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 traybakes 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,

I've got the best smash-and-cook method

that will get juicy burgers on the table in no time...

It's a ten-minute meal right there for the taking.

..recipes using a sauce made at the weekend,

so you can rattle out super-fast meals midweek...

Look at the colours, come on!

..a traybake recipe that gives you big flavour with minimal effort...

This tastes like I've been cooking for hours.

..plus, I've called on Meliz Berg

to share which faithful friends from the store cupboard

help her get food on the table fast.

It's an absolute treat.

And I'm whizzing up the quickest dessert

using trusty tins from a shelf raid of my own.

I know what you're thinking - it's too simple.

I'm going to give you a recipe that elevates chicken breasts

to the next level.

To have this on a weekday night...

You know, you get home from work, you're tired,

and you just want something delicious.

This might be the meal for you.

My sweet pea chicken is the recipe you need

when you're busy juggling midweek

but still want to eat something tasty.

This quick and reliable technique

not only delivers perfectly-cooked chicken,

it cooks in a fraction of the time,

gorgeous with flavour bombs of minty pesto

conveniently made with frozen peas.

Easy-PEASy.

Here, we have our chicken breasts.

You can see that we've got a fat end and a thin end,

so that's always going to be a bit of struggle

if you want perfectly-cooked chicken.

So, I can help you fix that.

First thing we're going to do

is just grab a little bit of greaseproof paper.

A little olive oil...

..salt and pepper...

..and then we're going to go in with the chicken breast.

More greaseproof paper.

Lay it on top and take something heavy,

and give it a little gentle pounding.

Now, what that's going to do

is make the fat end the same thickness as the thin end, right,

so you have equal thickness, equal cooking.

We're also flattening it,

so it's going to cook in half the time.

And, also, you're tenderising it

so it's going to be even more tender than usual.

Season it with salt and pepper on top.

And then we're ready to cook.

Hello, Conks.

In this pan,

I've got some peas that have just had a minute or two.

We'll drain these.

Don't worry, Conker.

Might be a bit of chicken coming your way if you're lucky.

Pan back on the heat.

High heat. A little olive oil.

Let that temperature come up,

and then we'll go in with the chicken.

Now, because we've battered this out,

they're going to take two and a half minutes on each side, OK?

CHICKEN SIZZLES You can hear that it's nice and hot,

but that sizzle is reassuring.

In that time that it takes to cook the chicken,

I want to show you how to make a beautiful, fresh, sweet pea pesto.

The pesto that many of us would know is the pesto Genovese -

pine nuts, basil, parmesan.

This is going to be a different style -

across Italy are thousands of pestos.

So, look, we're going to go in with a handful of almonds.

We'll crush these up first.

They're not roasted, they're not toasted, I don't want that, OK?

I don't want loads of flavour, I want creaminess,

I want richness that's going to make this pesto just a joy to eat.

You can do this in the food processor, but for me,

having a pestle and mortar is amazing for pestos,

curry pastes, dressings.

Some of it is a powder, some of it is chunky, right?

That's what we want.

So, next up, one peeled garlic clove goes in.

Then we're onto the herbs.

We're going mint.

Mint and peas, best friends.

Just rip it off the stalks. Like, a nice, small bunch.

So, in no time at all, we've gone from that big pile of mint

to that nice kind of pesto here.

All nice and pounded up.

Have a look at this, all right?

Seriously good.

No mucking about - juicy, golden.

This is going to be a delicious chicken breast, right?

It's cooking so fast.

So, next bit of the pesto story -

in with those cooked frozen peas.

Obviously, it's amazing with fresh peas, but frozen peas -

everyone's got 'em, let's use 'em.

So, what I'm going to do is concentrate on one half, right?

And I want to take these peas to, like, a rough puree.

So, by pounding it, we get access to that amazing sweet pea flavour,

and then, by leaving some of it,

you're going to get that texture and that pop, which is so good.

The smell right now is amazing.

So, parmesan or pecorino.

A little handful...

..to season and to kind of bind the pesto.

Olive oil - just enough to kind of join up all those flavours...

..and then, last but not least, lemon.

That's going to go on the plate with the chicken.

This half here, just squeeze the juice.

That's going to bring this pesto... Oh! ..to the next level.

Look at the colours, come on!

So, have a little taste.

Think about it.

I want to balance the saltiness of the parmesan...

..with the freshness of the lemon, sweetness of the peas,

and that hum of garlic.

So, chicken breasts onto a board.

We'll let 'em just rest for, like, a minute.

So, look, you can kind of jazz this up with new potatoes...

I don't know, oven chips if you want, a lovely salad,

but, honestly, sometimes I just like to commit.

Take a nice little spoon of that sweet pea pesto...

..a nice little slice...

..and just fan that across the top, right?

This is a simple, delicious meal. No more dry chicken, right?

Don't need 15 or 20 minutes to cook it.

That was cooked in no time at all.

A little bit more pesto.

Mint on top.

Wedge of lemon.

Just a little bit of chilli, come on.

Ahhh, yes!

This is a deliciously simple recipe -

full of flavour, full of attitude.

And it's time for me to just double-check.

Straight away, boom.

Mmm!

The outside of the chicken has almost got, like...

..a crisp, crackly sort of texture.

The inside - juicy as you like.

But that beautiful sweet pea pesto

with the parmesan, that hum of garlic...

Mmm!

So good.

The chicken took five minutes -

come on, it's quick chicken cooking -

and with the pesto, it's a ten-minute meal right there for the taking.

I want to show you a simple way to create

a little handful of excellence, deliciousness, right?

The best burger.

My smash burger is a brilliant, easy dinner

for when only a burger will do.

Using shortcut ingredients to save you time,

this smash-and-cook method

is just what you need when you're in a hurry

and want to tuck into something tasty midweek.

I'm going to keep things quite simple.

I've got half an onion.

I'm going to turn on a pan,

quite high heat.

I'm going to go into that pan...

..just opening those onions up, like that. Little ringlets.

Just a little olive oil - you don't need much.

Seasoning.

At this stage of the game, I'm not after caramelisation,

I just want to soften these onions up.

Now, obviously, the most important part of a burger

is the burger, right?

So, what I've got here is some gorgeous mincemeat.

If I go to a butcher's,

I always ask for mincemeat for burgers

made out of the chuck -

it's about 20% fat,

it's beautiful, you can get it from the supermarket.

But if you try and have lean mince,

it's going to be dry, it'll fall apart. We want that fat, OK?

What I want to do - with clean hands -

is just kind of move this mince around.

We're actually kind of massaging the proteins of the mincemeat.

This is going to get you a better bind and better texture.

So, once you've done that,

get your mincemeat and smash it down.

Now, I'm not going to season the inside of the burger,

I'm going to treat it more like a steak.

It's good quality mince, right?

So, I'll season that steak with some sea salt,

some black pepper - typical -

and then - not so typical -

Cajun seasoning.

You can get it from the supermarket. It's a blend of spices.

It just puts a little bit of interesting funk into the story.

Flat hands, press down, and smash it once more.

Simple, right?

We're going to go in with this patty...

..and we'll smash it down.

Because we've got that lovely fat content in the patty,

it starts to melt and make its way out,

and that is what's kind of almost basting the meat

and making that patty super-succulent and delicious.

I've got the onions

and they're starting to take on a little colour.

Just pick 'em up and lay them on the burger.

So, underneath, we've got caramelisation happening.

Spice. Taking on that colour.

Seasoning, attitude, Cajun, crunch - delicious.

Now, as that's cooking, I've got a lovely little bun.

Cut it in half.

This goes into the pan,

mopping up any juices from that patty.

OK, patty on, buns in.

We've got some of that American-style mustard,

ketchup, obviously, and let's talk about pickles - essential -

or "wally", as we call it in Essex.

Thin little slices. I'm using a crinkle cutter

to take me back to the '80s,

which is a place where I'm very happy.

Over here, get under the patty.

Flip it round.

And smash.

Press down that uncooked side of the patty into the onions,

to become part of that patty.

The idea is this helps amp up the flavour. You with me?

Let's give this burger

the most amazing welcoming party.

On there, ketchup.

Very important.

Then, I'm going to layer on the perfect ratio of pickle per bite.

Press down again on the burger.

I want the onions to catch,

I want them to be on the edge of golden and burnt,

but the right side, right?

And I want this patty to remain juicy and really succulent,

so I think we're about 30 seconds away.

I've got the lid here

and I'm going to go in with the mustard.

Very happy with that, right to the edge.

And then, the moment of truth.

Look at that.

Scruffy and delicious.

Gas hob off.

Then, last but not least, our nice mustardy top.

Now, look, I could have put more stuff in there,

I could have layered it up more.

Hold back, all right?

Perfect patty, perfect seasoning.

Simple and delicious. It's all about that.

So, let it just sit for a minute,

then - very, very importantly -

you need to use a percentage of your body weight just to come over here

and press down and let the resting juices absorb into the bread.

There's some incredible burger places around the country,

but if you follow a few of those details,

you're going to make something more succulent,

much better value,

and you're just going to taste the difference.

Serve it with a lovely salad, some oven chips or sweet potatoes,

some slaw if it makes you happy, but it's really all about that.

So, one last little press...

..and hallelujah.

That's what we want.

Juices galore.

Mm-mm.

Absolutely heavenly.

That patty is gnarly and crisp on the outside,

yet succulent and soft on the inside.

The onions are just caramelised enough.

So good. Look, Conker's come back in the room

cos he can smell what's going on.

Mm!

Come on...

..have a go at your very own smash burger...

..it's a thing.

Juicy goodness right there.

It's really simple,

it's messy, and it's mine.

What I want to do is make an incredible tomato sauce.

So, I know that many of us use loads of tins of tomatoes - brilliant -

but we can upgrade it in nutrition and flavour, and I like that.

So, look, in front of me, I've got a beautiful squash,

celery, onion. I've got some fennel, peppers, carrots,

and over there I've got some tins of tomatoes.

That's seven easy ways

to get more veggies into your life,

and this base sauce we can use in so many different ways.

This one get-ahead recipe is a weekend win,

as it opens you up to a whole world of ideas.

Whip up my simple seven veg sauce when you've got the time

and use it for multiple meals in the week when you're short of it.

With this sauce waiting in the wings,

you can knock out dishes fast and simple.

So, we've roasted up those veggies.

After, like, 50 minutes to an hour,

we've concentrated all that deliciousness.

In some recipes, you might see the veggies just getting sweated off

or boiled, and you're never going to get the flavour of roasting.

It's going to be the most delicious sauce,

so mix it up, and then we're going to do this in batches.

So, one tin of tomatoes goes into a liquidiser.

I'll just get a little bit of water, half a tin...

..and then I'll go in with one third of these beautiful roasted veggies.

A pinch of salt.

I've taken that quite smooth, and I love that.

Taste for seasoning...

..but also texture.

I do this because I use a lot of tomato sauce.

I use it in lasagnes, cannellonis, stews.

This is like a mother sauce.

If you can get into the rhythm of doing this once a month

when you've got time at the weekend,

you buy time for the rest of the month.

So, you can toss that through pasta as it is,

or store it up in the fridge or freezer.

And there are all kinds of ways you can put it to work -

under breaded chicken breasts,

it's incredible with spinach and eggs -

but, today, I want to show you how to use it

in a fast and simple spicy fish soup.

In here, I've got some lovely cod.

I've got some mussels and some prawns.

So, we're going to make a beautiful fish broth, and for that,

I'm going to use two things - an Indian curry paste, right?

Any one you like - I've got a Keralan one here.

I'm going to use coconut milk,

and we're going to make a fragrant, delicious,

subtly-spiced fisherman's broth that you can slurp on.

This is all going to happen really quick, by the way, and it's fun.

So, high heat.

Big pan, lid.

What I'm going to do with this cod...

Get a few centimetre slices, like that.

Get sustainable cod.

Look how beautiful that is.

What we need to do is make everything cook at the same time as the mussels.

That's the logic.

And I've got a couple of prawns each.

Go into this pan with some olive oil,

and as that begins to heat up,

I'm going to grab a lime and some chilli.

Cos I want to put half a chilli into that oil...

..and then I'm going to use a little fine grater

and take the zest of that lime.

Can you see how this is just starting to fry up nicely?

And then, curry paste.

Get that into that oil, as well.

Toast it up, bring those spices back to life.

I'm going to go in with the mussels...

..then the coconut milk...

..and 200g of my beautiful, roasted, seven veg tomato sauce.

Look at that.

We'll bring that to the boil.

I'll take half of this lime juice

and just put that in.

So, spice, heat,

the sweetness and depth of flavour from the veggies,

and then that acidity from the lime.

That's what we're talking about.

And then, let's just take some coriander here.

So, very quickly,

a beautiful little story comes together.

And then, I'm going to use the mussels like a trivet,

a structure to hold the fish up.

I'm going to lay it on the mussels like this,

so it's not in the juice,

it's on the mussels.

We're taking care of things,

and it's going to cook in that steamy environment in there.

We're going to go in with the prawns.

Now, I'm going to put the head in the juice, all right?

Cos that's where a lot of flavour is.

And I'll put the prawn out of the juice, cos it's delicate.

You can see it's coming up to a boil now.

And this is when I can just pick over a few more herbs.

It's already looking a picture.

So, lid on top.

Four minutes.

I want to have a little clean-down,

and then let's think about some nice little garnishes to serve this up.

But this will be ready in no time.

The room is full of exciting smells.

Let's have a little taste.

Important to taste right now.

JAMIE SIGHS

I mean, like...

If you think about it, a French bouillabaisse - fish soup -

can take days, right? Like, this, in modern-day life,

when people expect so much and they haven't got time,

they're juggling a thousand things, these little hacks...

Deep, incredible, like...

I'm salivating.

The spices...

And look how beautiful this is.

Gas off.

That's less than five minutes, OK?

Let's just serve this up.

All the mussels are open.

If there's any that don't open, by the way, just take 'em out.

Each one of those mussels is like a little stock cube -

deep, incredible essence of the sea.

I love it.

Lovely slices of cod.

A few little herbs.

Chilli, as well.

Poppadoms - these are from the supermarket -

to sort of slurp up a little bit of that gravy.

Let's go for the cod first.

Look at that.

Yeah, just tender.

It... It's perfectly flaky.

This sauce, this broth, it is so flippin' delicious,

and the idea that you can take a little mussel out of there,

and a little poppadom...

It's sensational, it's electric...

..it ain't boring.

And all with a little help from a seven veg tomato sauce.

I've got a stunning frozen dessert for you

that comes from the cupboard, from a humble tin of fruit.

This is so simple,

I'm kind of feeling a little bit guilty that I'm not doing my job,

because it's not complicated enough.

But let me share it with you.

My tinned fruit granitas

are the perfect get-ahead freezer treat

that'll be ready whenever you need it.

But don't tell anyone,

it might just be the easiest thing you ever make.

It starts here with some tinned fruit.

Often, people think this is down-market. It's not.

Fruit's picked at its best,

especially when there's gluts, right?

This is tinned apricots here.

We're going to put that in a liquidiser...

..with the syrup and the fruit, all right?

Everything goes in.

And then, I'm going to complement that with vanilla.

This paste is really good.

One or two teaspoons.

Whizz it up...

..for like, 30, 40 seconds.

Pour it into a dish.

And that's most of the work done.

I know what you're thinking - "It's too simple" -

and look, beautiful things can be very, very simple.

So, this now goes into the freezer for, like, five hours,

until it's rock hard.

So, that's been frozen for five hours, right?

The original granita was Italian.

They would take big chunks of pure water,

frozen from the mountains.

You'd scrape chunks of ice

and then hit it with citrus

and hit with, maybe, some sugar,

and that would be your granita.

Utterly refreshing.

The job was to refresh you on hot days, or clean the palate, right?

So, we can take that kind of ritual -

we'll take two forks -

and you just basically scrape it all up.

And now we've chuffed it up into this kind of slush,

you can serve it in a cone,

you can serve it in a bowl,

you can serve it with fruit, right?

You could put it, you know,

next to a beautiful chocolate tart as a combo.

You know, chocolate dessert, like, cherry granita...

Like, think like that.

I'm going to go back into the tins

and get some old-school custard, right?

And then I'm going to go a bit posh

and have some creme fraiche.

The two together are a thing of joy.

And then we're going to take our beautiful granita...

..and I'm telling you, this is going to be a thing of joy.

The cold and refreshing

with the rich and the indulgent...

..and the retro.

But hold that thought, because I've been busy...

..and I've got another one.

This is strawberry,

lemon,

and some elderflower.

Different vibes.

Imagine that.

But I've been even more busy!

This one is pineapple and lime.

Simple, but genius.

Beautiful things can come and snow down in beautiful ways.

I haven't stopped, by the way.

This is my last one and it's one of my favourites.

Tinned cherries with a little cheeky swig of whisky.

This is a thing of joy.

Let's get to the bottom.

Honestly...

..it's just a beautiful thing.

Many of us associate desserts with baking and cakes,

and complexity and science,

but beautiful things can come from tins.

If you combo it up with a little sense of humour

and a bit of fun, you know, this is truly...

Mmm.

..truly a thing of joy.

All from there.

Come on.

Too good.

And I'm certainly not the only chef

raiding my store cupboard for meal inspiration.

Dried mint. It's gorgeous.

Self-taught cook and bestselling author,

Meliz Berg develops recipes,

showcasing a melting pot of flavours and spices

influenced by her Turkish Cypriot and London upbringing.

She's showcasing what store cupboard heroes she relies on

when she wants to tuck into something tasty in a hurry.

One of my favourites, Turk Biber Salcasi Aci,

or Turkish sweet or mild red pepper paste.

It's just my favourite thing to use.

You can kind of melt it down with butter,

and add some chilli flakes to it,

and drizzle it over, like, yoghurt and pasta dishes.

It's an absolute treat.

And my favourite ingredient is this.

This is halloumi cheese, or what I call hellim,

and you can use it in so many different ways.

Using dried herbs and pastes,

Meliz's halloumi - or hellim -

spiced scrambled eggs

draw on her Turkish Cypriot heritage,

as well as the shelves in her store cupboard -

a super-simple way to get food on the table fast.

So, I've got the hellim,

the halloumi cheese, the key ingredient in this dish,

and I want to show you two different ways in which I use it.

The first way is by frying it.

So, pat it dry, first.

I'm going to reserve some of the cheese

to finely grate later.

That is a huge revelation to some people,

that you can actually eat it uncooked.

It's one of the most delicious things

to grate over pasta.

Oh, forget parmesan,

forget pecorino romano,

it's all about the grated hellim.

So, I'm just cutting the hellim into cubes, like this.

I'm going to fry it in some olive oil.

Just make sure your oil is lovely and hot.

My family come from Cyprus,

and I grew up eating this cheese on everything.

One of my most vivid memories is breakfast.

Like, when you're a teenager

and breakfast is the last thing on your mind,

my mum would literally be standing in the kitchen

slicing up uncooked hellim

and just shoving it into the pitta bread.

And I would grab it, wrapped in a kitchen roll,

and just running out the front door.

And that flavour, that taste, just stays with me, and I love it,

and it's one of the things I love making for my own children now.

They crisp up,

they're crunchy on the outside yet squidgy in the middle.

They're just beautiful.

Right, we're almost there.

The next ingredient is an onion,

but before we chop the onion up,

I want to show you one of my favourite things to do,

and that's to spread some lemon juice on the chopping board -

a tip my mum showed me years ago -

which just prevents the tears from rolling.

I don't know if there's anything scientific in this whatsoever -

I don't care, because it works.

The trick with this dish is

the finer you dice and chop those onions,

the sweeter and more caramelised they'll become in the oil,

and the finer you can slice, the quicker they'll cook.

No tears, see?

SHE LAUGHS I told you!

Right, I'm going to add the onion to the pan

once the oil is just hot again,

and then just turn the heat down.

They'll need about five to ten minutes,

which is perfect, cos I can chop up the tomatoes

and coarsely grate them.

I love coarsely grating tomatoes,

not only because it's kind of the thing

that old nenes and grandmothers do, and it's like, you go to Cyprus,

and everybody's just grating tomatoes like this.

You get this lovely pulp that's more reminiscent of, kind of,

a thicker, more indulgent kind of sauce

than you would from chopping the tomatoes up.

Grate it down carefully,

as close as you can to the skin,

and you just get rid of those.

I just think you can add such a lovely natural sweetness

to dishes with something as simple as a tomato,

and even a bit of tang, as well.

The salty hellim... It's an absolute dream, I love it!

And I've got some lovely green peppers.

They can be hot, but they're sweet, as well.

Thinly slice those up.

If you can't find these lovely Charleston peppers,

you could use, say, Padron peppers.

I'd probably hold fire on green bell peppers, cos the skins are thicker,

they don't soften down as much.

And once your onions start to look lovely

and caramelised, like this,

then you can go in with these peppers.

Add that lovely pinch of salt now.

So, we are pretty much good to go

with these beautiful peppers and onions.

They've caramelised, softened down.

Want those charred edges on the peppers.

So I'm just going to add a nice dollop of this,

Turk Biber Salcasi Aci,

that Turkish mild sweet red pepper paste,

straight into the peppers and the onions. And it's this ingredient

that I also will use in place of, say, tomato puree in recipes.

You can find it pretty much anywhere and everywhere now.

You can use tomato puree,

but the flavour profile will be different.

We've got the green peppers in here,

and then you've got the red pepper paste,

so you've got those kind of two different peppery flavours,

and, again, that's the beauty of using fresh ingredients

married with dried ones. Beautiful.

I'm going to add another one of my hero ingredients,

and that's the dried mint.

So, just a little bit now.

So, once that all goes in

and everything is looking lovely and jammy and caramelised,

now's the time for the tomatoes.

Look at that, bubbling away.

A little bit of black pepper in there, as well.

I'm just going to let this reduce down for a couple more minutes

and have a quick clean-down.

So, now that it's reduced down,

some lovely eggs.

The eggs actually get added to the dish whole.

So, instead of scrambling them up now,

they just go in like this.

And then you just start whisking...

..really, really quickly,

breaking them up into those lovely, tomatoey, beautiful juices.

You get a lovely creamy texture.

Creamy, and delicious, and scoopy,

and just wonderful.

As soon as it just starts to bubble, then you can take it off the heat.

So you can serve it in, kind of, one big platter,

or even straight out of the pan,

but I'm going to just do individual portions.

I'm going to add those lovely cubes of fried hellim.

And then it's all about the lovely garnishes.

We eat with our eyes, don't we?

Finely grated hellim,

which is going to just snow on top.

A bit more dried mint.

A little bit of fresh parsley.

Lemon.

Just a little drizzle of extra virgin olive oil to finish it off.

And this is the best bit, obviously.

I'm going to scoop it onto the bread. Oh, my gosh.

So good.

Mmm.

So good.

Creamy, oozy, salty,

fresh, herby.

All my favourite store cupboard ingredients in one dish.

So easy.

I'm feeling so good right now.

So good.

Mmm.

I really love a good traybake recipe.

The idea of putting combinations together really quickly,

letting the oven do the work, is brilliant.

It gets you thinking, and you can go from, sort of,

exciting flavours of far away,

to really comforting flavours that make you feel really happy.

This chicken and mushroom traybake

is all about easy assembly.

After a satisfying, short ten minutes of prep,

the oven does all the hard work for you.

Weeknight or weekend, that's a simple dinner sorted.

So, classic mushroom.

Beautiful. I've got 400g.

Make sure they're nice and clean.

Then, the chicken. I want to use a nice, big, fat thigh, right?

On the bone, skin-on, maximum flavour.

Sweet, delicious meat that falls off the bone.

I'm going to put the hob on here, on, like, a medium heat.

I just want a little bit of heat to brown up that chicken skin.

A little olive oil in the pan.

Take the chicken

and I'll season it up...

..with salt and pepper.

I'm actually going to cover it in the oven,

and that's going to give you very tender chicken

in the most beautiful way.

But it won't give you much browning,

so what I'll do is I'll start that browning process now

by just using the tray not just for baking and roasting,

but also a little frying. We can do that.

So, put them skin-side down in the tray

and I'm just going to lightly brown them.

Chicken thighs are amazing, they're great value.

Having the bone and skin on gives you more flavour.

So, just fry these off for, like,

three or four minutes until lightly golden.

Have a little look at this.

That's all I want. It's just a gesture of getting that skin crispy.

I'll turn the gas off now,

but that's sizzling away,

so let's begin putting these flavour combos together.

So, I'm going to use some pretty everyday tinned items

from the cupboard. Butter beans, they're big, fat and creamy,

but you could use any bean you like.

And then, I've got some mushroom soup.

This is condensed mushroom soup.

The idea is, this little hack helps amp up the flavour

of the things that we're putting in there,

and it stops you having to make a sauce with another pan,

more washing up... And for quick kind of like midweek cooking,

this traybake I want to work hard for you, right?

I don't want you to cook harder, I want you to think smarter.

That's what it's all about, right?

And another little hack - I love fresh spinach, I buy it, I grow it -

but, believe it or not, I also have it frozen,

and frozen spinach is brilliant.

It's really convenient to have.

But, also, it's been blanched and wrung out,

and that means it's perfect for cooking.

So, I'll take four of these for four people, for our four thighs,

and, for me, spinach with creamy mushroom is just an absolute joy.

Right, let's put this together, because it's unbelievably quick.

We're going to go in with the mushrooms, all right?

They're all washed. If you've got some big ones,

you can just cut them in half, no trouble at all.

I'm then going to go in with the beans.

Drain most of that liquid.

Beans go in.

Now, this tin isn't just for the beans.

Think of this tin as your measure.

One tin of water.

One tin of rice.

And then, your tin here of mushroom soup.

That'll be enough liquid

to cook you four portions of the most beautiful rice

every single time. It's a great little hack.

I want you to have delicious meals that you can rattle out.

I want these combinations and these quantities

to work for you every single time.

The fact that you can put this together so quickly,

whack it in the oven, do what you got to do...

40, 50 minutes later... HE SNIFFS

HE SIGHS Dinner, wow!

That's what it's all about, right?

So, look, last things in - we'll go in with the spinach.

A little olive oil.

Basic seasoning of salt and pepper.

Then, get yourself a lovely lemon.

And I'm going to use the juice later - that's another story -

but I want the zest.

This zest is unbelievable flavour.

Just mix everything up.

I want the chicken skin on the top,

because we want that to get crisp later.

And then you're ready to go.

Grab a little bit of tinfoil...

..and just kind of crimp it up the sides.

This now goes in the oven for 45 minutes at 200 degrees Celsius,

which is 400 Fahrenheit,

and then I'll whip off that tinfoil

and give it a few minutes to get golden on top.

It's going to be delicious.

Right...

Ahh...

Yes!

Right, do this carefully, but look at that.

Hot and steamy.

So, I'm now just going to put it back in for just a couple of minutes,

just to get a little bit of crispiness on the top.

OK.

I've got one little thing

that I think takes this to the next level,

and it's using mustard, right?

Four big teaspoons of English mustard.

Then we're going to hit it up with lemon juice.

Slap it with freshness and that electric kind of citrus.

Enough to make it nice and loose,

cos when I get my plate of, like, rice, chicken, spinach,

I want to sprawl that all over the place.

Just amazing.

So, this is the simplest little hack.

Right, let's check that chicken.

The skin's now dancing.

I actually do this quite a lot, which is very sad -

watching things crackle.

HE CHUCKLES

I think we're good.

Let's go for it.

Come on.

Look at that.

What a beautiful dinner.

The oven's done all the hard work.

Let's portion some up.

Some bits around the edge have just caught,

which I love.

Put the chicken on top and a bit of oyster mushroom.

HE CHUCKLES It looks really good.

And then, your lemony English mustard.

That is a brilliant traybake meal right there.

Let's have a little try.

Ah...

I love it.

The chicken is delicious, it's tender.

It's a humble thigh, right?

But it's given so much flavour to the rice.

Like, that spinachy freshness with the unctuous rice,

the heat of the lemony mustard and the chicken...

This tastes like I've been cooking for hours,

but you saw it, right?

What we're talking about is big flavour,

but simple preparation.

Get it in that tray, mix it up,

cover it, cook it...

..eat it. So good!

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