Every recipe on this site was cooked in our kitchen before it was published. That sounds like the bare minimum. Spend ten minutes searching Food Network recipes and you’ll see how rare it actually is.
We’re a small team of home cooks working out of Tunisia. American food isn’t our heritage, it’s our obsession, and we treat it with more care than most sites that grew up with it.
The rule we don’t break
Every dish here comes from a real place: a chef’s published cookbook, a broadcast episode, or their official site. If we can’t point to where a recipe came from, we don’t publish it. No guessed versions, no “inspired by” inventions with a famous name stapled on.
Then we cook it. As written, no shortcuts, so we can tell you where the recipe is honest and where it lies to you. The oven time that runs fifteen minutes over. The sauce that needs salt the recipe never mentions. That’s the part you’re actually here for.
What a recipe goes through
Imene or Sabrine cooks the dish first, following the chef’s version line by line and keeping notes on everything that surprised them. If something fails, Sabrine runs it again until we understand why.
Those kitchen notes go to Dorra, who writes the version you read: plain steps, nothing assumed. Bilel photographs the plate we made, the same day it comes out of the pan. Hamma compares the final draft against the test notes, and Hamdi gives the last yes or no.
Seven people touch a recipe before you see it. It’s a slow way to run a website. It’s also the only way we’d want to.
Who’s cooking
The Cook Bench comes from Zaytouna Studio, a food-content studio based in Tunisia. We’ve been cooking and publishing together for years.
- Imene Dridi, recipe tester and writer. Trained at L’Académie des Chefs in Tunis, and the first pair of hands on most recipes here. Facebook
- Sabrine Hajri, recipe tester and writer. Same training as Imene, and the one who runs the retests when a dish refuses to cooperate the first time. Facebook
- Dorra Thabet, recipe writer. Takes the kitchen notes and turns them into steps you can follow on a busy Tuesday. Facebook
- Mohamed Thabet (Hamma), editor. Reads every draft against the test notes and catches what the rest of us miss. Facebook
- Bilel Saidani, photographer and social. Every photo on this site is a dish we cooked, shot by him. Nothing borrowed, nothing generated. Facebook
- Mohamed Shili, co-founder and tech. Built the site and keeps it fast. Facebook
- Hamdi Saidani, founder and editor-in-chief. Sets the bar, and nothing goes live without his sign-off. Facebook
Credit where it belongs
The recipes we cook come from America’s best-known home cooks and Food Network names, Ina Garten, Ree Drummond, and the chefs whose shows and cookbooks shaped how the country eats. On every page, we name exactly whose recipe it is.
The Cook Bench is an independent site with no connection to, sponsorship from, or endorsement by any chef or network mentioned here. Recipes are adapted from published cookbooks, broadcast shows, and official websites, always with credit, and the originals remain the property of their creators. If you’re a rights holder and something concerns you, use the contact page and we’ll handle it fast.
Get in touch
Cooked something from the site? Caught a mistake? Tell us. We answer everything that comes through the contact page.