Great British Bounty Royal Recipes

Hello, I'm Michael Beurk.

Welcome to a brand-new series of Royal Recipes.

This time, we're at Westonbirt House, formerly a grand country house,

now a boarding school which has played host to royal visitors

for over 100 years.

In this series, we're delving even further back in time to reveal over

600 years of royal food heritage.

You play Anne Boleyn.

And I will play Henry VIII.

And we've been busy unlocking the secrets of Britain's great food

archives, discovering rare and

unseen recipes that have been royal

favourites through the ages...

..from the earliest royal cookbook in 1390...

It's so precious, so special, that I'm not allowed to touch it.

..to Tudor treats from the court of Henry VIII.

I can't wait for this! One, two, three.

We'll be exploring the great culinary traditions enjoyed by the

royal family, from the grand to the ground-breaking,

as well as the surprisingly simple...

I did think that was going to be a disaster.

..as we hear from a host of royal chefs...

Prince Philip would walk past or pop his head in and say,

"What's for dinner? What we having?"

Oh, yeah. It's not just a normal kitchen.

..and meet the people who provide for the royal table.

If it's OK for the Queen, it's OK for everyone.

Welcome to Royal Recipes.

Today, we're sampling Britain's bounty and investigating the royal

appetite for the best that this country has to offer.

Coming up on Royal Recipes...

Look at that! It's a still life you've done there.

..Chef Paul Ainsworth recreates an ancient meat feast.

I'm about to take a bite out of the 14th century.

Yes, you literally are.

And we explore the fruits of the earth, from the regally opulent...

They're really expensive, aren't they?

They are. One about that size is about £95.

MICHAEL LAUGHS

..to the utterly oddball.

We have one recipe for one broth.

"Cut off their heads and tails, and then slit the worms with a bodkin."

Maybe it's really nice!

I'm here in the Royal Recipes kitchen with Michelin-starred chef

Paul Ainsworth. What are you doing?

Today, Michael, we're doing a roast saddle of venison.

-So how are you going to do it?

-This recipe calls for the venison to be

basically boned and rolled.

Now, you have to leave the sinew on.

For me, if I was doing the venison,

I would trim all of this off and serve two separate pieces of saddle.

But this is what they did in olden times?

Absolutely. First of all, we're going to give it a good season all over.

-Really, really important.

-Mmm-hmm.

And we go straight into this hot pan.

OK. Bit of butter?

Bit of butter. Garlic, crushed.

Juniper, just crushed.

-Ooh! Wow!

-So what we're doing with it, we're flavouring our butter, OK?

-Yeah.

-Some thyme.

-Yeah.

Like so.

And some rosemary.

And basically, we want our pan nice and hot, like that,

and we're going to caramelise it all over.

-You can't just be doing the venison.

-No.

What are you going to do with it?

So, back in the medieval times, they had a thing called frumenty.

-frumenty?

-frumenty. And what that was was basically like a kind of

savoury, sweet sort of porridge.

This is a really historic dish because it actually comes from the

oldest cookbook in English in the world, dating back to 1390.

It's called The Form Of Cury,

which is medieval French for "method of cooking".

-Yeah.

-It was compiled by the master chef to Richard II,

and it's not a book, it's a scroll,

and it's in the British Library under lock and key,

but we've been lucky enough to have a look at it.

-"frumenty with porpoise."

-With porpoise?

-Yeah.

-Not venison?

-No, not...!

OK, so how does it work?

-Well...

-How does this frumenty work apart from being a porridge?

Right. So what we have here is a very old-fashioned grain, cracked wheat.

-Yeah.

-We then soak that overnight.

-Needs time?

-Needs time.

-OK.

-So that now is going to absorb this, which is milk,

and it's a lot of it, Michael.

-Ooh, yeah!

-Now, also, what they would have,

they would have meat days and meatless days.

So if they were having a meatless day,

they would do it completely with milk, and a meat day, they'd use their venison sauce.

We're going to do both.

-OK.

-So just like porridge, bit different to risotto,

you add all the liquid at once and then let it cook and absorb.

-Yeah.

-So we're going to add in a little bit of that lovely venison

stock and, while it's cooking as well, we're going to add in this mixed dried fruit.

And that would go straight on the stove,

and you'd cook that out for about half an hour until you sort of get

this lovely sort of porridge consistency.

So the idea of what we're going for

-is a bit like this over here, Michael.

-Yeah.

So what we're going to do now,

if you could just pop that into the oven for me.

-OK.

-All right? It's a beautiful roasted saddle of venison.

-It's a lovely bit of meat, isn't it?

-Beautifully caramelised.

-OK?

-OK.

-So that's that.

OK. I'll take it off to the oven.

Thank you very much.

So, Michael, if you could put that in the oven, please, at 180 for about 20 minutes.

Only 20 minutes?

Yes. Remember, it's the fillet.

OK. Might I find something out here?

PAUL LAUGHS

Would I ever disappoint you?

MICHAEL LAUGHS

It was a rhetorical question, actually. Here we go.

-Here it is.

-Smells good.

-It does, doesn't it?

-Yes.

-There we go.

-So, like always, a good, good rest.

-Mmm-hmm.

Right, that's going to move over here,

and now we're going to bring our cooked frumenty onto the stove.

Now, we're going to add some other ingredients to it that's just going

to kind of all do their little job.

Firstly, egg yolk.

-OK. Just one?

-Just one.

Beautiful orange egg yolk.

Next, some cinnamon.

Then, after that, a pinch of salt.

And this bit is now down to taste.

Just a little spoonful of honey.

It was a favourite of Richard II.

-So it must be good!

-Yeah, he had a very eventful life, you know?

He came to the throne at the age of ten.

-Really?!

-And then, four years later, there was the Peasants' Revolt,

and the poor devil had to hide in the Tower of London.

Right. So next...

-Chives?

-Chop our chives.

So we're going to put these chives and some fresh flat-leaf parsley

through our frumenty.

And medieval people weren't that hot on vegetables, were they?

No, no, not back then.

-Or, the rich people...

-Yeah.

..kind of rather showed off they were rich by not having vegetables, by...

-Put the two together, like so.

-..having lots of meat.

Now just bring off.

-Now, you see that egg yolk?

-Yeah.

It just stirs in, gives it a bit of colour.

And it is like risotto.

-Yeah.

-Right. Over here, we have our sauce...

..and we're also going to have another tiny little bit of sweetness

from our sauce, so we're going to add in

a little bit of redcurrant jelly, which also works very well.

-That's also very traditional with venison, isn't it?

-Very traditional. And a little bit of butter.

So I suppose, in a sense, even these days,

classic venison dishes do have sweetness with them, don't they?

-Yeah, they do.

-Yeah.

So we're just going to finish our sauce here, like so.

And we're just going to literally

whisk in that butter and that redcurrant jelly.

And we're pretty much ready to go.

-Are you nearly there? Ready to plate?

-Yeah, absolutely.

And now we're just going to carve this venison.

So we'll go straight into the middle, like so.

Oh, gosh! That does look nice when you cut it.

PAUL LAUGHS

-Going to, we'll take a couple of slices.

-Yeah.

Then we'll come back to that, now. So we'll just leave that there, like so.

Take some of this frumenty.

Now, how are you going to serve it?

-I'm just going to serve it pretty much like a risotto.

-Mmm!

-Like that.

Smell that honey!

It is amazing, this dish.

It was the dish of kings in medieval times, yet, by the 19th century,

the frumenty was being served

in workhouses for the poor, do you know?

-Really?

-Yeah, yeah.

-Yeah.

Talk about a trajectory for a dish, you know,

kings at one end and the workhouse at the other end,

and now nobody serves it at all.

So I've just put, on top of there, Michael...

-Yeah, what's that?

-Some thyme.

-Yeah.

-..which will go really, really nice with the venison.

And then that wonderful, rich, venison gravy.

-Over the meat?

-Just going to put it over the meat, like that.

-Now...

-I'm about to take a bite out of the 14th century...

Yes, you literally are.

-..thanks to the British Library...

-Yeah.

-..and that old, royal cookbook.

There we go.

Mmm.

Love the meat.

-Love the flavours in the frumenty.

-Mmm.

They go together better than I thought.

-Yeah.

-What do YOU think,

-which is more to the point?

-I actually quite like it.

I like that sort of rehydrated fruit from the raisins.

It's got that kind of porridge-y texture but, in my mind,

I keep telling myself it's like another form of risotto,

and I think that it doesn't need that lump of venison on top.

Maybe tastes will come round to this again, because the ingredients are

great and some of the tastes in there are great, but, anyway,

Richard II liked it, so who are we to...

-Yeah, who are we?

-Us commoners!

We shouldn't quibble.

Royal recipes from the Middle Ages may not always chime with

21st century tastes, but there's one flavour that's never gone out of fashion.

We've been seasoning our meals with salt for millennia, and the UK

produces one of the world's most celebrated kinds of salt,

one with a very special royal connection.

The Queen and her family take great pride in eating British food,

so what could be more natural than sprinkling their meals with salt

harvested from the Essex coastline?

The abolition of the salt tax in 1825 was the ruin of most salt makers,

but the Maldon Salt Company survived and thrived.

Clive Osborne is the fourth generation at this traditional,

family-run business.

Every two weeks, two or three days after a full moon and a new moon,

you get what are called the spring tide, so that's the highest tides,

and they cover all the marshes.

When the tide goes out,

droplets of water are left on the marshes and a certain amount of

evaporation will take place.

When the tide comes back in again,

it picks this extra salt that has

got left on the marshes and then that makes the water that much...

So this is probably one of the saltiest rivers in the country.

The high salt content created by the tide means it's the perfect time to

collect the water.

The company then use time-honoured methods passed

down through the centuries to extract the salt.

We take in the water into big plastic tanks, the water is then

filtered, then we bring the whole water up to boiling point.

The idea of that is, any impurities or magnesium salts that form on the

surface of the water, just as in beer-making or jam-making,

they are taken off, and the water is then kept at a constant temperature

to get down to a saturated solution.

Once you get down to a saturated solution,

the crystals of salt start to form

and the crystals then float down to

the bottom of the pan.

The water is left overnight while the crystals continue to form.

The next day, they're ready to be collected.

Salt has always played an important part in royal occasions.

As late as the 18th century,

a guest's rank was gauged by where he sat in relation to it.

Distinguished visitors would sit above the salt at the head of the

table, while those who sat below it were of little consequence.

This process is called drawing the salt pans,

which means physically raking, or harvesting,

the salt from the previous day's make.

This salt here has been making for the last 24 hours,

right through the night.

We are making seven days a week, 24/7.

By 1900, the company was beginning to make a name for itself and orders

arrived from stores that already supplied the royals with produce,

including Harrods and Fortnum and Mason.

Success soon followed,

and in 2010 this was cemented when they received an exalted visitor.

The Queen came and visited us, which was a very special occasion.

She met all the members of the family and then my son, Steve, showed her round.

And the one thing that...

..did seem to impress her was the fact that it was still a family-run business.

Subsequently, since then, we have received the royal warrant,

which we're very, very honoured to have.

Each salt maker is responsible for

two or three of their own salt pans.

It's a great environment to work in...

..and, in fact, Gary would obviously say, he's never ill

because, what with the salt in the atmosphere,

nobody seems to suffer from any coughs or colds.

-Isn't that right, Gary?

-Yeah, 25 years without a single day off.

After it's been drained for 24, 48 hours,

it goes into the drying machine here,

gently vibrating it so we don't break down the crystals, and warm

air's passed over it to dry it out,

and then it goes straight up the

elevator into a bag there.

And that is the finished product.

For the Queen's Silver Jubilee,

I went up to Buckingham Palace and presented a case of salt,

not personally to the Queen. But I remember it quite well because, getting to

Buckingham Palace and the gates there, and I'm thinking, "I've got this box of salt, where do I go?"

And I was quite, quite nervous and worried about that.

It's a soft, flaky crystal that can easily be crushed and there's no

bitter aftertaste to it.

Created by the ebb and flow of the tide and harvested using traditional

methods, this is Great British bounty at its very best.

But salt is more than a condiment.

It's also a key ingredient in a

long, long line of royal recipes.

This is Beef A La Royale.

This is the dish that was served at the coronation of James II, all the

way back in 1685 -

Beef A La Royale.

It's a fillet, it's the most expensive cut of beef.

Most expensive cut of beef.

We've got a lovely fillet here,

so you can see on the side they've got that marbling happening.

So we're just going to take some of that salt, all right,

and just season them very, very liberally over the top.

It's a dense piece of meat, so you want to get that seasoning all over.

Very, very important so you get that flavour right at the beginning.

-So, really, really hot pan.

-It certainly is.

Now, the reason we want that pan really, really hot is because we want to get a crust on our beef.

-Yeah.

-That, Michael, is so important.

None of this shaking the pan or moving it around.

Every time you move the pan, you lose heat.

-Yeah.

-And when you lose heat, you're not frying, and then, before you know it,

you're going to be stewing, boiling, all right?

We want to roast.

Yes, beautiful!

-Wow, that is a hot pan.

-See that lovely colour that we've got happening there?

This recipe is a recipe from a very famous royal chef

called Patrick Lamb...

-Right.

-..who was chef to four monarchs - Charles II, James II,

King William and Queen Mary and Queen Anne.

For nearly 50 years he was a royal chef.

-Interesting that he's English, Patrick Lamb...

-Yeah.

-..because

nearly all the royal chefs, right up almost to the

-modern day...

-French?

-..were French.

-Yeah.

-But he wasn't.

-Look at that.

-Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

-OK?

-Yep.

Caramelised. That is what we're looking for.

Now, sweetbreads.

These are veal sweetbreads.

-These will come from the heart gland.

-Right, right.

They are delicious, one of my favourite ingredients.

Now we add in the butter.

So, turn the heat up nice, like so,

and keep turning our beef.

The beef will not take long to cook at all.

And we'll keep moving our sweetbreads, keep moving our beef.

-Right, next, I'm going to add in a clove of garlic.

-Yeah.

And to them we're going to add some thyme. I'm just going to bruise it a little bit, like so, OK,

and into the pan. Stand back, cos it will pop.

All right? Look at that.

Absolutely amazing.

Michael, I've just taken our beef out, resting.

-Yeah.

-Now, look at these sweetbreads, how crispy they are.

-That garlic and thyme's infused into the butter.

-Yeah.

Now we're just going to also rest our sweetbreads, and while we're

resting it, Michael, with each time we're going to turn it, to let the

juices run up and down, up and down like that.

Fantastic. The interesting thing is, you know,

that that is just one dish for this coronation banquet,

and out of Patrick Lamb's cookbook,

we've actually got how the banqueting table, look, was set out.

-Look at that.

-1,145 dishes were laid out.

The banquet was held in Westminster Hall, not Banqueting Hall,

because Banqueting Hall, of course, was where James II's father had his head chopped off...

-Yeah.

-..earlier in the century.

But look at all these dishes.

And there, Beef...

BOTH: A La Royale.

-Now, where are we?

-Right,

-we're just going to take our beef over here to the back.

-Yeah.

And at this point of the dish, now it's nice, we're relaxed.

It's lovely. We're just now going to do our vegetable...

-Yep.

-..and then we're, kind of, going to plate up.

This is interesting cos he's got another one.

In his cookbook he's got another A La Royale,

but it's venison. "Venison A La Royale in blood.

"Half roast it, then stew it.

"Make a ragout to it of cucumber, sweetbreads, asparagus."

Would you call this a ragout?

Definitely. For me, a ragout is something in a really nice stock or

a nice buttery stock or sauce, or something quite meaty.

-Yeah.

-What we're going to have here is a vegetable ragout,

-very similar to this one.

-Yeah.

-The only thing that we're doing different is we've substituted the cucumber for a courgette.

-Right.

-Now, over here, Michael...

-What you got over there?

-I've got what we call an emulsion.

So all that is is just water, OK,

butter, and what we're going to do is add in some seasoning.

So what will happen is, that will season the vegetables straight away.

-Some cracked pepper going in.

-Mmm-hmm.

OK? Back on the heat.

-Right, peas.

-Yep.

Like that, OK?

-Some asparagus.

-Lovely asparagus.

-Asparagus in.

So the thing about these vegetables, Michael, is courgette,

peas and asparagus can be eaten raw.

-Just always bear that in mind when you're cooking them.

-Yeah.

-So don't overcook them.

-Yeah.

All right? Literally, we're just putting that butter,

that seasoning's coating them all,

and the steam will just go through the vegetable lovely.

So don't hammer them on the stove.

-Lemon zest.

-Yep.

-Parsley.

-It looks wonderful, by the way.

The greens and everything are just fantastic.

-Forget the steak!

-Yeah!

-Now, we're not going to go back on the heat.

-No.

Just going to put that over there. We're done.

We're going to take one of our steaks over here.

Whoa! Whoa!

Oh, that looks great.

OK? Look at that, Michael.

I'm going to do more than look at it, I can tell you!

PAUL LAUGHS

-A little bit more salt in there, like so.

-Yeah.

Now, little thing that we want to do...

-Oh, you've got all that juice that's run out of it.

-We've got all of that lovely juice.

We don't want to waste that.

-No.

-We want to rub our beef back through it.

-Oh, wow.

-That is just flavour.

-Yep.

-So, that goes over there.

-OK.

-Over here we've got our sauce.

-So we've taken some of the beef trimming.

-Yeah.

-All right?

Roasted it down with some shallots, reduced some red wine through it,

beef stock, then we sieve it off...

-..and we're left with beautiful reduced beef stock.

-Oh!

-OK,

which is our gravy, our sauce.

-Yep.

-Some of that parsley I chopped through the ragout earlier,

I've also deep-fried, and crisp parsley is absolutely delicious.

I'm just going to...

..just show you the middle of

our sweetbread - beautifully cooked, like that.

-Yeah.

-Again, through those beautiful beef juices.

I'm looking forward to this.

-Looks absolutely wonderful, doesn't it?

-It does, doesn't it? It does.

Look at that. It's a still life you've done there, an absolute still life.

-Oh!

-There's our beef.

-Oh!

-And we've still got the truffle.

-We want it thin.

Truffle, thick...

..you don't appreciate it, because what you want,

and the reason for doing it,

is you want the warmth of the dish to kind of almost just lightly cook

-the truffle...

-Yeah.

-..like that.

-They're really expensive, aren't they, truffles?

-They are, they are.

One about that size is about £95.

MICHAEL LAUGHS

-That's more expensive than the fillet.

-It is!

Now, I'm just going to finish with nice bits of crisp...

..deep-fried flat-leaf parsley.

-Look at that.

-And that there...

-Look at that!

Beef A La Royale.

Marvellous. Makes me feel almost guilty to spoil your work of art.

-Almost!

-Almost!

-Almost guilty!

-Here you are.

-Thank you very much.

-Michael, please.

-You sure?

That is proper, proper food.

Oh!

Oh, that is fantastic.

And, to think...

..this was only one of 1,145 dishes.

It's absolutely incredible to think that.

Expensive, extravagant, exquisite.

The coronation of James II was obviously a lavish affair.

But he wasn't alone in enjoying the fruits of the land.

Over the centuries, our royals have always relished the very best of

what this country has to offer.

Few of their subjects were quite so lucky.

Glamis Castle was the childhood home of the Queen Mother,

but 300 years before her time,

meals for the servants were somewhat different from what was laid on for royal visitors.

Set in the lush Arran landscape,

Glamis had belonged to the Scottish Crown for centuries.

It was originally a hunting lodge for the kings of Scotland, and the

people here have always lived on the bounty of the surrounding land.

Dr Matt Green met castle manager Tommy Baxter to find out more.

This was one of the main hunting grounds of the ancient kings of Scotland.

What would they have been hunting, exactly?

Wild boar, bears, of course, wolves,

and generally anything that moved.

It feels to me like this would be a perfect hunting ground for the royal family.

Do they ever come and hunt here?

The present royal family, no, but

in the time of the likes of George V,

George VI, yes, they did.

The current royal family has close ties to Glamis.

It was the childhood home of Elizabeth, the Queen Mother,

the daughter of Cecilia Bowes-Lyon and her husband, Claude,

the 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorn.

The castle has been in her family since the 14th century.

Do you feel a sense of history?

Oh, you can't come through those

gates without that sense of coming somewhere...coming into something very, very special.

You can feel, I always describe it as 1,000 years of history.

This whole area was perfect hunting ground.

The Queen Mother would often have hunting parties here on this 14,000-acre estate.

Her family was reliant on the bounty of the land.

They ate the game that was hunted,

along with fruit and vegetables grown in their very own kitchen garden and greenhouses.

What about dairy? Is there a dairy at all on the estate?

There was a dairy, where the Queen learned to churn butter.

-The Queen learned to churn butter in that very dairy?

-Absolutely, in that very dairy.

Amazing. Does she still make butter?

Not a clue, but she must have had some wonderful holidays here!

MATT LAUGHS

Once the food of the land had been harvested,

it had to be cooked, and the Strathmore family had a team of

chefs that came up with elaborate and inventive recipes.

Valuable records of the dishes are now kept under the watchful eye of

the estate's archivist, Ingrid Thompson.

-So, tell me about the collection that you keep here.

-They date back to the 12th century.

We have factors' account books, we have diaries,

accounts, correspondence,

all sorts of records.

-Do you know where everything is, or...?

-No!

-No.

And there's, I imagine, sort of, meticulous accounts of royal visits,

and there was one, wasn't there, in 1562 that was particularly notable?

Glamis had a visit on the 22nd August 1562 by Mary Queen of Scots,

on her way up north to quell a rebellion.

Cecilia Bowes-Lyon, the Queen Mother's mother,

found a number of historic documents in the castle,

even a note of what Mary Queen of Scots ate when she visited.

So, we've got a kind of range of food here.

-It's all in French.

-Yeah.

I spy here "trois gibiers", which means three different types of game,

and in many ways this makes sense, because it was a hunting ground -

-they could have gone out and hunted the...

-Absolutely, yes.

-..birds or the animals.

Any idea what kind of game that would have been?

Well, we don't know for sure, but it could have been partridges,

pheasants, swan, even.

Do we have any sense of what the people downstairs, the servants, would have been eating?

Well, we do have a menu book for 1866,

which was during the 13th Earl's time.

I mean, you can see there's a lot of, sort of, hearty meals for the servants.

"Roast mutton, Irish stew,

-"boiled beef."

-Mmm-hmm.

-Um...

-So actually, they didn't eat too badly. I mean...

-No.

-..this is quite hearty fare.

-Yes.

-It's not just they're getting scraps.

-I suppose they needed the energy cos they were going to be on their feet all day.

-Yes.

It would be a long day, yes.

These are the game books which recorded all the game that was hunted on the estate.

But there's so much more than that because they include

photographs and illustrations and all sorts of things.

And here we have the late Queen Mother's father and grandfather.

-OK.

-Yes.

-And they were keen hunters, were they?

Absolutely, yes, the whole family did.

And on occasion, the Queen Mother also went out sometimes.

-Did she?

-Yes, and she even went fishing, as well.

Are all these books culinary, or are there other types of recipe contained, as well?

They're a mixture of culinary and medicinal.

And are there any particularly gruesome remedies?

Well, we have one recipe for worm broth dating from the 17th century

to the early 18th century,

which I think was a bit, sounds like it was a bit of a tonic because it

was taken, to be taken in the morning and the evening.

So you take about 50 garden worms,

which you must cut off the heads and tails of them and then slit the

worms with a bodkin.

"And wash them very clean in many waters,

"but scour them first with salt,

"then put them in after the meat has been boiled and scummed, and let them

"boil from seven in the morning till ten at night."

-Maybe it's really nice.

-It would be wonderful to have it re-enacted, actually.

-It would, yeah.

-Yes.

-As long as I didn't have to eat it, but...!

-Yes, exactly.

THEY LAUGH

Call me fussy, Paul...

PAUL LAUGHS

..but I don't go for worm soup.

I draw the line. How would you cope?

Like I always do, I'm game for anything, Michael.

-You'd grit your teeth?

-I'd grit my teeth.

Grit my teeth and do it for England!

MICHAEL LAUGHS

But actually, seriously, we eat stuff and consider it a luxury,

that some people think, "Oh, God, I couldn't have that." Caviar, for instance.

-Totally agree.

-Yeah, which is the fish eggs from sturgeon...

-Yeah.

..which is a fish that's reserved...

You know, for, not the caviar, but the fish itself, the sturgeon's reserved for the royal family.

-Royal family.

-If you catch one, you have to offer it to the Queen.

-Yeah.

-I've had one off Cardiff once, you know?

-Did you?

PAUL LAUGHS

Caught off Cardiff, offered it to the Queen, she didn't want it, I had it. Not bad, eh?

The chefs that cater for those state banquets are really at the top of

their game, and for chefs who aren't part of the royal household,

being asked to cook for the royals is a real honour.

Galton Blackiston prepared a meal for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge

at a royal charity event in the summer of 2016.

The theme of the evening was local British bounty.

Michelin-starred Galton shares a passion for local produce with the

royals, so when it came to cooking for them, he wanted to use an

ingredient that's abundant in his native Norfolk - samphire.

It grows in coastal marshes all around the UK, but can only be

picked on land that is not protected.

Known as "samfer" around Norfolk,

its salty freshness goes beautifully with fish.

So, what I'm cooking today is pan-fried wild sea bass, served with

buttered samfer and a champagne and caviar sauce.

So, the first thing we have to do is to make the sauce.

We're going to add a little bit of butter,

then we're going to add some chopped shallots,

mushrooms and carrot, and sweat that

down over a moderate heat until they soften.

The charity dinner was in aid of East Anglian Children's Hospices,

which is a charity which I'd known about for some time.

Galton was approached to organise this charity dinner and asked four

of his friends, who also happen to be Michelin-starred chefs, to help out.

Looking back on it, I'm extraordinarily proud of the night,

the event, the organisation, everything to do with it.

It was an extraordinary evening which raised an awful lot of money.

So we now add sliced button mushrooms.

The vegetables have all sweated off now and now I'm quite happy to add

the luxury ingredient, well, one of the luxury ingredients,

which is the champagne.

I have to say, this is not an everyday sauce.

You wouldn't be making this for your mother-in-law on a Sunday lunchtime!

HE LAUGHS

Save a little bit for later.

Not for me, for the sauce!

So now I'm going to reduce this down

till it almost becomes syrupy.

Because it takes a little bit of time for the champagne to reduce,

I'll now fillet the wild bass.

Part of the ethos of the dinner was the fact that, wherever possible,

we wanted to use local and seasonal produce.

Sea bass does need to be sustainably sourced.

It's one of the very, very protected fish of our waters at the moment.

Now the champagne has reduced down enough.

At this stage we add fish stock.

Galton also pours in a generous quantity of cream.

Let the cream reduce a little bit into the sauce.

The next stage is to strain this sauce...

..through a very fine sieve called a chinois.

And for an awful lot of effort, you don't get an awful lot of sauce!

The evening was for 96 guests, and you've got to get it right -

you're cooking for royalty.

I always use sea salt when I'm seasoning.

A little bit of pepper.

Generally use a white pepper when you're seasoning fish.

I'm going to show you a tip here.

If you're using one of your pans from home and it's not the newest

and cleanest, then what I do is cook the fish on a little square of grease-proof paper.

Whilst the sea bass is still cooking, we're going to cook the

samfer, which has been washed.

So into a pan of simmering water, a little bit of sugar in there, I put.

Just a touch to counteract some of the salt.

Give it 30 seconds...

..and then add the sea aster.

Don't cook it too long, cos otherwise you lose that vibrancy of colour.

Straight back into a pan and add...

..a generous knob of butter.

The royals are seen a lot around the coast,

so I thought this was an absolute, you know,

no-brainer - they were going to like this fish and the sauce and the samfer.

So, we're nearly ready to serve.

Little bit of champagne just to liven the sauce back up again.

A good knob of butter, swirl that around.

And then, just as we're ready to serve now,

the caviar actually brings that last bit of magic to the sauce.

There's nothing finer.

All that's left is to plate up the dish.

There we have it.

Pan-fried wild sea bass on buttered samfer

with a champagne and caviar sauce.

Simple, tasty, local ingredients

with a luxurious twist.

It's the essence of a royal British banquet.

A lovely fish dish like that needs a delicious pudding to follow.

So what are you going to do for us?

I've got just the ticket - Apple Charlotte.

-Apple Charlotte! With royal connections, because...

-With royal connections.

..because this was named after Queen Charlotte,

who was the wife of King George III.

-Right.

-So, how does it start?

-This is a proper classic Charlotte, Michael,

and what we're going to do this is line this steam pudding bowl.

We've brushed it with butter and then all we've done is taken some

sugar, poured it in the bottom, twist it round till all the sugar

-sticks to the butter.

-Yeah.

And what that does is, creates a beautiful caramel crust

going right the way round the outside.

We've lined it with bread.

Basically, the juices of the apple are going to soak into the bread.

So I'm just taking the crusts off,

and the reason I'm taking the crusts off, Michael,

is because when you roll it, if the crusts are on,

it won't roll flat.

-And it's very easy to roll.

-Yeah.

Charlottes are so versatile because

you can use so many fruits.

When you've got your red soft fruit seasoning, great.

Apples, apricots...

Ah, you're spreading it out quite a bit there.

-Absolutely, yeah.

-Why do you need to roll it?

Basically, to get it nice and thin, and it'll actually give it texture

cos you're compressing the bread.

OK. I'd be inclined just to kind of throw it in and just generally squidge it round.

Right, there we have it.

So we've now lined our Charlotte.

Now, while that's been happening, I've just had my pan with a low heat.

-Yeah.

-I'm just going to add into there, sugar.

Now, this is called a direct caramel, Michael.

And what that means is, we're not going to add any water in there.

We're just going to go direct sugar into the pan, turn the heat up

-like so...

-Yeah.

-..and what's going to happen is,

the sugar is slowly going to start to cook and caramelise.

Right, now we're going to do some apples,

which if you could help me with, that would be great.

I could certainly do that. Apples, we're famous in this country for our apples.

-We are.

-We make the best cooking apple in the world.

-We do.

-The Bramley.

And I know a lot about the Bramley.

The original pip, 1809, Southwell, Nottinghamshire.

-Yes, yes.

-And there was little girl called Maryanne Brailsford who

-spotted this and grew the tree.

-Yeah.

A butcher owned the garden with this marvellous Bramley apple tree and

his name was Bramley, which is why

-it's called a Bramley apple tree.

-Tree.

And that tree only recently died, and Prince Charles had actually got

a clone of the tree in his orchard at Highgrove.

So, that is the finest cooking apple in the world, the Bramley.

-The Bramley.

-What are you making it with?

-A New Zealand Braeburn!

MICHAEL LAUGHS

Actually, we grow Braeburns in this country.

-In Kent, I think.

-In Kent, yes.

The reason we're using this style of apple is that when it cooks,

it cooks through, so it's nice and soft, but it doesn't break up.

If we were to use Bramley,

that would all go to mush and sauce, and when you turn your Charlotte

out, there would be no structure to it, it would just go...

-Yeah.

-..like that. So that's why we're using this style of apple.

So, have a look at our sugar here, Michael.

-Yeah, yeah.

-So we're just starting to caramelise now.

-There's no danger that will burn?

-There is, there is.

And I must point out, be very, very

careful at this stage, OK?

-Really, really hot.

-Very hot.

-So, please

be careful when you're doing this.

-Yeah, you wouldn't want to scold yourself with that. Cos of the heat...

-So now our sugar's melted.

-..that's actually in there.

-We're going to turn the heat down, like so.

And now we're going to add in the butter.

It's smoking a bit, look. Is that all right?

That's absolutely fine.

So, now disperse that butter, and now you can cool it.

-Yeah.

-Look at that. Do you know what I'm going to do?

I'm going to add in some thyme.

-Thyme?!

-Goes delicious with apples, apple and thyme.

-Oh.

-Absolutely delicious.

And we're going to add a little bit of salt, Michael.

OK? Now with these apples I'm just going to core them like that.

We have so many wonderful varieties, in this country, of apple.

Now, Michael, all I'm doing... I've just, I've cut them into four.

So each half into four, cos you want to keep this nice and chunky.

Now, we go back on,

turn that heat up and we're going just going to cook it down a bit.

I mean, that there is, for me, is beautiful.

-Absolutely beautiful.

-It's certainly smelling terrific.

Now just while we're cooking those apples,

we're going to make a lovely,

beautiful, rich custard. Right.

Also a traditional...

..British thing, isn't it? I mean,

even the French call custard "sauce anglaise", don't they?

-Yes, absolutely.

-In fact, you probably do in your poncey kitchen.

-Now, look at that, Michael.

-It's still pretty chunky.

-Yeah.

-You're not, kind of...

No, because the oven's got to do its job yet.

But, I mean, look how the thyme's gone on all those apples,

absolutely delicious.

-Beautiful colour.

-And simply load it in, everything.

-Doesn't that look great?

-Yep.

-OK, so that's like that...

Are we going to take the thyme off, shall we?

-Take the thyme off.

-Thyme off!

Ooh, ah!

Now, just fold it over, like so.

It's not going to meet, though, is it?

Have you got enough of the...? Ah, you've got...

Yeah, we've got another... Like that. Ah!

Now fold it in. If you could just

-get me a piece of tinfoil, please, Michael.

-Yep, here we go.

Like that.

Now, this is the important bit.

-You see this?

-Yeah.

Right. Really push it down, like so.

And the tin foil's going to help.

Right, take a sheet off, like so.

I'll put this back.

So get that tinfoil, Michael, nice and

firm all the way around, pat down.

-Yep.

-In the tray there.

Now, if you could pop that in the oven for me, please.

180 for 30 minutes.

-Medium heat.

-Medium heat.

-Half an hour. Yeah.

-Thank you very much.

Here we go.

Where would you like it?

There would be absolutely perfect.

-Ta-ra!

-Now, our milk and our vanilla has come up to the boil.

Just have a smell in there.

-Oh!

-It's lovely, isn't it?

-There's a particular custard smell, isn't there?

-Oh, it's fantastic.

Takes you back to your childhood, doesn't it?

Now, I've left the pod in there as well.

-We're going to take some sugar...

-Mmm-hmm.

This is classic custard, is it?

-Classic custard. And two egg yolks.

-Yeah.

-Whisk this together...

-Yeah.

..and what we're doing, basically,

is we're dissolving the sugar into the egg yolks and we just want to

basically whisk it until it starts to go quite pale.

Yep, and it's caster sugar, is it?

-That is just caster sugar and egg yolks.

-Yeah, yeah.

And what we're going to do, that's now come to be boil,

we're going to pour this over our egg and sugar mixture...

Yep.

-..like so.

-Yeah.

-Stirring it all the time.

-Stirring at all the time.

Now, don't worry, cos all of this vanilla here,

we're not going to waste that,

because we're going to go straight back in.

And what we're going to do, we're just going to basically whisk this

until it starts to thicken.

You can just see now. See how it's thickening?

-Is it thickening up?

-Look at that.

-Oh, yeah.

-I keep moving it.

-If you don't, the egg will basically cook...

-Cook.

..cook in it, and it will go all lumpy and horrible.

-Look at that.

-Oh, you surely haven't got any lumps in it...

-No, no.

..that you need to strain out.

Course I don't. Just to get rid of my vanilla pod, Michael.

You could have just picked it out.

-Right, and now we're ready to plate.

-Excellent.

-Moment of truth.

Here we go. So, off with the tinfoil.

PAUL LAUGHS

-If that's the bottom, what does the top look like?

-Well, exactly.

-So...

-So...

Now, over, like so.

-I always think, "Is it going to come out cleanly?"

-OK?

-Like that.

-Yeah.

-Abracadabra.

-Yeah.

-Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah...

Ooh!

My word, that really does look good, doesn't it?

That looks the business, doesn't it?

-It does, doesn't it?

-And all that needs now...

-Is it custard over the top?

-..is a bit of custard.

To me... Do you know what? Cos it's so beautifully caramelised,

just on the side like that.

-You're not going to douse it all over.

-No.

You're not going to cover those rich, brown, shiny...

I don't want to ruin that lovely caramel flavour.

-Apple Charlotte.

-Wow!

-Tuck in.

-That does look good, doesn't it?

-It does.

-Let me just, I want to just...

-What are you going to do?

-I'm dying to see what's in the middle.

Well, apple, hopefully!

BOTH LAUGH

Well, if a rabbit jumps out, we really will be

-up a gum tree, won't we?

-Yeah.

-Ooh!

-Look at it.

-There you go.

-That looks tremendous. There you go, there's yours. OK.

Mmm!

Well, that is nice, isn't it?

-It is, isn't it?

-The kind of toffee, almost toffee and the wonderful

"sauce anglaise", custard.

PAUL LAUGHS

This is lovely.

We don't know if Queen Charlotte actually ever

tried this dish that was named after her,

cos the first record of it is in the 1790s.

It was actually invented by Marie-Antoine Careme,

-you know, the famous royal chef...

-Mmm. Yeah.

..for the Prince Regent, and named in honour of his mother.

So, who knows? I'm just going to have another quick piece here.

Marie-Antoine Careme, Paul Ainsworth, a kind of royal line of succession,

I would say, as far as this wonderful pudding's concerned.

Thank you very much.

Join us next time for more Royal Recipes.