Cheese 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...

Look at them!

'Outstanding food producers...'

Look at that!

'And innovative chefs...'

'but we also have an amazing food history!'

Ah, brilliant. Wow!

Don't eat them like that.

You break your teeth!

During this series,

we're going to be taking you on a journey

into our culinary past.

Everything's ready, get cracking!

We'll explore its revealing stories...

BOTH: Wow!

'and meet the heroes keeping our food heritage 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!

MOTORCYCLE ENGINE REVS

Today we're celebrating cheese.

'70s STYLE ORGAN MUSIC

Not that kind of cheese!

We're a nation of cheese lovers,

consuming around 700,000 tonnes of the stuff every year.

It's a staple of the British diet.

In the show we'll be rustling up an authentic Yorkshire cheesecake...

tasting an amazing range of Scottish cheeses...

and witnessing the makings of a champion!

This is our homage to fromage!

Cheese is one of the oldest foodstuffs

known to mankind.

And it actually has its origins

in prehistoric herding.

Our ancestors must have thought,

"Oh, I'll just have a cheeky nibble of something

"to wash that woolly mammoth down! Oh...cheese!"

And in the Sahara there are cave paintings

that depict the cheesemaking process,

which actually, thinking about it,

isn't a bad place to store cheese...in a cave.

There are over 700 different cheeses produced in Britain today,

and we're here to sample a few of the best.

We Brits are mad about cheese,

even holding a world-famous cheese rolling festival,

where people risk life and limb, race down a steep hill,

to catch an 8 pound Double Gloucester.

In the early 19th century,

all manner of cheeses were being made

in farmhouses across the land.

But then two things happened to threaten our beloved cheese.

The Industrial Revolution

made it more profitable

for farmers to sell milk to large-scale dairies,

than make cheese.

And local cheese-making took a nose dive.

But worse was to come. In World War Two,

the Ministry of Food decreed only one type could be manufactured.

Depressingly named The National Cheese,

-it was bland and uninspiring.

-So when rationing ended

and a new product processed cheese hit our shores,

we lapped it up.

# One for daddy

# One for mummy

# Here's Dairlyea for everyone. #

Invented in America by a pioneering food manufacturer

named JL Kraft,

the Dairylea triangle became

a British best seller.

With so little choice and new mass production techniques taking over,

cheese, and British cheese at that, just wasn't the same.

You could neither wash nor eat this, you know.

'Did you get that, Dave?'

It's like soap.

This junk, what goes in, call it cheese...

it's not mature, there's no rind...

I think they said modern cheese

doesn't taste very nice!

They don't know what the taste of cheese is.

In fact, decent cheese became so scarce,

that getting hold of it was a clandestine affair.

Where on earth do you get hold of this?

I've been round Dorset for several days and haven't found any.

Don't ask me where because I haven't got a clue.

So on the following Tuesday evening,

we lay in wait for the unorthodox coming,

of the mysterious Blue Vinny.

-These are the Dorset Blue Vinnies.

-That's right, yeah.

Where on earth do they come from?

I don't know where they come from.

He had two big cheeses,

which he said he got from you.

They tasted very nice.

No, Sid is new to me. Probably got them

maybe another man of my name.

-The sources are pretty secret.

-They are.

Traditional British cheeses might have been lost forever,

but for a small group of artisan producers.

Old recipes and methods were resurrected,

and brand new varieties hit our supermarket shelves.

These days, British cheese rivals anything from the continent.

And with more varieties made here than in France, yes, really...

it's time to celebrate the treasures

of the great British cheese board!

We're heading to Scotland next,

where in the last 20 years, traditional farmhouse cheeses,

as well as new varieties,

have been enjoying a huge revival.

There are parts of Britain that are synonymous with great cheesemaking,

Leicester, Cheshire, Cheddar, Gloucester!

But Scotland?

It's not the first place you think of

when it comes to great British cheeses.

We've come to discover the secrets of great Scottish cheesemaking.

And we're about to take a tour

of the finest,

from the Borders to the Highlands.

Our journey begins in Edinburgh,

at a specialist cheese shop

founded in 1993 by Scottish cheese guru,

Iain Mellis.

-Iain, hello, I'm Si!

-I'm Dave. Pleased to meet you.

Any tastes we could have...

-We're always tasting!

-..from the Borders or Highlands?

A little tour, a coach trip around the world of cheese.

Normally when we're tasting,

start with a milder rather than stronger one.

You'll never taste the milder one.

This one here,

Cambus O'May,

this is an old Aberdeenshire cheese,

and it's made just like Lancashire cheese with two day curd.

-It's a lovely texture.

-It is.

Wow!

That's beautiful!

It just disappears.

This one here, Isle Of Mull, which is from the West Coast.

This is more of a cheddar style cheese, which has probably

been made in Scotland for the last couple of hundred years.

This has just been made, June, July, because it's yellow.

All the other Mull cheese,

when the cows are inside,

they're fed on the spent grains from the distillery,

but for two months of the year, they're allowed on the very little

amount of grass there is on the islands.

It's nearly all heather and it becomes...

it gets that yellow colour from the grass.

This is a brand new cheese in Scotland.

The goats' milk Cromarty,

more like a Camembert recipe,

but using goats' milk.

That's more Camembert than Camembert.

It's just... Oh, it's fabulous!

Do you think Scottish cheese deserves a better platform,

it deserves to be better known?

I think Scottish cheese makers have been working

really hard in the last 15 years.

They've come a long way, since I have started the shop.

I would say British cheese is some of the best in the world now

and Scottish cheese are now as good as every other British cheese.

Every cheese we've tasted here has been world-class.

So what kind of really old varieties of Scottish cheese are there?

Crowdie is still... I mean, I'm from up the north of Scotland

and crowdie is still a big thing in the north of Scotland.

In the Lowlands it was never really big.

In the Highlands it really is,

I mean, that's the oldest variety of cheese.

-We shall go search some crowdie.

-I think we should.

Introduced by the Vikings in the 8th century,

crowdie is a soft curd cheese

originally made from slightly soured milk whey and rolled in oatmeal.

Traditionally, it's eaten with oatcakes

to alleviate the effects of whiskey drinking.

Our quest for this special cheese with an ancient history,

takes us to just outside Inverness

and the Connage Highland Dairy,

run by the Clark family.

-Hello, Callum. Dave.

-Dave, nice to meet you.

Good to meet you, I'm Si. How are you?

Is it crowdie or crawdie?

Some people call it croodie

but we call it crowdie and most people do now.

Do you want have a wee look?

A decent sized batch in here today.

First thing this morning, I skimmed off the cream

and then I start to mix it and bring it up to temperature.

-Is that curds and whey?

-Curds and whey we've got here, yes.

-It's a proper cheesecloth.

-Proper cheesecloth.

All that cheesecloth you were wearing in the '80s, Kingy!

I thought I smelt funny!

So from here, we go over here...

And this is called bagging off?

This is called bagging off so, we'll leave that to drain away

till tomorrow morning and then we had a little bit of salt,

mix it in, and then pot it off

and it's ready tomorrow afternoon.

-And that's it?

-That's it. Couldn't be simpler.

So what does this Scottish delicacy taste like?

There's only one way to find out!

We're meeting cheese-maker, Helen Ross,

who's found a use for crowdie in just about everything!

The bread is made with the whey from the crowdie

which I take home and I just use as a base for my bread.

-Would you like to try some?

-I'd love some! Absolutely!

-Wonder if it would work with scones?

-Yes, I have heard,

though I've never actually tried it.

-You do buttermilk, don't you?

-Uh-huh.

This is cheese and onion bread

and the cheese in it is our hard cheese, Dunlop.

Look, you see, you get northern portions up here!

None of this frugal southern muck down here, look at that!

-None of your mealy mouthed slivers!

-Oh, no! Big portions here!

This is the very dry crowdie,

-and it's got toasted pinhead oatmeal round it.

-Lovely!

Look at that!

Happy days!

We don't get it in Northumberland that much,

and I forget about it. And it's salt and creamy,

oh, it's gorgeous.

This is Scottish cheese,

but we're proud to say it's a British cheese as well.

Seeing how cheese is made

has inspired us to have a go ourselves.

Cheese is one of the most versatile foods around

good in sweet dishes and savoury.

You can't say that about many other foods.

So first up in our best of British kitchen,

we're cooking a sweet cheese dish

and a speciality of the Yorkshire Dales,

the Yorkshire curd tart.

When you do a programme on cheese,

it would be too cheesy to actually make a cheesecake.

You can't really ignore it. We've gone one better.

We've gone into the depths of time. Coming from 1265,

the Counts of Leicester wrote about cheesy fortart

and that could have meant what we're going to cook today which is

the origin of cheesecake, original British cheesecake,

the Yorkshire curd tart.

We love it! We love it!

If Miss Muffet was here, she'd be stood on the tuffet,

that's all I can say, because this is epic!

You might have trouble getting curds here.

One day when there was a dairy on every corner, you'd say,

"Prithee, Sire, could thou takest meself of a bucket o'curds?"

And you go back and make your curd tart.

First off, we're going to show you how to make curds.

Add the milk to the pan.

This is whole milk, quite important this.

The fat stuff.

-Is there another milk, there, mate?

-More milk!

And we're going to put lemon juice into that milk

and you know what's going to happen, it's going to curdle!

You get it? Curds, curdle?

Samuel Pepys...

he used to sit in with a barrel of curds and whey.

Interesting snack.

Bring this milk gently, and that's key, gently up to a simmer,

take it off the heat, and soon as that happens,

Dave is going to put some lemon juice in it.

Four tablespoons of lemon juice,

to about a litre and a half of milk.

This will give us curds, it'll also give us whey as well.

We're going to chuck the whey away!

You could always take it to a rail-whey station!

We're having a WHEYL of a time, aren't we?

That's lemon juice!

Just wait for that to come to a simmer now.

DAVE SINGS

Nowt much we can do really.

You're probably as bored now as we are!

Kingy, let's play

the alphabet game, but with cheese.

I hate the alphabet game!

MASTERMIND THEME

A is for... Think of a cheese beginning with A...

Applewood.

Yes. But is that... I'll let you have applewood. B...

-B, boursin.

-C, cheddar...

D...

-dolcelatte...

-You can't! That was my go!

I...

Let's forget I. Hold on... that's it, we're there!

To that, add four tablespoons of lemon juice,

sans le pip,

one, two,

three, four.

-Oh, the milk's going!

-And stir.

Look at that! Look in there, it's happening!

It's curdled.

Now, don't stir it too vigorously,

because you want those curds

to be as whole as they can.

You see how the bits are getting a bit bigger?

'Now pour the curds and whey into the muslin.'

Let that go through.

'And leave it to cool for about an hour.'

T...

Triangle cheese!

W...Wensleydale!

-Z...

-Zo, zor...

-I don't think there's a cheese beginning with Z.

Got to be somewhere in the world!

We could do accompaniments to cheese?

Apple!

'Oh God...that's quite enough!

'Just like Scottish crowdie,

'the curds are bagged up and left to drain.'

I wonder...

-That's it. Now, if you get a piece of string, Kingy.

-Right.

Take that to the fridge and you tie that to one of the shelves,

suspended over a bowl and leave it overnight.

And the next day you have a bowlful of whey and a ball of curds.

-I did one yesterday.

-Did you?

-Yes. We can start making tarts.

-Me on pastry as usual.

-And I will be on the filling.

Egg in bowl.

Give this a bit of a whizz.

Food processor. Flour goes in.

Plain, because it's pastry and we don't want a rise on.

For the pastry, we're using 175 grams of plain flour.

All I've got in here is butter, caster sugar

and we want to cream it together

and then we're going to start to build our little bits up.

Bring the ingredients together using an electric whisk.

I'm going to cube the butter into the processor.

Then give it a whizz until breadcrumbs are formed.

I'm also, because it's a sweet pastry,

going to put in two teaspoons of sugar.

One.

Two.

Give this a whizz.

I add an egg, bit by bit and a bowl of pastry will miraculously appear.

Now look at that.

How clean that processor is.

And all that's left there is a ball of pastry.

Now this pastry, I put it in the fridge to rest for half an hour

and I can roll out and make the bed for the tart.

Now, while Dave's doing that,

all I'm going to do is very gradually add an egg.

But do it gradually, yeah?

And then give it a good whisk after each addition.

To that I am going to add half a teaspoon of nutmeg.

Nutmeg's interesting.

Do you know it will last for up to 10 years

as long as you don't start grating it.

Nutmeg need never become a cupboard monster.

Pastry that has been rested.

Roll out. To the beaten egg mixture add the zest of half a lemon.

OK, give that a stir through.

Then add a heaped tablespoon of dried mixed fruit and stir that in too.

And then we going to mix in our curd.

Look at that. Beautiful. Beautiful.

How many recipes can you say that you've made your own cheese

when you're doing cheese cookery?

There is a certain wonderful self-satisfaction

to this actually, making your own cheese.

-As you say, it's lovely.

-Well it's a bit La Boheme, isn't it?

I am going to line this plate with my sweet, shortcrust butter pastry.

It's perfectly easy to handle.

Put it onto a tin plate.

You can do it with a china plate or a pot plate.

I've found with a tin plate, the nice thing is,

you don't have to grease it and it doesn't get stuck.

Lift it up in that flamboyant fashion as beloved by grandmothers everywhere.

And trim the edge off.

-Right, mate.

-I'm nearly ready too.

That looks a bit plain, so I'm going to do a nice pinch

and tuck on the edge like this.

Almost mechanical-looking finish to the side of your pies.

You know what, it is using your body as a template.

Now look at that, that's pastry craft for you.

-Fantastic, mate, fantastic.

-Toss your curds in, son.

What a cheesy mess that looks.

There's no need to mess with it too much. It'll find its own level.

Put the curds in the centre of the pastry case.

There we are. One curd tart.

Just pop that in the oven, preheated to 160 degree Celsius, for 35

minutes and then leave it for 30 minutes to cool before serving.

The curds will rise up and the pastry should be golden.

# Oh cheesecake

# Munching on a cheesecake Munching on a cheesecake

# Cheesecake, oh cheesecake Munching on a cheesecake. #

Eh up, lad!

That'll be Yorkshire curd tart ready for getting out of th'oven!

-Eeh, mother!

-Look at that!

-By gum.

-Look at him, eh.

-That's rather beautiful, isn't it?

-Isn't it?

We could put it outside like they used to in the old days.

-Should we?

-Go on. Open the door, mate.

How about diseases and complications?

I'll start. Arthritis.

B - Bubonic plague.

Cholera.

Diphtheria.

Impetigo.

J? Jaundice.

Let's go and get the curd tart, shall we?

It's a nice cutter.

The thing about Yorkshire curd tart is, you get a nice slice out of it.

No messing about. No leaving half of it behind. Look at that.

-It's a tidy tart.

-It is.

This is it. This is British cheesecake, this.

-It'll never catch on.

-No.

-Nice pastry.

-Lovely.

Nice texture, actually.

The fruit's plumped up. It's quite grown up, isn't it?

-Quite an old-fashioned flavour.

-That's it. Nutmeg, lemon zest.

Cheesecake, but real cheesecake.

That is best of British.

# Cheesecake, munching on a cheesecake

There it is.

The Yorkshire curd tart, a very proper cheesecake.

It may look fiddly to make, but it's definitely worth it.

# Cheesecake, gobble gobble, Basie over cheesecake! #

We're heading back to 1970, to Britain's first celebrity TV chef

and a somewhat acquired taste, fearsome Fanny Craddock.

When she first graced our television screens in the '50s,

British home cooking had become dull.

But this queen of cuisine inspired millions of housewives

to be bold and adventurous in the kitchen.

And when a new entertaining trend, the new cheese and wine party,

was suddenly all the rage, Fanny was there to guide us

with her passion and know-how.

-That is very '70s isn't it?

-Beans, pears, whisk.

-This is the view from our kitchen windows.

-"This is the view!"

It's like Gone With The Wind, isn't it?

You expect Rhett Butler to come along.

With the mill stream flowing under the bridges and down to meet the river.

So, Fanny did very well in her time, didn't she?

-Didn't she?

-We do owe her a lot, joking apart.

-We do.

She did an awful lot for British food.

Sick of cooking with our faces to the wall, so we've moved

to the middle of the two rooms, now one, which make up our kitchen.

Come and have a quick glimpse at some of the others we won't use. Cupboards, masses of them.

She probably made people think about food.

Remember, you're coming out of the war and it was all a bit indulgent

and she was on her own protesting against processed food at the time.

And it's called Creme de Camembert, or Camembert Cream.

Once again, it's not difficult.

Here is one I have taken out of its classic box.

And what you must do before you begin is to scrape off the chalk.

-That Camembert's very hard.

-Isn't it?

But here I have got one I put in 24 hours ago,

practically on the point of collapse.

-Has she soaked it?

-Yeah, soaked it in wine.

This has been soaking for 24 hours in a covering,

just a mean covering of inexpensive dry white wine.

Cut it up roughly with a knife.

That was a phenomenon though, the cheese and wine party.

"Just come round for cheese and wine". It's quite nice.

You could do a great one now with all the wonderful cheese we have.

-It would be fantastic.

-And the wine is just great.

Four ounces of butter, softened,

so you're not going to work for hours, so I hope this is.

So she's got the wine

that's been marinating this dollop of Camembert.

And then she's just put half a packet of butter in it.

And she's whisking it.

I'm getting short of time, so I'm going to be extravagant.

It's like a posh cheese spread.

Now just dump it in the middle of the dish,

take a fork and pull it up into a rough peak.

She's didn't give much to presentation, did she?

Or maybe that is so it would be accessible, I don't know.

Pull it right up. That's better.

-Crumbs.

-It's like Close Encounters, where he makes the thing out of potatoes.

-With a pretzel on the top.

-A pretzel on the top?

You're short of time, but you should have your frock on by now.

Maybe her lack of presentation thing was to make people

feel that they could do it better at home.

It is about being accessible and empowering people to do something.

And here the little quick emergency version of the cheese,

Camembert cheese cream,

-and Bob's your uncle. You can serve that.

-Like that?

You cannot serve it like that, Fanny. Howay...

It has been lovely being back with you. Thank you so much for watching.

And I hope I have the pleasure of having with you with me next week.

Thankfully, since the '70s

the range and quality of cheeses on offer in Britain has vastly improved.

Today, more and more of us are enjoying and appreciating

these fantastic and often unique dairy delicacies.

British cheeses are now big business, with specialist cheesemakers

and big brands competing at the prestigious

International Cheese Awards in Nantwich.

The biggest of its kind in the world.

And working hard to achieve an award in this year's show

are the Applebys, our Best of British food heroes.

Three generations of this family have dedicated their lives to one thing.

Cheese!

These dairy farmers are still making their cheese

the old-fashioned way, by hand, using traditional methods.

And they are one of the few remaining producers to use a key ingredient,

unpasteurised milk.

What we feed the cows is what's in the milk.

It is everything we do, basically.

And if we pasteurised, we would kill all that out

and it would be like everybody else's milk.

It is just a standard product once you pasteurise.

In the '60s Edward Appleby's parents

made a stand against the industrialisation of cheese-making.

My father was a bit of a stickler when it got to the '60s

and supermarkets came in and they were trying to get everybody

to wax the cheese and make it all uniform and squares.

He just wasn't going to have that.

He said no, "Cheese is a natural thing and it breathes," so he said,

"I'm sticking to the cloth wrap and I'm sticking to unpasteurised."

20 years later, Edward, and wife Christine,

took over the family business and now their son Paul is involved.

My grandmother and my grandfather were very adamant

that they weren't going to change anything.

And my parents who carried it on and found a market for it, and I do feel

that it is kind of my duty to carry that on, apart from the fact

it's a great pleasure of mine and a passion,

but I do feel a sense of duty.

The dairy is something that I pretty much look after these days.

In terms of its importance to the cheese, it is paramount, really.

We can control what they're fed

so the milk is consistent all year round.

Comfortable cows make good milk and produce good cheese, we hope.

The Applebys refuse to adopt modern mass-production techniques,

insisting that the best cheese takes time and experience.

For the head cheesemaker, Gary Gray,

it's a skill that requires intuition.

You can tell something's not right when you put your hand in.

It might be the basic way of making cheese

but it's one of the hardest as well.

You want yesterday's cheese to be the same as today and tomorrow's the same as yesterday's.

The seasons give us a different

cheese in terms of the pastures that they're on.

The cows are coming in to take silage and maize,

or going out to take fresh spring grass.

He can feel it in the curd

when he puts his hand in the vat.

This is the great thing about hand-made cheese.

You can make those wonderful, fine adjustments

that just make the difference really.

I've been here 26 years and nothing's changed.

It is a team effort, it's not just me.

I wish it was, then I'd get more praise.

Once the whey is drained off, the curd is cut into blocks.

The key thing about what we're doing now

is to get the moisture out.

Salt is added and mushed into the curd.

Then it goes into a mould, then into an old-fashioned cheese press.

After 12 hours, it is turned out of the mould and ironed.

Ironing cheese? I don't even iron my shirts.

It's to seal it and prevent mould growth, Si.

The cheese is then wrapped in cloth and stored in

maturing sheds for several weeks before it's ready to eat.

OK, Sarah, I think we'll start with 25th May,

which I think is the youngest in here today.

The Applebys have entered their cheese

into the International Cheese Awards.

In charge of selecting a contender is head taster Christine.

What we're looking for when we're looking for a show cheese,

or any cheese, for that matter,

we're looking for a nice, bright cheese.

The most important thing is to just rub it in your hand

and you can see the nice little fine bits of Cheshire crumb.

That is how Cheshire cheese should be, really crumbly, just like that.

That's what's special about Cheshire cheese.

They're hoping that their historic, handmade Cheshire can compete

with the big cheeses of the modern dairy industry.

I'm always optimistic. One day we'll get the big one.

My father won it three or four times back in the '70s and '80s.

It's a huge show and we are a small fish in a big pond.

And it's not easy, we accept it's not easy,

but if you believe in your product, then you have to present it

alongside the competition,

and hopefully you'll win through in the end.

We are the last that are doing it like this,

and to think it was a great industry at one time,

and we're what's left, no, we have to keep going.

It's a must.

And when I see the grandchildren and how

they love coming out to taste it with us, it's going to keep going.

It's always hard to choose them, isn't it, Sam?

They're always so good, aren't they?

The event, in its 114th year, is the Olympics of the cheese world.

Which each cheese vying to be crowned the show's Supreme Champion.

We've spent our time selecting the right cheese, haven't we, Gary?

It's in there and it's up to the judges now.

-A case of hoping for the best.

-Hoping for the best, yes.

Hopefully, we've got a good chance.

The Applebys aren't alone, though.

Expert judges will taste over 3,500 cheeses.

That's a lot of cheese to be competing with.

That's a lot of cheese to eat.

There's nothing more the Applebys can do now, Dave.

Christine and Edward join the other anxious cheesemakers

at the notice board to see how they've done.

And it's good news!

They've won two gold medals

and the title of Champion Farmhouse Cheshire Cheese.

-Two golds!

-Two golds! How about that, Sam?

That doesn't happen many times in a lifetime.

I think I might have a drink tonight.

It's really good. Honestly, really good. I am surprised.

Many years and we've never won anything.

This year seems to be a good year.

My grandmother and my grandfather were probably the last

to take a good prize away from here, and it's very special...

..That we can do it today.

I hope my little boy might have a chance to do it again.

Thanks to families like the Applebys,

British farmhouse cheese is doing better than ever.

And their traditional Cheshire truly is a champion cheese.

Next up in our Best of British kitchen,

we are cooking up a goat's cheese recipe.

Yep, it's not just cows we have to thank for great cheese.

Goats, sheep, buffalo, and even the odd donkey contribute too.

There is no simpler meal than cheese.

But, if you really want to push the boat out,

what better way to celebrate great British cheeses than a souffle?

-The souffle.

-It's like the Hyacinth Bucket of the Cheese Cookery world.

The French may have invented the souffle,

but we have been cooking souffle since the early 19th century,

and there is no souffle better than ours, which is...

The goat's cheese and chive souffle!

The thing is, I think chefs over the years have encouraged people

to think it is unobtainable, it's difficult.

It's not!

It's not, no. And you know what? I will show you why it's not.

You know why? Because it's not that hard.

And souffles generally starts with infused milk.

Milk that's infused,

and what we do is push certain flavours through the milk

that pervades the whole entity of our risen Vesuvial mass.

Oh, yes. The souffle.

Milk goes in a pan. We bring this to a boil.

-I'll get a small onion.

-And we're going to make a little bouquet.

A little bunch of thyme to infuse the milk with onion, thyme and bay.

I mean, the French were making souffles as early as

the late 18th century, and that great French cook, Beauvilliers,

gave us his recipe for souffles.

I wish I was called Dave Beauvilliers.

So much more romantic, isn't it?

Dave Beauvilliers would be a racing driver.

Thyme, in milk to infuse.

Onion.

A leaf of bay.

Look in there. Boilio de milkio!

Bring the milk to a gentle simmer and remove from the heat.

And just leave that for 15 minutes

and you will have a pan of infused milk to make your sauce.

Shall we have a sit down?

Well, I think that has experienced the infusion transfusion.

-It probably has.

-I shall strain it off.

-Marvellous.

Give us this little pan here.

Now, we are so confident that our souffle is going to rise

it's going to go beyond the dish, the souffle dish.

It's going to be massive. We want it up to there.

What I have done is built an extension to the dish.

It's just a piece of greaseproof paper or baking parchment

folded over and tied round,

which has effectively given us a souffle dish like a chimney.

Now I've really got to liberally cover that with butter.

While Dave's doing that I'll make the cheese sauce.

Same thing as usual, we start with a roux and it is going to be thicker.

-It's a special white sauce.

-It is, it's beautiful.

-British goat's cheese - that is a treasure, isn't it?

-Look at that.

Absolutely gorgeous.

Look at the colour of it. It's beautiful.

It is like a bleached polar bear. You cannot get any whiter or purer.

You know?

Lots of butter. The souffle is a dish with pretence.

I cannot even say souffle. Even I go French on a "souffle".

Next, add 50 grams of plain flour to the melted butter.

Then separate four eggs and leave to one side.

Right, what I'm going to start to do now is

add this beautiful infused milk to the roux.

Look at that.

That's what we mean when we mean thick.

You could put windows in with that, couldn't you?

By heck, this cheese is good. It's a useful creature, the goat.

It's been around since Neolithic times,

and it's the most eaten meat on the planet.

I don't know why it's never really caught on in Britain.

-Because, by crikey, it's tasty.

-It is.

-You can eat its meat, it produces milk.

-It's no good at dancing.

No, that's true. You cannot dance with it at a dinner party.

-And they do smell, goats.

-They do.

-They do, they honk.

An interesting thing, a goat can die of loneliness.

How mad is that?

Because they're a herd creature,

so if you have a goat and you only got one of them

and he's looking a bit miserable,

buy another one, because they need a friend.

Put half of this cheese into here to make an even thicker sauce.

Quite how, I'm not sure. We'll put it in there like that.

I can't resist, I've got to have a taste of this wonderful cheese.

People say goat's cheese and I think they get confused with Greek feta.

They think it's going to be salty and crumbly,

but this just melts in your mouth.

Beautiful.

Right, mate, we're ready for them eggs.

Now, take it off the heat and just add these bit by bit.

And whisk like Billy-O.

-Who is Billy-O? I wonder.

-Look at that.

It's turned these beautiful slightly golden colour and lustre

with those egg yolks.

Now, remember, it is off the heat,

we do not want to cook this any more at this point.

Chives.

Chives are wonderful. And chive is the smallest member of the onion family.

Again, it's a food pairing,

a marriage with the goat's cheese made in heaven.

-And don't be shy with the chives.

-Oh no, absolutely.

Just whisk them into the cheese mixture.

It's funny. It's so heavy, you think, that's never going to rise.

It is.

Next whisk the egg whites into stiff peaks

and add a pinch of salt, as this will help to furl the eggs.

I think we are there. Don't overdo it.

It could go dry and then it will turn back to liquid.

Now, is it firm enough to stay in the bowl without falling out?

Yes, it is!

That's perfect.

Housewives all over the country, children, and men who cook,

have a go, it's a laugh.

Now, we put one spoonful in, and you can mix it in quite roughly.

That's just to get it moving, because that's quite stiff.

Now, into that, we fold in the remaining goat's cheese.

This is the chunks.

Remember, the rest of the cheese is in a sauce

but we want little cheesy, chunky bits to come through the souffle.

And then that we are going to fold the egg whites in.

Delia Smith always says you always fold with a metal implement.

Why? Because it has a thin edge.

The thin edge... And you fold with a cutting movement.

The cutting movement, you're folding, not mixing.

We want to lose as little of this volume as we can.

So now we start the fold.

-So, look, like that.

-It's a fine balance, isn't it?

And just be patient with it. Don't be hasty.

-I think that's pretty even, isn't it?

-No, it won't get no better.

Finally, feel the pre-prepared buttered dish with the mixture.

Just for that little bit extra, we're going to sprinkle in Parmesan cheese.

It's important the Parmesan cheese doesn't touch the brown paper.

If it does, it will stick, so keep the Parmesan cheese

around the centre, and if it sticks,

it'll stop the souffle rising.

And put this into a preheated oven at 200 Celsius in a fan oven,

220 degrees in a non.

And put it in there for half an hour.

Now, you shut the door and leave it.

Ho-ho-ho! You know what I said about it rising? We weren't kidding you.

Look at that. That's a souffle. Go on, Kingy.

With all the quality of a provincial mayoress, cut the string.

We declare this souffle open.

-Now, look at that.

-Oh, man!

-What a beautiful, lovely thing.

-That is beautiful, isn't it?

But inside it's just going to wobble.

Are we ready?

That's a souffle.

Look at it, cooked on the outside and just cooked so in the middle.

-I guarantee a taste of paradise.

-Great.

But, you know, this is cheese, but its cheese with its best suit on.

-It even makes you think posh, doesn't it?

-It does.

-It's hot.

-It makes every night an occasion, doesn't it?

-Now, there we have it.

-There's nowt cheesy about this.

-No.

This dish is best served with a frilly green salad

dressed with a balsamic vinaigrette.

Just look at that golden mountain of fluffiness.

Cheese is undoubtedly one of the best man-made things in the world.

From the hard cheeses of Cheshire to the soft curds of the Crowdie.

Throughout the length and breadth of the British Isles

there's a native cheese to suit all tastes.

Truly worthy of our admiration.

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

visit:

to discover some amazing facts about the history of food.

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