Episode 2 Floyd on Fish

Do you know, for the price of a glass of bitter

you can have a fishy treat with some prats...sprats?

Today, you will see a great chef prepare my favourite fish - bass,

feast on the humble sprat, and with any luck,

indulge in the first scallops of the season which we're dredging for off the Dorset coast.

For most people, a scallop represents an ashtray.

But to me, a scallop is one of the most succulent and versatile

of all the shellfish that surround the shores of Great Britain.

We've come out to catch them. In the normal television cookery programmes,

they make a big song and dance about buying the freshest fish.

Well, we actually go and catch it!

You can cook scallops in different ways - the Japanese eat them raw.

The Chinese stir-fry them with bean sprouts.

The French often cook them with a fish veloute, a creamy sauce,

with parsley and a few mushrooms.

The British, of course, invariably surround it with mashed potatoes,

smother it with cheese and whack it under the grill. That's all wrong.

We've been here since five this morning, I'm going to have a snack.

Just to put me in fine fettle - a beautiful, fresh scallop. Bon appetit!

While the camera crew wipe the spray from their lens and the director changes his frock,

I thought you'd like to see the scallop in its natural habitat.

Be warned - fishermen won't take kindly to any of you

donning your wet suits and raiding the ocean bed.

And look at them now - shooting off like some I know

when it's their turn to pay for a round.

And that's real jet propulsion.

These are the whelks. Can you come in on that,

so that anybody who doesn't know what a whelk is can check it out?

Marvellous things, whelks.

In France they are known as escargots de mer - sea snails.

And so that's for sure this lot won't end up in the ubiquitous

bath of vinegar so beloved of the British shellfish eater.

One of the, you might almost say by-products, of coming out

scallop fishing is catching these magnificent spider crabs.

Do you know, none of you lot will eat these.

All of these are going to Spain, to France, to Italy,

and they'll be the centrepiece of a most fabulous assiette of fruits de mer.

Fresh shellfish, scallops, mussels, oysters, clams,

Mediterranean prawns.

And the centrepiece will be this - scrubbed until it is pink

and boiled, placed in the centre, and you will crack open the claws,

dip it into unctuous yellow mayonnaise and think,

as they must think, what fools the Brits are for not

taking advantage of the wonderful things we have got around our shores.

The sort of thing that a lot of really hard-working guys,

like Jeff, our skipper here, spend all hours, all weathers to catch.

And even more encouraging, there is a real renaissance in English cooking at the moment.

Talented cooks using the very best of the produce available in these islands.

Unfortunately, though, to my mind, consumers are still apathetic in their appreciation.

In almost every other sphere of their activities - choosing clothes,

furnishings and holidays - they are precise.

They wouldn't dream of booking a Verdi opera

when they intended to go to Midsummer Night's Dream.

But with food they get confused.

They confuse expense with quality and decor with street cookability.

As if catching them wasn't enough, you've also got to clean them!

You need plenty of fresh water, a cloth to protect your hands.

The technique here - I'm not an expert any more than you -

is to run the knife in, which is quite tricky,

and right the way through round the back. It does take a while.

Drag the knife in and it opens,

revealing, I'm afraid, this horrible sort of mess inside.

Run the knife underneath the scallop there...

..and take it out...

under the tap.

Throwing away the little nasty black pieces,

and this other piece of membrane, leaving only the red or pink coral,

and of course the white main flesh of the fish...

then into your colander.

We started off

having a few drinks a day or two before we got here. We thought, "Bridport's near the sea,

"the sea is full of fish - let's have the great Bridport International Scallop Festival!"

A crazy idea, but why not? Food and eating and drinking,

is conducted around the table, and out of those conversations, ideas are born.

Out of ideas, plays, festivals and theatre is created.

Why not here? Anyway, I digress.

Actually, I enjoyed that digression. I'll have another slurp and then...

come down to the important bit of the day's proceedings,

these lovely scallops.

Here they are, fresh, fresh, fresh from the Dorset seaside,

cleaned and in their shells.

Don't look at me! I'm explaining the food, it's a food programme, you half-wit! Come back!

OK, scallops. Very simple.

Some chopped, streaky bacon is an essential ingredient to this.

The rich yolk of a free-range egg.

Some good yellow Dorset butter.

Some freshly chopped parsley.

A little bit of watercress to add that je ne sais quoi.

A little bit of lemon juice, pepper. Salt you can't see, so don't bother to look for it!

And a drop of wine.

You know that on this programme, despite the jokes, despite the International Scallop Festival,

despite our producer, we are seriously concerned with good food.

So if this takes a while to cook,

bear with me, we don't just happen to pull things out of the oven

like those other TV programmes.

Right, butter into the pan,

and as I often make the point on these programmes,

we really mean butter, we can't use anything else.

Then into our pan goes a little bacon, which we've chopped,

let that sweat down a bit - I know this is hard for you to see,

but out of the butter and bacon fat we get some nice juices

in which to sautee the scallops.

After all, the star at an International Scallop Festival has got to be the scallop!

And we'll plop those in.

Two of those.

Three, four.

Just gently turn them, don't let the butter or the bacon burn.

A good hot pan, good copper pan. Very stylish, provincial cooking.

You don't have to move the camera,

they know I've got to move to get the food - it's the pot that counts.

Everyone in TV is so concerned about doing their job properly,

they miss the point of the whole thing, which is FOOD!

Love, fun and affection!

OK, scallops going into the pot.

Stay with those for a moment, OK?

I might invite you back on the next show, you're doing very well!

There's the scallops being very lightly cooked in butter.

All of you who like me so much will be disappointed not to see me.

I said stay with the pot!

Come back to me a minute, come back, come back...

This is very difficult for me - I am a cook.

I present cookery programmes but I'm not a director - I rely on competent staff.

Could we get it right in future?

Right, back to the pot.

We've got this hot and bubbling, there it goes -

what we call a soupcon of wine.

Stay on the pot, cos I have to go away.

Then we're going to add a little parsley.

Because we like colour and flavour and they come out of cooking pots!

And smiling faces and cheerful cameramen. Got it? Right.

Thank you very much indeed.

Now...

Steve, this isn't really for you, this bit, it's for the viewers.

Now, these scallops are cooked now and if we leave them in any longer,

they will turn into bits of rubber and that would be a terrible thing.

So we're going to take them out to stop the scallops cooking further.

But we must continue with the sauce.

We've got this little residue of juices,

and we're going to create a sauce using some fresh cream,

which we'll stir in...

Now, for you at home, this plate...

Can you come over to this plate, Steve, for a second?

That would be kept warm, but since none of you will taste this,

only me, I don't give a damn whether it's hot or cold.

When you're trying to impress your bourgeois friends...

make sure it's hot.

Now, we've bubbled the cream up.

We want to get this sauce,

which is cream, parsley, white wine, bacon and butter,

looks quite nice, but we haven't got the richness we really want,

so we're going to quickly - cos I'm costing too much money -

if you knew what they paid me,

you wouldn't believe their nerve...

Egg yolks in here. ..to ask me to worry about the price of film.

Stir very quickly or it scrambles.

We just want to use the egg to thicken the sauce,

and then we pour it... over the scallops like that.

And then, a little je ne sais quoi which we were speaking of earlier,

it goes on over there. A final grind of pepper.

Thank you all so much for coming. Come up, come up, come up!

I caught these, I cooked them,

I'm going to eat them. Good night!

Ignored by gastronauts, the poor sprat has little chance,

and to add insult to injury, after an unscheduled stop on the A38,

this load won't even get into a tin of cat food.

But actually, these nutritious fish are inexpensive and tasty.

Forget the sardine - a smoked sprat makes a smashing

cocktail snack, and they are delicious lightly fried.

There we are, a couple of moments. We'll just run them over.

Use your fingers if you're worried about anything.

And I think at the same time we'll give them another grind of pepper

while they are still in the pan. There we are.

And we'll sprinkle a little parsley over them, like that.

And if you'll bear with me for a moment...

Slight squeeze of lemon juice.

Another couple of seconds and they'll be ready to eat as a really delightful appetiser,

or indeed, double them up, have a whole plateful and make a meal of it. Whichever way you like.

And, of course, a glass of dry cider or a glass of white wine.

Or even brown bread and butter and a cup of tea.

Go down very well with that, too. This is food for everybody.

Not just the gastronauts, but for everybody.

So there we are.

A couple of moments, and the sprat.

Cooked beautifully.

You're probably sitting in your living rooms right now reminiscing

about the sardines you had on your Mediterranean holiday,

and thinking, "My God, why can't we get food like that in England?"

Well, the point is, we can.

The humble sprat - seven. Sardines, for me at least - nil. Try them.

That is really beautiful. And for the price, who needs sardines?

So, off I go again! This time to Padstow in Cornwall.

I'm happily anticipating lunch with one of the most agreeable cooks I've met in a very long time.

..Coming in really well now. Fisherman are catching them daily.

They come in in small quantities so they sell quickly and are fresh.

After a lesson in selecting bass,

we bought some line-caught fish, and after a pint and bag of crisps,

we got down to the serious business of cooking bass with a vengeance!

One of the most important things about Floyd On Fish is the drinking that goes with it!

No good cooking comes without good drinking.

We've conned our way into one of the best kitchens in the West Country, if not England.

Certainly according to the RAC, Sunday Times, Egon Ronay et al.

Rick Stein's restaurant in Padstow

was voted one of the best seafood restaurants in the country,

so where better to cook my favourite fish, which is a bass?

For me, this is the king of fish, you can grill it, steam it,

cook it in fennel flaming with Armagnac,

you can cook it in a bourride - that classic Mediterranean dish, you can roast it too -

Rick's going to show us how.

Rick, I'm sorry we've ripped you off in this way - welcome to your kitchen!

Well, cheers! The wine's very nice! Jolly well is, isn't it?

Tell me all.

What I'm going to do is roast or bake - I call it roasting on the menu cos it sounds unusual!

Does it freak the customers? It gets some raised eyebrows.

But we do roast it, we put it in a hot oven and baste it,

as you would roast a joint. I'll stuff it with root vegetables.

Can I just bring the camera down to see these? Just explain.

We've got celeriac, which is like celery but comes in a root form,

carrots, fennel, onion, leeks,

and here we have sorrel which we're going to finish the sauce off with,

a nice, tart flavour, sorrel has, which brings out the fish flavour.

In fact, you could use any root vegetables you fancied,

this is Nick's own special recipe. Rick, dear boy. Rick? Oh, I'm terribly sorry!

Seen one cook, seen them all!

Shall we call you Charles?

This is a television programme - get on with cooking!

I'll gently sweat these vegetables in a bit of butter. Right.

Because the cooking is so quick in the hot oven, for the bass, they wouldn't have time to cook.

I'll just take a few of these as we're only cooking one fish.

Which is expensive, isn't it? It is at the moment.

About ?3.50 a pound.

Excuse this old pepper grinder but it doesn't have churn out some chunky peppercorns!

Right. Salt? Just a bit, yes.

And then on a low heat...

Do you want to come back over here? Sorry to interfere,

but the cameramen do insist on getting shots of what we're doing for the benefit of our viewers.

OK, they've got to cook away for four or five minute now,

stay with us, I'm going to have a glass of wine,

and talk to Rick about the rest of the process.

While that's cooking,

tell me about these herbs... The herbs, or the weeds?!

Pick out the weeds, I'm terribly sorry, Charles!

But, when I was in Cornwall, all I saw in the fields were tyres!

Here you are deep in Cornwall, how do you get herbs, why do you use them,

Thirty seconds, starting from now, on the importance of fresh herbs in the kitchen!

For my style of cookery, which is simple, not elaborate cooking at all,

herbs are THE most important part. They have to be fresh, so I have to grow them myself.

As you know, trying to buy herbs in a greengrocers is a joke!

The last load of herbs I bought from a greengrocer

was a small packet of fresh dill which cost me ?6.50!

Tarragon, I bought for ?7.

That's a lot of incentive to grow your own herbs!

More expensive than certain other substances, isn't it?!

In your new cookery book, you devote a chapter to growing herbs?

Well, you can't buy them, so you've got to grow them.

Not just things like this - if I just reach into my basket,

here's something I've grown for the first time - Good King Henry!

And all who sail in him!

You can use it as a vegetable or herb. It's a bit like watercress.

Superb with fish.

Blanch it and serve it with fish.

You can't buy that in a shop.

There's no problem growing it.

I reckon that, very finely chopped, in vinaigrette, over oysters or seafood, would be superb.

A true professional!

How is the pot getting on?

Well, it seems to be... they're just nicely sweated down.

Cameraman, come over, please? Soft, but still a bit crunchy. That's how we want our vegetables.

Slightly caramelised. It doesn't matter if they're a bit burnt,

that's the aroma I want when I send the dish out to the restaurant.

So, we go on to the next phase,

which is stuffing the fish, isn't it?

It is indeed.

I've actually gutted this fish,

very skilfully, or not, as you like!

So the stuffing is going to stay inside? I'm going to show you that -

he hasn't hacked this to death, he's cut a small incision,

he's already scraped the scales off and cut off the dangerous spine.

And slightly poisonous too.

Rick will stuff his vegetables into the centre of the bass.

I'll just amuse the crowd while you get your act together!

Don't worry about me, just enjoy yourselves.

We've got the place for free -

typical BBC - rip off merchants!

It doesn't need a lot, but it doesn't half improve it.

Are you going to bake it on here? Just brush it with some butter.

Then we want salt and pepper and I'm just going to put

a few of these root vegetables underneath the fish.

When they're roasting, they will actually burn,

which you may think is bad practice, but doesn't half make the flavour...

When you take it into the restaurant you get this tremendous smell...

When you take it into the restaurant you get this tremendous smell...

of root veg, which is... In these days of nouvelle cuisine,

you're serving a whole fish, the way I like to see food served.

Is nouvelle cuisine here to stay? Does it affect your customers?

Are they frightened of seeing a fish? You get the odd one that wants the head taken off.

What's wrong with a fish head? The Chinese have fish head soup, for God's sake!

There's nothing wrong with them, but some people are squeamish.

But on the whole, customers prefer to get the whole fish.

And of course it cooks much better. All the way through, as you say.

I was cooking a hare earlier on. Someone said, "Hope it won't look like a hare." Damn right it will!

It's what we're trying to do! Come down to this - this is a fish.

It will cost a lot of money, but it's a real fish, and we want to see real food.

Fresh herbs, stuff like that.

So we get it into the oven,

top of the oven. What sort of heat? Absolutely flat out, Keith.

You've got no worries about it toughening up,

so the more heat you can hit it with, the better.

You'll find it comes out very juicy. No problem.

I'm going to make Rick Stein's sorrel sauce to go with his bass.

I've made a few modifications.

What he's already done is chop some shallots, added wine and fish stock and reduced it to that consistency.

At home it may be out of the question to make a fish stock - you could just use the white wine.

Then, following his recipe,

fresh sorrel in whole leaves,

and fresh sorrel chopped goes into the chopped shallots and the reduction of wine and fish stock.

Into that we pour about half a pound of melted butter.

This is unsalted butter. If you're using salted,

melt it first and skim off the salt or you'll spoil the delicate flavour of this beautiful sauce.

So that's the sorrel, melted butter and white wine reduction,

white wine vinegar, if you like, fish stock, which is dispensable.

Anyway, all of that now just cooks away...

on the gas for a few moments. We then take two eggs,

I never say separate them - I've seen people put one egg on one side of the table and one on the other!

..And a liquidiser.

If...go back to my merry jape about separating eggs...

if you were doing this the old-fashioned way with a hand whisk,

you wouldn't use the whites. But using the MagiMix thing,

you can use the whites cos it whizzes up so beautifully.

Rick's had to go off and do some real cooking for people who actually pay money for this!

I've been left all on my own! Help! Whizz the thing up.

OK, this is the moment of truth.

Maximise the power...

Everything in...

To think of all the marvellous ways they use processors nowadays - makes you proud to be a cook!

There we are - the perfect Rick Stein sauce.

Look - isn't that beautiful?

Tastes very good too - I hope he'll like it!

Almost the consistency of custard - made of egg yolks, butter and herbs.

Perfect for bass, which should be ready - I'll just go and get it.

Wow! It's looking good.

Right, get that on the plate.

Pick up the garnish. It smells wonderful.

No garnish at all, doesn't need it. It's so beautiful.

Let's get a table and talk, drink and eat to our hearts' content.

I'll take this. Was the sauce OK?

Very nice, very nice.

This is incredible, isn't it?

It has to be the best table in the world, in the best climate,

with the best fish in the world!

What a fabulous fish the bass is.

They always stand out on a fishmonger's slab, the bass.

Beautiful, silvery, firm fish.

Why are we so anti-fish? I know not in your restaurant

because you're just fish, but the British as a whole reject this.

As far as I'm concerned, I've got the breaking strain of a hot Mars bar

when it comes to fresh bass.

It's a brilliant fish, isn't it? It is. It's absolutely wonderful.

I can't understand why the English are so anti-fish.

I think you've got to get the setting right.

What could be better than a setting like this?

Certainly when they come to the restaurant

they are a lot keener on fish because we are by the sea,

and I think they feel it right to eat fish in that sort of setting.

Whether they would back at home again, I don't know.

I must say that this is absolutely delightful. It's really grand.

It's going down well. You're not smiling today just because

this is the most brilliant bass you've cooked in a long time,

not just because it's such a nice day.

You remain cheerful and happy despite the hard hours

and the dreadful work. Yes.

Why are you so fond of fish?

Well, it's... It's a marvellous food to work with.

That's what all chefs say. It's the most dumb thing you've ever heard.

I'm talking to you as a man, not as a chef. Chefs are two a penny.

Yeah. Cooks are different.

I jut really like the look of a fresh fish come into the restaurant.

It just really excites me. And you get such good fish here.

You just want to get on and do something really good with it.

A piece of meat is a piece of meat. Finished.

But a fish straight out of the sea,

you just feel, "Wow, I'd really like to make that something special."

I'll drink to that.

What a magnificent day. What fun.

And all the customers on the quay!

We can't say goodbye to them fast enough.

Thank you very much for joining us for our lunch.

I hope you'll join us on the next programme.

Believe me, this is the way to eat fish!

Subtitles by BBC Broadcast