What are your 4 favorite ingredients for baking ? What do you like to use them in ?
Brown sugar – In cakes , crumbles , and cookies , for the subtle but unmistakable toffee flavour it imparts .
Lemon zest – In cake batter , cookie dough , custards and pastry cases , for the fresh bright note and suggestion of citrus without having to add liquid .
Roasted Nuts – Especially hazelnuts , although almonds and pecans are great too . Nuts immediately add interest , texture and flavour .
Fresh fruit – In cakes and all kinds of puddings and sweets . At one point during the making of the cookbook , the stats came in to show that more than half the recipes contained some kind of fruit ( or nut !) and an embargo was put on this for further recipes ! Thankfully , I also like chocolate and caramels ( especially with nuts !).
What is your favorite meal to cook at home for your family ?
I love making crêpes for my sons for breakfast . Sam loves it with lemon and sugar and Jude loves Nutella . But my favourite lunch dish to prepare is Malaysian Laksa . My mother sends me the curry paste these days , which makes it a fairly easy meal to prepare . I also like to personalise it . Extra bean curd puffs and snake beans for the vegetarians , and extra fish balls and kang kong ( water convolvulus / spinach ) for me !
What did you do before becoming a pastry chef ? Why did you decide to make the change ? Do you still keep a toe in that world ?
I had a bachelor of Sciences , and was working for a German pharmaceutical company (!) but was restless . My journalist boyfriend at the time had the option of taking a redundancy package from the newspaper he worked at , and asked me what I would do if I had a stash of money . Very naïvely , I said “ I ’ d open a café !” So that is what we did . Neither of us had had any experience in hospitality ( what the hell were we thinking ?!), and we never imagined it would be so hard and crazy , but after about a year , we had some great reviews and my cakes in particular were singled out as being kind of special . I became hooked on cooking but always harboured an insecurity about not being formally trained , so we sold the café and I began an apprenticeship at a large restaurant . On my second week on the garde manger , the pastry chef walked out and I was shoved in there to cover the section , where I remained for the next 7 years ! I was made head pastry chef quite quickly ( and quit culinary college ) but after 5 years of working 70-hour weeks , I felt I couldn ’ t continue if this was the life of a chef and decided to return to university to complete a postgrad in psychology ( working dinner service at the restaurant in the evenings ). I eventually obtained registration as a psychologist ( in Australia ), and whilst I loved seeing patients , I was regularly lured by offers from the cooking world , so always kept a toe in the industry , working part time as a food / recipe consultant , and periodically teaching Asian cookery in my spare time ( I didn ’ t have a husband and children then !).
When I moved to London in 2006 , I needed to obtain chartership to work as a psych here , so decided to cook while I completed a doctorate degree part time . I started work at Ottolenghi the week I arrived in London , and despite getting my doctorate several years ago , have never stopped cooking - some of us like to lead double lives !
But the balance between cooking , psychology and home life continually shifts . I took time out for maternity leave , and more recently , I made the decision to take a sabbatical from private practice to focus on work at Ottolenghi , writing the cookbook and looking after my two small children .
What is your process when developing a recipe ?