Jamie Oliver showcases summer ingredients in bid to ‘champion’ art of seasonal cooking

Jamie: What to Eat this Week, Channel 4, Monday at 8pm

It was only last week I caught a glimpse of a new TV chef showing off his culinary skills in the kitchen.

Buddy Oliver - yes, son of Jamie - had launched his own series, Cooking Buddies.

Just like his father, there he was swapping his skills with others, this time showing kids how to make simple dishes such as spicy tomato pasta, pizza and crispy chicken.

With my lack of cooking prowess, (I’m more of a stick-in-the-oven-type person), Buddy’s cooking expertise may be more on my level than his father.

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But just days later, I’m watching Jamie back on our screens showcasing summer ingredients that he believes we can all turn into tasty dishes - and all cooked up from his massive garden shed.

“Exciting meals for whatever the occasion to make the most of what’s in season, taking fruit and veg to the next level,” says the Essex-born chef.

The new three-part series is the latest in the chef’s year-long quest to “cook the seasons” and follows on from Jamie Cooks Spring.

The autumn and winter series are expected later in the year.

He says he’s cooking up what’s in summer season in the hope it inspires people to “have a think about the way you cook, shop or even grow your food”.

So let’s give it a go and see what he suggests.

The star ingredients in the opening episode are fennel, peas, carrots and beetroot. OK, not a bad start, I like most of those.

And if you’re not sure what to team it with, Jamie suggests roast pork.

First up on the menu in this episode is roast loin of pork, fennel and bean gratin - not a chance I would cook this myself, but I’m going with it.

Stationed in his posh cooking shed, Jamie starts his cookery with what he describes as a bit of “basic butchering” of the pork, places it in the pan before he starts “clanking up some fennel”.

I really didn’t think that was a culinary phrase.

Adding spring onion, sage and garlic to a baking tray, he throws on the pork loin that already looks way more tastier than I could ever create and then there’s my type of cooking - placing it in the oven.

Moving onto the gratin, he adds cider, anchovies, chick peas and butter beans amongst other ingredients (many of these I don’t keep stocked in my larder, I’m afraid) before adding the parmesan - I definitely have that one at least.

In no time at all he has “transformed” his summer ingredient of fennel and showcases his summer roast that in traditionally Jamie Oliver style he describes as “utterly delicious”.

The episode also sees Jamie create a pea risotto, which he describes as “oozy” before turning his other garden finds into rainbow salad wraps using his homegrown carrots, as well as mackerel served it on a bed of sun-dried tomato couscous and multicoloured beetroots.

Jamie, ranked among the world’s richest chefs, says one of the main reasons for the series is to “champion” the art of seasonal cooking.

Always keen to provide some sort of message, such as when he tried to improve school dinners, he claims eating seasonally is kinder for the planet.

He also maintains it’s a clear way of getting more good food into our diets and helping to keep costs down in the kitchen.

Whilst I enjoyed Jamie working his magic in the kitchen and bringing his usual quirky-style back to our screens, in reality it’s not going to shape or change the way I cook.

The ingredients may have looked sumptuous and the finished meals looked divine.

But by the end of the episode, not only was I ravenous with hunger, but I was even more content that my own style of ‘throw it in the oven’ works best for me.