29/10/2017 Saturday Kitchen Best Bites

Good morning! What a line-up we've got for you - great chefs, knockout dishes, and a host of famous faces.

So take a seat, make yourself comfy, and enjoy another serving of Saturday Kitchen Best Bites.

Welcome to the show. Now, over the next hour and a half, we've got some

great moments from the Saturday Kitchen archives.

Coming up, Chris Evans and James Martin

swap roles as Chris cooks up a big breakfast.

Andrew Turner is here with a sweet treat.

He makes a mango and yoghurt egg

before serving on top of a brioche pain perdu.

Clare Thompson rustles up her savoury take on

a bread and butter pudding.

She pan-fries sausages and sourdough before baking with cauliflower and radicchio.

And top chefs Paul Rankin and Michael Caines

battle it out in the omelette challenge.

And then it's over to Mark Hicks,

who's serving up a sumptuous steak salad.

He pan-fries the steak before serving alongside crispy shallots,

wild mushrooms, and a watercress salad.

And finally, Olympic champion Helen Glover faces her food heaven or food hell.

Will she get her food heaven, chocolate lava cake,

or her food hell, chilli and lemon grass pork?

Keep watching to the end of the show to find out.

But first, Nic Watt is here with a Japanese-inspired seafood dish,

and he's got a very young,

handsome and very talented man

helping him out in the kitchen.

-Nic, good to have you here.

-Thank you.

-It was a pretty special night last night, wasn't it?

-I think so, I hope you enjoyed it.

-Nic opened a restaurant last night.

Canary Wharf.

So are you going to be a little bit tired and shaky this morning?

I'm a little knackered, it was sort of a 1am finish and a 6am pick up.

-It was a beautiful meal, I have to say. I haven't eaten at Roka before...

-Oh, thank you.

-..but it was absolutely fantastic.

-Cool.

-Now, is this typical of the dishes you serve at Roka?

-It is, it is.

We've really, I've built this dish off one of the dishes from the Charlotte Street restaurant...

-OK.

-..and sort of incorporated it into something that can be more versatile for home.

-Cool!

-And ingredients you can source.

-Apart from the big, big prawn we've got here, what's the dish?

-OK, so we've got the big prawn.

I'm going to make a simple pesto-style, I'd call it...

-OK.

-..of some coriander...

-Mmm-hmm.

-..some yuzu, which is a Japanese citrus fruit...

-OK.

..some garlic, some yuzu cosho, which

is like a Japanese mustard, almost.

-Following this, yeah?

-Oh, God!

-We're lost already, yeah?

It's got a little bit of power, it's going to give it that zing.

-Uh-huh.

-That brightness I'm talking about.

-OK.

-Some ginger, some chilli

-paste, some water - that's going to make the pesto.

-Mmm-hmm.

And the aioli, baked potato, some garlic, lemon, poached egg,

-ginger juice, white miso, which is fermented soybean paste.

-OK.

-Again, very available.

-Yeah.

You're going quickly whack on some julienne of daikon for me...

-Daikon, right.

-..and crush me a little bit of garlic.

-OK.

-And I'm going to start working with these prawns.

-I shall try and keep up with this.

-Can I ask a question, already?

-Of course!

-Please do.

Where do you get ingredients like that from?

-Well, good question.

-They just sound so exotic and fancy.

I've selected ingredients for this, it is all available from an Asian grocer.

I mean, they might sound exotic but really there's only two

ingredients you might struggle for and one is this yuzu peel...

-Yeah.

-..which is just the skin of Japanese citrus.

-Yeah.

-And if you...

-Yuzu peel.

-And-and where would you...?

Is this from Japan?

It's from Japan, but essentially it's a frozen product.

So if you didn't get yuzu peel,

you could easily replace it with lemon juice.

Yeah, it is very lemony.

-Daikon is also known as mooli, yeah?

-Also know as mooli.

-Japanese radish.

-Japanese radish.

-OK.

-Absolutely. I mean, that's available all over the shop.

There's no difficulty with that.

-I think you can get this in Indian shops, I believe, as well.

-Yeah, yeah.

-OK.

-So...

-And what's it doing on that dish?

-The daikon?

-Yeah, it's quite peppery, do you say, or...?

-It's a little peppery, but really what it

-does, it actually gets you salivating, to be honest.

-OK.

So the whole point of this is just to wash your mouth

and get it sort of fresh, to cleanse your palate.

Why, cos of the spice that's going in the dish?

-It's a powerful dish.

-Yeah.

-It's got a lot going on.

So what's the idea of chopping the meat up and stirring it through?

Why don't you just sort of baste it and...?

-Because, for what we're trying to do here, we're just going to grill it.

-Mm-hmm.

So I just want sort of the pesto to really wrap around the dressing

and...

And the prawn itself is quite meaty and it's quite chunky, so...

-Is it quite, I mean, a prawn that size, is it quite tough?

-It is.

-Because it's wild, actually, it's not like from a pond.

-Right.

-You know, so it's not sort of soft...

-Yeah, yeah.

-..loose muscle.

Hasn't got that pappy taste that a lot of prawns have?

Exactly. So we chop it up, just so it makes it a little bit more

-palatable and also it allows the dressing to get all around the meat there.

-Uh-huh. OK.

-Right, so bit of daikon there. I'll leave that to one side.

-Yeah.

-So what are you doing here? Just run us through this.

-So, what I've done, I've taken some scissors,

-and I've just run through the back of the prawn.

-Mmm-hmm.

And I'm just going to take out the vein...

-OK.

-..which is not so nice.

-Ugh!

-Yeah, we don't want that.

-No, we don't want that part! I removed that part for you guys.

And then all I'm going to do is just slice it in half

and really just sort of chunk it up into bite-size pieces.

There's nothing overly technical about this stage.

-Any of you familiar with Nic's restaurant?

-Yes.

-Yeah?

-I've dined there a few times.

-Oh, really?

-Yeah, it's fantastic.

-Good.

Oh, there we go. That's positive, that's positive!

-Absolutely.

-That's a good start!

-One of my favourites in London.

-Is it?

Yeah, it's one of my favourites.

So then this part's really easy.

-I've just added that pesto-like consistency into here.

-Mmm-hmm.

It's going to be a little punchy, and into the bowl,

mix it round all the meat,

-and I'm just going to open that back out.

-OK.

Do you want a hand with this, or...?

-Um...yeah, just hold that open, that'd be super.

-OK.

And we're just going to spoon this in, and we're just going to use

the actual shell, cos the shell also has all those lovely flavours.

That should be pretty good now.

Now you're going to grill this, but could you barbecue it in summer, or...

-Well, the good thing about...

-..roast it off?

-..what

I'm doing is you can absolutely barbecue it. It's perfect for it.

It's actually how we do it in the restaurant. And you can use...

This recipe would translate straight on to, on to lobster,

crayfish, or small prawns...

-Oh, OK.

-..no problem.

Now, at your restaurant last night... Your restaurant is pure theatre, I have to say.

-There's a lot of drama associated because...

-There is, there's a...

-A lot of flames, a lot of smoke.

What's all that shouting about? That was quite scary.

-"Hai!"

-Every time you read out an order, "Hai!"

-What was all that about?

-Yeah.

-We want the theatre, one part, most definitely.

-Yeah.

But also what's important is it's a noisy restaurant, there's a lot going on.

-And what I say to the guys is, "I want to know that you've heard me."

-Right.

-"I don't want to hear your voices cos I like the sound of them."

-Everyone heard them!

-Yeah.

-So, I want to know they've heard me, so when I call the food out...

-Yeah.

-..because there's a lot going on.

-As you see, there's a lot of energy in the room.

-Yeah.

So I need them to know, on my call, "You've heard me."

-Right.

-Full stop.

-OK.

-Just answer me in...

-So then if they haven't, you can shout at them?

-Yeah, I...

You were getting a little bit tetchy at times, I noticed last night.

I'm not such a shouter and screamer, but...

-Now, what's this egg business you're doing here?

-OK, I'm just poaching an egg.

So what I've done, I've just added into the water for...

-That was close, wasn't it?

-Is that all right?

-Absolutely.

-Nearly lost it!

-So why do you drop it in the boiling water like that?

-It's just a little trick.

You drop it into the boiling water in the shell, give it 30 seconds and it just almost, I guess, er...

-It quickly semi-blanches it.

-Seals the inside.

-Exactly, and you crack it in.

-Nice trick.

-And theoretically you end up with a...

-Yeah? OK.

-And then it holds it together when it...

-Yes, yeah, absolutely.

-..it blanches? OK.

-So now we go on to the aioli.

-Mmm-hmm.

-We've got a bit of potato.

-Oh, right. What's that going to do?

-Thicken it?

-What's that? What, just a jacket potato that you've...?!

I brought jacket potato, just for that familiarity factor.

LAUGHTER

Never seen anyone do that with a jacket potato. It's really clever.

-Do you want make to check the prawns?

-Yes, please. Absolutely.

So, the jacket potato actually is just to sort of fluff up the aioli, make a nice, light aioli.

OK. Needs a little bit longer, I think, Nic.

So what happens, does it cook all the way through?

-Do we need to turn that around, or...?

-You might want to just get a spoon and just move the meat

-around in that prawn there.

-It's not quite there, give it another 30 seconds.

-OK.

-OK.

-So I've just got some garlic, adding some garlic in here.

I'm going to add a little...

So is this a sort of a traditional dip, or is this your kind of

-Western take on...?

-The aioli itself is kind of traditional.

-Yeah.

-..in its form - the potato, the lemon juice.

-I knocked back a little bit of the garlic.

-Yeah.

-I reduced the garlic a little bit.

-Mmm.

-And then my take is the miso, the white miso.

-OK.

And that's just to give it that sort of,

it gives it a beautiful depth of flavour...

-Yeah.

-..and, debatably, it brings in a little bit of that umami flavour.

-But presumably you get a lot of Japanese in your restaurants?

-Yes, we do.

I mean, do they take well to you sort of, not meddling with the dishes, but you know...

-..adjusting, shall we say?

-"Meddling".

-"Meddling".

LAUGHTER

Sounds like I'm doing something wrong, eh?

-No, not meddling, but just sort of adjusting the dishes.

-Yeah.

-Yes, they do.

-Cos the old Italians would get very upset, wouldn't they?

Well, what I do is, with all the Japanese techniques,

-we follow the technique with authenticity.

-Yeah.

-But we, then we enhance the flavours.

-Yeah.

-We give them a boost.

-OK.

-Now, where we up to?

-I'm just...just adding my egg into my aioli...

-OK.

-..which I've just poached.

Now, what's the reason for lightly poaching it? Could you, like, just sort of lightly boil it, or...?

You could. Some people just add yolk.

-You just want a slightly cooked egg, yeah?

-Yes, absolutely.

-OK. Just to, what, enrichen it?

-Yeah. Fatten it up, richen it up.

-Mmm-hmm.

-And it's a different technique to the mayonnaise.

-OK.

And then that miso is just going to give it that little boost.

-So hopefully...

-And what is miso?

-Unless you've told these guys and I've missed it.

-Miso is fermented soy bean paste.

-Right.

-It's often used for marinades.

-Uh-huh.

-..miso soups...

-OK.

-..and this one here, as I said, it's just going to give it

a little bit of a boost in, sort of, the background flavours there.

OK. Nearly there.

So, here we go.

OK. So that's potato's kind of bounded, it's going to make it a bit sort of velvety

-by the looks of it, as well, isn't it?

-Absolutely, absolutely. So I'm just going to spoon this into here.

Mmm!

-There's the aioli.

-And this is a dip? For the, to go with the, er...?

-Yeah. Actually, at the restaurant, we serve this with lobster.

-Yeah.

-The lobster we do on the grill. Very sort of similar flavours.

-Yeah.

-And the idea is, you know, you've got that sort of richness of the prawn...

-Yeah.

You've got that full flavour and, particularly with this one,

we've got the really strong flavours of the dressing.

-OK, so it's kind of like muting it slightly, is it?

-Yeah.

Now, you've recently had a new baby, Nic, yeah?

I have, I've got a little boy.

-But in doing so, you sent your family off to Crewe...

-Yeah.

-..so they wouldn't wake you up.

LAUGHTER

-That's...that's very nice.

-Something along those lines!

-Was your wife happy about that?

-Well, that's... I think she is!

No, I mean, in the middle of opening a restaurant,

as you know, it's really hectic times,

so, you know, just to keep things as simple as possible

and that, you know, it's not too dramatic I'm just...

You might want to check that. You all right with that?

-Yeah, I'm pretty good with that.

-Yeah?

-Yeah.

-Brilliant.

Just going to add a squeeze of lemon in that.

So all I'm going to do...

-It looks amazing. Looks amazing.

-It smells amazing!

-You can smell it, huh?

-Yeah!

-Mmm!

I think it's going to be quite pokey, actually.

-Here we go.

-Quite a lot of chilli went in there.

And the black sesame seeds, is that for show or do they give...?

-The black sesame is...

-Some kind of smoky...?

-It just again brings in a little bit of aromats into the dish.

-Mmm.

-And what I'm just squeezing on top there...

-Little bit of texture as well, huh?

-Yes.

-This is a little bit of lemon balm.

-Mmm-hmm.

So what you've got here is the wild tiger prawn

with chilli yuzu dressing and white miso aioli.

-Simple as that.

-Wow!

Look at that. That looks stunning.

-It's a real sort of...

-Wow!

-..real centrepiece.

-Whoa!

We could do a few of those, lay them down the table.

Unfortunately, you've all got to share one.

-Wow!

-Wow!

I've tried some in rehearsal, it was delicious, I have to say, so you guys carry on.

Absolutely, carry on.

-So, I mean, when you say you could use lobster or prawns...

-That's mine!

LAUGHTER

..you're going to get a slightly different texture, aren't you?

Yeah. So, for this, if I was to use prawns,

I would use the same dressing, I would just get the small prawns.

-Mmm.

-Just use them in the marinade...

-Wow!

-..and just barbecue them,

-just as straight small prawns.

-Just skewer them and that's what you...?

What was the robata grill?

Robata grill is what we've got at the restaurant.

-It's an open charcoal grill.

-Mmm-hmm.

-Essentially, it's barbecue.

-Yeah.

-But the good part about it is you're cooking on skewers.

-Mmm-hmm.

So you're not putting the fish in a pan or on the grill.

-So you're getting a nice, clean, smoky taste.

-Exactly, and it's all...

-Ooh!

-Good? Do you like that, Jayne?

-Is that your kind of...

-Really amazing.

-..nosh?

-That's the sort of food I would go to a restaurant for...

-Yeah.

..because it's the sort of food

-that I wouldn't be confident enough to...

-No.

-..attempt at home...

-I mean, the ingredients, huh?

-..and it's just amazing.

-What about you?

-It's really delicious.

-That's a bit of a departure.

-Really delicious.

High praise all round there for Nic and, I think you'll agree, I haven't aged a bit!

Coming up, Chris Evans treats James Martin to breakfast,

but first Rick Stein is on the French coast sampling mussels.

This is Sharont, an absolute mecca for seafood lovers.

The mussels here are world famous.

These muddy kids are collecting tiny clams,

which they'll no doubt flog to the nearest restaurant.

I'm off collecting mussels with Jean-Paul Boutellier.

To him, this is the centre of the universe.

He describes his fishing grounds as a large wine glass,

filled to the brim with a perfect cocktail of seawater and fresh.

It was a shipwrecked Irish sailor, some 800 years ago,

who came up with the idea of growing the mussels on these bouchots.

All they have to do, it seems, as mother nature's been

so bountiful, is to devise a contraption that takes all

the strain out of harvesting,

but they've got a very special way of cooking them, too.

HE SPEAKS FRENCH

What he's saying is that they have to arrange the mussels that

way up because, when they open under the fire, they go open

like that, so the ash can't fall down in,

because they're open underneath.

He's just said that these are for special occasions,

festive occasions or big family occasions,

when you sit down and you eat your mussels,

and drink lots of nice Sharont...

white Sharont wine with it.

Sounds very good. Wouldn't mind joining in myself, actually!

HE SPEAKS FRENCH

It's really important to keep alive these traditions in this

age of fast food - a sentiment which I totally agree with.

-Sante!

-Sante!

I tried this once in Padstow, on the beach.

It's called an "eclade", but I made a right

pig's ear of it cos all the ash went into the mussels!

I was just thinking, this is a very handy little dish you could

do in somewhere like Bournemouth,

where there's plenty of pine trees and plenty of fresh moules around.

HE SPEAKS FRENCH

You can see they're starting to cook

cos there's all this liquid coming out from them.

HE SPEAKS FRENCH

Once the fire has died down, it's easy to waft away the ashes.

HE SPEAKS FRENCH

Oui.

Cos he's put them upside down,

there's no ashes on there at all, and here we go.

They're beautiful!

I thought, I have to say,

I thought there'd be a bit of a taste of Yellow Pages in there,

but, no, just the taste of that piny wood smoke.

Absolutely delicious and so simple!

No sauce there. And so easily done.

Can I have another? Un oeuf?

-VOICEOVER:

-"Un oeuf"? What am I talking about? I meant, "un autre".

When somebody shouts "Duck," it's a little confusing cos there's

lots of ducks on the canal, but that's not what they mean.

I'm told that many people have given up their houses for a life

on board a barge pootling up and down the canals of France,

and I'm beginning to understand why.

See you later.

I had to do the touristy bit.

I'd promised Bernard I'd go and see the abbey cloisters.

He said the were an important way point for the pilgrims on

their way down south to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

But my main interest in coming to Moussac is a fruit that's

grown in the surrounding hills.

We're not far from Moussac

and that's where the best fruit in the whole of France comes from

and, to me, the best fruit are cherries.

I mean, just look at these branches here -

they're sort of groaning with the weight of fruit.

And over here we've got apricots,

and they're going to be ready in a couple of weeks or so.

Excuse me while I eat another cherry!

But down there...

..you see that strange tractor and contraption in the distance?

That is the most important crop n the area - kirsy melons -

and it's the first melons of the season.

And this is day one for all the Dussac family.

I had to use my special form of telepathy that would

prompt them to ask me if I'd like to taste one of these delicious,

sweet melons, and my answer would be, "Not half!"

-Lovely colour.

-Yeah.

-Wow! Look at that!

Let's try some, then.

Fantastic.

Mmm!

That's just the southwest of France in a bite.

It's sunshine, it's honey, honey, sweetness. Delicious!

Do you know? I think that's the best melon I've ever tasted.

Yeah.

Nicholas was just saying they've sort of hit the jackpot with

this particular crop

because all the other growers planted their melons about

two weeks earlier than they did, in March,

and unfortunately everybody else was hit by a frost.

So that, in fact, although they planted later, they're

the only ones around with a really good crop,

so they got top prices and just hit the jackpot!

Whoops!

Nothing beats a ripe melon picked early in the morning

in the field where it was grown,

but this is a really good way to serve melon at home.

Melons, I think, have had some pretty bad

luck in the past in the way they've been treated by us chefs.

We make those horrid chilled balls from them, covered in some

raspberry or kiwi fruit coulis.

Or they're more commonly had with the inevitable dried

piece of Parma ham.

I've had LOTS of those.

This is different.

It's melon with its sister, the cucumber,

and beautiful ripe tomatoes, all

sharing one large family-size plate,

with slices of fromage de chevre - goat's cheese.

I made this for a lunch party the other day,

intending it to be a starter. But after some good bread,

a chilled bottle of Chateau de Cazeneuve...

Mmm! ..and some more good cheese, it was quite enough.

So, sprinkle it with some coarsely chopped fresh garden mint,

and now for the dressing.

It's a standard dressing, made with olive oil, red wine vinegar,

a little sugar and some salt,

and that adds, along with the mint, a spike of sharpness.

Great stuff as always from Rick.

Now, normally at this point I would cook for our guests but,

as you heard, Chris is a bit useful at the hobs,

so you're going to be cooking for me.

-Well, you work so hard every Saturday morning...

-Not cooking, brilliant.

..and normally I'm at home and either Tash or I are doing what

we're going to do today. I'm going to cook you breakfast.

-We're going to have a posh breakfast for James Martin, how about that?

-There you go.

CHEERING

-He looks a bit posh today.

-I do. I look...

-You look pretty good.

-And to celebrate the new breakfast show, that's why we're doing it.

-Yes, exactly, yeah.

We'll dedicate this to Sir Terry, OK?

-So I'm not helping, are you just...?

-Oh, please help. Help away!

-Come on!

-I'll quite happily... No, you run through it.

All right. Well, what we're going to do first of all, we're going to do

this, the posh bacon, the nice bacon, the crispy bacon you get at those posh hotels.

How do you do that? Well, it's not difficult.

Couple of baking trays. Now, normally you'd blanch this, wouldn't you?

-You can blanch it.

-Tell us why you blanch it.

You can blanch it and dry it off, so it'll get it really, really

crisp, but this way is a way of doing it so you get it nice and crisp.

-Oh, all right. OK.

-And you get it nice and flat.

So what you do is you just place it on there.

There's no turning over the bacon, no need for a fork or anything.

-What's next?

-OK. We're going to have posh mushrooms next.

-You want me to cut the mushrooms up for you?

-OK, thanks.

-Thanks very much.

-Do you want to do these?

I'll do the big ones. These are oyster mushrooms.

The reason that this is going to be posh mushrooms

is basically cos of the standard of mushroom,

-but also we're going to fry them off in a bit of butter.

-Yeah.

-We're going to put some olive oil with the butter in the pan.

-Yeah.

And the reason we're going to do that is to stop the butter burning, yeah?

OK. Are you using a proper Ken Hom sort of chopper...?

Yeah, well, I chop at home with my cleaver cos it's got more

weight to it and I just find it a lot easier.

-I don't know why, it just sits in my hand better.

-All right. OK.

LAUGHTER

-Yeah.

-I just prefer to chop...to chop with me chopper.

-Right, go on, then.

-OK.

OK, I'm going to put some butter in here. Now, this is salted butter, I presume, which is why it might burn.

If you don't want it to burn, use unsalted butter.

-You going to get some oil...?

-Yeah, OK.

-So, olive oil, half and half.

OK. Now, they should be quite happy, shouldn't they, in there?

-Yep.

-Yeah. So we're just...

-So you've got brown cap, as well.

-Yep.

-Yeah.

-Got brown cap, as well, in there.

-Yeah.

-And we'll let those go.

Now, we'll put some lemon in there later, but we won't put it in now, will we, James?

-No, you put that in later.

-Can I do a toss?

-You can, you can fire away.

OK. All right. Let's see if we can do this.

ALL GROAN

Look at the... You've got loads of them all over the floor!

You don't need many mushrooms in this breakfast.

LAUGHTER

-OK, so that's...

-What's next?

-..the posh mushrooms.

We're going to put some herbs in with those later.

So you've got your posh breakfast - posh bacon, mushrooms.

-Now you need your toast.

-Posh, this is posh toast!

-OK.

-OK.

-Posh toast, we've got sour bread.

-Yeah.

-OK?

Tell us about sour bread, James.

Sourdough's made with a starter, what they call a starter,

which is yeast and water, and you've almost got like a liquid,

almost like a...batter, and then you start the mixture with that.

And you retain some of the mixture before it's baked in the

oven, and you use that to start the mixture the following day.

-And that's where you...

-See, he's good, isn't he, eh?

-He's very good.

None of that was in rehearsal, I tell you!

-OK, now when you're cutting bread...

-That was a bit wonky in rehearsal.

-That's straight now!

-When you're cutting bread, what's the secret?

-Get somebody else to do it.

Let the knife do the work! You put pressure on, it doesn't work. Oops!

-Do you want some oil on it?

-Yes, want some oil on there.

-Right.

-OK.

We're going to do posh toast, so we're griddling this in a griddle pan, aren't we?

-Yeah.

-That's the deal there.

-OK.

-So your olive oil one side...

-Yeah.

-..and then we'll turn it over later on as we, well, we can olive oil the other side now, but we'll

-turn it over...

-OK.

-..after about two or three minutes.

-Yup.

-OK. So, the mushrooms are happy.

-OK.

-So we've got oil?

-We've got the bacon in.

-Yeah.

-We've got our posh toast on.

-Eggs!

-Is that too hot?

-No, it's all right. I'll look after it, don't worry.

-OK.

James is in charge of the heat, as always.

-OK, now this is, this is posh eggs, OK?

-Yeah.

We're going to do a truffle egg. In this pasta jar is a truffle.

That's a truffle there.

-Now the truffles are about, what, £2,000 a kilo?

-About that, yeah.

-£2,000 cash a kilo.

-Cash.

-Yeah.

-Now the thing about truffles is they reduce by 20% every day.

-Yeah.

-OK? So if you buy these by the pound, you're losing value by 20%

every single day because they start to lose their moisture.

So we want to save as much truffle as we can.

So how do you get eggs to taste of truffle without using up your truffle?

Well, you just put them in the jar with the truffle

for two or three days because these are pervious, they're permeable.

-Yeah.

-They're porous!

-The shells are.

-Yes.

That's why you don't put eggs in the fridge.

Cos they'll taste of everything in there.

They'll taste of cheese and everything else.

OK. Now, this egg should, by rights,

this should taste of truffle, it's as simple as that.

Just now, just by being in that jar, so...

-We'll crack the egg.

-OK.

Posh way to make sure the yolks don't break is to actually

crack your egg into a dish.

-That's right, isn't it, James?

-Yeah.

-See, you should have written a cookbook, not an autobiography!

-OK.

-Cos then you can get lower to the pan, there.

-Do you want some oil in there?

-Yes, please.

You can get lower to the pan there

and you can just...

There you go, that's quite nice, isn't it? OK.

-Now, that's a very expensive egg.

-Yeah.

-That's like...loads and loads of money.

-And it's a duck egg, as well.

It's a duck egg, yeah. So how do you make a truffle egg on a pittance of a wage?

You take a normal egg - this is what you do.

You take a normal egg and you... Can you separate this for me? Cos you're better at it.

-No, I'll leave you to it, you're all right.

-Come on, please.

-No, I want to talk to you about your book.

-All right, OK.

-Tell me about your autobiography.

-OK.

Fascinating read, I have to say. I've read it.

Have you?

Yeah. It starts off when you were very young because you were an entrepreneur quite young,

weren't you? You were interested in loads of different jobs.

You sold fish, you had your own kissagram company.

-I was a private detective.

-Private detective!

20 jobs in, what, 40 years, er, four years?!

-Oh, more than that. I'd had 19 jobs by the time I was 19!

-Right.

It all happened, you know, I started to work after my dad passed

away, and my mum became superwoman cos she had to. She was amazing.

Cos that was a big turning point in your life.

-Yeah. My father passed away when I was 13, so I got a job as a paperboy.

-Yeah.

And somehow got to work in a radio station,

somehow cut to London, somehow got to work on the telly.

Somehow made a load of money and then messed it all up!

-LAUGHTER

-Genius, wasn't it?!

Then somehow bought... Cos it goes right up to the fact where you bought Virgin Radio.

-Yeah.

-That's when the book stops.

-That's when it stops, when I bought Virgin Radio.

-OK.

-OK, now, um...

-Right, come on, then.

OK, now, now, obviously we've not had this egg in with

the truffle, so we're going to put a bit of truffle in the white.

Then we're going to mix. The reason we've separated it is so we can mix the white around.

-OK?

-Yeah.

-Then we're going to reconstitute the yolk...

-Yeah.

..back to its original white, which I... I think this is quite nice. OK?

-Cos truffle oil's not very expensive, is it, really?

-No.

-Well, it's about, what, £9 a bottle for that?

-Er, yeah.

I mean, also you can put that with a little bit of olive oil

and it'll last even longer, so...

OK. So we're just going to put that in there now.

That's the home-made, poor man's truffle egg.

-Right.

-And hopefully they shouldn't taste too dissimilar.

Having used the brilliant, genius, non-cracking method to

actually pour the egg into the pan, we've cracked the yolk...

-I know!

-..which is not fantastic.

-It's all right. I'm doing that.

So tell us about radio then, you know. I mean, obviously

-it's known now you're going to be taking over the breakfast show.

-Yeah, from Terry Wogan.

-And when do you start that? When are you starting?

-We start that on January 11th.

-Yeah.

-OK?

Let's use the big plate, shall we?

-Yeah.

-Do you want to put that there? OK.

I've got two... Oh, you've got two dishes, haven't you?

-Oh, yes, we have.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

Now the great thing about Terry and his Togs...

-Yeah.

-..is that, what do you think the average age of a Tog is?

-I've got no idea.

-Well, have a guess. Terry's 71, you know.

-Er...

-50.

-53 is the answer.

-I wasn't far off!

-OK.

So that means they're all worried about, you know,

will I be too loud, will I be too quiet?

-Where have I gotta be?

-Yeah.

I don't know whether to be loud or quiet.

But if you're 51, right, that means

-that in 1977, when the Sex Pistols were at number one...

-Yeah.

..you were 19, so technically I could play punk and we'd be all right.

-Oh, OK. There you go.

-That's what I'm thinking.

-That's all right.

-What do you think?

-Sounds good to me.

-OK.

-So, herbs in there?

-Yeah, yeah. That's great.

-OK.

-Now you want put the lemon in?

-Er, yeah, put the lemon in.

-There you go.

-In with the mushrooms. That's great.

You know how to get more juice out of a lemon?

-Yeah, with a fork.

-Microwave.

-Oh, really?

-Yeah. Eight seconds.

-Yeah?

-Or with a fork.

-No. Literally, eight seconds and it warms up the lemon.

-OK.

Put it in for 18 seconds, you end up with a walnut, but...

-OK. That's good.

-There you go. Right, you got that?

-Yes.

-That's your, one egg.

-One egg, not great, I'm sorry. We've cracked the yolk there. Do apologise about that.

-OK.

-And then we've got on here our bacon.

-Yeah. Posh bacon.

-OK.

-Posh bacon.

That's what we did earlier. OK.

So this is the genuine truffle egg. This is the expensive one.

-OK?

-Yeah, I've got that one.

-All right.

-Let me get that one out for you.

-OK.

We've got that going on there. Shall we turn this up a bit?

So, come on, your autobiography, was it, the...?

When it was launched, it was called Mad Thursday, wasn't it?

Wasn't there 800 books launched on the same day?

-Super Thursday...

-Super Thursday, you're calling it?

-..yeah, it was called.

You've just finished your book tour, haven't you?

Yeah. Book tour was very interesting!

LAUGHTER

Yeah. Signing is interesting, isn't it? Because you have to go to this warehouse in Glasgow.

The central distribution place for all British books is in Glasgow,

which I find quite strange. Have you been to that warehouse?

I haven't, but there's one in Northampton, isn't there?

Oh, they took me to the one in Glasgow,

-where I met a very nice lady called Marie...

-Yeah.

..and she described all the different way people sign.

-Gordon Ramsay does the pile method.

-Right.

He piles books on top of each other, signs them

and throws them, and they have to have three catchers.

LAUGHTER

Typical Ramsay, isn't it? What's that about? You don't need to do that, do you? Er, Alan Wicker...

-Yeah.

-..has a blotter cos he signs with an ink pen,

and after every book that's signed...

-Somebody goes round and..?

-..blots it.

-That takes a while.

-OK.

-Yeah.

Yeah.

Talking about blotting, don't you have a little tip with this tissue?

-What?

-Go on, then.

-It's not a tip, it's just a waterproof tissue to

-liven things up.

-Go on, then.

Do you want me to put the egg...?

-So this is the truffle scrambled egg.

-OK. Truffle egg.

Oh, sorry. We did this on the telly last night,

and a lot of people saw it and said can we do it again this morning.

-OK?

-Go on, then.

-Basically, this is a waterproof tissue.

-You ready for this?

-Yeah.

-OK.

Let me see. Get another one. OK.

-Don't worry, we're only three minutes over!

-Hang on a second.

-It's worth it.

-Yeah, go on.

OK. Is that a genuine tissue?

-Genuine tissue, yeah.

-OK.

-Hold it out above that water, above that bowl. Are you ready?

-Yeah.

LAUGHTER

Right. That tissue's waterproof but my shoe's not!

-Look, look!

-It is waterproof.

-OK, let's do, well, what about this?

Surely it can't come out there dry, can it?

-Go on, shake it.

-Wow! Ah!

-How good is that?!

-Very good, very, very good.

-Yeah.

-Right...

-How good is the breakfast? That's the important thing.

-Come on over here.

-There you go.

-That's great!

-By the way, it's like an ice rink back here now!

-It is!

-Come on over here.

-Just so you know.

-There you go.

So, the broken one - I broke it on purpose so we'd know which was the truffle egg.

-Yeah.

-Smells good.

-That was very clever.

Got a little bit of lemon juice in the mushrooms.

True test is whether these boys like it.

-Mmm!

-Approve?

-Yeah. It's good.

-Can you taste the truffle?

Does it work, the cheap truffle egg?

Cheap truffle egg works.

-There you go, he likes it.

-You've got the real one.

-I think it's quite faint.

-Quite faint?

-Yeah.

-So just,

just get more truffle oil.

Danny's got the real one, so we need to put more truffle oil in.

Who doesn't love a good fry-up, though, eh?

There's still plenty more to come on today's Best Bites,

but now it's over to Andrew Turner,

who's making fried egg on toast like you've never seen before.

It's the brilliant Andrew Turner.

I've been wanting to get you on the show for ages.

-You're here!

-I'm so excited to be here.

-You're here with two trays

-and not much pans.

-No.

-So what are we cooking or inventing or making?

We are making a liquid mango egg on a Gypsy bread. We are using brioche.

-Yes.

-I'll explain the processes but there's no real cooking,

not really that much cooking involved. So, firstly...

So it's going to look like an egg?

-It's going to look exactly like a poached egg.

-Right.

If you could take this, which is the mango, and just peel it.

We're going to make the puree and we're going to add

our calcium to it, which is called gluco,

which is readily available online.

The reason we're doing that will be explained

when it's a reaction against the water bath, which is an alginate.

-Which is what?

-Which is what I'll explain.

-The main thing is that you're not adding sugar to this?

-No.

We want the natural sweetness, really naturally sweet

cos with the wine, once you start adding too many sugars,

it interferes with the wine and it doesn't work.

-OK.

-Just literally pop that in.

-So this is our mango.

-Just one mango is going to go in?

-One mango, yup.

-Right, there you go.

-OK, we'll put our gluco in.

-And that, you can get online?

You can get it online.

I don't quite know how that works. You're the expert on that.

-There you go.

-Blend that up.

Now, the important thing about this is... We'll probably add a bit of water, just to get the puree.

The important thing about this is we're going to do that

-the day before and just pop it in the fridge.

-Yeah.

We need to lose the air out of this.

-So, you're adding air now?

-Yeah.

This is the sort of thing that's great for dinner parties

cos you're doing your preparation in advance, really. So, the gluco's in.

The puree's done. We're going to pop that into a bowl

and whack it into the fridge and leave it overnight.

-Which we have here.

-The finished result.

-There you go.

I think the next step we're going to explain is the seaweed water bath,

-the alginate.

-Can I get this on first of all?

-Yeah. OK.

-This is for the pain perdu, isn't it?

-The pain perdu, yes.

-Explain to us what we've got in here.

-OK, so, we've got some brown sugar,

we've got some cream. If we just warm the cream up,

-put the butter in.

-It can go in that one, it's fine.

OK, we've got some cinnamon for flavouring.

-We've got some star anise.

-Yup.

-Some cloves.

In we go with the butter and you're going to put the sugar in there.

And just let that all melt and then you take the eggs, whisk those up,

-take a slice of the brioche, as well...

-And then you soak that?

..and soak that again. All being soaked overnight.

So, the whole point is that it's preparation in advance.

You're making sure that all the aromats go into the brioche

cos that's the part of the dish.

The egg that we're going to make is only the vehicle for the sauce.

-That's all it is.

-Now, although you're doing this and it's scientific,

-this isn't the majority of your cooking, is it?

-None of it.

This is one part of a dish that we do for seven courses.

I know a few tricks. I work very closely with my staff.

They're all geniuses in their own right

and we jam together with music, we jam together with food

and we create stuff, but it has to be realistic.

You have to understand the flavours.

You have to understand the reason we're doing it.

-The reason we're doing it is, the brioche is the dish.

-OK.

The sauce is the little egg. That's the twist.

That's what makes you a little bit different.

So, we've got the brioche here. I'm going to slice this.

This is then cut through with a little cutter.

I'm going to stick it in there.

Over to you for this next bit.

OK, back to the seaweed.

So, the alginate, again, it's in a food processor with bottled water.

The importance of the bottled water is there's not so much calcium

in it. If you get it from tap water - calcium, too much.

-Now, alginate is from seaweed?

-It's a seaweed paste.

Again, available online.

And literally you puree...

Sorry, blend the water, you add your alginate, keep blending and blending

for a good five minutes and then put it into the fridge cold.

-There's no cooking process in that at all.

-Always bottled water.

Always bottled water. You get this consistency.

-It's like thinned down shampoo, basically.

-Right, OK.

So, it thickens it up a little bit?

It thickens. It's a little bit gloopy, a bit syrupy.

Can I say, just so you see this, this is where we take this and then

pop these in the fridge, and then these want to be overnight you say?

Overnight. Again, all of this preparation can be done in advance.

You can actually make the eggs four or five hours before

you need them, so for a dinner party.

-And then I'm going to pan-fry this.

-Just pan-fry that.

Now, masterclass in this. This is where it all happens.

This is where we get jiggy, so to speak.

Here's my little measure and here's our mango puree.

I take a scoop of this,

drain off any excess

and literally, as you watch, just tip that in,

and in she goes.

Take a slotted spoon cos once it sinks to the bottom,

if you don't just lift it off the bottom, it will stick to it.

Now, if I was to leave that in there completely,

it would actually go thick all the way through.

The idea is, we want it to remain liquid.

So what is it doing to the actual...?

Well, it's reacting...

The alginate bath is reacting against the calcium

and just forming a gel. My sister is a scientist

and her only way of explaining this is it's the way that we form a gel.

So I asked her more about that and she couldn't explain it to me.

A little film all the way round it. If we left it in there...

-It would go solid.

-Solid? OK.

So the important thing, with the slotted spoon,

drain off the alginate. You don't want that cos that will react

into the water and form little lumps of jelly.

-You don't want to that, really.

-So that's the egg yolk?

That's the egg yolk. Into the water like so.

Again, you don't leave that for long.

-You don't need to leave it for long.

-Are you following this, Phil?

-No.

-THEY LAUGH

-It's ever so easy.

-There's a questionnaire afterwards.

-Oh, yeah!

I'll be knocking half a dozen up when I get home.

I've got a really good English yoghurt and literally...

just mix it together. OK?

-So, we've got the yolk in there.

-Yep.

-Now for the white.

-Yep.

I'll just move that forward.

All I've done is just pan-fry a little bit of this pain perdu,

literally just some butter, something like that, on both sides.

Right, next.

So out comes the yolk and it's going to go into the yoghurt.

-Pop it in.

-It looks like an egg.

You can have a little bit of excess. Just cover over the egg.

Now of course yoghurt has calcium in it.

Yeah, so you don't need to add any gluco.

-That's why it's a natural process.

-Yep.

OK. Take off any extra

and then in...exactly the same way.

Make sure that that doesn't...

If you've got a dinner party tonight and you've got 150 coming,

you might be here a long time.

-Once you've got it all set up, it's quite quick.

-Yeah, absolutely.

So, they're nearly ready.

And the secret is - you need to put it in the water afterwards, yeah?

-Yeah.

-OK.

So out we come. Out it comes.

-THEY LAUGH

-Look at it!

-Look at that!

Drain off the alginate.

You're definitely coming back on this show. That is wicked. Look at that.

And then into the water, just to get rid of that alginate.

It genuinely looks like a poached egg. Look at it!

This is the spooky thing.

I've actually had this sent back by a customer.

A new waiter, didn't know really what the dish was,

put it down and the guy goes,

"Excuse me, I don't eat poached eggs."

I had to go back out and explain to the guest what it actually was

-cos he actually thought it was a poached egg.

-Fantastic.

But you were saying you do a thing with olive, as well?

Yeah, you can do it with olive fat.

Again, it's a friend of mine, Jimmy, who worked with elBulli.

When we jam, he brought some stuff to the table, how they do stuff

and then we started to take that

and use it for ourselves to make your own style of cuisine.

He's a genius, I'm not, and for that reason...

You're looking pretty good so far, but go on then.

This is the little bit of pain perdu in here.

-Right, so there's our pain perdu.

-On a plate that you helped make.

I did, yeah. We've got some designers in North London,

English designers, and they will create a plate

for you around a dish.

-Go on, then.

-And this is probably number four or five.

So, literally across the plate...

nice and simple.

-A little bit of that.

-A little bit of that. I've lost my spoon.

-There's my slotted spoon.

-There you go.

-Out it comes.

But you could leave that and you could make these in advance?

You could take this out now, put it on a tray,

-put it in the fridge and it's all done.

-Brilliant.

Now this is great. I love this bit.

So we put it on our little toast...

..and it gets even more spooky because, as you see it now...

This is the best bit.

..I can actually scrape the top of it to reveal the yolk.

-And then, just to be a little bit different...

-This is brilliant.

We've got some crackling popping candy, like you'd have at home.

I don't have it at home but if you're at school.

This is the stuff you used to put in your mouth

and it used to crackle. This is the stuff.

Pop it on top and there you have a liquid mango egg with pain perdu.

How brilliant is that? APPLAUSE

-Thank you.

-Fantastic.

Absolutely brilliant. Now, you get to taste this.

We have got some more over here. Have a seat over here.

We've got one each over here because it's quite small,

but I want you to experience this.

So take your egg and dive in,

and tell us what you think.

Do it with a spoon. It's just as though you were eating an egg.

That's the weird thing.

-It just oozes out.

-It's egg on toast, so use a knife and fork.

-Dive into that.

-Can you make some bacon out of a pear?

THEY LAUGH

-Crack that yolk.

-Right, yeah.

Shut up!

HE LAUGHS LOUDLY

-But amazing. It tricks with your mind, as well.

-Absolutely.

-It's all poppy.

-PHIL GIGGLES

-Isn't that incredible?

-But the brioche is the dish,

-that's the food.

-That is the most amazing thing.

-It's delicious.

-Oh, wow.

-Fabulous.

A brilliant dish from Andrew that certainly brought out

Phil's inner child, I reckon.

Next up, Keith Floyd's exploring the UK, starting in Northumbria.

# The fells are alive

# With the sound of curlews. #

This is absurd, isn't it?

Just so you can get what the director called

"a sense of place", I have to stand here on this blasted heath

on these Northumberland fells so you can see the beautiful view,

when all I've got to do is, "Quite simply, love," he says,

cook up a little something with a Roman influence,

you know, to impress the visiting professor of Roman archaeology,

Hadrian's Wall, gastronomy, and Northumberland history.

Very simple, isn't it? And that lot, you,

are all standing there on your little tripods under umbrellas.

Just dismantle the whole lot. Dismantle the whole lot.

Come here and pay some attention to me!

Thank you very much indeed.

Now then, the real purpose of this little culinary exercise is to,

as I say, interpret what the Romans might have eaten, what, 2,000...?

I don't know, how many thousand years ago?

..several thousand years ago,

when they were building this wonderful wall.

I reckon they'd have eaten quite a lot of pig,

so I've got a piece of pig here,

which I'm going to cut up into little cubes.

Now, I want you to really believe and understand.

I don't complain as a rule,

but it is very cold, it is raining, I have got a temperature.

Richard might have to wipe his lens often, empty his mind

from time to time, cos the rain is coming down.

So, I've got pieces of pork, I've got bits of carrot,

I reckon the Romans had...sorry about all this, but this is, you know,

this is real-life stuff.

Richard, I'm...I'm actually trying... This is my programme, please.

I mean, they all know what a carrot looks like. OK?

I am chopping carrots and onions.

You don't need to look, they know what an onion is.

In this appalling weather, trying to make this sort of Roman-type meal,

so I won't do all those together.

I've got to chop up some garlic

because it was the Romans, after all, who brought...oh, dear...

who brought garlic to this place.

I've got all those things together.

I need some parsley because they were great green herb users,

the Romans.

And also, of course,

what all history and all wars have always been about have been spices

and things. Even in Grecian, Roman times, they were squabbling over it.

Well, they squabbled over these, cumin seeds, ginger,

marjoram, thyme, dill and stuff like that

is a typical selection of Roman herbs.

I mean, they had more herbs than Sainsbury's, I can tell you.

Anyway, that goes into my pot like that

because you've got to remember, like me,

these guys were stuck out here, you know,

nothing on the clock but the maker's name.

And if they didn't pickle, preserve or spice their meat,

it was...like this could be...it could be pretty terrible.

Anyway, they also had wine, so they whacked a load of wine into

their pot with these herbs, OK, and spices?

That's what they did and, being Roman soldiers,

before those little signs that are now along the Hadrian's Wall

and the Appian Way and all that saying, "Please keep Britain tidy,"

they probably tossed the bottles into the hedge.

In we put our meat, carrots, onions and stuff like that

and we let that marinate now for about 24 hours -

for about as long as it will take you to do

the first 700km on a decathlon.

But let me tell you about something else.

In fact, I won't tell you about this.

This was the centurion's Worcester sauce.

This was the centurion's soy sauce, walk along the wall

and I'll tell you what it is and why I've got it.

Emperor Hadrian was a Spanish chap who got the idea to build the

wall from...the Chinese, of course.

It's a desolate spot,

but you can easily imagine the legionnaires wrapped in their Armani

togas under the menacing Northumbrian sky,

munching on roasted dormice stuffed with minced pork and pine cones.

Yum, yum...I think.

But Northumbria, and here we go for complaints from the other regions,

must be the most unspoilt and beautiful part of Britain.

And this is the home of St Cuthbert and a fine glass of mead.

Here endeth the first travelogue.

That took me seconds to research, fascinating, interesting, isn't it?

But back to the liquid.

This is the centurion's Daddy's ketchup, tomato sauce,

call it what you will.

He wouldn't have eaten anything without it

because basically his food wasn't too good but, do you know?

I made this. I knew I was coming up here

and I make this about three weeks ago. I've had it marinating,

I've had it...macerating is the word ever since.

It is anchovies, it's sprats, it's marjoram, it's red wine

and it's salt. It's all boiled up,

left to ferment for three or four weeks and strained,

and there you have it. The Centurion sauce.

In fact, we ought to brand it, Floyd's Centurion Sauce,

it could be a big hit.

Anyway, you do tend to drop a bit of that into your pork marinade. OK?

And also because they didn't have sugar in those days,

and this was a bit tangy and a bit pongy,

they used to put in a teaspoonful or two of honey.

That's why honey people are called apiarists.

I think, if I've got my words right, it's a Latin word too, isn't it?

Anyway, there it all is. Richard, close-up on that.

You can feel it, you can smell it.

There's the marinade, there's the pork, the onions, the herbs,

the spices and stuff, it's been in there for about 24 hours.

Now it has to go, wander round here, however you do it.

It has to go into my typical...on wood mark four,

or at home gas mark six,

but wood mark four it goes into there...

SIZZLING

Four.

Put the lid on - Richard, I'm talking to you -

for about 45 minutes.

Richard, you wipe your lens,

I'll blow my nose and that was a bit too hot.

I know I said gas mark four, I can barely see through the smoke

and the heat here but I have got this guy coming to do it.

I can't do that again, so we've got to live with it. OK?

Now, listen...

HE COUGHS

Oh, dear, it is ridiculous.

I made a little joke about the Roman soldiers throwing their bottles

away, but don't be a prat, don't listen to me.

Please don't throw your bottles into the hedges.

OK? OK, Richard, back on the pot.

We're not proud on this programme...

if we need an expert on, say, the Romans, then the director, sparing

no thought for himself, goes straight to the nearest pub and finds one.

Hence, Donald McFarlane.

Donald, what did the Romans, I mean, you know, I feel

a bit like John Cleese here, what did the Romans do for us?

I mean, what did they do when they were here?

OK. I think the first thing is...

Can you imagine the culture shock to the locals? I mean, look around you.

The locals, the Briganti, the Votadini, the Selgovae,

would live on the tops of these hills.

-These are people or birds?

-People in this instance, yes, that's right.

And, um, their quite primitive lifestyle would probably...they'd

roast an ox and everyone would partake of that.

What you had when the Romans arrived is a very highly civilised nation,

even by our standards.

They introduced a disciplined system of society

and, along with that, which is the reason why we're here,

is they introduced foods, commodities which the locals didn't

have at all, like turnip, like cabbage, like lettuce, like herbs.

Name a herb, the Romans will have brought it here as spice.

You're telling me the British cabbage was invented by some centurions?

-It was brought by the Romans, yes.

-That's outrageous.

But I tell you what, Donald, if I don't serve this, you know,

using of course the standard issue imperial Roman utensils,

it's going to be cooked to a frazzle. There you go. Listen...

We had all the Romans, we had all them,

-but what other influences have sort of stormed onto Northumberland?

-Yes.

Well, following the Roman withdrawal from Britain, the Anglo-Saxons

came into the ascendancy for again about another 400 years.

So, as a Roman historian, you are clearly second to none

-but what do you think of my dish?

-I think it's interesting.

I think you probably recaptured... the flavour...

HE LAUGHS

..of yesteryear quite well.

If I saw one of those posters in Rome that said

"Caesar needs you" and this was the kind of food

you got when you joined up, there's no way I'd go!

Well, I think we've got to ask the question, "Why did they withdraw?"

LAUGHTER

If my director had his way, this shot would last half an hour.

He loves Newcastle and thinks it the finest city in the world.

Joking apart though, we are very lucky chaps.

We asked the Newcastle College Of Science And Technology

to present us with a taste, just a taste,

of the northeast and, with typical generosity, this lot gave up

a day to create an edible tableau.

Fresh salmon from Berwick-upon-Tweed.

An unusual dish, loppy dog, which has cheviot lamb

and vegetables cooked in Newcastle Brown Ale,

affectionately known as Journey Into Space or Electric Soup.

A soup even more nutritious than Popeye's spinach, the director says.

Craster kippers, probably the finest kippers in the universe,

ho-ho, were baked with some cranberries and rosemary.

A fillet of pork in flaky pastry.

My eyes were opened and my mouth watered but I'll let the boss,

James Walling, talk you through the rest.

Well, what we've got here... A traditional jugged hare.

Potted celery. We've got leek and onion stuffing.

We've got parsnips here.

We've got roast pheasant with an oatmeal crust, which is cracked

in front of the customer to release the wonderful odours and flavours.

-What is this? What is this?

-This is a traditional northeastern dish...

A leek pudding... Suet pastry, leeks inside,

a little bit of ham running through the centre of it as well to

give an extra bit of flavour to it.

I been up here in the northeast, which I love,

now for five days to make this programme.

I've been into 128 pubs, 94 discotheques, 18 restaurants,

47 hotels and I haven't seen one of those on anybody's menu anywhere.

Well, I'm amazed.

It should be on every menu in the northeast really

because it is a very traditional northeastern dish.

But I mean, truly it is very old, it's very solid, very robust

and the type of thing that I think chefs in this

part of the country at any rate are trying to get back to.

And so they should, it's absolutely superb.

Now, this looks rather splendid.

-This is what?

-That's a wonderful north-eastern dish, a pan haggerty.

Sliced potatoes, sliced onions,

a little bit of grated cheese and just baked in

the bottom of the oven. A very sort of, uh, staple dish

of any north-eastern menu. And wonderful flavour!

# Dum...dum...dum...

# Dumble dumble dum...dum... #

This music is incredible! Rock on, Robert! But, you know, duty calls and it's back to the commentary.

So here we are, then, on the good ship Radiant Way,

putting out to sea from Seahouses.

A bit like The Owl And The Pussycat, except we ain't got a five-pound note.

Now, all cooking of the REAL kind depends on first-class shopping!

Anybody can go to the supermarket and buy a packet of frozen fish.

But if you've got real "B dot-dot-dot with an S on the end",

you go to where it's really happening!

Which is, you know, waves with teeth like bananas,

head of white water, all that business!

In case, because you know what fishermen are like, don't you?

They say it was that big,

but when you actually go fishing they haven't caught anything!

I brought a few mussels

from Seahorses - or Seahouses or whatever it's called -

just to cook for the crew.

But, in fact, they have been quite the boys,

they've caught a few things, so I'm going to prepare a dish

which is going to be called Light Of The Radiant Way.

Which is, you know,

this is our nautical dish of the day!

Panache of fish, The Radiant Way. Name of the boat, get it?

We've got a few whiting, we've got a few haddock,

we've got some little lemon soles, we've got some cod,

we've got some prawns and we've got some codlings.

So take your shopping basket.

A couple of whitings,

a couple of haddocks.

I'm not joking, my old gastronauts, this is unbelievably bad!

It really is.

A bit of... A bit of one of these little things here.

Very slippery. In you go.

This is your shopping basket.

This is shopping on the ninth parallel, OK?

A little codling and something, Richard, if it's OK to you.

I mean, don't, actually, seriously, don't laugh!

Every time you have a fish meal,

what I'm doing now is what they do every day of the week

to bring you the fish, so don't joke about it. It's fun, I know, for us.

But this is how they really work.

OK? So, out of this lot, I'm going to dedicate a dish to this ship,

The Radiant Way.

Richard, come into the kitchen...if we can get back.

To recap on the whole thing, Richard, and stay with me. I know you're not used to being on boats.

We have my little fresh codling, OK, down here,

my little whiting, my little haddock,

my little langoustines, my little prawns,

the mussels I brought with me, a bit of parsley

and some cream and not really very much else!

But while I fried those fillets of the freshest fish you can imagine in a little butter on the pan,

at the same time I made,

as every good little cookette in the world knows,

a simple white sauce -

butter and flour, filled up with milk, a few onions, bay leaves

a bit of parsley and stuff to make a basic white sauce. OK?

So I did it while I was fiddling about

cos this is the magic of...magic.

At the same time...from Seahouses I got these brilliant mussels

and merely poached them, sorry about this,

merely poached them in about a quarter of a pint of water

so that they opened. I didn't overcook them because they're succulent and nice.

And to make, because I want a really fishy flavour

to the ultimate sauce of this dish. Now, Richard, this is the tricky bit.

OK, we've got to get some of this juice from the mussels into the white sauce,

just to give it a fishy flavour,

and stir that in. So we've now got a fundamental white sauce, OK?

With a fishy flavour, which is quite nice...

If I may now... You know, I have to tell you I am REALLY tired.

We do take these things, in a way, pretty serious.

I know you love me rolling about in a ship

and trying... And just simply cooking things,

but there AREN'T, I can promise you,

17 home economists behind me doing all this.

Right. I've got a few tasks to do.

For my parsley sauce,

very freshly chopped parsley, OK, we all know what that is.

Excuse all this muddle up of the pots.

Stay with it, Richard, you're doing very, very well.

I'll buy you a large one when and if ever we get ashore.

Strain... Stay with it, dear boy. I can see you wobbling.