18/03/2018 Saturday Kitchen Best Bites

influences from all over the world, including Vietnam, Peru, and India.

Plus, another celebrity faces their food heaven, or food hell.

So, grab yourself a cuppa, put your feet up

and enjoy another helping of Saturday Kitchen Best Bites.

Welcome to the show.

Now, you're not going to want to go anywhere for the next 1.5 hours,

as we take a look back through the Saturday Kitchen archives

to bring you some of your favourite moments from years gone by.

Coming up, James Martin is certainly no dummy when it comes to serving

Nina Conti's squid-ink pasta with a crab, chilli, and parsley sauce.

The queen of cookery schools, Prue Leith, is here with her

take on a Vietnamese dish.

She makes a sweet and sour soup using tomatoes, pineapple,

star fruit, tamarind, spring onions, coriander, chillies

and king prawns.

Martin Morales makes his Saturday Kitchen debut as he serves up

steak and chips, Peruvian style.

He marinades fillet steak in garlic, cumin, oregano

and soy sauce, before stir-frying

with red onion, tomato, chilli, and Pisco,

all served down with chips.

Ken Hom takes on Mark Sargent at the hobs in the Saturday Kitchen

omelette challenge and then it's over to Vivek Singh,

who's serving up a spicy goat and sweetcorn curry.

He marinades goat in yoghurt, coriander

and turmeric, before pan-frying with cloves, cardamom, cumin,

onions and sweetcorn, and serving with chickpea bread.

And, finally, Suzi Perry faces her food heaven or her food hell.

Will she get her food heaven - lavender and white chocolate

ice cream with lavender creme anglaise

and a hot chocolate fondant? Or her food hell -

pistachio and fig steamed sponge pudding with pistachio ice cream?

Two tasty puddings. Which will it be, lavender or pistachio?

Going to have to wait till the end of the show to find out.

All of that still to come, plus Rick Stein is in Croatia

and Keith Floyd is joining the Navy.

But, first up, it's over to Tom Kitchin, who's whipping up

leek and potato soup, Michelin style.

Welcome back to the show. Something different for us today.

We've never had this.

-At least, it's never been on the show when I've been on.

-OK.

Yeah, ox tongue.

It's a different ingredient but, you know, it's fashionable now.

All these different cuts are fashionable. We use it

in the restaurant. It sells well, so I thought I'd do it today.

Fashionable people waking up with a hangover at this time

in the morning, but, anyway. We've got ox tongue. What are we going to do with it?

Were going to make a leek and potato soup, very fast,

nice and bright green,

and we're going to serve it with a soft poached quail's egg, as well.

Faster than hen's eggs.

-So, you need me to get on and do the potatoes for this?

-Yeah.

This soup is going to be cooked from start to finish in literally six minutes.

That the idea. We'll see how we go.

So, I'm slicing my onion

and you're going to do the garnish to serve with the dish.

You want a little bit of potatoes in the soup, as well, yeah?

-Yeah, I think so.

-OK. So, very fast.

Now, the ethos of your cooking is a bit like Lawrence, really.

I mean, Scottish ingredients, local ingredients.

Yeah, it's just local ingredients. Seasonality. Fresh produce.

Good, tasty food. It's worked so far, so we keep going.

-You have great larder in Scotland. It's fantastic.

-Definitely.

-Right on your doorstep.

-Yeah, it's absolutely fantastic.

We're just waiting for spring to come now and all the lovely

spring vegetables and lamb and all those kind of products.

Yeah. Anyway, right, we've got you using the green of the leek,

-really, for the soup.

-Exactly. I think the green of the leek

is a part that people, maybe, don't use enough of.

It's going to give a wonderful green colour to the soup.

-Yeah.

-And, also, instead of it going in the bin, or in the stock,

it's going to be used.

Get that cooking. Want to get that cooking as quickly as possible.

I've got the kettle boiling at the side

and I'm going to pour the boiling water on top to help the soup cook

as quickly as possible, there.

We're cooking it quick because if you leave it,

-it goes a horrible muddy colour.

-Exactly. And we don't want that.

So, there we go. And we put the water in, the boiling water,

that's it. The soup boiling away already.

I got some potatoes blanching there. This is for a garnish for our soup.

And you want some diced white of leek for the soup as well, yeah?

Yes, please. OK, so, now we're going to cook the ox tongue.

-Yeah, I'll give you that.

-So, this is just mirepoix vegetables.

Carrots, celery, leek, bouquet garni. And some garlic.

-Bouquet garni is parsley, a little bit of bay leaf...

-Classic.

Parsley, thyme, bay leaf, wrapped in a bit of leek. Classic cooking.

And we've got a pot of boiling water.

Now, talking of classic, moving on to the ox tongue here.

These sort of dishes, these particular cuts of produce

are coming back, really, with a vengeance now, aren't they?

I think it shows the great skill of a chef,

knowing how to cook these products.

You know, in the middle of going through these recession times,

chefs have to use different products,

which are going to make their GPs.

Talking about the tongue, literally, that whole piece,

you're looking at no more than a tenner, really.

Yeah, exactly.

-And that's going to cook for about four to five hours...

-Yeah.

-..depending on size.

And a good way to check there, is to stick the knife into the tongue

and if it falls off, we know it's ready.

You start with cold water and bring it to the boil.

-Bring it up, skim it, then we'll cook it there.

-Lovely.

-We've got one I cooked earlier.

-I'll put that pan on for you.

DISHES CLATTER

Don't worry, carry on!

LAUGHTER

He's throwing that at me there!

I never did like that pot, anyway. Right, OK. Carry on.

-Nobody's noticed.

-You've flustered me now, James!

Potatoes in there, leeks in there, soup's on the go.

-The tongue's cooked.

-We've peeled the skin off the tongue

so it's set overnight and it's gone brick hard there.

I'm going to tell you an interesting fact. A pub quiz question.

Oh, God. Here we go.

The average cow moves its jaw and tongue 40 to 60,000 times per day.

-Chewing food.

-That's horrific.

-40 to 60,000 times?

-There you go.

Who would be able to actually stand there and count that?

Pauline, I don't know. I'm just reading it off the card here.

-James did. James counted.

-Anyway, let's talk about this.

-You diced it up.

-Diced it up into cubes.

You could freeze this as well, couldn't you?

Yeah, it would work really well and freeze fantastically well.

And we get a hot pan, and in there it goes.

That's going to crisp up beautifully.

Get some salt on, so that we get the flavour in there.

Basically, it just naturally caramelises a bit, doesn't it?

Yeah, yeah. You've got to get it crispy, as well.

Because that's what's going to give it a lovely favour, as well.

-Masterclass in poaching eggs.

-Well, we'll see.

-Live!

-Live.

OK. Big pan of water, boiling well.

Some vinegar.

I've put two eggs into the dish there.

I've not separated them at all. Two eggs in at once. OK?

The vinegar just holds the whites together?

The vinegar's going to hold the whites.

Just before we drop them in,

I'm going to create a little whirlpool there.

Both eggs in at the same time.

The leek's cooking away nicely.

We've got our little ox tongue there.

And your potatoes, these bits have been blanched.

The secret to the soup here is to make sure that the potato is cooked.

As soon as it's cooked, we've got to get it out of there

and into the blender, so we get that lovely green colour.

The potatoes are cooked there.

So, we're on schedule.

I'm glad you are because you've lost me. Right, this one.

Right, in there. Into the blender.

So, really, when you make this soup, you want to eat it

almost straightaway because it will go brown, if you leave it.

Exactly.

Is it fairly easy to get the tongues?

I remember it from growing up, but I've not seen

it around for a long time in a supermarket, or anything.

-What's that?

-The tongue.

-It is around. You can buy it.

-Yeah, definitely.

I think, things like oxtail and pigs' trotters

are all coming back up.

Most importantly, get somebody else to do this bit.

If you're blending hot soup,

take the middle part out. Use a cloth.

Because it creates a vacuum. It could be quite dangerous.

Literally, on there, and just blend it.

You'll see, instantly, it goes that lovely green colour.

Which it's going.

You want a bit of cream in there?

Yeah, a wee bit of cream would be nice.

OK. A touch of cream.

Smells good, though.

Here we are.

-Eggs are still there.

-I haven't seasoned those leeks and potatoes.

OK. We'll have a little season of that.

Little but more of the liquid, I think.

-We can see the ox tongue is lovely and crispy, there.

-Yeah.

And that'll be a lovely flavour.

If people can't get ox tongue, or...

I suppose you could use bacon for this.

Yeah, bacon would be great with this.

Lovely.

-Salt and pepper?

-A wee bit of salt and pepper.

A wee bit of salt!

Bit of salt. A bit of black pepper.

So, the eggs are nearly ready.

I think that's us just about ready to dish up.

-We've got the tongue.

-We can see that lovely colour that you get.

-OK.

There you go. Do you want a little bit of butter in there

-to finish it off?

-Yeah. Butter's always good, I think.

OK. A man after my own heart, there you go, Tom.

-OK.

-A little bit of that.

So, now, I'm going to put the leek and potato at the bottom

of the dish and it's always nice to have different textures in a soup.

So... But keeping the same flavours of the initial soup.

We're going to pop the crispy ox tongue around.

-Like so.

-There you go, Chef.

-Thank you very much.

-I'll take those out.

-Do you want to...

-Very good.

-Yeah?

-OK.

Spoon over our lovely leek and potato soup, vichyssoise in French.

You can see the colour of it straightaway. It's just...

-Fantastic. There's your eggs.

-Thank you very much.

-And we've got an egg that worked. Fantastic. Egg on top.

-Yeah.

Little bit of salt. Cracked pepper. And there we have it, James.

How great does that look? Remind us what it is again.

We've got leek and potato soup,

-crispy ox tongue and a soft poached egg.

-Done.

-Thank you.

-Amazing.

-I told you he's good.

-He's definitely, definitely good.

-Incredible.

I watch this every week, but when I see you actually there

and you do it so fast.

-I didn't think it was going to happen at one point.

-There you go.

So, I'm going to try...

See, now, if you just crack that egg, so we you see...

Go on, look.

-We hope.

-Perfect.

-Look at that.

-Perfect. Right.

-You can relax now.

-That's it. Where's the wine?

What do you reckon?

The soup, the secret of that soup, you need to, actually,

-make it and eat it straightaway.

-And cook it fast.

It's got to be eaten that day. If it goes into the fridge,

-it's not the same as that fresh...

-It's a bit like liver.

Not as strong tasting as liver, but the same texture, like liver.

-Happy with the soup?

-Do you know what?

I'm going to have another bit...

I wanted to get the ox tongue.

-It's not coming back, you see.

-Beautiful.

-Thank you very much.

Beautiful.

A beautiful dish, indeed, from Tom there.

Now, coming up, Nina Conti enjoys squid ink pasta with a crab,

chilli, and parsley sauce.

But, first, it's over to Rick Stein,

who's cooking cuttlefish in Croatia.

In the scheme of things, I haven't had much Croatian wine in my time,

but, from what I've tasted, I like it. It's well made, pricy,

virtually unpronounceable, strong - like so many wines these days -

but lovely.

The most famous of the Reds is Dingac,

and the vines that make the grapes, Plavac Mali, I find fascinating.

They're like poor, tortured creatures,

like something from Dante's Inferno fighting for a toehold

in the stony soil to stop them slipping off and into the sea.

I've got no head for heights.

So, just standing here is bad enough,

but the thought of having to go down

that incredibly steep slope and tend these Plavac Mali vines

is just terrible.

I don't know how they do it.

The fact is, it does produce this absolutely fabulous wine

called Dingac.

They say it's because of the stunted nature of the vines.

They get very low yield from each of them and, presumably,

those roots have to work so hard

not only to get into the soil, but to stay there.

Imagine the winds that blow up this slope.

We - I mean, me and the crew -

stop for lunch on our travels virtually every day.

We just turn up unannounced on the off chance

that there will be room for us.

Sometimes, very rarely, the food

is utterly brilliant. Like this.

We're not supposed to be filming, but we've just stopped for lunch,

-on the way to a location.

-Yeah.

-You've got black lips.

-Have I?

And you look strangely alluring.

I just wondered, tell me honestly, what you think of this.

It's quite simply the best black risotto I've ever, ever eaten.

It's so black.

But it is sensational.

I think, what I'm starting to think about Croatia,

about the seafood cooking of Croatia, it's always,

always done simply and absolutely at the minute.

This one was made seconds ago.

Your lips are very black.

All right! All right!

Well, at least you won't see how much wine I'm drinking.

-It's 16.2%. You realise that?

-I know! 16.2. We're going to...

-Are we working this afternoon?

-Yeah.

Anyway, a bit more.

You know, back at home, they wouldn't call this wine.

It'd be fortified wine, it's so strong.

OK. Cut there.

No more driving for me. 16.2%. You've got to be joking!

What's happening to wine?

Could I possibly match how good that cuttlefish risotto was?

Well, I'm going to give it a try,

in my lovely kitchen on the island of Symi.

This is cuttlefish risotto. It's very black.

I'm surprised that cuttlefish isn't more popular.

Because it has the most wonderful... flavour,

but I guess it's because of the ink.

If you buy cuttlefish whole, very difficult to avoid puncturing

the ink sac, and then you get ink over everything and you can't get

it out of your hair, or your hands, or wherever else you might put it.

But, this one, fortunately,

they've taken the ink sac out before delivering it to me,

which I'm very happy about.

I just love the smell

of the caramelised sugars in cuttlefish,

as it cooks over a high heat.

It's just delicious.

Now, some salt, just enough to make the salt police's eyebrows rise.

Then chopped shallots,

about two. Garlic, a couple of cloves, and, then, risotto rice.

In this case, arborio, probably the most popular.

Now, stir that around, making sure that each grain is coated,

and then pepper - as much as you like - and white wine.

I'm using pinot grigio, crisp and unoaked.

Now, stock. A good fish stock.

I made this earlier this morning.

The secret with risotto is keep adding the stock

and letting it cook down and adding some more,

and all the time you need to be stirring

because what you're doing is making the outside of the rice

break up into the stock, and it gives you this lovely creaminess.

I think there's probably about five minutes more cooking time.

So, now the bit that I really enjoy, which is

the cuttlefish ink.

I shouldn't bother to try getting cuttlefish ink out of a cuttlefish.

You'll be all over the place.

Now, a very important... See what I mean!

..very important observation I've made about black ink risotto

is that wherever it says two sachets, make it four.

Because if you only use two, it'll be grey risotto.

There's not a lot of flavour

in the cuttlefish ink.

It's not going to be overpowering if you double the amount of ink.

So, four in.

I knew that was going to happen.

Now, look at this.

I know people, real food lovers, who will tackle oysters,

spider crabs, winkles, and whelks... Excuse me a second.

..but go pale at the sight of a black risotto.

It's purely the colour.

Get over it, I say.

Wake up and enjoy the ink!

I'm just putting a little bit of butter in there.

You know, I'm obsessed with the sheen on a risotto,

after being told that your risotto should look

like the lagoon in Venice,

with that lovely sheen.

Now, I'm going to do a highly controversial thing,

but I love Parmesan -

not in all seafood risottos, but just in this one.

I'm sure the Italians will say, "Never, never, never!"

But, this was Croatia and I'm sure it had Parmesan in it.

So, that is looking absolutely lovely. Blacker than black.

Now, just finish off with a bit of parsley,

which you won't see, but it's there.

And, now, serve it up.

I'm certainly not one of those to shy away

from squid ink. You can get hold of it.

It's fairly easy these days to get hold of,

and it's a fantastic ingredient. Apart from risotto, you can use it in other different ways,

to make your own pasta as well. I'm going to show you an amazing, quick

and simple pasta dish that uses it with crab. We've got some wonderful

garlic, lemon, a few capers, a little bit of chilli, some parsley.

Really, really simple, but first thing,

it's all about the pasta here.

We've got 00 flour, goes into our machine.

Two whole eggs.

In there.

And then I'm going to use three egg yolks.

So you can vary the pasta recipe, whichever one you want.

Chefs have got their own different ones.

But it's all about this ingredient here. Now, this is cuttlefish ink.

You can use squid ink as well. It's the same sort of thing.

-But it's quite thick.

-It's so crazy.

-Don't dip your finger in or it'll literally just...

-Really?

-It will stain?

-It will stain your finger, yeah.

But it's used for all manner of different sort of stuff.

We talked about that while that was playing, but bread - you can make bread with it as well.

It's a fantastic ingredient to work with.

-Yeah.

-And all you do... You can see it's quite thick.

I know, it looks really...

When it comes out of a squid in the water, it looks really thin.

You pop this on and it makes this dark...

You'll see it in a minute, as it starts to thicken up.

Are there any other foods that are that colour?

-Or is squid ink the only thing?

-Not really, I wouldn't have thought. Not really like that.

He's trying to think now cos he's thinking through his repertoire, but not really like that.

-You get the black with the...

-Caviar.

Caviar, I suppose. Caviar, yeah.

That's great. That's like gravel!

You get this dark colour and you work with it, like that.

Keep moulding it, keep kneading it.

And then we basically roll that through a pasta machine.

-And we've got one here. And you've got these pasta sheets.

-Nice.

And then all we're going to do is transform this

into like little almost linguine, I suppose, by putting it through here.

-It makes this...

-It's like a squid.

-Squid ink pasta. There you go.

And then we're going to serve that with the crab and everything else.

So, first of all, congratulations on you, really, for your tour,

and it's amazing, you've been in the West End,

it's just gone crazy for you, hasn't it, really? Globally!

Globally?! Oh, I don't know.

Well, yeah, had a couple of clips that went viral on Facebook

and stuff, and got 11 million views, but I don't know who's watching.

-Someone, somewhere.

-Well, one of those was me yesterday

because it is amazing what you do because the stuff that you do,

it kind of stereotypes a lot of the time, you know, old bloke with a...

Oh, ventriloquism, yeah.

-Old bloke with a wooden sort of puppet.

-Yeah.

You take it to a different level, don't you, really?

Well, I don't know. I'm not the first to use these masks.

They've been around for quite a while,

but I guess I'm the first to really improvise with them,

and I did a lot of studying, clowning,

and improv and stuff like that, so that's really what I'm doing,

and the ventriloquism, now I actually sometimes wonder

if I forget to do it when I'm on stage.

I get so carried away with what else is going on that I think,

"Oh, dear, did I remember not to move my lips?"

Because it's something that you kind of..

..you always loved, but looking back at your career,

I suppose acting because your dad's

Tom Conti, acting was the thing that, I suppose, you were going

to be pushed into, naturally.

Did you rebel against it? Because you studied philosophy, didn't you,

-as well?

-I was trying to think of something original to do and I thought philosophy might help.

And philosophy has a great sense of humour.

I mean, it just makes everything so objective that you just end up

laughing at reality the whole time.

So I enjoyed that but, yeah, acting seemed like a bit

of an unoriginal choice, with my dad being an actor.

-So I was grateful when I met Ken Campbell and he said, "Do this."

-Now, tell us about this guy.

An interesting character, interesting man,

and had really unusual, different aspects and stuff.

He's subversive and sort of

dangerous and not mainstream at all. He was so talented,

but he never really appeared in mainstream theatre.

But one of the plays that you turned up at,

was it the 24-hour play that...?

Yeah, I did a 24-hour play with him. Yeah.

But you could just turn up, you know?

Yeah, you could turn up, but...

-Yeah, you could just rock up and say, "Give me a part."

-Yeah.

It was a very weird way of doing theatre.

But, yeah, he gave me a teach-yourself-ventriloquism kit.

He was just mischievous like that.

And I was horrified, and I thought, "Oh, not that stuff.

-"I've seen that stuff and I loathe it."

-Cos didn't you...?

But I hadn't seen it and I don't loathe it.

-I've looked at it since and, like, great old vents doing really funny stuff.

-Cos it's huge, isn't it?

Cos isn't there a big thing in America that he said to you

-you should go to and see?

-Yes.

It's like Comic-Con but for...

Well, tell us about it.

For people who have little speaking fluffy friends.

Yeah, tell us about it!

Yeah, it's a ventriloquist's convention

in Kentucky in America,

but it's also the home of this sort of mausoleum

where puppets of dead ventriloquists go to rest.

So, when Ken Campbell died,

-he left me his puppets in his will.

-Yeah.

I heard about this place where

you take puppets who have lost their voices.

They're these tragic objects that, you know, once were alive

and now just stare.

And... It made me think of Orville. That's awful.

Anyway, it's a very weird, uniquely bereaved thing, a puppet.

Cos your most famous puppet is, of course, the monkey,

which we'll get to later.

-We might get him. He's here, yeah.

-Yeah, he is.

But one of the things that you're known for in your tour,

as well, at the moment, which has been huge for you,

is the fact that you're impromptu. You're basically just...

-You make it up with this mask.

-Yeah.

-Now, we haven't got an audience,

-cos normally you'd pull somebody out of the audience.

-I know.

But we have got Jose. So, for the first time...

Jose, come on over here. We're going to put this mask on you.

This'll be the first time that I've been able to actually

-understand what you're saying.

-Are you sure?

-For once, I'm going to speak proper English.

-Well, we'll see.

-Well, we don't know yet.

-I have no idea,

because I don't know what accent will work

-until I see the mouth on you.

-OK. Mamma mia! How is that...?

-While you're doing that...

-While you're doing that...

While you're doing that, I'm just going to explain the sauce here

while you're putting the mask on. We've got the butter.

In we go with the capers, the chilli, the garlic...

-I cannot believe I'm doing this.

-JAMES LAUGHS

No more help for you ever.

-LAUGHTER

-OK, let me look at you.

-How do you want to talk now?

-In we go with the lemon.

-LAUGHTER WITH ACCENT:

-Hello.

-NORMAL VOICE:

-I'm still doing your accent! Where are you from?

-ACCENT:

-I don't know now. Maybe Italy.

Waah! What is going on?

Right, it's all yours for a minute. Go on, then.

Do you want to help him cook?

-ACCENT:

-Yes, I'm going to come and screw up the dish.

Can I do something?

-NORMAL VOICE:

-What are you doing? What's your name?

-ACCENT:

-Jose.

-NORMAL VOICE:

-Yeah, I know.

-ACCENT:

-I'm a chef, yes. Yeah, I like to cook.

-NORMAL VOICE:

-Oh, I think we can see you over there.

-ACCENT:

-So, do you need me to do something with my hands?

-I can use my hands.

-NORMAL VOICE:

-You can?

-ACCENT:

-Can I have a drink?

-NORMAL VOICE:

-I don't know.

-ACCENT:

-It's dangerous. I don't think so. I don't think so.

-NORMAL VOICE:

-So, are you excited about the squid ink?

-ACCENT:

-I LOVE it!

-LAUGHTER

-I LOVE squid! I love...!

I AM a squid!

-NORMAL VOICE:

-You ARE a squid?

-ACCENT:

-Yes, I want to be a squid

and I want to float in the ocean

and squirt my ink at the other fishes.

-NORMAL VOICE:

-Yeah?

-ACCENT:

-Yeah.

I love it, James. I love you. I'm going to miss you when you go.

-Please, please can you make him speak English?

-Do you want to speak

-in an English accent?

-For ten years, I've wanted...

-ACCENT:

-No, I am fed up with this racist stuff!

-LAUGHTER NORMAL VOICE:

-You don't like that?

-ACCENT:

-I put up with the same joke every show.

-Enough, you! Enough!

-LAUGHTER

-The funny Spanish guy is tired now.

-LAUGHTER

I'm done with this. I can't wait for him to leave.

LAUGHTER

Who's the new guy? I want the new guy.

When is the new guy coming? I cannot wait for this guy to go!

LAUGHTER

-There you go. Well, well done.

-APPLAUSE

This is the hardest part of the show for me, as well.

Where were you for the last ten years?

You could have made my life a lot easier.

-My English today was perfect!

-Oh, no, no. Your Italian, maybe.

So, I'm going to recap. We've got the pasta and we've got...

Right at the last minute, I'll put in the crab.

So, you just want some white crab meat in there, as well.

We've got some lime - fresh lime - some chopped parsley,

-some garlic, bit of chilli, capers.

-Exciting-looking.

And there you have it. There's your dish.

-Thank you.

-Dive into that.

I'll pass this over to the guys because you deserve it after that.

-Thank you.

-LAUGHTER

So, yeah, basically, just to recap, we've got...

The pasta's gone in the pan.

A little bit of the pasta water. Brown off the butter.

A little bit of lemon at the last minute,

and then use some of the pasta water.

We've got some chilli, some garlic, chopped parsley.

Really, really simple. Just with some fresh crab in there.

I just think it's crazy to be thinking of the squid...

How do they get the squid ink out?

-Don't ask. Don't ask.

-Sorry if I'm obsessing.

But it's not naturally...? No.

-Mm!

-So good.

Ha! Brilliant! A great routine from Nina there.

Anyway, next up, Prue Leith is mixing sweet and sour

with her take on a Vietnamese soup.

Great to have you on the show. Welcome to the show.

-What are we cooking, Prue?

-We are cooking, erm...

-Vietnamese, is that right?

-Vietnamese, yes. Sweet and sour.

And the sweet and sour comes from the fruit because...

-Do you see that this star fruit, for example, is pretty green?

-Yeah.

That's so it'll be sour. And pineapple's pretty sour, and...

Not the best thing if you eat it raw, is it, really?

-But if you cook it, it's...

-It's a useless fruit, really.

Just pretty. But it's really...

My dad used to call it the fruit of the devil.

-But it's pretty good in this, I'll tell you.

-Yeah.

Because it's nice and sour. And tomatoes.

And it has tamarind, which is that pod I was talking about.

It's fantastic stuff, yeah.

Pepper, of course. Chilli and spring onions.

-Chilli, spring onions and coriander.

-Yeah, the usual things.

-And this is that nam pla. You know, that Thai or...

-Fish sauce, yeah.

-Fish sauce. And that's it, really.

-So, what do we start off with?

-And prawns.

-You're going to give me this to do, I suppose. Beautiful prawns, OK.

OK, so, we're going to start off by just cooking down a couple of...

A spoon or two of tomatoes.

So, why Vietnamese, then? Is it a country where you've visited

and you loved that type of food or...?

-Last summer, I went round Vietnam...

-Yeah.

..leading a gastronomic tour,

which was a joke cos it was the blind leading the blind

-because I had never been to Vietnam.

-Right.

And, erm, I had...

Hmm, going quite nicely.

It's a place where I've never been to either, so...

No, it's a fascinating, fascinating place.

I'm going to keep a few of the little pretty stars

from the small end of the star fruit for the top,

and I'm just going to chop the rest up.

What is it, mainly fish diet? What is it?

They eat a lot of fish. It's very healthy.

I mean, this soup is just amazingly healthy.

Hang on, I don't want those to...

-I just don't want them to brown. I just want them to soften.

-OK.

And then you just stick the pineapple...

-How are you getting on?

-I'm getting there.

-Cos these tomatoes are really...

Sorry, Chef. I'm getting there.

-And we need a little bit of lemon juice.

-She's started already.

-Is she like this on your show?

-You're getting off lightly, mate.

I'm very bossy. I'm famous for being bossy.

That's what I am.

-A little bit of salt.

-But it started off with you...

How did you start off, before you did the restaurant and stuff?

-I went to France for two years.

-Yeah.

And got completely hooked on food.

I mean, you can't live in France for two years

and not end up loving food.

-Yeah.

-In with the pineapple.

Whoops.

And then came back.

And then came back, came to England, started my catering company,

thought, "I have to start a cookery school,

"otherwise, I'll never get anybody who cooks like I want them to cook."

But the cookery school - was that after the restaurant opened or...?

-Yeah, I opened the restaurant first.

-Yeah.

I mean, the fact is that when you start life, you...

I think everybody wants a restaurant, really,

but at the beginning, I didn't have any money for a restaurant,

so I started catering. You know, going round cooking...

I started in a bedsitter and I used to go round

cooking people's dinners.

So, you mash this up a bit because otherwise...

But, also, the practicality side of a restaurant is really

the chefs, isn't it? It's quite difficult to find good chefs.

Is that the reason why you started your cookery school?

Yeah, because I wanted to...

I just wanted young people who wouldn't make...

You know, catering colleges at that time used to teach people

how to carve turnips into chrysanthemums and dye them with...

-Not really cook properly, yeah.

-And radishes into roses.

I always thought God made quite a good radish -

you know, you don't need to turn it into a hand grenade,

which is what chefs used to do in those days.

-Anyway, listen, I want to talk to you about the stock.

-OK, fire away.

Ideally, I mean, you can use any good chicken stock,

but this chicken stock has been made the Vietnamese way,

which is just, you boil up chicken bones with leeks and...ginger.

-So, just leeks and ginger.

-That's all there is?

-Perhaps we ought to strain it.

-Yeah, I can do that.

-I don't want to get any leeks in it.

-OK.

-If you can just...

-So, how long would you cook this for?

Well, I mean, I do it for hours and hours, you know,

cos I like very clear stock.

If you cook it very slowly and don't bubble it,

you get beautifully clear stock.

-But literally, probably a good 12 hours, something like that?

-Yeah.

I put it in the bottom of the AGA,

but you can just do it four hours, I suppose.

But you can get a jar of very good fresh stock from the supermarket.

-They're good, those, yeah.

-But you do need the fresh one, not...

-There's your stock.

-I don't like the powdered one so much.

-There you go. Dive into that.

-OK.

-There we go.

-Where's my chilli?

-Chilli? I've chopped it.

-Ooh, you've chopped my chilli.

-Chopped the chilli already.

-So, we've got the chilli.

So, this is the bit that's going to go in at the end, and the prawns,

cos I don't want them to cook for more than about a minute.

-I still think we need a bit more stock.

-Bit more stock. Sorry, Chef.

-Bit more stock.

-Come on!

-Have I forgotten anything? No, I haven't. Just the pepper.

Now, you're like Ben - I mean, you're forever working.

The latest thing you're doing -

well, you've been involved in quite some time - is the schools,

-and particularly getting kids to eat proper food.

-I know.

I chair this thing called the School Food Trust,

which is actually a government quango.

But you know after Jamie Oliver woke up the whole world

to the fact that some children weren't getting...

Some kids were getting well fed at school, but a lot were getting,

you know, the famous Turkey Twizzlers and other rubbish.

And, um, so my organisation

is charged with

making sure the schools now do the healthy dinners

-they have to by law.

-Yeah.

And also to get teachers realising it's really important

getting children to like the food,

because it's no good giving them healthy food if they don't like it.

But do you think a lot of that starts at home, particularly?

It should, but the truth of the matter is it's very difficult to get to parents.

We do try very hard with parents, and we're going to run...

The lottery has given us a lot of money,

and we're running cookery schools.

I mean, cookery clubs after school,

-which will be for parents and for children.

-Yeah.

And we'll have 5,000 of them.

And we've got training centres for school cooks

-so that the food will be delicious as well as nutritious.

-Yeah.

-And so there's a lot going on.

-Busy woman.

Yeah, but it's really important.

I mean, if we're going to get our children eating properly...

-They've got to start from a young age.

-In with the prawns, please.

They then teach the kids later on, don't they,

I suppose? There you go. In with the prawns.

-And now we'll do one more minute, just until they're pink.

-All these?

-Yeah, put the lot in.

-The lot in?

-They're so good, aren't they? Delicious.

They're so much nicer if they're raw - they start from raw.

-Yeah. These don't take very long, do they?

-No.

Literally one minute, something like that.

As soon as they're pink, they're done.

You can tell that Prue's an executive chef, can't you?

Yeah, I know. I make him do all the work.

Yeah, she just stands there and stirs!

Well, listen, I tell you what - the last time

I cooked live on television was six years ago, on this programme!

So, live on television is not my natural metier.

-But writing is.

-Yeah.

-Cos you're a keen writer, aren't you, really?

-I know. I'm a novelist now.

-Yeah, not just cookery books now, as well.

-No, no.

-So, you're writing fiction?

-I write fiction.

My latest one's called The Gardener,

and it's all about gardening, not cooking.

-Right.

-But the first two were all about cooking, so...

-I'll keep going.

-OK.

And I suppose it was the Great British Menu

-that brought you back into television, was it?

-It was. It was.

I got tempted by the thought of...

I mean, the thing I love about the Great British Menu -

it's about real skill.

I mean, guys who can really do this, even better than you and I.

-Too right.

-MUCH better than me, and a little bit better than you.

LAUGHTER That's nice, isn't it?

Prue, you're really, really tactful. You've made a friend for life there.

Prue, see that camera there?

You've got 1 hour, 15 minutes to fill in. Off you go.

LAUGHTER

-Go on.

-No, no, you should come on the Great British Menu.

-I haven't been invited.

-You might win.

-I'd love to come on, actually,

cos I've been nicking dishes off all the chefs for ages.

That's good, isn't it? And the other thing I love

is that there's so much emphasis on the produce.

-You know, Matthew, as you know, has been all over the country...

-Yeah.

..looking at what happens in...

You know, there's so much good stuff going on in good food.

-Right, we're done.

-Are we done?

-Just about.

-Salt and pepper in it or not?

-No, no, I've done that.

-Right, you've done that. OK.

-I've done that.

-Where's a ladle thing?

We'll get you a ladle. There you go.

-Do you think that's...? Not quite cooked.

-Not quite.

-Nearly there, though.

-Nearly there. Aren't they pretty?

I suppose the great thing about this -

-you could actually freeze this, couldn't you?

-Put the tomatoes in.

You can freeze it, funnily enough.

I mean, obviously, the fruit doesn't stay as crisp,

but I've had it frozen.

I don't freeze it with the prawns, but I've sometimes made lots

for a party and keep extra, and the juice is terrific.

-And then you just have it as a kind of healthy soup.

-There you go.

-That looks cooked to me.

-Good. Right, OK.

-Stick it in the bowl?

-In the bowl.

-Or do you want me to do that?

-No, I'm prepared to do something.

-LAUGHTER

Just a little bit. Whoops.

But, yeah, I suppose you can mix the prawns and chicken.

-You don't have to do...

-Yeah, you could put chicken instead of prawns.

They quite often do do chicken in Vietnam instead of prawns.

And the secret is the star fruit.

I've never tried star fruit in a soup, I have to say.

Yeah. And, I mean, the pineapple is a fantastic flavour in this. But...

-It looks very colourful, anyway.

-Yeah, I like the colour.

So, Prue, remind us what that is, again.

Vietnamese prawn and pineapple soup,

which is usually called just sweet and sour soup.

Easy as that.

She just said, "I did it very, very well." Right, over here.

-Dive into that, Ben.

-Wow. That looks... That looks so good.

-Come on over here, Prue.

-Wow.

-Grab a seat.

-Dive in. Tell us what you think.

-Shall I try a...?

Yeah, tell us what you think.

-OK.

-I can't remember if I remembered to put the nam pla in, did I?

-Erm, I was...

-No.

-Excuse me!

-Sorry, Chef.

-What kind of a commis are you?!

-LAUGHTER

That's very tasty. It's got a bit of a kick to it.

Excuse me. We're going to improve it here a bit.

-Give it a little stir.

-A little stir.

Anybody that's tuned in, that's not vinegar going on there.

-No, no, it's that fish...

-Tell us what you think.

-Mm.

-Thai fish sauce.

-All right?

-Mm, very tasty.

-Pass it down.

-Very tasty.

-Dive in, Pat, Matthew.

Put it in between the two. Like you said, you can mix and match.

You don't have to use just prawns. You could use salmon.

I mean, all kinds of stuff.

The Vietnamese tend to make it either with chicken or prawns,

-or any seafood. Squid or...

-Yeah.

-And is this a very popular dish in Vietnam?

-Yeah, it's an absolute...

You get it everywhere.

You must have a bit of fruit, as well.

They have two really staple dishes.

This is one, and the other is

the noodles at the bottom and chicken or beef,

which you put in raw because it's just tiny,

thin little bits, and the hot stock cooks it.

So, it's as fresh as a daisy.

I can feel a Great British Menu moment coming on.

-I think we might just have to run a little criticism over this.

-Oh!

Please don't. I'm stuck in the middle!

A beautiful dish from Prue there, so why not give it a go at home?

Just don't forget your nam pla.

Now it's time to take a look back at some of the classic BBC archives

as we join Keith Floyd on a trip to HMS Raleigh.

Over to you, Admiral Floyd.

I suppose there's always a backlash to someone who's a genius.

You know, we've started getting letters from people complaining...

Sniffs, wipes eye, feel hurt about it.

I really do feel hurt about it.

..saying I don't tell you exactly

how to put salt and pepper into dishes.

You're telling me that my methods are crude, a bit over-the-top,

and things like that.

Well, I'm here in sub-zero temperatures,

driving rain, a howling gale to prove to you that I am brilliant,

and that it pays to fry Navy.

Anyone can prepare a meal in the comfort

and warmth of a modern kitchen, fridges and running water to hand,

and a quick slurp as you peruse the glossy pages of your cookbook.

But when the chips are really down,

and there's nothing on the clock but the maker's name,

you need rather more than a tin of cook-in sauce to get by.

I'm standing on a rather curious ship. It's called HMS Raleigh.

And one of the very good things about it is it'll never sink

because it's here firmly on, well, more or less dry land.

And with me today is Ken Davies, who's Chief Petty Officer.

Ken, we're here sort of like parachuted into this remarkable

-situation of people cooking poppadoms and curry.

-Yeah.

What on earth is going on?

Well, we're training for disaster exercises in emergency feeding,

so that we can put people ashore quickly and feed them quickly

with anything that's available.

This is pretty impressive. I'm having poppadoms.

What's in this pot here? Richard, let's have a look at the pot.

-This is a beef curry in here, sir.

-A beef curry?

I have, conveniently, in my hand...

-What's your name, by the way?

-Leading Corporal Wallington, sir.

Good morning, Leading Corporal Wallington.

Can I call you George?

This is the Floyd programme, not... No regimentation here.

My friends call me Wally, but not by name.

Well, well done, Wally. You're a brilliant curry chef.

-That is terrific.

-Did you enjoy that?

-But you're cooking on clay and mud and...?

-On wood.

We build it out of any old bricks we can find,

any mud we can find, any old bits of equipment

we can get on the ships - old dustbins,

metal plates that the engineers might have spare,

45-gallon drums that we can cut down and improvise with.

Brilliant. So, what's the menu today?

Well, we have a curry on today.

We have liver and bacon, roast chicken.

We start off with soup, of course.

Soup and sip - it's all as per our manual.

Brilliant. Well, let's go to another oven and have a look.

Now, this is a weird set-up.

Now, look, you housewives at home

who say to me, "You're a flamboyant chap.

"You've got all the facilities in the world to cook brilliantly.

"It's very difficult at home."

Look what these boys are doing. Blinking dustbins.

They cook out of here better than what most of you throw into them.

You know that, don't you? Let's look in there.

Look, bread being baked. This is really quite remarkable.

It's nice to know that if we ever get nuked,

when Birmingham and Manchester and London have been destroyed,

the Navy will be there setting up superb restaurants

on the devastated streets.

-Or won't you actually do that for us?

-Oh, we will do that.

You'll do that, as well. And then, in here,

these beautiful chickens being roasted. They're stuffed.

They've got wonderful vegetables and braising juices underneath.

Come on, if they can do it here, you can do it at home. That's for sure.

I tell you one thing that's missing - we haven't got a drink.

-Do the Navy still issue rum to...?

-Not to us any more, unfortunately.

-Not to us any more?

-Unfortunately, no.

-That's pretty bad, isn't it?

And we've got another stove over here.

Richard, you have to walk around and follow us a bit.

A normal stove, as you might have at home.

But we haven't got a normal cook here. This is a lady sailor.

-A lady sailor.

-Good morning.

-Good morning.

-Cook of the Year 1982, I might add.

-What are you doing in there?

-Cheese sauce.

-Can I test it with my poppadom?

-Yes, certainly.

-And what's it going to go on?

-The cauliflower.

-Brilliant.

And do you always cook in the middle of fields and things like that,

-or sometimes do you cook on ships?

-No, we don't go on ships.

-Never, never?

-No, never.

-Where else do you cook, besides here?

I cook for the First Sea Lord in London.

Oh, blimey. They're doing all right, aren't they? Why don't they have...?

You see, the First Sea Lords,

ever since Hornblower, have had an eye for the ladies.

Interesting, isn't it?

-Well, where to now, Ken?

-Right, we've got...

The Navy say that the three most useless things on a ship

are an umbrella, a vicar and a naval officer,

so if I stretch that to four and include me,

I reckon it's time I left them to it.

After all, too many cooks in this case can spoil the broth.

So, I'll slip into something more comfortable

and head for a modest little cafe in the heart of Dartmoor.

Now, he said left is port, right is left - I don't know.

Just after the first car track, right at the second sheep dip.

All hands, abandon car!

Ah, there it is. There it is.

So typical of the friendly, unpretentious little hostelries

of which this fair land is so justifiably proud.

And in the words of the old song, it's a long way to tip a drink down.

I don't know how they get customers here,

but I know, in fact, their prestigious reputation drags them

from all four corners of the Earth, particularly from America,

where - it's true - even Americans do know how to eat these days. Sorry about that, chaps.

Anyway, Sean is the chef here. He's a maitre cuisinier.

He's a superb bloke in every way.

I've known him intimately for about 11 minutes.

-Could have been 12.

-It could have been 12.

How...? I know how you get your customers -

it's your cooking - but where do you get the food from?

All over the place, but with difficulty.

You can see that the lanes are a bit difficult to negotiate,

but an example is the fish here. Norman Lewis has brought the fish.

Can we just have a look at Norman? Say hello.

-He's our token fisherman.

-Hello. Hello.

-Say hello to everybody.

All that sort of thing. What have we got in here, Norman?

-It looks absolutely superb.

-Right, well, we've got turbot here,

John Dory, red mullet, scallops and Dover sole.

-This is what your right arm is for.

-Oh, thank you. Cheers.

Left one's for pointing at the fish.

That's really brilliant. This is all Cornish fish?

-That's right, yes.

-I've been seeing a few sort of...

HE SNIFFS And that does smell beautiful.

Let me tell you, fish doesn't smell of fish, does it?

It smells of the seaside, of the sea.

It's really beautiful stuff. These are beautiful Cornish ones.

There are some Indian ones on the market. They're not as good as these.

Anyway, Sean, thank you very much for being our token fisherman.

-That's very kind of you.

-Pleasure.

-See you soon. You know, fish along.

And what are you going to do with this lot?

Well, I'm going to take the fillets off

and steam them and serve them with a butter sauce.

And I'm going to make the butter sauce with the bones

and bits and pieces, heads from the fish.

You can't actually know what you're going to cook until this fish arrives.

No. I can't make a menu until I know what comes.

And that's a very important point,

which I always say on this programme -

don't do your menu till you've done the shopping, OK?

Right, I think that's enough chat from me,

enough chat from him. How about a bit of filleting?

There's going to be a lot of filleting,

and you won't find that all that very interesting,

so just look at my happy, smiling face, having a slurp,

and we'll rejoin you after the break.

Welcome back. Welcome back. And I do mean that most sincerely.

As you can see, my mate Sean has been very busy

filleting all these fish.

Richard, I'm talking to the public, please.

Thank you very much. I do have such trouble with him, you know.

-Terrible.

-Anyway, what we're doing here is a panache of poisson.

Panache is French for shandy, mixture, you know?

So, when you're on your little hols this year,

park the tent, down the pub, "One panache, Jean, por favor."

OK? That's what you'll get.

Anyway, here we are. Is this nouvelle cuisine?

Well, it's difficult to call... Nouvelle cuisine's got a bad name.

The good parts are that it did away

with the worst of the excesses of the old cooking -

elaborate garnishes and things like that.

But, unfortunately, the people who couldn't cook the old cooking

-can't cook the new either.

-That is a very important point.

There's a thing which has done nouvelle cuisine a lot of harm.

The guy who can't make a good omelette or a good coq au vin...

-No, he still can't make it.

-And he still can't do it now.

-But this is slightly Chinesey, isn't it, as well?

-Very Chinese.

And the fact is that the pieces are cut

so that they'll cook roughly at the same time,

just like in a wok, when you put the different pieces in, cut to cook

-so it'll all be ready at the same time.

-Fine.

Having said all that, let's get it into the steamer.

So, that goes into the... Hold on. Don't put the lid down.

Richard, come right in there. There's a simple steamer.

If you haven't got one like that, of course,

you can organise something with a colander and a saucepan

and rig it up at home. Lid on, then.

Now the cooking has to happen, which Sean is going to do.

-Can I pass you anything, Sean?

-Yes, the stocks, please.

-The stocks.

Can I just show Richard these? This is a white fish stock, OK?

Fish bones and things simmered gently down

till it turns into jelly.

And a shellfish stock.

And all that Sean is now going to do is whisk some butter into those

to thicken them and make them delicious.

Richard, if you would just come back to me for a second...

You might find it rather difficult

to make those kind of stocks in your own home,

but the principle here is that you're poaching a very fresh fish.

You could put lemon and butter over them

and they'd still be delicious, OK?

So, don't worry about this sophisticated sort of thing.

Back here now. Well, Sean is beating some butter,

as you can see, into the sauce,

that makes it thick and unctuous and delicious, golden and tasty.

Can I...? They hate me doing this. Can I just...?

-Well, that's superb.

-Thank you.

And then on to the other one using the same technique.

Just beating some butter in there to thicken it,

putting it at the back of the stove.

Stay there while he gets the butter.

A little whiskation.

It's quite interesting. So, there you are, you see.

It's actually a sort of beurre blanc is what's being made here,

in professional and technical terms.

And it's just simple, slow cooking quickly finished with rich butter.

Richard, come up here a minute. It's quite interesting, isn't it?

People like this guy are stars.

I mean, they're not Formula 1 racing drivers,

they're not the lead singer in the rock and roll band,

but they're just as important, just as famous.

That wouldn't have happened years ago, would it?

I'm very pleased it is. Anyway, back here.

-We're nearly ready, aren't we?

-We certainly are.

-OK.

Can I hold the plate? Richard, you stay with us on the plate.

Sean is going to transfer this beautiful fish onto here.

-You are, aren't you?

-Yes.

-You're not nervous, are you?

-I'll try not to be.

-Right. You're doing brilliantly.

You know, cooks shouldn't be interfered with by cameras

and things like that anyway.

We take it off this plate, so that...

It's a large plate and it can be arranged attractively, artistically.

This is a painting. This is a man's canvas you're watching here.

And the varnish to preserve it for posterity,

like an old oil painting, is going to be two beautiful, sweet sauces.

Whack the sauces on, my dear.

Sorry, do you mind? Turn it that way so that people can see.

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

That's the white fish stock and butter sauce,

and this is the shellfish sauce.

And that, I think, is a piscatorial masterpiece.

CAT PURRS

Why on earth did you take up cooking, Sean?

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

It was more a hobby, really, to start off with,

that got out of hand.

I thought that it wouldn't be like real work,

doing something I enjoy, but it was.

It's worse than real work.

But the years rolled by and you get more and more interested in it

and you get more and more involved with what you're cooking.

-Times have changed a great deal since you started.

-Oh, enormously.

Can you remember what the first thing you ever cooked was?

-Professionally, that is.

-Well, it wasn't a whole meal,

for I only ever cook little bits of meals.

And so I cooked sort of a bit of your soup,

or I made the spinach for your vegetables or something like that.

I mean, that's part, really, of the problem

that cooks have got or have had before -

that they didn't see a whole meal, they only saw bits of it.

-Cheers to that.

-Yes. Good health. Cheers.

I think, in Sean here, we've met one of the most talented

but also one of the most humbly, loving cooks

you are ever likely to meet,

and it's been a privilege to talk to him, I think.

And having said that, if you'd like to leave us,

we'd like to just enjoy our food. Would that be OK?

Excellent stuff from Keith there.

Now, don't go anywhere just yet, as there's still plenty more to come

on today's Saturday Kitchen Best Bites.

Coming up, Ken Hom and Mark Sargent battle it out

on the Saturday Kitchen Omelette Challenge.

Vivek Singh is spicing things up

as he makes a goat and sweetcorn curry.

He marinates goat in yoghurt, coriander and turmeric

before pan-frying with cloves, cardamom, cumin,

onions and sweetcorn, and serving with chickpea bread.

And finally, Suzi Perry faces her food heaven or food hell.

Does she get her food heaven -

lavender and white chocolate ice cream

with lavender creme anglaise and a hot chocolate fondant -

or her food hell - pistachio and fig steamed sponge pudding

with pistachio ice cream?

Two tasty puds, but which one did she get?

Going to have to keep watching to the end of the show to find out.

But before all that, it's over to Martin Morales

who's serving up a Peruvian version of steak and chips.

-Great to have you on the show, Martin.

-Thanks for having me.

Tell us about this dish first of all. It's new to me.

It's called Lomo saltado.

Saltado means jumping and it's a beef stir-fry.

So we're going to make the flavours really jump out

and the ingredients jump as well.

-And that's with a very hot pan to start off with.

-Very hot pan.

It's a Peruvian dish but it comes from our Chinese Peruvian culture.

Chinese people came to Peru in about 1850

and brought tons of flavours, tons of ingredients and tons of dishes.

A bit like the Japanese, African, Italian and Spanish.

Peru is famous for so many different foods. We've got a few of them here.

Tomatoes originate... Potatoes from there.

And you're going to do some chips with this, or I'm going to do some chips.

-That would be fantastic. I'd appreciate that.

-And a bit of garlic?

-Yes, smashed garlic.

-So is this dish traditionally Peruvian?

-Yes.

We're going to marinade the beef first.

Yes, the dish came from our Peruvian Chinese culture.

And, erm...

There's about 10,000 chifa restaurants,

that's Chinese Peruvian restaurants in Lima itself.

So that's one of the cultures that is in Peru,

as well as Nikkei culture, which is the Japanese Peruvian culture.

So a lot of flavours.

It really is the epicentre for great ingredients, isn't it, Peru?

I mean, great ingredients, great flavours, great food, great cooking.

It literally is a foodie destination.

There are tons and tons of chefs coming to Peru right now.

We're going to put a bit of Worcester sauce

and put some soy sauce in there and then some red wine vinegar.

But, yes, there are tons of chefs coming to Peru.

There's more chef schools in Peru than any other country in the world, apparently.

-Right.

-And Peru's got the most number of national dishes, 491.

It's in the Guinness Book Of Records.

-So that sort of tells you a bit about...

-He's a plethora of knowledge, isn't he?!

And you're saying 10,000 Chinese restaurants.

That's slightly more than what we have

in terms of Indian restaurants in this country.

It's incredible. Yes.

Chips you want doing the normal way,

but we're going to finish them off slightly different.

Let me just taste this to see if the marinade is all right.

The most famous dish of course is the ceviche, which is the name of your restaurant.

So tell us about that then.

How did you first end up opening that place?

Well, I've been cooking since I was 11-years-old.

I was born in Peru

and I just watched my great aunt Carmela cook all the time.

She really inspired me and that stayed with me all my life.

And I've kind of worked in music, worked in other areas as well,

but the cooking has always been there, so couple of years ago

I said, stop doing that, stop doing everything else,

and really see if we can open the very best Peruvian restaurant,

because there wasn't that at the time.

So we said, let's try it. So we started tweeting.

I started tweeting about it and people said,

"Hey, I think we'd like you to do it."

So we did pop-up restaurants and then it all led to this wonderful,

wonderful amazing restaurant that we now have in Soho in London.

I mean, you mentioned your music career and you kind of floated over it but...

-I'm just going to put this in the fridge.

-Absolutely.

But you've been at the start of many, many sort of things as we know it now,

particularly the music scene, nightclubs and stuff like that.

People will be listening to this going, it depends how old you are,

"Martin Morales. I remember him - nightclubs."

-You were a big DJ. Huge...

-No, no, no.

Yes, you are. Around the world. Go on.

Well, I played in Japan, I played in Russia, in Morocco,

in New York Central Park.

So I travelled around. But that was a hobby.

I mean, I had a day job working for music companies -

iTunes, Apple and Disney.

But really, what I loved was cooking.

-Now I'm beginning to understand your dish.

-That's right.

-Jumping. DJ.

It's the same thing. Running a restaurant is like conducting an orchestra.

Everything has got to be right.

But you genuinely used to cook and DJ at the same time?

Yes, I had a club night about 15 years ago called the Global Kitchen

where I would cook and DJ at the same time.

I was called DJ Chef.

-Right.

-So that was a lot of fun.

I know, because all the guys were excited about Rachel coming here

but there was one girl in particular that was very excited about you coming in today.

We've got Michaela over there who use to go clubbing

-and used to go clubbing to your night.

-Apparently.

She just said, "I know you from somewhere."

She was the one like this.

-She was like, "Martin, give me another tune, Martin!"

-Absolutely!

I said, "Well I've got to do some cooking as well!"

In her little orange hot-pants!

Anybody that's got a picture of Michaela in a nightclub, please send it to Saturday Kitchen.

Brilliant. So yes, thanks for doing those.

Now we're going to chop a little bit of... Just for seasoning.

Just get out a few sprigs of the coriander and parsley.

You put the beef in the fridge.

How long would you marinade that for because that's going to break it down as well, isn't it?

Yes, absolutely. Six to 12 hours. 12 is the absolute perfect, I think.

-So you don't want...

-Do you want me to get that out of the fridge?

-Yes, please.

-The one in the fridge?

-Thank you very much, yes. There's one we made earlier.

-So this is fillet of beef you're using here?

-Yes, only the best.

Absolutely. Nice big chunks. Three centimetre cubes.

Really lovely. So that's been in there for 12 hours.

The most amazing thing about your food is,

you actually use the spices pretty much the ones I use.

-But the flavours you produce are so different.

-Exactly.

And that's the wonderful thing about cooking around the world, right?

It's amazing.

In Peru, we have these wonderful influences from other places.

From our Inca cuisine to other countries as well.

And ceviche being a top, top dish

again adapts itself to different types of chillies.

-That's the Amarillo one.

-Amarillo chilli, this one.

-Just slice it.

-You just slice it?

-Yes. Thinly. That would be great.

This is not a hot chilli, it's a sweet chilli.

-Well, it's an aromatic chilli. That's about right.

-That's enough.