Show-off Suppers 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!

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.

We all like to make a splash when we cook for friends,

but for most people there just aren't enough hours in the day.

But I've got a range of show suppers that are guaranteed

to impressed your mates, even if you're short on time.

So on your marks, and get set

to create some quick and easy memorable meals.

A bowl of beauty!

'My gran's old shortbread recipe is rapidly transformed

'into something very special.'

Now, if this isn't showing off, I don't know what is!

'And this seafood treat is cooked up for Carol Kirkwood,

'whose fast filleting skills really need some improvement.'

So, this looks like my dog's eaten it.

CAROL LAUGHS

You cheeky thing!

But if you really want to make your guests sit up and take notice,

why not kick off with these - my tandoori chicken lollipops?

So, what I thought I'd do is a lovely little dish using chicken legs.

Now, not very glamorous, are they?

Often sort of deep-fried in breadcrumbs,

but these can be absolutely fantastic

in a lovely little marinade, in a tandoori marinade

served with a nice cucumber riata.

So what goes into that marinade?

I use equal quantities of garam masala, cumin

and hot chilli powder, then add some turmeric and cinnamon.

Now, this is a tandoori marinade that I use quite a lot.

Not only is it good for chicken,

but it works really well with fish and also game -

if you've got things like venison, this is a fantastic mixture to use.

To finish it, grate some ginger, leaving the skin on,

then add garlic, the juice of a lemon and some full-fat yogurt.

You don't have to use chicken drumsticks for this

but I think the way you prepare them is really special,

which turns them into sort of a food that you'd normally eat in the car

on your knee into a food that you can serve for a dinner party,

and it's all in the preparation.

All you need is a good knife, a heavy knife,

and a pair of pliers.

Yes, pliers.

Very clean kitchen pliers.

But start with that sharp knife.

Now, use the bottom of the knife and then give it a whack....

straight through, right through the tendons, everything.

Then turn your attention to this side

and then again with the base of the knife, give it a whack...

straight through the knuckle,

and what you need to do is push this part of the chicken up through there.

So, now you've got this little lollipop,

this little drumstick pointing out of the top

and you can see there's tendons there.

What you need to do is remove these tendons,

and the best way to do that is with a pair of pliers -

grab them and just yank them out.

There's about five or six per drumstick.

They're actually so easy to pull out.

Once you've done that, just chuck them in the marinade.

Coat them thoroughly and leave in the fridge overnight.

I've got some...

that I prepared earlier.

Then put them onto a baking tray

and give them 15 to 20 minutes in a very hot oven.

Now, to serve with that as a nice little dip

we are going to do a nice little cucumber raita.

So for that we need garlic, chilli,

bit of cucumber, some coriander,

mint and cumin, and not forgetting that yogurt.

You need to cut the cucumber really finely

so it will coat the chicken evenly when you dunk it in.

Then chop the coriander.

The first time I tried the combination of these ingredients,

they were on little skewers, little venison pieces, strips,

in the tandoori marinade on the fire pit in a tandoor oven.

And just served with this little dipping sauce,

it just tasted fantastic.

The freshness of the flavours,

it says everything about Indian cookery.

To finish, add some full-fat yogurt

and a good squeeze of lime.

By now the chicken lollipops should be ready.

So serve them with the riata and some lime wedges.

How good does that look?

A bowl of beauty.

You get a nice bit of bone

that you can grab and hold

while you dive in.

That tandoori marinade is delicious,

little squeeze of lime dunked into that raita.

It says everything about Indian food in one bite.

Simple ingredients, but just out of this world flavours.

A perfectly balanced blend of tandoori spices,

gently cooled by the cucumber and yogurt raita.

Anything that looks this good deserves to be shown off,

so why not do it at your next dinner party?

When I'm entertaining at home, I love to serve up a sweet treat.

Impressive desserts come in all shapes and sizes,

but they don't have to be complicated to make.

So I'm serving a family favourite, tangy lemon pud,

that takes very little time and effort.

Now, the key to a show-stopping dessert for me is simplicity,

and you don't get any more simple than a lemon posset.

Now, it's one of the oldest desserts around,

it originates from about the 15th century,

and we used to use dairy, particularly milk back then,

thickened with a little bit of ale or mead or even cider

to sort of almost curdle and cook the milk, if that makes sense.

Nowadays, of course, we still keep the dairy but we use double cream,

and instead of that mead and everything else we use lemon.

So the first thing I need for this recipe is a combination of sugar

and double cream.

Now, you have to make this out of double cream really

because it doesn't set with single cream

and it certainly doesn't set really well with milk,

you get almost like a blancmange sort of texture.

So the first thing we're going to do is throw our cream into the pan.

Bring it to the boil along with some sugar,

then add the juice and zest of two lemons.

It's the acidity of the lemon that helps the posset set.

Now, this has to be one of the simplest desserts around

cos it mainly only uses three ingredients,

but the flavour from it is really fantastic

and it all comes from the lemon.

I remember my gran making simple lemon possets

and it was done exactly the same way as I'm doing here it.

It's a very, very quick and simple little dessert.

Now, as the cream and the sugar comes to the boil,

it almost looks like condensed milk in this pan.

Now, you've got to keep your eye on it

because the sugar can often sit at the bottom of the pan and burn

while you are bringing it to the boil.

And then add our lemon juice and lemon zest.

Immediately, the mixture begins to thicken.

When it resembles the consistency of custard,

take it off the heat and ladle into bowls.

You can see the texture of the cream has changed,

it's started to thicken up.

And then take these and pop them in the fridge.

They will take around an hour to set, which gives me time to do the baking.

Now, it's all about showing off for a dinner party

and to do that, I like to serve this with shortbread,

but shortbread slightly made differently.

And for that, you need some of these little nonstick moulds, really.

This is ideal for this because it's a very delicate shortbread.

Shortbread in its nature is very short, as in crumbly,

and if we make it and then block it out and cut it up,

you end up with little fingers, which are fine, to dip into the posset.

But what this is is really delicate. You put them in the mouth

and they just dissolve, that's the bit...

You don't even need to bite them.

I think that's the reason why my gran actually made these

cos of her false teeth and stuff like that,

they just basically dissolved in her mouth, but these are delicious.

To get started, put 175g of plain flour, 90g of icing sugar,

60g of ground almonds and 25g of cornflour into a bowl

with my favourite ingredient.

This is probably the reason why I fell in love with butter,

cos it uses a whole packet -

the entire block!

And what we do now is just break this into pieces.

Rub the chunks of butter

and the dry ingredients together using your hands.

Don't use a machine as you'll overmix it

and the finished biscuits will be too hard.

Keep mixing, and as soon as the heat of your hands

brings the crumbly mixture together, you're nearly there.

Now what you need to do is just mould these...

into little balls

and just put each one in this little mould.

Now, you kind of have to do this in this little mould because

this shortbread is so delicate, if I was to roll this out

and put it onto a tray, it would basically spread everywhere

and go all over the place.

Now these shortbreads need to bake for about eight to ten minutes only,

that's all they'll take to cook.

Now, to increase the flavour of those lovely shortbreads

that are in the oven, I'm just going to take some strawberry jam

and what you have to do is bring the jam to the boil

to almost reconstitute it, to make it back to a liquid again -

just a tiny bit of water and then just heat this up.

Now, you certainly don't want to overcook these,

and you can see from the texture what happens,

they just slightly souffle up. Now these will collapse back down again

but what you have to do while they're still warm

is make little indentations, cos you want the jam to sit in the middle,

and for that, you just need your little finger...

press it in the top.

Now, to fill these, you need to fill them with a hot jam

otherwise you just end up with a dollop sat on the top,

so by warming it up, just get this nice texture to it.

And once you fill the centres, we can then cool this down

and just decorate our posset.

You can do this any way you like. I'm using chopped figs,

strawberry quarters and sprigs of mint.

And once the shortbreads are cooled, it's time to show them off.

And all you need to do with these is just carefully pop them out.

These are so delicate, these things, they almost break in your hands.

Now, if this isn't showing off, I don't know what is.

And you do it in no time at all,

this entire dish is done in less than an hour.

And what I love about this,

the biscuits just cut through the richness of the posset.

This is very good!

These buttery shortbreads with their fruity topping

are the perfect partner for the tangy posset.

Don't forget to share them!

Another way to impress a hungry crowd is by serving top-class seafood.

Langoustines in particular are one of my true favourites

and they don't come any fresher than Kieran Quinn's, caught off the coast

of County Mayo in Ireland.

The waters of Clew Bay have always been a part of his life.

We were always on the shore in little rowboats going fishing.

My father was a boat-builder at one time

so we were always repairing boats, painting boats.

From a young age, from as early as I can remember

all I ever wanted to do was go fishing.

So Kieran is off to catch langoustines,

a succulent white shellfish.

They're sometimes called Dublin Bay prawns.

Even though they do look like a giant prawn,

they're more closely related

to a slightly more exclusive sort of seafood.

Langoustine, it's a similar texture to lobster

but the flavour is stronger,

it's more distinct and quite sweet.

Kieran is on his way out to collect his catch

from fishing pots called creels.

A creel's a steel frame with a net over the outside of it.

We bait the creels with herring and set that on the ground.

The creels are very light, they sit on the seabed -

they don't dig in, they're not dragged across the seabed,

so when we haul them back, very little disturbance to the seabed.

Along with the fisherman who depend on Clew Bay for their living,

there are seals and sea birds too.

Kieran's low-impact style of fishing means they all continue

to benefit from these rich waters.

800 baited creels are waiting on the seabed,

so hopefully some hungry langoustine have been fattening up nicely

inside each one.

These are swimmer crabs.

Also hermit crabs, where a crab has taken up residence in their shell.

These squatters are not the luxury guests he was after,

but he doesn't have to wait long for his prize.

Getting to see a couple of prawns now.

Using creels is a selective way of fishing.

The live catch Kieran doesn't want, including juvenile langoustines,

can be returned to the sea.

These prawns are probably big enough for some fisheries,

but for the live market that we go for

these are not big enough, so we return them.

Next year these will be big enough to catch.

You need to keep your prawns in these trays,

or as we call them tubes - they fight a lot.

Left in a large tub together, these feisty langoustines

would simply rip each other apart,

something that must be avoided at all costs!

A number one priority for the prawns, for the live market,

is to have the prawns alive when they arrive to the customer.

Because of the tides,

he only has five hours to empty all of the creels,

rebait and return them to the seabed before heading back to the port.

Most of his catch, however, is travelling further afield.

Because they're alive when they arrive in the restaurant,

the restaurant owner can charge top dollar for them,

and as a result we get top dollar for our product.

The biggest market for our product

is in France and Spain, unfortunately.

When you see prawns in the supermarket for 5.99

for a packet of peeled prawns,

whereas the prawns that we have here,

in the likes of Spain, may be 100 euros a kilo.

At that price, it's no wonder langoustines are considered

an expensive delicacy,

but thankfully local customers can enjoy them too.

Eagerly awaiting today's fresh catch

is County Mayo chef Aine Maguire.

We don't always have them every week, it depends on the weather.

So when we have them I have a list of people who I have to call

and say, "OK, I have Kieran's prawns now,"

and they come and get them, they come and eat.

They're beautiful things, and I'm very, very proud of them.

For some bizarre reason I feel proud that they're from my locality.

And at a restaurant on the bay,

Aine can't wait to cook this five-star local shellfish.

These are showstoppers, you know, you give these to your guests

and they are certainly going to be wowed, and for loads of reasons.

The flavour is extraordinary,

it brings a little bit of drama to the table.

Produce this good and this fresh

needs to be cooked as simply as possible.

Aine just fries them off with home-made Irish butter

and parsley, with a squeeze of lemon.

Langoustine in the main are a prime product,

but these, to me, seem to be the best of the best.

They're delicious.

In the dining room tonight, there's a tough crowd to please.

It's Kieran's family and friends.

They're really, really sweet and succulent.

They're just delicious, I can't tell you!

It's a little bit of heaven, and you just know it's good

and it's from a really good source.

Sweet and buttery and messy and, er...

I just want to lie down and have me tummy tickled.

LAUGHTER

I think that means he likes them!

It's humbling, to be honest, and to see the reaction of the people.

And the fact that I caught these this morning,

we're here eating them now,

it's an absolutely beautiful meal.

It's perfect.

Even if you do have to shell out for this sublime seafood,

your dinner guests will thank you for it.

Today, I'm preparing for a guest of my own,

one who just loves shellfish.

It's the nation's smiliest presenter, Carol Kirkwood.

-Hey.

-Hello!

-How you doing?

-Good to see you.

-You all right?

-Yes, thank you.

-Good to see you.

-It's lovely!

-Do you like it?

-I love it.

-Come on in.

-Not so keen about the weather.

-Mind the killer dog.

-Oh, hello! Aren't you cute?

-It's always the dog that gets more attention!

-What's the doggy's name?

-This is Ralph.

-Ralph, you are so cute!

-Yeah, ultimate guard dog.

Come on in.

Like Ralph, Carol has to earn her keep,

so she's going to help me make one of her seafood favourites.

Well, I say help, but that might be pushing it.

-Well, Carol, welcome to my kitchen.

-Thank you.

It's a foreign place for you, I know what you're like in the kitchen!

I know, I don't recognise half of these utensils, James!

-I'm hoping you're not expecting me to do anything.

-I am,

I'm expecting you to do a lot because I thought

as a little homage to you we'd do

kind of a lovely little dish that brings back memories

-of your childhood.

-Yeah.

-We're going to do lemon sole.

-Oh, lovely.

And we're going to do langoustines, which we've got to have,

-from your neck of the woods as well.

-Mm!

-We can incorporate the whole lot together, all right?

-Right.

The first thing we are going to do is get on our lemon sole.

Now, we've got this beautiful piece of fish, all right?

-Look at that, wow!

-Now, you know,

you've kind of got to know what to do with it though, you see?

Well, normally I have it on a plate and it's already been done

so I just enjoy it, James.

Well, this is a prime example of what sole are, really.

They live on the bottom.

Generally sandy, that's why they're this colour,

and obviously the underside of it is that colour

cos they blend in with their surroundings like that.

Now, what we've got to do is, there's four fillets on a flatfish.

-One there, one there, one there and one there.

-Yeah.

And we want them all removed.

Don't look at me! I wouldn't have a clue!

What we're going to do is, we are going to take off this bit first.

Now, the chefs call this the skirt.

Now, naturally there's a line down there, look,

there's even a guide for you, Carol.

I don't like the way this is going, James.

-There's an A to B so we follow this down. Now, you can hear...

-Yep.

KNIFE SCRAPES BONE

-You've hit the bones.

-Hit the bone, right.

-Yeah.

Now, you take the knife and you start from one end to the other

and you're rolling the knife against the side of the bone, like that.

Right. I know you're a brilliant chef,

but looking at you doing this, did you ever consider surgery?

I wasn't clever enough, definitely not clever enough.

I wasn't clever enough to do the weather either,

-I was far from clever enough.

-Not true.

-Well...

Cos you were, I mean, you were brought up in Scotland obviously,

you were brought up in the hotel trade, weren't you?

That's right. I was brought up in a wee place called Morar

which is in the northwest Highlands,

And Mum and Dad owned a hotel and, in fact, my dad left school

when he was about 12

and he started out in the hotel as a shoeshine boy

and eventually he worked his way up to buying the hotel.

And, you know, in the meantime he married Mum.

They had eight kids, so there were lots of us.

So we were always in and out of the hotel.

When I was at school, you know, we went to the local primary school

which was just down the hill, or the brae as we would call it,

and at lunchtime we'd come back to the hotel for lunch.

And I was dying to stay and have, you know, a burger, some chips,

-some tapioca.

-Right.

But instead I was having lemon sole and salmon

and all these wonderful things that I adore now, but in those days

I just wanted to be the same as everyone else.

Now, I've left you one to do - do you want to do that or should I?

-Would you just do it, James? I'll watch.

-OK.

You just don't want to get your hands dirty.

I've just had my nails done!

'When I've taken the fourth fillet off the bone,

'we need to remove the skin from all the fillets.'

You start at one end, you hold the knife flat onto the board, see that?

The knife's staying exactly... Look at the angle, it's not like that,

it's not like that, it's about 45 degrees and you wiggle the skin.

And it just comes straight off.

It's easy, this cooking lark, isn't it?

You make it look easy, I have to say, James.

You make your job look easy!

Compared to this, my job is easy.

You look... It's all on a green screen, isn't it, really?

-There's not a weather chart nearby, is there?

-No, and do you know,

I don't know my left from my right because there is a green...

Seriously, because behind me there is a green screen,

so what I see is when I look at the camera in front of me,

but it's in reverse, so it's a mirror image. So when I do that,

I know this is my left hand

but when I'm looking at the camera it's more like my right hand.

-It is, it's the opposite way round.

-Yeah. And the other thing is,

because you're pointing at things that you can't see, necessarily,

because they're not behind you, it's like tapping your head

and rubbing your tummy at the same time.

Well, so is this. Fillet it at the same time, off you go.

-OK, so, 45 degrees.

-45 degrees.

-Wiggle it.

Just wiggle the skin, not the knife, Carol.

-Wiggle the skin.

-It's a slippery wee thing, isn't it?

-CAROL LAUGHS

-It's...

Yeah, you were never very good at this

on Ready Steady Cook, either, all those years ago, were you?

-Cooking is... Oops!

-Look at that.

-Cooking isn't my forte, James.

-Bit more.

-So you're supposed to have a lovely piece of fillet like mine.

-Oh, dear.

This looks like my dog's eaten it!

You cheeky thing! Listen, that's the first time I've done that,

that's not a bad first attempt.

'Luckily, we're using some of the fillets to make a rich mousse

'for the sole, so I'll blitz Carol's in the blender

'with an egg white and a dash of cream.'

'Then put the mixture into a piping bag,

'ready to put onto the remaining fillets.'

Is there a particular area of the UK

that has got better weather than others? Is that right?

Tend to find Kent, is pretty good but also parts of Hampshire as well.

And also we're closer to the equator, if you just look at it

from that point of view, than where I come from in the Highlands.

The other thing is, where I come from in the Highlands...

You're doing a lot of talking to put you off from doing this,

aren't you? I know what you're doing.

"If I carry on talking, he'll just do all this,"

and it'll just suddenly appear like a ready meal!

You know me too well.

I know you. No, this is your bit now. I want you...

Are you any good at piping?

-What do you think?

-You're going to be hopeless, but anyway...

-Don't sit on the fence, James.

-I'm not, I'm from the north, you see.

-Right, do you want to pipe it?

-OK.

So you basically want to do this, all right?

So you're just squidging it out in a circle.

There's a particular way to do it, like that.

Right, now, I'm going to put another piece on here.

Oh, so you're making it like a sandwich, like a cake kind of thing.

Like a sandwich?!

CAROL LAUGHS

I deliberately did this. I thought, "This is a bit fancy, it's a bit...

"But I reckon Carol could do this." I was totally wrong.

'Hide the dodgy mousse under the top layer of sole,

'then wrap it in some clingfilm and chill in the fridge.'

'Meanwhile, it's time to prepare cauliflower three ways -

'that's boiled, pureed, and grated into a salad.'

-So we've got these little florets like this, OK?

-Yeah.

So, do you get a chance to cook much at home, then?

Well, the kind of cooking I do is really just to stay alive so it's...

-Really?

-Yeah, it is, it's not fancy.

-OK.

-It's very basic kind of stuff.

I mean, I like things like...

Well, I love fish so poached salmon, salad, that kind of thing,

sometimes I'll push the boat out and make a spaghetti bolognese...

-Right.

-Usually it's from a jar over some mince!

-Grab a pan there.

-Yep.

-All right.

-Now, we're going to take some double cream.

-Yeah.

-OK.

Little bit of double cream and you're going to take the cauliflower,

all right, and then we're going to boil this.

So, on that stove there, we'll fire it up.

-Now you're cooking, now we're off, we're on.

-Brilliant.

-OK.

We're going to take our florets, they're going to go in there,

we're going to boil these for about two or three minutes.

Now, with the leftover cauliflower, we're going to grate this.

OK, just... Even the stalk?

-No, just...

-The bit at the top.

The right way up would help!

-Right, so you don't do the stalk.

-No, just like that. Just the tops.

-You ready with that?

-Yep, happy with that.

-Good.

-Can I leave you with that?

-Yes.

-Try not to get your nails in it.

'While Carol gets to grips with the grater, I drain the boiled florets.

'And although she's doing her best with the cauliflower and boiled eggs,

'I think I'd better be the one to shell the langoustines.'

-Beautiful bits of shellfish.

-Yeah.

-When you break them open,

I think they're one of the most tastiest pieces of seafood around.

'Shellfish like these need careful handling,

'so take your time to avoid damaging their delicate flesh.'

'Take the cauliflower and cream off the hob then blitz into

'a rich and velvety puree.

'What do you think, Carol?'

Mm. Oh, that's lovely.

-Happy with that?

-Mm.

-All right.

Now, we're going to finish this off now cos we're going to

cook our piece of fish. You've got a little bamboo steamer

and we take this and place it over the top.

We're going to steam this for about six minutes.

'All we need to do now is make a dressing for our cauliflower

'and egg salad, using extra virgin olive oil and white balsamic vinegar.

'Drizzle it over the top of the salad and over the langoustines.'

-So, what we're going to do is take a spoon.

-Yeah.

This is the salad mixture.

That is so tasty, that salad mixture, I'm going to try that.

It's nice, isn't it? Are you really going to try this?

If you are saying that, I expect you to text me a picture.

-Yes, OK.

-It's not going to happen, is it?

-No...

THEY LAUGH

'This delicate seafood is the perfect partner to the grated salad,

'rich cauliflower puree and the scattered florets.

'The zingy dressing completes a luxurious dish

'to satisfy any seafood lover.'

-That looks brilliant.

-Are you happy with that?

-I think that looks perfect.

-You like that?

-Yes, I do.

Now, the idea is that I leave you in this kitchen

and I'd like you to replicate that in six minutes. Off you go.

Even if you don't have a willing commis chef,

hosting a supper doesn't have to be difficult,

and it's a great way of showing off your cooking skills.

The question is, have I impressed my guest?

Mm!

You see the next time you have a dinner party,

I reckon this is a dish to show off.

If you come round and cook it, absolutely.

If you give me the name of your fishmonger

I'll get him to fillet the fish for you as well.

You can find all the recipes from the series at...

I've had an absolute ball, and do you know what?

-I've learnt a wee bit from you today.

-I've learnt a few things.

The next time somebody's teaching me to do something, keep talking,

cos eventually they'll do it all.

I've got you a little present.

It's your own filleting knife...

which, I'm going to prove a point here, I'm going to sign it,

and I bet you the next time I come round to your place

that signature's still on there.