Episode 2 Nigella: At My Table

This is very delicious, too.

NIGELLA: A table is more than a piece of furniture,

just as food is more than mere fuel.

When I moved into my first home many years ago,

before I did anything else, I bought a table.

And not just to eat at, but to live around.

-Chin-chin, amici.

-Chin-chin, everybody!

-Cheers!

-Thank you.

At my table, when I'm winding down at the end of a long day...

They're ready for me, and I'm ready for them.

..celebrating friendship at weekend feasts,

or making memories with family...

..the food I eat is vibrant and varied...

..but always relaxed.

Old favourites...

So far, so good.

..and fresh discoveries.

I need to be alone with my sandwich now.

The comfort of the familiar, combined with the exuberance

of the new.

I can hear how good this is going to be.

The essential welcoming taste of home.

There's no elegant way to eat them, and that's in their favour.

Whether I'm pottering about at the stove or sitting at the table,

I want pleasure, I want flavour, and I want ease.

Life can be complicated, cooking doesn't have to be.

I was watching an American TV show recently

and I missed a crucial part of the plot,

because I was so deliciously distracted by the

waffle-eating going on.

I did try to stop myself buying a waffle machine,

because I've been down this road before.

I didn't succeed, but this time I vowed I wouldn't just consign it

to the cupboard and then give it to a charity shop.

And actually, I have to say, I've become something

of a weekend waffler.

To make my waffle batter, I start off with three eggs.

Whites here,

and yolks in here.

To the yolks...

..I'm going to add 450ml of full fat milk.

A splosh of vanilla.

And 125ml of vegetable oil.

So much easier than using butter because, you know,

when you use butter, you have to melt it and then

let it cool down a bit,

and this is just faster, and it makes the waffles so crisp.

And that's what I want from a waffle, really crisp on the outside,

and light and fluffy on the inside.

Just a regular whisk here.

A teeny little...

..mix together...

so it's combined.

Now I can move on to the dry ingredients.

I start with 225g of plain flour,

followed by three tablespoons - that's 45g - of caster sugar.

Then a pinch of salt, and two teaspoons of baking powder.

Then I just fork everything together.

And now it's just a case of pouring the wet ingredients into the dry.

This flat whisk can make sure there aren't lumps.

I don't want to beat too fast, or I'll splash myself.

And anyway, going slowly is rather peaceful in the morning.

But now I'm going to rupture the calm...

..by whisking the egg whites.

I want them to get to firm peaks.

WHISK WHIRS LOUDLY

And it's not...

And it's not that noisy.

I said, it's not that noisy!

Time for some gentle folding.

So these fluffy clouds will get absorbed into the

primrose batter.

It looks like a sea of marshmallow.

Just the last bit of white.

So same again, just making sure, if at all humanly possible,

that there aren't any streaks of white left in the batter at the end.

Perfect. This is just what I want from a waffle batter.

Thick, smooth and airy,

and it's those bubbles that make these waffles so celestially light.

Right, I'm going to move along the bus and heat my waffle irons,

just a couple of minutes.

I know there's a lot of batter, but I've always found there

are a lot of takers for these. And actually, what I like to do as well

is make all the waffles up and then freeze them, and reheat them

in the oven, from frozen, whenever I feel the need.

And I can tell you, there is often a need.

An American cup measure is my tool of choice here,

and one to be dribbled over this iron.

And then speedily...

I'm going to see if I can manage this...

Ah, more dextrous than I thought.

That just needs a minute, I'm going to go and get my plate.

OK, ready to turn.

And I actually almost forgot my blueberries.

That would not be a good thing.

And now for the moment of truth.

Beautiful!

All in its golden glory.

I'm going to ease this out first.

Over here, my beauties.

Tumble in a few blueberries.

And so important, because it's got those pockets waiting for it...

..the syrup.

A quiet morning in the garden with waffles.

What better way to start the weekend?

When I have friends round my table,

what I really relish is laid-back informality.

Now, that doesn't mean I want things thrown together any old how.

Obviously, I want everything to taste good,

but I really want it all to look unfussily beautiful.

Tonight, that means my pomegranate scattered beef and aubergine fatteh,

and an aromatic bulgur wheat salad.

And pudding,

well, pudding's a bit of a lazy show stopper.

My passion fruit and meringue ice cream cake is, let me tell you,

a dream to eat, and a doddle to make.

Unsurprisingly, the ice cream cake has to be made ahead of time,

and that makes things very much easier on the night, too.

First off, I scoop the pulp, seeds and all, out of four passion fruit.

Then I whisk 300ml of double cream until thickened, but not stiff.

When I'm happy with the consistency of the whipped cream,

I add the fragrant passion fruit.

Now I pour in four teaspoons of orange liqueur,

which seems to bring out the flavour of the passion fruit so well.

Then I, very enjoyably, crumble in eight shop-bought meringue nests.

I want a mixture of small pieces and sugary dust.

Then I gently fold everything together.

Spoon this mixture into a loaf tin, drapingly lined with clingfilm,

pressing down on it as you go.

Then wrap the tin well, before putting it in the freezer overnight.

And that's all there is to it.

The beef and aubergine fatteh can be done at the very last minute,

so I'll get on first with a gorgeous accompaniment that can stand easily.

I start my nutty and spiced bulgur wheat by warming some olive oil

in a heavy pan.

Into that goes a mixture of coriander and cumin seeds.

Then I add some dried thyme and, well, it would be rude not to,

a generous hit of nigella seeds.

I finally grate in the zest of a lemon and then I give everything

a stir, the warm oil bringing out the fragrance.

Then all that remains is to tip in the bulgur wheat,

give it a quick stir and swiftly cover with cold water.

Add salt. I like to salt very generously.

Then bring the pan to the boil, clamp on a lid,

turn the heat to low and cook for 15 minutes.

Then off the heat, you can just leave it covered till suppertime.

My Middle Eastern inspired main course starts with pitta,

toasted simply in the oven.

Whenever I have friends round,

I just have to stop myself making this beef and aubergine fatteh.

I first had a version of it in a Lebanese restaurant and I've been

obsessed with it ever since.

Now, I can do this, because I have asbestos fingers and I'm impatient.

But a wiser person might let these pitta triangles cool a bit

before arranging them on the plate.

So, the toasted pitta layer is done.

Now for the beef and aubergine, which starts off with olive oil.

A generous amount.

And some finely chopped onion.

I want to cook this patiently and gently,

so that it's soft and golden.

I'm going to turn the heat up

and add these dolly-mixture-sized cubes of aubergine.

It's one aubergine that makes this pile.

The reason I cut the aubergine into such small dice,

intensely boring though it is,

is not only because they'll cook faster that way, but because they'll

also gave a much more even covering on the pitta later.

So, now the aubergine confetti has softened

and fused almost with the onion.

Some spicing is in order, cumin and coriander.

I'm using ground cumin and ground coriander here,

which gives much more pungency.

And now that glorious Aleppo pepper.

So beautiful.

It looks like flakes of terracotta.

A generous amount of salt.

Aubergine is quite extraordinary at just drinking up flavour.

So on top of these toastily spiced aubergines, some minced beef.

You need the heat up a bit for the beef because I want it

to brown fast.

Now, this isn't a sauce,

I'm not going to add any liquid, because what I want to do

is to be able to add it in warm, spiced crumbles

to the toasted pitta bread.

It isn't going to take very long to cook, but while it does

I'm going to have a casual tidy-up.

So the second layer is cooked.

I'm just going to leave it here...

..and now we'll get on with layer three.

For this, I need a small pan with a little bit of hot water

at the bottom and my bain-marie helmet.

And, you know, calling it a sauce makes it sound

so much more complicated than it is,

because, really, it's just a question of stirring together

a lovely lot of Greek yoghurt with some tahini.

Now, the tahini you've got to have at room temperature

before you use it, otherwise you'll just break a spoon

trying to get it out.

Quite a bit of this soft sesame paste.

And a lot of lemon.

A real citrus burst here.

There's one decent size lemon.

Quite a bit of salt.

And two fat cloves of garlic.

This has got a bit of a kick.

I'm going to turn the heat off now, because the steam from

the water underneath as it is will be enough to warm this mixture,

which I want just above room temperature.

And when it gets there,

it has the texture of softly whipped double cream,

and you can see that it's billowingly increased in volume.

Mm! Perfect! It needs nothing else.

So, now for the grand assembly.

So, first, we mound it on,

the warm spiced crumbles of beef and aubergine.

And now I'm going to drape it with this creamy tahini sauce.

I quite like a bit of the beef peeking out underneath, though.

I want to sprinkle a bit of that Aleppo pepper I used earlier on top.

Turn over the pomegranates,

and I'm going to add some in almost...

..bejewelled clumps.

And now the toasted pine nuts.

And there are a lot of pine nuts in there, a lot of pomegranate seeds

because they're not just decoration, beautiful though they are,

it's all about adding texture as well.

And finally, some finely shredded fresh mint.

You know, I think of this as a refined Middle Eastern version

of nachos, which I am now going to bear proudly aloft.

Wow, look at that.

A slice of fatteh.

There we go.

That's a good one. Very, very good one.

Now my finishing touches to the bulgur wheat -

a scattering of toasted flaked almonds and roughly chopped parsley.

I'm going to give you a few more bits.

Mmm, mmm!

Mmm.

Very good.

I'll leave everyone happy at the table while I busy myself

stoveside for a moment.

My passion fruit ice cream cake has a partner in crime,

and that just happens to be a rather fabulous coconut caramel sauce.

And for that, I need 50g of soft unsalted butter...

and then 50g of caster sugar.

And 50g also of soft, light brown sugar.

And finally, about the same weight of golden syrup.

Come on, baby.

Let this melt now.

Going to give it a little swirl just to help matters along.

Just going to give it a little stir to make sure there are no lumps.

And if I can leave it alone for a moment,

I'm going to let it come to a simmer.

Mm, it is bubbling away here like honeycomb.

Get it off the hob just for a moment.

And into this cauldron of bubbling caramel,

I'm going to add 250ml of coconut cream.

Give it a bit of swirl.

Don't worry if it doesn't look very smooth at this stage,

all will come good. Better than good.

So back on the heat.

Now it's come to a bubble, and as you can see, it sort of

spurts and pops like one of those dancing fountains that children

just love running through and getting drenched.

Once this is done, I will pour it into a jug and then it can cool.

And I'm ready to slice the ice.

So you can see why I added this overhang,

I can just lift the ice cream cake out.

I normally don't go in for individual plating

but this ice cream is so dreamy and soft and I don't want it

to start melting, so I treat it as a bit of a cut-and-come-again number.

There we are.

So first cut...

You know the rest.

It has almost an Italian semifreddo texture.

And the rest, I can wrap up and stash in the freezer

for greedy people.

Like me.

And I'm going to drizzle on the coconut caramel now,

just a little bit, because there will be plenty more on the table

for people to help themselves.

That's perfect.

I don't think it matters whether it goes on thinly or thickly.

I'm covering myself, because obviously uniformity is not

one of my strengths.

Right, they're done and I don't need this now, so...

Mmm!

I'm not silver service, so I can't take them all on my arm,

so two for now and I'll be back for the rest and my wine.

Lovely.

Oh, that's a big mouthful.

Actually, the coconut comes through incredibly well, doesn't it?

Do you like it?

-Mmm. Very passion-fruity.

-Good crunch, I love that.

Mmm, it is good, the crunch is good.

Delicious.

I am cursed with being a very bad sleeper,

and I have to say I do an awful lot of moaning about it.

But insomnia does have its benefits.

As I lie awake, I focus very fruitfully on what

I could be eating.

This toasted brie, Parma ham and fig sandwich is a case in point.

I got the inspiration for it in the otherwise fretful small hours

one night, and I don't really know why, because in the daylight hours

it would never occur to me to start cooking with brie.

And I do realise it's not the chicest thing to be doing,

but I have to say

this sandwich turns out to be food for the gods,

and I'm just that little bit happier

when I have figs, Parma ham and brie in the house.

First, the bread.

I want to cut it generously, but not so thick that it stops the cheese

from melting in the middle.

And now...

I do realise that many French people would think it's a crime

to make a toasted sandwich with brie, but really they just have

to have one bite to forgive everything.

Good, thick spreading.

I know it's not done to take the nose off the cheese, but...

it's gone now.

Ready for my layering up.

Bit of pepper, bit of white pepper, I feel.

A plumptious black fig.

Going to take the end off.

Just cut it into rounds.

And that goes on one piece of brie-spread bread.

Mmm.

One for me, another one for me.

It's all for me, frankly.

And some Parma ham.

It's quite Italianate, the fig and ham, of course.

I suppose the brie is the impostor, but it works so well.

And that's all that matters.

Mmm. Pink as a kitten's tongue.

Now, I know I said it was a toasted sandwich, but in fact,

I'm frying it in butter.

Just a bit of butter.

And a smaller bit of oil, to stop the butter from burning.

So while that's melting, I'm going to squidge my sandwich together.

Very enjoyable.

The pan's ready, my sandwich is ready, I am more than ready.

So I'm going to lower it gently into the pan.

And I have a special implement for this that I bought in America

a few years back.

I can press down.

The idea is that the bread is golden and crisp on the outside,

and in the middle, the cheese is warm and oozy,

the ham tender and the fig juicy.

I'm going to help this turn.

Just do the same on the other side, but I need a teeny bit more butter.

Fair's fair. Got it for the one side.

A pinprick of oil.

Now my patting is slightly impatient.

So that's cooked perfectly.

So...

out it comes.

Back on the board.

I'm going to cut it in half, so...

Mmm!

I need to be alone with my sandwich now.

Subtitles by Ericsson