04/03/2018 Saturday Kitchen Best Bites

We've got an incredible line-up for you with all of your favourite chefs,

mouthwatering dishes and, as ever, some very hungry celebrity guests will be joining us in the studio.

So, clear your schedule, grab yourself a cuppa

and enjoy another helping of Saturday Kitchen Best Bites.

Welcome to the show.

Now make yourself comfy because for the next 90 minutes,

we will be bringing you some of your favourite Saturday Kitchen

moments from over the years, as well as some classic Rick Stein

and Keith Floyd archive.

Coming up, James Martin serves Suranne Jones Serrano ham,

stuffed lamb chops with freshly made sage pasta.

Clare Smyth is here with a sophisticated spiced duck

breast and Savoy cabbage supper.

She roasts duck breast before basting in a spice mix of fennel,

coriander, nutmeg, cinnamon and orange zest and

then serves alongside cream, Savoy cabbage and roasted Braeburn apples.

The master of spice, Cyrus Todiwala is turning up the heat in the kitchen.

He tosses crab meat with ginger and garlic, curry leaves,

chillies, turmeric and coconut and serves alongside a Currimbhoy salad.

Simple but delicious.

And then it is omelette challenge time again as Aggi Sverrisson

takes on Sat Bains.

Aggi tries to avoid disqualification once again.

Will Holland is here and he serves up a wonderful wood pigeon dish.

He roasts wood pigeon with orange zest, sugar,

and serves with a mango salsa, mango puree

and red wine and sesame reduction,

all topped with crispy leeks.

And finally, Sue Perkins faces her food heaven or food hell.

Will she get her food heaven -

hazelnut and chocolate gateau topped with meringue

and mini-marshmallows?

Or her food hell - goat's cheese on brioche

with salt-baked celeriac and a red currant dressing?

One sweet and one savoury, but which show stopping dish did Sue get?

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

All of that to come, plus Rick Stein visits the Isle of Wight

and Keith Floyd takes a trip to Cornwall.

But first, it's over to Ben Tish who's making his Saturday Kitchen

debut as he looks to impress with a Spanish-inspired supper.

-Great to have you on the show, Ben.

-Thanks, James.

-Thank you for coming on.

-A pleasure to be here.

You are influenced heavily with, we mentioned the Italian,

but the Spanish theme, particularly this dish.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, it is a hake with clams, spicy chorizo

and Arbequina olive oil mash.

-Sounds good to me.

-It's a take on a Spanish dish, it is

refined a little bit with the addition of the mash.

Right, so tell us about this hake, then.

You want to get that on to start off with. I know you do.

Yeah, absolutely. So, hake - used loads in Spain

and France, as we spoke to Daniel about earlier.

-Yeah, super delicious.

-Yeah, really good.

-Really good.

And cooking it on the bone.

It's a really good way to cook hake or any fish, for that matter.

I love cooking fish on the bone.

Particularly with hake, it's quite delicate, isn't it?

It can fall apart if you overcook it.

Exactly, but the bone kind of helps that. Helps keep it all together.

But does add that flavour in there as well.

So, I've got a nice hot pan and olive oil in there,

just added the hake into there.

So, this is a cut of meat that you normally find on salmon.

It's called a darne, this one. Cut straight through the centre of the fish.

Yeah, a darne or a steak, cos probably a lot of people would know that.

Just like going in there. Thanks, James.

I'm just going to get my clams in there now as well.

-There we go.

-Yeah.

-Get away in there.

Get rid of that, wash my hands.

So, you've just got a little bit of olive oil, just a touch.

Just a little bit of olive oil in there. That's it.

Just wanted to get that going. I want a nice kind of caramelisation on that.

-Now, you mentioned that the French like it as well.

-Yeah.

It was one of the first dishes I learned to cook in France,

it was hake with the beurre blanc sauce.

And when we were in France, you and I,

saw a massive one in the market in Brittany.

-Fabulous fish.

-Yeah, again, inexpensive, these.

I mean, yeah, in Italy they kind of use it a lot as well.

We have an Italian influence at our restaurants as well,

so it is used quite a lot in Italy as well.

It just seems in the UK, that we just kind of don't get it.

It's all down to the name. You see the name in the UK.

People don't like the name or the look of the fish, they won't eat it.

Yeah, well, it's always the cod and haddock.

Which is crazy, really, when you think about it.

There's so many great other fish out there. Particularly this one.

Absolutely, absolutely. James, so you are peeling some chorizo for me.

So we've got some cooking chorizo and this is spicy cooking chorizo.

It is different to the cured chorizo. It needs to be cooked.

And it is great when you are cooking.

When you cook it down, it releases its paprika oil.

The word picante is what you are look for.

-Picante, exactly, yeah.

-It's the spice one, isn't it?

You get dulce, which is the sweet one,

and picante which is the spicy one.

So, got the clams, they are going nicely there. Turn the hake again.

And I will grab some of that chorizo, James, if I may.

The difference, like you said, the cooking one, you can easily tell the difference.

One is like actually like a sausage and soft and the other one is firm.

Yeah, exactly that. I mean, you can cook with the fully cured one

and it also releases a bit of oil, but this is much better.

So, I just want to get that sweated away

and it will start to release all of its oil. That is really good.

I mentioned the fact you are big fish fan with the old sea bass.

-Hake, tried that?

-Yeah, I'm just trying to think.

What family of fish is hake from? Or give me some...

I would have thought it's probably cod or haddock.

-Because in France...

-Yeah, it's from the cod family.

Cod.

OK, cool, if you could peel that potato for me, James, please.

And we're going to get that on.

Just going to turn that again. We've got a nice colour on there now.

So, that is good. And then here I've got some white wine,

that I'm just going to add into there.

-Now tell us about these restaurants, then.

-And some sherry.

You, first of all, came to London when?

I came to London...about 14, 15 years ago.

Started working, first job was at the Ritz.

Classic place. Did that for a year.

And then ended up working

with Jason Atherton at various restaurants.

I'm sorry, James, to interrupt there.

I'm just steaming that away there and that is going to finish cooking the fish through.

We'll get the potatoes on there. So, yeah.

And then, worked at an Italian restaurant called Il Duca,

which is where I kind of got more into the rustic style of things.

-Oh, give me that, I'll do that.

-OK, cool.

-You do that one.

-OK, thanks.

And then, yeah, I had a little detour into Scotland where

I worked at a country house hotel up there

and got really in touch with produce and things like that.

I moved back to London...

-So, a big mix-and-match, then?

-Mix-and-match, exactly.

And then started at Salt Yard.

And it's kind of just gone from there.

Really got into Spanish cooking.

These are kind of... Talking about Spanish cooking.

These are modern tapas restaurants, but they are all different,

-are they? Or roughly different?

-No, there's a theme

running through them.

You know, we specialise in charcuterie cheese,

Spain and Italy as well.

It's not just Spanish.

And, yeah, kind of tapas but with a modern twist on them.

So, in particular, the Iberico, isn't it?

That is what you use quite a bit?

Our Open Tavern restaurant in Covent Garden, which we opened a year ago,

we've had become famous for fresh Iberico meat.

So, everybody probably knows the ham that is

carved in Spanish restaurants, the jamon Iberico.

-Pata negra.

-Pata negra, yeah.

But the fresh meat is delicious as well

and it can be cooked rather like beef.

You can cook it medium rare, so we do things like tartares

-and carpaccios.

-It's quite unusual the pork like that.

When you talk about pork and medium rare,

people are always a little bit...

Yeah, they are a bit funny and, you know,

because of the breeding, because of the science and the welfare...

-And the welfare.

-Exactly that.

-It's actually the cousin of the one

-in the Pyrenees. The French... Black de Bigorre. It's the cousin of...

-Yeah, exactly that.

So, they're wild. There's nothing bad about them.

They go and eat acorns in the forest. Yeah, in the mountains.

They have a diet of acorns, mainly, don't they?

Yeah, well, that's exactly what it is.

And so, the meat kind of reflects that.

It's fatty, a little bit like Wagyu beef. I don't know

if anybody has tried that, but it's kind of got that richness going on.

So, just chopping a bit of parsley. So, thanks for that, James.

So, what do you want in this mash, then?

-OK, so if you just put me that cream in there, please.

-Yeah.

Thank you. Probably about a third of that butter.

-Salt and pepper in there.

-Salt and pepper in there.

I've got the cream and butter and then I'm going to add into the mash

some Arbequina olive oil, which is a delicious, spicy olive oil from Spain.

Now, talking about olive oil. You walk around the supermarkets now...

-Yeah.

-Oh, my God.

-It's overwhelming.

-There used to be Italian, that was it.

-Now you've got stuff from South Africa...

-It's overwhelming.

-But you should treat it like wine. They are all very different, aren't they?

-They're all very different

and in fact, this Arbequina olive oil that I'm using,

we use at our restaurants as like the table olive oil for bread.

And it is the new season olive oil that's come through now.

It is a lot stronger than the old season.

It's more in-your-face.

So, it can vary by seasons, as well as by olive oil to olive oil.

-The Arbequina is a type of all of itself.

-Yes, absolutely.

And we sell the olives as well, which are delicious.

As a table olive. OK, so that is going nicely there.

I'm just going to turn the hake over.

And this'll take quite quickly to cook cos you're cooking this with the lid on as well.

Exactly, so you've got the steam going on there.

I'm just going to add some parsley into there.

That's good.

This is kind of like brasserie dishes that they have in France.

-Yeah.

-Sort of classic beurre blanc sauce.

You can even say strong home cooking because it's this kind of relation.

-You want some lemon in there as well?

-Yes, please.

Yeah, just a squeeze of lemon, just to sharpen it up.

And I think...

-You are about there.

-..we are nearly there. Lovely.

-So, you want a little bit of that?

-Looks good, James. Yeah.

If you pop me a spoon of that on the middle,

-that would be good.

-There you go.

-Thank you.

Thanks, James. Very nice.

Let's get my...

So, there's the hake.

-Lovely, nicely cooked through.

-Do you serve that dish in your restaurant?

-Yeah, we do.

-Probably not as big as that.

-No, not as big as this.

All the dishes that we serve are tapas dishes.

That's is a Yorkshire tapa. LAUGHTER

Yeah, I did it in... As a nod to you, James.

Thought I'd give you a Yorkshire portion.

But there we go.

So, you can see all those lovely paprika juices have come

-out of there.

-Yeah. You put the sherry and the white wine in there.

-Sherry and white wine in there.

-That was dry sherry in there?

Dry sherry, yeah, it just gives the sauce a nice kind of bite.

It's really good.

Yeah, this is really popular at the restaurant, so...

And sherry is on an up as well, actually.

Yeah, sherry is well on the up. We sell loads of sherry.

OK, so there you go. So, that is roasted hake on the bone

with Arbequina olive oil mash, clams and chorizo with sherry sauce.

-Thank you very much.

-Lovely.

-By a guy with his first time

-on Saturday Kitchen. Well done.

-Thank you.

LACKLUSTRE APPLAUSE

That was pathetic over there. ALL SPEAK AT SAME TIME

They just want something to eat. There you go. There you go, dive in.

This looks amazing. Wow, look at that.

-Try that for breakfast.

-Yeah, get that down you.

It is delicious.

That's what you're saying, you can

use the different types of the chorizo,

but the idea is to use the soft one, really, when you cook it.

Yeah, most definitely, yeah. And you just get...

All the flavour comes out. And yeah.

-Yeah?

-It's fantastic.

-You like that? Good.

-I'm usually a bit funny about surf and turf, but...

-Surf and turf?

-Yeah.

-Beef and lobster?

-There's a little bit chorizo in the sauce.

-It's delicious.

But that does really work. I mean, whitefish, particularly with cod,

-and they do it with all manner of different combinations over in Spain.

-Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

-Happy with that?

-Very happy.

George certainly wasn't sheepish when it came to Ben's Spanish surf

and turf there. And what an excellent start to the show.

Coming up, Suranne Jones gets a taste of Italy as she tucks

into Serrano stuffed lamb chops with sage pasta.

But first, it is over to Rick Stein,

who is on the hunt for garlic on the Isle of Wight.

RICK STEIN: I'm on my way from Southampton to the

Isle of Wight for their famous annual Garlic Festival.

On the way over, I met this really nice chap. He really loved his food.

I think he said his name was Anslow.

He was going over for Cowes Week.

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

a serious smell of money in the air.

No doubt people will be eating lobster

and popping champagne corks over in the marquees.

But I had other things on my mind.

I had never been to a Garlic Festival before

and I didn't really know what to expect.

I had heard that garlic grows really well on the island and it was

a must of things I had to do on my gastronomic tour of Britain.

But it didn't look very garlicky to me.

So, we've got a circus, candyfloss,

there's a dolls house shop over there, some sumo wrestlers up there.

There's a clairvoyant and the Army are here.

There are lots of big army trucks.

Um...

I've almost forgotten what we've come here for.

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

Now, this was worth coming for. Freshly barbecued corn on the cob,

brushed with hot butter.

It had that mouth-popping crunch

when the veg has just been picked and still retains its sugar content.

That's the first thing to go, actually, when it's been lying around.

Ah, getting warmer. Moules mariniere

and a nice smell of garlic from some moules provencale.

Did you say you had some garlic fudge?

Yeah, we've got chocolate and vanilla.

-Could I have a vanilla one, then?

-Yeah.

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

Now, this is a first for me.

Oh, dear.

But the day was full of happy eaters, mainly eating hot dogs.

Actually, garlic was a symbol of our emerging culinary

sophistication in the '60s,

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

When you walked along the street 25 years ago

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

it said to, immediately in your mind, it said, "It was good times."

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

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

God, you are so right! I've been thinking about it.

I mean, I started my restaurant 25 years ago and it was garlic.

I can remember I went to a seafood bar in Falmouth

and it was that smell of hot shellfish and garlic. And it just...

It was just so exotic and I was thinking, "Yeah, I want to do this!"

Now, this was a dish that was on the menu of every

bistro in the late '60s - satay chicken with 40 cloves of garlic.

You joint a couple of chickens jointing for saute,

that means on the bone, and then you fry it gently in butter to get

a nice brown colour, and then 40 cloves of garlic, seriously.

And that was so adventurous.

Seasoned heavily and then some white wine.

I can remember once using Mateus Rose

when I couldn't get some Hirondelle.

Then chicken stock and put the lid on

and leave it to cook very, very gently.

And that's it. It's ready.

You just turn it out on the plate,

reduce the liquid down a little bit, nap it over the top, and serve it.

Well, what with?

Well, these days it'd be mashed potato,

but then it was pilaf rice, cos that was very trendy.

One discovery I made at the garlic festival was this humble bacon sandwich.

It was made from collar and had a lovely, old-fashioned swiny flavour.

There had to be something special about this bacon.

-That's a really good flavour.

-It is, isn't it?

One thing led to another on this trip.

I was supposed to be looking at other garlic products,

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

How cheering to see these little piglets rooting around in the sandy soil.

You only had to look at how happy these pigs were

to realise that this family, the Pearces, were doing something right.

These pigs here are doing things they should be doing.

They are rooting around. They're biting my toes now!

They have to create their own environment.

That's the key to it. Pigs are so intelligent.

It gets too hot out here.

They have got to go and wallow, get a coat of mud, protect themselves from the sun.

Letting the animals do what they should be doing, they're not bored.

They make their own beds. All we do is provide them with a lump of straw.

It's up to them to shake it up and put it round how they want it.

I think that's the key to it - letting the animals express their own natural behaviour.

I suppose if any dish summed up the style of cooking in this series, it's this.

So, a coating for the chops.

I am going to use some sage, which I think is a really nice flavour.

But you do have to use it with discretion.

In other words, not too much, because it's VERY strong.

I am going to mix that with some roughly-chopped shallots

and chop it up really finely to make a coating.

And now I'll put that in this bowl with a bit of butter,

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

And now for the chops.

What a lovely cut of meat that is!

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

and half an inch the other.

Do the same thing on that side.

And just put some of the coating on one side,

just spread it in with my knife, like that.

And do the exactly the same on the other side.

And then we'll pan-fry them, gently.

The problem with so much intensive meat is it's flavourless.

You taste something like this pork and it's got, as the French say about wine, a "gout de terroir".

You can taste almost where it comes from.

And the fat is just a delight. It's just a feeling of fineness.

So many people... SO many people, dislike fat - and why?

The fat in meat is where the flavour is.

And it's just like people keep going at me when I am cooking fish,

saying, "Too much butter, too much cream."

I DON'T put too much butter and cream with my fish, but occasionally, I love it.

And occasionally, I like a fatty bit of pork,

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

We are all so driven in this world these days

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

I mean, there is only one maxim as far as eating, I am concerned,

and that is moderation in all things. You just keep things level.

OK, let's add the cider now, which is the sort of splendid addition to this dish.

This is farmhouse rough, Somerset cider.

We will leave that to cook away for five to six minutes.

By the time they've cooked, the cider will have reduced down to a rich sauce, smelling of apples.

Add butter, a little bit of parsley,

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

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

and the sort of food I searched for in my travels in pubs and restaurants - and never found.

I got beef randang and Creole chicken, but not this.

And I would serve it with early-sprouting broccoli

and saute potatoes, and that's it.

That's it indeed but it looked absolutely fantastic.

Regular viewers to the show will know, like Rick,

I'm not afraid to put a few extra calories or two on the plate.

Now, pork chops definitely need some fat on them

to bring out the flavour.

And this is true also of lamb chops, which I love.

And people kind of shy away from them, really.

I'm going to show you a really simple way of actually cooking them.

We've got some Parma ham here or Serrano ham.

We've got a little bit of butter, some sage,

now sage is quite a strong herb

so we're going to deep-fry a little bit

and serve that with a little, simple pasta, really.

What I'm going to do first of all, is take the lamb chops,

using a knife, just create like a little pocket inside each one.

So, cut them inside here.

Don't take this fat off, it's really important that we keep that

cos we're going to crisp them up in a pan.

And there you go in here, and you just literally

take a little bit of this ham, touch of sage,

here we go.

And insert that in the little cavity in there.

-There we go.

-Serrano ham, did you say?

Yeah, you can use Serrano ham, Parma ham,

it's entirely up to you.

Touch of butter in there to keep it nice and moist.

And then we're going to take some of our Serrano ham or Parma ham,

there you go, wrap it up like that.

That's it. Just nice and simple.

No need to overcomplicate stuff.

Cos you're not really into overcomplicated food, are you?

-Not really, you know...

-You were brought up on...

Sunday roast and all that kind of stuff?

Potatoes, meat, yeah, that kind of stuff.

But we used to have chops

but my mum would go around everyone's plate and eat the fat

cos we'd we all leave the fat and then my mum would go

and pick the bits of fat off cos she loved it.

They're the best bit, the best bit, though, isn't it?

So, what got you into acting in the first place?

Well, I was a little bit mouthy at school and so they told me...

my parents to channel my energies somewhere.

So, I went to, like, an acting class

from being about eight and started singing and acting.

And then from there did pro-am productions, amateur productions,

got an agent at 16

and then it just kind of picked up and went from there.

Because, I mean, I was reading a little bit about you last night

and it's amazing that not a lot of people know

that you were in Coronation Street before your main character was.

-Yeah.

-You guested in it as well?

I did an episode of everything northern,

like The Grand, City Central, Corrie

and my first character was called Mandy Phillips.

And then I went back three years later as Karen Phillips.

Not related at all but I think they do like a screen test

so they put you on and if they like you, then they'll get you back.

And they certainly liked you because, I mean,

at one point they were saying you were the show.

I mean, the whole storyline was based around you.

I think it's this wonderful tennis match that happens that,

you know, you start to do something good with the writing

and then they see that and they write more for you

and that's what kind of happened and Karen McDonald really lifted off

and myself and Simon Greggs and Steve McDonald

just worked really well together.

-And then you left.

-Yeah.

You get all that and then you go.

Yeah. Well, I'd started to...

I'd started to repeat myself as an actress

and because in a soap, obviously, you know,

your character has a certain life span.

And I felt like I was kind of

continually going down the same path with,

you know, what I was doing, so, yeah.

But it was a huge thing cos I'd bought a house,

I'd bought a car, I had some stability,

which actors don't get, so it was a big decision.

And I had nothing to go to, so...

To give it all up and, like you said, nothing to go to

but, I mean, since then you've just gone on to do tonnes of stuff.

It's not just on...

Well, films as well?

Yeah, I mean, well, the first thing was I auditioned,

I was in Australia and then I got a call

when I came back and auditioned with Ray Winstone to do Vincent.

And then, the people that I've worked with have just been amazing.

Then I did the West End with Rob Lowe

and things just really, you know, kind of took off for me

and it's been an amazing journey.

Where does your passion really lie though?

Some people say theatre,

you can't beat the draw of theatre as an actress?

-Musicals, singing, that's where I started off.

-Right.

I'm a bit of a... I like to do...

Like, you were talking about Unforgiven

and, you know, that's all kind of a very intimate performance

and all very measured and monitored but I'm a bit of a showgirl.

I like to sing and dance and do the whole lot and, you know,

-eyes and teeth and all that.

-Eyes and teeth.

Right, well, there you go.

Talking of teeth, there you go, we've got our pasta here.

Now, what I'm going to do is take our pasta

and try and incorporate this sage in.

There we go.

And what we do is grab the sage like that and just pop it in there.

Fold this bit of pasta over...

..press it down and then roll it through again.

And then you'll see that the actual sage leaf goes inside...

..the pasta.

I'll just dust that off a little bit.

You'll see it in a second.

The lamb - what I've done is just basically pan-fry it

and then roast it in the oven.

If I get this thinner, you'll see.

-It looks like an expensive wallpaper now.

-Exactly.

It's really trendy, you see.

There's going to be people just hanging this from the curtains -

not.

But look, look.

-And then you've got the sage leaves like that.

-Wow.

-And it goes inside...

-Oooh.

-Very pretty.

-I can cook, Nick.

-I know.

-I don't know what to do next but...

But we'll just pop this through.

Like you said, gone on to do tonnes of different things,

I have to say, it's my mother's favourite show,

she never watches this thing, what I'm doing, but Unforgiven...

Would she like the DVD which is out now?

-Oh, is it out now?

-Yeah, yeah.

Now, tell us about that then cos that was just...

-It was a big success for you.

-It was.

And I'd done quite a few TV series and bits of theatre.

But, you know, it's hard for a woman to get a really, really good script.

There are a lot of good scripts out there but for something that's so...

To play someone that is a double murderer

and you're kind of leading an amazing cast, by the way.

It was just, you know, like, the supporting cast was brilliant.

And it doesn't come around that often.

You know, to get a script like that so I was really lucky

and, yeah, very fortunate to play that character.

But almost opposite to what you were playing for years

on Corrie, as well.

Yeah, and that's what I was saying about it being measured.

And I had a great director, David Evans

and Sally Wainwright, who wrote it, is an amazing writer,

Red Productions.

The team was just like a dream team.

So, I'd love to work with them again and maybe create something else

cos it was just perfect, it was brilliant.

Talking about working with them again, what's next then?

What's next for you?

At the moment, I'm actually going on in aid mission

which I did for Christian Aid about...in 2004

so I'm going to revisit Africa

with a friend of mine and we're going to go and do an aid mission.

And then complete polar opposite to come back from that,

I'm going to work a musical which is like a rehearsed musical

and then see if that goes and maybe take that on

further into the West End.

-There you go. Coming to a city or town near you as well.

-Maybe.

I'm just going to go through what I've done.

Over here I've got some butter.

Like I said, I'm not afraid to put a few calories in.

We've got our pasta here. I'm going to drain off.

Which all I've done is literally just rolled that through,

that's made tagliatelle, fresh tagliatelle in there.

Just drain that off.

I've deep-fried some sage as well.

Pop that in the butter.

Bit of salt and bit of pepper.

Make it look so simple from scratch.

No, it is, really.

We've got...these ovens haven't got a back on them

and we've got somebody swapping the lamb round at the back.

And we've got our lamb, which has been cooking nicely.

Now, that's just nicely cooked.

And all we do now is just simply serve it.

It's just a case of confidence, isn't it?

Like, when I'm watching this... I'm a panicker, I just panic.

Men call it multitasking, do they?

LAUGHTER

I'm not even going to enter into that.

Yeah, we'll move on.

As the producer's going, "Move on, that's time, that's enough."

"You're in trouble."

Right, we've got it here. Look at that.

And then I've got my lamb chops.

Place them on there.

I'll save you the fat, Mum.

Do you want four? There you go. Four.

Deep-fried sage.

Buttered pasta with deep-fried sage and lamb chops.

-Gorgeous.

-So, what do you think of that pasta? Dive in.

So, it's sage and that sort of stuff.

No parsley cos I know what you like.

I think sage and pasta is great.

Plenty of butter.

-It's really quite an Italian dish that, isn't it?

-Yeah.

-Got that sort of saltimbocca-ish feel to it.

-Mm.

-Like that?

-Mm.

-Fantastic.

An excellent dish there, and a simple,

foolproof pasta recipe that anyone can try it ah home.

And now it's over to Clare Smyth,

who's here with a sophisticated spiced duck supper.

Welcome back, Clare.

-Now, this dish - cooked from start to finish in seven minutes.

-Yeah.

We're going to get started straightaway.

It's spiced duck breasts with creamed Savoy cabbage,

and we've got the spices - coriander seeds, fennel seeds,

nutmeg, cinnamon and some orange.

So, basically, we're going to start cooking the duck straightaway.

Tell us about this duck while I get the celeriac on the go.

What type of duck is this?

Basically, this is an English duck from a farm based down in Devon,

so it's free-range. And it's a nice sized duck breast.

It's a bit paler than some of the French duck you get.

They can be quite dark red. And actually, this cooks quickly.

Incredibly tender, really good.

Like you say, it's a different colour and slightly smaller.

It's a pale and tender meat. This is the one we use in the restaurant.

And it's nice to use English.

We have great English ducks and chickens.

So there's no excuse, really, not to be using them.

Put it in skin-side down. That's just to render the fat down.

That will develop a really nice flavour

-and go nice and crispy, hopefully.

-Tell us about the restaurant.

There's a lot of mystique

where three Michelin-starred food is concerned.

What's your secret to holding them

-and continuing to hold them for so long?

-Consistency, really.

You work your way up to that level and then you have to hold it

every day with the same dedication and commitment.

There is a huge team that work there.

You obviously have to move with the times and move forward as well.

You say a huge team.

Give people the numbers that you are actually serving,

as opposed to the numbers that are actually eating.

There's 41 members of staff employed,

for a restaurant with 14 tables.

And we're open five days a week.

So, yeah, we do about 100 covers a day.

-That's a massive amount of work.

-It is. It's in the detail.

The benefit from that, I suppose, is that you don't work the weekend.

Or rather, you do, because you do these cookery classes, don't you?

On a Saturday once a month, I do a masterclass,

which is really good fun. It's really casual.

One for you, Amanda.

We do seasonal stuff as well.

The menu changes throughout the year.

I've just popped the apples in.

I'm going to roast them with the duck in the pan.

I'll put that in the oven.

-Don't you do your signature dishes as well in a cookery class?

-Exactly.

We do a take on the lobster ravioli,

which is the signature dish of the restaurant.

We do a tortellini at the minute.

But that's all going to be changing soon, with spring coming in.

So you can do the class a few times throughout the year,

and pick up many techniques.

So that's once a month, and the rest of the weekend,

the chefs all get their time off.

Yeah, so it's just one team all the time, which is great.

Keeps the consistency in the restaurant.

And we're pretty full all the time, really.

So I'll just start to sweat down this bacon here. Put a lid on that.

I've cut the celeriac into fine, fine dice. There you go.

Whilst you're doing that,

I'm just going to toast off some of these spices.

I'll put the fennel seeds and coriander seeds in a pan.

We're just going to toast them lightly,

because we just want to release the aromas.

We don't want to burn the spices.

Just toast them for a few seconds in a hot, dry pan.

Now, we're using celeriac,

but it's also great for purees, soups and that kind of stuff.

And roasting. It's good with roasts as well.

-You can bake the whole lot in salt.

-That's really good.

OK, they're just going to go into a pestle and mortar.

Do you have it on your menu, Lawrence?

We've done celeriac in apple juice.

We cook it in apple juice, apples and celeriac, and just cream it.

The most famous one, I suppose, is remoulade,

which is the French coleslaw with a bit of mustard.

Yeah, I love remoulade and ham.

Great with ham. Right, explain to us what's happening here.

I've put in the nutmeg and ground cinnamon.

I'm just going to pound up the spices a little bit.

You want to pound them up quite a bit

so you don't get big pieces of spice,

but you still want a bit of crunchy spice in there.

There you are.

-So once that's done...

-All your diced veg there.

-Yeah.

That's just going to go...

I'm trying to do a little three-star dice there, you know.

That's just going to go straight in there, with that bacon.

-That's nice.

-"Nice"?!

LAUGHTER

-I'm going to take half of that.

-You only want half of it.

Chef, it's finesse, not Skegness.

LAUGHTER

So I'm going to sweat that down.

-Eurostar, not Michelin Star.

-Ha-hey!

-That's the one.

-Right.

-OK, so ground those up.

-Yeah.

In there's going to go a little bit of orange zest.

So this is the topping for the duck, isn't it?

Well, basically, it's just a glaze for it. I started doing this with...

You know, like the wild ducks in the shooting season.

It's really nice and you roast a nice wild duck with it.

-You go shooting, as well, don't you?

-Yeah. I like to get the...

-You're not a bad shot.

-..produce fresh.

Um...just going to put a little bit of juice in there as well.

And where do you go for inspiration from your... for your menus?

Obviously, weekends and stuff like that,

but it's difficult when you're working them hours, isn't it?

Yeah, but you get your inspiration from the seasons, don't you?

-It's just... yeah, what's available.

-Yeah.

Um...and we cook quite classically and quite naturally, you know?

We really try and respect the ingredients.

We do try and buy as much British produce as possible.

Obviously, you know, most of our cooking is French,

but, you know, as I said,

the duck and everything, there's amazing English duck.

The difficulty that you find with purely British food, it changes.

Some things like... We used that earlier.

It could change, the sea kale, two weeks and it's gone.

You have literally a two or three-week window,

you have to use it while you can.

You were talking about the sea purslane and stuff -

you've got to preserve it while it's in season, pickle it,

-and savour it as much as you can. Otherwise it's gone.

-Yeah.

-That makes it special and exciting, doesn't it?

-It does. Absolutely.

If you just go to, obviously the supermarkets are fantastic as well,

but if you just always buy stuff all year round...

-It's pointless.

-It's just not special any more.

You used to have festivals for when certain things came around

and then you'd look forward to it and enjoy it.

Now we've lost all them festivals.

I know. I think there should be a resurgence,

that that comes back and we start getting excited about it.

In Spain and France, they still celebrate certain things,

-the Calcot onions and things like that.

-It's so regional as well.

I adore truffles, so...

We are missing what's going on here. What's in there?

OK, I just put a little bit of cream in there.

That's going to help the cabbage cook down.

You don't really need to put any water or stock.

You can put a little bit, but normally if you put a lid on it,

it sort of steams and cooks down in its own juices.

-And this is the duck.

-The duck's just come out of the oven.

-Yeah.

So all I want to do with that now

is I'm just going to brush the spices on it,

straight away when it comes out of the oven.

Just sort of roast though spices into it.

-These are last, last-minute, these ones.

-Yeah, really nice.

But I want to just take that out of that pan,

let it rest for a couple of minutes.

-Do you want me to do that? I'll get a plate.

-Yeah, cool.

Just look after the cabbage.

-There you go.

-It's quite a simple dish,

you only need a couple of pans, which is quite good.

-I like that.

-A couple of pans and 16 chefs! Yeah!

But this is kind of a variant

of what's on the menu at the moment, or...?

We do do something like this,

we do this cabbage, we use this duck.

Like I said, I had the mallards on with it, which was really nice.

Now, do you want me to just finish off that sauce?

Yeah, we'll put a bit of duck stock in there now.

You can use brown chicken stock, you can use chicken stock,

-if you can't find duck stock.

-This is from your restaurant.

-Yeah.

It's not like supermarket stock, that, is it? Look at that.

-You'll have difficulty getting that out of there.

-There you go.

Again, I didn't need to season that cabbage,

cos you got the smoked bacon in there as well.

Right, so explain to us,

-just recap what we've got in that pan over there.

-OK.

So in here we've got the smoked bacon,

celeriac, carrots, savoy cabbage.

Just a little bit of cream, that's all cooked down together.

Obviously, the duck's just resting there,

that'll take a couple of minutes to rest

but, in this pan, you've got the spices, the duck juices,

you've also got juices from the roasting apples,

so it's nice just to finish off with a bit of sauce.

-Ready when you are.

-So we're just going to plate now.

A little bit of salt...

-..in there.

-A nice little bit of cabbage on there.

And then this just takes on all the leftover spices

-that you've got in there as well?

-Absolutely. Yeah.

Just going to carve that duck.

So it's nice and...

-You could do this with chicken as well.

-Absolutely.

-The garnish is still the same, yeah.

-Yeah.

Just going to pop that on top, really simply like that.

OK, and we're just going to pop some of those apples on there.

The apples are a great sweetness as well. Nice with spices.

-The pan's not hot, cos I swapped it.

-Ah, OK.

A little bit of that sauce over the top.

Look at that.

-Remind us what that is again.

-OK, it's spiced duck breast

with cream savoy cabbage and roasted Braeburn apples.

From a three-star Michelin chef. Check that out.

-Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. There you go.

-Gosh.

-Dive into this.

-Dive into that.

-Wow.

This in a matter of minutes!

Minutes. Very, very quick as well.

One thing you don't want to be doing with duck is overcooking it

-as well. You can serve it medium, medium rare.

-I like it medium.

Honestly, cos, yeah... I like it medium.

You go to France a lot -

they still have it quacking over there, don't they?

They just literally...

take its feathers off, warm it up in the kitchen

and bring it out and start eating it.

-But great.

-Fantastic.

-Happy with that?

Fantastic indeed.

A real-time dish that certainly didn't disappoint in the studio.

Now it's time for our Keith Floyd fix, and he's on his travels

once again and heading to very wet and windy Cornwall.

Pilchard!

A thousand times as good as herring

Pilchard!

The idol of a popish nation

Hail, little instrument of vast salvation

Pilchard!

I wean a most soul-saving fish

On which the Catholics in Lent are crammed

Who had they not, poor souls, this lively fish

Would eat flesh and consequently, be dammed.

This is crazy, isn't it? Absolutely stupid.

What we're really going to do here this morning,

we're going to set up a nice, little, white table, tablecloth,

bottle of wine, some flowers -

oops-a-daisy, don't worry about that -

a few flowers and have a nice little snack and talk about pilchards.

But, on second thoughts...

As you can see, if you think I'm going to stay here

and talk about pilchards, you must be out of your tiny minds,

this is absolute madness.

So I'm going to hitch a ride with my mate Enzo,

who's a pilchard expert,

and talk about it in the comfort of his little bar.

Or kitchen, we'll see.

Great.

Why, whenever we come to Cornwall -

and this whole programme is in Cornwall -

does it always blow a gale?

You might have gathered that my director has to throw a six before

he starts thinking, especially when it comes to pilchards.

You remember the debacle the last time we tried to find them.

Anyway, apart from the weather, he has got his act together,

so here we go, pilchards mark two.

-How are you?

-Very good.

Sorry we missed you on the fish quay.

Well, in this sort of weather, I didn't stay very long!

-This is the place to be.

-It certainly is.

-Pilchards!

-Right, did you find any?

-No, of course we didn't.

-No?

The last time we went out with some Cornish dogs,

old sea dogs, we caught three. And that was all, and they said

we'd catch tonnes of them, but I haven't seen any.

Well, they come and they go.

The only way really to keep pilchards is to have them salted.

And this is how we do them in Cornwall.

Like in there. Don't they look beautiful?

Well, this is exactly the same way they've been done for just

over the last 100 years.

The fish are salted and then pressed to get all the oil out.

So why can't I go to my local delicatessen and buy some?

Well, we have a job selling them in England. It's a beautiful fish.

Enzo, being Italian, knows how they are.

We send the whole lot to Italy.

Year after year, we send them to Italy, and they love them.

The way the Italians do it -

we had a lady in the shop last week -

and everybody knew how to do pilchards.

They don't. How many of you know how to do pilchards?

-They don't, do they?

-This is one way of doing it.

You take the head off,

you just take the gut out.

These are preserved with the gut in them?

Preserved with the gut in, yes.

It might upset you, but that's what's happening.

There's a salted fish, very similar in texture to an anchovy.

You just wrap it up in tinfoil and put it in the embers of your fire.

Richard, come to me, come to me, because we've heard from Nick

all about that kind of thing,

but how do we eat them, how do we prepare them?

I want to introduce you to my friend Enzo.

You saw his van earlier on today.

Enzo, thanks for letting us come here, and cheers, by the way,

-because it's really nice to meet you.

-Nice to meet you.

Tell me about what you do with pilchards?

Well, in Naples, what we do,

we soak them in vinegar for a couple of days.

-These are Nick's salted ones, aren't they?

-Yes, yes.

We don't do them in Italy, they all come from England.

And we prepare them and, after a couple of days,

we prepare this as an hors d'oeuvre.

And you can mix them with anything you want.

Potatoes, haricot beans,

artichokes, they make a nice hors d'oeuvre.

Years ago, in my father's time,

when there was no television or nothing,

people used to play cards, and in the middle of the table,

there were pilchards or sardines,

things like this, with a good glass of red wine to go with it.

Yes, because, of course, again, you wouldn't drink,

with a highly flavoured fish like this, you wouldn't drink

a delicate, white wine. You want a rumbustious...

-and this Barbaresco's absolutely splendid, isn't it?

-It's a good one.

But antipasto - which, let me explain - antipasto,

of which this is one kind, there are many, many others.

And if you'd like to come over here, you can see some of the things

that Enzo has prepared for us by way of hors d'oeuvre,

by way of antipasto.

Those are sardines, fried, and then we do a sauce with

garlic, mint, vinegar,

a little bit of black pepper,

and you serve them cold.

They look absolutely fantastic.

Richard, look at this, this is brilliant.

Mmm.

Garlic, mint, lemon juice and vinegar and oil,

into a fried sardine. Which, at 4.5 inches, becomes a pilchard.

Didn't know that, did you?

Mmm!

Bring on the next one, what have you got next?

Peppers. Peperonata.

-Now, here's one for the vegetarians, that's for sure.

-Yes.

They're peppers,

cooked with onions,

garlic, black olives,

a bit of parsley,

a little bit of oregano. Just a touch of oregano.

That, my dear gastronauts,

should satisfy all of those of you who are vegetarians.

Why have a pile of brown rice or stale spaghetti

when you can have super-duper peppers cooked that way?

That's absolutely brilliant.

Sunshine dish. The sunshine dish.

Mmm.

-Would you like to try some octopus?

-I would, I love octopus.

That's octopus, they've got to be boiled.

And when you boil them, you put a cork in it.

You put a cork in it?

Yes. I don't know if it's superstition or something.

I never tried different, because my mamma told me to do it like that.

For the first 25 minutes, you don't take the lid off the saucepan.

Because they get tough, and they've got to be for 25 minutes in there.

Brilliant. Now, superstition or because it's the way

my mamma told me to do it, you must do it.

Boil your octopus with a lid on it with a cork inside. Essential.

Then you strain it and make a wonderful dressing of peppers,

lemon juice, parsley and garlic. And, boy-oh-boy, isn't this fun?

I tell you the other thing -

Richard, come back down to my plate -

you see I've mixed my fish and my peppers and my octopus,

and the essential thing here is a piece of bread

to dip up the sauces with.

Because you know - come back to me, my dear -

one of the things that I find really sad about English cooking,

we spend more time on our place settings and our elegant crystal

and our fine decanters than we do on what's actually on the plate.

So this is the way to eat, my friends.

I hope you're enjoying it like we are.

Pilchard.

Red mullet.

And some prawns.

Now, what I do, I usually...

..finish the dress...

..with the sauce.

Which I said is oil, garlic,

vinegar, parsley, mint.

It's absolutely ready for you to try, Keith.

Oh, Enzo, Enzo, Enzo,

that is fantastic, thank you very much.

-And use your finger.

-I will, I will.

Because people spend too much time eating with a knife and fork

when prawns should be with their finger.

Actually, it's quite true, you know. This is how you eat a prawn.

You rip off the head - even though it's burning

my little artist's fingers - peel off the skin...

-I don't feel anything.

-You feel no pain?

-No.

There's no pain in good fun, is there?

Mmm. Beautiful.

Thank you.

One thing, that is a beautiful, beautiful dish,

no question about it -

do people in your restaurant react properly to that?

-Do they get frightened about heads and things?

-Oh, all the time!

All the time. Head off, tail off, they make

so much fuss instead of just sit down and enjoy themselves.

When my mum was here last month,

she saw somebody eating king prawns with a knife and fork.

She was going mad. She said, "What are they doing?"

They should eat with their finger, like mussels, you know?

The try not to get dirty their T-shirt or their tie.

It's stupid, people should make noise and be rude, that's

the way to enjoy food, not to look elegant. I personally think so.

You're so right.

Listen, step out of the way, let's have a look at these other,

brilliant things that we've got here. Enzo, talk me through these.

Tell me what these are made of?

This is aubergine.

I peel them, and then fry and slice.

When they're cold, I put some ham and mozzarella cheese.

Which is that, that's the mozzarella cheese,

and there's the ham underneath.

Tomato sauce and Parmesan cheese on top.

And then bake it again until the cheese is melted.

And this is the courgette,

the stuffing is exactly as they do in Naples with the cannelloni.

But instead to use pasta,

I use courgette.

It looks more interesting.

And the stuffing is,

you're salting the onions

and you put minced meat in it.

White wine, salt and pepper,

and then you mix with cheese -

mozzarella, Cheddar, Parmesan -

and you stuff the courgette and you bake it again.

-Sorry about that.

-Bye!

If the pictures don't tell you, I can't.

And here's another one of me, having a bracing stroll along the cliffs

to clear my head before meeting the restaurateur Anne Long.

Actually, I don't like walking.

They make me do it to satisfy the director's obsession with

tin mines and landscapes.

I reckon he thinks he's David Lean.

# The king was in his counting house

# Counting out the money

# I am in the kitchen... #

Yes, as a matter of fact - hello - I am in a counting house.

I'm, in fact, in The Count House, right on the edge of Cornwall,

with the sea over there and the wind blowing us all over the place.

And today, I'm going to cook you a rabbit.

Because my director tells me - and I don't believe everything he says -

but he says all tin miners used to eat rabbits in the olden days.

But we don't eat them any more, and that's a great shame,

because they're a cheap, economical and quite delicious thing.

So, Richard, if you'd like to come down to my ingredients,

I'll explain what we're going to have.

First of all, we need some chopped, fatty bacon.

Some finely diced carrot.

Ha-ha! That's not carrot, is it?

That's onion!

Never mind, it doesn't matter, we all make mistakes like that.

If you can't tell the difference between onion and carrot,

switch over to Sesame Street or back to Crossroads

or whatever you're up to. Anyway, if you're interested,

rabbit, then a bay leaf, fresh rosemary,

chervil and sometime thyme.

Some prunes, which we've had soaking in white wine,

but you could soak them in tea or water if you wanted to.

We're going to need a drop of cognac later

and a bit of white wine for cooking in.

Then, I've rolled up some butter and flour

later for thickening the sauce.

Parsley, tomato puree,

finely chopped garlic

and the liver and the heart from the rabbit,

which we'll put into the sauce.

OK, let's go, Richard, come on over and we'll get things going a bit.

This is the pan it's all going to go in. HE DRINKS

With a quick slurp here and a quick slurp there.

In we get the bacon.

Maximise the speed of the gas.

I suspect that's going. That's all right.

In with the onions.

And in with the carrot.

In a few moments, those will start to bubble away.

And fact, they're not going to, are they?

Hmm, yes, sorry about that, bit of a slow takeoff there,

I wasn't really up to frying speed.

Anyway, we are now, everything's going fine.

As you can see, it's bubbling nicely away, turning golden.

And it's at this stage...

Ow! Burned myself!

That'll delight you, won't it?

..we put the rabbit in, like this.

Into the oil and bacon.

And bits of onion.

A quick grind of pepper over all of that.

Like so.

Brown these off very quickly.

And then...

Because this is the good, slightly fun way of doing things,

in we go with...

There we are! Hooray!

In with the garlic.

In with our bay leaf.

Little bit of rosemary.

Little bit of thyme.

And a little bit chervil.

Doesn't that look really attractive?

Little bit of parsley.

In with our prunes.

Like that.

Drop of white wine.

I hope you can hear me above all this sizzling and fuzzling.

Little bit of white wine.

Tiny bit of tomato puree, stir that in.

Like so.

And then a tiny pinch of salt into the sauce.

Our rabbit's liver, to give the stock flavour.

And we now just let that simmer gently away,

turning from time to time.

Come back, I think they've seen enough of that, don't you?

I haven't got all day.

Let that simmer gently now for about, I don't know, 35 minutes.

And every now and again, turn the rabbit over.

A lot of you think I have a fantastically good time,

just drifting around the southwest of England, cooking,

eating and drinking and stuff like that.

I mean, sometimes I just can't think of what to say,

and today is one of those things.

I don't really know how to introduce this rabbit which I'm just cooked.

I know it's cooked properly, I know it's delicious,

I'm a bit worried that my friend Anne here,

halfway through the cooking told me, "I don't like meat with bones on!"

I don't know how to get over that.

Anne, never mind all of that, would you please try it, despite

the fact you're a bit worried about the bones?

Because I know your style of cooking

is much more refined than my style of cooking, isn't it?

Not any better, though.

Well...!

"What are you doing after the show?"

Tell me a bit about the way you like to cook?

I really find bones very irritating.

I think that reflects in all of my cooking, so I would tend...

Mind you, that looks beautiful.

-Thank you.

-Very nice indeed.

I would tend to bone a rabbit.

And then cook it and slice it

so you have a stuffing with the skin all around it.

I must say, I agree with you,

but you are a professional and dedicated cook.

And a lot of people don't have time for what

they think is that prissy approach to things.

I mean, how would you say about the fact that it would be better

that they made use of simple ingredients like rabbit at least?

I think the difference is that that is superb,

-but people are to paying to come and eat my food.

-Precisely.

So, therefore, I feel that I owe it to people to present it

and spend a lot of time on cooking it and preparing it.

I haven't got a deep freeze full of any inexhaustible...

Oh, hooray to that. And a lot of you could take a lesson from that, OK?

This place is in the middle of nowhere -

in fact, it's only halfway in the middle of nowhere,

because the rest of it doesn't exist, if you see what I mean -

and she hasn't got a deep freeze.

And too many people live out of the deep freeze, don't they?

I think so.

And they make too much use of microwaves. And you've got...

That's my advertising contract gone.

I despise microwaves too, actually.

This is a genuine thing, I really hate them.

And I haven't got one at home.

Wonderful stuff from the legendary Keith Floyd 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...

Aggi Sverrisson tries to make it onto the leaderboard as

he takes on Sat Bains in the Saturday Kitchen omelette challenge.

And then it's over to Will Holland,

who's serving up a mix of sweet and savoury.

He roasts wood pigeon with orange zest, sugar, and serves with

a mango salsa, mango puree and a red wine and sesame reduction,

all topped with crispy leeks.

And finally, Sue Perkins faces her food heaven or food hell.

Will she get her food heaven - hazelnut and chocolate gateau

topped with meringue and mini marshmallows?

Or her food hell, goat's cheese on brioche

with salt-baked celeriac and a red carrot dressing?

Will it be sweet treat or a savoury disaster for Sue?

You're going to have to keep watching till

the end of the show to find out.

But before all of that, it's over to the culinary spice master,

Cyrus Todiwala, as he serves up his take on a Keralan crab curry.

It's Cyrus Todiwala. Good to have you on the show, boss.

-Good to be here.

-Put the omelette pan down.

Right, what are we cooking?

Because this dish requires a marathon of chopping.

Fantastic. We're going to work very, very fast

and you're going to help me achieve that.

I'm going to start this already, but go on.

All right, there's a piece of ginger we peeled.

-OK, what is this dish called?

-This is called Kerala njandu masala.

If you want to pronounce it right, for want of a better word.

But it's basically a crab which is very lightly toasted with

a combination of ginger, garlic, shallots, green chilli,

curry leaves - that I'm chopping up very fine here -

and we then finish off with a little bit of coconut.

It's fair to say, would it be dry?

It's going to be dry, yeah, going to be dry.

This is actually quite dry, because the coconut, at the end,

we've got lovely, shredded coconut up there.

The coconut, in the end, is going to make it a little bit more dry.

And we then serve it with a lovely Currimbhoy salad, as we call it.

It's more like an Indian-style Caesar salad.

-Yes.

-It's fantastic. It gives a lovely twist to the whole dish.

But traditionally what would it be?

Traditionally it would be you having a large bowl

full of crabs on the shell, cut into pieces, tossed like that,

cooked nicely and you'd be messing your whole self up

eating your way through a whole pot of crabs.

I know you don't like squid. Crab?

-I've never had crab.

-Never had crab?

-No.

-I know.

The best thing is you serve it up with a nice little curry sauce

at the end which is fantastic.

-That's what they would do traditionally.

-What else can I chop?

I've got all this chopped. I just need...

Chilli shredded. Not chopped, that one, red one.

-Shredded.

-Red one shredded.

So this is literally all about getting everything ready

before we cook it.

This is all about getting everything ready and as you will see now

we'll finish it off in literally a couple of minutes as we go.

I think you can start on the croutons

-and the salad.

-It's like marathon chopping now. There you go.

Fantastic, sir.

Thank you very much. That's got me started very nicely.

Now where...? India is split between so many different cultures

and different areas.

-How many different languages have you got in there?

-126.

-126 different languages.

-Yes.

And the country separates so much with food.

You go north it's very different to the south.

It's amazing.

If I live to be 1,000 I wouldn't learn Indian food. I'd just be

scratching the surface.

Where did you learn the training when you started in India?

-Training was at the Taj in Bombay.

-Yes.

And of course the boss at home at the time. I've got a new boss now.

-But the boss then was Mum.

-Mother. Yes.

-As usual.

We'll pick up things from mothers

and we have recipes handed down from grandmothers et cetera.

And that's where the real excitement starts

if you are allowed to enter the kitchen as a young boy

because, considering where you come from, Indian food...

Cooking professionally in India

at the time was considered a low profession.

So it would have been treated like you're a domestic hand.

To enter the profession was bad enough because everybody laughed at us.

-So you need inspiration.

-Right.

What goes on in the wok then? What's going on there?

Now I'm going to start with the mustard seeds.

And then instantly as they crackle,

because when you're doing mustard seeds, first of all you need the

oil to be nice and hot, but you also need a lid on next to you

because if you don't have a lid next to you, you are going to end

up getting freckle face.

Freckle face.

Or worse than that it's going to be a very sad looking freckle face.

-Freckle face.

-Yeah.

-OK.

-Because they end up going all over the place.

Now this dish, start to finish, watch this. You've got four minutes to cook it in.

We've got four minutes to cook it in. That's exactly what we are going to do.

In go the shallots, the curry leaves, the ginger and the garlic.

Yes.

Now, the order is quite important as well, isn't it?

The order is important because the first thing you need to do is

make sure the pan cools down instantly.

I don't want to add the tomatoes now, they go towards the end.