Dinner with Jamie

Despite my many misgivings with Jamie Oliver the man (and the endless big arguments I've had over him with friends), his food has always appealed to me. I own all his books, except the ministry of food which I find a bit too simple and on Wednesday night, while flipping through endless books and magazines, I decided to do something I've wanted to do for a while. I recreated an entire meal suggestion from Jamie's 30 minute dinners. (A 'revolutionary' concept apparently. Didn't Rachel Ray do something similar)?

I chose to make the green curry, crispy chicken and kimchee slaw meal, complete with rice noodles, prawn crackers and accompaniments. Jamie claims every meal can be successfully made from scratch in 30 minutes, providing you have all your equipment and ingredients ready and a food processor. (He includes a list of equipment you MUST have to be able to recreate his dishes in the proposed times at the beginning - not a short list, along with a few big department store names thrown in). I say to Jamie : Not a chance! Admittedly, Jamie does state that to be successful, you will have to work at a very fast pace and not waste a single moment. This is OK if you can handle the stress of multi - tasking, but I think most people like to take their time and enjoy the process of cooking, so the 30 minutes turns more into 1 or 2 hours.

The food, however, was excellent. I had a few doubts at the beginning, the green curry sauce seeming to lack any real depth or flavour and I still have no idea why the slaw was named 'kimchee', the only similar element being the cabbage used, but I imagine some clever marketing people thought it sounded good. The meal required the preparation of chicken cooked under a brick, although no bricks were mentioned. Jamie has devised a clever way to do this at home, although the chicken spat oil violently all over the hob, my hands and the floor as it fried. (I have tried this technique before, here and tonight, at a friend's barbecue, I will be cooking this with actual bricks, I'll let you know how it goes).

For the green curry sauce paste, the ingredient list seemed to be a simplified Thai version. No shrimp paste, no spices or galangal, just the basics: cilantro, lime leaves, chilies, garlic, lemongrass and ginger and sesame oil. Yes, sesame oil, I've never come across this in a Thai curry before and Jamie's advice of a good drizzle almost ruined the sauce before it had been cooked, sesame oil being so pungent it needs a very wary hand. I improvised slightly, adding some fish sauce, raw sugar and lime juice to obtain a better balance.

The 'kimchee' slaw listed Chinese cabbage as the main element, but I decided to be resourceful and use the red cabbage I had available which meant it wasn't as pretty as Jamie's multi coloured version, but I remedied this with a bright orange pepper to add some sparkle. The slaw included a paste made from cilantro, chilies and ginger, squished in with the hands and then splashed with lime juice and more sesame oil. It had a pleasant but curious taste, a little like a fusion between Korean and Chinese food with the heavy sesame oil made brighter with the lime juice.

The rice noodles I bought stated they were for Pad Thai and I could immediately see where Jamie's inspiration came from, what with the green curry sauce and the prawn crackers. These noodles are stupidly simple to prepare, just boiling water and a soak and they're ready. The texture, if left a little undercooked, has a bite to it, which adds a bit of texture to the whole thing.

The many stages of the chicken: First, fried for 18 - 20 minutes, flipping every minute or so, (really, while doing everything else)? until browned and cooked through....

....then, squashed down with the 'brick', in this case, a mortar and pestle placed atop another pan, on top of some wax paper and laid directly onto the chicken. This allows more surface area of the chicken to be in direct contact with the heat, creating an extremely crispy skin and moist flesh. Some of the skin started to move away from the meat, which turned out to be no problem, as the flesh itself takes on an amazingly intense and crispy texture.

Like this.

Then, fried a little longer in 2 tbsp of reserved curry paste and finally....

....fried even longer with 2 tbsp honey which gives it the most amazing sweet and flavourful glaze, but does have a tendency to burn if not carefully watched.

This meal was a little confusing, Neil commenting that there were too many tastes on his plate, although each separate element was excellent and given the utmost attention, (even the noodles were tossed with lime juice, salt and sesame). For me, the meal suffered from an identity crisis, with Thai, Korean (?) and Chinese elements that worked well for each component but lost their individual tastes slightly together.

I especially liked the inclusion of prawn crackers which I pop in the microwave for a minute, along with poppadoms and crispy noodles. They were served, (as suggested) with a big spoonful of sweet chili sauce and lime juice. They are the best edible spoons possible, piled high with noodles, sauce and slaw, all enveloped in a crispy, subtle prawn flavoured piece of polystyrene.

For lunch the next day I combined the left over slaw with cooked chicken, some jarlsburg and cherry tomatoes. It looked pretty as a picture and had a good crunchy, salty, spicy and sweet taste, once lots of salt had been sprinkled over.

Recipes (All taken and slightly adapted from Jamie Oliver '30 Minute Meals')

Kimchee Slaw

1 bunch of radishes

1 red onion

1/4 of a red cabbage

a few sprigs of cilantro

1 red chili

a 1/2 inch piece of ginger, peeled

2 limes

1/2 tsp sesame oil

Finely slice the cabbage, radishes and onion, either in a food processor or by hand and place in a bowl.

Whizz the cilantro, ginger and chili together in a blender or a pestle and mortar and mix into the cabbage mixture.

Squeeze the lime juice in, drizzle over the sesame oil and add a pinch of salt and squeeze together well with your hands until thoroughly mixed. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Green curry sauce

a 1/2 inch piece ginger, peeled and chopped

2 red chilies, seeded and chopped

a few Kaffir lime leaves

1 bunch of cilantro

3 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped

1 stick of lemongrass, cut in half and tough outer layers removed

4 spring onions (scallions), chopped 

1/8 tsp sesame oil

Mix all the ingredients together in a blender, processor or by hand in a mortar and pestle. Reserve 2 tbsp for the chicken.

300ml chicken stock

1 tin coconut milk

1/4 cup green beans

1/4 cup fresh peas

Juice of one lime

1 tbsp raw sugar

1 - 2 tbsp fish sauce

Heat the curry paste and the chicken stock together in a pan over medium heat and stir well. Add the green beans, peas and coconut milk. Let the mixture simmer over very gentle heat while you prepare the chicken.

When the chicken is ready, (about 30 minutes later), you need to finish the sauce. Add the lime juice, raw sugar and fish sauce to taste, adding a little more of this or that until you have a nice balance of sweet, sour, salty and spicy.

Crispy chicken

8 chicken thighs with skin

2 large tbsp honey (I used orange blossom)

Heat about 2 tbsp oil in a frying pan over high heat and add the chicken. Be careful as it will spit fat everywhere. You may want to make a foil lid to cover it and prevent burning and slippery floors.

Fry the chicken until browned on both sides and cooked through, turning very frequently, about 20 minutes.

Take a piece of wax paper and lay over the chicken in the pan. Place a smaller frying pan on top of that and then weigh down with a heavy item such as a mortar and pestle or a big rock (or a brick even). Continue to fry the chicken in this way for several more minutes. It will be very crispy and golden brown.

When the chicken is really crispy, remove from the pan. Drain the fat out of the pan and rub dry with paper towels.

Add 1 tbsp oil and the reserved curry paste, stir around and then add the chicken back to the pan. Stir well to coat and then drizzle in the honey. Keep turning and frying until the chicken is dark golden but not burnt, which can happen quickly because of the sugars in the honey. Remove from the pan.

Noodles

1 pack of rice noodles

1/2 a lime

1/4 tsp sesame oil

a little salt

Place the noodles in a pan and cover with boiling water. Allow them to soak until they are soft and drain well. Rinse with cold water and drain again. Place in a bowl, squeeze over the lime, drizzle in the sesame oil and add the salt. Toss together well. 

To serve everything:

Pop some prawn crackers in the microwave until puffed and serve on a platter with 2 tbsp sweet chili sauce. Lay the chicken on a platter and pour the curry sauce into a bowl. Place the noodles in a bowl and offer a few extra garnishes if you like, such as beansprouts (as Jamie suggests), some lettuce, cilantro or chilies.

Guests can help themselves to noodles, chicken, curry sauce and a cracker or two to pile it into, topped with a little chili sauce.