Episode 1 Ready Steady Cook

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Hello, everybody. How are you? Thank you very much!

Hello, everyone. Welcome to Ready Steady Cook!

Today we've got some fabulous talent and I'm not just talking about the chefs!

Let's meet them. In the red kitchen we have Aldo Zilli and in the green kitchen, Lesley Waters!

CHEERING

Our guests today, ladies and gentlemen, need no introduction.

They wowed the nation with their dancing performance. Welcome the dance duo of Stavros Flatley!

MUSIC: Lord Of The Dance

Did you like that, guys? Ready to do some cooking? Let's get cooking!

-Absolutely brilliant. You must be very hot!

-Yes.

We saw you and your son dance on Britain's Got Talent.

-Are you as talented in the kitchen, Dimitri?

-I think so.

I hope so!

-Not as talented as this man.

-You've got the perfect chef. Show him what you've brought.

You never know what you'll get on Ready Steady Cook. Tell us what you've got, Dimitri.

Right. I got squid cos squid's my favourite of all seafood.

You wouldn't be Greek unless you liked squid.

And I've got spaghetti.

-I knew you'd be... That's to make you feel at home!

-Absolutely.

And some rocket cos I really love the taste of rocket

and it wouldn't be a cooking show without feta.

The old Greek feta cheese, tomatoes and pine nuts. How much did you spend, Dimitri?

I went a bit over budget. £5.66.

We're not worried about that, are we? No, we're not.

If I'd known, I'd have gone over by ten quid, if you're not worried!

-What do you think, Aldo?

-We could feed the audience with this!

-Yes.

Fantastic. It's very Mediterranean, I wouldn't say Greek or Italian.

It's Mediterranean. It's a great bag. I could do so much with this.

I can already think of those lovely fresh tomatoes

with a bit of rocket. The pine nuts scream pesto

so I'll make pesto to go with the rocket.

The calamari for me is probably one of the most underrated fish in the sea.

We don't eat enough of it. I'll show you how to clean out the gut, how to prepare it,

-how to grill it, how to fry it.

-Happy with that, Dimitri?

-Absolutely.

-Brilliant.

-Over the moon.

-Aldo, a classic bag with classic dishes.

Aldo and Dimitri!

All right, Lagi?

-Bit of brilliant dancing there.

-Thank you very much.

-Do you dance with your friends? Go out clubbing?

-Sometimes. No...

What's your cooking like?

-Um...it's OK.

-It's OK. You need a bit of help, do you?

-Yeah.

-Here's the perfect person.

-Let's see what you've got.

-Get your bag.

-How old are you now, Lagi?

-13.

-Not surprised we've got a few of those!

-It's the same with my son!

Tell Lesley what you've brought, Lagi.

I think this is a pepper.

This is a big tomato?

-Mm-hmm.

-A very big tomato.

-Some minced meat.

-Yeah.

-Minced beef.

-Flour tortillas.

-Mm-hmm.

-And some spicy sausage.

-And sweetcorn.

-Lovely. How much did you spend?

£5.09.

Better than Dad. Dad was 60-odd pence over.

We'll get Lagi to do the shopping next time, Dimitri!

-Les, what does it say to you?

-It says lots of different things.

We're gonna make a nice rich beef ragout

and wrap it in flour tortillas and make a creamy sauce and bake it in the oven.

-Good?

-Yeah!

-We'll make spicy beef patties perhaps

and do a sweetcorn salsa. Lots of things.

-Lovely ideas.

-It's a good bag! It's a good bag.

Lesley will teach you how to do it. Gimme another high five.

Yeah! Lagi and Lesley!

Well done.

Fabulous having some teenagers on the show.

We give our chefs 20 minutes to come up with those lovely ideas.

Is it possible? We're about to find out as I say Ready, Steady, Cook!

Right, let's get going here, Aldo.

First of all, let me give him his apron.

That's it. Very good.

Dimitri, am I right in saying you used to be a south London boy?

-Yeah. Born in Balham.

-Whereabouts?

-Endlesham Road.

-I was in Devonshire Road, round the corner!

-Lovely. What school did you go to there?

-No, no.

When I was a baby, we kept going backwards and forwards to Cyprus.

-The we moved down to, my mum and dad...

-Pull it towards you.

-..moved to north London. Sorry.

-That's OK.

-Wash your hands, then peel the garlic and lemon, please.

-No problem.

-Wash the skin and then just...

-Get that going. Aldo, tell us what you're gonna do.

Right. Ainsley, I'm going to do two different varieties of squid.

One grilled and one fried.

Deep fried.

We need the blue board here.

Why do you like squid? You say it's one of your favourites.

Squid is quite hard to cook.

You can make it rubbery and then it's not very good.

-It doesn't take very long to cook, or you make it into a stew and cook it for very long.

-OK.

-So it's either very quick or very long.

-Yeah.

This is what you're looking for.

When you buy squid, always buy it in this form.

-Can you fill this with water, please?

-Yeah.

-I'll get rid of that.

-Put it to boil.

-Do you want to put any bits in there?

-No, just chuck it, if you don't mind! Thank you very much!

-I know, Chef.

-I need some water in there, please.

-Sorry I'm bossy in the kitchen, Stavros!

-No, you carry on!

-How do you prepare it?

-The secret of preparing squid

is you pull the tentacles first.

Then there's a bit of - look - plastic in there.

That holds the squid together. The spine, if you like.

To check that the squid's fresh, you pull the wings off

and you smell under the wings.

-It's like smelling...

-Under your armpits!

-Under the wings.

Have you ever done this before?

-Yeah, yeah.

-Come and show us how you do it.

If it doesn't smell of anything then it's fresh. You pull the skin off

and you should end up with a nice white bit of squid.

Then, to clean the inside of the squid,

you have to turn it the other way.

So you put your thumb up, up there, right?

And you use whatever you can use and you turn it the other way.

-Beautiful. OK, Chef.

-Like that.

And then you wash it inside out.

-I understand that.

-I need a carrot or something smaller.

-Do you want a go, Dimitri?

Come down here.

OK, so that is done for me.

Lovely and white.

Yeah. Give him some applause, ladies and gentlemen.

APPLAUSE

And with his tentacles here...

Lovely. You're gonna deep-fry one and grill one.

Absolutely. We cut the tentacles through the eyes.

-Mm-hmm.

-I mean, it's... Don't be scared.

These can go in the water cos the tentacles retain all the sand.

-Wash it in the water.

-They retain a lot of sand, the tentacles,

so leave them in the water to soak and remove the grit completely.

-Then what you do...

-Sorry, Aldo, sorry.

What we do is cut the rings to fry.

OK?

And if you wanted to grill them, which I'll do with that one,

-is cut the squid...

-Open it up.

Open it up. That's what I'm trying to do.

You put the inside of the squid up on the board.

I'm making a right mess of this.

Like that. And then you score it.

-And that stops it from curling up.

-That's right.

-It curls a little.

-It does. But that's what you want.

Thank you. OK, then, we'll come back.

Squid, eh?

Something a lot of people don't want to deal with,

but if you go to a supermarket or fishmonger,

they'll do a lot of preparation.

-How's it going, Les? You and Lagi are busy.

-Very, very well indeed.

I want you to drain that, Lagi. Brilliant.

Then I want that put into a bowl.

Drain it. Shake it.

-Is he a good cook?

-Very good. Isn't he doing well?

OK. All right, my darling. Into there.

Do you help out at home, Lagi?

-Yeah.

-What's your favourite thing to cook?

-Um...

-Spag bol.

-Spag bol?

Lovely. If you went out to one of those posh restaurants,

what would you order? A dish you don't create at home.

Um...

-I had snails once.

-Snails? What was that like? Good?

-Slimy.

Slimy. Yeah.

It had garlic sauce, which was nice.

You had the little clamps and you scoop 'em out.

OK, Lagi, come here. I want you just to break this down

and keep it moving in the pan for me, yeah?

-Fantastic.

-Can I turn that heat up a bit?

-Right up, please.

Keep your eye on the other one. That should be up nice and high.

I'm gonna prepare sweetcorn fritters with a bit of green pepper.

Which is gonna go in.

We're gonna put in the spicy sausage as well to give the sweetcorn flavour.

We'll do a bit of yogurt and mint raita to go with it as well.

-Then we're gonna do...

-Not a lot of people have three wooden spoons!

LAUGHTER

He's good!

APPLAUSE

Fantastico! He knows what he's doing, doesn't he?

He doesn't only dance!

Come on, mix that all together.

And a pinch of salt.

Fantastic. And a bit of pepper.

-OK.

-Do your children dance, Lesley?

-Yes, they do!

My daughter, she absolutely loves to dance.

When you see other children dancing on TV,

-it allows you to want to express yourself more.

-Yeah, absolutely.

-I always wanted to be a ballet dancer but I was too naughty and they kicked me out!

-Aw!

That happens.

What about Britain's Got Talent? How did you get involved in it, Lagi?

My dad just sort of said, "I might go on it"

and I said, "I'll do it with you."

Really?

Were you not nervous at any time?

Um, only about five seconds before I was about to go on.

I didn't really concentrate it until then,

-which was stupid of me.

-You just went for it?

-Yeah.

-Dimitri.

-Yes, my friend?

What was he like, training with you because you were the dancer carrying it forward.

-Did he pick it up easily?

-The moves that we were talking about doing

he picked most of the moves and the stuff he does, the chainsaw

and the wiggle, he invented them moves.

In other words, he was the one that came up with most of the good stuff.

How does the chainsaw go, Lagi? The chainsaw movement?

Go on, Lagi. I'll look after that.

This is the chainsaw, is it?

We love all of that.

Lesley's also making some meatballs there, I believe. What's in there?

A bit of egg, a bit of garlic and some tomato puree.

So it's really very, very simple.

-OK. Olive oil just there.

-Olive oil just there. Thanks.

Am I right in saying you were gonna put the meat in the wraps after?

I'm gonna put the spicy meat in the wraps. A bit of tomato puree in there.

Lovely. Give it a bit of richness.

Tomato puree and anything else going in there, Les?

A splash of wine. Don't worry, Lagi, it'll cook out.

-OK.

-You're gonna burn off the alcohol.

-Absolutely.

-Last time you made this, you put a sprinkle of sugar in.

-Yeah. A bit of sugar is good to bring out the flavour of the tomatoes.

-Beautiful.

-There you go.

-All sorts of wonderful things. Thanks very much.

Look at him cooking. All you young teenagers thinking, "I can't cook."

Just get involved.

If you want any of the recipes, check out our website.

Aldo, what's happening here?

It's happening, it's happening!

Extra virgin olive oil to make the pesto.

-Shall I put that in there?

-It's all right.

We got it in there in the end, didn't we?

-Hey, nothing changes!

-OK.

-Years go by!

About 11 minutes to go now.

Years go by, but nothing changes in life. OK,

-a little bit of basil in there.

-OK.

And then some garlic, basil, pine nuts.

Ideally not hot.

-We haven't time to cool them down.

-OK.

And extra virgin olive oil.

And now I've never done this before.

In my whole life.

-I'm gonna make a feta pesto.

-Oh, instead of Parmesan.

-Yes.

-Have you ever done that before, Dimitri?

-No, never.

Really, it needs Parmesan and Pecorino, which are the two cheeses.

-Always Pecorino?

-Always Pecorino.

Why's that? Is it associated with a certain part of Italy?

Pecorino... Pesto is from Genoa.

From the very, very north.

And Pecorino is normally from Roma or from Sardinia.

They normally bring the two together. Parmesan from the north, Pecorino from the south.

It just marries, better than people!

-Wow.

-Cos people don't get on.

-Unless you put them in the blender!

-There's the pesto made.

-That's how quick it is, so don't buy any more jars.

-OK.

Spaghetti goes in.

OK, just over half-way now, guys.

-You've got the hot oil.

-The oil is there, the little pan is here.

Now, the way to check the oil

-is we're gonna do some self-raising flour and cornflour.

-The way to check the oil.

A lot of people at home, you don't know when it's the right temperature.

-Absolutely.

-Tell us your little tip for that.

It's important you check the oil before you put anything to fry.

We've got self-raising flour and cornflour - or potato flour.

-Which do you prefer?

-No, both together.

-OK.

-It gives that nice sheen to the squid. Potato flour is nice and light.

You could season it now or you don't have to.

You can season it at the end. This is how you check your oil.

Chuck a bit of flour in there. If it bubbles, it's ready.

-If it doesn't bubble, that's not ready.

-Not yet.

-The pasta's cooking.

-I'm not crying yet!

You've got about eight-and-a-half minutes to go. Dimitri,

you were a restaurateur before, weren't you?

I had a restaurant. And I went to catering college.

Catering college, but you say your restaurant business wasn't very good. Why's that?

The food was renowned for being really, really bad.

-It was really bad.

-Really bad?

Really, really bad! I had no idea!

We had to come up with something to get the customers back

so we came up with cabaret and entertainment.

-Did they eat the food while being entertained?

-Not really. They left the food.

The famous line for my restaurant was people would come and pay the bill.

They'd say, "We had a great night. Is there anywhere to get some food on the way home?"

That's the truth. Worse food ever. Me and chefs never got on,

-apart from me and Aldo.

-You won't get on with me, I'll tell you!

They lied to me and said they could cook.

Didn't you test them out? Say "Go and cook me something"?

Listen, I'm a Greek. I always think I know better.

I opened the restaurant blind thinking I knew better than everyone else. To be honest,

we had a really good success but only because of the cabaret.

Lucky we didn't kill anyone with the food!

-I'm not too sure about that!

-But everyone had a good time.

About seven minutes to go. How did this change and become an act

that 18 million people decided to watch?

When I did the cabaret, I thought, "What would be funnier than a little fat Greek fella

"doing Michael Flatley?"

When I said to my wife as a joke, "Wouldn't it be funny if I went on Britain's Got Talent,"

and Lagi said, "I'll do it with you",

we never thought it would be this big.

We danced for Karen and Elliot in the living room

for three months before, just practising and practising.

We never told anybody we were going on.

-Who are you dancing for now?

-I know.

Simon Cowell's birthday. And we're on Ready Steady Cook!

APPLAUSE

Wonderful.

OK, ladies and gentlemen. Aldo, a very hot pan before you put that in?

It's my birthday soon, by the way!

-You want me there?

-A very, very hot pan. Really hot.

No oil, nothing to start with. I suggest you buy a non-stick pan.

Then the squid just starts rolling. Look.

That's why you're scoring it, so that it rolls

and it starts cooking. Two or three minutes that's ready.

-I'll show you what to do.

-Got the pasta, the tomatoes.

-Sauce for the pasta.

-Sauce for the pasta.

-I saw you put some flour in there. Does that hold it together?

No, I put sugar in there because I put half a pound of chillies in

and I didn't want him to hate me for the rest of the day!

-OK.

-A bit of chilli in there. It's gonna be an arrabiata.

Arrabiata, that's good.

Really kicking off there. We've got salad and a feta pesto. That's really interesting.

I like the way that Aldo grabs hold of ingredients and improvises.

Don't forget our website!

Les. Ah, you've rolled this up. Tell me more.

We've got the meat ragout going in, Lagi.

Give him a round. He's doing good.

He's making the raita. Salt, pepper.

We've got these going in with the meat ragout. They should need flipping over now.

-Let's turn them over.

-Mum, remember how she done this!

He's talking to his mum in the audience! Where's Mum?

-Go and see Mummy, go on. Go and see Mum.

-Hello, Mum!

Go and show Mum. Go on. There you go.

-Am I doing this right?

-I dunno, darling!

Looks good. I'll ask Lesley after!

-Lagi...

-If all else fails, take your mum with you!

We've got little sweetcorn fritters which we'll pop into the oven.

-OK.

-Is that OK?

-Finish them off.

They're nice and hot at the moment. I'll put those in the middle.

And I'll put this in the top.

-OK.

-We've got tacos in there.

Beautiful. Right, Lagi, let's clear the decks down.

OK. Tacos on the top just cooking.

Oven's not very hot though. We need to kick that up. Keep the door closed.

-Yeah. Absolutely.

-And are you enjoying yourself?

-Yes!

Brilliant. You went over to your mum there. Mum and Ellie.

What do they all think? When you walk down the street, people recognise you.

-Are you comfortable with that?

-If the girls can get past my mum, I'm all right!

Oh, dear! What about you, Mum? I'll go over here.

-What do you think, Mum?

-While he's dancing round the country, I have to run his business for him!

-You stay at home and run the business?

-Me and Ellie.

Holding the fort!

-I know! Are you proud of them?

-Yeah, really proud of them.

How do you cope with people recognising you?

It is an invasion, suddenly.

No-one knows you, then half of Britain knows who you are.

They love it. Especially this one when the girls come up for a picture.

Very exciting, isn't it?

Wait till he gets married. Then you'll be in trouble.

-OK, guys. Are you tidying up, Lagi?

-He's doing a good job.

Some fresh tomato sauce going on here.

-Lovely fresh basil going in.

-Shall I take the garlic?

-Garlic can go.

-You're doing really well.

-OK, we've got fritters here,

some brilliant - Lesley's wrapped up the mincemeat she cooked.

-You wrapped those in the tortilla.

-I did. And a spicy ragout going on in there as well.

-Beautiful. OK, Les, I'll come back and see you.

-OK, Ains.

All very exciting now. It's getting to that two-minute mark, really.

We'll just quickly check out what Aldo's doing here.

-Check how the pasta's doing.

-Secret of cooking pasta, Chef?

Cook it al dente. Very hard and finish it in the sauce.

-OK.

-It's really simple.

But you've got to be able to see the white in there.

-Did you know about this, Dimitri? You need to see the white in the pasta.

-Yes.

Course I did. No, I didn't!

-OK, so we're finishing the cooking into the sauce.

-Lovely.

-OK?

Very little time. Remember what the chef says.

Put the pasta into the sauce.

-Also, when you're making pesto, never re-heat it.

-OK.

Just hot spaghetti. Imagine you've made this in advance. You go home,

nothing in the fridge. You've got this ready. You cook a bit of pasta...

-And away you go.

-You have food in seconds.

-A minute to go.

Let's see them get the food on the plates.

OK? See, this is what...

-You all right?

-Yeah.

-50 seconds now.

Don't cut your finger. That's beautiful.

Sprinkle that over the tomatoes.

Yeah. That's it.

Please can you drain the spaghetti?

-All over it?

-About 35 seconds to go.

Audience, remember you're voting for what the chefs did with the ingredients they were given.

OK?

Not because someone's got a beautiful cute face!

LAUGHTER

-Have you got a little...

-Up there.

20 seconds to go now.

Audience, get ready for the countdown.

Ten,

nine,

eight,

seven,

six,

five,

four, three,

two,

one! Stop cooking!

APPLAUSE

Very nice indeed.

Well done, guys.

Let's see what's on today's menu.

In the red kitchen, Aldo and Dimitri have prepared chargrilled calamari

on garlic and rocket salad,

followed by deep-fried calamari with lime.

Dimitri's spaghetti and feta pesto,

spaghetti arrabiata with squid

and finally, Greek salad.

Over in the green kitchen, Lesley and Lagi have been equally busy.

We have spicy ragout in griddled wraps with cream and mustard dip,

garlic meatballs with crispy tacos and tomato sauce.

And finally Lagi's sweetcorn and green pepper fritters

with a chive raita.

Very well done, my man. Bet you can't wait to try that.

Pick up your cutlery. Have a bit of a go.

Aldo, shall we start straight in there?

Straight into the fried squid. Then he should go for the fried squid.

The fried squid was done with self-raising flour

and if you haven't got potato flour, cornflour is fine.

Mix it and deep-fry for three minutes.

-Three minutes grilling the squid as well.

-What do you think?

Beautiful. You can taste the chargrilled... That is gorgeous! That one.

It's all beautiful.

-I like the way you said "Well done", to me. I done nothing.

-You done that.

-OK, I did that.

-What do you think of that?

A bit of pesto made with feta for the first time.

This is the first, actually.

For any Italians watching, it was not of a choice,

but feta cheese is a great cheese. I love it.

-I've a spare room at home. You're coming home with me!

-Your wife's here, so watch out!

-I do the cooking at home!

-This is a very spicy arrabiata with the squid tentacles.

So it's cooked in no time. All of this took 20 minutes.

You have two starters, two main courses and a salad.

-It's not bad!

-And a lot of love.

Very nice indeed. Dimitri and Aldo!

You're not gonna be cuddling Lesley like this at the end, are you?

Let's see how you get on.

Straight in. The old ragout.

Pick one up and just go for it.

Mmm!

-Wow!

-Is that good?

-That's with your spicy sausage.

-Dip it in there.

-Try it dipped in there.

That's got your spicy sausage and your mince.

-Oh, incredible.

-Tell us what was in that sauce again.

Just onion, tomato puree, some wine, your spicy sausage, olive oil, just cooked down.

You stirred it over and it reduced. What do you think?

-Beautiful, the meat.

-It works wonderful.

Have a try of that. Lesley's done that for you.

These are your meatballs.

You've got fresh tomato sauce. We got that lovely big tomato

and cooked it down with onions, garlic and olive oil.

Then added a little pinch of sugar to it

and then rolled up the extra mince into the meatballs.

Have a meatball there. Go for that with the tomato sauce.

Tacos are really, really nice

if they're deep-fried, but they're quite unhealthy.

So we just cut them, put them on a baking tray and baked them in the oven.

-So there's no deep-frying going on.

-What do you think, Lagi? Good?

-Lovely.

-Yeah? Do you want to try a bit of the old sweetcorn?

-A bit there.

-No stopping him, is there, Lesley? He loves that.

All we did was sweetcorn, peppers, a bit of flour,

-some egg, pan-fried them in butter and some raita.

-Does she get a hug?

Wa-hey!

Lesley and Lagi!

-Did you like that?

-Lovely. That's beautiful.

How lovely was that, ladies and gentlemen?

All sorts going on today.

But ultimately we do need a winner.

Audience, pick up your keypads. It's down to you.

Will it be a red kitchen win with Dimitri and Aldo?

Or green with Lagi and Lesley? Let's find out

as we get them all to vote now.

Guys, the decision is yours. You've seen some lovely dishes prepared.

People say, "Do they really do it in 20 minutes?" You are proof that they do.

The computer will prove who has won today's 20-minute challenge.

There it is, by one, a red kitchen win!

APPLAUSE

-Sorry!

-Have a little hug.

It goes in the same house anyway.

It goes go to the same house, but you have that plate.

-The Ready Steady Cook winner.

-That's unbelievable.

-Are you thrilled with that?

-Big time. You don't know how much.

-We'd love to make a donation to your charity, Dimitri.

-We chose the same charity.

We chose Walking With Giants because we met a young boy while we were on tour

and we think it's a good charity so we'll give it to them. And I'm gonna double it as well.

Lovely.

At the end of the day, you probably wouldn't take a plate out of the cupboard,

but you'd take a mug to have your tea in the morning.

He's gonna probably end up drinking coffee out of it!

And you can use the plate!

-Have you enjoyed it today?

-It's been brilliant.

We're thrilled to have you on. Good luck with whatever you do.

-Thank you, Les.

-Pleasure.

-And you, Aldo. In the meantime, a big thank you to Lagi and Dimitri.

Stavros Flatley!

OK, it's time for our Quickie Bag Challenge!

I'm here with Zoe Griffin from Bermondsey in London.

You have a challenge for our chefs today.

-I do.

-What is it?

I'm a showbiz journalist and blogger.

I spend my life going to parties and running between them.

I never have time to eat a healthy snack. I end up eating takeaways.

I want something healthy to eat in the taxi in-between parties

and I've got a tiffin box so I can carry it round

and when I've finished meeting celebrities, I can eat it in the taxi.

What a challenge, guys! What a challenge.

-Got your goodies?

-I do. And a nice little box.

-Will you come over after and have a try?

-I'll be straight over there

-because I've got chocolate in the bag!

-Say no more! Zoe Griffin!

Sorry, Aldo.

-OK, guys, one tiffin box.

-Very nice, too!

-Goes with Zoe's outfit.

Very nice.

-You can tell she's a bit of a blogger, can't you?

-Goodness!

We've got Parma ham, a breast of chicken, some cherries,

penne pasta, those lovely bell peppers,

-asparagus...

-My goodness!

-..mozzarella,

black olives and, well, chocolate.

There's an awful lot going on!

-Let's find out what Aldo Zilli thinks.

-I like these.

-So I'd stuff these with mozzarella and chicken and Parma ham.

-Mm-hmm.

Then I'm gonna make a sauce for the pasta

with the asparagus

and then I'm gonna make some kind of cherry and chocolate mousse.

And the rest of the chicken, we're gonna wrap it with some Parma ham.

And make an asparagus sauce and cream to go with that.

-Ooh. That's something she can put in those?

-It's all gonna be miniature.

-Miniature versions.

-Well, if she goes out and drinks a lot, by the sounds of it,

-if she's not a good girl...

-I have no idea!

She's completely gobsmacked. What about you, Les?

There's a lot of ingredients, isn't there?

-Tell me about it!

-I think pasta.

A pasta salad, actually,

I think is rather fantastic,

so I would make a really delicious pasta salad

and I would do an olive/basil-style dressing,

maybe do some crispy strips of the Parma ham going through the pasta salad

with this lovely basil and olive dressing going through it with maybe some mozzarella.

Then here I think I would slice the chicken,

maybe wrap some in Parma, maybe not. Season it up,

and then do a griddled chicken and asparagus

type of salad style to go in the rest of the tiffin box.

-And the cherries and chocolate?

-Cherries and chocolate, I'd do some sort of ganache in a cup

that would set quite hard with cherries and chocolate.

-OK.

-And cream.

-You're not selling it to me, you're selling it to them. Who's won you over?

Aldo is in the red kitchen and Lesley is in the green.

Pick up your keypads and all vote now. Let's see how this is gonna go.

Lots and lots of lovely ideas.

A rather generous quickie bag. OK!

The computer's done its work, so have you.

Sort this out. Who's won today's ten-minute Quickie Challenge?

By one, ha-ha, Lesley, it's a green kitchen win!

Your ten minutes' cooking time starts now!

-OK. Aldo.

-What can I do for you?

-Pans on?

-Yeah, pans on.

-What would you like me to do?

-Your chocolate mousse. There's two ramekins there.

Ains, I want you to get the asparagus on for me.

-For the salad.

-Are you putting the water in there?

-I'll do that.

-I need to melt some chocolate.

-Water on for the pasta.

-I need to get on with the chicken.

-Bowls, bowls, bowls.

-Mind your backs! I need to get the chicken on first. Are the griddle pans on?

-OK.

-Is that for the pasta?

-Ains, maybe you could crush up some basil.

You were thinking maybe crushing it with oil and olives?

-I will do that for you. No problem.

-Great.

OK. I think we've got to go back to Zoe and find out

how exciting these people are at these parties.

-Who's the most famous person you've met?

-I've met everyone. Brad Pitt, Madonna, Kylie...

-Brad Pitt?

-Yes!

-Come on, everybody! Brad Pitt!

AUDIENCE: Ooh!

He was lovely. His wife, Angelina, I've met her.

Not as good-looking as me, obviously!

Um, I've met Bill Clinton.

Do you get nervous when you meet these people, Zoe?

Do you kind of... Are you short of breath?

Do you get a bit tense?

"Ooh, hello!"

-Or are you cool and calm?

-I'm cool, calm and collected.

I assume my natural calmness.

I go up to them and say, "Who are you dating?" "Are you splitting up?"

To get all the gossip that everyone wants to read.

What about cooking at home? You're a young woman on the move all the time.

Do you get time to relax at home

and invite friends for a meal?

I don't get that much time, but I'm good at barbecues.

So I do get the chicken out and the burgers and whip up a mean barbecue.

-I get someone else to make the salads.

-Lovely.

You have to delegate. I'm good at bossing people round!

Just like me! Get on with it, you two!

OK, we've got asparagus started off in the griddle pan.

I've popped that into the oven for six to eight minutes.

Just cook in until it's cooked with a bite.

You want a nice crispy snap to it when you bite into it.

Some basil oil would be great

and it would be really nice for the pasta salad

-to do an olive-style pasta, you know, basil-style oil.

-OK.

-With a bit of garlic, maybe.

-OK.

-That would be nice.

-Very nice indeed.

-Aldo, how are you doing?

-You're very bossy, I've realised.

-I never knew you were so bossy.

-She's a bossy girl, I have to admit.

She's great, though. She tells you how it is.

-I like chefs like that.

-Now, you want basil, don't you?

I'm short of basil. I'm going to the other kitchen. Talk amongst yourselves!

-Carry on.

-I'm not going far!

-OK.

What I'm doing is making a kind of base here for the chocolate mousse.

Some cherries, oranges, whip some cream.

Mix it with that chocolate and she's gonna love this at four in the morning!

-I won't be a minute. I'm just coming!

-OK, Ains!

I'm in the garden!

LAUGHTER He's in the garden!

I nearly put Tabasco in there! That's no good!

We've got to make sure that we can fit everything in the tiffin box.

-Where's the sugar?

-As much as possible. Have you got it?

-It was the cat. I had to feed the cat!

-Round of applause!

APPLAUSE

-Right. OK.

-Lovely!

-Is that melting? Yeah.

Yeah, that's the tiffin box.

When people go off in India,

when you start talking about tiffin boxes,

and they're at work and they're away from home,

they don't have an opportunity like us to pop out to a local caff

or restaurant, they have to take their food with them.

Imagine if you're a miner and you're down in the mines.

You have all these different levels

so you'd put your starter in there or your rice in there

and your meat in there.

You can have this lovely meal, three-course meal

and you can take it with you to work. It's a lovely idea.

-Lovely.

-OK.

-I'm gonna turn the chicken over.

This mozzarella's very nice. I'm just gonna pull it.

-OK.

-Rip it into pieces for the pasta salad.

It's all sort of oo-er!

Right. OK.

-I want to flip those over.

-OK, we've got melted chocolate.

Melting chocolate. A bit of milk would be good. There you go.

A touch of milk in the chocolate.

Or on top of your heads, which I'm finding hard cos I'm the youngest.

Sorry - I meant the smallest!

I'll give you young and small.

I'm just gonna whack this chicken now into the oven just to finish it off.

OK, and the asparagus in there I'm sure is looking good.

It's rocking and rolling. That looks good, Aldo.

-Do you want to whip it up in the whizzer?

-Would you prefer that?

-No. How are you getting on? OK?

-I think so. About four minutes to go.

-You want olives in here, too?

-Shall I put them in?

-There you go.

-You want it in a rustic kind of style?

-I'll carry on doing that.

-OK.

-Right.

-Lovely.

-Happy with that?

-It does look nice, actually. It really looks good.

It really looks good. That's looking good.

We've also got a quickie question from one of our studio audience.

-This comes from Debs. Hello, Debs.

-Hello!

-Where are you from?

-Swindon.

-Welcome to Ready Steady Cook.

-What would you like to ask our chefs?

-How can I stop rice from going sticky?

-Did you hear that?

-Sorry?

-How can she stop her rice from going sticky?

-Aldo, you go first.

-I'm busy!

Basmati rice, if you soak it in cold water first,

for about 20 minutes, then rinse it off.

That's a good way of not allowing it to stick. And obviously not over-cooking it. White rice,

again, make sure you cook it in lots of boiling water.

But I often do my rice in the oven like a pilaf.

That makes it beautiful

and really flavoursome with stock and onions and butter.

-Risotto rice, you want it to go sticky. Depends what rice you use.

-Not really.

-Sorry, saucy and creamy.

-Exactly! Well done, Les.

-Thai fragrant rice, you want that to be...

-They serve it sticky.

-It depends on what sort of rice you're using.

-You have problems?

-Yes, always goes sticky.

-That hasn't answered the question.

-Maybe cook it in the oven is best, like a pilaf.

-A pilaf in the oven.

Keep the right quantity of stock, maybe some wine,

onions, stir your rice into the oil and pour your stock on top, shove it in the oven.

It'll be fine. Good luck. Thank you. Nice question.

-Lovely.

-I want the pasta.

-OK, coming up to the two-minute mark. We've not got much time.

If you don't use pasta straightaway once you've cooked it, cool it down with extra virgin olive oil

rather than putting it under cold water

because that will wash all the goodness off your pasta

so it's pointless eating it at all.

-Nice little tip, Aldo.

-That's looking very, very good.

-How are you getting on, Aldo?

-Two minutes exactly, Les.

How's the asparagus and the chicken?

I'll check it out now. Just tidying up. I like it nice and tidy.

I've got that mixture there of...

A nice bit of pasta salad going in there

with mozzarella, olives, and loads of basil.

Bit of salt and pepper in there. That's looking nice.

Asparagus is looking great. Nice and tender.

-How is the chicken?

-The chicken is fine, my darling.

It'll be ready as soon as we get down to 30 seconds.

-We've seasoned that.

-How would you like to present it?

Ains!

I think chicken salad to start.

-Followed by the asparagus...

-Got enough in there?

-I think we have enough.

-OK. Lovely.

-We've got enough.

-Let's get these off of here.

Have we got the plate runners to put them on?

-Now, this needs to go in the freezer or the fridge.

-OK.

Before you go out, put this in the fridge.

We haven't got time, but not to worry, Aldo.

No, but if she goes out, she can put them in the fridge first.

-OK?

-OK. 50 seconds coming up now. Let's get this done.

50 seconds? That's a long time.

OK, there's your starter.

Beautiful.

-Do you want these like that on the edge?

-Just a bit sexy.

-A bit sexy.

-Wow, this dessert is amazing!

-Beautiful.

-Looking good.

-Look at this. Beautiful.

-How's the pud going, Aldo?

-Look at these beauties.

-Oh, I say!

-Forget your souffles!

-That is looking really, really great.

-Lovely.

Wonderful.

-One cherry each.

-Let's get the other runner.

There we are.

OK. Coming up to ten seconds now.

Ten, nine,

eight, seven,

six, five, four,

three, two, one!

Stop cooking!

Zoe, come and join us.

Thank you. Well done! Wow!

Lesley's dead jealous that you've met Brad Pitt. She can't believe it.

-Lucky thing!

-And I've got a photo. And he's tall, actually.

He's not as tall as you, Ainsley. He's midway between me and you.

I've got a chance, have I? Don't know about that.

-You have a chance to try this fare.

-Is that the starter?

-This what you're looking for?

-I love it. It's really good quality.

-Amazing ingredients.

-Wow!

Good ingredients.

Simple.

We've made an olive, basil and little pepper salad

-with ripped mozzarella and lovely basil.

-Use your fingers, please.

Here we've got chicken wrapped in Parma

and very simple, just pan-fried it.

Have a try. It's really moist. We started it off in the pan

and finished it off in the oven.

-Wow.

-And griddled asparagus to go with it, with a squeeze of lemon.

-How's that?

-Absolutely. Just squeeze that lemon juice on top.

-You wanted to try the chocolate. What about that? Aldo's...

-This was really difficult.

-Wow!

-We melted some brown sugar...

-Cherry as well. Wow!

..with some orange peel and some vanilla essence

and some honey. Then we melted some chocolate and double cream.

Chocolate all round my mouth, but I love it!

We put it all together by putting the base as the cherry melted in the pan

and what you should do before you go out is put it in the fridge for a couple of hours.

-Then take it out with you.

-I want some more chocolate!

More! A couple of other people want some more. Lagi and Dimitri, come and join us!

Stay, stay. Move around a bit, my darling. In you come here.

Thank you for joining us. I hope we've given you some ideas to get in the kitchen and have a go.

This show is about inspiring you. Till next time on Ready Steady Cook from all of us, take care. Bye!

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