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So, in this recipe, which I think is the best steak sandwich I've ever had in my life, I didn't want the Big Hero to be just the steak. I wanted it to really be everything. I want to create a texture and flavor out of these humble white onions that really are incredible. And how do we do that? Well, you ain't going to do that by just frying it. You ain't going to do that by just slicing it. You got to kind of put some real love into this. I'm going to make my onions sweet and sour with sourness coming from red wine vinegar
and sweetness from sugar and caramelization. They'll take longer to cook than the steak, so I've got to get them on first. Cut them about 2 cm thick. Now, the outside layer gets a little bit tough, so I'm just going to click these out. Just use it for salads or soups or whatever. And whether you're going to turn these onions uh into this beautiful steak sandwich or whether they're kind of going to go into an amazing mega salad or on a pizza or kind of folded through a risotto or with roast potatoes just for the last 5 minutes so they all kind of cook into
each other. This onion dish is legit. Whatever you want to do with it. So, let's turn it on and let me show you how to make the best onions. Get your pan on a medium heat and add some olive oil, a good knob of butter and 70 g of dark brown sugar. Then let it all melt down together. Three or four nice little leaves of bay. So I'm just going to lay those in like that. And then we go in with the onions. And what I'm trying to create is buttery soft onions that just fall apart when you bite into that steak sandwich. That's what I want. Season the onions and cook them for
5 to 10 minutes to give them a sweet caramelized bottom. Once you've done onions like this, you'll keep doing it and doing it. And I can smell caramel right now. So I'm going to turn this down and I'm going to go in with the vinegar. Red wine vinegar. about 125 ml of vinegar. That's going to stop the frying and caramelization process. And what it's going to do, it'll just start poaching. Lid goes on. We'll let them simmer away on a gentle heat for about 30 35 minutes. Let's get back to the steak. A little quick marination. I'm going to use rosemary on the
bottom and on the top. And then I'm going to use one of these old meat hammers. Uh, and let's pound uh the rosemary into the beef um to give it flavor and bring out the oils in the rosemary. Bashing the beef will tenderize it as well as flavor it. And it will give you the chance to get the steak to the same thickness as the onions, which to me is the key for a perfectly balanced sandwich. Like that. A little olive oil on the plate and a little bit on the meat. Leave this out at room temperature while these onions cook. And one thing to remember is when cooking steak,
never take it from the fridge and just cook it really cold, really hot. Muscle tense, tough. And then when it rests, too much liquid will come out instead of stay inside the meat. An hour, an hour and a half at room temperature. Happy days. So onions on, meat marinading, we've got a jibata. I'll just heat that in an oven. And then we'll make the best steak sandwich. These are basically cooked now. You can see they've kind of shrunk. Uh, it's got dark and gnarly. Oh, the onions are gorgeous. Turn them over in the vinegary caramel. Then leave the onions to cool while you cook your steak. We want that screaming hot.
Let's season up this meat with sea salt and pepper on both sides. Then put just a cheap filtered olive oil into the pan. I'm going to put in the lovely steak and I'm going to turn that every minute until it's cooked to my liking. I'll take just tiny little knobs of butter and they'll start to discolor and burn and go burn. It'll be really, really good. Once it's had that nice first minute, we'll have a little turn. Shake the oil and welcome it back. Beautiful. Perfect time for a little glass of IPA.
Fry the steak, turning throughout, for 3 minutes on each side. If you like it tender and medium, for a rare juicy steak, reduce the time a little. Just be careful not to overcook it because this particular cut of beef will toughen up. I think we're in a good place now. We've amplified the absolute maximum of flavor in that and that. And now we're going to put it in that. Get yourself a nice big plate and we'll turn off the heat. And there, all the sizzle. I'm just going to steal a little bit of that cooking fat there. Not too much, just a little bit. And what's going to happen now is incredibly important. The meat
is going to rest. All of those lovely juices are going to come out of here. And that is what we're going to dunk our bread in. Don't let any of that go. So, we'll just let that sit for a second. Chia, just warmed through in the oven, is the perfect bread for a great steak sandwich. That's why I chose the chia. Look how crispy it is, which is a good thing. And then here, it's just spongy and gorgeous and comforting. So, time to make this incredible Scooby snack. First up, let's get the amazing beef. Turn it around in that juice. And that's to protect it. As soon as any meat comes
out of the roast or off the grill, uh, it starts to dehydrate and it starts to dry up, then it goes tough. So, keep it loved with fattened juices. We go straight over to our chopping board. Now, if you notice the skirt, you know, the grain of the meat goes this way, running this way. So, I want to cut against that. That helps to tenderize it. And I'm going to cut the same thickness as the onions. Okay. So, now it's about a centimeter cuz they've all shrunk a little bit. Pour the resting juices onto your board so the chabata can soak up all that flavor evenly.
Then spread on some English mustard for a kick. Next up, our amazing onions. Just look at that. Very beautiful. Look at the way it just falls apart. So exciting. And this juice here. Give a little kiss of it to each little bit of onion. And then it's time to go on with our gorgeous steak. That wonderful cut of skirt. If you look into it, it's tender. You can see it's tender. Look. Just run a few across like this. This is proper. This is So, we're going to go in with some water crest. Now, this is an opportunity as well just to put a bit of thing through the story. Just a good handful of water crest with some lemon juice and a pinch
of salt and pile it up onto your sandwich. Be generous. That lovely, gorgeous, ironyy hit of lemony water crest. Pop the top on and you're done. One mighty treat. That's enough for four. That, my friends, is a steak sandwich. Honestly, burgers aren't just burgers anymore. There's a new level set. So, first up, let's talk about the meat. Now, uh this is chuck steak. Uh go to your butchers and ask him for chuck steak. It's got incredible flavor, an amazing mix of fat, isn't it? It's the classic meat for a classic burger. And notice no flavoring, no herbs, no seasoning.
We're treating it like a steak. Divide it into four. So that's 800 g here. That's 200 g patties. You want to make your patties just a bit bigger than the bun because you will get some shrinkage. And you want to press it enough just so it holds together, but you don't want to over press it where it becomes too dense. You want holes in there so when that fat kind of breaks down, it just flavors all that beautiful meat. There's my imperfect perfection right there. A little bit of jagged. So, kind of perfect is not perfect. Imperfect is perfect. But of course, it's not just
about the burger. You need all the extras. I'm making two pickles. One simply with a few crinkle cut gerkins and a little bit of chili. The chilies in there are kind of a nice bonus. Plus a second with finely sliced red onion, white wine vinegar, and a pinch of salt. Just let them marinade. Pickles are kind of important, aren't they? They are. You know, that sweetness, that saltiness, that tang. This is the taste of my summers in Iowa. My grandma used to do this with onions, that kind of vinegar, and cucumbers. What was your childhood then? Around a barbecue. It was around
a barbecue. My dad told me to barbecue from the age of eight. And we would just do this burgers and the onions and the vinegars and steaks and make his grandpa's secret sauce. Are you doing a secret sauce? Well, I'm going to do a bit of a J sauce. Okay. This is basically harkening back to days in the 80s when I was living in the pub. So, I've got two heaped tablespoons of mayo. One tablespoon of ketchup. Worcester sauce. Important. Just a little swig or two of that. There is a new discovery. Tabasco. Chipotle. Tabasco. Okay. The smoky kind of hot flavor,
man. Oh my god. I love this stuff. The Chipotle rocks. And then a little swig. A little tinkle of bourbon. Okay. Um, you could use brandy, but bourbon feels good. That was a tinkle of bourbon right there. Was that all right? That was a good amount, man. Sometimes it's nice to put a little lemon juice in there um to give it some tang. Sometimes you can steal a little bit of vinegar from over there, bro. Go on. Yeah. Um and just a tiny dribble of your onion vinegar. I like it. It's good. I'm going to hit it up with more tobacas. Yeah, I was going to say,
man, that's what it needs. One of the things that really we learned from American fast food, they'll have iceberg through that. I've been really anti- iceberg for a long time. Thanks for coming back. I've come back bit compost. You're welcome. Earth. When it kind of gets dressed in that, the crunch does go but not totally. It's kind of like half soft, half crunchy. And this for me is really the perfect base to kind of welcome the burger. I'm nicking this, dude. This is a really good You happy about this? out really good. Let's do it. Let's get grilling. Pat the burgers with oil. Then season with salt and pepper. And actually, two at a time is a nice number, I think, if you're going to really take care of it.
You can see already like the fat starting to cinder off, hit the coals, and that's sort of pelting smoke back up and kissing the meat. This is what barbecue's all about, whether it's charcoal or wood. Well, there's flavor in the fuel down there. There's flavor in the wood and the charcoal. So, there's all these layers of flavors, not just the meat and the seasoning, but the fuel. And you wouldn't get that from a fry pan. No. Or an oven or a grill. Or gas grill. Absolutely. Is that your enemy? Gas grill. Man, that's sacrilege. It's like why come outside? There's kind of an interesting procedure that
can give you an incredibly succulent, juicy burger. You go get the American style mustard and we go get a paintbrush, sear one side of the burger and then we turn it and then that seared side we brush and then we sear the mustard seared side and then we brush the other side. So we do two normal cooks and then two mustard cooks and that creates a pretty special burger. This is going to create a lovely sweet and kind of hum gorgeous mustard bark. So now we just got to wait, guys. That's cool, my friend. Can you possibly pass me uh the bacon? It ain't bacon unless it's smoked bacon.
For me, that's like the best sight in cooking when the fat's doing that and you just know you're caramelizing and creating flavor. Sometimes good things can't be rushed. You know, now I've got some cheese. So, I just want two nice slices. I'm using red leester. I dub the king of the grill. This British cheese has a lovely nutty flavor, but you can use any cheese you fancy as long as it's a good tasty melter. This is a really important stage now in the perfection of the burger. Now, just look around. We got burger. It's on its last stage. Okay. And Christian's spinning a bowl. Um and now Oh, it's like a We put the dome over. Yeah. Okay. So,
we're trapping smoke. Also, this is going to get hot. like I can't put my hand on it anymore. Okay, so that's turning into an oven and it's just going to let that cheese just kind of like melt. Just sad. But also, look, the bacon's looking very, very beautiful. So, I'm just going to pop this little dome off. It's already starting to do its magic there. See, it's starting to do its magic. And I'm just going to pop the bacon on top. Seriously, that is gorgeous. In that pan is amazing smoky bacon fat. You're not going there with the with rolls,
are you? I am. You are next level, bro. This is a bri bun. Nice soft spongy to sort of suck up all the juices that rest out of the burger. Look at it. Perfect. Dude, a tear trickles down the side of my cheek right now. That's how happy I am. Tears of joy. Now for that special moment, the build, the sauce, and the lettuce. That's the first welcoming to the party. The thing is, I want to put more, but you got to restrain yourself when it comes to the perfect equation of the perfect burger. So, just take it to the edge. It's the right balance, man. You want
everything to sing. You want all It's a band. That burger is a band. And you got to have the drummer. You got to have the guitar player. And that's the lead singer right there. Wow. The mustard bark, zingy crunchy pickles, tomato ketchup on that toasted brios dipped in bacon fat. It's all those little details that make this burger perfect. I like how the red leester is just properly just coated it. That little gap right there with the cheese coming through that little cavern of cheese just going. I think we have to just eat it now. Okay. Can I get you
prepared? Yeah. Prepare me for the ridiculousness that I'm going to feast upon. Okay. Arms up. Are you excited? Are you? I'm excited, dude. Me, too. Three, two, one. M. Oh, wow. It's so good. That is amazing. We're going to make the most incredible British burger. The most amazing homemade patty. Red leester burger sauce pimped up with pulled oxtail. A British burger like you've never seen before. We're going to start with oxtail. And before you run away and say, "No, no, no, no," you've got to stay with me on this because it's next level stuff. So,
I've got 1 kilo of oxtail here. You can get it in any butchers. So, some basic seasoning with salt and pepper. And then we're going to go into a pan and we're going to brown it off. So, you have the benefit of the bone and the marrow. And it gives you a kind of depth of flavor. That's amazing. Let's get it really dark and golden and gorgeous. I want this amazing ultimate British burger to represent Britain. Cue the music. That's enough. And I want it to have texture. So, patty, melted cheese, pulled meats. But when we put it together with the burger sauce, I want to be able,
wait for it, to dip it, in gravy. Filthy. I love it. So, that's going to make the pulled meat and the gravy. So, as that cooks, I'm going to add some onions and a really good shake of worshshire sauce. And then what I want to do, cuz remember we are doing a gravy, four tablespoons of flour. So, I'll take the oxtail out now and put it into a little casserole pan. Just caring enough to start getting color even on the flour. And it's all going to add to the richness of the gravy. Little seasoning and a liter and a half of vegetable, chicken stock, beeftock,
whatever you got to hand. So, let's just take that stock over the oxtail. And then I'm just going to cover it in a little grease proof paper. And then bring in the tin foil. Cover it nice and tight like that into the oven at 180° C, 350 fah. And just let that oxtail slow cook for 3 to 4 hours until the meat falls off the bone. And this is going to give you loads of time to get on with your weekend. Go do some stuff knowing full well that something very special is about to happen. So, when the time is up, have a look at that, guys. It smells so good. And you know what? It
reminds me of my dear old nanny Betty. She used to love cooking this. The meat just falls off the bone. It is so good. Here is the gravy. By the way, just skim off this fat and then push the gravy for a coarse sie. You don't have to do it, but I quite like a finer gravy, right? I think it's a bit more elegant. And then these chunky bits can go back into our pulled meat. Just put a fresh swig of woria sauce in there. And then you can take a herb like parsley just to give it a little bit of contrast. And that on our burger is going to be amazing. I'll pop that in the
oven and turn the oven off. Okay, just to keep it warm. So, let's make the burger sauce. Let's get our pickle. It will give you tang and crunch. Then lettuce is surprisingly sweet. And then tomatoes. Get an overripe one. And that'll have wonderful flavor. Season it with salt and pepper. And then just dress it in a little yogurt. Look at that. I love it. So, now it's patty time. I love the chuck steak. It has a natural mix of fat and muscle and flavor. Don't overthink it. Roll it up, squash it out. Happy days. Four fine little patties. I'm just going to season it. And then
we go into the pan. So, give it about a minute and a half and then turn it. Get some English mustard. And you want a little teaspoon on there. English mustard is quite hot, but actually when it cooks, it calms. And we're going to flip it again. So, it's going to have four turns. Minute and a half. Brush. Minute and a half. Right. And then just lay your red leester cheese over the top. And now, very importantly, find a little lid to put on top. The great thing about that bowl is it creates like a little bit of steam that just makes the cheese
ooze. Jiggle that bun around in some of that rendered fat and gorgeousness. A nice bun only requires a few little minutes. It's time to show you the ultimate burger. Let's get the oxtails out of the oven. Look at that. Oh my lord. We take the burger sauce. Two little spoons. Look at that. And that ooze is a thing of beauty. Incredible oxtail. Oh my lord. Behave. And then that little bun on top. But we ain't done yet because remember we made that gravy. And then you dip it. There's no polite way to eat this. It's going to be messy, but it's going to be one of the nicest things you eat. Pure indulgence.
Oh, you're going to love this recipe. This one is a cracker. This is haresa roast chicken with sweet potatoes, crispy chickpeas, tortillas, and a chili and yogurt dip. It's so good. It's a kind of feasting dish, and it's really affordable, guys, and such fun to make and eat. So, let's do it. The story begins with a little vinegar, but it's going to be propped up by a secret little ingredient, harissa paste. This is North African chili paste. It is not super hot. It's quite mild. It's got layer upon layer of flavor. So, we're going to use two teaspoons. And this is going
to literally reinvent your roast chicken. This is the base for three ingredients. So, we're keeping this recipe simple. First up, chickpeas. We'll go straight in to this tray. Sweet potatoes. We're going to treat them like a jacket potato, right? So, just throw them in whole. Easy, easy, easy. So, we're using a freerange chicken. You buy what you can afford, okay? But this chicken is going to go in this tray and we're going to rub it up and everything is going to be tossed in that beautiful harissa dressing. And look, let's just talk about healthy little swaps. Okay,
look. Potatoes delicious. Love them. Sweet potatoes, however, nutritionally much more robust and delicious. Get the chicken, put it breast side down. Some seasoning. Let's wash my hands properly. So, in the oven it goes for an hour and 20 minutes at 180°C. So, the chicken is in the oven. Just go and chill out literally for an hour and turn the chicken halfway through. The chickpeas will get crispy, the sweet potatoes will get soft, and as we sort of baste it and turn the chicken around, flavor galore. What I need to do now is a really beautiful but simple saw. So, I'm going to use carrots, red cabbage, apples. I'm going to dress this saw with a little
olive oil. And then I'm going to use some vinegar. This is red wine vinegar. You can use white wine vinegar. Get the apple and grate the whole thing. Core and all. So, the carrots, we're not even going to peel it. If you wanted to use up other vegetables in your fridge, so you're not wasting things. Go for it. With our red cabbage, I just need a quarter. For me, what I love about this is you take everyday humble, really affordable things and make things that are kind of frumpy, exciting. Look at that. Come on. Look at the colors to give it a nice mix up. Have a taste.
Oh my lord. the sweetness, the acidity, the tang, the crunch. I love it. If you wanted it to be a creamy saw, just add a little bit of yogurt. Really, really good. And so much healthier than mayonnaise. A brilliant, healthy swap. Now, I have an optional extra. I'm using a bit of mint cuz I just love it. It's nice in the saw. It'll be nice over the dish at the end. Beautiful. Right, let's get this chicken out of the oven. Oh, it smells incredible. Come on. Look at that. Absolutely delicious. It's juicy. So you can tell if the chicken's cooked, if the juices run clear.
This is cooked. We're going to let it rest. Now take this sweet potato and just bust it open like that. Look at the color. It's very hot. You might want to use a pair of tongs. Come on. Look at that. Hot and steamy. Just pour those juices and the chickpeas over the chicken. These are so tasty. Those little bits of extra mint if you've got them. Absolutely beautiful. Now we need the tortilla. I'm using a brilliant healthy swap. So this is the whole wheat tortillas. You're going to get more fiber than a regular white tortilla. Warm these up. 30 seconds. Last but not least,
if you take a little yogurt, it has this incredible cooling, refreshing effect. Take a tiny bit of that harissa and marble it. Beautiful tortillas. Load it up with nice amount of that saw. Shred the chicken. So, look at this guys. It's going to be delicious. Really nice sweet potatoes. Get those amazing chickpeas as well. Look at that. Flavors galore. So, look, this recipe will feed six people. Uh, but even if it's two or four of you, you got leftovers galore. You'll use all of this. Nothing will go to waste. That harissa yogurt, and it's a little
party in your mouth, I'm telling you. Absolutely delicious. So, come on. Let's have a little taste. It's messy. Don't care. That's what I love. It's so tasty. You got the light chili. You got that juicy chicken and those beautiful crispy little chickpeas with that fresh kick of the saw. So guys, honestly, it's messy. It's delicious. I think you're going to love it.
