Water Water Everywhere 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...

Oh, wow!

..and innovative chefs...

..but we also have an amazing food history.

So it's safe to say

-that's what the Romans brought to us - the art of cooking itself.

-Absolutely.

It's like a savoury summer pudding.

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 food heritage 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.

That's a proper British treat.

Looks good, tastes good, that's going to do you good.

Quite simply...

BOTH: the best of British.

You know, nothing defines Britain more than the fact that we are an island race.

The sea that surrounds us provides us with nourishment, a livelihood...

And combined with the fruits of our rivers and lakes,

we have some of the best fish and seafood in the world.

But sometimes it's easy to forget what's right on our doorstep.

And in this show, we'll be celebrating the best our fertile waters have to offer,

whether it's traditional favourites like Morecambe Bay shrimps, scallops and crabs...

..or ancient stalwarts like trout...

and duck.

We're going to pay tribute to the amazing bounty we have in our British waters

and their important place in our culinary history.

First up, in the Best Of British kitchen,

we're going to serve up one of the jewels of our ocean's treasure trove.

And show you just how simple it is to sear a scallop.

Scallops are so easy and I think for children, they're such an easy eat.

It's meat, there's no gristly bits, there's no fat.

It's brilliant and scallops are ours.

Look, you can buy them like that

or you can buy them like that.

I'll show you how to get that out of that in a minute

and it is so simple, it's ridiculous.

-They're really like fish marshmallows, aren't they?

-Exactly that, exactly that, yes.

And scallops go well with lots and lots of things.

You can pair it with cauliflower cheese, fabulous, celeriac,

but we're pairing it with two of its almost spiritual brothers - bacon and black pudding.

This classic combo of salty bacon, delicate seafood, and the rich earthy flavours of black pudding

is served up on a cloud of fluffy mashed potato and greens.

Known to the Irish as colcannon.

It's our island life on a plate.

We've got some potatoes on here which are poaching gently.

When you do mashed potatoes, it's quite important that you poach the potatoes, rather than boil them.

You will get a fluffier mash.

Right, kale. Kale's lovely, it's very good for you, it's very high in iron, vitamin C,

and all sorts of lovely things.

We're going to take the main tough bit out and this is what we're interested in -

the leaves here, so I'll crack on with that.

First chop the curly kale, then finely dice a small onion

and sweat in olive oil.

So you don't get long, stringy bits, turn your thingy round

and put the knife through it the other way.

Hail the kale!

-It's a great, great dish. Oh, it's brilliant.

-Good bit of roughage, that kale.

-Really good for you,

-full of vitamin C, full of iron, fabulous.

-Colcannon is like Irish bubble and squeak.

And the colcannon can be cooked with either spring onions or cabbage, ours is with curly kale.

-Can I put the kale in now, Si?

-Yeah, absolutely, mate. Crack on.

We'll fry this down on top of the onions, they're translucent,

just pop that in and it'll drop quite quickly, it'll cook quickly.

The kale's beginning to drop already, mixed with the onions

and because you're just cooking it in the onions and the oil,

it's going to keep this wonderful green colour. It's like a little postcard from the Emerald Isle.

That's lovely, isn't it?

Once you've strained the potatoes, pop them back into a warm pan to dry off.

You can see the steam coming off, but don't colour them in any way, shape or form. Keep an eye on them.

And look, they dry out really quickly.

and that's what you want because that potato will produce lovely fluffy mash.

We're going to press those potatoes through a ricer

and again there'll be no lumps in this

and you could put your beaters on the food mixer,

just so it's lovely and creamy.

and in this pan we're going to melt some butter,

and some cream and don't be shy.

Melt 50g of butter in 200ml of double cream.

Now let's start to add the cream and the butter.

This is quite luxurious.

Just put in the kale and the onions, just make sure

that you evenly distribute all that kale and onion through your mash.

Beautiful. Dave's just going to add a bit of pepper there.

-Ho-ho!

-Oh, that is good, yeah?

-You'll want for nothing better, would you?

Hey, man.

The colcannon keeps warm in the oven while we make our magical trio of bacon, black pudding and scallops.

Bacon and scallops are a marriage made in heaven,

going back to the original coquilles St Jacques,

bacon, scallops and cheese.

But, you know, scallops go with so many things.

It goes great with cauliflower, make a wonderful cauliflower puree with cheese, sit a scallop on top,

it's fantastic.

We do one with black pudding, apple and scallops.

Scallops - fantastic.

This is really good streaky bacon so, if you can,

don't skimp on your streaky because it forms a really important part of the dish,

just fry that off, now it needs to be crispy.

Don't overcrowd the pan, and what we're going to do,

we want to save all that lovely bacon fat.

Some bacon, you'll get loads of water out into the pan.

At this point, you'd need to strain that off,

but this is good bacon, that's just fat and oil.

And this is black pudding!

It comes in many forms, you get square black pudding, you get ones like a knotted muscle,

but this, we want little roundels - this is good black pudding.

Fry for two minutes on each side until the pudding is lovely and crispy all over.

There was a song about black pudding, wasn't there?

# Oh, all of a sudden a dirty black pudding came floating through the air

# It hit me mother and missed me father and knocked them off the chair

# Oh! # I love that.

I'm just going to pop the black pudding in the oven to keep warm with the bacon.

Now for the star of the show, our king scallops from Devon.

The scallop shell is associated with a lot of symbolism.

Think Botticelli's Venus, the goddess of love and fertility,

rising from the sea on a scallop shell.

It also became a symbol of St James of Compostela,

the patron saint of fishermen.

Legend has it that St James was washed up on the beach covered in these shells.

And the pilgrims also wear a scallop shell around their neck

and apart from being the sign of St James, it also makes a handy little drinking vessel,

-so you can go and get a cup of water.

-How lovely is that?

-It is lovely. Been around a while.

This one's easy cos it's opened, but if it isn't open and it's tight,

there's a little black dot at the back there

that just keeps that shell closed

and then all you do is work your way round the side, like that -

the flat bit of the shell.

All you do is just cut the scallop away from that part of the shell.

And then you just push this down, like that,

and then just underneath...

..just ease it off, then turn it the other way up

and then just pick away...

..that membrane from that lovely piece of meat.

That is just a nugget of pure, high-grade seafood.

It's just great and if you don't want to do that, you can buy them

ready done, like that,

so don't be frightened of them, please, please eat them,

because they're harvested from our own waters and they're brilliant.

Now for a sauce worthy of a king...

scallop!

We're deglazing the black pudding and bacon juices in the pan with a drop of Marsala,

which is a Spanish fortified wine.

-Oh, man!

-Needs to cook down. It's beautiful, isn't it?

-Oh, God, it's gorgeous.

Marsala's a wonderful ingredient. It's great with liver, it's great with scallops.

Dry and season the scallops with a little salt and pepper and a drizzle of olive oil.

So let's get those scallops sizzling.

You need to have that griddle

banging hot, OK?

-You want the scallops almost to jump off.

-You do.

-Look at that.

-There we are. Just hold him there for a minute.

That is hot. The most important thing at this point is not to move them, just leave them.

because if you move them now, you'll rip the flesh

and you'll see, as it cooks, they'll just come away nice and easy

and it's literally a minute either side.

-The scallop will tell you when it's ready.

-Yeah.

-Look, coming away.

-You see people thinking, "It's stuck!" It hasn't.

Just not ready.

-They're not far off, are they?

-Absolutely not, mate.

-Brilliant.

-Oh, lush, lush.

Shall I get the rest of the players out the oven?

-Please, man.

-We can start the build.

A plate.

Put the bacon on top of the colcannon,

the black pudding...

This is the Marsala and the chicken stock and the fats all reduced,

so really you can have gravy with your fish.

I'll let a little bit of that fall provocatively onto the plate.

And the black pepper in there... I think that's enough, do you?

That's absolutely gorgeous.

Mmm!

Scallops don't have to be this namby-pamby starter.

That's a really robust dish.

It's meat and two veg and we've even got gravy.

I know you're not supposed to talk with your mouth full,

but if there's one dinner you cook for your family,

cook this one. It's fab.

I think that's a fitting celebration of one of the finest products

of our island race.

Too right!

Now it's a testament to our island history

that for centuries the biggest and busiest fish market in the world

was at Billingsgate in London...

..the beating heart of our fishy food history for almost a thousand years.

Billingsgate fed lucky Londoners with fish from every corner of the British Isles.

ARCHIVE: 'Every day 250 tonnes

'will be hurried in and carried out on its way to caterers, fish shops and restaurants.

'Billingsgate market is the quickest way yet invented of getting the fish out of the sea and onto the table.'

Its history is the stuff of legend.

The story goes that in 400BC, a Saxon chap called Belling, King of the Britons,

spied a good business opportunity on a sheltered inlet on the shores of the River Thames...

..the perfect port for boats laden with fish.

He erected a mighty gate for all fishermen to pass through,

for a small fee.

Billing's gate, Billingsgate, do you get it?

And in the Middle Ages when fish was a vital part of our diet,

the market was granted a royal charter...

..making it of-fish-al!

Official! You see?

By the 18th century, 150,000 tons of fish a year

were unloaded here and sold from ramshackle stores and sheds around the dock.

It was time for an upgrade.

The City of London commissioned the prestigious architect of nearby London Bridge, Sir Horace Jones,

to construct a grand hall to house the market.

The new trading hall boasted the latest in Victorian technology...

..steam generators which powered the lifts and boiled the shellfish at the same time.

And the catacombs below were packed with ice to keep the fresh fish cool.

It was state of the art.

And fishing boats docked from all over the British Isles.

-Vessels from Yarmouth brought smoked fish.

-Oysters came from Colchester.

-Mackerel from Cornwall.

-Sprats and herring from Sussex.

And cod from Yorkshire.

A carved figure of Britannia proclaimed our fishy prowess to the world.

But Billingsgate's most famous legacy

may be the eccentric behaviour of its colourful characters.

ARCHIVE: 'For 700 years, the commonplace activity

'of buying and selling fish has produced a unique subculture

'with its own highly-distinctive camaraderie, wit and smell.'

We don't look too bad on it, do we, and smell?

Its history has even become part of the English language.

The expression "swearing like a fishwife"

comes from the sharp-tongued language of the women who sold the fish.

And "to billingsgate" means to curse like a porter with a heavy box of fish on his head.

Thank goodness for bobbin hats, then!

'Nothing much as fashion goes, but a necessary protection against both wet and weight.

'Bobbins, they're called.'

At its beginning, Billingsgate had provided hungry Londoners with a vital food source.

One thousand years on,

it has become a specialist international market

which also served exotic fishmongers and posh restaurants.

From abroad, we have the American squids, mainly going to Chinese restaurants.

-Where does this red mullet come from?

-This comes from Greece. Quite big supplies coming in

for the immigrant population, for example, we have the Portuguese sardines

and grey mullet as well.

And though its move to a large, airy warehouse in the docklands

marked the end of an era for some...

It'll take about 300 years to get the atmosphere down here that we had in the other market.

Billingsgate's survival through history and its colourful culture

is as much a celebration of our island life

as the wonderful array of fish from our shores.

Do you like fish?

I love it, and I mean that.

There are many wonderful delicacies you can pick up at fish markets like Billingsgate.

And our next recipe uses one that people often think is difficult to cook,

but take it from us, it's simple and fantastic.

The crab.

The crab delivers.

It delivers on flavour,

it delivers on texture, it's brilliant.

Yes, the crab is undoubtedly the king of crustaceans.

-It is, Dave. It is! And we're going to show you what to do with it.

-Aye.

We've created a recipe that combines the crab with the mighty leek.

Here's how to make the most out of these glorious crustaceans with our crab and leek tart.

All tarts start with a pastry base,

and this one is half wholemeal, half flour...

-Leeks!

-# Take a leek... #

-Off to your mummy wi' you!

-DAVE SINGS HEARTILY

Two trimmed leeks and I'll just crack on with them.

We're going to saute those off in a frying pan with a little bit of butter.

The important thing is we don't want any colour on them. We simply want them to sweat.

Take wholemeal flour...

..in a processor...

mix with plain.

To your wholemeal and plain flour, add little knobs of butter

like so.

You can put it into cubes and it looks all posh,

but there's no need to.

It's a very quick and easy tart, this. It's really nice and it tastes immense.

-Oh, it's fantastic, innit?

-Yeah, it is.

-It's a fave.

But leeks, you know...

# They make you sing! #

-Oh, God!

-No, they're meant to be good for your voice.

Emperor Nero believed - and he was very vain about his singing voice -

that leeks made him sing better, so he ate loads

-and his nickname was Porrophagus which means a leek-eater.

-It doesn't.

DAVE HUMS HEARTILY

-You'd better get going, son.

-I've eaten loads in my time.

-Not enough.

-Oh!

Blitz the flours and the butter in a food processor until you get fine crumbs.

Then add the egg in a thin stream until it all comes together.

Now this is a short pastry.

It's shorter than Ronnie Corbett wearing sandals, this one.

-Now butter your tin liberally.

-Put your leeks in for about three minutes.

You don't want any colour on them,

you want them to sweat, sweat, sweat, sweat.

Think Benidorm.

So just roll that flat, and put that great big lump in your tin.

Now you could try rolling it out, get yourself in a kerfuffle,

just press it in with your fingers in an even way.

It's so easy. The thing is, it's short, it's full of butter,

it's going to be tasty because sometimes wholemeal pastry if you don't have loads of butter in,

quite frankly, can be like a beer mat.

That's them.

Turn them off, take them off the heat, let them cool.

See? No colour on them. We've just sweated them. Lovely. Look at that.

Look at that. The hands of a master.

Just get it nice and even. It's so much easier than trying to wrestle with a rolling pin.

-And, you know, it's a personal touch.

-It's Dave's personal touch.

As you can see, it's beautifully even.

Now what we do is we prick this with a fork

and just pop this in the fridge to chill down for half an hour before we blind bake it.

Look at that - beautiful!

Ow! Eee! Ow! Eee! Ow! Eee! Ow! Eee! Ooh! Ahh!

Oooh! Aah!

Now if you've just tuned in, you may wonder why is he baking a bean pie? It's not.

This is the process known as blind baking.

What happens is we pre-bake the base and as you can see,

the beans will hold the pastry to the sides of the tin.

Also, apart from giving us a pastry case with a good shape,

it's going to make sure that it's cooked,

-so you'll never get a tart with a soggy bottom.

-No, that's wrong.

-Right now the filling...

-Let's crack on.

-Right now... Thank you.

Now...

We need three eggs, whisk lightly and then...

Creme fraiche. Look at that.

That's going to make a tart rich, tasty and unctuous.

Look, creme fraiche falls in a certain way. Look at that.

Look at that bit there.

This is truly island life.

An island of creme fraiche in a sea of egg.

Right, mate - next, the brown crab meat.

Now, crab comes in two parts -

the back, which is the brown stuff,

which personally I think is one of the great gastronomic gifts to mankind,

and the white meat.

-The brown meat goes into the base.

-OK.

So we've got now eggs, we've got the creme fraiche and now we put in the brown crab meat.

Oh, don't forget the base.

-Take the beans out.

-Taking care not to burn your mitts.

That's cooked, lovely. What we still need to do is firm it up a bit more.

So we'll pop that back into the oven without the beans for ten minutes,

but keep an eye on it, we don't want to burn it.

-Oh, lovely, mate!

-Yeah?

-Nice.

Look at that.

It's like a well formed digestive biscuit, which is what we want.

-Now, in here, our leeks go.

-Put me beans back.

And again, just whisk them in.

The white crabmeat mixture goes into the base,

and the leeks and brown meat mixture on the top.

Starting from the middle.

-Look, a couple of little 'uns, Kingy.

-Perfect, dude.

It's what you call cook's perks - waste nowt!

-It's a thing of joy, isn't it?

-It's lush, man!

And top with grated Cheddar. Cook's perks, cook's perks!

I'm not worried about these overflowing, these are just for us.

So pop that into an oven for about half an hour at 160 Celsius.

-Ready...

-Steady...

-Go!

-Smells great!

-That is... oh, look at that, man! It's epic! Yes!

-That's beautiful, isn't it?

-Ah, look how it's bubbling away there, Dave.

The crust is perfect. Now, you could serve this warm, couldn't you?

You could. I think it needs to cool a little bit, doesn't it?

-Yeah, it just needs to be, like, blood warm.

-Yes, it does.

-Cup of tea?

-Aye.

-Might as well.

Time for snackeroonies!

-Ooh!

-The leek and crab tart.

-Mr Myers.

-It's a good cutter, isn't it?

-And that base is so thin.

-Oh, yes!

-It's crisp, the bottom's crisp.

-Beautiful. Bon appetit!

-Mm-mm!

-You know,

our Great British eating crab, it's punching through

all those flavours and keeping a taste of its own.

Yeah, it is. A truly Great British harvest of the sea, man. Fantastic.

Of course, crab isn't the only crustacean in town.

The sea provides us with many of Britain's most memorable

and popular traditional snacks.

And for us Hairy Bikers,

there's one seafood speciality that's unbeatable.

Potted shrimps from Morecambe Bay.

A real British classic that Si and I remember from our childhoods.

For hundreds of years, shrimp catching and potting

has been at the heart of the local economy here in Morecambe Bay.

When the tide rolls back,

it reveals 120 square miles of sand, containing tasty brown shrimps.

Renowned for their delicate taste and unique texture.

Until the 1960s, horses and carts dragged nets behind them.

Then, tractors took over, able to pull two nets each,

-up to 15 foot long.

-And on the other side of the bay,

boats have traditionally dragged nets behind them as the tide goes out.

The shrimps are then boiled on board and sent off to the potting factories.

We want to find out what makes these potted shrimps taste so very special.

So, we're in Morecambe to visit the oldest shrimp potting business in town.

James Baxter set up his potted shrimp business in 1799

and it's still going strong today.

The company has also been purveyors of potted shrimps to the Royal household since the 1960s.

The catch of the day is still shelled by hand.

And then, the magic happens.

The humble shrimp is transformed into a local delicacy -

potted shrimps in spiced butter.

But, is it their 300-year-old secret recipe

or their technique that matters?

Manager Mark Smith is putting us to work, so we're hoping we might get to find out.

-Good morning, ladies.

-Good morning!

-Good morning, ladies.

Morecambe Bay shrimps are one of the culinary treasures of the world.

There's nothing else like it.

This is true, we're a delicacy and we still do everything by hand.

We don't mass-produce. But what we do produce is quality,

and it's always been about the quality.

You can keep your caviar, you can keep your snails.

There ain't nothing like Morecambe Bay shrimps.

So, what happens here, Mark?

What Anne's doing now is melting the butter, then she'll add the spices.

-What's in the spices?

-Can't tell you that.

There'll be mace, won't there, that's traditional.

-Yes, we have a secret recipe, and it will remain so.

-Good lad, good lad.

It looks like that's one recipe that will stay secret forever.

I bet the Queen doesn't even know what's in her potted shrimps!

But one thing's for sure, it's not just what goes

in the spiced butter that makes these shrimps special.

It's how you stir it in that counts.

-Are you putting your back into that?

-I am, yeah, but I'm trying to keep them in the pot!

-Ha-ha! There's a knack, in't there?

-There's a knack that you have and I don't.

-Are you going to have a go?

-It's easy, it's like rowing a boat.

-Is it?

-How are you rowing a boat?

-What, like that?

-No, one hand.

That's how my oldest does it!

Room for improvements! We won't call them if we're on holiday!

Once the shrimps have been stirred,

they're boiled for 15 minutes in their famously secret spiced butter.

And after the ritualistic tea break,

the Morecambe Bay shrimps have cooled.

Time to get these shrimps in their pots.

One there.

Put it on the scale now. And it's got... Hey, exactly right!

-I don't believe it.

-Oh, aye. On the money! Natural, see?

It's in me blood. You're miles out!

I think I'll have to leave this to the experts, I'm a bit slow.

One spoonful. Make sure it's covered.

Make sure the whole spoonful goes on.

Cos you see, it's not just for taste, is it?

It's a preservative, the butter keeps the air out,

it's one of the real old methods of potting.

This method of preserving meat and fish was particularly popular with sailors of the 17th century.

They left our fair isle on long voyages with a wide

variety of potted meats and fish, which helped them beat malnutrition.

And there's still a big demand for potted shrimps today -

they sell around 100,000 pots every year.

We've always loved Morecambe Bay shrimps,

-but I reckon we love them even more now.

-Do you?

-Yeah.

-Thanks very much. Thanks, Mark.

-Magic.

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

-See you, dears.

-Bye!

Isn't it nice to think that one of our pots of shrimps might be

enjoyed by Her Majesty?

It makes you proud to call these British Isles home.

Let's hope they keep at it for another 300 years.

It's not just the oceans that produce delicious grub.

We've been fishing our 2,200 miles of inland waterways for millennia.

We've been getting food from our waterways for centuries,

from shooting ducks to fishing, even harvesting watercress.

From the poor old poacher's tickled trout to the mega posh, aristocratic

fishing parties, Britain's waterways have given everybody

nutritional food for thousands of years.

We've been fishing for our supper since the Stone Age.

But it was in the 6th century, when the Church banned meat on fast days and Fridays,

that fish became a regular feature in our diets.

Fish on a Friday!

By the Middle Ages, monks were stocking their moats and ponds with

freshwater fish, which they served as an alternative to meat.

They soon became inventive chefs - salting, smoking and drying their catch,

creating culinary delights, often by cooking a single fish

in three different ways.

The tail fried, the head boiled and the middle roasted.

What started as fodder for fast days soon became the food of feasts.

The nobility filled their castle moats and ponds

with barbel, crayfish, chub, eel, dace, lampril, lampern, perch, pike, pimpernel and tench

from the local rivers, and so had a permanent source of fresh fish.

If you really wanted to flash your cash, you had to have an angler on your staff.

And one of the best river-dwelling treats you can catch for your tea is trout.

Next up in the Best of British kitchen,

we're going to show you a cracking recipe for this lovely little fish.

Here's the Hairy Bikers' homage to the Great British waterways.

But with ingredients that you can find at your local supermarket.

We're going to do rainbow trout with a creamy prawn sauce

on a bed of watercress.

This is a classic fish sauce. It's good with all fish.

Dover sole, cod goes nicely with it, any meaty, white fish is good too.

Oil goes into a pan. What I want to do is first brown off some onion, fennel,

which goes very well with fish, celery and carrot.

And this is rustic, we want the veg for flavour, not for appearance.

So none of your fancy brunoise, mirepoix or 'unks!

-Fennel's great with fish, isn't it, Kingy?

-Lovely.

What's nice about fennel is, it has a lovely aniseed flavour,

but it's very gentle, very nice, little sweet as well, which is good.

And don't worry about browning this veg -

you kind of want a bit of colour on it.

-Celery leaves.

-Fabulous, Dave.

These are full of flavour and hardly anybody uses them.

But do, because they're... Ah! Lovely, man.

This really will start to smell good.

We're shelling the prawns to use later in the sauce,

but we're not going to waste the heads and tails.

They'll flavour the stock.

So what we're doing now is take the heads off. Shell 'em.

You can do this while that's cooking down.

There's the poop tube, down the prawn.

See that? Like a black elastic band.

You want that out. You don't want to eat what the prawn's been eating!

This bowl may look like a fisherman's dustbin.

That's full of flavour, that's the foundation stone of our sauce.

-Yes. If you can get flavour out of it, don't throw it away.

-No.

And now, these go in here. Because this is the basis of your stock.

You could write a cookbook - Things To Do With Stuff You Should Have Put In The Bin.

Now, a top tip - get a wooden spoon, or two,

and give them a bash.

-So you're extracting as much flavour as you can.

-Give it a mush.

We're going to strain this sauce

so all the big chunks of veg, all these prawn heads,

tails and everything, they go in the dustbin once we've extracted the goodness.

-Smells great.

-Next step, tomato puree. Just put this in for a minute.

A good old glug of wine in true Floyd tradition.

I always remember one thing that Keith Floyd said that stuck with me

was never use wine for cooking that you wouldn't be prepared to drink.

-He is right.

-Absolutely.

What's the point in putting cheap wine into great food?

-Let's have a bit more then!

-Go on!

To this we add water. And salt.

And that, my friends, needs to simmer for 40 minutes.

-Cor, look at that!

-After the stock has simmered,

we're going to make sure there's no bits of prawn shell left in

by straining it through a muslin cloth.

Make sure it's clean. Don't use dyed cloth.

Or your sauce will turn purple! I know, I've done it!

-My mother used to use her old tights, but it's not nice.

-No.

-Did you get many visitors for dinner after school?

-No.

Mash it through.

Next!

That's quite a potent broth.

We will reduce this even more.

Add cream and salt and then cook the prawns in that sauce,

and that is what we are using to dress the watercress and the trout.

All reduction means is reducing the volume to intensify the flavour.

That means that if we lose weight, we should get stronger!

Which would probably be true.

Let's talk trout.

These are rainbow trout fillets.

Rainbow trout is what you will find in British supermarkets.

We first farmed trout in Britain in the 1950s

and it was a Danish entrepreneur who set up a trout farm in Lincolnshire.

Now we have 360 fish farms in Britain

producing 16,000 tonnes of trout a year.

And that's a testament to the amount of trout that we eat.

We have mega-flavours going on in that sauce.

So the trout, it's a pure flavour, it's lovely.

We're not going to confuse that. We will fry them in oil and butter.

Place these in, skin-side down.

Don't forget that top Hairy Bikers tip -

oil in the pan first, then the butter.

The oil stops the butter from burning, and you still get the butter flavour

and that lovely golden colour.

Now add cream to the reduced stock to give it a rich loveliness.

-It's intense.

-We'll drop the prawns in.

That will add to the flavour of it. We're using fresh raw prawns,

which will turn a lovely pink colour when cooked.

Be careful you don't overcook them, or they will end up as a chew.

Once the trout has cooked for four minutes skin-side down, the skin is really easy to take off.

And the other side just needs to cook for another three minutes.

See how the skin's coming away? That's what I want.

Easy-peasy, lemon squeezy! This is good fish.

As soon as those prawns are pink, we're ready.

-We're ready to talk watercress.

-We certainly are.

This is watercress from the chalk streams of Hampshire.

It's sold in posies.

This goes back to Victorian times, when the train would go up to London

and children would go round the streets, selling posies of watercress.

Victorians would eat them like ice-creams.

What was lovely, a watercress sandwich,

it's so full of iron and purifying things for your blood.

People would have watercress sandwiches for breakfast.

It's full of vitamin C. It's full of calcium.

It's a bit of a super-food.

It's very peppery. We used to mix it with samphire and serve it with fish - samphire's salty,

it was like nature's salt-and-pepper.

Let's get a couple of these trout fillets out.

I think you will agree, that's kind of perfect.

Beautiful.

Simon King, prawn sculpture -

that's what you call prawnography on television!

There we have it, our homage to the British waterways.

-Trout with...

-Prawns, on a bed of...

-Hampshire watercress. Ooh!

Looks good. Tastes good. By golly, that will do you good!

Of course, cooking fish from the supermarket is all very well.

But if you want them at their freshest,

you've got to do as our forefathers did and catch them in the wild.

So we're hitting the road to try fly-fishing

on one of our finest waterways - the River Usk in Wales.

The Glanusk estate is home to Tiggy Pettifer and her family.

They've been fishing for their supper for generations.

Growing up by the river, Tiggy learnt to fish as a young girl

and is now a fly-fishing instructor.

We're looking forward to improving our techniques

with some top tips from a master!

-Good morning.

-We're going fishing!

-We have so looked forward to this.

A bit of screaming reels, hopefully.

Let's say our casting is not maybe the most delicate.

We're what's known as... We fish quite a lot, but we're a pair of thrashers.

You won't be by the time I've finished with you both!

Good, great because, yes, we need to know.

As far as casting's concerned, for us, it's 10-to-2, 10-to-2,

poke their eye out! It seems to work.

That is a different technique than I know,

but we'll give it a go.

-We do lose a lot of fish, don't we.

-Yes.

We have a lot of stories, but not so many in the pan.

'The estate has relied on fishing to keep it fed for centuries

'and there's a room dedicated to the family's fishy history.'

With all Great-grandpas, and Grandpas

and his stags, and his fish. Here's the rods.

What is it, if you could sum it up,

what is it about fishing that you love?

It is the most exciting thing.

It is the anticipation of every single cast.

You think, "This is the one, this is the one!" So exciting.

It is the most lovely feeling.

What I love about fly fishing is you get to eat what you catch.

I love that.

You take it to the table. You eat it. That's like the full cycle

which has gone on since pre-historic times.

'Family tradition means every fish caught

'is noted down and over the years

'the estate has had some impressive trophies.'

My grandfather caught

58 trout in one day.

It's the all-time record.

-58 trout?!

-To his own rod, him.

-Good grief!

-They go all the way back to 1904.

The fishing is in your blood?

It really is. We've been incredibly lucky to have a mother

-and a grandmother who both stalked fish.

-Yes.

And Dad was absolutely up for his girls

doing exactly the same as the boys.

So one was - it was always assumed we would want to.

I think what's fascinating about this, it is a reflection of how many

fish were caught to eat.

-Yes.

-And is that how the estate fed itself?

Very, very much so. The whole estate was a community to itself.

It had its own dairy, creamery. Mum can remember making the cream

and the butter. So the whole estate was sustainable

within a community and everybody fed everybody.

-Thanks so much for showing...

-Not at all.

-Can we go fishing?!

Yes, come on, let's go catch fish!

'Ooh, I'm so excited.'

'It's time to get suited...'

'And booted.'

Marvellous!

-Lovely.

-You look good, Kingy.

So do you, dude.

Come and meet Stuart. He's got some rods

-and then we will head on down.

-Morning, Stuart.

Very nice to meet you, sir.

We've two rods. They're both identical.

-A standard river trout rod.

-Yes, sir.

-That's lovely.

-Perfect.

How long have you been fishing this river?

I think I have fished it for 40 seasons. As near as damn it, yeah!

'Right, we've got the best guides in the business,

-'and we've got all the right gear...'

-'But no idea!

And Dave's caught something already!

OK, Dave. Creep in.

'But we're not just here to catch dinner,

'we're here to learn.'

OK, rod tip down, relax.

-OK.

-We're fishing.

Well done, great. That's the best cast yet.

Very nice, Dave.

'Fly fishing takes years of practise to become a master caster.

'Tiggy and Stuart's knowledge of this river is amazing.'

There was a reasonable fish rising there.

'And, up until today, I thought I knew what I was doing.'

-Just... Don't... D...

-Sorry!

Don't drop it behind you!

'The art of fly fishing has been around for centuries.'

'The idea is to trick the trout into believing that your hook

'is actually an insect that has landed on the water.'

There's a little rise.

Which is when the trouties have come up

and they're just sucking the flies off the top

and then dropping back down again.

Ha-hey!

'It appears as if I've got the hang of it.'

-Are you in?

-Oh, aye.

Oh, well. God love him.

Just keep him...

'You can't eat those, they're too small.'

Oh, it's another monster.

We're going to catch one. Don't you worry, we'll beat them.

-That's five, Kingy.

-Five, mate?

-Yep!

You know, this is absolute heaven.

Izaac Walton wrote, "Time spent fly fishing,

"isn't deducted from the sum total of your life."

So two years on the river means you've got an extra two.

In that case, I should live till 200!

BOTH LAUGH

Fishing isn't just a passion of us Hairy Bikers,

it's a national obsession.

And, officially, it's Britain's most popular pastime.

But it was the Victorians who made fishing fashionable fun for all.

For posh and working classes alike.

And provided the British with the perfect excuse to get out the house!

There's nothing like it. Nothing in the world.

But it's the sense of competition that's half the fun.

This is a float tube. It's a sophisticated inner tube

from a lorry tyre.

With the tube, you're so low down that they come in

very close to you. You can usually get two or three shots at them.

It's just absolutely addictive.

So pike, carp and other coarse fish

favoured by those foody monks of the middle ages,

now help us to prove our manliness.

What a lovely fish.

Only an expert can bring in his fish this way.

'And our womanliness.'

I think women are better at fishing. Women have far more patience

and tenacity and so, consequently, they stand a better chance of catching a fish.

Now relax.

Have a jolly.

'And it appears that my guide's feminine touch is paying off.'

Dave...

eat your heart out, honey.

SI LAUGHS

You've got the little ones, but we've got the big ones!

-Well done, Si.

-Thank you, darling.

Well done, mate.

Thanks, mate.

Right, job done, let's get cooking.

Wow, hunter gatherer's provided dinner. You're good at this,

you, aren't you?

-It's just quite fun, isn't it.

-Fantastic.

There's not many food sensations beat this, is there?

-No.

-The river, catch the trout, put it on a fire, eat it.

-Can you get a better lunch?

-No.

Can't beat it. Here's to you, boys.

Well done.

Mmm. Yummy, yummy.

Oh, God, that's good.

You see, look. There's something elemental about this.

At some point in our evolution, we've all done this.

Fished, cooked it, eaten it.

Brilliant.

Mate, I've got to hand it to you, I mean, I got five, but, you know,

they were so small. But today, you are the man!

-Tig?

-Yes, Si.

-Shall we tell him?

Lunch has come from two pools up there two nights ago.

You mean you...planted them?

Well...I didn't.

I just held the rod.

Oh, bless you.

We had to have something just in case we didn't have any luck.

I've learnt more the past two hours than I have in 30 years

of thrashing the water on me own.

-Does life get any better than this?

-Not really.

It's not just the fish from our waterways that has kept us

fed throughout history. The birds that swim on the surface

have also provided us with nourishment.

And so, for out final recipe in the Best Of British kitchen,

we're cooking up a traditional wild roast duck

with Bramley apple stuffing and a sherry gravy.

Ooh, that sounds absolutely quacking!

Ever since I was a little 'un, and I still do it now, I go down

to the pond, the lake or the river bank with me little bag of bread

and I just have a pleasant half hour feeding the ducks.

Well, now it's these little beauties' chance to feed us.

It's true. We're doing wild ducks.

Wi-ild.

Look, see, that's what they look like with their kit off.

That's our English Mallard - a treasure of our waterways.

-We've been eating those for 2,000 years.

-Yeah.

This recipe works perfectly well with the ducks

that you buy from your butcher or the supermarket.

And the quantities will work just as well.

We've got three little Mallards here, just one big fat duck from a

supermarket, use this stuffing, satisfaction guaranteed.

They look scrawny, but what meat you get is good.

It's rich, it's tasty and we're going to do a mega stuffing

for the ducks.

-I think we better get on.

-I think we should, mate.

-Put some oil in there.

-Could you pass me hazelnuts, Dave, please?

Now, these hazelnuts are part of the stuffing.

I'm just going to roughly chop them. Not easy, with the hazelnut.

If you don't want to chop them by hand, you could

put the hazelnuts in a plastic bag and bash them with a rolling pin.

or just give them a quick whizz in a food processor.

This is three slices of bread. All good stuffing contains bread,

but this isn't going to be crumbs or croutons, it's just going to be

little cubes.

The bread cubes are fried until golden brown in oil

and a little butter.

-Look at these, coming up beautifully now.

-Beautiful.

Just before that bread's completely cooked,

a couple of teaspoons of chopped fresh rosemary.

And that frying is releasing all the flavour.

Things will gravitate towards this bowl in the construction of the stuffing.

First in is the Rosemary bread cubes.

I'm going to take some hazelnuts and put them in the pan

that we've just fried the bread and the rosemary in.

And we want to toast those off.

The thing about nuts is, keep an eye on them, cos we want them to toast,

but not burn. If you burn them,

they get really bitter and that's

just going to murder all those lovely flavours in our stuffing.

-So keep an eye on them.

-It's a lovely stuffing, this.

It's very nice with pork.

It's very old fashioned, isn't it. It's a really good

old fashioned stuffing.

Finally chop the onions and garlic and then soften in butter

for three to four minutes.

And now for the magic ingredient.

-Mate, when you've done that, can you pass us an apple, please?

-Yeah.

-Bramley or eating, Kingy?

-Bramley, mate, please.

-Incoming!

-Thank you.

D'you know, we've been eating ducks for a long time,

but it's kind of tradition to eat them with some nice kind of

fruity sauce. We've been doing it for years.

All right, mate?

So what I'm going to do is quarter a Bramley apple

and then we're going to cut it into chunks.

And that is also going to go into the stuffing.

But everyone has their own culture of fruit eating with duck.

We have ours with apples and peas,

Polish people have it with red cabbage and sweet sultanas...

And the Italians have been known to have it with duck and cherry.

French have the duck a l'orange,

Iranians, they have duck with pomegranate and walnuts.

But it's not just duck that has a history in our country,

Apples have as well.

In our isle, there are more than 2,000 varieties of apples.

That's a different type of apple for every day for six years!

Cook the apple with the onion and garlic until soft and squishy.

It smells fabulous.

I love the way apple goes so well with fatty meat.

Like apple and belly pork or apple and duck.

It's the sharpness of apples like Bramleys that offset

-the grease and the fat in the meat.

-Yeah, it's that acidity.

Just goes straight through, ooh.

Shortly we're going to add some parsley and the zest of an orange.

BOTH: Oooh!

Stick the apple, onion and garlic in with the hazelnuts

and the golden brown bread cubes.

Parsley in stuffing is great. And the orange zest will give it a zingy

citrus kick!

And the hot apple will begin to make those golden croutons go soggy,

which is what we want. Remember that's all going to bake in the duck.

Not it's time to...stuff a duck.

It's not every day you get to stuff a duck, is it?

They're only little, these, so you can have one duck per person.

Proper old fashioned, earthy, lovely flavours.

In the tin, I've just made a bed of sliced onions.

It's like a little trivet for the ducks to rest on

-and ultimately, that's going to give us really good gravy.

-Really nice.

The problem with wild ducks and wild game, is it going dry.

Grease it well with butter and lay on the rashers of bacon.

We want a truly succulent bird.

To insure this, we only cook it for 35 minutes.

It's best eaten slightly on the pink side.

You know, if you overcook this, it will be like a doggie chew.

Now, place these in a pre-heated oven about 200-220 degrees Celsius.

It's a hot oven. It's a short, sharp shock of a cook.

-A short time later...

-35 minutes to be exact.

-..it's ready.

-Oh, lovely!

Let's get 'em out and it's time to make the gravy.

Put the roasting tin on the hob and stir in a little flour.

Any flour will do. Then scrape up all of those lovely crispy bits

and the onions.

Fruity flavours go really well with duck and game

so I'm going to put some sherry in the gravy.

Just let that bubble for a few minutes

then top it up with chicken stock.

Marvellous.

Oh, yeah, that's lovely, isn't it?

'Mmm. Dave, do you ever find gravy really hypnotic?'

'Mmmm, gravy?'

Snap out of it! We've got to crack on and make this gravy silky smooth.

Saucepan for the sauce. Sieve for the lumps.

Look at that!

That's great gravy. I'm just going to put that on a low light now.

Just to cook a little bit more.

-Shall we have a little tasting platter?

-I think so, me old mucker!

Little bit of crispy bacon - never go wrong.

Yeah, that's cooked nice.

Just a little spoonful...

of the gravy.

And, not forgetting, some of that wonderful stuffing.

You know what, for me, I think the stuffing's the best bit.

But, mind you, I thought that since I was a kid.

Wow.

I'll agree with that.

-That's very, very good.

-That stuffing's great, isn't it?

Oh, yeah. The flavouring of that duck breast...

is really big.

It's a very different flavour, a very different texture

because it's a wild animal.

It works hard.

The flavour, I think, is a bit deeper and it's a lot more gamey.

Which justifies that wonderful apple and herby stuffing.

-Absolutely.

-Really, that on a plate depicts the British countryside

and the waterways. We've got the wild mallard from our rivers

We've got the apples from our orchards,

-we've got the hazelnuts, the rosemary, the herbs.

-Yes.

And it really is, kind of, Britain on a plate, that.

It is and very proud we are of it too.

To make our Hairy Bikers roast duck with apple and rosemary stuffing

and sherry gravy, you can use any shop bought duck.

Although we used Bramleys, any nice tangy variety of English apple

will do the job just as well.

With all the variety, flavours and textures

that our seas and waterways provide,

island life ain't bad at all.

Whether you stop in Morecambe Bay to sample traditional potted shrimps...

Cast a line out for trout to take home for supper...

Or head to our capital city to buy fish from our famous Billingsgate Market...

Every corner of the British Isles has provided us with

delicious bounty for centuries.

And we love it.

And to find out more...

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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