Sausage & Beans – Gordon Ramsay

January 21, 2015

This recipe takes it’s simple inspiration from Gordon Ramsay’s Fast Food book.  I’ve changed a lot of the pieces, but it’s basically sausage, beans, and tomatoes.  And as simple as that is, it’s quite amazing.  We’ve repeatedly eaten this meal and it still shocks at how damn good it is.

INGREDIENTS

4 Aidell’s Cajun Style Andouille Sausage (whole or chopped into bite size chunks, as you prefer).

Olive Oil

2-3 Fresh Thyme Sprigs

2 sliced cloves of garlic

1 14 oz can of pinto beans (drained)

1 14 oz can of organic chipped tomatoes

Pinch of Sugar

Salt

Pepper

DIRECTIONS

Pan fry the sausage in the olive oil, adding the garlic and thyme, cooking 3-4 minutes.  Don’t burn the garlic!  It’s easy to do.  Then add the can of beans (drained) and the can of tomatoes. Add the pinch of sugar.  Bring to a simmer and cover, cooking 10 minutes.  Add some salt and pepper to taste.

VARIATIONS

You can try any type of sausage.  The Aidell’s are precooked which makes them easier to cook, but any type would do.  Gordon Ramsay uses Toulouse sausages.  You can also use any ground thyme (use ½ teaspoon) and chopped minced garlic (1 tablespoon).  You could even use fresh tomatoes if you wanted, (2-3 I think would be right).

Chicken with Almond, Mint and Cayenne

This recipe is inspired by Raghaven Iyer in his book 660 Curries.  He calls it Almond Chicken with a Yogurt-Mint Sauce.  You’ll find it on page 123-124 of his book.   This recipe was cooked a day after the Chicken with Fresh Curry Leaves and Tamarind recipe. 

The basic idea to take from these recipes, which is a core element really of Indian Cooking, is to mix a variety of spices with your yogurt marinade.  In this case we are mixing almonds and cayenne and cilantro along with coriander, mustard and fennel seeds.  Of course we include garlic, ginger and salt.  The mint is added at the end, much like the Curry Leaves were added later in the Chicken with Fresh Curry Leaves recipe.  The Chicken with Fresh Curry leaves used yellow split peas instead of almonds, and used a mixture of black peppercorns, turmeric, cardamom, cinnamon, and chilis (instead of just cayenne pepper). 

You take your basic yogurt and experiment.  Add different spices prepared in different ways.  Sometimes you just you ground spices from Spice Islands, sometimes you use whole spices, sometimes you toast the whole spices, sometimes you toast them then grind them.  Try different combinations.  The first recipe tries tamarind and curry leaves and the second uses almonds and mint leaves, with some coconut.

INGREDIENTS

·         3-4 pounds of boneless chicken thighs. You’ve heard me talk about this before, and I’ll do it again.  Don’t use white meat. 

·         1 cup of whole plain yogurt

·         ½ cup of silvered blanched almonds.

·         8-10 cloves of garlic

·         3 lengthwise slices of fresh ginger about an inch long each.

·         1 tablespoon of coriander seeds.

·         2 teaspoons of yellow or black mustard seeds

·         1 teaspoon of fennel seeds

·         2 teaspoons of salt

·         2 teaspoons of cayenne pepper

·         ¼ cup of chopped cilantro

·         3-4 tablespoons of Ghee

·         1 red onion

·         2 fresh or dried bay leaves

·         ½ cup of firmly packed fresh mint leaves finely chopped (it turned out to be one whole package of them from the market).

INSTRUCTIONS

1.   Add the yogurt, almonds, garlic, ginger, coriander, mustard, fennel, salt and cayenne to a blender jar and blend up into a thick paste. Transfer toasted split peas to a blender and add the yogurt, peppercorns, salt turmeric, garlic, cardamom pods, dried chilies, and cinnamon stick.  Blend until it’s a thick paste.  Then pour into a bowl and fold in the cilantro with a spatula.  Then add the chicken, coating all sides very well, then cover and refrigerate for as long as you can, up to overnight.

2.   When you are read, heat the ghee till very hot and then brown the chicken pieces (reserving the marinade for use later), 2-3 minutes a side, turning them over.  Set the chicken aside.

3.   Add some more ghee if there is no oil, and then add in the onion and bay leaves and cook, scraping up the wonderful brown chicken bits for 3-4 minute.  Add some water, anywhere from ¼ to ½ a cup.  I take water and spray it into the blender jar, and swirl it around, to get the rest of the marinade, and use that as the water.  After the onions have cook a bit 6-10 minutes), add in the rest of the marinate, swishing some more water if you need it.  Cook 2-3 minutes more.

4.   Add the chicken back in, and simmer for a while.  Chicken thighs stay tender so there is no need to worry about over cooking it.  Just simmer till you feel it’s done.

5.   Remove chicken, then add in mint to the sauce.

6.   Serve chicken over a pile of rice, scooping sauce on top.  

There will be a delicious yogurt cayenne mint combination in your mouth.  Reheats well the next day!

Chicken with Fresh Curry Leaves and Tamarind

This recipe is inspired by Raghaven Iyer in his book 660 Curries.  He calls it Yogurt-Marinated Chicken in a Black Peppercorn Sauce – Chettinad Kozhi.  You’ll find it on page 122-123 of his book.   I had to order a few special items for this recipe, and I got them on Amazon.  They are Fresh Curry Leaves and Tamarind Paste (or Concentrate).

The taste is EXOTIC.  The family loved it and gave it 4-5 stars out of the gate.  There were some questions of texture by Asher, but I have some solutions to that if you care to use those below.  Overall, a very different taste and something that really spoke to the emotions.  Had dinner with my Dad, Asher, Riley, and Britney.  Jennie and Amethyst ate later upstairs.

INGREDIENTS

·         3-4 pounds of boneless chicken thighs. You’ve heard me talk about this before, and I’ll do it again.  Don’t use white meat. 

·         2 tablespoons of yellow split peas (chana dal) or Pidgeon peas. 

·         ½ cup of whole plain yogurt

·         2 teaspoons of black peppercorns

·         1½ teaspoons of salt

·         ¼ teaspoon of turmeric

·         6 cloves of fresh garlic or 3 tablespoons of minced garlic

·         6 green cardamom pods

·         3 small dried red chilies (serrano, cayenne, red Thai), stems removed.

·         1 cinnamon stick 3 inches long

·         2 tablespoons of Ghee

·         1 teaspoon yellow mustard seeds (you can use black seeds as well)

·         1 red onion chopped

·         12-15 large fresh curry leaves

·         2 fresh green Thai, cayenne, or serrano chilies OR 2 fresh Anaheim chilies.

·         1 teaspoon of tamarind paste or concentrate

·         ¼ cup of shredded coconut dried, unsweetened or sweetened, reconstituted with 1 cup of boiling water.

INSTRUCTIONS

1.   Preheat a small skillet over medium high heat.  Add the split pease and cook, stirring them constantly or shaking the skillet every few seconds, until they are reddish brown in patches and smell nutty.  1-3 minutes.  It was about 1 and half minutes when I do it.

2.   Transfer toasted split peas to a blender and add the yogurt, peppercorns, salt turmeric, garlic, cardamom pods, dried chilies, and cinnamon stick.  Blend using a spatula to push the stuff down.

TEXTURE NOTE: This creates a really gritty sauce, with pieces of peppercorn and cinnamon stick.  There are two ways to avoid this.  1 some water to the mixture or more yogurt so the sauce fills the bottom of the blender better.  The other way is to use ground spices: ground pepper, garlic paste, ground cardamom, ground cinnamon.

3.   Marinate the chicken in the marinated for as long as you can.

4.   Heat the ghee in a large pot.  Add the mustard seeds and cover, letting the seeds start popping like popcorn, about 30 seconds.  Add onions, curry leaves, and Anaheim Chilies and cook till soft and transparent, 6-10 minutes.

5.   Add the chicken pieces, marinade and all.  Cook.

6.   Meanwhile, combine the tamarind paste with 1 cup of water in a small bowl, stirring to dissolve the paste.  Pour this murky brown water over the meat. 

7.   Simmer for 10-30 minutes.

8.   Still in the coconut and serve.