South Wales James Martin's Food Map of Britain

'Two of my passions are flying and food.

'And it's from up here you get to really appreciate

'the unique landscape that produces the food that I love to cook.'

So I've taken to the skies to show you how this land

has influenced our larders.

'On my journey around the UK,

'I'm going to be meeting the people who work this ever-changing landscape.

'And revealing how this terrain has served up some of the country's best regional ingredients.'

It tastes so good.

'And I'll be sharing some great recipes that showcase this amazing land

'that put such wonderful food on our tables.

'Today, I'm heading to South Wales.

'The impressive and endlessly varied landscape

'makes conditions perfect for producing a spread of uniquely delicious ingredients.

'The rolling pastures and lush grass of the valleys are great for dairy,

'giving us strong Welsh cheeses like Caerphilly.

'The rugged hills are home to a breed of cattle

'that can graze the coarse upland grass,

'producing world-famous Welsh black beef.

'The rich soils and warm, wet air

'are ideal for the prized Pembrokeshire potatoes.

'And it's to Pembrokeshire I'm heading first today

'on my food map of Britain.'

Now, you cannot come to Wales without a trip along the coast.

There are 750 miles of coastline.

And it's stunning from the air. And if you've ever eaten mussels...

..in Holland, and crab in Spain,

particularly sea bass along the south coast of England,

there's a good chance that it comes from these waters around Wales.

'This huge supply of seafood exists

'because the waters of the Atlantic Ocean here are particularly clean and nutrient-rich.

'I've come to the farthest reaches of Pembrokeshire

'to the beach of Freshwater West,

'a mile-long stretch of sand and rock,

'where one man's made it his mission

'to find some of the freshest seafood you could ever wish for.'

I love foraging cos I just love being down the beach.

I'm just a bit of a beach bum, really.

So if there's no surf, I get to spend time on the beach foraging

and just finding new ingredients.

'Jonathan Williams used to have a desk job.

'But two years ago, he swapped suits for shorts to become a full-time forager.'

Professionally being down here is just fantastic.

You can combine your passion with a professional lifestyle, as well.

'He not only scours the shores for tasty titbits,

'he's a chef in his own right,

'cooking up all manner of seafood dishes in his mobile cafe.'

The quality of ingredients down Freshwater West is fantastic.

I mean, the water quality here is just amazing.

And you can see just looking around, just the environment it grows in,

it's just clean and unpolluted.

'Now, I'm going to be honest, I know nothing about foraging,

'so I'm keen to see what this beach has to offer.'

-All right, Jonathan.

-Hey, James, how's it going?

-Good to see you, buddy.

-This is a pretty good location, isn't it?

-It's not bad, it's not bad.

-It's not bad! On a day like this, it's spectacular!

-I'm really lucky.

And a great menu. I've spotted a few things already.

Lobsters. I'm assuming this is just from over there?

Yeah, yeah, lobster we get from here, crab we get from here and the seaweed we get from here.

Tell me about seaweed. This area's famous for it.

-So which one's first?

-This one is the pepper dulse butter.

So you can see all the seaweeds in there.

I'll put a little bit on there for you.

We love it on a nice little bit of bread, things like that.

And can't go wrong with a nice Welsh bread

and a nice bit of Welsh pepper dulse seaweed.

It is great, though, cos the minute you think of seaweed, you think of saltiness.

-This hasn't got it at all, has it?

-It's got a really nice...

-Almost mushroomy taste.

Yeah, it's lovely. I've got to try this, then, the old potted crab.

Potted crab and a little bit of lemon.

-It's really good, that.

-That's a bit tasty, isn't it?

Very good, that. I'm going to need more than this to cook with.

So I'm trusting you to forage some stuff from out there.

-Hopefully, the tide is low enough.

-Do you know what you're doing?

Well, we'll see.

-I'm going to follow you. You lead the way.

-OK.

'Part of what makes the Welsh coast unique is its immense tidal range.

'Pembrokeshire has some of the biggest tides in the world,

'meaning that on a flat beach like this,

'up to 100 metres of rocky seabed is exposed twice a day.

'Now, many seaweeds cling to rocks,

'making this the perfect spot for foraging a whole load of it.

'Which is what the locals have done for donkey's years.'

-Well, the tide's coming in.

-Yeah, I think the tide's too high for the reds.

He's just randomly going out there like a mad Welshmen, really,

I don't know what he's looking for.

But this is quite interesting stuff.

This is gutweed. Or sea grass, as he calls it.

That's the stuff you often find in, sort of, Chinese restaurants.

-Got a couple of reds.

-A couple of reds?

-A couple of red seaweeds.

First one's carrageen or Irish moss.

This is used as an alternative for gelatine.

-So that's why you can...

-Look at that.

It's got its own E number. It's used in ice creams, setting agents.

Fantastic to use in panacottas and possets.

-We've got some pepper dulse here.

-I've seen this before.

-I've eaten this before. This is delicious.

-It's really peppery. Have a taste of that.

And it's got the nickname of truffle of the seas.

-It's got this really unique flavour.

-That is amazing.

-It's fantastic.

Can we go in now? Cos my welly is about to get...

-Have you got wet wellies?

-Look at that!

-You'll have to have a piggyback.

-I might need other stuff.

'With 35 edible types of seaweed growing around Britain,

'I can't believe I haven't done this before.'

This is what makes the Welsh rugby team so good. They live off this stuff, laver seaweed.

'Of course, you've got to know what you're looking for. It's not all fine dining.'

We can have a little bite. But you won't get much out of the...

Yeah.

'I'll be using a couple of these seaweeds in my next cook up.

'But there's one more ingredient I want to get my hands on,

'rock samphire.'

-So this is your favourite spot, then, to find it?

-Yeah, I love to come down here.

It's all kind of growing right on the top of the cliff here.

And you can see a little bit here, look.

-It's growing amongst the grass.

-It's all here, look at this.

-Yeah.

'Rock samphire is delicious stuff.

'And it grows just out of reach of the tide

'but within reach of its salty spray.

'The conditions here are perfect for it.'

-We've got a hefty bunch here actually.

-Yeah, well, you know, I'm a typical chef,

I'm grabbing loads of this cos I actually like this stuff.

It really has made my trip because I've never seen this grow in the wild.

It's a great location, as well, down on Freshwater West.

-And look at the view.

-I know. It's not a bad job.

-You've got a hard life, haven't you?

Well, it's not all this. There's a lot of hard graft going on here.

-Yeah, yeah.

-Behind-the-scenes stuff, James.

-Exactly, right.

Well, pick more, cos I want plenty of it.

-Stop eating it and get picking.

-I can't help it.

'Ideal as the rocks are for the seaweed, and the cliffs for the samphire,

'that's not all you can forage from a Pembrokeshire beach.

'At low tide, you can also get the sand and the mud flats,

'which are home for all sorts of shellfish.

'Although catching a wave seems more popular for some than catching supper.'

Now, foraging for food around the coastline of Britain

is 100 percent legal but it's far from straightforward,

as most of this coastline is either National Trust, National Park or privately-owned.

Some need licences, but mainly you need the owner's permission.

But getting it and getting this amazing food,

just literally by the sea,

like this,

and this lovely... sea samphire is absolutely delicious.

And I'm going to use this and some of the foraged stuff that we got earlier

to create this lovely dish.

'Of course, you don't have to hunt down all your own ingredients on the beach.

'But do make sure they're fresh.

'Most shellfish will work with this dish,

'but I'm using cockles, mussels, clams and razor clams.'

They're very quick and simple to cook, really. You just need a hot pan on a stove.

And use that as a little windbreak.

And some white wine. We're going to get that in first of all.

The razor clams here can be found all along the beach here,

and all the way around Britain, really.

I don't know why, to be honest, we don't eat more of these, but they really are spectacular.

And taste really good.

So, throw the clams in.

All the clams there. We've got some lovely mussels here.

I'm going to throw them in, as well.

So put the lid on. And we cook these for a couple of minutes.

Lifting off the lid.

They're about ready. You're just opening up the shells, really.

We can drain off the liquor

cos the liquor is really important

when we come to cooking this.

Just lift out the clams... and the mussels.

It's one of these things, I often find with razor clams, people really don't like them

cos they really don't know what to do with them, more than anything else.

So we get the pan nice and hot again,

ready for our little samphire.

In the meantime, we can prepare our clams, which are pretty straightforward,

so all I'm going to do is take the meat out of the mussels first and the clams.

And this, to me, is what cooking by the sea is all about.

Everything here that I've cooked so far is literally found along the coastline. It just...

..tastes of the sea.

So we've got the clams and the mussels.

And then these are the razor clams, really. Very simple to prepare.

All we do with these is just remove that.

Out the way. It's just all the white meat, really, what you're looking for.

Some people say these taste a little bit like oysters.

But they're a lot cheaper.

But they're delicious. And all we do with that now is take the flesh and just chop it up.

And then I'm going to add these into the sauce in a minute.

And then use the shells, as well.

This is when I remember being a kid,

we used to go to Blackpool, really, and collect the shells,

and put it in my granny's bathroom

together with one of those toilet roll warmers

with, like, a Barbie doll on top. But you've got these fantastic razor clam shells there.

And then I'm going to just top these with some of this fabulous...

..sea samphire.

'Melt some butter in a pan.

'I'm using some of the pepper dulse butter Jonathan gave me.

'Once it's sizzling, in goes the samphire

'and some of this beautiful red seaweed.

'And a good grind of pepper.'

Just as simple as that. Don't cook it too much cos you want to get a nice little colour.

And I'm going to use this to top our little razor clams here.

And now for the sauce. This is really just a classic white wine sauce.

A little bit more of this butter in there

and we just want some chopped shallot.

Just a little bit of chopped shallot.

Get that cooking in the pan. Some garlic.

Now, if you're just tuning in, I haven't shrunk.

This is me.

It's just that the producer has me sat here so you can see this fantastic view.

But...

So the garlic and the onions, you just want to cook this

for about a minute, something like that.

And then we've got this wonderful juice here.

This is the juice from the clams and everything else.

One thing you do have to be careful with, though,

is a little bit of debris in the bottom.

So what we're going to do is just pour this mixture in, just carefully.

And then kind of stop really at that point.

Throw the rest of it away.

And then we need to reduce this down with some double cream.

And cook this for a couple of minutes until it gets nice and thick.

'You can really tell when this sauce is ready.

'It should be just thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.

'At this point, add the cooked clams and mussels.

'Together with some tomatoes, skinned and diced,

'and a good squeeze of lemon.'

You can almost take it off the heat at this point, really.

You don't want to be over-cooking those clams.

If you do, particularly with razor clams, they're going to go like rubber.

It'll be like chewing on a wetsuit, that most of these surfers... Look at them out there.

Why do surfers do that, anyway? There's no waves, man! Look at you!

Mind you, I don't think I could fit in a wetsuit, let alone get on a surfboard.

That is delicious.

And now we're just going to finish it off with some of this dried seaweed

that we're just going to put on there, as well.

And then all you need now is just to put this inside the shells.

Then just finally, we're just going to take some of this lovely forage seaweed over the top.

And there you have it.

It's Britain's coastline on a plate, really. Or a pebble.

'A mouth-watering seafood starter.

'A product of this glorious coastline

'and a tribute to the great Atlantic Ocean.

'I'm leaving the fine beaches and historic fishing ports of the South Pembrokeshire coast

'for a very different landscape.

'I'm heading inland to an area just southwest of the Brecon Beacons.

'A region dominated by rugged hills

'where I'm looking forward to tasting one of the most famous foods

'to come out of Wales.'

Now, this is something every farmer will tell you.

For great, great produce, you have to work with the land, not against it.

Now, although this area is beautiful to fly through,

it's a terrain that's notoriously difficult to farm.

And if you had a tractor,

you wouldn't want to drive it up the side of one of those hills.

'Farming these hills is all about rearing livestock

'and some, like Bernard Llewellyn, are positively passionate about it.'

I've got a bit of a thing for these little black and white things. They're called bals or balwen.

'These are Welsh mountain sheep

'whose flavour is so linked to their surroundings

'that they enjoy protected geographical status.

'Lamb from anywhere else just isn't the same.'

I just love them to bits.

They're pretty and they taste really good, which is probably the most important thing of all.

'Bernard's been farming at Carreg Cennen for over three decades.

'The sheep roam wild on the exposed hills for most of the year,

'but every summer, they're brought down to the farm.'

Well, I've got the last of the sheep to shear.

They don't shear that easily, but they really are iconic to this part of the world.

'And I've got a delicious dish planned for this prized meat.

'But I've got a feeling that Bernard's going to make me sing for my supper.'

-How you doing, Bernard?

-Well, it was a lot easier 20 or 30 years ago, when I was young.

-Why don't you come on in?

-So, is this a local breed, then?

This is very much a local breed.

It's a big Glamorgan ram.

-It's a big, hardy sheep.

-Yep.

-Not terribly good wool.

'Welsh mountain sheep have been bred to be tough over hundreds of years.

'They need to be able to survive the storms that sweep in from the Atlantic,

'battering these hills in the winter.

'No other livestock does as well here.

'But when the time comes to remove their worn-out winter coats,

'Bernard does get lumbered with a lot of wool.'

What would you get for something like that?

-£1.50, £2 at the most.

-Two quid, that's it?

And that's a big fleece.

Some of our ewes, they'll be a lot smaller

and we'll be lucky to have a pound for them. HE SIGHS

-I think it's your turn.

-Oh, is it my turn?

-Oh, absolutely.

-You've done all the big ones.

-Well, exactly.

-I've never done this before so can I pick a small one?

-This one will do.

-This one?

-Yes.

Get in there.

-Go on then. Feeling comfortable with that?

-Yeah.

-OK.

-Go for it.

-Watch my hand.

'What allows these sheep to stay in the mountains in the worst of the weather

'are their dense fleeces.'

-It's really warm underneath!

-Keep it tight on the skin.

-Right.

Let me show you. Just like that.

'Even with Bernard's expert tuition,

'this makes shearing these sheep a rather thankless task.

'However, cooking their meat is a different story.'

-Bit more.

-I feel like we should name her Rosemary or something like that.

-Rosemary?

That's better! Another thousand ewes, you'll be really good. JAMES LAUGHS

-Well done!

-Hurray!

-Great stuff!

-I do apologise.

-No, no, no. Don't apologise. I'll finish her tail some time.

-I'm not apologising to you, I'm apologising to Rosemary!

-Sorry, Rosie.

Look at that! I reckon we'll get, what?

I reckon you might get 30p for that if we're lucky.

-Don't think we'll get a lot for that one, will we?

-THEY LAUGH

'Now, thick wool may not directly affect the flavour of Welsh lamb,

'but another quirk of nature in these sheep does.

'Lleyn sheep graze on farmed pasture land,

'but here, the steep, uncultivated hillsides

'offer a less nourishing diet.

'Mountain sheep have adapted to survive on this fare of wild grass,

'moss, herbs and lichens,

'which gives their meat a unique, almost gamey flavour.

'One that I want to do justice to with my next dish.'

Rosemary is somewhere round the corner there,

hiding like a woman with a bad haircut.

She's tucked away round the corner, not very happy with herself.

But I thought we'd do cooked lamb with hay.

It's quite an unusual way to cook it, but one that really adds to the flavour of this fantastic cut.

'Remember, if it says Welsh lamb on the label when you buy your meat,

'by law, you really are getting some of this treasured lamb.

'For me, it goes particularly well with this mint and parsley-filled tabbouleh.'

So what I'm going to do first of all is just trim this into lamb chops.

Now, roughly, you get about seven

per portion.

And you can see, what makes this so special

is really the distinct lack of fat that you get in there.

But what you get is this beautiful eye of meat, full of flavour.

But because it's a quite hardy... breed,

you get a really distinct flavour to Welsh lamb,

and one that really no other type from anywhere in the world matches.

So we've got our lamb chops ready. And now onto this.

Now, this may appear completely madness and unusual.

You get hay, and you get this from your pet shop, not from your rabbit hutch.

And you put the hay into a dry, hot pan.

And what this is going to do is add to the flavour.

It really gives it a unique taste.

And then to get a little bit a colour...

..just a touch of oil.

And then...

..no offence to my friend in the back of the shot somewhere,

a little bit of rosemary over the top.

With this, we're just going to lay these over the top, like that.

Bit of black pepper. Touch of salt.

And we could, if we wanted,

just for added benefit,

little bit of garlic in there. Why not?

We'll cover this with tin foil and cook this for about 10, 15 minutes.

'If you want to get a taste of Wales,

'I reckon these are the ingredients and this is the way to do it.

'About halfway through the cooking, turn the lamb so it browns evenly

'and takes in the flavour of that hay.'

Now, with this, I thought I'd do a bulgur wheat salad,

and it's kind of like a tabbouleh, really.

But tabbouleh's not conventionally done with couscous, it's always done with bulgur wheat,

which is a cracked natural grain,

whereas couscous is actually a manufactured product.

But this is it in its dry form.

You can either cook it straight in boiling water and cook this for about ten minutes,

or alternatively, you can leave it to soak.

This has been soaking for about four or five hours.

And we can drain this, this is just cold water in here,

just get rid of the cold water, pour this back in,

and then literally just get a kettle full of water and pour it over the top.

That way, you'll be able to serve this warm.

And then, a bit like couscous and tabbouleh,

you need to infuse the flavours into this.

And to get plenty of flavour, I'm going to use some of this.

This is harissa, which is like a chilli paste really, I suppose.

It's Moroccan. It's very, very hot, very spicy,

so you only want about a tablespoon.

However, the camera crew on this set, probably two tablespoons,

cos they like a bit of spice and a bit of kick.

And then all we can do now is just very quickly drain

our warm tabbouleh.

Now, the best way to do that is over the top of here.

Check to see if there's no painters and artists over the other side.

-HE LAUGHS

-Straight over there.

And make sure Rosemary's not the other side, either.

Pour it in there. That way, it's still warm.

Take that straight back over

and this can go straight into your mix.

Like that.

'Mix in the harissa and then we can impart loads more flavours.

'I've got almonds, apricots and pistachio nuts.

'Then my favourite with lamb, mint,

'and a good bunch of parsley.

'Chop those up and mix them in.'

And then finally, we've got pomegranate.

To get rid of the pomegranate, cut them in half...

..tap the back of the pomegranate and the seeds just fall out.

Pomegranates.

Lovely. Mix all that lot together.

Lemon.

A good squeeze of lemon.

Bit of olive oil. Like that.

Salt and pepper. Season the stuff, as well.

Plenty of black pepper.

And then we've got a fancy bowl here. Mix this all up.

You can see the colours of this, it's just fantastic.

This is just delicious.

Look at that. We've got the nice tabbouleh.

And then the key to this... is the lamb.

Now, don't worry about the bits of hay. The lambs eat it so you might as well eat it, as well.

It's not going to do you any harm.

But look at this lovely lamb.

It's quite unusual. If you serve this at a table like this,

everybody will think you've just gone made.

Either that or just cut your lawn.

But it really is, there's so much flavour in this.

And while I leave you with a pretty fancy shot like that to keep you lot happy,

I'm going to go and console Rosemary. Enjoy.

'Delicious Welsh mountain lamb.

'A national favourite whose distinct taste is down to

'the harsh environment of these hills.'

Well, Bernard, let me know what you think.

-It looks wonderful.

-Don't worry about the hay.

I'm not really used to eating hay. JAMES LAUGHS

Well, even the hay doesn't taste too bad.

-You get some flavour from it.

-Mm.

-Delicious, that.

-You can come again.

I'll definitely come again. Look at that view! You never get bored of that, do you?

'What this lamb proves to me is that you cannot separate

'a truly distinct ingredient from where it comes from.

'And more importantly,

'how the landscape of this country of ours has shaped the way we eat.

'Join me next time when I'll be flying over another location

'on my food map of Britain,

'revealing the secrets behind even more of the country's best produce.'

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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