Vegetarian Hairy Bikers' Best of British

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

Not only can we boast fantastic ingredients...

Piece de resistance.

-Which is which?

-Lamb, mutton.

..outstanding food producers...

It's brilliant, isn't it?

..and innovative chefs, but we also have an amazing food history.

-Oh, brilliant.

-Oh, wow!

Don't eat them like that, you'd 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.

-Wow!

And meet the heroes who keep our culinary past alive.

Pontefract liquorice, it's been my life and I loved every minute of it.

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, the best of British!

-Coming on lovely.

-Aren't they? They're lush.

Fantastic. Now, us Brits are thought of as a nation of meat eaters, well, that's not entirely true

because there's about three million of us choosing never to eat the stuff.

And, looking at this lot, it doesn't seem to be much of a sacrifice.

Vegetables - they're good for you, they're cheap, they're plentiful,

and, in this country, we have the most incredible range of veg.

And that's the good thing about our climate, isn't it? The mixture of sunshine and showers

produces some of the most fantastic veggies.

You might not think it, but Britain has an incredibly rich vegetarian heritage.

We owe some great food to the cultural,

religious and ethical convictions of British vegetarian pioneers.

From the religious zealots of the Victorian era...

..to well-meaning veggie revolutionaries of the '60s and the '70s...

..and everyday families whose vegetarianism is steeped in thousands of years of history.

In this programme, we'll be getting a taste of modern innovation...

..and cooking up some of the dishes that sent meat-free cooking into the mainstream...

..as we explore Britain's love of all things vegetarian.

First up in the Great British Kitchen,

we're going to cook a recipe that you've probably all heard of, but never eaten.

I'm going to take you back to the summer of love.

So dust off your loon pants.

Get your kaftan out.

We're going to make homity pie.

Oh, yes!

And homity pie was invented by the women of the land army in the Second World War.

And it was...well, hearty.

It was a substantial vegetarian dish

that you could actually make with the contents of your ration book.

Now, this delicious veggie treat is very simple to make but really flavoursome -

it's a humble and filling British classic.

We're going to take the vintage line-up of potato,

onion and cheese in a pastry case,

and give it a Hairy Biker twist

by adding spinach leaves, cream and a hint of nutmeg.

Now, what I've got here,

I'm lining this deep pie dish with a wholemeal pastry base.

I've used half wholemeal and half plain flour

because, quite frankly, if I'd used all wholemeal,

my pastry's going to come out like a flip-flop.

'The pastry is really easy.

'You just blend 250 grams of half plain,

'half wholemeal flour, with 150 grams of butter.

'Then add a beaten egg and whizz it until it becomes a rough dough.'

Now, it's a deep fill base.

Homity pie was always deep.

So I don't even have to throw a rolling pin.

I can feel the pastry with my fingers.

And I just form it around the pie tin.

Press it into the dish, up the sides of the dish.

And you'll end up with this wonderful pastry case.

-Look at the fibre in that...

-Look at that.

-Crikey!

More fibrous than a coconut husk.

For the bulk of the filling, you'll need three chopped onions

and 850 grams of boiled potatoes.

I'm just going to kind of break them up with a wooden spatula.

I've got a non-stick pan, so obviously I won't use metal.

Be fairly rustic about this.

More chunky spuds.

Saute the onions in butter for 15 minutes,

then grate a couple of garlic cloves in,

and cook for another two.

Simple yet effective! Takes me right back to the '70s.

I should have got me Aran jumper out.

-I should've worn my cords. I used to wear cords.

-Did you?

-Yeah, baggy ones, you know, for that kind of bohemian intellectual look.

-Did you?

Big glasses like that, and alopecia.

THEY SING: # Those were the days, my friend

# I thought they'd never end

# They'd sing and dance forever and a day. #

Add the onions to the tatties.

That's all the cooking you need to do.

Give it a pinch of pepper and some sea salt.

Then chuck in 100 grams of green and healthy spinach.

Brown paper bag, eh?

Throw me a piece of karma, man.

See...?

And now it's gone.

Nutmeg always works a treat with spinach.

It's a lovely colour, isn't it?

'Next, chop two tablespoons of parsley leaves and stir them in.'

The purity of curly parsley... It's beautiful.

'To give it some richness, you need 100 grams of mature cheese, but not any old stuff!

'Don't forget, this is a veggie recipe.'

This is of course vegetarian cheddar. It's rennet free.

Now, all we simply do is to pop that into the wholemeal base.

We won't pack it too tightly, though, cos we want the cream to run through it.

Yeah.

I think that's enough, don't you?

-Oh, that's tasty!

-It would be.

-We'll put another one in.

-All right, mate.

Actually, Dave, it might all go in.

No, no, we've got cheese on yet...no, no!

No!

Right, that's fine.

'You just can't help who you work with!

'Grate some extra cheese onto the top.'

And now, pop on fruit of the cow.

'That's 250mls of cream to you and I.'

'And it's ready to shove in the oven

'at 180 degrees Celsius for 40 minutes.'

And this homity pie, which started life as a frugal feast for the land girls,

was revived by Cranks,

that well-known vegetarian outlet that struck up in the 1960s

in Carnaby Street.

I can remember going there in the '80s

and it was amazing, homity pie was on the menu.

Everything was brown, rustic and rough.

Cranks was opened on Carnaby street in 1961

and by the '70s they had restaurants and shops across London.

The name refers to the stigma attached to vegetarians at the time,

who were seen as a bit eccentric.

But the restaurant became so influential

even the queen of cooking herself, Delia Smith,

went to check it out and meet the founders, David and Kay Canter.

I know that both you and David are vegetarian, but you haven't always been, so how did you come to it?

Well, we were brought up as normal meat-eaters and then we both had back trouble

and we were advised to go onto a whole food diet

and then I started making my own bread

and gradually we came around to not liking meat.

We didn't like our Sunday joint so we gave that up. We didn't like chicken any more and so forth,

and eventually we came round to being vegetarians.

That's absolutely... we didn't set out to be vegetarians, it just happened.

And how's the back trouble?

Oh, much better. Absolutely marvellous.

Good. Is it difficult to lead a vegetarian life and get enough essential protein?

It's not difficult at all, no.

It just requires a little more imagination as a housewife.

Ah, times have changed -

though Cranks did have to use their imagination to come up with a menu,

especially as their dishes used only organic wholefood.

They only used 100% whole-wheat stone-ground flour, not only in their bread,

but also in pizzas, rolls, scones, cakes, flans.

It could all be a bit of a chew!

The wholefood chain became incredibly popular

and made vegetarian food fashionable to eat,

helping spread the idea far and wide.

Can I have a fruit yoghurt, please?

At one time, you could eat at one of their six restaurants,

whilst their shops catered for people that wanted to try veggie and wholefood cooking themselves.

Can you tell me a bit about wholefood rice, brown rice?

Yes. This is the unpolished rice.

It's grown organically and it's simply delicious.

Once you've tasted brown rice,

you'll never have any other rice again.

It's got such a delicious flavour.

Thanks to venues like this, vegetarianism moved out of the home,

lost its eccentric image and became mainstream,

as good food that anyone could enjoy.

The great thing about our British food heritage is how it has absorbed different influences,

like vegetarian cuisine.

And our updated homity pie pays homage to the innovation of the Cranks era.

Oh, that looks good.

It's handsome!

-Oh, nice!

-This looks like a super-charged quiche.

'Let it cool for a bit, then carefully lift off the sides.'

'Make sure you've used a spring clip cake tin.'

-Pastry's stood up.

-Ooh!

Mind you, I think it'd survive anything, that.

D'you know, I'm liking the look of this. It's cutting well.

-Eh, that pastry's good.

-Hmm.

Eh, mate...that's all right.

Looks like chicken and mushroom...

..without the violence.

-I quite like that. It'd be great with bacon.

-Shut up.

-It's really good.

-It is, isn't it?

It tastes good, it looks good, and it just does you good!

I can feel the love.

That's enough.

Homity pie has had an interesting journey -

from something people created to eat out of necessity,

to being reinvented as the iconic food of the '60s veggie movement.

But now perhaps it can simply be seen as great food in its own right.

Up there with any meaty pies.

Our vegetarian food heritage owes a lot to the post-war generation,

whose focus was on animal welfare.

ARCHIVE FOOTAGE: 'This is the kind of protest movement that young vegetarians do feel able to get into.

'The girls are on the march against the factory farm.'

But attitudes of the era were hard to change.

Industrialised farming had been a hero of the Second World War,

massively increasing our food supply at a time of crisis -

but now it was in the firing line.

What do you most see against this sort of thing?

Exploitation of living creatures...

for mankind.

But vegetarianism in Britain goes back much further -

and it was just as controversial and political.

To find out more, we're off to leafy Altrincham in Cheshire, to visit the Vegetarian Society.

It's the oldest organisation of its kind in the world!

There's been a lot of bad press about vegetarians.

You know, chunky knit sweaters, nutty yoghurt, mung bean-styled nut roasts, hippies.

But there is a consistent voice to vegetarianism

that's as passionate about the food itself as the politics.

So we've come to vegetarian HQ here in Cheshire

to find out about the long and distinguished movement that is vegetarianism.

We're here to meet Liz O'Neill,

who knows all about the history of the movement.

-Hello, Liz.

-Hello! Good to meet you.

-Liz, I'm Si, nice to meet you. How are you?

Thanks for coming over to the Vegetarian Society today.

Myself and most people tend to think that vegetarianism in the UK -

being a nation of inveterate meat-eaters -

is quite new, but it's not, is it?

-No.

-How far back does vegetarianism in Britain go?

Way back. I mean, 1847 is the founding of this organisation,

but back in 1809

-a guy called the Reverend Cowherd...

-Cowherd!

-..I know, brilliant name!

He founded the Bible Christian Church in Salford

and he preached abstinence from meat

along with a very strong social reform agenda.

He encouraged his congregation into education.

He provided a free burial ground,

which was really important at the time.

Cowherd saw meat in religious terms,

as the ultimate symbol of the fall of man.

He believed that eating flesh inflamed the passions

and excited sensuality!

He died at the age of 50, but the cause was taken up

by Joseph Brotherton MP, who became one of the founders

of the Vegetarian Society.

He and his fellow veggies believed there was a link

between eating meat and violence in society.

All of which made them easy figures of fun for the press.

Let me read you some stuff from the first AGM.

There's a nice quote here from Brotherton,

who was addressing the meeting, and he says,

"There are two classes of persons in society.

"One we may say lives to eat, the other eats to live.

"I am willing to hope that we who are assembled on the present occasion

"are of the second class. Our object is the pursuit of truth."

Dave and I still use that phrase.

I often say that there are two types of people -

people that live to eat and people that eat to live.

I'm guessing you don't put yourselves in the same class as Brotherton though.

-No, no.

-Not at all. Not at all.

And I'm not sure many vegetarians today would.

-We've got the menu laid out here.

-Large savoury omelette, vegetables,

rice fritters, vegetables,

beetroot!

Small vase of flowers...

Followed by onion and sage fritters! With vegetables.

Large vase of flowers.

We only had a small vase at the beginning,

but now as you go through they change the vase.

We think this is actually laid out.

-This is how the table is laid.

-Oh! Of course, yeah.

Hence the mention of the flowers.

-Mushroom pie, vegetables. Bread and parsley fritters...

-And water.

The ONLY beverage.

Do you think the fact vegetarianism has been seen like it is here as rather pious,

that hasn't done the vegetarian image any favours?

It certainly wasn't... This is in no way about indulgence.

It is absolutely eating to live.

I mean, I think that's something that has massively changed in modern times.

And actually vegetarian food is now a wonderful and exciting part

of the range of vegetarian food.

The Vegetarian Society's run a cookery school for almost 30 years

and the vast majority of people who come through are not vegetarians themselves,

they just want to learn to cook great food.

Well, it's back to school for us.

We're going to learn some skills at the Vegetarian Society's very own cooking academy,

run by chef Alex Connell.

Today what I'd like to do is teach you how to make

one of my favourite dishes which is called ocean pie.

Alex's ocean pie hasn't got fish in it, obviously,

but it's got seaweed to give you that flavour of the sea,

as well as the veggie ingredient of choice - tofu.

I sometimes think what's been the curse of vegetarian food

is the lack of care and sophistication of ingredients.

I'm like you, I think tofu in general is a brilliant ingredient, but you need to work it.

Yeah, if you play around with it, add loads of flavour to it,

you get all sorts of textures.

You obviously have done cooking before?

-No, never. No, it's my first time.

-Really?

-Yeah.

It's falling apart on me!

I just lifted that off cos it was just starting to crisp.

-Your tofu!

-My tofu's done, is it?

Just...it should be fine now to turn over.

Look at that. It's lovely.

You've got to watch tofu - it's a delicate ingredient.

Is it working out? This is nice.

Very good.

-I like this recipe, Alex. I think it's going to taste great.

-Thank you.

The tofu we're using is the smoked type and we're seasoning it with paprika and soy sauce.

Oh, voila!

The other main ingredients are oyster and button mushrooms,

fried up with shallots and the seaweed.

This really is extraordinary -

with the seaweed and smoked garlic and the oyster mushrooms, it really does taste of the sea.

There's a logic to this which really is working.

'The ocean pie is made in a series of layers, starting with the mushroom mix...'

'..which is topped with the tofu and then a pea and parsley white sauce.'

It's a very good example of how vegetarian cuisine works with lots of interesting seasonings,

also lots of interesting textures.

Really good, really well thought-out recipe. It's fab.

Perfect.

-Have you done that before?

-Yeah!

'And last of all, you pipe some mash potato on the top,

'and sprinkle on some cheese.'

I've gone for the rope effect,

and Mr King has gone for the multiple duchess.

Voila!

Sir!

-What's going on?

-Finished!

Ready for the oven! We've finished!

-Come here.

-I'm a bit scared.

-Come here.

Genuinely, I am scared.

Oh...blocked.

Tilt!

Do you not do that with cheese spread in the tube?

It's good, innit?

It's really good. Next time we have a class, I will show the students.

-It's an ice-breaker, chef.

-It is.

'I think we've given something back there.'

'After 20 minutes in the oven, the pies are ready.'

There is one lovely ocean pie.

CHEERING

-Look at the piping skills there!

-Oh, Mr King! Little belter.

Hey, that's a well-risen pie, madam.

-There we go, young man.

-Nice!

Last but not least, there we go.

Oh, nice, well done, that looks brilliant!

Well, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so they say.

This is really good.

I shall definitely do this at home. Just fantastic.

I think I did it a bit wrong, cos it's still a bit not cooked.

I enjoyed it and it tastes delicious.

I think our British vegetarian food heritage, is doing very nicely -

like the rest of our food, it's worth celebrating.

-It's got a past, it's got a present.

-That's right.

-It's certainly got a future.

-Absolutely, absolutely.

'Vegetarian cuisine has come a very long way from its temperance days.

'Back then, it was all about the denial of pleasure,

'but now it's the exact opposite of "eating to live".'

Nowadays, meat-free food is good enough to entice anybody.

It's not just the standard of British veggie cooking

that's improved over the years - it's also the sheer variety.

One of the greatest additions to vegetarian food in Britain

has been Indian cooking.

The main religion of India is Hinduism, and, traditionally,

many Hindus believe a vegetarian diet benefits body and soul.

And their dishes have an incredible variety of flavours

and textures that will knock your socks off.

Luckily for Manchester, Monica and her mum Anita

are so passionate to spread the word about vegetarian Indian cuisine,

they've set up a private supper society called The Spice Club.

It's an underground restaurant that we run from our home.

We like to show there's more to Indian food than just curry.

We like to serve food that you can't really get in Indian restaurants -

food that I grew up on, and food that my mum grew up on in India.

There's so much variety.

There's so many different types of dishes in Indian cuisine.

It's nice to be able to show some of those dishes

at The Spice Club to some guests.

They don't have that concept that Indian food is so vast and diverse.

I think it's quite special.

It does bring a big smile on your face.

Immigration in the '60s and '70s

brought thousands of families from India to Britain.

They mainly settled in cities, and many took up employment in factories

or the NHS.

And with them came a huge diversity of regional cuisines.

Anita grew up in the Hindu tradition of the Punjab,

where delicious vegetarian food is part of family life.

I've learned so many vegetarian dishes from my mother,

and this is how I have learned and taught Monica.

I think this is how she developed all the interest in food.

Mum wanted me to be a good Indian daughter and have all the values,

so she made sure that I knew how to cook.

I'm a proud mum.

She makes lovely food.

When Anita left India for Britain in the 1980s,

it wasn't easy getting ingredients for northern Indian food,

and she had to travel miles to do her weekly shop.

But, since the '80s, Britain's Asian, African

and Middle Eastern communities have imported foods

from around the globe, which today we all enjoy.

There's just aisles of dhals and lentils, and it's really easy.

It's nice to see Indian food so easily accessible

in day-to-day English culture - it's great to see that.

If it's fresh, it's green.

Yes, it's good. ..It's good.

Just as well, because 13 guests have signed up

to tonight's supper club via social networks online.

Monica and Anita want to wow them

with the best of India's vegetarian cuisine.

They've planned a spectacular five course banquet -

a carefully crafted combination of taste, texture and colour.

Indian vegetarian food is really satisfying.

I think, also, the way the dishes are made up of so many different

types of flavours and spices.

You just kind of forget about the meat factor.

The main course consists of five dishes.

The first is lentil dumplings with a chewy texture that comes from

first frying, then soaking them in water.

So, we eat this at home quite regularly.

We top them with three different types of chutneys. We use yoghurt.

That just adds flavour to it and makes it look really colourful,

and it tastes really nice.

Punjabis can't go without a yoghurt dish

or else something like this.

It's a nice little add-on.

Very, very healthy dish.

Yes.

At the same time, it's yummy.

Colour comes in the form of pindi chole - a chickpea dish.

-This is a typical Punjabi dish really.

-Yes.

They come in two colours - white and black.

The good thing about chickpeas is...

It's not really black, black, is it? It's light brown.

And they come in green colour, too.

Mums know best.

It's quite filling.

But the star of the feast is kofta masala, made using lotus root.

Hi, Dad. What have you got?

An Asian vegetable which Monica's dad has been out to buy.

It's been grated, mixed with flour, herbs and spices,

and rolled into balls.

They are a family favourite, even with non-vegetarians.

These are the balls which taste better than meat.

You can bite into it and they are meaty.

They're absolutely delicious.

The secret to this kind of cuisine

is the layering of flavours and spices,

so the kofta balls are served with a masala - that's Indian for gravy.

It's made with tomato and cream, and, you've guessed it, more spices.

It's a balance of ingredients, a balance of different spices.

Each spice has its own flavour,

it has its own benefit.

That's the nice thing about this food -

it's made of so many different types of spices,

and they're blended together and it just creates

a unique flavour profile that's unlike any other cuisine.

And, as if the kofta balls aren't satisfying enough,

they're joined by fresh peas and chunks of paneer.

Paneer is a really typical Indian cheese.

It's a great meat alternative as well.

We're just adding this to the kofta masala dish

to again add a little bit of meatiness to it.

And a little bit more flavour as well.

Almost 12 hours after they first started cooking,

four types of lentils, seven different sauces, and 26 spices later,

the five course vegetarian feast is ready.

Fingers crossed everything turns out well and everyone enjoys it.

Just in time because... The supper club guests are here.

Hi.

Monica and Anita are hoping their guests' perception

of vegetarian food is about to change for ever.

We'd like to think we're taking you on a bit of a culinary journey

from the north of Manchester, all the way to the north of India.

The Indian street food starter katori chaat goes down really well.

It's really good. A flavour explosion.

Next, the lotus root balls, shahi kofta masala,

accompanied by the chickpeas, okra, dahl and the dumplings.

It was absolutely amazing.

I've never been a fan of okra, and the stuffed okra

has converted me, it's a gorgeous dish.

The lotus leaf koftas were delicious.

As meat eaters, we didn't miss the meat.

They were like meatballs, very fleshy, delicious tasting.

The highlight of the meal.

Far better vegetarian food than I've ever eaten out in any restaurant, I have to say.

I'm really proud of my wife and my daughter,

for the simple reason they're making people taste the real,

authentic Indian food that Indians eat in their own house.

Empty plates, a good sign.

No Indian meal would be complete

without a traditional Indian pudding.

I've never had cardamom ice cream before but it was gorgeous,

definitely have it again.

Vegetarian cooking doesn't get better than Monica and Anita's -

dishes like theirs have gone from being Indian specialities

to much loved British favourites.

So relieved everything went down well and I think the vegetarian food,

everyone really enjoyed it. It's been a brilliant night.

This is the result when you eat vegetarian food!

Our final Best Of British recipe fuses old and new

as we liven up a Welsh classic.

One of our favourite vegetarian dishes, this, Dave, is it not?

That's absolutely true.

It's got a bit of history and we love them, Glamorgan sausages.

And we're going to serve them with an onion and chilli relish,

a little bit of sweet, little bit of sour, a little bit of heat.

It's going to be really nice. So Dave is going to do the sausages

and I'm going to do the relish.

These veggie treats are full of leek, breadcrumbs,

herbs and good old Welsh Caerphilly cheese.

And King's chilli relish will give them a spicy sweet kick.

Start the relish by chopping up a large red onion,

which we're going to sweat in a saucepan for about 20 minutes.

Not really surprising, as they're Welsh,

but the sausages contain leek.

You only need one, sliced in half and chopped.

It's odd with vegetarian food

when people try to make it sound like meat.

And somehow it does the Glamorgan sausage a disservice

because there's no way on earth it tastes like sausage.

It doesn't need to pretend to be a sausage.

The Glamorgan sausage should stand up, be loud and proud,

and say, "I'm tasty and I've got no animal thingies in me."

A big knob of butter goes into a pan.

One finely-honed Welsh leek goes in there to sweat down.

This takes about five or six minutes. And do this gently.

No-one is quite sure how far back the Glamorgan sausage goes,

but it was first mentioned in a book called Wild Wales

written in 1862 by George Borrows.

This old fella wandered around the place. He was an explorer.

When he wandered through Wales and sampled the culture

in all its wonderfully varied ways. And he says,

"I put on my things, which were still not half dry, and went

"down into the parlour where I found an excellent fire awaiting me.

"The table spread for breakfast.

"The breakfast was delicious, consisting of excellent tea,

"buttered toast and Glamorgan sausages."

-George would have loved our sausages.

-That's good, isn't it?

Thing is, in the 1860s, there was a scarcity of meat,

so chances are the Glamorgan sausage was indeed vegetarian.

My leeks are just about done.

In this bowl I'll put a goodly quantity of breadcrumbs.

I've got to say some because I'm going to dust

the sausages in egg and breadcrumbs before I fry them.

I'm going to let these onions sweat.

They're going to go limp and slightly coloured

but we don't want them caramelised.

We just want them to be just sweated nicely.

And then I'm going to add one lovely red chilli, seeds as well.

Vegetarian food doesn't have to be bland.

You can really make it lovely with punchy flavours.

That's the vegetarian sort of food I like.

It's such a lovely recipe, this. Really, really, really tasty.

As well as the chilli,

I'm going to chop two cloves of garlic to add to my relish.

The sausages are going to get a lovely herby flavour from

two tablespoons of chopped parsley and a tablespoon of

chopped thyme leaves.

What I'll do is take these stalks of thyme and strip the leaves off.

-And the cheese. It's just superb.

-Look at that Caerphilly.

That's sincerely one of my favourite cheeses in the world.

-Let's just have a slither, eh?

-Oh, yeah.

Thanks, mate. Can't resist this.

Oh, man.

The British Isles produce some of the finest cheeses in the world,

bar none.

Absolutely superb.

I'm just grating this quite finely into the breadcrumbs,

parsley and the thyme.

Although these sausages are great with Caerphilly,

they originally used Glamorgan cheese made from the milk

of local cows.

However by 1920, Glamorgan cows were thought to be extinct.

But in 1979, an East Sussex farmer put his herd up for sale,

which contained Glamorgan Castle.

Glamorgan Council bought the cattle

and started to save the Glamorgan cow from extinction.

There has never been enough milk to produce

Glamorgan cheese again

but its close relative, Caerphilly, is available to us all

and it's absolutely excellent to make Glamorgan sausages.

I'll mix that together, the cheese, the breadcrumbs,

the parsley and thyme.

Let's look at these onions because that's how we want them.

Nice, soft, fabulous.

Now it's time to add the garlic and the chilli.

And this is a fiery little number this chilli,

so I'm only going to put half in.

And then we're just going to saute that off for about five minutes.

# In the cool of the evening when everything... #

Separate the yolks and whites of two eggs into different bowls.

Then add a teaspoon of English or Welsh mustard to the yolks.

Unlike any sausage, give it plenty of seasoning.

-Mix the yolks together a bit...

-Now let's start the build.

Put those softened, cooled leaks in there

and now the egg yolk, mustard and seasoning.

Mix that together.

And this is your vegetarian sausage meat, if such a thing exists.

While Dave is mixing that,

I'm going to add 75 grams of Muscovado sugar to the relish.

Now, that's going to be very, very sweet that relish,

so to temper that sweetness,

we're going to add five tablespoons of white wine vinegar.

We're going to give that a good mix round

and cook for a further five to ten minutes.

What I've done here, I've worked that mixture into like a dough

and it kind of looks like psychedelic sausage meat.

Wow!

Cut it into eight equal portions

and roll each piece into a sausage shape.

If you're going to call it a sausage,

let's have it looking like a sausage,

not a rissole.

Look at that.

I want George Burrows to be proud of that.

We can't be sure what we're making is the same thing that

George Burrows ate back in 1862 but what we do know

is that it was very popular in that great era of meat-free cooking.

No, not the '60s, the Second World War.

What you should do at this stage is put them in the fridge

to firm up for an hour but to be frank, I can't wait.

Remember those egg whites?

Lightly whisk them but don't go too hard or else they'll go frothy.

We're going to use them to coat the sausages in breadcrumbs.

Take your sausage.

Roll out in the egg white and then roll it in the breadcrumbs.

They're lovely, quite dense. They're not lacking in flavour.

And don't be fooled by their appearance.

There's far more to these than a croquette.

We're going to be shallow frying these little lovelies

so heat some oil over a medium heat.

To check it's ready, chuck in a few breadcrumbs and see if they sizzle.

That's all right, isn't it?

That's it.

And don't start moving these around until you've got a nice,

golden crust. There you are - a pan of Glamorgan bangers.

Right, I'm going to get my chilli and onion relish out.

Turn the sausages every now and then until they're cooked through.

It should only take around ten minutes.

Do you know, there might be something to this vegetarian lark.

There might be, yeah.

A lack of meat.

I reckon with a little imagination, we're not going to miss it.

Let's give them a little drain.

They've held together brilliantly.

There you are. Eight to the pound.

Good old-fashioned stuff.

Look at that beauty.

Home-made Glamorgan sausages with chilli and onion relish.

-A vegetarian dish with heritage.

-Indeed that.

They're nice and crispy, aren't they?

Look at that.

Well, if you come home to that,

you'd certainly know that there was a welcome the valleys.

Hear hear to that.

It's kind of cheese, pickles and hot sausagey things.

It's a great meal.

Well, this still remains one of our favourite vegetarian dishes.

Now that's as good as any meaty banger.

They're really simple and they make a great snack or meal,

whether you use our relish or go old school with mustard or ketchup.

In a country that was once the heaviest consumer of meat in Europe,

embracing vegetarianism was always going to be a lengthy struggle.

But in the process, it made us all think about what goes into our food

and broadened our horizons on tastes, textures and ingredients.

And with the new era of inspiring, modern veggie food

and delicious home cooking, we shouldn't forget the classics

that fed our curiosity, like homity pie and Glamorgan sausages.

Whether or not you embrace the philosophy,

it's a tradition with some seriously tasty grub.

And British cooking is all the better for it.

Visit:

..to discover some amazing facts about the history of food.

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

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

E-mail [email protected]