Prue Leith's Cotswold Kitchen - Season 1 Episode 3 -Ellie Simmonds

and friends and some of those friends will be joining me we'll be sharing simple homecooked recipes don't normally tell people about that bit only people I like and celebrating the best produce for 47 years I have been lucky enough to live in the astonishingly beautiful CWS and my longsuffering husband John is coming along for the ride can you make that um under instruction coming up today gold medalist Ellie Simmons will be baking a cake she calls Heaven on a plate me I could eat sweet things all day every day for breakfast for lunch for dinner John is having a perfect day out visiting a local cheese maker now that's delish it's heading into the gum teaser domain can I have some more pleas and I've got a great hack for a Normandy tart bash it away and till it's pretty well even welcome to my Cotswold [Music] kitchen my first dish today takes me straight back to my childhood and my family and that's true for a lot of us I think food does trigger Memories the recipe is an old favorite of mine and in fact of every South African and it really brings back lots of memories for me it's called bouti and is a bit like shepherd's pie except it's curried and my mother always did it at parties with lots of different [Music] salads basically it's lamb mints but the lamb mins is flavored with all sorts of curried Spicy ingredients and it's thickened with a couple of slices of bread so I'm going to start by soaking the bread in the milk so then I'm going to fry the onions two big onions oops it's a great dish for entertaining because although it's quite simple and it's not very expensive people always love it I think it's the curry that makes it unusual right so when the onions are a little bit Brown and are looking slightly transparent like that you need to add all the other spices bit of Ginger bit of garlic some salanas oops curry powder cumin and then coriander and then you just want to fry that for a couple of minutes to get that waft of smell okay well that's certainly fragrant and then I'm going to put in the wora sauce and some chne and some tomato puree so it's a pretty classic simple curry so I'm going to turn that down now and let it cook a little bit now I'm going to put a grated Apple in there you know Curry often needs a bit of sweetness which is why the Chuy is in there and I like a bit of apple as well why am I such a messy cook right so I'm going to mix all this up and then I'm going to start frying the lamb so that can come into this [Music] bowl so in goes the rest of the oil and I'm very keen to show you I'm I'm neurotic about how you fry mince because it makes all the difference what you need to do is get the pan fairly hot I've got it on eight so hot place half the meat in the pan and press it down onto the base what I want is that the bottom of that to fry brown before I do anything so don't touch it can you hear the sizzling you want it to sizzle it's got to fry not stew that's not brown enough you have to really be patient but because the pan is hot now I think I can afford to put the rest of the meat in get it nice and flat okay do you see we've now got a properly Brown bit [Music] there okay I think we must be there yeah look that's all quite nice and brown and then you got to chop it up right so I'm going to put all of this together all the onions and stuff and then add the bread and you see the bread has now absorbed all the milk can be any bread this happens to be brown bread what I sometimes do at this point because it's quite te tedious mashing it with a fork is if you just let it get cold just do it with hands I use my hands a lot with cooking I mean I actually enjoy putting my hands in the food it's rather like gardening I like to get my hands into the soil I couldn't possibly Garden in um gardening gloves so that's what you get that's sort of a good bouti mix ah it's like mud pies it's lovely so you plunk it into your dish and then the last thing you need to do before you bake it is make the custody top two eggs and 275 G of plain [Music] yogurt bit of salt bit of pepper [Music] these are called cafir lime leaves and they're absolutely traditional on a bouti but often they're difficult to get in England and so I use bay leaf or something it's just nice to have a leaf on top and then we need last of all a few almonds on the top that's it and guess what I have one I made earlier yeah that's the baked one that's had 35 minutes in an oven at 170 you know it's cooked when it's nice and brown on the outside that the color has changed and it's ready I can't wait so we're going to go right away [Music] let me show you what it looks like and it smells really [Music] good it's really good quite mild Curry the almonds on the top give it a bit of crunch custody top is very smooth and luxurious it's a really nice nice dish that absolutely tastes of my childhood smells like it too it's [Music] wonderful coming up I'll show you a simple way to make a beautiful Normandy tart I like it because you see the Fran Japan filling and it rises a little bit when it's cooking and paralympic medalist Ellie Simmons joins me to bake her favorite cake oh you can you can take hear it Fen can you hear it it's like got a little [Music] bubbling welcome back to my cotw kitchen where I'm celebrating my favorite things great food great company and my best cooking tips before my guest Ellie Simmons arrives I want to show you a really simple apple [Music] hack a Nory apple tart is the best dessert and I want to show you how to make it it's just a very simple way of making sure that all your apple slices are in a row you just cut them I have to make sure you keep them where they are and then you just push them with your hands like that and they're all in a nice little line I've already made some really rich pastry using flour and plenty of butter in the food processor but I've got a second sneaky hack this is just a loose bottom tin and you Chuck the pastry in and it doesn't have to be perfectly Road it could be just in a mess and you just push it with your fingers bash it away until it's pretty well even and then push it up the sides with your thumbs and then press your fingers all the way around the edge in here so it's not too thick an edge and then you're going to fill it with Fran pany franie pan is an alond paste doesn't have to be too smooth and then the apples go on top pick it [Music] up put it in the pie and then you push it down so secure it well and then another one I like it because you see the Fran Japan filling and it rises a little bit when it's cooking and it looks very nice so that's going to go in the oven and then when it is nearly baked I will put some apricot glaze all over the top and shove it back into the oven to finish it [Music] off I've enjoyed making that TP many many many times but now I'm joined in my kitchen by someone with her own favorite recipe my guest today has won no less than 25 gold medals two of them when she was only 13 years old Ellie Simmons welcome to my kitchen a thank you so much PR I'm so excited it's just so lovely to have here it really is thank you and I'm longing to talk to you about those gold medals and your amazing career as a sportswoman but first because I'm greedy I want to know what same same here I love food tell me what you're cooking so I am making banana bread it's one of my favorite ever things me I could eat sweet things all day every day for breakfast for lunch for dinner and this is a a dish that you could definitely eat it whenever any time of the day I'm sure it'll be [Music] delicious go on then let's start okay so we're going to put um we've got some yogurt here and then we've got some B carb we're going to add the B carb into the yogurt and give it a bit of a stir it helps with the rising doesn't it yeah it does oh you can you can hear it Fen can you hear it it's like got a little yeah yeah risen away so that's it's working yeah and then we are going to crack some eggs so we've got two eggs here oh come on crack this one's taking ages oh no luckily enough yeah no no eggshells do you want to give these a whisk or should I do it I'll risk a few you whisk and then we're going to got three bananas here as well and they're nice and ripe I see yeah really really nice has anybody else in the world got 25 gold medals I'm sure they have yeah it's a bit of a high number just because I had quite a long career so I started swimming from such a young age but then also my first world championships was when I was 12 so what which bit of swimming did you like best oh competing you just like competing you don't care which bid it is no just competing just give me a competition and I'm there put my hand off and I'm ready to race yeah so I mean it sounds ridiculous because from my Advanced age you look like such a baby you know I mean how old are you now I'm 28 now 28 and retired yeah I know anyway darling keep going you thank you yeah so I'm mashing these away so making sure that they're smooth as can be I think you could have a new career as a cookery demonstrator because you're very clear what you're doing and you explain what you're about to do so one could really learn from you I'm so yeah that's me banana mashed up and then we are going to um do you want to sip the flour yeah how I like quite a little I like given the jobs yeah so we've got flour and then we going to also put the cinnamon yeah I'll Ser it with pleasure but I'll tell you what you don't need to Ser it do you not need to you know you buy a packet of flour that says sifted flour that's what it means should we but no this is such a good machine I'm going I'm going to do it just because it's fun yeah it looks really really fun Okay so we've got the dry ingredients okay should I do wet yes so we've got the sugar here and we going to add it to the banana mixture Y and then we've got the melted butter as well so we're going to add that in so melted butter sugar and mashed bananas in so far yes so it's all the wet ingredients well you've got the egg oh yeah don't not forget that as well see it's really easy actually to make this and then so I'm going to just Mash this around and then I'm going to put the the yogurt that's been bubbling and that's had the bicarbon in it so now you've got the wet in one bowl and dry another so now um we've got the flour and the cinnamon and we're going to add the all that wet ingredients and now you're going to give us a perfect demonstration of folding I hope yeah I try and do it no pressure but it's important not to beat the air out isn't it okay fold that's right and why why did you fold what you're doing which is absolutely correct is going to the bottom and lifting upwards so that the movement is more top to bottom not stirring it's because you're trying not to knock the out it's wonderful like you can smell it already I think you're done is it you think you're done okay brilliant as you tip it you can always knock any patches you can knock them out as as you go in so should I hold that for you yeah okay I'm a lefty sorry all right on there a little few Pockets little few of them but they all right aren't they shows it's homemade no it's going to be fine and then the best thing chocolate chips with the chocolate chips on this top I never had chocolate chips on a banana cake yeah but this is just to add that bit of sweetness cuz I love a bit of sweet more sweetness so we're just sprinkling them all around you know okay there it is pretty much done okay so now we take these off thank you should I shove them in the oven yeah shove it in the oven this normally for 55 minutes 55 minutes at 180 180 55 minutes at 180 yeah so not like the banana bread is too sickly enough um we're going to add some cream with it as well so I've got some uh double cream that I'm going to whip up um but you can have it with anything really so ell I really wanted to talk to you about adoption because you are adopted yeah I am my daughter is adopted my daughter has two adopted children oh wow I didn't realize that and you all your siblings were adopted all of them I've been adopted for well all my life R um I don't know if you found it but it's quite sometimes it's a subject that people don't really like to talk about too much adoption is tremendously common oh it is and thank God it is because it's you know it's the best thing that can possibly happen to a child I mean you do not want children in in Care Homes you want them in families yeah we do you do and my parents who are the most amazing parents like they didn't just adopt me and my other siblings but they fostered as well before us and I think sometimes we forget about fostering and how amazing that is actually what matters if that child feels loved yeah oh is and you obviously did and I find it interesting because it's like you're from the different side you know like I'm the one who's been in your daughter's shoes whereas you're like in my mom's shoes so it's interesting to see that well I'm so fascinated by your parents because they must have had to take you to swimming gas and stuff they did they did they were very yeah sacrific a lot for me my mom was so glad when I passed my test when I was 17 I was like and so she didn't have to get up in the morning so should I get your cake out I'm sure it's done now we have please could you is it good is it looking good oh brilliant but it smells nice isn't it yeah oh wow I put this in stick it in right in the middle yeah that melted a milk in chocolate but no cake brilliant yeah that's Fab now we can TR lifting the paper oh that's good yeah is it brisket yeah brisket for a biscuit that's nice risk for a biscuit treat yourself afterwards and let it cool for a [Music] bit right look look I think you could peel this n peel it because it's um looks really good doesn't it I do say so myself should I cut it then in and then it would be easier to cut it but it wasn't hot one yeah but it's nice hot isn't it I really like it hot and then that looks really good doesn't it m yumy and then I'll cut it in half again do you want a whole slice or a half a slice half a slice there you go that enough cream yeah no that's lovely darl do you want to sprinkle in of um cinnamon on it or yes please we'll do the the fancy yes exactly yeah thank you I'll do myself a little bit of cream as well okay go taste test you know what it's terrific is it good I really is oh that's fabulous and if you eat the the top it's banana cinnamon and chocolate and cream all of the deliciousness in one I'm going to do the same but it's just it's a classic and it just wins all the time so that's nice to hear it from you thanks for really good still to come my husband John is in heaven that's lovely yeah the Arches is still alive so they're still working and I have a food hack for simple and delicious Pate you can make it with all sorts of already cooked [Music] things my husband John and I are Keen eaters and Drinkers and we do like the best produce chin chin and when it's local it's even better one of the of living in the Cotes is that it is full of great foodie places and today John is out visiting a cheese monger and cheese maker the wonderful Simon Weaver the Weaver family have been farming in the cotwell countryside for three generations and today they're using their own organic milk to produce award-winning cheese their secret happy [Music] cows John has gone to meet Simon in his creery to see how it's made oh don't fancy him in that hat Simon you've been a farmer for many generations what made you well yeah we we we have we've been farming for a long time um but around 20 years ago actually we decided milk prices were really really low and we decided we'd want to become really more of a food producer uh and get closer to the customer ourselves Simon produces seven different types of cheese from soft French style cheeses like Brie to hard British ones like his famous single glester we've separated the curds from the way you can see in here we've got little cubes of um of the curd and we're we're allowed that to acidify that all the bugs are working on it and in a moment now once the Way's all drained out then we'll tip the bat the way is drained off but it's not wasted it's sprayed back onto the land that the cars graze to fertilize it then the curds are turned into cheese it looks hugely physical work and it seems to be time critical there look as they they're working against the clock is that right abs absolutely they they are because because of the cultures are growing in the kurd all the time the kurd is becoming more acidic and it's becoming the dry matter is rising in it all the time so you've got to work really hard to make sure that You' get everything in the mold everything's even it then moved into a really hot room where it's turned how many times do you turn them well four times in total okay so once off the table and then three times in in the in the hot room I mean this is a very Hands-On as against the big producers yeah I think it's a really Artisan product we're using all our own milk so the milk we've used to make this cheese has come out of the cow this morning so it's incredibly fresh but what we want is that fresh taste because we're we're really we want you to eat our landscape really and and and I like that thought that's good I like that very much the next stage is the hot room where the cheeses are drained and turned what have we got here they seem to be lot different shapes and colors these all the cheeses are coming in from the process that we've just seen the cheeses are coming in here and they're going to sit in here for about a week so if you look at these these will be yesterday's cheeses so this is a little um cotwall Brie 240 G which is your standard sort of uh size these are blue cheeses so they're cotwell blue which is a blue vein one but we're wasting them now for these to mold up so they're going to sit in here for a week and here's some that we did probably last week right and as you can see the mold has grown so you can see how it's got lovely little lovely furry mold on it and they're now ready and they'll go in and be wrapped and should you eat the the Rind no absolutely it should give a lovely mushroomy flavor and that's really essential to part of the taste experience I've always been intrigued what is the difference between camar and Bri traditionally Brie was made in bigger rounds and was thinner right and Cannon bear was made in smaller rounds but thicker right well I think I'm looking forward to right uh getting eventually to having a taste fantastic Simon Sells his cheese and milk direct to customers from a vending machine on the farm just yards from where the cows are miled John has taken off his sexy blue outfit and is about to get his first taste so John this is a cheese that we saw being made this morning this is uh about 2 weeks old so it's quite a a fresh cheese but if as it gets up to room temperature it should become more buttery and soft I quite like them when they start to run yeah yeah yeah well that's there becomes a moment our cheeses are still live so they're still working so take them out in the morning eat them in the evening and then you should should get that lovely running I like that very much it is really Pleasant on the palette really nice uh my father had a lovely expression for some cheeses and he used to call it gum cheeser which I think really is very good so no this is lovely this is very um well we when we creamy and nice when we set out to make cheese we wanted to make a cheese that people would eat every day well you've done it that's lovely yeah now this one is the blue vein cheese and you can see now John the blue veins running through the cheese actually I'm going to have a bit of that as well cuz now that's delish it's heading into the gum teaser domain can I have some more please yes you can there's a vending machine next I'm going to show you a recipe which sounds a lot more daunting than it is one of the best kept culinary Secrets is how to make pate it sounds so POS and French but actually it's really easy and you can usually do it with something that's in your store cupboard today I'm making one with sardines so you put two sardine cans with their oil into a blender and then a bit of cooked spinach you need to make sure that you've got almost all the juice out of it so that goes in and some butter this is nice soft butter I'm going to put about 40 gam and then I think it's a good idea to have a little bit of lemon now for the noisy bit Blitz for about 30 seconds [Music] [Applause] you can go on as long as you like if you want it really smooth whiz it some more if you don't mind a a few lumps in it stop whenever you like I actually like Pate with a bit of texture it's lovely really lovely put the mixture into small pots or even little teacups you want to smooth the top as best you can try not to get any bits up the side get it as flat as you can if you want to eat it straight away it's ready straight away you could put a little bay leaf if you like just to make it look pretty if you want to keep your Pate for a a week or two it's worth putting some clarified butter on the top of it to keep all the air out clarified butter is heated to separate the solids leaving behind a lovely clear liquid so this is terified butter and it's been melted and then cooled so it's it's cold enough to go on don't put too much on just enough to make sure that no air can get into your Pate that's it really goes in the fridge the butter will set on the top you'll still be able to see the bay leaf through it Pate just means paste and the interesting thing about Pate is you can make it with all sorts of already cooked things obviously sardines same with mackerel from a can you can do it with smoked salmon cooked chicken fried chicken livers all you do is whiz it up with butter basically and then any other flavorings you like that's it food plays a big part in our house and I do like to find the very best I think it's really important to Champion good food producers and Growers not just in the Cotes but in the UK and today's food hero is an unusual one based in stunning P Brookshire this is Owen and his partner Michelle they love chilies and each other we met online 12 years ago Match.com and um yeah there you go well we just hit it off straight away didn't we similar tast in music and food and that sort of stuff so yeah um yeah things go from there really but six years ago they realized that in their working lives they were less content I was a supermarket manager and most became a little bit disillusioned with it it was long hours long traveling um didn't really get to see much of Michelle's children and wanted a change really and they saw the answer in Chili's I've always liked food anyway so we just thought try growing a few plants and that's what we did in the back Garden we literally bought a 6x4 little poly tunnel put it in the corner of the garden grew a few varieties we met a few sauces and jams that we quite liked neighbors liked friends liked we just a few figures one evening over dinner and we thought actually we can make a small business out of this but getting the recipes right was a case of trial and error for Owen we found that some of the early sources started splitting so you'd get the the vinegar that would be in there or any liquid that was in there would split away from the main body of the sauce nothing really wrong with it but it just didn't look too nice and practice soon made perfect he went to a first farmer's market that was really successful we had a local shop come and give us an order to have our products on their shelves and it sort of went from there didn't it on this side we have some km's here we have a full row of AI leemon every day you have to come and check on them and I think what I enjoy watching them grow in when you see first little flowers and then yeah it's really good as we go down these are absolutely stunning little purple nagas then over that side we have Carolina Reapers the Carolina Reaper is the world's most poent chili over aund times hotter than anything you'd buy in a supermarket when I first tried a Carolina Reaper I was absolutely shocked to the core how hot that was when I say crying dribbling eyes running for a good half hour that's no underestimation of what happened we pick these with our bare hands they're perfectly fine but the minute you expose the flesh or cut them open then you could be in a lot of trouble that's when you need to be wearing gloves and be very careful what you touch things like eyes mouth nose and eating them can get competitive the world record holder is a British woman who ate 100 of these in an hour no matter where we go what shows we doing on the whole we tend to find um women have a better women have a better tolerance of the heat than the men Michelle and er put their love and attention into perfecting the growth of 15 varieties and each needs special attention the hotter the variety or the more rare the variety is they come to be a little bit more temperamental they need right temperatures they need a right feed structures as [Music] well what I enjoy most is is coming with new flavors new sources trying out different ingredients that perhaps we've never tried before and just experimenting we generally find that if we like the sauces you know it's got good flavor good texture um and you know a decent amount of heat then generally that would be a good source and lots of people will like it as well but surely the hardest part of the job must be working with your husband we work really well together don't we yeah most of the time yeah we just know what needs to be done and we just get on with it h I'm not sure my husband would work with me full time still to come John joins me in the kitchen with some of that cotwell cheese and I hope he's going to help me make something delicious I don't like sticky I don't I don't like your fingers to get sticky I know honestly [Music] John well I'm pleased to say that John is back in the kitchen with me and John you've brought me some brief and we are going to make a bliss on toast I'll show you the picture this is what we're aiming at can you make that um under instruction yes under instruction if you do what you're told yes okay we're actually going to make it with brie and chili jam on soda bread with a few black Bree first we've got to make the soda bread okay that's good and you love soda birads so you might as well learn how to make it yep so first of that and you have to siiv the flour first okay so which go that's plain flour yeah okay I've never made bread of any nature before so this is the first all right well you siiv that okay am I doing the wo the right thing yeah that's right perfect and then you have to put these things in okay so that is four level teaspoons of sugar okay 1 and 1/2 level teaspoons of B carb I would always if I saw a rest of be I would do heaped I know that's the problem and most people do I don't know why we don't keep saying level and one teaspoon level of salt okay yep and then that is brown flour okay H hom meal flour I very seldom siiv anything but you do need to sift this one because we want to put some of the brown which will be left in this in the sive we'll put on the top to make it look nice and crunchy the lovely thing about soda bread is that you don't need any yeast it rises because it's got bicarbonate of soda in it which makes it full of air so that's the base for soda bread I've got to do this because you I don't like sticky I don't you don't like your fingers to get sticky I know honestly John you'll never make a cook I mean half The Joy of Cooking is getting your hands in no that's that's just One Step Beyond me so we got an an ounce and a half which is 45 G of butter and we're going to rub it [Music] in have you got all the way down to the bottom yeah I'm just [Music] checking you become an expert in 5 minutes and be telling me I'm doing it wrong actually almost everything I do You' come along and tell me a better way to do it so it's quite unusual for you not to be telling me how to do it okay and then um we're going to mix in some buttermilk you can buy buttermilk in most supermarkets and that again buttermilk makes bread much lighter than ordinary whole milk so I've got 400 Ms of it here but I'm not going to put it all in because you never know until you try exactly how the flowers is going to react because Flowers change all the time and you don't want to have too much so start with start with 2/3 of it or 3/4 of it and I mix it with a knife because I don't know why but it's just much easier to do it like that and what we're after is a a soft dough so yeah this will be about right I might put a tiny bit more in I would say it should feel like a baby's bottom you know lovely and soft you know what a baby's bottom for feels like I've had four of them so I do that and then you need to flour your hands tip it all out on on a flowered board [Music] whoops this is a trick with soda bread it's the same with making scans you want to be very light with it not mangle it because you're trying to keep what air you've got in there in there so you push it into a bowl and then you make your bread dough B nice and smooth like that and then I use the back of a baking tin because always so much easier to get it off so then that goes on there and then you flour your rolling pin and you push it right down to almost the bottom why do you do this so that you get traditional is that bread silly but is that bread for for it could be for very hungry people and then we're going to put some of the reserved Brown all over it okay and then we're going to stick it in the oven straight away so you don't have to wait for it to rise or anything now it goes into that oven this one yeah in a fairly hot oven about 190 for 40 minutes and we should have soda bread right so our bread is out of the oven and we're about to make Brie on soda bread with chili jelly and black Brees and I want to just talk to you a little bit about the chili jelly cuz we haven't got time to make it now but this is one I made earlier I used a basic apple jelly recipe and added a little bit of chili from The pmri Growers it's so satisfying to do and look at it so beautiful isn't it the color is so good so should we taste it do you see it's it's lovely it's just set like a jelly isn't that beautiful I'm just waiting for the chili yeah it's coming through very nicely actually I mean um no oh yes I can feel it now yeah me too M delicious right so could you give me two slices from the middle okay quite thick because you got to toast them is that too thick no I think that's fine let me have a look that looks lovely and into the magic toaster just does it all itself now in the meantime um this is the Brie so I'm going to cut it into strips but we could taste a bit at the end couldn't we you want okay thank you is it good very good Lely and then we're going to have an assembly job here you're going to butter them okay then put the Bree on [Music] it then's a little chili jam and a bit of rocket and a few blackberries that's beautiful Mr Playfair there we are but hang on I think all right this is going to be yours now I'm going to do one rival one I only put one on I know because you're mean Beast I think that looks just as pretty as yours but I like this one because I like to see the chili jam mine's got a surprise element yes yours is hidden hidden secrets hidden secrets anyway so that is our Brie black Brees and chili jam on soda bread so John your cocktail to go with uh Bon toast I've got a slow gin fizz I'm think I'm going to put the sler in first then some lemon then the Carver because the Carver will froth up froth up the lemon now the lemon I have a lovely Gadget here which I adore uh cuz it takes away all the slight nervousness of uh taking opening champagne so here we go what about the blackberries do we want one of them um okay we good pretty color isn't it it's lovely Chin Chin goodness that doesn't half improve a Cara doesn't it it really is it's quite dry it's quite dry so should we try it with our Bliss on toast thank you very much o do you think that goes well with it oh I think that is delish I think the two absolutely perfect together CU you get the creamy cheese which is quite mild then the little kick of chili the bitterness from the slow now I really like that I think that is that's another winner