James May: Oh Cook! (2020) s02e07 Episode Script
Mexican
1
Hello, viewers. Welcome back
to the kitchen at Oh Cook!
And for the first time in this series
or the previous one,
I'm going to make food
from a country I've never been to.
♪
- What do you think of that?
- Rubbish.
[James] This episode
This is gonna be absolutely huge.
I shall be incorrigible
Cultural sensitivity alert alarm
has gone off.
- [laughter]
- irresistible
- Thank you.
- 'Cause I That's all right.
- Mmm!
- Mmm.
- Mmm!
- and incomprehensible.
- This joke's becoming confusing,
isn't it?
- [laugh]
♪
Now, UNESCO recently declared
that Mexican cuisine is
an intangible heritage of humanity.
It's the first cuisine ever
to be granted that status.
So it's up there with a great cathedral
and all that sort of thing,
and if you look
in my original Oh Cook! cookbook
Just do the hold it up for the shot thing.
[director] Yeah.
available from all good
et cetera, et cetera,
you will find in it a recipe
for what I think of
as the student standard chili con carne.
The one that we all make
out of bits of leftover and so on,
but that's not really quite right.
We're going to make
a posh version of chili con carne
using not mince but lovely,
succulent pieces of chuck steak.
And this is going to cook, the whole thing
is going to cook for five hours.
♪
[James] During that five hours,
we'll be getting through a veritable
shopping trolley full of ingredients,
including celery salt,
cayenne pepper,
paprika, ground cumin,
tomato puree,
a dried ancho chili,
some chocolate,
a can of chopped tomatoes,
a can of kidney beans, drained,
some beef stock,
an onion,
some garlic, a pepper
and, ominously,
a scotch bonnet chili.
Very, very dangerous.
Do not put your fingers anywhere
near your eyes, nose, mouth
or genitalia, even if you have
so much as
- only looked at that.
- [laughter]
[James] We'll being by adding a splash
of olive oil to a weighty casserole dish
and chopping some onions
with the chopper-upperer.
Everything we cook today
- is all going to come together
at the end in a feast.
- [sizzling]
A bit like we did in, um, the first series
with our-our curry evening.
I'm gonna cook this
in little batches.
All I'm doing here is
merely browning off this meat.
I don't need to cook it.
Gary, top shot.
- Top shot.
- Do a top shot
whilst I just craftily
read the instructions,
'cause I get this in the wrong order.
I think, for British people,
Mexican food needs
a little bit of a reappraisal,
because I remember back in the '90s
it's a very dim memory
Mexican food in Britain turned into
sort of, um, what would you call it?
It was sort of party food, because
you would always go for a Mexican
if somebody was leaving work,
if it was somebody's significant birthday,
that sort of thing.
The Mexican restaurants never had
romantic couples in them.
They always had
massive gangs of pissheads,
Similar to the sort of thing that happened
to Indian food in Britain
in the '70s and early '80s,
before people realized
actually this is something
really rather excellent,
and we'd better start taking it
a bit more seriously.
Who knew a good old chili con carne
could have such a daunting list
of ingredients?
Good job I've got Nikki to stop me making
a right guac-up of it.
- Nikki?
- [knocking]
Hmm.
That's never happened.
I'll have to keep going by myself.
Nikki's obviously confident
that I can do this one alone.
So I'll carry on by adding chopped onions
and chopped peppers to my pan.
Scotch bonnet chili is just
going to go in like that.
If I chop it up,
it's far too dangerous.
It will still impart a great deal of
heat and flavor to the final mix.
Garlic, in the crusher.
I feel, as usual, that Dan has
an opinion on this. What is it?
I just don't see the point
in a garlic crusher.
- You don't see
the point of a garlic crusher.
- [Dan] No.
Well, it's not very good for mending
the punctures on bicycles.
- [Dan chuckles]
- I would agree that it's quite good
for crushing garlic.
What-what is your objection?
Well, you should just
chop up the garlic clove
and then squash it
using the flat of a knife.
Half your garlic's on the board there.
- [crewman] I agree.
- [crewman 2] I agree.
[crewman laughs] Fixed.
Right, I would say
those-those onions are quite soft.
Now I'm gonna start adding some spices.
♪
Add all your dried spices to the pan
and give it a good old stir.
Add the tomato puree
and chuck in the ancho chili
for a bit of lovely smokiness.
I am going to return the seared beef
wahey to the pan,
along with a bit of its juices.
This is gonna be absolutely huge.
Then you can add
your tinned tomatoes and kidney beans,
plus 300 milliliters of beef stock
and then give the whole thing a good stir.
This now has to go in the oven.
The oven is set at 150 degrees.
[pops mouth]
And it goes in there for five hours.
Five hours.
Which will, I fear, feel like five days
if I don't get some help from Nikki soon.
- [knocking]
- Nikki?
- [Nikki] Hi.
- Ah! Where have you been?
- Siesta.
- Oh. It's it's half past 10:00.
- I know.
- Um, I just wanted you to check that.
That looks perfect.
[James] Okay, here we go.
[sniffs] Smells nice, doesn't it?
[Nikki] Smells delicious.
[James] Right.
In.
That will be ready at half past 3:00.
Perfect.
♪
- Now I'm going to chop up
those and those.
- Yeah, you chop up.
- Shall we start them on the board,
then we know what we're doing?
- Yeah.
We're now going to make the dips
for our Mexican feast,
- which we're going to have
with some nachos later on, correct?
- Yeah.
And we are going to make guacamole
and pico de what?
Is it pico de "gallow"?
Pico de "gayo"?
Pico de "gayio"?
Fortunately,
Gary has a friend who is actually Mexican,
so we rang her up,
and she says it's pico de "ga-ch-o."
Pico de Anyway, it's posh salsa.
So, we begin
I-I think we're gonna begin with a beer,
'cause I'm definitely a bit jittery.
Would you like a beer?
- Yes, please.
- Look, we've got some limes,
so we can do it
the supposedly Mexican way,
with a little bit of lime
in the neck of the bottle.
- That's right, isn't it?
- It is.
'Cause it just flavors the beer
as it comes out.
Doesn't matter if it falls in entirely,
but it's just not very stylish.
- [bottle top clatters]
- [laughter]
♪
First, we'll finely slice
four spring onions and two green chilies
before adding a third of each
to a pestle and mortar
with a pinch of salt
and smashing it all together.
Right, that's fairly pasty.
- [Nikki] Yeah, that looks pasty.
- [James] I would say.
Avocado. Now, normally,
you would slice this in half,
whack the knife on the stone
and twist it to pull the stone out,
and then you can peel the skin off,
but I believe
we have been given a gadget.
Is that it?
That's it.
[James] How does it work?
- Is that the
- Um, I think that's the cutter.
And then I think
you impale the stone on that,
and then you slice it with that.
So
really, that is
a bespoke avocado cutter-in-half-er.
- [Nikki] Mm-hmm.
- [James] And this is different
from a knife in what way?
- It's plastic.
- Okay.
And it's green.
- Oh, so you know what it is?
- Yeah.
- It's not a tomato slicer-upper.
- Yeah, you'd never use it on a tomato.
Well, that bit of it worked.
So they reckon that
if you then press that on there
- Wow.
- In fairness, that does work.
So you do that.
[laughs]
I think you push it on it.
It's very easy to sell things
to cooking enthusiasts, let's be honest.
Nothing wrong with that and a spoon.
- What do you think of that?
- Rubbish.
- Bin?
- Yeah.
All right.
Nice try.
Next, add the juice of half a lime,
your spring onion and chili paste,
along with some more chilies
and tomatoes,
and the remaining spring onions.
- That's quite a posh guac,
isn't it? With that
- Very posh guac.
[James] Most people wouldn't put
those tomato bits in.
No.
- Would they?
- No. Some people put red onion in.
When you buy, like, a pot of guac
from the shop with your meal deal lunch,
it generally doesn't have the tomato in.
- It's generally just
- No.
- it's-it's a green paste.
- [beeping]
Cultural sensitivity alert alarm
has gone off.
[laughter]
Coarse, smashed guacamole.
[Nikki] Needs more lime.
Does need more lime.
I'll put the other half in.
- And maybe a little bit more salt.
- Tiny bit more salt.
Not a lot, though, I'd say.
- Don't give in
to the tyranny of Dan Harrison.
- [Dan sneezes] Excuse me?
- What was that?
- [Dan] A sneeze.
Me trying to hold a sneeze in and failing.
[James] I thought it was
I thought it was a dog.
Did you put a bit more salt in?
[Nikki] Yes, I did.
- And then I think we should put
some chopped coriander in it.
- [quietly] Right!
Oh, I couldn't agree more,
'cause chopped coriander
improves everything.
Let's leave that a little while,
right there.
Is that okay, camera people?
- Will you be able to see everything else
if that is there?
- [cameraman] Yeah.
[James] For the pico de gallow
gayo, gallio
get an assistant
to pre-chop some onions for you.
Then you can add
six deseeded and chopped tomatoes,
along with
a finely chopped jalapeño pepper.
Can't really tell looking at a chili
how hot it's going to be.
It's part of the excitement.
The big debate is,
is the heat in the skin,
in the flesh,
in the seeds or in the pith?
- Pith.
- I believe it to be in the pith.
- I believe that, too.
- Does any
- [beeping]
No, that was the incorrect fact alarm,
I think.
[laughter]
Let's find out,
as we say on television.
So, pith.
That's pretty hot.
- Certainly is.
- [Nikki laughs]
[James] Now some seeds.
There's a tiny bit of heat in,
but not as much as the pith.
So let's try the flesh.
This is the flesh of the same chili.
Pith first, skin second, seeds third.
So there you go.
That's the definitive answer
arrived at by the scientific method.
Add your finely chopped chilies
to your tomatoes,
along with the juice of a lime
and a healthy pinch of salt.
And then we just need
to stick in that bit of coriander
that we've already chopped.
Oh, yes.
What? Oh, we're trying it.
- So this is a posh salsa.
- Mmm.
It's a pico de gallo.
That's very tasty.
- Oh, yeah.
- That needs to sit for a nice hour,
and then we can eat it.
Also, you need to check your chili.
[James] I do. I did have
a sneaky look at it just now,
when you had your back turned.
I'll have a better look now.
Exactly. That is great.
Should I give it a little stir?
Here you are.
Here's a stirring mechanism.
[James] Stirring mechanism?
Oh, a spoon.
- Can you get that?
- Yeah, just about.
- Say when to stir.
- Go in. Yeah.
[James] It still needs to thicken up
a bit, Nikki. Will it do that?
Well, it's got five hours.
How many hours has it been in so far?
Uh, well, it was quarter to 1:00
when I put it in, and it's now
- quarter to 1:00,
so it's been in an hour.
- [Nikki] Another four hours, I reckon.
♪
We've got some ingredients left.
Onions, an orange
and some more limes.
We're going to make a, um
- What is it called, this? This is
- Cebollas en escabeche.
- Does that mean
- Pickled onions.
Pickled onions, okay.
James, you've got a tomato seed
in your hair.
Oh, no.
[Dan] Rich growing medium.
[crew chuckling]
- Is-is it gone?
- [crewman] No.
- Could someone dive in
and just pick it out?
- [indistinct chatter]
[crewman laughs]
Thanks, Mark.
Cut a large orange in half
and finely slice two red onions.
Because I wasn't concentrating then,
I cut the orange in half lengthways.
- So Well, I don't want to wa
It will still work.
- [Nikki] Well
- I don't want to waste it.
- You could still
- You can either use that or
- What is that?
It's called a reamer.
This is for
[James] Ah.
- Or you can try it on that.
- Oh, I haven't got one of those.
That's a brilliant thing.
- It's good, isn't it?
- Why don't I have one of those?
I shall gift it to you.
- Would you?
- Yeah.
[James] Well, I'll do you a swapsie.
What are you gonna swap me for?
I will swap you this,
as a gesture of my appreciation,
because I do enjoy working
with you, Nikki,
- and I couldn't do this without you.
- Aw.
I will swap you that
- [Nikki] Yes.
- for the chopper-upperer.
- I would like you
to have the chopper-upperer.
- Oh, thank you.
'Cause I can That's all right.
- I can get another one, I mean,
but that one
- [Nikki laughs]
- Yeah, that one
- Well, as long as you've got one.
♪
[James] Once your orange is
comprehensively reamed,
squeeze the juice of two limes
into the orange juice,
add your sliced onions
and season with salt and pepper,
before leaving it in the fridge
for an hour.
In the action, let's skip forward
to quarter to 1:00, and then we can
No, we really have to leave them
for an hour,
'cause they go pink.
- This joke's becoming confusing,
isn't it?
- [laughs]
We're now going to make tacos.
The first record we can find
of the use of the word in print
is from an 18th-century description
of Mexican silver mining,
when "taco" was used to describe
an improvised explosive.
- [Nikki] Mm.
- [James] It was some gunpowder
wrapped in paper
- Mm.
- and screwed up, so that makes
like a cartridge, if you like,
and that could be
inserted in the rocks and lit.
Presumably you had to run away
bloody quickly. Bang.
- Mm.
- Separated the rock
so that they could look for the silver.
So the original taco was not even edible,
unless you were extremely brave.
What that means is that taco,
in essence, means a wrapping.
All of that was completely irrelevant
to what we're going to do now,
which is make chicken tacos
and then fish tacos.
And it begins with spices.
Chipotle chili flakes.
That is ground cumin,
that is ground coriander.
That is paprika, that is oregano,
or o-reg-ano if you're in America,
- that is dried onion powder.
- Powder.
That is garlic powder,
that is black pepper
and that is an orange.
Put all of your spices into a bowl,
followed by two tablespoons of
sunflower oil.
I shall squeeze some orange juice.
Feel free to use my reamer, if you
Oh, okay. [laughs]
I'd forgotten it's yours now.
Oops.
I think that will do it.
- [James] Shall we leave it for a bit
to sort of absorb?
- [Nikki] Yeah.
- That'd be fine.
- Let's talk about the chicken,
which should be in the fridge.
Hi, fridge.
These are chicken thighs.
- Boneless, skinless thighs.
- Thighs.
[James] Not unlike my own.
[laughs]
So that is evenly coated
in the very nice,
very orangey, very spicy liquid
that we just made.
Now we can put that over there,
and we can leave that to sit
for about, what, 30 minutes?
[Nikki] Yeah. I'm gonna put it
in the fridge, though.
[James] Put it in the fridge.
Why not?
♪
Half an hour later,
put your now marinated chicken in a pan
and cook it gently with the lid on
for about an hour.
What shall we do now?
We could stand here for an hour.
- No.
- Or we could bring out
the one that you've already done
from the back kitchen and put it on there
and pretend an hour has passed.
- Great idea.
- Okay.
♪
- [Nikki] Put that back in there.
- [James] I'll put that back on there.
- [Nikki] Back there
- [James] Nobody need ever know.
[Nikki] Okay.
An hour has passed,
as you can tell from the kitchen clock,
and now look what's happened
to our chicken in spicy juices.
Look at that.
Shall we try a little bit of that
- to see if it's flavorsome?
- Yes.
I bet it is. I can smell cumin.
Have that little bit there.
- Mmm. That's good.
- Soft.
- Spicy.
- Soft. Spicy, not too hot.
That's gonna be lovely on a taco.
[James] Say if it was an avocado
Finally, shred your chicken,
making sure it's evenly coated
in the marinade.
Then you can start on the fish tacos.
For these, you'll need
400 grams of skinless cod fillet
the juice of a lime
and a finely chopped red chili.
Would you say that is a bite-sized chunk?
[Nikki] Depends on the size of your mouth.
[James] It does, doesn't it?
Place the fish chunks into a bowl,
then pour over two tablespoons of
olive oil and the lime juice,
followed by the chopped red chili.
- Leave that in the fridge
-Yeah.
for anywhere between
ten and 15 minutes.
Don't overdo it. The effect
of the lime juice in there is it,
in a way, starts to cook the fish.
[director] Quickly, while
you're "waiting" in inverted commas
for ten minutes, do you want
to take a quick look at the chili?
Let us look at the chili.
[Nikki] Shall I prepare a small jug
of water in case you need to top up?
[James] Yes, I think
that's an excellent idea.
Ooh, steamy glasses.
Lid off.
Oh, my word.
Oh, good God, look at this.
- That's gone very brown.
- [Nikki] Ooh
That definitely needs
a splosh of water and a stir.
I would say that needs a splosh of water.
- And a stir.
- Are you ready, Gary?
[Gary] Ready, mate.
Oh, look at it when I stir it.
Look. Look, Nikki.
Now, the lid back on the casserole
and leave it to cook
for the remaining two hours.
Meanwhile, you can get
your marinated fish out of the fridge
and into a hot frying pan.
[Nikki] And this will be really quick.
[James] Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's a bit like doing a stir-fry.
That's gonna take, what,
two minutes, probably?
- [Nikki] Mm-hmm.
- [James] And then, when that's done,
we can prepare the tacos and
then we can serve it up and taste it,
and taste our guacamole and our salsa,
and our pink onions.
A Mexican feast.
♪
Quite a number of things
have come together here.
We have what I rather dismissively
called "dips" earlier on,
but they're a bit more than that.
I think we should just test these virgin,
- and you may select a nacho from the
- [Nikki] A nacho from the nachosaurus.
- It's quite corny but also quite good.
- I love him.
- Mmm.
- Is that good?
Excellent guacamole.
What do you think?
Yeah, that's great.
[Nikki] Really good.
Mmm.
- Pickled onions?
- Please.
Ooh!
I like those.
Mmm. Shall I get the chicken
out of the furnace?
[Nikki] Yeah.
Wooden spoon. I'm just going to give it
a little bit of a restorative stir,
make sure it's coated with all the nice
oils and juices and everything.
- Mmm.
- Right, that looks "mmm."
That does look quite good.
Right, let's Okay.
- Okay.
- Okay. Shall we do fish first?
I've got teaspoons.
Oh, yes!
We definitely need those for this.
- [bottle top clatters]
- That was a particularly bad one.
[groans]
- What happened?
- That one, that one just
That was explo
Beer pool down there.
See, that one didn't do it at all
'cause I stood out of the way.
Your kitchen is basically
full of booby traps.
Exploding bottle opener,
hand-searing warmer drawer.
Thank you.
- Right.
- [Nikki] Okay.
- So, crispy fish tacos.
- [James] Okay.
- Crispy fish taco. Here we go.
- One for you, one for me.
Thank you very much.
So let's put the fish in.
- Then I would say
we put the guac on next.
- Okay.
- That okay? Do you want
a little bit more?
- Yeah.
No, that looks fantastic.
- A bit more for you.
- Shall I go ahead and guac that?
You guac that one, and I'll fill this one.
- [James] Gorgeous combination of colors.
- [Nikki] Okay.
This is going to be messy.
We're going to have to
How much is on your face?
Yep, some.
Taste?
The fish is lovely.
That is really nice with the sauce.
It's really nice with pico de gallo.
Because I've watched you do it,
I'm going to turn my head on its side
so that I don't make that same
[laughs]
Oh, the fish is very nice.
Not overcooked.
And, actually,
despite all those ingredients
and the quite dense taco shell,
it tastes quite light, doesn't it?
[Nikki] Mmm.
[James] Let's try the chicken one.
This will be a bit more substantial.
Spicy chicken taco,
yours with cheese, mine without.
Mmm.
- That's really good.
- Is it?
I love the fish,
but this is beautiful.
- Mmm!
- [Nikki] Mmm.
- Mmm!
- [Nikki] Mmm. Mm-mm?
Mmm. Oh,
everything about that is bob-on.
[Nikki] Yeah.
♪
Right, this is a big reveal,
because we're actually 11 minutes late
- with removing our five hour
- Five hours 11 minutes.
- It's going to be spectacular.
- Five hours 11 minutes.
Um, and we last looked at it
about one hour ago
when we gave it a little stir,
and it was looking pretty good then.
Let's see what's happened since.
The lid is still on,
so we can do a proper reveal.
Are the cameras on it?
Are you ready?
Yes? This is posh chili con carne,
in three, two, one
- [Nikki] Go.
- [James] Whoa.
- [Nikki] Well, that looks nice.
- [James] What have we forgotten?
- To take out the scotch bonnet.
- Nope.
- Chocolate.
- [Nikki] Oh, the chocolate.
- [James] Supposed to stir
some chocolate into it
- [Nikki] Yes, of course.
- I was getting carried away. Yes.
- whilst it's still hot,
'cause this will soften the spicy effects.
- It's traditional.
- And it's to offset
the acidity of the peppers
and the tomatoes.
I've put a couple of bowls in the
warmer of death!
[laughter]
♪
Remove the scotch bonnet
and the ancho chili.
Their work is done.
- How can you just pick that up?
- It's not that hot.
A portion of posh, chunky chili.
Shall we have a little taste?
[James] Let's have a little taste.
It's difficult to have a little taste,
actually, 'cause it's got
quite large chunks in it.
Mmm.
It's delicious.
It's really It's rich.
Oh, it is rich. Mm-hmm.
The meat is beautiful. Tender.
It's got a bit of a fiery tail on it,
hasn't it?
[Nikki] Mm-hmm.
[James] I'm just gonna have a bit of that.
[Nikki] Mmm.
Mmm.
That's not bad at all, is it? And it
It's a very different experience
with it being big chunks,
- rather than just mince-y slop.
- The mince.
- Shall we make a pudding?
- Oh, yes!
- Would you like to make some churros?
- I would.
- Okay, let's do it.
- Right, let's do that.
♪
We are going to conclude
our Mexican feast with churros,
which are, um,
how would you describe them?
They are dough fingers
deep-fried and coated
in sugar and cinnamon, optional,
and then we're going to make a chocolate
with chili sauce to dip them in.
Our churros batter begins
with 250 grams of plain flour,
50 grams of unsalted butter
and a teaspoon of baking powder.
Pour 350 milliliters of boiling water
onto your butter.
When the butter has dissolved,
sieve your flour into the liquid,
then beat with a wooden spoon
until the mixture thickens.
Shall I put the baking powder in now?
Let's just put the last Oh, you haven't
put the baking powder in yet?
- No, no. I thought
I would put that in last.
- Okay. Okay.
- [James] So that it didn't fizz.
- [Nikki] Fizz.
[Nikki] I reckon that's okay now.
[James] Time for a piping bag
with a star nozzle on it.
Place it in a measuring jug
and scrape your churros mixture into it.
Once full, place in the fridge to firm up,
for now it's time to make
our dipping sauce.
Heat 250 grams of double cream
before adding some chocolate.
200 grams in total.
We've got 100 grams of dark,
100 grams of plain.
You could have 200 grams of either.
By combining them, you get
a sort of happy compromise
between milkiness and darkness.
Add a pinch of chili flakes
and a pinch of sea salt
before decanting into a bowl.
Now get ready for the deep-frying bit
by heating some oil in a wok
to 180 degrees.
- Bit left to lick off there.
- Thank you very much.
- You could actually scrape a few bits
out of there as well, if you'd like.
- Thank you.
Right, there is our chocolate sauce.
Oh, we need to mix this up.
This is caster sugar.
Um, the exact amount doesn't matter
'cause this is just
something to dip it in,
but you do have the option
of mixing it with cinnamon,
which we've decided to do
with some reticence on my part,
because I find that
cinnamon can spoil things.
[Nikki] Why don't you mix
all the cinnamon into that one,
and I'll do you a tray
of just caster sugar?
[James] Okay.
There's your pure caster sugar tray.
Thank you very much.
Is that the right temperature, though?
[Nikki] Right. Chopstick test.
Chopstick test.
- [Nikki] Oh, yes. I think
- Yeah, there you go.
- I think, yeah, there we go.
- [James] The end of the chopstick
is fizzing.
- Can you see that?
- [crew] Mm-hmm.
Everything is good.
- Take out the piping bag.
- [Nikki] Start piping.
- Are you ready?
- Yes.
- [Nikki] Snip?
- [James] Yep.
- Is that about the right length?
- Yeah.
Oh, I nearly put my hand on it then.
Ooh, that one's got a fat end.
- And snip.
- Snip.
- Just do it slightly
- Oh, look. More, more, more, more.
Do a slightly longer one.
Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on.
- Yes.
- [stammers] No, no, no. No more.
[James] This to me has
the feel of fairground food.
- [Nikki] It does, doesn't it?
- Yeah, because
it's-it's-it's deep-fried dough.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- [Nikki] Should we get that one out?
- [James] Yep.
[Nikki] It looks the right color.
[Nikki] We really need to sugar these,
also, while they're warm.
So would you like to chuck those
into your preferred sugar mix?
Um should we do one in each?
- Two in each.
- Two in each.
Let's do the
So, wonky shape is in cinnamon sugar.
Straight ones are in regular sugar.
[Nikki] Smells just like churros now.
[James] Once you're up and running,
you can carry on frying, snipping
and dusting
until you can resist them no longer.
After you.
[Nikki] I shall go for the sugar,
first of all.
Okay.
Mmm.
- Shall I try the plain sugar one as well?
- [Nikki] Mm-hmm.
I was prepared to hate that,
and it's fantastic.
[Nikki] Okay, cinnamon.
- Game-changer?
- No, I prefer it without.
I'm gonna go for plain sugar.
All right. Mmm.
It's really doughy in the middle
but really crispy on the outside.
It's treat food, isn't it?
- It's delicious.
- It's-it's bad.
It's bad, but it's so good.
Oh, dear.
I'm getting the chili.
That is almost certainly
against the Geneva Convention.
- Oh, you can. Mmm.
- Mmm.
Mmm. Mmm!
It just puts a little bit of mystery
into it, doesn't it?
- It's not just chocolate.
- And the salt.
Yeah, there's a bit of salt.
Well, that's the end of
our Mexican experience,
which has been great, actually,
hasn't it?
It's also, I'm afraid,
the end of the series.
And what a series it's been.
Here's a montage for you to watch
whilst we desperately think
how to sign it off.
♪
Well, that was fun.
[Nikki] Cheers.
- Cheers, viewers.
- Cheers.
[James] I like to think
that I've consolidated
my new-found cooking skills.
I put my finger on the metal bit
of the wok. [blows]
What the bloody hell
has happened to that?
Do I put the butter in the thing
No, don't put the butter in it.
You do that first,
then you put the butter in.
- Then how do I [stammers]
- With a spoon.
Okay.
- While at the same time
- Oh, bollocks.
growing in both craft
I'm sweating, I'm panicking.
Ow! Bastard!
- and confidence.
- Panic, panic.
- No panic.
- Panic.
Ow!
Along the way
Squeezy, squeezy, squeezy.
I've come to appreciate
the language of the kitchen
Yes, slightly peasanty with a high note
of abandoned games kit.
- It's ejaculating on my shirt.
- all the while
Oh, look. That's a thing of beauty.
producing some truly
mouth-watering dishes
Get that in your face.
Can you taste the Spam?
and becoming fully immersed
in the filmmaking process.
Everything I say is cut out,
all the detail is gone,
there's a few slow-motion shots,
and the slow movement from
Rachmaninoff's second piano concerto.
♪
- I mean, give me another 15 years
and those will be great, won't they?
- Mmm.
See you, Gary.
[laughter]
- [director] Yeah, just to pick it up.
- We've come back and it's just
- [James] Okay, say when.
- [director] Go.
- We'll finish off with a mezcal. Cheers.
- Cheers.
It remains only for me to say thank you,
first and foremost, to Nikki,
for making this show even vaguely viable,
and for the use of her house and kitchen,
and of course thank you
to you, viewers, for watching,
and for your indulgence,
which is appreciated, as ever.
See you next time for Oh Cook! Three.
- Cheers.
- Cheers.
♪
God, can you actually have
inflammable breath?
[laughs] Yeah, I think so.
♪
Hello, viewers. Welcome back
to the kitchen at Oh Cook!
And for the first time in this series
or the previous one,
I'm going to make food
from a country I've never been to.
♪
- What do you think of that?
- Rubbish.
[James] This episode
This is gonna be absolutely huge.
I shall be incorrigible
Cultural sensitivity alert alarm
has gone off.
- [laughter]
- irresistible
- Thank you.
- 'Cause I That's all right.
- Mmm!
- Mmm.
- Mmm!
- and incomprehensible.
- This joke's becoming confusing,
isn't it?
- [laugh]
♪
Now, UNESCO recently declared
that Mexican cuisine is
an intangible heritage of humanity.
It's the first cuisine ever
to be granted that status.
So it's up there with a great cathedral
and all that sort of thing,
and if you look
in my original Oh Cook! cookbook
Just do the hold it up for the shot thing.
[director] Yeah.
available from all good
et cetera, et cetera,
you will find in it a recipe
for what I think of
as the student standard chili con carne.
The one that we all make
out of bits of leftover and so on,
but that's not really quite right.
We're going to make
a posh version of chili con carne
using not mince but lovely,
succulent pieces of chuck steak.
And this is going to cook, the whole thing
is going to cook for five hours.
♪
[James] During that five hours,
we'll be getting through a veritable
shopping trolley full of ingredients,
including celery salt,
cayenne pepper,
paprika, ground cumin,
tomato puree,
a dried ancho chili,
some chocolate,
a can of chopped tomatoes,
a can of kidney beans, drained,
some beef stock,
an onion,
some garlic, a pepper
and, ominously,
a scotch bonnet chili.
Very, very dangerous.
Do not put your fingers anywhere
near your eyes, nose, mouth
or genitalia, even if you have
so much as
- only looked at that.
- [laughter]
[James] We'll being by adding a splash
of olive oil to a weighty casserole dish
and chopping some onions
with the chopper-upperer.
Everything we cook today
- is all going to come together
at the end in a feast.
- [sizzling]
A bit like we did in, um, the first series
with our-our curry evening.
I'm gonna cook this
in little batches.
All I'm doing here is
merely browning off this meat.
I don't need to cook it.
Gary, top shot.
- Top shot.
- Do a top shot
whilst I just craftily
read the instructions,
'cause I get this in the wrong order.
I think, for British people,
Mexican food needs
a little bit of a reappraisal,
because I remember back in the '90s
it's a very dim memory
Mexican food in Britain turned into
sort of, um, what would you call it?
It was sort of party food, because
you would always go for a Mexican
if somebody was leaving work,
if it was somebody's significant birthday,
that sort of thing.
The Mexican restaurants never had
romantic couples in them.
They always had
massive gangs of pissheads,
Similar to the sort of thing that happened
to Indian food in Britain
in the '70s and early '80s,
before people realized
actually this is something
really rather excellent,
and we'd better start taking it
a bit more seriously.
Who knew a good old chili con carne
could have such a daunting list
of ingredients?
Good job I've got Nikki to stop me making
a right guac-up of it.
- Nikki?
- [knocking]
Hmm.
That's never happened.
I'll have to keep going by myself.
Nikki's obviously confident
that I can do this one alone.
So I'll carry on by adding chopped onions
and chopped peppers to my pan.
Scotch bonnet chili is just
going to go in like that.
If I chop it up,
it's far too dangerous.
It will still impart a great deal of
heat and flavor to the final mix.
Garlic, in the crusher.
I feel, as usual, that Dan has
an opinion on this. What is it?
I just don't see the point
in a garlic crusher.
- You don't see
the point of a garlic crusher.
- [Dan] No.
Well, it's not very good for mending
the punctures on bicycles.
- [Dan chuckles]
- I would agree that it's quite good
for crushing garlic.
What-what is your objection?
Well, you should just
chop up the garlic clove
and then squash it
using the flat of a knife.
Half your garlic's on the board there.
- [crewman] I agree.
- [crewman 2] I agree.
[crewman laughs] Fixed.
Right, I would say
those-those onions are quite soft.
Now I'm gonna start adding some spices.
♪
Add all your dried spices to the pan
and give it a good old stir.
Add the tomato puree
and chuck in the ancho chili
for a bit of lovely smokiness.
I am going to return the seared beef
wahey to the pan,
along with a bit of its juices.
This is gonna be absolutely huge.
Then you can add
your tinned tomatoes and kidney beans,
plus 300 milliliters of beef stock
and then give the whole thing a good stir.
This now has to go in the oven.
The oven is set at 150 degrees.
[pops mouth]
And it goes in there for five hours.
Five hours.
Which will, I fear, feel like five days
if I don't get some help from Nikki soon.
- [knocking]
- Nikki?
- [Nikki] Hi.
- Ah! Where have you been?
- Siesta.
- Oh. It's it's half past 10:00.
- I know.
- Um, I just wanted you to check that.
That looks perfect.
[James] Okay, here we go.
[sniffs] Smells nice, doesn't it?
[Nikki] Smells delicious.
[James] Right.
In.
That will be ready at half past 3:00.
Perfect.
♪
- Now I'm going to chop up
those and those.
- Yeah, you chop up.
- Shall we start them on the board,
then we know what we're doing?
- Yeah.
We're now going to make the dips
for our Mexican feast,
- which we're going to have
with some nachos later on, correct?
- Yeah.
And we are going to make guacamole
and pico de what?
Is it pico de "gallow"?
Pico de "gayo"?
Pico de "gayio"?
Fortunately,
Gary has a friend who is actually Mexican,
so we rang her up,
and she says it's pico de "ga-ch-o."
Pico de Anyway, it's posh salsa.
So, we begin
I-I think we're gonna begin with a beer,
'cause I'm definitely a bit jittery.
Would you like a beer?
- Yes, please.
- Look, we've got some limes,
so we can do it
the supposedly Mexican way,
with a little bit of lime
in the neck of the bottle.
- That's right, isn't it?
- It is.
'Cause it just flavors the beer
as it comes out.
Doesn't matter if it falls in entirely,
but it's just not very stylish.
- [bottle top clatters]
- [laughter]
♪
First, we'll finely slice
four spring onions and two green chilies
before adding a third of each
to a pestle and mortar
with a pinch of salt
and smashing it all together.
Right, that's fairly pasty.
- [Nikki] Yeah, that looks pasty.
- [James] I would say.
Avocado. Now, normally,
you would slice this in half,
whack the knife on the stone
and twist it to pull the stone out,
and then you can peel the skin off,
but I believe
we have been given a gadget.
Is that it?
That's it.
[James] How does it work?
- Is that the
- Um, I think that's the cutter.
And then I think
you impale the stone on that,
and then you slice it with that.
So
really, that is
a bespoke avocado cutter-in-half-er.
- [Nikki] Mm-hmm.
- [James] And this is different
from a knife in what way?
- It's plastic.
- Okay.
And it's green.
- Oh, so you know what it is?
- Yeah.
- It's not a tomato slicer-upper.
- Yeah, you'd never use it on a tomato.
Well, that bit of it worked.
So they reckon that
if you then press that on there
- Wow.
- In fairness, that does work.
So you do that.
[laughs]
I think you push it on it.
It's very easy to sell things
to cooking enthusiasts, let's be honest.
Nothing wrong with that and a spoon.
- What do you think of that?
- Rubbish.
- Bin?
- Yeah.
All right.
Nice try.
Next, add the juice of half a lime,
your spring onion and chili paste,
along with some more chilies
and tomatoes,
and the remaining spring onions.
- That's quite a posh guac,
isn't it? With that
- Very posh guac.
[James] Most people wouldn't put
those tomato bits in.
No.
- Would they?
- No. Some people put red onion in.
When you buy, like, a pot of guac
from the shop with your meal deal lunch,
it generally doesn't have the tomato in.
- It's generally just
- No.
- it's-it's a green paste.
- [beeping]
Cultural sensitivity alert alarm
has gone off.
[laughter]
Coarse, smashed guacamole.
[Nikki] Needs more lime.
Does need more lime.
I'll put the other half in.
- And maybe a little bit more salt.
- Tiny bit more salt.
Not a lot, though, I'd say.
- Don't give in
to the tyranny of Dan Harrison.
- [Dan sneezes] Excuse me?
- What was that?
- [Dan] A sneeze.
Me trying to hold a sneeze in and failing.
[James] I thought it was
I thought it was a dog.
Did you put a bit more salt in?
[Nikki] Yes, I did.
- And then I think we should put
some chopped coriander in it.
- [quietly] Right!
Oh, I couldn't agree more,
'cause chopped coriander
improves everything.
Let's leave that a little while,
right there.
Is that okay, camera people?
- Will you be able to see everything else
if that is there?
- [cameraman] Yeah.
[James] For the pico de gallow
gayo, gallio
get an assistant
to pre-chop some onions for you.
Then you can add
six deseeded and chopped tomatoes,
along with
a finely chopped jalapeño pepper.
Can't really tell looking at a chili
how hot it's going to be.
It's part of the excitement.
The big debate is,
is the heat in the skin,
in the flesh,
in the seeds or in the pith?
- Pith.
- I believe it to be in the pith.
- I believe that, too.
- Does any
- [beeping]
No, that was the incorrect fact alarm,
I think.
[laughter]
Let's find out,
as we say on television.
So, pith.
That's pretty hot.
- Certainly is.
- [Nikki laughs]
[James] Now some seeds.
There's a tiny bit of heat in,
but not as much as the pith.
So let's try the flesh.
This is the flesh of the same chili.
Pith first, skin second, seeds third.
So there you go.
That's the definitive answer
arrived at by the scientific method.
Add your finely chopped chilies
to your tomatoes,
along with the juice of a lime
and a healthy pinch of salt.
And then we just need
to stick in that bit of coriander
that we've already chopped.
Oh, yes.
What? Oh, we're trying it.
- So this is a posh salsa.
- Mmm.
It's a pico de gallo.
That's very tasty.
- Oh, yeah.
- That needs to sit for a nice hour,
and then we can eat it.
Also, you need to check your chili.
[James] I do. I did have
a sneaky look at it just now,
when you had your back turned.
I'll have a better look now.
Exactly. That is great.
Should I give it a little stir?
Here you are.
Here's a stirring mechanism.
[James] Stirring mechanism?
Oh, a spoon.
- Can you get that?
- Yeah, just about.
- Say when to stir.
- Go in. Yeah.
[James] It still needs to thicken up
a bit, Nikki. Will it do that?
Well, it's got five hours.
How many hours has it been in so far?
Uh, well, it was quarter to 1:00
when I put it in, and it's now
- quarter to 1:00,
so it's been in an hour.
- [Nikki] Another four hours, I reckon.
♪
We've got some ingredients left.
Onions, an orange
and some more limes.
We're going to make a, um
- What is it called, this? This is
- Cebollas en escabeche.
- Does that mean
- Pickled onions.
Pickled onions, okay.
James, you've got a tomato seed
in your hair.
Oh, no.
[Dan] Rich growing medium.
[crew chuckling]
- Is-is it gone?
- [crewman] No.
- Could someone dive in
and just pick it out?
- [indistinct chatter]
[crewman laughs]
Thanks, Mark.
Cut a large orange in half
and finely slice two red onions.
Because I wasn't concentrating then,
I cut the orange in half lengthways.
- So Well, I don't want to wa
It will still work.
- [Nikki] Well
- I don't want to waste it.
- You could still
- You can either use that or
- What is that?
It's called a reamer.
This is for
[James] Ah.
- Or you can try it on that.
- Oh, I haven't got one of those.
That's a brilliant thing.
- It's good, isn't it?
- Why don't I have one of those?
I shall gift it to you.
- Would you?
- Yeah.
[James] Well, I'll do you a swapsie.
What are you gonna swap me for?
I will swap you this,
as a gesture of my appreciation,
because I do enjoy working
with you, Nikki,
- and I couldn't do this without you.
- Aw.
I will swap you that
- [Nikki] Yes.
- for the chopper-upperer.
- I would like you
to have the chopper-upperer.
- Oh, thank you.
'Cause I can That's all right.
- I can get another one, I mean,
but that one
- [Nikki laughs]
- Yeah, that one
- Well, as long as you've got one.
♪
[James] Once your orange is
comprehensively reamed,
squeeze the juice of two limes
into the orange juice,
add your sliced onions
and season with salt and pepper,
before leaving it in the fridge
for an hour.
In the action, let's skip forward
to quarter to 1:00, and then we can
No, we really have to leave them
for an hour,
'cause they go pink.
- This joke's becoming confusing,
isn't it?
- [laughs]
We're now going to make tacos.
The first record we can find
of the use of the word in print
is from an 18th-century description
of Mexican silver mining,
when "taco" was used to describe
an improvised explosive.
- [Nikki] Mm.
- [James] It was some gunpowder
wrapped in paper
- Mm.
- and screwed up, so that makes
like a cartridge, if you like,
and that could be
inserted in the rocks and lit.
Presumably you had to run away
bloody quickly. Bang.
- Mm.
- Separated the rock
so that they could look for the silver.
So the original taco was not even edible,
unless you were extremely brave.
What that means is that taco,
in essence, means a wrapping.
All of that was completely irrelevant
to what we're going to do now,
which is make chicken tacos
and then fish tacos.
And it begins with spices.
Chipotle chili flakes.
That is ground cumin,
that is ground coriander.
That is paprika, that is oregano,
or o-reg-ano if you're in America,
- that is dried onion powder.
- Powder.
That is garlic powder,
that is black pepper
and that is an orange.
Put all of your spices into a bowl,
followed by two tablespoons of
sunflower oil.
I shall squeeze some orange juice.
Feel free to use my reamer, if you
Oh, okay. [laughs]
I'd forgotten it's yours now.
Oops.
I think that will do it.
- [James] Shall we leave it for a bit
to sort of absorb?
- [Nikki] Yeah.
- That'd be fine.
- Let's talk about the chicken,
which should be in the fridge.
Hi, fridge.
These are chicken thighs.
- Boneless, skinless thighs.
- Thighs.
[James] Not unlike my own.
[laughs]
So that is evenly coated
in the very nice,
very orangey, very spicy liquid
that we just made.
Now we can put that over there,
and we can leave that to sit
for about, what, 30 minutes?
[Nikki] Yeah. I'm gonna put it
in the fridge, though.
[James] Put it in the fridge.
Why not?
♪
Half an hour later,
put your now marinated chicken in a pan
and cook it gently with the lid on
for about an hour.
What shall we do now?
We could stand here for an hour.
- No.
- Or we could bring out
the one that you've already done
from the back kitchen and put it on there
and pretend an hour has passed.
- Great idea.
- Okay.
♪
- [Nikki] Put that back in there.
- [James] I'll put that back on there.
- [Nikki] Back there
- [James] Nobody need ever know.
[Nikki] Okay.
An hour has passed,
as you can tell from the kitchen clock,
and now look what's happened
to our chicken in spicy juices.
Look at that.
Shall we try a little bit of that
- to see if it's flavorsome?
- Yes.
I bet it is. I can smell cumin.
Have that little bit there.
- Mmm. That's good.
- Soft.
- Spicy.
- Soft. Spicy, not too hot.
That's gonna be lovely on a taco.
[James] Say if it was an avocado
Finally, shred your chicken,
making sure it's evenly coated
in the marinade.
Then you can start on the fish tacos.
For these, you'll need
400 grams of skinless cod fillet
the juice of a lime
and a finely chopped red chili.
Would you say that is a bite-sized chunk?
[Nikki] Depends on the size of your mouth.
[James] It does, doesn't it?
Place the fish chunks into a bowl,
then pour over two tablespoons of
olive oil and the lime juice,
followed by the chopped red chili.
- Leave that in the fridge
-Yeah.
for anywhere between
ten and 15 minutes.
Don't overdo it. The effect
of the lime juice in there is it,
in a way, starts to cook the fish.
[director] Quickly, while
you're "waiting" in inverted commas
for ten minutes, do you want
to take a quick look at the chili?
Let us look at the chili.
[Nikki] Shall I prepare a small jug
of water in case you need to top up?
[James] Yes, I think
that's an excellent idea.
Ooh, steamy glasses.
Lid off.
Oh, my word.
Oh, good God, look at this.
- That's gone very brown.
- [Nikki] Ooh
That definitely needs
a splosh of water and a stir.
I would say that needs a splosh of water.
- And a stir.
- Are you ready, Gary?
[Gary] Ready, mate.
Oh, look at it when I stir it.
Look. Look, Nikki.
Now, the lid back on the casserole
and leave it to cook
for the remaining two hours.
Meanwhile, you can get
your marinated fish out of the fridge
and into a hot frying pan.
[Nikki] And this will be really quick.
[James] Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's a bit like doing a stir-fry.
That's gonna take, what,
two minutes, probably?
- [Nikki] Mm-hmm.
- [James] And then, when that's done,
we can prepare the tacos and
then we can serve it up and taste it,
and taste our guacamole and our salsa,
and our pink onions.
A Mexican feast.
♪
Quite a number of things
have come together here.
We have what I rather dismissively
called "dips" earlier on,
but they're a bit more than that.
I think we should just test these virgin,
- and you may select a nacho from the
- [Nikki] A nacho from the nachosaurus.
- It's quite corny but also quite good.
- I love him.
- Mmm.
- Is that good?
Excellent guacamole.
What do you think?
Yeah, that's great.
[Nikki] Really good.
Mmm.
- Pickled onions?
- Please.
Ooh!
I like those.
Mmm. Shall I get the chicken
out of the furnace?
[Nikki] Yeah.
Wooden spoon. I'm just going to give it
a little bit of a restorative stir,
make sure it's coated with all the nice
oils and juices and everything.
- Mmm.
- Right, that looks "mmm."
That does look quite good.
Right, let's Okay.
- Okay.
- Okay. Shall we do fish first?
I've got teaspoons.
Oh, yes!
We definitely need those for this.
- [bottle top clatters]
- That was a particularly bad one.
[groans]
- What happened?
- That one, that one just
That was explo
Beer pool down there.
See, that one didn't do it at all
'cause I stood out of the way.
Your kitchen is basically
full of booby traps.
Exploding bottle opener,
hand-searing warmer drawer.
Thank you.
- Right.
- [Nikki] Okay.
- So, crispy fish tacos.
- [James] Okay.
- Crispy fish taco. Here we go.
- One for you, one for me.
Thank you very much.
So let's put the fish in.
- Then I would say
we put the guac on next.
- Okay.
- That okay? Do you want
a little bit more?
- Yeah.
No, that looks fantastic.
- A bit more for you.
- Shall I go ahead and guac that?
You guac that one, and I'll fill this one.
- [James] Gorgeous combination of colors.
- [Nikki] Okay.
This is going to be messy.
We're going to have to
How much is on your face?
Yep, some.
Taste?
The fish is lovely.
That is really nice with the sauce.
It's really nice with pico de gallo.
Because I've watched you do it,
I'm going to turn my head on its side
so that I don't make that same
[laughs]
Oh, the fish is very nice.
Not overcooked.
And, actually,
despite all those ingredients
and the quite dense taco shell,
it tastes quite light, doesn't it?
[Nikki] Mmm.
[James] Let's try the chicken one.
This will be a bit more substantial.
Spicy chicken taco,
yours with cheese, mine without.
Mmm.
- That's really good.
- Is it?
I love the fish,
but this is beautiful.
- Mmm!
- [Nikki] Mmm.
- Mmm!
- [Nikki] Mmm. Mm-mm?
Mmm. Oh,
everything about that is bob-on.
[Nikki] Yeah.
♪
Right, this is a big reveal,
because we're actually 11 minutes late
- with removing our five hour
- Five hours 11 minutes.
- It's going to be spectacular.
- Five hours 11 minutes.
Um, and we last looked at it
about one hour ago
when we gave it a little stir,
and it was looking pretty good then.
Let's see what's happened since.
The lid is still on,
so we can do a proper reveal.
Are the cameras on it?
Are you ready?
Yes? This is posh chili con carne,
in three, two, one
- [Nikki] Go.
- [James] Whoa.
- [Nikki] Well, that looks nice.
- [James] What have we forgotten?
- To take out the scotch bonnet.
- Nope.
- Chocolate.
- [Nikki] Oh, the chocolate.
- [James] Supposed to stir
some chocolate into it
- [Nikki] Yes, of course.
- I was getting carried away. Yes.
- whilst it's still hot,
'cause this will soften the spicy effects.
- It's traditional.
- And it's to offset
the acidity of the peppers
and the tomatoes.
I've put a couple of bowls in the
warmer of death!
[laughter]
♪
Remove the scotch bonnet
and the ancho chili.
Their work is done.
- How can you just pick that up?
- It's not that hot.
A portion of posh, chunky chili.
Shall we have a little taste?
[James] Let's have a little taste.
It's difficult to have a little taste,
actually, 'cause it's got
quite large chunks in it.
Mmm.
It's delicious.
It's really It's rich.
Oh, it is rich. Mm-hmm.
The meat is beautiful. Tender.
It's got a bit of a fiery tail on it,
hasn't it?
[Nikki] Mm-hmm.
[James] I'm just gonna have a bit of that.
[Nikki] Mmm.
Mmm.
That's not bad at all, is it? And it
It's a very different experience
with it being big chunks,
- rather than just mince-y slop.
- The mince.
- Shall we make a pudding?
- Oh, yes!
- Would you like to make some churros?
- I would.
- Okay, let's do it.
- Right, let's do that.
♪
We are going to conclude
our Mexican feast with churros,
which are, um,
how would you describe them?
They are dough fingers
deep-fried and coated
in sugar and cinnamon, optional,
and then we're going to make a chocolate
with chili sauce to dip them in.
Our churros batter begins
with 250 grams of plain flour,
50 grams of unsalted butter
and a teaspoon of baking powder.
Pour 350 milliliters of boiling water
onto your butter.
When the butter has dissolved,
sieve your flour into the liquid,
then beat with a wooden spoon
until the mixture thickens.
Shall I put the baking powder in now?
Let's just put the last Oh, you haven't
put the baking powder in yet?
- No, no. I thought
I would put that in last.
- Okay. Okay.
- [James] So that it didn't fizz.
- [Nikki] Fizz.
[Nikki] I reckon that's okay now.
[James] Time for a piping bag
with a star nozzle on it.
Place it in a measuring jug
and scrape your churros mixture into it.
Once full, place in the fridge to firm up,
for now it's time to make
our dipping sauce.
Heat 250 grams of double cream
before adding some chocolate.
200 grams in total.
We've got 100 grams of dark,
100 grams of plain.
You could have 200 grams of either.
By combining them, you get
a sort of happy compromise
between milkiness and darkness.
Add a pinch of chili flakes
and a pinch of sea salt
before decanting into a bowl.
Now get ready for the deep-frying bit
by heating some oil in a wok
to 180 degrees.
- Bit left to lick off there.
- Thank you very much.
- You could actually scrape a few bits
out of there as well, if you'd like.
- Thank you.
Right, there is our chocolate sauce.
Oh, we need to mix this up.
This is caster sugar.
Um, the exact amount doesn't matter
'cause this is just
something to dip it in,
but you do have the option
of mixing it with cinnamon,
which we've decided to do
with some reticence on my part,
because I find that
cinnamon can spoil things.
[Nikki] Why don't you mix
all the cinnamon into that one,
and I'll do you a tray
of just caster sugar?
[James] Okay.
There's your pure caster sugar tray.
Thank you very much.
Is that the right temperature, though?
[Nikki] Right. Chopstick test.
Chopstick test.
- [Nikki] Oh, yes. I think
- Yeah, there you go.
- I think, yeah, there we go.
- [James] The end of the chopstick
is fizzing.
- Can you see that?
- [crew] Mm-hmm.
Everything is good.
- Take out the piping bag.
- [Nikki] Start piping.
- Are you ready?
- Yes.
- [Nikki] Snip?
- [James] Yep.
- Is that about the right length?
- Yeah.
Oh, I nearly put my hand on it then.
Ooh, that one's got a fat end.
- And snip.
- Snip.
- Just do it slightly
- Oh, look. More, more, more, more.
Do a slightly longer one.
Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on.
- Yes.
- [stammers] No, no, no. No more.
[James] This to me has
the feel of fairground food.
- [Nikki] It does, doesn't it?
- Yeah, because
it's-it's-it's deep-fried dough.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- [Nikki] Should we get that one out?
- [James] Yep.
[Nikki] It looks the right color.
[Nikki] We really need to sugar these,
also, while they're warm.
So would you like to chuck those
into your preferred sugar mix?
Um should we do one in each?
- Two in each.
- Two in each.
Let's do the
So, wonky shape is in cinnamon sugar.
Straight ones are in regular sugar.
[Nikki] Smells just like churros now.
[James] Once you're up and running,
you can carry on frying, snipping
and dusting
until you can resist them no longer.
After you.
[Nikki] I shall go for the sugar,
first of all.
Okay.
Mmm.
- Shall I try the plain sugar one as well?
- [Nikki] Mm-hmm.
I was prepared to hate that,
and it's fantastic.
[Nikki] Okay, cinnamon.
- Game-changer?
- No, I prefer it without.
I'm gonna go for plain sugar.
All right. Mmm.
It's really doughy in the middle
but really crispy on the outside.
It's treat food, isn't it?
- It's delicious.
- It's-it's bad.
It's bad, but it's so good.
Oh, dear.
I'm getting the chili.
That is almost certainly
against the Geneva Convention.
- Oh, you can. Mmm.
- Mmm.
Mmm. Mmm!
It just puts a little bit of mystery
into it, doesn't it?
- It's not just chocolate.
- And the salt.
Yeah, there's a bit of salt.
Well, that's the end of
our Mexican experience,
which has been great, actually,
hasn't it?
It's also, I'm afraid,
the end of the series.
And what a series it's been.
Here's a montage for you to watch
whilst we desperately think
how to sign it off.
♪
Well, that was fun.
[Nikki] Cheers.
- Cheers, viewers.
- Cheers.
[James] I like to think
that I've consolidated
my new-found cooking skills.
I put my finger on the metal bit
of the wok. [blows]
What the bloody hell
has happened to that?
Do I put the butter in the thing
No, don't put the butter in it.
You do that first,
then you put the butter in.
- Then how do I [stammers]
- With a spoon.
Okay.
- While at the same time
- Oh, bollocks.
growing in both craft
I'm sweating, I'm panicking.
Ow! Bastard!
- and confidence.
- Panic, panic.
- No panic.
- Panic.
Ow!
Along the way
Squeezy, squeezy, squeezy.
I've come to appreciate
the language of the kitchen
Yes, slightly peasanty with a high note
of abandoned games kit.
- It's ejaculating on my shirt.
- all the while
Oh, look. That's a thing of beauty.
producing some truly
mouth-watering dishes
Get that in your face.
Can you taste the Spam?
and becoming fully immersed
in the filmmaking process.
Everything I say is cut out,
all the detail is gone,
there's a few slow-motion shots,
and the slow movement from
Rachmaninoff's second piano concerto.
♪
- I mean, give me another 15 years
and those will be great, won't they?
- Mmm.
See you, Gary.
[laughter]
- [director] Yeah, just to pick it up.
- We've come back and it's just
- [James] Okay, say when.
- [director] Go.
- We'll finish off with a mezcal. Cheers.
- Cheers.
It remains only for me to say thank you,
first and foremost, to Nikki,
for making this show even vaguely viable,
and for the use of her house and kitchen,
and of course thank you
to you, viewers, for watching,
and for your indulgence,
which is appreciated, as ever.
See you next time for Oh Cook! Three.
- Cheers.
- Cheers.
♪
God, can you actually have
inflammable breath?
[laughs] Yeah, I think so.
♪