Diplomatic Relations Royal Recipes

The royal family are steeped in tradition,

and throughout history the royal tables

have showcased culinary excellence. In celebration of royal food...

We know it is the Queen's recipe

because we've got it in her own hand.

..from the present and the past...

That is proper regal.

We recreate old family favourites.

Now, the Queen Mother had this really wicked trick with these.

What a mess!

We sample royal eating alfresco.

-Oh, wow!

-That is what you want.

And revisit the most extravagant times.

Pheasant, stag, turkey, salmon,

oysters and turbot dressed in a lobster champagne sauce.

Unbelievable!

This is Royal Recipes.

Hello. I'm Michael Buerk - and welcome to Royal Recipes.

This is Audley End, one of Britain's finest stately homes.

Built in the style of a royal palace and once owned by a king.

In the splendour of the gardens,

halls and kitchen of this grandest of country houses,

we will be recreating the food served at the highest royal tables.

And it all starts here with this gem -

a royal kitchen maid's cookbook.

The only surviving recipe book of its kind in the Royal Archive.

This is an exact copy of the original,

which is kept at Windsor Castle.

Inside, the recipes of Mildred Nicholls

who worked at Buckingham Palace in the early 1900s -

and, for the first time in over 100 years,

we'll be bringing these recipes back to life.

This time we cook food served to world leaders

during royal state visits,

and learn the art of diplomatic relations.

The state banquet is an essential part of the sovereign's role.

Today in the Royal Recipes kitchen,

chef Paul Ainsworth prepares a dish

inspired by the dinner the Queen laid on for President Obama...

That is... It's unbelievable!

Well, you can see why President Obama

enjoyed his visit to England.

A former royal butler introduces historian Matt Green

to banquet etiquette and protocol...

Remember, we don't put elbows on the table.

-No.

-We don't put wrists on the table.

We don't lie on the table.

The only time your hands are on the table

is actually when you're actually using...

obviously picking up the cutlery and you're eating.

I can't wait to do it for real.

In the grandeur of the historic kitchen wing of this stately home,

we start in 2011, when the Queen welcomed Barack and Michelle Obama.

Welcome to the marvellous old kitchens,

and indeed the marvellous young Michelin-starred chef

Paul Ainsworth.

It's the big one today. I mean, no pressure.

-Actually, a lot of pressure.

-There is a lot of pressure.

It's the royal state banquet.

-What are you going to do?

-Michael, we're going to do a wonderful dish

of paupiettes of lemon sole

with a wonderful watercress mousseline and Nantua sauce.

Oh, it sounds marvellous - and is actually the dish...

See? This is the menu card

for the state visit of President Obama in 2011.

-Wow.

-First course.

First course! Right.

Right, let's get on with what President Obama got.

-We've got a lot to do. I might need a bit of help from you today.

-OK.

Right, so the first thing I'm going to make

is the watercress mousseline,

-and that's what we're going to stuff the sole with.

-Mm.

-So here we have our chicken breast, which goes on like so...

-Yeah.

..and then we're just going to put in a little pinch of salt with it.

And we're going to blitz that first.

-OK, like so.

-Yeah.

Just to break down the protein.

OK. Next, we're going to add in one egg white.

OK, and again another blitz.

So we don't load all the ingredients in there.

It's stage by stage.

So when you say paupiette, what does that actually mean?

-Rolled and stuffed.

-Ah.

-With this?

-Absolutely.

-And then we're going to add a splash of cream.

-Yeah.

-OK. Like so.

-A splash of cream!

-Just a splash.

-Do you ever do a dish

-that hasn't got a splash of cream in it?

-Oh, stop it -

this is royal dishes, they are very fond of their French cooking,

-which is obviously very heavy with butter and cream.

-Yeah.

So we've just added in there some watercress.

So you've got this lovely chicken mousseline.

The cream lightens it, believe it or not,

and then we've got this lovely pepperiness happening.

Right, so what we're going to do

is we're going to take our lemon sole fillets

and we're just going to take some of this -

-and it really is worth doing. It may look fiddly...

-Mm.

..but just spread them

right the way down the length of the fillet.

Actually, taking trouble is the whole thing about state banquets,

isn't it? You know they start laying the table up

-five days before the event itself?

-Really?!

-Yeah.

You know, polishing the porcelain,

getting the silver out and all that kind of stuff.

Now, just really simple, it's not too difficult.

Just take your fillet and just roll it up like so.

Just like that. And then with a cocktail stick...

..through the tail end, just watch your fingers,

and then just go out the other side like that.

-Like so. Would you like a go, Michael?

-Yep, I'll do that.

-OK.

-All right.

-This might take some time.

All right, OK.

So what I'm moving on next to, Michael, is the sauce -

and the sauce is beautiful.

It's a Nantua sauce, which is basically a crayfish sauce.

-What's going on in there?

-This is our steamer.

Right, we're just going to gently place those in the steamer.

-Mm-hm.

-Like so. OK.

Important, Michael - some seasoning.

Just some sea salt, just round on our flesh, like so.

Lid on.

And because that's so delicate,

now let's just let the residual heat just steam those gently away.

-On to our sauce.

-OK.

So we've just roasted off some crayfish shells.

-The way you do.

-Yeah. With some carrot, onion, leek, celery,

a little bit of paprika, a little bit of tomato puree,

some brandy and then some fish stock.

Wow! And how long have you done that for?

And we've just simmered that for a couple of hours,

just to kind of get a really nice, deep flavour.

-All the taste out of it.

-Yeah. Absolutely.

-Now, it's important...

-Actually, you can smell it.

-It's beautiful, isn't it?

-Yeah, yeah.

-Push all of that through.

-OK.

-And now we return that back to the heat.

-That looks brilliant.

-OK.

I'm going to get some asparagus on,

cos we're just going to finish this with some beautiful asparagus.

Turn up our heat. We want to bring our sauce to the boil.

Right, the first thing we're going to do

is we're going to add just a little bit of cognac.

Now, we don't want to add a lot...

-Why not?

-..because we're going to reduce it out.

Because it's so strong,

-we don't want to kill the flavour of the sauce.

-Mm-hm.

-Little bit of cream.

-Oh, inevitably.

Right, I'm going to add, now, some butter.

And what the butter is going to do

is it is going to emulsify with the sauce, slightly thicken it

and give it that wonderful richness.

OK. If I could get you to just carry on whisking that sauce,

-just like that for me, please, Michael...

-Yeah, will do.

..and we're going to start to plate up.

-Yes.

-We've got some asparagus

that we've just kind of warmed in some beautiful butter.

All British ingredients.

-All British ingredients.

-British asparagus, British lemon sole.

So, we've just got these lovely wonderful asparagus spears.

-A beautiful colour, aren't they?

-Stunning.

I think I've done this rather brilliantly.

-You see how it has thickened and gone nice and velvety?

-Yeah.

-It's my touch.

-It's beautiful.

-It's my touch.

-It is your touch.

-Right, OK, the bit that I'm really dying to show you...

-Mm.

..is these beautiful paupiettes of lemon sole.

-They've been off the heat?

-They've been off the heat.

-OK - and look.

-And they've cooked.

-I'll bring them over to you.

-Yeah.

And now just remove our cocktail sticks.

Look at that.

-Just look how succulent and juicy they are.

-Yeah.

Without any heat at all.

Just the residual heat.

We're going to finish them with a little bit more sea salt.

-Yeah.

-OK? Now our sauce.

-We're going to add in the crayfish tails.

-Yeah.

Like so. Stir in.

God, I can't wait to get into this.

This is something else.

OK? And now just those crayfish.

-Oh...

-Over the top like that.

Some on the side.

There we have it. That, for me, is proper banquet food.

-(Come on, come on.)

-You're dying to taste it!

-I am, actually, yeah.

-Go for it. I'm just as excited as you.

I'm going to have that one.

-Mm. That is really good, isn't it?

-That is.

It's unbelievable!

Well, you can see why President Obama

enjoyed his visit to England.

A light dish that really delivers on flavour.

Banquets are not just about the food,

they're about the whole spectacle.

The royal butlers play a crucial role in creating that.

Where better to learn about preparing for grand royal banquets

than at this monumental country house,

given to a duke by a queen in the 18th century?

It may not be a royal home, but it's a palace -

and historian Matt Green is here to learn all about royal etiquette.

I've come to Blenheim Palace to meet someone called Grant Harrold

who runs the Royal Butler School

to get a crash course on how to put on a royal banquet...

..but, on second thoughts,

I think I should be entering via the servants' quarters.

For seven years, Grant Harrold worked as a butler

to Prince Charles, the Duchess of Cornwall,

the Duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry.

-Hi, Grant.

-Hello, Matt.

-How do you do?

-How do you do?

-Good, thanks.

This way.

Blenheim Palace was built for the Duke of Marlborough.

150 years later his descendant, Winston Churchill, was born here.

Over the generations, there have been many royal guests.

Wow! This is the entrance hall of Blenheim Palace?

-Yes.

-It's like something out of a fairy tale.

State banquets, per se, don't happen here -

but it's not dissimilar,

and it gives us a sense of the much grander state banquets.

And is it true that they are laid out

with almost a degree of military precision?

They are. I mean, obviously,

royal standards are what everyone wants to kind of aspire to

in these kind of homes,

and the aristocrats are known for copying

the way that royals do things.

Presumably, in order to achieve the meticulousness of this layout,

to have that effect that's really quite mind-blowing,

you have to measure everything?

In Buckingham Palace they have what's...

They've got, obviously, a measuring stick

that's actually got the markings on it as to where things should be.

So, there's a distance, obviously, which they will measure

-from the edge of the table to the back of the chair.

-OK.

-They will measure the space settings between each place...

-Yeah.

..to make sure that it's at the right distance.

They measure the glass, they measure the cutlery.

So it's right, that's how precise it has to be.

As butler at Highgrove, Prince Charles's private residence,

Grant would oversee this kind of table preparation.

Before work can start,

each member of staff must don a pair of white gloves.

The white gloves, obviously,

it's so we protect the silver and glassware

and we don't get any marks,

because it's already probably been polished and cleaned.

-Yeah.

-We can always double-check it,

but normally it is already done by the time it comes to the room

and then all we're having to do is actually put things down.

You want to make sure it is symmetrical

and you're not off to the side or anything.

If there's any crests or anything,

always make sure that they are pointing to the top.

-Pointing north.

-Yes.

-OK.

Another trick to laying a table is the rule of thumb -

the gap between crockery and cutlery must be an inch,

about the length from a thumb knuckle to tip.

The soup spoon is going to go on the right.

-On the right.

-And again, with maybe a millimetre or two between.

And then the pudding cutlery...

..on top. That's good.

-OK.

-Maybe just a fraction down.

Right.

Then we're going to get the side plate, and the small knife.

So they are going to go to the left.

To the left.

And then the knife is just going to go on the edge.

Just perched on the edge.

The blade pointing away.

OK, so it's looking pretty complete now.

Then we'll go and get the glassware.

This is going to be for the red wine,

and this is going to be for the white.

So you want to put it just to the right

-of the blade of the, obviously, of the main course knife.

-Yeah.

The red wine, just up to the left, like that.

Maybe push it just a little bit closer,

just, again, a millimetre, maybe, away.

Pop the red there.

So, the champagne goes to the right of the white wine,

directly opposite the red.

And then, lastly, you've got the port glass,

and that just goes directly behind -

and then you've created the diamond formation.

We just need a napkin.

-In the centre.

-In the centre.

-Like that.

-Beautifully done.

And there we are, voila.

It's really pleasing to see it come together like that.

Protocol and etiquette governs everything at the banquet.

Remember that we don't put elbows on the table,

we don't put wrists on the table, we don't lie on the table.

The only time your hands are on the table is when you're actually using,

obviously, when you're picking up the cutlery and you are eating.

I can't wait to do it for real.

-I know. So all you have to do now is write to the Queen...

-Yeah.

-..and ask for your invitation.

-I'll get that.

-Good luck.

-Yeah. Thank you!

Being a royal butler is not really a job, it's more a vocation.

More a kind of state of mind.

Anyway, from grand diplomatic banquets

to something a great deal simpler.

-Absolutely.

-Bubbling away.

-Bubbling away.

-It's my butter making noise.

-It would be.

Yes, we are going to do the Queen's recipe for drop scones.

-The Queen's recipe?

-The Queen's recipe for drop scones.

-Ever had a drop scone?

-I have had drop scone.

-Yeah?

The important thing about this one is,

not only is at the Queen's recipe for drop scones,

but they played their part

in the special relationship with America, as well.

They did, they did -

and we're going to do the original recipe,

which was caster sugar, with some sieved flour.

Some bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartar.

What do they do, then?

-Well, the bicarb, first of all...

-That gives us the lift?

..gives us the rise. It gives us a lift.

The cream of tartar lends a nice bit of acidity to the recipe.

-Bite, yeah.

-A bit of bite. So while we're doing that,

we're going to add a little bit of butter to the pan here, Michael.

So, we're going to take two eggs with our milk.

-I'm seeing the Queen doing this now, you understand?

-Are you?

-Yes.

Because the great thing about this is we know it is the Queen's recipe,

because we've got in her own hand.

-A hand written letter to President Eisenhower...

-Right.

..who was then president of the United States.

January the 24th, 1960 -

and he'd actually visited the Queen at Balmoral

and she had cooked him these drop scones.

Or at least we think she cooked them.

This is the letter in which she sends him the recipe.

The recipe that you are doing now.

-What are you doing there?

-So, we're just gently now bringing together

the eggs and the milk.

We're going to have basically a pancake batter.

And once we've whisked it smooth,

we're going to add a little bit of butter.

So you see now how the mix is coming together nicely?

I'm just going to add a couple of spoonfuls of butter.

There, like that.

And already that lovely smell of the butter, it is delicious.

I absolutely love drop scones, or blinis -

that's what they're like.

OK, so we've got a nice, lovely smooth...

And that there, that's the drop.

As opposed to a kind of like... Do you know what I mean?

-Yeah.

-Like a scone.

-Yeah.

-Now we're ready to go...

-It's lovely and gooey, isn't it?

..into the pan. Yeah. We're going to add a little more butter...

..into the pan there, and simply, just...

..just like that.

We're going to put... I think we'll get four or five in there.

In her letter to him, she says,

"I have also tried using golden syrup or treacle

"instead of only sugar."

-What do you think?

-I think it could.

So, we're just going to have a little check underneath.

Oh, look at these.

These are special.

Turn them round - just quickly turn them over, like that.

Look at that. They look delicious, don't they?

-They certainly do.

-Just gently over, like that.

Just nice and steady.

You come to the last one and you see just on the top, Michael...

-Yeah.

-..you've got that lovely caramelised butter.

-Just on the top.

-I wonder what President Eisenhower made of it all.

He replies and says,

"What's caster sugar?"

Now, is that because he wasn't a cook?

Well, I think in America they call it superfine.

-Oh, right, right.

-Yeah, it's the same sugar.

-So, he did reply.

-He did reply.

He's running America, but he did reply,

-he wrote a letter about the scones.

-He obviously made them.

-Or his chef replied.

-Yeah!

Right, a little tip right here, you just want that...

-So, when you put your finger in...

-Yeah.

When you put your finger in there, they just come back up and that's...

-They are lovely cooked.

-Yeah.

Now we're just going to bring them out.

On top of these...

And they are absolutely fantastic.

And you know what? Serve these, you could do sweet or savoury.

If I was doing savoury, a little bit of smoked salmon

and some creme fraiche. Really extravagant.

They've risen. Just have a smell of them.

-Oh, yeah.

-That lovely caramelised butter,

-that scone smell.

-It really leaps at you, doesn't it?

-Yeah. And then...

We're just going to add butter, no clotted cream, no jam.

No, we are keeping it nice and simple.

I'll have that. To think they played a part...

I just think - I like the history of it.

To think they played a part in the special relationship

-between Britain and United States!

-It's fantastic.

Scones cement the relationship.

-They smell delicious.

-Yeah.

-Ready?

-They are good, aren't they?

-They are.

-Oh!

-Done a good job there, Paul.

-Thank you.

A case of drop scone diplomacy.

Perfect for the more informal occasion.

Preparing a souffle can be a risky business for a state banquet -

but one royal chef knows a fail-safe way to create the perfect

high-rise pudding for a high-end dinner.

In the 1980s and early 1990s,

chef Darren McGrady would regularly cook

on board the Royal Yacht Britannia,

preparing grand banquets for the Queen and world leaders.

Demanding conditions called for low-risk puds.

A lot of the times, the dishes that we would serve

would be dishes that were served day-to-day

to the Queen and her family.

One of the Queen's favourites was the cold lemon souffle.

Start off with some lemons.

The zest is going to give it a real zing.

Just going to give it a nice colour, as well.

Once I've got my lemon zest, I want some juice in there, too.

The cold lemon souffle is not really a souffle.

It doesn't go in the oven.

It actually goes in the refrigerator.

Darren's next step is to separate the eggs

and add the yolks to the lemon juice.

And then some sugar in there, as well.

I'm going to put that into boiling water, what we call a bain-marie,

and whisk all of those ingredients together.

That's going to sit on there and while my eggs are getting hot,

I need to whisk the egg whites to make them nice and stiff.

So once my egg yolks are hot to the touch,

then I can take them off and put them on the machine...

..and we whisk it until it goes cold.

So all we are doing is creating a sabayon,

and so that gives our volume

that we then fold some whipped cream and some whipped egg whites into,

and that gives us our mousse, our souffle, that great bulk.

Once it's been on the machine, look how it changes in consistency.

Now we can add our whipped cream...

..and then lightly whisk that into the egg mixture.

Then I have my gelatine that has warmed,

and I am going to fold that into my mix, as well.

And finally,

my egg whites.

So everything in there is now folded in, and it's nice and smooth.

Darren's wrapped grease-proof paper around a souffle dish,

stapling it top and bottom.

It will allow the mousse to set above the top of the dish

like a risen souffle.

So, now I'm pouring the souffle mix into the mould.

What you really need to see is just a little bit over the mould, there,

so it looks like that souffle is climbing out of the dish.

So this goes into the refrigerator now, overnight, to set.

It has set nicely.

All we have to do now is take off the paper from around the edge.

There we go, lovely!

Now we can just put some cream on the top, just to finish it off.

Preparing this for President Reagan and trying to make sure

every piece was exact.

All it needs is some chocolate on the top,

so I'm going to use a really fine grater to grate some chocolate

to go around the top.

And that just looks fantastic.

A simple cold lemon souffle in a souffle case.

You're going to have all of your friends asking,

"How did you manage to get that to rise

"if you didn't even put it in the oven?!£

For our final recipe we're going to go back in time to the late 19th,

early 20th century, and that Prince of Gourmands, King Edward VII.

One of his favourite, all-time favourite puddings, desserts,

-Chartreuse a la Royale has a ring to it, doesn't it?

-It really does.

So I'm going to start off by taking a mango.

We've got mangoes and melons.

I'm just going to show you the slicing of a mango.

So we're just going to top and tail it.

And then basically, Michael, just very thinly all the way around.

Like so.

And the idea is to get as much of that beautiful fleshy fragrant fruit

off the stone. And that is it.

And now you've just got that lovely fragrant fleshy mango.

-Gosh, you can smell it.

-You can, can't you?

And it's absolutely delicious.

So the next bit is just now turn them out like that

and getting as many as you can

and don't waste that. Turn it into a puree, fruit salad, anything.

-Or even eat it.

-Or even eat it.

So now they go into our lime jelly.

And what we're going to do now is painstakingly go all the way around.

-It's very labour-intensive, this one.

-It is very labour-intensive.

You can see I'm going right round like that.

-And they stick OK?

-They stick because the jelly,

it's important that the jelly is just starting to cool down.

And as the jelly starts to cool down it's getting nice and thick.

I'm just going to give it a last disc of mango on there

-like so, Michael.

-It looks terrific.

-It does, doesn't it?

-It does.

Now, we're going to spoon in the remaining jelly.

Like so.

And then the idea is, you can see now it's just starting to set.

Just spin round.

Do you see how as you spin round,

it's just basically kind of sticking to all of the fruit

and going all the way around the mould?

Now just transfer that to the fridge, please.

We're just going to let that set.

Ideally for about two or three hours.

-OK.

-OK?

OK, that's done. What's next?

Fantastic.

Next, the filling. Very rich, very royal.

So here we've got some milk on the stove,

that we're bringing to a simmer.

We've got some lovely rich egg yolks and sugar

that we're just going to mix together.

And we mix them so they're nice and pale.

Just in there like so.

-Six eggs?

-Six egg yolks. Sugar in.

And the reason we mix it now together like this

to make it nice is to make the custard lovely and rich.

Because what you're doing, you're basically dissolving the sugar

into the egg yolks. Can you see it changing colour?

-From what it was?

-Yeah.

OK. Now we're just going to take our hot milk

-and just pour that onto this egg yolk.

-And just to be clear,

this is the kind of custard that goes into the mould

-that you've already made?

-Absolutely, yeah.

Now we go back into the pan.

Like so. OK.

And we basically just

stir that over the heat.

Now that's going to get thick and nice and rich,

but we need to set it so it holds in the middle of our chartreuse.

So what we've got here, Michael, is gelatine.

OK? We just get rid of the water.

And straight into our custard mix.

-And that just melts.

-And that just melts in,

and will basically give you like a nice setting property

in the custard. And once that cools down,

it will thicken and be beautiful and rich and smooth, just like that.

Oh, lovely.

Now we've got some lovely whipped cream here

and we're just going to, what we call folding.

As if it wasn't rich enough.

As if it wasn't rich enough! So we'll put about half of that in

and gently fold it. We don't want to just beat it in there

because we do want it to be nice

and light and airy. OK.

Just nice and gently.

This is a kind of dish for a really sumptuous banquet, isn't it?

So, just keep mixing until it's completely folded in like so.

And you'll go to this kind of very light kind of creamy mixture.

Now, Mike, if I could ask you to go back and get me

the one that we set earlier,

we are going to put this wonderful filling in the middle.

-OK.

-Thank you.

Back in a minute, chef.

Here we go, Paul. Nice and cold.

-Yes, lovely.

-And pretty set, I'd say.

You see, it's got that lovely film going around the edge.

Now, look, that's our custard and cream mixture.

Can you see what I mean by the folding technique,

how lovely and light it is.

So we're just going to pour that in like so.

Oh, a waterfall of sin.

Yeah! I like that, a waterfall of sin.

-Brilliant!

-There we go.

Oh, yes, don't leave on any on the side of the bowl.

Like so.

-Perfect, isn't it?

-Absolutely.

OK. Now, again, just right to the edges.

-Yeah.

-We don't want to see any of that fruit.

OK.

-Another little important...

-Just with your thumb,

just right the way around any of that mix,

because when we turn it out,

it's all those little things that can catch when you're trying

to turn it out. And, again, just a little tap so there's no air.

-Settle it down.

-Just settle it down. There's no air bubbles in there.

If I could ask you to pop that in the fridge for two to three hours,

setting time, and out there should be the finished one.

-Should be.

-Right, chef.

Thank you.

There should be trumpets.

There should be a fanfare.

-I'll put it there.

-I am so excited.

This...

You don't see stuff like this any more and it's a shame

because it's absolutely gorgeous. Ready?

Yeah.

Oh, look at that!

-It looks too perfect to cut.

-It does.

Oh, no, it doesn't! Come on.

Don't make too much of a meal of it.

So we just want to cut through that fruit as well.

Here we go. Look at this, ready?

Yeah.

Straight out like that. Oh, yes!

Look at that!

Go for it, let's try it.

This lovely cream mixture with some of that fruit.

Yeah.

It's surprising. It is very light, isn't it?

It's incredibly exotic, isn't it?

Yeah, absolutely delicious.

We're going to have to wrap it up. That's all from Royal Banquets.

See you next time.