22/01/2017 Saturday Kitchen Best Bites

Good morning and welcome to another helping

of Saturday Kitchen Best Bites.

This morning we have a galaxy of Michelin-starred chefs

cooking up some delicious winter fare,

so please, get yourselves comfortable, sit back

and enjoy today's seriously sumptuous menu.

Don't go anywhere because I have some of the country's top chefs

cooking up top-notch food for a whole host of stars,

all of them with their knives and forks at the ready.

Coming up on today's show...

James Martin cooks up a winter warmer for George Lamb

with his take on figgy dowdy pudding.

Adam Bennett chooses to take it slow with braised ox cheek.

The cheek is cooked for at least two hours

with pickled walnuts and smoked anchovies,

and it's all served with glazed carrots

and good old-fashioned mashed potatoes.

Plus the genius that is Jun Tanaka is here to get his game on.

He's dishing up a home-smoked pigeon

served with a salad of beetroot, apples and walnuts.

Battling it out for the omelette challenge glory

are Adam Byatt and Simon Hulstone.

But can Simon make a respectable time

at his first outing at the hobs? Let's see.

Then it's over to Paul Foster,

who is cooking a dish that is literally bursting with beef.

He is serving up a sirloin, brisket and a tartare,

and he even manages to find something to do

with a heel tendon, too.

And finally, the very funny Al Murray

faces food heaven or food hell.

Did he get his food heaven - peach crumble tart with vanilla ice cream?

Or did he end up facing his food hell -

baked rice pudding with raspberry sauce?

You can find out how he got on at the end of the show.

But first, over to the prince of Cornish fish.

Rick is still the king, of course.

It is Nathan Outlaw, and he is cooking up a tasty turbot dish

that is sure to get your stomach rumbling.

-Great to have you on the show.

-Thank you.

-Happy New Year to you.

-You too.

-What are we cooking, then?

We've got this lovely turbot that I have cut on the bone.

So I'll just cook it on the bone.

And then we're going to make a gratin

from the potatoes, the turnips, some shallots, garlic and thyme.

A bit of fish stock as well.

Then I'm going to make a seaweed butter,

and what I've got here is some dehydrated sea lettuce,

which you can find all over the UK.

Forage carefully, but it is all over the UK.

-You can find that all over the UK?

-You can. What we've done here,

the girls out the back have quite kindly dehydrated it.

You can buy a product like this,

-but something like nori sheets for sushi will work the same way.

-OK.

That's going to have some lemon zest, some garlic

and a shallot in there as well for some butter.

You want me to do these? Peel and do the potatoes.

-So you want to get the fish on as well first of all.

-Yeah.

I'll whack this up a bit. There you go.

-Now, we said that this is farmed.

-Yeah.

But they do halibut as well, which is farmed, as well, which is good.

Yeah, there is all sort of fish you can get farmed,

and farmed fish is getting better, the way that they do it.

You know, ideally, I'd like to be using wild,

but this time of year, you know,

people have not always got the right amount of money...

You know, something like this is expensive, turbot,

so farmed turbot is a good substitute.

There's nothing wrong with it.

So, I'm just going to get it going in the pan.

So, a hot pan with some light rapeseed oil and some seasoning.

A lot of the difference is you don't get the size that

you would get normally if you line catch them as well.

No, they are not as old, so...

But that's why I am going to cook it on the bone -

-that just keeps it a bit moister.

-OK.

-Right, boulangere potatoes.

-Yeah.

The classic way, but we're going to do these slightly different

with not just potatoes in here.

Yeah, so the idea for this dish sort of came from that classic,

when you're doing the lamb leg or shoulder

over the boulangere potatoes.

I thought it would be nice to do something with...with fish.

Especially, you're cooking something like this -

it takes a little bit longer to cook.

So it works really, really well.

And everyone, hopefully...

We're pretty cold in the old...in the studio today,

so this should warm me up a little bit.

Pretty cold is an understatement. LAUGHTER

We'll warm it up - don't worry.

My mushrooms that I was using earlier are frozen - it's that cold.

Anyway, so, basically, we're just going to slice these thinly,

and then these are just with...

Got a little bit of veg stock here, or fish stock, I suppose.

Yeah, some fish stock.

You're going to get some natural juices coming out of the fish

when it bakes on top as well.

Now, last time I saw you,

you were moving the two-Michelin-star restaurant.

Now you're sort of limbo with the two-Michelin-star restaurant.

How's it going? Cos you're in a building site at the moment, yeah?

Yeah, it's pretty much a building site at the moment.

There's not much going on there.

But we're hoping to be open for sort of early March.

So, we're moving it to Port Isaac.

Lovely little Cornish fishing village.

You might have seen Doc Martin and things like that,

-that same village.

-I've been there.

Yeah, you've been there. I know you've been there.

But... Yeah, so that is going to open in the New Year.

But at the moment, the Fish Kitchen is open in Port Isaac,

and the pub is open,

and The Capital is open in London, so still, still busy.

Right. Now, we've got...

The idea of this is we've got the potatoes cooking already in here.

So I'm going to make the potato dish.

But the potato has been cooking for how long in there?

They've been cooking for about half an hour to 40 minutes.

We've got it on about 220 degrees - quite high.

Cos what's nice is to get a bit of colour on the potatoes on top.

I love boulangere with the crunchiness on top

-and the softness underneath.

-Yeah.

So this is how we make it.

-We basically just... Don't need to butter the dish, really.

-No.

-Normally this is just done with potatoes, by the way, but...

-Yeah.

You know what, I'll take these out

and then you can pop the fish on the top of this one.

This is one that has been in for about 45 minutes.

-Right, do you want to pop the fish on?

-Yeah.

And I'll pop it back in the...

Leave the skin on while you bake it at this stage,

and that just protects the fish as well.

-There you go.

-Thank you.

-They are going to go in.

What I will do is I will turn that up as well.

-OK, so they want to cook for about five minutes in there.

-Yeah.

-OK.

Right, what's next? What are you making now?

I'm going to make the seaweed butter.

So what I've done here is chopped some shallots.

I've also chopped the garlic and thyme for your boulangere as well.

Right.

Which I will pass over and put a few on top.

On there.

So what fish will people be buying this time of year, then?

You mentioned that nobody goes out - just dayboats.

Well, at this time of year, you need to sort of think in advance.

That's the advantage of closing the restaurant down in Cornwall

this time of year because the markets are not open.

-I think my first market will be this week.

-Yeah.

And, you know, so you've always got to think ahead

when you're using fish at this time of year.

But don't be afraid to freeze fish.

There's nothing wrong with freezing really fresh fish.

The problem is, with freezing fish, when you smell it in the fridge

and you think, "That stinks a bit, let's put it in the fridge."

Don't do that. That is the wrong thing to do.

-LAUGHTER

-But people do it.

You'd be surprised. People do that.

You want to get it nice and fresh.

If you see something that's a good bargain...

Don't do that.

See something that is a really, really good bargain,

basically, buy it, and as long as you clingfilm it down nicely,

you can get it in the freezer, it's fine.

I'm just going to blitz up this seaweed.

Now, you mentioned you could do that

-with the little nori seaweed as well, the little...

-Yeah.

-The... The sushi seaweed.

-Yeah, that's right.

So if you have trouble finding actual seaweed like this,

you can just get the seaweed from the nori.

Sometimes you can get some flakes available.

I buy mine from a company in Cornwall

called Cornish Seaweed Company - very original.

But they go out and forage and then they do this for you,

they dehydrate it.

Right, so this goes on the top.

Then we just finish those with a bit of seasoning. Right.

So tell me about the butter, then.

What else have you put in there? Some shallots?

Yeah, some shallots in there, a bit of garlic

and then some lemon zest.

There's your potatoes.

-Stock over the top.

-Yep.

Now, this would be named after the old...the bakers oven

that they have over in France.

The bakers used to bake the bread in these woodfired ovens

and then you would take the potatoes up

and cook them in the remaining heat from the bread oven.

I think it's a really nice way of...

Like, if you've got any meat or fish cooking in there,

it just collects all them flavours,

and once you present it, as you'll see in a minute,

we just put it in the centre of the table, and it is lovely.

-So...

-Ideally, you wanted to blitz this a little bit finer.

You do want to blitz this a bit finer.

But, as you do on live TV, it never works out as you want it to.

A bit different to rehearsal, yeah.

Right, I'll get the broccoli in.

So, a bit of salt.

-And then what you do is you just get some clingfilm...

-Yeah.

..and mould the actual butter...

..into a sausage shape.

And you can keep that seaweed butter like that in the fridge,

or even freeze it.

Freezing it, I always find, works really well as well.

I'll put that in there.

So, salted or unsalted butter?

I suppose unsalted, cos the seaweed is quite salty.

Yeah, unsalted butter is much better for it.

But depends what you like, really.

Both will work really well, so... I've used unsalted.

And you get something like that.

So what's 2015 hold in store for you?

Because I believe that you are working on a new book

as well - anything else?

Yeah, the first two books have done really, really well,

so the publisher has very kindly said, "Would you do another one?"

So we've actually got another two books coming out

in the next four years.

So people do enjoy cooking fish at home.

And you are off to St Moritz, isn't it?

You don't strike me as a St Moritz type of guy.

No. What you saying?

Well, I'm just saying... Me and you go a bit quick, downhill.

Yeah, very quick.

I won't be... I won't be skiing.

I'll just be cooking, I think, so, yeah.

Basically, it's a festival in St Moritz that's...

-This is happening this month?

-It's happening this month.

And basically what we're doing is, in St Moritz,

the history of St Moritz skiing is it was started by the British.

So, for 150 years the British have been going to St Moritz,

and this year they are celebrating by doing

a special week of dinners with British chefs.

So I've been invited over there along with Jason Atherton,

I think... Who else is going? Angela Hartnett is going as well.

So there's a few of us. It'll be just good fun.

So, what I've done with the butter, I've just put it into a hot pan,

and what you do is just get that butter

-until it's a sort of nut brown colour.

-Yeah.

Peel the skin off at the end.

Yeah, peel the skin off of the turbot.

A good indicator to know that it's done

is just to check with a knife at the thickest part,

and it should just be clear.

And it is. Lovely.

OK, broccoli is done.

This is just a bit of purple sprouting broccoli.

Yeah, any seasonal sort of vegetable will go nice with this.

I'd like just to eat the boulangere and the fish,

but just put some broccoli with it.

So the butter just over the top of the fish.

Like that. You can do this for as many people as you want.

You can do a whole turbot if you wanted to as well.

Serve it in the middle of the table.

-That would be a nice thing to do.

-Yeah.

That looks delicious.

But it's all about this butter, you were saying, the seaweed butter.

I think it's lovely, the flavour. I mean, it's beautiful.

-There you go.

-So, give us the name of this dish, then.

We've baked turbot with potatoes and turnips with seaweed butter.

Looks fantastic.

And do you want to carry the broccoli? I've got this one.

-You get the hot one.

-Yeah. There you go. Right.

And you get to dive into this.

Basically just put it in the middle of the table

-and everybody just dives, I'm presuming...

-Yeah, that's it.

-Get stuck in.

-Lose this out of the way.

There you go. Well, dive in. Tell us what you think.

Right, OK. Thank you.

Yeah, work your way through it.

-So that's it. Literally five minutes will cook it.

-Yeah...

And it'll continue to cook, as well, on there.

I'd leave it for about five minutes when it comes out, just to rest,

but it's beautiful as it is.

-And the butter is just delicious with it.

-Mm!

-Amazing.

-It's to warm you up.

-The seaweed really works there.

Great tip on freezing fish there.

And from a great man who knows more than a thing or two about seafood.

Coming up, James serves up figgy dowdy pudding for George Lamb,

but first, it's over to Rick Stein,

who is off on a garlic festival in the Isle of Wight,

although he's having a little trouble finding the garlic.

I'm on my way from Southampton to the Isle of Wight

for their famous annual Garlic Festival.

On the way over, I met this really nice chap.

He really loved his food.

I think he said his name was Onslow.

He was going over for Cowes Week.

And with all those large yachts from all over the world,

there was a serious smell of money in the air.

No doubt people would be eating lobster and popping champagne corks

over in the marquees.

But I had other things on my mind.

I'd never been to a garlic festival before,

and I didn't really know what to expect.

I'd heard that garlic grows really well on the island,

and it was a must of things I had to do

on my gastronomic tour of Britain.

But it didn't look very garlicky to me.

So, we've got a circus, candyfloss, um...

There's a doll's house shop over there,

some sumo wrestlers up there.

There's a clairvoyant.

And the army are here -

there's lots of big army trucks.

Um...

Almost forgotten what we've come here for...

Oh, the garlic... I wonder where it is.

Now, this was worth coming for -

freshly barbecued corn on the cob brushed with hot butter.

It had that mouth-popping crunch when the veg has just been picked

and still retains its sugar content.

That's the first thing to go, actually,

when it's been lying around.

Ah, getting warmer.

Moules mariniere and a nice smell of garlic from some moules Provencales.

Did you say you had some garlic fudge?

Yeah, we've got chocolate and vanilla.

-Could I have vanilla one?

-Yeah.

Only in Britain could anyone come up with this - garlic fudge.

Now, this is a first for me.

Oh, dear.

But the day was full of happy eaters,

mainly eating hot dogs.

Actually, garlic was a symbol of

our emerging culinary sophistication in the '60s,

a point recognised by the garlic growers Colin and Jenny Boswell.

When you walked along the street 25 years ago

and you smelt that smell of garlic coming out of a bistro or something,

it said to you...

Immediately in your mind, it said it was good times.

It meant wine and drink, probably in a foreign country.

Now, when I smell garlic today, I still think of good times.

God, you are so right.

I mean, thinking about it, I started my restaurant 25 years ago,

and it was garlic.

I can remember I went to a seafood bar in Falmouth,

and it was that smell of hot shellfish and garlic,

and it was just so exotic.

And I was thinking, "Yeah, I want to do this!"

Now this was a dish that was on the menu

of every bistro in the late '60s -

sauteed chicken with 40 cloves of garlic.

You joint a couple of chickens, joint in for saute -

that means on the bone.

And then you fry it gently in butter to get a nice brown colour,

and then 40 cloves of garlic - seriously!

I mean, that was so adventurous.

Season heavily, and then some white wine.

I can remember once using Mateus rose

when I couldn't get some Hirondelle.

Then chicken stock, and put the lid on

and leave it to cook very, very gently.

And that's it - it's ready.

You just turn it out on the plate,

reduce the liquid down a little bit,

nap it over the top and serve it.

Well, what with?

Well, these days, it would be mashed potato,

but then it was pilaf rice because that was very trendy.

One discovery I made at the Garlic Festival

was this humble bacon sandwich.

It was made from collar

and it had a lovely, old-fashioned swiney flavour.

There had to be something special about this bacon.

That's a really good flavour.

It is, isn't it? It's totally different.

One thing led to another on this trip.

I was supposed to be looking at other garlic products,

but I had to find out where this great bacon came from.

How cheering to see these little piglets

rooting around in the sandy soil.

You only have to look at how happy these pigs were

to realise that this family, the Pierces,

were doing something right.

I'm sure it's got a future.

These pigs here, you know, they are doing things they should be doing.

They are rooting around, they are biting my toes now.

and that's what it's all about.

And they have to create their own environment -

I think that's what's key to it.

I mean, pigs are so intelligent.

You know, it gets too hot out here, they've got to go in the wallow,

get a coat of mud, protect themselves from the sun.

That's what it is all about -

letting the animals do what they should be doing.

They are not bored. They make their own beds -

all we do is provide them with a lump of straw.

It's up to them to shake it up

and put it round in the hut how they want it.

I think that's key to it, you know,

letting animals express their own natural behaviour.

I suppose if any dish summed up the style of cooking in this series,

it's this.

So, a coating for the chops.

I'm going to use sage,

which I think is a really nice flavour,

but you do have to use it with discretion,

in other words, not too much,

because it's very, very strong.

And I'm going to mix that with

some already roughly chopped shallots,

and just chop it up really finely to make a coating.

And now I will just put that in this bowl here with a bit of butter,

a little bit of salt and pepper in there, too.

And now for the chops. What a lovely cut of meat that is.

Just going to score the chops about half an inch apart one way

and half an inch the other.

Do the same thing on that side.

And just put some of the coating on one side.

Just spread it in with my knife...

like that.

And do this exactly the same on the other side.

And then we will pan fry them. Gently.

The problem with so much sort of intensive meat is it is flavourless.

You taste something like this pork

and it's got, as the French say about wine, gout de terroir,

you can taste almost where it comes from.

And the fat is just a delight.

When you taste it, it's just this feeling of fineness.

So many people, so many people dislike fat, and why?

The fat in meat is where the flavour is, you know?

And it is just like people keep going at me when I'm cooking fish

and saying, you know, "Too much butter, too much cream."

I don't put too much butter and cream with my fish,

but occasionally I love it.

And occasionally I like a fatty bit of pork,

I like a piece of sirloin with lovely well-aged fat on it.

You know, we are all so sort of driven in this world these days

by sort of worries about health, and so much of it is just rubbish.

I mean, there is only one maxim as far as eating I'm concerned with,

and that is moderation in all things,

you just keep things level.

OK, well, let's add the cider now,

which is the sort of splendid addition to this dish.

This is farmhouse rough Somerset cider.

So we will just leave that to cook away now

for about five to six minutes.

By the time they have cooked, the cider will have reduced down

to a lovely rich sauce smelling of apples.

Add butter, a little bit of parsley,

shake it all together and pull the pan off the heat.

As I said at the start, this is the type of food we love at home,

and the sort of food I search for

on my travels in pubs and restaurants and never found.

I got beef rendang and creole chicken - but not this.

And I would serve it with some early sprouting broccoli

and some sauteed potatoes, and that's it.

Going further east into the heart of Dorset

to a blueberry farm run by Janet and David Trehane.

The blueberries are from America

and are a cultivated form of our native bilberries,

so how did they get here?

Back in 1949,

there was parson on Lulu Island in British Columbia,

and he wanted to cheer us up because we were so miserable after the war.

So he wrote and put an advert in a little newspaper,

a trade magazine, horticultural trade magazine,

and said anybody in Britain could have 100 plants for free as a gift.

Only four people took up the offer.

My father was one of them. And those 100 plants thrived.

Autumn is my favourite season.

I love picking ripe fruit from bushes and trees.

I think blueberries are typically American -

they are easy on the eye, they are sweet,

they are plump, they are over-juicy,

and now they are over here.

They have got a flavour which is all their own

which is totally addictive

and, above all else, I think they are so versatile.

Now, this is a blueberry compote, and it works a treat.

First, you add some orange zest

and then the juice of about one lime.

And then a cup or so of sugar

and about half a pint of water.

Now, you put that all in a pan

and you put it on a very gentle heat

and bring it up to the boil very slowly.

The object is to poach the blueberries

but not have them bursting on you.

So as it begins to foam, stir it around

and then pour in some arrowroot,

and as you know, that will thicken it very slightly.

But the great thing about arrowroot is it keeps the juice clear,

albeit a bit thick.

Now pour that into a bowl and let it cool down a little.

Now, you're going to serve this with some yoghurt ice cream.

I love yoghurt ice cream.

And the thing is, you are going to serve,

of course, the ice cream cold,

but the compote slightly warm.

And it is the contrast between the sweet acidity of the blueberries

and the creaminess of the yoghurt that works so well.

Delicious-looking dish from Rick there. Pork, yeah.

This week's masterclass is we're going to make a custard,

a little masterclass dish.

So first thing we're going to do is put some cream in here.

We're going to put a touch of cream. There you go.

We're going to add some sugar and some egg yolks to this.

Now, I'm going to make a custard. We put some vanilla in.

And this is a standard, standard custard recipe

that we can use for ice creams.

So a little bit of milk.

-And we won't call it creme anglaise.

-Creme anglaise.

It's not called creme anglaise, there, Chef - it's called custard.

The French have classed it creme anglaise.

But we'd like to thank Alfred Bird,

who was the guy that invented custard,

-ie the custard that us Brits...

-Bird's Custard.

-He invented it.

-Yeah.

He was a pharmacist in 18...

late 18th century.

And he invented this because his wife didn't eat eggs.

And he also invented baking powder

because his wife didn't eat yeast as well.

-That's how they were invented.

-What an industrious man Alfred was.

Industrious man, you see.

So what we're going to do is throw in our eggs now.

Now, roughly, for ice cream, one egg sets 100ml of milk or cream.

So, for a litre, you are looking about ten eggs for this one.

So I've got 200ml of each in there.

-Four eggs.

-I've never seen eggs split like this before.

-You'd normally go shell to shell, wouldn't you?

-Yeah.

But you can keep the egg whites.

You can freeze these, which is really nice.

And then what we need to do is bring this to the boil.

Now, we have infused vanilla in here.

And the sugar is the important bit.

Now, I'm doing this in a large pan - purely for the fact

the surface area is quite important with custard.

A lot of people do it in a small pan and you end up with it splitting.

If you do it in a large pan like this,

you can actually see it before it splits.

So, we put the sugar in.

Now, the sugar needs to be in

before the milk and the cream comes to the boil,

but not too early, cos if we add the sugar too early,

this will actually cure the egg yolk

so you'll end up with the little yellow spots in here

that you can't get rid of.

So that can then be poured onto our egg yolks.

So we just bring this to the boil like that.

Pour that onto our egg yolks. Keep it whisking.

Put the pan back on the heat.

So the large pan has got a big surface area

which we've got on there.

You see? Put the sieve back in.

And then we carefully whisk this - using a whisk.

Traditionally, you would be taught at college with a wooden spoon.

-Wooden spoon, yeah.

-But if you use a large whisk

and a large surface area on the pan, you can actually see it cooking.

The optimum temperature is about 75 degrees as it starts to curdle.

But if you use a whisk,

you can actually see the bubbles start to disappear.

So keep it on the heat.

And you can actually see it just bubbling around the edge...

but the more you mix it,

the more the bubbles will start to disappear and the thicker it gets.

If it boils, it curdles, and it's ruined.

So you are just taking it on and off the heat all the time.

You can actually see it start to thicken up there.

And at this point, just as it starts to thicken up,

I can then pour that through a sieve.

Like that.

Take that off the heat.

And then if you use the ladle,

you can actually see it where it's nice and thick.

As Daniel Galmiche would call it, the perfect creme anglaise.

But that is how you make custard.

Now all we need to do with that is just cool that down,

put it in an ice cream machine - that is how you make ice cream.

But with this, I'm going to do what they call a figgy dowdy,

which is a naval sort of pudding.

It's a traditional, old-school pudding.

Reason why it has got a naval influence is it has got rum.

But you basically soak the rum in the sultanas and the raisins

and you end up with this, with a bit of water.

And the idea is you just basically throw everything together.

So we've got the flour, we've got sugar, we've got suet.

-Easy to do on a boat, this, just throwing it altogether.

-Easy.

And you've always got rum, haven't you, really?

You can throw it all in together.

So it's basically one pan, and you basically leave this to steam.

So you can start off with the sultanas and the raisins.

Throw those in like that.

And then some water.

Not all pure rum, of course.

That can go in there. And we leave that to soak.

And you can see the difference.

What will happen is these will actually start to...

-Really plump up.

-..plump up. There you go.

And we're going to use the mixture.

So that is why we just put a little bit of water in there,

and we throw everything all in together.

So, started off with a career in music, straight out of school.

-Yes.

-And you kind of fell into it, you were saying...

We were going to a lot of nightclubs,

and the dance music scene was really big,

and a mate of mine said, "I reckon I could do this."

And I said, "All right, well, I'll be your manager."

And we started putting out 12 inches and running little nightclub nights

and they became a band called the Audio Bullys,

and they did pretty well and we signed to Virgin

and went round the world for a couple of years

-and had a great time.

-As you do.

Lily Allen - you've got a connection there as well?

Yeah, I managed Lily. I managed Lily for a couple of years,

and then I wasn't able to get Lily a record deal...

-You WEREN'T able to get her one?

-No, no.

In spite of having all this great music.

And, unfortunately, if you can't get people a record deal,

then you can't really be their manager for much longer.

So we had to go our separate ways, but it all turned out nicely.

She's had an amazing career, and I got to go off and be a TV presenter.

Before the TV sort of stuff,

you were into radio as well, weren't you?

Kind of. Actually, I started doing a little bit of telly

and then I kind of deviated towards radio a bit.

And then when the radio thing took off,

the telly kind of blew up a little bit.

But a whole mix and match of TV stuff that you've done from...

-I've done the lot.

-You've done the lot!

-Yeah.

A lot of live stuff as well. But some interesting stuff.

You are looking for young talent as well now.

Yeah, it's our third year.

We've been doing this kind of talent search

for young people, young artisan, young tradesmen and women

and people who aren't just absolutely focused on being famous

or being a singer, or an actress, or an actor, or whatever.

And it's really nice to be a part of something that celebrates

people who are working hard and are really proud of what they do,

you know, essentially the people who make the country tick along.

And we've done best young butcher, best young baker,

-best young candlestick maker...

-Hairdresser.

-Hairdresser.

And plumber and mechanic and all sorts, really.

And then you are on to this farmer, so tell us about this farmer.

The farmer, I think, is on this weekend. And it was...

You know, it's amazing to see these guys

who are like 23, 24 some of them,

and they are running HUGE farms.

-Tough job.

-Yeah, it's brutal.

You know, massive herds of cattle and really...

You know, just really impressive people,

who are able to kind of run these huge farms

and they are up in the middle of the night

milking hundreds of cows every day, and, yeah, it was impressive.

Cos you've got a tough job as well

-cos you are doing this thing for Channel 4 as well.

-Yeah, yeah.

Cos I was watching last night.

Probably I'd rather do The Bank Job than milk 500 cows every day.

So, yeah, I don't know how tough it is compared to that.

But, yeah, we've got a new game show, it's called The Bank Job.

We are back for our second series, it's on Friday and Saturday nights.

And we're in a real bank vault,

and people come on and try and win hundreds of thousands of pounds.

And I try and help them do that.

Well, I don't know if I help them do that - I try and facilitate them.

-Yeah, you might not be able to help them do that.

-Yes.

But the first series was a success.

I mean, some people walked away with, like, half a million quid.

Yeah, well, there's this kind of funny twist at the end

where the two last people can double-cross each other

if they want to,

and if they both try and double-cross one another,

then the runners-up, essentially, share the spoils.

And I didn't think they were going to do it,

and at the last minute, these two guys,

they double-crossed each other and they went away with nothing

and 450,000 was split between the three runners-up.

So these guys who thought they were dead and buried

all of a sudden were just like, "Argh!" You know, redemption.

I'm just going to show you this.

This is the figgy dowdy in the tinfoil. Just loosely wrapped.

So don't tighten it up otherwise it's going to be tight.

Then we take a shirtsleeve.

This was often called shirtsleeve pudding. There you go.

And then we pop that in here like that.

Everyone has got one of those lying around(!)

LAUGHTER Why not? Yeah. There you go.

And we just, basically, pop that in there.

Well, my granny used to do this

-and it used to be in either an old pair of tights...

-Yeah.

But the idea of a shirtsleeve, or tights,

is that it used to expand as the pudding cooks

otherwise it becomes too tight.

So we just basically tighten it up like this.

Now, as well as doing stuff on your own - and we basically steam it,

the steamer is over here, you can make yourself a steamer.

Basically just a pot, cloth in the bottom, water.

Just half fill the pot.

Obviously, you don't allow any of that water

to go on top of the pudding.

-And then pop the pudding in.

-Is that how you do it?

You just put a pot upside down inside another pot

-and that's a steamer?

-That's it.

-And I can do fish like that, too?

-Yeah.

-Great.

-There you go.

-A new thing everyday.

-And put the lid on.

Steam that for about three hours, and we end up with this,

which is all in the pot there.

Now, apart from doing stuff on your own, like I've said,

we've seen you with your father as well.

Now, that was interesting, that one in Namibia.

Yeah, we went on an adventure.

We went off to live with the Himba tribe in Namibia,

and it was amazing.

They are this kind of really ancient nomadic tribe

who live out in the middle of nowhere,

and they live a very, very basic existence.

And it was...

Being out in landscape like that,

it literally is at the end of the Earth.

You know, you fly down to South Africa

then you fly on to Windhoek, which is the capital.

And then we travel for three days in a van

and then finally you arrive at

this little kind of kraal, they call them,

where they've got the...

It looked like something out of an old Western movie,

all the families and the animals are all fenced in

in the middle of this huge, huge kind of savanna.

-It was breathtaking.

-It was great. I did watch that one.

What we do is take the figgy dowdy, look.

How big a portion do you want?

I mean, that will do. That looks good.

-What, that bit or that bit?

-Yeah, yeah. On the left.

And then, obviously, you've got your custard

which is over the top.

Wow.

And the custard will get thicker the longer, obviously, you leave it.

But the idea is you've got a simple, little, warm custard.

And do it last-minute, really, that custard.

You wouldn't want to do it and then keep it in the fridge -

you can almost do it last-minute. Nice and easy.

That's amazing.

-Happy with that?

-Very much so.

You've got to say, everyone is certainly delivering

when it comes to top tips today.

Hope you were taking notes on the custard there.

As always on Best Bites,

we're looking back at some of the tastiest recipes

from the Saturday Kitchen archives.

There is still so much more to come, so don't go anywhere.

Up next, Adam Bennett is cooking the ultimate comfort food.

Keep watching - this one is a cracker.

-So what are you going to make for us today, then?

-Right, we're making...

-Not as fancy as the competition...

-No.

-..but full-on flavour.

We're taking some flavours that we used in the competition

but what we're going to do is a home-cooked version.

So we're making the ultimate comfort food,

starting with searing our ox cheeks.

-Now, these ox cheeks...

-So they're going to go straight in.

-These are the decent-sized ox cheeks there?

-Yeah.

Portion size, if you're hungry.

-Straight in the pan.

-Straight in.

A nice bit of colour on them.

When we do this at work we'll spend a good ten minutes

colouring them to really...

So tell us about the restaurant, then, first of all.

-Right...

-Where abouts is it?

It's a new venture. It's with my old boss from Simpsons, Andreas Antona.

It's in Kenilworth. It's called The Cross at Kenilworth.

-Yep.

-It's, as I say, three months into it,

it's going very well and we're doing some lovely dishes there.

We're actually able there to do this sort of very good comfort food

alongside some quite classy stuff that we might have cooked

-at the old venue.

-So how do you get involved in a competition

like the Bocuse d'Or? Is it Brian Turner goes around tasting all

the dishes in every restaurant in England and picks a chef?

Well, I think being press-ganged was the sort of way I would describe it.

I mean, if I'd have known what I was getting into

I might have been a little bit reluctant,

but luckily I didn't know and before I knew it,

I was already doing it.

The truth is, James, that we do travel the country,

we do have talent spotters

and it's not just people like Adam, who are great cooks,

this competition in front of these 3,000 people

takes a lot of time, a lot of...

You've got to be mentally fit, physically fit,

you've got to have a family who backs you up

and a boss who backs you up.

So it's not as easy as just finding someone who...who just can cook.

-Right, I'm just going to get rid of that.

-OK.

I'll just put it in the back here.

OK. So we're going to take these out.

As I said, we'd spend a little bit more time sealing those

back at the restaurant, but...

Right, now our carrots have gone in there with some sugar,

-carrots and a little bit of butter in there.

-Yep.

Carrot juice we've got in there, which really brings out the flavour.

-So this is the braising part of it. It's going to go in now.

-Yep.

So this vegetable here, we'd get it nice and caramelised if we had time.

We're going to deglaze that with a bit of red wine.

-Now, this is much more robust, this sort of cooking.

-Yeah.

Just to get a little sense about what you've been doing and

-what it takes, really, we've got a couple of pictures...

-Sure.

..from the dishes that you've been doing.

So tell us about the first one that we've got here.

OK, well, that's based on boiled beef and carrots cos we like to get

a bit of Englishness, or Britishness, in there.

That's a tube of carrot, which is really nice and fondant and soft,

and it's filled with salt beef and mustard.

Salt beef and mustard, and what about the next one?

-The next on...

-This one looks fantastic.

Yeah, that's actually cabbage, onions and Wiltshire bacon,

but obviously it's been done in the Bocuse d'Or style.

-But all these have got to be hot, presented hot?

-That's right.

It's a hot competition,

it's not just cold work that you put together.

And then the final one, how it all comes together.

-You've got this picture here.

-Yeah.

I mean, that looks seriously impressive.

So that's all three garnishes with the addition of braised ox cheek

and tail and we've used the pickled walnuts

and smoked anchovies in that as well -

the same ingredients that we're using today.

-I'm just about to put the smoked anchovies in.

-But it's not just

the beef dish you gotta to do, you gotta do a fish dish as well?

That's right, a fish dish is also going on at the same time.

You've got five-and-a-half hours to finish the whole thing

and there's two chefs cooking it. So it's pretty intense.

-Pretty intense.

-Yeah.

-Just to recap what you've got in there,

-you've got smoked anchovies gone in there.

-Yeah.

I don't think we've had those on Saturday Kitchen for a while.

You don't want the smoked anchovy flavour to take the forefront here,

it's a bit of an umami flavour that goes on and gives you

that sort of savouriness.

Because most people think of anchovies and lamb together...

-Yeah, that's right.

-..not anchovies and beef.

I mean, if you can taste the anchovy at the end, then you've put too much

in, basically. You just want a little hint.

-OK.

-OK, so now that's all together,

we're going to return our ox cheeks...

to the pan.

-A little wash of the hands.

-OK.

So then we'll put a lid on that and you've got a few choices here,

you can either braise it at about 160 for two to two-and-a-half hours.

-Yep.

-Or it can go into a pressure cooker for 40 minutes.

Or, alternatively, we do it for eight hours overnight

at about 80 degrees. So you've got a few choices there.

Right, we've got our carrots here, just to show you that, and you want

these almost taken out and now reducing down with this liquor.

Yeah, once they're sort of tender,

and you need to be looking at reducing the glaze

down so we get a nice syrupy coating on there.

OK, I'll do that over here.

I know you want to talk about... I'll move this over here

-for you anyway.

-OK, lovely.

If you give us a cloth, I'll move this over here.

-So this is the finished article when it's been braised.

-That's right.

So this is post-braising and we're now going to strain that.

All we do is, this liquor has got all the flavour there, but in terms

of texture, we need to reduce it a little.

So into a hot pan.

Braising is coming back as a style of cooking these days because

it's economical and you can get a good piece of meat.

-It's very tasty.

-You say that, but things like the ox cheeks now...

-It used to be that you were able to give them away...

-Sure.

but now they've become more popular and because of that,

-they're more expensive.

-They've become more expensive than they were

but still relay those against a roasting piece of meat

-or a fillet of meat, and they're still a good price.

-Yep.

Although we're using ox cheek, pig cheeks are fantastic

as well to braise like this as well, aren't they?

Again, you get that really unctuous texture with that.

So I'm just chopping a bit of parsley.

I've already chopped some walnut which we're going to drop

into the sauce just at the end,

so we get a nice bit of freshness

and a nice bit of piquancy from the walnuts.

So we'll just chop this...

That sauce is coming down nicely there.

But these competitions, I've seen the Americans and everybody,

they spent months away from their kitchen practising, practising, practising.

Yep, and thousands of pounds as well.

-How do you mix the two together, really?

-Well, I've got...

Are you looking for sponsors, James?!

But how do you mix the two together, then?

Well, the first time round, my boss gave me four or five months out,

which was, you know, an absolute godsend,

and that's what most of the successful teams have to do.

This time around, we're looking at it slightly differently

because I've got to mix in with the new business but...

I suppose because you've seen it before, you know what to expect.

Mentally, we're halfway there. We've just got to do the work.

When the Americans came last year, James, they came in their own plane,

DC-10, or whatever it was,

Thomas Keller having two teams and they had backups of everything,

all their own equipment and shipped it all in,

and they still came lower than we came. So we were...

-Thomas Keller was not a happy bunny, I have to say.

-Right, OK.

I was chuffed to bits!

Right, we've got our mashed potato here.

So we've got carrots reducing down.

Did you say you've got some carrot juice in there as well?

That's right, I just think it adds that extra bit

of carroty sort of zing to it.

Then we're going to finish it with a bit of lemon juice

-because it's quite a sweet...

-There you go.

-..sweet finish.

But these are a good way for people to cook carrots at home,

if they want to do them slightly differently?

Oh, yeah, yeah. You get a real...

A really lovely texture from these carrots.

Do you want that that softer or...?

-That looks good to me, James.

-Is that all right?

Plenty of butter in there?

Of course there's butter in there, it's James Martin!

"Is there enough butter in there?"

-I can tell it's his first time on the show.

-Quite right, too.

You show him, lad.

-OK. I might just put a little bit more now.

-Why not?

-Get it in there.

-So you've reduced this liquor down...

-Yeah.

..and then these pickled walnuts as well. Surprisingly enough,

I've never tasted ox cheeks and pickled walnuts together.

No, neither have I but I know this is a great dish,

and pickled walnuts are very British.

But the key to it is not too much of the anchovy?

Yeah, you don't want it to taste of fish, you just want that sort of...

So is the same liquor that you did with the carrots that we saw

-on the picture there?

-Not quite. It gets a little bit more technical

because we're using heatproof gels and all that sort of thing,

when we do Bocuse, which is not what

you want to be doing at home, really.

OK, a good dollop of that.

Let's go ox cheek next.

-It smells delicious from here already.

-Yep.

OK. One of those on there.

A few carrots.

You need a spoon for the sauce as well.

You can tell this dish is nice because we've got silence

-in the studio.

-Absolutely!

-You can hear a pin drop in here.

I've got nobody talking to me in my ear.

There's nothing, it's just all gone quiet!

We're waiting for the food.

OK, so his is the best bit. Look at that.

That care and attention to detail.

That looks pretty good to me, doesn't it, that? Shall we keep it over here?

I think we just keep it over here...

-Yeah, yeah, come on!

-So tell us the name of this, then.

OK, braised ox cheek with pickled walnuts,

a little hint of smoked anchovy,

glazed carrots and a nice, plain traditional mash.

-How brilliant does that look?

-Well done.

Right, we get to dive in.

This is where you get to try this.

-So have a seat over here. Dive into that one.

-That looks...

When you say two hours, but really you could just leave...

-It's indestructible.

-..it overnight.

-Yeah, yeah.

It's a very forgiving bit of meat.

But, for me, and I'm probably being a bit...where I come from,

I much prefer the look of this than to something that looks like

a work of art. I'm too scared to touch something

that looks like a work of art.

Yeah, it's very technical, that kind of stuff as well.

-And you said heatproof gels?

-Yes.

-Oh, don't talk about that...

It sounds like it might hurt you!

Just dive into that. I mean, an amazing sort of flavour

with the carrots as well, but, I mean...

It's the power of that, it's just so big.

After a nice, long walk you come home and that's been in the oven...

Try that and see what you think.

-Fantastic!

-That's almost as good...

That's almost as good as your turkey, that.

No, it's not really.

My mouth is watering at the sight of that dish.

Simple but so effective.

Now, over to a man who needs little introduction,

so I'm just going to say,

here's...Keith!

'South Africa is rich in natural resources and there's always

'a good meal to be caught off its shores.

'Even the early Portuguese explorers were impressed at the amount of

'fish available along this bit of coast.

'And for a while, it was a favourite hunting ground

'for the whaling industry.

'But today, all that is out of favour and the fishermen are

'after smaller prey - squid.

'Not the giant beasts of Jules Verne's imagination,

'but the small, succulent squid that appear on menus through the

'world as calamari or some such variation.

'I don't know what this chap's smoking but it obviously

'helps with the ancient art of geeing for squid.

'Anyway, squid fishing is normally done at night.'

One of the dangers of filming in South Africa is what you do

at night after sunset and it gets dark.

The South Africans are so hospitable,

they force all this wine and drink down you and you can sometimes

wake up in the morning feeling as rough as an old dog,

and should you ever happen to have a hangover like I had this morning,

the best way to cure it is to hire a squid fishing boat

for the morning around about six o'clock,

come out for three or four hours in the stiff breeze,

in a light swell, and you feel absolutely terrific,

I can assure you. Anyway, that's not to talk about my health,

it's to talk about cooking squid.

We've been catching it all morning.

A bit of oil into the wok. This is going to be a very...

This is like a Chinese wok, it's absolutely wonderful.

We'll zap in some onions.

Very quickly.... we'll zap in some squid.

A wee drop more oil.

Switch on the afterburners.

Splendid.

In with the peppers.

Hold on, we're on fire. Turn over, were on fire.

Turn over, look, we're on fire. Get a bucket of water, somebody!

Thank you very much. Great stuff.

"The boy stood on the burning deck, his face as bold as brass!"

It doesn't really matter, it's not my ship, we'll get a new one.

Thank you very much. Excellent. Straight over that.

OK, let's carry on.

That's great.

Nothing serious.

-Brilliant stuff.

-Why don't you put it in that?

-That would be much better, wouldn't it?

-It is.

Hold on a sec.

There we are.

OK, cooking sketch part two continues.

So, to recap, after you put the fire out, you add some onions to

your oil, some squid, some peppers,

some sliced garlic...

..some green peppers.

Some green peppers, some tomato.

A pinch of salt, a grind of pepper...

..and some chilli, which you always carry in your pocket,

because it blows away otherwise.

We don't need that any more.

A few little bits of chilli.

Make it a bit spicy.

Do you know, people pay thousands of pounds to go on a holiday like this,

and we do it for nothing - we get it for free.

A tiny weeny bit of soya sauce.

Steve, breakfast is ready.

-Sorry about your ship.

-That's quite all right.

-As long as it tastes OK, it's fine.

-Good man. Have a go at this.

Ah! I forgot to put the spinach leaves in.

It doesn't really matter. It's exactly the same process,

just at the last moment you chuck those in and stir them round. I forgot.

It doesn't matter, Steve doesn't like spinach, anyway.

Although, sailors generally do, don't they?

Popeye eats a lot of spinach.

Have a go at that and see what you think.

It's a bit of chilli and it's a bit spicy but it's very simple

and very fresh, couldn't be fresher.

You can come back. No, you...

-You can sign on as a cook.

-Great stuff!

'And I will come back - one day when I haven't got the hangover

'and the seas are calm.

'In the meantime, onward, ever onward!'

And I'm sure the train spotters amongst you can tell

me the details about every nut and bolt on this fine iron horse.

For me, though, it's just a jolly good way

of exploring another bit of Africa.

This must be every boy and every man's dream

to be standing on the footplate of a real steam locomotive

and I have to...

The obvious thing, I've got to cook eggs and bacon in the firebox.

So let's see if I can do it.

First of all, you have to put some oil on your frying pan.

A few rashers of bacon.

A couple of eggs, and apparently all you do...

..is that.

Who needs restaurant cars,

who needs five-star hotels when you can get a breakfast like that?

This is the Rovos Rail,

which the owner assures me is the most luxurious train in the world.

Years ago, it was how the rich and elegant people explored

the African bush.

Steam safaris without any of the discomforts of actually

traipsing through the place.

Not a bit like the overnight sleeper to London,

everyone gets a room to themselves, complete with all mod cons

and the African countryside rolls gently past the window.

But as the director keeps saying, I'm not here to enjoy myself.

Humourless fellow.

This is one of my dreams come true.

I always wanted to be a railway engine driver -

failed the examination but at long last

I've got myself cooking in a train galley.

And what a train this is, too.

Most of the coaches were built in about 1928 in Birmingham.

The cooking car here I think was built in South Africa itself

in about 1938.

It's a wonderful, old, romantic, proper train.

Anyway, I'm going to cook a very simple steak with mushrooms,

onions, flamed in brandy,

a sort of steak sauce chasseur kind of thing.

So already in the pan I've got some onions, Chris.

Finely chopped, just taking colour, with some butter,

OK? Now I'll add a few mushrooms.

Just a couple. Now, you could use fresh mushrooms.

Back up to me, please.

You could use fresh mushrooms or wild mushrooms.

Any kind of... Chanterelles. You could put truffles in.

Any kind of mushroom is good in this very simple dish.

We'll let those cook away for a second.

Then we add just a few little bits of diced tomato.

Pop those in.

Diced tomato, finely chopped onions, mushrooms.

They're almost cooked now,

so we'll add a little drop of jolly good South African wine.

This stuff is called Meerlust and lust is something very

close to our hearts sometimes.

A drop of that in there.

Now, we let that wine reduce away so it flavours the mushrooms,

the onions and the tomatoes.

And so it does that more quickly, I'll transfer it onto the heat

at the back, which has a bigger, stronger flame.

And into that I'll add a little demi-glace,

which is just veal or chicken or beef stock, thickened...

in the usual way. So a little bit of demi-glace

into there like that.

Then to enrich it even further... Just test it.

Very good.

A bit of pepper I think is needed.

A little bit of pepper.

A tiny weeny drop of tomato puree.

Next thing we do, we just quickly...

cook our steaks.

One. A little, tiny bit of butter on each side into a very dry pan.

I quite like to have the steak fairly rare,

so we won't cook it for a very long.

OK, we'll turn the steak over.

That's absolutely splendid.

Stand back a bit, Chris, if you will, please.

I'll have a quick slurp.

Iced-apple juice -

very refreshing in a kitchen where the temperature's

approaching 48 degrees.

Not to mention the temperature outside, which is pretty horrific.

Anyway, my steaks are cooked.

So another good thing they make here in South Africa is brandy, it's cognac.

So we'll flame the steaks very quickly.

And that will pull some meat juices out of them,

which I'll mix with the juice and the sauce that I've got here.

You see this juice in here, Chris? That's the lovely juice

from the cognac and the meat - we join those together like that.

Then quickly take out the meat before it...

We don't want it to boil in that sauce,

we just want to use the flavour of it.

Pop the meat, the steak, onto a crouton.

I've already fried some little chicken livers as a kind of garnish,

so we'll pop those round the side.

Just fried in butter, flamed in cognac, that's all they were.

Nice little bit of juice that comes out of them as well.

And then I'll put my sort of chassear sauce around it, like that.

Like so. Let me just tidy up the plate a fraction.

Let me add a little sprig.

Couple of little leaves of fresh rosemary.

And I think that's a really tasty little snack.

And, by the way, the meat is ostrich.

'And so, as the train rumbles on into the night,

'it's a quick change out of the working togs into something more

'suitable for the veneer and crystal glass surrounds of the dining car.

'Oh, to be an Edwardian now that Africa's here.'

That's absolutely splendid, thank you.

It's very strange - you find yourself on trains,

you find yourself on boats, you find yourself on planes,

and at the end of the day, they basically all go to bed,

or they sit in the back there just talking and playing Scrabble.

And what do you do when you're on the road?

You get a few bottles, you get some fruit, you get some stuff,

and you make one last one for the road.

I don't really know what I'm doing here, but I want to try

to encapsulate, if I can, the kind of spirit of South Africa.

So, what I thought I would do...

I thought I'd pour some brandy into a jug.

And it's only me and you and the camera, so we can drink ourselves,

and it's not me, it's the piano that's been drinking.

I thought we'd throw some of the brandy,

and I thought we'd throw some strawberries in.

I thought we might take a handful of ice.

And why not?

I thought we might put some cane sugar in.

And then I thought we might take this strange device,

which looks like an outboard motor.

Then I thought we'd probably pour what is effectively

a strawberry daiquiri into the bottom of this moving glass.

Cos the train, too, is moving.

And then maybe we would put some double cream...

Or, actually, it's single cream.

Maybe this strange bottle of strawberry cream...

..into there, too, because it's kind of an alcoholic milkshake

for lonely people late at night on trains,

who have come from nowhere, and appear to arrive...nowhere.

Maybe put another couple of strawberries into that one.

Maybe just a dash of angostura bitters.

Cos there's always a bitter slice to every kind of life.

And then, on top of this iced brandy strawberry flavoured alcohol,

with any luck, we just float some strawberry cream...

..across the top.

And we might think, on a night like tonight...

..of pink ladies and the blues.

WHISTLE BLASTS

Africa, I love you.

TV gold, I think you'll all agree.

As ever on Best Bites, we're looking back at some of the most

memorable recipes from the Saturday Kitchen archives.

Still to come on today's show - Adam Byatt and Simon Hulstone go

head-to-head in the omelette challenge,

but who will come out on top?

Paul Foster goes all out with Wagyu beef - he serves up

a perfectly cooked sirloin, alongside a slow-cooked brisket,

and even a wonderfully fresh Wagyu tartare. A beef fest.

And Al Murray faces food heaven or food hell.

Did he get his food heaven,

peach crumble tart with vanilla ice cream, or did

he end up with his food hell, baked rice pudding with raspberry sauce?

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

Now, time for Jun Tanaka.

He's cooking a smoked pigeon salad with beetroot, apples,

and walnuts, and it must have been cold in the studio,

as James has kept his coat on. He won't feel the benefit.

-Good to have you on the show. Welcome back.

-Thanks.

-And happy new year.

-Happy new year.

-What are we cooking, then, first?

I'm going to do a warm salad of smoked pigeon, with walnuts,

beetroot and apples. Now, pigeon's one of those things that people are

a bit squeamish about,

because they instantly think about the birds flapping around

Trafalgar Square, but the one you eat is completely different.

-Yeah.

-So we've got a woodpigeon, which is wild,

and the free-range farmed pigeon, a lot plumper.

-And you see the difference between the two.

-Yeah.

-This one's stronger, gamier sort of flavour.

-Yeah, exactly.

-This is a more subtle flavour, and it's a lot plumper as well.

-OK.

So, for the salad,

we've got some cooked beetroot - you can buy at any supermarket.

-Yeah.

-Some walnuts, apples, red onion, some walnut vinegar,

some Cabernet Sauvignon vinegar, which is a red wine vinegar,

-and some red chard.

-OK.

-So, if you could make that salad for me...

-Lovely.

I love doing all these sort of jobs, you know that.

-OK, so you're going to cook the pigeon.

-Yeah.

Now, this is quite interesting - you're going to smoke it in

the oak chippings as well.

-So, all you need for that is a pan with a tight-fitting lid.

-Yeah.

Then you put one of these little steaming things in.

Make sure you've got aluminium foil at the bottom,

otherwise it's going to taint the pan.

-And you'll have to buy a new pan, afterwards.

-Yeah, exactly.

So, aluminium foil, and the oak chippings you can get from...

-You can get from garden centres, online now, as well.

-Yeah.

Or, if you can't get hold of it, just use fresh tea.

Lapsang Souchong is great - it's got a great, smoky flavour -

or, for a more delicate flavour, go for a fruit tea or something.

Yeah. This is hot smoking,

so it will actually cook it if you leave it for long enough in there.

Exactly.

You know, smoking, actually, if you go back far enough,

was actually a method of keeping insects off drying meats.

Before refrigeration, freezers, and sort of any way

of preserving meats, they used to dry the meat out in the sun,