All language subtitles for M.M.O.D.C.S02E02.Web

the home of Dine-In. Proud sponsors
of Mark Moriarty Off Duty Chef.

Right, who's hungry?

I'm Mark Moriarty,

a professional chef and I've worked
some of the world's top restaurants.

Food is my passion.

In this series, I'm bringing my
skills to the home kitchen, with
tips on

how to elevate your everyday dishe
using easy to find ingredients.

This is a great way to use up
leftovers.

Dishes inspired by the restaurant
and takeaway menu.

Absolutely delicious.

I'm going to be showing you all

the mistakes that I've made through
the years in my guides to pastry
perfection.

Forget about these.

Let's make them properly.

This is Off Duty Chef.

Tonight I've got four great recipes
for you to try this week.

First up, my Scandinavian
inspired meatballs.

Then, a pretty delicious recipe on
using up that leftover beef mince,

my favourite Chinese takeaway
dish... Love painting my food.

And finally, my guide
on how to perfect cupcakes.

First up are my Scandinavian
meatballs.

These were a staff meal
favourite in the restaurant.

Delicious, quick and, as we all know,
a well fed team or family is a happy
one.

This is exactly the type
of cooking I like to do at home.

Maximum flavour for minimal effort.

Particularly when you're on a day
off from the restaurant.

We're going to start
by chopping the onion.

If you're getting a little teary,
the key is to breathe through your
mouth.

Now, when they're ready, we're going
to get them into a pan with a little
bit of oil.

We don't want to get too much colour

on them here, just so they soften.
It takes about two minutes.

Whenever I'm cooking onions,
I always add a little bit of sea
salt.

Just helps bring out
that sweetness in the onions.

Now, when the colour just starts
to appear, turn the onions off

and we're going to cool them down,
because this is the base of our
flavour

in the meatballs and we're going to
scrape them out, every last piece of
onion.

That's a big point
in the professional kitchen.

Don't waste anything.
While that cools,

let's talk about the meat
for the meatballs.

Now, I use 50-50 pork to beef mince.

The pork in particular gives loads
of flavour and the fat content means
you

get a beautiful, moist meatball
at the end. As well as that,

the real trick to Scandinavian
meatballs is using some breadcrumbs
and milk.

We're just going to let that soak
for five or six minutes.

Now, time to mix it all together.

Go in with our beef.

Beautiful pork mince.

Next, I'm going to go in with an egg
yolk.

We just want the yolk.

The yolk will bind it together
without making it too wet.

Straight in and then we can
go in with our breadcrumbs.

Squeeze off that excess milk.

It does look a little bit messy.

Don't worry.

And that's going to give that
beautiful soft texture at the end.

Quick wash of the hands.

Now, the real key to cooking is
seasoning.

Makes good things taste great.
Now, if this is being done

in the restaurant kitchen,
I'd say it needs to be 2% salt.

Because I'm at home, it's roughly
a heaped tablespoon.

Might seem like a lot,
but it will definitely need it.

Next up, something I don't use
that often is ground white pepper.

Very traditional in this recipe.

Now, I don't want to use a tablespoon

because I'm at home, so we're just
going to use a teaspoon.

After that, a touch of all spice.

Very handy one to have in your
cupboard.

I'm going to go in with a tablespoon,
then get your hand in there.

Bind it all nicely together, so make
sure they stick when we cook them.

Now, this is a very glamorous task,

but as you can see,
the mix is already cleaning the bowl,

so you know they're going to get
lovely smooth, stuck together

meatballs.

Quick wash of the hands.

Time to roll.

Because my hands are slightly wet,

we'll get a lovely smooth
finish on the meatball.

Just press them slightly so they
stick together and then roll them in
the ball of

your hand, so you get those beautiful
round meatballs and make sure
they're all

the same size or else
they won't cook evenly.

This mix will feed about four people

and if you don't eat them all,
you can freeze them after they're
cooked.

And before I cook these, I'm going
to keep things a little Scandinavian.

I'm going to make a really
simple pickle cucumber.

Brilliant to top off this dish.

Just keep your thumb and your fingers
tucked in and keep them as thin as

possible, and try not to make
as much as a mess as me.

Now, throw them on a tray.

We're going to use equal quantities

of salt, sugar and my favourite,
distilled malt vinegar.

The vinegar is going to go in,
take its place, make it nice and
sour,

and then you'll have that balance
of salt and sweetness.

Mix it all together so it coats all
parts

of the cucumber and it
smells absolutely delicious.

Chip shop, but better.

Now, time to cook those meatballs

and we're going to cook
them a little differently.

I'm going to go in with some butter.
Now, traditionally,

butter would burn very, very quickly,
so to stop that and give it a little
bit

longer in the pan, I'm going to go
half and half with some plain oil.

By that I mean vegetable or
sunflower oil.

Now we're using that cast iron
and it's all

going to happen in here,
so let the butter melt down.

At that point, we go
in with our meatballs.

Once they go in, don't touch
the pan.

Let all the heat go in on the
meatballs.

The more colour we get on here, the
better the flavour of the final
sauce.

Have a look there.

You can just start to see
the butter going slightly brown.

That's my cue to turn them over and
you have that beautiful caramelised
crust.

Look at that.

That caramelization makes all the
difference and a little bit of
patience.

And same again. Once they're
flipped, two or three minutes,

get them nice and golden brown
and it'll be time to start the sauce.

Now, they're nicely caramelised
on both

sides, so I'm going to take
them out at this point.

They're still slightly undercooked

in the middle, but we're
going to fix that later.

And what we're left with is a
beautiful

base of the pan, which has
caramelised bits of meat.

It has the fat that's melted out

from the pork, it has the brown
butter and that is packed with
flavour.

So we're going to use it.
To make the sauce,

we're going in with two ingredients.

A little bit of brown malt vinegar,
which is going to give a nice
sharpness.

Let us do its thing for about 10
seconds and then go in with the
cream.

The real cheffy part now is we get
our

wooden spoon, get it in there,
don't be afraid, and start scraping

all those little crispy bits off
the edge and the base of the pan.

That is going to bring
the sauce to another level.

We're going to go full blast with
the heat and we want to reduce this
into a sauce.

This is where our meatballs
come back into play.

As this reduces, meatballs are going
to cook the whole way

through in the sauce and be
lovely and glazed at the ends.

Two minutes in, we're going to turn
the meatballs so that they cook
evenly.

Now, it might look a bit watery.

Let it sit there on a high heat,

let it do its thing and you'll see
this turn into an absolutely
delicious sauce.

Quick taste.

It's going to be good.

Look at that now.

Really nicely reduced,
glazed with a beautiful sauce.

At this point, I think they're ready.

I'm going to turn the heat off.

If you're unsure if the meatballs
are cooked, I use the skewer test.

I find the thickest meatball
go straight in, count to three.

Two, three.

And I just check on the fat of my
thumb.

And it's hot to touch, so you know
it's cooked the whole way through.

You can do that with any minced
product.

Some sea salt sprinkled over the top,

a little grind of fresh
black pepper, a lemon.

I'm going to use the zest and the
juice.

Bit of colour with our pickled
cucumbers.

You could just throw them on top,
but that's not my style.

The last cheffy flourish,

alittle bit of greenery, just draping
a few little dill tops across.

Really Scandinavian flavours.

And there it is.

I'll serve that up in the middle
of a table with a big bowl of buttery

mash, and that will put
a smile on anyone's face.

Next up is a recipe bringing together
all the things I used to love as a
kid.

Garlic bread, gravy and beef burgers.

Upgrade it with a few
little cheffy techniques.

I think you're going to love
this one.

To begin, a great tip for adding
flavour.

When I have the oven running

at the weekend, what I do
is I get some tin foil out,

I add a whole head of garlic
with a little bit of sea salt

and a touch of plain oil, and then
I wrap it like you would a baked
potato.

Then throw this in the base
of the oven at about 150 degrees

if I'm roasting something on a
Sunday,

until it goes nice and soft,
here's the one I made last weekend.

So when it came out of the oven,
I cut the garlic bulb in half,

squeezed out all the cloves, which
are nice and soft, and kept it in the
oil.

And I'm going to use this as the base
for the garlic butter in our bread.

To make the garlic butter, add a
block of softened butter into a bowl.

Add some cloves of our roasted
garlic, which is nice and soft,

then grate in a good
amount of Parmesan cheese.

Add some salt and add some
finely chopped parsley.

Give it a good mix until all
the ingredients are incorporated.

Next, grab your baguette.

This is a great way to bring
stale bread back to life.

Slice the baguette through the
middle, leaving a little bit
connected at the end.

Then it's as simple as grabbing my
butter and I'm going to smear it all
over.

Finally, some parmesan cheese.

Now this is how you make garlic
bread.

Wrap it up in tinfoil and then put
it in the oven at 200 degrees for 25
minutes.

Next up from my childhood favourites,
a take on the pepper sauce.

This is peppered gravy mayo.

This is good.

Go into a pot with 300
mls of leftover gravy.

Add a dash of soy sauce.

Reduce down to a concentrated syrup

that is full of flavour.
Allow it to cool in a bowl.

Then add an egg yolk, mustard,
vinegar, plenty of pepper and
some salt.

Then the fun part.
Whisk in plain oil.

(sighs) Be worth the effort.

Once a thick mayonnaise is formed,
store in the fridge.

That's all the hard work done.

I'm going to keep this
as simple as possible.

I'm using some leftover mince
from earlier in the week.

Going to season it with some sea
salt, good amount of black pepper.

Then we just want to bring
the mix together.

We don't want to make paste so
that we get

nice meaty chunks when
we cook the burgers.

Once it comes together, I'm going
to make two roughly evenly sized

patties by just pressing it slightly
in my hand 'til I get a ball shape

and then pushing it 'til
it's about one inch thick.

No messing.

Midweek burger patties.

I wash my hands, then I grab
a nonstick

pan and after adding some oil,
I cook the burgers over a medium
heat.

Cook them until they are
dark brown on both sides.

You can finish them in the oven

to cook through if you prefer.

Burgers are cooked.

Time to get that garlic bread.

This never gets old.

Have a look in here.

I'm going to treat this like a
burger bun.

Place the burger patties
on the garlic bread.

And gravy mayo.

Greenery.. Quick squeeze.

Magic moment.

That is pure fill.

M&S Food.

The home of Dine-in. Proud sponsors
of Mark Moriarty Off Duty Chef.

M&S Food.

The home of dine-in. Proud
sponsors of Mark Moriarty,
Off Duty Chef.

This is Off Duty Chef, where I make
delicious restaurant quality dishes

using techniques
from the professional kitchen

for cooking at home.

One of my favourite Chinese takeaway
dishes is crispy duck pancakes.

It's packed full of flavour, lots of
fun and a perfect weekend feast.

First, we're going to confit our duck
which is basically a fancy name for
saying

we're going to cook them
at a low temperature in fat.

All I do is I lay them out in a tray

with the meat or the purple
side facing towards me.

I'm going to season a little bit
of salt

that's going to firm up the flesh and
create lots of flavour when they
cook.

And then an equal
quantity of castor sugar.

Might seem a little strange putting
sugar on raw meat, but it's going to
make it

lovely and caramelised,
almost sweet and sour at the end.

Once that's on,

I'm going to leave the duck legs
in the fridge for about 2 hours.

Let the salt and sugar do its work,

dry a little bit of that moisture,
then they'll be ready to cook.

Now, 2 hours later so I use
a little bit of kitchen paper.

All we have to do is pat it dry
because we don't want any liquid
in the fat.

Press down, take off any
of that excess water.

Now they're ready to cook.

I'm just going to place them in
our pot.

No he's, nothing here at the moment.

All I do is make sure that they're
evenly

spread out, they have
enough room to breathe.

Quick wash of the hands.

We're going to completely
cover them in oil.

That oil is

going to cook the meat beautifully
and we can confit again and again

in the same oil, or use it for those
beautiful duck fat roast potatoes.

Then what I do is I place it over a
medium heat to speed up the cooking
process.

Now, I'm very careful not
to heat this too much.

When those bubbles just start to
appear, that's when I turn off the
heat.

Stick the lid on and it's ready to go

into a preheated oven at 120 degrees
for about 2 and a half to 3 hours.

Duck should be ready at this stage,
after

a long time in the oven, so we'll
take it out and cheque if it's soft.

Just be very careful because
obviously

we've got hot oil in here,
back onto the solid top.

Not much will have happened here
because it's gone low and slow.

Now I just stick my fork in there
and all

I want to see is if that meat is soft
to touch, where it's just pulling
apart.

It's exactly what we're after.
But we're not done here.

I'm aware that doesn't
look too appetising.

What we do is we get a tray,

we're going to carefully lift them
out so they go back in the oven for
about half

an hour and I'm going to turn
that up to 200 degrees Celsius.

This is going to ensure they
have a really crispy skin.

Leave the oil here just to cool down.

We can pack it away and use
it again next time.

This gives us just enough
time for the garnishes.

These are what make duck
pancakes really, really fun.

And I have a thing, I don't know why,

I just like them to be equally
straight and beautifully sharp.

So what we're doing here is we're
creating a fancy name.. juliennes.

Basically means matchstick style
vegetables.

A little test of the knife skills.

Then for the spring onion,
we're looking for the same length.

What this needs is a splash
of colour and a kick of heat.

It's very important,
unless you really like it.

So we go halfway through and we
remove those seeds.

Just like you get in the takeaway.

These coriander stalks add beautiful

bursts of freshness when you're
eating the duck pancakes.

Right, enough faffing around with
garnishes.

Back to the main event,
our crispy duck legs.

So nice and crispy skinned,
soft meat the whole way through.

Almost ready to serve.

I'm going to brush them
with some classic plum sauce.

Love painting my food.

Look at that.

Beautiful and shiny.

Finish them with some seasonings.

A touch of sea salt, little bit of
black pepper.

Then in here I have some
Chinese five spice.

Very, very tasty ingredients.

It's intense, so I only
use a little sprinkle.

Then just a few little crushed
coriander

seeds, because these are very,
very intense in flavour.

Then a little bit of lime zest
just to freshen it up.

Nice!

I'm using Chinese pancakes,
which are pre-made and it's very
simple.

I'm just going to stick a steamer

on the heat, get them in there,
warm them up for about a minute.

If you can't find the Chinese
pancakes, sandwich wraps will do.

While they steam, I'm going to plate
up to share in the middle of the
table.

I'll fill up this with some
extra plum sauce.

Pancakes are ready.

Beautiful, steamed. Ready to serve
in the middle of the table.

And if I do say so myself,
probably just about a step up

from the takeaway version.

Next up is cupcakes. A recipe I've
recently rediscovered.

Here's how I make them.

Cupcakes are really simple, but as
you can see here, they do go wrong.

With baking, tick to the quantities
in the recipe and you shouldn't go
too far off the road.

Here we have a cupcake that's
completely overfilled.

Then we have one in the middle here
where there's been no raising agent
added.

So while that might look okay,
it's pretty dense and pretty heavy.

And then this one is where too
much raising agent has been added.

And that looks like a volcano.

Forget about these.

Let's make them properly.

In a bowl, add together 160 grams
of butter and 160 grams of castor
sugar.

Whisk all together until light
and creamy in colour.

Follow this with three whole eggs.

Add 160 grams of self-raising
flour.

A lot of recipes call for mixing
the eggs for the butter and the
sugar.

But when the butter is too cold,
it can sometimes split.

So I add the eggs with the flour
together, mix it all.

Doesn't make that much of a
difference.

Next, get a cupcake tray.

This recipe gives you enough for
twelve

cupcakes, using about
a heaped tablespoon per case.

Now cupcakes will be level on top,

as opposed to fairy cakes,
which have a bit of a dome.

Once you've put the mix into the
moulds,

place the tray in a preheated
oven at 180 degrees.

Bake until they are golden
brown and have risen evenly.

Beautiful.

Just leave them to cool, just
enough time to make buttercream.

For the buttercream,

add 140 grams of room temperature
butter and 280 grams of icing sugar,

five tablespoons of lemon juice
and the scraped vanilla pod.

Mix it all together until you
get a smooth, soft consistency.

Then transfer the mix into the
piping bag.

The last thing you need to do is
bring out

your inner artist
and decorate the cupcakes.

Looking good.

Final touches. Some very thinly
sliced vanilla pod.

Sprinkles.

There you have the perfect cupcakes,
complete with a cherry on top.

So that's three solid recipes
for you to try at home this week.

And some cupcake inspiration.

I'll see you next time.

For all the recipes on tonight's
show, visit rte.ie/food

Subtitles:
RTE 2023.