BY SOME strange organisational alchemy, I have a finished copy of Ian Haste's debut cookbook, The 7-Day Basket, before he's even seen it. Watching him take it in his hands for the first time, practically hugging it to his chest, you can see the big kid in him – he made this, it's real.
At 42, 'cookery book author' is the latest in a string of different careers he's bounded into. In his 20s, the irrepressibly buoyant dad-of-two was a Norfolk gastro pub chef ("I put parsley on everything"), via the traditional route: He went from pulling pints to prepping for the chef, to covering for said chef when he didn't turn up for a lunch service, to taking charge.
His mum had taught him from a young age about the staples – "so I'd survive," he says with a laugh – but he eventually realised cheffing wasn't for him (blame those "horrendous hours"). And no, he doesn't miss it, although he's quite keen to own a pub one day.
Next came a decade-long stint as a business development manager with a gruelling commute into London every day, before Haste and his wife, Nic, decided to start a family, and Haste "put my hand in their air, stupidly" to stay at home with their babies. He says the "stupidly" with a huge, proud, luckiest-man-alive grin on his face.
Haste's Kitchen, his YouTube channel, launched in 2014 and happily combines his cheffing knowledge with his business presentation skills, backed up by some heavy-duty social media nous: "I've got a YouTube family," he says – which is something of an understatement. Dubbed the "first family of Youtube", Haste's wife, make-up artist Nic, her sister Sam (the two of them run make-up channel pixiwoo), and their twin brothers John and Jim Chapman, have a colossal combined YouTube, Twitter and Instagram following of around 21 million.
"There was nothing online focusing on nice, easy, healthy home-cooking," he recalls. "So I did a couple of videos – which were terrible, don't watch them, ever!"
And now here he is, with 70 recipes bound in print, 92k YouTube subscribers of his own and 59k on Instagram, producing sponsored content for major supermarkets to boot.
But, like any shiny, seemingly perfect social media visage, there's always more to it, and Haste's food, fitness (he's a total gym bunny) and eating habits are all intrinsically connected.
"[I'm a] very health-conscious individual anyway – had to be," he explains. "My wife, going back a few years ago, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, so we looked at all the aspects that are food related."
While The 7-Day Basket isn't a diet cookbook, wrought undeviatingly from nutritional advice, eating well, healthily and with the seasons is important throughout (it's thoroughly cheerful though, there's still mac and cheese and steak and ale hotpot in there).
Its crux, though, is Haste's 7-day basket concept: Have your cupboards stocked with essentials at home, then make a week's worth of dinners from one basket of shopping.
The idea is to help cut household food waste, vary up meal planning, put twists on staple dishes, and encourage people to open the fridge and make connections between what they're eating tonight, and how they're going to eat later on in the week.
"I want people to be able to look at a bag of spinach and think, 'I'm going to put that in a chicken saag for Monday, and I'm also going to tie that in with some pomegranate seeds on a Thursday with a lamb kebab', so you're using every last bit along the way," says Haste.
The idea came to him while living with his mother-in-law during the six months it took to renovate his house in Hethersett, Norwich. Limited to a Tesco Metro frequented largely by university students, he'd see them filling up their baskets "with the most random eclectic mix, and I'd see them the next day, and the next day, and the next day, and I thought, 'They obviously don't know how to join ingredients together to make more than one dish'."
Cooking practicalities aside, Haste obviously adores food – and is faithful to the cause. "I always swore for my kids that every Sunday would be a roast type meal, and I've stuck to that, for seven years I've committed to that, whatever the weather as well," he says with a shake of his head.
Go for dinner with him and he's likely to disappear for 20 minutes to cajole a recipe out of the chef too. His Maldivian chicken curry for instance was magpied on holiday in the Maldives ("I ate this curry five out of seven days," he says, laughing at himself. "It was that good"), while he's still trying to extract the king prawn pathia recipe from his local curry house.
"It's incredible," he says, arms thrown in the air excitedly. "It's the witches' potion, I haven't got a clue how he's made it, but I can usually taste things and within reason I can make it again. [But] no, I've made it so stupidly hot, so stupidly limey...
"I always say, if you like something a lot, compliment the chef, say to them, 'That was absolutely amazing', and also say, 'Can I have the recipe?' There's nothing wrong with that."
And when you're as open and affable as Haste, who could say no?
:: The 7-Day Basket by Ian Haste, photography by Al Richardson, is published by Headline, priced £25. Below are two recipes from the book for you to try.
PEACH AND SAGE-STUFFED PORK FILLET WITH GARLIC ROASTIES
(Serves 2)
150g chestnut mushrooms, very finely chopped
50g butter
30g sage leaves
1 slice of wholemeal bread
1 peach, peeled, stoned and finely chopped
600g pork fillet (in one piece)
80g Parma ham
400g Charlotte potatoes
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
Splash of olive oil
10 cherry tomatoes
200g cavolo nero, chopped
Salt and pepper
Method:
Preheat the oven to 220C/200C fan/gas 7. Add the mushrooms and 10g of the butter to a hot pan and season, then add three-quarters of the sage and cook for two to three minutes.
Roughly chop the bread into crumbs and scatter into the mushrooms with the peach. Cook for a further two minutes until soft and brown.
Cut the pork fillet down the middle horizontally to create a pocket for the stuffing; add the mushroom stuffing and tightly close together. Lay out a sheet of foil about twice the size of the fillet and cover the foil with layers of the Parma ham, creating a wrap effect ready to cover the fillet. Lay the fillet on the ham and tightly pull the ham over the fillet, then use the foil to tightly wrap the pork into a Christmas cracker-type cylinder. Twist both the ends of the foil and place into a heatproof tin.
Add the potatoes to a pan of salted boiling water and cook until starting to soften, drain and place in the same baking tin as the wrapped pork. Add the garlic, remaining sage and a splash of oil to the potatoes, season well and bake for 30 minutes, turning the potatoes every 15 minutes.
Take the pork out of the oven and unwrap, adding the roast potatoes back to the oven while you do this (don't lose the juices from the pork!). Add the fillet to a hot frying pan and cook along with the cherry tomatoes until the ham is crispy and dark and the tomatoes start to pop. Leave the fillet aside to rest on a warm plate. Add the cavolo nero to a separate pan with the remaining butter, season and cook over a high heat. If it starts to smoke, add a few splashes of water to start steaming it. This takes about four to five minutes.
Add the pork juices to a small pan and reduce them, then serve the fillet cut diagonally into circles and drizzled with any juices, along with the cabbage, tomatoes and crispy roast potatoes.
THAI FRAGRANT COCONUT KING PRAWN CURRY
(Serves 2)
1/2 onion, peeled
10 coriander leaves
Zest and juice of 1 lime
3/4 red chilli, finely sliced
4 kaffir lime leaves
1tsp peeled and grated ginger
1 garlic clove, peeled and crushed
1tsp vegetable oil
400ml tin of coconut milk
2tsp fish sauce
1 lemongrass stalk, lightly smashed or cut to release flavour
1tsp brown sugar
200g basmati rice
500 ml water
1/2 red pepper, deseeded and thinly sliced
250g frozen/raw king prawns, defrosted, cleaned and deveined
150g sugar snap peas, halved
Method:
Add the onion, three-quarters of the coriander, half the lime zest, the red chilli, two kaffir leaves, the ginger and garlic to a pestle and mortar and smash into a paste.
Add this to a heated frying pan or wok with the oil and cook for 20-30 seconds; add the coconut milk, fish sauce, remaining lime zest and two kaffir leaves, the lemongrass and sugar and bring to the boil, stirring.
Add the rice with double the amount of water to a pan and bring to the boil. Cook for three minutes, turn off the heat and put a lid on so the rice can steam for seven to eight minutes. Don't stir – you want the rice to absorb the water and fluff up.
Add the pepper, king prawns and sugar snap peas to the hot coconut milk and cook for two to three minutes until the prawns turn pink. Serve the rice and curry in separate bowls with a scattering of coriander and a squeeze of lime.
