Food Festivals Hairy Bikers' Best of British

You know, we believe that Britain has the best food in the world.

Not only can we boast fantastic ingredients...

Whoa! Look at them!

..outstanding food producers...

Oh, look at that.

..and innovative chefs...

..but we also have an amazing food history.

-Oh, brilliant!

-Oh, wow.

Don't eat them like that, you'll break your teeth.

Now, during this series,

we're going to be taking you on a journey into our culinary past.

Everything's ready, so let's get cracking.

-We'll explore its revealing stories...

-BOTH: Wow!

..and meet the heroes who keep our culinary past alive.

It's a miracle what comes out of the oven.

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

Look at that. That's a proper British treat.

We have a taste of history.

Quite simply...

BOTH: The best of British.

# It's harvest time

# When the farms have safely gathered in their crops... #

It's that time of year that's always celebrated with food.

Thanksgiving for the harvest is at the heart of many traditional festivals.

And, throughout the calendar, lots of our religious ceremonies

share their origins with pagan celebrations of the cycles of nature,

and the season's bountiful produce.

WHISTLE BLOWS

So it's only fitting that food has always been an essential element

in all of our festivities.

This time next week, it will be Christmas Day itself.

From fasting at Passover, Lent and Ramadan...

..to fabulous feasting at Christmas, Hanukkah and Diwali...

..our festival rituals have produced some of the nation's favourite dishes.

Oh, it is delicious!

When celebrating all things British, our finest of foods are at the centre of every festival.

So in this show, we're paying tribute to some of the UK's greatest festive delicacies.

And first in the Best of British kitchen,

we're getting the party started with the mother of all British roast dinners.

If there has ever been a bird to celebrate a festival with, it's the goose.

And the goose has graced our Christian tables for years.

In England, the goose was traditionally eaten on Michaelmas in September,

the feast day of the Archangel Michael, who defeated Satan in the War of Heaven,

and was celebrated as protector against the darkness in winter.

Traditionally, this was also rent day for peasants.

And on this occasion, landlords would accept a fattened goose as payment.

So it was believed that eating goose on Michaelmas Day would bring good fortune all year.

And nowadays, it makes a star turn for our Christmas tables.

It certainly does. And...

we're pairing our goose with some fabulous autumnal English apples.

That's right.

Here's our traditional roast goose with apple and sausage stuffing balls and a cider gravy.

The perfect festive treat.

Aaah! Let's go and cook our goose.

Now then, OK.

The first thing we need to do, really, is prep it.

Prep this lovely bird for the oven. Now, what we're going to do...

Goose, by the very nature of what they are, there is a lot of fat in there.

And that's great. That's not a bad thing, it keeps the meat really moist.

That one there.

These are this goose's love handles.

You see? Will you get off me love handles, you!

I've got them too!

Right, now, look. So just pull it, like that.

-And there's areas here as well.

-Ooh! Ooh!

-Just prod it.

It's giving me goose pimples all over watching you do that!

'Next, quarter an onion, and put it inside the bird.'

Followed by three bay leaves.

Open wide!

SINGS: 'Tis the seasoning... Rub with salt and pepper.

Don't be frightened with the seasoning. Look at that. That's lovely.

-Mmm. Fabulous.

-Now I want to wash me hands, mate.

Its little lily legs, if you just put it in like that, they're going to burn. We don't want that.

So we're making little boots. That's just going to stop his legs charring.

Now, half an hour before the end of cooking, we're going to take them off,

just to brown off, but that way, the legs are going to be delicious.

And the goose needs to be popped into a pre-heated oven at 180 degrees Celsius for a fan oven...

-Yes.

-..for one hour initially, then drop the temperature to 160 for a further hour.

Have you got it?

Time to bash on with the giblet gravy.

'Giblets make great stock.'

'Along with the classic trio of carrots, onions and celery.'

Just chopped in a rustical fashion.

It's funny as well, geese are quite expensive,

and by nature of cooking expensive food at a festival or a celebration.

There is a sense of occasion to it, isn't there, Si?

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Stick of celery joins the carrot and the onion...

in the pot...

with my good friends, giblets.

And simmer that for about an hour and a half.

Now we can start to prepare the stuffing.

-Stock's on.

-Yes.

-Goose is on.

Mr Stuffing.

While Dave's getting the bits together for the stuffing,

I'm going to pick through and chop the goose liver.

'Cut the liver in half, pulling out the hard tubes that run through it.

'We only want the soft, rich liver meat for our stuffing.'

Now I need a Bramley apple.

A nice, gnarly, English Bramley, straight from the tree.

Geese and apples go together so well.

Love it. It's going to give a nice sharpness to the stuffing.

Now to temper that, I'm going to add a couple of teaspoons full of sugar.

That's going to start to caramelise and make it really sticky and lovely.

-I love this, because these are really old, proper, traditional techniques.

-Yeah.

To... You know, dressing a bird for table.

You've dressed it for the oven, it comes out, and then you dress it for table.

-It's brilliant. Lovely conventions of celebration at a festival.

-Yeah.

The goose is the symbol of St Martin, a quiet monk who wanted to live his life as a humble hermit.

When the people wanted to make him their bishop, Martin ran away,

and hid in a barn amongst a flock of geese.

But the geese wouldn't stop honking, and poor old Martin was discovered,

and reluctantly led away to be ordained bishop.

He wasn't very happy.

Oh, crumbs!

So he is the patron saint of geese, and the patron saint against poverty, among other things.

So that's how whenever you see a stained glass window, it's St Martin with a goose,

-and it's like, prosperity, and I suppose...

-Yeah.

-Again, it's part of the goose's image as being a celebratory bird.

-Absolutely.

-Geese have been to more parties than the average Essex girl.

-No, you're not wrong.

I'm happy with that if you are, Mr King.

-That's lovely, mate.

-Yeah?

-Absolutely lovely.

Pop the liver in and just cook that for a minute.

-Now, this is precious, isn't it?

-Beautiful.

You know, we're wasting nothing of the goose.

Its giblets are going to make the wonderful gravy,

we've got its liver in the stuffing,

we've got all the fat rendered out for our roast potatoes for the next month.

-And the bird itself, we're going to eat it stripped to the bones.

-Yeah.

'Now we're adding the onions, goose liver and apple to 500 grams of sausagemeat.

'Then the same weight of breadcrumbs, and some freshly chopped sage.'

And we just need some salt and pepper in here, Kingy.

-No worries. On its way.

-The best way is to get your hands in here, you know?

Oh, definitely.

So... Yeah...

-Right, that'll be enough, now.

-There we go. That'll do.

Lovely.

'The goose has been in the oven now for nearly two hours,

'but before you get it out, cut some apples in half.'

'Brush them with a little oil, and nestle amongst the stuffing balls.

Now that just needs to roast in the oven for 20 to 30 minutes.

-And do you know what?

-Yes?

-Guess what?

-What?

-The goose is ready to come out.

-You have cooked your goose.

-I have cooked the goose.

-Shall we swap, then?

-I think we should.

-Oh, look at that.

-Yes!

You beauty. Oh!

Right.

-OK.

-That's beautiful. That goose is cooked perfectly.

I hear you say, though, you've just told me,

the apples and the stuffing are going to take 20 minutes to half an hour.

What about the goose?

It needs to rest, so we put that on a platter, cover it with foil, then a tea towel,

and it's just to relax in a nice ambient temperature,

which gives us time to make the cider and giblet gravy.

'We're going to use all of those wonderful goose juices,

'once we've strained off the fat.'

'And we'll save that for later, as it'll make the best roast potatoes ever.'

-So that is goose gold.

-Look at that. That's all that flavour from the cooking.

'Now we've got to sieve the giblet stock.'

Have you seen what Dave's doing with the sieve now?

He's just, like wobbling it, so it makes sure that every single piece of flavour and moisture

is out of those vegetables and the goose neck.

-Giblets.

-Right?

-Fabulous.

Add two tablespoons of flour to the meat juices in the pan.

Now, what we're going to do with that...

-..is mix it in...

-Cider. Good dry cider.

-I think about half this bottle'd do.

-Yeah.

Don't worry about the lumps, cos we'll whisk them out,

and we're going to pass this through a sieve anyway.

-Right.

-The gravy's done.

-Yes.

-Mother Goose is resting.

-Yes.

-Stuffing balls and apples...

-Yeah, go on!

-Oh, Dave, look how those apples have gone. They're beautiful, aren't they?

-I know.

-Shall we just arrange, like an Elizabethan platter?

-Lovely. Oh, fabulous.

Apple, stuffing... apple, stuffing ball.

Apple.

-Apple.

-Dave?

-Yeah.

-You know what?

-What, mate?

-I THINK WE'VE GOT THE IDEA OF STUFFING BALL, APPLE, STUFFING BALL, APPLE!

Good grief. He keeps repeating it!

-Apple.

-SIMON LAUGHS

Stuffing.

-SIMON SNORTS

-Stuffing.

There we go. Now that certainly is a party on a plate.

Be it Michaelmas, Christmas, Easter or your birthday.

Top tip about carving -

be confident.

-Mm.

-Thank you.

-It's nice and juicy.

-It's absolutely beautiful.

-It's cooked perfectly.

Right...

Got to have some of that stuffing with it.

-And a bit of apple.

-Oh, yeah.

-Very, very good.

-Mmm.

Lovely texture, goose. Lovely with the apples.

Nice gamey flavour.

In my opinion, that is a true festival bird.

Mm-hmm.

-But without the wellies.

-Oh, aye.

You don't get that at Glastonbury, do you?

Our roast goose with apple and sausage stuffing and cider gravy

is a fine treat for any table or celebration.

So go on, give goose a gander.

We love our festival treats.

# Pancake day, pancake day

# Now's the time to fry them... #

Now, there's one day in our food festival calendar

that hasn't changed for centuries.

Beautiful.

Absolutely beautiful.

We love pancakes and Pancake Day so much,

we buy more than three times the usual amount of eggs, milk and flour to make them.

And supermarkets start ordering their stocks in months in advance.

And here's the pancake recipe.

Four ounces of flour...

..and half a pint of milk.

One egg...

..and a pinch of salt.

Come on, Ken, we haven't got all day, you know.

Here I've got the flour, which has been sifted with the salt. I'm going to add one egg...

Mix it all together.

You gently whisk that around. Now, you gently beat the egg gently until all the flour's added in.

You want just enough to coat the bottom of the pan.

And then you just roll it around like this.

And may the best pancake win.

-That's going to make a very thin pancake, isn't it?

-That is the idea.

There we are. A perfect pancake.

-Yes!

-Hooray!

-Fantastic.

-Yes!

But who made the first pancake?

-Who do you reckon made the first pancake? Does it go back a very long way?

-I just said that.

I would think it goes right back to Neanderthal Man.

-But he didn't have all that gear, did he?

-No, he didn't. He just had to use hot stones.

She's right, you know.

Archaeological evidence shows we've always eaten some form of pancake using flour and water.

But Pancake Day as we know it began as a Christian festival called Shrove Tuesday.

Shrove Tuesday is the day before the beginning of Lent,

and Lent lasts for six weeks, and during that time,

Christians are supposed to give up anything that they like,

special treats or favourite sorts of foods.

Nobody was supposed to eat any eggs or meat,

they weren't supposed to cook their food in any fancy way, or use any fat of any sort.

So the day before Lent began, Shrove Tuesday,

the women of the towns would go through their cupboards,

and using up all the kinds of foods, they'd have a great cooking spree.

As well as making pancakes to use up all the naughty, rich ingredients before the fasting period of Lent,

Shrove Tuesday also meant that you had to be shriven.

I've never liked the sound of that. It always sounded painful.

-CHURCH BELLS

-It just meant going to church to confess your sins.

Aah!

And legend has it that back in the 14th Century,

one woman in a village called Olney heard the bell calling her to church,

and rushed out of the house still holding her frying pan.

Yes, and the people of Olney have held pancake races ever since.

Women have to toss their pancake three times whilst they hurtle towards the church.

On your marks, go!

And the prize?

A kiss from the verger.

And today, we're still flipping mad for them.

I-I-I-I love pancakes very much!

And we're curiously competitive about them, too.

How many scouts managed to set a new world record for the most people flipping a pancake?

You've got 108, making a new Guinness World Record!

CHEERING

The humble pancake, just made out of flour, milk and eggs,

and rolled in lemon and sugar, has become a cause for celebration itself.

Well, if you ask me, Si, you can't beat it.

The fantastic thing about modern multicultural Britain

is that as well as enjoying all the ancient traditions from our isles,

we now also get to take part in festivals from around the globe.

MUSIC: "Holiday" by Madonna

We Brits, we love a good party, especially if it involves great food.

And the Indian festival of Diwali is renowned for both.

Diwali is like our Harvest Festival plus Christmas and New Year

all rolled into one.

For Hindus and Sikhs, it marks both the end of the harvest season,

and the start of a new year.

It's the last major celebration before winter,

and streets all over the world are lit up with decorations and fireworks.

From Delhi...

FIREWORKS

..to Leicester.

It's home to one of the biggest celebrations outside of India.

35,000 people come out to party during the five days and nights of Diwali here.

Now during Diwali, it's traditional to give gifts,

so we're here in Leicester to find out about that great festival gift

that is the Indian sweet.

Ho-ho-ho-ho!

Bobby's Restaurant is a Leicester institution, famed for its Diwali sweets.

We're meeting Bobby and his son Dhamesh to find out more about some of these amazing goodies.

-Hello, sir.

-That's a Diwali card. That's my father.

-Hello, sir. Very nice to meet you.

-Dave...

-Happy Diwali. Thank you!

-..and Si.

Happy Diwali. Nice to meet you.

-So it's a family business, then?

-It's a family business, yes. We've been going for 35 years.

My father and my mother started it,

and throughout the years all the family members have worked here, over that much time.

-Yeah.

-So, you know... And Diwali's a family festival.

-Look at this!

-That's a lot of sweet treats.

It certainly is.

-At the top we've got things made with cashew nuts.

-Yes.

Ground cashew nuts, pistachios, saffron...

-These are mixed, they've got rose petal filling inside.

-Yes.

-We've got chickpea flour sweets, we've got milk-based sweets...

-Crumbs.

-Quite interesting.

-Very interesting.

Do the sweets at Diwali, or is it all the time, you have a tradition

of the silver and gold leaf on the top?

You can have silver leaf and gold leaf all the time,

-but it's nicer at Diwali, because obviously it signifies...

-Yeah.

You know, it's nicer to look at, and also when you're giving somebody a gift,

-it's like giving them something valuable.

-Precious.

-Exactly.

-How lovely.

-It looks like a jeweller's, the case of sweets.

-It does.

It does look like a jeweller's.

It just looks very special.

Now, the one that's really famous, the really famous sweety sweet...

-Jalebis.

-Jalebis, yeah.

Aah. Da-da!

Here's one I made earlier.

DAVE LAUGHS

-That's an... You're quicker than us!

-I know!

You try that.

Ah, fabulous, thank you.

Ooh.

Oh, they're warm.

With Jalebis, they've got to be crunchy yet sweet.

-Oh!

-They're lovely.

-Dhamesh, would you do us a favour?

-Go on.

If we were to say to you, could you please put us, in a little Diwali box...

..a good selection of what you think is the finest of Indian sweets.

Certainly. No problem at all.

Now that's a good selection, if ever I saw one.

-Well, it's what I like.

-Yeah.

So how many sweets would you sell during Diwali?

I'd estimate up to a couple of thousand kilos.

-It's like giving a box of chocolates.

-OK.

You know, for people, it's giving a gift to others, you know. Often gifts to the temple.

It's nice, as opposed to a box of chocolates, a box of mithai.

-We call them mithai, which means sweets.

-Ah, right!

-OK, so that's...

-Mithai's a collective term for sweets.

-The collective term for all these fabulous sweets.

-That's right.

-Thank you so much.

'We're taking our haul of sweets to share with Indian food writer, Roopa Gulati,

'to find out more about the ancient traditions of Diwali.'

-Now, Roopa, we've got some sweets.

-Ooh! Some Diwali goodies.

Diwali delights.

-SHE GASPS

-Look at that.

-Oh, look at those.

-A box of wonders.

-What a selection. You've got the whole of India in a box over there.

I think there's nothing more symbolic of Diwali

than the sweetmeats that are served at this time of year.

The ingredients that go into all the sweets, they're so auspicious,

milk, cream, sugar, honey, water.

You know, they are pure ingredients that are often offered at temples.

-Yes.

-To the deities.

Barfi really is my favourite. you know, if you can just catch the silver on top of it.

It's pure silver.

And you know it's pure silver, because it won't tarnish.

-It's silver that's beaten until it's wafer thin.

-Yeah.

And you can't, actually, when you're putting it on top of sweets

or rice or anything, you can't actually touch it with your fingers,

because it sticks, it goes everywhere.

Diwali is the best festival. It's of bling. You cannot overdo it.

Because you're celebrating the new year, and that's what Diwali's about.

It's the victory of good over evil, you know, light over darkness.

-The festival of light.

-It's the festival of light. Little lamps on Diwali nights.

-Yes.

Because the lamps are so important, because you're paying homage to Lakshmi.

-The goddess of prosperity, of wealth.

-Yes.

And the lights are there to show her the way,

and if your house is dark, she may get lost and not bestow her great wealth on you.

The atmosphere down on the street, it's great,

and it strikes me that Diwali has become a festival for everybody.

-And I think it's celebrated the world over.

-Yes.

It's about friendship and bonding and reconnecting.

-It's a bit like Christmas in that sense.

-Sure.

Because families, wherever they are, they will make some attempt to actually come home.

And also it's about children. Dressing up in new clothes, having lots of parties, and being together.

So I think that's what Diwali means to me.

-I think it should mean that to everybody, I'm sure.

-I think so.

Because what a beautiful, beautiful thing.

-What a beautiful thing it is, and a lovely thing to be involved with, actually.

-Mmm.

-We're really privileged, feel really privileged to be here.

-Yeah.

-It's fantastic.

-Yes.

ALL: Happy Diwali!

Now, each one of our traditional food ceremonies is only kept alive

as long as its customs are passed on from one generation to the next.

And there's one town in England which has devoted itself

to preserving a ritual dating back a thousand years.

It's Whitstable in Kent.

A town made famous by its oysters, and now its oyster festival.

Over the course of one week in July, 80,000 oyster lovers

come to consume hundreds of thousands of this seafood delicacy.

The native Whitstable rock oyster was first prized for its distinctive taste by the Romans,

who shipped them back to Rome, and the Whitstable oyster found international fame.

So by the Middle Ages, Whitstable had grown into a thriving fishing port.

Oysters provided the main income for hundreds of local fishermen.

And the oystermen of Whitstable depended on the elements for a good catch.

But since the elements were controlled by God, getting him on side was crucial.

So every July, before the oyster season began,

a blessing of the oyster catch took place.

And today, centuries later, vicar Simon Tillotson continues the tradition

with a symbolic ceremony, and it's a good excuse to put his best clobber on.

So we're about to set off, walking down to the sea

to do the banding of the oysters.

And it's an annual event, this is where I put on my big robe.

-Which one am I wearing today, Barry?

-White.

Where is it, then?

That's not Barry, was it?

The oyster festival still takes place around the feast day of St James,

the patron saint of oystermen.

I really enjoy this every year. It's always got a real buzz to it.

The whole town comes out to this landing of the catch.

It's a fantastic event, full of vitality,

and I really enjoy it, I really enjoy doing this.

They're getting ahead of me!

Can you wait a bit, please?

Today, tradition and religion combine to make a great family event,

which draws a big crowd of both locals and tourists alike.

Oysters.

Signs of your wonderful creation.

We ask your blessing on these oysters...

'In lots of Britain today,

religion is not nearly as widely seen as it used to be,

but in this particular festival, there is still a place for the church,

which is really great.

And that's because Whitstable has still kept lots of its traditions from the past.

We bless the oysters as they come in,

the church is welcomed to be part of it, and we are one with the town,

so we all mix in together, really.

We ask this in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

And we give you thanks through Jesus Christ our Lord. CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Once the serious business of blessing the catch is over, the fun can begin.

Hey, mate, did they have samba bands back in the Middle Ages?

No, but they definitely had alien insects on stilts.

-Um, I think they're meant to be octopuses.

-Oh.

Well, I suppose this is a celebration of the sea.

But the main purpose of the parade is to close the medieval ceremony.

The mayor presents local restaurateurs with the newly-blessed oysters,

which are then enjoyed by thousands of people,

served fresh, straight from the shell.

Lovely!

ACCORDION MUSIC

It's a great event. We come down here, we enjoy the day, enjoy the sea breeze and everything else.

Most of all, the food.

We've been down the road to the harbour, and it's quite crowded down there, isn't it?

We thought we'd come back here and find the oysters.

Oh, that's beautiful.

You've got to treat 'em right, though. Nice piece of lemon on 'em.

Lovely. Lovely and fresh.

Ooh. They're supposed to be an aphrodisiac.

I'll let you know about that tomorrow.

HE CHUCKLES

But if raw oysters don't float your boat, the oyster isn't off limits.

Top chef and Whitstable local Mark Stubbs wants to share his festival special -

boozy battered oyster fritters.

We're going to serve them in a lovely Guinness batter,

and from that point on, it changes the texture and the taste of the oysters.

If you've never tried an oyster before, you should really try these.

-And then progress into eating a natural oyster.

-Ooh, that sounds divine. Let's get cracking.

What we want to do is to remove the liquid that is around the oyster.

Make one cut...

..and then turn the oyster onto tissue to dry it out.

Guinness an oysters are a famous combination together, OK?

So a fresh can of Guinness, and it's important that we've just opened it up

to keep all the bubbles, to make it nice and light and airy.

Now, we're making a light tempura.

All we do is, here's our flour, cornflour and a touch of baking powder,

and a pinch of salt in there.

And we just literally add the Guinness to get the right consistency.

And what we're looking for is like a dropping consistency.

Now, the beauty of making a tempura is it doesn't have to be all smooth.

It can be a little bit lumpy, it really doesn't matter.

This one is a beautiful batter to use.

If you want a light and crunchy batter, but you don't want to use a beer or stout,

any fizzy liquid will do.

You can even use sparkling water.

Now we take the product itself, which is the oysters,

and we just gently lay them into the batter.

So just lightly coating the oysters in the batter.

Not damaging the oysters,

and then just put them into the fryer.

Hold them for about 10 seconds, let them drop,

and they'll float to the top.

From shucking the oysters and opening them,

and making the batter, you can have half a dozen done

in two minutes, two and a half minutes.

As long as you're a good oyster opener.

And that, really, is it.

The batter on the oyster is really light, crispy, and if we look here, we can just hear it.

You can hear it all just cracking.

And it's that good that I'm going to have to eat a piece now.

Hey, save some for the locals, Marky!

-They're lovely.

-You like them?

-Lovely. Really nice.

-I've never had them in tempura batter before.

-And you like them?

-Delicious.

There we go. Thank you very much. No problem.

But it's not just the fantastic oysters that draw crowds to the festival.

When the oystermen were using them, and if we go back to, say, 1880,

and if you imagined yourself here then,

you would have seen about 100 of these moored out in the bay.

They also come to get their fix of local tradition and history.

# We've suffered years of much abuse

ALL: # And we say so, and we hope so... #

Mark Lawson, a member of the local sea shanty group,

loves to keep these Whitstable traditions alive.

Mate, I tell you what, I'm getting beard envy.

Whoa! Me too!

I think the reason the town keeps the tradition going

is that oysters are very much core to Whitstable's identity.

It was the major industry in the town.

At the height of the oyster fisheries in the 1880s,

we were sending 1.25 million oysters to London alone,

and another 750,000 to the rest of the country and abroad.

So, although it was a scruffy little working town, Whitstable was very, very prosperous.

It just didn't look it!

What I love about this festival, is the way the people of Whitstable keep all those traditions going...

Go!

..but add ones of their own, like the oyster-eating competition.

Whitstable local Sue Sanders is mad for it.

I've been coming to Whitstable oyster festival for five or six years now

and I always take part in the oyster-eating competition.

I know it's a terrible waste of oysters because they should be savoured,

crushed delicately in your mouth and allowed to slip down,

but this is all about opening your throat and throwing them down.

It's a speed event.

The Whitstable oyster certainly gets its dues at this festival!

It's been blessed, dressed with lemon, and don't forget the Guinness batter!

Yes, it's been eaten by the thousand!

They've eaten so many there won't be any left for me.

Ah, dude, don't be so shellfish!

Now we're back in the Best of British Kitchen to pay homage

to another festival dish which is fast becoming a national favourite, the biryani.

The biryani is a proper festival dish. It's a party dish.

It's regal, it's royal and it's the ultimate one-pot wonder.

Note that Ramadan isn't a party.

Everybody just waits until it goes dark.

It's true, you fast during the day but you're not fasting for 40 days.

-Every night it's a feast.

-Yes!

But the big one is Eid and that's when it's quite appropriate to cook a biryani.

The first sighting of the new moon marks the end of Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting,

And the start of Eid, the three-day festival which is celebrated with prayer,

the giving of gifts and, you've guessed it, lavish feasting!

And here's our Best of British take on this classic Eid dish,

an elaborate creation of succulent spicy meat, layered with saffron-infused rice.

This beef biryani is a sumptuous one-dish wonder,

perfect for sharing with friends and family on any special occasion.

Right, basically we've got braising steak here.

We're going to trim the nasties off it, which won't take very long because it's very good meat.

This is the extra sinewy bit that you don't really want

-because you want it to be a really nice easy eat.

-Oh, aye.

-You want it to melt in the mouth, don't you?

-Yes.

It's quite cheap to do, it feeds a heap of people, but it's just brilliant.

Every flavour has its place in the dish,

and every flavour ends up on your plate.

Now, the all-important spice paste.

It's an easy job for the food processor.

You'll need two onions, four cloves of garlic, a thumb of ginger...

..and two fresh red chillies.

You can deseed it if you want it mild, or leave the seeds in if you want it spicy.

It's a festival, it's a party, let's have some spice in our lives.

Add 50ml of water, and whizz to a thick paste.

Look at the colours of that, and there's no food colouring in sight.

Listen to that baby go.

We're just going to brown this off. Don't overfill the pan because you want it to fry,

you don't want it to stew.

Lovely.

And look, that's the deep colour that you want

but it's just flashed because the plan is so hot. Look at that, beautiful.

Now, to the dry spice mix. Take your pestle and mortar.

Take five cloves.

Cloves, to me, define the taste of a biryani.

It just comes through right at the back end.

While Dave's doing that, all I've done is fried it off in some oil,

the juices have run, you come out and you stick it back into your biryani pot.

To the cloves and the cumin seeds, add two teaspoons of coriander seeds.

A piece of cinnamon bark. Take 12 cardamom pods.

The flavour is in the black seeds in the middle of the cardamom.

And start to crush.

Oh! Get real, get spicy.

I find cooking Asian food like this, cooking Indian food, is the most exciting.

You've got spices, you've got the fire, and I feel like an alchemist.

There are occasions that you could draw comparison to you being a bit of a mad professor.

Now look at that. That's my dried spices, look how it's building up.

I'm just going to grate half a nutmeg into that. Heavenly, isn't it?

You have a smell at home.

Just add this dry spice mix to the pureed onions and garlic, ginger and chillies.

This is an absolute banging flavour bomb. Here you are, Kingy.

-This is going to be brilliant.

-Yes, it's great.

This spice mix needs to be cooked so just fry this

for about 10 minutes gently until it starts to brown.

-There are many legends surrounding the biryani.

-It's a mystical dish.

One is there's a lady called the sleeping beauty from the Taj Mahal.

It's said she made the biryani like one dish that could feed an army.

And it's said that the word biryani comes from the Farsi word birian, which means to fry beforehand.

The smell is starting to intensify now so that's not too far away.

It's lovely and fresh, isn't it? The cumin is cooking off, the cardamom.

All of those dried spices, they need to cook.

What we're going to do with this beautiful paste,

we're going to now put it in to our beef.

Look at the juices that come off that beef, now it's been resting.

The lovely thing about biryani is you waste no flavours. Never.

Add the spice paste mix to the meat.

Then 200 ml of thick natural yoghurt.

Pour in 450ml water and two bay leaves.

Season with pepper,

then pop on the lid and let it simmer for an hour and a half.

It may seem like a complicated dish but it's SO worth it.

And we think there's nothing better you can do with a winter's afternoon than build a biryani!

As you know, biryani always contains rice

and the rice will cook off the spices and the vapour from the meat.

That's the beauty of biryani, but the rice should be pre-cooked a little bit.

While Dave's doing that,

another element to the biryani is layers of fried onion.

Nothing clever about this. I've just got water, salt...

..and rice.

Simmer this rice for five minutes, no more.

We want it part-cooked, not cooked.

They say the test of a good biryani is if you drop a lump of it onto the table,

no two grains of rice will be stuck together.

You know, a biryani has a lot of processes,

but you can get ahead with yourself.

so I might as well get on and do the garnishes.

I'm just going to hard-boil three eggs and roast off some almonds.

This goes on the top, right at the end, so that will be two hours away.

This is where this festival dish, with its many components,

begins to come together and your sense of satisfaction starts to really kick in.

Just put the coriander into the part-cooked rice.

The almonds are ready for their sultanas,

and the onions are approaching perfection!

That's the colour that you're looking for. Look at that, lovely.

So set those aside ready for the build.

We need to put in now two teaspoons of sugar to the meat. Keep it level.

-After all, it's a biryani, not a pudding.

-Then just mix it in.

We should just leave that to cook to reduce for another 10 minutes.

-It's very lovely.

-It is, isn't it? I love you.

-I love you too.

-We're there, mate. Look at that. There's very little liquid left, it's all flavour.

-All the elements.

-And that meat's falling apart.

-So the meat goes in first.

-Half the meat in first.

-Look at that, man.

I love it when you get meat like this, just falling apart.

We heated 100ml of full fat milk with a heaped teaspoon of saffron strands,

and left it to infuse overnight.

The aromatic flavour of saffron is essential to a biryani,

and so is the deep yellow colour, said to represent royalty and celebration.

It's going to stain the rice. Eating with your eyes first.

-Oh, that's lovely man.

-It looks the biz.

You take some of those fantastic onions that you spent a great deal of time on.

Beautiful thing, Kingy.

-It's lush, isn't it?

-Yeah.

-And the final layer of the meat.

-Just quality control.

Heaven!

Now we're going to wrap this up in foil.

This may seem like overkill, but this is very, very important

because it's imperative that you keep all of those flavours in that dish.

Now just pop that into a preheated oven,

160 degrees for a fan oven and 180 for a regular oven for about 30 minutes.

And that will be our biryani.

Oh, look at that!

Look, it looks like a celebration dish, it looks like a festival dish.

It's happy to be here, it's happy to be created

and we're happy to eat it.

As a final flourish, add the toasted almonds, sultanas, eggs and chopped parsley.

-The festival biryani.

-The beef biryani to beat all biryanis.

Time for a party on your palate!

Look at that laughing gear on standby. Go on!

Happy days.

-That's really good.

-Beautiful. The spices, Dave, are epic.

It's so well-balanced.

-And that's where the alchemy is, isn't it? In the spicing.

-Yep.

Ladies and gentlemen at home, you're going to love this. It's superb.

And do you know what, Si? We're not alone in loving a biryani.

-Genghis Khan was partial.

-Was he?

-Loved a biryani, did Genghis.

It didn't do anything for his temper, did it?!

So from the ancient thanksgiving customs of British fishermen...

To the Hindu traditions of India, which have found a home in our cities, and our hearts...

Our British festival customs have given us a rich variety of wonderful dishes,

perfect for any party or celebration.

And, if you want to find out more...

Visit:

To discover some amazing facts about the history of food.

And to find out how to cook up tonight's recipes.

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