in ‘jerusalem: a cookbook,’ a world of contrasts in every dish (a giveaway)
I CRAVE A SALAD—but one with something more substantial, not just greens. I’d also love an escape (too many garden chores screaming for attention—get me out of here!), but then I remember: I hate to travel. Thankfully, I have found comforting solutions on both scores in a book I bought last fall, “Jerusalem: A Cookbook” by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamini, an intimate journey through a cultural fusion of traditions and tastes. I’m making fattoush for lunch–the recipe is on the jump–and offering you two “tickets” to “Jerusalem,” too, in the latest cookbook giveaway.
The book’s collaborators grew up in the city—Yotam in the Jewish west area, Sami in the Muslim east—though neither has lived there for 20-plus years.
“The flavors and smells of this city are our mother tongue,” the London-based pair says in the cookbook’s introduction, acknowledging that they include traditional recipes, interpretations of traditional recipes, and also concoctions that draw on the culture’s gestalt but are theirs alone.
What I love most: Through the lens of these two master foodies, I’m looking at familiar vegetables (though the book is rich with meats and fishes, too) as if they are completely new. Example: a Kohlrabi Salad (with mint and cress and garlic, and a dressing laced with mascarpone and sour cream). The most common Allium in my pantry could become Stuffed Onions (with rice, pine nuts, species and herbs, and a secret ingredient: pomegranate molasses). I have been waiting impatiently since I got the book late last fall till there are fresh figs to combine with sweet potatoes into Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Fresh Figs (one of the most popular dishes, apparently, at the Ottolenghi restaurants in London). And I am certain my first tomatoes will find their way into Tomato and Sourdough Soup—so brilliantly simple-sounding, I can’t resist. A whole condiment section at the back of the book includes pickles and sauces, from preserved lemons to tahini (which I plan to use on the “Jerusalem: A Cookbook” take on falafel.)
For now, though, while I wait for each harvest in its time—the spirit of the cookbook, like that of the city it honors, is to eat seasonally and locally—there is that more-than-a-salad salad I’ve been craving.
And here it is: Na’ama’s Fattoush, a chopped salad with bread and a yogurty-or-buttermilk dressing that could variously be called Arab salad or Israeli salad–like so many recipes in “Jerusalem,” the provenance is impossible to pin down. (Na’ama, whose influence is felt elsewhere in the book as well, is Sami’s mother.)
Na’ama’s fattoush
(recipe from “Jerusalem: A Cookbook,” copyright Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi; photos by Jonathan Lovekin.)
ingredients
- scant 1 cup / 200 g Greek yogurt and cup plus 2 tbsp / 200 ml whole milk, or 1 cups / 400 ml buttermilk (replacing both yogurt and milk)
- 2 large stale Turkish flatbread or naan (9 oz / 250 g in total)
- 3 large tomatoes (13 oz / 380 g in total), cut into -inch / 1.5cm dice
- 3 oz / 100 g radishes, thinly sliced
- 3 Lebanese or mini cucumbers (9 oz / 250 g in total), peeled and chopped into -inch / 1.5cm dice
- 2 green onions, thinly sliced
- oz / 15 g fresh mint
- scant 1 oz / 25 g flat-leaf parsley, coarsely chopped
- 1 tbsp dried mint
- 2 cloves garlic, crushed
- 3 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1/4 cup / 60 ml olive oil, plus extra to drizzle
- 2 tbsp cider or white wine vinegar
- tsp freshly ground black pepper
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp sumac or more to taste, to garnish
steps:
If using yogurt and milk, start at least 3 hours and up to a day in advance by placing both in a bowl. Whisk well and leave in a cool place or in the fridge until bubbles form on the surface. What you get is a kind of homemade buttermilk, but less sour.
Tear the bread into bite-size pieces and place in a large mixing bowl. Add your fermented yogurt mixture or commercial buttermilk, followed by the rest of the ingredients, mix well, and leave for 10 minutes for all the flavors to combine.
Spoon the fattoush into serving bowls, drizzle with some olive oil, and garnish generously with sumac.
how to win a copy of ‘jerusalem’
I PURCHASED two extra copies of “Jerusalem: A Cookbook,” to share with you. All you have to do to enter is answer this question in the comments below:
If the “Jerusalem” authors call that city’s flavors and traditions their “own culinary DNA,” what is the source of DNA that shows up in some favorite dishes from your kitchen? Any heritage in evidence—any hand-me-downs or traditions (even if they’re adopted ones)?
My answer is no literal DNA remains. My parents cooked—but from “The New York Times” cookbook, all aspirational-style things we two little girls turned our noses up at. My one grandmother was more “Joy of Cooking”-style. Nothing ethnic–unless you count kippered herrings for breakfast (ugh!) that my English-born grandfather who lived with us insisted upon once-weekly, a tradition I was happy to free myself from at the soonest opportunity to fly the coop.
Don’t worry if you’re feeling shy, or have no particular answer. Just say, “Count me in” or some such, and I will. Two winners will be chosen at random after entries close at midnight on Monday, April 15. Good luck to all.
(Disclosure: Purchases via Amazon affiliate links yield a small commission that I use to buy more books for future giveaways.)
I grew up vegetarian, so that tends to inform my cooking style. I love this book, have checked it out repeatedly from the library, and would love to own it!
I have some Polish heritage and I grew up with stuffed cabbage and pierogies. I am not a huge fan of the cabbage, but I LOVE pierogies!!
First – Count me in.
Second – my culinary DNA is a mongrel mixture of my mother’s well planned 1950’s meals, my fathers love of olive oil and spices, my German/Russian grandmother’s use of good, plain ingredients like butter, fresh vegetables and meats, my days in the late 60’s/ early 70’s on the Lower East Side of NYC – a combination of Yonah Schimmel’s, Ratners, The Cauldron and Paradox restaurants, my love of Indian and Middle eastern cuisine, and my years working as a waitress at upscale French and American restaurants – and my commitment to growing and eating fresh and organic foods whenever possible.
Oh Margaret, I’ve fallen for Ottolenghi in a big way since reading about his shakshooka (too big a hurry to look up sp) and made it with frozen tomatoes from my garden, frozen peppers (cubanelles planted way close to jalapeno, making spicy cubanelles ;)) lovely spices and eggs from my girls. Oooh lala! Would LOVE to have this book in my collection. Now going back to look more closely at the terrific recipe you are sharing here. Answer to your question, Texas grandmother’s best-ever hash browns, her apple pie, her beans, just garlic and pinks and water and salt, her fried chicken… never made anything that was not terrific!
I carry DNA from the kitchens of New Mexico. My family moved to Albuquerque when I was twelve. We lived there for two years. We ate New Mexican food and loved it and learned to make it ourselves and from then on (forty some-odd years) have enjoyed a taste of New Mexico in nearly everything we ate. And to this day, I still do.
Food: a love feast. What a gorgeous salad!
Cooking was pure drudgery for everyone in my family and when they were forced to cook, it was basic Southern fare. After all, it takes give or take an hour to prepare a meal and it disappears in 15 minutes. However, for some inexplicable non-DNA reason, I love all ethnic food. I’m not comfortable cooking for a crowd, but I love to experiment with ethnic food just for myself and I would love to own this book. Who knows? It might alter some chromosomes and mutate a non-cook into a pretty darn good cook.
My culinary DNA—hmmm. That’s a hard one. I just love good food!!!
Our Polish heritage dictates that we make pierogie for every Christmas Eve and our kids are learning to make them so that they can always carry on the tradition. Another tradition we keep is having a basket of food blessed on Holy Saturday with food to be eaten at Easter dinner. We also color eggs in the way that my family always did it with candle wax . Please count me in for the cookbook.
My DNA is the basics. Fresh local foods, a few spices and real butter. Quick, simple and flavorful.
My mom was a great cook and inspired me to try many different foods. My DNA I feel has influenced my curiosity in all types of foods. Which I practiced when I owned and ran a restaurant.
Your question stopped me in my tracks and required some thinking about what my grandmother used to cook. She was Dutch and used to do the most amazing things with leftover or even canned (as in salmon) meat. Definitely did not grow up as a vegetarian, but lean in that direction most of the time now.
No DNA, unless you call salt and pepper ‘spices’. My Mom was a self-taught Midwestern cook. HER mother was an amazing cook. In the middle of the Great Depression, she turned a hot-plate in a service-station into a very successful diner. My Mom never had to cook until she got married and moved away! So, the only hand-me-downs are Grandmaw’s cast iron dutch oven and frying pans, which I treasure more than gold! Talk about ‘seasoned’! I’d love to investigate Jerusalem and blend it into my own evolving Culinary DNA. Muchas Gracias! Merci! Thankyouverymch!
Southern cooking, with an emphasis on fresh vegetables from the garden.
I’m from a Polish/Irish heritage but our family heavily leans on a vegetarian/vegan diet that dives head-first into Southeast Asian flavors. My husbands go-to for everything? Lemon.
No heritage, just love to try new foods and flavors. Love veggies, raw or cooked of any kind, except…Okra. Ewwww.
I gravitate towards the scents of zatar, of cumin, of the taste of Moroccan olives and tahini, of pomegranate and rose water and often incorporate these into my salads and other cooking. But these are not of my mother’s kitchen, where we were raised on polenta, Swiss fondue, pot roast and …..Swanson’s TV dinners. I suspect whatever it is, it is much deeper in my DNA!
Perfect salad!
I grew up on hearty Czech food (I call it “beige food” –roast pork, dumplings, kraut and applesauce). This cuisine is sorely lacking in green veggies and fish so over the years a Bohemian dinner is a rare thing. But come a cold Chicago January evening, it is still what I crave. Must be that crazy DNA!
My husband’s heritage is the source of my DNA . His Czech mother would sauté a chopped onion in butter, shred Savoy cabbage, stew it about 20 minutes covered with the onion, add a roux made from 1 Tablespoon each of butter and flour cooked prior to adding to the cabbage. Then she seasoned it with salt and then added a lot of freshly ground black pepper.
Cooking from scratch is in my DNA. My grandmother grew up dirt poor during the depression and was very frugal, raising my dad in the same way with simple home-cooked food. I grew up in Bolivia where convenience food was rare and expensive (imported) so my mom always cooked, every day! And traditional Bolivian food is labor-intensive, but very tasty!
Well my Kitchen DNA has evolved over the span of my life. At first as a young wife, I followed the recipies and habbits that were precious to me and handed down on little plain hand written 3×5 cards from Mom and Grandma. Those traditions were yuummy but not so healthy. As I have aged, divorced, and grown into a life where I live on my own with a cat and only “get” to cook for myself, I have developed my own original DNA becuase at 62 health and the essence of my food has taken over. I create my own recipies using natural ingredients, and much of is is from the garden in summer and from the organic health food stores in winter. My family carries on the old traditions but I had to break from them and learn a way to cook and eat that resonates with my inner self. I would so love to have this cookbook for new ideas, and because I am a book a holic and the only cookbooks I have are the old DNA kind :)
Would love to try this cookbook. Our father’s southern family roots were evident in the meals, however none of the Scot-Irish flavors surfaced. An intriguing idea though!
Polish — I especially love making my mother’s stuffed cabbage vegetarian style using ground walnuts in place of ground meat. Pierogis are another favorite, especially the ones stuffed with cherries.
I almost grabbed my bike and headed for the store just looking at the photo of that salad, I’d love to win the book!!! My culinary DNA is southern based and inspired. I do try not to fry the life out of everything but really…….. some days ya’gotta’!