TV Dinners 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.

When I get back to my Hampshire home from a hard day at work

I like nothing more than taking the dogs out for a walk,

making something delicious to eat

and then chill out in front of the telly

with my favourite show or a classic movie.

And to gain the most from my viewing pleasure,

the food needs to be a hit too.

Of course, TV dinners doesn't have to mean that

you reach for a ready-made meal or a bag of crisps.

It's so easy to create your own nutritious,

quick food without missing your favourite programme on the box.

A good night in front of the telly means getting great food

off the dinner table and onto your lap.

Delicious dinners you can eat with your hands

while your eyes are on the telly.

Our ancestors knew a good show and a hand-held treat

went, well, hand in hand.

And with a little reinvention, classic cinema snacks

can become the main attraction.

It's proper nice.

So lose the cutlery, grab a tray

and let me show you how home cooking can boost your home entertainment.

And first up, I'm going to share with you

one of my all-time favourite movie-night treats.

A platter of crispy tempura-battered seafood

with an Oriental salsa which everyone can dive into.

It's lovely and light, lovely and delicate,

but also packed full of flavour.

And what I'm going to do first of all is marinade our prawns

to go with some squid.

Now, the thing is with squid,

you've either got to cook it very, very quickly or very slowly.

And this fast form of cooking makes it ideal

for this dish, really. We're going to just slice this up.

Now, with squid, you get the little fins on here.

You can take these off.

But what I want is just almost like little squid rings, really.

It's often one of the things

that you wouldn't really think of with a TV dinner, squid,

but it is one of those fantastic ingredients

that when you try it, and you try it fresh,

it really does taste superb.

But then just to increase the flavour slightly,

I'm going to just give this a quick marinade.

Now, it's not a marinade that you want to sit in the fridge overnight,

it's just a very quick and simple marinade

that you can do with prawns as well.

So throw the whole lot in,

and then we use a combination of liquids, really.

Little bit of soy sauce.

Not too much.

Then I'm going to use some of this rice wine,

or shaoxing, as it's called.

A fantastic flavour, particularly with fish and chicken.

And then I'm going to add some sesame oil.

A good squeeze of lime.

The idea is not to put too much liquid in,

cos it's the cornflour that I'm going to add to this,

when it deep-fat fries it gets lovely and crisp,

instead of using a traditional batter. So we'll just leave that

to one side, meanwhile make our sauce.

Now, sauce is very simple.

Two predominant flavours in this style of cooking,

one of which is coriander...

and the other one is mint.

The two work so well together when you're doing a dressing like this.

So throw the whole lot in, and what you're trying to create

I suppose almost is like an Asian sort of pesto, really.

To the mint and coriander, I like to add one chopped clove of garlic

and one chopped red chilli.

If you don't like too much heat, you can always put in less chilli.

But don't leave out the next ingredient.

This is palm sugar.

And this is almost in its liquid form.

This stuff really is fantastic in this dressing.

When you taste it...

..it's kind of a cross between, I don't know, honey and...

caster sugar, that sort of stuff?

It's got a flavour all of its own, really, palm sugar.

But it's essential in this dressing.

Next, add a splash of fish sauce,

a dash of soy...

Some sesame oil - but not too much,

or it will overpower the other ingredients.

Some more of the rice wine, and finally, the juice of a lime.

And give it all a quick blitz.

The key really to this is its freshness,

cos you've got this lovely flavour of mint and coriander.

Smells fantastic.

But it's brilliant, that. Just leave that to one side.

And we're going to use some cornflour.

This is much quicker, instead of using

a conventional tempura batter, really.

By adding cornflour into this,

you'll actually start to thicken it up.

Decent amount of cornflour, mix this all together

and you can see it actually starts to thicken up

and really coat the fish.

And it's almost as if the prawns and the squid

are actually coated in this glue.

This gloop. But this gloop, when we deep-fat fry it,

will actually crisp up into a lovely batter.

Get the oil nice and hot and drop this in.

Frying the prawns and squid in batches will make sure

the temperature of the oil doesn't drop,

so the tempura batter will stay nice and crispy.

Each batch just needs two minutes of frying time

and they're cooked. Quick and easy.

And then season it with a good pinch of salt

and then finally, just for a garnish for this,

I've got some spring onions.

This to me is one of those dishes that you almost just want to...

sort of put in the middle of the table

while watching TV and everybody just dives in, really.

So a little bit of spring onion.

Again, a touch of the chilli just adds a little bit of fire into this.

And then you want to serve it on a big platter like this.

And you just chuck it all on.

Got a nice little texture with it.

But the secret I think with this is this sauce.

And it's one of those things that when you make it,

it'll be in your store cupboard, because it is so easy.

And it goes with so many different things -

seafood like I'm doing here, but chicken,

bit of cold beef,

a nice little salad.

A good sprinkling of the spring onions.

And the chilli.

For a final touch, I like to add chopped fragrant herbs

like chives, mint and coriander

and scatter them over the dish.

I love this dish. I just think it's just so simple.

It's got great flavour as well.

Looks great.

And I know with that dressing it tastes great too.

So there you have it - the perfect finger food

for a night in front of the telly.

It might take a little longer than a microwave meal,

but I promise the effort is worth it.

So all you want now is something decent to watch on TV.

And my favourite TV pud to follow would have to be ice cream.

And luckily for me, just a few miles down the road on their farm,

Peter and Celia Haynes make award-winning ice cream

from the milk of their own Jersey cows.

Jersey cows are lovely animals to handle.

They're great characters - they're very quiet,

apart from the bulls, which are known to be the worst of all,

so we do have to watch those. But they're lovely cattle,

and the main thing is the quality of the milk.

The milk is absolutely superb.

And not only that, it's also very high in protein,

vitamins, minerals and calcium, all together,

and it tastes the very best of all.

So you know, it's a superb milk.

But the main reason why Jersey cows are the cream of the crop

is their milk contains a whopping 4.8% butter fat,

which is 2% higher than other breeds.

This is the milk that we're just going to separate

and make into cream.

The skimmed milk which is a by-product

will come out of this spout here,

and the cream will come out of this spout here.

Don't ask me how it happens, but it's magic.

Glasses on, and it's all systems go.

Right, now let the milk flow down through here.

Separator is nearly as old as me,

but it too has to work still.

So...but it's good, it works.

Should be just about the right thickness now for potting off.

The cream will thicken up. It comes out quite runny,

but by the morning it'll be fairly sort of thick

and in about two to three days you won't be able to

tip it out of the pot. You'll have to spoon it out.

Oh, yes. This is the very best cream.

Unpasteurised Jersey cream takes a lot of beating.

Probably the best in the world, this is.

This is the cream that we're going to put into the ice cream

and I put that into the bucket.

There we are, this has to be weighed on the scales in a bit.

'But now, the fun bit and like everything on the farm,

'it's all kept in the family.

'It's daughter Julie who makes the ice cream and today,

'she's making their new flavour - salted caramel.'

I've always liked cooking ever since I was little, so

I quite enjoy work every day.

The key stages of making ice cream,

firstly adding good-quality Jersey milk.

After that, we add the dry ingredients.

We always use golden granulated cane sugar

as it gives the mixture a slightly richer taste.

It's not just sweetening it, it's actually flavouring it.

We add a mixture of butter and cream

because the butter just gives the ice cream a really nice, rich,

velvety consistency and also gives it an extra buttery taste.

'Mm, that's definitely my kind of recipe!'

And finally, but by no means least, here comes the lovely Jersey cream.

'Everything's left to thoroughly mix and pasteurise

'before going into the ice-cream machine.'

Next in, some dark caramel sauce.

This is adding the flavouring into the mix before you turn

the refrigeration on to freeze it.

And finally, the sea salt.

It only takes an hour for the ice cream to be whipped together

before being packaged...

..popped into the deep freeze...

and the bit that always puts a smile on my face - eaten.

Oh, yummy! Going to eat it now?

-Oh!

-Ooh...oh, it's cold!

Very creamy, you get that hint of caramel, but it's not too sweet.

It's really nice when it comes from a local farm. Tastes lovely.

The only trouble is it's going down a bit too well, so...!

Yes, very, very nice. Very nice.

MOOING

'So, Celia and Julie may be the cream of ice-cream makers

'but can they turn their hand to one of my favourite TV dinners?'

To serve with their award-winning ice cream, I'm pairing it

with sugared doughnuts and my own luxurious but simple-to-make

peach Melba sauce.

I've invited them over to my kitchen to help me

get the doughnut production line rolling.

First thing is, I never thought anybody would use as much butter

and cream as me, so congratulations on that one.

You nearly beat me to it!

That's a serious amount of butter going in there. I assume you need that for the texture, do you?

-We do, it improves it enormously.

-It's fantastic.

I'll show you how to make these little doughnuts

-which go brilliantly with it.

-Excellent.

First of all, we need some good quality flour.

Like anything, like your cream, it's good quality ingredients

that go in to start with. 250g of flour.

That's going to go in there, and then we throw that into a bowl.

This is an enriched yeast dough.

The way that we enrich it is by adding some sugar,

so we need about 25g of sugar.

That's going to go in there as well, so just a good smidgen of sugar.

You used to go to college, didn't you? Catering college.

-Many years ago, I did, yes.

-How do you end up back on a farm, then?

I finished school and was a bit lost

so Mum suggested catering might be a good plan.

Then started working in a livery yard

and then an opportunity arose

at home to come back to the farm and help out

with the ice cream and as the years have gone on, I reached the top.

Were you always a dairy farm, then?

Yes, we've... Well, I say, "always,"

when I married my husband, we became a dairy farm in 1967

so we've had a herd of jerseys going since then.

We've got some instant yeast here. 125ml of water.

Just bring this all together.

Ideally, it wants to be warm water. You can do it with cold water,

it just takes longer to prove.

As long as it's not scalding water, which then kills the yeast.

The secret of this is just bringing all this lot together.

And then you knead this.

A bit like bread, you continue kneading it.

All the butter sort of dissolves into the mixture as well.

And then what you do is you cover that over, leave that to one side

and let it prove for a while. I'll set you to work on this one.

-How are you at rolling out little bread rolls?

-She's the one for doing that.

-This is where the technique lies. A tiny bit of flour.

-Yep.

And what you want to do is just grab some of this dough.

If you're doing larger doughnuts,

you need to prove this again, like bread dough.

But smaller ones, you don't need to.

A little bit in your hands like that,

and then roll this up in a little ball, turn it over,

press down first with the palm of your hand, and then slowly up.

-And you end up...

-Wow!

-..with a nice little doughnut ball.

-Okey-doke.

-Ready with that?

-Yes, I'll give it a go.

-Thanks. I need 106, please!

-Very funny!

-Need some help as well?

-I could do with it, really!

-I'll put on a cup of tea!

-You can do it over here.

-There you go, a little bit of flour.

-Bit of flour.

-That's it.

There's no such thing as a free lunch in this house.

-You're in a Yorkshireman's household now!

-Ooh, too right!

How does your ice cream differ from the mass-produced sort of stuff?

Because a lot of that's got forced air into it

and all manner of different fats. Yours seem almost natural.

All natural fats now, it's completely natural

and it's all home produced on the farm as well

-and that's...oops!

-I think the fact that we milk the cows ourselves

and make the cream...

This is the reason why she left you to do the cooking?

-I needed more flour.

-Did you go hungry as a child?

-I did!

-That's why I was good at cooking!

-HE LAUGHS

What the hell are you doing?!

-You see, she's got the training.

-Look at mine. "Training"?!

-Yeah.

Both of you need to go back to school. Look what you're doing!

-I'm not doing very well.

-Just a small amount of flour

and then you just roll this in your hand.

His does look better.

-CELIA LAUGHS Yeah, right.

-Roll it up.

-That's brilliant.

-Yours is shinier.

-I'm not doing it at all well.

-No, you're making a complete and utter mess of that.

-Pig's ear.

Let me put a bit more flour on your hands.

I think we'll have to pass on me making doughnuts!

-No, we're not, otherwise we'll all go hungry.

-Not going to go hungry.

I want a doughnut out of that by the time you leave here.

While these mess around with this Play-Doh, I'm going to make

a little sauce to go with it.

'To make a quick peach Melba sauce, add some sugar to a dry pan

'and let it caramelise. Add a splash of brandy...'

-Stand back at this point.

-Oh! Oh, my God!

'..the juice of an orange, some tinned peaches,

'a handful of flaked almonds and the same of pistachios.'

'Finally, throw in some lovely fresh raspberries.'

Really, that's it. You just turn the heat off and just let it sit there.

Meanwhile we turn our attention to the doughnuts.

-These are going well now.

-They're looking good.

-Oops!

-Oops!

BOTH WOMEN GIGGLE

Sorry!

Whose idea was it to make ice cream?

It was actually the Minister of Agriculture, I think,

suggested we should try it, make some extra money,

certainly it's caught on, that was in 1984 and we've been at it ever since.

Fantastic.

We're better at ice cream than doughnuts, that's for sure!

-Yeah, I can see that! I can vouch for that one.

-That's a good one!

Deep-fry your doughnuts in batches

and cook them between three and four minutes until they're golden brown.

-They look wonderful.

-On there.

I like to roll them in caster sugar,

then all that's left to do is bring this magical trio together

on one plate. And taste.

-Best ones I've ever tried.

-Mmmm!

-They're all right?

-Delicious.

-Think it's going to catch on?

-I think that's going to catch on.

-It's fantastic ice-cream, though.

-Thank you.

-Well worth it, thank YOU.

-Excellent.

-You've taught me a lesson.

We can make ice cream and you can do donuts.

That's the lesson that I have just been taught!

Don't let her loose in the kitchen at all. Carnage.

This trilogy of sweet treats really is the perfect ending

to a night in front of the TV, the contrast between the cold ice cream,

hot doughnuts and the peach melba sauce is a combination to die for.

All our best home-cooked treats have a rich and fascinating history

and much like today, whenever we're being entertained,

we're all partial to a tasty nibble.

In his 17th century cottage, food historian, Ivan Day,

is recreating two popular stacks from long before

the age of cinema and television.

There were a number of occasions, very rare,

when the Thames completely froze over

and people would move on to the ice and have fairs on the ice,

they were known as the frost fairs.

Frost fairs were organised by the watermen,

who made their living, ferrying people and goods up the river.

It was a perfect opportunity to sell a whole range of tasty food

and drink and make a healthy profit.

One of the most popular foods was something called hot pippin,

which was sold, usually by ladies, by Pippin Girls,

who would probably bake them on land

and then get on to the ice with a big basket shouting,

"Pippins hot! Pippins hot!"

And it doubled up, not only as something nice to eat,

but also kept your hands warm in the very, very cold conditions.

I've got here a beautiful little,

probably 250-year-old apple corer and it's made out of the bone

and I very carefully push the core in at the top like that.

And remove most of the core.

A lot of people who went on to the ice were very wealthy Londoners

and the vendors could recognise them immediately by their dress.

They would target them,

so often they would include a few little luxury ingredients in them,

to tempt these people, so I'm going to put a few currants in the bottom.

Then, a little bit of sugar, not too much,

because it'll actually boil over and then,

just a pinch of cinnamon and then finally,

a little plug of butter.

One really important detail is to prick them,

because they can explode, so that, basically, is about 10 seconds work,

but that adds an enormous amount of equity to that apple,

so that you can sell it to some Colonel Fancy-Pants

at hopefully a thousand percent profit.

The sort of people who cook these probably didn't have an oven

in their house, but they probably had a fireplace of some kind

and all you need to bake apples is to stick them in front of the fire.

A lot of people had something which was a little reflector oven,

so if I just put that carefully on there,

which will keep all the heat in.

While my pippins are baking in front of the fire,

I thought I would make another frost fair delicacy,

which is called a stump pie

and this is made with either minced lamb or minced mutton

and I have got some mutton in here.

And it's very simply padded out with suet.

A few currants to keep the gentry happy on the ice,

because everybody loved dried fruit

and the main flavouring would be some nutmeg.

And some thyme, some freshly-picked thyme,

because this grew absolutely everywhere.

A little bit of salt, and some pepper as well.

To bind all these ingredients together,

I'm going to use the traditional method,

which is about a couple of egg yolks.

Often these pies are made without any kind of container,

the pie IS the container

and it was sometimes called a coffin, meaning a box.

The next thing is, I'm going to use this little gizmo here,

colloquially known as a pie dolly, and then it's a case of

putting some downward pressure like that on it, then,

I'm going to invert it, like that

and then I grip the edge and squeeze it.

And the idea is to get it, so that it's level

with the top of the dolly.

Now, I'm going to make the lids.

Now, basically it's just a case of...

..making a little ball of meat and popping it in.

Best not to press it in too much,

because you get quite a lot of gravy

and you've got to have somewhere for the gravy to go.

Everyone is born with their own pastry crimpers

at the end of their arms,

so what you basically do is you use your little finger

and you push it that way, towards those two.

These little patterns at the top were sometimes called crimps

and cranks, so the crimp is the bit that goes in

and the crank is the bit that comes out.

It's often abbreviated to crimpencranks,

which is one of my favourite English words.

Don't put them in a really hot oven,

you put them in a low oven, which soaks the heat through

and once it gets to boiling point, the meat really cooks.

Couple of dishes there you're not going to see in the cinema today,

but perfect for a frost fair, some lovely stump pies

and some marvellous hot baked pippins.

I tell you what, when it came to good food and entertainment,

our ancestors knew what they were doing.

But in our more recent past, a TV dinner

was not such a wholesome affair.

In our quest for a quick supper in front of the telly,

we'd peel back the lid and wait for the ping of a microwave

to tell us our supper was served.

But you don't need to do that, because I'm going to show you

a fast and delicious TV dinner that hardly needs any cooking at all.

When you think of TV dinners, you wouldn't normally think of a salad,

but this inspiration for this dish comes from a very famous chef,

a guy called Eric Chapeau, it's Salad Landaise.

This big and butch salad stars duck,

blue cheese and candied pecans.

And with the bowl in one hand and a fork in the other,

you won't even need a tray.

So easy to replicate at home,

if you break things down a little bit and simplify it and also, cheat.

And I'm going to cheat by using some of this duck confit,

it's basically salted and cooked in duck fat,

duck legs, if you've never tried it before, try it,

buy it from the supermarket, it really is fantastic.

Not the most appetising thing in the world,

when you sort of lift it out, but believe me, it tastes superb.

All we do with that... You don't need to season it, nothing.

You just take the whole lot, straight in the oven.

Going to take about 10 minutes to warm through,

gives it enough time to create sort of our garnish to go with this.

Now I love these, these are spicy pecan nuts

and they're actually pretty simple to make.

All you do is you take a nice hot pan on a stove.

Use some light brown sugar, but we're going to spice these up.

The spice I'm going to use is cayenne.

You've got to use this quite sparingly, really,

because it's pretty strong.

So, just a good pinch of cayenne.

And I'm going to roast some pecan nuts with it.

You could use some walnuts, but the sweetness of the pecan works amazing

with the blue cheese dressing and also the roast duck.

What we're going to do is take our different types of blue cheese.

Now, it's entirely up to you which ones you use, really.

I've got some Gorgonzola and Saint Augur, really.

I wouldn't use Stilton, I find it too strong.

Equal quantities of each, something like that.

And then we need a touch of garlic, just a little bit of crushed garlic.

And we start whisking this together.

Now, this is where it starts to get a bit unusual.

You have to bear with me on this one, but we have some runny honey,

we've got some buttermilk.

Now, buttermilk I always have in the fridge

because it's slightly sour, works brilliantly in dressings.

Mix this altogether.

Now this sugar's not far off.

We're just going to put a little bit of water in here.

Just to stop it from catching too much.

And now, straight away, we can start to add our pecan nuts.

You can see that sugar starting to crisp up.

In we go with the pecans. I love pecan nuts!

They just make a great alternative to walnuts. A good pinch of salt.

And you can coat that in the caramel.

See, they go lovely and shiny.

All we do now, take them out...

..onto our little tray, pop them in the oven for five minutes.

'To finish the dressing, add some creme fraiche,

'a touch of lemon juice, a few drops of Tabasco and Worcester sauce,

'and a splash of red wine vinegar.'

The only thing I need to add now is the mayonnaise.

Now, I actually make my own mayonnaise

and have this already in the fridge.

I make this out of rapeseed oil,

you can see the difference in colour.

Traditional mayonnaise is made with veg oil.

You end up with this lovely sort of yellow colour. Mix this together.

And we've really got our dressing there, that's it.

The pecan nuts are now done.

We can leave these to cool.

The duck is really done, it's as quick as that.

All you want to do is just warm it through, really.

I'm going to serve some of this - some funky lettuce with it.

You can use Cos, Romaine lettuce, even Little Gem, really.

But this, the whole idea of TV dinners is you want something

that doesn't collapse while you're enjoying watching TV,

so don't cut this up too small.

Chunks - like that.

All we are going to do now is grab our duck. This is fantastic.

Let's face it, anything that's been cooked for three hours in its own fat is going to taste great.

Just chuck it all in.

And then you've got your pecan nuts. You can break these up.

And then, finally, of course, we've got some of our dressing.

This will actually keep for a couple of days.

You can see, you've got the chunks of the blue cheese and there,

the sort of lumps.

Lightly dressed it as well.

You're not washing lettuce in salad dressing,

you're just basically coating the leaves.

Just pile it in.

When you do it like this, there's something about...

the buttermilk, and that creme fraiche and the lemon and everything else.

It's just the addition of those other little things make all the difference.

'This is my go-to TV dinner

'when I want something quick, simple but packed full of flavour.

'With bold ingredients like duck, blue cheese and candied pecans,

'I know this robust salad can only improve my viewing pleasure.'

You see, all you need to do now is grab your fork, grab your bowl...

..and grab your remote control, because THAT tastes fantastic!

'There really is no limit to what makes a great TV dinner,

'just as long as it's easy to eat.

'But when it comes to movie night nibbles,

'one classic cinema snack pops easier into the mouth than any other.

'Catherine and Richard Furze are just one of many small producers who

'have taken bright ideas from their home kitchens to a wider audience.

'In their case, they've transformed child-rated popcorn

'into an adults only snack.

'They've teamed it with unexpected ingredients, like garlic,

'fennel and chilli, and in doing so, have put good old popcorn on the

'gastronomic map, and it's all down to Catherine's love of a good novel.'

This book was the inspiration to me starting to make popcorn.

There's an awful lot of references throughout the book

to savoury popcorns and I just fancied trying some

and couldn't find any anywhere.

We were quite surprised that there was nothing like this in the market in the UK

and we were just absolutely amazed that nobody else was making it, so we basically tried to make our own.

And I happened to be speaking to a lady in a new deli and our village

about the idea and she said, "Why don't you bring some down to sample?"

And then about two or three days later,

the lady from the deli telephoned up and said, "We've had six

"people in asking where they can buy your popcorn."

And from this humble beginning, the business exploded.

Our first order was five bags and then an order for 10 bags.

And then we actually went to boxes.

And our whole conservatory was a packing line at home

and our sitting room was getting smaller and smaller

and the sofa was getting further and further towards the middle

because we had so many boxes in the sitting room.

I think we thought that was the time we have got to go out, really!

We like to think we changed the way the word "popcorn" is perceived in the UK.

The market for popcorn has grown and grown since we started.

There's a lot more popcorn in supermarkets now,

a lot of brands of popcorn.

I think people are switching onto it as a healthier snack to crisps

or anything else you'd eat instead of it, really.

And much of their success is down to the innovative flavours

they introduced.

We do five standard flavours. We do garlic and herb. We do salty sweet.

We do a sweet and spice and also a hot chilli and fennel

and a chilli and lime.

We do special edition flavours, we do a chocolate popcorn,

we've done a fudge popcorn, we've done a Turkish delight popcorn.

We're always experimenting with new flavours.

To keep up with the demand for new and exciting flavours, Catherine

and Richard are always trying new combinations in their kitchen at home.

Mainly because we don't actually have the facility up at the factory

to do small amounts of anything,

so it's just everything is in quite a large quantity.

So this is quite handy, you can just use a domestic saucepan.

There we go.

And because we are very small,

we can be as inventive as we like to be, really.

Today, their cinnamon recipe is getting salted to

give their customers that moreish sweet and salty flavour.

We have great fun developing flavours.

Sometimes we have some very strange combinations,

sometimes they work, sometimes they don't.

POPCORN POPS Oh! What's happened?

I like popcorn because it is quite theatrical.

It's quite interesting seeing how such a tiny amount of kernel

can make such a massive amount of finished product.

I just like it, I like the shapes.

It's a bit like working with snowflakes

because no two kernels ever pop in exactly the same way.

Well they've certainly proved there's demand for it,

but how well is their latest offering going to go down at the market in Durham?

It is really nice to come to a market like this.

It's the best way to try products, to see what people think.

It's the way we first started out,

getting people's opinions about the product,

it's still the best way to do it.

That's a cinnamon popcorn.

We've got cinnamon, cloves, ginger and coriander there.

It's nice.

I've never tried popcorn like that before.

It was absolutely delicious.

I love popcorn,

so trying something other than just salty popcorn is really good.

I love how Catherine and Richard have taken a kids' treat

and made it into a grown-up snack.

But for the ultimate TV dinner, I'm taking my inspiration from Spain

where they've made finger food a way of life.

Spanish tapas has to be one of the great styles of food to enjoy

while watching TV.

I'm going to show you three simple but tasty different types.

My trio of finger-licking tapas are chicken buffalo wings,

spicy potato wedges and classic Padron peppers.

First we get our potatoes wedges in.

I'm going to use a spice that's not often found in Spain -

this is Sichuan pepper.

It lends itself to really quick cooking.

It's often called the floral pepper.

It's full of flavour, perfect for our potato wedges.

Together with three different spices, really.

If you buy them already ground, it saves so much time.

I've got some coriander in here.

I'm going to use some cumin, which is a wonderful spice,

traditionally used in Moroccan and Indian cooking.

I've got some sweet paprika to go with our potatoes.

This is why I get into trouble with the Italians cos

I actually think Spain produces better olive oil than the Italians.

You see already you've got an amazing colour with this paste.

A good pinch of salt and then just throw in these potato wedges.

I was quite fortunate to have restaurants on boats,

I call it a boat, it's a cruise ship really, so it's a big boat.

It used to moor up every time in Barcelona.

There was an amazing market there called La Boqueria

which is right on the central drag of Barcelona.

It's a really heaving place with so many different people,

but the market itself is just a chef's paradise.

This type of food that you'll get is sort of the food that's just

written on a board, when they run out of it,

they make something else up,

and this is one of the things you'll have out there just

these potato pieces, you might have little croquettes,

that kind of stuff, it's all this style of food.

Throw your potato wedges...

..into our...

..tray there. Straight in the oven.

And then we're going to cook our chicken wings.

You can deep fry these if you want.

I'm going to roast these as they are.

Just with a little bit of salt and pepper over the top.

Some of this fantastic Spanish olive oil.

I'm going to throw these chicken pieces in the oven.

And then we're going to make our sauce to go with our chicken pieces.

It basically just uses some of Spain's best exports really.

You've got oil... and then some of this stuff...

..which is brilliant, this is smoked paprika.

And this is really one TV dinner that you're eating on your own

because for this there's probably about

six cloves of garlic going in here.

This sauce here we use from good quality Spanish oil.

Plenty of oil, you can see in there as well.

I'm going to fry off this garlic.

Just get a little bit of colour,

we're not going to take this too far.

If we take it too far, it's going to go bitter.

And then you use some of this amazing paprika.

As soon as we add this to it the colour changes.

Really we don't want this to taste too much of oil,

so this is where we're going to put in some sherry vinegar.

I love this stuff, I've got plenty of this stuff at home.

Sherry vinegar comes from the Cadiz area of southern Spain.

The most mature vinegar can be aged in oak barrels for up to ten years

and its deep flavour can enhance everything

from soups, stews, sauces and dressing.

It's got a flavour all on its own really,

there's nothing else like it.

To me, it's one of Spain's greatest exports.

Mix that together. Have a quick taste.

It's proper nice.

That's going to be perfect for our chicken wings.

And you can't really do tapas, to be honest, without using these -

these are Padron peppers.

Padron peppers are usually mild, but one in ten are particularly hot.

And like Russian Roulette,

there's no way of knowing without eating one.

Simply fry them in oil before biting the bullet.

You cannot go to a tapas bar without trying these.

These three dishes to me are the perfect combination

for that TV dinner. It's bowl food, it's finger food.

Food that doesn't go and deteriorate

while you're watching your favourite movie or TV programme.

As soon as you get to this point they're almost done now.

You can see the skin start to blister

and they start to soften up slightly.

What you need is some salt.

Good quality salt is the key.

Pour these in the bowl.

Just look great, these.

And then finally what you do to finish these off is again...

another bit of salt.

And this is the reason why in tapas bars

for every one of these you gotta have...

Of course you've got to have a beer as well.

Mm!

They're so good.

All there is to do now really is just decant this sauce.

And it is really a sauce,

it's not just oil cos you've got the sherry vinegar in there,

you've got the garlic.

And it depends whether you want it too hot,

that smoked paprika is a bit hot, so you can cool it down

with just a squeeze of lemon.

Just pop them straight into...the sauce.

Just have a nice pile of these chicken wings.

I've got to be honest, with these, you're sitting watching the TV,

don't wear your best shirt.

Probably going to need a bib.

And then finally... we've got our potato wedges.

Which are in those nice spices, so they have a nice little kick.

This is the whole thing about tapas,

it's all about full-on flavour, simple cooking...

but most importantly - great tasting food.

That is not the hot one.

The longer I do this, the more you learn to dive in first...

..before these lot.

Well, I did say this was the perfect TV dinner.

Now I've got a TV crew to prove it.

Eating great food while you watch your favourite show

is what a good night in front of the TV should be.

It's home cooked dinners which are quick to make,

easy to eat and most importantly - taste sensational.

So the next time you plan a night with your favourite box set,

try these recipes and you'll guarantee to get

the best reviews you've ever had.

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 bbc.co.uk/food