Mouth-Watering SPICY Recipes | Gordon Ramsay's Ultimate Home Cooking

Fish stock is the base. Bring that up to the boil. Now, let's take that broth to another level. In with chopped shallots, fresh ginger, and a whole chilli, seeds and all. I actually quite like it. Spicy. Just chop once and into the broth. Bring it up to the boil and let it simmer. Galangal. It's a sort of, almost like a softer version of ginger, slightly milder. You can use galangal paste, but I prefer the fresh stuff. The stems of the coriander. We'll finish the broth with the heads. And that's what endeared me to the Southeast Asian style of cooking. Across my travels there was there's no waste. In. Lime leaves. For me, one of my favourites. Incredibly pungent, strong, full of flavour, very acidic, but gives a really nice aroma to the broth. Just tear them in. Now, the lemongrass. So the secret here, that's where all the flavour is. Right at the very end. So you take the back of the knife and you just bash the lemongrass. So all that flavour is gonna run out in seconds. That's the base of the broth done. And the longer you leave it, the more intense it gets. Whilst the broth infuses, soak your rice noodles in boiling water for 10 minutes. The last job before serving, the clams. Never be scared of cooking shellfish. The most important rule is, if they are slightly opened, a millimetre, discard it. Make sure, mussels, clams, are always tight. Cook the clams for just three to five minutes or until they're all open. Bring that up to the boil. And this is where we finish the broth. Touch of fish sauce, a little sprinkle of sugar. Drain your noodles into the bowl. Add a texture, some delicious bean sprouts. Get your lime. Fresh squeeze of lime juice in. Beautiful. Literally, as the stock comes up to the boil, the clams open automatically. So they cook beautifully. The flavour from inside the clam has enhanced the broth. Smell is incredible. The clams cooked, finish with fresh coriander and serve. There you have a perfect lunch. It's hearty, delicious, robust, but served with some tortillas and a wonderful salsa. It's almost like a complete meal in one. Starting with some finely chopped red onions for my soup. Let's get some heat going early. These are chipotle, so they're smoky, rich. They don't come with any warning signal and these are seriously hot. So be adventurous, but beware. A nice teaspoon of toasted cumin. Oregano, dried. Now start frying off the spices, the heat. You'll see the chillies start swelling up. Delicious. Garlic. Be quite generous on the oil because that helps to blow out the chilli. Right now, those onions and garlic are on fire. We're going to balance the sort of heat from the chipotle with sugar. Turn up the heat and really start caramelising that sugar and the chilli. Gives off the most amazing aroma. Next, fry off a tablespoon of tomato puree. Add a can of chopped tomatoes, cooked kidney beans, and vegetable or chicken stock to cover. There's something quite exciting about big and bold flavours because in the restaurants you have to be somewhat controlled you can't go crazy. So cooking these kind of dishes at home gives me that kind of release. Chillies, particularly when they're dried, continue to swell and release their heat as they're cooked. So the longer you cook your dish, the hotter it will be. But it's not as powerful as it needs to be yet. And every five, six, seven, eight minutes that's going to get stronger, hotter and more delicious. Bring that up to the boil and cook that out for 15 minutes. Whilst I allow the chilli heat to infuse, I'm going to crack on with quick, crunchy tortilla chips and a fabulously fresh and spicy tomato salsa, known in Mexico as pico de gallo. Start by finely dicing three ripe tomatoes, one or two deseeded fresh jalapeno peppers, and half a red onion. Then chop a good handful of fresh coriander. Add the juice from two limes, salt and pepper, and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. For the tortilla chips, rub a little olive oil onto six large shop-bought wheat wraps. Sprinkle with smoked paprika and gently massage in. Cut each wrap into triangles and spread them onto a baking tray. Bake for three to four minutes in a preheated oven, 180 degrees until golden brown and leave to cool. To complete my Mexican lunch, I need to finish my deliciously fragrant spicy soup. Mm, the spice is there. It is absolutely spot on. Now for the cooling down process. The Mexicans are brilliant at building layer upon layer of flavour with delicious chillies and spices, but they're also experts at tempering their dishes with cooling ingredients like avocado, sour cream and cheese. That's why you can take that amount of chilli, you've got that spoon of richness, spice, and all of a sudden, avocados, almost like a little fire blanket over those chillies. To further counter the chilli heat, Mexicans use a rich, tangy, crumbly cheese, but I'm sprinkling on Lancashire, which is a great British substitute. And last but not least, cooling fresh coriander. One delicious, spicy Mexican soup. Serve that with your tortilla chips and your pico de gallo salsa. A phenomenal blend of textures and layers and spice and creaminess. Big, bold and delicious. This is a very classic Mexican-style brunch dish. Bold, kick-ass flavours. Slice the chilli, seeds in. Garlic sliced, nice and thinly. Tablespoon of olive oil. I'm a big fan of brunches, and if you get it right, a great brunch can see you right through to dinner. Now, to start, the sort of spicy, fragrant tomato sauce. Get your cumin in there. Garlic, chilli, roasted cumin, red onions. Already sounds Mexican. Once that starts getting really nice and crispy, in with your tomatoes. Never be embarrassed using good, canned tomatoes. I do it all the time, cooking at home. Now, by reducing that, you sort of come down to a delicious paste. Leave that to simmer. Next, canned beans called black beans. These are authentically Mexican, but cannellini beans or chickpeas will work just fine. Just rinse them in a little bit of water. That is beautiful. Turn off the gas and just let it absorb. Leaving the dense beans to luxuriate in the spicy tomato sauce will allow them to soften and soak up all the flavour. Next, oil and season an oven-proof dish for my spicy egg brunch to baking. And just get some of that oil around the outside. Take your corn tortillas, slice them in half, and then just stick them to the side. These are a staple in Mexico. Take one and place that in the centre. Get your mix and place that on top of the tortilla. Spread that out nice and smoothly. Lift up those little flaps. I want that crisp shell on the outside. Now, your eggs and cheese. Get the base of the egg and just make a little hole in there and then crack the egg into there. Again, use a little point, put your egg in there. One, two, three, four, five, and one in the middle. Gently crack and get the egg to sit inside, almost like it's a little dugout. And then one for the centre. Get a really nice, rich, delicious, strong Montgomery cheddar. I want to grate the tortilla shell as well, so get generous with it on the top. I'm going to season that with these little babies, little chilli flakes. They're my little secret weapon. And they're going to spice up that egg. A touch of salt, a touch of pepper. Sit that in the oven to bake for eight to 10 minutes. I want 80. That smells incredible. Just a little bit of coriander to finish it off. And that, for me, is what brunch is all about. Let's go. A fantastic, fiery brunch to get your party started. Spicy Mexican eggs in a crispy tortilla shell. There's something you do in the morning and put it in the oven, because it has to be cooked really, really slow. I'm going to dust this in flour. It's amazing how many chefs are using oxtail on their menus today. It's incredible. It's very popular. It's very cheap as well. It's amazing how you used to make it stretch for like five or six dinners. I don't exactly, it's not that bad. Now I know why we were all so skinny growing up. It wasn't that bad. I'm joking, come on. You know I'm joking. But you see, sometimes we went to the butchers and you had maybe extra two or three. I used to put it in a saucepan and you had lovely stock for soup. What was that spicy soup that was really nice? Molokotoni? Molokotoni. And I used to make a good pot of Scotch broth. Scotch broth, I remember. Now, we'll peel a couple of cloves of garlic. I'll show you a quick way of getting that out. Get your knife and just bash it. Mess. No, it's not a mess. Peel them and I'll crush them in the garlic crusher. Okay? Right, oxtail in. We're going to fry that off. Okay, and get that nice and brown. And we've all braised it in red wine and sort of chicken stock before, but I'm going to get this done with a Chinese influence. The Chinese absolutely love cooking oxtail. Do they? Mm-hmm. You started cooking at home quite early on, right? 17 and a half. Your mum died quite young. Very young, 26. 26, so who taught you how to cook? Nobody taught you. I think you just learn as you get older. And you learn by your mistakes. And did you enjoy it? Yes, I did enjoy it, yeah. That is a nice vegetable, that. The fennel? Fennel, isn't it? Isn't that lovely? It's beautiful, yeah. A lot of people don't use it. A lot of them use it in salads, but no one actually cooks it. You just slice that up, Mum. Now, these are nice and brown. And they look lovely. Put the colour on there. You just slice up the chilli, okay? Just slice it down. I'm going to keep the seeds in there because I want some heat as well. And that's star anise. Star anise, that's right. I wouldn't have thought of putting that in there. No? And one thing you never used to do was work with many spices. There wasn't many Chinese influences. I wasn't very adventurous with spices back then. No. I like ginger, do you? I love ginger, especially fresh. Yeah. Coriander seeds, a little handful. In. And soy sauce. And quite generous in soy sauce, about four or five tablespoons. That helps give it that saltiness and a nice, dark, rich colour on the vegetables. So as it braises, the meat tenderises quicker. I would never drink anything fennel and the chillies and that, but it smells lovely. Does that smell nice? And then a little bit of this. This is a... What's that? A rice wine vinegar. Oh, is it? Yeah. What other tips would you give me in order to save money on cooking? What got you through that tough time feeding all six of us and holding two jobs? When that was in the oven, say, for about an hour and a half, then I would think, right, I'll make a rice pudding or put an apple pie in it for the same sort of heat. Use the other shelf in the oven. So you weren't just watching the pennies in terms of the produce, you also cut down the gas bill. Yeah. Wow. Super nan. Yeah, super nan, yeah. Some oxtail back on top of the vegetables. Top that up. Is that beef stock? Yeah. This is a really nice chicken stock. Why are you putting chicken stock in with oxtail? Because it's quite a sort of light, fragrant way of cooking oxtail, because oxtail itself is quite rich. Yeah. Chicken stock's nice and light. Just cover it with stock. Lovely colour, isn't it? It's a beautiful colour. Let me have a little taste. Here we go. Big, deep breath. OK, nan. Oh, that's lovely. I can taste the fennel in that. Is that nice? That's lovely. What? Oh, Jesus.