Nigella Kitchen S01E06 Don t Knock It Till You ve Tried It

I love the kitchen for me it's not just a place to cook in and eat in it's a place to live in and maybe I shouldn't say this cuz I know it's a terrible cliche but it's true the kitchen really is the heart of the home and what's also true for me is that it doesn't really matter whether I've got time on my hands and I can cook slowly and leisurely or if I'm really up against it and have to do frantically fast meals the thing is if I'm in the kitchen I'm happy when it comes to food I believe in giving everything a go now the rewards for the adventurous eater are obvious but actually they're there for the cook too every time I cook something for the first time I never can get over how easy it is make bread in minutes my Irish oten rolls require no yeast no kneading and provide instant comfort and instant gratification putting salt into a sweet course might sound odd but believe me my sweet and salty crunchy nut bars are the stuff of greedy dreams if I suggest you make black rice by Dino it's squid ink please don't shake in horror because I promise you my squid risotto is as spectacular to eat as it is simple to make and finally I like to breathe new life into old traditions by getting a shin of beef braising it with Asian flavors and topping it with a sour hot crunchy salad there is so much mystique around bread making and I get it up to a point but the thing is making bread is not hard the worst that can be said is that there's a lot of hanging around but not with my Irish open rolls I mean they're pretty well instant I'm starting off with 200 grams of strong wholemeal flour and strong means there's a lot of gluten which you need for bread not for cakes and now these are oten rolls so you need 50 grams of oats there they are don't use instant oats by the way a teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of bicarb or baking soda and that's why I normally bread like this is called soda bread but we call it bicarb just a teaspoon and now the magic the ingredients that make the bike are pretty act you want some stout if it's flat that's great and this has lost most of its fears well a bit left there very Irish and equally Irish actually some buttermilk will use runner yogurt that was lucky and to stir these together you know so the point about this is that you don't need to wait for the weekend you've got someone coming around rather unexpectedly this is the basis for a fantastic impromptu meal and some oil just to spoon those two tablespoons this is ordinary ground nut oil you don't want any strong flavours we've got enough there with the stout and the flower itself has a fabulous nutty taste now here's the thing the oil that's gone into this tablespoon will make sure that the honey and I need two tablespoons of that slips easily off the spoon let's hope the second one does and if you're not using oil in a recipe ever all you need to do is get a bit of oil on some kitch and wipe around this guess I need to wash that up so of course unlike bread normally you don't have to need this you just mix it up you want a porridge rather than a dry dough really you're going from mixture to meal in under half an hour all you need to do to turn this into a meal is throw together some bits and pieces to eat with I've got some Cornish on and onions they're like little gherkins got some caper berries and some cream cheese but a smoked salmon to go with some dill because it's reminding me of the greenness of Ireland and I love the taste of it the whole point of these is their rustic charm so don't worry about them looking perfect this little adornment of oats and these need just 12 to 15 minutes in a 220 oven and the whole house will be filled with a heady and welcoming scent of baking Oh vision my small fish baking there's one evening that I remember seared into my mind when I was watching TV grazing greedily as one does and I had some sort of peanuts in one hand and some chocolate in the other and I have to tell you the combination was just a taste sensation and I've worked on several recipes really to bring these two partners together and I am in a fever of excitement at my latest venture Sixto sometimes I just feel like going near lusciously over the top and when I'm in that mood my salt and sweetie crunchy nut bar is a must there's something about it that is just addictive and perhaps part of that is that the base of it for all it's name is chocolate you can really use chocolate and whatever permutation you like just 300 grams of chocolate at the moment I'm using 200 grams of milk chocolate and a hundred of dark but sometimes I feel like that children's party sweetness and I use all milk sometimes I feel like being very sophisticated and I use all dark to help the chocolate melt and later set silkily I need some butter don't give me any trouble about this you wouldn't eat this every day even I wouldn't do this every day I could I went on top of the butter just a bit of golden syrup about three spoonfuls to help everything stay glossy when it melts and now we can begin cautiously course the melting gonna help everything on its way so really I am making chocolate bars out of chocolate bars it's worth it now I've promised you sweet and salty and I shall give you sweet and salty in fact salty first provided just by regular salted peanuts odd perhaps to have in something that's sweet but for me the balance between salt and sweet is so fantastic when you eat these it's like several Klaxons going off in your head all at once now I'm the sweet just in case the golden syrup on the chocolate weren't enough is provided by some chocolate coated honeycomb bars there a very few certain pleasures in life but this is surely one of them now the chocolate has melted and I have the most fantastic pan for molten chocolate lake in here mix peanuts and honeycomb together so that everything the salt and sweet is dispersed equally so you get a bit of each and every bite and in to the pan and then straightaway into another pan I use a throw away foil container one that's actually sold for barbecuing I think but it's so easy it does mean you can get the chocolate bars out very easily otherwise just use a 20 centimeter by 30 centimeter tin and line it with foil now I would say once this is sat in the fridge for about 4 hours it really depends on how cold your fridges I cut these into about 16 they go very fast make sure to get yours in first hmm into the fridge the sweet and salty crunchy nut bars are set and ready to go on their plate a pyramid of pleasure you you when I was about 15 I was going through a very profound Oscar Wilde period and I was so obsessive that not only did I have to eat everything he ever wrote but I had to read anything that might be even subliminally mentioned in one of his books and there was I think some sort of reference to a book that Lord Henry Wotton gave Dorian Gray and the book in real life was a novel called a kibou translated nominees against the grain and it was meant to be the sort of apogee of of decadence and in it was a meal that everything was black and piles of caviar and strange things like mule steaks and stews in licorice water and I hadn't really thought about this until I went to Venice and then when I saw there this fantastically moody dark squid risottos I thought you know what I'm gonna have my decadent moment I am gonna cook my black risotto pad of the squid ink don't worry this won't hurt at all the squidding can some sachets I get them from the fishmonger on to snip off and squirt this really thick viscous ink into the stock doesn't look that black now but it will it will my second session right so the risotto proper the black risotto is simply a risotto that's dyed black with squid ink hence my squink risotto some olive oil just regular olive oil I've got some chopped spring onions and now some garlic normally I'm so happy to use garlic infused oil but because of the pungency Wilier the squid ink it does it smells of the sea and it's like some deep experience long long ago I want the real heat and hit of fresh garlic and into this goes the rice I like carnaroli Carnaroli I want 250 grams so the idea here is to turn the rice into the oil just so it's slicked with it slightly it's not going to be glossy it's too much rice and not enough oil normally with risotto you put white wine in at this stage but I want to revel in the deep dark tones of the squiddy and some caper red wine and again the deep flavors are much more suitable so that's a slight a glass of red wine here the bubble Rubi liquid there stir this in I don't want this to Bob in the way but just to bubble down a bit it's all happy now then a bit like I'm spinning various discs with all my pans but I think are okay first ladle full of black stock yeah and now it's just a question of stirring each label full of stock it's got to be absorbed into the rice before another ladleful goes in takes about I suppose under 20 minutes just standing by the stove and stirring makes me in calm makes me happy it really is like some primeval soup I love this black risotto just as it is actually but I have a little flourish that I like what I like to do is just fry a little red chilli just chopped on top of that I've got some chopped squid will slice squid into rings in the traditional manner with some tentacles and this contrasting squid mixture tops flamboyantly for beautifully my squink risotto perfect almost ready to roll one thing quick bit of parsley only a small amount and dish up you can use bowls if you like I just love seeing it on this white plate now like this we have of course the perfect date dinner for Goths the stumble in the tinder white rings and the red chili confetti and in honor of the Italian flag some green parsley I am so ready for this whether you call this a stew or a casserole there is no doubt that my Asian braised June of beef is quintessential comfort food I love cooking this when I want to make a weekend feel cozy and I've got time to potter in the kitchen like all shoes it starts with an onion that in itself is reassuring but although I like the familiar I don't always want say meanness and so this you has a little bit of zing and tang slightly different four garlic cloves go into this and I can tell you my granny would not have made a Steve with four cloves of garlic and I've got some fresh ginger for me ginger really is the scent of Asian food so I'm adding a lot of it I want all that peppery warmth and now the earthiness of some ground coriander this stew may be comfort food but it really has a lot of bite just give these a blitz I've really blitz the onions and the ginger to a mush here and this really spicy onion mixture goes into some ground nut oil and a big pan and the reason why this pan is so big is because I got clunking great big bits of beef Shin to go in in a minute this part is about intensifying the flavor and there is still a lot of flavor to come they won't Brown of course because it is a wet mixture but it might darken a little I call this Asian braised chin of beef but it's really the inspiration that is Asian but part of it is all about this fantastic shouting wine good dollop in there and this will bubble up now if you can't find this don't worry because sherry will do but I love the taste here see it's excitedly bubbling up now so on top some sugar not a lot some dark brown sugar and to balance that a vicious hit of rice vinegar saltiness essential with meat soy sauce and then a bit of thick luscious oyster sauce a bit of a stir mmm this is a casserole right unlike the ones you may have been brought up on a lot of stock now I get the Shinra feed from a butcher and they happen to sell beef stock as well but any beef stock you can get use a lot going in but what is the point of a stew without all that lovely sauce there's a lot of meat here look at this beautiful there's some primitive part of me that derives particular pleasure from cooking meat on the bone and look at that quick chunks of it and you can see the marrow inside it's the bone and that marrow that gives such flavor and make the meat so melting there's an old saying which is the nearer the bone the sweeter the meat and it's really true now chin does come off the bone - and you can use that just cubed in which case I'd say a kilo rather than the three and a half kilos here this is old-style cooking but just with a lot of new flavors added and talking of new flavors I have a final flourish here with some cinnamon about two sticks if you wanted to you could have added some ground cinnamon along with the ground coriander earlier and here some beautiful star anis it doesn't matter whether they're whole or in bits the pan is bubbling away merrily now so lid on and this now needs to go into a low oven 150 the two to three hours into it's tender and while that cuts in the oven I'm gonna do no more than a little slopping out on the sofa after the shin has cooked I take the pieces of meat out keep them all and then reduce the juices by about half I've got a thick sauce my hot and sour shredded salad is the eventual adornment for the Asian braised beef its crowning glory I've got the juices from the meat bubbling away they're reducing nicely and the meat itself under a 10-2 foil in the oven and this salad topping because that's what it is takes it to a new level that's the green chili and the carrots done I've got a red chili to go and some spring onions the idea really is that the stew is rich and then you suddenly have a hit of Spike Lee dressed raw carrots and chilies and spring onions so it's almost as if you've got the crunch as well as the sourness as a sort of textural and taste contrast and finally some coriander now for the dressing I said this was going to be a hot and sour and it really is well the heat is really does from the chilies the sour is provided by the juice of a lime I'm going to amplify the sourness with some fish sauce always balanced can't always manage it in life so you may as well try and get it right in cooking some sugar there's no oil in stressing and that's on purpose you don't need it the whole point is the marrow in the shin of beef melts into the stew to make a gravy of such gorgeous anxiousness you want something sprightly and sharp although I always put these crunchy vegetables on top of the stew I serve it with all sorts of different starches but today I am in mood for noodles and therefore it will be noodles I've got some boiling salted water and these just take three minutes or so they pretty these little flat disks compacted nests quick stir beautiful but now it's time for the moment of truth the caramel unveiling back in a mo now before I take the fall off I just have to remind you you know stews about flavor not form that's my way of saying it's not gonna look very pretty not at this stage that's the whole point as well of this crunchy salad topping on goes the gravy what would a stew be like without the gravy mmm love this and now ice cream one last scattering of coriander and I know believe me I do know how mad it is how might it sounds to have salad scattered on top of the stew but really would I lead you astray and here we are ready to go to the table in all its eccentric splendor I have tipped a salad every student view on purpose nobody have I think the best personally as a base okay now if you have an Emmy collar is it a what's more salad did you go yeah is it bone marrow oh well it was but yep I can even see with the holes on the chin bone that's what's gone into these juices there what's the cut to shin of beef very young fragrant is I could smell it you know as we were coming into the room it smelled absolutely beautiful I know it's I call it my Asian flavors which does sound a bit like a massage parlor no much yummy this is my kind of recycling I mean I always believed that leftovers are right just taking a little bit further so I've got a cunning plan to turn the remnants into a piece of jewelry necklace anyone

Channel: William Baker

Views: 209,432

Keywords: nigella express episodes, Nigella Express, nigella express full episodes

Id: WlzJRCVVpHc

Length: 28min 21sec (1701 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 16 2015