5 Dinner Ideas To Cook This Weekend | Jamie Oliver

This is one of the most amazing comfort food weekend dishes ever, Provençal Bake. Oh yes, what is it? It's kind of like a lasagna, but it's the flavours of Provence. Instead of pasta, we're going to layer this beauty up with pancakes. Woven with light, silky white onion sauce, smoked ham and rich, oozy cheeses. Ow! Let's do this. Kickstart it off with 600 grams of beautifully ripe plum tomatoes, which I've started to blister. So first job is to peel the tomatoes. I like to just put it straight onto a gas hob and blister it and burn it. As soon as you do that, it literally just pulls away. Slice, dice and to keep the final dish smooth, de-seed them. Season with salt and pepper and get them together with their best mate, basil. Half a bunch will do nicely. Roughly chop it. I know they say don't chop basil. Well, I'm chopping it. These guys are going to marinate in a good splash of extra virgin olive oil, swig of red wine vinegar and half a lemon zest. Look at the colour! This dish is going to be held together by a creamy, silky white sauce. I want to get extra flavour in there, so I'm going to use two white onions. So finely chop and we're going to fry that in some butter and a little olive oil. And we want it to get sweet and delicious. Let time just do the work now. 15 minutes, stir in regularly. Beautiful. So, now it's time to do the pancake batter. Super simple. Whack in 120 grams of plain flour, 70 millilitres of water and milk, a couple of free range eggs and a pinch of salt. And then we've got two tablespoons of good cold pressed extra virgin olive oil. Whisk the lot up and let the mix rest. Let's have a look at these onions. You don't want too much colour. To this, we're going to add four tablespoons of flour. So the flour will immediately start to soak up the butter and the oil. And then to this, we can start adding bit by bit around seven to eight hundred millilitres of milk. Don't rush it. If you throw all the milk in, it'll just go lumpy. When it's beautifully silky, hit it with a teaspoon of fiery English mustard. A few gratings of nutmeg and a little seasoning. So, now it's time for pancakes. Let's get this pan hot. You're going to get about six pancakes out of this. First pancake's always a bit touch and go. OK, so the first rubbish pancake's done. Now no more excuses. Perfection from now onwards. The second pancake looks pretty good. Let's have a little toss up. One, two, three. Here we go. When you've got your magnificent six, it's time to lube up your dish. Now is the fun bit. This is where we put it together. And that's your base. And then from there, we're going to take a little white sauce. A couple of spoons. Rotate that like a disc jockey. No one will know what that is these days. So then we're going to take the tomatoes and let the juice run through your fingers, OK? And then sprinkle that over the top. Then just grate some Gruyere. Beautiful. So Conte, such wonderful, wonderful cheeses. And then smoked ham. And you can just tear it up. Six layers of that. Layer it up using all your pancakes. Right to the top. And you get that lovely Provencal version of a lasagna. You want a nice glug of the thick oniony white sauce on top. A final brushing of your cheese. And you are raring to go. Whack in the oven at 180 degrees Celsius or 350 Fahrenheit for 40 minutes. Giving you plenty of time to knock up a beautiful bitterleaf salad. Some classic French leaves. Frisee lettuce here. We've got some watercress. We've got lovely little red chicory or endive. Fantastic. Remember we've got this leftover juice. The by-product of marinating those tomatoes so beautifully. And it's the most incredible dressing. And I'm just going to break it with about a tablespoon of walnut oil. That's all you need. And if you've never used walnut oil in a French dressing, it's delicious. And I'll make it look pretty on the top. So it's just sitting on the dressing like that. There's one last little tip. Walnuts are really good and I just love them in a salad. Look at that. And we'll have some in it and some on it. Right. Now is the time. Look at that. Dress the salad and then in for this amazing bake. It's got all the gorgeousness of a lasagna. Look at those layers. This will fill a house with the smells of the weekend. I'm telling you. I mean it's just damn fine. The cheese has got that funk and then balance with the tomato and the bitter leaves. It's pure joy. It's the weekend. You deserve to do something gorgeous for you that makes you feel good. Something that you love so much you can't stop eating it because it's so good. For me, that is Kedgeree. It is kind of like an Anglo-Indian stir-fried rice. Kedgeree. I love it. Flakes of smoked haddock. Lemony flavours. So before me is a simple array of beautiful things. The heroes of the dish are rice. Just boil it 12 minutes until it's cooked. Drain it and let it cool down. You need cold rice. Then you have smoked haddock. Look at that. Natural. No dye. That's going into some warm water that's coming up to a simmer. You can flavour up the poached water with some lemon rind and any herbs you find to hand. Coriander is perfect. Let's get the rice base going. So I'm going to go into a cold pan with some oil. I'm going to go in with a nice generous knob of butter. Before that gets too hot, whack in a good dose of garlic and ginger so they cook gently without burning. So the ginger goes in. I'm going to use fennel seeds. One onion. Red. Get that in the pan. And the sweetness of the onions, the hum of the garlic and the whole kind of zing and fragrance of the ginger. So it's a brilliant story thus far. I might add another little knob of butter in the middle of the pan. And then a big, big old teaspoon of curry powder. Look at that. And get it on that butter in the middle and bring it back to life. We can add a nice pinch of salt. I'm going for bold flavours with two red chillies. But strip out the seeds to keep the heat at bay. It smells incredible. The thing that kedgeree for me is famous for, and most good ethics people, is a hangover. Yes, you've got it. That kind of, you know, is it a fry up or a kedgeree? Kedgeree works. Spice works. No kedgeree is complete without a poached egg. And I've got a foolproof way to do them. So what I want to do is get a sheet of cling film and with some olive oil, have a rub up. And then I'm going to put a little bowl underneath. And then I can just crack in an egg. Now you can flavour it if you want, but you could put flecks of chilli in there. You can add a little truffle oil. And this gives you the most perfect little sphere of poached egg. It's wonderful. So squeeze the air out, tie a knot, tie it into a little tom-thumb little package like this. And this will cook just like a normal poached egg in the water. Let that poach away and we go on to the next stage. Right, let's get some greens going on. First up, lots of fresh fragrant coriander. What I've been doing is any leftover veg I've got from roast dinners and stuff, I will put that in there as well. Now, I haven't got leftovers today, but I have kind of got an array of kind of more interesting greens that might be around. So I've got some brussel sprouts here, right? You might think, oh, really? But they're really, really good. Just finely slice them. So in we go with these and welcome it to the lovely world of those kedgeree spices. It's going to be so good. I'm going to use some frozen peas. I've got some kale and some dark black cabbage there. In it goes. Bring it back to life. Make it sexy. It's time for the rice. Flake in the rice and let it just sit on top for a couple of minutes. You don't have to sort of like thwack it about and just bash it about. It will take the flavour later on, right? We'll take the juice of the lemon and just squeeze it around the pan, right? That's going to go through the rice. You can hear it. So it's all going to start caramelising a little bit. Oh, amazing. After the eggs have bobbed around with the fish for six minutes or so, let them cool a bit. Let's get the fish. Look at that. The flake is what we want. Take the skin and just pull it away and then over to the pan. Delicious. And then we're going to get ourselves together. We're going to finish it. So season it, you know, maybe good oil. Take two spoons, right, and we're going to kind of fold it now, okay? So we're going to kind of bring that kind of heart and soul, the colour, the attitude into that clean white rice. And scrape the bottom of the pan. Get the flavour up. And to crown the ketchery, unwrap those magically poached eggs. You have a perfect egg. I could never do that. Come on, 20 years experience, never, never that good. Add a little flourish of fresh coriander and a final kick of chilli. Just to remind you that you're serious and then get into the eggs and just open them out. Look at that. And there, my friends, enough talking. Break up the egg. Oh, the flake of the fish, the smoke, the sort of unctuousness of the egg. I honestly could smash that. I have to be controlled. There you go. Poetry in motion. Come on! Guys, welcome to the wonderful world of Mahancha. It kind of means snake or serpent. The star of our savoury Moorish feast is the delicious nutty flavour of the butternut squash. So guys, the first tip for bringing out maximum flavour from the squash. Leave the skin on. This is sweet and caramelly and delicious. Do not waste time peeling it when that is flavour. So just scoop out those seeds and chop it chunky. Into the pan with some oil. In with the squash. And the whole point of the journey is to give you a bang for your buck in your mouth that blows your mind. So next ingredient, peppers. Beautiful, sweet, red peppers. Get your thumb, put it in the hole and push it in. And happy days. Get it in there. See the colour starting? Yeah. One of the things to learn here is the kind of the value and the investment in time, right? And like with many things that I cook at the weekend. Whether it's a soup or a stew or a curry or in this case a pie filling. You know, half an hour just dedicated to caramelisation. It's the weekend. Different gear, different vibe, different food. Hallelujah. Add another layer of flavour with some red onions and two punchy cloves of garlic. And then spices. We're in Morocco. And I'm going to use a little fennel seeds, about a teaspoon. A little teaspoon of ground coriander. Such wonderful savoury flavours. A nice good pinch or half a teaspoon of cumin. And then as much dried chilli as you think. I would just go like half a teaspoon. As the spices go in, you can see the softening. And as it softens the natural sugars are released. Amazing. And this is just the beginning. Next up we want a bunch of coriander like this. I'm going to use the leaves a little bit later. And just finely slice the stalks. Give it a stir. And that my friends is going to be delicious. While those flavours are having a little party in the pan. We're going to take the taste of Morocco up a notch. With some gooey dates and apricots. And if people in your family are a little bit fussy about dried fruit. Just finely chop it. Whatever you do, don't not put it in. Right. And that sweetness will just compliment the whole thing. This has had about 25 to 30 minutes. Listen to that. Look how dark it's getting. Whack in some cooked pearl barley and chopped fruit. With a squeeze of lemon to really get the party going. Through your hand. Catch the pits. We've got spice. Gentle spice. We've got a little chilli. You know, just to give a hum. Dried fruit. The nutty squash. The sweet peppers. Sweet onions. Garlic. Come on! Mahancha! And last up, those leftover fragrant coriander leaves. Just pack it up. And get it in. I'm going to turn the heat off now. Very happy with that. Tastes amazing. But there's no such thing as a pie without pastry. And our snake needs skin. We're using phyllo pastry. Which you can get from every single supermarket. Most ready made phyllo pastry is vegan as it uses vegetable oils. Forget your damp bits of tea towel. If you don't put it on a damp cloth, they'll start to dry. Now for the fun bit. Drizzle some oil onto your phyllo before you start to layer up. And then have a little touch. A little grab. And this will give you a texture like no pie you've possibly ever had before. So this is a vegan dish. There's no butter in this pastry. I don't want you to eat this because it's healthy. I don't want you to eat it because it's ethical. I want you to eat it because it's delicious. And it just so happens to be really good for you. And you know, I don't want you to compromise. I eat meat. But I also eat vegan and veggie at least a couple of times a week. And it's a joy. At this point, just get your wet tea towel and fold it over. Right? Fold it over like that. Squeeze it in. Make it dense. And then you need to get a friend to come and help you. But I haven't got a friend here. I'm a bit lonely. So my friend is my tea. And we're going to do that. That, my friends, is the mahancha. The snake. Just curl it up like a little Catherine Will. Get it in there. Get it on there. Lube it up with some nice extra virgin olive oil. It's going to split. Take that little extra sheet that you had hidden away. And this is kind of like your little band-aid. If anything, you're just creating more surface area to celebrate the crispiness and the deliciousness of this dish even more. Look how happy I am. Slide your sexy snake into the oven. Initially for 35 to 40 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius, which is 350 Fahrenheit. The smell is amazing. And there's a little kind of embellishment that you can do now that just makes it. So in Morocco, they have icing sugar over the top, which might seem ludicrous, right? But just go with it. It's going to give a sweetness with the spices and all those beautiful ingredients. This goes back in the oven for the final 10 minutes. Which gives us time to combine fresh chilli, cinnamon, garlic and plum tomatoes in a gorgeous spice sauce. Look at that, guys. Roll after roll of crispy pastry. That comforting, gorgeous filling. I honestly think if you do this for a dinner party, people are going to go nuts. This is weekend eating in style. Let's get into the soul of my snake. Can you hear that? Come on. Just a little coriander to garnish. Life's too short to do the same old stuff. Everyone's asking for more beautiful veggie ideas. Here you go. Happiness. Ah, you want pie, do you? Well, I've got pie for you. We are going to make roasted meat pie. You heard it. Roasted meat pie. Not just boiled meat pie. Roasted. Extra flavour, extra texture and extra smiles. Come on. This pie is packed full of roasted succulent game birds. To give you a special something this weekend. We have a chicken over here, but then we have mallard. We have pheasant. We have a beautiful grouse. We have partridge. The list goes on and on that you could use, but mix it up. We're going to dress them with olive oil, seasoning and crushed juniper berries. Before bashing up some thyme, rosemary and bay leaves for an aromatic herby hit. Beautiful natural colours and flavours. Then it's an hour in the oven at 180 degrees Celsius or 350 Fahrenheit. So while those birds roast away in the oven, let's start the story with the ragout. We're going to start off with some gorgeous smoked dry cured bacon. The flavour that you get, the smoke, the fat that will render out. A couple of bay leaves go in. Maybe a little sprig of rosemary. And then we can start adding the veg. This is a classic ragout base of juicy carrots, sweet red onions, leeks and celery. You know, it's this frying and the breaking down of all the natural sugars. That's where the massive flavour is. That's where you're going to put something in your mouth and go, wow. Once the veggies have softened, add some chunky potatoes and season. Oh yes. Because the birds are going to be roasting for like another 45 minutes, let's let that slowly sweat off for 45 minutes. Oh my lord, the flavour you will get by just slowing it down is amazing. And it will be so worth the wait. What a beautiful, beautiful sight. Literally just pull the whole thing apart. What you're going to feel is the difference in texture. For the people that have never eaten game before, this is your opportunity guys because you can have your chicken and just a few bits of game. And then if you like it, add a little bit more next time and a bit more next time. The grouse. And now we're on to the pheasant. Normally if you're getting game birds in season, it's very reasonable. All these bones will make a brilliant stock for another day. There's just flavour and value everywhere. Don't throw nothing away. Two tablespoons of plain flour go in. That's your thickening agent. And then in with about 500ml of cider. Cheers to that. Give it a stir and boost its flavour even more. With good chicken stock and those incredible roasting juices from the tray. Maximum flavour. And all that delicious meat. And that my friends is going to be the most mega stew ever. So we'll strain it before it goes in to give you the perfect pie consistency. And then we've got loads of gravy for pouring later. Pastry time. We're going to go half butter, half suet. To that we're going to add 800g of plain flour. A good pinch of salt. Three lovely eggs. And then find that fat and just use your thumbs to mix it in. A splash of water and the whole thing should start to come together. It's going to look a bit rough and ready. That's fine, you want to keep it short. If you keep kneading it, it won't be crumbly. Right, can you see there's still chunks of suet in here. I'm going to wrap this up and I'm going to let that cool down and then we'll fill it. And be patient, it's the weekend. Chilling it will stop your pastry shrinking during cooking and make it easier to roll. Let's make this pie. I want to go about half a centimetre thick. Then roll it back up. Olive oil into a dish. Get right up the sides. We get our filling. What's nice about it chilling again is the gravy kind of solidifies. You want to just chivvy in this edge, this rim. Like that. Just tuck it under like this. What I want to do is put my thumb in here and pinch around it. You know you can get all kinds of cutters. You can get leaves, you can do plaits, you can do shapes, all sorts. But to be honest, at the weekend I've put enough love into it. Just use two fingers and a thumb and you'd be amazed what you can achieve. And a beautiful roasted meat pie has been born. Happy days. Just egg wash the centre part. I do want to just create a little star to relieve the steam and look at that. It's going to be amazing. After an hour in the oven at 180 degrees Celsius or 350 Fahrenheit, your wonderful weekend feast will emerge. Look, you can see how crispy that pastry is going to be. Wow. Guys, look at that, look at the flake. Look at the thickness of that pastry there. You know that people are going to fight for that. There's never enough pastry is there? But we got it bottom, side and top. And a big old handle, a love handle. Which you'll definitely get if you keep eating too much pie. But for this weekend only, yes. Just hit it up with some seasonal greens. It is nuts. Loads of different flavours happening there, different chunks of meat. The most amazing dish to share with you, prosciutto wrapped fillet of beef with creamy porcini mushrooms. It's going to make you look great and it's brilliant for dinner parties. Let's start it off. We've got a hot pan here, we've got a fillet of beef there. I'm going to sear this for just a little minute. Some salt and pepper goes on the beef like this. Get that pan really nice and hot. You don't want to cook the beef really, you just want to kind of sear the outside and get that character and colour developing. And that's all you want to do. In that same pan, we're going to start the story with the mushrooms. These are porcini mushrooms, they're picked and they're sliced and they're dried often in the sun. What's more interesting is the flavour changes massively. It's like the difference between a sun-dried tomato and a fresh tomato, a raisin and a grape. Bring them back to life with a nice hot soaking. So the water is going to rehydrate these mushrooms, see how they're getting soft. Look at the colour of the broth. Porcini go hand in hand with the flavours of garlic, rosemary and thyme. So get these softening slowly in some butter. The smell is amazing. And then we're going to go in with our porcini. I'm going to add nearly all of that juice. Can you see how there's a little bit of grit at the end here? And we don't want that. We're going to let that cook for 3 or 4 minutes and there will be a moment when the beef fat and the oil and the butter and the beautiful mushroom broth come together as an emulsion. And that is the creamy bit, right? It's going to be amazing. And that's going to be wrapped around the beef. So how do we do that? Let me show you. Get some greaseproof paper. I'm going to use extra virgin olive oil just to have a little rub up here because we don't want anything sticking. Take about 8 slices of prosciutto. We want to kind of overlap. Each piece comes one giant sheet. So let's have a little measure up. Yep, that's looking pretty good. You want to be able to roll it up. Yep, I'm happy with that. Now, over here, quickly. Look, look, look, look, look. Right, so now you get that creaminess. And off the heat, I'll add another little knob of butter and 10 drips of lemon will transform this. Let that cool down for 5 minutes. Or, if you're on the end of Southend Pier, go outside for 1 second. Well, that was nice. Just lay the mushrooms, and there's not loads, in and around the sheet of prosciutto. I love the honesty and simplicity of the flavours. Mushroom, garlic, herbs, prosciutto, beef. So now in with the fillet of beef. Put it here at the end, and we roll it up and keep rolling. You know, fold the sides in, give it a nice little hug like that. We are going to start tying things up. I've got some butcher's string, but you can use any kitchen string to secure. What I do to help myself is do one twist, one knot, and then another. And then what's kind of cute is you can pull it and get a bit of tension there, and the knot doesn't slip. Pull it tight, and there you go. That is a gorgeous fillet of beef. I've got an oven and a roasting tray super hot at 220 degrees Celsius, which is 425 Fahrenheit. I'm just going to place the beef straight in here, and add the gorgeous flavours of rosemary, thyme and garlic. And that's going to go in the oven for exactly 25 minutes. A dish like this deserves great mashed potato to complete it. Made silky with a good knob of butter, a splash of milk, and don't forget the seasoning. I want to give you another little tip for sort of dinner parties. What I like to do is put it into a little bowl like this, and you can keep it above some simmering water, and it will keep it in perfect condition for hours. The beef has had exactly 25 minutes. Have a little look at this. Come on! Just baste it, all the juice is coming out. Look at that! Let's get this onto a board. We can take the garlic cloves out as well, and they're really beautiful and caramelised. Trim off the string, it's done its job. With the roasting juices, start a really simple red wine sauce. So the same wine that you're serving your guest, you'll also serve your tray, okay? And I want about a wine glass in there. And you're just going to bring it to the boil, clean the bottom of the pan, and when the wine and the fat emulsifies to be sort of creamy and gorgeous, that's it, it's done. Let's just have a confident cut at the end, like that. Oh, it's looking good. Just blushing and cooked to real perfection. So I quite like having a nice kind of inch slice. Let's pick it up. Pop it into our mash. Take some greens. So as soon as that fat and liquid comes together, take it off the heat, then add the butter. And they call this Monty Au Beurre. You know, just going to jiggle in some butter. Take a little spoon, straight over like that. Right, come on, let's get in there. Wowzers. That, my friends, is an absolute weekend classic that I know everyone up there is going to love.