10/01/2016 Saturday Kitchen Best Bites

If fantastic food cooked by the world's best chefs

is what you're after, then look no further.

This is Saturday Kitchen Best Bites.

Welcome to the show.

We've got some amazing recipes lined up for you this morning,

all cooked by the best in the business,

and all enjoyed by some pretty peckish celebrities, too.

Coming up on today's show,

Jose Pizarro was pulling out all the stops

with his pan-fried hake recipe served with slow-cooked lentils,

oh, and a plate of iberico ham, just to finish it all off.

Rachel Allen turns the humble pork sausage into something

fit for a king, the king of chefs, in fact.

She's serving them with colcannon and home-made apple sauce

for a certain Michel Roux. No pressure, Rachel.

We're joined by another great French chef, Daniel Galmiche.

His pan-roasted chicken with truffles, leeks and potatoes -

very French and very tasty.

And Spooks actress Kelly Adams faces her Food Heaven or Food Hell.

Would she get her Food Heaven -

sticky toffee apple pudding with toffee sauce,

or would she get her dreaded Food Hell - cream of celeriac soup

with crispy pancetta and croutons?

You can find out what she gets to eat at the end of today's show.

But first, let's get some Asian aromas going in the kitchen

with a recipe from the great Peter Lloyd.

-Your first time on the show, Peter, so welcome.

-Thank you very much.

A simple dish. What's the name of it?

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

jicama and some pea shoots.

The pepper's got a nice, hearty heat, so good for a winter warmer,

and we're going to balance that with the sweetness of the pineapple, which we're going to oven-dry.

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

If you can start prepping the pineapple, I'll start the sauce.

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

-Yeah.

So 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.

Just did lots of modern European cooking

but always travelled to Southeast Asia in my holidays,

Thailand and Malaysia and Hong Kong, and always really got into the food,

so once I joined the Sanderson Hotel,

we had a Malaysian restaurant, took that on board

and then joined Spice Market.

And the beautiful thing about Spice Market is it covers all Southeast Asian food.

We've got everything from Vietnam to Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore,

and beautiful, fragrant flavours.

This is a restaurant in the heart of a hotel right in the heart of London.

Yeah, absolutely. We're right on Leicester Square, part of the W.

Two floors, open-plan kitchen.

You've got the guys cooking on the woks in front of all the guests,

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

We're just going to start by frying off a tablespoon of ginger

and our chopped garlic.

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

Yeah, equal quantities of ginger and garlic. We're just going to sweat those down.

We don't want to get too much colour on the ginger and garlic,

otherwise it will start to go bitter.

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

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

-Absolutely, semi-dry.

We just want to concentrate the sugars in the pineapple.

It's going to give us a nice sweetness that will balance

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

So you don't put anything on it, just as it is in the oven.

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

for about two hours. That will give you a really nice sticky texture.

I suppose you could do this in a hot cupboard, something like that.

Yeah, a hot cupboard. At the restaurant, we use a dehydrator, as well.

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

-Yeah, it is.

-It's one of my chef's toys.

-Exactly.

So we've got that going on there.

We're going to add some spring onions, two spring onions going in

and we're going to cook those down.

-There you go.

-Thank you.

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

is going to come from these bits here.

The spice is really just going to come from the pepper.

We're going to take the peppercorns,

put them in our mortar and pestle. We just want to grind them lightly.

We don't want to make them too fine.

This isn't just black pepper as we know it.

We're using a fancy named pepper called Sarawak,

which is from Malaysia, from the Borneo region.

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

Where do you get all of that, then?

Is that stuff you get off the internet?

The spice store in Notting Hill.

But I'm quite lucky cos I've got Chinatown 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.

-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 ketjap manis.

-A spoon there.

-Yeah.

-But it's sticky, is that?

-Yeah, very sticky.

-You can see it's almost like a molasses.

-Yeah.

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.

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

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

the Asian style of cooking has been an influence for all manner

of different chefs. It doesn't have to be in Asian restaurants now.

Absolutely. I think Jean-Georges was one of the first chefs

that really, when he opened Vong quite a few years ago,

really brought that Asian influence, it was more fusion back then,

to London streets.

But now there's lots of options to eat in London, this type of food.

So we're just going to reduce that sauce down slightly.

It's gone nice and syrupy.

Then we're just go to pop this into our food processor,

-just to blend it altogether.

-Right.

So these prawns, basically you want them just peeled and the head off.

That's right. For the presentation of this,

we're going to cut them completely in half.

Take the brains out. Is this cos of speed to cook or do they just curl up

-when they...?

-It just changes the presentation

-cos they'll curl and twist.

-Yeah.

-OK.

-There you go.

Are we there with that?

Now I know these beans and bits and pieces will work well with fish,

but this also would work great with steak, looking at the colour of that.

Yeah, absolutely.

This is a really good alternative to classic steak au poivre.

-If you serve this with a ribeye, it's going to work really well.

-OK.

-Prawns are ready.

-There you are. There's that one ready.

A little bit of oil. I'll blend that one up for you.

So is this the type of dish that you have on at the restaurant?

Would this be a special?

No, this is one of the dishes on our menu.

We actually did this for the Taste of London food festival

and we came second place out of 40 restaurants in London for this dish.

-This one dish?

-This one dish came second, yeah.

It's a pretty healthy competition as well.

I'm just going to add a little salt.

What was the first placed one, do you know?

First place was Club Gascon with their Marmite foie gras.

Right.

GUESTS LAUGH

OK, we're just going to saute those off.

There's a sink in the back there. I'll put the tap on so you can wash your hands.

So you're cooking these quite quickly, then?

Yeah, they don't take too long to cook.

You can see that they curl while they're cooking.

Now tell us about this. This is what you mentioned earlier.

-What is this?

-It's jicama, spelt with a J, pronounced with a H.

It's like a sweet root vegetable.

The texture is a cross between a potato and an apple.

You can eat it raw but it's going to add a nice fresh crunch to our dish.

-I've never seen this in my life.

-No, I've never used that before.

-Jicama.

Where do you buy that from?

All of the Asian stores have got it, certainly in Chinatown.

OK, we're going to add a little bit of this sauce.

-Can you eat it raw?

-Yeah, absolutely.

The Malaysians use it a lot for things like their popiah,

and things like that, a vegetable spring roll.

We're just going to add sauce to our prawns.

That's going to give them a nice coat.

I'll put the plate there so it's ready for you.

OK. Where did my spoon go?

-Spoons are at the end.

-Grab the spoon.

So you just want me to dice this up?

Please, yeah, just like a fine brunoise.

Those prawns really didn't take long to cook.

See, because of the way we've cut them, they curl up,

and it's going to enhance our presentation.

There's that.

The prawns look fantastic. Very simple, as well.

-And then...

-I'll leave you to put that on.

Of course, all of today's studio recipes,

including this one from Peter, are on our website.

Go to bbc.co.uk/saturdaykitchen.

Now, this is the pineapple but if you see that, it's still nice and soft.

Yeah, but all those sugars have really concentrated now.

And then I'm just going to take a little bit of this jicama.

Now, if you can't get this jicama, and I know my mother won't be able to

get it up in Yorkshire, what are you going to use?

-Water chestnuts.

-Water chestnuts?

-Yeah. Even the tinned ones.

If you can't get fresh water chestnuts, the tinned ones work really well.

They give you that fresh, raw crunch to the dish.

Then just finish over with some pea shoots.

It's like a radish sort of texture, isn't it? Watery, as well.

That's our black pepper shrimp, some dried pineapple

-and pea shoots and jicama.

-How good does that look?

The first dish on Saturday Kitchen.

You're coming back. It's great.

It looks fabulous. Let's see what it tastes like. Dive into that.

You've probably tried something similar to this if you've been to the restaurant.

-Yes, I don't think I had this dish, though.

-Those pineapples are great.

Yeah, they're great.

The idea with the pineapples is you have the prawn

and you get that heat from the black pepper, and then you follow it

with a piece of the pineapple and it gives you a break

in between each piece.

We marinate them in stock syrup. Do you do that first?

-No, just straight in. Completely dry.

-Very nice.

-Happy with that?

-Very, very nice.

-Do you want some wine to go with this?

-Yes, please.

Very nice indeed, Peter. Jicama was a new one on me

but it's well worth tracking down and having a go at that recipe.

I'll be chatting to Ross Kemp in a minute

and cooking duck breast with the most unusual melon you've ever seen.

Before that, we catch up with a certain Rick Stein

as he goes on the hunt for more of his food heroes.

When I said to a chef friend of mine that I was going to Ireland

in search of good things to eat, he said,

"Well, since Ireland has come into the money these days,

"things have changed quite a bit.

"There's a lot of fancy cooking going on over there."

The fancy food is not what I really like,

so I thought I'd show you what I'd be cooking on this programme,

dishes born out of hardship, which have stood the test of time.

Well, this is corned beef and cabbage,

one of Ireland's best known dishes and a real favourite of mine

cos it relies on really good raw materials simply cooked.

So, unlike the corned beef that we know in England,

which comes in tins and is all jumbled up and pressed,

this is actually corned beef which is more like ham.

I'm just studding some onions here with cloves.

I'm just going to add a few flavouring vegetables

to the water I'm going to cook the corned beef in.

One other little bit of information here,

that corned beef doesn't mean anything to do with corn,

it just refers to the size of the coarse salt

they used to salt the beef with, which looked a bit like corn.

There you go. Put some bay leaves in there and a few peppercorns.

Then plenty of water just to cover this.

And then I'll just bring it to the boil, skim it,

and then leave it to simmer for several hours

until it's tender and lovely.

Just at the end of simmering the corned beef,

I add the vegetables I'm going to serve with it.

First potatoes and carrots

and after they've had a chance to cook for ten minutes or so

and take on the flavour of the stock, add the cabbage.

Hispi cooks very quickly.

I just drop those in literally minutes before everything's done

and take it off the heat.

This is what I call a "no faff dish" because everything is cooked

in the same pot and it's great if you've got loads of people.

So often, I plan things far too complicated,

have a couple of glasses and then everything gets spoiled.

This is a no-spoil dish.

And look at that, how succulent it is,

so different from the tinned variety.

This represents the very best of what this country has to offer.

And one more thing. I don't thicken the stock.

This is not an English gravy but a refreshing, well-flavoured broth,

which moistens the meat.

RAIN PATTERS

THUNDER RUMBLES

James Whelan Butchers in Clonmel is not what I've been expecting.

I suppose I'm always looking for old-fashioned butchers

with wooden blocks, sawdust and great chines of beef

and ruddy-faced butchers, podgy with sausage.

But Pat Whelan, who's taken over the business,

is not just a successful butcher, he's a farmer as well.

Although he runs a pretty slick operation here,

it's all about good local produce.

In this area, we're trusted and it's built over generations.

I'm the fifth generation in the business

and it's that element of trust,

that whole transparency, that it's evident to the people of this area

what we do in the area. It's tangible, we're tangible,

and that's what people want nowadays.

They want safe, healthy, properly produced, low-density,

eco-friendly - that's what people want.

Do you think that people around here can appreciate the difference

between supermarket beef and the quality beef that you're selling?

Clonmel has 20,000 people.

It's represented by each of the multinational supermarket chains,

and we still survive and are building and building,

stronger and stronger every week.

But you've got to develop your unique selling point.

You've got to source your beef. You've got to take care,

you've got a pride in your business.

It's all of that. It doesn't come in a vac pack bag.

It comes as we see it here. You prepare it, your skill, your craft.

That's what makes the difference.

If you don't have a unique selling point, you're wasting your time.

You're then competing with the supermarkets.

Price isn't the differentiator, it's down to quality.

I'm making a dish with a real Irish flavour,

which is steak, Guinness and oyster pie.

I've just cubed the beef into good 1-inch to 1.5-inch pieces

and then lightly dusting it in flour before frying.

You don't always have to sear the meat when you make a pie,

but in this case I think it's important in order to get

a really dark and rich colour.

It makes such a difference to the finished look.

Once it's browned, take it out of the pan

and take a little butter and fry off the onions

until they're soft and brown too and add a little salt.

So those onions are nice and brown now and glistening,

so I need to pour the beef back in again now.

The reason for splitting them up is so that you don't overload the pan

and everything has a chance to brown well.

Next, I'm going to add some stout, half a pint of stout,

and half a pint of good beef stock.

Now some mushrooms, just a whole bowl of button mushrooms.

And a bouquet garni,

and now some Worcester sauce,

about two tablespoons but you don't need to be too precise.

Quite a lot of it, really.

And now some salt, about a teaspoon and a half.

And lots and lots of black pepper,

about 40 turns of the black pepper mill.

That's good.

Now then, put a lid on there and just leave it to simmer away

very gently for about an hour or so.

You can see that's a really nice dark colour,

which I was looking for, deep, deep brown.

The mushrooms have cooked right down and look at that sauce.

It's really nice and viscous, a word I'm very fond of.

And finally, to shuck the oysters.

This is the occasion when, because I'm doing this on TV,

I will stick myself in my hand

or I'll graze my knuckles on the oyster shells,

or I'll break the oyster shell in half

and all the little filigree pieces of shell

will go into the oyster meat. Just watch.

Well, that's one where I didn't cut myself.

Number two...

Good. Three.

I've heard that some of these TV cooks have a stuntman

to do these close-up shots of dangerous things,

like opening oysters, and then in the wider shot, it's me.

I do all my own stunts.

Now I'm starting to get cocky.

Oh.

Some people think that this sort of pie goes back to Victorian times

when oysters were very, very cheap.

There's a theory that they're a substitute for the meat that wasn't.

But I don't think that's true.

I think it just gives the stew and the pie a nice salty savouriness

in the same way as you put anchovies in meat things,

or the Chinese put oyster sauce in things.

Notice that all the precious liquor from the oyster goes in, as well,

give a nice saltiness to the gravy and the pie.

Give it all a gentle stir

and pop one of those little ceramic gizmos into the middle.

Seal the edge with some beaten egg

and put a puff pastry top over the lot.

I'm just crimping the edges here to make sure

they seal together nicely and don't fall into the middle of the pie.

A cross on the middle to let the steam out,

and finally a brush with beaten egg.

That goes in the oven, the hot oven, for about 30 to 35 minutes.

There we go.

And I'm just anticipating that coming out and cutting

through the crust and getting the aroma of steak and oysters.

And I'll serve it with... Well, I think boiled potatoes,

some spring cabbage and maybe a glass of stout.

We used to do this in the early days of the restaurant

but with only one or two oysters because they were so expensive.

You need lots for the flavour to come through.

Corned beef hash was made famous by Irish-Americans

in the mid-1800s, where they had hash houses.

But it was regarded as low-grade food

and the cooks were called hash slingers.

But now it's back in fashion.

The main thing about this dish is to get the potatoes and onions

nicely browned before adding the hashed beef.

The only other ingredients are a good quantity of parsley,

which freshens it all up nicely, a slug of Worcestershire sauce,

a smidgen of Tabasco, and salt and pepper.

Do you know, this is the first dish I started

cooking on my own in a flat in Earls Court as a teenager?

And why is it so successful?

Well, because you HAVE to have two fried eggs with it

and the combination is perfection.

Well, that and, dare I say it, ketchup.

Tomato ketchup? In a cookery programme?

We don't mind a bit of tomato ketchup on this cookery programme.

Now, as many of you more observant viewers may have noticed,

I spent a bit of time abroad over the Christmas period

and was lucky enough to come across one or two food ideas,

and this one, I think, is unbelievable.

It's made by a chef who used to work at El Bulli. Amazing, this idea.

It's using melon, but it actually taste like foie gras.

Without...

-Being foie gras.

-Yeah, without being foie gras.

And it uses some of this. This is a piel de sapo melon.

What we're going to do is chop this up into pieces.

I'm going to serve this with a little bit of spiced duck,

some curly kale and a little sauce that goes with it

and a little bit of mint oil.

The whole point of this is that you need a vacuum sealer,

or a vac packer, and that basically is the vacuum that creates

the different texture to this melon.

What we're going to do is just take the seeds out like that.

And then... We'll lose this out the way.

You can do it with watermelon, it's just takes it to a different

sort of flavour. But this one really works fantastically well

cos you get a great texture with this, as well.

Get the sliced bit of melon, get yourself a vacuum bag.

Now, I've got a bit of an industrial vacuum packer over here

but you can buy these on t'internet now

for about 30 quid, vacuum packers.

They're fantastic to have at home, keep stuff for longer.

All we do is you put this on the highest pressure.

All this does is just remove all the air out of it.

Seal it down like that on the highest pressure and it seals,

and what you end up with after a couple of days in the fridge...

is melon that looks like this. It almost goes translucent.

What we're going to do is pan-fry that and serve it with some duck.

I'll show you that in a second.

What does that actually do, though, James?

What's the point of doing it?

-You've lost me on this one.

-What does it do, take the moisture out of it?

I think so. I was just standing there in awe of it.

I just couldn't believe it, but I don't know what it does.

Heston, if you're watching this, phone in and tell us exactly what it does.

It looks like a C-40, looks like it would go bang.

It's unbelievable, this sort of stuff. Then we'll pan-fry it

and serve it with duck.

Now, new series of Extreme World starting...

21st January on Sky 1 at 9pm.

So where do we go this time? What is it, the third series?

Third series, yeah.

We've been to places like Juarez, we've been to the Congo in the past.

The first one is India, looking at...

It's very heavy subjects, obviously, so we're looking at sex trafficking.

The second one is Papua New Guinea.

I've always wanted to go there,

most extreme country probably I've ever been to.

Why is that, then?

I watched a little bit of it. Is that the difference in tribes?

-VAC PACKER HISSES

-Yeah...

-Sorry about this.

-That's all right.

-HISSING STOPS

-It's ready! I might get vacuum-packed in a minute.

-Exactly!

Yeah, it's a diverse culture.

I think it's a great culture in terms of the fact

that they've not allowed Western influences to come into the country

as much as other countries have,

but at the same time they've got a few issues

when it comes to violence against women and also intertribal violence,

and the amount of alcohol, home-made alcohol, they consume,

which means that people get very, very drunk and quite violent.

You say "a few issues" but, I watched it,

it's probably the most violent place I've ever seen in my life.

-It's unbelievable.

-Yeah, there was a moment in the jungle...

We meet a guy called The General and I thought it was going to be

an interview, and it turned into a hold-up.

I watched it! This was not staged or anything.

These people came out of the hedges with guns

and they were going to shoot you!

Two guys with rifles, two guys with shotguns, yeah.

And screamed, "Get on your hands and knees,"

which I questioned for a bit and then thought,

"I'll have a go at trying to dissuade you from doing this."

But you say that your acting has helped you with that sort of stuff.

I think so. Also it's about...

We've done nearly 55 documentaries now in the seven years

and you get a sort of idea

that they're probably going to go through with it or they're not.

But they looked as if... And your face... Your face...

I was wetting myself.

-Well, you actually realised that this was serious.

-Yeah, without a doubt.

The one thing about it is, I've got hold of the gun with one hand

but I'm protecting the crown jewels with the other.

I don't know what I was expecting I was going to do,

deflecting a bullet with my hand.

I'll just blitz this up. This is spices.

We've got star anise, cinnamon, a little bit of cumin in there

and some cloves. I'm just going to put this with some duck

and just roast it off with a little bit of duck to go with some kale

and bits of pieces that we've got in there.

But unbelievable places where you're visiting.

I don't know why I never thought India would have

the issues that they have. That's one of the most...

I watched it yesterday. It's probably the most hard-hitting interview

I've ever seen on television. I've never seen anything like it,

where you interviewed this guy.

Yeah, we interview a guy that's responsible for...

Well, in the area we were looking at, West Bengal,

we estimate 100,000 girls go missing,

most of them under the age of 10 to 12, every year.

India's a great country and it's doing things

that most countries could never do in terms of its development,

and it's a superpower in the waiting,

but they've also got some other issues that they need to look at,

as far as I'm concerned.

You can't have that many girls go missing every year.

They've only got a very small amount of the assets that they have

at their disposal looking for these girls.

-They've got 30 detectives looking for 100,000 girls.

-I saw that.

But the access that you get, how do you get access to those people?

Cos this guy said on camera that he basically killed...

-A lot of people.

-A lot of people, hundreds of people.

We have other sources to back up the facts. I didn't actually know

he was going to come out with that kind of number,

but, yeah, it was pretty shocking.

Maybe something we shouldn't talk about this early!

But how do you get access to that sort of thing?

Well, we've got sources, very good sources.

I've got great people out there on the ground.

We get local people who want to help us.

They want to bring to the attention of the world,

or the world to focus on the problems that they have.

That's why we get great local journalists

who are campaigning on certain issues

and we get in contact with them, we build up a rapport.

The great thing that we have,

Sky allow us to have a lot of time on the ground.

We'll take months sometimes to get access to the right people

and get the right people on side.

We did the gangs programmes. These people are really shrewd,

and they'll always think that you're the police or the DEA

or something, particularly when you're dealing with people

involved in drugs, say, in South America.

You have to spend a lot of time with them to earn their trust.

But once you earn their trust, most of these people are quite happy

just to sit there and explain their lives.

They sometimes find it quite cathartic.

But when we think of places, I think of Marseille,

I think of bouillabaisse and a nice glass of wine.

So did I, in the evenings.

-You nearly got killed there, as well!

-Yeah, yeah.

It certainly woke me up when the frozen bottle of water

hit the bonnet of the car, yeah.

We were lucky we had two undercover cops at the time on their day off,

so they got us out of there.

This is a far cry from Ultimate Force, isn't it?

Yeah, one minute I was firing blanks and getting blanks fired at me

and next I find myself in Helmand...

A live round feels very different.

But talking about Afghanistan, that was an incredible thing

for people to see cos it looked not just the war but the after-effects,

the family, which you picked up on as well in the programme.

Yeah, the point of the programme was never to be political.

It was to basically look at the effects of a young man,

an 18-year-old who's got a duvet, a mum that cooks him Pop-Tarts,

or whatever, in the morning, and suddenly him being thrust

into an environment where his life was in jeopardy.

And also to look at the effect that had on his mum,

or guys who had wives or girlfriends,

to look at the effect it had on them,

particularly when they came back.

We know a lot of people got physically injured.

We don't know how many people have been mentally injured by that.

And we won't know for some time just how many guys and their families

have been affected by the time that we've had forces in Afghanistan.

And in Iraq, and in Northern Ireland.

If that's not enough, you're writing a whole book about it.

Tell us about the book, A-Z Of Hell.

I wanted to call it the A-Z Of What Not To Do, basically.

The publishers decided Hell was a better place to go.

Basically, it's just funny stories about things,

like I was in "Medejin" or "Medellin", Pablo Escobar's ex-home,

and my director decided to turn the engine off in the vehicle

as I was going round a roundabout, which locked the wheel of the car,

which meant I'm in the middle of a roundabout with motorcyclists going past.

Most of the people there have to carry their registrations

on their bibs cos so many people, sicarios, sit on the back

and shoot people in traffic.

So all of a sudden I'm an out-of-control gringo

going round a roundabout with no engine

and a lock on, and of course we coast up straight into a bank

with five guards outside, heavily armed,

who suddenly aim their guns at us through the window.

Of course, we couldn't open the doors

cos the door is centrally locked and he couldn't open it,

so we had to climb out of the windows and make apologies in our dreadful Spanish.

The director would have been chuffed.

He wasn't a very popular man for the rest of the shoot

and we've not worked with each other since.

This is coming out 21st January, nine o'clock on Sky 1.

Mate, that looks fantastic.

You didn't follow any of that cos I just made it up,

I was too enthused still with the conversation.

This is going to be foie gras.

Well, no, the texture is... I think the texture is incredible.

-Sorry, James, this is duck?

-That's duck. There you go.

That's the melon. And this is...

And if you want to try at home, you don't need one this sort of size.

This is what it ends up like when you first do it.

It starts to go translucent, like that,

but you can buy these vac packing machines now at home.

The highest pressure possible, and stick it in the fridge

and leave it for 48 hours and that's what you end up with.

I think it tastes amazing.

-It tastes like foie gras.

-It's amazing, isn't it?

Keep your eye out for a vac pack machine in the New Year sales.

That melon really is something special.

If you'd like to try cooking any of the studio recipes from today's show,

especially ones that don't need a vac pack machine,

they're just a click away at bbc.co.uk/recipes.

Today we're looking back at some of the greatest cooking clips

from the Saturday Kitchen archives.

Now, when Rachel Allen dropped in on St Patrick's Day a few years ago,

we knew she was going to cook sausages with a classic colcannon.

What SHE didn't know was that a certain Michel Roux

was armed and ready and invited to try them. Now that's real pressure.

She's got a traditional Irish food specially for St Patrick's Day today.

-It's, of course, Rachel Allen.

-Thank you, James.

-Great to have you on the show.

-Lovely to be here.

You've got a three-star Michelin chef watching you.

-Not feeling the pressure at all.

-What are we cooking?

-Sausages and mash?

-Yeah!

-Great.

With apple sauce.

So would you mind peeling and chopping the apple, please?

Yeah. Why do I always get to peel and chop everything?

I know, sorry.

I love this meal. You can cook this really within an hour.

The potatoes are the longest thing to cook here.

I've got a really lovely head of savoy cabbage,

this lovely, dark, crinkly, green, leafy cabbage.

So I'm going to cut the head.

I'm just going to use about a quarter of it for this.

I'm going to cook the cabbage. Traditionally, in Ireland,

the cabbage would be cooked in the bacon-cooking water,

so once the bacon is cooked,

the cabbage would go in and it would be boiled for quite a long time.

That's really what turns a lot of people off cabbage

cos they remember that smell of the over-boiled cabbage.

It's St Patrick's Day today.

Obviously we've got colcannon, a famous potato dish from Ireland.

-Yeah.

-Now, a different sort of...

You don't often put cabbage in. I've seen it with spring onion.

No, exactly. Kale quite often, as well.

In different areas of Ireland, or literally different families,

will put different things into colcannon.

And you've also got champ, which has got peas and spring onions.

There are so many different versions,

but kale is wonderful in it, as well. I think that's enough cabbage.

I'm going to just cook the cabbage in a little bit of butter.

I'm not going to boil it, just a tiny bit of butter.

It just really brings out a wonderful flavour,

a kind of nutty flavour.

Just on a low heat.

-So the cabbage is nicely thinly sliced like this.

-Yeah.

Throw it in. You can even add a splash of water in,

-just in case you think it's going to stick and burn.

-OK.

Season it.

Thanks, James. That apple could go in there once it's chopped.

-Thank you.

-I shall do that.

-For the apple sauce.

A little bit of butter we can throw in there, too.

Why not? We're in Ireland.

-Water.

-There you go.

-Do you want a bit of sugar in there, as well?

-Yes, exactly. Why not?

And it's cooking apple, so it's going to break down to a pulpy mash.

There's Bramleys in there, as well. Lovely.

-About a dessertspoon of sugar, was there?

-Yes!

We just throw it in. It's typical cooking.

You can always throw a little bit more in later.

Exactly, but you can't take it out.

If you put too much in, put some lemon juice in to counterbalance it.

OK. So while the cabbage is on cooking,

and while the apples are cooking, I can mix up the sausage mixture.

-I've got this... I've made a mess.

-It's all right. I'll clean up after you.

-That's what I'm here for.

-Just my commis chef.

So, for this I've got this gorgeous minced pork.

It's nice and fatty, and this is the key for making really good sausages.

Otherwise, they'll just be too dry. Could you chop some parsley, please?

-Chop some parsley.

-Of course, sage, thyme.

-Which cut of meat is the pork?

-You could use it from the shoulder.

Actually, the shoulder would be perfect, nice and fatty.

-Is that OK, Michel, do you think?

-The best.

-OK.

THEY LAUGH

I'm going to say I can't wait to see the potatoes because, for me,

the Irish potatoes are the best potatoes in the world.

-Floury, light.

-I discovered them 40 years ago and since then,

each time I can have potatoes, Irish potatoes, I'll go for it!

All year round, superb, but also we have those Jersey Royals.

-That is true, that is true.

-And your French waxy potatoes are gorgeous.

-Mm, yes, but Irish are a little bit ahead.

-Yeah.

So I'm going to put an egg into the pork, along with some breadcrumbs.

The egg will bind it. The chopped parsley would be lovely, too.

-All in there?

-Yeah, thank you.

Of course, as I said, sage, thyme, rosemary would also be good, too.

-Some breadcrumbs.

-Seasoned?

-Yes, I have put some in, actually.

-A bit more?

-Yeah, why not?

And, of course, when you want to test to see how these taste,

just put a drop on the frying pan to cook it just a tiny little bit.

If it needs more seasoning, just add more in.

-I'll put that pan on for you.

-Thank you very much. This is great.

You don't need any casing, sausage casing,

you just mix it together like that.

I'll just taste the tiniest bit on that pan.

In fact, Michel, there you go.

You can take them back to your restaurant.

-THEY LAUGH

-Thank you.

-Irish potatoes.

There you go. Even their shapes are the most beautiful, aren't they?

Mm, lovely, plenty of salt.

In the Caribbean, they refer to all potatoes as Irish potatoes.

-Do they? I'm not surprised.

-Cos it's the only potato.

I'm really sorry, we're having a little...

-No, that's all right. You fire away.

-You carry on.

-Shape the sausages, you know, like that.

-Shape the sausages?

-All right, OK. Little ones.

-Yeah, they could be little round patties.

This is great for kids, to make your own sausages.

Exactly. They like making them and shaping them.

And the good thing about these is you can tell, you instantly know

that they're pure, they haven't got any muck in there.

And this is the scary thing with sausages, you don't know.

Don't hold them too long in your hand. They're going to be cooked!

-Sorry, Chef.

-Roll it quick.

I'm doing it quicker, Chef.

Is it bringing you back, James?

This is bringing me to... The defining moment in my career

came about probably last March. We were in Dubai.

Eight chefs from around the world had to go over and take a restaurant over each.

Michel was taking over a restaurant as well,

and after we'd finished cooking one night,

he put his hand on my shoulder and he said, "Steak tartare."

This look of horror went across my face, thinking he expected me to make it.

Luckily, we got this minion to do it

and it was one of the best nights of my life.

-Mm.

-We just sat there talking about food

while eating steak tartare and chips.

But now we're having sausages and mash, so life's getting better.

-After cooking it was wonderful, wasn't it?

-It was absolutely superb.

-Back to life.

-One of the most defining moments of my career.

-Where does your meat come from in Dubai?

-Ah! Mostly Scottish.

I'm going to put the potatoes in.

-You've got the potatoes here.

-I boiled them in the skins.

Basically, because Irish potatoes, most of them, are so floury,

they will fall apart in the saucepan if you peel them first.

And you keep much more goodness in the potato if you boil them

with the skins and then peel them afterwards.

-Perfect. So...

-So we don't add any oil to this?

No, you actually don't have to because a little bit of fat

will come out of the potatoes.

-But we need that fat to keep the sausages nice and moist.

-Absolutely.

A lot of people think you need to make it with pork that's often bred to do the 100-metre hurdles.

I always think that pork... Pigs should be sat there and eating,

-that's what they should be bred to do.

-Exactly.

And have them less often if you're worried about the fat. Enjoy them.

-So I'll turn these over and then just pop these in the oven?

-Yeah, perfect.

You could cook them all the way through here but into the oven

-is absolutely perfect.

-So that's gone in the oven.

OK, I'm just mashing the potatoes here with some butter,

salt and pepper, and I'm going to add in some hot milk

-cos cold milk will just make them a bit gluey.

-That's very hot.

And then fold the cabbage... Oh, great, the sausages are cooked.

-So you want me to fold that in?

-Yeah.

I love the steam coming out of the potatoes. Look at that.

-Ah!

-You can smell it, can't you?

-There.

-You haven't tasted it yet. THEY LAUGH

-Throw that in.

-Fantastic.

-Oh, look at that, the cabbage. Oh!

Fold it in. And colcannon should be a little bit sloppy.

You shouldn't be able to make a huge big tower out of it.

Absolutely, a bit of leftover parsley would be fantastic.

-Are you nervous, cooking for him?

-No, not at all.

SHE LAUGHS

-In England, we ended up doing bubble and squeak, didn't we?

-Exactly.

This is like bubble and squeak.

-So we've got our sausages.

-More taste.

But you can't beat pork and apple sauce.

Oh, just a classic combination.

And you do need, of course, with colcannon

a nice little bit of butter melting in the centre.

Just like that.

I'll leave you that. That's just slightly mashed to touch.

Great, the apples are just cooked.

You can just mash them down with a spoon and there's sugar in here.

Look at that, the butter just on the top nicely so it melts.

You choose a good guest.

I tell you what, I can't wait to taste that dish.

Rachel, remind us what that is again.

We've got Irish pork sausages with colcannon and apple sauce.

-Don't forget that little bit of butter on the top.

-Absolutely.

-Sorry, I probably didn't make any sense.

-Come on over here.

The true test is in the eating.

-Jenny, you get to have first go.

-Wow.

Sorry, Michel, you get the third or fourth go.

I've got the pleasure of seeing the lady enjoying her food.

-It's always a pleasure to start with.

-Mm!

-Do you like that?

-The pork is absolutely wonderful.

-Taste a little bit of the mash.

I should have had the apple with it, as well. Mm!

Great St Patrick's Day food. Perfect, isn't it, really?

-Simple. Lovely.

-There you go.

-And you've got time before the rugby starts to go out and have...

-Oh!

-The rugby!

-Oh, yes, definitely be off to the rugby this afternoon.

And does one knock that back with Murphy's and Guinness?

Absolutely, yeah!

Just don't put the green dye into it, like they do in America.

But you could flavour those sausages with anything really. Sage...

Often I put coriander and chilli in if I want a change. Sage, just...

I'm getting concerned. There's very little left there!

I did put a few more on for us two, but, you know...

This would be great food for watching the match actually,

-sitting in front of the TV.

-This is the true test.

-Beautifully cooked.

-There you go. LAUGHTER

Well done, Rachel. He's not an easy man to please.

Now, from one culinary legend to another.

This time, it's Mr Keith Floyd,

and he's on a food trip around Britain and Ireland.

Enjoy this one.

GENTLE BAND MUSIC PLAYS

# Dum-da-da dum dum... #

This music is incredible! Rock on, Robert!

But, you know, duty calls and it's back to the commentary.

So here we are then, on the good shop Radiant Wave,

putting out to sea from Seahouses.

A bit like the owl and the pussycat,

except we ain't got a five pound note.

Now, all cooking of the real kind depends on first class sourcing.

Now, anybody can go to the supermarket

and buy a packet of frozen fish, but if you've got real B-dot-dot-dot

with an S on the end,

you go to where it's really happening,

which is, you know...

Waves with teeth like bananas, white water, all that business.

In case... Because you know what they're like, don't you?

SPEECH DROWNED OUT BY THE SEA

When you actually go fishing, they haven't caught anything -

I've brought a few mussels from Seahorses, or Seahouses,

whatever it's called,

just to cook for the crew.

But in fact, they've been quite the boys -

they've caught a few things, so I'm going to prepare

a dish which is going to be called Light of the Radiant Wave.

Which is... You know... This is our nautical dish of the day.

Panache of fish, the radiant way. The same as the boat, get it?

We've got a few whiting, we've got a few haddocks, we've got

some little lemon soles, we've got some cod, we've got

some prawns and we've got some codlings.

So take your shopping basket, a couple of whitings,

a couple of haddocks...

I'm not joking, my old gastronauts, this is unbelievably bad.

It really is.

A bit of... One of these little things here.

Very slippery. In you go.

This is your shopping basket. This is shopping on the 9th Parallel, OK?

A little codling. And something, which if it's OK to you...

I mean, no, actually...

Seriously, don't laugh.

Every time you have a fish meal, what I'm doing now is

what they do every day of the week to bring you the fish.

So don't joke about it.

It's fun, I know, for us, but this is how they really work.

OK?

So, out of this lot, I'm going to dedicate a dish to this ship,

the Radiant Wave.

Richard, come into the kitchen... if we can get back.

To recap on the whole thing, Richard, and stay with me, I know

you're not used to being on boats,

we have my little fresh codling, OK, down here, my little whiting,

my little haddock, my little langoustines,

my little prawns, the mussels I brought with me,

a bit of parsley, and some cream and not really very much else.

But while I fried those fillets of the freshest fish you can imagine,

in a little butter in the pan, at the same time,

I made, as every good little cookette in the world knows,

a simple white sauce, butter and flour, filled up with milk,

a few onions, bay leaf, bit of parsley

and stuff to make a basic white sauce, OK?

I did that while I was fiddling about cos this is

the magic of magic...

At the same time, from Seahouses, I got some of these brilliant

mussels and merely poached them... Sorry about this.

Merely poached them in about a quarter of a pint of water,

so that they opened.

Didn't overcook them because they're succulent and nice. And...

Cos I want to get a really good fishy flavour to the ultimate sauce

of this dish. Richard, this is the tricky bit, OK?

We've got to get some of this juice

from the mussels into the white sauce.

Just to give it a fishy flavour and stir that in, OK?

So we've now got a fundamental white sauce, with a fishy flavour,

which is quite nice.

If I may now... I'm...

Do you know? I have to tell you, I am really tired.

We do take these things, in a way, pretty seriously,

and I know you all love me rolling about on the ship and trying...

And just simply cooking things, but there aren't, I can promise you,

17 home economists behind me, doing all this.

Right, our little fillets are sort of ready.

OK?

And the point about this kind of dish is it shows that

you do not need to go to night school to get your CSE in cooking.

Freshness is everything that counts. Simplicity, application.

And if I can do it in, quite frankly, a space that my arms won't

stretch out into, any of you can do all this

kind of thing in the wonderful comfort of your home.

Right, I've got a few tasks to do.

To my parsley sauce, very freshly chopped parsley.

OK? We all know what that is. Excuse all this muddle up of the pots.

Stay with it, Richard. You're doing very, very well.

I'll buy you a large one, when and if ever we get ashore.

Strain... Stay with it, dear boy. I can see you wobbling.

Strain the white sauce of all the lumps into the parsley there...

..which is quite good.

Discarding then, as you can now see, the little flavourings I'd put in.

The carrot, the onion, the mushroom and stuff like that,

to make that brilliant. Put that into the sink.

Stir that in. That is really real.

And it's very, very good.

I want... Because this is for the captain

and for one of my very good friends, Mr Swallow,

here on the Radiant, I want to make this really rich and luxurious

so I'm going to add a little cream to the sauce. OK.

And put that gently on the gas over there

to cook away, while...and here we come to the tricky bit...

Put my couple of little fillets here on this lovely white plate.

Simplicity itself.

The little langoustines which I've just tailed and headed,

split down the middle like that, OK.

A few fillets of fish and then some of my little mussels.

I think that one way or another,

this has got to be the sort of fishy version of Northumbria on a plate.

You know, we are working in those absurd conditions.

Nothing on the clock but the maker's name and all that kind of stuff.

I think now my sauce is warm,

the flavour has gone through to the thing

and...watch closely...

Well, don't watch closely, but I mean,

just admire the steadiness of my hand under these absurd conditions.

I can't put that down. That's very difficult.

I think, you know, fresh fish, Floyd, Northumberland...

There it is on a plate. I think it's brilliant.

Now beginneth the first history lesson.

A long, long time ago in the days of old when knights were bold

and the telegraph poles hadn't been invented,

on this rugged shore, a Viking longship floundered.

The locals, being an enterprising lot,

patched it up and turned it into the famous Northumbrian coble.

Now, this is a food programme, I hear you cry.

And what has this got to do with the price of fish?

Well, the lovely oak chippings from the local boatyard

go a few yards up the street and are used

to smoke these plumptious little monkeys at John Swallow's smokery.

I love this symbiotic stuff, don't you?

Nothing is wasted and the delicious symmetry of it all.

The cobles are used to catch the herring

and the oak is used to flavour the kipper, which, incidentally,

was invented by a Seahouses man called John Woodger in 1840.

I think there should be a statue to John Woodger in the centre

of Seahouses, so you think about it, you civic worthies.

Now, once the kippers are split and gutted, they're immersed in brine

for half an hour or so and then they are put on these tenterhooks

and this is where the expression originates - on tenterhooks -

which is what I'm on all the time when making these programmes.

This timeless procedure, unaltered since the invention of the kipper,

has been handed down from father to daughter for generations

as this extremely rare piece of archive film shows.

You know, on these programmes, the Floyd programmes,

we've done so many crab cooking sequences,

I've quite frankly run out of things to say in the commentary,

so I thought I'd write a little poem instead. Here it is.

It can make you quite sad to cook a crab

They say that they squeal in the steam

But I know a crab is really quite glad

To appear well-dressed on the screen.

You know, I'm a very partisan kind of guy.

I love Somerset and I love Devon and I love Cornwall,

# But I love coffee, I love tea

# I love the java jive and it loves me... #

But, jokes apart, I will tell you that as much as I love

the West Country fish, if you want a real crab, come to Seahouses.

These are the sweetest I have ever tasted.

They breed in the cold North Sea, they live off the hard bottom,

not in the mud. They are superb.

They are the sweetest I've ever tasted,

and coming from me, that's something.

But we're not here for that - well, we are, we quite enjoy that -

what we're really here for is the kipper, the real kipper.

None of your Japanese technology, no stainless steel chutes,

no gas fire burners,

but the real business.

Now, Richard, sometimes in a cameraman's life,

smoke gets in your eyes, but stay with it, OK?

This is where it's at.

Step in.

To see the fire, to see the kipper,

and, you know, after about 11 hours, killing me softly with her herrings,

you can take a bite out of one of these

and step out of the world and into heaven.

Heaven turned out to be dead good.

Lots of pretty scenery and birds, rivers flow with milk and honey.

And the lady angels were Vikings, as the next cooking sketch reveals.

Do you know, Northumberland must be the last bastion

of rural countryside in Britain, here amongst the fells, the valleys

and where the North Tyne flows.

-People here eat in a strange way...

-GUNSHOT

Oops!

This... This is what they eat.

Not as it is down in the succulent south, a luxury.

Here, it's quite a common dish.

In fact, it's so cheap and so plentiful and people are so bored

with it, I couldn't find a real Northumbrian person to cook me one,

but what I did find was a Viking - a Viking, who is called Eben.

In fact, I shall call her deep and crisp and Eben

because that's how I can remember it

and she's a great pheasant plucker - difficult to say

if you've had one or two.

And as a Viking who's been raping and pillaging for 1,000 years,

she's going to cook something for us

that demonstrates her understanding of Northumberland,

particularly because I don't feel very well today.

I've got a cold and all that. What are you going to do with this?

I'm going to skin it, take the breasts off,

which I'm going to cook in mead.

Mead, now you are talking to me in a nice way there.

What is actually - I know you can drink it - what is mead?

Let's have a glass.

It's a honey-based drink

that was actually brought over by the Vikings.

-Ah. One for the Vikings.

-Yes, yes.

This is what they fired themselves up on

when they charged on the cricket club tours and things like that.

-Yeah, yeah. Very nice.

-Oh, it's brilliant.

Anyway, start plucking the pheasant.

As far as I'm concerned,

it's one of the nicest sort of meats you can get.

-So tender and...

-And good value too.

-Yeah.

-Look at all this.

-This what it eats, you see,

that's why farmers are a bit cross with them,

-cos they eat all their little...

-The Last Supper.

-The Last Supper!

-That's right.

-OK, well, you carry on plucking away there.

We all know what plucking's about.

We've actually got to get on with some real cooking.

Now, what you should do -

and I've pinched deep and crisp and Eben's recipe here -

you get these lovely fillets of the pheasant and these have still

got their shot in them - probably upset some people.

What I used to do in the olden days in my restaurant to make

things really authentic, I used to have a little tray of split shot

and put it into the dish at the last moment,

just in case they thought they were home-reared ones.

Anyway, these breasts of pheasants

have been marinated for how long, Eben?

Erm, 48 hours just in mead, just to keep it really simple cos it's...

As you probably already know, the Vikings and the old sort

of Northumberland way of cooking was to try and keep everything simple

and also they just didn't need to disguise

any real sort of meat flavours with anything because it was so fresh.

Right. OK, well, let's get to do some cooking.

I mean, the gas is on over here.

Whizz round in one of your steady, slow walks, Richard.

We'll find ourselves over here by the stove.

Eben, it's up to you to tell me what to do.

-We've got the gas on.

-Yeah, it's on. It's on, yeah.

Well, we've already... Richard, close up in here, if you please.

We've already sweated off or melted down or softened a few onions.

What do we do next, Eben?

Add the pheasant breasts now, and just sort of blanch them off.

-One in there. No seasoning at this stage?

-Not at this stage, no.

Just sort of, er, close the pores on it.

-We'll just go up to the maximum frying speed.

-That's it, yeah.

Just let that sizzle away.

Let them get brown or golden on both sides like that,

so that they seize up and seal. Richard, if you don't mind,

close up and then organise a wibbly-wobbly shot

so that we can come back to that

a little bit later on in the cooking stage.

And certainly this mellifluous amber liquid will make all the difference

to the dish, won't it? Sweetness and light it is.

Good word too, I might add, mellifluous.

-What's next?

-Then you add some double cream to it.

-Right.

But first we're just going to cook the other half from the meat off,

take the breasts out, serve them up on your dish.

Spilt it all over the place, but that doesn't matter.

-We'll just wipe those dishes in a moment.

-That's right.

-Cream into there now?

-Yep.

Be quite generous.

I mean, how...? This is your invention, isn't it, this dish?

-This is a Viking-Northumbrian marriage, I suppose.

-Yeah.

It's so simple but I prefer simple dishes

that are really tasty and nice.

It is tasty and nice actually, isn't it?

And if you think this is a very, very rich dish,

that it's too fruity and too sweet to go with game,

think about pork and apple sauce,

think about venison and redcurrant jelly.

I mean, the thinking behind this dish is perfectly OK -

the savoury meat and the sweet sauce.

Do you want to wop those over onto the table, my darling?

And then we can have a little taste and see how it all comes out.

Right, this, as usual, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

-If it isn't brilliant, I'm cutting you out of the programme.

-Oh, dear.

It should certainly be tender enough now.

Well...

I think that's marvellous.

It is gamey and sweet

and I'm always worried about dishes that have honey and cream in them

because I feel it's an excuse for not cooking properly sometimes,

but, I mean, you did produce it all properly and all nicely.

It really does work. It's a lovely melange of flavours.

Here's to you, my darling.

-Viva Northumberland.

-Cheers.

-And up with the Vikings!

-Definitely. Skal.

There really was no-one better than Floyd

and you can see another one of his food adventures very soon.

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

from the Saturday Kitchen archives.

Still to come on today's Best Bites,

a very young-looking Glynn Purnell takes on an even

younger-looking Theo Randall at the Saturday Kitchen omelette challenge.

But was youthful enthusiasm enough to get them to the top of the board?

Find out a little later.

Daniel Galmiche turns the humble chicken breast

into an indulgent treat.

He's covering it with plenty of fresh truffle

and serving it with leeks and potatoes too. Tasty stuff.

And actress Kelly Adams faces her Food Heaven or Food Hell.

Would she get her Food Heaven,

a sticky toffee apple pudding with Calvados sauce,

or would she get her dreaded Food Hell,

cream of celeriac soup with crispy pancetta?

And you can find out the result at the end of the show.

Now, if you're a fish lover

and fancy trying something a little different this weekend,

then Jose Pizarro has a hake recipe next that you won't want to miss.

Take it away, Jose.

Great to have you on the show, Jose.

-Great to be here.

-Tapas on the menu or what?

-Oh!

-Ay-ay-ay, it's for her.

-All right, OK.

-You have just a little bit.

-This is the iberico ham.

-This is the best ham in the world.

-The best ham in the world.

This is amazing and you can actually buy this from supermarkets now.

It is amazing, this sort of stuff.

-Anyway, what are we going to do, then?

-We have hake.

I need for you to do an aioli. Quite strong in lemon.

-Do you want some garlic in there as well?

-Yes, please.

OK. All right, I can do that.

-Just olive oil because I like my aioli made with olive oil.

-OK.

For the hake, er...some egg.

Now, tell us about hake, then.

Because it's a fish that you often find in France and Spain

but not really on the menu that much in the UK.

We're getting quite a lot more now.

I mean, there's a really good fleet down in Newlyn

that go out and catch hake.

I think that's probably where you get yours from, Jose, I'd imagine.

Absolutely. It's amazing. It's amazing and it's getting so popular

here in the UK, I have to say.

-But for Spain it is THE fish, isn't it?

-It's the fish.

And my mum always cooks hake in this way once a week.

So for anybody that hasn't seen it whole,

it kind of looks a little bit like a big haddock.

It's quite an angry fish. It's quite an angry-looking fish.

Their teeth are like "Rrrgh!"

-But I like the throats, Jose. You know the throats?

-On the hakes,

-in the restaurant, in Pizzaro, it's so popular.

-The head.

-The head, yes.

Butterfly, and just in the oven with some garlic.

In the end, garlic, chilli, olive oil and then some vinegar.

I've got that recipe down now.

It'll be on the menu later!

I'm making a little aioli here. You want a little bit...

-Do you put saffron in your aioli or not?

-No.

-But, erm, mustard. Look at that.

-FORK TAPS BOWL RHYTHMICALLY

You know this sound remind me of my mum.

She never used whisks, just a fork like that.

Like when she's doing the omelette...

-The best in the world. Anyway...

-Right, we're getting there with this.

-OK, what's next?

-Salt and pepper in the hake.

Like that. Straight to the flour.

-Yep.

-Yeah. Like that.

Then straight to the egg. As simple as that. It's called a la romana.

-I don't know why because that means "Roman style" but...

-Roman style?

-Roman style.

-OK.

-You can do calamari,

plenty of things with that.

-OK.

-And then just in the olive oil.

-In the olive oil?! In the fryer.

-In the fryer, yeah.

-For around four minutes.

-OK.

-Yeah.

-All right.

-Erm...

-Right, I'm nearly there with this.

-I'm just going to add some garlic and some lemon into it as well.

-Lovely.

But, I mean, traditionally, you make mayonnaise with veg oil really.

That's why it stays white, but using olive oil,

you get a different colour.

You almost get like a greeny tinge to it as well.

-Little bit in there?

-Yes, sir.

-OK.

-Lovely!

Some carrots.

Just peel it.

So this isn't really a tapas, then?

This is like a whole dish, really, this one.

Yeah. People need to understand that in Spain, we don't eat only tapas.

-Right.

-You know, we have proper restaurants as well, you know that?

-Yeah, this is going to be in the menu from this week.

-Yeah.

Lovely, lovely.

Just I like to see the carrots not as small as you like it.

-OK.

-Like that.

I'll turn this up slightly. So this is the base for it, really, this one?

-Say again?

-This is the base for this?

-Yes, the base.

So you're using a different type of lentil. What have you got here?

-I'm using pardina.

-Yeah.

Less colour, as you can see, it's less colour than the puy lentils.

And I like it very much because they are very silky.

So normally when people see lentils, they think of puy lentils,

which are darker than these ones.

They are so, so stunning. I love them.

They are coming from La Mancha in Spain.

Where is that, then? The north?

Erm... Madrid... Left. West.

-Madrid left?

-Yeah.

-LAUGHTER

Madrid, left.

Left. Got it.

-Northwest.

-Northwest?

-Yeah.

-Right, this...

-Shallot, like that.

Yep.

-In there.

-Bit more. Bay leaf.

Just there. And...

lentils.

But, I mean, Spanish food's becoming more accessible

in the UK in terms of the ingredients.

When I came to London 15 years ago, there was nothing around.

Now you can see so many places and chorizo, you can buy chorizo,

you can buy iberico ham in any supermarket now. That's good.

-That's good news.

-But also the oils.

Obviously we're talking about Spain.

I think Spain's got some of the best produce in the world.

-Particularly the pork is incredible.

-You love the pork.

I just think it's incredible really as well.

I have in the restaurant now, a muscle from the shoulder.

But talking about the pork,

I mean, one of my favourites you mentioned there.

That's iberico, it's a pata negra.

That's the finest ham in the world, but also

when you go around these kinds of markets - I went to Barcelona -

and you see them all hung up...

You never know which one to buy because they all look the same

but they're all a different price.

What would be the word that people would look for on the ham itself?

You need to look for "jambon iberico 100% acorn."

-So that's...

-In Spanish, it's "jambon iberico 100% bellota."

-You all want to remember that?

-You'll have to write that down.

I will write that for you.

The hake's going to be ready very soon.

And that means that it's got a diet of acorns, then?

Yes, they are being eating acorns the last four months, I think.

Four months of their lives.

And just happy animals.

Running around and happy all the time.

They are rarely bored, I have to say. Happy life!

Right, so you cooked this for how long?

How long do you cook this for?