Sense of Adventure Nigel Slater's Simple Suppers

I'm Nigel Slater. Cooking for pleasure is my favourite pastime.

I like to cook simple food.

Tasty, exciting but easy to make.

I like to think I'm pretty adventurous but sometimes we're all guilty of getting in a food rut.

Just as we often like to go to the same places for our holidays,

we also tend to cook the same meals over and over again.

But it's also good to break out.

To have a sense of adventure about what we eat.

So it's time to try something different.

I'm cooking a week's worth of simple, tasty recipes, but instead

of my tried and tested favourites, I'm going to try something new.

So do you think you're going to be growing more nettles in your garden?

I certainly will! After all - variety is the spice of life.

Different recipes, different approaches can add a great deal to our cooking.

With our climate, I like to grab any opportunity I can to cook and eat outdoors.

But I quickly get bored of sausages and burgers on the barbeque.

It's nice to have a change.

There are some things that we now think of as actually being quite

adventurous and yet at one time they were everyday. Like rabbit.

It was one of those things that was absolutely everywhere, they were a menace, we had to get rid of them,

and yet now when you see somebody cooking with rabbit

it's considered quite unusual, almost daring.

I'm going to dare to be different and cook barbeque rabbit in an orange and juniper marinade.

Rabbit has a mild flavour and I don't want to overpower it.

So pop in a few peppercorns and a couple of cloves of garlic.

And then,

a bit of orange peel.

Could use lemon, but I think orange

just really works with rabbit.

I'm going to put a few herbs in here, so I'm going to put a little bit of rosemary.

All of the flavourings that work with chicken also work with rabbit.

So a couple of bay leaves too.

Juniper berries will give this a real taste of summer.

They've got the same flavour as a gin and tonic.

In fact, if you crush them

and sniff,

it's like someone pouring you a drink.

These will just give a really subtle flavour.

To keep the rabbit moist, trickle in some balsamic vinegar

and a good glug of olive oil.

So these really only need to be in overnight.

To give time for the orange and the garlic, the rosemary and the bay, that little bit of balsamic vinegar

and the juniper all to get to know one another.

If you can't bear to wait, just leave them in the marinade as long as you can.

In my case, a few hours.

And remember, put your rabbit on the grill only when the coals have turned grey.

Don't complicate the flavour, just a few orange wedges will bring out those seasonings beautifully.

So that's only been in the marinade for a few hours.

With just a few very basic flavourings and yet the smell is amazing.

I can't wait to tuck in to that.

Rabbit is really simple to cook and well worth taking a chance on, it's delicious!

Treat it like chicken - simple flavours and don't overcook it - you can't go far wrong.

I do go out with a shopping list, but sometimes I'm tempted to pick up something more adventurous.

Occasionally I ask the shopkeepers for ideas, but sometimes it's good just to have a go.

Sometimes I look at the fishmonger's slab

and there's things I don't know what they are and I'm dying to know.

Some of them are quite friendly and approachable and others are positively scary, like squid.

Adventurous doesn't have to mean complicated.

This grilled squid supper takes literally minutes.

If I'm going to cook something that I don't know - a new fish or

something I've never met before - I want to know what it's about.

So I don't want to mess around with it. I'm serving this with a simple citrus and herb butter.

I've got a nice yellow lime which is really ripe, then it means that it's going to have masses of juice.

I want that freshness.

I want that kind of citrus zip that really brings out the flavour of fish.

Into that really bright juice and zest I want to add the brightest tasting herbs.

So maybe some basil or some mint.

I know mint sounds a little bit strange with fish, but if you think about something that's going to be

grilled and you've got those dark smoky notes and then you've got the brightness of the mint,

it suddenly starts to make sense.

A few slivers of garlic will work perfectly with a peppery basil, zingy mint and grilled squid.

Add a good wedge of butter, a grinding of salt and pepper and get stuck in.

That will live very happily in the fridge for a couple of days.

You slice it off as you need it.

It would go on steak as well.

You know when you see squid on the fishmonger's slab it's pretty gruesome.

It's full of black ink.

And if you take it home like that

you'll get it everywhere -it'll be all over the sink, all over the kitchen, all over you.

But your fishmonger's a fishmonger because he wants to be,

so use him and say, look, can you prepare it for me?

And what you'll come home with is something that actually looks much friendlier.

It isn't scary and it isn't messy - it's just a lovely piece of lean fish.

It's so easy to cook.

Just flatten it out and lightly score the flesh to keep it tender.

Trickle with some olive and pop it in a piping hot pan or griddle.

Now I've got to put the tentacles on.

I really love these little chaps.

It moves on the grill as though it's alive.

It's funny, how something that we know so well, from our Greek

holidays - sliced and fried in batter - suddenly looks so different when you see the raw thing.

People who cook squid regularly will all have an answer as to how to make it not curl up on the grill.

I love it curling on the grill, it looks beautiful when it curls on the grill.

All these amazing shapes, you never quite know what's going to happen.

Squid cooks fast.

When it's no longer see-through, whip it off the heat.

Looks so scary on the fishmonger's slab.

Nothing scary about it now.

Just tastes of the sea and smoke from the grill and then that hit of mint, lime and basil.

That's luscious.

If you've never tried squid before, now there's no excuse.

Just ask the fishmonger to do the hard work so you can enjoy it at its simple, delicious best.

It's so tempting to buy the same things every time I go shopping.

I know what I want and I know where it is.

But if I start to look around a little bit, there's ingredients maybe I've never used.

Maybe never even seen before.

One ingredient has particularly caught my eye recently - and that's water buffalo.

It's new, different and I for one can't wait to explore it a bit more.

The meat is very similar to beef.

It's significantly lower in fat, lower in cholesterol and it is a beautiful meat to cook with.

It's a versatile meat and it's very tasty.

Dagan James has been providing the local Hampshire community

with this exotic alternative to beef for nearly 10 years.

His secret to producing top quality meat is letting his buffalo roam all over his 500 acre estate.

An animal that's designed to eat grass should be able to eat grass

and should live a natural, an outdoor life which is obviously going to make

it more expensive, but then perhaps if we eat a little bit less of it, it would be a good thing.

Which is funny to hear a livestock farmer say that, but there's truth

in it, we've got to go steady with all this meat we're eating.

It's all in the cooking as well, you know, if you treat it well it's going to make beautiful food.

And at Dagan's local market, it's certainly going down a storm.

Water buffalo meat is really tasty.

It's very different, it's got quite a gamey flavour. I wouldn't eat another type of burger.

There's a lot less fat in it I think and what's on the plate you can eat,

there's no cutting bits out and leaving them on the side.

I prefer it to beef. It's a much more mellow flavour.

And of course less cholesterol.

Thank you, bye.

I've never cooked with buffalo before, so my buffalo burgers are going to be a real experiment.

I don't know this meat, so, normally I'd be tempted to season something

quite generously, or quite adventurously but I'm not going to with this, because

I want to know what it's like.

I want to know its heart and soul, so it's going to get very little seasoning.

And when I think of meat that doesn't have a lot of seasoning, I think burger.

That whole thing of a really good hamburger is just ground beef.

Little bit of salt, little bit of pepper - nothing else.

So we'll see.

It does look good. It's got a great colour.

So this is just going to get a simple pinch of salt and pepper.

I'm not using anything to bind this meat, just hope they keep their shape.

Always trying to get with a burger is a slightly

crisp, almost charred outside and the inside just a little bit pink.

Just going to pop it on the griddle.

See what happens. If I'm honest, I'm expecting these

to be a little bit dry, because they've got very little fat in them.

But I don't know anything else about them

other than the fact it looks like beef.

I want to serve these with a generous slice of buffalo mozzarella

and the juiciest tomato I can find.

Slice the cheese as thin as you dare so it goes gooey on the hot burger.

I sometimes think in the middle of summer I could live on mozzarella salad.

It's so cool and milky.

OK, this smells very good, but it has formed a really

interesting looking crust and it's actually quite juicy, as well.

And who knows, this might be considered quite usual in a few years' time.

I remember the first avocado I ate, years and years ago and it was really kind of a wacky

thing to do at the time was to eat avocado and same with a mango and now they're everywhere. We almost

take them for granted. I'm not a big fan of burger buns, so I'm

using lightly toasted ciabatta - it feels right with the Italian theme.

I thought this would be dry. I really thought this would be a dry meat and it's not.

All the meat juices are mixing with the mozzarella and tomato

and soaking into the bread and hopefully taking a bit of basil

along with them as well, I mean, it looks like it might be very good.

Slightly what I thought it would taste like. It's like very good beef.

It's not at all greasy.

And it does work with the mozzarella.

And the basil's just sheer genius.

Next time I do this a little bit more salt

and maybe just a little bit of thyme, some rosemary, nothing much.

The flavour's so good I wouldn't want to confuse it.

It's my first, but it's not going to be my last. It's good.

Now I've got a brand new ingredient to add to my recipe collection.

And best of all, the less you do to it the better it seems to taste.

Every spring I go through the seed catalogues

and I always seem to pick out the things that I know will succeed.

When in fact what I should be looking at are all the new things.

The exciting salad leaves and the vegetables that I really don't know about.

New tastes, new flavours and new ideas.

Stephen, Dawn and daughter Liane have a back garden full of surprises.

They have a real sense of adventure when it comes to growing their own.

I love your garden. I really, really love it.

And I think it's partly because I can see meals appearing.

There's something very...there's something very handmade about this.

I love the randomness of this garden - it's just oozing with food and personality.

-Is this more of your handiwork?

-Yeah, another product of - a left over, in this case, from the shed.

-Can I stick my hand in there?

-Yeah, do.

-Is it quite reliable?

-The smallest one, she actually lays the biggest eggs.

But it's kind of weird.

Sometimes you get two, and then you get one the next day and then other day's three.

-At the end of the day they're all eggs, but they're ornamental.

-Oh, no, they're not all eggs.

The idea of just coming down here and just being able to pick an egg out of the straw like that.

What a delight.

I'm determined to experiment today and try the things I know can be cooked, but I tend not to use.

And since I've been growing stuff for myself,

I've discovered bits of the plants that you don't see in the shops.

The chive flowers.

We sprinkle those in the salad.

-Yeah, yeah.

-They're lovely. Slightly oniony. They're really nice.

-Can we cook with some of those?

-Absolutely, yeah.

I may have used pea shoots before, but I'm sticking my neck out trying some kohlrabi leaves

and instead of cooking the root, I'm keen to give the leaves a go.

We eat turnip leaves, we eat beetroot leaves, why not kohlrabi leaves? Same thing, same family.

I don't know, I mean we might be chomping away for hours.

-Have you got nettles?

-Nettles.

There's always nettles around, so we've kind of laid this area for soups and nettle beer.

Because to eat, a nettle is very, very similar to spinach.

-Yeah, absolutely, yeah.

-I'd love to put some of those in.

-That would be something new for us, yeah.

-Be new for me. Have you got any gloves?

I certainly have, yeah.

If you're new to nibbling on weird and wonderful things, it's always best to check.

So I'm only putting things I recognise into my fresh herb pancake.

Very keen to use the little things we picked and I just was thinking of sort of

..a sort of pancake type thing.

I'm starting out with a standard batter of eggs, milk and flour, before we start experimenting.

-These nettles aren't going to sting me, are they?

-No. I'm sure they won't at this point.

They've been washed to make sure all the insects have gone.

It's own to the small hairs on them. So the bigger they get, the more they're going to sting you.

What we use and what we don't, the idea that these are everywhere.

-They're so prolific, so cheap and we don't use them.

-Yeah.

I'm going to put these little flowers in, only because I can't resist them, they're so beautiful.

I'm looking forward to seeing how it's going to taste.

-Yeah, so am I.

-It looks gorgeous.

So these little kohlrabi leaves, heaven knows, I don't know.

Oh, well done.

You could stick a bit of cream cheese inside them and roll them up.

-Now how hot is he?

-I wouldn't like to say.

Oh...chive flowers.

Tingle under your tongue when you eat it, it's lovely.

Unless it's the sting.

I love your nettles.

You're getting like a bit of mustardy and then a bit

of more sort of like the cabbagey which I suppose must be the...

-The kohlrabi.

-Kohlrabi.

That idea of using something

as old as a pancake batter,

you know, but with exciting new things.

Like nettles.

So do you think you'll be growing more nettles in your garden?

I certainly will. I certainly will.

If you've got the grow-your-own bug, or you just fancy having a go, then why not check out my exclusive

recipes and hints at bbc.co.uk/digin.

It's funny how we get into the habit of using

specific fruits for certain recipes and eating them in a certain way.

It's like apples.

They're there for eating in the hand, but also for cooking with - for tarts and crumbles and

pies and all sorts of things, even apple cake.

But the pear is different story all together.

It's kind of stuck in the fruit bowl

and there's so much more that you can do with it.

In celebration of this often overlooked fruit,

I'm trying a dessert of caramelised pears with blue cheese and walnuts.

I think we probably don't cook with pears, because they are a more difficult fruit.

It takes

a little bit of experience to know when a pear is perfect

and even then you can get it wrong.

But it's a shame, because when a pear's cooked, when the sugar's caramelised and

the flavour really comes to the fore it's sweet and honeyed and yet it's also refreshing at the same time.

As a kid I never ate fresh pears.

I remember they used to come

in the bowl, with their syrup

and then we used to pour tinned cream or evaporated milk

or something in them and there's that gorgeous thing of

pears and dairy produce.

Works beautifully.

Pears love butter.

They're at their best cooked slowly over a low heat.

Fennel's got that aniseedy note.

I'm just thinking that it would be so good with pears.

Like pear drops and aniseed balls.

I just feel it's going to work.

And I want the pears to cook in the butter, but also to soften in their own steam.

So I'm going to put quite a bit of lemon juice in and then put the lid on.

After around 15 minutes, the pears should have softened slightly and be ready to turn.

It's rather lovely, because they softening, but they're also caramelised on their cut sides.

So you have a lot of sweetness there.

To contrast the sweet, juicy pears, I'm trying a lovely strong gorgonzola cheese.

Thinking about it, this is really like the pears and tinned cream that I had as a kid,

but a slightly more adventurous version of it.

Add a crunchy texture by throwing in some walnuts to toast for just a few seconds.

It's familiar ingredients just rearranged and used in a slightly different way.

Maybe it's even a little bit daring.

What's so good about that is that the cheese is really quite punchy, almost salty.

And then with the refreshing pear, the contrast between the two is delightful.

It's actually

the same as a cheese board, except all the ingredients are warm.

It's just delightful.

The secret to this sweet and savoury pud

is to let the pears simmer gently so that they caramelise and take on a gorgeous toffee apple flavour.

Like most gardeners, I creature of habit.

I love all the familiar rituals that come with planting and sowing.

I do like the excitement that comes with experimenting though.

Dabbling with new varieties of fruit and veg.

I mean, what's the worst that can happen?

Every year I like to plant at least one thing I've never grown before.

It's that thing of planting just to see if it'll happen.

I found some purple podded peas.

I'm not expecting anything of it, I'm not exactly planning a menu around it.

There's a certain sense of adventure.

I don't think I've ever even eaten a purple pea.

I find it quite exciting, all the different varieties that you can just stick in the ground.

It shakes up your gardening and shakes up your cooking.

It'll be a while until I can experiment with these,

but the watching and waiting is all part of the adventure for me.

I like to think I'm quite an intrepid cook and that I'll take risks and cook new things,

but in fact very often I don't, I cook the same things over and over again and I suspect we all do.

But I also have a spirit of adventure and sometimes I want to

cook something I know well in a different way.

So tonight I'm going to take a chance on roasted new potatoes served with herb goat's curd.

How many times have I seen new potatoes in the shop,

or at the market and come home with them

and without another thought, I've put them in the steamer.

Yes, it's lovely but I do it without thinking and yet there are so many other things to do.

So for a change I'll roast these new potatoes with a dribble of olive oil and some garlic.

Keep the cloves whole for a subtle flavour.

Some thyme and a sprinkle of sea salt will help crisp the skins.

You don't think of new potatoes having crisp skins, but they're lovely!

Pop into a very hot oven for about 45 minutes.

This isn't a side dish - I want to take it centre stage.

So I'm going with an ingredient I rarely use.

If you walk down the aisles of the shops, you'll very often find in the chiller cabinet there's

what used to be just goat's milk, but it's now a whole little section.

This is very soft goat's sort of cream cheese, it's called goat's curd.

It's got a slight sharpness to it.

It's lighter on the palate and I think it's more interesting.

I want to mix this goat's curd with some fresh herbs

and in the spirit of adventure I'm trying a new combination.

I want something familiar, like chives.

Something very unfamiliar, like marigold petals, or some borage.

And then mint, which I know is going to work with my new potatoes.

I used to think you're never going to get me putting petals in my food

and then you start thinking, why are there some things that I would eat and some things I wouldn't?

How is it we ended up eating one bit of a plant, but not the other?

Borage is wonderful with cucumber.

You look at a lot of old recipes, you've got borage and cucumber salads.

And I'm thinking cucumber, cream cheese, I know that works - so why wouldn't the borage work?

It sort of makes sense that it would.

That's what I love about cooking - it's the feel of something I know well and then

marrying it up with something I don't/

It's like the best parties are always those ones where you know somebody, nothing worse than walking

into a room full of strangers, but then you meet somebody you've never met before and

that's when parties are exciting and I think food gets exciting as well.

A smattering of parsley will bring this all down to earth a bit.

And this isn't just about ingredients I know, that I'm using differently.

I'm cooking it in a different way, but it's also about the fact that

these aren't going to be on the side.

These are going to be the stars of my meal.

It's a completely different texture to a steamed new potato.

It's fudgy. And then this, this cream cheese that isn't like

cream cheese, because it's sharper and it's got a bit of a bite to it.

That's something I know so well, but it's very different. It's gorgeous.

This is such an easy adventure!

One familiar ingredient cooked a bit differently and one unfamiliar ingredient explored.

Who'd have thought potatoes could taste so good?

I've taken a few chances this week with the suppers I've cooked, but they've all remained simple.

I've changed a few ingredients and even tried things I've never used before.

Just be brave and give it a go.

Next time I'll be sharing my secrets as to how a bit of forward planning

can save a lot of stress in the kitchen.

It's the same dish but it's a completely different dish.

That's delicious.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

E-mail [email protected]