Episode 4 Ready Steady Cook

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

You all right? Thank you very much. Whoo!

Very, very nice.

Hello and welcome to Ready Steady Cook,

the 20-minute cooking challenge with the bag of unknown ingredients.

What recipes will we have today?

You'll have to wait and see.

First, let's meet our chefs and guests.

In the Green Kitchen joining chef Garrey Dawson,

we have that comedy legend, the very funny Brian Conley!

CHEERING

And in the Red Kitchen with chef Paul Rankin,

we have acting royalty -

it's the very debonair Nigel Planer.

CHEERING

-How are you?

-Very well.

-OK. Well, you and Nigel are pulling in the crowds at Hairspray.

-We are indeed.

If you decided to cook at home, do you think people would queue up for your nosh?

I think I can burn salad, me.

Let's have a look at the food, come on.

Yes, here we are...

So this is it, and as you can tell, I'm a bit of a spice freak.

Tell them what you bought along.

I've got me pappadums, I've got me rice, Garrey,

spinach, bit of chicken...

Oh, look at that... And of course, my chillies.

Not too hot, these ones,

cos the bigger they are, the not as hot they are.

-That's a professional way of speaking.

-A little chilli.

-And me little tomatoes there, there you go.

-How much was all that then?

It was £7.39. That's how much it set me back.

-That's good.

-So you didn't go the whole hog?

No, I thought I'd save a bit for a drink.

-You didn't want to give me everything you had?

-No, I didn't.

What do you think then, chef?

It's a funny bag, isn't it? I mean, pappadums, chilli, cherry tom...

-Gosh. The pappadums we'll...

-You're not going to bake a cake, are you?

-We could do?

-No!

Let's do something like a millefeuille with the nice wilted spinach,

spice it up a bit with the chilli and the pappadums.

-It's where you get layers...

-That's a lasagne, isn't it? Why'd you say that then?

-Millefeuille.

-Don't use big words. I can use big words - corrugated iron.

AINSLEY LAUGHS

Oh, let 'em get on with it!

Brian and Garrey.

APPLAUSE

Nigel, what a pleasure it is to have you back.

Last time you were on, both you and Brian won, didn't you?

That's right, when I was on last time I won,

so this is the clash of the Titans.

-Wow. And do you clash at home? He plays the wife, doesn't he?

-He plays my wife, yes.

-Do you sometimes want to throttle him at the end of the night?

-No, we get on, we get on.

-We have to kiss a bit...

-Really?

-..which is a bit of a, you know, challenge.

-Yeah.

-And what about matinees? Night time's all right...

-Twice a day,

-twice a day, yeah. Even when you're not feeling like it.

-Ooh, kissing Brian twice a day.

Don't give him any garlic, cos I've got to kiss him tonight.

LAUGHTER

-Let's have a look.

-We'll see what's in here for Brian, shall we?

-Absolutely.

-Here we are.

Beautiful! I say, look at that lamb.

-Nice bit of lamb.

-Do you approve, Mr Rankin?

I do approve, I mean, rack of lamb is one of the world's great things.

Lamb's probably my favourite meat. I almost always order rack of lamb in a restaurant.

Nice combination going on here between olives and lamb,

olives, rosemary and lamb, thyme, pull in some garlic...

-Sweet potato.

-Sweet potato, uh...

-A very large sweet potato.

Yeah, but that's grand, because then we can do a few things with it.

-So I'm sort of thinking lamb...

-And curly kale.

-..and olives,

Curly kale - lovely interesting veg,

very good for you. Difficult to cook right sometimes,

so that people enjoy it. I like to cook it

past that slightly crunchy stage.

That also suits the garlic,

-so we've definitely got a garlic thing going on.

-Yes, Brian!

We've definitely got a garlic thing going on.

Do you think we should whack some eggs in for him?

We should, yeah!

How much did you spend, Nige?

-This was £7.52.

-Good.

My worry was that these are sort of really roasting things,

will we have time?

Will we have time to cook these?

Well, an hour and 20 minutes is plenty of time.

An hour and 20 minutes! We'll be all right then(!)

I'm thinking maybe do something sweet with the sweet potato.

Because when you combine that with brown sugar, vanilla and cream,

-it's delicious.

-Very nice indeed, Nigel and Paul. Come on!

APPLAUSE

OK, ladies and gentlemen, let's get our chefs cooking

by simply saying, ready, steady, cook!

20 minutes, boys, come on. Mmm!

Don't forget to wash your hands, fella.

OK, mate.

OK, geez, that under there...

-Mmm...

-Thank you.

Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous.

-Getting the old bird going, there, so... Oh.

-Oh!

-Oh!

Where am I, what do I want?

What do I do now?

-First...spinach!

-Spinach.

-Open that up, wash it.

Lovely.

-Last time you said your cooking skills hadn't gone very far...

-No.

Um, I'm baked beans on toast...

But I think they should make a toaster that's horizontal so you can

fit all the beans in, and they don't all fall out...

-You'd prefer that?

-Yeah.

No, my cooking skills are zilch.

But, you know, I make an effort.

How are your two daughters with cooking, then?

Well, they enjoy it,

and my wife is a wonderful cook,

so luckily she does all that. That's why I'm fat.

Lovely.

You're not fat!

No, but I am in Hairspray, that's for sure.

I'm 22st in that!

And what type of things do you like to cook?

Well, what we're doing here, really. Anything spicy.

I'm glad you're here, Ainsley.

I look like I'm doing well, but I haven't got a clue.

-And how hot do you like it? Really hot?

-I do, I like that,

cos it releases your endorphins,

it makes it addictive, doesn't it? Your tongue is telling you you're injured,

and so your brain releases all these endorphins,

that's why it can be quite addictive.

-I do like hot, spicy food, I must say.

-Mm, mmm.

-You're a big fan of that?

-Hot and spicy.

-Yeah, he likes his food to kick a little bit.

-Yeah.

-OK. What's happening here, then?

-You're blitzing these down?

-We're going to do something a bit different.

-You've heard of cornflake chicken?

-Yeah.

Yeah, well, I'm going to try and do it with pappadums.

-That's a nice idea.

-If that's going to work, we'll see!

So I'll blitz those up, with maybe a little bit of breadcrumbs,

-and then flour and egg wash...

-I think we all know it.

What about you guys? Cornflake chicken?

Anybody, cornflake chicken? No? One gentleman there...

-In the fridge, fella.

-We'll find out a little bit more.

A little bit noisy there, I know, making all that racket.

Let's see how Paul's getting on.

OK, lamb. I wanted to come over,

cos I know you want to get this in the oven.

Yeah, we're really rocking and rolling here.

This one I've done a little spice

with some cumin, coriander, black pepper and salt,

OK, so we're leaning towards a lovely sort of spicy crust on it.

Yeah.

This one I'm going to do...

Actually I think I'll do...

I'm going to do lamb chops with this one, actually.

OK, so, nice fat lamb chops...

Do you want a rolling pin, chef?

I want a bat, but a rolling pin will do just grand.

I think there was a bat in there.

So what this is going to do is give you a slightly more even shape,

and on that we're going to put a mustard crust.

-OK.

-So that's going to be extremely delicious.

-Mmmm.

-So, ideally, when you're cooking meat...

I'm being a little bit naughty here,

as a chef I would always tell the people in my kitchen,

get your pan really hot before you add the meat,

but of course, a rack of lamb takes quite a long time to cook

so I need to get started.

But I'm going to wait a second before I add the lamb chops,

because that will cook very quickly, being thin.

OK. Lovely. No problem at all, chef.

Four minutes gone already. How's Nigel getting on up there?

He's flying along.

I'm doing something kids would love,

-I'm taking the crust off the bread.

-Oh, dear!

Which you're told not to do. You've got to eat your crusts.

-How many kids have you got, Nige?

-I've got two boys.

-Uh-huh.

Both good cooks, or appreciate good food?

They are, actually. The ten-year-old taught me how to make a Thai curry.

-Ooh!

-He told me all the ingredients, we got them,

and did it on his instructions.

He loves a Thai curry.

Very encouraging, isn't it, when your children cook...

How much of this bread do you need, Paul?

Uh, that's lots. If you just give that a wee dice for me.

Fantastic.

So do you go out to eat very often?

I do. When doing a show, you end up eating out all the time,

and it's always complicated what time of day to eat.

You want to eat before the show but not too far before the show,

you don't want to be too hungry after the show...

Getting that balance right.

It's quite energetic, isn't it? It's a musical, it's full-on,

it's a real buzz, a real high.

If you're not careful, you'll be starving hungry at 11 at night.

So tell us about your character, Nigel.

I play Wilbur, who's the husband, who owns a joke shop,

and he's always making really bad jokes.

Not like Brian(!)

LAUGHTER

BRIAN: Oi!

And he likes sort of whoopee cushions and funny noses and all that stuff.

But they're a very loving family,

and Tracy's his daughter,

and the nice thing is to play such a family,

who all love each other and get on,

and you don't see that very often.

You mentioned a really interesting fact earlier on about the theatre,

the previous successful show that ran, there was Hair,

-and they both opened up...

-That's right, they both opened

with the words "good morning". "Good morning Baltimore," in Hairspray,

"Good morning sunshine," in Hair, and in the Shaftesbury Theatre,

I believe, the last time there was a really long-running successful show

in the Shaftesbury, it was Hair.

The walking encyclopaedia, here, ladies and gentlemen.

-Yeah, of theatre lore.

-I know, I know. Anyway,

catch up again, we've got lots to talk about,

but as far as the food department's concerned,

all sorts of things happening here.

-Fabulous smells, cardamom in here...

-Cardamom, nutmeg, ginger.

You know, I was talking about doing a dessert with this, basically

it'll be a sweet potato creme brulee.

Sweet potato purees up very smoothly.

It's going to give us that rich custard-type finish.

I'm starting it in water, but once that water evaporates

I'll add cream and egg yolk, and then if we have time

-I'll glaze the top of it.

-Wow. Ooh!

AUDIENCE: Ooh!

We like that, we like that!

We don't mind a bit of that at all.

We've got those cooking down, very nice indeed.

Let's move away from this now, come on. Let's go back down.

Cornflake... What was it? Cornflake...

I was going to say chicken, chicken's down there.

No, no, I've got chicken.

What we used to do when we were a bit younger

was take cornflakes and use them like breadcrumbs

to coat your chicken in cornflakes, you get this really crispy...

-You can deep fry it, roast it.

-That's when the cornflakes

got a bit old, the bits you had in the bottom of the pack...

Exactly, it's perfect, and adds a good texture to the chicken.

So I've done it the same, but I've used pappadums.

So this is a traditional flour-egg-breadcrumb job, is it?

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

-You can see the chicken...

-Look at that!

That's lovely, isn't it?

Shall we put a bit of foil on that?

-I'm worried about it browning up.

-I put it in quite dark so it should be OK.

No problem. Is that up your street, Brian?

Lovely. Anything crispy, spicy, that's me.

-In this pan here, Brian?

-Got...what?

Onions and chilli. In this pan here.

-All of them? How many?

-All of it.

Straight in there.

All right, oh, hello...

You're cooking that one.

Where did your career start, then? You seem to have done everything.

-There was time when you were always on telly...

-My career started at school.

What do you mean, there was time when I used to be on telly, what's that about?

You know, I'm on the telly right now!

My career's down the pan cos I can't ballroom dance, I can't cook,

-and I hate the jungle, so my TV career's gone now.

-Oh, lovely.

I can have a go at you! Who parted your hair, Moses?

LAUGHTER

What's going on here? I only came on a cookery programme

-and everyone's having a go at me.

-Ah, get out of it. Shut it.

I was going to say - you were on television a lot,

-and suddenly you've gone into theatre.

-I am a thespian now.

-Are you? Why did that happen?

-Um...

Well, I think... it's never been a conscious game plan,

I just sort of go from one thing to the other,

and I went to see this show as a fan in November,

went with my girls,

and...met Michael afterwards,

not assuming I was ever going to be in this,

-just went as a fan.

-Talking about Michael Ball, here.

-Yes, of course.

And Michael said to the girls, "How old are you?"

Two girls, Lucy and Amy. Lucy went, "I'm seven!"

He said, "I think you're old enough." So he went into another room,

came out with these boobs that he wears in the show.

And Lucy innocently said, "My mum's got a pair of them,

"but they're much smaller."

That's what kids do. LAUGHTER

They're too honest, aren't they?

They are. And last Saturday we were doing two shows,

and the girls had gone shopping...

-I should be helping!

-Chop something, we'll find something.

-What do you want me to chop up?

-Chop that parsley for me.

OK. Do you want to chop it,

-do you want a larger knife?

-Yeah, I want a larger knife, get me a larger knife!

The biggest, the better!

Maybe that one will do for you.

-All right, then.

-Just a little bit...

I'll mime it, and you do it.

Look at that!

CHOPPING

Put those there so they can't see...

LAUGHTER

-Ooh!

-Oh!

APPLAUSE

What are you like?!

So are you enjoying it? Do you like the idea of dressing up every night?

I didn't think I would, but I'm enjoying it,

the make-up, the whole thing.

I never thought I'd say to my girls, "Have you been using Daddy's lip gloss?"

LAUGHTER

And he wears it off every night! Is he a good kisser?

-Nigel...?

-Ye-e-ah...

Nigel'd tell you, I couldn't do it until I was in the gear.

I kept saying, "We'll just block this moment, Nige."

It's quite...

-So dressing up helps you to go the other way a little bit?

-Well, yeah!

Come on!

Mmmmm! CHEERING

See, I'm used to it now, it doesn't bother me.

He tried to stick his tongue in my mouth, what's that all about?

I think I'm going to get a part in Hairspray!

-You'd be good in it, you would.

-Stop it.

-Stop it...

-You would!

Theatre's a great thing, but...

-What's going to happen after this?

-I'm going back into it,

I had Christmas off, going to go do the pantomime,

they kindly asked me back, so I'm going to go back in the new year -

-due to the economic downturn, it's nice to be working!

-Great having you here, mate!

Shall I do something now, Garrey?

You are going to do some sauteed spinach.

I tried to give you another job but you didn't do it.

-Well, he keeps asking me questions.

-Are you finished with that, Chef?

What you're going to do in here, Brian,

-is sauteed spinach.

-OK,

about eight minutes to go -

we've got crunchy pappadum chicken, I like that.

-And what's going on in here? Is this like a chicken stew?

-It is.

Chicken breast, which we started in a frying pan,

then we put it into the tomato, chilli and onion stew, like a compote.

We've got some nice, spicy rice with turmeric for a bit of colour,

-then we'll get some of the herbs you chopped in there later.

-Smells good.

-Enjoying the smells, Brian?

-I love it. It's a shame it's not Scratch and Sniff.

-We want scratch n' sniff telly.

-Scratch and Sniff TV!

We're not going to get Scratch and Sniff TV,

but you have got our website, ladies and gentlemen.

All the information is on there.

How are you doing there, Nigel?

He's having fun!

He's great. He's loving it.

Two different types of tomato -

what have you stuffed those tomatoes with?

It's just the crust that I've made up for the lamb.

We're going to be making a sort of...

-spicy, almost Asian-type...

-Look at those! Very nice.

You'll see what's happening with these crusts -

let me just show you this.

-So...

-OK, two different crusts here.

-One of them's got an olive crust...

-Seven minutes!

I've made olive breadcrumbs for that. What you need to do,

you pre-cook your lamb,

then you allow it to rest. I've made an almost tapenade-type thing.

You can add a bit of egg yolk or garlic or something...

The tapenade is like a blitzed-down olive.

Press it into your crumbs and it all comes off, just like that!

It's not supposed to do that! But I like to put more olives in there

and that's just the key.

Let me show you this,

because we can rescue it here.

What I'll do, I'll give them both a light coating of mustard -

no, this one I'll do with mustard, and the other one

I'll brush with a bit of egg yolk, just to show you.

Then you pop that in there...

and that's going to finish off...

with a lovely little crust.

If you just dice me up a little bit of that tomato, please...

That's the sweet potato there.

So, watch what I do here.

I'm just going to moisten it with the egg yolk...

and NOW the olive crust will stick to it.

-You see that?

-Beautiful.

Yay! He's got it to stick!

APPLAUSE

So that'll just be popped back in the oven...

Very nice. OK.

Now, Nigel, you've done so many different musicals over the years -

fabulous in The Young Ones,

but not much television. Do you like the privacy of doing theatre?

Funny you should use the word "privacy". There is a sort of privacy about it.

And I like the discipline - eight shows a week is tiring,

but it's nice to have the discipline of keeping it going for a long period of time.

What about a part you haven't played yet?

Is there something you think,

-"I'd like to do that"?

-A part I've always craved to do

is Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha.

You know, that's a brilliant musical.

They haven't revived that for many years. I'd love to do that. A couple of shows I'd like to do.

Fantastic. You've got the energy for it. And the passion.

What are we doing here? We've got tomatoes...

You're making a little sweet potato rosti here,

that's coming together quickly.

This is my little spiced ragu.

We've got the onions, the garlic, a bit of cumin,

coriander...I'm just going to whack some of the blanched kale in there as well.

Can we lose all this, now, Chef?

Er... I think so, Ainsley.

I'll put them down here so we get a nice view of what you're doing.

In that goes...

Now, Nigel, I need you to blend this up for me.

We need a tablespoon of sugar in there.

A little bit of brown sugar and a little touch of vanilla, please.

You all right, there? You able to mash that up?

Can I get some of the garlic in with the kale, Nigel?

The kale is blanched. My favourite way with kale

is to blanch it really well, dress it with extra virgin olive oil,

a whack of salt and a bit of black pepper.

And that's just a delicious, healthy garnish.

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

Sometimes we see things like that, we just boil them up, don't we?

We boil them up. A bit of salt and pepper, bit of lemon juice,

a little bit of imagination.

Please check out the website. Quite a lot of garlic too.

You've got to kiss, haven't you? There we are,

we've got our crispy pappadum chicken there...

-Stick that right there.

-The display has gone a bit...

Oh, that's wonderful.

Now, lemon.

-Get a lemon, cut it into wedges.

-You said you can't cook, mate, you're doing a really good job.

What about you? Any part you'd like to play that you haven't...?

Erm... I'd like to do the Ainsley Harriott's Life Story.

I think it'd be interesting. I don't think I'd be able to keep up, though,

-it's quite specialised.

-What do you think, ladies and gentlemen? Could he play Ainsley Harriott?

AUDIENCE: Yes!

-The musical.

-Give us a taste.

I sort of come round and I come in and I sort of talk like this

and then I just sort of put my oar in and then I walk off.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

-I think it would work!

-That's more like David Bellamy.

-Get out of here!

-You do talk like that!

OK, ladies and gentlemen, we'll leave our chefs to get on with it.

-OK, guys, one minute to go.

-MUSIC STARTS

-Where do you want this?

-Over the top of there.

The lemon...

-Beauty...

-OK, guys,

about 45 seconds.

Just to remind you, they turned up about 20 minutes ago with a bag of shopping.

Two bistro bags of shopping.

20 minutes later, look what we've got on the plates.

Think about what they've done with that food before you vote.

OK, I'm going to ask you to help me count down any moment now...

15 seconds!

Ten...nine...

eight...seven...

six...five...four...

three...two...one...

-Stop...cooking!

-APPLAUSE

Good job.

What a gorgeous feast.

Let's have a look at today's menu.

In the Green Kitchen,

Garrey and Brian have come up with Brian's chilli spinach soup,

followed by sauteed breast of chicken with chilli tomato and herb stew,

spinach and pappadum millefeuille, and finally,

pappadum-crusted chicken breast with turmeric rice.

In the Red Kitchen, Paul and Nigel have come up with

rack of lamb with olive and rosemary crust with a tomato, black olive dressing,

served with sweet potato fondant,

lamb chops with spiced mustard crust with kale, garlic and black pepper,

warm and spicy kale, tomato and sweet onion salad, and finally,

Nigel's aromatic sweet potato creme brulee.

APPLAUSE

Very nice. Really good food, both chefs have done exceptionally well,

but how's it going to taste, Brian?

-Ooh...

-Get stuck in there, mate.

-Start with soup.

-This is your own soup.

It is indeed. And it smells gorgeous.

You said you couldn't do anything -

well, you made a soup and you did a lot for all of this.

Thank you very much, Garrey. So did you.

I think it was a joint effort.

-OK. I'll take that!

-It's lovely. LAUGHTER

It's just everything you want.

It's spinach, garlic, stock, and some chilli in there as well.

-Salt, pepper and a bit of cream.

-Beautiful.

-Bit of a kick to it.

There you've got some chicken, which we cooked mostly in the tomatoes.

The cherry tomato stew.

We sealed the chicken in a pan, but we cooked it mostly in the tomato.

It keeps the moisture from the tomatoes.

We had a bit of fun - we had a box of pappadums

and we deep-fried them and puffed them up as you do, but we wilted the spinach,

built them up. So, you can crack this...take that with a bit of spinach,

dip that in your soup, or...it's just a bit of fun. Easy finger food.

Then, because we had so many pappadums,

we thought we'd be a bit creative

and we made like a cornflake, pappadum chicken.

So, we took the chicken and we made a crumb mix with the pappadums,

breadcrumbs, bit of egg mix...

It's so tasty...so tasty. And it's not too hot,

it won't blow your head off.

I hate when you have something and it's like, "Whoa!"

That's really lovely in there.

-Taste the pappadum coming out of there.

-You cut it for me like I'm a small child!

Well, you know, I've got to get over there! Only got two minutes.

All right, hurry up!

You should get a nice crunch from that pappadum. Unusual, but...

-Beautiful.

-Yeah?

-Absolutely. You can taste the lemon in there as well.

-It's a really fresh taste.

-You did that as well!

-Thank you!

-Happy, Brian?

-Delighted. I can't wait to tuck in once you've gone.

Ladies and gentlemen, Brian and Garrey!

APPLAUSE

Looking forward to this?

Food looks wonderfully exciting here. Really colourful.

Pick up your cutlery.

-Where shall he start, Paul?

-Anywhere you fancy, really.

A terrific bag,

but not that much in it,

so I've separated the lamb into two sections. One,

I roasted as a rack of lamb, the other was lamb chops.

The lamb chops were spiced with cumin, coriander, black pepper,

then the rack was just salt and pepper and a little bit of rosemary.

Once they're cooked, you let them rest,

then I put a herb crust coated with mustard on the chops

and a tapenade crust on this one. So, this is

all your Mediterranean stuff. The olive, tomato dressing,

-sweet potato fondant...

-That's just gorgeous.

I'm serving this mid-rare, how I like it -

if you want it more well done,

your lamb's got to stay in the oven for five more minutes.

This one here has a kick with the spiciness of the mustard...

The kale - blanched the kale, black pepper, garlic...

and these tomatoes are easy.

If you've got the crumb mix...

The crumb mix is tasty in itself.

Olive oil, on with the crumb mix and bake till the tomatoes are soft. Then the crust...

-I've moved further east.

-Yeah. This is more Middle Eastern. Cumin in there.

-Lovely.

-Shall we go for the pudding now?

-Or do you want to...

-Can we just try this one?

I forgot all about my rosti, that was supposed to go on that one.

I did three things with the...

with the sweet potato.

-But I'm interested in this one, too...

-Oh, that's lovely!

..because I think sweet potato and pumpkin

-make a lovely dessert. Have you tried it yet?

-No.

There we go... It's almost like pumpkin pie. Once you incorporate those spices

and the brown sugar and the cream,

-it becomes sensational.

-REALLY nice. And it's got my name on it.

-Yeah!

-Nigel's...

-Nigel's sweet potato creme brulee.

-That's really lovely.

Brilliant. Well done, Paul and Nigel.

APPLAUSE

Ooh, I think it's going to be a close one today.

Will it be a Green Kitchen win,

with Brian and Garrey,

or Red, with Nigel and Paul?

The choice is yours, so please, all of you, pick up your key pads

and all vote now.

OK, on one side we have that succulent chicken,

one wrapped in those lovely pappadum crumbs, and on the other side,

we had a couple of crusted things going on with the lamb,

but it looks fairly even... Computer,

who has won today's 20 minute challenge?

And - by ONE -

-it's a Green Kitchen win!

-APPLAUSE

Oh, my word.

How close was that?! How close was that?!

One separating you guys.

Another plate to add to your repertoire.

-Here we go, you ready? Hup-la!

-What about the charity?

It's going to Helen & Douglas House,

which is a wonderful hospice that helps people who are terminally ill.

It's a great place, and the money will go there

-and it will be well received.

-Thank you.

-APPLAUSE

-Love to the family.

-Well done.

-Thank you.

-How close was that?!

-Very, only needed the one vote.

I know, you can never tell what will happen, but you've got the cup -

-or the mug, if you like!

-Much more useful, really.

-Very nice mug, thank you.

-Pleasure having you.

Some lovely recipes there. Go home and cook for your family.

Well done, Paul, always a pleasure. Ladies and gentlemen,

let's hear it for Nigel Planer and Brian Conley!

Time for today's Quickie Bag challenge.

I'm joined by Amos and Jo who have three gorgeous children.

You've been married for a while, but you want something a bit different? Tell our chefs your challenge.

I cook every day for three kids and it's boring.

I'm not very inventive and I'd like something exciting to try.

Does your husband not help you out?

He does, but he cooks for US rather than the kids.

What do YOU like to cook?

I normally cook Caribbean food - goat curry, fried chicken,

-rice and peas...

-So you want something different for the young palates?

-Absolutely.

And you've got a nice bag of shopping.

-I look forward to you coming over and having a try.

-Thank you!

Amos and Jo, thank you very much.

I might briefly have to go back to them

because I want to know how old are the children we are cooking for.

-Eight, two and one years old.

-OK.

Quite a variation there, isn't it?

And you want us to teach you how to do something exciting in ten minutes?

Absolutely. Lots of things.

We have got rice, almonds,

pepper, courgette,

spring onions and a mango.

Gentlemen, lemon sole, lots of it there.

What do you think, Paul?

I always think with kids, fish with a crust is lovely.

I would make like an almond and bread crumb crust.

Fry that off. I think they would love that.

I think it could be quite nice to get kids to eat veggies.

Maybe we'll do a selection of veggie tempura. Spring onions, courgettes and the pepper work well with that.

Rice, we've got a nice little stir fry going on there.

Stir fry would be grand. And with the mango...

for kids, I think they just like it cut up

so I think we'd make the mango hedgehog thing.

A little bit of lime cream with that.

See if Garrey can persuade you to vote for him.

With the rice, let's try to do something like sweet rice.

Bit of a rice pudding thing with a mango puree.

Sweet dessert type of thing.

Sole almondine, classic.

Bit of cream, some almonds.

We'll poach the fish.

A little bit of fish stock just to keep it moist and juicy.

-Kids like that. Obviously, the rest of the rice, yes, we'll do some roasted peppers.

-Rice cakes?

Maybe, yeah, or maybe some fish and rice, and do a fishcake.

Something like that with the chopped scallions.

That sounds wonderful!

AUDIENCE GIGGLES

They like to play it on, don't they?

They like to play up, the chefs.

You're going to sort them out, ladies and gentlemen.

You'll decide who will be cooking for us this afternoon.

Red for Paul, green for Garrey. Pick up those keypads and all vote now.

Could be interesting to find out who Jo and Amos have voted for.

For the moment, it looks red.

It could be a tad green.

Computer, sort this out. Who has won?

And it's a red kitchen win!

Ten minutes cooking time starts now.

I need you to make me some almond bread crumbs.

Save me some almonds.

And if we could cut some vegetables so I can do them tempura style.

Ainsley, I think you are famous for your mango dishes.

I was thinking the mango hedgehog because kids like that but if you want to do something else...?

I think wedges would be quite nice. Absolutely.

And what about this lemon sole. Do you prefer the lemon or Dover, Paul?

I like them both.

I have to say Dover is my favourite.

But lemon's my mum's favourite.

What does she like about it. It's a much gentler fish, isn't it?

Well, it's probably a textural thing with lemon sole.

You can keep the skin on if you want or not.

Fine enough for you, Paul?

-Yeah. I was wanting a little bit of bread crumb through it, yeah?

-No problem.

Lemon does have a slightly different flavour.

Maybe slightly closer to plaice than Dover sole.

Dover sole, to me, is the king of fish.

-That and turbot would be my two favourite fish in the whole world.

-OK.

I got to go back to Jo and Amos, what about the children,

do they like the skin on the fish or cut away?

Safe to take it off.

As long as the kids don't mind.

Something like lemon sole will suit the kids.

Because it is not too meaty, it's got a beautiful mild flavour.

It's one of the great fish in the sea.

And it's a constant favourite.

It sells terrifically well at the restaurant.

And it's not that expensive, Dover sole's very expensive.

This is not too dear at all.

Little bit of sugar, cinnamon going on here too.

Normally, you'd probably associate the hedgehog type things

with a bit of chilli.

It really works well but the children are young so we won't go down that route.

When you're doing your own breaded fish,

it's your typical egg wash type thing.

You can put a splash of milk or a touch of water in there.

I'm using a touch of water.

It's that typical sort of flour-milk crumb.

This would appeal to both adults and children, would it?

Yeah, this is...

This is proper gourmet stuff.

Especially when you start to put almonds in it.

Absolutely delicious.

Yeah, and we need some of the crumbs on there.

If you want to make it a little bit more interesting, you can add herbs into there.

Something like parsley or rosemary would suit it really well.

Put some salt in the crumbs.

Do you want the rest of the mango for anything else, chef? A little bit of garnish.

I'll leave it up to you, you're the mango boss, today, dude.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, OK.

Can't think of something, can you, I know.

You can do an almost salsa type thing.

That might go quite nicely with the fish.

I think two of these is enough.

-Let me show you something else...

-With the other fillets.

Now, lemon sole is a light textured fish.

So it doesn't take long to cook.

It'll cook very quickly.

Don't make that mistake that a lot of people make of over-cooking your fish.

-You've got about six minutes to go now, chefs.

-Plenty of time.

You know what I'm like.

I get frantic when it gets down to the last minutes.

I can relax then, shall I?

That was my job today, kicking back and relaxing.

You're supposed to be doing all the hard work!

You wanted some small dice of everything.

I need something because we are going to do a sort of stir fry of the rice.

I've done you rings for your tempura.

I have decided to do something else with the sole as well.

I'll do what we call some paupiettes.

OK, paupiettes.

Just sort of folding them over.

A little bit of salt going with this.

And then we're just going to pop them into a pan.

Already got the oil in there, need a bit of butter.

Quite often with fish, oil and butter is a good combination.

Stops it burning.

A lot of chefs would use clarified butter with fish.

But with the kids, I don't think they care, really.

I don't know about that!

What do you mean?

I whipping some cream, I'll finish off when I come back.

We do have a Quickie Question.

I always encourage the audience members.

This lady has come with her dad, Lexy, all the way from Belgium

to find out what? How are you?

I'm good, thank you.

So what part of Belgium are you guys from?

We're from Gent in Flanders.

Hello, Dad, how are you?

Fine, and happy to be here.

-Lovely, do you enjoy Ready Steady Cook?

-It is very popular in Belgium.

Good to have you here, what's your question?

What advice would you give to young people who would like to be a professional chef?

Personally, because I am that much younger than Paul,

the memories are still fond for me.

And uglier too!

I think the advice you can give is realistically make sure it is what you want to do before you start.

You have to give 100%.

Then take a good education and find a good restaurant, good hotel,

where you can work and educate at the same time.

Cos practise, doing all this, is the most important thing you'll ever get.

Reading from the books is important, but physically being in a kitchen is the best thing you can do.

-My advice.

-I leave you to it...

.. is to find the best kitchen that you can

with the head chef, the man behind it, still working in the kitchen.

And virtually camp out on his doorstep until he gives you a job.

If necessary, work for free.

Because working in a kitchen, where a good head chef is still there,

is impossible to beat.

So, kids often don't like vegetables.

-Something like crispy...

-2.5 minutes to go.

What you want, some herbs?

I would like you to crack me an egg, please?

-And maybe get the rice into the...

-Eggs, eggs, eggs.

Come on, let's go.

OK, what we're doing here, guys, I am just glazing the outside of this.

Putting on a bit of icing sugar.

And we are going to glaze these up because we want crust on the tops.

The children will like that when that cools down.

So, we're just going to get that down.

OK, we've got a couple of minutes to go.

That will brown up, just persevere with it.

Probably just pop that under the grill.

There we are.

I wish I had a more powerful one, guys.

You can pop this under the grill if you are worried about that.

Make sure the grill's good and hot before you put it under there.

OK, guys, coming up for 1.5 minutes now.

I might have to get my other blowtorch to finish these up.

-Mango out, Ainsley.

-Thank you, Chef.

I haven't made the salsa for you, by the way.

Doesn't matter, we don't really need it.

With the paupiettes, does not take very long for them to cook at all.

I'm just finishing the top side.

What I'll do, because we are short of time,

I'm going to get a bit of butter in here right now.

Because what we're going to do is make a beurre noisette.

And then add crumbs and almonds into it.

Give us that beautiful sauce.

OK, all right then, guys.

It's up to you now. I'm just doing my burning process here.

Where do you want this tempura, Paul? It's ready.

Bring it out, we'll whack it in....

a dish here.

OK, about 45 seconds now. 45.

Just get this onto a bit of paper there.

You want any salt, any spice?

Erm, little bit of salt should be fine.

Coming up to the 30 second mark.

Where do you want it? On any plate?

Egg, egg, egg. Where's the egg?

Get it on there, get it on there! We've got about 25 seconds.

20 seconds now.

I can only do three of these. How are you, Paul?

-Yeah, we're there.

-You want some coriander on that?

10, 9, 8, 7...

6, 5, 4, 3...

2, 1. Stop cooking!

Amos and Jo, come and join us.

Move that out the way, guys.

Well, there you go.

-Not too bad, is it?

-It's great.

-So if you got home and didn't have jerk chicken or curried goat, you'd be happy?

-Very happy.

Pick up your cutlery. That's the only way of finding out if you actually like it.

This is the one the kids would like most of all.

A home-made bread of fish.

Especially with something like almonds or hazelnuts in there,

it's a truly gourmet item.

With more time, it'd look a bit neater.

It's something you could serve at dinner parties.

The sole is amazing, the other sole dish is this one.

As they get older, I think they can like something like this.

We have got the butter sauce there with the bread crumbs,

a little bit of salt and pepper, and the almonds.

Really what you want to be serving with that is a really light green vegetable,

and maybe some potatoes to wipe that butter sauce up.

It's delicious!

Use your fingers there, Amos.

That's the sort of thing if you have kids,

give them a little dish of soya sauce and dilute if with some water and lemon juice.

-You know how kids love play the dipping thing...

-They'll love that.

Here we are, darling. Just a little bit of that on there.

I think stir-fried rice is always a winner.

When you get a bit of egg in there, it always makes a full meal.

Use a non-stick wok unless you have a really nicely cured wok at home.

Use a big, heavy non-stick frying pan, the easiest thing in non-domestic situations.

With the egg and the vegetables, and the carbohydrate, it becomes a great meal for the kids.

Overall, very happy, Jo? Amos, you too, happy?

Children happy, hopefully?

Really, really good.

We've been deliriously happy today because we've had Nigel and Brian here. Come and join us, guys.

Come and join us. That's all we've got time for.

Hope you enjoyed the show. Do join us again very soon

for some more cooking fun and inspiration with these guys. Bye-bye.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd