Episode 7 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, I blend the flavours of South East Asia

with fragrant sugar snap and bean sprout noodle laksa

and Thai sticky chicken.

I meet chef, Patrick Williams,

who shares a taste of the Caribbean with me in his home kitchen,

and I teach my cookery-school family how to make

a rich and creamy fish pie, a perfect family meal.

I love South East Asian food. I enjoy the combination of flavours -

the sweet, the sour and the salty.

I'm going to make a Thai sticky chicken, which is delicious.

It's sweet, it's sticky and it's juicy

and I'm going to serve it with a bowl of laksa.

A laksa is an Indonesian soup with noodles

and this is a bean sprout laksa.

I'm going to start with the Thai sticky chicken.

First of all, you need to score the chicken legs.

I'm using drumsticks and chicken thighs.

I prefer using the legs of the chicken for this dish rather than the breast.

I prefer the flavour and juiciness you get from the legs.

So, once the chicken is scored, put it into a bowl.

I'll just wash my hands.

Now, I'm going to make the marinade

and the marinade has classic South East Asian flavours.

A light brown sugar, some chopped red chilli -

without the seeds but you can leave the seeds in if you prefer -

some chopped ginger,

lots of garlic,

some lemongrass, chopped,

the juice of a couple of limes.

Roll the limes to soften them inside and they'll juice more easily.

So, as well as the limes, I'm going to put in some Thai fish sauce - nam pla.

A few tablespoons of that.

And lots of fresh coriander.

Whizz all these ingredients up to a good fine paste...

..and then spread all of this onto the chicken.

This is a really good marinade.

Now, if you can, marinade the chicken quite a bit ahead of time,

overnight preferably, or at least a few hours.

You'll get so much more flavour from the chicken.

So I'm just going to take this chicken and pop it into the fridge to marinate.

So this has been marinating for a while.

Do remember to take it out of the fridge

about quarter or half an hour before you want to cook it,

so it comes back up to room temperature first.

Smells great!

The fish sauce is salty, so you won't need salt.

Reserve the marinade for later, pop the chicken into a good hot oven - about 220 degrees centigrade -

for about 30-40 minutes until the chicken is completely cooked all the way through.

While the chicken is cooking, I'll make the laksa

and this laksa is absolutely delicious. It's quite substantial yet light.

First of all, I'll make the paste for the laksa,

so into a food processor I'm going to put lots of chopped garlic

and lots of chopped ginger,

chopped chilli,

some fish sauce,

and lots of fresh coriander.

Tear it up, using the stalks as well.

Some lemongrass. I've got a whole stalk of lemongrass here.

Slice the lemongrass.

Lovely. So lemongrass can go in.

And the juice of a lime.

So, mix it all up and whizz it to a paste.

In a wok or a saucepan, on the heat, pour a little bit of sesame oil.

When it gets nice and hot,

then add in the laksa paste.

Stir the paste on the heat for about two or even three minutes,

just until these ingredients just cook a little bit.

OK, now it's ready for me to go ahead and pop in the coconut milk...

..and the vegetable stock or a light chicken stock.

I'm using vegetable stock.

Turn the heat up high, bring it to the boil

and allow it to simmer for about eight minutes.

While I wait for this to cook,

I'm going to soak some rice noodles in boiling water

for about three to five minutes until they've softened.

Don't be tempted to break the noodles in half.

Keep them whole. It's very bad luck to break noodles in Asia.

So cover the noodles completely in boiling water.

While they are softening, I can finish the rest of the laksa.

Pop in the bean sprouts,

followed by the sugar snap peas

and just boil this

for about two or three minutes,

until the sugar snap peas are just about cooked.

I want them to be a bit crunchy and the bean sprouts too.

A tiny bit of lime juice.

Oh, that's fantastic!

Slice some spring onion at an angle

to scatter over the laksa when serving.

Great, the soup is nearly finished.

It's time to take the chicken out of the oven.

The chicken has been in the oven for about 35-40 minutes.

Mmm! Caramelised, sweet, sticky juices.

That looks absolutely gorgeous.

Remove all the pieces of chicken from the roasting tray

and then pour the reserved marinade into the roasting tray.

Put it on the hob and bring it up to the boil

and it's very important that you cook this completely -

this had raw chicken in it, so boil it for two minutes at least.

So all the juices now have reduced down to an even more sticky sauce.

Pour those over the chicken.

Take a couple of pieces of chicken...

And this is where normal, proper etiquette does not apply.

This is all about the slurping up of the noodles.

The laksa goes on top, in the bowl.

Scatter it now, finally, with some finely sliced spring onion,

a nice generous scattering of coriander leaves.

So there it is -

my bean sprout and sugar snap pea laksa with Thai sticky chicken.

'Today's cookery-school students are the Hough family from Hampshire.

'Mum, Barbara has to cook two different meals every night

'to cater for her family's tastes,

'so I'm teaching them a dish they can all cook and eat together.'

Now, today we're going to make fish pie. Who likes fish?

-I do.

-Martin, Barbara.

-Not me.

-You don't like fish?

-Love it.

-Love it?

-Becky?

-I only like fish when it's in batter.

Maybe in a lovely, lightly creamy sauce, mashed potato on top?

Yeah.

-Give it a try? Give it a try, Laura?

-Yeah.

-OK.

I cook in two sessions,

the children's meals first,

then I cook for Richard and myself

later in the evening and we eat about eight o'clock.

But we tend to cook more exotic food for ourselves.

Curries, chillies.

The children don't like them much, so that's why we eat separately.

This is a haddock,

which is not too unlike a cod, which is a round, white fish.

I'm going to actually fillet the haddock

in exactly the same way you would fillet any round fish.

Basically, you need a really good, sharp knife.

Now, cut through the skin all along the backbone like this,

but above the backbone

and you should feel the bones just below the blade of the knife.

But do you know what? If you have a fishmonger close to you who sells

good, fresh, filleted fish,

even better, even faster, if it will encourage you to cook with fish.

Now, I'm just cutting out these pin bones here.

These are like the little ribs.

OK? And on a round fish, there are two fillets like this - one here and one underneath.

So there's one fillet. So, Martin, you said you like fish?

-Yep.

-What kind of fish do you like?

Well, my favourite fish is sea bass.

Yum!

-Really, any way it comes...

-Any way it comes?

-..I love fish. Yeah.

Now I'm going to just skin the fish, so I'm just cutting

like this with the knife at an angle

The skin is quite tough and resilient

and it comes away quite easily.

So here is the fish filleted.

OK, we have got, Becky, two little individual dishes,

so we just need two portions like that. There are two for us.

So we've got three for each of you two with your bigger dishes,

and all these scraps, those little bits there,

just pop those under another piece, wrap it all up

and it looks like one beautiful,

fat portion. Great. I'm going to wash my hands at this stage

and then carry on with the fish pie.

I'd like to be able to have a dish that's quick, easy to prepare,

not too expensive as well - we've got to watch our pennies -

and that's just full of flavour.

Now, for the rest of the fish pie,

we have got an onion, we've got white wine.

The alcohol's will burn off during cooking so it is suitable for family cooking.

Some mustard, lemon, some butter, mushrooms,

some cream and herbs.

And also some mashed potato, which I've got in here,

which we're going to put on top of the pie.

Get that out of the way

and we have all got quite a shallow pan.

And we can chop the onion quite finely

or you can finely slice it, whichever you prefer.

-It's making my eyes water. I'm not even chopping it.

-Yeah.

These onions are really strong, aren't they? We're all crying!

OK, just gather up in your hands the chopped onion

and pop it into the saucepan.

Becky, would you like to take the two pieces of fish we're going to cook with,

two little pieces.

Lay them on top of the onions.

Barbara, take three and lay them on top of the onions.

Next thing we need to do is to put the hob on, not too high a heat,

-and take your glass of wine...

-And drink it?

-No!

-LAUGHTER

..over the fish and the onions.

If you prefer not to put it in,

just put in a little bit of, say, a fish stock.

That will be perfect, or a light chicken stock.

Also some lemon juice at this stage, little bit of salt and pepper,

and also you can put in just a few little knobs of butter

and this will richen it.

The butter is optional,

but this is just going to give it that rich, velvety flavour.

OK, so put the lids on.

Just bring the liquid up to the boil.

The haddock wasn't absolutely huge so it'll take maybe 10-12 minutes.

'Later on, the Houghs will be topping their fish pies

'with creamy mashed potato.'

'Coming up, chef Patrick Williams invites me for family lunch

'full of Caribbean flavour

'and the Hough family

'put the finishing touches to their fish pies.'

'Hidden away in the heart of London's legal district lies The Terrace In The Fields.

'Owned by chef, Patrick Williams since 2005,

'The Terrace serves British classics with a contemporary Caribbean twist.'

-Two fishcake starters, two jerk.

-Away, chef.

'Patrick's mission is to prove that Caribbean food isn't all spice and starch as some people think,

'but does he use a taste of the Caribbean in his home cooking?'

Hello, very well, thank you.

Debbie.

-Hi, Debbie.

-Hi.

-How are you?

-Olivia and Joshua.

-Hi, Joshua.

-He just wants to run away.

-Hi!

OK, so this is the kitchen.

So this is going to be an oxtail stew?

Yeah, an oxtail stew. I have a few favourites, oxtail being one of them.

I think it's more of a childhood thing.

So I've got some pimento seeds. I'm going to put a few in here.

-OK.

-Smell?

-Yeah.

Also known as allspice berry, as you know.

-Yeah.

-Some black pepper.

Are pimento seeds used a lot in Jamaican cooking?

Yes, in jerk seasoning, it's the main...

Apart from Scotch bonnet being the heat,

-the pimento seeds are the spice and the flavour around the jerk seasoning.

-Really? Right.

-OK, just...

-All of it?

-Yes, please. Just put all of it on.

-Oh, wow!

Seriously spiced. Lovely.

Now get in and give it a good mix.

People have a misconception about Caribbean food - all hot, all the time -

but sometimes it's seasoned well and it's depth of flavour.

As opposed to hot, hot spice?

Exactly. I'm using the Scotch bonnet whole in this recipe,

so we can remove it to take the heat out when we want.

Just stand back - I don't want to burn you.

It's important to get it hot enough.

As soon as the meat goes in there, the juices start to cool the pan down

and we don't want it to boil,

we want it to actually brown and seal.

We can leave that to brown and get on with cutting up some vegetables.

Right.

What we're using is onions, peppers, tomatoes,

Scotch bonnet and garlic.

And these Scotch bonnets are just the hottest.

These are pretty much the hottest. You wouldn't...

No, no. Well, they do...

In the Caribbean, they do serve it chopped just on the side as is,

so you can munch on it as well.

-That's for the brave. OK.

-Very brave!

Is this something that little Joshua likes?

Yeah, when he was younger, it was one of his favourite dishes.

It's that gelatinous content - quite easy to mush down once it's cooked.

Did you eat lots of this food growing up?

The fantastic thing is, being born in London,

you get Caribbean fare. That's all I ever ate.

Really? Always Caribbean food?

Only Caribbean food.

And Caribbeans, when we cook,

we cook just in case somebody drops in, just in case.

Back in the day in the Caribbean, if you didn't have anything,

no money or riches, you always had food

and if somebody came into your house, the least you could offer was food.

-I will just quickly blanch some tomatoes...

-OK.

..and I'll also put those in.

-I'll get the peppers in now.

-OK.

-I just don't like skin.

-Yeah, it doesn't break down so well.

-Tomatoes in.

-OK.

Meat will go back into the pan with the vegetables. Give it a stir.

Only thing left to do now is add your stock or water

and then your Scotch bonnet.

OK.

And that will be left for an hour and a half to two hours

until the meat falls off the bone.

What I like to serve with the oxtail

is the classic rice and peas.

I've got here beans that have been soaked overnight,

thyme, I'm going to throw a Scotch bonnet in again, whole.

-Whole? That's interesting.

-Just to season, not for any heat at all.

We add the rice - I tend to use basmati -

and with that as a base and the oxtail,

you've got a match made in heaven.

-Was that coconut milk?

-Coconut milk.

This is a stock that we cook around the peas

and the basmati rice gets added to this.

I see. So, kidney beans, garlic, onion,

coconut milk... Wow, great!

And cook for about half an hour, 45 minutes?

Yes, or until your peas are soft.

OK, Rach, I think it's time for the rice to go in.

So the kidney beans are at this stage cooked.

Give it a good stir.

I'm just top it with a cartouche, which is a posh name

for a piece of round greaseproof paper.

You know how sometimes the top gets really dry in the oven and hard?

This seals everything in and you should come out with a perfect dish.

So, just going to put it in the oven.

Should take between 10 and 15 minutes to cook and that's it.

OK!

Oh, look!

This is purple!

I think he wants some!

Thank you. This looks yummy, doesn't it, Joshua?

Oh, look at that.

Oh, it's so tender,

falling off the bone.

Debbie, do you cook much at home?

No, not really. I leave most of that to Patrick.

I do cook for Joshua and me sometimes.

OK. And if you do cook, does he watch over your shoulder?

It's more sort of once he's eaten the food that...

LAUGHTER

Patrick and Debbie, thank you so much.

This has been great. Delicious food.

-I love that oxtail, Patrick. Thank you.

-Glad you liked it.

Mmm.

Now it's back to cookery school and time for

the Hough family to finish off their fish pies.

While the fish is cooking, we can prepare our mushrooms

and we have some mushrooms here, which we'll slice and saute.

When you buy mushrooms, they're dirty.

How do you clean...? I heard you shouldn't wash them.

No, they do absorb water very quickly.

Either give them a quick rinse or, even better, just wipe them

with damp kitchen paper. That's the best thing.

We eat at home together once a week as a family, normally on a Sunday.

During the week we're so busy,

all over the place, that we don't eat together.

I would like to eat normally as a family

so we can all have the same food.

What we're going to do now is slice the mushrooms.

So, Becky, just about this thick.

Great. You're great at keeping your fingers back. Well done.

So a little bit of butter in here.

In we can go with the mushrooms.

Pop all the mushrooms in quickly, Martin.

Right, season the mushrooms with a little bit of salt

and some pepper, chef.

Give the mushrooms a little toss.

Have a little look at the fish,

while the mushrooms are sauteing, and see how it is.

We know it's cooked when it's quite opaque,

when it's white all the way through.

Have a little look in like that.

It's still a bit pink inside.

Still not quite cooked.

That needs another few minutes.

Barbara and Martin's fish is cooked. Yours might be.

-I think so.

-Take it out,

leaving all the lovely juices and the onions behind

and pop it into your fish-pie dish.

The mushrooms at this stage, yeah, are perfectly cooked.

Take out the mushrooms.

Great, Becky, thank you.

OK, so I think at this stage I can take...yeah, the fish out.

Actually, Becky, would you like to do that?

Each piece of fish can go into each pie dish. Great.

OK, so now, turn the heat up to high

and let's add some cream.

-What does the cream do to the sauce?

-It gives you a delicious, smooth, rich sauce.

So fish pie to die for?

Yes, it will be.

While we're waiting for it to boil a little bit more,

we could chop some herbs and I can give you some fennel.

Would you like to take some little leaves off the thyme sprigs?

Maybe some chives.

Could you use dried herbs?

The flavours of dried herbs are very strong.

I think they would just overtake in something like this.

I would always go for fresh.

-I can smell the herbs already.

-Can you? Do you like the smell?

-Yeah.

-Richard, your sauce looks like it's boiled down

and reduced quite a lot, doesn't it?

-It has.

-Lovely. What you could do is

turn off the heat at this stage,

add in some mustard, your chopped herbs and the sauteed mushrooms.

OK.

Becky, would you mind throwing

the mushrooms into the sauce as well? Great.

OK, now we all need to taste the sauce.

This is the most important thing.

-Mmm, that's delicious.

-It tastes really good.

Simply spoon the sauce over the fish. There.

Now, I have got a piping bag here.

This is quite a nice soft mashed potato. Pipe it all around the edge.

You can cover the fish as well.

Oh, look at that lovely sauce.

-Would you like to try and do the other one?

-OK.

Holding the piping bag at the top like this

and just squeezing it and then give it a little...

round and pull it up quickly.

'Cooking's important to me'

because I'd like to cook for myself when I leave home

and with my kids when I'm older.

Be a bit more generous.

There!

Lovely. Becky's getting a bit carried away here

with the piping bag, I can see.

You don't have to use a piping bag.

It looks lovely just with mashed potato

spread over the top and kind of roughed up with a fork.

Then we're going to pop these into a moderate oven

for about 20-30 minutes.

Oh, Becky, look at ours!

Gorgeous and golden and bubbly.

To get mashed potato that's really lovely and golden on top,

put in an egg yolk or two while you're mashing it with the milk and butter.

That gives a lovely golden colour.

-Fab.

-It looks fabulous.

It does, doesn't it? Though you say so yourself!

Let's take these outside and we'll taste them.

Now, Laura, do you want to...?

They smell really good, don't they?

They do.

Becky, do you like the haddock, the fish?

Yeah, it's really nice. I was first worried because

I don't like fish that's not in batter,

I don't like cream or mushrooms, but it's actually really nice.

This is absolutely delicious.

I'm just so looking forward to

being able to cook one decent meal like this.

-Laura, do you like it?

-I think it's really nice.

I didn't like fish at first, but it's really changed my mind.

That's brilliant!

I've enjoyed it immensely. I've discovered

we might have three budding cooks that'll help out in the evenings, which is great.

Rachel's really inspired me to do just the one meal

and seeing the appreciation on the children's faces,

knowing they'll eat it and enjoy it, is going to be wonderful.

It's going to give me my evenings back, really.

OK, the question is,

would you all sit around the table and eat this?

ALL: Yes.

Yes, definitely.

That's a result!

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