Tag: jamie oliver

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.)

Categories
chorizo tomato

tomato and chorizo salad

chorizo and tomato salad

When I watch cookery programmes, I try to keep a notepad nearby. If something pops up I love the look of, I can scribble it down immediately. Even if the recipe is published online afterwards I find there are little bits and pieces that are not always included in the full rundown. Extra seasoning, tips to look out for… like making notes when studying, I find it really useful to have my own version of events. They tend to come out as flow charts or odd diagrams as they make more visual sense to my brain.

So I was thumbing through an old notebook and found this recipe that I’d completely forgotten about. From Jamie Oliver’s Jamie Does… series, he cooked this summery salad in Andalucia. I had some home-grown tomatoes begging to be used, a lump of chorizo in the fridge (as there so often is) so it was a straightforward decision!

Given the absurdly inseasonal weather this weekend this fitted the bill perfectly. A little poke, sharp from vinegar with fresh tomato flavours, it goes great alongside any BBQ dish.

Tomato and chorizo salad (serves 2):

100g chorizo, cut into chunks

6 tomatoes, roughly chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

Sherry vinegar

Handful of roughly chopped parsley

  1. Heat a little oil in a pan and throw in the sausage. Fry for a few minutes until browned on all sides.
  2. While the chorizo cooks, chop up the tomato and parsley and pop into a serving dish. Sprinkle with sea salt, pepper and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.
  3. Once the chorizo is cooked, add a good shake of sherry vinegar and the garlic, and cook for 30 secs. Scoop out the chorizo with a slotted spoon and toss into the tomatoes (reserve the oil for frying something else really tasty, like a roast chicken or potatoes).
Categories
cider leeks sage sausages

catherine wheel sausage with leek gravy

This is largely based on a recipe from Jamie’s 30-Minute Meals (yes, I still haven’t cooked them all) but without the crazy Ryvita-apple salad (?). I’ll be honest: the only reason I made it was to have a squirly-whirly sausage which somehow makes me grin more than regular daisy-chained sausages. But the leek gravy is the surprise star, all sweet and silky. I’ve added a dollop of creme fraiche to make it even more smooth and tasty. Great stuff as the nights draw in.

Catherine wheel sausage with leek gravy (serves 4):

12 linked chipolatas

1 large teaspoon dried sage

500g potatoes, peeled and diced

3 cloves garlic, peeled

2 leeks, quartered and sliced

1 chicken stock cube

1 tablespoon flour

200ml cider

50g butter

1 heaped teaspoon wholegrain mustard

1 tablespoon creme fraiche

  1. Get the grill on medium, and two lidded saucepans on a low heat. Fill one of the pans with boiling water, add the potatoes and garlic, a large pinch of salt and get them simmering away.
  2. Allow the sausages to unravel and squidge the meat together so you get one long sausage as opposed to lots of links. Push a couple of skewers through the sausage to hold it in place. Douse with olive oil and sprinkle with half the sage. Pop under the grill for 10 minutes.
  3. Chuck the leeks along with some olive oil and the remaining sage into the other pan and a splash of boiling water, then clamp the lid on. Let these whistle away for 5 minutes until tender, then sprinkle in the stock cube and flour. Stir well and when well combined add the cider. After a minute or two bubbling away top up with the same amount of hot water and simmer.
  4. Flip the sausage over for a further 5 minutes or so until browned. In the meantime check the potatoes are cooked through; when done drain well and add the butter and mustard. Allow to sit for a minute and then mash until it’s a smooth as you like. Check for seasoning.
  5. Take the leek gravy off the heat and whisk in the creme fraiche. Serve up the sausages with a pile of mash and drown with leeky gravy.
Categories
beef cumin oregano paprika tomato

beef chilli

Sometimes you see a recipe on TV and you have to do it immediately. And so it was with Jamie Cooks Summer, where Jamie Oliver cruises around a festival and cooks a bit. He made a chilli with a big slab of brisket as opposed to mince, rubbed it with spices and then braised it in tomatoes for hours. Watching the tender meat pull apart with a spoon is guaranteed mouth-watering.

I couldn’t find reasonably priced brisket (what’s happened to the price of brisket?!) so I used a large chunk of casserole steak instead, which still gave the same loose texture and great taste. I also added peppers and kidney beans to mine to round it out a bit. I left out the absurd amount of chillies that Jamie puts in every recipe, but still left plenty of tongue-tickling heat in there. It’s a great fun recipe though and a big hit for a party.

Beef chilli (serves 6):

800g casserole steak, scored

Paprika

Oregano

Cumin

Chilli powder

2 tins of tomatoes

2 large onions, sliced

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 red peppers, sliced

1 tin kidney beans, drained

  1. Get a large lidded casserole dish on a low hob, and a large frying pan on a high heat with a splash of oil.
  2. Rub a dusting each of oregano, paprika, cumin and chill into the meat with a sprinkle of salt. Make sure it’s well massaged in and sear the meat all over in the frying pan to get a lovely spicy crust on it.
  3. While this is searing, add the tomatoes to the casserole and half as much water again. Remove the meat to the side for a minute while you fry the onions and garlic until softened, then chuck the onions, garlic, meat and peppers into the pan. Stick the lid on, turn the heat down and simmer for 2 hours.
  4. Add the beans and cook out for another hour, or until the beef just falls apart. Serve with wraps, guacamole, salsa and rice.
Categories
carrots lamb mint mustard potatoes tomato

spring lamb, vegetable platter, mint sauce and chianti gravy

 

 

I thought I’d tried all the Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals that I wanted to, until the photo-ninja Nga commented about the spring lamb recipe… I couldn’t believe I’d missed it! So I tore off to try it.

It’s a relatively simple recipe, with seared & roasted lamb, and a big bowl of pots ‘n’ veg boiled up. But it’s a great way to multi-task without actually too much effort, and the result is dis-proportionately good. If you’re at all skittish about whether you can manage the 30 minute thing or not, give this one a whirl as it’s not too busy (I should point out that Jamie did a fondue in with his full recipe but that was simply microwaved chocolate and chopped fruit). Well worth a go.

Jamie recommends rack of lamb and neck fillet here. I find rack of lamb really hard to find now, hardly anyone stocks it and it’s very expensive when you do. Lamb chops aren’t as fancy but very tasty. A rack of lamb is a cut of meat from the rib section of a lamb. It is made up of a row of bones with meat on the top and sides. The rack of lamb is a popular choice for roasting and grilling but can be pricey.

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Spring lamb, vegetable platter, mint sauce and chianti gravy

A refreshing yet wholesome dinner.
Course Main Course
Cuisine British
Keyword quick
Servings 4
Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

For the lamb:

  • 4 lamb chops
  • 3 sprigs rosemary
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
  • White wine vinegar
  • 300 g cherry tomatoes on the vine

For the gravy:

  • 4 rashers smoked bacon
  • 2 sprigs fresh rosemary
  • 1 tablespoon flour
  • ½ glass red wine

For the veg:

  • 400 g baby new potatoes
  • 4 carrots
  • Stalks from a bunch of mint
  • 1 chicken stock cube
  • 300 g fine beans
  • ½ Savoy cabbage

For the mint sauce:

  • ½ a lemon
  • Leaves from a bunch of mint
  • 4 tablespoons red wine vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon caster sugar

Instructions

  • Get the oven on 220C, a frying pan and saucepan over high heats and get that kettle a-boilin'.
  • Add some olive oil to the pan. Season the lamb all over and pop it in.
  • Wash the potatoes, chop the carrots into nice chunks and add to the saucepan. Cover with boiling water and toss in the mint stalks and stock cube.
  • Turn the lamb well and make sure it's browned all over. While it's finishing bash the garlic and rosemary together in a mortar and pestle. Season, add the mustard and spread the lot over the  lamb. Transfer the lamb to a roasting dish with the tomatoes and slam in the oven for 9-14 minutes until done to your liking (for me, internal temp of 55°C before resting). Keep the frying pan on the heat and add the bacon, chopped.
  • Re-using the mortar from before, add the mint leaves with vinegar, sugar, pinch of salt and a splash of water from the veg pot. Mix it together for the mint sauce.
  • Add the red wine to the frying pan to deglaze the pan, scraping around. Add the flour and rosemary to the gravy pan, and stir for a minute to coat everything in flour. Add a few ladles of cooking water. Cut the Savoy into thin wedges and add to the boiling pot with the beans.
  • The lamb should be done about now, so get it out of the oven to rest for a minute while you sort out the veg. Once the beans are tender, drain the lot and return to the pot. Drizzle some extra virgin olive oil, some salt and pepper and the juice from the lemon. Toss well and serve. Cut the lamb into chops, check the gravy for seasoning and get stuck in!

Notes

The lamb can be any cut of lamb you like that fries quick, or would work pretty well with beef steaks - though the mint sauce wouldn't work for me then. It's your dinner though!
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