How to cook perfect stuffed vegetables with Marco Pierre White | Meet your Maestro | BBC Maestro

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Marco Pierre White shows how simple vegetarian dishes can be full of flavour and finesse. In this video, he prepares three classics from start to finish: stuffed peppers, stuffed mushrooms and stuffed tomatoes, all cooked with Michelin-level attention to detail.

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Bell red peppers. They’re amazing. To eat them hot or to eat them cold, they’re sensational, powerful in flavor, vibrant in color. Today, we’re going to stuff the Romano red peppers with the bell red peppers. And we can serve them cold or we can serve them hot. Both delicious. Right. The first thing we have to do is to punch our peppers because what we do is we deep fry them. My dear mother, when she used to cook red peppers, she used to burn them on the flame to blister them. The problem with that is it makes them black. It does the job in the sense of removing the skins, but this is a more sophisticated way of doing it, more consistent. In they go [Music] The bell pepper is being fried in oil, which is a 50/50 split. 50% sunflower, 50% olive oil. It’s that simple. As you can see, they’re starting to blister now. So, the first stage of the cooking is in the frying. The second stage is the steaming in the bowl wrapped in cling film. Why? To release the skin and to continue the cooking. If you just roasted them, yes, you get the skins off, but the peppers will be so overcooked. Okay, they’re ready. Into the bowl. So the next stage of cooking is to steam them. [Music] So that finishes off the cooking, releases their skins. Just rest them somewhere warm for about 20 minutes, 30 minutes, and then they’ll be ready to be skinned. Okay, the Romano peppers. Just open them a little bit. Just open them. and take out their seeds. And again, they’re skinned exactly the same way as the bell red peppers. There we are. And again, like the bell red peppers, make the incision so they don’t burst. And take there’s not many seeds in them. There we go. And there’s our Romano peppers ready to be stuffed. The bell red peppers, they’re ready to be peeled. Now the ramanos are ready to be stuffed. So let’s make the pipper. So we take an onion. Doesn’t have to be perfect. It’s quite a rustic dishes. We like a bit of texture. But when you make a classic pipad, you slice it. You don’t chop it. Okay. Take the big knife. Okay. They’re loyal, garlic. Again, your palette dictates Okay, little garlic. So, we sweat down our onions and garlic. Why? To remove the water content. By removing the water content, we remove the acidity, which allows the natural sweetness of the onions and the garlic to be released. Just spread them across the pan evenly. Little bay leaf. Little thyme. [Music] You want to smell puree. [Music] A little paprika. Work that through. Now we add our tomato conc which is just tomatoes which have been peeled [Music] and diced. What we’re making is our base sauce. Little salt and allow that to break down so the tomatoes will release their water. So now the bell red peppers which we deep fried, we put in the bowl, covered with cling film, are ready to be peeled. We’ll just leave that on the side to simmer slowly. [Music] There we are. So there we are. into quarters again. Turn them upside down. Nose to head. There we go. Take out the inner veins. and the seeds. There we go. So, there you have it. The red peppers, they were deep fried into the bowl, wrapped in cling film, and then steamed. Left for about 30 minutes. But then you see firstly they’re cooked to perfection and secondly how easy the skins are removed. No complication whatsoever. That wonderful scent of the paprika, the onions, the garlic, the thyme, the bay leaf, the tomatoes, the olive oil is all just melting into one which is amazing. Okay, let’s do the red peppers. For a classic piperat, you can just do them like so. But since we’re stuffing Romano peppers, we’re going to brace it. It’s always good to do jobs while the sauce is making rather than make them and then do the sauce. Get the sauce on and then do certain other jobs. Saves time. Okay, let’s run the spatula through. And you can see the water content is minimal. It’s 60 seconds away. You can see it’s just seeping out that little bit of water. So, we’re almost there. So, we’ll do now is take that off. Red peppers. into the bowl. There we have it. Okay, there’s our diced pepper. Now, let’s add some of our base to the pepper. There we are. You have to question why you cook and why we do things. It’s not just about throwing things in a pan and hoping for the best. Everything has got to be in stages. And by doing everything in stages, doing all those little jobs well, what you do is create those layers of flavor. And when you finished, you have that intensity. And that’s what cooking is all about. Intensity of flavor. making food taste of what it’s meant to taste of. So, bind the peppers with your base sauce. See? Okay. [Applause] [Applause] those little sprigs of time. Remove There we are. So there. Let’s take a pepper. So into that little incision. In we go. There we are. And reshape. Reshape it. There we have it. Just massage it into shape. So there we have it, right? [Music] Just dribble with a little oil, [Music] a little crystal salt. Times better. And then finish with some uh basil, coriander, parsley, whichever you have or a mixture of all. And there we have it. Romano peppers stuffed with a classic pupad from the southwest of France. A delicious light lunch with a beautiful green salad with fresh herbs. sensational. Let me take you back to the 70s when I was a boy at the Hotel St. George in Harriut. I used to stuff mushrooms. Very simple. Years later, we used to do a more sophisticated version with porchini and with the Maximus Dell and the herb breadcrumbs. But either way, they’re both delicious. So it’s very simple. So you take your chestnut mushrooms which we’ve got today. You just peel them. There we are. And then we used to dry the skins and the stalks. We used to use them to set the madera sauce at the hotel St. George. Nothing was wasted. You see just peel peel peel and take out the st. So we slice the st very finely on a tray with all the skins up above the stove and dry them. And then when we made the madera sauce, the sauce chef would sprinkle them in towards the end of cooking. So, the first thing we do in the pan, we fry the mushrooms one to release the water content. And by releasing the water content, what we do is we intensify the flavor of the mushroom. Little bit of seasoning. Always season hard. Season everything to the max. If you don’t season to the max, then you’ve undersseasoned. Taste, taste, taste, season, season, season. When you season dishes, season each and individual component. That’s the only way you’ll ever discover perfection. Okay. Wonderful as a garnish, but also wonderful as a main course or as a starter. Stuffed mushrooms are just delicious. And when we’ve done this, then we’ll make the ducel, which is a recipe for beef Wellington, or as the French would say, alas bis. It is the most sensational dousel you’ve ever tasted. So hot. And again season this sides. T a little bit of minion pepper. Allow the pallet to dictate. The recipe is a guideline. There’s that little bit of resistance which means they’re not quite cooked. Once they’re cooked, we’ll rest them. And what you will see they release water like resting a steak. It releases juices. I’ve been in the kitchen now for almost five decades. And I’ve seen that journey from the world of classicism to new bell cuisine to individual cuisine to something called molecular small portions. But the place I take today apart from the eating and the obvious is the teaching. It’s about imparting your knowledge, about sharing your knowledge. It’s like the relay you pass on the bat. You have to let go in life. Okay. So, we’ll now allow our mushrooms to rest and release the rest of their water. [Music] There we go. Now the filling. We take the mushrooms in the food processor. Turn them into a pury and then we put these into the pan. So this is going to be our filling. Once again, we cook the mushrooms down so they become dry. Remove all the water content and by doing that we intensify the flavor of the mushrooms. You’ve heard me speak about patience and you have to be patient with certain jobs. Whether you’re removing that burnt skin off of the oagene, whether you’re making a doell, you have to mother her. You can’t turn your back on her. If you do, don’t be surprised if you burn her. See what you will notice now. It’s almost silent. It’s almost silent. We’re almost there. So, the next stage of the cooking is to add the madera and the port. There we are. Two alcohols which complement mushrooms beautifully. But let’s not forget that’s optional. And work that through. And then once again, we reduce down rapidly to intensify the flavor. And then we’ll move into stage three of the ducel. Now what we add is butter. You know my thoughts on butter. Makes everything taste better. There we are. And a little seasoning. and work that in. And the truth is if you make it today and then use it tomorrow, the intensity is way greater because it’s matured. So when possible in a perfect world, make it a day in advance. You may ask why butter? Butter makes it deliciously rich. But let’s not forget that beautiful contradiction. Butter also makes it light, not dense, just softens it. So always look for the balance when you cook. So, the mushrooms have been rested. There we are. You can see the juice that they release. There we are. Take off the excess water. Okay. Now, let’s take our two cell. I’m a great believer in being generous, but let’s not forget I’m a feeder. I don’t like small portions. One, they don’t retain heat. And secondly, by not being able to retain heat, there’s no scent. When I walk into a restaurant, I want to smell food. Glorious food. I don’t want a pretty picture. As I’ve always said, generosity should be your presentation. There we are. See, my favorite pastime is feeding people. And I enjoy feeding people more than I do cooking. But I have to do the cooking to be able to feed them. And there’s something rather beautiful when you have the confidence to be generous. When you think I go to restaurants, I look at some of those little knickknacks on a plate with those little canopies. There’s no generosity of spirit. See, if you can’t be generous in what you create, how can you be generous with flavor? As my first boss said to me, Mr. read at the famous box tree. He said it doesn’t matter how much it costs to create the desired effect as long as you create the desired effect. And he wasn’t just talking about money. He was speaking about effort, time, giving yourself. And that’s why that little restaurant in the north of England nearly 50 years ago won two stars emission when Britain was a gastronomic desert. There were only four two stars in Britain, no three stars and less than 10 one stars because they were generous. They gave themselves in every sense. They made that personal sacrifice. They made that struggle and by struggling they appreciated everything they created. Okay. So, we take breadcrumbs, one clove of garlic, grated, very finely chopped parsley into the breadrumbs into the food processor. to create this. And then one more pill thing. [Music] Now what we do is sprinkle on. So there’s our mushrooms filled with the maxims to cell with a herb crust. And all we have to do now is bake them. [Music] So, we bake in a hot oven at about 180 for 15 to 20 minutes, depending on your oven. And then we serve immediately be. [Music] And there we have it, the baked mushrooms. Just to finish with some fresh herbs. Just be generous. Baked mushrooms with a parsley crust. Ratui alanis. It’s one of those great French vegetable dishes from the south of France. It’s delicious. I first learned how to make ratatouille at the Hotel St. George in 1978. But what they taught me was not how to make it because in those days it was washy. It was slop, overcooked, not very nice. We served it cold. We served it hot. The way I’m going to make it is a very simple and pretty straightforward way. tomato sauce, corettes, oberines, and red peppers. No need for onions and garlic because they’re in my tomato sauce. So, the first thing we’re going to do is take a tomato. And what you want is very ripe tomatoes. We take our tomato and what we do tip of the knife into the center of the tomato and lift slowly remove the contents. Cuz once we’ve made our ratatouille, we’re going to stuff these tomatoes and then bake them. So now Take a teaspoon. Just take your time. Just take out the contents. Again, work from the outside in so not to damage the shell. And again, it’s worth the investment of time. Just be patient. There’s no rush. And when I was a young man, I may not have been the fastest, but I used to compensate by putting in the extra hours to make sure I was ready and to make sure that everything I did was correct. And take the top. So there’s the first stage of the tomato preparation. Today we’re going to stuff it with ratatouille, but years ago we used to stuff it with a brazed oxtail cooked in that niswah style. And that used to just sit on the plate. So it was a surprise when you cut into it with the brazing juices. Okay, now let’s do our oagene. So again straighten that. So then let’s dice. In that three star world, we’d remove the seeds, but at home I keep them in. Okay, there’s our oene. So, now we take it to the fryer. [Music] And fry them at 160. You may question why a deep fat fryer. In a perfect world, I’d recommend everyone to use it. Why? Because when you fry them in a pan, they become greasy. Inside a fryer, they’re not. And that’s why the Cantonese, which is one of the great cuisines of the world, deep fry lots of their food. The truth is, if I had to make a recommendation for any household in the world, I’d say get a little portable deep fryer. They’re inexpensive, they’re safe, and they do the job. We drain them. And then what we do, a little seasoning. Now, the same with the corettes in a restaurant, you only use the flesh and not the seeds. But at home, that’s what I do. So I take my three star knowledge, knowledge from that world, I adapt it to cooking at home. Again, not too small. You make it too small, you have a loss of texture, right? So there’s our cold chips. Right. So, [Music] so the corettes in with our corettes. [Music] Again, we fry at 160. Very gentle. You may ask what oil do I cook them in? When I’m cooking chips, the truth is I like to cook them in dripping. But when I’m cooking corettes, oans, red peppers, I tend to do a split of olive oil and sunflower oil 50/50. Just give them a little stir with your spoon so they cook evenly. And as you can see now, it’s not so aggressive. Why? Because the water content is evaporating. So when I first submerged it slowly, you saw that’s the water content. But as the water content evaporates, you see how it gently becomes a little bit of salt and just drain them. Okay. Into the pan. There we have it. So now the red peppers once again have been deep fried. What you do is you get your red pepper and you punch it in the ribs so it doesn’t explode. Deep fried. Turn it. Turn it. It starts to bliss on all sides. Into the bowl. wrapping cling film and leave to steam. So then the skins remove. No need to peel them. As you can see, it’s all blistered. So what we’ll do now, we’ll just cut it into quarters and just peel them out. Sometimes you can do them on a flame like you do baba ganoush, but it tends to make them black, which is unattractive. There we are. Take off that skin. There we are. Can you see from the tip to the head? So you go with the grain. Remove the seeds from the inside to get that nice smooth finish. Okay. So now with our red peppers, not too fine, not too coarse. As I’ve always said, perfection is lots of little things done well. Corettes, oagene, red peppers. Just have the patience to do everything well. As I say, at home, I don’t make everything so fine and so precise. It’s not necessary. In restaurants, it’s expected. But at home, when I’m cooking for the family, it’s got that farmhouse feel about it, that rustic feel. Like today, we’re making ratatouille from the south of France. It’s delicious. Whether one piece is so large and the next one is so small, who cares? You won’t even notice. But anyway, red peppers. Season on the peppers. Pepper. Now what we do, get our tomato sauce. It’s always good to have tomato sauce at home. Make a batch and freeze it in quantities. Think we do. We just find it. So you bind with the tomato sauce. Now when I taste it, I can taste everything individually. I can taste the corettes, the red peppers, the oagene, and then the tomato sauce, which brings it all together. Now, let’s stuff our tomatoes. Bit of juice. Take out the last of the juice, which is bled. Now, now in with the ratatouille. place that exactly where it was. So it represents tomato. There we are. Again, as you can see, that little bit of water bleeds. Tip that out. and fill with your tomato. If you season your tomato with salt, it extracts more water. So, don’t do it. It’s not necessary. You can always add salt at the end of cooking. Splash with a little olive oil. And now we bake them in the oven approx 20 minutes at 160 180. [Music] And there we have it. Our tomatoes baked and stuffed with ratatouille and just finished with a little crystal salt.