Cooking with Confidence 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, everybody!

-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 love great food and want to create fantastic recipes to impress.

Some dishes might look daunting but they don't have to be.

It's all about having enough self-assurance to pull it off.

I've got some great dishes

that will give you a big dollop of cooking confidence

and I'm certain with these simple recipes, anybody can rustle up food

that's guaranteed to impress your friends and family.

Like this, my twist on a classic scallop and black pudding starter,

pepped up with a zingy ginger puree and caramelised apples.

If I went to somebody's house and had this, it shows a confident cook.

Great ingredients and really the essence of great cooking.

And a decadent fish recipe

inspired by one of the greatest cooks of our time.

It tastes how fish pie should taste - of the sea, it's as simple as that.

I also attempt to make a dessert with my mate,

TV presenter Alex Jones.

'But will she have the know-how to pull it off?'

-Palette knife.

-I've seen one of these in the drawer at home.

-JAMES CHUCKLES

-What does this do?

But first, what better way to build your confidence in the kitchen

than with a deliciously simple one-pot wonder?

This chicken piperade with red pepper sauce

and pilau rice is a Basque country classic.

Any cook can make this, even the most nervous.

Now, I often find to get a bit of confidence in the kitchen

the easiest way you can start is just a one-pot dish.

And this is a real classic that you can't really mess up, to be honest.

Now, the first thing you need is a really good quality chicken

and I'm going to cut this chicken into sort of eight pieces, really.

And you can just do this with chicken legs and thighs

or you can use the whole chicken that I'm doing.

This is where the recipes vary, really.

Wherever you go round that region of sort of northern Spain,

southern France, that Basque region,

you get so many different types of piperade chicken,

but all of which contain fundamentally the same ingredients.

You've got the tomatoes, the peppers and the onions.

This is a traditional rustic dish,

so don't worry too much about how the chicken pieces look.

Cover them with plain flour which will thicken the sauce,

and then season with salt and pepper.

So we start off with some good quality olive oil.

And then start sealing the chicken.

You want to get a nice colour to it.

While the chicken browns, roughly slice two white onions

and chop four cloves of garlic.

Then take the chicken pieces out and set them aside,

freeing up the pan for all your veg.

With the garlic, and then you can add the peppers.

Now, for me, this region is really special

because it's part in France, part in Spain

and you've got two countries all with an amazing selection of food.

Just north of that famous wine region Rioja,

you've got classic dishes like this, basquaise or chicken piperade.

Next, it's time for a generous tablespoon of tomato puree.

Now I can deglaze the pan.

Now, this is where my sort of recipe varies,

I like to use a little bit of sherry.

And then to compensate - if there are any French watching -

a bit of French wine.

Some tinned tomatoes.

And then this is the special Espelette pepper,

which is famous for that Basque region.

It's wonderful, fragrant pepper.

Now, bring the rich sauce to the boil and then add it to the chicken.

So, stick the lid on...

pop it in the oven and this is going to take about an hour to cook.

During that time, the chicken will absorb all the flavours of the sauce

and I can get on with preparing the perfect pilau.

And this is long grain basmati rice.

The main thing is, is you must measure everything.

So what I do is 200ml of rice, because it's three to one.

Three parts liquid to one part rice.

Next, soften up some chopped onions in a pan with olive oil.

So, a few cloves inside.

Maybe a cinnamon stick.

Reduce the heat before adding the rice,

water, a bay leaf, lemon slices and then season.

If you don't have a lid for your pan,

and let's face it, I can never find mine,

make a cartouche using grease-proof paper.

I like to cut a little hole in it as well at the other end.

And then when you open it all out,

you've got a cartouche or a paper lid.

Bring this to the boil and just gently simmer this

for about 15 to 20 minutes.

This wants a good hour.

And I say a good hour because it can go in there for an hour and a half,

two hours even. It just gets better the longer you leave it, really.

Mmm-mm-mm!

A pot of loveliness, look at that. Delicious.

Now you can finish this, if you wanted to,

with a bit of chopped parsley over the top.

'It smells so good, I can't wait to get stuck in.'

You just know anything that goes in the oven

for this amount of time is just going to taste fantastic.

You see, look, the chicken just falls off the bone.

Whenever this in on the menu, I will always pick it.

Really good.

Now, if you want to build your confidence up in the kitchen,

this dish is probably the best place to start.

It's simple...

..and it just tastes delicious.

Look at that, a simple one-pot wonder.

Laced with subtle spices released slowly in the oven

to maximise their flavour.

Put your apron on and give it a go.

I really believe that cooking can be great fun,

especially when you use the best British raw materials.

From the Cornish coast to the Scottish Highlands,

passionate food producers are giving home cooks

the gift of truly great ingredients.

And it's up in Scotland that David Oakes and his son Ben

are going to extreme lengths to bring us a special kind of seafood.

Well, actually, make that extreme DEPTHS.

Today, we're doing a small harvest for a customer

that supplies Edinburgh and Glasgow,

and there is one pick up at the house for just a dozen

for somebody that's on holiday.

David and Ben are diving for king scallops.

Their hunting ground is this loch on the Isle of Skye,

known as the Place of Shells.

Pretty name, but there are days when it's not so inviting.

The sea temperatures in the winter are down quite a few degrees.

Some days we go home and it takes me a couple of hours to warm up again.

David has been a commercial diver for over 30 years,

but his passion for a life under the sea stretches back even further.

I was always interested in diving.

I would watch the television programmes of...

particularly Jack Cousteau.

I was always enthralled about what they got up to

and where they went, all over the seas of the world.

And that's when I think I first, at the back of my mind,

had the idea of farming the sea.

And David farms his shellfish in such a unique way,

his king scallops are particularly prized for their taste and size.

What we do that makes our scallops better then just dived scallops

is that we take juvenile scallops, which is this,

we take them from the deeper water and we move them up

into the shallows where they really want to be.

The plankton is thicker and then, in theory, in the summer,

the water should be warmer so that they can feed and grow.

Unlike traditional scallop diving,

herding the four-year-old scallops to the rich, shallower water

means they get three extra years to grow bigger and fatter.

But, even then, spotting them in the water can still be problematic.

The first time you find one, because these things are camouflaged,

is just wonderful.

But one thing you can learn is, if you see this weed,

it's slightly red and the rest of the weed on the seabed is grey.

So you can actually... You can put your hands into the seabed

and pluck out the scallop by the colour of the weed on top of it.

But even if you do spot them,

some scallops just don't want to be caught.

Yeah, we got 95 big ones,

which were more or less what I was after.

And because of the unique way they farm,

the scallop population has increased,

benefiting David and Ben as well as the other wildlife.

Not only do you get the scallops, you get all the predators,

the increased fish.

It increases the biodiversity in a, you know, in a number of ways,

so it's good for fishermen and it's good for fish.

And it's also been good for this father and son relationship.

Ben left Skye for the bright lights of Edinburgh

but the allure of this way of life pulled him home.

I remember throughout the last couple of years of my time at uni,

you know, being able to appreciate more what was going on in here

and what Dad was doing,

and how important it was and how unique it was.

And I felt like I could actually contribute something,

so I thought, "I'll move away from the city," where

I wasn't enjoying myself, "and I'll make the jump and I'll move home."

So it's a win-win for all concerned.

Especially David and Ben, who get to lunch on their catch.

Can anything beat king scallops cooked simply on the barbecue?

Yes - eating them in glorious surroundings like this.

They are the ultimate fast food,

there is nothing to do apart from remembering to prick the roes.

You just put them onto the heat and then it's a few minutes,

it's pretty easy to do.

-Cheers.

-On the barbecue.

Well, that's a bit good, isn't it?

Fantastic, you know.

The ultimate seafood. They really are.

Sweet, juicy scallops really are the jewels of the sea

and don't need complicated preparation

or overpowering flavours to shine.

So there's no need to be nervous about cooking them.

They only take about a minute, that's all they take.

They look amazing.

Today, I'm serving my scallops with black pudding

and a warming ginger puree.

Now, scallops have to be one of the ultimate sea food, really.

And that's fantastic to see a guy like that produce them

and harvest them in a different way.

I've never seen that done before, to move them up the beds

and it actually makes sense when you think about it.

And I'm going to use the meat inside these shells

to create a really simple little dish, really,

and it all starts with a ginger chutney.

Now, I'm keeping the skin on the ginger because it's the skin

that I think really helps this recipe,

because it contains tonnes of heat,

hot, fiery heat that whacks you in the back of the throat.

Pop it all into the pan with the water.

Add curry leaves, palm sugar and tamarind to the pan.

Bring to the boil and cook on a high heat for 10 to 15 minutes.

While it bubbles away, you need to deshell your scallops.

Think that's too difficult? Think again.

Inside this, you've got a big chunk of meat.

That's really the jewel in the crown of the scallop.

It's stuck to this part of the shell

and stuck to the under part of the shell, so what you have to do

is carefully remove it from the shell first of all

and the easiest way to do that is to actually use a table knife

or a butter knife. Something that's not too sharp.

Flat side, insert the knife underneath,

cut along the top.

As soon as you cut through, the scallop will open up. Lift it off.

Repeat the process with the bottom bit as well.

All the time, you're scraping the shell,

you don't want any of that meat to be stuck to the shell.

You can see that nice and clean now as it comes away.

And then you can take all this part here

and just pull it off.

What you end up with is this amazing white jewel of meat.

And it's the prime example of having a go,

get started in terms of cooking.

You never know until you try it, but once you learn how to do it,

it's so, so simple.

Now you've had your masterclass,

repeat the process with the remaining scallops.

Once they're out of their shells, the ginger should be cooked.

And then what we do is take the whole lot and stick it in a blender.

After five minutes blending,

this zingy, super-fast puree is pretty much done.

It's just lovely.

So much flavour in there and because you've kept the skin on the ginger,

this is where you get this colour from.

But it seriously packs a punch, this, it's brilliant to go with scallops.

And once you make it, stick it in the fridge,

it'll last for a couple of weeks.

It's delicious stuff, that.

I'm going to add to the flavour of this with just a little bit of apple.

All you need to do with this is get an eating apple, really.

You don't want a cooking apple like a Bramley.

Through the core and everything.

And what I'm going to do is caramelise this.

Now, it's actually really simple.

Add some sugar to a heated non-stick pan.

As soon as it starts to caramelise, throw in the apples.

Then add a knob of butter

and a dash of water to stop the apples from going hard.

And by adding a little bit of water,

you get this just nice toffee flavour, but not too sticky.

Just leave that to cool.

And now we can cook our black pudding, our bacon and our scallops.

Now, the easiest way to do that is just cook everything together.

Lightly oil your griddle or pan and cook the bacon until it's crisp.

Then put your black pudding on for 30 seconds each side.

But don't overdo it or it'll be like cardboard.

And then all we need to do now is cook our scallops.

Now, the easiest way to do that, really,

especially when you've got scallops this big,

is just put them straight on the griddle.

Just a touch of salt and pepper and that's it.

And once you've put them in, don't touch them.

Now, what you want with a good cooked scallop is you want a lovely colour

on the outside, a lovely soft white flesh in the middle.

As soon as you get a nice colour, flip it over.

Just a squeeze of lemon juice.

They only take about a minute, a minute and a half.

That's all they take on each side to cook.

Just lift them out.

They look amazing.

Now it's time to assemble all of your hard work.

Layer up the apple, chutney...

..black pudding and scallops...

..to create an impressive stack.

Then put your crispy bacon on the top...

..garnish with dill and drizzle with a little extra virgin olive oil.

I love this dish.

If I went to somebody's house and had this, it shows a confident cook.

Great ingredients and really the essence of great cooking.

It's all about the taste.

You can make food look as fancy as you want

but it's the taste that really counts.

Right at this moment in time,

I wish for nothing more in life.

Well, I do, actually -

somebody who can wash up.

Whether you've got a pot washer or not,

you shouldn't be shy about making this delicious scallop stack.

Have confidence in your ingredients and yourself

and you'll be a top class cook before you know it.

Of course, if you are a bit unsure about your cooking abilities,

you're certainly not the first.

In the '40s and '50s, rationing not only meant food shortages

but a widespread loss of kitchen skills and confidence.

But as food historian Dr Annie Gray has been discovering,

a TV chef stepped forward and gave the nation the courage to cook again.

Even though the Second World War ended in 1945,

Britain underwent a further nine years of rationing.

It wasn't until 1954 that British housewives could get

hold of the food they were craving so much.

And the trouble is, if you go for 14 years with food shortages,

what do you do when you get food back again?

Well, into this culinary breach stepped Marguerite Patten,

her name is synonymous with cooking with confidence.

Good afternoon and welcome to our demonstration.

Now for the menu.

A very useful sort of meal,

suitable for washing day

because it needs no attention at all.

I'm going to make two recipes from Marguerite Patten.

One is a colourful trifle that really encapsulates

the post-war atmosphere of plenty.

But first, I'm going to cook a classic meal.

It's from her 1955 book, Learning To Cook

and it's a roast dinner.

This book was written only one year after rationing ended.

For 14 years, the population of Britain had been simply unable

to get hold of joints of beef like this

so even the mere idea of having something like this obtainable

and on your table, this is nothing short of a miracle.

And it goes perfectly with another ingredient

that was scarce in wartime - dripping.

Annie puts both in a roasting dish, seasons the beef

and sticks the whole lot in the oven.

She then preps the veg to go with her extravagant joint of meat.

This recipe is typical of Marguerite Patten's style.

It's simple, it's easy to follow

and it's guaranteed to give good results.

Put simply, if you were a child

at the beginning of the Second World War,

by the end, you might well be married and having children

and you simply wouldn't know how to cook anything other than

eked out rationing recipes.

My meat's had around half an hour,

which means that it's time to add my vegetables.

Annie puts it all back in the oven and then gets on with chopping and

boiling some cabbage, while following some very specific guidance.

Before I put in the cabbage,

you'll notice I drop in a good knob of margarine.

After the war, with rationing in full swing,

Marguerite Patten went to work for the BBC.

Today, she'd be known as a celebrity chef,

but she was always insistent that she was neither a celebrity

nor a chef, just a cook.

She was also insistent on the correct trimmings for a traditional roast -

Yorkshire puddings and lashings of gravy.

But before Annie can tuck into her plentiful post-war roast,

she needs to make dessert.

Fortunately, we still have the ideal guide.

In 1960, Marguerite Patten published this book,

Cookery In Colour - A Picture Encyclopaedia For Every Occasion.

Pictures for every single one of the 1,000 recipes in the book

and an awful lot of them in glorious Technicolor.

So I'm going to make a beautiful, boozy trifle.

The first thing I'm going to do is make some custard.

By 1960, convenience foods were well and truly established.

Custard powder had been around since the 19th century

and that is what Marguerite Patten suggests you use,

so that is exactly what I'm going to use.

Convenient ingredients like this really boosted

the confidence of nervous cooks.

All they had to do was mix the powder with milk

before thickening on the hob and leaving it to cool.

The next stage is to start to layer it up.

Trifles are nearly always based on sponge cake.

These ones I have already made.

Annie cuts the sponge cakes into slices

and spreads them with apricot jam.

Now there's a throwback!

To me, this dish really sums up the swinging '60s.

Marguerite Patten was an absolute icon by this point

and this dish is absolutely great.

More to the point, if you followed her instructions,

you'd certainly be able to cook it with absolutely confidence.

With the slices in place,

Annie adds tinned pears, plus a good slug of sherry.

She then sprinkles a layer of crushed almonds over the pears,

followed by the cooled custard.

Then the recipe takes an unexpected turn.

Now, a lot of people at this point would add cream

but Marguerite Patten has a much, much cooler idea.

She's about to encapsulate the spirit of fun

that really is the 1960s.

Annie gets into the swing of this 1960s style of decoration

using chocolate.

Now I need to play the game of noughts and crosses.

I win!

This to me screams '60s food, an era of fun,

an era of let your hair down,

an era of noughts and crosses trifles.

Marguerite Patten passed away in 2015 but her recipes

and her guidance live on.

I'm paying tribute to the great lady by cooking one of her favourites -

the classic fish pie.

So, you've got cod and haddock,

that traditional sort of favourite that we all had around the UK

in the '50s and '60s,

and it's that combination of smoked haddock and the fish that we've got

that gives it a real flavour, a unique flavour to this fish pie.

So the first thing we're going to do is then take the onion

and slice this up, just nice and thin.

And I'm going to use this to create a nice little aromat

to cook our fish in.

Put the onions in a pan, along with peppercorns and water.

Heat it all up.

I've worked with some amazing chefs from around the world

but there are a few that leave their mark in your mind

and Marguerite was one of them. She always reminded me of my gran,

and whenever you met her, it was that smile on her face.

And I remember so many times we'd cooked together on stage,

and she... I remember one time in fact I was chopping some stuff

and I did it wrong, obviously, so she just came across,

just gave me a nice, little, just a light tap

on the back of the wrist with a wooden spoon

for not doing it properly. I just thought it was just...

It was her way of saying that "I'm still in control,"

even though she was probably about that high stood next to me,

but she was an absolute legend.

Absolute legend.

So, to make our fish pie, we've got the onions in there,

little bit of peppercorns, a few bay leaves, really, in terms of flavour,

and then we poach our fish in the water. So there's no fancy wine,

there's no champagne, none of that, it's just relying on pure,

honest flavours.

Add the fish to the poaching liquor, bring back to the boil

and then simmer.

After three to four minutes, your fish should be done,

so carefully remove and set aside.

Next, melt some butter in a pan, add flour and stir.

This forms the base of your fish pie sauce.

I'm going to start off with just a little bit of milk first of all.

Gradually, you add it to the pan.

So once you've got this mixed together, it's got no lumps in it,

we then turn our attention to the liquid,

the stock that we've got in here and utilise that as well.

Once you've added the stock, cook for around five minutes -

this will cook out the flour.

Then add the zest and juice of one lemon.

And we can switch that off now and then turn our attention to our fish.

And at this stage, you just want to peel off the skin from the haddock

and the cod,

keep it into sort of decent size chunks...

and pop it in the sauce.

It's quite funny, this, as I cook this,

smoked haddock was one of the only dishes that my grandad

was allowed to cook.

Mainly cos it used one pan.

Whenever I sort of do this, it just reminds me so much of my grandad.

Add lots of parsley - including the stalks - into this mixture

and stir. Gently, though -

you don't want to break up those delicate chunks of fish.

Now the sauce is ready for one of my favourite ingredients.

Frozen peeled prawns.

Defrosted, make sure the water's squeezed out of them.

Spoon the fish mixture into the pie dish

and you're ready for the topping.

And for that, you just get some cold jacket potatoes, open them up,

pass them through one of these fellas - a little ricer.

Once this contraption's done what it's designed to do,

season your potatoes, add a little butter and milk

and then pipe it onto the filling.

A little grated Cheddar cheese completes the topping

before it all goes into the oven.

Because the sauce is hot and the fish is hot,

this is only going to cook for about eight to ten minutes,

but you can cook this from cold.

It'll want about a good half an hour in a nice hot oven.

I reckon there's only one partner for fish pie,

and that's freshly cooked frozen peas

topped with a generous knob of butter.

This completes a straightforward

but delicious meal that Marguerite would be proud of.

Now, so many chefs over the years have glamorised this

and turned the fish pie into something

that it shouldn't really be.

It's all to do about simplicity and that's the key to confident cooking.

Great quality ingredients just cooked so simply

and Marguerite Patten was the prime example of that.

It tastes how fish pie should taste...

..of the sea. It's as simple as that.

What more do you want?

Fish pie shouldn't be complicated, especially when it tastes this good.

So keep it simple, just like the original domestic goddess.

Pasta, I'm a massive fan of it

and some of the simplest dishes in the world use it.

And I've been known to get a little bit carried away

when making it at home.

The Pope family from Cardigan in Wales

certainly share my enthusiasm.

With the help of her parents,

Gina and husband Simon have turned their Italian heritage

and pasta know-how into an artisan food business.

My grandparents are Italian and my father's Italian,

my mother's Welsh, so pasta's in my blood.

I'm very proud of the heritage, both Italian and Welsh.

My mother used to make a lot of her own pasta,

it was all done at home, just for the family, handmade

and I think she would be amazed with this business

that Gina and Simon have now got.

So we started off on a kitchen table, experimenting, really,

with my grandmother's hand-held pasta machine.

Whilst we enjoyed making pasta by hand,

we couldn't have the output that we need at the moment,

so we've converted part of the garage

and got some machinery, which is all very exciting.

Gina and Simon make their ravioli pasta using vegetables

as the key ingredient, and unlike traditional pasta, it's egg-free.

The pasta involves a mixture of three flours,

then cooked and blended beetroot,

little bit of salt and that's it.

And it's the fibre of the beetroot,

the vegetable fibre beetroot that holds this pasta together.

Because that fibre is quite strong, we're able to roll it very, very...

In fact, you can see through it.

It's very thin pasta. Because it's thin, the raviolis are lighter.

Now that the pasta is well under way, it's time for Gina

and dad Toni to collect the ingredients for the ravioli fillings.

Their first stop is a herb garden just down the road,

run by Italian couple Anella and Elio.

THEY GREET EACH OTHER IN ITALIAN

Elio! Where's the basil?

Basil.

Gina wants some basil to make pasta.

It's fresh and we don't spray, we don't put anything,

they just grow natural.

The herbs I'm buying from Anella is to compliment with our raviolis,

so they're not particularly Italian herbs

but they've grown it in an Italian way.

Yes.

-Arrivederci.

-Arrivederci.

Arrivederci, Elio.

Anella and Elio are part of a large Italian community in Wales.

They came to join their family after the Second World War.

Other Italians, like Gina's grandfather, were released

from a local internment camp that still stands to this day.

My father was in the Italian army.

Out in Abyssinia, he was captured by the British and he came over

and he spent his time over here in the prisoner of war camp.

And while he was there, he was sent out to work on various farms.

After the war, he came back and worked on one of these farms

and eventually my mother and my sister came over to join him

and I was born here.

You can easily see why he was so inspired to stay,

and his passion for Wales is obviously still shared

by Gina and Simon.

We're very lucky to be based where we are here in west Wales,

very near the coast, because it gives us easy access

to a huge number of products which are perfect for ravioli fillings.

I'm chopping some blue cheese here which comes from Caws Cenarth.

The chives were the chives we picked up this morning from Elio's

up the road - again, fresh.

So, all good stuff.

Simon adds the filling to the machine,

pressing it between two layers of pasta to make the ravioli.

Meanwhile, Rhian prepares the sauce for a Welsh/Italian family meal

with a recipe handed the generations.

I learnt to do the sauce from Nana, watching her,

and every time I used to ask her and she said, "This is the way,"

but I'm sure she used to leave some of the ingredients out.

She didn't want you to make sauces as good as her, I would imagine.

No, but I tried my best and I think that I've got it down to a T now.

-She does very good sauces.

-Oh, thank you.

With so many pasta experts in one kitchen,

how about some tips on how to cook it?

So here is the raviolis we made before.

To cook, you simply tip into a pan of boiling water

with a little bit of oil in, and the old rule of thumb

is you tip them in and they sink to the bottom.

When they rise to the top, then they're ready.

It takes about between one and two minutes.

Once the pasta is done and the sauce is added,

the meal's ready to be served.

CHEERING

-Wow!

-Mm.

Bon appetit.

I would eat this pasta every day. Beautiful.

My nana was such an inspiration to me, her pasta was gorgeous

and even on her death bed she dreamt of us making pasta together.

She would've been very excited

and very happy to see what we are actually achieving

from a little hand machine pasta maker that she gave us.

Let's add pasta to the long list of great things to come out of Wales,

along with a good foodie friend of mine,

One Show presenter, Alex Jones.

I know she's not very confident in the kitchen,

so I've invited her over to show her

that cooking doesn't have to be that tricky.

-Hey. I like the top.

-Hey, how are you? Oh, thank you.

-That's cool, isn't it?

-It's a nice house.

-You like it?

-Let's go and have a nose.

-Come on in.

Well, kitchen you're going to first!

I'm hoping she'll be able to help me

make this stunning lemon meringue roulade with home-made plum compote.

But I've got a feeling this could be a little bit ambitious.

Right, Alex,

-welcome to the kitchen.

-Thank you.

Because I'm hearing great things, you know.

-I'm expecting great things as well.

-Go on, what are you hearing?

Well, I hear you've got a five-year plan, is that right,

-to win MasterChef?

-Win MasterChef. Zero to win in five years.

-So, where are you at the moment?

-Omelette.

-Cos your fella's a chef, isn't he?

-Yes, he is. Yes.

-OK.

And so every week we have a little lesson.

-Because he said, "If anything was to happen to me..."

-Yeah.

"..you wouldn't be able to live."

So he says, "It's about time you learnt to cook."

And, actually, we both love food and we're really interested in it...

-Yeah.

-..but, and he can do everything and I can do nothing,

so we're trying to meet halfway.

What about a lemon meringue roulade with stewed plums?

-I think it's a bit advanced for me.

-I think you'd be all right.

-We just break things down into simple stuff, all right?

-OK.

-It sounds lovely, though.

-The first thing we are going to do

is do the meringue.

'OK, let's see if I can boost Alex's kitchen confidence levels.

'All I need her to do is measure out 275g of caster sugar,

'while I separate the whites of five eggs from their yolks.'

Did you do cookery at school?

Yeah, but after three lessons, they banned me

because I set the lab on fire.

It involved a tea towel and a hob, basically.

And, I don't know, I just wasn't concentrating

and the tea towel was on the hob...

-Up in flames?

-Up in flames. So they sent me to woodwork.

-It wasn't me either.

-JAMES LAUGHS

OK. Right, now, fire up the machine.

Well, how do you turn this on, then? Is there some sort of switch?

'While Alex tries to work out the mixer

'in order to whip up the egg whites...'

Right, number ten. That's it.

'..I butter a Swiss roll tin and line it with silicone paper.

'Now it's time to add the crucial ingredient to the egg whites.'

-Right, now sugar.

-OK.

Now you should hear the machine drop down a gear

once you add all the sugar.

-That looks lovely.

-You've just made meringue.

-MIXER DECREASES IN SPEED

-Well, the machine made meringue.

Oh, I can hear it now drop down.

-Yeah, as it starts to get a bit more firmer, you see?

-OK.

And then what we do...

-Spatula.

-A spatula.

-Scoop it out into the centre of that.

-OK, great.

-You got that?

Yeah. Got it.

So you look as if you are on a cookery programme now.

-Well, it's all acting, James.

-This could be it.

-This could be it in six years' time.

-Yeah.

-A palette knife.

-Palette knife. Right.

I've seen one of these in the drawer at home.

JAMES LAUGHS

What does this do? I'm going to love this.

You spread this into the corners.

OK.

Make sure it's all nice and even, that's how you want it.

Oh, it's lovely. It's like shaving foam.

I'm sure it tastes a lot better.

Next, lemon verbena.

Oh, it's like a cleaning product.

-In a good way.

-Shaving foam and cleaning products?

That's great, yeah. Love that.

Right. And you just sprinkle these on the top.

'Well, once you've peppered your shaving foam with cleaning product,

'bake it in the oven for eight minutes at 180 degrees Celsius.

'Then turn the temperature down to 150 for a further ten minutes

'for the ultimate meringue.'

-Plums.

-Yeah, plums.

-So we're going to prep these by cutting them down...

-OK.

-..into quarters.

-This is a pretty knife.

Yeah. You've got one of those in the kitchen?

Not that pretty but, yeah.

So what got you involved in TV in the first place, then?

I became a researcher and, after a few mishaps, shall we say...

What was one of the major mishaps that you made?

The major mishap was probably losing Julian Lloyd Webber's cello.

-Temporarily.

-Right.

And it was like a Stradivarius, you know, worth millions.

And he'd left it with me while he went off to make a phone call

and said, "Alex, you really need to look after this."

-I said, "Yeah, yeah, Julian, no problem."

-Right.

And I had a little chat with a car park attendant.

-Next thing, gone. Gone. Gone.

-JAMES CHUCKLES

-Right.

-But anyway, so then they said,

"You know, you might be better on the television."

And there you are, 15 years on.

-A little bit of water in the pan.

-Cold water?

Cold water, that would be great.

And I'm going to grab the sugar. All right?

-So what we do now...

-What's this?

-..is we cook this down...

-What's this? What's this?

-French soap.

Oh, that's my favourite thing I've seen for a long time.

Let's have a go.

Oh!

-You haven't seen one of them before?

-No. That's really nice.

-Hey?

I need to make a list before I leave of things I need to take with me.

'Well, let's just hope she doesn't nick the pan

'because I need it for these -

'eight quartered plums to be boiled in water and sugar

'for ten minutes.'

We're now going to take some double cream.

-Well, that's a nice jug as well.

-I'm into old stuff, you see.

-The jugs, the clock.

-I know, I like your style, James.

-You like it?

-Yeah.

'Next, I add a tablespoon of sugar to the cream and lightly whip,

'before reaching for an old school classic.'

Good quality lemon curd.

I haven't eaten lemon curd for years and years and years.

-Taste that, it's the best ever.

-Shall I just...?

Yeah, dip your finger in. You're in my house, go on.

Oh!

-Mum used to make jam tarts with lemon curd. Lovely.

-Did she?

-Yeah.

Now, if I take this lemon curd, half a jar of lemon curd.

-Half a jar?

-Half a jar.

Just you taste that.

-Yes! Where's that spoon?

-JAMES LAUGHS

-You can have a spoon, there you go.

-Now, that is fantastic.

So you stick that in a glass.

You've now made yourself like a very, very quick lemon sauce.

That is lovely.

'After the plums have had their ten minutes, take them off the hob.

'Now for the roulade.

'You need to take your meringue out of the oven,

'flip it out of the tin and leave it to cool for a few minutes.

'Only then is it ready to be filled with the home-made sweet treats.'

So in the middle and then spread, yeah?

-Now the key to it is leave...

-Oh, I see.

-..a centimetre on this bit.

-OK.

-OK.

-Stewed plums.

-These are amazing.

-They were really easy to make.

-Yeah!

Now, roll it up.

So, I'm guessing, I've seen this being done on television before.

So, yeah?

Yeah. And in one go... Keep going.

Keep going, keep going. Roll it up.

And then, in TV style, you reveal...

Reveal. Da-da!

-It looks like a proper one.

-Yeah.

'And now for the finishing touches - a drizzle of compote,

'a scattering of lemon verbena, a nervous chef but a great result.'

Bit rough and ready but it looks amazing.

Right, well, you've got to try this, then.

-You start at one end, I'll start at this end.

-OK.

-OK?

Oh, it's pretty good.

It's amazing.

Fantastic.

-You see how you get that chewy meringue?

-Mm.

I reckon now you've jumped from omelette,

you're now about a year and a half down the line now.

-And it wasn't that hard, actually.

-No.

You know, when you've got the skills...

THEY LAUGH

And I've got a great pudding to take back with me in the car.

-All mine.

-Yeah.

It goes to show that with the right recipes and a few tasty ingredients,

anyone can serve up food that's easy on the eye as well as the palate.

So head to the kitchen and go for it.

Well, Alex certainly enjoyed cooking in my kitchen.

So much so, I can't quite get her out of there.

Maybe she's cleaning up?

Yeah, that'll be it.

Right, so what do I need to take?

The soap.

And the antique-y pots, erm...

That jug was quite nice as well, actually.

Erm... Oh, dog.

Right, OK, just a big bag I need and something to carry the dog in.

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