How To Cook 4 Recipes From Jamie Cooks The Mediterranean _ Jamie Oliver.

I'm gonna cook lemon tzatziki chicken with sweet jammy onions and crispy lemon rice, all with a clever greek-inspired twist. I want you to do a simple preparation on the chicken. Just run your knife down the back of the chicken and push it open like a book. The leg meat takes a bit more time to cook than the breast, so you can kind of help even that up by taking the leg and just simply scoring down to the bone. Three scores is really going to let the marinade in. I will use the tzatziki traditionally, I will, but half of it I won't and I'm going to take half of that tzatziki, put it in this bowl, add just a little more olive oil and a little hit more of lemon juice. Let's think about what is in tzatziki. Dried mint, cucumber, garlic, yogurt. Yogurt is one of the very best tenderizers of meat and it allows the meat to absorb flavour, so this will make the most fantastic marinade. Rub that all over the chicken, get your hands in there, all the little cracks and crannies. I'm not cooking a greek dish, I'm cooking a greek-inspired dish. In a perfect world, I would marinate that overnight. If you just do it for a couple of hours, happy days and even if you want to just do it for like half an hour, that's good as well. So I've got a large pan on a medium heat, I'll add some olive oil to the pan and the chicken is ready to go. Give that a nice seasoning of salt, turn the heat up and put it skin side down in the pan. Of course chicken skin goes crispy, with yogurt on it what's going to happen is you're going to get little burnt bits, little charred bits. So about five minutes, maybe a little bit less of frying. What I want to do now is have like a trivet for that chicken right, something for it to cook into. So I'm going to use onions, just four onions, one half of a red onion I'm going to put to one side. Now let's think about how we've seen onions used over the last few days. We've seen onions stuffed with rice, we've seen onions slow cooked and as little sprinkles on mezze. So once we've quartered the onions, I just want to kind of unclick them into beautiful little petals. So look I think this idea of a few ingredients working hard, simplicity, that's very, very Mediterranean. You don't have to throw everything at dishes if you've got lovely ingredients. So this chicken has had two or three minutes and I want it to be just lightly golden, look at that. So onions go in and then that becomes the base for cooking the chicken and that's not the end of the story because I'm going to use the lemon when these are roasted. The flavour of lemon that you get is completely different than fresh. We've got it in the marinade, we've got it roasted and then I'm going to do a little pickle with the onions later. So lemon, lemon, lemon, fresh, fresh, fresh. This is going to cook in the oven for one hour at 200 degrees Celsius, which is 400 Fahrenheit and now I've got an hour to soak up all of this. Look what we've got, you can see the flavour stick into the chicken, like you can see how tender the wing meat is. I'm going to use that beautiful classic tzatziki to save the resting juices from that chicken. So just use this to make like a little reservoir. If I squeeze this lemon, you get juice, juice, pulp, pulp, jam, jam, jam. I mean it's like an eruption of lemoniness. That is the islands right? I'll nick you know just a little lemon, give or take half the onions and then the other half I'm going to use to really whoop rice up flavour-wise. So the chicken is resting in a beautiful way. Back in the pan we're going to turn the heat up. Right this is going to be extraordinary. This local rice is plumper, a bit more round, starchy. It's really, really nice but it works really well with basmati rice and I'm going to fill up a mug twice. It's going to start toasting in that lovely chicken fat and juices and you're going to do two to one rice to water and it's perfect every time. You'll hear it so bubbling now and then it will start sizzling and that's potential crispy bottom and who doesn't love a crispy bottom. Okay this leftover lemon skin, run your knife through it, just make it a little bit finer. You can see that change now and you can scrape off any of the crispy bits from the bottom. I'm not going to touch it again. Turn it down and just let that tick away for five minutes. There's one last flourish that I'm going to do, that little random bit of half onion that I had and I'm just going to finely chop it. So to do a quick pickle, couldn't be easier, a nice little pinch of salt and I'm just going to squeeze this lemon through my hands to catch any pips and it goes from being like pongy onion to like crunchy and just kind of sweeter and then I just sprinkle in it from a height like this so it's a nice little tip. So have a little listen to this. If we're lucky we've got golden crispy bottom along with kind of like creamy soft rice. Oh yes, I'm welch after that. Let's plate this up and have a little moment. Gorgeous lemony rice, that beautiful classic tzatziki, hot gnarly chicken, crispiness, look at that. Right, time to enjoy. The yoghurt has still allowed the skin to be crispy but it's made those key flavours, the garlic, the lemon, the mint kind of cling on and get into the chicken. These crispy prawn parcels are stuffed with spicy harissa, zingy lemon and eggs. Normally you'd make a brick with brick pastry and they call this pastry malsuka, it means to stick. Now that dough to do at home I think is really tricky, but this little pastry I think you're gonna love. It's a very good little hack. So 250 grams of strong flour, a nice pinch of salt and then I've got about 150 millilitres of hot water. The hot water changes the flour and it allows you to have this incredibly bendy pastry which is perfect for going really thin and really crisp. So just bring it around the bowl like this and as soon as the fork is finding it a little hard then we'll bring in our hands. Just do it for a couple of minutes, just to kind of get that gluten sort of texture going and then have a little look at that. That is our dough, it is that simple. I'm gonna just add a little bit of oil to the surface here, all over like that and then rub the dough with the oil as well. I'll put a little cloth on top, we'll let it rest just for 15 minutes. Perfect time to crack on with the filling for my mini pastry parcels. Two eggs go into a bowl and then I'm gonna whisk those up with a little pinch of salt, pepper. I've got some fresh prawns that are peeled and some with their shell on, but you can use frozen ones if you prefer. I'm gonna take the peeled prawns, slice up like this so there's some nice little chunks, right about half of it and then this part here I'm just going to keep chopping to make almost like a very coarse mousse and that with the eggs is going to be the basis of our filling. Now the great thing about these bricks is you can look at this recipe and you can make it your own. You can have leftover roast chicken, you know you can use it to carry any flavours that you've got in your fridge. A flavour that I love is lemon, right. We take a little bit of this zest, the flavour, the freshness is in there and I'm going to use the lemon for added flavour later. The harissa here, I want to do a little tweak. I'm going to put some oil in and if I just mix it up like that you get this incredible ruby red oil. Maximum flavour, minimum effort. That'll be a super easy drizzly sauce for my crispy parcels. Let's get to the dough. Push it down like this, try and be even. Use the palms of your hands and we're going to pick it up and just let gravity do all the hard work, right. Can you see how I can almost stick it there and it doesn't move back? Joy! Cut them roughly into five or six inch squares. We're going to get our harissa here, here and here. Put in the lovely prawn and egg and here's the fun bit. So look, just take the pastry and gently pull it over like a little Christmas present. Beautiful. Let's have some olive oil into a pan, just above medium heat. So just place them in the pan like that and for extra flavour, I want to serve mine up with some whole prawns too, just to make it exciting and gorgeous. Look at it sizzling away. The great thing about this recipe is the pastry cooks quickly, the prawns and eggs cook quickly all at the same time. So about two, two and a half minutes on each side. So in no time at all, these are done. Look how sizzling these are, golden and delicious. And then last but not least, I want to take some of that harissa oil and just pour that over the top. Look at the colour. We can finish it with a nice little bit of lemon juice and if you've got any herbs, you know, just take, you know, some basil, some parsley, anything delicate. Beautiful. It's my little take on a brick, all in that lovely little homemade pastry that I know you could do, right. Sweet, delicious, elegant, punch of fire, spices, lovely big chunks of prawn in there, look at that. Harissa, flecks of lemon. The pastry is crispy, really crispy. I love it. Guys, what are you waiting for? Get a little bit of Tunisian street food into your life, you will not regret it. I'm gonna do a pork dish, because there's pork everywhere around this city and you get it in all these different formats, sausages, cured meats, so good. So this dish is a celebration of pork, the pork chop, you know, an amazing cut, but I want to do it really, really well. I want to big up some of those conservas vegetables. We're gonna do chickpeas. I love the idea, you know, with a conservas that these chickpeas are just so good. I've got artichokes here, jarred artichokes, you can get them in all the supermarkets. I'm gonna blacken and char some beautiful garlic and peppers on the barbecue, but you can do it easily under a grill at home. We want to put the love into these peppers, just like so much love went into those jarred veggies, right. And to accompany those grilled peppers and delicious conservas, let's talk about pork chops. How do you cook a delicious, golden, tender, juicy pork chop? Go to a butcher's and have a conversation about welfare, free reigns, and if it's a bit further up the pork loin, some bits have this lovely kind of cap meat here, slightly different colour. That is incredible, succulent, juicy, gorgeous, nutty flavour, right. I love that. Before I crack on with the pork chop, it's all about those lovely jarred artichokes. A lot of people still back home don't know what to do with artichokes, but if you look in here, look how gorgeous they are. They've been put in that jar, herbs, love, care, attention, right. So just cut it in half and we're going to fry that up and it will go crispy and delicious. So I'll half some and I'll quarter some others. So look, that is the artichoke and with those prepped, I want to show you a tip for the easiest marinade. A marinade is going to make this pork chop juicier and tastier and more tender. So what I'll do is I'll just put a little vinegar here. I'm not going to waste any of this oil. The people that make these incredible conserve us, right. They put so much love, care, and attention into it. We don't want to waste any of this flavour, right. The oil, the herbs, none of that. That's a marinade, right. We'll take a little bit of salt and a little bit of pepper and we'll rub this over the pork chop. This will be amazing. So pork chops marinated. Just wash my hands. Peppers, got peppers blackening, okay. And obviously I'm doing this on the barbecue as you get that lovely flavour, but you could do it under a grill, you could do it in a really hot oven. So now these are blackened and softened, I want to let them rest a little bit. So just take these off and look at this. Beautiful. So cover it and just let it steam a little bit. Let's get the pan on a medium-high heat. You can serve one big pork chop for two people. I'm just going to cook one, so I'll save the other marinated one for later. Hear that? Sear and at the same time I'll go in with some of those artichokes and I'll use a little bit of that marinating oil from the jar. The really nice thing about reheating the artichokes in the pan like this, is like it's soft already, but now we're getting it crisp and you're bringing all the flavours back to life. So from the jar to something really special. Come and have a look at this pork. Absolutely gorgeous, just sizzling and gnarly. That's exactly what we want and then back in the oil and if you think the artichokes are getting a little bit too golden, put the artichokes on top of the pork and I reckon for the pork about three and a half minutes on each side on a medium-high heat and just angle the pan, basting it with oil like this really helps you get the juiciest possible pork chop. So we'll let that carry on cooking and whilst it cooks I can peel my peppers to make a tapas style salad and sauce. So I'm going to marinate these peppers and to do that I want to take the skin off and lose all the little seeds right, just by rubbing the skins. We've gone from peppers that are quite fresh and crunchy and now it's sweet, it's smoky and that for me feels like the flavours of the food of this region, that kind of Catalan flavour for me feels earthy and deep and surprising. So look that's all your burnt bits and pips, you'll see some natural juices gather there. I know it's only a tablespoon but you have to trust me, it's gold. That's where the amazing flavour is and then just a little olive oil and a little bit of vinegar. So now we're into marination mode, a little bit of pepper and then we can take these peppers and just turn them into lovely little strips but now it's those everyday veggies just gone to another level. So this preparation with the peppers is really good in pastas, in salads, on frittatas, on pizzas, on crostini and lovely little salads with mozzarella's and things like that, gorgeous, gorgeous. And I'm going to use those two ways with the pork later but first I'm lowering the heat under the pork and I'm going to rattle out my version of a local classic, aglio e olio. So the last thing I've got is some garlic here, I'll put in there as soon as I lit the barbecue, so half an hour, 40 minutes. I'm vibing off those slow cooked garlic cloves Raphael used in the vineyard for his suquette soup. And if I just take a little clove and I squeeze it, can you see what's gonna happen? Look, so this is no longer kind of like pungent garlic, no, no, no, no, it's mild garlic. Squeeze it out of the skins and I mush this up, just a little thimble of vinegar, then we'll mix that up and then instead of using lovely olive oil, what we're use is the leftover oil from our artichokes. Why waste it? So very slowly add a little bit of oil and create that emulsion. So every last bit of that oil has now gone, let's have a little try, a little bit of seasoning and there we have, I think a really clever by-product from something that might have gone to waste. A little kind of version of an aglio e olio, it's definitely not classic, but I like it. The pork chop is done, so let the pork chop rest now. You can get rid of this excess fat, but what you have in this pan is sticky bits from the pork, the best home for chickpeas. So we're not just using all the flavour in the jars, we're using all the flavour, you know, from what might be washed up in a pan, but that is essentially your kind of gravy, pork gravy chickpeas. But then just while this pork chop rests, I want to take some of the red peppers and I'm going to smash them up to make a little basic sauce. So just keep mashing that up, a little olive oil and then take those lovely chickpeas and you bring them to life with this amazing sweet, sweet gorgeous pepper. Look at that, it's gonna be deep and dark, it smells amazing. Turn the gas off, let's plate up. Look, just glorious, it smells so sweet. We'll take some of these beautiful peppers, what a celebration of colour and then Mark Chokes telling the story of those beautiful jarred vegetables and then get your knife, just give it a little kind of carve. Look at that, this little bit of cheat's alioli, right? The beautiful oil from the jarred artichokes, you've got that garlic in there, when that mixes with the peppers it's gonna be a thing of joy. Right, obviously this is a plate to share but I'm gonna have a little try. A lovely bit of pork, steal a little bit of that beautiful red pepper, come on. Wow, the pork chop is so tender, the artichoke is crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, really fragrant and with the pork and chickpeas it really is a joy. So for me, this is all about celebrating those jarred products, really bringing them to life, absolutely delicious. I'm cooking my version of a French classic with a Marseille twist, herby steak and crispy potatoes. I've used these beautiful red skin potatoes, they've been cooking for like 15 minutes on a medium heat with salt and pepper, a little splash of olive oil just to get them going. So that is nearly cooked, nice rustic chunks of potato. Look at this lovely steak, a fantastic entrecote, that's a ribeye steak on the bone. Can you see how there's a little excess fat around here? Just use a knife to nick a bit. You could always use a smaller sirloin or rump or even a cheaper cut like a skirt steak and it'll taste absolutely delicious. Then what I can do now is just put some little nuggets of this amazing steak fat in with the potatoes and that flavour from the beef will start cooking into those chunky chips. Okay so lots of black pepper on this gorgeous steak and salt and this will serve two to four people once it's sliced. Now pisto is a condiment from Provence. It's really simple, it's basil, garlic and oil, pound it up to a beautiful little paste. It is absolutely the cousin of pesto, so buy a pesto at home, both work incredibly well with the tomatoes, the beef and the potatoes. It's delicious, it's pungent and it's full of the flavour of the Mediterranean. So take some of that pisto, just a couple of teaspoons and we're going to rub that all over. Look at the colour, it's just beautiful and of course it normally finishes things, so you get a very fragrant side to it, but when it cooks in the pan you get a savoury kind of note from the basil and the garlic, so I love the fact that I'm not just going to get one set of flavours, we're going to get two. Let me just wash my hands second, in my little bowl of soapy water. So this is very exciting, we have got golden crispy beefy bits potatoes, they're looking fantastic. So I'm going to take the potatoes off, I'll reheat those a little bit later. Pan back on, turn it up, now the fun starts. So the beef has had a quick little marinade, let's put it on its fat side like this first, just hold it there like that, get that fat rendering. Wobbly fat is not really appealing right, we want crispy fat. You only have to hold it there for like one minute and you can see how that dancing fat has rendered. So now we lay this in its own fat. I want to cook this medium rare okay, so probably about three minutes on each side. Dancing fat, crispiness, texture. I'm very happy with this steak. I'm going to now put my potatoes back in here and let my steak rest, so that can just chill out for a little sec. I've cooked the pistachios into the steak, now I'm going to smother it on it once it's cooked and they will rest together and of course the juices come out and that will mix with the oil and the basil and the garlic, it's going to be an absolute sensation. So potato and steak done, let's do a delightful tomato salad. Look at that, I like to cut the tomatoes quite chunky and it is much easier to get these coloured tomatoes these days, which is a fantastic thing. Season that with a little sea salt and a little pepper, take the leftover of this pistou right and turn this condiment into a dressing by adding a little red wine vinegar. It's a clever little hack. Using ingredients in a couple of different ways is an easy way to maximise flavour. Right, last but not least, pistachios. When we went scouting around the markets there was loads of nuts, loads of fruits, so it's a little nod to that but also texture, soft and crunchy. And then I just want to slice into that steak, nice big chunks blushing away. And then last but not least, our sizzling chips. Bringing in the pistachios, a pistou that just lifts the whole thing, makes it juicy and delicious and without question brings a little bit of the spirit of the Mediterranean to that Friday night dinner. A bit of everything. That is a mighty fork, let's get it in there. Beautiful.