Frying Raymond Blanc: How to Cook Well

If you master the basic cooking techniques

you can build your confidence, cooking skills and repertoire.

Cooking is so easy once you understand the basics.

And there's no better teacher

than legendary Michelin-starred chef Raymond Blanc.

I feel like Picasso! Not quite!

He wants to share what he's learnt in his professional kitchen...

What is the Maillard reaction?

Gives flavour, colour and taste to the food.

..to help you achieve incredible results at home.

That's the kind of dish you will remember all of your life.

Raymond will reveal the secrets behind the simple techniques

at the heart of every dish.

If you go too high, you burn it.

If you go too slow, nothing happens, it goes beige.

Like English cuisine 40 years ago.

From baking to roasting,

poaching to frying,

barbecuing and slow cooking.

Oh, la, la. Oh, la, la! And I mean, oh, la, la!

And all in his own unique way.

# De dormir avec toi... #

Raymond Blanc taught himself to cook.

Now he will teach you.

What I promise to give you is a deep understanding

of what's happening in your saucepan, in your oven,

and these techniques will help you become a better cook.

Frying is the best cooking technique

to get fast, tasty results using fat as a cooking medium.

When executed well, using the right fats

and the right cooking times, it produces delicious food.

Frying is a wonderful little technique - either pan frying,

deep frying or stir-frying.

It's quite a quick process.

So, you crisp up the food, colour it as well,

give it wonderful flavour and texture.

The smell in the kitchen is heavenly.

A good start to understanding this technique

is with a simple pork chop.

Pan frying is perfect for lean meat as it cooks quickly,

giving a succulent quality, as in this first recipe -

pork chop and saute potatoes.

This dish really will illustrate

so brilliantly the simple art of pan frying.

Pan frying is a remarkably simple way of cooking,

and it is able to extract the very best of the food.

You only pan fry tender cuts.

To cook, you need a good produce. Why is it a good pig?

Nice mix of fat and lean meat.

Deep colour, rich, free range, and, of course, tasty.

I'm going to cut my pork chop.

Black pepper.

20 grams of butter.

What I'm interested in is ensuring the butter browns beautifully.

The heat must be medium. If it's too high, you burn the butter.

PAN SIZZLES GENTLY

And you can hear it... Gentle. It's not aggressive, it's not sharp.

500 grams of cold mass into a hot pan.

The butter will load on, so I'll put my temperature a little bit

higher to regain the momentum of the heat.

All these beautiful juices from the pork chop are going to

seep to the bottom of the pan and caramelise

and brown beautifully, creating that amazing jus.

Yes, lovely colour.

Beautiful. So appetizing.

Four minutes of gentle frying on each side will give the chops

a tasty brown crust, while the inside is perfectly tender.

And here, we're going to rest the meat a little bit.

By resting it, you relax it. More tender.

While the chops are resting, use their juices in the pan

for the base of a simple sauce.

Here we've got some juices which have leaked out, the essences of this

pork chop, of this divine animal, has gone here, solidifying with the heat.

Doesn't look sexy at the moment, but you wait.

Just splash in water to transform the juices.

You've got that lovely noise. Look at that colour!

Fantastic. Solid particles at the bottom are melting down,

giving colour and flavour, and divine pork experience.

A little bit of sage if you want to. A bit more flavour at the end.

Sage and pork are traditional friends. They love each other.

As the sauce gently reduces, prepare the sauteed potatoes.

Diced, peeled potatoes have been soaking in water.

This draws out the starch and will make the potato crispy

when pan fried.

OK, I'm going to blanch them for about one minute only.

Now I let the steam get out of my potatoes, OK,

so they're very dry when I pan fry them.

The potatoes are fried in deep yellow rapeseed oil.

It's full of nutrients, with an earthy, nutty taste, and, when

heated, it has a far higher burning point than butter or olive oil.

So it will give the potatoes a crispy, golden skin.

In one single layer, as well.

That way, you can achieve optimal browning and deliciousness.

A bit of seasoning...

Voila.

Finally, the potatoes are mixed with a knob of butter and persillade -

a French seasoning of chopped shallot, garlic and parsley.

Tossing the potatoes is known as sauteing them.

And that's ready. Ready to serve.

Place the potatoes on the middle of the plate. That's perfect.

Then get those gorgeous pork chops. Rub it up in its own juices.

Then you've got that jus. And that is divine. That is absolutely divine.

Just put it all over it. That is wonderful.

Two basic ingredients elevated by the simple technique of frying.

Adam! We share. Let's have a little bit of British pork. Beautiful.

-Very moist. The big one is for you.

-Is it?

-That's the one.

Thank you, Chef.

-Did your mum cook dishes like that for you, Adam?

-Maybe with mash.

You've grown up a big boy.

What you're eating, that is

what every French family will eat at least three or four times a week.

-Nobody seems to be fed up with it.

-Like the steak and chips.

Yeah! Absolutely nothing wrong with that. The French invented it.

HE LAUGHS

I like to tease Adam.

Successful frying is all about length of time in the pan.

The ingredients need to be in for long enough to cook perfectly

but not so long they burn.

A delicate dish to showcase the fastest frying technique is

this stir-fried salad.

I got all these vegetables from my garden, and I'm going to a very

beautiful, simple salad,

which can be turned on its head to become a quick stir fry.

So, the vegetables barely have time to cook.

You keep the taste, texture, flavour, the colours. You win all the way.

OK, let's go.

Any vegetables will work in this dish,

but the secret is how they are chopped.

To ensure they cook evenly, delicate leaves go in whole

but chunky veg is finely sliced.

That's a big radish. Beautiful! Oh, my God!

To give this dish an Asian twist, use radish, pak choi,

Chinese leaf and shiitake mushrooms.

Then some salad leaf.

So, now, all I have to do is my dressing.

It's an interesting dressing - a very much Asian led dressing.

The dressing is a zingy blend of sweet and savoury.

Finely grate garlic and ginger, and chop in chilli.

So, now I'm going to add lime juice.

So, of course, acidity.

One way to get your lime juice complete...

A bit in water, dip in water, and get all your lime juice.

Use water to moisten the lime's flesh to draw out the juice.

A lot of flavour as well. And they're so tart.

Voila.

-Finish off the dressing with grated palm sugar.

-Oh, la, la!

A dash of soy sauce, sesame oil and toasted sesame seeds.

OK, so you have your dressing here. All of it.

-Finally, a sprinkling of fresh mint and coriander for fragrance.

-Voila.

Wonderful flavours. If you love your chilli, of course, put double.

HE LAUGHS

Ooh!

We've got a lovely salad here.

But this salad, I'm going to turn it on it's head,

and make it a wonderful stir fry in one minute.

So, I use a deep pan.

Rapeseed oil is again the perfect partner for stir frying.

Voila. PAN SIZZLES LOUDLY

That's the noise I want to hear.

I'm going to stir it very quickly.

It just wilts them... And add a bit of water...

..to steam. Voila.

C'est parfait. Really lovely, very simple.

It took exactly about 40 seconds. No more. It's all just wilted.

OK, so, look at these beautiful vegetables.

And the flavours, believe me, will be absolutely stunning.

OK, a little bit of jus.

Voila. Just pour it over.

Pomegranate seeds, sesame seeds and freshly chopped mint

and coriander add more texture to this vibrant salad.

The heat has partly cooked and softened the vegetables.

It has increased the flavours.

It has merged all the flavours together, as well.

Reinvent them, make them stronger, make them sing.

I taste, of course, everything.

Lovely. Wonderful flavours. I love a dish that goes, "Bing! Bing!"

You know? It goes that way, a bit that way, and they last.

They're warm, they're lengthy. It's the freshest way to fry.

It takes away the adage that pan frying is a guilty pleasure.

It doesn't have to be, at all.

Frying is a quick and versatile technique.

Make friends with your pan and a little fat, and you can easily

turn a great ingredient into a mouth-watering dish.

This next recipe does just that.

A crispy-skinned sea bass with a red wine jus,

served on a pillow of mash.

Pan frying is really the perfect technique to cook fish

and keep it moist...

and crispy outside, and delicious.

I have a beautiful sea bass.

I'm going to score the fish, which is very important,

because the shock of the heat will turn up the fish completely,

so, by doing so, you have the heat penetrate and minimise the curling.

Voila. A good pat dry. No moisture. Very important.

The drier the skin is, the easier it is to pan fry.

What I want to achieve here is that lovely, crusty fish crackling,

so to speak. So, I will do a very quick little red wine jus.

This jus can be prepared in advance.

Finely dice shallots, chop mushrooms, crush garlic

and add star anise.

That's plenty. If I put all that, it's going to kill my dish.

A little bit of butter. That's all that you need.

Gentle sizzling noise.

With the butter melted, add the chopped ingredients.

Yep... And the star anise. Tres bien.

-And I cook them down, as well. So, now...

-Add red wine and reduce.

Voila.

And you can do it in mushroom stock, if you want to.

Tres bien.

I'm going to put a tiny bit of butter, just to enrich it.

-Strain to separate the liquid.

-Push it in. Look.

I'd like to show my jus. That beautiful jus.

Shiny, deep, rich.

It's rather special.

So, I'm going to cook my sea bass. A little bit of oil.

I'm going to use a little bit of sunflower oil. Totally neutral.

You don't want it smokes...

but I can see the fluidity of the oil,

and I know it's about the right temperature.

Pull the thing apart.

It's a very fresh fish,

so the muscles start to work out with the heat, and start to curl up a bit.

Don't panic - let it be.

Of course, the flesh is not happy the heat is coming through.

Let it one minute, then, after, all you do is press.

Pressing it... Voila. It will stay flat.

Frying gently on a medium heat will cook the flesh through,

at the same time as crisping the skin.

A higher heat would sear the outside, leaving the flesh rare.

This fillet of fish could take about six to seven minutes

to crisp up that skin.

So what you do, just...

Look at that gorgeous, beautiful, crisp.

These colours are so appetizing. That's ready.

Serve on a bed of mashed potato with a halved langoustine

and warm seaweed salad.

And then you have that lovely jus. You put a little bit here.

Perfectly cooked sea bass, with a rich red wine jus.

Parfait.

Beautiful colour...

Crunchiness... Just really beautiful glace.

Delicious. Simple and delicious.

Over 29 years running his Oxfordshire restaurant

Le Manoir Aux Quat'Saisons,

Raymond has taken hundreds of chefs under his wing, many of them

going on to open their own award winning restaurants.

-Hello, hello!

-Hello!

-CHEF LAUGHS

Today, he's visiting former head chef Aggi Sverrisson.

-Come on, give me a big hug.

-Come on.

Oh, my God. That's a big hug.

He opened his Michelin-starred Mayfair restaurant in 2007.

Icelandic Aggi uses techniques and ingredients from Scandinavia

with all he learnt from his mentor Raymond.

The result is stunning cuisine.

Aggi introduces Raymond to one of his star dishes -

a rather unusual appetiser...

crispy fish skin.

Dried skins here.

You know, when I look at that, it's just like being in a museum.

Dead dinosaurs and... Beautiful.

Dried fish skin is hugely popular in Iceland, but Aggi makes it his

own by deep frying it in sunflower oil to add volume and crispness.

-Which skins these are on?

-Cod skins and salmon skins.

-The key is to have it very hot. See how they puff out?

-Yeah.

Lovely. It becomes very crispy. It puffs out.

-It puffs out because of the moisture inside, does it?

-Correct.

-It's amazing how it changes the texture so completely.

-Unbelievably.

Do you have a big problem selling it to your British clients?

It's a love/hate relationship. You either love it or you hate it.

Aggi now turns his attention to a succulent piece of Icelandic cod.

Raymond used pan frying to give a great crisp to his sea bass's skin.

Aggi uses the same technique to give his fish's flesh some bite.

You get it nice and crispy on one side. I cook it 90% on one side.

The reason being is, I want to have it nice, lovely,

crispy on one side, and soft on the other side.

-How long?

-About four or five minutes.

Aggi doesn't turn the fish in the pan.

Instead, he cooks the other side under the grill.

OK, the cod - I'm taking it out of the pan now.

Just going to the oil over here.

Just let it rest here for one minute and we're done.

The cod sits on a bed of avocado puree and quinoa salad

and is dressed with chorizo, cob nuts and a herby olive oil.

It's a lovely style of food, Aggi. Really lovely.

-You see how nice, fresh and clean they look?

-I like that very much.

-Can we taste it?

-Please.

Oh, lovely flake. I like to see that.

Oh, Aggi!

You are a genius.

Look how shiny and beautiful it is. Perfect flakes of cod.

-Yeah, it's nice.

-Let's taste it now.

Mmm.

That is really lovely, Aggi.

But the deep frying is really interesting, and I love those skins.

-They go so well with...

-Yeah, the cod skins.

And all of it mixes really very nicely. Really lovely. Lovely food.

-Thank you very much. Really, thank you. Cheers.

-Cheers.

-To Iceland.

To Iceland.

Fish skin isn't the only unusual ingredient that can be deep fried.

Almost anything can be transformed this way.

After his visit to Aggi, Raymond is in his own kitchen garden,

collecting gems for his next dish.

A tempura - deep fried flowers

and vegetables in a light Japanese batter.

Look at this beautiful fennel. It's absolutely stunning.

It's bigger than me, eh? Bigger than you, John, as well. You see that?

I love the fennel, aniseed flavour. It's fantastic.

Oh, the smell is incredible.

Look at that.

Beautiful, aren't they? Those are chrysanthemum flowers.

You want it more tender.

The garden is always full of little treasures.

I think the idea of putting one's garden on the plate,

for a gardener or as a chef, is the most fantastic thing.

That thing that you've just collected a few minutes before...

All these wonderful collections of vegetables and herbs -

I'm going to deep fry them, do a tempura.

This is a Japanese batter.

Our batters are richer.

The whole idea of tempura

and deep frying is to create a crispy outside and very moist inside.

First, you do your batter.

That is a tempura flour, which is

made of wheat starch, OK?

Or rice flour... Any flour, OK?

With a tiny bit of egg, as well - dried eggs - inside,

and a tiny bit of baking powder.

All the ingredients have got to be cold, so I've got ice water.

Water is very important. The ice water...

The coldness is very important, cos it's going to thicken the tempura.

Then you've got ice to make sure it's very cold. For a number of reason.

First, I get a much thicker batter.

If it's warm water, it will be thinner.

I don't want to have it smooth, like most Western batters.

I want that batter to be not smooth at all.

If the batter is too thin, it won't stick to the food.

You can see it here.

That's the texture I'm looking for.

Deep frying often conjures up thoughts of heavy,

greasy fast food, but it's perfect for delicate

ingredients like these, giving them a light, crisp, tasty coating.

In order to get a crispier batter,

I'm going to just dip in a bit of flour, OK?

So your tempura will stick better.

First in, an edible flower - a chrysanthemum.

Voila.

The deep frying sunflower oil needs to be hot enough to seal

the tempura coating, so the food

inside is cooked through, but protected.

190 degrees is ideal.

If the temperature is too low, the batter will absorb the fat,

leaving the ingredients soggy and greasy.

With a very thin tempura on the top, perfect coating, light, very crispy.

That's ready now.

It's a little bit of fun, a bit of an adventure of discovery.

How textures, how vegetables, herbs behave. It's exciting.

So, we've got a nice, tender piece of fennel here.

I can smell the fennel from here.

It's amazing how the fennel flavour comes through here.

When it stops to sizzle, it starts to brown,

and we start browning, that's not what you want.

You want a lovely, white, crispy flavour.

You don't want hardly any browning here. OK, that's ready.

Oh, look at that.

All these small, little vegetables, the way they're cut,

will only take one and a half minutes to cook, roughly.

Deep frying can be done just as successfully in a wok,

or any deep pan.

If batch cooking, the food should be cut to even sized pieces to

ensure it's all cooked through at the same time.

Not only do you have a fantastic still life here,

beautiful colours and textures, but, my God,

the taste - it's going to be absolutely special.

Going to try this one first. OK, so listen to that.

TEMPURA CRACKS LIGHTLY

I love to hear that sound, it's a lovely sound.

The light tempura works beautifully

when the kale is dipped in a spicy sweet and sour sauce.

That's why you put that in that little bit of moist.

It's beautiful, delicate. The bitterness is gone.

It's been tamed by my tempura. I want to try the fennel.

It's amazing how the aniseed flavours are still there. It's lovely.

Of course, it's a feast for the eyes, but, mostly, of course,

as a chef, what I'm looking for are tastes, textures and flavours,

and I've got them all here. Fantastic.

The tempura has demonstrated how frying can give a dish

the lightest of touches.

This next recipe goes a step further. An indulgent dessert

of pan-fried souffle served on a crepe, drenched in a tipsy orange

butter - one of Raymond's oldest and most loved tastes of home.

This dish is very dear to me, simply because it's a souffle which is

pan fried, over a pancake, served with a suzette sauce.

And it is really delicious.

The first step is to make the base the souffle will rest on -

a thin and buttery pancake.

The pancake batter is a mixture of egg, sugar, milk, flour

and pureed vanilla.

That makes the difference.

We're going to fry it to a perfect hazelnut colour. I'll show you.

Oh! Voila.

I pour it in and that will give an amazing, wonderful taste.

Also, it will prevent the pancake from sticking.

Look at that, what's happening. It's absolutely marvellous.

I can smell the beautiful brown butter I put inside here.

I can smell it.

Fry the pancake for 40 seconds on each side.

Tres bien.

While the pancake cools, make the piece de resistance - the souffle.

We don't actually pan fry it, as such. It's a bit like the pancake.

We place it into the frying pan, pan fry it to cook the bottom,

and we finish it off under the grill, so it's crispy on both sides

and it's really seriously risen.

It's fluffy, melting and delicious.

For the souffle, two egg yolks

and two tablespoons of water go into a bowl.

What I'm going to do is partly cook my yolk.

Not cook it completely, because it will be coagulated and crumble.

What I want to do is put air into it. Lots of air.

This foamy mixture is called a sabayon.

This alone is often used as a creamy sauce for desserts,

but in the souffle it's what will make it rich,

light and airy when combined with the egg whites.

When heated, the sabayon should reach 85 degrees.

So, that's cooked.

So, that is my base.

OK? Very, very large base.

I'm going to add a bit of Grand Marnier into it,

which will cool it down and, of course, give it flavour. That's that.

I'll leave it to cool down now,

which will take about five to ten minutes.

Now, I'm going to do my egg whites.

To the egg whites, add a drop of lemon before whisking.

That's all that you need. Look.

I bring billions of little bubbles of air inside, and the bigger,

the lighter my souffle will be.

Then I add my sugar when it starts to coagulate.

About 30 grams. That's all.

OK, so that's exactly what I want.

That peak, which is really totally smooth. You can see it.

No graining whatsoever. And a lovely strong peak.

To the cooled sabayon mixture, add one third of the whisked egg whites.

And just lighten the base. That's all.

-And then...

-In goes the rest.

Then after, just quickly... Voila. And then after, you fold.

Don't try to over mix.

If you over mix, the more bubbles of air you lose,

the more lightness you lose. That is good.

No more, that's perfect.

Butter a small pan to stop the souffle sticking

and sprinkle over icing sugar. This will form a crust when cooked.

-Then spoon in the souffle mixture.

-So, here we are.

I'm going to fill up nicely.

Voila. OK, tres bien.

Another dusting of icing sugar will give the souffle a beautiful

-brown coating when heated.

-A minute on the stove.

That's when you'll have a beautiful crust underneath.

The heat, of course, is coming from the bottom.

It's crusting up, caramelising, browning the base.

It's all about really controlling your heat. Absolutely.

Now, yes, it is ready now.

It has risen a bit, so I'm finishing it off under the grill.

The souffle will cook gently under the grill for a further minute.

The pancake will soak in an orange butter sauce,

which can be made in advance.

-Heat sugar and add butter.

-With the butter, I stop the cooking.

At the same time, the butter is going to emulsify the caramel.

Look what's happening. It's marvellous.

I'm going to add the orange juice.

Allow the sauce to reduce and then leave to cool.

So, what I'm going to do is just dip the pancake into my lovely

orange caramel.

Then I'm going to bring in my souffle. So, that should be...

I will just tip it.

Voila.

Just a little bit of the beautiful caramel.

This stunning dessert should be enjoyed immediately, because,

after five minutes, the perfectly pert souffle will start to sink.

Voila.

So, let's taste. Look at that.

The souffle is barely cooked inside, as it should be.

And now...

Actually, it's rather lovely.

It's very mellow, very like a snowflake, just melting down.

There is no thickness, there's very little sugar, very little sweetness.

That is lovely.

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