In this article:
Radish and Fennel Salad
My Perfect Roast Chicken
Buttered Mashed Potatoes

The Naked Chef

Jamie Oliver, TV's hottest young chef, strips fine food down to the bare essentials.

by Michele Hatty

Oliver tapes his cooking show in the kitchen of his London home.

harismatic, streetwise and with the urchinlike smile of Oliver Twist, Jamie Oliver, aka The Naked Chef, is Britain's 25-year-old antidote to a long history of bland food and stuffy chefs. Host of a new Food Network cooking show (premieres Sunday, 10 p.m. ET; runs Saturdays, 9:30 p.m. ET) and a new book titled after his sexy professional moniker, he's ready to take America by storm with the same gusto four Liverpool lads displayed a couple of generations ago. USA WEEKEND spoke with the latest British invasion about life and cooking -- "strip it bare, then make it work."

You don't possess any fancy Cordon Bleu credentials. Who taught you to cook?

Mom could cook, but Dad's a professional trained chef [who owns a pub/restaurant in Cambridge]. It was just a very good environment for a young kid to learn lots without knowing it. Cooking is very natural to me. It's just like getting up and getting dressed in the morning.

Whew ... so you don't cook au naturel.

When I was trying to get my ideas [for a cooking show], I thought the program should be about stripping down restaurant food to its bare essentials. So it's not restaurant food -- it's home food. So they said, "You should be the Naked Chef." But you know, not literally ... not in the nude.

But if somebody were to cook one of your recipes naked, what would you say?

Wear an apron. It's quite dangerous. You don't want to scald anything that might help you procreate this lovely planet that we live on. I'd hate to be responsible for that.

What's the perfect dish to serve nude ... er, stripped?

Use simple flavors. If you're going to roast a chicken, let's not just roast a chicken, make it really, really good. It doesn't have to be complicated to be cool.

There's an emphasis on style today -- food is so trendy. Do you prepare menus with an eye to what's hot?

I think it's a little bit like fashion or music or even journalism. Fashions change all of the time, and I try to avoid them, really. You look at some things and they're lame; they're boring or predictable. What's important is whether it's Spanish, Asian, Thai, French, Italian. As long as it's [consistent], then it's got integrity.

Food with integrity. ... Is there room for food vices?

I love junk food. I'm not a freak that just likes to cook posh food. I love pizza. I love burgers. But there's good burgers and there's bad burgers. I like anything good.

Oliver tapes his cooking show in the kitchen of his London home.

Burgers, not fish and chips? Which country's food is best?

I could never answer that. Different cultures all have [food] they are genius at. What England and America have got in common right now, we've got a really good mix of food. You find the fusion of Asian to Spanish, even Libyan and Arabic food. Impossible to choose.

Are you choosy about calories?

No. Not fat, either. Compared to [other chefs'], my cooking's pretty healthy. I use olive oil, not much butter, hardly any cream. At the end of the day, it's everything in moderation and a little bit of what you like. Stick by that and you can't go far wrong.

What's your favorite condiment?

Balsamic vinegar. You can use it in loads of things. You can get expensive stuff that's a real luxury or cheap stuff that just tastes nicer than normal vinegar. You can use it in salads; you can use it in stews, in desserts.

Most men don't (or won't) cook, but most great chefs are men. Why is that?

In England, girls use me as an excuse to get their men cooking. Men are funny creatures. Maybe when the sun comes out and they have a day off they'll start barbecuing, and they'll talk about it for the rest of the year. Almost like cavemen. [But today,] women, men, they're all as busy as each other. They've either got kids, which we know is bloody hard work, or they've got high-level jobs. So it's good to get the boys and give them a kick on their back side.

Were you teased as a boy because you liked to cook?

Absolutely. It was never a manly thing to do, be a chef. But whether you're a carpenter or painter or a mechanic, you can make the job as exciting as you want. I love cooking. And so I have fun doing it. Now they think it's kind of cool.

And you're getting the last laugh.

Yeah!

A meal for four every 20-something can make

Everyone should be able to make this elegant three-course meal, even with limited cooking skills and cash, says British chef Jamie Oliver, who received his formal training in England, as well as France and Italy. "This menu features tasty, really easy, fantastic food that will totally impress your mates," Oliver says of these recipes, featured in his new book, The Naked Chef (Hyperion, $34.95). "And best of all, it's cheap as chips."

Radish and Fennel Salad

3 cups fresh fennel (reserve leafy stalks)
1 1/2 cups red radishes, thinly sliced
Cut the tops and excess stalks off the top of fennel and set aside. Trim the bottom of the fennel bulbs and remove the outside leaves if they seem a bit tough. Cut the bulbs in half and slice as thinly as possible from root to top.

Put radishes and fennel into a bowl and cover with cold water and some ice.

Leave for 15 minutes or until radishes and fennel are really crispy. Drain, spin or pat dry, and put them into a bowl. Dress with olive oil and lemon juice dressing. (See below.) Chop fennel tops and sprinkle on top.

Dressing
2 Tbs. lemon juice
5 Tbs. your best olive oil
1 level tsp. of salt
1 level tsp. freshly ground black pepper

Mix together all ingredients and add to fennel and radish salad.

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My Perfect Roast Chicken

Why chicken? "It's so easy," says Oliver. "I cook this chicken every week and it really impresses. All it takes is one good pan and a couple of handfuls of really fresh herbs."

2 1/2-3 lbs. free-range chicken
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 small handfuls of fresh herbs (basil, parsley, marjoram), finely chopped
1/4 cup olive oil
1 lemon, halved
4 bay leaves, torn
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary

Preheat oven and a roasting tray to 425 degrees. Wash chicken inside and out and pat it as dry as possible with paper towels. (I like to leave the wishbone in and later make a wish.) Rub the cavity with salt, then, being very careful, grab the skin at the tip of the chicken breast and pull up gently. With your other hand, gently separate the skin from the breast meat. It's normally connected by a little bit of tissue-type stuff, and you can either leave this attached or cut it away. Sprinkle a little salt in the gaps and push in the chopped herbs. Drizzle in a little olive oil. Then, stuff the chicken with lemon, bay leaf and rosemary. Pull the skin of the chicken breast forward so that none of the actual flesh is exposed, tuck the little winglets under, and tie up as firmly as possible with kitchen twine.

Rub a little olive oil into the skin of the chicken and season generously with salt and pepper. Remove the hot tray from the oven and add a little oil. Put the chicken on one side, breast side down, on the tray and put back in the oven. Allow to cook for 5 minutes, then turn it over on to the other side, breast side down. Cook for another 5 minutes and then place the chicken on its back. Cook for 1 hour.

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Buttered Mashed Potatoes

"I love mashed potato," Oliver says. "Everyone's made it before, so I'm not trying to teach you a new recipe, but there is good mash and bad mash. With no extra effort, you can make it really nice."
3 lbs. boiling potatoes
1 Tb. salt
1/2 cup butter
Salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste
Wash potatoes, peel them and wash again.

Cut them into equal-size pieces and cover with water. Add the salt. Boil until tender (until they fall off the blade easily when stabbed with a knife). When cooked, put them into a colander and allow to sit for 4 minutes, to let all the moisture and water drain and steam off.

At this stage, you can either place the potatoes back in the pan to be mashed or smashed, or you can use a mouli (one of those things that you spin around, and it sort of mashes the potato for you), or you can use a ricer (this is like a big garlic press that pushes the potato through little holes, making it look like rice). Add butter. Season with salt and freshly ground pepper. Add nutmeg to taste and mix.