Matt Tebbutt opened Saturday Kitchen 2026 episode 22 on a sweltering studio morning, promising 90 minutes of seasonal cooking built for a heatwave. The lineup was deliberately loud and varied: chefs Luke Holder, Ravneet Gill and Beefy Boys Anthony “Murf” Murphy and Dan, drinks expert Carmen O’Neal moving from wine into spirits, and West End comedy stars Sarah Hadland and Stephen Mangan as guests. Within minutes the show set out its central tension, the live Food Heaven vote that would force one guest to miss out, and the kitchen leaned hard into warm-weather flavours, retro nostalgia and the kind of fast, communal cooking that suits a hot June kitchen.
The energy in Saturday Kitchen 2026 episode 22 came largely from the guests, who arrived mid-rehearsal for a new West End play called The Truth. Hadland and Mangan are sitcom regulars with long comedic CVs, and they turned almost every cooking demonstration into a running double act. Their banter set the tone, but it never crowded out the food, which moved from a tomato-water risotto to a shared marmite-butter steak, a heat-proof pavlova and a Thai chicken salad with bang-bang sauce.
What made the episode feel current was its obsession with weather-appropriate eating. Risotto reimagined without stock, cream stabilised against melting lights, frozen fruit pulled into a quick compote, cocktails chosen specifically to cool the palate, every choice answered the same question: what do you actually want to cook and eat when it is too hot to think? That practical thread runs through the whole show and gives the recipes real staying power beyond the broadcast.
Luke Holder, who runs the multi-award-winning Hartnett & Holder at Lime Wood with Angela Hartnett, built the morning’s first dish around a phrase he uses often: “umami tsunami.” Drawing on his time working at the celebrated Enoteca Pinchiorri in Italy, he wanted to recreate a feeling more than a plate, the golden hour just as the sun drops past its peak. The result was a tomato risotto with anchovies, simply cured charcuterie, and a white peach, rocket and mint salad.
The technical heart of the dish was Holder’s decision to ditch stock entirely. Instead, he blended cherry tomatoes with red wine vinegar, a little saffron to push back the heat, salt, garlic and torn basil, then let gravity strain the mixture into a sweet, acidic tomato water. Risotto can feel heavy, he explained, so swapping stock for tomato water keeps it bright and seasonal. He stressed that good tomatoes matter, urging viewers to seek out soil-and-sunshine fruit rather than greenhouse-grown supermarket versions, because the difference shows up directly in the finished risotto.
Holder also shared the kind of restaurant shortcuts home cooks rarely hear. The tomato water can be made the night before. Risotto can be par-cooked for around six minutes, chilled in a tray, then finished in another five or six when guests arrive. For portioning without scales, he offered an old nonna’s rule: a small handful of rice per person for a starter, a large handful for a main.
He warned against splitting the dish by adding fat over heat, advised keeping the rice “flowing like lava” rather than stiff, and reminded everyone that 95% of a dish’s enjoyment comes from the final 5% of finishing. The anchovies, harvested in spring when they are sweetest, were laid on top so each bite delivered a small jolt of curiosity rather than overwhelming the plate.
Saturday Kitchen 2026 episode 22
The Beefy Boys Bring British Barbecue Theatre to the Studio
Murf and Dan turned the studio into a “bring your mate to work day,” cooking live over a barbecue in the car park while the steak’s flavour was built indoors. Their dish, a marmite-butter basted sirloin with a Herefordian white sauce and grilled tender stem broccoli, leaned into bold, savoury, distinctly British flavours. The white sauce was their twist on Alabama white sauce, built on salad cream and mayonnaise with thyme and sage rather than the American original, a knowingly retro choice that sparked plenty of debate about salad cream’s place in modern cooking.
The Beefy Boys’ steak technique was the segment’s real value. They championed buying one large 500g sirloin to share rather than two smaller steaks, arguing it stays juicier, develops a better crust, and suits communal, barbecue-style eating. They dry-brine the meat overnight with salt, garlic powder and dried black pepper, letting it sit uncovered in the fridge so osmosis pulls the seasoning back into the steak and prevents it drying out. Their British chimichurri swapped chilli flakes for English mustard, keeping the garlic and red wine vinegar but pushing the sauce firmly toward home soil.
Their most eye-catching trick was seasoning the chopping board, a method they picked up from barbecue chef Adam Perry Lang. They coated the board with smoked oil, rock salt, grated onion and garlic, so that resting and slicing the steak there would drag all those flavours back into the meat. They suggested adapting the board to the protein, mint and lemon zest for lamb, for instance, and basting with the same brush used on the raw meat so the juices and yeast extract carry through. Throughout, they emphasised local produce, British rapeseed oil and regionally smoked ingredients, framing the cook as a celebration of homegrown barbecue rather than a borrowed American import.
Ravneet Gill’s Heat-Proof Pavlova Solves a Summer Dessert Problem
Ravneet Gill, cooking from her Chingford restaurant, took on the trickiest challenge of a hot kitchen: a dessert that refuses to collapse. Her foolproof pavlova was topped with vanilla custard, sweet cream, raspberries and elderflower, but the real lesson was in the building blocks. She started egg whites with white wine vinegar before any sugar, whipping gently and slowly, because rushing produces an unstable structure. The vinegar, she explained, helps build that initial structure, with lemon juice or cream of tartar as workable substitutes.
Gill’s standout technique addressed the heat directly. She added milk powder to her cream, explaining that it binds the cream and prevents the watery leakage that ruins desserts left in the fridge or, in this case, sitting under hot studio lights. Condensed milk went in first, milk powder at the end. It was a small, almost invisible adjustment, but it is exactly the kind of fix that separates a dessert that holds from one that weeps within minutes of plating.
For the fruit, she made a quick gooseberry compote using frozen gooseberries, lemon juice, elderflower cordial and sugar, cooked in around six minutes. She is a vocal champion of frozen fruit in pavlovas, noting it is often cheaper and, to general amusement, sometimes available in the frozen aisles of garden centres. The components, she stressed, can be made ahead and assembled when guests arrive, with custard as an optional shop-bought shortcut. The dessert drew genuine praise around the table, with one guest naming it a new personal favourite among fruit puddings.
Carmen O’Neal Switches From Wine to Spirits With Cooling Cocktails
Carmen O’Neal broke from her usual wine pairings to build a spirits-led drinks menu designed entirely around the heat. Her brief was simple: every drink had to cool and refresh. She opened with a gin and basil smash to match Holder’s risotto, combining gin, lemon juice, sugar syrup and smashed basil leaves, shaken and topped with soda. Tomato and basil, she noted, are a natural pairing, and the gin’s botanicals lifted the whole plate. Crucially, she built a non-alcoholic rosemary and botanical version so the pairing stayed fully adaptable for everyone at the table.
Her approach treated cocktails the way a sommelier treats wine, hunting for a “perfect marriage” with the food rather than a flashy garnish. She made a point of value, flagging an affordable supermarket London dry gin and a whisky she described as a genuine steal, pushing back against the idea that good food-and-drink matching has to be expensive or complicated. The drinks were light by design, avoiding heavy, creamy cocktails in favour of bright, palate-resetting options.
For the final Thai chicken salad, O’Neal poured a toasted coconut margarita, swapping in coconut water alongside blanco tequila, agave and a sprinkle of salt. The herbaceous tequila and cooling coconut were chosen specifically to sit against punchy Thai flavours, and it won over even guests who normally avoid sweeter tropical drinks. By the close, her spirits experiment had proved its point: thoughtful pairing is hard to do consistently, but when it lands, the drink genuinely changes how the food tastes.
Rick Stein’s Bangladesh Journey Uncovers a Beef Curry Found Nowhere Else
The episode’s first archive trip followed Rick Stein along the Shari River in Bangladesh, guided by his new friend Kamran Chaudri, a former member of parliament for the region. Stein was visibly moved by the landscape, describing turquoise mineral-rich water against buff-coloured land and scenes that looked, to him, biblical and unlike anything in his travels. He watched sand miners working long shallow boats and labourers grading river stones entirely by hand, reflecting on the back-breaking work that a machine would handle back in the UK.
The culinary destination was beef shatkora, a curry famous across Bangladesh and built around an ingredient unique to Sylhet. The shatkora is a citrus fruit resembling a grapefruit, but it cannot be eaten as fruit and is added near the end of cooking so its bright, citrusy flavour survives into the finished dish. Stein, already thinking about recreating it at home, reckoned he would substitute grapefruit and use topside beef, though he guessed the local cooks were using blade or feather.
The method followed familiar curry logic on a vast scale, frying a heap of sliced shallots before adding cardamom, cloves, cassia leaves and cinnamon. Stein acknowledged the practical limits of recreating it abroad, noting cassia leaves are hard to find in the UK. Along the way, a roadside moment captured the trip’s spirit: a man arriving with a wild beehive freshly taken from a tree, the baby bees too young to sting, the honey to be harvested once he got home. It was travel cooking at its most genuine, more about place and people than precise replication.
Nigel Slater and Marcus Wareing Champion Vegetables and Restraint
Two more archive cooks reinforced the episode’s seasonal, vegetable-forward mood. Nigel Slater built a dish of crisp, vividly cooked greens, skinning broad beans and finishing with baby spinach, then dressing it with mild mustard, sharp lemon juice, salt, olive oil and roughly chopped parsley. His twist was an unapologetic, “rebellious” helping of double cream for contrasting texture against the crunch, framing the plate as a saintly five-a-day meal redeemed by one slightly sinful indulgence. Mustard and cream, parsley and cream, he insisted, simply belong together.
Marcus Wareing took cauliflower as his canvas, building a roasted and pickled cauliflower salad on a bed of creamy almond hummus. His philosophy was waste-conscious and economical: cauliflower is cheap and cheerful, and he used nearly every part of it. The tender inner leaves were treated like salad leaves, the stem grated coleslaw-style, and the florets charred on the grill, some cut in half to char the interior, then seasoned with cumin seeds, thyme, salt and pepper.
Wareing’s two techniques, roasting and pickling, showed how to elevate a humble vegetable without fuss. He made a quick pickling liquid from white wine vinegar and sugar, balancing the charred, nutty florets against bright acidity, and finished with chives, a splash of oil and roughly chopped almonds. The dish was pitched explicitly as a healthy, savoury counterweight to all the sweet treats elsewhere in the show, and it embodied the episode’s recurring message that simple, seasonal cooking often beats complication.
A Retro Ice Cream Sandwich and Camp Coffee Steal the Studio
One of the most purely entertaining stretches of Saturday Kitchen 2026 episode 22 was Tebbutt’s nostalgic ice cream sandwich, built around two divisive retro icons: Camp Coffee and Ice Magic. Camp Coffee, the chicory-and-coffee essence in its instantly recognisable tartan-labelled bottle, became a running joke, with Hadland declaring herself a willing brand ambassador and the table debating whether it counts as coffee at all. The base was a simple no-churn mixture of condensed milk, cream and vanilla, split three ways into vanilla, strawberry and Camp Coffee layers.
The build leaned into childhood memory. Tebbutt recalled the near-magical chemistry of Ice Magic, the chocolate shell that cracks with a spoon, remembering as a child smearing it on his finger and waiting in vain for it to set, before learning it only firms on cold surfaces. He used a chocolate-and-oil mixture dipped onto cold ice cream, then coconut, attempting to recreate the long-discontinued oyster-shaped ice cream treat that older viewers would remember fondly.
The segment doubled as the day’s promotional anchor, with the guests folding their West End play into the gags. Their comedy, The Truth, is adapted from a French writer and runs at the Apollo Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue, previewing from 9 June, press night on 24 June, and running until 12 September. The play is structured as a series of two-handers exploring affairs, white lies and the gap between what we tell others and ourselves, 90 minutes without an interval. Mangan praised that tight running time, arguing a great night at the theatre should send you out happy and home early, a sentiment the whole table cheerfully endorsed.
Stephen Mangan Wins Food Heaven With a Thai Chicken Salad and Bang-Bang Sauce
The episode’s central vote resolved in Mangan’s favour, with 67% of viewers choosing his Food Heaven over Hadland’s whipped-feta-and-salmon dish. His winning plate was a Thai-style crunchy vegetable and noodle salad topped with poached chicken in a spicy peanut bang-bang sauce, a fittingly fresh, fiery finish for a heatwave broadcast. Tebbutt began by poaching the chicken in a deeply aromatic broth, coriander seeds and roots, garlic, star anise, chillies, Thai fish sauce, lime leaves, ginger and smashed lemongrass, simmered and skimmed.
That poaching liquid did double duty, a point Tebbutt was keen to make. The leftover stock can be reduced and turned into a ramen or noodle dish the next day, turning one cook into two meals. The chicken was stripped down, the crisp vegetables prepared as a fresh “crunchy stuff” slaw to match Hadland’s earlier brief, and the dish dressed with lime juice diluted with water, Thai fish sauce, garlic, chillies and palm sugar, all balanced by tasting as he went.
The bang-bang sauce required the most care. Tebbutt combined smooth peanut butter with Thai fish sauce, soy, sesame oil, chilli, garlic, lime, palm sugar and a little stock, warning that peanut butter is temperamental and prone to splitting when hot or cold liquid hits it. His advice was to add stock gradually and rectify gently rather than force it. Paired with O’Neal’s toasted coconut margarita, the finished salad delivered exactly the zesty, cooling, summery hit the whole episode had been building toward.
By the time Tebbutt thanked his lineup and pointed viewers to the recipes on the Saturday Kitchen website, the episode had quietly made its case for warm-weather cooking that is fast, smart and generous. From tomato-water risotto to a heat-proof pavlova and a share-and-baste British barbecue, Saturday Kitchen 2026 episode 22 turned a punishing studio heatwave into a masterclass in seasonal food, proving that the best summer recipes are often the ones built around restraint, freshness and a little well-timed indulgence. Next week, Tebbutt promised a five-chef line-up to mark 20 years of Saturday Kitchen Live, a milestone that suits a show still finding fresh life in simple, seasonal cooking.
FAQ Saturday Kitchen 2026 episode 22
Q: What is Luke Holder’s umami tsunami risotto?
A: It is a tomato risotto made without stock, served with anchovies, cured charcuterie and a white peach, rocket and mint salad. Holder blends cherry tomatoes, red wine vinegar, saffron, salt, garlic and basil into a sweet tomato water. Inspired by his time at Enoteca Pinchiorri in Italy, he describes it as capturing the golden hour just after sunset.
Q: Why make risotto with tomato water instead of stock?
A: Risotto can feel heavy, so swapping stock for tomato water keeps it bright and seasonal in hot weather. The blended tomatoes bring natural sweetness and acidity. Holder lets gravity strain the mixture rather than forcing it, and recommends making it the night before. Good soil-and-sunshine tomatoes, not greenhouse fruit, make a noticeable difference to the flavour.
Q: How much risotto rice should you use per person?
A: Holder shares an old nonna’s rule for cooking without scales: a small handful of rice per person for a starter and a large handful for a main course. He also keeps the rice on the heat until it becomes too hot to handle. The risotto should flow like lava, never too stiff or too wet.
Q: How do you dry-brine a steak overnight?
A: The Beefy Boys season the sirloin with salt, garlic powder and dried black pepper, then leave it uncovered in the fridge overnight. Through osmosis the seasoning is pulled back into the meat, seasoning it throughout like a brine. Importantly, this stops the steak drying out and deepens the flavour before it ever reaches the barbecue.
Q: What does seasoning the chopping board mean?
A: It is a technique the Beefy Boys learned from barbecue chef Adam Perry Lang. They coat the board with smoked oil, rock salt, grated onion and garlic, then rest and slice the steak on top. The meat soaks up those flavours as it sits. They suggest adapting the board to the protein, such as mint and lemon zest for lamb.
Q: How do you stop a pavlova collapsing in hot weather?
A: Ravneet Gill adds milk powder to her cream, which binds it and prevents the watery leakage that ruins desserts under heat or in the fridge. She whips egg whites with white wine vinegar slowly before adding sugar, since rushing creates an unstable structure. The vinegar builds initial structure, with lemon juice or cream of tartar as substitutes.
Q: Can you use frozen fruit in a pavlova?
A: Yes, Gill champions frozen fruit, using frozen gooseberries for a quick compote with lemon juice, elderflower cordial and sugar. It cooks in around six minutes. Frozen fruit is often cheaper and works especially well in pavlovas. She notes it is sometimes sold in the frozen aisles of garden centres, which surprised her fellow guests.
Q: What cocktails pair best with food in hot weather?
A: Carmen O’Neal chose light, refreshing drinks built to cool the palate. A gin and basil smash matched the tomato risotto, while a toasted coconut margarita with blanco tequila, coconut water, agave and salt suited punchy Thai flavours. She treats cocktails like wine, hunting for a perfect marriage with the food, and offers non-alcoholic versions too.
Q: How do you make bang-bang sauce without it splitting?
A: Combine smooth peanut butter with Thai fish sauce, soy, sesame oil, chilli, garlic, lime, palm sugar and a little stock. Peanut butter is temperamental and splits when hot or cold liquid hits it suddenly. Add the stock gradually and rectify gently rather than forcing the mixture. Taste as you go to balance the heat, salt and acidity.
