Ultimate or Proper Ceasar Salad

What makes a ceasar salad ultimate or proper? Is it the fact that the recipe came from Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Heaven? Or is it attention to detail, the elements of a dish all fully understood, made from scratch and combined in a way that is more inspired by a recipe rather than being the recipe? I think it's a little of both. Ramsay certainly has more imagination and skill than me when it comes to food.

As you know, ceasar salad is very simple: lettuce (the celebrity chef calling for baby gem lettuces but the resourceful me settling with organic romaine), croutons, some sort of bacon, and dressing. The dressing is really the make or break here. That crap they sell in bottles which overpowers everything is NOT ceasar salad dressing; that's what it says on the bottle but they're lying. Real ceasar salad dressing is garlic to taste, Parmesan cheese, eggs, Dijon mustard, lemon, anchovy fillets or paste, and olive oil. The egg and the olive oil make a sort of mayonnaise while the other elements add most of the flavour.

What the recipe called for afterwards was:
- baby gem lettuces (see note above)
- ciabatta loaf to make croutons (I just used some stale bread I had on hand)
- pancetta thinly sliced and crisped (which I replaced with crisped prosciutto)
- soft-poached eggs (no modifications there)
- fresh anchovy fillets (the canned variety was fine...plus I don't know if I've ever seen a fresh sardine)
- Parmesan cheese shavings (all out unfortunately)

The only thing I added to the salad was pork which I'd thought would be necessary in order to make this salad a meal; it wasn't.

What I find interesting about salads is their versatility. They're fresh, usually healthy, and when done right they're arguably better than a steak dinner. Unfortunately, proper salad, like proper soup, is something people are no longer used to. We've been accustomed to crap imitations which are just as expensive as the real deal. But I don't feel like going off on a rant tonight. Just know that this salad was good and proper. There.

Gordon Ramsay's Lasagne

I've got a love hate relationship with Gordon Ramsay's recipes. Sometimes his food is out of this world and other times it's nothing to write on this blog about. This particular recipe from Kitchen Heaven is definitely in that grey zone.

Let me break it down for you. First, make your own pasta. I'm actually getting good at this so it really wasn't a problem. Here's where the problem was. I rolled the squares out and then had to blanch them before putting them on a baking sheet, covering them with a crème fraiche (sour cream) and egg yolk mixture and then spring sprinkling with parmesan cheese all of which got popped into the oven to broil. Sound complicated? Wait. It gets worse.

While I was blanching and broiling the pasta sheets, I had to fry beef steak chunks in a pan to the desired doneness. I also had to cook shallots and garlic in another pan to which I added cherry tomatoes to make a sort of quick sauce.

Now everything wasn't quite hot at the same time. I had to pull the pasta out so it didn't burn while making sure that the sauce was sufficiently cooked and the beef wasn't too sufficiently cooked. But the lukewarm ingredients wasn't the worse part. This decomposed lasagne had to be assembled.

I had to start with sliced of prosciutto topped with some of the tomato mix, a few pieces of beef, a square of baked lasagne square, and then had to keep going till I was out of ingredients. I then drizzled with olive oil and sat down to eat.

Like I said, nothing was very hot by the time I got to the dinner table. It was good but not great. I mean it was tomatoes with steak on pasta sheets. Nothing really original or with much wow factor. But I did like the texture of the baked pasta sheets. The were a bit crusty and had a good chew to them.

All in all, I think this recipe is a bit too finicky. Love hate sort of thing.

Ramsay's Fish Pie

There was a "buy 3 get 1 free" at the local bookstore which means that I've stacked up on cookbooks. These include Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Heaven. The cookbook part of the Kitchen Nightmares television series, the book is part recipes and part restaurant how-to book. Though his directions on how to run a successful restaurant could be more elaborated and could be the subject of a whole book, the recipes are really inspiring. The recipes are light and savoury without relying too much on the traditional butter and cream of, say, the French. Plus the photos of Ramsay in the book pretty much all show his smiling or working alongside his staff...quite a change from the bulldog faced Ramsay we see on TV.

As far as the fish pie goes, I had the option of trying Ramsay's recipe or Trish Hilferty's recipe from Gastropub Classics. Ramsay had less ingredients so I opted for his. The result was a rich and satisfying dish with very familiar flavours in a new presentation.

For those who are like me and have no idea what fish pie is, let me put it to you this way: a fish chowder with the potatoes mashed and spooned on top in cottage pie fashion. In other words, it's like the lovechild of a fish chowder and a cottage pie. The fish is in a cream and vermouth sauce just like any good chowder. The potatoes are velvety and full of butter. All in all, this is a great recipe. But I'm not going to copy it here. I wouldn't want the wrath of Ramsay visited upon me. Suffice it to say that you can make a fish cream sauce with sweated shallots, white wine, Noilly Prat vermouth, fish stock, and double cream. Use your fish of choice (I had turbot and Boston blue fish though I would try to have a white fleshed fish, a rich fish like salmon and an oily fish next time...just to cover the whole fish spectrum) along with a splash of lemon juice, tarragon and parsley. You then prepare mashed potatoes, spoon on top and bake for 20 minutes. See, I didn't give the recipe. But any good cook would know what to do. This dish is highly recommended especially if you've got fresh fish lying around.