Multi-Michelin starred chef and restaurateur Gordon Ramsay is out to prove people can eat as well at home as they do in a restaurant.
He has done this with his latest cookbook Bread Street Kitchen, which is based on dishes served in his Bread Street Kitchen restaurant, a warehouse-style space near St Paul’s Cathedral in the heart of London.
While the dishes have been tweaked to allow for home service, the flavours are still there.
Ramsay says its all about relaxed and sociable eating, using fresh ingredients and simple techniques.‘‘If you think you can’t eat as well at home as you do in a restaurant, think again. I’m going to show you how to cook stunning recipes from Bread Street Kitchen at home.’’
Ricotta hotcakes with banana and stem giner butter
(about 14 hotcakes)
Ingredients
250g ricotta
150ml whole milk
3 large eggs, separated
75g plain flour
¾ tsp baking powder
pinch of sea salt
30g butter, for frying
For the stem ginger butter
60g butter, at room temperature
2-3 Tbsp maple syrup
2 large balls of stem ginger in syrup (about 40g in total, drained weight), drained and finely chopped
2 bananas, sliced on the diagonal, to serve
Method
First make the stem ginger butter. Put the butter, maple syrup and stem ginger into a small bowl and mix together using a spatula until smooth and combined. Cover and set aside while you make the hotcakes.
Put the ricotta, milk and egg yolks into a mixing bowl and beat together just until combined using a balloon whisk. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together, then gradually beat this into the egg yolk mixture until smooth and combined.
In a separate large, grease-free bowl, whisk the egg whites until they form stiff peaks. Carefully fold half of the whisked whites into the batter, then fold in the remaining half until evenly combined but the mixture is still light and fluffy.
Melt a knob of the butter in a large, non-stick frying pan over a low-medium heat until foaming. Cook the hotcakes in batches over a medium heat (adjusting the heat if necessary so the butter doesn’t burn), using 2 tablespoons of batter per hotcake (you can cook two or three at once, but don’t overcrowd the pan). After spooning in the batter for each hotcake, gently spread each one with the back of the spoon to make a circle about 8cm-10cm diameter. Fry for 12 minutes until golden brown, then flip the hotcakes and repeat on the other side. Remove to a plate and keep warm while you cook the remaining hotcakes.
Serve the warm hotcakes topped with dollops of the stem ginger butter and the banana slices.
Tip: Use the batter when freshly made so it doesn’t lose its fluffiness, otherwise it may deflate a bit on standing.
Salt and pepper squid
Serves 4-6
This is a hugely popular bar snack at Bread Street Kitchen and is brilliant for sharing with friends over a cold drink. The ground Szechuan peppercorns in the coating give the crispy squid its distinct flavour and mouth-numbing tingle, but leave them out if you aren’t a fan, or use black peppercorns instead.
Ingredients
2½ tsp Szechuan peppercorns
50g plain flour
50g cornflour
50g semolina
¾ tsp sea salt
vegetable oil, for deep-frying
12 small squid (about 550g), cleaned, patted dry and sliced into rings
120ml whole milk
To serve
1 plump red chilli, deseeded and finely sliced
large handful of fresh coriander leaves
lime wedges
Method
Toast the peppercorns in a dry frying pan over a medium-high heat for a few minutes, shaking the pan occasionally. Remove from the heat and blitz them to a fine powder in a spice grinder or crush them using a pestle and mortar. Mix 2 teaspoons of the ground peppercorns (reserve the rest for sprinkling later) with the flour, cornflour, semolina and salt in a bowl. Set aside on a large plate.
Heat a deep-fat fryer to 180degC or fill a large saucepan one-third full of vegetable oil and heat until a cube of bread dropped in the oil sizzles and turns golden in 30 seconds.
Put the squid into a separate bowl and pour over the milk, then remove the squid rings in batches, shaking off the excess milk, and immediately dip in the flour mixture to coat all over, shaking off the excess flour, too.
Deep-fry the squid rings in batches in the hot oil for 23 minutes per batch, until golden brown all over, turning them over occasionally if necessary so they brown evenly. Remove with a slotted spoon, drain on kitchen paper, then keep warm in a low oven while you deep-fry the remaining squid rings in the same way, making sure you bring the oil back up to temperature between each batch.
Transfer the deep-fried squid rings to serving plates, scatter with the chilli slices and coriander leaves, then garnish with lime wedges. Serve immediately, sprinkling a little of the reserved pepper over each serving, to taste.
Get it
• Gordon Ramsay Bread Street Kitchen, by Gordon Ramsay, is published by Hachette NZ ($49.99). Photos by Jamie Orlando Smith.
