How to be a confident home cook, the Ottolenghi way

In a two-hour show at Capitol Theatre, chef Yotam Ottolenghi will share tips to take the anxiety out of cooking

- Tan Hsueh Yun Senior Correspondent

Chef Yotam Ottolenghi will prepare a meal on stage while discussing his favourite dishes, giving cooking tips and talking about what inspires him, in An Evening With Yotam Ottolenghi. PHOTO: ELENA HEATHERWICK

(ELENA HEATHERWICK)

Anxious cooks, take a breath. Israeli-British chef Yotam Ottolenghi thinks that mastering a handful of recipes and riffing off them is the way to go.

He will show what he means when he is in Singapore for An Evening With Yotam Ottolenghi on Feb 9 at the Capitol Theatre. It is part of his 1l-city tour, which includes stops in Australia and New Zealand.

Over two hours, the 56-year-old, who is also a cookbook author, newspaper columnist and restaurateur, will prepare a meal on stage while discussing his favourite dishes, giving cooking tips and talking about what inspires him.

In recent years, food personalities have gone on tour with live stage shows, where they interact with audiences, share cooking tips and talk about food. British chefs Jamie Oliver and Mary Berry have done it, and so have Americans Phil Rosenthal of Somebody Feed Phil fame and Alton Brown of Good Eats and Iron Chef America.

In a video call with The Sunday Times from London, chef Ottolenghi says of the show: “What I want to do is show people that to become a confident cook, you don't need to know every bit of the cooking process. I'm trying to create a baseline of four or five things you can cook really, really well, and then expand from there with all kinds of cultural references and references to other ideas.