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

merlotgran

Hi James, Your book is well timed as I suspect slow cooking will become very popular this winter as fuel costs continue to rise and we're all watching the food budget. I also like using a pressure cooker for cheaper cuts of meat. Have you any plans to include recipes for pressure cookers in future books?

There are alternatives in this book for using pressure cookers, so you can use the same recipes!

JayP

Hi James, love your show and my slow cooker. I have a friend who cooked rice pudding in his slow cooker but when I tired it always turns out dry and horrible. Any ideas ?

Put more liquid in! The secret I find with rice pudding is at the end add some clotted cream, and then demerera sugar, and then under the grill.

cleopatra

Ha I seem to be having an interview the top chefs on gransnet day today!

I love roast beef - I like it rare. But is there a way I can cook it for longer so it is meltingly tender but still pink in the middle? Thanks in advance

I did a recipe in the book that I also did in Saturday Kitchen - it's seared fillet of beef, wrapped in clingfilm, then cooked in the oven at 65 degrees centigrade.

This will keep it beautiful and pink and nice and tender. Sounds odd, but it works.

distaffgran

Duck breasts. Are they worth buying? And then having bought them, what to do with them?

They are worth buying, but you wouldn't slow cook them. You would cook them skinj side down in a dry non-stick pan for 3-4 minutes until golden brown and then turn over and roast in the oven for ten minutes 200 degrees.

Great with figs or sherry roasted parsnips this time of year!

eGJ

Please James have you any foolproof soup recipes for the slow cooker, that take minumun effort?

This time of year pumpkin is lovely, or a Mulligatawny. The spices require cooking out, otherwise they taste raw. They get better the longer they cook - so you wouldn't cook a pea and ham soup in a slow cooker!

Both recipes are in the book.

Hattiehelga

I have been cooking for over fifty years - somewhat immodestly I can say with a good degree of success, especially puddings !! However, I have never mastered Flaky or Puff Pastry even after following instructions to the letter many times. Have you any tips James please ?

Keep the butter cold and even the flour cold, i.e. put it in the fridge helps. But with flaky pastry, you must do it by hand.

Puff pastry - the skill is layering the butter into the pastry. The dessert book that I did has got it in a step-by step guide, how to do what they call 'book turns'. It's just all about the way you incorporate the butter into the pastry that's the key.

robbo

hello James
I have 20 family which includes six under 5's for a casual boxing day lunch can you give me a slow cooker recipe that is just a little bit special . Chicken beef or lamb. All three son in laws fancy themselves as gourmet cooks so I am really up against it .Slow cooking great idea so I dont have to spend all my time in the kitchen and can enjoy the day.
Many thanks

Personally, I would do something like a chicken Chasseur, or they sometimes call it Hunter's sauce. It's tarragon, tomatoes, onions mushrooms and serve that with mashed potato. You can do that in a slow cooker, and it uses the whole of the chicken - legs, breast, thighs, everything.

loudmouth

Did you always want to be a cook? And how did you and your eyes get spotted?

I always wanted to be a cook since working on a farm, and understanding where food came from. but television came about when I was 23 and working as a head chef in a restaurant. That was it!

GrandmaH

I love my slow cooker but is it necessary to brown the meat before going into the pot? The whole point of the cooker to my mind is that it is really quick & easy. Browning the meat & onions etc first rather spoils one pot idea but I was always told that you had to brown the meat to get the extra flavour. Does it really make much difference?
And to be cheeky please & ask 2 questions- are there any good desserts I can do in it?
hank you
Hx

Unless you do an irish stew, or something like a white chicken stew, both of which don't require browning. The only reason why you brown it is to impart colour to the finished stew. It will impart a little bit of flavour, but it generally adds colour.

Things like jam is really good to make in the slow cooker, because you can regulate the temperature. Figs are in season at the moment, so you could make a nice chutney in the slow cooker.

GraniSuz

I did Beef Stew & dumplings yesterday in my Slow Cooker for the first time - I followed the recipe to the letter but my dumplings still weren't cooked. Should I boil them first & then add them to the Slow Cooker? Thank you James - this subject has come up at just the right time XX

Just cook them for a little bit longer in the slow cooker - it won't harm the stew. Or make them smaller - dumplings will expand to three times the size. If you make them too big it soaks in too much of the liquor from the stew.

glassortwo

Hello James, do you have any good low fat recipes for the slow cooker.

Cooking things in tomatoes and peppers is a great way of doing it. But even things like beef stew can be quite low in calories, as I've been finding while working for the NHS. The nutritionists allow it to be put on the menu for the patients, because you lose none of the vitamins by draining any of the veg off etc.

whenim64

Oh, I luuuurve James Martin. Watch him very Saturday morning. I just bought his Masterclass book for my sister and she served up the best pasta she's ever made the other night.

James, can I ask a non-cooking question, please? Speaking as a former hostage to two clumber spaniels - how on earth did you manage to train your lovely clumber Fudge to keep from trampling through your veg plots?

Train and clumber spaniels are two different languages! Fudge has actually learnt, when it's wet, to pull the carrots out the ground and eats them, and he eats the strawberries too!

Just enjoy him as a dog! He's not going to open the fridge for you or any of that stuff!! Great characters though.

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…!

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!

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.

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.

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!