Jerusalem: A Cookbook

A landmark cookbook that explores the food of one of the world’s most culturally layered cities. Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi, both born in Jerusalem in the same year on opposite sides of the city, combine their Jewish and Palestinian culinary traditions into 120 recipes that celebrate the city’s extraordinary diversity.

Why Start Here

Jerusalem is the ideal entry point for Middle Eastern cooking because it bridges cultures rather than focusing on a single tradition. Ottolenghi grew up in the Jewish west side, Tamimi on the Arab east side, and together they present dishes drawn from the Muslim, Jewish, and Christian communities that have shaped Jerusalem’s food for centuries. This cross-cultural perspective gives you a wider foundation than any single-tradition cookbook could.

The recipes are genuinely approachable. Dishes like roasted cauliflower with tahini, lamb shawarma, and mejadra (lentils and rice with crispy onions) are the kind of food you can cook on a weeknight once you have stocked your pantry. The book teaches you to work with the core ingredients of Middle Eastern cooking, including tahini, za’atar, sumac, pomegranate molasses, and preserved lemons, through recipes you will actually want to cook again and again.

The book was named Cookbook of the Year by the International Association of Culinary Professionals, won Best International Cookbook from the James Beard Foundation, and was named by The New York Times as one of the 25 most influential cookbooks of the past century.

What to Expect

A beautifully photographed 320-page hardcover with 130 full-color images. The book is organized by ingredient type: roots and tubers, pulses and grains, vegetables, meat, fish, and baked goods. You will need to stock some specialty items like za’atar, sumac, tahini, and pomegranate molasses, but most are available at well-stocked supermarkets or Middle Eastern grocery stores. The writing is warm and personal, with stories about the city woven between the recipes.