I mentioned the show of Gordon Ramsay at the Good Food and Wine Show last weekend only briefly. The three course dinner he cooked in 30 minutes looked just too tasty as not to try it, and I gave it a go yesterday night. My recipes are certainly not exactly the same as I was working from memory. I can tell you though that the soup was marvelous, and so was the lamb. The pecorino in the salad gives this extra touch, and the mingled tastes of the balsamic sauce, the lemon, the onion etc go really well together. D’Arenbergs Laughing Magpie Shiraz Viognier 200X went well with the dish and added its part to a great dinner. The desert is awaiting judgment, we had eaten enough after the main and decided to postpone it to the weekend. I nevertheless add the recipe as I remember it, but beware, I did not try it yet…with these ingredients not much can go wrong though.
Chorizo soup:
2 chorizos (the small ones)
1 red onion
1 clove of garlic
1 can of butter beans
1 pack of cherry tomatoes
1 bunch of continental parsley
sea salt
pepper
Slice the chorizos, dice the onion and cut the cherry tomatoes in quarters. Fry the chorizo in a hot pan with a minimum amount of olive oil (the chorizo contains enough fat). After about 3 minutes add the diced onion and the garlic (garlic press). Fry the mixture until the chorizo and the oil have a nicely dark colour. Add the tomatoes, butter beans and a first portion of parsley (as Gordon Ramsay said, chop it only once and add it…), fry a bit longer at medium heat. The mixture should smell magnificently now! Add water (at least cover the mixture – I filled my 20cm diameter pan half way up, that’s about 1.5-2L) and simmer at low heat. After 10 minutes add some more parsley. Simmer some more minutes, add sea salt and pepper to you liking and serve in small bowls, finishing off, again, by adding parsley on top.
Lamb leg steak with balsamic sauce on salad bed
500g green round beans
1 red onion
100g Italian pecorino
1 lemon
4 lamb leg steaks, 2 cm thick
balsamic vinegar
mint
garlic
olive oil
sea salt
pepper
Take the lamb out of the fridge a few hours before cooking. Gordon mentioned that meat with hom*ogeneous temperature will be cooked much more regularly than if the core is still cold. Marinate the lamb leg steaks in olive oil with pressed garlic, sea salt and pepper and put them aside. Time to prepare the salad. Top and tail the green beans and thinly slice the red onion. Boil the beans in salt water. When they are cooked but still al dente add the sliced onions and after a minute collect beans and onion in a colander, rinse with cold water and dab dry. Transfer the mixture to a mixing bowl and add the grated pecorino and the grated zest of a lemon. The dressing consists of olive oil, the juice of half a lemon with salt and pepper. Prepare the salad as small piles on the middle of the plates, sprinkle the dressing on top.
Transfer the lamb with the marinade to a hot frying pan and close the pores of the meat on every side at full heat. Gordon Ramsay was pointing out that every side really means every side, that is, also the sides…confusing enough? Tilt the pan away from you to get the oil in contact with the short sides of the steaks. Fry the steaks for two minutes per side. Continue by adding a few table spoons of good quality balsamic vinegar. Simmer for a bit and give the sauce the final touch by adding torn apart mint leaves and at the very end a small piece of butter. Let the meat rest for five minutes and cut the steaks into thick slices. Serve them on top of the salad bed, cover with balsamic sauce.
“Fancy French toast”
old raisin bread
1-2 eggs
1 passion fruit (or more considering the size they are in Australia at the moment…)
200 g ricotta
100 g mascarpone
strawberries / raspberries
Mix ricotta, mascarpone and possibly the grated zest of a lemon. Add the egg to a bowl and turn the raisin bread only very quickly in the egg mass. The surface of the bread should be covered, but the dry bread should not start absorbing the egg. Fry the bread on both sides in a stick free frying pan – the colour should be golden, not black :-). Arrange a slice of the fried bred on a plate, spread some passion fruit on top and add a spoon of the mascarpone/ricotta mass. Decorate with strawberries or raspberries.
———–
In the meantime I have also tried the dessert, and it was delicious, same as the other two courses. I must say, this gives a very nice meal without much effort! Here’s the picture of the dessert:
Tags: Australia, balsamic sauce, bean and pecorino salad, chorizo soup, D'Arenberg, Food, French toast, Good Food and Wine Show, Gordon Ramsay, lamb leg steak, Laughing Magpie, recipe, Sydney, Sydney exhibition center
This entry was posted on June 27, 2008 at 5:20 pm and is filed under Food and Wine, Recipes.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
