Takeaways Hairy Bikers' Best of British

We believe Britain has the best food in the world.

Not only can we boast fantastic ingredients...

Look!

Outstanding food producers...

And innovative chefs...

But we also have an amazing food history.

-Oh, wow!

-Don't eat them like that. You'll break your teeth.

Now during this series we're taking you on a journey into our culinary past.

Let's get cracking.

-We'll explore its revealing stories.

-BOTH: Wow!

And meet the heroes who keep our food heritage alive.

It's a miracle what comes out!

And we'll be cooking up a load of dishes that reveal our foodie evolution.

Look - a proper British treat.

We have a taste of history.

Quite simply...

BOTH: The Best of British!

-Hello!

-Hi, Ronnie. How are you?

-Is our takeaway ready?

-Yes, I'll go and get it for you.

-Thanks.

Now when you can't be bothered to cook on a Friday night,

nothing beats a takeaway.

-It's a great British institution and we love it!

-But its roots lie much further afield.

The story of the takeaway is the story of our multicultural society,

how we've learnt to embrace other people's cultures through their food.

-Lovely.

-Thank you.

Smells great!

Get in!

'Over the years, takeaways may have had a bit of a bad press, but they're responsible

'for bringing new flavours to tables all over Britain.

-'That's why we think they're well worth celebrating.

-Where better to start than a staple of our cuisine -

'curry!'

Let's face it, Britain can be a little gloomy at times.

So when it comes to a takeaway, no wonder we're drawn to colour, heat, spice and a hint of danger!

Curry. Somehow it couldn't have been though of anywhere else.

Intriguing. Colourful. Extraordinary.

There's nothing that gets us Brits quite so fired up as a curry!

Today there are over 9,000 curry houses in the UK. That's an industry worth over £3 billion.

And that's just Dave's takeaway bill.

But the British got a taste for the spicy stuff a long time ago.

Our collective taste buds first tingled in the Georgian period

as trade links with India rapidly expanded.

The British who travelled there developed local dishes, adapted to their own palate.

It soon found its way back to Blighty.

The first Indian restaurant was opened in London in 1810 by Indian immigrant Dean Mahomed.

Later on, even Queen Victoria enjoyed a chicken curry.

But the real revolution in British Indian cuisine took place in the post-war years

with a wave of immigration.

They look different and they sound different and their tastes in matters of food are different.

The new arrivals mainly consisted of young men

and without their mum's home cooking they had to teach themselves.

-Luckily for those who were rubbish, others opened restaurants.

-But many of us locals were wary.

It's hard to break the habits of a lifetime and eat with forks

and curry has a very strong, very un-English smell.

The '70s saw the British appetite for curry take off

as restaurants began to pop up on our high streets everywhere.

PEARL AND DEAN MUSIC

Sorry! Excuse me!

Come to the Oval Tandoori in the Brixton Road and see why so many customers recommend it.

# Fire... #

And young males set out to prove that they were man enough to eat even the hottest curry!

-'Ey, too hot for you, is it?

-No, it's fine, is this. All right.

You're looking really flushed.

# Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, Ruby! #

These days, our palate is much more sophisticated

and British Indian cuisine has evolved into something truly innovative and exciting.

Five Indian restaurants in England even boast a Michelin star status.

Today in the Best of British kitchen, we focus on a classic.

A dish us Brits have been lapping up out of foil containers for decades.

-We are cooking...

-#

-Vindaloo, vindaloo...

-#

It's a great dish, once seen as a young man's rite of passage as he eats the hottest curry on the menu,

but, cooked properly, a vindaloo is a sophisticated dish.

There is an element of heat to it, but that's not all.

It's about the layers of flavours and spice. That's what we're going to show you today.

The vindaloo originated as a stew brought over to India by Portuguese colonists.

-Its name derives from the Portuguese words...

-Vinhos meaning wine and alhos meaning garlic.

Over the years, it evolved into one of the most popular curries on the planet.

Right. Let's begin our vindaloo.

-Right. You on lamb, me onions.

-I'm going to take this lovely lamb

-and just trim it off a little bit.

-We're using shoulder of lamb.

It's great for curries. You want a certain amount of fat,

but it's best to trim off the stringy bits. Like the base of many curries,

it starts off with a pan of fried onions.

Once you've chopped the onions, fry them until nicely browned.

Now this is what we're going to do. We've cut through these lovely pieces of shoulder of lamb.

We've taken the sinew off and we add two tablespoons of oil.

One.

Two.

And 100ml of red wine vinegar. Now...

the reason that I'm mentioning very clearly the amount of vinegar that goes into it,

it cannot be done by eye. If you don't measure it, it becomes too vinegary.

-You want the flavours to balance.

-It's like eating curried pickles!

-100ml of red wine vinegar.

There we go.

Going back to the late '70s, in Indian restaurants,

it wasn't really the character of the dishes that came out. It was the Richter scale of titles.

-There was the korma.

-Which was fine.

-Then the madras.

-Slightly hotter.

-Then there was the vindaloo.

-Which blew your socks off.

-And Bangalore fowl.

-Which blew your toupee off.

But there was all this male bravado.

"I can eat the hottest curry round the corner." That's not what it's about. It's about flavour.

Now we want about two teaspoons of salt and then what we'll do

is we're going to make sure the lamb shoulder is combined

with those three ingredients.

We're going to cover it in cling film and stick it in the fridge

and we're going to chill it down and marinade it for two hours.

But you'll be pleased to hear that I've got one that I did earlier and I'm just going to get it.

-So can we leave that overnight and have another vindaloo tomorrow?

-Yes.

-Yes! Back of the net!

-Right.

'The marinade not only adds depths of flavour, it also helps the lamb stay soft and tender when it cooks.

'After a couple of hours, take the lamb out, but keep the marinade. We'll use it to add flavour later.'

Now we're going to fry off in batches our lovely marinated shoulder of lamb.

In batches because we don't want to overcrowd the pan and want colour on the meat.

As soon as this has got a bit of colour on, I'll set it aside.

-That's what we're after!

-'Next up, it's the vindaloo curry paste.

'Roughly chop a medium-sized onion and chuck it in a processor,

'followed by six cloves of garlic, 25g of chopped ginger and three big red chillies.'

And I'm going to leave the seeds in. If you don't like it too hot, then take the seeds out,

-but if you don't like it hot, you wouldn't cook a vindaloo!

-No.

These are quite mild babies.

Now the big guns.

Just like Guy Fawkes, mix together your explosives.

-One tablespoon of English mustard.

-One tablespoon of ground cumin.

-One tablespoon of ground coriander.

-One tablespoon of paprika.

-Two teaspoons of turmeric for colour.

-And two teaspoons of cayenne pepper.

And just to temper it, one teaspoon of cinnamon.

There we go. That should come with a health warning. Ready to rock!

And process this to a paste.

Ooh.

-They look good, mate.

-Lush, aren't they?

-Yeah.

Right.

That's the paste. Whoa!

There seems to be a lot of paste there, but that's what you want for your vindaloo.

-Get your snegger in there.

-Oh, hey, man!

Put that in with the onions and we need to cook this paste off.

-Hairy Bikers' vindaloo paste.

-Flamin' Nora! That's brilliant. Oh, look at that.

Now don't say that we're shy with our spices.

-Look at that.

-WHEEZES

That'll be it, then?

That does tend to kick off a little! That's what you want.

Look. This is what we're trying to get - a little bit of gloss,

a little bit of brown and caramelisation.

-At that point, take it out, set it aside, ready for the main curry.

-Beautiful.

-Like a well-buffed set of country brogues. Time now to imprison the vindaloo.

-Crack on!

Put the spices into the pot.

Throw the meat in with the spice and again those resting juices go in, too.

We give that a whisk round. Now the spices are kissing and caressing the marinated braised lamb.

PURRS

-No, no, not like that! I'd sooner have the spice.

-That's nice, isn't it(?)

-20 years as your mate...

-I'm not good with contact!

-He doesn't like it!

-I went for a massage ONCE.

-Come here.

Loosen up.

-Give your mate a cuddle.

-I am loose.

-Crack on. Go on.

-Look at that.

-If that doesn't already look like a vindaloo,

-I'll eat my own feet.

-It does look like a vindaloo.

-It does.

-A vindaloo.

Now place the reserved marinade back into the vindaloo.

Add half a litre of water.

-Just to make it even hotter!

-There's not much chilli in there!

-It doesn't matter!

It's a slow build. Whoo! I feel good.

-#

-Doodle-oodle-oodle-doo!

-#

-Now what appears to be essential...

although I don't know where the flavour's going to come from - a couple of bay leaves.

It may be slightly choked with flavour, but they may add something. And it's in the recipe.

And two teaspoons of salt.

'Give it one more stir and cover it with a cartouche, which is simply a piece of baking parchment.

'Pop on a lid and then it goes into the oven at 180 degrees C for 45 minutes.'

-We're going to put you somewhere nice and warm now.

-Ready?

-Yes.

-#

-Vindaloo...

-#

-Will you put it in the oven?!

'While you're waiting, peel 500g of potatoes and cut them into chunks.

'Just a friendly warning - you might need a radiation suit now.'

Look at this. The oven's like that, going...a-wom! A-wom!

-Our oven.

-This is like Homer Simpson sitting in Springfield, isn't it?

Oh, yeah, smells lovely, doesn't it?

Aye.

I tell you what...

Whoo!

Look at that.

-Aw, look! That looks like vindaloo!

-I love it when you get the fat just floating.

Now put the potatoes in.

-Look at the colour of that.

-Then stir those potatoes in.

Oh, look. Mmm. Oh, man.

Then it's back into the oven for another hour.

-If you were a curry, what would you be?

-A Masala Dosa. That's what I would be.

And, you know, the coconut chutney and a lovely crisp outer and a soft, gooey inner. What would you be?

-Biryani.

-Why?

-Just a big biryani.

One pot wonder.

-I canna' hold it, Captain! Get it out the oven!

-Time to unleash the behemoth!

-It's like the gates of Mordor opening!

-There is a wall of fumes.

Go on. Hold your breath.

-Ooh, yes, look at that.

-Beautiful. Oh, that's nice.

-She's looking awfully fine.

-Lovely, actually.

-That is a real vindaloo.

-Beautiful. Beautiful.

'Finish the dish off with a little sprig of coriander and a naan.

'And topped with a little raita to take the edge off the heat.'

-Now the end if near and we face the final curtain.

-Great.

-But more, much more than this...

let's do it our way!

Texture's great. Look at that lamb disintegrating.

-That's a good curry.

-Whoo.

-Oh!

-It's just right, though.

It's all there, but it's not just heat. Makes you gasp, like.

-All those balanced flavours.

-Oh, aye.

-Look at that.

-That's takeaway at its best.

-That's home cooking.

-Exactly.

-You don't even need to make the phone call.

-It's a takeaway turned.

Tender lamb that melts in your mouth and spices that erupt on your tongue.

The vindaloo is most definitely a king amongst curries.

Like many countries, the streets of India are always alive with the sight, sounds and fragrance

of street vendors rustling up hot, tasty specialities for you to enjoy while out and about.

But when it comes to the food department, British streets aren't always quite so appetising.

Ahh. The great British takeaway van.

You can find them in all the nation's beauty spots serving up...

-Chips.

-Burgers.

-Chips.

-Doner kebabs.

-And chips.

They might be quick and convenient, but healthy and gourmet, no.

But award-winning chefs Mark Jankel and Jun Tanaka are determined to change our perception of street food

with their fast food business.

Can I get one more lamb here?

Considering London is one of the gastronomic capitals of the world,

one thing we still don't do really well is street food.

We thought with our knowledge

-we could...

-Knock out some fairly decent tucker in a box, basically.

There's no reason why you can't take good-quality ingredients,

some skilled cooking and put that into a box and sell it for the same price as other fast foods at lunch.

In fact, Brits have a great heritage when it comes to street food.

Back in the 12th century, you could tuck into a hot sheep's foot.

Pies and pasties were the dish du jour in the 18th century.

And Dickensian streets teemed with people hawking warm eels, whelks, oysters, fried fish, chestnuts

-and the odd baked potato.

-Fresh, local produce was always readily available,

but sadly it fell out of favour when well-to-do Victorians decided it was unsavoury.

Unfortunately, it was an image that would stick.

But the boys have set their sights a lot higher.

A lot of street vendors don't focus on the produce so much.

The price they charge limits them to using cheaper ingredients.

The most important thing in producing good food is it's all about the produce.

We thought we could use fresh, British seasonal produce that you get in a top-end restaurant

and cook it and serve it in a way that we charge street food prices.

By simply doing those things, you can take it a whole new level.

-Thank you so much.

-Cheers.

Not only are Jun and Mark trying to create restaurant-quality food on a small budget...

They've also made life even harder by using only British-grown ingredients

-which they have to buy in bulk.

-They've developed a new lamb dish for the menu and have decided

that a classic Mediterranean sauce would go perfectly,

but that presents a real challenge - something, however, that Mark enjoys.

I'm on a bit of a mission. I've got to make a pesto and a critical ingredient is parmesan.

So I've come down to Wiltshire. I heard about these guys at Lyburn Cheese

who make a cheese called Old Winchester, with apparently a lot of the same character as parmesan.

So I'm really hoping that this cheese is perfect for our pesto.

Mark's really serious about sourcing top ingredients and he regularly looks for new suppliers.

Hey, Mike! How are you doing?

Today he's hoping master cheesemaker Mike Smales will be able to help him with his problem.

-Right, this is where we store...

-This is the exciting bit!

-..the cheese.

-Look at those!

-They look absolutely amazing.

-Thousands of them.

-It's a wonderful smell. Amazing.

-Can we cut one of these babies up and have a taste?

-Yep. There you go.

Brilliant. Looking forward to it.

Wow. Look at that. It smells absolutely amazing.

-My mouth is just watering. I can't wait to taste it.

-There you go. There's a piece there.

-See what you think of that.

-Absolutely amazing.

The character of this. It's got a wonderful personality and character.

-It's quite unique.

-Mmm. It's really fantastic for our pesto.

Our mission was to find an English cheese similar to parmesan

and in Old Winchester I think we've found it.

We've got basil from a farm in Devon and rapeseed oil from Suffolk.

It has a really lovely nutty flavour and a fantastic substitute for olive oil, for a lovely English pesto.

So, um, we've got basil.

Just lightly blanched for a couple of minutes.

A tiny bit of garlic. You shouldn't taste raw garlic. Just a hint.

I'm going to put a really good handful of that Old Winchester

and a really good drizzle of rapeseed oil.

A little bit of sea salt.

The salt will just lift all the flavours.

And it's as simple as that. Just blend it all together.

So you can see it just takes like a minute to blend.

-It's going to be brilliant with the lamb.

-Sounds gorgeous!

But will all their efforts be rewarded with swift sales?

The boys do all they can to make sure they can serve as many punters as possible and maintain quality.

We've got four dishes on the menu. One fish, one meat, one vegetarian and one dessert.

The van is designed so we can finish everything really quickly.

But can the flavours of the freshest British ingredients capture the attention of a busy workforce?

I'm having lamb and it's absolutely delicious. The idea of getting something so healthy and fresh...

Out of a van in the middle of London is pretty fantastic, I have to say!

Is this for you today?

It's the second time I've been here, actually. I came last week as well.

It's really nice to have something different to eat.

Normally we call it a roach coach. A horrible, greasy takeaway. The salmon's fantastic.

When I got mackerel here last week,

it was just like mackerel I used to taste coming straight off the boats in Dungarvan in County Waterford.

What more can I say?

-It almost makes me wish I worked in the city!

-Nah! Not even the best food in the world could make up

-for wearing a suit and tie.

-It's gone a bit too well today!

We've run out of everything. We couldn't be more pleased.

We're serving 150-200 customers every single lunchtime.

To have that in the second week, we'd never have it in a restaurant.

-We just need a terrace now. Some nice tables and chairs.

-Yep.

And, yeah, just take Britain by storm.

Great British street food is in its infancy, but with the takeaway Brits are world connoisseurs.

-We regularly devour food from all over the globe at home.

-Thai.

-Mexican.

-Italian.

-Japanese.

-And many more.

But without the influence of our pioneering immigrant communities, it might have been quite different.

We're heading to the north-west of England and a city that's a melting pot of different cultures,

including one that's had a major impact on our eating habits.

The city of Liverpool is home to one of the oldest Chinese communities in Britain.

It was established by sailors settling in the 1850s.

Chinatown was born here when some sailors who worked for the Blue Funnel shipping line jumped ship

and set up their own shops, cafes and boarding houses.

It's been a magnet for generations of Chinese immigrants ever since.

-We're here to visit one of Britain's oldest Chinese restaurants.

-That looks old over there.

-That's hewn out of one piece of wood, that.

-It is.

-No, it's not.

-It's not. It's the biggest gate outside of China in Chinese style.

-Actually.

-Is it?

-Yes.

-That's a big gate.

-It's a whopper.

Imagine the size of the dog.

'The Yuet Ben restaurant has been here for over 40 years

'and is run by Terry and Theresa Lim.'

-Theresa, this is your dad.

-Yes. Yuh Ho Yau.

-Yuh Ho Yau?

-Yes.

-And he started it all off.

-Yes, he came in 1968.

He first worked in Southport and then became a partner in the Yuet Ben. The food he brought over

from Hong Kong, where he worked. Before that he worked in New York for two years, before that Beijing.

-So he's been in it for a long time.

-It's a proper family business.

-Yes.

-Until Terry took over in...what?

-I got married into the business.

-Ah, Terry!

-In 1981.

And I started off front of the house as a waiter. Eventually I took up the cooking.

-And took over from my father-in-law.

-Over 40 years on, the restaurant is still going strong.

And Chinese food - the British love it.

I think that's one of the strengths of our country. We have so many flavours in our palate.

-We could go round the world in a week.

-Did you find the British palate was very accepting at first?

-No...

-Was it accepting about the food?

-No, no, no.

When Mr Yau started it, he did all the authentic dishes, Peking duck and all that,

-but he found it's not suited to the Western palate.

-Right.

Most of the dishes that were "authentic" from where he came from were not really suited,

so he slightly modified

and eventually the Yuet Ben style of cooking was very, very acceptable to the locals.

That's a clever businessman.

The British love affair with Chinese food really took off in the 1950s.

Intrepid reporters travelled to Hong Kong to sample exotic cuisines.

Well, I've had eight courses tonight and each one of them was fish.

I've got the chopsticks to prove it. I didn't get fish ice cream!

Meanwhile, back at home, the Chinese takeaway as we know it

was born in 1958 when the Lotus restaurant in Queensway in London proved so popular

that customers who couldn't get a table asked for food to take home.

That same year, Billy Butlin rolled out an exciting new Chinese menu across all his holiday camps.

-But there was only one thing on it!

-Chicken chop suey and chips!

It would take decades before us Brits started to appreciate the variety and complexity

of Chinese cuisine.

-I think you're getting more educated, the more travel...

-Yes.

They have gone overseas and come back and discovered... adapted their palate.

And so you have more and more of this authentic regional style of cooking.

So what sort of recipes of Mr Yau are still on the menu here?

The original menu since 1968 is still with us.

I have not changed anything.

-So it is Mr Yau's style of cooking.

-Right.

-Yuet Ben style of cooking is Mr Yau's style of cooking.

He has taught me and I've taught my staff. Whoever works for me has got to cook Mr Yau's style.

Yuet Ben style. One of the dishes that I'm going to teach you to cook is lamb and leeks,

-one of the dishes he introduced.

-Well, that's great.

-I know.

-I'm looking forward to it.

-Let's get in the kitchen!

'Traditionally, British Chinese cuisine has been characterised by Cantonese food from southern China.

'As that is where many early immigrants came from.'

-Oh, great!

-'But the lamb and leek dish is indicative of the style of food from Mr Yau's ancestral home

-'in north-east China.

-And it's always been one of the restaurant's most popular dishes.'

This is a 1978 menu. Lamb and leek. That's still on our menu.

-29.

-And it cost...

-£2.50!

-Wow!

-I bet it's not £2.50 now!

It's £7.90 only.

-Hey, that's all right! "£7.90 only"!

-Yeah!

What do we need? Lamb.

Nice pieces of lamb. But I have cheated. I've got my lamb ready.

-Here's some you prepared earlier, Terry!

-It's sliced, so we get our lamb.

-Is that from the leg?

-This is from the leg. We need leeks.

Give it a good...wallop.

And then...

-bite-size.

-Right.

-Welsh lamb and Welsh leeks.

-THEY CHEER

-Good!

-OK.

It's interesting, Chinese cookery, because it's like working with a big mise en place.

-You have everything ready and then you assemble and cook fresh.

-Right.

-Lamb and leek is a very simple menu for us, the recipe.

-Yes.

But to give it a bit more aromatic... Lots of garlic.

OK? And we're ready to cook.

-That's it.

-OK?

-Now the heat.

Oooh! That's a big one.

-I bet your gas bill is astronomical.

-Yes, it can be.

-The more gas you use, the more people you feed!

-That's right.

I prefer this wok.

Do you get your favourite wok, Terry? Do you get your favourite?

Sometimes you look at it and say this one won't stick as much as that one!

-So you pick that one. You pick one that won't stick as much.

-Happy days.

-Happy days.

Look at that wok already. It's smoking already.

Then you just do it like blanch. Not really frying it.

OK. That is enough.

-Drain it.

-Ah, so that's blanched it.

-Yes.

-And now you're frying it.

-Now you're frying it.

-I love that heat!

Here we go. A bit of wine.

Is that rice wine?

Yes, that's the one most Chinese restaurants use,

but I just use my... whatever I am drinking.

-Yeah?

-OK. Like I say, a simple one.

We use dark soy sauce. Lots of peppers.

We don't need any salt because the dark soy sauce is already salty.

So...

-And a little bit of aromatic oil.

-Is that like sesame oil?

-No, our special Szechuan peppercorn.

-That's it. It's finished.

-That's it?

-A simple lamb and leeks dish.

Oh, yeah. I do love the freshness and the immediacy of Chinese food.

-Isn't it simple?

-It is.

-Yeah. That's the beauty of it.

It's so nice.

That's good.

This... Honestly, at home, I wish you could smell it.

And I certainly wish you could taste it. You saw what went into it.

-But the flavours are just immense.

-And you can taste everything.

-Yes.

The garlic, the leek, the peppers, the dark soy sauce.

-We associate Chinese cuisine with comfort food.

-Yeah.

When you're feeling a bit low, what do you do? A Chinese meal.

It's brilliant. Brilliant. Thank you for sharing it with us.

-It's a wonderful dish.

-I'm glad you've learned something new.

-That's for starters! What's next?

-What would you like to learn?

-Everything! We'll not be here long. About 20 years.

-All right, yes.

You'll learn.

Chinese food, just like Indian, paved the way for our burgeoning appetite for ethnic food.

-Together they account for 70% of the market.

-For years, Indian food was voted Britain's favourite,

but a recent survey shows that Chinese food has overtaken it.

It might be down to the fact that it's also the style of cooking we're most confident to do at home.

So we're putting the takeaway menu back in the drawer and we're cooking up an absolute corker.

We tried to choose a dish that epitomises the takeaway, that's like the child of the takeaway.

And the dish we've come to terms with is the Singapore noodle.

-I think the Singapore noodle is a one-pot wok wonder.

-You're not wrong.

-I won't say that again!

No, you won't!

Singapore noodles - a takeaway staple that's got nothing to do with Singapore.

It's a Cantonese creation that combines the best of Chinese flavours with a bit of curry.

What could be a better celebration of the great British takeaway than that?

Our take on it really is it has this beautiful loin of pork.

I'm going to trim that sinew off and we've got prawns as well.

So it's a pork and prawn vibe.

-I'm going to prepare that and the marinade. I'll trim the sinew off first.

-The pork on this

is like the Char Siu pork you get in your Chinese food that's got that red frill around it.

But we have no food colouring.

Let's talk noodles. Use egg or rice noodles, so long as they are the really thin kind like vermicelli.

Soak them in hot, but not boiling water for about three minutes, then they're ready.

I'm going to prep this lovely marinade. It's very simple. Three tablespoons of soy.

-Light soy. And two of sherry.

-It's one way to use up the leftovers when the vicar's gone home.

Finish it off with two teaspoons of soft, light brown sugar and half a teaspoon of five spice powder.

And give it a good stir. Put the pork loin into that.

Coat it and leave it for about half an hour.

And the meat's going to open up slightly and draw all of those lovely flavours into it.

So when we cut it, we should get that lovely... You know how you get that Char Siu.

Little red bit round the edge. It's lovely.

While it's marinating, drain your noodles and dress them with a little glug of oil to stop them sticking.

-Well, that's half an hour.

-It's changed colour and absorbed the marinade.

-Lovely.

Next, drain the pork. Place it in a foil-lined baking tray and lightly coat it with oil.

Then it's into the oven at 200 degrees Celsius for 12 minutes.

'Keep the leftover marinade for later. Don't lose any flavour.'

-And that gives us time...

-To do the mise en place.

The big thing about Chinese cookery is you prepare everything ready

because the final push is very quick. It all happens quickly.

It's a woking and a wolling.

Chop one red onion, a bunch of spring onions and a red pepper.

All your veggies should be a size to pick up with a chopstick.

Slice 100 grams of shiitake mushrooms and grate a chunk of ginger and two cloves of garlic.

That's part of the wonderful cosmopolitan nature of British food.

And the reason for that is you want that ginger to pervade quite a quick cooking process

so it's actually better to have it like that than in chunks, in our view.

I love Chinese food. I come from Barrow, a provincial northern town.

But we've had Chinese takeaways there since I was a boy

and one of my favourite restaurants has been there for 30 years.

Prior to that, the only access to Asian food I had was a Vesta, like a box of sawdust rehydrated.

Then I'd go to the carry out and I saw chop suey chow mein, egg foo yung, and I thought, "Brilliant!"

It's interesting. Because Chinese cuisine has been part of our culinary heritage for so long,

you actually lose sight of what the real cuisine is. It's been so anglicised over so many years

-because it's been here for such a long time.

-Like Singapore noodles?

-Exactly.

-Yeah, it's true, though.

But that's part of the wonderful cosmopolitan nature of British food.

It's got its own identity now.

It's tasty and, to be honest, I love it.

Once all the components are chopped, it should be time to get the pork out.

-We're on, mate.

-Lovely.

-Beautiful.

-Oh, look at that.

-That's perfect.

-Half of that in our dish?

-I think so.

And the other half for nibbling. Ho-ah! And this...

Don't waste that lovely fat. What we'll do is we'll stick that in the wok.

Now I'm just going to put some heat into that wok.

A little bit more oil. Now at this point we want it over a medium heat,

so not a mega-nuts high heat. And we're going to stir fry off these lovely shiitake mushrooms,

-the onion and red pepper.

-It feels like a proper takeaway. Dave Si Chinese Takeaway!

-It's the future.

-I wouldn't mind.

Let's get stir frying!

'Once your ingredients are in the pan, keep them moving. By stirring and tossing them in the wok,

'it stops them burning and gets them all nicely browned.'

While that's cooking, I can prep the pork. Let's cut this in half.

Look at that. It's juicy on the inside, but it's cooked through.

-So we'll cut that like so. Like so.

-Oh, Dave!

-See all that juice?

-Yeah, I know.

I'm gonna nick a bit. Can't resist.

Oh, that's fabulous.

-Next...

-The ginger and the garlic.

'Mix them in and continue to stir fry for a minute or so.

'But don't let the garlic burn.

'Then add two teaspoons of Madras curry powder. Add more if you like or one less if you prefer milder.'

-Oh, yes! Now it's starting!

-Isn't it?

-Starting to smell like the Singapore noodles we know and love.

In with the pork!

In with the prawns! And these are just frozen prawns.

They're pre-cooked, frozen, nothing fancy.

-Spring onion.

-Lovely. Look at that.

-Look at the colours, though.

-Fabulous, aren't they?

-Yeah.

-And just keep moving it around so it doesn't stick to the bottom.

-Time for the noodles!

Right, just separate these out. I put oil in so they'd be like this.

-Now you almost have to knit the other ingredients into the noodles.

-Use a fork or some chopsticks.

Now you may have noticed there's no salt or soy gone in there.

That's because we'll use the reserve marinade and the meat juices.

-Should I?

-Yes, please.

-And this will just give us a bit more moisture.

Sort of keep going... That's it. There you are, Kingy-san. How about that?

Lovely. 'Once all the noodles are coated and piping hot, you're done.'

Oh, look at those!

Dish it up and garnish it with a few pieces of chopped chilli.

There you are. Singapore noodles.

-Via Hong Kong, via every high street takeaway in the country.

-Look!

Singapore noodles - everything that's great about a takeaway.

Quick, easy and a fantastic fusion of flavours.

Succulent prawns and pork with a kick of exciting flavour.

British cuisine is so exciting and dynamic

because it's the result of the coming together of our own rich heritage with that of people

from all over the world who have made Britain their home.

British ethnic food is a unique cuisine in its own right and something to be proud of.

And fair play to the humble takeaway because that got us Brits used to eating different exotic food

at home in the first place.

If you want to find out more about the series...

Visit:

And discover some amazing facts about the history of food.

And to find out how to cook up the recipes in today's show.

Subtitles by Subtext for Red Bee Media Ltd - 2011

Email [email protected]