Yotam Ottolenghi Quotations | Page 3

I just don't tend to cook eggplant at home.

The only way reliably to gauge the heat of any particular chilli is to cut it in half, so exposing the core and membranes, and to dab the cut surface on your tongue.

When I was a kid, there was always food to be had on the street in Jerusalem, but anything above a falafel stand was mediocre or worse.

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.

The most important thing for me is to walk the little alleys of the city, to find the little alcove where someone is cooking something, and just watch them do it. That's my idea of fun.

Chinese sausage, which is widely available from Asian grocers and online, is sweet, rich, and enticingly smoky. I add it to steamed rice with strips of omelette and a few baby veg stir-fried with soy.

Polenta is to northern Italy what bread is to Tuscany, what pasta is to Emilia-Romagna and what rice is to the Veneto: easy to make, hungry to absorb other flavours, and hugely versatile.

Some breakfast cereals only come into their own as children's party treats: what are cornflakes and Coco Pops for, if not to clump together with melted chocolate and spoon into a cupcake holder?

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.

Chickpeas are one of my favourite things to serve with chorizo or lamb meatballs; they also work brilliantly as the quiet partner in a vibrant alphonso mango salad.