‘Ottolenghi’ Ingredients

These are the 10 ingredients I’m urging you to seek out and stock up on. Even though I’ve called them ‘Ottolenghi’ ingredients they’re not ‘mine’, of course: they’ve all been around a lot longer than me! They are, however, things I love to cook with, rely on a lot in the kitchen and will keep championing until, I hope, they become a lot of people’s ‘everyday’ ingredients. As with all ingredients, there’s a huge range in the quality of each product. Price is a guide – you tend to get what you pay for – but, more than this, buying something from the country of origin will always give you the more ‘authentic’ (which often just translates as tastier) version of the product. The sharpest barberries will always be those from an Iranian grocer’s, for example; the tartest sumac – as with the most aromatic za’atar and the creamiest tahini – will always be from a Middle Eastern store. This is not to say that shopping for everything in one big supermarket, and buying their own-brand version of things, is in any way wrong. It is to say, though (particularly if you live in a city or do your grocery shopping online) that it’s worth taking a ten-minute detour to seek out a specialist shop to find these things or place an order online. We sell them at all our Ottolenghi shops, as just one example, as well as through our Ottolenghi webstore.