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Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC studio in SoHo. Thank you for spending your day with us. I'm really grateful you're here. On the show today, we'll speak with Queens-native film Director James Gray about the Criterion Channel's new collection of his work, James Gray's New York. We'll break down this week Oscar nominations with New York Times awards season columnist, Kyle Buchanan. Something for your ears, Phoebe Judge, the host of the venerated podcast Criminal joins me to talk about its 10th anniversary. That is the plan. Let's get this started with Jamie Oliver.

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Here are two numbers I want you to remember, 27 and the number 5. 27 is the number of cookbooks. English chef Jamie Oliver has published if you include his new one titled 5 Ingredients Mediterranean: Simple Incredible Food. The book incorporates the flavors of Southern France, Italy, Spain, Greece, Morocco, and Tunisia into day-to-day dishes. There's a Greek-inspired peach salad with Halloumi, Steak Tagliata. Tagliata?

Jamie Oliver: Tagliata, Yes.

Alison Stewart: Steak Tagliata with glazed beets, goat cheese, and tarragon. Those are four ingredients right there. What's number five? Balsamic vinegar, and of course lots of fish and seafood. As you heard, Jamie Oliver is sitting across from me. Jamie, welcome to the studio.

Jamie Oliver: Thank you. Lovely to be here.

Alison Stewart: Listeners, we want to get you in on the conversation. Do you have any cooking questions for Jamie? Looking to add some Mediterranean to your diet? Are you looking for ideas or maybe you have a favorite recipe of Jamie's that yours go to? Give us a call. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. You may call in, join us on the air. You can also text to us at that number. Of course, social media is available @AllOfItWNYC. Jamie, you said one of the reasons you wrote this book was to address the changes and the way you cook. What are some of those changes?

Jamie Oliver: Well, look, 27 years since The Naked Chef, that's when we kicked off. We launched Food Network and it was a different time. Statistically, the time that we spend cooking at home has more than halved. The average is around 46 minutes. Well, before COVID it was 21, so it looks like it's less now. Life's changing. We're changing. Our families, the structures, technology is changing.

I guess my job as someone that's desperately trying to get people to see the value in the basic love and joy of cooking skills and the choices that it gives you if you know the basics, the target is changing, definitely. Like 5 Ingredients Mediterranean, it's code for, I'm trying my best to get you. [laughter] The modern-day audience and the listeners included, they know quite a lot about food.

Alison Stewart: They do.

Jamie Oliver: They see it, they swipe through it. We're into two, maybe three, four generations of people that weren't taught to cook at home traditionally by mama or grandmother. At school, it's still not seen as a necessity in school to learn how to cook. For me, personally, I'm working hard in the States and in the UK on 10 recipes to save your life, the basic principles of shopping, and budgeting. I truly believe it's a great leveler.

Alison Stewart: I'm old enough to remember when they used to do that. They called it home economics.

Jamie Oliver: Yes, for sure.

Alison Stewart: I guess initially the thought was that only girls took it.

Jamie Oliver: I went to a boy school, so we never had it.

Alison Stewart: At all.

Jamie Oliver: Yes.

Alison Stewart: I think it's the idea of that every boys and girls should learn to cook and should learn to budget and stuff.

Jamie Oliver: With the Naked Chef was about getting the boys back in the kitchen or in the kitchen, not even back. They were never there. I think one can't commiserate how life's changing because it's always changed. I do think that as time goes on, us humans, we start to lose the true value of the knowledge. In a world, what is a luxury? What is the currency? For me, I think if you look through the book here, 5 ingredients, it keeps the shopping lists short. It makes shopping easier, smarter.

I focus then on breakfast, brunches, lunches, dinners, treats, and keep it quick and easy. Try and keep washing up to a minimal, try and really focus on dishes and techniques. Restraint is the secret ingredient. Seemingly, look, it's really interesting because I've been doing this for a long time now. On day one of promotion, I only get here for a week a year to do this kind of thing. It went straight to number one, number two position. I'm super grateful for that. Also that-

Alison Stewart: It lets you know what people are interested in.

Jamie Oliver: Yes. Well, it lets me know exactly where America is at right now. Definitely, that reaction can only happen if people are listening thinking, "Well, maybe this is the book for me. Maybe I can text my partner and maybe he or she can pick up something on the way home from work." If you flick through the book, can you see I've shot the ingredients?

Alison Stewart: Yes.

Jamie Oliver: It's not just to remind you what the ingredients look like, but also you'll get a flow of this. We're using tins, we're using jars, stuff that's ambient, affordable and you can have on your shelf sitting there waiting for that time you get back from work when you're starving. You want something good and maybe you don't want a takeaway. I get the takeaway romance in the restaurant romance. I get it. I think to be able to cook yourself something delicious quick in your own home, that's a joy.

Alison Stewart: This is also really great for city dwellers because we don't have a lot of space. We don't have the room to have a million different things in our refrigerator or our freezer at the same time. We also have this great luxury of you can walk by a west side market or you can walk a cheese store on your way home.

Jamie Oliver: Big time. When you write a cookbook and there's many cookbooks out there and there's a billion cookbooks that could be invented. When I do this book, I'm trying to listen hard to the global audience, what they're worried about, what they love, what they're annoyed about. I build myself a load of rules, including things like washing up, controlling the ingredients, time. Are the ingredients like, can you get them from a regular supermarket? When you build all these rules, what you do is make your life harder. That's what I get paid for.

Alison Stewart: It's a challenge.

Jamie Oliver: My job is to be creative and have a simple offer and a promise. Obviously, if you can do anything, then anything is possible. What I'm trying to do is the most beautiful-- well, hopefully when you flick through the book. Although you had an early copy, and it's black and white and that breaks my heart. I don't even know.

Alison Stewart: You know what? It required me to focus on the writing.

Jamie Oliver: You made me nervous. That's not the American edition. They're beautiful, colorful pictures.

Alison Stewart: They are beautiful. It made me focus on the writing. It made me focus on what the recipe was because you can get distracted with the shiny stuff. The recipes are really clear and doable, which I think is really important.

Jamie Oliver: I'm a dyslexic guy. For the first part of my life, that really haunted me at school, which is why I came out of school with pretty much nothing. When I write these books it truly is-- well, it's an honor, but also it's a very emotional experience. On this particular book, which is a solution promise book, I'm fighting for white space. I want it to be ultra clear but with not too many words. It's kind of business crack on, 5 ingredients. You've got the step-by-step pictures. What I'm trying to do is give you not an illusion, but I want you to have the sense of simplicity and I can.

Alison Stewart: New Yorkers will like that. We like to cut to the chase. Tell me what I need to do.

Jamie Oliver: Absolutely.

Alison Stewart: Tell me how I need to do it. Let's go.

Jamie Oliver: People choose not to cook because they're scared and scared of lots of things. If they've cooked something before and their partner didn't like it or their kids didn't like it, it's like, "Well, that's kind of depressing." If they've cooked something before and they wasted a load of money and they didn't like it, that's kind of depressing. Even down to the essential of when we test cook the recipes, I do it five times in my HQ where we have test kitchens and then we send it to two strangers.

Alison Stewart: That's interesting.

Jamie Oliver: Each recipe I test costs me 1800 quid. It’s expensive to test. Do you know what I mean? All the food, people's time. For me, I think after 25 years, I think that's the only way you can really get people's trust.

Alison Stewart: It's also more expensive for people to say, "I can't do a Jamie Oliver recipe." It's money well spent. It's an investment in your--

Jamie Oliver: Often in my early career when I was a younger man, a lot of my heroes, chefs, very highly regarded chefs, they were annoyed that I was doing so well and they couldn't quite get it. There are some basic rules like turn up for the shoots and actually do it yourself and actually write it yourself. Listeners wouldn't probably believe that a lot of chefs don't write their own books. It's more common than it should be. Testing, testing, testing as boring as it is, is essential if you want that reader to come back a second or maybe a 25th time or whatever. I think it is a relationship for a long time.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Jamie Oliver. The new book is called 5 Ingredients Mediterranean: Simple Incredible Food. We've got a call. Liz is calling in from Seacliff. Hi, Liz, you are on the air with Jamie Oliver.

Liz: Hi, Alison. Hi, Jamie.

Jamie Oliver: Hi.

Liz: I'm so excited about your new book.

Jamie Oliver: Thank you.

Liz: I'm committed to eating healthier these days and I love fish, but I'm very intimidated when I go to buy it. I bought cod twice in the last couple of weeks. Two weeks ago I had the most beautiful piece of cod and I was like, "I have to have this all the time." Then I went back the next week and I bought from the same supermarket some cod, and I got home and it didn't have any smell, which I thought was weird and it was kind of wet. When I cooked it, it was mushy. I want to ask you if you have any tips for picking out fish.

Jamie Oliver: Okay. First of all, do you have a fishmonger or is it always at the supermarket?

Liz: It's pretty much always at the supermarket unless I want to drive about a half hour on certain days.

Jamie Oliver: Here's the coup. Behind the fish, counter is like a flow like the old classics of getting back to those skills of being gnarly. What does that mean? It means you've got to be street-wise about this. The most vulnerable product in the whole supermarket is fish. The minute it comes out the sea it's deteriorating. There's a couple of things here I can give you advice on. First of all, talk to the person behind the counter if there is one, and ask them when stuff comes in. Because what will happen is it'll get to a certain point then they'll either discount it or throw it away. Find that when the fresh stuff comes in, and then get your shopping to duck and dive around that.

Then the other thing is and it's contrary to what your thaw or taw is often when you see fish, it's always on ice. Actually, water hates fish. The bacteria that makes the smell makes it fishy is it needs requires water. Whenever you buy fish, the first thing you do is take it out of the plastic. Don't let it sweat. Pat it off with kitchen paper. If you can and it will surprise you that it works you can put it on a plate in the fridge open. Don't cover it again. It's the water and humidity that creates the ammonia and the smelliness. Fish should never smell fishy if it's fresh. If it does smell fishy, don't buy it. The other thing is and so then play around with different fishes and see what you like.

You normally have white fish and oily fish. Oily fish has to be really fresh if it's mackerel, but salmon and tuna can hang around longer and it's still very, very good. Don't write off frozen fish. The technology of freezing is genius. Certainly in the UK you can get bags of all lovely fish frozen, skinned, pin boned, and it's just sitting there in your freezer ready and raring to go. What do you lose through freezing? You can lose the flaky, meaty texture. Then if you were to make a basic tomato sauce, let's just make it up garlic, a little chili tomatoes, a few olives, and then plop some frozen white fish in there and pop it in the oven.

You'll be hard-pressed to notice the compromise. Again, you've got the omega-3s from a nutritional point of view. You've got this fish that is a great carrier of flavors. That same tomato sauce we discussed if you want a little bit of Moroccan, then a few little pinches of spice, rassa hannu, stuff like that can do that, or you can go Portuguese or Greek or Italian. A little bit of mozzarella popped in there and basil, squeeze of lemon juice, aargh. I love these principle recipes which you'll find in the book that will allow you to-- well, actually, I prefer that herb to that, or I'll swap that nut out for that, or I'll go pesto instead of tapenade. Yes, fish is actually-

Alison Stewart: That was good advice.

Jamie Oliver: Yes. I hope that's useful to you. Don't write off frozen fish because it's actually you have minimum waste there as well.

Alison Stewart: The techniques are so much better than they used to be. A

Jamie Oliver: Yes, definitely.

Alison Stewart: It's not like old-school frozen fish like fish sticks.

Jamie Oliver: Yes. Certainly, nearly all Americans don't have enough oily fish every day. You've got the old capsules of omega-3s, but actually getting fish I think in your diet a couple of times a week is optimal.

Alison Stewart: This is a great text. It sounds like it is perfect for you. "Hello, I'm a young 20-something living on my own for the first time. I've never enjoyed cooking. Mostly I think because I've had poor kitchens and been far from grocery stores. Sometimes delicious food seems insurmountable, but I'm looking to turn it all around. My family is Israeli and I love the flavors of the Middle East, the char, fresh and crisp vegetables, grilled meats, food that tastes like it's from somewhere hot. I wonder what advice you have on starting to loving cooking. Is it a cookbook, a set of habits, something else? Thanks."

Jamie Oliver: Yes. Look, it's an interesting thing. The fact that he or she is even asking this question means the good news is the curiosity is there. The relationship and the journey of food never ends and it is all about curiosity asking questions. Like I said earlier, being street-wide about food that's in your neighborhood. No matter where you live in your life wherever it's Israel or here or New York or that postcode or this country, if you can find that curiosity, you'll be pretty down with it in a month. Look when I was your age, I ate really well. When I was your age, I had no money. I was in the red every week, but I ate really well. When I was your age. I had a crappy little studio flat.

I had no garden, but I had a window. I grew herbs, I grew chilies, and I ate really, really well. When I was his age I would use food to love my girlfriend. Even in that young age, using food for mates, for buddies like "Guys, you want to go down the bar and watch a game, or do you want to come round mine and I'll knock out da, da, da, and we'll have a bowl of that." It's a beautiful thing. I think because America's so full of opportunity and choice, actually the simple and humble is not only more than often more cost-effective, more nutritious. Also, the fact that you own it when everyone else wants to own it for you.

The whole machine of food here and a home for me, of course, is we will solve your solution of not enough time or your worried. They're analyzing all this, but they're taking away from you, oh, that warm sense of gratitude when you see someone you love. Even yourself just slurping a bowl of something delicious that hits the spot. To have everyone else fix your problems all the time there's like a void and that's called pride. Then pride of course is just like any positive reinforcement. It makes you be more curious, ask more questions, and then go up the scale of food. Hopefully, if you're lucky in your career and your life you'll be able to have and afford other things.

Interestingly, for me, as I've traveled around the world, things that have touched me and inspired me, and changed the way I think about food have always come from poor communities. I think it's an important thing because in America and England, there's like, if you are passionate about food-- back home we would because it's not the same here. We would say, "That's quite posh, quite middle class," if you like food. If you go around say the Mediterranean, if you go to a poor community everyone cooks great food. It's normal and they eat well and they sit around a table. I'm not making that up. I've seen it a million times.

Alison Stewart: I was watching in the Middle East and I saw a family drying tomatoes on their roof.

Jamie Oliver: Yes. They're so resourceful.

Alison Stewart: Then having the grandma take them and make something delicious. I can see them on the roof. It was so good.

Jamie Oliver: To preserve foods, to concentrate the flavors of food. The fact that this text is asking the questions, I've got huge hope for them because It's that curiosity that takes you all the way.

Alison Stewart: We've got more questions for you about pasta and cheese, and we want to get into some of the recipes in 5 Ingredients Mediterranean. Give us a call if you have a question for Jamie Oliver. If you have a question about the book 212-433-9692, 212-2433-WNYC. You can call in and join us on air. You can text to us as well. We'll have more after a really quick break. This is All Of It.

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You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest is Jamie Oliver. The new book is called 5 Ingredients Mediterranean: Simple Incredible Food. We'll get to more of your calls in a minute, but I do want to dive into a couple of recipes. Garlic chicken with creamy chickpeas, spinach, and sumac. All right, so wait, that's four. Do we remember? It's on page 208. Do you remember what the 5th ingredient is off the top of your head?

Jamie Oliver: Onions. Is it onions?

Alison Stewart: I'm looking.

Jamie Oliver: Peppers. What page is it?

Alison Stewart: Garlic, chicken breast, chickpeas, spinach and sumac. All right so tell us what the sumac does.

Jamie Oliver: Sumac's beautiful. It's an incredible berry. You can get it in all the supermarkets now if you have a little look around the spice area. It's dried and ground down, it's kind of sweet and sour, quite zesty, quite fresh and fragrant. You will see it around the Middle East and Lebanon and all those kinds of areas. You can use it across meat, fish, sweet savory veggies. Think of it like, I guess, lemon juice. Whether it's a dried berry in this context or the juice of citrus, lime, lemons it does the same thing. I think chicken's the protein of choice in the US.

Certainly basket data tells you that people are buying it very regularly. What goes with that is people get bored of it. For me, this is a nice little one-pound wonder where you can cook the chicken. We strip it up, you can cook it quite quickly so it can happen in under 15 minutes. The chickpeas these are really cheap like really good for you. They feel quite carby, but actually they're a legume so they're a veggie. Definitely, any nutritionist or doctor would say America needs to get more veggies in there. A handful of spinach. Then you hit that up with the sumac it just gives it a nice tang.

Alison Stewart: Got a text that says, "When I lived in Turkey, pepper paste was an indispensable ingredient, but I can't find it anywhere here." Anybody wants to help out with pepper paste. Curious in the book, what are some reoccurring Spices like we have sumac here. What are some of the reoccurring ones that people-- because we're so lucky we have so many great stores in the city?

Jamie Oliver: Look, I think when I write these books before I get all excited and creative, what I try and do is analyze what is available in normal supermarkets, average supermarkets. That is an ever-changing feast. One of the upsides is the world becomes a smaller place. 25 years ago when I started balsamic was posh and not everywhere. Now it's everywhere, it's two a penny. You can get it in every supermarket. That happens with many things.

I think as we've cooked less, and I think I said to you earlier, we've never cooked less than now. We need help and we need to reassure people that are scared to have a go maybe. Things like pastes, like tapenades, pesto's, curry paste of all descriptions. Things like harissa, which is a chili paste from North Africa. Spices like, I guess, curry powder would be an obvious one or it could be occasion mix or it could be things like sumac. These are either unusual and delicious, or like in a curry powder it could be 10 spices in that mix.

When you're going into 5 Ingredients, my job is to give you a good bang for your buck. Having things like tzatziki, which is available in every supermarket. What you've got, you've got Greek yogurt, you've got lemon, you've got garlic, you've got mint, you've got seasoning, olive oil. That's six in one. This is me cheating on your behalf. You can use that traditionally, but you can also hack it and use it as a marinade. There's a great chicken dish where you marinate in tzatziki and then you pan-roast it.

Alison Stewart: That would be good.

Jamie Oliver: As it's resting then you use all the sticky, gnarly bits to make a really good rice dish. You've got your veggies in there as well. A one-pound wonder, but it feels like a really complete main course meal. I think those jars, maybe 10 years ago I would've been a bit like-- what's the word? I don't know. I'd have been a bit chefy and like, "Oh, yes, I don't really use those." The reality is, they are really helpful. They are quite consistent. If people are nervous, it takes some of that stress away. Certainly in areas, if it's like a Korean or Indian dish that you might be nervous. It gives you a good hit.

Alison Stewart: Got somebody saying that at their YMCA camp they put sumac and pink lemonade together. That sounds interesting.

Jamie Oliver: Very clever.

Alison Stewart: Getting a big shout-out for Kalustyan's on Lexington Avenue said, "Every spice anybody ever want If you've never been to that store, you have to go. It's pretty great." This is a great text. "I'm an average home cook, Jamie, but I've always struggled to get good results with eggplants, aubergine in the UK. It's one of my favorite vegetables. I love when it gets nutty and creamy, but I either burn it or undercook it. I aspire to make a really killer vegetarian moussaka. Any tips?" This is Raz from Brooklyn.

Jamie Oliver: Yes. Cool. Listen, I come from a country that destroy aubergine. British people don't understand aubergine at all. In my travels around the world and particularly Europe, aubergines are amazing, oh my Lord. Look, you can slice them up and you can dry grill them. It almost gives it a nutty, toasty flavor. Then you can do it thinly and fast, or you can cut them fatter and just grill them slightly slower. One of the things you shouldn't do is put olive oil on the aubergines then grill it because you'll just destroy the structure of the oil. Doing it dry gives nuttiness.

Then once off the heat, you dress it in gorgeous olive oil, like good vinegar oil, citrus, herbs, or you can steam aubergine in half or whole until it's curdy, and fleshy, and anxious. Then you could just turn the heat up and get the skin crispy, crispy, so you have that contrast. Then you can go to Asia, you can go to Japan, you can go to India. What I love is just that technique of if you cut aubergine in half skin, skin side down in a pan fry pan with a centimeter of water and the lid on. Take that for 10 minutes until it's tender.

When it's tender, lid off. Put some oil in there, and then you are working on the skin getting crispy. That's a neutral textually, extraordinary aubergine. Then whatever your culture or your love or your kind of curiosity, then you can hit that up with all kinds of things. Who knows if it's a right or wrong answer, but it's highly likely that if that tender aubergine that's crispy-skinned has a pesto or a little brush of curry paste and a squeeze of lime. Do you know what I mean? It could be like ginger chili, smashed-up lime leaves. Go for that but it's a beautiful vegetable. It really is part of the Nightshade family.

Alison Stewart: Raz, I wish you could see Jamie's enthusiasm as you're describing this.

Jamie Oliver: Oh, mate, I'm all in.

Alison Stewart: He's all in on this one.

Jamie Oliver: It's so funny because I've eaten so much good aubergine. Even if you like from the moussaka of Greece, you can use it in so many different ways. Pickled is amazing. There's actually loads of aubergine in this book as well. In my country, we destroy it. From where I've come from and where I've got to is like two different places.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Ruth from Highland Park, New Jersey. Hi, Ruth. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Ruth: Hi. Do I need to turn off the radio card?

Alison Stewart: Wouldn't be bad, but you can just talk right into your phone. I think you're okay.

Ruth: Okay. Would you like to hear my story?

Jamie Oliver: Yes. Go for it, Ruth.

Ruth: Okay. For 25 years I was a vegetarian cook. My husband and I decided we didn't want to eat animals. We raised our kids that way. Then when the boys got to be teenagers they wanted meat. We went to the Indian restaurants and Tandoori chicken to this end, so we changed. For all those years I was cooking three meals a day because we were homeschooling five kids. Long story short, the thrill is gone. I had to learn how to cook meat and fish because I hadn't done that really as an adult. I'm wondering maybe what I need is a really simple cookbook. Add to that, that I'm gluten-free and dairy-free. I have a vegetarian daughter-in-law and so I need advice.

Alison Stewart: Ruth needs the spark back.

Jamie Oliver: I think that this is where technology can help. Certainly like on my website, jamieoliver.com, we got-- everything's free. There's thousands of recipes out there. You can find gluten-free stuff and you can start removing things that you can't eat and it'll start serving you all sorts of recipes. Yes, this is the challenge of today. When I was a kid, the allergies and sensitivities to food were minimal and now it's to a penny. I'm still deeply young as you can see at 48 years old. Honestly-

Alison Stewart: A child.

Jamie Oliver: -I'm joking. I feel it. Don't worry. No, I think having control to cook If you can cook-- what's interesting about what Ruth has described is she cooked all those vegetarian meals for years. She will be an adept cook. If you're incorporating meat and fish back into that, then I'm presuming Ruth that you'd be going for quality, not quantity. Because those ethics that made you vegetarian in the first place, I presume are still with you. Right?

Alison Stewart: Is Ruth still there?

Ruth: Good to the animals and all that stuff.

Jamie Oliver: Yes. Here's the thing, so my advice to you would be nice, easy, simple. Well, that's what I've written that book for sure.

Alison Stewart: Just keep it simple.

Jamie Oliver: There's a lot of help online. There's lots of videos online. I think certainly when you're eating meat it's good to be fussy. Yes, you can get cheap meat, but I think it's good to commit to higher welfare and make the most of it and stretch meat a long way.

Alison Stewart: We got a comment that somebody is making your potato, mushroom, Al Forno from this book right now, and proud because they found a hack, mushroom bacon, just so you know.

Jamie Oliver: There you go.

Alison Stewart: That's interesting. Before I let you go, we did have a couple of questions about cheese. I did want to point out that Halloumi is in this book quite a bit. For someone who's thinking, "Okay, I want to try something with halloumi," what's a good entry Halloumi recipe?

Jamie Oliver: Well, look, if you look in the book, I've used halloumi in a few different ways. If I may, in the book was a chapter that I never expected to write. Well, how can I say it? There's a pasta chapter. It wasn't planned, but most of the recipes are not Italian. As someone that's traveled Italy for the last 30 years a lot this was a shocker. I'm talking about recipes that have been going for hundreds of years. When we went to Tunisia, which is a North African country nearer to Sicilian islands than actually Italy mainland, the things that you love about Sicilian cooking may well be part of the Tunisian culture. Tunisia is the second largest consumer of pasta in the world. I was looking at that, there's a beautiful Cypriot also pasta recipe.

Alison Stewart: Love that.

Jamie Oliver: That's delightful. Lemon halloumi that-- Halloumi melts so beautifully. Yes, you can fry it. Yes, you can grill it, but grating it like cheese finely into pasta. Using the cooking water or the sauce and the cheese to emulsify to make that silky sauce. It's tangy and beautiful. That's really, really nice. Another little hack that I did in one of the recipes was like we did this beautiful salad with fruit, so it's like mixed leaves. I think it was like mint in there and peaches. That fruit salad kind of savory thing is quite interesting. What I did was grate halloumi from a height. Very simply like a doily into a pan. That then starts to go golden and set as a giant doily crisp made out to halloumi.

Alison Stewart: Cool.

Jamie Oliver: That gives you chew and crunch. Think of it like crouton in a salad. If you're just trying to knock up a little lunch dish and make it cool and contemporary and delicious, I try to use the halloumi in different ways like that. Yes, it's a great cheese. It can be bouncy, squeaky, charred, but it can also be tangy, salty, and silky depending on how you use it.

Alison Stewart: The name of the book is 5 Ingredients Mediterranean: Simple Incredible Food. Thanks to everybody who called in. Jamie, thank you so much for taking our listener's calls and texts. Really appreciate it.

Jamie Oliver: Pleasure. Thank you.

 

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