3 Perfect Lunch Box Recipes | Gordon Ramsay

Chicken stir-fry with rice noodles. Some of the best street food I've ever eaten was in Asia. Every one of those little markets was filled with smells of delicious food that all centered around an Asian staple, noodles. Learn to cook those properly and you'll be surprised how quick and easy it is to knock off a delicious dinner. First off, we're gonna soak our noodles. Now these are rice noodles. Into a bowl and just pour a hot water over the rice noodles. Soak and rehydrate. 12 to 15 minutes to soften up. If you've got a wok, perfect. If not, just a normal size frying pan with big sloping sides. Pan on. Get it really nice and hot. Chicken breast, very lean, hardly any fat. On there, you've got this little fillet. Just slice that off. Now, the secret to getting it really nice and thin and to cut it into strips, take your knife, keep it nice and flat on the board, and sort of slice it in half like a sort of scallop. Like that. We call this butterflying the chicken. Take a rolling pin and nice and gently roll over the chicken. What it does, it sort of flattens it, allows you to slice it even thinner. And the thinner the slice of the chicken, the sort of crisper it gets, the quicker it cooks. Slice it in half. Start slicing these nice thin slices. And the good news is one chicken breast can serve two or three easily. Next, wash your knife and finely slice garlic. The thinner the garlic, the crispier. This is a young, tender broccoli. Just slice them down. I want a bite to the broccoli. Normally, you sort of paste the dish with one-third noodles, one-third vegetables, and one-third of your protein, chicken. With a dish that takes literally minutes to put together, it's really important to get everything organized. Everything needs to be at your fingertips. Touch of olive oil. Get that pan really nice and ready. Just starting to smoke. Drop the chicken in first. Such a salt and pepper. Open up those little strands of chicken. Nice. Once you've started to sear off the chicken, get the garlic in. Now, let that get really nice and crispy. The way to do it is to sort of spread all the chicken and the garlic up the side of the pan. You see why it's so important to cut the chicken into thin strips, because it colors and cooks at the same time as well. Really, really crucial. Now that garlic's getting really nice. And crispy. Broccoli in. Feels strange putting raw broccoli in like that. Normally, we blanch it in boiling water, dry it out, but you want that crunch. Now, soy sauce. That helps to season it, but also stains beautifully. Soy sauce in. Lovely. That's exactly what I want. Now, take that out. Give your pan a little wipe out. Teaspoon of olive oil. Get that wok really nicely oiled again. Drain your noodles. They're beautiful. This is a really exciting way of finishing this quick stir-fry. Very classic. Two eggs in. Whisk up the eggs. Give that a really good whisk. Sort of almost spread it up the side of the pan. Lightly season the eggs. Noodles in. Chicken and broccoli in. Give that a really nice mix. You want the egg to sort of almost bring the dish together. That egg's cooked. Make sure you've got that nice, even distribution of chicken, broccoli, garlic. Lovely. And then just finish that with a fresh lime. And there you have a very simple, delicious stir-fry with rice noodles. Homemade gnocchi. Making your own gnocchi is so simple to do, yet the results are absolutely stunning. And it's a great way of using up leftover baked potatoes. You can make gnocchi just with flour and eggs. However, the potato gives it a nice, light, sort of creamy, fluffy texture. Just cut them in half. Take your spoon and scoop the inside of those potatoes. I'm using leftover baked potatoes, but this really works as well with leftover boiled potatoes. Two choices. You can get a fork and sort of mash the potato and get it nice and light and fluffy, or this little gadget. It's called a ricer. I suppose it's a posh word for a potato masher. Just squeeze gently. You can see how nice and light it is. Almost like fluffy little strands of potato. You can do this when the potatoes are hot. It'll go through the ricer so much quicker. Just slice that off there. Now, a nice spoon of ricotta in. A little touch of salt and pepper. It's really important to season the mixture as we go along, otherwise the gnocchi becomes really bland. Flour over the ricotta, sieved so there's no lumps. One delicious egg. Give that a little whisk. Now, make a little well in the center. You want a nice soft pliable ball of dough. Give that a really good mix. Get some thyme flowers in there. And this thyme is light, fragrant, and it's just a really nice herb. And with the ricotta, it tastes brilliant. Just pick the little tips of the thyme flowers. Next, flour your hands generously and knead the mixture into a dough. Fold in and push. And basically what it's doing is get it nice and smooth. As it starts to get a little bit wet, just add a little touch of flour. We want something really nice and soft. Now, don't overwork it. It stops the gnocchi from expanding when it hits the pan. That's exactly what I want. A nice sort of soft, fragrant ball. Cut the ball in half. Lightly flour the hands and just roll it gently. Just think of a big long cigar. The mixture will start getting a little bit sort of wetter, but do not add lots of flour. Now, lightly flour the knife so when you slice the gnocchi, it doesn't stick. Cut the dough into bite-sized pieces. Just take your finger, dip it in the flour, and push down. Why? I want my gnocchi to look like a pillow. And for me, the most important part there is that not one of them are identically the same shape. Water on. Bring it up to the boil. A little touch of olive oil in there. Lightly flour your hand. Lift up the gnocchi. In to the rolling boiling water. Turn that pan to stop them from sticking at the bottom and let them simmer. And they start to sort of tell you they're cooked when they start floating. Get a pan on. Get that nice and hot. Now, they're just starting to come up to the top and you can continue cooking them like that. I like blanching them in the water, taking them out, and then frying them. To serve the gnocchi, heat olive oil in a frying pan. Gently lift up and look. They've doubled in size. Drain it. Get rid of the excess water and straight in to the hot pan. This is where they start to take on a completely different texture. A nice, crisp, sauteed texture on the outside. Gnocchi loves fresh pepper. So, pepper in. And you'll see, as I start turning them, I've got this really nice little sort of brown color. They're almost puffing up now, like little parcels. So, I want them nice and sauteed on both sides, but light and creamy in the center. Fresh garden peas. In. And the butter gives it that really nice sort of beurre noisette flavor on the end. Beautiful. Put a little bit of fresh thyme over the peas. And then finally, I want to lift it up. Fresh lemon. Zest the lemon over. Smells incredible. And then finally, seal the deal with a touch of grated Parmesan cheese. Give your veg some attitude and you'll get amazingly elegant dishes on a budget that are always guaranteed to impress. What more do you want from great cooking? Cheap to make, easy to cook, and absolutely stunning. Spicy sausage rice. Whatever you're cooking, the secret to making great food is to ensure you lock in every last ounce of flavor in that pan. And this spicy sausage rice does exactly that. Take the spicy sausages and pierce that skin because I want all that delicious spicy sausage meat out of its casing. And you get more flavor from the sausage when you take them out the casing. Sausage is ready. Turn on the gas. Bread onion. Less acidic than a big white Spanish onion and a lot more flavorsome. Tablespoon of olive oil. A tablespoon only because I want all that fat coming out the sausages to sort of really help flavor the onions. Onions in. And the onions go in first because you can never rush cooking an onion. It's really important to sort of give them five to six minutes in the pan so you can really start to caramelize them. And now for my pepper. Slice round. Wasting nothing. I want to see that sort of little core, those pips in the center. No fine diced pepper. The rice is going to be cooking for 20 minutes. So I want the veg to sort of have texture after it's cooked. Peppers in. A bit of garlic. Two nice cloves. Just slap down. Off with the shell. Garlic in. Now we'll turn up the gas. Get the pan nice and hot because the minute that sausage goes in everything cools down and you'll end up boiling the peppers and the onions and the garlic. So heat up to maximum and then just make a well in the center. In. Now start stirring quickly. This is where you get so much more bang for your buck out of the sausages because the skins off and the real flavor of that spicy Italian sausage is going to come through. What's great about this recipe is that you can use any type of sausage to get the flavor and the heat you want. I've gone for the spicy Italian, but it's just as good with merguez or chorizo. A teaspoon. Paprika in. Give it that really nice smoky flavor. Rice in. And we're going to sort of basically sear the rice. We call it in the kitchen blasting the rice, where we sort of sauté the rice for 30 seconds and it takes on all that flavor. Next, white wine. So the wine sort of deglazes the pan and washes all that flavor from the bottom of the pan into the rice. Stock in. Bring it up to the boil. Turn it down and let it simmer. Double stock to rice. Turn that gas down and let it simmer. 12 to 15 minutes and just give it the occasional stir. Keep an eye on it. Now, get ready to finish it. Slice spring onions. Dice sweet juicy tomatoes and roughly chop earthy flat-leaf parsley. Spring onions in. Tomatoes in. Off with the gas. Really important. Otherwise everything becomes overcooked. Flat-leaf parsley in. But look at the volume in that pan now. That is an amazing way to take spicy Italian sausages to a completely different level. Beautiful.