North West Fish Great British Menu

This week on Great British Menu -

three of the North West's finest chefs.

Matt Worswick, the reigning regional champion...

Are you in hand? No, organised chaos.

I've pushed myself as much as I can.

..is up against two determined newcomers.

Kim Woodward, a head chef for Gordon Ramsay.

Need anything doing? No. No.

I don't need your help.

And Simon Rogan's protege, Adam Reid.

Act confident and everything else will come with it.

In the year the nation celebrated the Queen's 90th birthday,

the chefs are paying tribute to the everyday Great Britons

honoured throughout her reign,

and competing for the chance to cook at an opulent banquet

at the Palace of Westminster.

Adam is in the lead after scoring eight points for his Indian-inspired starter.

It was a fun thing to eat.

Matt is one point behind, leaving Kim in third place.

I'm going to give you a six.

Today is the fish course and Kim is out to produce a winning dish.

Are you challenging yourself on this one, Kim?

I want to make sure that I am going to deliver great-tasting food.

I'm confident I can pull it off.

Matt is leaving nothing to chance.

Have you practised this dish at all?

Yeah, I actually tried it on someone who has been honoured by the Queen.

Adam is determined to hold on to his lead.

I don't want to leave anything to chance.

The competition is heating up.

The chefs are competing to create dishes

to honour our modern Elizabethan age,

and to celebrate the transformation of British cuisine

during the Queen's 64-year reign.

Judging the chefs this week for excellence and contemporary cooking

is Phil Howard.

A former fish course banquet winner, Phil has the highest expectations.

The banquet is for the Great Britons who have been honoured by the Queen

and these guys have got to cook their hearts out in that kitchen

to produce dishes that are worthy to be there alongside them.

You are one point ahead.

Kim is only one point behind.

It's not much. Everything can change.

The next couple of courses, I'm just going to give it my all.

The challenge is on. It's not a fish curry for the next one, then?

It's not a curry.

First up, Kim Woodward.

In third place with six points,

she was criticised for failing to make the most

of luxurious ingredients.

I'm going to come back fighting with this course.

The fish course is one of my favourites.

I want to just deliver it.

Hi, Kim. Hi. How are you feeling after the first course?

A bit more confident now. I'm ready to go in for it.

You could still get three tens. There's still so much to go for.

There's so much for me there. This dish is called Great Miners.

OK. It's about honouring the coal miners in the North West

and what they have actually done for Britain itself.

Coal fields in the North West played a huge part

in the Industrial Revolution and we use charcoal even to date

to modernise our cooking.

It's exciting for me.

Talk me through it. What I've chosen is halibut.

I hope you're going to serve me a lovely prime, plump piece of halibut.

I'm going to be choosing the best bit, right in the middle of the fillet.

I'm going to put some of the spices around it and cook it on charcoal.

OK. I'm going to use a garnish of potatoes,

which I'm going to turn into a lookalike of charcoal

using the squid ink, and serving it underneath the actual fish.

OK. Also I will be making a little bit of charcoal bread,

again using black squid ink.

All very black. Yes, definitely.

Very black. You've got a spanking piece of seafood there.

Do some justice to it. Thank you very much.

I think her take on the brief is interesting, it's real,

it's got relevance to her,

but I really hope she lets the halibut sing loud and clear

and take centre stage.

Next is Matt Worswick.

He made it to last year's finals and this year he hopes his reimagining

of British classics will get him to the banquet.

But his liver and onion starter failed to make a big enough impact.

I'm going to give absolutely everything.

I really hope that Phil can give a nine or a ten.

Kim and Adam are really good chefs but hopefully it's me.

How's Matt? Good.

How do you feel after the first course?

You look a bit less stressed than when I last saw you.

I was under the cosh a bit with the timings,

really up against it so hopefully I can get a better score for this dish.

This is prawn cocktail, a classic British dish using

amazing British langoustines, evoking our culinary heritage.

Everybody can associate with a prawn cocktail.

I couldn't agree with you more, but we are however standing

in the kitchen of the Great British Menu,

so how are you going to take this box and get it to the banquet?

I'm going to make a lemon oil

and then poach these langoustines in a water bath.

When I had prawn cocktail when I was a kid there was always a real

cold element, normally because it was served straight from the fridge.

Absolutely. So I want to try and evoke that so I'm going to make

a classic Marie Rose sauce but then I'm going to pipe that

into liquid nitrogen so when you taste it...

Cold element and then Marie Rose sauce that we all love.

OK. I'm going to do an iceberg lettuce puree

and serve it with some cucumber flowers.

Are you confident that you're going to be able to refine it to make it

worthy of this competition?

I think if I can bring it up-to-date and show it a bit of love...

I look forward to seeing what you do. Good luck. Thank you.

He's got a good take on the brief.

I understand what he's doing but there are reasons why

the dish does work and so to change it so drastically

is obviously then a risk.

Finally, Adam Reid.

Winning the starter course has given him an early boost

and he is planning to build on that success.

I really want to keep those scores high so I'm going to push

as hard as I can.

Adam, currently in pole position.

Yep. Feeling confident?

Yeah, I think so.

You need to be. I've seen what you're up against.

Well, that's my worry.

My dish is called By The Seaside.

As per the inspiration for my whole menu,

I want people to be able to relate to this so I remember going to

Bridlington as a family, we would usually get drenched.

That's what it's all about. Typical British weather.

So, is this a take on fish and chips?

No, not at all. This is a walk by the seaside.

I want people to be able to eat this and by the end of the whole dish,

I want them to have had all those little experiences that you get

with a walk by the seaside. The main elements of the dish is the fish.

I'm using hake. How are you going to cook it?

I'm going to poach it in a bath of clarified butter.

This, what's happening here?

It's not for drinking, although I might feel like it by the end of it.

I'm going to make some scraps.

Obviously scraps are just the rag ends of the batter from the chippy,

but I want them to be really light and a little bit more refined.

So instead of water, I'm using gin and malt vinegar

which are going to evaporate a lot quicker and so puff up the batter

and make it really light and airy.

The pickle cockles,

again, classic seaside fodder really.

Very much so. Then I'm going to make a tartar sauce

but a bit more refined, nice and aerated, more like a mousse.

Sounds interesting. So, we've got fish, we have got batter,

we have got tartar sauce.

There's no chips. Yes, we've got fish with a capital F.

Good luck. Thanks, Chef.

I'm surprised he has chosen hake.

It's a fragile thing to deal with.

I wouldn't have done it but a piece of pure fish with a wonderful

tartar sauce and scraps can be a really magnificent thing to eat.

It's all in the execution.

The filleting begins,

alongside some early nerves about cooking a perfect dish.

So, Matt, are you not running around this course?

I'm not out of the woods yet, I'm panicking in my mind.

You look a little bit red-faced. You're not going to have any issues this time round?

It's just the pressure. I like this dish and I need to do it good.

As head chef of one of the UK's most famous grill restaurants,

Kim is hoping her trusted charcoal will deliver her more points.

This dish just highlights great cooking using charcoal is

a big influence for me, especially when it's from the North West.

Kim is achieving a charcoal look by blackening the yeast dough for her

bread rolls with squid ink.

It's always a tight call making bread.

I'm confident I can pull it off.

Let's make sure it is proved, it is baked, has rested,

so that it can be what you intended it to be.

That's what I'm going for, the light, fluffy element of a nice piece of bread.

It's nice to have one baker in the house, Matt.

Matt's decided not to bake his own bread for the croutons

for his modern take on prawn cocktail.

He has opted to use shop-bought instead.

It doesn't really bother me about making your own bread.

If you make really nice bread, it's one of the best things in the world.

If you make really bad bread,

it's one of the worst things in the world.

Adam is out to celebrate the country's contemporary cuisine

by capturing quintessentially British flavours.

And, so far, it's working well.

I'm feeling the pressure because I was worried about my starter.

It has gone well so now it has given me the confidence to really push

everything else, so I just want to smash it.

Adam's fish course is inspired by a day at the British seaside.

He salt-cures his delicate hake

and cooks the cockles before pickling in malt vinegar.

Adam blends classic tartar sauce ingredients with eggs

before emulsifying with a mixture of sunflower and parsley oil.

He transfers the sauce to a whipper.

Is it a take on fish and chips?

No, there's no chips.

Just fish? It can't be fish and chips if there's no chips.

Just seaside? Yeah.

Next, Adam tests the batter for his banquet-worthy scraps,

traditionally the leftover bits from the fryer

served in fish and chip shops.

Intrigued by the scraps.

They'll be fine scraps.

The gin and the vinegar and no water achieves what

that wouldn't otherwise happen?

The vinegar gives it that lovely acidic flavour that you like to get

on your fish and chips. The gin is really there

because alcohol evaporates a lot quicker than water

so it wants to get out and puffs it up a lot better.

You've got to get the elements just right.

Matt is poaching his langoustine tails in lemon oil with star anise

and thyme. Then he vac-packs them.

They will be cooked later in the water bath to ensure

the cooking temperature is precise.

He is also making over the classic Marie Rose sauce

which he will freeze with liquid nitrogen.

There she is. So, Matt, have you practised this dish at all?

Yes, I have actually.

I actually tried it on someone who has been honoured by the Queen,

so I was a bit nervous but I think it went well.

In his quest to serve up the best for the Great Britons

at this year's banquet, Matt met one of the youngest to be honoured,

Justice Williams.

Hi, Matt. Hi, Justice. So lovely to meet you.

In 2009, after years of tireless work in her community,

Justice was awarded an MBE, aged just 28.

Were you nervous going to meet the Queen?

My whole thing going through my head the whole time was,

"Do not fall over."

Don't fall over, yeah. Everything else was just irrelevant.

After a brush with the law as a teenager,

Justice turned her life around to become the multi-award-winning

social entrepreneur she is today.

By the time I got my MBE, I had worked with about 3,000 young people.

That's incredible.

So, services to young people in Birmingham that were involved

in guns and gangs, for young people who were not aware of their rights,

and also for helping people with disadvantaged backgrounds

turn their lives around.

Where is it that they are currently getting that service from?

Justice continues to help and inspire young people

through various projects, and runs workshops

teaching them how to start their own businesses.

You need to think about,

"Is the customer and the consumer the same person?"

As one of the guests at the banquet,

Matt was keen to get her feedback on his fish course.

When people say prawn cocktail, you just think of the traditional,

old-fashioned. Yeah.

The idea is to get all the flavours and the nostalgia

of a prawn cocktail but, like, bring it up-to-date.

That is delicious.

HE LAUGHS Fantastic.

I want to eat it all now.

Matt, you're on the right track with that one, definitely.

Yes!

THEY LAUGH

In the kitchen, Matt is preparing his lettuce puree which he hopes

will take the much-loved prawn cocktail to new culinary heights.

How are we going, Matt?

Good, Chef. I'm intrigued by the lettuce puree.

This is still in process but nearly there.

It's just a bit of spinach, iceberg lettuce and salt.

What sort of ratio is it?

Is it iceberg puree, spinach puree?

So, it's an iceberg puree with a touch of spinach,

just for colour really.

I'm going to do some raw iceberg lettuce discs.

You know when you have the prawn cocktail and you get

that really fresh, crisp... That is what I am trying to emulate as well.

The proof is in the eating.

Kim has to get the proving of her bread rolls right in limited time -

too little and they will be stodgy.

It is proofing nicely so I am just going to keep an eye on it and keep

turning it. I want a crisp bread, I want it light and fluffy.

Are you challenging yourself on this one, Kim?

I want to make sure with this course

that I'm going to deliver great tasting food.

It may look a little bit black but that's what I'm going for.

Kim boils her potatoes using squid ink and vinegar,

which will make them look like lumps of coal.

Then she brushes her black dough bread rolls

with charcoal-infused oil and sprinkles with smoked salt.

Are you confident about your bread?

Yes, it has proofed enough for me. I'm happy, so here we go.

Adam started this course in the lead but he is having problems now as he

attempts to refine the famous chip shop scraps.

I'm really conscious that I am first up,

so I don't want to leave anything to chance.

These scraps are a lengthy process.

Just getting them really light and airy, so I just want to get everything right.

I'm running around.

Now that is like a basketball.

That's what we're looking for.

Finally satisfied,

Adam fries his salt-cured hake and finishes it

in a bath of clarified butter.

He prepares the presentation for his dish, By The Seaside.

The butter-poached hake is first onto the plates.

Next Adam adds sea greens.

What is the newspaper element of it?

To celebrate the lady I found out about,

called Connie Brown.

She used to run the local chippy and she was still working there

into her mid-90s and she got an MBE for her services to her community.

Finally, Adam garnishes with pickled cockles and the scraps

then wraps it all in newspaper.

And also, as we like a bit of sauce with our fish,

there's a nice aerated tartar sauce to go with it.

I'm going to let you spray me with foam

rather than the other way round.

OK, that's not the tartar sauce I know.

Feeling threatened at all? It's all in the eating, I suppose.

OK, let's do exactly that.

There's no chips. There's no chips.

By the seaside, you expect fish and chips.

I would.

Its classic ingredients...?

Are the flavours. OK.

It's quite smooth, isn't it?

Normally you would expect tartar sauce to have a bit more texture.

I think it looks great but I don't get that bite,

that vinegary bite which I'm expecting.

Hake is an interesting choice.

The reason that we go for these lesser fish if you like,

they've got bags of potential and if you cook them right,

they are beautiful.

Is that cooked right? For me, yes, it's moist, it's juicy.

I'm happy with that.

I'm quite intrigued by these scraps.

The vinegar that was in the batter, has that come through strong enough

to provide the acidity to nip through the richness of the sauce?

When you take everything else with it,

it gives you that piquancy you're looking for.

Nice and crispy.

At the banquet, Great Britons, are they going to get why

this is a world-class competition-winning dish?

I think any Great Briton would relate and be nostalgic

about what is quintessentially British.

I think the fish is cooked perfectly.

I love the sea vegetables, I love the scraps,

but is it special enough for a banquet? I don't think so.

I'd be happy with an eight, maybe it could be pushing nine.

OK, you're confident with that?

Matt is next to plate up.

He's hoping his reimagining of the retro prawn cocktail will be deemed

worthy of the banquet.

Hopefully I've gone down the right route.

I'm worried about getting it right for Phil, really.

I want to get a better score than a seven.

How was it? Yeah, intense. It's difficult coming out first.

There's absolutely no stopping,

but I was happy with the way it came out.

Matt reveals his psychedelic presentation,

complete with coloured lights.

It's even more colourful than my starter.

You associate prawn cocktail with the '60s, '70s,

flower power, psychedelic.

Matt is using modern techniques,

including freezing his Marie Rose sauce with liquid nitrogen.

It freezes it in little rocks so that when you eat it

as a whole dish, you put it in your mouth... It dissolves.

Yeah, that's the idea.

Matt pipes the iceberg lettuce puree onto his plates

and tops with lemon-poached langoustine

and discs of iceberg lettuce.

Next are the brown bread croutons.

Your bought-in bread come out all right?

Yes, the bread is really consistent.

Finally, Matt garnishes with cucumber flowers,

lemon oil and crushed segments of frozen lemon.

You'd need a pair of sunglasses for that.

Are you really telling me that's what you wanted to produce?

Absolutely.

Matt. So this is my prawn cocktail.

Prawn cocktail, as far as you're concerned?

Yeah. Colourful. It looks amazing.

It's certainly prawn cocktail the like of which

I've never seen before. Let's go and dip into it.

You know, you get the vibe from it.

It's what you expect prawn cocktail to remind you of, I suppose.

Large langoustines like that are without a doubt one of nature's

most spectacular ingredients.

You've chosen to cook them at a very specific temperature.

What's the need for that?

So I cooked the langoustines at 56 degrees so it's not chewy.

Wow, that langoustine - beautifully cooked.

Yeah. Can't argue it.

Let's have a look at the Marie Rose sauce.

That what you're looking for? It does exactly what I wanted it to.

As soon as you get it, you get bags of flavour and a cold aspect.

The only thing I maybe would say is that once you start eating

a lot of the Marie Rose sauce, it's very acidic.

Do you think that the amount of lettuce puree that you've got there

gives it enough presence on the plate?

As well as the lettuce puree I put raw iceberg lettuce that's on there

as well so you get more texture.

I think Matt's on for a nine.

Yeah, I would definitely give that a nine.

Is that dish as it stands fit for the banquet?

There's always room for improvements but I think, yeah,

I do think that's a banquet dish.

Kim is last to plate up her halibut dish,

dedicated to the coal miners of the North West.

She gets her black bread rolls out of the oven,

knowing the bake needs to be perfect.

It's black, so for me it hits the brief of what I'm doing

for this course so, you know, I'm excited about it.

Here he is. How we doing?

How was that? He doesn't say anything, does he?

How you getting on? Calm and collected?

Any concerns? Everything's good.

I've just got to cook the fish. Just the small aspect of the fish.

Yeah, you know.

Kim brushes her halibut fillets with charcoal oil,

then coats them in a mix of fennel seeds, paprika and celery salt,

before cooking on an indoor barbecue.

Has it made you anxious seeing Matt's great dish go up there?

I just want to bring my dish up and get your opinions.

Next, Kim makes her brown butter sauce, adding capers,

lemon juice and chives.

Anything you need doing, Kim?

No, just building it now.

Then, she pipes butter mixed with black garlic and squid ink on top

of the rolls and garnishes with a gravel of black olive and rosemary.

First on the dish are the crushed charcoal potatoes,

followed by the fish and more of the gravel garnish.

The bowls are served in mini coal carts.

To complete the dish, Kim spoons brown butter sauce into pots.

Here we are.

I'll have to take the sunglasses off for this one.

THEY LAUGH

Impressive. Exactly what I wanted.

Good.

So it's just going to go... Yeah.

Do you like a lot, little? Good, I like a lot.

You definitely get that barbecued... Yeah, cooked well.

It's quite risky, actually, cooking it on the barbecue.

There's a lot of things that can go wrong.

Are you happy with the piece of fish that you've got in front of you there?

Yeah. For me, I've carefully watched it

and I feel I've cooked it spot-on.

You were going to say "perfectly" there, I could see the 'p' on your lips.

The bread's there to be shared between two.

You've got potatoes, you've got bread.

You could argue that that's a double-up.

Playing the bread on the side for me was the fun part of it and, yes,

it is about the fish course, but also the bread that the miners would have eaten.

The bread's nice and light.

For me, I would probably do less olive as a balanced fish dish.

You know, the halibut's the star of the show.

I know what I'm going to give it as a mark.

What are you going to give it?

I would give it a seven. There's three points missing there.

Where are you going to make them up?

For me, I would make the bread obviously a lot smaller.

I think is quite big, even though that's for two people.

I think she's come back fighting with this one.

How was that? Looking back at the bread element, for me,

it's always about a bit of fun,

but whether or not I need it or not for the dish,

it's kind of thrown me, I think.

Again, strong food.

Yeah, massively strong food.

I thought I'd nailed it and then you two put your dishes up and it's just

put me back in my place.

Scary.

You just keep seeing really good dishes all the time.

It's really annoying.

Hello, chefs.

Hello. Hello. Feeling a bit more relaxed after the fish course?

No. Done and dusted.

Adam, we'll start with you with your dish, By The Seaside.

It met the brief.

Simple. Clever.

Hake...

I think it's a risky fish because it's just an inconsistent fish to buy.

It was cooked perfectly. I wasn't sure how the aerated tartar

was going to work out but on the dish it did just the job.

But...

I did think that there was a lack of lift and vitality.

For the fresh scraps, I didn't taste much vinegar,

which is so important with the scraps.

It just lacked presence and impact.

Matt, your prawn cocktail.

Presentation...

Boy, it was naff!

But the truth is, I think prawn cocktail was always naff,

so it was cool, I liked it.

Lettuce puree - a bit worried about where that was going to go.

The truth was, it was used in the right way.

The Marie Rose sauce, I thought that was absolutely spot on.

But...

The langoustines. Sometimes when you cook things

at these gentle temperatures, yes, it's tender and sweet,

but it hasn't got the character that a pert, plump,

pink langoustine tail could have

if you'd cooked it at a higher temperature.

The croutons - I don't know whether they really brought anything.

They were a bit rough and ready, there was so much finesse elsewhere.

Kim, your dish, Great Miners.

The rolls weren't great.

I do think they were ultimately under-proved.

However, the piece of halibut with the sauce was one of those things

that you just... That's what cooking's all about.

It was special.

I thought the black had impact.

It all worked.

So, to the scores.

Matt, for your prawn cocktail I'm going to give you a score of...

..eight.

Thank you.

Adam, for your By The Seaside, I'm going to give you a score...

of seven.

Kim, for your dish...

..I'm going to give you a score

of nine.

Take on the brief was great and it certainly deserves a nine.

Thank you. That means, if my maths is right,

all equal, halfway through.

Wow. Everything to go for.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Well done. Well done. Wow!

Great score. I got a seven.

It's the lowest out of the three of us but it doesn't matter.

It's a good score, that's all you got to keep doing.

I'm still confident.

Wow. Well done, mate.

I'm absolutely made up with that to be honest with you.

Phil's such a hard judge, so eight's a great score.

A few tweaks then hopefully that could be better if I get through to Friday.

It's all even now, anyway.

I know, why did we even bother with today?

It's just... We should have just started with the main course.

Wow, to score a nine, I mean, I'm super-excited now.

It feels like I'm right back in the game.

It's all about tomorrow now.

Yeah.