Pick-Me-Ups James Martin: Home Comforts

Sometimes there's no place like home, and few things are more

comforting and delicious than real home cooking.

'Living in this beautiful country

'with great produce right on our doorstep,

'we really are spoilt for choice.'

So in this series, I'm inviting you into my kitchen to share with you

some of my tasty home-cooked treats.

'The dishes I turn to whether entertaining friends and family

'or just relaxing on my own.'

'Home for me is a retreat and a place to revive my spirits.'

Today's show is all about dishes I like to cook

when I'm running on empty, whether recovering from a night

out on the tiles, or coming back from a long day at work.

I'll be cooking food that's so packed full of flavour

you can't help but feel great when you eat it.

It's what I call "pick me up" food,

dishes that are guaranteed to put a spring in your step.

Just like you, eh?

'But first, I'm going to kick off with a dish I always turn to

'whenever I'm feeling a bit under the weather.

'It was my granny's favourite.

'Poached haddock with egg and spinach in a mustard sauce.

'Rich in flavour and packed full of protein,

'it's my perfect prescription to get back on track.'

Really, for this, it's all about the quality of the smoked haddock.

This is beautiful, it smells lovely and smoked, it's just delicious.

And what we're going to do is

just basically poach this nice and easily.

'I'm using a basic poaching liquor of milk, sliced onion and bay leaf.

'While that's doing, I can get on with the egg.'

What we're going to do is just bring this to the boil,

with a good pinch of salt,

and just a small amount of white wine vinegar.

I use white wine vinegar instead of malt vinegar,

purely the fact that it flavours the egg too much

if you use malt vinegar, and also colours the water too much,

you end up with a slightly grey-looking egg.

The great thing about these eggs, you can make them in advance,

and to do that, just take a bowl with some ice in it.

Just a little bit of cold ice water.

And really, the secret with poached eggs is

plenty of water, rapidly boiled.

What you do with this is just create a little swirl,

a little vortex in the middle,

and then crack the egg on the side of the pan, in the centre...

..and what's happening is, as it swirls round, you get this sort of

egg white seal on the egg yolk,

which is exactly what's happening in our pan now.

And the most important thing with this is we use fresh eggs,

cos if you use old eggs, the whites actually start to separate,

and end up being very thin and watery,

and when you break them in the pan they just go everywhere.

What you want to do is just basically very carefully

flip the fish over...

..at this point. Now, be careful with it, really,

cos you don't want it to break.

That's why it's really important to keep the skin on the haddock

as well, that way it'll actually hold it together.

It only takes about two minutes on one side, turn it over,

and two minutes on the other side.

Now the egg is actually nicely cooked like that.

Ice cold water, it stops the cooking,

and you can keep those in the fridge now for about 24 hours.

At this point, really, we can take the haddock out.

The key to this, really, is not to overcook it.

The best way to tell

whether it's cooked is just basically by pressing it.

If the flesh of the haddock starts to break,

just ever-so-slightly, that's cooked.

So just keep it warm in the oven,

and then we can turn our attention to the sauce.

'It couldn't be easier.

'Melt some butter in a pan, add a sprinkle of flour...

'..give it a stir, then, hey presto, you've got a roux.'

And then we can, just literally,

decant some of our milk into the pan.

Don't add too much of the milk at the same time.

'And it'll come together a treat.

'A dollop of English mustard will give it a bit of added bite.'

Pinch of salt.

Nice crack of black pepper.

And then you'll need a squeeze of lemon.

'It's the perfect mustard sauce, just like my grandad used to make.'

Now, I'm going to serve this with some spinach.

Simply wilted in hot butter for about 30 seconds.

So, little bit of spinach on the plate.

Before I take the haddock out,

the great thing about doing an egg like this is

when you get the egg, and you can see it's perfect like this,

lovely and poached in the middle,

then all we can do is just drop it back into the water.

All it wants is about 20, 30 seconds in there.

We can then take our haddock out...

..onto the plate like that.

Lift it out, you can see it's hot, like that.

You've got a perfectly cooked egg.

You've got this lovely sauce to go with it over the top.

And when you crack the egg...

See, that's what it's all about. Beautiful, rich yolk.

But this combination of the mustard, the spinach,

the beautiful poached haddock...

This is what it's all about.

Almost as good as my grandad's. Not quite but almost.

'Gorgeous. Just what the doctor ordered.

'But, like any recipe,

'it'll only ever be as good as the quality of the ingredients you use.

'Luckily for me, I don't have to go far

'to find first class veg, fruit, seafood and meat,

'because I've got fantastic local producers right on my doorstep...

'Roy Hunt's family have farmed in a traditional way

'in the New Forest in Hampshire for over 100 years.'

'My grandfather came here about 1904.

'He started off with, I think, about five cows to start off with.

'We've been here three generations. Grandfather, my father and myself.

'It's a hard life, it's a way of life, it's what you're brought up to.

'We've got the rare breed pork.

'That's what we mainly specialise in, ourself, is rare breed pigs.'

To me, it's a different flavour altogether.

People are beginning to realise that we can produce

good food on a small basis, and it's aged as well.

We make good sausages and we make good bacon out of it.

'In late summer, Roy's rare breed pigs

'are released into the forest to forage.

'This practice is part of an ancient tradition called pannage.

'It dates back nearly 1,000 years to the Norman Conquest,

'but finding the pigs in the autumn can prove a challenge.'

They've definitely come through here.

You can see where's he's... they've had a bit of a wallow.

'But helped by the rustle of a bag of feed, soon enough

'Roy locates his beloved rare pigs.'

I put these pigs out in the forest

because they help the ponies and the cattle, cos the acorns kill ponies,

and they're a poison to ponies and cattle,

which they aren't to pigs and sheep.

The pigs generally go out for 60 days, but they've had to extend it

this year because there's so many ponies and cattle being poisoned.

Whereas a pig, it doesn't affect them.

'Roy's wife Sarah works in the farm shop,

'and is in charge of making their award-winning bacon.

'Sarah believes that the rich

'and varied forest diet has a real impact on the taste.'

The acorns make quite a big difference to the actual pork.

They have a very unique, nutty flavour to it,

and sometimes the meat can be a bit darker as well.

So we've got a boneless leg of pork,

this is then what we put into our brine solution.

You can see there's some bay leaves in there,

but I'm not going to tell you what the rest of it is.

'The next stage of the process involves massaging the joint

'with the brine mix to ensure it penetrates the meat.'

If you tried to just get the salt to work down from the outside in,

you'd struggle.

What we're doing is helping that along by pushing it through

the middle to speed up the process.

'The joint is put into the fridge to cure for five to ten days,

'and afterwards, it's hung for a day to dry,

'then put into the smoker for up to 48 hours.'

The secret to good pork, it's allowing the pigs to have a life,

and not fast-forwarding them through the chain.

That's what I would say.

You know, truthfully, pigs need time to mature.

If you rush them too quickly, the pork has very little flavour.

'Well, now I know Sarah makes such a mean bacon sandwich, I can't

'resist inviting her and Roy along to show them my souped up version.

'It's a dish I often turn to when I'm feeling a little bit hung-over

'after a big night out, and it works a treat.

'And, luckily for me, they haven't come empty-handed.'

We've brought you a selection today.

There's middle bacon, that's unsmoked,

or we've got some really nice smoked back as well.

Your choice, Roy.

-The nice smoked one.

-Yeah?

-This one?

-Yes.

-This is the one we're going to go for.

'This recipe incorporates so many of my favourite things.

'There's bacon, which goes without saying,

'beautiful home-made apple chutney and Welsh rarebit.

'Individually, they're great,

'but combined, few things could make me happier.'

First thing we're going to do

is make our little chutney over here by slicing the apples.

No need to peel them or core them or anything like that,

just chop them up into dice, really.

The key to this is get all the ingredients prepared in advance.

'The chutney will go great with the bacon and cheese.

'Once I've chopped the apples, I need some onion and tomato.

'Then I'm adding some brown sugar into the pan,

'along with a handful of sultanas.'

So we caramelise the sugar and the sultanas,

and then what we do is grab some malt vinegar.

What you're doing with this

is you're speeding up the cooking process.

Normally, with chutneys, they take a good 45, 50 minutes.

This one you can cook very quickly.

And then we throw in the apples, tomatoes and onions.

And you just chuck it all in.

And then if you keep it on the stove with that vinegar in

and a good pinch of salt, that will actually come down now

into a chutney, very, very quickly.

One thing that fascinates me about the pigs,

particularly from a foodie and a farming point of view,

the great thing about it as well, you can use every part of it.

Absolutely.

I just feel that, you know, having a pig, you're doing it justice by

going through every process that you possibly can,

so we make hams, we do our own bacon, our own sausages,

pork pies, we make black pudding from the blood, use the back fat

-in the black pudding, so...

-Keeps you busy, then, don't it?

-Yeah!

It's quite interesting the diet of these things,

cos I go on and on about how good Spanish ham is in particular,

and sort of pigs, Iberico pigs that people spend, you know,

£1,000 on just a ham that's bred on acorns,

specifically on acorns, and you're producing it here.

This year there's been a lot of acorns, and crab apples, beech nuts.

But there's still a lot of acorns and food out there for them really now.

'Now for the rarebit.

'I'm going to use mature Cheddar to give it a full flavour.

'Grate it and melt it in a pan with a bit of good quality beer.

'If you've been out the night before,

'a little hair of the dog certainly won't hurt.'

I'm going to flavour this with a little bit of mustard.

And then I'm going to add some Worcester sauce and some Tabasco.

The Tabasco gives it a little bit of fire,

like that, and a bit of Worcester sauce.

Tiny bit of flour, and what this does,

it just brings it all together, really.

Mainly stops it from separating, cos often when you boil cheese,

it will actually separate and split.

That's quite liquid.

Going to put a little bit more in.

'The bacon's done all nice and crispy,

'and it's time to get stacking.'

So, I'm just going to put a bit of cracked black pepper in here

to up my game.

Just a touch.

Pinch of salt as well, not too much cos obviously we've got the bacon.

Then all we're going to do is pour this over the top.

'Be nice and generous with the rarebit, it's fantastic stuff.'

All I'm going to do now is

just take this and pop it under the grill to brown.

That'd be really nice for canapes or something like that,

wouldn't it, if you let it go cold?

You could do if you cater for weddings.

-Yeah.

-We do.

-I know, that's the problem.

Well, here you go.

This is your...

It's a bit fancy that, innit?

And, of course, you've got your chutney.

It's so simple. So easy.

And the thing about this is that it doesn't take, sort of, 45 minutes,

which a conventional sort of chutney would take.

Tastes the same, but I actually think it tastes better

cos it's fresher, really, more than anything else.

You aren't boiling everything to bits.

'The chutney will add a lovely punchy note to the dish,

'and it finishes off my crispy bacon with rich rarebit perfectly.

'It's a recipe that might not be shy of the odd calorie or two,

'but it's jam-packed full of flavour.

'Just the trick to put a spring in your step

'if you're feeling a bit fragile.'

It will be hot.

-(Ohhh...)

-Oh, wow, that is lovely.

It's not bad, that, is it?

Bacon's not bad either.

Bacon, I think, helps it quite a lot, but...

God, that is absolutely gorgeous.

I think with the bread, the bacon, the chutney...

That cheese mixture is absolutely yummy.

The ultimate cheese on toast.

There you go. Thank you for coming,

thank you for my present as well.

You're welcome. Thank you very much for that.

I'll give you the recipe for that

-if you give me the recipe for the brine.

-No.

This is, to be honest, if you've got all the ingredients,

the ultimate pick me up.

I call it "hangover food." It's, erm...

You don't have to make the chutney,

but bacon, cheese, bread, does it get any better?

Plus...

..you can get back on it again, can't ya?

Now, food historian Ivan Day knows that using food to revive body

and soul is a tradition that dates back centuries,

and he's going to show us a recipe our ancestors used to

invigorate themselves before bedtime.

In the past, our ancestors were well aware of lots of recovery foods

and beverages.

The favourite recovery food of Charles II,

and all of his contemporaries,

was something which was called a posset.

Today, a posset refers to a runny syllabub,

but for hundreds of years it was a hot, alcoholic custard drink.

This food was usually consumed in a communal way.

For instance, it was popular at supper, posset, just to pick you

up in the evening.

If you used the word restorative in the 17th century,

it would also mean an aphrodisiac,

so it restored your vigour.

And this food was given to newlyweds on their wedding night,

and the custom was that the bride and groom would be put to bed,

the company would come in with a great posset pot,

and everyone would have some.

And then the last people to have it were the bride and groom,

and it would help them, basically, have the

vigour to get through the night.

The recipe I'm going to make is

called My Lord of Carlisle's Sack Posset.

It was first published in 1669.

The author of the recipe was a man who had been a very famous

cavalier and royalist who was called Sir Kenelm Digby.

So, I've got my egg yolks ready. I need a whisk.

And here I've got white sugar, some blades of mace,

and a stick of cinnamon.

Both spices in this recipe were considered to be very,

very good for settling your digestion and, actually,

very, very stimulating spices all-round.

It's the only pick-me-up they had.

They didn't have coffee. They didn't have tea.

This goes back a lot further.

And gradually, as coffee and tea and chocolate become more popular,

posset gets rarer and rarer and rarer,

and then becomes extinct.

The most important ingredient, of course, is the sack,

which gives this posset it's name - Sack Posset.

You see, it's a very strong, sweet wine.

This is how a lot of women cooked in most of the houses in England

at one point.

The thing is, when you've worked as hard as this to cook this,

you really are going to need some kind of recovery

food to recover, I guess.

I've got here a posset pot.

This is an English one, from the early 18th century.

And the idea now is to pour the wine

and posset mixture into the posset pot.

So what I'm going to do now is put this back in the warmth of the fire

and we're ready for the final stage, which is

to pour the scalding hot cream into the custard.

And this is the dangerous bit. I'm going to get up onto the chair.

They like to have their posset really frothy...

and the best way of doing that was to stand at a great height

and pour the cream in from high up,

and then you get one little stream, which should make lots of froth.

Perfect.

And then you leave it by the fire just to rest for about 20 minutes,

and it separates into three layers.

If we have a little peep inside, at the bottom,

you have a very strong liquid layer of powerful, high octane alcohol.

Above that is a thick custard - really delicious.

And if you really do it well, you can add a third layer on top,

which is called the grace of the posset.

And the grace is this lovely, light froth.

Mmm!

It's really extraordinary because it's so light, but so rich.

So, once everybody had had the grace,

the posset pot would go round the company, and this time

the bottom layer, which is now a clear, very alcoholic liquid,

is sucked like a straw.

This is really a ceramic straw.

This is not a pouring spout, like a teapot.

And you...

Hmm.

My God. And it hits the back of your throat,

and suddenly you're awake again.

And, of course, you wipe the...

The spout...

and pass it on to your neighbour.

Amazingly, though, in the 18th century

the posset pots become individual ones,

so I think it was more of a private indulgence in these much

smaller ones.

But this was in the days, really, when...

sharing food, sharing a comforting recovery beverage like this was

very much part of the social dynamics of the age.

In the 17th century, when it was its heyday, it was considered to

be something which was probably the healthiest food that you could drink.

Times have changed.

I have my own way of lifting the spirits,

but unlike posset, it doesn't involve copious amounts of alcohol.

It's my butternut squash soup

with lime served with freshly baked bread.

A nutritious and delicious way to pep yourself up

Now, home-made bread doesn't have to be complicated cos

when I'm at home, I use some of this stuff.

It's a readymade dry mix, really.

Grab a packet like this, good pinch of salt,

and 300mls of warm water.

Now, the secret with making bread also...

..is get...the water right.

And you can actually make it with cold water -

it just takes longer to prove.

The one thing you don't want to be using is too hot a water

because it actually kills the yeast.

We're just going to mix this all together.

And really, with bread doughs, you kind of follow a recipe

but it's all in...your fingers.

And it's only through experience and having a go at it...

where you'll actually understand what you're trying to achieve.

The problem is, most flours react differently

to different amounts of water.

It changes so much, really,

whether you buy flour in the winter to buying it in the summer.

Whether you buy it abroad as well.

Different flours absorb different amounts of liquid,

so it's not really one recipe fits all.

You've got to get the moisture into it.

If it's dry at this stage, it's going to be really dry

when it comes out of your oven.

But you just roll it up like that.

You've got this nice little ball of dough, really.

You can tell when it's ready.

If you just press the top of it, if it springs back,

which that's doing there,

that means the dough's ready.

'You can buy great bread mixes from most supermarkets

'and it's a brilliant way to take some of the guesswork out

'of making the perfect loaf.'

'The dough needs an hour to prove,

'so while that's happening I'm preparing

'my baking tins - flower pots.

'Great for baking these little loafs in

'and they certainly add the wow factor to any pick-me-up meal.

'Coat the insides with butter and line with grease-proof paper,

'and then it's back to my dough.

Then you can, what we call,

"knock the dough back" and watch what happens.

When you chuck your hand in, the dough collapses.

There you go. It almost sort of decreases in height by half.

So once you get to this stage...

And already you can smell the dough.

It actually smells like sour dough, that great-tasting bread,

and you can see the texture of it.

This is what it should be.

So roll that out.

Now, ideally, for these little pots, you want sort of 150g rolls really,

but something about that sort of size.

When you're moulding it,

the best way of doing it is to actually just put the bread,

fold it in on itself together...

..turn it over. And just using the palm of your hand,

is actually just push down...

..and cup your hand at the same time.

So flatten down first

and then gradually cup your hand up, so it comes up to a ball like that.

And then just pop these into the bottom of the moulds.

And then just sprinkle it with a bit of flour. No egg wash needed.

Just a touch of flour over the top.

And then leave this to prove.

This is what we call the secondary prove,

so you allow these pots to rise up again.

You can see, you've already knocked it back

and they will rise again, like what we've got here,

and these are just about ready to go in the oven now.

'For a little decorative finish, cut a slice into the top

'of the loaves, then put in a very hot oven for about ten minutes.'

Well, that was simple. And now for the easy bit.

For my nutritious soup, all I need is a diced butternut squash...

..a finely sliced onion,

and a frying pan with some butter.

What you need to do is cook it quite quickly,

so for this soup, when you dice it this size,

it'll take no more than about five minutes to cook.

'Add some veg stock...

'..and some milk. Full fat, of course.'

Salt and pepper.

Bring this to the boil

and cook this for about five minutes.

And the key to this

is to not overcook the veg, like in any soup.

You wouldn't overcook the carrots if you served them

for Sunday lunch. Well, don't overcook them

when you turn it into a soup...

cos you want all that flavour in there,

that fresh flavour of this wonderful veg.

What we do now is just blend it.

So once it's nice and finely blended...

Now the key to this, really,

is you don't need to pass it through a sieve.

See how smooth it gets? That's because you've cooked it nicely.

But also what you've got to do is finish this off.

Now I'm going to use some... lime zest and lime juice,

which I think goes amazingly with butternut squash.

So a good amount of lime juice and lime zest.

And then always what you've got to do with soup is season it.

Make sure you've got plenty of seasoning in there.

Now, what the lime will do is really freshen up this soup.

It's a great addition.

And you can put it in together with carrots and all manner of stuff.

It just really lifts up the flavour.

And then, of course, you've got your bread.

I just think this looks fantastic.

Lovely and simple... these little pots.

Certainly the soup, I just think it's simple, it tastes great.

It's full of flavour.

And, of course, when you're at home...

you can be a bit poncey.

Just got a little bit of watercress...on the top.

And there you have it.

Sort of a butternut squash and lime soup...

with home-made bread.

The lime is really key to this - it makes it really come alive.

Butternut squash is great as it is, but when you put it in there...

it really lifts the soup.

'It's a bowl of sunshine, guaranteed to put a spring in your step.

'Few things can revive you as much as a good meal.

'From a quick vitamin hit to a comforting dinner,

'food really does have the power to heal body and soul.'

If you'd like to know more about how to cook any of the recipes

featured on today's show, you can get all of them at our website...