Episode 8 Ready Steady Cook

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thank you.

Thank you very much indeed. Wonderful. Whoo!

Hello, everybody, and welcome to Ready Steady Cook.

If you're looking for ideas for supper, you've come to the right place.

And I guarantee you one or two laughs too. Why?

You're about to find out, as we welcome in the red kitchen

with chef, Nick Nairn, it's comedian, Dave Spikey!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And in the green kitchen with chef, James Tanner, we have Kay Spikey, Dave's wife!

-How are you, mate?

-I'm all right.

-What can I say - comedian, a writer, a scientist.

-Well, yes.

-Don't tell me you're good in the kitchen as well!

I'm not bad. I'm a sort of enthusiastic amateur.

-That's really good.

-I like me cooking, I find it very therapeutic. Just chill out, glass of wine.

-Because we're vegetarian, maybe, we just take a bit more time in...

-But...

LAUGHTER

Wake up, Nick, wake up!

-He'll be all right.

-Vegetarian!

Not a very good one for you.

You're a man, you like your meat and fish, don't you?

-Go on then, come on, Dave. Surprise us.

-You want it now? OK.

-Go on.

-There you go.

-I see, you weren't joking.

-A-ha!

-So what do you think?

-It's vegetarian.

-It is. Got your tofu...

-Tofu, yeah.

-Tofu, yeah.

-I got rice... Tofu's great...

Trust me, I like, it will absorb whatever sauces or flavours you're doing.

Spinach for the... I like the juice cos it's very healthy for you, the green veg, the antioxidants.

I love a bit of cheese.

And you find out more about that, cos when you don't eat meat or fish

you think, where am I going to get my nutrients from?

And it's sort of this thing with a meal that you need a focus for it.

When you've got rid of the meat you need something to chew on,

you need a central piece of the meal, so tofu or mushrooms or whatever.

Brilliant. How much did you spend?

Five pounds and one penny.

-Wow.

-Hang on.

-OK.

-You can't have that.

LAUGHTER

Five pounds. Five pounds. Five pounds exactly.

OK. What do you think, Nick?

I was kind of looking for the fish, but I can't find it(!)

Tofu, I'm going to go with you on the tofu thing.

I'm not a great fan of the tofu, but it is a great vehicle for carrying flavours.

We'll marinate some of it, char-grill. I think we'll do a rice stir-fry.

A bit of veg and stuff like that. We'll stuff some of these with the Gruyere,

breadcrumbs and maybe some crunchy nuts in there.

There's a nice soup in there. I always try and get a little soup in. It's kind of easy.

What about the red pepper? I love red pepper, but it just tastes of red pepper.

-In sweet-and-sour, or curry.

-You could have stuffed it,

but now you've snapped the top off we can do nothing with it.

You can stuff that quite easily, my friend(!)

LAUGHTER

I'm sure you could. For the moment, ladies and gentlemen, Dave and Nick.

-Hello, Kay.

-Hello.

-How are you?

-All right.

-Good to have you on the programme.

-Good. Who's the better one in the kitchen, you or Dave?

-I think Dave.

-Is he?

We both cook, but I think he's slightly better.

He's is a man that you've known for a very long time, since you were 11?

-Yes, that's right.

-It's quite extraordinary. Lovely story, we'll tell you about that later.

Let's see what type of produce you brought along today.

All right, then. Go on, spill the beans.

So, well erm, obviously a vegetarian, so aubergine. You need something main, don't you, really?

Aubergines are lovely. A lot of people don't really take to them, but I love them. Fantastic.

And cheese, because we need the protein, obviously, but I love cheese.

Any sorts of cheese, but especially a Manchego...

Obviously we got to Spain a lot and it's quite a common cheese in Spain.

And these, this is so tasty and creamy. I love that.

A bit of spinach in the tagliatelle and, you know, pine nuts.

Usually on a salad, but I don't really know what else.

There's lots of ideas. Something to jazz it up. Tomatoes.

You've got two different types of what they would say "eggplant".

And the Gorgonzola too. I love that. How much did it cost you?

-£5.05.

-We're not going to worry about that.

-I'm sorry.

-Here, look.

Let's take that out. Five pounds, there you go.

Get rid of that. What do you think, Chef?

It's a good bag. Good basic things to start off with

and I've got the stores as well.

But I like aubergine as well. Aubergine and Gorgonzola go, to me, well. It sucks up that flavour.

I might spice things up a bit. Do you like spice?

-I love spice.

-Maybe you'd like a bit of chilli in there and stuff like that.

Maybe some lemon courgettes, tagliatelle.

We can do a cheese sauce, Gorgonzola creamy cheese sauce. Touch of lemon in there.

And maybe split it and do a pine nut crust

with a tomato sauce with the Manchego

I think will work well. Almost like a tomato chutney.

-Mm-mm!

-Sounds fantastic. Yeah.

-Does it sound good?

-Really good.

-Have you got a sweet tooth?

-I haven't. More of a savoury.

-Really?

-Yeah.

-You could have winked at him, he'd have made something from the larder.

-There you go.

-Not to worry.

-Who knows?

-You happy with that?

-I'm very happy.

Kay and of course you, James.

-All right?

-Yeah.

So we all know what happens now, we give our chefs 20 minutes

to come up with those fabulous ideas, when I say ready, steady, let's cook.

OK, guys, time is of the essence.

NICK GROANS

-Ooh!

-There you go.

-So, what are you going to make in it, Chef?

I'm just going to make some breadcrumbs. If you could open that tofu for me.

There's an onion in the fridge. Your board's here, Dave.

-If you could finely slice the onion. What kind of knife would you like?

-I like a sharp one.

-A sharp knife is always a good thing to have.

-There are some here, are these all right?

-Yeah.

Pick your weapon!

-I want to get these pans on, early doors.

-Lovely.

-And get the rice.

Nick, I remember not only at your cook school do you come up with fabulous vegetarian recipes,

but when I was at the restaurant before,

so why do you have that bit of a "Ooh, no, vegetarian!" when you're so good at cooking it?

Erm, it's...

I don't know. I think, I just I spend so much time

researching and working with Scottish producers, you know,

in the fish industry and in the meat industry as well,

that I lose sight sometimes of the wonderful possibilities for vegetarian cooking.

I'm a bit sniffy about it sometimes, but the truth is, vegetarian cooking can be really, really exciting.

And one of the things, with the garden at home, Holly's a great gardener

and we get fantastic veggies from the garden.

When they're really spanking fresh, they're some of the best things you'll eat.

But you need to work a little with the seasons I think, with veggies as well.

Things when they're in season tend to taste better. Asparagus, during the asparagus season.

Try not to use it outside of the English or the Scottish asparagus season.

Spikey, I've got to say, you were very quick chopping up those onions.

-I tell you what. I've got the technique.

-Is it, really? Technique, sharp knife.

Right. Could we get that in here, in a bit of butter in there

for the base for the spinach soup, Dave, that would be fantastic.

It's always like this at the beginning.

It's like when you go to the shops, come back and you tip out your ingredients,

and you're thinking, "I want to get started".

So give our chefs a few minutes then, bang, it all starts coming together.

How are you bringing things together here, Chef?

We've got onion, some garlic. Aubergine's like a sponge, so it really soaks it up.

-You've got to be careful of that.

-Definitely.

-OK.

Also, I've kept some of the skin deliberately off, because it can turn a bit bitter

and I don't want it to be bitter, so if you just take back half of the skin,

put the rest in, you get that little tartness, where you don't get bitterness, there's a difference.

When it gets started to get a little bit brown and old, if you're an aubergine lover -

when you start getting those brown marks, that's when it starts getting bitter, so do be careful of that.

Do you ever salt your aubergine?

If I had time you would do.

You extract the moisture off it, wash it off and wring it out.

Then it really sucks in big flavour if you're using different oils and that kind of thing.

-I'm using a bit of curry powder, a bit of chilli...

-Three minutes gone.

Kay's very good at chopping quickly.

KAY LAUGHS

She's very good at chopping things up. What about you, Kay, do you always salt your aubergine?

I do. Yes. I find it tastes a little bit bitter if I don't, normally.

But we haven't got time for that.

-Yeah, I love aubergine.

-Beautiful.

You look like a very good sous chef. You're just chopping things up.

Does Dave tell you, "Hurry up, hurry up," when he's cooking?

No, I don't do his, I don't do his chopping for him. I do chopping when I'm cooking.

Really? Oh, good for you! That's what we like, a bit of independence.

So you're heating that, tomato puree, loads of spices, a little bit of the old veggie stock there.

Veg stock going in, now it's important

to cook the tomato puree out, that way it won't be too harsh.

So, I'm going to leave that for a minute and let it cook through.

After it's cooked through, addition of water, no salt,

because the veg stock cube's very salty, so I don't want to overcomplicate things.

-You'll taste it anyway.

-Loads of herbs at the end. Lovely. Sorted.

-So where did this relationship actually begin? Was it at school?

-Yes.

We knew each other at school and we were sort of friends-ish, but not really very close.

-Were you in the same class at all?

-No, we just sort of, you know...

Had a little wave. And of course after that, you started to work together.

We started to work in the laboratory at Bolton Hospital,

and we did the rounds together as juniors,

where you are in one lab learning the trade, and then you move on

and we lost contact a little bit but we were still in the same...

-What were you actually doing in the laboratory?

-For 35 years I worked in blood transfusion...

-Wow.

..cross-matching blood, and Dave was in haematology, so we were

in the next lab to each other so we knew each other very well, and all the dos together.

Then suddenly, the man that later becomes your husband,

ends up as one of the best comedians in the country. Was that difficult for you to accept?

Suddenly you're walking down the road, I know what it's like with my missus,

you walk down it and people recognise you.

It can be. I mean, some of the time it can be quite, you know...

You feel like saying...

The worst one was when we were having a romantic, candlelit meal on Valentine's Day,

and someone came and sat with us, you know.

-Spent about an hour chatting to us.

-Oh, get lost. You don't quite know how to do it, do you?

-Caramelising the pine nuts, Chef. Tell us what's going on.

-Normally you wouldn't do this...

Kay, could you put the tomatoes in that pan?

Very hot, be careful, hot oil, hot oil.

OK, right, now here, look caramel, very hot pan, no oil, nothing else.

I'm going to leave the nuts here. Give them a shake around, that releases the oils.

-OK.

-OK.

-I'm going to grab myself a tray, and I've got some non-stick mat.

OK, if not, get yourself a flat surface and rub some oil onto the worktop and it won't stick.

But obviously this is going to do the job for me.

Now usually you wouldn't use pine nuts in a dessert, but with caramel it works really well.

You get wonderful nuttiness obviously, with the oil, but more importantly added to caramel.

Here we got a cocoa custard which is good-quality cocoa,

milk, cream, a few eggs in there.

If you can start putting this butter, Kay, use a pastry brush. I'll get you a pastry brush.

Butter that bread.

We're going to do a pan cocoa bread and butter pudding, pine nut crust or brittle.

-Ooh!

-AUDIENCE "OOHS" SOFTLY

Ooh! Yeah.

It didn't excite them that much. They weren't ooh-ing that much.

They weren't ooh-ing. Perhaps they'll be ooh-ing down this end for Nick.

Have you got any ooh-ing stuff going on?

Yeah, we have lots of ooh-ing stuff.

We've got vegetables. Ooh!

-AUDIENCE "OOHS"

-Oh, look at that! You've got them on your side.

You've got at least 20 Red Tomatoes votes coming up.

We've got some croutons in the oven for the top of the soup.

The rice is just coming to the boil.

This is the base for the soup.

Dave's chopped up the onion, a bit of garlic, a bit of butter.

-He's very quick, isn't he?

-He's very good. I like him.

A lot of the chefs like to have people who come onto the programme

and just get on with it, really enjoy their whole cooking art.

And that really does make a big difference.

Right, different marinade for that.

We're going to do an orange marinade for this, orange...

So zest of the oranges with that zester there.

Do you want a bowl there, mate?

Lovely. So you've got a bowl, are you happy? Here we are.

-A nice cloth, you can wipe your hands on that.

-That's lovely.

-Lovely.

-So, how much of this orange?

-He wants you to grate the zest straight into the bowl.

-All of it?

A bit of olive oil, a bit of chilli, a bit of garlic.

I'll get you the chilli and garlic.

It's similar to the other one, except it's got orange.

-OK. How much chilli? Just a few, a little pinch, Chef?

-Yeah, a pinch.

A pinch in there. What was food like for you growing up then, Dave?

Pretty basic, usual stuff. I wasn't a vegetarian then. My dad used to be very inventive in the kitchen.

We used to have meat and potato pie with a vegetable soup on it.

LAUGHTER

-Beautiful.

-He just poured it on the top.

-Poured in on the top and warmed it up.

Went down to the chippy most the time. Chips and mushy peas. Mushy peas are lovely.

-You like mushy peas?

-AUDIENCE: Yeah!

If you do them well, real mushy peas... How do you do your mushy peas?

I buy them in a tin.

LAUGHTER

Oh, fantastic.

We still go to the chippy now, it's sort of a tradition.

Do you have, when you're with your missus, you went to the pub and you fancied some chips on the way home?

Do you say, "Do you want chips?" "No, I've had a big tea, I'm all right."

I say, "I'm having a bag, have some." "I'm all right.

"Are you sure? I'm having some." "No. I'll just have some of yours." Whoa!

-No, they're MY chips.

-They're my chips. Absolutely.

How did the comedy stuff start, because I've been hearing from Kay, both of you used to work in a lab.

Life was meandering along, one minute you're in a white coat looking at slides,

and the next minute you're performing next to Jack Dee and Eddie Izzard.

I've always been interested in comedy.

-My dad was a great comedy fan, you know, radio comedy...

-Halfway.

-Carry on.

-Do you remember... I've just squashed that.

You know The Navy Lark, Round the Horne, radio comedy?

I grew up with eating my meat and potato pie, with my soup,

listening to The Navy Lark and all that.

I just always was surrounded by it, and whenever I was at school, the teachers would say,

"Great essay, but why has it always got an element of comedy?" It was something I naturally did.

Is it wanting to be liked?

Sometimes, some of the comedians say,

at school, when they first started, you want to make people happy, you want to be liked.

We had a...not really, I don't know, we had a lad...

People get asked that a lot. "Were you the class clown?" And I wasn't really.

We had a lad at school and he was just a natural clown. He had big, sticky-out ears,

some kids have big, sticky out ears, he had a massive nose, and big clinic glasses.

So when he looked at you, he looked like a VW Beetle with doors open. He was an incredible-looking lad.

But, he had a nut allergy, this is interesting,

and his parents made him wear a badge all the way through school, that said "no nuts".

LAUGHTER

That's just wrong!

Oh, lovely, lovely, lovely. OK, Nick, tell us what you're doing.

We're getting the marinated tofu nicely coloured up in the pan.

Nice hot pan, bit of olive oil in there.

-Is that for here, Nick?

-Yes, it is. Yes.

-There you go.

And it's so important to introduce big flavours into tofu.

-Yeah, cos, it's not bland, but it's a little light on flavour.

-OK.

And in the oven we've got the croutons for the soup, which should be just about ready.

-Does that look OK?

-Lovely. And you've got the Gruyere cheese on top of that?

Yep, a bit of Gruyere on there. Let this cool down.

And we're going to char-grill the other pieces of tofu

that's marinating, Dave's just doing there.

As soon as that's marinated, plenty of salt and pepper.

OK, there you go. You add salt and pepper.

And this is, tell us, remind us what's in there again.

We've got the tofu, we've got the zest of the orange, salt and pepper, chilli, garlic. Mm! Olive oil.

Just look at that, can I just rub that around and show everybody. Look at all those lovely colours.

Look at that, ladies and gentlemen.

Really, really yummy and smells delicious.

Straight into your pan there. Absolutely lovely.

I'll just rinse my fingers and I'll be out of here.

Fantastic.

OK. Very good indeed. I'll come back in a moment.

OK? And we'll talk about all sorts of interesting things.

It's great, isn't it? Sometimes you can have those vegetarian ingredients,

doesn't mean the food's going to be bland. I keep reminding people.

In restaurants now, they're much better.

What about your restaurant? Do you make sure the vegetarians are catered for?

Very much so. Nowadays, a lot more people are vegetarian and have got dietary requirements.

-So now, we do complete tasting menus for vegetarians.

-Oh, really?!

-You do the whole hog?

-Seven-course tasting menu.

The curry is cooked down and we've got the different spices in there.

I finished it with herbs at the end otherwise it's going to turn bitter.

-Over here we've got...

-Look at that, Kay. Not too greasy.

Sometimes it can be a little bit greasy, but that looks lovely.

We've got courgettes. I'm going to cook this down, get rid of the excess oil

add a bit of cream and that's going to be a base with lemon and white wine for a pasta dish.

The other pasta dish, kind of a tomato chutney,

put basil and mint in at the end. I've got balsamic vinegar in there.

Sugar in there, pine nuts as well for a bit of crunch.

And it's nice, sweet tomatoes, really. Sweet tomato chutney.

I've got the bread-and-butter pudding cooking.

Kay's done this for me. Now this looks weird and it doesn't look exciting,

but lemon courgette salad with Gorgonzola.

You cut your courgettes equal size,

two parts lemon juice to one part, extra-virgin olive oil, for pepperiness.

That must be extra-virgin, that's the time you use it.

-You don't, ooh no, not for cooking on heat, but that way.

-OK.

We're going to add Gorgonzola to it, loads of fine herbs. Do a very simple salad.

But the strength of the blue cheese with the citric acid works so well.

Beautiful. Looking forward to that.

Now I know you guys disappear to Spain sometimes... What did you want, Chef?

I will need that cream whipping. After you're finished talking.

-What's it like? Do you have a little place over there?

-Yes, in Costa Blanca.

We've had some fantastic times there. Obviously the weather is great.

-What about the food when you go out to eat, being a vegetarian?

-It's sometimes quite difficult,

because they're not really geared up for non-meat, non-fish dishes, really.

Just the odd time... We tend to go for Indian. It sounds ridiculous in Spain.

-But Indian, or Thai, or Italian.

-Share with us some of the problems that you have there.

We went somewhere once and I asked for a vegetarian pizza,

and erm, we went to great lengths to say, "Sin carne, sin pescado",

"no meat, no fish", and they said that's fine.

We ordered it and I was having extra mushrooms,

and I said, "I'd really like a bit of chilli on it", because I love spicy food.

They brought it out and it had a big pile of chilli con carne in the middle of it.

LAUGHTER

Which is ridiculous.

We had to send it back. I sent it back, I'm sure they scraped it off and brought it back.

Dab it out. Sponge it all up. Oh, very, very nice.

-Whip your cream. You finished with these, Chef?

-Yes, thanks.

I'll get rid of all of these down here. Four-and-a-half minutes, guys. Coming up for four.

The Manchego I add now cos I want the fat from it. In with the tomato.

Manchego and sweet tomato. A lot of people have Manchego with figs.

So that's my thinking behind this. A really simple pasta dish.

So here we go, so sheep's milk cheese,

a very nice strong flavour, works wonderfully with sweet things.

Normally, you'd have it with stuff like figs, stuff like that.

But with the sweet tomato chutney it should work wonders.

Lovely. Nice combination here.

The aubergine's cooked down, we've learnt about courgettes,

we've got that lovely caramel and pine nuts, so wow!

Don't forget, all available on our website...

Go on the Ready Steady Cook website, all the information's there.

How to be in the audience, and lots more stuff.

-OK. Er, how's it going?

-A little bed of char-grilled vegetables.

-Yeah.

-They're going to go on here.

-Beautiful.

-A little there.

The rest of it is going to go with the rice, for the stir-fried rice.

It's trying to be economical with pans, double things up.

Am I right in saying that you're not a vegetarian but you did get turkey for Christmas once?

I got, no. I got A turkey for Christmas once.

You see these farms at Christmas and they say, "Pick your own turkey"?

So I went in and said, "I'll have that one there."

He said, "Shall I kill it, pluck it and put it in your car?" I went, "Just put it in the car."

He said, "What?" The boot was full so we had to have it in the passenger seat,

so I drove home with a turkey in the passenger seat.

-A live turkey?

-A live turkey. And he wouldn't put a belt on(!)

He just wouldn't put his belt on. He's like, "Go left." I know where I am.

No, so we saved the turkey for Christmas, called Bertie, and we had him for years.

-Bertie lived a long and happy life. Yeah, he did.

-Aw!

What are you doing, what are you up to next?

I'm on tour again, Best Med... It's called the Best Medicine tour.

Coming to a theatre near you(!) Laughter is the best medicine.

Which is why, when I was six, I nearly died of diphtheria,

Erm, "I can't breathe!" "Knock, knock?" "It's not going to work, lad."

I'm getting out. Go and help Nick. Ladies and gentlemen, let's see our chefs get the food onto the plate.

Guess what, guys? You've got one minute to go.

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

How creative have these guys been?

OK, coming up in 40 seconds, now.

-Actually, I like parsley and dill together.

-Yeah, it's a great combo.

It is surprising, how many of you, ladies and gentlemen, think, "Oh, vegetarian food,

"you can't do anything with it." Look at the colours, textures and everything else.

Lots and lots going on. This is what it's all about.

All available on our website, as I said before.

OK. 20 seconds to go now, guys.

-JAMES:

-All right, watch this.

Audience, let's have the countdown, shall we? Here we go.

Ten, nine, eight,

seven, six, five,

four, three, two, one.

Stop cooking!

APPLAUSE

Whoo!

Wow, great vegetarian food. Let me tell you what's on today's menu.

In the red kitchen, Nick and Dave have come up with Dave's spinach soup with Gruyere croutons.

Followed by Asian-style tofu stir-fry with soy, chilli and honey.

Gruyere and fresh herb-stuffed Romero pepper and mushrooms.

Spinach salad with cashew nut dressing and cheesy, crispy croutes.

Char-grilled spiced orange tofu with roasted veg and a timbale of rice and citrus dressing.

Over in the green kitchen, James and Kay have been equally busy.

There we have marinated courgettes with lemon, Gorgonzola, and sesame salad.

Aubergine, chilli and pine nut curry.

Tagliatelle with sweet tomato chutney and grated Manchego cheese.

Kay's Gorgonzola courgettes and lemon tagliatelle.

And finally, chocolate bread-and-butter pudding with vanilla cream and pine nut brittle.

Both our chefs have come up with some great vegetarian dishes.

-Now for the taste sensation.

-Oh-ho-ho!

-OK. Pick up your cutlery, Dave. You get stuck in.

-Straight into your soup.

-My soup.

-What happened here then? Are you going to explain...

-You did make the soup.

I chopped the onions and I sweated them in butter with some garlic,

and then we added the spinach and then Nick cooked the rice in vegetable stock

-and used the water...

-You should taste it.

-Water from the rice to use as the stock.

And then whizzed it all together in the blender. I made the soup.

-And just some pieces of bread with Gruyere and olive oil...

-Croutons.

Croutons. Pieces of bread.

I hate that, do you? "Pan-fried mushrooms".

-LAUGHTER

-Fry them in a pan?

That's good. That really is very good.

OK and er...

A very simple salad of spinach and red peppers with cashew dressing.

A little bit of sesame through that.

A lot of the croutons, so we had them on the side.

The spinach and cheese croutons were a great mix.

And then a stir-fry, Asian-style stir-fry

of marinated, fried tofu,

and in here we've got soy, and honey, orange, and garlic.

A bit of ginger in there, lots of fresh coriander and lime juice.

-So we've got a real sweet and sour...

-Is that a first time for something like that, Dave?

This is the sort of thing that I would make. It explodes a bit more than mine.

It's the ginger and the chilli together, getting the right balance.

You've got this lovely seared bit of of tofu.

Dave marinated this with a kind of garlic and orange oil marinade.

A little chilli in there, then char-grill that so it's crispy.

A little bit of the roast veggies underneath. The mushrooms and peppers and wilted spinach.

-Do you like that.

-I do love timbale of rice. It's really, really lovely.

And then we roasted it, we stuffed the mushrooms and the pepper

with breadcrumbs and croutons. and roasted those through the oven.

They may have been in the oven a second or two too long.

-Maybe slightly crunchy on the top.

-AINSLEY LAUGHS

But I do like a bit of texture. You find you get real nice...

It's a bit hot, all right.

-Does it taste good?

-Mm-hm.

-Wonderful. Let's hear it for Dave and Nick.

APPLAUSE

Your old man's having a good time down there and it's your turn.

-A lovely salad there.

-Yeah, dig in.

-Dig in, absolutely.

-How did you do that?

-We took the courgettes, sliced them all so they're the same size.

A bit of lemon juice and two parts extra-virgin olive oil.

Left it. Just left it as long as I could get away with leaving it. Eight minutes, if not, ten.

I finished it off with a mixed-herb salad, including a little bit of mint, cos of the freshness.

Sesame seeds for the crunch and the creamy Gorgonzola.

That's absolutely brilliant.

-Very sharp, very nice.

-You wouldn't think of eating raw courgette,

but because of the acid from the lemon, it works.

Sweet tomato chutney, cook them down. Onion, garlic, sugar, vinegar,

carried on cooking it, added the pine nuts towards the end to release a bit of oil.

In with the pasta, finished it off with the Manchego, that's a sheep's milk cheese.

That strength should work well with the sweetness.

-Yeah. Really, really nice.

-Kay did this one.

We cooked down the courgettes, we added onion, we cooked that,

then we added a bit of cream with white wine, took that down.

Tossed it, finished it with a squeeze of lemon, so it should be fresh, but rich at the same time.

-That's the idea behind it.

-It's fantastic.

Remember I discarded half of the skin cos I didn't want the bitterness.

The addition of the spices in there, cooked out the tomato puree, vegetable stock.

Cooked it right down, finished it with pine nuts, bit of sage in there, cos it's a heavy herb.

-That's lovely. Ooh, it's very cheeky, that.

-Very cheeky? Cheeky.

-That's a lovely expression.

-Yeah.

-Cocoa chocolate bread-and-butter pudding.

We did the custard, we added the good-quality cocoa powder, the better quality you can.

Cooked it out, touch of vanilla in there. Vanilla with our cream.

With the remaining pine nuts, made the caramel

toasted off the nuts in the caramel, leave them to cool then right at the end - Kay was doing it -

in the last few seconds, crack that over the top. You can just cook it out of a pan.

That's fantastic. It's not even too sweet. It's lovely.

-That's the idea, cos the cocoa...

-Kay and James, come on!

APPLAUSE

Wow! Both our chefs have done a sterling job there.

What about our studio audience? Who are they going to go for?

Will it be a red kitchen win with Nick and Dave, or Green, with Kay and James.

Look at him cuddling her over there. Is he going to get more votes because of that? I have no idea.

Audience, pick up those keypads and will you all vote now.

Let's have a look at what you've decided.

Both sides have come up with excellent vegetarian dishes.

For those who thought vegetarian food is bland, we have completely changed your idea of that.

But we can't change anything with the boards, now. We're going to find out or reveal

who has won today's 20-minute challenge. You can see it's a green kitchen win!

Oh, yeah!

Aw! Kay, well done to you. Here we are. You're going to share this at home, aren't you?

Here's your winner's plate.

And we'd like to make a donation to your charity.

-Yeah.

-Which is?

Oh, well, it's LAPS. It's an animal protection society, a local animal protection society

-in Spain, where we spend part of our lives.

-That's lovely.

There's such a lot of animals out there that have been dumped...

Great. It's your choice. Well done, my man. Thanks very much, indeed.

We're not letting you go empty-handed. There's your Ready Steady Cook mug.

Don't say you don't win anything on this show. Good luck with the tour.

-Absolutely brilliant.

-Win or lose, always a pleasure.

Always a pleasure to see your cooking. And more cooking coming your way courtesy of our chefs.

But in the meantime, let's say a very big thank you to Kay and Dave Spikey! Take care.

Time for the Quickie Bag Challenge.

Victoria Clark from south-east London. How are you?

Good to have you here. You have one or two problems with desserts, I believe.

Yes, I'm not much of a... I love cooking, but I'm just not very good at desserts.

So what is your challenge for our chefs, then?

I want some ideas for just really quick, easy

yet quite sort of effective desserts for something impressive.

-You want the wow-factor.

-Exactly.

-We always want the wow factor when it comes to desserts.

-You've got a nice bag of ingredients?

-Yep, yep.

-Will you come over afterwards and have a try?

-Yep.

-Yeah? Lovely. For the moment, though, Victoria Clark.

OK, boys. Yeah, come around and join me. Let's have a little bit of a look.

Do you want to round here, Nick, so I can just, so we can all be nice and cosy together.

We've got filo pastry, Madeira cake, chocolate, fresh raspberries.

We've got a tin of apricot halves, some walnuts and some mascarpone cheese there.

Interesting ingredients, but some nice, simple ideas.

Obviously she wants to get that wow-factor. We all do, don't we?

When you have a dessert, you normally go out to a restaurant, you're going to go "Wow!".

But first up, it's chef, Nick Nairn.

OK, there's loads of stuff you can do here. A lovely cheesecake

using the Madeira as a base, and the mascarpone with the apricots.

Another nice thing we do with this, is we do a little croustade

which is some apricots, some walnuts and some of the raspberries,

tossed together, a bit of butter, sugar, we tear up bits of the filo,

sprinkle them over top with melted butter, sprinkle with sugar and bake in the oven.

You can do that in less than ten minutes.

We can do some little parcels of chocolate and raspberry wrapped up in the filo, deep fried.

and make a little bit of a sauce by just liquidising down the apricot in there.

I'm sure there's something else in there, but I've run out of time.

You probably had run out of time, but he's certainly come up with some great ideas.

Will James Tanner top that? We're about to find out.

Apricot and walnut samosas, with a red wine, vanilla sauce,

er, and lemon mascarpone.

Trifle, using some of the apricots with grated chocolate on top,

that kind of thing. Finished off, layer that with raspberry sauce.

And, er... Yes.

We could do a poached meringue.

Poached meringue, with, er, cooked, sauteed Madeira cake,

er, and fresh raspberries.

Mm.

-Sounds delicious!

-Who would you go for?

Difficult one, isn't it? Audience, once again, it's over to you.

Come on - pick up those keypads. Remember, you're voting red for Nick or green for James.

Will you all vote now?

Let's see which way they're going to go.

I don't know - both chefs have come up with great, great ideas to...

..er, for Vicky - er, Victoria - to entertain her guests.

The, er, board's full. Looks a bit red.

OK, sort this out. Who's won today's Ten Minute Challenge?

You can see it's a Nick Nairn win!

And your ten minutes' cooking time, Chef, starts now. Let's do it.

Right, could you do the samosas for me?

-And Ains, could you make me a trifle?

-I will certainly crack on and do that for you, Chef. Absolutely.

Mmm.

Bit of melted butter for you there, for your samosas.

-OK.

-And, er, if I can get the pan on,

first of all, for...

I think we should go back to Victoria and ask her - what type of puddings do you traditionally like?

Not necessarily make - I know you like the convenience stuff, bought in supermarkets, don't you?

Er, well, I suppose my favourite thing is fruit and ice cream, really.

-Cos it's so simple?

-Yeah.

-So, you just pop the tin of fruit in a bowl and put the ice cream on top.

-Not tinned!

-Is it fresh?

-Always fresh.

-Do you make the fresh fruit salad or do you buy it?

-I make it! AINSLEY ROARS

-OK, let's see how we get on here.

-OK, so we're going to get this, er...

Just a bit of sauce. Just a couple of the apricots, some of the juice.

Just whizz that up for a little light sauce,

and add a little bit of lemon juice, just to take the sweetness away.

That's in there. We'll use that to dress the, er...

What will we dress that with? We're going to do that with the cheesecake.

For the croustade - any fruit you can do for this -

and some nuts in there's going to be quite nice as well. Some walnuts.

This is a good way of using up leftover filo, so any of this filo

that's a bit, sort of, sticking together or a bit torn,

we'll chuck it in here and, er...

..just stick it on the top.

A little melted butter and a little bit of icing sugar, or caster sugar.

-OK, Chef.

-It really crisps up beautifully and it's quick, as well.

Only takes about five minutes for that to actually, er, crisp up.

So, start off with the croustade. A little bit of butter in there.

In with the walnuts.

In with the, er, apricots.

-OK.

-Toss those round. In with a bit of raspberry - not too many.

Two minutes gone, chaps.

-OK.

-Now, Nick's asked me to prepare a little bit of a trifle, here.

-I've only...

-Can you do me a favour?

-Yeah.

-Could you do a little bit of extra topping for my cheesecake?

OK. I put little nuggets of, er, chocolate in there, too, Chef.

Like the...cream? Oh, no, nice. Like it, like it.

OK. So, you want a little extra topping?

-Go. I love...

-I'm not going to be using a great deal of this, anyway.

..citrus. I think we often throw away the best bit of citrus fruits -

you know, of lemons and limes and grapefruits.

The real character -

the citrus character - is in the outside of the fruit.

In the zest and the oil that's contained in the surface.

-Have you got any of that juice left from the apricots?

-A little bit.

Lovely. I'll pop the old sponge... Pour that on top of the sponge.

OK. How are you getting on? Tell us what you're doing there.

-I've doubled up on the filo.

-Is this what's left?

-Yeah, have that.

Doubled up on the filo pastry.

Dried out my apricots a bit,

cos we're putting it into exceptionally hot oil, so you don't want too much liquid.

Some of this good-quality chocolate.

And we're just going to wrap them up, seal it with the butter,

which Nick had given me.

And yeah, make some and make sure that oil's roasting hot,

and then get them in the hot oil till they're golden brown.

Oh, beautiful. Beautiful.

This croustade is just a little bit of orange juice, as well as the zest.

-Whoops - keep that away from the oil.

-Mm-hm.

-Hot!

And then we just turn that out into a baking dish,

and this could be apples, pears, frozen fruit,

brambles - whatever you've got your...

Er, can get your hands on.

Then, take the bits of filo - just the scrappy, leftover bits.

Just scrunch them up on top.

Try and get height in them. You don't want them clumped down,

otherwise the heat of the oven can't begin to crisp them up nicely.

And just arrange them over the top.

And it is, without doubt, the quickest way to do a really tasty pie.

Er, the French call this a sort of croustade.

And then, a little bit of melted butter over the top if I've got...

-Which you've got there, somewhere.

-I have indeed. It's here.

For the pastry brush. Just sprinkle that over the top.

And then some caster sugar, over the top of that.

The caster sugar will actually melt and caramelise in the oven,

-and give this pastry a really nice crunch.

-Mmm!

-How long in the oven?

-Really, five minutes.

It's such a quick dessert.

I mean, that - start to finish - what, about three minutes?

-Well, yeah, you've got about five minutes to go now.

-Perfect.

I'm using that syrup there, just to moisten that sponge a bit.

-Looking good.

-What about this cream, Chef? You want me to whip that up?

Yeah, could you whisk that up and mix it in with some mascarpone?

And some lemon zest, this time.

OK, and a little bit of lemon juice,

er, for the cheesecake.

-OK.

-And the cheesecake - very, very simple.

Couple of slices of Madeira cake.

-And we'll add that.

-Beautiful.

-Actually, we'll do three slices of Madeira cake.

-Mm-hm.

Like so. Take a cutter,

and then cut out the base - voila!

-OK, and...

-Now we'll get the lemon.

-Juice - did you get that?

-Lemon juice in there already, Chef.

-Thank you very much.

-OK.

There we are. Enough?

Beautiful, yeah.

It's amazing, the flavour you get from a bit of lemon zest and juice.

OK. There we are.

And the samosas looking good, guys?

I'm frying them off so they're nice and golden brown.

The idea is the chocolate melts inside.

I've got chopped walnuts to go on top, the apricots are inside.

By drying them out... In hot oil, be careful at home,

because not too much moisture in there, it won't spit back out.

-That's the most important thing - be safe.

-OK, lovely, lovely.

Just finish this off here.

Nick, do you want to put the raspberries on top?

-Yeah, I'll just slide this under here.

-There's orange there, too.

OK. Now, what about today's quickie question, ladies and gentlemen?

As you know, we always encourage studio audiences to get involved,

as much as... I nearly ended up in your lap!

This is Tyrone, who's come from Brighton with his family.

Tyrone, what would you like to ask our chefs today?

I just wanted to ask...

-What's the best way to make home-made barbecue sauce?

-Wow. There you go!

Barbecue sauce - well, it's tomato ketchup, honey, soy sauce,

a little bit of chilli. You know, it's stuff out of the store cupboard.

I use - you know, ready... Shop-bought sauce.

Sometimes put a bit of sweet chilli sauce in mine, as well.

You can make a fresh one, but you're sitting next to the barbecue king,

so he's probably more qualified to share that with you than I am.

-So, Ains, what's yours?

-Well, you guys are important today, not me.

Come on! Modesty does not sit well with you, Ainsley Harriott!

What about you, Mr Tanner?

Nick's summed it up - definitely, you need sweetness from the honey,

and a bit of sour. Sometimes, I add a bit of Worcestershire sauce,

just to give that nice little different flavour, really.

But yeah, brown sauce, tomato ketchup, honey.

A bit of vinegar as well, for sweet and sourness. That's what I like.

-That's what makes it nice and tangy.

-Looking for something a bit tangy.

What do you do with your barbecue sauce, Tyrone? Whack it on chicken?

Yeah, the hot wings - barbecue hot wings.

So, you like it with a little bit of a kick, don't you?

-A little bit of a kick.

-I think you should go down that chilli route.

When you're making it up, and they talk about vinegar - you want the citrus in there.

People talk about things like tomato ketchup. That is just vinegar and sugar, reduced down.

Put vinegar and sugar into your pan, reduce it down with chilli flakes, and then hit it.

Don't be embarrassed to use a bit of ketchup. A bit of brown sauce - darken it up a bit.

That's what you want to do. Unless you want to buy shop-bought stuff.

-OK. Cos I sometimes put a bit of cola in there, as well.

-Really?

You've got your own recipe. You're just pulling my leg!

What is he like? Good luck to you. Nice question.

AINSLEY CHUCKLES, AUDIENCE APPLAUD

He's sweet.

OK, we've got about one and a half minutes to go, so plenty of time.

Let's finish those off.

-It's always nice with a bit of icing sugar.

-We could do something nice -

a little bit of this with the, er, samosas.

-Nick, do you want some of this deep fried?

-Yeah, lovely.

You want a bit of that creme Chantilly?

OK.

OK, let's get this going.

-Little bit of dusting. Icing sugar?

-Up top.

Coming up to the minute mark any moment now, gentlemen.

OK, there you go.

That choccy on there.

Mm-hm.

Do a plate for that, er... HE GROANS

-Do you want a plate, Nick?

-It's OK. I'll just turn that upside down.

Slide that on there. Nice.

-Lovely.

-Looking good.

I like that - just a bit of chopped-up filo, deep fried.

Yep, anything that's left. Dust of icing sugar to sweeten it.

Some chocolate on top of that as well. The choc'll melt on top.

OK. And, er, what do you want that with?

You've still got a bit of mascarpone there, if you want that.

Can we get another dessert out of this? Enough bits left over?

Well, yeah, we could... Shut up, Nick - it's nearly over!

30 seconds to go.

-Nick. Right.

-Is that it?

-Let's do some crumbs.

-OK.

-Want a plate?

-Yeah, let's get some crumbs.

Ten.

-AUDIENCE JOIN IN

-Nine, eight,

seven, six,

five, four

three, two, one...

Stop cooking!

APPLAUSE

Da-da! Come and join us, come on!

-You all right?

-Yeah.

Yeah? OK, well, if you can see, that one's just come out of the oven,

but what about the overall ideas? Does that excite you a little bit?

Yeah, I'm really impressed by how many things you've made.

-Us too!

-OK, yeah.

You tuck in. Grab your cutlery and have a little bit of a taste, there.

-What about this little cheesecake?

-Super easy.

Just Madeira cake on the bottom.

If I had time, I'd have put melted butter on. I forgot.

Whipped the mascarpone, some lightly whipped cream, lemon zest and juice,

caster sugar, raspberries and grated chocolate on top,

and the sauce is just the blitzed-up apricots with their juice,

-round the outside.

-That's really nice.

It's not too sweet, which I quite like.

Just a little bit of sugar. It's quite lemony, that topping.

And we've got a little apricot filling there, now.

I'm sure you can grab that with your fingers and have a bit of a nibble.

-That might have a little bit of melted chocolate in the centre.

-Yes.

-You like that too?

-That's lovely.

-We've come up with some great ideas.

-Don't try that - it's hot - but tuck into the trifle.

-Uncle Ainsley's.

Yeah, Uncle Ainsley's trifle.

Layers. We've got the mascarpone,

and it's nice to put a bit of chopped chocolate through it.

-Nice touch.

-And some orange. It would have been ideal to have raspberries,

-but we used it somewhere else.

-I was in charge, I got the raspberries.

Absolutely! You got the raspberries, indeed.

Ladies and gentlemen, we've had some superb guests today,

and we'd love to welcome them back.

Please - it's Dave and, of course, Kay Spikey!

APPLAUSE

Come and have a bit of pud!

OK, that's all from us today. See you very soon on Ready Steady Cook.

Take care. Bye bye.

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