AINSLEY Harriott is munching happily on a bit of toast when he calls, and even talking through crumbs, proves as jovial and excitable as any 1990 kid will remember from his days presenting TV classics, Ready, Steady, Cook and Can't Cook, Won't Cook.
Is it even possible to look at a random collection of ingredients in your fridge and not think: What would Ainsley do?
The London-born chef is back on screens with a new ITV food/travel series and accompanying cookbook of the same name – Ainsley's Caribbean Kitchen – which sees him visit seven of the Caribbean's sunshine islands: Barbados, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Antigua, Grenada, Dominica, Trinidad & Tobago, which are all, he says, "so close to my heart".
"I very much consider myself British," the 62-year-old explains, but his Jamaican heritage is massively significant to him.
"It's where your parents come from," he muses.
"And, as you get a little bit older, we all get drawn back a bit, there's that sort of reconnection."
The Caribbean, he adds – where his mother and father were both born – "has that pull for me".
As a region though, however disparate the Caribbean might be, sprawled across the ocean in bite-sized tropical pieces, it's often lumped into one: One climate (hot and sunny); one cuisine (jerk chicken, rice and peas, goat curry) – but that ignores the nuances, says Harriott.
"Everybody is very, very different and has their own style of food," he explains.
"Every island you go to, the people have their own personality, their own way of cooking things, and they're very proud of it."
That said, certain ingredients are ubiquitous. For instance, ground provisions – staple items, like yams, sweet potato and cassava – which are used in countless dishes and are thought to be the secret to many islanders' longevity; there's more centenarians living in Dominica than anywhere else in the world.
"I was interviewing a 102-year-old woman and her 104-year-old sister came to visit her – it blows you away!", the chef enthuses.
The pace of life is something shared too – and is something we ought to take more note of, says Harriott.
"They do teach us something," says the prolific food writer, "and you have to be slow in heat like that. I tell you what, we are too hectic, we really are rushing around."
Sometimes, however, you can be too tortoise-like – especially when it comes to mango season.
"Off the beaten track – I wasn't at the posh hotels [where you can get out-of-season produce] – I'd go and say, 'can I have a couple of mangoes?' And they'd say, 'Too late'.
"'What do you mean?' 'Two weeks, too late – mango already drop from the tree!'
And literally I was two weeks too late, the mangoes had dropped from the tree and you have to wait – that's it.
"I was like, 'This is the Caribbean, you should have mangoes everywhere!' You know what I mean?!"
Instead, Harriott was forced to compromise and use papaya, which isn't too much of a hardship when they are "as big as a small rugby ball" – although not as impressive in size as some of the Caribbean's avocados, which are "as big as a football – massive things!"
He calls the food he's created for the book – think Tobago curried crab, chargrilled watermelon with slaw, plaintain and chickpea hotcakes – "nice and casual, it's not too intricate on the plate", and when it comes to controversy over jerk seasoning, and people keeping their recipes top secret, he's magnanimous.
"When my late mother was cooking, I'd say, 'mum, what are you putting in?' And she'd just say 'a handful'. You have to have a look at the size of someone's hands and guess how much a handful is, because they just don't know," he explains.
"It's more to do with instinct and 'just knowing', than measuring quantities exactly.
"Nothing's weighed out, so what's the recipe? It's in their head. And when you taste it, you think: 'My god, there's 40, 50 years or maybe generations of experience in that one little dish', and it tastes great."
Harriott first visited the Caribbean aged eight with his family, and remembers his friends at school being impressed that he was going on a plane. However, it was also the summer of 1966: "Hence I have no recollection of England winning the World Cup, I missed everything!"
Instead, while Geoff Hurst was busy scoring a hat-trick in the final, Harriott was getting his first glorious taste of island life.
"I remember going to see my granddad and asking him for some money to go buy a Coca Cola," he recalls, before putting on his granddad's Jamaican accent.
"'Go on, pick two or three fresh limes from the tree, mix them with sugar, ice and water' – that was my first experience of fresh lemonade, literally picking limes from the tree, squeezing out the juice, adding shavings of ice.
"Oh my god. By the time we left, there wasn't a bloody lime left on the tree – it was fantastic!"
:: Ainsley's Caribbean Kitchen by Ainsley Harriott, photography by Dan Jones, is published by Ebury Press, priced £20
:: HOW TO MAKE AINSLEY HARRIOTT'S POPPY AND COCONUT BEEF KEBABS WITH ROASTED CHILLI SALSA
Ingredients (Serves 4):
1kg beef sirloin, cut into 2.5cm dice
3tbsp olive oil
2tbsp minced garlic
2tbsp minced ginger
1tsp dried red chilli flakes
3tbsp poppy seeds
3tbsp white sesame seeds
1tbsp cumin seeds
4tbsp desiccated coconut
For the roasted chilli salsa:
3 long green chillies, tops trimmed
6-8tbsp extra-virgin olive oil, plus an extra drizzle for oiling the chillies
1 garlic clove, peeled
A large handful of flat-leaf parsley
A handful of mint
Juice of 1 lemon
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Method:
1. Preheat a barbecue (if using).
2. Place the diced beef in a large bowl. In a separate small bowl, mix together the olive oil, garlic and ginger and pour over the beef. Mix with your hands to ensure the beef is well coated. Cover with cling film and marinate in the fridge for one hour.
3. Next, make the salsa. Put the green chillies directly onto the barbecue or preheat the grill to its highest setting, then place the chillies on a small baking tray, lightly drizzle with oil, place the tray under the hot grill for five to 10 minutes. The chillies are ready when charred and blistered – they should be nice and soft.
4. Put the garlic, parsley, mint, lemon juice and charred chillies into a food processor and pulse for four to five seconds. Add the oil and pulse again, until the mixture is well combined but still quite coarse. Season with salt and pepper and set aside.
5. Heat a small dry frying pan over a low heat, add the chilli flakes, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, cumin seeds and desiccated coconut and lightly toast. As soon as the coconut turns golden, remove from the heat and tip into a pestle and mortar. Grind to a coarse texture.
6. Remove the marinated beef from the fridge, add the spice mixture and massage the spices into the beef. Thread the pieces of beef onto skewers.
7. Place the beef skewers on the barbecue (or on a pre-heated chargrill pan) and grill, turning frequently, for about six minutes, depending on how you like your beef cooked. Once cooked, remove from the heat and let rest for five minutes before serving.
8. To serve, place the beef kebabs on a board and spoon over the salsa.
:: HOW TO MAKE AINSLEY HARRIOTT'S BUTTER RUM CAKE
Ingredients (Makes 8 to 10 slices):
125g unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing the tin
250g self-raising flour, plus extra for flouring the tin
60g walnuts, chopped
30g cornflour
3tsp baking powder
1tsp salt
4 eggs
200ml whole milk
200ml dark rum
1tbsp vanilla extract
6tbsp vegetable oil
300g granulated sugar
1 x 75g packet instant vanilla pudding mix
Creme fraiche or ice cream, to serve
For the rum syrup:
125g unsalted butter
75ml water
150g granulated sugar
A good pinch of salt
100ml dark rum
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4.
2. Grease and flour a 27-cm bundt pan or fluted cake tin and sprinkle the bottom with the chopped walnuts.
3. In a large bowl, combine the self-raising flour, cornflour, baking powder and salt.
4. In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, rum, vanilla extract and three tablespoons of the vegetable oil.
5. Cream the sugar and butter in a food mixer fitted with a balloon whisk until pale and fluffy. Slowly add the dry ingredients and the remaining three tablespoons of vegetable oil and mix for a few minutes on a medium-low speed, until the mixture looks like sand. Add the instant pudding mix and the egg mixture and mix again on medium speed until well combined. The cake batter should be thin and smooth.
6. Pour the batter into the bundt tin and bake for 50-60 minutes, until an inserted skewer comes out clean.
7. In a saucepan set over a medium-high heat, combine the butter, water, sugar and salt and cook, stirring, until the butter has melted and the sugar has dissolved. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and slowly stir in the rum. Set aside to cool.
8. Remove the cake from the oven and let it rest in the tin for 10 minutes. Invert cake onto a plate to loosen, then place it back in the tin. Poke several holes into the top of the cake with a skewer then slowly pour half of the rum syrup over it. Stand for 15-20 minutes, then invert onto a serving platter and pour the remaining syrup over the cake until it is all absorbed.
9. Serve with a dollop of creme fraiche or ice cream.