by Jamie Oliver
‘what’s fresh, mate?’
warm salad of roasted squash, prosciutto & pecorino
This is one of those easy salads with a twist. You may have tried a Parma ham, rocket and Parmesan salad with a little balsamic vinegar, but by adding warm roasted squash and trying it with pecorino, which is slightly smoother than Parmesan, it’s a real pleasure and even feels a bit posh.
SERVES 4
1 butternut squash
olive oil
1 small dried red chilli
1 heaped teaspoon coriander seeds
20 slices prosciutto or Parma ham
4 handfuls of rocket
extra virgin olive oil
4 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
30g pecorino or Parmesan cheese
Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/gas 5. Carefully cut the butternut squash in half, keeping the seeds intact. Remove the two ends and discard. Cut each half into quarters and place in a roasting tray, then rub with a little olive oil. In a pestle and mortar pound up a level teaspoon each of sea salt and black pepper with the chilli and coriander seeds. Scatter this over the squash, then roast for 30 minutes, or until golden and soft. Allow to cool a little.
Lay the prosciutto on 4 plates — let it hang over the edge and encourage it to twist so it doesn’t look neat and flat. Tear up the warm squash and put it in and around the ham. Sprinkle over the seeds and the rocket. Drizzle over 6 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and the balsamic vinegar, add a tiny pinch of salt and pepper, and use a speed-peeler to shave over the pecorino (see page 31). Easy!
‘a kitchen doesn’t just have to be in the home – I’ll cook anywhere … I’ve even cooked a steak on my engine’
the proper french side salad
You know what I’m like — I’m the world’s biggest lover of salads! When I worked in France we used to have brilliant cheap French salads, but on my last trip to Paris all I kept getting in restaurants were some miserable leaves served with bits of overcooked hard-boiled egg and big clumsy chunks of plain old tomato. I’m sure this was just bad luck, but it made me think about the good salads I’d had, with a cracking French dressing that didn’t have any added sugar. I even saw a chef add some raw egg whites to a French dressing to help it emulsify — a sackable offence.
SERVES 4
2 banana or 6 regular shallots, peeled and finely sliced
white wine vinegar
1 large frisée lettuce
1 bunch of fresh chives
½ a bunch of fresh chervil, leaves picked
2 handfuls of fine green beans, trimmed
2 gem lettuces
FRENCH DRESSING
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1—2 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely chopped
extra virgin olive oil
Put the shallots into a small dish, cover with vinegar and let them sit for 10 to 15 minutes. Pull off all the dark green frisée leaves and throw them away, as they are bitter, then cut off all the yellow-white leaves down to the stalk. Place them in a large salad bowl with the chives and chervil. Cook the green beans in boiling salted water until tender, then drain and allow to cool. I’m not a great fan of fridge-cold beans, but beans at room temperature or warm are fantastic in this salad, so add them to the bowl. Remove any sad-looking outer leaves from the gem lettuces and then cut them into 8 pieces. Add to the salad bowl.
Remove the shallots from the vinegar and sprinkle them over the salad leaves. Put 4 tablespoons of the leftover vinegar in a separate bowl, add the mustard and garlic with a small pinch of sea salt, then slowly whisk in 9 tablespoons of oil until the dressing emulsifies. Taste and correct the seasoning, if needed. Dress the salad, give it a good toss and divide between 4 bowls. Serve immediately.
fresh asian noodle salad
This is one of those salads which tastes so amazing that you have to keep making it! It’s spicy, zingy and really gets your taste buds going.
SERVES 4
300g glass noodles
200g minced beef
2 teaspoons Chinese five-spice
olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely grated
3cm piece of ginger, peeled and finely grated
100g cooked peeled prawns
3 teaspoons sugar
1 bunch of spring onions, finely sliced
1 lime
1 tablespoon fish sauce
2 fresh red chillies, deseeded and finely sliced
½ a bunch of fresh coriander, leaves picked and roughly chopped
½ a bunch of fresh mint, leaves picked and roughly chopped
2 handfuls of unsalted peanuts
Soak the noodles in a bowl of warm water until soft, then drain and put back into the bowl. In a hot wok fry the beef and five-spice in 5 tablespoons of oil until crisp, then add the garlic, ginger, prawns and sugar and stir-fry for another 4 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir the wok mixture into the noodles. Add the spring onions, lime juice, fish sauce, chillies, coriander, mint and peanuts to the bowl. Toss well and season to taste with sea salt and black pepper — it wants to be quite zingy with the lime juice. Sprinkle with some extra herb leaves, if you like, and serve cold.
Try this: You can modify the recipe by using a little wok-fried squid, shellfish or different minced meats.
In Mexico and Japan they have always used acidic marinades to cut through the richness of fish. On my last trip to America I saw some stunning ceviches — there are various interpretations of this but it basically means using the acidic properties of citrus fruit or vinegar to partly cook meat or fish. This can be done at the last minute, which gives you a very light cure like when you put lemon juice on smoked salmon, making it go slightly opaque. I’ve even seen long-cured duck done for a few days in citrus juice, which had the effect of slow-roasting it. Amazing stuff. But what I find really exciting is the way that Thai people use essence of ginger and lime and fantastic things like that to cure any fish. Your inspiration should come from getting hold of really good fresh fish. Don’t use any old rubbish — ask your fishmonger to tell you when the fish was caught and when it came into the shop. See page 14 for some helpful hints and tips on buying fresh fish.
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fresh mackerel cooked in pomegranate, lime juice & tequila with a crunchy fennel salad
SEGMENTING CITRUS FRUIT
quick-cooked white fish with blood orange, lemongrass & sesame seeds
citrus-seared tuna with crispy noodles, herbs & chilli
ceviche of raw crayfish with kaffir lime leaves, chilli & ginger
scallop spoons
quick marinated red mullet with crispy ginger, shallots & a citrus dressing
pomegranate & gin cocktail
fresh mackerel cooked in pomegranate, lime juice & tequila with a crunchy fennel salad
This is an unusual way to cook and serve fish. It’s so tasty. If you’re interested in cooking then you should challenge your taste buds — and this is just the recipe to do it with! The finished dish is only as good as the fish that you start off with, so get yourself some nice fresh mackerel and wow your friends at your next dinner party.
SERVES 4
300ml white wine vinegar
1 large mackerel (600g), scaled, filleted, pin-boned (see page 198)
3 ripe pomegranates
2 limes
1 good splash of tequila
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1cm piece of ginger, peeled and finely grated
2 small bulbs of fennel, finely sliced, herby tops reserved
extra virgin olive oil
You can make this on the morning of your dinner party. Heat the vinegar with 1 heaped teaspoon of sea salt in a pan until lukewarm. Remove from the heat. Place the 2 mackerel fillets in a snug-fitting dish and cover with the vinegar. Allow to sit all day (for around 7 hours), then drain and put to one side while you make the dressing
. Juice 2 of the pomegranates by squeezing them over a sieve into a bowl, or use a lemon juicer, but be careful not to wear anything white when you juice them — when I do it I always cover myself in juice and I always get a rollicking from Jools. Squeeze in the lime juice, then add the tequila, sesame oil and ginger to the pomegranate juice.
Place the fillets in half the pomegranate juice mixture and allow them to sit for 30 minutes, making sure both sides of the fish are covered. This will slowly ‘cold cook’ the mackerel and will give it a really fantastic flavour.
While the fish is ‘cooking’, finely slice the fennel and pick out the pomegranate seeds from the remaining pomegranate. You may think that this is a bit of a palaver but in fact all you have to do is break the pomegranate up and dislodge all the little capsules — it’s quite easy and good fun. Divide the fennel between 4 plates. Drain the mackerel and pat dry, then slice it up across the fillets as thin as you like. Place on top of the fennel, then sprinkle with the pomegranate seeds and fennel tops and grate over the lime zest. Carefully drizzle over some of the remaining pomegranate juice mixture and a little extra virgin olive oil to finish.
SEGMENTING CITRUS FRUIT
1. Remove both ends from the orange (or whichever citrus fruit you’re using).
2. Turn the orange on to a flat edge and remove the first sliver of skin.
3. Twist the orange around to remove all the skin in slivers.
4. Carefully insert the knife as close as possible to the connective white pith around each segment.
5. Twist the knife and ease the segment apart from the rest of the orange.
quick-cooked white fish with blood orange, lemongrass & sesame seeds
This recipe is really flexible for all kinds of finely sliced white fish, such as brill, halibut, bass or turbot. Even red mullet is great. To get fine slices, use a really sharp carving knife. And it’s such a simple fresh starter for any meal. This requires the freshest fish you can get your hands on. See page 14 for advice on shopping for fresh fish.
SERVES 4
600g white fish fillet, skin off, pin-boned
2 sticks of lemongrass
4 blood oranges, 2 halved and 2 segmented (see page 53)
5cm piece of ginger, peeled and finely grated
extra virgin olive oil
2 limes
4 spring onions
1 bulb of fennel, halved and finely sliced lengthways, herby tops reserved
4 tablespoons sesame seeds, toasted until golden
Place the fish fillet in front of you and, slicing away from you, cut it into the thinnest slices you can. A little trick we use in the restaurant to get the slices even thinner is to place them between 2 bits of clingfilm and bat them out very lightly with something flat until they are nice and thin. Divide the fish slices between 4 plates, in the centre of each. To make it look a bit more rustic, try not to lay the fish flat on the plate — you can let some curl up and you can leave gaps in the middle to trap little pools of dressing.
To make the dressing, remove the tough outer part of the lemongrass, discard it and very finely slice across the pale tender ends. Put in a bowl with the juice of the 2 halved blood oranges, the ginger, a little pinch of sea salt and 4 tablespoons of oil. Finely grate the lime zest and put to one side, then squeeze over the lime juice. At this point you will need to taste — you want it to be nice and acidic, but if the limes are very sour you can mellow it slightly with a little more oil, which won’t hurt at all.
Finely slice the spring onions at an angle and mix with the orange segments and the sliced fennel. Lay this over the middle of the fish. Divide the tangy dressing between the 4 plates, making sure you drizzle it over the fish. Sprinkle with the lime zest and scatter over the herby fennel tops and sesame seeds. Serve straight away.
‘it’s great that world cuisine can be found in one city’
citrus-seared tuna with crispy noodles, herbs & chilli
Tuna is a wonderfully rich, slightly fatty fish. Using grapefruit to sear it gives a really nice contrast of flavours. It’s quick to prepare and it will definitely be a talking point when you have guests round for dinner. The noodles are a great part of this dish, but can be an optional extra — whatever you prefer.
SERVES 4
2 pink grapefruits
1 tablespoon fish sauce
500g piece of tuna
sesame oil
extra virgin olive oil
2—3 fresh red chillies, very finely sliced
1 big bunch of fresh coriander
½ a bunch of fresh mint
2 good handfuls of glass noodles
olive oil
4 spring onions, finely sliced at an angle
Squeeze the grapefruit juice into a sandwich bag, then add the fish sauce and tuna. Tie up the bag, squeezing out most of the air so the tuna is completely covered in the liquid. Leave for 40 minutes, or until the outside of the tuna is pale and ‘cooked’. Now carefully pour the liquid from the bag into a bowl, pat the tuna dry and put to one side.
For the dressing, mix 1 tablespoon of sesame oil, 6 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and the chillies into the reserved liquid. Use as much chilli as you like, and season to taste with sea salt and black pepper. Tear off a good handful of coriander and mint from the bunches and put aside for garnish later. Pick and finely chop the remaining herbs and really pat these around the tuna to cover it. Wrap in clingfilm and place in the fridge until needed.
Cook the noodles in boiling salted water for 1 minute, or until they’re slightly flexible, then drain and allow to steam dry and cool. Add a little olive oil to a hot non-stick pan, add the noodles and leave them until they are nice and crisp on one side. Now flip them over and do the same on the other side — it doesn’t matter if some stick to the pan, just scrape them up and turn them over. Divide the crispy noodles between 4 plates. Slice the tuna ½cm thick — in Japan it’s a sign of generosity to have nice thick slices of tuna, but I like them a little thinner as they are more delicate in the mouth.
Place the tuna on the noodles, sprinkle over the reserved herbs and spring onions, then drizzle over 2 spoonfuls of the dressing. Before your eyes you will see the cut sides of the slices of fish begin to change colour and ‘cook’. Serve straight away.
ceviche of raw crayfish with kaffir lime leaves, chilli & ginger
This is a great one and quite unexpected. I had something similar in a Spanish/Latino/Peruvian-style restaurant in New York where they specialize in ceviches. This is a good recipe to do as a canapé or pre-starter — you can whack some in the middle of the table and everyone can help themselves. It will really get the taste buds going for dinner. You can buy fresh lime leaves and banana leaves in Asian grocery shops and some supermarkets.
SERVES 4
10 kaffir lime leaves
2 fresh red chillies, finely sliced
3cm piece of ginger, peeled and finely grated
3 limes
sesame oil
extra virgin olive oil
12 large raw crayfish or prawns
optional: 4 banana leaves
Bash the lime leaves in a pestle and mortar with a pinch of sea salt (or use a metal bowl and the end of a rolling pin). Really bruise and break them up. Put them in a sandwich bag with the chillies, ginger, lime juice, 1 teaspoon of sesame oil and 4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. Taste and adjust the seasoning, if needed.
Cut the crayfish or prawns down the back of each shell and open them up, pull out the vein and remove the head. This will help to make the fish look nicer but, more importantly, it makes the surface area bigger so that the acid can cook them more quickly. Add the crayfish to the dressing in the sandwich bag, squeezing out all the air before tying it up and leaving it for half an hour.
Divide the crayfish between 4 bowls and drizzle the dressing over each bowl, or you can use 4 small banana leaves if you want to. Hold them over a gas flame if you like so they become a deep green colour, and they’ll smell fantastic. I nor
mally slice the leaves up and squash them into a bowl with 3 crayfish on top so that all the lovely juices will be caught in the leaves and you can slurp them up.
‘lovely live scallops’
scallop spoons
This is a great way to turn heads at a dinner party. Something as silky and delicate as a scallop is fantastic flavoured like this and served in a crunchy leaf.
SERVES 4
6 large fresh scallops, trimmed
½ a mango, destoned, peeled
1 spring onion, finely sliced
½ a bunch of fresh basil, leaves picked and finely sliced (see page 114)
2 limes
extra virgin olive oil
½ a fresh chilli, finely chopped
3cm piece of ginger, peeled and finely grated
1 iceberg lettuce
By all means, get all your ingredients ready and prepared but don’t mix together until the last minute or it won’t taste as fresh. Finely dice the scallops and mango, then place in a bowl. Add the spring onion and basil leaves and stir in, then squeeze in the lime juice and add 3 tablespoons of olive oil, and the chilli and ginger. Taste and check the seasoning. To serve, I love to divide little bite-sized portions of the mixture into small, crunchy iceberg lettuce leaves. Try and use the leaves from the centre of the lettuce as they are cup-shaped and will hold the filling really well.