Recession 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...

-Piece de resistance!

-Ah!

-Now, which is which?

-Lamb.

-Mutton.

-..outstanding food producers...

-That is so satisfying!

-It's brilliant, isn't it?

-..and innovative chefs...

..but we also have an amazing food history.

-Oh, brilliant!

-Ahh, wow!

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

Now, during this series

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

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

We'll explore it's revealing stories...

BOTH: Wow!

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

'Pontefract liquorice has been my life'

and I've 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... BOTH: The best of British!

In today's Best of British kitchen

we'll be making hearty home cooking that puts a smile on your face

without putting a dent in your wallet.

Throughout the ages, in times of recession,

necessity has been the father of invention.

Which, in turn, has inspired us Brits to be creative,

and, in the process, come up with what have since become

some of our classic British dishes.

-Recession, pah!

-Pah!

-Recession.

When you're fed up with an economic downturn.

When you get fed up with being told to tighten your belt.

Or get on your bike to find a job.

That's the time to make mince and dumplings.

Whether you're a prince, pauper, beggar or a thief,

there's nothing like a plate of dumplings.

I've got to go into the thief category

cos I constantly nick anybody's dumpling,

that hasn't eaten it quick enough.

Sometimes, when I'm feeling quite flush, I still resort to mince and dumplings.

I love mince and dumplings! It's brilliant, it cannot be any simpler.

What, in effect, is savoury mince and a dough ball.

But we're going to show you how to make your mince super savoury

and your dumplings, your dumplings are going to be

lighter than a day-old chick filled with hydrogen.

Whoo! Lovely!

Oil, pan, please.

Oil, pan.

'Dice two carrots and two sticks of celery.

'Finely chop two cloves of garlic

'and one large onion to form the classic mirepoix base for a stew.'

Mince is great though.

It's been about for a long time, hasn't it, mince, or forcemeat.

You know, it's a way of using up cheaper cuts.

It makes them more palatable and digestible

because, basically, the hand mincer or the machine has done half the work of eating it for you,

but also, because it's minced up, it lets the flavour out.

It's a very fine thing.

Well, it's one of those great British staples, isn't it, mince and dumpers.

-Yeah.

-You know, you used to get it, I don't know about your school,

but we used to get it at school

and everybody used to look forward to it, you know.

-Yeah.

-Mince and dumpers, lush. On a Thursday.

-Yep.

And then some terrible fish on a Friday, urgh!

Just sounds nice though, doesn't it? Dumpling! Ha!

It's a comforting sound, isn't it?

-Dumpling.

-Dumpling.

If you've been away for a long time,

you know, "What do you want me to cook for you when you get home?"

-Some mince and dumplings?

-Cos you can only cook it at home, isn't it?

Cos if you have mince and dumplings when you're out it's not the same as when you cook it at home.

Ahh! I love 'em, love 'em.

It's that comforting welcome home

-and that's what you need in times of recession.

-You do.

It's cheap, but when done perfectly

it's as good as the finest haute cuisine.

Gently saute your base mix for approximately 15 minutes.

Which gives us just enough time to look back at how us Brits

have always been great at making good food

out of next to nowt when the going gets tough.

And over the years, we've faced a lot of tough times.

And we've also prided ourselves on thrifty living.

'You find it easy to feed six people on just over four pounds?'

Yes, I, well, we have plain food. Of course, we don't go in for luxuries.

The cost of living has increased so much in the last three years

that I think that has made a difference.

I like to think that I've really got a bargain if I buy anything.

I wouldn't throw my money away on something just cos I fancied it, you know.

When our backs have been against the wall,

us Brits have had to experiment with cheaper food.

Over the centuries,

we've successfully explored culinary opportunities

we may never have otherwise experienced or tasted.

Without going through tough times, we'd have probably never seen

the likes of brawn gracing our tables for example - a true British classic.

We might never have tasted a pease pudding...

or even the great majestic British black pudding for that matter.

All national classics whose development was influenced by economic hardship.

Even the expression "To eat humble pie," is derived from Umble's pie,

a pie using the cheapest off-cuts of meat and offal.

This wouldn't be in our vocabulary

and what a truly British expression it is.

For centuries us Brits have had to be creative in the kitchen during hard times

and man did it pay off!

Well, most of the time!

There have been times when we've had to tighten our belts

and fall back on our larder basics.

And the dreaded tinned food

that you might have to use your imagination to get the most out of.

Oh, yes, and they've created some real British Classics?!

You can do so much with corned beef, you can make meat and potato pie.

The fritter, it's very good.

Oh, another way of doing it as well.

If you get a cabbage leaf, put your corned beef, rice and cheese.

Fold it up, make an envelope of it and cook that in the oven

and you can use any sort of gravy to go with that.

But of course some classics are slightly better than others!

Oh, take me back to my mince and dumplings, please!

'And look - the veg is nearly done.'

Yeah, that's perfect. The onion is translucent,

the veg is starting to soften and colour a bit.

Excellent, now time for the mince! The main player.

All we have to do at this stage...

is break the mince up

and mix it with the vegetables...

and cook it until it's no longer pink.

So, what have you eaten when you've been skint?

Oh, I think mostly when I was a student.

I loved Asian food and I loved my curries,

but I didn't have that protein hit and I once made pig's liver curry.

-Oof!

-But I actually poisoned meself and it tasted dreadful! Yeah!

How about yourself?

Well, you see, I had, like, kids, so we ate a lot of pasta,

a lot of tomato sauce and interestingly a lot of veggies

because we simply were so skint that we couldn't afford to eat meat.

I always remember, when I lived up in the Highlands of Scotland

and I was coming down to stay with you

and you had a period of extreme skintness

and I said, "What do you want me to bring down, Si?",

thinking you was going to say, "Oh, loads of beer!",

and you said, "Any chance of meat?"

-And I came down and I brought eight of the thickest Aberdeen Angus' you've ever seen...

-It was lovely!

..put it in the door and put it on the coffee table and you opened it up and you looked at it like this...

And you just went, "KIDS, WE'VE GOT PROTEIN!"

-The kids come round, they looked at this steak.

-"OHH!"

-It was brilliant.

It was marvellous, it was the finest steak I think I've ever eaten.

Oh, it was good and what was lovely about it

was that we always took comfort in food

and that's, and when you've got nowt

and you cannot see anything in the near horizon that's going to change that,

then you do have things like FOOD that makes you feel a little bit more secure

-cos you feel dead vulnerable, don't you?

-Yeah.

And mince and dumplings is one of those dishes.

Time for the next bits to go in. The liquids.

Add beef stock, a dollop of tomato puree,

a tin of chopped tomatoes and a good old glug of red wine.

Got to think of gravy!

-Right.

-Time to season. Salt.

-Yes.

-Pepper.

-Yes.

A pinch of sugar, which is great with the tomatoes,

honestly, it works.

And a bay leaf.

Now, to get the best of the flavour out of a bay leaf...

-..just crack it a little bit. Scrunch it up, stick it in.

-Top tip.

Now, we cover that and leave it to cook.

Simmer it gently for 20 minutes, which gives us time...

To create the dumplings!

Bring on the dumpling bowl! Look at that.

Lovely.

Add self raising flour, chopped fresh parsley and shredded beef suet

to make the mixture for what we in the trade call a green dumpling.

And, don't be afraid to get your hands dirty either!

-Lots of cold water, Si?

-Please, mate, yeah.

Now, make sure that that parsley is well combined with the self-raising flour and the beef suet and salt.

You need about 200ml of water for this, but it's hard to be specific.

It's kind of done when it's done.

About 200ml or a very, very frugal half pint.

And the bottom line is you don't want your mixture too dry.

And you know these dumplings are literally steeped in British history.

In 1853 Elizabeth Gaskell wrote Cranford and in that...

She refers to a rule that her father laid at table

and said, "No broth, no ball, no ball, no beef."

Which meant that if you don't eat your broth

you're not going to eat the ball - the dumpling -

and if you don't eat the broth and the dumplings

you're not going to be allowed to eat the meat.

-I think that's a good rule, that.

-It is a good rule.

-It's a bit of the Yorkshire pudding vibe.

-It is.

Now, there we are, that is the perfect...

..dumpling mix and you form those into gooey little balls of loveliness

and stick them in your mince.

Right, I shall get forming.

-I think I'll need some flour.

-I think so, mate.

-Let's make dumplings!

-Yeay!

-Yeay!

# We love a dumpling Yes we do, yes we do

# We wear quite a lot of them around our middle

# Yes we do Doo doo-doo Doo doo-doo. #

You see, that's the ironic thing about suet,

it starts life around a cow's middle and ends up around yours.

The flour round the outside of the dumpling will help to

keep its shape as it swells up.

You know, dumplings, it's the word. They're a friendly thing, dumplings,

and you could never have an aggressive dumpling, could you?

-No.

-Friendly.

Right, let's have a look at that in 20 minutes time, then.

I've peaked!

It's thought the dumpling originally came from peasant cuisine,

where it was made out of leftover bread dough.

Over time, it was enriched with suet and herbs

to become the fabulously tasty British classic it is today.

-Ready?

-Yeah, go on.

-Oh! Ho-ho-ho-oh!

-Ohhh!

-Yes!

-They have swollen.

-Ah, look at that one.

That one, that one. Oh, yes.

Look at that!

Oh, and there's the mince. I kind of think that says it all, really.

-Look at that.

-Ohhh, they're light and lovely, aren't they?

-Yep.

-Mmm.

You've got nowt in the bank, but you're a millionaire in your tummy.

Let the good times roll.

Ee, don't feel you have to miss out if you're a veggie either

you can use vegetarian suet in your dumpling mix

and rest them on a bed of mushroom stroganoff instead of mince.

This affordable British classic deserves a place in our hearts AND on our tables.

And now our appetites are leading us to central London.

Us Brits, being an innovative and creative lot,

we have the skill to make the best of a bad job.

-You know, like in wartime rationing.

-Economic crashes.

-Food shortages.

Yeah, you know, cheap food can be hearty and it can be tasty.

And in times of economic hardship,

sometimes that can put the heart back into our food.

And if it's heart you want, Smithfield's is the place.

In fact, at London's famous meat market it's not only heart you'll find,

you'll get liver, kidneys, cheeks, tongues, trotters -

I bet they've even got eyebrows!

'Ox tongue, me favourite.'

When I was little and me mam every Easter, she used to press the ox tongue and she used to give us,

-cos you have to split it and peel the tongue so you get the inside...

-Oh, no! It makes me toes curl.

During economic hardship,

necessity dictated that the whole of the beast needed to be consumed

without anything going to waste.

And those bits and pieces have now become delicacies for many

and contributed to the uniqueness of British cooking.

'Now stuff like this has got really trendy.'

-Like, you go into a pub and have crispy pigs ears.

-Yeah, yeah.

They charge you a fortune!

If you haven't tried any of these off-cuts yet,

believe it or not, they can be OFFALLY good when cooked the right way!

After all, British people have been eating offal for centuries

and Smithfield's has been selling it for just as long.

In fact, meat and offal have been traded at Smithfield Market for over 800 years.

In 1174, Thomas a Becket's clerk described,

"A smooth field where every Friday there is a celebrated rendezvous of fine horses to be sold

"and oxen and cows in immense bulk".

Today the market still supplies eight per cent of the UK's meat

and within that eight per cent there's an awful lot of offal!

Jason here specialises in the stuff.

From pig's livers to cow's stomachs, he's got it all!

Oh, look at those! Sweetbreads, fabulous.

-No, they're the sweetbreads.

-Yeah.

-They're the testicles.

Right, people get confused, don't they?

They think sweetbreads are your bits and bobs, they're not.

Everybody always confuses that, every time.

Is it the thymus, the thyroid gland?

That is off the thyroid gland, plus off of the heart.

The rounder type,

that's the heart bread...whether there's any throat in here...ah.

-Yeah, yeah.

-And the not so good one is the throat bread.

-Yeah?

I've got to admit that they're one of my favourite things to eat.

One of the nicest things we had, do you remember, there was a chef made us,

it was sweetbreads and crispy chicken wings, kind of, mixed together in a sauce

and you had the succulent... cos it's such a succulent piece of meat.

Oh, yeah, yeah, but people, you tell people what they are...

and they wouldn't eat them.

-What's lamb's fries? Oh, fries are your...

-Yeah, the b...

-Yeah, yeah, it's the...

-Just, just, what about pluck?

-Just explain to us what.

-Pluck? I'll go and get you one.

-Oh, that would be brilliant.

-Thank you. Absolutely beautiful.

-Really tasty as well.

-Mmm.

-Good with chilli, aren't they?

-Yeah.

Tell you what they do go really well with as well, that lemongrass.

Chilli, lemongrass, that sort of vibe. Really, really lovely.

Or just dip them in egg, flour and breadcrumbs and fry them off.

Perfect.

Pluck!

-So, that's a pluck?

-Yeah, that's the pig.

-This is pig pluck.

-This one, yeah.

-Yeah, OK.

Most of the time they cut the tongue off

cos it's worth a lot more than, like, the cost of the pluck itself,

but you normally get it with the throat and your heart

and then the lungs and then your liver.

-And the liver.

-And then...your lamb pluck.

-Yes.

Obviously size difference, with the size of the lamb and the size of a pig.

Little lamb's heart.

-So, pluck's really a term, for the whole, kind of, offal.

-Yeah

The word offal literally means off fall,

the pieces which fall off the carcass when it is butchered

principally the entrails.

I know this may not look it, but this IS nice!

-This stuff is popular.

-But it wasn't always trendy.

Today, even for the adventurous, eating tripe,

the stomach lining of an animal, is just one step too far.

The best part has gone now...

-..which everybody prefers, is the honeycomb.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

But you'll be lucky to find a bit.

-See, that in the oven with some milk...

-No, not one bit of honeycomb.

I like the honeycomb because it,

because you can have pools of vinegar in the honeycomb holes.

Ohh!

JASON LAUGHS

-Jason, do you eat offal yourself?

-I eat some of it, yeah, I do.

You know, liver, I've tried the testicles, I've had the, I love the sweetbreads.

-Yeah, me too.

-I eat them, erm...

Some of the stuff I haven't tried. I've never had tripe.

Well, Jason, if we get somebody to prepare it really nicely for you,

would you give it a go?

Oh, anything cooked, I'll eat it! Brains, the lot!

We're not all mouth and no trousers -

it's time for us and Jason to give tripe a go.

We've got the chef at Smithfield's Fox and Anchor pub

to do us his low cost offal dish.

I said offal not awful!

So, here we have gypsy eggs with Tucker Brown's black pudding,

tripe and fried duck egg.

-I'll try the black pudding.

-I'll get the tripe.

-Good on you!

We've never tried gypsy eggs with tripe before,

but it gets our thumbs up!

So it's really worth giving those cheaper cuts a go.

-Yeah, I like black pudding.

-Yeah, I'm with you, Jase.

You know, tripe, I think it's like cow Marmite. You love it or hate it!

-Oh, I tell you what, though.

-That tastes nice, all together.

-Well done that man!

-Put it all together and it's really, you know.

-Mmm.

-That's lovely.

-Really good.

-Ah, you've left me no tripe!

Who knows what you'll discover when shopping on a shoestring!

Just what the doctor ordered!

At times of hardship, we all need a bit of inspiration.

There you are, mate.

Oh, I love him!

Ever since the dawn of television,

TV chefs have led the great British public on our culinary journey,

dispensing advice and keeping our foodie history alive.

In this programme I'm hoping that we are going to be able to see,

together, some dishes which can be very economical indeed.

Your breakfast toast, for instance,

made on a grill costs three times more than if you use a toaster.

-Frances Kitchin, great name for a cook, that, Frances!

-That's right!

Has got some marvellous ideas for cheap and inexpensive meals.

One of the greatest was Keith Floyd, whose love of British fare

proved we should have pride in the most humble of ingredients.

Ah, bliss!

But on occasion, even he has showed us

how to tighten the purse strings and still eat like royalty.

Nothing makes you happier than a bit of Floyd.

First order, five covers...

-Ey up!

-That's not Floyd?

No, that's Gary Rhodes before he was famous!

Gary was just recently a finalist in a very important gastronomic competition

and it had a French name.

I think that's appalling for a British cook.

You know, when are we going to get a grip of ourselves?

Why do we have to be called the Meilleur Ouvrier Gastronomique de Grande Bretagne

when we could be called a really good British cook?!

That'll be when he was head chef at The Castle Hotel, Taunton.

Anyway, Richard, watch the man, he's the business.

Right, well, I'm actually going to do is just quickly prep this up.

I take off all the fat from the actual oxtail itself...

Imagine, Gary Rhodes was a guest on Floyd On Britain!

-Hee-hee, times have changed, haven't they?

-Aye.

Obviously retain all that fat

cos I'm a great believer of putting as much of the flavour into everything as we can...

-Oxtail, that's always a favourite, isn't it?

-Love it.

-You know, recession times, oxtail's still cheap.

-Yeah, it is, it is.

And The Castle hotel was really posh.

See, even they were cooking with cheaper off cuts like oxtail.

Going to brown those off, almost like roasting them on top of the stove.

Get a nice good colour off those.

Seal all the flavour in and as I was saying, using that oxtail fat,

keep as much flavour in there as possible.

-So we just let those turn in there for a couple of seconds.

-All right.

He's going like a train!

What we need is some mirepoix of vegetables.

It's great, he's pushing Floyd on, like,

-"Keith, get on with it man, will ya?!"

-Yeah, yeah!

Right, so we'll just quickly turn these in the pan.

Turn them over, getting a nice bit of brown colour onto these,

sealing all that flavour inside...

Oxtail's not only cheaper to buy, over the years it's become

a cherished British specialty, hasn't it?

Now, the important thing is here, as the man is saying,

when we cook our vegetables...

Sorry, Richard, were you asleep for a second?

The point is here, when we cook our vegetables,

we are going to cook them in the oxtail fat.

That's very important.

At the same time, Gary's making a point, for those of you who are cholesterol conscious,

that the fat is going to be drained away from the meat itself,

so the fat does not go into the ultimate sauce,

that's very important, but the fat is used for enhancing the flavours.

I wonder how many shirts Floyd got through? You know what I mean?

Cos that pan will be spitting like a good 'un!

Now, if we could just take a little bit of white wine.

Oh, right, and this is called rinsing out the pan with white wine,

or as we say, deglacer la poele.

Just a touch there.

Building off the base.

Now, this makes sure, in our economical way,

we are not losing one smidgen of flavour.

We've had the fat, we've had the wine to make sure it comes out of it, it's all there.

It's economic and it's delicious...

See even if this dish is cheap,

the chefs at one of Britain's top restaurants are not wasting a drop of the strong oxtail flavour!

Can you just see him there? I mean, on bass guitar, laying it down?

I mean, it's like that, isn't it?

THEY LAUGH

He's so posh, sometimes, Floyd, isn't he? "Laying it down, just like that."

Here we have typical British cooking.

Very rustic on the plate, full of colour

and a lovely shine to the sauce.

Braised oxtail, what a Classic British dish born out of hard times.

And here I hope we have Britain's signature dish, braised oxtail.

Absolutely brilliant. Richard, sniff into that.

If only the camera could sniff!

Oh, boy, it smells so good, but I tell you what.

You know, if food was paintings, this wouldn't be a Van Gogh,

I mean, he encapsulated the spirit of Provence, this would be a, what,

a Joshua Reynolds, wouldn't it?

Difficult to find, a bit in the attic,

absolutely brilliant and truly British.

-Whey, what a sum up that was!

-I know!

Classic dishes in brassic times.

When the going gets tough,

us Brits have been forced to learn how to keep taste and save on waste.

We've also had to pull together.

Our next stop is deep in the heart of the Great British countryside -

Salisbury, to be exact.

For many of us, our first experience of food charity

was the harvest food festival at school,

when at the last minute we'd pester our parents

to grab something out of the cupboard for us to bring in.

At times, this must have left many a teacher scratching their head

on how to cobble together food parcels using, well...

just the coffee flavoured chocolates from selection boxes

and bags of orange lentils.

But there's one charity which has managed to get this down to a fine art and that is the Food Bank.

The Trussell Trust opened their first one in 2000

and it has been rapidly expanding ever since.

And it's all down to donations from the community.

Often it's from individuals in the first place, but it might come just from them,

or it might be a member of a church perhaps, or a rotary club,

or a school and they'll put it together and then bring it up to us.

All year round, people like Mark and his team

manage to distribute carefully thought out food boxes

containing enough ingredients to provide several meals

for individuals and families in need.

When we first started, we realised that as well as giving people food,

it was much better to give them a balance of nutritions.

So, in every box we pack has three proper meals for three days in it

and it's all nutritionally balanced.

By way of a big thank you and to raise more funds for the charity,

the Salisbury Food Bank is putting on a slap-up do.

And they've asked local caterer, Karen Dean, to prepare the meal,

on the condition that the dessert is made using only ingredients that come in one of their boxes

and that means products with a long shelf life.

It was an absolute nightmare when they said it had to come from the box

and I said, "Well, there's no eggs, no fresh milk, I mean, OK, we'll use powdered milk,

"but then I've actually got nothing to hold it together and set it."

We just grabbed some ingredients this morning

and I've got this idea in my head and I'm just hoping it turns out right.

From the box she's using chocolate...

That's melting nicely now.

..cereal, biscuits

and a classic ingredient often relegated to the back of the larder.

Luckily enough, they do get condensed milk,

which I boiled up to make a toffee sauce.

All you do is bung the sealed tin in boiling water.

It does take two to three hours but it's worth it.

Aye, an old trick that really works

and if you don't open the tin it doesn't affect the shelf life.

Once that's cooled down slightly,

we're going to spoon a nice gooey mixture of toffee mixture in the middle,

followed by a mixture of biscuits, snack bars, melted chocolate and chopped chocolate.

Then hopefully, fingers crossed,

that it will all turn out all right on the night!

Things need to be just right

because the party is an important fundraising event.

The work the organisation does is vital.

Although food banks are a relatively modern phenomenon,

dating back to the late '60s,

the history of charitable food giving goes back a long way in Britain.

The word dole dates back to the mid 14th century

when the monasteries would dole out food once a month.

And soup kitchens have been providing nourishment to the poor and hungry around the world

since at least the 18th century.

They were born out of the work of the famous inventor, Count Rumford,

who set to create a low-cost diet for soldiers

and found that the cheapest, most nourishing food was soup.

The idea would catch on and in London as many as 60,000 people were fed daily from soup kitchens.

And they've been feeding people ever since.

Today food banks are being used more than ever.

With current food price inflation running at around five per cent,

many families are struggling to feed themselves

and the Trussell Trust is having to open a new food bank every week.

Now it's time to celebrate all their hard work

and the event will be rounded off with Karen's dessert creation.

Hopefully all will be revealed in a minute! Oh, that's great!

Ooh, you can see the toffee is oozing out the side, there.

People love chocolate, toffee, biscuits.

Yeah, it's got everything that people love

and a bit of fruit salad round the side will take away the guilt!

It looks a tad on the solid side, but I bet it's ever so tasty!

Absolutely scrumptious!

But can a pud made mostly of biscuits, tins and breakfast cereal

possibly taste good enough for a celebration dinner?

It's the moment of truth.

It's brilliant!

I love the textures, I love the textures with the fresh fruit

and then the really, really crunchy toffee. Really nice.

-Result!

-Nice one.

'Yeah, it's always a relief and it's always nice to hear.'

The staff have all told me that, yeah, they've all enjoyed the meal.

But enough of the sweet stuff.

So, from something tasty for nowt to something hearty with clout.

We want to give you our Best of British recipe

-SCOTTISH ACCENT:

-born out of hard times!

DAVID MIMICS BAGPIPES

-SCOTTISH:

-I'll just put me pipes awa'.

Do you know what we're doing? I'll give you one guess.

-No, you're wrong, Scotch broth.

-Aye, it wasn't Welsh Cakes!

No, it wasn't. Just, bagpipes, you see?

-It's Hairy Biker's Scotch Broth.

-Oh, it is!

-It's a bit of a belter, there's nowt frugal about this!

-Oh, no.

I mean, I know that we're in times of recession,

but half a shoulder of lamb.

Couple of quid...well.

You know what they say about a main meal soup, a big soup,

-this one's a whopper.

-It is.

It's a lovely thing.

Neeps, of course, turnips, tatties, you know, bay leaves.

I mean, it's lovely.

We've got veggies, we've got barley, it's going to be lovely

and you have it as a main meal, with all the meat in the middle

and then all the loveliness around it, it's going to be great.

We're going to show you how to build a broth.

You start with a very large pan.

-SCOTTISH ACCENT:

-That's the broth pan from the bothy.

And then you put the shoulder...

-SCOTTISH ACCENT:

-Dr Findlay, you'll never bring that back to life again.

I will, Dr Snoddy.

But, do you know what, the Scots are the greatest soup eaters per capita on the planet.

Scots are huge on soup.

I mean, in times of recession,

a Scots person can make soup out of a pint of water from the burn and a piece of gristle.

-They're inventive, the Scots, around soup.

-Oh, aye.

Lamb goes in...

..top up with stock.

OK, so we bring that to a simmer and then skim off any of the scum

and you will see a little bit, so just take it off.

And then we add a couple of onions, a couple of bay leaves

and a sprig of thyme and then we simmer that for an hour.

-These are the building blocks of a truly enormous soup!

-Yeah.

A soup of gothic proportions!

This...you know how it gets dark in Scotland? Early.

Well, it gets dark early everywhere in the UK now.

This is sunshine in a pan, this.

# "Let The Sunshine In" by The 5th Dimension

And that's just what we need in harsh times, some sunshine.

First though, we need to peel our turnips, and chop up our onions.

I find they help get the LITERARY juices flowing.

The first reference that we have for Scotch broth was

written by a certain Mrs Cleland in 1755, when she writes

of a broth she made, with vegetables, pulses and chicken.

-Wasn't beef or lamb, but chicken or a cock.

-Oh.

And that she rendered down to make a Scotch broth

and that, really, was the beginning of it.

You're not telling me, though, that before then, you know,

the lads up in the islands weren't cooking something, you know.

Well, let's face it, the Scotch broth was a one-pot wonder,

you put whatever meat products you had to make a stock, flavour and protein,

you put pulses and dried goods,

which you would have preserved, like barley for the winter,

that's your carbohydrate, any bit of veg you had,

be it carrots, neeps or tatties, you put it in a broth.

But, you know, there's so many, so many recipes for a Scotch broth,

which I think is why we've gone the extra mile and done it with half a shoulder of lamb

and tried to make it as a main meal

and you'll see when it's served, you'll want for nothing else.

I mean, a marriage of lamb and barley, it's here, it works.

It does work and that's the great thing about recession food

and times, when times were hard soup became very important

because, literally, it was whatever you had

and it was cheap and it was as nourishing as you could make it.

-Time for a skim?

-Yeah, go on.

Been doing that for years, haven't we?

-Skimming!

-Skimming through life!

-Yes, the skaters of life.

Now, this scum will rise every now and again on you broth,

so periodically during the process,

don't be shy, just go and have a skim.

This has no culinary use, value, or taste whatsoever.

Right, let's start building.

First in, a couple of hearty onions, chopped in a rustic fashion.

Not too rustic cos this isn't going to be pureed, this soup,

what you see it what you are going get on your plate

and this is all about building up the broth part of it.

And then we add the thyme...

and a couple of bay.

We put it back...

and we leave it for an hour.

This gives us time to chop some turnips, some carrot,

some potatoes and a couple of sticks of celery.

And if you want to get ahead, cabbage.

But that doesn't come in for AGES.

Chop your celery, turnip, carrots and tatties into even cubes.

-How you doing?

-I'm all right.

I'm done, me potatoes are soaking, celery's chopped,

you've done your neeps.

But you know, one of the best literary references to Scotch broth

is in Boswell's biography of Dr Johnson

and Dr Johnson went up to Scotland,

exploring where Boswell come from and...

One dark and stormy night...

There we are, look at the two bon viveurs going out round Edinburgh.

-Look like us, them!

-They do, don't they? The bellies!

Dr Johnson was at Boswell's for supper,

At dinner, Dr Johnson ate several platefuls of Scotch broth

with barley and peas in it,

"Oh, you seem very fond of the dish,"

"I said, "You never ate it before?" Johnson said, "Oh, no, sir,

"but I don't care how soon I eat it again!"

He loved it and we've been loving it ever since.

Oh, it's great, isn't it?

It is, it's a great British...broth the Scotch broth.

Yeah, but I think that's the secret, it's a broth and not a soup.

To me, a broth starts with a good stock.

It starts with the meat juices, or indeed a vegetable broth,

the flavour of the veg.

You start with the flavours, which we've got in there,

we're slowly building them up to make a really hum-dinging Scotch broth.

Well, it's a main meal, isn't it?

-Well, this one is, it's got half a shoulder of lamb in it!

-Perfect.

Aye.

You've heard of big soups, this one's gigantic!

Throw in your cubes of celery, carrots and turnip

While that cooks, put 75 grams of pearl barley in to soak.

So, if you could be Scottish, who would you like to be?

-Brian Robinson from Thin Lizzy.

-Yeah? Still going, isn't he?

DAVID MAKES GUITAR NOISES

Ahhh, if only, hey-ho! Right, back to our rock'n'roll broth.

-Are we off?

-Well, the veg is done.

-Oh, lush.

Time for stage two.

Add your tatties...

barley...

season...

a lot...

and stir...

and taste.

-For me it's the barley that's the winner.

-Oh, I like the meat.

-I love it!

-I'm quite partial to the carrots too.

-Yeah.

It's a one-pot wonder!

Now, that need to simmer away for another half hour.

Now, leave the top off it at this point and let it go.

That allows us time to prepare our humble cabbage

into nice bite sized pieces.

Let's have a look! Oh, look at that.

The barley's cooked, it's swollen and plump.

The meat's shrunk back off the bone, in fact, it's shrunk an awful lot,

-but do you know where that lamb's gone?

-Hmm!

-Mm!

Into the broth.

And into the broth now goes our CABBARGE,

that's posh for cabbage.

But there's really nothing posh about this broth,

it's simply the best of British home fare in a pan.

Just stir that in and in about 15 minutes you've got

what is probably the world's best Scotch broth.

Now...

-Shall we put the lid back on?

-I think so, for this, yeah.

-Yeah.

Cos the barley's cooked, we don't want it to reduce any more.

Aye, we'll just go and read a bit of Rabbie Burns, I think, to get into the mood.

SCOTTISH ACCENT: On yonder hill there stood a cow

It's not there now It must have shifted.

-That was beautiful.

-Thanks, mate.

You know, the word broth

is derived from the old English term for brewing and boiling.

The only thing you need in abundance for this meal is time

and I can tell you, it's well worth the wait!

Wahey!

DAVID SINGS IN SCOTS

That's it, the ode to the broth.

-It's done!

-Let's snack!

Now, this is a broth that calls for parsley sprinkles.

You know those, you know that Scotch broth you get with teeny weenie pieces of lamb?

Not this one!

-That's dropping apart!

-Absolutely beautiful.

I think this should be very fine, the parsley, shouldn't it?

That's the lamb over there.

Look at the grain of that meat.

All open and full of flavour, oh, David, it's just pulling apart.

That's what you want. It's almost like Peking duck, isn't it?

Absolutely beautiful.

You know, Kingy, you laugh at me with my parsley garnish,

but on a dish like this it's right.

It's fine, it's green, it's like frog's dandruff!

Ha, yeah!

Look at this. Now, that's the shoulder blade, look...

and it just, literally...

You know when it's cooked cos it should just fall apart like that.

This is kind of like the Arnold Schwarzenegger of Scotch broth, isn't it? No more!

No, it's lovely, man.

Do you know, he's not wrong!

Cor, it's hearty!

We just pour that...over the lamb.

And just so you know there's going to be a surprise,

on the top, we're going to put a little bit of lamb, on there.

And lastly...

Right.

You know, Si, that's a spectacular looking plate of food.

It certainly is.

Now, in times of recession it just goes to show

you really can do something special to cheer yourself up.

That hasn't cost much.

Half a shoulder of lamb was the main expense,

but there's enough there to feed at least six people with a main meal.

And just because it's cheap, doesn't mean to say it isn't tasty.

Mmm, bit like us!

-Oh, that's fantastic.

-Ah!

The Scots call this broth their very own pot au feu,

or you could say pot luck,

as you really can substitute the lamb with chicken or beef

and the veg with whatever you've got left in the cupboard or fridge.

It really is a recipe built for the recession.

From being more adventurous with offal,

and allowing classic recipes to thrive...

From charity starting at home

and getting down to basics on how to survive...

British food culture may be fancy at times,

but when our backs are against the wall,

it's the honest, simple stuff that truly is the best.

And by heck it tastes good!

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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