Original subtitles

Look, I'm not gonna lie. I'm feeling plenty of pressure about today.

We're making toasties

and I'm standing next to the King of toasties.

Stop it!

Tim and his toasties - a household name.

So I'm going to do my best

and bring a delicious crumbed mushroom,

stuffed with lots of juicy semi-dried tomatoes,

caramelised onion, herbs and goat's cheese

in an open-melt style of toastie to the table

and king of the toasties, what have you got for us?

Well, I might have to steal that idea!

I love that and obviously I love toasties.

I've built a whole career off them

and I can't believe we get a whole episode

dedicated to toasted sangers.

So I'm excited.

I'm going to be making an apple pie toastie,

so I'm going sweet.

But I think you're only bound by your own imagination...

That's right.

..in terms of what you can put between two bits of bread.

And we are going to show that today. Absolutely. Let's do it.

Tim, we've had mushrooms a fair bit in the kitchen recently

and I'm pretty happy about it

and I'm going to include them in my crumbed mushroom toastie today.

So I'm going to get these cranking and ready to go into the oven.

But we want to make the stuffing to go onto the mushrooms.

So I'd love for you to chop up some fresh basil for me,

a couple of tablespoons or so

and the semi-dried tomatoes.

To get the mushrooms well cooked,

I like to paint each side with some extra virgin olive oil.

I just think there's something about toasties, just in general -

they remind me of my childhood.

Spaghetti jaffles after school

or cheese toasties on the weekend.

Yes! That's right.

And I'm actually not going to make mine between two pieces of bread.

I'm going to make mine almost like an open-melt style of toastie.

Let's get the basil straight in.

Now, of course, use whatever herbs you have on hand.

If you don't have basil on hand, chives or dill -

something like that is absolutely perfect.

Sun-drieds? Sun-drieds, I'd love you to chop.

And we're going to get a couple of tablespoons of caramelised onion.

Now, I've got to say,

caramelised onion is one of my favourite condiments

to keep in the fridge.

I use caramelised onion a lot in my toasties,

whether it's with lamb or with goat's cheese and pumpkin.

It can just go with so many things.

Now, we've got some beautiful goat's cheese here.

Lovely soft goat's cheese.

Again, if that's not your cup of tea,

then some parmesan or something along the lines of that would be great.

And then we'll get our semi-dried tomatoes in.

Yes. Oh!

And we'll get a little bit of almond meal in there as well.

So that's just going to help to bind it together a bit?

Bind it together.

Or you could leave it out if you've got any issues with nuts as well.

And, Tim, of course we cannot make a toastie without crusty bread.

No - and I've been admiring this beautiful sourdough loaf.

It smells amazing.

So what do we want - a couple of nice thick slices?

Yes, please. That would be great.

We're going to cook our bread a little bit like a bruschetta.

Brush it with some extra virgin olive oil

and then rub it with some garlic for that extra bit of taste.

Ooh!

Oh, this is beautiful bread.

I like it. There's one.

I'll leave this over here

so you can do some brushing of the olive oil and the garlic

and I'm going to fill up the mushrooms

and get them under the grill.

The grill's probably around a medium to high heat.

And we're going to do that so that they don't burn too fast,

so they have their nice, even cook.

Just for people watching at home,

when you rub garlic on the bread like this,

you probably think it's not doing much

but it really does make a difference.

So just a nice raw garlic clove that you've peeled,

just rubbing it into the bread.

It is an easy hack, isn't it?

You know, sometimes you go out and you eat at restaurants

and have breakfast at a cafe and you think,

"What have they done to make this so different

"to the toast that I eat at home?

"Why does this taste so good?" Yeah that's right. OK.

I'm going to do two without,

just to have on hand because I love mushrooms.

And then I've stuffed these two

and then we'll get them under the grill to cook.

They look awesome.

We have some epic toastiness happening now.

The grill served us well.

It's time to plate these bad boys up.

Beautiful.

Now, I love a little bit of mayo on the base

and I really enjoy a bit of chilli there too.

I've been quite generous, so hopefully, um,

we won't be in tears eating our toastie.

I can handle it. (LAUGHS)

Now,

I might put them both on like this.

Get a bit of a bit of extra mushroom flair.

Go crazy. Why not?

And toasties are meant to be creative.

You're meant to look at what you've got.

Absolutely.

That one on the top.

I love how that stuffing mixture is just caramelised up nicely.

So good. Salt and pepper please, my friend.

Yeah. Go for gold on the pepper.

OK.

So, salt.

Just a little. A little.

I'm learning, I'm learning.

And then we're going to get some rocket on for our greenery to finish.

Mmm. And that's it.

Wow.

I mean for a breakfast/brunch idea, this is next level.

I'm glad you approve!

You could charge a lot of money for that.

Oh, look, do you know what?

All I need is good company when it comes to food.

Look at that. That is a thing of beauty.

Thank you. I'm pretty happy with the result, to be honest.

I'm gonna cut in.

Now, look, toasties are a hard thing to share.

Oh, good crunch factor. Nice. That's what you like to hear.

Oh, have a look at that. That's for you.

And I love the bitterness of the rocket

that comes into play from the nice fresh rocket at the end too.

I can't wait. Oh, this is gonna get messy.

It's time to get amongst it.

Jac, holy moly. That is an absolute flavour bomb.

Well, I'm very touched,

because it was a lot to stand up next to the Toastie King.

But I'm glad I've met your expectation.

And when I need a job, I know who to come and find.

You're hired.

Today I'm going to make an apple pie toastie.

Wow. Alright?

Something a little bit different, outside the box.

That's what I love about toasties.

You can put anything between two pieces of bread

and we are going to show that today.

OK.

So, just 50g of butter or so

into our non-stick frying pan.

What I want you to do for me...

Would you be able to start

picking me some beautiful fresh thyme leaves?

Can do. How gorgeous.

And we've got a vanilla pod here.

I'd just like you to split that down the middle.

OK.

Scrape out the seeds and hold onto the pod.

I love using herbs in dessert cooking as well

and I think apple and thyme work so well together.

Why not use them in a dessert? Totally.

So, we're just melting our butter here.

While the butter is melting,

I'm just going to talk us through the other ingredients

that we're going to throw in there.

We've got two Granny Smith apples that we've just peeled and diced.

We've got some brown sugar,

some beautiful spices - we've got some nutmeg, some cloves.

Alright. The apples can go in.

This is easy. We're just literally adding all the ingredients at once.

Brown sugar.

Those beautiful spices.

And a little bit of water.

And I'm also going to add a little sprinkle of salt.

Even in desserts, I think a little bit of salt really goes a long way

and just helps to lift all the ingredients up.

Alright. What we want to do is just give this a little mix around.

And you can already see that that syrup is starting to form.

And all we have to do is cook this mixture for 5...

10 minutes, tops, until our apple has softened

and we've got a beautiful syrup that we're going to use later.

And this could be a cool way

to also use up some of your bruised apples and your stale bread.

Yeah. Yeah. Of course.

And if you didn't want to do apples,

if you had some berries, you could do a berry mixture

or peaches or nectarines.

The options are endless. They really are.

We'll let these apples cook for a few more minutes

until they're soft and the syrup is nice and thick and luscious.

We'll add the thyme and the vanilla in.

Yep.

And we'll come back and build some apple pie toasties.

Alright, Jac. It smells like Christmas in here.

It does!

These beautiful apples have softened

and our syrup has thickened up beautifully.

That's some serious syrup you've got there.

Let's build some apple pie toasties.

Now, I'm using fruit toast. Ooh!

Just to accentuate that sweet dessert style.

So a couple of bits of fruit toast onto our board.

Then we'll get a spoon

and we just want to try and get some of those beautiful apples

onto our toasties.

Alright. So we'll just share the apples.

Now, thank you, vanilla bean pods.

You have done your job.

I appreciate your work.

Now we'll just get some more of these apples.

Yum. So sticky as well, the sauce.

You've absolutely nailed it. Sticky goodness.

There we go.

We'll pop the lids on.

Now, when I'm doing just a couple of toasties at home,

I love to use a griddle pan.

A nice, heavy-based griddle pan.

You get nice, even heat distribution

and you get those awesome bar marks in the toastie as well,

which are impressive.

So, a nice whack of butter in here.

Now with these good-quality non-stick pans,

you don't normally need this much butter or oil

when you're cooking with them

but a little bit of butter just adds a great flavour to our toasties

and gives it that nice golden crunch that you want.

And that's the benefit of a good-quality non-stick,

is the fact that you don't have to use much oil.

Not today.

Just a little bit of butter for our toasties today.

We are just going to let these apple pie toasties cook

for 2 to 3 minutes either side till they're golden and crispy

and then we might even get the ice-cream out of the freezer.

Ooh!

Speaking my language.

Alright.

Our apple pie toasties, grilled to perfection in our griddle pan.

Out they come.

It just smells so good. Oh, they smell good.

They look good. They've got the perfect little char marks on them.

Let's cut through the centre of each one.

Plating up. This is the fun part.

Of course.

Let's have a look inside.

Oh, look at that!

Beautiful stewed, spiced apples.

So we'll get a stack here...

..and pop this one over here.

Now, I said we don't want to waste that syrup.

No, you don't want to waste the syrup!

And I was thinking, you know, this could be a breakfast,

or it could be a dessert,

by the look of the ice-cream that's sitting here as well.

You could take your pick, really, Jac.

I mean, if you had this for breakfast,

it would certainly give you lots of energy for the...

I think you'd have a lot of energy for the day.

The whole day.

So, that beautiful, gorgeous... The caramel!

It has almost turned into a caramel.

It is, yeah.

We don't want to waste any of that.

Sticky and delicious. Sticky and delicious.

And this is what I love about toasties -

you can get a bit creative with them,

think outside the box a little bit

and I can't wait for people to try this one at home.

I think kids would absolutely love this.

Oh, you think? (LAUGHS)

Alright. Now, we've got a gorgeous ricotta, fig and honey ice-cream.

Oh! All of those ingredients make me so happy.

Yes. So, a nice scoop of our ice-ream on top.

There we go.

Oh! Another scoop for you.

I think I just need to try the ice-cream as it is, you know?

Ice-cream is definitely my thing. Grab a spoon!

(CHUCKLES)

There we go.

Final flourishes -

just a few more of those fresh thyme leaves,

just to accentuate the freshness.

A little bit of green and of course, old-school but I love it -

Bit of dusting of icing sugar.

Oh, wow.

Make it rain or make it snow.

Who says you can't have a sweet toastie?

But savoury, sweet - it doesn't matter.

Get your toastie on at home. That's what it's all about.

I think I'll be taking this all to myself, actually.

OK. Fair enough. Thanks for that.

What I have for you today is the fastest, easiest,

really nutritious soup

and it's simply made with one of our favourite veggies.

Because who doesn't have a packet of frozen green peas in the freezer?

So I'm going to make a super-quick green pea soup.

You're going to love this one.

So just get your pan heating.

I'm going to use some extra virgin olive oil.

And then you know how we always start everything with onions?

I've gone for something a little bit different

but it is in the same family of vegetables - and that is leeks.

They've got a slightly more delicate kind of flavour.

I think we forget about them, somehow.

My mum always used to do leeks and white sauce.

That was the only way we had leeks,

so I've tried to be a little bit more adventurous.

You just want to saute that off nice and gently,

without burning in the bottom of the pan.

You want to sort of moderate to high heat.

And then I'm going to add some garlic -

again, it's in the same allium family of vegetables.

Lots of benefits to garlic.

So you know, as long as you are good with garlic -

I like to add it to everything.

And while that's sauteing I'm going to slice up my celery

and I am going to use the tops.

Gosh, we throw the tops away so often

but actually those leaves are really, really tasty.

Just as I'm chopping the celery,

it's making me think about that one myth about...

oh, do you kind of have negative calories when you eat celery?

Does it cost your body more calories to burn up and use

than it is that you actually get in the vegetable?

Not true, I'm afraid.

You do actually get lots of nutrients in celery though,

so it is well worth adding into your diet.

Then we just want to saute those vegies, just for a few minutes

until they're nicely softened,

the flavour starts to come out.

Some of that oil is infusing into the vegetables

and some of the antioxidants actually leach out into the oil,

so it's hugely beneficial.

Now, I do love to make a homemade stock,

so whenever I've made a roast chicken

or indeed when I've bought a roast chicken,

when I really am taking a shortcut,

I always use the carcass to make some homemade stock.

But sometimes I don't have any ready-made

and this is a really good alternative.

So I'm just going to make up a litre of stock.

This is all natural ingredients

and so I always have some of these in my pantry.

So I've got hot water, boiled water, in my jug here.

Or, indeed, you can add the water straight to the stock

and then add the concentrated stock liquid.

And I'll just give it a little whisk up.

And I've got ready-made stock that's super tasty.

So, once your veggies are nicely softened in the pan there,

we can just pop in the stock.

Pour it in.

And then we're going to add our green peas.

Don't worry if they're frozen - they're already cooked,

so you're literally just heating them through.

That's the advantage of using frozen green peas.

So, now all we need to do is bring this up to a simmer

to make sure that the peas heat through

and then we're ready for our last, final step.

So, once it's simmering, that's it.

Don't let it cook for too long

or you'll lose that beautiful, bright-green colour.

Now, what I'm going to do is just reserve a few of the green peas,

just to garnish my soup on the top.

I'm going to add some Greek yoghurt

and again, I'm going to keep just a little bit of this

because I like to add a little bit on the top of the soup.

Give it a stir in.

And then you can use one of these stick blenders to blend it smooth.

OK.

Once you've got your soup smooth,

you just want to have a little taste and check for seasoning.

I've used a ready-bought stock

and they usually already have some salt added,

so that's why I've not added any salt yet.

I'm going to add just a pinch.

Not too much.

And some black pepper.

Give it a stir.

And that's it - we're ready to serve.

Ladle it into your bowl.

But look at that gorgeous, gorgeous colour.

And then just top it with a little extra yoghurt

and a little reserved peas on the top.

So there you have it, a super-quick soup,

just using those humble green peas

that I have no doubt you've got in the bottom of your freezer.

When I'm looking at quick meals,

I always think, what protein can I have which is quick to cook?

And seafood is one of those.

Shellfish - so quick, so tasty and I think we don't eat enough.

Mussels are gorgeous, gorgeous.

So I'm going to show you a really quick dish today

and it's my spicy mussels with nduja, tomato and garlic.

And I'm starting off with olive oil.

And I'm going to get straight into there some chilli flakes,

'cause this is going to be spicy.

Some smoked paprika, for that smokiness

and my nduja paste.

So we're just going to let that literally come together.

It doesn't take long.

I don't want to smoke everyone out.

OK. That's cooking up really quickly.

I'm going to deglaze the pan with some sherry vinegar,

just a couple of tablespoons...

..and a glass of white wine.

Large glass.

We're just going to bring that back to the boil.

What we're doing here is we're building those layers of flavour,

which I always talk about.

Those spices, nduja,

the vinegar will give it that tart and sharpness.

Now I'm going to go in there with some tomato,

which is already infused with garlic, which is another layer of flavour.

It's got tomato paste in there as well,

so we get a richer, thicker sauce at the end.

Alright.

Now that it's simmering away, we're going to add our tomatoes.

And this is one of those sort of dishes

which I'd cook up, put down in the middle of the table,

everyone grabs a bowl,

we put down a fresh sourdough bread

and that's it - one of those simple meals

which is just so full-flavoured.

Alright. We're just going to bring that back to the boil now.

As soon as that starts to boil I'm going to add the mussels in,

'cause by the time the sauce is cooked, the mussels will be cooked.

And the way you know when mussels are cooked -

they open up and they say hello.

I mean...oh!

The smell of this dish is everything I want in food.

Fresh, seasonal, delicious.

That spice coming through from the nduja and the chilli flakes,

that hit of smoke from the paprika.

You can see how beautifully that sauce has cooked down

and how those mussels are now open.

You could just serve it in this pot

or you could dish it up.

I mean, the beautiful thing about mussels

is they've just got such a distinctive smell.

Beautiful quality mussels.

So big and delicious.

We are blessed in Australia with some of the best produce in the world.

Now just lay it out with the sauce.

For me, this is simplicity at its best.

My spicy mussels with nduja, tomato and garlic.

Captions by Red Bee Media