Yotam Ottolenghi’s perfect oven chips, with a Middle Eastern twist

Sign up to IndyEat's free newsletter for weekly recipes, foodie features and cookbook releases Get our food and drink newsletter for free Get our food and drink newsletter for free SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Noor was transported – to the English cobble-beach seaside, munching with mates; to the late-night American diner, decompressing with work buddies; to the car with her dad, eating Bahraini street food out of oil-stained paper bags, burning their tongues in the process. The crunch came from pine nuts and almonds toasted gently in olive oil, which adorn so many of dishes from Noor’s Middle Eastern childhood. Oven chips with tahini yoghurt and smoky-sweet nuts Makes: 4 servings Total time: 1¼ hours Ingredients For the potatoes: 1kg skin-on Yukon Gold potatoes, cut lengthwise into roughly 1.5cm-thick sticks 2 tsp rice flour 2 tbsp olive oil Salt For the pickled herb stems: 1 heaped tbsp finely chopped fresh coriander or parsley stems 1½ tbsp apple cider vinegar For the smoky-sweet nuts: 3 tbsp olive oil 40g pine nuts 30g roughly chopped blanched almonds 1 tsp light brown sugar 1 tsp nigella seeds 1 tsp Urfa chilli flakes 1 tsp Aleppo chilli flakes ½ tsp hot smoked paprika For the tahini yogurt: 3 tbsp Greek-style yogurt 2½ tbsp tahini 1½ tbsp fresh lemon juice 2 garlic cloves, minced Method 1. For the sake of argument, I’m perfectly willing to call these baked potatoes “oven fries”, and sparkling wines would be a great choice, whether Champagne, cava, crémant or the various Champagne facsimiles of the world.