Celebrate the Jewish New Year with vibrant new flavors in recipes from chef and best-selling cookbook author Yotam Ottolenghi
by Esther Sung for epicurious.com
Traditional
High Holy Days dishes such as brisket, tzimmes, and kugel may
rightfully have their place at the Rosh Hashanah table, but if you're
adventurous and looking to serve something different, what better time
to do so than at a celebration of the start of a new year? We turned to
London chef and cookbook author Yotam Ottolenghi for Rosh Hashanah
inspiration, with a menu featuring recipes from all three of his
cookbooks, Ottolenghi, Plenty, and Jerusalem. Ottolenghi's refreshing
and unpretentious approach to Middle Eastern cuisine suggests new ways
of cooking symbolic and traditional foods and ingredients: You'll find
honey, apples, fish, and pomegranates all in play. Add a myriad of
spices, herbs, and other Middle Eastern staples—couscous, harissa,
eggplant, dried rose petals—and what you get is an intensely aromatic
and flavorful meal with which to begin your new year.Growing up in Israel, Ottolenghi notes, "[my family] didn't really celebrate Rosh Hashanah at home, although I was aware of the food traditions associated with this holiday. Apples dipped in honey is all I can remember."
Continue reading.
For more great Jewish cooking ideas, check out our
page.
Like
many Ashkenazic Jews, I grew up believing that my mother made the best
brisket in the world. Fragrant, savory, and unbelievably tender, it was
the stuff of holidays, of memories--of sneaking back to the fridge at
midnight, long after the guests had gone home. When I decided to become a
vegetarian at age 17, I did so with the acute and sorrowful
understanding that I was saying goodbye to one of my favorite dishes.
The
classic Italian Jewish Friday night rice dish is a simple
saffron--flavored rice that recalls the classic risotto alla milanese.
Some cooks make it in the manner of a risotto, adding broth in
increments. Others prepare it as a pilaf, adding all the liquid at once
and cooking it, covered, on top of the stove.
For
almost three thousand years there has been a Jewish presence in the
region of the world now associated with Turkey. At one time the Ottoman
Empire encompassed lands from the Persian Guld in the east to Hungary,
Bulgaria, and Greece in the northwest, and from Egypt and palestine in
the south to the Caucasus mountains in the north, with Istanbul
designated its capital. I first tasted this wonderful combination of
flavors on the island of Santorini in the Adriatic Sea. As bright as the
iconic sun-drenched, white stucco walls and blue domed rooftops are on
this island, this dish is vibrant with color and flavor to match its
surroundings. Enjoy this dish any time of year but especially when
watermelon is at its sweetest!
In
the midst of the dog days of summer, slaving away in a hot
kitchen—roasting or baking meats and preparing other rich dishes—just
doesn’t appeal to the home chef. For vegetable and general summer
cooking inspiration, who better to turn to than Yotam Ottolenghi and
Sami Tamimi, the famed London duo behind the burgeoning Ottolenghi
restaurant empire in England’s capital and the authors of several
cookbooks, including Jerusalem and the upcoming Plenty More (due out in
October; both books published by Ten Speed).
Prep Time : 15 min
You
will go to picnics and barbecues this summer, and there will be that
person who brings the laziest contribution this side of a bag of
Doritos: the store-bought tub of hummus. Maybe a sack of wet baby
carrots to go with.