Indian Inspired Dishes With Gordon Ramsay

My next recipe takes the humble pancake to a whole new level of flavor and excitement. Soft, fiery, and irresistible, spicy pancakes. One of the secrets to good cooking is learning to use your imagination. When it comes to brunches, you don't have to stick to the old standbys. These delicious spicy pancakes are a really great alternative, but more importantly, so easy to do. Start off by toasting your cumin. It's a dry roast, basically. Nonstick pan, just a touch of seasoning. The salt helps to dry out the cumin even more. And then fresh ginger. Slice them nice and thinly. Stack it back up, and then just slice. Nice little thin slices in there. And then keep that bunched up. Shake the chili. Removing the seeds will prevent things getting too hot. Now, garlic. Nice. Now, add olive oil to your toasted cumin seeds, and in with the garlic, ginger, and chili. Lovely. And it feels strange when you talk about garlic for breakfast, but the time I spent in India, everybody was eating something savory for breakfast. It was extraordinary. Into your bowl. And set aside. Next, the pancake filling. Add olive oil to a hot pan. Mustard seeds in. Now, they'll start dancing the minute they hit the pan. Then finely slice an onion. Onions in. A little teaspoon of turmeric. Sprinkle that in. And look at the color. An instant change. Leftover potatoes, just slice them. The smell is incredible. Potatoes in now. Spread the potatoes across the pan. I want the potatoes stained. I want them sort of absorbing all that really nice turmeric. Act like a sponge. Season those potatoes, and it really helps to bring out the spice beautifully. They're ready. Turn off the gas and let them sit there and absorb all those flavors. Back to the pancake batter. Add plain flour to your cooled garlic, chili, ginger, and cumin seeds. Touch of salt and pepper. Nothing worse than the bland pancake. One whole egg. Milk. Hold the jug with one hand. And whisk together. The secret is to get that really nice, smooth paste. But whisking that egg first brings it together. And then you're milking. Don't put all the milk in, because then you're going to get a lumpy pancake mix. If you put less milk in, it really helps it not go lumpy. Look at that. Milk in. The secret for me is to have a nice, thin mix. Now, just a little teaspoon of oil. That helps bring a nice, crispy edge to the mixture. Now, just taste. Mm. That's the texture. Pan on. The larger the pan, the better. It helps to create a nice, thin, even surface. I want that mix going all the way around the pan. Before you put the mixture into the pan, make sure you give your pancake mix a really nice stir. Pan is nice and hot. Turn down the gas. A touch of olive oil. Get that nice. Whisk with one hand. Pan to the mix. In. One and a half ladles. And then roll it around. So it's really nice and thin. I want to see the ginger, the garlic. That's what I'm looking for. In there. Now, back onto the heat. It only starts to remove from the bottom of the pan and lifts itself up once it's cooked. These little bubbles confirm that it's just starting to lift off the pan. A little shake. That releases it. And then just shake it to the end. And toss. If you haven't got the comfort of tossing, then use a spatula and turn it over. Now, that's exactly what I want, that nice, sort of crisp edge around the side. The color on the pancake is so important. Now, roll it around. And just let it slide out beautifully. Now, the exciting part. Filling them. Take your potatoes. Just sort of have a really nice imaginary line. And then just very carefully roll that nice and tightly. Tuck it underneath there. Put it back and roll. Beautiful. The delicious pancakes are ready to eat. But with a simple dipping sauce, they'll be a real treat. Just mix chopped coriander with natural yogurt. That's a really nice cooling agent. Sit that on the side. And that, for me, is a great brunch. Delicious, spicy pancakes. Amazing. A dish that takes as much time to write on a blackboard as it does to cook. Chickpea, cumin, and spinach koftas with tahini dressing. In a blender, put tinned chickpeas, cumin seeds, paprika, and turmeric. And blitz to a paste. Next, wilt spinach in olive oil and chop finely. Then add to the chickpea mixture. Sprinkle in gram flour made from finely ground chickpeas. Then shape golf ball-sized chunks of the mixture using a spoon and rest in the fridge. When ready to cook, heat oil in a frying pan. Shallow fry the koftas until golden brown on all sides. Then rest them on kitchen paper to absorb any excess oil. For an easy dipping sauce, mix yogurt with a dollop of tahini and a squeeze of lemon. Then stir in freshly chopped coriander. A mouth-watering dish that's perfect for sharing. Chickpea, cumin, and spinach koftas with tahini dressing. Time is chili chicken with ginger and coriander. Start by chopping chicken thighs into pieces. Now on with the marinade. Chopped garlic, ginger, red chili, and lemon juice. In a pan, toast coriander and cumin seeds to release their flavors. Grind and add to the chicken. Then pour over plain yogurt. Add turmeric and season. Mix and leave to marinate from two hours to overnight. Next, fry chopped onions in olive oil. Then add chopped garlic and ginger, ground coriander, garam masala, and turmeric. Tomato puree and butter. Next, add the marinated chicken and all the remaining marinade and cook until tender. Finally, top with coriander. Marinated for flavor and cooked in 20 minutes. Chili chicken with ginger and coriander, a simple, stress-free wonder. To keep old dishes fresh and exciting, it's great to get spicy. My next recipe is a time-honored British classic. But with the addition of spices, it's given a new lease of life, fragrant spiced rice pudding. I love cooking with spices, but you don't have to just cook savory dishes. Using aromatics and spices across desserts takes your puddings to a completely different level. First off, our spices. This is a fresh vanilla pod. Fragrant and packed full of flavor. Use the back of the knife and flatten it. That removes all those little seeds off the skin of the vanilla pod. Take your knife, slice down the middle. And then when you open that up, the smell is incredible. Take the tip of the knife, and you scrape inside. And look, all those seeds dying to come out. That is incredible. There are thousands of seeds still ingrained to the pod. So put them in the casserole. Cardamom, powerful, spicy. Take two little pods. Place your knife on top, and lightly crack them. Cracking the cardamom pods helps release all the amazing flavor. Cloves, gives it that kind of aniseed flavor with a lot of depth. One, two, three. Cinnamon stick, snap, and in. Just smelling that level of fragrance, you can imagine what the rice pudding is going to taste of. Turn on the heat, lightly toast those spices just a couple of seconds. And what's going to happen is it's just going to sort of enhance those spices in a way that it just draws out an even more powerful fragrance. Coconut milk in. Sugar, two tablespoons. Milk, and then a couple of tablespoons of cream. Bring it slowly to the boil to allow the flavors to infuse. And this rice pudding reminds me of my time in India, where I got really into that chai tea fragrance, because it was just so delicious and so comforting. Take a lime, in. The lime just cuts through the richness of the coconut. Gives it that nice little bit of acidity. Goes fantastically well with the cinnamon. And that fresh vanilla, nice. Have a taste. Now, let's go up to the boil, give it a nice little clean around the outside, and in with the rice. Use 200 grams of pudding rice. Don't wash it beforehand, because the starch helps thicken the rice pudding in the oven. And just turn that down to a light simmer. And the pudding rice starts to open up, and it absorbs all that coconut, vanilla, cardamom, clove, and cinnamon. Bring it up to the boil gently, and cook it out for three to five minutes. Boiling it rapidly, the rice opens up, and it goes into mush. So we want to keep that nice texture, that sort of fragrant rice pudding, on a gentle simmer. Next, a little luxury. I'm going to show you how I take this simple, delicious, aromatic rice pudding to a completely different level. Here's what I do. Take two egg yolks, separate them. Now, give that a really nice whisk. Two nice tablespoons of mascarpone cheese. Whisk that into the egg yolks, just so it's nice and smooth. It's almost like finishing the rice pudding in a delicious custard. Turn off the gas. Add that into the rice pudding. And what happens, it starts to enrich and really thicken this rice pudding, and takes it to a completely different level. The rice is still not cooked. It's starting to go nice and soft. You can just see how it's opening up. But look, it's like rich, aromatic lava bubbling away. Finally, grate more citrus zest. The lime on top. Roasted, caramelized lime zest on top of a rice pudding is phenomenal. Then put it in the oven for 15 minutes at 200 degrees to finish cooking the rice and develop the intensely aromatic flavors. Look at that, an incredibly fragrant rice pudding. How beautiful does that look? Spices are a brilliant way of helping classic dishes come alive. I'll guarantee you'll never, ever have had a rice pudding like this before.