Yotam to be trusted with turkey

By the time you read this article, Christmas 2017 will (hopefully) be a wonderful memory of time and food shared with family and friends. I have to write this article prior to Christmas to meet the deadline. (There are so many jobs which have to be done by then).

We are having 20 for Christmas lunch and are planning smoked salmon and pate for starters, baked ham with lots of salads plus seafood for main; then plum pudding and pavlova for dessert.

I have also decided to cook a turkey breast using a recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi. It will not be your traditional turkey with gravy and roast potato, rather a fresh herb and citrus marinated breast suitable to eat all year round and particularly in the summer.

Yotam is one chef I trust with turkey.

He ought to know as his native land of Israel is the world’s largest per head consumer of the bird.

Given the importance of turkey for thanksgiving in America and Christmas around the world, this is hard to believe yet true.

Red meat is very expensive and difficult to source in Israel, so the population has taken to eating turkey on a regular basis. It is even served at the local kebab shops!

Yotam Ottolenghi is a writer, chef and restaurateur whose creations are so distinctive that his name is now synonymous with a cooking style. Born in Israel, he moved to London in 1997 and completed a six-month cooking course at Le Cordon Bleu.

He has done promotions and demonstrations in Melbourne several times. His style is definitely Middle Eastern in origin, but I believe his success has come from incorporating the cuisine of Syria, Turkey, Lebanon, Iran and Israel and giving it a western appeal.

I recommend looking at his beautiful website where he describes his philosophy to food as follows.

“Simply put, we are very serious about making people happy through our food, which is often described as sunny. It’s full of harmonious contradictions: it’s vibrant and bold yet familiar and comforting; it’s beautiful to look at yet close to its original form; it’s full of surprising drama yet always comes together as one; it’s noisy yet peaceful, lip-smacking yet warm, simple yet daring.”

As you may know, I have a certain cynicism for the world of “fashionista foodies” but this description of Yottam Ottolenghi’s food is spot on.