Original subtitles

Springtime is here.

And there's some incredible British fruit and veg

bursting with flavour and ripe for the picking.

From sweet and tender broad beans to chard the colours of the rainbow.

These are the incredible ingredients that are at their best right now.

They're at their most delicious, most affordable,

better for you and the planet.

So, if you find the time to make something special,

I've created some exciting meals for whatever the occasion

that makes the most out of what's in season.

From epic ideas for pizza toppings and pan-fried fish suppers...

That is so good.

...oozy risottos and spicy curries...

Full of optimism, just like spring.

...and the sweetest springtime tarts.

That rhubarb flavour is just extraordinary.

So join me at home in my shed

as I spend the year cooking what's in season,

in the hope that it inspires you

to have a think about the way you cook, shop,

or even grow your food too.

It might just put a little bit of spring in your step. You like that?

Have a look at this.

Rhubarb. It's an amazing thing.

Beautiful colour.

But what I love about rhubarb is it's the most unusual,

delicious, juicy, tangy, electric, vibrant flavour.

And, of course, if you're not going to grow it,

or if you haven't got a garden,

then go to the supermarket, go to the market.

It's in season January, February, into about June time.

In the UK, we have the Rhubarb Triangle, which is up in Yorkshire,

and they make, in my opinion, some of the best rhubarb.

Why? Because they force it.

"Force it" means they take all the light away.

They do it in sheds that are pitch-black,

but the old way of doing it was under a cloche.

It's genius, right? Because it's the lack of light

and photosynthesis that kind of makes that plant just fight.

And it hasn't created the stringiness

and it hasn't created the tartness.

If I yank it like that,

look how lovely and light pink, and it's sweet.

Delicious.

In the old days, I used to, cos my nan told me to,

dip it in sugar and it's like sherbet.

Absolutely delicious,

and there's so many things you can do with this.

You can stew them, you can go savoury.

Amazing colour.

There you go.

Oh, yes!

Love it.

I want to celebrate the tart tanginess of this beautiful,

bang in season, spring veg by making a lip-smacking sauce

for marinated pork belly,

roasted until super tender and then pan-fried until crispy,

to create my hot and sour rhubarb crispy pork noodles.

And I'm cooking it all up in my outdoor kitchen shed.

This is going to be a somewhat surprising recipe

because instead of going sweet, which is so common with rhubarb,

we're going to go savoury.

Imagine pork belly with that beautiful sourness

and flavour of rhubarb, soy sauce, honey,

Chinese five spice, garlic, ginger and chilli.

Like, the list goes on. But that? so easy.

And this kind of plum, hoisin-y like sauce, but rhubarb style.

Really delicious. And with lovely egg noodles, some steamed greens,

this is going to be a dish.

Let's take a nice, free-range pork belly.

This is 1.2 kilos. And I'm just going to score the fat.

This allows you to get crispy bits later on in the recipe

and it also allows the marinade to penetrate, which we like.

And then I'm just going to basically do nice,

one-inch slices of pork, like that.

That's a bit more than one inch, actually.

So do it one way, and then slice it this way.

This will absolutely feed six people.

By slicing it up like that, it will cook a little quicker.

Look at that, beautiful belly meat.

So we're going to render all the fat

and we're going to make it really tender

and then, later on, we're going to make it really crisp.

So that, in a bowl of noodles, with that amazing rhubarb sauce,

is a thing of joy.

So, next what we're going to do is make the marinade.

It's super, super simple.

I love doing it in a liquidiser

because it's so incredibly efficient.

Go in with four cloves of garlic.

A nice big, thumb-sized piece of ginger.

A heaped teaspoon of Chinese five spice.

Four tablespoons of honey.

And this honey is from my bees, which is very, very exciting.

So, remember that the rhubarb is very sour,

so about four tablespoons will do a beautiful job

of balancing that acidity, just so it's perfect.

Go in with about one or two tablespoons of soy sauce.

And then a little swig of sesame oil.

That just gives it a nice little hum of beautiful nutty flavour.

Two chillies.

You can control the heat.

This will not be hot, this will be a nice hum of flavour.

Simply cut the chillies in half and then get the seeds out.

Last but not least, we are going to cut off the leaves.

400g of this beautiful rhubarb.

Look at the colour.

Just roughly chop these up, just to help along the liquidiser.

If you're using forced rhubarb,

you can have a little bit less honey, just to balance the flavour.

We have made the quickest little marinade.

That is so easy to do.

The liquidiser does all the hard work.

Massage that marinade into the pork chunks.

That's going to be so good.

I'm just going to wash my hands here.

Then get some tinfoil.

Get a double layer.

And then just a little cup of water,

just to create humidity,

and that will help the pork belly become nice and tender.

Really make it nice and tight so it keeps in as much steam as possible.

An hour and a half at 180 degrees Celsius,

which is 350 Fahrenheit,

and beautiful things will happen in there.

I'm just heating up a few bits of extra rhubarb

with a little bit of extra honey,

just so we can put those on top of the pork,

because obviously all that lovely rhubarb

got turned into the marinade. It's just a hot pan.

I'll cook it until tender, take care of it.

Let's have a look in here,

Be careful when you take the tinfoil off.

Oh-ho! Look at that!

Oh, my goodness!

The colour and the smell is incredible.

Right, just shake out that beautiful little bit of extra rhubarb.

That's to go on top.

And then I'll take chunks of this pork into the pan.

So now think of this in two parts.

The meat that's tender, that's now going to get crispy.

And what's lovely is you can kind of turn the heat down here

and not rush it.

But the guarantee is that

that pork belly is tender.

That pretty much perfectly covers the bottom of that pan.

And then here, look at this.

See how it's gone.

Oh, wow.

It's got vibes of hoisin,

but then the rhubarb gives it, like, an extra dimension.

Like, it's a sweet, sour, kind of incredible,

big, sort of magical flavours.

Absolutely delicious.

Let's get some noodles into this boiling water now.

We'll just whack four in for the moment.

What you can do as well is put a little colander over the top

and if you've got some nice, washed spinach,

and these are bang in season,

steam some lovely spinach on top of that,

just to get a bit of greens in the story.

So any lovely greens - asparagus or spinach,

or all those gorgeous spring things.

I've got some spring onions here as well.

They're so good and in season.

Take the ends off, they've had a wash,

and we'll just finely slice those to go over the top.

What I've got here is a little bowl of delicate salads.

If you're going to the supermarket,

things like, you know, cress, absolutely beautiful.

In literally just a minute...

...that's enough to steam the spinach.

It's all good.

Take your noodles, let them drain.

And then you can put them straight into this amazing sauce.

It's going to be delicious. Come on.

Look at that. Such a lovely...

...lovely sauce.

It will just mop it all up.

I think these are done. Let's plate some up.

A nice little wodge of these noodles.

I'm going to put some of that gorgeous, steamed spinach,

our lovely pork.

Oh, my lord.

Look at that.

It's sizzling.

Oh, my giddy aunt.

Absolutely amazing, sizzling pork.

Just sprinkle that with some lovely spring onions.

And don't forget the extra sauce as well.

And just a few bits of that lovely rhubarb to go on top.

Some of that herb salad.

Absolutely gorgeous.

Gnarly, crispy, tender pork belly

with rhubarb and the best noodles.

Fantastic!

Come on, let's get amongst it. Look at that!

So tender. Excuse fingers.

Oh, wow! Mmm!

Let's go for some noodles, cos this rhubarb sauce was outrageous.

It's everything that I love about plum sauce

and hoisin sauce, but with more of that attack,

and that vibrance of rhubarb, it works so well!

Oh! The soft, silky noodles, like, the crisp outside of the pork

and then the tenderness on the inside.

Even the little herbs give you that little pop.

Freshness, surprise, utterly delicious.

I love the idea that rhubarb can be used on savoury dishes,

absolutely brilliant!

That, my friends,

is an absolute celebration

of spring rhubarb.

Gorgeous! Go on, what you waiting for?

Love spinach. Beautiful!

Like, we can get spinach so easily in the supermarkets

and it's available right now,

but when you cut it and it's fresh,

there's another few layers of flavour.

It's fresher, sweeter notes.

It's absolutely delicious.

Super nutritious, really good for iron.

This is giant leaf spinach.

Look at the size of that!

Absolutely brilliant, so I want to get a load of this.

I've got a nice little dish planned for this.

I want to use it in a risotto.

You can use these lovely leaves in salads as well.

Really, really nice!

Most of these, or versions of these, you can get in good supermarkets.

You see it, grab it. It's delicious.

Come on, Conks.

I'm taking this gorgeous leafy green,

at its best right now,

to new heights with sweet onions and salty Parmesan,

brought together to make

a silky and luxurious spinach and goat's cheese risotto.

Look at the colour of that beautiful, fresh spinach.

It's such a fantastic vegetable

to use in spring.

And I love cooking with it in so many different ways -

soups, stews, sauces.

So, look, I'm going to do a dish that I love to do with spinach.

It's an absolute classic that my whole family love.

I'm going to show you how to make a beautiful risotto bianco

to really celebrate this gorgeous, green stuff.

Now, what is a risotto bianco? It means white risotto.

It's the mother, or the grandmother, of all risottos.

It's the kind of basis in which you can build many different flavours,

whether you got little popping spring peas,

or asparagus, or broad beans, you know,

or in this case spinach,

it's a fantastic base to celebrate veggies.

I've got a couple of small onions.

I'm just going to take the ends off, half it,

and then I'm going to finely chop it as well.

Hi, Conker, how you doing, mate? What you been up to?

Not sure you're going to like this dish, mate.

Not sure it's your speed.

We're going to tap through but not quite to the end,

and then turn it around and then just very carefully,

minding your fingers, go halfway through like that,

and then just rock through it, nice and fine.

Right, go in with some olive oil, just a tablespoon.

Get the onions into the pan.

I don't want any colour on the onions,

so I'll turn this heat down.

I've got a celery here, which is not in season,

but readily available in all the supermarkets all year round,

but I have to use it cos it's essential,

I think, to doing a beautiful risotto.

I'm going to use the heart of the celery.

I'm also going to use these leaves, here.

See these lovely yellow leaves? So, yellow leaves, delicious.

Green ones, not so good, OK?

So we'll keep that...

...and that for stews and cooking another day.

With this lovely celery heart here,

half it, just like the onion,

and then I'm just going to slice it.

You just do it any old how, it doesn't matter,

as long as it's fine.

I'll give it a little pinch of salt.

Mix up the celery and the onion, but I don't want colour,

I want it to be sweet and blonde. Let's just talk about the stock.

You can use a veggie stock but, really, the best risottos are

going to come from a nice, light chicken stock

and if you've got any herbs,

you might want to pick a little bit of mint or parsley.

Got a bit of thyme here. You know, you can put that into your stock

and, like a cup of tea, it's going to infuse

and kind of give complexity to it.

Going to go in with 300g of that beautiful arborio,

risotto rice,

and our job in cooking this is to stir it.

It's a ritual of stirring, right? You don't just leave it,

you don't put all the liquid in and then just go, right?

It's the stirring action that massages that creamy starchiness

out of the rice and that's what makes it so very special.

You don't have to sort of just stir it the whole time,

but be around and stir, be around, do jobs and stir,

you know, over there fiddling about and stir.

Do it and stir, that kind of vibe.

Get that rice to absorb all that lovely, flavoured oil, OK?

And start toasting the rice, just very gently. Again, no colour.

In the fridge, I have got a little wine.

So a little half glass of white wine goes in.

And you don't have to use wine,

but wine or vermouth is what I've seen used around Italy.

Stir it in really well

and completely cook all the wine away.

We want to cook away the alcohol

and just be left with the beautiful fragrance and flavour.

And then we can start adding the stock, bit by bit,

and I won't add another ladle of stock until it's cooked away.

The whole point of risotto is

for us to stir or massage

the natural creaminess out

of the risotto rice, so let it cook away.

Get the ladle.

Another one goes in and we stir again.

This has had about 17 minutes of cooking.

Stirring it intermittently,

feeding it stock intermittently.

Let's have a little try.

You want the rice to be a pleasure to eat

but you want it to hold its shape and form.

It doesn't mean undercooked.

If you've got an undercooked risotto,

gets stuck in your teeth and it's just not great.

Now, I'm going to flavour it with spinach,

so take a liquidiser

and a nice, big handful of spinach, about 300g.

Get that in there like that.

So I'm going to take some of that boiling stock.

Three or four nice, big ladles go in.

If you do it at the last minute,

it's going to be, like, vibrant and, like, beautiful colour.

So that is basically a spinach soup.

Like, the colour's completely bonkers.

So we're coming towards the end of cooking the risotto now.

What I'm going to do is add some Parmesan cheese for seasoning.

About...60g,

I'd say, would be really nice.

Stir that in.

Now let's try the risotto.

Ooh, it's really good.

So this is your basic white risotto.

Think of it as the most amazing platform

for any of those spring veggies out there.

You could put it on a plate with some peas or broad beans,

or asparagus. But in this case,

we're going to put in the spinach.

Look at this.

It's going to radically transform.

This is your opportunity to try it and correct any seasoning

before you serve it to anyone you love.

That incredible spinach,

it's full of life, full of colour.

This is going to be special, so let's plate it up.

Oh...

Dreamy!

Take a little bit of butter.

You see this quite often in Italy.

They'll just put a little knob of butter in the middle.

We can finish it, or embellish it,

in one last cheese.

So we got a British goat's cheese.

You know, it's so nice to cook classic Italian dishes

with beautiful British farmhouse cheeses.

Little bit of Parmesan...

...and that, my friends, is going to be joyful.

So let's have a go.

That's the beauty of risotto - it can reflect whatever's in season

and whatever your wallet is telling you.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, you can go posh or you can go humble.

Mmm!

Absolutely delicious.

Oozy, creamy.

The rice has still got texture and shape.

Mmm. That goat's cheese is so tangy.

Whether you're growing your own spinach

or buying it from the supermarket or market, it doesn't matter.

Right, how much effort did we put into cooking it? Not much.

It's a simple leaf,

whazzed up with some boiling stock.

You gotta have the ooze.

If you haven't got the ooze, it ain't a risotto.

Mmm.

You know what?

I think that spinach risotto

is a really honest reflection of spring.

Delicious.

And, look, sun's come out.

Perfect.

Some springtime veggies have been there for us all through winter

and this one is also perfect right now, in spring.

Leeks - they're absolutely incredible!

Probably an underrated vegetable but as a chef and a cook,

you know, there's so much you can do with these,

and last year for me was a bad one for leeks.

They got attacked by aphids

and, really, we didn't have a very good crop.

But these are from my neighbour and look at the...

Look at the girth on that leek. Beautiful!

So I've got a great recipe

that we're going to use to celebrate them.

I'm giving the humble leek a treat,

in a rich cream cheese and egg filling,

with an extraordinary cheesy stuffed crust.

An epic dish to share with friends.

A stunning, crunchy, scruffy spring tart.

This recipe is brilliant at using up spring vegetables

and I'm going to focus on the leeks.

You're going to see these all over the supermarkets

and markets right now.

Think cheese and onion tart but it's a bit posher, with leeks.

So four large leeks.

Just trim off the ends and the leafy top

and then that outside layer, just kind of pull it back.

That tends to be a little bit more stringy and less delicious.

When these leeks grow, they often catch bits of mud or sand,

so you want to make a good job of washing them out

and there's a little technique to that, so let me show you.

Get your tap going and then that's the stalk.

Wash it always that way. If you wash it that way,

you're just going to push the sand or mud into the base of the leek,

so wash away.

There'll always be a little bit of grit or something in there,

so don't think you don't have to do it because you do.

Spring is the time when everything's coming up right now.

Garlic, chives, and these leeks,

they've also had a winter,

so that frost has tenderised the leeks inside.

This is a vegetable with lots to offer.

So, casserole pan.

Let's go on a high heat.

What I'm going to do is cut the top half nice and fine

and the bottom half into nice, big chunks.

The greener part has seen the sunlight.

It's more fibrous and slightly stronger in flavour,

so by finely slicing it, you're just helping things along

to cook nice and quick.

Put it into a pan with a little glug of olive oil.

Season this with some sea salt and some pepper.

LEEKS BUBBLE GENTLY Just give it a stir up.

This is pretty much new season's garlic.

It's starting to kind of get a little bit firm now,

but any garlic is good.

So I'm going to get four cloves, just roughly sliced up here.

In this dish, we're going to have leeks,

garlic and chives in that incredible tart,

with the eggs and cheese.

You can see the steam coming off.

That'll be tenderising those beautiful leeks.

Look at that. You can see, they've softened up straight away.

I'll nick a little bit of butter

and we'll go in with those four cloves of garlic.

I've got some fresh thyme.

Thyme and leeks and cheese are really good friends.

Just a few little pinches.

That'll make all the difference, but no stalks.

And now the green part of the leeks has softened up nicely,

I'm literally going to chunk up the white part of the leeks.

Inch chunks.

But the white part of the leeks is much, much more tender.

LEEKS SIZZLE

Give that a little stir.

If you can give them half an hour with the lid on,

stirring every now and again,

you will get the most deliciously sweet,

fragrant, elegant expression of leeks ever.

OK, let's make the filling for this beautiful tart.

We're going to use eight free-range eggs.

Tap those in there, like that.

So... eight large eggs goes in,

and then add 150ml of lovely, organic cream.

That'll make it beautiful.

A little pinch of salt,

a little pinch of pepper

and then just give that a nice whisk up

until it's smooth and gorgeous.

Filling is done. The leeks are cooking.

I'm going to show you a very quick way

to make a very impressive tart crust.

We're using filo and this is fantastic

because it's got the most amazing crunch.

Just put some oil on the table - it's clean, by the way -

and I'm going to just brush this tin cos we don't want it to stick.

This filo pastry will start to dry the second that you take it out,

so work quickly but don't stress about it.

I've got a nice, large, 30cm by 40cm tin.

Just hang it over like that

and then, when you've done that, go back to your brush

and we're going to just oil around the edges, right? Like that.

This will make it go golden and delicious.

And then grate 100g of Cheddar cheese,

all the way around the overhang and on the inside.

Eating this pastry is not going to be standard.

Lovely chives here.

I'll finely slice them.

I'm going to season every single layer of the filo pastry

with olive oil, Cheddar cheese and chives

and a pinch of pepper.

Just season around like that

and then we go on with the next layer.

Super simple, so we're covering the tart base.

Don't worry about any cuts or rips or tears.

This is zero-stress cooking, but here's the secret, right?

When I put the filling inside here,

I'm going to roll up the crust so you get the layers

and the cheese and the chives.

It's going to be like...

Like a quiche version of a stuffed crust pizza.

It's going to be amazing.

Right, let's have a little try.

Mmm.

Right, correct seasoning with salt and pepper.

Oh, my Lord, this is basically done.

If you wanted to do this the day before,

let this cool down and put it together,

but I'm going to cook it straight away, right?

So we're going to go from here into here.

GENTLY TAPS PAN All the little bits.

Then we're going to go in with the eggs and the cream.

Mix it all up.

And we're going to take this

and we're just going to roll it up.

Just roll it up. Imagine eating into that!

Don't worry if it breaks, don't be nervous.

Roll it up.

Last but not least, 100g of feta cheese.

So just break it up into little chunks and put it in and around.

Last bit of oil, just to go around the edge of the pastry

and that's it.

So this beautiful tart's going to go in the oven for half an hour

at 180 degrees Celsius, which is 350 Fahrenheit,

and it's going to be golden and beautiful.

BIRDSONG

It's had half an hour, it smells amazing.

Look at that!

That twisted, stuffed crust, that'll be so good.

HE INHALES DEEPLY

Ooh! Absolutely beautiful.

I'll just use a palate knife to go around the edge.

Remember, we oiled it.

Just stick it under and just make sure nothing is stuck.

Go on... You've got this. Oh-ho!

Look at that, hot and steamy.

Just let that cool down a little bit.

I want to show you a little salad.

Watercress is really, really good at the moment.

So I've given that a wash

and I've just taken some nice eating apples.

Take whichever one you love at the moment,

put lemon juice on it and that will stop it from going brown.

Dress the lemon-doused apples...

...and make almost like an apple dressing.

Little pinch of salt.

Apples at this time of year were obviously stored

but they're so brilliant and it's good to use 'em up.

Little thimble of red wine vinegar.

What we can do now is just put our hands on this

and look at that dressing. See that dressing?

That over the watercress is going to be gold.

It might only be watercress and apple,

but it can still be delicious.

Right, wait for the crunch.

TART CRUNCHES

But look at that.

Oh-ho-ho!

Hot, steamy and crunchy as you like.

Let's take a little bit of that beautiful salad.

Gorgeous.

A few little chive flowers

and then, for me, I'd serve that with an old friend.

Let's have a beer.

BEER GLUGS

Let's go for a bit of the side.

Oh, it's so crunchy.

That is a very large mouthful,

but I feel inclined to have to do it in research.

I think I can get it in.

Mmm.

Mmm!

Exceptional.

Sweet, silky,

deep, delicious.

The feta cooks in the most elegant way.

So good.

And a little bit of that watercress and apple...

Mmm-mmm!

Sweet leeks, Cheddar cheese.

Utterly delicious.

That is the most beautiful scruffy spring tart ever.

Full of flavour, juicy, creamy.

Delicious.

Let me show you a couple of fun little hacks that my kids love.

If you go to a supermarket, right, we've seen basil plants.

If you look, it's not one plant,

it's about 30, right?

So we can tear that open and carefully take it apart

and we can make even more plants.

So, whether you take a little tin, you know, with holes,

or a little plastic tub with holes, or an official pot, you know,

we want to kind of make use of everything.

Bog roll, right? Take a bog roll,

just pinch the top like that and tear it about...

...an inch so you get four little cut-aparts.

And, just like that,

you've made a perfect place to put your soil,

right, and you can start them like that.

It will start to thrive and then you can actually plant that out

in a bigger pot and that bog roll will just disintegrate

and turn into part of the soil.

And whether you're doing it in a greenhouse,

or on a windowsill, in a big garden, a small garden, it doesn't matter.

So that's a brilliant little way of expanding what you can get

from a local supermarket and making it a little bit more.

So it's quite cool that you can almost hack the system,

but that one little tub there

has created a whole mob of basil plants.

Now they've got the room and a bit of fresh, good soil,

we're going to get an abundance of basil.

So give that a week, they'll all be really perky.

We've got our little toilet roll numbers

and I've got some picked basil that I can cook with later.

Now, this, this is a loyal servant in the garden,

Swiss chard, otherwise known as rainbow chard.

If you're in the supermarket and you see it, grab it.

It's delicious and the top part is very much like spinach

but a little bit more robust, which I like.

And then these stalks here are fantastic

and you can use them together or you can just cook them separately.

Come and have a look at this, right?

Um, the little centre leaves are, like, absolutely delicious.

Sweet, iron-y.

We have the yellow, we have the red,

we have the green,

and we also have the beautiful pink.

HE LAUGHS

So this is the beauty of being able to grow from seed.

And I'm going to show you how to cook it.

I'm going to use the sweet, iron-y taste

of this incredibly versatile spring veg that's bang in season right now,

giving a bit of time and love to create this beautiful pasta,

stuffed with an utterly moreish filling

to create an oozy, cheesy spring cannelloni.

There's something really special about what spring has to offer,

and chard is so good, and I'm going to cook it in a way

that we're going to create a comforting family favourite.

I'm going to get a pan on.

Nice, medium high heat.

Three tablespoons of olive oil.

I'm then going to get some herbs.

Go in with some of this lovely oregano.

You can use dried herbs. It's a very flexible recipe,

but putting fresh herbs into the oil like that

and bringing it up to the heat,

and it'll start to sizzle, right?

That's going to give an incredible perfume to this dish.

And this is a fantastic principle for epic flavour with greens,

and it doesn't have to be just chard.

It could be spinach, kale, cabbage, things like that.

So, look, you can see a sizzle's coming on here.

So give it a little shake.

As that comes up, I'll just slice up two small onions

and they tend, greens in general, to be a little bit bitter,

so to kind of balance the bitterness,

we add things like onions for sweetness, right?

SIZZLING

If you go down the markets, if you go down the supermarkets,

look out for new seasons and look out for local, British.

If you can cook with the seasons,

you don't just save money, right, you get more flavour,

you get more nutrition,

and it's definitely being good to the planet

cos the food doesn't have to move around the world so much.

So four cloves of garlic.

This is new season's garlic,

so it's a little bit sweeter and softer,

but the regular stuff, it's still brilliant.

What I tend to do now with Swiss chard

is separate the greens from the stalk.

Think about it like, you know, carrots, celery,

you can use it beautifully in cooking,

and I'll put the stalks into the pan a little bit earlier,

cos they need a bit more cooking.

Now, the stalks, you can serve underneath

a lovely chicken breast or a steak, lamb chop.

Now, cannelloni is a filled pasta

and this is going to be the filling for the cannelloni.

So a little pinch of salt and pepper. Right?

What we can do with these leaves is just clank 'em up

and get 'em in that pan.

This is a kilo of greens.

So now we got these stalks tender, we go in with the leafy part.

LEAVES SIZZLE

And that massive pile of greens is getting cooked down.

Cooked down means concentrated.

Concentrated means delicious flavour.

After about ten minutes, it's cooked down

and you can see the colour is dark and delicious.

Let's just try a little bit of the greens.

Mmm.

Oh, it's already good. Really good.

There's a couple of little things I do to make most veggies,

but particularly any green, leafy veggies, really delicious.

About a quarter of a nutmeg.

It's really fragrant,

it's got a sort of edge of sweetness to it.

And then a little bit of lemon juice,

or it could be a little swig of vinegar, just lifts it.

Lemons, obviously, not from this country

but you can grow citrus, for sure.

And just a little squeeze of juice, like that,

just lifts these greens to the next level.

And then salt and pepper.

I'm going to get it on here.

Look at that.

As that cools down a bit,

I'm just going to start a very simple tomato sauce.

I'm going to do it in the tray that I'm going to cook the cannelloni.

Throw it in with nice, heart-healthy olive oil.

Two cloves of garlic.

And then dry chilli.

You get a more savoury, rounded chilli flavour than when it's fresh.

This dried chilli is almost, like, sundried,

so when you dry a chilli, you do get different flavours.

So I'm just going to grab some basil.

That is sort of the traditional, you know, tomato sauce vibe.

Just tear it in.

And certainly, if you're going for those woody herbs,

like thyme, oregano, sage, rosemary,

they pretty much are producing all year round.

I think growing herbs is almost the best way

to start growing a garden, if you've never done it before.

And if you get a pot for two, three, four quid, plant it in,

you have it for a lifetime, amazing.

And then three tins of good-quality plum tomatoes.

Just fill one can of water.

This is a really quick tomato sauce, so just bring it to the boil.

And, look, you can see now, that's pretty fine.

No effort.

Pasta, the filling and the sauce.

I'm just putting those tubes onto the greens, like that.

Use your finger just to squash it in.

If you wanted to put any cheese through this, you can.

Ricotta, Parmesan, stuff like that.

If you've got cheddar, of course you can as well.

You know, you could add mushrooms to the story,

you could put a few olives in there.

Like, have fun, be creative.

For me, this dish is about having tubes full

of really iron-y, flavourful, delicious Swiss chard,

that's just bolted out of the ground at springtime,

contrasted with this beautiful, bright, light, sweet tomato sauce.

We've got our little stack of beautiful cannelloni.

I'm just going to nestle these cannelloni into the tray.

I'm going to leave this on a low heat.

And I want to give you a really quick white sauce

that's delicious and something a little bit different,

and based around a cheese from Italy

that is much more common in the UK now - ricotta.

And you can get it in most supermarkets.

So we put the ricotta, 250g, into here.

About 200ml of milk.

Cheddar's delicious - it's not Italian, but we love it -

and I think it bakes really well.

And it's delicious in lasagnes and cannellonis anyway.

So 60g of that goes in.

And about the same of Parmesan.

Again, about 60g will make you a delicious white sauce.

It's a bit more expensive than cheddar,

so that's why I've mentioned cheddar,

cos it's a really good, economical swap-out.

So go one or the other, or blend, like I have.

A pinch of salt and one egg.

Just whizz it up in a liquidiser.

In no time at all, you've now got a beautiful, thick white sauce.

And now what we do is just pour that white sauce over the top, like that.

And that will set and be utterly delicious.

Look at that.

And don't worry about the ripples.

It's all good.

I'll finish that with just a little grating of Parmesan

and we're good to go.

So that'll go in the oven for about 30 to 40 minutes

at 180 degrees Celsius, which is 350 Fahrenheit,

until golden, blipping and gorgeous.

Right, in we go.

Let's have a little clean down

and then I'll go and get some salad.

It's such a nice time of year

cos it's like the first for everything.

These have been about for about the last month,

but salads are a brilliant, brilliant thing to start growing

if you've never done it before.

I always think of salad as like salsa.

You know, if you've got something fatty and rich and comforting,

if you've got something crunchy and vibrant,

you know, this is really, really good.

Right, let's wash these.

I could never do this in the kitchen.

See, this is my kitchen, so I can do it.

But also, I can upgrade this,

Wait for it.

Who needs a salad spinner?

OK.

Three tablespoons of olive oil.

Red wine vinegar.

Pinch of salt and pepper.

Lovely little salad.

Right, let's have a look at our beautiful cannel...

It smells amazing! Ha-ha!

Oh!

Look at that.

That, my friends, is a thing of beauty.

Now, normally, I'd let that sit for at least five minutes

but I'm not going to do it today cos I'm just too excited.

I know which way...

...the cannelloni have gone, cos I've racked them up like that.

Ahh!

Look at that. Just gorgeous.

So a little bit of side salad.

A little, fresh bit of Parmesan.

Springtime chard cannelloni.

Cheesy sauce

and a lovely little side salad from the garden.

Let's get in there.

Mmm.

Wow.

The Swiss chard is, like, deep in flavour.

It feels fresh.

It's definitely got, like, an iron-y grunt about it,

but in a really delicious, delicious way.

You've got the comfort of the pasta,

the tomato sauce and the creamy cheese sauce,

but the flavour of the chard is phenomenal.

Mmm.

And that plate is this season.

It's springtime in a dish.

Might just put a little bit of spring in your step.

You like that?

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