Feel Good Food 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...' That's impressive.

And innovative chefs...

Oh, man!

But we also have an amazing food history.

Oh, wow!

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

Now during this series, we're going to be taking you on a journey

into our culinary past.

Everything's ready, let's get cracking.

We'll explore its revealing stories.

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 - the Best of British!

We love the British landscape.

It's so luscious and fertile,

and our climate offers so much seasonal variety.

It makes you feel good, just...breathing in the air.

Just looking at it.

But food does that for us as well, doesn't it, dude?

It does. Sometimes the right bowl of nosh can change the way you feel.

Think about a nice big bowl of creamy, fluffy mashed potato.

Ooh, yeah. Or cream of mushroom soup. It just takes you to another plane, doesn't it?

Throughout the history of our nation,

we've thrived on a huge variety of produce offered up by our green and pleasant land.

Not only has it kept us nourished and healthy,

it's given us comfort during hard times.

So, in today's show, we're going to sample the very best health and comfort food

our sceptred isle can provide.

And first, we're off to the Best of British Kitchen

to show you our five factors of feel-good food.

Feel-good food. It works in many different ways.

There's food to make you feel good when you're poorly.

And food that makes you feel comforted, that you look forward to when you get home.

There's food you reward yourself with,

like a treat to make yourself feel good.

And there's food that just is plain and simple utter satisfaction.

That's what you want, that's what you fancy, and it makes you feel warm and cuddly inside.

And there's food that has a smug factor, cos it's something you can cook,

you show it to other people, they think you're fabulous.

All those five things are things that make you feel good.

We've got a recipe that fulfils all this criteria.

It is our Hairy Bikers' fragrant chicken noodle soup!

One of the things we love about British food

is how it's absorbed so many influences from other world cuisines.

And there's no better example than chicken noodle soup.

There are many different Asian and Jewish varieties on our menus,

and this one is a fusion of our favourites.

We've crossed a hot, sour, fragrant and spicy Thai soup

with a traditional Yiddish chicken noodle broth.

And we're making minced chicken balls,

that are easy to eat, but spicy enough to perk you up and get you back on your feet again.

My first task is to make some spicy chicken balls.

They're going to float in the soup.

So they're a treat for yourself as you wade through the noodles and broth.

What I'm going to do is make and infuse that broth with all manner of lovely things.

So the first thing we start with

is one litre of really, really good chicken stock.

Look at that.

While Si prepares the ingredients for the infusion,

I'm getting on with the chicken balls.

250g of minced chicken.

A mixture of thigh and breast is good for this.

Put those in a bowl, with two finely chopped spring onions.

There are two bird's-eye chillies here, that I'm splitting lengthways.

All the way through.

Chillies make you feel good, don't they?

-They do.

-They spice up your life, they make you feel warm,

and they release endorphins so, actually, they do make you feel good.

I'm going to finely chop a lovely piece of lemon grass,

and that is the fragrance that I absolutely love.

So even the scent of this soup makes you feel good.

Including the green bits, go in.

One chopped spring onion goes into the chicken

along with a big handful of coriander.

Coriander makes you feel good because it tastes great.

Again, it's fragrant, but it's said that it helps your digestion.

The very thought of chicken noodle soup,

it's comforting when you're poorly. It's nickname is Jewish penicillin.

I'm finely slicing a good, thumb-sized piece of ginger.

And these chicken balls are going to be quite small

so I want all my ingredients chopped fine.

And we need one chopped bird's-eye chilli,

and a large pinch of salt and black pepper.

One tablespoon of cornflour, so that it sticks together.

And I almost forgot. One finely crushed clove of garlic.

With clean hands, work this together, and it kind of makes a chicken paste.

The minced chicken meat is almost like jelly

but the cornflour holds it together.

It's lush, man. They're lovely. It's that sort

-of food that just makes you smile.

-Oh, yeah.

That's what it is, that's feel-good food.

All the emotions that you have around food, this soup, for us,

brings it out.

-Si, look at the colour of those, the meatballs.

-Absolutely beautiful.

We want small meatballs on this,

so this will make about 16-20 chicken balls.

Now I need to dust my hands with cornflour, and the surface,

or else the chicken will stick to me hands.

I take great delight in getting all me

balls perfectly formed and the same size.

Now the balls are done, we need to get our chicken stock

infusing its magic ingredients.

Five crushed Kaffir lime leaves,

two sliced bird's-eye chillies, a thumb-sized piece of ginger,

three halved cloves of garlic, a piece of lemon grass and a shallot.

-It's one porky broth.

-It certainly is.

We're going to let that simmer for about 15 minutes

so all of those lovely flavours are infused in that chicken stock.

At that point, we'll strain it,

and add some more.

The smell of that is coming over now, the kaffir lime leaves. Oh, man!

These chicken balls are quite easy to form. It's not mission impossible.

And once, for us, this is a very healthy dish.

There's no fat in this dish whatsoever, is there?

No, just a bit in the chicken broth, maybe, but that's it.

So nice and so few calories too - what's happened to us?!

-Guilt-free eating.

-We'll be going on a diet next.

-Steady on.

That's starting to infuse, look at those beautiful flavours

all seeping in to that fantastic chicken stock.

-And the smell is just beautiful.

-I know.

Do you know, man, I look at me balls and glow with pride.

I'm not surprised, they're perfect.

If there's anybody going to roll a ball to perfection, it's that.

When broth and balls come together, there truly is magic in the kitchen.

-What?

-Maybe we should call ourselves that, Brath and Balls.

After 15 minutes, the infusion has done its job and our stock needs straining.

-We're ready.

-We're ready to rock.

Hot broth.

Right, the broth.

Now bring that back to a simmer.

But now we start the build for the final soup itself.

For the broth itself, we need freshly chopped ingredients

-as they have more bite and flavour than the ones we were infusing.

-Take the outer leaves off.

First, another piece of lemon grass bashed with a rolling pin

to release its flavour.

The shallots.

And the chilli, finely, finely chopped.

We season the broth with Thai fish sauce, nam pla.

We can always add more of this at the end. One...

..two.

Now add two tablespoons of lime juice.

It helps to get the juice out if you squash it first

and cut across the middle.

Keep half a lime to squeeze over the finished soup.

Crikey, this is good!

-I feel good looking at it, don't you?

-Oh, yeah.

Bring that to the simmer, and time to add the balls.

How fabulous. You can smell the chicken starting to cook in it.

-It's great.

-Look how the colour's changed, almost immediately,

as soon as the balls have hit the broth.

We only need 5-8 minutes for them to cook through, to the middle.

To the broth,

we're adding some healthy colour, some mangetout and red pepper.

-I'm going to cut this dead fine, Kingy.

-Yeah, lush.

We don't want it overloaded with chunks of pepper,

-it's not that sort of soup.

-No.

And what we're going to do with the mangetout, because it looks really nice,

we're going to cut it across, like that.

See? That sort of thing.

And we're going to cook the mangetout

and the peppers only for a couple of minutes.

These really give the soup some crunch.

With a soup this bright, you just know it's going to be good for you.

There have been some scientific experiments conducted to see

if chicken noodle soup is in fact good for the common cold.

And it does relieve the symptoms in your head.

They gave people water, people hot drinks and people chicken soup.

Cold water, no. Hot water was better.

Chicken noodle soup was great because apparently it stimulated your nose hairs.

And it stops your nose running which, in turn, makes you head feel lighter.

So whilst it didn't cure your cold, it made you feel better.

-So maybe all these Jewish grannies...

-Were right.

-Yeah.

-Now for the noodles.

-Use whatever noodle you want,

but the flat noodles kind of hold the broth nicely, don't they?

They do. Just push them in and try very hard not to break them up.

-Just sit them there like that.

-Don't break your balls up, whatever you do.

No, that would be wrong.

-Bit of colour and crunch, Kingy.

-I think so. The mangetout.

And the red pepper.

You just want to cook those off for a couple of minutes

so they retain their crunchiness and texture.

-Shall we, Mr K?

-I think we should.

-Look at this, isn't that pretty?

-Oh, yeah.

-Again, treat yourself to a nice bowl, because you deserve it.

-It's an event.

-It is. Are you going to do one of those squirly things with the noodles?

-Yeah, we could do.

-You know what I mean,

like they do in posh restaurants.

And you put it in the centre, like that.

Fabulous.

-Do you think five balls?

-Yeah, lovely. Fantastic.

Dress it with some more coriander and a slice of lime.

-Oh!

-Yes.

The colours are cheering me up.

This has everything.

If this doesn't put a smile on ya mush, I don't know what would.

It's limey, you've got your vitamin C going in there,

got your protein, it's low fat.

It's bursting with flavour.

Nice bit of carbohydrate with your noodle. Chicken soup.

-That is feel-good food, is it not?

-Yeah.

-I feel great!

-I'm feeling better all the time, I tell you.

-Fancy a hike?

-Yeah!

-Hey, do you work out?

-No.

-Woa!

That's our Hairy Bikers' chicken noodle soup, infused with

lemon grass and chilli, the perfect, comforting, pick-me-up in a bowl!

Sometimes, as we all know,

feeling poorly is the result of working too hard, and not taking care of ourselves.

Or over-indulging.

Now, during the 18th and 19th centuries,

all of these problems threatened the health of our nation.

In the new towns and cities of the Industrial Revolution,

the factory slums swelled rapidly with no infrastructure or amenities.

But alehouses and gin palaces, awash with cheap untaxed alcohol,

offered a warm, dry place to spend the evening,

nourishment, in liquid form, and, above all, a one-way ticket to oblivion from the grinding poverty.

By the early 19th Century, Britain's fledging industries

were losing factory workers who were taking Monday and Tuesday,

and sometimes even Wednesday, off,

to recover from the heavy weekends of drinking.

But the devout Methodists of the North, were growing concerned that

over the course of the last century, Britain was losing it's workforce to...

..the demon drink!

What a terrible thing it would be for our children to see people

coming from public houses when they come out from Sunday school.

In 1832, a Methodist cheesemaker called Joseph Livesey made

a plan to get Britain back to work.

He persuaded seven of his fellow working men to sign

a pledge that they would never touch a drop of the hard stuff again.

And so the temperance movement was born!

It grew rapidly.

By the 1840s, temperance societies all over Yorkshire and Lancashire

had convinced many of the working classes to take

the pledge of total abstinence from alcohol.

And by 1900, about one-in-ten adults was a teetotaller.

Temperance bars, basically pubs without alcohol, opened,

to woo punters away from the booze.

They brewed their own non-alcoholic, fermented, herbal cordials and beers.

And they were a hit! Temperance bars were everywhere!

We're off to Rawtenstall in Lancashire to find

the last surviving temperance bar in Britain.

This may be a golden opportunity for us to turn over a new leaf!

From time to time, we've all over-indulged,

and there's a time to draw back, to look after yourself.

You know you've eaten too much, you need to diet, you need to lead a more sober existence.

If you drank too much, it gets too much, there is a need to lead a more temperate lifestyle.

And that's what a temperance bar is for.

-I don't want to lead a temperance lifestyle!

-You do, come with me.

-I don't want to!

-Come on.

Our Best of British Food Hero, Chris Law, is the owner

of Fitzpatrick's Temperance Bar, which opened its doors in 1890.

Today, it still brews the same kind of non-alcoholic cordials

and herbal potions that were bestsellers at the turn of the century.

I think he can convince us to take the pledge

and we can swap our stout for sarsaparilla.

-A temperance bar.

-It's amazing.

Doesn't sell anything alcoholic because it's about abstinence, isn't it?

-That's correct.

-And what flavours do you do, Chris?

The popular ones are the sarsaparilla, the dandelion and burdock,

the blood tonic, then it's lemon and ginger, ginger on its own,

-cream soda, and then elderflower and apple.

-Ooh!

I remember the drinks from when I was a child,

and sarsaparilla and dandelion and burdock, I love them. It's part of our food heritage.

Though temperance bars had disappeared by the late 20th Century,

these drinks were still popular when we were growing up in the North.

Sarsaparilla comes from the bitter root

imported from the Caribbean and is the original root beer.

Dandelion and burdock

is a tasty herbal brew first made in England in the 13th century.

And one of my faves, blood tonic,

with infused nettles, raspberries and rosehips.

See, we've been overdoing it a bit recently.

-We need to cut down, we need to look after ourselves.

-Will you shut up!

-For me, personally, I could do with a bit of blood tonic.

-OK.

-Could I have a sasp?

-Surely can.

-There's your blood tonic.

-Thank you very much, Chris.

-Look at the head on that, man.

-It's quite scented.

-Ooh, yeah.

-Drink of the gods, isn't it?

-Oh, this is going to take us back.

-Can't say cheers, can you? What do you say?

-To the pledge.

It's good - it's like cherryade.

These drinks are not only delicious, they're said to cure

all manner of ills, from skin problems to arthritis.

They also help to purify the blood, maintain your liver and kidneys

and they help keep you regular.

You can't say that about a shot of tequila!

In their heyday, how popular were these cordials?

They were really popular. We have a small shop here

but some of these temperance bars and things like that,

they had jukeboxes in, and the odd billiards table at the time,

the old game sticks and things like that. They were like a meeting place

that sold a non-alcoholic beverage.

Yes. And this where you could come and drink and chat and do everything

you did in a pub but presumably get healthier by the minute.

Having bought the bar from the last member of the Fitzpatrick family,

Chris is now devoted to reviving interest in these legendary drinks.

After all, so much thought went into creating them in the first place.

People were very inventive with their soft drinks, weren't they?

They were probably experimenting with different plants and getting certain flavours.

There was lots of cloak and dagger, wasn't there, about people's recipes

being kept really secret, about their tonics and stuff, wasn't there?

There's about six people now in Great Britain that make sarsaparilla.

And I know them all. We all try to banter each other to find out

what's in theirs and what's not in theirs.

-What a gift that is, isn't it?

-It is.

-To have the thought, to go, "Right, I'm going to get these

"old-fashioned flavours back on the map." And you've certainly done that, and they taste fabulous.

From the humble brews of the temperance movement,

botanical beverages made it to the mass market.

Vimto, originally known as Vim Tonic,

a flavoured fruit cordial said to restore energy and vigour,

was created by a pharmacist from Manchester in 1908.

It carried the temperance legacy late into the 20th century,

becoming a household name which is still popular,

particularly in Northern England.

-A drink, sir?

-What you got?

-I've got cold fruity Vimto, hot fruity Vimto,

long sparkling Vimto with ice, short sparkling without ice.

Whoop! Ha-ha!

Whoop it up with Vimto.

Ironically, its American rival,

which was born in the 19th century in Atlanta, Georgia,

took the mass market by storm, ushering in a tidal wave

of sugary fizzy drinks that weren't as good for you as those original botanical brews.

-Chris, do you think we could imbibe one of your dandelion and burdocks?

-You certainly can.

-Imbibe?!

-I'm trying the temperance speak, you know?

-Oh, man! He's off.

If you sign the pledge, that's it, it's curtains.

Not one drop shall pass and all that. You sign that.

And they have spies.

-Cheers.

-Do they?

-Yeah.

-Do they?

-Yeah, they do.

-It smells brilliant.

-There you go.

-Thank you very much.

Mr King, here's to abstinence and purity of thought,

at least for 10 minutes.

That really is refreshing.

-Oh, it's mega, man.

-It's good, isn't it?

-The memories flood back, don't they?

-Yeah, they do. What's lovely is that it's really nostalgic

because you smell it first, and then, just as you're putting it to your lips...

-Oh, so great.

-But do you drink alcohol?

I've a note that says for medical reasons I've got to take iron.

-Not a lot, just iron.

-Yes, so really stout for medicinal purposes.

-Yeah.

And what about you guys? Do you have a tipple now and again?

-Never(!)

-Not any more? Not any more, not since this afternoon, for a bit.

'He's lying - he's drunk!'

-Hope they've changed you.

-It has.

It's changed me physically, morally and spiritually.

-I'm the better man for it.

-I'm sorry, I'm just worried that you're running a temperature

and delusional!

It's all right, you know. That'll be short-lived. That's good, that.

It'll be beer o'clock soon.

THEY LAUGH

Chris, mate, thank you so much.

It's a beautiful bar, and thanks very much for sharing it with us.

-Thank you very much.

-Thanks, Chris.

-It's been an absolute pleasure, guys.

You know what, mate? This is one bar that we can ride home from.

-One for the road.

-I'll drink to that.

Mm, nice one.

-See you.

-See you later, mate.

-There's one thing -

we have been going for 120 years.

That's because people pay for their drinks when they come here.

-How's that?

-I was just... you know.

-Thank you very much.

'Thanks to brewers like Chris, sarsaparilla, dandelion and burdock

'and their botanical buddies are back on the market,

'finding new fans today.'

'And the good news is, you don't need to be tee-total to enjoy them!'

When it comes to the kitchen, our herbal heritage is huge.

Despite this, the same old suspects seem to crop up again and again.

# Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme... #

It seems that in post-war industrialised Britain,

many of the plants we relied on for centuries fell out of use.

However, over the last 30 years they've started to make a comeback

and, as in many things culinary, Delia led the way.

Just like in the 18th century.

Back in the 1980s, she had some help from THE celebrity chef of the day,

-Robert Carrier.

-That's rocket, and I love it because it's so strange

and so different.

It comes from France originally, and from Italy. Taste that...

and tell me what you think about it.

-Mm, it's got a very nutty flavour.

-And peppery?

-Mm-hm.

-And, to me, meaty. Do you agree?

-I do.

-It tastes a bit like lamb.

-That's beautiful.

It was Queen Elizabeth I's favourite herb.

In fact, she used to call it sweet rocket, which is lovely, so now we call it that because we want

to be like her. We want to use herbs in the Elizabethan manner

in a "sallet", in which we pick a whole sprig of them,

not just a leaf. We want to use them and use them because, in Elizabethan days,

salads were made of sprigs of herbs, not lettuces.

So Robert and Delia helped reintroduce us to rocket

in an era when a herb salad meant shaking a packet onto some

tired old lettuce leaves.

Thanks to them and other campaigning chefs, today fresh herbs are available in every supermarket.

But dozens of others are still buried deep in botanical history.

But there's hope!

Because, in Gloucestershire, our Best of British Food Hero,

Jekka McVicar, is a world authority on culinary herbs.

Taking on the mantle from Robert and Delia, she's made it her mission

to bring traditional British herbs back to the kitchen.

Herbs not only look good, smell good and do you good,

they can transform a meal into a feast.

They help your digestion, they can inspire hunger.

It is the herbs that entice you to the table.

So they make you feel good before you've even sat down.

She's so right!

And her farm is home to over 600 herbs.

It's the largest collection in the UK, and today she's sharing

some of her secrets with two new members of staff.

They're joining her quest to resurrect our rich herbal heritage.

I'm going to take you through some of the plants that you may not have

actually had before or tasted before or seen before.

Tella Asiatica - a leaf a day keeps old age away.

It hasn't quite worked for me yet!

THEY LAUGH

Doesn't she look great for 105?!

I've got to get meself some of that gear!

It's a herb, dude, not a miracle!

This is meadowsweet. This is one of our natives. Amazing plant.

This goes under many names, been used for thousands of years, one of the sacred herbs of the druids.

You can eat young leaves in salads and you can eat the flowers

and you can make meadowsweet fritters.

And this is one of the sources of aspirin before it was synthesised.

Well, that's one way to painless dieting!

Herbs have been used throughout history medicinally.

But there's been no difference between the medicinal and the culinary.

Back in 1608, physicians classified certain herbs for medicinal use.

The rest were consigned to the kitchen.

And since then, the healthy benefits of our herbs have been overlooked.

But don't fret - Jekka's going to remind us by whipping up

a healthy lunch for her hungry herby helpers, using some of her top picks

from around the farm.

Top of the menu will be bread rolls made with LOVEage.

Lovage is the most amazing plant.

It's been used for thousands of years.

The Romans used to use it as a deodorant.

Taste the seed, it is absolutely incredible.

-It tastes like...toasted celery taste.

-It is celery, isn't it?

Known as nature's antibiotic, monks loved to make lovage tea to cure...

flatulence!

Well, they wouldn't want to break the vow of silence, would they?

And it is an aphrodisiac, by the way. That's why it got the name lovage.

-My husband will be pleased!

-Yes.

And, for the health-enhancing main course,

a chicory and parsley salad.

Jekka's also planning a plum compote,

sweetened with a herb called sweet cicely.

And, for some extra zing, some orange-scented thyme,

which not only smells heavenly but is also an antioxidant,

a muscle relaxant, and an antiseptic traditionally used

to kill bacteria in food. Handy before the days of sell-by dates!

Jekka's first job is to give her wholemeal bread

some tender lovage care.

What I'm going to do, using a pestle and mortar, is crush the lovage seeds into a powder,

because if I put them whole into the bread it would taste far too strong.

The lovage is really good for your digestion.

It stimulates it and eases it, and this is a very coarse bread.

And now Jekka's juicy plum pud. Plums - my favourite!

This is a compote of seasonal fruit which I've combined in a very

light syrup, because the great thing is I'm using sweet cicely,

so you can cut down the amount of sugar that you actually need,

so this makes you feel good that you're having half the amount of sugar.

Sweet cicely's aniseed flavour made it a popular pick-me-up

in the Middle Ages when it was boiled to make sweets for children.

There's so much in our hedgerows, it used to nicknamed "wayside nibble".

Jekka bundles up the sweet cicely with a bit of string

so you can fish it out easily

once the compote has simmered for 20 minutes.

And while it does, Jekka prepares a salad to keep the doctor away!

The great thing about French parsley, like chicory,

is that it is really high in iron and really high in vitamin C,

and it's extremely good for stimulating appetite.

And it's also very good for cleansing things like your liver,

and your whole system.

So I'm combining that with the sour of the orange and the sweetness

and the sort of moreish-ness of the mozzarella.

A sprinkle of balsamic vinegar, a twist of salt

and a drizzle of oil and the detox feast is ready to serve up

to Jekka's hungry staff.

Is that an orange?

That's absolutely amazing.

Thanks to Jekka, these ancient British herbs

have found some new fans.

And the proof is in the pudding!

Mm!

Mm! I'll have what she's having!

You can taste the sweetness from the fruit

but not the sweetness of the sugar.

The sweet cicely, what it's done is it's absorbed

the tartness of the fruit, so you can actually...

The fruit tastes sweet even though it's not sweet.

You could serve that and actually not tell anyone that the sugar's

-missing, and I don't think anyone would notice the difference.

-No.

I was very pleased with the staff reaction to the food,

and it was lovely to give them a different perspective on the herbs

that they grow and make them realise that you can use thyme in a pudding.

And you know, today's meal was sort of really a culmination

of my life in herbs.

Herbs seem to exude that extra dimension to cooking

that you don't get with any other product.

Now, if we all follow Jekka's lead, we could seriously improve

the flavours of our food and our health.

What a winning combination!

Now, in the Best of British Kitchen,

we're going to be cooking up an old-fashioned culinary classic

using two ingredients guaranteed to help restore health...

white fish and grapes.

It's Sole Veronique,

and it was created by the most famous French chef ever,

Georges Auguste Escoffier, whilst he was at the Carlton Hotel in London.

He loved cooking for the English,

but he must have been a bit homesick for France,

so, when the French opera Veronique opened in London,

he created this dish in its honour.

And we think it's time to revive this simple but beautiful recipe.

Sole Veronique - the epitome of feel-good food.

It's one of those dishes that you want to recuperate with, isn't it?

It is. Well, the poached fish, it's easy to digest, it's delicious,

and grapes, everybody knows they make you feel better.

I mean, mate, Dover sole - it's not just the king of fish,

it's the absolute emperor.

And these are Dover sole fillets. They need skinning.

But look at that.

They're called Dover sole, not because they come from around Dover,

it's because that was the port they were traditionally brought into.

And they are splendiferous.

And the great thing about this recipe is that it is really

simple, but, honestly, it tastes amazing.

HE IMITATES OPERA SINGING

It's such an easy fish to skin. Look at that.

I could make myself a pair of mittens!

I tell you, interesting that you should say that.

You know, the ancient Greeks always thought that the sole would make

the perfect slipper for a sea nymph. How lovely's that?

I know. Your feet would stink of fish.

But you'd be all right if you were a sea nymph, wouldn't you?

If it's been filleted, to skin a fillet, put it skin-side down,

grab the tail, get your knife underneath it

and just put the knife down there and jiggle it to the end.

And of course, the price of this, the last thing we want,

is any of the meat to be left on the skin.

Look at that. That is beautiful. So what you do, very simply, is you fold them like that.

Look at that.

And the thing about this dish as a feel-good dish,

it's very easy to eat.

You know there's no bones, no skin, there's just lovely, sweet fish.

And you tuck into it, it digests easy. It's just so special.

-It's beautiful.

-And the grapes go together superbly with the fish.

Onto your gently-folded fish,

gently pour a small glass of vermouth,

and 200ml of good quality fish stock.

And I'm going to dot with butter.

And a very large mutant bay leaf.

-That is a whopper.

-It is.

-I've got a couple of Escoffier cook books at home.

-Yes?

And his recipes are really very good.

Escoffier... You think of French food as being loaded

with cream and brandy. Escoffier's wasn't.

It was all kind of like reductions and stocks.

It really was quite light food.

But a bit like this dish, you waste no flavour,

cos the vermouth,

the fish sauce and to some extent the butter

and you're going to get that broth out of the Dover sole.

That goes with the cream and with the grapes

and makes the most wonderful, well, Dover sole sauce.

Cover the fish with buttered tinfoil,

and pop into a preheated oven at 180 degrees Celsius,

or 160 degrees for a fan oven, and cook for 15 to 20 minutes.

It's quite a pertinent dish, this, for me.

-We're talking about feel-good food or comfort food...

-Yes.

..or food for somebody when they're poorly.

It was one of the first dishes I ever saw cooked by my father.

My mother had multiple sclerosis. She was an invalid. She was disabled.

He had to retire from work early.

He got the cook book out and he saw this Sole Veronique

and he went to cook it for my mam.

I remember watching him, a fella that had been in industry for 40 years,

trying to seed grapes and I wondered, "What are you doing, Father?"

We didn't have any sole.

It was beyond our budget and basically beyond our access.

So he'd been out and he'd caught half a dozen plaice.

In those days, big orange spots,

so he made a Plaice Veronique.

Didn't have vermouth, probably wouldn't know what it was,

so he'd used sherry and a bit of chicken stock.

But my dad was cooking grapes but it was for my mother.

It was at that time I thought, that's love. Do you know what I mean?

Definitely. That's the great thing about feel-good food, isn't it?

-Yep.

-It is about love and all those emotions that are attached to food.

Halve the grapes and deseed them,

unless you're able to get seedless grapes like we did.

What shall we serve this with?

It should be something equally clean and comfy.

-Potatoes. New potatoes.

-New potatoes.

-Lovely.

-Asparagus spears?

-Could do, yeah.

-That would be nice, wouldn't it?

-Yeah.

-Oh!

-Yes!

When the fish is done, remove it onto a plate

and cover it in tinfoil to keep warm.

That's just pure goodness.

No mystery, no skin,

no surprises, no bones,

just abject yum factor.

Now pour the cooking liquor, all that lovely fish stock, vermouth

and buttery juices into a pan.

When you've got stock like this, it's a good tip to do it in a frying pan.

Because of the surface area, basically, it'll go down quickly.

'We need the stock to reduce by half.

'It's a beautiful thing to watch, you know. And you never know,

'if we stare into it long enough, we might become as refined as Sole Veronique.'

IN POSH VOICE: I feel that Sole Veronique... It's a fine, classic dish

but its flavours, they're not overpowering, it's simple,

it's classical, and the flavours...

They enhance the Dover sole without overpowering it

or strangling it.

In fact, I would say, it's a perfect balance.

Good, I'm chuffed for you(!)

That's reduced by about half.

-Looking nice, eh?

-Lovely.

I'm just stirring in some double cream.

This strictly speaking isn't Escoffier,

it's like our little input.

A little bit of tarragon chopped up in the sauce is really nice.

So, Mr Escoffier, I'm dead sorry...

but we're having it.

-Tarragon's lovely with fish, isn't it?

-Beautiful.

I would say there's a scant teaspoon here.

-Put that in there.

-And then...

..we add our grapes.

And we just cook those for about a minute in the sauce

and that's going to release the sugars in the grapes.

-Check for seasoning now?

-Absolutely.

That's amazing.

It is so good.

Escoffier, God love him. That is beautiful.

-I'd forgotten how nice it is.

-Yeah.

Wouldn't it be vulgar to have black speckles in that sauce?

It would be wrong.

(WHISPERS) White pepper!

-That's epic.

-That is Gothic.

-The sauce is beautiful.

-Brilliant.

-The fish is done.

-Let's plate up.

I've just got some little potatoes and asparagus here.

-I think centre stage, do you?

-Without a doubt.

Absolutely superb.

Over the top.

I want some of those.

Look at that.

Now, look at that plate of food.

If you deliver that to somebody who's in their bed

or a bit poorly sat in their chair,

that's going to make you feel better straight away.

That instant emotion of, "That looks great."

That plate of food would lift the most morose of spirits.

-It would.

-It would make the languid dance with joy.

-It would!

-It would make the apathetic want to do stuff.

-Yep.

-It's positivity on a plate.

-Can I...?

It feels so good that you should.

Mmmm.

Oh, yeah.

Our Sole Veronique, whoever Veronique was,

she lives on, immortal on a plate.

Mmmm, what's so lovely is the grape

with the fish just cuts through that buttery, creamy sauce just enough.

You're dead right, mate. It works perfectly well.

It would work with plaice and if you're a bit skint,

it would liven up a piece of haddock as well.

Don't get Dover sole every day of the week!

So, whether we're overworked, or under the weather,

food that makes us feel good is vital to a happy

and healthy life.

In the British Isles, we have some of the best recipes

and restorative ingredients on the planet.

From the soothing comfort of chicken noodle soup,

to our historic herbal remedies and traditional non-alcoholic brews,

there's a feel-good food or drink for every occasion.

Visit...

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

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

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