Published July 12, 2020

Best known for his cooking reality show Hell’s Kitchen, Gordon Ramsay is a fiery, (meme-able) chef who is passionate about food.

I started watching his Amazon Prime Ultimate Cookery course. Filmed in his home kitchen, he shows viewers tips and tricks for preparing delicious food, with segments featuring ingredients and kitchen tools.

I’ve noted some of his recipes that I found interesting. The past two weeks I’ve been challenging myself to cook with new ingredients to make healthy, summertime recipes.

So for this week’s recipe video, I’m making Gordon Ramsay’s meatball recipe with coconut broth.

Ingredients for Gordon Ramsay’s Meatball Recipe with Coconut Broth

Substituting Ingredients

I went to the store and spent most of my time in the spice aisle, trying to find the spices that would build the flavor of this spicy coconut broth.

I didn’t find all of the whole ingredients that Gordon Ramsay’s meatball recipe calls for, so I made some substitutions using what was available in my grocery store.

Next time I make this recipe, I’m going to find fresh lemongrass and ginger and see if it impacts the flavor of the broth. My broth was successful given the use of ground spices instead of whole ones.

However, I’m curious to see if there’s any difference in the strength of the coconut broth by using whole ingredients.

How to Make Gordon Ramsay’s Meatballs with Coconut Broth

Tools for this Dish

• Deep frying pan (for meatballs and broth)

• Cutting board, knife, bowls for each ingredient

• Mixing bowl (for meatball mixture)

• Small bowl (for breadcrumb mixture)

• Fork, tongs, wooden spoon, measuring spoons and cups

Cooking Notes

Forming the Meatballs

As you can see from my recipe video, add your milk and breadcrumbs and stir to combine. I added an extra tablespoon of milk to create a softer mixture.

Just like in Gordon Ramsay’s video, I used about 1/2 of the 3/4 cup of breadcrumbs. If you are mixing your meatball mixture and they aren’t forming, then add the rest of your breadcrumbs to help stick together.

I made my meatballs a little bit larger than a golf ball. The goal is to make sure they’re all similar in size so they cook evenly when frying.

Browning the Meatballs

If you watch Gordon Ramsay’s original video, you see that he adds his spices to the center of his frying pan as the meatballs are browning. This gives the spices enough time to cook before the liquid is added for the broth.

However, I know from cooking meatballs you do not turn them right away. If you do, they can stick to the pan and crumble. Thus, I let my meatballs cook for 6 minutes on one side before I turned them (which is longer than Gordon Ramsay did when he browned his meatballs).

Thus, I added my spices after turning them over. I was a little worried that they would burn (my pan was on medium-high heat for frying), so I stirred them around the pan, mixing with the olive oil.

Gordon Ramsay didn’t stir his spices until he added the broth — so, maybe I was worried about burning them for nothing. When I make this again, I’ll add my spices sooner to see if that makes for a bolder, richer broth flavor.

Note: Before opening your coconut milk, shake the container well. If you find that the milk is separated, whisk / stir well until combined. Then, add to your broth.

Frying the Meatballs

I normally don’t measure how much olive oil I use for frying meatballs. I would guess that I used ~2 tablespoons of olive oil for frying. The oil is what helps create a brown crust on your meatballs.

As I was frying my meatballs, I was satisfied with the amount of oil that I had in my pan. However, as I added the liquid to the pan, I saw that the olive oil was a sheen on top of the broth which wasn’t going to make for a pleasant texture.

Gordon Ramsay’s video didn’t say anything about removing oil from your pan before making the broth, so I was annoyed with how the broth was separating (you can see how I continually stir the coconut milk into the olive oil).

Luckily, I have my grandmother’s magical container for gravy that separates the delicious cooking liquid from any fat — so as you pour, the oils and fat are left behind and you have a tasty sauce.

If you don’t have one of these fat-separating containers, once you’re done cooking, you can put your sauce in the fridge to solidify. The fat will rise and solidify on top, which you can spoon out. Then reheat the remaining broth to serve.

To prevent this extra step in the first place, I would use less olive oil to begin with, and/or pour out the oil before adding my spices and stock.

Serving the Meatballs with Coconut Broth

The key detail that made this spicy coconut broth pop was adding the lime. I grated the lime zest overtop each meatball and added generous amounts of lime juice to the broth.

The lime juice helped brighten the notes of ginger and lemongrass, while cooling some of the heat from the red pepper flakes (yes, red pepper flakes are spicy to me). If you don’t find red pepper flakes to be spicy, you may want to use the original dried chili that Gordon Ramsay called for.

I would almost consider serving this broth over noodles or rice. I used a spoon and drank the broth with each bite of meatball, but if you wanted a heartier dish, you could serve it overtop Thai noodles or jasmine rice.

Recipe Score

I would give Gordon Ramsay’s Meatball Recipe with Coconut Broth an 8/10 for the following:

• Recipe Level

  • Easy: A simple meatball mixture, fried until crisp — this one-pan meal with fragrant spices and rich broth is a bold and flavorful meal.

• Ingredients

  • Personally, the spices for the coconut broth were new for me, so I had to go to the store to find them. It was challenging and exciting to work with new flavors. I’m excited to start incorporating these ingredients into new recipes. Plus, there’s ways to substitute these ingredients depending on what your grocery store provides.

• Prep

  • There’s no prep involved with this dish. I personally like to pre-measure and layout all of my tools for the dish beforehand, which you may consider prep.

• Flavor

  • 8/10: Crispy brown crust and soft filling, these meatballs pair well with the spicy-sweet coconut broth. Bright turmeric gives the broth its bold color, while fresh lime juice brighten the ginger and lemongrass flavors.

K. Martinelli Makes Meatballs with Coconut Broth

Looking for More Gordon Ramsay Recipes?

Try Gordon Ramsay’s BBQ rib recipe by following my recipe video here.