Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster - Ep 264: Rukmini Iyer

Episode Date: September 25, 2024

Rukmini Iyer – author of the best-selling ‘Roasting Tin’ cookbooks – is this week’s dream diner. Do we finally get an answer to 'what do I do with the heads?' Rukmini Iyer’s new book ‘The Green Cookbook’ is out now. Buy it here. Follow Rukmini on Instagram and Twitter @missminifer Recorded and edited by Ben Williams for Plosive.Artwork by Paul Gilbey (photography and design).Follow Off Menu on Twitter and Instagram: @offmenuofficial.And go to our website www.offmenupodcast.co.uk for a list of restaurants recommended on the show.Watch Ed and James's YouTube series 'Just Puddings'. Watch here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the off-menu podcast, taking the crisp bacon of conversation, putting it on the buttered bread of the internet, adding the tomato ketchup of great times, and then why not? A fried egg of humour, James. That is Ed Gamble. Ben's going to cut my cough, so you're going to sound incredibly weird. No, he won't cut your cough.

He will. It's disgusting. I think that we cut coughs on this podcast. Yeah, so my cough's been cut out. Yeah. But yours will but still be in. Mom is fake for the listeners. Yeah, you sound crazy.

That is Ed Gamble. My name is James Ake. I'm crazy. This is the off-menu podcast. We own a dream restaurant every single week. We invite in a guest. We're inviting a guest. We're having a favorite ever start.

And make a dessert, side dish and drink. Not in that order. And this week, our guest is Rukmini Ayer. The author of the roasting tin series of cookbooks, which are hugely popular. Very popular. Some fantastic recipes. Anne Gamble, my mum, big fan.

And Ben, is a big fan, I think you said? The Great Benito. Sorry for the listener, the Great Benito. Yes. But a new book is out, The Green Cookbook. Easy Vegan and Vegetarian Dinners. I'm already excited. We've been sent a copy of it.

I've been having a look through it. I can't wait, James. It's out now, so definitely get on that. And get the Vostin Tin Books if you haven't had them. Yes, do. And it's always fun having a chef on as well, James. It is. It's nice to have a chef on, different perspective on food,

which you'd think that we'd have mainly chefs on. But like idiots, we have mainly comedians. And idiots. And idiots on. And it's nice to get someone who really knows their onions. Absolutely. Literally. But if Rick Minnie says a secret ingredient, which we have pre-agreed upon,

we will unfortunately have to ask her to leave the restaurant, which would be embarrassing, because I'm sure she's got plenty of interesting stuff to say. Yes, if we kick a chef out, it's egg on our face. It's egg on our face. Literally. And the secret ingredient this week is beef jerky. I don't know if it's going to come up. You know, we're going to be chatting about Rick Minis' vegan and vegetarian.

in cookbook. It would seem weird if beef jerky came up, but beef jerky is an acquired taste, James. It's an acquired taste. I think we both like it. Yeah, I like it. I don't really like the, some of the stuff you buy in the supermarket can be a bit gelatinous for me. It has to be a good beef jerky. I can't just grab anything off the shelf. Yeah. It has to be something people say, have you tried this? It's great. Yeah. It comes recommended. I'll have the beef jerky, but I'm not just grabbing it willy-nilly. No, you're not grabbing beef, willy-nilly, are you?

I'm not grabbing beef, willy-nilly. But I think that we can only really chuck a chef out with a clear conscience if they're promoting a green cookbook and they chose beef jerky. Yes. Then we at least feel like we've got some solid ground to stand on. Beef jerky's not appeared on any menus so far as far as I'm aware. No, it hasn't. I think maybe we've had Bill Tong once. Maybe, yeah, Bill Tong has come up.

Similar thing. Similar sort of thing, yeah, dried beef. Yeah. But yeah, look, I'm not sure she's going to pick it, but if she does, we are correct to kick her out. Yeah, I think we'll feel the right about that. So let's find out. this is the off-menu menu of Rookmini Ayer. Welcome Rookmini to the dream restaurants.

Thank you very much for happy. Welcome Rook-Mini Ayer to the dream restaurant. We'll be spending you for some time. Big one today. Really happy response. Yeah. It's nice. Happy to be out of the house.

I don't get out much. So this is really good. That's it. We rarely get that response to a genie, which is happy to be out of the house. Like that's, you know, not the magic of the genie, not the excitement of the genie, not the excitement to see a genie. just happy to be anywhere. Anywhere.

Anyway. That's not the four walls of my husband. Happy to be out of the lab. Yeah, good. You're the same. Yeah, I just got out. Yeah. In a while.

And I was stuck in here, a small room. Yeah. If I knew what the last episode was, because we record these randomly. But if I knew what the last episode that went out was, I could say, like, you know, haven't seen anyone since that person.

Insert here. But, you know, I don't, I don't know. Ben, will you edit? No, okay. He won't put it in. No, he won't edit in the name. That's what my life must be like actually What do you mean?

I just like come up the lamp And I see a celebrity And then I go back in the lamp And then I'm out again And it's just like A mad existence Sort of what your life is in real life That's true

You're just in your house And then you come here You meet I guess And then you go home again That is true I don't really do much besides that And you say You don't get out of the house much

Why? What's going on? Well I feel like I do It's just I go to nursery and back That's a highlight of the day Walk the dog to the nursery Drop the child, come back

Oh yes You go to see the nursery to take a child there. Oh yeah, I don't just go randomly. When you said it initially, you're like, as if you attend nursery. Yes, that's how it's happened. I mean, it's tempting. There's a hand painting.

There's snacks every two hours. One-on-one attention with like a nice person. So, I mean, well, not quite one-on-one. Apparently one to four, one to five. But yeah, it seems like a great environment. I would stay, actually. What snacks are they having every two hours? They're nice stuff, like watermelon breadsticks.

Yeah, like good stuff for snacks. I feel like breadsticks really drop off after the age of six. Like you get way much. more breadsticks and rusks. Crisp things. Yeah. I guess they're low salt. But I have a soft spot.

You know, you're on holiday in Europe and you sit a table and you have some like bone dry breadsticks in the little table. It's like, yeah, I'll have them. Yeah, you want some seasoning on them. Yeah,

a paper casing. Yeah, I want something on them though. I want there to be some like seasoning on there. No, not even, yeah, dip, maybe, but like I want there to be like some salt or some like little like seeds or something.

Something on there. Yeah, yeah. Don't just give me the bone dry. Yeah. Sorry, I'll take it. They're doing that to make you drink more, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, dry, snacks. That must be it.

But then they need more salt, don't you? Yeah. More salt there when you drink. Oldest trick in the book? I fall for every time. Yes, me too. Eat all the breadsticks, more beer, please. Have a free olive.

That's it, olives. It's all a trick, isn't it? It's a massive trick. Why, if they had those for snacks at nursery? A lot of the kids do seem to eat olives. Yeah, my daughter and a little friends, I was like, you're literally two and a half. Why are you nailing all the olives?

Wow. Yeah, I know. It's sophisticated taste. Because olives used to be like the mark of growing up, right? Yes. Enjoy it the first time you enjoy an olive. No more. No more.

These kids. Evolution, man. I know. I know. She still enjoys buttered pasta though, so I'm not completely... Yeah, yeah. Do you think it's the next step in evolution? Is that children...

Children are with olives? Yeah, they'll be like... You can have some anchovies at that, please? Yeah. Hmm. Odd. Man, are there any, like, foods that your kids have, or that your kids won't eat? It really varies from day to day.

My eldest is having... Like, she's been on mushrooms. Not, you know, the exciting kind, just like the regular chestnut, button mushrooms, chestnut mushrooms. And, like, she just wants those. And you try and give them, like, no nice mushroom linguine or something. She's like, just the mushrooms. And then she sort of just stabs and eats the mushrooms.

So at least it's vitamin D, right? Yeah. Although, do you have to leave them out in the sun to make them vitamin D? Mushrooms? Yes. I'm not sure. I don't know. I don't know.

I feel like I've heard somewhere. Well, they absorb the sun. Yes, but only if you, like, left them on a sunny windowsill for like a little while. Okay. But I don't know how true that is. shouldn't be offering medical advice on our podcast. That feels like a risk as well, just leaving mushrooms out. Yeah, because when they go off, they're really bad.

Yeah, yeah. I don't know. This should come with a disclaimer. I don't know. Yeah, well, sometimes Benito Google's facts, and this would be the earliest he's had to Google anything. It's true. He's already done it.

Wow. Amazing. It's already done it. It's true. Thank you very much. It says exposing mushrooms to UV light, whether by design or unintentionally, causes measurable increases in the vitamin D2 content.

Now, I don't know if they needed to, specify whether by design or unintentionally, because obviously. Well, I guess mushrooms like dark places, but if you were worried about that, you could put a UV sad lamp in your fridge. Yeah, that's good. And then during winter, every time you open the fridge, gee up a bit. Exactly. And then some tasty vitamin D mushrooms on top of it.

Why not? I think we should market this. Does it work? If you leave a mushroom pizza out, do you reckon? Just leave that out in the sun. That's disgusting. Yes. He's asking because he's left a mushroom pizza, aren't you just remember?

A tasty snack for when you get home. I've left it on the window, so I hope a cheeky little fat boy from the bea doesn't grab it. It's probably a fox. Yeah. Let's talk about the green cookbook, your new vegan and vegetarian dinners cookbooks. Very exciting. Ah, thank you. When you start working on this?

Because these kind of things take ages, right? Well, actually, my publisher has a big stick, and they've kind of been like, you will publish a book a year for the last sort of six or seven years. Do you want us to step in? Yeah, that'll be great. That sounds bad. Do you have another stick? Like you're just like there was a stick fight in the middle of the office. Yeah.

Oh yeah. Seasons with loads of soul. You can't bring a breadstick to a stick fight. You're in big trouble. Unless they've just had a beer. Yeah. That looks good. Maybe like a bamboo cane from the garden.

Oh yeah. Oh, fuck you know. You'd tear someone up with that. Well, your tomatoes might suffer. If you still got the tomatoes wrapped around it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. But then they would be confusing in the fight. They'd be like, I'm bleeding. Yeah. They'd be splat everywhere. Yeah, he splattered everywhere. It took a dark turn, isn't it? No, no, no.

We can get darker, I think. We're going to talk about a cookbook. We were talking about a stick-fite pretty early doors there. Cookbook, yes. Well, it's not in a roasting tin. So all of my previous books were pretty much, more or less, roasting tin books. And that's really great because it's so hands-free.

You know, you want something really nice to eat, and you do not want to be standing and cooking in front of a hot stove. I mean, I love cooking. You guys love cooking. But it's 7 o'clock, and you came home. home and you've had a long day and you just want something really tasty without all of the standing. So the tin books were to fill that space. Like what can I chop it, chuck it in, have something delicious. And this feels like a progression because I've still got lots of one pots

and one tins, which means less washing up, which is actually goes down really well with the dad slash bloke market because they're like, yes, no washing up at the end. But you can be even quicker and more efficient if you're using the hob sometimes. So one of my favorite chapters is quick-cook, quick carb. So your carb takes as long to cook as your sauce. And the best one I think, should I give a best? People always ask for the cook, what's your favourite?

And it's like, well, they just have that, never mind the rest of the book. But the rest of the book is also good. It's the miso butter noodles with tomatoes and spring onions. And it literally just takes minutes to put together. You've got any old meato base will do like white, red, what have you got? Spring onions, garlic, ginger, tomatoes,

five minutes in a pan, meso paste, splash of rice wine vinegar. And then you just stir through those ready to cook udon noodles. And it's amazing. Actually, my daughter does eat that. What would you like for dinner? Mizo noodles. That sounds so good. It's really good.

The problem is I would do that for the first time ago. This is absolutely delicious. Then I have a jar of miso set there and then I'm doing that every night for a week. Oh, yeah. We get through the meza at home. Every single night. At least every week we have that. It's really nice.

And then obviously if you want to protein it up, you could like add a bit of tofu and stuff. But it's just a really nice, I want dinner in 10 minutes. I have no patience. It's 7.30. For a book like this, how many of the, like, recipes are stuff that, like, you've already been, like, making with your family and how many are ones that you go, okay, I've got to do a cookbook. So now I've got to think of some more recipes. This one's been a nice one because it's been more organic.

This has been things that I've just cooked at home more. It's worked. And then if I remember to write it down or at least write down the headline of what it is, my recipe titles are always quite long. Mizo butter noodles with spring onions and tomatoes because I want you to know what it is. That is the recipe. But I like that headline. You know, like if you were at a restaurant and they were just like,

noodles. Well, I don't know. I don't know. And the fancy of the restaurant, they're like, egg, ham, green. I was like, well, I still don't really know what I'm getting there. It's irritating. The fancy more hipsa restaurants are just like. The fewer words.

Yeah, fewer words. No capitals at the beginning of the word. Oh, yes, that's very fancy. Yeah. Noodles, 12. The price or just have a pound on it. Yeah. Yeah.

No, my God. 12 tears? 12 noodles. What is this? Yeah. Those guys. So I like it to be very obvious. I love it.

I love the food when it comes. I don't like looking at the menu. You're not looking at the bill at the end. Hey, I'm rich. This podcast has made looking at the bill very easy. I'm not going to deny it. All the chefs go, you don't have to pay for that.

Yeah. Mention us on the podcast. Okay, suckers. See you later. See you later. You're absolute suckers. That's what I say. Nice.

I'll say it to their face. I like washing up. I think next you should do a book for men who like washing up. Yeah, the really complicated book of stuff that's going to take you all night to make and give you a ton of washing up. Well, it's basically any chef book, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

No, it is. I always have a go at Tom Carriage. Yeah. Read one of his books. You need a blast chiller to do half the recipes. Yeah. And who doesn't want one of those? He books are rubbish.

He's rubbish cook. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. If you are going to do a cookbook for men who like washing up, Ed could be in all the photos, and you would shift a lot of copies. Man washing up. Yes, you're right. A lot of ladies would love.

Yes. Would they? A series of pictures of Ed washing up. Covering in suds. Elbow deep in suds. Nice little pinny on. That sounds like a calendar. Just smiling at the Canva.

Sounds like you're doing a lot of thought to this. Very flying off the shelves. Is that selling on your website? Yeah, well, it would do. Ben's writing it down as an idea. When are we going to do a calendar, actually? Huh? You should do a calendar.

You can do it with the dogs that come in. So either you go down the suds route or you go down the dogs that guess are brought. Yeah, we were listing some of the dogs beforehand that have come in here. There's quite a few people who bought their pets in. And toast, of course. To toast the cover. Well, we always start with still a sparkling water. Yes.

Do you have a preference? I do. It is sparkling. I mean, I definitely thought that sparkling was totally grim for about 35 years in my life. And then I went on this spa day with my young sister, who's much more sensible than me. and I was sitting down, have a nice spa day and I was like, oh, right, there's wine by then. And she, in the nicest possible way, was like, well, you know,

if you order sparkling water, you don't have to have wine every lunchtime. And I was like, yeah, yeah, let's try us. And actually, she's right, because it does feel the spot when you're like, oh, I kind of want something, the taste of something, but maybe I don't actually want wine every lunchtime. And it's great. I absolutely love how sibling that is as well, just the most passive-aggressive way of saying something. Yeah, she's, she's, it's, it's, it's.

Have wine. Because we've been talking on the WhatsApp group, actually, the one that you're not in. And you do have wine every lunch. Yes, yes. She is a lush. No, so yeah, since then, I think sparkling water hits that spot. And in lockdown, I had a real San Pellegrino habit. And I've got a bottle of day.

Oh, wow. Yeah, it was a lot. Didn't see you have to see a dentist, obviously, which is great as well. But, yes, I do. I think of all the habits you could have picked up in lockdown, having a bottle of San Pellegrino day is fine. I know quite a few people who. that was not their habit. You've got to find something to fill your day.

Yeah. I mean, do you find, though, there are certain things that, like, now they just remind me of lockdown. And even though I actually had quite a nice little lockdown, but I still don't like being reminded of it. Like, I still feel weird when I go walk down certain streets and go, oh, this is where I used to walk every single day.

I don't like it. It reminds me of lockdown. It feels weird. I think April's Sprits is probably do. Apparel Sprits. Yeah, my friend and I, we get a nice cool box. Yeah. Jam jars, like Bon Mama jam jars

because you don't want to drink out of a plastic cup but I can't be asked breaking glassware Bon Mama hits the spot and we just sit in the park and make up Apparel spritzes with ice and everything and it was great. It's nice.

But not really done it since. Like maybe over apparel spritz. Like you have too much Marlboro Sauvignon Blanc in your twenties and you're like, no, no more. I had too much treats of broccoli pasta. Oh yeah, I heard about that. Yeah, now I can't eat it.

But what do you do with the head of the broccoli now? I found more things. Well, I thought we've got to figure out. There's some recipes here that you could do. In the green cookbook might help me out. There's a really good broccoli pesto you can do to go through. So you just like stick it in your magic, a bit of garlic, like a bit of salt. And you use that instead of your basil and it's cheaper than using that much.

Who has a broccoli amount size of basil? No one. Great. So I can make my own pesto with the head. Well, it's just really quick. And you can cook it while your pasta cooks and it's super tasty. This is a huge moment on the podcast for ages. We've been asking what do we do with the heads?

And I'm going to make the broccoli pesto. Make broccoli pesto. It's delicious. In cookbook, yes. And it doesn't actually taste very broccoli. No. Like, it just tastes delicious and green and, like, really fresh. And you don't, you're not cooking it, but because you blend it, it goes really bright green.

Yeah, it's really tasty. Pop some nuts on as long as no one's got a nut, nutality. Pine nuts? Probably pine nuts. But, you know, anything will do? I know a lot of recipes for Pesto are like, oh, it's going to be pine nuts. Like, mate, once it's blended, you literally cannot tell. You could be fancy.

Walnuts are really, I like walnuts in Pesto. Yeah, I think that one actually, it might be a broccoli walnut, but you know my book. Yeah. There you go. I might be. And if you're feeling particularly like flexing, you could always use pistachios. I've got a bunch of pistachos in the cupboard that are just doing absolutely nothing. Can a recipe be too green?

Well, no, it can't. No, it can't. No, it can't. I mean, they're good for you. Yeah. Greens are great for you and tasty. Actually, if you wanted to use up your pistachos, I could recommend a pistachio and spring onion pesto. That's in the book as well, which you do with marinated butter beans.

And it's in the cooking for your friends section, like easy sharing platters. but it takes 10 minutes to put together. So you just warm up some jarred butter beans, ideally jarred because they're so tasty, with a bit of lemon zest, a bit of coriander seeds, warm them through with some nice cherry tomatoes. And while that's warming in a pan for like five, six minutes,

you just blitz up the spring onions, pistachios, like a bit of oil, a bit of lemon, a few more coriander seeds, and blob it on top. And it looks so pretty, and it tastes like you spent ages cooking, and you're like, it literally took me 10 minutes. I should do it.

It's really good. For two years, I've had a bag of pistachios in the cupboard. Well, maybe you get some new pistachios. My dad gave it to us as a housewarming present. That's a really good housewarming present. It's odd, though, isn't it? It's odd, but nice. It's all but nice.

He just gave to a visit on his own. It's what happens when he visits without mum. I brought you some pistachios. Yeah, but it comes on his own. She was away. I can't remember why. We just moved into the house. Yeah.

It comes over. Lovely man. He knew I should bring them something as a housewarming. Yes, must bring. Like a pistachos. Wait, are they still in their shells? Yeah. Oh, no.

That's a hassle. Yeah, I was like, that's a hassle. And my partner's allergic to nuts, but thanks that. Is he telling you something? Yeah, I don't know what. Yeah, yeah. Me and you should move in here, back to the patch. A couple of boys are bags of nuts.

Crack open these. Yeah. But they do remind me of my dad anyway, pistachos, because he used to eat them in front of the football or whatever or the cricket. Leaving a trail of shells. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Barefoot. I remember that as well.

It'd be barefoot while he was eating them. he using his feet to crack the nuttoe? Yeah. Is your dad a big monkey? Yeah, it's a big monkey. Poploms or bread! Poploms or bread! Poploss or bread! Popolns or bread!

It's definitely bread. I hate popatoms. They're grim. Hate them? Rare to get hatred for one of them. No, I really hate them. They're so nothing. It's like biting into just, just, just, just, it doesn't taste of anything.

It was your, you wanted a flavoured breadstick. I don't want a popadom. I just don't want a popadom. They're just, no. Very, very grim. Shots fired. They can go in the bin. So what are you.

doing then? Because obviously you're saying you love a breadstick at the beginning of the meal. It's nice to, you know, get going. If it's there. If it's there. But when the popadoms are there and there's no other food knocking around, are you dipping into the popadams? I'm going to say, I'm going to avoid the curry house as well.

Are you? Just completely. I'm good. Yes. If the popadom is there, it's like, God, I know I'm in here now. And now I'm going to have to eat a restaurant curry. And you probably get this with any, like, Indian heritage chef who comes on. But, you know, restaurant curry is just like not what you eat at home.

It's always like one sauce. It's very gloopy. Like my entire life, when friends I should go and get a curry? It's like absolutely fucking not. Or if we have to then I just, you know, sadly disappointed the entire meal. Yeah.

And I don't drink beer either. And I think that goes well with a curry. I can see that they go together. It's the whole ritual of it. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, Popper Dom's like they will herald like a poor evening's dining for me. So that's probably why.

Whereas bread on the other hand is great. And then you get to have all butter. And again, I kind of keep on thinking about European holidays, probably because I'm so desperate to get out of the house and maybe the country on holiday. But you go on holiday with your mates when you're a teenager and you sit down and they bring bread and then everyone's like, oh, there's a really nice extra virgin olive oil.

I'm just like, no, butter. British or butter. Yeah, I don't want my bread to kind of taste of, you know, like olive oil, grassy notes. You know, I'm like, I don't want my bread to taste like grass. I just want it to taste like butter, please. Ideally salted. Yeah, I'm always butter over olive oil.

Yeah. If there is nice olive oil, I still think, you know. No. Is it the, and the really green olive oil as well, are you against that? I'm not against it. I think I don't have a specific, yeah, I know, just add it on all the other things. Not grass. Not like a cat.

I don't, I don't think I want to add it on. I get putting it in a salad dressing, but my palate is not sophisticated enough. I don't think that's the reason at all. I think you're being very modest. Yeah. I like being sort of like, like, smacked around the face with that flavor, but not kind of, It's not grass. Yeah, yeah.

Any particular type of bread you'd like with the salted butter? I'd like two different kinds of bread peas. So one of them, like something like a really nice pan deppy, like a kind of really crusty French. You know that baguette, like French baguette, but it's like it's done like an ear of wheat. So it's super like fluffy on the inside, like really nice and crisp on the outside.

I think I made it maybe at cookery school and I was just like, this is great. I haven't made it since. But you can kind of get it out, especially in a bread basket, in a magic restaurant. That's the thing. bread, isn't it? Yeah.

Is you can make it, but you can get it. Yeah, I'm not a bread maker, so I would always rather someone else made it. You can get it from a shop. It takes a bed on. Revolutionary. Yeah, so, no, not a salad, more that on fluffy bread. And then moving around the world, you know Singapore chili crab when you order it? You get these little fluffy cube buns with it, and they're like really soft on the inside,

like a bit like a bryosh. And they maybe have been deep fried, but they're not crissue. on the outside. They're still really soft and a little bit sweet. Yeah. No. So I see what really crab is like really saucy, right? Yeah, it's like this red sauce and bits of crab and you know, they put a bib on you and a bib on the table because it's so, it's just so extra and messy. And then you get these little buns to mop up the sauce. But I could leave the crab for you guys and I could just have a bucket of that, of that, you know, have the crab. We've just got some crab. I'll take the guys. I brought crab to a restaurant. I told you this podcast and come in handy one day. Yeah. We've got free crab. And bibs. Yeah.

And some bibs. Well, it's a bit, it's a bit of effort. You know, when you have to, with the cracking and the claws, I'd rather just sit and maybe

and eat the bread and the crab can just sit there. Again, I don't mind the effort. I think it goes back to the washing up thing. You really are the max effort. Yeah, but me and my wife

love like shellfish where you're like cracking into all of the stuff. Like it was her birthday yesterday. So all she wanted to do was going eat a pint of prawns. Fair. And pull them out of there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Do she eat their eyes and stuff as well? No, see, I'm sucking the heads. Yeah. But no, she's, but she's, I've seen her with lobster before where she's just extracting. It's almost like surgery. Like she's, every bit of meat is coming out of that. She's digging into the claws.

She just loves that effort that goes into. Does she like doing like a bit of butchery as well? No, she's never done that, but. It's kind of interesting if you're into that. I say this as like, someone with a vegetarian book. I'm largely a pescatarian chef. But at cookery school, I really enjoyed that precision when you're like, here is a rabbit. here is a rabbit.

Would you like to very carefully dissect? And I was like, oh, this is kind of interesting. I couldn't do it for a job. Like, I'd be dreadful as a medic or a vet. But I was like, this is, I can see like the technical precision here. Well, I guess it is the opposite of being a butcher is the opposite of being a vet, right? Well. You've got to think so.

And it's like a Sweeney Todd style operation. Yeah. One's upstairs, one's downstairs. And they send the vapid down a shoot. I will only eat meat that thinks it was having a haircut. very, very meat There's very few animals I guess you've mainly been eating poodles

and like like animals who are used to having a haircut Yeah A sheep A sheep that's easy That's yeah Absolutely easy Also a long tradition of eating sheep

Yeah yeah so that's fine Yeah I'm selling my veggie book really well Yeah yeah Yeah this is going good I think Yeah yeah But we're teeing up the man washing up book And you know you can also have some pictures of eating shellfish without a bibbon.

Shellfish. Well, you're really thirsty today. With sheep. You're very thirsty. You catch me early in the morning. Your dream starter. Well, because my whole thing, like, as a person who writes recipes for people, which are easy, I like restaurant food to be something I wouldn't make at home or wouldn't expect to make for me. So I would like all of my starter to be a deep fried platter, please.

Yes. Because it's a hassle to do at home. And deep fried food is delicious. and I want a sort of round the world platter of Pecoras on side, like really nice ones like cauliflower, obergene, potato for double carbs, not onion bargees because they're grim. Okay. You know, they're all flowery and like they can go with the popcorn in the bin. Yeah, this is going back to your sort of dislike of going to a curry house, right?

Yes. Anglicised. Yeah. I know, I know. But Pecoras, my mum makes every year for my birthday. So I'm like, I know they're great. And I'll still have them like as many times as possible. Then zucchini fries.

I don't know why people call them zucchini instead of cogette. Is that what you call them in? Yeah. Corset fries, I think I've seen those on menus, not really. Zucchini is in America. But it just sounds fancier, I think, because corsette fries versus zucchini fritie. Yes, zucchini frit.

That's what I want. I'm over here. People don't like courgette here, really, do it? Most people don't like cochette. And then if you cover it up by saying... It's a zucchini. Yeah. Yes.

Ducini fritie. Yes. Delicious. But really like the shoestring ones. Yeah. Not the, like, sometimes. you order them and they've given you like fat chips, which are a coergette. I don't want a fat coerette.

Just like a really skinny one. And then if I'm in the mood, like I am quite actually quite hungry so I am in the mood, some nice tempura prawns. So I've got like around the world fried platter. And then you could compare like the different crunch levels with the different batters. I think that would be really interesting. You like, you like to compare a crunch level. Yeah, you'd be like, oh look, we've got like this gram flour

batter on the pecoras and that's like got a certain kind of crisp and they've got the tempura batter with you sparkling, probably, Sampel. Yeah. And would you're getting San Pellegrino in every single corner. of this meal. Hashtag not sponsored. Would like to be sponsored. And would you score them?

Score the crunch levels? You could. You could. How do you measure them? In your face. Yeah, yeah. You could stuff them on your face. Yes.

With the zucchini. Yes. Often not a crunch on those. I think you'd have to have them like straight out of the fire because you know, they're right. They're steam. Well, a bit like cauliflower like can sometimes steam inside a pecorah. So I think you need to kind of just maybe you could fry them at table like a creptuzette.

Yeah. It'd be my pleasure. Because it's so really safe to do deep fry. Yeah, there should be more deep frying at the table. It would be fun, that's an event, isn't it? If you went to a restaurant and they were like, our thing. In the middle, like your lazy Susan with a deep fat fire in it. And everyone has to wear goggles.

Yeah, and rubber, like, gloves and things. Yeah, yeah. That would go well. I'd do it. Can rise up from the beneath the table. It goes down and, yeah, it goes back down again after the course is finished. Yeah, yeah. And then it can come back up later on and back before the ice cream.

Yeah, yeah. That's a thing, right? Fried ice cream. I think people can do that. Yeah, you can. Yeah. Me and James watch a lot of shows normally on Netflix about sort of American fairground food.

Yeah, yeah. And fried ice cream is a thing. Deep fried masters. Yeah. Interesting. Deep five masters you might like because of your starter. Yes, it's possible. But they don't really do.

When you said a deep fried platter, because we watch deep fried masters so much, I thought, wow, that's a trashy starter. And then you explain what it was. And I was like, oh yeah, you don't get those on deep fried masters, actually. I didn't feel like it's a slightly trashy starter. No, I don't think so. Well, I immediately thought of when I used to work in kitchens, we did the combo for two as the starter, which was all deep fried.

And that was like, you know. Mushrooms? Breaded mushrooms? Deep fried bread of mushrooms. I do really close. I don't want to guess the rest of them. This is quite exciting. You've got one already.

Well, what other ones do you think are on there? The combo for two. Combard mushrooms. Chicken tenders? No. Should have been. What about? It wasn't on there?

Didn't even have chicken tenders on there. No. What about an onion flower? Huh? The blooming onion things. Oh, no. This is not. This is like a.

a chain place that has like a ball pool for kids and stuff. No, yeah, yeah. Yeah. One of the balls got in there as well. So deep fried plastic ball. Deep fried plastic ball. Mmm, delicious. Look like an onion flower.

I do want to, can we talk about the onion flower briefly? Yes. I'm absolutely obsessed with blooming onions. Yes. And you don't see them here. You can swear it on this podcast. I googled. That is good stuff.

I'll give you a little bit of stuff for that as well. The other day, genuinely the other day, I googled blooming onion UK, because you don't find them. Maybe that's part of your calendar as well. Yeah, me making a blooming onion. You can pose with that as soon as a variation of this. You're a last of the summer wine character. Oh, bloomin onions.

You're about bloomed onions outgrowing this year. Are you having any dips or anything with these deep-fried things? You could surprise me with the dips. I mean, I quite like a really good homemade coiander chutney. That'll probably be good with the pecoras. If you like that, then I don't feel. you should let us surprise you with a dip. Because we were not.

That's the final warning. That's not why I was going to say. There could be, I don't know. I don't think 10 peop your prawns really needed it. Definitely not sweet chili. Yeah. Fuck sweet chili. We've said that on this podcast before.

We've got a lot of grief for it. It's nice to have a professional chef back us on this, but sweet chili is bullshit. Yeah, you might as well dip it in jam. Yeah. Why not just dip your strawberry jam? Which you would do, Jane. Yeah, but that's different.

Prawns in strawberry jam? I'd love to dip stuff in strawberry jam. But like, sweet chili is. is the opposite. It's not good. Yeah, it's really poor. So, yeah, not that. And then I don't think

Zikini fritini need anything other than to be eaten immediately. They often come with like a mayo-y type dip. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. Yeah, maybe. Yeah, it doesn't mean.

Same it for the breadsticks. Yeah. Well, that sounds like a delicious starter. Really good. Thank you. Are you sharing this with people? Or is it just you? Oh, I could.

You can share two. No, have to. No. We've got a crab. As long as I've got enough. Of course. Yeah. And I think maybe there's a magic restaurant

I wouldn't be too full. I could maybe polish off the whole platter and I'd still have room or extra stomachs like a cow. Dream main course. Dream main course. So it's going to sound a bit basic. Salmon with hollandaise and asparagus

which is like, yeah, whatever, any chef can knock out a hollandaise, yeah, boring, boring, sparras, seasonal boring. I mean, not boring, tasty. But what I would like because it's a magic restaurant is for this to taste like the first time I had it when I was a teenager. And this isn't one of those, oh, I didn't grow up having like, yeah,

because my mum, like, she knocks out a good bechamel, like she knocks out, like, decent homemade mayo, and we probably did have a spirogris at some point. But we went on a holiday, and there was this salmon pasta thing on the menu. And I just remember taking one fork full and just going, what is this? Like, I'd never had Hollandeys before.

And I was just like, this is what? And it's just like this sort of like, you know, amazing moment. Like I asked, like, call the waiter, everything. I went like, what's in this sauce? This sauce is amazing. And I actually asked the chef for, the recipe. Oh, amazing.

Okay, yeah, here's your own salmon, Honolodeos, Spargo's Home Impasta. And, like, they typed out and, like, sent me home with it, which is really nice. It was so sweet. And, you know, I've had Hollandeas since. Like, I think even at university, I was like, my first dinner party. She'll recreate this from this chef menu. And it's never been quite the same because you didn't have that moment of, like, I've never had anything that's delicious before.

So I would love that moment again. I think Holland Days is a great example of that. Yeah. Like, definitely the first time you have Hollandeas is the best time you'll ever have it. And then you definitely go through a phase of every time you see it on the menu, you order it every time. And then you make yourself sick of it and then you don't really like it anymore. Yeah. And then if you make it yourself, you're just like, I've used an entire pack of leather pack here. So, right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You don't want to see what goes into it.

Is it just loads of butter? Yeah. So, you know, you put your egg yolk. I mean, Nigel's got a cheap version, but you basically like warm your egg yolks in a Bammary and add like a cube with a little bit of vinegar, like cube after cube of butter and whisk continuously until it amalsifies. And if you mess it up, you can actually start it again with the fresh egg yolk and then like drip your messed up mixture on top of the fresh egg. And it can take a lot of eggs apparently,

which is weird. Like you can almost do it infinitely with like the number of egg yolks at that same mess can contain. But if you add, you need to keep it cold so you can chuck in like a cube of ice if you need to. But it will be beautiful and delicious. But you just don't want to see it happen.

So much butter. This is so much butter. And there's no point doing a light version with less butter. Just don't. It's one of the only things, and I love the idea of it. But you know when you're like at brunch or something? Yeah. And there's like eggs Benedict and all of that.

Eggs real. I love the idea of it. But every time I have it, it makes me feel ill. Yes. I think it's eggs with that. Eggs with eggs. With the bacon or salmon. It just always makes me feel sick.

Yeah. It's a lot for breakfast. Yeah. I think that's why it's nice with asparagus, because that's quite a light, dipty, dippy bit to have. Love asparagus. Sparagas and salmon

with some holland-aes. Sounds delicious. Oh, thank you. Yeah. Yeah. So you say you want it to taste like the first time you had it. Yes.

There's a couple of ways we can do that. Yes. We can either just create that taste. Yeah. Or we can erase the memory of the first time you had it so you think you're having it for the first time again.

Men in black. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I'll take that. Or, what were those movies where someone's got, Memento? Memento, yeah.

Yeah. For that, we have to kill your wife. Oh, no, no, don't. Don't do that. I'm really fond of it. Hang on, so you want the memory erased, but you want the tattoo to remind you that you have had it before. How many times I've had my salmon and aspirators? You've got Hollandez tally chart going all the way down your own.

Yeah, why not? Just put an egg yolk in a memory. It can take a lot of eggs. You can always, if you mess it up, you can reuse it and put it in everything. I wouldn't have full sentences. I'd just have eggs on the inside of my elbow. Yeah, yeah. Eggs.

What about, what about egg yolks? Yeah, Nigella. Yes. Must find Nigella and Oscar. Of a pilot ofoid of Nigella. Yeah. Of a name written on it. If we were to do the men in black pen at you and the red light,

what other things would you like us to erase from your memory? Oh, wow. We could chuck other things in there. Checking other things in there. It could be meals, like meals you've had that you want to erase from your memory. Oh, yeah. Oh, I could erase popodoms. But then I might accidentally.

have them again. Yeah, yeah, you don't want to do that. You need that experience in your life. What have I thought? I've tasted many things I really have disliked. Like, I generally like most food. I'm not like my daughter who will take a home-cooked meal and then like spit it out, being like, whew-eh.

I was like, great, thanks, darling. We could erase that roll spritz that you can do that again with your friend. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Maybe actually Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, you could erase that. Then I might enjoy it again rather than be like had too much. That would be a nice one. But otherwise, no, food memories are pretty good.

I always quite liked stuff I've eaten. I think I just wouldn't eat it if I didn't want to. You know, like, awful people, do you want to try some tripe? I was like, I do not want to try tripe. He loves it. Really? Love it. You really are the high effort guy.

Tribe's delicious. Oh, man. I love the texture. I love the other people think it's disgusting. Yes, of course. There's a kudos there. I like the slight taste of farmyard. Yeah, that's what truffles for.

Truffle will do that for me. Yeah, but everyone likes truffle. So how am I going to seem like a big tough guy? Yeah, that's true. That's true. Even pigs like truffle, man. Yeah, exactly. You can tell him why you don't like tripe.

Don't just take that from him. It's little monologue. I just think the concept, concept of triph. Yeah, just awful generally I'm not. Although I was quite experimental when I got into kind of food. And I was, you know, so I didn't used to always do food. I used to be a lawyer. And I was like, I hated my life.

And I was like, let's be experimental. Let's try and cook some lamb sweet breads. You know, so I did. I did try. I was just like, do you know, it's just not as nice as the effort it was to make this nice. There's someone else on the podcast. She's become a chef after. Nisha.

Nisha. She was a barrister. Yeah, barrister. Right. I know it was someone, but I never would have guessed it was her. She's mad. I think I'm definitely seen a meme about pastry chefs being like half of them, my ex-lawyers who just decided to be pastry chefs.

Interesting. Why do you think that is? Because I hate their lives. They hate their lives so much. They have to go into pastry. Yeah, yeah, pretty much. The soothing piles of whipped cream is just. you know, very nice for the brain.

What was the biggest case you did as a lawyer? Oh, God, I was only a baby lawyer. I finished like a training contract and then literally instead of qualifying I went to cookery school. Oh, okay. Like straight off the bat. I was hoping you'd be like on a huge one like an OJ or something. No, no, nothing that exciting, I'm afraid. When you said baby lawyer, it gave me a great idea for a new cartoon.

Baby law. Boss baby. Yeah, similar to a boss baby actually. Yes, basically that, but the spin-off version with lawyers. His lawyer. Why not? Boss Baby's lawyer. That's good.

Yeah, it's not a bad idea. Like a courtroom drama cartoon of a baby. Most toddlers are like expert negotiators. Yeah, that's true. I mean, actually,

you know, if we're trying to bribe her to do something, which my husband doesn't like me doing. It's like, let's see, if you get in the buggy, you can have a chocolate button. She's like,

two chocolate buttons. Okay. So maybe, like Judge Judy, but Judge Baby. Judge Baby. Judge Baby. With like kids,

the cases are all kids. Yeah, they stole my sweets or whatever. Yeah. And then the judge is a baby too. But, you know, the sentencing could be pretty harsh as well. Yeah, it could be. Every time.

You're sentenced to death. Every time it's whatever mustard die. It could be worse. They could make you go to a soft play centre. Yeah. Oh, yeah, that'd be put in with a deep-fried ball. By the way, the gavel is a squeaky hammer as well. Oh, yeah, it got to be a squeaky gavel.

Yes. Every time. It makes a little squeaky noise. A dog toy. Yeah, yeah. It softens it, isn't it, if they're sentenced to death. Your dream side dish. Can I have two?

Yeah. Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. So dofinoirs, because I like to double carb, because dofinoz is really great. Actually, I used to make that if I'd had like a day in the office, which I hated. Yeah. Because I did hate my office and life there. I'd come home, buy a load of potatoes and the cream on the way home, and make myself a double-carb dinner of a tray of roast potatoes and a tray of dofinoa's. Wow. Yeah. You love double carbs. You shouted out a few times. Yeah, it's very Indian thing, actually, double carbs. You know, having like a potato curry and rice or having a potato pecoras, even bread becores.

has been known to talk about. I don't see anything wrong in double carping. But now, with my sophisticated palette, I would quite like some greens on the side as well. I've gone full circle from like never having anything green. I think at university, friends would sort of put broccoli in a pavement. You don't have to eat your broccoli if you don't want it.

It's like I am 22 years old. But now I love it. I can't get enough. Tend to stem, love it. Cale. Cale's a funny one. So I've got like a weekly guardian food column. And whenever I do a recipe with kale,

which is quite often because I love it, Like, I tend not to look at the comment section. But if I do, about half of it, it's like, kale again, hate kale, can't stand it. It's like, guys, grow up. It had a moment, like five years ago, kale was everywhere, right? Yeah. Everyone's getting annoyed with kale. Maybe they need the memory erase again.

I think people overdid it or they don't do it properly. Yeah. And it's like, almost like, you know, you have thick stems in it as well. I think people don't trim the stems off enough. And then it became connected, I think, with like, health, health vloggers and things. like that. So it became like... Like, you don't want it in a smoothie, that would be... No, and that's what people were doing.

So I think they connected kale with, like, you know, Californian health influences. And obviously people hate those people. So... Yes, it's true. I got really into kale big time. But like covering it in oil, putting it in the oven, and basically making kale crisps.

Okay, that sounds a little bit healthy. No, I mean... A crisp is a crisp. Yeah, but you put loads of seasoning on it and stuff. Delicious. With crisps, I'd eat them with crisps. I was going to say double. cream.

Nice. So, you know, like if you soften it with the garlic and chili and a bit of lemon zest with your olive oil and then, all butter, actually. And then just like a little bit of cream through it before you serve. That does sound good. Really, really nice. Both of those sounds nice. I like both of those guys.

My daughter's like scale crisps. And I can pretend it's like a vegetable that she's eating, not just a piece of charm. Guardian comment section is an absolute fucking bin by her. Absolute bunch of idiots, all of them. Well, comment section in general. Yeah. I don't know. I just, I never comment on anything. Like, if I'm online and I read an article about something, it's very rare that I would write a comment.

I mean, no, I think I've ever written a comment. You might comment, but you'll do it like a normal person in your own head. A bitch for my husband about it. Yeah, yeah, I'll talk to somebody next to you. Yeah, yeah, I just don't, I don't know. I suppose it's always nice when people like, oh, no, I really like this. Like, you want enough people too who like things to comment. It's just the negative nancy's when I call them that.

Crazy if they complain like, well, Kyle again. And it's like, no one's making you cook this every week. Do I make it? You absolutely, like, you're on the internet. There's infinite recipes on the internet. So why don't you just find something else that isn't kale? Why are you completely? You don't have to, oh, I have to read whatever is in the Guardian column every single week.

Yes. All those right-wing people who hate the Guardian should just look on the comments. And then they'll go, oh, it's okay. People who read the Guardian are just like me. Yeah, they hate the Guardian too. Yeah, they also hate it. So you've got the Dauphin-en-was, and then what greens? Dofranars, the kale.

And then maybe just some nice buttered cabbage. Like, you know, it's like not overcooked, just like your bog standard cabbage, but like it's still got a little bit of bite, butter, and maybe some like crushed Sichuan peppercorns. Not nice. Makes it really nice, but not too many. You know, sushi on peppercorns, it's the kind of thing where like, oh, I love them, so is more, more, more isn't it more?

No, it's like two. You can put two peppercons in there and that'll do it. There's too many, your mouth just sort of goes numb for like several hours. Goes bonkers. So just a tiny bit. Do you want the creamy kale? Oh, oh, no, you're right. Maybe we'll cut the cream since we've got the dofinoise.

Let's be sensible. You can, you know, and they're next to each other. You can always introduce a bit of the dofinoise cream to the kale. Yeah, exactly. You can cook at the table. On the table. Yeah, I'm going to stop. Mix it all together.

Be delicious. Thank you. It does sound good. And I think that goes with the salmon as well. Yeah, it doesn't. I suppose the dofinov is maybe a bit heavy to go with my handmade pasta and all the rest of it with the salmon. But, you know, I've got infinite stomachs, apparently.

Yes. Congratulations. Thank you. Your dream drink. Oh, it's a nice glass of white wine, probably. Yeah. I love how you pretended like you hadn't really thought about that and you landed on it just in case your sister's listening to this episode.

Just okay, just like, just as well. Some more sparkling water, I don't know. I've got my sparkling water. Actually, sparkling water and red wine are a really nice combo. I had that a lot. Can I flex about my job before I was like. Yeah. So I went into food like I did the law and then I was a food stylist or like a home me

for quite a lot of years and that's how I got into kind of cooking and had the idea for these timbooks. What's the food status? Food styles. So, you know, whenever you see food on a billboard in a cookbook on telly, or someone has cooked it. And it's usually not Nigella or Jamie or anyone like you've got someone in who's cooked all the food, thinks about how it's going to look on the plate,

like maybe you've got a pair of tweezers if necessary to like make it in a nice. But actually, it's generally just you've just made a really nice plate of food, put it in front of the camera and it's been shot really quickly. So it's really different from like back in the eight. You know, if you think about like the Panasonic microwave cookery book from 1975, it's got this bronzed chicken that looks like it's been sitting for three days under a load of varnish, like Ronsil. It had because you've got all the lights and it's really hot under the cameras and it's got to sit there. But nowadays everything's digital.

So you just shoot it and like David Loftus who does all the photos for my books. Like everything looks so beautiful and fresh like you could put your hand in and pick it up because you could when he took the photo. photo and the fresher it looks like it's because it was, there's not a lot of magic. Unless you're in commercials, which is different. But I got a really random job. The designer on my book's Penny, like she's amazing. She sent me a message me out, oh, Minnie, I've got offered for a job. It's in Morocco doing film.

Do you want to come? And I was like, well, that sounds quite exciting. So not the food, like, not catering, but like the food they would eat in a dinner party scene in the film. And I was like, you know what? There's only one actor who would take me out to Morocco for this. Like, if Ray finds in it, I'll do it. And he's like, he actually is. I was like, you're fucking joking.

Matt Smith's in it. Jessica Chastain was in it. And I found myself, like, in Morocco, like in the desert, like handing over a plate of food to like Matt Smith, handing over a plate of food to Ray finds. Amazing. And it's nuts because because it's film, you have to have as much food as you think, you know, the director is not going to tell you how many tastes. He doesn't know how many takes is going to do. And you have to magically, you want your genie lamp, really. have as much as they're going to need for every single take.

Yeah. Otherwise, you're just... And I think I handed over the food on my first time. And I was like, my hands were actually shaking, just being like, don't mess it up, don't miss it up. And then Rayf finds it straight in the eye, Lord Voldemort. I was like, you do really well there. Thank you so much.

Which helps because Jessica Chastain wouldn't eat any of my food. She was just like, is this vegan? I was like, oh yes, you know, it's... And she didn't trust me. She got them to bring her some, like, steamed broccoli from her trailer. But Matt Smith really like the food. He was like, why are we getting food like this in our hotel? And I was like, just.

He's asking for another take. No. Yeah. Oh, sorry, guys. I messed my lines up. So in our downtime, my red wine and sparkling water thing was we had a lot of, even a sort of free time when you're not on set. And Penny and I would just like sit in this amazing Riyadh courtyard, bottle of red, a sparkling water.

I'm just like, is this real? So do you want this, this is your dream drink then, the red wine and sparkling water? I think you will remind me of that. Yeah, maybe. Maybe I'll take that. Yeah, you'd have it. Together. Being there.

With the courtyard sunshine. Do you want Fines and Smith to join you? Not Chastain. She wouldn't eat the food. I'm not sure. I think I'd probably be too nervous to talk to them. You know, like that thing, I think I read it in romantic comedy. Curtis Sittonfield's newish book.

She writes that with famous people, people don't actually want to talk to them. They want to tell their friends that they've talked to them. So if you have an encounter with a famous person, you're quite likely to be like, oh, wow, selfie, and then run away. because then you can tell on your mates because if you had to actually have a conversation you'd probably say something really stupid so that they can't come

I just get to like maybe spy on them for another table like look there's celebs at that table yeah so yeah I have a fine's nearby nearby yeah yeah what's your favourite film with him in oh well the menu was really good it was really scary but I'm gonna go classic old school English patient oh yeah yeah

I changed my I changed my grand Bieda pest hotel because it's really funny great great film it's much more funny English patient doesn't have a lot of laughs in it. No, to be fair, it's not very funny. It's not very funny. It's quite intense. What about this? Would it be better if the main character was a baby? Just like the baby lawyer. But like the English baby, the English baby.

The English baby crashing a plane in the desert. Yes. Yeah, maybe not. Would crash it. To be fair, that's believable. Maybe you'd be a better pilot. That baby would be a bad pilot. That's the way crash in the desert. And how about this? The Grand Baby Pest I tell. I see a franchise opportunity here.

This is brilliant. You just replaced actors with babies. I think that works. Or just Fines every time. Yeah. For no reason, Ray Fines gets replaced by a baby every single time. Lord Voldemort as a baby. Yeah, there you go.

Yeah, Boulder baby. I mean, that would be, you know, then that would be like when people say if you'd go back in time and kill Hitler as a baby, would you do it? It was Voldemort. So that is the answer to that question. You find Harry Potter in that situation going, well, you try to kill me as a baby. Actually, yeah, that's true. But then there's no more books. That's it.

It's finished. Voldemort tried to kill the Harry Potter baby. Comes around, goes around. Why don't you go back and kill Lord Voldemorty? Wait, no, but that's the curse child, isn't it? But it all messes up. I don't know. I've not seen it.

Oh, I've got another red wine combo for you. Okay. So when I went to see the cursed child with my mate, she brought his birthday present for me, we had Haribow fantastic and, you know, rubbish theatre red wine. And they go together so well. That's cool. Yes.

There's someone on Instagram who does, oh no, I've got mixed up. It's not wine. It's cheese combinations with weird things. things. Okay. Because I was like cheese and wine isn't weird. I think they did like Harabo and cheese.

Can you remember what it was? No. Ed, this is the worst thing you've ever bought up. No. Because, you know, if you think about like membrane with a mantego. Yeah. I'm thinking you've got your jelly.

That's great because the Edd has thought of something that was, ah, you're wrong. It wasn't even related to what you were saying. And then he forgot it was as well. Yeah. It was like, oh no, it's not wine. It's cheese. Can you remember what it was?

No. Sorry. You got there on the end. It's not his finest hour. Yeah. I feel like an old man today. He's a little old mad head. Opposite of a baby.

Yeah. You would be the baby's nemesis. We should remake this episode with me as a baby. Yeah. So we're having the San Pellegrino and the red wine together. Yes. Do you also want the tank fastics there? Yeah, why not?

Yes, we have a little side of tank fastic. Yeah. I haven't had tang fastic since I was in a train derailing. Have you not? Wow. That is quite a memory. Train came off the tracks and it was pretty full on. And we were there for like,

five hours and all the train staff did was sent one of their employees down all the aisles with a packet of tangfastics asking people if they wanted a tank fastic. The time got to me and Josh Whitakum were back of the carriage. They only had like the rubbish ones left and we're absolutely gutted. Wow. Wow. So have you avoided tangfastics because it's, it reminds you of the train. I just think that what's the point. Yeah. Let's get the bad ones.

So should we delete your memory of the train crash? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I don't know. Tengfastics again. Quite a good memory because it makes me glad to be alive. Yes. But maybe remove the Tengfastics parks. I would like to eat them.

Yeah, yeah. And Marble Cake. I haven't had that since that because they said the buffet carriage is free, but they didn't man it. There's no one there. So we're just free for all with marble cake. So you just, well, again, by the time we got there, it was only marble cake left. Wow. You know, it wasn't.

We still ate it. But Benito's looking at me like, you've told this story before. I'm going to edit it out. So move on. Your dream dessert. We arrive with your dream dessert. It's exciting for me. Well, it's a bit basic to always kind of go for the chocolate option.

But, I mean, I do quite like it. And I will generally go for it. And I don't always have room. I'm more of a starter person. So there's often not room for a chocolate dessert. The correct way to be. Well, not yes. But since I've got my infinite stomachs,

I want some kind of chocolate dessert. Maybe you can help me create it. It's got some kind of like chocolate cake. And then some kind of chocolate moose. And then I really love raspberry and passion fruit with chocolate. I think it's the nicest combination. And you don't see it enough on menus in cookbooks. I can remedy that.

But I really like it. And I want some kind of maybe like chocolate, moose cake. That's a bit like a sara lee, but nice. And raspberry layer, passion fruit layer. Maybe some like shaved chocolate on top. Something like that. Well, let's come up to something. And then you can put it in your next cookbook.

Yes. What sort of cake? A light cake? A brownie layer? No. I'm not a brownie layer. So like a sponge. A sponge? A sponge, but more like a restaurant sponge.

You know when it's like a little bit of a like a dense sponge, not like your nice homemade Victoria sponge? Like more of a kind of a denser kind of sponge that would stand up to being layered with your like moosey layers. And do you want super light mousse or like a thick mousse? Medium. Medium. Dark chocolate, milk chocolate.

Well, I guess there'd be the raspberry and the passion fruit ones. Or the moose are the raspberry and passion fruit? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. They're like raspberry and passion fruit mousse. And you go in cake moose? Yeah, something like cake moose, cake mousse. How many times?

You. Because this is a dream. My favorite model is cake mousse. Cake mousse. Cake mousse. Cake mousse. Great model. Yeah.

She used to go out of peat doodotsy. Oh, no. That's dreadful. Her brother does run a ban me stand in, goes around the markets in London. Cake mousse's brother? Yeah. Sales Ban me. I didn't know that.

Yeah, yeah. It's got like a van with Ban me in it. Oh, wow. And sells it, obviously, just like, mine. Yeah. Have a look at it. this. Well, good on him. Yeah. Yeah. It's just quite random. He looks quite a lot

like her as well. Does he? If you want, doing a celebrity thing, look, that guy looks a bit like Case Moss and he's selling. Let's not talk to him. Cake moose. Cake moose. Sorry. Cake moose is their name. Yeah, how many times? Because this is a dream restaurant. So we could do like 60. Yeah, you could do it as many times you wanted.

I just think like a reasonable amount so you can get a bit of each on your fork. Because I don't have an infinite fork or an infinite mouth. So just like, just the right size for it. Could. We could give you infinite fork. Infinite fork would be a pain in the ass man. Infinite fork would be the long fork. Like a tiramistoo spoon, but, you know, wrong.

How are you getting anything on the end of the fork if it's infinitely long? Yeah, yeah, that's hard. No, no. Everything would just have to be infinite and then we end up. I don't know if this world even makes sense. No, no, it doesn't. So, what, four or five, I'm guessing? Four or five layers, yeah.

And how thick are the layers? It's just a couple centimetres. No, I think the cake's got to be one centimeter and you've got two for the moose and then one for the cake and then two for the mousse. Yeah, two for the mousse, one for the cake. And then maybe the legs. lowest layer could be some kind of chocolate moose as well. So maybe there's three kinds of moose, one kind of cake, chocolate shaving is on top. Yeah. Okay. So it sounds like you should have three layers of the moose. Yes. So bam-am. Bam. Yeah. And then that means you got three layers of the cake. Yeah.

Because the moose is on the top, is it? Yeah. Top layers. The most. Yeah. Top layers. Could be some kind of moose. Yeah. And then you cover in all that in chocolate as well. Yeah, like really nicely like shaved. So it's like quite shardy. Again, like the crispness. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm going for. Sounds nice. What would we call in it? Cake moose. Cake moose. Yeah. Cake moose. And just that, you don't want,

is there any, like, cream or any sort of, like, a drizzle going over it or anything like that? No, no, no, no. You don't need it. You got all the moisture in the cake moose. Yes, it's, yes. So it's the cake moose dessert, which is your dessert, and if anyone tries to steal it and put it in their cookbook,

we can all sue them. We've got, if we bring the baby lawyer to the... Baby lawyer's coming. It's my cake. To the court case. Yeah. And it's a baby judge as well. Well, I don't...

The baby judge is there, baby lawyer. Whoever steals the recipe is being sentenced to death. Yeah, they're all getting the sentence of death if they still cake moose for me. Well, I will try and recreate it, and then we can have a picture as well. Yeah. Yeah. Me and you could do the picture if you're making it and then the washing up, Ed is washing up all the stuff you used to make it. This does sound like quite high effort.

You've got a lot of bowls for these mooses and there will be a lot of washing up. Yeah, yeah. We've already established this guy. Yeah. I love it. I love the washing up. There. I invite you men, you back to you now.

See how you feel about it. Okay. You want Sam Pellegrino, sparking water. Yep. You would like Pan Depi? Yes. A fluffy cube. A fluffy cube.

Just like an Englishman in a boulangerie trying to read the venue behind the person working there. Panda pee! It's called a boulangerie. You've been like a deep-fried platter. You've got pecorahs, zucchini fritty. Tempura prawns, a homemade coriander chutney. Maincore salmon with hollandaise and asparagus, like the first time you ever had it. Side dish, dough fri-oamires.

Cale and buttered cabbage with crustseshwan peppercorns. Not too many. Drink. Red wine and sparkling water. like you had when you were doing the forgiven, and with a side of hammerbow tank fasting. Yes, sweet. Don't forget those.

Cake moose. Cake moose. Amazing. Sounds great. Starving. That's good. I mean, it does sound nice. Before, when you came in today, before we went in, you said,

oh, I think my menu won't be very coherent, but I think it is. Oh, thank you very coherent. Oh, thank you very much. We have a lot worse. Oh, yes, I know. We have comedians on. Yes, exactly. That sounds absolutely delicious.

What's cake moose's nickname? What? Who was called the body? That was just Jazelle, I think. Wasn't Giselle the body? Benito, Google who was called the body? I know we're about to wrap it up. But it wasn't cake moose. It might have been Giselle.

El McPherson. We've got it wrong. Damn it. Has that ruined a joke that you were going to do? No. Thank you so much for coming to the Dream Restaurant. Thank you so much for having me off. Thank you.

There we are. Wonderful menu from Root Minnie there. Very nice menu. lovely stories. I'd love to learn about food stylists and about the film that she worked on with all the celebs.

And a lot of silly business as well in that episode, James. No, no, it's all very serious. Ah, yes, very serious. Very serious ideas for TV shows. Rookmini also did not say beef jerky, so she was allowed to complete her menu. And that has also allowed us to plug her book. Again, the green cookbook is out now,

and you've got a little insight into the sorts of recipes that are in there during the chat. It's just made me even more excited to cook from it. I'm quite excited about the crispy roast tofu and aubergine with chili peanut sauce as well. Yes. I love obegene. Your broccoli pasta you're going to make. Yeah.

We found what we're going to do with the heads. Finally, we did it. Now, I'd say we're back next week, but we're actually going to replace ourselves with babies for next week. Yes. It's the off-menu baby edition next week where you don't get kicked out at the dream restaurant. They get sentenced to day. Yes.

Thank you very much for listening. We've been Ed Gamble and James Acaster on the off-menu podcast. Shout out to cake moss. Cake moose. Oh, you messed up. I messed. Bye. Bye.