Cook This: 3 recipes from Ottolenghi Comfort, including cheeseball lemon rice with chili butter

Our cookbook of the week is Ottolenghi Comfort by Yotam Ottolenghi, Helen Goh, Verena Lochmuller and Tara Wigley.

Jump to the recipes: butter beans with roasted cherry tomatoes, cheeseball lemon rice with chili butter and chicken with Steph’s spice.

The dishes that bring me comfort are probably different from those you turn to in need of a pick-me-up. That’s not just to be expected. It’s one of the things that makes food so wonderful. As much as we share as humans, comfort food is personal. The term may be shorthand for a set number of dishes — often carby classics such as mac and cheese and mashed potatoes — but in practice, it’s much more diverse than that. Far from static, what soothes us is shaped by our backgrounds and experiences, a fact at the heart of Yotam Ottolenghi‘s eleventh cookbook, Ottolenghi Comfort (Appetite by Random House, Oct. 8, 2024).

Comfort food has been on the menu in a major way since the early days of the pandemic, and amid global uncertainty, researchers don’t expect it to go away anytime soon. Realizing this urge for foods that quiet the noise, Ottolenghi and co-authors Helen Goh, Verena Lochmuller and Tara Wigley tapped into the dishes that bring them moments of joy.

“My instinctive feeling is food needs to give you comfort and not challenge you as much as it did in the past. That’s what we’re looking for,” says Ottolenghi. “More often than not, these days, people are looking for food to give them a sense of connection and a sense of something fundamental that isn’t questioned because everything else feels so precarious. And food can do that for you.”

Comfort has been in the making since Ottolenghi and Goh were on tour for their cookbook Sweet in 2017. Sitting in an airport waiting for their flight, they mulled over writing a book celebrating their domestic cooking — the dishes they make at home when craving a sense of ease and intimacy. Or, as Goh put it, “The food we love,” recalls Ottolenghi. “And we realized the word ‘comfort’ really encompasses that.”

The book’s more than 100 recipes reflect where they’ve been. In addition to London, where the four co-authors live today, Ottolenghi’s approach has been influenced by his parents’ Italian and German backgrounds, his hometown of Jerusalem and time spent living in Amsterdam. Goh’s Chinese grandparents, Malaysian birthplace and Melbourne upbringing have shaped her take on food. Lochmuller’s recipes draw on Germany, Scotland and her pastry training in New York. Wigley, who has written with Ottolenghi since 2011, is “more London through and through,” with a deep knowledge of Levantine food.

When they considered their respective journeys, they saw how closely connected comfort food and immigration are. As people move around the world, they adapt, incorporating the flavours and ingredients of their new home into the dishes they bring with them — each experience building upon the last.

In London, where Ottolenghi and fellow chef and Jerusalem co-author Sami Tamimi opened their first deli with Noam Bar in 2002, the cuisine is the result of this cultural exchange. “Whether it’s Indian or Pakistani, whether it’s Greek or Italian, whether it’s Polish or Israeli or Palestinian, or all these cuisines that are there because people have come and brought them here. Big cities in the Western world benefit from these things. That’s why they’re such rich places to eat in, and I try for the cookbooks to reflect that,” says Ottolenghi. “Not occupying necessarily a small corner — because this is just not my nature — but to try to see where you could draw inspiration from different places.”

Ottolenghi adds that you could look at pretty much any food through the lens of migration. Take a baked potato, for instance, which, in Comfort, is spooned over with green tahini sauce and topped with roasted eggplant, pickled cabbage, torn mint leaves and amba (or mango chutney). It reminded Ottolenghi of sabich, an Iraqi-Jewish pita sandwich that became an iconic Israeli street food. “These are the ingredients I grew up with in a pita,” he says. “I took that and put it in a jacket potato, which is a very British thing, and it ended up being super delicious. And that kind of cross or hybrid is my story of migration.”

Since his second cookbook, the influential Plenty (2010), Ottolenghi has been known worldwide for his way with vegetables. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Comfort’s “comfort veg” chapter is second only to “pasta, polenta, potatoes” in the number of recipes. The co-authors naturally gravitated toward preparing vegetables differently than they had in the past. Where they might have typically cooked them al dente, so they retained some of their bite and crunch, in Comfort, they invited the softness. Ottolenghi offers the example of Turkish-style green beans on toast. After cooking for 35 to 40 minutes, the beans slump into aromatic olive oil, becoming almost like a confit. The co-authors took the same approach to vegetables such as Brussels sprouts, celeriac or kohlrabi.

“There are a lot of vegetables that we slow cook in a particular way, and they really benefit from this slow cooking. I love that and, obviously, I love vegetables. But in this particular book, we almost discover that vegetables can be comforting. This is why we dedicate a whole chapter to ‘comfort veg.’ To highlight that, actually, ‘Look at this. This could be super comforting, even though it’s a vegetable.’”

The book benefited from becoming “a four-headed creature,” highlights Ottolenghi, because it says “comfort” in different ways. Writing it with his co-authors, he learned new techniques, such as Lochmuller’s baked custard that you scorch and split and then blitz until smooth, and gained insight into the dishes that bring him solace. From Goh, he’s learned a lot about Asian food. They often go to Chinese, Malaysian and Thai restaurants in London and elsewhere when they travel together.

“Helen took me on an extensive tour of Malaysia quite a few years ago, but the flavours stayed with me,” says Ottolenghi. The book features a recipe for chicken and lime leaf curry with noodles that every Malaysian household seemingly has their own version of. “It’s just so delicious I can eat that every single day. I suppose this is where I feel like I benefit from having these amazingly creative people around me as co-authors and as friends.”

On Oct. 5, Ottolenghi is embarking on The Comfort Tour across North America, Europe and the U.K., with a stop in Toronto on Oct. 6. The show involves conversation and “playing with ingredients” on stage, which he’s excited about because both elements offer a window into the way he cooks now.

Last year, Ottolenghi celebrated 20 years of his namesake delis. He sees Comfort as telling the story of how his approach has changed. “I’ve learned through growing older, but also the world changing, the importance of cooking in an accessible way, and cooking in a way that gives you joy and comfort when you walk in the kitchen and doesn’t induce anxiety.”

More now than in the past, he thinks about who’s cooking, how long it will take, how much pleasure it will give them, and how likely they will be to cook it again. “It’s about me, but also it’s about the world,” says Ottolenghi. “Cooking is much more about allowing people to connect with something which is, I find, elemental — which is food.”

Serves: 4

1 lb 2 oz (500 g) cherry tomatoes 5 tbsp plus 2 tsp (85 mL) olive oil 1 onion, finely diced (1 cup/150 g) 2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced 2 tsp dried oregano 2 tsp thyme leaves, roughly chopped, plus a few whole thyme leaves to garnish 1 tsp fennel seeds, toasted and lightly crushed 1 fresh bay leaf 1/3 cup (80 mL) dry white wine 2 tsp smoked paprika 1 x 25-oz (700 g) jar of good-quality butter (lima) beans, drained and rinsed Salt and black pepper

To serve: 1/4 cup (75 g) Greek yogurt Thick slices of sourdough (or any crusty) bread, toasted (optional)

Preheat the oven to 450F (230C).

Toss the tomatoes with 2 teaspoons of the oil and spread them on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Roast for 20 minutes, until the skins have loosened and the tomatoes are soft and have shrunk a little. Remove from the oven and transfer the tomatoes, along with all their juices, to a shallow bowl to cool.

Re-line the baking sheet with a fresh sheet of parchment paper and decrease the oven temperature to 250F (130C).

Once cool enough to handle, pinch the skins off the tomatoes and place the skins on the lined baking sheet. Return the sheet to the oven for about 45 minutes, until the skins are dry and crisp, giving them a good stir a couple of times during baking. Set the skinless tomatoes aside.

Put the remaining 5 tbsp (75 mL) of oil into a medium saucepan and place on medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, oregano, thyme, fennel seeds and bay leaf and cook for 10-12 minutes, until the onion has softened but has not taken on too much colour. Add the wine, simmer for 2 minutes to reduce, then add the paprika. Cook for 1 minute, then add the reserved tomato flesh, along with 1 teaspoon of salt. Simmer gently for about 15 minutes, stirring often so that the tomatoes break down. Add the beans and a good grind of pepper and stir to combine. Cook for a couple of minutes, just to warm through, then remove from the heat. Spread the yogurt over a serving plate and then pile the beans on top. Crumble the dried tomato skins over the top, finish with a sprinkling of thyme leaves, and serve with the toasted sourdough (if you like).

Serves: 6

8 cloves 6 cardamom pods, bashed 1 lemon: shave the zest into strips, then juice to get 2 tbsp 1/2 cup (125 g) ricotta 5 1/4 oz (150 g) feta, crumbled 4 1/2 oz (125 g) low-moisture mozzarella, shredded (mounded 1 cup) 2/4 oz (25 g) parmesan, grated (1/4 cup) 1 egg, beaten 2 cups (400 g) basmati rice, rinsed and drained well 1/2 cup (75 g) pitted green olives, cut in half 7 tbsp (100 g) unsalted butter 1/2 tsp chili flakes 3/4 tsp Aleppo chili flakes 1/2 tsp sumac 5 green onions, sliced on the diagonal into 1/2-inch (1-cm) pieces (mounded 1/2 cup/50 g) Salt

Preheat the oven to 425F (220C).

Pour 3 1/4 cups (750 mL) of water into a medium saucepan and add the cloves, cardamom pods, lemon strips and 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt. Place on medium-high heat, bring to a simmer, then remove from the heat.

Meanwhile, put the four cheeses and the egg into a medium bowl and mix well. Using your hands, divide the mixture into 12 portions and roll them roughly into balls, approximately 1 1/2 oz (40 g) each. They don’t need to be perfect, as they will spread once in the rice.

Scatter the rice on the bottom of a high-sided baking dish, 9 x 13-inch (23 x 33-cm or an 11-inch/28-cm ovenproof sauté pan, for which you have a lid), and scatter the olives. Pour in the hot water and aromatics. Shake the dish gently to spread the rice evenly, then deposit the cheese balls in the rice. Cover the dish tightly with foil (or lid), to keep the steam in, and bake for 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to settle, covered, for 10 minutes.

While the rice is resting, melt the butter in a medium saucepan on medium heat. Add the chili flakes, Aleppo flakes and sumac and cook for 2-3 minutes. Add the green onions and cook for 20 seconds. Remove from the heat, add the lemon juice and set aside.

Uncover the rice and spoon the chili butter all over just before serving.

Serves: 4, with rice and salad

1 tsp whole allspice berries (a.k.a. pimento) 2 bay leaves, roughly torn 1 1/2 tsp chili powder 1 1/2 tsp paprika 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice 2 tbsp light brown sugar 1 1/2 tbsp honey 1-2 green jalapeños, finely chopped 1-2 red Scotch bonnet (habanero) chilies, finely chopped 1 small red onion, cut into 1/2-inch (1-cm dice; 3/4 cup/100 g) 3 green onions, finely chopped (1 1/3 cup/30 g) 3 tbsp olive oil 2 lb 2 oz (1 kg) chicken thighs, bone in, skin on 2 tbsp white wine vinegar Salt

Put the allspice and bay leaves into a dry pan and toast them for 1-2 minutes, until the bay leaves have blistered. Using a mortar and pestle, crush to a powder, then tip into a large bowl along with all the remaining ingredients except the chicken and vinegar. Add 1 teaspoon of salt, mix well to combine, then add the chicken. Massage well so that all the thighs are coated, then keep in the fridge, covered, for at least 6 hours (or overnight).

Half an hour before you are going to cook the chicken, take it out of the fridge, add the vinegar and toss to combine.

Preheat the oven to 400F (200C).

Spread the chicken out on a large parchment-lined baking sheet, skin side up. Bake for about 45 minutes, rotating the sheet halfway through, until crisp and golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to rest for 10 minutes before serving.

Note: We served the chicken with a simple slaw made with half a small cabbage and a quarter of a pineapple, both thinly sliced, some freshly flaked coconut, sliced jalapeño, green onion, cilantro and mint. It’s dressed with olive oil, lime juice and maple syrup.

Recipes and images excerpted from Ottolenghi Comfort by Yotam Ottolenghi. Copyright ©2024 by Yotam Ottolenghi, Helen Goh, Verena Lochmuller and Tara Wigley. Photographs by Jonathan Lovekin. Published by Appetite by Random House®, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited. Reproduced by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved.

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