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Most pumpkin dishes involve scooping out the seeds, cutting off the skin, and chopping up the flesh before cooking.
Yotam Ottolenghi
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Yoghurt cuts sweetness and richness, tempers spice, and makes a dish sing.
Yotam Ottolenghi
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Going out for a meal, especially for young urbanites, is less about socialising over enjoyable food than about enjoying food as a way to socialise.
Yotam Ottolenghi
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Dinner parties are still highly popular, and I believe they always will be.
Yotam Ottolenghi
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If the British Isles had an official vegetable, it would have to be the potato.
Yotam Ottolenghi
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Conflict is very much a state of mind. If you're not in that state of mind, it doesn't bother you.
Yotam Ottolenghi
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As with lemon juice, the more sorrel you use, the more it has to be balanced with something sweet, starchy or creamy - it's a yin-yang approach to cooking that I find rather calming.
Yotam Ottolenghi
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Amaranth, the world's most nutritious grain, is available from health food stores.
Yotam Ottolenghi
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I love the way soft white cheese such as ricotta or the creamier mascarpone reflect the milieu in which an animal has been raised.
Yotam Ottolenghi
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When I cook a meal, I like to serve things one by one and keep them separate. I get that from my father - he's such a purist. Some people even put their desserts on the main plate. It's just wrong.
Yotam Ottolenghi
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Polenta is to northern Italy what bread is to Tuscany, what pasta is to Emilia-Romagna and what rice is to the Veneto: easy to make, hungry to absorb other flavours, and hugely versatile.
Yotam Ottolenghi
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You can really taste the difference between a shop-bought and a good homemade mayo.
Yotam Ottolenghi
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The difference between brown and white rice is that the former is not milled. With the outer bran and germ intact, the rice is therefore chewier and nuttier.
Yotam Ottolenghi
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How can something that's 95% water be so divisive? Alone among vegetables, the poor, innocent stick of celery elicits the most vicious attacks.
Yotam Ottolenghi
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If I must choose between healthy and tasty, I go for the second: having only one life to waste, it might as well be a pleasurable one.
Yotam Ottolenghi
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Brunch, for me, is an extended breakfast that should be enjoyed whenever you have time properly to engage in cooking and eating.
Yotam Ottolenghi
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A lemon, boiled whole and blitzed, makes a useful base for all sorts of dressings.
Yotam Ottolenghi
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Fresh egg pasta is traditionally served in the north of Italy with butter, cream and rich meat sauces, whereas dried pasta is more at home with the tomato- and olive oil-based ones of the south.
Yotam Ottolenghi
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The smells of slow cooking spread around the house and impart a unique warmth matched only by the flavour of the food.
Yotam Ottolenghi
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When I was a kid, there was always food to be had on the street in Jerusalem, but anything above a falafel stand was mediocre or worse.
Yotam Ottolenghi
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I have been cooking with preserved lemon for years, using it left, right and centre, but I am still far from reaching my limit.
Yotam Ottolenghi
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A well-made salad must have a certain uniformity; it should make perfect sense for those ingredients to share a bowl.
Yotam Ottolenghi
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Small okra pods have a much more attractive texture than large ones, which, when cooked, can be gloopy, stringy and totally spoil a dish.
Yotam Ottolenghi
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I'm a firm believer that the world should be your oyster when you're cooking. People should open themselves to other cuisines - there are a lot of hidden secrets all over the world.
Yotam Ottolenghi
