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, a 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 1 and 1/2, 2 cm chunks. So, I've got the butternut squash done.
Then, it's the sausages. Look at that. 400 g 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? Cuz 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 heap teaspoon 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? Cuz we expect to have beans in a 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 carnies 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 tin 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° C, 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 extra 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 at 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 herbs, 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.
Over the Christmas period, it can get super busy. So, we all need some delicious meals that are easy to put together and feed your friends or family.
And if you want to get ahead, I've got a hearty chili that you can batch up in advance. The perfect winter warmer for this time of year.
So, I'm going to show you all the tricks and tips to getting maximum flavor out of that stuff and getting it in here. So, first up, we've got peppers, we got sweet potatoes, and just in a regular non-stick pan or even a gas hob. I want to show you how to kind of trick smokiness into that pan. You will love it. So, this is on a high heat. This is on a medium heat. This is a casserole pan. So, peppers. I'm going to put them directly onto the gas. Also, you could use a grill. Get them under the grill to get them blistering and popping and going black, literally.
Then with the sweet potato, what I'm going to do is slice it into 1 cm slices. I'm going to leave the skin on. The skin has got some delicious flavor, so we want to celebrate that. And then I'm going to put it directly into a dry non-stick pan. And we can start toasting and charring this.
I've got two onions here. I'm just going to half it and then quarter it into like 2 cm chunks.
And then this pan is getting nice and hot now. And again, we're going into a dry pan.
Move these peppers around. It's perfectly safe. Basically, what's happening is the skins are catching. They're charring. Really, what we're trying to do is mimic the old-fashioned cooking that would happen in a big old cauldron over a log or charcoal fire. And that's where, of course, the mega flavor really is. Here in the pan, I'm dry frying. And you can see already there's caramelization on the bottom of the pan. And then the sweet potato. Look, toastiness. It's about adding extra layers of flavor.
In this pan. Now, with the onions, I'm going to push the onions to one side, and we're going to introduce our oil in with a nice couple of lugs of olive oil. It will start to sizzle. I'm going to add spices now. So, the first one is a nice heaped teaspoon of cumin.
So, when they start to just spit a little bit and toast, we'll bring the onions in.
So, we got some smoked paprika. Two teaspoons go in. That's going to give it amazing color and a true smokiness. And then a little curveball ingredient, cocoa powder. Two teaspoons of cocoa in here. And no, before you say it, it's not going to taste like hot chocolate. It's got this most incredible savoriness to it, a roundness, which with the sweet onions and the spice is going to be amazing.
Okay, next for a slightly more unusual ingredient, we're going to use peanut butter, unsweetened. And one nice big heaped tablespoon goes in. What I've witnessed in many countries is the use of smashed up nuts. And they really do add a depth of flavor to stews, curries, and chilies. Really amazing. We'll stir that in. I just add a little swig of vinegar just to clean the bottom of that pan. Just a tablespoon in with the sweet potato. So, give it a good stir.
So, the peppers in no time at all actually have blistered up nicely. So, I haven't overly colored them, but this is enough to soften up the peppers, get that toasty flavor going, and also exactly what we did with the peppers, we can do with the chilies. So, a couple of chilies. The one thing I suggest you do is just prick it with a knife because when these get hot, they have been known to explode.
So, back to these peppers. Just chunk that up into like 2 inch pieces. Tap off the seeds. In with the green peppers, the yellow peppers, and the red.
So, nice colors now. Look at that. Starting to look very joyful. I'm actually getting really excited. Taste buds are going already. Slice up the chilies.
When I was a kid, my mom used to make chili con carne. It was very nice, but the thing I hated about it always was the kidney beans. It took me a long time to love kidney beans, and I'm still not completely convinced about them. Later on in life, I realized there was many other beans that were very nutritious. So, I'll take some butter beans in here. You can see there's like a little kind of stock. It's seasoned. We won't waste that.
I normally put a second tin of butter beans in, but I'm mixing it up. This is chickpeas. So chickpeas and juice go in. Now here's the interesting thing. Aggressive heat in here. So just put the butter beans in the pan and you'll just find that it starts to scald the skin of the bean. The trick is to leave it and then that aggressive heat just kind of gets the skin to crackle and then it kind of bursts open and the fluffiness comes out. And that in a chili I just love it. Kind of makes it dry and hot and ready to suck up the flavor from the chili.
I now want to add our friend Mr. Tomato. So, three tins. Yes, three tins of tomatoes. So, I like to put this into my hand, clean, of course, and scrunch it. Connect with your cooking. Best gadget in the world.
Fill up one of these with water and then pour it into that one and then pour it into that one and get every last bit of lovely tomatoy goodness out. There's good things happening there. Give it a shake. Can you see? See how they've popped, shriveled and charred, and they're now going to go into our lovely chili. And they'll sizzle away and absorb all of that flavor.
So, last few things to kind of get your taste buds going. We're going to use coriander. Do not throw away the stalks. We'll keep the leaves for later. And we'll embrace these stalks. They're delicious. So, just finely slice those. So, in we go with the coriander stalks. Pinch of sea salt and pepper. Stir that through.
And now I'm going to cook that for about 50 minutes to an hour, right on a medium heat with a lid, ajar, just so we retain some of that moisture. But in that time, all the flavors are going to exchange. It already smells amazing.
Get your nice jacket potatoes. Give them a wash. Give them a prick. And then a little bit of salt.
And then in the oven, 180 until cooked. Basically about an hour.
Happy days.
So, this has had about 50 minutes, and look at that. You can see that it's thickened up. It's robust. It looks really gorgeous.
When it's off the heat, which it is now, a kiss of good oil will just give it a shine and a kind of grassiness. You know, we can chop some fresh herbs up. In this case, it's coriander. And that will give it kind of perfume.
And as we're talking about really dynamic flavors, let's also talk about dynamic textures. A simple salad, right? Gem lettuce, romaine. This is crunch, soft crunch. And then there's another little trick. If you take standard jalapenos in vinegar, get them in a blender and just with a little whiz, put everything in here. Take a herb, in this case, mint. Mint and chili. Fantastic friends. In we go with the mint. Just a few little sprigs and whiz it up. And you're going to make the easiest cheats salsa ever.
So, in no time at all, we've made a fluorescent green amazing chili mint salsa.
And then last but not least, there's another little salsa. First up, we'll take a little slice of apple. Half an apple and half an onion. So, I'll slice this up nice and fine. Now, with the onion, I'm just going to finely slice it and season it with salt. That will ring out the actual moisture in the onion. And then get a lime. Give it a little roll to get the juices going.
And we'll sprinkle the juice. Now, the acid in this lime will act just like pickling liquor, right? Vinegar. So, we just move that around like that. And immediately, you'll start changing the onion. And that's it. Apple, crunchy, sweet, and the limey, sour, salty onions.
Time for some jacket potatoes.
And then some cheddar.
Come on, enough chatting. Let's get that jacket potato with the cheese. Let's go deep into the cauldron and make sure we get a nice spoon of that amazing chili.
Let's hit up a little bit of yogurt. That'll just kind of ripple through. We'll have a little bit of herbage happening. Get some green going. We can take our little cheats jalapeno straight on that yogurt. I'm going to have my little cups of the lettuce here cuz we can use this lettuce to mop up that chili. And then we've got our little quick salsa that we've made. Everything going on in one little winter warmer plate.
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 2 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 hands 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 into 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 5 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.
It 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. Mmm. 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 cuz, 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 is 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, flipping, 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. It's really good. 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 and crisp. And of course, the point of making a pie, encasing 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 cuz 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 2 cm 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 MS 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 cuz 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 2 tbsp 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 three 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 thyme, 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 cm 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. 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 five 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.
Mmm. 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, guys? You ready? First job, kettle on, pan on, and we've got 800 g of potatoes. I'm not going to peel them. Don't want to sit there peeling all day. Let's get on with dinner. This is quick, quick, quick. So, just slice the potatoes into 2 cm chunks like that. Throw them in the pan. Fill it up with some water.
Whack it on a high heat. We're going to boil that for sort of 12, 15 minutes. So, I've got this beautiful fillet of pork here. Sometimes I call it a tenderloin. It's a really, really nice cut. This is about 400 g. So, this will serve four people beautifully. And it's going to cook in the mash together. So, it's going to be really, really beautiful.
Let's get a pan on a high heat. I'm going to season that pork with a little bit of sea salt and pepper, lots of black pepper, and have a nice little roll up and get that seasoning all over it. Into the pan with olive oil to speedily sear each side.
That's what we want. That's what we like. It cooks really consistently. Just keep moving it around. Look at that color, guys. After just 3 minutes, take out your pork and jack up the flavor with fried fresh sage leaves.
If you just put sage on stuff, it will just go like tea. It will go dry. It will do nothing. But the minute that the sage gets kissed by the oil, different story, fragrant, crispy, and delicious. So, the sage goes on here.
So, let's just check the spuds. Right, these potatoes are ready. Give the spuds a good old mash. You can go as fine or as smooth as you like.
Season. Add a glug of olive oil and grate up 20 grams of cheddar cheese. And you can just add a little water just to adjust the texture. And look, just by adding it, you almost can beat it a bit more and it becomes a lot softer. So mix that up and you make the most fantastic rustic mash.
The great thing about the pork fillet, it's really lean, but it's really delicious and it's very tender and it's very, very easy to cook. So, it's a great cut of meat. It really is. Take some of that juice and pour that right over. And that will start to cook into the potatoes.
And then just a tiny little grating of cheese on the top, but not on the meat. And that, my friend, is going to be beautiful. So, whack that in the oven on a high grill. This is one speedy dish. 10 minutes is all it takes to turn golden and crispy.
Right now, for the last quick hit. Wafer-thin prosciutto will give gorgeous flavor and a crispy crunch. Back in for the last 2 minutes. Come on. Brilliant, brilliant combo.
Okay, first job. It's super simple. Let's get the veg cooking. Throw a swig of olive oil into a large pan. Tear up some fresh sage and rosemary. Then add two chopped onions and two carrots to make a rich veggie base. Just a little bit of seasoning.
And we'll slowly fry that on a medium-low heat for about 20 minutes, 25 minutes. Let it caramelize. Let the flavors sweeten and really intensify. Then we'll let it cool down and then that will go in the meatloaf and it will make all the difference.
Next up, fennel, the surprising star ingredient to make this meatloaf sing. I'm using four medium bulbs sliced into wedges. They're crunchy and they're aniseed, but as you slow cook them or roast them, they just become sweet and savory and have depth of flavor. Absolutely beautiful.
Lay the bulbs in the bottom of a roasting pan. Add a few chopped fennel tops for extra flavor and season and drizzle with olive oil. Give it all a good toss and then roast in the oven for 30 minutes at 180 degrees, which is 350 F.
Okay, so the fennel has been roasting and look, it's half cooked. That's looking very nice. This has cooled down, right? And it's lovely and sweet and gorgeous. So, let's make the meatloaf.
Okay. And meatloaf can be made out of any blend of minced meat. But let's get really into it. This is what makes it good or great to incredible. For the best flavor, I'm using a kilo of pork shoulder and 1 kilo of beef brisket, but you can go for any good quality mince you like.
Add your cooled-down veg and 200 grams of breadcrumbs to absorb the juices and give the meatloaf lightness. And then we're going to go in with two... Hi. You all right? Do you want to do some cooking? Yes.
Next, my two little helpers will crack in two eggs. Eggs go in the middle. Add a generous sprinkling of salt and pepper. Two teaspoons of wholegrain mustard.
And then to take this meatloaf to the next level, tear in a ball of creamy mozzarella. We've got the seasoning and the veg and the breadcrumbs soak up all the fat and it's juicy and delicious. But then you get these little bombs of mozzarella that are gooey and sort of just gorgeous with all the elements added. It's all hands on deck for the mixing.
So try and keep it in the bowl. Points for keeping it in the bowl. I know this is a problem for you. Keep it in the bowl.
Make sure that all the ingredients are evenly distributed so that every bite will be layered with flavor. Once mixed, form it into a loaf shape and layer in your dish of half-roasted fennel.
Now, we're going to roast it, but we want to do more. We want to add more flavor. So, grab the bacon, please, buddy. Crisscross the rashers of smoked bacon, leaving gaps so the rich fat can kiss the meat and the top can go crispy and golden.
Then, to keep it nice and juicy, wet some greaseproof paper, cover, and tuck it into bed. Good night, guys. Pop the meatloaf into the oven at 180 degrees C or 350 Fahrenheit and roast it initially for 30 minutes.
Okay, so it's had half an hour and it's basically cooked now, but without character. I want to create an incredible sauce and there's a really simple way to do that.
Take 500 ml of beef, chicken or veg stock. Add a tablespoon of sundried tomato paste. Then 2 tbsp of blackcurrant jam. And give it a good stir. So all we do now is pour that over.
And like any gravy, all the sticky bits off the bottom of the tray will start to blend really nice. Look at that. Finish by scattering some sage and rosemary rubbed in a little olive oil over the meatloaf. Then pop it back into the oven for another 45 minutes to let all those gorgeous flavors come together.
So the meatloaf is done and this is what you get, ladies and gents. Look at that lovely gravy. Gorgeous golden meatloaf.
Served with fresh lightly blanched greens and then a proper 80s favorite, a volcano of creamy mashed potato erupting with melted butter. Cabbage, volcano potatoes, lovely meatloaf. You ready to try some? Yeah.
You know, the point is we don't want a dry meatloaf. So, if we look in here, it's juicy.
So, there you have it, guys. A classic weekend comforting meatloaf deeply flavored with smoked bacon and mozzarella on a bed of aromatic fennel. Swimming in gorgeous gravy. The ultimate centerpiece for a family feast. Absolutely comforting.
Delicious deep flavor. Really nice. So juicy and tasty. The sweetness from the jam in the sauce is off the chart good. And then the fennel.
First up, I've got some lovely minced high-quality lamb. This is lean lamb, okay? So, it's not super fatty. And we're going to go dry in the pan. Now, what we're going to start doing is breaking that up, rendering the fat out, and we want caramelization. We want to brown that meat off. That's where you're going to get extra extra flavor.
Season your lamb with two generous pinches of black pepper and a little salt. Next, a herb that's lamb's best mate, rosemary. Finely chop yourself two sprigs.
Having that flavor is not only delicious, but it helps you to reduce the amount of salt that you need because you've got big flavor already. In we go.
Finely chop two onions and add them to the mince. Now, for the hero ingredient, beans in an old-school shepherd's pie. I don't really remember seeing them in there, but that doesn't matter, okay? Because what's nice is actually in many examples, whether it's a little beef burger patty, a meatloaf, you can actually reduce meat and then bulk out with beans. It's a brilliant thing to do.
Adding a tin of drained cannellini beans will ramp up the fiber content as well as adding extra nutrients like iron. And you can hear it's still frying, right? It's exciting. Really exciting.
Next, boost that classic ragu flavor plus your five-a-day quota with diced carrots and celery sticks. Two of each. Big up the veg. Really, really colorful.
I've got 250 g of mushrooms here. They give a real savory depth to this lovely shepherd's pie. And by the way, if you were a vegetarian or a vegan, you could just pull that mince meat out and put some more mushrooms in and you would still get something that was really, really delicious and comforting. So, mushrooms in.
So, look, we've had 10 minutes of high heat, stirring, adding the veggies. You can see it's kind of sunk down. Absolutely gorgeous.
Go in with a heaped tablespoon of plain flour for thickening and 800 ml of chicken or vegetable stock. Once it comes to the boil, whack a lid on and leave it to simmer for half an hour, leaving you free to crack on with the mash topping.
So, love potatoes. They're really, really great. They're a starchy carb, so they don't count as one of your veg, but they are delicious and they give you texture. Call for 800 g of potatoes. And I've got a nice tip to show you how to get even more veggies into this dish.
I've got a nice swede here. I love cutting mashed potatoes by 50/50 veg. Add some of this in and it's really, really delicious. So, I'm going to put the swede in first and boil the swede for 10 to 15 minutes before throwing in the potatoes to cook for the same length of time again.
Look at this ragu. I'm going to turn it off now. And I have a little trick of how to get it even better. It involves mint sauce. My wife loves a bit of mint sauce. A couple of little teaspoons, maybe two or three. Lamb, mint, lovely. But also there's vinegar in there. So that little bit of a twang.
Then a tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce. Notice it goes in at the end so it doesn't get cooked away. So this now is next level. I promise you. Oh, ready and raring to go.
Pour your ragu into a serving dish and then mash up those gorgeous drained swede and potatoes.
Classically with this there'll be a whole load of butter going in. Delicious, but that's not going to be a superfood day. So then we use milk. Just 2 tablespoons of semi-skimmed will do the trick. Then grating in 15 g of good quality cheddar.
So you know it's just clever ways of getting flavor up. Of course butter is fantastic, but actually by gram, cheddar cheese is lower in fat and you get way more flavor. So you get better bang for your buck.
Season your mash and you're ready to start topping your shepherd's pie. I don't want to have a sinking potato top. So, what I do is I get 350 grams of frozen peas and I just put them on the top. They're going to be like a little layer that keeps your potatoey topping on top.
Frozen peas are brilliant. They're already part cooked and then snap frozen and a lot of that nutrition is kept in there. So, really, really cool and my family absolutely love them.
Pop your delicious mashed potato and swede onto that layer of peas. And using a fork, score the top so it will catch and go super crispy. Bake your pie at 180 degrees C or 350 degrees F for 50 minutes until golden and bubbly.
About 5 minutes before the end, I just put a few bits of rosemary in a little olive oil on top because it smells and looks delicious. And that's it. That is going to be the most fantastic shepherd's pie. You're going to love it.
And there she is, blipping away. Absolutely gorgeous. Crispy top. You got all that lovely gravy coming through. Really, really beautiful. So, let's serve it up.
My superfood shepherd's pie, boosted with beans, will serve six people happily, because as you can see, these portions are generous. Let's have a little go.
So good. The flavors are deep. The gravy is indulgent. The potato and swede topping is crispy and delicious. That, my friends, is clever cooking and food that is really good for your body. Happy days.
So, there you go. The ultimate superfood shepherd's pie. Packing in a massive four out of your five fruit and veg a day and all for just 436 calories a portion.
The recipe I'm going to give you today is a family-friendly, delicious, mild, fragrant veggie curry. Really, really nice. As we get towards the end of the week, we're also getting towards the end of the Oliver shopping. So, we got no more meat, no more fish in the fridge. So, we've got odds and ends and that's fine.
I've got a humble courgette, carrots, bit of parsnip, bit of butternut squash. Of course, you could use potatoes, cauliflower, sweet potato, anything that roasts up. Nice sort of like root vegetables. Delicious.
When you roast the veg, you're really concentrating the beautiful flavors within each individual veg. So, tray here. We're going to create a little bit of a landing strip. You could use a curry powder if you so wish. I've got some leftover madras spice paste here. I don't want much. Like a heaped teaspoon is all I'm going to use.
Then I'm going to hit it up with some oil. Two tablespoons will go in there. And then a little bit of vinegar. So, I'll mix that up and that will coat them all and season them all in the most delicious way. Easy peasy.
Now, in here also, I'm going to put a salt. And then we're going to go veg. We're going to leave the skins on. A lot of the flavor, a lot of the sweetness and deliciousness is in the skin. Okay? And that includes the butternut squash. Okay? A lot of people spend a lot of time peeling this, forget it. Peeling this, forget it. And this and this, forget it. Right?
So, let's start with the parsnip. Split it in half, then in quarters, then into bite-sized chunks. In we go.
With the carrots, I'm just going to split those in half. And again, more chunks. All roughly around the same size. Then we have courgette.
With the butternut squash, because of its wonderful skin, they'll keep for weeks, weeks, you know, just in the corner of your kitchen waiting to be used. You know, people are buying quite a lot of stuff and then it's kind of going off. So, any way to reduce that is obviously a good thing. We'll just chunk them up.
So, in with the squash. Last but not least, humble frozen veg. So, there's six of us eating this curry. So, six florets of cauliflower. So, just mix all that up. And there you go. Beautiful dressed squash for roasting. Follow me, Jules.
So, this will go in the bottom of a hot oven about 190 degrees C, maybe 200, for about 45 to 50 minutes until just beautiful and golden looking.
So, while the veg is roasting off and getting even more tasty, I want to create like a sauce for them to get stirred into. I'm going to get a big pan on a medium heat. I'm going to get some ginger, thumb-sized piece of ginger, and about the same of garlic, and I'm just going to finely chop it.
Okay, we'll go in with some oil, about a tablespoon. The garlic and ginger. Put that into your oil which is heating up. So, stir that around. The smell will be incredible. And as that starts to brown off and do beautiful things, I'm then going to go in with two tablespoons of mango chutney.
And this will start to caramelize a little bit. If you haven't got that, you could cheat with like apricot jam and a little bit of sort of spice from your spice shelf.
I'm going to get some tinned tomatoes. I've used chopped tinned tomatoes. It could be plum. Scrunch them up. Could be passata. Even chopped fresh tomatoes. Delicious. As soon as this has come to the boil, we're going to season it with salt.
And I'm then going to add some coconut milk. Now, of course, you could use regular milk and that'll be fine. It will give it that sort of creaminess, but the coconut milk gives it this incredible deliciousness. So, in that goes. Look at that. So, we'll bring that to the boil. That is the most delicious fragrant curry sauce ever. So, the minute it comes to the boil, off.
And then I'm going to bring into the world a new party. We're going to make the most delicious kind of cheats naan bread. So, I've got two builder mugs of self-raising flour and then one of cold water. But, we're going to go a step further and we're going to stuff it.
And one of our favorite things to stuff a naan or a bread with is like very lightly sort of spiced spinach. It's going to be amazing, right? My kids absolutely love it. They fight over it. They have arguments over it. So, this is good. So, the first job is to get this pan back on the heat.
And let's get our knob of butter in the pan. And what we want to do is bring to life spinach, which could bore people, but we're going to make it so tasty. I'm going to use cloves. I've got a bit of cinnamon as well.
Now, you could use any spice you've got. It could be a pinch of cumin, fenugreek. It could be a pinch of curry powder. Could be a bit more paste, maybe a different paste. It could be just garlic. Right, we just want to make delicious spinach.
Now, these little tablets of frozen spinach I have always had in my freezer. They're brilliant for Indian dishes, brilliant for soups, stews. It's going to be so delicious. So, that will go back in the freezer.
I'd normally put a bit of onion in this, but my lovely Jools, she doesn't like onions, so we're just going to use spring onions or leeks instead. So, let's just cut those in quarters. It's been washed nicely. Finely slice this.
So leeks go into your spiced butter. Then we go in with the spinach. I'm going to let this just slowly fry off. Give it a stir every now and again until you've got really dark, dense, intense spinach. Yum, yum, yum.
Okay, let's make the bread. My cheats naan bread is so simple it's going to hurt your head. Okay, you got two builder's cups of self-raising flour, right? And then with the bottom of your little mug, just make a little well. Very satisfying.
So to two builder's mugs of self-raising flour, I've got one mug of cold water. So that goes in. That's your ratio. So into the water, we're going to add salt. And I'm going to add a little oil.
Then take a fork and just evenly go around the edge, right? And it will go from straight water to like a pancake batter. Then to like a thick sort of dough. I'm using a fork because I don't want to use my hands and I don't want it to go sticky.
So can you see now that this dough is getting quite firm and once actually my fork starts to look even a little bit clean, right? That's a good sign that we can use our hands.
So, use a little bit of flour on your hands and just kind of move it around. Bit of extra flour just to dust. If you feel that it's a bit too tacky, then just use a little extra flour just to kind of clean your hands and that's fine. You can adjust.
If you can keep it quite wet, look at that. Then it'll be really fluffy in return. So, can you see how this bread, the more I've kneaded it, the more elastic it's got. So, now what I'm going to do is just add a bit of oil to the surface and the bread. And that won't stick anymore.
So, let's rub the oil in. And then what we can do is start to spread it out. Just roughly push the bread out. You can use a rolling pin if it makes you happy. And then I've got this here. If you spread it out like this, it will cool down really, really quick.
Take the clove out or the cinnamon stick in? Yeah, you can take the clove and cinnamon out. No trouble at all.
Normally, I put paneer in an Indian bread like this. I haven't got it, so I'm using feta. Half a pack of feta is probably more than enough. I'm just going to break it up. So, I'm going to take the spinach with the feta, put it in the middle here, and put that in there like so.
Just bring the top in like this. Bring it in like that. Bring it in like that. Like that. And then we can push that out. And as we push that out, then we're also pushing the spinach out.
I can take this non-stick pan. And because this is oiled already, I can basically just pick this up as a whole and get that in there. Beautiful. I just keep touching it because it feels so damn good.
Okay, this I can either cook for 10 minutes on each side on a hob or I can put it in the oven at the bottom and sort of 20, 25 minutes it'll be golden and crisp and gorgeous. So that's it. Happy days.
So let's check on the veg. They've had about 50 minutes and if you look in here, hopefully, yes, look at that. That's what we want. See the charring? That is flavor. Maximum flavor.
Now, if I just show you up here, I've got the sauce here simmering away. So, what I have to do now is get these veggies landing in this sauce. Add a little bit more veg if you want. Just a little, just a handful of peas. Bit of chickpeas. You know, all of this is going to add to it being the most delicious curry.
Let's serve the family. I've got a nice stuffed naan. Here we go, lovely people. Daisy is a massive lover, aren't you, Dais, of naan breads and bits and pieces. So, we're going to go in for the kill. There you go. So good.
Oh, look at the feta, the way it's melted. Oh.
So, there you go, lovely people. There is a delicious meat-free meal. As you can see, it's been decimated. The bread's nearly all gone, guys. Was that a hit?
So, there you go. Have a go. Nice veggie curry. Happy days. Enjoy. And that bread. Come on.
