Emilia Fox, a butternut and toasted pumpkin seed risotto, and a vodka martini

0:00Turn up the heat this Valentine's Day with a meal that brings a little steam to the table. Impress your loved one with some succulently sweet and slightly nutty tender stem broccoli, giving you that fine dining feeling without the faff. Simply boil, steam or grill your tender stem in just a few minutes and let this versatile veg take center stage on your Valentine's plate. This is Valentine's cooking, but better with tender stem broccoli. Add a pack to your weekly Waitrose shop, subject to availability. Dish from Waitrose is a cold glass production. This podcast may contain some strong language and adult themes.

1:03It's come around very quickly, actually. Neil and I were thinking, it's our friend Tom's birthday. It was just before Christmas, and the other week we said, God, it's Tom's birthday already. It's gone like that. It has gone quick. I feel like Glastonbury, which was six months ago, was like maybe six weeks ago. Like if you said it was probably about a month ago, I'd be like, yeah, probably. Yeah, it's gone quick. We're recording this, not live, honestly. It's a couple of weeks before New Year's Eve. but we're actually going to be together on New Year's Eve. I know, spooky. Yeah, not spooky. Real nice.

1:38Do you like New Year's Eve? I do. Yeah, I do actually. I do. I'm not obsessed with it. There have been nights where I've spent it with mates and my mum over a bottle of wine, which has been brilliant. This is probably the first New Year that I've really planned. Yeah. You know, like I've got a group of people together, you've got a group of people together, a little bit organised, There's text messages galore going around and emails. So, well, yeah, it should be fun. Yeah, I'm excited. I think I do like it. I'm the same as you, but take it as it comes. Bring your swimming suit or your swimming dip in the ocean.

2:11Oh, yeah, because you want to do a New Year's Day swim. Yeah, got to. Do it? Yes. Come on. You'll feel so much better after a 10-second dip in the ocean. That's true. You will. You'll feel so much better, honestly. Okay, I will. Do we need to bring a wetsuit? No, I'm sure. No, wetsuit. Come on. It's going to be cold. I know, but we're not, you know, it's not the Antarctic. Might as well be. It's gawmell. Okay, all right then. All right, I'll bring my swimming trunks.

2:43You can borrow my dry rope. There you go. I'll share it. You can borrow my dry rope. Lend us that. Lend us that. Oh, I wanted to ask you about this. This is what I wanted to ask. Have you heard of a first footer? No. So a first-footer, popular Scottish New Year's tradition, where the first person to enter the house after midnight brings good fortune, ideally a tall, dark-haired male, bearing symbolic gifts like coal, shortbread, whiskey, salt, and a coin for prosperity, warmth, and cheer. We've done that. We've been to a neighbour's house and our gift was a lump of coal. That I've heard of. I didn't know it was called a first-footer.

3:18First-footer. Oh, okay, then. So I wonder where I'll be our first-footer. Oh, right, okay. Yeah, I feel like Neil could take on that role. He's definitely Scottish, isn't he? He's Scottish, yeah. Just give him a bag of coal and go to everyone's, you know, knock on the door. Yeah. Yeah, there you go. I feel like Neil should be our first footstep. I had a really nice time with Neil the other day. You were at the French house? Yeah. We went for our team, like radio team lunch. Yeah. It was fantastic. All Neil did was come back and tell me stories that you repeated about me to him. What? I don't know what you were saying.

3:46She goes, oh, she said something about my text messaging. Oh, yeah, the text messaging. I said, well, Neil, you be on the end of it. It's quite annoying. Yeah, Neil was team you for that. So I will text separate lines for each thought. Yeah. And Angela, I messaged her the other day and she just wrote back going, why can't you just write in one text message? But I didn't reply. And then a screenshot of Makita had also texted you in that same way. And she's like, here's another one. You and your mates, what they say about you, you'll go, hi. And then you go, how are you? And so you look at your phone and you go, oh, six text messages.

4:23And they're all from the same person, just different sentences. I don't know why I do that. My mum tells me for that as well. So we were chuckling. But then Neil did pay you a very good compliment. He said, you know, he knows his food, doesn't he? He likes his food. Yeah, but I just ate it. I didn't make it. No, but in the sense that he was judging you all from what you ordered. He obviously placed a good order. Oh, right, okay, yeah. You know, there weren't any well-done beefs or anything or anything like that. You know, fish cooked correctly. So he was impressed that you all had steak tartare.

4:53Steak tartare. And then they had like a squash salad to staff, which was really good. Yummy, yeah. And then a steak tartare and then loads of nice cheeses. Yeah, lovely. Okay, today on the show, we have Amelia Fox. So Amelia Fox is here to talk to us. A brand new series of Silent Witness. Sort of good New Year. How many, what is it? Series 29. That's incredible, isn't it? Series 29. I mean, she hasn't been in all of them, but she's done a fair amount. She's done it, yeah, since 2004. That is pretty amazing. Where were you in the world in 2004? 24. I was at the Conor. Yes. Were you Radio 1? No, no.

5:34T4? No. No, no. I was at uni. Oh, all right. Yeah. Oh, yeah, you are quite a lot younger than that. Because I would have gone to uni in 2002. Oh, right. Yeah. Well, in 2004, great year, when MySpace reached one million users. Did you ever have a MySpace? No. Loved MySpace. It was when Strictly Come Dancing started. God, is it? And it was when Friends finished. Oh. Yeah. Friends finished. That's when I did Hell's Kitchen with Gordon that year then. Why? Because I remember that because we were doing that on ITV and the final was the same night Friends went out on Channel 4. Oh. And our ratings, this is how when people watch TV, you got 10 million and beat the final of Friends.

6:21Shut up. Shut up. Gordon Ramsay, Hell's Kitchen, did that. Wow, come on. I know. Wow, good times. That's nuts, isn't it? It doesn't happen anymore. No, it does not happen anymore. Well, Amelia Fox will be here to, one, talk about Sand and Witness. Two, I think we should have a little reminisce of 2004. Yes. And also, she loves food. She does. She particularly loves seasonal food as well. So I think she's going to be a fantastic guest. She'll chat away. She's actually done such a long list of likes and dislikes. We have a booklet. We've made it into a booklet, yeah. Sort of a bit like a hymn book, sort of.

6:53It does feel like, it's like something you get at church, you have at mass on Christmas. And she comes from a very acting family. Her father, her brother, her mum, all of them, and her cousins and uncles. No, she's a great heritage. Excited to meet her. Yeah, me too. Hi. Hi. Hi. How are you? How are you? Welcome to Dish. Hi, love to see you. Hello, love to see you. Thank you for coming. Thank you for having me. We're so excited. Very, very thrilled. The risotto is on. Oh! It is happening. This is the best. I love a risotto all day. No, no, let's get you set down. Yeah, come in and sit down and we'll get you a drink as well.

7:32I've actually got you both a present from Italy, because I've just got back from Rome. Were you filming or...? I was filming out there. So I thought I'd arrive with a present, but it's not a glamorous present. but it's just a discovery. Okay. Do you like coffee? Yes. You do? Yes. Okay. This is the discovery of all discoveries. What's it called? Pocket coffee. As I say, not glamorous. Oh my God, pocket coffee. But a real find. So is it like little sachets or something? No, no, no. Try one now. Oh, it's like a little chocolate. Yeah. Oh, pocket coffee. Pocket coffee. Do you want pocket coffee? Yeah, let's go for it.

8:11I've never seen them here. I've never seen pocket coffee. It feels like something that was made 20 years ago. The style of it, the design. I know. Let's give it a go. In for a penny. Oh my God. That's good, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Wow, that's a proper coffee. Yeah. Pocket coffee. Gotta get it in a warm. It's real liquid. Liquid Santa. It's not fancy, is it? Because you can get it in the supermarket. No, I love that. You know what I think would be great? What? If you froze one and ice it frozen. I think that'd be good as well. Well, should we welcome our guest, Angela? Yes. I think it should happen, right?

8:56Time to welcome our guest, an actress known for her incredible work as a pathologist in Silent Witness, here to eat, drink, and then deliver her own post-mortem. It's the one and only Amelia Vax, everybody. Hi. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you so much. I'm so good. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for being with us. Our last one of the year. I know. I feel very honoured. Thank you. Well, thanks for being with us on New Year's Eve. Do you like, we were just chatting before you came in about New Year's Eve, the night itself. Do you enjoy, do you put pressure on? Is it something you look forward to?

9:31I really look forward to it, but I take all the pressure off because Christmas is always like you're busy, busy, busy to the finish line, aren't you, really? And getting all of that organised. And then I like New Year to be quiet and family and with Rose, my 15-year-old, and probably with family and a walk on the beach or something like that. Oh, lovely. Will you do resolutions either? Or like, maybe not a resolution, but like a new thing? Because it's always a good time to start something new. I think it's good to do something new, but not one of those resolutions that I'm, I don't know, I'm never going to...

10:00No peas or something. Yeah, or something, yeah. But sort of try something new, because I think that's good for your brain and to get, you know, whether learn a language or, you know, like something. I did do that. We were talking about this. What did you do? I started Spanish lessons. On Duolingo? Duolingo and also on Zoom with a teacher. Oh, yeah. Advanced levels. Once a week, yeah. And I could do it for the hour we were on Zoom and I could do it like the hour after and then I'd forget it by the next Thursday. I had it every Thursday. So she's like, you really need to be doing it every day. Yeah, I know.

10:30So I was just like... You need to have to be speaking it every day. Every day, yeah, yeah, yeah. So maybe I'll try again this year. What about with you? Is there anything that you'll start this year? Well, I'm a great believer, like you, in taking up things rather than giving up things. That seems easier. I've been trying to do my Italian. You'd think that I'd be fluent having done three series in Italy and being surrounded by it and having my pocket coffee. Hello, pocket coffee. So I'm going to keep going with that. And I've also taken up learning sign language because I thought that would be...

10:59Oh, that's interesting. So I like taking things up and trying things, but who knows whether I'll manage to keep it up. And how is your Italian? Because Angela obviously speaks Italian. I'm okay, I'm okay. Yeah, you could do this episode in Italian if you want. Oh, I wish, I wish. Yeah. But I feel like I can understand it but maybe not speak it differently. But they're very forgiving, the Italians. They're so appreciative if you try and speak it. You know, they love, you know, I always think I speak a lot better because they're like engaged. I think I'm sure they don't actually understand a word I'm saying.

11:34I went to the supermarket and it was such a heavenly experience being in their supermarket, not like, oh, I've got to go to the supermarket. So I did my shop, went round, then I tried to ask for some bags in Italian. And she was so delighted that I'd used Italian that she blew me kisses as I left. And I thought, I can't wait to go back to the supermarket. So that is the key to a good supermarket. What's back in Italian? Posso avere una borsa? oh per favore and where where were you in Italy in Rome oh wow fabulous because is it in France sack sack yeah like when you have a bag in a shop it's sack we've got a sack anyway we're going to have a martini because it's New Year's Eve and we heard it's your favourite so cheers and welcome thank you cheers cheers cheers we've done it with a twist lovely Nick oh that is delicious it's nice after a pocket coffee that is so good that's real nice yeah perfect so good before we get into our menu for today i guess we should do your food likes and dislikes we always ask our guests what what they love what they don't love yours were so amazing um we've actually published them into a book there we go because they really were they really were quite something because you know i think this was the The way that you wrote about your food was poetic.

13:03It was beautiful. I love food. It was beautiful. We know. We've got the booklet. We've got the booklet. So some of our favorite sections that I thought we could go through. You love a good olive oil. Yeah. You love drinking it off the spoon. Is this a daily sort of ritual? You have the olive oil or just when you're cooking? If someone offered it as a daily ritual, I would do it. Would you like some now? Yes, please. Yes. Will we have it as a shot or a little just as... Before the next pocket coffee. and a sip of martini. Martini, hockey coffee and some olive oil. This is what we're taking up for the new year.

13:37This is what we are going to do. Well, it's very good for you now. I've heard that people do have a thing. Neil did it the other day, my husband. He was just giving himself a spoon of olive oil. Oh, I remember. Apparently it's a good thing to do. It's good for you. A little spoon of olive oil. It's good for you. Oh, wow. It's just so delicious. Mmm. And that's got a real like pepper taste at the end. Yeah. Mmm. Isn't that delicious? Yeah, delicious. Hey everyone, Ange. I've got so much going on. Martini, coffee, coffee, olive oil. Yeah, let's go. That's going to be good for you though, hasn't it?

14:08It is, yeah. Without a doubt. And it's better for you like that, isn't it, rather than cooked olive oil? Yes, I think so, yeah. Mm. Mm. I could definitely do that every day. Mm-hmm. Let's do it, 2026. And different flavours. Mm-hmm. Olive oil tasting. Mm-hmm. That's what we're going to take up. That's what we're going to do. Yeah. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, let's go. Thank you so much. This is just the most pleasurable morning I've had. You also love herbs and spices. You love how they can obviously change the flavour and the identity of a dish so much. You love chilies or vegetables. You love eating seasonally, something that you are very hot on.

14:45Hot on. And you also love, I want to know about the puntarella. What's the puntarella? Puntarella. What's puntarella? Can we discuss puntarella? Please. It's a chicory. It's part of the chicory family. Oh, okay. Yeah, I love all that. It's huge like this, and the roots can be very spiky, but then they have these beautiful bitter leaves. You would like it. I love it bitter. And you can either have it, I think the best way personally, puntarella, is you prep all the leaves, cut them finely down, not finely, but chop, and then you make an anchovy dressing with it, and I think that's absolutely stunning.

15:19Or you can cook it. And I'm not a mega fan of the anchovies, but there is something when you put the two things together, it's so good and I think it's so exciting because you don't find it very often and you have to wait for it to be in season so if you go too early and say have you got any puntarello no no no exactly no no exactly exactly yeah actually I'm thinking about it now I haven't had a good puntarello salad this year I need to do it what's the peak month for a puntarello it's coming it's this sort of autumn time it's November yeah exactly January January, yeah. This is it. Well, another thing we can do in January.

15:59It's mouth-watering. Oh, I'm ready. You're also a fan of chestnuts, pistachios, pine nuts, pecans, walnuts, sunflower seeds, wild rice, love wild rice, lemons, ginger and lemongrass. You also said you can eat chicken every day of the week. Yeah, I could. Angela Hartnett. I could do that as well. I love chicken. Yeah, it's definitely the thing which I look forward to. Whereas one year, they very kindly said in catering, what would you like to eat on Silent Witness? which we filmed for seven months and I went, fish? And I ate it for seven months every single day. And I didn't want to see fish again for a bit.

16:33But chicken, every day. I do. Your verdicts on chorizo cooked through in a risotto was yum. You most love fish, particularly white fish, although not every single day for seven months, please. Can't be a good Parmesan, is what you said. You can't. That I could eat just, and I do, just with a knife off of Angela's chopping board. That does happen a lot. All types of pasta. You definitely see it as a treat and something that's not part of your everyday eating. I mean, can't go wrong with it. Oh, tell us about your tomato risotto. When did you have that? Well, I had that the other day in a restaurant and I'd never heard of a tomato risotto.

17:14Yeah. And did they put, was it all, because we make one in the restaurants and we then put like a basil oil and basil through it and then anchovies on top. Oh, delicious. Which is really nice, yeah. Because I always think of tomato with pasta, obviously. Sure, yeah. But I'd never had it in a risotto. Do you ever make a risotto? I don't have the best confidence with doing a risotto. Me too. Because I know there are different ways of doing it. So there's either that you put it in and then you leave it, walk away, or stir, stir, stir, stir, stir. So I have a bit of a crisis about which to do. Yeah, I'm with you.

17:47Someone said to me, it was actually my friend Fifi, who's a great cook, Like when I, she would sort of have everyone over to hers on a Sunday and do a roast or whatever and she'd, you know, she's still a great cook. And I remember her once saying to me when we were like 22 or something, oh, it's a pain in the arse, it takes ages. And I've just like never done it ever since. Because I'm like, I'll never do it. But is that true? Is it a stir-a-thon? It takes 20 minutes, but you don't have time. Oh, okay, I can do that. I started one now, but because I know the pan's non-stick and I know enough stock is in there, I'm sort of leaving it up and down.

18:21But normally I would stand there because I actually find it quite therapeutic to just be stirring, listening to the radio, sipping a glass of wine. It's 20 minutes that you just have. You don't have to talk to anyone, text messages from him, you know, five times. It's quite nice. Shut up. Shut up. But you need to know when to take it off, don't you? Yeah, you time, time. Time, time. Yeah. Once you put, yeah. And on that note, I'm going to go and finish. Oh my God, is it actually time? Well, no, it will still be another five minutes. Okay, okay. Should we do your dislikes? It's towards the back of the book.

18:53We're just skin reading. You can buy Amelia's. Your dislikes. Chickpeas, straightened with chickpeas. You don't love the texture? No, I don't love the texture. No, no. And I don't really get the flavor. I can see that they're probably useful in hummus and things like that, which I do like. Yes. But without the garlic. Yeah, because you're allergic to garlic. No intolerance? Well, I don't know what the difference is with the allergy or the intolerance. It just makes me feel sick if it's not like cooked through. And onions, if they're not cooked through, feel really sick. Yeah, okay. So we'll avoid those, yeah.

19:28You've also never been able to eat baked beans because of the texture. No, I really don't like them. And I did try as a child because they're, you know, the easiest thing to give. I can't do them. And the thought of them now is like... I can see that. I've had my own bean journey. Oh, have you? Where are you on it? Do you know what? We're in a great place at the moment. Are you? Yeah. I actually, yeah, I was very like you, like the thought of them. Yeah. Like even if other people eating them, I had a real aversion to beans as a child. Yeah. But I had beans on toast on Friday night for my tea. Did you?

20:05Yeah. And you liked them? And I was like, I know what I want for my tea. And I got up and I walked to my corner shop and I got beans and I did beans on toast. And then I had beans yesterday. Oh. Yeah, that's double beans. Okay. Yeah. I might follow in your bean footsteps. Yeah, yeah. And then I was like, love beans. Salmon is a dislike for you. Well, I'm just a bit, uh, about salmon. I love smoked salmon. Yes. I love wild salmon. But it doesn't thrill me. And I love food. I love thinking about food. I love talking about food. But I haven't got much to say about the salmon. No. Have you got anything to say about the salmon, Ange?

20:44I think the salmon's good with a lot of Asian spices and flavour. Yes, yes. I think that's where it's good. But if you don't, would you like trout? Oh, yes. See, you know, that's an alternative if you like that. But I think Asian spices or cured. Yes. I think if you don't like it cooked, cured with some soy sauce, sesame, bit of chilli on there, I think it would work. You've instantly made it more appealing. There you see. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's a no to roast beef. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not mad for roast beef as well. Of all the roasts, it's not the one I would choose to have. Did you have it as a kid a lot?

21:17No. And maybe that's why, because I had chicken and lamb as a child, but not really roast beef. And it just feels a bit too much for me. Yeah, we used to have roast beef like every Sunday. And my dad had one of them, you know, electrical knives. Oh, yes. Yes. Are they still around, Ange? My mum had one of them. I used to use them. I can't believe as a 12-year-old I'd be given that knife. Well, I used to help my mum make the roast dinner. All this, you know, lunch and stuff. And so I'd have that... You've just reminded my grandmother, who was not a good cook. Sorry, but she was not. I once found an enormous builder's nail in the chicken pie.

22:01No. But she used to make something called... And it's a very odd thing to call something, but cut and come again. Oh. Do you know that? No. I think it was the bits that are left. Yeah. I think it might have been the bits that were left over that all got smushed together and then had to be sawed through with the electric carving knife. The thought of that is awful. Yeah. It looked akin to something that you might give the dog. Yeah. I remember it was quite grey. Grey. Quite grey. So I'm with you. I'm not obsessed with raw speed. I would say cut and don't ask me again. When we were doing our research, we found out that you did some waitressing.

22:50Yeah. Back in the day. A lot of waitressing. A lot of waitressing. Yeah. And how did you enjoy that? Were you a good waitress, would you say? I thought I was a great waitress. But I don't, I still to this day, I'm not quite sure why, but I kept being fired from, Because my mum and dad always said you have to go and work in the holidays to earn your own pocket money. So from 14, I was like in the local, you know, tea rooms. Then in London, I was in like, you know, different establishments, pubs and cafes and things like that. And I was always fired or demoted. I was demoted in one establishment from being a waitress to cleaning glasses to cleaning loos.

23:34and I thought that was really unfair. Well, apparently I talk to the customers too much. That's fantastic. Is that bad? I want to chat to Cathy. Yeah, go on, Andrew. What do you think is the best? No, I don't think it's bad, but I think if you're there at one table too long, you're neglecting your other tables. Did you know what my cousin, who I love to death, would go to the tables, talk to them so much, you forgot to take the order. He'd go in the kitchen and say, where's the order? And they couldn't get it. That might have been it. That might have happened. But I'm a good cleaner and I like cleaning.

24:04So to be demoted from glass cleaning, I will try again probably one day. Then there was, I worked in a pub and I was demoted from being a waitress to being a hostess, which is literally saying, here is your table, madam. But you enjoyed it. You just were maybe too chassy for the honest likes. And then I was told by, it was friends of my parents who had this pub the engineer do you remember the engineer in Primrose Hill yeah I do yeah really nice and they said maybe you should think about doing something else so that was the end of my waitressing maybe it must be a great actor and you were working as a waitress when you got your role in Pride and Prejudice yes so I was preparing for my next job application in the holidays and then I got offered an audition for Pride and Prejudice and so I thought okay well I'll give that a go got offered the job in Pride and Prejudice and thought, well, I don't have to go back to waitressing.

25:06So, and that was that. Yeah. And you were happy? I was happy. I didn't really know what I was doing, but I thought, oh, this is going better. I wasn't fired off it. Yes. And then tell us about one thing that we found out was about you having soup with Victoria Wood. Oh, yeah. Can we hear that story, please? Because Victoria Wood was so important to my childhood. And that was some of my strongest memories of just watching Victoria Wood on the teller and my family yes she was the best so we did a show called ballet shoes together and we talked about our lack of cooking abilities but that we could both do soup and so i would go up to hers to have soup and she would make a really good bread rolls and i really remember her coming over like i'm literally wincing about it think about it and i decided to reciprocate and make bread rolls they were solid solid and definitely joke worthy so we laughed a lot about that but she was the best yeah she was lovely wow thank you so much thank you so much thank you please will you tell us about this deliciousness so it's a butternut and toasted pumpkin seed risotto but instead of butternut because delica pumpkin is in season at the moment which is that really bright, small orange pumpkin, really dense.