18/06/2017 Saturday Kitchen Best Bites

Good morning, I'm Matt Tebbutt and over the next 90 minutes

we are going to serve up a seriously mouthwatering menu of

culinary treats. So sit back, put your feet up and get ready

for another helping of Saturday Kitchen Best Bites.

Welcome to the show. Now, I hope you're ready for an irresistible line-up of top

chefs, ready to serve up some of their finest feats

for an array of famous faces who can't wait to get stuck in.

Coming up on today's show, James Martin serves roasted pork

fillet with chorizo and pepper sauce for Jason Donovan.

Allegra McEvedy shows us a simple but tasty way to cook monkfish.

She mixes herbs, spices with oil and couscous,

and then seals in foil with a portion of monkfish.

These are then baked before being served in the bag.

Vivek Singh is here with a delicious take on lamb kebab.

He serves kebab two ways,

skewered and coated in chopped vegetables, and formed into burgers.

These are char-grilled and then served with

a green coriander chutney.

And taking up the omelette challenge today are Anthony Demetre and

Kenny Atkinson. And with neither on the board,

they'll both be determined to deliver some edible omelettes.

Then it's over to cookery writer Sophie Grigson,

who's serving up a traditional Sardinian dish.

She steams clams and serves with garlic,

saffron and chilli fregula pasta.

And finally, actress Cherie Lunghi faces her food heaven or her food hell.

Did she get food heaven, mozzarella stuffed chicken with roasted

tomatoes, aubergines and basil pesto?

Or her food hell, gooseberry crumble with vanilla custard and ice cream?

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

But first, it's over to Paul Rankin,

who is serving up a simple summer salad.

An absolute genius. I know him from Ready Steady Cook, it's of course Mr Paul Rankin.

-It's the nicest you've ever been to me.

-Is it?

Well, I'm not going to get you to sing, anyway.

-No, no, don't, please don't.

-I watched that. We won't mention the singing bit.

-So, tell us what you're making.

-It was good fun, I really had a ball.

I would do that again in a heartbeat. Pleasure to do that.

-Please don't. Gives my ears a rest.

-Summer salad Roscoff I call it.

It's a summer salad, I used to do it at the restaurant quite a lot.

-But it's basically a nicoise salad done with salmon.

-Lovely.

And I do it poached, to keep it nice and light and fresh.

First thing we're going to do is make a court-bouillon.

-So I need a little bit of wine for that, James.

-A bit of wine.

I can get that, that's no problem.

-I'll get you a little bit of wine. Here you go.

-Thank you, sir.

You see the way they've put that fridge there so that every time you go in there, they see your bum.

Exactly. Thank you very much. He's started already.

-They were looking, they were looking.

-Simon!

For a court-bouillon... And here I've got a little bit of water.

A good splash, good glug of wine in there. I've got some white wine.

-Is that any wine, just any white wine?

-Any dry white wine.

-Good.

-A little bit of vinegar going in there.

Do you want me to get the fish out of the fridge?

Oh, yeah, get me some fish out of the fridge. But a court-bouillon... A bouquet garni now.

A little bit of parsley, a little bit of leek, celery, thyme,

something like that.

And it just goes in there to give it a lovely sort of savoury flavour.

You've made it out of leeks and that sort of thing.

-What do you think of the dried one?

-It's actually not a bad product.

-I suppose it's a bit early for a glass of wine, is it?

-Not for you.

-No. Oops.

-Have you broken my glass already?

-That was a trick. He set me up.

-LAUGHTER

-The old Irish thing.

-Got him, got him!

-I'll just have to take it from the bottle, then.

-So...

-LAUGHTER

It's going to be a great show.

OK, lovely piece of salmon here. Yeah?

I've kept the skin on, because the skin sort of protects it,

keeps it moist while we're poaching it.

-Right.

-Now, what I've done is I've chosen a pan where it's going to be

a very tight fit. OK? So, in goes the salmon.

And lots of salt in there. I always taste it.

And the amount of salt in it should be almost like it's been

poached in the sea, OK? So, lovely and salty.

OK, I'm going to get my beans in. I'll just come to the other ingredients in a second,

but the beans take a little while to cook. So, again, nicely seasoned.

-French beans, yeah?

-Yeah.

So, I mean, it's not really classic salad nicoise garnish,

but a sort of summer salad garnish.

-So, if you have time, perhaps you could...

-I knew I'd have to do something.

-..cut up the tomatoes.

-Well, no such thing as a free lunch.

-Paul, can I ask you a question?

-Yes.

Why has the salmon got to be in a small pot, why have you done that?

-Well, what it does, it keeps the amount of liquid to a minimum.

-OK.

So that you're not sort of diluting the flavour of it.

Because, you know, you get that dilution of flavour.

If you poached a cube of salmon in a big pasta pot,

it sort of dilutes the flavour of it. So, it's to keep it nice.

So you're just going to bring that to the boil. Which that is.

Bring it to the boil, simmer it for a couple of minutes.

And then I'm going to put a lid on it and put it to one side.

Now, I let it cool down, but I don't put it in the fridge, OK?

I always think, all these sorts of things...

-Are you going to do those things?

-Sorry, I'm going as quick as I can.

-No! No, those are lovely, lovely, perfect.

-What have I done wrong?

No, I'm just teasing, just teasing. So...just fish these out.

There you go. And what I'm going to do is, I'm just going to flake the salmon,

-going to keep it really nice and casual.

-So, anyway, that's tomato.

-What else do you want doing?

-Cucumber I need done.

You know, this cucumber's from my garden.

I picked this for you this morning.

I suspected it might be from your garden.

-Now, how much do you actually have to do with...?

-A lot, I do it all.

-I do it all.

-What, show me your nails.

He's such a fibber, you know.

It's like, you can always tell a chef who works in the kitchen

-by all the burns...

-Exactly, I know.

And you can see how moist the salmon is just underneath the skin there.

Now, what we do here...

Now, this is simmered for a couple of minutes, so all I do, put on

the lid, and then leave it to cool down in the liquid and it will continue poaching.

-As I said...

-Taste that. Straight out of my garden.

Look at that. What's wrong with it?

-It is delicious.

-It is delicious.

It's got a really vibrant flavour. So, nice big chunks of salmon.

Nice, big, generous flakes. Want another job?

Yeah, give me another job. What do you want? Make the dressing?

What I want you to do is, what I've got here is some mayonnaise,

a little bit of anchovy, a little bit of basil.

We need to combine all those, so if you just crush the anchovy.

-Crush the anchovy, yeah.

-Mix it with the mayo.

-Mix it with the mayo.

-And the basil, yeah?

-And the basil.

-Lovely.

-And that's our base for the dressing.

-So, I mean, you use salmon,

but could you use white fish for this as well, I suppose?

I think you can use virtually anything.

And you don't have to poach it, you could char-grill it,

or you could...pan-fry it, anything like that will work quite well.

-Antonio's sat over there looking on.

-I'm salivating.

-Salivating.

JAMES LAUGHS

Now, one of my favourite things to put in a summer salad are boiled eggs.

And what I do is, I boil them for about seven minutes.

And like that, they stay beautifully sort of... They're cooked,

but they're slightly soft in the middle.

And that's the way I love them, with the yolks nice and bright.

To me, it's all these little details that make the difference when

you're cooking. Artichokes would be great with this. And basically,

you can use anything in this salad that's kind of in season.

What I particularly love are things like broad beans, new potatoes,

things like that, which, you know, are absolutely delicious.

-So, how's it looking, folks, so far? Emma, Simon?

-It looks good.

-Looking forward to tasting this?

It looks ever so good, but we could do with a glass of wine.

-Wine's coming, don't worry.

-I was trying to do that for you, Natalie.

Right, what's going in this dressing now?

Now, the only other thing we're going to do is just dilute it

-a little bit with a little bit of the court-bouillon.

-OK.

-So a little bit of this liquor.

-So about... About two tablespoons.

CLANGING

You're just destroying my kitchen already. It's only a day old!

-So, it just makes it a little bit more... That's terrific.

-Season it?

-I don't normally have these problems.

-Right. Seasoning?

-Yeah.

And what we're going to do... Are these your salad leaves as well?

-These are from my garden, salad leaves.

-Nice sprinkle of olive oil.

-Lemon juice?

-A little bit of lemon juice, a little bit of salt and pepper.

-And I'm going to start to build the salad.

-Start plating it up, there we go.

-So...

-Fire away.

-A little bit of salt onto here.

-Yeah.

A little bit of pepper for the tomatoes.

Now, it's important when people season that, you're using the

sea salt, not the table salt, because it's totally different flavour, isn't it?

Yeah, I love the sort of fresh, the clean taste of a good sea salt,

I think it makes a pretty big difference, actually.

Perfectly cooked tomatoes, look at them.

I've never seen a guy who can cook tomatoes like you.

And be very casual with this. You know, we could just whack everything on top of that salad,

it would be grand. You know, it can come off the plate a little bit.

-Do you want some of these on as well?

-Yeah.

Lovely. Simple food, that's the secret with this, isn't it, really?

Is this sort of a lunchtime dish, you'd have this at lunchtime?

I think it's very much a lunchtime dish.

It's... It would be a lovely light supper dish, especially with new potatoes.

You could serve them on the side, or tossed with

a little bit of vinaigrette or mayonnaise or dressing.

But the secret is to serve that salmon at room temperature, isn't it?

I think everything kind of needs to be at room temperature,

really, because the...

You know, the eggs and everything, it makes such a difference, really.

And as much or as little dressing as you want.

And the beans as well, try not to blanch them into cold water,

-because the flavour changes them quite a lot, doesn't it?

-I think so.

I love that sort of warm potatoes and warm green beans.

So, there we have it. That's my summer salad Roscoff.

-Doesn't look too bad, that. I quite like the look of that.

-Very nice.

It's not bad. The boy's done good.

Right, but the real truth is in the tasting. Here we go.

Come on over, Paul. Natalie, you get first dive in with your fork.

-There you go.

-I can't believe the many small disasters that happened.

-I can't believe it as well.

-My brand-new kitchen.

-And your brand-new show.

Yeah, brand-new show, brand-new kitchen.

Hang on a sec.

-Mmm!

-You like that?

-Really, really nice.

Is this the type of thing you would cook?

Yeah, I'd have a go at this, definitely, yeah.

-It's really, really nice.

-We encourage the guests just to speak your mind completely.

-So if it's absolutely terrible...

-No, no, no.

-THEY LAUGH

Actually, it's as bad as your singing.

THEY LAUGH

-Tell me what you think.

-That's lovely, really nice.

-It's very light, like you said.

-I think it is really light.

-I particularly like the warm salmon and the warm...

-Yeah, it makes a big difference.

Quite often, if you get a salmon like that in a restaurant,

everything is coming sort of fridge cold.

-And it's just not the same at all.

-Tastes good?

-Tastes great.

Pass it down to Antonio right at the end.

That was actually the first-ever recipe cooked on

Saturday Kitchen, 11 years ago.

Coming up, James cooks roasted pork fillet with chorizo and

pepper sauce for Jason Donovan.

But first, it's over to Rick Stein, who is on the hunt for razor clams.

Cooks in hot kitchens need a tranquil place to go.

Not just for the fresh air, but as a source of inspiration.

And the estuary here at Padstow is mine.

John Betjeman, in fact, lived just across the water and felt

exactly the same, and many of his Cornish poems were inspired

by the light and the sense of space that the estuary gives.

One thing I really like to do,

and I can only do this once or twice a year at very low tides,

is to go right down to the mouth of the estuary with

a friend of mine called Ed, and we catch razor shells,

and this is just the most extraordinary thing.

I've never seen anything like it, I don't think anybody has, really.

Except for Ed. I mean, it's just...

The way they come up, it's like a sort of... I just think it's like

a ship going down in reverse, you know, it's just so weird.

It's real David Attenborough stuff.

You know, we're in sort of nature, nature programmes here.

Oh! There he is.

'The whole business of catching them is really quite surreal.

'You have to pour salt down their holes or burrows,

'and suddenly they pop up out of the sand.

'They seem to appear from nowhere.'

Oh! Christ. Jeez, that made me jump.

-See that?

-Yeah.

-There's another one, I think, just here. Yeah, it is.

-Oh, there he is.

-Fantastic.

-We'll have that one.

-Just tell me when.

Grab him now. Hold him tight. Now try and pull him out. But gently.

Very gently. Ease him out slowly.

-God, that's so much...

-Strength.

-It's amazing.

-That's right. Very gently, so you don't break him.

That's him, you've got him. Perfect. Well done.

Oh.

-Do you eat these?

-Ugh!

-You're mad.

-Yuk!

'Ed's reaction is typical of so many fishermen.

'They don't actually like fish. Particularly clams.

'But, you know, when these clams are partnered with something like

'salt pork, the sweetness of the clams contrasted with the

'saltiness of the pork is a real gourmet's delight.'

This is the best time of day for me, in the afternoon,

we've just had a busy lunch.

The kitchen is all dark now, nice and calm, no stress. No stress.

I'm going to make this absolutely wonderful chowder.

Cod and clam chowder. Just finishing off the cod there.

But the main ingredient, of course, is the clams that we picked earlier.

These beautiful razor shells. And some other clams from the estuary.

Covered, as we always do, in seaweed,

just to keep everything nice and moist. And living, in fact.

Fresh and alive.

All we do is just put these straight into a hot pan,

and just add a little bit of the actual juice that's come out of

the clams as they were... sitting in this tray.

Bang on a lid, and now wrap those plates in all directions.

I'm just going to cook some potatoes - that's another

ingredient in the clam chowder -

with milk and cream.

And bay leaf.

And fresh bay leaf is so different to dried that you buy in the shops.

Everybody ought to use fresh bay leaves.

The aromatic qualities of a fresh bay leaf are just wonderful.

Those are now cooked, perfectly cooked.

Pour them through the colander because we want to keep the juice.

And in the front here, I'm going to sweat off that salt pork.

Now, I made the salt pork myself. There's nothing to it.

You can buy salt pork, but you can do your own very easily.

Just slices of pork steeped in lots of salt,

then drained off and rinsed in cold water.

You can buy salt pork, but why not make your own?

Now, a little bit of onion.

Just soften up some onion with the salt pork.

Give it a little bit of flavour.

I don't want to cook the onion right out, because I want that

slightly undercooked taste of onion to finish off the dish with.

There we are. They're done enough.

The potatoes will be cooked enough now.

Then into there goes my cream, potatoes, milk.

And lastly, I certainly want the juice which I've collected

from the clams. It's a beautiful, sweet, salty flavour.

Pour that in, but just leave the last teaspoon or so,

because, as you can see, there's plenty of grit there,

and I don't want that in my chowder.

Simmer that away and just add the cod.

That will only take about one minute to cook.

I am always very keen to undercook the fish in these sort of things,

so I am only allowing it a minute. While that's cooking,

I just need to chop some of these clams up a bit.

Now, these razors are, as you can see,

just a little bit big to serve up in one piece.

And I'm cutting out the mouth, which is rather sort of tough and gristly

and a little bit sort of... There's even a slight crunch to it.

Maybe it's sort of poor little clams' teeth. I don't know.

Take the other clam shells out.

I'm going to leave a couple of them in there

cos I want to actually finish the dish with

a couple of whole shells on top, which will look very nice.

So, in go the clams and the shells.

Now, that looks to be about done, but I will just make sure

that the consistency and the flavour is right.

Do you realise that's just about done? My God, it's tasting good!

I mean, that is so quick, isn't it?

There's absolutely nothing else to add.

That's just about all there is to it. We can dish it out now.

In goes the...everything.

And a little bit of...a very important ingredient,

which is ship's biscuit, which is, again,

a traditional part of the chowder,

because, like the potato,

it bulks...bulks it out a bit

but also adds a nice crunch to it,

a delightful sort of crunchy texture.

And finally, those couple of clams

that I kept back to put in there.

Let's give that a final little taste.

It's beautiful. What we need now is to go down the estuary,

stick it on a rock, put some sort of seaweed all around it

and get one of those fancy photographers to come down,

picture the dish, the blue sky beyond, the sea,

set the whole thing up nicely.

But I think it looks wonderful like it is, anyway.

Now, Rick's films are always inspiring.

Just like him, I've been away this week, not in Padstow but in Spain.

And I thought I'd bring together a couple of sort of things

that I have sort of got on my travels of this week, really.

We've got Iberico pork, which is this amazing black-footed pig

that is bred on acorns. It produces this fabulous ham

which is just really one of the prize hams in the world, really.

But I've got the raw meat here. This is the fillet.

And I'm going to do an Iberico pork and bean cassoulet,

cos in Spain, the beans, the peppers, the chorizo,

the paprika are all just fantastic.

It's a wonderful little cassoulet.

So, first thing I want to do is get our chorizo on,

which we've got here.

This is the soft chorizo,

which you can get picante, but this is Iberico chorizo,

so it is made out of the same pig as this, really.

But they take the ham, which is the highly prized one,

and they can take the meat as well, and use it.

We've used it on the show as well. What we're going to do is

use the picante version, which is this spicy sort of sausage, really.

And get that cooking with some Spanish olive oil.

In Spain they do produce some amazing olive oil.

So we're just going to, basically, just soften this down, really,

to get the colour of all this chorizo off.

And then I'm going to use some of this paprika,

this lovely smoked paprika,

to make a marinade or really a topping for our pork, really.

A little bit of garlic, just crushed.

-Wow.

-More of this oil. Mix together.

And then all we do is just mix this together.

And then, taking our pork, this wonderful pork fillet,

you can tell it's sort of a darker colour

-to the conventional pork.

-Fabulous meat.

Yeah, wonderful meat. And then what you do is pop that

straight onto our pan with the oil, with the garlic and everything else.

Seal it off on one side, cook it.

And I have got one that has been rested nicely as well.

Jason, do you cook at home?

I'm not a big cook. My wife does a lot of cooking.

I mean, I tour a lot, so, you know, I am sort of living in hotels.

But I love food. I do love food, you know.

I'd like to spend more time cooking.

You say you tour a lot, but you are about to go

back into the theatre as well, aren't you, this year?

Well, I've just finished a thing called The King's Speech,

which most people probably know from the film.

That was a play, that was a great tour.

I am doing my own tour next March,

-which we talked about before.

-Yeah.

And I'm doing Priscilla. I'm going to go back and do Priscilla.

Cos you enjoy doing that? You've done it a few times

and you're back doing it again.

I mean, sometimes you find roles in life that you sort of...

You know, everything sort of works.

And I think that show, for me, has been, you know,

a lot of good luck, but...

I'm really looking forward to this tour in March and April next year.

That's a sort of... That is on the top of my list at the moment.

But this is celebrating your singing career, because...?

Well, I had a record called Ten Good Reasons, which was...

-Just...

-..which was... Did OK.

-"Did OK"!

-Back in 1989. And, um, you know,

a lot of people had talked to me and said,

"Why don't you tour that record?"

And I sort of hummed and hawed about it for a few years,

but I haven't actually toured as Jason Donovan

for six or seven years, so...

And last year I saw an ad in a paper

for Peter Gabriel's So record, which was his famous album from the '80s.

And I thought, you know, "What a great idea."

You give the fans, you know,

the opportunity to relive that sort of, that album, that record.

And, you know, as kids growing up, when you get into an album,

which doesn't happen so much these days, you, you know, you really...

you really remember those times.

So I thought this was a good opportunity to do the record

and to do some of my greatest hits.

Well, if you see one person on the front row

-that's shouting and screaming...

-It'll be you?

It's that lady over there, Michaela,

because she's a massive, massive fan of yours as well.

Well, maybe Michaela can come along to the London show.

-Oh!

-Hey!

-She...

-We can organise that. We can organise that.

-She loves you!

LAUGHTER

Right, so we're just going to recap on our beans here as well.

We've got the cassoulet with the beans... Tinned beans

or the jarred beans in Spain are just amazing.

We've got the wood-roasted peppers,

which you can buy now in jars as well.

Just saute all that lot together - the garlic, the chorizo.

In we go with some chicken stock... like that.

Just a touch of chicken stock. And then double cream.

We're going to bring this together.

And I'm going to add some chopped parsley to this.

It creates this wonderful, sort of rich...

-Nice flavour.

-The meat is in there? The meat is in there?

No. The meat is in the oven.

That's just basically the chorizo to go with it.

I'm going to put lots of chopped parsley

-with it as well.

-OK.

Now, you mentioned the tour as well next year.

But some of the songs you've never actually...

-never actually performed before live.

-I've never done...

You know, when you do tours,

you tend to pick, cherry-pick the songs that sort of work.

And, you know, in albums you have songs that aren't singles.

So, you know, again, it is just a chance to play that record

from top to sort of bottom,

and I think that is a sort of...

It's an interesting idea. You know. And again, it's about...

reminiscing for a lot of people, you know,

back to a time when everything was very simple.

No kids, and, you know...

I mean, you mention about reminiscing.

-That era, for you, it was colossal, wasn't it, really?

-It was.

But I think for me particularly it was about the fact that

Neighbours was so, you know, successful here in the UK.

And then you marry music and television,

which happens a lot these days - in things like X Factor -

and you create people that are not just interested in the music,

they are interested in the person as well.

Um, you know, I think...

I think Neighbours and the music careers that came from that...

There was loads of spin-offs from it as well, because,

in 1989, Jason-mania was sweeping right across the world.

-You even had your own board game.

-Wow. Wow.

-This was for your fans.

-Wow.

-Where is it?

-That person over there bought one.

Now, these questions were all about you. So we want to know...

It's so...

..whether you know yourself.

I mean, I am sure you probably find this in good charity shops

around the country, really.

-Are you ready, Jason?

-OK. I'm ready.

You've got to answer these quickly because my beans might burn.

-Come on.

-Right...

Cue. Your first question.

What was Jason's favourite subject at school?

-Art.

-Wrong. Accounting.

-BUZZER

-Accounting?!

What was Jason's most important thing?

-Surfing.

-No. Love.

BUZZER

What does Jason like collecting?

Um, um, um... Music records?

-No. Postcards.

-BUZZER

-Postcards...

-What are Jason's favourite postcards?

Postcards about...surfing?

-Thunderbirds.

-Thunderbirds.

-BUZZER

What was Jason's favourite wild animal?

-CLOCK TICKS

-Um, um, um... Dolphin.

-Tasmanian devil.

-Oh, my God.

-BUZZER

What was Jason's favourite time of the day?

I know nothing about myself whatsoever!

-What's your favourite time of the day?

-Um, in the morning.

-Sunrise. One right.

-One right.

-DING

What was Jason's favourite food?

Anything that James Martin cooks on Saturday Morning Kitchen.

That's the right answer, buddy. It was "healthy food".

-DING

-What's your favourite game?

Um, Twister.

-HOOTER

-Snakes and ladders.

Unbelievable.

Jason Donovan, you scored on a specialist subject about yourself,

-two points.

-I need a drink.

-Exactly.

-I need a drink.

APPLAUSE

I mean, that board game was put together pretty quickly, actually.

LAUGHTER

Yeah. At the time we didn't spend a lot of time doing the research.

When you are in that sort of...

When you're in that cycle, you know, the demands on you to get

merchandise and to get new records out and, you know, was overwhelming.

So I didn't pay a lot of attention to... Yeah.

If you want to go and visit the past, go round to Michaela's house,

because she's got T-shirts, she's got posters,

-she's got everything.

-Has she?

-Right, what I've got here -

it's a good job you answered those quickly, cos I thought

these were going to go dry and burn - we've got our lovely...

You do this well, James. You balance the two things.

What, a quiz show now?

You're turning into a master chef.

Mastermind.

There you go. So you've got this lovely sort of bean casserole.

-The pork has been rested nicely.

-Has it?

-Can I have a look at the pork?

-This actually goes...

It actually goes like...more wild boar than anything else.

Now, you can cook this pink as well, because it is like gamey.

And what we're going to do is add some of this little parsley.

-Smells delicious over here.

-Looks all right.

Shame you're not going to get any, cos you didn't share the mackerel.

-Yeah.

-Fair enough.

Any more of that schnapps?

-You don't want any more, trust me! There you go.

-Wow. Thank you.

-Dive into that.

-Thank you.

Where do you find this Iberico in London?

-You can get it online, but, yeah, you can get it in London.

-Yeah?

I don't know whether you were this big in Sweden.

I'm presuming you were as well because it says in here,

"At the height of Jason's fame, he had a myriad of female fans

"who, it was reported at the time, fainted at a rate

"of one every 12 seconds."

Absolutely. Every 12 seconds.

Towards the end of my fame it got down to about one

every three or four seconds.

It happens all the time at the back of the studio!

LAUGHTER

There you go, Jason. James cooked that Especially For You.

Do you get it?

Today we're taking a look back at some of the tastiest recipes

from the Saturday Kitchen archives.

And we have barely scratched the surface. So don't go anywhere.

Up next is Allegra McEvedy, who's doing a good job

of keeping James in check.

Good to have you on, Allegra. What are you cooking for us today?

We're going to do a monkfish and couscous dish.

Kind of Moroccan influences - put it in a bag.

-This is our beautiful piece of monkfish.

-Yeah.

Cornish monkfish. Over here we've got

some couscous, spring onions, coriander,

two kinds of cumin - seeds and the ground. A bit of saffron.

-These are little preserved lemons.

-Which we'll get on to later.

Cherry tomatoes. And fennel. And that's what's going in the bag.

-And this is...

-This is a little go-with salad.

Some nice Greek yoghurt, English radishes...

-Kind of like a tzatziki?

-Yes.

That's a bit of sumac, which is kind of an Iranian spice.

Which often people would have with bread.

If they visit Cyprus quite a lot, they put on top of bread.

-And sesame seeds. And they bake it. Anyway, there we go.

-OK.

So, monkfish, lovely fish.

Very, very easy to fillet. Like so.

And that's what's going to be so great about this dish -

it's going to be simple, it's going to be easy.

Monkfish is an amazing fish. It's quite an ugly fish.

There's 60% waste on it.

But it was kind of a fish that not often chefs used very much.

It was always kind of deep-fried in breadcrumbs

and used as a poor man's scampi, wasn't it, really?

-Yeah. Now it is quite dear.

-Yeah.

You can do this with any white fish, really, or salmon,

-something like that.

-Yeah.

I like the way... It used to be called poor man's lobster,

cos I like the way that the...

If you want to chop those. And also the cherry tomatoes after that.

-OK.

-And quite quickly. Thanks.

-Yes, Chef!

LAUGHTER

Thank you very much. I am making those into little medallions there.

You can tell it's her first time. You'll calm down on the second one.

LAUGHTER

I like control. I do like things to happen.

So I am going to make these into medallions here and put those aside

-whilst we get the rest of it together.

-Yeah.

-So...

I am going to drop the saffron in here, into the water,

to infuse a little bit without moving.

Right, what's next?

Yes, if you just cut those little cherry tomatoes in half,

-that would be great.

-OK.

Now, on your travels and your restaurants and bits and pieces

where you've worked all over the world, I have actually eaten

in one of your restaurants, probably when you were there -

-a certain Mr Robert De Niro owned it in New York.

-Oh, Bob.

Bob? Oh, sorry, Bob. Bob.

-Yeah...

-That was... Tell us... What's it called?

Tribeca Grill. It's the southern part of Manhattan.

Yeah, real experience. Very, very busy. 500 covers a night.

Yeah, and I was in charge of running the kitchen.

-Didn't you get a special visa to go over there?

-Yeah.

I got a visa... I was an alien of extraordinarily ability

in the culinary arts.

I know. My dad thought that was hysterical.

So that's all going in.

So, preserved lemons in there. Tomatoes, spring onions in here.

If you want to chop a bunch of that. Keep a little on the side,

-put the rest of it in.

-Yes, Chef.

-I am going to get on with the...

-What did she say? What did she say?

-More chopping!

-Right, OK.

-More chopping...

-More chopping?

-Less talking.

Can't say that on TV, can you?

And I suppose your ability in the kitchens there led you to win

numerous prizes,

one of which has won you the Best Cookbook Of The Year, is that right?

Yeah. In the States. I'm just cutting this fennel a little bit.

In the States last month.

My cookery book did amazingly well, kind of blew me out of the water.

-Best Chef's Cookery Book In The World.

-In the world?

Well, apparently. That's what they said.

That's what it said on the medal, so it has got to be true.

So there you go, Gordon Ramsay!

-Right...

-Shh!

-Go on, then.

So there we go. Fennel is in.

Right, I have got some foil here.

Now we're going to make our little bags, which is where the magic

is going to happen. Let's...

-Do you want to rip off two lengths of that?

-Yes, Chef, no problem.

A little bit of that going in, olive oil,

-just to keep the couscous grains apart.

-Lovely.

Obviously, you need salt, not only for the couscous,

but also for the fish. If you don't get the sizzling right

at this stage, you haven't got a chance.

That will go straight in like that.

-Yeah, lay out two of those.

-Two of those.

-One on my place.

That's it. It's coming on nicely.

And then just going to drop in the saffron water just to give it

a little kick-start. And the rest of the moisture to go...

to cook the couscous in comes out of the fish.

-And that is part of the magic of the dish.

-Have you put the spices in?

-Have you put the cumin in?

-Yes, I have. Both seeds and ground.

-I like the textures of both of them.

-OK.

-OK.

-That's that one.

-That's that. Right, a little bit of oil.

-Sorry.

-A little bit of oil.

-Then your fennel.

-In the fennel? Yeah.

-Then a blob of the couscous.

-OK.

Blob of the couscous. Spoon.

There we go. How are your hands?

Monk on top.

Did you save a little bit? There we go.

That goes on top of there.

Like that. A touch more seasoning.

-Fish on.

-Sorry, Chef. Yeah.

On.

That is lovely. Great, perfect.

-A little bit of coriander on top.

-Coriander.

-Yeah.

-Now you want to make your bag.

-Hold on a minute.

-I haven't put salt and pepper on it yet.

-North over south.

-Yeah.

-Like that?

Look at that. That just looks so fresh.

-North over south.

-North over south like that.

You do side first. Now, you've got to get a really, really good seal

on this, James. One, two. And press down.

I'm pressing down. I'm pressing down!

One, two, three like that. Flip it. Other way round. One, two, three.

-I'm pressing down. I'm pressing it!

-Are you? Doing it hard?

-Yes, Matron!

-I've got it, yeah.

-Right, before you do your topping...

Just a little bit more water in, like that.

You can put a bit of vermouth in,

but they frown on that in Morocco where this dish...

I got the inspiration from.

-Yeah.

-And then your top. One, two, three.

Now, it must be a good seal,

or else your bag won't puff up and the magic won't happen.

-It's like a private party now.

-It's a good seal.

-Yeah. In it goes.

-Thank you very much indeed.

-There you go, Chef.

-Little bit more work?

-Yes.

-Do you want to do more peeling?

-Peeling.

-Seeding, and then just thin slicing.

-Peeling. Right, OK.

You know what? Don't worry about peeling it. That's fine.

-Just slice it?

-We're in the same situation as we were earlier

-with the spoons and soup.

-Slice it, slice it.

And I'm going to do the same with some radishes over here.

-Slice them up.

-I'm chucking in all of this veg...

This is just going to go in like this, very simple.

And it is just going to be a little yoghurty salad to work

with the flavours. Very authentic to the region.

And we do... At my restaurants, Leon, we do a lot of this kind

of Mediterranean-type food.

It's very healthy, very delicious, really good for you. Simple stuff.

A dish like this is just a joy,

because you can do the work ahead of time and just whack it in the oven

when your guests or your date arrives.

Tell us about the concept of your restaurants that you're doing?

Well, basically, it is healthy fast food is what we do.

Because, you know, particularly these days,

people have got less time to eat

but more awareness about what they're eating.

So there was just this kind of space in the market

that my partners and I saw.

We're having a lot of fun with it, doing really well.

Won Best New Restaurant In Great Britain.

So that is...

A little bit of dill, not too much dill. Easy to do the overkill.

So how fast, when you say fast food,

if someone was to come in and sort of sit down and order something?

-Yeah.

-It's like McDonalds and you go in, you order at tills,

but instead of there being nasty burgers,

not mentioning any names, there's superfood salads,

grilled chicken with aioli,

Moroccan meatballs, there's a daily slow cook.

-Is that enough?

-Yes, that looks lovely.

Bit of that, bit of that, a little swish of olive oil, a bit of that.

I'm just going to loosen it out with a drop of water cos it looks sticky.

-Sticky, yep.

-That's great.

Do you want to give that a stir and I'll get this one out the oven?

-Rather you than me!

-Speed up, James, it's fast food. Come on.

THEY LAUGH

-Right. So how long's that in the oven?

-It'll be about 15 minutes.

It depends on the size of the monk,

-but what you want to do is whack one of those on there.

-Give me that.

Cheers, thanks. Watch out for the steam when you open it.

-That's been baked at 200 degrees, yeah?

-Yeah, 200 degrees.

You see that little puff of steam there? Open it up like that.

That just looks very nice indeed.

Here's our little salad,

finish with a little bit of fresh corry like that.

Our nice yoghurty salad.

Can you smell that cumin coming off, the spices?

There we go, just like that.

Yoghurt and radish and cucumber salad,

sumac as our nod to our friends in Iran on the other side of the Med.

Lovely. And that's it. So, Allegra, what's that again?

That is baked-in-the-bag couscous, preserved lemons, monkfish and yum.

Yum!

Right, come on.

-Right, over here. Let's have a dive in.

-Let's try the yum.

-Have a seat, Allegra. There we go, dive in.

-Thanks.

-Have a smell as well, it's just...

-Smell it!

-Get your face in it!

The whole aura of it as it comes over... That's lovely, that.

I'll have a little bit of fish,

I won't take it all for everybody else.

-Oops, sorry.

-In your own time.

-Sorry, sorry.

-What are the preserved lemons?

-Preserved lemons are...

Well, basically, if you think about it, in Morocco,

they didn't get fridges until relatively recently

in their culinary history and so the way they used to keep them

was by packing them in salt and they'd just turn them...

-Have you done these?

-Yes.

Big Kilner jar, turn them over once a day

for about a month and then they get this sort of...

Slightly like fermenting, but they just get

this real depth of flavour that I find really interesting.

Cos to me, it's where the world's sort of culinary inventions

come from, the way they preserve their favourite food.

They love their fish and all kinds of stuff

so you've got salt cod in Spain and all kinds of stuff.

How's that going down?

It's beautiful and with the tinfoil,

is that kind of like the tagine thing,

-like cooking it within the...

-Yeah, exactly.

It's all about just keeping everything in

and not letting any of the flavours escape.

-Michael?

-Lovely, delicious.

You should try that. Such a simple recipe,

but I bet it tasted fantastic.

Right, now it's Keith time and this week,

he's out at sea having problems procuring pilchards.

We set sail from Newlyn with Frank and Phil

on a course for the Blood Pit,

a centuries-old fishing ground so named out of respect

for countless tonnes of pilchards that met their maker here.

We, too, would drift and haul nets by hand

in the time-honoured fashion,

except that we'd be aided tonight by a little magic box

called a fish finder, though I doubt these boys need such a device.

Floyd On Fish takes life pretty seriously.

-When we came down to Newlyn today...

-FISHERMAN SHOUTS INSTRUCTIONS

Could you be quiet a minute, please? Sorry about that.

Just while I get this very difficult piece out for the punters at home,

you know what I mean? They're all landlubbers.

They don't know how hard you work.

But because we wanted to get some really good pilchards,

we came down to Newlyn,

which, you know, 13 years or more ago was one of the hubs,

the centres of the pilchard industry which supported thousands

of families in canneries, the women working tinning the fish,

hundreds of men out on the boats catching the stuff.

In fact, there were so many boats, that at night, their lights

twinkling around the place looked like floating villages at sea.

So, as I said, we came to Newlyn to get, and what did we find?

A tin of Japanese pilchards!

Well, I believe in these fishermen.

I think they're going to catch the stuff

and I'm going to heave this bloody rubbish over the side.

# A good sword and a trusty hand!

# A merry heart and true!

# King James's men shall understand what Cornish lads can do

# And have they fixed the where and when?

# And shall Trelawny die?

# Here's 20,000 Cornishmen will know the reason why

# And shall Trelawny live?

# Or shall Trelawny die?

# Here's 20,000 Cornishmen will know the reason why. #

What a shame the bobbing red sails of the pilchard boats

are no more, replaced by huge trawlers that suck the ocean

not only of Cornwall's proud heritage, but it's fish, too,

and with a shameful disregard for tomorrow.

Oh, there's a romantic sight for you, isn't it?

Red sails in the sunset.

It's what pilchard fishing is all about and pilchard eating, too,

cos eating fish is great fun.

You know, the French and the Italians and all that all gloat over

their sardines and charcoal grill them, they put them in...

And pilchards they catch, too, and they put them in spicy tomato sauce.

They call them escabeche of pilchards

and when we go on holiday, we say,

"Oh, good-oh, escabeche of pilchards, jolly good.

"Read that in the Good Food Guide and things. Absolutely splendid!"

Will they eat a pilchard? Will they hell!

But when we've caught some in this ancient and lovely method,

if only you could be with us here now, you'd really enjoy it -

the sky, the light, these wonderful blokes cracking jokes all the time.

They're going to tell us the whole tale in a moment.

'But as night fell, Frank and Phil exchanged anxious glances.

'You see, there was a woman onboard

'and Frank was muttering darkly about her black net.

'So, in the hope of easing the atmosphere,

'I asked Frank how to cook a pilchard.'

-I've never ate a pilchard in my life.

-Have you not?

-No, that is the truth.

-The best way, m'dear, is to scrowl them.

Scrowl them?

-Put them in the sun.

-And that dries them.

And then they're handsome, then. But it's no good for you to...

I know you're a cook.

Oh, yes, but I don't know anything about pilchards, you see.

But our way is marinade them or scrowl them.

-Are we going to catch any of these fish, do you think?

-Yes, we are.

-Always have faith.

-Yes! Have you ever not caught anything?

I don't think we've ever had pilchard nets without anything, eh?

-We've had three tonnes the last two nights.

-Oh, really?

-So we're on for a good chance today?

-We should be in a really good...

How much longer are we going to have to wait to pull any pilchards in?

About quarter of an hour, 20 minutes.

So altogether in about three hours, I suppose, from start to...

Start to finish.

Well, we come out and we've got to look where we're going to drift to.

It's a lovely night, isn't it? A good night for a murder!

THEY LAUGH

Well, you could murder one of that lot!

But if we do catch any, who are you going to sell them to?

Jowsters, that's the people that go around

-with their little carts selling to the doors, to hotels.

-Oh, really?

-That still happens?

-Oh, yes, a lot of jowsters about.

So people can still buy a fresh pilchard off the jowster?

-Yeah.

-And the rest, where do they go? To a canning factory?

No, we fish for a salter. He salts them in and sends them to Italy.

To Italy? That's blinking marvellous, isn't it?

In Bristol, for example, where I live,

I couldn't get a pilchard from one year to the next,

but the Italians can get them. It doesn't seem fair to me.

I think going back to 30 years ago,

-95% of the pilchards went to Italy, didn't they?

-Yeah, all of them.

It was just a few to America,

which went to the Italian immigrants that was there,

but all of them went to Genoa and all these places,

you see different markings in there now they put on the ends

of the barrels and also they go from Mousehole.

Every seller used to do his own fish.

They used to huddle them then.

What does that mean?

They used to put them like in a little rick

-and salt them out of a tank and they called them huddled.

-Huddled.

I see old pictures of them in some old magazines, you know.

But they've played a great part in the fishing industry of Cornwall.

They were the foundations of all the fishing.

# And shall Trelawny live?

# Or shall Trelawny die?

# Here's 20,000 Cornishmen

# Will know the reason why. #

Well, my friends on the boat have been heaving this net in

by hand for the last 20 minutes. We've got one pilchard so far.

I hope I did the right thing

by throwing the tin of Japanese stuff over the side.

With plenty of time, lots of faith, I will get lots more.

We'll still have a good dinner at the end of tonight.

Look at them, aren't they pretty?

-Handsome, I think the word is.

-Handsome, lovely.

'Another half-hour, another huge length of net and nothing.

'Spirits were low and it wasn't just the cold night. Something was wrong.

'We'd run out of whisky.'

We're trying to get some good luck into all of this

and they tell me they won't sing,

but I've got to sing the Cornish anthem.

I don't know what it is, just tell me the words again.

-The Cornish anthem is Trelawny.

-It's Trelawny, but what are the words?

-Fish and tin?

-Oh, that's the other one.

Fish and tin and copper, boys.

-Fish and tin and copper, boys.

-And Tre and Pol and Pen.

Right, what's the tune?

Well, I ain't got no orchestra here!

But it's something like...

# Fish and tin and copper, boys

# Tre and Pol and Pen

# Heave the rope, me babbies, hard

# Get them buggers in. #

-That's about the best I can do.

-Well, that'll do.

That'll do for the time.

-They think we're all drunk.

-We haven't had a drop all day!

You can't organise when you want them.

The last time we were here, we had two tonnes.

There we are. Here we are now for what you call a black net.

Black net. Oh, dear! Black net, black night.

So, I'm afraid, my gastronauts,

we're going to be rather hungry tonight cos after five hours

of working really hard out in the night in the Cornish sea here,

we've got just a black net, which in the trade means zero,

and for our pains, we've got four, just four, pilchards.

I really wish I hadn't thrown that tin over the side now.

OK, this is absolutely fabulous -

the best and the freshest pilchards you've ever seen.

I don't think you'll be very happy

about having to eat them at this luxurious resort

and this splendid table,

but after the sort of day I've had,

I don't give a damn and I can't even be bothered to tell you

how to cook them because if you don't know to cook

a grilled fresh pilchard, then you know nothing.

Excuse me a sec.

Mmm!

Those are absolutely fantastic, they really are.

But although they're brilliant,

I still think the final score is Newlyn 3 Japan 27.

'Now for something quite different, but I must warn you,

'if the idea of raw fish turns you off, I suggest you switch off.

'Even old Fred's a bit apprehensive about the idea

'and I'm still totally confused,

'completely tongue-tied over the Japanese phrase

'I've got to say for "hello" as I enter this charming restaurant,

'never mind pronouncing the owner's name, which I think is Chikako.'

-Ah, Chikako. Konichiwa.

-Konichiwa.

This is my friend, Fred,

who's come up from Plymouth with this wonderful fresh fish for you.

-Look at that. Isn't that beautiful?

-My goodness!

Absolutely live crayfish. Isn't that splendid?

And still going like crazy and a bass and a fresh sole,

fresh mackerel, live crabs.

They are live, I'm sure they'll move for us in a moment.

-Yes, they're all live.

-And some fresh brill.

But, look, we've travelled a long way this morning

and we're absolutely ravenous.

-Do you think we can go and cook some now?

-Yes.

-Come on, then, lead on to the kitchen.

-OK, then.

Chikako, this is absolutely beautiful -

the colours, the textures.

And, Fred, look, outside of a stargazy pie,

I bet there aren't many people

who've seen a fish head sitting on their plate.

Most people wouldn't like to see them on their plate, I don't think.

I'm sure they wouldn't, but it looks absolutely wonderful!

-Chikako, have you finished slicing the fish?

-Yes.

Come and sit down beside me and serve us a little drink

and tell us how and what you've prepared here

because there are going to be thousands of people

fascinated by this and you're the only expert here.

Fred has caught the fish, I love eating fish,

but you prepared it, you know everything about it.

-Come and tell me all about it, please. What have we got here?

-Sake.

Sake, which we must drink.

Wonderful. You pour a little there for Fred.

-This will make things a lot easier. This is a hot wine, Fred.

-Hot wine?

Hot wine, which is really brilliant with the fish.

That's superb, thank you. Very, very good health.

Kanpai!

Now, what shall we start with?

Shall we start with the mackerel?

-Yes, anything.

-You've got us there, haven't you? Excellent.

And what have we got here, this little finely-chopped...

That is fresh ginger.

-Fresh ginger, great, and chives on the top, is that right?

-Yes.

So if we get a bit of that and dip it into the soy sauce, yes?

And just eat.

Oh, I say! Oh, that's beautiful. That's absolutely...

What do you think, Fred?

What are your mates going to think of you eating raw mackerel?

Well, I'll have a few presents of raw mackerel, I reckon,

-when I get down there.

-Right. So, can I just have a bit of that?

Cos that is so very, very nice. I love the fresh ginger.

Yes, the mackerel needs something a little refreshing

-so the chives and the ginger together is nice.

-Magnificent.

Now, this beautiful flower here, this fan shape.

You've got that there, haven't you?

And it's so beautiful. This fish on the outside is...

-Thinly-sliced plaice.

-But tell me about this...

-That is green mustard.

This is a Japanese green mustard. What's it made from?

So, just put it in the soy sauce and mix it.

-Wonderful. And is that hot?

-Yes, hot, like radish, horseradish.

Like a green horseradish. That's an interesting variation, isn't it?

And some raw cucumber here. Oh, can I hold it? I'm so hungry.

Excuse me for being a pig. Sorry about this, Fred.

-I'll be back with you in a moment.

-And then, that is the salmon trout.

-Salmon trout there.

-Yes.

-That's the freshwater.

-Mm. Oh, that's beautiful, too.

I wonder how many people realise that this isn't only very beautiful

to look at, very delicious to eat, but it's very, very good for you.

And I've been told off for speaking with my mouth full.

Very sorry about that, Mum.

Now, over here, equally delicious looking, what have we got there?

-This is a squid with seaweed.

-Squid with seaweed.

-The seaweed is in the inside there, is it?

-Yes.

So it's rolled, stuffed squid with seaweed. Isn't that beautiful?

Ah, but what about this here?

This is a chopped up squid also

with the Japanese chrysanthemum leaves and the flower, marinaded.

Beautiful! So we're going to actually eat the flower

and the leaves of a Japanese chrysanthemum.

And this, I can tell you, is an absolute first for me -

I've never done that before.

Oh, boy. Try it, Fred. That's delicious.

It's a little bit like... What's that like?

It is a little bit like spinach with a sweeter taste of...

something else in it.

-The chrysanthemum flower itself is...

-It's the flower you taste.

-Mm.

-It's nice.

-How are you doing with your sake there?

-That is nice.

If in doubt, always have a little drop of sake, because I know...

-Thank you.

-You're going to have some, too?

-Yes, thank you.

-Got a steady hand on this one.

-Yeah. Is it, um...?

Of course, the whole thing about eating Japanese food

isn't only the food and everything - it's the presentation.

Look at these beautiful trays we're serving it from.

But there's some rules of etiquette, aren't there?

In fact, really, I shouldn't be serving sake myself, should I?

-You must wait until I serve.

-I must wait until you do it.

Well, I'm very sorry about that, but I was very thirsty.

-Anyway, kanpai.

-Kanpai.

'Great stuff, sake. And Fred's enjoying himself, too.

'Though the mackerel looks a bit hacked off.

'You see, Japanese food is all about style,

'an economy of elegance, a single rose in a delicate vase,

'the understated perfection that the Japanese call shibui.

'But no matter how pretty the dishes look,

'they only work if you use the freshest fish,

'and I do mean fresh - not frozen.'

You might get the impression by the way that Chikako drinks her drink

and eats her food and serves us so politely and delicately

that she was better brought up than me.

In fact, she was brought up differently from me.

And as different as their food is from ours,

it's also worth noting at this point

that the Japanese don't have hors d'oeuvres, as such,

because all of their food is sort hors d'oeuvres-like.

And if you're going to cook this kind of food at home,

you don't need to be formalised by traditional English fashions

of starter, main course, middle.

You just start and you crack on in.

-And that's what we want to do, isn't it?

-Yes.

-If you can start cooking something for us now.

-Yes.

But first of all,

tell us what we've got in here by way of ingredients. We've got...

-That is king prawn.

-King prawns here.

-And fresh halibut, yes?

-Yes.

Fresh salmon, fresh bass, fresh mackerel.

-Now, vegetables.

-The scallops.

-And scallops.

And we've got beansprouts, carrot.

Notice how prettily they're cut.

This is, again, half of the technique of the Japanese cooking.

Peppers, aubergines, potato at the back there.

And here we have the teppanyaki. Is that so?

Yes, teppanyaki means grilled on a hot plate.

So what I am going to do is,

I am going to put a little bit of vegetable oil for start.

Onto this plate, which is by now very, very hot, everybody -

you must notice that.

You don't start this with a cold plate, otherwise the things

won't cook, because the technique is one of very rapid cooking.

-How are you feeling, Fred?

-Beautiful.

This is completely different, isn't it,

to what we've been used to, anyway.

You ate the raw fish quite happily,

but I guess you're looking forward to this cooked stuff now.

Yeah, I certainly am, yeah, I think it's going to be great.

That's one of my favourites, the king prawns, anyway.

And in case you should think that Fred and I

are a pair of sort of chauvinistic pigs,

taking advantage of the elegant hospitality of Chikako,

you must remember that Japanese hospitality and customs

are quite different from our own.

Had I been Chikako's husband, for example,

I would've probably helped fillet the fish, chop the vegetables

before this had started, or we'd share the role of preparing

a meal, which makes it into a harmonious occasion.

It's something, which, by the way, our chaps at home on Sunday mornings

could make life more amusing by making a few cocktails,

making the mustard sauce - fresh mustard instead of packet mustard -

and helping the wife produce a really super meal,

the kind of which I can now assure you we're having here.

What do you reckon, Fred? It's all going pretty good, isn't it?

It certainly is. This is really different.

I wonder, if you imagine that, you know,

you'd said to somebody 20 years ago that today, in 1984,

England will be, you know, covered in Chinese restaurants,

people would have laughed at you.

But I bet you the same is going to happen with Japanese food.

And soon - five years, maybe - there'll be a Japanese restaurant

in every village and every town over the country,

because with its high-protein and low-cholesterol food,

not only is it healthy, it's absolutely delicious.

It's really, really yummy. Just look at that sizzling away.

Keith, we love you. More from him next week.

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

our favourite recipes from the Saturday Kitchen archives.

Still to come on today's show...

Kenny Atkinson and Anthony Demetre try their hand

at the omelette challenge, but can they make it on the board?

Sophie Grigson cooks up

a fresh and light Mediterranean dish.

She makes a Sardinian clam soup

and serves it with traditional fregola pasta.

And actress Cherie Lunghi faces her food heaven or food hell.

Did she get her food heaven - mozzarella-stuffed chicken

with roasted tomatoes, aubergines and basil pesto?

Or her food hell -

gooseberry crumble with vanilla custard and ice cream?

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

Next up, it's Vivek Singh who's here to show us a couple of tasty kebabs.

What's on the menu for you today, then, chef? Some kebabs, I believe.

Yeah, we've got some lamb mince

and we've got some fat from around the kidney.

And I'm going to turn this into a spiced lamb kebab.

-So we've got suet, basically, what we've got there.

-A little suet.

-I've got this cumin.

-Yeah.

-Sea salt.

-A bit of ground red chilli powder and a home-made garam masala.

-Yeah.

I've got some ginger and garlic and a green chilli.

And all that is going to go into...

-Now, you say this comes from different areas of India.

-Correct.

I mean, you know, before the partition, Punjab was one big thing.

Now, the Pakistan side of Punjab, where Lahore sits,

they do their seekh kebabs slightly differently

from the rest of the country.

So in India, in Punjab, you see a lot of...

On the Indian side of Punjab, you see a lot more tandoori influence

when we do a seekh kebab.

I've done one before, haven't I?

So, this is one of the most popular dishes, is it, over there?

Yes, this is possibly India's... You know, in the top three.

What is the most popular dish over in India?

-I would say it is the tandoori chicken.

-Right.

That is the most popular dish in India, or Indian cuisine.

The second would be a lamb seekh kebab.

And third, probably, is the... the stir-fried...

Indochinese-style stir-fried chilli chicken.

All right, OK. So, what spices have you got in there, then?

So I put some cumin, some ground garam masala,

which is a home-made, hot spice mix.

-Some red chillies. Some ginger, garlic and green chilli.

-OK.

-So, any chopped herbs in there, or not?

-Yeah.

So I'll just mix it up, and I'm going to add a little bit more,

a little bit of the coriander, chopped coriander -

that will go into it as well.

Now, the heat of that - is that from the spice that you've got in there?

Correct. When we say garam masala, it's the heat-inducing spices.

It's not because the spice mix is hot.

There's no chilli in there, in the hot spice mix.

-It's the heat-inducing properties it has.

-OK.

So all that nicely mixed up.

I'll wait for that until I ask you something.

It's come together, and you can see it's...

Now, if you want to do this at home for the barbecue, say,

and you didn't want to do lamb, you could take this recipe and use

exactly the same spices for chicken and beef and that kind of stuff?

You would want to do it with beef. The chicken, probably...

-Yeah, if you were using thighs, you could.

-Yeah.

So I mix this up.

I'm going to let it rest so the flavours level up.

And also chill the mix down.

There's some that I made earlier.

Now, this mix has been chilling away.

I've got a mixture here of diced peppers, onions.

Diced Peppers, onions, a bit of coriander in there.

Some sliced and some simply brunoise.

-They're two different versions we're talking about, right?

-OK.

OK, great, so...

-Now, life is still busy for you as well.

-Yes.

I hear you've been at the Taste Festival this week

doing demonstrations.

Yeah, I did a couple of demonstrations at Taste Festival.

-That's in Central London, this one, yeah?

-Yes.

Don't know if you've been...

If you haven't, it's a perfect London picnic.

It's where all the London restaurants come out...

come out to play, really, I suppose.

Come out and play more than anything else.

-Just put a bit of coriander in there.

-Yeah.

And I'll be good with that.

So, we've got these kebabs.

You can see I'm just wrapping them around the skewers, like this.

So they go around. I've got these three. Let's make a few.

Now, when I think of India, I've only been

-to sort of one area of India.

-Correct.

-Which is the southern area.

-Kerala.

-Kerala.

Which I thought was amazing.

The prawns over there were just spectacular.