03/12/2017 Saturday Kitchen Best Bites

Good morning. We're travelling the culinary world this morning with dishes from

Asia, the Middle East, and we've even got a classic English scone. So, curl up on the sofa,

forget the cold weather outside, and enjoy another slice of Saturday Kitchen Best Bites.

Welcome to the show. Now, we've been digging through the Saturday Kitchen archives

to bring you some of the best moments from years gone by.

Coming up, Carol Kirkwood enjoys a masterclass in English scones

with jam and clotted cream.

Tim Allen makes his Saturday Kitchen debut with a hake and ham hock dish.

He braises the ham hock and roasts the hake, before serving with

pickled cucumbers, a warm potato salad and mustard sauce.

Sabrina Ghayour is here with a Persian feast.

She cooks up chicken with walnuts and pomegranates,

before roasting cod, covered in za'atar,

and finally serves it all up with Basmati rice.

Annabel Langbein takes on Cyrus Todiwala in the Saturday Kitchen Omelette Challenge.

And then it's over to the legendary Rick Stein,

who is cooking up an Indonesian-inspired dish.

He makes a traditional nasi goreng, served with spicy barbecued chicken.

And finally actor Mackenzie Crook faces his food heaven

or his food hell. Will he get his food heaven?

Lobster tortellini with lobster sauce and samphire.

Or his food hell?

Apple and syrup steamed pudding with plum and apple compote and

home-made custard. You're going to have to keep watching to find out.

But first up, Paul Rankin is here with a Japanese-inspired seafood dish.

It's the great Paul Rankin, of course.

-Now, welcome to the show, boss.

-Hey, good to see you again.

Great to have you on the show. What are we cooking?

Soya miso glazed halibut with lovely prawn dumplings,

and a shiso broth - that's basically an aromatic broth,

-with a little bit of shiso on top.

-OK.

So lots of ingredients in here. So break this down for us.

The marinade's going to be the first thing.

We've got our prawns for the dumplings. This is miso.

It's a fermented soya bean paste.

Into the marinade goes some sugar, some sake, some mirin,

which is a sweet Japanese wine, used a lot in their cooking.

And some light soy sauce.

Into the dumplings, we've got a little bit of ginger,

a little bit of sake and a little bit of soy.

And then some chicken stock, which we season up again...

You're into your Asian cuisine, aren't you?

-It's this sweet salty thing going on.

-Yeah.

And you know why that is, James?

It's because it's the way I like to eat.

Now, I'm starting to chop these up cos there is loads to do.

-I travelled a lot as a kid.

-Yeah.

-Well, not really a kid.

As a young man, I travelled a lot.

Belfast was kind of a weird place in the late '70s,

early '80s so I got out and went travelling

and although I trained classic French food,

I just fell in love with all these type of flavours.

This is a classic dish, isn't it, this one?

Is this the type of miso that you make miso soup with as well?

There's different types of miso.

You can use this type of miso in a miso soup.

There's dark miso, light miso, sweet miso, all that sort of stuff,

and each one has a slightly different use.

Yeah.

In Japanese food, this is a classic type of marinade.

Although it's kind of been made

-famous in the UK by the restaurant Nobu.

-Yeah.

Which serves something called black cod.

Which you must have had, haven't you?

-Oh, yes!

-Do you like the black cod?

-Love it! Love it!

You want to taste mine, love, it's even better!

So this goes into the marinade

and it can be just for a couple of hours, or it can be overnight.

Or even a couple of days.

But in that restaurant, it literally could be in there three days.

But it's a different type of fish. It's not normal cod, is it?

Halibut's quite a light fish.

That's why I'm keeping the marinade quite light.

I also like the texture when we keep it light.

So we simply take that out.

You can give it a little bit of a pan fry if you want,

just to bring the colour up, but if you've got a good, hot grill,

it's going to cook no problem.

-Right.

-So, that's going to go...

-Off the paper?

No, no, no. leave it on the paper. A good fire round the edge

-is all right.

-Really?

-You think it'll go on fire?

-Probably, yeah.

But I'm going to leave that with you.

Never a dull moment on Saturday Kitchen, folks. Never a dull moment.

-What's that?

-Can you marinate meat with that?

-Excuse me?

-Can you marinate meat with it?

-It wouldn't suit...

You can marinate meat with it, it tends to be used as a covering,

as a spread, almost like we would use mustard, or something.

So with beef, you would use a darker miso, a little bit more salty,

a slightly bigger flavour.

And this is incredible, actually.

A little bit of steak, smeared with that, it's wonderful.

And what you have in here is the prawns,

a couple of teaspoons of chopped scallions.

-Do you know what scallions are?

-Spring onions.

-Yeah.

And about half a teaspoon of ginger, a little bit of soya sauce.

There we go. A bit of sake has gone in there as well, hasn't it?

Yeah, a little bit of sake in there.

SIZZLES Whoa!

You can use a fish stock for this.

Or if you're very into your Japanese cooking, you can

use one of their sort of classic broths.

Yeah.

-OK. So that's a little bit of ginger for you for the broth.

-OK.

-Over here, little wontons.

-Yeah, I love these little things.

You can buy them in Asian supermarkets.

If you don't have an Asian supermarket,

try your local takeaway cos they use these a lot, or Chinese restaurant.

-OK.

-Costs a pound for a pack of maybe 50.

-Yeah.

And what they basically are, they're little egg pasta doughs.

And they just make the most wonderful, delicate little ravioli.

So about a teaspoon of the mixture going on this.

Yeah. In there, I've got a little bit of egg yolk and some water.

Yeah, yeah.

-OK.

-And I like to brush them first.

-Yeah.

Cos then it starts to get a little bit sticky and dry.

So if you just go like that, a teaspoon of that in there.

So you don't need to turn the fish over, once it's in the grill?

-Just leave it?

-No, no.

-OK. There we go.

-It really depends how hot your grill is,

as to whether you're going to get a really good glaze on it.

And whether or not you put paper underneath the tray.

-Well, that's to stop it sticking to the bottom.

-Is it? OK.

Yeah, it's not for a smoky effect.

Although maybe we'll turn this into like a smoked halibut kind of thing.

-OK, there you go. Right, you've got these.

-Top man.

Now these are great. You can freeze these as well, can't you?

Yeah, they freeze very well

and you can use various ravioli stuffings with it.

Now, we're going to season up the broth with some sugar.

-Yeah.

-Now, it's quite odd, I think, sometimes for Europeans to see

people using sugar in things like soups and things like that.

But I think it's quite human. We like sugar, don't we?

Yeah.

So with these sort of light Japanese flavours and Chinese dishes,

the sugar suits it. I mean, it's part of the reason why..

Do you think it's that British palate,

we like that sort of sweet and sour?

There's a sink in the back there, if you want to wash your hands.

Do you think it's that British palate that we get that sweet

and sourness? We like the sweet and sour.

Yeah, I think it's a human thing.

I just don't think it's the British, you know?

Um, but for European food, I think

a lot of our food has developed to suit our wines.

-Yeah.

-You know? And when you get food that's too sweet,

sometimes it can spoil a wine completely.

So, what's Mr Rankin doing at the moment then?

I know you're cooking quite a lot in Cayenne? Back into the kitchen.

I've been there nearly every night. But really enjoying that.

Been doing some work with education and schools.

And Ready Steady Cook's coming back, isn't it?

Yeah, we've filmed the Ready Steady Cooks.

They'll be coming up very shortly, cos we did some Christmas shows.

-So Ainsley and the gang will be back.

-Brian Turner?

-Are we wheeling him out again, are we?

-Brian Turner's there.

-Do you not miss it?

-Top man! I do actually. I made so many things...

How to cook a chocolate bar and a bottle of beer.

Do you remember the days, James as a wee lad, cooking with a bandana?

Yeah!

-Yeah!

-James has got some strange fashion things.

Look at you, with your waistcoat, look at that!

What's wrong with it? It's cool, this waistcoat!

It's great, you could have ironed it first,

but other than that, it's all right.

My mum said to me, "Is that James Martin a bit odd?"

Thanks very much!

"No, he's really nice. He's really nice."

"Why is he cooking with his jacket on?"

-You ever see James cooking with his jacket on telly?

-I was cold!

-You were cold.

-No, your waistcoat looks cool.

Putting a wee bit of ginger in here too.

There's not many people that can get away with that look

and you're...one of them.

-I'm a skinny dude.

-In we go with the...

-I'm a clothes horse.

Little tortellini, these go in there.

And these don't take very long, do they?

No, they don't. They're only going to take a minute or two, really.

Right, am I going to check this fish or what?

-You check the fish. Check the paper, more like.

-There you go.

You almost want it just cooked.

Do we have time to glaze it a little bit more? Get a blowtorch out, dude.

-Yeah, you've got 30 seconds.

-Let's get a fire going.

You do the rest of it. Carry on.

So what I'm doing, I take the stalks off the shiitake, slice them finely.

-I'm listening!

-Poach them in there.

A little bit of green going in there and a little bit of salt for crunch.

That adds a beautiful freshness to it.

Right.

Of course, at home,

you just put this under the grill for a little bit longer.

-But that works great, doesn't it?

-Happy with that?

-That's fantastic.

Just going to taste the broth.

When you're cooking, one of the things that I say most and I never

tire of saying it to the kids in the kitchen is taste, taste, taste.

And then trust your instincts.

-If you think something...

-And another one in the kitchen is time, time, time, so hurry up.

OK. LAUGHTER

Can you cut...? Can you cut my shiso there?

-Yeah, I can do.

-Now, normally, what I'd be putting in

is a lovely leaf of Japanese shiso.

Shiso is a really interesting herb.

Almost peculiar to Japanese cooking. Um...

Kind of like a minty flavour?

If you can't get it, yeah, a bit of mint, a bit of basil would do.

-Yeah, yeah.

-So little dumplings going in here.

-Three of those.

Three, yeah. Or as many as you want. If you're greedy...

-OK.

-..you can use more.

And then... Oh, we've got this beautiful...

-It's delicious.

-..glazed halibut.

-Now, you can be basting it...as it goes.

-Yep.

-With, um...a little bit of the marinade.

-Yeah.

The secret is just a medium grill for that.

Medium-to-hot grill, anyway.

I like this sort of Japanese seven spice pepper on top.

-I'm a spice freak.

-OK.

-And then, this is the shiso.

So just let it drop, let it...let it look cool, like that.

I think that's beautiful. That's my sort of grub.

Remind us what that dish is again?

That's miso-glazed halibut with a shiso broth and prawn dumplings.

-And I love your waistcoat. Well done.

-I love your shirt.

Right, well, it just looks spectacular.

I don't know how do you feel about this at ten o'clock in the morning,

-but dive in, it'll sort your cold out, anyway.

-Ooh! Yeah!

Have a dive in. I don't know if you can taste anything through your cold, but...

-Other fish you could do with that, or...?

-It's great with rich fish,

so fish like mackerel.

Salmon, it's really... It changes salmon.

-It makes it really interesting.

-That's good.

-Yeah?

-Happy with that?

-I am a great chef, aren't I?

-THEY LAUGH

-You are. You really are.

-Modest, too.

-He's so modest.

-THEY LAUGH

-A legend in his own living room.

You're an amazing actress. THEY LAUGH

Thank you. Thank you so much. That's lovely.

-And so beautiful.

-Pass it down.

-No!

-Well, you've got to.

Paul Rankin there with a classic case of,

"If in doubt, get the blowtorch out".

A great dish to start the show.

Coming up, Carol Kirkwood gets a lesson in how to make scones

with jam and clotted cream, but first up,

Rick Stein is in Saigon, where he's following in famous footsteps.

And so to Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City, as it's called today.

I suspect mainly to tell the people in the south of the country

who's the boss.

But most people I met still called it Saigon.

And it was here that one of my literary heroes

got a great deal of inspiration, Graham Greene.

STRING RECITAL

In fact, this hotel, The Majestic, he knew inside out.

And it still clings to that time

when it was full of French officers smoking Gauloise

and drinking wine as if they hadn't got a care in the world,

before Dien Bien Phu, when the French were defeated and left the country.

But the hotel still lives on.

Ah!

Well, the hotel have very kindly let me look around the room where

Graham Greene stayed. Stayed for long periods of time, I guess.

Wow! He certainly didn't slum it.

Look at that! But then, we know he didn't.

He was, after all, a novelist and not a journalist.

All the journalists were down the road in the Continental hotel

at half the rate he was paying here.

That is lovely!

And I guess that's, er...

the desk at which he wrote part of The Quiet American.

The Quiet American is, I think, the easiest way into Greene land,

that guilt-ridden, melancholic world which is so beguiling to us fans.

And at the beginning of Ways Of Escape, a book of essays,

there's a piece which I think really sum up why people become

travel writers, journalists,

or, indeed, why they make television programmes.

It's wonderful.

"Writing is a form of therapy.

"Sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write,

"compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia,

"the panic fear which is inherent in the human situation.

"Auden noted, man needs escape as he needs food and deep sleep."

Such is the way the world turns.

Mickey Mouse certainly wouldn't have been here in the days of Greene.

But there's a strong feeling I'm getting that communism

doesn't really show its face in this part of the country.

This is where the tourists come,

and maybe the French would come back again,

but this time, for the lovely food this place has to offer.

I like the thought that the Americans spent

so much time fighting communism, but after they left,

capitalism moved in all by itself.

The other side of the river is barren of trees

and only grows billboards.

My interpreter said it was as a result of Agent Orange,

that awful defoliant sprayed from aircraft during the war.

People here think it will never grow back.

I'm really lucky I met Cathy Danh, a real foodie.

She's Vietnamese, but was born in America.

So, um...Californian Vietnamese, would they find this market strange,

or would they be fairly familiar when they walked through it?

Definitely not all of the, er...loudness, I guess.

But definitely, the products are very familiar...

-They are?

-..and the produce. But there's no bargaining in California.

That's probably unfamiliar.

Cathy told me that people over here eat little and often.

This is a typical lunchtime snack. It's called banh hoi.

All right, Rick, what you're looking at here is the shrimp,

-and it's lying on a bed of rice vermicelli noodles.

-Uh-huh.

So, do you think, um...Vietnamese people living in California,

in the States, would want to come back to Vietnam to live?

Definitely to visit, but not to live.

Because, you know, in the States, you have, like, privacy

-and front doors and...

-Front door?

-..and quiet.

-RICK LAUGHS

-I think it's hard to give up.

-Sort of thing we take for granted.

-Yes, absolutely.

-That's true.

But, I mean, obviously, that yearn for the food.

Do you think it changes, the Vietnamese food in California?

Um...I think the flavours are very accurate.

The Vietnamese are pretty set.

Like, "This is banh hoi, and this is how you make it".

And if you, like, mess around with little things,

they'll probably say, "Oh, no good. No good."

Um... Yes. Like, my grandparents

are very stringent with additions and whatnot.

What does Vietnamese food and cooking mean to you, Cathy?

Um...it reminds me of, just, like, growing up.

What I did when I was away at college,

I would go out for Vietnamese food.

And that just brought a huge smile to my face

because it brought back memories of, like, you know, Mom, Grandma.

I also introduced my friends to the cuisine,

which I always found was really fun.

Because, actually, I know so much about it because I grew up with it,

but I guess introducing those who are unfamiliar with it

is really quite a pleasure for me, as well.

-And, actually, it actually brings me closer to my family, as well.

-Yeah.

Because I asked them questions and my grandma, like, you know,

"What do we do in this dish?"

And so, it creates, like, a new conversation that you would

normally not have with your aunts or your mother or your grandmother.

And so, I really like that.

-As I say, food is a great way of communicating.

-Absolutely.

And a way of retaining culture,

because I guess once you move out of whatever country of origin,

it's hard to retain culture because language can easily be lost.

But food is something that, I mean, you have to eat three times a day.

So you can really retain this aspect of the culture,

and appreciate that.

I could have chatted to Cathy all afternoon.

In fact, I'd never heard anyone talk so well about food.

And how it links us to our families, friends and indeed our culture.

And it really does.

Cathy told me about this Vietnamese dish which her mother cooks

regularly in California.

This is duck braised in orange juice with star anise.

It sounds quite exotic.

In fact, one of the things I didn't realise

was that there are a lot of sort of slow-cooked dishes

in Vietnam, which is where this came from.

Because you tend to think of Vietnamese food, Thai food,

as all like stir fries, all very light and quick.

This is much more considered.

I'm actually sauteing this duck for quite a while,

about five, six minutes, because there's so much fat in the duck,

I want to get as much of it as I can out at this stage.

And I'll pour it all off into a bowl.

Because if you leave it all in,

the finished dish would be very nastily fatty.

I'm going to use plenty of garlic, just smashed

and dropped onto the duck pieces.

And then a lot of sliced ginger, so important.

Now, instead of a meaty stock, put in plenty of fresh orange juice,

but not enough to completely cover the duck pieces.

Now a good couple of tablespoons of that very important fish sauce.

Half a dozen star anise.

And three or four chillies, and a stick of lemon grass,

which you must gently bruise.

Well, it's only there for favour.

It's not a substantial vegetable.

Add a spoonful of palm sugar and a good grind of black pepper.

Give it a gentle stir and let it simmer for a while.

If this was a Vietnamese duck,

it would probably need to cook a bit longer

because it would be a bit tougher

and have less meat than the ducks you buy at home.

Some pieces of spring onion for the last ten minutes will finish it.

To say this dish was a revelation is an understatement.

These are the flavours that I went to Southeast Asia to capture.

Dishes that you just would not find back here in the UK.

The sauce will need to be thickened with some cornflour

and a bit of water.

If you just cook one dish from this series, make it this one. Trust me.

It tastes like a duck a la orange oriental style.

That orange juice has come right down,

with the fish sauce, and the sugar,

and there's a lovely back taste of star anise in there.

It's just fabulous.

You could serve that up in a western restaurant

and not say it was Vietnamese, really.

Normally, I cook something based on Rick's film but this week

I wanted to pay tribute to Carol

and cook something that she really likes

and also, this, to be honest, should be Scotland's national dish.

I called it the scone, but Carol has corrected, it's the SCOHNE!

Named after the ancient capital of Scotland.

Would you like a Glasgow kiss for that?

Anyway, we're going to do the scone.

And I'm going to do it with a nice little jam as well.

So first of all we're going to get the jam on.

And we're going to use some lemon, some jam sugar,

which is high in pectin, for this one,

so we basically just take the lemon,

that gets squeezed in here.

It's almost like an instant jam,

or rather, it's much quicker than a conventional jam.

And then you take some strawberries.

I cannot believe that I've still got soft fruit in my garden.

-Neither can I.

-Raspberries and strawberries.

They still exist in my garden now.

Maybe not after the snowfall this morning but they're still there.

-But it's kind of unusual, this sort of weather.

-Well...

-Or is it?

-No.

Right, it's not!

But you're kind of right because what has been unusual is that

it's been so mild of late, but the weather we're getting now

isn't as unusual because we're heading into winter.

So it's unusual for us to see some snow in London

first thing in the morning at this time of year

but it's certainly not across northern England,

also across north Wales and also Scotland of course.

I'm going to start the scone which is basically just flour

and butter, tips of the fingers.

They're the coldest part of your hands.

So you basically rub the butter and flour together.

That's why I always think that your grandparents' cakes and scones

were always better, because they always used to make them by hand.

-Yeah, that's true.

-And basically,

you just rub the butter and flour together.

My granny used to do this and watch Coronation Street.

Sorry, we're on the BBC, EastEnders!

LAUGHTER

She liked Coronation Street.

We just rub that together with our fingers like that.

Just with the tips of your fingers.

Then we're going to incorporate all this lot together,

the baking powder, the sugar and the milk

and that's basically it for our nice little scone mix.

When you first started, you didn't actually want to be

a weather girl, did you?

No, I didn't, and I love it now. It's the best thing I ever did.

-Wasn't it right, you wanted to be a Blue Peter presenter?

-Yes, yeah.

But when I wanted to be a Blue Peter presenter,

I was a girl and I wouldn't have said boo to a coo, I was so shy.

-But I wrote to the BBC...

-You were shy?

-Yeah! You cheeky thing.

Yes, I was really shy so I wrote to the BBC and said,

"I would love to be a Blue Peter presenter."

They said, "Get a degree then come back to us,"

and that's what I did, but I still wasn't a Blue Peter presenter then.

But do you know what, I spent so much time

in the Blue Peter garden as a weather presenter,

probably more than the Blue Peter presenters themselves.

That's quite a mouthful to say, Blue Peter presenter!

Right, we're going to do an egg wash

because I'm going to get this ready. So egg yolk...

-Were you bored with that story, James?

-No, no!

-Shall we move on?

-I've got to talk to people about the recipe!

-Change the topic!

It's all... Carol, it's all about multi-tasking, you see.

Right, you've got some interesting factoids about the scones. Go on.

Yes, right. You probably remember this. In 1880, it was a big thing...

What do you mean, I remember it?!

It was a big thing to get dressed up for afternoon tea.

So you put on your best hat, your lovely dress, and your gloves,

if you were in the aristocracy,

and you would sit down and enjoy your afternoon tea.

-You wear your pink shirt, you see.

-Pink shirt, lovely.

Which has got mixed reactions on social media.

People are having to sort of delve into their...well,

their channel and alter the colour adjustment. I just thought, it's...

-It looks lovely.

-Look, black, grey.

I thought I'd cheer people up a bit.

-You know what he's trying to do, he's been working with Jason.

-Yeah.

Exactly, I've got his fashion sense. So we're going to mix this together.

So this is your nice little scone recipe as well.

We put all this lot together.

We have, I mean, it's particularly bad, all these storms.

I did some reading last night

because I thought it was quite funny.

In America they have amazing names after these storms.

It only started turn-of-the-century, naming these?

Yeah, it was NOAA, the American organisation

that started to name them.

For the British ones and the Irish ones, this is quite recent.

It's all done on impact. Sorry to interrupt you.

No, no. This is where it all goes wrong.

I always think that you need to name them.

YOU need to be in charge of naming them, not everybody else.

Because the Americans have got... Mitch, Katrina, Paloma, storms.

We've got, listen to this one,

Nigel, Steve and Wendy.

LAUGHTER

See, that's what happens when you're not involved in it, Carol.

You need to do something. What's going on?

James, you've just offended everyone called Nigel, Steve and Wendy.

No, I've not! They're hurricanes, you know what I mean?

Well, in America, they're hurricanes. For us, they're storms.

And they're all done on impact, and done on boy, girl, boy, girl,

boy, girl, in alphabetical order. So the next one is C...

-Next one is what?

-C, so it's not Carol, the next one will be Clodagh.

-Right.

-In Britain and Ireland.

But in America they're different and they are done on hurricanes.

What classifies a storm or a hurricane, what has to happen?

Oh, golly. Well, they're all storms of sorts,

but we'll never get a hurricane on our shores because the sea,

for example, around us,

isn't warm enough to sustain the life of a hurricane.

Never say never!

In our lifetimes, I should say.

We don't have long till we meet the tomb.

But in America, it's quite different.

They have got warmer seas.

For example, the Gulf of Mexico where a lot of the tropical storms

go into, and the hurricanes go into,

they can sustain the life but as soon as they hit land,

they lose their source of energy which is the warm sea.

And then they tend to dissipate.

But for us, we just have good old-fashioned storms.

Deep areas of low pressure.

They don't have a tropical element necessarily in them

unless we're getting the remnants of a hurricane from America.

But it's a dead one then, it's not a hurricane.

And is this going to go on for longer then, or not?

You say not, but is it not?

Are we in for a white Christmas, do you reckon?

Oh, golly, if I knew that, I'd be off to do the lottery.

I'm waiting, I thought you would never ask the question!

It's all about timing.

-I'm ready for it.

-Ask me on Christmas Eve and I'll tell you.

Quickly answer, my jam's nearly ready.

Or even better, on Boxing Day. At the moment, we don't know just yet.

-You don't know?

-No, not yet. It's a wee bit too soon.

I can tell you what's happening beginning of next week.

Because you set up this,

I was reading about this yesterday as well, the BBC Weather Watchers.

-Yes.

-Go on, what is this, then?

-This is really good.

This encourages... It's a club and it encourages everybody

to take part in telling us what the weather is where they are.

It's a very inclusive thing.

So we've got observations from all over the UK,

and pictures being sent in from all over the UK,

which we verify according to the weather as well.

It's not just a random picture that's been sent out.

And it's a great way of building up a picture of what the weather

is doing where you are now.

It won't replace the forecast because it's very much a now-cast

or, this is what has happened this morning, kind of thing.

Basically it's a lot of people going outside and doing that.

No, it's not! You doubting Thomas.

No, it's not! Nothing like that.

Don't listen to James.

No, it's people going out who are interested in the weather,

are maybe recording the temperature, the humidity,

because lots of people have mini weather stations

in their gardens, for example.

-And it's where you are as well.

-You've got seven seconds.

-Until they're ready?

-No, to finish that sentence!

-Gosh, have you got a microwave?

-You've got no time left. Microwave?!

We don't put these in the microwave. Microwave?

The key to this is not the fluted cutter, the round cutter.

You turn them over once you've cut them

and then bake them, that way they don't topple over.

We're going to pop them in the oven.

These bake for about 10 to 12 minutes and what we have here...

This is like Blue Peter, one you made earlier.

It always comes back to Blue Peter.

We made this at about three o'clock this morning.

Which is about which time you start work.

Yeah, I get up at 2:45am every day. Yeah, it's good.

Do you put your jam on first or your cream?

I'm not that...starting debate, I've already upset

-Nigel, Wendy and everybody else.

-Steve!

I'm not splitting Cornwall and Devon, no way.

I get enough grief over this shirt this morning. I do put butter on it.

If that's the right thing to do, I think it is.

-Do you put butter, jam and cream?

-Do I? Yes!

-Ding-dong!

Do you watch this show?! What is this?

I love your low-calorie recipes.

I've been asked whether I want to do a low-calorie cookbook,

it's not going to happen.

I feel that you need somebody like me, because it's Yin and Yang.

And then, look. Then we get this, this is what happens with the jam.

All right? Once it's cooked. This.

And then you just put a little bit on.

A little bit?

Oh, Carol, look at this.

And then you put this on.

We need to build our, you know, fitness up after Strictly.

-Because I did tell you how hard it was.

-I know, you did.

Do you know, you don't realise.

I was doing a full-time job and then going on

and training for about seven or eight hours, so I lost weight.

But the minute you stop, because who's got time

to exercise for seven or eight hours a day?

It all starts creeping back on

and just looking at these scones with all that jam and cream.

That's another stone, whack! Right on the thighs!

It does look good.

I think scones should be the same amount of clotted cream for a scone.

-It's called balance.

-Yeah, it's called balance.

-One in each hand!

-There you go, dive in.

-Thank you. Wow, they look fabulous.

And just, just, just... Because I don't...

Do they do it in, is that Cornwall they do it like that?

I don't know.

-It's one or the other.

-I'm going to do it this way, you see?

-Just to...

-Mmmmm!

-There you go.

I've been told jam then cream is Cornwall. Anyway, there you go.

I didn't realise you had butter on them

-as well as the clotted cream.

-Of course.

I think this should be the national dish of Scotland, they're delicious.

-Only in James's kitchen.

-Proper, that.

Ah, the great jam first or cream first debate. It could rage.

For what it's worth, I reckon it has to be jam first. Sorry, Devon.

Now, there's plenty more to come on today's show but first up

it's over to Tim Allen who's making a heavenly hake and ham hock supper.

-Welcome to the show, Tim.

-Thank you.

First time on the show, what are we going to make?

Cornish hake today, James, a warm potato salad,

a bit of braised ham hock, pickled cucumber and grain mustard sauce.

-So the braised ham hock.

-The first thing going on is the fish.

So what we're going to do now is we're going to prepare our potatoes

that you want for the salad, right?

If you can, that would be great, absolutely fantastic.

So first thing we do is oil the pan there.

You want to get this hake on, tell us about hake because it's...

It's quite an underused fish, to be honest.

I like to just not do too much to it,

a little bit of lemon on there. Nice and simple.

Season the flesh. A tiny bit on the skin side.

We use loads of hake at our restaurants.

-They use a lot of it in France as well.

-Yeah.

It's beautiful, it's better than cod.

It's super meaty and really delicious.

Have you tried hake before or is that on your hate list as well?

Hake isn't on the hake list. I don't mind hake.

But I'm not a massive hake fan

so I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with it.

Well, when I was in France, they use to steam it as well.

Yeah, it's beautiful...

-You've got it in there.

-Oh, sorry.

-Wrong pan.

I'll do it in that one.

So you've got the fish in. So skin side down.

Yeah, start roasting that.

As soon as that starts to get a little colour,

we're going to get that straight in the oven roasting.

Next thing to do is the sauce reduction.

You're going to create a little sort of butter sauce with this one?

-Yeah, basically.

-Going into the back one.

Just going to get that going, get the shallots into that next.

-I've got the garlic.

-Straight in?

Yeah, please. Reduce that down.

Thank you very much.

That's going to reduce down to almost dry,

we're going to get a little bit of cream into that afterwards

and then that's going to be reduced down by half

to get some body in there.

That's just starting to get some colour on the fish skin,

that's going to go straight in the oven.

It's actually quite a Spanishy dish with the hake and the pork,

-the ham hock.

-Yeah.

-Quite a classic Spanish combination.

We've got the ham hock, tell us about the ham hock that we're doing.

This one's going to be... It's been blanched to start off with.

So just to get rid of any impurities and salt from that.

Then from there it's going to go into a pan now, water,

up to the boil and then slowly braise

for about three to four hours, really.

Just till it goes really tender.

And we leave it in the... Leave it in its liquid to cool down.

That keeps it all nice and moist, basically.

Now, tell us about Launceston Place.

-Because it's a place where Tristan Welch used to be there.

-Yeah.

-You've taken over.

-Yeah.

-It's going from strength to strength.

Yeah, we're doing well.

It's been a rollercoaster of a ride since I got here,

because I was up in Northumberland before

and I've come straight back down to London.

It's been great in the restaurant, it's been a lot of challenges

but we've managed to get everything moving in the right direction.

We've got busy again.

There's always an initial drop in trade,

when you change chefs, that's perfectly normal.

What are you making there?

This is the pickle for the cucumber that you're slicing.

Got some white wine vinegar, water.

Little bit of that in there, pinch of sugar.

Not too much. Also just a little bit of honey to go in.

About a tablespoon.

Coming to London, it didn't take you long to get your star as well.

No, it was quite quick. It was very unexpected to be honest.

It's not something we were anticipating at the time.

And it's happened really quickly and it's been a great help to business.

So what inspires you in terms of...?

London is an amazing place for restaurants but does that

have a lot of inspiration with you, travelling and going out?

Yeah, I love going out to restaurants but at the minute,

I haven't got time. It's a bit demanding.

On the cucumber, just going to pour that over.

It's a little bit of time in the actual pickle.

Probably about two to three minutes just to start cooking it

and then we're going to chill it down on ice.

Going to do this butter sauce as well

because I know we need to get this ham on as well.

-That's the next one to get on.

-So the fish you put in skin side down.

In the oven.

It's just really simple, there's lemon on there, oil, that's it.

-Nothing other than that.

-And that's had six minutes in there?

Yeah, six minutes in the oven, James.

Flake that ham down to small pieces.

Throw that back on the heat

and that just warms through, basically, as it goes down.

So the whole place has had a refurb.

Yeah, we've just done the outside at the moment,

we're just about to do the exterior shortly

so that is next on the agenda.

Just going to make some vinaigrette for the potato salad at the end.

-So these have been cooked with what stock?

-Fish stock.

Just to, just gives it... It just complements the dish really well.

Gives it nice depth of flavour in there.

At the end, we're going to put the chopped chives in

that you've just done.

And, like I say, a little bit of vinaigrette

to create an emulsion on the actual potatoes.

The ham is just starting to soften down and warm.

As well as all this, as if running the restaurant wasn't enough,

you're doing this stagiaire thing, tell us about this.

Yeah, it's starting next year,

and stagiaire is basically French for trainee, basically.

It's like a mentoring process for someone to go on work experience.

It's like the ultimate work experience.

It is. They get to work with the head chef directly

so it's quite, I think, something I want to be involved in.

I think it's quite a good process. Something I wanted to see.

So it's nice to be involved in that this year

so it should be quite exciting.

This is you with a group of other chefs as well?

Yeah, there's several chefs involved in that.

There's a lot of chefs throughout.

When you've finished putting the butter in there,

strain it off and then we're going to whisk in the mustards afterwards.

So strained off the shallots and everything else.

You can leave them in if you want that kind of texture in there.

So what have you put in the potatoes?

Just a little bit of seasoning. I don't season it at the start

because you need to be quite careful,

you're reducing that big volume of liquid down,

you can end up with quite a salty potato at the end.

Now, unusually, putting three types of mustard in here.

We've got a bit of French mustard,

-a bit of English mustard.

-The English gives it a bit of a kick.

-It's because it's got quite a bit of heat to it.

-And some grain mustard.

The grain mustard gives it an acidity

and a bit of texture as well.

I quite like the two, those two flavours in there, and the heat

from the English gives it a nice bit of spice at the end.

Tim, if you didn't have the ham hock

or you didn't have time to cook it, what else could you put in there?

You can put... Any ham will go with this.

Like the Pata Negra, or anything will go really well with it.

-Right.

-That fish is just about there.

-Got that, you've got the fish ready.

-Just needs to turn over and rest.

It's had five minutes, I think that looks cooked.

Where's the honey gone in? You put honey in something.

That was in the pickle, the cucumber pickle.

They're just starting to soften down

and they're going to go into the ice, James.

This is what happens when we've done it.

Yeah, they gain a lot of colour back.

-And you can... They've got a really gentle pickle to them.

-Right.

Not too aggressive, a little bit of salt in there.

-That's that one.

-Yeah.

Right, we're ready when you are, really.

So potatoes are ready.

Thank you very much.

So these cucumbers, you don't want to warm these.

No, they... Might seem a bit strange but they go on cold,

yeah, to be honest.

And it's just quite nice, it's quite a cold soft pickle, the taste,

really quite nice. The hake's just about ready, drop the ham on.

Really, really tender and quite soft.

-So you've just warmed that in the jelly?

-Back in its own juices.

That's probably the best way of doing it,

just a few flakes of that on the plate.

Around like that.

And then on with the cucumber rolls.

Really simple. And then the hake which will be nice and tender now.

So that is caramelised skin, and nice soft flesh.

So you want to rest it a little bit first. There's your sauce.

Ideally, I always treat fish very much like meat,

to be honest, in the sense that it needs to relax.

Because if it doesn't, it doesn't do the best for it,

you get a better finish, softer finish by cooking it at the end.

-Let it cook naturally.

-And you're decorating that with a few leaves.

Yeah, this one is oyster leaf.

These ones, this is oyster leaf.

Sea aster and purslane, these have got quite a salty hue to them.

Just a few dotted on there.

I put them on raw because I think they've got such a beautiful,

gentle flavour to put on.

I don't see the point in cooking them,

you get a much more natural finish.

People wondering where to find these,

you can get sea aster and purslane

and samphire in the supermarkets

-but you can get this online.

-Yes, you can.

But you can get a lot of it in supermarkets.

So, tell us what this dish is.

That is roast Cornish hake with a warm potato salad,

pickled cucumber, flaked ham hock and a mustard sauce.

First time on Saturday Kitchen, brilliant Stuff.

It looks spectacular and I know it's going to taste good.

-Dive into this one, Greg. Dive into that.

-Looks lovely.

It's such simple flavours as well.

Yeah, looks great.

I'm going to try and get some fish.

When I was in France, they steam it, but crisping the skin.

That's the proper way of doing it.

-Cos they cook it on the bone.

-It's really moist, as well, James.

Happy with that?

-Mmm.

-Are you a hake convert?

Maybe I am. No, it's absolutely delicious.

A great dish from Tim there. Even Greg was converted to hake.

Now it's over to Keith Floyd,

who's continuing his adventures around Britain and Ireland.

Longueville House sits proud, not on a knoll or a hill,

but an eminence... Great word, great place.

..overlooking what they call the Irish Rhine,

the Blackwater River, famous for its fine salmon runs.

These rich acres with trees planted to celebrate

the Battle of Waterloo that surround the house provide most of the

produce, from beef and lamb to fish, from asparagus to strawberries,

that the present incumbents, Jane and Michael O'Callaghan,

use in the restaurant.

Even the wine from Ireland's only vineyard is quite superb.

This is fabulous wine, it's a shame it's the last bottle.

-Is it truly the last bottle you've made?

-Absolutely, the last bottle.

-We kept it for you.

-That's wonderful. When will there be some more?

Hopefully in September, October, if we get any sun.

But today is July 1st and we have a fire on,

-so it's not looking too good.

-Never mind.

Let's get down to pigeons, because pigeons,

people think, are humble, common, peasant-y.

How do you persuade them, in your fabulous dining room, to eat

such a thing as they might think is a bit, you know, not too good?

Give it a lovely sauce, a fabulous sauce.

And give it a nice accompaniment also.

Also, give them a wide choice in the menu,

so they don't have to eat pigeon if they don't want to.

-But quite a few people do have it.

-How do you cook it, then?

-Cook it?

We start off with... This is the leg, and we just chop it up.

Actually, it's the leg of two pigeons here.

We chop them up very small. And we saute it off

with a bit of shallot and some garlic

and maybe a little bit of thyme.

And cover that with water, about a pint of water, a pint-and-a-half.

And let it simmer gently for maybe an hour, an hour-and-a-half.

Then strain that off and you have the base of your sauce.

Excellent. So to prepare the pigeon itself, what do you do?

-You just put butter on it.

-Not bacon and things like that?

-Not at all.

-You're in Ireland, it's all butter and cream over here.

-Right.

-So, we put butter on.

-How long does that stay in the oven?

How long would you think it should stay in the oven?

-I'd say probably 20 minutes.

-No, no.

-How long?

-10, 12.

It's going to come out pink, and people will send it back.

You've got to eat it rare.

If you don't eat it rare, you might as well eat this. Here.

-Take it. And eat it. It's the same thing.

-OK.

-You take it and cook it and pop it in the oven.

-And will you eat it?

I'll certainly eat it. I'll just tell you about this wine.

It's a Riesling sort of wine. It's the only vineyard in Ireland.

It's called Chateau Longueville.

It's absolutely brilliant, and it's as rare as anything.

It's very worth drinking. Nice and close, there, Richard, OK?

Jane, can you explain what's going on, please?

John is making a brilliant sauce here.

He's got the stock from the pigeon, which I showed you earlier on.

And it's been reduced a little bit, because it was too thin.

And he has reduced red wine.

He fried some shallot, he fried a little bit of garlic. And thyme.

We're using thyme, because we have thyme in the garden at the moment.

And now he's just beating in some butter into it, to thicken it.

-To enrichen it.

-Superb. That pigeon must be ready.

-Yes, I hope it is.

-It's a long 12 minutes if it isn't. There we go.

-So you just carve that.

-Yes.

And John will put the sauce on the plate, OK?

-Now, this is just right, look.

-OK. Carve away.

Oh, it's beautifully pink. That's absolutely superb.

-Will you eat it that way?

-Yes, I will.

-Good.

I going to have to cut down to that bone.

-That's the way it should be.

-Jane, sorry to interrupt,

-there's someone at the blinking kitchen door.

-Oh, no, I'm sorry about that, OK?

-I am trying to make a television programme, Jane!

-Thanks very much!

Strawberries. Can you take these away, please?

Thomas, would take these? Spinach.

-I am sorry about that, Floyd.

-That's quite all right.

-I'm sorry.

-Business has to go on, I am sorry.

-I don't see why!

Well, you can't stop, Floyd, it just can't all stop.

-Is that all from the garden, honestly?

-Yes, everything.

We didn't go into town and buy it and bring it through the window

-just for you!

-Touche! OK! Get on with it, then!

John, can we have the sauce, please?

I think madame here is nearly ready.

It's very hard to carve when you're looking at me.

-You've got it?

-I have it.

-Give it one big one there.

Pour the sauce on the plate, please, John.

Snap to it, we have got a television crew waiting here.

And, Richard, look at that very nice thing, that lovely, rich,

red sauce poured over the wonderful white plate

with the pigeon breasts on. And, Richard, up to me for a second,

everybody thinks I've done nothing on this programme.

Actually, I've cooked the cabbage.

It's beautiful cabbage from my three-acre garden here.

Walled garden, by the way.

Simmered gently in butter with little raisins in it.

Absolutely superb. And, of course, it makes the dish. Look at that.

A really super meal. Three handed it was. Magnificent.

The humble pigeon,

elevated to heights of gastronomy you have never seen before.

And back to us again, please,

because we want to make a speech about the vegetables.

Do you think they really taste so much better from the garden?

-Or is that just sort of nonsense?

-No, it's not nonsense.

They have to be better. That cabbage was growing half an hour ago.

And it's beautifully fresh, and it will taste completely different

to something that is sitting in a shop for the last week.

-Here.

-Good health.

-Here's to fresh vegetables.

-Yes.

It isn't only wine that needs to be grown on the perfect slope.

The identity of a good cheese should reflect the very earth.

Now, we all know Ireland's very green,

but there is something extra special about this rich grass,

washed, as it is, by the wet winds from America

and kissed by the Gulf Stream,

which brings fuchsia into bloom,

and cows munching on this untainted carpet

produce thick, creamy milk - perfect for making cheese.

Oi.

Oi!

There we are. Thank you, my dear.

Once upon a time, in a university in Dublin called Trinity College,

there was a dashing young professor of philosophy.

One day, as professors do, he fell in love with a charming young lady.

They didn't want the hustle and bustle of academic life

in a busy capital city,

so they ran away here to the western coast of Ireland,

the furthest extremities of Europe.

They fell in love. They were so deeply in love,

they got married and they had little cheeses! Sweet, isn't it?

We've travelled many hundreds of miles

to come to the extreme west coast of Ireland

to witness a very, very strange and rare event.

It's the first time for several hundred years

that a soft cream cheese has been made in the British Isles,

or, more precisely, here in Ireland.

-Is that actually true, Veronica?

-I believe it is.

When we began to make Milleens, it was the first time for centuries

that a soft cheese had been manufactured in the British Isles.

Why do the Irish know about cheese, for heaven's sake?

I thought the French were the people who made all the cheese!

Following the fall of the Roman Empire,

a dark age descended on Europe,

and a great deal of skill and culture was temporarily lost.

Meanwhile, in Ireland, where the Romans never came,

we were a repository for a great deal of the art and culture.

When the Renaissance came along,

out went Irish monks and scholars across Europe reintroducing...

I'm not claiming that we invented cheese-making, by any means,

but re-introduced these skills

and cultures again to those places where they were...gone.

For many people, Irish cookery is just all about potatoes.

It's partly true.

This brilliant thing you're seeing here is a potato and apple pancake.

Richard, where are you? This is vital. Breaking brand-new ground here.

Potatoes, that's the whole thing here.

This pancake is traditionally made by mixing mashed potato with flour,

rolling it thin like a pancake,

stuffing it with apple, folding it like an apple turnover

and frying it in butter. What they don't say in the recipe books...

-but what

-I

-say you have to do,

is pour whisky over it, like that, and then set fire to it!

You should absolutely have something that should dazzle

even these academic and very brilliant cheese-makers.

-FIRE ENGINE SIREN WAILS

-If it doesn't,

I won't eat their cheese! Is that OK?

That is a new thing of apple and potato pancakes.

Can I give you a tiny bit?

Yes, please! I'd like quite a generous helping.

Norman and Veronica are these brilliant people

who I told you about in the fairy tale when we started.

They fell in love all those years ago,

dragged themselves down to this romantic part of the world

and made brilliant cheeses.

Taste that, if you would, please. I think it's quite brilliant.

You've got to do it quickly because we haven't got lots of film, OK?

Just say it's really brilliant!

-Super.

-Quite brilliant? Very brilliant?

-Very brilliant.

-A definite breakthrough.

-Brilliant.

-An Anglo-Irish first.

-Absolutely!

-Super. Right.

We can't have any more of that.

You can eat that after you've done your work,

cos what I want to know, really quite seriously,

this IS a cookery programme, we try to give you information,

is about your brilliant cheese.

-Can we start with this one? It's young, isn't it?

-It IS young.

This is a young cheese.

-You can see it's young inside.

-Can you just say why, exactly?

The cheese is ripening from the outside,

and it still hasn't ripened all the way through.

-But it's very mild and it'll be very nice.

-Can I taste a bit?

-Yeah.

Is he saying the right things?

Because you actually make the cheese, Veronica.

This will taste acidic. Clean, acid flavour.

I love young cheese.

Here's a riper one.

This one here is very ripe. It's ripened right the way through.

Do you see what I mean? Compare it there.

It's very strong. It's got a fairly strong smell.

It's strictly for the initiated, I think.

Does a beautiful countryside MAKE a beautiful cheese?

Yeah. I think if you're happy somewhere and doing something well,

it'll show through in what you come out with and what you make.

And the cheese seems to be happy here. It's a taste of your home.

There's no point in fighting with the environment you're in.

Why not make and do something that's going to fit in with it?

There's no point in making something

that would be better off in a desert.

The toil and strife doesn't fit in here.

I haven't seen your lovely Irish locks yet. Off with the hat!

-How do you know I'm not bald?!

-It's a chance I'm going to take!

Wow! Beautiful!

Listen, you've come all this way from Dublin,

you've forsaken the port and the parties,

the conversation of Joyce, Nietzsche, JP Donleavy,

all that lot. Was it worth it?

All the boring old soaks in the pubs of Dublin?! Ooh...

Come on! You can replace the port with porter

and you can have some very interesting conversations here!

No, I think we're very happy here. Nice family, lovely place to live.

It's nice putting a bit of this part of the world into other ones,

our cheese turning up in London Germany, all over the place,

-and people enjoying it.

-I'll drink to that!

Good luck!

Wonderful stuff, as ever, from Keith.

Now, you won't want to go anywhere just yet,

as we've still got plenty more to come on today's Best Bites.

Coming up - Annabel Langbein

and Cyrus Todiwala go head to head in the omelette challenge.

It's a double helping of Rick Stein today,

as he pops into the Saturday Kitchen studio.

He's cooking nasi goreng, a traditional Indonesian dish,

served with lime and sugared barbecued chicken,

and Mackenzie Crook faces his food heaven or food hell.

Did he get his food heaven - lobster tortellini with lobster sauce and

samphire - or his food hell - apple and syrup steamed pudding

with plum and apple compote, and home-made custard?

Stay tuned to the end of the show to find out.

Now it's over to Sabrina Ghayour,

who's serving up a sumptuous Persian feast.

-Sabrina Ghayour, great to have you on the show again.

-Hi. Thank you.

-Congratulations on your book as well.

-Thank you very much.

It's going from strength to strength.

-We'll talk about that later.

-Yeah.

So, two dishes. You want me to get on and do one?

As usual, it's never an easy ride when I'm here.

-Go on.

-So, basically, we are going to do a fesenjan chicken stew,

which is actually one of the oldest Persian stew recipes...

-Thought to be one of the oldest Persian stew recipes.

-Is it?

So, it's a stew made of chicken, duck or little meatballs,

with walnut and pomegranate molasses stock and kind of sauce, basically.

-It's absolutely delicious.

-And what am I doing?

You are going to do a lovely little relish,

which is pickled chillies, preserved lemons, olives

and just some fresh coriander, and then we're going to make

a little paste out of this lovely herb mix.

It's called za'atar,

which is a Middle Eastern, more Arab, spice mix,

that has wild thyme, sometimes sumac, sometimes cumin, sometimes

oregano in it, but it's really handy for keeping in the house.

Just slap that on some fish with a little bit of oil and pan-fry it.

-Is that sesame seeds in there?

-And sesame seeds as well.

I don't know if you've heard of that before.

And lastly, I'm just going do a little bit of rice to go with it.

-The classic Persian accompaniment.

-So, fire away.

How do we start off with our stew, then?

So, basically, first of all, we've got a nice pan here.

I'm just going to chop up some onions.

Sabrina, can I ask a little question about this? Sorry!

I notice that you're using quite a lot of preserved ingredients.

Now, am I sensing vinegar, one of my hates, in there?

Actually, no.

-The lemons are simply preserved in salt and water.

-Oh, right.

Vinegar, we do use it. It's not terribly common.

It's usually salt,

and it's just because food isn't always plentiful

in the Middle East, especially in ancient tradition.

-They'll just preserve everything that they can.

-Sure.

Don't worry, you can eat it all.

From nuts to veggies to the lot, so you're OK.

Can I ask another question?

And it has to do with the salmon later as well.

I've always felt that cumin is a very overused spice.

Now, I love it, and I will use it,

but I always think if I can taste too much of it,

then it smacks of the cheaper end of,

"Oh, we'll throw a bit of cumin on it! It'll taste..."

-I'll put less in, then.

-Um, yeah... Do you know?

Is that me being cynical or not just loving

-cumin as much as everybody else?

-No, no. I'll put less in.

They've maybe used too much in recipes you've had.

-It's lovely when you combine it with different things.

-Yeah.

Basically, I've got a pan ...

-Whoo! Nice and hot!

-Now, this is the special pan.

We started using this about three weeks ago, and my Twitter feed

went mad, people wanting to know where you got it from.

It's absolutely stunning, to be fair.

I was working yesterday, it was like Black Friday, you know what I mean?

This pan had the effect on people of, "It's my pan! Stay off my pan!"

-Did you see those nutters?

-You'll have that when I leave.

It'll be under my arm, in my bag.

-Did you see them going after TVs and stuff like that?

-Yeah.

-People never fail to shock me.

-I see the longing in your eyes

-with that pan!

-I've got the onions in here.

It's just like any stew. You put onions in, in with the meat.

Dark meat always, or not?

I prefer whole chicken thighs because they've got so much flavour.

I just whip the skin off cos it's excess fat,

-and we've already got loads of nuts in here.

-Yeah.

You don't really need to brown them,

you just want to get them in there and coat them in the onion.

In the meantime, basically, how you make the sauce is,

you get a little bit of...

Lovely!

You get a little bit of flour,

kind of the same way you would make a roux,

-You just kind of want to toast the flour.

-No butter in here?

Not in that same way, because you won't need it,

you've got all the fat from these lovely grounded walnuts.

Basically, you grind up the walnuts to the point that the fat

almost makes them clump in the machine.

You just want to toast off this flour.

Can I put that in there? Cos that's what I need to cook my fish in.

Oh...

Oh, for goodness' sake! My future dish ruined!

Right, I've mixed together this as a paste.

You just literally slap it on, and you don't need to season it

with salt because the relish is very salty.

A little bit salty, because of the preserves.

Can you buy this spice?

Yeah, you can buy it at every supermarket everywhere now.

-What's it called again?

-Za'atar.

-Za'atar.

-Yeah.

I'm just browning off this flour just a little bit.

Then I'm going to get the walnuts ground down in there.

How long would we marinate this for, then?

You could just quickly get it into a pan.

-You can marinate it, but you don't have to.

-OK.

A lot of flavour comes from the relish you're serving on the side,

so it's actually just really quick, easy, handy for lamb,

chicken, pork, whatever.

-Even halloumi, if you wanted to.

-And like you say,

no seasoning? I don't need any seasoning?

You don't need to season it

because the relish will have everything that you need. OK?

So all we're going to do is make a little ragout of the walnuts,

-basically.

-Yeah.

-A little bit of water.

It's sizzling up nicely.

And precooking this just gives it a little bit of time to cook

the nuts out, so they're not bitty when you eat the stew later.

So the idea is, you just blend the walnuts

-so you almost get a paste, really?

-Yeah, exactly.

You know in the processor,

when you put them in, it will start to clump

as the oils come out, and that's the right point to stop mixing it.

Basically, we've done one here earlier so...

-I just turned off your salmon.

-It's all right.

-OK?

So what I'm going to do with this mixture here...

So how long would we cook that for before we get it to there?

-About an hour.

-OK.

-We've got some here.

Now, this looks sandy coloured right now.

Wait till I get the pomegranate molasses in.

The finished colour of the dish is completely different.

Because this is where the main flavour comes from.

It comes from the walnuts.

-It comes from the walnuts as a base...

-A lot of molasses.

-Yeah.

It does. Because that's what we have.

Pomegranates are...derived in Persia

and ended up travelling all over the East

and even this part of the world, but we had loads of it

and pomegranate molasses is just concentrated, 100% juice,

no additives.

So it's actually good or you. But it's quite acidic,

kind of in the way cranberry has that sour pucker.

So you do need to balance it out a little bit.

I think with the pomegranate, though,

even just looking at it, it makes me happy.

It looks like sunshine.

And if it's going to be in a dish, I think I'm eating some sunshine.

-That will do nicely.

-And it's very good for you. Very good for you.

So, with a steady hand, she says, as she ends up wearing the sauce...

-OK? Get that in there.

-I'll move this lot for you.

-What about the sugar? You've got some sugar.

-Yeah.

-I'm going to balance it out with a little bit of sugar.

-OK.

-OK?

-But first of all, this.

This glug.

This will turn this colour of sauce into a beautiful deep,

dark, chocolate-coloured stew.

-What is that?

-It is so special.

Pomegranate molasses.

-Oh, that literally is what you were describing.

-Exactly.

-It's quite thick. It is quite thick.

-We get the sugar in.

Lovely. The sugar will just kind of balance it out.

You need to just make sure you give it a stir,