Book Review: Ramsay's Best Menus, plus I make Gordon's Italian Meatballs

When Aletta Lintvelt, Food24's new food editor, asked me to review a cookbook from Kalahari.net, it took a split second for me to choose the new Ramsay book. I'm a great fan of Gordon Ramsay's, you see, and I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to cook a dish from his latest book.

I had the chance to see the world's most famous chef in action last year at the Cape Town Good Food and Wine Show (read about this event here, and about why am a Ramsay admirer) and thoroughly enjoyed his presentation. I recall him cooking a sticky chicken dish of some sort at the demo, and that's the first recipe in the book I tried. I didn't like it at all. But more about that later.

Click here to read my review on Food24 and to find out what I thought about Gordon Ramsay's meatballs.
   

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Ricotta-and-Parsley-Filled Paccheri Baked with a Tomato, Butter and Sage Sauce

The defining deliciousness of this sunny baked pasta dish comes from a sauce made from just a few ingredients: burstingly ripe cherry tomatoes cooked to a stickiness in hot butter, then lightly mashed with a whisper of garlic, a few shredded fresh sage leaves and a splash of cream.

Ricotta-and-Parsley-Filled Paccheri Baked with a Tomato, Butter and Sage Sauce

The sauce is simplicity itself, but the pasta part of this dish - big tubes stuffed with a mixture of ricotta, parsley, egg and nutmeg - is a bit fiddly to make, and will take you a good half-hour to prepare.

If you're up to spending that much time stuffing a pasta tube, and you think life is long enough to do so, put on some good music and pour yourself a glass of wine.

If you don't have the time to spare, make the sauce - in double the quantity - tip it over a bowl of freshly cooked fettuccine, and top with fresh rocket and grated Parmesan.

I devised this dish because my family are getting a bit sick of the old pasta standbyes, namely spag bol, pasta-and-pesto and fettuccine Alfredo.

It's very similar to that classic Italian dish of cannelloni filled with ricotta and spinach, except that I used paccheri - large, hollow pasta tubes - instead of cannelloni, and parsley instead of spinach.

I am a great fan of flat-leaf parsley, and think it deserves to be treated as an actual vegetable, rather than a last-minute garnishing flourish, or as a humdrum stock ingredient.

You might think it odd that the uncooked pasta tubes are placed upright in the dish before they're baked, but I've done so to prevent the filling from squidging out while the dish sits, soaking in a cup of water, for an hour before baking.

If you can't find big pasta tubes, use cannelloni instead. And, as always, please use the best ingredients: really ripe, sweet cherry tomatoes, fresh garlic, crisp parsley and good butter.

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Ricotta & Parsley Filled Paccheri with a Tomato Butter Sauce

1 bag (500 g) paccheri, or giant pasta tubes

For the stuffing:
2 Tbsp (30 ml) oil
1 Tbsp (15 ml) butter
1 medium onion, peeled and very finely chopped
1 cup (250 ml) finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley (about 70 g)
1 Tbsp (15 ml) fresh lemon juice
400 g ricotta cheese, crumbled
2 medium eggs
quarter of a whole nutmeg, finely grated
flaky sea salt
milled black pepper
about 4 Tbsp (60 ml) pouring cream
1½ cups (375 ml) hot water

For the sauce:
800 g ripe cherry tomatoes
80 g butter
1 Tbsp (15 ml) olive oil
2 cloves fresh garlic, peeled and finely chopped
6 sage leaves, finely shredded
4 Tbsp (60 ml) pouring cream
flaky sea salt
milled black pepper

To top:
½ cup (125 ml) grated Parmesan

First make the stuffing. Heat the oil and butter in a frying pan, and add the finely chopped onion. Fry, over a medium heat, for three minutes or so, or until the onion has softened, and is beginning to turn golden. Do not allow to brown. Turn down the heat, add the chopped parsley, stir well so that it is coated, and cook very gently for another minute. Remove from the heat and tip the mixture into a bowl. Add the lemon juice, ricotta, eggs and nutmeg, and stir well to combine. Season with salt and pepper. Now add just enough cream to turn the mixture into a slack paste that can be easily squeezed through a piping bag.

Generously butter a deep ceramic or glass baking dish big enough to hold all the pasta tubes upright (note: the pictures in this blog were made with a half-quantity of this recipe, so you'll need a dish double the size). Put the filling into a piping bag fitted with a medium nozzle, and squeeze a little filling into each pasta tube.

The best way to do this is to place each tube upright on a chopping board, and to fill it from the top (no need to fill each tube to the brim: three-quarters full is fine). Place the filled tubes upright in the dish, leaning them against each other until the dish is full. If you run out of stuffing before the dish is full, put a few empty pasta tubes between the full ones so that the dish is fairly tightly packed. Pour a cup of hot water into a jug with a pouring nozzle, and trickle the water down the side of the ceramic dish, so that the bottoms of the tubes are standing in water. Set to one side while you make the sauce.

To make the sauce, cut a small slash in each cherry tomato. Heat the butter and olive oil in a large, flat pan. When the butter stops foaming, add the tomatoes and cook, over a brisk heat, tossing often, for 7 to 10 minutes, or until the tomatoes begin to brown and a sticky golden residue forms on the bottom of the pan.

Add the garlic and shredded sage, and use a potato masher to lightly crush the tomatoes and release the juices. Turn down the heat and simmer very gently for another 10 minutes, crushing down on the tomatoes now and again, until you have a thick, chunky sauce. Stir in the cream and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Remove the sauce from the heat and pour it evenly over the top of the pasta tubes, without stirring. Give the dish a gentle shake, cover with clingfilm [saran wrap] and allow to stand for an hour.

In the meantime, heat the oven to 170 ºC. Remove the clingfilm from the dish and sprinkle the grated Parmesan evenly over the top. Place in the oven and bake for 35-45 minutes, or until the pasta is cooked through, and the sauce is bubbling vigorously.

Serve with fresh rocket or mixed greens.

Serves 8. Print Friendly

Summer Linguine with a Cold Sauce of Poached Chicken, Tomatoes and Basil

A perfect lunch for a hot day: a chilled sauce of tender oven-poached chicken, cherry tomatoes, garlic and summer herbs poured over hot linguine. This is an easy dish, quickly put together, and more so if you poach the breasts in the morning and leave them to cool in their liquid until you're ready to use them.

Photograph by Michael Le Grange, from my book Scrumptious. Bowl by David Walters.
 Image © Random House Struik 2012

I have tried many methods of cooking chicken breasts, but this is the only one than results in perfectly tender and succulent flesh without a hint of rubberiness or stringiness. You could poach them in a saucepan, but this method guarantees perfect results and I can heartily recommend it.

This salad is lovely topped with a shower of crumbled peppered Feta cheese.

Summer Linguine with a Cold Sauce of Poached Chicken, Tomatoes and Basil

To poach the chicken:
6 large deboned, skinned chicken breasts
enough hot water to cover them
2 bay leaves
half an onion, thickly sliced
3 whole cloves
a carrot, roughly chopped
a few stalks of parsley
a slice of lemon

For the sauce:
a small bunch of flat-leaf parsley (or rocket, or both)
a small bunch of fresh basil
600 g ripe cherry tomatoes, halved, or sliced if they are big
4 spring onions, finely sliced
2-4 fat cloves garlic, peeled and crushed (to taste: I like it very garlicky)
80 ml fruity olive oil
2 Tbsp (30 ml) white wine vinegar
1 tsp (5 ml) Tabasco sauce (or a teaspoon of red chilli flakes)
1 tsp (5ml) salt
1 tsp (5 ml) white sugar
plenty of milled black pepper

To serve:
a packet of linguine or spaghetti
extra olive oil
crumbled peppered feta cheese [optional]

Heat the oven to 180 ºC. Season the chicken breasts with salt and pepper and put them in a single layer in a ceramic baking dish (don't pack them tightly). Add the bay leaves, onion, cloves, carrot, parsley and lemon slice, and pour over enough boiling water to just cover the breasts (about 500 ml). Place, uncovered, in the hot oven for 25 minutes.

Remove from the oven and poke a hole into the thickest end of a breast: it should be just cooked. If there's any trace of pinkness, place the dish back in the oven for another few minutes. Cover with clingfilm and allow the breasts to cool completely. (They should be refrigerated if they're not going to be used immediately).

Now make the sauce. Strip the leaves from half the parsley and basil sprigs and chop roughly (reserve the remaining sprigs).  Place in a mixing bowl and add the tomatoes, spring onions, garlic, olive oil, vinegar, Tabasco, salt, pepper and sugar. Toss well to combine.  Remove the chicken from its poaching liquid and, using your fingers, tear into pieces. Add the chicken to the bowl.  Now measure out 80 ml of the cool poaching liquid and add it to the bowl. Season generously with black pepper and toss again to combine. Cover the bowl and set aside in a cool place, or in the fridge, for 30 minutes to allow the dressing to soak into the chicken.

Cook the linguine in plenty of salted boiling water until just al dente.  Drain the pasta quickly and tip it into a large platter. Chop the remaining basil and parsley and add it to the sauce. Toss again, then pile the cold sauce on top of the hot pasta. Crumble the feta over the pasta, and drizzle with more olive oil. Serve immediately.

Serves 6 Print Friendly

Double Dinner: Fusilli with Marinated Chicken, Pesto and Tomatoes, and Pasta Salad the next day

If you're feeding a hungry family, you will know what I mean by Double Dinner. First, there's the DDDTPE (Double Dinner Due to Picky Eaters), which involves your having to make two separate meals because the smaller, fussier kids won't eat what the bigger kids (or teens) want to eat. And then there are the meals that you make in bulk, in the faint hope that you'll have plenty left over the next day for snacks, lunch-boxes and freezers.

I say 'faint hope' because there is no such thing as a left-over in my house, which is the land of midnight snackers. Even if a few morsels do find overnight refuge in the fridge, nicely covered in clingfilm, the chances are that a) they'll mysteriously vapourise in the early hours of the morning and b) there will be loud complaints about having to eat the 'same old food that we had yesterday'.

Still, I persist in my quest to find the ultimate Double Dinner. I reckon most kids and teens will eat this happily, in its hot and cold forms, but if you have a super-fussy toddler or preschooler, I suggest you put a portion of the pasta to one side, add a little of the hot chicken, pulled into shreds, and top it with a knob of butter, a little grated cheese and a dollop of tomato sauce.

The yoghurt is an essential ingredient in this dish: it makes the chicken breasts amazingly tender and succulent.

This recipe serves five to six people, twice over.

Double Dinner: Pasta with Marinated Chicken Breasts, Pesto and Tomatoes, and Delicious Pasta Salad the next day

12 deboned, skinless organic chicken breasts
1 cup (250 ml) plain white natural yoghurt
3 cloves garlic, crushed
the juice of a fat lemon
salt and freshly ground pepper
750 g (one and a half packets) dried pasta shapes (fusilli, farfalle or similar)
a little olive oil
1 cup (250 ml) dried tomatoes, soaked in water for an hour, or oven-baked cherry tomatoes
3/4 cup (180 ml) basil pesto
1/2 cup (125 ml) grated Parmesan, Grana Padano or Pecorino cheese

For the next-day salad:

depipped, halved black olives
fresh basil leaves, shredded
firm feta cheese
a little olive oil and lemon juice

Using a very sharp knife, make three or four 5-mm-deep slashes in each chicken breast, top and bottom. Place the breasts in a big plastic or glass bowl or dish. In a separate bowl, mix together the yoghurt, lemon juice, garlic and two tablespoons (30 ml) of the pesto. Tip this mixture over the chicken breasts and mix well - using your bare hands, preferably - making sure that every breast is thorougly coated with the marinade. Set aside in a cool place (in the fridge, if it's a hot day) for two hours. Don't leave the breasts for longer, as the yoghurt may tenderise them to the point of mushiness.

Pre-heat the oven to 170 C. Put an enormous pot of salted water on the heat and bring to the boil.

Remove the chicken breasts from their marinade and, using a spatula or the blunt edge of knife, scrape off the excess yoghurt. It doesn't matter if a little yoghurt still clings to the breasts. Season each chicken breast with salt and freshly ground pepper. Heat a large frying pan and, when it is blazing hot, add a dash of olive oil. Brown the chicken breasts, in small batches, in the fiercely hot oil for a few minutes, until golden brown on both sides. They will still be raw in the middle. Place the partially cooked breasts on a metal baking sheet. When they are all browned, place them in the oven to finish cooking for 10 to 12 minutes.

In the meantime, throw the pasta into the boiling water. Boil for 10-13 minutes, or until just cooked (al dente). Drain the pasta, leaving a little of the boiling water behind in the pot, and set aside.

Remove the chicken breasts from the oven. They should be perfectly cooked: you can test by cutting through the thickest part of the biggest breast. If there is any sign of pinkness, put them back in the oven for 5 more minutes.

Gently heat the remaining pesto and the drained sundried tomatoes in a pan, but do not allow to boil.

Using your hands or a sharp knife, tear or cut the chicken breasts, along the grain, into pieces as big as your pinky finger. Tip them into the pot of hot pasta, along with any juices. Stir in the warmed pesto and the tomatoes, and splash over a little more olive oil. Check the seasoning - it may need more salt and pepper - and serve piping hot, in deep bowls, with grated Parmesan.

Now, the leftovers:

Tip the remainders into a big salad bowl and set aside in a cool place (or in the fridge, if it's summer). The next morning, stir in the olives, feta and basil, and any other ingredients you fancy - perhaps some chopped spring onions, shredded fresh spinach leaves, halved fresh cherry tomatoes, a handful of toasted pine nuts... Add a splash of olive oil and lemon juice if the salad seems dry, and season well with salt and pepper.

Serves five to six, twice over. Print Friendly

Fettucine with Warmed Tomatoes, Garlic and Rocket

Four out of five members of my family think rocket rocks, so we eat it every day, if it's in the shops (in summer it grows like a weed in the garden). I don't know what made my teens start liking a leaf as strong and peppery as rocket (taking them to Italy last year where pizzas arrived piled with fresh rocket helped), but I'm determined to convert my seven-year-old too, as Google tells me it's full of vitamins C, A and K, and that it's a superfood for bones

This is a winter version of that lekker summer pasta dish which involves tipping cold chopped tomatoes and crushed garlic into hot pasta.

Fettucine with Warmed Tomatoes and Rocket
1 box fettucine (fresh is better, from Woolies)
5 T olive oil
3-4 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
5 ripe tomatoes, chopped
3 large handfuls rocket leaves
1 cup finely grated Parmesan or Grana Padano
1 tsp chilli flakes (optional)
salt and milled black pepper

Boil the fettucine in plenty of salted water. Heat the olive oil in a large deep saucepan and stir in the crushed garlic. Saute the garlic very gently (it shouldn't brown) for five minutes. Add the chopped tomatoes, stir to coat, and simmer very gently for another few minutes so that they are warmed through but nowhere near collapsing. When the pasta's cooked, drain well and tip it into the warm garlic and tomatoes. Add the whole rocket leaves and chilli flakes and toss well to coat. Turn off the heat, toss in the grated cheese and season well with salt and pepper.

Top with fine shavings of Parmesan and another lashing of olive oil.

Serves 5.

Recipe rating:

My rating: 8/10
Teenagers' rating: 8/10
Small-daughter rating: She didn't try it. Print Friendly