Jerusalem

I love the flavours that ottolenghi conjures with, but I find the cooking instructions often sloppy and not to be trusted. Oven temperatures or timings can be way off (perhaps they are tested in a professional kitchen that yields different results), steps missing, or in the wrong sequence. Almost every recipe I've tried needs some kind of tweaking, and careful reading.

That being said, his cookbooks are often the first ones I reach for when looking for inspiration for a dinner party. And Jersulaem is probably the one I most frequently turn to.

So far, I have tested four recipes from this book. I noticed that all of these dishes were very delicious, none of them had that particular Ottolenghi genius. It's logical if you think about it - this is not a book about his own dishes, this is a book about the cuisine of Jerusalem. And it's very good at that, the dishes were lovely and the recipes were extremely reliable. It's just to say that you shouldn't approach 'Jerusalem' with wrong expectations, you'd be disappointed by a book that definitely does not deserve that. I'm very happy I have it.