5 O' Clock Apron – Details, episodes & analysis

Chef and food writer Claire Thomson is back with a brand-new series of the 5 O’Clock Apron podcast with Good Food! In this series, Claire invites another incredible line-up of guests into the kitchen - from a comedian to a Royal Ballet dancer, a waste and recycling worker to a rugby player - and many more. Together they cook favourite home recipes while sharing stories, laughter, and the odd kitchen mishap. Episodes drop weekly from 18th June. Follow now and join Claire for some delicious kitchen companionship! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode of 5 O’Clock Apron Podcast Claire cooks with fish merchant Robin Turner. Robin’s family have been involved in the Cornish fishing industry for 5 generations and what Robin doesn’t know about fish isn’t worth knowing. Learn how to select the freshest fish, how fish change with the seasons, and what Claire will need to do if she wants to catch a mackerel. The podcast is recorded on the beach at Mousehole, near the South West Coastal Path, and attracts the attention of passers-by intrigued to see the pair cooking such delicious food in the sunshine on a camping gas stove. Robin cooks an old and locally famous dish of Mackerel with 'Cat’s Whiskers' sauce. Intrigued? We certainly were!  This podcast is a brilliant listen for anyone heading to the seaside this summer, and for those who want to know more about fabulous local Cornish produce. Thank you Robin for sharing your colossal knowledge of fish. Recipe: Serves 2 2 mackerel filleted  200mls double cream 1 heaped tsp mustard powder 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar  Salt and pepper, to taste  Splash of oil, to cook the fish Robin served this with some pink peppercorn and kombucha pickled radishes  Baguette or some boiled potatoes, to serve  Get a good pan hot over a high to moderate heat. Add the mackerel fillets skin side down, giving them a gentle press to stop them curling up - see reel. Cook for around 2 - 3 minutes then flip and cook 30 secs to 1 minute on other side (depending on thickness of fillets). In a separate saucepan, add the mustard powder and vinegar and mix together, over a low heat add the cream and season well with salt and pepper to taste, warm through and serve the Cat’s Whiskers Sauce alongside the fried mackerel immediately. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this first episode of Series 2 of The 5 O’ Clock Apron Podcast, Claire cooks with the brewer Alex Lawes. Dublin is a city famed for its pint and Claire wanted to record a cookery conversation with someone synonymous with the city’s brewing industry. Alex Lawes is just that, brewer and joint owner of Whiplash Beer. Their instagram profile reads “@whiplashbeer - Ballyer brewery brewing banging beers.” Join Claire and Alex as they cook in his gorgeous, dinky cottage. They drink a Whiplash Basil and Lemon table beer and set about making the most delicious ravioli this side of Italy. Learn about brewing beer, Dublin’s fish and chip shops all being run by Italian families, freezing your leftover wine, sailing round Sicily and there’s big love from Alex and Claire for the Pasta Grannies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode of The 5 O’ Clock Apron Podcast, Claire cooks with Philippa Perry, psychotherapist, broadcaster and the Observer’s wise and witty agony aunt. Philippa is also a million-copy bestselling author of The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and Your Children Will Be Glad That You Did), and one half of the Perry presenting duo on hit TV programme Grayson’s Art Club. I absolutely loved cooking with Philippa in her kitchen in London a couple of weeks ago. To say Philippa was confident in her kitchen is an understatement, deftly whipping up homemade tartare sauce, flatbreads and battered fish fingers with a chopped salad that combined so many different flavours and textures, my chopping skills were really put to the test, all under gentle but firm instruction from Philippa. So much so, it’s in this episode of the podcast that the tables are turned, teacher and student, I know my place and very happy I am in it too. With a wall to wall kitchen mirror, cooking alongside Philippa on the day was an insightful and illuminating experience. This is the 6th episode in the 1st series of The 5 O’ Clock Apron Podcast, we’ll be back in a month with x6 more guests teaching me their favourite recipe to cook at home, just you wait, what a line-up! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode of The 5 O’ Clock Apron Podcast, Claire cooks with Rebecca Wilcox, journalist, broadcaster, deputy president of Childline and the daughter of Esther Rantzen. The Guardian newspaper have her down as “brilliant… both brainy and funny (a rare combination in a presenter), and a proper investigative journalist as well as a silly trigger-happy prankster." On the day of the recording, Claire drove to Rebecca’s farmhouse, which as all best farms must, comes complete with an aged Argentinian polo horse horse named Chunk. Rebecca wanted some help to make her carbonara not “gloopy, grey or scrambled”, Claire, though bemused by Rebecca’s suggestion for beans in a carbonara to begin with, is fully on board by the end of the episode. Armed with pancetta, the beans, some dried pasta and two types of cheese, Claire and Rebecca make carbonara together chatting teenage years in the 90’s, winning Ready Steady Cook, drug deals for a television series and how to feed children in a way that makes sense in the maelstrom that is family life. Chop and chatter, on repeat. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode of The 5 O’ Clock Apron Podcast, Claire cooks with comedian, writer and theatre maker Amy Mason. A Funny Woman finalist, Amy has written and performed for Radio 4 and has written for The News Quiz and Hypothetical (Dave). With 3 acclaimed autobiographical shows with Bristol Old Vic, she is a credit to the Bristol comedy scene - STOP PRESS - ‘Amy Mason is a born comic. Can’t wait to see her progress to a national treasure.’ In 2014 Amy won the Dundee International Book Prize with her novel The Other Ida. On the day of the recording Amy was wearing an enormous pair of sheep shaped slippers and waiting to hear if she had been given a slot at the Edinburgh Fringe. One month on from this recording, we now know she has, of course she has, she is a startling comic and very, very funny. Amy cooked a pasta dish with leeks and crème fraiche, it was simple and delicious in delivery, as all good food should be.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode of The 5 O' Clock Apron Podcast, Claire cooks with champion gardener Charles Dowding. From a farming family in rural Somerset, Charles’ focus as a gardener and author has always been to grow healthy and health-giving food. Through his teaching on gardening courses around the world and also on his sizeable social media platform, Charles is keen to promote an awareness of nutrition and its links to food production. Charles has accumulated a considerable following for his No – Dig philosophy on soil management and gardening. Cooking with Charles is like visiting Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, with Charles producing delicious, homegrown ingredients to use in the borscht that we make together. With the pot bubbling away on the stove top, Charles and I take a turn around his beautiful garden, I get to meet his worms, check out the shed where he stores a bounty of fruit and veg all winter long, and all the while, as we walk along, we stop and munch on various vegetables from bed to bed. Eat More Soil (a peck in a lifetime for optimum gut health he tells us) is a maxim I take away from my day cooking with this legend of the gardening world. Thank you Charles, I’ll be back in the summer when the borlotti beans you gave me to sow have grown. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode of The 5 O' Clock Apron Podcast, Claire cooks with musician, author and broadcaster Cerys Matthews. Cerys hosts and programmes an award winning radio show on BBC 6 music every Sunday, the Blues Show on BBC Radio 2 each Monday at 9pm and co-hosts Radio 4’s new music show ADD TO PLAYLIST each Friday at 7.30pm. Cerys had a broken arm when we recorded this episode back in February, Claire chops and Cerys instructs on how to make a classic, at least, classically Cerys version of this Welsh classic. With quite a bit of veg to chop, Cerys and Claire discuss how to correctly prep a leek, deep-frying turkeys in Nashville, charity shopping in disguise, peppermill shame and Dolly Parton. Claire gets a quick lesson in Welsh and Cerys reads from her own cookbook, Where The Wild Cooks Go. Navigating a fast flowing river and some angry looking swans to get to Cerys’ house, this cookery conversation is a gorgeous one, thank you Cerys, we’ll be back to make those banana fritters with you some day soon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode of The 5 O' Clock Apron Podcast, Claire cooks with her friend and academic, Ellen Hughes. Ellen's take on baking an apple cake with no recipe was an eye opening experience for Claire, one she'll never forget. Truth is, we were going to use this recording as a test for the podcast, but on listening to the episode, we all agreed that if anyone could teach Claire to relinquish her need for an accurate recipe when it comes to baking a cake, it was Ellen and her instructions for a "fistful of butter". The cake came out beautifully, their conversation on food, family and the juggle, a tonic. Enjoy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode of 5 O’Clock Apron Podcast Claire cooks with RNLI lifeguard Gavin Philpotts. The podcast is recorded in the sand dunes above Sennen Beach, just below the lifeguard hut. With the sun shining bright and the lifeguard’s radios in bleeping distance, Claire and Gavin carve a space to cook with a lifeguard rescue board as their work surface. Claire arrives with some mackerel bought that morning in Newlyn and the pair get busy preparing a tabbouleh to go alongside, Gavin also contributes some roasted beets which he brought from home that morning.  With the iconic 90’s TV series Baywatch as Claire’s reference for all things lifeguard, coupled with the countless lifeguards Claire and her family spot on Cornish beaches each summer, meeting and cooking alongside Gavin was a real highlight.  We talk saving lives, long distance swimming, rip currents, weever fish and where lifeguards go in the wintertime. Huge thanks to RNLI for covering Gavin as he cooked with us, after all lifesaving can never stop, for whatever the reason, my podcast included. Find out more about the RNLI and Sennen beach here: Sennen Beach - RNLI Lifeguarded Beach in Cornwall Follow Claire at 5 O' Clock apron on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/5oclockapron Make this recipe. It is the very essence of summertime in Cornwall via The Levant. Serves 2 2 mackerel, filleted  2 tbsp olive oil to fry and 3 -4 tbsp olive oil for the dressing 50g bulgar wheat, soaked in boiling water for 15 mins then drained  1 cucumber, diced small 4 spring onions 1/2 - 1 green or red chilli, finely diced  1/2 red onion, finely diced  Around 20 cherry tomatoes, diced small  1 clove garlic, finely grated  Big bunch of mint Big bunch of pulses  Fruit, any or all, I’m using in season 3 ripe apricots, diced small  1 lemon, 1/2 juiced, 1/2 cut into quarters to serve 1 - 2 tbsp pomegranate molasses  1/2 - 1 tsp dijon mustard (Gavin’s inclusion) Pinch of ground cumin Pinch of ground cinnamon  Beetroots, roasted with salt in tin foil until soft, chopped into quarters  Seasoned yoghurt, to serve Method; Make the tabbouleh first. Get all the salad ingredients in a bowl and make the dressing by mixing together the mustard, pomegranate, lemon juice, garlic and olive oil and season well with salt and pepper. Dress the tabbouleh and let it sit for at least 10 minutes before serving. Get a good pan hot over a moderate - hot heat. Add 2 tbsp of olive oil and heat until just shimmering. Add the mackerel fillets skin side down, giving them a gentle press to stop them curling up. Cook for around 2 - 3 minutes then flip and cook 30 secs to 1 minute on other side (depending on thickness of fillets). Serve the fried mackerel with the tabbouleh, roasted beets and seasoned yogurt. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices