Ottolenghi Simple
A Cookbook
by Yotam Ottolenghi
Yotam Ottolenghi's answer to readers who loved his earlier cookbooks but found them ambitious for weeknights. Every recipe in Simple meets at least one of six criteria — short on time, ingredients, technique, pantry-only, prepare in advance, or lazy weekend — without sacrificing the bold, vegetable-forward Middle Eastern flavors that made his name.
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Jim's Review
Ottolenghi taught a generation of home cooks that vegetables aren't side dishes — they're the main event. Simple is his most accessible book, and one of the most usable contemporary cookbooks around. The labeling system is genuinely useful: a roast cauliflower with sumac and pomegranate that takes 30 minutes start to finish gets a "S" for short on time, and you'll be surprised how often a five-tag dish hits the table. The flavor profile is signature Ottolenghi — za'atar, sumac, harissa, dukkah, silan — but the technique is dialed back to something a tired Tuesday cook can manage. Caramelized onions, a sheet pan, a few weeknight basics. The miso butter onions and the curried lentil pumpkin tomato soup are permanent-rotation material. Buy this for the photographs alone (Jonathan Lovekin shoots Ottolenghi books like they're love letters), then keep cooking from it for the next decade. Five worms. The cookbook to hand anyone who says "I want to eat more vegetables but I'm bored of salad."
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