Ellie's table : food from memory and food from home

Ellie's Table is a recipe book rich with storytelling, exploring chef Ellie Bouhadana’s mixed Jewish background through food – from Morocco to the Mediterranean. In her debut cookbook, Ellie shares recipes picked up through her travels through Italy as well as ones that have been handed down from generation to generation.

Part recipe book, part journal, Ellie’s Table is an extension of Ellie’s food ethos and includes all the recipes close to her heart.

We find her in her safta’s kitchen sharing their family’s Rugelach recipe, we travel to Italy and Ellie tells us the secret to the perfect Fried Zucchini – a recipe with roots deep in Rome’s Jewish community – and Ellie recounts cooking Moroccan dishes as a child with her doda (aunt) Melani and her dad.

There’s a whole chapter on her infamous Focaccia and all the accompanying butters. The chapters are structured in the same way that Ellie would serve her guests at a dinner party and invites her readers to do the same.

We start with cold plates, then snacks, then the breads and whipped butters, followed by big plates, vegetables, pasta and finish with sweets. This beautifully illustrated cookbook is intended to have a place on the kitchen bench or coffee table, and celebrates eating well, eating seasonally and eating together.