Jamie Oliver: Jamie At Home

By JULIETTE ROSSANT (Catch Jamie Oliver on Iron Chef America battling Mario Batali on January 6 at 10:00 pm EDT) When you cook at home, unless you are very lucky and have your own elves, there won't be little bowls of pre-measured, pre-chopped ingredients to add to your recipes. You'll have to start from scratch and prepare those ingredients. It'll add to the time it takes to make your dish but that is the way it is. And that is the way it is for Jamie Oliver, too. Watching Jamie At Home, Jamie Oliver's series on the Food Network premiering on Saturday, January 12 at 9:30 pm EDT, you notice quickly that he is actually chopping, grating, measuring and weighing practically everything himself. In the Pumpkin and Winter Squash episode that Super Chef got a sneak peak of, he even starts out in a garden to pick winter squash and pushes a wheelbarrow full of them back to his table by an outdoor oven. So you don't have a vegetable patch – no matter – it is still fun and informative to watch him do it. If kids watch, they learn that pumpkins and squash don't come from the supermarket or even farmers market. Jamie sets to chopping up a lovely squash, preparing the seeds and assembling a warm Asian Style Warm Pumpkin Salad with roast duck and a spicy dressing. This is a British production for European audiences so the oven temperature is given in Celsius, but it isn't hard to convert. As Jamie works, he comments on how lovely, delicious or gorgeous the ingredients are and gives cooking tips like grating a hot pepper removes the seed and skin and changes the pepper's taste (though he doesn't say how). He shows how to chop scallions fine at the white end and very fine at the green end for the dressing. Back indoors, he makes Squash Cupcakes with a sour cream frosting flavored with vanilla bean, clementines and lemon. He makes the batter in the bowl of a food processor – super simple and nutritious, but he does weight his ingredients like flour and sugar. He places the cupcakes on a tiered serving plate and says that the rest of the batter will keep until the next day. This is practical, helpful information. Then he makes a pureed pumpkin soup in pressure cooker. He serves it with Parmesan toasts and fried sage leaves. It is a simple soup, but the sage and the toast give it complexity. It is interesting to see him adjust salt and pepper several times before he gets it right – like a real cook. It is rare to see most of the other Food Network chefs taste anything several times. Watch this show and get Jamie's book, Cook with Jamie, (click here for Super Chef's review) or if you are in Europe, the companion book, Jamie at Home, and you'll have some straightforward advice on how to cook simply and well. Previous articles: Jamie Oliver: Cook with Jamie Nigella Lawson: Nigella Express Jamie Oliver Cartoon By Aardman Jamie Oliver Betters British School Food FOOD PIX: Jamie Oliver Fat Suit Nora Sands: Nora's Dinners Jamie Oliver Signs Sainsbury's Jamie Oliver New Year: School Lunch Jamie Oliver on Vodafone Live! Jamie Oliver: Real Guts Fat Lady Sings Jamie Oliver Jamie Oliver: School Lunch July 4: East Meets West Wall Street Journal: Beef over Chef Sponsorship? Amazon UK's Steamy Xmas Chefs [Food Television - complete] Technorati Tags: superchefblog, Juliette Rossant, super chef, celebrities, chefs, food, restaurants, cooking, branding, cuisine, blogging, food blogging, Jamie Oliver --> back to Super Chef