Yotam Ottolenghi Quotes
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New-season lamb shoulder, cooked pink, is the perfect platform for a mixture of fresh and cooked herbs.
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On many occasions, an informal buffet and casual seating offer a little more intimacy than a loud gathering around a big table.
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Stuffed vine leaves tend to burn and/or stick when you cook them. To avoid this, use a heavy based pan lined with a few layers of second-rate leaves.
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Halva works brilliantly in ice-cream.
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Date syrup is a natural sweetener that has wonderful richness and treacly depth; I drizzle it over semolina porridge.
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When it comes to cooking pasta, the first essential is to make sure you have a big enough pot: it needs room to roll in the water while cooking.
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Many people struggle to make hummus that lives up to their expectations at home, and recreating a favourite brand or the stuff from your local deli is almost impossible.
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If the first bite is with the eye and the second with the nose, some people will never take that third, actual bite if the food in question smells too fishy, fermented or cheesy.
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Buttermilk's palate-cleansing tartness is one reason it's used a lot in southern India, where meals often end with a small bowl of the stuff served with plain rice and pickles.
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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.
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For me, the end of childhood came when the number of candles on my birthday cake no longer reflected my age, around 19 or 20. From then on, each candle came to represent an entire decade.
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The moment to tell my barber I was gay just never came up.
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I enjoy meat, but I can do without it.
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Turkish cuisine is, to my mind, one of the most exciting and accomplished in the world.
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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.
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Many ingredients are called 'earthy,' but none comes as close to fitting the bill as buckwheat. I'm mildly obsessed with the stuff.
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I used to have a very unmediated experience of food but, because of the recipe testing, I've lost that now. I can't switch it off even when I'm on holiday.
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It's hard to beat the rough texture of steel-cut oats, with their slight resistance against the teeth.
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Barberries, or zereshk, are tiny dried red fruit with a tremendously sharp flavour. They come from Iran, where they're used to add freshness to rice and chicken dishes.
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If the British Isles had an official vegetable, it would have to be the potato.
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Take your average couscous salad, and it's almost always a sloppy mush, no matter how much attention has gone into getting flavours in there.
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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.
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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.
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I now understand how varied the world of cultivated rice is; that rice can play the lead or be a sidekick; that brown rice is as valuable as white; and that short-grain rice is the bee's knees.