Traditional Values The Hairy Bikers' Comfort Food

We've travelled the world and eaten everywhere from roadside bars

to restaurants with Michelin stars. DOG BARKS

But there really is nothing like a bit of home cooking.

Coming into a warm kitchen

filled with the aroma of a tasty meal bubbling away...

..it's one of life's great pleasures.

There's nothing like comfort food to put a smile on your face.

Today, the kind of dishes worth staying home for...

We're talking traditional values.

Traditional values, David.

Traditional values, like morris dancing.

-What?

-Morris dancing, tradition and soup.

SIMON LAUGHS

Never did I think I'd hear morris dancing and soup

in the same sentence, but you've managed to pull it off.

But our soup,

it's got those textures, it's sweet, it's savoury.

It's autumn, spring and winter all rolled into one.

We melt some butter, take three sweet eating apples.

Just quarter the apples, and I'm coring them,

and then I'll just slice them into kind of nice chunks.

All I'm doing while Dave's doing that,

I'm getting stuck into the celeriac.

I've got a carrot and I've got some onions,

and we're just going to sweat those off

as soon as those beautiful apples are caramelised.

Just coat these apples in butter.

Keep, like, a single layer on the pan.

Let them cook for about five minutes.

The thing about soup as a traditional value,

it really is multicultural.

-In Indian restaurants, you have mulligatawny.

-Yeah.

Rasam.

-Yes, yeah.

-Beautiful soup.

In Romania, where my wife's from,

their traditional soup is a ciorba de burta.

I love that.

I hate it. It's tripe soup.

And actually it's also traditional in Turkey,

so you can see the Turkish influence went into Romania

but the Romanians have well and truly claimed it as their own.

They definitely have that. Right, mucker, we're ready.

Set the apples aside.

Great. I have the celeriac...

..two onions, and the carrot.

I always think that if you want

to get the most flavour out of a soup,

-you've got to put a lot in, haven't you?

-Yeah, you have.

Because then there's a gravity to it,

-do you know what I mean?

-Right.

There's a texture and a thickness to it that's lovely.

-Mr King.

-Thanks, mate.

Now, we need to cook this down until everything is pretty soft.

Here, look, you can see that there's all of those lovely sugars

on the bottom.

Well, what you can do is a little bit of the stock...

..just pour it in, because we want to keep those flavours

and keep those sugars and we don't want them to burn.

You know what I like with the traditions of food and cuisine?

It's a kind of good place to start from and a foundation stone

for experimentation, because you can push the envelope.

-If you actually know where you're coming from...

-Yeah.

..and not entirely sure where you're going to,

-you can always refer back to your home base...

-Yeah.

..and the traditions and values that you had

when you were learning to cook.

-Yeah, I think we're there, mucker.

-Couple of cloves of garlic.

We'll just grate them in there.

You can chop it, if you want.

We're garlic lovers.

Just put the potatoes in now.

Couple of sprigs of thyme.

I'm just going to put them in as they are.

We'll fish them out afterwards.

Then a bay leaf. And now the stock.

And we're using chicken stock.

You can just as easy use vegetable stock.

Bit of seasoning to kick it off.

Bring it to the boil, simmer... about 20 minutes.

Yeah, just till the veggies are cooked.

We're missing something, dude.

It's an apple...

HE GASPS ..and celeriac soup.

The apples go in at this point as well.

Slightly caramelised, slightly lovely,

but they're best in than out.

Go up to 11.

-Oh, look at this.

-Ooh, yeah.

-Nice, isn't it?

-Yeah, lovely, man.

Shall we taste it for seasoning, Kingy?

Yes, good idea.

Little bit more salt.

-Would you say?

-Yeah.

-It's lovely, though.

It's got real depth of flavour.

Actually, it's a brilliant way

to get the veggies into the kids, isn't it?

-Oh, yeah, absolutely.

-Mm.

-I love that tang of the apple as well.

-Yeah.

It's lovely. Really nice.

There's only three apples there but...

-They work, don't they?

-Oh, yeah, yeah.

Shall we do the bacon bits?

-Might as well, dude.

-Bacon, an optional extra.

Obviously, not a good option if you're a vegetarian.

Just little bit of oil, brush your pan.

And just stretch them out a little bit,

cos they go slightly crispier then.

So, for the other garnishes, we want some creme fraiche,

and so that it goes into a nice swirl,

we're just going to let that down with a drop of milk.

Moo!

-And creme fraiche.

-Shards of bacon.

And then we want some parsley sprinkles.

Lovely.

There we have it. Apple and celeriac soup.

Proper soup, born out of traditional values.

Got heritage, that, just like morris dancing.

Nothing beats a bit of home cooking,

but every now and then it's nice to have someone else cook for you.

Thankfully, all over the country there are tasty places

that make us feel right at home.

My name is Ross,

and I'm the fourth generation of the family business, the Rinkha.

What I do is make the ice cream, which the Rinkha is most famous for.

We're not only an ice cream shop.

We are a toy shop, general store, a cafe,

and we are at the heart of the community.

-I thank you, Margaret.

-Thank you.

-Thank you, m'dear.

Islandmagee is a beautiful, beautiful peninsula

off the East Antrim coast.

I've lived in Islandmagee all of my life.

I was born and bred and reared in Islandmagee.

It's peaceful, tranquil,

and I cannot imagine living anywhere else in the world.

I'm William Hawkins.

The Rinkha was built as a dance hall by my grandfather

because he wanted to diversify from the general store which he had

and wanted to get into the entertainment business.

In those days, this area was very, very sparsely populated.

Quite a few people thought this man had lost his senses.

But he did it and attracted the show bands

from all over Ireland and became very successful.

The very fact that people have danced on this floor

and are still able to come and sit and enjoy a coffee,

it's special in a lot of customers' hearts.

It was packed and the music was good.

People enjoyed themselves here.

I think the Rinkha means so much to me

because I met my late husband here.

They did call it the ballroom of romance.

Nothing but laughter, good music, good dancing and good ice cream.

The last dance was in 1968. After that, the dancehall closed.

My father at that stage gradually turned it into a shop

which sold a variety of stuff.

The ice cream has been, always been, at the heart.

The ice cream is our biggest attraction.

It has been here since 1921.

It was invented and made by my great-grandmother, Henrietta,

and the secret's been passed down very, very carefully

and kept very, very carefully by the members of the family that know it.

I love experimenting with flavours.

You can come in here on a winter's day,

lock the doors, no-one's about,

and just mess about with whatever you want.

That's where you try and find different unique flavours.

Sometimes I feel like a bit of a mad scientist,

and some people tell me I look like it wearing this white overall.

-There we go. Thank you, Margaret.

-Thank you.

As a family business,

we want the Rinkha to continue into the future.

There's customers still supporting us to this day

that supported my great grandfather and grandfather

and father.

So, the Rinkha still sells our very famous ice cream,

we still serve the community.

We want to keep on supplying the community

as a central focal point,

and also I would love to see some live music being brought back.

You know when you know you've got that pizza

from the night before and you go...nom-nom?

What we've done is we've crossed that pizza with the full English.

There is no food like the pizza that lends itself...

-No.

-..to a full English breakfast.

Well, if you make the dough, dude, I'll just make the passata,

the spready, spready, tomatoey bit

on the top of your beautiful pizza, dude.

Do you think we could have brown sauce on our breakfast pizza?

You can have what the flipping heck you like.

Marmalade?

Yeah, nice. HE GAGS

Right. Yeast goes into the flour, 300g of plain flour.

It's dried yeast.

And just give that a good mix in before we put in the salt,

cos we don't want the salt

to land on the yeast and to kill the yeast.

A teaspoon of salt.

Now I want about two tablespoons of olive oil.

Mix the olive oil into the tepid water.

Then we just start to make the dough.

Right, now, there's two cloves of garlic in here.

I'm not doing anything other than sticking them in.

Just into a food processor like that.

There's 200ml of passata to go in, tomato puree.

Some oregano, dried.

About a teaspoon. That'll do.

Salt. Pepper.

And some fresh basil leaves.

Mate, I'm going to turn this on now, so you might have to shout.

-HE SHOUTS:

-That's all right!

Now, you want this as smooth as you can get it.

About that consistency. Ooh, look at that.

And you notice we're not cooking it off,

but don't forget this goes into the oven.

When you do dough, there's a point when you know

that it's dough and not flour and water.

You know, it just goes elastic.

-And there we have it.

-That looks nice, Dave.

-Yeah.

-Springy.

-It's funny.

-I think pizza dough really needs to be worked, doesn't it?

-It does.

You know, you need the dough to release the gluten,

but you want your pizza dough to be stretchy and springy.

Yeah. It looks really nice.

Put a bit of oil into the bowl just so the dough doesn't stick

when we take it out.

We're going to leave this beauty to prove for an hour or so

till it's doubled in size.

But you can do this the night before

and put this in the fridge and the dough will still prove

in a cool temperature.

It'll just take a lot longer.

Et voila. Look at that.

-It's like Lazarus, that.

-Mm.

Oh, that smells fabulous as well.

-Now, I've got...

-What have you got?

-..me peel.

-HE WHISTLES

Of course, you can struggle with two fish slices at home,

-but, you know, we're not.

-No.

But the thing is, I'm limited to the size of me pizza

to the diameter of me doodah.

Well, we don't want a gratuitous breakfast, do we?

It's a full English fry-up pizza!

Anyway, I'm going to knock me dough back.

Should be really spinning this round in the air, shouldn't I,

in true pizza-house fashion.

-Absolutely.

-Right. Just pop that onto the peel.

-That's pretty good.

-Ah, perfect, mucker.

So, Leonardo, how do you see your creation?

I think we put the passata onto the dough.

-Yes, definitely.

-You know, in general pizza fashion.

Speckle it with sausage.

I think the streaky bacon in about one-inch bits

so that when you get a slice you have a piece of bacon.

-One-inch bits?

-Yeah. Black pudding just crumbled.

-I'm on it.

-And then we'll kind of break an egg on the top.

And then mozzarella on it.

Of course, you could do a vegetarian version of this,

just with mushrooms and tomatoes, but then it'd just be a pizza.

Yeah, that'd be wrong. DAVE LAUGHS

We've got a pizza stone that we put in the oven

and that's been in there about 20 minutes warming up.

-Yes. It's happening, dude.

-Nice one, squirrel.

-Phwoar!

-Look at that. See you in about ten minutes.

-Get in.

Beautiful.

And the egg's still poppable.

Can we?

That's it, you see, because of the bread,

fresh-baked bread, runny egg,

it's like self-perpetuating soldiers.

Go on!

CRUNCHING

Nice sound.

-What do you reckon?

-I reckon it's genius.

It's just...

It just works so well.

But it's got all the traditions that we love from home,

with the full English breakfast, fresh-baked bread.

You know, a bit of cheese on top for indulgence.

-Crispy bottom.

-Yeah, and you've also got that...

..pizza-for-breakfast kind of vibe, without the guilt.

Britain has an army of creative chefs who, day after day,

send out sensational dishes to customers in their restaurants.

They work long hours, toiling over their stoves,

but at home, what is it that they cook on their days off?

I never thought of that...

My name's Carina Contini.

I am the chef-proprietor here at Contini Ristorante

in Scotland's beautiful capital city.

We are a fresh, simple Italian restaurant

that prides itself on Southern Italian cooking,

using the best Scottish ingredients that are available,

but we also import produce direct from the markets of Italy.

This kitchen is brutal

because it's open for breakfast service,

kicks off for lunch, and then, bang, into dinner service.

It's hectic, it's busy, but it delivers.

Home time is recharge, reenergise. It's vital.

You know, without our downtime, we couldn't cope.

Home cooking is a mixture of Italian and Scottish.

I suppose in the summertime, we'll cook more Italian food,

but definitely in the winter time more comfort, more Scottish food.

And if you were to ask my children what their favourite dish was,

it would definitely be steak pie.

Steak pie is a dish that my grandmother used to cook.

I think it was one of the first dishes she learned to cook

coming over from Italy.

It was handed down to my mother. My mother hates steak pie.

Maybe that's why we all love it so much!

It's simple.

So, you need some olive oil.

Fry off a couple of onions that have been finely chopped.

You need really good meat, preferably shoulder of beef,

chopped up into sort of casserole-sized chunks.

Dip the chunks of meat in a little bit of flour.

Brown them off in the pan.

Add beef stock into the pot with the beef and the onions,

a little bit of thyme,

and then pop it into the oven for about an hour,

an hour and 15 minutes.

Once it's cooked and tender, then fill a traditional pie dish.

And then I don't make my own puff pastry.

I've never made my own puff pastry. It's one of my life's goals.

I need to find time to make puff pastry.

But pre-bought puff pastry, lovely vegetables,

and you really can't go wrong.

'One of my youngest memories was putting the pastry on the pie.

'I mean, I probably would've been five or six, scoring the pastry.'

-A spoon.

-A spoon.

'I suppose eating it today,

'it just brings back all of those memories,

'but it's, you know, a traditional Scottish dish that's been served

'for hundreds of years.

'And maybe that, as an Italian-Scot,

'maybe that makes me feel more Scottish when I get to eat it.'

It doesn't get much more traditional than this.

Victoria sponge with blackberries and spiced cream.

-Dave, it's not just blackberries.

-No.

We are going to put... We felt...

Look, you should really use creme de mure.

Creme de mure is blackberry liqueur.

But we couldn't actually find any so we're using creme de cassis,

-which is just as nice.

-Which is blackcurrant liqueur.

-Yeah.

But, you know, it's nice. Bit of booze, bit of spice.

-I'm just going to sprinkle this with a bit of sugar.

-Yeah.

So, basically, the general rule with a Victoria sponge

is use the same weight of flour, butter and sugar.

In this case, 225g.

Now, traditionally, the ladies of the WI will weigh their eggs.

And so if I take, say, four eggs,

the four eggs should weigh around about 225g

in order for that perfect Victoria sponge.

So, here we go.

236.

By the time we've discarded the shells, we should be spot on.

It is pretty good basic chemistry.

So, first off,

the butter which has been softened and chopped goes into a mixing bowl.

We need to cream this with the sugar.

Should be mousse-like, shouldn't it? Lots and lots of air it.

Did your mum used to make Victoria sponges?

-Oh, yeah.

-So did mine. This was the cake of choice.

This was about the only cake she made, really.

In fact, she used to make a coffee cake,

which in fact was a Victoria sponge, but with that liquid coffee in.

I reckon we're there, Kingy.

It's become light and fluffy.

It's going everywhere!

Oh, sugar, look at me shirt.

That's all right. That's fine, that.

Let's have a feel, let's have a feel.

I used to love butter and sugar when I was a kid.

I hope you don't mind me saying,

but I think that could do with a bit more.

Oh, all right. That's fine.

Right, so, add the eggs one at a time.

After each egg's gone in, pop in a spoonful of flour.

And that's to stop the mixture from separating

because you always get a panic on

-when it separates like that, don't you?

-You do, don't you?

-Well, I do.

-Yeah, yeah. You're right.

And now we can start to add the rest of the flour.

-Do you want me to do that, mucker?

-Yeah, go on.

Do you want me to spoon round the side, mate...

-Yeah.

-..so I can get it in?

Thank you.

This does remind me of days at home.

It's the bowl licking, isn't it?

It's the bowl licking.

It's the... It's a classic cake batter.

But what isn't classic is the next bit. Go on, Kingy.

This is the point where there is shock and awe

throughout the nation.

Lemon juice.

"They've put lemon juice in a Victoria sponge!"

-Yes.

-Yes, we have.

What you want to do is add enough lemon juice

just so you get that little drop... the consistency of the drop.

-Yes, it has.

-It has just loosened it right up, hasn't it?

So, split this between two lined tins.

It does help if you get them even.

You don't want one to be bigger than the other.

I've done it, I've licked the spoon.

Oh, David!

That's the two halves of our supercharged Victoria sponge,

and we pop that into a preheated oven at 180 degrees

-for 25 minutes.

-Mm-hm.

TIMER TICKING

SNORING

BELL RINGS

-Right, mate.

-Right.

-I'll do the cream, dude.

I'll get the spices, because it's a spiced cream.

Now, bit of whipping cream,

and whip it to just after it gets to soft peaks.

So, not firm peaks, not soft peaks, but the bit in the middle.

-That'll do.

-That was quick, that.

So, we fold in two spoonfuls of icing sugar.

And now the spice in the box of tricks.

Shazam!

I want a quarter teaspoon of allspice.

A quarter teaspoon of mace.

A quarter teaspoon of cardamom.

And a quarter teaspoon of cinnamon.

-So, that's the spice cream.

-Oh!

Spoon on a layer of blackberries.

This is one very beautiful Victoria sponge cake.

You see this beautiful syrup? You just want a little bit of that.

Not too much, though, or else it will make it soggy.

And then...

Well, there you have it.

That's a wonderful cake that's born out of a great British tradition.

Our Victoria sponge

with blackberries and spiced cream.

I bet you couldn't eat two slices.

Afternoon tea and cake - now, there's a tradition.

Absolutely.

Aw, man. Success.

Great success.

Traditional values on a plate.

-Go on. Go on.

-Should I?

-Yeah.

Oh!