20/11/2016 Saturday Kitchen Best Bites

Good morning, I'm Matt Tebbutt and welcome to this week's helping of Saturday Kitchen Best Bites.

We have a galaxy of Michelin starred chefs cooking up some delicious autumnal fare this morning.

Please, curl up on the sofa,

get cosy and enjoy today's seriously sumptuous menu.

Welcome to the show.

Don't go anywhere because I have some of the country's top chefs

cooking mind-blowing food for a whole host of stars

who have their knives and forks at the ready.

Coming up on the show today...

James Martin bakes some divine dark cherry and hazelnut biscotti

for the glorious Gloria Hunniford.

Vivek Singh, who serves some of the best Indian food, celebrates

Saturday Kitchen's 200th anniversary by cooking in a tandoor.

He whips up a spectacular tandoori breast of pigeon

served with black lentils and salad.

Chris Evans and Daniel Galmiche get roped in to help make some

fresh naan bread too.

Watch out for the burnt arm hairs all round. Hot stuff!

Plus the self-proclaimed prince of Birmingham, Glynn Purnell,

has got a really hearty winter warmer.

He's making a braised elbow of lamb with a spicy red lentil stew

and a parsley and anchovy salad.

Battling it out for omelette challenge glory are Ching He Huang

and Ken Hom, but there's not a wok in sight, much to their dismay.

Then it's over to Angela Hartnett, who will be serving up

a sumptuous cote de boeuf with cavolo nero and a bone marrow gratin.

And finally, comedian Bill Bailey faces his Food Heaven Or Food Hell.

Did he get his Food Heaven - Madras chicken curry with pilau rice?

Or did he end up facing his Food Hell - calves' liver with

sauteed hispi cabbage, creamy mash, crispy onion rings and gravy?

You can find out what he got at the end of the show.

Kicking things off, it's the first chef in Northern Ireland

to get a Michelin star, the fabulous Paul Rankin.

He has a recipe for mouthwatering brill with an awesome Asian twist.

And he throws in an excellent filleting lesson for free.

-Hey...

-Good to see you, Paul. What are we cooking?

Fillet of brill, sesame crust, Asian coleslaw,

soy and mustard vinaigrette, crispy fried egg roll wrap...

-So, we've got a lot to do on this dish.

-Lots to do.

We are going to start by filleting the brill.

Flatfish is really quite an easy fish to fillet, you know.

All we do is... I'm cutting the shapes of the...

There are basically four fillets on a flatfish.

Yeah, you've got two in the front, two in the back.

The ones on the brown side of the fish,

on the dark side of the fish, are going to be thickest ones.

So, those are the ones we're going to use today.

Keep your knife next to the bone and you follow the shapes of

these fillets, yeah.

So, yeah, the coleslaw that we're serving with it -

cabbage, carrot, onion, but it's spring onion we're using,

so it's classic coleslaw ingredients but then,

instead of using mayonnaise, we're going to funk it up a little bit.

It was one of the first dishes I ever cooked in a professional kitchen.

-Coleslaw?

-Well, I didn't cook it, I just chopped everything.

Good old-fashioned coleslaw, was it?

Yeah, it was good old-fashioned stuff.

That's the one you get the staff cook.

And I'm back doing it again, 25 years later!

When you're skinning your fish, what you do is, you hold your

knife quite still and you pull the skin. As easy as that, folks.

It doesn't take...

Really, with filleting you want a sharp knife,

-with taking the skin off, you don't.

-You want it fairly blunt.

The skin on brill is fairly fragile so a sharp knife can go

straight through fairly easily.

I like to trim the fish fillets.

Nice and fine on that.

You can use a grater if you don't have one of those mandolin things.

Yeah.

And there we have some beautiful pieces of brill.

Now, I'm going to do a little sort of sesame crust here.

So, I've got black and white sesame seeds and all we want to do

is mix these up a little bit, yeah?

Right.

You can have as much or as little of this on your fish as you want.

A little bit of salt and pepper going on to the brill.

Now, in your restaurants, where would this dish sort of sit?

-This is like a cafe, brasserie?

-This is like a Cayenne type dish.

Cayenne's my sort of funky kind of restaurant.

Didn't you have a restaurant, sold it and then bought it back,

or something like that?

What it was, Cayenne is now where my old restaurant, Roscoff,

used to be.

Roscoff was that Michelin star restaurant you were talking about earlier.

-We had a Michelin star there for eight years...

-This is in Belfast?

In Belfast, yeah. We used to mix the food.

Sort of classic French and every now and then

some sort of California, Asian stuff because I'd travelled a lot

and I lived in the States as well.

I had all these influences that I used to like to put into my cooking.

Yeah.

And so when I thought, I want to do something different,

I thought, well, I'll go back to my roots and my travelling.

Cayenne is a sort of a product of that, really,

where it was, kind of, the food that I wanted to cook in a way, you know?

OK. So, the fish goes in with the...

You've literally just patted it with two lots of sesame seeds.

In the pan, a little bit of oil?

Little bit of oil, a touch of butter because it helps it brown a little bit.

It's not going to take too long to cook that.

Now, with this slaw our dressing is made of,

-maybe you can stir it together for me, James.

-I'll do that.

We've got about half a tablespoon of rice wine vinegar,

four tablespoons of soy sauce, if you can do that for me.

-Have me do it, then.

-Absolutely.

-OK.

Four of these.

One of the magic ingredients that's going in here that

adds the richness to the slaw is, sort of, chunky peanut butter.

It gives it that lovely Asian kick.

This stuff is wonderful, rice wine vinegar, it's delicious stuff.

Yeah, it's sort of milder than...white wine vinegar.

It's a little bit milder and softer.

I like to use a fork to get the juice out.

Maybe you can get the rest of the juice out of that for me?

Do you know how you get more juice out of lime? Microwave.

-You whack it in the microwave, all that sort of thing.

-Eight seconds.

-The coriander...

-18 seconds, a walnut.

LAUGHTER

Just roughly chop it so you get these lovely taste bites.

That goes in there, yeah? This is coriander you've got in there?

Coriander. This is one of the secret ingredients here,

it's pickled ginger. Have you ever tried pickled ginger?

-Yes, it's fabulous.

-With sushi.

-Yeah, it's Japanese sushi ginger.

It's the ingredient where people go,

"Oh, where am I getting that lovely kick from?"

It's the pickled ginger.

Again, not too finely chopped on that at all

-so that we get those beautiful taste bites.

-What about this?

-Is this for that?

-That goes in the dressing.

Sugar, a little bit of chilli powder.

In it goes.

Then pour it over?

That goes in there and we can either,

you can serve it fresh or you can let it sit for an hour,

-in which case it's going to wilt slightly, yeah.

-OK.

-The fish?

-A little bit more colour on those sesame seeds.

Turn that up a little bit.

Now...

And really, with fish like this, particularly brill,

you don't want to overcook it, do you really?

You can see it cooking halfway up the side.

It's the biggest mistake people make when they're cooking fish.

They overcook it often.

People are afraid to leave it a little bit undercooked.

They cook it in the kitchen and by the time it gets to the table,

it's fully cooked in the kitchen and by the time you eat it,

-it's overcooked.

-It's knackered, yeah.

-OK.

GUESTS LAUGH

So, you can either use wonton skins or spring roll wrappers,

which is what I have here.

What we're looking for, again, is that sort of textural thing.

And we just deep-fry those.

Perhaps do some fine chives and some chive tops for me, James.

-Fine chives.

-Into the deep-fat fryer.

Just remind me about those every now and then, James.

-Right, these are nice and finely chopped.

-Yeah.

A little vinaigrette coming up here. The ingredients...

I love this vinaigrette because this goes well with most fish, this one.

Fish, it also goes well with chicken or pork, that sort of thing.

So, we've got two types of mustard.

We've got grain mustard and some English mustard, soy sauce,

a little bit of sugar, rice wine vinegar and no butter at all.

In goes the sugar.

And Asian cooking, they use a lot of sugar and I think

it's a little bit human nature to like that sort of sweet taste.

So, a couple of tablespoons of soy sauce, about a tablespoon of sugar.

Couple of tablespoons of grain mustard

and about a teaspoon of English mustard.

The Japanese love to use that English mustard kick type

of thing, you know?

It's kind of similar to that wasabi type flavour.

I love wasabi, yeah.

Have you tried it with palm sugar?

Palm sugar? No. Erm...

Although, any sort of sweetness in there will kind of work in a way.

Oh, James, you're lucky there.

You nearly got in trouble there, man!

JAMES LAUGHS

A little bit of veg oil going in there.

I'm using rapeseed, a mild rapeseed oil this morning.

But light veggie oil, that sort of thing works well.

Paul, can I ask you,

where you'd find black sesame seeds from as well?

-I love sesame seeds toasted but...

-Supermarkets will sell them now.

-Will they?

-Yeah, they've got them. You've just got to hunt for them.

Supermarkets do sell them but Asian food stores are probably the

best place to find them.

-And you can toast them like normal ones?

-Yes.

It's often handy to toast them with some white ones because

you don't know when they're the right colour, you know?

A little bit of the slaw.

The idea is, we leave it wilt a little bit or...?

Ideally, probably, yeah. A touch of salt going on to these.

Maybe stir in some of the fine chives into the vinaigrette, James.

-There you go, done.

-Yeah.

-Finished that.

-Couple of bits of the fish going on there.

-Ooh! Smells lovely.

-Smells good, don't it?

-Yeah.

-There you go.

-A bit classier than my home economics classes at school!

And then not too much dressing at all because there's big flavours

in this, so a sort of chefy sort of drizzle.

Rankin, you're cooking for a Yorkshire lass here.

Look at this, you've got to put another one on.

-This is a class girl.

-Yes. Classy Yorkshire lass.

-Yeah.

A few chefy chives on top.

That's my fillets of brill with sesame crust, Asian coleslaw,

crispy fried wantons, and a soy and mustard vinaigrette.

-Right, it looks fantastic. Smells fantastic.

-Wow!

-Smells fabulous.

-Does it taste fantastic?

-It's kind of striking, isn't it...

Have you ever tried brill at quarter past ten?

..with the sesame seeds on top?

Lovely. Do I eat?

Literally dive in because by the time it gets down to Laurence

-it won't be coming back.

-Oh, right. I'll have a bit of this as well.

-Slaw and stuff like that.

-That is gorgeous.

But brill... It's gone.

Brill, you could use a different variety of flatfish if people

-can't get hold of brill.

-Dig in.

-Yeah.

Something like turbot works really well.

I do the dish with salmon sometimes. Halibut is terrific as well.

-That is just beautiful.

-Laurence, dive in.

-It's sensational.

But it's that slaw, I think it's that mixture of different

-textures that we're talking about.

-And it's a fresh sort of thing.

That sort of winter time ingredients.

It's the cabbage, the carrot, a few onions.

With it being raw, it's full of vitamins.

That suits you on the health kick at the moment.

-Definitely.

-This is going to be your new dinner party dish.

It's absolutely delicious.

I could just live off this coleslaw as well.

I'm never going to make coleslaw with mayonnaise again.

Love the funked-up Asian version. Delicious.

Coming up, James whips up some cherry and hazelnut biscotti

for Gloria Hunniford, but before that we're off

to France to join Rick Stein as he eats his way around the country.

Before we got too far away from the tidal stretches

of the Garonne, I wanted to see how they caught this fish, the "alose".

It's what we call shad and it's like a big freshwater herring.

They are really popular this time of year but it requires some

serious know-how when it comes to catching them.

I went out with Alain Penichon, whose family have lived

and fished here for generations.

They made a good living in old days catching sturgeon, lampreys,

perch and, of course, "alose".

But as usual, the catches have got smaller and smaller.

And Alain now thinks he could well be the last of his line

on the Garonne River.

It's surprising he makes a living at all when you consider that

every few hundred yards along the bank,

there are these nets called carrelets.

They catch anything from small eels to other fish

migrating along the river.

But fishing with a drift net requires other skills.

What Alain's done is just paved the net right across the Garonne

here and he's just going to let us drift down to that point

down there, but it's amazing how fast we're going.

There's such a tremendous current here and it just gives you an idea

of how big the river is and how much water there is

and hopefully when we get to the point he'll pull it up

and will get loads of those lovely aloses, or alose.

I say hopefully because so often when we go out to film things

like this, the wily fish give us the slip.

But I needn't have worried.

Fantastic, look at that.

They're pretty substantial fish too.

At least a couple of pounds and quite lovely.

Like extra large silver darlings, as the herring fishermen would say.

ALAIN SPEAKS FRENCH

I asked Alain what he gets out of fishing this stretch of river

year in year out, knowing that stocks are going down all the time.

Well, I don't profess to have picked up everything that Alain said

but basically, he said that he loves shad, he loves alose,

he loves the colours of them and his grandfather,

his father has been doing it before him so it's a real sort of

tradition, but above that,

he was going on about the whole skill of fishing and

he just said that anybody can just throw a net in

and pick the odd one up but it's a question of knowing the water,

knowing the river, knowing the levels of water in the river

and knowing where to go for the shad at any particular time

or any particular place in the river.

And I think it's that whole skill thing that he finds so,

sort of, alluring and makes him want to come back and back and fish more.

Cooking the alose was simplicity itself.

Cut into steaks,

they were barbecued over local vine trimmings under

the same trees that the Penichon family

have been sitting under for years.

Such was the hospitality of Alain and his wife Marilou

that they insisted on keeping us all there for lunch.

And in order to accommodate everyone,

they took the trouble of borrowing a larger table

from the local "mairie" or town hall.

If you can't get hold of shad back at home,

you could do a similar thing with grey mullet,

all you need to make the occasion perfect is the warm sunshine.

Well, I've just been on the phone back to the office in Padstow

and they're so envious because they can tell

from my happiness and the noise of the French chat around

that I'm having one of those sort of meals, lunchtime meals

outdoors in France that everybody dreams of and it's happening to me.

I keep pinching myself. The wine's been great,

the shad, the alose has been great with a perfect sauce there,

we've had home-made pate, we've had sausage,

we had a lovely tomato salad to start with.

I mean, maybe I've had one too many glasses of red wine

but this is perfection to me.

I've always wanted to have one of these.

It's called a velo solex, I first came across them

when I first came to France as a child, I've always hankered after one.

Seems so much more fun than a bicycle.

And, actually, someone's making them now in Hungary of all places.

It's only 38cc, tiny engine but they nip along at a very sedate pace

which rather mirrors the way I'm living on the barge at the moment.

And I'm on my way to do my washing in the next town along here,

it's one of those old-fashioned ones with a slab

and big troughs of water.

Sorry, nearly went into the canal.

Most people come on a canal holiday for one or maybe two weeks

but I've got to go all the way to Marseille

and I'm running out of clothes.

Thank God for the Roman washeteria at Mas d'Agenais.

I've always wanted to do this. It's just very good fun.

Standing here, wading in the water, doing my washing,

much better than a washing machine.

It is one of the few things on the Rosa,

on the barge, that we haven't got is a washing machine.

I don't suppose many locals still do it here but it's good fun.

I'm only saying that because when we arrived there were a load of

beer cans in the water, so I presumed the local youths

use it for sort of sitting around and getting quietly sozzled

if they're anything like the ones at home.

This is great!

Now, these barges are mainly used to take

well-heeled American tourists

down the canals for a week or so at a time,

stopping off at cathedrals and museums and the like.

So I don't think the crew totally approved of

me using the Rosa as a washing line.

I think they were greatly relieved when we all got off at Brouches

for the whole town had turned out for a snail festival

known as an escargolade.

I must say, I can think of a lot worse things to be doing on

a Sunday lunchtime than eating snails surrounded by lots of

people enjoying the snails, including children.

I mean, I don't like sort of beating Britain over the head with

a stick, but how many villages like this have

a little festival every now and then to celebrate a local produce?

Practically everybody at the escargolade were plum farmers

and they provide the prize plums that make the famous agen prunes.

My gosh, these plums are sweet.

No wonder the famous prunes of Agen are such quality.

I mean, they're made from such delicious plums.

Do you know, I never understood how they pick so many plums.

I sort of guessed it's bound to be loads of Ukrainian students

up ladders singing and enjoying themselves, not working too hard,

throwing all the plums into baskets but not a bit of it.

It's a testimony to agricultural engineering nous

and actually a most marvellous example of Heath Robinson equipment.

It looked a bit like a sort of crash in the trees

over there with its great canvas wings spread everywhere.

It looks like a terrible thing to do to a plum tree but it seems to

work and the plums don't seem to suffer at all.

These ones will be taken straight away to be washed

and laid out in trays ready for the oven.

Here, they are about to become "mi-cuit", or half-cooked

because that's what'll keep their soft, moist texture.

After 20 hours in the dryer, look at those.

That's what those plums have become!

It's such a heady aroma, heavy, heady aroma of fruit.

Almost intoxicating. I just have to try one.

I mean, just looking at them, they're not...

They're not like the prunes I remember from school,

those little black, hard things.

They're so juicy and they've got such a lovely colour.

Mmm.

Fantastic, it's so sweet.

There's only one thing to do with that, a classic prune tart.

And the first thing is to splash these prunes all over with

local almanac to make a juice.

The tart mixture itself is made with ground almonds,

caster sugar, a large egg and a tub of creme fraiche.

Add the almanac juice from the prunes,

beat it all together with a wooden spoon.

Put the soaked prunes into a blind-baked shortcrust pastry case

and pour the almond mixture over them.

I'm making this in a kitchen

just beside the canal where I do most of my cooking,

and in this case, the main ingredients come from the doorstep.

Well, that goes into a gas 590 degree oven for about 45 minutes.

I'm just thinking, when I were a lad,

prunes were the sort of thing they gave you to keep you regular.

But actually,

do you know something about things like prunes and apricots?

I think I prefer the dried version

than the fresh one a lot of the time.

I mean, I love plums, but I particularly like prunes,

particularly from Agen round here.

And if you say to people, you know,

you mention the word "prune and almanac tart",

everybody just says, "Oh, yeah, yeah, that's a classic."

Alman-yak? Almanac? Who cares?

So, when it's cooled, finish it off with a dusting of icing sugar

and some creme fraiche to make it irresistible.

I'm not sure what the film crew thought of it.

They normally like my food.

-Mmm. It's hot.

-Mmm.

Really quite good, aren't they?

And that did look really great.

Now, often dried fruit is written off as something that's

normally in kids' lunchboxes and making muesli a little bit

healthier and more exciting, but actually they're a brilliant

store cupboard ingredient and I'm going to show you them in

different ways they can be used, but I've got some cherries here,

and I thought, I'll do one of my favourite dishes with these.

I'm going to do a biscotti,

which translates from Italian to "twice baked".

So, you're cooking this in two processes, really.

First of all, you start off with equal quantities of flour and

sugar, about 250g of each, little bit of baking powder, three eggs...

I've got some hazelnuts here, but you can use almonds if you want.

-Mm-hm.

-A bit of lemon, and then we've got these dried cherries here.

-Now, you know an interesting fact about cherries?

-Tell me, James.

I thought it was fascinating. You can tell the Roman roads,

well, rumour has it you can tell the Roman roads around Britain

by the cherries, cos it was the Romans that brought them over,

they used to eat them while they were marching and spit them out.

-Oh. And did...?

-Hence all the straight lines of cherry trees.

And did you know that they used to put garlic,

wild garlic, in the boots of the Romans as they were walking along?

-Well, I know the reason for that, yeah.

-Why?

-Cos it smells better than their feet, probably.

LAUGHTER Why is that, then? It's an antibiotic, isn't it?

No, they did, and that's why you have so much wild garlic along

-all the Roman roads, as well.

-Did they?

-Yes.

-There you go. They left their boots behind.

-Tell you what, Gloria, we should make a programme.

-We should, James. We should.

But, I mean, you started very, very early, you wanted to be a singer...

-I WAS a singer.

-You WERE a singer.

-Excuse me,

-I've even got a record to prove it.

-Oh, you've got a record to prove it?

I have. And if you don't watch out, I'll send you one.

THEY LAUGH

No, I started as...

I hate to say this, really, but it was pre-television,

when I was a very young child,

and Homespun Entertainment in Northern Ireland was really,

really keen, like you're talking about three, four,

five nights a week, church halls, schools.

So, even as an eight-year-old,

-and I have to say that my dad was a part-time conjuror.

-Yes.

So he was a newspaperman by day, a magician by night.

-So I started, I went out with him with a concert party.

-Fantastic.

So I sang my songs...

# Powder your face with sunshine... #

-All of that.

-Yeah. Right... THEY LAUGH

-Oh!

-I WILL send you the record!

No, you did.

Literally, you did all that and then... But it was broadcasting...

-You went over to Canada when you were 17?

-I did. 17, going on 18.

-Yes.

-And it was a reasonably brave thing to do at that point,

-cos I'd never been out of Ireland, at all.

-Yes.

But went over there and of course, in Northern Ireland we had the BBC,

-the Light Programme, that was it, no television.

-Yes.

-And...

So I arrived in this place in Ontario, in Canada, called Kingston.

And they had 25 radio stations, 15 television stations,

and if you could sing an Irish song in tune, you were on.

You were employed.

So, I sang 40 Shades Of Green and I got my own little programme...

And then coming back to the UK got you what? Radio 2?

Well, what happened actually was I did make a record before that

and the record went to number seven in the Ulster charts. Hey!

Which meant nothing.

But I was, I was interviewed on the equivalent of the Today programme

-in Northern Ireland.

-Yes.

And it was, you know, Lisburn housewife,

how are you going to cope being top of the charts?

And so the producer literally was stuck for a female interviewer,

so he rang me the next day and said, "Do you fancy it?"

So I went, well, why not?

And actually, in the end, broadcasting took over from singing.

-Although when I came, when I came to Radio 2...

-Yeah.

You know the Les Dawson show, Val Doonican show,

-they were all running in TV.

-But it was a very male-dominated...

-So I was able to sing on that...

Well, what happened actually,

when I made my famous record, which I'm going to send you,

an LP, excuse me, called A Taste Of Honey, out of circulation...

Erm, I went to Radio 2...

It's funny what you'll do when you're not looking for a job.

When I was going to do that news programme I was telling you

about earlier, I went to the BBC in London with about six albums

under my arm, because I thought Radio 2 would be a good play for me.

And the boss there said to me, "Do you like Radio 2?"

I said, "I love it." He said, "What's wrong with it?"

And of course, not looking for a job,

I proceeded to tell him what was wrong with it...

saying there are no women on it. Do you imagine that there are

-any woman at home wanting to listen to men?

-True, yeah.

But, you know, how come you haven't got a woman?

To which he had no answer.

And three years later, the same man, strangely enough,

got in touch and gave me a dep job for Jimmy Young, so...

And that was it? It all started there?

Well, while you've been talking, I've done this.

Tell me what you've done, for goodness' sake.

All I've done is mix all the ingredients in a bowl, by hand,

added the eggs and the idea is you want to be sort of dropping consistency like that.

The secret of biscotti, it should just fall off your hand.

Not too wet, bit of flour like this,

roll it out into like a little sausage, put it on a...

Ideally, one of these little sort of nonstick mats

rather than greaseproof, and then just bake it straight away.

Why is a nonstick mat better...?

-Because it kind of sticks to a lot of the greaseproof that you buy nowadays.

-OK.

-This stuff...

You can't get the greaseproof these days.

You can't get it how you used to do, Gloria, you know what I mean? GLORIA LAUGHS

Then this goes in the oven at about, sort of 400 degrees Fahrenheit,

200 degrees centigrade, quite a hot oven,

for about 12, 10 to 12 minutes,

till it browns and we end up with this one, that I've got over here.

Which looks delicious, I have to say.

But this is where biscotti comes from,

cos we twice bake this, you see.

And then, we slice this and then put it back into the oven,

-so you drop the temperature of the oven down and bake it again once it's sliced.

-OK.

But then, when you slice it through, you should have

what resembles biscotti.

But like I said, your career just keeps going and going and going.

-You're doing this new thing...

-Well, I have to...

You're on the search for people.

I am, it's called Rip-Off Britain and I think that most of us,

particularly in credit crunch times, feel that we are being ripped off

in certain areas.

I'm not saying that everything starts off as a rip-off,

-but it seems to end up that it's the consumer that's ripped off.

-Yeah.

So, we will be dealing with...

And I should say, there's Angela Rippon, Jenny Bond and myself,

we're being let loose across Britain.

-Let loose. Go on, then.

-And we want to take on, really, the viewer.

I mean, we want to take you at home, your problems,

because I want people to regard this as their programme,

because everybody has a beef about certain issues of money,

but maybe they sometimes think, well, what do I do about it?

-Or how can I...?

-You want a voice really, don't you?

-Yes.

So, we hope that Rip-Off Britain will be a great voice,

and we'll deal with everything, like travel,

you know, utility bills, banking, of course, very much in the news.

-But to give you an example...

-Yeah.

You know, you get a cheap fare and the fare will be £9.50,

as I got recently, to France.

But by the time you pay the tax,

and your suitcase, and, and, and, it's up to £79.50.

-Now, in other countries, that's against the law.

-Right.

They have to show the tax upfront.

And the law will change in this country, so if they say

it's £9.50, they've got to say plus tax of 60 something quid.

In utilities, I got a bill from the gas company recently for £1,700,

which I knew in my soul...

You obviously cook a lot, Gloria!

I knew it was wrong.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I took them on,

made them change the meter and they ended up owing me £900.

But sometimes, in your soul, you know that this is not right,

-but you don't have the guts to really take them on.

-There we go.

We've got the biscotti here. You can pile them up.

Now, a little bit of homage to Canada, we've got maple syrup,

-famous of course from New York, Quebec.

-Ooh.

They actually tap the trees, either one or four taps normally on

-a tree, that's about 10cm in diameter.

-Right.

And they tap the sap from that.

Produce about ten gallons per season from one tree.

Have you ever heard of a thing called "bahal"

-that they get at the top of some coconut trees?

-No.

-Blow your head off.

-Will it?

-Don't have it!

-Probably why I've never tried it, Gloria!

-Very alcoholic.

There you go.

-Mm. Mm-mm.

-Like that? I notice,

-you eat the bit that I haven't cooked!

-No, I'm going to now.

I want to have a little bit of this with it as well.

-Dive into that.

-Mm!

-Biscotti are great.

-Mm!

So, biscotti means twice cooked and the reason that you find cherry

trees in lines along Roman roads is because they grew from the

pips spat out by the soldiers. Who knew?

Now, today, we're taking a look back at some of the tastiest

recipes from the Saturday Kitchen archives and there are loads

of dishes to get your culinary juices flowing.

Up next, one of the most respected modern Indian chefs in the

country, Vivek Singh,

and he came in to the studio to celebrate Saturday Kitchen's 200th

anniversary and he brought in a tandoor oven to cook some

pigeon and fresh naan bread.

Chris Evans and Daniel Galmiche had a go too.

It's the fabulous Vivek Singh.

-Now, you're going to blame me for this recipe!

-No, no.

-Not at all, James.

-Because when we decided that 200th anniversary of the show, I

wanted a tandoori oven, I wanted you on the show - we've got them both.

-Yeah, fantastic.

-What are we doing?

Well, you've got the tandoor, you've gone to a lot of effort,

so we'll use, we'll do a tandoori breast of pigeon.

-Yeah.

-Hopefully, very quick to do as well.

Served with some black lentils, some home-made,

freshly baked naan bread, and you'll do a little kachumber for me.

A kachumber, which is a salad. Right.

First, you want to get that pigeon on.

-Yeah, I want to get the pigeon on.

-So this is what we're

going to make, but we'll show you how to do this.

You want to get that on cooking.

-So we'll get that on.

-Get this going first.

Meanwhile, I will do naan bread, which hopefully...

Excuse me a second.

Carry on. You stick that on the skewers.

I'll stick them on the skewers, while you get organised.

I'm watching.

Yeah, that's fine. That's all right.

So, yeah, we've got this pigeon breast.

These breasts have been marinated for about 30 minutes.

You could marinate them overnight. You can do them beforehand.

Now, this is one of the oldest forms of cooking.

This is one of the oldest forms of cooking known to mankind.

As I say, a lot of people think of Mughlai food,

Mughlai style of cooking, and think of tandoors that way.

Wo-ho!

You can really see it going.

-Traditionally, this would be a charcoal tandoor.

-Charcoal.

We've got a gas one here.

Exactly.

Yeah.

-Let it...

-So, this goes in for what? How long?

Well, we'll put it in for four minutes and see.

We need to take it out and let it rest for a couple of minutes.

Show us how to do this. I'll read the temperature.

It is 500 degrees centigrade.

Wow!

Yeah, when we fire the charcoal ones, James,

they go to 800 degrees when they're firing up.

-We obviously don't cook anything in there.

-Yeah.

-The only...

-I've actually done a night's work in your restaurant.

-Yeah.

And your tandoori chef, you can tell the tandoori chefs apart

because they've got one arm's full of hair and the other's bald!

-Absolutely nothing on there.

-Yeah.

-That's what this does to you.

-Right.

-So, explain to us what this is.

-I've taken the skin off because I

don't like cooking in the tandoor with the skin.

Traditionally, the marinade includes a considerable amount of

yoghurt and it just turns it very chewy and soggy.

-Right.

-So, the skin doesn't crisp up like it would otherwise.

-OK.

So, we've got some ginger and garlic paste.

Now, do you always marinate food that's in a tandoor?

-Yeah, you always do.

-Right.

-It just...

-It flavours, but it also tenderises the meat.

-Yeah.

And also, the yoghurt protects it from the fierce heat of the tandoor.

As it's cooling down, yours is almost on permanently all the time,

cos yours is charcoal in the restaurant...

Yes, they never go out.

They've not gone out for the last ten years that we've been going.

So, they're on all day, every day, for ten years?

Ten years, oh, my!

Ten years, the tandoors have never gone out.

Well, that's a really bad sign if a tandoor goes off in an Indian.

If we're getting cold this weekend, we should go round to yours.

Absolutely! Absolutely! And we've got these black lentils.

I'll get the black lentils started off.

Just soak the black lentils for three or four hours,

even overnight, if you want.

This man is so good to his staff, it's the only restaurant I've ever

been to that's actually got Sky and cricket on 24 hours

a day on the hot pass.

So, normally, you get a check system that comes up. You've got a TV!

-Yeah, absolutely.

-With cricket on. It's brilliant!

What's the current score in the Ashes then, Vivek?

-Well, the last time I saw, England were all out for 271.

-Right.

I've just added a couple of autumnal spices in there.

-You toast these off.

-Yeah, toast them off slightly.

Some clove and some cumin. That goes in to the marinade as well.

-Yeah.

-And I've got some yoghurt here.

Which is going to go in.

Right, that kachumber salad,

which is basically all the things blended all in.

And so just all this mixed in, that's your marinated pigeon breast.

Right. So that's that one.

Now, you're going to get on and do the lentils,

-these little black lentils.

-Yeah.

-These are not puy lentils, which we're used to.

-No, they aren't.

-They look a bit like puy lentils. They aren't.

-Can I show these?

-See what these are.

-They're very nutty when they're raw.

They're used throughout the country, actually.

They're used both in the north and the south.

They're kind of like mung beans. They look like little mung beans.

Yeah, they are like mung beans, but they're black and they're urad lentils.

-You can buy them in most Asian stores nowadays.

-Right.

-And for the lentils...

-So, what have you cooked them in?

-You cook them in just water, or...?

-Just water and a tiny bit of salt.

Right.

-And usually, we sort of cook them overnight.

-Right.

The last thing we do before we leave the kitchens is leave soaked

urad lentils on the tandoor and come back the next morning and they've...

They've cooked. So, what spices have you got in there?

-I've got red chilli powder, a bit of garam masala.

-Yeah.

-Which is my own recipe for garam masala. Genuine garlic paste.

-Yeah.

-Salt, sugar. I'm going to cook it through. Cook it really long.

-Right.

There's going to be a lot of people this morning waking up with

hangovers that have probably got a naan bread or half

a naan bread stuck to their face. This is how they make it. Right?

Flour. Plain flour?

Yes. Plain, non-raising flour. Just plain flour.

-Oil?

-Yeah, oil. Eggs, baking powder.

-Egg.

-Salt, sugar.

-Salt, sugar and baking powder.

-Yep.

-Done, in.

And the salt and sugar's important. Obviously in there. And then milk.

-Just mix all that up together. Mix it all up together.

-OK.

I'll mix that all in. And you leave this to prove, do you?

-No, you don't prove this. Because you've got baking powder, it will instantly rise.

-OK.

Your pigeon's had four minutes in there.

So I'll just give this a mix together.

Now, if you wanted to do sort of garlic naan, you would add that after.

Yeah, it's a topping. You would. Look at that.

-Smells amazing, doesn't it?

-Look at that.

It's so far away but it's so strong, the smell.

-You can buy these ovens for home, if you want these.

-Yes, you can.

You can actually buy these ovens.

There's a company around now that's doing them.

They'd be very happy to send them across.

-It's called the Clay Oven Company.

-Yeah.

James, have you not got a tandoori at your place?

I want to get one because I've got the pizza oven, of course.

You want to dig a genuine one, don't you?

I'd like a proper charcoal cos I think it's really,

really good with charcoal. You know, it's incredibly hot.

If you're going to go to the trouble of getting one,

you're better off getting the real McCoy, getting a charcoal one.

Right, so we've got the kachumber salad here.

Next, this is our naan bread. I'll get this over.

You want to sprinkle these with a little bit of black onion seed, or something like that?

Yeah, just some black onion seed, garlic, coriander.

-Have you got any coriander chopped?

-I can do some.

Right, Mr Evans, this is your moment.

-You didn't realise you were going to be making this.

-Am I coming over?

-You are.

-Coming over now.

You need to roll your sleeve up, get rid of any jewellery. There you go.

And Chris is going to love this.

-Look at the amount of butter going in.

-Can I have a bucket of ice first?

-Cos you don't do the sun, do you, really?

-No, I don't do the sun.

One of the things, my blood test came up was lack of vitamin D.

My skin hasn't seen the sun for 25 years.

And now it's about to see the sun.

-850 degrees!

-Close to the sun!

-Absolutely.

What sensible behaviour on a Saturday morning!

-Right, what are you doing?

-Well, I've got a bit of coriander on it.

-You can do that.

-Right. So grab one of these.

-OK. Thank you.

And there you go.

-What have you just done?

-I'm going to join them.

-Mine's stuck to the thing.

-You have to do it by hand. No, that's...

Guys, I'm coming. I don't want you to have all the fun in here.

-Now, this is really, really hot. So you put this on what?

-Yeah, well...

-What's that called, that pad?

-This is a little pillow I've made.

-Right.

A little pillow, just some wrapped up napkins and...

The idea is you grab this and stick it to the side.

Very quickly.

Aargh!

-Happy 200th show, James!

-You can smell the skin!

He's doing that with his jumper. Right, there you go. Right.

Now we know why Vivek wore a jumper today.

-Ah, voila.

-You guys have fun with that.

-Get it stuck in there.

-OK.

Right, the idea is you've got to put that... You plate up.

-The idea is you hold this.

-Yeah, yeah.

-You hold the pad.

-Hold the pad.

-You slam it on.

-Below that one.

-Below that one?

-This is like the opposite of the omelette challenge.

-Go on.

-Below that one.

-It's got to stick to the side.

-OK.

-Don't touch the edge of the edge.

-OK. Ready?

-Oh!

-How's that going?

Oh, bye-bye. Bye-bye.

-OK, your go. Vive la France. Daniel.

-Ah, voila. Merci beaucoup.

-OK.

-Vive la France.

-Let's get you ready.

-Yes, get ready.

-Come on, son.

-You plate up cos we're nearly ready.

-You've got to go lower.

-Where do you say you need?

-I'm going to take this one out.

-Yeah, yeah.

-OK, lower than a two.

-I don't think that this was a good idea, to be honest.

-You ready?

-Go on, Daniel.

-Just let me take this one out.

-Right, we've got one.

-Very good, very good. OK.

That's so high!

-It's barely in there, Daniel.

-Right, OK. Don't worry.

-Ah, well.

-You plate up. We've got our pigeon on.

-Did you put yours really low?

-Yeah, yeah. Mine's all the way down the bottom.

-Wow! That's low.

That's how they should look.

I'm going to take Mr Evans's out in a minute.

-That one's yours, would you agree?

-That is mine.

-That's very low.

-That's a belter. Look at that!

They don't get any better than that, look!

LAUGHTER

-It's not looking good for the souffle, is it?

-Right.

Bit of butter on the naan bread.

-Can you butter the naan bread, Daniel, please?

-Oh, dear!

-That's fantastic.

-Have a sit back down there.

-I'm just going to go over here.

-Right, there you go.

-Is there still one in?

-Yeah. There you go.

-Ah, well, that's not too bad.

-Not bad at all, is it?

I'll leave you to it now. Thank you, thank you for the try.

Rest up. Thanks, Daniel. Having fun, I hope.

Plate that up and put the naan bread next to it.

Remind us what that is again.

Well, tandoori breast of pigeon with black lentils and kachumber

-salad and freshly made naan bread.

-Naan bread!

-Rock and roll, guys.

Look at that. Very fun.

-How fantastic is that? Over here.

-That was a huge effort, wasn't it?

-It was a bit. How's your hand?

-It's OK. It's OK.

-The hairs have gone.

Don't worry. Didn't use them for anything anyway.

I understand what you mean, the poor guy does that all night.

-Literally no hairs on his arms.

-Hope there's no hairs in that.

-One arm.

-You can tell which section he's on. Look. In the office.

-Stunning.

-Just stunning.

-Stunning?

-Generally stunning.

-Try the naan bread.

-OK.

It's a wonderful smoky aroma that you get from the juices

-dripping onto the coals.

-The naan bread's so cool to make.

Could you do that with the skin on or not at all?

Not if you're using yoghurt in the marinade.

If you weren't and were using tamarind and soya sauce or

-something like that...

-There is a real science with your spice.

It's very difficult.

How much fun does that look? Though not sure about the bald right arm.

But seriously, another triumph there from Vivek Singh.

Now it's time for some fun with Floyd. Take it away, Keith.

'Now, my dear Hector,

'it's time to spare a thought for the mighty heffalump.

'Not so long ago, these creatures were wrapped in chains,

'pulling teak logs through the jungle.

'Now they have a different life, taking tourists down leafy

'trails and listening to the endless clicking of camera shutters, shrieks

'of laughter as fat holiday-makers climb onto their backs.

'I wonder which job they prefer.

'Anyways, my elephant took me safely to these caves,

'where I met a brilliant anthropologist, John Davies.

'He came here six years ago on holiday and fell in love with

'the country, the people and the mystery that surrounds them.

'And he's very superstitious.'

So, these caves are inhabited by spirits. "Phii".

And we must not offend them.

And we'll probably also come across some Buddha images as well,

because they sort of protect against the most evil spirits.

They manage to combine Buddhism and Animism very neatly in Thailand.

Animists believe in spirits everywhere.

Spirits in trees, in rivers and caves and cave spirits are

dangerous and you must keep them happy.

Where are we going?

-What is this, John?

-Well, Keith, this is a coffin.

-Coffin? It looks like a boat.

-It does look like a boat.

And it's interesting. A lot of people,

even hill tribes today, they built coffins that looked like boats

because they believed that in order for the departed spirit

to be assured that it's gone, it needs to be sailed away.

And so they made boat-shaped coffins.

Wow. How old is this?

This has been radiocarbon dated at about 2,000 years ago.

So, from what we know of the people who've lived in these caves

over the last 50,000 years, which is very little,

one of the most interesting things is that this part of Thailand

may be the first place where rice was cultivated and grown for food.

That's absolutely amazing.

And that's even more wonderful because that's what we're here for,

-is to cook. Let's go and do some cooking.

-Right.

Although I love history, I couldn't wait to get out of that cave.

It smelt appallingly of bat dung. So much so that it made my brain hurt.

'So I chose a spot to cook John supper as far away from it as possible before the sun set.'

Excellent. The chillies are beautifully toasted.

We have to toast the chillies because we want the maximum

flavour and heat, hotness,

out of them for this very simple dish, which is a jungle soup.

Now, a jungle soup can be made from anything - from ducks, from

chickens, from rabbits, from rats, snakes, bears, anything you like.

But we're quite, you know, decent sort of chaps, we're using chicken.

Also we've got pumpkin in bits and pieces there,

pineapple and then the usual mainstay of Thai ingredients

- lemongrass, galangal, which is a kind of a ginger,

and kaffir lime leaves and of course our chillies and lime juice.

It's very simple.

All we do is pop the chicken and the pineapple and the pumpkin

into this pot of boiling water.

Fresh from the river.

Well boiled so we don't get any nasty infections from it.

Which, of course, you wouldn't.

Right, let that boil away for a moment or two.

Then, in the meantime, my chillies and my garlic,

which are in here, have to be pounded coarsely.

Not into a paste, just broken up.

Bruise them to release the oils from the garlic

and flavours from the chilli.

Right. That's... No blenders out here in the jungle.

That then goes into the soup.

Like so.

Then we pop in all the lemongrass, the galangal and kaffir lime leaves.

This whole thing will take, I don't know, 20 minutes or so to cook.

That in there like that. And we'll squeeze some lime juice in.

This is as usual hot, sweet and sour.

Lime just goes in. And then in Thai cooking they don't use salt

very often and if things need salt, which this certainly does,

they add a little bit of fish sauce.

Like so.

OK, we'll let that bubble down for a bit.

And if it's cooked before the sun sets I'll feed it to my new

chum John who's an anthra-...one of those specialists who does

things about ancient tribes and stuff like that.

Lives a lot of his time in caves.

He'll be looking forward to a nice square meal.

Well, John, this'll put hairs on your chest if nothing does.

There you are.

It's a bit spicy but you're probably used to that kind of thing.

-Well, certainly.

-Tell me what you think anyway.

-Try and be as honest as you dare.

-Really?

-Yes.

-Hm.

Mm. It's delicious. Really is. Wonderful.

Well, you've lived in the country for long enough.

-Does it have the sort of flavour it's meant to have?

-Yeah, really is.

It tastes absolutely authentic Thai, and do you mind if I carry on?

No, please do. But there's no such thing as a free lunch, as you know.

You've been in this place for a long time, you've written books

about the people, the hill tribes, and know everything about it.

What is so special about Thailand and its people?

It's a very beguiling country.

The Thais think with their hearts. Westerners think with their heads.

The Thais trust intuition.

They don't trust facts.

They don't trust logic.

And so we have this problem.

Anybody who's living here who lives in Thailand has...

You know, we come from a background which is, you know,

A+B=C and it's a logical society.

Here, everything comes from the heart.

It's a land of intuition.

And our powers of intuition, I think, are less than theirs.

I think people who've lived here for 15 years will say,

"I don't understand Thailand. I don't understand the Thais."

I certainly don't. But it's a fascinating country.

I drove most of the morning along dirt tracks to a Lisu village.

A tribe whose origins began with the Mongol hoards of Genghis Khan.

It's the wrong time of the year to see the opium poppies but

this tribe is semi dependent on the harvest.

And the little pack horses are the only means of transport to go

to the hidden valleys where the poppies are grown.

Hunting is important here,

and one way of honing the skill is the ancient sport of spinning tops.

They're a quiet people with no words for "hello" or "goodbye".

Or indeed "food".

Because they eat rice with every meal,

their word for "food" is "rice".

To celebrate an anniversary, a death,

a disaster or good fortune, the Lisu tribe love nothing better than

a whole spit-roasted suckling pig.

And how they prepare it, I've discovered, is this way -

first of all with crushed coriander root and black pepper

and salt and turmeric they line the inside of the stomach of the pig.

Then they stuff it with these wonderful Thai ingredients of

basil, lemongrass and mint. OK.

Also, they add galangal,

which is the kind of ginger which they just chop up very

coarsely with one of these dreadful axes and garlic which they

chop up and then bruise it in the pestle and mortar. OK.

They stuff the lemongrass, the basil, the mint,

the garlic and the galangal inside the pig.

Now, I know you Europeans probably find this kind of stuff

a bit disagreeable but I'm very sorry, you're free to switch off.

This is their way of life and I, like you,

are very privileged to see it.

So, first things first - a big handful of these spices,

which we rub thoroughly inside the pig. All the way through.

Then we just bruise the ends of these, again, to release the oils.

There we are. Sorry about that, Paul,

but you were up late last night and if you got a bit of lemongrass in your eye, tough. That goes in.

The basil goes in.

Mint goes in.

A bit more lemongrass, I think, would be a good idea.

Crunched up. Pushed in.

Like so.

And then, unlike European cooking,

where we might score the skin of our pig,

here we anoint it - and I use the word advisedly -

we anoint it with thick, rich soy sauce for colour and for flavour.

All over the whole thing.

On both, sides, obviously.

And then for final crunchiness, once again, this superb fruit - the lime.

You squeeze the lime juice over the whole thing and rub it in with the soy sauce.

Then the carcass is placed on a spit,

placed over slow burning embers and roasted for two or three hours.

And as I say, and as I repeat to say,

the pig has a symbolic effect in the Lisu tribe's lives.

Normally they eat vegetables but for happiness, for sadness,

for marriage, for death, for life, they eat a roast pig.

Life up here is pretty simple.

I'm sure they all thought I was stark staring mad as my pig

roasted and the sun made its way down behind the hills.

The people, some of whom were not prepared to take chances with my roast pork,

decide to start preparing their own suppers while the children played.

You'd like life here, Hector. It's very relaxed.

After dinner the men will talk, drink tea,

perhaps take a little whisky and the odd pipe of opium.

The pig is roasted. The pig is succulent.

We must give it, a slice of it - it's heavy, too -

to the head man of the village who has allowed us,

quite unusually, to come to his home. His domain.

This isn't one of those places where you pay five bahts to get into the front gate.

It's a real place, OK.

So I'm going to give him a piece of the pig.

And the best piece of the pig...

..is the haunch down here.

Just cut that through.

Hold that back a little bit.

Served. Thank you.

Mm. Bumu cha.

As all of you who read the Sunday Times know,

bumu cha means thank you.

And we do have to say thank you to this village for showing us their life.

Let the feasting, the dancing, the fire and the music begin!

MUSIC

'Actually, Hector, if I weren't a cook I'd like to be an

'anthropologist, digging into people's lives,

'trying to understand their ways.

'I had a curious feeling that evening,

'surrounded by these brilliantly friendly people,

'that we've a lot to learn from these ancient cultures.

'And I really believe we'd be better for it.'

Absolutely brilliant. Love Keith Floyd.

Now, as ever on Best Bites, we're looking back at some of the

most memorable recipes from the Saturday Kitchen archives.

Still to come on today's show, Ching-He Huang and Ken Hom go

head-to-head in the omelette challenge.

And no, they weren't allowed to use their woks.

One of the most high profile women in the restaurant world, Angela

Hartnett, serves up a British dish with her signature Italian twist.

Casterbridge cote de boeuf with cavolo nero, gnocchi

and wild mushrooms with a bone marrow gratin.

My mouth is watering at the mere mention.

And comedian Bill Bailey faces his Food Heaven or Food Hell.

Did he get his Food Heaven - madras chicken curry with pilau rice -

or did he end up facing his Food Hell - calves' liver with

hispi cabbage, mashed potato, crispy onion rings and gravy?

How is that possibly anyone's hell? I don't know.

And you can find out what he got at the end of the show.

Now time for the yummy Brummie Michelin-starred

Glynn Purnell who serves up a real winter warmer with his

hearty braised elbow of lamb with spicy lentils.

The hugely talented Adam Garcia and apparently nice-smelling

Sat Bains were on hand to give their verdict.

Mr Glynn Purnell. So, lamb on the menu. Lamb...

Is it shoulder, is it ankle? What is it?

Basically, I think it's an elbow. I know sheep haven't got arms.

-They kind of have.

-Sort of.

It's the front shoulder. I'll always visualise them.

When you see them in the butcher's they're hanging up like this,

aren't they? So I always think it looks like an elbow.

That's what we're going to call it. You're going to braise it first.

Going to braise it down. If you crack on with a bit of chopped veg.

-A bit of mirepoix.

-OK.

Again, this is a fantastic dish that's perfect for the season.

Sort of like a real warmer.

Now, this is different to what I've seen you, you know,

cook before on the show.

You're into the Michelin-starred refined sort of food.

This is much more brassiere sort of thing.

-This is a dish that's on at the bistro at the moment.

-Yeah.

Which has been slightly changed from The Asquith

so I've still got the cocktail bar but now I've got the bistro.

So it's sort of like the cooking I do at home really.

-Right.

-Sort of quite hearty, nice sort of sized portions.

This cocktail bar that you have there,

-you do some pretty unusual cocktails.

-We do.

Actually, we do a roast lamb cocktail, which is nice.

We fat wash rum with lamb fat. And we do like a Sunday dinner.

Fat wash. Explain fat washing.

To fat wash you bring up the temperature of the alcohol

with the fat and then you set it and you do that a couple of times.

-I'm happy with that.

-Yeah.

In the past we've done a duck one with Cointreau. You know.

It's a little bit unusual.

It's challenging but then it's a talking point and it's

-something a little bit different.

-Yeah, yeah.

-Tastes good too. I've tried it.

-Yeah, yeah. That's on at the bistro.

This dish is not at the bistro. I just thought I wanted to showcase...

-You've got some onions there.

-..some classic cooking, really.

-If we brown these off...

-Yep.

So the secret is to get some colour on this. That's the main thing.

Get some colour on them.

Now, most people looking at a piece like that would use the lamb shanks as well,

which used to be one of those things you almost gave them away.

-That's right.

-15 years ago, 20 years ago.

You couldn't really get rid of them.

I think this one is slightly cheaper than the shank because no-one knows it's an elbow.

I can't wait to order 15 elbows of lamb.

It's from the shoulder. That's where we reckon it's from.

It's from the shoulder so you can do the same dish with the whole shoulder.

Or the shank. So... We're basically...

We're going to do a little red lentil stew as well,

with a little bit of ras el hanout...

-You want me to get that on as well.

-Get that on.

-Badly dicing the carrots.

-Dice the carrots for me. So, if we...

OK. So, the colouring the lamb does two things - not only to add

-flavour but it also gives the stew a bit of colour.

-Exactly.

Colours the sauce.

We're going to actually cook the lentils in the lamb sauce.

So we're going to take the lamb out.

While that's sort of relaxing we're going to use the cooking liquor

to cook the actual lentils.

So we've got a full-on 100% lamb flavour, really hearty,

no waste and it makes for a really flavourful gravy,

-also as a carbohydrate on the plate.

-OK.

So, we've got the ras el hanout.

Now, tell us about ras el hanout. It's a Moroccan sort of spice.

Yeah, it's a Moroccan spice. It's quite common to go with lamb.

-We have it in lamb tagine.

-But it's a mixture of spice, isn't it?

That's right. It's got rose petals and all sorts in there.

So if you just buy it as it is, it's perfect. So we've chopped that.

You never said... When you said Adam was multi-talented,

you forgot to say he was proper smoking as well.

What a treat for the audience at home.

Three of the best-looking geezers in the studio. Eh?

-What do you reckon, James?

-And you.

-And me.

Well, I didn't want to say that, you know.

My mum will phone in, you know that? She'll phone in.

And funnily enough,

my wife thinks Adam's amazing but also my wife thinks Sat

smells the best of all the chefs she's ever met,

he smells the nicest. She always says it to me.

-Can we move on to the lamb?

-What do you smell like, Sat?

-Let's go.

-Right.

-We've got the wine in.

-Maybe a relative thing.

-Proper easy cooking.

-Wine and stock.

-Wine and stock.

Ras el hanout, vegetables. All in. It's that easy.

The stock you're using there, I mean,

it's quite difficult to get lamb stock nowadays.

-Chicken stock would do?

-Chicken stock's fine. Veg stock is fine as well.

Because it's cooking on the bone, you'll get that ultimate,

that massive lamb flavour anyway. So we'll put that in the oven.

Little bit of seasoning there.

So that will cook for about two-and-a-half, three hours.

Turn it down and cook it for four hours a lot lower if you want.

Go, take the dogs for a walk, have a couple of pints,

come back and it's ready to go.

I'm assuming if you use the shoulder obviously you cook it

a little bit longer, the whole piece.

If you want to do a slightly bigger piece you can slow roast a joint

and use the lentils and make a sauce afterwards.

-Shall we whack this in the oven?

-I'll let you get that in the oven.

So, this is one, obviously, we've cooked before.

Just bring that over so you can actually see inside there.

Cos it's... It looks delicious and smells fantastic too.

So you've got a bit of rosemary in there.

-And then you're going to use the liquor for this.

-Yeah.

Basically we've blanched...

-Basically boiled the lentils up to the boil.

-OK.

-Take them off, wash them off.

-Right.

So the lentils are sort of part cooked.

And then we're going to push on with that. So...

Right, and you want me to do this little bit of chopped parsley

for the lentils.

Now, the lentils, you use them quite a lot in your cooking.

I remember being up there to your restaurant,

you used them with monkfish as well. And a lot of dishes.

-Is that cos you like the Asian flavours up there?

-Definitely.

And also I like the texture of them.

Cos they sort of start breaking down like a puree whereas sometimes

when you have puy lentils, people don't cook them all the way.

-I find them a bit too...

-I think that's the reason people are put off with lentils.

-They don't really cook them enough.

-So if we're putting...

-Put our red lentils in there.

-This would go great using tinned lentils as well.

-You could do.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Or you could do with white beans, butterbeans.

You could do... We just basically want to use the cooking liquor from the lamb.

Right, so... Now...

Now, of course, you mentioned if people want to go to your restaurant

but you're up at the Good Food Show at the end of the month.

-Yes, we are.

-On stage...

-With yourself, I think.

I think so. I'm going to be there. Absolutely.

So, yeah, we're doing that. And it's always great, the Good Food Show.

It's just coming up to Christmas.

Everyone's getting all sort of excited, Christmassy.

Everyone's thinking about how to cook this, how to cook that.

The most question you get asked is, "How do you cook a turkey?"

Every time it's like, you know...

And people ask me about sprouts but I just can't stand them

-so I don't comment.

-Adam, we have a stage as well.

-Yes.

All it is is a stage in a shed. A big shed. But it's a stage.

Massive shed. It's called Birmingham.

-No, it's not.

-It's changed, hasn't it, James?

Cos it used to be a bit... It used to be full of people like me.

-I tell you what, Birmingham has changed an awful lot.

-It has.

I was walking through the German market yesterday which arrived yesterday.

I know it seems a bit early but you can't help but smell the gluhwein and all that sort of stuff.

It transforms Birmingham into a sort of winter wonderland which,

if you'd have said that 15 years ago I wouldn't have believed you.

So it has really changed.

And obviously, me being the prince of Birmingham...

-The prince of Birmingham?

-Nobody else would have me! Right, OK. So...

-Can you explain what's going on here?

-OK, so, we've got the lamb.

That's cooked, ready to go. It's all glazed up nice.

The lentils are now coming down with the carrots,

a little bit more ras el hanout there.

The carrots, celery, little bit of garlic. Lentils in there.

Chopped parsley. So we've got ourselves a really nice coarse stew.

-Now, you've taken the juice out of this lamb here.

-Yep, which is here.

And you're using that.

We're just going to reduce that down so we've got

a nice sort of consistency.

In here we've got the shallots, which have been with vinegar,

anchovies, capers, little bit of parsley.

-Have you seasoned that, James?

-No, not yet.

-I'll season that.

-Little bit of salt.

-I suppose that cuts through the fattiness as well.

-Most definitely. Most definitely. So, OK.

-OK.

-We're ready to go.

-You can do the ceremony, as I like to...

-Oh, right.

-You do that at the end.

-Do that at the end.

-We do it at the restaurant as well.

-I'll do it.

-You sort that out.