Original subtitles

We all want recipes that are fast and simple,

so I've got some really easy ways to hack your cooking.

Think quick traybakes for midweek meals...

That for me is what simple cooking is all about.

..easy batch recipes that sort you out later in the week...

If you do this at the weekend, it buys you time.

..and cheeky store cupboard raids

for when you've run out of time to shop.

Beautiful things can come from tins.

This is cooking stripped back to its bare essentials...

..to make mealtimes faster and simpler than ever before.

On the menu today, a delicious peppery pasta dish,

guaranteed to save you time midweek.

Just because something's fast and simple

doesn't mean it can't be incredible.

I'm letting the oven do the hard work

with my trusty chicken and bread sauce traybake.

Conker's turned up. He knows what's good.

I've got dinner for four, or four days' worth of dinner,

with a big beef brisket that can brighten up multiple meals

and save you time.

This would be so good with a group of mates at the weekend.

Store cupboard tips you can use to big-up tinned beans

and make them the star of the show.

Let it rain poppadom.

Queen of fusion food Ixta Belfrage

shares her own store cupboard secrets for amazing fish tacos.

That smell is so good.

It's quite hard not to just, like, go in there and eat it already.

Plus, with my foolproof pastry,

I'll show you how to rustle up a fantastic free-form tart.

This really is baking made simple.

I've got a delicious no-cook pasta sauce

that you can zip up in the time it takes to cook your pasta.

I'm gonna show you how to bring big sunshine flavours

into your kitchen in no time at all.

My jarred pepper pasta uses just a few simple ingredients

to create a brilliant time-saving midweek meal,

and you wouldn't believe how easy it is to knock together.

So, big pan of water, season it with salt.

We're gonna go in with some pasta.

I'm using penne today.

So, in with the pasta.

Lid back on top,

just for a minute so it comes back up to the boil.

We're gonna make a beautiful herb oil.

So look, I wanna make a dish that's super-fast

but also super elegant.

Like, just because something's fast and simple,

doesn't mean it can't be incredible.

So we have parsley.

Just grab it, rip off the top, OK?

It could be basil, it could be mint,

it could be any other fresh green herb.

I'm gonna take this over to the liquidiser.

I'll throw that in with, you know,

a nice couple of lugs of oil.

And I can make a flavoured oil

and you can use that throughout the week.

So you want just enough oil so you can whizz it all up.

Lid on top, full whack.

Now, in no time at all...

..you've got this incredible,

vibrant green oil.

When you put that through a beautiful soup,

stew, make a salad dressing out of it, put it over pasta,

it is a truly, truly joyful thing.

And you can keep that in fridge

and it's just a nice little cheat

to make food more interesting, more exciting.

So in the same blender,

I'm gonna go straight in with some beautiful peppers.

These are roasted peppers. You get 'em in jars.

Shake it in, juice and all.

These have been roasted, grilled, peeled and de-seeded,

and they will give you that glorious sunshine

that you get from ripe peppers.

So in there as well

I'm gonna go in with a nice big handful of almonds

and I'm not gonna roast or toast them,

I want them to be raw and creamy

and give you that silkiness,

almost like you put double cream in the sauce,

and it's gonna stick to the pasta in the most beautiful way.

So in with a handful of that,

then a little bit of heat.

So some flaked, dried chilli here.

Just go in with whatever you feel.

So I wanna nice hum in the background.

It works really well with the sweetness of the peppers,

but you don't have to go OTT.

And then a little slug of extra virgin olive oil.

Not much, don't need much.

And a light seasoning of salt

and a big seasoning of pepper.

And then just a little thimble of red wine vinegar.

Last ingredient to go in is cottage cheese.

Now, it's not Italian, but you know what?

It's an ingredient that you do find easily in the supermarket.

So I'm gonna use a couple of tablespoons in there,

just to give it a nice, tangy freshness and creaminess.

Back it goes.

We'll whazz it up.

It does do the most incredible job,

cos what you have in here,

to me, is sunshine and joy.

It just tastes of barbecue, holidays,

and imagine making that on a miserable day

when you want something that just makes you feel good.

So summer or winter, happy or sad,

this is a cracking dish

that honestly will serve you and your family really well.

So, gas off.

We'll drain this pasta...over here.

Once it's drained,

we'll go back into the pan with the pasta

and we'll use that residual heat

to add in our amazing sauce. Look at that colour.

Shake in that sauce.

You can add just a little parmesan

for some light seasoning.

Just fold it in.

Pour it in the middle.

And then just take that plate and give it a little shake.

And once you've done that,

take that beautiful parsley oil,

which could be basil oil, or mint oil,

or whatever oil you want, and just do little bombs of it.

Think sort of Jackson Pollock. Bosh.

Then back to the beautiful cottage cheese.

You don't need much.

When this hits the heat of the pasta,

it'll start to kind of melt in a beautiful way.

The smell is insane.

And there, my friends, is a joyful, exciting pasta dish,

made out of simple ingredients you can grab and do

in the time it takes to cook some penne. Come on.

Mm.

Sweetness, tang, subtle heat.

Pops of, like, fresh cottage cheese.

So good.

And that parsley oil is just, like, fresh

and it contrasts the sweetness of the peppers so well.

But the joy of this is you get incredible,

massive, like, face-slapping flavours.

That, for me, is what clever, simple cooking is all about.

Easy and utterly delicious.

So I'm gonna do a beautiful chicken traybake

which has got really hearty, comforting flavours.

It's really quick to put together.

The oven does all the work

and what I love about it best is it is so simple.

My chicken in baked bread sauce is a simple, trusty traybake

that uses everyday ingredients,

put together in around 15 minutes to make an epic dish.

It's always a hit in my house, and I hope it is in yours, too.

When I do bread sauce, when we have roast chicken,

I don't boil it like the old recipes,

I bake it. It's much more delicious.

The base of this tray is gonna be one of the best bread sauces.

I'm gonna take one onion...

..and slice it.

Throw this in the tray, like that,

and then we're gonna go in

with two generous teaspoons of English mustard.

I'm gonna season generously with black pepper

and sea salt goes in, as well.

Then I'm gonna grab some spice,

so go down that avenue of what we would put in a bread sauce

in a lovely chicken roast dinner, right?

So we would have nutmeg, which we love, and cloves.

So, two little cloves

and all I'm gonna do is just crush them

and that tiny little bit there

is gonna make a massive difference.

Next, nutmeg.

It's a fantastic spice.

So, just half a nutmeg.

Then we're gonna go in with about 600ml of milk.

So, here we have a loaf and it's a white loaf.

I don't want a brown loaf, I don't want a sourdough,

I want simple white bread. I'm gonna skim off the crusts.

And we're just gonna forget them for a minute.

So just break up the white bread.

What I want from that is this kind of stodgy creaminess

that bakes to be this really comforting thing

that takes on the flavour of the chicken roasting above it.

It's all gonna happen in this tray, right?

So, two eggs, large, free range, goes in.

So let's get in there.

This is the base of our dish.

This is a brilliant, quirky little recipe

that my family absolutely love.

So once you've done that,

we can then go in with the crusts

and that'll take on that liquid, as well.

So you can see the mix getting drier and drier

as the bread sucks up all of that milk.

And then literally get these crusts and put it around the edge.

Think of it almost like a pie crust.

Now, wash your hands.

So, the meat.

I've got chicken thighs, skin on, bone in.

Super economical, delicious flavour, tender meat.

Like, I'm gonna get that skin crispy

and the meat's gonna fall off the bone.

So, let's just give it a little olive oil

and a little salt and pepper,

just to be seasoning things beautifully.

Rub it all over, just so you're gonna get a seasoned,

gorgeous, crispy-skin chicken thigh.

So this goes straight in.

Secondly, I've got bacon.

Two rashers of smoky bacon, that's all you need.

Cut it in half,

and again, what's important about the bacon

is the journey the smoky flavour has when it's getting cooked.

So I can kind of just wrap that,

twist it and wrap that around the chicken.

Cos I'm thinking like, you know, roast dinner and stuffing,

I've just got two nice sausages.

I'm gonna pinch it in half, right,

and then I'll squeeze out

that lovely sort of Cumberland sausage vibe

and then in your hand,

just make it into a little stuffing ball

and I'll fit that in, as well.

Take the meat out for a vegetarian version

and do a nice little chunk of cauliflower, delicious.

You could have little slices of celeriac or squash.

So let me just wash my hands again.

So then I've got four bay leaves,

so I'll literally just stab that in at the side.

You can't eat it, but it'll flavour that beautiful, milky bread.

And then, last but not least, the other onion

we're gonna put into quarters

and that's gonna roast in the time the chicken roasts.

So that's it. It's that simple.

Give it a nice little drizzle of olive oil

and a little seasoning.

So we'll put that in the middle of the oven

for 50 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius,

which is 350 Fahrenheit,

until everything is golden and delicious.

Look at that.

Sizzling away.

You can see how that bread sauce has puffed up.

Everything's cooked into each other.

I think this is a lovely little dinner.

We've got the chicken on top there.

We've got our bacon.

Got our lovely little sausage ball, right there.

Let's get some greens in the story.

We're gonna go for the bread sauce that's soaked up all that flavour.

Mm. So nostalgic,

like Sunday roasts, Christmas dinners.

A phenomenal bread sauce,

but it's got the extra flavour from the chicken.

The chicken itself, look how juicy it is.

Beautifully cooked, tender, crispy skin.

Look, Conker's turned up.

He's around my feet right now cos he knows...

JAMIE CHUCKLES ..he knows what's good.

This is kind of like comfort food at its best.

A one-tray wonder. I love it.

A really exciting traybake, so good and so simple.

I've got a nice meal for you,

a beautiful, slow roast chunk of brisket,

cooked until it's pullable,

juicy and delicious. The oven does most of the work.

You will not regret making this.

Cooking this beef brisket traybake at the weekend

gives you a whole host of recipes for the week ahead.

Lip-smacking flavours that you can throw together

in around ten minutes, and cook low and slow.

It might not be fast,

but it's the ultimate time-saver because it's so simple.

So this is a brisket.

It's actually one of my favourite cuts.

It's technically a tough cut of meat,

a second-class cut of meat,

which means it's really good value,

but if you slow roast it,

that sort of toughness then melts into tenderness.

It's a really beautiful cut. I wanna flavour it up.

I'm kind of going to sort of Chinese flavours for inspiration,

so what I'm gonna do first is just give it

a little olive oil here that I can rub all over.

I'm gonna season it generously with sea salt,

with pepper, as well.

This is a Chinese five spice, so eight teaspoons of that.

There's different blends but normally you'd get, like,

star anise, cinnamon, cloves.

Now, into a pestle and mortar

I'm gonna add eight level teaspoons of Szechuan peppercorns.

They have this amazing ability to give you gentle warmth,

they're quite floral

but what they do is they numb your lips a little bit.

They make you kind of salivate more,

and then when you salivate more, you taste more.

So just bash...

..and muddle up those beautiful Szechuan peppercorns.

The smell, oh!

So let's put that onto our brisket

and I wanna use that oil just to rub it all the way along.

Turn it over

and, again, we can rub that seasoning and spice all over it.

So that is gonna be incredibly tasty.

So in the tray, to go underneath this,

let's start thinking about

some things that are gonna benefit that long cooking,

that's slow and low.

So, onions are really reliable for that.

So I'm gonna take four onions...

..and just roughly chop them.

Just get 'em in there. I'm gonna take some garlic.

So, eight cloves of garlic to give you that nice perfume,

and a nice 8cm chunk of ginger.

Oh, yes. Love ginger with a passion.

So, with the garlic,

just get your knife to go through it.

You can crush it or finely chop it.

Any old how, it doesn't really matter. And with the ginger,

get the blade of the knife and just scratch off the skin

and then I'll slice up that nice, big chunk of ginger

and finely chop it with the garlic.

So, next piece of kind of flavouring will be orange juice.

If you look at a lot of Chinese cooking,

they use lots of fruits, so just squeeze in that juice.

We've got some balsamic vinegar.

Now, what I normally use is black Chinese rice vinegar,

which is great, but I often struggle to find it.

So, four tablespoons of balsamic vinegar

works really, really well. It's sweet, it's sour,

it's got that lovely dark colour, which I love.

I'll also do four tablespoons of soy sauce.

You know, lovely, deep flavours.

And then four tablespoons of honey.

So that's it. Like, that's literally it.

We'll take our brisket,

lay it on top, nestle it in there.

We'll take this excess spices, don't waste anything.

And then grab a little bit of foil and just cover it.

Crimp up the edges

and try and do a nice job of making it quite tight.

So, in there is such incredible potential

but what that meat needs is time.

Time in the oven. That's gonna be amazing.

So, this goes in the oven for around three hours

at 140 degrees Celsius, which is 275 Fahrenheit.

And maybe halfway through, I'll just have a little check

and just make sure there's enough moisture.

You might wanna add a little bit of water,

but that should be absolutely perfect.

Low, slow, tender and juicy.

All right, Conks? Time for a walk, mate? Come on.

Come on, boy. Conker.

Oh, it smells amazing in here.

So, 15 minutes to go.

Let's bring this together to be a feast,

something really, really exciting.

So this is gonna be super simple.

You can go noodles or rice.

I'm kind of feeling the rice.

This is something that gets a lot of people in trouble.

Sticky rice, overcooked rice.

So let me give you a method that works every single time.

Let's grab some nice basmati rice.

I'm gonna get a builder's mug.

Fill up your builder's mug. Nice large one.

Fill it to the top like that.

So that will be enough for four, right?

So we'll do it again cos we're gonna double the recipe.

Eight.

Then get yourself a kettle of boiling water

and double it.

So two mugs of rice

and then we want four of boiling water.

Get that straight onto a medium-high heat.

We'll season that with just a little salt

and then we can start thinking, like, do we wanna flavour this?

So maybe a little citrus.

You don't have to use the lemon juice,

but if you use a little speed peeler,

you can have lovely lemon scent.

Four pieces like that is more than enough.

Delicious.

Another little curveball which I quite like,

if you wanna have a subtle flavouring of the rice,

is if you've got anything like mint tea,

green tea, jasmine tea, just put a teabag in there.

It just gives a really beautiful

sort of floral savouriness that's nice.

So, bring that to the boil.

That's gonna take about 12 minutes, OK?

And then the final thing that I wanna do

is a little quick pickle.

So all you need is a nice, cleaned cucumber.

I've got a speed peeler,

and just peel into the bowl, like that.

All you want is nice, thin, delicate slithers.

If you wanted to put carrot in there,

fennel, anything crunchy,

radish, that can be very nice.

I'm just gonna put a little bit of chilli in there.

Not too much.

You want a nice little pinch of salt.

Because it's a pickle, I'm gonna use some vinegar.

White or red wine vinegar, doesn't matter.

Couple of tablespoons should be more than enough,

And within seconds, you know,

you get some beautiful texture and flavours.

That is a lovely little pickle.

That'll give crunch and contrast, delicious.

Sesame seeds to sprinkle. Texture, toasty.

A nice sort of like peppery, mustardy, herby salad.

We've got our rice here. This has had about ten minutes.

You can hear now that the water's cooking away,

so just turn it right down, lid on.

In a couple of minutes, that'll be good to go.

Right, let's have a look.

Smells really good.

So, very carefully...

Beautiful.

So I'm coming armed with two forks and a spoon.

So, we've got the fat that's rendered out,

which is precious, by the way,

so we're gonna baste that over the top.

That will all be delicious.

And then, fork action.

In we go, and you get...

..these amazing sort of strings of beautiful brisket.

I would, like, pull...three quarters of it.

Just baste that meat,

mix in those beautiful onions, ginger, garlic.

And look, any leftovers with this, you can put it in the fridge.

It's good for, like, three or four days.

You can put it in the freezer and reheat it again

and make it crispy.

You can stir fry it back up.

You can turn it into beautiful chillies.

So look, this has had its two minutes.

Heat off. Use that fork to fluff up that rice.

Can you see how wonderfully perfect that is?

Fish out the teabag.

Don't want that. But it's done its good work.

Get a nice pile of rice

and then we can go with the beautiful brisket.

Look at this.

And then the juice, of course.

We're gonna take our nice mustardy greens.

Sesame seeds, or you could do any nice crushed nuts.

And then we'll take some of that pickle.

And then, look, some of that gravy and onions.

Gaw. Let's put that on top.

Come on, let's have a little try.

HE CHUCKLES

Oh, my lord.

This would be so good

with a group of mates at the weekend.

The meat is so tender.

The orange, the ginger.

I hardly even have to chew.

It's that good. My goodness.

Let's have a little bit of a pickle.

This kind of food makes me really happy.

Not much effort created this lovely feast.

Such delicious flavours.

I wanna give some love to one of the most underrated ingredients

in the cupboard, and that is...

..beans. They're nutritious,

really good value, they come in all different shapes and sizes.

It's so simple to make them delicious in no time at all.

Let me show you.

Your cupboard can be great for simple ideas

when you need to get a meal on the table fast.

My spiced haricot beans are a brilliant way

to use everyday staples and big-up tinned beans,

plus it comes together in minutes.

What we're gonna do is open our lovely beans.

Super simple. So look, you can use any herb you want.

Mint, basil or coriander.

What I want actually is the coriander stalks,

so don't throw 'em away. We'll keep that.

So I'm gonna make a beautiful Indian spiced beans.

Creamy beans. They're gonna be truly delicious.

So into a pan, just a little bit of olive oil.

And we're gonna start off

with another store cupboard ingredient,

a nice little jar of curry paste.

Super useful for massive, complex flavours without the fuss.

This is a korma one but you could use rogan josh,

you could use tikka, you could use whatever you want.

Another little spice for beautiful colour is turmeric.

Just a little teaspoon goes in like that. Look at the colour.

We're then gonna go in with those coriander stalks

that might have been thrown away. Not today, OK?

Beautiful, sweet flavours. Love it.

Next up, I'm not going to the cupboard

but I'm going to the freezer.

This is a brilliant ingredient. So, I buy fresh spinach,

I grow fresh spinach and I always buy frozen spinach.

This is incredible. Like, this bag here

would be literally a couple of pillowcases of fresh stuff.

It's steamed down and it's put into these blocks,

and this is fantastic for curries and breads

and just putting an extra little cube in a stew or a soup.

It's a fantastically brilliant thing to do.

Just put it in a tea towel

and then instead of taking, like, 20 minutes to defrost it,

you get a rolling pin or something heavy

and you just give it a little whack.

And then what we've got in here

is brilliant spinach

that can go straight in. Just a little pinch of salt.

So a great Indian cheese that you can get in the supermarkets

is paneer.

Paneer is a really interesting cheese.

So just dice it up,

and this is a nice little way of taking a lovely veggie side

to a possibility of being actually

a very simple, beautiful veggie curry.

So let that just sort of shake around.

That paneer will take on the colour.

Look how dark and beautiful the spinach is,

in no time at all.

So next we're gonna go in with the beans.

Haricot beans. Look at that.

You could use borlotti beans, cannellini beans,

butter beans, black-eyed peas.

Like, use whatever you want. We go in juice and all, right?

That juice here, if you watch it melt,

it's gonna give you the most incredible,

comforting, creamy texture.

So stir it all up.

Let that simmer for two minutes

and I've got another hack that I think you're gonna love.

You can buy poppadoms in the supermarkets that aren't fried.

You can just pop them at will in the microwave

for about 35 seconds, and magic happens. Come on.

So there you go. Clever cooking.

Right, let's serve up. It's done, by the way. That quickly.

This is the most sumptuous, gorgeous bean dish.

The most amazing side dish.

I also love cooking things like meat or fish very simply,

just beautifully but simply, and having it with sides

that are really kind of like exciting and delicious.

So, to finish it off... I mean, just look at that.

..I just give it a little oil on top.

I would take that coriander tops

that are just so nice and fresh at the end.

Beans don't have to be boring.

Even going back to our little turmeric,

you know, just a little pinch of that.

And then with this, you can put it on the side if you want,

or you just crunch it up...

..and let it rain poppadom.

Gooey, unctuous, crunch.

Just look at that.

This is a brilliant way to big-up your beans

and open up a whole world of flavours.

Mm.

Delicious, comforting,

and made all the better because it's so simple and so quick.

Just a few ingredients

to make something so delicious and exciting.

And I'm certainly not the only one raiding my store cupboard

for meal inspiration.

Ixta Belfrage is a chef and food writer

whose style of fusion cooking draws inspiration

from three countries very close to her heart.

My mum is Brazilian, my dad's family lived in Mexico

and I grew up in Italy,

so I like to mix a lot of those ingredients

and cuisines that I grew up with and that feel very natural to me.

My food is all about big flavours,

but I'm quite lazy in the kitchen.

I love using store cupboard ingredients

so I can just have, like, a really quick meal in a few minutes.

Dried mushrooms are key. Always got them.

I add them to ragus, sauces.

I make a lot of pastes out of them,

which is actually what I'm gonna do now.

You are gonna love it.

Ixta's using some of her store cupboard

and fridge favourites to make blackened fish tacos.

They're unbelievably fast and simple to knock together

for a truly tasty, impressive dish.

So the most important part of this dish is the paste.

It's full of my store cupboard ingredients,

especially the mushrooms,

which I was talking to you about before.

They add such an incredible depth of flavour.

Some tomato paste, which I always, always, always

have in the cupboard, so plenty of that.

And then we're gonna go in with some oil.

A bit of honey for sweetness.

That's probably enough.

Now, the all-important mushrooms.

You might think it's a bit weird that I'm using mushrooms

in a fish dish, but you don't actually taste them.

They just give the paste this, like, incredible depth of flavour.

I add this paste to marinades like this,

so fish marinades, veg, meat, whatever.

Chipotle flakes, another thing I always have on hand.

I mean, they're super smoky and fruity and full of flavour.

We're gonna add some fresh chillies, a couple of them,

and you don't need to be precious about chopping them.

They're gonna get blitzed up, so just chuck them in.

I've got some cumin and cinnamon here,

but you could use some other spices if you have them.

Allspice would be really nice, as well.

Garlic.

So about four cloves of garlic.

My favourite way of getting the skin off

is literally just doing that, and then you can just peel.

So I'm gonna blitz it now, give it a little shake.

Just keep going.

Add a little bit of water if you like, a bit more oil.

So I'm just gonna mix all these bits to the bottom

so they get blended up,

and then just give it a final blitz.

And then obviously, very importantly,

you have to taste it to make sure it is right.

Ooh. OK, so it's seriously punchy, but in a really good way.

So it's a bit sweet from the honey, really garlicky, which I love.

The chipotle has given it a really nice smokiness.

The mushrooms have given it an incredible depth of flavour,

but, yeah, that is perfect.

I would say this paste lasts about two weeks in the fridge.

To help it last longer, you can just pour a little layer of oil on top

and that will help preserve it.

So there we go, that's my paste.

I'm just gonna give the kitchen a little clean down,

then I'll show you how to use it.

OK, so first thing we're gonna do is marinate that fish.

Cut it into bite-size pieces, I would say.

So, something like this.

This is a skinless, boneless piece of cod

but you could use any sort of white fish.

You could also use prawns, you could also use chicken, or veg.

So I'm just gonna wash my hands quickly.

So with this marinade, it's super punchy,

so we're just gonna marinate it while we prepare

the spring onions and the tacos,

but you could also marinate it overnight.

It is punchy enough that even a ten-minute marinade

will be enough. It smells so good.

Next we're gonna make the crema.

Crema is what you would call a dairy-based sauce in Mexico.

I love Japanese mayo but use whatever you have.

Some of this lovely paste.

I like to use quite a lot but, again,

if you don't really love spice, just use a little bit less.

Give that a nice stir.

I'm gonna add a bit of pineapple. I'm using tinned pineapple,

which I pretty much always have in the cupboard.

It's pretty handy because it means it's always ripe.

Lovely. Give that a little mix.

I love fish and pineapple.

Just the sweetness contrasted with that spiciness

is really, really special.

Crema done, we're gonna char some spring onions.

So, first turn the pan on cos we want it to get really nice and hot.

I'm gonna just drizzle them with a bit of oil and salt,

and I'm doing this on the board so I can give them a nice mix.

I want a nice, even char.

So get them into the pan.

Push them down a little bit

and you wanna hear that sizzle, so that is perfect.

So we're gonna cook them for about two minutes on each side

or until they're nice and charred.

Let's have a little peek at how they're doing.

So we're nearly there on that side. That's looking really nice.

OK, gonna turn them all over now.

One of my favourite things about this dish is it's all in one pan,

so I'm gonna finish charring these,

then we're gonna cook the tortillas in here,

then we're gonna cook the fish in here.

These are perfect.

Right, keep the oil in there. We're gonna char the tortillas.

Think we can fit about two in there.

So you wanna go for about one, two minutes on the first side,

get that lovely golden brown colour,

and then you don't need to go as long on the other side

cos you don't wanna dry them out.

Cover them with a cloth to keep them nice and warm

and get these two in.

So I'm using yellow soft corn tortillas here,

which are my favourite.

I grew up eating tacos.

My granddad and my step-grandma lived in Mexico.

My step-grandma is an amazing cook and whenever we went,

my first request would be home-made tacos.

If you haven't been to Mexico,

it is one of the most incredible places to eat.

Let's get cooking on that fish. So, same pan.

Add a bit of oil.

Swirl that round.

And then we're gonna add the fish. This cooks really quickly,

so just spread it out as it goes in the pan

and then it's gonna take about two, three minutes.

You wanna get it nice and charred, so let it cook on that first side

until you get a nice, blackened crust.

Think I'm also gonna add a little bit more oil.

Not too much, just a touch.

Really don't be tempted to start flipping your fish over too soon

because you really wanna make that crust. So, just leave it.

Oh, my God, that smell is so good.

It's, like, quite hard not to just, like, go in there

and eat it already, but I have to be patient.

So I'm just gonna test to see if they're ready to flip.

Let's have a look. OK, that is perfect.

That's what you want. So that marinade has caramelised.

This is so delicious.

So now you just wanna give them a nice little flip

and cook them very quickly on the other side.

Just give that another little 30 seconds

so it cooks through,

but not too much cos you don't wanna overcook it.

And then you are pretty much there.

Now we are ready to build our tacos.

I'm just gonna slice these spring onions

into bite-size pieces.

There we go. So, this is the most exciting bit.

Do it quickly so it doesn't get too cold. We've got our tortillas here.

I like to sort of fold up the edges.

Now go on with a little bit of that crema.

Oh, that's so, so good.

And now the best part, that blackened fish goes on.

A little bit on each one.

You can smell all of those dried chillies,

you can smell a bit of the sweetness coming off the honey.

It's just, oh, so, so good.

OK, so now we're gonna go on with our lovely, charred spring onion.

Little bit on each one,

and finally...a bit of fresh citrus.

I like to use a combination of lime and tangerine.

You could also use orange or mandarin.

They're pretty much the same thing.

So cut a nice, two nice little cheeks on the side

and then use the rest to squeeze over,

cos you really want loads.

Same thing with the lime.

And there you have it. My blackened fish tacos

with a pineapple crema, charred spring onions

and that all-important paste that just makes everything sing.

OK, the moment of truth. I cannot wait to try this.

Oh, my God. That is actually so good.

I'm not just saying it. It really is.

Mm. So good.

Let's finish things off with the most delicious dessert,

and the best thing about it is I'm gonna make baking simple.

This strawberry and balsamic tart

is my tribute to the classic Italian combination

of fresh strawberries and balsamic vinegar.

It's the most delicious filling

for this unbelievably easy freeform tart

that you can knock up in half an hour.

So, this dessert revolves around

a base of home-made pastry,

which I think not enough people have done before.

It is so simple.

Yes, you can definitely go and buy pre-made pastry,

sweet or savoury, in the supermarkets,

but it will never, ever taste like home-made.

So I've diced up 250g of butter.

I'm gonna add to that a nice little pinch of salt

and then I'm gonna go in with 500g of plain flour.

You can sift it if you want, but you don't need to.

So, just rub this together for just a minute.

At this point, we can flavour it.

Orange zest, lemon zest, vanilla, spice, a bit of cinnamon.

There's loads you can do.

So I'm gonna go for some lovely vanilla.

Now, this is a vanilla paste.

You can get it in all the supermarkets.

Couple of teaspoons of this goes in.

I'm also gonna add 100g of icing sugar.

And we're gonna go in with two large, lovely, free range eggs.

Now, I'll take a little fork and just beat those eggs up

and then when they're nicely mixed,

I'll start bringing in the flour like this

and it should come together as a lovely little dough.

I can smell that vanilla.

So you could make this even quicker in the food processor.

You can put it into one of those little mixers,

but I love to do it by hand

because I'm not gonna overwork it.

If you don't overwork it, it's more crumbly,

more delicate and more delicious.

So at this point, put it onto your clean surface...

..and we'll just bring this together.

I'm not, like, kneading it like bread or pasta dough.

I don't want the gluten to become sort of elastic

and therefore kind of tough.

Pat it down, like that.

I'm only gonna use half of this for this dessert.

Just put a little bit of greaseproof paper...

..down, like this.

What I can do is just press that out.

Put that over,

and then if you kind of semi-roll this out...

..that can go in the freezer

and then you've got pastry that you can enjoy another time.

So, look, here's our lovely dough.

Just press it out a little bit.

I'm gonna get...

..some greaseproof paper.

Again, just fold it in half, then in half again...

..then in half again.

It's just a kind of hat that'll stop it from sticking on the tray.

So I'll place my pastry on that, like that.

Give it a little roll out.

Press it out as much as you can

and then I'm gonna put that in the fridge

just for a couple of minutes while I do the filling.

Now, the filling is very, very exciting.

So I've got 500g of lovely strawberries here.

Just take the little green tops off.

You could swap this out for apricots,

nectarines, peaches, plums, rhubarb even.

Really, really nice.

So there's our fruit.

I want two tablespoons of balsamic vinegar.

Yep, you heard right, balsamic vinegar.

So, in it goes. Sweet, rich, thick.

You're gonna get these kind of amazing

kind of tutti-frutti vibes going when you add vinegar

to sweet, delicious fruit like this.

Then, like, four tablespoons of, like,

white or golden caster sugar goes in, and then orange.

Take the zest.

It'll give the most incredible flavour with balsamic

and fruits like strawberries.

Just toss it up.

The sugar will start macerating

and drawing out the juices from the strawberries

and creating this amazing sauce with the balsamic.

So to aid and help me with that,

I'm gonna use cornflour.

So two tablespoons of cornflour goes in,

and that's gonna thicken

the beautiful juices that come out of the strawberries.

So we'll mix that up.

Let me just wash my hands.

And that little bit of time in the fridge...

..our pastry would have started to solidify a little bit and relax.

So just roll it out very simply to half a centimetre thick.

Roughly a circle.

If it cracks, if it ain't perfect, go with the flow.

Super simple.

So before I put this beautiful fruit on here,

there's a little thing that I've learnt to do

to add texture, flavour,

but also mop up some of those juices

that are inevitably gonna come out of there, right?

And that's about four tablespoons of ground almonds.

Just sprinkle that in the middle.

A super simple thing, but it works.

Then on top of that, we're gonna put the strawberries.

Just push it around like that. CONKER BARKS

Mate, you're not gonna be interested in this dish.

Oh!

The flavour is absolutely incredible, and completely sweet.

Like, it's not savoury or vinegary in any kind of weird way.

It is just magical.

We're gonna take up a little edge like that

and just hold it like that,

and then we'll just quite rough and ready,

like, just kind of fold it over and twist it,

and you create this beautiful open dessert.

I will use just a little egg and create an egg wash.

So, beat it up with a pastry brush

and then go around the edges

and brush it so it's gonna shine.

And this is gonna make it go golden and delicious,

and this really is baking made simple.

No flash moulds or tart tins. We're not baking blind.

I've literally made this from scratch

and got to this point in around ten minutes.

I have to just give it a little bit more sugar

to stick to that pastry, to give it that lovely effect.

And, wait for it...

..just a little olive oil.

Very, very nice.

So, at this point, get yourself a little baking sheet.

Use the paper to drag it off carefully.

So it goes right on the bottom of the oven

so it cooks the underside of the pastry,

and that's gonna cook for 25 minutes

at 200 degrees Celsius, which is 400 Fahrenheit.

Conker, now is the moment which we've all been waiting for.

I mean, the juices from the strawberries,

they always find their way out

but it starts bubbling and caramelising around the edge.

The smell right now is amazing.

It reminds me of my mum making jam when I was a kid.

Look at that. Really nice.

Just take that greaseproof paper, put it onto a board like that.

Get yourself a dish. Where shall we go?

Let's just go in here. Straight in the middle.

Get some of those juices.

Then let's get a nice little ball of vanilla ice cream.

So, come on, let's have a try.

Let's get in there.

Mm. I love it.

Those strawberries kind of burst in your mouth.

The balsamic vinegar, the orange, the vanilla,

it's all working in there, in the most beautiful way.

Mm.

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