Romesh Ranganathan loves our cauliflower & spinach curry and fiery margaritas

23:11Rob and I like snobbed on the side of stage. and obviously like production fan great TV it's great TV yeah it's really funny TV but I went to I have a great day yeah I'm a f***ing legend then I went to bed I woke up the next morning and obviously I just got the fear yeah what happened what did you do so I immediately put on the production WhatsApp I just said I'm really sorry if for my behaviour if I was out of order last night or whatever you know I was sort of really all over the place It was half an hour before anybody responded. Oh, God. That was the longest half hour. That was the worst half hour of my life.

23:52I do think people need to think about what that effect that's having on people. You need to respond to people when they say that. You need to have an alarm. Get in quick and go, you were fine. Or there's a police investigation. You just want to know either way. You want to know. Please reply quicker. You start eating ramesh And then, Ange, please, what we have here. So we have a cauliflower and spinach curry. Yes. And we're serving it with loads of little poppadoms. And we've got a lovely array here of some fantastic mango chutney, some lime pickle. I love lime pickle. Fried onions. Some lovely, oh God.

24:32Writer? Writer, thank you. Yeah. So to have with it. And rice. This is so good. Oh, good. I'm glad. Oh, my God. I can't remember this. So Ramesh said that, well, Ramesh, you said that you'd be happily having, chef's choice with what we eat. Yeah. You'd leave it up to Angela, which is the way I would do it if I was coming on here as a guest. Oh. Well, because obviously I'd be like, come on, Angela knows what's up. Yeah. So what made you go for curry, Ange? Well, one, obviously, Romesh is vegan. No, I'm joking. I'm sorry. Ange, what made you go? For a curry. What made you go curry? Yeah. Why did I go curry?

25:11So, seasonality, cauliflower. Yeah. Yeah, lovely. Absolutely. And cauliflower is a great thing when you make a curry because it absorbs all the flavours of all those different spices and everything like that. Wow, this is delicious. How does it make this so tasty? It's the layers of flavour, isn't it? I was going to say layers. It's all the stages. So you start off, you put your little oil in the pan, put curry leaves and cumin seeds, toast those off for a couple of minutes, add your spinach, and then take that out of the pan. So in a way, you've seasoned the pan. And then it's onions, garlic, coriander stalks, and ginger in the pan.

25:43Cook that down till it's softened. But a good five, ten minutes, you know, not just quickly in the pan. This is, sorry. That's all right. It's so good. Thank you. I'm really pleased. You haven't smashed this. Oh, thank you. It is wicked. That was very good. And then you add your different spices, your turmeric and gran masala, and a bit of tomato puree. And then you add your cauliflower. And then you cook it really quickly, only for about 10, 12 minutes. And once that's cooked, then you add your spinach back into the pan, a little bit of yogurt and a touch of lime. Because the thing is, cauliflower and spinach curry, if somebody comes down to your house as a vegan host, there's a lot of pressure on.

26:21People don't want to come around, really. They don't want to come around. They just don't want to come around. No, and then if you go cauliflower and spinach on paper, you just go... It doesn't sound great. Well, it just sounds fine, right? You're not going to not enjoy it. But this is like, it's so good. But it is, you know, the point is, it's like anything. Take time a little bit. Don't rush it. And then the cauliflower you just cook in... Because it's not really a sauce, if you're listening to this, is it? It's not like a... No, not a wet porridge. It's not a wet porridge, no. So the cauliflower just sort of cooks 10 minutes, that's it.

26:49It cooks in the spices, but you add a little bit of water as well, about 300 mils of water. I'm surprised it's cooked. Because I've tried roasting a cauliflower. Yeah. Not as great. No, I always think that's quite dry. Quite dry, yeah. Tell us about the little salad that you've made here. So we've got this kachumba salad, which is diced tomato, cucumber, red onion, coriander, and mint. A little bit of salt in there as well. And then the writer, which is cucumber, yogurt, a bit of shallot, finely diced, and again, mint, and a bit of seasoning. And it's vegan, so what, yogurt? Yeah, vegan coconut yogurt.

27:20Coconut yogurt, yeah. Perfect, then you've got it all. Okay, so there's a wine pairing as well. The pairing that we've got is a Gruner Weltnerner, which is an Austrian wine. dry and crisp will be great with something spicy and rich like a curry if you want to get this wine or this recipe or all the ingredients waitrose.com forward slash dish recipes would you like some more rummish? this? yes please I would love some I didn't know is that allowed? yeah of course it's allowed now this is for our Valentine's Day special yeah we were talking before you came on that we don't really celebrate in our respective homes do you do you guys do anything on Valentine's Day is there not really I mean I've I think I think in the early days when you weren't sure if the other one was as cynical yeah yeah so then you go I should really do something but then eventually I think once we had we had a conversation going should we not save the money not do it yeah but I remember when I was a teenager yeah I took a girl to Pizza Hut on Valentine's Day.

28:30It felt incredible. Yeah. But like to do that now. Yeah. I mean, I guess now it would be Pizza Express, but... Yeah. Now you're going up in the world. Yeah. It's made a bit of money. Crispin pizza. Listen, not no. It's a Saturday night Pizza Express. No salad bar. Not no. Not no. Oh, do you remember the Pizza Hut or Salad Bar? The Salad Bar? Oh my God. When I first discovered the concept of a salad bar, Not I didn't discover it, you know, for myself. I couldn't believe it. And you're like, wow. And then you finish and they go, you can go up again if you want. What? It's true. I remember it opening, a pizza opening in Rochdale, where I lived.

29:12And I was like, wow, America. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It felt so lovely. Because the pizzas were like, before that you'd have those little like, I will never forget, honestly, man, it's like a cool memory. The cheese pull on the first pizza advert. It's like, there's strings. Oh, jeez. Yeah, you are like that. Oh, my God. Wow. I loved it. Bring that back. You're on a date night there. What a time. It's glue, it turns out. Yeah. And they've stapled the pizza down. Yeah. Well, we're going to do something now because we want to share some love with you. Share some love. Oh, thanks, man. Not the normal type of love you may have with someone on Valentine's Day.

29:52But we did our Ramesh research and we found out you're quite hard on yourself. Yeah. You were asked by the Guardian to describe yourself and the words that you used were lazy, disorganized and lucky. I still stand by that. Okay, but quite hard. We thought it was quite hard on Ramesh. So what we thought we'd do is we'd put some of your big achievements into some oven gloves, as is tradition. So you know the game. And we could just dip in and take a pick. So this is our way of instilling some self-love into you. So these are some of your great achievements. These are some of my achievements. Yeah.

30:27You are acting in the West End with Sheridan Smith. Look, yeah, there you go. Thanks, man. Yeah. I don't know if it's good, but you're doing it. Let's have another one. Go on, you read one now. Read that one. Yeah, this is good. Yeah, we'll read them to you. There we go, yeah, okay. You've hosted the BAFTAs. And you've won BAFTAs. Yeah, yeah. Thanks, guys. Yeah, there we go. You've rapped at the Scarlet in London and have your own rap name. You're a rapper. Come on. Hold on a second. I just want to pull you up on that. All right. I'm just reading this. No, well, can I tell you about that? I'll tell you the story about the Scala.

31:04You're putting yourself down again. Well, no, I'm just, listen, it was a great night. Yeah. I was in a battle, rap battle at the Scala. I got to the final. It was me against this guy that was actually really good at it. And I said, my rap name, Ranga. I said, this is going to offend you, I think. Okay. Maybe not. Because of the lack of culinary knowledge. And I said, this is Ranga. I'm here rocking the Scala. You can't handle the heat of my chicken tikka masala. Right? I like it. That got me knocked out of the competition. Now, obviously, chicken tikka masala, nobody's going, oh, that's a bit punchy, that tikka masala.

31:45No. Right? So I got humiliated so badly in that competition. Genuinely, my friends asked to leave separately. All right, scrap that one. All right, that's the fun. But thank you. Scrap that one. No, but I did it, I did it. But you did it. Yeah, I did it. Guys, you've got a shift. I mean, you've got a whole crowd here. When you're pulling this out, they're staying silent. They're like, they weren't bothered about the BAFTAs. They were like, no, sorry, he's not good enough. You've won, not won. Well, let's just say it. You've won the London Marathon. You've won it. You've done it twice. You've done it twice.

32:26There you go. You've run it twice. Are you going to do it this year? No. By the way, this sounds like I'm taking all of your compliments and trashing them. No way. But I'm just going to tell you something that happened. This is a genuinely true story. So you know they've got this, at the beginning of the London Marathon, they've got like a profile competitor's tent, right? And one of the guys that organises the London Marathon came up to me on the second one and he said, I just wanted to say thank you for doing the London Marathon last year. You really helped spread the message of how accessible it is.

33:01He did not. He did. I promise you. I can't quite believe that. He's like, you're really like, you know, it's not just for elites. You're like, yeah, cool. I'm just about to start, by the way. Thanks for the pep talk, wanker.

33:20It was a cool thing. It was a fun thing. One more? One more. One more. What are we going for? There's so many. There's so many. So you taught maths and learnt stand-up at the same time. At the same time. Yes, I did. Thank you. I like this one. You'd put Crawley on the map. There you go. There you go. Never heard of it. Crawley on the map. Yeah. There you go. I mean, you know, Gareth Southgate's from Crawley, so not even the most famous guy from there. And you've got Chico. Oh, Chico. Chico's from Crawley. He was famous. Mate, proper. I didn't realise that Chico time was the number one, wasn't it?

33:57Wow. Was he? Chico time was number one. Yeah, big time. Massive. Yeah, massive. Well, there we go. That's our love gift for you this Valentine's Day. Genuinely, that was actually very sweet. Yeah, good. Ramesh, you're off on tour. Ramesh Ranganathan will change your life, was the name of this tour. Yeah. It's not this year. Next year. It's next year. Yeah. 2027. How do you feel this far ahead knowing that something is next year? It's going to be full on. It's a lot of dates, a lot of travel. I love going on tour. So it's not so bad. I don't find it that bad. Obviously, you're obviously a bit nervous about when you start the tour.

34:34But I love going on tour. It's like, the reason I started doing TV is to go on tour because I wanted people to come and see me. And I think after, you know, after all the TV goes away and whatever, stand-up will be the last thing I'll continue to do. Do you know what I mean? I think I'll always do that. But you said it earlier, that's the thing. That's the thing. That's what you want to be known as above everything. Yeah, that's what I love. But the one thing that I do think is weird about, because it's so far in advance, this is the first show where I've really had, not a concept, but I know what I'm trying to do with this show.

35:07But I haven't written any, even a minute of it. I know the concepts and what I'm sort of going to try and, what I'm aiming for. But then when you haven't written something and it's on sale, you feel like a bit of a con artist. That's risky. Well, you feel like a con artist, really. And then they'll go to me, oh, it's sold out, we're putting on another date. And I go, what? Yeah. What's sold out? It doesn't exist. Do you know what I mean? Are you going to be, like, some comedians will go and do a really small theatre to try it out, like do three or four nights and sort of try out the material. Will you do that or you'll just hit it hard?

35:38No, how I tend to do it is you start with, like, a ten-minute routine. and then I'll phone a mate who, you know, a friend of mine, I often go to Brighton because I live near there. So I go, I've got 10 minutes of new stuff, can I just come and try it tonight? And then you're unannounced. Yeah. And then he'll go, we've got a special guest who's just trying out some stuff. And then I'll go on with a notebook and just go, look, I've got some ideas, can I talk it through with you? And then maybe like sometimes all of it works, sometimes a minute of it works, and then you start to like, you keep that stuff and refine it and then gradually it gets bigger and bigger and then you've got more stuff.

36:12and then you start to go, okay, I think I've got a show now. That's when you start going, okay, I'm doing a work in progress and then people come and come watch you. There's a theatre right down the road from my house, which I do do new material there. The only problem is, is like, I remember once I did like a new material hour where it's just like me and a nobody. It's like Ramesh, try some shit out is what we called it, right? And I just, I walked off and thought, well, that didn't go very well, but who cares? Not who cares, you know. I'll be back to the drawing board. and then I was at the shops and then somebody comes up to me and goes, do you know what would make that superhero bit work?

36:46And I thought, oh God. I don't want to get people giving me feedback on this when I'm out and about living my life. Do you know what I mean? Doing the school run. There's somebody going, I thought I'm a punchline. So I started moving them a bit further. Don't move out of your county to do good comedy. Yeah, too much, too much. And that was his mum. She was like, change that bit. Well, I always like it when I do live comedians and they I mean a lot of the time it's in London but if you watch it on TV you see if they're in Glasgow or they've gone somewhere they'll refer to where they are because everyone does have different humours as well and the audience you must react to in different areas of the country I imagine yeah well I mean the worst one was I went to I went to America to do some shows over there they're just offended by different things and also they don't they don't have as many like brown people right in public kind of so they don't sort of they can't process your background.

37:41So anyway, on one of my tours, I had a bit that the gist of it was I would join ISIS if they had good Wi-Fi. That is the premise of the bit, right? So when I was doing it, when I was doing it, when you do it in the UK, people just go, he's obviously joking. You know, like they get it, it's a joke. I was doing Hollywood improv and I was doing a set and it was going really, really well. and then I started doing this bit and honestly, the arse dropped out of the room immediately. I think they thought I was like announcing like my elite, yeah. You could just feel them like, oh my God, oh my God. He's one of them, he's one of them.

38:22Shit. It was horrible. So like, you know, like you kind of, you kind of get a sensibility for different places. But I do, I tend to think like, I mean, up north is like wicked to do stand-up. I feel like Glasgow audiences, for example, when they like you, they love you. Like the energy is insane. So you do feel differences, regional differences and stuff. That is true about the Scots. I did a dinner up in Aberdeen and I went round to talk to all the tables and they literally kept standing up and hugging me to the point they were like too much. And I was like, right, this is now weird. I called my husband who's Scottish.

39:04I said, what is wrong with you lot? Why do you all... I said, everyone has hugged me. It's just mad. What's going on? And I said, they won't let go. And then they talk at you. But it's really like enthusiasm. I love it. We should go, Ange. Have a date night. Go see Ramesh. I'd love you to come. I'd love to come. If you want to go to Ramesh's tour, you can get tickets now. I imagine it will sell out soon. Even though it's not until a year away. Once this goes out, I mean, this is... Once this goes out. They said, do dish. It's the final push. Hold on. And then you can relax. Worldwide. This is it.

39:35one cauliflower curry. Arena sold. Ramesh, it's time for your fast food quiz. Yeah, yeah, great. What is your favourite sandwich filling? Peanut butter and banana. Oh, nice. What's your favourite donut filling? Oh, well, there's a yum yum named after me, Ranga Yum Yum. Ranga Yum Yum. It's got chocolate and Biscoff. Oh, nice. And what's your favourite form of potato? I like mash. Why'd you say it like that? Why'd you say it like that? Don't be embarrassed. I like mash. MASH. I like mash. That's okay to me. I said it like, I like S &M, didn't I? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're like, okay. Yeah. I'll say I like it.

40:12Just because people are quite passionate about potato. Well, everyone sort of goes roast. So it's good you've done mash. Yeah. Let's give it something different. What about your favourite herb? Oh, rosemary? Yeah, lovely. Favourite crisp? Torres, black truffle. Dish you miss the most when you're away from home? Dish I miss the most is probably my mum's aubergine curry. Oh. Sorry, Lisa. happy valentine's day step your f***ing game up

40:49what's your favourite kitchen utensil? I'm a big fan of a spatula I really like it it's versatile it's handy do you like a bendy? yeah I like the bendy is that like you're in teach You should slap in the room. I just like it. Sometimes I'll just walk around with it. Great word as well. It's also great for scraping really dried chilli oil off a kitchen cupboard. It's stuck there for 24 hours. What's your favourite chocolate bar? There's a green and black dark one with little bits of orange in it. Oh, right. What's your favourite nut? I'd probably go pistachio. I think that's correct. we like a pistachio I think it is isn't it favourite topping on toast favourite I mean I'm a Marmite I'm a big Marmite guy Marmite and peanut butter's good oh I've never tried that oh yeah good oh I like the peanut we'll give you the recipe I'll give you the yeah I like that never had that one I like Bob Bruisy and it's peanut butter and Marmite and you just blend you blend on the toast or separate I do a little separate you do a little bowl I get a little ramekin oh right and I just mix it.

42:03And peanut butter in first or the marmite? What I like to do is I get the peanut butter and then I'll put a little well in the centre and put the marmite in and then work outwards. I can see how that works with your spatula, no doubt. Yeah, work outwards. You have to get a massive rumour. Okay, Ramesh, we come to the end of the show. Yeah. This is your end of the show question to win the Waitrose goodie bag. Usually, Angela Hartnett will wheel it in on that trolley. As you can see, there's no bag there. As a special guest to bring in the Waitress goodie bag, please welcome the one, the only, Mr Tom Davis is here.

42:43Yes, welcome. There he is. Hi, Tom. How are you? How are you? Good to see you. How are you? I'm good, how are you? How are you? Good to see you. Thank you for bringing that up. So, you can't even get a spot as a proper guest on you? No, no, no. I haven't got, I'm literally having to come in, I'm doing the bags now. It's just doing the bags. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So good to see you. In this scenario, we keep saying we'll have to go for food. And now look. Now it's still there. It's done for you. So you're going out yourselves, yeah. Well, thanks for bringing that in, Tom. Ramesh, here is your end of your question to win that goodie bag.

43:16If you don't answer, Tom gets it. Oh, wow. What in the bag? Yeah. It's not full of vegan stuff, is it? Throw a lamb chop in it. Maybe the odd thing, yeah. Yeah, we'll stick some in there. Hi, Ramesh. Thanks for coming on Dish. You made it look effortless. You did. To win the Waitrose goodie bag, just answer the following question. Of all the celebrity weakest links you've had the chance to meet, whose performance stands out? Who is the weakest link of the weakest links? Thanks, Team Dish. So what they're saying is, slag someone off to win some shopping. Just quickly, weirdly, you've never been asked to do that show even though I'm one of your best friends.

43:59Unbelievable. Reid, I call that Reid. No, no, no. Can I tell you something? I would say, I said to me, I think I said he'd never come up to do it. It's in Glasgow. Yeah, but by the way, there'd be an easy answer right now because I'm awful at that sort of general knowledge. Yeah, but this is like, I don't, just, you know. It's about rummish. Yeah, I love a quiz. Do you love a quiz? I love quiz. Have you been on? I've not been on. Do you want to get on? You wouldn't do it, would you? Just be honest. Just be honest with me now. Would you do Weakest Link? Bit far in there. That's exactly it. It's a bit far.

44:31It's a bit far. Actually, would you do it? No. No, because I like playing quizzes at home and games at home, but under the spotlight like that, I would freeze. I would never be able to do it. Terrible. I can barely remember recipes on this half the time. I can never do that. I think the worst answer that... Well, two people spring to mind. Tony Blackburn was the first person I ever asked a question to on make a sing and the question was to Tony Blackburn what does the B in R &B stand for? and he said soul

45:15Tony Tony I think the one that was the most humiliating Tony this was more of it But I think it was just so bad that I think it was the... You know you're talking about the nerves. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's got to be... It's Helen Flanagan. Yeah. And the question was, are the White Cliffs of Dover made of charcoal cheese? Oh, my. It's a cheese. Oh, my God.

45:46I didn't go watch that. Oh, wow. How's that not become a more... How's that not become a more... Oh, my God. It was like... That is awful! She's been back on again since. We did... I'd have her back on every week. We did a redemption special where everybody that did ask about that came back on. She did alright. Brilliant. A lot of reading. Round of applause for Ramesh, everybody. Thank you, everybody, guys. Beautiful, didn't it?

46:25If that episode has left you wanting more, find us on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. Just search Dish. If you want to make any of the meals I cook on Dish, head to waitrose.com forward slash Dish recipes for all the ingredients and the recipes. Email your questions, thoughts and suggestions to dish at waitrose.co.uk. Dish from Waitrose is a cold glass production. Waitrose, the home of food lovers.