Original subtitles

We all want recipes that are fast and simple,

so I've got some really easy ways to hack your cooking.

Think quick tray bakes for midweek meals.

That, for me, is what simple cooking is all about.

Easy batch recipes that sort you out later in the week.

If you do this at the weekend, it buys you time.

And cheeky store cupboard raids

for when you've run out of time to shop.

Beautiful things can come from tins.

This is cooking stripped back to its bare essentials

to make mealtimes faster and simpler than ever before.

On the menu today,

a simple salmon tray bake that you can make in minutes.

Ooh! That's going to taste good.

A speedy, no-cook pasta sauce that'll save you time midweek.

That is the quickest dish! That's what we want,

right? In simple cooking, we want simple solutions.

No-fuss fishcakes that you can knock up from store cupboard staples.

I might not have the fish, but I've got the tins.

Solutions and enthusiasm, that's what this is all about.

And I've invited cook, Julius Fiedler,

to show you a gorgeous vegan meal that you can bang out

with ingredients that you might just have at home already.

Honestly, the sound, the smell,

it just means that something good is happening.

And my son, River, helps me whip up

a clever dessert that you're going to want to make again and again.

How's that chocolate?

So good!

For this delicious recipe, we're going to be grilling.

We're going to go from cold oven

to cooked meal in 15 minutes. It couldn't be simpler!

This miso salmon traybake is an easy but exciting midweek meal.

Beautiful salmon and crunchy veg,

grilled hard and fast with a gorgeous umami miso paste,

is a brilliant, simple solution

for when you want big flavour fast.

I absolutely love this dish.

The idea that you can come home from work

and rattle something out so quickly.

Cold oven, put it on grill, full whack.

I've got a kettle on. So, four little nests of rice noodles.

We use a lot of these in our family.

You can literally go from dried noodles to hot

and steamy and delicious in, like, three or four minutes.

These are regular white rice noodles but you can also get

the wholewheat variety that are even more healthy.

So, grab yourself a bowl. Just pour over the water,

then in the fridge, I've got some veggies and some salmon.

So, let's just talk about the veggies first.

Beautiful sugar snap peas.

320g and then I've got 500g here of asparagus.

What I want to do is just bow it.

Watch, watch, right? Where it clicks,

is where it starts getting woody and tough.

This is succulent and gorgeous.

I'm going to just do that to all of them.

We're not going to waste that. This will make the most delicious soup.

Onions, olive oil, soften. Asparagus goes in,

a bit of mint, bit of stock, a bit of cream, if you want.

Just whizz it up. Happy days.

Then, I've got some lovely fresh salmon.

This is like 150g portion and that's got the skin on.

Skin's very nutritious. I'm just going to take a knife

and gently go through the fish and by cutting it in half,

you're creating more surface area. If you've got more surface area,

you've got more opportunity to take on flavours.

Do that to the four fillets of salmon.

Super-easy.

These are great fish to get into our diet.

Omega threes, brain function, great source of protein.

Now, marinade. I'm going to use a flavour...

You can get this in all the supermarkets, miso.

There's many types of miso. Look at that.

I mean, it's dark, it's mysterious. It's got funk.

What is it? Well, it can be fermented soya beans,

fermented rice, and that fermentation gives you

a spectrum of flavours that you just can't get from

a little bit of seasoning.

Take a lime and finely grate the zest.

We're going to go in with the juice. Acidic,

fresh, full of vitamin C. Get that in there.

Sesame oil. You can use olive oil if you want,

a teaspoon or two. I'm going to go soy sauce.

When I used to work in Japan,

they'd use these sort of misos in all kinds

of different ways. They blew my mind.

You can use them brushed on veggies, you can like,

marinade a roast chicken, pork chop, right, fish,

and it's utterly simple. Give it a try.

Get your hands in. Clean hands. Marinade it up.

This is going to be beautiful.

I want to contrast that with texture,

something like a little bit crispy and nutty,

to contrast that delicateness. Ooh!

That's going to taste good! Generously scatter sesame seeds.

That's going to give you crunch, it's going to give you attitude.

I'm going to divide it into four quarters

because it's four portions.

I'm going to take this beautiful salmon

and just lay it over the asparagus.

So, I want to talk to you about the cooking method.

So, grilling. It's a brilliant way of coking

and I'm going to put it at the top of the oven,

and I want to like, catch things.

I want those sugar snap peas to almost bubble

and blister. So, look at that. It's looking good.

And we'll cook that for about ten to 12 minutes,

depending on the power of your grill.

What's great about this is you're going to get that grill heat from

the top, but underneath, it's just going to be

a steamy environment, which is beautiful for asparagus

and salmon. Now, while that's cooking, let's do a pickle.

Right, so, we've got ten minutes. Carrots, I've got here.

I want to bit of herbage. You can use any herb you want.

I'm going mint. I've got radishes, often forgotten in the supermarket,

and spring onions for a little bit of kind of perfume,

a little bit of hum. But look, when you're shopping,

you might find there's different coloured veggies.

Get amongst it. Don't just go for the orange, right. Like, mix it up.

It's going to be so fresh and so gorgeous.

So, peel your orange carrot

and I'm going to peel the yellow carrot

and I'll put that in the composter.

What this is going to do, with the simplest,

cheapest gadget in the kitchen, is give you like

a slice that most chefs couldn't even think about doing

with a knife, right. It's just too hard. Beautiful.

Just layer it up like a pack of cards

and in no time at all,

we can start making some very delicate textures.

Then, with the radishes here, cut it this way...

..and then take one and cut it the other way.

So I'm celebrating form, colour.

Next thing we're going to do, beautiful spring onions.

So, anything crunchy and veggie, these can all be like,

delicately cut up and put into a beautiful pickle.

I might throw a couple of whole ones in there.

Take a lime. We've got the zest and now,

we're going to add the juice. Such a beautiful citrus.

And then hit it up with some salt.

So now we just dress it up and the acid

and the salt will start doing their work.

Like mint, you can put in whole leaves,

you can slice them up

and you got a nice little fresh pickle.

So, we're about ten minutes

and you can see the sesame seeds are starting

to dance on the top, so we're pretty much there.

Let's drain those noodles.

Oh, the smells! That miso.

Look at that.

Oh, let's just put it back in for one more minute.

Just want to get that char!

Life as a dog.

Just to walk about, get loved. What a life... Anyway.

Right. There you go. 11 minutes.

A beautiful dinner.

You can see how the asparagus here is just sort of charred up,

and if we take a little sugar snap,

we've just blistered the outside in a really,

really beautiful way.

Perfectly cooked!

This is a good vibe, right?

Really lovely dish in no time at all.

And now this pickle, I just like to grab a little bit

and just pop it right in the middle, like that.

I love it! And we've got juice on the bottom as well,

because underneath, it's steaming and the juices come out of the fish,

they come out of the asparagus

and that with the miso creates this beautiful natural sauce.

Let's plate some up. You could have this with rice.

I love it with these noodles,

just because I haven't got to get another pan out,

and it's so quick. Just look at that.

We'll get in with the sugar snaps. Let them spill down.

Look at that. All that miso joy.

Come on! What a lovely dish! Fun, simple. Let's get in there.

You can see that the salmon is just beautifully cooked.

It's just flaking.

Miso! Go on.

So, we didn't do anything to those rice noodles

but what it has done is soak up,

see all that dripping off? That's that miso sauce.

Mm! What's brilliant about

the miso is it gives your everyday salmon really interesting,

sweet, sour, tangy complexity and the asparagus here...

..the tips have caught a little bit, so they go nutty

and then you bite down a bit more, sweet and tender.

That, for me, if I came home from work and I was a bit knackered

and I wanted my taste buds to get tickled,

that's it. Rattled, under the grill. Mm!

That is what simple cooking is all about.

What I love about this recipe is most of it comes from here,

the cupboard, right,

where we're going to big up things like tinned tuna,

tinned potatoes,

sweetcorn and we're going to put it together in style,

and trust me, it's really simple.

Let your store cupboard come to

the rescue when you've not had time to shop.

My tin raid fishcakes transforms trusty staples into something really

special. Served with a simple crunchy slaw,

this is the easy road to exciting flavour.

Often when you're a chef,

people think you don't really use things in tins or jars.

You do. These are life savers. So, pan on,

medium heat. By the time that heats up,

we'll be ready to cook our fishcakes.

So, first one. I love tinned potatoes.

They're picked at their best and they're already cooked,

right? So, this gives us in a busy life this ability

to react very quickly when you'd normally have to peel

and wait for things to cook.

Next up, tinned tuna. So, drain that off.

We got sweetcorn. All great value.

So, here's our primary ingredients.

How are we going to bind that all together?

Egg is a classic binder of a fishcake.

So, we'll put an egg into there.

We need a bit more than that, so the potatoes,

if you break them up, they'll bind. That's good.

We still need a bit more. Stale bread.

It doesn't have to be stale but if it is, doesn't matter.

Put that in the juice from your potatoes, or

the tuna juice and then squeeze it out like that

and this'll give a lightness

and a sort of delicate texture to our beautiful fishcakes.

So, nearly there. Mustard. English mustard.

So, these are all things that most of us have in our cupboards,

and if you haven't,

I highly recommend getting them in there. I haven't stopped yet.

Just a little handful of coarsely grated cheese.

Little pops of cheese melting inside your fishcake.

This is going to be amazing, right?

Go heavy on the black pepper.

So, what we can do is scrunch it between your hands like that.

Bring in all the ingredients and dress it in that egg.

If you've got lemon hanging around, just take the zest.

So, look, loads of flavours going on there.

Once we've got that mixed up, push it down like that.

We'll cut this mixture in half and then into quarter.

It's completely not accurate, but I don't care.

Then, we'll take each half and put it into two.

So, roughly, you're going to get eight little patties.

Some might be bigger and smaller,

but my kids are bigger and smaller, so that's all right.

Put it into a little snowball like that.

So, olive oil in the pan, which is just heated up.

Take some regular all-purpose flour, plop it in the flour like that.

It just gives that nice, golden crispiness.

And I'm going to put it on the palm of my hand, press it down.

You can go as thick or as thin as you want.

I'll do one fishcake slightly bigger than the other.

So, round ball, in the flour. It's as simple as that.

So, I've got two in the pan. These can go in the fridge.

You can use them in the next couple of days.

They take about, look, on a medium heat,

I think like, three or four minutes on each side until golden and crisp.

Let's turn it over. Let's see what's going on.

They're looking beautiful.

Then, I'm going to make a delicious homemade slaw,

a fridge raid slaw, right,

so I don't care if you've got brussels sprouts,

red cabbage, white cabbage, anything crunchy.

Fennel, carrots, sprouting broccoli.

I've got a bit of onion. You could have apple,

you could have pear. Speed peeler.

Let's get into the vibe. Bit of onion.

Don't need much. We're going to go red cabbage.

Anything you can get and grate, get and grate.

Er, I'm going to take asparagus.

Thinking about when I grew up as a kid in school,

the idea of a slaw, it was cabbage, carrot,

onion, mayonnaise, right? Let me give you another option.

I can reduce the fats by 90% if you let me swap out your mayo

for beautiful yoghurt.

Now, with the fennel, I'm just using the little top bit,

the stalks, and I think if people are honest,

they normally throw that away. Apple.

Anything you can grate, you can slaw.

So, enough yoghurt to cover it. That's your creaminess.

Let's go for wholegrain mustard. That goes in,

a little teaspoon. We could use vinegar or lemon juice.

Fish, lemon juice. We've already used the zest.

Let's go for it.

And then any herb basil, mint, parsley.

I've got some dill. Just tear it off.

Rustic slaw and mix it up.

Now, that beautiful red cabbage is going to stain it all,

so hopefully, within about 40 seconds,

we're going to have the most beautiful ruby fridge raid slaw.

Look at that. Let's have a taste.

Right, it needs more salt. I'll take the pepper.

It needs a little olive oil. The mustard's good.

The creaminess is there. So, let me just wash me hands.

For me, this is real life.

Like, I'm not always sitting there cooking steaks and like,

posh things like, like, you know, I'm a dad,

I'm busy, I'm juggling, right?

I crave things like beautiful a fish cake

but I might not have the fish, but I've got the tins.

Solutions and enthusiasm, that's what this is all about.

Let's plate this up.

That's going to sit on the bottom.

And if you've got some,

just the smallest amount of feta cheese crumbled

and rained down on top is just a beautiful thing.

This is simple cooking that delivers big.

Lemon. Come on, yes!

Get in there! Look at that crispiness!

Sweet, funky from the tuna. The cheese.

It is really, really good.

Let's go for the fridge raid slaw.

Mm... Like, the way that the lemon juice and that yoghurt

and the mustard works. It's really, really silky.

This is like minimal effort, super simple,

super quick. Like, cheat cooking.

I don't want you to work harder or cook harder.

I want you to think and cook smart.

That is what simple cooking is all about. Yum!

And I'm certainly not the only one looking

for meal inspiration from my store cupboard.

We've all been there. We come home late,

we don't have any time, but we still want a really nice, nourishing meal.

Julius Fiedler is a plant-based cook who explores traditional recipes from around

the world that just so happen to be vegan.

Come on!

He's got over two million followers on Instagram

and tons of simple hacks

to create gorgeous flavour from humble kitchen staples.

This is a jar of brown lentils.

These are the ultimate superfood to have at home.

These are a really good source of protein

and if you cook them raw, from scratch,

you can use that cooking liquid as your stock,

so you instantly have massive flavour.

You can turn that into a wonderful soup

and that's exactly what we're going to make today.

Julius' quick fix lentil

and pasta soup takes two kitchen essentials to new heights.

Super-easy to make, it's a delicious,

rustic, healthy meal that you can knock out in no time.

It all starts with the lentils. Going to go straight in,

dried, into our pot.

And then around two litres of boiling water.

So, let's start our story.

What we want to do is cook them without any salt.

If you add salt, it's going to slow down the process.

So I'm just going to get this to a boil.

They're going to take around 15 minutes to be tender.

In the meantime, we're going to start out base.

Grab one onion. I'm just going to peel this.

Few slices in here,

which just helps you to dice it a little bit quicker.

This is just a little way

to get nice little cubes of onion as quickly as possible.

You could use any onion you want to use for this.

I usually always have white onions at home

to start off any dish that I want. While I'm chopping this,

I'm going to heat up my second pan

and also I'm going to go in with some olive oil.

One tablespoon or two tablespoons will be absolutely fine.

Crack on with my second onion. Here we go.

This is inspired by Middle Eastern Levantine cooking.

Often you have a starting point with onions. You have a little bit of

garlic, and then you have some source of protein,

today, that's our lentils, and flavoured with spices.

So. you really have these little building blocks

of flavour that give you a wonderful,

wonderful dish at the end.

I'm going to go in with my onions now.

We want to be quite on a high heat to get

a bit of colour onto those onions.

This is the beginning of a beautiful story

because honestly, the sound, the smell,

it just means that something good is happening.

And whilst these are cooking,

I'm going to crack on with the coriander.

Grab as much as you like.

You don't actually have to use coriander.

You can use parsley, you can even use mint,

also really nice. I'm going to grab around 30g of coriander.

Trim off a little bit.

Just roll this up as tight as you can.

We're going to use it as our base layer of flavour,

but we're also going to use it as a garnish later.

You don't have to be too precise with this.

I'm going to give my knife a quick rinse.

Next up, it's lemon.

So, there's a little hack coming your way

because I'm going to use the juice of one lemon

and I'm going to add a good teaspoon of flour into

the lemon juice.

That's based on the principle that if you introduce

a starch to some form of liquid, it will thicken it.

So, just whisk that up

and we're basically ready for the next step - garlic.

I don't think there's a single dish I cook at home without garlic.

So versatile.

I'm peeling garlic now, which slows me down a little bit

and there's a hack that you can do.

If you have a little bit of a Sunday afternoon

and you want to get ahead for next time,

peel as much garlic as you feel like.

Whack all of that into a food processor,

blitz it up into a paste

and you could put that in ice cube trays.

You're going to have garlic galore sitting in your freezer

and all you do is whack a garlic ice cube straight into the pan.

We're just going to go for four garlic cloves.

I'm grating the garlic straight into the dish

and that's going to cook for the last minute with

the onions, and instantly, we're in another dimension

because that garlic flavour is filling this kitchen

and it's just so... Oh, God, it's just...

And while that's cooking away, I'm going to grab my spices.

Obviously, in Middle Eastern culture,

you use a lot of spices.

I'm going to go in with cumin and coriander.

A really good teaspoon of ground cumin,

also a level teaspoon of ground coriander,

and lastly, just some black pepper.

So that's our trio of spices.

OK, so we've got those spices heated up

and that aroma is just coming out of this pan,

so we know we're ready for the next step,

which is perfect because by now our lentils are done,

and that means we can go straight in

with all of those lentils and all of that liquid.

Perfect.

We're going to introduce our lemon juice and flour.

Give that a little stir and straight in,

and that will flavour but also thicken the soup a little bit.

So, while this is coming back to a boil,

I'm going to prep our pasta. This is tagliatelle.

We break them straight into our soup

and these nests are perfect for that because instantly,

you have little pieces of pasta that in a soup

are perfect on a spoon. Roughly 300g straight into the pan.

Really, any pasta that you have left over at home,

you can use for this. This combination of pasta

and lentils is actually really common in the Middle East.

And then we've got our fresh coriander,

so I'm going to go in with roughly half.

We've got ground coriander in here, but fresh coriander obviously adds

a very different flavour profile.

So, just give that a little stir

and we're ready for our last ingredient,

and this is not traditionally in the soup,

so this is just a little twist to bring in some colour,

to bring in some veg, whatever you want to use.

I'm using spinach.

It looks like you're adding a massive amount

but it's going to cook down within seconds.

I'm using fresh spinach today.

If you've got frozen spinach sitting in the freezer,

you can just put that in. Season it.

So, be generous with your salt

and that will perfectly season our lentils.

It will also stop them from cooking.

We now have around eight minutes for the pasta to cook

and that buys me some time to do some cleaning up.

And now it's finally time to serve,

so lid can come off and oh...

Instantly, you're getting a hit of aroma.

That little bit of flour that we added to

the lemon juice creates a really nice velvety look.

And then you can just dot around a few pieces of spinach.

That fresh coriander will add a really nice garnish.

And then a final touch, always, olive oil.

That last addition that brings everything together.

I'm so excited now. So, this is the pasta and lentil soup,

inspired by traditional Middle Eastern cooking.

It's the ultimate combination to create a really nice,

quick pasta and lentil dish that just ticks all the boxes.

And now the moment of truth, tucking in.

Obviously, the best part of cooking.

Mm!

It's such an explosion of flavours.

It's such a kick from that garlic. You get the coriander,

it's packed with flavour from that lemon,

from those spices. Mm! Just so wholesome!

Wow! And that's why taking inspiration from all around

the world is so exciting because you're opening up the pantry to

so many different flavours. The lentils and pasta together,

by itself not that exciting.

Adding lemon juice and spices, next level. So good. Mm!

Every now and again,

you need a meal that is going to blow people away.

Get your friends round, have a few guests,

and I've got one for you that you can put together in minutes.

It's really, really simple. Get it in the oven,

let it do all the hard work and before you know it,

you have got a feast that everyone is going to absolutely love.

My gnarly lamb Madras traybake is

going to prove that epic celebration food doesn't have

to be complicated. It might have a slow oven cook,

but with just ten minutes' prep,

it's simple hands off cooking at its best.

Have a look at that. A beautiful shoulder of lamp.

What a treat!

It is a tough cut but when you slow cook it,

it melts into this beautiful, tender,

melt in your mouth meat that is so memorable

and people go wild for it.

So, let me show you something a little bit different.

I want to take some curry paste.

You can get these in the supermarket.

They're super useful. This is a Madras one.

Use whichever one you love. So, loads of spices,

it's a nice little cheat that really speeds things up for you.

I'm going to score this lamb. It'll help render the fat

but also create more surface area

to cling onto that spice. Every kind of,

let's say two centimetres,

I'm just going to score with a knife. Not very deep,

just through that lovely fat, all the way across.

Criss-cross it the other way.

We'll then just give it a little oil,

salt and pepper.

Be fairly generous.

Rub that in on all sides of the lamb.

And then we go in with two nice tablespoons of this spice.

Get it into all those little criss-crosses.

This is going to be a meal that you remember,

I promise you. So look, let me wash my hands.

OK, what can I put under the lamb that's going to cook in

the same time, that's going to create some incredible thing

that's going to be served with this lamb?

And I'm thinking like a homemade dal, right?

It's not going to be a classic dal,

but it's going to be my expression of it.

250g of yellow split peas.

You can get them in all of the supermarkets.

They absorb flavour,

they double in size and they love spice.

The other half of this curry paste,

then I'm simply going to take four big tomatoes and halve them.

They'll cook down and give a beautiful sweetness,

and the I'll take four onions.

Just peel them and I'll halve those as well.

When working with things like split peas,

lentils, for me, I like to grab some potato.

Just cut this in half and in that cooking time,

it will just fall apart and when you mash those peas later on,

it'll give it a lovely silky consistency which will be delicious.

In there I'm just going to drive forward

a little love affair with one of mine

and my wife's favourite spices - cloves.

Look at this. Beautiful fragrant, with the sweet onions,

the spice, the lamb. It's going to be epic.

Then, grab yourself a bulb of garlic.

Get your hand out and give it a nice little smash.

We're not going to peel the garlic. Throw it in, right?

Let the skin protect the garlic, let it go creamy and gorgeous

and then I'll get rid of the skins later on.

We want some herbage and a classic herb

for these kind of flavourings would be,

maybe mint, but in this case, fresh coriander.

A little hint, when you're keeping fresh herbs,

wrap them in some wet kitchen paper

and it keeps them really fresh for a long, long time.

What I want to do is just run my knife through the stalks,

fairly fine, and then as you get to the leaves, go slightly chunkier.

Then the tops, I'm just going to keep

and just put in a little bit of cold water

and that'll keep them really fresh

and then when this dish is all finished and gnarly

and golden, I'll just finish it with some lovely fresh herbs.

But in the meantime, this part goes in here.

And last but not least, I'm going to get some beautiful ginger.

I love ginger. Nice, big old chunk,

and I'll use the back of the knife just

to scratch away that skin. You all right, Conker?

He can smell the lamb.

That can go in the composter. Slice this up.

Oh, it smells amazing! Mix it all up.

That's an amazing trivet. All the flavour of that lamb

and the bones will go into that. Bit of salt. Washing hands again.

OK, now all we need is 1.2 litres of boiling water.

It's nice to use boiling water

because it kind of gets that temperature going.

This will create that humid environment,

which will start breaking down

the shoulder of lamb. It won't be tough for long.

What a picture that is! Come on!

Oil this tinfoil and a little bit of the lamb.

This goes on top.

So, let's just get that tight around the edges.

We'll cook that for five hours at 170 degrees Celsius,

which is about 325 Fahrenheit. With about ten minutes to go,

I'll take that tinfoil off

and you'll get the most gorgeous kind of crispy, gnarly lamb.

Beautiful dal is going to be absolutely delicious.

What a feast! So, in we go.

And that's it.

A decadent dish, thrown together in minutes.

Brilliantly simple slow cooking that gives you loads of time to get on

with everything else you've got to do.

So, the lamb's had four and a half hours.

Let's have a little look, see what's going on.

Oh, the smell is amazing!

When you're opening stuff with steam,

be careful cos it could catch you, but,

ah.... Come on!

This is exciting.

Just angle that tray and baste it.

That's just beautiful fat that will give you the nicest,

gnarliest topping. Pure flavour right there.

Can you see? Just under that onion,

we've got this dal here, so as I start to mash this,

we'll get that beautiful dal-y texture with

the potato that I put in.

I'll put the onion back on top cos it might go

a little bit crispy. Can you see how tender that is?

Like, that is literally bouncing. So it's already cooked,

it's already tender,

so I only need to put it back in the oven to get it gnarly.

See, how this, this little shoulder blade here,

if I twisted it, it would just come straight out.

Let's take it out. That is a sign that it's perfectly cooked.

So, look, back in the oven for, like, ten minutes...

..just until that lamb is like, gnarly,

dark and sizzling. This is going to be good!

So, I'm just waiting

for that perfect moment where you have that contrast between

the most succulent, tender, melt in your mouth lamb and that, like,

gnarly top where the fat's dancing on top.

I think we're good.

Look at that!

Looking pretty strong, I must say. It really smells exciting.

The effort that we put in

to getting these flavours was pretty minimal, right?

We're going to get under that lamb with

a couple of spoons. It's very tender,

so it could well fall apart, and put it over here.

Look at that! I might take a couple of whole onions.

If you just squeeze it, see how it just kind of comes out,

like a little Russian doll of caramelised onion.

There's a few tomatoes as well

and these'll be lovely just to have on the side.

Then, take just a few of these coriander leaves.

Drop it around, just for the pops of colour and the freshness.

Delicious! Take just a little bit of red chilli.

Look at the colours. Wedge of lemon.

So, imagine that at the dinner table,

like, epic, right?

We'll take these spoons out of here

and start mashing the potato.

We'll start finding these little garlic cloves.

Give them a squeeze,

then you can take the skin out,

and that will give you the most amazing subtle flavour.

Just mash up those veggies,

those potatoes and those lentils, making this beautiful,

rustic dal, all those flavours from the lamb.

Let's have a little try.

Mm!

So, we need to season that for sure, with salt and pepper.

If you wanted it to be spicier,

you could chop some chilli or chilli oil through it,

but I'm very happy with that.

Just put that dal on here like that.

So, normally with a dal, you know, it's done in a pan.

Fair amount of stirring,

but that was very, very effortless and easy.

We can now put that lamb back on top of it and serve it.

I'm literally going to just use gravity,

just to pull it apart. So tender.

Gorgeous!

Sadly, the spices are not going to work for you,

Conker, but I know what you're thinking, mate.

Big celebration food,

but still super simple and all done in one tray. Come on!

Let's plate some up. Plenty of that dal.

Look at that.

Just beautiful.

I've just got some poppadums.

Bit of mango chutney, if you want. A little squeeze of lemon.

Bit of yoghurt. That is a colourful plate.

Time to try.

Let's get that perfect little mouthful.

Dreamy texture. The lamb is so tender.

It makes me kind of think about that concept

of fast food, right?

That was fast to put together and then slow in the oven

but, like, you don't have to watch it.

The oven does all the hard work,

and then you end up with this beautiful one tray feast.

I mean, imagine this for a dinner party.

Absolutely beautiful. Massive flavours!

The dal is knockout. Deep, deep, deep in flavour,

and that little bit of chilli that just like, pops. Wow!

That, for me, is perfection. You get that tenderness,

but the outer skin is, like, crunchy.

That meat, you can keep it and use it in many,

many dishes. Like, you won't waste anything.

It's too flipping good. I mean, this feels like clever cooking

and all that flavour created in one tray,

that quick put together and that slow cook,

that frees you up and you've got the house smelling of delicious flavours.

Wow! That's what it's all about.

So simple, but yet the results are absolutely epic.

I have got a glorious pasta dish for you to enjoy.

While this pack of spaghetti cooks in there,

I'm going to show you how to make the most amazing,

vibrant, delicious and simple no-cook tomato sauce.

When you want to keep things fast and simple,

then a no-cook pasta sauce can give you spectacular flavour in no time.

This speedy salsa spaghetti with fresh tomatoes,

capers and chilli,

takes quick pasta dinners to another dimension.

Two hands and I'll twist it opposite directions.

The pasta just spins around and as that cooks down,

it won't stick to each other, so it's a nice little tip.

We're going to cook that for 12 minutes.

Now, in that time,

we are going to make a stunning tomato sauce.

When I was a young man working in my mum and dad's restaurant,

I used to cook tomato sauces for hours sometimes,

but actually, a raw sauce is really, really exciting.

So, think of it as a salsa, like a fresh,

raw tomato sauce.

And whether you're tossing it with beautiful pasta,

or you're using it over like, roasted fish or meat,

it is really a great principle recipe to learn.

So, it's going to start here. We'll hit this up

with three or four tablespoons of olive oil.

Then, red wine vinegar.

Sea salt goes in and some lovely black pepper.

And then one clove of garlic.

So, grating garlic gives you a very different flavour

to when you slice it or you chop it.

It's a little bit more delicate.

This'll give the salsa a really lovely heat

and that'll start kind of semi-pickling in that vinegar.

Still using the box grater,

I'm going to look at these tomatoes.

Now, you can make this raw,

uncooked tomato sauce with any tomatoes you like.

If you've got different coloured ones, yes, celebrate it. If not, please don't worry about it.

I'm going to cut it in half and I'll start to grate it.

Now, what happens here is quite interesting.

Out of this grater will come

a lovely kind of greenhouse-y, very fresh tomato pulp

and you'll notice all the seeds are just sitting on

the top, not going into my sauce. So we like that.

And then this skin, we get rid of that.

You can see what we're doing here.

We're, we're starting to create the potential

for massive flavour. Ah, it, it already smells incredible.

Now, I'll come back to the tomatoes but over here,

let's look at beautiful, fragrant things.

So, capers. They're very delicious.

Get a couple of little teaspoons.

Now, these are salted so by putting them in vinegar and oil,

you start purging that salt and that salt can be used

to season your pasta, so that's a nice thing.

I'll chop half of them and leave the other half whole.

Then, olives. Just take a nice little handful.

So if you love olives, as I do,

then get the ones with the stones in.

They taste much better.

Put your thumb on the olive and crush it like that.

Really fragrant and delicious.

And then simply take that little stone out.

Just tear these up in and around this lovely sauce.

So, back to the tomatoes here.

What I want to do is celebrate all their natural variation in size,

colour and form. So I might halve some,

quarter some of those cherries. The bigger ones,

I'll finely chop.

Look at these colours.

The first time I saw lovely uncooked sauces like this was in

Sicily, actually, with these beautiful little spiedinos,

which are skewers, with monkfish and things like that,

and they just put this lovely salsa over the top and it was just bliss.

And they made a salsa like this, but with cheese and nuts in it.

They tossed it with pasta, so you know,

having these raw sauces is such a beautiful thing,

especially when the weather's good.

Look at all that juice. And last but not least,

a little bit of chilli, just for some light heat.

So, that pasta is just about there.

So, let's drain this.

Then we're going to go in with the hot,

steaming pasta. Now, toss around the sauce.

And that's going to start emulsifying with the juices of

the tomatoes and the oil,

to make it shine and be glorious. Look at that!

Gorgeous! And that's basically it.

All I would do now is get some lovely delicate herbs.

So, things like basil, fennel, parsley.

Fresh, vibrant. So, there you go.

That is the quickest dish. That's what we want, right?

In simple cooking, we want simple solutions.

Come on! Hallelujah!

Get the pasta on there like that.

Pick up all that lovely fresh, uncooked sauce.

Just finish it with a little parmesan,

and that's it. Lovely ripe tomatoes

and a handful of cupboard ingredients,

bringing pasta to another level.

I just love it.

It's got that kind of crunch of the tomatoes.

You got the fresh herbs,

that subtle hit of chilli and so much juice.

Mm!

It's just full of life and optimism and sometimes,

you just want to little bit of that in your life.

That has got to be the simplest dish ever.

I'm going to share with you a delicious,

panfried dessert that happens in no time at all,

using up possibly leftover tortillas with ice cream

and chocolate spread, and it makes something truly magical

and it happens to be my youngest son River's favourite dessert right now,

on the whole of planet Earth.

This recipe could be the fastest little pudding I've ever made.

It comes in at under five minutes

and uses simple shop-bought tortillas,

but instead of something savoury,

like a burrito or enchilada,

we're going for a super-speedy pudding,

layered with a hazelnut and chocolate spread

and a dollop of ice cream, all wrapped up like a present.

My hot and crispy ice cream parcels might just end up being your

favourite dessert on planet Earth, too.

This was a dessert invented out of necessity.

Leftover tortillas in the cupboard

and the need to do something fast.

So, pan on, on a medium heat.

The chocolate hazelnut spread goes on here like that.

You can actually put the tortilla in your hot pan,

just for 20 seconds. It helps kind of make it flexible and foldable.

Then, the ice cream. Put that on the chocolate.

So, we go over, over, over.

Then, just add a little bit of butter to the pan, like that,

and I'll put the fold side down so it kind of keeps it all together.

Our intention here is to toast up the tortilla.

Do it in a timely fashion that the ice cream stays frozen,

and it just starts to give off some of that gorgeous milkiness,

and then you just do that for like, literally a minute.

Now, add maple syrup

and you want it to bubble up a little bit

and then it'll start to sort of caramelise

and become a glaze. So, we're talking like 30 seconds.

My instinct's telling me we're about there.

So, let's get this onto a plate.

Whatever you do once you've made it,

let it cool down, that's the caramel,

before anyone thinks about eating it.

But once it has cooled down, you've got the crispiest,

most delicious, sweet, slightly bitter,

gorgeous caramelly-encased ice cream,

chocolate, wrapped in tortilla. It's a beautiful thing.

What's brilliant is the sense of urgency.

If you want something quick and delicious,

then that actually works with the cooking method.

Hot on the outside, cold in the middle.

You know, the chocolate, the hazelnut,

you can see a little bit of that ice cream melting

and leaking out. It's kind of made a little fudge,

right? Really, really beautiful.

You can take hazelnuts and you can smash it up.

Let's put some of those lovely nuts over the top.

Just look at that.

Look, see it coming out? Whoar!

Blow.

Mm! That was quite a big mouthful!

I mean, you can never argue with that chocolate hazelnut hit,

melting ice cream, but that exterior,

the tortilla and the caramel from the maple syrup,

is a thing of joy. That's what offsets the whole thing.

The cold and the hot, the soft and the crispy.

And you saw how fast that was, right?

In a matter of minutes, you can knock this out.

River! Come here a sec.

Look. Daddy, I want to do it now.

OK, fair enough. I don't want you to, make it complicated.

JAMIE CHUCKLES

How's that chocolate?

So good!

It's so yummy!

You've got...

Bye!

River has left the party. Tough customer.

You guys should definitely have a go at that. Enjoy!

It's really good!

Thank you, River.

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