The penny drops. By which, I mostly mean my credit card. Because not all outsourced sauces are created equal. A 170g jar of Ottolenghi-branded Pomegranate, Rose and Preserved Lemon Harissa will, for example, set you back approximately $25.
“I recommend using them,” he says (honestly, it would be weird if he didn’t). “But I don’t recommend just using them. I recommend using any pantry ingredient.”
Ottolenghi’s last bestselling book was called Comfort. The live tour that lands in Auckland on February 21 next year – An Evening With Yotam Ottolenghi – is about making cooks comfortable.
That shift from noun to adjective says as much about the state of the world as it does our kitchens.
“I want to show that you can create great food with all the layers of flavour and complexity of a delicious meal with little effort – and little anxiety,” Ottolenghi says.
“I think the anxiety has to do with other anxieties that we have these days. It’s kind of a big-picture observation, but I think we’re not comfortable with many things that should be instinctive. Relationships and friendships, for example. How do I do this and how do I do that? We’re constantly surrounded by mixed messages.
“And we’re also surrounded by mixed messages around food. We’re constantly being told how we should or shouldn’t be eating. Am I hungry, am I not hungry? Should I be eating this? Is it good for me or is it not good for me?”
No wonder, says the chef, cooking makes some people anxious.
Persevere, he says. Or at least let him teach you how to roast a chicken. Because: “It’s a very powerful thing to be able to provide a meal for people and get them to enjoy what you have to offer. At its most basic, food is a life force. If you master it beyond the basics, then you really give people a special experience.”
Israel-born and London-based Ottolenghi has six delis and three restaurants. His name has become a byword for vibrant, vegetable-forward cooking that champions Middle Eastern and Mediterranean flavours.
He has been credited with single-handedly introducing sumac, za’atar and barberry to the middle-class culinary masses. Hyperbole? If you’ve ever left a dinner party wondering how to get pomegranate molasses out of a white frock, you’ve almost certainly experienced the “Ottolenghi effect”.
(Earlier this year, Auckland author Rachel Paris released her debut crime thriller. In one scene, when she needed to describe a very particular socioeconomic subset, she had them show up with the culinary equivalent of a leafy suburb – “Ottolenghi chicken marbella”).
When I tell Ottolenghi this, he looks vaguely alarmed. “Did she do something terrible with it?”
In fact, the chef has a very big soft spot for all things Aotearoan. On his most recent flying visit, he caught up with good friend (and fellow chef) Peter Gordon and his boyfriend, Al. They walked on Piha Beach and had coffee and cake. Ottolenghi recalls an excellent flounder with almonds and citrus at Britomart restaurant Kingi – and says he left the country just in the nick of time.
It was Auckland Anniversary weekend, 2023.
“It rained like hell. As soon as I took off, the airport was flooded. I managed to escape with five minutes to spare, to get back to Melbourne and do the rest of my tour.”
The latest tour will, he promises, be “quite interactive” – he’ll receive audience questions in advance and answer them on-stage while demonstrating simple recipes that will be the building blocks of more elaborate meals.
For example: “Vinaigrette is a simple thing to do. You can master it quite easily and it’s just one of the most useful things to know because it’s not just good for salads, it’s also good for roast vegetables.”
He imagines a cabbage (roasted, not boiled), “you douse it with vinaigrette … all of a sudden it lifts it. It’s roast cabbage with this pine nut vinaigrette. Or a quick, fresh chilli sauce – a food processor, some chillies and some olive oil … ”
Hmmm.
Not to be dramatic, but the last time I made an Ottolenghi sauce, I used the wrong chillies and almost required an ambulance when the unexpectedly volatile oils hit my windpipe.
“Chillies vary so much,” cautions the expert. “I always take a tiny bit, rub it on my finger and put my finger in my mouth – that gives me a good indication of how spicy that chilli is.”
It was October when we spoke. Christmas party season was looming, inboxes were stuffed with invitations and, across the land, women of a certain age were wondering what to take to their end-of-year book club pot luck.
“Very, very few things look great after having sat there for an hour or two,” said Ottolenghi.
“For any kind of social gathering where you bring a dish, if you want to impress, then the most important thing is to not bring something that sits in the bowl. You need to control the presentation at the end of the process.”
Pack sauces and garnishes and the main event in three separate containers, he instructs. Toss, titivate and take the applause.
“Whether it’s noodles or roasted vegetables or a nice salad … People really are affected by how things look, by how fresh things look.”
And if that sauce-dressing-sprinkle of spice comes from a jar?
“Anything that gets you into the kitchen is all good. If there are really good pantry ingredients that take you from point A to point B, you don’t need to stress … life is too short and there’s too much noise. We live in the 21st century. There are a lot of other things keeping us busy.”
An evening with Yotom Ottolenghi: February 21, Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre, Auckland.
