The One Meal Gordon Ramsay Says Is The 'Cornerstone' Of Home Cooking

Gordon Ramsay can be an opinionated and sometimes controversial chef, but you may not realize that if all you watch is his family cooking content on YouTube. Ramsay is at his most endearing when he brings his children into the program. Their presence tones down his trademark snark and slows down the pace of his programming, revealing a kinder, gentler sort of cookery (via YouTube). While his kids do pose questions about the process, they clearly know what they're doing in the kitchen too, which makes the show's how-to more persuasive and satisfying to watch. 

In one of Ramsay's YouTube videos, the "Hell's Kitchen" chef featured two versions of what he referred to as the "cornerstone" of home cooking. Ramsay says all the rest of the family's weekday meals are built around it. According to the Inn at Huxley, the meal in question is traditionally English and stretches back centuries to the time of King Henry VII. It's a meal in which the whole family — and, sometimes, extended family — partakes, offering more time for conversation than regular weekday meals. So what meal is Ramsay referring to? 

As mentioned in his YouTube video, Gordon Ramsay's cornerstone meal is none other than the Sunday roast, and it's a British essential for more than one reason. Due to its longer cooking time and significant mass, a roast carries a lot of literal weight. But it also conjures up visions of happy families and deep, tantalizing aromas pervading the home, which make it additionally appealing (via Honeywell's Farm Shop). It's a favorite in many households including Adele's.  

It's not just the backstory and importance of Sunday roast which earns the meal the title of a cornerstone in Ramsay's book. As Ramsay notes in his video, the Sunday roast can help kickstart food prep for the rest of the week. According to the Guardian, leftovers from the Sunday meal can be used to make a whole host of other dishes such as soups or sandwiches. Given how busy Ramsay is these days, he doesn't always have time to cook from scratch. Previously, Ramsay revealed some of his hacks for leftovers such as his suggestions for leftover chicken (via Gordon Ramsay). The Sunday roast offers a wonderful opportunity to get a jump on the week in a pleasurable kind of way, and perhaps even get the kids in on the action as Ramsay usually does in his videos. Cornerstone, indeed.