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00:00We do, do sponsor How to Cook Well at Christmas with Rory O'Connell too.
00:06The gas part is only part of it.
00:30I love spending Christmas at home, but sometimes you need a little further inspiration, and London is very exciting at Christmas.
00:39Full of all the twinkling lights, all the magic and sparkle that you expect at Christmas time, and hopefully inspiration for delicious Christmas gifts.
00:52I've arrived at Fortleman Mason, and there has been a shop on this site since 1707.
00:57It's looking wonderful. All ready for Christmas. Two gentlemen at the door to let me in. I'm going in.
01:03Thanks, guys. Hello.
01:10As if by the magical Christmas, we have the store to ourselves, and you walk in this area, and the first thing you notice is this incredible double helix staircase,
01:19and then the classic eau de neil color, which sort of embellishes so many of the products and so much of the store.
01:27Marble counters, vitrines, polished glass, polished brass, a cornucopia of possibility, joy-giving things, as Fortleman Mason's like to say.
01:37This is a place that gives joy, delicious things I can't wait to explore.
01:41To describe this as a chocolate counter does not do justice to, I think, the 500 different possibilities of flavors, colors, shapes, sizes.
02:01It's quite extraordinary, really. Something for everybody here, to put it mildly.
02:06But the rose and violet creams are one of the things that Fortleman's are most famous for, and people come back year after year with a sense of nostalgia,
02:15a sense of hunger, a sense of longing for something really special.
02:18So I hope my caramel and chocolate truffles may not match the beauty of what we're seeing here, but they should be delicious.
02:27Who doesn't love a little chocolate?
02:33In my case, a little is the appropriate word, and some people will have as many chocolates as is possible that comes their direction.
02:41And this particular chocolate truffle that I'm going to make now, it's intensely flavored and combines the flavor of chocolate and caramel,
02:50which is really a match made in chocolate heaven, you'd say.
02:53So I'm going to begin by making a caramel.
02:57So I'm going to put some water into a saucepan and some sugar.
03:02I'll give it the odd stir just to encourage the sugar to start to dissolve.
03:07But when the sugar is dissolved, I take the spoon out of the saucepan,
03:11because it can get a little bit cranky if you keep stirring it, particularly once it starts to caramelize.
03:17It's really important that you have your cream and your butter ready,
03:20because when the caramel is ready, you've got to stop it cooking immediately.
03:24Otherwise, it will really burn badly on you.
03:31So our syrup is cooking away here, and as you can see, it's just starting to caramelize lightly around the edge of the pot.
03:38Just don't be tempted to stir it.
03:42Just tilt your pan like that.
03:44To and fro, backwards and forwards.
03:46And don't overdo that.
03:48And now you can see we have pretty much evened out the color again.
03:52I'm going to turn off the heat under the hob.
03:54I want that color to even up.
03:58Gets a fraction darker.
04:01Okay.
04:02That goes off the heat.
04:04Then straight away, pop in the butter and also the cream.
04:09And you get an extraordinary sort of volcanic reaction in your saucepan.
04:15And it's safe now to pop your wooden spoon back in and to stir it.
04:18I mean, we've basically made a butterscotch sauce.
04:21Delicious.
04:22Before pouring the butterscotch onto the chocolate, take it off the heat and wait for one minute.
04:28If you pour it straight onto the chocolate, it may burn on you.
04:31Wait for another two minutes before stirring the mixture thoroughly.
04:35And the chocolate should just melt really nicely into that lovely buttery, creamy, caramelly butterscotch.
04:42There may be somebody around who's very happy to have whatever you're willing to leave on the spatula.
04:50Now, when you pour this in here, it's going to look as if it's a little mean.
04:55Because these are so rich, I like to make them quite small.
04:58This is such a pure taste of chocolate.
05:02100% between the two eyes chocolate experience that I absolutely love.
05:09So that's that in the tin.
05:10Just smooth it up.
05:11Don't get into having too much of a tizzy.
05:13And by the time these are cut and rolled in cocoa, altogether very forgiving.
05:17So pop that into the fridge.
05:19This will keep in the fridge for several weeks.
05:21Once it's set, I would cover it and maybe slip it into a little plastic bag ready for cutting.
05:26But here's one I made earlier.
05:28And lining the tin, as you can see, is really a great help to you there.
05:33The other really important ingredient for the truffle is this unsweetened cocoa powder,
05:39or what's sometimes called Dutch processed cocoa powder.
05:42And it gives a really deep, old-fashioned sort of flavour.
05:46Then on your chopping board, nice, clean cut.
05:49And then cut it into your appropriate sized pieces.
05:54And then dip it into the cocoa.
05:56Now, dipping things in cocoa can be a messy, powdery business.
06:00So maybe not your best white shirt for this.
06:03You can cut them into long little skinny sticks as well if you want to.
06:07All manner of shapes and sizes.
06:09Then turn them into cocoa and that gives them that lovely, sort of expensive-looking finish.
06:15Pop them into your cases.
06:17A little homemade chocolate can be a really simple business, as you've just seen.
06:21But what a gift.
06:23What a lovely thing to share.
06:25Made in your own kitchen, by your own fair hands.
06:29As I say, a really proper Christmas treat.
06:32Away from the glitz, sparkle and glamour of Piccadilly in London's West End,
06:46this part of East London, Bethnal Green beside the Regent's Canal,
06:50has its own grittier charm.
06:52It's where Max Rosher has opened Cafe Cecilia,
06:55a modest name for what is in fact a very stylish and successful restaurant.
07:02So Max, for the longest time the Russian name
07:07has been synonymous with fashion and style.
07:12And that was until you came along.
07:14And now the Russian name is synonymous with good food
07:17in your wonderful restaurant, Cafe Cecilia,
07:20which I believe is named after your grandmother, is that right?
07:22Named after my grandmother, yeah.
07:24My dad's mother, who famously saved up money
07:27with her poker buddies in Hong Kong when he was 16
07:31to get him a flight to London
07:32because he had a dream of making something of himself.
07:35So we thought we might as well name it after her
07:38as a token towards her.
07:39Wonderful, yeah.
07:40I love to cook and you love to cook.
07:42And cooking is one of my...
07:46Do I want to use that expression, safe places?
07:48Yeah.
07:48When I'm cooking, I feel entirely secure and happy and involved.
07:55And I know you sort of feel that as well.
07:57Yeah, when I'm cooking, all the stresses of like running a restaurant,
08:02personal thing, it all goes out of my head
08:04and I can concentrate on one thing.
08:05I'm no good front of house.
08:07Do you know what I mean?
08:08Serving guests, the public.
08:09Yeah, I know.
08:10Lots of cooks are happier sort of peeking out into the dining room.
08:13Yeah.
08:13And your food, which has sometimes been described as comfort food,
08:17and that's an expression that can be misunderstood
08:20because that does not suggest that it's not stylish and sophisticated,
08:24but it's the way you feel when you eat the sort of food
08:27that you like to cook.
08:28I think why people think our food's comfort food
08:31is because it feels safe, approachable,
08:34but then like the best home cooking, I think,
08:36is what we strive for here is like the best home cooking
08:40that you want to make at home, but you don't have the time to.
08:43Then you can come here and have the best ingredients.
08:45Yeah.
08:46And that's comfort food for me, for sure.
08:48Family is core to what you do here,
08:51your own family and the fact that this is a restaurant
08:54where many families come to eat.
08:55We do breakfast on the weekend,
08:57so a lot of kids come in for that.
08:58Yeah.
08:58It's a big, big mix of people,
09:00which is really important to me, you know?
09:02So it's not just fancy, it's not just like occasions.
09:06We want to be open to everybody.
09:07Yeah, yeah.
09:08And your book, which came out, was it last year?
09:10Yeah, last September, yeah.
09:13Yeah, yeah.
09:13It's been great.
09:14Congratulations.
09:14Thank you so much.
09:15It's so beautiful and the food is so stylish.
09:18And what's this delicious?
09:19So this is a smoked mackerel pate, pickled cucumber
09:23and on our Guinness bread that we make every morning.
09:25Yeah.
09:26Just we get lovely smoked mackerels in most weeks
09:28and it's good at Christmas time
09:30because it feels quite special
09:32and we usually, this is for one person,
09:35but we cut the bread into quarters and do it as a canapé.
09:37So it's very versatile.
09:39Absolutely lovely.
09:40Really perfect.
09:41And I know the Guinness bread has been a real sensation.
09:44And speaking of pickles, that's what I'm going to do next.
09:47This is a brilliantly simple pickle.
10:02And in the way that some preserves,
10:04because this is a preserve really,
10:06are cooked,
10:07some are also raw
10:08and just allowed to sort of marinate
10:10in the preserving liquid
10:12that we are going to create
10:13with incredible ease.
10:15And I'm using cauliflower and red onion.
10:18And this is something I might serve with a ham sandwich
10:20or a little bit of leftover cold turkey.
10:23Be wonderful with a burger or a piece of cheese
10:26and it will keep in your fridge for weeks and weeks.
10:28It is remarkably easy.
10:30So I trim off the leaves
10:33and the tough stalk of the cauliflower.
10:36I tend to keep some of those,
10:38chop them up very finely
10:39and they can go into a stir fry,
10:40you know, really, really finely.
10:42And these smaller little green leaves
10:44closely attached to the actual little cauliflower itself
10:48are also delicious,
10:50even raw or in a salad.
10:52And with that little part of the core,
10:53if it's tender, which it is,
10:55I slice those little bits
10:57and they will sort of disappear
10:58into the pickle as well.
11:01Now, you want to slice the cauliflower quite thinly,
11:04but what I like to use for this
11:06is my trusty mandolin.
11:08Speaking of Christmas presents,
11:09if I didn't have one of these,
11:11it will be high on my list of requests.
11:13And this can slice the cauliflower
11:1510 times faster
11:17and I can do it by hand.
11:18So, you know, why wouldn't you have one?
11:20And they last for years and years.
11:22Now, when you get to the sort of scary stage,
11:26what you can do if you want to
11:27is use the safety guard.
11:30So you just punch the safety guard,
11:33which has got little sort of little nails on it like that,
11:36onto the cauliflower and off you go.
11:40And then you get these lovely little,
11:43rather beautiful little slices of cauliflower,
11:46like little mini trees.
11:48And if you're trying to get people to eat raw vegetables
11:50or want to get more vegetables eaten in your house,
11:52this may be a way of making
11:54the otherwise rather cruder-looking cauliflower
11:57look more attractive.
11:59We don't have such a great tradition
12:00of this sort of pickle in this country,
12:02but they are so easy and so good
12:05and I absolutely love them.
12:06And the fact that they keep really well is great.
12:08So you get these gorgeous sort of shaved bits of cauliflower.
12:11Those bits of stalk are also going in.
12:14And now I'm going to put in some red onion,
12:16again, sliced on my mandolin.
12:18Red onion gives a lovely pink hue to the pickles
12:22after they've been sitting for a while in your fridge.
12:25But use the safety guard.
12:28Otherwise, you won't be able to do much cooking at Christmas.
12:31And I tend to break them up like that.
12:34Now, I've got some either raisins or sultanas
12:37and I poured a little boiling water over them
12:40and left them sitting for a half an hour,
12:42strained off the water
12:43and it plumps up the fruit so beautifully.
12:47Then the rest of my red onion, like that.
12:51My preserving ingredients, which are sugar.
12:54You can use less sugar if you want to in this recipe.
12:56That's fine.
12:57As far as I'm concerned,
12:58it doesn't taste so nice with less sugar,
13:00but that's completely up to yourself.
13:02But you do need some sugar in here, definitely.
13:05As you'd expect, we also need a little bit of salt
13:07just to help to raise the flavour of everything
13:09and make it taste delicious.
13:11And then I'm using cider vinegar.
13:13You could use white wine vinegar here.
13:15You could use red wine vinegar.
13:17What I wouldn't use here is malt vinegar.
13:20It's too sharp.
13:21So white wine vinegar.
13:23So this is an uncooked pickle.
13:26Well, in the sense that we don't add any heat to the situation.
13:30Stir that around like that.
13:33And then when this goes into a jar then,
13:35the pickling liquid preserves everything.
13:37So this will keep absolutely for a month in your fridge.
13:41It's so useful for all sorts of different things.
13:44So I like to let it sit for maybe a sort of a half an hour or so.
13:48And then I'm going to pot it into some lovely jars.
13:52How easy is that?
14:03We do, do sponsor this show, too.
14:09We do, do sponsor this show, too.
14:18Whenever I come to London, there's one place I always visit.
14:35Sally Clark's shop in Kensington.
14:37Full of the most delicious food, ingredients.
14:40It's always a source of inspiration
14:42and a source of something truly delicious to eat.
14:45At any time of the year, it looks wonderful.
14:47At Christmastime, it's particularly special.
14:49There's always something seasonal.
14:51So at this time of the year, a bowl of leafy clementines.
14:54I mean, does not just sort of spring joy into your heart
14:58and it sort of screams to me of seasonality and Christmas.
15:01Mince pies, all manner of little chocolates,
15:04caramelized nuts, rose petal flecked bars.
15:08You know, everything with beautiful ribbons.
15:10Everything is thought through.
15:11It looks really, really wonderful.
15:13Alongside it, Sally's famous Christmas pudding,
15:16which is beautifully wrapped with a little muslin topknot.
15:20And of course, always a gorgeous ribbon.
15:22There are always gorgeous ribbons in this shop.
15:24And last year, Sally brought out a book
15:27to celebrate 40 years of her being in the food business.
15:32And I'm just wondering about the mince pies
15:33because they're giving me an idea.
15:34I think I'm going to do a little variation
15:37on a pastry with fruit in it called an Eccles cake.
15:42And I hope when I make them at home
15:44that if Sally came for tea,
15:46she would think they were delicious.
15:47We always think of lovely, hot, mince pies
15:59with maybe a little whiskey cream at Christmas.
16:01And they are delicious.
16:02And I look forward to them every year.
16:04But I'm going to make an alternative version,
16:07we'll say here.
16:08And these are called Eccles cakes.
16:10And they originated in Lancashire in England.
16:12And they come in all sorts of iterations nowadays.
16:15But the iteration that I'm making
16:17is pretty much the most traditional one.
16:20I've got some currants.
16:21So whenever you see dried fruit,
16:23I think you definitely think about Christmas.
16:26If you only had raisins or sultanas to hand,
16:28I'd be happy to use that.
16:30Then we're going to sweeten those
16:31with a little bit of sugar.
16:34And then very importantly,
16:35this is some candied peel I make myself.
16:37I know, maybe I have too much time on my hands.
16:40But when I've left over orange and lemon peel
16:41I cook them down slowly,
16:44then cook them in syrup.
16:45And you have homemade candied peel,
16:47which is a glorious thing.
16:49Then I need a little bit of melted butter
16:51just to bind that together.
16:54And then just to add a little bit more Christmassy flavour,
16:58you could grate the zest of an orange.
16:59But I'm going to grate the zest of a leaf clementine here.
17:03Or the smell.
17:04I mean, once you zest a clementine,
17:06it's just such a wonderful Christmassy thing.
17:09Right.
17:11Just mix everything together.
17:12The butter sort of disappears in.
17:14That's precisely the right consistency.
17:18OK, that's our mixture.
17:19Looking lovely and kind of shiny and glossy and Christmassy.
17:23Now, I've got some puff pastry.
17:25And the colder your puff pastry is,
17:27the easier this is to handle.
17:30Stamp out your pastry.
17:32Then about one teaspoon of the mixture
17:34into the centre of your pastry.
17:37Don't overfill them.
17:38I sometimes dab a little bit of water.
17:42Then just literally just push
17:44the pastry in towards the centre.
17:49You can keep it moving like that if you want.
17:51To completely conceal the contents.
17:55You might need to have to bully it a little bit,
17:58as I'm doing.
17:59When you turn them over, like that,
18:02then you get your rolling pin.
18:03You roll them out quite thinly.
18:06You could have a little flour on your work surface
18:07if your pastry decides to be cantankerous.
18:10So you start to see the fruit coming out like that.
18:14Just sort of, like, ghost-like on the surface.
18:18Then you brush the tops with a little bit of water.
18:22Just a little.
18:24And then you sprinkle it with a little granulated sugar
18:26to give a little bit of Christmas sparkle.
18:29And finally, you make little sort of slits.
18:33Not quite in as far as the fruit,
18:35but still definitely visible there.
18:38So just keep assembling them like that.
18:41And we're going to put those into a hot oven
18:44and cook them until they're golden
18:46and almost caramelised looking.
18:49And they will be really wonderful.
18:51So those I'm going to put straight into the oven
18:53and I'd cook between 10 and 15 minutes
18:55until they're slightly caramelised, golden, crispy
18:59and full of delicious Christmas flavours.
19:02Not a traditional Christmas treat,
19:06but nonetheless a really delicious one.
19:13It's been an amazing year for apples this year.
19:16Just such a profusion of all the various different varieties.
19:20And I'm going to make an apple chutney, somewhat spiced,
19:24which, as far as I'm concerned,
19:26makes a really perfect Christmas present.
19:28So I'm using a Bramley apple, just a sort of cooking apple,
19:32which I begin by peeling
19:33and then we're going to cut it into a little dice.
19:36Really, where possible, try to find Irish apples
19:39because they grow so well in this country.
19:43And I'm not using my finest dicing technique there
19:46because actually the apple is going to collapse somewhat in the cooking,
19:50which is what we want to happen.
19:52So that's going straight into my saucepan.
19:55So I'm using a stainless steel saucepan.
19:57You could use a cast iron saucepan as well.
19:59Just don't use an aluminium saucepan here
20:01because the aluminium will react with the vinegar in the recipe
20:06and give you a somewhat metallic taste.
20:08So the preserve here is the combination of the sugar and the vinegar.
20:14Then our flavourings.
20:15So I've got lovely crushed garlic for a bit of oomph.
20:19Then some turmeric, which is going to give a nice rich colour
20:23and a little flavour to the chutney.
20:26Black mustard seeds.
20:28Little bit of heath.
20:29Then fat, juicy sultanas.
20:31And this is a good way, by the way,
20:33of using up some old raisins or sultanas
20:36that are waving at you from the cupboard saying,
20:38save me.
20:38Because in the cooking process,
20:40they plump up really nicely
20:42and even a rather tired sultana can be rendered
20:45re-energised by the chutney-making process.
20:50A little cinnamon.
20:52Apple, cinnamon, match made in heaven.
20:54So we have sort of sweet spices
20:56and savoury spices going in here.
20:59Then I've got a little paprika.
21:01And that is sweet paprika.
21:03But if you only had smoked paprika in the house,
21:05again, I wouldn't be getting into the car
21:07to drive to the shop for the sweet one.
21:10A little bit of root ginger,
21:12which I've peeled and just coarsely grated like that,
21:15building up little layers of flavour.
21:18Some salt.
21:19And then I've got some white malt vinegar.
21:22This is sort of, you know,
21:23the coarsest of all vinegars.
21:25But by the time the chutney cooks,
21:28the fierceness of the vinegar evaporates.
21:31And we're going to cook this.
21:32I'll start it off sort of slowly.
21:34And then I can turn up the heat
21:35and allow it to come up to temperature
21:38and bubble away
21:39until it reduces to about half of its original quantity.
21:44If you're doing something like this
21:46and you have to reduce something,
21:47it's never any harm
21:48to take something like a knife
21:50and pop it into the middle of the pot like that.
21:54And that marks the level of liquid.
21:56So now I know that when this is cooked,
21:58I need sort of half that quantity.
21:59So it's a way of helping you just to remember.
22:02So the heat's going to go on there.
22:03And we're going to bubble it up
22:04and then it will reduce down to a lovely,
22:07not terribly dark,
22:09somewhat light brown sludgy consistency.
22:20Great, that's looking lovely now.
22:22It's thickened up rather beautifully.
22:24The apple has collapsed down
22:26and sort of blended in
22:27almost into the chutney.
22:29And it's considerably thicker than it was.
22:32It's that sort of consistency.
22:34Now, I like to put it into
22:36a nice, clean, sterilised jam jar.
22:39Now, if you happen to have a jam funnel,
22:42it makes life much easier.
22:44Life is better with a jam funnel,
22:46I have to say,
22:47certainly when it comes to items like this.
22:50And you can get as creative as you want.
22:52But I love these small little,
22:54tiny little jars
22:55as a little sort of
22:57a stocking filler type situation.
22:59But you'll know what will be
23:01regardless of being
23:02an acceptable gift in your house.
23:05But I must say,
23:06in this house,
23:07a little pot of apple chutney
23:08is always very well received.
23:18So while the Eccles cakes
23:19have been cooking
23:20to this lovely caramelised,
23:22burnished,
23:23sugar-crunchy, crisp topping
23:24with the lovely fruit
23:25and Christmassy flavours inside,
23:27I've been very busy
23:28putting my truffles
23:30into all sorts of
23:31different little containers,
23:32jam jars, terracotta pots.
23:35Our chutney is looking great there
23:36with little ribbons on them
23:38and bows
23:38and candied orange slices.
23:40Our cauliflower
23:42in its pickle
23:42with its red onions
23:43all looks great.
23:44All in all,
23:46lovely assembly of things.
23:47Any of them making a lovely gift
23:49from your own kitchen,
23:50from the heart,
23:52to those you love,
23:53Happy Christmas.
24:06We do, do sponsor
24:22How to Cook Well at Christmas
24:24with Rory O'Connell too.
24:25The gas part
24:26is only part of it.
24:27The gas part
24:30is only part
24:34of the
24:43ось Lemire
24:45in the kitchen
24:47without you
24:49ani
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