A Taste of my Travels James Martin: Home Comforts

The heart of my home is the kitchen.

And it's here that I love to cook delicious meals

for my nearest and dearest.

SHE LAUGHS Cheers, everybody.

There's no better way to celebrate everything good in life

than sharing some great food with the people you love.

These are the dishes that I cook when I want to bring people together.

These are MY home comforts.

For me, travelling is one of the joys of modern life.

I love experiencing different cultures,

meeting amazing people and eating incredible food.

Over the years, it's given me so much inspiration in the kitchen.

I'm going to take you on a culinary road trip

making pit stops all over the world

to pick up ideas that can easily be transported into your home.

Like this one, a boozy pudding that brings back

memories of my holidays in France.

It really is a grown-up dessert, this. It tastes amazing.

I'm also taking a gourmet gamble on a fiery dish I picked up in Spain.

One in every ten are hot and spicy.

And sharing food ideas with my friend

and fellow globetrotter Antonio Carluccio.

So, what got you into food in the first place, then?

-Greed.

-Greed! THEY LAUGH

I'm starting off with a dish I discovered on a recent fishing break.

For me, nothing beats bringing home a good catch

and netting a fantastic recipe too.

This one is aubergine with halibut and miso.

Now, this is only about five or six months ago that I spotted this dish.

It was when I went fishing for this amazing seafood

and serious fishing as well,

where they strap you into a seat.

And I remember catching this tuna, it was about... A bonito tuna.

About that sort of big. I was chuffed to bits with it.

But you could tell the fisherman wasn't too impressed, really,

at the size of my catch.

So he decided to use this fish, that big, as live bait.

We caught some amazing fish and then brought it back.

And on the island, this chef created this amazing dish

using this miso paste.

There's so many different types of miso paste out there,

but particularly the white one you want for this.

Start off by putting a whole packet of the paste,

which is made from fermented soybeans, into a pan.

And then to turn this into the sauce...

I just use caster sugar.

Equal quantities of sugar and white miso.

So, there's quite a bit of sugar in here

and this is where this dish is kind of unique,

I think, in terms of the sweetness with fish.

It's very unusual to put this amount of sugar with halibut,

but one that works really well together.

Next, add a splash of water and put it on the stove.

Now, what happens to the mixture as it cooks,

the sugar caramelises and mixed together with that miso paste

creates this amazing sauce.

Be quite careful with this as well

because you've got that amount of sugar in,

it can burn quite quickly.

So once you come to the boil like this,

just turn it down slightly and that just wants to gently cook now.

For about ten minutes.

Now you can tell when the mixture is ready,

the colour changes and also the texture changes.

You get this nice, light caramel,

almost like banoffee-style sauce, really.

Now, I like to pop it in these little squeezy bottles.

It's much easier to keep.

The great thing about this is you can keep it in the fridge.

And then when you want it, just heat this up in a hot pan.

Try to get most of it INTO the bottle, though.

It's so fantastic, the sauce.

It's lovely and sweet.

It's very unusual to go with fish, but...

..with this dish, it just tastes superb.

Take some aubergine and cut into decent size chunks.

Now, it's time to bring out the star of the meal.

Halibut grows to be huge. It's a massive flatfish.

It can be sort of about half the size of this stove.

Huge, massive fish where you take big chunks off.

But I've got a diddly one.

This nice little halibut.

You can buy this from the supermarket as well now.

It's a wonderful flatfish.

A lot of the time, this is actually farmed as well.

It really does taste delicious.

And one that is highly prized.

Once you've cut your fish into decent size chunks,

start shallow-frying them in butter.

At the same time, you need to deep-fry the aubergine in oil.

Now, what you'll find if the oil is not hot enough,

that aubergines are like a sponge, they soak in all the oil

and then just dump it out on the plate.

So you've got to make sure the oil is really, really hot.

If you're doing it on a pan like this, just be really careful.

Use the thermometer. This one is to be about 180 degrees.

Just fry them very, very quickly.

Just before the halibut is cooked, add some shelled edamame beans

and heat them through.

It's a very quick and simple dish, this,

but one that tastes amazing.

The aubergine chunks just take a couple of minutes to cook.

After that, scoop them out and place onto kitchen paper

to soak up any excess oil.

Add a pinch of salt and then some chopped coriander.

Now, you are ready to plate up.

Couldn't be easier.

I cook this dish so much here at home.

I love it for dinner parties.

It's one of my favourite, favourite dishes

cos it's just so simple and yet so effective.

I mean, already this dish looks really nice as it is.

To make it look even better, sprinkle both black

and white sesame seeds over the top.

And, of course, you've got your fish simply cooked.

And then just a drizzle...

..of this hot sauce over the top.

Finally, I like to add a couple of exciting garnishes -

some fennel fronds and red amaranth, which has a beet flavour.

I love this stuff.

It sounds a little bit fancy, but you can grow this at home.

These seeds just come from a local garden centre.

How good does that look?

It's one of my favourites.

This is a real taste of my travels, to be honest.

Mm.

And all these ingredients can be found in the supermarket.

That's the great thing about it.

It tastes so fantastic.

I've travelled thousands of miles to discover this dish,

but increasingly, I'm finding exotic inspiration right here at home.

That's because of the people who've come from all corners of the world

to live in Britain, bringing the fantastic flavours

of their homelands with them.

People like Tina Stone,

who is from Indonesia.

12 years ago, she met her husband, Jeremy, in Jakarta

where he was teaching.

After getting married,

the couple decided to settle their young family in Birmingham.

For the first two years when we moved here to the UK,

I was really missing my family as well as my mum's cooking.

Anyone who lives on the other side of the world from your relatives,

you miss your family, so by sustaining the cooking,

the memory of her mum's recipes,

it's almost like a way of curing her homesickness.

And what started off in Tina's kitchen as a way of capturing

the smells and tastes of home soon developed into a business.

The idea of having my own brand of Indonesian cooking paste,

it started last year, actually.

My husband loves Indonesian cooking and I love cooking,

so why don't we turn a hobby into being a business?

Tina uses authentic recipes that have been handed down from her mum

and can be used to create a real taste of Indonesia.

They are packed with the finest ingredients,

but many of these can be hard to find.

I come here because there's so many different spices

and ingredients, which is very specific.

Turmeric, lemon grass, galangal,

which is quite difficult to find from the supermarket.

Like, for example, turmeric, I can get it from the shop,

but it's usually a powder or dry.

So, that's very important for me, fresh ingredients taste better.

And Tina's trips to the food market can take her

even further down memory lane.

When I was small, my grandad had a sugar cane farm

and I remember my grandma used to cut like a quarter

and then I sucked it. When I was small, I used to suck it.

It was so sweet. And it's nice.

So, I'm amazed just to find sugar cane here

in Birmingham Wholesale Market, so...

Tina's is going to use the spices she's bought to cook up

an Indonesian curry called beef rendang.

She'll serve this with a range of other dishes

to a group of friends who are due to visit.

The curry I'm going to make tonight is kind of a secret recipe.

Well, OK, without revealing absolutely everything,

her rendang paste is a blend of herbs and spices

mixed with other ingredients including candlenut.

Candlenut is very important. We use a lot to make a paste thicken.

These flavours and the way in which they are used can differ

greatly depending on which part of Indonesia you visit.

We are the country with lots and lots of islands.

Every region has different, unique recipes and they all influence.

Tina's drive to share the flavours from her corner of Indonesia

began under tragic circumstances.

Sadly, my dad passed away when I was only 16

and my mum had to look after four of us on her own.

She started to have a small business, which was selling food.

My sisters and I prepared, four o'clock in the morning every day

before we went to school.

Just to, you know, keep us alive.

To show my respect to my mum being so strong

and hard-working for us, I named my brand after my mum.

The other day, she mentioned to her mum about what we're doing

and her mum was in tears with pride at the fact that, you know,

we are introducing Indonesian flavours to people in this country.

And while Tina is working hard to raise the profile of Indonesian food

in the UK, tonight is all about sharing the taste

and memories of home with family and friends.

I'm always grateful to be able to cook my mum's recipes

and share it with my friends.

It reminds me of my mum's cooking.

I was brought up on spicy food, always full of flavour.

I love it.

I think every time, especially when we have get-togethers

with Indonesian people,

the smells of the food, the sounds of the language,

it always takes you back to, you know,

the time when we lived in Indonesia.

Today has been a really good day and everybody is happy.

I think Mama Eti would be so proud of me.

I love travelling to countries with a vibrant food culture

and one such place is Spain.

And it's where I got the inspiration for my next dish.

Chicken and Serrano croquetas with a side of padron peppers.

They have an amazing market in Barcelona called La Boqueria Market.

It's right on the Les Rambles, right in the centre of Barcelona.

And inside that market,

you have some of the greatest food I've ever seen in my life.

And there's loads of different tapas bars all dotted around the market

and this dish comes from one of those places.

I go to the same place all the time and have this - little croquetas.

Now the basis of croquetas is a simple white sauce.

But it's a thickened white sauce.

It's a different texture to a normal sort of cheese sauce

that we have over here, but it all starts with a touch of butter

and a little bit of flour.

Mix this together.

So at this stage, it will be slightly thick,

almost like choux pastry in the pot here.

Keep the pan on the heat.

You just need to cook this for about 30 seconds.

And then slowly add the milk.

Just a little at a time. Too much to start off with

and you get lumps in the sauce.

Keep on mixing until it's got the texture of mashed potato.

I suppose it's kind of like that, really.

That's the ideal texture for this.

So, if it is too liquid at this stage,

it's just going to be a big mess in your fryer

and if it's too solid, they will become a little bit chewy to eat.

The mixture is a blank canvas. You can add to it whatever you want.

But I'm going to use the ingredients that remind me

of that market in Barcelona - Serrano ham, chicken and chopped parsley.

Have a quick taste.

Needs a bit more salt.

Then one other thing that Spain is famous for,

I'm going to add to this as well,

is almonds.

Flaked almonds.

So, you've got this delicious mixture.

You take the entire lot and pop it in the fridge just to cool slightly.

While it's doing that, I'm preparing three plates -

one containing soft breadcrumbs, another with seasoned flour

and the third was a couple of beaten eggs.

These will act as a coating for the croquetas once the mixture

is finished cooling in the fridge.

It's a good idea, really, to wet your hands at this point

to stop the mixture from sticking to your fingers.

What you are looking for is just...

I suppose, like a golf ball sort of size, really.

Into the flour.

Roll them around until they are completely covered.

Then into the eggs and finish off with the breadcrumbs.

After that, you can start to shape the croquetas ready for cooking.

Now, before we cook these, we are going to cook our padron peppers,

so everything comes together.

Some really good quality Spanish olive oil.

Spain produces so many great ingredients

and olives and olive oil are one of them.

Get the pan nice and hot. The padron peppers, throw them in.

You want to fry them for no more than about a minute.

Now, these are amazing peppers,

but it's bit like Russian roulette when you're eating them.

One in every ten are hot and spicy.

So, as they cook, they start to puff up a little bit

as the skin colours and discolours a little bit.

Keep them on the heat.

At that point, a nice pinch of salt.

And a decent-sized pinch as well.

That's why it's a good idea to use sea salt for this, not table salt.

They're ready. Take them off.

Just pop them into your bowl.

The last thing to do is deep-fry the croquetas for a couple of minutes.

When they've turned a lovely golden colour,

take them out of the oil, a little pinch of salt over the top

and pile them on the plate and eat them while they are still hot.

And the key to this, when you grab one of your croquetas

and just open it up

and you end up with this texture inside.

That's exactly you're looking for, that runny sort of texture.

Chunks of meat in there as well.

Such a simple dish to recreate.

The flavour is fantastic.

For me, this sums up Spain in my opinion - croquetas

and padron peppers.

One in every ten, remember.

It's not that one.

Cooking this dish transports me right back to Barcelona

and reminds me of all those amazing food producers that Spain has.

But we have them closer to home too

and their ingredients are helping to make our own cuisine

more and more adventurous.

Cindy O'Brien farms an unusual sea creature called abalone

off the west coast of Ireland.

Her journey to the wild and spectacular shores of Galway

has been a long one.

I grew up in Southern California,

which is completely different from here.

Very little rain, lots of sun.

We lived close by to sea.

We would always go with my mum and dad and sisters

and we would be looking for shells

and that's where the interest started.

Cindy trained as a marine biologist

and met her Irish-born husband whilst working in Florida.

But it was a dilemma about where to raise their future family

that prompted their move to Ireland.

I wanted to settle in California and my husband wanted

to settle in Miami and so we decided to compromise and go to Ireland.

Luckily, warm weather wasn't a must-have for the couple.

It's changeable and you can have all four seasons in one day

and that's the nice thing about it.

You know, you can kind of get sick and tired of just sunshine.

SHE LAUGHS I'm not sure about that,

but Galway Bay did prove a great place to start the business

that Cindy had long dreamed of.

I had always wanted to run an aquaculture farm

from the age of about 17, 18 years old.

The interest for abalone came in when I was working in Miami.

I was in a experimental fish hatchery there.

And one of the professors there was talking about abalone

and I did more research on it

and that's where I decided that abalone was the one for me.

An abalone is a type sea snail

found mainly in cold waters around the world.

It's considered a delicacy in many countries,

particularly China and the Far East.

The abalone raw will have a very subtle taste,

more like a sea taste.

Think of a mushroom, when it's raw, you have a certain taste

and when it's dried, it has a much stronger flavour

and it's the same with the abalone.

Aquafarms like Cindy's are springing up in places as diverse

as South Africa, Australia and Iceland.

Whilst the demand for abalone has rocketed,

stocks in the wild have depleted.

If you are actually sustainable,

then you are helping the wild population come back.

And that's part of what we hope to achieve.

Cindy farms the abalone in 20 on-shore tanks filled with

Galway Bay sea water.

This is constantly filtered and cleaned,

providing the perfect environment for the creatures to grow and breed.

This is our hatchery.

So, we will actually spawn the abalone in these buckets,

the abalone will release their eggs, we get them to fertilize

and we put them in egg trays.

That's a really good female.

Her eggs are dark. You can see them.

This is the part that everyone loves doing -

getting the abalones to spawn and producing more abalone.

I mean, it's like any farmer.

You want to see the new crop coming in.

They hatch from their eggs in under 24 hours

and live on a diet of microalgae, but as they grow their diet changes.

These are the weanings

and they've been weaned off the microalgae onto the kelp.

This is what they are eating now.

Luckily, Cindy has a free supply of kelp right on her doorstep.

We actually collect it locally.

It's good, clean seaweed that we get

and that is all that our abalones are fed.

We normally get the seaweed at low tide,

so you just kind of depends when low tide is

whether it's eight o'clock in the morning or,

you know, four o'clock in the afternoon.

Even with all this food, the creatures are slow-growing.

They won't reach market size for another three to four years.

But once they do, there's a world of ways to eat them.

The Japanese often consume them raw in sushi

and in California, you can even find them on pizza toppings.

But today, Cindy is the preparing a variety of abalone dishes

like pancakes.

It'll be an interesting way

to introduce this unusual ingredient to her daughter's friends.

The younger people are the ones who have a more adventurous palate.

It's amazing to see really young kids

who are willing to try anything.

Oh, that's really nice, yeah.

It's, like, nice and moist, so it's delicious.

It's very tasty. Absolutely. I hadn't tried it before,

so it was lovely.

Cindy hopes that the rest of us

will come round to the idea of abalone too.

Going abroad as a kid on family holidays really opens your mind

to new flavours.

My first foreign trip was to St Emilion in France.

Back then, it was all about macarons,

or if you are from Yorkshire, macaroons.

But as I grew up, it became more about their famous wine.

This is a homage to both of those ingredients -

my St Emilion macaroons.

So, I'm going to make my own macaroons

and serve that with a lovely red wine and chocolate mousse.

So, the first thing for our macaroons

is that you need to measure out everything.

Exact! Really, that's the key to this.

Really, with pastry, it's either right or wrong.

So, for this I want 100g of icing sugar.

To this, add 100g of ground almonds

and then blitz for a couple of minutes.

Not many people do this, but I think it benefits the macaroons.

You get it much finer

and in doing so, you get a really good quality end product.

That's probably enough.

Next, I'm going to make some Italian meringue.

And for that, I need 100g, again, of caster sugar.

Make sure it's exact.

Bang on.

Then pop it in the pan just with a little bit of water

to mix it to a paste.

Switch it on a high heat and then leave it.

While that's heating up, separate out two egg whites

and start whipping them...

..all the while keeping your eye on the temperature of that sugar.

When it hits 110 degrees centigrade, add it to the egg whites.

Now, you've got to pour this carefully, but quickly.

Too much in one go, it kind of cooks the egg whites,

so you've got to pour it...in a constant stream.

All the time, keep the machine going round and round

as high as possible. It's looking pretty good.

Add half the meringue to the blitzed almonds and sugar.

This will gradually turn into a paste.

Then gently fold in the rest.

Doing it this way will give the macaroons a lovely, light texture.

Once you've done this, it's almost time to pipe.

So let me show you a nifty little trick.

Get yourself a little cutter, like this.

Basically draw on your silicone paper.

Now, this is used as a template to pipe the macaroons.

To make sure they are all the same size.

And what you must do -

and you've got to remember this bit -

is take the paper and turn it over

because lead in your macaroons

doesn't taste very nice.

Fill up the piping bag then stick the paper to the baking tray

with a little bit of the mixture.

This stops the paper blowing around in the oven.

Now you can start piping.

Really, you pipe inside the little discs that you've created.

Now to do that, just hold the piping bag at the top,

press down and pipe.

When you get to the edge of your little template, stop.

It really is that simple.

So once you've got them full like that,

and they all look pretty the same to me,

just grab a touch of water in your fingers.

Just press the top of the macaroons.

And what you have to do now is leave them.

And leave them for at least half an hour before they go in the oven.

This is a vital part of it.

Cos this is where that lovely crust, that smooth crust,

will come over the top of the macaroons

and they'll souffle around the edge once you put them in the oven.

And you'll only get that by leaving it.

Which kind of gives you the time to wash up.

When those crusts have formed,

pop them in the oven for 20 to 25 minutes at 140 degrees centigrade.

Once you've taken them out, set them aside to cool

and you can get on with making the chocolate mousse.

We want good quality dark chocolate and butter.

You melt the butter and chocolate together.

While that is happening, separate out four eggs.

And whip up the egg yolks together with 50g of sugar

over another bain-marie.

Now, this reminds me of France so much.

You've got the macaroons, which came from underneath the flat

where we were sort of staying,

so you got that lovely smell when you woke up in the morning.

And this chocolate mousse comes from just over the courtyard.

St Emilion is based on a hill,

you've got this beautiful sort of town and on the courtyard,

you've got these lovely views over the top of all the vineyards

over in the valley.

There was a very famous hotel and restaurant that is still there -

Hotel de Plaisance.

And I remember as a young nipper wandering around the kitchen

just in awe, really, of all the chefs all in white with neckties

and tall chef's hats.

And I actually remembering eating this chocolate mousse way back then.

When the egg yolks are nicely whisked, add the melted chocolate

and keep it over a bain-marie,

otherwise it will start to set.

Then whisk up the four egg whites set aside from earlier,

fold them into the mixture.

What you get in the end is this lovely, light chocolate mousse.

You can now bring all the elements together.

You get some decent red wine glasses.

Now, what you do with the macaroons is you take these

and place them in the base.

And then a nice glug of this St Emilion wine.

But you've got this amazing red wine,

which sits almost like the jewel in the crown

at the bottom of the glass, really.

Next comes the chocolate mousse.

And then finally, not forgetting these wonderful macaroons

just put one in the centre.

You could pop these in the fridge to firm them up,

but I can't resist a moment longer.

What I love about this is underneath.

And it's the red wine...

Mm!

..mixed with the macaroons and chocolate.

It really is a grown-up dessert, this.

It tastes amazing.

It's pretty good, this.

I'm always inspired by trips to both France and Spain.

And that tradition of bringing home recipes from Europe has been

going on for hundreds of years.

Food historian Ivan Day is taking us on a Georgian gap year to find out

what foods those early tourists brought back to the UK.

The 18th century was the age of the Grand Tour,

when young aristocratic Englishman travelled down into Europe,

into the Italian peninsula,

and visited all the great sites of antiquity and the Renaissance.

Some of these guys get so interested in Italian culture

that they start coming back to London

wearing the latest Italian fashions and wigs and flamboyant clothes

and became known in London as the Macaroni Club.

But one fantastic thing which they acquired on their travels

was a real passion for Italian food.

So, using 18th-century methods, I'm going to make two wonderful dishes

typical of the sort of things that the Macaroni really enjoyed eating.

The first one, the main, is something called

a timbalo de maccaroni.

The second one is an absolutely wonderful pineapple ice.

Ivan's timbalo de maccaroni is actually filled with ravioli,

stuffed with a mixture of chard, ricotta, Parmesan and egg yolk,

a rich combination for those young men with very expensive tastes.

One of the most notorious London Macaroni was

the Whig politician Charles James Fox,

who went on the usual travel to Italy,

coming back with the most flamboyant waistcoats,

which were famous all over the city.

He was a womaniser, he was a gambler and he ran up enormous debts.

The Macaroni Club were happy to pay handsomely for a taste of Italy.

And London's restaurants were grafting to provide it.

They didn't have any pasta machines in the 18th century,

so it all had to be done with vim and vigour

and a bit of elbow grease.

When the pasta sheets were rolled,

chefs would tackle the tricky job of making the individual parcels.

So, I've made my ravioli

and I actually cooked it a little bit more in a simple sauce

made of cream, Parmesan cheese and a little bit of butter.

To make a case for the delicious ravioli filling,

Ivan lines a mould with pastry.

The trick is to get your timbalo mould

and to put it over...very gently, over your inverted pastry.

And then flick the whole thing over,

take that out.

And then if you can do it, get the mould that's inside

out as gently as you can.

After trimming the excess pastry, Ivan carefully adds the ravioli

and puts a lid on the pie.

Just a little hole to let the steam out.

And that is one timbalo de ravioli ready to go in the oven.

While my timbalo is baking in the oven,

I'm going to make another archetypal Italian dish -

a beautiful pineapple ice.

The Italians are really noted for their frozen desserts.

And they were masters at making ices in the form

of all sorts of things, particularly fruits.

And this one is probably the most luxurious of all

because it's made with a pineapple,

which was the most expensive fruit there was in the whole of Europe.

One posh ingredient and many hours of preparation

made this a very pricey dessert.

The Macaroni Club wouldn't have settled for anything less.

Now, I'm going to look after that

because I need it for something a bit later on.

After being peeled, the whole pineapple

including the core was chopped up.

It was then pounded with an early laboursaving piece of kit.

This is simply a giant pestle and mortar.

It's beautifully designed, so this will do all the work for me

rather than me grinding away.

When the pounding was complete, the Georgian chefs would mix it

with a syrup then leave it to stand for a few hours before straining.

In order to make my ice cream 18th-century style,

I'm using this equipment.

This is a wooden freezing pail

and inside it is a pewter freezing pot or sorbettiera.

The sorbettiera was placed in the pail

and packed with layers of ice and salt

to speed up the freezing process.

In there at the moment, it will be the temperature of a modern freezer,

about -13.

A mixture of the pineapple,

water and lemon juice are added to the sorbettiera.

The liquid was then frozen by spinning it around repeatedly

in the ice pail for about 20 minutes.

Ice cream first came to England in the 1660s.

By the early 19th century,

it was still something that only the wealthy experienced.

But in Italy, it was a different story

because impoverished street urchins

in the city of Naples could enjoy ices sold by street vendors.

But street food wasn't good enough for the Macaroni Club.

Their desserts required quite a few more man hours.

I've got here a mould made out of pewter.

It actually is from the period of the recipe,

from the early 19th century.

I'm going to push this very soft frozen pineapple into the mould.

By pushing it in, I'll get all of the lovely little details.

The last step was to seal the mould with butter

and pop the ice back into the pail for two to three hours.

Then finally after all the complicated preparation,

the pineapple ice was ready.

Just look at that.

That is a feast fit for the Macaroni.

I'm going to try the timbalo first of all.

It is absolutely superb.

And now for my pineapple ice, which I think looks too beautiful to eat.

Mm.

It's got this wonderful silky texture.

There's no trace of any ice crystals. It's absolutely perfect.

People made fun of these Macaroni guys,

but I think they, in some ways, were geniuses

because they brought back the wonderful taste of Italy,

which now we just cannot get enough of.

Viva i Maccaroni.

Time to meet up with a good friend of mine

who's brought his fair share of classic Italian cooking to the UK.

Antonio Carluccio.

But today, I've invited him over for a taste of my travels

from much further afield.

Singapore is where I got the inspiration

for this tasty chilli crab dish.

So, I'm going to do some fresh brown crab,

which is just caught from about 40 miles away

down on the coast.

-You know the name in Italian?

-What's this?

-Granciporro.

-Granciporro.

So, what got you into food in the first place, then?

-Greed.

-Greed.

-Was it your parents? Were they...

-No, no.

It was very funny because I was brought up in the centre.

We lived in a station

-because papa was stationmaster of the railway.

-Right.

And my mother, when I was a child,

she was sending me into the office down there

to see if the train would depart on time

in order to go up and say yes.

And she would put the pasta into the water

so that when papa was coming for the food, the pasta was perfect.

When you grow up like this, you know that food is important,

but what I discovered is that in cooking for somebody else

it is a sort of sharing of a passion,

but sharing of life as well.

And it's lovely to eat together with somebody else.

The meal we're going to share all starts

with some finely chopped ginger, garlic cloves

and red bird's-eye chillies.

Chuck them into hot oil and then add the tops of some spring onions.

-Well, we saute this off like that.

-Lovely.

So, you just get them nice and soft, really,

and then I use this tomato sauce.

You can use tomato ketchup as well in there.

And we use, I don't know, about 150ml...

-But it's a very dark sauce, is it with some...

-It's home-made ketchup.

A-ha.

And then we use a combination of this sweet chilli sauce, which I love,

-about 75ml.

-Wonderful.

I can already imagine the taste of the crab in that sauce.

Yeah, it's delicious.

First time I came across this was in Singapore in a restaurant.

-It was called Crab Under The Bridge.

-Wow.

Before you even get served, you just put this bib on

and this massive bowl of crab arrives

and you can't understand why this bib's here,

but you can after about five minutes

-cos you're just caked in it all around your face.

-Wonderful.

The key to making a proper mess is the sauce.

For this, add about 75ml of hoisin,

a tablespoon of fish sauce

and the juice of a fresh lime.

Now you need to sweeten this up a touch, so we're just going to add

-a little bit of sugar to this.

-Yep.

That sauce looks very inviting. My goodness!

-It looks all right, doesn't it?

-Oh, yeah, yeah.

I know that people, they don't like it,

but may I put my little finger in there?

Look, if you do that, I'm going to do that as well.

Mmm!

When the sauce is reduced, set one third of it aside,

then toss the cooked crab in the remaining two thirds

making sure you coat it thoroughly.

-Oh, that's...

-Oh, you see?

You know there's a pleasure from time to time to see

that the food is treated properly.

Not really just, you know... Ah!

Let that simmer away for about five minutes.

Then combine the remaining sauce with some boiled egg noodles

and the rest of the spring onions.

Finally, add some chopped mint and coriander.

I always try to maintain that classic Italian approach to that,

which, first of all, has to be taste.

It's never the look before taste.

In fact, we have products in Italy called brutti ma buoni,

which means "ugly but good."

-Ugly but... I like that name. What's that called?

-Brutti ma buoni.

And it could be anything.

Even biscuits, you know, that they look horrible,

but they taste fantastic.

Well, that doesn't look too bad to me

and it also tastes fantastic and smells divine.

A Far Eastern assault on the senses.

My goodness. Ah!

-JAMES LAUGHS

-I can already see me enjoying a lot.

Look at that!

-Shall we eat this, then?

-Oh, yes.

-Come on then.

-Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

I take this one, yes.

-Ah.

-This is the key to this dish.

-Oh, the sauce is wonderful.

-You like it?

Yeah. I will make it.

-Chin-chin. Good health.

-Oh, lovely.

There really is nothing better

than finding culinary inspiration on your travels

then cooking some delicious dishes for your friends and family

when you get home.

You can find all the recipes from the entire series on...

I'll tell you a little secret. There's a little place in Hampshire

-that if you ever want Singapore chilli crab...

-In Hampshire?

-Yeah.

Give me a ring and I'll cook it here. THEY LAUGH