Ottolenghi Flavor Book Summary - Ottolenghi Flavor Book explained in key points

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Ottolenghi Flavor summary

Name: Ottolenghi Flavor
Rating: 4.1 (21 reviews)
Author: Yotam Ottolenghi and Ixta Belfrage

Yotam Ottolenghi and Ixta Belfrage

A Cookbook

4.1 (21 ratings)

25 mins

Topics

Cook Books Healthy Living Diets

Table of Contents

Ottolenghi Flavor
Summary of 8 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 8

What’s in it for me? Broaden your palate, and become an expert at cooking vegetables.

When cooking vegetables, do you always use the same kinds of seasonings? Do you avoid your spice rack and rely on artificial flavor packets instead? If so, you’re probably stuck in a flavor rut.

Never fear, though! Chef Yotam Ottolenghi is renowned for his rich, bold flavors and innovative ways of featuring vegetables. Together with chef Ixta Belfrage, he’s created a tool kit for plant-based cooking.

In the blinks that follow, you’ll learn how to experiment with different flavors and balance acid, fat, sweetness, and chili in your dishes. You’ll also discover how to select the best produce and cook it expertly, getting the richest flavors out of your ingredients – no flavor packets necessary.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

how cooking a potato on a bonfire shaped Ottolenghi’s career as a chef;
how to balance sweet and bitter tastes in your desserts; and
why flavor is created as much by your nose as your taste buds.

Charring vegetables creates rich, smoky flavors.

Yotam Ottolenghi's earliest memory of cooking over a flame is from when he was a young boy, eating a potato cooked in a bonfire to celebrate a Jewish holiday. It didn't look like much, but when he peeled the skin and started eating the soft, creamy flesh, he was in heaven. The potato tasted both sweet and smoky.

The secret? Charring, the application of intense heat to an ingredient. When Ottolenghi became a chef years later, this memory inspired him to start charring vegetables. When a simple charred broccoli salad with chili and garlic became so popular that his customers wouldn’t allow him to take it off the menu, he knew he was onto something.

The key message here is: Charring vegetables creates rich, smoky flavors.

The intense heat used in charring intensifies the flavor of anything it’s applied to, and the outer layer actually burns. This releases smoke, which adds another layer of flavor. Pretty much any vegetable can be charred, but some need additional cooking. For example, broccoli and cauliflower should be boiled briefly before hitting the grill pan. Harder vegetables like pumpkin or beets should be put in the oven to finish cooking after being grilled. Vegetables that could be eaten raw, like a strip of zucchini or a tomato, don't need any other cooking.

Are you excited to start cooking with this technique? Try making Ottolenghi’s grilled peach and runner bean salad. To start, you simply grill the beans in a pan on high heat for a couple of minutes. That’s where the charring happens. They’ll burn slightly and be left with grill marks on each side. Transfer the beans to a covered bowl for a few minutes to soften. Next, cover your peach slices in oil and grill for a minute on each side. Then mix the peaches and beans together, and dress them with lemon juice, a pinch of salt, and some cracked pepper. Finish off the salad with chunks of creamy goat cheese, some mint leaves, a sprinkling of roasted almonds, and a drizzle of honey. The sweetness and smoky charred flavors combine to create a delicious, deceptively simple dish.

Charring is also an excellent method for adding depth to sauces and dressings. For example, try charring a couple of mild chilies in the pan and then blending them with some tomatoes, vinegar, and salt. The result is a fresh salsa with a rich, smoky flavor that gives an instant pop to vegetable dishes.

Browning vegetables intensifies their natural flavors.

Imagine sitting down to eat a head of raw cauliflower. Not a very appealing thought, is it? At most, you might be able to dutifully munch through a couple of florets. But what if that same head of cauliflower were soaked in some good olive oil and slow-roasted in the oven? Chances are, you’d find that you couldn’t stop eating it.

The deliciousness of that cauliflower is a testament to the power of browning, another key cooking method. Browning is what makes everything from a good piece of toast to a perfectly roasted bean so delicious. You can use an oven or a grill pan to brown ingredients; the important thing is to heat them to temperatures above the boiling point. Whereas with charring you’re intending to actually burn ingredients slightly, browning should give them a golden hue.

Infusing herbs and garlic into liquids creates bold flavors.

Do you enjoy a good cup of tea in the morning? Then you’re already an expert at practicing our next cooking method: infusion. When a tea bag is placed in its mug, the water becomes infused with the flavor of the tea leaves.

Any liquid can be infused with flavor in this way. It's a remarkably effective and affordable method for introducing complex flavors into your dishes. For example, oils can be infused with all kinds of herbs; ice creams can be infused with vanilla pods or fruit flavors; and broths can be infused with citrus rinds or garlic.

Aged ingredients are flavor bombs, so a little goes a long way.

These days, we're used to the luxury of being able to stuff things into the fridge, confident that they’ll be safely preserved for days or even weeks. But before modern refrigeration systems were invented, preserving food was a continual struggle.

To make ingredients last longer, they were often “cured” by being fermented, pickled, or wrapped in salt. That's where such wonders as wine, cheese, and miso come from. Unlike the other methods we've discussed, aging enhances flavor without needing any cooking at all. Instead, over time, aged foods are transformed from within.

Sweetness should be balanced with contrasting flavors.

Think about your favorite sandwich. Is it peanut butter and jelly? Cheese with mayonnaise, or with mustard and pickles? The fact is, an almost infinite amount of different flavor combinations are possible between two slices of bread. But not all combinations are created equal.

The best sandwiches, like all flavorful dishes, are created by carefully pairing different tastes. We need to learn how to balance key elements like sweetness, fat, acid, and chili heat in our dishes. Sweetness, for one, is key to flavoring both savory dishes and desserts. Sweetness is found naturally in many ingredients, such as fruit, honey, vanilla, and star anise. It tastes different in each ingredient, and it rarely tastes better than when other kinds of flavor balance it out.

Fat is an essential element of flavor, but it needs to be balanced by acidity.

If there’s one food group that gets a bad rap, it’s fat. But without fat, we wouldn't have some of our tastiest cooking methods. Think of delicious crispy fritters deep-fried in sunflower oil, or of a roasted potato basted in butter.

There’s also fat in dairy products like yogurt, cream, and cheese, which are a vital element of any number of decadent dishes. Just think of the intense pleasure of crumbly feta combined with olives and tomatoes in a Greek salad, or the creamy goodness of a mozzarella in a Caprese salad. But just like sweetness, fat also needs balance. The cheeses in these salads are so delicious because their creaminess sharply contrasts with the acidity of the tomatoes and vinegar.

Acidity and chili heat pack a punch in the kitchen.

Think of the joy of eating a delicious Thai meal. A lot of elements go into making the food unique, but two of the most important are – without a doubt – lime juice and chili. These contribute the elements of acidity and chili heat, respectively, which are both vital elements in creating bold, delicious flavors in Thai cuisine and beyond.

The key message here is: Acidity and chili heat pack a punch in the kitchen.

Vegetables are innately flavorful, especially when grown naturally.

Imagine a farm stall bursting with fresh vegetables like plump red tomatoes, gleaming eggplants, and crunchy cucumbers. It’s a pretty image, certainly. But it’s more than that, too – the most important element of any meal is the produce itself.

The quality of the vegetables you cook with can make or break your meals. A vine-ripened tomato bought straight from the farm is vastly more flavorful than a hothouse tomato flushed red under artificial lights. Sure, the mediocre tomato might be redeemed by a well-flavored sauce. But in a simple dish like a salad, there’s no place to hide.

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What is Ottolenghi Flavor about?

Ottolenghi Flavor (2020) shows home cooks how to create big flavors. It offers guidance about which cooking methods get the best results in a plant-based kitchen; gives advice for pairing different ingredients and selecting the best produce; and provides inspiration for creating exciting and flavorful meals.

Best quote from Ottolenghi Flavor

If all cooking is about transformation – about a certain kind of alchemy – then the process of aging has something particularly magic about it.

—Yotam Ottolenghi and Ixta Belfrage

Who should read Ottolenghi Flavor?

Home cooks who are stuck in a flavor rut
Newly converted vegetable-lovers looking for a guide to plant-based meals
Quarantine kitchen pros hosting fabulous dinner parties on Zoom

About the Author

Yotam Ottolenghi is an Israeli-born chef, food writer, and restaurant owner. His best-selling cookbooks Simple, Plenty, and Plenty More have received widespread acclaim for revolutionizing plant-based cooking.

Ixta Belfrage started her formal culinary training at Ottolenghi’s NOPI restaurant. She subsequently became a chef, perfecting recipes at Ottolenghi’s office-cum-food laboratory, the Test Kitchen. She’s also a contributing food writer for publications like the Guardian and the New York Times.

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