When I was like 10, 11 years old, I'd be in the kitchen working at the weekends looking at these big chefs like working the pan flames and I'm like, 'What is going on?' And it was beef stroganoff. Beef stroganoff is one of my favorite dishes. Comfort food at its best. Creamy, mushroomy, tender, tender, blushing beef with the rice that just soaks up all of that sauce. It is absolutely one of the most delicious things. It all starts with the tail end of a really good beef fillet. And I want to slice them up the size of my little finger. If you go too small, everything's going to overcook. And then we're going to season it with salt, pepper, and a little allspice. And just shake it. Coat every little piece of that meat in the seasoning. And then once you've done that, you prep your shallots and your garlic. And really importantly, the stalks of parsley. The stalks of parsley have that beautiful sweetness. Just finely slice it. Lemon zest. And then you're ready to cook. Hot pan in with olive oil. A knob of butter. As it bubbles, we go in with those pieces of beef fillet. And just move it around. We want to go hard heat. But I want that beef rare. As soon as it's got a bit of color, we move it out to a plate. And then back in the pan with mushrooms. Now with the mushrooms, it's really nice. You know, you can use any mushrooms you like, but the wild mushrooms, girolles, chanterelles are so beautiful, little oysters. Just put them in the dry pan just for a minute and they'll start to toast. And when they toast, they go nutty. Then we go in with olive oil, shallots, garlic, parsley stalks, lemon zest, and the cornichons. Shake it all around. And then we start to bring out the sweetness and the depth of flavor of the mushrooms. And then we go in with mustard, smoked paprika. Then I put the meat back into the pan with any juices. And then I add a nice lug of brandy. Flame it. Shake the pan around. And that flaming is not just for jazz and fun. Like let the flames really kind of like sizzle those ingredients from the top. Let it cook away so you're left with that vanilla barrel gorgeousness. And then cream. I like using sour cream and just like rippling it and marbling it through. Parsley. Season it to perfection. A squeeze of lemon juice. And then you're ready to serve. It's that quick. Simple fluffy rice on a platter. Meat sauce, mushrooms, parsley. Oh, the flavor, the indulgence, the tenderness of the beef fillet, beef stroganoff. An absolutely delicious dish. You've got to try it. Enjoy.
So, I'm going to do a beautiful pumpkin soup. You could use any good dense pumpkin you like. I'm using the Musque de Provence. You could use the onion squash, the butternut squash, whatever you feel might be appropriate. Give it a bash. Slice this up into big old flabs. Push that just to one side. Here I've got some basic soup ingredients. Couple of carrots, couple of garlic cloves, couple of onions, couple of celery sticks. And that is the base to the soup. I want to roughly chop the celery because I'm going to puree this soup. I'm going to whiz it up with a hand blender so it's nice and silky. So at the end of the day, if it's a little bit chunky, it really doesn't matter. Onion, cut it in half. Just roughly slice it again. I'm using the red onion because I just prefer the flavor of them, but you know, you can use white ones if you want. So, in this pan, I'm going to pour some olive oil. And in with the onions and celery. So, get that over there. That will start sweating off. So, with the carrots, do exactly the same. Slice them up. And then with the garlic, run your knife through it like that. In with the carrots and the garlic. And while we're here, rosemary, just a nice little fine leaves. Little pinch of salt and pepper. Give it a shake. Straight back on the heat again. So, while that's ticking away, I want to just chop these pumpkin pieces into chunks. Now, I want about 3 kilos. And I'm going to cook it today in a pressure cooker. You can do it in a pan. Of course, you can. And you'd want to simmer it with chicken stock for half an hour, 40 minutes. But this way with a pressure cooker, so quick like that. So throw it all in to this base vegetables. And once you got the squash in there, get it back over to the heat. Pour in 2 liters of chicken stock. Just fill it up to about an inch from the top. With the pressure cooker, I mean, so far it looks like a normal pan. You could put a lid on top. With this one, you got a special lid. Press the button, it will clutch onto it. It will keep all the boiling moisture in. So, the pressure will get higher and higher and higher, which basically means that it pushes flavor into things and it cooks things twice, three times as quick.
Now, while this is coming to the boil, I want to have a little bit of a rework on kind of a crouton really. So, I'm going to go much more Italian style. I want a slice of the ciabatta like that. I've got a pan here that's been heating up. Little bit of olive oil in the pan. Okay. And I'm just going to pick some sage. Pick the sage leaves in. 40 seconds. The room starts to smell incredible. Give them a good old fry up. Soon as you think they've gone crispy and they go a slightly darker green color, bring it over here, push it off one side just like that onto the board like that. Now in here you've got left some olive oil, right? But it will taste incredible now. So then you can get your ciabatta, turn it around in the oil, take it out. Turn it around in the oil, take it out. Right. So that's going to flavor your toast. Get rid of the oil. I'm going to put that back on the heat. And then while this is here, I want to get some parmesan and I'm going to grate it. And that will stick to the oil and stick to the bread. And then you can kind of pat it down. And then turn it over. Pat. And once you've done that, then we can put this back into the pan dry like a minute or so. It will just go golden on both sides. And you see this is boiling now. So once the toast has been in there a little bit, you can turn them around. Just turn it over. Lovely color. You can see how the cheese is just cooked into the bread and it's toasted all at the same time. It's like croutons with a bit of attitude. You know, this soup has had about 6 minutes boiling. Just going to release the steam. Let's get a nice blender. Plug it in. There you go. Look at that. So, we check if the squash is cooked. There you go. Look, completely obliterated like that. Fantastic. Soup in six minutes. Whiz it up. You can see it going from being chunky and brothy to little bits of silkiness coming up. We have a little taste. Needs work. Seasoning, salt, and pepper. And then I'll give it another whiz. Taste again. Tiny tiny little bit more. And that is an incredible soup. Really really good. Really pleased with that. And then to serve it in a nice bowl, put a crostini in the middle. Push it down. Right. And then you can put one sticking out like that. Just pour it in the middle. And that people are going to go crazy over those croutons. They're going to fight over them. So you might as well make sure you do double. And look at the color of that beautiful soup. And that soup that will soak into the crostini. And then to finish it, the lovely crispy sage and a nice bit of good quality extra virgin olive oil. Nice.
Down in my little recipe hut, I've got the perfect sharing dish to kick off our Friday night. I am so excited to give you a recipe for an amazing homemade pie. Beautiful crumbly pastry, chicken, sweet leeks, creamy sauce. This is going to be amazing. It starts here with a chicken. So, a nice free-range chicken. What I want to do first is cut it in half. Just hold the chicken, get the tip, cut down the back, and then down the breast. So, in a pan, we'll have just a tiny bit of oil. So, chicken goes into the pan. I'm using the whole chicken. You get maximum flavor from the bones and the bone marrow, but also the joy of white meat, brown meat, and the sweet meat is incredible. So, we got a second pan on a medium heat. And what I want to do is start frying off a beautiful base to give you the best pie filling ever. For that, I'm going to start with some smoky bacon. Just cut ourselves some little lardons. So, into the pan we go. Add a little oil. And that is an incredible welcoming party for vegetables and herbs. So we'll start off with thyme. Rip that in. And then base vegetables. One half of celery, one onion, one carrot, and one leek. Roughly sliced into sort of one, one and a half centimeter dice into the pan. I don't want the veg so small that it's going to disappear. I want to have chunks of veggies. So about 10, 15 minutes of gentle frying. So that gives us time to clean down and make the pastry. Add 500 grams of plain flour to a bowl, a pinch of sea salt, and 250 grams of very cold butter. So by grating the butter like that, it just makes it so easy to rub into the flour. Pour in 100 ml of cold water and bring it together and kind of hug it. No kneading, just hugging. That's what we want. And I'm going to just form it into two balls. Divide. So it's a third for the lid and two-thirds for the base. Wrap them up and flatten out and leave to chill in the fridge until needed. If you look in here now, we have a nice bit of color. That means we got mega flavor already. I want to turn this into a beautiful sauce to stew that chicken, right? To pull out all that flavor. I'm going to use scrumpy. Beautiful cloudy cider. Just a nice little swig goes in. The smell is phenomenal. And we want to cook all of that cider away. Go in with a heaped teaspoon of English mustard, two heaped tablespoons of plain flour, a liter of chicken stock, and bring to a simmer. At this point in the story, we've created that stewing environment, and we're taking that lovely crispy golden chicken. Now, those bones are straight down into that sauce. So, lid on top and just let it blip blip away for around about an hour until the thigh meat pulls off the bone. And that will be incredible. This fat in the pan, by the way, I'm going to keep that for a little secret later. So, the chicken is done. If I just pull the thigh meat and it should just fall off the bone. That's what we want. Super tender, super delicious. Happy days. So, meat into here. I have been slicing up 500 grams of button mushrooms. By putting the mushrooms in at this stage, you get really sweet, nutty mushroom flavor. Stir that through. Okay, so now two forks and just pull that tender meat from the bone. At this point, the bones have done their job. They've given you awesome flavor. Carefully remove all the bones. Add the chunks of chicken back to the stew and mix through two tablespoons of creme fraiche. So, I want this stew to do two things. Give me amazing, perfect filling and then also an incredible sauce. And we can have both by one easy little trick that I love. Get yourself a pan, get yourself a colander and sieve that filling. The sauce will go through it and you can reheat that later to pour on top of your pie. Put that to one side. And now we can make our pie. So we'll get our pastry out of the fridge and we'll roll this out. So it's going to line this beautiful pie dish. What I will do is just give a little bit of olive oil to the bottom of the dish and give it a rub. Put your chilled pastry in between a sheet of greaseproof paper and roll it till it's half a centimeter thick. Add to the pie dish. Pour in the cooled filling. And roll out your pie lid. I don't care if it cracks. I embrace it. Look, I'm going to tear it. Oh no, there's a crack. It doesn't matter. We're going to just tear it up and put it in just like that. And as we take in the sides, we're going to create just a beautiful rustic pie. So, just a little egg wash. So, I'm going to cook that now for about an hour. Put it at the bottom of the oven. The temperature will be 190 degrees Celsius, which is 375 Fahrenheit. And that will be a thing of beauty. So, that glorious pie is nearly done. And I've just knocked up a bit of mashed potato. You guys know how to do that. But what you might not know how to do is make cabbage beautiful. We're going to do something quick and delicious and amazing. Roughly slice up the cabbage and add to the chicken fat you saved earlier. Cook over a high heat until softened and lightly charred. Add a splash of water, a teaspoon of mustard, and a pinch of salt and white pepper. These three things bring out the most wonderful flavor. Just takes your everyday cabbage to another place. The cabbage is done. Our gravy is bubbling away and reheating nicely. And then, yes, that, my friends, is what I wanted. Look at that. Bubbling, blipping. Look, just so so good. The cabbage that is soft and succulent, but it's got the char. Good old mashed potato. Always a good friend of a pie. Then we'll get a gravy boat. This poured over the top of your pie. Will be a joyful thing. Look how flaky that pastry is. I'm very excited. Come on. Look at that. We got the chunks of chicken, the flaky pastry. That is a slice of heaven. Let's have a dunk. Mash some of that amazing cabbage. Done. Good. And then gravy. Let's get in there. Hallelujah. Now, using the whole chicken gives you the hyper flavor. Everyone deserves to enjoy a good homemade pie, guys. What are you waiting for?
So, let's start off with the first ingredient. We're going to use some sausages. I've got four chipolatas. Health experts recommend that we don't eat more than 70 grams of processed meat per day, but we're using less than that. Fry your chipolatas in a little extra virgin olive oil. Chuck in a teaspoon of fennel seeds, which are traditionally used to help digestion, and a nice sprinkle of dried chili flakes. Then, I'm going to go for about half of one of these. And I'm just going to dice it up roughly around that sort of size. And as you're cutting them, throw them in to the sausage. Squash is a source of vitamin C. And keeping the skin on ramps up the fiber. Next, it's in with two diced white onions. Then let's use some dried oregano. More flavonoids going in. Any excuse for flavor and the good stuff. Gently fry together for 15 to 20 minutes with a lid on until they start to just color nicely. And look at that caramelization, intensity of flavor. This is going to be amazing. Time for the wine. I'm using a glass of Chianti. In we go. So, we'll stir that in. And red wine risotto is not that common, but it's amazing. So, I need you to know about it. Now, of course, we're still able to benefit from the flavonoids in the grape juice because they're fairly heat resistant. And if you're cooking for kids, just leave the wine out. In with the Arborio risotto rice. 300 grams will easily feed four. Next, add your stock one ladle at a time. The better the quality, the better it's going to taste. We'll probably add about one and a half liters of stock. Chicken stock, veg stock, whatever stock you've got, it will still be delicious. So, I'm turning the heat down now so it's a nice steady simmer. Okay, if it boils too hard, you evaporate too much stock and you kind of rush the outer side of the risotto rice and the inner part is a little bit nutty, a little bit too firm. Let's have a little taste. We're getting there. Immense, immense flavor. The risotto's been bubbling along for about 15 minutes, so time for the final ingredients. Now, I'm using chicory here for a couple of reasons. This recipe, I'd normally use radicchio, but it seems to be getting harder and harder to get hold of it in the supermarkets, but the red chicory, no, you can get it in the supermarkets. Look it out. And also, this is an amazing prebiotic. What does that mean? It makes your gut really happy. Really happy. So we're going to use that with gusto. Two or three chicory. Like radicchio is classically a tiny bit bitter but the bitterness here with the sweetness of the squash is going to be amazing. Next something that will promote risotto to the superfood division without losing the indulgence. Cottage cheese. I never used to like cottage cheese but to be honest I didn't really understand it. It's a naturally low-fat cheese, but you've got the curds here that have the most beautiful mozzarella-like texture, but around it is this kind of milky texture. And that is going to give this risotto amazing silkiness. And this is going to eat really, really well. First in with the chicory, then the cottage cheese. Delicious. Please, please try this dish, okay? Because it's nuts good. This is an off-the-chart risotto. A couple more minutes and it's good to go. That's what we want. We want that sensation, right? Where it's just kind of lipping like that. All right. So, maybe don't do that. Yeah. Maybe use a spoon, whack a lid on, and leave your risotto to relax for a minute before dishing it out into warm bowls. This, my friends, is a gorgeous, oozy risotto. You don't want it thick. We're after something that's really silky and beautiful. I'm just going to finish that with a nice long grating of Parmesan and a little pinch of fresh thyme. And that is a thing of beauty. Creamy risotto with sausage, squash, and chicory. A surefire crowd-pleaser at just 600 calories with two of your five fruit and veg a day. Delicious deep flavor. And you know, for me, the spirit of superfood as a concept is about, you know, balance, getting the veg in there, lowering the meat, upping the quality. And the missus, she loves this a lot. But please, please give it a go. Amazing.
Hey guys, hope you're well. We're going to make the most delicious mushroom pasta with garlic, spinach, mushrooms, a rich sauce. We've got a crunchy thyme and garlic breadcrumb topping. It's just joy, joy, joy. Let's get cooking. Put the pan on a medium high heat and a pot of boiling water. First job, garlic breadcrumbs. Finely slice two cloves of garlic. This is my wife's favorite bit. So, what she loves and what I love about this is the crunch of the breadcrumbs with the soft, delicate pasta. It's a really beautiful combo. We're going to go in here with some olive oil. Go in with the garlic. Get that sizzling. So, the next ingredient, thyme. Fresh thyme is joyful. A few nice little stalks. Just pull the lovely little leaves off the stalk. They normally pop and spit a little bit, but the flavor from thyme is amazing, especially with mushrooms. Listen to that. And then in with the breadcrumbs. And we can turn that temperature right down. Just toast off these breadcrumbs. And this will make the most amazing little sprinkle for any pasta, any ravioli, even soups. Gorgeous on salads. So once it's gorgeous and crispy, put it in our little bowl. And this people will fight over. Pan back on the heat. I've got two packs of mushrooms, but you really could use oysters, button mushrooms, anything you like. So, four cloves of garlic. Garlic and mushrooms. Classic flavor. Back in the pan, we're going to go in with some olive oil. In with the garlic. That will perfume the oil. Then I'll take the other half of that thyme and pick in the lovely leaves there. Nice generous pinch of black pepper as well. Go in with the mushrooms. Now, that looks like a lot of mushrooms, but if you give that about 10 minutes of cooking, stirring nice and regularly, that is going to half in size, it's going to intensify and double in flavor, and that's going to be amazing. So, we'll let that cook out, then I'll show you what to do next. So, if you look at the mushrooms now, the water's starting to cook away, and it will go now from boiling to frying. Can you hear it? And you can see it's dried up. Smells amazing. Right, let's have a little taste. Amazing. So, normally at this stage, I put in a little cream or creme fraiche and that's definitely very traditional, but I got told about a little tip that is just naughty and it's basically a tin of mushroom soup and it basically means you get double mushroom flavor. So, put all of it in. Nice little tin of quality mushroom soup. Fill this tin up with a little bit of water. And then like half a tin, a whole tin depending on how thick the soup is. Just put that in there and let that simmer away. You get this silky old school sauce. You've got extra seasoning in there. You're down on the saturated fats and up on the veg. So, it's a nice little trick. Mix that up. Let that simmer. The water here is now boiling. We'll just put a little salt in there. And we're going to go in with 300 grams of your chosen pasta. Look, you could use whatever you like. I'm going in with tagliatelle. Lid on until the water comes up to the boil again. Pasta sauce. It's already looking good. So, we've got an ingredient to go in there. Spinach. I'm using the frozen spinach because it's super convenient. You get that really nice kind of dense dark spinach. Nutrition through the roof. Just going to put two little cubes like that in. That's about 100 grams. And that will just defrost and cook into it. Those pops of green. Amazing. What I like to do now, you don't have to do this. Some people take pasta and put it in a colander. The water goes down the drain and it's the water that helps the sauce be silky. What I like to do is use some little tongs and drag the pasta and some of that water along with it. Now, what's nice about that is we're just going to get the most incredible texture and then a little bit of parmesan. So, you just need a little bit for seasoning and having fresh parmesan makes all the difference. Just toss it like this. Can you see how elegant this is? The smell is incredible. And that's the beauty of cooking, right? You can take the cheapest mushrooms and make them joyful. Look at that. Look at the way it comes out. Silky. That little hack with the tinned soup is naughty but nice. With a little of those breadcrumbs on the top. Come on. A long stroke of Parmesan. And then let's portion up a little bit. I mean, look at that. How elegant is that? Come on. That's a dish right there. Look at that. Right. Let's try some. Oh, mommy's little one doesn't like mushrooms, but I put it in quite a lot of the cooking that she says she loves. So, don't be a hater. Be a lover or just put it in and don't tell them. Oh, that is bonkers. Enjoy.
This is a great dish. We're going to do a beautiful mushroom cannelloni with a gorgeous oozy cheesy sauce. If you've got someone in your house that completely disagrees with any kind of meat-free day, this recipe is probably quite a good one to get them on because if this is made right, they probably wouldn't even notice the difference, right? Because this has the depth of flavor that you'd get from a lovely cannelloni. The residual moisture in these greens will just steam and wilt. This will take like 30, 40 seconds. That can then go in the bottom of our tray. Just a little kiss of salt. Right, that's the beginning of the story. Let's get on to business. So, in this pan, I want to cook down leeks, which I love, and onions, olive oil. We'll go straight in with the onions. And then, as I prep each vegetable, just add it to the story. So, a little bit of pepper and I've got some garlic. Just finely slice it up. Right, let's get on to leeks. Just slice up the white part straight in there. With the greener stuff, I tend to chop this up finer anyway, just to help it cook. And then we're going to add the mushrooms. Right, big boy. We're making cannelloni. Give it a little seasoning with salt and pepper. If you want to make this extraordinary, just 15 minutes of stirring and frying will be amazing. Yes. Go and find your mad brother. Okay, stuffing's done. So, chop that up and then it just feels so homemade and you get more texture. If you lay it out flat, let that cool down. Let me make a really simple white sauce. In the same pan that we made the mushrooms, go in with 3 tablespoons of olive oil. 3 tablespoons also of plain flour. You don't have to make it with butter. Classically, yes. But in real life, no. Olive oil is fine. Looks a bit like breadcrumbs, but this is a thickening agent. In there, we're going to add some milk. I'm just going to add it slowly, slowly. That's quite a rushed version. That's what I always do at home. You know, I've got a family here to feed, stuff going on. So, look, as the white sauce does its magic, let's fill these cannelloni. So, literally all I do is stab around like that and then turn it around, do the other half. It's as simple as that. And that is your beautiful mushroom stuffed cannelloni. Okay. So, look, there we go. A tray full of beautiful cannelloni. Off the heat now because I'm very happy with that consistency. And put a nice big handful of grated cheese in there. I'm using cheddar. Nice big handful goes in. So, let's get that over the top here. Look how oozy it is. Yeah, you can see the chunks of leftover mushroom in there. Last but not least, just a few little slices kind of in and around. And then just a little drizzle of oil. So, this will go in the oven at 180 degrees Celsius for about 40 to 45 minutes until golden, blipping, and delicious. I can hear it sizzling. So, it's had about 40 minutes. The wood is just a little bit hotter. Look at that. Come on. This kind of cooking is all about family. Look at the crispy bits. Yes. And then of course, we added that lovely stack of greens. It's got to be one of the best meat-free meals ever. Whether you're vegetarian or not. Right, let's get amongst it.
Burger. Oh yeah, kids. Lunch. This could be a new family favorite in your home because it is in mine. I've been playing around and I've created a sausage and mash pie. Yes, a pie. So, that's basically potato around the edges and the side. Then this creamy, gorgeous sausagey stew, potato on top, stabbed bits of sausage on the top of that in the oven, golden crisp. And of course, the point of making a pie and casing something is that whatever you trap is going to kind of help all those flavors bounce around and make it even more tasty. So, first job in a pan, a little bit of olive oil and on a kind of medium heat, get those lovely sausages in there. A nice good quality sausage. I've also tested this with veggie sausages as well. So, happy days. Just give them a little love. And I want these to be golden all the way around. As that's happening, I want to really amp up the beautiful flavor of those sausages, but also stretch a little bit a long way. So, we're going to make the most delicious casserole to put inside this pie. We're going to use leeks, and they're going to go creamy and buttery and delicious, but also curveball apple. I've got a red apple and a green apple. It's quite nice actually to mix the apples because they do taste very different when you cook them. Peel these. And the thinking that I had was pork and apples, best friends. In the last few months, I have been just mucking around with basic ingredients. Sausage, apples, potatoes. How can we kind of reinvent it and just make it a different experience, just having fun with food? That's what it's all about, right? So, chunk these up into sort of roughly centimeter chunks. Get rid of the core. And then as these sausages are getting nice and brown, see all that lovely fat? We're going to get our apple straight into that. And we want a little bit of color on those apples. Imagine that. Yes. Now, my missus doesn't like onions, so I use leeks a lot. And when you cook them in the way I'm going to do it, you get the most incredible buttery creamy sauce. So, put the tip of your knife in and go all the way down the length of the leek. And as it grows, sometimes there's a little bit of mud in here. It's pretty common. Look, you can see it there. Look. See? Right. So, we'll just go and wash that out. Now, when you wash it out, don't wash it towards the stalk because you're just pushing the dirt into it deeper. Right? Always wash it out. Roughly slice it up to be the same size as the apple. I'm looking at that sausage now. It's got a nice color. So, just take the sausage out now. And the leeks all go in. Just give it a little swig of water just to stop that frying process. A little pinch of salt and a little pinch of pepper. And now turn that down to like a medium heat. 20 minutes with a lid on and those leeks will go really tender, buttery, and sweet. The next job is the mashed potatoes. Over here I've got 1.2 kilos of Maris Piper potatoes peeled and boiled and drained. If you look at recipes for shepherd's pie, cottage pie, the really old ones would have potatoes not just on the top, but on the sides and bottom. I like that. So, I'm kind of playing with this. Just two tablespoons of flour into your boiled potatoes. You give it a whole load more structure. So, then you can do more than just mash. You can start using it almost like a pastry. So, I'll season it up just like I would a normal mashed potato. Salt and pepper. If you want to put butter in, you can. Mash this together. Then we need to divide it into one-third for the top and two-thirds for the bottom and the sides. But look, by adding that flour, can you see how it's more malleable now, right? So, we can turn it into shapes. This bit I will put over here with my sausage. And then this two-thirds here I'll put in that tray. Now, we want this to go crispy and gnarly and gorgeous. And for that, a little kiss of oil and give it a little rub up around the sides. In we go with the potato. And then very simply just use your hands to just pat it out almost like a type of pastry. Roughly about a centimeter thick. And then as you get to the sides, up we go. And of course, this little technique you can use for any stew. If you got lamb stew, beef stew, you know, whatever stew you want, you can do this. It's a cute little tip. Super easy, super rustic. The leeks once they've had about 20 minutes and they're really tender. Smells amazing already. We're going to kind of amp this up now. We're going to go in with 3 teaspoons of English mustard. Right, that won't be hot, by the way. It will just give it a nice big sort of bold flavor. Then we're going to go in with flour again, just a couple of tablespoons, and that will be the thickening agent for this sauce. A little thyme. Just pick that off the stalk. And if you haven't got time, any nice fragrant herb is lovely. Once the flour is all mixed in, add the milk. Nice whole milk, organic, about 600 ml. Slowly stir that in. And now go in with the sausages, but not all the sausage. Let's save one of those back. Slice these into 1 centimeter slices. And what's great about this recipe is you're taking a few sausages a long way. So, this will feed four people very generously. Really, really nice. Look how lovely and creamy that is. The lovely caramelized apples in there, the mustard, just all swapping flavors. So, let that simmer for 5 minutes. And let's think about the topping. Get a little bit of greaseproof paper. Put a bit of oil on here. Rub it. And then I'll take this potato and press it down again and again and again. It's the easiest thing in the world to do. Just push it out like that. It's about a centimeter thick. You want it to be slightly bigger than this tray. Go in with that amazing sweet leek caramelized apple and sausage casserole. Look at that. Come on. Ah. Then simply pick up your greaseproof paper, flap it over the top like that, and then unpeel it. If you've got any holes or if it ripped, please do not stress. It's very, very forgiving. We want to seal it to kind of trap all that lovely goodness. So, get yourself a fork and your flour. Just dip it in the flour to stop it sticking to your fork. And that just seals it nicely. It makes it feel kind of like the kind of dinners that my nan used to make. Nice memories. Just as if it was pastry. You'd get a knife and kind of cut down like that. In my family, everyone fights over the crispy edge. Now, there is one sausage left. So, slice this up. And then I'm going to push this into the most beautiful potato. These will get nice and golden crispy. Last but not least, I want to take some thyme, put a little oil on a board, and I'll just dab it in and around like that. And yes, it will flavor it, but that will also make the potatoes really, really golden and crispy. That's it. Now, that will go in the oven for 40 minutes at 200 degrees Celsius, which is 400 Fahrenheit. My tip for you if you want a crispy bottom, which I highly recommend, is put this at the bottom of your oven and then about 5 minutes before the end, I'll put some of that thyme on top just to crispen up and it will look the business. Look at that. Kids, lunch time. Oh yes, sausage and mash taken to another level. Sizzling golden gorgeousness. That is a beautiful thing. So, look, I'm just going to have a little portion for myself. Let's just get in there. Come on. Chunks of sausage. Creamy leeky sauce. I've got some greens and some peas. I love a bit of mustard as well on the side. Let's just get in it. Have a little try. Love the crispy bit on the edge. The leeks are amazing. They're so sweet and creamy and then every now and again you get that hit of the apple which with the pork sausage is so good. Come on. What's not to love? Sausage and mash, but not as you know it. Got to give that a try. Right.
It's that time of year when things are getting a little bit colder. It's raining and I'm in my favorite kitchen of all. This is my mobile pub. As you do. I'm going to show you how to make a delicious sausage and squash chili con carne. Really simple to make, luscious to eat. The kids love it. You can do a big old batch of it as well. And it's perfect for when the weather starts closing in and it's getting colder. Great for things like bonfire night parties. It's going to be a beautiful thing. I've got the oven on. I've got a pan on here. Nice little casserole pan. So, first up, get a nice squash. Now, the skin actually is very delicious, but what I love about peeling it is it kind of allows the squash to soak up all those beautiful flavors. So once you've peeled it, just take the end off the squash. Remember, the squash is round, so obviously be careful when you're cutting it. And when it comes into slicing it like that, just like keep your hands out the way and just gently angle it down like that. Don't put your weight on too much. Nothing kind of erratic. Then we've got these little seeds here. So I'm going to grab a little spoon and we can remove these seeds. Now, these seeds you can save, you can dry, and you can plant out next year to grow more pumpkin, which is very, very cool. So, I'm using a butternut squash. You can use any squash or dense pumpkin that you like. Just slice it into little kind of sort of one and a half, two centimeter chunks. So, I've got the butternut squash done. Then, it's the sausages. Look at that. 400 grams of beautiful sausages. Now, what I want to do is just add a little bit of oil. And I want to fry off these sausages. I want to pull them out into little meatballs. Going to get the sausage like that. Pinch it with your hand like that. And it comes out like a rustic little ball. Very, very simple. Straight in like that. The better the sausages, the better this dish will be. Soon as we got a little bit of color happening here, what we can do is add some nice fragrant things, right? We want to get some spice happening. So half a little cinnamon stick like this. Just snap it. That will go in. That will start toasting up in all that frying fat. I'll season generously with black pepper, which I like. Then I'm going to use two little spice hacks here. One is smoked paprika. The smoked paprika gives you that beautiful smoky flavor like it's been cooked over a fire. Then I'm using a little Cajun spice. Now these little kind of Cajun spices, jerk spices, ras el hanout, curry powders, these are quite genius, right? Because they're little blends. So, there's about like eight or 10 spices in here. Oreganos, all the peppers, you know, garlic and onion powder. So, I'm going to put two of these heaped teaspoons in. It's just delicious. It's going to give it real length, a really nice savory spice that I absolutely love. Just toast that onto those lovely sausage meatballs. Look at that. That's properly rustic. And then I'm going to just highlight a little product that I kind of rate. You can use onion, carrot, and celery. So the Italians will call that a soffritto. And this is a frozen product. So if you go to the supermarket, you get bags of frozen carrots, celery, onions. It's just a nice little hack. I really like supporting the frozen veg. I think it's genius. It's brilliant for like just taking handfuls, two handfuls, not wasting stuff. I think for busy people that want to cook lovely food. These little cheats are amazing. You know, it's not just about frozen peas. I want to use like two or three cloves of garlic. That's how you're going to get that really deep comforting flavor. Nice little trick actually using balsamic vinegar, couple of tablespoons, right? If you think about the sweetness in the veg that we're dragging out, this will give it a nice little kind of tang and it will give it the most delicious depth of flavor and a gorgeous color. Look at that. What I love about this dish is it's a family favorite. Everyone loves it. Like you're using sausages, cheapest chips, you know, go for the best ones you can get. We're getting loads and loads of veggies into this dish. And also, it's like an amazing excuse to get more beans in, right? Because we expect to have beans in the chili con carne. So, any beans you like, white beans, cannellini beans, borlotti beans, butter beans, black-eyed peas, kidney beans, even chickpeas. So, I'm going to use a little bit of rosemary in here. Rosemary is a great herb. Really good with butternut squash, sausage. It's a lovely savory herb. So easy to grow. So just a couple of sprigs. Just finely chop that. What I love about making casseroles, chili con carne like this is it's got a really nice flow. You add the sausage, you add the spices, you add the garlic and the veg. You know, it just gets more and more interesting as time goes on. Look at the colors, the orange and the green and all the kind of gnarly bits of sausage. Absolutely beautiful. Now we go in with the wet stuff in the form of lovely tinned tomatoes and some lovely kidney beans. Use any beans you want. I'm using kidney and black beans. Go in juice and all. That little liquid is perfect for creating an amazing sauce. Then some lovely tomatoes. Going to make it sweet and delicious. And look, if you wanted to do a veggie version of this or a vegan version of this, that's fine. Just pull out the meat. And I would sort of suggest using some fresh and dried mushrooms to get that umami, that depth of flavor. Just let it come to the boil. Give it a little season with salt and then pop it into the oven. Now, what's nice about popping it in the oven is it will continue to simmer and cook. So, essentially stew, but from the top it's going to bake or roast. So, we call that braising, right? That means you're going to get color on here. You're going to get reduction of liquid, but concentration of flavor. It's going to be amazing. So, I'm very happy with that. Let's get that in the oven now. Normal oven, 180 degrees Celsius, 350 Fahrenheit. And then I'll show you what to do next. While that's cooking, please click the like button and give us some love. And don't forget to subscribe. Oh, and remember to turn on that notification bell so you know what's happening. Now, back to the recipe. So, it's had an hour and a half and it's just been blipping away. Have a little look at that. I mean, it's a real picture. So, you can see how it's reduced down. Oh, it looks so comforting. So, I want to give you a little tip on extra deliciousness. Okay. It's a good one. Potato masher. So, if you just go to one little side of the pan, just mash one side. Right. So, what's that doing? This is breaking up some of the sausage, some of the beans, and some of that lovely butternut squash. Right? So, just do it to about a third of this pan. And what does it do? It gives you a creaminess and it gives you a real smash of deliciousness and sort of intense flavor. So once we've finished doing that, we fold it through with all the chunks again. So that I believe is how you get really incredible texture. And oh, it smells amazing. It smells amazing. This is when we have a little try. Oh. Oh, it's so good. A little extra virgin olive oil, not as an oil, but as a kind of ingredient, right? And you get that lovely grassy fresh flavor and it gives it the most wonderful sheen. And on the floor is my little dog Conker. He's got very wet. He's chilling out but he's very excited about this sausage chili con carne. A little bit of balsamic. I know we put some in already, but that's cooked away. But just a little thimble of vinegar. Any vinegar can often lift a ragu. That's beautiful. I'm going to pop that back in the oven just for a little bit while I do the rice. We're going to go in with some rice. That same mug, like a typical kind of cup of tea mug. I'm going to fill this up twice. If you wanted to add some nice flavor, you know, you could take a little mixture of herbs, right, and just put that in there as well and get a lovely lovely sort of fragrance and flavor to it. So, this goes in and we'll boil that for 12 minutes. By that time, everything's going to be perfect. Let's get some nice serving bowls. What should I do it in? Let's do it in that one. Looks really lovely. Let's have a little look at this rice. It's had about 12 minutes. It goes from boiling and then that noise stops and that's when you normally know it's just lightly frying. So, that's a good sign. So then we can take out the herb. That's the brilliant thing about herb, man. They've done their job. And just use a fork or a spoon or something just to fluff it up. Can you see how light and fluffy that is every time? A winner. So I like that method. Smells amazing. Let's just portion up a little bit. I love rice. You can see the little flecks of herb in there. Let's get our lovely chili out. Look at these beautiful chunks. So, chili con carne, but not as you know it. And then for me, just a lovely little bit of yogurt in there, some pepper, and just a little olive oil. You can finish that with a little soft herb like coriander if you want. For me, that is beautiful comfort food for this time of year when the weather's closing in. You get epic flavor in there and texture. It's delicious. Sausage chili con carne. Super simple. Like get it all going. You can double the recipe. You can triple it. It's not like spicy chili spicy like my little seven-year-old would have no trouble with that at all. It's very mild. It's very layered. There's lots of nice little surprises, but perfect for this time of year when things get a little bit miserable. But this is delicious.
Hi guys, hope you're well. We're going to make the most beautiful tray baked chicken with Indian spices and veggies. It's absolutely gorgeous. It feels naughty, but it's really, really healthy. It's three of your five fruit and veg a day. It's really affordable and it's a great dish you can get in one tray, whack in the oven, go and do something for 40 minutes and then you got a feast to feed the family, right? So, it's a really nice sharable dish. Pan on, kettle, boiling water, hack up some potatoes about inch dice. So, into a tray, we're going to go in with olive oil. That's about one and a half tablespoons. We're going to go in with the mustard seeds and the curry leaves. Okay. And I'll just hold on the turmeric to start with. So along with all these lovely fresh ingredients, we want fragrance and those amazing flavors of India. So I'm going to use some ginger here and get it fine. You're going to get heat from that because ginger is hot. We're going to put in the ginger. You can move it around. Now I'll get that turmeric in, but I didn't want it to burn earlier. So we got like two teaspoons of turmeric. So I'm going to use four cloves of garlic on a gentle heat. And we're just bringing out the flavors of all those things. Chicken thigh. I'm going to go skin on. And I'm just going to have one nice big thigh per portion in there. So the potatoes here and I'm just going to let these steam. They've been cooking about 5 minutes now, right? So they're tender. Next up, all we're going to do is just chop veg. So roughly we are going to slice up the veg into about 1 inch chunks. And what we can do is start just adding this as we're prepping this. Right. So, we've got a lovely orange pepper here. We'll have a red pepper as well. Full of lovely vitamins. And of course, when they roast, they go sweet. Onion. Always in the base of so many dishes. So, I'm just going to roughly chop. I'm adding chili now. And this spice kind of combination here is really mild. It's not spicy, but it's not hot. We've got some beautiful tomatoes. So, in we go. A lovely recipe. A nice start, middle, and end. We're going to season it with some salt and pepper. Last but not least, go in with the potatoes. You can imagine how tasty this is going to be, right? And then if we go and get our chicken, you know, we've already started frying that chicken skin. The bonus of this dish, of course, is that everything just flavors each other. Mix that around. Amazing colors. You just know it's going to be good for you. Put the chicken on top. So, that is now going to bake in the oven for about 45 minutes. Okay, so while that's cooking, I want to show you how to make a super quick delicious mint, chili, and ginger yogurt. Okay, so come over and have a look at this. Simply get a regular sort of bunch of mint, which is normally about that size. Just rip the head off. Okay. We're going to go in with about 150 ml of good quality yogurt. And then we're going to go in with some chili. We want a bit of heat there. So, I'm just going to break up about half a chili. Is perfect. So, in with a tiny little piece of ginger. And then a nice little pinch of salt. Whiz that up. Beautiful flavor. So fragrant. I'm just going to squeeze in the juice of about half a lemon there. And there you go. That's the yogurt sauce. Time to plate up our beautiful tray bake. And look at that. Amazing colors. Beautiful colors. Almost looks like autumn. You got the crispy skin here. I actually love to have like a simple, a nice simple salad, you know, just a baby spinach salad. I'll use this. It's all washed and ready to go. We go in with a couple of spoons of our lovely dressing. Nice and simple. Really nice contrast of colors. Little one for me. Oh, by the way, if you're wondering why I'm dressed up like this, I'm going to parents evening tonight at school, so I've got to dress up and be a bit smarter and responsible. You know, now I've got slightly older kids. I still want to keep an eye on what they're eating because I'll always be their dad. But at the same time, it's quite nice for them just to kind to help themselves. Loads of veg, controlled sat fats, good quality meat, beautiful spices. We can finish it all off with some coriander. You know, you can put that yogurt just in and around the lovely roasted veggies and the chicken and it works so well. Now, let's get a little fork and have a little try. What we got here? Bit of potato. Nice delicate spices. You know, the aubergine's kind of soft, but it's kind of spongy. Really, really good. And then, excuse the knife. Really, really good. Crispy skin. Love it.
We're going to make the most delicious veggie shepherd's pie. This is in fact vegan. Really, really good. But this is one of many recipes that I'm going to be celebrating across the whole month. I've done a meal planner for you guys which spans a whole month of budget friendly recipes. This is going to be good on the planet. It's going to be good on your wallet and it's going to be good in your tummy, right? It's going to be delicious. No compromise happening here. So, let's get cooking. We're going to go in with some nice olive oil. About two tablespoons goes in, right? We'll put it onto a medium heat. I'm going to start the flavor story with a herb to use. A nice little pile of rosemary in this dish is a good trigger for big flavor. Roughly chop the rosemary. So the rosemary goes in. As you get a little bit of a fry on there, let's add some garlic. So we're now going to add the first veggies. Just, you know, standard mushrooms, button mushrooms, little kind of brown mushrooms, portobello mushrooms, whatever you can get your hand on. You can break these up like that. Also, dried mushrooms are a massive like trick if you're veggie vegan and you're craving that depth of flavor that you can easily access from meat. So, mushrooms I put in first. Season a little bit now to get that seasoning in to the veggies. You can go quite heavy on the pepper. On the story of spices, that is about a tablespoon of ground coriander goes in. Delicious. Okay, little cheat, a little hack. It's not cheaper actually, but it's a good conversation starter. In the supermarket you have got frozen chopped veg. So convenience here. What we have here is celery, carrots, onions. Right. So a whole bag goes in. It's frozen. You can take a handful. This is a really brilliant product to have in your freezer. I'm going to turn the heat up now. And I want to let this fry off for about five minutes to concentrate the flavors, get them golden, and get them caramelized. Most of the time, those frozen bags of chopped veg are more expensive than buying the raw stuff. But let's look at the upside. It's frozen. You can take a little bit or use the whole lot. It's already chopped for you. It's blended as a mix, which is kind of convenient. And there's no waste. I'm taking this down and it's currently quite moist in here, but what's nice is all the flavors are mixing around. We're getting darker, guys. We're getting darker. That's what we want. So, this has been frying for like 15 minutes, and you'll notice that the volume has gone down. Look at that. This already smells good. Okay. So when doing a beautiful ragu bolognese, you know minced meat dish, you know using wine or beer is quite common. There are eggs used in the fining process of red wine. Okay. So have a look on the back of the label, you know to make sure is it vegan or not vegan. So go in with a good glass. Cheers. So, can you see how we've now gone back in seconds to a dry pan? Okay, at this point, now I add our proteins in the form of lentils. And then I'll go in with tin chickpeas. So, once we've done that, what we need is a little bit of stock. Now, you can buy veggie stock, right? But I just want to give you like a little cheat on how you can make your own. Just boil a kettle and use, this is porcini but I really genuinely do use dried mushrooms. You just put a little handful like that in. Right. That's all you need. The flavor is phenomenal. Also if you wanted to pump up some flavor like you can cheat with a little bit of Marmite. Just a little spoon like that goes in. Just a little thimble of soy sauce. The other one is miso. Amazing flavor. So, these are all really good tips. Then, if you've got any herbs lying around, you know, you can put those in, right? But essentially, we're making a cup of tea. It's an infusion. You know, if you're using carrots and you've got peel, you know, right? You can still, you know, be clever about it. This will taste phenomenal. So, let's just move it about. It's good. How much effort was that? There's one last ingredient. You could use tomato puree. You could use tin tomatoes. I'm using just a little clutch, you know, 10 or 12 sundried tomatoes. Sunshine, optimism, hope, little pops of sweetness. You know, as we add our stock. Now, this is essentially the equivalent of our mince meat, our bolognese-esque type ragu. And the mushrooms can go in, by the way. Not the herbs. The little masher just gently crush just to lose, you know, that blatant shape of the chickpea. Okay, so we're done. Turn it off. Normally at home, I would just fill this pan with mashed potato now. But I do want to make it a bit more fancy just because, you know, we're making a cooking show. It's a little bit wetter than you would think, but remember it's going to carry on baking in the oven. And I do want it to kind of be blippy and gorgeous. So, into that dish, I'm going to go on top with my mashed potato just boiled, mashed. Instead of butter, nice extra virgin olive oil and salt and pepper, a little bit of nutmeg. It's really nice. You can make it really flat if you want, but I quite like it rustic like this. Look at that. That's basically a kilo and a half of potatoes. Last but not least, before I pop it in the oven, I'm going to put a little oil over the top of the potatoes and purposefully use a different herb, thyme. If you put in, you know, three or four tablespoons of oil like that, right? And get in there like this and then squeeze it through. That will guarantee you flavor, but a nice crispy finish. That's a really simple way of making a definitively convincing herb oil. In the oven it goes now for about half an hour, 40 minutes until golden, blipping, and delicious. So, in we go. Delish. Okay, so this beautiful veggie shepherd's pie has had 35 minutes. A look at that. Absolutely beautiful. What I loved about this, can you see here? Look at that. So, we've got that incredible gravy blipping away here. Cooking into the potatoes, giving you soggy, tasty potatoes. We've got the crispy potatoes on top. Little gnarly crispy bits here. Look at that. Look. Sticky bits. Like really, really nice. Like almost like the best bits. Yum. So, that I would treat like a normal shepherd's pie. Gorgeous. Some lovely seasonal greens that you can just toss with a little bit of olive oil. So, let's go in for the kill. Come on. Let's get in there into the heart and soul of this beautiful veggie shepherd's pie. Look at that. You can see this is going to feed nicely like a big old group of people. Look at that. Serve this with whatever lovely sort of steamed or boiled veggies you can get your hands on. I've just got a little bit of kale here, mustard, and brown sauce. Really, really nice. Not that it's traditional, but a little bit of ketchup as well is definitely the done thing in our house. Enough yapping. Time. Time to have a little taste. And let's get in there. Yummy texture. First thing, the texture. It is very similar to what you'd get in a typical meat sort of stew ragu. Experimenting, having fun, and being open-minded. So, there you go. Happy cooking. That's delicious. Really good.
