Original subtitles

The cost of living is still affecting the way we all shop,

so I really wanna help in the best way I can,

by giving you some delicious recipes that won't break the bank.

Full of flavour, full of love,

and it's good on your wallet as well.

Inspired by classic money saving techniques in the kitchen,

as well as old school tips

and tricks that Nanna would be proud of.

This method is just gold and I love it.

I'm gonna show you £1 Wonders which will come in at

a pound a portion or less...

We're talking 75 p,

so it's really good value. It's exciting.

...and a whole host of other money saving meals.

From DIY takeaways that are a fraction of the price of

a delivery,

to price drop puddings that go as low as 21p a bun.

Humble ingredients that are super good value,

that make big flavour. That is what this is all about.

Fancy a delicious dinner for under a quid?

This is a perfect little pasta dish that is quick,

it's easy, it's really delicious

and it goes easy on the wallet too.

My black olive pasta is a fantastic £1 wonder with

a delicious sauce that you don't even have to cook.

It's a tasty 82p per head,

using up your store cupboard and fridge staples

and delivering big on flavour in no time at all.

So look, I'm gonna use linguini today.

You can use whatever pasta you want.

Pan of boiling water. We're gonna season that water,

very important,

and then we're gonna go in with 300g of the pasta.

Grab it. If you're using, like, a long pasta like this,

twist it opposite ways

and then you can see it spirals down.

That's gonna stop it from sticking, OK?

That'll take about 11 minutes to cook.

We want it nice and al dente. So, what I will do is just pop

the lid back on as that heat comes back up to the boil,

then whip it off before it cooks over. Fingers crossed.

So, what we do need is a little liquidiser.

Very important.

We're gonna use 200g of black olives,

so I've drained the brine that they come in.

This couldn't be simpler.

So this is a really good recipe that you can use

for pasta sauces,

you can use it for little kind of dips.

Come with me on this because you will use it

and you will love it. So,

we're gonna get this pasta just stirred up a little bit.

We're gonna steal some of that water.

Just a little ladle of that salted,

boiling water goes into the olives, right.

Then we're gonna go in with one clove of garlic.

Now, the joy for me of these no-cook pasta sauces is that they're quick,

they're easy, they're delicious.

It's perfect for busy people that love delicious food.

So I'm using jarred,

black olives,

but you could swap those out for jarred green olives.

So, let's get the garlic in here,

let's go here and get some lovely thyme

and we'll just put some of that in there as well.

Dried or fresh,

but actually fresh by weight is cheaper.

I'm gonna give it a little seasoning of black pepper.

Six tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil.

You can use this pasta sauce as a dip,

you can rub it over, say, chicken breasts.

And then we wanna little bit of acidity,

so I'm gonna use balsamic vinegar, two tablespoons.

If I was doing green olives,

I might wanna use lemon juice instead.

Then add the lid.

It's gonna be noisy

but we're gonna make the best sauce ever. One minute.

That is it.

We're gonna keep half of this.

You can put it back into the jar

and put it into the fridge once it has cooled down.

We've got the raw garlic in there, so you know,

it won't last for much more than a couple of days,

but if you pour some in

a little ice cube mould like that, pop it in the freezer,

they'll set hard

and then the next time you roast a little bit of fish,

you can just knock out a little cube...

...and you can benefit from it for weeks and weeks.

So, look, the pasta is done.

Let most of that water come away.

Back into the pan.

And then we're gonna go in with that incredible sauce.

Just let it kind of cook, give it a shake.

The smell is amazing. I've got thyme,

I've got garlic. Look at that.

It's the simplest thing ever. So, to serve it up,

take a nice amount of your pasta. Just gorgeous.

Hot, steamy. How fast was that?

Of course, if I was sticking to Italy,

I'd be like, parmesan, pecorino.

One of the things they have out there is salted ricotta.

Not that easy to find,

but what is easy to find in the same vein is feta.

So, not Italian,

but nonetheless, the Greeks love their pasta too,

so just a tiny bit of feta.

Crumble that like snow over the top.

Those tangy, salty little bits

of gorgeousness are gonna make this whole thing just work beautifully.

And then just take a little bit of thyme.

You can see these are flowering, but just pick those over the top.

And that with a nice little salad is gonna be

a lovely little dinner. With the salad,

it's coming in still under a quid a portion.

But this for me is the kind of thing I do

for myself when, like, I'm not eating with anyone else.

You just get in there.

Mm. Big flavour.

The feta is a good cheat for the salted ricotta,

but it's tangy and fresh and zesty. The thyme,

the garlic, it works so well.

Easy on the wallet, easy on the washing up...

...but big, big on flavour. For me...

...that's just perfect.

At a delicious 82p a portion,

this fantastic pasta dish serves four people.

I've taken the average cost of each ingredient

and quantity used from three of the biggest supermarkets.

The only things I've assumed that

you've got are salt, pepper and oil.

This next recipe is delicious, nutritious,

comes in at well under a pound. You're gonna love it.

My peperonata coddled eggs is a delicious spin on

the classic Italian stew.

Made with frozen peppers and gorgeous eggs,

it's another thrifty dish costing

a tasty 84p per portion and you can knock it up

for breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner.

So, let me show you how to make this beautiful Italian

sweet pepper stew. Er, big pan.

Let's put it on a medium high heat. Er,

I'm gonna use the peppers but not fresh,

not jarred. We're gonna use frozen. Now,

when it comes to saving money,

the freezer can be your best friend.

So, getting hot. We're gonna go in with olive oil,

right? A couple of tablespoons.

I'm gonna take a couple of cloves of garlic.

Er, not classic, a little bit of fresh chilli.

Just half of one.

Not so it's hot, but just a background sort of hum.

So, in with the garlic and chillies.

I'm gonna use a little bit of basil here.

The stalks can be part of the stew. Don't throw 'em away.

They've got delicious flavour.

So the leaves can go just over here until the end.

Slice them up.

So this is a lovely dish

for putting together very quickly. Breakfast,

brunch, lunch, dinner.

We've got 500g of frozen peppers here.

So, they're defrosting immediately.

We'll season with sea salt and plenty of black pepper.

So, the thing about frozen veggies is they're nearly always cheaper.

You don't have to waste anything,

just take what you want, and when they freeze them,

they lock in the nutrients and the flavour,

so that's really, really good.

We'll shake the garlic and the chilli

and the basil stalks into the pepper

and we're gonna stew it down.

I'm gonna just put one onion in,

so we'll just thinly slice the onion.

White or red, it doesn't really matter.

Different varieties

of onions will have different flavours and, you know,

different levels of sweetness.

Onions actually aren't in the classic peperonata recipe,

but I think it makes sense to use onions

to bulk this out, to give, you know,

another veggie and we're now gonna let that stew

and get sweeter

and more delicious for about ten minutes.

This basil here is very nice.

If you just wanna keep it really fresh, just get some cold water.

We can just put the lovely, pretty leaves in there

and we'll sprinkle that on at the end

and then any of these kind of ones that are not quite

a hundred percent,

what we'll do is we'll just tear that into the stew.

So we're gonna cook that quite fast

and just give it a little toss every now and again.

For me, like, the beauty about a peperonata,

this classic Italian pepper stew, is that it's big,

bold, sweet, delicious. If it's on pizza,

or pasta, or in a bread,

or whatever it's on, it's always delicious.

So, actually what's quite nice about the frozen peppers, honestly,

is the water that comes out of them gives you more access to

the sweetness and the flavour of the pepper,

and it looks and smells amazing.

I'm now gonna go for plum tomatoes.

So you could use fresh or tinned.

Tinned tomatoes tend to be cheaper.

Passatas also can be even cheaper than chopped tomatoes.

Keep an eye on it.

Now, if you just push the peppers to one side,

go in here with the tomatoes.

We'll have a little bit of seasoning,

salt and pepper here.

As this tomato sauce just kind of cooks down,

stir it into the peppers.

We are now gonna introduce some eggs.

I'm almost gonna treat this peperonata like a shakshuka.

So, what I'm gonna do is make a little divot here

and here and here.

That is our landing spot for our eggs.

Gonna have four nice chunks of...

...sourdough bread.

So, four eggs going in, and by the way,

these are free range eggs. Um, these are medium ones.

So, just cracking those in like that.

A little bit of pepper goes on the eggs like that,

a little bit of salt goes on the eggs like that.

Lid on top, so now I'm gonna let that coddle,

right, and just kind of poach

the lovely eggs in that beautiful peperonata.

Let's move that over to a low heat.

Let's turn that right up

and use your toaster or a griddle pan.

We can start grilling the toast.

This is just going nice and slow.

You can see the eggs just kind

of poaching gently in that sweet pepper stew.

Happy days.

Three or four minutes until the eggs have cooked.

So let's turn the toast.

Nice. Crispy, nice little bar marks.

Just steal a bit of garlic,

cut it in half and just rub it.

Like that little rub makes all the difference.

So let's go on with our toast. I'm happy now with this.

Look at that. Eggs,

cooked in that gorgeous peppery stew.

All those juices are gonna really get into that toast.

And then let's go for a nice wodge of that egg.

And then take some of those little basil leaves

and be a nice, delicate finish.

Get your knife and just bust open that yolk. Come on.

Just a tiny bit of feta gives you that nice sort

of tangy, salty seasoning.

So we'll steal a bit of that oil...

...and that's just gonna be beautiful. Full of flavour,

full of sweetness.

A beautiful peperonata bruschetta with a coddled egg.

A fantastic little breakfast or brunch,

coming in at under a pound. You know,

I'm using free range eggs, I'm using sourdough bread,

so of course you could take it cheaper easily,

but let's get in there and have a little try.

Mm-mm.

The flavours here, for me, are so fulfilling.

There's a little hidden spice there,

which I love. The freshness of the basil.

That stew just kind of becomes part of that coddled egg.

So there you go. Cheap as chips. Big flavour. You won't regret it.

For a tasty 84p a head,

this egg-citing spin on peperonata serves four people.

It uses everyday ingredients from the store cupboard,

fridge and freezer

and you can knock it up any time you fancy. Happy days.

My rosemary roast chicken is a super-tasty take on

the classic roast chicken dinner. By using lovely thighs,

drumsticks, leeks and beans,

it's a wallet-friendly £1.76 a head. Bloomin' brilliant.

So, first job,

a little bit of olive oil into a pan.

Um, I'm gonna get it onto a medium high heat

and I'm gonna put the chicken, skin side down.

So, in we go with the chicken.

You can hear it sizzling away already.

So, we wanna get now, colour.

We're gonna season it with salt and generous on pepper.

Our job here is just to get it really golden,

so you're gonna get crispy skin.

So, leeks.

Probably one of the more underrated vegetables.

Trim off the ends, which I've done.

I tend to take this outer little piece off,

like that, cos it's a bit tougher.

There's always a little bit of dirt here,

OK, so what I do is I just cut

the leek in half lengthwise.

So, these leaves you can just compost

and then over to the sink we go.

I'm just gonna slice it about a centimetre thick,

at an angle.

So, three cloves of garlic,

three leeks and three sprigs of rosemary.

I'm just gonna run my hand along the stalk

and pull of those lovely leaves like that,

and I'm not gonna chop them up,

I'll leave them whole like that. So,

have a look in here.

This is the colour that I'm very excited about,

OK? Colour means flavour and crispy skin.

So look, in the bottom of the pan, you've got all the sticky bits,

you've got the chicken fat. Go in with the rosemary.

The smell will be amazing.

The transformation of that woody herb,

with fat, is another level.

Then we go in with the garlic.

Once you get a bit of colour here,

we go in with our leeks. We've washed them,

so there's a bit of residual moisture there,

so it'll start to steam and fry

and what I wanna do is break that frying to boiling.

250ml of cider.

Then we're gonna cook away that alcohol

and it's just gonna leave you with that flavour

and that essence. This is the kind of base of flavour

for this lovely chicken. So,

just bring that back to the boil and let it cook away.

Next ingredient to go in, butterbeans.

It's a great bean. You can use any bean you like,

borlotti, cannellini. Chickpeas if you wish,

but butterbeans are brilliant. We're gonna go in,

butterbeans, juice and all.

So, as this comes back to the boil,

you can see the juices from the tin and the cider

and the leeks, they're making this lovely, creamy sauce

and we can amplify that even more with

a little help from creme fraiche, and actually,

today I costed it

and creme fraiche was actually cheaper than double cream.

So, three tablespoons of the creme fraiche goes in.

Stir that through. Now it's gonna get rich.

We're gonna add cheese. Now,

you could put any cheese you like,

and one of the things I do if I'm trying to sort out

the fridge and I've got little bits and pieces,

it happens quite a lot in my house,

is I just throw it into a Tupperware, in the freezer.

So, odds and ends cheeses, right? Just like 20g.

I'm gonna pour a little bit of it in there.

I've got some cheddar, I've got some red Leicester.

It's frozen.

This is basically what I would use

for like cauliflower cheese, a gratin,

a pasta al forno.

I just don't waste any cheese at all.

As that comes to the boil,

look at that, look, look, look, look.

Cheesy, creamy, leeky, beany gorgeousness.

Seasoning. Salt and pepper.

Let's go in with the chicken thighs

and I'm just gonna snuggle it in.

The fact that it's all on the bone is gonna be amazing.

You're gonna get tremendous flavour in this sauce.

So, heat off. Give it a little shake.

Straight in the oven.

40-45 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius which is 350 Fahrenheit

and beautiful things will happen.

Now, to go with this, I wanna simple green side dish.

I'm gonna go for broccoli because people love it

and it's really good value.

Get a peeler and just peel down the shaft like that,

OK. This is the stalky bit.

Underneath, it's succulent and juicy.

Now, I like to use these little spritzers.

This is just olive oil.

You use minimal

and it's gonna just roast up a treat in the oven.

Just season with a little salt and pepper

and the flavours just from roasting it are phenomenal.

So, ten minutes before this is ready,

just pop that in, straight on the bars,

right. You don't even need to put it into a tray,

right, because I wanna get 360 roasting

and they'll char up,

tender up and that's

a really beautiful, simple way to cook broccoli.

It looks really good.

You can see how that liquid has just cooked down,

exposing the beans.

The chicken skin's continued to get beautifully crisp.

Look at that. It's just blippin' gorgeous.

And then we've got our broccoli here,

which has just roasted up.

So the nice thing about roasting is you get completely different

flavours. Much more savoury, dare I say it,

slightly meaty flavours that you get from that.

Creamy leeks, garlic, rosemary, beans,

and then we got the beautiful thigh.

It's got that crispy skin, love it,

and a lovely piece of leg.

And you've got the beautiful creamy sauce there.

The sweet leeks. So look, let's get stuck in.

A little bit more cider, you know,

just to go with the flow.

Right, I'm gonna go for the beans.

Mm-mm-hm.

Wow. Some of the nicest, sweet leeks and beans ever.

Let's double it up now with some chicken.

Mm.

Tender. I love it.

Absolutely bloomin' delicious.

Let's go for a little bit of broccoli.

Tender, but crunchy and really delicious.

The flavour, the veggies, the sauce, the chicken. It's great.

For £1.76 per head,

this memorable meal will serve four people.

It might be quicker and cheaper than

the traditional roast chicken dinner,

but it's just as delicious. What a winner.

Takeaways are big business

and it's never been easier

with all of these delivery apps to get food delivered

to your door, but the thing is, they're expensive,

so I wanna give you one

of your favourites at a fraction of the price.

My kebabs and homemade flatbreads are not only delicious

and more nutritious, at a scrumptious £1.79 per person,

they're less than a quarter of

the price of your average takeaway kebab.

So, you can do it by hand if you want,

but I wanna use the food processor.

We could use any meat, beef, lamb, pork,

and we have beef here, 250g, and pork,

250g, right?

What you're gonna do is get more flavour,

more texture. Pork and beef, often similar-ish in price.

Lamb, a bit more expensive.

Have a look at the different supermarket prices for sure,

but also talk to your local butcher because very often,

they will match prices.

Another thing to look out for is the fat content.

Often these days, you'll see the fat coming down,

which is healthier in some respects,

but also if you've got 10-15% fat,

that's gonna be much more delicious and cheaper.

And I'm gonna continue that kind of idea

of stretching meat further by using some chickpeas.

Now, you could use beans,

but by getting legumes or beans into your beautiful patties or your

burgers, or your kebabs,

that's a really cool and very healthy thing to do.

So, we'll get rid of the liquid first

and then I'm gonna put half of these chickpeas in here

and I'll use half of these chickpeas a little bit later.

I'm gonna have a nice pinch of salt,

a nice pinch of pepper.

I wanna flavour it with some garam masala,

but you can use any spice blend that you absolutely love.

I'm gonna go in with two teaspoons in there like that.

Then we're gonna continue with more texture

and more flavour with a mixed bag of fruit and nuts,

100g goes in.

You're gonna get the sweet and sourness from the fruit

and in this kebab it's gonna be absolutely fabulous.

So, give that a little pulse.

I'll go in with an egg.

So, in with the mincemeat and then just a little pulse.

Nice. So, there is our lovely kebab mix.

So, let's get a little tray.

So get yourself some greaseproof paper.

I'm gonna take a little olive oil.

And then I'm not gonna use skewers

but I do wanna get into that kind of kofta-y kebab vibe.

So what we've done is we've saved money by blending

the mincemeat

and we've stretched it further with those chickpeas.

We've got, you know,

fruit, nuts, spice in there, which is great.

I'm gonna divide that into four like that.

Make sure they're about the same size.

Just roll it out and then kind of squeeze it together.

Er, I love it being kind of rustic.

There you go. We have four.

And what I just wanna do is just kind of pinch them out

and it just kind of catches the heat in a different way.

So, let me wash my hands.

I'm gonna use my oil spritzer.

You just give it a nice little spray like that.

There's times when I wanna use olive oil and get it out quick

and there's times when I'll just need a little bit.

I'm gonna turn the grill on,

so get it onto grill and fan

and I'm gonna get it up to high.

Let's make some beautiful flatbreads.

Now, you can buy your flatbreads, absolutely.

It's gonna be way more expensive than making your own,

so let me show you how easy the flatbread is.

300g of self-raising flour.

I'm gonna use that little bowl just to make

a little well and then in here,

we're gonna go in with 150ml of water,

OK. Save loads of money, really good fun.

You made it, you can be proud of yourself.

A little pinch of salt goes in,

and I might just give it a little kiss of oil.

So we'll start bringing in the sides like that.

As soon as you feel like the fork has done its work,

then start kind of bringing your hands in with the flour.

So again, I'm gonna eyeball the division into four

and I'll just simply roll it into

a little ball like that.

And then take a rolling pin.

I'll use a little bit of flour,

if you feel it's sticking a little bit.

So look, four flatbreads, four kebabs.

This will go under the grill now

and I reckon 10-15 minutes for this to cook and get golden.

Just gorgeous.

Put the pan on a low heat for the flatbreads.

Let's do the sauce. This couldn't be simpler.

I'm gonna take four tablespoons of lovely Greek yoghurt,

then two teaspoons of chilli oil into that yoghurt...

...with a pinch of salt and pepper.

And that just rippled through is all you

need to turn your everyday yoghurt into a thing of joy

to have with your kebab.

I'm now gonna go on to the salad stuff.

So I'm gonna take literally a kilo of veg and salad.

This is the easiest way to get five of your fruit

and veg a day into your diet,

right? Chopped salads are brilliant.

Anything crunchy is gonna be good. We've got broccoli,

do not throw away the stalk. Just trim off the end,

OK, and then I'll take that stalk and actually,

I'll put that back, right. We'll take carrot here.

So, it's called a chopped salad, guess why,

cos it's chopped of course,

but what you can do is create textures

and make the most delicious salads to go

with all kinds of dinners. We've got onions,

cabbage, the stalk of broccoli, a carrot.

You know, a couple of radishes go in.

And we'll just keep chopping.

A third of a cucumber and a gem lettuce.

We can just run our knife through.

Let's start cooking the flatbreads. The pan is now hot.

No oil at all, and then just flop it in there.

Look, bubbles coming up.

We're gonna get a bit of colour on the bottom.

It's gonna take about a minute on each side to cook.

Come on. So, back to the chopped salad.

Make a little well in the middle.

We can add vinegar, about two tablespoons.

We can add some olive oil,

a couple of tablespoons goes in. Salt and pepper.

Wholegrain mustard, about a tablespoon.

So, last flatbread done. That can go into here.

Cover it up. This will just keep it nice and warm for like,

five minutes. This doesn't need any washing up at all.

That'll go back in there.

The last thing I'm gonna do is take those lonely little chickpeas that

we had.

A little bit of that garam masala back over

the top is kind of nice and the herb I've got is mint.

So, let's just tear the mint over the top like that.

And these smell absolutely amazing. Look at that.

Just the way that I wanted them.

This fat that's cooking out of it,

let's baste it back over it and look how shiny that gets.

Let's just put that across our chopped salad.

Just start the story off with that lovely chilli,

look, yoghurt, look at that, come on.

A beautiful platter of kebab, chopped salad,

sauce and flatbreads.

Have a little drink and it's a nice little feast.

Let's take a flatbread and just load it. I'm gonna put

a little bit of that beautiful chilli yoghurt on the bottom.

Just load a little bit more mint on the top.

Look at that. This isn't gonna be pretty,

but I don't care cos I'm actually outrageously excited.

Mm. I love it. Spices, so good. That gorgeous,

chopped salad, it's juicy,

it's crunchy and with the gnarly kebab,

it's a thing of joy.

Mm. The flatbread,

it's soft and it's got a little crispness as well.

Altogether, it's delicious. Have a go. You won't regret it.

For £1.79 per portion, these gorgeous kebabs,

flatbreads and salad fill up a family of four.

For less than a quarter of

the price of your average takeaway kebab, it's a no brainer.

I'm not the only one passionate about creating fantastic dishes on

a budget.

The legendary Ken Hom is

an international icon who's been showing us Brits how

to cook Chinese food for over 40 years.

He's written nearly 40 bestselling cookbooks

and has an OBE for services to culinary arts.

You know I've been cooking for 64 years,

can you believe that?

Budget has always been very important for me.

Just because it's inexpensive doesn't mean it can't taste good.

Ken's gonna whip up an amazing budget-friendly dish,

so he's headed to London's Chinatown

to stock up on ingredients and look out for some bargains.

I love being here.

I really feel like I'm in Aladdin's cave.

I'm looking at these peppers

and often the prices are half of what normal supermarkets are,

and you can discover

a whole array of exciting new vegetables.

You know that in Chinese culture,

we cook meat as almost a garnish with

a lot of vegetables. Pork is inexpensive,

and we eat all parts of it.

What is very good is this pork loin which we will use in small quantity

to flavour all the vegetables.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

This cut will serve four to six people.

It is very economical, easy to cook and delicious.

What could be better?

One of my favourite all-time sauce is oyster sauce

and this will last you a long time.

All you need is just a little. You stir fry anything with this.

Hello. Hello.

Thank you.

Ken's gonna cook that lovely,

lean pork with some veggies in a simple

but delicious pork

and broccoli stir fry that comes in at a tasty £1.66 per head.

After all that shopping, I really just wanna cook now.

I'm starting with my beautiful piece of pork.

You cut the piece of pork like that.

A loin is very tender. When it's cut into small pieces,

it will cook faster,

it will use less energy

and it will take to the marinade very well.

We start with some light soy sauce.

A little bit of this toasted sesame oil

and our lovely little Shaoxing rice wine,

or just a little bit of

the wine you're drinking while you're cooking.

You don't wanna add too much salt,

so just a touch for taste and a little bit of pepper

and cornflour.

Cornflour will dissolve

and it will hold the marinade on the meat.

Don't marinate it more than 15 or 20 minutes.

You don't want it to get too salty. So now we'll prepare our veggies.

I'm gonna show you how not to waste anything.

Standing up the pepper,

cut through there like that

and then parallel with the board,

this is what I learned when I was

a child working in my uncle's kitchen.

And the core is out

and this is the only thing you will leave for your compost.

What I love about pepper is they add such colour to a dish.

Now, my broccoli and spring onions.

You want to cut that up into florets.

Now you see I'm just cutting the outside of the stem

because that's tough.

Cut it in half and then cut that into very thin slices.

And then we're gonna do our garlic.

Crush it like that. You can get out all your frustrations.

Garlic actually is better if you don't chop it too fine.

If it's a little bit coarse,

it just really adds a lot of flavour.

Lessons that I learned from growing up

with my single mother on

a very tight budget is that you never have

to compromise on food that can be so delicious.

My mum used to make all

the seasonal vegetables absolutely delicious.

How she would make rice would be really interesting.

Let me show you this trick. It really works well.

You add just a bit of rice like this.

You add about half a thumb of water over the surface of

the rice. Bring that to a boil.

The smell of rice evokes my mum for me

because that meant dinner was coming.

And what she would do is she would boil

the rice until there's no more liquid left

and you will see what the surface of the rice looks like.

It will look like little craters on the moon,

and then you cover that,

turn that down to a bare minimum

and let it cook for 15 to 20 minutes.

When I was a child, I was admonished never to peek at

the rice while it's cooking because it brings bad luck.

My mother stuffed me with rice. I loved rice.

They used to nickname me The Rice Barrel, and it's OK,

it filled me up. Any left over, don't throw it away,

use it for fried rice, or freeze it.

I'm using groundnut oil

but you can use any type of vegetable oil.

Don't use olive oil because olive oil will burn.

The hotter the wok, the better.

Now you see these whispers of smoke,

that's a signal. OK, that's when you add the meat.

And you can hear that wonderful sizzle...

...with it all nice and brown,

and that the colour of course will give flavour

to this dish. At this point, I'm going to take this out...

...put it in the colander but saving some of the oil.

That's when I add my garlic.

I'll add the peppers.

You can either add a little bit of chicken stock,

or else you could just plain water,

and what we're doing is we're actually steaming

the vegetables. There,

you can just toss them a little bit.

Cover that and let that steam away.

It's like Mum's cooking.

These spring onions, we slice them like this.

Let's see how that's cooking. It's doing very,

very well. It's almost done.

We take our pork.

Add my spring onion.

I'm adding oyster sauce.

Look how enticing that looks.

I'm hungry.

OK, now we're ready with some feast for the family

and you can have a banquet

and save money at the same time.

Now the rice.

I can't wait to try it, especially the veggies.

My mouth is watering.

It's quick, it's easy, and tasty. I can't resist.

Mm.

My mum would be proud.

For £1.66 per portion,

the legendary Ken's simple

but sublime stir fry will serve four lucky people.

It's a fantastic dish, making the most of lovely,

lean pork and gorgeous veggies.

I'm gonna make a delicious dessert inspired by my beautiful mum,

and this is a thrifty dessert.

Coming in at under a pound a portion,

this is gonna put

a smile on anyone's face. Even my dad.

My stuffed apples

and custard are so simple

to knock together using everyday ingredients.

At a delicious 90p a portion,

they cost under a quid a head

and make the perfect last minute pud. Happy days.

So, when you talk about desserts,

often you think you've got to go to loads of effort,

but this dessert is just one

of those things that feels humble, grounded,

but it always, always over delivers.

How do we make the most exquisite baked apple?

I have some fruit bread here. It could be a crumpet,

it could be a nice little hot cross bun, a brioche.

We're gonna have a base which is the bread.

So, grab yourself four lovely eating apples.

I'm gonna use a corer. You could use a little knife,

but I'm just gonna go through the stem there,

all the way down,

out the other end and you've got a nice little hole.

We'll do that to all of these.

This is a quick little preparation.

You can do this when you haven't planned a dessert

because you've normally got apples around,

you've normally got some kind of bread around.

So, we've taken the core out. Get rid of that,

into the composter. With the knife,

I literally just get it in a couple of millimetres

and just rotate the knife

and the apple around until it joins up with itself again.

The reason I do that is cos often when this bakes,

it kind of wants to expand,

so let it expand and it will become beautiful.

So, let's get the stuffing happening.

Grab a little bowl.

We're gonna go in with 50g of butter

and then I'm gonna go in with 25g of almonds,

so these are flaked almonds like that

and you can put some in whole

and then crumble some up

so you get those nice little kind of frangipane-y sort

of almond tarty flavours coming through.

Then I've got some mixed fruit here,

so raisins, sultanas, that kind of vibe.

25g again,

which is about two tablespoons if you don't wanna weigh anything.

So that goes in. Same with the brown sugar.

Then, a little key ingredient that I love dearly that I always have on

the shelf, stem ginger in syrup. This is heavenly stuff.

Puddings, desserts, flavouring even savoury dishes,

like, this is a whole vibe.

And steal a little bit of that syrup, happy days.

And just slice or chop up. The stem ginger is sweet,

it's warming,

it's got that spice to it and that heat.

Ah. I love it. And then last but not least,

a little pinch of cinnamon. Not too much,

just a little gesture. Then we're in with our hands,

clean, of course, just to mush this up.

You could use dried cranberries, really nice.

If you had sour cherries, you can play with that.

Different nuts. Really nice.

Let's just put this in the hole

and then it comes out the other end like that.

I've only used half the stuffing to stuff these apples

and there's good reason for that,

so these will go onto our lovely breads here.

Now, after 15 minutes of cooking,

I'm then gonna come along and pack this on top like that

and then it almost goes like almond tarty kind of biscuity gorgeousness.

And we'll put that in for 15 minutes.

So, get that into the air fryer.

The air fryer is good at starting from cold

and heating up straight away.

It keeps the energy costs down. 160 degrees.

Now, if those apples were bigger,

just take the temperature down to 150

and go in for about 20 minutes and 20 minutes,

OK, so the bigger it is, the more time you have to give it.

There we go. 15 minutes done. Let's have a little look.

Beautiful. So look, at this point in time,

we're gonna go in with our nice little topping here

and by putting this lovely mix on top now,

it almost forms like a lovely little cap.

So, ten more minutes and we'll be good to go.

Oh, this looks so good. Look at the caramelisation.

All that sticky goodness. Please don't fall off.

Come on. That is dessert delight. Look.

And then we're going in with cold custard.

You can heat it up if you're that way inclined,

but not in my world, oh, no, no, no.

And then I'm gonna take one of these very hot croutes.

Ah. Come on, Nan, come on Mum. Ha. Memories.

A beautiful dessert taken to the next level for under

a pound a portion.

Ho-ho-ho. Let's get in there.

I mean...

Where to start? Look a that.

Oh, yes. Look, I'm making a mess already but I don't care.

Let's go for crunchy croute and a bit of that apple.

That fruit bread at the bottom that's caught all the juices, amazing.

It is like toffee.

It's crispy, it's caramelised,

it's crunchy and it's caught

all of the essence of the apple and the spice, so, so good.

For a sweet 90p a portion,

these tasty stuffed apples will serve four

of your favourite people. Such a simple dessert,

made with everyday ingredients that delivers time after time.

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