07/02/2016 Saturday Kitchen Best Bites

Good morning, we've a show full of fantastic foodie inspiration. You won't want to miss it.

This is Saturday Kitchen Best Bites.

Welcome to the show.

Stay right where you are, because we've got top chefs plating up

delicious dishes and a healthy serving of celebrity guests too.

Coming up on today's show:

The king of Chinese cuisine, a certain Ken Hom,

treats us to velveted chicken with crispy noodles.

Adam Byatt takes us back to the 1970s

with his take on a classic chicken Kiev.

He uses pheasant breast and leg for his version,

and serves it with swede and roast cabbage.

James Tanner serves black-treacle-brushed pork

with crushed butter beans.

He finishes the dish with a delicious Devon cider applesauce.

And Emilia Fox faces her food heaven or food hell.

Will she get her food heaven - cottage pie with peas -

or her dreaded food hell -

lemongrass and lime leaf coconut monkfish curry

with Thai jasmine rice.

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

But first, Toby Tobin is here with a cracking croquette recipe,

perfect as a dinner party starter or a simple side dish.

So what are we cooking?

Right. We're going to do tomato and basil potato croquettes

with mozzarella inside. I've made some, I'm just going to pop them in.

-They're going in.

-Get them to start frying.

If you could mash the potatoes.

Just boil your potatoes, a nice soft mash for me, please.

You just boil them, no need to bake them or anything?

Little bit of salt in there, that's it.

I'm going to chop up some tomatoes and basil to go in the centre.

I'm using sun-blushed tomatoes,

they're slightly sweeter than the sun-dried.

This mozzarella sits in the middle, does it?

Yeah, we'll push it into the middle.

And when it cooks, it's going to soften from the heat.

How does a tomato get blushed? Rather than dried?

I was whispering to it earlier, and what I was saying,

-they're blushing away, I tell you.

-Seriously...

They don't dry it out.

-Basically, sun-dried tomatoes are dried for a lot longer.

-Oh, right.

These are just left out somewhere - obviously,

not in the UK, Italy would be a help, where it's warmer.

But they're much sweeter.

And they use the cherry tomatoes as well, which are much sweeter.

You can make them at home in your oven.

Little bit of salt and sugar,

cut them into quarters, put them in the oven at 100 degrees,

leave them for about an hour and a half and they semi-dry.

-They taste fantastic.

-And the cherry tomatoes are the best?

-The small cherries?

-Yeah, yeah. The best...

What are those trolleys called, that my grandmother used to have?

-Used to wheel it to...

-Zimmers!

-Zimmer trolley!

-Those heated trolleys that they took to the table.

-Yes, yes.

-That my granny used to take from there to there.

-Yeah, yeah.

All in the hostess trolley and then take it out. I never understood that.

-And then sit veg in it for hours.

-They're brilliant!

-Anyway, we mash this up.

-Yep.

-Now, I've got to mention this new programme tonight.

-OK, Let's Dance.

-Let's Dance.

-Comic Relief, do something funny for money.

-And there's group of you.

-Nine chefs, I'll do this quickly.

Nine chefs, we're doing an iconic dance. I can promise you...

-Can you do us a little bit of a move?

-Well...

-Don't give anything away, just give us one part of the move.

-One part of the move?

-Yeah.

LAUGHTER

Now, listen! That's taken me five days to learn that move.

Don't you laugh, yeah?

But what I can promise you is that you will be entertained,

if nothing else. OK, if you could grate me that Parmesan cheese now.

-Your shoulder actually cracked when you did that.

-I know!

It's been cracking all week. It's been a cracking week!

Let's get rid of that. So, potato here. Little bit of salt, pepper.

-I'm going to put a lot of Parmesan cheese into this.

-Yep.

I'm going to put in the chopped tomato and basil.

And then I'm going to flavour it with red pesto.

So, to make my red pesto, I've got some more sun-blushed tomatoes here.

I've got these little piquillo peppers, the red peppers. Beautiful.

They're smoked. They're Spanish, but you can buy them in jars now.

They just taste so fantastic.

-And so good value for money as well, because you get lots in a jar.

-You do, yeah.

Just a little bit of garlic, I don't like to too much garlic.

-Pine nuts, going in there.

-There's lots of Parmesan.

Look at all this Parmesan going into our croquettes, there's loads.

Rocket, and I'm going to put some of the oil

that the tomatoes came in in there.

And where is that lid gone? I'm just going to blitz this up.

-You want a bit Parmesan in there, I believe?

-Yep, little bit Parmesan.

-Touch of Parmesan cheese in there. There you go.

-Super.

I might just add a little bit more oil in there, James.

This is the type of thing you can serve with pasta, stuff like that?

You can have these as a starter.

You can use them as a kind of side order.

I'm thinking about the pesto, on its own?

Oh, OK. Yeah, you can put that into pasta.

You can put it on the top of fish and grill it.

It's got lots and lots of uses.

So, there's my potato here.

We've just got to get all that mixed in together,

a little bit of seasoning in there.

And then if you could get me a little spoonful of that

and pop that into the potato as well.

These croquettes are frying away nicely.

At what, 160, something like that?

I think that's about 160, probably a little bit less than that,

because we want to cook them...

That's lovely.

We want the heat to get inside so it melts that mozzarella.

So once you've got that mixed through, we've got

now a mashed potato, if you like, but it's tasting fantastic.

-Tomato, basil...

-Now, I know a little bit about dancing, obviously.

Of course you do!

One thing I do know is that you lose terrific amounts of weight.

Do you know what, I've lost - I weighed myself this morning -

-I've lost 9lb in a week.

-Since you've done it?

Because not only that, you're training for the marathon?

I'm going to run the London Marathon this year. My first time.

For a great charity called Matthew's Friends,

which looks after children with epilepsy through a diet.

The kids that don't respond to drugs.

-This is not through medicine or anything?

-No, it's through food.

It's called the ketogenic diet. It's an amazing charity.

So I've been training now for just short of two months.

I'm up to 13 miles running.

It's so boring.

-It's really, really, really hard.

-Explain to us what's happening here?

What I'm doing here is pushing a little

piece of mozzarella into the centre of the potato.

And then just squeezing them gently and making them

into our little croquette shapes. Flour, egg and breadcrumbs.

Basically, this is what we call a pane mix, which is

plain flour - seasoned four? You don't need to, I suppose.

Not really, because we've got seasoning in the potatoes.

Beaten egg, and then we've got the crumbs here. Now, show us again.

So, you're taking a little over a tablespoonful.

Just push it together to get that cylinder shape.

Then if you push your finger into it,

a piece of mozzarella in the middle, then squeeze it back together.

And then we can just make that lovely croquette shape.

And the breadcrumbs will stick to the outside

-and the frying's going to make it nice and crunchy.

-I hope so.

Now, the secret of this is to basically keep one hand

in the flour, and use the other hand in the egg, like that,

so you don't get literally your whole hands coated in flour, egg

and breadcrumbs at the same time. So you coat this.

I suppose you could do these in advance, I suppose?

You can do them in advance and put them in the fridge.

What I would recommend,

if you're going to put them in the fridge,

take them out of the fridge before you cook them

and just allow them to come up to room temperature, because it's quite

hard to get that mozzarella to melt if it's very cold in the middle.

I've got some red wine vinegar here,

made from Cabernet Sauvignon, which is kind of sweet and sour,

and it goes so nicely with tomatoes, it's going to keep all these

flavours running through. I'm going to thin this pesto down.

-Is this something you would have a go at, Dave?

-Too adventurous for me.

-Bit too fancy?

-Yeah.

-But it looks fantastic, yeah.

-It's so easy.

It's posh mashed potato in a deep fat fryer.

I'll just quickly wash my hands.

I've made a pesto vinaigrette there, just by adding that.

What have you changed with this?

-You've made it a little bit more loose?

-I've just made it loose.

I've added a bit more oil and that Cabernet Sauvignon vinegar.

This is this vinegar you get... Well, it's Spanish, isn't it?

It is Spanish.

It's naturally sweet, it has got a sweet-and-sour flavour which works really, really well.

Have you ever come across this? You've got a place in Spain, haven't you?

Yeah, the supermarkets just have shelves

and shelves of vinegar made from different grapes, yeah.

-Yes, it is delicious.

-They're very keen on cider vinegar as well.

-Yeah.

Red wine vinegar's brilliant, because it gives it a nice kick.

You can put it into meat stews as well

if you wanted to as well, couldn't you?

It just goes well with a lot of different things.

We're going to garnish that with a little bit of rocket.

-There you go, touch of rocket.

-On the top there. Lovely.

Not too much, just a little garnish there.

And that's going to give a nice pepperiness to it.

And then one, two,

and the last one, just break open,

and you can see that.

-You get the ooze, you see?

-Lovely mozzarella inside.

And I think we do a little cheffy thing with a bit of olive oil,

just around the outside there.

-Enjoy.

-Fantastic. Remind us what this is again?

That's tomato and basil croquettes with oozing mozzarella

-and pesto vinaigrette.

-Easy as that. Best of luck tonight.

Thank you very much.

There you go, right. Have a dive in.

Here you go. This is first off.

-God bless.

-These potato croquettes.

Now, you've used mozzarella cheese - careful, it'll be quite hot,

it's straight out of the fryer.

You used mozzarella, you can use different types of cheese in there?

Anything that melts?

Yeah, we talked about the vinegar coming from Spain.

So you could use, if you weren't doing vegetarian, a bit of chorizo,

some Manchego cheese inside there. You can theme it.

-All different types.

-What do you reckon?

-It's gorgeous, yeah.

-Yeah?

And it actually tastes very strong for mozzarella.

And what about the sun-blushed tomatoes?

Because they do make a difference.

They're counteracting with the vinaigrette, really, don't they?

Balance each other out.

-I don't think they're as harsh as sun-dried tomatoes.

-No.

Are you having some?

I don't think you guys are going to get anything!

-Pass it down.

-Thank you.

Like you say, make them in advance, if you do them in advance,

-take them out...

-Warm up to room temperature, yeah.

That oozing mozzarella turns simple bites

into something extremely special.

Coming up, I cook mango and coconut iles flottantes for Gok Wan

after Rick Stein takes us on one of his far-Eastern odysseys.

Today, he's in Malaysia, and fish curry is on the menu.

I really think that Penang is the food capital of Malaysia.

Eating out is so cheap and the variety so immense.

I just find things like this totally fascinating.

I mean, who would've ever dreamt up this way

of cooking rice noodle pancakes?

What he does is just ladle some rice batter onto a cloth,

which is on a hot, steamy surface

and then, he's sprinkling some sweet pork and prawns on it.

It's really interesting the way

he turns it out onto this oiled surface.

He just peels it away. You see that?

Just peels it away from the cloth,

producing this really, really light, lovely breakfast dish.

This is a Cantonese dish, chee cheong fun, and named,

rather prosaically, I think,

after its strong resemblance to the small intestine of a pig.

This chap learnt his trade working in a dim sum restaurant

and having perfected the art, he did what any self-respecting

Cantonese would do - set up his own stall.

The dish is finished off with a stock

flavoured with sweet soy sauce.

A lot of the breakfast you can have in these hawker stalls is either

deep-fried or shallow-fried and it's quite fatty, so this is particularly

in favour with those people who want to lose a bit of weight - like me.

I remember that programme called The Generation Game where things

look so very easy until you try them. This is a case in point.

Mr Lim has been making these spring roll skins for over 50 years

and I bet people would say,

"Don't you get bored doing the same thing day after day?"

I can assure you, you wouldn't be bored.

You can just see how much he's enjoying it, because there's

so much skill involved.

I have never seen spring roll wrappers as thin as that.

Nowadays, of course, they're made by machine.

Mr Lim is the last person making them by hand in the whole of Penang.

He's a true food hero in my view and I bet when he goes,

everybody will be sad.

I get the same feeling walking through the market streets

as I did when I was a kid going to the very first funfair.

All sorts of wonderful things being made

and enticing smells from the various stalls.

I feel the same sense of excitement 50 years later.

I don't have a clue as to what's in half of the delicacies

on offer here.

Thank you.

Mm! Gelatinous, soft to the palate.

With lots of tiny little bones.

I think they call it chicken feet.

-Chicken's feet, yes.

-Oh, chicken feet!

Chicken feet.

One's enough. Thank you.

Yes, one chicken's foot is enough for a lifetime.

Early the next morning I met up with the Malaysia and food writer

Fay Kjoo, whose passion in life is the street food of Penang.

-Hi, Rick.

-How do you do? Very nice to meet you.

-Nice to meet you.

It's a bit early in the morning.

-Is this is where we're going in?

-Yeah, we're going to have breakfast

at one of my favourite, favourite hawker stalls.

-We're going to have something called hokkien mee.

-Hokkien mee.

Yeah, you're going to have to skirt around this curtain.

-Is that keeping the sun off?

-Yeah.

FAYE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE What have you ordered?

We're going to have two bowls of the soup, noodle soup, with the egg

noodles and the rice noodles and then those vegetables, bean sprouts.

They're very lightly cooked, so all you have in the left pot is hot

water, where they cook the noodles,

-and the right pot is the soup.

-I see.

Ah, that's good! FAYE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE

Grab a chopstick full of noodles.

You're going to have to blow on it before you put it in your mouth,

because it's going to burn you.

So...you're a bit of a regular at this joint then, are you, Fay?

-Mm!

-Nice, good, works?

Yeah, just tell me, this place, it's really busy. Is it...

Does one person own the whole thing?

No, no, no, this is the breakfast operators, then, they pack up and

they run off to the stock exchange, or wherever it is they go to.

Then, the next chef comes in and they set up for lunch

-and they serve lunch.

-Different people.

Three chefs a day, my friend.

That...

-is a good business to be had.

-That, to me, is Asia. That is Asia in a...

-Resourceful.

-Resourceful.

-Resourceful and always thinking.

-Yeah, yeah.

Fay is just the sort of person to explore food with.

Her enthusiasm knows no bounds.

She's knowledgeable and has - I found out later -

a prodigious appetite, so we made a beeline for a market.

Let's make some fish head curry.

-Would they mind if I gave them a sniff?

-I think you should.

A smell test is very important.

-They're good, they're fine.

-They're good? Ready to go?

-Yeah, yeah.

-Shall we get one or two?

-Let's just get two.

-Just in case I get...

-You get hungry.

-Just in case I get hungry!

SHE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE

These heads from grouper are highly prized here.

In Britain, I don't think we have ever taken to the notion that

fish heads are a great delicacy and I don't think we ever will.

-I feel also, like, ask him if he'd like a job back in Padstow.

-Exactly.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

So we're out of fish.

We're now into the vegetable and fruit.

-We'll just help ourselves. Fantastic.

-What do we need, then?

-Ladies' fingers?

-Yeah, definitely.

-How much shall we put?

-A kilo, I suppose, something like that.

-A kilo?

-Yeah.

-Enough? I reckon that's enough, right?

-Good.

-Some chilli?

-Chilli, yeah.

-I reckon some chilli.

-How hot are they?

-They're bird chilli.

-They're pretty hot.

-They will be very hot.

Local cucumbers.

Slightly more bitter.

-What are those?

-Oh, that's lemon grass.

-Lemon grass, it isn't!

-Isn't it?

-Nah!

-What is it?

-Ginger flower.

-Ginger flower!

-RICK LAUGHS

-I was just testing you!

I was just testing you!

-I wanted to make sure you knew.

-THEY LAUGH

She took me to her friend's house to cook the fish head curry.

She said her kitchen was far too modern,

so she thought I'd prefer a more traditional setting.

Despite my mother's best efforts,

I sort of graduated from the school of peasant cooking techniques.

Same here, Fay, so I'm quite happy with that.

She insisted on using a ready-made curry powder.

You sprinkle that onto fried onions and add other spices.

I can smell, I think it's fennel seed. I'm sure there's fennel seed.

There's definitely fennel, there's cumin, there's turmeric,

-there's a bit of galangal.

-Right. Coriander seed?

Coriander seed. Yeah, all that sort of stuff.

All the good things that go into local curries.

And this was followed by tamarind juice, shallots and okra,

or ladies' fingers, as we know them, and chopped tomatoes.

-And...

-Maybe the fish?

-Oh, yeah, the fish!

I've got to season the fish. Hang on.

-Do you want me to do it?

-Are you saying I'm too delicate? OK.

I just love fish. I don't mind.

I just think you'll be moaning about the smell of fish.

-I don't moan about fishy-smelling hands!

-Fair enough, fair enough.

-Let me stand back.

-What are you worried about?

-I just throw the whole lot in.

-Hey?

I wouldn't worry about it, because you're worried about getting it

splashed on your blouse and everything, aren't you?

I'm just going to throw in the bird chilli,

which, as you know, is pretty lethal, especially the seeds.

And that's exactly how I like them.

We're making a curry, what's the point of compromising?

It's got to be the whole chilli.

I've added some curry leaves, a little extra water

and then some fresh coconut milk.

This was made in the market this morning.

You know, talk about East is East and West is West,

mention fish head curry to a Westerner

and they look at you most strangely, but here, it's king.

-Is it good?

-It's very good.

Being a connoisseur of fish, I was, of course,

very keen to try the eyeballs.

It just kind of like crumbles over the bone.

Here it goes with the eyeball.

Mm! It is as I thought, like eating a jellied eel back home in London.

A jellied eel.

Yeah, and the thing that really...

I understand about it is it's very fatty. It's got a lovely...

A lovely sort of viscous taste to it and the actual ball,

right in the middle, you can't eat, it's just like a piece of solid.

-But I am a fan.

-Quite partial to it?

-Yeah, I am.

-Fantastic.

-There's three more in there for you.

-THEY LAUGH

It looks delicious, but I'm not sure how many of you will make

that fish head curry this weekend, but I'm sure Rick wouldn't mind you

using other parts of the fish instead, like the fillet. Why not?

I've not been to Malaysia,

but something they use quite a lot over there is cooking with mangoes,

and that inspired me to do this dessert. Not a Malaysian dessert,

but a twist on a French dessert and it's called iles flottantes,

which is floating islands, or oeufs a la neige.

It's a very classic, classic dessert and you're going to give me a hand.

-I am, absolutely.

-Come on over here then. Give me a hand. Right.

-We're going to make a meringue first. Over here, so you can whip this up.

-Yes.

We've got three egg whites in there, four egg yolks in here.

The egg yolks are for our sauce in a minute.

-In here, I've got some milk, cream, 150ml of each.

-Right.

-And a vanilla pod.

-Lovely.

The idea is, it's called floating islands,

but we poach the meringue in the milk

and then, make a custard using the milk and then we're going to serve

that with coconut and a bit of sugar as well.

Have you taken the seeds out of the pod as well?

Just split the pod like that, so you put the whole pod in there as well.

To whip this up, you get a nice firm meringue first.

There's three ways of making meringue - cold meringue,

-hot meringue and boiled meringue.

-Right, and what am I doing?

Cold meringue is this one where you add the sugar cold.

It's all the same amount of sugar to egg white.

The difference is how you add the sugar to the eggs.

Hot meringue, you warm that in the oven and add it when it's warm,

and boiled, you boil that with water

-and pour it on there when it's boiling.

-Amazing.

-I've learnt already.

-That's it.

-Very impressed.

-Go on, I'll...

-Is it this one?

-Keep going, keep going.

It's really noisy, innit?

We're nearly finished, then, we'll talk to you.

Keep going, and then the machine should just kick down a gear,

eventually, as it starts to get a little bit thicker.

-You can hear it kick down a gear, keep adding that sugar.

-Right.

That's nearly there. That's it. Perfect.

You can hear it kick down a gear now. There you go. That's it.

-Got it. Right.

-Turn it off.

-Off. There you go.

-Gorgeous.

-Now, that is meringue.

-Then, what we're going to do...

-Do we do the test?

-Probably not.

-OK, we're not testing it.

-Not that confident!

-We're not doing that.

Literally, spoon in oil

and all you do is you just...

what we call quenelle these, but you just

put them in little pieces like that and you just go around.

You need to put it in oil to get them off.

So, it's going to end up looking like gnocchi in the end, isn't it?

It should do, yeah, but we poach them.

The idea is we don't boil this mixture,

we just simmer it, so when you get to that stage...

-But cooking was in your blood when you were younger.

-Yes, absolutely.

Mum and Dad always had restaurants and takeaways

-when we were growing up.

-You can peel that.

-Of course.

From a very, very early age...

-Do you want me to do it with this or with a knife?

-There you go.

From a very, very early age, my parents had us

in the restaurant cooking and I was mainly front of house actually,

so I'd be out the front with my dad entertaining all the customers.

-You were front of house, weren't you?

-Front of house, mainly.

Even as a young, young kid?

Really young, really young, so, from the age of three and four

I can remember being in the restaurant with Mum and Dad,

and most kids would be at home watching TV or doing homework

and we'd be in the restaurant,

-and my sister was the front of house with us as well.

-Yeah.

And my brother was in the kitchen,

but then we kind of swapped places over the years and learnt.

It was a massive part of our development as kids

and also, it meant that we spent more time with our parents as well,

because, you know, catering is tough, it's really, really hard.

But you had a tough childhood, not at home but at school, didn't you?

-Yeah.

-You were bullied quite a lot and that's why you ended up working

-with Kidscape, that you're doing now.

-Absolutely.

I was quite bullied when I was younger,

because I was mixed race and I was quite effeminate.

I know you find that quite shocking.

No! Hey, I was bullied at school.

-You were as well?

-Yeah, because I was little. I was 5'2".

5'2", so when did you grow? Because you're like a monster now.

-Thanks very much(!)

-In a very good way!

See, you can get away with that! I don't mind that, you see,

but you tell women that they're a bit top-heavy...

If I said to that, "You're top-heavy and you've got a backside

"the size of, as wide as the M25," I'd get hit.

Well, I'm not trying to sleep with them, James.

-So that's the main point, really.

-That's the secret, is it?

Don't try and sleep with them and you can say what you like.

My producer's saying, "Get back to the food, please."

-Do you want me to take the stone out of this?

-No, I'll do that.

-Can you do the coconut for me?

-I'd love to. Let me wash my hands.

-Under the grill...

-Hold on. How is this working?

-..about 20 seconds, something like that.

-No, we don't need that. Right, OK.

-Under the grill. There you go.

-Coconut, just been peeled, top shelf under the grill.

-Right.

-Give it about 20 seconds and that should be all right.

-20 seconds.

-I'll stand here and watch.

-Stand there and watch.

-Top of the grill.

Top of the grill. 20 seconds.

So, when we first saw you on the screen,

-How To Look Good Naked.

-Yes.

-Was that your idea?

-No, it wasn't.

Channel 4 came to me

and said that they had a show that they wanted to make. It was all

about clothes, but also about how people felt about their bodies and, erm...

You don't have to stand there. Go on, you're all right.

-No, no, I'm going to be a proper assistant.

-Go on, then.

It's fine, I've got it. Go over there. I've got it. I've got it.

-20 seconds have gone.

-Right, I've got it.

-No, a little bit longer.

See, I told you! I knew!

Who is teaching who in the kitchen, James Martin?

So, yeah, they came to me and said, "We've got this show and it's all

"about women and their bodies and clothes and stuff like that,"

and because, obviously, being a stylist,

but also because of my history with being bullied

and about my relationship with my own body,

it was a perfect fit, so we made it and that was seven years ago now.

Huge success, because you're now on, what's this, the fourth...

No, on How To Look Good Naked we're on seven series.

Yeah, seven series.

And then, I also do Gok's Clothes Roadshow as well.

-This is your new one now.

-Oh, no!

It's burnt a little bit, now you've got me talking!

We can just pick those bits off. It's fine.

It can go in a little bit longer.

There you go. Just a touch. Just a touch.

I've never been so confused in my life.

-Right, custard. I'm going to show you this custard.

-OK, let's do custard.

So the milk and the cream get poured onto the egg yolks and the sugar.

We put that back in the pan, cook it to 72 degrees, where the

egg yolks start to thicken and it makes a custard and that's that.

Then, we pass it through a sieve. How's that looking?

It's good, it's good. I didn't listen to a word you said,

-I was worried about the coconut.

-That's it, right.

I'm never going to know how to make custard now.

I'm taking this out, I don't care if it's cooked or not. I'm paranoid.

-Now, tell us about the roadshow, then.

-So, Gok's Clothes Roadshow is the new series

that's on air at the moment and it basically sees me

going around the country and doing makeovers,

doing masterclasses for body shape, teaching people how to

customise clothes, as well as the big fashion face-off where I go up against

the biggest designers in the world with my high street collection.

It's more than that, because it's an incredible amount of work for you

when you watch a programme like that.

If you work in television, you realise it's a tremendous amount of work for you to do, as well.

With all the prep time and all the research time,

because I, literally, produce the fashion on it as well,

and obviously present it and do the makeovers and stuff,

it's about anything between 80 and 100 hours a week,

so we're on tour with that, pitch up on a Monday in the town,

we do all the stuff and then by the Friday,

we're putting on the live show and then as soon as I finish,

I have the Saturday off and Sunday back into prep.

And the cities where you've been to so far?

We went to Nottingham, Leeds, Harrogate, Bristol, Cardiff, London

and Birmingham, so all around the country,

and it was great and I loved it,

absolutely loved it, but it is hard work, definitely.

-That's Tuesday nights, eight o'clock, Channel 4.

-It is.

-Thank you very much.

-Right, we've got our custard here.

We're just going to put a coconut liqueur in that I can't say,

-but it's in a white bottle.

-There we go.

-Lovely.

-And then, we just give that a quick mix

and pour that over the top of the mango.

Traditionally, it would be just custard and the meringue,

or in France they call it a creme anglaise.

-This is where...

-You put the coconut on top?

-Yeah, we are in a second.

This is where you get the iles flottantes, that's the poached meringue.

Finally, we're going to put this liquid caramel, which we've

just got here. This is very, very traditional over in France.

-Amazing!

-They put this caramel over the top.

They wouldn't put mango in it and they wouldn't put the coconut

liqueur in, but it's just a little homage to Rick Stein

and Malaysia. There you go. Dive into that.

-Tell us what you think of that.

-Gorgeous.

-There you go.

-Thank you very much. It looks amazing.

-Thanks for your help.

-You didn't let me do anything.

-I got a tray out of the oven and that was it.

-You did the coconut.

-You're so bossy in the kitchen, it's unbelievable!

-Just get it down you.

I like being bossed around in the kitchen. It's fabulous. Right.

Iles flottantes.

Oh, my God!

You see, I knew he'd enjoy it.

Now, if you'd like to try cooking any of the studio recipes

you've seen on today's show, all of those are just a click away at -

Today, we're looking back at some of the finest cooking

from the Saturday Kitchen archives.

Now, it's always an honour to have the legendary

Ken Hom behind the Saturday Kitchen hobs

and he's got a terrific technique for keeping chicken moist.

It's called velveting and it's in this next clip. Enjoy this one.

Ken Hom! Great to have you on the show, boss.

-Good to have you on the show.

-Always great.

Now, Chinese New Year, celebrating the year of the tiger.

-We're still in the year of the, what?

-Year of the ox.

-Ox.

Which is you, innit?

-Yes, I'm ox.

-You're an ox.

-So, what are we cooking?

-Noodles.

These are fresh egg noodles, which I'm going to ask you to

-blanch there.

-Straight in there. These are the dish that celebrate...

Exactly, because noodles are a sign of longevity

and so you must have it at Chinese New Year and you must never

break them, because you don't want to break your longevity.

-You can break them up though, can't you?

-Yes, you can break them up.

-OK.

-These are really fresh noodles.

-Yeah.

They're the best for this.

Now, what we're going to do is we have chicken,

which is a sign of fortune

and you must have that at Chinese New Year.

We want to shred the breast like this

and we're going to do a technique which is really quite fantastic.

We call it velveting and you know all about that.

I know a bit about velveting, but you're doing it slightly different.

I always thought velveting chicken,

and particularly velveting meat was always done in water.

-We do it in water or, actually, oil is the best.

-Right.

This technique does not make it greasy or oily, believe it or not.

What we do, OK... If you could just let that...

-Just leave it for one second.

-Leave it for a second.

-What do you want me to do?

-Give me some egg white.

-OK.

-Put you to work here.

-And we have some cornflour, salt and pepper.

-OK.

Which we put in the chicken,

-like that, and we take an egg white.

-Yeah.

And what we do is we beat this into the chicken.

Now...

you must coat the chicken like this

and this will protect the chicken while we blanch it in the oil.

-That's got pepper, cornflour...

-Yes, cornflour and salt.

-OK.

-Now put this in the fridge for...

-Right. That goes in the fridge.

-How long does this go in for?

-20 minutes.

-20 minutes, OK.

-Funnily enough, we've got one already done.

-Lovely.

We move that here.

-OK. Thank you.

-It's like musical pans. There you go.

So, you drain off these noodles. You want them cold as well, don't you?

Yes. Have them cold and what you want to do is dry them very well.

Now, this is what you do, this is the velveting.

Once it's been there for 20 minutes, turn off the heat...

-put this in the oil...

-Yeah.

..and stir it around like that, very, very quickly.

-In a Ken Hom wok, of course.

-Yes!

-KEN CHUCKLES

How many woks have you sold in the world?

-Because you sell it in 60 countries?

-Yeah, I think, one in every...

-Do I have to pay you for saying this?

-No, go on.

LAUGHTER

-Go on.

-You just want royalties!

Too right, because how many have you sold, six million?

-No, it's seven now.

-Seven million woks?!

Now, what we do is we take it out and we drain that.

The oil is still very, very clean.

Will's figuring it out in his head, a quid for every wok.

-No, I wish!

-OK. So what oil have you got in there, then, Ken?

That's groundnut oil. The thing is, you see,

what's nice is the oil is still very, very clean.

-There is a sink back there if you want to wash your hands.

-Thank you.

-What oil do I need to fry these off?

-A bit of groundnut oil.

-Groundnut oil, OK.

-In a very hot pan.

-That's lovely.

-So, they go in there.

OK, and I'm going to chop up some spring onions that will go on this.

And this noodle dish is really one of my favourites,

-because it's crispy and I think your viewers will love it.

-Yeah.

Because, you know, people in this country love things that crispy,

and the texture of the chicken with all this is just outstanding.

-Even though it's cooked in this oil, it is healthy?

-Right.

It is very healthy, because all the oil has drained off, you see?

-Now, I'm going to heat up the wok.

-Yeah.

-OK.

Now, when you were last on the show,

you hadn't got the letters behind your name.

-You've got more letters behind your name.

-Right.

-Because OBE?

-Yes.

Fantastic. Not many chefs have got an OBE.

We won't mention the other ones.

-Brian Turner, he's got one, hasn't he?

-Yes.

Do you think he paid for that?

Well, Brian Turner doesn't pay for anything, I know Brian.

The bookies is the only thing he can lose money on. Right.

Anyway, we've got our noodles in there.

Yes, you've got your noodles in there.

You want to get it very, very crispy and you want to flip that over.

The Chinese have a word for this, we call it double side crispy,

-Leung mein wong.

-Leung mein wong.

-Very good!

-Always learning.

-Now, we stir-fry this and we add...

-Because we have got something in common, me and you.

-Yes.

You've got a doctorate.

Yes, from Oxford Brookes.

Unfortunately, Ken, I'm a professor as well.

You've got a way to go yet, but keep learning.

You'll get there in the end. THEY LAUGH

-Right, what have we got in here, then?

-Soy sauce.

-Yes.

-OK.

And we want to stir that and some chicken stock.

This is fresh chicken stock.

You haven't cooked about chicken all the way through...

-No, that's all right.

-OK.

Don't forget it continues to cook while it's right here,

-sort of draining.

-OK.

Wait till you taste the texture of it.

Oh, that's beautiful.

OK, we're going to finish this with some oyster sauce

and this is absolutely, really wonderful

and this is very much a Cantonese dish,

because I tell you why, we love

-the texture of the sauce and the noodles.

-Right.

Nice and crispy and brown.

So, what is in oyster sauce? Pardon me for being daft.

It's oysters that have been mixed with spices and dried

and, actually, it tastes savoury, it doesn't taste like oysters. Mm!

That's very good.

I learnt something the other day that bone china has got bone in it.

-I didn't know.

-I didn't know that.

I didn't know that either. Right.

In we go with the cornflour.

Yes, because you want this to be a little thick,

-so that it can, sort of, nap the noodles.

-OK.

-So, that's cornflour and just water in there.

-Right.

And at the very end, we re-add the chicken just to warm it up.

And like you say, these are traditional for Chinese New Year.

-The crispy ones?

-No, all noodles.

-All noodles.

-But don't break them?

-Yes, never.

-Never break them. Right, OK.

OK, you put them on a plate.

-I'll put them on a plate as well.

-OK.

-You want the chicken in as well?

-Yes, put the chicken back in.

-Thank you.

-There you go.

-OK. Give that a nice stir.

Now, Denis, big fan of Chinese cooking?

Yeah, I like Chinese food a lot.

-See, I knew this man has taste.

-LAUGHTER

Yeah, I'm looking forward to this. This looks great.

I'm a great fan of his, so...

-That's very nice.

-From way back when.

Thank you, Ken.

-Right, what's next? You want a ladle, spoon?

-Ladle.

That chicken has gone in there for what, 60 seconds?

Yes, just to warm up and it will be perfectly cooked.

Now what you do is you pour this on and do this at the last minute

so the noodles don't get soggy.

And you have the texture of the chicken,

the sauce that will go on the noodles.

What I love about Chinese food is it's sharing food.

You just pile it on the middle of the table.

And everybody participates with their chopsticks

and I think it's really wonderful, especially for families.

And there you have crispy noodles, long life, for Chinese New Year.

-Easy as that.

-Kung hei fat choi.

-Kung hei fat choi.

-Yes.

-That's what you call it?

There you go. Right. Over here, this is just a small portion, Denis.

Dive into that.

-Tell us what do you think of that.

-OK.

You would just mainly do that with chicken, would you?

No, prawns, but you don't velvet meat,

because meat has too much blood in it, so...

-Just fell velveting chicken, that's what you do?

-Yes.

-It's delicious.

-The chicken is very tender.

-The chicken's gorgeous.

I'm sorry, I'm going to have to use fork for the noodles.

It has got a unique flavour, that chicken, when you velvet it.

-It's beautiful.

-I don't think I'm going to get any of this.

A perfect plate of sharing food.

Now it's time for another classic cookery trip with

the legendary Keith Floyd.

He's in Scotland this week and venison is on the menu.

Every time I have a new passion in my life,

I made a quick call to the BBC and my dreams are realised.

In this instance, here's one of me

going through the basic training in the gentle art of salmon fishing.

Notice the concentration on the boat race?

The salmon, however, like so many objects of my desire,

is playing hard to get,

but I have no doubt that under the eagle or expert eye

of Peter, the gillie,

who's clearly impressed by my progress, we will succeed.

Indeed, just look at his face.

Glowing with pride at my efforts,

or is it the mask of a man who's seen it all before?

This then is Loch Fyne, home of the noted kipper, superb oysters

and plump prawns.

A loch of stunning views, of moody skies AND the birthplace

of our dubbing mixer Stuart Greg who wrote this piece of the commentary.

-OK, Stu?

-Yeah, quite good, Keith.

Right, on with cooking sketch number one.

The trouble with half an hour programmes is you haven't

got the time to do everything. Take my mate here, Jimmy McNab.

Brilliant fellow, could tell you stories all night over a dram,

fill up the whole programme. One thing he can do really well

is marinade and roast a haunch of venison.

Jimmy, tell us all about the venison a minute.

Well, first of all, we get the venison from the estate, Keith.

We bring it down to The Creggans,

we hang it for ten days in the cold room,

then we butcher it and depends on the cut we want, like today

it's a haunch, we put the haunch into the tin, as you see,

and then we add apple, parsnip, carrot, onion,

a mixture of dried herbs, fresh herbs.

We cover the whole haunch with brown sugar

and a few cloves of garlic, we rub it in and a few cloves of...

-What do you call these things again?

-Cloves.

And we rub it well in and then we add a bottle and a half

of good red wine, which is essential,

and cover it with tinfoil and that's ready for putting in the oven.

Right, which is going to take about three and a half hours.

Jimmy, I don't wish to be rude, but if you could get on with that,

get it in the oven, we'll be coming back to you and see your wonderful herrings later,

because I've got a dinner party ditched you could overhear, Richard.

Come down this way. Jimmy has got the heavy, slow-cooking haunch.

I've got the delicate and expensive fillet steak from the venison, OK?

The loin of venison and I'm cooking it in creme de cassis.

This is what it looks like when it comes out of the beast, OK?

Like a big pork fillet or a fillet steak.

You cut pieces off it like that, nice round little...

Then, you beat them out, I've already done that,

and they're lovely thin little escallops of venison like that. OK?

We also need some water, which I'll explain later. Right,

these go into the hot pan for a couple of seconds on each side.

Just to brown very nicely like that.

A little bit of salt and a little bit of pepper. OK.

Then, straightaway...

we pour in some blackcurrant liqueur,

like that, and flame it. OK.

They must come out straight away now...onto the thing.

In we put some of Jimmy McNab's wonderful venison stock.

And we've got to reduce that. Come back here, Richard, please.

We've got to reduce that for three or four minutes, which you won't

want to really see, so I'm going to have a quick word with Jimmy

while somebody carries on with that,

and look at his wonderful herrings, OK?

Right, Jimmy, while my sauce bubbles,

you've got about two minutes to explain your fabulous herrings, OK?

Richard, get really close on Jimmy, he hasn't done it before,

help him out. Off you go, Jimmy.

OK, Keith. First of all, that's your original Loch Fyne herring.

This here is a salt herring which we purchased.

Now, what I do is I run that under 36 hours under running cold water,

then you nick the backbone off, the fin off.

You take your scissors - I nearly cut my hand -

-and then you chop into pieces.

-OK, we've got that.

Press on, Jimmy because filming's very expensive, OK?

Then, you cut the onion up and chop it up there,

then you add a wee drop of mint, rosemary, mixed herbs,

a wee shake of crushed chillies,

chop up your onion and your dill

-and this is all fresh herbs, which you add as well.

-Richard, pay attention properly here.

Mint, chives, tarragon, fresh dill. OK, on you go, Jimmy.

Then you mix all these ingredients up together and you leave them

lying for two hours.

Then you boil one cup of brown sugar to one cup of good malt vinegar.

You bring that to the boil till your sugar dissolves.

Then you mix the whole lot together and there's your end product.

The longer it lies, the better it matures.

It's absolutely brilliant. Oh, boy!

Shall we have a little drink with that or not?

Well, I'll tell you the story about that.

It's a great combination, a dram of whisky

and a plate of pickled herring, because you have your dram,

that gives you... You're hungry,

so then you have a plate of pickled herring,

the salt herring gives you the thirst,

so you go back to the dram, back to the herring and it works

vice versa, till you end up as pickled as what the herring is.

Absolutely brilliant. Slainte.

I must go back to the sauce, OK? Excuse me.

Mm. That was very delicious.

Anyway, I must just finish this sauce.

What we do now is beat in a little bit of butter to the creme de

cassis and into the venison stock, take about 30 seconds,

just to make it really smooth and creamy and wonderful.

Which is now ready. OK.

Strain it over the little venison collops.

Look at that lovely rich sauce, down close on that, Richard,

so everybody can see. It's a dish you can make at home.

In case you weren't paying attention earlier,

I did say you needed some water for this dish.

Of course you do. It goes in to the dram. Jimmy!

It's finished. Can you come and have a taste, please? OK.

If he doesn't like it, we'll cut him out of the film.

It's very, very simple.

There you are. There's my venison and blackcurrant liqueur sauce.

Have a go. See what you think of that.

That's lovely venison anyway, so...

It cuts lovely.

-Mm.

-OK?

-Really first class.

-Good.

It would be a favourite with the berry pickles in Dundee now.

Let's have a look at yours then,

-that's been roasting away in the oven there.

-Here you are.

-Can you pass me the cloth?

-There you go.

-Lovely.

Now, we just have to hope and pray this turns out like yours.

I'm sure it'll be very much better. This is a truly Scottish version.

Mine is a Sassenach version.

Oh, I say! That looks brilliant! Get in there, Richard. Come on.

-Try it in there with a fork and see what happens.

-That is beautiful.

I'll have a little slicelette of that. Look at that.

As tender as a baby's bottom.

That is beautiful.

Oh!

That is incredible!

-You will have a dram, Jimmy. Stay there.

-Oh, that's good.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank YOU very much.

-All the very best.

Absolutely brilliant. Brilliant.

-Do you want a little bit yourself?

-No, no.

-I'm on a diet.

-You're on a diet!

Look at that man! On a diet! On a diet? Or is that a diet?

Isn't it funny how time flies when you're really enjoying yourself?

I mean, I was thrilled when the producer proposed another boat trip.

But you know, no self-respecting food programme should miss

a trip on a prawny boat. It's worth noting, you know,

for those of you who are a bit tight on the old spondulicks, a bit mean,

that the arduous work of a prawn fisherman is not

rewarded by bulging creels of this vibrant delicacy.

It's much more usual to haul up a pot containing two or three.

And on top of that, they have to contend with vicious tides,

demonic currents and whirlpools,

because this is the legendary Corryvreckan.

you know, I'm surprised no-one's done a real bit of moody

music over this. You know, a symphony or something.

I think I'll knock one up on the way back.

Should only take three or four hours.

You know that I'm a dreadful stickler for the finest

and the freshest of ingredients.

If you want a really good plate of langoustines from where I live,

for example, in Bristol, you'd have to fly to Barcelona, Madrid,

or somewhere like that, because the finest langoustines

from the west coast of Scotland invariably end up down there.

I thought it was cheaper on my BBC mini break to enjoy some

fabulous langoustines by catching them, you've seen me do that.

I was watching them while they were doing it. And cook them here.

But in fact, all of you have seen my brilliant programmes

where I've grilled them, I've roasted them, I've flamed them...

And if you haven't caught it by now, hard luck,

because I ain't cooking any more langoustines.

One of the best meals I had here was a gigot of mutton,

absolutely fabulous.

And so I thought, to round off this lovely fishing trip we've had,

I'd make some rissoles. Richard, into the pot.

Those are the rissoles. And do you know how you make rissoles?

Come back again, please, Richard. Thank you.

I know you had a tiring day. Gets a bit fresh on the boat, you see.

You get some old mutton that you've cooked, cold,

you mince it up by hand, not in a magi-mix,

cos that liquidises it almost, you add some mashed potato,

some finely chopped onion and some parsley.

But you don't fry them in corn oil,

you get proper blinking dripping, you see?

This kind of stuff. That's what you fry them in.

And they're absolutely fabulous.

And shame on you lot who go to supermarkets and buy little frozen

packs of square things and drop them into corn oil because it's dreadful.

Anyway, that's my lecture today.

The director's been quite, quite good, so although there's only two of those,

and that's one for me and one for the cameraman, Richard,

who's been quite good, I'm going to prepare him a really super meal of langoustine bait, which is

some really nice bits of old herring left to rot. There we are. That's for being so good.

How kind(!)

SYMPHONIC MUSIC PLAYS

# Mm-mm-mm... #

Yeah, that's it. That's the first movement.

I'll knock that up on the old Joanna after dinner.

But now, on to the delicate art of conning a kitchen, sort

of being on the culinary knocker, as we call it in the trade.

Point one, stay modest and don't set your sights too high.

Two, choose a house well blessed with fertile lands

and healthy stock.

Three, remember to wipe your feet as you enter.

Four, cross your fingers as you say it won't take long.

I think a really serious cookery demonstration should commence

with a few words from the bard.

And I'm not talking about Shakespeare,

I'm talking about Rabbie Burns.

Oh, Lord, when hunger pinches sore Do thou stand us in stead

And send us, from thy bounteous store,

A tup or wether head!

A tup or wether head? What on earth is that?

I'll tell you what it is, it's a mutton, it's an elderly sheep,

it's something four years old, at least.

It lives on these wonderful hills and valleys, or glens,

as they're called around here, nibbling at bog myrtle,

wild thyme, wild sage, parsley, heather...

Doesn't need herbs to be roasted in because it's been eating them all of its life.

And it ends up... Come and have a closer look, Richard. It ends up looking this dark meat...

Rather like a haunch of venison or a piece of beef.

You'd hardly think that was lamb, if you were used to

eating the lamb we have in England, which is pale and milky.

Jolly delicious, by the way, but quite, quite different.

And this gigot is a Scottish-French word.

In France, they'd say un gigot, here they say a gigot.

And everybody says it when they go to the butcher, a gigot, please. And they get a leg of mutton.

And they poach it in water, very, very simply. Come down and have a look.

With a load of root vegetables - turnips, swedes, leeks,

carrots, an onion stuffed with cloves.

Simmered for three or four hours. And it's absolutely brilliant.

But what is also brilliant is this remarkable kitchen.

I know it's not the Antiques Roadshow, I know it's not

Upstairs Downstairs, but look at it. It's incredible. Handmade pots with the owner's initials on them.

This amazing tiling, Thomas Crapper of Chelsea must have worked like mad.

Come and have a look, it's quite extraordinary.

I mean, the doors, the fittings, it's like a yacht. This is more like a palace than a kitchen.

But for some people, it must have meant an awful lot of work.

Imagine them scrubbing the carrots, peeling potatoes, baking the bread,

Mr Hudson would walk in and say, "That's not quite good enough! Make sure those plates are cleaned!"

Look at it, cakes and confectionary. Escoffier would have been proud of this place. Look at this.

This is what really interests me. The dairy. Come on in, Richard.

It's cool and quiet.

I can imagine in the busy days of banquets and stuff,

when you were sent off to make the cream, it was a great relief,

you'd close the door and stay in this serene sort of chapel.

And it's good. Though of course, the servants and the staff have gone,

but the laird still makes wonderful creamy butter. Look at that.

It's fabulous, isn't it?

Anyway, it's meant to be a cooking programme.

Let's get back to it. Oh, there is one more thing.

Come and have a look at this, it's really interesting.

This is what I wanted to show you.

I mean, they didn't just go to the Job Centre in those days,

sign the form and get winged in because they were good potato

peelers or laundry maids, or something like that.

They had to sort of read the whole thing, book, rule and verse,

you know. Due to the God, due to the King, and the rest of it. And also, look, here.

"To submit myself to all my governors, teachers,

"spiritual pastors and masters.

"To order myself lowly and reverently to all my betters."

Betters? I'd better go and cook the laird's dinner!

Yeah, I'm sorry about that but I was so fascinated by it all, I just wanted you to see it.

It's amazing, isn't it? Anyway, this is a cookery lesson and let's get down to business,

let's put our toasting fork away and talk about the gigot.

The gigot is going to be poached in water, as I explained earlier, with

those lovely root vegetables, but later on, it will actually be

served with a caper sauce, caper sauce very simple to make.

You make a roux, bit of melted butter and flour, add some milk,

add some stock from the cooked dish, and chuck in some capers.

There we are, Richard. Capers, just in case you don't know what they are.

It's got to be simmered for the first three hours,

so the first thing we do, pop it into this tub of water,

into which I've put a couple of bay leaves and a couple of cloves,

a couple of peppercorns and quite a bit of salt.

We then surround it with all these splendid vegetables. OK.

Because it's going to be cooked slowly,

these vegetables won't disintegrate. You might think that they'd all mash in to a pulp, but this isn't

going to be boiled away, it's going to be simmered away. There we are.

And then, this is the laird's pot, by the way. My God!

I bet the laird doesn't do this himself all that often.

I imagine there are a few old retainers to this day to lift it.

On to this rather... Gordon Bennett! This is... It's damned heavy!

On to there.

Cor!

That will now simmer, believe it or not, for three hours.

I think it's time, as we say, for me to take a dram,

you to take a break, and have a walk round this estate.

It is an estate of which dreams are made from.

And there'll be more, of course, from Keith next week.

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

recipes from the Saturday Kitchen larder.

Still to come on today's Best Bites, John Campbell faced

Martin Blunos for his first attempt at the Omelette Challenge,

but how did they both do? Find out in just a few minutes' time.

And James Tanner brings black treacle brushed pork to the table.

He serves the pork with crushed butter beans

and a Devon cider apple sauce.

And Emilia Fox faces her food heaven or food hell.

Would she get her food heaven, cottage pie with peas,

or would she get her dreaded food hell, lemongrass

and lime leaf coconut monkfish curry, with Thai jasmine rice?

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

Now, Adam Byatt always champions the very best of British produce,

with his honest style of cooking.

And this next dish is a true classic.

Here he is with a fantastic pheasant recipe.

-It's Adam Byatt. Welcome back, Adam.

-Thanks, James.

On the menu is something, well, seasonal,

but it's just run out of season.

Yeah, the season finished last weekend,

-so this is the last shoot and...

-Are these pheasants?

We're going to do a pheasant Kiev,

so a great way to keep the pheasant moist, cos they're quite dry.

Great thing, people would have excess of pheasants

in the freezer now, so a great way to use it up. Fill it with butter, keep it moist.

Cos you're going to use the whole lot as well for this Kiev.

-Normally, you'd just use the breast, but anyway...

-I am.

I'll show you a clever little bit of butchery. It's quite nice and interesting.

If you make me some garlic butter with hazelnuts,

-which I think just lifts the whole thing up a bit.

-OK.

-And then just dice me some swede.

-I can do that as well.

Swede's a strange thing.

I actually love swede like this, but I don't like it any other way,

so I've found a way to like it.

This really works for me. I'll take the skin off of this.

If you didn't want to pluck the pheasants,

just literally take the skin off of the pheasants

and then take the breast off, as you would normally.

-BONE CRACKS

-Is that a knuckle?

Straight through... My knuckle that was!

LAUGHTER Right, so you've just got the garlic now...

Traditionally, it would just be garlic butter and a little bit of parsley.

Yeah, I just wanted to lift it up a bit and give it...

And then just make a little cavity for that butter.

And use the fillet to fill it back up, to cover it over.

And then the drums on a pheasant really tonnes of sinew,

which you just can't eat.

So I'm not a big fan of the drums,

so we just cut all the way round, scrape the meat down, like so.

Just keep turning it round. Scrape that off.

And then just hit the knuckle.

It's the tendons in there that you can never seem to get through.

No, you can't eat them. Not nice.

And then just take the bone out, the thigh bone out, like so.

You were saying something about swede before.

-You can also roast or...

-You can roast it, yeah.

It's not my favourite veg, but I love it,

-absolutely love it like this...

-Not an Italian vegetable.

-No, it's certainly not.

-I like it salt baked.

Yes. Is that inspired from my salt baked celeriac, James?

That was very good of you.

Don't they feed it to the pigs in France?

-I don't know about that.

-The swede...

-I would never say that...

-They do.

-It goes to the pigs.

Right?

Take some of that fat off of there. And then... Where's that butter?

A spoon...

-Lovely cabbage there...

-So this is very British for you.

I know your restaurants are British anyway, but very rustic.

Is this cos as well as Francesco's got a new restaurant,

-you've got something...

-Yes, that's right.

..a little venture going on, which is opening next week?

Yeah, that's right.

Next Friday, we open my new restaurant, which is

-called Bistro Union.

-Right.

-And it opens on Abbeville Road in Clapham.

-So not far from the other restaurant.

-Right.

It's a British all day simple food...

Really kind of homely British fare.

The bistro side of it was to sort of identify...

You're going to walk between the two?

Yeah, which I'm not sure is very nice if you're my staff.

Right, I've got the fat from the bacon here, which is

the fat and the rind, in there with some stock, in with the swede.

A bit of butter in there as well, James. Be great.

-That's why I like his cooking, you see?

-Butter.

-Yeah.

-Sorry. Right, that goes in there.

I'm going to coat this...

Any Kiev, you've got to coat it in what we call a pane.

Just to check back on that, James.

Just put the leg the other way round with the bone out,

so it evens out the thickness of the meat, so it cooks evenly.

It's a clever way to utilise the legs as well.

-Yeah, and there's a lot of flavour in the leg.

-The Kiev on a pheasant's

-going to be much smaller than it is on a chicken.

-Yeah.

This'll make it a little bit bigger as well.

-Makes it a nice portion, yeah.

-Right, I've got the swede there.

We've just got with the bacon and the stock.

-You want this crushing, don't you?

-Yes, please.

Just really simple, just like crushed swede. Really simple.

-But that smoked bacon is so important in there.

-Yeah.

And then we're going to make a little bit of braised cabbage,

which is lovely.

And this braised cabbage I'm going to make in a sec...

Now, you're going to cook this through the oven,

but if you were doing the old chicken Kievs from the '70s...

-Get it in the fryer.

-You'd get it in the fryer, wouldn't you?

But you'd also double coat it, so you'd get to this stage,

you'd flour, egg it, then before you crumbed it,

you would actually flour and egg it again and then breadcrumbs.

We're going to add a little bit of finesse

and we're going to pan fry it gently and love it a little bit

and you'll get a crispier skin that way.

Double coating it is just basically to stop

the butter from leaking out, that's all it is.

So when it's in the fryer, it doesn't sort of, well, leak out.

I like your faith in my butter not leaking out.

Always presentation side down in the pan.

Nice gentle pan, so it doesn't burn.

So, leg the other way round. Let's lose that.

-Is there a reason why it's pheasant?

-Say again, sorry?

Why are you doing pheasant like that and not a normal chicken?

I find it very interesting with the legs and the breast together.

-I never see before.

-Yeah, it is quite different.

And the reason I'm doing that...

Pheasants right now is that they're in season

and I think pheasant, it needs moisture because it's quite

a dry animal and just a nice way to add a bit of moisture to it.

You needed to come to this country in the 1970s, you see?

-Chicken Kiev...

-A little bit of scampi in a basket.

Scampi in a basket, chicken in a basket... Exactly.

And that's what the food in the new place is all about.

All British produce, a lot of classic dishes that you'd

have grown up with, really kind of homely and simple...

Yeah. Right, I'm going to use the outer leaves for that.

-You're using the inner hearts for...

-Yeah, so this cabbage...

I was an apprentice at Claridge's...

Going back to what you were saying earlier,

I trained with the academy and was an apprentice at Claridge's and this

was something that we made all the time and I love making this cabbage.

Can I just show you that?

That's the breadcrumbs, and then this goes in the oven.

You're showing me? I thought you were showing me.

Yeah, I'm showing you! That goes straight in the oven.

Tell us about this cabbage then.

So, this cabbage, I used to make this at Claridge's

when I was a young apprentice. A couple of years back, that was.

-And it...

-22!

-Yeah!

And Mr Williams there was a big stickler about this cabbage

being exactly right and I always made it ever since.

I love it. Just quarter the cabbage. The outside leaves on the bottom.

Quarter the cabbage, put it in.

And then we put some lovely Toulouse sausage,

so really lovely garlicky sausage, in there.

This is pancetta - you could use ventreche, which is

another smoked belly pork.

Pancetta's better.

Streaky bacon's better!

-You prefer ventreche?

-Pancetta, of course.

-Pancetta, OK.

-Streaky bacon.

-Garlic.

Put some fresh thyme in there, which is really lovely with cabbage,

some butter in there, season it... I've already seasoned that.

That's it. And then put the outer leaves on the top,

-so we keep it in a sort of lovely package.

-Yeah.