Stealing from Ottolenghi

Family, friends, and guests have all noticed recently that the dishes from our soul food kitchen seem to have more “pop,” appear more visually compelling. How? Borrowing a famous line from The Sting: It’s easy. I cheat.

For the last month or so, I’ve been mimicking the work of Israeli-British chef Yotam Ottolenghi, particularly with an eye towards his eye, which is remarkable. It’s been an interesting journey, on many levels.

Let’s put aside, at least for the moment, the extent to which Ottolenghi himself is borrowing liberally from the world around him. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then sycophancy had to have literally been born in the kitchen. Plagiarists, all of us. But I digress.

My stealing started innocently enough. I received a request from a corporate client based in Dublin for a specific three-course holiday meal for its staff based in Israel. It was the starter that caught my eye: a very specific dish of roasted butternut squash and caramelised tomatoes layered with roasted pumpkin seeds and a lime/yogurt dressing. It had the earmarks of Ottolenghi all over it. I googled the recipe and found a close approximation. I’ve made it a half dozen times since. It’s stunning.

So then I go to the source, Ottolenghi himself, and begin to replicate his various dishes. Like any chef as prolific as he is, some of the dishes are okay, a few are, let’s be kind, tough to swallow, and a few, a very few rise to the level of the first dish of his I made.

However. And this is a big however. Ottolenghi’s attention to visuals is remarkable. Worth stealing. Which I did. Which I now do. HIs attention to layering tastes is also worth paying close attention to, although you have to be a bit more careful here, because his focus on bold tastes can cause various elements to clash rather than complement. Here, I’m learning to borrow more selectively rather than steal outright. And then finally there is his emphasis on having on hand what he calls “flavor bombs” such as lemon paste and sumac pickled red onions, and fresh pickled chilis. These I copy closely, although to be fair, this is nothing different than what most top chefs do: Having on hand a variety of finishing touches that visually and sensually take a dish to another level. My refrigerator is overflowing with these flourishes, nothing new here. I will say, however, that Ottolenghi has reintroduced me to the role of toasted nuts as part of our finishing touches.

Being inspired by, adapting, updating, borrowing liberally from, riffing on: The list goes on and on of words in the English language that skirt the issue among cooks: We steal. Simple as that.