Episode 9 Ready Steady Cook

Hello, ladies and gentlemen! Thank you very much indeed.

Welcome to Ready Steady Cook.

We all like to eat wonderful things, particularly at dessert.

We've got a couple of stars from Priscilla, Queen of the "Dessert" today!

Shall we meet them? In the Red kitchen, with chef Richard Phillips, actor Tony Sheldon!

And in the Green kitchen with Gino D'Acampo, fellow actor and Priscilla co-star Clive Carter!

-Great to have you here.

-Thank you.

-Enjoying the food in this country?

-I am. I haven't cooked a single thing since I've been here!

-You're joking!?

-Five months.

I've been eating out the entire time, sampling what England has to offer.

-There's a lot of good things on offer.

-Compared to Australia, yes.

Let's have a look at your bag and see what goodies you've brought.

It's like my mum's packed my lunch. Here we go.

-Cherry tomatoes.

-Look at those nails!

-Do you like them? Isn't it lucky I was in the Red kitchen?

I wear these all the time because eight shows a week,

life is too short to be putting nail polish on and off.

Now we know what the girls have to go through.

I brought some celery, some chicken thighs, a courgette you call it.

But it's a zucchini in Australia!

I have some cannellini beans, which I just discovered recently.

I have an intolerance to wheat. Things like cannellini beans have been really interesting to cook with.

They're wonderful in stews.

And Prosciutto ham is something I'd never cooked with before.

-How much did you spend, Tony?

-£7.30.

OK, you're allowed up to £7.50. What do you think, Rich?

Yeah, nice ingredients there. What am I going to do?

-What are WE going to do?

-Well, yes.

I'll do the chicken. Three nice thighs, packed full of flavour.

I tend to cook it on the bone, keeps it moist.

Two of those I'll use to do a nice cassoulet.

Break down the tomatoes and celery through that. We've got some gluten-free bread back there.

We'll glaze the top of the beans, nice cassoulet of chicken on top.

The other one we'll stuff with braised celery, wrap it in some Parma ham,

-and we'll slowly cook that and do some deep-fried zucchini.

-Yummo!

-Sound good?

-I'm impressed.

Tony is very impressed. So are we. Let's hear it for Richard and Tony!

Right, how are you, mate?

-Welcome.

-Thank you.

-Also, you're part of the show, Priscilla.

-Do you get an opportunity to go out and eat like Tony does? Or do you go home?

-Straight home.

-Beans on toast?

-How dare you! My lovely wife, Francesca, is Italian.

She usually has a meal ready for me.

-What a lucky man you are.

-So I'm with the right person.

-Come on, let's have a look.

-By the way, it's not zucchini, it's zucchin-eh!

If you want to show off, show off properly! Zucchin-eh!

-We'll show off with the food!

-Oh, the competition has begun!

-In your dreams.

-Lovely.

-Here we go.

-Tell us what you've brought along.

-A nice piece of steak.

-Now this, Brussels sprouts. A lot of people hate them. I love them.

-I love sprouts.

It'll be interesting to see what you do. Stilton - I love strong cheese. I absolutely adore cheese.

Now pears and cheese, Italians use it a lot.

-Very good.

-How much was all that with the red pepper?

-That came to £7.45, so I'm just under. Very good.

-Good bag?

-I love it. I think the first thing... You like Italian food?

-Yes.

-Shall we do some fresh pasta?

-ALL: Yes!

-Home-made fresh pasta. I'll do some beautiful tagliatelle.

With pepperoni and cheese. Something very simple, very light, the way the Italians do it.

Then we're going to do some pear and Stilton together in the oven, nice and crispy on top.

The other pear, I'd like to poach it.

Italians are very good on poaching in red wine with a little vanilla.

And then I'm going to do a cheese dressing, which is fantastic. It's a starter or a dessert, OK?

The steak, I think we need to keep with the Italian.

Tagliata di manzo. A grilled steak with a reduction of balsamic vinegar

-and we're going to serve them on spicy sprouts.

-Fantastic.

-Can I just ask something?

-Of course.

Is there any way - sorry, Francesca - could you be at home tonight when I come home after the show?

Clive and Gino! What is he like? OK, ladies and gentlemen.

We give our chefs 20 minutes to come up with those fabulous recipes by simply saying ready, steady, cook!

Grab your apron. I'll give you a hand with the wash.

-Get yourself organised.

-Let's give you a job first of all.

If you can take my celery... I'll get you a knife.

Let's just chop off the end.

-Right.

-We don't need that. Then take a peeler.

And if you can just gently peel the celery to get rid of the stringy bits of celery.

I'm going to use this in a few ways. I love celery. It puts people off because it is quite stringy.

-Put all these pans on, Rich?

-Yeah, cheers. Got that?

-Yeah.

I'll crack on now at this end.

-I said earlier that I liked to cook my...

-You like your chicken thighs.

It's quite a chef-y thing.

It's like most fish as well. I like to cook fish on the bone.

-It just keeps it really moist.

-Lovely and succulent.

And it stops it shrinking up, but I don't have a lot of time.

-So I'll just take the bones out very quickly.

-And what'll you do?

With two of these, I'll make a cassoulet. It's a very traditional dish.

Quite hearty in autumn and winter. We'll season that up

and get it into a nice hot pan. Seal it on both sides, bit of onion, bit of white wine reduced.

Then I'll add the tomatoes and some of the beans to cook in the pot. it's a one pot shot, really.

-Loads of flavours.

-Does that appeal to you, Tony? The one pot thing?

-Yes, very much so.

-Hearty food?

-That's perfect.

-Lovely, lovely. We'll come and have a chat again with Tony and Richard, of course.

We're down here with Gino and Clive. I think they're going to get into some pastry making.

-Also got a pear going here.

-Clive is preparing the pear for me.

Here I've got some red wine, vanilla, and I've got bay leaf and cloves.

Get the pear, leave it in there and let the wine do the job.

-How long would you cook that for?

-Er, how long have we got?

-You've got about 17 minutes.

-Well, 17 minutes!

Now what we want to do here, we've got the flour.

Just plain, double zero flour to make pasta.

-We're going to take two eggs. Every 100 grams of flour, you need one egg.

-Ever made pasta, Clive?

I actually made tagliatelle.

Oh, lovely. Shall we get Clive to roll it out and do everything?

Yeah, yeah. No pasta machine.

Now it's going to become like breadcrumbs, OK?

But you want a wet consistency to work it.

So once you've done, pick some of it up, OK?

If you can make a ball like that, that means that it is working.

-So that's done. So what you want to do is... If you can clean your...

-Work surface.

-Where do you want these pears?

-What are you doing down there, mate?! Burning the place down?

Can I just say something? That's the only way the Australians are going to get the Ashes back!

CHEERING

Let's hear it for the boy!

So then, Ainsley, you have your flour on the surface here.

Put the dough on the flour.

And then you start to knead it together. You want to do that for a couple of minutes.

Make sure that all the pasta gets nice and elastic. That's what it's all about - elastic.

-A bit of flexibility.

-So you put it there, make a ball.

And then, Clive, like my grand... I'm not saying that you're old.

Like my grandmother used to do, by hand.

-Instead of using a...

-A machine.

-And that's it.

-Thank you very much, Gino(!) Lovely.

-OK.

I'm going to parboil the sprouts.

-That's the way I like them. Then I'll make them spicy and then I crush them.

-OK.

Remember, whenever you cook pasta, it's very important to have

a big pot full of water. Often people make the mistake that the pot is too little.

Make sure you've got a big pot of pasta, plenty of water in there.

What's going to happen... You shouldn't put oil in the water.

The oil is not going to help it not to stick. What is going to help is the boiling motion.

The water...burble, burble...

-Bollenti. Right? Yeah?

-Burble, burble.

All this bollenti, all this bubble. The pasta goes into the bubbles.

-Come on, everybody! Up you get!

-I'm missing out!

That's what's happening. This is how the pasta don't stick.

-It goes into the bubble and it doesn't touch each other.

-Fantastic. I'll come back, Gino.

We've learnt all about pasta. It's all about the burble, burble. There we are.

OK, Tony, put your finger on that, give it a nice blend up, then put it onto a plate, please.

-Is this the cassoulet?

-Exactly that. All I've done...

-Look at that.

-I've some chopped onion, cook that down, add the white wine, reduce it,

as you saw with a bit of a flame,

-caramelised off...

-We liked the flames! That was very nice.

Then added some courgette. We've got some cherry tomatoes.

-Cook down nice and slowly.

-And eggs?

-I'm going to deep fry one.

-Deep-fried egg?

We're going to cook it for eight minutes, then peel it.

Then put it in a bit of egg and milk into our breadcrumbs and deep fry it.

-AUDIENCE: Oooh!

-You've impressed them.

-And serve it with this celery.

-I've peeled it, it's nice and tender, packed full of flavour.

-And really important to strip it?

-Absolutely.

-OK, guys. So many of us don't do that, bits get in your teeth.

People say, "I don't like celery," just because of that. Take all this off, as Tony has done.

-This is the outside.

-And you can use it as Christmas decorations.

Drape it on your tree. Or wear as earrings.

-Oh, lovely. I think you've found the perfect part in Priscilla!

-Yes.

Who would have thought that at my age this role would come along? I've never worked outside Australia.

Suddenly I'm in this musical playing a woman all around the world. People think it's all I can do.

Quite extraordinary. Tell us, how did you get the part?

-You did it in Australia.

-Yes.

-How come it came here?

-I've been doing this for three years now.

I was the one person they brought over. I think it was a hard call.

It helps not having an established star in the role.

People have a pre-conceived idea and go, "That's a fella in a frock."

But if they don't know you, they suspend disbelief.

It's so true, that, isn't it?

Clive and I have a big love affair in the show and if the audience believes you're a woman

-they don't giggle or snigger.

-Clive, is that right?

-Do you have to snog?

-Yes, but no tongues.

No tongues.

-What was life like for you growing up? I don't know what's going on down there!

-Let's not ask!

You were part of a theatrical family. You started at a young age.

-Was it Australian vaudeville?

-Yes, the Tivoli circuit,

which was variety and my grandparents were comedians

and my mother was Tommy Trinder's leading lady in Australia.

And my dad was a dancer. And my mum is still a musical theatre star in Australia.

-So it's the family business.

-Do you miss the roots back in Australia?

-First time away.

-Not really. It's my first time working overseas

-and particularly in England, so it's a whole new thing for me.

-Guys, guys, guys...

OK, nine minutes to go, guys. Let's leave them to get on with it.

Sometimes the chef gives you that kick and it means go away for a bit.

OK, bbc.co.uk/food All the recipes from the Red kitchen or the Green kitchen.

They're there today for you, guys.

Fresh pasta being made down here. Look at this - brilliant.

-The right amount of elasticity?

-Hopefully.

-What do you mean?!

Of course! Absolutely! It's perfect, perfect.

This is me showing off now.

CHEERING

Tony! You're losing, love!

Early days yet, Clive! Early days. >

Lovely. OK, pasta being cooked. Gino, were you calling me?

Yes, I wanted to show you how I was making the pasta.

We're going to serve this with extra virgin olive oil, onions and peppers. OK? That's it.

Pasta has to be kept simple. A lot of people do creams...

Keep it simple and fresh. Salt and pepper.

Look at this, cutting up beautifully. All right, then. Plenty of flour in there.

-How many times a month would you make pasta?

-Oh, gosh! Not many!

-I've only done it about three times.

-Fantastic.

I was trying to gauge... You're doing this very well.

I love cooking. I absolutely love cooking.

And I was... I think men got interested in cooking through - apart from Gino, of course...

-See if this works.

-Hey, very nice.

-Bravo!

There you go.

-Put it there.

-It's BIG tagliatelle!

This, in Italy, they call pappardelle. The large one.

Tagliatelle is the thin one. Then pappardelle.

I've got a twin brother in Australia and we got into Delia Smith's original cook book.

I now use it as my bible.

Just the basic things. I love experimenting, love cooking.

-And you cook English food, too?

-Oh, yes.

-You both go back and forward.

-She cooks, too.

Pasta is ready. Very important that as the water is boiling the pasta goes straight in there.

And remember, guys, the secret now when you pick up the pasta,

the pasta goes into the sauce, never sauce on top of the pasta!

You need to mix everything together. If you can get a chopping board and chop parsley leaves, very fine.

OK, we'll grab a bit of parsley.

We've got about five minutes to go.

Now this man has stripped off with Pierce Brosnan. Tell us about that.

-AUDIENCE: Ooh!

-I'm not surprised! What was underneath?

I used to do quite a few plays when I was younger, with Pierce.

We were doing a play called The Changing Room, a wonderful play about rugby players.

They come into the changing room, get changed for the rugby,

and the second half is when they come out of the shower.

We rehearsed in this room that was glass on all sides.

And we didn't strip off at rehearsals for ages, until the director said, "Guys, you've got to do it."

-Reveal it all.

-So there we were, we all stripped off, starkers.

But on the opposite side of the glass was the Women's Institute meeting.

All of a sudden, we heard - bang, bang, bang! "Aaaaah!"

We were all starkers, looking at them. But not one of them left! Not one.

If you think, they were seeing a future 007's...you know. Hmmmm.

Credentials.

-Licensed to thrill.

-I think so, too.

-If you chop more parsley...

-Gino, what are you thrilling us with here?

It's very important at this point to check the pasta is al dente.

So, guys, the only way to do it is to try it.

Don't follow the instructions on the packet all the time. Pick up some,

bite it, and see if you have the bite you want.

Oh. Fantastico.

Gino's having a great lesson with the audience and Clive, too.

We're finding out interesting things. Three minutes to go.

Let's concentrate on what Richard has come up with.

Great cassoulet there. We've got the beautiful beans. How are they going to feature?

-They're going to feature underneath the chicken thigh wrapped in Parma ham.

-Oh, wow.

This is deep-fried egg here. Eight minutes in boiling water, just like a hard-boiled egg.

-I'm going to talk and work.

-OK.

-So we then peeled it,

-wrapped it in breadcrumbs...

-Oh, look at that.

-Pane it with flour, milk, flour again,

-and breadcrumbs around it.

-Back in there?

-Deep fry it.

-That's looking really good.

It's a great starter. Thank you, Tony.

-Tony, you enjoying this?

-Wonderful.

-Good to have you here.

Lemon butter sauce here from the juices from our celery.

Deep-fried egg goes there and we have some lovely leaves

-and then this lemon butter sauce...

-OK. Two minutes to go!

-Wonderful starter.

-Anything for Tony to do?

-Pick me some chive tips.

The long, thin herb.

-These here.

-That'll be perfect.

-OK.

-And what's this?

-I've cooked it in balsamic.

-Two-thirds of the way through cooking.

-Smells fantastic.

-And that acts as our sauce.

-OK. I'll let you get on with it.

Our chefs now have one minute to get that food onto the plate. One minute.

-You get plates from underneath.

-How exciting is this? Less than 20 minutes ago,

we had a couple of bags of ingredients. We didn't know what our chefs would do.

But suddenly it comes alive. Audience, think before you vote. What have the chefs done?

Do they deserve your vote? Coming up for the 30-second mark.

Now.

Switch everything off.

A little bit of olive oil, Tony. A little on the top.

Wow. Just look at the colours, the textures, what you've picked up.

All of these different things. Audience, let's count them down.

OK, let's do it.

Nine! Eight! Seven!

Six! Five! Four!

Three! Two! One! Stop cooking!

I'd shake hands, but I'm a mess!

How good does that look? Let's check out today's menu.

In the Red Kitchen, Richard and Tony have been busy.

We start with poached celery with deep-fried egg and lemon butter sauce,

then Parma ham-wrapped chicken with balsamic onions and garlic on glazed cannellini beans,

chicken cassoulet with courgettes and tomatoes and a white wine sauce

and finally, deep-fried courgettes in turmeric batter with crispy Parma ham and tomato vinaigrette.

In the Green Kitchen, Gino and Clive have been equally busy.

We start off with tagliata di manzo on cheesy sprouts. What is that? Nice bit of steak there.

Clive's pappardelle with peppers and salsa verde,

griddled Stilton steak on crushed, spicy sprouts,

stuffed pear with Stilton, honey and balsamic reduction,

and poached pears in spiced red wine on orange slices.

APPLAUSE

Just look at this food! I'm thrilled to have you here.

Thanks for all your lovely excitement. Richard is repaying you with this gorgeous food.

-Pick up your cutlery and get stuck in. Where shall he start?

-With the asparagus.

-Cut that egg in half.

-Have a look at that.

-The asparagus was peeled down to take away all the stringy bits.

We cooked that in a bit of water, a touch of white wine, butter.

We've added a bit of lemon juice at the last minute and some more butter and made a nice, zesty butter sauce.

-It's wonderful. The egg is crunchy.

-It's crunchy on the outside and soft in the centre.

It's beautiful. The celery is wonderfully moist and buttery,

-but it's got a wonderful crunch to it.

-And tender.

-Wonderful textures.

-What would you like to try?

-We boned out the chicken thigh here.

We wrapped that in the Parma ham. I've cooked that with the onions, the garlic,

then at the last minute, we've glazed it with balsamic dressing.

That gave it a really nice glaze. What's important is you have nice, crispy Parma ham on the outside.

We haven't basted it too much.

I've served this on the cannellini beans which I cooked down with white wine, onion and tomatoes.

I added flat-leaf parsley at the last minute.

Absolutely delicious. The balsamic vinegar gives it a wonderful tang.

-The combination of the ham and the balsamic gives a real spice to the chicken.

-It's all happening here.

This is chicken cassoulet, a very classic French dish.

Peasant food. You'd normally go from the oven on to the table,

so it's the cannellini beans which I've cooked down with white wine, courgettes, tomatoes and garlic.

We've added the cannellini beans and then cooked everything together.

The chicken breast has taken on all those lovely tomatoey flavours.

We finished that off with some chives, a dash of butter and a bit of lemon juice.

-Then breadcrumbs on top is very classic.

-This is a much more stewy, casseroley thing.

This is real comfort food.

Very much so. Easy to prepare for a dinner party.

-This presents really beautiful, these lovely turmeric-style...

-It's vegetarian without the Parma ham.

Normally, I make a beer batter and deep-fry courgette and aubergine together.

Then you can make a lovely tomato dressing. Great vegetarian starter.

-You can fold a bit of mozzarella on top, but I put Parma ham on top.

-Nice touch.

Check out the website. Bit of mozzarella on top. What do you think?

Incredible. There's no excuse to not cook a meal in ten seconds flat before I go to work!

-OK, Tony and Richard!

-APPLAUSE

Oh, lovely. We could be talking there for an age, couldn't we?

You've got all this lovely fare, Clive. Looks absolutely delicious.

Pick up your cutlery, get stuck into that.

-I think we'll start with the baked pears.

-I'll bring that to you.

What Clive and I did, we drizzled a little bit of honey first,

then we put the Stilton cheese on top.

-Then I made a reduction of balsamic vinegar.

-That's absolutely stunning.

Something like that, you can use it after the meal, instead of having the usual cheeses and crackers.

You can do something like that. Everybody will be really impressed.

Then we have the spicy sprouts here with the melted cheesy steak with chilli on top.

-Then, of course, the other... This is very simple. We had a very beautiful steak.

-Yeah.

When you have a piece of meat like that, don't do a lot.

There's no point in doing a casserole. Just grill it and put some flavours together.

-Are the sprouts working for you?

-That's amazing. I'm definitely going to do the sprouts that way.

-This is the pasta, OK? Beautiful. Make sure that you get...

-He'll feed you now.

-He's feeding you now. Go on.

-Go for it.

This is the pasta that you made.

Very simple. What we've done here, we made the pasta dough,

then you prepared the pappardelle which is thicker than tagliatelle.

-We served it with roasted peppers, onion and salsa verde.

-It's so sweet. The peppers are so sweet.

-And how about this for your dessert?

-This one is amazing.

You still have the texture of the pear inside. You poach it.

We've got vanilla, bay leaf, a touch of sugar.

We serve them on oranges because it complements very well.

-And we've done the traditional Italian tagliata here.

-Beautiful.

-This isn't too sweet.

That's really lovely.

I never put sugar in the red wine because it becomes too sweet.

Pear is already a very sweet fruit, so it balances together well.

Clive is happy. He's straight in there. Keep enjoying it. Ladies and gentlemen, Gino and Clive!

APPLAUSE

Is it going to be a Red Kitchen win with the lovely Tony and Richard

or a Green Kitchen win with Gino and Clive?

It's down to our studio audience. I think it'll be rather close today.

Please pick up your keypads and will you all vote now?

Let's see which way this goes. On one side, we have gorgeous steak, the other side, succulent chicken.

Both chefs have come up with miraculous things, but how are you going to respond?

It looks a bit green to me. Computer, sort this out. Who's won today's 20-minute challenge?

And you can see it's a Green Kitchen win!

APPLAUSE

Thank you.

Oh, yes indeed! There you go. There's your Ready Steady Cook winner's plate.

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

-I'd love to give it to Cancer Research UK.

Good luck. Lovely to have you on the show. Well done to you too.

You seem to go out to eat every night after work,

-but in the morning, you can remember us with your Ready Steady Cook mug.

-I'll treasure this always!

Thanks, Richard. The food was absolutely superb.

Ladies and gentlemen, let's say a very big thank you to our guests, Tony Sheldon and Clive Carter!

APPLAUSE

OK, it's time for today's Quickie Bag Challenge.

-This is Dawn Wilkinson and a lovely smiley face you've got! How are you doing?

-All right.

Welcome to Ready Steady Cook. What is your challenge for our chefs today?

I have an unusual challenge.

I've always wanted to cook duck and my husband Paul has got Crohn's disease.

And I want to be able to cook it, so that I don't put him off and he can have it again.

-I've never done it before and I'd like to...

-You want some really good ideas?

-Yeah.

-Have you got a nice bit of shopping in the bag?

-Yes.

-Will you come over after and have a try?

-Yes, lovely.

-For the moment, Dawn and Paul, ladies and gentlemen!

-APPLAUSE

-All right, boys, we've got some interesting ingredients here.

-I guess we've got duck in here?

Yeah, you've got some duck. Crohn's disease is a digestive disorder. You don't need to worry too much.

-Everything that we've got in the bag Paul eats.

-OK. Perfect.

I think it's things like black pepper. Mushrooms too?

-Yeah.

-Anything else?

-No spices.

-No heavy spices?

-No, he doesn't do any spices.

-I want to learn more about herbs.

-Are you OK with wine, eggs, butter, stuff like that?

-Yes.

A nice challenge for our chefs, ladies and gentlemen.

We try and reach out to everybody with the quickie bag and vary it as much as possible.

First up, Richard Phillips?

We'll reduce a bit of balsamic down with vanilla seed and some honey.

Sweet works really well with duck.

We'll put this on to the breast with a herb crusting and roast it.

The other one, I'll take all the fat off and bread that in a bit of breadcrumbs.

I'll deep-fry it with sesame seeds.

I'll do an asparagus and carrot salad to go with it.

The first duck breast I'll serve on some crushed new potatoes.

And why don't we do a chocolate and raspberry souffle?

-Oh!

-Gino, top that.

Sure... OK.

I think one of the breasts we're going to do...

..anatra all'arancia, which is duck in orange juice.

We'll do an orange reduction with a little bit of honey.

It's very easy. Instead of doing it the way the French do it, just do it the quickest way

which will be really, really good with some of the berries in there as well.

It would be nice to make some little cakes.

-We can grate some carrots, some peas in there.

-Almost like a rosti?

-Like a rosti kind of thing.

Instead of doing a souffle because I think ten minutes won't be enough...

-Oh, won't it? Go on, Rich, tell him.

-Well, he's making it if I win.

I'm telling you now. I won't make the souffle.

I'm going to do a beautiful chocolate mousse with a berry coulis to go with it.

The other duck, we're going to do a herb-crusted duck,

completely in a herb crust, which is fantastic.

Ladies and gentlemen, you've heard them all. Both chefs have come up with some fantastic ideas.

What will it be? Red for Richard, green for Gino. Please vote now.

The chefs have never seen these ingredients before. We just tipped it out.

For those of you at home, how amazing! Great ideas coming your way. Computer, sort this out.

Who has won today's ten-minute quickie challenge? You can see it's a Richard Phillips Red Kitchen win!

Your ten minutes' cooking time starts now.

Gino, first things first, if you can start whisking up my egg whites.

Three egg whites for the souffle. Then make me some herb breadcrumbs.

-What can I do?

-If you could peel the asparagus and the carrots for me.

I will make a nice spaghetti of veg to go underneath the duck salad.

-I'll get some oil on here.

-Ten minutes isn't very long for the old duck.

-Not at all.

I need to get a pan on here very quickly, get a bit of oil just to start it off.

Not too much oil because it's quite fatty, duck.

That's why a lot of people use sweet things with duck.

It's quite fatty. Not as fatty as goose, but a little bit fatty.

You don't want all the asparagus? Just nice strips like that?

A little bit more, then it's going to go into here.

We're just cutting these down into strips. I think the chef will poach these off in a citrus type of...

What's important when preparing your duck is just taking away these veins underneath.

Remove them and it stops it from shrinking up.

Really, really important.

So I'm taking away some of the excess fat.

Then we've got to get that into the pan. It's obviously quite thick.

That goes into the pan, then we're going to cook this with a little bit of vanilla,

a small amount of honey, with the breadcrumbs.

And I'm sure that Dawn's OK... Vanilla and honey, Dawn? Are you quite happy with that?

-Oh, yes.

-OK then.

-What do you normally cook for Paul? You say it can be a bit of a disaster area sometimes.

-Yeah.

I've had my moments. I don't want to put him off duck. I'd like to try something different.

Everybody gets stuck in a rut. We generally have quite plain food.

Just meat, potatoes, vegetables.

He doesn't normally do sauces and things like that.

We'll see what we can come up with. Any disasters in the kitchen then?

I had a very disastrous Christmas pudding one year.

I mixed up two recipes and did the dry ingredients to the right amount, but forgot to reduce the alcohol.

So Paul had to come and rescue it with lots of dry ingredients,

but it was the most alcoholic Christmas pudding anyone ever had.

-That would've been quite nice.

-I haven't done it again though.

-No drinks, just some Christmas pudding!

All right, my love. Time's moving on, boys.

Quite a few minutes have gone now.

So in here we've got the honey, the butter and the vanilla.

That goes into the oven.

I'm doing the crust for the duck, OK?

So I've got the white bread, OK... of the inside.

I'm going to put a little bit of sage, a little bit of oregano, dry oregano,

-then we're going to do some parsley as well, OK?

-OK, Chef.

-Lovely.

-OK, I've just taken my duck, cut it into strips. I've taken the fat off, cut it into strips.

Then I've popped it into some lovely seasoned flour, nicely coated.

Then that goes into our hot oil.

When it comes out, we're going to dust it in these wonderful, toasted sesame seeds.

That's going to be our nice, crisp salad on the spaghetti of veg.

-I'll take those away.

-OK.

-I'll put them into there.

Quickly cook down... I want to keep the nice colour.

A little bit of bite is absolutely fine.

OK. Let's see. Let's take the potatoes...

-I need to get my souffle in the oven.

-OK, about six minutes to go.

-What are you doing, Gino?

-I've just finished the breadcrumbs here.

I've done the egg white, which is ready. Anything you want me to do?

Yeah, take the egg whites out of the oven, if you wouldn't mind.

So we've melted our chocolate, added the flour...

-Yeah...

-In the oven. Just for you.

-I don't know what is going on.

-Is he taking the mick?

-He's taking the mick a bit.

-OK, potatoes, please, Gino.

-Do you want the potatoes sliced?

-Into the pan for me.

-What do you want with these peas?

-The peas can go in with the asparagus and the carrots.

-OK. What pan did you want the potatoes in?

-A small pan. Any pan.

I haven't got it on yet, Ains.

-We are halfway, guys.

-I'm just going to warm those through.

-Is this a warm salad you're making?

-It's exactly that, Gino.

-Have you seasoned the vegetables?

-Yeah.

-A bit in here, Gino.

One thing I want to say. You want to know about herbs, right?

We don't have a lot of time. Let me tell you what I believe about herbs.

First of all, every dried herb that you have in the cupboard

-in those little silly jars, throw them away straight away because those are rubbish.

-Oh, really?

The only dried herb that I believe keeps a good flavour is oregano.

Use fresh herbs.

If you use parsley, I strongly believe that flat-leaf parsley is the best. OK?

The curly one often is too bitter and it releases too much water as well.

And you don't want that, OK? So the flat-leaf parsley will be the best one.

Thank you very much, Chef Gino, giving us a few more tips.

We've got a gentleman here who is from Kent. David, how are you?

-Hello.

-I'm talking over the chefs. We're trying to get everything done, but you have a question.

Yes. I make a lot of stews and casseroles, broths and everything.

-Lovely.

-But my dumplings aren't very good.

-He wants a recipe for dumpling, guys. Dumpling recipe.

-Do they break down, go a bit soft?

-They crack up altogether.

-They break up.

-I can tell you the Italian way we do it...

We make it with boiled potatoes. We boil the potatoes. A very floury potato you use. Boil them whole.

Then you mash them down, put them on a tray and work them with a fork.

Make sure that you break them up and they cool slightly.

Then you put a couple of egg yolks and start to introduce the flour.

The same way Italians do the gnocchi, which is a potato dumpling.

That's the way we would do it. Mix everything together like making a dough, then make your dumplings.

And Bob's your uncle. OK, well, that's certainly one version of it.

-Richard, do you have another version?

-One thing that works really well is grated horseradish.

Take your dumpling mix, a bit of chopped thyme and some grated fresh horseradish into it.

It just works really, really well.

One thing I would always say with everything - let it rest.

Make the mix, mould them, let them rest and add them

-three-quarters of the way through whatever it is you're cooking it with.

-OK with that?

-Lovely.

Two minutes to go. Not much time. We all like a dumpling, don't we? Makes a difference.

Beautiful. We've got some potatoes coming. OK, Richard, what are you finishing off there?

I've deep-fried the duck, removed the duck.

A little bit of balsamic dressing and sesame oil to finish it off.

We've got a lovely salad underneath that - just the fresh vegetables, the asparagus, carrot and peas.

Sesame oil on top.

I've just added a little bit of icing sugar, red wine vinegar and caster sugar to the raspberries.

-That's going to...

-One and a half minutes.

-..add a nice bitterness to it.

Sweetness I should say. That will complement the chocolate sauce.

-The duck breast is now out of the oven.

-OK. No pepper on anything, guys. Remember, no pepper.

-Just a little bit of salt.

-I'll just take a spoon. The souffle is nearly there.

The potatoes go underneath the duck, so pop the potatoes under the duck.

-Beautiful.

-You want the potato on the bottom?

-Yes, please. The duck breast will go on top.

Beautiful. That's lovely.

That'll be fantastic. They're beautiful.

-Excellent. Then we've got our duck breast. That goes down there.

-That's fine. Lovely.

We'll take our vanilla...

It's always nice when you use some nice ingredients. Show them off.

And we've got this really nice, sweet and bitter vanilla-flavoured sauce.

30 seconds. Not much time.

Do you want the peas on top or around...?

Don't throw everything on. You can always serve a bit of sauce on the side.

Let them help themselves. It doesn't run over the side of the plate.

The souffle will be last minute. Is that your job?

AINSLEY AND AUDIENCE: Ten, nine, eight, seven, six,

five, four,

three, two, one...

Stop cooking!

Dawn, come and join us.

APPLAUSE

-How are you doing?

-All right.

-Good to have you here.

The chefs, especially Richard here, have come up with some really nice ideas.

-Do you think Paul will be happy with that?

-I hope so.

-You have a taste.

What about this one, the duck that you sauteed off?

Very quick. Very simple.

The carrot, asparagus and peas, just cut very small and cooked down

in a little bit of butter, stock and white wine.

-And easy to digest. You don't have to crunch too much.

-Very light.

-That's very good.

-Duck breast in the flour,

-deep-fried, into sesame seeds at the last minute.

-I'll cut a bit of that off.

Very, very light sesame oil.

We've got a duck breast pan-fried on both sides,

then we've added the honey, oregano, the vanilla

and a touch of red wine in there.

We cooked that down, then two-thirds of the way cooking, we've added the lovely breadcrumbs which Gino did.

It's got sage and parsley.

There's a lot of flavour there without any spice.

-Absolutely. Herbs can really do that for you.

-That's gorgeous, yes.

What's key there is fresh ingredients in season and they will all taste really good.

You've got the chocolate souffle, hot chocolate sauce,

balsamic and icing sugar through the raspberries. It cuts away the sweetness just a bit.

I'd rather go for a bigger souffle, but time restraints, I went for a smaller one.

-Look at her face!

-That's heaven.

-That is heaven?

-That is heaven!

-Let's welcome back Tony and Clive!

APPLAUSE

Come on and join us here.

-That's all we've got time for today. Join us again soon on Ready Steady Cook. Bye-bye.

-Bye.

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