The O-Factor

Learning of Ottolenghi has been a revelation to me - my personal equivalent to Man discovering the wheel. It has opened my mind to a whole new way of thinking. I have had a glimpse of what Einstein might have felt when he realised his quantum theory on light. The world cannot be the same again. Food cannot be the same again. The scientist in me is revelling in the wonderous experimentation that I have been inspired and moved to conduct in my kitchen.

Ok, for those of you who don't know what on Earth I am talking about, Ottolenghi is a 'food shop, patisserie, deli, restaurant, bakery' that serves some of the tastiest and most interesting food that I have ever eaten. Ottolenghi also happens to be the surname of one of the founding chefs, Yotam Ottolenghi, along with Sami Tamimi. Together, they have created a unique style of vibrant and exciting cooking, which you can sample at one of their branches in London. Even better, you can attempt to recreate them in your own home! That's right, they have revealed their secrets and knowledge for the world to enjoy. It's sort of like the internet - this is something that simply has to be shared.

I've just received my copy of their recently published second cookbook, Plenty, which is why I have gone off on this much-deserved glorification. Their first cookbook, Ottolenghi: The Cookbook, filled me with self-doubt and apprehension due to their use of rather unusual and exotic ingredients, such as salsify roots and labneh. Would I really be able to actually cook anything in there? Was it doomed to become a token cookbook on my kitchen windowsill?

Well, I rose to challenge and spent an entire day sourcing the ingredients and baking their delicious Jerusalem artichoke and Swiss chard tart. It's probably not as good as the one that they make but I was more than pleased with my one. The pastry crust was sublime - buttery and crumbly, it melts away in your mouth flake by flake. It takes an astonishing 5 hours to make it if you religiously follow their recipe but it's entirely worth the effort. Good food is always worth the effort.

Since then, I want to cook nothing but Ottolenghi food. Everything else seems two-dimensional in comparison. Now, I find myself trying to add that O-factor to every dish that I make (I refer you to my previous post in which I describe adding toasted almond flakes to my Spanish chicken). I want my food to have layers of complexity and depth. Roast chicken with saffron, hazelnuts and honey was beautifully sweet and smelt like a Persian Princess. French beans and mangetout with hazelnut and orange disappeared within minutes. It still boggles my mind to think of how they came up with such a creative dish. Couscous with dried apricots and butternut squash was deliciously moist and flavourful, sure to change the mind of any couscous cynic.

Their new cookbook is full of equally exciting recipes, although they all appear to be vegetarian. One flick through and I've seen countless dishes that I have to try - lemon and aubergine risotto, mango and coconut rice salad, lemon and goat's cheese ravioli, saffron tagliatelle with spiced butter...These guys are geniuses with serious talent.

Of course, this won't stop me from visiting one of their branches. Nothing is quite as good as the Real Thing. The other day, I thought I'd died and gone to Heaven when I tasted their Lemon and Pistachio Polenta Cake. I'm nuts for anything lemon-flavoured as it is but the combination with the pistachios rendered me helpless. It was truly memorable.

As they put it so perfectly:

"Our feast is, literally, a feast of bold colors and generous gestures. It is driven by an unapologetic desire to celebrate food and its virtues, to display abundance in the same way that a market stallholder does: show everything you've got and shout its praise whole heartedly."