Episode 6 Rick Stein: From Venice to Istanbul

I'm on a gastronomic journey

that started with the pleasingly simple food of Venice

and will end with the vibrant and spicy dishes of Istanbul.

What's this "aphrodisiac for man"?

It's something you don't need, but still I'll show you.

In between, the culinary melting pot of East meeting West - Croatia.

This is my lunch.

And back to basics - Albania.

Ham, salt, beans, water.

Life!

And a place I know and love - Greece.

What would I do with them?

Well, I'd put them on the barbecue. What would you do with them?

Who could ask for anything more?

It's early morning in the little fishing port of Gerakas,

right in the south of the Greek mainland.

It's one of those "it's good to be alive" mornings

because we're off to catch red mullet, a fabulous fish.

Probably my favourite.

Out there's Crete and beyond, across the Mediterranean, Libya.

Well, as the Cornish say, "This is where I belong to be."

Early morning, sun rising, wine-dark sea.

I've suddenly realised what Homer meant about the sea.

It must have been at this time of morning.

I'm watching a net coming in with some red mullet.

Red mullet, bar none the best fish in the sea.

The Mediterranean red mullet.

And memories for me as a 21-year-old on the island of Spetses

and this is a memory that's fixed in my mind forever...

Three or four red mullet on a charcoal grill,

some chips, a Greek salad.

Simple, and that's what drives my seafood cookery onwards and forever.

Vibeke, who's Danish, met her Greek husband here on holiday,

like so many Shirley Valentines.

All she does here is to dust the fish in flour

and fry them for a few minutes in olive oil.

She's taken the gut out, but I know the French like to leave them in,

like you would with a woodcock,

and that's why the French call the red mullet the woodcock of the sea.

That's it. Maybe two to three minutes and they're done.

Just some of those big, fat lemons.

Perfect!

Those are sensational.

-Do you like it?

-I love them.

And do you know what they say?

The cats here, they don't eat the red mullets. Do you know why?

-Why?

-Because the person, they eat everything -

head and tail, everything. Nothing is left for the cats.

You know, you just need a piece of bread and a good glass of wine.

-And some fried red mullet.

-And some fried red mullet and that's life.

Yeah.

We have some people here in the village, they are getting old.

80, 90, 95 even.

And I think that's because

-of that good way they have been living all their life.

-I agree.

-Good food.

-It's fish.

-Fresh fish.

-But it's fish above all.

Olive oil, a little bit of wine.

-They drink wine, as well.

-It's good for you.

-It's very good.

And a little bit of wine. They will enjoy it.

I was just looking at these old geezers behind you,

just sitting and nattering.

-Yeah, that's the life.

-That could be me.

-That's their daily life.

-Really?

-Mm-hm.

-Do they like a chat, the Greeks, then? They like it?

-They do.

They do.

A chat, a small coffee, relaxing and that's it.

They're probably looking at us now and saying,

-"What are those idiots doing over there?"

-Yes, yes!

It's common to see octopus drying out on clothes lines

or in little cases like this, keeping the flies away.

But very often, what I do is just to simply boil it,

cut it up and actually put it on the barbecue.

The island of Symi has been a great base to cook all those dishes

I've either discovered on my travels or have known and relished for ages.

Grilled octopus, in my book, is second only to red mullet.

I love octopus and I just like it done very simply.

I mean, I've done octopus stews,

but this time I'm just going to char-grill it

and then serve it up with lemon juice, olive oil and oregano.

Well, obviously, the octopus is cooked already

so, really, I'm just looking to get a nice char-grilled flavour in it.

It'll only take about five, ten minutes.

I just remember the first time I had octopus

and before I'd actually eaten it,

I remember watching somebody catch one from a jetty in Crete

and then having it shortly afterwards,

really black with grilling and slightly dry with the grilling.

It had this intensely sort of iodine-y flavour.

And to start with, I didn't sort of really like it.

I thought, "Is that all it's all about?"

But it's like so many foods, they sort of grow on you, things like...

I mean, something as simple as an olive, it grows on you as a child.

Same with octopus.

And I can't define the flavour, really.

I mean, if you asked me about prawns, for example,

I'd say they're sweet, they're firm.

Octopus is a lot more sort of austere a flavour,

but I absolutely love it.

I'm just so enjoying this.

Just straight off the barbecue.

Lovely dark grilled bits of octopus

and that lovely white as you slice into them.

I mean, this is Greece to me.

A squeeze of lemon and a generous pinch of dried oregano,

which is quickly becoming my favourite herb.

A Grecian holiday on a plate.

This is where East nearly meets West,

Monemvasia, the Gibraltar of the East.

I came here in my early 20s with my brother John.

This rock marked the end of our travels.

If I remember rightly, very few people lived here then.

There was a bit of building work going on,

but I recall some of the locals being rather sceptical

about actually living here.

They said, "It's full of ruins. Leave it to the rats and spiders."

There's only one way into this place - an archway.

Too narrow for a car, nice for a donkey.

Monemvasia actually means "one way in"

and this tunnel has a kink in it.

I think it's to stop invading armies in their tracks

and give them a bit of a surprise when they turn the corner.

And then you actually turn the corner and I'm in Clovelly!

No, I'm only joking.

40 years on, I hardly recognise the place.

It was a ghost town!

It's been restored, I think,

with great love for the old Byzantine ways and traditions.

I just wouldn't fancy lugging my suitcase to the very top.

I'm quite enjoying the wandering around Monemvasia because

when I came here before it was virtually derelict

and, apparently, just filled with snakes and rats.

So this is quite a recent bit of building,

but, obviously, this here is probably 2,000 years old,

Greek or Roman.

And you sort of think, "How could they have done that?" Right?

They would've found this bit of marble somewhere

and just stuck it up there as a lintel.

But the chickens are upside down!

Couldn't they just have seen the chickens

would be upside down forevermore?

No.

Builders!

This is where the famous malmsey wine,

much loved in England in the 15th century, came from

and it was exported in great big barrels called "butts".

And that...immortalised, of course, in Shakespeare's Richard III,

where the Duke of Clarence is drowned in a butt of malmsey.

And possibly the best bit of dramatic irony ever,

he asks what he thinks is the jailer in the Tower of London

for a cup of wine but, in fact, it's one of the assassins.

And the assassin says,

"Thou shalt have wine enough, my lord...

"..anon."

Barrels of malmsey wine were shipped from here

by Venetian and Genoise traders

to eventually end up in England.

But when Constantinople fell to the Turks 500 years ago,

everything changed.

Port and Madeira wine

eventually took over in popularity from malmsey.

I remember my favourite wine merchant in the world, Bill Baker,

who's sadly no longer with us,

telling me the story of malmsey.

He said it was the tipple of all the well-to-do people in England.

It had a taste of honey and dried fruits

and it was exotic, delicious and expensive.

Maybe these vineyards near Monemvasia

supplied the grapes for the original malmsey?

But their owner, Giorgos Tsimbidis, and his wife Elli

have made it a lifetime dream

to bring it back to the place where it began,

which, I think, is quite amazing after 500 years.

Oooph!

-Hello!

-Hello!

-Elli?

Elli. Very nice to meet you here.

-Welcome, welcome.

-And Giorgos?

'Giorgos doesn't speak any English,

'but wine has a way of making people understand each other anyway.

'It really does. I wonder why?

'I often find myself in a situation like this

'and we get on like a house on fire.'

Come on to our cellar.

Oh, it's nice and cool!

Good Lord! It's very nice, actually.

It's a sort of working cellar.

I mean, so many times in France,

they look like they're there for visitors,

-but I love this.

-Thank you.

-That's really nice.

I wish my friend Bill could have been here to try this.

It's like tasting history,

because no other wine was more famous

during the Middle Ages than malmsey.

It was called Malvasia by the Venetians,

but it'll always be malmsey to me.

Oh!

That's so good. It's full of warm sunshine.

It's unctuous. It's lovely and sweet.

It's got lots of fruit in it.

I just want to carry on drinking it.

But tell me why he felt so passionate

about reintroducing malmsey or Malvasia again.

He recreate again this wine

because it was lost for many, many years

and he want to make this all as present to his country

and the people of here.

And this wine is for all the world from our little place.

The fact he's brought it back, I think, is fabulous.

I first came here in the '70s

and I'd heard about malmsey and Monemvasia and I thought,

"Oh, it'd be so good to get some."

But, of course, there wasn't, it wasn't.

And I just...when I heard that you were producing it again,

I thought, "Great!"

because that's... Going to places

and finding something special in that area is so wonderful.

So...

-So you're happy to drink again this?

-I'm very, very happy!

-Yasou!

-Yasou!

Monemvasia makes a fitting, big, fat full stop in the Aegean

to my Greek odyssey.

Next, of course, is Turkey.

But here's a sweet, respectful reminder

about some of the dishes that Greece has to offer.

So, if you ever find yourself here,

then you have to have a dish

of these famous sweet, spicy Vatika onions

cooked with fresh tomatoes.

It's one of those dishes

where it's all to do with the climate and the soil

and it's supposed to be terribly good for you.

I have to say, it's one of those dishes I keep thinking to myself,

"There must be something else in there. It is so good."

But it's not. It's just about these fabulous onions.

But also, it's testimony to the Greek vegetable dishes.

You just don't need meat.

And then you've got to try these little almond cakes,

shaped into crescents and dusted with loads of icing sugar.

Sitting with a coffee outside the bakery

is something that has to be done.

Fish stews, using whatever's caught that day,

loads of vegetables,

a bit of saffron and it's delicious.

It's not complicated, like some bouillabaisses I've tasted.

It's simple and refreshing.

Rooster, or cockerel,

straight from the farmyard at the back of the taverna,

fried in olive oil and eaten with this lovely pasta called hilopites.

And it's covered with that beautifully sour mizithra cheese.

And souvlaki.

I know everybody serves it, but I think it's lovely.

No green pepper or onion.

Just pork.

Any retsina going?

Moussaka.

Much-maligned, with some good reason, I have to say.

But when it's right, it's fabulous.

Light and golden and creamy.

Lots of spice, like cinnamon, and fresh tomatoes.

Yum!

Well, I think you know what I'm going to say.

It's the best moussaka I've ever tasted.

No question about it.

I think what I really love about it is it's so light.

It was here, in this very agreeable taverna in Kardamyli

where they did stuffed peppers and tomatoes with Greek salad,

the film crew's favourite lunch ever,

that I met Maria, a Greek girl from here who's moved to the UK.

And, naturally, we talked about food.

-Maria, you live in Barry now, in Wales.

-Yes.

How do you find food in Barry compared with here?

The people, they don't spend time together around the table

to have a drink, to have food,

but to take their time to do it.

Also to prepare the food.

You know, they're in a hurry, everything is in a hurry.

Obviously they have better things to do.

I can understand that. I do have as well better things to do.

But I know that I have to cook as well.

Food, for me, is very important how to brought up a family.

Food is love.

Nothing else but love,

because it has to do with good health.

I'm very moved by what you say, really, because...

..you know, in England, you can tell people,

"We should be cooking stuff,"

and they just think you're just a sort of person that's doing good.

I remember when Jamie Oliver tried to explain

people ought to feed better food in schools, everybody said,

"Just stop interfering," you know?

But having you saying something like that, you're not from Britain,

is marvellous.

Things have to change

but I don't know the way.

Do you think it'll happen here in Greece?

Erm...

I hope not.

I really hope not.

What more can I say about that?

You don't need to say any more.

This is the last leg of my journey

and Turkey and eventually Istanbul

is a fitting end.

The meeting place of two continents - Europe and Asia.

Through here came the spices and aromatics

from India and South East Asia.

Mace and cloves,

cinnamon, saffron

and ginger

and vegetables and fruits

that we take so much for granted,

like aubergines, okra and spinach.

This is the land that cooked meat, spices and fruits together.

This is the place that gave us our much-loved mince pie,

not to mention the Friday-night special,

the doner kebab.

A doner kebab.

Very popular in the UK.

Almost as popular as fish and chips, chop suey, chicken tikka masala.

In my opinion, best had after midnight

with a lot of pints on board,

at which point you say,

"Do you know, this is the best food I've ever had in my life!"

But now it's time for breakfast.

Well, I thought it'd be nice to share a breakfast with you,

because I find, actually, Turkish breakfast is so interesting.

It's almost like you're in a sort of parallel world,

because there's nothing about a Turkish breakfast which is familiar.

We know about Indian breakfast, we know about Chinese,

I even know about Japanese, but that's another story.

But this is so different.

And, actually, this place does all-day breakfast.

We are a bit late. It's three o'clock in the afternoon.

But let me begin.

Where shall I start...?

Well, first of all, we've got two types of olives here -

black olives with oregano,

green olives, new season's olives, with oregano.

That's familiar. But now, small, glazed kumquats in syrup.

And here, this is interesting,

this is rose petal jam.

Lovely rose petal jam.

Salcha, tomato salcha with chilli pepper on top.

Lor, that's like ricotta.

It's a very mild cheese, with blackberries on there.

And now some salted lor with olive oil and chilli pepper.

Tulum, which is a lovely local goat's cheese.

We have a curd cheese, which is just the basic curds

covered with honey.

And here we've got chillies.

Nothing but chillies.

Here we've got cucumber.

Tomato.

You've got to have tomato with olive oil.

Some more glazed fruit, this time figs.

Over here, two dishes have just turned up.

This is fried aubergines and peppers

with tomato and yogurt and garlic.

Over here, we've got spinach, onion and cheese pie.

And lastly, the Cetin speciality,

which is the name of the restaurant -

scrambled egg, cheese and local sausage

and a little bit of fried parsley on top.

I mean, is this just for me?

Oh, look at that bread!

That is fabulous.

Done over charcoal.

Sesame seeds.

Fabulous!

Where do I begin?

Oh...!

It's so...

voluptuous, I would say.

Now, then, I say unto thee,

which would you prefer?

This or a full English breakfast?

MAN: A full English, actually.

With some brown sauce.

Toast.

Well, no surprises there!

This was supposed to be a breakfast for one.

So when I asked the waiter, "Why is there so much?"

he said, "Well, it's for one or for four.

"It doesn't matter. Just eat up!"

They're busy chopping up these baked aubergines,

preparing the evening meal here.

They suggested I stay on to try it,

but I'm so full I can hardly walk!

Anyway, the dish was called "sultan's delight",

one of the best Turkish dishes ever.

The perfect meal to cook back on my island kitchen in Symi

where, from the balcony, I can see the coast of Turkey in the distance.

This is hunkar begendi.

Lamb stew with aubergine puree.

I've just put a couple of aubergines in the oven

and they're going to cook for about 25, 30 minutes

and I'm going to make a puree with those, which is utterly sublime.

And I'm just chopping the vegetables to go into the lamb stew.

Hunkar begendi means "sultan's delight"

and I wouldn't mind guessing

that it's more of a delight than the sultan's concubines.

It's that good!

What I really like about it is it's a very, very spicy lamb stew.

I would have thought it's probably as close to an Indian curry

as you can get in heat.

There's none of the Indian spices, of course.

And I love it.

And I love the combination of this lamb, spicy lamb stew,

and an aubergine puree.

It's a delight.

A sultan's delight.

'A sultan's delight...

'I wonder, was there much delight in being a sultan?

'After all, a sultan was like a god.

'He could have anything he wanted,

'order the most fabulous food for a feast for a thousand.

'Life and death was a click of a finger.

'He was surrounded by an army of yes men

'and a harem of beautiful women.

'It's a bit like being in the Rolling Stones!'

So I'm really, really trying to brown the meat here,

because I think people often eat with their eye

and a good stew has to have a really dark colour.

It's more appetising.

And the first way of getting that

is to make sure that the meat is nicely browned.

'Now for some garlic,

'say about four cloves, roughly chopped,

'and an onion, a red onion.

'From what I've been told, they really believe in

'the health-giving properties of onions and garlic.'

Now, this is one of my favourite ingredients in the store cupboard.

It's called biber salcasi.

It's red pepper paste,

but it's chilli pepper paste from Turkey.

It just gives such a lovely red heat to any stew.

And, in fact, I've tried making it up myself quite successfully,

just by roasting red peppers

and adding a bit of tomato puree and chilli.

But this is the real thing. I love it!

So now I've got some sundried tomato paste, which is called salcha.

Again from Turkey.

Slightly more interesting than ordinary tomato puree.

Tastes of the sun, of course.

And now I'm just adding

those chopped up green chillies and peppers.

And now my tomatoes.

Gosh, this is looking nice.

And it's smelling very nice, too, I must say.

And now some Greek oregano. Get the same in Turkey.

Plenty of that.

Some salt.

OK, it's quite a lot of salt, sorry.

But I like a good, well-seasoned dish.

And pepper.

And some water.

I must say, this looks so lovely.

I don't know where the influence of the eye

and the influence of the nose meet,

but somewhere in the middle

you get this idea of something absolutely exquisite.

And that's it.

Just leave that to stew away now for about three quarters of an hour.

So now I'm making a simple roux.

First of all, some butter in a hot saucepan.

And now, almost equivalent amount of flour. Stir that in.

And now some milk and just stir that until it starts to thicken.

This works really well with the aubergine in this puree.

It just gives it a lovely creaminess

and actually lightens it up a bit in colour.

Cor... It ain't half hot!

Possibly a fork and a spoon would help.

So, just put that in with my white sauce.

Now I'm just going to mash that with a potato masher.

But I've noticed in Turkey quite often

that they just puree the whole thing,

so you just get this sort of off-white puree.

But I like a bit of the texture in there.

And I keep quoting the Herrick poem,

"A sweet disorder in the dress kindles in clothes a wantonness."

But it's true for me.

I like my food to be a bit rugged.

Some salt.

Some pepper.

And now some lemon juice. Just about half a lemon.

And finally - and very important, this -

about 50 grams of Parmesan.

Taste.

Mm...

Delicious, that.

Delicious!

'Now, if you like curries and spicy stews like tagines,

'then this you will love.

'Hunkar begendi or, more correctly,

'hooncar beyendi.

'Remember this when next in Turkey

'or indeed Tottenham!'

I've been invited to a hill farm, high above the Cesme Peninsula,

to visit a family of goat farmers.

And I think this journey is partly reacquainting myself

with flavours past.

Even when I was young,

I've always been adventurous when it comes to food.

Nothing really scares me.

But this...

Well, this is a very different story.

This is a great moment for me.

About 12 years ago, I first came to Turkey

and I went into a market near here and I saw this cheese -

it's called Armola cheese -

in a goat skin in the market

and I just didn't have the bottle to try it.

It was, like, in a goat skin.

You know, like...in.

And this is how it's made.

Basically, they just get some other cheese, some lor,

which is like ricotta,

and some tulum, which is another goat's cheese.

They put it in this bag

and they put salt in

and then they add milk.

And the salt and the cheese all react together

and they say the more milk you put in, the more delicious it becomes.

And the salt draws the water out

and the water comes out through the bag,

so the bag is actually essential to the way the cheese is made.

And gradually, over ten days, it just gets thicker and thicker,

until you get this very rich, unctuous-looking cheese.

I've actually had a very similar cheese in Greece and it's delicious.

I'm sure you can see that.

Can I try some?

I know perfectly well what the film crew are thinking.

You can see them working out their excuses why not to taste it.

Oh...!

I know you don't think it is, but it is!

It's absolutely wonderful!

And don't worry about the goat skin.

That gives it patina. That gives it real flavour.

Good!

MAN: Well, finish it, then.

I've so enjoyed watching this.

I'm just thinking that when women are working together

doing something like this, it's so efficient.

They're all chipping in, chopping up the dill and the cheese there.

And no wonder that something like

The Great British Bake Off does so well.

This sort of communal cooking, I think,

is just part of the best part of life.

I just have to say this is probably as basic as bread is ever, ever.

This will probably go back thousands and thousands of years.

But I just tasted a bit.

It was cold, it was made earlier.

Beautiful!

There's no end to Turkish hospitality.

Now the ladies are frying off some courgette flowers in batter.

I only came here to taste the famous Armola cheese

but, instead, I get a feast prepared in my honour.

Look at all this food!

RICK SPEAKS TURKISH

Yoghurt.

This is very nice but I was just thinking,

I'm staying in quite a smart hotel and you can get all this food,

you know, when you go down to the buffet.

And, yeah, it's nice.

But having it like this, sitting out here...

You know, I really believe where you eat something,

the atmosphere around you, actually changes the flavour,

makes it better.

And this is just the best little turnovers,

the best courgette flowers

and the best stuffed vine leaves I've ever, ever eaten!

RICK SHOUTS IN TURKISH

You have to shout in this country!

In the town of Alacati, famous for its windsurfing,

I met up with Kemal Demirasal,

a chef who opened a restaurant here.

The perfect place for him,

because it's got a great market,

one of the best I've ever come across.

I've said this before,

but the best recipes come from having a good look

at what the market's got to offer.

Such a great market, this, I must say.

Everything, we have it three days a week.

-And no supermarkets. No big stores.

-No, no.

-Wow!

I mean, look at all those herbs over there.

-The herbs here.

-Thyme.

-Smell. Yeah.

So, having a market like this, what does it mean to you, then?

-Limitless creation, you know?

-Yeah.

You got everything and...

you're not limited to something.

So every day is a new day.

By springtime, we got more than 1,000 species of edible herbs.

So, this is the samphire.

-And this is rock samphire.

-Yeah.

-We just give it blanch for two...

-A blanch?

Yeah. And then we go with garlic, olive oil and some lemon.

Kemal, what are the most important herbs and spices

in Turkish cuisine, then?

So, we have the thyme, lots of thyme, not one species.

And we have the basil, the rosemary and sumac,

which is very important...

-Oh, yes, lemony?

-Yeah, lemony.

-..with the meat dishes.

-Yeah.

-And we got lavender.

-Lavender?

Yeah, we use it a lot.

So, Rick, you should also check out that.

-That's a local mushroom.

-Wow!

-What are they called?

-Cintar. Yeah.

Wow! They look like the sort of thing

you're bound to die if you eat them.

Yeah.

-And this one, it's a huna.

-Huna?

Yeah. It feels like apple.

Tastes like apple, but much sweeter.

But it's not apple, yeah.

-It's not an apple.

-Yeah.

It's delicious!

This is Kemal's restaurant and he's going to cook a lamb tandir,

virtually the same as tandoor,

a word universally known from Turkey to India as an oven.

He's got a shoulder of lamb,

which he's scored and infused with fresh rosemary, black pepper

and loads of olive oil.

Searing the lamb, Kemal says, is important

because you get a barbecued flavour of caramelised fat to start with.

The idea is that the lamb will cook over these vegetables.

Then it's more rosemary.

He adds some water, lemon juice and, finally, seasoning.

It's very simple.

Lamb cooked like this

will be familiar to cooks and lovers of food

all across Europe and the East.

And talking about the East,

Kemal's going to make a pilaf.

What he does is to mix a blend of cinnamon, cumin and raisins

into a large jug of water.

I think that's an awful lot of spice but when in Rome...

He then fries some onions in well-seasoned oil

and adds pine nuts.

And then in goes the rice

and he makes sure that every grain is coated with oil.

I think - very important here, I'm guessing -

to well-saute the rice and saute the nuts as well.

Before you add the water.

So you get a lovely sort of nutty flavour from both, yeah.

-Flavours in.

-I'll get out the way now.

'Pilaf sounds a bit Indian, and it is,

'and was introduced to Europe by Alexander the Great.

'A little nugget of history, there.

'Kemal adds a touch of sugar

'and then chopped fennel and parsley.

'He then takes it off the heat,

'covers the pan

'and then lets the rice work its magic.'

So that's very interesting.

-You've only cooked that for a couple of minutes.

-Yeah.

-And then you just leave it to rest?

-To rest.

-So it just absorbs all the water, then?

-Yes.

-OK.

OK, great.

'Time to serve,

'and the long, slow-cooked roast lamb is making my mouth water.

'It's such a welcoming, juicy meat.

'All I crave for is a glass of red wine to complement the fattiness.'

So, the lamb tandoori and the pilaf.

Lamb tandoori.

With some local wine to enjoy.

Gosh, that's so moist, that lamb.

I mean... Oh!

If you ask me to cook a dish that reflects the land,

I say the lamb tandoori.

What is strange, normally everyone likes the meat rare or medium,

but this technique, you cook the lamb until it's falling apart.

It's juicy, tasty.

THEY TOAST EACH OTHER IN TURKISH

The wine's good, too.

So, it's time for me to cook now back in my kitchen

on the island of Symi.

This dish is called spicy liver flat bread

or arnavut cigeri.

First of all, I'm just slicing up some lamb's liver

and then I'm going to coat it in some spice and a bit of flour.

ROLLING THUNDER

Listen to that thunder. It's going to pour down in a minute.

And then tomorrow, you've got six days of sunshine.

That's Greece for you!

So, first of all, we've got some hot red pepper, Aleppo pepper.

Then we've got some oregano

and we've got a little bit of cumin

and then we have some flour.

And then we have some salt.

I feel a bit sort of weird saying the word Aleppo pepper,

but it means so much to me

because when we filmed in eastern Turkey, on the Syrian border,

it's where I really wanted to go.

Now, of course, sadly, it's almost completely destroyed

and you can't possibly go there,

but the name still means something to me.

So now to make some...

..flat bread.

Just a very simple dough.

Just yeast,

flour, water,

salt and a bit of olive oil to make it pliable.

I'm just going to dry fry it in a frying pan

and I just find that the easiest way.

You don't need any elaborate equipment. That's all you need.

No oil.

I love flat breads.

I mean, I keep some flat-bread dough

and if I want a flat bread,

out of the fridge, let it get up to room temperature,

roll it out and it's done

and it always tastes better.

You know, you buy packets of flat breads,

whether they're called wraps or pide or whatever they're called,

they always taste sort of doughy and cold.

Make your own, I say.

Just wait till it puffs up, turn it over and it will be done.

So I'm just going to marinade these sliced onions

with just some sumac,

which is this very sort of lemony spice

that the Turkish use in great abundance.

It's a very distinctive feature of this dish.

So we'll just leave the onions there.

And now to fry my liver.

Bit of olive oil in the pan,

some garlic.

And now the liver.

And the trick, for me,

is to get them very nicely browned on the outside,

but just to keep them a little bit pink on the inside.

When I say "for me",

I think the Turks tend to cook them all the way through,

but I like a little bit of pinkness.

That's great.

Now to make one up...

First of all, some liver.

Bit of lettuce, perhaps.

Not essential but I like a bit of salad with my liver.

Some tomato and most importantly...

..some onions.

There we go. Roll it up.

And eat.

ROLLING THUNDER

Now, where's the ice cold beer?

I think wine's pretty important on my journey, but every time

I turn up at a vineyard there are no grapes to be seen,

the weather's awful and nothing's happening.

But this, thank goodness, is the right time.

I'm on my way to meet Can Ortobag, who makes Urla wine.

I've actually tried this wine already back in Padstow

and it was really good. Local grape.

It's interesting about Can because he was running an arboretum.

It's where you grow trees and sell them,

and next to the arboretum he found a group of amphoras -

you know, old, old containers for wine -

discovered they were over 2,000 years old and he just thought,

"If they used to make wine here, we can make wine now."

Can. Very nice to meet you.

Welcome. How are you?

Oh, fabulous! What a lovely morning and great vines.

So, Can, I know they used to make wine here,

but for you it's like starting something new.

If somebody would ask me 20 years ago you are going to produce wine,

I would say, "Are you kidding me?" so you never know.

Life brings you where and I'm so happy.

It is very tired. It makes you very tired.

I mean, it's very long-term investment. You lose money.

I'm still losing money but, you know,

can you imagine I lose money and I enjoy?

I work 16 hours a day, seven days sometime, harvesting.

We started harvest a month ago and I'm sleeping average two,

three hours a day.

Well, when you drove up you were on the quad bike.

I was thinking, "Is this the boss?"

It's the boss.

I don't know if I'm a boss or whatever.

I don't know. I do everything.

In a nutshell, there was a great deal of wine-making in this region,

Anatolia, and wine was enjoyed by both Christians and Muslims.

But in the 1920s came partition.

The Greek families who lived in this part of Turkey were told to

pack their bags and go back to Greece.

Similarly for the Muslims who lived in Greece, the same story.

The trouble here was that it was generally the Christians who

made the wine and tended the vineyards,

so the vineyards became overgrown, then useless and finally lost.

We talked about grape but we never tasted it.

-No.

-Would you like to taste?

I would, I would.

So sweet. Absolutely bursting with flavour.

The grape should be tasty and delicious to make good wine.

But I thought I heard somewhere that it didn't matter with wine grapes.

They don't taste like table grapes do.

They are very different and I believe they are more tasty.

If it is not tasty, you can never make a good wine.

You make the wine in the vineyard, not in the winery.

So every time I taste your wine in the future I'll be back here.

You are always welcome.

The best wine is the wine that you enjoy.

I hope you will like it.

I'm thinking deep, dark velvet, tobacco, liquorice,

all that sort of thing. How am I doing?

Excellent, excellent.

Now tell me what I should be saying.

The most important thing is if the wine is good or bad.

-Good.

-Thank you. Very nice to hear that.

-Cheers.

-Cheers again.

I got the feeling that Can keeps pretty much an open house

here at the vineyard.

There were women cooking really good stuffed flat breads

for the wine buyers and the visitors.

I just watched those two ladies make these - gozlemes,

they're called - and I actually watched them about five times

because it's just so mesmerising watching them doing it.

And when I was watching them I was thinking, like, when you're a child

and you watch your mother making maybe just some shortcrust pastry.

It has that same sort of effect,

that there's something incredibly comforting and reassuring

about people, particularly women I think, making something like these.

I think that's where my love of cooking came from originally,

it was just watching my mum cooking,

cos that's the same feeling I get watching them.

And this....

I've watched them make savoury ones, but this one,

with some tahini and some sugar... Oh!

Now I just want a little glass of tea.

This is a food journey, but I had to come

to the exquisite ancient city of Ephesus.

Well, everybody does, it seems.

Lovely sweet figs here, perfect for a hot day,

and I like old ruins,

especially if I can find any distant reference to food.

This was a rich, comfortable place to live.

It was Greek, but then the Romans turned it into one of

the most prosperous ports in the Aegean.

My mum sent me a postcard from Ephesus

when I was away at boarding school,

a big postcard, and I remember... I think it was one

of the amphitheatres, and I thought, "Oh, I've got to go there sometime."

But the thing that interests me is over there there's that plain -

there's the cars in the distance, the trees,

and all of that was sea 1,000 years ago and gradually it silted up.

Now, in Padstow, cos I have to put this on a human scale,

we have a dredger going up and down the estuary every day

trying to keep it clear, and succeeding, for small boats.

But imagine if you were here,

and this was one of the biggest ports in the Mediterranean

in Roman times, and gradually seeing it all go, all fade.

How awful would that be?

Fate, inexorable fate, would be taking its toll of your life.

Before the sea went away, people would have lived very well.

Many would have been rich and the food would have been exotic.

They had cookery books -

I suppose, to be more accurate, cookery scrolls -

how to cook lamb stew with garum or roasted flamingo in aspic

for your mates after a day at the coliseum.

Look at that!

A pomegranate tree with ripe fruit.

Isn't that beautiful? What could be more splendid than that?

And they would have had pomegranates aplenty.

Oranges, lemons, grapes, olives, herbs,

lovely green vegetables from Anatolia, fish, goats, lamb.

They would have done all right.

There's quite a famous fishing port nearby.

It's the sort of place I like.

The boats are small and the catch is supremely fresh.

If I had a restaurant here, I'd be waiting to see the best of

the catch because I know, believe you me, people on holiday

near the sea want fish and they're willing to pay for it.

Fabulous. Just the one, thanks, for me.

This makes me a happy boy, I must say!

It's probably all my favourite fish in one box.

I mean, obviously we've got sea bass,

then of course, yes, we've got the red mullet.

Thank you very much.

Apparently the Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent had his red mullet

taken to Istanbul from this port, it was that good.

And then we've got a rascasse or scorpion fish.

I have a feeling that we're going to get some soup made with that today.

Oh!

The gurnard,

the Mediterranean gurnard,

another of those rock fish which make such wonderful soup.

Thank you, chaps.

These little parcels of fish, I suppose, represent something

like eight hours' work by a couple of people on board a boat

for most of the night.

Not big money, but I've always said it...

Fishing is like gambling -

you never know when the jackpot comes along.

I just found out a lot of red mullet was about 30 quid,

about 90 lira, which is a bit cheaper

than back home but not that much.

It's the most expensive... It's the most expensive fish here.

Every little tourist town-cum-fishing village anywhere

needs a little fish market like this because they almost go hand in hand.

You've got a lot of fish restaurants around here,

but this little market...

You would feel so happy - I would -

coming to a place like this and seeing this,

cos I know that everything that I'm going to be eating

in the restaurants would be coming straight out of the sea.

Well, Yasmin is making a scorpion fish soup.

One of the things I've picked up already is that she's going to

make everything in the pot, all in the pot, nothing's pre-cooked.

And I believe it's all about getting the freshness out of everything.

And I don't think she's even going to add any water,

just going to get the juice from the fish and from the tomatoes

and from the lemon.

Scorpion fish?

Well, at home, because they're difficult to find, I'd use gurnard.

A big gurnard, a tub gurnard, they call them in Cornwall.

Loads of tomatoes. That's the secret here, skinned tomatoes.

Garlic, four cloves into big chunks,

and a big, generous handful of parsley.

Slices of peeled lemon and lemon juice, say from two lemons.

Tomatoes and these lemons give it a fresh, clean,

slightly astringent flavour, which will go really well with the fish.

And then plenty of olive oil.

Don't stint on the oil, Mum! Then salt.

On the stove for, I'd say, about 40 minutes.

People ask me all the time, "How do you cook these less popular

"fish like gurnard, ling, pollack or even weaver fish?"

and this is a good way, I think.

Great.

Tesekkur ederim.

Rica ederim.

OK.

Look at that beautiful flesh, there.

Wow!

Just a little to start with.

I would call this a celebration of the good things to be had in life.

That's gloriously simple and fresh.

Just try some of the broth now.

My first thought is it's very lemony and very tomato-y.

I sort of think in the Mediterranean you have to

sort of go back to basics, because I'm so used to filming in places

like India, south-east Asia and having, you know, tamarind, chilli,

soy, you name it, just big flavours, and this is very, very delicate.

But then if I go back

and try some of the fish with it,

there's the point.

Because although those big flavours, the fish tastes nice with it,

you don't appreciate the delicacy like you do with this.

I love the story of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent sending for

his red mullet from here.

It's not just the fantastic flavour of seafood that makes red mullet

such a royal fish, It's also the red and the gold.

It looks like it's in some uniform.

To me, red mullet is the symbol of Mediterranean seafood

and this is a great way to cook it.

This is fried red mullet, one of my favourite dishes,

but I just really like a fried mullet with a bit of orange,

so I'm going to just zest an orange here.

And actually, I think red mullet is probably as good as it gets,

but I do like a little bit of embellishment.

Now just cutting the peel off. I love doing that.

Makes me feel like I'm a proper pastry cook, which I never was.

Actually, one of my chefs once said what I'm doing here is taking

the PITH, which I don't think's very funny.

Anyway, next thing - just going to cut little segments out like that.

I just want a few to decorate the final dish.

I sometimes prefer orange juice than lemon juice in fish dishes.

It's sort of less assertive and sweeter and more aromatic.

Just squeezing all the juice out with the zest.

So, ready to go now with the mullet.

I've already gutted and scaled them.

Sometimes you cook red mullet with the guts in.

It sounds dreadful but they don't have any gall bladder,

so in fact they taste quite gamey like that.

Maybe not what you like but sometimes I like it like that.

Just cutting off the fins.

And a simple thing I've learnt about fish cookery

is it's much better to season the fish when you're going to coat them

rather than season the coating that you're going to put the fish in.

So, just a little bit of salt in this case.

And then the coating.

And what I've got here is coarse semolina, and I like that

because it gives a lovely crisp skin to my red mullet.

So there's my fish all coated,

but before I fry it I'm just going to toast some pine nuts.

Not only do they give a lovely sort of piny, resin-y flavour,

but also a bit of texture as well, just to make it more interesting.

And now for the red mullet.

Get some olive oil in the pan.

Now, I always use extra virgin olive oil.

I think we tend to get a bit too worried about there being too many

calories in these dishes but Mediterranean cuisine isn't

very calorific, so you can afford to put plenty of olive oil in there.

Now, they'll take about three minutes on either side.

Look at the colour on that!

And I think you can see why I like semolina.

It's got that lovely sort of coarse texture.

It's quite, sort of, funky.

They're now ready, so I'll just get them out of the pan.

And finally, to finish, the sauce or dressing, whichever you will.

Some oregano.

Then some chilli. Just a pinch of chilli.

And then capers, small capers.

They've got a lovely bite to them.

Big pinch of parsley, then the orange juice.

There's the big blaze.

Doesn't matter if it flares up a bit.

Some salt and, last, the orange segments, because I want them

warmed through but I don't want them to fall apart in this final cooking.

And then my pine nuts.

Shake that around. There we go.

Just trying to find a spoon.

There we are. Lovely colour.

Just a little bit.

I don't want it to be absolutely drowned in bits and bobs.

And finally, just finish off with just a little bit of olive oil.

Not too much. And that's it.

And what I'm always looking for with mullet is to find the way to

bring that flavour out of the skin as much as the flesh.

It has the most fantastic flavoured skin

and I think this really does it.

'Next time, I'll be catching the famous blue fish in

'the middle of the Bosphorus.'

Well, that's the third blue fish we've caught this morning.

I can't wait for my next bite.

I've had two bites, two fish.

It's just...

I feel so privileged to be out here right in the middle of the Bosphorus

between Europe and Asia, and with all these blinking great boats

passing I feel a bit vulnerable,

but it's the most sensational feeling.

It's just great to be alive.

'And so my gastronomic journey from Venice to Istanbul continues.'