Home & Lifestyle, Food
Brunch Spread: Middle Eastern Bread Spread
Lesson time 10:38 min
Breakfast can easily turn into lunch if you do it right. Yotam introduces you to the first piece of his brunch spread, a simple display of tomato, cheese, and bread.
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Topics include: Brunch Spread • Middle Eastern Bread Spread
Teaches Modern Middle Eastern Cooking
James Beard Award–winning chef Yotam Ottolenghi teaches you his recipes for delicious Middle Eastern platters layered with color and flavor.
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[00:00:00.46] [MUSIC PLAYING] [00:00:03.21] YOTAM OTTOLENGHI: My idea of a great brunch is something that has eggs right at the center and things around it. [00:00:14.94] [MUSIC PLAYING] [00:00:25.40] I wanted to call it breakfast. But I thought I'm serving so much like you'd think I'm crazy to put so much food on the breakfast table. So I'm calling it brunch. But you can serve it for breakfast because, if you're like me, you really love big breakfasts. I grew up having massive breakfast. So my mother would wake us all up very early and she'd put a massive selection of things on the table. We would have bread and cheese and eggs and cold cuts and fresh vegetables and fruit. [00:00:54.29] And I remember it very clearly in my head that that was the best part of the day. Even before going to school, we'd have this massive breakfast. And nowadays, I have young kids. And I really know that serving an intensely big breakfast is completely not practical. And everybody runs to school and does their own thing. [00:01:13.42] So it has to be a brunch. It has to be something that you do on the weekend with good time. And you can cook leisurely. And some people can still be in bed, whether the ones that are doing a bit of cooking. So it's a fun part of the day, and you can just make it and stretch it and make it as long or as short as you want it to be. [00:01:30.56] So for my brunch, today I'm going to serve an egg dish, a shakshouka. I'll explain more about it. And I'm also going to do a platter with some fresh cheese, like a feta, and some vegetables and some grated tomatoes and bread, and also berries with yogurt but in a Middle Eastern kind of way. [00:01:52.71] [MUSIC PLAYING] [00:02:00.70] I think a big brunch or a big breakfast dish or spread needs bread. And I want to give my bread a special place. I've got some beautiful sourdough pizzas that we bought from around the corner. If you want to make your own pizzas, that's even better. But if you find bread that you love, just go ahead and buy it and serve it. But let's try to make it special. Let's try to give it a special place. So we actually want to add some condiments, some things to go along with the bread. [00:02:27.57] So I'm going to start by grating tomatoes, which some people think is an oxymoron. How can you grate a tomato? It's something wet. But actually it's a wonderful way to get the flesh out and have the skin left in your hands. So all you need is one of these box graters, and you just go like that. And as you can see, the juices are coming out. Some skin will go in, but most of the skin stays in my hand, just like that-- super simple. [00:03:07.80] And I'll do another tomato-- "tomaytoe," "tomahtoe." And when you grate your tomatoes, you smell them and I love that. I love the smell of a tomato when it's grated or cut or sliced because it makes you really want to eat it. So it kind of prepares you for the meal. And not every vegetable does it. But tomatoes, if they're good, i...
About the Instructor
One of the most influential chefs working today, Yotam Ottolenghi creates dishes that layer color and flavor for maximum impact. Now the James Beard Award winner teaches you simple steps for making and mixing Middle Eastern–inspired recipes. Learn how to make generous platters—mezze and brunch spreads to homemade condiments, stunning stand-alones, and delicious vegetables—so you can entertain with ease.
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Yotam Ottolenghi
James Beard Award–winning chef Yotam Ottolenghi teaches you his recipes for delicious Middle Eastern platters layered with color and flavor.
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