Read Gordon Ramsay's Ultimate Cookery Course Online
Authors: Gordon Ramsay
Gordon Ramsay's Ultimate Cookery Course (26 page)
3
. To make the caramel, tip the 4 tablespoons of caster sugar, the vanilla seeds and five-spice powder into a heavy-based frying pan and cook over a medium heat for 3–4 minutes until the sugar has dissolved and is turning a dark golden brown. Remove from the heat, add the butter and 2 tablespoons of the cream. Shake the pan to melt the butter, whisk to combine, then add the remaining cream.
4
. To serve, drizzle the caramel sauce over the pineapple wedges and serve immediately.
HOW TO GRIDDLE
Whenever you use a griddle pan, always press down hard what you are cooking and hold it there for a few seconds. This will help achieve those characteristic scorch lines, which not only look attractive but mean more flavour.
BLUEBERRY AND RICOTTA
PANCAKES WITH YOGHURT
AND HONEY
MAKES 8
Who says pancakes are only for breakfast? These are certainly good enough to eat at any time of the day. If you beat the ricotta with a fork first, it will loosen up and be easier to fold into the batter. And remember, when whisking egg whites, make sure your bowl and whisk are spotlessly clean. Any grease will stop the whites from fluffing up. This will make enough batter for the following day too.
125g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
1 tbsp caster sugar
2 eggs, separated
100ml whole milk
125g ricotta cheese
100g fresh blueberries, plus extra to serve
Oil and butter, for frying
Greek yoghurt and runny honey, to serve
1
. Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar into a large bowl and mix together. Make a well in the middle and tip in the egg yolks. Gradually add the milk and whisk slowly, bringing the flour in from the edges until it is all combined. Fold in the ricotta and blueberries.
2
. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until they almost reach soft peaks. Fold a spoonful of the egg whites into the pancake mix to loosen it slightly, then fold in the rest.
3
. Heat a wide, non-stick frying pan over a medium heat. Add a dash of oil and a small knob of butter. Once the butter has melted, cook the pancakes in small batches, using 1 heaped tablespoon of batter per pancake. Shape them into round discs in the pan. Cook for 1–2 minutes on each side until golden and fluffy and hot all the way through. Keep warm in a low oven while you repeat with the remaining batter.
4
. To serve, divide between serving plates, top with a dollop of Greek yoghurt, a sprinkling of fresh blueberries and a drizzle of honey.
SOMETIMES COOKS CAN BE
THEIR OWN WORST ENEMIES.
I occasionally go round to friends for dinner and when I see what they are putting themselves through, it almost makes me cry. They’ll be manfully struggling to carve a joint, with four different vegetables all coming to the boil, a gravy still to be made,
and
they want to plate it all up themselves
and
bring it to the table. Meanwhile, we guests sit there, watching as the stress levels go through the roof, wishing they’d let us help.
And I just want to say, ‘Are you mad?’ No one can get food out under those conditions. I’ve worked in professional kitchens for more than 25 years, and I’d never dream of trying to do all that on my own. In a restaurant you’ve got chefs on all the different sections, each cooking their own elements: the meat, the vegetables, the sauces. You’ve got a head chef whose job it is to check each plate is perfect. You’ve got waiters ferrying the dishes to the table, and you’ve even got a kitchen porter to do the washing up. That’s – what? – a minimum of six people. And there you are trying to do the whole thing on your own. No wonder you’re stressed.
The first thing to remember when you are cooking for a crowd is that it hasn’t got to be perfect. You’re not running a restaurant here. Your guests have hopefully come because they want to spend time in your company, not because they want a Michelin-starred meal on the cheap. So relax and make sure the meal will work for you in order that you can enjoy yourself at the same time.
That means choosing the right menu. It doesn’t matter if it’s one course or five, it’s got to be something you can produce without breaking a sweat. Cooking can be stressful, there’s no denying it, but if you plan ahead, you’ll be able to minimise it. Think about what you are setting yourself up to do. Are you going to have to do lots of last-minute prepping, or can everything be made ready in advance? Will you be trying to cook eight steaks with only one frying pan, or can it all be left alone in the oven? Will the fish need filleting before you can plate it up? This is the kind of forward thinking that makes most disasters avoidable and will, hopefully, save you a world of hurt.
Let’s start by talking about timing. I find a lot of people misunderstand this. They think of those countdowns you often see in magazines around Christmas time – you know the sort: 10.30 Put in the turkey; 12.15 Put on the potatoes; 12.50 Boil the veg. These are always geared towards everything coming together at the same moment so that on the stroke of 1 p.m. your joint is ready, your potatoes are roasted, your sprouts and carrots are perfectly cooked. Success, you think. Except that you then have the most almighty panic as you try to drain the veg, carve the turkey and put the potatoes in the serving dish all at the same time.
When chefs talk about timing, it is almost the opposite. We are trying to make sure that everything doesn’t come together at the same time. Far better that the joint has come out of the oven half an hour earlier (it will always benefit from having time to relax), that the vegetables are keeping warm in a low oven, that only the gravy is still to be finished off.
Anything you can make ahead is to the good. That doesn’t just mean the kind of slow braises and casseroles I covered in Cooking in Advance (although, of course, they are ideal for feeding a crowd). Just as important are dishes that can be prepared a few hours ahead and then finished off at the last minute. The Sticky Pork Ribs
here
, for example, is ideal for crowds, as it can be taken to the final stage and then finished off on the hob, leaving you in total control. A cold starter or side dish is always a fantastic stress-busting option, one you can get ready hours before your guests arrive. The only problem with salads is that once you add the vinaigrette, the leaves will start to wilt, and within minutes they will turn limp and slimy. One trick is to put the vinaigrette in the base of the bowl, then cross the salad servers over it to form a kind of stand you can rest the salad leaves on, so they aren’t in contact with the dressing. Then, when the time comes to serve, a quick toss and you are good to go. Alternatively, there are all manner of robust salads that often benefit from being dressed ahead of time. The Green Papaya Salad
here
is a good example. You can make that a few hours in advance and it will actually improve with the extra time.
If you are super-organised, don’t forget that vegetables can be blanched in boiling water for a couple of minutes and then refreshed in iced water, ready for reheating at the last minute, either in the microwave or by plunging them into boiling water.
A quick word about boiling vegetables for crowds. As a general rule, you shouldn’t use more liquid in a saucepan than you need to cover the thing you want to cook; otherwise you encourage more flavours to leach out. However, when boiling vegetables, particularly frozen ones, you should always bring a generous amount of water to the boil. That way the water will return to heat much more quickly once you’ve added the vegetables, and they’ll stay firmer and greener as a result.
Sometimes a dish will require lots of last-minute work, so don’t be afraid to ask for help. Kitchens work on delegation, and one of the first tasks a head chef has to learn is to organise his brigade. I always assign tasks to my guests, from pouring drinks to laying the table. Get them involved. Even better, make the food preparation part of the entertainment. Get your guests to make their own Vietnamese prawn rolls, ask them to mix the salad.
You also need to think about how you will present your food. Will you plate it all up in the kitchen, or will you let guests help themselves? For me, it depends entirely on what I am serving. If I’ve got a big centrepiece dish, like a magnificent rib of beef, I’ll let guests share in the excitement and carve it at the table. Eight fillets of fish, on the other hand, aren’t going to look too impressive sitting in their hot frying pans, so I’ll tend to plate those up, but ask someone to come and help. That way they can be served on hot plates straight out of the warming oven (particularly important with fish as it will go cold quickly). I’ll tend to let the guests help themselves to vegetables.
If it’s a more casual gathering (and to be honest, we are all heading this way more and more with our home cooking), I’ll simply put big bowls of salad or stew or whatever out on the table and let everyone tuck in. If you invest in some nice serving bowls or cast-iron casserole dishes this can still look elegant – just remember to warn guests when pans are hot if you want to avoid any lawsuits.
Finally the pudding. This is one area where I think you can afford to show off a bit. It’s the last thing your guests will taste, the memory they’ll take home with them, so why not finish on a bang? It hasn’t got to be super-complicated, but it should look the part, so stick to something you can take your time over and that won’t need lots of last-minute work. Then put it in the centre of the table and let your guests tuck in.