Jamie Oliver's Vegetarian Dinner Ideas & Recipes

Hi guys, hope you're well. Okay, I'm going to show you how to make the most delicious all-in-one veggie pasta full of the good stuff. Four of your five fruit and veggie day in one dish. Turn this pan on. We're going to go in with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. I'm going to be heroing sweet peppers. Just give them a little wash and simply stick your thumb right like that. And then tear it apart. And then what we'll do is take out the stalk and the seeds and any of the kind of white seedy parts and just put that to one side. So just carefully slice up all the peppers will go into the pan here. So in we go. Look at that. Look at the color. Get yourself a little spoon. Give it a mix up. And then onto the next veg. So couple of nice red onions. You could use white onions. Peel those. Take the ends off. Half them. And then we're going to finely slice them. Get those lovely red onions into the pan. So, two veg down. Next up, get your courgettes. Take the ends off. And then, cut them in half. Again, sort of finely sliced. As you prep each vegetable, you're just adding it into the pan like that. So, next up, garlic. And for this recipe, four cloves of garlic. This is going to be absolutely delicious. What I want to do now is cook it down, down, down to caramelize and concentrate and go delicious. And then last but not least, I want to prep some of this stuff. Basil. What we have here is beautiful leaves and the stalk. So, I'm going to take the leaves off the stalk, put it to one side, and then these stalks I'm going to put to the other side. And I'm going to use all of it. Just finely slice the stalks. And that will go in as well. So, we're absolutely wasting nothing. And now, what it really needs is time. Just kind of give it a stir every now and again. So, that is going to be beautiful. Now, here for this lovely basil oil, simply take the basil and put it in a pestle and mortar. So, I'll just take a little pinch of salt into the basil, smash it up, and then in 30 seconds, you can just let it down with oil. So, put that to one side. And look, all we have to do now is give this a stir every couple of minutes. One pound wonder coming your way. It's had 20 minutes. You can see the colors have concentrated and got caramelized. It's shrunk down. So, now is the fun bit. It all comes together now. So, I've got 250 g of lovely cherry tomatoes. These I've just washed and I'm going to put in whole. I said it was a one pound wonder. So, in here we're going to go in with 300 g of the pasta shells. Then go in with 800 ml of water. And then we're just going to stir it through. Very importantly, give it a season with salt and pepper. Mix it. And then put the lid on top. And we'll cook that for the same amount of time as it says on the packet of pasta. About 10 or 12 minutes. Then I'll show you what to do next. So, this has had 10 minutes, and the pasta shells have only sucked up the gorgeous tastiness from the veggies. And I'm going to use four tablespoons of this cottage cheese in here. I'll stir this through and just let those little curds warm up a little bit. So, I'd serve that in the middle of the table. A few of those basil leaves I'll just put in and around the pan like that. So, then put the basil oil through the pasta. So, guys, look at that. That's a really nice, easy one pan comfort food dish packed full of the good stuff. Properly tasty. Let's have a little try. Mmm fresh, full of lovely veggie flavor. You've got those curds of lovely cottage cheese that are in there. And that hit, that perfume of the basil oil. It's fantastic. Now look, I love it in the middle of the table with a pan. Just help yourself. If you can dress it up a little bit and put it on a platter and then just pour it in. Look at the color. Maybe just grab a few more basil leaves, a kiss of olive oil. One pan veggie pasta.

I'm going to make for my family a beautiful aubergine Parmesan Milanese. I love doing this. It's a brilliant way to really elevate the humble aubergine to the next level, right? And what I'm going to give you is a method where we actually tenderize the aubergine, make it creamy on the inside, crispy on the outside with the Parmesan. So good. And then I'm going to serve that with a sweet tomato basil and garlic sauce, simple pasta, bit of Parmesan. Happy days. So look, it's a really quick one to do and it's a really fun process. So, first of all, what we need to do is get the aubergine sliced up into four 1 cm slices. Literally just shave the end off the black skin to expose the white flesh. Do the same on the other side. And then what we want to do is cut it in half. Now, I leave the stalk on because it really helps to hold the whole thing together. Now once you got it in half again exactly the same. Put the knife in between gently cut down through to the stalk again all the way through. So what we have here essentially is like four scallops of aubergine. So first of all what we need to do is draw out the moisture. Now it's going to look like I'm going to over salt it but I will be taking half of this salt off. But this salt is really important for this tenderization. Right. So we're going to put some of this aubergine on the salt here. Like that. And that will start to bring the moisture out of the aubergine. It actually starts to change the texture, right? And we can actually treat it like meat and we can start to tenderize that. And if you use like a regular meat bat or even your fist, what you can do is start pounding and you'll start to completely completely change the texture. By doing this, you're going to get a creamy inside and by cooking it the way I'm going to cook it, it's going to be really crispy on the outside. So, simply flip that over and then we'll do the other side. So, already this kind of feels completely different. And that's just from a little bit of time with salt and a little bit of tenderization. And then all I do now is get a bit of kitchen paper and just dab off that sort of salty juice like that. So, next up, breadcrumbs. What I'm going to do is take this lovely vegetable and make it really, really crunchy. So, I've got two free-range eggs. Twist up till they're nice and loose. Now, let's talk about the breadcrumbs. I love to try and get the rosemary focaccia. Why? Because it's white, it's crunchy, but also the rosemary and garlic in this will give your breadcrumbs extra flavor, but with one ingredient. Of course, you can use whatever bread you want. But the more exciting your bread is, the more exciting the flavor will be on the outside of your aubergine. Right. So, 100 g of bread I want and just whack that straight into a food processor like that. What I quite like is it's kind of got a little bit of substance to it. Look at that. It's bouncy. There's some chunks in there. You can see the little bits of rosemary as well. So, now we're going to take our lovely aubergine just like you would if it was a cut of meat. Season it up with a little pepper like that and then into the egg. That's kind of like your binding. That's your glue. Can you see the difference in the texture? Right. If you'd have just cut the aubergine, it would never do that. It would actually break. Shake the plate of breadcrumbs here. Let the excess come off. Then put it onto the breadcrumbs and then use your other hand. Otherwise, it will get sticky to cover it. Pat it down. Bit of pressure. And then a little shake. But that my friends is a beautiful breadcrumbed aubergine. So one down, three to go. Beautiful. Okay, so we've got those four done. So now get a large non-stick pan on a high heat. A nice swig of oil goes in there. And then I'm just going to lay our lovely breadcrumbed aubergine into that oil and start to fry it. I want to get it lightly golden. So about 2 minutes each side. Now look, the great thing about this recipe is traditionally of course it will be veal or chicken or pork sometimes. And bigging up the veg I think is a really nice thing to do. So let's just have a little look at this first one that went in. Look, that's lovely. So, flip that over. Look at that. Nice and sizzly. That black skin gets really nice and crispy, too. Look at that. Golden, crisp, and delicious. And I've experimented doing the same preparation with slices of butternut squash, beautiful pumpkin, amazing courgettes, or even a mixture of different ones. And I think it's just a brilliant way to enjoy veg, but we should all be enjoying more veg, right? So get yourself some Parmesan. And this is when things get even tastier. Garlic, rosemary, breadcrumbs. Now a little Parmesan is going to be good. Get a fine grater and just kind of do long strokes on a baking tray. So that's like the welcoming party to our lovely aubergines. So have a little look at these. Oh yes. That is beautiful. That's going to be so tasty. Look at that. Here we go. And then as it's all sizzling and gorgeous, then we go over with some more long strokes of Parmesan. And this will just become one. This will just melt into the aubergine. So at this stage, this beautiful thing goes in the oven at 180° C, which is 350° F, for about 10 minutes. And actually, 10 minutes is a pretty good number because I've got some spaghetti here, and it says cook for 10 minutes. We'll boil that up. At the same time, we're going to make the simplest, quickest tomato sauce ever.

So, first up, tin tomatoes. There's plum tomatoes. Great. Chopped tomatoes, passata, use whatever you like. But in the world of tin tomatoes, there's actually cherry tin tomatoes, and they're blooming delicious. And I've only really found them in the supermarkets in the last couple of years. So, look out for these lovely little cherry tomatoes, right? 'Cause they're gorgeous, they're sweet, and they're picked at their very best. So, in a pan we go with a little olive oil and then a couple of cloves of garlic. Just run your knife through it. Easy peasy, right? Get that into the oil. We want this to be sweet, so don't get too much color on that. Not always, but sometimes I put a little bit of chili in there. I want it to be very mild. The kids are going to have it. So, I'll take the end off, half it, and I'll take the seeds out, right? And then I'll put that whole chili in and then I can take it out later. But it is going to give this tomato sauce a hum. It won't be hot. It won't be spicy. So in we go. And then as soon as there's a little bit of color on the lovely garlic, then we'll break the frying and go to boiling these beautiful cherry tomatoes. All you need to do is bring those cherry tomatoes up to the boil. We'll season it with a little pepper and some salt. And then some basil, about half a bunch. Just tear it up. And now we have a beautiful, delicious, fast, gorgeous tomato sauce. Put that on low. Pasta's got a few more minutes to go. Right, 10 minutes is up. Let's have a little look here. Look at that. You can see it's sizzling away. That's going to give you the most amazing texture. So, look, let that cool down. If you look in the pan here, see how it's just been on a very low heat just drying up, right? What you've done is concentrate flavor. So, now what we can do is take our lovely pasta and let the excess water rehydrate this. So cook that pasta nice and al dente and then let it kind of do that last bit of cooking in the tomato sauce. So the pasta and the sauce kind of become one. Simple stuff but so good. Look at that. I just love it. Extra splash of water. Get that consistency right. If you want to put a little Parmesan in the pasta, absolutely you can. It's just joyful. Right, let's plate up. Grab half of that pasta and just let it kind of hang. Right. And then just let it just kind of drape across the plate. Few bits of the lovely cherry tomato on top. They're so soft and tender. Get a little slice under the aubergine. You can see how crispy that's gone. And just lay it over the top. And I just love it. It's like the simplest sauce, but it just feels special. Few little baby basil leaves and maybe one last little kiss of Parmesan if you want. But that's it. Job's done. Aubergine Milanese. Simple pasta. And then the simplest, quickest little sweet tomato sauce. Let's have a go. Come on. Let's get in there. So, what I want from the aubergine is crisp on the outside and really buttery tenderness on the inside. Let's just go for a bit of aubergine first. Look at that. For me, it's all about taking the everyday aubergine and just elevating it to the next level. I love it. Absolutely delicious because you've got that beautiful crunch and then the inside of the aubergine is so buttery and silky. It's got texture. It's got deep flavor. This dish makes me happy. If you've never enjoyed aubergine cooked like this, you've got to try it. Beautiful mouthful deliciousness. River dinner.

Right. Do you want some slurpy pasta? Big or small bit? Big go. Hi guys. Hope you're well. I can't wait to show you this delicious meal. It's mushroom stroganoff and it's a recipe from page 30 from my brand new cookbook Jamie's Veg. I'm so proud of it. This book, of course, is all about veg, and there's something for everyone. There's comfort food classics, really light food, everything's vegetarian. There's a whole load of vegan dishes as well. There's nutritional information on every single page. There is a whole world of beautiful color. And here it is, page 30. So, stroganoff was classic for being beef stroganoff. Of course, we've removed that, but we're going big on mushrooms. It's really simple. A small amount of ingredients, but an opportunity to really focus on how do you get incredible flavor out of these beautiful mushrooms. So, starting off with 400 g of beautiful mushrooms. This will be enough for a generous two portions. So, if you go to the supermarket, you'll find a whole array of mushrooms. We got some standard brown mushrooms, classic oyster mushrooms, girolles. I absolutely love these, but they all taste a little bit different, but they're all kind of, you know, giving you that deep sort of savory flavors that we love. You can just slice these up, no trouble at all. You can tear them. There's no right or wrong. Just, you know, rip them up like that. Make it a nice mouthful size. We're going to get a big pan on a medium high heat. And I'm not going to add any fat at all. Cooking the mushrooms in a dry pan like this naturally brings out the nuttiness from the mushroom. So, I probably eat vegetarian two or three times a week. I really enjoy it. I think to be a fully rounded cook, it's really good to not rely on meat to kind of get away with big flavor. So, I find it a really positive thing for my cooking. I think it's a really positive thing for your health. Now, back in the pan, we're still dry frying, guys. So, you're sort of lightly charring it. You're making it nutty. You can see the moisture is coming out. So, while that goes on, I want to quickly prep the garlic and the onions. I've got one red onion. I'm just going to peel it, half it, and then finely slice it. But then I'm also going to finally slice the garlic. Everything's going to happen quite quickly from here on in. We'll give it a shake around. A little seasoning, salt and pepper, and some nice olive oil. So, it's the first introduction of fat. The minute you add the oil, we're changing gear, right? So, now we've gone from nuttiness to more sort of caramelization and frying. So, as that fries around, I'm going to take just a few cornichons, four little silver skinned pickled onions. I'm just going to finely slice those. It gives you this beautiful sort of slightly acidic crunch. It's a really nice surprise. So, I'm also going to add a little caper. So, just a little tablespoon like that. I absolutely love it. So, that goes in. Now, add a nice pinch of paprika. That's going to give it a little spice. Absolutely beautiful. I want to add some parsley. Rip off the kind of herby part for later. And then with the stalks, don't throw it away. Finely slice the stalks. There's brilliant flavor in there. Very sweet. And that's going to go in the pan right now. And then I'm going to flame it. Now, you don't have to flame it. I'm using whiskey. You could use cognac. You could use even gin. Very, very nice. So, give your pan a nice little shake like this. Then add your chosen alcohol. Just a couple of good shots like that. And then flame it. There you go. Flaming it is going to help to caramelize and flavor the vegetables, which is really nice. Of course, put your fan on. You know, get your hair out the way. Don't singe it. You know, be careful. You don't have to do this. But when you do flame the booze, you cook away the alcohol. And then what you're left with is the effort of the maker. Now, at this part in the story, we're kind of done. All we have to do is add a nice spoon of crème fraîche. You could, of course, use cream. I'm going to add just a little swig of water to give you a consistency of a nice creamy sauce. Go in with some roughly chopped parsley leaves. We'll bring that to the boil. And that, my friends, is going to be a delicious stroganoff. I think it's a brilliant time now to embrace more veggie dishes. Whether you're veggie, vegan, or you're just trying to reduce the amount of meat dishes you have in the week, this is a brilliant, brilliant thing. And if it's delicious, it's delicious. You know, veggie food should never be a compromise. Have a little serve up. Look at the colors, guys. The lovely different shades and colors of the mushrooms. Look at that. You could serve this with noodles, but for me, it has to be fluffy basmati rice. So, these have been cooked for like 12 minutes. When I just put the lid on and let it steam, it will soak up all of that beautiful creamy sauce. This is absolutely one of my favorites. It really makes me happy when I eat this. It's a generous portion. Look. So, there you go. Delicious. Mushroom stroganoff. Page 30 of the new book, Jamie's Veg. Right, enough yapping. Let's have a try. So, here we go. Rich and intense and delicious. Have a go. Have a cook up and enjoy.

Hey guys, hope you're well. So, this recipe you're going to love. It's a beautiful smoky veggie chili with salsa, homemade flatbreads. It's really comforting to eat. You get four of your five fruit and veg a day in one dish. Come on. What you need is a large non-stick casserole style pan on a high heat. We've got about three or four beautiful sweet potatoes. I want a kilo of fresh tomatoes, a bunch of spring onions like that. And then one of the heroes of the veggie world, sweet corn. Get your two corn. Put it in your hot dry pan. Turn it like every minute. And then after about 5 or 6 minutes, it will be lightly golden all over. And that's what we want. At the same time, get your spring onions. Just take that funky little wafty end off. And these can go straight into the hot pan as well. We're also going to put in four cloves of garlic. So, I've peeled this garlic here. The sweet potato here, we'll just slice up into little kind of 2 cm chunks. Okay. So, the sweet corn needs a little bit more time. The actual spring onions, they're done. I'm going to take the white parts of the spring onion off and put it here. And that's going to be in our salsa. Green part is going to go in a liquidizer. If we look in the pan here, can you see these lovely garlic cloves? They go in the liquidizer as well. So, next up, we'll just get this sweet potato in here. I'm going to put about 800 g of tomatoes. I'm going to put like two or three of those tomatoes over there. The rest of the tomatoes just cut in half and we're going to put in the liquidizer. So, two tins of black beans. We're going to put one tin juice and all into this liquidizer. Also, I'm going to use a spice. So, I've settled on a beautiful Cajun seasoning. Two heaped teaspoons. Right, let's blend it up. So, in literally seconds, you get all those ingredients turn into the most amazing sauce. So, let's take the sweet corn out. That's going to go onto our salsa board over here. Now, what we can do is go in with the last two things. We got this sauce straight in. The flavor is going to be amazing. And then in with the rest of the black beans and the juice. So you got nice whole beans in there. So now what we have to do is turn down this heat, let it simmer away for about half an hour, 20 minutes until the sweet potato is tender. So as that does its thing, I'm going to show you how to make beautiful homemade flatbreads. So here I've got 150 g of self-raising flour. What I want to do is add to this a good pinch of salt and then 80 ml of water that goes in. I tend to use a fork and just angle the bowl and mix it around. And then we can start using our hands. As soon as it's cleaned the bowl, then just give it a little knead for about a minute. You don't have to do sort of too much. Cut it roughly into four. Right, there's your four balls. And I tend to just put my hand on it, push down, and roll it around. And you just make a little ball like that. So roll these into four lovely balls. Let them rest now for a couple of minutes while we turn this veg into an amazing salsa. First job, I'm going to take the beautiful charred sweet corn and then I'm just going to get my knife and just carefully hold it and run the knife down the sweet corn. Do that to the second one. Then we can push that to one side. We can go in with the beautiful spring onions. So that goes into the bowl as well. And then the tomatoes I'll cut in half like this. See where the little core is here? Just cut that out. Then just squeeze the juice of the tomatoes away. Just like roughly slice it up. And then the tomatoes go in. Salt and pepper is really helpful in this story, but also vinegar. So, mix it up. So, salsa done. So, look, I'm going to put the lid on the chili now. And then I'm going to get a pan on full whack. Okay. It couldn't be easier to turn those balls into a lovely flatbread. Put a little bit of flour on the bottom, little bit on top. Press your balls down and then get yourself a rolling pin and just roll it out and go as thin as you can using the flour as you go. You can see how thin and fine that is. But then what's really important is to keep them warm. So get yourself a clean tea towel. Just lay that out here. And every time you do a flatbread, you can cover it up. Happy days. Straight into the pan. Pretty much straight away you should start to see the self-raising flour kick into action. And the little bubbles come up. So see how this is soft and spongy and this is charred and toasty. I like that. Right. So straight into here. Cover it up. So, third one down. Last one. In we go. And then we're ready to serve. Okay. So, time to serve up now. Get yourself a nice generous serving of the sweet potatoes, the beans. We'll take that salsa and on top we go. We've got the flatbread here. So, we'll take that and we can kind of tear it up. Literally shove it in the side. Let's just take a little bit of coriander, a little bit of yogurt to kind of contrast it. That's an optional as well. I mean, it was a vegan dish. Now, it's a vegetarian dish, but you can kind of get vegan yogurts and stuff like that. Let's get amongst it. I love just tearing up our homemade flatbreads. Come on. Mmm. That is delicious.

Time to make homemade kebabs. Woohoo. And this time it's a posh kebab 'cause we're doing a mushroom shawarma. Layer upon layer of beautiful mushrooms. We're going to marinate them. We're going to give them gorgeous spices. We're going to get it charred and dark and gnarly and we'll carve that over beautiful thin flatbreads. You will go mad. So come on, let's do it. Homemade mushroom shawarma. We're pushing the meat aside. We're bigging up this incredible vegetable. So let's start off with the marinade. We'll go into a pestle and mortar with two garlic cloves. Pinch of salt. Crack this into a paste. Smells fantastic. Then maybe an unusual ingredient that you've never seen before. These are preserved lemons. The smell and the flavor is almost like a hyper lemon squash. It's extraordinary. So, get rid of all the little seeds. Chop these lemons. You'll use the skin and the inside and give that a little pound. For me, this is really, really important to bring out flavor. A heaped teaspoon of smoked paprika. Allspice goes in. Cumin goes in. Bash them into the lemon and the garlic. Nick some of the liquor from the lemons. A little bit of olive oil. Look at the color, guys. So, this is the welcoming party for that lot. So, in we go. And you've got incredible flavor. Look at that. King oysters. They can go in. What I want to do is skewer these. So, any mushrooms you can get your hands on. Anything that can be skewered is what we're after. I've got about 800 g here with these lovely old portobellos. Pinch the end and peel them. I will not waste that. Okay. So, both go in. Fresh bay. I'm going to take a humble onion into quarters and then into petals. So, just give it a nice little toss up. And that marinade gets in and between the mushroom. So, get yourself a nice old skewer. And I want to rack this kebab up tight and packed. So, remember those gnarly little peelings. That's where a lot of the flavor is. One thing flavors another. One thing cooks into another. It's really good fun. So, look at that. Dum dum dum dum dum. Mushroom shawarma. Come on. So, that's going to go in a roasting hot oven. There you go. So, the kebab's cooking. Let's make homemade flatbreads. That's going to wrap up that beautiful thing. We're going to take the two cheapest things that you got, which is flour and water. Two heaped builder mugs of the strong flour. Just about fill this mug. So, it's hot water. Here's the twist. By using the hot water, you're partially cooking the proteins of the bread. Season it with salt. And we'll mix it up. Use a spoon. And then when the dough is not sticky, we can start using our hands. Just move it around like that. So as soon as that dough has cleaned the bowl, we can put that down. Give it a little knead and just work it until it's nice and smooth. So what you can see is we got a really nice elastic dough. And that's what you get from the hot water. Roll these into eight little balls. And then what I want to do is just put a damp cloth over the top like that. While the flatbreads rest, let's check in on those mushrooms. Have a look at this. So, that's had about 15 minutes and it's beautiful. Come on. If you look in the tray, can you see how the juice from the mushroom creates this stock? So, we can use this. Giving it a really good basting. This goes back in the oven. And we'll give it about another 15 minutes. Guys, let's do the flatbread. Get a couple of bits of greaseproof paper. And I'll want to oil these up with some olive oil. Put the dough on that. Just pat it out with our hand and put that on top. Just bring it out like that. It's so kind of bendy and elastic. Peel this off. Now, this pan is on a medium low heat. So, just let the heat cook the flatbread. That's all I want to do. Cook, no color. So, the nice thing about this is you could do this the day before or an hour before your friends or family get there. It's really, really easy. No kebab is complete without the extras. I'm going to make a little cheat salsa. So, I'll take a regular jar of jalapeños, a little food processor, and then choose a nice green herb. I'm going to go for mint. Just be brutal. Take the bunch, rip off the stalks, go in with the leaves, pour in the jalapeños and all of the vinegar, and whiz it up. So, for me, this little cheat is a great salsa, full of flavor, and that mint brings it to life. So, that is the simplest, cheatiest little salsa going. People are going to love it. Get yourself some tahini, cool yogurt, and pomegranate molasses. This is going to be an amazing little story. The sweet, the heat, the kind of robust, the refreshing. It continues with a simple quick pickle. Half a diced cucumber, 10 sliced radishes, and 100 g of quartered cherry tomatoes. We want to dress that with salt and pepper, simple olive oil, and vinegar. And I want to be fairly generous. One more thing I want to show you. This is dukkah. You can get it in quite a lot of supermarkets now. And it's basically pounded up hazelnuts, spices, and it's classically had with flatbreads and olive oil. Really, really nice. Got a little pile of mint. And it's time now to go and get our kebab. Look at that. I know what you're thinking. Is it burnt? Is it ruined? No, no, no, no. This is perfect. We can now take that incredible pomegranate molasses. A little kiss of olive oil. So that's going to be amazing flavor. We'll get our flatbread and we'll go in at the higher temperature. That high heat has now made the steam inside explode. It puffs it up like a big pillow. You get twists and turns and crispy bits, chewy bits. It's going to be amazing. Okay, let's build this kebab. We want to start with tahini. Really, really important. On we go. Savory and delicious. Be fairly generous. Then yogurt. Fresh and gorgeous. Time to carve our shawarma now. And as you carve into this and you look into the soul of the shawarma, you also then start to see the balance. We want burn. We want gnarly, but we also want that silky soft inside. Just absolutely amazing. Okay, so what next? Let's hit it up with some whole mint. Do blobs of the salsa so you get hits of it and waves of it. And then the dukkah. This is texture. It's spice. So, look, there's only one thing to do now, and that's roll this lovely thing up. And there is no elegant way to do it. That mushroom has like absorbed so much flavor. The salsa, bing, mint, little bit of molasses. Woohoo. And then those like little hits of spice from the dukkah. Wow. And the jalapeño chili. There's a nice Hummer heat there. That, my friends, is an absolute artisan version of a street food Friday night classic. Absolutely delicious.

It's time to try something delicious that's going to blow your mind. I want to show you my expression of an Indian dosa. A light, crisp pancake batter filled with amazing vegetables, spices with an array of sauces and pickles. It is so comforting, so delicious. So, for this amazing dosa, you need an amazing fermented batter. It's very easy, but it's a two-day process. And the fermenting might freak you out. Don't let it freak you out. The fermenting will give you texture, bubbles, and flavor like you won't believe. There's three ingredients that we're using here. You can get them in all the supermarkets. White rice. We got the white split peas, otherwise known as urad dal, and then fenugreek, one of my favorite spices. Very savory and really fragrant. Cover with water and leave to soak for 6 to 12 hours until the grains have plumped up and softened. Then blitz it all together until smooth. So that's the batter made. And now we let the natural bit happen, the magic bit, the fermenting. You'll see because you'll see bubbles, right? That will be flavor. As it's the weekend, we've got time to leave the batter to ferment overnight at room temperature. So we can get on with the fun stuff. Now it's all about the filling. And I'm going to do one with potatoes, plantain, and squash with amazing Indian flavors. We're going to begin the story with 1 tbsp of coconut oil, a heaped teaspoon of mustard seeds, a teaspoon of fenugreek seeds, turmeric in the corner. I don't really want to overtoast that. Then we're going to add these incredible curry leaves. Then finally, chop a 10 cm piece of ginger, two red chilies, and add to the pan. Look at those colors. Oh my lord. And then we'll go in with three small red onions, the potatoes. It just kind of gives it that starchy stodge that I like. Then there's this little fella, the plantain. It looks like a banana, but it's more starchy, more substantial. It's fantastic. And then I've got some amazing squash. Look at the color. I mean, this is really nutritious, delicious, colorful food with spices and herbs. Honestly, when you eat this, it's going to blow your mind. So, pop the tray into the oven at 180° C or 350° F and let the filling cook for an hour. This is the really exciting bit. We're going to make the sauces and the pickles. The ones that we know most probably is mango chutney. Delicious. But I want to show you one that's full of life, full of vibrance. Take three nice, really ripe tomatoes and just gently and carefully grate it. What will happen is it will mush the flesh and it will leave you with the skin on these box graters. See, there's a finer side. So, I'll use the onion for that. And the acidity in the tomatoes is going to kind of like almost pickle the onion. It's just going to have that kind of nice salsery tang to it. Grate in a small piece of ginger. Season with salt and add the zest and juice of a lime. And the lime juice will be like a ray of sunshine. So simple, so quick, very delicious. So the next chutney I'm going to do is coconut chutney. Buy yourself a fresh coconut. Get yourself something heavy and give it a nice little whack. And then get a fork and it's a bit laborious, but you just scratch it in a crisscross fashion. And you get this really nice kind of grated texture that I love. It's so tropical. So, that goes into a pestle and mortar. And then I'm going to use another little piece of white onion and another little piece of ginger. Then pound it up to a mush. Lime juice again for that real freshness. Have a little taste. Wow. The next and last one I'm going to do is a lemon pickle. It's so good. And we're going to eat and use the flesh and the skin. And I make this a lot. A little oil in the corner of a pan. I'll then go in with a pinch of cumin, a teaspoon of black mustard seeds. I'll add the curry leaves here. We can spice it up with red or green chilies. As those curry leaves become beautifully crisp, then we simply go in with our lemons. So 30 seconds in a pan is all you need. But what's really mad is something very magical happens as this now cools down. The natural pectin in the lemon starts to create a kind of almost a coating. It becomes a bit pickly. Who wouldn't want to dip something in that? Right. Have a look at this guys. I mean that my friends is an amazing vegetable dish in its own right. But today that's going to be smooshed up a little bit and put in this incredible dosa. So let's get back to the batter. So in the sort of 15 hours that this has been fermented, there's been an absolute party going on here and that's what's going to give it that lightness and that flavor. Season the batter with salt and pour a ladle into a lightly oiled non-stick pan. Try and get this dosa as thin as you can. That fermenting. I can smell it now. It's that kind of beeriness. And as that cooks, it will get crisp and thin. Now, what we're going to do is we're going to load it. Wowers. I mean, look at the thinness of this. And happy days. This is like no pancake you've ever had before. This guys is a dosa. Those intelligent, brilliant Indian flavors that I love so much. Right, enough talking. Let's do it. As I tear off little bits, I can go in and kind of take some of that tomato chutney and maybe a bit of, you know, the coconut. Oh my god. Smiles all around. It's absolutely phenomenal. I don't even want to talk. I just want to eat.

People, I am so excited to give you a go-to Friday night classic in the Oliver household. We're going to make veggie tikka masala. We've got beautiful marinated and grilled veggies with paneer cheese, the lovely sauce. Got an amazing grater salad. Then we got these amazing little pancakes to mop up the sauce. So, so good. And I bet you can do it quicker than ordering a takeaway. So, come on, let's do this. In a roasting tray, we'll go in with some olive oil, salt and pepper, and then a nice heaped teaspoon of golden turmeric. Amazing flavor. And then cumin seeds. Cut that with a little lemon. We can steal some of that zest and that will caramelize and go sweet and delicious. But of course, it's the juice that we want. So that's our basic marinade. We'll use that to toss all the veggies. Onions into quarters, then break them into petals. We're going to skewer these. If they're too small, they're too fiddly. Then peppers. And just tear this into similar size chunks. We got chilies, red, green, yellow, whatever you can get your hands on. And then our good friend, Mr. Cauliflower. Just remove the stalk. And we'll take big chunks. You can even put the nice green leaves in there. In here, we're just going to have a good old toss up. The turmeric is just one of the most incredible spices. The color, the savoriness, the sort of smokiness. And then paneer, a fantastic cheese. Cut an inch cube. Put that in the marinade. Again, what's lovely about paneer, it is a fantastic carrier of flavors. So get yourself a skewer. So just skewer that on and just alternate it. Bit of onion, bit of chili. So last one goes on. I've turned the grill on. And we want to get it black and gnarly on one side. Then turn it and get it black and gnarly on the other side. I reckon about 15 to 20 minutes in a grill at full whack. So now it's the time for sauce. I want to introduce curry leaves. You might find that in your supermarket. If you haven't, there are Indian supermarkets all around the country and they will have it. This will transform your curries. Get some oil in a pan and they will start to go crispy. We'll sprinkle them on at the end. And I just want the flavor in the oil. I'll take an onion and I'll just roughly chop that. That goes in to that curry leaf oil. I've got four cloves of garlic, roughly sliced them. Then I want a thumb sized piece of ginger. Really roughly chopped. I just want to soften these up. So we're going to go in with a heaped teaspoon of garam masala. And then heaped teaspoon of sweet paprika. A little handful of almonds. They don't just give you that gorgeous nutty flavor, they give you a creaminess. Get a liquidizer. This is a very good friend in this recipe. We'll take a tin of plum tomatoes and I'll take the onions, nuts, spices, garlic, and just get it in there. Maximum flavor, minimum kind of fuss. This is all good. So, back into the pan. This is the base of your sauce. Nice and smooth. We're then going to go in with chickpeas. Really soak up the flavor beautifully. I've got some coconut milk here. So, I'm going to put most of the coconut milk in. One last thing, and that's just a nice generous heaped teaspoon of mango chutney. Give that a stir. That is the welcoming party for our grilled veg. Let's start thinking about how we going to make this Friday night special. I'm going to show you these amazing coconut bubbly one side cooked pancakes. Get yourself a builder's mug filled with self-raising flour. Then we're going to go in with one mug of water, black mustard seeds. Just shake some in. They'll soften, give good flavor, and then like a heaped tablespoon's worth of this coconut cream. Use a whisk, a small pan on a medium high heat. I'll take ladle in. We go round the rim of the pan and it'll start peeling away. And that is exactly what you want. So, take a beat. What's happening? Pancakes sauce. Let's have a little look at our veg. It's cooked nice. I think I want to burn it a bit more. Right. So, the timing is just working perfect. So, let's have a little think. Ah, salad. No, no, no, no. What I'm going to do is a really cool box grater salad. It could be anything crunchy. So, let's just grate a carrot. As I'm grating away, have a look in the pan. Can you see the sides of the pancake are coming away? So, we're only cooking this on one side. Crispy one side, fluffy the other. I can smell that it's starting to sort of catch and toast. Boom. That, my friends, is what we've got. Crispy, beautiful, gorgeousness. And that mopping up that sauce. Come on. So, back to the salad, guys. We'll have cucumber. Yeah, we've got some cabbage. And we got ginger in there to sort of scent it. Pour that onto there. And then out is our cute little rainbow salad. I'm not going to dress this with oil. Just lime juice. Tear in a little bit of coriander. Yes. Color and fun on a Friday night. Right back to the veg. And we can now just take these veggies into here. And what I like to do is stand it up like this. Just slice down and cut them off. Let the veggies mingle with the sauce and simmer for 10 minutes. Remember, we saved back the little bit of that coconut milk. We can just ripple this through now. And sprinkle with crispy fried curry leaves. Have a little look at that. Enough talking. Let's have a feed. Tear these up. We'll go for some curry paneers there. Beautiful bit of cauliflower. Those nice little chickpeas where I put that coconut milk in at the end. See how it just ripples in the most beautiful, beautiful way. We'll get our salad. Little slap of refreshment. Let me come down to the level. The pancake is a kind of a little edible plate that you can mop and tear. So good. And every mouthful, different flavors and that sauce connects it all. This kind of vibe is a big part of our family and I suggest you should have a go and make it a big part of yours. Enjoy.

Guys, it's time for a pie. A pie like you've never seen before. Taking inspiration from Morocco. So, we're talking beautiful veggies with the thinnest, crispiest pastry on the outside. Guys, welcome to the wonderful world of m'hancha. It kind of means snake or serpent. The star of our savory moorish feast is the delicious nutty flavor of the butternut squash. So guys, the first tip for bringing out maximum flavor from the squash. Leave the skin on. This is sweet and caramelly and delicious. Do not waste time peeling it when that is flavor. So just scoop out those seeds and chop it chunky. Into the pan with some oil in with the squash. And the whole point of the journey is to give you a bang for your buck in your mouth that blows your mind. So, next ingredient, peppers. Beautiful sweet red peppers. Get your thumb, put it in the hole, and push it in. And happy days. Get it in there. See the color starting. Yeah. One of the things to learn here is the kind of value and the investment in time, right? And like with many things that I cook at the weekend, whether it's a soup or a stew or a curry or in this case a pie filling, you know, half an hour just dedicated to caramelization. It's the weekend. Different gear, different vibe, different food. Hallelujah. Add another layer of flavor with some red onions and two punchy cloves of garlic. And then spices. We're in Morocco. And I'm going to use a little fennel seeds, about a teaspoon. A little teaspoon of ground coriander. Such wonderful savory flavors. A nice good pinch or half a teaspoon of cumin. And then as much dried chili as you think. I would just go like half a teaspoon. As the spices go in, you can see the softening. And as it softens, the natural sugars are released. Amazing. And this is just the beginning. Next up, we want a bunch of coriander like this. I'm going to use the leaves a little bit later and just finely slice the stalks. Give it a stir. And that, my friends, is going to be delicious. While those flavors are having a little party in the pan, we're going to take the taste of Morocco up a notch with some gooey dates and apricots. And if people in your family are a little bit fussy about dried fruit, just finely chop it. Whatever you do, don't not put it in. Right. And that sweetness will just compliment the whole thing. This has had about 25 to 30 minutes. Listen to that. Look how dark it's getting. Whack in some cooked pearl barley and chopped fruit with a squeeze of lemon to really get the party going. Through your hand. Catch the pits. We got spice. Gentle spice. We got a little chili, you know, just to give a hum. Dried fruit, the nutty squash, the sweet peppers, sweet onions, garlic. Come on, m'hancha. And last up, those leftover fragrant coriander leaves. Pack it up and get it in. I'm going to turn the heat off now. Very happy with that. Tastes amazing. But there's no such thing as a pie without pastry. And our snake needs skin. We're using filo pastry which you can get from every single supermarket. Most readymade filo pastry is vegan as it uses vegetable oils. So get your damp bits of tea towel. If you don't put it on a damp cloth, they'll start to dry. Now for the fun bit. Drizzle some oil onto your filo before you start to layer up. And then have a little touch, a little grab. And this will give you a texture like no pie you've possibly ever had before. So, this is a vegan dish. There's no butter in this pastry. I don't want you to eat this because it's healthy. I don't want you to eat it because it's ethical. I want you to eat it because it's delicious and it just so happens to be really good for you. And, you know, I don't want you to compromise. I eat meat, but I also eat vegan and veggie at least a couple of times a week, and it's a joy. At this point, just get your wet tea towel and fold it over. Right. Fold it over like that. Squeeze it in. Make it dense. And then you need to get a friend to come and help you. But I haven't got a friend here. I'm a bit lonely. So my friend with my teeth. I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that. That, my friends, is the m'hancha. The snake. Just curl it up like a little Catherine wheel. Get it in there and get it on there. Lube it up with some nice extra virgin olive oil. It's going to split. Take that little extra sheet that you had hidden away. And this is kind of like your little band-aid. If anything, you're just creating more surface area to celebrate the crispiness and the deliciousness of this dish even more. Look how happy I am. Slide your sexy snake into the oven initially for 35 to 40 minutes at 180° C, which is 350° F. The smell is amazing. And there's a little kind of embellishment that you can do now that just makes it. So, in Morocco, they have icing sugar over the top, which might seem ludicrous, right? But just go with it. It's going to give us sweetness with the spices and all those beautiful ingredients. This goes back in the oven for the final 10 minutes, which gives us time to combine fresh chili, cinnamon, garlic, and plum tomatoes in a gorgeous spice sauce. Look at that, guys. Roll after roll of crispy pastry. That comforting, gorgeous filling. I honestly think if you do this for a dinner party, people are going to go nuts. This is weekend eating in style. Let's get into the soul of my snake. Can you hear that? Come on. Just a little coriander to garnish. Life's too short to do the same old stuff. Everyone's asking for more beautiful veggie ideas. Here you go. Oh, happiness. Bliss. Absolutely delicious.

A fast food favorite, but not as you know it. A gorgeous golden burger stacked with cheese, pickles, and homemade sauce on a bed of crunchy rainbow salad. And all for only 425 calories per portion. Our first job is to squeeze some of the moisture out of it. You want to remove about 4 tablespoons of liquid. Losing some of the water content ensures lovely crispy edges when the tofu cooks. Add about 75 g of wholemeal breadcrumbs and crack in an egg. We're going to use flavoring from an old friend. You'll either love it or hate it. So, I want two teaspoons of Marmite. And this is a nice flavoring for me because it's savory. And I just like what it gives this particular patty that I'm trying to create. And that's the great thing about tofu. It's a great carrier of flavor. You know, the Marmite gives it that lovely savoriness, which I like. But at the same time, you could swap Marmite out and put pesto in. You could swap pesto out. You could put miso in. You could use harissa instead. Have fun with it. Make it your own. But this recipe is a good base and it gives you a good texture when you put it in a bun and put it in your gullet. Once it's evenly mixed, shape into four patties and it's time to cook them. I've got an amazing tip that's going to add loads of warm herbal flavor and more crunchy texture to my burgers. Rosemary when it gets fried in oil, incredible things happen. It's kind of turns into like little crisps. Lay your patties on top of the rosemary. And now it's time to knock up a vitamin packed homemade ketchup with no sugar. We need about eight lovely ripe tomatoes. Fresh is cool. Of course, you can do this with tin tomatoes if you want, but fresh ripe tomatoes are going to give you that kind of sunshine vibe. Chop up the tomatoes, add to the pan, and then season with salt and pepper. Definitely. I like a little bit of spice. So, a tiny bit of chili sauce or some dried flakes of chili here. And then what other things make a kind of ketchup work? Acidity. That kind of that sort of piquance. So, red or white wine vinegar about a tablespoon. So, we're not going to add sugar because I think you can get a lovely result, a fresh result with the natural sugars that are in these tomatoes right now. That's why they've got to be ripe. Okay. So, another little tip is if you go to a market at the end of the day, they always flog off the overripe ones. They're the ones you want in there. They're perfect. Tear in some fresh basil. And you can see this is getting thick already. So, what we'll do is as it's cooking, we'll just use a potato masher to break the sauce. But look how quickly that's happening. Flip your burgers. Cooking them for three minutes on each side. So, look at these. I mean, they're looking really good. Great color. Crispy, soft, and sort of nice in the middle. Kind of quite excited about that. Next, classic burger territory. Cheese. To add calcium, but also I want to keep it light on calories. 50 g is all we need. So, to complete this meal, we want to kind of do a hybrid of a slaw come salad come kind of shred vibe going on. Eating a wide range of colors will provide a spectrum of superfood nutrients. So, I'm using all sorts of crunchy veg, sliced, chopped, ribboned, and for some real retro fun, crinkle cut. You get kind of crinkle cut chips. Yay. This reminds me of an 80s perm. I don't know why. And once we've done that, let's just get in there, mix it up, and kind of let it just all look gorgeous. Let's just create a massive bed of goodness and color that kind of all speaks for itself. Look at that. Next, a dressing for my salad. Plain live yogurt. Good for your digestion. A handful of basil, Dijon mustard, and a splash of white wine vinegar. You want that twang in there. Some salt, just a little bit. And chili, about half a chili, just to give it a little rumble of spice. Whiz it up until smooth and drizzle it over your rainbow salad. Time to build your brilliant burgers. I'm using whole meal buns. On average, double the fiber of white. Covered in that tangy tomato sauce with your cheesy tofu patty resting on top. And no burger is complete without pickles. Just two or three. And then the lid. One. Get stuck in there, boy. So, look. There you go. Really healthy. Totally balanced. We've got all of those elements. We've got carbohydrates, protein, fruit, veg, and dairy. Yeah. 425 calories of goodness. Hello, Mr. Burger. Mmm. The tomato sauce is delicious. Texture in there. It's soft on the inside, crispy on the outside. That, my friend, with the salad. Unbelievable.

Something a little bit different and really delicious and quite nasty. Greek inspired crispy filo tart with spinach, feta cheese, and cheddar. Beautiful flavor, but dead dead simple for you to be able to do in under half an hour. That looks like you've been cooking for hours. First job, pine nuts, 100 gram straight into your pan on a kind of medium high heat. Toast them up. Just takes a minute. For the rest of the pie filling, five eggs, 300 g of feta cheese. I'm going to use 50 grams of cheddar cheese because it does give the whole dish a kind of really nice gooey ooziness. Season it up with pepper, a little bit of salt. We've got the feta in there, so go easy. You can see over here the nuts. They're pretty perfect now. So, I'm just going to take them off the heat. And I'm using some nice flour and oregano. The normal stuff is fine, too. Just give it a little scrunch. About a teaspoon of that goes in. Get a fork and roughly mix it up. Put these pine nuts straight in here. This can go back on the heat and then mix it up. And then straight on to the spinach. Put some olive oil. Just a couple of tablespoons in a pan. And it takes 40 seconds to wilt it down. A little bit of seasoning and 10 little rubs of nutmeg in there. Once it's wilted down a bit, have a little go at the other bag. It looks like it's too much for the pan, but it will totally wilt down. The zest of one lemon goes in. Just a little knob of butter. That's nice. Look, you completely wilted it down. Now, get some greaseproof paper. Run it under a tap. Scrunch it up in a ball. Then you got something that's really soft, like more like a handkerchief. Work straight onto here and then put a little olive oil with this filo pastry. It's very thin. It doesn't need loads of cooking. But of course, the reason it's so damn brilliant is because it goes crispy. You want to create an area of pastry bigger than the pan. So, you got sides and a sort of a lid. So, almost half as big as the pan again. And I'm going to cook it, by the way, in this pan. So, I'm only using one pan to fry, one pan to cook in. I'm just going to lay this pastry in and around. Put four sheets down. And then put a little olive oil. Pat it like this. I've got some nice sweet cayenne pepper here. And then repeat the layers. The quicker you are, the better. And we'll do about three or maybe three and a half, four layers. So, we've got the pastry. Get all of that spinach quickly into that egg mixture. You can give it a little wipe out if you want. Just bring the pan over here, pick up the greaseproof paper, and drag it over like that. And then you can push it in. And then with this spinach here, mix this up and just pour it in. Maybe a little extra cheese just on the top like that. I want you to get the pastry and pull it back over itself. Ultimately, we're making a beautiful pie that would normally take certainly an hour to cook. And we're doing it in under half an hour. So, we need to be clever. And what's lovely about this is even if you're a raving idiot like me, even if you do it badly and it tears or anything like that, if it's wrong, it's right. Tear off this paper round here and in the cooking, it will carry on protecting that pastry. We're going to put it on that high heat for about 2 minutes just to get that pastry crisp. You can sort of see around here, you're just starting to get crispiness. Grab just a little bit of rosemary and put it around this lovely tart here. We're going to bang that in the oven for about 20 minutes. It's going to be good. It just comes off like that. It's beautiful. An epic, epic tart. Get yourself a nice big knife. Stab it in there. Take it to the table. The fact that as you cut it, it goes crunch crunch crunch. All your guests will be going absolutely mad. And that is a beautiful dish.