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.)
When Jamie started banging on about using brisket to save money, I didn’t need any convincing. I’ve been a fan of this largely ignored beef cut for years; I’ve got 5 or 6 recipes around here somewhere including the mighty cholent, a very popular dinner in this house.
I bought a lovely 2.5kg piece for £19, divided it up and froze half. I roasted the other half to serve 4 people generously and still had four portions left. Two of them ended up in this beef rendang. I don’t often get out to a Thai restaurant but this is my go-to order. It’s a thick, rich and deeply coconutty curry with a low, slow-burning heat.
And this recipe is a blinding version of beef rendang. As with every single Jamie recipe in existence I’ve dialled the heat right down but it still packs a spicy punch that really delivers. This one is going on regular rotation in my house.
Blitz the paste ingredients together with the coriander stalks in a food processor with some salt. Add some oil to a pan and fry this paste off for about 15 minutes.
Add the beef, stock and coconut and bring to the boil. Simmer for another 15 minutes, grate in the lime zest and add lime juice to taste. Season and serve with rice, flatbreads, coriander leaves and rice.
A couple of years back Jamie Oliver made waffles without using a waffle maker. He used, rather brilliantly I thought, a griddle pan. Genius!
Searching around for the recipe, it’s fair to say there’s some grumpy people out there that have tried it. Esther of the always-readable Recipe Rifle was particularly scathing about them, Kooky Girl has issues, and the ingredients list morphs from one post to another. It appears there was a discrepancy when recording where Jamie might’ve said “tablespoons” instead of “teaspoons”… it’s a bit of a mess. I’m no stickler for an exact recipe, but this is one of those things where you need the right balance of crispy, fluffy and rising to make it work.
Thankfully I found a great new blog as a result of this bout of surfing, Always Order Dessert. Alejandra Ramos struggled to find a consistent recipe too, so engaged the brain to invent one. Using this and a handful of other blogs I came up with a recipe I was perfectly pleased with.
Mindful of problems people were having with flipping the waffle, I had the brainwave to Foreman it. Propped up by newspaper so the grill stayed level, I cooked the batter on a George Foreman grill. This meant they cooked evenly on both sides, no flipping and they developed golden ridges. Flavour-wise, what we really have is American-style pancake batter cooked to a crisp so it’s not quite waffley but hits all the right points.
I’m entering this in Kavey’s monthly Bloggers Scream for Ice Cream challenge. I’ve entered this challenge last year for sorbet, this month the theme is waffles and cones. If you’re looking for some food inspiration go check out Kavey Eats, there’s tons of great food and reviews over there. The ice cream component of my waffles was ready-made; they’re not high-eatin’ but I really like Ben & Jerry’s Core range. This is Winter Berry Brownie, a really fruit ice cream with great big chunks of brownie.
Grilled waffles (makes about 8):
1 egg
300ml whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla paste
200g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
1 tablespoon caster sugar
Squirt of lemon juice
100g butter, melted
Whisk together the egg, milk and vanilla. Sift in the flour and baking powder and whisk until really smooth. Stir in the salt, sugar and lemon juice, and then dribble in the butter whisking all the time. Leave to rest in the fridge for 30 mins.
Preheat your George Foreman grill to high. When hot ladle on the batter and close the grill. Cook for 5 – 7 minutes until golden brown and lever off with a wooden spatula. Serve with ice cream.
This posts commemorates two firsts. Incredibly, the first time I have ever made a crumble. I can’t quite figure out why; crumble was a regular fixture following my Mum’s Sunday roast, and still get treated to one every now and then. I think it was rewatching all of Friday Night Dinner, where “crimble crumble” is the weekly dessert.
Second, and even more incredibly, it marks the first time I read Jamie Oliver’s The Naked Chef. Yes, his first book. I’ve read loads of his, and watched the series at the time. Yet mystically, I’ve never read it. I grabbed a copy from the library, and it’s so interesting to use it as a time machine to see how his style has evolved. Back then you can see glimpses of his verve and fun, but he is still restrained by the River Cafe style (which is great, but almost too simple for Jamie). The names of dishes are also intricate and a little prosaic. Still great eating though.
I got very nostalgic eating this. And it wasn’t until after I realised I should’ve used some brown sugar to get treacley goodness on the top. Next time…
Apple crumble (serves 6):
1.5kg apples
Pinch of cinnamon
225g plain flour
115g butter
90g sugar
Pinch of vanilla salt
Preheat the oven to 200°C. Peel and core the apples, finely slice (I used a food processor) and tip into a baking dish. Dust with the cinnamon.
Whizz the other ingredients in a food processor until it resembles crumbs, then tip over the fruit. Bake for 25 minutes or until the top is golden and bubbling. Serve with custard, cream, ice-cream and other sweet dairy things you can find.
I look forward to writing this post every year; a chance to reflect on the year’s cookbook shelves. Polpo gave us a travelogue round Venice’s cicchetti bars, Madhur Jaffrey returned to explore the UK’s curry scene, and LEON released their fourth impressive volume.
As baking fever truly took hold, with Jubilees and the like to celebrate, the market groaned with cupcake and muffin recipe manuals designed to capture Great British Bake-Off mania. It sometimes felt as though this was the only part of the market churning out books! From the non-cake section I’ve compiled my favourite cookbooks of 2012 that have in turns entertained, educated and enlightened me.
Yotam Ottolenghi has become one of those chefs for whom I pay close attention. Whatever he’s up to I’m interested, as it will certainly have an unusual angle that is completely new to me.
And this book goes some way to explaining why. Part holiday guide, part autobiography and all good eating, Jerusalem is a culinary tour of his and long-term collaborator Sam’s childhood home, knocking on all the doors of their youth and exploring the complex political and religious web that covers the city. They grew up in opposite corners of Jerusalem and their “same but different” upbringing is a fascinating story.
Most recipes have some potted history alongside it, and the recipes themselves are of course outstanding. Packed with bold flavours and its sings of people making the most of what little they have. In many cuisines crowd-pleasing dinners have peasant roots; warming, familiar, generous. These qualities abound throughout the book.
Perfect for: adventurous types with a love of aubergines!
Some may well groan at this inclusion – I imagine like 30 Min Meals it has set some sort of sales record – and the same tired old moans about adhering strictly to 15 minutes as an absolute time limit will surface no doubt.
But I cannot ignore this book. Like its almost slothful predecessor it had genuinely changed the way I prepare the evening meal, freeing me of the usual rules and conventions encouraging me to think in more adventurous ways. Deconstructing a chilli con carne, not in the modern British way so loved by Masterchef finalists, but in a sensible way to separate all the elements you love about it and bring together at the end is simply brilliant. This approach echoes throughout the book, touching on loads of great world cuisines along the way.
There is a reliance on kitchen gadgetry but none of it is gratuitous. It is sensible and well-judged. I defy anyone not to take at least one of these great recipes into their weekly repertoire.
Perfect for: people looking to do more in less time.
This came out of nowhere. I was a little familiar with Kiwi chef Alex Mackay so had almost no expectations for this book. I knew it was going to be great when I’d got about half way through my first flick-through and had to stop putting post-it notes against the ones I wanted to make, because ten is too big a for a to-cook list.
The premise is simple: take one ‘mother’ recipe, then spin it into five proper meals. But not in a prissy, cheffy way. Each one is approachable, and broken down to a very low level. Every description has steps in there for how children and babies can have the same food (for all his professional training with Raymond Blanc and Delia Smith, Alex runs many cookery classes for children, and it shows). Do you know the best thing about the recipes? They are all for two people. This is the number I cook for most often, so it’s so appealing to have recipes easily multiplied up.
But that’s all technical details, what about the food? It’s all just excellent, home-style food with influences from every continent. There are stir-fries, roasts, pizzas and many more. I’ve learned so many things from this book that I’ve stuck straight into my everyday repertoire – like how to cook a potato pancake perfectly every time, I must’ve made nine times this year. Or how to make an unctuous and delicious sauce like I’ve always dreamed of.
It is a book that reads very well, and eats even better. It’s smart cookery, by spending a lot of time on the base recipe you can have five very different meals with it, all of which are great. This is a truly good cookery book – add it to your shelf now.
Perfect for: everybody, everyday. Cheesy but true.
