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Jamie Cooks Spring Monday, Channel 4, 8pm
It may not seem like it when you look out of the window or step outside, but it’s spring, a time of warmer, sunnier weather and longer evenings.
For chef and restaurateur Jamie Oliver it is one of his favourite times of the year, and so it’s
tting that he has decided to kick o his new series celebrating ingredients as they come into season in the UK, in spring.
Jamie Cooks... is an extended series split into four parts – Jamie Cooks Spring, Jamie Cooks Summer, Jamie Cooks Autumn and Jamie Cooks Winter.
For every season, he will showcase inspiring recipes using sustainable ingredients that are in season – whether you’re out shopping or growing your own.
The chef, who turns 49 next month, explains: “I can’t wait to show people how wonderful the world of seasonal cooking is – how ingredients can taste, feel, look and cook better in their prime time. “The show is packed with delicious ways to enjoy local, British produce in our kitchens all year round. “It doesn’t matter if you don’t have your own garden patch or windowsill space, you can tap into what is in the supermarkets and farmers’
markets at that moment and get closer to fresher, more sustainable ingredients.” In Monday’s rst edition, Jamie picks some rhubarb from the garden and celebrates its tart tanginess by making a lip–smacking sauce for marinated pork belly, pan-fried until crispy in his hot and sour rhubarb crispy pork noodles.
He then picks some new season spinach for a silky and luxurious spinach and goat’s cheese risotto, before celebrating a veg that has seen us through the winter – the leek – as he cooks up a scru y spring tart. Jamie also shows us how to divide shop-bought basil into lots of individual plants to last
us through the year.
And he celebrates the vibrantly coloured stalks and leaves of chard in a crowd-pleasing cheesy spring cannelloni.
ITV Studio Sessions Friday, ITV1, 10.45pm
ITV is launching a new music show. Whether it can become the broadcaster’s answer to the BBC’S long-running Later... with Jools Holland remains to be seen, but it promises to get viewers in the mood for letting their hair down over the weekend anyway.
Clara Amfo, who’s interviewed the great and the good of the music world during her broadcasting career, from Elton John to Billie Eilish and Dua Lipa to Kendrick Lemar, takes charge of all six episodes.
Across the run, she’ll introduce to the stage
Becky Hill, Cat Burns, Tom Walker, YUNGBLUD, Sekou and, in the rst edition, Jess Glynne, to perform a selection of new songs, old favourites and covers, interspersed with chat in which they discuss the inspirations behind their work.
Gymnastics
Tomorrow, BBC Three, 7pm
With the Olympic Games in Paris just around the corner, Team GB’S male gymnasts are in European Championships action.
Matt Baker is joined by Olympic bronze medallist Beth Tweddle (right) to present highlights from the senior team nal on the nal session of the four-day meet in Rimini. Hosts Italy entered the event as reigning champions, while Great Britain earned a bronze medal at last year’s championships in Turkey and will be hopeful of improving on that showing. The women’s events get under way on Thursday.
Michael Palin in Nigeria
Tuesday, Channel 5, 9pm
Michael starts the nal part of his journey hurtling down one of Nigeria’s notoriously dangerous roads, to the historic city of Benin.
Once there, he notices a statue of British soldiers being massacred by a Benin Warrior in the 1897 ‘Raid on Benin’, when Britain’s forces burnt down the city. The next day, after a lunch of traditional Jollof rice, he heads into the vast Niger Delta, before meeting
lmmaker Chuko Esiri as they board a boat on the stunning River Ethiope.
Michael also has a chat with a local palm oil producer and heads into Nigeria’s crude oil-producing heartland.
Finally, arriving back in Lagos, the presenter gains unique access to one of Nigeria’s Pentecostal ‘megachurches’ and nds himself at the centre of an event like no other he has ever experienced.