James Martin may have been on TV since the mid-Nineties, but that doesn’t mean he wants to see it back.
“I’ve never watched myself in 34 years of doing it. I can’t watch it, I just can’t – it’s really weird,” says the 53-year-old.
The chef made his name on the likes of Ready Steady Cook and The Big Breakfast, before taking over hosting BBC One’s Saturday Kitchen in 2006 – filmed live – and moving to ITV’s James Martin’s Saturday Morning in 2017.
“I was always taught, if you’re going to watch yourself, you’ll change. I don’t really want to do that.”
Instead, the feedback tends to come from his mum. “Usually my mum phones me up and says, ‘That shirt looks s**t – you can’t wear that again’. That’s usually the comment I get on Saturday Morning – ‘What the bloody hell are you wearing that shirt for?’ That’ll be the one, after all these years.
Or, “‘What were you doing the night before? Your hair looks a bloody state. You need to get it cut’.
“It keeps you very grounded,” he adds, with a laugh.
The pre-recorded Saturday Morning, now in its ninth year, sees Martin welcome celebrated chefs and celebrities into his home and outdoor kitchen. He rustles up all manner of dishes for his guests to try – while other top chefs share some of theirs too – and viewers send in their culinary questions.
“I didn’t think I’d be doing [Saturday morning telly] for 20 years – put it that way. Leaving the BBC after 10 years was a big decision, giving up that show, but it was the right time for me,” says the chef, from Malton, North Yorkshire.
“Certainly filming at the house has a different vibe to it, a more relaxed vibe – a different chapter.”
To mark the best part of a decade of his current show’s success, Martin’s latest cookbook, James Martin’s Saturday Morning, is a collection of recipes that he’s cooked for viewers.
What those at home might not know is that each dish is whipped up for the very first time by Martin on TV.
“That’s what surprises a lot of people,” he shares, “We don’t do any rehearsal or any practice.” The ingredients are written down and laid out in front of him, and as Martin creates a dish, while someone sits behind the camera writing down the step-by-step recipe.
“It’s not like any other normal cookery shows [in which] you get given a recipe and you follow it – we don’t do any of that. In terms of my stuff, what you see on camera is the first time I’ve cooked it.
“It’s like an upscale Ready, Steady, Cook, but it’s 30 or 40 years of cooking in the business.”
It certainly adds to the authentic feel of the show – and leads to more natural interactions with the famous guests too. “I think [not rehearsing] is important in terms of the conversations that you have. It’s always the best conversations when you go live, or you shoot it as ‘live’. Rather than rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, where it gets watered down.”
Isn’t that a bit nerve-racking? “I don’t ever get nervous, in terms of the food,” Martin says. “I probably get more nervous for the guests, really.
“Over the years, we’ve had some of the greatest chefs in the world on. When the best chefs in the world come to the UK, they kind of look to our show, which is an honour and a privilege.
“I’ve got nervous a few times. When you’re interviewing the late, great Sir Michael Parkinson – you’ve got to be on your A game.”
Author Jackie Collins sitting in his home kitchen was another “pinch-me moment” for Martin, before her death in 2015.
“You kind of look at them and go, ‘I can’t believe you’re here, in my house’. And you’re cooking for them.”
Some of the world-class chefs who’ve appeared on the show have shared recipes for the new book, too; think Nathan Outlaw’s fish stew, Asma Khan’s meatball curry, and Paul Rankin’s pear crumble.
“The chefs are there to showcase their business and their restaurants and their skill. I try and do stuff that’s accessible, that people can do at home. So if I can make it in 10 minutes, then hopefully I’ll inspire people to do [it].”
So the vast majority of the book’s recipes are Martin’s on-screen creations – and there were a lot to choose from.
“I’m doing probably six, seven recipes a show,” he notes, “There’s probably 5,000 recipes over the years I’ve been doing it.”
But you’ll find brunches (breakfast waffles with all the trimmings, or lemon and elderflower pancakes) with midweek meals (fish and chips with brown crab mayonnaise) and comfort food (like the surf and turf burger), alongside dishes for easy entertaining (pork chops with cafe de Paris butter).
Martin’s days of filming don’t involve eating the usual meals at the usual times, though. “I’ve usually got a glass of wine in my hands and a chicken chasseur [first thing]; by quarter past 10, I’m usually on the barbecue with another glass of wine and I’m cooking something savoury. By brunch, I’ve usually had a steak and chips, or something classically French,” he laughs. “It’s really odd.”
Martin wants to inspire people to get in the kitchen, regardless of ability, so his recipes are all about accessibility. “Most of the dishes we’ve done over the years have been made out of stuff you can buy off the supermarket shelf. There’s a supermarket sponge that I buy for 60p and you can turn it into a cake that [looks like it’s worth] £80 in 10 minutes with a little bit of imagination, cream and sugar.
“People seem to like that kind of stuff.”
Welsh rarebit with bacon and chutney
“One of the greatest chefs of the modern era was Gary Rhodes. People really underestimate how good he was and how he revolutionised the food scene using top-quality UK produce,” says Martin.
“One of his trademark dishes was a smoked haddock Welsh rarebit with confit tomatoes. Bettys Tea Room in York does a Welsh rarebit on toast with tomato chutney and it’s bloody delicious!”
Serves: 4
Ingredients:
8 slices of unsmoked back bacon
50g butter
500g Cheddar, grated
1 tbsp English mustard
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp Tabasco
3 egg yolks
2 tbsp plain flour
50ml beer
50ml milk
4 slices of sourdough
1 jar Bettys (or other good-quality) tomato chutney
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 200C/180C fan.
2. Place the bacon and butter in a large, non-stick, ovenproof frying pan and roast for ten minutes.
3. Meanwhile, heat a non-stick saucepan over a medium heat and add the cheese, mustard, Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco and stir until melted. Beat in the egg yolks and flour and cook gently for a further two minutes, stirring. Whisk in the beer and milk and cook for five minutes until you have a thick, smooth sauce.
4. Toast the sourdough. Slide it underneath the bacon, top with the chutney, then spoon the cheese sauce all over and bake for five minutes until deep golden and bubbly.
Beef pie with star anise carrots
“This is basically a braised beef stew turned into a pie,” says Martin. “We get a lot of letters and emails from people complaining that a pie isn’t a pie without a base! But this is such a simple dish.
“For the beef, make sure you get big chunks – you don’t want the stewing beef that’s already cut up as the chunks are too small and they fall to bits in your stew. You want chunks and whole carrots, as you want to be able to taste everything.”
Serves: 6
Ingredients:
2kg shin of beef, cut into large dice
2 shallots, diced
250ml beer
500ml red wine
A few sprigs of thyme
2 bay leaves
500g ready-made puff pastry
1 egg yolk, beaten
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
For the carrots:
400g whole carrots, peeled, with 1cm green tops left on
100g caster sugar
5 star anise
100g butter
Method:
1. In a very large casserole dish, over a medium-high heat, fry the beef in batches until deeply coloured. Season with salt and pepper, then pop it all back into the pan with the shallots, cover with the beer and wine and add the herbs.
2. Bring to the boil, then cover and simmer for two to three hours, until the beef is very tender. Season with salt and pepper and allow to cool.
3. Preheat the oven to 200C/180C fan.
4. Use the beef stew to fill a 20 centimetre ovenproof pie dish. Roll out the pastry to two millimetres thick and slightly larger than the dish. Brush the top edges of the dish with egg wash, then pop the pastry on, crimp and seal the edges and garnish with pastry leaves (cut from the pastry offcuts) and egg-wash these too.
5. Put the dish onto a baking tray to avoid any overspill and bake in the oven for 40 minutes until the pastry is risen and deep golden.
6. Meanwhile, pop all the ingredients for the carrots into a pan, bring to the boil, stirring occasionally, then simmer for 20 minutes until the carrots are tender. Serve with the beef pie.
Sticky toffee pudding with miso caramel sauce and clotted cream
“There are loads of variations of sticky toffee pudding, and I love to put my own spin on it,” says Martin.
“Miso is a brilliant savoury ingredient and when added to caramel it’s amazing, but it has to be high-quality miso!”
Serves: 6
Ingredients:
290ml boiling water
200g stoned dates
50g butter, softened, plus extra for greasing
175g Demerara sugar
1 tbsp golden syrup
2 eggs, beaten
2 tbsp black treacle
200g sifted plain flour
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
For the miso caramel sauce:
200ml double cream
100g butter
100g dark muscovado sugar
3 tbsp black treacle
2 tbsp golden syrup
2 tbsp white miso paste
To serve:
Clotted cream
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan. Grease a 20 centimetre square, five centimetre-deep cake tin and line it with baking parchment.
2. Pour the boiling water over the dates in a bowl and leave to sit for five minutes, then blitz until smooth and pour back into the bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until pale, then fold in the syrup, eggs, treacle, flour and vanilla until smooth and combined.
4. Stir the bicarbonate of soda into the blitzed dates, then mix into the pudding batter. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 35 to 40 minutes until springy to the touch. Leave to cool slightly in the tin, then turn out onto a plate to serve.
5. Meanwhile, to make the toffee sauce, put all the ingredients into a pan and bring gently to the boil, stirring until blended, then take off the heat.
6. To serve, cut squares of the pudding, spoon over the toffee sauce and top each portion with a dollop of clotted cream.
‘James Martin’s Saturday Morning’ by James Martin (Quadrille, £25).
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