28/01/2018 Saturday Kitchen Best Bites

Good morning. There's an abundance of Asian-inspired dishes for you on today's show,

another celebrity will face their Food Heaven or Food Hell and of

course there's a classic Saturday Kitchen Omelette Challenge as well.

So, don't start the roast dinner just yet.

Grab yourself a cuppa and make yourself comfy

and enjoy another slice of Saturday Kitchen Best Bites.

Welcome to the show. You're not going to want to go anywhere for the next 90 minutes

because we've been digging through the Saturday Kitchen archives

to bring you some of our favourite moments from over the years.

Coming up, Vic Reeves will be shooting for the stars when

he tucks in to tamarind and coconut lamb and vegetable stir fry.

Jun Tanaka is here with a recipe using only the best British produce.

He confits brined pork neck in rapeseed oil,

before serving alongside home-made celeriac and carrot coleslaw,

crushed potatoes and roasted pepper and herb vinaigrette.

Peter Lloyd makes his Saturday Kitchen debut with a sensational

seafood starter of black pepper shrimp and sundried pineapple.

He makes a puree of spring onions, ginger, garlic,

Sarawak pepper, fermented black beans and soy sauce,

before stirring through the prawns and serving with pea shoots,

sundried pineapple and jicama.

It's an old hand versus a new boy when John Torode takes

on debutant Cary Docherty in the Saturday Kitchen Omelette Challenge.

And then it's over to the master of spice Cyrus Todiwala,

who is cooking not one but two Burns Night inspired dishes.

He makes a three-bird haggis soup, flavoured with cumin, ginger

and coriander, and then serves it alongside traditional haggis

potato cakes, with fried egg and spicy ketchup on top.

And, finally, Emma Bunton faces her Food Heaven or Food Hell.

Will she get her Food Heaven - lobster ravioli with lobster sauce, samphire and baby carrots?

Or her Food Hell - lime and chilli monkfish tail with a pea guacamole and tomato salsa?

Two luxurious dishes there, but which one did she get?

You're going to have to keep watching to find out.

But before all that, it's over to Paul Merrett, who is serving up a super salmon sashimi.

It's Paul Merrett. Now, I know you're a busy man, Paul. Welcome to the show.

-Yeah, thanks.

-This dish, it's simplicity itself, isn't it, really?

It's easy peasy. Japanesey sort of food.

I'm not going to pretend this is real Japanese food.

It's my take on it.

-But it's all about clean flavours.

-OK.

-And nice, clean presentation.

But a lot of people are a bit scared about sort of Japanese cooking cos they don't know...

-Particularly this - raw fish.

-Yeah. Yeah, raw fish is very good for you.

Very good for you indeed. We're using a bit of salmon,

-but it could equally be sea bass or bream or something like that.

-But it needs to be fresh.

-It does need to be absolutely fresh. None of that sort of frozen counter lark.

-Yeah, OK.

-Can't do any of that.

-And none of the stuff that's wrapped in clingfilm.

-None of that, either.

-Right, so we've got salmon.

-OK, we'll start with the salmon.

-We're just going to lightly cure this.

-While you're curing that, you want me to slice these.

I would love you to slice some shallots. I'm just going to sprinkle a little bit of salt

and a little bit of sugar on top of this salmon

and that's going to withdraw the moisture from the salmon

slightly and that process is called osmosis,

which will impress your guests when you sit down at the table, I think.

That's off a plant, isn't it?

Whatever the working title of that is. That goes over there, right?

You're chopping shallots, I'm going to help you chop a shallot.

And what we're going to do is we're going to make a little

crunch for the top of the salmon.

And this is kind of the twist, I suppose, on the dish.

So, nice fine rings of shallot. How many have you got?

Right, that's fine, we're ready.

OK, and then these are going to go into a fryer.

I don't actually have a fryer at home.

If I was doing this at home, I would throw these into a pan of oil

and I'd make sure I watched it didn't flare up or anything.

-If you can stick that in there, that's great.

-The fryer is set...

This one is set at about 170. Not too hot, yeah?

170, that would be perfect.

Whilst you're doing that, I'm going to peel a cucumber

and we're going to start the cucumber pickle.

So I'm just going to peel this down.

Now, obviously, you and me have got about five minutes to do this,

I think, haven't we? If I was doing this at home for friends,

I wouldn't wait until they're all stood in my living room

necking my Liebfraumilch before I started making this.

It's a glam night in, that, at your place!

A bottle of Liebfraumilch and cucumber!

No, I would do this well in advance. So if you want to grate that for me.

-Are you up for that?

-Yeah, I'll do that.

You can twiddle those, if you like, and grate that in a second. Right, this is the sort of thing that can

-sit in the fridge till the next lot of guests come round.

-Yeah.

And you can do exactly the same thing again.

-Cucumber is very simple to grow. Very easy to grow.

-They are.

They never turn out like that!

Cos I've got an allotment and my cucumbers are all gnarly.

That's how cucumbers should be!

-Right.

-They hide, don't they?

My cucumbers got ruined last year cos of red spider ant, or something.

-A red spider ant?

-Yeah, and I went online and they said I need a bomb.

-A bomb?!

-Yeah, I thought

I was going to get arrested or the police were going to come round.

With a rucksack...

But apparently you do and it's literally the way you get

rid of those red spider ants in your greenhouse.

Right, we need our grater. Where's our grater gone?

-I've got the grater here.

-You've got the grater. Right.

And what I want you to do is squeeze all the moisture...

-I'm going to leave you to do that.

-OK.

-There you go.

Nice and golden and then take them out and we're going to drain them on that paper, OK?

-Right.

-So, I'm going to squeeze the moisture out of the cucumber.

-There we go.

-So, you're basically cooking these until they're crisp, is that right?

Yeah, what we're doing is...

When you throw something in the fryer and it bubbles, it's the

natural moisture in whatever you're cooking coming out of the food, into

the oil, so that's what creates the bubble and so, really,

you're almost dehydrating it.

-OK.

-There we go.

Squeeze all that out. And we'll do the other half as well.

-All right. How long do you leave this...?

-Do you know what?

You don't have to do it all if you don't want to.

I prefer the firmness of the flesh after it's been cured.

Up to three hours, I would say. As sort of a guide.

Tell us about your pub because, literally,

you have left the world of kind of fine dining.

-A lot of chefs are doing this.

-God, they miss me!

-But it's true.

You've spent your entire career chasing Michelin stars and that sort of stuff.

Yeah, I caught one eventually, which was nice.

And I think I got to a point...

I think probably children brought it on.

I became much more real about food

and I just felt that I wanted to do something a little bit more

earthy and so for me a gastropub was the way forward.

I mean, I can't get it out of my system.

I still do all that arty farty plating stuff,

but we use much more rugged ingredients. I'm just chopping a chilli here.

That water, you can still utilise that for dressings

-and stuff like that.

-Oh, absolutely.

You could drink it if you really wanted to.

-Right, are these onions OK?

-They look absolutely lovely.

Drain those on there and give them a good old pressing on the paper.

-OK, I'll just drain those out.

-Withdraw the oil. OK?

Now, into here, into this pan,

just going to take the lid off that, I'm going to add some oil.

OK, so garlic and chilli in there, OK?

-Talking about '80s, he's got white socks on.

-I have.

For Kim Wilde, I've got my white socks on!

Right, cucumber in, OK?

And then on top of that I'm going to add some soy sauce.

A little bit of that. It's sort of a feeling, really.

You add as much as you want to add. You can always add more later.

A little bit of white wine vinegar. Some sugar.

So, as with any pickle, you're just sort of going for that sweet

-and sour balance.

-Yeah.

-That's really what you want.

OK, and then finally we're going to throw in some spring onions.

-There we go.

-Is it the type of thing that you can make beforehand

and it's better soaking and stuff like that,

-or could you serve it straight out of the pan?

-The cucumber pickle? It would develop,

definitely the flavours would be better sort of 36 hours on.

So, again, don't leave it till the last minute to make it.

There we are. Throw that in. And then we'll just give that...

I've got to say, this is the first ever time I've just been

stood here, pressing onions in between kitchen paper.

You've got to get all that oil out.

-Got to get it out, mate. That's the way.

-It's there. Nice and crispy.

So, you can see that.

It's warm, it's got the tang of the soy sauce,

it's got the spice of the chilli.

That is just right. Now, we're almost there.

-Right.

-We're going to put these into the blender.

-It's a little food processor.

-Yeah.

So, they go in and then we're going

to add to that some of these

ingredients here.

Some sugar and some salt

and the red ones in the middle are dried red chillies, OK?

There is a bit of sugar in Japanese food, isn't there?

Yeah, there is. That sweet little tang is good.

Dried red chillies, obviously, is going to give it a kick, so we're going to add plenty of those.

Cos they look quite a sturdy bunch over there, to me.

-They need waking up, it's early still. So if you blend that.

-Right.

Now, you're just basically taking this to a nice little crumb, really.

Yeah, a nice little crumb.

I have to say, I've never seen this...

I don't know whether they're used to it. Have you seen this before?

This technique? No, but I've noted it down, James.

Yeah, it'll be on in his restaurant.

He's got too many restaurants for his own good, that man.

Right, OK. I'm just going to cut the salmon into a block.

And what I should do, actually, is just wipe some of that salt

-and sugar off.

-Do you want me to make this wasabi?

-I would love you to make the wasabi.

This is powdered wasabi you've got here.

Yeah, you can buy a tube of it. You don't have to use the powdered one, if you don't want to do that.

-Which, of course, is Japanese horseradish. There you go.

-Right,

-OK. How are we doing?

-I'm just getting the wasabi here.

Right, you get the wasabi, I'll get this ready.

A bit of water, that's all it is, this green colour.

Put that on the board. There you go.

It is actually quite fiery, this stuff.

Yeah, again, use sparingly, if you don't like it fiery.

I personally do.

-I don't like it.

-You don't like wasabi? You're joking!

-No, I can't stand the stuff.

-Oh, James! That's terrible!

-I'll eat the other bit.

-Oh, that's awful. Right, OK.

A little bit more. Right, OK.

We're just going to upturn that onto there.

Give that a bit of a press, so that it sticks.

Really, I'm using wasabi almost as a glue.

For the crunch, right? So we turn that back, OK?

-That looks great, that.

-Lose the board for me, if that's all right.

Turn that over there.

And then we'll just take some nice slices. How many guests have we got?

-I didn't count them.

-Four. Five, including you.

You can do six slices, but I won't eat the wasabi bit.

Oh, all right. OK.

So, nice and thick. You want a little bit of texture.

-I'm going to get the pickle cos the idea is you want to...

-Yeah, chill that down.

-If you can go and get the other pickle.

-OK.

-I'll keep everybody happy over here.

-This has been chilled for about an hour. Something like that.

-There we go.

Now, the secret about salmon is that what you want is a nice clean

presentation, so just going to lay those slices back on the plate.

There we go.

-Looks so clean and so...

-It does, doesn't it?

-Looks great, doesn't it?

-And you've got that crunch on top,

which just gives it a bit of texture, which I think it needs.

OK. And then cucumber pickle, love it.

Right, give a good old dollop of this cos it's

the sort of thing that everybody's going to love, this bit.

There we go. All right, dollop that on there.

And there you go, salmon sashimi, my style,

with a shallot and chilli crunch and cucumber pickle.

Easy as that.

As Kim says, it's so cool. Well, it's so simple, isn't it, to make?

-Yeah.

-There you go. Have a seat, Paul.

-And then dive in. This is where you get to taste.

-Wow!

-Thanks!

-Taste this bit.

-Fantastic.

-And see what you think.

But you mentioned the fact that you could use other types of fish as well.

-Sea bass could be one of them.

-Sea bass would be great.

-Yeah, bream, I think, is very nice raw as well.

-Yeah.

-Any of those fish.

-Quite oily as well.

-Yeah.

-Mm!

-Yeah.

-What do you think?

-It's fantastic.

-Is it all right?

What about the shallot bit on the top?

Dive in, guys. What about the shallot bit on the top?

-I love that little crusty...

-Oh, good!

-I love it.

The little crunchiness with the softness of the fish.

There's something healthy as well. There's a good sort of feeling from eating it.

Yeah, normally found in hotdogs and stuff like that, but you crisp it up and blend it.

-That's a great little dish. Perfect for a nice little light starter.

-I think so.

I think so. It's up to Stuart to come up with the main course now.

Delicious, I love it. And very low fat as well.

I think the girls like it as well.

Kim was wild for Paul's dish there, and what a great start to the show!

Coming up, Vic Reeves enjoys tamarind and coconut lamb

and vegetable stir fry. But before that,

Rick Stein is cooking dishes that dreams are made of.

Just watch out for the tide, Rick.

I love the heat and tropical sense of Thailand, but I must say, it's

great to get back to the purity of light and the quietness of Cornwall.

But I still like to cook Thai food in Cornwall.

This is a John Dory, pretty impressive looking beast,

don't you think? Some people say it's ugly. I think it just...

Well, it may look a bit glum, but not ugly.

Anyway, the great thing about John Dory is it makes really good steaks.

And ideal for this dish, which I'm now going to cook,

which we got from Thailand again, from Hua Hin,

and it's hard fried fish, with a red curry sauce.

First of all, get my pan nice and hot and while I get that hot,

I just want to talk about the red curry paste I'm going to make

the sauce with. Now, they're all...

Red curry pastes from Thailand are all subtly different.

In this case, we've got turmeric, we've got cumin, we've got

coriander, shallots, garlic, a little bit of paprika, ginger,

red chillies, Chalky's favourite fish paste, called Belacan,

which smells so much, and lemongrass.

So I've wazzed that all up in a mortar

and pestle to produce that lovely red curry paste.

Now I'll just put a little bit of oil in this pan.

And fry the curry paste hard.

Just let that fry till quite a lot of the moisture's been driven off.

And now some coconut milk. About just under half a pint, I suppose.

Stir that around. Now, some brown sugar.

And some fish sauce.

A couple of tablespoons of fish sauce.

And just leave that to simmer away gently.

There's only one more ingredient to add at the end of that, fresh lime

juice. It's much better if you can just put freshly squeezed

lime juice in a sauce like that, right at the end, it really

lifts the flavour. Fantastic. OK, that's nice and thickened up.

I've only got the one burner, so I've got to put the wok with

the oil on the top of it, just take my stands over.

There we go. And on with the wok.

I don't know if you've noticed behind me

but it's happened in another programme we did before...

Actually, it takes a long time doing these sort of things

out of doors because what happens is you get helicopters coming over,

then you get a little sort of biplane, you know, whizzing across.

Then somebody starts a strimmer over there and you have to go

and say, "Look, please, cut it off,"

and then there's a little motorboat, with an outboard motor.

And all these times, you have to stop and wait.

And meanwhile, the blinking tide's coming in.

And I'm just beginning to get my feet wet, but here we go.

First one. Then the other.

And that's going to take about two minutes,

so while they're cooking, I'll just finish off the sauce.

Which is now nicely reduced.

And I'm just going to add a little bit of lime juice there,

fresh lime juice, as I said. That'll give it a real zing.

OK, I think we're just about there with the fish.

See, it's all nice and crisped up now, so that's good.

Nicely fried.

And there's the other one.

Butterflied out. That looks great!

And now just to finish the dish.

If you can't get John Dory like that,

a steak of cod or monkfish would do. And now some sauce.

It's lovely and fragrant and sour and hot,

but above all, fresh tasting.

And a good sprinkle of chopped coriander, just roughly chopped.

And that's it.

OK? Do you mind if I go now?

Thanks.

"Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

"Did gyre and gimble in the wabe."

That always makes me think of that time between sort of dreaming

and waking, when you're never quite sure where you are.

And when we're making these programmes,

we're always thinking about recipes.

And poor old Dave, he has these dreams where food is all

tumbled together in strange, foreign places.

Well, it was only a dream

but I was inside the Walled City in Hong Kong and there was wires...

There's something about other people's dreams that are

-so boring, Dave.

-There were wires everywhere.

There were rats running round the place and I was undercover,

cooking for these gangsters...

Well, there's one thing you can say about dreams.

If you've got something on your mind, you know

inevitably you're going to dream about it.

So I just thought,

what a good idea just to try out what he was dreaming about and

see if dreams can bring up the most wonderful dishes,

the most wonderful stories.

So, first of all, he said some fish,

so start off with a bit of cod, I think.

Just cut that up a little bit.

And now prawns. Now, he said they should go in with the fish.

I'm a bit disappointed about that

because I like the texture of prawns,

but in the spirit of science, we'll do exactly what he said.

Now, an egg. The eggs that bind. That'll do.

A little bit of a blend with the fish and the prawns,

so one egg, I think, will do.

In that goes.

And that'll be great.

So I'll just empty that out into this bowl

and in goes the crab meat and just fold that in nicely.

Now, he said a bit of breadcrumbs, so we'll just put about a couple

of handfuls of that in, just to bind it up, to make it easy to mould out.

And now for the flavourings. What was it? Lemon.

Lemon zest first of all.

This is obviously a bit of an Italian come Chinese dish.

The Italian, the lemon zest and the basil, the Chinese, well,

the balls cos they go in for lots of fish balls.

So he must have been in a right old turmoil in his bed. Poor old Dave.

So, mix those in. OK,

that looks about right. Just try a little bit.

Don't do that if you don't like raw fish, but I do.

Actually, that's tasting pretty good.

Maybe this has got some potential.

I mean, you know what dreams are like normally. Forget it.

You know, sort of... In your dreams, pasta.

OK, I'll just do about six of these.

I can't be bothered cos I just want to get on and cook

this and see what it's like.

So, we can start making the sauce now. First of all, some olive oil.

And then some garlic.

There we are. Nice lot of garlic. And some onion.

Plenty of onion.

Just stir that around a bit, just to get it nice and...

Translucent's the word.

And then some nice chopped tomato

and we're going to use fresh tomatoes here.

About 15, 20 of them.

Stir them round.

And now some herbs. Now, we'll have some bay leaves.

Nice fresh bay leaves, about four of them, I suppose.

And some fresh thyme.

A couple of sprigs.

That's good and now I think we'll have some vinegar.

I like a good slug of red wine vinegar in something like this.

Now, did he say wine? No, I don't think he did.

Bit of salt.

And plenty of pepper.

And we'll just leave that to simmer away.

So that's been going for about 20 minutes now and look,

it's really nice and reduced and looking absolutely lovely.

So I'm just going to force this sauce down through

the conical strainer with the back of a ladle.

Pushing everything through.

Quite nice big holes in this conical strainer, so a lot of it'll

go through, only the sort of really rough debris stays behind.

Just put that back on the heat now.

We'll just poach off these balls in it.

Look at that. Look at the lovely coating on them.

They'll just poach in about three, four, five minutes. Not much longer.

Now, I've just got a big pot of water here.

Remember, lots and lots of water when you cook pasta.

This time Tagliatelle. Cooked it for about nine, ten minutes.

Well salted water.

Just take that colander and pour all the pasta

into a nice big bowl ready to put on the fish balls and the sauce.

And now, I think we'll just put four balls on this one.

It's not a six ball dish, this.

I'm just going to finish it off with a little, what we call,

a chiffonade of basil.

Look at that, lovely green basil and a good generous pinch of Parmesan.

I'm getting quite excited, I really am, about this.

It looks good. You know, why not?

You have meatballs and pasta.

If they're well-made like these are, of course,

and the pasta perfectly cooked, al dente, why not fish balls?

Well, this came out of a conversation about a dream.

I think you've already heard what I think about people's dreams.

Boring.

But I've never tasted this before. Let's just see...

Excuse the bits of pasta hanging everywhere.

Hey.

It's all right.

Well, that's one way to create new recipes

and there are so many great, easy dishes you can try at home

and I've got another one to show you right now from my recent trip.

It's a coconut tamarind lamb stir-fry.

It uses, basically, this lovely loin of lamb that we've got on here,

which is, kind of, the same to sort of a sirloin on beef, really.

Obviously, it's a smaller piece.

But I'm going to stir-fry that with tamarind, coconut milk,

some mizuna leaves, which is different,

you can get these from supermarkets now, these little mizuna leaves.

Different... Try it.

Very different to rocket as well, not as peppery

but a different sort of taste, really good.

-Ginger...

-It's a weak rocket.

-Yes, it's like a weak rocket.

I think it's a great, great herb, that.

Then we've got some cabbage and all manner of different things just put into a stir-fry.

I'm just going to, basically, thinly slice our lamb

and stir-fry that together and then take it out and let it rest,

and then stir-fry the rest of the stuff.

-I think I cooked this, this week.

-Did you?

-Yeah.

-On Monday or Tuesday, I think.

-You do all the cooking at home, don't you?

-Yeah. Not all of it. Nancy cooked last night...

-Right.

-She made a cowboy pie, which was very good.

-Right.

A cowboy pie?

-Minced beef, beans, haricot beans.

-All right, OK.

Bit of that in there. We throw all that lot in.

We stir-fry this. Very, very hot.

That's probably a bit too hot.

But we just get a bit of colour on that...

..and that's done.

-So, Vic Reeves, this is your life.

-Yes, please.

-Born James Moir.

-Yeah.

-Father, grandfather - same name, same birthday.

-Yes.

-How weird is that?

-Yes, I know. All from Leeds.

-All from Leeds.

Failed all exams at school apart from art.

That's right, but that was in 1975 and the whole nation failed.

JAMES LAUGHS

It was.

The amount of work I put in to me history, geography,

and I should have won. I should have...

A crown should have been awarded to me,

the amount of work I put into that.

Yeah, but fast forward ten years, the same thing was happening.

-In 1988, I failed cookery at school.

-Yeah.

And the only exam that I passed was art.

But passing just art was enough qualification to get you

into art college, be a mechanic or be a chef.

That's all I wanted to do.

I ended up being a mechanic but I wanted to go to art school.

But questions were raised that year, let me tell you, in parliament.

In parliament!

That's nicely done.

So why did you pursue art as a career, then?

You're doing it now...

I'm doing it now but when I grew up the thing to do was to, you know,

get a job and get something that was going to last for a while.

So my dad said, go and work in a factory.

So I did for about four years and decided this isn't what I want to

do, I'm not going to spend the rest of me life doing this, so I fled.

-Right.

-Without finishing my apprenticeship.

We may have come from the same sort of area in Yorkshire

because I was told, when I was a kid, that you couldn't pursue art

as a career, that was the only exam that I passed,

because all the wealthy artists were all dead.

-Well, my dad said...

-You need to get a proper job.

-Yeah, exactly.

So he said, "Do you know any artists who have been successful?"

So I said, "Andy Warhol."

He went, "Pfft, look at him."

-David Hockney.

-Yeah.

So it wasn't really the done thing.

It was, you know, go and get a job, but my dad did say later on

he wished he'd said, "Yeah, go to art school."

Which I did do eventually.

But comedy came about when you were a group of kids just messing around.

Is that where you fell in love with it or got the idea of it?

Yes, we messed about. We were in a...

There were five of us, five mates called The Fashionable Five.

We were a kind of a musical group but more of an adventure group.

JAMES LAUGHS Adventure group!

-We used to have fun.

-Right.

That's what it was all about and, you know, so we...

Having fun as a teen.

And how did you break away from that and then go into stand up?

Because you then started off with your little one-man tour,

-didn't you?

-No, it wasn't a tour, it wasn't really stand-up, either.

I'd left art school and put on what I considered to be

-a bit of performance art on a stage in a pub...

-Right.

..in South London, at Goldsmiths Tavern. And it was...

-I called it Vic Reeves' Big Night Out.

-Right.

So... It was just like, you know, it was different every week.

It wasn't really stand-up, there wasn't a routine.

It was just like, let's have fun...

-Wasn't that where you met Bob, was it?

-Yeah, he was in the audience.

People say he was heckling

but I don't think Bob's ever heckled in his life.

He was just there as a mate, a mate of a mate.

I said to him, "Here, do you fancy coming on the stage next week

"and saying these lines?"

I think he had to give me a cheque for all the marvellous work

I'd done for some charity, which was a big con.

JAMES CHUCKLES

That was all... I said,

"You bring this massive cheque on and I'll boast about it."

Right. And how did TV come about from that then,

putting the two together?

We went from there to the Albany Empire, which is a bigger theatre,

which held about 350 people and we did the same thing.

We had a show which was about three hours long of very mixed content...

-Right.

-..and it was different every week.

So I put on six and then a lot of people turned up and there's a gap,

and then another series of six of these live shows,

and word got out, and people were coming from all around the country.

So word got out and then...

Jonathan Ross was down and Jools Holland, you know,

and word got about.

Eventually, there was Channel 4 and Alan Yentob from...

Sir Michael Grade and Alan Yentob were in the audience one night

and they both wanted us to go and...

That sort of, the total mix of stuff, you never know what's

going to happen, has followed you, you know, Shooting Stars...

-It's unbounded enthusiasm.

-But it is.

As a guest, you really haven't got a clue what's about to happen.

You've been a guest and we don't let anyone know what's happening.

A lot of these panel shows that, kind of, let people know what's up

and give them, almost, give them lines to read.

But you know what it's like when you come on our show,

-you haven't a clue what's going to happen.

-You definitely haven't got a clue.

But that spirit's still there with your new thing you're doing now.

It's aimed at kids but adults can watch it as well.

-The Ministry Of Curious Stuff.

-Tell us how that came about.

Well, I did a book about two years ago called

Vic Reeves' Vast Encyclopaedia Of World Knowledge

which was... It was full of semi-truths.

And it kind of.. Someone at the Beeb said,

-"Shall we make a TV show out of this for kids?"

-Yeah.

That's how it started and then it developed into what it is now,

which is, I'm the boss,

I'm the minister of this government department

who finds out information from the kids,

and then explains it via the gift of sketches and nonsense.

With the help of other people

because you've got Dan Skinner as well.

Dan Skinner, who's Angelos in Shooting Stars,

he's playing Captain Length-Width.

-Who's brilliant in it, I have to say.

-He's great.

We've got a good, kind of, rapport going on.

It's quite an old-fashioned type of comedy that we do in it,

which is good for adults and good for kids, but it's good for adults.

But it's quite an old-fashioned, sort of, cross talk,

-sort of '50s radio style.

-This is for CBBC, is it? CBBC?

CBBC, yeah.

Right, I've got everything in there.

The lamb's gone back in, we've got the tamarind,

we've got the coconut milk, everything's gone back in there.

Now, as well as all that, you're an author,

you're an artist with all your shows and doing bits and pieces,

but you're starting your comedy show, tell us about that.

Is it one-man stand-up or...?

Well, we're going to do, we haven't done a live tour for, I think,

15 years, probably more than 15 years.

So we're going to try some stuff out in Leeds,

at the Leeds City Varieties in March.

-We're going to do three days there and try some stuff out.

-Right.

I was thinking...

We'll try different, old characters, something old, something new.

But I was thinking, you know, for merchandise,

because I've been doing quite a bit of pottery recently, I might make...

-You're making your own range?

-..make some mugs.

Instead of merchandise selling T-shirts and that,

I fancy having a craft stall.

JAMES LAUGHS

-Having handmade mugs...

-Yeah, that's a good idea.

..macrame hats.

You could sell some of your chutneys.

Yeah, that would be quite good. There you go.

-We've got the lamb there. Best of luck with that.

-That looks good.

-What's that you've put it on?

-Banana leaf.

That local ingredient to Yorkshire.

-Could you eat that?

-No, I wouldn't eat it.

They normally wrap it up and cook fish in it and bits and bobs.

This looks like what I made earlier this week.

Let's see if you can do any... Oh, look at that. That's nice.

-Lamb's still pink, see.

-I'll have a bit of that and a bit of that.

-That's how you cook it and then literally put it back in after...

-I love tamarind.

-It's quite minty.

-Yeah.

Erm, there's quite an English thing going on about it as well

-with that mint.

-It's cooked by a Yorkshireman, yeah.

The only thing English in there is the lamb and the mint

but other than that, it's not far off.

A craft stall at a comedy gig?

I think I'd stick with the signed DVDs, please, Vic.

Now, after a couple of Asian-inspired dishes to start the show,

it's over to Jun Tanaka who's making a dish

out of only the finest British ingredients.

What's on the menu? What's this?

So this is a Street Kitchen dish which is like a business

that I started with a really good friend of mine, Mark Jankel,

and it's a street food business, and we launched last year in May

and we've got, we bought one of those vintage Airstream trailers...

Ah, right, yeah.

And we have one in Liverpool Street and we serve, kind of,

British bistro dishes for a price of a chilled sandwich.

-And this is one of them?

-This is one of the dishes.

-This is..

What have you got there, the neck?

Yeah, this is the pork neck which I've brined.

Brining, I absolutely love, brining.

Got water, some salt, sugar, garlic and rosemary,

and I've just left the pork in the brine for about 10 hours

and it just gives it this seasoned taste,

it gives it this wonderful flavour and also it keeps it really moist.

And that's the confit side of it?

Because normally we'd do that with duck legs, salted,

and that's the brine, wet brine, but you do that with dry,

and then you cook it in duck fat. You're doing it with...

-Rapeseed oil.

-Rapeseed oil, which I've got the last remaining

bottle in Britain, to make my mayonnaise in here.

Don't split it, then.

I'll try not to. There you go.

OK, so get rid of that.

And the pork neck, you can ask your butcher to get it for you

but you can use pork belly, pork shoulder,

anything that's got some fat running through it

will work beautifully with this.

It takes about four hours to cook.

Now, you say you can re-use that oil

but you can't deep-fry in rapeseed oil, I suppose, can you?

-Yeah, you could.

-Can you?

I mean, I don't see the point of deep frying in rapeseed oil,

-it seems kind of a waste.

-No, but if you do this dish,

you'll have rapeseed oil for the rest of your life, won't you, really?

-Yeah, that's true.

-Yeah.

OK, we've got the pork neck which has been cooked.

Just test it with a metal skewer, if it slides in easily,

then it's perfectly cooked.

And all that rapeseed oil, just put it into the fridge

-and then you can re-use it, over and over again.

-OK.

And then, just going to roll it up when it's slightly warm,

just to shape it into a nice kind of sausage shape.

-Right.

-This is hot.

Ah!

-It's a bit chilly in here today, isn't it?

-It is a bit.

Or maybe it's because we were in hot countries before.

-You've been to Thailand, haven't you?

-Yeah. Just got back yesterday.

Amazing, amazing street food in Thailand.

Some of the best in the world, I think.

Roll it up really tightly, loads of clingfilm.

You're doing this with the neck, not often a piece of meat that you

use, but you could use lamb neck as well, which is fantastic.

-Yeah.

-That's also available.

-It's all those forgotten cuts.

-I love cooking forgotten cuts.

-And very inexpensive, as well.

-Exactly.

But packed full of flavour.

-Roll it up.

-I assume they use it for sausage meat normally.

-You've got the mayonnaise which hasn't split.

-Yeah!

I had some underneath just ready for him.

There you go. Love a bit of mayonnaise.

-Are you proud you made mayonnaise?

-I'm pleased with that.

PANEL LAUGHS

OK, once it sets...

Five years of doing this and 30 years studying catering

and now I'm doing coleslaw. But go on, then.

-And just slice it into nice, sort of, one centimetre pieces.

-Right.

-And it sets really, really firm in the fridge.

-Yeah.

Blowtorch? Maybe?

I'm getting it on there first

because I've got to make the coleslaw.

Get that nice and hot.

And now I'm just going to caramelise the outside of the pork neck

-just to give it a nice crispy shell.

-Right.

This is the thing you want to do in advance, you can keep that...

-I suppose that also freezes well.

-Yes.

And in the fridge, that will keep for a week, no problem at all.

-So, about this Street Food, then...

-Yeah?

..the idea is it's like a mobile kitchen, I suppose.

Is it a kitchen or is it just, you make it in one place

and take it with you? Is that the kind of idea?

We have a production kitchen in Battersea which we launched,

well, last year in May.

And then we launched a hatch in that production kitchen

so you can buy food there, Monday to Friday for lunch,

and also we've got this vintage Airstream trailer, which is

one of those American caravans, and we converted it.

I didn't think you'd have a white caravan like we have in the UK,

you know, one of those things, thought you'd have something fancy.

Yeah, it looks like a...

It's a pretty cool thing.

-And then converted it and then we can move that around.

-Right.

And then we serve...

We take all the food from the production kitchen in Battersea,

load up the trailer and take it down to Liverpool Street,

and then serve lunch.

There you go.

Easy as that. Give you more ideas for Marlow, you see.

-I was thinking about that.

-As if you're not busy enough.

-Hot dog van.

Hot dog van!

But street food in this country has got a bad reputation still,

hasn't it?

-Yeah.

-It's kind of taking it to a different level.

I don't know, there's many people waking up this morning with

a doner kebab stuck to their face. You know what I mean?

Don't deny it, Robert, we've all done it.

I know. Scraped it off.

-Right, I'll lift this off.

-Can you crush those potatoes?

-Yes, I'll do that as well.

-Bit of butter.

-So this dressing...

-Yeah.

-We need the peppers to go in there.

-Yeah, I'll do that as well.

-You're working hard today, chef.

-Little bit of vinegar goes in.

On the gas and with a blowtorch.

So, dressing - you've got parsley, mint and basil.

Little bit of English mustard goes in there.

Little bit of the white wine vinegar.

-Have you got any rapeseed oil left?

-Yes, I've got that.

-Where's that?

-Here.

-Ah.

Rapeseed oil goes in. And then we're going to add a roasted green pepper.

And that kind of helps to hold the whole, sort of, sauce together.

Hardly a roasted green pepper, though, is it really?

-Burnt green pepper.

-Yeah.

-That's right.

-Is that enough?

-Yeah.

-Right, there you go.

That goes straight into cold water.

Just move that out of the way.

Right, so we've got raw celeriac going in here which is remoulade,

which is a fancy sort of French dish which is made with mustard and...

Grain mustard.

But because you're using all-British ingredients,

-we've got it with English mustard.

-Exactly.

Is that quite difficult to find, literally, the entire menu?

It's really difficult.

And the thing about it is, to do it in a restaurant where you need

a varied, extensive menu, it's almost impossible.

But because we only serve four dishes per day, which we change

regularly, it actually makes it a little bit more realistic.

And it's a challenge.

I wanted to do 99.9% British produce

but Mark, my business partner and a really good friend of mine,

I mean, he wanted 100%, he wanted to keep it really pure.

And so, we don't use lemon, black pepper, no vanilla...

No vanilla. Butter's allowed though.

-Butter is allowed, yeah.

-Little bit of that.

-But in moderation.

PANEL LAUGH

-I'll leave you a little bit.

-And obviously, rapeseed oil.

-Yeah.

If you can find any, that is.

-Right, so we're just mashing this up.

-Yeah.

-Half the green pepper goes in.

-Yeah.

Just get rid of this. And then just blend it up to make the dressing.

OK.

To finish it off,

we're going to dress some mixed leaves with the sauce...

MACHINE WHIRS

Here you go. There's your plate.

So that's just white wine vinegar, in there, yeah?

White wine vinegar, mustard, roasted green pepper and the herbs.

And this roasted pepper, you've just plunged it in water

just gets rid of the skin, you see. Nice and simple.

Often you would roast these for a lot longer

but this is a much quicker way of doing it.

Let's face it, we've invested in two blowtorches to do Tom's dish,

-you might as well use them up.

-It's the new chef's tool.

Sous vide and water baths, not any more, it's all about the blowtorch.

The trouble is, you're not going to be able to find one

this afternoon even if you want one.

-There you go, right.

-Can you get the coleslaw?

Got what? Coleslaw's done.

Bit retro here today. Coleslaw, chicken chasseur.

Yeah. There you go.

-This dressing, put a little bit of that in there.

-Yes, please.

Touch of this dressing.

-How's it taste?

-There you go. Black pepper.

That you can't find in the UK but you admit that for your bit.

Did you pout black pepper in it?

I've been banging on about...

That was salt.

LAUGHTER

Just get it on the plate.

A little bit of the...

If anybody asks, just say we haven't washed the lettuce.

PANEL LAUGHS

Sauce goes on top.

And that is your confit pork neck with carrots,

cabbage and celeriac coleslaw and a herb dressing.

With a little bit of black pepper. Sorry about that.

There we go, right.

You get to dive into this one.

The food just keeps coming to you, see, Robert.

-I think we're in the right seats.

-Let's build your appetite up.

Dive into that. That would work really well with lamb.

But I suppose that dressing's kind of like a salsa verde

-but you obviously can't use capers or gherkins.

-Or anchovies.

It makes it a bit challenging but, actually,

-when you taste it you don't really miss it.

-Yeah.

-Mm. Beautiful.

-Happy with that?

-Mm.

-Happy with that.

-So you're not going to get any.

-No. I'm the wrong end.

Poor old Tom wasn't getting a look-in there, was he?

Although there was a lot of rapeseed oil, my word, it looked really good.

Now next, it's over to the wonderful Keith Floyd

who's walking in Memphis.

My head is running with Jerry Lee Lewis songs, with Elvis Presley songs.

I'm coming to Memphis for the first time.

You know, would you believe it, my luck,

I pick up the paper at the airport... What is it?

3rd February 1989, and what does it say?

"Rock hero was robbed of his future. Tribute to Buddy Holly."

Buddy Holly died 30 years ago today, just as I'm hitting Memphis.

And Don McLean wrote that wonderful song, do you remember?

American Pie. That was, he wrote about the day the music died.

But the music hasn't died. It is still going on here.

And I know for sure,

I ain't going to be stuck inside a mobile with the Memphis blues again.

Memphis was so named by General Jackson after the capital

of Ancient Egypt because the river reminded him of the Nile.

More importantly, Memphis is the kitchen of rock and roll.

What would you eat for your dinner, for example?

-I must say the barbecue.

-The barbecue.

Barbecued ribs or shoulder.

They're both Memphis specialties and they're very good.

And what about the women? Have you got some pretty women in Memphis?

There's some pretty women in Memphis. Fact is, we're outnumbered.

-We've got about nine to each man in this city.

-Nine women to each man?!

That's about right.

Tell your ma, tell your pa, I'm going to take you back to Arkansas.

# Tell your mamma, tell your pa, tell your uncle, tell your aunt

# Tell your brother, tell your cousin, tell the queen

# I want to go back to Arkansas

# Hey, heeeey

# All right, baby

# See the girl with the diamond ring

# She knows how to shake my thing, all right

# Hey-heeey

# All right

# I'm gonna play a bit of piano for you, boy... #

POLICE SIREN

# What do you like about that?

# Well, go

# Go little Queenie, go

# Oooo

# Go

# Go little Queenie, go

# Go, go little Queenie, go. #

If the overwhelming ambience of this place doesn't get to you,

then you are brain dead.

I mean, I know this is a cookery programme,

but rock and roll is like cookery too.

Ask any good cook, he'll tell you what he needs, he needs three things.

He calls it his trinity.

Like in Louisiana, it's bell peppers, onions and celery.

For rock and roll, you need blues, you need gospel, you need jazz.

And that's exactly what they did here.

This is the kitchen of rock and roll.

This is the microphone that Elvis used for his first song.

So, let's get cooking.

# Well, that's all right, mama

# That's all right for you

# That's all right, mama

# Just anyway you do

# Well, that's all right

# That's all right

# That's all right now, mama

# Anyway you do... #

If you want, what they call, dine home-cooking,

Buntyn's is the place.

Elvis used it for the odd half dozen cheese burgers.

Anyway, this restaurant celebrates Southern cooking with fried chicken,

ochre, black-eyed peas, turnip greens, the whole nine yards.

It's like the ode to Billy Joe. And it's always packed.

If you ain't there by twelve, try another place.

# Humble me, oh Lord

# Humble me

# Humble me and let me do thy will... #

Nobody wants to play rhythm guitar behind Jesus.

Everybody wants to be the lead singer in the band,

so the song goes. But where would we be without gospel?

There'd be no rock and roll for a start.

But this church belongs to an old chum of Martin Luther King,

the Reverend James Cutter and his wife, Portia.

One day he told a man,

said if you is asked for gold, one man,

said go on too.

If somebody ask you for your coat and you only give them

your top coat, give them your overcoat.

And if they slap you on one cheek, turn the other cheek.

We are all out of step with Jesus.

You all know that's true.

You hit me, I'm going to hit you back.

# Humble me

# Humble me, oh Lord

# Humble me

# Humble me and let me do thy

-# Will.

-#

This here...

This is here is, erm...

..smoked hen.

Chicken.

Now, this was a smoked with a Texas briquette,

type of wood, in one of the things back in the church there.

Y'all try that, I want all of you to try that.

Now, this, if you don't believe this is good,

I dare you to bite into it.

This is prime beef.

And it's smoked too.

This was smoked in a certain special gravy by me.

Now, over here...

I don't ordinarily go to church on Wednesdays,

but this is no ordinary church.

It's a family affair and they call it the eating church.

This place is always full.

After a fun session of praising the lord, it's time to praise the cook.

And the cooking smells seep through the little church.

So I thought it would be a brilliant idea

to cook for him his own kitchen.

But I feel like I'm knocking on heaven's door.

OK, Clive, down to the business.

This is Floyd's American Pie, this is the cookery spetch...sketch.

Let's go for it, OK.

Over here, we're going to start with some yams, the sweet potato.

OK, this is what we need. We need some peppers.

We're going round to your right, Clive. OK?

We need some black-eyed peas. Remember that song?

Tallahatchie Bridge.

Black-eyed peas, passed around the black-eyed peas.

The turnip greens.

The greens that we would throw away and feed to the animals in Britain.

Swing on over here if you can, Clive, to some tomato sauce.

OK, then to my little trinity.

My trinity of onions, peppers and garlic.

Over here to my red pepper and my chilli powder.

Over here to nutmeg, sugar, and butter, and vanilla essence.

Over here to my diced little bits of fat pork.

Smoked or salted, it's up to you.

But what is the star of this dish, I hear you cry?

The star is something that most of you would be horrified

to even think of.

Look at it.

This is chitlins.

I was brought up in a village near Milverton in Somerset, England,

and chitlins were big there and chitlins are big in Memphis.

OK, Clive, you're going to walk round here

because I have to do some business.

This is quite tricky, this is a real take, we're doing it for real,

there'll be no cuts. I've never cooked this dish before,

I'm cooking for some real, real people.

So I've got to start things going.

Clive, if you can come very close into this strange looking mess.

Those are my pieces of chitlins which I cut up and blanched

for about three hours in gently simmering water,

with onions and bell peppers, until, in fact, they're like little

pieces of squid, or little pieces of calamari, something like that.

But I have to make a sauce for those.

Leave those where they are for the moment.

In goes my trinity into the pan here straight away.

Right, they've got to bubble and simmer

in a soulful and meaningful way.

I'm going to take you round some of the other things

that I have been doing. In here I've got my yams.

You notice I've tried to cut them in a nice way just to make

the presentation look really rather good.

I've got some things to go in there to make these yams,

they're going to be called candied yams.

Stay with it, Clive, because into our yams we put a couple

of ounces of butter, like that, in their cooking water.

We've put a load of sugar and a load of grated nutmeg.

And we just let all that melt down and simmer softly.

Right, these are the famous black-eyed peas. OK?

I soaked a load of these peas in water overnight

and then I fried off a few little pieces of that smoked pork,

the back pork, the belly of the pork, covered them in water

and simmered them for about three hours until they're all nice

and gently going.

So, that's quite good, that's simmering away there now.

What's going to happen here,

because I don't understand the controls of this cooker

and things like that, every now and again Clive might have to take

a wonderful shot of one of those slow Southern fans

that spin round in the kitchen.

When you see that, you know that I might have muddled something

or forgotten something.

Clive, the fan's turning.

Listen to the mighty, mighty Rhythm Hounds from Memphis Tennessee,

we hope you've all had a good time out here this evening.

I hope you all stick around, we've got some R&B music coming up for you.

Y'all are here on a special night,

this evening we're doing some filming for a special show.

A special cooking show, ladies and gentlemen.

This is the Rhythm Hounds, salute the vegetables,

ladies and gentlemen!

UPTEMPO SOUL MUSIC

Don't worry, be happy.

The music hasn't died, it's merely stopped for the moment.

Just to recap on my yams, remember I boiled them in water,

then I added sugar, butter, nutmeg and a little drop

of vanilla essence, and a little tablespoonful of tomato sauce.

OK, they're simmering away.

Down to my trinity, remember, the onions, the garlic and the peppers.

I've also added some tomato sauce to that.

I must now add a little red pepper.

In we go to make it a little bit spicy,

and a little bit of paprika, OK.

Stir. Twiddle, twiddle, twiddle.

Right, I've now got to do the turnip greens. Very simple.

Into the hot pan go my little lardons, OK.

Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle.

Just stir those round a second.

Get those whizzing away like that.

The turnip greens, which are going to reduce down an awful lot,

a little bit like spinach, they go on top. OK.

Now, you might like to add salt to this or you might not want to

add salt to it, it's up to you, because they're quite bitter.

A little bit of water into there.

And up to the fan.

In days of old when knights were bold

and telegraph poles weren't invented,

and indeed even before Sainsbury's and Tesco's,

a man from Memphis invented the world's first supermarket.

He called it Piggly Wiggly.

Must have been off his trolley, John.

DRAMATIC PIANO MUSIC PLAYS

Right, so now we're down to the real critical business here.

I'm flouring egg-washed, my little pieces of chitlin which have

to be deep-fried in this very hot fat.

One, two. Three, four. Five, six.

And the other trouble is, I've got to try

and get this food absolutely hot, absolutely right for some people who

were raised on this kind of food.

And I'm a Brit in Memphis.

Some of those of you at home who do quite like me,

I'm fighting for this, OK.

I mean, I want the Reverend Cutter and Portia, his wife,

to eat my food real.

Now, it could go wrong because I've got about 30 seconds to fry,

deep dry these things, and in the meantime,

I've got to serve up the rest of it.

OK, right.

Put that over there. Right, leave that alone. Come over here.

-These are my turnip greens.

-Argh!

Never mind anybody kicking the table.

That's turnip greens, OK, cooked my way.

These are yams.

My way.

OK.

I'm worried about my fatty things there.

These are my black-eyed peas, my way.

And I left the whole big piece of rind in there to get all

the flavour into the black-eyed peas, OK.

Right, now then.

This is a go situation, this is real.

Erm, I've lost a spoon.

-OK. It's all right.

-Don't forget the sauce.

-And my sauce.

My sauce goes on the plate.

Now, I don't know what they're going to say to me

because this is a spicy chilli sauce made from my trinity,

made from the peppers, made from the spices.

And what I want to do...

..is put these chitlins right on the top.

And here we go.

And this is where it's at.

I mean, this is either where it's at or where it's not at, OK.

Dr Cuttler, please come and try it.

Please tell me if, and Clive back me as I do this, and try and get...

Sit down, my darlings, please do.

Please try and taste this and when you do, Clive,

that is my Memphis on a plate.

James...

-Can I call you James?

-James is fine.

James, please, and Portia, try what I have tried to do for you.

With no knowledge, with no understanding,

except just a belief that it could happen.

That I could cook you some food. You can tell the truth about this.

-I'm going to try the chitlins.

-OK, because he likes chitlins.

I love the Southern chitlins.

Mm.

-Mm!

-The greens are interesting.

-Mm, the chitlins...

I'm going to give you an honorary citizenship to cooking...

..in America.

-So, America's Memphis, isn't it?

-Black-eyed peas is good.

-Mm-hm.

-Is it all right?

Is it roughly right or is it 100 miles away?

-No, the black-eyed peas are delicious.

-Yeah.

-What about...?

-The greens is chewlicious.

-It past delicious.

-Now let's taste the yams.

Mm.

I can appreciate someone that do a job

and like for it to be well.

And I think you've done a good job on this food.

This, like, taste like... The greens, if you look...

If the camera could show that, the greens taste just like

the good old Southern greens.

And you have nothing to be ashamed of.

And the chitlins is delicious.

Delicious. And they are hot.

But they're not hot enough for my wife, Mrs Cutter.

And the black-eyed peas, my mother used to make them like that.

This brought back memories that I shall ever be grateful for...

..in the black-eyed peas. They're just right.

The touch is there. And also the candied yams that...

There's flavour there that's strictly Southern.

Great stuff from Keith there as ever.

The king of cooking following in the footsteps

of the king of rock and roll.

We've still got plenty more to come on today's

Saturday Kitchen Best Bites so don't go anywhere just yet.

Coming up -

John Torode and Cary Docherty battle it out

in the Saturday Kitchen Omelette Challenge.

Spice man Cyrus Todiwala is flying the Scottish flag

as he prepares two tasty haggis treats.

He makes a three-bird haggis soup, flavoured with cumin,

ginger and coriander, and then serves it alongside traditional

haggis potato cakes with a fried egg and spicy ketchup on top.

And Spice Girl Emma Bunton faces her food heaven or food hell.

Will she get her food heaven -

lobster ravioli with a lobster sauce, samphire and baby carrots?

Or her food hell - lime and chilli monkfish tail

with a pea guacamole and tomato salsa?

Will the studio guests be nice to Baby Spice

or will they be a little more scary?

You're going to have to keep watching to find out.

Next up, Peter Lloyd is serving up an incredible seafood starter

using a whole host of exotic ingredients.

So we're doing a black pepper shrimp with oven-dried pineapple,

jicama and some pea shoots. The pepper's got a nice hearty heat

to it, so good for a winter warmer as well.

Then we're going to try and balance that with

the sweetness of the pineapple, which we're going to oven-dry.

We're going to get through to that jicama in a minute but you want me to get on with this pineapple.

-If you can start prepping the pineapple for me, I'm going to start on the sauce.

-OK.

We're going to take a couple of cloves of garlic.

Just give that a nice little...

Where does your love of this sort of Asian food come from?

It's certainly not from your training.

You were classically French trained?

Yeah, classically French trained at the Dorchester.

Really did lots of modern European cooking

but always travelled to South East Asia in my holidays.

So Thailand, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and just always got into the food.

Once I joined the Sanderson Hotel, there we had a Malaysian restaurant.

Took that on board and then joined Spice Market.

The beautiful thing about Spice Market is it covers

all South East Asian food.

So we've got everything from Vietnam to Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore.

Beautiful, fragrant flavours.

Now, this is a restaurant in the heart of a hotel

-but right in the heart of London as well.

-Yeah, absolutely.

We're right on Leicester Square, part of the W. And, erm...

Two floors, open-plan kitchen,

got the guys cooking on the woks in front of all the guests.

-Yeah.

-So it's a really nice visual...

-I believe you've been, Michael, no?

-Yes, I was there in November.

I haven't been back since but I will be.

THEY LAUGH

So we're just going to start by frying off a tablespoon of ginger.

Yeah.

And our chopped garlic.

The ginger's just been grated. Quite a bit of ginger.

Yeah, equal quantities of ginger and garlic.

I'm just going to sweat those down.

We don't want to get too much colour on the, erm...

-..on the ginger and garlic otherwise it'll start to go bitter.

-Right.

Now, the pineapple, you're sort of drying this out in the oven

-but it's not dry-dry, it's...

-No.

-..soft.

-Yes, absolutely, semi-dry.

We just want to concentrate the sugars in the pineapple,

it's going to give us a nice sweetness, a bit of balance

against the heat of that black pepper we were talking about.

OK. You don't put anything on it? Just as it is, in the oven.

That's it, in the oven. Oven-dry them at 90 degrees for about

two hours and that'll give you a really nice sticky texture.

-I supposed you could do this in a hot cupboard, maybe, somewhere like that?

-Yeah, hot cupboard.

-At the restaurant we use a dehydrator as well.

-Yeah.

That's a fancy name for a hot cupboard, though, isn't it?

-Yeah, it is, yeah. It's one of my chef toys.

-Exactly.

So we've got that going on there.

We're going to add some spring onions,

-so we've got two spring onions going in there and we're just going to cook those down.

-Yeah.

-That's all in there.

-There we are.

-Thank you.

Now, although this is hot, the chilli, the spice, I take it,

is going to come from these bits here that you're...

Spice is really just going to come from the pepper.

So we're going to take the pepper corns,

put them in our mortar and pestle.

We just want to grind them lightly, we don't want to make them too fine.

Now, this isn't just black pepper as we know it, you've got some...

We're using a fancy named pepper called Sarawak,

which is from Malaysia, from the Borneo region.

Really fragrant and it's going to add some nice heat.

Where do you get all of that, then?

Is that stuff you can get off the internet or where would you buy that?

The... There's the spice stall in Notting Hill.

But I'm quite lucky because I've got China Town just on my doorstep

so if ever I'm in short supply I can get all my stuff from there.

So that's sweating down.

We're then going to add some fermented black beans.

This is going to give us our saltiness to the dish.

They've just been salted and dried.

-Just rinse them off to take away the excess salt.

-Right.

-Just pop those straight into the sauce.

-Yeah.

And then we've got two different types of soy sauce.

We're using a light soy sauce

and we're also using a sweetened soy sauce called Kecap Manis.

-A spoon there.

-Yeah. But it's sticky, is that.

-Yeah, very sticky.

You can see it's almost like a molasses.

So it's just been sweetened down with palm sugars

and that's where our sweetness is going to come from.

And some more sugar.

Sugar in there.

Some lime juice for some sourness.

A bit of tartness.

I suppose, I mean, looking at London and how it's changed over the years

and you've been, certainly working in London over those years,

the Asian sort of style of cooking has been

an influence for all manner of different chefs, really.

-Doesn't have to be an Asian restaurant now.

-Absolutely.

I think Jean-Georges was one of the first chefs, really,