Q&A Delia Smith: Never a duff Delia

0:00Double or triple cooked? Only cooked once. Triple cooked chips, yes, but they're trying to say their chips are really good. Okay.

0:10Amol Rajan: Hello and welcome to this Monday edition of the Amol Rajan Connection. Remember, if it's Monday, that means we're answering your questions, or rather, our fantastic guests are answering them. And Delia Smith is here answering a bunch of really smart questions, really interesting questions that we have had sent in. If you haven't listened back to Thursday's episode, please do. It's an absolute cracker of an episode. I think you're going to enjoy it. And just to say that we've had to record these first few episodes a little bit earlier than we were intending. That's purely for practical, logistical reasons.

0:41Amol Rajan: And so we've solicited questions from friends of the Amol Rajan Connection and indeed friends of Amol Rajan. And the best way to work out who is coming on and to submit your questions is to sign up for the free weekly newsletter. just go to amolrajanconnection.com, hit join the club and stick in your email address. It is completely and utterly free and you get to join this very exciting, very warm and fast-growing club. Final thing, just before we get into the conversation with Delia Smith, I do want to say a heartfelt thanks to our launch partners because they make this possible. So thank you to Google Cloud, thank you to NatWest, thank you to Waitrose and thank you to Amazon.

1:20Amol Rajan: We simply could not do this without them. Right, on to your first question.

1:28Amol Rajan: Right, so our first question, Delia, is from someone that I met on a TV program. And he, like you, has communicated to a very big audience ideas about food. And this is one half of a couple that was known as the Hairy Bikers. Oh, yeah. This is Cy King. Very, very sadly, his very close friend Dave died. but Cy King I met on the one show on BBC One which I was doing and he's got a new book out called Proper Home Cooking and it's very very very simple recipes and so I thought after we came off air I would nab him for a question and this is the question from Cy King. So Delia I thought it would be very smart to get a question for our questions episode from someone who I think is probably fair to say has been inspired by you this is the great Cy King he's got a book called Proper Home Cooking and as he was discussing it on the wine show just now, I thought of you because, Si, it's all about education, passing on skills, what we learned from our parents and making cooking simple.

2:25Amol Rajan: And I wanted to ask if you've got a question for the queen of cooking. Yes, I do. She is. You never get a Duff Delia. I never get a Duff Delia. Not one recipe have I ever tried that has gone wrong. And the question is, how do you contain and maintain your focus and consistency in recipe writing. I think, and I followed in your wake, as did Dave, with all of that. You are fabulous. We used to take Delia with us for the first three episodes around, well, first 12 episodes around the world. We had a little shrine to you. I don't know if you can remember. And we got very drunk with her once at Norwich Football Club.

3:08Amol Rajan: She didn't drink at Norwich, did she? No, no. Well, apparently not. But she's an icon. So I thank you so much. And Delia, you've got to answer this question. It would be impossible for me to overstate how much respect he has for you. I know you're going to do this whole humble thing. Well, I love them too. He reveres you. And what he said in that video, they literally around the world took a shrine, a mini Delia around the world, because that's how much of an influence you were. And it sounds like you had a good time at Norwich when he came to see you. They both came and did a whole evening. It was wonderful.

3:39It was just wonderful, yeah. They were brilliant.

3:42Amol Rajan: His question, the question from Cy King was, how do you maintain your focus when you're doing recipe writing? And I guess what, I mean, I've never done any recipe writing, so I wouldn't know, but I guess what he's saying there is that how do you make sure that they've got the kind of Delia signature of being short, simple, concise, and easy to understand? I think it involves a lot of hard work. It involves hard work, but it's hard work that's worth it. I mean, what I know is if somebody picks up a recipe of mine, first thing they're going to do is spend money on ingredients. And if they've spent money on ingredients, they're not going to want it to go wrong.

4:22And so with a team of people helping me, nobody ever does it on their own. I've had wonderful people working with me and helping with me. and we all get together and we find out the best and easiest way to do it and how to get the most successful results. And then it goes into print.

4:41Amol Rajan: So it's a collective effort. It's not just you on your own sort of scribbling away. It's a team that goes into it. Yeah. Okay. And you manage to stay focused. It's interesting he mentions the word focus because the way you've described yourself, you say you kind of, not you lack focus, but you can be a bit scattergun. Yeah, can be, definitely. A little bit all over the place. All right, Sai, thank you very much indeed for that question. Our next one. Hello, Delia. This is Lynn from Shropshire. I wonder if you could answer a question for me. As an elderly woman living alone, I find my air fryer very convenient to use for small items such as, say, sausages, fish and chips or even, dare I say, cooking a ready meal.

5:21However, if I had a family to cook for or a roast dinner to do, I probably wouldn't use it, preferring a traditional fan oven. what is your opinion on the current trend for air fryers? Hello Lynn I would probably now need lessons from you because I don't have an air fryer

5:43so I've always been very traditional in my cooking and for years I had a microwave that we kept my husband's ashtrays in because I didn't want to use it and I am very, very old-fashioned, so I don't really know, but I imagine what you're doing is correct. If you're on your own, and I might have to learn that now, if you're on your own, yes, I'm sure it's wonderful. I've got a friend who is on her own, and she uses hers. But if you've got people coming, you have to do the traditional things. But it's lovely to talk to you, Lynne. Good luck.

6:21Amol Rajan: Did you say you've got a microwave that you used to keep? We used to keep my husband's ashtrays in it because we had this little box with the door and they were kept out because I didn't want to use it. It took me years to go and use a microwave. Chris, our brilliant genius cameraman here in Cocos, is nodding, I'm so lost. Sorry, why do you put ashtrays in a microwave? Well, because I'm not using it for anything. It's redundant. I should have been using it. Because you're that anti-microwave, to stop you using the microwave. Well, I wasn't anti-microwave. I just didn't want to get into it, you know?

6:57I didn't. I mean, my agent told me she cooked a... She tried to... I don't know what to do, something with a chicken, and it came out fully cooked, and she didn't mean it to be.

7:08Amol Rajan: Oh, my goodness. You know, I just thought, no, I'm not going to be bothered. We don't do a chicken in a microwave. I'm not going to be bothered with it. You're not going to be bothered with it. Okay, Lynne, thank you very much for that question. It's a good one. Do you know, the thing about Lynne is, I think she speaks for a lot of people who are noticing this trend for air fryers and need your advice on it. Here's another question. Hello, my name is Nicola and I am from Scotland. I absolutely love roast potatoes, but I just cannot cook them at home, like by myself. They turn out wrong every single time.

7:37Amol Rajan: Where am I going wrong? Don't worry, I can help with this one. Okay, so what do you need to do, Nicola? Okay, because obviously she's directing this question to me. I would say parboil, a few minutes. Very, very hot goose fat, maybe? Or any, yeah, fat. Any fat. Shake them about a little bit to fluff them up a little bit? Definitely. Introduce butter? No. I think you better do this. Okay, sorry. I think we've got that far with you, yeah. I think you need to have a solid roasting tray that you can transfer to direct heat. So when you've heated the oil in the oven, then you put the tray on direct heat so it's really, really shimmering hot.

8:24And then with a long spoon, you just spoon your fluffy potatoes into it, baste them a bit and then whack them in the oven.

8:33Amol Rajan: And double or triple cooked? Only cooked once. Well, but you go to these posh pubs, they go triple cooked chips? It's triple cooked chips, yes, but it's just, you know, like, they're trying to say their chips are really good. OK.

8:52Amol Rajan: Okay, that's what they're saying. And goose fat versus oil versus... And what kind of oil for potatoes? Well, I think you can use any. I mean, if you use olive oil, you're going to get really crispy skins. But if you were sort of doing roast beef, then you'd want beef fat. You want to match the fat with the roast potatoes. Olive oil has got very dear these days. It's so expensive. 18 pound a bottle. I know, it's very, very bad. Super expensive. Okay, here's another one. Thank you very much for that, Nicola. And I'm glad that Delia answered that question rather than me. Here we go. Hello, my name's Max.

9:29Amol Rajan: I have one question and that is, often I find myself getting bored of using meat and eating meat. And I wanted to know if there were any filling alternatives to be using when I make things like curries or instead of something like chicken and rice, I want something high protein and just as filling. well I think if you want high protein I think you've got to have pulses so you've got to have you know lentils red beans or any kind of pulse because that's going to give you if you eat that with rice or potatoes you're going to get first class protein or the equivalent but I think you need a good vegetarian cookbook and you need to look at some Indian Gujarat cooking.

10:16Amol Rajan: Exactly. Because you will get wonderful, wonderful flavours. Well, you think about a chole, which is a chickpea, they call it a worker's lunch, which is very classic Indian, which is basically a chickpea in a tomato sauce with a kind of garlic, ginger, cumin, coriander seed base. And it's so basic. It's just chickpeas, basically. And that's the Indian way. Beans. There's a big thing for beans at the moment. There was a campaign, wasn't there, banging a bean and all that kind of thing. Beans are very high fibre, are quite good for the environment because they sequester carbon, I think, but also they're the kind of vegetarian high-protein option.

10:48Yes.

10:49Amol Rajan: Very, very good for you. And if you eat beans with bread or with rice, you've got the same amino acids as a steak. Really? Yeah. So you've got the first-class protein if you mix those two together. Okay. There's a company called the Bold Bean Company I think they're doing. Great work alerting people to this sort of thing. Okay, here's another question. My name is Victor. Whenever I cook chicken, it always goes to dry and I'm not sure when it's safe, so I always overcook it. What's your advice to get chicken to be more juicy while making sure it's still safe? Well, Victor, if you go to Delia online, you'll find a recipe for fast roast chicken.

11:33it works really well if you have a really high heat and you put the chicken in and just give it a real blast of heat and cook it quickly the timings are in the recipe you'll find that's I think it's the best way it's juicy and the outside is crisp I love it

11:52Amol Rajan: how long does that take? 45 minutes? can't remember I've got thousands of recipes I can't remember I know you're not going to cook a chicken that quickly, are you? Well, it's about 45 or 50 minutes. I think it's about 50 minutes for an ordinary small... And you're talking super hot, 250 degrees. That's mega hot. No, I think probably 220, but I can't honestly remember because I'm old. It's all there on Delia online, as is the cookery course. Okay, right. We've got a few more questions. These will come streaming. God, lots of questions. Three more at least, maybe four. Okay, this one is a video.

12:29Amol Rajan: Hello, my name is Kim. I have a partner who is not as keen on fish as I am, but I am an absolute seafood fanatic. So are there any recipes or anything that I can put a slightly milder fish for as an entryway to fish for my partner?

12:49Yeah, I've got one called Californian fish, where I make a proper tartar sauce, a chunky one, a really good chunky one. And then I put the fish under the grill for a little bit, then put the sauce on top with some breadcrumbs so it goes really crisp. So really you've got a whole bunch of flavour in there and the fish is not having much look in.

13:14Amol Rajan: You can almost conceal it. When you say a proper tartare sauce, like a chunky one... Yeah, make your own tartare sauce. You can't buy it. Okay, for people that don't know what a tartare sauce is, what goes with it? Well, it's mayonnaise, chopped gherkin... Lemon. It's going to be lemon. Lemon or lime. Capers? Capers, yeah. A bit of salt. Yeah. Okay, and keep it chunky to make it. Chunky tartar sauce is just wonderful. And then you can even serve a bit more tartar sauce with it. Yes, ideal. But as fish go, I can't believe I'm answering culinary questions almost as if I know as much about gastronomy as Delia Smith.

13:53Amol Rajan: Because I don't. As fish goes, I often find that people that don't massively like fish are quite keen on monkfish, because monkfish is a big kind of meaty fish, and it's almost like it could be a substitute for kind of poultry or something. Is that nonsense? It's got no flavour, though. Monkfish? No. The monkfish itself... What have you got against monkfish? That's scandalous. If you just cook it on its own, it doesn't have any real flavour. Monkfish, as a fish, with something, a lovely sauce or something with it, but actually on its own, it doesn't have a lot of flavour. It's got as much as cod?

14:28No, it hasn't.

14:31Amol Rajan: Hake? No. Oh, my goodness me. Okay, this is changing my world. I suppose now I come to think of it, I often do get it with sort of bacon lardons or sort of something. It's lovely with sort of like good spicy sauce or something. Right, right, right. But it's very, very expensive. It is very expensive. I mean, all fish is expensive, but that's only my personal view. Sure. that i think about monkfish curry is quite often how you have it because they want to conceal the lack of flavor and other things okay a couple more questions here we go hello i'm georgie from the ocean every time i cook beef in the slow cooker it turns really dry do you have any tips on how i can fix this yes i do i think um you what you need there is you need some some meat that's got quite a lot of fat in it and everybody goes on about lean lean lean but the flavor and the succulence is in the fat so if you buy fatty meat i mean you could either the cheapest beef is shin shin of beef and cook it really really slowly uh it won't be dry georgie and lewisham thank you very much indeed for that question thanks for all the questions we've had in.

15:49Amol Rajan: So in a spirit of full transparency, this is a question from a very, very dear, very, very close friend of mine whose name is Jackson Boxer. And Jackson Boxer is Arabella Boxer's grandson. And Jackson is one of the great restaurateurs of his generation. He's got lots of restaurants in London. My favorite restaurant is in Vauxhall. It's called Brunswick House. It's got a new one, which is the talk of the town called Vesper in Exmouth Market. and Jackson is so intelligent and passionate about food and one of the things he's tried over the years to explain to me is the way, as you were saying in our main episode on Thursday, English cooking and English cuisine is actually quite complicated.

16:28Amol Rajan: He gets a bad rep sometimes, but it's quite complicated. And Jackson's question is, in what way would you, Delia, consider English cookery to have meaningfully improved over the course of your career and in what way has it most lamentably declined? well that's a big question Jackson but I have to say first of all I had your mother's is it your grandmother your grandmother's cookbook and it had a lovely title it was called first slice your cookbook and each page was in three pieces it was a wonderful cookbook Jackson's saying how in what way is English cookery meaningfully improved over the course of your career and in what way has it most lamentably declined?

17:10Well, I think I was able to communicate that English food can be good. I was able to do that for a generation. But I think what's declined now is the sort of fast lane cookery attitude that you mentioned early on where you know people are buying ready meals and they're they're i don't know with deliveroo all those kind of things and um so it isn't what it was you know there isn't the home cooking now that there was you know something that kira who works

17:55Amol Rajan: on this programme mentioned was that, have you heard this phrase developing an ick, a kind of egg ick or a beef ick? She was saying that lots of young people will see something that's trending online and will eat lots of that for a particular week and then they'll develop an ick and say, I've eaten too much beef. I've got a beef ick or I've eaten too many eggs. I've got a kind of egg ick. No, I'm way past that. But she was saying that now trends are so fast and they kind of come and go so, so quickly that it's not like the trends of the past where it might last for a particular food trend, air fries might last for months or years.

18:34Amol Rajan: Now trends are almost daily or weekly and people kind of move on super fast. Yes, I'm living in the sticks. You know, I'm out of... I don't know what's trending at all. Are you on TikTok? No. You should be. Right, last question. This is the last question which is coming from our listeners. I think it's the last question, maybe second to last. We had so many questions and we're not going to get through all of them because, you know, your time is finite. But here we go. Hi, James from Birmingham here. My girlfriend's gluten free and I always forget about the small ingredients that contain gluten like Worcester sauce or stock cubes.

19:05Amol Rajan: I was just wondering if you had any bulletproof gluten free recipes that I should add into my rotation to really blow away. Thanks. Hi there. I have a book. In fact, the last cookery book I published was called The Book of Cakes. and we have got a section in the book. We tested all the cakes in the book with gluten-free flour and so we have a list in the back of the book of all the cakes that can be made with gluten-free flour. And I once had a friend who couldn't have gluten at Christmas for Christmas and I made everything, mince pies, sausage rolls, the whole lot with gluten-free flour and it was fine.

19:49Amol Rajan: And it was absolutely fine. Do you ever use ground almond? Yes. For cakes. I love a ground almond cake. An orange cake with ground almonds. Ground almonds, yes. And dripping with chocolate. I think that's so nice. What's your perfect Christmas pudding? Mine. Yeah.

20:07Amol Rajan: Delia, it's such a pleasure and a privilege. Thank you so much for coming in and being with us on the Amol Rajan Connection. Thank you. I've loved every minute. Thank you so much to the incredible and inspirational Delia Smith for answering your questions and indeed mine. I'm going to go off and make some roasties because that's the kind of guy I am. One final thing before we go, please do subscribe. It helps us grow, helps us understand what's working and what's not. And also a huge thanks to our launch partners. They make all of this possible. So thank you to Google Cloud. Thank you to NatWest.

20:38Amol Rajan: Thank you to Waitrose. Thank you to Amazon. We couldn't do this without them. Or indeed, without you.