Original subtitles

Alright, team, we're making parcels today, and I have to say,

I'm actually really excited about this one

because there's something about the anticipation

of what's inside a parcel... Yes.

..that makes me most excited.

It's like a game of pass the parcel.

You don't know what's in the middle until you get to the end.

That's it. And what are you making?

I'm going to be making Chicken, Mushroom and Tarragon Filo Parcels.

Ooh, sounds pretty good. Mmm. Yeah. What about you?

So, I'm going to make a really wholesome pita pocket

with wholemeal flour, Greek yoghurt.

And I'm going to play into the Greek vibe, as well,

with fetta cheese, Spanish onion,

capsicum, olives, mint and parsley.

It's a really fun one.

I love making this one when friends come over.

Opa! That sounds vibrant. Yeah.

I'm excited. Let's get wrapping. Me, too. Let's go.

Alright, Jaq, you ready? I'm ready.

We're going to make some Chicken, Mushroom and Tarragon Filo Parcels.

Delicious.

A nice little wrap, full of beautiful, creamy goodness.

Yeah, lots of flavour. Absolutely.

We're all about flavour today.

First job I want you to start on for me -

can you chop those mushrooms for me? I can.

I'm also going to give you a little fun fact about mushrooms

as we kick off. Oh, OK.

Do you know if you put mushrooms on the windowsill and let them

absorb some sunlight,

it actually increases their vitamin D content?

Vitamin D is really important for healthy bones and teeth.

Well, you cannot say that I didn't learn anything today, Jaq.

No. That's a great little tip.

You're gonna go home and be a whole house full of mushrooms

on windowsills. I love that.

Yeah, thank you.

So, we're probably going to need all of those mushies.

Sure. That would be fantastic.

And here, I've got a couple of chicken thighs...

OK.

..that I'm just going to coat in a little bit of plain flour.

The reason I'm coating the thighs in the flour is, when I fry them

in the pan, they're going to get nice and crispy.

Oh, good one. Alright. Lovely.

So, a good glug of our Bertolli Extra Virgin olive oil into our pan.

I love that you're using the olive oil, the extra virgin olive oil.

Yep. You'll be proud of me. No butter today.

It's all about the olive oil. Excellent.

So, nice hot pan, medium-high heat.

And we're going to go straight in with our chicken.

(PAN SIZZLES) That's it.

We want to hear that sizzle.

I'm just going to get in there with my mitts

and get that into the pan.

So, we're just going to fry our chicken thighs in the pan,

in the olive oil, just to brown it off.

The herbs here, as well, you've got tarragon?

Yeah.

Now, excuse me for reaching over,

but I am just obsessed with tarragon.

And I think it's a really underutilised herb.

So, I absolutely love that.

So, I'm going to get you to chop some tarragon for me also.

No worries. Lovely.

So, our chicken, all I want to do is just brown that off.

Out it comes.

We're just going to pop the chicken into a bowl.

Beautiful.

Now, we're just going to keep

all those chickeny goodness. bits in the pan.

Ooh, OK, the essence of it. That's flavour.

That's flavour.

Now, we're going to hit that with a bit more

of our extra virgin olive oil.

Another good glug.

Oh, you've done an amazing job.

Now, it does look like a lot of mushrooms,

but as you know, as they release their moisture,

that'll probably reduce by half.

So, I'll get you to slice some tarragon for me, as well.

Yep. So, we've got our mushies in there.

Then, I'm going to add a diced onion,

some garlic.

And now, I'm going to add our Dijon mustard, as well.

That can go in.

So, that's roasting off really, really nicely.

Our mushrooms, our onion.

It smells amazing in here. It smells so good.

I love it.

I'm going to add the chicken back in.

Yep. In we go.

And that beautiful tarragon that you've chopped up for me,

that can go in as well.

Now I'm going to add some cream.

And this is going to help to bind everything together.

Now, all I want to do,

as that cooks and the cream thickens,

you'll just get the most luscious filling,

and it'll become nice and thick.

I reckon we've almost gotten to the point

where I'm happy with that.

I'm going to turn off the heat.

So, we'll cool this down, we'll come back,

and we'll get wrapping.

Alright Jaq, so our chicken, mushroom and tarragon mix

has cooled down. Looking so good. Smells so good.

Great consistency. Nice and thick.

Yeah. Let's get wrapping.

OK. So, we've got our filo pastry here.

And you're going to be painting your filo

with the extra virgin olive oil, is that right

Yeah, 'cause, normally, when I'm making these filo parcels,

or a lot of the times, people use butter...

Yes. ..to coat the outside of the pastry,

but we're going to use olive oil today and just show

how versatile the Bertolli Extra Virgin olive oil can be.

I see that you've got a bit of goat's cheese here, though.

Absolutely. When is that coming in?

Yeah. Thank you for reminding me.

So, what I want to do is I want to crumble this goat's cheese

into our mix to give it that nice cheesy flavour, as well.

So, that's going to crumble in to our beautiful mixture here.

Alright. So, now, I'm going to get my painting skills on,

and one layer of pastry, and just give a nice paint

of our olive oil onto the pastry.

And then, we're going to top that with another piece of pastry.

So, how many sheets of filo do you need per parcel?

I'm going to go three. OK.

That gives it a good base. Yep.

Then it shouldn't fall apart.

You shouldn't get any spillage or anything out of the parcels.

So, three layers there.

Then, I'm going to go on with just a good couple of tablespoons,

just in one of the corners.

We're going to just fold down from the top corner

and just make a triangle.

And then, we're just going to keep folding,

tucking those edges. Beauty!

And then, onto our baking tray that we've lined with baking paper.

And now, one last little brush and some sesame seeds on top.

We've got a few more to wrap here. We do.

You going to help me? Absolutely will!

Let's do it. (CHUCKLES)

Look at these parcels. They smell good.

They look good.

I'm so excited for what's inside.

It's always nerve-racking because you're watching in the oven,

just waiting, hoping.

But they're great. They're golden, crunchy.

Ooh! Perfection.

Let's plate some of these up.

Oh, they're so light and delicate.

So, these would be great for a picnic

or any lunch-time fiesta.

Let's chop into one. I want to see what's in the middle.

(PASTRY CRACKLES) That's a good sound.

Oh, would you look at that!

So, our beautiful mushroom, chicken, tarragon mix.

Let's have a little taste.

(PASTRY CRACKLES)

Mmm. Mmm.

Oh, wow. I'm actually speechless.

(LAUGHS) What do you think of the taste

of the chicken, tarragon and mushroom mix?

The chicken tarragon is creamy. It's herby.

I can taste that beautiful touch of Dijon in there.

It just has all come together so beautifully.

All this needs, to make this a balanced meal, is a nice

bitter-green side salad. Ah!

Rocket, radicchio - some of those crunchy greens in there,

and then we've ticked a few extra boxes.

I like your style. Nice side salad, and we'll be ready to rock'n'roll.

Oh, so good, Tim. Well done. Lovely. Thank you.

So, Tim, this is my fun take on a pita pocket.

Now, it's not traditional.

So, for those who might make Pita every weekend, I'm sorry,

I'm very untraditional in my approach.

This is Jaq's version, guys. Yes.

But it is a lot of fun, and it is really simple,

and it is something that you can get your kids involved with

or you can just make using a couple of very simple ingredients.

So, we've got a wholemeal flour to start for our dough.

Fantastic. And we want this to rise

because we're going to be cooking it in the pan.

Oh, nice. So, we don't want it to be all solid.

We want it to be light and fluffy.

So, we're going to get some baking powder in to do that.

To finish the dough, I've got a Greek yoghurt.

Most people have yoghurt on hand in the fridge...

Yeah. ..so it's a Greek yoghurt

and wholemeal flour, bit of baking powder, and that's it.

That's all you need to make your pita dough.

So easy!

So, I've got some roasted capsicum here, and I've just patted it dry

with the paper towel because it's got a lot

of moisture in it, doesn't it? Yeah.

And we don't want our parcels to be soggy, do we?

Not at all, no. No.

And that's a really good tip, because when they're marinated

and roasted like that, and they come in a jar,

they'll either be in oil or a brine. Yeah.

So, it's a good tip to...to just get some of that moisture off.

And if you could chop that up, that's going to be forming

our filling, along with the herbs, the onion, the olives,

the cottage cheese and the fetta.

So, bringing all those yummy Greek flavours to life. Oh, wow.

So, you'll see, with the dough, as well,

it starts when you've just brought it together with the fork,

a little bit of a crumb.

Then, you get your hands in there and bring it together

to form the dough.

This can take a couple of minutes,

but that's how you knead it and bring it together.

So, this is the point where you want to get the dough to.

You can see that whilst... Nice.

..it was crumbly to start, it's come together really well.

Looks good. Yeah.

And it's just a very, very simple dough.

So, once that's come together, get it into a little ball,

and then you can just pop it back in and set it aside

whilst you're prepping all of your filling ingredients.

Beautiful. How have I gone? Now, you've done a beautiful job here. Love it.

So, we've got our capsicum. So, we've got our red capsicum.

Lovely. And then we only need

about two tablespoons of the red onion,

otherwise it might be onion overkill. OK.

And we want to get some fresh herbs in there.

We do, so... So, we've some...

..parsley and mint. Beautiful.

And about three tablespoons of chopped parsley.

I also really love using the stalk in my parsley because it has flavour.

Yeah, I love that.

And the mint, a couple of tablespoons of sliced mint, as well.

Awesome. So, we have our fetta, capsicum,

olives, red onion.

I'm also going to help the filling bind together

a little bit more by using some cottage cheese.

Traditionally, people might use something like mozzarella

in something like this, but I like the cottage cheese.

It's a nice way to use up cottage cheese you might have

in the fridge from another recipe,

or to just start getting it into your diet

a little bit more frequently, as well.

So, our filling is done.

So, we've got our dough ball.

I gave it a little extra knead, for about 30 seconds.

That's all it 'kneaded' - pardon the pun.

And then, we cut it into four

to make four equal-sized dough balls. Lovely.

And then, once you've cut it,

you can shape it into a little ball again.

And then, we get rolling. Cool, OK.

So, shaped into a little ball.

Make sure you've got a good bit of flour on your surface.

Pop some flour on your hands if needed.

We don't want it sticking to the surface, obviously.

And it can be pretty rustic, but you want to press it out

into about maybe a 4mm or 5mm thickness.

Nice.

You can be a little bit different in your shaping.

It doesn't have to be a perfect circle or anything else like that.

No. You can kind of play with it.

But you want to get the filling in relatively quick,

and then zip it up into the cute little parcel.

OK. So, we want to make sure

there's good flavour,

without it exploding, so I think that should be enough.

They almost look like a little bread dumpling or something to start.

Yeah, I'm getting some... Then, you twist off the top.

..dumpling vibes here.

Alright. So, we're going to give it a little pat to finish,

and then going to get it into a fry pan.

Don't need any olive oil or butter in here.

Dry-fry? We're going to dry-fry them.

Fantastic. There you go, my pretty. (LAUGHS)

Take care in there.

Alright, then, round two. Oh, let's do it again.

Alright.

OK, so these little parcels have had their time in the pan.

You can see they're all golden and crispy.

Crispy! So, we want to get them

into our serving bowl.

Just let them kind of sit there for a minute or two,

just to let all the flavours relax and cool down a little bit.

And then, we'll cut into them.

They look gorgeous. Yeah, they're good fun.

And, you know... Nice and crispy?

..they are nice and crispy.

You can see that some have cooked a little bit differently to the others.

All good. No-one really minds.

And I love serving these up with a delicious salad.

Ooh! Lots more herbs.

You could add in a little bit of a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil

if you wanted to. There's some herbs I chopped,

if you want to sprinkle some of them on.

Perfect. If you like. Nice.

That's it! Time to tuck in. You want a knife?

Yes, please. There you go.

Alright. Let's have a look inside our parcels.

Very easy, homemade Wholemeal Pita Pocket.

Oh! How fun. Yeah.

A little parcel of goodness. Yeah.

Wow. Cheers.

Ha-ha.

That is absolutely gorgeous. It's fun, isn't it?

Crispy on the outside, delicious mix in the middle.

And really wholesome, using the wholemeal flour,

so you're getting lots of good nutrition in there.

Good sources of vegies in the middle.

Serve it up with a salad. It's my kind of meal.

Absolutely.

Great for midweek, and really family friendly.

Yeah. Fantastic.

Enjoy. Nice.

For a weekend brunch, I like nothing more than baked eggs,

and there's a whole load of different versions

from different areas in the Middle East,

and even from some other areas in the world.

But today, I'm going to go for Persia,

and we are doing Persian eggs.

So, I'm just heating this pan, nice and hot.

We start, as I always do, with some extra virgin olive oil

into the bottom of the pan, and then we're going to saute some...

I tend to go, often, for red onion,

mostly because I like the flavour a lot more,

but also that gorgeous purple colour is coming

from some extra anti-oxidants and things that are in there.

So, I like the taste, and I like the extra nutrition.

So, popping in my red onion,

and we're just going to saute that

for, you know, two or three minutes

until it starts to soften.

Be very careful you don't have the pan too hot

because I don't want this to brown.

I really want the vegies to be lovely and soft,

giving the flavour without giving any of that sort of,

you know, burnt or caramelised sort of flavour into it.

So, saute that, just for a few minutes.

We can add the garlic.

I've gone for quite a lot of garlic here.

Obviously, you just vary the garlic to what suits you.

So, here we've got some cumin,

and the fragrance that starts coming up from the pan

as these spices start to fry in the oil...

Oh, it's just beautiful!

And then, I've got some paprika.

And it's up to you whether you use smoked paprika,

sweet paprika, hot paprika -

if you want a little bit of a kick into your eggs.

I'm using some smoked paprika,

which just has that lovely...

..literally a smoky type of flavour that you can smell, as well,

coming up from this pan.

I'm popping in my capsicum.

And just, you know, cut your capsicum and your onion up nice and small

so you don't have too many big chunks of it.

We want it to be like a kind of chunky sauce.

So, and then, while those vegies are just softening, I'm going to go

for a little kick of chilli.

So, with chilli, if you're making it for the family, and you've got

young kids who don't, or anyone who just doesn't like the chilli,

take the seeds out.

Or you can, of course, leave the chilli out altogether.

I'm going to go for a little bit of kick because I like my chilli.

That's a compound called capsaicin that gives chillies their hit

and their spice, and it's really, really good for you.

It's another of those kind of medicinal compounds,

once it gets into your body.

So, I'm putting in a whole red chilli there, giving it all a good stir.

I'm going to add some salt at this stage.

I try not to use too much salt,

but a little bit does just bring out those flavours.

And some black pepper.

Most of the salt in our diet, about 70% of it on average,

is actually coming from packaged, highly processed foods.

So, if you're not using too many of those,

then you know what? You can add a little bit of salt in your cooking.

OK, that's looking really good.

I'm going to pop in some tomato paste...

..and some fresh tomatoes.

Now, often, I add canned beans.

Today, I'm going to add some canned lentils.

Now, this is a question I'm asked all of the time

about whether it's just as healthy to use canned lentils, beans,

chickpeas, and so on.

And, yes, it absolutely is.

This takes away all of those hours of soaking and cooking

that you often have to do for legumes,

and it means you're going to get them into your diet more often.

So, your goal is to get legumes into your diet, you know,

about three times a week.

So, if you use them canned, it's so convenient.

You can throw them into dishes like this,

pop them into your pasta sauces.

Lentils are brilliant for making your, you know,

bolognaise, for example, go a lot further,

make that meat go a lot further.

Plus, you're adding all that goodness, all that plant protein

and fibre, and so on, that you're going to get

in the lentils.

OK, that is looking really, really lovely.

And finally I'm going to pop through some of my greens.

So, I've got some baby spinach.

Now, it looks like it's a huge amount of spinach,

but of course once it wilts down, spinach goes away

to almost nothing.

So, I'm just going to wilt in that spinach.

Now, I'm going to add just a touch...

..of water

and fold in that spinach.

Do a little bit more.

You know, I like my greens.

That is smelling absolutely fantastic.

Now, don't overcook the spinach at this stage

because it is also going to go into the oven.

We can turn that off.

And here, I've got a couple of...

This is actually enough for about four,

but if you've got little dishes like this, or I have some cast iron

kind of ones at home that I often use,

then it just looks so lovely to serve someone up an individual bowl.

So, you just make sure that they're oven proof.

Pop some of this gorgeous spiced, lentil, tomato-y mixture,

making sure you get some of that spinach in there,

into our bowls.

Gorgeous.

And then, make a couple of little kind of dents

where we're going to crack in our eggs.

Carefully crack your eggs in.

Hopefully this is going to work for me, where I don't break the yolks

because it does look much prettier if you don't break the yolk.

And how long you put them in the oven just depends

on how you like your eggs cooked.

The real goal, and the way I think it's nicest,

is if the eggs are still just a little bit runny in the yolk.

Now, this is ready now to pop into the oven.

And it's going to cook for about 10, 15 minutes,

depending how well done you want your eggs.

OK, these are looking absolutely perfect, just how I like it.

It's a really tricky thing, you know, to get that white

perfectly cooked but still have a little softness and runniness,

gooeyness in the yolk.

That's your perfect baked egg.

Now, I'm just going to top this with some fetta

that I'll literally just use my hands to crumble over the top.

And fetta adds that gorgeous sort of tangy, slightly acidic,

crumbly, cheesy flavour.

And then, the secret ingredient is some lovely dukkah.

This has got some pistachios, some sesame, different spice mixes,

some hazelnuts.

So, make up a mix of dukkah, and you can use it in lots of different ways.

And then, finally, just a little fresh coriander to finish it off.

Just roughly chopped.

Sprinkle on the top.

Not too much.

You don't want it to overpower

the overall dish.

And then, serve up with some toasted sourdough, perhaps,

to dunk in and soak up all those lovely juices.

Persian Baked Eggs - it's a weekend treat.

So, this can be brunch, it can be lunch.

It can even be a light dinner.

I absolutely love this dish.

Captions by Red Bee Media