Foodie files

He was the star of Saturday Kitchen, now James Martin shares his culinary secrets with Weekend

PUFFED UP If you’re making a pie or a tart it’s absolutely not cheating to buy supermarket puff pastry. I’ve been a pastry chef for 20 years and I think you can get some really good ready-made stuff out there now. Some pre-prepared ones are made with margarine, though, so make sure you buy an all-butter puff pastry because that’s where you get the flavour from. It’s made with layers of butter and dough in a process called ‘lamination’ – as the butter melts, it creates steam which is trapped in between the layers of the pastry and causes the puff pastry to rise.

REMARKABLE ROOTS Unlike globe artichokes, which are edible flower buds, Jerusalem artichokes come from a different plant and grow as knobbly tubers below ground. They have a nutty flavour and are great in soup. If you peel, boil and pan-fry them with butter, they’re delicious served with fish. When peeled, though, Jerusalem artichokes will go brown, so make sure you pour a little lemon juice over them after peeling or add it to the water as you boil them.

TOP GEAR If you want to buy the best salt and pepper mills out there, look out for those with the name Peugeot on them – yes, Peugeot. The French car manufacturer has actually been making coffee, salt and pepper grinders for longer than it’s been making motor vehicles. These mills are brilliantly engineered and will keep for years.