Fowl Hairy Bikers' Best of British

We believe Britain has the best food in the world.

'Our glorious country boasts some fantastic ingredients.'

Start eating it, will you?

It's home to amazing producers.

-My goodness gracious! That is epic.

-Isn't it?

And innovative chefs.

But our islands also have a fascinating food history.

The fish and chip shops of South Wales are running out of chips.

-BOTH:

-Yes!

And, in this series,

we're uncovering revealing stories of our rich culinary past.

Now, there is food history on a plate.

As well as meeting our nation's food heroes

who are keeping this heritage alive.

Let's have them enjoying themselves. It's a short life.

Let's make it a happy one like they always have had.

And, of course, we'll be cooking up a load of dishes

that reveal our foodie evolution.

Spring, summer, autumn or winter.

It's brilliant.

-BOTH:

-Quite simply, the best of British!

You know, dude, I don't know about you,

it's hard to look at these little feathered friends

-without thinking of chipolatas, and bread sauce, isn't it?

-Yeah, yeah.

I do love a plump bird, dude.

Oh, me too.

Without doubt, the chicken is the most popular of our edible birds.

Here in the UK,

we are blessed with a plethora of wild and domesticated fowl

that are both beautiful, and give us exceptional eating.

Partridge.

Woodcock.

Pigeon.

Pheasant.

Goose.

Duck.

Quail.

-And swan.

-Eh?

All have a huge part to play in our culinary heritage,

and are well worth eating and celebrating to this day.

Other than swan!

We're very sorry, Your Majesty.

# Everybody's talking about chicken

# Chicken's a popular word

# But anywhere you go

# You're bound to find chicken ain't nothing but a bird. #

In today's programme,

we're urging you to broaden your culinary horizons

and discover the world of British fowl.

Forget chicken.

We want to show you that there's a wealth of flavour out there,

from the pot-roasted partridge, to the Aylesbury duck.

Our native game birds have made a welcome return to dinner tables

in recent years.

A word on the foodie grapevine

is that this is a trend that's set to continue.

# Ain't nothing but a bird! #

So, to begin our journey into all things feathered,

we need to revisit our culinary past.

And, if there's one man who can give us the historical perspective

on just how important fowl were to our diets,

it's champion of bygone foods and forgotten recipes, Ivan Day.

Ivan, did fowl have a big part to play in British food history?

Oh, absolutely. The time it really came into its own was at Christmas.

We argue and say, "What was traditional, goose or turkey?"

Actually, neither, because Christmas was a time when

both wild birds and domestic fowl, poultry, are at their very best.

When you get into the colder days after Christmas,

the wild ones start to lose weight.

And you don't really want to be feeding too many domestic ones,

so they tended to kill them around that time.

You see, if you look at some of the medieval and early modern periods,

say, 17th-century dinner menus,

they've got bittern, they've got woodcock,

they've got doves, they've got everything.

They've got turkey, they've got geese, a whole range.

Swan was very traditional at Christmas.

-This was if you were wealthy.

-Yes.

You have a lot of different birds at that time of year.

So, sometimes, you look at these menus, they look quite horrific.

You're eating the whole avian population of the area.

But they were very important.

-And they all have their own unique flavours.

-Yes.

And the best way of combining all these flavours in one dish

was, of course, in a pie.

But not just any old pie.

A Yorkshire Christmas pie.

A massive pastry fantasy,

stuffed with turkey, goose and fowl ad infinitum.

With many of the original ingredients now on the endangered list,

Ivan's promised to only use birds we can all get our hands on.

Ivan, what's in our Christmas pie?

The biggest thing in it is a lovely, free-range roasting hen,

which I spent this morning boning out.

And we're going to put inside that a wild mallard,

which I've also boned out.

I've got a pigeon and a partridge.

As well as that, in some of the Victorian recipes,

we're told to make force meats, to fill all the little gaps and things.

Forcemeat is basically packing for our pie.

Here, Ivan's got some turkey mince to which we'll add

some chopped parsley, mushrooms and ham.

Now, the last thing I want you to do is,

I want you to grate the nutmeg.

The thing about this, it's going to be a cold pie.

So you need to season it very high.

So, I'm going to put a surprising amount of salt in it.

Otherwise, it will taste really bland, actually.

Right, I think we're there.

So, we've now got to actually construct the pies.

To save us time, I've already made some pastry,

which looks a little bit like hot-water pastry.

-BOTH:

-It does!

-But it's not.

This is for the base of the pie.

I'm going to roll this out fairly flat.

This is heavy-duty pastry, perfect for a princely pie like this.

The great thing about this pastry is, you can make it really thin

and it doesn't crack.

Made from lard rather than butter,

a further five egg yolks give it an almost Play-Doh feel -

perfect for our highly ornate pie mould.

Do you not think that there's a certain,

a kind of similarity there between this gadgie here,

-and this one on here?

-It's spectacularly right, isn't it?

-It's you?

-Good grief, look at that!

-"Si's why-aye pie."

-"Si's why-aye pie."

All you need is two croissants on your head!

The next thing is, we've got to line this.

I might need a bit of help here.

If one of you could lift the mould onto the board.

-I'll clear your pastry trimmings.

-Yeah, OK.

I'm going to put this on to this, so that it sits on there like that. OK.

We need this overlap. It's very important.

This pastry won't just look fancy,

it's also perfect for preserving the meat.

Ensuring it was all well sealed,

meant that the birds within it could be kept for months on end.

The most important thing

is to make sure that the sides join onto the base.

You don't want a leaking pie, do you?

'But will our pie look like Si?'

You push that really well in there.

-We do want all those delicate features.

-Yes, so...

That's brilliant.

Right, so, really, it's time to fill the pie, I think.

So, we've got some forcemeat here,

which we're going to put a layer of in the bottom.

-We push that in like that.

-Oh, man.

And those birds will sit on that.

-It's going to be a good eat, this.

-It is, isn't it?

-Absolutely.

What we're going to do is we're going to coat this one

in some forcemeat. So, it's a little bit more even.

We go on to the next bird, which is mallard, the wild duck.

We put him like that, in the middle.

The modern equivalent is one of these multi-bird roasts.

-A bird within a bird.

-Which is kind of a modern heritage fake thing.

-They didn't actually...

-So that isn't anything that's...

They probably never ever roasted things like that.

They had made more sense. They put them in a pie.

And we finish with the pigeon. We've now got to get the whole thing.

It might be a two-person job, though. OK.

-We can just gently drop it in. Look at that for a fit. Perfect fit.

-Wow.

OK, just push it in. That's lovely, look at that.

-That's a well packed pie.

-Look at that, absolutely perfect.

-Fantastic.

Right up to the top.

'To keep the meat moist, a layer of bacon is added to the top.'

Even if you haven't got a pie dish like this,

I still think this would be a really valid pie to make,

a really good cold cutting pie, a good pie for a picnic.

-Absolutely.

-A Christmas pie.

It's a great celebration dish, isn't it?

It's opulent, it's got... It's lovely.

Right, so, I think it's time to finish off our "Why-aye Si pie"...

THEY LAUGH

..by ornamenting it, which is absolutely essential.

This is a Christmas pie. It's a bit like decorating a Christmas tree.

OK, right, let's get it into the oven. Slip that into there.

It fits perfectly.

This pie is relatively small,

compared to the Christmas pies of old.

And, although it'll take still take three hours to cook,

we're more than happy to hang around to see how it turns out.

Take that off, and then...

Ah! There he is, there's himself.

Caught the sun. Sun-kissed.

That's what you Geordies call the full tango, isn't it?

THEY LAUGH

That's very true, that's very true.

That is rather wonderful.

Just gently go through, it's nice and crisp, can you see?

So let's have a look. This one there.

Oh, right, look at that!

-Man!

-Look at that.

Now, that's a pie.

-Can we have a taste?

-Yeah.

-Go on.

-Help yourselves, lads.

-Thank you.

For me, that little bit of crust on the bottom is always...

Oh, man!

..superb.

That is fabulous.

Ivan, thank you so much

for showing us this time machine in a crust, as well as a wonderful pie.

It's a wonderful piece of history. But it's wonderful food.

-Do you know what? You're not

-fowl!

-Oh, my God!

-Corker, absolute corker.

Surely nothing pays finer tribute to our great British fowl

than a Yorkshire Christmas pie.

These days, of course, we have much simpler tastes.

Our festive bird of choice is the good old-fashioned turkey.

There's one British breed that's not only top of the pecking order

when it comes to taste...

It's a valuable slice of our foodie heritage.

But, back in the 1950s,

the Norfolk Black could have died out altogether

if it was not for one family

and their mission to save it from extinction.

-NEWSREEL:

-The one remaining firm belongs to Frank Peele and his wife.

There's a good boy, there's a good boy.

Mrs Peele likes her turkeys and she likes to talk to them.

She knows them all by sight.

The Norfolk Black had a distinguished pedigree.

It's a direct descendant of the first turkey

to be introduced to England from Mexico, in 1524.

They were eaten by that great food lover Henry VIII,

and were first sold at Smithfield meat market in 1554.

And were prized for their robust taste.

I've tried various other breeds,

but my customers, they still prefer their black turkey.

It's got a nice flavour.

I call it a nutty flavour but a nice...

It's got a distinct flavour to other breeds of turkeys.

Don't think I'm running other breeds of turkeys down, because I'm not.

The breed has been a mainstay of British poultry

ever since their introduction.

But, in the post-war years, things changed a bit.

-NEWSREEL:

-These days, it's something of a curiosity

even to see a turkey wandering about a farm in its natural state.

The country had moved towards intensive farming.

And the Peeles' neighbour, a certain Mr Bernard Matthews,

was a turkey trailblazer.

Bootiful.

-NEWSREEL:

-Computers, statistical analysis, environmental research

have all been enlisted to perfect the new white supermarket turkey.

They come off the conveyor belt at the rate of three million a year,

a fantastic achievement that has made the turkey available to all.

Reared in indoor growing units,

fed on specially compounded pellets,

the new turkey is automatically plucked and oven-ready

in less than 24 hours.

In this fast-moving world,

the expensive to rear and slow-growing Norfolk Black

was completely out of step.

But Mr Peele understood all good things take time.

Now, a turkey is not a turkey until it's really mature

and got the flavour.

And it should be hung properly,

and hung up for at least a week according to the weather.

Then you get maturity.

But Mr Peele wasn't alone in appreciating

a good traditionally raised ma-turkey.

I say, if it's a free-range bird,

just let it wander about the farm and just pick it up,

to me, it's a lot better than a turkey and a chicken

which has been force-fed, in these broiler houses.

Mr Peele's selective breeding had plucked the true Norfolk Black

back from obscurity.

But he had no idea what lay ahead for his top-flight bird.

I haven't a son, worst luck, but I've got two daughters,

and I hope they'll carry on the old tradition.

Thankfully, his daughter did take over,

and, today, his grandson James Graham runs the business.

Without this one family,

the Norfolk Black might have been gobbled up for good

by the intensive-farming movement.

Instead, thanks to them, a crucial ingredient of our poultry past

has been saved for the delectation of generations to come.

# Stay for good this time. #

But the Norfolk Black isn't the only historic bird

that remains on our menus.

Partridge may have a reputation for being eaten

by the upper-class types after a morning's hunt.

But it's relatively inexpensive.

It's already stocked by some supermarkets

and, for foodies, it ticks all the right boxes.

It's flavoursome, low in fat, properly free-range

and, best of all, British.

I've told you!

Don't play with your food!

It's not. It's the Partridge family!

HE GUFFAWS

This is a beautiful, beautiful partridge that has its overcoat on.

This is what they look like ker-naked!

These may look like the game birds' answer to the Spice Girls.

But we're going to transform them into this.

Pot-roasted partridge, a traditional British classic.

It's the perfect pairing.

It's a casserole of partridge, chestnuts, cabbage.

The most wonderful autumnal dish.

-They are in season from...

-September 1st.

-..to February 1st.

And we don't eat enough partridge. We don't eat enough game.

-We've got loads of it in this country.

-Game, fowl, the whole bit.

Well, we are fowl obsessed.

Do you know, there are over 19 billion chickens on the planet.

That's three chickens for every person.

Fowl and game bird has played such an important role

in our culinary history.

And I'm very pleased to say that we still do eat it.

Casseroled, it's lovely. That way, it's not going to go dry.

Now, juniper berries, into your doodah.

Crush.

And, do you know? Juniper was very important to the Greeks.

They believed that during the games and sports, you ate juniper berries

and it increased your stamina and improved your performance.

It also smells amazing!

It does smell of gin, though.

Right, I'm just going to take the legs.

Ha-ha ha!

They think we're sweet and cuddly, but we're not!

-No!

-No!

THEY LAUGH WICKEDLY

Now, then, what we're going to do, we're going to, nice and gently,

push the juniper berries into the skin.

Season the partridge with salt and pepper.

Then, into a flameproof casserole dish, place 25 grams of butter,

and one tablespoon of sunflower oil.

In Greek mythology,

the partridge was considered a very important bird.

-Why was that, Dave?

-Yes, it's a very interesting story.

Relates to the character, Perdix,

who was a student cousin of Daedalus, who was a great scholar.

Perdix was very, very clever.

In fact, it is said he invented the saw.

-He also invented a compass and a potter's wheel.

-Really?

Daedalus was so jealous of Perdix's invention,

-that he threw Perdix off a cliff!

-Flame!

And, in middle air, the gods took pity on Perdix,

and turned him into a bird.

And so, therefore, the bird that we know as a partridge,

which actually means Perdix, became the bird that doesn't fly.

The Perdix or partridge. Hm.

Well, OK, smarty-pants!

But then, why can you find it up a pear tree?

-You can't, it's absolute nonsense.

-Really?

-The partridge would never climb a pear tree.

-Why?

In fact, in January, as a present,

a partridge in a pear tree, it wouldn't even be looking for fruit,

because at that time of year, there'd be no fruit on a pear tree.

-Of course.

-It's ridiculous, it's a myth, it's stupid.

Now, what I've done, I'm just browning the breasts off here.

-Look.

-A little bit of colour.

-Oh, aye, beautiful.

Look at that, it's like Cheryl Cole on a sunbed.

Four rashers of thick, streaky bacon, chopped into lardons.

Oh, Perdix.

-I wish I was called Perdix.

-Why?

-So much more interesting than Dave.

-That's what you're called - Dave!

-I'm not called "Dairve"!

Dave. It's nice, it's a good solid name, Dave.

-It's not very classy.

-What do you want to be called, Dirk?

-Perdix would be good.

-Perdix?

Perdix, Perdix Myers.

-Perdix Myers?!

-Perdix... Myers.

Once your "per-die" has browned nicely,

remove and place to one side, and we'll come back to these later.

A partridge, of course, is a very healthy meal,

with far less fat than lamb or duck.

And actually, gram for gram, it has three times more iron than beef.

-Does it?

-Yep.

'Now, add the lardons to the pan, along with one onion, finely sliced,

'and three to four sprigs of thyme.

'To this, add flour.'

You sprinkle that so well, Perdix.

And the juice of one large orange.

Squeezed by my own fair hands.

Supplemented by five tablespoons of gin. One. Two...

Crumbs, don't be shy with the gin, Dave!

..Five.

Now, add 350mls of chicken stock,

and 200mls of red wine.

-It's funny, how booze and game go together quite well.

-They do.

Red wine, gin. But it all works.

Sloe gin works well with venison.

If your dinner's rubbish, the gravy's going to make you happy.

Oh, it's going to be epic, this.

'To that veritable punchbowl,

'add two teaspoons of finely grated orange zest.'

And stir it in.

Together with two tablespoons of redcurrant jelly.

'Fruit and game go brilliantly together.

'And cranberry sauce will work just as well here.'

Now, for the chestnuts. You'll need 200 grams.

These vac-packed ones don't look as appetising

as the ones you peel yourself.

But, honestly, they'll work great with this. Just halve these.

-Because a whole one would be vulgar.

-Oh, yeah.

Scatter them gaily into your pan.

Let that come to a gentle sizzle.

Right, now we've got a rumble on,

just pop that partridge back...

..into its little cauldron of love.

Right. Turn it right down.

Let that bubble away for half an hour.

-HE SNIFFS

-Ah!

And just turn your partridge,

so that each side is cooked through beautifully.

And again, this ingredient goes brilliant with game, the cabbage.

I like the Savoy cabbage. It's lovely. The curly one.

'Take half the cabbage and cut into four wedges,

removing the tough core.'

And then, just plant the cabbage at jaunty little intervals, like that.

That's going to cook and steam beautifully with that partridge.

And you've got your greens then. Heaven.

Now, just simmer that away for 30 minutes

until the partridge is cooked through beautifully,

and the cabbage is succulent.

Mm-mm!

-Oh, nice!

-Nice.

'Not only does it look good on the plate,

'partridge has a delicate gamey flavour,

which falls somewhere between chicken-ville and pheasant central.

Ooh, yes!

-Absolutely beautiful.

-Should we?

-I think we should.

Do you know, that is a very honest celebration

of our British partridge.

So, next time you're thinking about cooking a chicken,

do your taste buds a favour and cook this instead.

It's a homage to our great British partridge.

With not a pear tree in sight.

Ah, the great British countryside.

Green, romantic woodlands,

sleepy meadows,

cows in the field,

birds in the trees.

Here, in the Cotswolds' hills,

wherever you look, there's something beautiful...

That you can eat!

Some of our best food traditions come straight from our landscape,

and none more so than game birds.

This sort of meat was often potted, an age-old tradition,

which was once a familiar sight on dinner tables across the country.

But these days, well, it's a bit forgotten.

Hidden away in this rural bliss are two food heroes,

Rory Baxter and Jemima Palmer-Tomkinson.

They're dedicated to bringing potted game back for the 21st century.

Potted game is a very old-fashioned idea.

It was used a lot before fridges were invented, to preserve meat.

The idea being, you have a layer of clarified butter over the meat,

which seals out the oxygen, thus preserving the meat underneath.

Jemima and Rory source game,

like wood pigeon, right on their doorstep.

The wood pigeon is a completely different bird to an urban pigeon.

They're actually a different species,

or certainly a family within the species.

They're slightly bigger, they're a lot wilier,

and they don't feed on chips, for a start.

And a wood pigeon is a delicious thing to eat.

I wouldn't want to eat an urban pigeon from Trafalgar Square.

It's important to know that wood pigeons can only be shot

to protect crops.

It's just a lucky coincidence that they also taste delicious.

Of course, to get one in the pot, you have to catch it first -

which is easier said than done.

Left a bit. Left a bit!

Oh, man, you missed!

So far - wildlife one, us nil.

Obviously, dealing with animals,

from running around, to ready-to-cook,

is not everyone's cup of tea. It's not particularly pleasant.

But it is part of life.

If you eat meat, that's what happens, that's where it comes from.

We wanted to get the point across that you can eat rabbits and pigeons

which most people wouldn't normally eat in their day-to-day life.

Rory's empty-handed,

but luckily they've already got some wood pigeon ready to go.

And Jemima is trying a new flavour combination

for their potted game range.

As wood pigeon's a very dark meat, you can see,

it's got a very strong, gamey flavour.

So, it's really good, you can match loads of different stuff with it,

and it can hold its own.

Jemima's matching the strong flavoured game

with distinctive ingredients, like horseradish and ale.

First, we're going to heat up the butter.

And there's a lot of butter in this one.

Jemima separates it into transparent clarified butter, and butter solids,

both of which are used in her recipe.

The pigeon is cooked with the butter solids,

which contain all the flavour.

Yeah, I mean, people are pretty scared of cooking game.

They don't know how to cook it.

They often think it's very dry and not very palatable.

So we are basically doing the hard bit for them.

And all they have to do is open a pot, put it on a bit of toast,

and there we go.

In goes some ale and, like any good chef, you've got to have a taste.

Mm. Really good!

To add a bit of zing, in goes some mixed spice and horseradish.

I don't know if this is going to taste good or not,

it's a bit of an experiment, so, we shall see.

Actually, this is how we normally come up with new ideas for recipes.

We think up a bunch of things, put them together,

and then we take them to shows, farmers' markets,

and see what the public thinks.

And to seal all of that flavour in and preserve the meat,

Jemima pours over a layer of the clarified butter.

I'm going to put these in the fridge to set.

And then we're all done.

As we all know, there's no better judge of food quality

than the great British public.

So, Jemima and Rory head to the market

with their new weapon of choice.

-There we go, that's £3.50, please.

-Thank you very much. Thank you.

They last ten days. The trout lasts for seven.

This is our local market.

We try to come as often as we can, which is easily once a month.

We actually meet the people who are buying the product,

which is really important.

You get instant feedback on what it's like.

No-one holds back around here, they're all quite frank.

The potted wood pigeon is a bit experimental,

so the team are keen to know how they can refine the recipe.

It's quite nice to get a first-hand yay or nay.

When we brought out the wild boar and the quail,

we did exactly the same, so it's really good for product development.

Would you like to try some potted game?

Wood pigeon with ale and horseradish here. It's our new recipe.

Thank you.

-Very nice.

-Is it good? We're just trying it out today.

All feedback gratefully received.

Hm, delicious.

-It's beautiful.

-Really?

-Really good.

-I would take another one, actually.

-Oh, do.

That's exactly the response we want.

That's lovely. You can't taste the horseradish in that one.

Actually, the ale is lovely.

A lot of people have said that. But the ale comes through.

It's absolutely amazing. I haven't tasted it before,

-but it's great.

-Oh, right!

-Thank you.

It's going really well, everyone seems to enjoy it, which is good.

I'm not sure if the horseradish is necessary,

but they are definitely enjoying the ale.

-How was that?

-Mm, tastes very, very nice.

-Would you like to try some?

-I'm a vegan, I'm afraid!

The new recipe has gone down well

and with a few tweaks, it'll be ready to send out into the world.

It's great to see traditional food brought back.

And with a modern twist on such a historical idea,

I think they're onto a winner.

# Ain't nobody here but us chickens. #

There's no doubt, Kingy,

these fair isles are home to some great fowl.

But dude, when it comes to popularity,

the humble chicken still rules the roost.

Over the last decade or so,

more and more of us have taken to keeping chickens at home.

They don't require a lot of space, are fairly easy to look after,

and can provide us with a handy supply of delicious eggs.

A wonderful thing in its own right.

But, when you look at these beauties,

it's not hard to understand why some people get a bit carried away.

It started as a hobby, just for fun.

Which went beyond the bounds of common sense.

HAIRDRYER WHIRRS

Sue is a chicken fancier. And she isn't alone.

# Beautiful, beautiful brown-eyed... #

She's one of a growing number of people consumed

by a passion for poultry.

Membership of the Poultry Club of Great Britain

has been on the increase, and now boasts some 1,600 members.

And it's a love affair that's gripped many a Brit for a long time.

Even the royal family have demonstrated a fetish

for our feathered friends.

Aye! Queen Victoria was very partial to a Cochin fowl.

And the Queen Mother boasted some particularly fine Buff Orpingtons.

It might well be a hobby with royal patronage,

but its roots are less salubrious.

They lie in the barbaric sport of cock fighting,

which was mercifully banned in 1849.

But because we Brits are a quietly competitive breed, we quickly looked

for a new but thankfully humane way to battle it out with our birds.

And poultry competitions were born.

Hard fought arenas where generations

have strived for feathered perfection.

Birds at their beak... I mean, sorry, peak of their game.

-The finest of fowl.

-But as we more than most know,

it takes a lot of hard work to look this good -

something John Noakes found out in 1967.

To win a prize in a poultry show, a bird's really got to look its best

and getting him ready is quite an elaborate job.

It starts with a nice, hot bath.

When I've completely washed him in here, I take him out,

put him on here like this...

..and put some clean water over him.

-Just get the worst of the soap off, like that.

-A quick rinse.

Give him a quick rinse. Then he goes into this clean water

and gets all the soap out of him like that.

He's enjoying it. He should have been a duck!

# You've got possibilities

# Takes a fella to tell

# You've got possibilities

# Let me pry you from your shell. #

Now, I'm used to dressing a chicken,

but generally it's wearing a bit less when I do it.

But you wouldn't dream of eating

one of these perfect specimens, would you?

They're the kings and queens of the coup.

And the competition doesn't just stop

at buffed up bantams and cosseted cockerels.

In this game, the judging starts at an early age.

With well over 100 breeds and varieties of poultry

in this country,

each has its own distinctive attributes and character.

So if you're tempted to just get a few hens to provide you with eggs...

And have a bit of a competitive streak.

..don't say we didn't warn you.

# Ain't nobody here but us chickens. #

But you can't have chickens without eggs.

Not only are they both versatile and brilliant ingredients

for the chef, their chronology begs an age-old metaphysical conundrum.

That has troubled even the most brilliant of minds.

Often I ponder, I think about it - which came first,

the chicken or the egg?

Will you stop doing that?!

Look, I'm trying to get all Brian Cox about this.

Chickens are great, eggs are great, but without the celebration of fowl,

you wouldn't have the celebration of the egg. You wouldn't have eggs!

Well, yes. But then you wouldn't have the chicken.

The thing is, there's lots of things you can do with a chicken.

-We eat a lot of chickens in Britain.

-We eat a lot of eggs in Britain.

We do.

I think a really good traditional British egg recipe that goes

back to medieval times is custard.

Custard is a much maligned thing. Powder packet, I quite like that.

But real custard is special.

And our celebration of the egg is a rhubarb and custard tart.

This classic British flavour combo is old school.

It's all about the contrast between the sharp fruit

and sweety comfortness of the custard.

Custard tarts are fabulous, long loved by royalty.

In fact, on her 80th birthday, Her Majesty, she had a custard tart.

-Did she?

-Yeah.

So to make this monarch-endorsed dessert,

we first need to make some custard.

Take three whole eggs, medium size, and two egg yolks.

Take 100 grams of caster sugar.

And then I'm just going to whisk it until it's smooth.

For the pastry, place 250 grams of plain flour into a bowl.

Into that, add 150 grams of fridge cold butter, cut into cubes.

And rub into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs.

300ml of whole milk.

300ml of double cream.

And what we're going to do, we're going to heat that gently

with the addition of a vanilla pod's seeds.

Wow!

Now, vanilla pods are amazing and they're expensive.

So what you do, with great care - gentility -

and not a little bit of dexterity...

open it out, you see that in the middle.

That's flavour and that's just black gold. That's beautiful!

-That's kind of spiced caviar, isn't it?

-It certainly is that, mate.

What you do, take the tip of your knife

and then run it along the length of the pod.

Now, Si's got those lovely seeds out for the custard,

but what we do, is those old vanilla pods,

they can make vanilla sugar, but we put it in a bottle of brandy.

There's about half a dozen in there. Over time, it goes black.

And you end up having your own vanilla extract.

And it's really strong, really natural and really good.

Now, stir your spiced caviar into the milk and cream and gently heat.

Back to the pastry, mix in a beaten egg until it forms a ball.

That's fine.

Now, just knead this pastry lightly.

-And I've got cold hands, so I'm all right.

-Warm heart, though, mate.

I wouldn't say so!

Flour?

I'll roll that out and line the tin.

We're not going to bother letting this set,

cos this is man's pastry,

so chances are, it's going to crumble and fall apart

and we'll be patching it like an old sock!

When your milk and cream combo is hot but not boiling,

slowly stir it into the egg mixture.

That's real custard.

Custard has a long history and it dates back to the Middle Ages.

It was used in those days to thicken other ingredients.

And the ingredients were formed into a tart with a lid

-and that tart was called a "custarde".

-Ah!

And it kind of spread to the eggy filling you used to bind,

which was in fact the custard.

You're good, you.

Right. So there's my pastry.

I've just kind of formed it into a roughly circular shape.

I'm just going to paint my tart tin with some melted butter.

We don't want this to stick. I'm doing this quite thoroughly.

Now, you could chill this pastry, but I think I'll be all right.

-I'm going to go for it.

-Are you?

-Yeah!

Now, to get it onto your pin, just lift it,

kind of roll it like so, and I think I've got plenty of overlap.

Lay that like so.

And I've got a lot this end, so just lower it and press it

and make sure it goes into the flutes.

What I'm not going to do is I'm not going to cut the pastry off the top.

I'm going to nip it, like this.

And you nip it, it kind of gets a nice finish.

See how it's kind of mitred into the flan

and you get a nice patisserie chic finish to your pastry.

I want holes in this, so I take a fork and pop it.

Now, I want this to chill for half an hour

-before I put it into the oven to blind bake.

-Yeah.

The rhubarb and custard tart, in fact,

it's like a custard tart classic, but topped with stewed rhubarb.

This is brilliant rhubarb!

Cut into two centimetre chunks and put them in a pan.

Add one tablespoon of water and 65 grams of caster sugar.

And place over a low heat.

With your pastry suitably rested,

pop a baking tray into the oven to heat it up.

This little trick will give the pastry a crispier bottom.

For blind baking, what I do is I make a little pleaty thingy,

like so.

Put that in there. And I fill that with my baking beans.

I want the cartouche to sit in the corners.

-If that pastry starts to lift, then I have failed.

-Dave, you have!

-I'll use these.

-What are you doing?

You weren't saving these kidney beans for anything, were you?

-No, mate.

-Excellent.

This is probably for tomorrow's chilli.

-It'll be all right, just be a bit tough.

-Look at that.

Now pop that into a preheated oven, onto a hot baking tray,

at 180 degrees Celsius, for a fan oven, for about 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, your rhubarb should be stewing nicely.

Now, what we're going to do, we want some texture in the rhubarb,

so we've cooked on one side and then just take a spatula

and just turn it over, nice and gentle.

Because we want to maintain some of that...

We want to see rhubarb on the top of the tart.

Right.

I'm going to transfer our rhubarb now into a heat-proof bowl

and set aside to cool. Beautiful.

When your pastry's done, remove the paper and beans.

Ooh!

You take one end. I don't want to wreck it. It's a fragile thing.

-Look at that!

-Which way?

-To me.

-Let's not turn into the Chuckle Brothers!

-No, that'd be a bad thing!

Now, gently pour the custard into the pastry case.

-There we go, mate.

-Beautiful. That's just about the right level.

Remember, we're going to top this with the rhubarb.

This needs to go in at 140 degrees Celsius for about 40-45 minutes,

until the custard's set.

This'll be ready when it's a nice golden brown,

but the custard still has a bit of wobble in the middle.

And when that time comes, remove the tart from the oven

and allow to cool completely. Then chill for at least two hours.

As we greased this properly, it should pop out.

Oops.

Thank you!

Now, that's what you call a custard tart.

Now, if you like the rhubarb a little tart,

then 65 grams of sugar is fine.

If you like it a little sweeter, at this point,

add some caster sugar and just stir through it.

-But we kind of quite like it with a bit of zing.

-Yeah.

And we've got some sweetness in the tart as well.

We're hoping the whole thing will come together.

But I think overall our kind of sweet buds, as it were,

they've got less as the years have gone on.

-Not just personally, but as a nation.

-Yes.

Some of the old-fashioned recipes have got so much sugar in them,

it's gone beyond sweet and it's almost sour

-in its intensity.

-There we are.

-Perfect.

-There we are. Look at that, it's beautiful.

It is, lovely thing.

-Mr Myers, that pastry cuts like an angel's toenail.

-Oh!

Nice.

Just a little dressing of cream.

-I think it's beautiful.

-Excellent.

The colours are fantastic, aren't they?

The sort of thing you'd serve at a dinner party

and then you go home and paint your house to match your tart.

Mmm. For my money, that rhubarb's dead right.

It is tarty, but when you mix it with the custard,

the fruit of the chicken...it's magic.

Mm-hmm.

Ah, rhubarb and custard!

For so long have you been wasted on retro sweets and school dinners.

Not any more!

Our gourmet pie celebrates this quintessentially British union

and just like me and my mate, Si, they're inseparable.

Across the UK, you can find towns and villages that have been

so successful at producing a fantastic foodstuff

that their very name has become synonymous with it.

Aye, from Melton Mowbray, you get the eponymous pie.

To cheese from Cheddar,

these places are celebrated for making the best of the best.

And here in Buckinghamshire,

you'll find a small market town that became famous for its

fabulously flavoursome feathered friend, the Aylesbury duck.

Today, Best of British food hero Richard Waller is the country's last

remaining breeder of this small but important part of our food history,

which, without his family's efforts, could have disappeared completely.

Back in the late 1700s, when we can actually trace our family connection

back to Aylesbury duck breeding, it was purely a cottage industry.

Farm workers and suchlike would rear a few and it was purely and simply

for a little bit of extra money for the family.

It bought the children perhaps a new pair of shoes for the winter

or the wife a new coat.

My grandfather and father then evolved with it, I suppose,

in the early 1900s, to make it into a business,

rather than just a sideline.

Unfortunately, for the Aylesbury duck industry, in the 1930s, 1940s,

mass production took over, which then overtook my father in the end

and we now just stand as a small producer,

producing the old Aylesbury duck exactly as it was 200 years ago.

I'd like to think if my grandfather or grandmother came back now

to see what I'm doing, they would actually think,

apart from a few improvements,

"He's done it exactly as we were many years ago."

And I still think this helps to retain the whole essence

of the Aylesbury duck industry.

Small production, look after your birds really well

and you'll end up with a superior product.

And in the duck world, you can't get better than an Aylesbury.

Back in the 19th century, the breed gained a reputation

for its snowy white plumage and superior-tasting meat.

But in the 1870s, the Peking duck was introduced from China.

It was both hardier and cheaper to raise,

so producers began to cross-breed the two

and the true Aylesbury duck began to slip off our menus.

Richard's ducks are direct descendents of the ones

bred by his ancestors.

And maintaining this pedigree has been possible

thanks to some incredible foresight.

Now, my father realised the small breeds were in decline,

and as they packed up, died unfortunately, whatever,

he bought livestock from them to keep his bloodline fresh.

And there's so much different blood went into his bloodlines,

we don't get any inbreeding.

And thank goodness he had the forethought to do it

because it seems now that I'm the very last breeder

of the real Aylesbury duck.

It's such a shame that we may lose

part of our foodie heritage for ever,

but Richard is determined to preserve this disappearing tradition

for as long as he can.

I do think it's been instilled in me over the years

to carry on in the same old-fashioned way,

none of this mass production

where the poor ducks are inside all the time.

They're roaming round paddocks and pens. They're enjoying themselves.

It's a short life. Let's make it a happy one, like they always have had.

It's a sentiment shared by Richard's wife Beverley,

who's in charge of the eggs.

Traditionally, these would have been placed under broody hens

to keep warm, but these days, the eggs are hatched in an incubator.

I love looking after the little uns.

During the hatching, we actually come here several times a day,

just to check to see if any of them needs any help

coming out of the eggs. They might slightly get stuck.

We just ease the head back, release them

and then let them push themselves out of the egg.

Once they've all hatched out,

we put them into what we call the brooder shed

and then they stay there for two weeks

and then we have them out and about.

The quality of life for the ducks is everything.

Come on, gently, come on.

It's said that in the 1700s,

the ducks were herded from Aylesbury to London on foot,

a journey of over 40 miles.

I'm guessing that would take a while, judging by this lot!

It's like herding cats, innit!

They're outside now, they'll enjoy hopefully the sunshine.

A little bit of rain, they don't like a lot of rain.

And they'll be there until the day that they die.

Now traditionally,

Aylesbury ducks have been killed straight from their shed.

We still haven't altered that, because it cuts the stress levels.

I think there's nothing worse for an animal than to be picked up,

crated up, put on the back of a lorry,

transported 20 miles to be killed.

This way, the necks have been dislocated

and the whole thing's over and done with very quickly.

My father always taught me that

if an animal's going to give you the privilege of eating its flesh,

it should be given the privilege of a very quick, clinical death.

Painless, quick and stress free.

And hence, that's what we still do. The old-fashioned, traditional way.

And I think that adds a lot to the texture,

flavour and everything of the meat itself.

Plus the fact, to be quite honest, it makes me feel better.

And because Richard's made the decision

to slaughter his ducks on site, a quirky bit of EU legislation

means that the birds can only be sold within 20 miles of the farm.

So what that means is anybody further than about 20 miles from me,

unless they've actually come and bought the duck from me,

a farm gate sale, has probably never eaten a real Aylesbury duck.

In fact, I'm sure they haven't.

What they've eaten is an English white farm duck

that somebody's flagged up as being, quote, "Aylesbury."

But of course, it isn't.

Before they can find their way onto our dinner tables,

the birds get the avian equivalent of a leg wax

to get rid of the downy feathers.

The big producers would wet pluck them.

They would put the whole bird in hot water

until the feathers soften, then put them in a machine

with a rotating drum to take the feathers off.

What this does tend to do is spoil and damage the skin slightly.

Hence, it's quite difficult these days to cook a duck with crispy skin.

But this dry method, using this wax, leaves you with a nice crispy skin

when it's cooked.

And just down the road at the King's Head in Ivinghoe,

chef Jonathan O'Keefe regularly cooks

using duck from Richard's farm, just as his father did before.

It's our most popular dish and between myself and my father,

we've cooked probably well over the 60,000 mark.

People come here to the King's Head for the Aylesbury duck.

It's a fantastic product. It's rich, it's succulent.

You need to do very little to it

and Richard has turned down many a good restaurant

just so he can supply us.

So we're very privileged to have Richard on our side.

Without him the King's Head wouldn't be as good a place.

So when you're cooking duck for Richard,

you'd better get it just right.

I am very biased, but this has got to be the tastiest duck I've ever eaten.

It really, really is.

And it's all down to good cooking and good breeding.

-Cheers. Here's to the Aylesbury duckling.

-Yeah.

Duck used to be Britain's favourite fowl

and right up until the mid 20th century,

our preference was for richer, fattier meats.

But changing tastes and a decline in stocks after World War II

meant it slipped off our menus

and our appetite for it has never quite recovered.

Yet, there's no reason why duck can't be number one again.

Well, in our homage to the duck fowl,

-we have crossed it with Britain's favourite dish.

-Which is?

Chicken tikka. It's also the favourite dish of ABBA.

# Chiquitita, you and I know... #

We're going to take this lovely rich meat

and marinade it in yoghurt, garlic and spices.

And because of the fat content in the duck,

it makes the most fantastic tikka or tandoori.

-I'll get spicy.

-All right, mate.

In a dry frying pan, place one tablespoon of coriander seeds,

one of cumin seeds, a couple of cloves

and half a teaspoon of black peppercorns.

Stir until lightly toasted.

Now, take four boneless duck breasts and remove the skin.

There's a membrane that sits in between the duck breast

and the skin.

So all you're doing is...

Look, I'm not cutting into the duck breast.

I'm just easing that membrane away. And eventually, it will come off.

You know, the Chinese started to domesticate ducks 4,000 years ago.

Mind you, they're still the number one meat in China.

Look, the smoke's beginning to come off the spices.

It's time to pop that into the pestle.

They're just nicely toasted.

Oh, look at that!

Ooh! Pump up the flavour!

Fenugreek. Fenugreek is a very interesting spice.

Do you know, Si, that apparently fenugreek increases

the milk production in lactating women

and it helps improve a fella's libido?

-Does it?!

-Yep. Put more in, Dave. Put more in.

No, we have a mere half teaspoon.

A quarter teaspoon of cinnamon. One and a half teaspoons of turmeric.

And two teaspoons of paprika.

Yep, it's going to be tasty and it's going to be colourful.

I've got half a teaspoon of hot chilli powder. A good half teaspoon.

-Go on, Dave!

-I know.

Now, I want a teaspoon of sea salt flakes.

The nice thing about using the flakes in a pestle and mortar

is it acts like a grinding paste and this is the spice mix.

There's real alchemy in that. Look at that.

The word "tikka" literally means bits and pieces.

Which describes the way it's prepared,

but I'm taking a more methodical approach.

That's each duck breast cut into eight portions,

ready for the perfect skewer sized mouthful.

Look at that! That's my tikka blend.

And to these aromatic flavours,

we're adding a thumb-sized chunk of fresh root ginger.

Finely chop it... Look at that, mate.

-Smell that.

-That is superb.

And this is where doing this dish at home is going to be better

than anything that's done with a bought sachet of spices or a paste,

cos all the fresh... That's alive!

Into this bowl, I've got some full-fat yoghurt.

Now, you could use fat-free yoghurt and actually, I've done this with

chicken, with lamb, and it works brilliantly with either.

Now, into that, two cloves of crushed garlic.

It really is a wicked, spicy brew.

And then add your ginger.

Into that, Dave's wonderfully prepared spice mixture.

Look at that.

And then give it a mix.

Just to evenly distribute all of those fantastic spices.

Bung in the duck.

-I tend to get my hands in at this point...

-Yeah.

-..which are clean.

-And just kind of massage it through.

-Perfect, man.

This needs to be left for at least four hours to marinade.

Or preferably overnight.

The thing is, we have got what we did yesterday.

And it's a good thing to do.

One on, and then do one the day you're going to eat it,

cos I guarantee, you will want some the next day.

And here's the one we made earlier.

I've got some thick bamboo skewers.

We're going to grill this, about five lumps to the stick.

And leave a little gap in between each lump, about a centimetre's gap.

You want the heat to radiate around your duck.

A top tip, if you've got marble worktops or a white top,

don't let this drop cos it'll stain it a terrible ochre colour.

Traditionally, this dish would have been baked in a clay oven

or tandoor, but the secret of a good tikka is all to do with the heat.

What we do is we put this under a blisteringly hot grill

for about two to three minutes on each side.

After two to three minutes, turn it. You want it slightly charred.

The beauty of ducks' breast is if it's slightly pink in the middle,

that's kind of going to be better.

If you want to cook it through, cook it through obviously.

The duck tikka police aren't going to come and get you.

So under there, top shelf. And it's the hottest to the bars.

When the big hand's on four, we take it off and turn it.

-Here, Kingy, what do you call a cat that swallows a duck?

-I don't know.

A duck-filled fatty puss.

God! Dear me!

-Ooh, yes!

-Nice!

Ah! Just starting to char up, so we turn this.

And now another three minutes.

Satisfaction guaranteed.

-What time does a duck wake up in the morning?

-I don't know.

The quack of dawn! Ha!

Here, Kingy, how do you turn a duck into a soul singer?

I don't know, how?

Stick him in the microwave and take him out when he's Bill Withers(!)

Oh, God! Dear me! Myers, man!

# Oh, you're beautiful... #

# And you're mine! #

Look at that.

Now, with a fork, slide the duck tikka chunks off the skewer.

There's going to be treats for everybody.

I love this recipe so much.

-Ah, look at that!

-That's beautiful!

Duck tikka.

Starter for eight, mains for four, I think, at least.

There it is, duck tikka, a perfect mashup of east meets west.

So tasty, you need never reach for a takeaway menu again.

Brilliant! Oh, look at that!

And I'll just take myself a little onion ring.

-Man, that is so good!

-Kingy?

-What?

-I've just seen the future.

It's duck-shaped.

Our British fowl is more than worthy of its place on our dinner tables.

As far as we're concerned, partridge, woodcock, pigeon,

pheasant, goose and duck, they're all the new chicken.

And if you want to give the recipes in today's programme a go, visit -

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