Family Favourites James Martin: Home Comforts

If there's one thing I look forward to at the end of a busy day,

it's the thought of getting back to my kitchen at home.

For me, nothing beats cooking some simple heart-warming food.

Ho-ho! It is SO good!

The kind of no-nonsense grub that brings people together.

Cheers, everyone.

The dishes I turn to when I want to put a big smile on everyone's face.

These are my Home Comforts.

I often get asked what inspired me to get into food in the first

place and the simple answer is - my family.

Working in and running restaurants has given me

some amazing opportunities in life, but it all started at home.

Families and food, for me, go hand in hand.

Some of the happiest memories I had a as a kid was helping

out my mother in the kitchen.

So I'm going to show you some simple foolproof ideas

that are always a winner in my house.

As you can see, I ate pretty well as a kid

and the home comforts I grew up on have stayed with me ever since.

I'll be making top picks from my mum's cookbook

and you don't mess about with your mum's recipes!

I got rapped round the back of my head and sent to bed!

Food historian Ivan Day has finally found the longest recipe in history.

Mutton this size is going to take about 19 days.

And my old school reports that my early cooking efforts

were not always successful.

Untidy. Poor time plan. See me.

Far too many ingredients.

And that was just for gingerbread.

But first, a classic 1970s starter that takes me right down

memory lane.

A delicious combination of fine seafood,

with a healthy dose of cream cheese and double cream, this little

number takes me back to my mum's Saturday night dinner parties.

Her smoked salmon, prawn

and cucumber mousse is making a comeback.

I don't know why, but everybody seems to laugh

when I make this at home, but nobody laughs when they taste it.

I think it's a fantastic dish.

It makes a great centrepiece, great talking point.

It's a salmon mousse done in one of these metal rings,

layered with cucumber.

Very simple to do, but the time consuming bit is the start.

But all you need for that is a little bit of oil

and some clingfilm.

The trick is to press the clingfilm into the mould,

so the oil holds it in place.

I find it works better to use a second sheet of film

laid across the first.

This makes it so much easier to take out afterwards.

So the cucumber, we just peel this. You don't have to.

I remember watching my mum do this at home.

She used to love dinner parties

and she used to do this amazing salmon and prawn mousse,

made exactly like this and then my dad would get more enthusiastic,

with more and more dinner parties, so then my mum ended up...

I shouldn't really say this, but ended up buying it from a shop.

And this one particular dinner party,

she was explaining to everybody how it was made

and I think I was about seven years old

and accidentally came running in with a packet, saying, "No, no, no.

"You didn't. You bought it."

And I got the packet swiftly taken off me

and rapped round the back of my head and sent to bed!

So, no more dinner parties for me.

I'm using a mandolin to cut very fine slices of cucumber.

These will be the scales for our salmon.

Be careful using mandolins, it's so easy to cut yourself.

When the whole cucumber is sliced,

lay the wafer thin pieces into the mould.

I always remember this because,

once you get to the end, just overlap it slightly.

I'm leaving a few slices of cucumber to one side to use later.

Right, we can now get on with the mousse itself.

I'm going to use a combination of prawns and smoked salmon.

For this, really, we want about sort of 400 grams.

You need to remove the skin and roughly chop it,

before throwing it into a blender.

And then, to make the mousse, it's really simple.

All you need to add is a touch of lemon.

Give it a blitz.

You're creating almost a puree to start with.

It's important to do this bit first, before you add the cream,

otherwise the cream over-whips and then separates.

And then there's only a few more ingredients.

You'll need 450ml of double cream and 200g of cream cheese.

Some black pepper.

Don't bother adding any salt - there's plenty in the salmon.

While the mixture's churning, you quickly add the double cream.

You just want to whip up this enough,

so it's stable, which that...is perfect.

Quick taste.

That's good, is that!

With the mousse whipped to perfection,

put it in a piping bag and half fill the mould.

Then add your layer of cooked prawns.

Then fill the mould with the remaining mousse.

Finally, you get the remaining cucumber

and just place this over the top.

Use some clingfilm on top of the mould to allow you to

compress the filling.

Lift off this clingfilm and then get your serving plate,

and then kind of flip it over.

You can set it in the fridge for about half an hour,

if you're worried it might not hold together.

Fingers crossed!

And then, if you hold the clingfilm flat to the board,

and then lift off the mould, it should just come straight off.

How's that?

I'm going to garnish this with some fresh watercress

and the last of my remaining prawns.

I'm not just going to end there because one thing that my mum

used to do was grab some big prawns

and this finishes it all off.

And there you have it.

and I think, having done that, my mother might let me downstairs again.

The presentation on this salmon mousse is stunning

and it tastes every bit as good as it looks.

It's one 1970s home comfort that will still get any dinner

party off to a flying start.

For most of us, our favourite dishes are shaped by what we ate as kids.

And this is as true of our ancestors as it is today.

Food historian Ivan Day is in the Lake District

at the Georgian childhood home

of the Romantic poet William Wordsworth.

As a little boy growing up in Cumberland,

William would have tasted a couple of real family favourites

which would have been eaten in just about every household in the region.

I'm going to make two dishes.

The first is cured mutton, known locally as powdered mutton.

The second is the staple dish of the region,

which was not white wheaten bread,

but a type of oatcake which was called havercake.

Cured mutton isn't eaten very much in Britain any more,

but in the Lake District in Wordsworth's lifetime,

it was one of the staple foods

because the sheep were so plentiful on the mountains.

In order to cure any meat or fish, we need a curing powder.

That's why this is called powdered mutton.

And the most important powder is salt.

Coarse salt was used and it was mixed with brown sugar

and local juniper berries.

All we have to do now is to rub this into the surface of the meat.

The salt gets drawn into the meat slowly

day after day after day after day until it meets in the middle.

And a mutton of this size is going to take about 19 days to finish.

What I've got to do, every day, I just turn it over

and I rub the salt into it.

But even then, the Wordsworths

wouldn't have been able to taste the mutton.

The leg would then be dried and then hung in some smoke.

This is one family favourite that you couldn't prepare in a hurry.

Unlike Ivan's next dish.

This was the staple food of the central Lake District.

And it was a type of oatcake which was called havercake.

Oats in Cumbrian dialect is haver.

This countryside was invaded by Norsemen

who settled in here before the Norman conquest.

And this is really a Scandinavian crisp bread that they brought here.

This recipe was so simple,

it was just a matter of mixing oats with salt and hot water

to form a dough.

In this part of the world, wheaten bread was a Sunday treat.

Most of the time, you ate barley and particularly oats,

which could be grown here very easily.

For the next stage, a Georgian gadget

called a havercake roller was used.

The idea was to roll it out as thinly as you could

so you get a wonderful crisp bread

that's really nice. It just cracks.

The havercake is then moved onto a hot iron girdle,

where it cooks for about two minutes on each side.

To make it even more crispy, there was one final step involved.

So the maiden needs to go in front of the fire.

And I transfer the havercake

very gently to the maiden.

And the havercake sits in front of the fire crisping up.

This was such a popular food.

You ate it often by dipping it into your soup.

I'd like to try my havercake with my powdered mutton.

The first taste sensation is a very sheepy one.

There's a strong tallowy, but very, very nice flavour to this.

And then the salt comes through.

It is really, really delicious.

Together, the havercake and the powdered mutton

give me a really good taste experience.

I really think that I'm getting those flavours

of the lost Lake District, of William Wordsworth's youth.

A true, ancient Cumberland family favourite.

The need to use ingredients that were close to hand

meant that dishes like this defined family suppers for many a Cumbrian.

Now, we weren't poets, but growing up on a chicken and pig farm

meant that my family were happy using ingredients

that we had right on our doorstep, too.

My flambed chicken liver salad is a light, tasty bite

that caused a bit of a stir in our house.

And not just because it's delicious.

It's also one of these dishes that I'm kind of passionate about

because it's the thing that inspired me to cook in the first place,

but it's also a dish that got me nearly expelled from school.

I remember it, my cookery teacher said,

"Next week, you can do what you want."

So everybody else was bringing in sort of black forest gateaux

and making little fairy cakes and all that kind of stuff.

I was going to do this salad of flambed chicken livers

with mangetout and rocket.

I didn't realise that bringing a bottle of brandy into school

was going to get me expelled at 11 years old.

'I'm going to start the salad with the croutons.

'I like to cut thick slices of white bread, oil them...

'and lightly chargrill.'

And at the same time, I'm just going to fry my bacon.

And always dry-cured bacon on our farm. We never did a wet cure.

Purely the fact that when you fry it, you want it to sort of crisp up.

Now, while I was thinking of dishes to do for this show,

I managed to dig out my old cookbooks.

And I was reading these the other night.

And I think they're quite hilarious, really.

It's one of these things, you look back and realise where it started.

But these are genuinely my old school cookery books

from when I was 11 years old.

"D minus. Washing-up."

I was never really good at washing-up.

"Untidy. Poor time plan. See me.

"Far too many ingredients."

And that was just for gingerbread.

And the best of all, I put 2oz of butter,

she's crossed it out and put margarine.

But looking back at this, it wasn't looking too good

that I was ever going to make it as a chef, to be honest.

Anyway...

I'm nearly burning my bacon.

So you crisp these up, really.

'With the bacon out of the pan, it's time for the veg.

'It's everywhere now, but in the early '80s,

'rocket and mangetout definitely raised a few eyebrows.'

All you need to do is just take the mangetout, chop it up just roughly.

'Now it's time for one of my favourite bits.

'Soak up some of the bacon fat with the slices of toast,

'bringing all that flavour back into the salad.'

So we throw the livers in.

Pan's nice and hot.

Now, every time I cook this, it just brings back the memory

of what my cookery teacher must have been thinking.

"What's the smoke doing over there as Martin in the corner,"

or Mo, I was nicknamed,

"is crisping up the chicken livers?"

Now, this is the important bit when you're cooking chicken livers.

You need to get that caramelisation on it.

You only get that with a really, really hot pan.

And keep the residual fat from the bacon.

This will help the flavour,

but mainly, you want to cook these very, very quickly.

'So we need to keep the next few ingredients close to hand.'

Now, this is the thing that nearly got me expelled at school.

Whacking in half a bottle of brandy.

Whoof! Nearly set the kitchen on fire.

I got big-time into trouble.

But you do need a bit of brandy into this. Throw it in.

Tiny bit of double cream.

Because this isn't really like a sauce,

it's almost like a little dressing to go with it.

Throw in the little mangetout.

Bit of sherry vinegar. So everything comes across at the last minute.

The sherry vinegar adds that nice little piquantness.

Bit of salt.

'A bit of black pepper.'

And I hope Mrs Baxter, my old cookery teacher's watching this

because...nearly 30 years has passed

and I'm still making it.

Looks lovely.

And then all we need to do is just switch off the heat.

You don't want to overcook these livers,

otherwise livers can go quite bitter.

'For the salad, take a little bit of rocket,

'roughly chop your crispy bacon...

'..and dice up your toast into croutons.'

And then you grab your liver

and you've almost got a nice little sort of dressing with the cream.

Drizzle that over the top and it's a lovely warm salad.

And there you have it. It's a firm family favourite in my house,

but a dish that brings back so many memories

and one that nearly got me expelled when I was a kid.

To me, the taste of this is fantastic.

The sherry vinegar really makes all the difference.

And I suppose if I had that...

I wouldn't have got a D minus.

'Well, it might not have done me any favours at school,

'but it's dishes like this

'that I think have made me into the chef I am today.

'It's simple, it's quick

'and by heck, it's tasty!'

For me, flambed chicken livers are a true taste of my childhood.

But understandably, for many children

it's sweets that bring the memories flooding back.

Proper, freshly-made artisan fudge

is, however, one family favourite

that I think still gets kids of any age excited.

And it's thanks to the efforts of artisan producers

like Steve Timms and his wife Janet

that tastes and textures of traditional fudge have not died out.

Before I made fudge, I used to work

in the film and entertainment industry.

I was looking for a slight change in job.

Janet taught me how to make a little bit of fudge, so I gave it a try

and...it sold.

It sold quite well.

I began to realise that maybe there was a little career in fudge.

The general reaction is,

"Cor blimey, I haven't had fudge like this since I was a kid!"

Or, from the younger people,

"I didn't have a clue that fudge tasted like this."

"It don't taste like the..."

And I say, "Well, no, it doesn't.

"This is what your grandparents would have recognised as kids."

And soon, Steve had developed this old-fashioned confectionary

into a range of exciting flavours to appeal to everybody.

-Good morning.

-Good morning.

Old-fashioned handmade fudge.

-Christmas pudding?

-I know. Don't laugh.

And this is nothing like shop fudge.

There is no additives, there's no E numbers.

-That's where the money's at.

-Has that hit the spot?

-That is good.

Steve needs to make a fresh batch of his award-winning fudge

in time for the Dover Regatta.

It's taken me a while.

I didn't like the first recipes that I found.

I found it a tad too sugary.

What Steve does like is the purest form of fudge you can get.

Just sugar, butter and a splash of milk.

Seems to me that the old-fashioned ways I believe are still the best.

There's something you get out of the personal touch with fudge.

Sugar, butter, milk all nicely melted in the pot here.

Transfer it into the big pot.

It's gone from a bit of a hobby to...

Well, to small production.

It is just me, me wooden spoon and me pot of fudge.

20 minutes of stirring later and Steve's authentic fudge

is starting to get to temperature.

As you're stirring the sugar, it starts to form

and it gives you that silky fudge-like appearance.

It's the constant stirring

that gives Steve's fudge its luxurious texture.

And it's at this stage where any other flavours can also be added.

This is really, really hot.

And it's not to be messed about with.

Covered and left to cool for at least three hours,

the fudge can then be cut and bagged.

And that's the cutting done.

Now we move it into the bagging department...which is the kitchen.

And it's the same place that I make the fudge, as you can see.

Fresh home-made fudge like Steve's

ideally needs to be eaten within a week.

So making it in batches just before events like the regatta

means his customers are sure to get the best

out of this delicious, sweet family favourite.

INDISTINCT TANNOY

The people of Dover really embrace this.

It's only once a year, but they really come out and have a good day.

And it's the perfect event for Steve to get some new customers

converted to his old-fashioned artisan produce.

That's amazing. It tastes fresh.

Because when you buy fudge in a shop, it doesn't taste that good.

But here, they've made it themselves, so it's really nice. I like it.

I think I've got a bit of a fan club going.

And my little fans, I call the fudgelings.

-Here's a fudgeling. How are you doing?

-I'm all right.

Oh, it's lovely. It's buttery, it's creamy. It's wonderful!

When you get a brand-new person that excited,

yes, it's a good feeling

and it makes me feel as if I'm doing something right.

Mm! Very, very, very good!

You should never underestimate how much better

home-cooked food can taste until you give it a try.

One of the first things many of us cook as a kid is a cake.

And with home baking experiencing a revival,

those of us with a sweet tooth are having a bit of a field day.

'For me, one cake tops the lot.

'With soft, moist sponge and lightly-whipped vanilla cream

'my Swiss roll with fresh raspberry jam

'wouldn't look out of place on the poshest of dessert trolleys.'

The old-fashioned Swiss roll is one I love to cook at home all the time.

But with a compote or a jam-style compote, this is fantastic.

'A compote is ridiculously easy to make.

'I'm using 400g of jam sugar

'and about 450g of raspberries.

'A splash of water, bring it to the boil

'and leave it to simmer for about six minutes.'

And I'm going to combine this lovely compote

with one of my favourite, favourite cakes to make,

which is a Swiss roll.

Can be one of the best desserts that you'll make at home. It's great.

'You'll need five eggs and 125g of caster sugar.'

You want to make sure this is nice and firm,

so give it a good three or four minutes.

Meanwhile, I can prepare my tin.

'Dab butter into the sides and bottom of your baking tray

'and then line with grease-proof paper.'

Now, just to add a nice amount of flavour into this,

I'm going to use the beans from a vanilla pod.

Just add these...to the whipping eggs and sugar.

This just adds a nice little flavour to it.

It really complements the raspberries.

You can see now these are starting to boil.

And instantly, when you use the jam sugar,

you get this lovely thick mixture almost straightaway.

'To see if the sponge is whipped enough, dip the whisk

'and drip a figure of eight back into the bowl.

'If it stands proud like this, it's done.

'Now get 95g of self-raising flour.'

Now, the flour for this is really critical.

You need to add the right amount.

Even 5g can make all the difference.

This is not a cake, it's not like a Victoria sponge.

It's really a cake that we can roll without it cracking.

And the flour is really critical for this.

So open up your fingers and the flour just falls through.

It's a much faster way of doing it.

Now we can pour it...onto the tin.

'Smooth it into the corners with a palate knife

'and knock it a couple of times to make it settle.'

Straight in the oven.

About 190-degrees centigrade, 375 Fahrenheit.

About ten minutes. 10-12 minutes would be just enough.

'While that's baking, I can turn my attention back to the raspberries.'

Now, the idea of this is you want like a compote.

It's not really a jam. Not as thick as a jam, anyway.

So the best way to tell, really,

is just let it coat the back of the spoon.

As soon as it's done that, turn it off, allow it to go cold.

Stick it in a jar if you want to keep it for longer.

But I've got one I've done earlier.

This is perfect.

'Here's a top tip that'll help your Swiss roll roll.

'Take a clean, damp tea towel,

'lay it onto your board and dust it with caster sugar.'

Now, the reason for the damp tea towel is really important.

'Now it's time I got that sponge out of the oven.'

So very quickly while it's still warm,

flip it straight out onto the damp tea towel.

'Time for asbestos fingers.

'You need to take off the grease-proof paper

'while the sponge is still hot.

'Then roll up the sponge in the damp tea towel.'

Now, as you roll it up, it's creating this wonderful steam.

And it's going to help stop the sponge from cracking.

And then you can roll it back again.

'For me, a proper Swiss roll has got to have some whipped cream.

'For this, you'll need 500 mls of double cream.

'I like to add the seeds from a vanilla pod

'for a bit of extra flavour.'

You want to make sure it's firmly whipped.

If it's not, it's going to seep out.

'When the sponge is at room temperature,

'we can spread on the compote.'

The best way to do this, really, is to get it nice and thin and even.

But leave almost like a half-inch gap at the top.

So when you actually roll it out,

if you fill it all the way through, it's going to seep out underneath.

'Then do the same with your cream.'

Make sure it's nice and even, like that. Right into the edges.

And just leave a little bit of cream for the garnish on the top.

To roll this up, the best way to do this is then,

just nice and tight to start with,

so you tip it underneath, and then,

keep it tight, but roll it at the same time...like that.

Onto your plate, because we're nearly there.

In one movement, up and on.

'And this is pretty much how I remember Swiss roll as a kid,

'but I've got to give it a little cheffy touch.

'With or without the fancy dressing,

'this is one family favourite of mine

'that I'll happily share with anybody.'

It tastes so much better when you make it yourself.

And the flavour of the sponge is just fantastic.

There's too much for me to eat here, so you guys better dive in. Come on.

-Whoa! Are you going to cut it?

-Oh, it's got pistachio nuts over it.

Oh, my gosh!

'Some dishes stay with you your whole life.

'And taking time out to recreate a few family favourites

'is a great way of taking a trip down memory lane.

'More importantly for me, cooking recipes like these

'keeps the enjoyment and excitement of eating good food

'very much part of everyday family life.'

You can find all the recipes from the series on bbc.co.uk/food.