Jamie Oliver's Perfect Last Meal Features No-Fuss Comfort Foods At Home

When you ask some of the world's most renowned chefs what their last meal would be, you'll hear a deluge of hard-to-find ingredients with difficult-to-prepare techniques. Emeril Lagasse? Game birds and dry-aged meat. Angela Hartnett? Roasted meats stuffed with braised veal or lamb — and both asked for truffles. But when My Last Supper spoke with Jamie Oliver, the British chef and TV personality opted for comforting classics for his perfect last meal. As his entree, he'd have a large helping of spaghetti all'arrabbiata, made extra spicy with three types of chiles. "It is soft, sweet, and silky — my perfect comfort food," he explains.

Arrabbiata sauce, the spicy sister of tomato sauce, has a short ingredient list. Usually just tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, and crushed red pepper flakes, Oliver's own arrabbiata recipe recommends frying whole fresh chilies yourself. He uses fresh chiles in the sauce and dried ones in the Italian breadcrumb topping, making for an elevated flavor and texture. Oliver's Last Supper version iterates on his own recipe by adding a third type of chile for an extra bite.

To drink alongside his arrabbiata, you might expect an expensive bottle of dry red wine, but Oliver again opts for the unexpected: Hoegaarden beer, a Belgian wheat beer developed by monks in the village of Hoegaarden which features an aromatic, citrusy flavor. While we might not pair botanical and coriander flavors with spicy tomato sauce, who are we to go against The Naked Chef?

No Last Supper is complete without dessert. Alongside a fiery Italian pasta dish, you might anticipate a creamy tiramisu (perhaps even with hazelnuts) or a panna cotta. Maybe, to follow in the Belgian beer's footsteps, you'd expect something with richly dark chocolate. Once again, Jamie Oliver is full of comforting surprises. The chef instead opts for homemade rice pudding with roasted peaches. He specifies that the pudding should be served "very cold" with hot, caramelized peaches on top. Caramelizing peaches gives them a richer flavor, firmer texture, and a slightly smoky taste, which pairs perfectly with the soft, sweet profile of rice pudding.

Rice pudding is an easy, creamy, comforting classic, made even better by using short-grain arborio rice. On his website, Oliver cooks his with vanilla, honey, or maple syrup for the ideal sweetness. He also recommends topping it with seasonally available fresh fruit and dabs of your favorite jam. 

Spicy pasta, craft beer, and hot peaches over cold rice pudding sounds superb enough to try even before our last meal. Who needs fancy truffles anyway?