About Yotam Ottolenghi: Yotam Ottolenghi is a British-based chef, cookery writer and restaurant owner.
If I must choose between healthy and tasty, I go for the second: having only one life to waste, it might as well be a pleasurable one.
Most of my recipes start life in the domestic kitchen, and even those that start out in the restaurant kitchen have to go through the domestic kitchen.
I tend to mean what I say: in life, generally; in recipes, certainly.
Most fish require a short cooking time, but cephalopods are the exception to this fishy rule. As with some cuts of larger land beasts, the longer they're cooked, the more tender they get.
Brunch, for me, is an extended breakfast that should be enjoyed whenever you have time properly to engage in cooking and eating.
After all these years of cooking and writing recipes, I am still amazed every time I notice how even the minutest of variation in technique can make a spectacular difference.
In certain European cuisines, vegetables are cooked a long time. I take the term 'al dente' and use it for vegetables.
Popping broad beans out of their skins can be therapeutic, but it isn't everybody's favourite waste of time.
For my money, celery hasn't got a mean bit of fibre in its body, and we all need to start being much nicer to it.
I keep returning to the combination of artichoke, broad beans and lemon. The freshness of young beans and the lemon juice 'lifts' the artichoke and balances its hearty nature.
The emotive power of hummus all over the Middle East cannot be overstated, being the focus of some serious tribal rivalries.
There used to be a time - it isn't so much the case now - that vegetarianism was some kind of religion, and either you belong or you don't belong.
I have a terrible tendency to lick my fingers when I cook. So much so that I got a telling off from my pastry teacher years ago, who said it would hinder my prospects.
I love dishes that feature the various shades of a single colour, making you stop to check what's in there.
Call me tacky, but I love the union of sweet and sour, even in some now-unloved Oriental dishes incorporating pineapple and ketchup.
I used to love fine dining, but I lost my appetite for it to a degree because sometimes it is too much about the effort and too little about the result.
I have yet to meet a carnivore who doesn't love a sausage roll.
I love my garlic press; in fact, it is probably my one true desert island gadget. But I'm happy to put it aside whenever the smell and sweet taste of slow-cooked garlic is called for.
I rarely cook traditional risotto, but I love other grains cooked similarly - barley, spelt or split wheat. I find they have more character than rice and absorb other flavours more wholeheartedly.
I love the way soft white cheese such as ricotta or the creamier mascarpone reflect the milieu in which an animal has been raised.
Way back when I was a junior pastry chef, I'd bake loads of muffins every morning, as many as 120 or so, while operating on autopilot.
