Nigella's Ultimate Comfort Food Recipes | Nigella Bites | Tonic

i have to say if i'm being honest for me all food is comfort food but there are times when because of work or the pressures of life you really need a bowl full of something warm and familiar or a slice of something sweet just to make you feel the world is a safer place [Music] [Music] uh [Applause] bye i haven't gone completely mad i know i'm about to cook some mashed potatoes but it's not because i think you need a precise recipe for them just because i couldn't even contemplate comfort food without starting here cream not too much just the right amount you can use milk of course but do not even consider semi-skimmed or skinned it has to be full fat and then some butter now i think it relates a real difference if the milk or cream whatever is warm it seems to make the mash more tender now this is my favorite bit the potato ricer and why this makes a difference and it's cheap and i just got it from the local supermarket is that you don't have to peel the potatoes you just stick them in as they are which makes this entirely manageable and just force it through just enough power needed to make this satisfying but not too hard for a wimp like me and then you can just peel back the skin that stays there so it makes life so much easier now white pepper and i think this is the thing that makes the difference fresh nutmeg which in large quantities is a hallucinogen and in small quantities induces a wonderful feeling of well-being object to the exercise quick taste i think a bit more butter since what i'm doing here is seeking to offer protection from life solely through the means of potato butter and cream this is probably enough protection from life as it is and i don't think to be honest you need to have mature machete win it with anything i'll leave those there for later actually a modest portion there are times when only mashed potato will do [Music] now the thing about cold mashed potato is that it doesn't taste so good reheated but it makes really good fish cakes this is tinned salmon and actually they taste more like nursery food and it's that that's so comforting anyway children love them too which is good just an egg some cayenne pepper not too much especially if children are going to be eating them and zest of half a lemon if you're using cold boiled potatoes which you just put through the ricer then add a bit of melted butter to give them that lovely richness and just mix together any drawback of canned salmon as it does smell a bit like cat food but it does taste so delicious that you just have to suffer this bit and form them into patties or about the size of you know your palm it's not rocket science you can make them whatever size you want and just stick them on a baking sheet i just line it with cling film so they don't stick and they need to sit in the fridge for a while because if you were to try and fry them straight as they are they would just kind of gloop all over the place and all you do is dip them in some beaten egg and then i used matzo meal after that you could use bread crumbs and then fry them in butter and a teeny bit of oil okie doke that's it so to the fridge [Music] hey [Music] i just couldn't sleep securely in my house at night unless i have a stall cupboard banked with food i have to say food is to me what shoes were from elder marcos this is my chocolate stash now of course i keep these for cooking you understand but they are very very necessary these buttons here for middle of the night when only chocolate will do and then the sugar great for making you feel very reassuring that your house is banged about with good things vanilla pods and caster sugar and frankly all you need to do is put a teaspoon in some more milk at night life's better and this is my absolute favorite rice for risotto for me the ultimate comfort food and you know it's not just that risotto's comfort food i think it's comfort cooking and i know that a lot of people make a fuss about making risotto and worry about you know when it's the right stage and is it too for nickety i have to say i find mindless repetitive activity this is what this is just stirring immensely comforting if you can't get shallots don't worry just use the white part of some spring onions chop these as finely as you've got patience for i mean you can use the processor it just seems a bit mad to give yourself that washing up just for a bit of shallot and celery talking of which i know that a lot of people don't like summary but what i would say is this won't make the risotto taste of celery it just gives it a sort of mellow herbalness and a lightness that makes such a difference perfect right butter a bit of oil this is ordinary olive oil not extra virgin and that will stop the butter from burning and rice this is lovely stuff like some flat pearls 300 grams now there is a kind of direct ratio obviously between the amount of rice and stock and for that 300 grams i want a liter of stock by which i mean water from a recently boiled kettle with some of these vegetable stock granules which are incredibly good now this wonderful celery and shallot mixture it won't sizzle much because i don't want this to cook over high heat i want it to stay pale and i want it not to harden just cook into kind of mellow flavor what you can do if you don't want onions to burn is to sprinkle some salt on top and the salt releases the liquid inside the onion and that stops it from coloring it might sizzle a bit just a minute after as the water goes into the butter but that's fine and now it does tumble in the rice stir around the idea here is that the rice gets covered in this vegetably butter it gets slicked and glossy and then when you start ladling in the stock it'll start to swell and absorb all the stock and then it starts giving off that wonderfully starchy creamy property that turns us into risotto right so just ladle the stock in and you have to wait until the rice has absorbed that ladle before you carry on with the next label now after the rice has absorbed you know about three or four ladle falls you can start sort of swashing a bit more in and it doesn't matter if you don't keep stirring all the time you can just get on with anything nearby you can't leave it now it should take about 20 minutes for all the stock to be absorbed and for the rice to be cooked but it's hard to be absolutely precise because even different bags of the same sort of rice you know differ enormously so i am going to get on with chopping a bit of rosemary not too much the thing about rosemary is if you use a small amount it gives a sort of wonderful pronounced herbal hit if however you go just slightly overboard you just get soapiness so in with these lovely fresh green spikes and zest of added about half of an unwaxed lemon now off the heat i'm gonna add the final bit of egg and lemon and cream the manthi katura so one egg yolk it doesn't matter if there's a bit of white tweet you just don't want too much cream and this is wonderful really kind of balances the sharpness of the lemon later parmesan just wonderful pale curls of it and lemon juice quite like this sort of ritual disemboweling of the lemon oh and the whiskey it turns it into this wonderful primrose emulsion and then stir in this and it turns this rather sort of pale rice into this extraordinary kind of blonde risotto and just stir it until it's so wonderfully soupy along the the venetian school this means with a wave to it perfect now in theory this would be enough for sub of the two in practice i rather feel one [Music] so you eat this you know the world is a better place [Music] [Music] so right this is supper and what i love about this is that it's incredibly simple it's just sweet potato ordinary potato peppers garlic onion chopped up not peeled in a roasting tin and then when everything's cooked bit of halloumi cheese just sliced on top so you can be as tired as you probably are and still cope with this because ordinary potato takes longer to cook the sweet potato the the ordinary white potatoes should be a bit smaller so do this about four centimeters square and all these vegetables i mean they're both the potatoes even the ordinary potato but especially the sweet potato the red onion and the peppers are all very sweet which i suppose is also why it's comforting but the halloumi is incredibly salty and the contrast between those two is just perfect right the onion just in quarters or eights red and yellow peppers garlic right where's my oil here it is and this is the bit i like in a minute just go like that with your fingers just so that everything is covered a bit and then some pepper don't put salt on one because the halloumi later was very salty also because what you don't want is water to leach out of the vegetables you want them to roast rather than braise and that's sort of three-quarters of an hour in a fairly hot oven so look the vegetables are cooked and golden so just slice the halloumi stick it on top and put it back in the oven or under a grill until the cheese has begun to melt [Music] so the halloumi is blistered in brown and a bit of parsley just to add up and eat it straight out of the pan [Music] when it comes to comfort food this is it the real mccoy or rather the real mci chicken soup jewish penicillin soother of life restorative broth feet very important part this is a boiling chicken it looks scraggy but there is so much more flavor in it all i've done with this is boil it some salted water for about two and a half hours with carrots onion not even peeled bay leaves celery parsley stalks and some peppercorns what i like is to have this very clear soup and in it some dumplings not any old dumplings canada and these are just dumplings made with mozzarella which is a sort of cracker crumbs egg and although in this context believe me stodge is good in order to make the dumplings really sort of fluffy as they can be you need to whisk this egg very very well and next comes crucial ingredient schmaltz now schmaltz is just chicken fat otherwise you can use goose fat uh really if you're not going to go on either of those ones it should be margarine i prefer butter which is absolutely in numb conflict with every jewish dietary law so it's up to you but a couple of tablespoonfuls of the soup stock or water i mean whatever salt some pepper and then 100 grams of mozzarella you just whisk in now you want this mixture to be firm enough to make little dumplings out of but just with a bit of stickiness so that they're going to be lighter they need to be in the fridge for half an hour to an hour to firm up and this is about the right texture here so to stick these in the fridge and in half an hour we can make our canoe [Music] and now the chicken soup in all its pure goldenness now i'm sieving it through some kitchen towel just to remove any excess fat what you can do and i tend to do normally is just cook it the day before and then put it in the fridge and you just kind of skim off the fat because it solidifies on top there were some scientific tests a chicken suit recently which showed that it actually did possess anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties although i do have to say that the true believers and i mean that in the culinary rather than devotional sense need no outside corroboration you just have to taste this even just look at it to know that it's going to do you good now for my little dumplings or not so little the grenade let's do swell as they cook and they've had about 20 minutes simmering in salted water they float to the surface when they're cooked in any way they start looking kind of fluffier and that's ready to be eaten look at these little babies going in if you wanted not to bother with a grenade look a bit just put in some cooked noodles or rice ah this is it now look look at this golden ladle [Music] you need comfort food you want chocolate cake and this chocolate cake is kind of doubly comforting because it's incredibly easy so i've just put in here 175 grams of unsalted butter which i melted and let it cool a bit and i know i don't normally you know give precise measurements but that's because baking you do need to be precise not just spontaneous you have to obey the rules 125 ml of corn or other vegetable oil and 300 ml of ice water just mix these together and now is this question of kind of plonking a couple of bowl fulls of things in in this bowl i've got 400 grams of plain flour 250 of golden caster sugar but i mean use ordinary caster sugar if that's easier 100 grams of light muscovado sugar 50 grams of the most wonderful brown and earthy cocoa two teaspoons of baking powder and a teaspoonful of bicarb and it's just whoosh in here and then just mix this now it makes a very liquid batter this cake and that's what keeps it so wonderfully moist later so don't be alarmed that it's not you know a thick spoonable cake mix it's just cocoa batter look at that okay so the third and final stage in here one of those small tubs of sour cream three eggs and a tablespoon full of really nice vanilla extract have a stir and then let's see how easy this is just add that stir again we're not talking strenuous exercise but we are talking deep deep pleasure so perfect okay now these are just a couple of ordinary sandwich tins nothing special some baking parchment on the base and a bit of butter on the side and all you need to do with this is pour it in just half in each tin and i'm not going to scrape it all out because licking out the bowl is an elementary part of the comfort and pleasure that's it really dust now in the oven [Music] to ice a chocolate cake you need a really good chocolate icing and this of course is the fundamental part it's melted now i melt chocolate in the microwave because it's kind of easy about three minutes a medium and i use these chocolate buttons one because they're very good but also because i don't have to chop the chocolate before i stick it in what makes this icing very fudgy is smallest amount of butter packet has to be soft has to be unsalted and 275 grams of icing sugar has to be sieved so the icing is smooth just add it gradually spoonful by spoonful so these cakes on the cooling rack had about i'd say just under an hour in 180 degree oven and what you'll notice is the centers are still slightly soft but the cakes will be springing away from the tins on the outside and you need to let them cool thoroughly because otherwise the icing will just melt might have to live dangerously and make this bit faster last bit it's gonna have a bit of scrape down it's worth being patient here simply because you want the icing to be really smooth all i need now is some good vanilla extract no synthetic essence please and this chocolate which has cooled slightly so it won't make the butter greasy look at this river of chocolate just mix this and it should be combined and really divine perfect you've been chucked this is the cake you want to eat all of [Music] it [Music]

Channel: Tonic

Views: 323,402

Rating: 4.8922768 out of 5

Keywords: Tonic, nigella lawson full episodes, nigella lawson 2020, nigella lawson tonic, nigella lawson breakfast, nigella lawson desserts, nigella lawson pasta, nigella bites season 2, nigella bites comfort food, nigella bites season 2 episode 1, nigella bites fast food, effortless recipes, easy effortless recipes, easy party food, easy dinner recipes, easy dinner ideas, family dinner recipes, tv dinners, dinner ideas, nigella dinner, nigella dinner recipes, nigella comfort food

Id: LG12Cg4Ag1g

Length: 23min 8sec (1388 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 25 2020