It's Steven Mangan. How are you?
Come in. Come in
It's a bit windy mate
It's a bit rough. Don't go out there. It's cosy in here
I had really short hair when I left the end of the pier
Can I get you a cup of tea?
A wine, a beer. A beer would be really good
Have you ever been to Southend before?
I haven't. No. First time. First time in Southend
Thank you for being here. I hope you've got an appetite
I've got a very big appetite. Food today
I've got to say,
one of the things that really sticks in my mind with you was Green wing
I mean, that was a total game changer
We filmed in a real hospital. I mean they didn't shut the hospital down or anything
We were out amongst the public
We were allowed to get involved in the writing
We were helped to create our characters. Really. We'd shoot a bit
and then we go and write and improvise and work and then come back to shoot more
The improv element, did you gain all that experience from theater?
Yeah, it's one of the joys of doing it cause you're doing the same show again
and again...
If there wasn't things happening with the audience,
that were different each night it would be unbearable
We did Jeeves and Wooster in the West End a few years ago,
and at one point I throw a hat to someone in the second row
and you know, it's a surprise. They don't know is coming
And on the second day I threw the hat down
and I didn't know the guy was holding a massive tumbler of red wine which he threw
all over the woman who sat next to him in a white felt beret
Oh, no... And a white shirt. Did you
say sorry. What do you do? No, I never saw her again
Do you want to take this opportunity to say sorry?
I'm really sorry. Yeah
And the other big, massive bit Episodes
Yeah. The idea you've come up with is a successful British sitcom
and you'll take it to the stage
We filmed it all in London. So not filmed any of it in states at all? No.
So Max Malibu beach house was in Mill Hill in North London
Las Vegas was Camden Town. No way
The mansion we lived in with all the palm trees was in Surrey
Which is a shame really
Because I was looking forward to going to L.A. Yeah, yeah
And for you, what bit came first?
The writing side, the comedy or the acting side?
Well, the acting stuff, really
I mean, I always wanted to be an actor
Just was never something that was even on the cards
My dad was a builder, my mum as a barmaid
It wasn't something that anyone in our family had done
and you might as well want to be pope or an astronaut or something
And do you ever employ your skills at home when it comes to bedtime stories?
I mean, I recorded a lot of audio books, the fairy stories
and I had a cardboard cutouts from a job I did a few years ago
On occasion, I put the cardboard cutout in the kid's bedroom, press play
on an audio book
and then back out the room slowly. So Frank, my middle one until is about six
So every story started with read by Stephen Mangan
I love that but wouldn't every dad love a cardboard cut of themselves
just to press a tape and back out. Do you ever cook with them?
I don't cook a lot. I'll throw fish fingers in the oven. Yeah,
I'll make pancakes on the weekend morning
Right
I can't claim I'm a hero of the kitchen. Well, I'll tell you what.
Are you hungry? Very
Because I've got something you can definitely make with your kids...
Homemade ravioli
You're going to love this one. Guys, you hungry?
Yeah. Let's get cooking
To get you lot all feasting this weekend
I'm cooking up the perfect treat
Time to do something incredible that you're going to love
Something a bit special
We're going to make homemade ravioli
with smashed potato, sweet onions, radicchio, fontina, cheese, and parmesan
Little edible parcels that people are going to go mad for
So it all starts with the filling
And this filling is a different one, right. It's actually a potato filling
Take 2 potatoes. Give them a little stab up with a fork
And then we're going to throw them straight into the oven
at about 200 degrees Celsius for about an hour
And then the rest of the filling is super, super simple
Take a red onion, cut those into quarters with some radicchio
Here is an Italian salad leaf
It's bitter and crunchy
I want to season this with salt, pepper, nice
extra virgin olive oil and a generous drizzle of both some vinegar
I've got some lovely thyme here
And that's going to be amazing
Get some greaseproof paper, tuck that up into bed
So let that roast away
for about 40 minutes to an hour and then both of them will be raring to go
But of course, to wrap that filling we need the pasta
So in a bowl. Add 400 grams of pasta flour and then in there about 70 grams of semolina
And then we're going to use 12 egg yolks
So what we get is pasta that is silky
I mean look, the point of making your own pasta
is to do something exceptional, something extraordinary
So the last one goes in. Happy days
Add a little bit of water. You can add just a little bit of oil
and then we'll use a fork to start off with
You want it tacky but not sticky,
you want it pliable and malleable, but you know, not hard
If it's too hard, add some water
If it's too wet and sticky, add some flour
Easy
Now that we've got a nice little texture in this bowl, let's knead it
So put your weight into it
Push it away
Bring it back. There's no real right or wrong way to do it
Once you've done that for about 5 minutes, what you'll have
is an amazingly silky elastic dough
And if you touch it,
you can see it bouncing back
So what we need to do is now let it relax
So cover it in a damp cloth or a little bit of clingfilm.
So wrap it up like that
That'll be ready in about half an hour
40 minutes, and then we can make ravioli
once cooked, take the fillings out of the oven, finely
chop the radicchio and onion and scoop out the potato from their skins
And then cheese is going to be what kind of makes this sort of holy trinity of flavours
So I'm using Parmesan, I'm also using Fontina
But the nice thing about this is you can use any cheese
you can get your hands on as long as it melts nicely and it tastes delicious
Mix it all together and season to perfection
Take chunks about this big.
Just roll them into little bowls
And of course, the size of your ball will control the size of your ravioli
So now for the exciting bit is very, very simple
I'll use the pasta machine and I think that is much, much easier and more consistent
So for the first couple of gos, go into the widest setting,
roll it through, fold it in half
and lightly flour it
and then each time we run it through, we'll go down a notch
So every time you take it down a notch,
you're making the pasta shape thinner and thinner
There is a lovely sheet of pasta
All right, let's lay it out and just put a little bit of water in there
Take our filling and just lay it about
2 centimeters away from the edge
And then once we've done that, just flop it over like this and it's quite malleable
Use your fingers, not your fingernails. You don't want to cut through the pasta
Use the little curve of your finger to just, you know, slowly
hug around that ravioli and go from one side to the other
And then we use our cutter
or our knife to just clean up the edge all the way along the length
in between the gaps.
And here is your homemade ravioli
That, my friends, is a thing of beauty
We're going to put this into boiling water for about two and a half minutes
We'll season that water with salt
So now while that's cooking, what I want to do is toast up some hazelnuts
on a medium heat, right?
I'll put them into a pestle and mortar,
just pound up half of the nuts to a powder and then just crack some
Then I'll go into the pan, a little olive oil and then some thyme
Then I want to take just a little bit of butter
I'm going to take those delicate ravioli and a little bit of the water into the pan
and the water and the butter will emulsify. Let's plate it up
And you can see how delicate that pasta is
Look at that. Put some of that lovely butter around the plate
Get some of those hazelnuts
and then a bit of parmesan
And that, my friends, is a ravioli worth savouring
So let's get in there. Oh my lord. Flavour explosion
The feel of that fresh pasta is like nothing else. It is so silky
and the flavour you get when you first put it in your mouth
is that thyme butter and hazelnut
So it's quite light and tangy
But then when you bite into that dark middle, it's basy, it's bitter, sweet,
like gorgeous cheese
They are the silkiest smoothest little mouthfuls of joy that you're ever going to eat