With Feta-Harissa Pine Nuts
This falls somewhere between a mezze salad, a sauce and a dip. It is rich and intense on its own but great as part of a meal with warm flatbreads, soft-boiled eggs and perhaps some labneh or thick yogurt on the side. Try to get your hands on the best-quality tomatoes you can find; the simplicity of this dish really lets the fresh vegetables sing. This is lovely eaten warm or at room temperature. It reheats quite well, its flavors intensifying as they sit overnight, and can be repurposed as a sauce spooned over grilled meats, couscous or pasta.
Black Grape, Blue Cheese and Thyme Flatbread
Black grapes, such as Concords, come into season in the fall. The combination of grapes, sweet spices and blue cheese is an unusual one, yet utterly delicious -- especially for the kind of person who loves ending a meal on a sweet and cheesy note. I serve this for brunch, or before dinner with drinks. For even more flavor and substance, add a scattering of arugula and prosciutto on top.
Turmeric Rice With Tomatoes
There are a few foolproof ways of cooking perfect, fluffy long-grain rice, and this is one of them. The pot is covered with a lid and a tea towel for a short time, then set aside to let the rice finish cooking in the steam that has built up. The finished dish is deliciously rich and lemony and would go perfectly with some grilled fish or chicken. The bright yellow of the turmeric and the red pop of the cherry tomatoes mean that it’s also a treat for the eyes.
Warm Fig and Chocolate Sponge Cake
This dessert is somewhere between a sponge cake and a clafoutis: light and airy, yet rich from the addition of dark chocolate and rum. Make sure you use really ripe, in-season figs, as they make all the difference here. The figs release their juices with the caramel, rum and orange to create a sauce that is perfect to scoop over the sponge cake when serving. For a more concentrated flavor, roast your figs separately before adding them to the caramel. A spoonful of crème fraîche is all you need here, but you could serve this with some vanilla ice cream, if you’re looking for a supertreat.
Potato Hot Cakes With Cheddar Cream and Salsa Verde
As comforting and substantial as these potato cakes are when served plain, they also support the theorem that most dishes are improved by the addition of a fried egg. The peppery cream and tangy salsa round out all the flavors and textures for a perfect weekend breakfast. Start with (1 1/4 cups/230 grams) leftover mashed potatoes should you happen to have some.
Chickpea and Herb Fatteh
Fatteh is a popular Middle Eastern dish made with stale bread and accompanied by a host of hearty ingredients. Serve it for brunch, with eggs, or as a vegetarian main course with cooked seasonal vegetables — simply be sure to plan ahead and soak the chickpeas the night before. You can cook the chickpeas and prepare all the toppings in advance, but you'll want to assemble the herb paste and toss everything together just before serving to ensure that it all stays green and vibrant, and that the fatteh is the right consistency.
Spiced Maqluba With Tomatoes and Tahini Sauce
Maqluba is a layered rice cake eaten throughout the Arab world. It’s a bit of a showcase dish, made for special occasions, traditionally layered with chicken and vegetables and unmolded after cooking. This vegan take has a savory top layer of caramelized tomatoes, like an upside-down cake. The crispy shallots, available at Thai or Asian food markets, add a welcome crunch but don’t worry if you don’t have them: The dish works well without.
Pastry Nests With Poached Pears and Feta and Saffron Cream
These pastry nests may look rather composed and restaurant-like, but don’t be put off. It’s just a case of making the various elements separately; a day in advance, if you like, in the case of the pears (which benefit from being soaked overnight in the syrup) and the kataifi pastry bases (which can be baked one day ahead; let them cool, then keep them in a sealed container at room temperature). That leaves just the cream to whip, the syrup to reduce and the assembly to do before serving. The joy of calling something a nest is that it does not need to look perfectly neat and intact. A stray strand of pastry here and there is absolutely fine. Kataifi pastry can be found in the freezer section at Middle Eastern supermarkets.
Rosemary, Olive Oil and Orange Cake
This is a very light cake, similar to a lemon drizzle but with a ton more flavor. The rosemary and orange add delicious floral notes. A fluted Bundt pan looks especially nice. Prepare the crystallized rosemary sprigs at least 6 to 8 hours (or the day before) before serving the cake, which will keep in a sealed container at room temperature for up to three days.