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.
The key message here is: Browning vegetables intensifies their natural flavors.
This technique is especially effective when preparing root vegetables. Take celeriac, for example. This bumpy knob of a vegetable has confounded many home cooks, who often avoid it because they don’t know what to do with it. One of the best ways to cook it is also the simplest: just roast it whole. First, poke holes all over it with a fork. Then, coat it in a marinade of olive oil and salt. Finally, bake it at around 170 degrees Celcius – 338 degrees Fahrenheit – for about 2 1/2 hours. Browning brings out celeriac’s natural starchy sweetness, creating a rich caramel that oozes out of it. It's delicious to eat as is, with a squeeze of lemon juice or dollop of crème fraîche on top.
You could also cut the roasted celeriac into rounds and put the “steaks” back in the oven to become deliciously crispy. Served with a rich and indulgent Café de Paris sauce of browned butter, anchovies, garlic, and shallots, this makes for a decadent dish.
Rutabagas also make for delicious steaks when they’re roasted in the oven. Just chop your rutabaga up into large round pieces, and then coat these in a marinade of crushed-up fenugreek seeds, garlic cloves, cayenne pepper, turmeric, sugar, lime juice, and olive oil. Roast the “steaks” on a foil-covered tray for 80 minutes, then remove the foil and grill them for around 4 minutes. The marinade will turn into a savory crust, infusing the rutabaga with Indian curry flavors. This dish is best accompanied by a fresh grapefruit, mint, and cilantro salad.
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.
The key message here is: Infusing herbs and garlic into liquids creates bold flavors.
If you want to try infusion out for yourself, an easy infused olive oil is a great place to start. To make the oil, place 200 ml olive oil in a saucepan along with ten garlic cloves, as well a handful each of rosemary and thyme and a sprinkling of green chili. Simmer the oil on medium heat for around half an hour, then cover the pot, remove it from the stove, and allow it to rest for ten minutes. Then strain the garlic and herbs from the oil. For a different spin, you could try adding other aromatics instead – things like curry leaves, ginger, lemon rind, or coriander. Infused oil is delicious drizzled over a white bean mash or as a dressing for hummus.
Soups can also be elevated with the addition of infused oils, which add a contrasting flavor and complexity to the dish. Take the example of Ottolenghi's cool avocado soup. The soup is made by combining the flesh of two avocados with 2/3 cup frozen peas, lemon zest, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and 400 ml of water. Blend these to create a smooth, silky texture, and then chill the mixture in the fridge. The subtle flavors of the soup are the perfect backdrop for a splash of garlic-infused oil, a dollop of sour cream, and fresh cucumber salsa.
Even the most ordinary dishes can be given a special twist by infusing flavors where we don't expect them. Take Ottolenghi's recipe for fries with mayonnaise, for example. By infusing the mayonnaise with cardamom pods and curry leaves, he updates our beloved staple with a tangy new taste.
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.
This results in intense, concentrated flavors – the reason these products are still beloved today.
The key message here is: Aged ingredients are flavor bombs, so a little goes a long way.
It’s impossible to talk about aged ingredients without talking about cheese, which is vital to creating flavorsome dishes in the Italian tradition, among many others. Ottolenghi uses a combination of parmesan and pecorino hard cheeses to add richness to a simple spaghetti sauce. He also adds parmesan rinds to infuse a spring vegetable broth with flavor.
Aged, fermented ingredients are central to many of the cuisines of Southeast Asia, where soy sauce and miso paste play a starring role along with rice wine and gochujang, a fermented Korean chili paste. Incorporating just a few of these ingredients can bring interesting new flavors to a meal. Ottolenghi's festive sprout, chestnut, and grape dish is a good example.
To make it, start by creating a marinade from 75 ml Shaoxing rice wine, 100 ml olive oil, a tablespoon of maple syrup, and 2 tablespoons of soy sauce. Pour the marinade over 12 shallots, five garlic cloves, and a cup of peeled chestnuts, then roast the lot in a baking tray tightly covered in foil. After 35 minutes, stir in 180 grams of red grapes, then cook for another 10 minutes. Separately, roast a tray of brussel sprouts in some oil and salt. When they're done, add them to the grape mixture and then let the whole thing sit for around an hour. The marinade and juice from the grapes combine to create a delicious sweet and sour dressing with rich umami notes from the soy sauce.
These fermented and aged ingredients truly are flavor bombs, adding complex savory notes to your meal. But remember: with such powerful ingredients, a little goes a long way. And as we'll discuss in the next blink, these flavors always need to be kept in balance.
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.
The key message here is: Sweetness should be balanced with contrasting flavors.
Sweetness can be nuanced and subtle, and we sense it partly in our taste buds and partly through our noses. Think of the fragrance of a plump, ripe peach, for example, and how much it adds to your appreciation of the flavor. However we sense it, though, the best way to make sweetness shine is by balancing it out. Layering sweet elements with salty, bitter, or acidic tastes creates a satisfying complexity; it also helps all elements of the flavor to shine.
For example, Ottolenghi balances the sweetness of baked sweet potato with a tart, fresh tomato, lime, and cardamom sauce. And in another recipe he combines maple syrup with a satisfyingly salty white miso paste to flavor a butternut squash. These combinations make the sweetness all the more distinct and enjoyable.
Even desserts need thoughtful pairings to balance out sweetness. Using fruit is a great way to introduce vibrant, acidic notes to a dessert. Unexpected smoky, spicy, or bitter tastes also create a welcome contrast. For example, Ottolenghi balances a sweet and creamy Mexican flan with a tart tangerine syrup. He also infuses the custard with an ancho chili, creating a surprising hot element in the dish. Adding bitter tastes is also a great way to add a new level of flavor in a dessert. In one dessert, Ottolenghi uses the bitter notes of coffee beans to offset a sugary syrup. Fruit-based desserts like his poached apricots with amaretti, or crepes with roasted bananas and rum-soaked Barbados cream, show how a bitter, boozy note can make sweet, fruity flavors all the more delectable.
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.
The key message here is: Fat is an essential element of flavor, but it needs to be balanced by acidity.
Yogurt is unique in having its own natural acidity. Although some varieties are very creamy, this acidity makes them feel light instead of cloying. That’s why yogurt is often used for pasta sauces in the Middle East.
Ottolenghi's pasta with roasted pumpkin is a great introduction to yogurt-based sauces. First, peel a butternut squash and cut it up into small cubes. Roast it in the oven along with a sliced onion. Meanwhile, make a simple sauce by blending a tomato with three chilies, some oil, and vinegar. Lastly, prepare the yogurt sauce; combine a splash of garlic-infused oil with a heaping teaspoon of cumin, two egg yolks, 1 1/2 teaspoons of cornflour, 500 ml of Greek yogurt, and a sprinkling of salt. Next, blend the mixture and then transfer it to a pan to simmer for 15 minutes. Make sure to keep stirring until it thickens. When the sauce is ready, add the cooked pasta and 200 ml of pasta water. Top with the roasted pumpkin and garnish with garlic flakes, the chili sauce, and a sprinkle of parsley. It’s a deliciously light version of an Italian classic.
Of course, creaminess can be found in non-dairy sources, too. Just think of the flesh of a perfectly soft avocado. Or the delicious oiliness of a jar of peanut butter. Nuts are a vital source of fat and can add a tasty element to sauces. For example, Ottolenghi uses tahini, which is made from blended sesame seeds, in a wide range of dishes. It’s also a rich and satisfying dressing for vegetables. Coconut milk, too, is a fantastic addition to curries and stews, and can replace dairy in desserts.
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.
Acidity does some heavy culinary lifting – and not just by adding zing; it’s also used for pickling. When it comes to taste, acid flavors vary widely. For example, think of how different a grapefruit tastes from a lime, and how unique the notes of apple cider vinegar are compared to a vinegar made with white wine.
Test Kitchen chef Noor Murad's black lime and tofu dish illustrates these different uses. First, a mixture of vinegar, sugar, and salt is poured over raw red onion to soften it and make a quick red onion pickle. Then, two or three dried black limes are ground up in the blender. The lime paste is mixed with tomato paste, cumin, minced onions, and garlic to make a sauce, and this mixture is simmered with water, sugar, and salt until it thickens. The resulting black lime sauce is both sour and sweet, a richly aromatic accompaniment to crispy tofu and wilted spinach. The dish is garnished with the pickled onion, which contributes a sharp, fresh acidity.
While acidity makes flavors pop by adding a sour or tart taste, chilies enhance flavor by bringing heat to the mix. They’re also great for cutting through creaminess.
Chilies are such an important element of flavor that almost every cuisine has their own favorite hot sauce – from African piri piri to Mexican smoked chili paste to Middle Eastern zhoug. Chilies can set your mouth aflame or just add a pleasing warmth to an ordinary tomato sauce. They can be charred or eaten raw, pickled or used to infuse a dressing
In the Ottolenghi kitchen, chili heat is a key component in creating flavorsome dishes. Cauliflower is roasted in a creamy chili butter. Pickled chilies are used to pep up a ricotta tagliatelle. And Aleppo chili flakes have a star role in a hard-to-resist Thai nam jim sauce for udon noodles and tofu. The sauce is made by combining chilies with blood orange juice, tamarind paste, fish sauce, maple syrup, coriander, and shallots. The result is sweet and sour, as well as spicy and salty – it hits all the right notes.
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.
When it comes to making delicious plant-based food, selecting quality produce is just the first step; you also have to understand how to work with the specific flavor profiles of each vegetable.
The key message here is: Vegetables are innately flavorful, especially when grown naturally.
If you grew up eating heavily boiled vegetables, you could be forgiven for thinking that they're inherently tasteless. But that's not true. Some vegetables, like mushrooms, for example, are full of rich flavors even before they hit the pan.
Mushrooms soak up the flavors of the soil and the trees they grow under. A mushroom growing under a chestnut tree will taste different than a mushroom that grows under a pine. They have intensely savory umami notes that make them a perfect ingredient in traditionally meaty dishes, like congee, lasagne, or tacos. Mushrooms can also add depth to sauces like homemade ketchup.
Onions and garlic are also unbeatable flavor-makers. They come from the allium vegetable family and feature prominently in cooking all over the world. In most of the recipes we've discussed so far, they've played a supporting role. But onions and garlic are endowed with enough natural flavor to be the stars of the show. In the Ottolenghi kitchen, caramelized garlic is featured as a main ingredient in a tart. In another recipe, onions are grilled in a delicious miso butter, where the saltiness acts as a foil to the natural sweetness of the onion.
These are just some examples of how you can work with good produce to amplify natural flavors. Whenever you pick up a vegetable, take a moment to think about how you want to prepare it. Which cooking method will coax the richest flavors from the vegetable? And how can you layer different tastes like sweetness, acid, fat, and chili to create interesting flavor combinations?
You’re now armed with a flavor-making tool kit you can use to create delicious meals. But perhaps the most important thing you can pick up from Ottolenghi is a sense of adventure. Don’t be afraid to experiment in your own test kitchen!
Final summary
The key message in these blinks:
The natural flavors of vegetables can be enhanced by embracing cooking techniques like charring, browning, infusing, and aging. The best flavors are complex and layered, created by carefully balancing sweetness, acidity, fat, and chili heat. But a dish is only as good as its ingredients. Cooking with high-quality produce is key.
Actionable advice:
Short on time to prepare for a dinner party? Just fry an onion.
We've all been there. Hungry guests are milling around waiting to be served a feast that's still in the earliest stages of preparation. In order to calm the crowd and whet everyone’s appetites, just fry an onion! The aromas wafting from the pan will make everyone excited for the delicious meal to come – and give the impression that preparations are well underway.
Got feedback?
We’d love to hear what you think about our content! Just drop an email to remember@blinkist.com with Ottolenghi Flavor as the subject line and share your thoughts!
What to read next: The Kitchen Counter Cooking School, by Kathleen Flinn
Now that you know the fundamentals of flavor, chances are you’re ready for a practical guide to mastering the art of good home cooking. In the blinks to The Kitchen Counter Cooking School, you’ll pick up essential kitchen skills – like how to wield a knife – as you learn how to cook a whole chicken, master a simple pasta sauce, and bake your own bread.
Along the way, you’ll add some classic dishes to your repertoire, develop your palate, and hone the art of combining flavors. If you’re ready to take the next steps to home-cooking mastery, then the blinks to The Kitchen Counter Cooking School are just the thing for you.