The big scary cook book....

Ok so for Christmas I got a cook book from my wonderful man. It is the "Gordon Ramsay 3 Star Chef".
The 3 stars are called Michelin Stars and are only given to a top chef who has achieved brilliance, to receive 3 is a a rare and exceptional feat that Gordon Ramsay has achieved.
Now this book is quite substantial and I have been terrified to do anything in it as these are the recipes that helped him achieve the 3 stars for his restaurants. The recipes are lengthy and sometimes quite complicated, others are not so complicated but still require a good deal of skill to get the flavours just right.

I attempted my first recipe from this book last evening for my family. Pan-grilled asparagus with sel de Guerande, served with a tomato vinaigrette. I have to tell you that I was so so nervous about screwing this up I would let no one in the kitchen during the final prep....

I plated the recipe as directed and served my family. I do believe I can safely say that it was a true success. There was the "mmmm" sound from around the table, even my daughter ate without complaint.

The next course of the meal has been given a nickname, Jamsey, I took recipes from 2 different Gordon Ramsay books and combined and adapted the plating of them to my liking. I had the prosciutto wrapped pork tenderloin with a port blackberry sauce served on flavoured triscuits. I made this a couple of nights ago for my best gal pal and it was yummy so I did it again.

All in all a highly successful meal.

J

The Lobster Thermidor Experiment

Hey!

So it was Sunday Feb 28, 2010 the day it happened. I am not referring only to the day the Canada Men's hockey team won GOLD at the Olympics, but to the fact that I demonstrated the ability to hunt and kill my own dinner. A very primal human concept to some, but something I really had not convinced myself I could really do.

Of course by hunt I mean I headed to the supermarket and asked for 3 two pound LIVE lobsters. My daughter was mortified that we had to transport these things in the car with her, after all "Mama what if they crawl out of the bag??". After showing her they were in fact tightly confined in 3 plastic bags the look she gave me was one of those "well if you say so..." looks but she still seemed hesitant. She then asked me if we could name them... " Honey we are not naming dinner." was my response.

So we get home and the lobsters go directly to the sink. I kept looking in thinking " I am so sorry I am going to do this". It seems wierd to have that feeling that you know you are going to end a life, even though they do taste relly good. I had to call upon my inner Ramsay and just go for it.

Now I had every intention of following Gordon's suggestion that the most humane way of killing lobster is to cut thier heads open. My wonderful man said " Honey don't be silly, just plunge them into boiling water". Although Gordon does say you can do this and I was exceptionally nervous to cut into them I had to agree the boiling water was a much better idea.

So the time came....

With a very heavy heart and a nervous hand I plunged the lobsters into the boiling water...

So it was done. I have hunted and killed my dinner. So I let them cook for 12-14 minutes until they were bright red. Then I had to remove the tails and claws. This was actually quite easy but word of advice, if you ever do this run the lobster under cold water for a few. Those suckers were HOT!

I then had to remove the meat from the tails. I started of using a knife to split the tail open on the bottom side. Ended up with my kitchen scissors, way easier...
I then pulled the meat from the tails, was all good till one of the darn things took vengence and I cut my finger open on the shell. OUCH!!!!

So I continued on with Gordon's Lobster Thermidor recipe after recieving first aid on my finger. Now I had to make the sauce. Seemed easy enough but the darn thing would NOT thicken. I had to add corn starch to it. SO a fail for me on that one.

I drizzled the corn starched sauce and grated parmesen on the meat in the clean tail shells and broiled as directed.

They looked pretty yummy to my surprise. Unfortunatly I over cooked the lobster so it was like chewing tire rubber. Not pleasent. I was angry. Very very angry. The saving grace to this meal, I had left the lobster claws intact and they were really yummy with garlic butter.

So over all I have to say that if I ever have the urge for lobster again I will head to a restaurant. It was a great learning experiance and maybe down the road I will try again but for now the urge is satisfied and onto the next recipe.

Talk to ya later!
J

Honey Soy and Sesame Chicken and Shrimp on a bed of Romaine

Hey,

So I knew I wanted chicken and shrimp for dinner. So I went to my books to see what Gordon had for me that included both. I found 1 recipe that had both ingredients but I didn't want to go out to hunt down Baby Bok Choy to do the exact recipe. So as I was reading how to make the dressing, the Honey Soy and Sesame, I thought well it says that you can use it as a marinade too. Fabulous!
So out came the chicken. As I was reading the recipe I realized the whole thing is in imperial measurements so I had to convert everything to metric so I had a clue what the heck was going on. Fortunately I did it correctly, thanks to cooks.com for the conversion section on their site.

I chopped up the chicken and poured the some of the dressing over it and into the fridge for an hour it went. I cooked it up in the marinade then added the cooked shrimp near the end to heat up and absorb the flavor.

I also learned that you should make sure that your lettuce leaves are at least 90% dry in order for them to hold the dressing. I really had never even considered drying lettuce before...

Well I placed my leaves on the plate drizzled the left over dressing that was not included for the marinade, I at least know some food safety rules...and placed the chicken and shrimp on top. My wonderful man made spring rolls so I decoratively placed them on the plate and served it up.

It turned out really well. Great flavours and it actually looked pretty too!

Off to watch more Olympics now.

Talk to you later!
J

The Peking Duck....

Hello!

I one day around Christmas time was driving home from work. As I normally do during my 30-45 minute commute I was thinking of things to cook. I had a duck in my freezer that was taking up a bit of room but as it happened my sister was going to be making Christmas dinner so I could not use it for that. Suddenly I realized that New Years Eve would be the perfect occasion to serve duck, but not just a regular roasted duck, oh no! I would make Peking Duck. After all how hard could it be, right??

I told my wonderful man my idea and he seemed hesitant at the idea. Did I know after all how long it takes to prepare? After all you do have to order it days in advance at restaurants. I assured him I would be doing thorough research and it would be fine (while crossing my fingers and praying it would be...)

So I began the google search.
Turns out it really isn't that hard. The key to the perfect Peking duck is to make sure there is little to no moisture left in it before you roast it. Well that seems easy enough. Sure I will have to hold it up to baste it a few times but it is a small duck and I have strong arms...

So the day came when I had to begin. It was Dec 30,2009. All my notes at the ready I began to prepare the duck. I won't get to heavy into the process but the time came where I had to hang the duck to dry....
Did I mention that I have a puppy? At the time she was only 8 months old, and I it turned out had not really thought through where or how I was going to hang the duck to ensure my beautiful weimeraner pup did not eat it.

I am a slightly creative person so I thought well I could hang a string from cupboard to cupboard over the sink. Raw duck is heavy. It fell within seconds.
I thought to myself I must not be the only person in the world who has tried this outside of an industrial kitchen with a walk in fridge. To the Internet I went. Turns out I could hang it anywhere as long as I had a fan on it. Another problem there. I do not own a fan. Crazy I know but I don't. I had to call around and finally borrowed one from a friend. Now the basement seemed like a good idea. I went down and looked up. I could hang it from a pipe maybe. But what if on the off chance the duck sways and the dripping is not caught in the pan I set beneath it, or god forbid the dog manages to get down there (did I mention I tend to worry?)
SUDDENLY a light bulb moment!
I could hang it from the shower rod, put the fan in there, close the door and Bob's your uncle I have a handy McGyvered walk in fridge!!
So I put the dog outside, tied a sting around the legs and brought it up to the bathroom.
I then let my puppy in. She be lined straight up the stairs to the bathroom. With nose firmly planted at the crack under the door she layed there for 2 straight hours whimpering. I do actually have this on video but haven't figured out how to get it on here yet...

So there the duck hung overnight. I then had to baste it and rehang it on the 31st before roasting it. As I have mentioned my arms are strong but I forgot how short i am. I had to hold the duck OVER the basting liquid. This meant I had to hold it above my height and baste for 20 min. I ended up on a chair.

I had a fear that the fact that the duck hung with an fan in the bathroom might be a slight food hazard but took the chance and roasted and served it anyway. Daring I know.
To say the least it turned out perfectly!
I was insanely proud of myself and can safely say that I will never do it again.

I named this whole quest Learning how to cook with Gordon Ramsay books. You will not find a recipe in his books for Peking Duck. One of the things I learned through reading his cookbooks and bio is that to learn how to cook one must take chances and experiment. So the Duck was that for me.
Thank you Gordon for the courage to do so.

J

Bacon Wrapped chicken legs stuffed with Pork and Pistachios

Hello!

This recipe calls for boneless chicken legs....
So I for the first time in my life boned out chicken legs. I thank the lord for utube because otherwise I would have made it a bigger disaster than it was. I did however manage to get 4 decent pieces. The recipe calls for 6 but I was not running out to purchase 2 chicken legs with a starving 8 year old.
The recipe is pretty straight forward and I managed to get the chicken stuffed wrapped and poached. I then had to saute the chicken until the bacon was brown and crispy...
This is where all hell broke loose. The bacon stuck to the pan even though I had the correct amount of olive oil and when I went to turn it, well lets just say I served a pork and pistachio stuffed chicken with bacon on the side.
It tasted fabulous but definitely did NOT look pretty.

I also decided to be adventurous and make the "Ultimate Ceasar Salad" found in "Gordon Ramsay Kitchen Heaven" pg. 18.
He would have thrown me out of his kitchen and told me I was a useless ****up. I have no idea what went wrong, it is just a salad after all but neither my daughter or I could bare taking a second bite. Into the bin it went without a second thought and only slight profanity, in my head, over the disastrous salad.
The great success tonight thank heavens was the Hot Chocolate Fondants (pg.220 of Makes it Easy). Truth be told I have made this before so I have it down. When I asked my little one what dessert would make up for such a disaster of a dinner this was the request. I could not deny her, after all chocolate does make us all feel better.

If you try these out let me know if you manage to get the bacon to stay on the chicken!
Happy Eating!
J

Why am I blogging about learning to cook?

Believe it or not there was once a time (many moons ago) when I did not know how to make a can of soup...
I kid you not I did not realize, even though instructions were clearly on the can, that you had to add water to the soup. Let's just say that I did not feel the need to read the label, hence the most coagulated chicken soup was made. Yuck.

As the years have gone by I have learned to make the standard box of Kraft dinner or Ichiban but about 8 months ago I made a soup from scratch. I surprised myself by not only really enjoying the cooking process, which was a wierd feeling, but the soup tasted so good I could not even believe it.

I have always been a fan of Hell's Kitchen with Gordon Ramsay and as I was watching the show last season I decided that I was gonna learn how to make those yummy looking dishes. I began to research and watch not only old "Hell's Kitchens" but "Kitchen Nightmares" and the "F Word". I was inspired by how much passion Gordon puts into his food and it is fairly obvious you do not want to cook for him if you don't know what the hell you are doing.

I purchased a copy of "Gordon Ramsay Makes It Easy", the very first cookbook I had ever puchased in my 33 years, and thought I would try out a few things. Now the absolutely amazing man in my life said I should blog about my cooking adventures. I have to say I was not to sure about this idea and hence why I am doing it now after 4 or 5 months.

I know there will be people out there who will make the comparison with the Julie/Julia project. Go ahead.

My idea for this blog is not to create a defined timeline using only one book, I now have 4 Gordon Ramsay books. I would like to do this to share that even a girl who could not make a can of soup can shell a scallop and make an amazing risotto and maybe inspire those of you out there who can't make a can of soup.

So as I make each recipe I will post what was good and bad and maybe even funny about the process of learning to cook using only Gordon Ramsay books as my guides.

Happy Reading!
J