Pudding Raymond Blanc's Kitchen Secrets

Raymond Blanc is opening his kitchen for a journey of discovery.

Cooking is about curiosity,

and if I can inspire you to be curious, I'll be a very happy man.

Divulging the secrets of his simplest...

Perfectly cooked.

-..and most dazzling dishes.

-Glorious food.

Be inspired by his passion.

Food is so much more than cooking and eating, it's about living life.

-Share the secrets of his success.

-The wonderful thing about having cooking secrets

is the ability to share them with you.

Tonight on Kitchen Secrets, Raymond shares his passion for puddings.

Sweet and savoury, English and French,

his favourites are filled with nostalgia

and the flavours of childhood.

Huge memories of a very special moment.

From a fragrant family treat,

creamy, vanilla-infused rice pudding...

I love this dish because it's homely, it's yummy, it's delicious.

..to a rich, savoury steak, kidney and oyster pudding.

Oh, majestic.

And Raymond reveals how some puddings bring back very special memories.

I took that frying pan and it changed my life completely.

In Raymond's kitchen, he's preparing the ingredients

for his first recipe,

a French classic and childhood favourite, riz au lait.

This creamy vanilla rice pudding is hidden under a crunchy topping,

complemented by a tangy, sweet berry compote.

Well, rice pudding.

It conjures up all sorts of wonderful childhood memories.

I love this dish because it's homely, it's yummy,

it's delicious and I think it's a relatively simple dish as well.

But Raymond is not the only chef taken back

to his childhood by this classic dessert.

First is Benoit. He is one of the great patissiers in this country.

15 years, we have battled.

He claims that his mother makes the best riz au lait.

I claim that Maman Blanc does the best riz au lait.

Pardon. Since there is the battle of the riz au lait.

OK. It must be, once and for all, concluded. Shall we?

I know the winner already.

THEY LAUGH

-See you later.

-See you later!

With the gauntlet thrown down,

the first thing Raymond needs to do is cook the rice.

So first, what I want to do is to add sugar.

Everything together. The rice.

The milk. There is 1.7 litres of milk, whole milk.

Of course you can do it with thin milk, OK, or whatever, but you can

also do it with water, but it's not quite the same, so I use whole milk!

This absorbs ten times its own weight.

Imagine gorging yourself up with that wonderful milk.

Fantastic. To create that fluffy, delicious experience.

Raymond's method is simple.

He just stirs the rice occasionally during cooking, but there is

-a more time-consuming method going on in the other kitchen.

-He stirs his completely,

all the time he has to stand behind the stove for hours,

whereas mine is slightly more simple.

For his low-maintenance method, Raymond adds a tablespoon of vanilla puree

to the milk, and leaves it to simmer gently for 30 minutes.

OK, so just don't have to... Thank you very much for that.

HE LAUGHS

It's OK. We are going to warm it up.

A little bit of butter.

He dusts the buttered dish with sugar,

which caramelises around the rice during cooking.

It should be absolutely not starchy but creamy.

So we'll see how Benoit comes out.

HE LAUGHS

After half an hour,

the fluffy, milky rice is ready to go into the oven

at 150 degrees.

Voila. Tres bien. I'll just hope for the best!

Another 30 minutes, and Raymond's riz au lait is ready.

Et voila. Rice pudding Maman Blanc.

What we're going to do is to do the brulee.

I use a bit of sugar so to give it a lovely caramel,

because that's what I love the most.

Or you can do it like my mum would do with the iron.

So appetising, eh? So gorgeous.

You can see all these wonderful bubbles here.

Voila. Champion Maman Blanc.

A childhood favourite.

Comforting creamy rice, topped with a sweet caramel crust,

served with a tangy berry compote.

IN TRANSLATION:

-There you go.

-That looks lovely, but does it taste as good?

We'll see. If it's not as good as I'd like it to be,

-it's because my mother didn't cook it, I did.

-Exactly.

-There we go.

OK, shall we try it? The proof is in the pudding.

-Rice pudding today.

-Absolutely.

-Go ahead.

-Voici, les anglaises.

-Well, let's see.

-Benoit.

-Please.

-Tu es mon invite. You are my guest.

-Oui.

Mm, lovely.

Take a little bit of...

I think it's lovely as well.

How much out of ten?

I'm going to give you nine.

I'll give you nine too, Benoit. OK?

You'll have to come to my house one day and my mum will cook it for you.

And this one will be ten out of ten.

INAUDIBLE

INAUDIBLE

Cush, Adam!

Raymond's next recipe is another French favourite, tarte Tatin.

Sticky, caramelised apples, gently baked

and upended onto buttery puff pastry.

I'm going to bring another wonderful, HUGE French classic,

which has been exported across the world and it is known as

une tarte Tatin.

First, Raymond prepares the caramel. He adds a dash of water,

and 100 grams of caster sugar to a heat-proof baking dish.

I've got the syrup at the moment. That's called a syrup.

Then this could take about five, seven minutes roughly,

according to the strength of the gas underneath.

According to the moon. No, no, no, not the moon.

Not today!

The caramel is cooked until it turns the right colour.

That's blond. It's sweet.

What I want is to cook the caramel to a beautiful auburn.

By cooking it, I bring a bit of acidity in my caramel.

I remove some of the sugar. Little undertones of bitterness.

Next, Raymond adds 60 grams of butter to make the caramel glossy and smooth.

If it's melted, it's going to burn into it.

If it's cold, it's going to stop the cooking

and get emulsified with the caramel, and that's perfect.

Look at that glorious, glorious caramel.

While the caramel cools a little,

Raymond prepares the main ingredient.

And picking the right variety is key.

When you start thinking of apples, imagine - you've got 2,000 varieties.

So you've got a lot of choice. But actually, amongst all these apples,

which are perfect for tarte Tatin, the best for me is Braeburn. And why?

Because their flesh is beautiful and yellow and rich.

You want that freshness.

Raymond peels, cores and halves 12 Braeburn apples.

We have this lovely caramel, which I've kept warm a little bit.

Make sure it is warm. And all what I'll do,

I become Raymond the Builder, OK, so just press...

Voila. ..against each other.

But imagine that thickness of apple

and that apple experience you're going to have.

It's not about "pretty". You've got to think, when it's cooked,

it's got to be tight, otherwise your apple will collapse. It's easy. Don't ruffle it up.

Press. You know when it's ready - when you press, they start to rise.

They try to get out of the pan. I would as well!

Raymond brushes the top of the apples with butter

to create a silky glaze during cooking. The dish is then ready to go in the oven at 180 degrees.

Not much work, really, apart from the peeling, so far.

A bit of caramel. Simple.

I didn't say "voila".

After 30 minutes in the oven, the tarte is ready for the puff pastry

which will form the base of the dessert.

Raymond's is home-made, but ready-made will be fine.

Make sure your puff pastry is frozen. That's a good tip.

Place it frozen onto the apples and then it's very easy to work with.

Thank you, Cush. They are frozen now and I want it firm.

Cush, Adam!

These servants these days, huh? They're never there.

Tom, can you please put that in the blast freezer, please?

On the freezer will do. Thank you very much.

After a few minutes in the freezer, the buttery puff pastry is ready.

Frozen. OK, I'm warming it up a little bit with my hands.

Got very warm hands. I'm very lucky. Tres bien. That's it.

Now I'm going to cut it.

And I'm going to just simply wrap it up.

Raymond tucks the pastry around the apples.

Piercing it allows steam to escape, keeping the pastry crisp.

That will take 40 minutes at the same temperature, 180 degrees.

After 40 minutes in the oven, the tarte can be left to cool

before it's turned upside down for serving.

Ready to eat now. Absolument.

I think for many Frenchmen, these desserts were present,

which is what is really good about France!

Hello, Christine.

-Hello, chef.

-Hello to you. Lovely.

I've decided to invite you, OK, for a little bit of a break, OK?

-Oh, thank you.

-And to celebrate the tarte Tatin.

So what do you think? Colour of the caramel, what does it tell you?

It tells you how sweet the caramel is going to taste.

If it's very, very dark, it can be quite bitter.

-The apples are cooked through but have a nice shape. They're not falling everywhere.

-Mm-hmm. So...

So, marks out of ten?

I'll have to give it a ten, Chef.

THEY LAUGH

Raymond's passion for puddings means he's always keen to add

something new to his repertoire.

Today, he's heading into Oxford to meet a local dessert expert.

I'm going to meet Sophie Grigson, who will cook an English sweet pudding.

She knows I love my puddings, so I expect to have a serious lovely treat.

Raymond has been inspired by Sophie's late mother,

renowned food writer and cook Jane Grigson, who influenced his early days as a chef.

When I met Jane, this amazing woman who truly is passionate about her food,

for me, as a young chef, she was an inspiration, OK.

And her books really helped me to understand food and also to try

to compose a sentence that everyone would understand.

Today, it's Sophie's turn to teach Raymond something

new about traditional English puddings.

I'm going to make you one of the unhealthiest

but most UTTERLY delicious puddings.

I'm going to make a Sussex pond pudding.

My mum used to make this pudding when I was little

and so I've kind of grown up with it.

This is one of Britain's oldest desserts.

Its rich ingredients made it ideal for cold winter nights.

I'm going to line this with a suet pastry

and then in the middle, there will be a whole lemon,

-in its entirety, not cut, just pierced here and there...

-OK.

..buried amongst sugar and butter.

And then as they steam, that'll soften inside,

and it forms a wonderful syrup, and so when you cut into it, it's like

a pond of syrup comes oozing out and flavours the syrup with the lemon.

-And the lemon...

-Do you eat it? Well, if you want to.

For an authentic pudding crust, Sophie uses real suet.

Made from beef fat, it gives the pudding its rich, melting texture.

But that's very unusual. I was trying to put my mind round this, you know.

We've buried the lemon completely in the butter and the sugar.

The buttery pudding must be

wrapped tightly in a parchment-and-foil case.

Oh, my God, I'm learning here.

-You have to make it just underneath the rim.

-The rim, voila.

-I'll hold that. Another knot there.

-Another not? Alors.

Yep, just a simple half-hitch. Lovely. And that is ready to act as a little handle.

Finally, the pudding is gently steamed for five hours.

-Ooh, now down in the middle there.

-Does it matter, I thought...?

This is the bit I'd quite like you not to watch.

-OK, I won't watch.

-No, it's all right.

-That looks lovely.

-There we are!

After its slow cooking, the lemon has infused the pudding

with a bittersweet and zesty tang.

-Lovely!

-And here it is, oozing out.

-Oh, look how beautiful it is.

-Isn't that gorgeous?

-Look at that.

Absolutely delicious.

Who would have thought of putting a lemon in a steamed pudding?

It's delicious and I really will try this one at home. Definitely.

Inspired by Sophie's version of her mother's classic,

Raymond's next recipe is a much-loved English pudding.

A savoury dish of succulent steak, kidney and oysters,

encased in a rich suet crust.

I did this dish about 38 years ago when I first came in Great Britain

in the little pub where I started to cook.

I took that frying pan and it changed my life completely.

I discovered my passion.

As I was leafing this book, I stopped on a recipe which said,

"Steak, kidney and oyster pudding."

And I started to laugh. These English!

And then I started really to laugh about it.

It's not possible to put such expensive ingredients

in a pudding that you are going to steam for five hours!

HE GASPS

So I immediately gathered all the ingredients,

following the recipe by the letter as well. Then I steamed it.

A little smell, just a burst of a little smell

and it was rather nice.

And then after three hours,

really a massive smell across the whole kitchen,

beyond the kitchen - and it was divine!

Versions of this dish date back to the 15th century.

Today, it's perfect for special occasions

as the pudding requires some costly ingredients.

So we have a magnificent piece of rump here.

I've got some gorgeous little oysters. They're English,

native from Cornwall.

The third component is kidneys.

It's an incredible mix. And I'm going to start with the suet crust.

First, Raymond combines 300 grams of self-raising flour

with 150 grams of suet,

a pinch of salt and 200 mls of water.

And don't use your hands. It will be quite messy here. You have to use the spatula.

It's not the most refined pastry.

So turning, just pulling it together...

..with your hand. Voila. Now we're OK. We're in business.

That's the texture I'm looking for - quite soft.

And there is a little trick here,

a Victorian trick, not mine, which is lovely.

I'm going to cut a quarter of the pastry for the lid,

OK, which I'm going to keep.

Voila. Tres bien.

The remaining pastry forms a neat cone which lines the pudding basin.

Next, Raymond dices the beef and kidneys.

In about one-inch cubes, roughly.

He coats the meat with two tablespoons of flour

to help the juices thicken during cooking, then prepares the last luxury ingredient.

I'm rubbish at opening oysters, so I'm doing my best at the moment.

That's rather lovely.

And now what we are going to do is do the sauce.

Next, Raymond boils 200 mls of red wine.

A good little trick as well, to fasten the speed of the reduction,

heat the pan before, very, very hot.

He adds this to 200 mls of chicken stock.

Voila. And that is going to be the base

which is going to make the gravy for the pan.

So now, all we need to do is to fill it up.

To the meat, Raymond adds a chopped onion, 180 grams of mushrooms and a pinch of thyme

-to create another layer of flavour during cooking.

-Look at that.

Tightly packed. More oysters.

That's perfect. Now, we are going to add the jus.

It will sink in, rather then go outside of it.

Raymond then seals the pudding underneath the suet pastry lid.

A quick brushing on the outside to help the sticking.

He tucks in the edges and covers the pudding in aluminium foil.

And tighten it up. It's vacuumed, so to speak, completely sealed.

It's now ready to be steamed.

Bring the water to simmering point. The water is reaching basically half.

That will take exactly five hours long to simmer.

You take your hand...

I can feel the sense of ownership from Adam here, about his country.

Ooh la-la, Adam!

Oh, majestic.

After steaming for five hours,

the tender, meltingly-soft meat and rich red wine gravy is ready,

all held inside its crisp, golden suet crust.

-A hearty English classic.

-Doesn't look too good to look at.

What do you mean? You don't like this?

-Yeah, I love it, but it's not the most attractive.

-No, smell it.

-Have you tasted it?

-No.

-Shall we?

-Yeah.

So, Adam, what do you think?

It's lovely. Really good. I love the pastry, they way it soaks up all the juices. It's my favourite.

Adam loves his food to be a little bit on the rich side, I would say,

that's why I'm going to baptise this dish "Adam's dish", for you, Adam.

-Thank you chef.

-OK?

For Raymond, creating the perfect pudding experience

means finding the perfect dessert wine.

He takes great care in sourcing,

and has invited wine writer Jonathan Ray

to help him match his latest desserts.

You want some wines that are completely different to complement,

and you want some wines that are identical to the dish.

I think that's the key of food-and-wine-matching.

That one is quite rich and creamy, OK, so which one would go?

Would you put a drier wine with that?

Well, this one... We're not going to know till we try,

but my instinct is...

This is quite a rich Sauternes-style from Australia.

There is a sort of creamy flavour to it.

-Let's just see what this one is like.

-OK, let's try it.

-Let's have a look.

-Look at that!

-Oh, that is fantastic.

Yeah, that's lovely. You need a wine which is not cloying,

if you have a wine which is over-sweet with that. You want a bit of freshness. Some fresh notes.

I think that matches pretty well, you know?

Sauternes is a typical wine to have with creamy desserts,

as its butteriness complements the cream.

Next on the menu, a rich chocolate tart.

I think it is difficult to get the right thing with chocolate. You don't want a Sauternes,

-it just won't work. Try this.

-Oh, that's amazing.

So yes, this is from Central Valley, California, a Black Muscat.

Oh, that's so grapey, isn't it? It's great.

All these little things which are happening everywhere. It's lovely!

Chocolate works well with Black Muscat, as the acidity

of the wine creates clean flavours, cutting through the sweetness of the pudding.

-Perfect with chocolate.

-A great experience with chocolate.

To go with a tangy dessert like Raymond's sweet ravioli,

fruity wines like Tokaji are a good choice.

But Johnny has something more unusual to try.

What I've got here, which I think will go well, is an Inniskillin ice wine from Canada.

This is where the grape freezes on the vine before it can be picked,

so they're like little bullets, but I think it is

quite tropical, so I just thought this would match really well.

-It's got hints of guava and mango and so on.

-Oh! Oh! That's it.

That is absolutely it.

They're so similar, they're such similar flavours. Lovely.

Oh, come on guys. Voila. That's perfect. That's good. Yeah.

That's perfect. Give me that.

-OK. Cold, cold, cold. Cold, cold, eh?

-Yeah.

-It was very cold, eh?

-Yep.

For Raymond's final dish,

a daring French twist on a time-honoured British classic.

Deconstructed red fruit crumble

laced with a caramel and Kirsch syrup.

Confident he can improve on tradition,

he's giving it his own special touch.

I'm going to touch a British classic, actually, which,

interestingly enough, the French have just discovered.

Having said that, I'm going to slightly change the dessert.

Normally, the rest of the world would actually put the crumble onto the fruit.

That's what I don't like!

I want the crunch and I don't want the gooey part, OK, so I've found

a solution and it's to put the crumble raw and pre-cook it before.

I can tell you, it crumbles.

It really crumbles and rumbles and crumbles.

First, Raymond lightly pulses the crumble ingredients into a fine powder.

Using the processor keeps the butter cool, creating a sandy texture.

In order to get a mega crumble, a crumble experience,

I am going to do two things.

I'm going to put all this crumble into a bowl.

I'm going to compress it together...

Tres bien.

..and then after, I'm going to freeze it,

to create the most fantastic crumble.

Voila. Adam, please. Can you freeze this, please?

Yes, chef, yes.

Adam, without you, what should I be?

INAUDIBLE

After one hour, the crumble mix is ready to come out of the freezer.

Tres bien. Merci beaucoup.

So we've got the crumble here, which is effectively compressed and frozen

and you break it in pieces more or less the same.

The chunky crumble then goes back into the processor.

Me and my... Ah, voila.

The mixture is spread out to a thickness of half a centimetre.

This ensures the crumble keeps its crunchy texture during cooking.

It then goes back into the oven at 190 degrees for ten minutes.

It's not pretty, but you wait, when you taste it.

So we've got our lovely red fruits here but I'm going to do

something very, very simple. But again, there's a little secret here.

It's very small, but it is a secret,

and really makes the dish so different between stewed fruit,

which has got a little bit more richness, depth of flavour.

And the way I do it is to do a blond caramel.

Raymond's innovative take on a British favourite doesn't stop at the crumble.

Rather than stewing the fruits, he's macerating them in lemon and sugar before caramelising them.

For the caramel, he begins with 30 grams of caster sugar.

So what I'm going to add... Of course, we have forgotten something, the butter.

Could we have the butter, please, Adam? How could you have forgotten the butter?

OK, now we are perfect.

We have the butter now. Voila. Thank you very much.

Next, Raymond pours the fruit into the caramel,

and adds a good splash of Kirsch.

One for the pot, all the time. Tres bien.

Then the baked crumble topping is briefly removed from the oven.

And what we're going to do is to, actually, while it's hot...

..cut it.

He cuts the crumble into circles.

That wonderfully biscuity texture.

-Before it goes back in the oven to finish cooking all the way through.

-Three minutes.

The really beautiful, golden brown.

Lovely, it's buttery, it's crunchy, it's melting.

Our crumble is ready to be put together.

Voila. So then, what you can do if you want to...

The crumble is lightly dusted with icing sugar

and laid onto the sweet fruit base.

Raymond tops it off with a quenelle of home-made raspberry sorbet.

Le crumble a la francaise.

-Mike.

-Hiya, chef.

Mike is Welsh, OK. He likes his rugby and he likes his strawberries.

Come on, Mike, come and taste that.

It's very light.

It's not like a lot of crumbles which is quite heavy.

Do you do it that way? How is your mum doing it?

At home, we'd cook the fruit through the crumble. This way, it's lighter

and the texture is great as well, which is lovely.

What out of ten?

I'd say a good nine. Nine out of ten.

-Thank you very much indeed.

-Thank you, chef.

-Thank you. Bye, Mike.

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