Tag Archives: Food

Adventure lamb with Mark Sargeant

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British food has become more than just your meat and two veg as international flavours are influencing home cooking.

Research by Simply Beef and Lamb has found that British people, especially children, are more adventurous at mealtimes.

The Michelin starred chef Mark Sargeant has been working with Simply Beef and Lamb to create some easy lamb recipes and spoke to Siren FM about the changes in our tastes.

Chef Mark Sargeant chatting about exciting lamb recipes | Photo: Robert Nunn via Flickr

Tagines, curries and enchiladas are just some of the international dishes that have become popular in our kitchens. Research found that parents are also making these dishes for their children, admitting that their kids are eating more exotic foods than they did at their age.

Mark encourages children to try new foods and says: “I get very excited by the prospect of my daughters growing up with a really wide and varied palate. It’s very important for me to get in there at a young age and that wasn’t done so much certainly when I was younger.”

Being creative in the kitchen helps when it comes to being more adventurous with food. Mark says: “That’s where it’s so good to be relaxed in the kitchen. Understand that you’ve got a lovely piece of lamb and understand what goes with it and what you like and hopefully you’ll end up with some really good adventurous recipes.”

Mark’s top tips when it comes to cooking lamb this spring are:

  • Quality  — “Try and get really good, organic good quality lamb. That’s the most important thing. If you start with good lamb then you’re going to end up with a fantastic dish,” he says.
  • Be adventurous — “If you want to keep it simple that’s completely fine… but try and be a bit more adventurous.” Mark mentions that the Simply Beef and Lamb website is filled with plenty of recipes  and promises: “Your spring lamb will never taste as good as it has before.”

You can listen to the full interview with Mark Sargeant below. This interview was originally broadcast on Siren FM.

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John Torode speaks to Siren FM

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Celebrity chef and Masterchef judge John Torode travels down under to showcase the best food available in his home country in the new series John Torode’s Australia.

John Torode | Photo: Lichfield District Council via Flickr

The show gives John Torode a chance to revisit the places where he learnt to cook as well as explore the types of food that different cultures have brought to the country. He does think it is funny that Britain has a stereotype that Australians just cook everything on the barbecue. Although there is more to Australian cooking John Torode does defend cooking things on the barbecue saying that it is great for everyday dishes as well as fine steak.

John Torode gave some encouraging words to people who want to learn how to cook new and different dishes — saying they should focus on learning the culture surrounding a type of cuisine. However, he thinks people aren’t put off from trying new foods saying: “Are we a bit scared? Maybe. But a lot of people know what they like and I think that’s not a bad thing at all.”

But when it comes to himself, John Torode says: “If I went through any day and I didn’t learn anything about cooking I think it would be a sad day.”

John Torode’s Australia starts on Good Food on Monday 3rd March at 8pm.

You can listen to the full interview with John Torode where he talks to me and Sam Pidoux about why he doesn’t like cooking cheap food and why he enjoyed not having the responsibilities of Masterchef when filming his latest television show.

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Cooking to save lives recipe book

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Excitingly one of my cake recipes has been published in a local recipe book.

Me and Sam Pidoux posing with our recipes | Photo: Sam Pidoux

The Cooking to Save Lives book has been published by the Lincolnshire based first aid charity Lives. Over a couple of months they collected recipes from local restaurants, cafes and people to create this guide to the county’s food.

Back in the summer Steve Hyde from Lives visited Siren FM to talk about what the charity does and to explain their project. Essentially Lives need to fundraise almost a million pounds a year to keep running and Steve thought a recipe book would be a good way to raise some money. He approached Chris Strawson, who works for local printing company DPS Printing, and he had the idea to fill the recipe book with dishes from restaurants and cafes from around the county.

You can listen to that interview on Food for Thought from last summer here.

It was after that meeting that Sam Pidoux, who regularly helps out on Food for Thought, came up with the idea to submit some of our own creations to the book. Sam came up with gluten free chocolate brownies made using beetroot as one of the ingredients so the pressure was on to come up with something good.

Usually when I am baking I will follow recipes but I couldn’t submit someone else’s recipe and pretend it was my own. There was one cake that I had come up with myself for my Dad’s birthday. He loves those chocolate and lime sweets and I wanted to use those flavours in a cake. After some experimenting with how to use lime in cakes, I created a delicious chocolate and lime marble cake. The recipe was different and something special to me so I thought it was a good choice for the book.

In early December Lives and DPS Printing held a party at the Electric Bar in the centre of Lincoln to celebrate the launch of the book. It was my first chance to see the book and I was very impressed. It was great to see people interested in my cake and to see all the other dishes that were in the book.

You can pick up a copy of Cooking to Save Lives from a few local cafes and restaurants including Angel Coffee House, Burton Road Chippy and The Old Stables. Alternatively you can buy the book online as well on the Lives website.

Rachel Allen’s cooking tips and Snap It Taste It Blog It

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In this week’s Food for Thought podcast Snap It Taste It Blog It talk about Lincolnshire products and Samantha Pidoux and I chat to celebrity chef Rachel Allen.

People’s food shopping budgets may have got smaller but it’s still important to cook healthy and filling meals. This is what Rachel Allen is tackling in her latest television show Everyday Kitchen by showcasing simple and inexpensive meals to make. Earlier this week Samantha Pidoux and I chatted to the celebrity chef about her new Good Food programme and asked Rachel Allen how she felt about her title — “the Queen of Irish cooking”.

Tuesday 1st October was Lincolnshire Day and I invited Alex and Ben from Snap It Taste It Blog It to review the county’s finest foods. The long-distance couple, who review food in both New York and Boston, Lincolnshire, have been on the show before but this time they are both in the UK.

The past couple of weeks both Alex and Ben have been travelling around Lincolnshire and the rest of the UK trying out new foods so they’re back on Food for Thought to share their food experiences.

Alex and Ben from Snap It Taste It Blog It in the Siren FM studios | Photo: Snap It Taste It Blog It & Gemma Benefer

If you liked listening to this podcast then make sure you listen to Food for Thought on Siren FM every Wednesday at 2pm.

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Spire Chocolates and cooking to save lives

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The Lincolnshire charity Lives are releasing a local cookbook to help fundraise for themselves. Lives are a voluntary emergency service based in the county and they’re looking for pubs, cafes and restaurants to contribute recipes to the cookbook. It’s hoped that the recipe book will be available before Christmas and all the profit will go towards helping to run the charity.

To find out more about the charity, the cookbook and how people can contribute their recipes, Samantha Pidoux and I chatted to Steve Hyde from Lives and Chris Strawson from the printing company DPS.

Also on this week’s podcast I chatted to Lindsay Gardner from Spire Chocolates, which is based in Louth. It was fascinating to chat to Lindsay about how she got interested in making chocolates and how she creates her award winning flavours.

If you liked listening to this podcast then why not listen to Food for Thought on Siren FM every Wednesday at 2pm.

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Valentine Warner on Food for Thought

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Celebrity chef Valentine Warner has recently been to Scandinavia to find out about the food and the culture. He’s now sharing his experiences over on his Good Food show Valentine Warner eats Scandinavia and in an interview for Food for Thought.

Photo: UKTV

Valentine Warner is passionate about using local and seasonal foods — which is also a popular approach to food in Scandinavia too. During his travels Valentine went ice fishing with only a drill and bait, he also cooked with some unusual ingredients including blood and moss. In fact he enjoyed his trip so much he sounds like he wants to move there.

We also talked about why is so passionate about using seasonal goods, his inspiration when it comes to cooking and why he likes listening to music when in the kitchen.

Food for Thought regular Samantha Pidoux joined me for the interview and has written about it on her blog to get another take on our chat with Valentine Warner.

If you’ve liked this podcast then try listening to Food for Thought as it goes out live on Siren FM every Wednesday at 2pm .

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