Episode 3 Rick Stein: From Venice to Istanbul

I've always fancied doing a bit of a culinary journey,

starting in Venice,

then travel to Croatia, to Albania,

going all over Greece

and finally into Turkey and finishing up in Istanbul.

I see it as a bit of two sort of bookends.

At one end, the fabulous food of Venice,

and the other, the fabulous Eastern food of Istanbul,

and in between, who knows?

So, a long culinary journey. Who could ask for anything more?

I haven't come very far on my journey -

just a short hop from Venice to Croatia.

Really good food here and not too pricey,

and then it's south to Albania.

I've had some great seafood in Croatia, mainly little fish,

because they sell the prime ones to Italy, who've got a bit more cash.

This is my lunch.

There's memorable lamb up in the mountains, slowly roasted on spits.

This is food unchanged by time.

They cooked this way before the Ottomans, before the Romans,

probably before the ancient Greeks.

That's simply the best piece of roast lamb I've ever tasted.

All the cooks I've met here say the food is very simple,

very tasty and cooked with lots of feeling.

It's the deepest, darkest fish stew I've ever tasted.

Yeah!

I knew nothing about Croatia and I got here and I just love the place.

The thing is, it's so unspoilt

and the people have got no sort of pretentions, they're just...

You just get on with them straight away

and the food sort of reflects that, really.

It's, yes, simple food, but it's cooked with such affection

and the quality of the raw materials are so good,

I just keep having these sort of memorable meals

and can't believe how lucky I am.

This is Ston. It's famous for three things.

First of all, its salt pans,

for making the white gold of the Dalmatian coast.

Secondly, and because the salt is so precious,

the great walls of Ston.

Built in this configuration to stop the pesky Venetians,

Turks and an assortment of pirates from nicking it.

And finally, number three - and this is what interests me the most -

the fabulous oysters that grow from a fine cocktail

of saltwater and fresh.

It's that that makes them so special.

Marijana Franusic is a connoisseur of these fabulous oysters

and she's showing me around.

Well, Marijana, can I try them?

Yes, why not? Try the best oysters in the world.

Well, they're what we call native oysters,

so I... Oh, I'll have a bit of lemon, yeah.

I love oysters, by the way, so this is...

Yes, me, too, like oysters.

This is the Ostrea Edulis, the best oysters on the world

and only live in Bay of Mali Ston.

Oh, Edulis?

Yes, the special oysters, Ostrea Edulis,

you have another sort of oysters on the world,

but the special live only in the Bay of Mali Ston.

No, no, we have Edulis in England, in Cornwall.

No, you have not.

We do!

No, you have not. This oyster...

But it's the native oyster. We do, I'm sorry, but...

No, you didn't.

We do.

No.

Look, I'm sorry, but I do know my oysters.

We do, they're... Edulis are the latest...

These oysters, Ostrea Edulis live in the Bay of Mali Ston

and some...region in France, but not in the United Kingdom.

They do!

No!

They do! Right, OK, have it your way, whatever you say.

But let me just say, whatever you say, they're very good.

They're plumpcious, they're full of flavour...

Yes.

-..they're sweet, salty. I love them.

-Sweet, salty, yes.

The people come here, especially for eat this oyster and other seafood.

The violets.

Violets. Are we going to try these?

Yes, maybe one.

I just find them...

I've had them before in France, I just find them a bit bitter.

But maybe these are a bit different.

You try.

OK. Are you going to have one, too?

Always look a bit like scrambled egg, I think.

I don't know why they call them violets,

cos they're not violet, they're yellow.

Yellow. We said here "sea eggs".

Mh-mm.

Urgh!

It may be one of those things, people are always saying to me,

"Is there anything you won't eat? You like everything."

I think I might say "I don't really like violets."

Do you?

Mmm, the oysters are better, I think.

Yeah, I think the oysters... Let's go back to the oysters.

Let's go back to the oysters!

The best in the world.

The Cornish ones are quite good.

'You say tom-ay-toes, I say to-mah-toes, etc.

'Needless to say, we agreed to differ,

'but the oysters were very good. Very good indeed.'

In the scheme of things, I haven't had much Croatian wine in my time.

But from what I've tasted, I like it.

It's well made, pricey, virtually unpronounceable,

strong - like so many wines these days - but lovely.

The most famous of the reds is Dingac

and the vines that make the grapes, Plavac Mali, I find fascinating.

They're like poor, tortured creatures,

like something from Dante's Inferno, fighting for a toehold

in the stony soil to stop them slipping off and into the sea.

I've got no head for heights, so just standing here's bad enough,

but the thought of having to go down that incredibly steep slope

and tend these Plavac Mali wines is just terrible.

I don't know how they do it.

But the fact is that it does produce this absolutely fabulous wine

called Dingac, and they say

it's because of the stunted nature of the vines.

They get very low yield from each of them and presumably those roots have

to work so hard, not only to get into the soil, but to stay there.

Imagine the winds that blow up this slope.

Just thinking, you know,

in the old days, people would go off on grape-picking holidays.

You can see an ad saying,

"Come to the coast of Croatia, have a lovely holiday picking grapes,

"drinking the local wine and having lovely food"

and this is what you'd find.

We - I mean me and the crew - stop for lunch on our travels

virtually every day. We just turn up unannounced

on the off chance that there will be room for us.

Sometimes, very rarely, the food is utterly brilliant - like this.

We're not supposed to be filming,

but we just stopped for lunch on the way to a location.

Yeah.

-You've got black lips and...

-Have I?

..and you look strangely alluring and so I just wondered,

tell me honestly what you think of this.

It's quite simply the best black risotto I've ever, ever eaten.

It's so black, but it is sensational

and I think what I'm starting to think about Croatia,

about the seafood cooking in Croatia,

it's always, always done simply and absolutely at the minute.

This one was made seconds ago.

Your lips are very black.

All right, all right!

But at least you won't see how much wine I'm drinking.

It's 16.2%, do you realise that?

I know, 16.2! We're going to... Are we working this afternoon?

Yeah.

You know, in...

Have a little bit more.

..back at home they wouldn't call this wine,

it'd be fortified wine, it's so strong.

OK, cut there.

'No more driving for me. 16.2%? You've got to be joking.

'What's happening to wine?'

Could I possibly match how good that cuttlefish risotto was?

Well, I'm going to give it a try in my lovely kitchen

on the island of Symi.

This is cuttlefish risotto. It's very black.

I'm surprised that cuttlefish isn't more popular,

because it has got the most wonderful flavour,

but I guess it's because of the ink that, if you buy cuttlefish whole,

it's very difficult to avoid puncturing the ink sac

and then you get ink over everything

and you can't get it out of your hair or your hands

or wherever else you might put it!

But this one, fortunately, they've taken the ink sac out

before delivering it to me, which I'm very happy about.

PAN SIZZLES

I just love the smell of the caramelised sugars

in cuttlefish as it cooks over a high heat.

It's just delicious.

Now some salt - just enough to make the salt police's eyebrows rise -

and then chopped shallots - about two -

garlic - a couple of cloves -

and then risotto rice - in this case arborio, probably the most popular.

Now stir that around, making sure that each grain is coated,

and then pepper, as much as you like, and white wine.

I'm using Pinot Grigio, crisp and unoaked.

And now stock, a good fish stock.

I made this earlier this morning.

And the secret with risotto is keep adding the stock and then

letting it cook down, then adding some more,

and all the time you need to be stirring because what you're doing

is making the outside of the rice break up into the stock

and it gives you this lovely creaminess.

I think there's probably about five minutes more cooking time,

so now the bit I really enjoy, which is...

..the cuttlefish ink.

I shouldn't bother to try and get cuttlefish ink

out of a cuttlefish, it'd be all over the place.

Now, a very important - see what I mean? -

very important observation I've made about black ink risotto

is that, wherever it says two sachets,

make it four because if you only use two, it'll be grey risotto.

There's not a lot of flavour in the cuttlefish ink,

so it's not going to be overpowering if you double the amount of ink.

So, four in.

I knew that was going to happen.

Now look at this.

'I know people - real food lovers - who will tackle oysters,

'spider crabs, winkles and whelks...'

Excuse me a second.

'..but go pale at the sight of a black risotto.

'It's purely the colour.

'Get over it, I say. Wake up and enjoy the ink!'

I'm just putting a little bit of butter in there.

You know, I'm obsessed with the sheen on a risotto,

after being told that your risotto should look like the lagoon

in Venice, with that sort of lovely sheen.

Now I'm going to do a highly controversial thing, but...

I love Parmesan, not in all seafood risottos, but just in this one.

I'm sure the Italians will say, "Never, never, never,"

but this was Croatia and I'm sure it had Parmesan in it.

So that is looking absolutely lovely, blacker than black.

So now just finish off with a bit of parsley,

which you won't see, but it's there.

And now, to serve it up.

Well, we're just about to go over the border

from Montenegro into Albania.

I'm a bit apprehensive. I mean, I know very little about Albania.

It's interesting.

I may be coming into a sort of new world.

I don't know whether the food's going to be good

or whether it's going to be frightful,

but I'm really looking forward to it.

I'm hoping I'll find some very local food

that I can really get enthusiastic about,

but it may all just be hamburgers and chips.

'Welcome to Albania.'

Before I came on my journey,

a lot of my chef friends asked me why I was going to Albania.

I said, "Well, I know the food of Spain and Italy, France,

"Thailand and even India...

"..but who can name just one dish from Albania?"

Go on.

Well, that's why I'm here.

HORN TOOTS

I spent two hours at the border - there was something wrong -

and after that it was dark.

It was so dark,

there was just a few pale lights in the distance, and so quiet.

So I woke up this morning to this,

and there's just this sort of sense of innocence in the landscape here

and, for 50 years,

Albania was closed to the rest of the world, a bit like North Korea.

It's almost as if it's a place that's just begun.

Mrizi i Zanave is a restaurant in northern Albania.

In fact, it's a place I've heard of back at home

because the restaurateur and chef, Altin Prenga,

has a big reputation for being self-sufficient.

All of his produce comes from round here.

-Hello.

-Hi, Rick.

-I've heard a lot about you.

-How are you?

-Very...

-Nice to meet you.

-..very nice to meet you.

-Sorry, I don't speak English too much.

-Oh, it's fine.

His place is really popular.

The idea of going out en famille to eat in Albania is fairly new.

50 years of strict communism up until the early '90s

changed the habit of the nation

and they're just getting back into the swing of eating for pleasure.

I'd missed breakfast and I could smell beans and pork cooking

and said to Altin, "I've just got to try some of this.

"A small dish, just to keep me going."

-This is the...

-Just been looking at it. God. I mean...

It's Kalmet beans. It's local...

Kalmet beans.

..a variety from this area and smoked pork meat.

Oh! Simple, honest, flavourful.

In every area of Albania,

poor people, normal people use this traditional soup.

In the mountain, smoked goat or smoked sheep, OK?

And in this area, it was the pork, smoked, no? Ham.

Perfect. Ham, salt, beans, water.

Life.

Part of Altin's restaurant empire was an old concentration camp

used for keeping the intelligentsia away from the towns and cities.

Now Altin wants to plant a vineyard here and make a creamery

and a place to make local cheeses, but keeping tradition alive.

I asked him to cook one of his most popular dishes and he told me

it was a Sunday afternoon favourite around here called jufka.

It's chicken with pasta, but not as we know it.

Those chickens look very free-range, a lovely yellow colour.

I was just asking what the little yellow ball is in the middle,

I thought it might be a kumquat, but it's actually an egg yolk

which would have come out of the cavity of the chicken.

This is real slow food.

How long's that going to go in for, then, Altin?

Ten, 15 minutes.

And no liquid for the pasta? Just cooks without...

No, the...first cook is toasted, OK?

Toasted, yes.

OK? And I take outside...

-Yeah.

-..and I put the warm...

-Stock.

-..stock, yes.

-Fab. Like the idea of that.

All around the restaurant, there's lots of culinary activity.

I think Altin may be overcompensating

for the television crew,

because his wife is dressed up in ancient Albanian costume -

not a thing she does every day - and she's making a pancake

traditionally cooked by the shepherds in the mountains.

It's called flee.

It's made up with about 30 layers of thin batter

and lashings of melted butter

and it's cooked with a hot lid laden with red-hot coals.

-You like to taste?

-Oh, I'd love to taste, Altin, thanks.

-Attention, it's too hot.

-No, no.

Yum. Very good butter.

That's really nice.

-It's the butter that makes it.

-Yeah.

After the pasta is toasted a bit, Altin adds some chicken stock

and puts it back in the oven until the pasta,

or jufka, has absorbed it.

Then it's ready to serve.

Oh. This is delicious.

Just...food like this, what happened during the communist era?

The people eat in south Albania, in north Albania,

in the sea or in the mountain, you take same food.

Everybody ate the same.

-No local dishes, just all the same.

-Yes.

Stopping the communist, start the democracy,

the Italians, French and every different style from the world

and don't remember old tradition from Albania.

Well, what you're doing is great

cos this food is full of character

and I really admire what you're doing.

-Gezuar! To you.

-My friends.

Wherever you go in Albania, you can't fail to see these.

Some people call them concrete mushrooms,

but they're gun emplacements built by a paranoid dictator, Enver Hoxha.

He was convinced the west was about to invade

and the country was full of spies - very Ian Fleming.

There were nearly three quarters of a million of these concrete horrors.

A lot are being broken up.

They look like long-dead, giant crabs on the beach,

something from an HG Wells story.

But they do give resonance to the tales I've been hearing

about how difficult it was to get fish during the 50 years

when the country was virtually isolated from the rest of the world.

So in-shore fishing along the sensitive coast of Albania

was highly restricted.

Somebody told me yesterday that previously,

during the communist era,

which went on for a very long time,

people had forgotten how lovely prawns were

and actually used to feed them to the pigs.

I'm never happier than when I'm out fishing,

particularly on a lovely, glassy day like this.

Oh, wow!

You never know what's going to come up in a net

and I know my octopus, those are good ones.

They cook very, very well, very tender.

Well, as a bit of a ichthyologist -

that's a sort of fish or seafood lover in Latin -

we've got not only a prawn,

but we've also got a sort of mantis shrimp.

You think you're looking at two eyes

but, actually, what you're looking at is the tail

and the head's the other end.

I suspect it's for some sort of protection,

but...well, there you are. You see?

I was just talking to the fisherman, and he was a teacher,

but he says he loves to be out here fishing,

here in the summer and in the lagoon in the winter,

and what a great way of life, I have to say.

People from the nearby towns and also from the capital, Tirana,

come to these marshes to fish and to enjoy the lovely soft, salty air.

And maybe because you weren't allowed to fish here

for so many years,

you have a better chance of going home with a good-size bass.

One of the earliest restaurants round here was started by a couple

with just a sofa and a camping stove in the woods.

It's called Trendafili Mistik - mystic rose.

Blerina, will you ask Diella how the restaurant started?

THEY SPEAK IN OWN LANGUAGE

We came here in the first with a sofa from our house.

And some dishes from our house

and we built a small camping in this place.

We cook with lots of love and passion.

And we always think that we're cooking for kings and for empires.

'This is Noshi - a good name for a cook, I think -

'Diella's husband, who spends all day cooking on these hot coals.'

And Noshi's cooking some large bass, some smaller bass

and some red mullet.

He just pulls the hot coals from the back and puts them at the front,

just so that he gets the right temperature,

and he's constantly adjusting the heat to everything.

It's sort of a salutary lesson in what constitutes good cooking

because, you know, now, in most kitchens,

you've got, like, computer-controlled ovens,

you've got fish that's cooked three days before and boiled in bags.

This is where the true taste of good fish cookery would come from.

One of the key dishes here is eels cooked with stock and rice.

The restaurant is right next door to a lake

where there are lots and lots of eels, so it makes perfect sense.

Diella starts by melting butter - rather a lot of butter -

and olive oil...then onions, two chopped onions,

and one chopped red pepper.

And now fresh chopped tomatoes, around about four or five.

Then rice. This isn't a risotto, more of a pilaf.

By that, I mean the rice doesn't become soft and creamy.

She's just said we'll steal some stock from the chicken...

that's about 200-300 millilitres, just...

Bit more, 400 now. That's good.

I wouldn't mind guessing the rice came from around here -

it looks like risotto rice, but it's not a risotto.

The eel comes from the lagoon just outside.

I mean, you couldn't get more local than Albanian cooking,

you just could not.

So into a large shallow pan, a bit like a paella dish,

in goes the rice and the peppers and, on top, one by one, the eels.

But this is only halfway through.

The whole dish is put on the fireplace on hot coals.

You may be thinking, "Oh, how romantic,"

but the simple truth is that,

like many places, the people here didn't have ovens.

They had fireplaces with a cooking pot.

Now a thumping great heavy metal lid is put over the whole lot.

It's basically a peka - how the shepherds cooked meat

and other dishes in Croatia and in Albania -

and that's loaded with hot embers

so it cooks top and bottom for about 20 minutes.

There they are.

'Jack, my son, has come from Cornwall to see me,

'and also Blerina's mother, Natasha, has come from the capital, Tirana.

'Blerina, by the way, is our indispensable interpreter.'

-Jack, Blerina.

-Hi, Jack. How are you? Did you have a nice trip?

-Very, very nice. It was very uneventful.

-OK.

-Very nice to see you.

-Good to see you.

-We're just going to go and sit down and eat.

-They look very nice.

'So, after 20 minutes or so, the peka will have worked its magic

'and the eels should be sweet and silky and the rice al dente.

'As they say in Albania, gatuar ne perfeksion - cooked to perfection.'

What do you think, Jack?

It's really... Well, that's the first thing I've tasted in Albania,

it's absolutely wonderful, really.

Like you said, the eel just tastes sweet.

Mm-hm. It's absolutely fabulous, don't you think, Jack?

Brilliant. Stock, the eels... love eels. It's really good.

I'm so happy to hear that.

Natasha, would you have had food like this in the communist rule?

Before the '90s, you mean, in the communist rule,

we had very few food and we had rations, but it was insufficient.

When the communist era came to an end,

what can you remember most about the change?

We were... The first thing that... were the bananas.

We had never had bananas in Albania and it was only...

Some black ones. Very, very ripe.

-Only once, in '74...

-Yeah.

..they brought bananas. They were very much ripe...

and it was the first time that we saw banana

and the person in charge who imported these banana

was condemned to prison later on

because it was food of the enemy and we shouldn't bring it.

-All the craziness.

-Unfair on the banana.

I can understand Coca-Cola being a symbol of capitalism,

but this is unfair on the...

Coca-Cola, of course. We couldn't even mention the name.

Banana we could say,

but to say Coca-Cola was just like to say we love capitalism.

Wow.

Yes, it was very difficult.

We knew how to cook because our grandmothers told us,

but we didn't have the ingredients.

I didn't realise quite how difficult it was to eat food,

because you'd imagine with, you know, with this sort of landscape

that you could just go out and find your own produce.

We had the sea, we had the lagoons, we had the... But we didn't fish.

Yes, we had treasures of food and we didn't use them.

Unbelievable.

Unbelievable, yes. Absurd. Nonsense, to think of it.

I remember my mother talking about rationing during the war

and she said simple ordinary things became wonderful.

For instance, stews made with any vegetables you were lucky enough

to get hold of, cooked with rabbit,

would be exulted to an epicurean feast.

And that's what I'm about to cook, Albanian style.

This is Albanian rabbit stew, lepur comlek.

So to start, just put a lot of olive oil in a really hot pan

and brown the rabbit.

Maybe thick ones first...

..and then the thinner ones.

Talking about the dictatorship, about 50 years of dictatorship,

and what happened to the food, well, that's two generations, 50 years,

and at the end of it,

I suspect people had forgotten about the traditional recipes,

but now they're beginning

to sort of try and remember what those dishes were,

dishes like this lovely rabbit stew,

and I just hope it'll come back.

But it's interesting to me, a couple of generations, you forget it.

That's really sad.

I've cooked quite a lot of rabbit in my time.

It goes so well with garlic,

especially wild garlic when it's in season in the early spring.

Next, bay leaves, just broken up, a couple of them.

One cinnamon stick - a little touch of the Ottoman Empire here.

And then whole allspice berries.

I like these dishes from the Balkans

because they've got this sort of spicy subtle hints to it.

And now some red wine.

Well, that's much more western.

I don't know that the Ottomans used wine in cooking.

They certainly drank a fair bit.

And now some vinegar. The original recipe was red wine vinegar

but I'm actually using balsamic. It makes for a darker stew.

Now tomato puree, just a couple of generous dessert spoonfuls.

So I'm just going to chop these tomatoes,

which I've previously peeled.

I can't tell you what a pleasure it is using tomatoes like this.

I mean, I am apt to say, back in the UK,

you're better off using tinned tomatoes,

but it's not quite the same thing.

Oh, if there were tomatoes like this all year round. Bliss.

Now a chicken stock,

and lots of sundried oregano from the mountains outside of Lezhe.

I was really pleased to find out

that the Albanians' main meal of the day is lunch.

Mine, too.

What could be better with good company and some rather nice wine?

And, of course, in Albania, they'll also be cooking game -

pheasant, hare, pigeons - much in the same way as this.

But plump rabbit takes a bit of beating.

Touched by fire. I'm looking for some really good colour on there,

on those onions, so I'm just adding a little bit of sugar as well.

This is partly, I mean, there's loads of sugar in onions anyway,

but it's also to increase the colour

cos that looks much better in the final dish.

Plus I'm looking for some sweetness, as with the balsamic vinegar,

just to contrast with the acidity

of the wine, the vinegar and the tomatoes.

So I'm just adding these onions now

about halfway through the cooking in the oven,

because otherwise they'll overcook and break up.

So that goes back in for around 45 minutes...

..and it's time to take a look at the landscape.

And with some well-worn Albanian proverbs

which might well come in useful on my culinary journey.

Number one - in times of need, the pig is called Uncle.

Number two -

if you have figs in your knapsack, everyone will be your friend.

Number three - the early bird may catch the worm,

but the second mouse gets the cheese. Think about it.

This is my type of food -

something you'd expect to find in a village bistro

and never in a Michelin-starred restaurant.

Lovely.

So this is Skanderbeg's castle

and he was really considered to be the founder of Albania.

Is this part of the cooking...?

Well, no, but I think cooking's really, you know... I'm sorry,

but cooking and history always go hand in hand, you know,

like cod and salt and all that sort of thing.

Anyway, Skanderbeg thought, "I'm not putting up with the Turks."

I think he fought something like 14 major battles

and kicked the Turks out.

Anyway, one of his last battles against the Turks,

he won it, but about ten or a dozen of his noblemen,

including his nephew,

were captured by the Turks and taken off to Istanbul,

and he pleaded for their lives, but to no avail.

And here's the interesting bit,

because the Turks flayed them all alive - it took 15 days -

and then they cut up their bodies and fed them to the dogs.

Sadly, it's the little things that finish you off.

He, Skanderbeg, died of malaria three years later.

Wow.

Tough, eh? How's that, then?

Sort of slightly reminds of me tales you used to tell me as a child

when you used to promise a Sunday lunch,

but we'd end up traipsing around a ruin or something.

That day we travelled south to the port of Vlore.

Conveniently, there was a cross in the sky marking the border

between the Adriatic Sea and the clear, deep Ionian Sea,

which goes all the way down the west coast of Greece.

'Blerina, our interpreter, was brought up here,

'and it was good to hear her earliest memories about food.'

When we used to go to the seaside,

walking always because there were no cars, very few cars,

and we used to get very tired until we arrived at the seaside,

we had, in a newspaper, bread, tomatoes, cucumbers and cheese.

We kept that all in our hands

and one bite here, one bite here

and we were very happy

and everybody could tell that you were eating because it would smell,

the tomatoes and the cucumbers would smell

metres and metres away from you,

and if somebody didn't have that with them, they were, like, jealous.

-I like...

-So happy.

-..when you say the bites,

cos I notice Albanians bite into cucumbers.

They don't have little slices.

Yeah, we eat the whole cucumber because such a flavour in it.

It is that you know that it's summer.

The tomatoes that were in season, they would smell wonderful

with the cucumbers and the cheese and the wholewheat bread.

That was the perfect combination. It was a paradise.

You couldn't ask for more

and the memories come with the smell of the foods.

Being so close to the sea,

Jack and I decided that we really wanted to have some seafood.

At the hotel where we were staying, I said to the chef, Aldo,

"Look, just cook me your favourite seafood dish,

"the one that goes down really well with the customers."

Well, no surprise, it had to have an Italian influence -

he trained in Florence, after all -

and it turned out to be a mixture of seafood -

mussels, clams, squid, fresh prawns cooked in olive oil, parsley,

a little bit of chilli there, white wine, tomatoes and stock.

You know, this is how I think people like their seafood.

The Italians call it frutti di mare con spaghetti.

Just saying that makes my mouth water.

It cooks in no time and it's a great restaurant dish

because it can be on the table in less than ten minutes

and what else would you want sitting right next to the sea? Buono.

What did you think about the recipe?

Well, I like the way that he was using the prawn head stock

and the fish stock to flavour it.

-It was...

-Yeah, I've never seen that done before.

I mean, the rest of it was fairly sort of standard fish linguine...

Oh! Try it, though. He's got it.

I mean, God, that is really good

and, I mean, he's using, I mean,

-I love these local gambas, don't you?

-Yeah.

I mean, what's good, it's Italian,

but they're using all local, really good quality local seafood.

And to think only 20 years ago, they weren't even eating any fish

and prawns weren't...didn't even know you could eat them and now...

It's extraordinary, but, you know,

human beings, I think, are very conservative.

I remember somebody telling me that, in the Irish potato famine,

that they never thought to eat

limpets or things like that from the sea

because we're all like that, we're all very conservative, I think.

I think in archaeological digs,

if you find limpet shells being eaten,

it tends to suggest they're not doing particularly well,

cos they're the last thing they'll eat, you know?

Well, you know that at Redlands, our old house,

there was a midden of limpet shells there.

-It was bad times for them.

-Amazing.

Now this is something that should never really have happened

because in our notes, written by the producer,

it said, "Short drive through lovely meadows filled with wild flowers

"to meet up with shepherds who'll cook lamb and make fresh cheese."

The only trouble is that those particular shepherds have long gone

and now we have to find some new ones.

We're following the local mayor, Gasim,

who assures us that they're a mere ten minutes away.

OK, it's an Albanian ten minutes.

Basically, he hasn't a clue!

This is about my idea of personal hell.

Well, I'm not enjoying it much myself,

I haven't got much of a head for heights,

but I just think it's important to get up to where the shepherds are,

because a lot of the cooking here in Albania

is based on shepherds' dishes.

There's lots of sort of lamb cooked on spits

and lots of bean stews with sort of smoked mutton in it, I think,

or pork, but mutton quite often,

so I just want to get up and see what they're cooking.

But, my God, it's a long way up.

I hope we're not going up that road up there.

Apparently, this was a military base for making rockets.

Why would they make rockets up here?

How would they get the materials up here?

You can imagine some trendy restaurant opening up here

and being, like, elBulli on steroids, you know,

just a nine-hour trek up a mountain.

There's a shepherd...and some sheep.

Ah, no. Apparently this is not the right shepherd.

Our shepherds are still a long way off.

Cars can't get there because there are too many rocks

so Gasim, the mayor,

insists Jack and I travel the rest of the way on mules...

very much the way that Byron explored this wild countryside.

Now, I don't know much about Albanian mayors,

but I do know that Gasim has quite an entourage of pretty women

who follow him around carrying bottles of wine and raki.

This could well be a tradition left over by the Ottomans.

"Land of Albania," Byron proclaimed

in the book Childe Harold's Pilgrimage,

"let me bend mine eyes on thee, thou rugged nurse of savage men.

"The cross descends,

"thy minarets arise and the pale crescent sparkles in the glen."

Those were his thoughts on a once Christian country becoming Muslim.

He found - probably because he was, after all, Lord Byron -

the Muslim rulers here, especially the notorious Ali Pasha,

treated him and his entourage with great hospitality and generosity.

Wow.

If you're partial to roast lamb -

golden, sweet, slightly smoky roast lamb - you'll love this.

It's the classic way of cooking goat or sheep

and there are no spices,

just salt and pepper and the best of the beast.

-Looks like a doner.

-Doner kebab?

Yeah, on the spit, you know,

the elephant leg that you get in those nice late-night eateries.

It's probably better for you.

But the same bits.

This is not everyone's cup of tea.

It's called kokoretsi and it's what the shepherds cook

after they've killed the lamb or a baby goat.

The prized offal - the liver, the lungs, heart and kidney -

are put on a spit and wrapped in loads of intestines.

This protects the offal from burning

and they say it gives it an added flavour.

As important as the meat is the fresh curd cheese.

The curds are put in a muslin cloth to drain,

just by hanging it on the branch of a tree until it sets.

This one was from early this morning.

They've milked the goats at five o'clock this morning

and made the cheese straight away afterwards and I was just thinking,

"Well, of course they would, we're so far away from anywhere,

"you're not going to get a milk truck coming around every morning."

-It's very nice.

-It is, isn't it? It's so fresh.

-Very fresh.

Lovely and firm. And slightly... you can taste it's slightly goaty.

I suppose, rather fancifully, I was expecting to taste

sort of elements of thyme and oregano and rosemary and fennel

and mint, because we've just walked through pastures of them.

But it just tastes really special.

I'd put myself as an eater first and then a cook.

That sounds a bit daft, I know, but there are chefs

that don't really enjoy tucking into food that much.

Their minds are a little too involved in the way food looks.

All I know is that I get terribly excited

when I can smell and see scenes like this.

It's irresistible to anyone who loves food.

It's absolutely fantastic. So nicely salted, isn't it?

-Have you tried it?

-It's really salty, yeah.

-It's really great. Mmm.

I feel... I feel a sort of Neanderthal in me.

Oh, I could eat this every day.

I wouldn't like the walk, but I could definitely eat it every day.

Actually, Jack, you didn't walk.

If you're brought up in the mountains of Albania,

I think this would be

your quintessential roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.

Ah, great, thanks.

What bits have you got there?

We've got some...heart, obviously intestines and some liver.

To your average British person,

I suspect this would not be a first choice, or even a third one.

The eating of offal back at home is in sad decline

and as for the intestines... Well, it's a bridge too far.

But I love it.

Mmm. You fancy putting it on the menu at St Petroc's?

Might struggle to sell it, but it's delicious. I'd definitely eat it.

Same here. It's fab.

I don't know why people get so squeamish about stuff like this.

I mean, what more could you want?

A glass of red.

-Gezuar!

-Gezuar.

Next I'm cooking one of Albania's national dishes.

It's lamb, yogurt and rice.

It's very easy to do.

So from my Greek kitchen by the sea...this is tave kosi.

This dish is probably the most well-loved dish for Albanians,

their comfort food,

and, funnily enough, it does remind me a bit of shepherd's pie.

Basically it's butter, lamb and a couple of cloves of garlic

all thrown together and well seasoned.

I really liked Albania.

It had a sort of agricultural innocence,

because it's just not been developed,

and because of that, I guess, they're quite superstitious

and I remember we were driving down a country lane with Blerina,

our translator and guide, and a weasel went across our path

and she put her hands over her eyes like this.

I said, "Oh, what's the matter?"

I thought she was about, she was worrying we were going to crash.

She said, "Nuselale! Nuselale!"

Which is Albanian for a weasel. And I said, "Oh, what's the problem?"

"You can't look at a weasel," she said.

"If you look them in the eyes,

"they'll come and steal the clothes off your washing line."

One of the things that I've learned here is that Albanian cooks choose

just one herb to go into a dish.

In this case, it's the local sundried oregano.

Tave kosi actually means creamy casserole and, in this case,

the cream is, of course, the fine yogurt they have here.

To make it like a light fluffy custard,

I'm mixing it with four eggs, and it's this

that gives the lovely satisfying comfort element to the whole dish.

Yummo!

I'm making a roux here, but, quite unusually, I suppose -

cos normally you use milk - I'm putting yogurt and eggs into it.

I won't actually carry on cooking it.

Now the reason for this, I suppose, sort of yogurt-bechamel sauce

is that it's going to go on top of the lamb, I suppose a bit like...

..I don't know, moussaka, really.

I think all the Balkans are fond of putting sort of milky sauces

on top of meat and it'll bake in the oven,

just put some nutmeg on the top of it,

it'll bake in the oven and, when I take it out,

it'll be all lovely and brown and crisp on top.

So I really like the combination and it's absolutely yummy.

So that lamb's now tender.

I'm just going to add a little bit more water

cos it's cooked right down,

because I'm also going to add some rice so I don't want it too dry,

otherwise the rice won't absorb the liquid and swell up.

So rice, just about 60 grams, just stir that in.

And we're ready to put everything into a baking dish.

There's a part of me that would really love to be a food historian

and sit on panel games

and wistfully tell people about the origins of well-known dishes.

I wouldn't mind betting this dish

was the forerunner to the famous moussaka,

the favourite dish of the British on holiday in Greece.

But instead of layers of mince and bechamel,

it's the creamy sauce on top and, as ever, the grated nutmeg.

Well, this goes into a medium oven for about 40, 45 minutes...

..and when it comes out, it should be all sort of light and dark brown

and speckled with that nutmeg.

This is a bit of inside information.

My friend who tests out all the recipes, Portia, cooked this dish

to see if it turned out all right.

Well, her kids came back from school, tried it and now,

from the last conversation I've had with her,

she's had to cook it five times because the family love it so much.

This is the Llogara Pass - it's not for the faint hearted.

This road is relatively new.

Before that, I'm told, it was a nightmare.

These are the Ceraunian Mountains.

The name comes from the ancient Greeks

and aptly describes them as thunder torn peaks.

I couldn't help but think about James Bond coming down here.

This, after all, is a perfect place to outrun villains

and dodge helicopter attacks and, even when you've reached the bottom,

the James Bond theme continues.

That's it. A Russian submarine base and...

..apparently Khrushchev came here with his General Zhukov

and said, "Let's leave history to the Greeks and Romans

"and build a submarine base."

That sounds like something you might have read in a history book.

No, I've got it in the notes.

It's a bit like James Bond.

I mean, first of all that terrifying,

death-defying drive and now this.

I could imagine the Aston Martin going down those zigzag roads.

I...didn't even open my eyes.

I had them buried between my knees.

Yeah, I think...we admit, we were both too frightened to drive it.

I didn't drive it, Pete the sound recordist did.

And a sterling job he did, too. Thank you, Pete.

He did. Gosh. And now this, though.

I mean, you can imagine looking, binocs down over there

and see tiny little men running around in black boiler suits

about to destroy the world.

And then some sort of alarm sounding as the secret service...

-Yeah, yeah.

-..start rappelling down the mountain.

At the top of the pass is a famous restaurant called Sofo's.

Anyone who's had a holiday here would probably know it.

Sofo - that's him, a good central-casting Bond villain -

used to be a cook on an Albanian submarine during the Cold War

and I always say, if you can cook on a submarine

and still have a happy crew, then you can cook anywhere.

Sofo describes his food

as traditional, hearty, no-nonsense Albanian fare.

-Cheers.

-Cheers.

-Good health.

Many, many years of energy to continue on.

-To you, too, Dave.

-Oh, thanks a lot, Ricky.

Typically in Albania, you just say, "Oh, we'd like a light lunch,"

but here it is and I'm like a fox in the henhouse because...

..I've really, really struck sort of mission central here

because we've got, like, so much local food.

I just want to run through a few things before I forget them,

but I'm trying not to.

Over here we've got wild mountain herbs and vegetables in filo pastry

and this is breast of lamb stuffed with minced lamb

and some boiled egg in the middle.

I really like this.

It's sort of garlic and yogurt,

which I think would go really well with the lamb cooked over wood.

What else have we got?

Well, we've got a lovely sort of baked cheese dish

with local pale green peppers and tomato

and the flavour is so special, lovely salty tartness.

And this is lambs' brains, just simply lambs' brains in batter

and deep-fried, which I've just tried.

This one, I've just got to refer to my notes

which dropped on the floor - was it ever thus? -

this is polenta with kidneys, liver, lungs chopped up. Very good.

And here, kureci - internal organs again, lungs, heart, kidneys,

wrapped in intestines, cooked on the barbecue.

Utterly fantastic. A table full of the very best Albanian dishes.

I'm in heaven. What do you think?

I'm in heaven, too. I've got offal on the left of me,

offal on the right and here I am in the middle.

Tennyson.

Stealers Wheel.

-No, no, no, The Charge Of The Light Brigade.

-Reservoir Dogs.

No, no, no.

"Cannons to the left of us, cannons to the right of us,

"into the valley of death rode the 600."

Maybe they were listening to the Stealers Wheel song.

No, Jack. That's where they got it from.

Well, it's been lots of fun.

Lots of fun. Thank you very much.

'Jack was with me for just a couple of days,

'then I had to continue my journey

'crossing the border into northern Greece without him.

'But we both loved Albania.'

-See you later.

-See you.

-Bye.

-Bye.

My trip to Albania was far too short - I realise that now -

but it is a journey, after all, and I have to move on.

I loved the food, too.

It's very basic, but there's nothing wrong with that.

I think Albania is the one last surviving place in Europe

where there exists a real sense of adventure.

There's still an air of innocence about it

and the people are warm and friendly.

Combine that with empty beaches, good seafood, lovely mountain dishes

and I know I'll be coming back and spending a bit longer.

Next time, I leave Albania and head south to northern Greece.

What would I do with them?

Well, I'd put them on a barbecue.

What would you do with them?

This is the Greece I know and love.

I just feel I'm back.

-That is a fantastic chicken pie. My gosh.

-Thank you.

-You worried about whether I'd like it or not?

-Yes.

Well...that is truly Byzantine. Delish.

Thank you. Thank you.

If there's anything more Byronesque than this, I would doubt it.

Peop... Oh! Excuse me.

They do know how to cook fish in Greece.

And so my gastronomic journey from Venice to Istanbul continues.