Cheshire A Taste of Britain

He's Brian Turner.

And she's Janet Street-Porter.

I'm passionate about walking.

These feet have taken me the length and breadth of Great Britain.

I've been privileged to cook all round the world,

but it's Britain that I love - fabulous produce,

great ingredients, right here on the doorstop.

We're joining forces to explore Britain's rich heritage.

And the landscape that's given us such wonderful produce.

He's in charge of the food.

And guess what, she's in charge of everything else!

-This is...

-A Taste of Britain.

Today, we're in charming Cheshire, home to dramatic landscapes,

a rich heritage and a wealth of great pubs and restaurants.

Situated in the North West, it's a county with a wonderfully

diverse range of the best in British produce.

So, we'll be taking full advantage by trying to reel in a few local

delicacies of our own.

You've done it before, haven't you?

-Many times.

-I can catch a duck easier.

Yeah, you might be going for smoked duck.

Never mind about smoked trout.

Along with great architecture,

Tatton Park has some very fine furnishings.

Well, it's certainly very red.

It's not my choice of colour.

Is my light on?

Yeah, it's on.

And I discover that some of Cheshire's most interesting

history is hidden underground.

Just a bit of a slope here, Janet, and then...

Oh, no, I might have to hold on to thing.

I don't think I'm a natural miner, Stephen.

After tasting our way around the county, I'll be cooking a dish

that sums up a Taste of Cheshire for a few of the locals.

Anybody of you who likes well done meat, you can leave now.

-OK.

-It's the no-choice menu.

Well, Brian, look at that view - the Cheshire Plain.

And we're standing on the edge of Alderley Edge.

But under where we're standing is a secret world that I'm going to

investigate later because once this was, believe it or not, a desert.

-No!

-Yeah.

Chester's over there and that's where the Romans were thinking of

establishing the capital of Britain, long before they thought of London.

So, there's lots to find out in this area.

Well, there's not just fabulous scenery, as you say,

and it really is very beautiful.

Look at that lovely, lush pasture land. Cattle grazing,

-lovely milk and the world famous Cheshire cheese.

-Yeah.

But not only that, we've got great meat in this part of the world,

and Tatton Park is doing some great work in conservation of rare breeds.

Not only that, they produce their own herd of deer to produce

venison, which I think is fantastic.

But what I really like about this part of the world is that

there's some wonderful small, family businesses.

The one I like particularly, however,

is a smokehouse where they smoke local cheese, local meat and trout.

-Now, I just love smoked trout.

-So do I.

So, the first thing we're going to do, is catch a fish.

You're not challenging me to a fishing match, are you?

-It's not a challenge, I'm just following you.

-Game on.

Lead on, plum duff.

I forgot to mention, I'm a dab-hand with a fishing rod, Brian,

so you could be left feeling like a fish out of water.

Well, I think the local trout farm on the River Dane is a great

place to put our skills to the test.

The quality of the water here means the fishing lake teems with

top quality trout, which are highly prized by local

restaurants for their superior taste.

It's the perfect ingredient for our first Taste of Cheshire,

although we need to catch one first.

Farm owner and keen fisherman, Lorne Chadwick,

is just the man to help us.

-Lorne.

-Hi, Janet. Brian.

Hi, Lorne, nice to see you.

Now, these are very big, active fish. How old are they?

Um, these are about 11 to 12 months old, ready for sale.

I can see rainbow trout and brown trout,

are those the two main types you've got here?

The two main types that I breed, yeah.

Rainbow trout obviously for the table, it's the most popular,

that's what people want.

I do buy in quite a few brown trout.

-I like brown trout.

-It's the fisherman's choice.

-I prefer the taste of a brown trout.

-Yeah.

But it does take a lot longer to grow, so if you're doing

brown trout, they are a little bit of a premium price, but you can get

two or three lots of rainbow through in the same kind of time.

What makes your trout taste good, in your opinion?

One, I'm not mass-producing - I'm only doing it on a very,

very small scale.

I take a little bit longer to get my fish up to size,

so rather than the fish having big fat bellies

they tend to be broader in the back, and that's where the flesh is.

Plus, very fast flowing water, which keeps the fish fit.

Explain to me, when I'm looking at a trout in a fishmonger's,

what I should be looking for.

A lot of the time you'll notice that the head isn't in proportion with the fish.

And that's mainly cos they've force-fed it to get it to grow faster.

If you actually ask the fishmonger to fillet it, you'll notice

when they've cut it, when it gets near the end it's basically flesh.

And it's not that he's done a bad job, it's just there's no meat there.

-Sure.

-Whereas, if you've got them slimmer, more like a salmon shape,

they'll have a broader back and that's where all the flesh is.

What attracts people about fishing?

Getting back to nature.

It's about seeing nature while you're here and it's actually

pitting your brains and your skill to outwit the fish.

I find it very, very calming.

It just takes such a long time to set up.

That's the whole point.

Shall I start off with you?

-But I'm here to learn! I'm here to learn.

-It's two against one!

-Yeah.

-There's nothing else to do but get back to nature.

-Yes.

-Find my primeval man.

-Yeah.

-And do it.

-Let's see how good you really are.

-Yes.

It's been a while, but I'm confident I'll soon get

back into the swing of things.

-You've done it before, haven't you?

-Many times.

Brian, on the other hand, is going to need some help from the expert.

Cor, blimey, O'Reilly.

So we're bringing the rod up, nice and straight,

fly's still in the water

and then just as the line's coming level with you, flick forward,

pointing your rod downwards.

-Theoretically, the fish are attracted by that.

-Yeah.

-Go chunk, pull 'em in.

-Yep.

So, pull it just slowly up next to you,

until the line's just coming about level with you.

A little bit more, and forward.

Not bad. We'll give it another try.

I'm sure you're being sweet there.

Always sweet.

That was even better.

Yeah, I feel like I'm going to dive in there.

-Stop leaning forward, you don't need to dive in.

-No.

I'll see how Janet's going.

Right, I've forgotten how to hold me fingers when I'm flicking it back.

-Imagine...

-Mm.

..there's a clock above your head.

So, you're coming back, and you're only going forward a certain amount.

-Oh, yeah, that's what it is.

-And only let the line go...

-Ten to two till ten past.

-Exactly.

-Exactly.

And then the last cast, let go of the line and it'll go straight out.

-Right, so, I'm doing...

-Bring a bit more line in first.

That's it.

Do the flick, you don't need to throw it

because the rod will naturally throw it for you.

I'm going to catch a duck, I can catch a duck easier.

Yeah, you might be going for smoked duck.

Never mind about smoked trout.

It's a good thing Lorne has a couple of lovely looking specimens

he caught earlier for us.

Here, Janet, two to take away.

Well, thank you, as we caught nothing. Look at those, Brian.

They're very pretty, aren't they, eh?

They're lovely and they've got a nice shape to 'em.

those are perfect.

The smokehouse is going to love those.

Established over a century ago,

the smokehouse in Wilmslow uses everything from hickory wood

to maple syrup to smoke a wide variety of local produce.

The business was founded by the great grandfather of current owner,

Darren Ward, who still uses the same traditional smoking methods today.

-Darren, hello.

-Hi.

-Wotcher.

-Pleased to meet you.

I've brought you two trout and I wish I could say that we caught them

-but unfortunately my casting partner let me down.

-Ah.

I caught as many as you caught today.

-Nought. Which is nought.

-Exactly!

-So...

You want them smoking?

-D'you want to smoke 'em for us? Yes, please.

-Yeah.

It's going take a bit long to do this, but I can show you how we do it.

These trout have come down from Wincle,

we cured them this morning, just in a brine solution,

then we're just going to actually cold smoke them.

And cold smoking means?

Cold smoking means you're actually getting a flavour through

to them, you're not cooking them.

-Right.

-So these will get up to...

-They'll just waft in smoke.

-They waft in smoke, yeah.

-These are our brick smoke kilns.

-Right.

Very simple, it's the same process my great grandfather

used to use.

We just smoulder oak and beech chippings,

they'll smoulder very, very slowly. There won't be any flames involved.

There's no real heat there, is there?

No, you get up about 30 degrees so, you know, you're not...

You're not going to cook the product in there.

I'd like to know, if different wood produces different taste

on the fish, when you buy a smoked fish it says oak chippings or

these chippings, or whatever, is that a load of baloney?

Um, some woods, it's very hard to tell the difference.

Yeah. What is a wood that really makes a different taste?

Oak, oak is quite different, there's

a lot of tannins in oak, which is why they use it for wine.

And you get a much softer sort of vanilla sort of flavour.

And hickory's different to oak a lot?

Hickory's quite different, yeah, you know.

So, do you cure everything that you smoke?

-Almost everything.

-Give or take.

-Yeah, yeah.

There's a big thinking these days in restaurants,

people are now starting to brine everything. Which in effect is the same thing.

-It is, yeah.

-And it makes it moister.

-Yeah.

It's giving it the seasoning and gets the flavour

and then you finish it off with this wonderful smoky smell and taste.

A lot of restaurants are smoking food now

and you can hot smoke very,

very easy in a restaurant or in a frying pan with some oak chips, and it's great, yeah.

We actually hot smoke in another machine just round the corner.

-I've got some trout in there that I can show you now.

-Fantastic.

This is a hot smoker, this is where we're actually introducing heat and

cooking and smoking at the same time.

So the smoke's generated, blown over, down onto the products

and we're cooking it at the same time.

So those are ready. Can we take them out and have a look?

Let's have a look at these.

If we peel some of the skin back on this.

Oh, God, look at the colour, it's so beautiful.

Look at the moisture as well there, you can see it.

-Are we are allowed to taste it?

-Please do, yeah.

-Thank you, d'you want a little bit?

-Yeah.

And we cook our trout on the bone,

a lot of people cook the fillets separately.

I think we get a better product doing it on the bone, stays more moist.

Yeah. You just get a hint of smoke, don't you, huh?

I'm going to make a little pate with a bit of cheese, horseradish,

dill, just a bit of seasoning.

-You can't do much to these.

-No.

-I'm just taking that with me.

-Oh, for goodness' sake.

-For a snack.

-Supper again tonight.

-I might have a snack.

Our visit to the smokehouse was really inspiring, so I hope

Brian's got a great recipe up his sleeve for that fabulous fish.

Well, Janet, I've got just the thing to highlight the trout's

delicious, smoky flavour.

I think this smoked trout is beautiful.

Consequently, what we're going to do with it is make a pate.

We've got some local cream cheese, I've got some horseradish and dill.

I'd just serve it with some bread.

-Yeah.

-Right, so, we take the fish here first.

-Yeah.

There's a natural bit, so just be careful.

That's the back, that lifts off nicely.

This is the difficult bit, in my opinion, this is with the belly,

this is where the bones are, so just be careful with those.

Take those to one side.

I'm going to put them into two different bowls.

Then, if you're very careful, you just lift off the rest of the bones.

I think a career in surgery awaits you, Brian.

Not me, I can't stand the sight of blood.

What I'm going to do now is take this and

mix it with our other ingredients.

-This is the cream cheese.

-Yep.

You've got some horseradish.

OK.

-It's not over strong.

-No, it's lovely.

-All right.

-So that goes in there.

Put that in with our belly.

-I'm also...

-Hang on, what was that that just happened?

What, no, what was that that just happened?

Just put some butter in here, Janet.

Butter with the cream cheese!

-Well, exactly, cos we want to make it really smooth and rich.

-Rich!

-Rich.

-Rich, yeah.

-Rich.

-Yeah.

So, now I'm just going to beat this up.

I'd hate to see you do it in a machine.

I was going to ask you that,

because if you do it in a machine it'll mash it to bits, won't it?

Exactly. So I want this puree, but I don't want it really fine

and like sludge, really.

That's looking good, lovely colour, I do like that.

I'm going to put a little bit of salt in there, only a wee bit.

Some pepper in there.

And then some lemon juice, that'll just lift it up that little bit.

Now I've got it where I want it, I'm just going to break this in here.

The trick now is not to stir it too much.

It's just to fold it in.

So it's a bit like dry stone walling.

You've got the bricks, then you've got the bits in between, OK?

And that's just about it.

So the rest now is all about accompaniments and presentation.

So I'm going to put some dill in there, not too fine.

Chop it at the last minute,

so you've got all those flavours just being released.

Give it one last stir.

That's a very, very strong herb.

This is a very rich mixture,

no matter what anybody says to you, don't get too greedy.

So all we'll do is just put it in the bottom there.

-I like the texture you've come up with.

-In there.

-I would never have thought of that. That's good that it's got the chunks in it.

-Yeah.

-It looks good.

What we're going to do is we're going to serve it with some bread.

Now, toasted bread's fine but I actually just quite like this...

I can't believe it!

You're going to fry it!

Yeah, I am, yes, yeah.

It's just how it naturally comes out, I can't do anything about it.

Is that a skylark over there?

I can't believe...

Just going to put just a little bit of butter in there.

Well, any women on a diet would just toast it.

And that's fine and that, you can do what you wish to do,

and this is not mandatory but we'll just put the other side,

a bit of butter on there.

So, well...

So, all we need to do now is to make a little bit of salad.

We've got a bit of lettuce here, little gem, local stuff.

Cut it in quarters.

I'm just going to put a bit of oil in there.

Salt and pepper.

A bit of cucumber in there, some chopped chives,

give it a whirl round.

So, I'm just going to put that on the side here.

Put our little pate there.

This is really nice for two lovers who are eating together.

I think of you every time I think of this.

Yeah, no, you think of me

when you've got that carving knife in your hand, that's what.

So, there you have it, smoked trout pate from Cheshire.

Have a taste, tell us what you think.

-Do you want some butter on the bread?

-No, I do not want butter!

OK, I'm just checking!

-In fact, what I'm trying to eat is the crust!

-You never know.

Very good.

Thank you very much, my darling.

What I really like is the consistency, it's rough

and it's smooth.

Darren, come and taste some. I'm going to have another bit.

Fabulous, that.

In my quest to learn more about Cheshire's history,

I am heading underground at the point we started -

the sandstone escarpments at Alderley Edge.

There's an underground network of disused mines

40 metres below it, some dating back to Roman times.

Stephen Mills is going to guide me through the mines and their history.

How old is this mine, Stephen?

Well, we've got carbon dating going back now to

1,900 BC, and that was found by accident because we were

at the time investigating a shaft which is just over the way

there because we'd found Roman coins.

-Is my light on?

-Yeah, it's on.

-OK.

OK, just a bit of a slope here, Janet, and then...

-Oh, no, well, give me the gloves then!

-Gloves?

-Yeah.

-Right.

-I might have to hold on to things.

-A pair of gloves then.

I don't think I'm a natural miner, Stephen.

Watch your head there.

-THUMP

-Oh!

I think these Roman miners were very short.

Oh, no, how much longer is this low bit?

I feel like I'm in a Harrison Ford movie.

You're all right, you can stand up now.

Stand up? Well, only if you're sure... Ah!

Here we are in the main Engine Vein.

If you look up to the left you will see there are some

shuttering there, because this used to be open to the atmosphere,

we used to have light streaming down into the mine.

It runs right down to the village, in fact.

-You can see the narrowness up there.

-Yes.

Those are the old workings and probably worked by the Romans.

-In fact, you can see holes in the wall every so far.

-Yes.

And those holes had what they call stempling, that's pieces of

oak wood for the miners to stand on whilst they picked the stuff down.

And so they let gravity do the work and then

they dragged their pails, or whatever, round the corner, into the

passage and then they hoisted with a pulley and rope to the surface.

So, what were they actually mining down here, the Romans?

Mostly lead, but there was copper as well.

-Well, shall we go down?

-Yeah, yeah, let's go down.

Well, Alderley Edge,

there's loads of very rich people living all round here.

-Yeah.

-Do you think they know what's under their houses?

They haven't got a clue.

What's this huge space here? Is this a natural cavern or...?

-No, no, it isn't.

-This has been entirely man-made?

Entirely man-made.

This is the 1860s working off the main fault.

And this is where you get the impression of just how big

this place is.

Wow!

It's like being in the vault of a cathedral or something.

This blue, this is copper salts

coming out of the rich upper workings.

This is the process how they used to get the copper in the 1860s.

There was a fabulous chemist called Henderson who devised

this method of leaching out the copper.

And you'll see, there is

a completely untouched vein of lead that the Romans missed, if you like.

-It was mostly used in the 1800s for lead paint.

-Yeah.

-If you look left, you will see...

-What's that?

-Well, it's a little face, can you see the eyes and the nose?

-Oh, yes.

It's thought... Archaeologists came down here

and thought that it was possibly from the Roman times

and they would make faces in the wall to keep the evil spirits

away, if you like.

Urgh, don't say anything like that.

All right, well I hope it's working today.

Now, just on the right here, very exciting.

Of course, we've got the tunnel to the Roman shaft.

And in the bottom of the shaft we found oak timbers

still intact, and when they were carbon dated it showed that they

were 50 to 75 AD, which is definitely when the Romans were here.

Then the shaft was filled and, in the top of the shaft, somebody

came along in the fourth century AD and buried a pot of coins.

564 coins lying there for all that time.

Very exciting.

So here we are, back out to the top.

Ow!

Heh-heh. That's what you've got your helmet for.

Oh, well, I'm very glad to see daylight.

-Well, I've really enjoyed my trip down the mine, Stephen.

-Yeah.

A fantastic experience, but daylight looks even better.

While Janet's been exploring Cheshire's underground,

I've been searching above ground for more of a Taste of Cheshire.

Chef Ernst Van Zyl, at The Lord Clyde restaurant in Kerridge,

has gained a name for himself by transforming local seasonal

produce into culinary works of art.

So, I'm really looking forward to seeing what's on today's menu.

-Good morning. How are you?

-Good morning, Chef. I'm good, yourself?

-Very good.

-So what you going to cook for us?

-We're going to do seared Jacob's Ladder with beetroot,

some radishes and then just a nice Nantwich blue cheese puree.

We're going to smoke the beef.

That's lovely, is that.

Beautiful marbling.

So you've actually taken the piece of meat from between the ribs.

-Between the ribs, yes.

-And then batoned it out.

Yeah, it's nice and flat. So much flavour, lots of marbling.

I'll give a little bit of seasoning just to help the flavours go.

Seal up the air, just to make sure that all the smoke stays in.

So we're going to just put a little bit of smoke into the beef.

A little bit of smoke, just look at that.

It kind of takes me back to my childhood days of

growing up in South Africa and barbecuing and the smokiness and

it kind of connects people, I think, with food memories.

And as soon as you connect the diner with a food memory it becomes

the most amazing meal they've ever had.

Now, that is a piece of meat.

Yeah, it just gives you such quirky things to do.

For a bit of texture, we're going to do a beetroot tube, which we'll

deep fry, just for a bit of crunch to the dish.

So wrap round the little metal tube and it goes in the fryer, just enough.

So it's not too hot?

No, we don't want to colour our beetroot too much,

we just want to kind of crisp it up and expel the moisture inside.

Next job, we're going to do some pickled beetroot.

White wine vinegar, whisked together with a bit of salt and sugar.

All dissolved, nice and smooth.

We'll take a yellow beetroot.

I'm just going to do a couple of slices.

Just nice long strips, because we're going to kind of roll them

together to make little tubes.

We just want to give it a quick pickle.

OK, so with the jam we have beetroot juice.

-So, by juicing it you put it in a machine.

-Yeah, a vegetable juicer.

Agar agar, which always comes in a powder.

And it only needs boiling for a minute and a half.

Obviously a fluid gel is a modern word,

it's an intimidating word, but the process is so simplistic.

-Mm.

-A liquid with agar agar, settle it hard and blend till it's smooth.

We seal our beef, we're going to get a pan on really, really nice

and hot because we just want colour, that caramelisation,

the sugars, but very rare still through the centre.

Nice searing sound, no chance to stew.

-And you've put it in there but you haven't touched it.

-No.

-You haven't moved the pan.

-No.

-You're letting it just sit there.

-Yeah.

As soon as you touch it you will start to agitate the beef and

you'll just let all those juices run out.

Let's have a...

Oh, beautiful, yeah. Still really nice and rare.

It's done and now we need to let it rest.

We're going to do our Nantwich blue cheese puree.

Very simplistic, we're going to just let it down with a tiny bit of

double cream, and that's enough, we're not going to mess around with it.

Sounds good to me, does that.

Just going to break it up a little bit.

Put a little bit of double cream.

Temptation, you can't do that, smell it without tasting it.

The last thing to do now is we're going to make small Parisian

balls with our radishes.

-Er, a bit of playfulness, I think.

-Yes.

Again, it adds crunch and

it kind of injects the same flavour but in just a different way.

Different form.

Yeah, a different form.

So, I'm salivating now, OK.

So, let's get this dish together, Chef.

OK. So all our bits and pieces are done.

We're going to slice our beef.

Our blue cheese will go on first.

So beef on the plate, we'll slot in our texture.

Our pickled yellow, it helps to lift flavour.

Now, that just finishes it off there, the green is perfect.

And there we go.

A seared Jacob's Ladder and textures of beetroot.

The intricate beef

and beetroot dish certainly scores top marks from me, but Janet isn't

easily impressed with presentation, so how will she rate it on taste?

Hello.

Here we have a seared Jacob's Ladder with textures of beetroot.

-Thank you.

-Thank you, Chef.

-And I hope you enjoy.

So, what do you think?

It looks very interesting.

Sad thing is, that to eat it you've kind of got to destroy

the whole thing.

Well, the beef tastes delicious.

I like the green cheesy thing that's with it.

-Yeah. It's nice that the beef is rare.

-Very rare.

From the cut that it's from,

-cos normally you'd braise it, long slow-cooked.

-Yeah.

The Jacob's Ladder.

-You mean Jacob's Ladder is a real dish?

-Yeah.

It's not something he just dreamt up?

It's a cut of meat.

Jacob's Ladder is a cut of meat?

Oh, I thought it was like a knitting pattern or something.

Have you tried these slightly pickled beetroot?

Yeah, I love beetroot and I'm always interested to see other

ways of cooking it because if you grow beetroot you always get a glut.

And this is crispy beetroot. Have you tried that?

Oh, I love that.

He could have called it "wacky ways with beetroot."

Good, very good.

With its 50 acres of landscaped gardens, 1,000-acre deer park,

and a neoclassical mansion house, Tatton Park

in Knutsford is one of Cheshire's most magnificent historic estates.

Well, Brian, here we are at Tatton Park, one of the most

beautiful 18th century mansions in the whole of England.

And it's a fantastic estate that's now run by the National Trust.

This house was the inspiration for Elizabeth Gaskell,

-the Victorian novelist who wrote Cranford.

-Ah, right, yes.

-She lived nearby, in Knutsford.

-Ah-ha. Oh, yes.

-She used to come here all the time.

-It's really nice, eh?

I'm going to go and explore it inside. What are you going to do?

They've got a great walled garden here with some fabulous vegetables.

I'm going to have a look at that, see you later.

Tatton Park was bought by the Egerton Family in 1598,

who lived here for almost 400 years.

Books were highly valued by successive

generations of the family, and today the library houses

one of the biggest private collections anywhere in the country.

Guide Karen Knowles is going to show me

a few of its priceless items.

-Hi, Karen.

-Hi.

Well, what an incredible library.

How many books are there in here?

There are over 4,500 books

in this room but nearly 9,000 at Tatton altogether.

So explain to me how each generation of

the family collected books, did they all have different interests?

They did, they had different subjects that they were interested in

and they also purchased collections from other people.

So, when other collectors died, they would buy parts of their collection.

It's interesting, cos a lot of the aristocratic families in the 18th and 19th century

built libraries but didn't read any of the books, did they?

Correct, it was just for the effect and to impress their visitors.

Now, you've got a very special book for me here,

is this the oldest book in the library?

It is the oldest book in the library, it's by

Vitruvius and it's 1513.

Well, it must be worth a fortune.

-I'll let you open it.

-OK.

So, it's 1513 and what's it about?

It's about architecture.

-Right.

-So, for example.

So, it's classical architecture.

-It is.

-Very like the, like the house itself.

-Yes.

Cos that's inspired by the kind of buildings in this book.

Precisely, it was the fashion.

Elizabeth Gaskell, the Victorian novelist, lived near here,

didn't she, at Knutsford?

Do you think she came to Tatton Park at all?

Well, in one of the novels,

Wives And Daughters, she does mention

a visit by a character to a house which is very much like Tatton Park.

And she describes the gardens, the cedar tree outside.

So it seems possible she could have visited the house

or certainly the gardens.

So, Karen, what other great books have you got in this library?

Well, we've not only got serious subjects, we've also got novels.

For instance, we've got some first edition Jane Austens.

-Really?

-Yeah.

So, here we've got Persuasion and Northanger Abbey,

it was published in four volumes in 1818.

And, as you can see, it's actually unbound,

so this is how the book would arrive from the book-sellers,

and the family would then get the books bound.

But, because this was just a novel, they didn't think it was

important enough to get it bound.

So, it was just left as it was.

So, they ordered books from the book-seller and then all

the books in this room were bound in the way that the family wanted.

Precisely.

But this was a bit of holiday light reading, what a treasure.

-Would you like to come and see some of the rest of the house?

-Yeah, that would be fantastic.

OK, this way.

So, this is the drawing room?

It is, yeah. The walls are covered in silk.

And the furniture, as well.

And the furniture's actually English, it may look French,

but it's actually English, made by Gillows of Lancaster.

And would the family gather in here before dinner?

It was where the ladies came after dinner to withdraw from

the dining room whilst the gentlemen had their port and cigars.

And they'd come here and take tea.

Well, it's certainly very red.

-It's not my choice of colour.

-Cherry red.

But it's interesting that they liked very, very

bright colours, didn't they?

Definitely, and if you imagine you've got a fire in the fireplace there,

you've got candles around the

room reflecting the light, it would have been quite dazzling.

Right, Karen, quite a dining table.

It certainly is. This dining room's actually used for entertaining,

there was a smaller dining room that the family used for themselves

to eat in, so they weren't here every night, eating in this room.

And the portraits around the walls, are they all family members?

Most of them are family members.

We've got Sir Thomas Egerton here,

who was the first Egerton to own the estate, he acquired it in 1598.

Quite a lovely portrait is the one here, this is Alice,

the Duchess of Buckingham and Chandos.

Well, she's got a lot of ermine around her in that portrait.

She certainly does and the gold in the dress, I think it's lovely.

-Well, thanks, Karen, I really enjoyed that.

-You're welcome.

-I'd better go and find Brian.

-OK.

The successive owners of Tatton Park have each played

a part in developing the estate's gardens over the past 200 years.

And their traditional cultivation techniques are still

used in its walled vegetable garden today.

It's packed full of a wide variety of home grown produce,

which I think would be great to use in my celebratory cook.

So, I've asked head gardener, Simon Tetler, to show me around.

-Simon.

-Ah, good morning, Brian. How are you?

-Morning to you, hiya.

-This looks so pretty.

-Thank you, thank you very much.

The place looks so beautiful.

-In some senses, that's what it's about, it's productive and it's pretty.

-Yeah.

And I think this was really what the owners wanted.

And they wanted somewhere that was pleasing on the eye

and pleasing to the table as well.

So, in this present age, how many different crops do you

actually grow here?

What don't we grow? I suppose you've got such a sheltered environment here,

you can really start to expand, you know, a huge amount of crops that you would

find from the Mediterranean all the way to, kind of, northern Europe.

And where does all this produce go?

We sell it direct to the public, all our visitors.

And now we have a couple of restaurants here on site,

now get their fresh produce from the kitchen garden.

-Well, that's fantastic cos I'm going to do a celebration dish.

-OK.

And I saw some mangetout up there.

-Yeah, yeah.

-And do you have broad beans?

Loads of broad beans at the moment, Brian.

Fantastic. So broad beans, mangetout and some of your carrots.

-Fresh baby carrots for you, Brian.

-That sounds fantastic.

-Great.

I've got my vegetables sorted, so all I need now is the main

ingredient, and Simon has kindly pointed me in the right direction.

It was Lord Egerton's wish that a flock of rare breed sheep

should always be reared on the estate,

and today they've become a Tatton Park speciality.

Farm manager Jane Chapman is in charge of the breeding programme.

Jane, hi. How you doing, all right?

-Yes, pleased to meet you, Brian.

-And you too.

-Janet, hi.

-Hi.

You've got an accreditation for looking after rare breeds

-round this part of the world.

-We certainly have.

Since 2007, with the Rare Breed Survival Trust,

so we're actively breeding a lot of the rare breeds and going on to sell them.

We've got Whitefaced Woodland sheep, we've got Red Poll cattle,

Clydesdale horses, Tamworth pigs.

Tell us what we've got here?

-This is a Hebridean ewe.

-Yeah.

And the little brown one at the end actually is a Soay.

We've got a flock of both of these out on the park.

-And wasn't that Lord Egerton's wish, or something, in his will?

-It was.

He was particularly fond of the Soay, which is a very small

breed of sheep.

The meat is a lot tastier.

-And they come from Soay.

-Yes, they do, that's correct, Janet.

-Which is in the Hebrides.

-Yeah, yeah, in the lovely Hebrides.

I'm anxious to cook with some of this and see what the flavour is really like.

We've got some lovely vegetables, a bit of lovely lamb.

I think that's what we should cook, girl.

-Yeah, don't listen, love.

-Yeah.

-Don't listen, you didn't hear that.

Sounds delicious, though.

Now Brian's got his hands on a few home-grown vegetables and a superb

joint of lamb, we're all set to cook a celebratory Taste of Cheshire.

I've invited a few hungry locals along to give their verdict,

so we'd best get started, because the great British weather

looks like it's going to take a turn for the worse.

So, we're here at Tatton Park, lovely place, in the Portico to try

and stay a little bit warm and dry.

And I'm going to cook some wonderful Hebridean lamb

pencil fillets and kidneys,

a delicious dish, with some wonderful vegetables.

We've got all our friends here from Tatton Park, Jane from the farm,

Simon from the garden.

And we've got Darren from the smokehouse.

The first thing we do, make sure our pan is nice and hot,

and a bit of rapeseed oil in there, local rapeseed oil, I hasten to add.

What I'm going to do first is cook the kidneys.

These have had the skin taken off already,

so they're lovely and shiny.

Most people will tell you, you need to cut them in half

and then take out that little bit of muscle there.

I think it's a waste of effort, I really do.

I always fiddle around with a pair of scissors trying to do that.

Well, exactly, and lots of people...

I just don't think it's worthwhile, I really don't.

So, I'm going to put a little bit of local butter in there, as well.

And the trick with this is, once again,

as best you can, is to make sure you get it as hot as you can

and cook them as quickly as you can and don't play around with it.

-So, curved side in.

-Yeah.

We're going to let them sit for a while.

-Every now and then sneak a peek, the colour will tell us.

-Yeah.

Look at the nice colour, the colour will tell you.

And there's a bit of blood coming out of those.

So, we'll just turn them over.

Now, a bit of salt.

We can always cook them a little bit more.

It'll be difficult, if you overcook them, to do anything with them.

We've got the kidney flavour in there, we've got to keep that in there.

I'm going to put just a little drop more oil in there now.

A pencil fillet comes from underneath the saddle of lamb.

And it's not the top bit here, it's the bit underneath.

It is so tender and so tasty - small beast, bags of flavour.

I'm going to take a little bit of chicken stock into this pan here,

and I'm going to cook these little baby carrots here.

-Just trimmed off the excess.

-Yeah.

There, we don't want that, we can get rid of that.

And I just want to make them all nice and uniform shaped

and then cut them in half.

Going to put those in there, and I'm just going to braise them

quickly in a bit of stock rather than just boiling salted water.

Right, let's take those out.

-Whatever you do, you see this juice coming out here?

-Yeah.

Whatever you do, don't lose that, that is so important,

it's got bags of flavour.

Right, we can cook them a little bit more if we need be.

Anybody of you who likes well done meat you can leave now, OK?

It's the no-choice menu.

That's it.

The residue in the pan, that may look dirty

but actually it's bags of flavour there.

So, what we're going to do, take that away from the heat,

add a little drop of white wine in there.

It just helps to clean the pan and look, it changes in colour.

-Yeah.

-Just got all that flavour.

I'm a great believer in using a light chicken stock

for all of these sauces, so we put that in there.

-Balsamic vinegar.

-Yeah.

Just a little drop, a sweetener.

And we'll leave that to reduce.

Let's have a quick look at these.

When these carrots are almost ready, they're not quite, there is

a test, with all vegetables, if you bite them and they squeak they're not ready.

Those are going to be perfect.

Most of it's disappeared, that liquor.

These carrots, and all of these vegetables,

come from Simon's garden, walled garden and it's beautiful.

There are people who cook these and then take the outer shell,

these are so sweet.

Oh, you... Oh.

I would take that skin off, a broad bean that size.

Why? No, you wouldn't.

Because the little ones are fine.

-Right, can I just ask Simon?

-Of course you can.

-Right, Simon, you grew these.

-Yeah.

Do you take the shells off?

-It depends on the age of the bean, Janet.

-Oh.

He's on my side, I've talked to him, I took advice this morning.

So, into my stock I'm going to put some butter and then just let them

sit there, give 'em a shine,

give 'em a bit of flavour.

Butter, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

They'll taste so delicious. A bit of salt.

I bet if I stuck a knife in your vein, pure butter fat would come out.

That got a laugh.

This is Moroccan mint that Simon gave me, add a bit of spearmint.

So, I'm just going to chop a little bit.

So, that goes in there.

We'll put a bit of that in there. Cheshire mint sauce, it is.

In it goes.

A bit of mustard.

My vegetables are just about ready. I'll put the mangetout in there,

I've already seasoned the pot.

So, we'll give that a bit of a stir here.

I'm really barely going to cook those mangetout.

Lovely colour, lovely little fresh, tender ones there.

Just what I wanted.

Right! Big secret here,

all the juice that's come out,

make sure you put it back into the sauce, OK?

Pure flavour, that's all it is.

So, what we do is we just lay it down the middle of the dish.

This sauce is just about ready.

It is an art just to make sure you keep reducing it

so it's not too thin.

But you don't want to make it too thick, either.

So you've just got to get that balance at the last minute.

So now we've got these lovely vegetables here, fresh from Simon's garden.

They look lovely, and they haven't changed colour at all.

No, it's cos we haven't overcooked them.

So all we're going to do now is put a bit of sauce over the top,

we throw nothing away.

And there you have it.

Pencil fillets and kidneys from Tatton Park,

a little mint sauce and the best veg you've ever tasted.

A Taste of Cheshire!

Perfect.

Kidney looks good.

Mm.

It's got a very definite flavour.

Right, now for the supreme moment,

Janet eats a broad bean with the skin on.

Good.

Simon, you've passed the broad bean test.

Would everybody like to come and get some?

-Up you get.

-Get some plates.

So, Jane, what d'you think of it?

Oh, delicious, Janet. The lamb was excellent, but I'm biased.

-Do you like the beans?

-The beans are a little bit tough, actually.

No, I'm joking!

-Don't blame me, I've said nothing to Simon.

-We're in Cheshire, full of comedians.

-I thought you were such a nice guy!

-Darren, did you like it?

Very good, fantastic. Definite flavour, like you said.

-Well, no-one can say that that was plain food, huh?

-No.

-It was simple.

-Yeah.

Perfect products, I thought they went very well together, what about you?

I loved it. I've loved our whole trip to Cheshire.

I liked going down the secret mine.

-Watch your head there.

-Ow!

I think these Roman miners were very short.

I especially liked the fishing contest.

I can catch a duck easier.

Yeah, you might be going for smoked duck.

Never mind about smoked trout.

But I just loved the smokehouse.

Oh, God, look at the colour.

You just get a hint of smoke, don't you?

This dish was fabulous, Brian.

I never thought I could eat a broad bean with the skin on it.

It's little steps like that that turn me

into a fully grown adult and it was fabulous.

For a Taste of Britain, here it is in Cheshire.

Exactly.