Championing Australasian cuisine, presenting MasterChef, and hanging out with Mr. buttery biscuit base himself, Gregg Wallace - there's little doubt that John Torode is a busy man.
We caught up with the chef backstage during his visit to Glasgow for the BBC Good Food Show and gave him a good grilling.
If you were a vegetable what would you be?
Oh my god! Erm… So I've actually been analysed as a vegetable. They took my body shape and I was an aubergine or a parsnip. No, I wasn't a parsnip… I think I was an aubergine. (See below for John's thoughts on matching other celebrity chefs to vegetables).
And how would you cook yourself?
Oh my goodness! Well, sea spiced. You boil the aubergine first and then you fry it in a little bit of oil because if you boil it first like the Chinese do it doesn't go greasy. Then you fry it with a little bit of oil, chopped up red chillies and oyster sauce.
Give us your favourite dish that includes black pudding or haggis?
Well, I love black pudding. And I never, ever used to enjoy black pudding - but now my favourite dish with it is grilled black pudding with squid and aioli, so garlic mayonnaise. So you char-grill the squid and then you do garlic mayonnaise on the plate and the squid and black pudding work amazingly together.
Where's your favourite place in Scotland to eat?
I don't really know Scotland very well at all as I don't come here very often. If I was going to eat out somewhere I'd really like to go to Tom Kitchin's place.
What would your last supper be?
It's really about the whole occasion and not just about what I eat. So it would have to be in Thailand. It would have to be on the beach. It would have to be at the end of the day with the night just beginning to draw in. It would have to involve cold beer, no shoes, a pair of shorts, going for a swim and probably a piece of grilled fish, maybe a bit of belly pork, some curry sauce - all those things.
You're in from work late and you want a quick and easy dinner. What do you make?
Generally I make spaghetti carbonara - I've been making it for years and years. I've always got bacon in the fridge, I've usually got eggs, I've always got crème fraiche and that's it, with spaghetti, and I'm done. (See John's recipe for spaghetti carbonara below).
My favourite ingredient from Scotland is…
My favourite ingredient from Scotland is beef. I like Belted Galloway, White Park and Dexters.
What do you make when you want to impress people?
A reservation. It's the easiest way to do. I can't really be bothered trying to impress people so I go out for dinner with them. I like oysters so we'll have oysters and drink fizzy pop.
Your food hero is…
Elizabeth David. She was a writer in the 1950s and she is and was amazing.
We're going to say the names of celebrity chefs and you're going to tell us which vegetables they would be. Gregg Wallace.
Er… [long pause] watermelon.
Nigel Slater.
Avocado.
Nigella Lawson.
Plum.
Antony Worrell Thompson.
Jackfruit.
Ainsley Harriott?
Ainsley Harriott, hmm… Potato.
Michel Roux Junior?
Charentais melon. French, but of course.
Make John Torode's ultimate Spaghetti Carbonara
Ingredients
Bacon
Spaghetti
Crème Fraiche
Black pepper
Parmesan cheese
1 egg
Method
1 Fry off bacon
2 Boil some spaghetti
3 When the spaghetti is done, lift it out of the water with tongs and put it in with the bacon frying pan.
4 Add black pepper
5 Get the pan nice and hot, drop in an egg, grate parmesan cheese, a spoonful of crème fraiche, mix well.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article