Jamie Oliver was born in 1975 in Clavering in Essex, jumping straight into the kitchen of his parents’ pub. He swept through the River Cafe, was quickly spotted by TV crews and became an immediate celebrity with Naked Chef. He’s then used his celebrity status to increase the ranges of supermarkets, give disadvantaged youths a career in cooking, fights tooth and nail to improve school dinners and is passionate about everyone having at least one recipe up their sleeve. (Fun fact: I once fixed Jamie Oliver’s website over the phone.)
Yet another taste of Jamie’s America, and yet another Navajo treat: churro lamb. This obviously isn’t actually churro lamb but I hope Jamie Oliver will consider tasty Essex lamb good enough!
The secret to this roast lamb is in the pre-roast baste, which is a really unusual but tasty mix: juniper berries, mint and garlic with plenty of salt and pepper. Mixed with oil I rub this all over a shoulder of lamb, which is then roasted in a hot oven for about 1hr 20 mins, until tender and juicy. I make sure the lamb rests well, if you don’t you get tough and tasteless meat. Let it relax! While it’s resting, I can’t resist picking at the tasty blackened bits sticking to the top of the joint!
While that rests I prepared a salsa and white beans. For the beans I warmed cannelini beans with white wine vinegar and oregano. The salsa was a mix of shallot, parsley, tomato, pepper and chilli in white wine vinegar and olive oil.
Served together it was a pleasing contrast to the usual Sunday roast: rich and interesting lamb yes, but with creamy and filling beans, topped with a spiky and refreshing salsa. If I’m honest the chilli was a step too far, but the combination was very exciting.
This was another foray into Jamie’s America. Sticking with the Navajo theme, the idea of little balls of fried batter with hot chocolate for dipping was too much to resist. Churro comes from the breed of lamb that the Navajo farm, and the dumplings are supposed to be shaped like sheep’s horns!
It starts with butter and water boiled together and then flour added with baking powder and salt, with an egg beaten in to bind. That’s your batter made. This was then deep fried for 3 minutes until puffy and brown, then tossed in cinnamon and caster sugar for sweet-spicy flavour. The chocolate was made with boiling full-fat milk and cinnamon, mixed with a little cornflour and sugar until thickened. When it was the right consistency I added chopped dark chocolate and whisked like billy-o until I had a gloopy sweet sauce.
My gripes were three-fold: the chocolate while tasty was too thick and unctuous. It was more like chocolate custard. Next time I might forgo some of the cornflour. Also, the churros were a little doughy in the centre – I tried making smaller ones but the problem was still the same. I’d probably aim for something more like a doughnut recipe next time to get a lighter filling. Thirdly I used nearly every pan in the house! There’s so many things happening concurrently I needed pots and pans galore. (And therefore washing-up galore – ugh).
That said, it was very tasty and pushed lots of sweet / rich buttons, and I can really imagine this being a hit on bonfire night when everyone’s wrapped up warm, or possibly Christmas time as a fun snack. I’ll bring this one out again – with a few modifications.
This is the first recipe I’ve tried from Jamie’s America, Jamie Oliver’s latest cookbook exploring the US coast-to-coast in search for true Americana, away from burgers and fries. I’ve started with the Navajo Breakfast, something dead easy and reminiscent of many a western breakfast; potatoes, bacon, onion, eggs… fairly ordinary stuff. It’s a pretty hefty breakfast though, only worth contemplating on a busy Saturday!
I start by frying a sliced onion with some bacon, then adding red potatoes that have been sliced on the ‘wide’ bit of a box grater. I continued frying these until soft and then seasoned. Then I chucked in some beaten eggs mixed with a little cayenne pepper, and once the eggs had set oozed the lot on to some toast. Not quite content with my cardiac state I added a little grated cheese on top. Totally satisfying and very tasty, this will come round again another breakfast time!
Being a Jamie Oliver nerd, I’d been waiting for the opportunity to try one of his restaurants. Being a fellow Essex boy I’m constantly disappointed that there isn’t one of his places in this great county. When Jamie, when? I’ll work there for free!
I do however make regular trips to Brighton, so knew the next time I would be sampling Jamie’s Italian. They don’t accept bookings so the four of us (3 adults + 1 child) rocked up in anticipation around 5pm and got seated quickly. I even asked to sit at a banquette to give us plenty of room and this was no bother at all.
My first impressions were of an American diner – quite chunky and glitzy. Jazzy murals of trainers and mirrors adorn the walls, meanwhile you can see right into the kitchen through a glass partition. The waiters have a pretty area, with butler sinks and rustic dressers to store their stuff. It’s pretty massive as well, not that they were short of covers!
Though the little one with us was sure to eat an adult’s portion, I asked for a child’s menu anyway because I’d heard they were unique. Indeed they are – 80s Viewmasters! Though the pictures are cute bafflingly there are no descriptions on any of them, so you’ve no idea what’s being ordered. The menus themselves are large and full of cheeky Jamie-isms as you might expect.
Immediately we ordered olives, being a firm favourite of my family. Described as ‘best olives’, that was certainly an apt description. Rich, plump green beauties with a meaty, almost parmesan-y tones. Set over ice and accompanied by ‘music bread’ – whatever that is – and olive tapenade, these truly were the best olives. Incredible.
Following from that we had a plate of meat antipasto and veg antipasto between the four of us. Antipasto always gets me giddy, I love courses where you can pick and nibble at different bits and pieces. These were an absolute triumph, laid on breadboards set atop two upturned tins of tomatoes. Wafer thin San Daniele ham, salty prosciutto, chewy mortadella… the meats alone were of the highest quality. Yet another fat olive and curiously plump capers finished this section off. There’s a cheese in the middle I can’t recall, but reminded me of manchego with membrillo. There was a tangy side dish of pickled carrot and beetroot which was just the right counterpoint. To leave the best til last, the mozzarella was the finest we had ever tasted. A paper-thin crust held a ball of soft creamy cheese that oozed in the mouth. Utter heaven. On the veg side there were some pleasing mixed mediterranean bits – courgette, artichoke etc – that were also delicious.
We then had an array of mains: lamb lollipops acheived that great combination of fun and tasty, with an array of dips; sweet potato lasagne that was warm and soothing; bolognese proclaimed to be “the best ever”; while I went for soft-shell crab. These were writhing great monsters, apologies for the dodgy pic but I was in a hurry to devour them. They were sweet and crispy and tasty, a real treat. If I had one complaint, it would be that there’s almost too much of it – even with my massive appetite I had out-crabbed myself – there were two whole crabs to nibble! In all the mains were incredibly satisfying, especially when paired with wilted greens and balsamic chickpeas.
For dessert we barely managed a bakewell, orange tart and range of sorbets. All were marvellous, the bakewell almondy and jammy, the orange tart thick and citrussy.
It was a superb meal – the best I’ve eaten this year and one of my favourite meals ever. Now when’s the Essex branch opening?!
