07/05/2017 Saturday Kitchen Best Bites

The next 90 minutes is jam-packed with mouthwatering recipe

ideas that, trust me, you won't want to miss.

Don't go anywhere, because this is Saturday Kitchen Best Bites.

We've got first-class chefs serving magnificent

food and a healthy portion of celebrity guests, too.

James Martin serves up a Manchester tart with a difference

Nic Watt whips up some Japanese inspired finger food.

He cooks a duck breast in spiced honey and serves

it with sliced mango, daikon and shishu leaves.

Claude Bosi is here with a fish dish that's packed full of flavour.

Steamed cod loin is served with roughly chopped mussels,

battered scraps and a delicious carrot and porridge butter.

And taking on the formidable omelette challenge today

And something tells me Shaun's been practising.

Then it's over to cookery writer Diana Henry, who is here with a true

Chicken thighs marinated in cinnamon, cayenne and cumin,

pan fried and served with home-made flatbreads and a hot green relish.

And finally, Julia Bradbury faces her food heaven or food hell.

Did she get her food heaven, baked sea bass with braised

baby purple artichokes, asparagus and a white wine foam,

or her food hell, crab souffle with radish,

baby spinach and rocket salad and a crab-shell sauce?

You can find out what she got at the end of the show,

but first it over to the fantastic Francesco Mazzi, who's cooking

something that may require you to pop to an Italian deli

for the ingredients, but trust me, it's going to be worth it.

A very simple dish called provatura, which is a gentle south Italian stew

with broad beans and peas, fantastic nduja, and ricotta mustia.

It comes from near where Stanley Tucci comes fromm, Spilinga.

It's a beautiful, soft, spreadable salami.

It's very good for sauce, very good for stewing.

So, we're just going to do this with peas and broad beans.

So what we are going to do now, I know you are blanching already

Fresh peas are really key, especially now,

Not really in my garden because the plants are that big.

Because the season in Italy is good now, when the season in Italy ends,

that is when it starts here, so you've got a long

You can do some Tropea onion, which is also very good.

I love Tropea at this time of the year, lovely scent.

It looks like a shallot, but it's got...

Imagine like this but with a shallot at the end.

And it's very red, and it's called cipolla rossa,

Basically inside is white, it's not red.

You can eat it with a piece of bread like that.

You could practise with your tuna tartare that you did before.

You see, there is no sign in England saying, bread and butter.

So, we sweat this, we didn't add any olive oil, because there is lot,

Now, the spice of this, this is quite hot?

Yes, it is quite hot, but not very, very strong.

It similar to Sopressata, a Spanish stuff, but they used smoked paprika.

Now, this is raw, you have to cook it?

People have recently seen you on TV, MasterChef, you were doing

It was a great night with Marcus and friends,

and Massimo Bottura was cooking, one of the best Italian chefs we've

So I'm going to add some marsala for a bit of sweetness to this dish.

And I'm going to start to chop these beautiful herbs.

I was looking at Stanley's cookbook, it looks like one

This looks like one of the dishes from your cookbook, as well!

It's actually one of the recipes from my book,

And then you basically chop in mint, unusually, in this.

So we are just going to add the mint here.

And you can see, it is nice and creamy,

This is called ricotta mustia, and this is a Sardinian cheese.

It's very pungent with a zingy taste and is kind of smoked, as well.

And its great, obviously if you pan-fry it or simply grill

this one, it's great also to serve is a dessert with berries,

It is 85% sheep and 15% cow, but they sometimes makes it.

Whenever you go to different areas of Sardinia, like everything

Now we can find this in any delicatessen in London, as well.

Seasoning wise, just a little bit of black pepper?

Going to be black pepper and a little bit of salt

So that cheese, you are just going to crumble over the top?

I've just tested it for the first time this morning.

It particularly goes well with the spiciness.

I don't know how to say it like that.

And interesting, if you've got this, I love these.

These are black fennel seeds, they come from Pollino

They are very gentle in the taste, and they really lift the dish.

We use a lot of these things when we make our own salami.

How do they differ from a regular fennel seed?

So, I've got this beautiful pea shoots all around,

I've got some borage flowers, I quite like these

So that looks much better than in rehearsal!

Such a simple dish, but looks fantastic.

This is the key of Italian cooking, simplicity making great food.

I thought it was just a plank of wood with a hinge on it, but anyway.

Provatura with broad beans, ricotta mustia, peas and nduja.

The man's pretty good, and you get to dive into this, as well.

Tell us what you think of this one, Stanley.

It's a plate of springtime, isn't it?

There's a little bit of spice in there, but that

The whole combination goes incredibly well.

So, to quote Stanley Tucci there, that really was

Coming up, James cooks up a Manchester tart with a difference

for singer Gareth Gates, but first, it's over to Rick Stein,

who's in Lancashire visiting a very familiar face.

I'm on my way to Lancashire, and you've probably guessed why,

because on a culinary trip such as mine where I'm really looking

for good regional flavours and produce I have been eagerly

anticipating exploring the steamy depths of

So I rang up a friend of mine, Nigel Haworth at Northcote Manor,

who is fiercely passionate about anything that comes

from Lancashire and said please can you make me the ultimate hotpot?

We have been cooking this for four hours now.

I'm told, Rick, every household had one of these in Lancashire.

I don't think there is any dish that's more

That long, slow cooking is the thing that makes it so special.

We used to call it the cheap cuts of lamb, under shoulder,

neck and shin, and shin is really important to get that real

Quite often in the hotpot it is over poweringly rich.

The other thing that's good about this is the red cabbage.

The thing about these dishes it's like the accompaniments.

I think one of the main things about this area of Lancashire

we have absorbed some of the influences from people

When a lot of the Asian people were brought over to work

in the mills, et cetera, and they brought all the spices

over, you've now got with Lancashire hotspot a spicy red cabbage thaw

And it just, it enhances what is we're doing

So this is a today's Lancashire hotpot.

Well, I have to say, on my last trip to find

a perfect hotpot and indeed, I did find a perfect hotpot,

at Haworth's place, I couldn't find a hotpot in any pub or any

Lots of other food as usual, Creole ooking, Thai cooking,

you name it, but a local dish like hotpot, no chance!

And you just think what is wrong with this country when you've got

such a fantastic dish which goes so well with red wine,

Please, chefs out there, start cooking your Lancashire hotpot.

OK, first of all I'm using best end chops,

but I'm going to just trim the whole end off because the whole thing

about hotpot is not to get too much fat in there,

otherwise it is just, you know, a bit over powering.

So just excuse me, I'm going to have to look down here now.

Cutting myself with a mandolin with one thing, but chopping my

fingers off is not the same joke I think you'll agree.

It is knocking all that off and you've got a neat little chop

like that which will look really good in the finished stew there.

One thing I picked up from Nigel and it's a good idea is to use lamb

shank because when that cooks over a long period it makes the stew

I'm going to slice some lamb shank and put that in as well.

Some recipes do have lambs kidneys and some don't,

but I like a few kidneys and I've just cut them in half and removed

I'm just hand slicing the potatoes, you can use a mandolin,

but if you're doing it by hand they end up thicker and you need

a chunkier slice because otherwise they break down in the cooking.

To make up the hotpot, you brush the bottom of the pan

with some melted butter to some the potatoes from stickingment

begin with potatoes, and build up the stew in layers.

Half chops and half shin and some of the kidneys.

I think it goes particularly well with lamb.

A good quantity of salt, and freshly ground black pepper.

You often find other ingredients in a hotpot, I've added kidneys,

but sometimes they put in black pudding, mushrooms, and even oysters

It's important to season every layer and finally just some chicken stock,

There will be so much flavour in the stew anyway.

Top with a neat layer of potatoes because you want it to look pretty

when it comes out of the oven, all brown and crackling.

Just press those down a little bit and a little bit

Actually this Lancashire hotpot came from a time when nobody had ovens

and everybody took their individual pots to the local baker who put it

in the baker's oven after he'd done his bread and then

when you came back from a shift at the mill,

there was your pot all bubbling and hot, hence hotpot.

I'm putting it in the oven more about two hours,

but it's even better if you can leave it more about six

I took the lid off for the last 20 minutes.

I can't think why regional stews like this are not more

I mean, think of the similar dish, Scouse from Liverpool or Irish stew

All of them so good that if they were in France they would be

famous regional specialities like Bouillabaisse in Marseille,

coq au vin in Burgundy or cassoulet in the Languedoc.

Then to finish off some pickled red cabbage which adds such a sharp

Still in Lancashire, I'm going to see the famous

Mrs Kirkham who owns a small farm in the shadow

I've used her Lancashire cheese in my restaurant

There are probably lots of people who think she is a product of some

marketing man's imagination like Mr Kipling, but she

and her son Graham do make exceedingly good cheeses.

Why we started making cheese all those years

because we were on a small farm with only 30 acres here.

We decided to make cheese to keep us going in some industry.

It is like a little cottage industry and it has actually

If I hadn't made cheese, we would be out of farming many years ago.

It's like looking after a baby, really.

Each one is individual and you like them to have a lovely

finish to them so if you make a nice job of binding them,

I was surprised they matured the cheese in an old

I thought it would be in a cool stone cellar.

This is around six to eight weeks old.

So the curd is starting to break down and this cheese

is starting to go creamy, but you still get

Graham, Mrs Kirkham's son, reminded me of a fine winemaker

and indeed, cheese is a bit like making wine, both

from the point of the view of the living culture that's added

to the milk and the long maturing process.

Although I was taken aback at first, I really liked the trailer.

It's making use of everything and it does the job.

It's not just when you eat it, but once you've eaten and it has

gone, you'll get this fantastic flavour in your mouth and it'll last

I love Mrs Kirkham's cheese and I can think of no better way

of eating it than with some nice crusty bread and a pint of beer

and pickled onions, but one of the things I noticed about it,

it's very crumbly and I was talking to a friend the other day

and she was saying why don't you have any nice big salads

for us ladies that lunch at lunch-time in your restaurant?

I was thinking yes, she has got a point.

So I thought of Mrs Kirkham's cheese and this is what I did.

I made up some mixed salad leaves including baby beetroot,

I poured on olive oil and sprinkled with salt and some black pepper

Then I thinly sliced some Lancashire cheese and crumbled it.

What's special about this cheese is that it's creamy,

but also has a pleasing acidity about it.

I started with some of the leaves and then I took some panchetto

which is like very fine streaky bacon.

I had already fried it until crisp with a little bit

Next, the first lot of cheese, followed by some beetroot which I'd

steeped in wine vinegar with a little chilli and garlic.

I added more leaves, gradually building up a really

interesting lunch dish, designed specifically for the sort

of people that like a big salad and a glass of Chardonnay

Now then, it may not be the rufty-tufty way of eating

Mrs Kirkham's cheese, but for the ladies that lunch

in my restaurant it does very well, thank you.

One of the oldest dishes in the land is black pudding

and here in Waterford they make a champion one.

As you know, it's made with blood and cereal.

In this case, it's oatmeal and pearl barley is added.

And that's all been puffed up because it has been soaking

Mixed herbs are put in like parsley, sage, thyme and particularly penny

royal and fresh blood from the local abattoir.

Once you get over the idea of the blood, there is

nothing awful that goes in the black pudding.

The next thing to go in is pork back fat and to me it's the quality

of this that really distinguishes great puddings from mediocre ones.

Andrew Holt is a champion black pudding-maker and a knight

They promise to uphold the tradition and to promote black

When you become a knight you have to swear an allegiance

It's quite a strange affair really. So yeah, I'm Sir Black Pudding!

Like all sausages, it has to have a first-class skin.

Andrew just wraps them up into little hoops and then simmers

When they're cooked they don't look particularly appetising.

In fact, anything but, but they smell wonderful

and when they're hung up to dry, they take on that

Is that how you cut them? You don't slice them the other way?

When you're having it as a snack, you serve it like that.

So mustard, salt, pepper or whatever it is you want on it.

Let me just taste a bit and I'll tell you what I'd want on it!

Oh, it would be really nice with some mustard.

Do you have those posh spuds called dauphinoise?

You know dauphinoise potatoes like layers of potatoes?

Black pudding is commonly eaten with bacon and eggs for breakfast,

but I also like it simply done sauteed with some

You fry the apples in a pan with a little bit of unsalted

butter and then add the sliced black pudding.

They don't take more than a few seconds to fry on each side.

Then add some pepper and a pinch of salt.

Now I deglaze the pan with a little bit of cider and I let it bubble

down adding some more unsalted butter as it does and then

I pour the juices over everything on the plate.

Do you know, it really is irresistible.

Just by chance while I was with Andrew, a man came to the back door

Instead of going to the shops and anywhere else, I come here.

I come all the way just to pick some black puddings and I take

It keeps him alive and keeps him going and all.

I've never seen him before in my life!

Now, as much as it pains me to say it as a

Yorkshireman, there are some great ingredients and great dishes from

Lancashire, and both black pudding I love, and hotpot,

although I do my own Yorkshire version of it.

And there are some delicious sweet things,

too, from that part of the

But one that you will probably not know of very

It was on the school dinner menu back

in the '70s, which was this version, but they didn't toast it.

This is literally a tartlet where you put

raspberry jam on the top, a very well-known custard out of a packet

over the top, and then some coconut over the top,

That is what you would normally have.

I'm going to do my version of it, which is very similar, so we

We are going to make a custard base, fresh

custard, but I'm going to make a creme patissiere, which is a pastry

It's kind of a twist on that, but it uses egg yolks, which we've

It uses vanilla, which I'm going to pop in there

And then I'm going to fold in some whipped cream

with it, I'm going to make a simple little custard with a bit of

cornflour, a bit of sugar, and that's that.

Now, me and you have got something in common.

Yes, we are both in the Guinness book of records, did

You're slightly more successful than me, I have to

say, because you were the youngest person ever to get a number one

Yes, the youngest, I think it's male solo

The world's fastest carrot peeler and chopper.

And we've got something else in common.

I actually did play Joseph at school.

Yes, up until about the second show, and I

got kicked out and got promoted, which they said was promoted, I

classed it as a demotion, to lighting.

And then I got sacked from that because I was too

But Joseph, we talked about it at the top of the show.

It must be incredible, because you appeared in it

when you were a young kid, and to be at the West End, a

You took over from Lee Mead in February?

That's right. It's a fantastic show.

There's been some massive names that have done it in the past.

Who started it? Was it...?

Was it Phil Schofield who started it?

It was Jason Donovan first. Then it was Phillip Schofield.

And then it was Donny Osmond, and then they brought

it back with the show with Lee Mead, and it was...

And you are doing it till the end of May?

30th of May, yeah. That's the last show.

And what next? Are you going back into the studio?

Musical theatre, I've never done it before.

It's my first venture into musical theatre,

So hopefully more of the same for now.

I'd love to make an album again in the future,

Theatre is quite a big commitment, isn't it, really?

Eight shows a week, we do two on a Wednesday, two on a

And the only day we have off is a Sunday.

Right, I'm going to show you this custard now.

All we do is just mix this together with a bit

of cornflour, the whole lot gets thrown in as well.

Now, normally, creme patissiere is obviously French, but

normally you would do it with a bit of flour,

whereas if you do it with cornflour, you don't

And if I put it back on the stove and heat it up, it starts

It will thicken up so it is quite thick.

And then all we do is just transfer that, I will leave

that on there, into a bowl which we've got in here.

This is your creme patissiere. So it's quite a thick mixture.

And all we do with that is bake our flan case blind,

Over here you see this start to thicken up.

Now, if you keep using your whisk, it shouldn't get

If you keep mixing this together, it will actually start to thicken up

It starts to thicken up, gets thicker and thicker and

Keep whisking it, there you go, and it's now, that's what the

Cool that down, and you end up with what

Now to transform it into a dessert which I think will

look nice, we've got some raspberry jam and a bit of coconut.

Now, talking of sort of childhood food.

The one thing that I couldn't believe when I was reading about you

What on earth is this sandwich thing that you like?

What's this mashed potato sandwich? I cannot believe this!

Now I've tasted some dodgy stuff in my time.

I don't know. I think it's just comfort food.

After I've had a little bit of a night out, I just

It's lovely. You must try it!

No, Gareth, no. Mashed potato?

It's creamy, it's stodge, it's carbs in a

Beef, normally, that's what I would normally want in it!

Anyway, we just mix this with some double cream.

Now, this is what we call creme legere.

So we are turning it from creme patissiere into creme legere.

Now, this is what you would normally fill

with eclairs, which is that pastry cream and double cream mixed

Now, to transform it even more, this is raspberry on the

I'm going to take some fresh raspberries and place that on

I'm going to toast off the remaining bit of coconut on there.

You have just come back from the Maldives where

you have been fishing for some nice fish, you are very interested in it?

Yeah, we went to a place where you had your own Maldivian boat, and

we went out into the ocean and went fishing.

We caught some tuna and some red snapper, and we were able to then

take it back and the chef made it for us.

And I believe you cook a mean pad Thai, as well?

Now you've got a family, congratulations are in order.

Do you want to wave? I suppose he's too young.

I'm the chef in the house, certainly.

With eight shows a week, I bet they go hungry!

So, what we do is just quennelle this.

You can pipe your own, whatever you want.

If you've got a bit more time, you can make it

Now, I know people from Manchester will be

screaming at the TV say this looks nothing like a Manchester tart.

But you've got the similar ingredients.

All I've done is just made my own custard,

whip up some cream, and the idea is we just literally

So it's kind of like a Yorkshire version of it.

Over in the pan here I've got some toasted coconut, grab that and

just literally sprinkle that over the top.

There you go. That's the whole point of it!

I can't sing, mate, but there you go.

And we just pile more of these fresh raspberries over the

edge, and the idea is we take a big wedge, now, Gareth, there you go.

And we take a nice big wedge of this.

That's like no Manchester tart I've ever had.

Today we are taking a look back at some

of the best recipes from the

Saturday Kitchen archives, and there are still loads

Up next is a New Zealand chef who knows a thing or two about

It's great to have him cooking especially for us today,

So, tell us what we're cooking, first of all.

I'm going to make a nice basting with the two main

A little bit of umeboshi, which I will go

Some spices here, some five spice, mild curry, some ginger,

fresh ginger, and we are going to serve that with a salad with some

mango, some daikon, some shisho and just a little bit of watercress

I would probably start with those lotus root chips,

You can buy this from Japanese supermarkets nowadays?

The best one you've got there is the fresh,

and you can also get it in a tin, although the tin carries too much

water or moisture for what we want to achieve here.

So we've got the fresh stuff here, which I'm going to

slice and then deep fat fryer, is that right?

Yes, I just shallow fry it with a little touch of

cornstarch and shallow fry in a little bit of rice bran oil.

So, the duck, you are scoring the skin.

Yes, the duck I have taken of any off the membrane, and then I've

just scored the fat, and I'm going to put it skin side

I'm going to slice these on the old mandolin.

If you haven't got one of these at home,

thinly, thinly, thinly with a knife, but ideally you want one of these

So tell us a little bit about your food.

We love this modern Japanese cooking, don't

What we are doing here is bringing to the

restaurant scene a new element of Japanese cuisine.

Everybody things Japanese cuisine is raw fish and

rice, so we've brought a whole robatayaki cuisine,

Which is definitely not raw and with rice.

And this is actually where this comes from.

This dish here is from the robata, but obviously I

and it is literally just cooking on skewers over the charcoal,

It comes from the southern regions of Japan.

So what I've got to make this basting, about a tablespoon of

honey, and then this is umeboshi paste, which is a pickled plum

And this is where a little bit of the Western touch comes into

Traditionally the umeboshi is used to put on the

rice as opposed to soy and that sort of thing.

Now, this has got a mountain touch as well, you see.

That this comes from the Japanese Alps?

It might make your cheeks implode, but I think it's delicious.

It's a bit sour, but you need that honey in it, I take it, with

It is the fruitiness that lends itself to the duck.

Make your cheeks implode, get you salivating.

But mixed with that honey, it does work.

Exactly, with the honey, with the ginger, it's really

So I'm just going to bind all this together.

That should be nice and golden, I reckon, pretty

So I'm just going to take out that excess

What happens when you are cooking on these griddles, what

That's the beauty of this charcoal cooking,

because the fat actually drips down, create the smoke, and it gets that

That's half of a barbecue, is the smoky flavour.

So I've got all this in here, just a touch more umeboshi.

Now, you want these slightly thick, do you?

They are going to match the duck slices.

So what I've got here, I'm just putting some of this

And if you could just pop that in the oven for me,

That size there, I'd say about nine minutes on 160.

I want it on 160 because I want a slow

cooking so the meat doesn't really lock up hard.

And I've got one that's been in here for about eight

So I am going to add a little touch of lemon juice now, and

we are going to turn this into our dressing.

The lemon juice is going to soften down.

I'm going to go and get the daikon, which is over here.

This is this huge great white thing that

people are looking at at home, you can buy it from your

But you can buy that from Asian shops?

We use a machine just a whirl it round.

He has started already, it is his first time on the show, and

I thought you looked a bit too relaxed before.

We've got some shisho leaf, which is the large green.

This fellow who almost looks like a nettle to people at home.

They say it's a cross between mint and basil.

And then you've got some shisho cress, which is the cress of it.

And then we've got some watercress to give it that

I've dusted these in a little bit of cornflour, and what

I would use a touch of shichimi pepper.

It is a bit like a chilli pepper, but it's

got a little bit of sesame, et cetera, in there.

Six pieces for that, and I'll take a few.

It's the same marinade, but I've just popped a

touch of lemon juice in there just to help soften it down, and to

You are going to enjoy this, I tell you.

This is a fabulous restaurant, and to get a table in your restaurant,

what does it take's yesterday you were telling us you did 190

So it is pretty hectic at the moment.

So you want me to put a few of those on?

And the reason you put everything in piles?

The reason things are in piles is it was a bit of a headache

at first, but being a Japanese restaurant, we don't serve with

knife and fork, so everything is in little bite-size pieces.

So I just add these little extra pieces to the

Notice how he's using the chopsticks.

And then you want a bit of that round the edge?

That just looks, and I bet it tastes,

So, Nic, remind us what that dish is again.

Duck breast with honey and sansho pepper, daikon shisho and

I got a little murmur from over there.

I don't know how I'm going to pick it up.

Take a whole little pile of that, and take some of the radish as

Could you do that with fish and bits and

The same marinade would be hard to marry with a fish, but

definitely the plum with the ginger would

definitely go across, but I

I was so unconvinced when I first tried that

I went to Japan on tour with the show when I was

about 17, and all I ate was fast food, because I didn't like any of

Yes, it is an interpretation, but you would

definitely find the ingredients and the flavours, you would find the

sansho and the plum, the combinations would be there.

Lots of really interesting flavours in

Japanese cuisine, and it's worth seeking

them out and giving them a

Now for more brilliant Keith Floyd, and this week he is gracing

You will, with a little patience, see a great chef prepare my

Feast on the humble sprat, and with any luck indulge

in the first scallops of the season, which we are

To most people, I suppose a scallop represents an ashtray, you know,

seen in a seaside hotel or something like that.

But to me, it's one of the most succulent and versatile of

all the shellfish that surround the shores of Great Britain.

We've come out to catch them, and you know in

the normal kind of colour supplement cookery programme or the television

cookery programmes, they all make a big song and dance about walking

round the market saying, I only come to buy the most fresh fish.

Here on Floyd on Fish, we actually go out

The scallops, you can cook in all sort of different ways.

The Japanese for example eat them raw.

The Chinese stir-fry them with beansprouts.

The French often cook them with a thin creamy white sauce

Often the British of course, because they are

a bit tedious about fish, invariably surround with mashed potato and

smother it with cheese and put it under the grill.

We have been here since five o'clock this morning.

I am going to have a little snack to start the day.

Just to really put me in fine fettle, a beautiful fresh

While the camera crew wipe the spray from their lens, and the

director changes his frock, I thought you'd like to see the

But be warned, because fishermen won't

take kindly to any of you putting on your wetsuits

They are shooting off like some I know

when it's their turn to pay for a round.

Can you come in on that one, so that anybody

who doesn't know what a

In France, they are known as escargot

And so that's for sure that this lot won't end up in

the ubiquitous bath of vinegar so beloved of the British shellfish

One of the you might almost say by-products of coming out scallop

fishing is catching these magnificent spider crabs.

All of these are going to Spain, to France, to

Italy, and they will be the centrepiece of a most fabulous

Of fresh shellfish, scallops, mussels,

oysters, clams, Mediterranean prawns, and the centrepiece will be

this, scrubbed until it is pink and boiled,

placed in the centre and you

will crack open the claws, did it into yellow

mayonnaise and think, as

they must think, what fools the Brits are for not taking advantage

of the wonderful things we have got around our shores, the sort of thing

that a lot of really hard-working guys like Geoff, our skipper here,

spend all hours and weathers to catch.

And even more encouraging, there is a real renaissance in

English cooking at the moment, talented cooks using the very best

of the produce available in these islands.

Unfortunately, to my mind, consumers are still apathetic in

In almost any other sphere of their activities,

clothes, furnishings, holidays, they are precise,

they wouldn't dream of

booking a Verdi opera when they intended to go

They confuse expense with quality and decor with street cookability.

If catching them isn't enough you've got to clean the little things

and you need plenty of fresh running water, you need a cloth in case

you damage your hands, obviously the scallop and a knife.

Now the technique here, I'm not an expert anymore

than you might be is to run the knife in, which is quite tricky

and right the way through, round the back and this does take

Revealing, I'm afraid, this horrible sort of mess inside.

So we run the knife underneath the scallop there.

Throwing away the little nasty black pieces and this

other piece of membrane, leaving only the pink

coral and of course, the white main flesh of the fish.

We started off having a few drinks a day or two ago before we got

here and we thought about the idea, Bridport is near the sea.

Let's have the great Bridport International Scallop

Let's have the great Bridport International Scallop Festival.

Well, it's a crazy idea, but why not?

I mean after all food and eating and drinking

Around a table conversation takes place.

Out of ideas plays, festivals and theatre is created.

Anyway, I digress. I'm sorry I'm digressing.

I'm going to have another little slurp and then if you'll be kind

enough to come down to the important bit of the whole day's proceedings

OK, here they are, fresh, fresh, from the Dorset seaside, cleaned,

Don't look at me, I'm trying to explain the food!

This is a food programme you half wit.

Scallops, very simple, some chopped streaky bacon

Pepper, salt, you can't see so don't bother looking

OK, you know very well on this programme, despite the jokes

and despite the great International Scallop

Festival and despite our producer David Pritchard,

we are seriously concerned about good food and fresh food.

So if this takes a little time to cook, bear with me,

we don't pull things out of the oven that we just happen to have ready

Having said that, butter into the pan.

As I often make the point on these programmes,

when we're going to cook with butter we mean butter.

Then into our pan goes a little bacon which we've chopped and we'll

let that sweat down a bit because out of the butter, I know

this is difficult for you to see, but out of the butter and the bacon

fat we'll get some nice juices and some nice juices

in which to sautee the scallops and after all, if you're

going to have a star at an international festival

and it's called the Scallop Festival then I would say the scallop

OK. It's a good hot pan.

Very stylish provincial cooking this is.

You don't have to move the camera to look for me.

They know I've got to move to get the food.

It's the pot that counts. For heaven's sakes.

Everybody in TV is so concerned about doing their job properly

that they miss the damn point of the whole thing which is food!

OK. Scallops going into the pot.

Just stay with those for a moment, all right?

I might invite you back on the next show if you keep it up like this.

Right, there are the scallops being very lightly cooked in butter.

I know all of those of you who like me so much will be

disappointed right now that you can't see me.

You see, hold on a minute, come back.

Come back. This is very difficult for me.

I present television cookery programmes, but I'm not a director.

Could you get it right in future, please?

We've got this hot and bubbling away nicely.

Stay on the pot because I have to go away.

Then we're going to add a little parsley because we like colours

and flavours and flavours and colours come out of cooking

pots and smiling faces and cheerful cameramen!

Now Steve, this isn't really for you this next bit,

it's for the actual customers who are watching us.

Now, these scallops are nicely cooked now and if we leave them

in there any longer they will turn into pieces of rubber and that

So we're going to take them out to arrest the cooking process as far

as the scallops are concerned, but we must continue with the sauce.

We've got this little residue of juices which we're now

going to create into a beautiful sauce using some fresh cream

For you at home by the way this plate here, can

you come on to that plate, Steve, a second?

That would be kept warm, OK, but since none of you are

going to taste this, only me, I don't give a damn

whether it's hot or cold, but when you're trying

to impress your friends, because only people who watch these

sort of programmes are always doing that, aren't they?

Now then, we've bubbled the cream up because we want to get this sauce

A little tiny drop of white wine bacon and butter.

But we haven't got richness that we really want.

I'm costing too much money because of the film.

If you know what they paid me, you wouldn't believe

Egg yolks into here to ask me to worry about the price of film.

Stir the egg yolk in very, very quickly otherwise

We just want to use the egg to thicken the sauce

and then we pour it over the scallops like that.

A spoon for me and thank you all so much for coming, come up.

Ignored by gastronauts, the poor sprat has little chance.

And to add insult to injury, after an unscheduled stop

on the A38, this load won't even get into a tin of cat food.

But actually, these nutritious fish are inexpensive and tasty.

Forget the sardine, a smoked sprat makes a smashing cocktail snack

A couple of moments and we'll just turn them over.

Use your fingers if you're worried about anything.

And I think at the same time we'll give them another grind of pepper

There we are and we'll sprinkle a little parsley over them like that

and if you'll just bear with me for a second.

Another couple of seconds and they'll be ready to eat

as a really delightful appetiser or double them up and have a whole

plateful and make a meal of it, whichever way you

like and, of course a glass of dry cider or a glass

Even brown bread and butter and a cup of tea go down very well.

This is food for everybody, not just the gastronauts, but for everybody.

Now you will probably be sitting in your living rooms right now

reminiscing about the sardines you had on your Mediterranean

holiday and thinking my god, why can't we get food

That's really beautiful and for the price, who needs sardines?

Now, as ever on Best Bites we are looking back at some

of our favourite recipes from the Saturday Kitchen archives.

Still to come on today's show, it's omelette challenge time

as Monica and Shaun go head-to-head at the hobs.

We have a dish inspired by Turkish cuisine.

After marinading chicken thighs in cinnamon,

we pan fry them and serves them no home-made flatbreads

and Julia Bradbury faces her food when or food hell.

Braised seabass with asparagus or her food hell?

Or hell, crab souffle with radish and baby spinach and rocket salad

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

Up next, it is Claude Bosi with a dish that's fairly easy

On the menu today is we've got some cod on the menu.

T that cod has been in salt and sugar for 20 minutes.

That cod has been in salt and sugar for 20 minutes.

So you just put salt and sugar on it, nothing else?

So that's been well like a dry brine then.

That's it. Take the moisture.

Sometimes the cod can be quite watery.

Right. So what do you do with that?

The idea of it, you don't want to go too fast because you will

And then you get your glaze like this.

It's just basically the liquid reduced down?

You bring down all that just to what is two tablespoons?

On that recipe we have got 500 grams of juice

So the fish is basically steaming for what?

The fish has been steaming for five minutes.

You've got last time you were on, you got me making a pork pie

which took two-and-a-half hours and then put it in a food processor!

So where do you get your inspiration from.

Hibiscus has been running for 13 or 14 years?

Where do you get your inspiration from?

By travelling you get a lot of different flavours.

A lot of different ideas and it's just so eye opening.

It makes you see food in a different way.

You obviously travelled to Yorkshire because you've got batter on here.

The best fish and chips, you must know where they are from?

For the cod fish, you put it before in a brine, you said?

It's very good this way because it gets to stay very, very firm.

It makes it very flaky and very pleasant.

It's near where I come from, but it's a cool place.

I'll go to San Sebastian, but I'll take you to Witby first.

We've got great cod up there, you see.

We're making these scraps. You want to drizzle these in.

I didn't put any white wine in there, nothing.

I'm trying to keep it as pure as possible.

I found it in a tapas bar in Barcelona where the guy

was cooking seafood and the flavour was just unbelievable

because you don't add white wine, nothing.

You get the pure flavour of the produce.

Right, we've got our little scraps here.

Yes, I think so. Let's cook some more.

So the fish, you don't have to touch.

When we last spoke, you have got a pub as well?

One in Wimbledon called the Fox and Grape.

We try to base it on what we do at Hisbiscus, fresh produce.

It is using produce like this you get the fantastic flavour.

You mention Hibiscus, because you've had a bit

of a regeneration, your own little chef's table?

Yes, that is fantastic, it is very popular.

We've got people, a chef cooking, one of

my head chefs will cook in front of you, and I will go and see you

through the meal, because I can't really put

myself on that table, but

Because I visited Claude's kitchen, and it is the

The extraction's been done, and it is fantastic, my staff love

Are you the same sort of thing with this season?

I don't really stand for that with mussels.

I think they are all year round, really.

You can get them all year round, but but you have a time of

the year like this time when it is the best.

The winter is nice, but in the spring,

the year like this time when it is the best.

it is the best time to

So beside of this you are going to put a bit of the

Just enough to give a bit of freshness, and keep the flavour

And there is no other flavour in there whatsoever?

Has it got an interior, as well, the lime,

or do you just use the

So, the scraps have gone in with the purple sprouting broccoli.

And all you have done is just saute that off, you

This is not part of your recipe, but seeing as Elaine is

When you come down south, which is...

You get south of a place called Watford, they start

to charge you 5 euros for a bag of scraps.

That is a dish we have an the lunch menu.

We could actually serve the bag of scraps!

But your food is a mix and match of all

different things, classic French techniques but with very modern.

That is a flavour I got from Singapore.

I got people asking for it, when are you going to put it

This is the whole idea of your cooking, quite unusual

But it is still food, there is no gimmick with it.

You like playing with flavour, that is what I do.

But at the end, you have to stay food, you have to be

So many people are trying to do things just for the

sake of it, and forget food is the base for

everything, flavour and

We have decided you could open a place where you

Cornish cod and mussels with carrot and orange.

Simple, two star Michelin, fantastic.

And I know that this taste spectacular, because we

You can dive into it a second time, Elaine.

Even if the fish is very fresh, cod has always got a bit

of water on it, and you can't get that flakiness.

By doing this, you get the proper texture, and I think

this is one of the best fish you can get, it is like...

I am from the valleys, I don't get to eat this!

He certainly kept James happy there by serving battered scraps.

Now it's time for the omelette challenge, and

this week it is Monica Galetti versus Shaun Rankin.

Paul Rankin has been at the centre of our omelette now, and he is very

smug. Monica, who would you like to beat? The guy right down at the

bottom, I would like to beat him. Bryn Williams! Let's put the clock

on the screen. Are you ready? Got to do it properly. My pan is

sticking! This one wasn't sticking. Got to do it properly. What have you

got now? Cheese?! Just for good measure. We are going to run out of

music in a minute! Look at this pan. Please invest in a decent panel. Do

I get to taste this? Look at that. Don't worry, there won't be anybody

from MasterChef watching! Chef, what is this? Monica through shell at me!

You switched pans on me! This is... Monica... I have to beat the guy at

the bottom. Do you think you beat Bryn Williams? No, didn't happen.

You did it in 58.02 seconds, which puts you there, but because it is a

two egg omelette. What do you mean? It puts you in good company!

If anybody wants to know what goes on in my ear, it is generally this

sound from the gallery. CLUCKING. My pan was too hot. I

blame Michaela. You did beat him. You did it in 24.28 seconds, which

puts you right there, and I will forgive you for the shell. Thank

you. Up next is award-winning food writer

Diana Henry with a great chicken dish that makes use of Middle

Eastern flavours. Great to have you on the show. You

are going to cook chicken thighs for us first of all? Yes, succulents,

cooked so it doesn't get dry. And this is a Turkish influence? This

has been marinated, I will show you how to do it in a minute. . Do they

have the bones in? No, the bones are out. And you like a little colour on

this. Wide EU take the skin off? I like the crusted issue get on the

flesh of the skin is not there. The spices adhere to the skin, and under

the skin there isn't enough, but what I do with these first ones is

marinate them. What got you into writing in the first place? I just

always really loved food. I was just a massive cook when I was about six

years old, I was a TV producer for years, actually. And you were with

Kate? Yes, we worked on GMTV together. I made her cry. She was

really horrible! I did, I can't remember what it was about, but it

was a tearful day. We had a lot of those, if I remember rightly. I will

make this with flatbread, but you are going to do a salsa? You can

leave that to marinade for about. That is cumin, cayenne and cinnamon.

You can leave that for half an hour, up to as much as four hours. The

chicken goes in the oven. And I will make some relish now. What is that,

is it vodka or something? It is raki! We are being Turkish! So I am

doing the flatbread. I like that you are making him run. I would just buy

the flatbread if I was doing it at home. I wouldn't be making them

midweek, this is a Wednesday night kind of dish. Wednesday? I think

about cooked books, and I think, what I do that on a Wednesday night?

And if I wouldn't, it doesn't go in the book, because people need to be

empowered and find things that they can cook, and I don't think cooking

is difficult at all. This salsa going on top, that would be great

with many things, wouldn't it? It is good with mackerel as well. It would

be good on a Tuesday night, as well! I have lives going in as well, green

olives, and this, I don't know whether it is Turkish or not, I made

this up. Someone came back from Turkey and said they had a fantastic

salsa with lamb, and it was green olives and preserved lemons and

spices, but my kids are not massive reserve lemons fans, so I made it

slightly different. So this book is all about chicken? Yes, all about

chicken. And it is your eighth book? It is my ninth. And every recipe is

chicken? It is not difficult, when you start to think about what people

call call over the world using chicken, it is endless, so there is

Spanish stuff on Vietnamese stuff and stuff from... So how do you do

the perfect roast chicken? James and I disagree on this. If you want it

crispy, crispy skinned and perfectly moist, I try to do it lots of

different ways, I did that thing of turning it on its side, cooking it

upside down, and after a year of testing when I was doing the book,

the best method I came up with is to put butter all over it, plenty of

sea salt on top of the skin, and then you put it in a dish that is

not too big for it. If you put it in a large roasting tin, the juices run

off and burn. It shouldn't go in from the fridge, the skin should be

quite dry, never wet, and I put it in with legs towards the back of the

oven, 210, 50 minutes, and I don't touch it, don't move it, don't baste

it, but you have to know your oven. But you have to know your oven. You

are a 100 metres deg person? I go to my mother's house! I do do roast

chicken, but the best is my mum's. Is that your favourite chicken dish?

My mum's, yes, and her roast potatoes are legendary. Chicken with

Vietnamese flavours are fantastic. Butter and salt and pepper. That is

good, too. So we have got the cucumber, the salad, and what else

are we doing, what else goes in the salsa? You can do those, leave in

some chillies, some seeds so that it is a little bit hot but not

completely. The other thing that goes in here is white balsamic, just

because it is slightly sweet and it leaves it a much nicer colour. Olive

oil. You won't need any salt because of the olives. But you might need a

little bit of lemon, excuse me. Lemon is amazing in cooking the way

it brings dishes together. I call it the great connector. Sometimes even

when you do something sweet and you think it doesn't need it, you might

be making a cream that has got card on in it and rose water, and a

little bit of lemon just brings it together. Brilliant always for

soups, if you taste it towards the end and it isn't quite coming

together, squeeze a lemon. You must be a free range organic chicken

buyer, are you? I wasn't always. I can afford now to buy free range,

not always organic at all, and if I really splashing out, I go to my

local butcher in Crouch end, and they do local chickens which I love,

they are delicious. That chilli might be a bit hot. And you are

putting in a little clarified butter, ghee, over the top. So what

inspires you to write all these columns, weekly columns and anything

else, what do you look for? I always think of ideas. Before I started

writing about food, I used to keep a notebook in my handbag, and I was

always adding dishes that I wanted to make. Sometimes even now when I

am going to sleep at night, I think, this would be good or that would be

good. So a love of food, really, a love of flavours. I like strong

flavours and contrast. I think, you will see

that in this dish. This kind of warm chicken flesh

and the coolness of yoghurt. And you've got, a contrast

in temperature and a contrast But those, the spices

make a lovey crust too. You could cook it all the way

through on the hob. Put one in top and the other on top

and then I'll put the salsa. And then the flatbread you just want

around the side with the salad? This is Turkish spice, griddled

chicken with hot green relish. And what looks like

a glass of vodka! Now, this, I know, tastes

fantastic and again, more or less in real-time,

apart from the marinade. That's just flour, a bit of salt,

a touch of cold water, that's kind of it, really,

dry pan to start off and brush with the melted butter

to go with it. Diana, I saw your book with my

agent, she says rather grandly, and she said this is the most

amazing book that's just come out and everybody wishes

that they'd written it. Thank you.

That's nice. So great little home-made

flatbreads there. Now, when Julia Bradbury came

to the studio to face her food when or food hell, she was striving

for sea bass, but would she have It is time to find out

if Julia will be facing food Everybody here has

made their minds up. Julia, food heaven,

I think it would be a lot of people's food heaven,

a beautiful piece of sea bass over here to go with some

fantastic artichokes, we've got asparagus,

new seasoning asparagus as well. Alternatively the flip-side to this,

food hell, crab, dark crab meat, This could be a great

souffle with a bisk sauce using the shells from the crab

and radish and mustard salad. How

do you think these lot have decided? Hopefully as chefs they have gone

for the better ingredients Beautiful white crab

meat, delicious. Lucy is more interested

in the souffle element of this. Next, I'm going to get first off,

I'm going to talk about artichokes. Guys, if you can do

the rest of the artichokes, What we're going to do quickly

is peel these like that and cut them Trim them through, trim

them through, trim them That's how to cook

the baby artichokes. We have got a nice

piece of sea bass. Some salt and simply,

simply cook this. This is how to cook

fish on the barbecue. A lot of the time it can

break up and be ruined. You should always keep

the skin on, shouldn't you? There is certain things I cook

and take it off afterwards. The only thing you've got to watch

with fish is the fishmonger scaled it for you because sea bass scales

are unpleasant actually. In five minutes, that's

going to be done. Meanwhile, we have got,

that goes straight in there, We'll do a puree with this and we're

going to char grill it together with our asparagus which they're

prepping up now. The fish wants to go

in five or six minutes. So you can actually cook that

on the barbecue in the tinfoil, but do it twice as thick and it

will cook itself. So the boys are prepping

the asparagus here. Yeah, it is good to see

them working hard! You can't beat it.

It is delicious. Very, very quick and

simple sauce this now. My mum will be watching, sea bass

and asparagus and artichokes. You have to watch yourself,

put a lid on because it will spit. I will be eating this next

week as well because mum That goes in there and we'll put

a little bit of white wine in there. Just a touch and then some stock

and some double cream. Bring it to the boil and that's more

or less our sauce done for that one? Would you like to

cook or put them in? These will actually cook down

and steam at the same Once they're cut into quarters,

if you're going to do them whole, Julian, if you can do the basil

that would be great. Once our sauce is done, we'll pass

it through a sieve like that. And back on the heat and pop that

back in there to reduce it down. Do you ever put the asparagus just

directly on the char grill? You can, but it takes

a little bit longer. The Italians do that

quite often, don't they? I like the pure taste and I find

that the grill just adds... It gives you a great

concentration of flavour. These need to come off

and go on our char grill. Take the rest of our

artichokes over here. Just a touch of the liquor and you

can blitz that with some cream. I've got a bit of

that sauce as well. So the idea is we just bring it

all together nice and simple. This is a little bit of fish sauce

going in there as well. If you can pop that in a little bowl

and we'll give that a little blitz so you can foam that up and season

it with salt and pepper. The idea is we'll just

grab our asparagus. You're not allowed

to have fun there. I was going to decorate your back

for being so mean to me today. I could always take that omelette

off the board next week. We can grab our fish out

of the oven, please, Jason, Lucy, you've got to admit

that it's looking good. When you make this foamy

thing, chefs sometimes I can tell the way she tucks into

that that she does like her food! I don't think you sre

going to get any, guys. But there is a souffle

in the oven for you. That looked tasty, and if you don't

want to attempt the fancy foam, Well, I'm afraid that's all we've

got time for an today's show. I hope you've enjoyed

taking a look back at some of the fantastic recipes

from the Saturday Kitchen archives.