We speak to Noor Murad and Yotam Ottolenghi about the inspiration behind Shelf Love, his brilliant book that is packed full easy recipes that will help you turn your pantry ingredients into fantastic everyday meals!

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After speaking to Yotam Ottolenghi and head of the Ottolenghi Test Kitchen Noor Murad about their new book Ottolenghi Test Kitchen: Shelf Love I want to join the team. Even through the prism of Zoom it’s clear the duo finds each other amusing, inspiring company, exchanging compliments on recipes while audibly humming with appreciation of having tried said recipes. Ottolenghi wishes he’d invented the Sesame Crusted Feta with Black Lime Honey Syrup “So original! Little feta blocks crusted with seeds and a wonderful warm syrup”. Noor says she should have thought of the One Pan Crispy Spaghetti and Chicken herself: “Everyone loves it. Crispy bits of spaghetti, chicken with breadcrumbs, so simple in the pan meaning less washing up”.

There’s banter about Ottolenghi’s two young sons visiting the kitchen and never giving any dish a 10 because perfection, apparently, isn’t possible, even for one of the world’s titans of food. And, of course, anyone who runs a fleet of delis where the windows are famously piled high with pastries and meringues clearly has a generous spirit.

The eponymous Test Kitchen that gave the recently published book its title evolved under a railway arch in Camden – “equal parts brick and tahini”, as Shelf Love wryly notes. As the team expanded so did the arches, with three neighbouring arches creating a higgledy-piggledy layout. No longer fit for purpose, the team is moving to larger premises in Holloway, something Noor and Yotam say is bittersweet.

The Test Kitchen is a true melting pot of culinary influences. Yotam was born with an Italian Jewish and German Jewish heritage in Jerusalem, Noor brought up in her father’s native Bahrain and born to an English mother, who she describes as a great cook for whom the heavy use of spices when she moved to Bahrain as a newlywed aged 21 was an amazing, if overwhelming, revelation.

Noor’s Instagram feed is something of an edible rainbow, and she explains her philosophy is to make people eat with their eyes: “If it looks like a sexy plate of food, you’ll want to eat it”. Her tip to get even the most veg-phobic out of their comfort zone is to inject vegetables here and there. “A lot of people don’t eat cauliflower, but make it into a Curried Cauliflower Cheese Filo Pie that when you cut into it is a lava of cheese –so great!”.

Shelf Love strikes just this kind of friendly tone. As Noor says, “It’s casual on purpose because it’s no big deal if you don’t have this or that ingredient”. And although the book was in the planning before lockdown came along, which of us hasn’t learnt to make the most of that pile of dried pulses or Ziploc bag of blackberries lurking on a shelf or in a freezer?

Yotam says he’s never been as strict about mealtimes as during lockdown when his family used them to punctuate days that had lost their usual structure – otherwise it all drifted from one thing to the next. With two young kids at home Yotam says he loved the quality time, “But it will come as a surprise to no one that home schooling sucked”.

Noor credits cooking for keeping her sane, particularly in Bahrain which was in “super lockdown”. Sharing on Instagram, she loved the connection this gave her with the outside world. A strong use of digital platforms was already happening within the Ottolenghi empire, but Yotam says its use has accelerated. Noor loves seeing what recipes stick and says it’s a great feeling to know that she has done her job, “to encourage people to cook for themselves and their families”.

It’s hard to remember a time before Ottolenghi, though perhaps we just need to think of it before-knowing-about-pomegranate-molasses and after. Noor says it’s so nice to go into a supermarket today and see ingredients that were once hard to get – she spotted black limes in Waitrose recently. She explains they are used all around the Persian Gulf for their astringent bitter-sour taste, having been cooked in sale and water and dried in the sun.

Yotam says if you understand the flavour profile you know what to do with it. He explains that it’s similar to other ingredients that were preserved to extend their shelf live but then became great in their own right: ‘It’s a flavour echo. Use with juice, zest, freshly grated leaves. It’s why making up recipes is such fun because layering up the flavour is what we do intuitively as cooks’. He continues to explain that it’s the same reason why basil with it’s aniseedy flavour might pair with chervil, tarragon or dill to make the food taste richer.

From a store cupboard point of view, Yotam says he’s always worried about running out of tahini paste. “With garlic and lemon juice there’s nothing better drizzled on veg, meat and even fish.” For Noor it has to be rice. “In the UK a potato is the carb. Back home in Bahrain if you don’t have rice it’s an issue. I love knowing I can do a quick pilaff. Just throw in some veg and spices and you have a meal.”

Over the holiday season Noor suggests trying the Celebration Rice with Lamb, Chicken and Garlic Yoghurt – a great dish if looking for an alternative for Christmas. The Sweet Spiced Mushroom and Rice Pilaff is packed with warming spices like star anise. There are also lots of mezze dishes including burnt aubergine with tahini. For Yotam a standout is the Confit Tandoori Chickpeas, “Just throw everything in a pot and it’s full of warming flavours”.

A lot of the recipes are child friendly, including the aforementioned crispy spaghetti and the Very Giant Cous Cous Cake, which is full of cheese. “Instead of a pizza do the cous cous cake. My kids love it. And Yotam makes the one pot chicken a lot at home and remarks that anyone can make recipes more simple: “Just take away an ingredient or two”.Do either of them have a motto for life? Yotam says he learned the hard way “Not to linger. I have a tendency to ruminate and then get in a rut. It’s important to move yourself from a situation”.

For Noor her grandpa always advised to remember where you come from, something Noor carries with her, particularly in her cooking: “With food, people are doing so many different things, so you don’t need to be anyone else” We’ll certainly eat to that – all hail being introduced to black lime and pomegranate molasses, not to mention the unbelievably tasty sounding crispy spaghetti.