ETW episode 1
Category
🦄
CreativityTranscript
00:00Summer time is here and there's some incredible British fruit and veg bursting with flavour
00:12and ripe for the picking. From succulent strawberries to tiny cherry tomatoes that are like miniature
00:19flavour bombs. These are the incredible ingredients that are best right now. They're at their
00:24most delicious, most affordable, better for you and the planet. So if you've got a little
00:30bit of time to make something special, I've created some exciting meals for whatever the
00:34occasion to make the most of what's in season, taking fruit and veg to the next level. What
00:42a dish. From epic ideas for upgrading your roast dinner, come on, to delicious vibrant
00:48soups, the freshest salads and sizzling on the barbecue. Getting that flavour of now
00:53and in creamy sweet puddings and tarts. Absolutely gorgeous. So join me at home in my shed as
01:00I spend a year cooking what's in season in the hope that it inspires you to have a think
01:05about the way you cook, shop or even grow your food too. And that my friends is definitely
01:11the flavour of the summer.
01:13Come on, come on. Look at this. Fennel. Absolutely one of my favourite veggies. Look at that.
01:40Let's just pull it up. They've got quite short roots. It's not a full size. Ideally what you
01:48get is a really fat, plump sort of base and of course you don't just get the bulb part here,
01:56but the stalks are fantastic, amazing for sauces and then you've got the herbs. Look at that
02:01abundance of herbs. So summertime, if you go to the supermarkets now or down the farmer's markets,
02:08you're probably going to see a whole load of these. They smell amazing, quite aniseedy.
02:15That aniseediness is delicious and fresh when it's raw and then when you cook it,
02:21it really dulls down and just becomes this really perfumed, delicious, sweet vegetable that is great
02:28with meat, fish, cheese, beans, potatoes. So look, I've picked quite a lot but I've got plans for these.
02:37Can't wait to cook them. Come on, come.
02:46Beautiful new season fennel is in all the shops right now, so I'm taking both the bulb and
02:51delicate herby tops to new heights in a cheesy chickpea and bean gratin, along with juicy pork
02:57and the crunchiest crackling for a different take on a roast dinner in this epic summer
03:03roast pork fennel and bean gratin.
03:11I'm going to show you how to make the most beautiful pork roast. We're talking perfect
03:15cracklings, juicy meat and we're going to celebrate all this fennel. Banging season right now. It'll
03:21look like this in the supermarkets and then when you grow it, they're often sort of smaller and
03:26more tatty but they're absolutely delicious and one of my favourite ways to cook this perfect
03:32summer fennel is as a gratin. Delicious, sweet, slowly cooked, really tender and I'm going to
03:38serve that with roasted pork, cooked perfectly. Even in summertime, I love to roast meat and I've
03:43got a beautiful piece of free-range pork loin, right, it's been french trimmed and it's got six
03:48ribs here. What I'm going to do is just show you some very basic butchery that really anyone can do.
03:54If you look at the fat, can you see there's a little seam here, right? So what I'm going to do
03:57is take my knife, very gently, just score down that seam. Then I'm going to go to the side, see
04:03there's that little line here again, very gently follow that line and then I'm going to go to this
04:09side. So I've done the three sides of the pork, nothing technical, right and then we can just start
04:16following that line. So I've literally cut the fat in half, flip this over. Now you can score
04:24a skin with your knife but there's a way that I find you can do it very easily. What I have is a
04:30Stanley knife that I use just for the kitchen and you can wash it, take it apart but you can also
04:35control the depth of the blade. Very carefully drag it down to get a nice little score. This will
04:41allow the heat of the oven to get in to the skin and give you the most amazing crackling.
04:46Can you see that concertina effect and that means not only can heat get in there but also you can
04:57flavour in there with spices and salt and pepper and make it even more delicious. On the other side
05:03just score the fat like that and that's going to help it render quicker. So the crackling ready to
05:10go. Now on to the pork, just score very lightly the fat. You're not trying to cut into the meat,
05:16just lightly scoring down, creating texture. The fat will render and it will baste the pork as it
05:23renders and we like that. Right let me wash my hands. So next job is how do we create some
05:33beautiful flavour that amplifies all of this. There's a spice that I love which is fennel seeds.
05:39They come from the fennel plant when it goes to seed and they dry it. It's an incredible spice,
05:46it's one of my favourites. A couple of teaspoons of that with a couple of teaspoons of salt and then
05:53a couple of teaspoons of pepper and then nutmeg. I'm just going to finely grate into a pestle and
06:01mortar. This is going to create the most beautiful seasoning for the pork. The fennel is going to give
06:07it a nice summery edge. The nutmeg is really fragrant. Then we're going to use the pestle
06:13just to crack up the fennel seeds.
06:17We've created this texture on the pork and on the skin and now it's open to all these amazing
06:25sort of spices. All those little kind of grooves and concertina cuts filling up with beautiful
06:32seasoning. Salt, pepper, nutmeg, like this is how we achieve beautiful flavour and
06:39get it right in there, all the little grooves.
06:44So a nice wide casserole pan, medium high heat. I'm going to add a tiny amount of oil,
06:53then I'm going to go in that side down with the pork and you want that pan to heat up and start
06:59melting that white fat. So let that do its thing, at the same time get a nice little roasting tray
07:04ready and I'm going to start clanking up some fennel. Take this bulb here and just cut it into
07:11quarters. It's a wonderful, wonderful vegetable. Let's get my ones from the garden. Take the bulb
07:21like this, the little mini bulbs I'll put in whole and then this bigger bulb
07:28I'll just split in half like that and that will roast down and be beautiful. So basically we've
07:32got a fennel trivet. If we have a little look at this pork here, if I turn it over, look at that!
07:39Come on! That's what it's all about, flavour, colour and toasting those spices. So in there as well
07:45put a little bit of onion action. These are some big spring onions. A bulb of garlic in half.
07:54So the trivet is ready and raring to go. I think we've browned this off beautifully. One last thing
08:00I like to do is introduce a herb. I've got some sage, it could be thyme, it could be rosemary
08:06and something that really kicks this herb into the next level is to use this as a herb brush, right?
08:12Angle that pan with that amazing pork fat and get the sage leaves in there. The smell right now is
08:18phenomenal. Now we've got the fat on here, I can put this in and around the tray and we can just
08:24mix all of this up like that and then just move the pork. Look at that! Sizzling and beautiful and
08:34ready to roast. I'm going to put it at the bottom of the oven at 200 degrees celsius, which is 400
08:40fahrenheit and then clever bit, we're going to take this crackling, right? Give it a little bit
08:46of that amazing fat like that and we're going to put this directly above it, straight on the bars.
08:52That is going to puff up and all that excess fat is going to rain down on here and just baste,
08:57baste, love and care for that pork. Let's get the base for the beans going, okay? So I'm going to take
09:05these fennel stalks and I'm going to roughly chop them, just kind of like centimetre chunks
09:10and even though we've had the raw pork on here, right? This is all going to get cooked.
09:14We're going to fry this off in all that rendered pork fat. This is an onion from the garden but
09:20you can use white onion, red onion, spring onion if you want. Centimetre slices.
09:28Just get your garlic, again this is from the garden but whatever garlic you get, just take
09:33that outer skin off and just finely slice. Four, five cloves of garlic go in and just stir it and
09:44I want to cook this for about 15 minutes. Time for a nice little clean and then we can put the rest
09:50of this gratin together.
10:02It's not seasoned yet so you want a little bit of salt going in and pepper.
10:07I want to add to this story, you could go white wine, you could go vermouth or I'm thinking like
10:13pork, fennel, cider. About a glass. Now I turn the heat up and we'll cook most of that away.
10:24There is a secret ingredient that will divide people, you don't have to do it. Three fillets
10:30of anchovy, a little bit of the oil. Anchovy, fennel, pork works really well. What I've got here
10:39is like a little story of beans, so this isn't going to be baked beans as you know it, this is a
10:44gratin. Chickpeas first, then butter beans. Look at those, just beautiful, love butter beans and then
10:53cannellini beans. Jarred ones I love, the tinned ones are fantastic, really affordable, you can get
11:00them everywhere. I've got some creme fraiche and a little bit of parmesan. Now you can use any cheese
11:06you want, gruyere, cheddar, whatever you love. So you want a nice little grating of parmesan, it looks
11:11more than it is, it's about 100 grams or so. So let's finish off this gratin by adding three or
11:17four tablespoons of creme fraiche and the smell is amazing. Turn the heat off and add the parmesan.
11:27This could actually be a centrepiece in its own right. A little bit of parmesan on the top and
11:32this is ready to go in the oven. Now that pork I reckon's had pretty much an hour now.
11:39Let's have a little look at that, come on.
11:44Let's get this crackling. I'm really pleased with that, look at that crackling. At this stage we're
11:50going to put this gorgeous gratin in the oven, same temperature. In about half an hour that's
11:58going to be perfect. This pork has had an hour so I'm going to rest it for half an hour. Mix that
12:05all up in all those last bits of juices and I'm going to pop that in for five or ten minutes until
12:10it's really golden and gorgeous.
12:21Let's get those beautiful veggies out.
12:27Look how lovely this fennel has cooked. Soft, caramelised and delicious, really, really nice.
12:34These are perfect. What a lovely celebration of fennel. Okay, time to carve the pork. I'm going to
12:42put the crackling to one side, take that rib and cut down confidently to reveal just a hunk of pork.
12:51Look at that. Juicy, juicy pork. Just look at that. Gnarly on the outside, pearly white on the inside.
13:02But I do want to give you a second choice. It's very, very simple. I'm going to run the knife next
13:08to these ribs here, right, and just carefully by angling it towards the ribs, not the meat.
13:14So these are like little baby back ribs.
13:19But what you've really done is free up this beautiful loin of pork. Do nice thin slithers.
13:26Go as thin as you can. You're able to stretch your portions further, which is good for your wallet,
13:32good for your health and just helps you to get more out of this incredible pork.
13:38Imagine that on a summer dinner table and then when it comes to the crackling, obviously the
13:45best bit is the noise. Never enough crackling. Back onto the platter we go. How exciting is this?
13:57Let's get the gratin out. Look at that. Beautiful sweet fennel gratin with chickpeas,
14:05beans, parmesan. A little sea of heaven. Right, let's serve up.
14:16Let's go for our pork. I'm going to go for the chunk.
14:22And then let's get that beautiful fennel.
14:26A couple of little bits of crackling. Just so good. So a few bits of those fennel herbs on top
14:33and that's a beautiful summer plate of food. I'm going to start with the gratin with gorgeous summer fennel.
14:45So from that kind of really fragrant aniseed vibe, that's not there anymore. What you have
14:51is deep sort of fragrant sweetness. It's utterly, utterly delicious.
15:00And if you look at the fennel here on top, it's just so tender.
15:04Transformed. Oh, so good. Let's get on to the pork. Look at that chop.
15:17The meat is really tender. That is a brilliant summer roast. Very different. Embracing wonderful
15:25seasonal veggies. The fennel, the bulb, the roots, the stalks and the herbs. Utterly delicious.
15:33If you're out shopping this, if you see fennel, don't walk past it. Get some. You won't regret it.
15:38So
15:52look at these beautiful pea plants. I love peas. I love them so much. And if I'm really honest,
16:08probably like most peas I have, are frozen. I always have a pack in my freezer for sure. So
16:13convenient. But peas, when they're at their best, get down the markets, get in the supermarkets,
16:18get the fresh peas. They're banging season right now, from June until October.
16:23Look at that. It's literally perfection. A raw pea in a salad with some salty cheese,
16:30olive oil, lemon juice. Delicious. But also these pods, like they're quite fibrous. Look,
16:37but if you put this into a little broth or a stock, you can command out all this gorgeous
16:43sort of sweet pea flavour. Honestly, as brilliant as frozen are, nothing, nothing tastes like fresh.
16:52Give them a go.
17:02Perfectly in season right now. I'm taking these gorgeous sweet summer peas to another level with
17:08parmesan, goat's cheese and a lemon citrus hit to make the most oozy, unctuous, sweetest pea risotto.
17:21I'm going to give you a recipe that is amazing. It's celebrating all vegetables, but particularly
17:27I think sweet peas in summer are one of the very best, with a lovely, creamy, oozy risotto.
17:36At the very beginning of a beautiful, perfect risotto starts actually with stock. If you want
17:42to go extraordinary, if you want to go to the next level, I will get a whole chicken and I poach it
17:47with water, some fragrant veggies, bit of herb for one hour, 20 minutes. You get the most succulent
17:54chicken that falls off the bone and a really elegant chicken broth. Now I strip every ounce
18:01of meat off the bone right, it goes in sandwiches, stir fries, pies, chicken curries right. So that's
18:07just my little thing, you don't have to do that by the way. Have a litre of boiling water, put in a
18:11stock cube, it'll be great, but most people when they prep peas put this in the bin. The flavour
18:19in these pea shells or pods is so insane, it is like the essence of peas and in the next couple
18:28of minutes they'll just wilt down, but the broth that comes out of here is gonna be mind-blowing.
18:34Now risottos are the most amazing way to use up seasonal vegetables. It begins with the sofrito,
18:42this is the base for risottos, soups, stews. So one onion from the garden, we love that. I just peel it
18:51and I'm gonna finely slice it.
18:56Don't stress about being too accurate with this, just chop it through.
19:03So celery goes in, now with the celery, see these lovely little yellow leaves? These are gold dust,
19:10absolutely delicious. We'll sprinkle that over the top of the risotto and I'm gonna put it
19:15into this water along with pea shoots. Let's just chop this up. It really doesn't matter how you chop
19:24up your celery and onions, the easiest way is to cross chop like this and just keep going until
19:29it's nice and fine. We want a nice little high-sided, wide pan. We're gonna put it onto a
19:34medium-high heat, a little olive oil, a couple of tablespoons and then a little knob of butter.
19:41We go in with the onions and celery. Our first job is to soften this off. Coat it in that oil and butter
19:49and cook it down until sweet and softened for about five minutes, giving it a stir every now and again.
19:59Conker, he's having fun, bless him.
20:02He's having fun, bless him.
20:05The next stage of risotto, the rice. This is Arborio risotto rice, a plump, stubby little rice grain.
20:14The first thing the rice is going to get is the oil and the fat and the sweetness from the
20:19vegetables and we're going to move the rice around in that and almost let that fat penetrate the rice
20:25grain to make it go translucent, almost toasting it. After about a minute, there's a little stage
20:31here now which is an optional extra. You can put booze in here. I'm going to use white wine, just a
20:37little half glass goes in. So white wine is very typical. If you don't want wine, don't put it in.
20:44What's important is that we cook all of that wine away. I mean ironically, I don't want it to taste
20:49whiny. What you're going to get left with is the sweetness and the grapey gorgeousness. That's
20:54going to work really well with seasonal sweet peas. You can see that's all gone now and the rice is
21:00starting to stick together a little bit and that's that natural sort of starchiness coming
21:04out of the rice. So now we're going to go in for that beautiful pea shell infused chicken stock.
21:11Pour that in one ladle at a time. What we want to do is add the stock bit by bit.
21:17You can start to see now that creaminess getting massaged out of the rice.
21:26When you're down the markets and you see a vegetable, you're like do I do this, do I do
21:29that, do I do it or do I risotto it? And risotto is just a gift because it can embrace leftovers,
21:35meat, fish, vegetables. So let it cook away, get the ladle, another one goes in and we stir again.
21:44Oh we're like two and a half minutes away. I'm going to go in now with some of those peas,
22:01raining peas, about half of those, don't need too much. I'm going to save those for other things.
22:07Raw peas in salad, in stir fries, make a lovely little stew, summer stew. They're now going to
22:14cook in this risotto for that last couple of minutes as it becomes perfect. A knob of butter,
22:22right classic, can't do it without it.
22:27And I'm going to go in with about 80 grams of parmesan.
22:31Turn the heat off, I do not want to cook the risotto with parmesan in it. These cheeses,
22:37they're quite delicate, I don't want to boil it, just let it relax for two minutes.
22:44I'm going to finish it with a lovely British goat's cheese. There's one unclassic ingredient
22:53that I love in summer with peas and goat's cheese and that's just like a squeeze of lemon juice,
23:01sunshine and I just love it.
23:03That is now perfect, oozy and delicious and going over my shirt, but I don't care, look at that.
23:13So we are good to go now. Let's serve up this beautiful oozy risotto, just finished with a few
23:22little bombs of that amazing goat's cheese, a couple of little pea shoots. I've got these
23:29borage flowers here, if you're out and about in the garden, there's herb flowers, use them,
23:33don't just look at them. We're reflecting summertime, just some little celery leaves.
23:40Gorgeous and that is a beautiful little plate of summer risotto, just a little final parmesan.
23:52Let's get in there, I want a bit of everything.
23:59Wowza, the peas are popping in my mouth, so sweet. It's light, elegant, it's sweet,
24:06it's fragrant and then every now and again you get a little bang with that goat's cheese,
24:12a little bit of sourness. So listen, peas are in season right now,
24:17have a look down the supermarket to the market, what are you waiting for?
24:22So
24:34look at all this, it's such a nice time of year. Carrots are really good right now and if you get
24:52down the markets and supermarkets, you'll see that there's some incredible local produce.
24:57Look at these coming out so beautifully and I have to say this is the optimal size,
25:04where sweetness is fantastic. Hello Conker, oh look at those.
25:11Carrots originally, if you look back at the really old varieties, were purple, sometimes
25:16almost black in colour, but you could get yellow ones, white ones, pink ones, you can get carrots
25:21all year round and if you see a wonky little veg like this, support it, they've got feelings,
25:27they're all equal and that's partly because if they hit a little stone or something a little
25:31bit firm, they'll just change direction. They're just really good at growing anywhere and around
25:36anything. Right now, carrots are going to be at their very best, sweetest and most delicious
25:42and they should be a really good price and there are so many things you can do with these beauties.
25:48Right, let's get cooking.
25:58I'm gonna make the humble carrot shine in a slaw of all slaws, a spicy yogurt ripple brought
26:04together with herby citrus marinated chicken in a pimped up tortilla, bringing the summer vibes
26:11in a rainbow salad wrap.
26:15The thing for me about cooking in season is kind of a state of mind, it changes what you're looking
26:19at down the markets and supermarkets. Look for the local, look for what is in season at its best
26:24and of course we've got our naughty little carrot there who's happy to see us, plus some of those
26:28little purple ones and the little knobbly ones which are at their best right now. Before we get
26:33into slaw world, I want to talk about a good vinaigrette dressing. So in here, three tablespoons
26:41of olive oil, right, nice olive oil, heart healthy oil. It's very simple to remember,
26:46three parts olive oil, right, with one part beautiful red wine vinegar. I like to sort of
26:52just scatter gun this with a little whole grain mustard, very nice. We'll have a little bit of
26:59French and then we've got the English mustard. You can choose one mustard or have a blend, that's
27:04the point I'm making, this is a flexible recipe. A nice seasoning of salt and pepper and then simply
27:11I'm just going to use my hands just to mix it all up. You need seasoning and tang to make this
27:17really bang. If you want to put any herbs in there, please do, parsley, tarragon, dill, like whatever
27:24your thing is, just go for it. And this is our landing pad for the coleslaw. Let's talk about
27:31the leaves, any leaves, right, cabbage, white, red, you know, chard, could be spinach. Take the stalks off
27:40and then just roll this up like a sort of cigar. You're breaking down that fibrous part of the
27:47cabbage but also that's releasing natural sweetness and then finely slice. You could use
27:56little crinkle cutters, completely childish and really good fun. Let's do it with one of those
28:01purple carrots and let's just slice it up. The coleslaw that we all see in the supermarkets,
28:07in canteens, you know, is white cabbage, onion and carrot and what I'm trying to say is it can be a
28:14whole host of things, it can really embrace the seasonal veg that's at its best right now. So
28:20there's our little crazy crinkle cut carrots, look how pretty they are. So this is golden beetroot,
28:28just as easy to grow as purple, just stack them up like cards
28:36and you can use a box grater
28:39and you can take beautiful carrots and get that in there.
28:48But look, that's the spirit. Shred it up, matchstick it up, red cabbage, I got that from
28:55the supermarket, just speed peel. The colour's telling you that it's incredibly nutritious.
29:02So instead of the big fat onions, you can go spring onions, red onions, little shallots
29:08and then this green part here, this is all really good.
29:14Probably enough. Come on man, look at that. You don't even need to know anything about nutrition
29:19to know that that is the good stuff. I'm not going to dress it now because I want it to be like
29:24really crunchy and I want to do it at the last minute. Let's just clear this up and have a little
29:30wipe down.
29:39I want to show you how to make the most delicious chicken. This is a nice little technique that
29:44allows you to tenderise the meat and you can stretch it further. So two chicken breasts,
29:49instead of going for two people, you can make it go for four people, right, we like that.
29:53So take some greaseproof paper, I am going to use a pair of tongs so I don't have to touch the
29:58chicken. Fold it over like this. By just doing this, you're tenderising the meat, you're increasing
30:07the surface area, which means it can take on flavour much quicker and also cook in half the
30:14time. So first chicken done and then we go again. Let's do a quick marinade. Olive oil,
30:28a lemon goes in, some salt and some pepper. Let's just take some oregano,
30:37kind of rough it up a little bit and pinch it in. Flavour, flavour, flavour.
30:43So use the tongs to really rub it in and just pat it around. So you can let that marinade now
30:51for one minute, ten minutes, half an hour, you can even do it overnight.
30:55So let's just have a little clean down.
31:05I'm going to give you the most amazing kind of creamy base to go on that flatbread,
31:10to put the chicken and the slaw on. It's basically a yoghurt, tahini and harissa ripple.
31:17So I'm going to take this yoghurt, I'm then going to mix it with tahini. It's literally
31:23pureed, whizzed up sesame seeds, peanut buttery, a little bit kind of like satay chicken vibes
31:31with amazing harissa chilli paste oil. Look at the colours guys.
31:38Let's toss up this beautiful slaw. Anything that's purple like beetroots or that red cabbage,
31:43just keep to one side okay. We'll take everything else and we'll start tossing it up.
31:48Then at the last minute, then we go in with the beautiful red cabbage. Don't do it too early
31:53because it will just make everything go purple. That my friends is a beautiful slaw.
32:01We're then going to take our marinated chicken and go straight in there.
32:06Two minutes each side. Once it's in your hot pan, don't turn it.
32:12So we've had two minutes, flip that over. Gnarly and golden.
32:24The chicken has had its time.
32:29Turn the heat off. So then we take the chicken onto the board, take the knife and we'll just go
32:36through it about a centimetre. Look at that. So that chicken is very, very juicy. Can you see?
32:46That is going to be joyful.
32:50Let me give you another little tip to make your everyday boring tortilla a little bit more
32:54interesting. If you've got a gas hob, electric hob or induction with a really hot pan, put it on a
32:59really screaming hot heat and just move it around with tongs. It's going to toast it up and give you
33:04beautiful little undulating bubbles. Can you see? See? Puffing up. And now let's load this up.
33:13We're going to go in with that yoghurt and that tahini with that little hit of chilli. Then
33:23the beautiful slaw and then a few bits of that lovely chicken.
33:29Look how juicy that is. And we've got lovely feta cheese.
33:36And then the only polite thing to do is to pick it up, roll it up.
33:41Oh, chicken is so juicy. Slaw is just alive, full of life and flavour. And those carrots, so sweet,
33:50crunchy and delicious. What a lovely little lunch, dinner and an amazing way of taking
33:57those seasonal carrots and shredding them into the most incredible rainbow slaw.
34:02So the heavens have opened. This greenhouse does need fixing because it's nearly as wet in here
34:08as it is out there. Conker's having a little go on the drips. You alright?
34:13You okay?
34:14So the heavens have opened. This greenhouse does need fixing because it's nearly as wet
34:27in here as it is out there. Conker's having a little go on the drips. You alright mate?
34:35Now hanging baskets, love them. I grew up with hanging baskets. My dad used to go mad
34:40for it in the pub and used to pride himself on beautiful flowers and these floral sort
34:46of delights. But what I love about them is it doesn't have to just be ornamental, it
34:52can be edible. Also really importantly if you haven't got much space you can still grow.
34:57You can hang in anything that has holes. Strawberries and mint, that is basically dessert or cocktails.
35:05You can plant them out now. And these strawberries will keep growing, they'll literally cascade
35:09out of there and it's the most fantastic way to grow strawberries and pick them really
35:14easily until the end of summer. Now the second one, we're going to go savoury. We're going
35:19to do pizza. Cherry tomatoes, marjoram, some flowering thyme. So I've got some moss here.
35:27Now that slows down the drainage of this beautiful hanging basket. I'll put a little bit of peat
35:32free compost in there. Then I'm going to get myself some nice little cherry tomatoes. What
35:39I do is I always scuff up the ends like that, just to kind of get those little roots exposed.
35:49Then with our lovely marjoram here, or you could do oregano, or you could do basil. Get
35:55some of that nice peat free compost and pack it around. This one's a little flowering thyme.
36:01Just get that in there. So there you go, edible hanging baskets. Tomatoes, marjoram, flowering
36:08thyme. Look at that. A little bit of fun, but actually things like tomatoes and strawberries
36:14flourish by being hung. They're easier to pick. It keeps away a lot of the pests and
36:19things that want to eat it before you do. And actually the only pests I'm going to worry
36:23about is my kids. I reckon they're going to get this before I do. So keep on top of the
36:27watering and you'll be laughing. Come on, cocks.
36:39Look at these. I absolutely love beets. I call these beets, but it's beet roots. I think
37:03beets are actually one of my favourite veggies to grow. They're fantastic. Right now they're
37:08in season. So if you go down the supermarkets or farmer's markets, you're going to see them
37:12out there. So grab them and they're so good. Same family as Swiss chard, but obviously
37:19with these amazing roots. Look at that beautiful beet root. So I'll probably pronounce it wrong,
37:24but we call that a candy stripe beet root, which is not a technical term or chiodja.
37:28We have a little look here. We've got a white one. You can get yellow ones, pink ones. Let's
37:36have a little look inside here. Look at that. And when they're in season right now, the
37:43flavour is so extraordinary, so sweet. Just boil it, peel it, slice it, salt, pepper,
37:49olive oil and some good vinegar and that will be spectacular. Let's get cooking.
37:59I'm giving good old beet root the rock star treatment with a hack to make incredible sun
38:04dried tomato couscous, magnificent British mackerel roasted in a coriander rub and a
38:10big hitting horseradish sauce to give you crispy skin mackerel and beetroot salad for
38:16summer. Look at these beautiful beet roots. And when you think of beet roots, you're always
38:22thinking the purple ones, the big ones, the pickled ones, but there's so much more than
38:26that. Let's get going. I'm going to get this pan of water seasoned up with some salt and
38:32then I'm going to take these beets. These are quite small, smaller than a ping pong
38:35ball, so I reckon about 15 minutes should do it. Take the stalks off like this. So lid
38:42on top and then these leaves here, remove the stalks. That can go to the composter,
38:47but these I will wilt down a little bit later and they'll be delicious. I'm going to do
38:52some beautiful couscous. Now couscous is lovely, my family loves it. Just take 200 grams in
38:58here. Now I've got a lovely little cheat. Get yourself a jar of sun-dried tomatoes.
39:05It's sunshine in a jar. Get yourself a liquidiser, oil, the lovely sun-dried tomatoes, everything
39:13and give it a little bit of herb in there. Let's have a little bit of mint and just a
39:18tiny little bit of water and we're going to whiz this up. So just add a little bit
39:29of olive oil to loosen it. This in your risottos, your pastas, absolutely gorgeous and then
39:43a nice wodge of it in here. This will give the couscous the most amazing colour and flavour
39:51in no time at all. Just cover with about a centimetre of boiling water. I'm going to
39:57have the beetroot water, so double flavour. Put a little pinch of salt in there and then
40:04once you've mixed it up, just put a cloth over the top and let it steam and in 5-10
40:10minutes that will be light and fluffy and delicious. Let's talk about mackerel. I absolutely
40:17love mackerel. When you buy fresh fish, we're looking for colour. Look at the fresh eyes,
40:22we want that. So I want to do a little rub that just makes this incredible meaty fish
40:28like even more savoury and gives you a lovely crispy skin and I want to use a spice that
40:33is often forgotten about, coriander seeds. They're really fragrant, quite savoury and
40:40I just want to crack this up with a really nice pinch of salt and pepper. Oh the smell
40:50is so fragrant. I'm just going to rub the mackerel with a little olive oil, not much,
40:56just a little and then that will let this beautiful rub stick to it. Look at that. Sun
41:06is starting to set. So roll the fish in that lovely savoury seasoning and then I want to
41:13use a herb that I love dearly with fish, particularly oily fish and that's thyme and if you grow
41:19your own thyme, even if you've got a window box, it's brilliant. I'm going to stuff this
41:24in the cavity and it will just steam nicely. Oil, a little roasting tray and then we're
41:31going to lay these beautiful mackerel inside and I've got the wood oven on. You want to
41:38preheat your oven to full whack. This oven is about 220 degrees Celsius, which is 430
41:43Fahrenheit. So nice and hot. Get these in the oven for about 10 minutes. Lovely. Right,
41:54I want to show you how to make a fresh horseradish sauce. Amazing with beets, amazing with oily
41:59fish. You can buy horseradish in markets particularly and some supermarkets. If you can't get it,
42:06that's fine, you can find jars of grated horseradish and even creamed horseradish but if you can
42:10get the root, this is an amazing thing. Just get a little peeler on the outside to expose
42:15the white flesh. You want a nice big handful of horseradish. It's strong. I've got a nice
42:22bowl of fresh Greek yogurt here. What it will require is quite generous seasoning of salt.
42:30Look at that sun coming through. Come on Mr Sun, you've been playing with me all week.
42:37Half the juice of a lemon in there. Right, so that's done. Very quick and easy. So we've
42:43got the beets. Let's get in there. So what I'm going to do for the last one minute is
42:49just put in the beet leaves. Let's have a little clean down.
42:55Okay, so we've had that little cheeky minute. Look at that orange coloured water. I'm just
43:14going to pinch off the outer skin, take off the little roots. Just use your thumb and
43:20forefinger to take that skin off and by the way you can do exactly this with purple beets
43:25as well. I'm just going to slice up into halves, maybe some into quarters. Look at the colours.
43:35It doesn't need much more than salt, some lovely olive oil and then a tiny little swig
43:42of vinegar. And once you've dressed it, sweep this into a little dish just for a second
43:51because what I'm going to do is go back to our couscous. Get a little fork and look at
43:57that. Just so delicate. Hot, steamy, blushing with that sunshine, sun-dried tomato paste.
44:08Homemade, great hack. Couscous is good. We're going to put over the beautiful beets. Come
44:19on, look at these colours. What a celebration. I can hear the fish sizzling away. Oh, it
44:28looks good. Just amazing. What a joy. You've got the olive oil and the fish oils. Those
44:41Omega 3s that so many of us don't get enough of. Mackerel is such a fantastic fish. It's
44:47often very good value. Look at that. Imagine taking that to a dinner table, right? What
44:57a beautiful thing. Build a little base of the couscous, the greens and the beautiful
45:05beets. I remove the head and I just run the fork down the back and then very simply that
45:13whole fillet will just pop off. Wowzers. And then last but not least, a good dollop of
45:22that horseradish sauce. Let's get amongst it. I'm going to go for a bit of everything.
45:29Wow. The sweetness of those beets is epic. The sunshine from those tomatoes on the couscous,
45:45the heat from the horseradish, the crispy skin on the fish. This is so good. An amazing
45:54dish to celebrate the seasonal beetroot. I love it. Conker, do you want to try a little
46:07bit of mackerel? But you can't have horseradish. That is a brilliant, brilliant end to the
46:18day. Me, my best mate and that is a plate full of sunshine.