Open Sesame
I am quite the admirer of Yottam Ottolenghi. I own three of his books (this recipe comes from the third – Jerusalem – Yottam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi) and have made exactly one of his recipes (this one) and only because I happened to have the key ingredient – tahini – sitting in my cupboard from an over enthusiastic bout of hummus making. I am sure I cannot be alone in this. The recipes this man creates do not so much require cooking as assembling and indeed sourcing, since each and every one seems to feature at least one and often three or more exotic ingredients available only to him, and a select few in West London (and anyone living in the middle East presumably). It was in my view a stroke of marketing genius for him to capitalize on the unavailability of the items he used by opening an online shop so that everyone outside of West London could also saddle themselves with kitchens cupboards full of ingredients they would use once or never at all. Alan Sugar eat your heart out.
