- Be careful 'cause the cheese is hot, but also enjoy it.
Embrace the moment.
You are the cheese couscous infuser.
(graphic whooshes) (fanfare music)
(bubbles popping)
Hello everybody, it's Barry here.
Hope you are well, wherever you are in the world.
Welcome to our kitchen today.
We're doing another four, three, two, one video.
Basically, four free ingredients, or items,
which is generally the best thing
'cause you get so much flavour in there for free.
Free flavour.
To try one time in your life.
Part of an epic playlist, loads of inspiration,
budget recipes for you to try,
and most importantly, improve,
put your own personal spin on,
with these three items.
And we started adding saying water is an item for free,
salt and pepper, stuff like that.
Push it, push it real.
No, but no, just extra flavours round the house,
and I might even add butter today.
I might do that, actually, yeah.
Today, this is my high tech list.
We are doing a couscous.
We're doing a cheese and onion couscous cake.
Cool, right?
Classic dish here in the UK is called bangers and mash,
basically sausage and mashed potato.
We're gonna do chicken sausages with pesto,
but there are loads of variations.
I was in the supermarket last night going like that,
looking at my list,
and I was by the pesto aisle and,
I'll come onto it,
but I was like, wow!
Genuinely wasted a solid seven to eight minutes
just staring going, "Yeah, but I could do this,
I could do this, I can do this."
Hopefully, you guys do this, is it?
Yeah.
We've got a super easy trifle
which, again, in a supermarket, I was like,
"Oh, nah, let's just do this with it."
And you can do it any way you want.
And then a triple strawberry milkshake.
First things first, we need some prep for our couscous cake
and the mash.
(hand slaps)
Boston, first up, couscous.
This is by a chap called Ainsley Harriott.
This is his brand.
(couscous rattles)
Also doubles up as a musical instrument,
but most importantly,
this is flavoured, roasted vegetable couscous.
It's free flavour.
I feel like that should be my catchphrase
for the four, three, two, one playlist
as we boil the kettle to start to make the couscous.
That's all it is.
We just drench it in water.
Let it absorb it, all that stuff.
But if you've got the chance,
so rather than buy bland, normal couscous,
you can get a flavoured one, (packet slaps) do it.
320 mil of water.
(couscous rattles)
Oh, wow.
Tomato, onion, peppers, and garlic in there,
and we're doing a cheese and onion one.
I've got extra onions to add in there.
Oh, I've also got some cheese
that we're gonna add to this as well, eventually,
for the couscous cake,
and the other ingredient is onion.
Although, we've got a little bit in here already,
that cheese and the onion flavour combo should be awesome.
I very nearly did a cauliflower cheese one
because in the freezer isle in the supermarket
they sell cauliflower cheese ready to go,
which you can mix with this,
and then add in bacon as your third ingredient.
That'd be amazing.
Why didn't I do that?
(hand slaps)
Damn it, you do that.
Anyhow, that's been about a minute already
and this water is slowly getting absorbed.
We'll leave it for about five minutes
and I need to get some potatoes on for my mash.
(upbeat music)
(pan clunks)
This is a bit weird,
but I like to have my peel on my mashed potato.
Free texture.
And what we mix in with this,
this is what really killed me in the supermarket last night,
I should have only been there for five minutes,
I was there for a long time,
Mrs. B was getting worried,
but the potential to mix in with this is outstanding.
It doesn't matter,
we're just literally mashing potato,
and what I said about the butter earlier,
I think I like to put milk in with here,
I might put a little bit of butter, all right?
Just as a compromise.
(Barry whistles)
(fingers drumming)
Actually, no, we're gonna stay strong.
We're not gonna do the butter,
'cause there's oils in the ingredients we're adding in.
Anyhow, speaking of oil, I will use it for this.
Back to the couscous cake.
So, I was just pushing you to the mash dish,
and now I'm reeling you back into the couscous cake.
Sorry, this is getting confusing.
Frying pan.
This is where the whole cake's gonna come together.
We can bake it if we want, but we're gonna fry it.
(pan thumps)
A smidgen of oil,
and something we seem to have loads of in our house,
so cheap as well,
a bag of frozen chopped onions.
(pan clunks)
Yes, we get that nice and coated in the oil,
and I've moved the potatoes just over there, out of the way.
So, we're frying them up, getting them nice and charred.
I was in the freezer isle and they had like,
I think I've used them on the playlist before,
they had like the fajita mixes,
they had this like courgette summer vibey thing,
like aubergines.
I mean, yeah, basically,
you could put so much crazy, cool stuff in here,
but just the simplicity of the cheese and onion, lovin' it.
Oh, the other cool thing about this
is it's all chopped for you.
You don't have peel it and, obviously,
you don't get upset and emotional
over chopping such a lovely root vegetable.
So, our couscous is nice and done.
I don't like it that much, couscous.
I make a lot for Mrs. B.
Sometimes I do her lunch for her
and I do one with couscous pomegranate
and a little bit of mint in there.
She really likes it, so, yeah.
She always says that and throws it in the bin or something
and has a McDonald's.
Well, we've got our couscous.
We've got our onions frying as well.
And the third ingredient is gonna be cheese.
Now, I use this pepper jack cheese
that they're selling in the supermarket.
I'm basically taking advantage to use it,
'cause I don't think it's gonna be around there
in a couple of months.
And we had it the other day for that Bob's burgers recipe
and it was so good.
Plus, free flavour.
But it is laced with pepper
and that is what is gonna glue and grip
our onions and couscous
to hold it when we fry it into the cake, okay?
Here's the cheese.
Now, these were in slices,
so it's a little bit fiddly for me.
I've just broken it up.
I'm gonna pour it in with the onions to melt it.
Now, if you've got it in a block, just grate it,
it'll be much easier.
But I'm gonna use the heat in the pan here
to melt that cheese, cling it to the onions,
and bung it all in with the couscous.
That melted, peppery cheese
has clung to those charred onions
and we're just gonna pour it straight in
with our roasted vegetable couscous.
Oh my goodness.
(pan clatters)
Be careful, 'cause the cheese is hot, but also enjoy it.
Embrace the moment.
You are the cheese couscous infuser.
Yeah, I am really happy with that.
Can you see these little strands?
You see that, those threads?
Hopefully, the camera's picking it up.
Oh my goodness.
That is it actually done.
Well, not completely done,
although Mrs. B would probably love that.
We're gonna cook it in the pan,
and if I cook it in the pan now,
although it is nice to have it cold,
it's gonna be so cold by the time I do the other recipes,
I'll do it right at the end.
We're just gonna fry it.
So, I'll use my pan for the sausages.
Boston really likes cheese, there you go.
Chicken sausages.
I have never ever ever had a chicken sausage
in my life before,
but I did say I was gonna pan fry them
and it's, effectively, bangers and mash.
And the phrase bangers for sausages, here in the UK,
apparently, came from the sound that sausages make
when you fry them.
So, whether those chicken sausages are gonna bang
I dunno, but we're gonna get them covered in the oil
and they should taste blooming good.
But whilst they're cooking away,
we can do our two other recipes,
like pretty darn quick.
Dessert is gonna be mini Jaffa Cake trifle.
This is completely legitimate.
I went in there and I saw Paddington bear
on a tub of marmalade.
I was like, "I really wanna use it."
There's a guy on Twitter
who's like Photoshopping Paddington bear into movies
like every day or something.
So, I thought, yes, marmalade.
And this is the marmalade
with the actual pieces of orange in it,
the shred stuff, free texture.
So, we've got Jaffa Cakes as well
and we've got a tub of good quality creme fresh,
which is, apparently, just like double cream.
I didn't realise this.
I wondered why I liked it, but apparently creme fresh,
I need to read this so I get it right,
creme fresh has a lesser fat content
than double cream, around 50% less,
but it's cream that's had culture added.
We should all try and add culture to our lives,
make it a slightly more soury flavour and 40% fat.
That might contra the Jaffa-ness quite well.
And if you don't know what a Jaffa Cake is,
basically, it's a sponge biscuit.
There was this huge tax debate,
it's quite funny if you Google it.
There's an orange marmalade thing on top
with a chocolate layer.
They're extremely addictive
and my friend actually once told me,
I don't know if this is a myth,
that Manchester United Football Club
put Jaffa Cakes in their changing rooms at half time.
And this was like, I don't know, five years ago,
so it's probably changed since then.
But anyhow, we're going for
sort of that classic trifle thing.
So, a little bit of spongy base,
because a trifle has sponge base fingers.
Now, you could go really crazy with this.
Oh yes, and like blend it together,
but I'm just gonna have a little bit of this
and a little bit of that.
I might not need all of this,
but I'm just gonna stack that up anyway.
Big old pile of that on there.
A courtesy topping of the marmalade.
Oh, tang, a little bit of tang from the creme fresh,
but the creaminess and that sweet, spongy,
marmalade, chocolate Jaffa-ness.
I've never really tried to crumble a Jaffa Cake.
Oh, yes you can, that's cool.
I just wanted to do it behind there, just to see.
Look at that.
Oh, my gosh.
Crumbled Jaffa Cake on top.
It's getting a little bit sticky,
not gonna lie, 'cause I'm melting the chocolate
with the heat of my hands,
but just to give it another variation.
That is a Jaffa Cake trifle made in minutes.
Right, I'll keep that in the fridge.
Let's make our drink.
Just to say, amongst all that madness,
the sausages are cooking well, they've browned,
so I'm just keeping them rotating.
And my potatoes are done,
so I'm just gonna keeping that warm water before we mash.
For a drink, we are doing a triple strawberry milkshake.
This was gonna actually be triple banana,
walked into the supermarket,
first thing they had was strawberries on offer.
I like the simple things in life.
If you literally just give me
a bowl of strawberries and cream,
I can be extremely content.
I don't need anything else.
Don't need Netflix.
I don't watch much TV anyway,
but I could quite easily go up to a hill,
take Boston with me, sit there,
and we'll both munch on strawberries and cream.
Is that good, Boston?
Do you like sound?
(Barry laughs)
He's licking his lips.
This is quite cool
because we are making strawberry milkshake,
but what's making it the triple strawberry
is that we are putting some strawberry milk in there.
We're gonna add in about 100 mil of strawberry yoghourt, okay?
And that has pieces in it.
(ice crashes) (hammer thumps)
Woo, ah, I just stood on an ice cube I dropped on the floor.
Right, I don't need that one.
Woo, that's some crushed ice cubes that (laughs)
they were gonna be whole ones,
but we completely blasted them.
Fresh strawberries, strawberry milk, strawberry yoghourt,
triple strawberry milkshake.
Yeah, huh, hey. (whistles)
Huh, just remembered I had something
really, really important to tell you.
Basically-
(blender whirs) (Barry talks indistinctly)
Couldn't believe, it was amazing.
Don't tell anyone that, it's top secret.
It'll change your life.
Oh my goodness, that is amazing.
Right, I'm gonna keep that in the fridge.
I've been checking on the sausages.
I think they're done.
Check that out, amazing.
Lovin' the colour on there.
So, I'm just gonna rest them
on some kitchen towel.
But yeah, hang about,
I can use that residual oil.
(Barry quacks)
Huh, for this.
Oh, please come out, come on.
Oh my goodness.
You look like a bike helmet.
So, all I'm gonna do is press down the couscous.
There we go, like that.
Ah, awesome.
(pan clangs)
Back on the heat to char its bottom.
Right, let's mash the potato.
All right, so, I'm putting into a huge mixing bowl.
It doesn't have to be,
but it's just gonna be more fun mashing it in there.
You can get a bit more crazy with it.
And I'm just gonna add
a smidgen of the water it was boiled in, not much.
I am gonna give it a little bit of pepper
(pepper grinds)
and a shimmy of salt.
I've just come up with this.
This might not work, but you know what,
salt bay and a shimmy bay.
(Barry laughs)
What?
I wanted to season it anyway
but I'm mostly kind of upset
that I didn't get to add milk or butter
but I like keeping the skin on.
It makes it a little bit more coarsey,
a bit more texture.
Free texture.
(upbeat music)
So, why the heck not?
And this is a classic British staple,
bangers and mash, folks.
So, it would normally be beef or pork sausage
with mashed potato.
My mum would normally have peas with it
and I'd just lace it in ketchup.
I'll tell you what,
on a Saturday afternoon,
before watching Gladiators and Blind Date,
that was pretty much the dream.
This was the reason I was in the supermarket for so long.
I was stood looking.
This is pesto that's gonna go in, which we've stuck with.
This is a reduced fat one,
but obviously it's got oils in there,
so we don't really need the butter.
It's got the basil, it's got the flavour,
and also the colour contrast.
I like the idea of that with the chicken and the mash,
so that's what I went for.
But next to your green pesto, you've got red pesto.
There was like a chilli pesto, there was a yellow pesto,
and then next to that, there was like a whole range.
You know how you can get those like pasta stir-in sauces?
You could add that in with that.
And I was like, "Oh, this is so good."
But what I wanted to do
was just show you the simplicity of it
and then you can go in the supermarket and go,
"Oh yeah, there was like a marscarpone one,
sun dried tomato."
But like pasta sauces
that you'd normally stir in with that
in with your mash would be amazing.
(lid clicks)
♪ Ba, ba, de, ba, de, ba, ba ♪
Every single time.
Right, I'm not gonna add too much in at first.
I wanna see what this does.
It is gonna look a little Shreky, I'm not gonna lie.
Isn't that light, princess?
But I do feel like the potato
will absorb quite a lot of that flavour,
so I'm gonna, yeah, another tablespoon,
and I think that will do it.
And, of course, we could have actually fried the sausages
with a bit of pesto on as well.
So, it's all going rather swimmingly.
No pressure, mate,
but I'm gonna shove you under the grill now.
All right, in it goes, and my grill is notoriously hot.
So, what I'm saying, is this might actually take 10 seconds.
I've gotta really, really keep my eye on that.
Other than that, I've just plated up my mash,
which really, really does look like...
Well, it looks like a big pile of moss, doesn't it?
(Barry laughs)
But it's basil-infused mashed potato.
Gonna just stick some sausages in it quite roughly
'cause that's how you do it.
This was the way it was always served to me by my mum
and I'm gonna stick to it.
I don't know if it was to try and encourage me,
make it more kid friendly.
It certainly looks quirky, doesn't it?
(Barry laughs)
I promise you, this should taste, I promise.
I don't know yet.
I've never have a chicken sausage.
Hmm, that actually tastes good.
That looks blooming weird, doesn't it?
Oh my gosh.
Maybe, does that make it better
if I turn it round slightly?
(Barry laughs)
Well, surprisingly, this has taken about five minutes
and we're getting a nice brown top on there now.
I'm gonna take it out before it gets burnt.
It's very, very close to that.
Oh my gosh, yes.
You see, ho, ho, ho, look at that.
(pan clatters)
Ha, but seriously, that grill is so angry.
A fraction longer and it-
(smoke alarm beeps)
I was about to say,
"And it would've sent my smoke alarm off."
There you are, let's let it all calm down.
Well, here we go then, folks.
We have got our four recipes here.
Nice, quick, and simple.
That looks hideous,
I'm really intrigued by that,
that's gonna be amazing,
and I've got a feeling
this is gonna be super refreshing too.
That is an extremely budget-friendly four recipes.
Let's try them out.
Let's try the couscous cake first.
Ah, it's still soft in the middle
but got that charred top and bottom.
Mm, mm, oh my word.
I don't know why, but it's giving me like bubble tea vibes
because the couscous
is still sort of rounded and grainy in there,
but softened, so it's really, really nice,
but it's just like you're expecting it
to be all sort of compact together, but it's not.
All of the couscous has like held its shape
and not got compressed.
Mm, and it is that cheese fusing it together.
It's not too greasy, not too oily,
and the onion packs a punch.
That is blooming gorgeous.
If I wasn't filming a video right now,
and I was actually sat eating this,
I might have a little bit of like hot sauce on the side
just to dunk with it,
but it doesn't necessarily need it.
And there are so many ways, like we discussed, to take this.
So, I really think you should try it.
So, let's try this.
It's gonna look a lot worse than actually is.
I'm gonna try the mash on its own.
Mm, oh wow, that's great.
Oh, hoo, hoo, hoo.
It's a subtle flavour in there.
It's not too overpowering.
I'd probably taste the mash as you are adding the pesto in,
or whatever else you're adding in,
because, right now, this is at that point
where my kids and Mrs. B would probably like it.
It's quite subtle, but I think I'd probably want the flavour
a teeny bit more intensive
and it does look like some sort of Halloween dish.
Ah, oh, well that's good.
That's really good, folks.
My mum never used to make mashed potato with the peel on,
but, for me, it's like that nostalgia ramped up
with a little bit of cheeky peel on there and the pesto,
the nutty flavour, the basil running through it,
and it's not missing the milk or the butter,
in that it's enough flavour from the pesto in there.
I feel like I should have made this for Halloween though.
(Barry laughs)
Gonna cleanse the palette with my,
this has been in the fridge, nice and cool,
triple strawberry milkshake.
Mm, oh, wow.
That's like a blast of freshness.
It was like eating that nature's cereal again
from the last TikTok video.
You've got the smoothness of the milk in there,
then you've got like this slight sharpness of the yoghourt,
and then the actual pieces of real strawberry
that we whizzed up has given it a slight seedy,
there's a delicate sharpness to it,
but a sweet creaminess with it.
We've just turned that strawberry milk up to 11.
And of course you can play around with the combo.
So, if you want it a little bit more tangy
add some more yoghourt,
or slightly more creamy add more milk, more strawberry,
ratio it up, but amazing.
I don't think I'm gonna hate this.
So, we've got the marmalade,
we've got the creme fresh and Jaffa Cake there.
Let's try and get a good old dollop of everything like that,
altogether.
Mm, you're not getting any sort of sour or bitterness
from the creme fresh at all, actually.
I think the sweetness from the marmalade is overriding that
and there's like a delicate, chocolate, spongy tang
from the Jaffa Cake.
Mm, it's like, you're driving your taste buds in a car
through a tunnel and it's sort of like hitting this wall.
I dunno where this is going
but, basically, all along the taste journey
of the orange and the creamy tang,
it's like little waves of chocolate pieces,
from where we crumbled the Jaffa Cake,
and that's just keeping it all together.
I don't know what of that even makes sense.
I'm so sorry.
That's phenomenal.
Now, I love this playlist so much
and this is just one of them.
I think we've done like quite a lot of them.
There's a playlist, so do check it out
for some more ideas and stuff.
I've got loads more to come.
I might tweak it to add a few more ingredients
here or there.
And I'll be completely honest,
if there was one that I wanted to improve,
and I could eat all of these,
of course, they can all have improvements,
but that's where you come in.
So, if you try any of these,
or any of the adaptions I suggested,
do send me a photo on social media.
Remember to subscribe if you're not already
and make sure if you are, your notifications are turned on.
Well, that is like an absolute blast of refreshment,
like, oh, (hisses)
like judgement day from "Terminator 2" in a good way.
Cheers for watching, folks.
I'll get all these recipes typed up now.
Check them out on my website and I'll see you very soon.
Bye, bye.
♪ That's cooking, it's nice ♪
♪ That's cooking, it's nice, nice, nice, nice ♪
- Free flavour.