http://www.thetimes.co.za/PrintEdition/Lifestyle/Article.aspx?id=901793Gordon Ramsay
Neil Roake Published:Dec 14, 2008
Neil Roake is food editor for House & Leisure magazine and author of several cookbooks. His latest, Second Helpings and On the Rocks, are available at book sellers nationwide.
Cooking for Friends
By Gordon Ramsay
Published by Harper Collins
Price: R349.95
The closest I’ve been to Ramsay’s cooking was at his gastropub on the River Thames called The Narrow, which looks the way you’d expect an English pub to look and the fare is dead simple. We all thought Ramsay had probably never crossed the pub’s path, as the man seems to be opening more restaurants and writing more books and doing more TV… he’s a very busy man.
However, I had the perfect opportunity to test some of his recipes. It was my daughter’s 12th birthday and seven of her friends were coming to stay at the beach cottage for the weekend. Guinea pigs, I thought. So as the girls gathered around the dining table and started paging through the book, the comments started flowing. “His face should never be on the cover. He’s not that attractive really,” said Natalie. The others nodded.
The Grilled Vegetable Lasagna seemed a good option, as I also had one young vegetarian in my midst. Ultimately most of the food was a little too comforting for a bright sunny day (hey, it’s not London, mate), so it was the Black Forest cake that got voted in as a great birthday cake for my girl, Jordie. Now, the cottage is not so well equipped so this was a challenge … no scale, no mixer, no cake tins. But a quick trip to the local Spar brought back two aluminium foil cake tins and the best dark chocolate I could get. So with youthful enthusiasm and a lot of hand beating (even if you go to gym, whipping those egg whites up is painful), we melted chocolate, brewed espresso, beat the butter and sugar together, and in no time at all had the mixture in the oven.
The girls went back every five minutes or so and said things like, “Wow, it’s working!” Well, even I was impressed that the cake was rising and 40 minutes later (on the dot) I inserted a skewer and it came out clean. Voila!
Then disaster; as the cake cooled the middle started to sink. Then it cracked to reveal an oozy inside, like a chocolate volcano. I did not panic (but secretly wished I had bought that R33.95 Spar cake with synthetic icing as a back-up). Once cooled though, the insides firmed up, I sliced it in half and added lashings of cream and cherry compote. The top went on with more cream, pitted black cherries and finally, gratings of dark chocolate. Before I could say “Gordon Ramsay!” the cake was cut and devoured. It was the first time that weekend that I didn’t hear a peep from the gaggle.
And best of all, my daughter beamed as she said, “ Thank you Dad.” No, thanks Gordon — a good recipe, a beautifully styled book, and an easy read … Nice one!
