Live webchat with top TV chef James Martin - Thurs 25 Oct 3.30-4.30pm

Lindylooby

I love cooking, and watch you every Saturday. Have you got a foolproof curry recipe for the slow cooker? I love my slow cooker but curry never seems to taste that good?Please, please answer this question - I want to amaze friends when they come over.

Yeah, you can take any of the recipes from Saturday kitchen on the slow cooker. But what I find is that Moroccan recipes in the slow cooker work best. If you think of a tagine, it's a slow cooking pot - that's what it is! Try the Beef Rendang, it's Indonesian, in my new book - it's got coconut milk and lemongrass, lime, it's lovely!

Mamie

Hi James
My question is about slow cooking in a cooling, wood-fired bread oven. We have had the bread oven for about three years and have got pretty good at bread, pizza and tarts. We haven't yet used the potential of the oven as it cools from about 250c to 50c over 12 hours. Our neighbours here in Normandy would love us to make the local speciality, Tergoule, but we already get that at every village event and frankly, a little bit of rice pudding goes a long way!
So ideas, savoury or sweet would be very welcome.

The best and most famous dish in a wooden oven as it cools is boulanger potatoes, that's where the name comes from! But there's a recipe in the book called Tartifettes, with sliced potatoes bacon and cheese. Try that! Very French.

Banbury

Hi James,

I just wanted to add that Madhur Jaffrey's omelette sabotage last weekend was was on of the funniest things I've seen for a while!



What's been your hair-raising moment on live TV?

New book sounds great by the way

It's the bit that you don't see because the timings are quite crucial! So when someone like Mrs Jaffrey takes too long, I've got to cook my dish in about three and a half minutes!

I've had things catch fire... when the autocue goes down, the camera goes off - the joys of live television!

Winefride

My slow cooker recipes can tend to taste the same any suggestions

Stop putting the same food in it?! The secret is sealing the meat first, and then reducing the temperature down. Even to seal it in the separate pan first, then when you've sealed it, put it in the slow cooker afterwards is sometimes a good idea.

granIT

OOh, James, great to have you here. I read somewhere that food should either be cooked fast or slow, but almost never in the middle which is where I seem do all my cooking. (If in doubt, gas mark 4 or 5).

Any truth in this?

You're probably right, actually. A prime example is squid. Its' got to be cooked very quickly, like what you're about to see on Saturday kitchen this saturday, or really quickly, with peppers and tomatoes. Only food that is tender can be quickly cooked, whereas all ingredients can be slowly cooked.

getmehrt

Hi James, what a treat to have you on Gransnet!
Do you have any suggestions for cakes I can put in the oven before I go to football and get out when I come back (I reckon I'm out of the house for nearly three hours). Or is this a mad aspiration?

Cakes you can put in the oven, but you might have to come back at half time?? Things like lardy cakes, Christmas cakes, require a good 2 and a half hours in the oven. But if it’s sponge cake, it’ll be cooked in 20 minutes, unfortunately!

Stansgran

I am a slow cooker fan but my question is about a pork dish you cooked for TV (during the programme on watercress)and served very undercooked-I thought undercooked pork=worms-does this still hold true or have times changed?

artygran

I have a similar question about pork - specifically, shoulder. I recently saw another TV chef cook a shoulder of pork for an hour. It looked underdone and if my experience of underdone pork shoulder is anything to go by, it should have been tough. I always thought to get the best out of pork shoulder it had to be cooked slowly for about two or more hours. To echo Stansgran, have times changed?

That's trhe old myth - it’s like duck eggs and poisoning. It’s one of those things that used to happen 5n years ago, but we were pork farmers for 50 years in my life and I never had worms, so…!