11/09/2016 Saturday Kitchen Best Bites

Good morning! Today, I've got a fantastic menu lined up for you.

So, sit back and enjoy,

as I serve you up a portion of my Saturday Kitchen Best Bites.

Welcome to the show.

We've got top chefs cooking fabulous food and celebrity guests galore.

You don't want to go anywhere or you'll miss out.

Coming up on today's show...

Scotland's prince of spice, Tony Singh, is preparing

a scrumptious peanut butter chicken, served with steamed rice - yummo!

Ching-He Huang has fabulous chilli pork belly on today's menu.

The pork is first boiled and then fried

to get really, really crispy skin and it's magic.

It's served with a very simple refreshing cucumber salad.

We'll also be heading down under

with the clever and talented Bill Granger.

He'll be showing us his take on a French classic, coq au vin.

And fashion guru Gok Wan faces his food heaven or food hell.

But did he get his food heaven, seared tuna with glass noodles

or did he get his food hell,

paprika monkfish with a romesco sauce and padron peppers?

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

Now, Catherine Fulvio may be Irish-born,

but her passion for Italian food is infectious and inspiring.

Have a look at this.

Great to have you on the show. Thank you.

You've brought a bit of Irish sunshine with you.

What are you going to make? I'm going to make fazzoletti.

They're handkerchiefs of pasta which form an open ravioli.

I'm putting the dillisk in it, which is the dulse that was used earlier,

except mine is dried and from the Atlantic sea coast.

I'm going to start my pasta.

Do you want me to start by doing this fennel and bits and pieces?

I do. I have some lovely vegetables from the Garden of Ireland.

Before we start talking about anything, Italian is...

The reason for Italian and your passion for Italian?

My husband is from Palermo in Sicily,

so I married into the family. Right.

So, you're going to make pasta over there then? I am.

I've got my 00 flour here, the farina di grano tenero,

which is a lovely tender soft flour. Yeah.

I'm putting in the dillisk here. It's just been chopped up.

It's quite hard to chop, James, so I found scissors was the quickest way

to chop it for people at home. Little bit of salt goes in there.

I'm using rapeseed oil but you can use olive oil, of course, as well.

If it's dry enough, you can do it

in a coffee grinder as well, can't you? You can indeed.

I have a tip.

You know the way the Italian egg yolks are so much more yellow? Yeah.

I've got powdered saffron here, so I'll put a bit of water on that

and I'm going to put that in my pasta dough

and that's going to give me that lovely golden colour

that I'm looking for with the fresh egg pasta.

I'm going to cook my little beans. That'd be great.

You want these cutting in half? And the asparagus cut in half as well.

Right. Thanks, James. Tell us about the area of Ireland you come from.

I am from County Wicklow, just south of Dublin,

and it's called the Garden of Ireland.

It's famous, also, for its mountains and it's famous for its lamb.

Lamb, which is the reason you've got a place there,

cos your family are farmers, aren't they? That's right.

I'm third generation on the farm,

but I can trace my farm roots back to the 1500s. Right.

I'm taking JB over for a training course. He's coming over.

Looking forward to it. There you go.

We're primarily lamb farmers but we grow all our own vegetables,

all our own fruit, the same as yourself, James.

And we're lucky, we back onto a beautiful mountain and forest

where we live and we go foraging there.

Tell me about this foraging,

cos you've got a cook school there as well and you incorporate the two.

We have a cookery school and a bed and breakfast that my mum started.

So, a bit of everything going on there. Proper family thing.

But we have this Rambling Chef programme,

where people can come and learn about cooking, do cookery classes

and they can go foraging and take picnics into the forest

and at this time of the year,

people will be foraging for fraughans in the forest. For what?

Fraughans. Fraughans? What on earth is a fraughan?

Fraughans are... They're like bilberries.

I had to Google them so I could explain to you what they were. OK.

They're like American bilberries. They're tiny little berries.

They're quite sour and we use them to make jams and tarts

and things like that. They're really, really tasty.

Never heard of one of those? Never heard of them.

I can send some over to you. That would be great. There you go.

The pasta's just gone in the fridge and we're just getting

a bit more pasta out, James, and if you're free later,

I'll get you to do that for me.

There's your spring onions and everything.

The sauce is rather simple, James.

We're just going to fry off a bit of spring onions.

Little bit of rapeseed oil again.

Everything's chopped there for you. Thanks. There's a bit of garlic.

I have nothing to do. That's grand!

You want this in ice-cold water, then, this? Please, yeah.

So, these are the beans. Yeah. Just to keep the colour.

There you go, like that. There we go.

Just cook that down a little bit. I'll just grab a spoon.

Right, you want me to roll out the pasta.

This has got the seaweed that we used earlier, obviously. Yeah.

But this one's dried out. Yeah.

It needs to rest in the fridge for about 30 minutes. Right.

Are you going to explain what we're doing there? Cos I can't see you.

OK, so in goes the garlic now.

Instead of the spring onions, shallots or onions would be fine.

I need to cook this down a bit and then I'm putting in some white wine.

SAUCE SPITS

It spits a little bit.

You need to get the white wine in early

before the garlic starts to burn.

Italians have a phrase - when the garlic starts to dance, it's ready.

Pretty soon, you see the garlic hopping in the oil.

When the garlic starts to dance? Yeah. Right.

You see it hopping and then if you watch it for a second too long,

it starts to go brown all round the edges.

So, this is just burning off a bit of the alcohol from the wine.

In go the fennel shavings.

I love the flavour of the fennel in this - that lovely anise flavour.

It's really tasty. But any veg goes in this.

You could put, you know, spinach - anything goes,

depending on what's in season.

I would have put zucchini or courgette ribbons,

but I didn't have them in the garden. Right.

They were just beginning to flower

as I hopped on the plane very early in the morning.

So that area of Ireland that you're in. That's famous for what is it?

Lamb farmers? Primarily lamb, but we're also beef.

Wicklow, and Ireland in general, as you know, James,

is great farming land. Obviously, we have mountainous areas too.

But the sheep we have in County Wicklow,

they're Cheviot breed, they're great foragers,

so they will go in around the heather and take the flavours

from the heather, so it's really good.

Cos you have the amazing Dexter cattle -

those little, small fellows. We do. They're over in Ireland.

Um...we always say the great thing about Ireland is...

I know you laugh when I tell you about the rain,

cos I think you had a bit of rain when you were in Ireland.

It always rains! It always rains. There's a high chance. Yeah.

But what we say about Ireland and the weather

is the rain is what produces all this gorgeous grass, you see?

Yeah, that my golf ball gets stuck in! That's what it does.

So our animals are out, then, for most of the year.

So this Italian name - is it "napkin" that it translates to?

Fazzoletti? "Handkerchiefs". Handkerchiefs. Mmm.

Little handkerchiefs. So, double cream's just gone in there.

You could use creme fraiche if you wanted a lighter version of it.

I also put in some marjoram. I love marjoram! Right.

Cook a lot with that and it's so easy to grow.

Do you have it the garden, James? I've got masses of it, yeah.

Right, pasta's going in. OK, we've got some Parmesan now.

Just going to grate some Parmesan straight into this. Right.

Instead of the Parmesan,

you could think about using a different salty flavour,

such as smoky bacon would be beautiful in there

or maybe use some smoked salmon

or smoked trout in this recipe as well.

You've got two types of cheese you're going to serve with it.

Parmesan's one of them. Yeah, I was thinking of JB especially. Right.

That's probably enough for him. That's not very nice.

LAUGHTER

Parmesan's lovely. It's really nice.

Right, we've got our pasta here, so I'll get this ready for you.

So in we go with the rest of the veg.

Our veggies have just gone in there,

so we're just about ready to serve up now. OK.

I'll just tidy up a bit here.

I'm going to put a bit of lemon zest as well, just to lift it,

because with cream, sometimes, a bit of lemon just lifts everything

and it's going to work so well with these gorgeous spring veg.

Right, the dulse just adds a bit of salt as well to this pasta,

which is nice. It does.

And I meant to say, instead of the dillisk or dulse,

people can just use chopped herbs.

Two tablespoons of chopped fresh herbs would be gorgeous

in the pasta. So, you call it dillis?

Dillisk. D-I-L-L-I-S-K.

And it's air-dried naturally, out in the open,

on the west coast of Ireland. There you go. Right.

So now a bit of salt goes in here, bit of pepper.

I'll get this one ready for you as well.

Do you want me to put that one on first? Yeah, that would be great.

There you go. Get a spoon and the tongs.

And this is simply now just a case of layering.

Yeah, so is this the kind of food in your book?

You've got a new book out in September.

Yeah, my fourth book will be out.

It's called The Weekend Chef - recipes for the weekend chef.

Cos, as you know, most people chill out in the kitchen at weekends.

That's their real chance to be creative. Do they? They do.

It IS their chance... Well, midweek...

I'm a busy mum and running a business as well,

and I find midweek, you spend more time just running around,

just getting food on the table

more than thinking about cooking real detailed dishes.

Do you want me to put one on there? Thanks, James.

There you go.

So the asparagus we cut in half,

just presentation-wise and speed up the cooking, I take it. Yeah.

I'll get you a spoon as well. Thanks, James, yeah.

I'll have that one there. OK, and one more layer of that, now, James.

One more layer. Mmm-hmm.

And then the asparagus last. Yeah. There we go.

OK. What about asparagus in Ireland in your garden?

No? Cos it needs a fair bit of rain.

We don't have asparagus... I don't have asparagus in the garden.

I'm focusing on things like zucchini, artichokes,

all those lovely Italian veg as well.

We've pak choi growing really well and the moment, using lots of that.

Yeah. Gorgeous herbs. Pineapple sage is doing really, really well.

That's a beautiful herb to use, actually,

both in sweet and savoury dishes.

Just a bit of the sauce here, another bit over the top.

Then, to finish up, we have a bit of fresh marjoram.

This is another cheese that's going on it as well.

This is ricotta salata. Right. This is salted ricotta.

Fresh ricotta is... All ricotta is made from the whey.

So in Sicily, they make caciocavallo,

and the leftovers, the whey, you have your fresh ricotta,

which has a short shelf life. Yeah.

And the ricotta salata then is salted and is kept for longer.

It's quite like feta. OK. Do you like feta? Yeah, feta's all right.

See, I knew I'd convert him, I knew it!

There's just some fennel fronds on

and the other thing I want to put on this

is the lovely herbs from the Garden of Ireland and edible flowers.

These are little nasturtium leaves here. Yeah.

There's a little carnation. Then we have all our borage, like so.

Cos this has to sing of the summer in Whitlow.

And then I have here my calendula. Calendula? Calendula.

Grows really easily, James. Nonstop growing.

Very usable. Lovely in salads.

It's also really nice in the pasta instead of dillisk.

There you are. Tell us what that is again.

This is your dillisk fazzoletti

with all the flavours of the Garden of Ireland.

You get to dive into this.

I'll be watching whether you pick round

all the bits of cheese you see. Dive in. Look at that.

I'm not a huge fan of asparagus either, so... Aren't you?

This dish is perfect for you then, isn't it, really?

But that seaweed does make a big difference to the pasta as well.

Yeah, and the saffron lifts the colour of it as well.

It smells amazing. It does smell great.

Tell us what you think.

It's actually quite good. Ooh!

Loving that idea of adding a little saffron to pasta dough.

It gives it a real richness and a colour that is extraordinary.

Now, coming up,

I've dusted off the archive shelves from eight years ago

and pulled out a tape

of when I first presented Saturday Kitchen Live.

It wasn't smooth sailing, I can tell you.

I was slightly younger looking as well,

and I was cooking asparagus with fettuccine and smoked bacon

for actor Stephen Tompkinson.

But before that, let's join Rick Stein for a taste of the sea.

Ivan Bate. He's a bit like a bull terrier.

He reminds me of that skipper in Jaws.

I think he was called Quint. He's longlining for conger today,

and anything else that takes the bait.

He's been fishing ever since he could walk.

In fact, I've known him ever since he could walk!

He probably wouldn't like to be told that

and it's certainly a sign of how old I'm getting.

I got addicted to salmon poaching when I was a kid.

But you did! Yeah, I know.

We had some good times. That's when it all starts.

As soon as you catch your first one, you've got to have another one.

It's...addictive.

It IS addictive, isn't it? Yeah, I think so.

Um...I was doing it from a kid, like,

so...that was growing up for me.

Catching salmon and...trying to outsmart the Water Authority.

Sometimes I did, sometimes I didn't.

Conger eel doesn't fetch a lot of money in this country,

but it's very useful for me in fish soups and fish stews,

like this cotriade, where I partner it with red mullet

and other expensive fish like bass and monkfish,

and oily fish like mackerel and sprats.

This was originally a humble Breton fisherman's dish,

but I've transformed it into something much more sophisticated,

and added mussels, which I've cooked in this rich bouillon

with white wine, and then added cream, fennel and, finally, sorrel.

That is then poured over the fish stew to produce something

which Salieri in Amadeus might have said with gritted teeth `

"Rich and fulsome, but fresh-tasting."

MUSIC: Beatbox version of La Marseillaise

'This is Charles Fontaine ` a Frenchman, a chef

'and a friend of mine from London,

'who believes that we lost our culinary heritage

'during the Industrial Revolution when we all left the land,

'left the sea for the cities.

'He finds our pasties a bit hard to take,

'which I find extraordinary, as he loves English food.

'But he's fanatical in championing the cause

'of the fishermen of England, which is unusual, really,

'because the fishermen of Padstow

'don't feel so kindly towards the French!'

You've got to get yourselves together.

Do you stick together, all the fishermen around here? We are now.

Do it, by either a big lorry full of rotten fish

and go to Westminster with it.

They'd just lock us up. Eh?

They'll impound the whole of the British fishing industry.

Well, you get the chefs, you get all the people involved in it.

They can't lock you ALL up.

'And now, for the first time on British television,

'a Frenchman is going to create a traditional British dish.'

Off we go. We are going to do a fish pie,

a typical English dish.

We've got some mussels there, which we're cooking, from Cornwall.

They're very tasty. They're much more salty than the Loch Fyne ones.

We've got monkfish, a firm, nice fish, very fresh.

We've got cod as well, but it's slightly softer.

And we've got lemon sole, which is even softer.

All three white fish will go well together.

A bit of stock there. We've got some white wine, a bit of water,

some bay leaves, carrots, celery,

fennel, a bit of parsley and onion.

We also have some beautiful button mushrooms,

which I cooked early on in white wine, shallots and butter.

Plenty of juice there. We're going to use the juice for the sauce.

We've also got some mashed potatoes,

which we're going to mix with the butter, the eggs.

And also a bit of prawns we're going to put on top of our three fishes.

Our mussels are ready, so we will drain them.

We don't want them to overcook.

Also, the stock we had earlier on, we've got to drain that as well,

because the vegetables are not part of the dish.

They were just there to give flavour to the stock.

Now we're ready to cook the fish.

Charles is just a wonderfully rude and arrogant Frenchman.

But the great thing about him is he's passionate about food

and the great disarming thing about him

is he's passionate about ENGLISH food.

Sometimes I wonder why, but I go along with it.

I just think, maybe we don't understand

how good our food is after all.

Right, our stock is drained now. We're going to cook our fish.

First, the monkfish because it is firmer than the others

and it takes about two more minutes to cook.

15 years ago, when I started cooking in this country,

nobody knew about monkfish. It used to cost about ?1.30 a pound.

Nobody wanted it. But now, if you get it at ?3.70

or even ?4 a pound, you'd be very lucky.

Our monkfish is just about nearly cooked there.

It takes about another minute or so.

We're going to put our cod and lemon sole all together.

By the time those two are cooked, the monkfish will be ready as well.

I don't think MY mother would do it, but YOUR mothers would do it.

It's such an easy dish and lost.

And nobody takes the time to do it. It only takes 20 minutes to do.

People would rather buy it frozen.

That's why we've lost all the English cooking.

Our fish are cooked now. We're going to bung it in a dish...

..like that.

The mussels...

..and the button mushrooms.

That's it. Now the surprise of the dish `

a bit of prawn there, fresh from this morning.

No, I'm kidding! It's just frozen.

There's nothing wrong with frozen prawns.

Now I'll take you through the sauce.

We're going to put some butter in a pan.

Not too hot. It's got to melt slowly.

And a bit of flour. It's called a roux.

I think that's enough.

And slowly you add your stock.

Then we're going to let it cook for about five minutes, I would say.

Right, let's have a bit of a taste now.

Mmm! I think this is beautiful.

But I need the approval of the master over there.

Richard, would you mind tasting my veloute?

Of course I don't mind, Charles!

Ah, that is so good!

The thing about veloutes is they're not fashionable. No.

But that is such a nice fish sauce.

Imagine that thickness with butter and cream, it would make you gag.

Needless to say, that is a beautifully-made sauce.

Veloute in English means "velvety" and that is like white velvet!

Beautiful. Very sexy, Charles.

Thank you very much! I feel good!

HE HUMS LA MARSEILLAISE Back to my shallots.

Now I've got the approval from the master,

all I need to do is cover my fish with this beautiful velvety sauce.

White velvet! That's a good name, actually. Beautiful.

Perfect. I'll give it a bit of space so the sauce goes through the fish.

Like my friend Simon would say, this is a saucy little sauce.

Right, now we've got to taste the seasoning.

Don't mind my finger.

Mmm... Need a bit of pepper there.

The last addition is a bit of nutmeg,

which I think is beautiful in mashed potatoes.

OK, now with the piping.

Beautiful creamy. Look at that!

You can put a lot of mashed potato on the top,

because it's acting as veg as well. It's part of the dish.

Now it's ready to go in the oven for about 20 to 30 minutes

at between 400 and 450, gas number 8 for you at home.

Right, I think it's ready now. Oh, look at that!

Rick, do you want to taste it? I'd love to taste it.

It's been smelling so good. It is good, huh?

Oh, God! I'm quite pleased with that. You're a clever French person!

Oh!

It really was good - fishy and creamy

and a real classic English dish

which, unfortunately, we can only find deep-frozen these days.

I'm no stranger to the shores of Brittany.

I've been going there regularly for years for inspiration and ideas.

It's just like Cornwall, really,

except the natives LOVE fish, they really do.

I mean, look at that spider crab. No wonder they're so excited.

I just happened to be passing here

when a couple of boats started selling their day's catch.

The French, as you probably know, really don't like queuing -

if it's for a ticket, that is.

But for FISH they're as serious about queues as we are!

I've never seen anyone queuing up in a harbour in Cornwall for fish.

Perhaps the real differences between the two nations

are that the British are so trusting

and believe that every fish on the slab is freshly-landed,

while the French are realists and only too aware

of what can go wrong between fisherman and fishmonger.

We are very pleased to have you in Brittany, Rick,

and I'm pleased you are with our friends.

And now you are going to see what is fresh seafood.

I'm not sure you know that yet.

'Michelle Dupoid was joking, of course.

'At least, I think she was joking!

'But I've seen so many wonderful French films

'of long, lingering afternoon lunches,

'with tables groaning with lovely food,

'and this was my opportunity to try it out myself.

'I felt so privileged.

'Of course, they were trying to impress me, but why not? I WAS!'

So, what do you think about THAT, Rick? OK, OK!

THAT is Brittany! I agree. I give in!

LAUGHTER

'The Dupoid family and friends are quite well-off, actually,

'but they identify Brittany with seafood.

'And this fruits de mer, with all its beautiful crabs, oysters,

'clams, langoustine and winkles,

'is what they think Brittany is all about.

'I wonder what sort of food you'd get in Cornwall

'if someone was promoting it?

'A pint of scrumpy and a pasty in the pub, I guess -

'charming in its own way, but I know what impresses ME most.

'I've got this dream that the same thing will happen in Cornwall

'in a generation or so,

'when a long, lingering fruits de mer

'will seem like the most natural thing.'

'Back to Cornwall and into a dream much more easily realised.

'Ed the Bass used to work in the noisy dockyards at Devonport,

'but he gave it all up to go fishing.

'Now he makes a living out of catching bass,

'selling bait and taking people to his special places.'

Can you remember when you first realised...?

I used to think you'd be cross about being called Ed the Bass.

How long ago was it? How long ago? It must be near 20 years now.

I think it was. I remember the chef that coined the phrase.

But we never used to... I feel very privileged today,

because we always asked where he got the "bass" from

and he'd never tell us and he's actually taken me out

to one of his secret, hideaway rendezvous with the bass!

That's what YOU'RE thinking!

What do you mean? This isn't the real thing?!

We shall see, shan't we?

Tell me how to fry one of these fish, then. Would you explain...?

How to cook one? Yeah. You fillet it, whatever you like to do.

Under the grill, knob of butter,

bit of salt and pepper, tomatoes and mushrooms.

Tomatoes and mushrooms?! Yeah, grilled in with it. Beautiful.

What's with the tomatoes and mushrooms?

It makes it fancy. Why bother?

I wouldn't bother with the tomatoes and mushrooms!

I was just being elaborate, showing off. Well, there you see!

We talked an awful lot about the pros and cons

of tomatoes and mushrooms,

but we didn't actually catch anything, except a mackerel,

which doesn't count, in Ed's book.

There's only me and Steve, who's doing the washing up,

in the kitchen at the moment,

so I want to cook this wonderful, dish, which is baked black bream.

They're a lovely round, plump shape, beautiful colour as well.

I've slashed them right down to the bone,

so the aromatics can get in there in the baking.

It's great for dinner parties, cos all the preparation,

all the long-winded cooking can be done first.

So, let's get on and do the sauce... Well, not the sauce.

I like to call it a confit of vegetables.

Some ordinary olive oil, not expensive olive oil.

Then loads of this chopped Florence fennel, the bulb fennel.

Next, some chopped onion, roughly chopped,

same size as the fennel. Now, plenty of sliced garlic.

Plenty of Pernod, Ricard or other pastis, like 51.

After that, lots of white wine vinegar for a little tartness.

Now, some orange zest. I've taken the peel off

and cut them into what I call pine needles.

I don't know any other better word. Then the juice of one orange.

First one half... Squeeze.

..and then the other.

Now some sugar, about a teaspoon for a bit of background sweetness,

and about a teaspoon of salt.

Next, loads of anchovies - about four or five fillets -

finely chopped up, for that Mediterranean pungency.

And now some aromatic herbs.

You can use dried herbs.

I think there's one called Herbes de Provence.

Dried herbs are OK, as long as you use aromatic.

No good if you're using chervil, parsley, anything like that.

All that reduces down for about 35 minutes of gentle cooking,

till it's so concentrated in flavour.

So that has beautifully reduced for about 35 minutes.

I find a lot of these baked fish dishes lose so much in the baking

if you don't have good concentrated flavours to start with.

There we have a bed of that reduction,

that confit, first of all.

Not all of it - about three-quarters.

On top of that I put these delicious bream.

There we are.

Then the rest of the confit on top of the bream

to surround them with these beautiful, deep flavours.

Great fish. No more than about ?2 a pound.

Now a few slices of tomato on top of that, partly for colour,

partly, also, for a little fresh zing on the top.

Then loads and loads of this fennel.

This really is pure decoration, as well as a final aniseedy flavour.

Some pepper.

A little bit of salt.

And finally, I'm going to put some Pernod or Ricard

right over the top of that, and straight in the oven.

This really is the best way I know for baking black bream.

Lots and lots of well-reduced confit.

And after all I said about tomatoes to Ed!

25 minutes have now passed.

Let's look at the fish. It should be ready.

Zut alors, it is! That is fantastic!

I can just smell all that anchovy,

orange, fennel, Pernod, garlic ` all reduced down.

I wish you could smell it yourself! It is just totally wonderful.

I feel I have to be your official taster,

because you CAN'T taste it, but let me cut into this bream.

Beautifully cooked, even though I say so myself!

Put some of this confit on there, as well.

I'm not going to say it's delicious this time.

But it IS.

That fish pie did look delicious.

Having been born overseas myself,

I can identify with Rick's friend Charles.

People are often surprised that I'm so passionate

about British cooking and British food.

At this time of year, there's one ingredient that totally sums up

what I love about this country

and it has to be the most brilliant asparagus.

There's lots of ways to use it, but one of my favourites

has to be with a very simple pasta dish, which I grew up with as a kid.

I'm going to show you how to do it right now

and I'm going to cook it for you, Stephen,

because it's right we give you something to eat.

Thank you very much indeed. Now, this is based on carbonara,

the classic carbonara with some fettuccine, some bacon,

some asparagus, Parmesan cheese, some eggs and some parsley.

It's my first show, so I'm keeping the recipe fairly simple. Simple.

I'm going to start mucking around with this

and get this rind off here. You, er...

We sort of talked about it before.

You're a bit of a meat and two veg man, is that right? Yeah, yeah.

And what about now, as you get older? Do you cook a lot more?

Yeah, and there's such a choice, if you want to go out,

you can visit any country in the world, any style of cooking.

You're spoilt for choice, really.

And what about the fact you've got children?

Does that influence what you cook?

Yeah, Sunday morning is pancake morning and getting fruit

and all sorts of combinations going.

It's a joy just to get in there and get busy.

It IS a bit of a joy with kids because they see it very differently

and they see it as a fun activity,

rather than being something which is a chore.

And so many people now, I think, seem to think cooking is a chore,

but it should be a lot more fun. Yeah.

And what about, as a person growing up,

is there any reason why you wouldn't experiment and cook?

Well, we had a sort of home economic class

and we were asked to cook a Christmas pudding. Delicious.

So, we were looking round for the ingredients

and my dad found this box of suet

and it was sort of before the days

of sell-by dates and things like that.

So I don't know how old this suet was,

but the whole thing tasted like a big keg of soap

and it was absolutely foul, so it was slightly off-putting.

Your early disasters are the ones you remember.

The other thing, of course, is doing that at Christmas time,

it's not that appealing, is it? No.

Christmas is supposed to be a joyous day. Yes.

And I have heard, on the grapevine, something about a chicken.

You had a friend who cooked a chicken?

Cooked a chicken, yeah, with the giblets in the bag inside as well,

so the whole thing kind of melted and...

So, you had plastic-stuffed chicken.

Yeah, and we were too polite and just suffered on

so we didn't hurt her feelings.

Well, that's the only way you can do it, really, is to be nice.

But the fact is, actually,

you've got to be a bit honest about what people are cooking.

Asparagus, boiling hot water. Beautiful. Fettuccine cooking.

I've got bacon on. I put lots of salt and pepper in there

because the flavour of the salt and pepper needs to come out

as you cook, rather than adding it later.

The spice actually comes out of the pepper as you get the heat to it.

Now, you are a very, very busy man and Wild At Heart, of course,

is not here. It's in South Africa. Yeah.

So, you must be travelling a lot. Yes, absolutely.

I get to spend about six months of the year out there

and it's such a treat to be so close to these incredible animals

in the environment they're supposed to be in.

It's a very humbling experience.

And, of course, people would think you're quite strange

if you said that some of them are on the menu.

Oh, yeah, there's a restaurant out there which is called Carnivores.

The clue's in the title there.

And, basically, if anything walks,

and I don't know if it passes the restaurant, or whatever,

then, yeah, anything goes and it's all on the menu.

But, of course, people really do find that very, very frightening.

But you're also, of course, not just doing Wild At Heart,

but you don't like stopping, do you? You like to work hard. Absolutely.

I'm currently in rehearsals for The Revenger's Tragedy

up at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester,

which is a Jacobean drama,

a 400-year-old everyday story of treachery,

death, redemption, hope, life and death...

It's absolutely fantastic piece.

I studied it for two years for A level,

so it's great to be revisiting the play,

especially at the Royal Exchange, which is a theatre-in-the-round.

It's 750 seats on three levels

and, as an actor, it's like walking into a gladiatorial arena.

The audience are right there

and there's no place to hide.

It's 360 degrees and you're right in the middle of the action

and it's fantastic. It sounds extraordinary.

And, of course, you're going to be dressed up, being Jacobean.

Yeah, yeah, there's all sorts of dressing up.

There's some very exotic murders take place, a bit of Julie Andrews.

There's something for everyone. And is Helen Mirren in it with you?

No, I worked with Helen on the last Prime Suspect,

which was a real treat. I believe you tried to knock her out.

I smacked her in the face, yes. JOHN LAUGHS

Inadvertently, I have to add.

No, we were doing a scene where Helen was at one end of the room

and I was at the other end of the room looking out the window,

and the second camera jumped down to get a shot of me

looking at the window, but hadn't taken any earpiece with them.

So, when we finished the scene, and I was looking very moodily,

I signalled to the boys down there, "We've cut."

And Helen had walked up behind me, at that point,

and I smacked her straight in the face.

Which is the nearest thing

to hitting the Queen in the face, of course.

Good thing is, I've got all the stories from you

and nobody knows what I've cooked.

I fried off some bacon, lots of fettuccine in there with the bacon.

Asparagus, some egg, some Parmesan cheese, lots of salt and pepper.

And this... The idea of a weekend pasta dish.

I don't really normally do a lot with asparagus

beside just cook it plainly, but there we are, young sir.

Tuck into that and tell me what you think.

What do you reckon? Mmm. The asparagus is great.

Bacon, eggs, asparagus. Yeah. It's sort of like breakfast pasta.

Perfect brunchy pasta, yeah.

OK, so I know I may look a little bit older now,

but the recipe will never age.

Today, we're looking back at some of the tastiest recipes

from the Saturday Kitchen larder,

and there's still a full menu of mouthwatering food to be served.

It may have been his first time in the Saturday Kitchen studio,

but the inimitable Tony Singh came armed

with a recipe for peanut butter chicken.

What could go wrong, cos it sounds yum?

So, what's on the menu today, Chef Tony?

It sounds a bit weird - chicken thighs with peanut butter sauce.

Doesn't sound weird to me, sounds pretty good. I like that.

So, we're going to marinate the chicken first.

We'll marinate the chicken in only a few ingredients. What was left.

What was left! Rub it in, rub it in!

No, no, but it comes back to the style of food I'm doing.

It's from my new book, Tasty.

Didn't take you long to get THAT in, did it?! No, no.

I've got a Dragon there, I'm plugging it!

Good, I'm really impressed.

So, we've got our ginger and garlic. This is for...?

Our sauce. ..our sauce at the end.

The dish is based on bang bang chicken and kung pao chicken,

so it's Sichuan cooking. Right.

But the real star is the nuts that we're going to caramelise,

which is great. And you've got loads of them,

so it's really good for sweet and savoury dishes.

So your book's not based on Indian food, well, not at all, really.

There's some Indian food.

My cooking in the book's based on my Indian Sikh heritage,

my Scottish heritage, my travels, but it's all about tasty food.

The book's called Tasty,

so it's simple, accessible food that's not cheffy. Yeah.

You know what I mean? And that's the same with the restaurant.

Opened a new restaurant and it's the same thing. It's fun food.

Don't ask any more questions, James, he's on a run now. That's it.

So, chicken thighs. Chicken thighs. Perfect for this.

Perfect for this and good value as well.

Take the skin off so it's a bit healthier for you. Yeah.

And we're going to cook in real time as well.

But we've got to marinate these first. Marinate. Spiced rum.

Sesame. Spiced rum - any rum? Well, spiced rum.

I'll not tell you my favourite but... Right, OK.

We'll give that a mix and I'll take over the stuff we've already done.

How long would you leave that to marinate for then?

At least ten minutes.

If you could leave it for a couple of hours, that would be great,

but ten minutes is good. Yeah.

And it comes up to room temperature as well.

This style of cooking... There is quite a lot of garlic in there.

There is, but you'll be surprised.

It's not going to overwhelm anything.

And you'll be surprised with the amount of chilli we put in. Yeah.

Hold on, I'll get the sauce ready first.

OK, sauce first. Peanut butter. Yeah.

Crunchy - you want the texture. Black rice vinegar.

If you can't get that, a good balsamic's good,

but the black rice vinegar adds a nice earthiness

and a bit of sweetness to it as well. OK.

Made from gelatinous rice. Now, you want two parts of the onion.

You want the white part and then... The green separately.

We're going to cook the white and use the green to garnish it with.

And Sichuan peppercorn. OK.

Which isn't a peppercorn, Chef, really.

No, we call it "teen phool" in India,

which means three flowers and it's got a triple flavour in it.

It's used to numb the tongue. It does.

So you can have a lot of chilli.

So we're going to put a lot of chilli in there

but we're leaving it whole. We're going to break it just in half

and it's going to add a lovely flavour and aroma.

Cos there is quite a lot of aroma in this.

When we did it in rehearsal, everybody was coughing

and spluttering everywhere, mainly cos of this next bit.

Yeah, but it's not... So, these are chillies going in here?

Chillies are going in, just cracked. 30 seconds till you smell the aroma.

In goes the chicken. Any particular chilli?

It's a Kashmiri chilli.

But you can use dried bird's-eye as well,

if you really want a potent heat.

JAMES COUGHS AND KELLY LAUGHS

It's quite strong, isn't it? It is.

Do you want to whip up some egg white, please? I can do that.

With a spoon of water. So, that's there.

We're going to add the peanut butter and sauce mixture. OK.

And that'll be cooking away as we talk. Yeah.

So these are for the garnish as well? That's going to be garnish.

I'm going to put the ginger and garlic in there right now.

I'll just get a whisk.

CUTLERY CRASHES AND BANGS

Garlic. I did that quietly. It's fine.

LAUGHTER

So, James is demonstrating the new gravity-fed storage system.

JAMES COUGHS

I can't see, that's why! He's been blinded.

What is it about you and Ken Hom? Oh!

You need some onion goggles, chilli goggles. Money there, as well.

New invention. Couple of million quid, that one.

That's seriously strong, that.

But don't worry, you'll be surprised, it's not that hot.

Salt... KELLY LAUGHS

We won't be able to see but it won't be hot.

My eyes are the colour of your shirt. That's good.

Right, what are we doing next?

What we're going to do next is make this spice mixture for the nuts.

JAMES COUGHS You're putting it on now.

No, I'm not! No? OK, so brown sugar. Yeah.

And then we've got some chilli powder in there, some cinnamon

and Chinese five spice just to accentuate all the Asian flavours.

Yeah. Give it a mix.

This takes what? Five minutes? About five minutes, yeah.

So, when that's stiff...

These are the roasted spice nuts that you've got in there?

No, they're just raw nuts. OK. But you've got to roast these?

We're going to roast them, yeah. OK. That's perfect. That's stiff enough.

There you go.

Spices go in. I'll get you a spoon.

The nuts go in. Don't worry, I've got you a spoon.

I'll wash it, otherwise, we'll get... Thank you.

..Doreen from Somerset on the phone again. Is she on the phone again?

Yeah, right. OK.

So, gently fold them in. Yeah.

OK.

They're all coated. Lovely.

The crew have just brought me some glasses, but...

LAUGHTER These are obviously not my style.

I think these are ladies glasses. LAUGHTER

Very Jackie O. You think? That's a look. It's super.

That's a good look. Whose are these glasses?

Just like an Indian film star.

Gary's. They're the boss's glasses. LAUGHTER

Don't drop them on the floor - they'll be worth a fortune!

Pop the salt on last so you're not breaking down

chunks of salt on it as well. Oh...

Clean tea towel, otherwise we'll get more phone calls.

KELLY LAUGHS Right...

And I've always wanted to say, "Here's one we made earlier." Yeah.

How long do you roast those for then?

You're looking at about 15 to 20 minutes but keep checking them.

It depends on how your oven is.

You just want a nice golden brown on them. stick that in a jar...

CUTLERY CRASHES AND BANGS Oh, come on!

LAUGHTER

I give up! OK.

Whose first time is it, me or you, on the show?

LAUGHTER Noisiest session we ever had.

If it was well-designed, Kelly, we'd have a bigger sink.

It would be more practical.

Right, we're going to pop some roasted peanuts in there,

just for a bit more texture, cos it's nearly done.

On the menu, it says, "If you have a nut allergy, don't come."

LAUGHTER

Right, you serve these warm or cold? Cold, warm is really nice. Yeah.

For after dinner, for coffee, instead of doing petits fours,

a big bowl of them warm is really lovely.

And you can change the spices to suit.

I'm going to let you plate it up cos I don't trust myself.

I don't trust you either. You're OK.

About your restaurant, this is not Indian...

This is, again, like the food you love to do. Love to do.

Well, it's in a small village,

just on the outskirts of Edinburgh, start of the borders.

Produce in Scotland's one of the best in the world.

What I bring to the food is my travels, my spices,

technique and that's what I like to do. Yeah.

You mentioned it's the best in the world.

We've just seen the bit with Loch Fyne.

The seafood up that neck of the woods...

British produce is fantastic, but in Scotland, it's just a bit better.

Bear in mind that dark bit is a big lump of chilli.

Yeah, it is a big lump of chilli. Pop that on.

And cos you cut it up small, this cooks in real time. Yes.

It's not hot because...

Somebody who cooks that daily has chillies for breakfast. Exactly.

Give us the name of that dish. Chicken thighs in peanut butter.

That's what it is.

And bring it over here. It smells delicious. Can't see it much but...

Dive into that. That big lump is a piece of chilli. Watch yourself.

Yeah, but, again, cooked in real time. Yeah.

I thought Duncan was hard to understand on Dragons' Den, but...

The flavour's amazing. Oh, my word! That's incredible!

Would you try that in the kitchen, Kelly? Would you give that a bash?

That's better, but what I love about this kitchen

is everything's done for you, you just have to do that, you know.

Including the washing up as well, which is quite handy!

That chicken looked fantastic but as for the studio, James,

I've got to say, a good job you had someone to help you clean it up.

Up next, Keith Floyd is in the kitchen

cooking with a very fresh-faced chef that you just might recognise.

Keith is supplying the fish but in true Floyd style,

it was never going to be the normal catch of the day.

MUSIC: Peaches by The Stranglers

'For many, a day at the seaside

'means eating hamburgers and ice cream,

'which is a shame when there are so many other wonderful things

'like crabs, lobsters, shrimps, prawns, cockles and mussels.

'It's an even greater shame that the BBC can't or won't afford

'to buy them for this next scene.

'So I've had to think a bit to get something a little unusual,

'and, of course, cheap, to confuse my old friend Rick Stein with,

'who I think is still recovering from our last meeting.

'Still, he's a good sport and he'll be thrilled with this little beast

'and is bound to know how to cook a shark, aren't you, Rick?'

I'm going to take a couple of nice steaks off here,

which we're going to, as you know, grill on the charcoal grill.

It's like meat, isn't it? It is. It's incredible.

We need another knife. You keep chopping. OK.

We need that skin off the edge, don't we?

I'm not too fussed. It comes away nicely when it's cooked.

Beautiful. There we are. That is a shark steak.

Excuse my finger - I had an accident with an old lady

crossing the road late last night.

I would have made it all right

but she trod on my hands as I was trying to get into the hotel.

Anyway, there we have a beautiful shark steak,

which... Stay there, Richard. ..I will bring this over to you.

This is a marinade which Rick has prepared.

What is in the marinade, Rick?

Olive oil, a little bit of lemon juice, salt, pepper,

chopped fennel, a bay leaf and a bit of thyme. Nothing too complicated.

So we're going to stick those in there.

We are going to leave them in there

for about an hour before we cook them.

Anyway, before we do that,

we're going to have a look at this monkfish.

Rick, why have we got a monkfish? And why with the head?

Because we never see them with the head. No. No.

I purposely bought it with the head

to show you one or two things about the monkfish.

This actual monkfish weighs about 20 pounds.

If you bought the tail,

you'd buy about 7 or 8lb.

So, 13, 14lb of weight is the head.

It's always thrown away in England, which is a tremendous shame,

because there's enormous pieces of beautiful meat -

which, in France, that's the best part of the monkfish -

on the cheeks. And the head makes an absolutely wonderful fish fumet.

So, if you were going to cut out these little cheeks...

Yes. ..these are sort of fillets, if you like, in layman's terms. Yes.

Succulent fillets. Succulent is the word.

And what would be the thing to do?

Perhaps just dredge them lightly in butter

and saute them in butter and fresh lemon juice

or something of that kind, or...? I think you said in your book,

which I totally agree with,

that monkfish doesn't take cream sauces very well.

I mean, I bought this because I'm going to cook it

on the charcoal grill, which it goes very well on.

Um, I think it's a fish for fairly harsh treatment, really.

Sauteing in butter - fine, really nice. Yes. Grilling as well.

And grilling too. Yes. Anyway, let's get back to our shark again.

We'd better get these over to the grill.

I'll take them over, if you like. OK, fine.

Ah, that's what I like to see. Yeah, lovely. Really...

Really, really hot grill there.

Yes. Now, that's right, isn't it?

The thing about these grills is, OK, people get very...

Purists get very sort of, er, difficult about the fact

that this isn't a pure charcoal grill, it's a pumice stone grill.

But the thing is, it's always hot, OK?

It's always hot, and that is the most important thing

about charcoal cookery, if you like. Or any kind of, er,

grilling that you're doing -

whether it's on a flat piece of cast iron in your fireplace,

if it's a Boy Scout stove you've made on the beach,

you MUST have those coals hot before you attempt what is,

in fact, essentially, a very rapid cooking process. Yes, yes.

So, how are we doing? Well, we're doing well. In fact,

I'd just give it a little bit longer. The thing is, with fish,

because it's quite delicate -

although shark is the tougher end of the fish spectrum -

it's better just to leave it on there

to get the, er, grill marks really well seared,

otherwise when you try and turn it over,

it will stick to the grill bars. I'm learning something every day!

Marvellous! So, they've got to go over now, haven't they? Yep.

They're freed. Marvellous. Marvellous!

Now, that looks really, superbly appetising. Now, then, come on,

tell us about what we've got here. Well, that's some dried marjoram

and some fennel twigs,

a bit of fresh fennel and some dried bay leaves.

From where? Well, all from my garden, except for these,

which I actually got from a sort of nearby hedgerow.

What are these? How tall are these when they're in the hedgerow?

These are fabulous. You grill bass on them,

you cook all sorts of things on these.

If ever you see these in the hedgerow,

pick 'em, take 'em home, dry 'em...

And make sure it's fennel and not hemlock! Right.

We've got to get that flavour into the shark steaks.

Right, well, I'm just going to sort of bung 'em generally down here,

get some smoke round here. I'm going to put some of those branches

around the fennel thing as well.

What are you doing? Well, I just thought,

because you're fiddling about there... Yeah.

..we could fasten this up a little bit. Right.

A little flash like that would get your herbs going more quickly

and release the flavours. Right, absolutely.

Just a little tiny fraction more.

See, this is something you can do with a grill, isn't it? It is.

Put anything you like on.

A bit of sawdust, if you're cooking a steak,

and nice herbs like this if you're doing fish. Indeed.

So, while that is cooking, we're going to make a sweet-and-sour,

piquant tomato sauce to go with this shark.

Richard, come down to the tray of ingredients here -

a quick spin round. We've got peeled and chopped tomato,

bay leaf, salt,

black peppercorns, brown sugar,

strong mustard,

chopped garlic, chopped shallots,

and then we have a choice of Worcester sauce, pepper sauce,

a drop of medium sweet sherry and olive oil.

Those are my ingredients. Stay with me,

and as quick as a flash...

Oh, and some vinegar, which I've lost somewhere.

There it is. Stay where you are, here's the vinegar.

The first thing that goes into this pan -

best laid plans of mice and men...

PAN SIZZLES ..is vinegar!

In with the shallots.

In with some garlic.

Maximum heat, because we want to reduce that to almost nothing.

Can you hear me above the fizzing and the fire?

Floyd on fire, this is, no question about it!

In with a bit of olive oil, like that.

Have I got the heat going to the maximum? Yes.

Tomato into there...

like that.

A bay leaf, a couple of peppercorns.

Don't worry about the coarseness of all this,

because we're going to strain it later.

Worcester sauce...

like this. Notice that any of you who want to say,

"Now, how much exactly did you put in?"

Well, I'm just putting in what I feel is right,

and I shall taste it. Some sherry to go into there.

A little bit of salt.

A squeeze of lemon juice.

Now, if we were in Provence, or if this was high summer,

we'd have really ripe, luscious red tomatoes.

We haven't. So, to take away the slightly anaemic colour

of the winter tomatoes...

You'll probably be seeing this in the height of summer,

but this was made in the winter, you see.

..we're going to strengthen it with some tomato puree.

Now, all we've got to do -

because we never cheat on the Floyd programme,

we cook in real time, we don't take it out of the oven...

That bubbles away, once the heat gets to it,

I have a drink, and we'll be back with the next phase

in, what? A flash.

That was jolly witty, wasn't it? Ha-ha!

Director likes things like that. Anyway...

Rick, here we are, the sauce is now completed.

It's been reducing away for 15 minutes or so.

We pour it onto the plate through a sieve.

Rick is now going to roll it round like that.

That's a beautiful sweet-and-sour sauce...

..on there. And what could be better? Do you want a taste?

Yeah, damn right I do.

I want your honest opinion, as usual, on my sauce,

cos you wanted to put a vinaigrette on it, didn't you? I did.

That's very nice. What do you reckon, me old beauty?

I think it's lovely!

SILENT MOVIE-STYLE MUSIC

'Will the intrepid cantering cooks prepare the meal in time?

'Will the OK Chorale be in tune?'

SILENT MOVIE-STYLE MUSIC

'Will this barbecue scene serve as a plug for my new book?

'Will shark become more popular than scampi?

'Will Keith Floyd shut up and get on with it?'

OK, I've done my bit - the Hemingway-style,

Rick Stein shark steaks.

But my mates, the Close Clifton Harmony OK Chaps Chorale Singers,

are going to sing for their supper.

A-one, two, three...

WHISTLING INTRO # Do-do, do-do, do-do-do

# There ain't no fish Ain't no flounder

# Ain't no tuna, ain't no fish Oh, holy mackerel

# Some days, there just ain't no fish

# Ain't no perch

# Ain't no flounder Flounder for fish

# Ain't no fish

# And although at times we get a messful

# Other days are less successful

# Some days there just ain't no fish

# Do, beedle-eedle, ah-bah-bah

# Tomorrow is unpredictable

# So, it may be sound advice... # What?!

# To put away some extra fish on ice... # Oh, God! Madness!

# Oh, holy mackerel

# Wish for a catch every day

# And you're wasting a wish

# For some days there just ain't no fish

# No fish, no fish No fish, no fish

# Some days there just ain't no fish

# Tuna, barracuda, pick-er-all

# Huntin' round until you're sick-er-all

# Some days, there just ain't no fish

# Go get 'em, Floyd! #

I could watch those two all day.

As ever on Best Bites, we're looking back

at some of the tastiest recipes from the Saturday Kitchen larder.

Still to come on today's show...

They may have numerous Michelin stars between them,

but can Alain and Michel Roux shine

when they battle it out at the Omelette Challenge hobs?

Find out in just a few minutes.

A certain Mr Granger is cooking a classic, coq au vin, Bill's way.

The chicken is roasted with shallots, lardons and herbs,

and served with garlic mushrooms and a creme fraiche mash.

And Gok Wan faces his food heaven or food hell.

But did he get food heaven, seared tuna with glass noodles,

or did he get his food hell, paprika monkfish

with romesco sauce and padron peppers?

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

Following on from her Chinese culinary adventures

with the legendary Mr Ken Hom,

Ching-He Huang cooked a classic Sichuan dish to share with us.

Boy, does this look good?!

Hello. Great to have you on the show. Thank you.

On the menu is what? I'm going to cook twice-cooked pork,

which is called hui guo rou.

It's a Sichuan classic dish. You boil the pork first

and then I'm going to wok-fry it.

I'm going to use the holy trinity of Chinese pastes. Right.

I've got fermented black beans, sweet bean paste

and some chilli bean paste and I got some from China for you to try.

Sounds good. You're going to get the pork on and I'll do the...

So, nice big piece of belly pork. Yeah.

And got the water to the boil. I will pop that in.

I will cook that for 30 minutes. Right.

Tell us about your travels then, cos it's a four-part series... Yeah.

..that we're about to see. You were with Mr Ken Hom.

Yes, the godfather of Chinese cooking.

Is he as popular in China

as he is everywhere around the world?

Oh, he's very popular. Right. You know, he had fans in China

wanting his autograph as well.

Cos he's a bit a party animal, is old Ken Hom, isn't he? He is.

He loves his drink, actually. He's good fun!

LAUGHTER Sorry, Ken!

But anyway, we had... Just announced that to three million people!

Sorry. He'll be on the phone in a minute!

Oh, God, sorry, Ken. He's like my dad.

We were touring around

and everyone was saying how much we look alike.

No, no, that's not how you do it. You do this.

There you go.

That's how you make cucumber salad. Right.

I haven't got a pan or anything. OK. I'll have to use your knife.

Do you want a bowl?

I have never seen anything like that before.

OK, so basically, that in. So, you travel...

I suppose they didn't teach that in French cooking school.

No, they didn't, really.

You travelled around China with Ken. Obviously, China is a huge place.

You have to narrow it down to a couple of areas.

Yes, we narrowed it down to Beijing, to Sichuan,

um, to Kashgar, and Kashgar was amazing, actually.

The people didn't look Chinese at all. What are you putting in there?

So, basically, smash the cucumber, deseed it.

This is a very classic dish.

And in there I've put some sesame oil, about a tablespoon. Right.

And then, in with this gorgeous chilli bean paste.

I brought this from China. This one?

Yeah, that one. It's really winey and beany. What's the difference?

I take it that... That is the one you get in the supermarkets here.

This one has been aged for five years.

This dish is meant to have that salty, winey, fermented tone.

That's what it's supposed to look like.

Do they age it in barrels?

They age it in these huge urns, which is incredible.

These guys just rotate it. You finish mixing that for me.

They rotate it using this big wooden paddle. It was phenomenal.

Can I use a spoon? No, you have to use THAT.

Cos you're going to make me make a French omelette later!

Right, OK. So, yeah, in goes some vinegar.

If you grate some garlic in there. OK, no problem.

Do you like garlic? Love garlic. So, a bit of garlic.

I love seeing James work. And some chilli oil as well.

That bean paste, is that supposed to be mild or...?

How does it differ from the shop-bought ones?

It's spicy and it's got more winey tones.

Basically, chilli bean paste is broad beans,

salt and some chillies, basically, fermented.

Right. Yes, OK, so I've got a wok smoking hot here.

Do you want me to get the pork out? Yeah. I'll get it.

Good. The pork has been in the pan for...?

You need to boil it for 30 minutes and then you can squish it down

with a tray or if you can have a gorgeous piece like this.

Just chill it. And the main point of boiling it

is to get the skin already cooked to get some of that fat out.

Did you want sugar in this? A pinch of sugar would be nice, thank you.

OK, so we want to just... It's easier to cut the pork

when you put it on its skin side, flat like that.

And you need to slice it into nice thin slices.

Where do the idea of these knives come from?

These things fascinate me.

Obviously, there are different sized ones.

But you seem do everything with this. Yeah, definitely.

We're very passionate about our food

and it reflects in how we also cut and slice our food. Yeah. Yeah.

This is a great cleaver. You were on about the layers before.

Exactly. This is hua rou, which is belly pork.

You can also use the pork shoulder or pork thigh for this.

But it's got "wu hua", means layers of heaven, five layers of heaven.

You've got the skin, fat, meat and fat.

It's just really wonderful. Five layers of heaven.

You'll end up there pretty quick if you eat all this!

THEY LAUGH Yeah, that is...

Try and slice it as thin as possible. Right. Wok smoking hot.

About two tablespoons. What oil do you use? I've got groundnut oil.

We just want to fry this until the skin is nice and crispy. Right.

What about Chinese food? Ever attempted it?

You're looking a bit bemused, you two.

It normally arrives at my front door at about half past seven.

It is actually... People think it is complicated

but when you break it down like this,

it's just about great ingredients, isn't it?

Yes, really great, fresh ingredients. Yeah.

Good quality pork. Make sure it's free-range or organic

because it will taste a lot sweeter, a bit more tender.

That wok looks pretty serious. Really, really hot.

We want to brown it and get the skin lovely and crispy.

In Chinese cooking, we're obsessed with texture.

It's got to play on your tongue, you know?

That kind of, like, chewy bit, meltingly fat bit,

nice softened meat bit. It's all got to sort of work together.

There's no salt in there, nothing? No salt, just in there.

So nice and brown, that's what we're looking for.

We've got a couple of minutes, so you can brown it off.

Once it's nice and brown, we're going to add in some rice wine.

This is really good. You can use dry sherry.

Is that rice wine? Rice wine. Rice wine.

Shaoxing rice wine.

This is your wok from home then? It is. Right.

It's not very well seasoned. Is it a Ken Hom wok?

It's not a Ken Hom wok. No, it's not. Sorry, Ken.

He'll have switched off by now.

He's speaking to his lawyers. Sorry! LAUGHTER

The opportunity of doing a possible other trip has gone out the window.

Do you guys want to come instead?

Bless him. No, it was so much fun.

And we just learned... When I went to China,

honestly, I realised I knew nothing about Chinese cooking

because there's so much to learn.

It's so broad and everyone is so passionate.

Right, you're just throwing stuff in now.

Yeah, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce. Right.

And they're fermented black beans? Yeah, fermented black beans.

I mixed together fermented black beans, chilli bean paste

and the yellow bean paste.

You can buy these in a Chinese supermarket or online.

What do you want doing with this?

Can you slice it into a horse ear shape?

Horse ears? Horse ear shape. LAUGHTER

I've got to make a horse ear out of this?!

SHE SPEAKS IN NATIVE TONGUE He'll make a pig's ear out of it!

An ear?! Yeah. CHING-HE LAUGHS

I think she's been on that rice wine!

Yeah. Horse... Like this? Yes, exactly.

Really on a very, very sharp angle. Like that? That's beautiful.

Beautiful! Yay! Well done, James!

Is that a horse's ear? Yeah, a horse ear shape.

Do you write that in your recipes, Ching?

Yeah. "Cut the spring onion like a horse ear."

Could do.

That looks good. I've got some rice here, just steamed jasmine rice,

just cooked absorption method.

They want to see the horse's ear but you've put it all in there.

Oh, sorry. Ow, there you go. There you go.

Can you see?

Looks like a horse's ear, very pointy. Pointy, right.

Exactly. So, that's it. We can plate up. Is that it?

What about these things here? That's the Sichuan flower pepper.

I wanted to explain because everyone who loves Sichuan cuisine

will know of Sichuan pepper. Yeah.

It's got this lovely numbing, citrusy taste.

That is used in a lot of Sichuan dishes.

But really the soul of Sichuan cooking,

used in every dish is this, chilli bean paste, good quality one.

Good stuff, that. Good stuff, that.

So, look for that. And chilli? Chilli, you can use it as a garnish.

Do you want that? I'll leave you to serve up.

It's great - I have a fantastic commis chef here!

No, sous, really - sorry! No, it's fine, I don't mind.

OK. Horse's ear! He'll have butter in there soon.

OK, so...

You want some rice on there as well, yeah? Yeah.

So we get these ingredients in the Chinese supermarket?

Yes, you can get it online. Just try and find a good one without MSG.

Try to find a good sauce without MSG.

There are some good ones around.

So, there's your rice. Tell us what that is again.

That is my Sichuan hui guo rou with pickled cucumber.

And the horse's ear chilli. The horse ear chilli and spring onions.

That's what it is. Courtesy of James Martin.

She's an absolute star. There you go.

Whoa. You get to dive into that one.

I know that this is good because we tried this this morning already.

Wow, wow, wow! Five layers of heaven!

It looks fantastic.

I'm not waiting, so there you go. Dive in.

I only managed to get four of those layers.

So, it's the fat, the skin, the meat and the fat again.

That's four, right? Five... Two layers of heaven!

Skin, fat, meat, fat, skin. Who cares?! It looks brilliant.

I still don't understand, Ching, why you have to boil it beforehand?

You boil it so that you can get the skin cooked.

It's that texture that we want.

Cos when we cook it later on, we wok-fry it, that will crisp up.

It's for that. It makes the texture soft as well.

It makes the texture soft and delicious. Sensational.

It is fantastic. I'm going to add this to my repertoire. Yeah?

That's brilliant and definitely going in MY repertoire.

It looked amazing.

And I'm glad that James now knows what a horse's ear is!

Now, it was Alain Roux's first crack

at the Saturday Kitchen Omelette Challenge,

but there was one chef's time he really wanted to beat

and, yeah, you've guessed it - it's his dad's,

who also wrote a book on eggs.

What that's got to do with it I'm not quite sure,

but let's find out how they did.

Down to business. Three-egg omelette, cooked as fast as you can.

Alain, who would you like to beat on our board? My dad, yeah.

Your dad, which is sitting there on 28.4 seconds.

Pretty respectable time. Let's put the clocks on the screens, please.

Too quick for me. Three-egg omelette cooked as fast as you can.

You know the story, Chef. Yes, I do.

The clock stops when the omelette hits the plate.

Ready? Yeah. Three, two, one, go.

I'm saying nothing, I'm just watching.

Look at the concentration!

Come on, Michel, come on.

GONG Oh, yes! Oh, there you go.

GONG

APPLAUSE

That's amazing. Right, I get to have a taste of this.

That was the time I should have asked for a pay rise. Was it?

Yeah, I missed out.

It's a good omelette? Seasoned, Chef, yeah. He DID season it.

Yeah. I did season mine. Did you season yours? Yes, I did.

From the left hand.