By Joe Yonan Editor, Food and Travel October 13 at 7:00 AM

If there was a vegetarian cookbook of the decade, it would have to be Plenty, Yotam Ottolenghis 2011 international bestseller, which has helped introduce scores of home cooks to the glories of zaatar, pomegranate molasses, preserved lemons and other formerly esoteric Middle Eastern ingredients. At the same time, it proved to any doubters that vegetarian cuisine can be wonderfully vibrant and exciting.

Ottolenghi, 45, is a wildly successful London chef-restaurateur with a column in the Guardian that for years focused on vegetarian cooking. But he isnt a vegetarian. Hes an Israeli-born omnivore with a lifelong appreciation of vegetables who brings his infectious curiosity and unerring palate to the subject of plant-based cooking. The author of two bestselling books (Ottolenghi and Jerusalem) with his Palestinian business partner, Sami Tamimi, hes back to meat-free dishes with Plenty More (Ten Speed Press).

The new book is arranged by cooking technique (chapters have titles like Tossed, Grilled, Roasted and Mashed). After trying and loving several recipes, I talked with Ottolenghi by telephone. Edited excerpts of our conversation follow.

How do you think differently about cooking vegetables from cooking meat?

Vegetables need a little bit more help than meat, I find. So I focus on things like char-grilling or roasting, which intensifies the flavor or adds a little smoky aroma, and marinating, leaving something in the marinade for quite a while. Those offer an extra dimension of flavor to vegetables.

What is key to me are the cooking techniques. Theres a kind of common knowledge about what it means to cook meat well: prime cuts cook very quickly, cheap cuts cook longer. That doesnt necessarily get applied to vegetables, and thats what Im trying to do here. If you take Brussels sprouts or cauliflower and you roast them or grill them or marinate or serve them raw and shred them, these are ways of achieving very, very different things.

Why do you think Plenty struck such a chord?

One reason is that the vegetables are put in a context where they can really make a statement. The other reason is that I use a set of Middle Eastern ingredients that I grew up with that are absolutely fantastic and were bound to be discovered anyway, and I implemented them in a modern context. I was in the right place at the right time. Tahini, for example, is such a key ingredient in Middle Eastern cooking, and five to 10 years ago most people didnt know about it and didnt cook with it. But to me, its almost as important in cooking as olive oil.

What are your new favorite ingredients, things you think might catch on next?

More:
Weeknight Vegetarian: Yotam Ottolenghi on Plenty More