Book review: Ottolenghi Test Kitchen: Extra Good Things

The latest book from Ottolenghi Test Kitchen gives new ingredients to experiment with in typical Ottolenghi style

“‘Ottolenghify’ / Pronounced: Otto-lengy-figh / verb British. Derived from the noun ‘Ottolenghi’, also an adjective. To Ottolenghify is to make something feel unequivocally Ottolenghi. ‘I Ottolenghified my roasted aubergine with some feta’,” the opening pages of Ottolenghi Test Kitchen: Extra Good Things reads.

Ottolenghify doesn’t exist in the modern-day dictionary, but it should. And anyone who has ever attempted to Ottolenghify a dinner party menu will know the extensive list of obscure ingredients required, but luckily many supermarkets have Ottolenghified their stocklists, so finding za’atar should be a simple as popping down to your nearest Waitrose.

But what to do with all these fantastic ingredients taking room in your storecupboard? Enter OTK Shelf Love, which was published last autumn to answer this pressing concern. OTK Extra Good Things, on the other hand, freely admits to encouraging readers back to the shops to re-stock their larders after using up all their ingredients while cooking their way through Shelf Love.

OTK Extra Good Things does follows a similar concept to its predecessor – teaching the reader new skills that can take their cooking to the next level. Recipes are flexible and cooks are encouraged to mix and match elements to create new dishes. Take the sweet ‘n’ sour peppers with pine nut crumble, which provides instructions to store the leftover crumble in a sealed container for up to three months, which can then pimp up a ful mudammas or the two-scalloped potatoes featured elsewhere in the book.

This flicking back and forth through the pages of Extra Good Things reminds me of those ‘choose your own adventure’ books I read as a child. OTK Extra Good Things keeps you on your toes, while also encouraging your culinary imagination to run wild. So pick up a copy and learn how to use that “extra good thing” you’ve just learned how to make, to jazz up hummus, sprinkle over pasta, spread on grilled corn, drizzle onto roast potatoes or spoon into a taco – what a delicious-sounding adventure indeed.

Ottolenghi Test Kitchen: Extra Good Things by Noor Murad and Yotam Ottolenghi (Ebury Press, £25)