Food from Afar 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...

There we go. Look at them!

..outstanding food producers...

Oh, wow!

..and innovative chefs...

We also have an amazing food history.

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

-Absolutely.

-It's called a salacattabia.

-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 that 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.

We might be an island nation, but we definitely aren't small-minded when it comes to our dinner.

We've always absorbed cuisines from all over the world.

We've reached into every corner of the globe

and brought back a taste of it.

-From the Romans...

-To the Normans...

-..the Crusades...

-The Empire...

..tourism and immigration.

All of these things have influenced our great British cuisine.

That's what makes our food so fantastic -

it's not rigid, but ever-changing and evolving.

We can pride ourselves on a truly cosmopolitan diet.

regularly consuming food from all over the world.

And that's what we'll be celebrating in the programme today.

-From our ancient past...

-To more recent discoveries,

food from overseas has found an appreciative new home in Britain.

In fact, today, foreign cuisine accounts for many of our nation's favourite dishes.

and we'll be cooking up some of our beloved imports.

But not so long ago, the British diet was very different.

Before the 1960s, the closest many of us got to exotic food was a tin of pineapple chunks.

Pasta meant Alphabetti Spaghetti.

And Olive Oil was Popeye's girlfriend.

When it came to our holidays,

we also had simple tastes, and made the most of what Blighty had to offer.

But all that was about to change.

The package holiday would make foreign travel more affordable.

Us Brits were heading for the sun.

It began slowly in the '50s, and momentum gathered in the '60s.

MUSIC: "Hot Hot Hot" by Arrow

# Feeling hot, hot, hot

# Feeling hot, hot, hot... #

By the late '70s,

some 2.5 million Brits a year went on package holidays.

And that swelled to 10 million by 1986.

We quickly entered into the spirit of things...

..soaking up all the local flavours.

But when it came to the nosh, at first, we were a bit more reticent.

What do you like about Benidorm?

I like the food. The food's very nice.

-The English...?

-The English food, yes. It's very nice.

Well, we wouldn't want to upset our delicate constitutions

with that unfamiliar foreign muck, now, would we?

Thankfully, familiar food was readily available.

Fish and chips, a pint of English ale and all the trimmings.

But some people didn't even trust that,

and took their own food from home.

For the few brave souls

who were willing to risk havoc with their stomach

and indulge in some of the local cuisine,

even ordering it could prove a little daunting.

Most of the waiters in the bars only speak enough

to serve you with a drink.

They don't actually speak English.

Once you deviate from the subject that they're selling to you,

they don't understand what you're saying.

Brits would try anything to avoid having to speak a foreign language.

If you don't know what you want in the restaurant,

just show this up and just point to the appropriate thing.

-This always assumes the waiter's quite intelligent.

-Aubergine!

-And they should understand what you want.

-That's probably very good!

But when they did manage to get served,

they realised it wasn't half bad.

MUSIC: "Je T'aime...Moi Non Plus" by Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin

Little did they know it,

but they were at the coalface of a food revolution.

Because we took more home with us

then lobster-coloured skin and a sombrero.

We'd also developed a taste for continental food.

And that's not all.

Come and see me in England.

You can come and see me. My mum won't mind.

Unfortunately, when people got home,

they didn't find it all that easy to replicate.

We've all eaten pasta, and for most of us,

it comes out of a tin, or dried, in a snack pot, or a packet.

But thank goodness for television cooks,

who were about to teach us how to rustle up our own.

I get lots of queries about cooking spaghetti,

asking why it sticks together, this, that and the other.

So I think it's quite a good thing to have a run through and see.

# Do-be-do-be-do! #

MUSIC: "Macarena" by Los Del Rio

Soon, supermarket shelves reflected our changing eating habits,

and now we regularly devour food from all over the world.

And today, in the Best of British kitchen, we're going to cook up

a holiday classic that's become a British favourite,

and it's guaranteed to transport you to sunnier climes.

# Eviva Espana! #

Ole!

# For we are off to sunny Spain, we're gonna make paella. #

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is a paella pan.

-And that's what we're going to make.

-Paella.

Paella is actually a pan, not a dish.

And the word paella comes from the Roman for pan.

This delicious paella is easy and packed full of flavour and colour.

Succulent chicken, tasty mussels,

perfect prawns and plump rice, all spiced up with paprika and saffron.

I'm just going to put some oil in the pan,

because that's a very good place to start.

For our paella, we try to do quite a generic recipe,

the sort of thing that you might have tasted on your holidays,

and you want to make it when you come home, and you want one

that's got all the elements, without becoming a pan of confusion.

A confused paella is not a good way to approach said dish.

You want a dish, not a pan of mud as is so often seen.

Now, what I'm going to do is season these lovely, boned chicken thighs.

-Hello! Smiling sausage!

-We've got to eat that, man!

That's all right, I'm only my beard!

-MOCK SPANISH ACCENT:

-This is a chorizo,

or choritho, as they thay in Thpain.

This is a cooking chorizo, one that needs cooking,

and it's the best type to use for paella.

-I'm going to cut this into slices.

-What's lovely,

and what you'll see when we do cook it,

it leaches this wonderful paprika fat that's deep red and lovely.

But the paella is this combination of chicken, chorizo, saffron,

rice, vegetables, prawns, mussels.

It can be whatever you want. It can be clams.

They say the paella originated in Valencia.

But we know the first paellas were made with predominantly rabbit,

because that was what poor folk ate.

As time went on they realised,

"I can put this in with the rice, it'd be brilliant."

Because rice is a great flavour carrier.

"I can put duck in, it'd be brilliant."

"I can put in chicken, prawns, be brilliant!"

You can put what you want in, really.

Just going to put this chicken in first.

Once the chicken is nicely browned, pop in the chopped chorizo.

Kind of half the trick to this is the smokiness and the paprika

leaching into that oil, and that oil is what we turn

the rice and vegetables into, and the flavour just goes on and on.

After a few minutes, use a slotted spoon to lift the chicken

and chorizo into a bowl and put it aside for later.

Next, chop an onion and sweat it in the paprika-infused oil.

The lovely thing is, when you cook something like this,

you've experienced it when you've been abroad,

it takes you back there, doesn't it?

When tender and lightly browned, add a tablespoon of olive oil,

a chopped red pepper and some green beans.

You're getting very hungry, aren't you? I know I am.

I tell you what, I've just seen Mrs Miggins' arm come out.

Will you stop that? Mrs Miggins, just wait! Wait, will ye?

Now, you can't have anything Spanish, or "Foreign!"

as me dad would call it, without "Garlic!"

My dad was a disaster with food.

He refused to eat tinned chicken soup,

because he said it was "Full o' garlic!"

The thought dreadful!

Spaghetti, "Comes in tins."

THEY LAUGH

I remember my first paella.

-It was one of those Vestas. Do you remember those?

-Oh, yes!

You put water on, and you had a meal. It felt so exotic.

I mean, their paella was luminous. You could see it from Mars.

Little did I know that that was the first tentative steps

-that have brought me to where I am here.

-Where's that?

-In the kitchen?

-The pinnacle of culinary culinariness!

Stir in three cloves of finely grated garlic

and a heaped teaspoon of the secret ingredient - smoked paprika.

It gives it like a wonderful outdoor barbecue sense to it.

-It did say heaped teaspoon, didn't it?

-Yes!

It is now! I love this stuff.

It's great.

-And then it just smells fantastic.

-Saffron. I love saffron.

-He's not keen.

-I'm not.

-More expensive than gold.

-But you don't need much.

-You don't.

-Uno pincho, two pincho.

-That'll do!

And a bay leaf.

The smells, man. I wish you could smell this at home. It's so lovely.

-But all of this is just a dressing for the rice.

-It is, mate.

-Absolutely.

-The time has come. Bring out the rice.

Add 250 grammes of paella rice and stir it around the pan

until it's glistening with paprika-infused oil loveliness.

Then, the chicken and chorizo needs to go back in

along with any of the juices that have collected in the bowl.

And now the liquid.

We're using chicken stock, but you can do a vegetarian paella.

Obviously, use vegetable stock, and vegetables.

You can do a fish paella, use fish stock.

But, you know, for this one, chicken stock.

You'll need about 900ml of the stock made with one stock cube.

And let it simmer away over a medium heat for about 12 minutes,

stirring occasionally.

12 minutes, and the rice has started to grow.

-I think it may be time for the mussels. Do you?

-Aye.

Go on, get them flexed.

Scatter 500-750g of well-scrubbed live mussels on top of the paella.

Make sure the beards have been removed

and that they're well tucked into the hot rice and steaming liquid.

Then cover with tin foil to allow them to steam

in all the lovely aromas for five minutes on a fairly high heat.

Wait for the mussels to open, and discard any that don't.

And look, they're all open.

So we give it one last stir,

and from this point on, we don't kind of mess with it, do we?

-Time for the prawns. Heads first, into the centre.

-I think so, yeah.

Like Morris-dancing prawns.

When those have gone pink, your paella is done.

-MOCK SPANISH ACCENT:

-Thanthy a cervetha?

-I do.

-Thmashing!

Reduce the heat slightly and it will need to cook

for a further six to eight minutes,

leaving you time to perfect your Spanish.

'Esto bocadillo es el mas grande.'

But do remember to turn the prawns halfway through.

Right, and may the spirit of Torremolinos be upon us. Hoo-hoo!

-That is as pretty as a picture.

-That is as pretty as a paella.

All we need now is parsley sprinkles

and a kind of daintily-placed lemon wedge.

-I'm wedging.

-I'm sprinkling.

-Are you dancing?

-I'm asking.

DAVE SIGHS

-Look at that.

-Yes.

Now, in the true tradition of this wonderful dish,

I'll have that half, and you can have that half.

It's quite easy to demarc, this one, isn't it?

Do you know what people used to do?

It was very handy that the paella pan was round, and the big ones

made a perfectly functional table, so they would sit around the pan

and you would get a fork, and you'd go, "That's my section,"

and people eating paella would stick to their own turf.

That's mine, that's yours.

That's mine. Don't, don't transgress.

-I'm not, I'm not!

-You are!

It's all about the rice in paella.

Try the chicken.

That's been poached in all that paprika, chorizo...

That...is fabulous.

Isn't it? It's got everything a paella should have.

Taste, colour, variety. It's got holiday spirit!

What a stunning dish. A perfect centrepiece for a party.

The colourful and tasty paella is guaranteed to bring a sun-kissed taste of the Med

to the dinner table even in the midst of an English winter.

Whilst Mediterranean food might be a relatively recent addition to the diet of us ordinary Brits...

..Amazingly, it was actually being consumed regularly on these shores

some two millennia ago by the Romans.

The UK is covered with monuments to their ingenuity and artistry.

But what we want to know is were they just as talented in the kitchen?

So we're heading to Sussex to look for clues.

On the outskirts of Chichester, there was once an immense

and sumptuous palace.

Before the Romans, Iron Age Brits got by with bread, beer and milk,

fruits and berries, some basic veg, peas, beans, bit of cabbage

and occasionally some wild mushrooms and seafood.

But when it comes to food, what have the Romans really done for us?

Fishbourne Palace was built in the 1st century AD.

It's the largest and most luxurious Roman residence

to have been discovered in Britain.

-Doesn't look like a Roman palace.

-Wait until we get inside.

Unfortunately, the structure has long gone,

but miraculously, this floor with its amazing mosaics has survived.

Archaeologist Jaane Rowehl believes it gives us an invaluable insight

into the Romans' relationship with food.

This is one of the central pieces of the whole palace structure.

-It is one of our dining rooms.

-So the Romans, then, had a special room

for dining, food was that important to them.

What does the archaeology tell us

about what the Romans actually ate here?

The first clue is already in the mosaic.

You can see in the central bits we have craters that were used for wine.

And we can imagine there was a lot of wine consumed

-in a dining room like this.

-Hmm.

At Fishbourne we know that the people that ate here

loved an Italian diet. They loved pork.

We have enormous amounts of pig bones on site.

They ate cattle, they ate sheep as well. They went hunting for deer.

We've got wildfowl such as duck, geese... Apparently they ate crane.

-Really?

-Yeah.

We also found a lot of storage sheds, amphora.

They used to bring in olive oil,

dried fruits from the Near East, for example.

The import of all these products, it must have been such a problem.

Actually navigating your way from Italy with some olive oil,

it was such a decadent thing to have, wasn't it?

Absolutely. And it would only have been accessible to the rich.

What Romans loved was the theatre of cooking itself.

They wanted the flavours to be complex, they wanted to show off

that they had access to the spices and the herbs that could make a dish,

not just its ingredients, but a piece of art, if you like.

-Cooking?

-Cooking itself.

-So it's safe to say

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

Absolutely.

Wow.

You might think the art of Roman cooking is gone, but you'd be wrong.

Keeping it well and truly alive is food historian Sally Grainger.

-Hello.

-Hi, Sally.

Smelling good.

-Hi, there. Nice to meet you.

-Dave.

-Cheers.

-Nice to see you.

-Hi, Sally, I'm Si.

-Hi.

-How are you getting on?

-I'm doing well.

-Hey, this is fabulous.

-Yeah.

-Sally's Roman kitchen.

-It is.

It flat packs.

It flat packs - it has to! It would have been made of masonry, but...

Hey, this is fantastic!

We're going to do Roman food, a sauce of pine kernels,

which would have been served with wild boar,

-but we just have a pork fillet, if that's OK.

-Sounds great!

So we're going to start with a little bit of pepper.

And pepper, one of the most important ones for the Romans.

-Can I hand that to you and you do that?

-Yes.

We're going to roast our spices. That's lovely.

We've got celery seed, one nice heaped spoon.

A couple of spoons of cumin.

And we're going to roast them, because they need to be brought out.

So we'll just stick them on the fire to let them pop.

We want savoury. It's dry so we'll need to try and break it up.

-Yeah?

-There you go. We also want thyme.

And then we can start adding the mint. We're going to use fresh mint.

-Plenty of mint.

-I'm getting the smell from that already.

-I know.

So, what fascinates you about doing this? Because it clearly does.

I think at heart of it is the fact that Roman food

has a reputation of being weird and odd and rotten and disgusting.

And I've been experimenting with Roman food for about 15 years.

Most of it, I think, is pretty good. And some of it is fabulous.

And I'm trying to get that message across.

Always, "Ooh, it's made with rotten fish sauce."

But we know fish sauce isn't rotten.

-Is their fish sauce like a Thai fish sauce?

-Exactly the same.

-Vietnamese fish sauce?

-Exactly the same.

I actually make my fish sauce.

-You make your own Roman fish sauce?

-I make it out of mackerel.

And this is a fresh batch. And nobody's tasted it yet.

-Could we have a little...

-Do you want to taste it raw?

-Yeah.

-Just on its own?

I think it's got so much more complex flavours.

Oh, yeah.

-It really lingers.

-Yeah. That's lovely and savoury.

-That's fantastic.

-Beautiful.

The Romans are winning so far.

Now the work starts, because we've got roasted pine kernels.

I do these in the oven, rather than a pan,

because I want uniform colour.

-It's kind of a pesto, this, isn't it?

-Well, it is.

It's going to be thinned down quite a bit.

How did you come to know about this recipe?

-Because it's fascinating.

-Isn't it?

It survives in a recipe text

that we're pretty certain was written by slave cooks

-for other slave cooks to use.

-Could you imagine,

if we were around then, we'd be sitting up near Hadrian's Wall,

painting ourselves blue, with a pigeon on a stick over a fire.

THEY ALL LAUGH

So, we are ready to add our liquids.

Start with the olive oil.

Oil and vinegar, so we're balancing sweet and sour.

Quite sophisticated kind of concept, isn't it, really?

We're going to add sweetness in terms of honey.

Honey was one of the major sweeteners.

They did also use grape juice. They'd take fresh juice

from sweet grapes and they'd boil it to a third of its volume,

with quinces and with figs.

And that, subsequently, in the mediaeval period,

having being left in an oak barrel for too long, soured,

and balsamic vinegar was born.

A little bit of dessert wine, just to give it a bit of extra sweetness.

And we finish with our fish sauce.

The wonderful fish sauce. That really does taste good.

Decent amount. I like using a lot of fish sauce.

-You can do with that, because it's not acrid, like some.

-No, exactly.

The sauce is then simmered for a bit.

And while we wait for our main course,

Sally's got a small appetiser for us.

So, here we have a Roman salad. It's called a salacattabia.

-It's like a savoury summer pudding.

-Savoury summer pudding.

You have a sourdough bread, soaked in vinegar and water.

Then you put layers of cucumber, hard cheese, pine kernels,

onions, diced chicken and capers.

Ooh, I like that. There's nothing freaky about that.

-Exactly.

-That's good, honest food.

Roman cooking really is very sophisticated, isn't it?

Very much so, yes. Yes.

All the kinds of cooking that we do in terms of poaching,

making souffles and puddings.

They invented custard.

You know the ratio of eggs to milk in a creme caramel? That is Roman.

That occurs in a Roman recipe, 2,000 years ago.

-Five eggs to one pint.

-That's amazing. Now, that is amazing.

All the techniques that we cook today,

apart from microwaving, they did.

But a Roman centurion couldn't have got by on salad alone.

We need some meatus maximus to have with that fantastic sauce.

And because archaeologists have discovered the Romans

were partial to a bit of pork, that's what we're having.

Wow. That sauce is everything you'd want in a sauce. Beautiful.

That is fantastic.

-The sauce is great.

-It does work, doesn't it?

-Yeah, man.

-Living history.

-Living history, and it's tasty, too.

Somehow, this seems much more vibrant

-than the mosaics and the stones. This is real.

-Thank you.

-Absolutely brilliant.

-My pleasure.

-Have you got any bread for dunkers?

-No, sorry.

Oh!

The Romans introduced many staples of the British diet.

-Chicken.

-Leeks.

-Onions.

-Carrots.

-Apples.

-Plums. And many more.

It's just a shame that when they left

they took their olive oil and Mediterranean tastes with them.

Indeed, by the time another wave of Italian settlers had arrived on these shores,

it had been long forgotten.

But, they too, would have a very significant impact on our culinary history.

And build their very own food empire based on quality ingredients and good home cooking.

Today, you can find a little bit of Italy on every street corner,

from pizzerias to coffee shops,

all serving up traditional dishes and ingredients.

And you can find one of the best Italian delis in the world

in Edinburgh.

Valvona & Crolla is run by husband and wife team

Philip and Mary Contini.

They are part of the thriving Scottish-Italian community

which has been estimated to number over 35,000 people,

and it's played a key role in the country's food heritage.

My grandfather, Alfonso Crolla, he emigrated from Italy,

and came to Edinburgh in 1910.

The original Italians that came here either sold fish and chips

or ice cream, and this original shop was in fact an ice cream shop.

And he came here and made ice cream here, with his brother-in-law,

and they lived in the dark basement of this shop,

and when his wife and son came, they, too, lived in the basement.

Ah! Ice cream!

Ah! Fish and chips! What better way to win favour with the locals

than through their bellies?

Well, it certainly works with me.

Soon, there were scores of Italian ice cream and fish and chip shops

springing up all over the Scottish countryside.

Alfonso Crolla settled in Edinburgh, and what he did,

as a lot of the Italians did in different parts of the UK,

was to bring more of his family across, or his relations,

from the same village.

So, Alfonso brought across quite a few of his brothers,

his cousins, and my grandfather, and set him up in business

down the coast in East Lothian, where our family had their business.

Fish and chips was the perfect business

for the Italian incomers to Scotland.

It was a relatively modern creation.

The first stall had opened in London, around 1860.

The Italians' inherent love of food and good ingredients allowed them

to spot the potential in the natural produce of Scotland.

Fantastic fish and perfect potatoes.

They quickly turned into food entrepreneurs

and were responsible for building businesses all over Scotland.

Can you imagine, in 1910,

being able to eat something like fried fish and crispy potatoes?

It must have just been a sensation.

Of course, Italians are very competitive,

especially the ones who emigrated.

So each family would settle in a village

and want their ice cream and fish and chips

to be better than everyone else's,

so the Scots got very high-quality product from the beginning.

But whilst the ever-increasing Italian population

were satisfying the Scottish appetite,

they were missing many of their own tastes from back home,

and Philip's grandfather saw a gap in the market.

This shop was established in 1934.

It was changed from an ice cream shop into this Italian delicatessen.

I would say that, 75 years ago, 95% of our customers were Italian.

It was initially just a tiny hole in the wall,

packed high to the ceiling, as you can see now,

with wine, cheese, salami, Parma ham, pasta.

They used to sell the pasta in drawers, by the pound,

so they had lots of drawers you pulled out to get the shape you wanted.

Then they would get cheese from Italy, and packages of sausages,

which was the huge desire of all Italians, to get the product.

We imported coffee, and we imported the raw beans,

and we roasted it here in the shop.

And I guess that this was happening all over the world,

where there were Italians.

They created this coffee culture,

because they had to have their cup of coffee that they were used to

back home in Italy.

And of course, now, coffee is international, isn't it?

It wasn't until after the war that Scottish people

started to come into the shops,

because the soldiers who had fought in Italy, first of all

against the Italians, and then, in the second half of the war,

with the Italians,

they started to taste Italian food, and that's where it all started.

The post-war years would see the shop's appeal widen.

But again, it would be thanks to the birth of the package holiday

that the market would really take off.

The change in the shop was to do with the Scots who began to travel,

and who were travelling on holiday to Italy, and coming back,

and they had tasted different kinds of pasta,

different types of wine and cheeses, and they wanted more of the same.

And so, gradually,

the Scots were outnumbering the Italians who were buying from us.

And our story is mirrored throughout Scotland

and probably throughout Britain.

The deli has come a long way

since Alfonso Crolla first arrived in Edinburgh over 100 years ago.

But so has the British palate.

Visitors to the deli's restaurant are now very keen to eat food

that their Scottish ancestors may have turned their noses up at.

And owner Mary still loves serving up all the finest local ingredients

cooked in the traditional Italian way.

What I want to do today

is celebrate the food that we ate when we were kids.

The fishermen left langoustines at the back door for us,

or even some squid, because the Scots didn't want to eat it then,

this is talking about more than 40 years ago.

The fishermen now remember their fathers throwing overboard.

The langoustines from Scotland are better than anything,

and we're going to prepare it now, and fry it in olive oil,

deep-fried, and make a fritto misto.

We'll add some courgettes, and just show you

how wonderful Scottish produce is.

Frying is a good way of eating

because it seals the flavour in, and if it's drained properly,

and you use good oil, it's a healthy way of eating.

It's typical of Neapolitan street food,

where, even today, you see people standing on the side of the street,

frying things, just to feed passing people that are hungry.

The fritto misto that we do here in the cafe bar,

and other Italian restaurants do, is an extension of fish and chips.

There's a heritage, in Italy, of deep-frying fish.

And so, you can take any fish, any shellfish, and deep-fry it,

and just with that light batter, just cooked to a crisp,

but keeping the fish moist.

It's a stunning thing to eat.

And the last thing we would do is just sprinkle some sea salt,

just to season at the very end.

# O fritto misto! #

It looks delicious.

The Scots-Italians are the luckiest of races, cos we have everything.

We have everything we love from Italy, here,

we've got the lovely ingredients from Scotland,

which sometimes are even better than Italian ingredients,

and we have the skills to make them taste good, so we are a bit spoiled.

Not quite as sunny, though!

But who cares when you've got great food?

From being virtually unheard of,

Italian cuisine is now a British favourite.

It's been calculated that spaghetti Bolognese

is eaten on average nearly 3,000 times in our lifetime -

more than stew and cottage pie.

But it's not just food from the Med that has had a huge impact on our diet,

over the last century, British taste buds exploded

thanks to other changes that took place in our community.

And in many ways, we have to credit the humble takeaway

for the role it's played in this food revolution.

-Hello.

-Hello. Hi, Ronnie, how are you?

-Hi, Ronnie. Is our takeaway ready?

-Yes, I'll go and get it for you.

-Thank you very much.

-Thanks, mate.

When you can't be bothered to cook on a Friday night

or you fancy a flavoursome treat, there's nothing beats a takeaway.

-It's a great British institution and we love it!

-But its roots lie much further afield.

The story of the takeaway is the story of our multicultural society,

how we've learnt to embrace other people's cultures through their food.

-Lovely.

-Thank you.

Smells great!

Get in!

'Over the years, takeaways may have had a bit of a bad press, but they're responsible

'for bringing new flavours to tables all over Britain.

When it comes to the takeaway, us Brits are world connoisseurs.

-We regularly devour food from all over the globe at home.

-Thai.

-Mexican.

-Italian.

-Japanese.

-And many more.

But in many ways, the first people to have an important impact on broadening our culinary horizons,

were the Chinese.

Many of the early settlers to the UK were sailors who settled in port cities like Liverpool and London

at the start of the 19th century.

They set up their own shops, restaurants and cafes

and the UK's Chinatowns came into being.

But it was back in the 1950s that the British love affair for Chinese food would really take off.

Intrepid reporters travelled to Hong Kong to sample exotic Chinese cuisines.

Well, I've had eight courses tonight and each one of them was fish.

I've got the chopsticks to prove it. I didn't get fish ice cream!

Meanwhile, back at home, the Chinese takeaway as we know it

was born in 1958 when the Lotus restaurant in Queensway in London proved so popular

that customers who couldn't get a table asked for food to take home.

That same year, Billy Butlin rolled out an exciting new Chinese menu across all his holiday camps.

-But there was only one thing on it!

-Chicken chop suey and chips!

British Chinese cuisine quickly got characterised by Cantonese food from southern China.

As that is where many early immigrants came from.

And a Chinese takeaway provided many of us with our first taste of exotic food in our very own home.

Something we take for granted today.

Chinese food has proved so popular that a recent survey revealed

it was the style of ethnic cuisine that Brits were most confident at preparing themselves.

So we're putting the takeaway menu back in the drawer and we're cooking up an absolute corker.

We tried to choose a dish that epitomises the takeaway,

that's like the child of the takeaway.

And the dish we've come to terms with is the Singapore noodle.

-I think the Singapore noodle is a one-pot wok wonder.

-You're not wrong.

-I won't say that again!

No, you won't!

Singapore noodles - a takeaway staple that's got nothing to do with Singapore.

It's a real classic that's thought to come from Hong Kong.

Quick and easy to prepare, and packs a real punch when it comes to flavour.

Perfect for a tasty treat.

Our take on it really is it has this beautiful loin of pork.

I'm going to trim that sinew off and we've got prawns as well.

So it's a pork and prawn vibe.

-I'm going to prepare that and the marinade. I'll trim the sinew off first.

-The pork on this

is like the Char Siu pork you get in your Chinese food that's got that red frill around it.

But we have no food colouring.

Let's talk noodles. Use egg or rice noodles, so long as they are the really thin kind like vermicelli.

Soak them in hot, but not boiling water for about three minutes, then they're ready.

I'm going to prep this lovely marinade. It's very simple. Three tablespoons of soy.

-Light soy. And two of sherry.

-It's one way to use up the leftovers when the vicar's gone home.

Finish it off with two teaspoons of soft, light brown sugar and half a teaspoon of five spice powder.

-And give it a good stir.

-Put the pork loin into that.

Coat it and leave it for about half an hour.

And the meat's going to open up slightly and draw all of those lovely flavours into it.

So when we cut it, we should get that lovely... You know how you get that Char Siu.

Little red bit round the edge. It's lovely.

While it's marinating, drain your noodles and dress them with a little glug of oil to stop them sticking.

-Well, that's half an hour.

-It's changed colour and absorbed the marinade.

-Lovely.

Next, drain the pork. Place it in a foil-lined baking tray and lightly coat it with oil.

Then it's into the oven at 200 degrees Celsius for 12 minutes.

'Keep the leftover marinade for later. Don't lose any flavour.'

-And that gives us time...

-To do the mise en place.

The big thing about Chinese cookery is you prepare everything ready

because the final push is very quick. It all happens quickly.

It's a woking and a wolling.

Chop one red onion, a bunch of spring onions and a red pepper.

All your veggies should be a size to pick up with a chopstick.

Slice 100 grams of shiitake mushrooms and grate a chunk of ginger and two cloves of garlic.

That's part of the wonderful cosmopolitan nature of British food.

And the reason for that is you want that ginger to pervade quite a quick cooking process

so it's actually better to have it like that than in chunks, in our view.

I love Chinese food. I come from Barrow, a provincial northern town.

But we've had Chinese takeaways there since I was a boy

and one of my favourite restaurants has been there for 30 years.

I saw chop suey chow mein, egg foo yung, and I thought, "Brilliant!"

It's interesting. Because Chinese cuisine has been part of our culinary heritage for so long,

you actually lose sight of what the real cuisine is. It's been so anglicised over so many years

-because it's been here for such a long time.

-Like Singapore noodles?

-Exactly.

-Yeah, it's true, though.

But that's part of the wonderful cosmopolitan nature of British food.

It's got its own identity now.

It's tasty and, to be honest, I love it.

Once all the components are chopped, it should be time to get the pork out.

-We're on, mate.

-Lovely.

-Beautiful.

-Oh, look at that.

-That's perfect.

-Half of that in our dish?

-I think so.

And the other half for nibbling. Ho-ah! And this...

Don't waste that lovely fat. What we'll do is we'll stick that in the wok.

Now I'm just going to put some heat into that wok.

A little bit more oil. Now at this point we want it over a medium heat,

so not a mega-nuts high heat. And we're going to stir-fry off these lovely shiitake mushrooms,

-the onion and red pepper.

-It feels like a proper takeaway. Dave Si Chinese Takeaway!

-It's the future.

-I wouldn't mind.

Let's get stir-frying!

'Once your ingredients are in the pan, keep them moving. By stirring and tossing them in the wok,

'it stops them burning and gets them all nicely browned.'

While that's cooking, I can prep the pork. Let's cut this in half.

Look at that. It's juicy on the inside, but it's cooked through.

-So we'll cut that like so. Like so.

-Oh, Dave!

-See all that juice?

-Yeah, I know.

I'm gonna nick a bit. Can't resist.

Oh, that's fabulous.

-Next...

-The ginger and the garlic.

'Mix them in and continue to stir-fry for a minute or so.

'But don't let the garlic burn.

'Then add two teaspoons of Madras curry powder. Add more if you like or one less if you prefer milder.'

-Oh, yes! Now it's starting!

-Isn't it?

-Starting to smell like the Singapore noodles we know and love.

In with the pork!

In with the prawns! And these are just frozen prawns.

They're pre-cooked, frozen, nothing fancy.

-Spring onion.

-Lovely. Look at that.

-Look at the colours, though.

-Fabulous, aren't they?

-Yeah.

-And just keep moving it around so it doesn't stick to the bottom.

-Time for the noodles!

Right, just separate these out. I put oil in so they'd be like this.

-Now you almost have to knit the other ingredients into the noodles.

-Use a fork or some chopsticks.

Now you may have noticed there's no salt or soy gone in there.

That's because we'll use the reserve marinade and the meat juices.

-Should I?

-Yes, please.

-And this will just give us a bit more moisture.

Sort of keep going... That's it. There you are, Kingy-san. How about that?

Lovely. 'Once all the noodles are coated and piping hot, you're done.'

Oh, look at those!

Dish it up and garnish it with a few pieces of chopped chilli.

There you are. Singapore noodles.

-Via Hong Kong, via every high street takeaway in the country.

-Look!

Singapore noodles - everything that's great about a takeaway.

Quick, easy and a fantastic fusion of flavours.

Succulent prawns and pork with a kick of exciting flavour.

Let's face it, Britain can be a little gloomy at times.

So when it comes to a takeaway, no wonder we're drawn to colour, heat, spice and a hint of danger!

Curry. Somehow it couldn't have been thought of anywhere else.

Intriguing. Colourful. Extraordinary.

There's nothing that gets us Brits quite so fired up as a curry!

Today there are over 9,000 curry houses in the UK. That's an industry worth over £3 billion.

And that's just Dave's takeaway bill.

But the British got a taste for the spicy stuff a long time ago.

Our collective taste buds first tingled in the Georgian period

as trade links with India rapidly expanded.

The British who travelled there developed local dishes, adapted to their own palate.

It soon found its way back to Blighty.

The first Indian restaurant was opened in London in 1810 by Indian immigrant Dean Mahomed.

Later on, even Queen Victoria enjoyed a chicken curry.

But the real revolution in British Indian cuisine took place in the post-war years

with a wave of immigration.

They look different and they sound different and their tastes in matters of food are different.

The new arrivals mainly consisted of young men

and without their mum's home cooking they had to teach themselves.

Luckily for those who were rubbish, others opened restaurants. But many of us locals were wary.

It's hard to break the habits of a lifetime and eat with forks

and curry has a very strong, very un-English smell.

The '70s saw the British appetite for curry take off

as restaurants began to pop up on our high streets everywhere.

PEARL AND DEAN MUSIC

Sorry! Excuse me!

Come to the Oval Tandoori in the Brixton Road and see why so many customers recommend it.

# Fire... #

And young males set out to prove that they were man enough to eat even the hottest curry!

-'Ey, too hot for you, is it?

-No, it's fine, is this. All right.

You're looking really flushed.

-# Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, Ruby!

-#

These days, our palate is much more sophisticated

and British Indian cuisine has evolved into something truly innovative and exciting.

Five Indian restaurants in England even boast a Michelin star status.

Today in the Best of British kitchen, we focus on a classic.

A dish us Brits have been lapping up out of foil containers for decades.

-We are cooking...

-# Vindaloo, vindaloo... #

It's a great dish, once seen as a young man's rite of passage as he eats the hottest curry on the menu,

but, cooked properly, a vindaloo is a sophisticated dish.

There is an element of heat to it, but that's not all.

It's about the layers of flavours and spice. That's what we're going to show you today.

The vindaloo originated as a stew brought over to India by Portuguese colonists.

-Its name derives from the Portuguese words...

-Vinhos meaning wine and alhos meaning garlic.

Over the years, it evolved into one of the most popular curries on the planet.

Right. Let's begin our vindaloo.

-Right. You on lamb, me onions.

-I'm going to take this lovely lamb

-and just trim it off a little bit.

-We're using shoulder of lamb.

It's great for curries. You want a certain amount of fat,

but it's best to trim off the stringy bits. Like the base of many curries,

it starts off with a pan of fried onions.

Once you've chopped the onions, fry them until nicely browned.

Now this is what we're going to do. We've cut through these lovely pieces of shoulder of lamb.

We've taken the sinew off and we add two tablespoons of oil.

One.

Two.

And 100ml of red wine vinegar. Now...

the reason that I'm mentioning very clearly the amount of vinegar that goes into it,

it cannot be done by eye. If you don't measure it, it becomes too vinegary.

-You want the flavours to balance.

-It's like eating curried pickles!

-100ml of red wine vinegar.

There we go.

Going back to the late '70s, in Indian restaurants,

it wasn't really the character of the dishes that came out. It was the Richter scale of titles.

-There was the korma.

-Which was fine.

-Then the madras.

-Slightly hotter.

-Then there was the vindaloo.

-Which blew your socks off.

-And Bangalore phal.

-Which blew your toupee off.

But there was all this male bravado.

"I can eat the hottest curry round the corner." That's not what it's about. It's about flavour.

Now we want about two teaspoons of salt and then what we'll do

is we're going to make sure the lamb shoulder is combined

with those three ingredients.

We're going to cover it in cling film and stick it in the fridge

and we're going to chill it down and marinade it for two hours.

But you'll be pleased to hear that I've got one that I did earlier and I'm just going to get it.

-So can we leave that overnight and have another vindaloo tomorrow?

-Yes.

-Yes! Back of the net!

-Right.

'The marinade not only adds depths of flavour, it also helps the lamb stay soft and tender when it cooks.

'After a couple of hours, take the lamb out, but keep the marinade. We'll use it to add flavour later.'

Now we're going to fry off in batches our lovely marinated shoulder of lamb.

In batches because we don't want to overcrowd the pan and want colour on the meat.

As soon as this has got a bit of colour on, I'll set it aside.

-That's what we're after!

-'Next up, it's the vindaloo curry paste.

'Roughly chop a medium-sized onion and chuck it in a processor,

'followed by six cloves of garlic, 25g of chopped ginger and three big red chillies.'

And I'm going to leave the seeds in. If you don't like it too hot, then take the seeds out,

-but if you don't like it hot, you wouldn't cook a vindaloo!

-No.

These are quite mild babies.

Now the big guns.

Just like Guy Fawkes, mix together your explosives.

-One tablespoon of English mustard.

-One tablespoon of ground cumin.

-One tablespoon of ground coriander.

-One tablespoon of paprika.

-Two teaspoons of turmeric for colour.

-And two teaspoons of cayenne pepper.

And just to temper it, one teaspoon of cinnamon.

There we go. That should come with a health warning. Ready to rock!

And process this to a paste.

Ooh.

-They look good, mate.

-Lush, aren't they?

-Yeah.

Right.

That's the paste. Whoa!

There seems to be a lot of paste there, but that's what you want for your vindaloo.

-Get your snegger in there.

-Oh, hey, man!

Put that in with the onions and we need to cook this paste off.

-Hairy Bikers' vindaloo paste.

-Flamin' Nora! That's brilliant. Oh, look at that.

Now don't say that we're shy with our spices.

-Look at that.

-WHEEZES

That'll be it, then?

That does tend to kick off a little! That's what you want.

Look. This is what we're trying to get - a little bit of gloss,

a little bit of brown and caramelisation.

-At that point, take it out, set it aside, ready for the main curry.

-Beautiful.

-Like a well-buffed set of country brogues. Time now to imprison the vindaloo.

-Crack on!

Put the spices into the pot.

Throw the meat in with the spice and again those resting juices go in, too.

We give that a whisk round. Now the spices are kissing and caressing the marinated braised lamb.

PURRS

-No, no, not like that! I'd sooner have the spice.

-That's nice, isn't it(?)

-20 years as your mate...

-I'm not good with contact!

-He doesn't like it!

-I went for a massage ONCE.

-Come here.

Loosen up.

-Give your mate a cuddle.

-I am loose.

-Crack on. Go on.

-Look at that.

-If that doesn't already look like a vindaloo,

-I'll eat my own feet.

-It does look like a vindaloo.

-It does.

-A vindaloo.

Now place the reserved marinade back into the vindaloo.

Add half a litre of water.

-Just to make it even hotter!

-There's not much chilli in there!

-It doesn't matter!

It's a slow build. Whoo! I feel good.

-# Doodle-oodle-oodle-doo!

-# Now what appears to be essential...

although I don't know where the flavour's going to come from - a couple of bay leaves.

It may be slightly choked with flavour, but they may add something. And it's in the recipe.

And two teaspoons of salt.

'Give it one more stir and cover it with a cartouche, which is simply a piece of baking parchment.

'Pop on a lid and then it goes into the oven at 180 degrees C for 45 minutes.'

-We're going to put you somewhere nice and warm now.

-Ready?

-Yes.

-# Vindaloo... #

-Will you put it in the oven?!

'While you're waiting, peel 500g of potatoes and cut them into chunks.

'Just a friendly warning - you might need a radiation suit now.'

Look at this. The oven's like that, going...a-wom! A-wom!

-Our oven.

-This is like Homer Simpson sitting in Springfield, isn't it?

Oh, yeah, smells lovely, doesn't it?

Aye.

I tell you what...

Whoo!

Look at that.

-Aw, look! That looks like vindaloo!

-I love it when you get the fat just floating.

Now put the potatoes in.

-Look at the colour of that.

-Then stir those potatoes in.

Oh, look. Mmm. Oh, man.

Then it's back into the oven for another hour.

-If you were a curry, what would you be?

-A Masala Dosa. That's what I would be.

And, you know, the coconut chutney and a lovely crisp outer and a soft, gooey inner. What would you be?

-Biryani.

-Why?

-Just a big biryani.

One-pot wonder.

-I canna' hold it, Captain! Get it out the oven!

-Time to unleash the behemoth!

-It's like the gates of Mordor opening!

-There is a wall of fumes.

Go on. Hold your breath.

-Ooh, yes, look at that.

-Beautiful. Oh, that's nice.

-She's looking awfully fine.

-Lovely, actually.

-That is a real vindaloo.

-Beautiful. Beautiful.

'Finish the dish off with a little sprig of coriander and a naan.

'And topped with a little raita to take the edge off the heat.'

-Now the end if near and we face the final curtain.

-Great.

-But more, much more than this...

let's do it our way!

Texture's great. Look at that lamb disintegrating.

-That's a good curry.

-Whoo.

-Oh!

-It's just right, though.

It's all there, but it's not just heat. Makes you gasp, like.

-All those balanced flavours.

-Oh, aye.

-Look at that.

-That's takeaway at its best.

-That's home cooking.

-Exactly.

-You don't even need to make the phone call.

-It's a takeaway turned.

Tender lamb that melts in your mouth and spices that erupt on your tongue.

The vindaloo is most definitely a king amongst curries.

British cuisine is so exciting and dynamic

because it's the result of the coming together of our own rich heritage with that of people

from all over the world who have made Britain their home.

Combined with our own travelling experiences...

..We have the most unique cuisine in the world

in terms of its inclusiveness and variety.

And that is something we should all be very proud of.

If you want to find out more about the series, visit:

And 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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