ITV's James Martin set his house ablaze and says 'almighty bang'

James Martin has revealed the moment he caused a huge barbecue explosion that sent chops "about 20-30 feet in the air". The former host of BBC's Saturday Kitchen also admitted he set his house on fire anoher time.

ITV's Saturday Morning chef James revealed this in the Grilling podcast with fellow celebrity chef Simon Rimmer, James recounted his startling story after being questioned about any past barbecue blunders. The former BBC presenter revealed that a disastrous fire at his home was caused by an Italian pizza oven roof, which had been mistakenly constructed with wood instead of metal. But he claimed his dad's barbecue disaster was the "best one of all".

James shared: "I set my side of my house on fire. That was a good one because... I mean, I love builders and particularly... a certain group of Irish builders, who are fantastic, that decided to build an Italian pizza oven roof.", reports the Mirror.

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"Instead of having metal, (they) built it out of wood, which is quite handy. And I think the best one of all was my dad... we're DIY people. My dad was hopeless at DIY."

He went on to say: "He built himself a barbecue back home at the house, on the farmhouse, and it was basically four like concrete blocks on one side, four concrete blocks on the other one... and we had some York stone."

James shared a tale of a barbecue blunder that turned explosive, stating that the "massive" stone was so hefty it took eight people to shift it. Despite their efforts, disaster struck when his dad decided to barbecue an assortment of meats.

He recounted the moment, saying: "Next minute, there was an almighty bang. It was like, honestly, it was (a) huge explosion, and you get bits of lamb chops, pork chops, sausages flying over the top of this house. It was massive."

"They found there was an air gap in the brickwork which had overheated and exploded - the whole thing - with my dad stood next to it. Chops were being sent 20-30 feet sky-high. Hilarious really."

Simon found humour in the incident yet admitted it could have been an "absolute disaster". James agreed, noticing it "could have been".

Nonetheless, they didn't let the food fiasco dampen their culinary enthusiasm, quickly salvaging the scattered eats.

James is no stranger to kitchen calamities; he famously misspoke his introduction on live TV during a 2012 episode of Saturday Kitchen Live.

He shared the funny mishap, revealing: "And for some reason, I just got all my words mixed up. What it was supposed to say was, 'what a delicious looking dish, Rick; now I'm going to do spotted dick and custard, and now I'm going to show you what to do'."

"What I said was, 'what a delicious looking d**k, Rick', and before I even got the apology out, they're laughing in my ear. I've got the BBC laughing in one ear, producers wetting themselves."