Cooking with a steam roller

Wed, 9 Jul 2008 22:03:08 +0100

A few years ago I came up with the idea of the Bum Sandwich, which puts all the base ingredients of pesto into a sandwich that you sit on for up to an hour. Your natural body temperature and downward pressure encourages the fragrance of the basil to meld with the cheese, oil and bread to make a wondrous pestolatory sandwich. Its a glorious taste, and an hilarious way to cook food. The steam roller takes this idea to the extreme, squishing mashed potato using its 2-tonne weight. Its a brilliant way to turn lunch into an adventure.

Cooking with liquid nitrogen

Mon, 7 Jul 2008 08:31:57 +0100

We made ice cream with liquid nitrogen yesterday - it’s SO cool. Here, Dr Andrea Sella (one of the coolest people I’ve ever met) is pouring liquid nitrogen at -198 degrees centigrade onto my chocolatey creamy mix. It take just 15 seconds or so to turn the sloppy mess into solid ice cream, and the nitrogen just boils away. Nitrogen is safe to eat (we breath in huge amounts of it with every breath) and Dr Sella even poured some into his mouth and breathed ice-cold steam like a dragon. It was all part of the episode about cooking without a cooker. I’m having such fun.

Smileys in Gugulethu township

Wed, 4 Jun 2008 10:14:35 +0100

In South Africa, I visited Mzolis Meat restaurant and had my first chance to cook smileys - whole sheep’s head. They look pretty scary, let’s be honest, but they are give up a silky-smooth meat. The eyeball is the best - it’s like the softest sweetbreads you’ve ever tasted. This is real township food, a long way away from the sushi joints of Cape Town, but cheap and fantastic, if you can get over your squeamishness to let your taste buds tell you their story.

Gastronuts finally begins filming

Thu, 29 May 2008 10:46:41 +0100

After four years of writing, eating, plotting and pitching, the TV version of Gastronaut has started production. It’s a 13-part series for CBBC, to be shown on BBC1 and CBBC from September 2008. It’s all about making food into an adventure, and making lunch fascinating. It’s aimed mainly at 8-12 year-olds, who are probably the hardest audience on the planet to make a TV series about food for, hence the shot above, which shows one of the first dishes we tried: cricket and fat-bottomed ant melange with peas and mash. We’ve got a brilliant crew, and it’s being made with a company called Objective Productions who make fantastic shows like Peep Show and The Real Hustle. I’m so excited, I can barely sit still to type!