Dressed to Impress James Martin: Home Comforts

Sometimes there is 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.

For me, cooking at home usually means

making whatever I fancy eating.

But sometimes I have got guests coming over

and I need to make food that goes all out to entertain.

Today I'm going to show you some dishes that I do at home when I'm feeling a bit flash.

Dishes that will really impress your family and friends.

I'm going to show you some cheffy techniques

that wouldn't look out of place in a top restaurant.

In your kitchen, you can create pure extravagance on a plate.

Sophisticated main courses with real panache.

Or mind-blowing desserts.

We'll be exploring how 18th century cooks

took showing of to a new level

and meeting food producers who go the extra mile

to make world-class ingredients.

My great-grandfather used to smoke salmon. My grandfather smoked salmon.

The first taste of that, you will never forget it.

But first, I'm going to give you a little taster of how you can

make something simple for your guests that they'll never forget

with my Madeleines in a spiced cinnamon caramel.

They're light and fluffy and you can make them in no time at all.

Now, one thing I always find boring at dinner parties is petits fours

because you get the same old stuff coming out.

This dish, sort of, transforms petits fours

and give them a new lease of life really.

To start this canny little classic,

first melt 225g of butter in a pan,

weigh out 250g of caster sugar

and 250g of plain flour into a bowl.

Next, scrape the seeds from one vanilla pod into the sugar,

keeping the pod aside for later.

And then some honey because, in a lot of Madeleines over in France,

honey is the main flavour.

We need a couple of tablespoons of honey.

I'm going to use good old Yorkshire honey. My mother brings this town.

And then take three eggs.

The recipe doesn't change, whatever flavouring you put in.

You can put cinnamon, ginger, all manner of different flavourings in,

but the recipe should stay exactly the same.

All we are doing with this is melting.

You don't want to be boiling it, otherwise it's going to cook the flour.

So, at this point,

you can then just basically pour this into the mixture.

And a batch like this will make plenty of Madeleines.

The great thing about these, they keep really well.

Not that they are going to hang around in your kitchen for too long

because they taste pretty good.

And there you have it, your Madeleine mixture.

You can see the texture of it. It's not a biscuit, it's not a cake.

Because of the butter in there

it actually looks quite waxy when you actually see the recipe.

As you spoon the mixture into the moulds,

be careful not to overfill them

as they will rise while they're in the oven.

Set the oven for these at about 325 degrees Fahrenheit.

That's about 170 degrees centigrade so not too hot an oven.

And the larger trays cook for about 12 to 15 minutes

and the smaller ones for about eight or ten minutes.

What's great with this is, like, a winter caramel

and to do that you start off by basically caramelising sugar.

We just put a little bit in the pan.

And then the flavourings for this, we are going to use some vanilla,

the leftover pile of vanilla, cinnamon, and then this.

I actually love this and it is so often underused in desserts.

Star anise.

It goes amazing in savoury dishes, curries and all manner of things,

but in desserts, it's brilliant.

But first things first,

now the sugar has turned a lovely golden brown colour,

I'm adding double cream, which will make it go thick and rich.

Really this is by eye. When you think it's nice and golden brown,

that's when you add the cream.

And then this mixture will actually start to come back into a sauce.

At this point, I can add my star anise,

half a cinnamon stick

and the vanilla pod.

Then a little butter to give the sauce a bit of a gloss.

But you've got to keep your eye on it

and look at the texture of this sauce.

That's about right to me.

-HE LAUGHS IN EXCITEMENT

-Look at that!

And then just finally, we take a combination of sugar,

just a touch of cinnamon.

We only want a small amount.

In with the sugar and mix it all together.

What you want to do with these while they're still warm...

and this is really the secret to a Madeleine,

you've got this lovely, crisp sort of outside edge, which makes it

sort of a cross between a biscuit and a cake, really.

And then you roll them in the sugar.

What you want to do with this - bit like doughnuts, really -

is roll them while they're still warm,

that way the sugar will actually stick to them.

What I like to do is mix and match some of the sizes as well for this.

You get some greedy gannets who want the bigger one.

And I think what's great about Madeleines,

is you've got the crispiness on the outside and the soft centre.

And it's even better when you serve it with a sauce like this,

particularly when you serve it warm.

And you just dunk them in.

It's like the old-fashioned fondue.

As good as any petit four you'll ever taste

and so easy to make at home.

Baking your petits fours instead of buying them will delight your guests

and another way to ensure you lay on a top-notch spread,

is by always sourcing the highest-quality ingredients.

And luckily for me, I have access to some of the best

and freshest produce right on my own doorstep in Hampshire.

For years we were in the dark about the joys of gourmet mushrooms

but now, thanks to people like Paul Metcalfe, I can buy them

direct from the farmers' market just down the road.

And they're guaranteed to add a touch of the exotic to any dinner party.

They really are amazing and certainly

I don't eat a lot of the average button mushroom, that's for sure.

Today, Paul's the third biggest supplier of exotic fungi in the UK.

Considering he only started the business

just over three years ago, it shows how quickly it's mushroomed.

Since I've started, the popularity of the mushrooms has increased tremendously.

Especially at the farmers' markets - people try them

and they are always coming back for more.

We have a whole range of varieties, there is

shitake that you can see here and we have yellow oysters and we have

some grey oysters and over in the corner we have some pink oysters.

Along the way, Paul's learned a great deal about the subject

and he's keen to shed new light on it for others.

The freshness really makes a difference, especially with these mushrooms.

Both in terms of their appearance and in terms of their flavour.

Interestingly, a lot of the mushrooms in this country -

a lot of the gourmet mushrooms in this country - are imported

from Holland and also from further afield, such as China and Korea.

I get a lot of feedback with regard to imported Chinese mushrooms,

is that the flavour is good but the texture is very chewy.

That's because they've been part-dried in order to get here,

in order to survive the trip.

Whereas if you take fresh shitake mushrooms,

there is just such an amazing difference in texture.

As part of his mission to spread the joy of gourmet mushrooms,

Paul likes to do tastings so that people can try before they buy.

I'm hoping that our guests will experience a new

dimension to the flavours that mushrooms can deliver.

What we're going to do is we're just going to prep up the mushrooms

very simply, by taking some of the stems off, tearing them up

and frying them up with a little bit of butter, oil and some garlic.

This is a grey oyster and the way we prep it, is to take off the thick

root at the base and then tear the leaves into strips and fry them.

The grey oyster is mild and probably the only one of these

mushrooms that is actually mushroomy.

This is yellow oyster and this has a lovely, slightly tart flavour

but the more you cook it, the nuttier it gets.

So to prep shitake, it's generally best to tear them

rather than cut them and leave the stem.

The stem is too woody to eat but it's good for flavouring,

so if you want to put it in a stock where you can fish it out again afterwards, that's great.

This is a pink oyster and it has a delicate background of crab,

almost seafood-like.

These mushrooms take a bit longer to cook than the button variety,

so Paul fries them on a high heat for about ten to 15 minutes,

until they're golden brown.

Come on in.

Looks all right, doesn't it? Fantastic, lovely range of colours.

Beautiful.

They've just got fantastic flavours from where they've been fried.

They really complement the bread.

Really, really nice and the toast and the mushrooms together

is just a brilliant combination, just for such a simple meal.

Thanks to the work of people like Paul,

we have an ever-expanding list of ingredients

that are grown on our shores, which means you can't get fresher.

'As delicious as mushrooms on toast is,

'I've asked Paul over, as I want to cook him

'something a little bit more decadent with his amazing mushrooms.'

I don't know what's going to be more spectacular,

the dish that I'm hopefully trying to cook for you,

or some of these fantastic mushrooms that you brought along with you.

'My teriyaki mushroom risotto with red mullet

'and lime leaf foam is bursting with exotic flavours.

'It's a cut above what you might expect for home cooking.

'Perfect for when you need to do a bit of showing off at the table.'

What have you brought along?

What I've brought along today, is we have some shitake...

They're the ones that I'm going to use first cos

I quite like using the stalks for the stock, these ones.

That's a great idea, the stems are too woody to eat.

I tried to grow mushrooms here at home and it's...

It's kind of a hit-and-miss affair.

You've got it absolutely nailed in terms of what they need.

What exactly do mushrooms need?

Commercially, when I grow these as long as you control the light,

the light cycles and the temperature and the humidity

-and the amount of CO2 in the air.

-Yeah, yeah.

-They're not fussy, you know, not fussy at all.

-That's why I failed miserably.

-Possibly, yeah.

'Adding the stalks from the shitake mushrooms to 600ml of chicken stock

'will give the base of this dish a delicate flavour.

'I'm also sweating down a finely-diced shallot,

'some sliced garlic in a pan...

'..along with a couple of handfuls of Arborio rice.'

Try not to get the pan too hot.

Just coat the rice, the shallots and the garlic in the butter...

and then we can throw in just a little bit of white wine.

The great thing about the dish...

-There's enough for me and you as well, I presume you want a glass of wine.

-I wouldn't say no.

See, always a farmer.

But the secret of this is, basically just slightly reduce this down

a little bit by not too much,

just to allow the wine just to reduce off.

Now, at this point we can add the stock. Generally always warm stock,

this is where most of the flavour will come from.

Then you just keep cooking it, just gradually for about 12 minutes.

-So why mushroom farming for you, then?

-Erm...

-Why?

-Why? Good question.

-Do you often ask yourself that? Why?

-Yeah, I often ask myself that

-when I'm up at 4:30 in the morning picking to take to market.

-But why?

-Erm, I enjoy the challenges of, sort of, the engineering side of it.

-Yeah.

-The ability to produce - it's almost like biological engineering, if you like.

-Yeah.

Erm, the fact that they are so fussy but because they grow so quickly,

if you get it wrong you get some instant feedback.

You'll know within a couple of days that you've done something wrong.

They do look seriously impressive. I mean, just look at that. It's just an amazing...

-It's an amazing thing, isn't it? It's just nature...

-Absolutely beautiful.

Nature is amazing, isn't it, really? When you look at it like that.

So with these, I'm basically just going to snip these off.

'They might look amazing, but they taste even better.

'Along with these yellow oyster mushrooms,

'I'll be using shitake, and grey oysters.'

How long do these take then?

Because normally with this, I put them in for a couple of minutes.

I recommend frying them off first until they've got a little bit

-of colour on them, over a high heat with a bit of butter and oil.

-Right.

I'll fry them off first then, why not?

So what's your personal favourite to eat?

Personally, I really like the shitake.

It's great roasted, it has a lovely smokey flavour.

Goes well with cabbage, that's one of my favourites. Cabbage, soy sauce and ginger.

You need to write a recipe book at this rate.

'The next part of this recipe is a lime leaf foam dressing

'that any restaurant would be proud of.

'Better still, it's easy to make.'

You just put milk in the pan

and then we're going to use some kaffir lime.

-I'm sure you've tasted these before, they're fantastic.

-Fantastic.

-Used a lot in Thai.

-Yeah, a lot of Thai cooking.

You throw that in there and just allow that to infuse

but we're going to put this stuff in.

This is lecithin, which breaks down the fat.

It basically holds the foam

and you can buy this from health food stores.

Because you're here, I though I've got to out do you with this,

make mine look a bit fancy, really.

So you just put that in and gradually warm it through, it takes about two or three minutes.

Then we're going to blitz it, really, so as to create this foam.

Now, this risotto's nearly finished now, so in we go with our mushrooms.

They can go straight in.

And you start to bring this together. Now at this point,

if you're doing a dinner party, you can take this off the heat,

cool this down, pop these in the fridge and then re-heat it.

It's brilliant if you re-heat it like that

but what we're going to do is continue to cook this

and at the same time, quickly...

cook our red mullet.

And for that, I'm just going to use a little bit of oil...

..in the pan and then we grab our red mullet.

Now, it's important with this, you use a non-stick pan.

In there, hold the fish down because it will actually start to

curl up if you're not careful, so just keep it pressed for a second.

Little bit of black pepper, pinch of salt.

And then once you've got a nice little bit of colour, turn it over

and you've got this beautiful flesh which I love with red mullet.

I just think it's fantastic.

And what we do is just lift that off,

leave that to rest for a little bit.

Meanwhile, we can finish off our risotto.

Now, this is quite unusual this, because it uses teriyaki sauce.

Now, this stuff is sweet and you just pop that,

almost like it's a seasoning, into the risotto.

And because of that, there's no need to add any salt or pepper to it.

'More traditionally, I'm also adding some Parmesan and mascarpone cheese.'

-That looks pretty good, doesn't it?

-That looks great.

I'm trying to keep up with you there, I'm just...

My eye keeps looking at these things, going,

"Am I going to make this as nice looking as that...

"..pile of mushrooms over there?" And then all we do now...

..is give this a quick blitz.

'The great thing about this foam, is you can flavour the mix with

'whatever you like.

'If this doesn't impress your guests, nothing will.'

That lecithin will actually hold the bubbles.

And then all we can do now is pop this on the plate.

'When you put them together, all those bold flavours

'complement each other perfectly

'and I think a little bit of extra care and attention has turned

'a simple-to-make recipe into something truly special.'

-Paul...

-Fantastic.

-..fill your boots.

-Is it worthy?

-Thank you very much.

Mmmm.

-Yeah.

-That's pretty good that, isn't it?

-That's fantastic.

-It is pretty good.

-That teriyaki really comes through.

-Yeah.

-It's sweet, isn't it?

Now, this is a dish that's going to surprise your guests

because there's so many unusual flavours in there.

Great mushrooms, of course,

but it's that teriyaki that just takes it to another level.

I think they're really going to enjoy it.

That is delicious.

People have experimented with special-occasion food

like my risotto for centuries.

And from his home in Cumbria,

food historian Ivan Day is exploring how cooks in grand country houses

went above and beyond to please the eye as well as the belly.

Chefs have always wanted to present their food in a really

beautiful way. They've dressed it to impress, if you like.

In the past - if we go back, say to the Victorian period -

people had large dishes of food in front of them

and they shared them out, so what the chefs often created on the table

was a landscape of extraordinary jellies and other dishes.

And what I want to do, is actually revive something incredibly rare

and lost, which is something called a macedoine jelly.

It's a crystal clear jelly and embedded in it,

is a still life of fruit, encased in...

a beautifully moulded jelly.

And these were technically, very, very difficult things to make.

This jelly dates back to the time before mass-produced gelatine

and what the top chefs used in their kitchens to make a very clear jelly,

was this very expensive material, the isinglass.

The swim bladder of the Caspian sturgeon.

It's the same fish that caviar comes from.

The other ingredients - other than the isinglass - in this jelly,

is a pint of water - which I've got boiling away here -

the juice of three lemons, four ounces of sugar,

a pint of a really whitish wine

and finally, the isinglass itself.

And there's one other ingredient, which is the most important one.

It's called maraschino

and it's distilled from the moresco cherry, the sour or morello cherry.

And that is really the flavour of the dessert course

of the Victorian period, they put it in everything.

So I'm just going to put in a glug of that.

To get the jelly crystal clear, whisked egg whites

mixed into the boiling mixture act to bind any discolouring sediment.

That's now boiled up, so that's ready to go into the jelly bag.

This jelly bag, helped by the egg,

filters out any other impurites present.

Just to be sure that it's clear,

I've put the jelly through the bag four times.

To speed up the setting - this was the technique that was used -

is to push the mould...

down into some ice.

So there's my now perfectly clear jelly.

Now, a hot kitchen like this is hardly the place to set a jelly,

so I'm going to go and put it in a much cooler room

and it'll take about an hour.

If you know what you're doing, this isn't very difficult

but it's a very ingenious invention, I think.

Where you have the jelly mould with a liner

so you can actually get a hollow centre.

There were quite a lot of very elaborate moulds made in the

Victorian period, this is one of the simpler ones.

But what I've got here is some hotish water.

I pour that in there quite quickly

and the purpose of this handle is, is so I can pull it out.

That's come out really easily actually, we've got

an absolute perfect hollow in there,

which I can now back-fill with a mixture of fruit

and jelly to secure it.

Yeah, that looks rather beautiful already and it hasn't even set yet.

After an hour in the cool room, Ivan's jelly is set

and ready to extract from the mould.

And it literally doesn't need very long.

The best test is to push it

and then if I just shake it a bit like this...

it should release it.

Make sure it's released all the way round.

I get incredibly nervous when I have to do that!

Ah, well, that looks fantastic, doesn't it?

The Victorian period was one really of what we might consider

excessive embellishment.

So I'm going to dress these even more,

remember this is dressed to impress,

so I'm going to garnish them with some prepared fruit.

You get this fantastic optical refraction through the jelly

and all the colours and the shapes will be exaggerated,

especially when you move your head around, you get this

extraordinary optical effect and that's why these were so popular.

And what you've also got to imagine is having this on a table that is

illuminated by candlelight,

lots of wonderful candelabra shedding this sparkling light

cos it glistens through the jelly and when it's in its correct setting,

it truly is really dressed to kill, let alone dressed to impress.

It's like a firework display at the end of the meal.

And it's a wonderful celebration of food, not of something that's

just good to eat but something that looks really stunning.

The idea of making this kind of spectacular event food

has fallen out of fashion over the years.

'But I've got a classic recipe from back

'when people really knew how to dress to impress.'

I'm going to make an extravagant crown of lamb with duchess potatoes.

It's a Michelin star quality showstopper

that you can cook at home.

I'm going to serve that with a lovely stuffing

of mushrooms and tarragon.

'To start the filling, blitz an onion in a blender until it's very

'finely chopped and then sweat it down in a warm pan with butter.

'Next, blitz 300g of brown cap and button mushrooms until a fine dice.

'Add it to the pan and turn up the heat.'

There's quite a lot of moisture that comes out of mushrooms,

so don't be tempted to add too much liquid to this,

particularly butter.

You're actually sort of dry-frying it, really.

'Once the moisture is cooked away, put the mix in a bowl...

'..along with some chopped tarragon...

'..and 50g of breadcrumbs.'

And mix this all together.

And really, the binding agent, you could put egg in here

but what I'm going to use, is some lamb mince.

So I think it just basically holds the structure together

a lot nicer than adding eggs. So...

chuck in the minced lamb.

Give this a good mix.

And at this point, we can season it.

A decent amount of salt...

And this is where seasoning's really quite important

when you're doing stuffing.

You can't season it afterwards, so you've got to season it properly.

And then we can just leave this just to one side.

Meanwhile, we'll compare our lamb.

Now, to make our crown of lamb, you need two best ends of lamb.

Now, if I join these together with the spine

running down the centre, this would be a saddle of lamb and

when you separate them, obviously you've got your racks of lamb.

If I cut through these chops, you get your lamb chops.

Now, what you need to ask for is one that's done French trimmed.

French trim means that the bones have been cleaned

and they've removed what they call the chine.

It's a bone that runs underneath here and if they don't cut that off,

you'll never be able to cut through the chops

when it comes to serving it.

Now, to turn this into a crown of lamb,

what we need to do is just make little nicks

in between each joint.

'I'm doing this so I can shape it more easily,

'then all I need is to tie some string around the racks,

'which will form a crown as I tighten the string.

'Now start adding the stuffing into the centre.'

But I'm going to serve that with a potato dish that's also

not really often done very much.

This is pommes duchesse, as the French call it, or duchess potatoes

and for that we want some, basically, baked potatoes.

'For this, I'm using my trusty potato ricer.

'Scoop out the flesh from the baked spuds

'and with a good squeeze, it's velvety smooth.'

There are so many fantastic,

old-fashioned potato dishes out there...

that are good enough to put on any menu, really, whether it's

for a dinner party at home or in a restaurant and this is one of them.

You'll find this in three-star Michelin restaurants

and you'll find it's easy to do at home.

So we've got the mashed potato

and now all we add is just a little knob of butter...

'Adding the three egg yolks gives the duchess a richness

'and sophistication that's a cut above your average potatoes.'

And you can see the colour of the egg yolks, it just transforms this.

Now we need to season it.

Some black pepper...

Now, this is a dish - like so many dishes that you can do for a dinner party -

that really you can make these in advance.

And that's really the downfall I think of a lot of home cooks, really.

They don't actually know what to make in advance

and what to leave at the last minute.

'Then it's all about presentation,

'so I'm shaping them with a piping bag for some extra finesse.'

That may appear a little bit fancy.

It probably is, to be honest.

And all we need to do now is pop this in the oven.

But not that one, this one.

Now, you can cook this conventionally in the oven

but I'm going to use one of these,

which is about the same sort of temperature,

about 200 degrees and this wants to cook for about half an hour.

Now, I love cooking on this, purely the fact that it gives

the lamb a brilliant flavour almost like a barbecued flavour

cos you've got the charcoals underneath.

So to me, it's the ultimate outdoor oven.

'After half an hour in my oven-cum-barbecue,

'the lamb is ready.

'And with five minutes to brown off, the potatoes don't look bad either.'

You've got to admit, this is seriously impressive with

the stuffing in, particularly with those duchess potatoes.

It's so easy to carve as well, you just take a slice

and each chop comes off but also you've got some of this great

stuffing, which still keep it nice and moist cos the lamb has

surrounded it as well.

Just when you thought roast dinners couldn't get any better.

Try this.

That is delicious.

'I think we've lost the art of cooking food

'with a sense of theatre.

'Why have an ordinary rack of lamb when you can turn it into a crown?

'And the usual mash, when you could have duchess?'

It's that extra effort that makes good food great

and there are small, home producers all over the country making produce

with that same passion for quality and eye for those little details.

Like Ole Hansen,

who has recently revived his Norwegian family's 100-year-old

history of curing salmon in a very 21st century London smokehouse.

My great-grandfather used to smoked salmon

and my grandfather smoked salmon.

The first taste of that is just, you will never forget it.

I was in the north of Norway fishing with my father.

Imagine sitting there watching the midnight sun for the first

time in your life and you're having this salmon.

And I've never been able to get salmon like this again.

And I thought if I could recreate that, I would have something

not only unique, but something that would please others.

And that's exactly what he did.

His salmon is an indulgent taste of his homeland, which soon

won him awards and has had the best restaurants in Europe placing orders.

Famous chefs are eating our salmon and we are getting recognised,

not only from the best chefs in London,

but also now in Paris, Italy, France, Germany...

Despite only starting three years ago, Ole is now curing

160 salmon a day in what must be the UK's smallest urban smokerie.

Everything that we make is to order, so we don't keep any stock,

it's made for you.

So the fish is from the Faroe Islands.

So what I'm doing now is making small cuts in the skin,

opening it up for salt penetration.

And now it's the moment.

Ta-da!

Yes! Look at that. Beautiful. I still remember the first time I did this.

In the north of Norway, fishing with my father.

I can't believe we had to do that, fillet fish at five years old.

But it was great.

This is a man who puts the art into artisan.

He even uses a unique blend of two different types of salt

to cure the fish.

This sort is a mix of vacuum-dried salt and Fleur de Sel de Guerande.

Now, vacuum-dried salt absorbs moisture from the salmon,

it's like small sponges, and it also prevents bacterial growth.

And the Fleur de Sel is the sweetest, it's what gives the salmon the taste.

After 12 hours, Ole prepares the salmon for hanging up to smoke.

And of course, even the needle and thread are handmade by craftsmen.

The salmon will hang and sway in the wind...

Hook...

That's perfect.

It needs to be treated with respect.

That's part of the taste and part of the quality,

that you handle it really nicely.

It's about trying to...

..be careful with the salmon.

Ready to go in and join the other ones.

His dedication to his art extends to importing juniper

and beechwood from Scandinavia, to get the perfect smoky flavour.

I am using the same woods as my grandfather was using.

So this is beechwood. This is the sweetest.

So what I'm trying to do is bring out the natural sweetness of the salmon.

It's ground down to particles and that determines the burning speed

and it determines the colouration.

The juniper hits you at the very end.

Ole's family legacy is part and parcel

of what makes his salmon so special.

This smoking chamber is my grandfather's.

It's he who designed it and me,

I had the happiness of building and reproducing it.

Ole controls the process of smoking the salmon

right down to the tiniest detail.

This is sort of like a wind tunnel,

because the air is moving in a loop and then I can adjust how much

smoke leaves the smoking chamber and how much smoke comes into it.

The beautiful thing here is that the salmon will move in the wind

together with the smoke.

Yeah, it's a very simple design, but it's very efficient.

Even one side of salmon will have a subtle variation in taste

as salt and smoke are infused in different amounts through the flesh.

My grandfather believed

and my great-great-grandfather believed the way that it's cut

is straight down, because every single layer of the salmon has

a different taste and I want everyone to have all the different flavours.

Mmm! That's my favourite part.

The taste just lasts and lasts and lasts.

If I could eat my salmon every day, I would.

And I do, because I have the pleasure of being a salmon smoker

so I can indulge.

Ole's lovingly-crafted smoked salmon would be the perfect

starter to any dinner party.

But my delicious lemon tart makes the ultimate finale.

This deliciously light and fruity dessert is pure indulgence.

It's really the chefs' dessert.

It's a dessert that shows a little bit of skill in terms

of the pastry but, above all else,

it's a dessert that tastes fantastic.

I'm going to show you that now.

First thing we are going to do is our pastry.

So I'm going to start off with 250g of flour.

Then in go two tablespoons of icing sugar.

100g of butter.

And a pinch of salt.

And then, just like my granny did,

you basically get your fingers in and rub the butter together.

What you're doing is creating a nice short pastry which is

perfect for lemon tart.

The mixture needs to stay really cold.

If the fat and the butter get too warm in my hands, it will

absorb more flour, leaving me with tough and heavy pastry.

We've almost done it there.

You can see you get this lovely and fine texture.

And then we can just add a medium egg.

This is going to bring that entire mix together.

It will actually quite quickly form pastry.

We've got to now give it a quick knead to bring it all together,

and there you have...

..pastry just like Granny used to make.

Let the pastry rest in the fridge for a few minutes.

And it's time to get on with the filling.

Last thing you want at any dinner party is your centrepiece dessert

running out, so this is a big one.

To start the filling I need 14 medium-sized eggs.

You could've course halve the recipe for a smaller batch.

But really, for me,

the key to a lemon tart is actually the depth of the filling.

Too many lemon tarts when you have them in restaurants, and also

the ones that you buy, have got this horrible thin layer of lemon.

It almost tastes like a curd. This is lovely and light.

Into the eggs go 500g of caster sugar.

And 700mls of double cream.

Now we can get our lemon zest and our lemon juice.

To give this epic dessert its lemony kick,

I'm going to need quite a few lemons.

Ten, to be precise, zest and juice.

These are large lemons as well.

When you buy them from the supermarket, the smaller ones,

you may need to add some more.

With that extra bit of effort, the taste is really going to shine.

I'm going to leave the mixture to chill in the fridge

for about an hour, which gives me time to prepare the pastry.

So a little bit of flour on the board and then roll it out.

Roll the pastry as thin as you dare and lay it into the tin.

Basically, just fold and tuck it in.

Ever so carefully just fold, tuck it in.

It's like making the most delicate bed you've ever made in your life.

So once you've pressed it all in,

and it's nicely lined like that,

you can see it's all gone round the edge.

Doesn't matter about the fold, you can basically just press those.

And then we need to rest it.

Now, here's a chef's trick - to keep the pastry nice and flat,

use flour wrapped in ovenproof clingfilm.

Not only does it have more weight than baking beans,

it gets right into the corners for a lovely flat and crispy pastry edge.

I always have a pot of this just to hand.

Once you cook it, you can pass this through a sieve

and use it for this again when you need it.

So what you can do now is pop it straight in the oven,

bake it at about 380 degrees Fahrenheit, that's about

170 degrees centigrade, and you need to cook that for about 15 minutes.

You can't rush perfection.

The look on your guests' faces

when you serve this tart makes it worth all the effort.

Don't worry about these edges.

We are going to trim that after it's cooked.

And you can see what happens with this when you do it,

you get this perfect edge to it.

And then what I'm going to do now is just egg-wash it.

What the egg-wash will do is actually

seal in any little holes that are in there, which is

particularly good when you've got a liquid filling like a lemon tart.

Still keep the oven quite high

and then pop this back in just to seal that egg

for three to four minutes.

Now, to get a perfect top to a lemon tart,

you want to remove this foam from the top.

So just with a ladle...

..just get rid of this.

It's just the air while you've whisked it up, really.

Now, all these little bits that I'm doing

really add up to the finished dish.

It's all that little extra care and attention,

it's the little things that really do make all the difference.

The pastry will be perfectly sealed with the egg yolk by now,

so it's time to get the filling in.

And carefully filling the tart while it's in the oven will

save you slopping it all over the kitchen floor.

And now what you want to do is reduce

the temperature down to 280, 300 degrees Fahrenheit,

about 140 degrees centigrade,

and cook this for about an hour until it's just set.

Once it's cooked, trim the edges of the pastry.

The whole point about this dessert is the care

and attention you put in.

You put more effort just making this than you do in most desserts

that I know.

Trust me, I've been a pastry chef for a long time,

but it is actually worth it in the end.

Sprinkle a bit of icing sugar on top and caramelise it in style.

Probably best to do this before you've had too many glasses of wine!

A dollop of creme fraiche and my dinner party show-stopper is ready.

A good-quality lemon tart is the best dessert you'll ever taste.

It's sharp...

..it's creamy and, if you make it this good,

I'll be round for dinner.

The crew don't really need much encouragement to get stuck in,

but when the food is as good as this, you can't blame them.

Making food to delight and entertain your friends is simple,

and you don't have to be a fully-trained chef to pull it off.

It's all about showing your guests that you care by paying attention

to the little things, to make them

classy dishes which are as stylish as they are delicious.

And that's guaranteed to impress.

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 on our website: