by Jamie Oliver
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
3—4 small dried red chillies
½ a bunch of fresh rosemary, leaves picked and finely chopped
10cm piece of ginger, peeled
olive oil
4 smallish lamb neck fillets
4 sweet potatoes, peeled, cut into 2.5 cm chunks
2 red onions, peeled and roughly chopped
4 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely sliced
12 ripe plum tomatoes, each cut into 8 pieces
1 stick of cinnamon
2 fresh bay leaves
1 handful of dried apricots
300g couscous
extra virgin olive oil
red or white wine vinegar
1 large bunch of fresh coriander
4 tablespoons natural yoghurt
Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/gas 5. Pound the cumin, coriander and fennel seeds with the dried chillies, rosemary, ginger and a pinch of sea salt and black pepper, stirring in 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Spread half the marinade over the lamb, then plait it (see intro). Rub and massage it in, then put the meat to one side while you mix the rest of the marinade in a bowl with the sweet potatoes, onions and garlic.
Brown the 4 marinaded pieces of meat on both sides in a pan with a little olive oil. Add the sweet potato mixture to the pan and remove the lamb to the empty bowl while you fry the veg for 4 minutes, or until the onions are slightly soft. Add the tomatoes, give the pan a shake and place the meat on top. Add 3 wineglasses of water, the cinnamon stick, bay leaves and dried apricots, and braise in the oven (I suggest you do this with the lid off to give it a little colour) for 1 hour 15 minutes. Place the couscous in a bowl, just cover with boiling water, pop a plate on top and leave to fluff up. Season to taste with salt, pepper, a lug of extra virgin olive oil and a swig of vinegar.
Roughly chop the fresh coriander and stir it through the stew just before serving. Divide between 4 plates with the couscous and spoon over a good dollop of natural yoghurt.
‘the heroes of borough market’
cod, potato & spring onion stew
The inspiration for this one comes from conversations with Icelandic and Danish friends who prize their cod. Traditionally, they prepare it in lots of different ways — pickled, salted, dried or smoked. This stew is similar to the way in which they slowly stew salt cod after soaking it (so that the excess salt seasons the other ingredients in the soup, like the potatoes). Good salt cod can be hard to find, so I’ve adapted the recipe to use fresh cod, but you can also use hake, bass or halibut.
SERVES 4—6
1 onion, peeled and finely chopped
1 leek, washed and finely sliced
olive oil
2 medium courgettes, halved lengthways
1kg potatoes, peeled
2 anchovy fillets in oil
1 wineglass of white wine
550ml milk
550ml quality stock
1kg cod fillet, skin off, pin-boned
1 bunch of fresh flat-leaf parsley, leaves picked and roughly chopped
1 bunch of spring onions, finely sliced
extra virgin olive oil
½ a lemon
Slowly fry the onion and leek in a large pan with 5 tablespoons of olive oil for 5 minutes, or until soft and tender. With a teaspoon, remove and discard the fluffy tasteless core from the courgettes and grate the rest into the pan. Chop the potatoes into rough 2cm chunks and add to the pan. Give everything a good stir, then add the anchovies. Turn the heat up and pour in the white wine. Allow to reduce by half before adding the milk and stock. Bring to the boil and simmer for 30 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender. At this point add the cod and simmer for a further 15 minutes, or until the flesh flakes easily away — feel free to stir and break up the fish, but it’s quite nice to leave some big chunks as well. Season carefully to taste with sea salt and black pepper. Divide between bowls, and serve topped with a small handful of parsley and spring onion dressed with a little extra virgin olive oil and the lemon juice.
Try this: Sprinkle a little orange zest over the parsley and spring onion — it really works with the cod.
BONING A CHICKEN
The French call this cutting a chicken for sauté, the principle being that you can stretch a whole chicken a long way, letting everyone taste a bit of white and dark meat.
1. Remove the winglets.
2. Cut round the leg joint.
3. Pop the ball joint out and remove the whole leg, using your knife on both sides.
4. Divide the leg through the joint, into a drumstick and thigh.
5 and 6. Cut down halfway through the breast on both sides.
7. Remove the carcass from the remaining breast meat.
8. Cut the breast meat through the bone.
9. Cut up the carcass.
10. A chicken cut for sauté.
lebanese lemon chicken
I’ve decided to use farika in this Lebanese-style dish that I’ve been trying out, as it’s the authentic wheat grain that would normally be used, but feel free to use bulgur wheat instead. Preserved lemons are another Lebanese/North African/Arabic commodity and are absolutely excellent for bringing things like rice dishes, couscous and, in this case, farika to life. They’re slightly salty but with a pungent lemony fragrance — great with some classic Lebanese spices and a nice bit of chicken.
SERVES 4
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
½ teaspoon cumin seeds
½ teaspoon chilli powder
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
3 heaped tablespoons plain flour
1 whole chicken, cut for sautéing (see page 162)
olive oil
1 large bulb of fennel, roughly chopped, herby tops reserved
1 red onion, peeled and roughly chopped
2—3 small preserved lemons, chopped, pips removed
½ a bunch of fresh rosemary, leaves picked and roughly chopped
150g farika or bulgur wheat
1 wineglass of tequila, vodka or white wine
550ml quality chicken stock
4 tablespoons of natural yoghurt or soured cream
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4. Bash all the spices in a pestle and mortar with 1 teaspoon of sea salt to a fine powder. Add the flour and mix together well. Rub this intensely flavoured flour all over the chicken pieces and into every nook and cranny. You may have a little flour left over, so just reserve this for later.
Place a casserole pan or roasting tray on a medium heat, drizzle in 5 tablespoons of oil and begin to brown the chicken pieces on all sides — you want them to fry in one layer. Once golden, remove to a plate, turn down the heat, then add the fennel, onion, preserved lemons and rosemary. Fry for 5 minutes, or until nice and soft. Add any excess flavoured flour and the farika or bulgur wheat, and give it a good stir.
Pour in the booze and allow to reduce by half, then cover with chicken stock (or water) until it reaches the same level as the grains and the veg. Make yourself a cartouche (see page 174). Wet it so it’s flexible, then rub it with oil so it doesn’t stick. Place the cartouche over the couscous and veg in the pan and put the chicken on top. Roast in the oven for 45 minutes, or until the chicken skin is really crisp. Sometimes the grains catch on the bottom and they get a little bit of colour. I quite like it when this happens, but to prevent it just make sure you place the pan at the top of the oven so it’s not getting direct heat from the bottom. Serve straight away with a good dollop of yoghurt or soured cream and sprinkled with the fennel tops.
Try this: The chicken can be bulked out with a lot more root vegetables to make it stretch further — things like carrots, celery, garlic, other pulses and more grains.
Or this: If you’re a vegetarian, make this with nice chunks of seasonal vegetables and quality veg stock instead.
dark, sticky stew
This reminds me of winter days in my youth,
when I would come home late completely soaked through and shivering from playing down by the stream in the pouring rain. Mum would give me a rollicking about catching pneumonia, and then she’d give me a big bowl of stew. This dish just makes you feel really happy, and it’s also dead cheap to make.
SERVES 6
800g stewing lamb, roughly diced
½ a bunch of fresh rosemary, leaves picked
2 heaped tablespoons plain flour
olive oil
1 red onion, peeled and roughly chopped
8 field mushrooms, torn in half
1 handful of baby carrots
1 parsnip, peeled and grated
1 tablespoon Marmite
2 heaped tablespoons pearl barley
285ml rich ale, such as Guinness, Caffrey’s, John Smith’s
550ml quality stock
18 chipolata sausages
6 woody sprigs of fresh rosemary, leaves removed (see page 248)
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4. Put the lamb into a bowl and season well with a good pinch of sea salt and black pepper. Finely chop the rosemary leaves and add to the bowl with the flour. Mix around so that the meat is completely covered. Fry the lamb in a couple of tablespoons of oil in a hot casserole pan — do this in batches so the pieces get a nice bit of colour, then remove to a plate.
Turn the heat down, then fry the onion, mushrooms and carrots for 5 minutes, or until soft and slightly coloured. Add the lamb back to the pan along with the parsnip, Marmite, pearl barley, ale and stock. Bring to the boil, then simmer for 20 minutes while you skewer 3 chipolatas on to each of the rosemary sticks (or use skewers). Just before the stew goes in the oven, add the chipolatas to the pan, then place a lid on or make a cartouche (see page 174), wet it and tuck this over the pan. Cook for 1 hour, or until the lamb falls apart. I love to eat it just as it is, almost like a thick soup, with some crusty bread.
Try this: To really get the flavours going, the Italians have something called gremolata: finely chop some flat-leaf parsley, a clove of garlic and the zest from 1 or 2 lemons (or try oranges, which are also fantastic). Mix this up, sprinkle over the top of the stew and stir in — it will really give it an amazing kick.
Or this: You can play around with different root veg, or even use different cuts of meat — beef works really well in this stew. Just be aware that you may have to adjust the cooking time. It’s ready when the meat is tender and falls apart.
quick-time sausage cassoulet
This year I seem to have been working around lots of builders and every time they put a request in for some grub it’s been ‘sausage this’ or ‘sausage that’. A foreman called Dusty, who was working next door, kept on talking about a sausage casserole. So I made this one up very quickly, basing it on a French cassoulet-type thing. It’s nice and easy to cook for a group as it’s all done in one dish. While I was going sausage-mad, I realized that we’re fantastically lucky these days to have great sausages available in the supermarkets, farmers’ markets and good local butchers. In this dish feel free to use any sausages you like.
SERVES 8
2 handfuls of dried porcini mushrooms, broken up
8 slices of smoked streaky bacon, sliced into strips
olive oil
1 big bunch of mixed fresh rosemary, thyme and sage
2 red onions, peeled and roughly chopped
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
1 large carrot, peeled and roughly chopped
½ a celery heart, finely chopped
2 fresh bay leaves
½ a bottle of red wine
3 × 400g tins of quality plum tomatoes
2 × 400g tins of borlotti or cannellini beans, or use a mixture
24 chipolata sausages or 16 larger sausages
1 large, stale loaf, crusts removed
½ a bunch of fresh thyme, leaves picked
Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/gas 6. Put the porcini mushrooms into a dish, cover with 300ml of boiling water and leave to rehydrate. Heat a large roasting tray on the hob. Fry the bacon in 4 tablespoons of oil until golden and crisp. Tie the herbs together with some string and add to the tray with the onions, garlic, carrot, celery and bay leaves. Drain the porcini, reserving the soaking liquor, add them to the pan and fry gently for 5 minutes. Pour in the red wine and allow to bubble away and reduce by half.
Add the tomatoes to the pan, breaking them up with a spoon, then strain and add the porcini soaking liquor and the beans. Bring to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes. Lightly season with sea salt and black pepper, then lay the sausages on top — all higgledy piggledy, so they can get nice and brown as they cook. Break the bread into coarse, chunky breadcrumbs, toss with the thyme, a little salt and oil and sprinkle in and around the sausages. Roast for 40 minutes, or until the sausages and breadcrumbs are golden and crisp. Remove the bunch of herbs and serve with mashed potato or polenta, if you like.
Try this: Any combination of beans and lentils works well in this cassoulet, so feel free to use what you fancy.
And this: If I want to get some greens involved I sometimes stir a couple of handfuls of fresh spinach in right at the end when serving up. The heat from the dish will wilt the spinach.
‘handy tip – feeding the builders apparently gets the job done quicker’
bouillabaisse
A bouillabaisse is a classic fish soup which originates from the South of France, where they use local Mediterranean fish. For my version I’ve used a mixture of British seafood, so feel free to use whatever is fresh and available. Ask your fishmonger to prep it for you. Cut it into similar-sized pieces so they cook in the same time.
SERVES 6
2 × 400g tins of quality plum tomatoes
1 litre quality fish stock
1 pinch of saffron
1 pinch of ground turmeric
2kg mixed seafood, filleted, scaled, pin-boned
SOUP BASE
1 bulb of fennel
1 head of celery, trimmed
1 bulb of garlic, peeled
2 large onions, peeled
2 large carrots, peeled
olive oil
1 handful of fresh flat-leaf parsley, leaves picked and roughly chopped
1 teaspoon ground fennel seeds
2 fresh bay leaves
CROÛTONS
1 baguette or ciabatta loaf
unsalted butter
ROUILLE
1 × aïoli recipe (see page 203)
1 pinch of saffron
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Roughly chop the soup base vegetables, then fry gently with a couple of lugs of oil, the parsley, fennel seeds and bay leaves in a large pan covered with a cartouche (see page 174) for 40 minutes, or until really soft. Remove the cartouche, turn the heat up and caramelize gently, stirring to stop the veg sticking. Add the tomatoes, fish stock, saffron and turmeric, then season with sea salt and black pepper and bring to the boil. Turn the heat to low and simmer gently for 1 hour.
Meanwhile, prepare the croûtons. Preheat the oven to 180°C/ 350°F/gas 4. Slice a baguette into ½cm discs, brush each side with melted butter, and place on a baking tray. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes, or until golden and crisp.
For the rouille, make a batch of aïoli but add a pinch of saffron and 1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper to the garlic when it’s in the pestle and mortar. It should be bright yellow, with a good, hot, garlicky, saffrony taste (serve each portion with 1 tablespoon).
Once ready, pour the soup into a food processor and pulse gently — you don’t want it to be completely smooth. Correct the seasoning, then pour into a deep roasting tray and place on the hob to bubble gently. Add the fish, making sure they’re covered with the liquid. It shouldn’t be too thick, so add boiling water or stock to thin it down, if needed. Gently stew the fish for 10 minutes, or until just cooked. Traditionally the soup is eaten first, with the rouille and croûtons, followed by the fish, which can be eaten straight from the tray. Lovely washed down with a good
chilled Provençal rosé wine.
Try this: Use any mixture of seafood — cod, whole gurnard, red or grey mullet, hake, monkfish, bream, John Dory, skate, halibut, turbot, lobster, crab or large prawns — but don’t use salmon, or oily fish.
MAKING A CARTOUCHE
A cartouche is a French term which basically means ‘scroll’ or ‘packet’. Basically, in cooking terms, it’s a paper lid that is used to slow down the reduction of moisture in cooking. A lid only lets a little moisture escape, whereas using no lid lets lots of moisture escape. Using a cartouche is a halfway house between the two and also stops things from colouring too much.
1. Get yourself a piece of greaseproof paper and tear off a square.
2. Fold the square in half …
3. … and in half again.
4. Keep folding the same way so that the tip becomes the centre.
5. When it’s pretty pointy you’re ready to measure up.
6. Hold the tip of the cartouche against the pan to estimate its size, using your thumb as a measure.
7. Tear or cut off the excess.
8. Open out to a circle, perfect for the job. P.S. You can get away with the cartouche being a little larger than the pan, so don’t worry if you make it a bit too big.
