Food, Home & Lifestyle
Homemade Condiments: Smoky Marinated Feta
Lesson time 07:39 min
Learn how to make a smoky feta infused with lemon, garlic, and chili.
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Topics include: Smoky Marinated Feta
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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[00:00:00.00] [MUSIC PLAYING] [00:00:00.97] [00:00:06.31] - I'm going to make marinated feta. And that's something you might be going back to over and over again, if you fall in love with it like I do. So it's injecting feta with tons of flavors. It's like feta on steroids. I'm going to have smokiness there, and garlic, and lemon, and all those wonderful things, in with the feta. And when I have a moment of crisis, and I'm really hungry, and I'm about to go to bed, and I haven't had something to eat for about three minutes, I take a jar of this feta and a glass of wine, and I'm just a happy person. [00:00:39.43] So I'm going to start by charring some garlic. I've got a very hot pan here, and some peeled garlic cloves, and I'm just going to throw those in. Love that sound. I can already hear them starting to char. I'm trying to release all the oils and aromas from my aromatics. And by heating them up and charring them, that's what I'm getting. You get a bit of carmelization. So the garlic is getting a bit of color. It will take a second. Meanwhile, I'm going to peel a lemon. So just get a bit of lemon skin-- about six strips of lemon skin, lemon strips. Try to avoid the white pith as much as possible. So a little bit of pith is fine, but not too much of it. [00:01:32.91] It's really important to char your aromatics. So everything that has infusion in it-- and this is based on infusion, because the oil will soak up flavor, and that's what we call infusion-- really benefits from charring the flavoring elements-- in this case, garlic, lemon, bay leaf, and chile flakes. And the charring just brings out the essential oils. It concentrates the flavor, and it's always something that I do before I want to give things flavors. Just think of any sauce or anything you cook where you want to intensify flavors-- the cooking down, the charring, the browning-- all that gives it wonderful flavor. [00:02:13.67] You can see that my garlic is starting to get some color, which is what I want. I think I'm going to say a million times that color is flavor, but that's just the way it is. So I'm going to add some lemon skins and some bay leaves. That's already a beautiful thing. They are going to start releasing their oils, and after about a minute and a half or two you'll smell them as well. And I love smelling my food. I love tasting my food. And I can really smell all this happening now, as we speak, which is a wonderful thing. So all that is going to be injected into the feta. [00:02:50.73] The last thing that goes in after about a minute or two of the lemon and the bay leaves being there, and after you start seeing charring on the lemon skin, and the bay leaves are starting to go a bit brown around the edges, is some chipotle chile flakes. [00:03:07.41] And this is the moment where I'm going to start to cough, right? I don't know if you've ever charred chilies in your kitchen, but that's just what happens. You start coughing, which is kind of a little bit a c...
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.
Featured MasterClass Instructor
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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