Warm Chicken Salad with Artichoke Hearts & Crispy Bacon
Oct0
It’s the third day of my Gordon Ramsay test cooking. Today I decided to attempt a warm chicken salad from Gordon Ramsay Makes It Easy
I will definately cook this dish again, especially for guests. Unfortunately I didn’t have enough baby spinach leaves so I had to divide the chicken and the artichokes on two plates (that’s why there is so many on the picture). The portion was huge but we didn’t eat anything else so it was fine. The only thing that I’d really like to add is about frying the chicken: whenever you see a chicken recipe in a cookbook, do not mind any cooking times that are indicated. The thickness of chicken breasts differs greatly and it is crucial to verify yourself if the chicken is still pink in the middle or not. It’s very dangerous to eat a rare piece of chicken. This is why you should always check if the meat is cooked in the middle, if not, cover the chicken with a lid and put it back on the stove for a few minutes on lower heat. Or slice the chicken breast in a half and fry it on the uncooked sides. Or if the meat already has a nice color on the outside but isn’t cooked inside, put it in the oven for a few minutes.
(Adapted from Gordon Ramsay Makes it Easy)
Ingredients
- 2 rosmary sprigs or 1 tsp of dried rosmary
- 2 thyme sprigs or 1 tsp of dried thyme
- 2 garlic cloves, peeled
- 500 ml chicken stock
- 2-3 chicken breasts (depending on the size, with skin on if you like)
- 2 Tbsp of olive oil
- 25g butter
- 150g artichoke hearts (from a jar or a can)
- 1-2 Tbsp lemon juice
- 6 slices of bacon
- 50 ml basic vinaigrette (100 ml olive oil, 100 ml sunflower or groundnut oil, 3 Tbsp white wine or cider vinegar, salt & pepper –> mix with an immersion blender and keep in the fridge for use)
- 1 shallot, finely chopped
- 1 tsp balsamic vinegar
- 150g baby spinach
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Preparation
- Put the herbs, garlic and the stock in a saucepan and bring to a simmer. Clean the chicken breasts (cut of fat etc.) and put them in the simmering liquor. Let poach for about 3 minutes or until the meat is firm to touch. Let the chicken cool off in the liquor.
- Remove the chicken from the liquor, heat the olive oil in a non stick frying pan and once it’s nicely hot, put the chicken breasts inside (if you use chicken breasts with skin, put them in skin side down). Now put a lid on the frying pan and and let it cook for approximately 5 minutes (until the skin is crisp). Turn the chicken and add the butter. Cover again and let cook for about 2 minutes.
- Remove the lid from the chicken and check if it’s done in the middle, if not, either let it cook as a whole for a few more minutes at a lower temperature with the lid on. Or halve the breasts and fry the pieces with the uncooked side down. Or put the frying pan with the chicken in the oven for a few minutes.
- Drain the artichokes through a sieve and remove all excess oil. Dry them on kitchen paper and drizzle with the lemon juice.
- Pan fry the bacon until it’s nicely crisp. Drain on kitchen paper.
- Mix the vinaigrette with the balsamic vinegar and the shallot.
- Now slice the chicken breasts in six long slices each. Arrange 4 plates with the chicken the baby spinach leaves, the atichokes and the bacon. Drizzle with your vinaigrette.
Serves 4, enjoy 
Crispy Sea-Bream on Rustic Ratatouille
Oct0
It’s the second day of my Gordon Ramsay test cooking. As I posted yesterday, I’m going to try out three recipes from the cookbook “Gordon Ramsay Makes It Easy
I was particularly intrigued by this dish because of the Ratatouille. As you might have read already, I’m living and studying in Aix-en-Provence, a beautiful town in the heart of the Provence region, about 30 kilometers away from Marseille. If there is one dish from Provence that almost everyone knows, it’s Ratatouille. This vegetable stew originated in Nice but it is eaten almost everywhere in France.
(One of Cezanne’s paintings of Mont St. Victoire, the mountain that
reigns over Aix-en-Provence. The famous painter was born in Aix.)
About the dish itself: I loved the combination of Ratatouille and fish. The dish felt very light and it was relatively easy to make. The only criticism I have is for the Ratatouille itself. In the recipe the vegetables are cooked very shortly (about 5-7 minutes) which is good if you want to keep the vegetables a little crunchy, but which isn’t so great if you leave the skin on the aubergines. Of course it probably depends on what kind of aubergine (eggplant) you use, but the one I used had a quite thick skin and when the dish was done it was hard to chew the aubergine pieces. Apart from that I might add a little tomato purée the next time but that’s optional.
(The recipe is adapted from Gordon Ramsay’s cookbook “G.R. Makes it Easy”)
Ingredients
For the rustic ratatouille:
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
- 1 tomato
- 1 yellow pepper (or 1/2 red pepper and 1/2 yellow pepper)
- 1 courgette
- 1/2 aubergine
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 handful of basil leaves, roughly chopped
- 1 tsp of balsamic vinegar
- salt and pepper
For the fish:
- 2 nice sea-bream fillets (buy them fresh with the skin on)
- 2 Tbsp of olive oil
- salt and pepper
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Preparation
- Wash and cut the tomatoes in quarters. With a sharp knife slide along the flesh to deseed them. Finely chop the flesh.
- Wash and deseed the pepper(s). Cut them in 1cm dice.
- Wash and cut the courgette in 1 cm thick dice.
- Wash the aubergine and cut it into 1 cm dice. If the skin is very thick rather remove it.
- Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan. Wait until it’s hot.
- Cook the garlic and the onions (on medium heat) in the pan for approximately 2 minutes until they are soft.
- Add all the vegetables to the pan and cook everything for about 5 minutes while stirring every now and then.
- Add the basil and the vinegar, season to taste.
- Remove the ratatouille from the heat and keep it warm.
- Clean the bream fillets, be careful to remove all scales and with your finger drive along the line in the middle of the fillets. If you feel any bones, remove them with a pincher.
- Lay the fish on your cutting board, skin-side up. With your hand squeeze the fillet together a little so the skin gets stretched. Now cut into the skin leavin less than a cm of space between each cut. Salt the fish on the skin side and be careful to put salt inside every of the “lamelles” you created.
- Heat the olive oil in a non stick frying pan.
- Once hot (and really let it get piping hot first) put the fillets in the frying pan, skin side down.
- Let the fish cook like that on medium-high heat and don’t touch it. Give it time until 2/3rd of the fish is cooked. (3-4 minutes)
- Turn the fish once, letting it cook for about a minute on the other side (check if it’s done completely).
- When it’s done, turn it around on the skin side and remove the pan from the heat.
- Put half of the ratatouille on a plate and put the fish on top, skin-side up.
Serves 2, enjoy
Simple Broccoli Soup
Oct0
A few days ago I received one of Gordon Ramsay’s cookbooks I had ordered. Gordon Ramsay Makes It Easy is
As I’ve said before already: I don’t like celebrity cookbooks. Often you open them with high expectations and once you try out a few recipes you get disappointed not only by the result but by the time and money you invested.
I watch a lot of cooking shows with Gordon Ramsay and I’ve always been impressed by the simplicity of his dishes. This is actually the reason why I decided to buy his book and to give it a try, despite my prejudices. I randomly selected 3 recipes and will be trying them out over the next days, always posting about my experiences here.
When I went shopping today for ingredients, the list of items I needed to make those three dishes was 9 items long. Of course it always depends on how well your pantry is stocked but 9 items for 3 dishes is really nice, especially given the fact that I’m a student and that I must be careful with my budget.
The first dish I decided to try out was a Broccoli soup. Gordon Ramsay’s famous broccoli soup with 3 ingredients: Broccoli, Water and Salt! After preparing the dish I can say: it was quick, it was cheap and it tasted good. I wasn’t blown away but that’s mostly due to the additions beside the broccoli. Ramsay suggests in his book/dvd that for a “Posh occasion” you can add a strong goat cheese along with a few walnuts to the soup. Given the fact that I loath goat cheese I added some “Tomme Blanche” (which doesn’t have a strong taste) and a few walnuts. I loved the soup itself but the cheese bothered me more than anything and made the dish really heavy. The walnuts were ok but not a must either in my opinion. The soup itself though is a great way to eat broccoli which has a bombastic nutritional value.
Ingredients
- 1 broccoli head (nice green color, no brown spots)
- water
- salt
- olive oil to drizzle (optional)
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Preparation
- Bring water to a boil in a large saucepan.
- Take the broccoli in your hand, by the stem, and hold down the florets. Cut them off by cutting around the stem, turning it slowly as needed.
- Wash the florets and salt the water.
- Once the water is rapidly cooking, add the florets and cover with a lid.
- After 4-5 minutes, once you can cut through the broccoli with a knife, remove the pan from the heat and drain the broccoli through a sieve into a bowl. It is important to keep that water, do not throw it away.
- Put the broccoli in a blender and add some of the cooking water to it until the water is about at half height of the broccoli. Now blend thoroughly (starting slowly and interrupting a few times at first) until you have a soup with a very smooth texture. Remove the lid from the blender and add seasoning if needed.
- Fill a plate with the soup and drizzle a little olive oil on top.
- Croutons should go well with the soup, try it out!
- Serves 3-4
Enjoy
