Top tips from chef James Cochran,

The Great British Menu finalist shares some easy ways to up your cooking game

1

If you love baking, it’s worth getting a tabletop mixer. There are some things you can do by hand, but for more involved baking, such as brioche, bun dough or Italian meringue, you’ll get the best results with a mixer.

2

Jerk seasoning is a lot more versatile than people think. It’s only associated with chicken, but I add it to fish dishes, season cooked new potatoes, whisk it into mayonnaise, toss into vegetables before roasting, or season a yogurt or buttermilk brine. It has so much depth of flavour that it can lift most ingredients.

3

For the best fish pie use a stock made from milk, fish bones and seafood shells to make the sauce. I grew up in Whitstable in Kent, which is famous for its seafood, and I trained in Wheeler’s restaurant, famous for its fish pie.

4

Deep-frying oysters is the best way to eat them.

I thought I didn’t like oysters until I tried them beer-battered, like fish. They were served with pickled sea vegetables and oyster mayo – I was converted!

5

Fresh mackerel is the best-value fish there is. There are so many things you can do with it, and it works alongside ingredients like gooseberries and soy sauce. It can be pan-fried, cured, barbecued, and even eaten raw, and it’s ridiculously cheap, too.

6

At home, I slow-cook a shin of beef as prep, I wrap it in foil with a bit of seasoning, and put it in a low oven overnight. In the morning, I’ve got fork-tender pulled beef to use however I want. It’ll end up in burgers mixed with sriracha, tacos, or in a pie with blue cheese. If you do it on the bone, you also get all the amazing cooked bone marrow to enrich dishes with.

7

The cheapest and most satisfying meal has to be red lentil dhal and flatbreads. It’s made from dried lentils, spices and water, but you can add other ingredients to it, like coconut milk instead of water, or spinach.

8

The most common barbecue mistake is doing too much at once. One thing that’s cooked with care and attention will always win over a dodgy meat fest of things cooked under pressure. My favourite is a big côte de boeuf.

9

Pickling is a good way to combat food waste or use up gluts. If you’ve got vegetables or fruits that are starting to go past their best, you can make them last longer this way. I can’t think of a fruit or vegetable that can’t be pickled.

10

Restaurant kits are the new food trend. It’s something that took o while restaurants were closed, but I can’t see it going away. I never thought such a calibre of chefs would o er their food for takeaway, but we all had to adapt, and this has made their food more accessible.

James Cochran is the chef behind the restaurant 12:51 in Islington. In 2018, he represented South East London in BBC Two’s Great British Menu. During lockdown, James changed the restaurant into a food delivery service called Around the Cluck, and has launched a kit to make his buttermilk fried chicken burger at restaurantkitsuk.com.1251.co.uk

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