Cooking with Jamie Oliver – Chick pea soup

I didn´t know Jamie Oliver had 4 kids. He is very original when it comes to naming his kids.We have a committee in Iceland that controls what you are allowed to name your kids, aha we do! But we do have lots of options it´s not that. But the committe mostly makes sure the grammar is correct, we have rather complicated grammar in our language.

Jamie Oliver named his kids Pippy Honey, Daisy Boo, Petal Blossom, Buddy Bear. I would not be able to name my kids any of that…

I am still cooking from the book Naked Chef, I do change the recipes a little bit, like if I don´t have something.

This time I cooked Chickpea and Leek Soup.  It was kind of tasty. If you have chickpeas and a leek it´s totally worth the try.

Chickpea and Leek Soup (serves 3)

 

• 1 can chickpeas
• 2 medium potato, peeled
• 1 medium leeks
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• Knob of butter
• 2 cloves of garlic, finely sliced s
• alt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 L chicken or vegetable stock
• Parmesan cheese, grated
• Extra virgin olive oil

 

Cook the potatoes until tender, about 1 hour.

Cook the potatoes until tender, about 1 hour.

Remove the outer skin of the leeks, slice lengthwice from the root up, wash and slice finely.

Warm a pan, and add the tablespoon of oil and the butter.

Add the leeks and garlic to the pan and add a pinch of salt.

Cook for a bit Add the drained chickpeas and potatoes and cook for 1 minute.

Add about two-thirds of the stock and simmer for 15 minutes.

If you want to puree the soup put it in a processor, or leave it chunky and brothy, or like Jamie does puree half and leave the other half whole.

Now add enough of the remaining stock to achieve the consistency you like.

Season to taste, and add freshly grated Parmesan.

Drizzle wit a good EV olive oil, black pepper and an extra springling of Parmesan.

Serve with homemade bread or any other good bread, like baguette .

Cooking all recipes from one book

Well, now I´ve got my glass of red, and can start writing, join me for a glass if you like while reading this… unless you are at work…

It´s been a trend lately to pick one cook book and cook all the recipes in that book, like you see in the movie Julie and Julia.

I have seen few blogs about this and one of the most ambitious ones might be the one cooking from a book called Alinea.

I bought this book a while ago and I love it, lots of fun ideas but sometimes a little complicated.

 

I have been wondering about doing this for some time and I am finally gonna go with it. Because lately I haven´t been very inspired and always kind of cooking the same with the same ingredients.

So, the question was, what book to cook from. The ones I have are mostly like all Indian, all pasta, all tapas, all fish… but I wanted a book with good varaity.

One of them is The naked chef, an old one from Jamie Oliver. I browse through it a lot but I never cook from it. I find it an interesting book to cook from. There are lots of nice recipes, ingredients I almost never use but some ingredients I wont be able to get here in Iceland, like live lobster. I will improvise when needed.

So the decision has been made, I will be cooking from The naked chef. It has got good varaity of dishes, fish, meet, vegetable, pasta, soups…

I will follow the recipes as good as I can, that way I will learn new things and combinations of food.

The first recipe I am making is scallops. And this is how it went…

First of all, I am not good at doing the recipes exactly the way it is, I wanted to make changes, but this time it was not an option, I would do it the way the chef made it.

And you know what, it was delicious, a fiesta in my mouth, great combination of ingredients.

This is how I did it, I did change some of the amount of the ingredients.

Scallops with green lentils and sage   (for 2)

• 6 slices bacon
• 6 scallops
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 8 leaves of fresh sage
• Salt and pepper
• Juice from half a lemon
• 4 tbsp green lentils boiled with rosmarin and garlic *
• 2 handfuls of some nice green salad leaves
• Salad oil ( see below)

*You could also boil the lentils just in water since this is dish with lots of tasts. I did that because I saw too late that this was lentils from another recipe in the book).

Fry the bacon on a pan, and when that is almost done throw in the sage leaves and fry for about 2 minutes. Put this on a kitchen towel to get rid of extra fat. The sage gets really crispy and nice.

Fry the scallops on the same pan as the bacon, make sure it´s really hot. Put a little bit of olive oil on the pan before the scallops. Squeeze a little bit of lemon juice over the scallops while frying them. They only need couple of minutes on each side.

Now, worm up the lentils on that very same pan after you remove the scallops.

Toss some dressing over the salad, put it on a plate. Put the scallops, bacon and the sage on top of the salad and the lentils. Serve right away.

Salad dressing

• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• Salt and pepper

Mix all ingredients together

I made a very easy bread with this.

Mix yeast, sugar and luke warm water in a bowl and let sit for 5 minutes. Add flour and some mix of seeds (sesame seeds, sunflower…what ever you got and like) Stir it all together with a fork. Let rise for half an hour. Stir it a bit with a fork, add some flour to make it non sticky. Form it as a baguette and brush it with egg whites and even some seeds. Bake for 20 minutes at 220°c.

Bread, ingredients

• 2 tsp yeast
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 1/2 glass luke warm water
• 2 glasses flour ( the glass is about 1 cup)

And, how was it? First recipe of many…it was very very very good. You can serve this as a main course or an appetizer.

I served a bottle of George Dubæuf, Beaujolais with this dish.

And what did I learn?

Scallops, sage and bacon goes so well together. I have to use sage more in my cooking. Lemon, also something I have to use more.

My boyfriend said, wow this is soooo goood! I will totally make this again for dinner guests.