Modern Wisdom - #299 - Chris Baber - How To Cook Amazing Fitness Food, For Idiots

Episode Date: March 25, 2021

Chris Baber is a Chef and a Marks & Spencer food ambassador. The cells in our body are made up of what we put in our mouth. Although we all cook for ourselves, most people have no idea what they're doing in the kitchen. Chris is coming to the rescue. Expect to learn how to meal prep healthy fitness food in no time, how spices work and which ones you need, what Chris says every stock cupboard needs, what the best minimal kitchen equipment setup is, how to plan your shopping and your meals to never waste anything and much more... Sponsors: Get 83% discount & 3 months free from Surfshark VPN at https://surfshark.deals/MODERNWISDOM (use code MODERNWISDOM) Get 20% discount on the highest quality CBD Products from Pure Sport at https://puresportcbd.com/modernwisdom (use code: MW20) Extra Stuff: Follow Chris on Instagram for recipes - https://www.instagram.com/chrisbaber  Get my free Ultimate Life Hacks List to 10x your daily productivity → https://chriswillx.com/lifehacks/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Join the discussion with me and other like minded listeners in the episode comments on the MW YouTube Channel or message me... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ModernWisdomPodcast Email: https://www.chriswillx.com/contact Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's happening beautiful people? Welcome back. My guest today is Chris Babor. He's a chef and Marks and Spencer's food ambassador. Literally all of the cells in our body are made up of what we put in our mouth. Although we all cook for ourselves most people in my experience have very little idea what they're actually doing in the kitchen. We have maybe two or three recipes that we go back to and that's kind of it. So I decided to get in touch with Chris who's a great buddy of mine and a fantastic chef to come to the rescue. Expect to learn how to meal prep healthy fitness food in no time at all, how spices work and which ones you need, what Chris says every stock cupboard should have, what the best minimal kitchen equipment setup is, how to plan your shopping and your meals to never waste anything and much more. The last 30 minutes or so of this episode is just recipes and Chris talking through these

fantastic sounding meals. All of those are available on his Instagram. If you just go and check out at Chris Bayber, you'll be able to see all of the different ingredients and recipes and stuff like that. Also, I don't know what it is about TV chefs and chefettes, whatever a female chef is, but they must go through some sort of training to be able to speak with that Gordon Ramsay cadence. It's like, so we're gonna grab a little bit of spinach, we're gonna get some salt, some honey, a little bit of this, put it in,

oregano, give it a stir, bish, bash, bash, and you're like, what is this? Is this some sort of onboarding school for chefs to be able to speak like that? But yeah, so it's so good. Like I now have five or six new recipes that I can dig into and hopefully it'll make some of your evening meals this week a little bit more exciting too. But now it's time to learn how to use a kitchen with Chris Babor. Welcome to the show. Yeah. Thanks for having me, Chris. Good to see you. It's been a while, really, hasn't it? Yeah, far too long, man.

Far too long. So I've been meaning to reach out to you for ages. I'm pretty crap at cooking. I have like three meals in my chef's repertoire and you are my best friend that knows how to cook food. The Pete Black belt's Brazilian jujitsu in food making, and I just wanted to get you on because I don't think it's just me. I think a lot of the, especially the guys,

struggle, especially people that want to do fitness meal prep. They just don't have a very good range of foods, and I wanted to bring you into your specialist subject, making stuff taste good. I wanted you to take us through the principles and then maybe give us some recipes as well. Yeah, absolutely, I'm really looking forward to it. And in terms of the sort of the meal prep

and the fitness side, I used to compete as a runner, 800 meters. So for me, that's where I really started with, making delicious food, like, because I'm such a foodie and always have been it, How do I how can I create amazing food that fuels my needs as an athlete but also fuels my needs as someone that's obsessed with food. So I've got quite a good experience in this. I love it man. So where do we start? What's the what's the principles we need to understand before we can even get into it? Yeah I think for me shopping and stocking your cupboard for success is a great way to start

because I think in terms of, let's start with stock cupboard essentials like so many things with a recipe, you really only ever need to buy the fresh stuff. If you've got an amazing selection of spices, herbs in the cupboard, tins, chopped tomatoes, beans, your rice's pastas and pulses and pulses and stuff. And in the freezer, like frozen veggies, things like that, you've always got a meal to hand. Like Ike could, for instance, open the cupboard, grab some pasta, make a delicious tomato sauce, using tin tomato, some garlic,

flake through some tuna, and put some frozen broccoli. And then I've just made an amazing meal without even going to the shops. So I think the best place to start is sort of stocking the cupboard for success. And I can certainly share details on what I guess my stock cupboard essentials are, but yeah, a lot of oil, a bar of samuk vinegar, red wine vinegar, selection of herbs, selection of spices, all dried. What are the herbs and spices? Because people always talk about that,

and then I just look at the far corner of my kitchen, my housemates are pretty good foodie. I just look at the far corner and it's just loads of words that I don't really know what they are. Yeah, I mean there's so much choice but for me, if I had to have core spices, cumin, ground coriander, chili powder, turmeric, garam masala, I think there's five solid ones. You can go down your zattoas and razzal, hernuts and stuff if you want to, but I think with those five you can do so much with them. And then for herbs, probably like oregano, you can use it in so many Italian things. If you're just making the tomato sauce, just chuck a bit of that

and it's going to taste better. Dried time, probably some dried sage, the ascended roasts and stuff like that. And I would say to be honest, the oregano is the secret one for me. I use it in so many different things. You put in a cereal in a morning. Put in a cereal, put in a cup of cumin on my porridge. I've done that before instead of cinnamon and it was like bi-acidin and you don't want to try it and then it like obviously pasta, rice and if anyone's interested in add more fiber to their diet just go for the whole week, a whole grain alternative sort of slower release of energy

and then in the freezer always got frozen peas, always like a bit of frozen broccoli and spinach and they contain the same amount of nutrition as fresh and even like peas are actually fresher. Sorry how do I describe that. Yeah they are because they hold their nutrition more because they're frozen with an hour of picking. So if you go to the shops and buy a pack of fresh peas that've been in there five days, you're getting more nutrition out of the frozen peas.

So don't go thinking frozen fruits and vegetables aren't as nutritious because they are and in some cases even more so. With the frozen spinach, do you get the little pucks? Yeah, and in terms of value for money, you know what it's like, everyone's tried to wilt some spinach and you put a bag in and you end up with like a teaspoon worth of spinach and it cost you about $2.53 for the bag but in the freezer you get way more weight for your money so it's actually a lot better value and obviously it's not going to go out a day in a hurry. Okay, so that's what we've got that kind of stays in the cupboard and you need to keep replenishing

that. What about like I'm going into the into the shop. Where, where do I go? Where do you start? I think where you need to start is before you go to the shop, make a shop in this. So many people will get it wrong and they go in without an idea of what they want. So for me, the whole shop and experience starts at home. Generally for me, I'll do a Sunday night and I think, where am I this week? Chances are at them in at home, but when things are normal, it's like, ah, maybe on Monday, I'm at home, but choose day I've got an event or something. So let's plan a meal that I can do for two days that day, and I've just got a quick fix, eat the leftovers, and reheat them, and then maybe Wednesday again, you might end up doing another batch. So I think planning your

food, not around necessarily what you find seating seating but what's my weak looking like? Which days have I got time to cook? Which days haven't I got time to cook? And that that just helps take the stress out of cooking. So the answer to your question of where do I start in the supermarket is the top of the list of what it is you're going to make that week. And if you've got a really well stock cupboard of the spices, the herbs, chopped tomatoes and things, generally, you're only ever going to need to go to the fresh aisle for your proteins and potentially the fresh veg because the rest you should have in

the cupboard. Got you. Okay, so what are we doing when we're selecting meats? How do you, what's your rule for selecting meats? Okay, I mean, depending on what your nutritional needs are, I'm not, I'm not a nutritionist, but I have a bit of an understanding of it. Obviously, things like a chicken breast is leaner than chicken thigh. And for me, I always like to buy quality. So we're living a world now where it's easy to buy really cheap protein, like chicken and things like that. And my view on it is I'd rather eat less meat but of a higher quality, say I had a budget for meat whatever, 30 quid for the week.

I'd rather eat four days a week and go be others meat free than eat seven days a week on a lower quality. So I do try and get the best quality I can afford. And what does that mean? Are you going to a local butchers? Are you just happy going into Aster or whatever, M and S and getting the more expensive range? Yeah, I'll go to M and S and I know it's all British in there and it's all really responsibly sourced and farmed. And for me, British, I think, is key. Like we need to be supporting

British farmers, not just with our meat, but also the veg me British I think is key. We need to be supporting British farmers, not just with our meat, but also the veg. And I think a massive thing now is like carbon footprint. And so many people are going, say, they're cutting out meat to have a lesser impact on the environment. But if you're buying avocados that have been flown in from the other side of the world, and you're not eating seasonal British food, you might eat the sparigus in December, but if that's been flown in from Egypt, you might have been better off buying some chicken that was raised in the UK because it's travelled less air miles. I think I'm eating with the season, so when I go into this shop, I go to M&S, I'm going to be thinking, what's in season? We're coming

up to a sparigus, make sure it's British, just you're all potato, I go to M&S, I'm going to be thinking what's in season. We're coming up to Asparagus, make sure it's British. Jersey Robe Tate, I think we should be eating the best of British all year. And that way you get the best taste. You get the sweetness, strawberries in the summer, and you get the nicest sort of, how do I say, just eat British food and you can't go wrong. And then I think educating yourself on what's in to season. So for me, springs coming up, we've got a sparrows and like, Josie Royles, I could say, so you can get really excited then in, say, excited, I geek out over food. But then I traveled the UK in 2019 and met different producers of all this amazing food. And I was in the

eye of white eating these tomatoes that had just come into season and it was like eating sweets, they were so good. So if we can start to get some understanding of what's in season, I can share all of this detail after the podcast. Awesome, man. Alright, so we've gone to the shops, we've started to pick some stuff up. Obviously, you're going to go through some recipes towards the end and we'll work back and people can make shopping lists from that. What are some of the things that people need to steer clear of that aren't necessarily the obvious ones? Like, obviously don't absolutely hammer the confectionery aisle, but are there any other things that people shouldn't be putting in their trolleys that they sometimes

do? Okay, I mean, that's a tricky one. Everyone's sort of different and I wouldn't want to say don't buy this, don't buy that, it really comes down to, I think just having some self-control because it's the confectionery I like kills most people and I guess my general thing is if it's not in the house, I can't eat it so it's too tempting then maybe just try and steer past it but that's what comes down to if you created a list, and you go in with the intention of having the list in front of you and taking off everything on there, I think it's going into shop without a plan. It's like you can't score without a goal.

If you haven't got a goal in mind, you're not gonna get it right. So if you've got the things on the list, get that and that, then you're not gonna, obviously spend as much as well, because food costs money, so if you stick to what you want, we shouldn't be wasting any food. There's a massive amount of awareness now around food waste and the amount of things people, I can give you some details on

how to store food, probably make it last longer, but people are throwing food in the bin, just imagine you're throwing money in the bin, like how many times do you buy a pack of peppers, two of them will go a bit soft, and then they end up in the bin, or the best one is rice. You make a massive thing of rice because you're not so sure on how much to make, and it either goes in the bin that night or you put it in the fridge with good intent, and then next lunch time you're like, can't be asked for this, straight in the bin. And the easiest way we can all reduce our carbon footprint is to actually stop throwing food in the bin. People don't realise the environmental impact it has on the environment going into landfill. So I guess a few tips on how to avoid food waste, things like herbs, you buy herbs for one recipe, but it might just be half a bunch. You can make herb

ice cube trays, so just chop up your fresh herbs in an ice cube tray, fill them with water, put them in the freezer, then if you've made a curry or stew or a soup, you literally just drop in fresh herbs into them. Rice and things like that, we're all guilty of making too much. Chill it as quickly as you can, put it in a window, something like a cool, pop it in the fridge or the freezer, if it's in the fridge, eat it the next day. And you just have to be confident to reheat it. But if you go to other countries like China, like everyone knows egg fried rice, that is made with cold rice. They cook it the day before it has to be cold to reheat it in the pan. So it's just thinking about how other people cook around

the world. And that for them is normal to use a rice to reheat it whereas in the UK I think people are scared of it. Terrified of it yeah. Yeah, massive. I mean it can give you food poisoning but if you just heat it until it's piping hot and steam coming off it generally if you put the knuckle of your knuckle in and it's too hot to touch it's sort of done. And other things like chilies, you buy a pack of five chilies, put them in the freezer and you can actually grate them onto things or you can drop them into a curry or whatever. So we should be making the most of everything we've got. This something I've thought about what is the minimum viable kitchen utensil equipment? Pops, pans, knives, things, what do we need in this for this setup?

Brilliant answer. I think for all the recipes I do, I want to make it, what my passion is to simply inspire people to cook from scratch. And I think there are so many barriers to cookery. How many times you've probably done it, you opened a book and it says, get out your stand mixer and then you need your mini food processor and a hand mixer or something like that and you think, well I haven't even got the kit, never mind the ingredients. So I always try and keep everything I do. So simple that a chop and board in a knife, a couple of bacon trays and for me a large nonstick oven-proof frying pan is amazing because you can do everything in there from a parry-pary chicken. You can start it on the hob, put it in the oven, so a large nonstick frying pan, and then

probably a small saucepan, scrambled eggs and all of that, and a large one to do your rice and things. So, chopping board on a knife, and I would say invest in a good knife. If you've got a good knife, it makes chopping things easier, the sharper the knife, the easier it is to cut through. What's a good knife? What's a price range are we looking at? I use global knives and they,

that's a brand that I use and they are everything from professional kitchens. And you can pay between 60 or 150 pounds for a knife. But if you can get just one or two good knives like a larger, it's called a chef's knife, you can do so much with it and if you actually look after it, sharpen it, take care of it, it will last for years and it'll make your job in the kitchen so much easier. Cool. My house mate, Toby got a pan like you're talking about, which the whole thing is iron. And when he got it, he was oiling it, like a cricket bat. He was getting it and he's like putting oil

on it and stuff. I'm pretty sure he took it to bed with him at one point. Oh, right. Yeah, I know. I haven't used it. No, but I know that you can go really sort of deep and complex on those as well, but you're saying just that is your nice simple makeup for what you need. Yeah, I think, yeah, so quick recap of that. Large non-stick frying pan that can go in the oven, because you can do everything in there from like soups, stews, stir-fries, curries. It's so, so versatile.

Casseroles can do it because it can finish in the oven. A couple of bacon trays, large saucepan, small saucepan, chop one board in a knife. And if you want to go to it, I would say in many food process, but everyone's got a new trouble at now. So you can just make pesto's in there. Obviously smoothies, different sources. So that's actually a really good bit of kit that has been everyone got it to make

smoothies in, but it's really quite good to do everything else as well. No need for a ceramic pot or a slow cooker. Do you know what if you're meal prepping that could be a good idea. I don't generally use the slow cooker so much but if people want to do batch food a slow cooker is a good investment. It's just having the space. It depends how much Room you've got because for me my thing started as I moved to London I was living in the smallest flat you can imagine and I didn't have any room friend I think so my recipe is just naturally developed in the basic equipment and simple easy to get hold of ingredients

Got you. Okay, so what about freezing and storing food effectively? Yeah, I think stuff, anything you put in the freezer, first of all, label it because half the time you go and you think, when did I put that in there again? Oh, so we need some Tupperware, we also need maybe some Post-it notes. Yeah, I would say get some sticky notes and for me, I think freezer bags are amazing because you can put things in, even if it was like, say, curry, you can put it in a freezer bag, flatten it down and you can actually stack them up on top of each other. And it just makes you make the most of your space.

Tupperware is great, things like rice. So yeah, some good freezer bags and tupperware. And I would say always label everything and put the date on it that's the key because stuff like rice you want enough like a month and generally food I would say use it within three months but I think people are guilty of cooking loads of food so I'll go to grab a puppet in the freezer and their freezer just keeps filling up and up and up and they're never getting anything out to defrost it just keeps filling up and up and up and then never getting anything out to defrost. So for me I almost you have intent thinking make a note right I've got three portions of chili which nights am I actually going to eat them

don't just have it there for emergencies like use the freeze of plan think oh on Friday night on my meal plan I'll be in frozen chili that I made last week and make sure you're actually using this stuff. And then when it comes to storing things in the fridge, I always think, look at how the supermarket stocks the food. They're the experts. If they've put the peppers in the pack, keep them in the pack, oh, it was in the fridge in the shop as well. So I'll keep it in the fridge here. So salad and stuff in the bottom, tightly seal the top if you want it to last longer. Obviously any protein and stuff and chicken meat on the bottom, tightly seal the top if you want it to last longer. Obviously any protein and stuff and chicken meat on the bottom shelf. Reason you do that is because if you put it on the top

if there's a hole in the pack you don't want any of the juice dripping out and contaminating everything else. And also use your senses as well because a lot of things you can actually eat a little bit longer than it might say on the pack. So don't necessarily, you find a yogurt open for one day longer than it says, like a Greek yogurt. It's probably going to be okay. Does it smell okay? Does it look okay? It probably is. Got you. What about reheating food? Because there's a few sort of obstacles to try and navigate here. Reheating food in plastics. We've got some a lot of concerns around BPA or how it affects your endocrine system. That's before you get onto the taste side of stuff and making something not taste like ass again.

So for what you've mentioned there, for me, my first concern is taste and the stuff you're talking about, I'm fully aware of it but I'd rather it didn't taste like ass because if you've gone to the effort of making something delicious, even just a simple chili or something, for me I always think reheat it. I like to do it in a pan if it's something like a batch cook but it is easier in the microwave but I would say decant it from the top of where, for the health reasons, but it does generally taste like plastic, doesn't it when you heat it back up and then it's a bit disappointing when you're eating your dinner, so I think

it's just making sure food's piping hot, and that'll be steam coming off it, and when you're reheating things, just keep it stirring constantly. If you're reheating things in a pan, don't necessarily put it into a pipe in hot pan. Keep it and just heat it up gradually. For me, if I was reheating a portion of curry or a chili, probably give it 10 minutes, just let it simmer, let it come up to the boil and then it's going to be done, but just needs to be piping hot all the way through. Got you.

So, when we're working with those freezer bags that you were talking about before, is it possibly get food out of them without having to reheat them in the bag? Yeah, yeah, definitely. You can just sort of like snip the top off and almost squeeze out type thing, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

But then if you're reheating food from the freezer, I would say defrost it overnight first. So if you've got just used chile as a good example in a freezer bag, pop it in the fridge the night before you're going to eat it, and then it'll be defrosted by the time you come to get it out and reheat it, so it'll be quicker and safer to reheat. So it will come straight out the bag, just pop it in the fridge overnight. A good option for the people who are really going to be anal about their endocrine system and about concerns to do with the plastics.

Pyrrex and a couple of other companies have now started to make glass Tupperware that are still sealable And you can use those actually that's something that I would say That I would say that I would add to your minimalist kitchen toolkit. It would be like a glass, pyrex bowl, perhaps with a plastic lid, and it just means you can put some peas

in a dollop of water in and throw it in for four minutes. And you know that that's going to turn them over. The same goes for any sort of mash that needs heating up stuff like that. Yeah, that's a great shout actually. I didn't think of the storage stuff to get hold of, but that is good. And do you know what they last longer? And it's, you could get a Pyrex and it'll last you.

I mean, go, I got home and the still Pyrex said it was there when I was... When you were a kid. Yeah, and it lasts and I think the impact on the environment of just buying plastic. So it's an investment. It might cost a couple of quid more, but it will last longer. Your food will taste better and it just looks a bit nice. It doesn't it? Got you. Okay. So meal planning in advance. Yeah. What how are we doing now? We're just going to sit down at the start of the week and say, right, okay, I need to cook on these days. I need to not cook on these days. but I don't know how hungry I'm going to be or whether I fancy this on that day.

How do you navigate that? Right, how do I navigate that? I think you don't necessarily have to do all week at once, some people might feel the pressure. I need seven days of food. Just do three days at a time, do what works for you. And I think that's where if you've got an amazing stock covered, like we talked about at the start, I always do these things

called like a two day dish show, everyone batch cooks a bolognese or something like that. But then actually I don't want to eat bolognese three nights in a row. But what happens if I've got the bolognese, spaghetti bolognese on Monday, then I've got this massive batch and I go and choose they're right, I know, I've got some cumin in the covered, I forgot your Bologna's on Monday, then I've got this massive batch and I go on Tuesday, right? I know. I've got some cumin in the cupboard. I've got some chili in the freezer and I've got some coriander ice cubes.

I'm going to chuck that into a frying pan, maybe throw an onion and a pepper in that's in the back of the fridge that needs using. Put some spices in, some dried oregano, drop in some coriander. I've got the chili in there and you've turned last night's bolognese into tonight's chili and then maybe the next night you might go, I know, I'll buy some some tacos and I'll just fry that off and put in some kidney beans and make like a chili bean taco to a starter thing, maybe you can scoop some avocado on the top so how do you turn one meal into three meals for the next few days? There's a great, great way to do it, but that just comes down to having the right stuff in the

cupboard. Got you. How long in advance, or what's the sort of maximum that you think we can cook in one go? Is that, let's say it's a single guy or single girl cooking for themselves, and then maybe going to do sort of lunch or dinner for the next couple of days. How much would you try and do at once? Because I have some friends that in the body, the fitness industry who are trying to do seven days, like Sunday, Sunday evening is seven days of food created in one go. Do you know what? I've never been one for doing that. And I see things on Instagram that say, oh, meal, prep sunda, I'm thinking, you've actually just written a full day of the week off by doing that because they're literally, they think this, hey, just my

opinion, but on a Sunday, I don't necessarily want to spend five, six hours preparing seven meals. If you can get comfortable with cooking regularly, maybe you just need to plan for Monday and Tuesday and then spend half an hour on Wednesday. So I think always just say, have a think, how much time does it, is it going to take me to prep the seven days? It could be quite a lot of time. For me, I would say three days is probably a good amount and then you wouldn't necessarily have to freeze anything. Then you don't have to go through the process of defrosting. So if it was a Sunday you could comfortably make dinner on Sunday and I eat it on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and it's just thinking about how to turn those leftovers into a new dish the next day. So for instance I'm going

to talk about like a homemade zinger burger later where you basically cornflake the chicken, cornflakes, flour, egg, nut bread crumbs, cornflakes, you get the crispiest exterior, delicious in a burger bun with like a low fat yogurt and sweet chili sauce dip, something like that. Then the next day, if you've got that chicken, you could make a lovely salad wrap and just got like a wrap, some fresh salad, shred that crispy chicken in and put some more of that yogurt sauce on the top. So it's like you say, keep it interesting and think about how you can turn it into something else,

but you don't necessarily need to do seven days in a row. And also how fresh is the food gonna be by the seventh day, do you know what I mean? Yeah, I've never seen that done before, but to think about making a meal that becomes the base for another meal that becomes the base for another meal, I haven't thought about doing it like that, but it does make a lot of sense. I think it's a great one and I think it really lends itself well to the stuff that we do batch cook, which is generally like slower cook things,

chilly, bolognese, curry, because it's so easy to add different spices and stuff into there to totally transform it into something else. Got you. Before we get into the recipes, what are some of the most common errors or any other errors that you commonly see people making in the kitchen or with meal prep

or with anything else? Like what do people need to stop doing? If you were to give a public service announcement of like stop doing this in the kitchen, what would it be? Stop overcooking fish. People are so scared. I can't blame them because the education of how to cook in the UK isn't amazing, but I get a lot of messages and feedback. I always over cook my fish. How do I stop doing it? Just don't put it in for so long. You've got to think you can eat fish raw. You can eat sashimi, you can eat sushi. So if you buy in fresh, quality fish, you can eat it slightly underdone.

I think people, they overcook chicken and it becomes dry. You can buy a meat probe if you really want to get anal to make sure it's cooked. But as soon as it's white and there's no pinks, don't overcook your protein, just spend the most money probably on protein, enjoy it, and also I think seasoning, people need to let the season their food properly because lack of seasoning, but also seasoning at the right time. So many people make something and they're poor and low to salt on at the end but actually seasoning at different stages of the recipe and the cooking process completely changes the flavor.

So if you season, say chicken half an hour before you cook it, that salt is actually going to change the texture of the meat, also flavor the meat from the outside in. Whereas if you're just pouring it on at the end you're going to get a different thing. So don't overcook your protein, don't well just basically learn to season your food and also taste as you go because everyone's palettes are different. That's what I love about home cooking. You're not in a restaurant, you're in control, you can make it how you want. So if you like it a bit spicy, you can add more chili. If you like it more acidic, add more vinegar.

So don't be scared to taste as you go. Trying to think what else people shouldn't do in the kitchen. Cool, it's a tricky one. I think just take your time. Like, don't rush it. For me, I want to make food and cook and fun and enjoyable and people rushing the process. I've done life cook-alongs where I've got people who've got their pan and food and before I have, I'm like, I'm on a second, like literally I did

this charity cook-along and a really nice group of six people. There's these two lads on the screen. I would just do this really simple bacon pasta. Everyone else really engaged. What do we do next? If you've got your panorists, I've got the bacon and I'm like, see, you're not even like just a listen. And if you've got a recipe, read it, I think, literally, mate. And we had a crumble, like honestly, the basics. We did this strawberry and almond crumble. It was delicious but there's wasn't because they made... they started the crumble mix before we went and then it would like a scondor. And that's just classic example of not listening or readings. So for me, if I've got a recipe

in front of me, read it from start to finish and I guess this isn't what people shouldn't do just a tip to get you into a good habit. Prep everything before you start cooking. So chop everything up, get everything out of the cupboard and just have it all ready to cook. And then it makes the the cooking bit a little bit more enjoyable. Mmm. Yeah, that's right. I mean, dude, I, I, I'm so thoughtless with the way that I actually do stuff in the kitchen. Incredibly thoughtful when it comes to my productivity systems and how I sit down at my desk on a morning and organize my eyes and how I matrix from urgent to important and all this

sort of stuff. But the food which is literally fueling my being to be able to do everything else that I decide in my life. I'm like, yeah, right, I'll see if I can listen to a podcast, wild style wash up, wild style do this thing and maybe answer an email, oh, I've got a bit of time, I'll ring someone while I'm like just throwing the same stuff that I always throw into a pan. And yeah, I get that. Respect the kitchen.

Do you know what I think that what you've said is probably going to resonate with so many people. I think you need to think of food as that really important thing that fuels your body. It allows us to be more productive. It's how we can alter our health. How we can train harder, how we can get stronger, how we can be better people, and give it, like you say, give it that respect for me, do you know what it is? This is a great analogy with food and cook, and so many people think it's hard, they can't do it. I think everyone can. Everyone's got the ability in them to become an amazing harm cook. And easiest way to describe it, we all start training in the gym, we're hitting it hard, we've

just started though, the first six weeks you are aching, you're seeing no gains, but the first time you look in the mirror, maybe it's, oh, I've gained some muscle here, or I've lost some weight, and then you want to go back from all because it starts to become addictive for me, and the feedback I get is the first time you make a recipe from start to finish, if you're in total novice cook and you taste it, you go, or maybe your girlfriend, your family, whoever go, bloody hell, that's delicious. And you put a smile on their face and yours. That's the moment, which is like when you put the muscle on in the gym, where you go,

do you know what, that was pretty easy. It was really nice and it made people happy. I want to do that again. And it becomes like this habit, but I think exactly what you say treat it as something it is important and the more you do it and focus your attention on it, it easier becomes and the more fun you can have with it and for me I like to put the radio on, like I put the radio on, a bit old school like turn the dials and all of that, put the radio on, get everything out, prepare it, and just plan that time in as you would plan in your gym session, you plan it into your day, I imagine, but a lot of people just cram that food

in at the end as it means to an end. Very much a utilitarian approach, I think. People just see it as this is the thing that sadly I have to do before I can put the stuff in my mouth to fuel the things that I want to do. Don McGregor, the XCOO of social chain, was on the show episode four. He said to me, you do know that your brain and everything that your body is made of is built by the stuff that you put in your mouth. That's it. You don't realize the connection is the put in your mouth, that's it. And you don't realize the connection is the cells in your body, the quality of the cells in your body is directly influenced by the food that you choose to eat. And there's like, dude, when I think back to uni, and this may be been before your food awakening as well, I shit you know, there will have been weeks that I would have gone without a vegetable

like, like weeks and weeks. It's just madness, isn't it? And it really is. And do you know what I always say? Food is a joy. And we are lucky enough to live in the society that we're in to have access to amazing quality ingredients, nutritional and advice. It's all there in front of us. There are people out there who don't have access

to any food whatsoever, so I feel that we should respect it even more because we do have the ability to go and buy something really, really good. We've got the ability that you could go on the internet now and find the health benefits of salmon, how to cook it and a million different sources, instant access to how to even cook the food that you've got access to. So I think you've got to treat it with respect. One thing, especially I think we've found in lockdown, the one thing we can control in the days, what we eat for dinner, that's what I'm getting in my world of food. And it's something that I think in lockdown people have started to do more and realized that is the one time in the day they can actually get together with a family and enjoy it as a social

thing. So I think there's so much more to food that we need to think about than just fuel. I mean seeing it as the experience of making the food as a potential source of pleasure, or even the eating of the food, not just that it's tasty, but that in the same way as when you clean the house before your missus gets home, because you know it's going to put you in the, in like a good box, the, the same thing can be done. You can give pleasure and receive pleasure just through the act of making a nice meal. Again, something else that I have never, never dipped into. And do you know what really I think got me into food that as a kid, I would get in from

school and I just have this obsession of how you can turn some raw ingredients into a meal and my parents work really hard and they work long hours and I would just get in from school and every night from about nine, eight, nine years old, I'd make dinner for my mum and dad and just to see the joy of putting the food down on the table that I'd made and they're eating it and they're smiling, we're all sat together and they thought, do you know what? It's not even about what's on the plate, it's the fact we're all sat here together talking and having a good time and I think there's just so much more to food than the fuel. However, I would say when you're an athlete because there'll be a lot of guys and girls listen to this that train hard, the volumes of food you've got to eat, it can become boring, but that's why you've

got to make it taste good. So interestingly enough, there was a good documentary on Amazon about the two of the France and some of the teams and how the nutrition has changed. And now they have like Michelin star chefs that follow them on the tour with the food van and they literally go off foraging, sourcing, ingredients from local farms, dairy, cheese, because these cyclists, they haven't eaten about 8,000 calories a day. And they're like, you really think I'm going to eat 9,000 calories of boiled chicken and rice with no seasoning or flavor. So they're paying these Michelin stars chefs to follow them. And that's the key, I think, for anyone training. Keep it tasty. And

then you'll be able to eat as much food as you need to fuel yourself. Yeah. And I suppose on the converse of that as well, if you are needing to put yourself into a calorie deficit, that you can make food which is slightly more calorie sparse, more tasty and more appetizing. Everyone's turned the nose up at a plate of cauliflower and broccoli and spinach a little bit, but I imagine if it was done by Chris Bayberg, it might taste a bit different. Well, I think that's the thing to think about veg because you mentioned when you're at uni,

you weren't eating much of it. Vegetables are lower in carbs, but if you think about your stomach, it's only one size, it doesn't know if it's full. So things like the cauliflower is great for filling you up, but how do you make it tasty and broccoli well for me with broccoli, tiny splash of oil in the pan, some garlic, further broccoli in, you can put a bit of chili in there, splash of soy sauce, even a tiny drizzle of honey, and you've made like this sticky, sweet,

salty, sort of caramelized broccoli, which could have just been boiled and boring, so it's how do you make this stuff more adventurous, and it just comes back to herbs and spices and stuff you've got in the stock cupboard, Chris. Cool. What's the first recipe we're going to learn? Okay. So the first recipe is a really easy chicken buna because I think, I mean, hey, I love an Indian takeaway. I love it.

My first job was in a Michelin style Indian restaurant in London. I've got such a passion for Indian food and And everyone has this association of Indian food unhealthy. It's from the Indian. You can make some delicious curry. So chicken booner, this is a great one for batch cooking. Really simple, really basic stock-covered ingredients as well. You can do it with chicken thighs or breasts. If you're doing chicken thighs and anyone want to watch

the calories, top tip for meat. Trim off any visible fat and you're doing chicken thighs and anyone want to watch the calories, top tip for meat. Trim off any visible fat and you're literally trimming off calories as you go so any white bits you snip it off but literally cook your onions about 10 minutes in all of oil until they're really nice and golden and that's going to add sweetness and depth of flavour, some garlic, some ginger and some chilli goes in, in with the chicken and then all you need is turmeric and a good curry powder, sprinkle that and coat the chicken, loads of tin tomatoes, a good handful of peppers and literally just simmer that for 20 minutes until the chicken's cooked and the water sort of evaporated from

from the pan and then finish it off with lemon juice and coriander. That's really healthy, it's low in fat, high in protein, and you can obviously serve that with any rice that you want to serve it with. Topped it for basmati rice to get it perfectly fluffy. You always go for the absorption method, which is, say, one part rice to two parts water. So if you've got a mug full mug of rice, rinse it under a tap in a sieve until the water runs clear that takes off the excess starch pour the rice into the pan with two mugs of

water so one part rice two part water lid on lowest heat ten minutes perfect every time so that's a chicken boner simple easy to get all of ingredients have it for your dinner that night then you can definitely put that in the fridge or the freezer and if you didn't fancy curry the next night, why don't you do like a spicy chicken wrap? You could toast up a little tortilla, you could shred in some salads, some cucumbers, some tomatoes, mix some Greek yogurt with mint sauce, just out the fridge, put it in and you've just made like a spicy tikka wrap for lunch the next day. We should say on your Instagram which is at Chris Baba, yeah. At Chris Baba there'll be a breakdown of all of the different recipes that

we're going through today so for everyone that's listening you don't need to write this down frantically or like keep on rewinding or whatever but you you can look at your Instagram while you're narrating and they're rushing around the kitchen trying to get this all done. Okay, so we've got a chicken boon and what's next? Well, we talked about this sort of Zinger burger fake away. I think the fake guys are great because it's the food we crave and love, isn't it? But you can make it healthy. So basically we're going to take a lovely lean chicken breast, dip it into the flour, dip it into the egg, dip it in, crushed

up corn flakes is the secret ingredient here and then let's go back and step in the flour, put some smoked paprika, you can put some cumin, any spices you've got you can even use the heat to mix, whatever you've got in the cupboard you can put it in there, then into the corn flakes and literally bake it in the oven, no deep fry in a anything like that. So just on a baking tray? On a baking tray, 200 degrees, it'll probably take about 25 to 30 minutes to pin on the thickness, but because you've got that egg and cornflake coat and it keeps all the juiciness in the chicken. Then literally toast up, you could do a brioche bun, you could do a whole wheat bun, whatever you want. Or you could go boneless if you want to

drop the carbs and then for like a healthy little sauce, some Greek yogurt, you can just add a squeeze of honey, squeeze a lemon and a little bit of mustard or sweet chili sauce and just spread that in and you've just made a delicious spin on a on a zinger burger, really crispy and we talked about this one earlier. Just slice that chicken up the next day and you can again put that through salads or you can even reheat that and put it into like a rice dish but you're just gonna have this crispy crumbed chicken which is pretty basic and it could lend itself to whatever way you want to go with it.

How would you add some extra filler in that like a wedges or a veg? How could you do some, can you propose some veg and some wedges are something that can go in the oven along with that, so it's just like in and done? 100% so for me sweet potato wedges, I love them, just cut a sweet potato into sort of one centimeter thick wedges. Tiny drizzle of olive oil, better seasoning, you can put any spices on you want, put them in the oven for a while. Do you keep the skin on or are you, have you peeled it? I keep the skin on because there's a lot of nutrition in the skin. In terms of veg to go with it, you could make a really simple coleslaw.

People might think coleslaw is difficult or whatever, but literally just shred up some cabbage, really, really fine. That's where Sharp Knife comes in handy. Maybe great some carrot, a little bit of red onion, some Greek yogurt, squeeze lemon juice, salt, pepper, and that is a delicious coleslaw, perfect. I love it, man. Okay, so we've got chicken burger, we've got chicken boona, what's next? Yeah, we want to do this peri-peri chicken, so everyone loves peri-peri chicken and for me we talk about as well value, so buying a whole chicken is far more economical than buying just the breasts or the thighs and you can scratch a cock a chicken which might sound complicated but literally

you flip the chicken over and just use the paracises and you can spatch cock a chicken, which might sound complicated, but literally you flip the chicken over and just use a pair of scissors and you cut the backbone out and then you can just flatten the chicken out and then you make a marinade just with red wine vinegar, some olive oil, some paprika and oregano, and some chili, whizz it up, cover the chicken and pop it in the oven for 45 minutes or so until it's cooked all the way through. Spachycock and the chicken speeds up the cooking time so much. And you're going to get this like crispy, peri-peri chicken skin. And that one would be perfect with a sweet potato wedges, but for me I love to do like a spin on the matcha peas that you get in Nando's, classic frozen peas, take them out.

You can use mint sauce from a jar or just a bit of fresh mint or you could even use the mint ice cube thing that we talked about salt, pepper, a little bit of chili. If you've got some crème fresher yogurt you can put a bit of that into make it a bit creamy and just give it a good mash up, peri peri chicken and much of peas and you could do your roast veg or whatever in there or go to the rice. But then that one really is perfect to think there. I might just have a quarter of that chicken. That'll last another three days in the fridge and you can literally use that for whatever you want.

So it's a pretty basic thing. You could do a nice stir fried rice, chicken fried rice, so that the next day maybe you've got some leftover rice or you could just put it through a salad or an assemblage but the key thing is there you've roasted the chicken and it's going to last three days you can go whichever way you want. How do you take the backbone out of the chicken? So if you visualize the chicken flip it onto a board, press side down and then right all the way from neck to us there will be a, which is about half an inch thick, and literally sharp air kitchens as is, you can sniff all the way at one side,

all the way at the other, and just literally peel it out, and that's it, and then what you would do is take the chicken, flip it back over, and then with the heel of your hand, you just press it down in your heuric crack, and it'll just just flatten out a bit like when you're at the masseuse and they press your back down, that same action and you'll hear the same crack and then that's your chicken spatula. And that's a tip if you want to speed up the cooking time of the chicken from maybe an hour

and a half to less than an hour. Awesome. What about vegans who are listening, who also need to train, who also want to get their protein in? What are your favorite high protein vegan meal? Vegan. For me, I think I worked in a fine-dined Indian restaurant and in India, because of religious reasons, a lot of people don't eat meat or dairy products as well in some instances and there's some amazing vegan curries where they just happen to have been vegan for however many hundred years

but it's never been labelled as that. So things like a delicious chickpea curry. I recently did a really nice, not on a curry vibe but for more of an Asianian spin like a teriyaki tofu. If you get like a firm tofu block and just literally make soy sauce with some honey, squeeze of lime juice, you can put some grated ginger and garlic, marinate the tofu for maybe half an hour or even overnight and bake it in the fridge and you get this sort of caramelized sweet sticky savory block of tofu.

That is just perfect on top of some, I don't know, you could just use rice noodles, put some veg through it, or even another veg vegan option. You could do like a vegan satay veggie noodle stir fry, kind of like a chow mein, and you can just get loads of peanut butter for your protein, mix it with some coconut milk, a bit of soy sauce, some sweet chili sauce, some garlic and ginger, quicks out their sauce, stir fry some rice noodles, throw in loads of veggies, toss it all through, and then you could even put the tofu through that on the top. There's so many options, but I think for me pulses and beans are probably the thing that I have. What's the first thing? And pulses, like lentils, things like that. They're high in protein, they're packed full of fiber, and they're a great

replacement. So if you do in chili or bolognese, you can do that with lentils. I think it's really underutilized. It's really good value for money and it comes in a tent and all you have to do is add it to things. So I had my blood work done by a company called Inside Tracker in America a couple of years ago, they're out of Boston and they looked very closely at my blood profile and from that derived some foods that I should add into my diet that would positively impact different profiles. So how is your insulin levels looking? How is the different growth factors looking? And one of the things that needed impacting was my lipid profile

and they said that the single most, I had like the total cliche, young guy issue and the the best thing that they suggested was beans, different types of kidney beans and other tin beans and they just said just add that in a couple of times a week and it fixes downstream, the downstream blood profile effect. It fixes most of the things that most people have as a problem. They're eating so widely around the world. I don't know that we eat as much of them in in this country as elsewhere, but they are. It's like a super food. They're so good for you. It's the protein, the fiber, but there's so much nutrition and people don't realise like a tin of beans is one of your five a day.

I think about three tablespoons of like chickpeas, kidney beans, what cannellini beans. People don't realise that and there's a good source of carbohydrate as well. So I'll be honest most days for lunch, I'll incorporate some beans into a salad or I'll even add them into recipes because I know how good they are for you, but an amazing source of protein, that's for sure. What's next? Ooh, I was thinking about like a drunken noodles,

which is a Thai dish, and this is a good one if you are on a timeframe. So if you've got 10 minutes and you wanna make something really delicious Literally prawn drunken noodles is rice noodles You just soak them in boiling water. You need your prawns. You need some eggs and you need some cherry tomatoes And you can add any veggies you want and let this pack joy and then for the sauce It's literally oyster sauce some sauce, some fish sauce and some

sugar, stir that together then you literally fry off some, you can put some shallots or something if you want, add the prawns in, add the tomatoes in, add the egg, scramble the egg a little bit, any greens, pour in the sauce, add the noodles, stir fry it together and then less than 10 minutes you've made like a Thai street food dish, which is proteins, carbs and delicious, and you can get some veg in there as well. How hot the pan for that? Oh, really, really hot for that. So anything like stir-fries and things, you want it super, super hot.

That's why it's always key with thing like a stir-fry to get everything prepped, because you're not going to have time to start chopping something when the prawns are in, it's all going to be sort of overcooked. So, super hot, smoking hot, if you put some oil in, you should see like a shimmer, it just coming off the pan. But you can do that, it doesn't have to be prawns, you could use beef, you could use chicken, things like that, just lend them softwel to any kind of protein. And you reckon that's under 20 minutes from start of prep until food is made? Yeah, I've done that on Instagram live. I think we were done in about 18 minutes or something like that. It's super easy and again, you can just adapt it. You don't need to stick to the same recipe every

time. Try with, try with green beans, broccoli, whatever you want. And we should be hitting a variety of different fruits and vegetables. So it's a good sort of recipe to experiment with new things. There's a lot of protein in that one when you've got the egg zoom, when you've got the meat in, when you've got the noodles in. Yeah, there's tons of protein. I think that's the other thing, like egg noodles. People don't realise are a really good source of protein. So a nest of egg noodles has become, I think they're about 40 grams. I think there's about seven grams of protein in there. So if you'll have a couple of nests of egg noodles For your portion there's like another 15 grams of protein. How do you know where yeah? Yeah, I've know where I think there's a lot of hidden protein and food as well as like beans noodles

People don't even realize even pastor you know, I think a hundred grams of pastors got about seven eight grams of protein in it So it's everywhere. What's the rules for egg noodles? Because sometimes I see them fresh, sometimes I see I think you can get them frozen as well, have you got any rules for that? I wouldn't say there's a rule, just check the packet instruction. For me with egg noodles I always just buy the dried ones and then you would just cook them in boiling water for about four minutes and then you can add them in to a stir-fry or a sauce. But then they're really good to be chilled as well and kept in the fridge and you can

make a delicious salad with it if you just cook some noodles. Shred some veg, squeeze a lemon bit of soy sauce and honey, nice, zingy sort of noodle salad. But then other types of noodles you can get rice noodles. So if anyone's sort of not eating dairy, rice noodles are, it's a noodle made of rice. They mix the rice with water, grind it to a paste, and then form it into noodles and it's dried.

And all you have to do is pour boiling water on it to sort of bring them back to life, and you can eat them then and there, or you can add them into stir fries. And then you've got the straight to walk noodles that you've probably seen in a packet that are kind of soft and they're in a sealed packet in the game that is literally as it says, straight into the walk.

So just read the packaging as well. I think a lot of times people buy products and they bypass the thought of, oh, I'm not, I don't need to read that. And then they wonder why it hasn't worked. It doesn't taste so good, but there's generally instructions on everything we buy now.

Yeah, what's next? Well, I was gonna, I sort of went down the Teriyaki Tofu root, but I was gonna do like a Teriyaki salmon, because I think this is another quick one, which people can do in less than 10 minutes really, get some salmon, put some soy sauce, some grated ginger, some garlic, a squeeze of honey. If you've got any mirin, if you've got

that in the cupboard, you can add it if not squeeze a lime juice and then literally just soak the salmon in it, pop it in the frying pan, fry the salmon off from probably a couple of minutes on each side, pour the rest of the sauce in and because it's got the honey it's going to reduce down and go really sticky and sort of glaze the salmon and I love to do stir-fried broccoli and garlic with that which is just a little bit of sesame oil in with the broccoli, loads of garlic and chili, toss it all together and then if you want to add carbs bit of rice on the side and that. And I think gone are the days of like we were saying the chicken and broccoli brigade of boiled chicken

and broccoli and plain rice, you can do so much more. I mean, essentially that would be chicken broccoli, salmon broccoli and rice, but by making the simple teriyaki sauce and a bit of sesame oil on the broccoli, you totally totally transformed. Right, what else have we got? I'm trying to think, is there anything you'd want to know? I want to know about steak. I want to be able to do a good sort of steak of some kind. Perfect, so chimichurri steak is something I love to do. I do it quite often. So chimichurri

sauce is sort of an Argentinian sauce and it is made with fresh herbs like parsley and coriander and you use red wine vinegar, olive oil, the chopped herbs and a bit of arugana, salt and pepper and it's delicious and it's really zingy and fresh because I think if you go to a restaurant when they open again, we don't hopefully very soon. A lot of time steaks have quite a creamy and rich source, but this is actually really fresh and vibrant, and for me, I would normally go, it depends on the lean you want to go. So if anyone is listening, Philip's stake is the leanest, pretty much no fatting out whatsoever, then you've got like rumps and sirloins and then a rib eye,

they're pretty accessible stakes. Rib eye, probably the fattiest of them all. What would steak do you like, Chris? What would you order in a restaurant? I would tend to order whatever the person sat next to me says I should order. That's, and one of those, I bet. What are you, what are you getting? Yeah, what are you having? Yeah, looks good, looks good, that.

How are you having medium? Yeah, I'll have medium. I don't really know, man. I mean, how would you break down the different tastes of steak? Can you give us a brief sort of steak class? Yeah, I mean, something like a fillet steak, there's very little, this is the best way to think about steaks. Fat is flavor.

That is a carrier of flavor. That is why things like beef dripping taste so good, goose fat, fat is just ram, there's more flavour and fat than flesh. So if you've got a fatty cut of steak like a ribeye, it's going to taste more beefy than a fillet steak which doesn't have as much in it. So things like a fatty ribeye steak, that's where something like a chimichu resource you need that acidity to cut through the the fatiness that you're going to get in your mouth. Whereas like a fillet steak because there isn't any fat that's why

like a nice creamy sauce like a mushroom sauce or a peppercorn goes well with it. But I think the easiest way to look at it is like fill it, be in the leanest, rump steak, probably one down, and then sirloin and then rib eye. Rib eye definitely packs the most flavor, but then again it's the fattiest one, one of them all, but I would say for me, rump steak or rib eye steak with a chimichurri sauce, season the steak on each side, drizzle the steak with oil, not the pan, it stops it all splashing around, and you always want your steak to be at room temperature, and that goes with anything you cook and protein-wise because if you take a steak out of the fridge, if you think about it, that steak's going to be about three degrees all the way through. So if you put that steak, if it's quite a thick steak or whatever,

you pop it in a really hot griddle pan or frying pan, whatever. The outside of the steak is gonna be caramelized, but the inside of the steak is gonna take longer to come up to that temperature. So it's basically gonna be blue and raw in the middle, but really caramelized on the outside, whereas if that steaks at room temperature,

the inside of the steak is already at about 18 degrees. So you get an even cook on it. The outside, by the time the outside is caramelized, the inside will be nice and sort of medium rare. And again, with like chicken and stuff, if you're frying a piece of chicken and it's freezing cold out, the one up freezing, but like really cold out the fridge. By the time the inside the heat penetrates to the middle the outside is going to be burnt so always have your steak in your meat at room temperature and you cook it so season the steak salt and pepper really hot pan in the pan don't I never mess with it once it's in I only ever turn it once a A normal sort of

thickness of the steak probably a couple of minutes, flip it over and just make sure it's nice and caramelized on the bottom and by say caramelized it mean like that, sort of golden crispiness, that's something called the mealard reaction and it's the sugars caramelizing, flip it over another couple of minutes and then if you want to be really indulgent when it's just about done you can add butter into the pan and baste the steak in butter and it will just soak up those buttery goodness flavors and but to be honest if you do have chimmy chewy sauce I don't tend to put the butter in but the chimmy chewy just simply finely chopped coriander and parsley some oregano, red wine vinegar, drizzle of olive oil,

and that for me is just a perfect steak supper. What would you serve that with? And you could do it for me, I think what time of year, I might not know if it was the summer or sorry, spring coming up, I'd probably do some asparagus, I'd go for, think about what's in season, I love broccoli with it or like a lovely rocket salad, something like that, sweet potato wedges again, a bit of a healthier option. But one of my favorite ways with the chimichurri steak is to tobacco bread and just make like the ultimate steak sandwich and all of the flavoured just drips into the tobacco and you've got that sort of herb-y

spicy sauce unbelievable. And the top tip here, anyone making a steak, always cut it against the grain when you cut it, because if you think about the grain of the meat, I'm trying to think of the best way to put this across. If you want ultimate tenderness, cutting against the grain means you're gonna bite down on short fibers, so they're just gonna sort of collapse in your mouth, whereas if you go with the

long way, you're going to have these big long stringy fibers that you're essentially chewing on. Yeah, of course. That makes some sense. Because if you think about like some spaghetti hanging upside down as the fibers, if you cut the long way with the spaghetti, you've got them long strands in your mouth and it's chewy, but if you cut against them, then the fibers are like the loads of little bits is spaghetti that way and they just break straight down. So you could cook the steak perfectly, but if you don't cut it against the grain, you could still be chewing on it. Make the best steak in the world, but knock it with your knife and fork once you sit down at the table.

Yeah, literally. So always cut the steak against the grain. Dude, I love that. That's, that's my, I think that might be my favorite hack to come out of today. Any of the bits, any of the sort of final thoughts or things that you think people need to know? I think people just need to, for anyone that's a bit of an obvious in the kitchen, anyone can cook delicious food.

I think everyone's got the ability to do it. You've just got to give it a go and have some confidence to do it. I mean in lockdown, you can try again next time. But I guess the other one is if anyone's got any questions or they want to know more, they can message me and I'll get back to everyone that has any questions on food or whatever. Where should they go? Just straight to my Instagram. If anyone, I mean, there's recipes all over the place on there, but if anyone had anything more specific, you can just send me a message, but it's just at Chris Bayber, which is B-A-B-E-R, if you can't. No one knows my surname.

It depends if I go in the country, it's either Baba, Baba, Bayber. But yeah, just jump onto my Instagram. There's food everywhere on there. There's recipes, advice, all the stuff we covered. Dude, I wonder how many people are going to have a more tasty week coming up because we've had this conversation tonight? Oh, man, I hope so. And I had one question for you actually. Welcome to. Hit me.

Number one, last meal. What would it be? You allowed three courses. Oh, God. Okay, so as a starter, I'm a big fan of a pill-pill-prone-type thing. Like garlic, maybe on it, maybe it's sort of chabatta on the side. That would be quite nice. Nice. As a main, I'd be tempted to go for steak. I do tend to enjoy it with mashed potato, like some nice sort of, like a classic sort of British sundae, basically a sundae, a sundae lunch.

And then man, it's, it's got to be a crumble to finish up for me. 100% I'm all over a crumble. Hot crumble, cold custard. I love that contrast. So good. Yeah, so good. And the other question, what's your favorite sandwich? Oh, man.

So my, my, my, my, Johnny, one of the guys that's regularly on the show, he has a heuristic around buying sandwiches for protein and he says that you should look to try and get a good sandwich has 10 to 15% of the calories from protein and he says that's a realistic ratio to find. So I've used that heuristic a few times. If I was in a in boots or whatever, I just tend to gravitate towards the chicken salad sandwich.

So that's a fairly basic one. But I've had some really good club sandwiches. So the triple bread, the crusts are already gone off the bread, the little triangle, someone skewed it with a stick and you've got some. Yeah, and it's, you need to eat it in like three different goals, but that's, I think that's what about yours, what would yours be? The sandwich one's hard, I gravitate between leftover Christmas dinner sandwich, like the turkey, the stuff and pigs and blankets, or hot beef and gravy in a soft white bun. With some caramelized onions or something like that as well? Yes, now we're talking, maybe a little mustard

and just I want the gravy dripping everywhere. I could literally, well I say I could talk about food all day, I do, it's my job, I love it. But do you know what, I love the way that food brings together, we came on here just to talk about food and We've managed it for like an hour and a half and It feels like we're only just getting started with it, but it's a Like you say, it's an it's something that we need to do we do do, but I think people are

It's so much of a habit in a routine that people don't take a step back to look at what else food does mean to us as people and how important it is and the benefits it can give us as well. Weirdly, the things that have the biggest impact on our lives are the ones that are so close, they're staring us in the face and we don't look at it. So few people have a sleep routine. So few people that I know actually understand I need to go to bed at the same time, I need to wake up at the same time, I need to have dark blinds, ideally black out blinds,

two sets of curtains. My bedroom needs to be colder than I think it needs to be, and I should have a shower before I go to bed. They don't understand that maybe some magnesium supplements would help us, some CBD supplements would help, that not having food just before you're about to go to bed is you go, all of this stuff, and that's just sleep. And then when you think, right, okay,

I need to understand about hydration, I need to understand about how I spend my mornings, how I wake up, my caffeine consumption before I get out of bed on a morning. People having the coffee machine ready for them to wake up so that they can wake up and have a coffee when their adenosine system isn't active for 90 minutes. What you want is salt, lemon, water, ice cold glass,

get you a adrenal system moving. That's what's active for the first 90 minutes. And then if you choose to have a coffee after 90 minutes or a two hours or so, that's when your adenosine system comes online and you'll get to basically the first coffee you have in the morning, easiest hack for anyone that wants to reduce their caffeine intake. And you can't let go of the balloon

tether that is your first coffee, just make it a D-Caff, make it a good quality D-Caff and then you're going to not, you're going to fulfill the I need a coffee to wake up sensation because it's a habit, but you're not, that caffeine isn't hitting your system, so you're just adding to the total volume of caffeine you're consuming while it's not consuming to the effect you want, which is the awakeness. Much more likely if you get, as a company called LMNT who, my buddy owns, and they do flavored salts, so it's electrolyte salts that athletes would use, but they're also amazing as the first drink of the morning and they do a mango habanero. They do a lemon and chili, they do a chocolate salt, raspberry salt, and this with a best part of a pint of cold water out of the fridge on a morning with a little squeeze of lemon juice. It takes you like lemon have a mango habanero with a little bit of lemon, takes your head off more

than a coffin ever will. And you just awake, man. It's a real buzz. Yeah, I'll give me your address and I'll get Joel to send you a bunch of that stuff down. Man, I've been really enlightened by your love for food. I don't think I know anyone else. I don't have any of the friends that love it as much as you do. And I really hope that we've kind of showed people that

it can be something that they can invest their time into. And it doesn't just need to be the the annoying bit before that they're not hungry anymore. Yeah. Now you bang, I mean, it's funny because it's just all like mindset. For me, that's the one thing that is the fun bit of the day. I'm like two o'clock in the afternoon, I can't wait to make me dinner. I'm looking at the watch sort of thing. It's, um, but again, just what you're into and hopefully we've given people a bit of inspiration to get in the kitchen and just prove it can be easy to make something delicious. Awesome, man.

So at Chris Babor on Instagram, and if people want to hassle the unil so all of the recipes and stuff we've done through will be on there. Yeah, wicked. Dude, awesome. Thank you. Mate, thank you so much. you