Episode 4 Rachel Allen: Home Cooking

You can't beat home-cooked food.

In this series, I'm going to make every meal you cook at home a real treat.

Today on Home Cooking, the whole family will adore the gentle flavour

of my creamy mild lamb curry,

which I serve with fluffy coriander rice and Indian accompaniments.

I meet top Essex chef Mark Baumann

and help him cook one of his favourite family recipes.

And I teach my cookery school family

how to make scrumptious homemade marshmallows and lollipops.

It's great, when you're entertaining for friends and family,

to have something that can be made in advance.

A curry is fantastic for this. I'm making a korma curry, which is creamy and mildly spiced.

It's great for all the family.

This is a fantastic lamb korma curry. I love this.

When you make your own curry, you know exactly what's gone into it.

You know the quality of the meat and you know all the spices, no extra additives.

I've got a pan on the heat.

I'm going to put a little bit of oil in the pan.

Just a little bit of a tasteless oil, like a sunflower oil.

Cook some onions in the pan.

Sliced onions.

Lots of onions for this. Some salt and some pepper.

And cook the onions for about ten minutes, until they're completely soft.

While the onions are cooking, I'm going to prepare the spices.

I'm using whole spices for this

because the flavour is so much better than ready-ground spices.

I'm going to toast them first of all before I crush them myself.

I'm going to use cardamom. This is the green cardamom pod.

To open it, you peel back the quite dry, tough skin.

Take the seeds out.

Put the seeds into a dry frying pan with a couple of cloves,

some coriander seeds,

and some cumin seeds.

Toss it on the heat, just for about half a minute to a minute.

I want the seeds to turn a couple of shades darker - they're going to toast.

This is going to bring out a gorgeous nutty flavour in the spices. Check the onions.

Stir the onions every so often.

They're fine.

Cook those more. The spices are ready.

Can you see there is a little bit of smoke coming up from the spices in the pan?

They've turned a couple of shades darker.

So tip the spices into a pestle and mortar and crush them.

If you don't have a pestle and mortar, let them cool slightly,

put them into a plastic bag and bash them with a rolling pin.

The smell, really, when are you crushing them by hand, is amazing.

Great. Check the onions again.

Perfect.

Now, the onions are perfectly cooked - they're completely soft.

They are a little bit golden around the edges, which will bring out the natural sweetness.

That's good. Take the onions out of the pan at this stage.

Put the pan back on a high heat with another little drop of oil.

I'm going to toss in half the meat.

I'm using for this shoulder of the lamb.

A little bit at a time.

If I put all the meat into the pan at once, the meat will stew.

Once it starts to sear around the edges, I can season it.

A little bit of salt. A little bit of pepper.

Once the meat gets brown around the edges like that,

that's perfect. OK, that just takes a couple of minutes. Take it out.

Put the pan back on the heat.

Do the last batch of meat.

Great.

So this second lot of meat is nice and seared and brown around the edges.

So all I need to do now is tip in the lamb...

the onions.

Also, I'm going to put in the crushed spices.

Mmm, smelling delicious.

I'm going to chop some ginger nice and finely.

You could grate the ginger. For this recipe I normally chop it.

Followed by a little bit of chilli.

Followed by turmeric.

It gives it this wonderful colour, and also some chopped garlic.

A few cloves of chopped garlic.

Followed by some stock, chicken or a lamb stock, or even a little bit of water.

Lastly, some cream, which makes it a korma curry.

Stir it around. Season it with a little bit of salt and pepper.

Put the lid on and simmer it.

It's going to take about an hour, an hour and a quarter for the lamb to cook.

The lamb will be really lovely and tender once it's cooked.

Mmm.

The curry has been on the heat now for about an hour and a quarter, even a little bit more.

The lamb is cooked.

You should be able to, yeah, just cut through it with a spoon like that. It's nice and tender.

Have a taste as well to check the seasoning.

Mm!

Tiny pinch of salt.

Wonderful. The lamb can sit there.

I'm going to put rice on to cook now. I have basmati rice for this.

A long grain rice.

This is a simple method of cooking rice. I'm going to cook the rice in twice its volume of water.

If you have half a pint of rice, you need a pint of water or half a litre of rice, a litre of water.

Nice pinch of salt in there. Bring it up to the boil.

Then just cook it on a low to medium heat for about 10 to 12 minutes with the lid on.

While it's cooking, I want to show you a few accompaniments to serve with the curry.

This is a cucumber and mint raita - I've got natural yoghurt,

chopped cucumber and lots of chopped fresh mint.

I've also got a tomato and coriander salsa.

The third accompaniment I'll show you how to make. It couldn't be more simple.

Sliced bananas, which I will then sprinkle with lime juice or lemon juice,

and then toss in desiccated coconut.

It's the sweetness of the bananas in coconut that works so well with the

spiciness of the lamb curry, which is quite surprising.

Ten minutes later, the rice is cooked.

You can see when it's cooked. Number one, it's absorbed all the water.

Also you have little holes on top of the rice, on the surface.

Once they appear, you know the rice is cooked.

You can taste a little grain if you like. Perfect.

I'm going to chop up coriander to put into the rice.

And some butter.

Just a couple of little pieces.

Stir in the butter.

Lots of chopped fresh coriander. It just melts in.

A pinch of salt.

So, put some rice on the plate.

Some of your gorgeous curry, just spooned in the centre. Yum.

A wedge of lime.

Extra coriander leaves to scatter over the top.

That's my lamb korma curry with coriander rice.

My cookery school family today are the Shiels from County Cork.

Mum Catherine and dad Brendan want fun recipes they can cook together with their five children.

I'll be showing them the perfect treat. Homemade sweets.

We're going to make marshmallows. We'll also make fruit lollipops.

There is boiling syrup going on.

So, Catherine and Brendan, some of the children

will be standing back and you will be supervising and taking over.

Today I'm hoping to find new inspiration

when cooking at home and I'm hoping that the kids will actually enjoy

the preparing of the meal that will make them more enthusiastic to help out at home as well.

The first thing we need to do is prepare our tins.

Pop a bit of oil into your tin.

Brush the tin all over and up the sides a little bit.

You've got a square of parchment paper here.

A non-stick paper.

Put it in, Ellen, in there.

Then we can let it fold in the corners.

Then we need to actually grease inside the tin again, just over the paper.

So, a little bit more oil.

We all have two tablespoons of cornflour and two tablespoons of icing sugar in front of us.

Mix them together and put them into the sieve.

It's the icing sugar and cornflour, which surrounds marshmallows.

You need the cornflour to stop it sticking and it gives it that particular kind of texture.

It's the icing sugar that makes it a little bit sweet.

Do you want to dust a little bit? We need to save some more for dusting over the top.

We've all got a bowl of sugar.

In the saucepans here, you have 175mls of water.

Pour the sugar into the water.

This is a pound of sugar, 450 grams.

Put the hobs on to a low or medium heat to start with.

Stir the sugar and the water.

Once the sugar and the water comes up to the boil,

we take the spoons out, stand back and allow it to boil.

When you're making sweets, you need to be particular about the temperature that it gets to.

If you are making any of these kinds of sweets,

it is handy to have a sugar thermometer.

We need to bring this up to 113 degrees centigrade or what's called, "the thread stage".

It's just come up to the boil, so take the spoon out.

And this is where adults can supervise. The children are standing way back.

It will take anywhere from 10 minutes to 20 minutes to reach 113 degrees centigrade.

Don't stir it. If you stir it at this point, the sugar will actually crystallise in the syrup.

I do most of the cooking, which becomes a bit of a chore.

Quite often the kids would help out.

Very rarely would we all cook together, but every day we all eat together.

Pop the sugar thermometer in. That will slowly tell us what temperature it's at.

We've all got some gelatine in little bowls - two 7 gram sachets.

So pour the gelatine into the bowl of your food mixer...

followed by water. 100mls of water.

The gelatine and the water will sit there.

The gelatine will soften up a little bit.

It will absorb the water. Can you see this?

Have a look at the thermometer. You see how it's creeping up to 111 degrees.

I'm going to turn on the food mixture and start whisking the gelatine in the water.

I'll also show you the thread stage now while I'm whisking this.

You see that thread? Yeah. OK.

So, I'm going to start pouring in the syrup gradually, whisking all the time.

It will fluff up and look meringue-like.

It will take about 20 minutes.

Perfect. That's there. OK.

Paul and Owen, if you want to stand back, please, and you can pour it on.

Fantastic. Great.

At this stage, Sarah, you could put, if you want to, go for a pale pink.

A couple of drops.

Nice. Can you see it, Paul?

20 minutes later this is ready. It looks exactly like a meringue.

Also you could pour this bowl upside down over your head - you can tell it's ready.

Phew! Now put in vanilla extract.

Two teaspoons. Whisk the vanilla extract in, just briefly.

That's it. Our marshmallows are ready to put into the tins.

It's good and thick, isn't it?

Yeah.

Wow!

Then with the spoon, just dip it in hot water every so often.

You just literally spread it out as flatly and as evenly as possible.

Nice, Paul.

Then dust over a little bit more of the cornflour and icing sugar mixture.

Save a little bit more of it again in the sieve for actually later on

when we will be cutting these into cubes and toss them in the icing sugar and cornflour.

That's it, that's the marshmallows made.

All we need to do now is set them aside somewhere dry,

not in the fridge, for one or two hours to set or even overnight.

Later on we'll sample the Shiels' marshmallows and make some sweet sticky lollipops.

Coming up... Chef Mark Baumann

invites me to share a hearty lunch with his family - cottage pie.

My cookery school family will be putting the finishing touches

to their home-made sweets.

Renowned chef Mark Baumann opened up his own restaurant at just 21.

Now, his 16th-century eatery Baumann's Brasserie

brings a metropolitan touch to the heart of Essex.

Hi!

'At home, Mark likes to cook simple traditional food with his wife Fiona and daughters Charlie and Milly.

'I was invited to Essex to put together a family speciality.'

-They're podding peas for you - are they always this good?

-Not always. They're making an effort.

We try to encourage them to cook and peel vegetables and do as much as they possibly can.

-What are we cooking today, Mark?

-We are going to do a little bit of home cooking, Rachel.

We are going to make a cottage pie.

-Yum.

-There's no need to be elaborate at home. Good honest simple food.

-Can't beat it.

-You can't. The beef here is from just up the road.

A beautiful beef. You know where it comes from.

You know it's going to taste nice. Essex is fantastic for...

-You're a great supporter.

-I am.

-You need to be.

-Absolutely.

Were you always really interested in food, Mark?

Yes, I was. When I left school, I went to France.

-To chef?

-To chef. I went to work in a Michelin-starred restaurant.

That with a a real eye-opener. I think they had more chefs than customers most of the time.

You still weren't deterred, after doing 14-hour days?

Almost. It was a fairly aggressive environment.

I was the only English boy there.

-Did you speak French at that stage?

-I did when I left.

-Oh, wow.

Charlie and Amelia, do you like cooking?

Yeah, we've made pasta.

We've also made white chocolate spaghetti.

How do you make white chocolate spaghetti?

You make it like the pasta.

Yeah. Then added to melted white chocolate.

Into the pasta tubes? Really?

-It was lovely. Really nice.

-That is pushing the boundaries.

-It was a bit.

-That's great.

-We had some fun.

-OK.

-Here we go.

OK. We've got the potatoes on. Get a pan on there, get it hot.

That's just browning away there.

In this pan at the back I'm going to saute the vegetables.

-This is not the kind of food you would cook in the brasserie?

-It's not generally. No.

Although we put the same sort of care into everything we cook at the brasserie.

I suppose, in a way, this would be slightly too simple for customers.

They want richer stuff, don't they?

They want stuff that they wouldn't necessarily do at home.

OK. The last thing at the moment we need to do is to put the tomatoes in.

Milly.

We are going to put those lovely fresh tomatoes, that we peeled earlier...

Add the beef back to the vegetables.

This is beef bouillon - you could use chicken. Worcester sauce, if I may.

-How about that?

-That looks good. We have the magic ingredient.

We've got the old ketchup.

-Say when?

-Go on.

There is one ingredient left to go in it. It's a secret ingredient.

-I can't tell you.

-Are you going to tell us?

I can't. Yes, I can. The girls love baked beans.

How much do you put in? 360.

422.

That's just going to give it a really nice tomatoey flavour.

-It's good for you.

-This is just great comfort food, isn't it?

-Comfort food is the word, isn't it?

-Simple honest lovely food.

The potatoes, Rachel, we've just mashed those up.

I added grated nutmeg to that.

Unsalted butter. A little bit of double cream.

We will finally pipe that around the dish.

-OK.

-Let's put it in the oven.

We'll see you in about half an hour or so.

Perfect.

Wow.

Oh, this looks great.

So we start with the cottage pie here.

Yum.

-Bon appetit, everybody.

-Thank you.

-You are most welcome.

This is delicious. Girls, what do you think?

-Lovely.

-Do you guys all get to sit down together quite often?

Yes, we do sit down every evening and eat together.

I'm lucky because Mark slots the restaurant in.

A couple of hours in the afternoon, which works quite well. Once we finish eating, Mark goes to work.

-It's perfect, really.

-It is nice

to sit down together at one time in the evening before I go off to work.

It's the one chance we have to talk to each other.

Find out what we've been doing, how the girls are getting on at school.

What Fiona's been doing. So, very, very important, isn't it?

Thank you so much, Mark and Fiona and Charlie and Milly. It's been brilliant.

-It's been really lovely.

-Thank you for coming.

-Cheers, guys.

-Cheers.

-Cheers, girls!

Now, it's back to cookery school and time for me to show the Shiels family how to make lollipops.

What we need for the fruit lollipops - we need sugar and water.

We need cream of tartar.

So about an eighth of a teaspoon of cream of tartar.

I have edible glitter here, which is just for fun.

For colour and flavour, it's blackcurrant cordial.

We do need little lollipop sticks.

Hopefully, we'll learn how to spice up our recipes a little bit more

and also to get the practical side across of how to do things.

Rather than it being a chore, we will have fun and all enjoy

-making recipes together as a family.

-So, it will be a good day if we get all of that.

Take the saucepan and put in 450 grams of sugar.

Then, I've got in here 150mls of water and also the eighth of a teaspoon of cream of tartar.

OK. We will put this on the heat.

I will stir it while it's coming up to the boil.

This syrup is just coming up to the boil.

Now allow it to boil unstirred for about 20 minutes until it reaches

the temperature we are looking for, which is 143 degrees Celsius.

So Ellen and Paul, do you cook quite a lot at home?

-Or what's your favourite type of cooking?

-I'd say baking.

-Really?

-We've entered a couple of competitions and we've won a couple of prizes in baking.

-Really?

What did you make to win prizes?

Chocolate cake and Paul's made cupcakes as well.

That's brilliant.

It's now suddenly at 143 degrees.

Add in about four tablespoons of blackcurrant cordial or whatever cordial you are using.

Stir it in gently.

It could fizz up and bubble a little bit at this stage.

Be careful. Make sure it comes back up to 143 degrees.

The reason I put the blackcurrant cordial in towards the end

is I don't want to cook out all the fresh flavour.

Otherwise, you won't get the nice blackcurranty flavour.

You can see it's up to 143 degrees. I will take it off the heat quickly.

Pop the saucepan on to the board.

I have some edible glitter.

I will spoon the lollipops out on to the sticks.

I've realised these trays, do you see the way they are shaking like this?

If it's not completely flat it won't make a lovely round shape.

Spoon your mixture over, see.

That's a nice big round one.

Roundish.

Do these lollipops take a long time to set, Rachel?

No, they will take only about ten minutes to set.

Don't put them into the fridge.

They will soften if you put them into the fridge.

OK.

Ellen, would you like to just, you know, we've got some hundreds and thousands,

silver balls or even more glitter. Do you want to sprinkle a few on?

You can make them as psychedelic as you like.

Very sweet.

So, once these have set we can take the marshmallow mixture out of the tin.

Just on the board, the remaining cornflour, icing sugar.

Tip this out.

Fantastic. Look at that. Oh.

You can dust some more over the top.

Then we can just cut these into squares.

And as you cut them into squares, toss them around in all this icing sugar and cornflour. Oh, look.

Big fluffy clouds of marshmallow.

Sarah's and Brendan's are the hugest marshmallows I've ever seen.

Look how amazing they look.

We have some lollipops. You can even put the lollipops sticking out of the marshmallows.

Let's go outside and have lots of nice marshmallows and lollipops.

Oh!

Now, this is the fun bit.

-Mmm.

-The lollipops are lovely.

Brendan, may I try a piece of your pink marshmallow, please?

Wow, that is a big marshmallow, isn't it?

Mmm.

-Catherine, do you like the lollipops?

-They're lovely. Really nice.

The marshmallows are wonderful.

-I've never ever...

-I want that one.

Brendan, how are you getting on there? You look like a little boy sitting there sucking your lollipop?

It's so good I don't want to bite it all in one go. I'm licking it.

Girls, do you think you'll make lollipops and marshmallows again?

-Definitely.

-Especially the lollipops.

-They are quite easy, aren't they?

-Yes.

-I really enjoyed making the marshmallows and the lollipops.

I've never tried anything like that before.

It's definitely something we will be doing again.

Everybody enjoyed it. We enjoyed doing it together, which was great.

Thank you all so much for coming to make lollipops and marshmallows with me. Really good. You were great.

-It was wonderful.

-Thank you.

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