Saffron appears throughout Jerusalem's cooking — in rice dishes, in braised chicken, in sweet pastries — as both a colouring and a flavouring agent. The technique of blooming saffron in warm liquid before adding it to a dish is universal across Persian, Moroccan, Spanish, and Levantine cooking. The extraction of saffron's colour and flavour compounds requires liquid and gentle heat — dry saffron added directly to a dish releases a fraction of its potential.
Saffron threads steeped in a small amount of warm (not boiling) water, stock, or milk for a minimum of 20 minutes before use, producing a deeply coloured, flavoured liquid that distributes evenly through the dish. The blooming step is the difference between saffron that colours faintly and tastes of nothing and saffron that transforms a dish.
Saffron's flavour is almost impossible to describe without reference — floral, honey-like, slightly metallic, with a warmth that is unlike any other spice. It colours a dish gold and flavours it with something that reads as luxury rather than any specific note. Used correctly it is almost invisible as a flavour while being unmissable as a presence.
- Warm liquid, not boiling — boiling water degrades the volatile aromatic compounds while extracting the colour efficiently. The goal is both colour and flavour [VERIFY temperature: approximately 70°C] - Minimum 20 minutes steeping — colour and flavour compounds release at different rates; short steeping extracts colour but not full flavour [VERIFY time] - A tiny pinch goes far — saffron is the most expensive spice by weight; more is not better and over-saffronned dishes taste medicinal - The steeped liquid is used entirely — the threads can be left in or removed depending on the dish
OTTOLENGHI JERUSALEM — Technique Entries OT-01 through OT-25