Jamie's Kitchen

by Jamie Oliver

  When you’re ready to cook, preheat the oven to 230°C/450°F/ gas 8. Parboil the potatoes in boiling salted water for 5 minutes, then add the fennel and continue to boil for 5 minutes, then drain. Remove the guinea fowl from the fridge, drain away the marinade, and place the meat on a board. Use a piece of kitchen paper to blot off any excess moisture. Put the legs into a big roasting tray and roast in the oven for 20 minutes. Take the tray out of the oven — you should have a nice bit of fat in the bottom. Remove the legs, put the potatoes, fennel and the rest of the garlic, thyme and rosemary into the tray and give it a really good shake. Put the legs back in the tray, along with the breast meat, which should be skin side up. Place in the oven for 30 minutes, or until both the skin of the breast meat and the potatoes are golden. Squash the olives and remove the stones. Remove the tray from the oven, sprinkle with the olives and allow to rest for 5 minutes.

  To serve, cut the guinea fowl into chunks. Divide a bit of everything between your plates and sprinkle with the herby fennel tops.

  marinated & pot-roasted beef fillet with a brilliant potato & horseradish cake

  SERVES 6

  1 × 1kg whole fillet of beef, trimmed

  1 bunch of fresh rosemary

  1 bulb of garlic, broken up

  olive oil

  2kg Desirée or Maris Piper potatoes, peeled and sliced ½cm thick

  3 heaped tablespoons creamed horseradish

  ½ a bottle of red wine

  40g unsalted butter

  Generously season the beef fillet with sea salt and black pepper. In a pestle and mortar bash a quarter of the rosemary with 1 peeled clove of garlic to make a paste. Loosen with 5 tablespoons of oil and rub all over the beef. Tie the beef up with 4 pieces of string, then poke the remaining rosemary sprigs under the string.

  Preheat the oven to 230°C/450°F/gas 8. Parboil the sliced potatoes in boiling salted water for 5 minutes, then drain and transfer to a bowl with just enough oil to coat. Season well. I like to make the potato cake in a round greased or non-stick cake tin, but you can use a non-stick frying pan with a metal handle, or you can even make small individual ones. Place half the potatoes in the tin or pan, spreading the creamed horseradish over the top. Place the rest of the potatoes on top, then pat down.

  Brown the beef in a roasting tray until all sides are coloured. Add the unpeeled garlic cloves to the tray, place the beef on top and put in the oven, with the potatoes on the shelf below. Cook for 20 minutes, then turn the beef over, baste it and add the red wine and butter. Remove the potato dish, then carefully place a clean tea towel over it and push down to compact the spuds into a nice tight cake. Place back in the oven for another 15 to 20 minutes.

  I serve the beef cooked medium, but cook it more or less to your preference. Remove the beef from the oven and while it is resting continue browning the potato cake for 5 minutes. To serve, remove the string and the rosemary from the beef and carve it into slices.

  Turn the potato cake out on to a board, or scoop it out with a spoon and divide between serving plates beside the meat. Pour any resting juices into the tray, where the red wine and butter and all the goodness from the meat will have made a very simple but tasty sauce. Finish by mushing up the garlic cloves, then pass the sauce through a sieve on to the meat. Lovely served with some dressed watercress.

  Try this: You could do the same recipe with a pork loin or venison.

  pot-roasted shoulder of lamb with roasted butternut squash & sweet red onions

  This is inspired by my having a shoulder of lamb, butternut squash and some red onions all waiting to be used! No quaint story to tell but it did taste bloomin’ lovely.

  SERVES 6

  1 shoulder of lamb, deboned

  1 tablespoon coriander seeds

  1 small handful of fresh rosemary, leaves picked

  olive oil

  3 red onions, peeled and quartered

  500ml cranberry juice

  2 butternut squash, quartered

  ½ a bunch of fresh coriander, leaves picked

  4 spring onions, finely sliced

  1 lemon

  extra virgin olive oil

  Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/gas 5.

  Lay out the shoulder of lamb. Pound up the coriander seeds with the rosemary and a pinch of sea salt in a pestle and mortar until fine. Rub half over the inside of the lamb. Season well with salt and black pepper, then roll up the lamb and secure with 4 or 5 pieces of string. Don’t worry about doing it neatly, as long as it holds together it’s fine.

  Put a high-sided roasting tray on the hob and brown the lamb on all sides in a little oil. Remove from the heat, allow the lamb to cool a little, then add the red onions to the tray. Lift up the lamb, stir the onions around to cover them in all the flavoursome juices, then sit the lamb back on top and cook in the oven for 2 hours, or until crisp on the outside and tender inside, adding the cranberry juice after the first 30 minutes and turning the heat down to 170ºC/325ºF/gas 3. Turn the meat when you can. You’ll also want enough juice left in the bottom of the tray to give everyone a nice spoonful — if it looks as if the liquid is going to cook away too quickly, add a little water and place a cartouche on top (see page 174). Skim off and discard any fat that cooks out of the meat.

  While the lamb is cooking, rub the squash with the rest of the spice mix and a drizzle of oil. Lay it in another roasting tray, season well and put it in the oven when the lamb’s been cooking for just over an hour. Cook for 45 minutes, or until tender.

  When the lamb’s cooked, let it rest for 10 minutes, then remove the string. Toss the coriander leaves, spring onions, lemon juice, 4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and seasoning in a bowl. To serve, divide the squash between plates, cut the lamb into irregular sized slices, spoon over some tray juices, and sprinkle over the salad. A dollop of yoghurt on top is lovely.

  pork loin with a great herby stuffing

  This recipe for pork is great. You can serve it as a conventional roast, or let it cool and either serve it as part of a buffet, or in sandwiches as they do in Italy. On my first trip there we stopped at a caravan by the side of the road where we had lovely big porchetta (pork sandwiches) filled with salad leaves, mustard and some very bready salsa verde.

  If you’re feeling adventurous, try out this recipe using a whole suckling pig. It’s one of the most special things you can cook — great for weddings and parties. Good butchers will normally be able to get hold of a suckling pig if you order in advance. If you do decide to use a suckling pig, then double the stuffing recipe, stuff the cavity, secure it and allow it a couple of extra hours to cook. It will be ready when the leg and shoulder meat falls off the bone.

  SERVES 8

  ½ a pork loin, rib end, bone out

  ½ a bunch of fresh rosemary, leaves picked

  3 heaped tablespoons fennel seeds

  500g sourdough or rustic bread

  2 red onions, peeled and finely sliced

  3 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely sliced

  ½ a bunch of fresh sage, leaves picked and torn

  1 handful of pine nuts

  olive oil

  4 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

  Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/gas 6.

  Place the pork loin in front of you and score across the skin with a sharp knife, or a Stanley knife, about 1cm deep and about 1cm apart. Pound up the rosemary and fennel seeds with a tablespoon of sea salt — bash the mixture up until really fine and then rub it into all the score marks on the pork. Remove the crusts from the bread and slice it up. I like to toast the bread in a toaster or on a griddle until lightly golden, as this gives the stuffing a really fantastic smoky flavour. While the bread is toasting, slowly fry the onions, garlic, sage and pine nuts in 1 tablespoon of oil for 10 minutes, or until the onions are soft. Season with salt and black pepper, add the balsamic vinegar and put the mixture in a bowl. Rip the bread into pieces and add to the bowl. Squash everything together, really squeezing the onions into the bread. Ha
ve a taste — it may need a little more seasoning. Leave to cool.

  Insert a knife into the eye meat of the pork loin and make a cavity for the stuffing (see the pictures here). Pack in the stuffing, then roll the pork over and tie it with a few pieces of string. Place in a roasting tray and cook for just over 1 hour, or until golden and crisp.

  1. Stick the knife in at the edge of the eye meat.

  2. Partly remove the meat.

  3. Pack the gap tightly with the stuffing.

  4. Tie up with string to secure.

  5. Try this with a whole suckling pig one day — it’s great for a party!

  party tips * roast a pig

  * hire an elvis impersonator

  * make cocktails

  * put on your dancing shoes

  CO2

  This is a cocktail that I invented with Giancarlo d’Urso, the barman from Hakkasan in London.

  SERVES 1

  1 stick of lemongrass, tough outer leaves removed

  a few slices of fresh red chilli, to taste

  4 sprigs of fresh coriander, leaves picked

  50ml tequila

  2 handfuls of ice

  ½ a lime

  75ml pineapple juice

  Drop the lemongrass, chilli slices, coriander and some black pepper into a cocktail shaker. Bash them up a bit, using a pestle to get all the lovely flavours out. Add the tequila and ice. Squeeze in the lime juice and add the pineapple juice. Shake, strain and pour into a chilled Martini glass, then serve.

  GRILLING

  Grilling uses heat from above. It’s good for gratinating, toasting, caramelizing and cooking small cuts of meat or fish. It’s a pretty handy method because it’s almost a dry heat so you can get things very crunchy and crisp, depending on the temperature.

  CHARGRILLING

  Chargrilling is a sexy way to cook and basically stems from what we would call a barbecue. These days we have ridged griddle pans that can go on a gas hob, and in restaurants we have chargrills which are gas-fired with coals underneath — these retain the heat. They give great colour and flavour, but the real genius way of chargrilling is how they cook over hot coals in Turkey using wood chippings, which is like our way of barbecuing. The flavours that the coals give are absolutely sublime when you learn to gauge the heat — i.e. having a high pile of coals at one side for searing heat and colour and then just a few coals on the other side to slow down the heat, so that everything cooks in the centre. Chargrilling is fast and effective and is generally used to cook first-class quality cuts of meat and fish — even whole fish if they’re small enough. The thing to remember is to always get your griddle pan really hot before cooking on it, and never add any oil to the pan otherwise it will smoke you out of the house!

  GRILLING & CHARGRILLINGPLEASE SELECT A RECIPE

  TAP FOR TEXT VERSION

  GRILLING & CHARGRILLING

  the best pork chops with fresh bay salt, crackling & squashed purple potatoes

  flavoured salt

  the best marinated kebabs LAMB KEBABS

  CHICKEN KEBABS

  FISH KEBABS

  TURNING ROSEMARY STICKS INTO SKEWERS

  seafood mixed grill

  chargrilled marinated vegetables

  grilled marinated mozzarella with crunchy bread, smoked bacon & a black olive & lemon dressing

  best chargrilled steak

  salsa verde

  chargrilled tuna with dressed beans & loadsa herbs

  KNIFE TECHNIQUES

  chargrilled pork leg with asparagus

  the best pork chops with fresh bay salt, crackling & squashed purple potatoes

  I have to be honest — once you’ve eaten pork in Italy you have to really look around for anything as fine over here. You see, we’ve become attracted to breeds of pigs that grow very fast to be butchered and sold on asap, whereas our old farming methods used breeds that are now considered rare. They take longer to grow to maturity, which gives the meat a fantastic depth of flavour and plenty of snowy white, waxy fat that just melts in the pan. Once you’ve tried that, everything else comes second best.

  SERVES 4

  1kg purple or Desirée potatoes, peeled and halved

  4 pork chops, skin removed but reserved

  olive oil

  ½ a bunch of fresh thyme, leaves picked

  1 teaspoon fennel seeds

  10 fresh bay leaves

  285ml cider

  1 tablespoon wholegrain mustard

  4 tablespoons half-fat crème fraîche

  1 knob of unsalted butter

  Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/gas 6. Parboil the potatoes in boiling salted water for 15 minutes, or until tender, then drain. Score the pork skin, season with sea salt and black pepper and put in a hot roasting tray with a drizzle of oil. As it begins to crisp up, add the potatoes and thyme. Toss once or twice (making sure the crackling ends up on top of the potatoes so it crisps up even more) and put in the oven for 15 minutes, or until golden and crisp.

  Meanwhile, pound the fennel seeds and bay leaves in a pestle and mortar with 2 tablespoons of salt until you have a fine green paste. Shake this through a sieve into a bowl — this will stop it from sticking together in lumps. Pat the pork chops with a little oil, and season on both sides with the herb salt (keep any excess to use another day). Preheat the griddle pan until really hot. Add the pork chops and cook for 3 to 4 minutes on each side, depending on the thickness. Once cooked allow to rest for 4 minutes.

  Heat a little pan and pour in the cider and mustard. Bring to the boil, then reduce by half and add the crème fraîche. Bring back to the boil and reduce again until the sauce thickens, then remove from the heat. Add the butter and shake the pan around a bit so the sauce thickens and shines. Season to taste.

  Serve up the potatoes — I like to bash up half of them so they kind of smash and crumble — with the pork, a lovely piece of crackling and any resting juices drizzled over. Spoon over the cider sauce — what a pleasure. Nice with a simple green salad and a pint of cider.

  flavoured salt

  A flavoured salt is one of the simplest and most basic ways of finishing a dish — it’s so easy and tasty, yet hardly anyone does it. When I was growing up, celery salt seemed very uninspiring, but actually sprinkled over a tomato salad or used to season a beef stew it is gorgeous. Flavoured salts can give some really fragrant and shocking results to your palate. Jasmine tea salt has traditionally been used in Japanese and Chinese cooking for flavouring things like tempura. Even a simple portion of chips can be taken in a different direction by sprinkling with flavoured salt — using, for example, Mexican or English herbs to flavour.

  There’s nothing better than trying things out for yourself, but if you start off with a good mineral salt which is not too strong, and fresh ingredients, you’ll get amazing results. Garlic and citrus, and soft herbs like coriander, mint and basil, will gradually lose the real flavour qualities you’re after, i.e. the aroma and freshness, so they are best made to order — but they only take a few seconds, so that’s cool. I prefer to make them as I need them, or a day in advance, so that they’ll taste amazing, but if you want to make them ahead of time they’ll happily sit on the shelf for months in an airtight container, though they won’t be quite as vibrant.

  Here are a few of my favourite flavourings for salt:

  jasmine tea

  fennel seed, lemon zest and vanilla

  lavender, rosemary and thyme

  lime zest, lemongrass, chilli and ginger

  Szechuan peppercorns, chilli and ginger

  Get your chosen flavours together and bash them in a pestle and mortar until you have a powder or pulp. If using ginger, lemongrass or fresh chillies, these need to be sliced and warmed in the oven before pounding to dry them out, otherwise they will make the salt wet. Add 3 times their weight in sea salt, pound together and either leave the mixture coarse or pass it through a sieve. You can also use a food processor. The moisture in your flavouring will cause your salt to dry into a
block after a day or two, which is fine, because you can bash it up when you need it. Alternatively, once the salt’s been flavoured, lay it out on a tray and put it in the oven at its lowest temperature overnight. Doing this means that the salt will stay granular.

  Feel free to make up your own combinations of flavours, or try one of the five I’ve suggested here. As long as the combination works, these salts can complement just about anything — meats, vegetables, fish, savoury pastries … you name it.

  flavoured salt

  the best marinated kebabs

  If you’re cooking for a load of friends, or for a party, these kebabs will do the trick. They’re so easy to make and damn tasty, too. I’ve marinated each type in a different blend of spices, so choose your favourite and tuck in — they can all be grilled, chargrilled or cooked on the barbie.

  LAMB KEBABS

  SERVES 6—8

  500g lamb, trimmed and cut into 2.5cm cubes

  6—8 woody sprigs of fresh rosemary, leaves removed (see page 248)

  2 red onions, peeled and quartered