A Taste of Home James Martin: Home Comforts

'The heart of my home is the kitchen.

'And it's here that I love to cook delicious meals for my nearest

'and dearest.'

-Cheers.

-Cheers!

'There's no better way to celebrate everything good in life

'than sharing some great food with the people you love.

'These are the dishes that I cook

'when I want to bring people together.'

These are my Home Comforts.

'I absolutely love chilling at home and for me,

'spending time in the kitchen is a great way to unwind.

'But I'm not too interested in the latest foodie fads.

'My favourite flavours come from way back.'

My early childhood days were spent running around on a farm and

those memories still influence the way that I think about food today.

So I'm going to rustle up some very special dishes that for me

really are the taste of home.

'So today, I'll be rolling out a family favourite...'

That is just delicious!

'..rehabilitating a home-made dessert from my school days...'

Blancmange can be really, really good!

'..and cooking lunch for one of my all-time heroes,

'motor racing legend Sir Stirling Moss.'

-What hit that bit?

-My head.

-I bet you that hurt.

I wasn't there at the time.

But before meeting my boyhood idol,

I'm going to rustle up a dish that always reminds me

of my younger days.

I was brought up on a pig farm,

so even the mere smell of roast pork and crackling

takes me right back.

This is my up-to-date version of a British classic,

with an Italian twist.

This is a version of Italian street food, I think, in Italy,

where they serve it hot or cold sliced, it's delicious.

But served hot with apple sauce,

this takes it to a different level.

It's just a wonderful little dish.

Now I've got a loin of pork here

which has got part of the belly attached.

Now the loin is equivalent to sort of sirloin on beef,

it's classed as a prime cut.

However, the bit that's become more popular over recent years is this -

the belly part.

We're going to actually incorporate this into a nice roasting joint,

and it is a serious roasting joint.

Remember, we were farmers,

so we didn't do little piddly bits of food, it was proper grub.

So to do that, we need to open this out

in a way that it all cooks nice and evenly.

Now what we're going to do is we're going to cut this eye of the meat

straight through like that. Straight through.

About a third of the way up really.

Now you can see, already, it's starting to get the same level.

At that point, we can then lift the knife up a bit,

and cut slightly further up,

so you're constantly opening it up,

so you've got this nice little parcel.

Until you get to the end,

which is probably there.

You need to repeat this process with the pork belly.

You can see now, this is almost, well, twice the size of what it was.

Now if you're unsure about doing this, you can, of course,

get your butcher to do it,

but it is actually pretty straightforward.

After a quick wash of the hands, I can turn my attention to the filling.

I start with some chopped onions...

..sage leaves and sultanas, for a bit of sweetness.

And then, finally, some British Bramley apples,

and the reason why these are good,

the acidity from the apple cuts down the fattiness of the pork

and that's why it really is... it's a classic combination,

it's like Tom and Jerry, it just works so well together.

Roughly chop these up and add them to everything else.

If it looks good at this stage,

it's going to look good and going to taste good in the end.

The last thing to do is add some butter, salt and pepper,

along with the zest of two lemons.

You're then, literally, ready to roll.

What I like to do, really, when I roll this up

is start off with the loin end

because we want to protect that nice bit of meat in here.

If we leave that on the outside,

it's going to sort of dry out,

so we want to make sure

the outside of the pork is actually the belly part here.

So start at the loin end

and just roll it up, like that.

And we end up with this, like that.

What a fantastic piece.

It's like a savoury Swiss roll.

This won't hold its shape on its own,

so you need to tie it up.

Start by making a loop at one end of the string,

and pull it underneath the pork.

Then thread the loose end through the loop.

Tie that nice and tight like that.

Now once you get to that,

keep the tension on this,

hold the string directly forward,

and then wrap it round

and underneath the loin again.

Then repeat this all the way along the pork.

I was never very good at wrapping presents as a kid,

I was much better at unwrapping them.

At this point,

we can then double tie this, just underneath.

Then before putting it onto an oven tray,

make a trivet out of onions, carrots, garlic and lemon.

And then just finally,

what I'm going to do with this -

now you could use oil,

but I'm going to use butter.

This is where you're going to end up

with that nice crispy crackling that we want.

And you get that by, to be honest, using good quality pork.

A good pinch of salt.

Now just take the pork and just stick it on your trivet.

To stop this drying out as well while it's roasting,

I'm going to take a bottle of wine.

A bottle of wine.

You can always top this up with water as well...while it's cooking.

Now it's ready to stick in the oven,

starting at 220 degrees centigrade for 30 minutes.

After that, turn the heat down to 150 degrees

for a further three hours.

You can't have roast pork without apple sauce.

So for that, you just need some sugar, a little bit of butter

and some of these amazing Bramley apples.

And this is where you kind of walk around the supermarkets now

and see stuff like apple sauce already in jars, already made.

I can't understand why

when, just round the corner, you've got fresh Bramley apples like this

and it takes such little time to make your own apple sauce.

And the taste is far, far better.

So you're just going to peel... about three apples will be enough.

But, mmm, these apples are just delicious.

What we're going to do now is just chop these up.

And apple sauce, I find, shouldn't be smooth as well,

it should be, well, what people seem to call me quite a lot - chunky -

which is nice.

Put some water in a pan and chuck all the apples in.

Then add two to four tablespoons of caster sugar.

You don't want too much, really.

You can use brown sugar for this,

but it changes the colour of the apple sauce.

Then add some lemon juice to stop it going brown,

along with a bit of butter.

And then we cook this for about ten minutes, and you've got apple sauce.

How easy is that?

When the sauce is cooked, set aside to cool down.

After about three-and-a-half hours, the porchetta will be ready.

Now the great thing about this, of course, you can have it hot or cold.

And then if you are going to do it hot, you've got this amazing gravy.

It's really good.

Sometimes, it's slightly bitter, which that is.

You can compensate for that by adding just a touch of sugar.

And I mean a touch.

And that means when you taste it,

you don't want it to be sweet, obviously,

but it takes away that bitterness.

You can just pour this in your jug.

The gravy is ready, and so is the apple sauce.

Time to dive in.

CRACKLING CRUNCHES

Listen to that. And proper apple sauce.

Dunk it in.

You see, this is the moment in time

I'm supposed to tell you how good it is, but you can hear it.

Roast pork with crackling and apple sauce.

That is just delicious.

If I don't live past tomorrow,

I'd be a happy man right now.

Roast pork was and still is one of my all-time favourite dinners.

And luckily for me, the ingredients are easy to pick up in the shops.

But for some, reviving the tastes and aromas of childhood

isn't quite so simple.

Razan Alsous is originally from Syria,

but she's brought a taste of her Middle Eastern homeland to Yorkshire.

Halloumi cheese is a type of Mediterranean cheese,

it's a fresh cheese, not aged.

It reminds me of very, very nice memories in Syria.

They eat it for lunch, for dinner,

we can have it with the fruits,

we have it sometimes with vegetables.

For breakfast, especially halloumi with watermelons.

Sometimes we do samosa.

We do pastry with the halloumi as well.

We use it in so many recipes.

It's one of the main ingredients,

very important ingredient in Syria.

Razan's road from her home in Syria to Yorkshire was a rocky one.

It began in Damascus where she had a promising career as a pharmacist.

But in 2011, the country was gripped by fierce fighting.

Because of the war, it's not safe any more.

It was like whenever you go outside home,

you don't know whether you will be back

or you would be kidnapped,

die maybe because of an explosion.

So we thought we need to go to find another place for our kids to live,

and to build a new future.

So we came here to the UK in 2012,

to survive

and to have a new life for the kids.

Razan and her husband Raheed arrived in the UK with nothing

but a few belongings.

They moved to Huddersfield to be near relatives,

and Razan had to come up with a way to support her family.

So let's think about what is available surrounding us?

In Huddersfield, there's plenty of green, plenty of cows,

and the milk was really creamy and rich in flavour.

In 2013, UK was the largest consumer for halloumi in Europe.

So at that point I thought, "Why not do halloumi in Yorkshire?"

And having Yorkshire halloumi, that would be lovely idea.

Traditionally, halloumi is made

with milk from regions in the Mediterranean.

But Razan discovered that Yorkshire milk was just as good for the job.

The milk coming from British Friesian cows,

it got high salt content

and that makes the cheese more creamy and the flavour is stronger.

Like most cheeses,

halloumi is made by first adding an enzyme to warmed milk.

The enzyme reacts with the milk to produce curds and whey.

The soft white curds are then removed, drained and rested

before being cut up into cubes ready to be boiled.

In this stage, when we boil the cheese,

this makes the halloumi halloumi actually,

it's got squeaky feeling when you eat it.

For me, some areas around the world, they got oil,

some of them, they got minerals and, in Yorkshire, they got milk.

And now they've also got Razan's halloumi,

which takes about three to four days from start to finish

before it hits the shelves in the local shops.

Luckily Razan's family doesn't have to wait that long.

Oh, hmm!

-And one for me, baba?

-No, just for Mummy!

-It has exactly the same taste that we used to have...

-Mmm.

..over there in Damascus.

And while the flavours of Syria live on in their food,

the family are happily rebuilding their lives here in the UK.

Because home is meaning safe,

memories, building future.

This is my dream, I hope the dream will become bigger and bigger

and everyone eating Yorkshire halloumi.

When I'm at home, I love looking at old recipes.

They remind me of important places and people.

This one in particular stands out for me,

because my granny used to make it.

It's raspberry blancmange.

Before you all switch over,

blancmange can be really, really good.

A lot of people have been scarred for life with blancmange

they had as a kid cos you used to bounce it off the walls,

but it can be made really nice.

Blancmange is basically a set custard.

But before I get on with making that,

I put 600 grams of fresh raspberries in a blender with a little water.

Once pureed, I'm going to use them to flavour the dessert.

And now I can sweeten this up a touch.

I like to use icing sugar really

because you can't taste the grains in it.

So a nice little bit of icing sugar.

That's probably enough.

Now carry on blitzing until the mixture becomes a puree.

Then pass it through a sieve to take out all the seeds.

So many people, when they're making a sauce like this,

be it out of raspberries or strawberries,

will actually cook the berries.

It's not the same as this.

You get a delicious flavour of just the fresh fruit,

and that's exactly what we want for this.

Once that's done, set it aside and start on the blancmange itself.

The first ingredient for this is gelatine.

This is what you've got to be careful about with this,

especially with old-fashioned cookbooks.

Gelatine used to be about this sort of length,

now it's less than half that,

so you've almost got to compensate for it

by adding a little bit more gelatine.

For this, about five leaves,

which we need to soak in cold water.

While that softens, make the blancmange custard

by mixing a tablespoon of cornflour with two tablespoons of icing sugar.

Then pour in 250ml of milk, starting with a small amount.

Keep stirring until you get a paste,

then add the rest of the milk,

pop the whole lot into a pan

and then add a teaspoon of vanilla extract.

I like to use extract rather than essence

because essence, I find, is a chemical, this is natural.

Put it on the heat,

and just gently warm this through.

Now, you need a whisk for this.

Because you've got the cornflour in there, it's going to thicken,

so this is where you've got to stand by your stove

and keep your eye on it.

It's thought that, way back in the Middle Ages

when blancmange used to be a savoury dish,

one that was done with chicken or quail set with almond milk

and stuff like that, it was fed to the sick.

Let's face it, if you're going to put chicken and quail in this,

this is one dish to really get you out of bed

because you don't want a second portion.

Right, this is starting to thicken now,

You see you get this paste.

Now you can add the soft gelatine to the mixture, dissolving it in.

Now, at this point, we can then pour in the cream.

The cream can be cold - this is double cream - and keep whisking.

And then this is where you can flavour it

with whatever you want really - chicken, quail, ground almonds...

Quail blancmange isn't exactly the taste of home for me,

so I'm whisking in raspberry puree instead.

Look at that!

See, now it looks like blancmange.

And now it's ready to go into the moulds.

I've got a couple of fantastic rabbit-shaped ones. Proper 1970s.

And then you take your rabbit blancmanges

and stick them in the fridge.

They want about a couple of hours to set.

These are going to be delicious.

When those couple of hours are up,

you can turn them out.

Dip the moulds into some hot water to loosen them up,

then gently tease out the blancmange.

You could just leave them like this,

but where's the fun in that?

Granny never did that bit, but it makes it shiny.

And then, just to garnish it with...

some of this lovely raspberry sauce.

And then, grab loads and loads of raspberries.

And also another herb which is really good is this - lemon verbena.

Now, I grow loads of it in my garden.

I remember... this is again a childhood smell.

They used to make soap out of this stuff.

It tastes amazing,

whether you just put warm water in it and have it as tea.

I like to put it in desserts.

Look at that.

And there you have it - blancmange in the shape of a rabbit.

Those raspberries are just delicious.

It takes blancmange to a different level.

It is very kitsch, it is 1970s, but I'm a 1970s kid.

And for me, nothing brings back childhood memories quite like

the sweet, wobbly desserts my granny used to make.

But these days, I'm just as happy

to sit down to a big plate of steak and chips when I get home.

'Today I'm cooking just that for arguably the greatest

'all-round racing driver ever. Sir Stirling Moss OBE.

'In his heyday, he won 16 F1 Grand Prix.

'A near-fatal accident at Goodwood in 1962 ended his career,

'but it hasn't dented his sense of humour.'

This is the steering wheel. Not meant to be that shape.

-This is...

-When is this from then?

It's from Goodwood, my crash, the last crash I had.

-What hit that bit down here?

-My head.

-I bet you that hurt.

I wasn't there at the time!

Will we have steak and chips?

'Ordinary steak and chips won't do for one of my all-time heroes

'so I'm making a delicious cote de boeuf bearnaise.

'Here's hoping Sir Stirling is impressed.'

Now somebody told me one of your favourite things was steak and chips when you were out and about.

-Yes.

-Because you travelled all over the place, didn't you, when you were racing?

-Yes.

-America, all over the place.

-Yeah. Literally.

Steak and chips, wonderful.

-I've got here for you your favourite, I believe.

-Oh, beautiful.

-Look at that.

-A rib or cote de boeuf.

-Yes. Beautiful.

You're not going to cover it in garlic, are you?

No, I'm not, cos you don't like garlic, do you?

Garlic is where you cover up a mess,

-as far as I'm concerned. I don't like garlic.

-All right.

There's no garlic, all right? So what we're going to do,

we're going to take our steak and put it on our tray.

-Now how do you like your steak cooked?

-Medium, please.

-Medium.

-Yes.

-OK.

-English medium.

-English medium,

-what does that mean?

-English medium to me is normal medium.

-French medium is less cooked than I'd like.

-Right.

-American is probably more cooked than I'd like.

-So English medium?

-Yes.

I've got a big pressure here, you see.

I thought I was going to be... This is my domain here. You're stressing me out now!

'To avoid an American medium, I'm putting

'it into the oven at 160 degrees centigrade for half an hour.

'While that's cooking, I can make the bearnaise sauce to go with it.

'Don't worry, Stirling, there's no garlic.'

I can't believe I've got you opposite me learning how to cook.

-I'll do you deal. If this steak turns out all right, can you teach me how to drive?

-I'll have a go.

Bearnaise is always done with butter, lots of it.

Which would kind of ruin a current racing driver's diet, wouldn't it?

-Yes, it would, wouldn't it?

-Nowadays you have food coaches, anything else?

-Nobody taught you that?

-No. I couldn't afford all that.

That's why at the end of a race I'd always

go round waving at the crowd so that the organiser would think,

"Well, he's really popular, we must have him back next year."

-So that's the key, you just go round waving at everybody?

-Exactly.

Now what you do with the butter is what we call "clarify" it.

-We bring it to the boil and we just leave that to simmer for about two minutes. All right.

-Right.

'I'm using 300g of butter.

'Clarifying it means the heated milk solids will separate out

'leaving behind a clear golden liquid that I'll use later.

'Then I put some chopped shallots into a pan with white peppercorns and some tarragon vinegar,

'although white wine vinegar will work just as well.'

And we're going to throw in some tarragon now. Smell that.

-Yeah.

-It goes really well with chicken, but it goes REALLY well with steak.

'Once tarragon leaves are added to the vinegar mixture the whole lot

'is boiled for a couple of minutes.'

So what was the defining moment for you, then,

when you were growing up and said, "I'm going to be a racing driver?"

I started just sprints and stuff when I was 17.

Then John Heath, a chap called John Heath, ran a team

and he said, "I'm going to race in Europe, would you like to join me?"

But every week we'd go somewhere new. Incredible life.

'It was definitely the kind of job I dreamed of when I was a nipper.

'But back to real life and bearnaise sauce.

'My next job is to whisk up two egg yolks in a bowl,

'then skim the foam off the top of the clarified butter

'and slowly add on to the egg yolks.

'But be careful not to tip the milk solids from the bottom of the pan.'

-Do you always do that by hand? You wouldn't use an electric one?

-No.

-You can see it better.

-It's much more entertaining like that.

It is much more entertaining. Thanks.

'When the egg yolks and clarified butter have thickened just

'stir in the vinegar reduction and add some extra chopped tarragon.'

Now the 1950s, particularly 1955, was a famous year for you.

-And particularly one race, the Mille Miglia.

-Yeah, the Mille Miglia.

-This is a thousand mile road race

-through Italy.

-Yeah.

-What on earth do you eat in 1,000 miles?

-I ate a banana.

-The entire way?

-Just one banana.

Yeah. I wanted an orange, as well,

but by the time we peeled the orange, it was black.

-This was Jenkinson?

-Yes.

-Who was your co-driver?

Who was three-times world champion in the sidecar.

I take it that was the brake dust and everything else off the road?

Yes, the inboard brakes.

I wasn't going to eat that so I threw that out and all

he had left then was a banana.

'Thankfully, there's more than a banana on the menu today.

'And as far as I'm concerned, nothing goes better with steak

'than crispy chips.'

I presume you like medium size chips, not skinny ones.

Yeah, no, whichever way.

-A chip is a chip.

-A chip is a chip.

I'm more stressing about the beef in there. You've got me worried about this beef.

'For me, the secret of good chips is to cook them

'in a mixture of beef dripping and vegetable oil.

'To make them extra crispy, I blanch them first.'

-Blanching means to cook without colour.

-Ah.

Basically the oil is quite low. It's about 140 degrees centigrade.

'The chips will need to be blanched for about four to five minutes.

'Then I take them out and turn the heat up to 190 degrees Celsius.

'While the fat is warming up I can check the steak.'

That's about medium. It's not far off.

We'll just leave that in the oven for about another five minutes.

So that's going to go in there.

And then all we've got to do now is just finish off our chips.

'These just take three to four minutes to crisp up nicely in hot oil.

'Then it's time to seal the steak in a generous amount of butter.'

Now at this moment in time we can start to season this with some salt...

-Right.

-..black pepper.

-You're not cooking it actually for very long, are you?

No, literally in, nice bit of colour on it, and out.

-And that's sufficiently cooked now, is it?

-Well, hopefully it is.

I do feel under pressure, mind,

whether it's an English medium or an American medium, whatever you

decide to call it. A bit of watercress to go with it.

That's just decoration, though, isn't it?

-The watercress?

-Just decoration.

-You can eat it if you want.

-Yeah.

-Do you want it on there or not?

-No, no, no. I don't mind.

I would push it to the side. Make more room for the meat.

-And then we'll slice this, shall we, see what it's like.

-Fingers crossed.

Fingers crossed.

-Beautiful.

-Yes. You see.

-Beautiful, yes. Am I going to get to eat a bit of that?

-Yeah, it's coming. It's coming, it's coming, it's coming.

-I'm not hurrying...

-It's coming, it's coming.

-..just making sure you've got enough.

'All that's left to do now is serve up the bearnaise sauce

'and pile up the chips on the side.'

-There you go. It's not really a plate, it's a board of food.

-Yes. Fit for a king.

Fit for a king, I reckon fit for a legend.

Legend is often overused in this world

-but they don't get any bigger than you, do they, really?

-Well, thank you very much.

-They don't get any bigger than this steak and chips.

-No.

-Thank you.

-I'll cut you a piece of steak so you can have a taste of this.

It looks lovely.

Mm.

-Super.

-Nice, though, isn't it?

-Mm. Beautiful bearnaise.

'Sir Stirling's right.

'Who needs garlic and watercress when you have got delicious steak

'and chips in front of you?

'It just goes to show that nothing beats simply prepared dishes

'that are jam-packed with hearty old-fashioned flavours.

'How's that for a taste of home?

'You can find all the recipes for the series at...'

-Happy with that?

-Mm.

-It's not bad, is it?

-No.

If ever you're in town and you want to cook some, let me know. You can borrow my kitchen.

-Oh, right! I'll come round to your house and cook for you!

-Yeah.

-All right. OK.