As I said last time, I’m finding it difficult to find
something I like watching on the Food Network these days. Ever since the Paula
scandal, when they dropped her faster than a hot potato, they’ve been a bit in
my bad books. (I’m not saying I don’t understand WHY they did it, but I don’t
have to agree with it.) And other than Ina and Giada, there’s just not that much there
that I’m interested in.
However, there IS a food show elsewhere that I’ve really
been enjoying lately. I love this chef, I love his shtick and how he
presents his stuff in a very entertaining way. I’m talking about Jamie Oliver
and his 15 Minute Meals.
Honestly, watching
him makes me want to watch food television again, even though it's on a
network I don’t associate with great (or any) cooking programming AND, even
though (to me) the whole 15 minute thing is more of an encumbrance than a
reason to watch.
I’m a Jamie fan anyway. I like his fast-paced moves, his
stellar knife skills and how he uses his hands instead of spatulas, spoons and
mixing devices. I also like that his cooking is fresh, the food has zing to it
and that we’re watching someone with pretty great technique.
Each show features 2 different quick meals. I don’t care
about that part, but everything needs a hook, I guess, and this one makes Jamie’s energy in
the kitchen even more fast and furious than usual. There’s also a really weird
twist to this show, which took me a while to cotton on to. More about that
later…
On this particular show, he’s making Spicy Jerk Pork, even
though he admits that Jerk often means marinating for some time. Magically, Jamie is going to
get a lot of flavor into that pork loin without marinating. Luckily, if we make this at home, we can marinate it all we want.
To accompany the pork, Jamie grills corn for a salad. He uses a
stove top grill pan, which does a beautiful job at making dark crusty grill
marks. His pan looks brand new. How in the world do you get them to stay like
that?
Check out the end of this post to see my beautiful Mario pan. It works really well, but it looks well
used now. I clean it the way I clean a barbecue or stove top grill burners. I ball
up foil and hold it with tongs to scrub off the burned-on stuff. It works well,
but the pan never looks brand new again.
Anyhoo, Jamie puts the corn straight on the grill pan and
turns it regularly to get those nice grill marks all over.
Next he makes a cool tortilla bowl. Jamie places corn
tortillas in an overlapping pattern into an oven-proof bowl. He’s forming an
actual bowl out of the tortillas. He cooks that in a 300°F oven for 6 to 8
minutes and ends up with a nifty salad container that becomes part of the meal.
While that’s cooking, Jamie cuts the pork loin into little
individual fillets. Then he punches each one down with his fist, just to
flatten them a bit. I never thought to manhandle a fillet that way, but it
works!
Here’s the weird part. All through the show, these “helpful”
(NOT!) “SAFETY
FIRST!” messages keep appearing on the screen. When Jamie sticks his
hands into the super hot grill pan to turn the corn, it says “SAFETY FIRST! Use tongs when turning food in a hot pan.” At
one point, we’re watching him chop and the banner of the message actually
obscures what he’s doing, while proclaiming that one should chop slowly and
carefully FOR SAFETY! Oy, it’s as if lawyers are standing over Jamie in the kitchen, issuing
warnings on every potentially dangerous thing he does (which is basically
everything). Why do we have to have
our viewing constantly interrupted by inane messages? Cooking is a
risky business and if people are dumb enough to stick their hands in a hot pot,
without knowing how to do it nimbly and without ill effect, it’s their problem!
Jamie seasons the
pork with salt and ground coriander (from a height, which is important because it distributes the salt and spices more evenly). The one time I don’t mind the “SAFETY FIRST!” message is when it alerts folks about
washing hands after handling raw meat. Jamie is also working with the pork on a
piece of thick kitchen paper, so it can be thrown out when the pork goes into
the pan.
Jamie cooks the now seasoned pork in a tablespoon of olive
oil on medium high heat for 2½ minutes on each side. (He uses his hand to move
the meat around. No warning. I guess the food police blinked.)
Into a not particularly impressive-looking blender, Jamie
adds a bunch of fresh cilantro. Next he adds some Scotch bonnet, telling us he
loves the apricot-y flavor. He uses an entire half, but warns us to start with
less. A “SAFETY FIRST!” message
warns us about touching our eyes after handling hot peppers. Okay, I don’t mind
this one either and I would even have added something about wearing gloves.
Jamie adds more things to the blender - a bunch of mint,
allspice, ginger, 6 squished tomatoes, 4 spring onions and 4 pressed cloves of
garlic. He adds a tablespoon of soy sauce to enhance the flavor and a heaped
tablespoon of honey. He turns it on and nothing happens. The blender is on, but
nothing is moving. (Ahem! What did I say
about the blender looking dicey?)
Jamie adds a bit of water (I think he was supposed to do
that at the beginning) and says that will get it going. STILL NOTHING. Then he
tips the blender (while it’s on) to get a deeper pool of liquid around the blade and finally it
blends the whole thing. AFTER it’s smooth, he realizes he forgot the 2 tablespoons
of vinegar which would have helped matters. Of course, we should add that
first, and then less water will be needed to get things moving.
He turns the prettily browning pork filets, mopping up the
juices as he turns them.
“SAFETY FIRST!” tells us to
wash our hands thoroughly after handling peppers. Huh? THEN it’s really too
late. The trick is not to let them touch your skin in the first place.
What SHOULD you do if
you DO get burned by hot peppers or chilies? Immediately coat your hands (as if you were washing them) with olive or
vegetable oil and then wash it off with a thick layer of dishwashing liquid. It helps A
LOT, but nothing is better than a complete barrier of plastic gloves or even
plastic baggies attached with rubber bands. (Luckily, most of us are not taping
television shows and no one can see the crazy things that go on in the
kitchen.)
Jamie takes out the pork and adds the jerk sauce from the (jerky)
blender to the pan and stirs it into all those drippings. He reduces it a bit.
Back to the salad, he adds lots of ingredients separately (and
undressed) to the tortilla salad bowl. First, whole romaine leaves, then a pile
of the grilled corn cut from the cob (“SAFETY FIRST! Be
careful with the knife"…Ya think?) Then a pile of “garden cress” , which
isn’t watercress and isn’t alfalfa sprouts, but in between those in size. He
adds some chopped tomatoes and a squeeze of lime and pours a bit of olive oil
and salt on top. “The olive oil will
have a nice little journey all the way down.” I do love Jamie.
Just as I’m thinking that I would like all those salad
ingredients more if they were dressed BEFORE they went into the tortilla bowl,
Jamie says that you may smash and mix it all up before serving. Well! THAT answers
THAT. I also like that he thinks of this salad as being kind of a salsa too,
with all its freshness and crunch. What’s not to like?
Jamie adds the pork back to the reduced jerk sauce
and then plates it on the edge of the platter with his tortilla salad bowl. He
tops it with a bit of yogurt and he’s done (in fifteen minutes).
He attacks the salad by tearing off some tortilla and
topping it with all the vegetables. He also dips it in the jerk sauce.
Very yummy looking.
Jamie moves on to his next quick meal of minestrone and
poached chicken. He started by frying some pancetta and rosemary until both are
crisp. He removes them from the oil and sets them aside to sprinkle over the
finished dish.
Jamie adds a chicken stock
cube. I’m not fond of that and I don’t get how that saves time. Why not just use
chicken stock? This would be the perfect
place for my concentrated
vegetable stock paste.
Then we’re treated to another “SAFETY
FIRST!” message as he’s cutting the ends off of carrots. “SAFETY FIRST! Only
use knives with adult supervision”. Hold on a hot minute! Am I watching
a kid’s show?
It suddenly occurs to
me that this is airing during Saturday morning cartoon hours. IS this show for
kids? Next he thick slices lots of vegetables in the food processor. “SAFETY FIRST! Keep your fingers away from the feed tube." Really? OMG, this IS for kids. I THOUGHT it was weird
that there was some pet vet show on too and also that Laila Ali had a show, but I
didn’t pay much attention. You know what? I don’t care. I like Jamie and his
recipes and I guess if I have to cope with a few (read that as MANY) “SAFETY
FIRST!” messages, it’s a small price to
pay.
Jamie softens his sofrito –
onions, carrots and celery. Then he adds cauliflower and the stalk of broccoli
to the food processor with more “SAFETY FIRST!” warnings
and stirs those into the soup base. He adds boiling water, which is his quick
cooking tip. That’s because he’s English
and has an electric kettle always at the ready. Good idea, though. It’s like that guy who says that he always
puts a pot of water on to boil whenever he starts cooking.
Next Jamie has one
brilliant idea and one idea which is not so great. He tells us that he
gathers all his leftover pasta in one big jar to use in soup. So whenever
there’s a bit left in the box, he adds it to this jar. He’s going to use that in
the minestrone. THAT IS REALLY SMART. I’m always wondering what to do with the dregs of one box of pasta. Great tip.
What I do NOT love is that he adds the pasta directly to the
soup, which drinks up all that flavorful liquid. DON’T DO THAT. Cook the pasta separately
(in that handy boiling water) and add it shortly before serving the soup.
Believe me, you’ll be glad you did. It also prevents you from adding too much
pasta.
To make this a main course situation, he adds two chicken
breasts to the top of the soup and gets to working on his salsa verde. He adds
a bunch of parsley and mint to the food processor and just a bit of pressed
garlic. Then, from the pantry, he grabs jars of cornichons, capers, anchovies and
mustard.
“Don’t try to balance too many glass jars!” Okay, this MUST
be for kids! If not, they think real morons watch Jamie! (Don’t comment on that!)
Jamie adds all those jarred things to the food processor and
scrapes it into a bowl. He stirs in 3 tablespoons of olive oil and a tablespoon
of vinegar and then some hot broth from the minestrone pot. He says that
“little bit of heat just wakens up those herbs”. Well put.
Maybe the messages for
The “CBS Dream Team That’s Epic!” should have given it away, but I still don’t think
most little kids are making a salsa with cornichons and capers on a Saturday
morning.
Jamie removes the chicken from the pot and adds broccoli
florets, frozen broad beans and sweet peas to the minestrone. Lastly, he adds a
bag of spinach and immediately puts the lid back on to steam it quickly.
The salsa verde goes in a bowl and he plops some extra on
top of and around the chicken on the cutting board. As he cuts it, it’s
getting a nice blast of flavor. (Doesn’t Michael Symon slice his steak on a
cutting board, sitting in a pool of olive oil and salt? So smart.) He slices the
chicken on an angle. “SAFETY FIRST! Keep your fingers
away from the edge of the knife." Ugh! The chicken looks perfect. He says to
cook it for 6½ to 7 minutes, depending on how high your soup is boiling.
Jamie places the chicken on the salsa verde and adds a little
boiling water to the minestrone to loosen it up. That would NOT have been
necessary if he had cooked the pasta separately. Last, but not least, he adds
all the crispy bits of pancetta and rosemary to the top of the chicken. He
sprinkles over a few basil leaves (which I had to see with the close captioning
on, because his pronunciation of Bahhhh-zill is nowhere close to mine –
Bay-zul. I thought he was talking about Brazil.)
Jamie keeps some Parmesan “on standby”, just to remind us
that we’re “in Italy” and the meal is done. In 15 minutes? Who cares? This
looks really glorious and simple and worth as much time as it really takes.
One problem with Jamie’s 15 Minute Meals, which was shown in
Britain (and elsewhere) a few years ago, is the CBS website. It is absolutely
pathetic. When you can finally find mention of a particular show, there seems
to be a video clip. However, EVERY show’s clip turns out to be the same exact promo
of the series, NOT an individual show. And good luck finding the recipes. Some
of them are available, but many are not. CBS has done a terrible job of
providing all the extra stuff that we’ve become used to. A LOT of the recipes
are here,
but a lot aren’t.
Despite the idiotic warnings and lack of recipes, I
love watching Jamie and his crooked smile. I also love his lispy English
accent, which Brits may find annoying, but I find lovely (as they would say). Plus his food is so colorful and fresh and pretty
that you can’t help but run into the kitchen and start cooking. And THAT'S what
makes a good cooking show.
