Comfort Cooking 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 the beautiful Hampshire countryside.

I've lived here for over a decade

but when it comes to comfort food

my tastes have been shaped by the many places I've lived

and the people I've known.

I suppose I was quite fortunate as a kid to be brought up on a farm

and it was there when I was first introduced to the words

"comfort cooking". It's winter warming food, it's indulgent.

It's food that my mother used to cook.

It's rich in cream, it's rich in butter.

It's just proper grub, innit?

I'll be sharing some of my favourite recipes with you.

Wholesome and hearty...

filling and enriching...

It's reassuring and rustic home cooking

made with top quality ingredients

from suppliers right on my home turf.

We'll revisit a dish that has to be the UK's original comfort food.

I love suet crust. It's so melty and gorgeous.

But first I'm going to start off with a simple and quick recipe

that instantly puts a smile on my face...

..omelette Arnold Bennett.

It's a timeless classic that can't fail to put you in a good mood.

Rich and creamy and super tasty.

The basis of an omelette Arnold Bennett is what we've got here,

smoked haddock - not that bright, yellow dyed stuff.

A much better flavour, much better smell,

and much, much better taste.

We start off by poaching this.

This is a classic omelette that's been around for such a long time.

It was invented at The Savoy...

for a writer, a guy called Arnold Bennett.

It's actually been at The Savoy, on the menu at The Savoy, ever since.

The haddock gets poached in milk, a little bit of bay leaf

and some peppercorns.

We just poach this gently for about five minutes.

It's actually quite funny, smoked haddock,

it's one of the only dishes that I actually watched my grandad cook.

My grandmother was a huge influence on me

when I was training to be a young chef.

Only when I was about five or six did I wander into the kitchen

and watch my grandmother cook.

Smoked haddock was the only thing that my grandad was allowed to cook

and he cooked it exactly the same way as this.

That was all he was allowed to do, mind!

You need to be careful not to leave the fish in too long

because once it's out, the residual heat will keep it cooking.

Now for the omelette.

It's got to be a real tummy filler.

I'm using not one, not two but four whole eggs.

It doesn't need milk, just salt and pepper.

Just draw it to the centre of the pan.

Then we just allow it to set, just on the base.

Meanwhile, I can just flake up the smoked haddock like that.

It breaks up so easily when it's fresh like this.

We can simply just...

fold this over.

The best thing about home cooking is it doesn't have to be perfect.

When I'm off duty the rustic look rules.

You can finish this off with the rest of the haddock

over the top.

Really, the whole key to this dish is the sauce

and the poaching liquor that we've got here.

Knock together a simple, quick roux with butter

and flour, then add the liquor.

A quick tip, if you don't want lumpy roux,

get rid of this, use this.

This should be a nice sauce consistency.

Often when people are doing white sauces they get a bit carried

away with the flour

and you end up with a sauce that you can hang wallpaper from.

Right at the end of this sauce,

another knob of butter.

We can then season this.

Then all we do now is take the sauce, pour it over the top.

For an added dose of indulgence,

hit it with a generous sprinkling of cheese.

I'm using a mature Cheddar

but any cheese will do as long as it's a good melter.

Two minutes under the grill

and my omelette Arnold Bennett is good to go.

There you have it - simple, quick and full of flavour.

If Mr Arnold Bennett is up there somewhere,

chatting to my grandad on how to cook smoked haddock...

I do apologise, I've never read his book...

..but his omelettes are pretty good.

Simple dishes like this rely on using fantastic ingredients.

Here in Hampshire I'm exceptionally lucky because I have great, fresh,

award-winning veg, fruit and meat available right on my own doorstep.

Only an hour down the road from me on the Sussex and Hampshire coast,

Colin Hedley and Jesse Clay are producing some of the best beef in Britain.

As part of a farming co-operative

and supported by conservation groups,

they're grazing their cattle on local marshes.

Salt marsh is particularly good for finishing the cattle through the year

because there's so many different species of grass in the sward -

and wild flowers - and they do very well on it.

It's not only good for them.

The grazing cattle are beneficial to nesting wading birds,

helping to secure this vital habitat.

The reason that we like the cattle in those areas is because

if they weren't grazed they would keep growing and go to scrub.

The cattle graze it down to this sort of height,

which just provides enough cover for the birds to nest

but doesn't allow too much cover to encourage predators.

Jesse farms Aberdeen Angus crosses

and, like all cattle raised on the marshes,

they're allowed to mature slowly and naturally.

It may be 24 months, it may not be for 36 months.

That way we feel that the animal grows at its own pace.

The meat is much finer

and the fat carries a much better flavour that way,

rather than being fed barley or corn of some sort

and finished at 15, 16, 17 months old.

Nothing is rushed here.

It's all about producing premium beef.

As the co-operative director, Colin, explains

the care and time taken to rear the cattle is mirrored

once they've left the field.

This animal has been hung for three, coming up for four weeks

and so we want that dark colour,

which, some people who don't know their beef are a bit turned off by

but actually for the people that are really interested

in good quality meat, that's what they're looking for, too.

It's a darker product because it's been hung.

You can see the marbling through the meat, as well.

That really adds to the eating quality of the meat.

Beef like this is guaranteed to be packed with flavour

and, in my book, the taste can't be matched.

It's the perfect comfort food.

The co-operative allows nature to take its course

and in doing so produces something really special.

What we're looking to do is produce beef that tastes great

in a way that helps the environment

and in a way that's been done for generations.

I think it's great when you know the journey your food makes from field to fork.

I've invited Jesse Clay along to my house to see what I'm going to do

with some of his excellent produce.

Do you cook much at home?

Somebody tells me you're a better farmer than you are a cook.

-Who told you that?

-I have my sources, you know.

-It's not far away down the road.

-Definitely, no.

I'm going to make him a classic beef pie.

A dish that's guaranteed to brighten even the most miserable day.

I'm jazzing it up with a bit of mustard

and topping it off with a puff pastry lid.

It utilises this wonderful meat that you produce

but also a cut that people don't use normally, the skirt.

You either cook it very, very quickly,

-or very slowly, with a cut of meat like this.

-Right.

If you cook it too in-between it becomes tough

and almost eating your shoe.

The French like it, they just take this and let it warm up.

They take their hooves off the animal and...

I used to work in France and they used to say,

the steak used to walk through the kitchen...

-That's it done!

-..allow it to get to get to 30 degrees and then serve it.

That was it, really. It is lovely.

Then just a small amount of flour.

This is really the key to making stews and pies, is this next bit.

Not too much flour.

If you add too much it just thickens it up way, way too much.

Nice hot pan.

A little bit of oil.

Seal off the meat, get it really, really hot.

Why such big chunks?

To me, really, it's the kind of thing that my mother used to do.

It was all to do with decent sort of chunks.

Even the carrot, you top and tail it and throw it in.

That's how it is.

This is where you get the colour on the beef stew.

Whether you're doing a beef stew, a beef pie, it's this bit.

Often too many people cut the meat too small,

put too much in the pan and it ends up sweating.

That's where you've got to get the pan really, really hot

and you can see you have the colour on the piece of meat,

which we've got in there.

Then we can start to add other things.

We've got some grain mustard.

-I don't know whether you are a fan of mustard.

-Er, Dijon.

You've got grained, is that all right?

Oh, horseradish?

Horseradish is banned, this is my house!

Horseradish is the food of the devil.

Don't you watch a certain Saturday morning show?

It's disgusting.

You don't need much to accompany meat this good.

Just some good quality vino, beef stock...

Onions.

Carrots, a sprig of thyme and seasoning.

Then it just needs patience.

Gently simmer it for a couple of hours.

Luckily for you, I've got one that I've got over here.

Now allow it to cool down.

And now for the lid.

I'm using some home-made rough puff pastry.

-My grandmother's rolling pin.

-Really?

-Yeah, look at that.

That's where she hit me the first time.

JESSE LAUGHS

Old rolling pins to me are just, I don't know,

it's one of these things that I always buy.

Whenever I go to an antiques shop, you get an old rolling pin.

There's something about them.

Surely, if you've got one, you've got enough.

I've got loads of them, look. There's another one in here.

There's that one. How weird is that?

You can't actually roll that one out flat, I don't know what the hell you do with that one.

I just like 'em, you know. I need to get out more, obviously.

When you're doing puff pastry, less flour

because it toughens up the pastry.

If I was back in the restaurant I would get my chefs

to do this all a bit fancy

but you're at my place,

so that's about as fancy as you are going to get it, Jesse.

Glaze with a couple of egg yolks and be generous,

it will give the finished dish a beautiful sheen.

I think comfort food should look as good as it tastes.

It needs to go into a hot oven for half an hour.

Rustic pie.

You've got beans with that, as well.

Do you want to eat it out of the pot?

I suppose I better plate it.

You've made the effort to come 15 miles and all that, you know.

Then a good dollop of the pie.

Dig around for your chunks of your beef, as well.

We'll dive into that.

-That's lovely.

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

Before you say it, it doesn't need horseradish.

HE CHUCKLES

It's amazing how it just falls apart.

It's all to do with the quality of the cook.

And the beef!

It's really good, that.

I think the flavour's deeper.

It's deeper and more mature, more rich.

It's not far off being gamey.

-Yeah.

-Do you know what I mean? It's not far off like that.

-Well, cheers. Best of luck with everything.

-Thank you very much.

I suppose I better wash up now, hadn't I, really?

-I'll do it for you.

-Yeah, right!

Enjoy.

So there you have it - my simple, warm and tasty beef and mustard pie.

Perfect to cheer you up on a winter's evening.

Many of the comfort foods we know and love today

have evolved from the ingenious and often sophisticated recipes

our ancestors developed to keep their own shivers at bay.

Annie Gray runs workshops on Victorian cooking

at Essex stately home Audley End

where she's going to cook an original recipe

for a classic pud that's stood the test of time.

I think the ultimate in comfort food is really a suet crust pudding.

It's been unfairly demonised today, nobody really eats them any more,

they think they're lardy and horrible.

If you go back 100 years, or even 50 years,

I suspect your mothers and grandmothers were probably cooking them and loving them.

The heyday of the suet pudding was the Victorian era

when it was a cheap, filling staple, eaten at least once a week.

I am going to use a book by Eliza Acton

called Modern Cookery And All Its Branches,

which was the source for a lot of Mrs Beeton's recipes.

What we are going to do today is a steak and oyster pudding.

It uses suet, flour and water and salt in the crust

and then steak and oysters

and a little bit of mushroom ketchup inside, as well.

Absolutely lovely.

Suet puddings are a British creation dating back to Medieval times.

Initially meat-based, sweet suet puddings

started to appear in the 17th century.

Suet is the fat that sits around the kidneys on most animals.

This one is pig suet.

Really, really, high in energy, as well.

Arctic explorers used to take suet with them

because it's one of the quickest ways you can get calories and stay warm.

It's one of the reasons it makes such good comfort food.

All those calories are also the reason why suet puddings have

fallen out of favour over the last 50 years.

The Victorians valued good food and cooking,

which is why most middle-class households

would scrape together the money to employ a cook.

With the pastry done, Annie's moving to the filling,

starting with the oysters.

They're very expensive in modern-day Britain but in the Victorian period

they were as cheap as chips or possibly even cheaper

and very much food for the poor.

OYSTER POPS

Don't try this with a normal knife!

The Victorians would keep the shells.

They could sell them or if there was a farm, they would

just be given to the farm and they'd be used as a fertiliser.

A Victorian cook would always be paid a salary.

She'd have full board and lodging

but she'd also have a series of cook's perks.

Those perks were things like the right to sell rabbit skins,

the right to sell dripping at the back door, selling leftovers

and selling anything that came out of the kitchen

that would be regarded as waste.

The shells could be part of the cook's perks.

In Victorian times, native oysters were plentiful

so using them to bulk out a meat pudding was a thrifty measure.

What I'm going to do next is cover the top with a pudding cloth.

The final stage is to tie the cloth onto the basin and then

place it in a pan of water so it can be steamed for two hours.

Everything inside the basin's cooking really, really slowly

so you'll end up with a really tender, beautiful, succulent meat

I love suet crust. It's so melty and gorgeous.

Oh...

The best thing about it is the next day you can stick it in the oven

and make it crispy and amazing

so it's like two pies for the price of one.

Home is one place you can really indulge your own tastes.

It's not about putting on a show, it's about cooking the food you love.

One of my all-time favourite comfort foods,

and one I return to again and again, is chicken fricassee.

Juicy chicken in a creamy, rich sauce

with beautiful fluffy mashed potato.

Unbeatable!

Now a classic fricassee can be done with either chicken or veal.

The basis of it is a white stew and we start off using this.

This is just some bought-in stock which is fantastic, this.

A good quality white wine.

This is a nice little bit of French white

and I'm going to add some button onions, they're going to go in.

We start to get the flavours of this happening with some fresh thyme,

just a few sprigs of fresh thyme. Nothing too fancy,

you just throw it all in.

We basically bring this to the boil. Now on with the chicken.

Really good quality, free-range chicken, really, for this one.

There is a simple way of doing it, first of all. Take the legs off.

You just make an incision either side, turn it over

and then this is the bad bit.

Break its legs, that way.

As you break its legs, there's a little muscle in there

which is called a little oyster, or the chef's eye,

which is the best part of the chicken.

What you do is you just cut through there

and this little oyster comes off in the leg.

Of course, you could always buy chicken pieces but you're

better off doing it yourself, or getting your butcher to do it.

Because that way you get to keep the carcass,

which brings important flavour to the dish.

Add mushrooms and let it simmer for half an hour.

Now one of the ultimate comfort foods has to be mashed potato

and I've got some potatoes cooking away nicely.

It's the perfect accompaniment to go with this, to be honest.

What we do is put them back into the pan.

Just allow them to dry out a little bit.

Back into the colander...

..like that.

Then we're going to make a really good mashed potato

and, for that, this is the tool,

A potato ricer.

This is a bit industrial.

I'm not very good, to be honest, on the Internet

and when I ordered this I asked for a small one.

It was a catering supplier so I got a massive one.

What we do is tip the potatoes into your little ricer,

or large ricer.

And it's best to do this while it's still warm

because this way you get this lovely, fluffy mash.

I mean, this is really one dish where less certainly isn't more.

Cream and butter in potatoes is a match made in heaven.

It's the ultimate comfort food.

Let's face it, comfort food is all about treating yourself.

Rich, full of flavour...

It tastes so good.

Different finger.

We'll season it, remember we've got some salt,

some black pepper,

which is a spice, so it's technically a herb,

so it's technically one of your five a day,

so it compensates for that butter and cream going in there, as well.

But that's perfect.

That's just what I want, just leave that to one side.

Now with our chicken... Almost finish this, really, now

because it starts to cook down gently.

You've got all the flavour

from the carcass in there and everything else.

And you can pop this into another pan.

What we're going to do is thicken this sauce.

This is really the most tricky part of it,

because the way that we're going to thicken the sauce is create

what we call a liaison - it's a mixture of cream and egg yolks.

I ate this a lot when I was living in France and I loved it.

It might be a bit naughty but it's definitely worth it.

It may take about five minutes which is quite handy really because...

it gives you time to have a glass of wine while this is happening.

But keep stirring it. That's the key to it.

And remember, whatever wine you put into your dish,

that's the one that you want to serve this with.

And we just keep mixing this together

and it just gently starts to thicken ever so slightly.

Now this is about ready now. You don't want it thick -

it's not like a custard that you serve with a crumble.

Put the chicken back in.

Remember to season.

It really is the common mistake,

when you're cooking at home, not to season stuff enough.

And then, just to finish this off, right at the last minute

we then take some fresh parsley.

It's really simple, really rustic.

Just the flavour is fundamentally of the chicken.

It's a classic comfort dish

but one that tastes really good.

And there you have it, a steaming pan of loveliness.

A plate of this will always brighten up my day.

It's good, is that.

You have to try this at home.

So rich, so tasty, it's a guaranteed crowd-pleaser.

Now as much as I like to cook at home,

sometimes you don't want to spend all day in the kitchen.

So here's my suggestion for a really quick comfort food fix,

and it brings a whole new meaning to the words "canned soup".

Sweetcorn really has to be my favourite out of a can.

And I'm going to show you a very quick, little, simple soup with

a touch of crab, a little bit of curry powder.

And an effortless way to satisfy even the strongest comfort food

craving in a matter of minutes.

I'm starting by frying up some roughly chopped shallots in butter.

Then I need to spice things up a bit with a touch of medium curry powder.

It doesn't need a lot. Just enough to give it a bit of a kick.

And then we grab our sweetcorn.

A little touch of wine. We've always got some of this left over.

And then, instead of stock, just a little bit of water.

All we're doing really is just covering the sweetcorn.

And then, of course, some double cream.

No comfort food is complete without a bit of cream.

Season well and then bring to the boil. And that's it.

My soup's very nearly ready.

And it's a common mistake, I think, when people are making soups,

is basically a lot of leftovers thrown in a pan

and then boiled up for 45 minutes.

It's the amount of time that you cook it,

or the least amount of time, in my opinion, that creates a better soup.

And this is the perfect example of that.

As soon as this comes the boil, we take the entire lot

over to your blender.

Now I'm using sweetcorn out of a can.

You could, of course, use frozen sweetcorn.

The same cooking time applies.

It needs a quick blitz in a blender to give it a nice smooth texture.

And as far as I'm concerned,

no hearty soup is complete without a healthy dollop of creme fraiche.

And now comes the tricky part of the recipe.

A bit of double cream.

A tiny bit of lemon juice.

And a whisk.

You've now officially made your own creme fraiche. As easy as that.

It does require a little bit of elbow grease though.

And this is now ready, really. We just put this back into our pan.

See, the texture's lovely.

Bring that back up to temperature.

And then I always have in the fridge...

some crab. It's one of my food heavens, this - white crab meat.

It really is fantastic.

And you just grab your lovely soup...

..in the bowl.

From the first chop of a shallot to dishing up it's under ten minutes.

That's comfort food on the go.

I can't help being cheffy. Just a drizzle of oil.

And there you have it.

It may not look that simple when you look at it like this,

but if you make it out of a can of sweetcorn,

you too can have something like this in a few minutes.

When I'm at home, nothing makes me happier than cooking up a feast.

Home cooking has the power to lift our mood,

connect us to our past and enrich our lives,

which is why my kitchen home is my absolute favourite place to be.

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: