21/02/2016 Saturday Kitchen Best Bites

Good morning. I hope you're hungry

because we've got a truly appetising show on the menu today.

You won't want to go anywhere. This is Saturday Kitchen Best Bites.

Welcome to the show.

I'm rolling my sleeves up for this one,

as we've got some first-class chefs, serving magnificent food

and a healthy portion of celebrity guests too.

Coming up on today's show...

Tristan Welch treats us to his version of a Cornish classic,

stargazey pie.

Ching-He Huang spices things up in the kitchen

with her sticky pork belly rice parcels.

The rice is wrapped in lotus leaves

before being steamed and served with stir-fried pak choi.

And Matt Tebbutt takes us back in time with his version

of the classically British and much-loved Monmouth pudding.

Breadcrumbs are baked in a creamy custard,

before being topped with raspberry jam and soft meringue.

And presenter George Lamb faces food heaven or food hell.

Would he get his food heaven, sea bass with courgette ribbons

and mussel soup, or would he get his dreaded food hell,

a warm salad of pan-fried pigeon breast, wild mushroom and beetroot?

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

First up, we're being treated to a taste of the Cornish coastline

and when the man behind the stove has held two Michelin stars

for over a decade, there's no doubt

you'll want to dive in to whatever he's got lined up.

Over to you, Mr Michael Caines.

On the menu for you is what, Chef?

We've got this nice salt cod which I'll show you how to do

and this lovely chorizo foam that we're going make

with some roasted peppers, bit of paprika, some milk,

fish stock and shallots and thyme.

-A sauce to go with it.

-Yeah.

Some lovely samphire, which they call sea asparagus, lightly cooked,

got some little sorrels as well over the top, which will be delicious.

-I'll get on and do this first.

-First, we've got to salt the cod.

You can use ling or pollack, it's equally as good.

And you get that flakiness in this sort of fish.

We're going to just take a tray and just add the salt on it.

It needs to soak overnight, eight to six hours.

There's a recipe I use, to every 100g of fish, about 3g of salt.

You can use sea salt as well. I'm using fine salt.

So it's kind of like the way of doing confit of duck, really,

the initial start of that.

Yeah, and you get that lovely, firm quality fish at the end of it

and it takes all the moisture out

and it gives you this really nice, firm bit of fish, which is lovely.

-And when you cook it...

-Do you want me to wash that off?

-Yeah.

When you've actually finished cooking it,

we end up with a fantastic texture, which is really good,

because flaky fish contains moisture and when you cook it...

I'm going to dust it now with a little bit of paprika.

-Thanks, James.

-This is the smoked paprika?

-It is.

It's a sweet smoked paprika, not too hot, not too spicy.

Got a lovely smoky flavour which picks up with those lovely notes

from the chorizo which we're making a sauce.

I'll get that cooking in a minute. It's already salted,

so we don't need to worry about adding any additional salt.

We just need to think about a bit of paprika on the outside.

Most people, when they think of salt cod,

think of, obviously, brandade, that kind of stuff,

the traditional Spanish-style salt cod which requires soaking.

-It's fully dried, that one.

-This is. This is fully dried.

We've done all the removal of the moisture

and the other thing is, with brandade,

the salt cod that you get is very, very...

can be very, very pungent, I suppose is the only word for it.

-Yeah, that's the drying process.

-Yeah, it is.

And you have to soak it for a long time to get all that salt out.

-Onions in there?

-Yeah. So this is the sauce.

We've got the shallots with some butter,

pinch of salt and a bit of thyme and bay leaf.

What I'm going to do also is take this red pepper

and on this tray, we're going to add some seasoning -

salt, a little bit of vinegar -

that's quite nice - just to give some base acidity.

A little bit of pepper and some olive oil

and then wrap that up and we're going to put it in the oven

and cook it for about an hour to 45 minutes.

Why the covering it then?

It just steams and it doesn't colour it on the outside too much,

so it's more of a steam. In the pan here, I've got my shallots

that you beautifully chopped for me with the butter.

We're going to sweat that off

and now we're going to add some smoked paprika as well,

so we're going to pick up on all those notes.

This dish was inspired by a trip in Spain,

which we'll talk about later when we discover our wine.

I mentioned Gidleigh Park. This is 20 years you've been cooking there?

-Yeah, 20 years at Gidleigh.

-15 years with two stars?

-Yeah, that's right.

And then last year, we got our five Rosettes back

and also we got number one slot back

at The Times top food list, as well,

and that's the fourth year that we've been in the top three.

And at the same time, that's twice at number one, which is really good.

I'm quite happy about that, to be honest.

So, pepper - we've got one that's already roasted.

-You can buy roasted peppers already, James.

-The Spanish ones are good.

They are really fantastic.

What I'm going to do is put in a bit of water and some milk -

skimmed milk or whole milk, it doesn't really make any difference.

We're going to blend that to a nice puree

and that gives the body of the sauce which is quite nice.

-So that's blending away.

-Yep.

The fish is in the pan, just a knob of butter,

get it seared off and then we'll add some butter into the pan as well

to get some nice colouring

and that will go into the oven for about four minutes maximum, really.

-We'll start it off and then flip it over.

-Yeah.

In here, we're going to add some fish stock.

-The salting of it firms up the flesh.

-It does.

You get this really lovely, meaty texture

and none of the water will come out whilst you're cooking.

This is a fish stock I made earlier.

I'm using turbot bones or flat fish, which is delicious.

And then we're going to take our puree, which is in here...

It's not doing a great deal, is it? ..which we'll add to that as well.

And then I've got some chorizo.

It's getting there.

So...

Maybe it's got a bit too much moisture.

-So the fish is beautifully...

-Do you want me to flip this over?

-Yeah.

-I've made a lemon puree...

-Sorry, do you want this in the oven?

-Yeah, in the oven. We'll cook that for a few minutes.

-OK.

-Once we've got this blended...

-Yeah.

..we can just pop that into the rest of the sauce.

Do you want me to grab that?

The texture of the peppers will give it...

-In here?

-Yeah, in there.

And we'll cook it out for about 20 minutes

and then we have this lovely sauce here,

which I'm going to pass off now,

which I'll do here. Now, the butter and the samphire put together -

you don't have to season the samphire.

So, you pass the sauce through the sieve.

Yeah, pass it off, once it's cooked. We put it in here,

up to the boil, cook it for about 20 minutes and then pass that off.

Then, what we have here, is a nice sauce,

which I'm going to check the seasoning briefly,

and also, I'll add a bit of...

We've got a couple of minutes left, waiting for the fish, so...

Yeah. I've also got a bit of milk that I've put in there,

just to knock it down.

And the milk is just to get the texture

cos I'm going to do a little cappuccino effect on this,

so just a touch of milk to reduce it down.

If people can't get all the way down to where you are,

down your way, to Gidleigh Park,

you can experiment with your type of food in your book.

-Is this your first ever book?

-It is my first ever cookbook.

It only took me 19 years to write it!

But, yeah, it's called Michael Caines At Home,

so it's quite a home cookbook style

and it's got some of my favourite recipes from over the years

and I've tried to simplify it

and this is one of the ones that are in there.

-And as I said, I've done that lovely lemon puree.

-This is this?

Yeah, we peel the lemon and then blanch it, cold water

with a bit of turmeric and a touch of sugar, up to the boil

and then we repeat that process ten times. That's quite a lot of work.

But this is a great dish without the lemon puree

and we're just going to use a few segments for acidity as well,

-which is good.

-Where do you get your inspiration from?

Cos looking at your CV, you're very classically-trained,

French-trained, three-star Michelin French-trained, as well.

-What inspires you, really?

-These days, it's eating out.

You can have a fantastic meal, some simple food that you can think,

"How can I adapt that and make it a little bit more personal?"

But, at the same time, I enjoy Asian food, African food,

North Arabian food, if you like, North Africa.

I love going out to Asia.

But your style of cooking is still the classic...

-I always think it's always the classic style.

-It is.

So the Waterside Inn sort of style, the classic form of cooking,

-nothing too fancy.

-Yeah, but it's all based on...

It's a classical base in its training,

but it's contemporary of its time as well, I like to say.

In that regard, we use a lot of the techniques,

in terms of slow cooking, we're using all the science of cooking,

but we're trying to always do that always based around a philosophy

of having great-tasting food which, for me, is the most important thing.

This is your cappuccino bit you've just done.

Yeah, a little cappuccino. The good thing about chorizo...

We're using cooked chorizo here and we're going to crisp up the skin

and take these out. These are lovely.

You can grill these or you can use the charcuterie version

-which are slightly more, I guess...

-Firmer.

..firmer, and you can do a nice dice with that.

We're just going to take these out and drain...

You can get different ones as well.

-You can get the picante one, which is the spicy one.

-It is.

-So make sure you get the right one.

-You don't want too much spice here.

There's a lot going on.

We're playing on the sweet, the sour, the salty,

and that's what matters.

Here, we've got a lovely plate which is going to show off...

-This is your lemon...

-Yeah.

-You did this well in rehearsal.

-Is it going to happen twice?

-We just put a bit on the plate like that

and a couple of dots, just be a bit fancy.

-You've done that before, haven't you?

-Once or twice!

Then we'll sprinkle some of the sea asparagus or samphire

and then we've got our lovely fish which is coming out

-and I know we've got some lemon juice.

-Yeah.

And just squeeze over the top.

The fish is almost opaque.

And this oil from the chorizo can be put on the plate too.

-You want this over it as well?

-Absolutely.

We've got these lovely little dice of acidity

-and then the chorizo sausage itself.

-Are you all right serving that

straight out of the pan? You don't need to rest it, nothing?

No, it'll carry on resting but it's fine

and that lovely nice cappuccino

and these wood sorrels or what we call red vein sorrel,

just for natural acidity which should finish it off really nice.

I've got this little vinaigrette.

I made a little lemon vinaigrette, lemon oil,

which is delicious as well, which we put on, which is a nice simple dish.

-It does look pretty good that, doesn't it?

-I think it's...

You're not bad at this cooking lark, are you?

-I should take it up for a job!

-You could do it more often as well.

-Tell us the name of this.

-Here we are with our salted cod

on a bed of samphire with chorizo

and a lovely pepper and chorizo sauce.

-It smells as good as it looks.

-Fabulous.

Looks pretty good to me. Have you got more of this?

Just to make sure you get a bit of acidity, lemon.

Sat there in silence over here.

You never said a word throughout all that.

-Dive in. Tell us what you think.

-It looks beautiful.

-It looks like a piece of art.

-It does look amazing, doesn't it?

-Dive into that.

-I'll share it.

-Dive in.

-Those are yours.

Dive in, it's fine.

Like you say, get the right chorizo, the soft one, the cooking one.

Yes and it's delicious. It's got a lot of flavour in, chorizo,

and we've rendered down some of the fat and you end up

with a bit of caramelisation which intensifies that.

-Try the lemon puree, cos that really does go so well.

-That's lovely.

Lemon and meaty chorizo.

But at the same time, if you don't want to do the lemon,

-just put lemon segments on.

-Also, with that sauce,

-you've got a soup if you want.

-You have, it's a great soup.

Flake the fish into it with the chorizo.

-That is gorgeous.

-Really good.

He makes it look so easy, doesn't he?

Coming up, I cook peanut chicken

with satay sauce and little gem salad for actress Amanda Burton,

after Rick Stein takes us on one of his seafood odysseys.

He's out fishing for his supper today, in the dark.

I'm off to Langkawi Island to the north of Penang.

This is a place I know well.

I've been on holidays here, staying in traditional houses like this.

I really like it, although these places are not mosquito-proof.

But you do feel you're actually in a strange and romantic place,

and not in some air-conditioned high-rise hotel with muzak.

Like many places I've been to on my travels,

Langkawi's surrounded by mangroves,

that curious tree with a labyrinth of roots

and a plant that thrives in a place that's neither land nor sea.

70% of Malaysia's fish stocks are there

because the mangroves are a wonderful nursery for fish.

Irshad, my guide, is the mangroves' number one fan.

At high tide, like we are going through right now,

Mr and Mrs Fish, Mr and Mrs Prawns, they swim all the way up,

they get into these little areas,

they spawn, their little eggs will hatch.

Baby fish, baby prawns use this as a wonderful nursery to live in.

Irshad recommended we have lunch at this place.

In fact, it's a fish farm as well as a restaurant.

We had a spicy green mango salad.

Will I ever get tired of them?

And an assortment of really hot, spicy dipping sauces.

I had to have the mud crab.

Where there are mangroves, there are always mud crabs.

And deep-fried prawns.

These are lovely prawns.

-They get it out in the open sea.

-Yeah.

-Just out of the river mouth.

But they would have started their life here.

Exactly, the whole cycle is now complete. Out from the mangroves,

into the open sea and then back onto our plates.

-And these are mud crabs again.

-Yeah. This would have been got

just out in the mangroves that we were enjoying just now.

It's delicious mud crab, isn't it? Fantastic flavour.

-And that's the mango salad.

-Yes.

-I see you can take spicy stuff, huh?

-Mmm!

A fish restaurant on a fish farm - it's giving me ideas!

This, they would get their stock from the wild.

-Uh-huh.

-And they would raise it up here for a few more years.

-What are those?

-These are trevallies.

They're lovely fish, they're enormous.

These are splendid fish and good fighters

if you're lucky enough to get one on the line. They taste wonderful,

as any Aussie fish and chip shop owner will tell you.

But now Irshad suggests a little feeding session of our own.

-Go on, then.

-It's like this.

Now it's coming to you...

'I got bitten once feeding a horse sugar lumps

'so I'm a little bit nervous about my fingers

'because, curiously, I've never fed

'a blinking great skate like this before!

'Pathetic, I know.'

All the time I've been making seafood programmes,

I've always wanted to go out squid fishing.

Well, I have been out on one or two occasions,

but we didn't catch anything. But tonight, it's going to happen.

It's a very calm sea, the tide's right, there's loads of squid

at the moment and it's overcast - yes, it's going to happen!

Well, all I do know is that they've put these lights on,

they're waiting for the squid,

for it to get dark, and then they'll turn these lights on

and just as it's getting dark,

apparently that's the best time, the squid all come to the surface.

So we're all waiting with bated breath.

The lights that attract the squid work best when the moon is hidden

by cloud or, indeed, when it's a sliver, a new moon,

so the squid won't be distracted by it.

Now for the moment of truth.

Like moths to a flame, I can only imagine the squid

swimming towards the light and their eventual doom.

Throughout my travels in Southeast Asia and the Mediterranean as well,

this has been a common sight.

Hundreds of twinkling lights a mile or so from the shore,

tempting squid to the surface.

Well, that's it, the mystery's been revealed.

I didn't quite know how it was done, now I do, but I've never seen

anything like that netting before and the way he changed the lights.

He used the white lights to bring the squid up from deep down

and the red lights to bring them right up to the surface.

So he just zaps the red light on

when he's just about to throw the net and then throws the net.

And I mean, he's catching so much!

I've just found out he can catch as much as 80 kilos a night,

so it's really good fishing at the moment.

I cook squid back at home in Padstow.

I got some seriously fresh ones from Cornwall,

cleaned them and put them on skewers on the barbie.

That night on those squid boats was just wonderful

and just the whole vision of those lit-up boats everywhere

and it was so warm and peaceful and balmy.

It did rain a bit, but it's warm rain.

Well, the next night we went to a night market

in a village somewhere on Langkawi

and I saw them making satays.

They were making chicken and beef and these squid ones.

They were marinating the squid in something,

but I wasn't quite sure what it was, so I made this up.

I've just taken some fish sauce and lime juice

and some sugar and just roasted some spices -

cumin, coriander and a bit of chilli - mixed it all up,

and it's pretty good, and it's very nice squid too.

To set the squid off to perfection, make a dipping sauce.

To start with, fry off the usual suspects, all finely chopped.

They are shallots, garlic, ginger

and a red chilli or two in a light vegetable oil.

You just want to soften them and start to flavour the oil.

Try not to let them take on any colour,

and then get them smartly off the heat.

When it's cooled down a little, put it into a small bowl

and add some light soy sauce

and the juice from a couple of limes.

Then some sugar, preferably palm sugar,

but brown sugar is OK if that's all you have.

Now some chopped peanuts, a little more oil

and the remains of the marinade that the squid has been soaking in.

Lastly, stir in some coarsely-chopped coriander,

then all you have to do is sear the squid satays

over your charcoal barbecue

until you see the edges begin to caramelise.

No need to take them further than that.

I really like collecting dishes like this on my travels.

They say travel broadens the mind.

Well, it certainly extends one's cooking repertoire.

Set them onto a warm plate and call your guests.

Now it's just a question of dip and tuck in.

Well, I must say, just looking at that, it's bound to be nice,

but I do think it is very bad manners for us television cooks

to try our own food and say how delicious it is...

..but it is. Very.

That squid did look delicious.

There are so many other satay-style skewered dishes

you can make at home and, perhaps, the most popular one

is a chicken satay, of course. I'm going to show you my twist on that.

It's using the ingredients of satay, the peanuts,

and I'm still going to do the sauce,

however, unlike a satay which steams in a stack of three -

that's why a lot of satays are cubed and served in three on skewers -

-I'm actually going to deep-fry this.

-Oh, OK.

First, I'm going to make our crumb.

To do that, I need some peanuts, of course,

which is the ingredient of satay,

and we're going to put some breadcrumbs in.

These are panko breadcrumbs -

little, Japanesey sort of breadcrumbs you can buy

or you can use normal breadcrumbs. Give that a quick blitz.

One egg.

Flour, egg and breadcrumbs.

Traditionally, satay would be on skewers

and we'd then take the pieces of meat...

I always find those skewers really dangerous

cos I always think I'm going to harpoon myself.

The little wooden ones.

So, should you take them off or just eat them on the...?

Some of the sticks are about that length.

You can trim them down but, literally,

put them in water before you skewer it,

cos the water, as you soak them in water,

-it'll stop them from burning when they're on the barbecue.

-Oh, OK.

Yes, cos it's a bit like flame-throwing, isn't it?

They do set on fire.

You need to soak them beforehand, that's the key.

-So, quickly salt and pepper. I'm going to get this on.

-Mmm.

Little bit of salt, black pepper. That'll go on there.

We just coat it in the flour first...then in the egg.

This is what we call to "pane". It's really simple.

Coat it all in the egg and then you've got the crumb

and you can do this with chicken, fish, whatever you want,

but it's a nice alternative to breadcrumbs, really.

So, all that together and then I'm going to deep-fry these.

There you go.

They'll go into the deep-fat fryer and they want about two minutes.

A gentle heat, about 180.

Not too much cos it's going to burn the peanuts as well.

But they'll get nicely coated, straight in there.

-Acting was in your blood as a young kid, I suppose?

-Yes, it was.

I can't believe, when reading it,

-it was some 29 years ago you were in Brookside.

-Ha, yeah, thanks, James!

-You think how time flies.

-I know, it really does fly

and that doesn't seem like any time at all,

which is even more disturbing, you know.

Cos that's where we first really knew you from the television side.

-Yes. I'd done theatre before then.

-You did theatre before then?

-I did.

My very first job was operating the baby emus

on the Rod Hull And Emu show.

LAUGHTER

You've moved on a bit since then!

But I think that was such a funny way to start.

-That's how a lot of people start, isn't it?

-Doing really mad things.

-TV jobs.

-Absolutely.

-You just get a lucky break, fell into it.

-I did.

I was in theatre for a couple of years and then, literally,

just heard about this show called Brookside being cast

and went up for that and that really changed

an enormous amount of my life, really, at that time.

-Cos then it was Peak Practice..

-Yeah.

But it was Silent Witness, I think, really brought you...

Yes, that was a big chunk of time doing that.

That was about eight or nine years doing that show, so, yeah.

You've always played quite strong roles,

-quite authoritarian roles.

-I know.

-Is that what you enjoy?

-I don't know.

Well, it always seems to work out like that.

But it think the roles that always work the best

-are when there's a good mixture of being strong but vulnerable.

-Yeah.

Is that the reason why you stuck with the television

cos the roles have been so good?

Mmm, yeah, I've just had an extraordinary run, really,

of great roles and good contrasts and doing things like that

and stayed with television.

Also, sometimes it's just wonderful to be in a long-running show

cos you can develop the character and...

-Talking of which, Waterloo Road now, of course.

-Yes, I know.

For anybody that hasn't seen it, and thanks to the BBC press office

for sending me a DVD last night that was supposed to have you in it.

It's the only programme I watched for 60 minutes

-that doesn't have you in it!

-But that was one episode...

I must have been in the canteen that day!

-That's one episode that you weren't in!

-How funny.

But tell us about Waterloo Road then,

cos it's got a connection with your family as well, hasn't it?

Yeah, my father was headmaster of a country primary school

and he taught us all. We lived in the schoolhouse,

went across the garden to the school every day and...

See, my mate was a head teacher at a school.

Wasn't that quite difficult though? Much more strict or not?

Yeah, I think, you know, it was quite difficult

if you'd been particularly naughty at school that day

and then you're having to face your father over supper.

And then, two of my sisters are teachers, one still is.

And my other sister is a nurse,

so we're all very not connected with acting,

except my father was a very keen amateur actor,

so I used to do all his plays with him,

over the kitchen table, learn all his lines with him.

-So I got hooked then.

-It's been a huge success, Waterloo Road.

Awards all over the place,

to which you've won many in your career, the NTAs.

Nobody bothered entering it at one point,

-cos you were winning everything!

-I don't know about that!

Do they contact you at all,

regarding the part that you play, the teaching bit? Is it real life?

Cos it's quite... Schools have changed since I was at school.

Yeah, I think it's very authentic, actually.

I remember the first day I went up there, I thought,

"Oh, my God, this actually is like going back into school."

The smell was there of just, sort of, cooking and kids

and school, wet blazers, and things like that.

It was just amazing really

and it had a huge atmosphere cos it is a disused school that we use.

Yeah, so I loved it.

I found it quite difficult being, sort of, up there,

addressing 200 or 300 children,

when you had to make speeches on the stage.

I think that was the worst part, really,

because I just remember I used to be

so...obstructive at school myself, when I went to high school.

I'm just going to blend this lot up.

This has got the chilli, the shallots, the garlic,

the chilli and the peanuts

and we've got, in there, a bit of soy sauce

and the coconut milk's gone in there.

Blend that up to a little sauce.

Got my salad here, which I've got onions,

little bit of chopped mint, finely chopped mint,

-just to give a bit of freshness to this.

-Ooh.

And then radishes.

Now, I stand on Lawrence's fence, when it comes to British produce.

Radishes, if you've got your own garden,

but you can grow them in a window box.

They're just so simple to grow and they taste so good.

Radishes out the garden - full of pepper, full of salt as well,

that water as well that you get.

The advantage of having so many good home-grown veg.

Touch of olive oil like that and then lime.

I'm not going to make a flower like Lawrence.

But touch of lime juice like that, bit of that.

And we've got the satay sauce, which is easy as that.

-This is so impressive.

-The chicken is already done, you see.

-Mmm.

Bit of black pepper and all we do is just roll this...

..salad in here.

There you go.

This is another dish you can take away for your dinner parties

cos you're a huge dinner party person, aren't you, really?

-With the help of a dog, I read.

-Oh, my dog! She's a major scavenger.

I love doing... I love festivals.

I love Christmas, I love Easters, I love Halloweens,

I love all sorts of things you can actually make a feast

for a particular day and those are my happy times.

-Tell us about the one with the dog, the ham.

-Oh, yeah.

I decided to have the entire family over for Christmas

and it was one of those ones where you had to elongate the table

and put all of the garden furniture in the kitchen as well,

so it was pretty crammed.

And we were just serving and my dog, a Weimaraner,

who just sits looking at food, salivating all day long,

she decided that, when our backs were turned for one minute,

that she made off with the ham.

-The whole piece of ham?

-The whole piece of ham in her mouth.

This is a dog that carries logs this size when I go out for a walk.

She had an entire piece...

And I had to, sort of, make a diversion in the kitchen

to actually go and wrestle her, like Ray Mears, you know,

getting the dog's mouth open.

-And you served it, didn't you?

-I just cut the bits off.

-There you go.

-Thank you. This looks...

Maybe your dog might have a bite of this one,

-run off with a bit of chicken. Dive into that one.

-Fantastic!

That's the sauce. Nice light, little salad.

-It's kind of a really simple little dish, really.

-Looks so delicious.

-Makes an alternative to plain breadcrumbs, really.

-Yeah.

-Or you can just do the sauce as it is. There you go.

-Gorgeous.

Tell us what you think.

Coating the chicken in crushed peanuts

really does give the dish a fantastic texture. You must try it.

If you'd like to try cooking any of the fabulous studio recipes,

including the one you've just seen, they're all available,

just a click away, at bbc.co.uk/recipes.

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

from the Saturday Kitchen archives.

Next up is a chef whose passion for local produce is infectious.

Here's the very talented Tristan Welch

with his version of a Cornish classic, a stargazey pie.

-Great to have you on the show again.

-Thank you very much.

What are we cooking today?

-This stargazey pie from Cornwall?

-Yeah.

A real Cornish classic from Mousehole in Cornwall.

-Mouse...hole.

-Yeah, Mousehole.

-Mousehole.

That's the place. Was it named after a fisherman or something?

No, it's kind of to celebrate this fisherman who went out

in stormy weather and got fish for the whole village

and managed to feed the village when they couldn't go out.

So, what's the fundamental basis of this?

We have sardines. You can use pilchards.

We are using these beautiful Cornish sardines.

-Look how fresh they are there.

-They are fantastic.

The thing about oily fish, it has to be absolutely fresh as a daisy.

Absolutely. And a little bacon,

quail eggs and some onions to go in there

and then the mustard sauce to finish it off with.

I'm rolling out puff pastry for the top,

-cos this is a pie that the top is cooked separately.

-Yeah.

The idea behind it is we want to get all the elements of the pie perfect

-so we kind of split it apart...

-Right.

..and then concentrate on each individual element

to make sure the fish is perfectly cooked and stuff like that.

Is this the type of food you've got in your restaurant at the moment?

-This is on my starter menu right now.

-Right.

Congratulations, by the way, cos you're now a three-star AA award?

Yeah. Thank you very much. We're very proud of that.

It's a great achievement for us and the whole team.

-Olive oil on there.

-We've got puff pastry here.

It's important, when buying puff pastry,

-to get all-butter puff pastry.

-Definitely.

-There's so much difference.

-Full-on flavour.

-Absolutely.

-OK.

-That's that one.

-So what are we doing with these sardines?

I've got a J cloth here

because it's just keeping my sardine nice and steady when I'm cutting it.

It allows a bit more control. I've taken the head and tail off

because they're going to be poking out, gazing to the stars.

-Hence the name "stargazey".

-Stargazey, there you go.

I'm just going to fillet it gently here, like so.

-Is that the fish saying, "God help me"?

-Bit late now.

LAUGHTER

Cyrus, you shouldn't say that about my food. Honestly!

-You keep these for the bits that point out?

-Yeah.

-But this is for the filling?

-This is for the actual filling.

Along with the bacon, which we'll cook in a second, and onions.

If you can't get sardines, I suppose you could use mackerel for this?

-Yeah.

-This dish is traditionally with pilchards and stuff, but...

If you can't get sardines,

you need to work harder, I think. They're everywhere.

-Yeah, in a tin, normally.

-Oh, yeah, in a tin.

They look a bit limp when they're gazing at the stars.

Exactly, from a tin, yeah.

You could just maybe serve it in the tin, actually,

-put a puff pastry lid on top.

-Yep.

Not recommended. We don't do that in my restaurant!

This is slightly different, the way you prepare this.

Normally we'd just put a lid on, but you're just trimming this off here?

Yeah, so it's got room there for the heads and tails to poke out.

Right, so I'm just going to put these all on a tray here,

put them under this grill and grill them for a couple of minutes.

Keep your eye on them, cos last time I grilled sardines it was on fire.

Yeah, I heard that. I heard that.

-I'll move that for you.

-Thank you very much.

I'll wash my hands cos I know what it's like.

Right, we've got this puff pastry.

The secret of this is just rest it in the fridge before you cook it.

Yeah. You have to let the pastry relax, definitely,

otherwise you just get a shrunken puff pastry lid,

which won't fit your actual pie case or whatever.

So this is smoked bacon here.

I've blanched it for about 20 minutes or so.

I'm just cutting it into, as we say, lardons, or little bacon pieces.

It doesn't have to be perfect, I suppose,

but I kind of like it that way.

But the sauce is quite quick, isn't it? It's quite simple.

The sauce is dead simple. Mustard sauce.

You'll never make mustard sauce any other way

when you've done it this way.

So it's just chicken stock, boiling there.

In a minute, we're going to add creme fraiche and mustard.

-Dead simple.

-Even though we're using fish,

-you still use chicken stock?

-Yeah, because there's bacon in it as well.

So we want that little nod to the meat side of things...

-Yeah.

-..and that richness. Mustard lends itself to meatier flavours

and the sardines are very rich as well.

So we're going to let the bacon and onions colour off gently.

While that's cooking, that pastry goes in the fridge

and then you can cook that. We've got one in the oven.

About 15 minutes, quite a high oven. About 200, 210, something like that?

Yeah, definitely, that's about right.

You can find Tristan's recipe, along with all the other studio recipes

from today's show at bbc.co.uk/saturdaykitchen.

So this is a good little tip here.

I'm going to poach some quail eggs now.

This is how to make perfect poached quail eggs.

Just going to keep that moving.

Iced water and I've just poured a little bit of iced water in there.

-Right.

-And I'm just cracking open these quail eggs gently,

straight into the iced water. That encourages the looser egg white

to expel into the cold water and leaves that little dense egg white

that coats the egg yolk around the outside of it.

So when you pour it into our boiling water with a touch of vinegar,

you're left with a perfect...

Would that work with all eggs or just particularly quail ones?

I don't know. I've never done it with a chicken egg.

-Need a lot of water though, wouldn't it?

-Need a lot of water!

An awful lot of water. You'd be there a long time.

But egg whites are split into two and the longer they're kept,

the more the whites mix in together, so that's why,

when you fry an egg and it's old, it splits all over the pan.

-Absolutely. The key is to use super fresh eggs.

-OK.

They separate in the water or stay as a lump?

-You're going to find out in a minute.

-Exactly.

Watch this space, Cyrus. Just going to pour a bit of that water off.

-There's a touch too much cold water in there.

-That's ice-cold water?

Freezing ice-cold water.

-And we've got boiling water here with a touch of vinegar.

-OK.

Give it a nice old spin and pop them in, like so.

-The whole lot go in? The water, the lot?

-Yeah. Water, the lot.

-Right.

How did you not get any shell in it? That's the trick for me.

-Years of practice.

-Is that all it is, practice? I've never actually...

He has got a little bit of shell in there, anyway.

-Has he? Good lad. Good lad!

-LAUGHTER

That's what I want to see. I feel better now.

That's your spoonful. That one there.

This mustard sauce, it's so easy.

-Yep.

-Thank you very much.

-I'll keep an eye on these.

So, creme fraiche, English mustard,

the runny kind, and then the mustard powder as well.

Pop that in like so.

Then we're going to whisk that in to make sure it's emulsified.

-Right.

-Where's the whisk?

Whisk is there. There you go.

Perfect. Thank you very much.

-So you use mascarpone for this, not cream?

-No, creme fraiche.

-Because I like the acidity it gives the sauce.

-Right.

And a drop of lemon juice and a pinch of salt as well.

To finish off our onions and bacon which have been frying gently,

we're going to put a dash of that sauce in there as well.

And this'll just reduce down and glaze

-and give a little bit more richness to our bacon and onions.

-OK.

-And you see now it's getting nice and thick there?

-Yeah.

Just going to let that cook down for a second more.

In essence, this is quite a quick dish. Often when people make pies,

it takes a lot longer. But this is really quick.

It has to be - we've got it in our kitchen.

We do a five-minute count on everything in Launceston Place.

This is our eggs. They're perfectly poached.

Nice and gentle. And they look beautiful.

-Right.

-OK.

-Look at those! See, look.

-Lovely.

-Perfect poached eggs.

-Top tip.

-Everybody will be doing that.

-You saw it on Saturday Kitchen first.

Right. So there's our boiled onions,

our onions that we've blanched for eight minutes previously.

And bacon as well. Make sure it's not too crispy

because I think it becomes tough.

I think people are going to be doing these eggs,

so what went in that water? A bit of vinegar?

-Just a touch of vinegar and salt.

-And that's it?

-That's it.

-If you wouldn't mind blending that for me.

-OK. I can do that.

-That would be very kind.

-Quick blitz. Yep.

And we're just going to take our sardines now.

We haven't pin boned it cos they're so delicate, the bones in there,

-I don't think it needs to, really.

-Right.

You've taken the main one out anyway.

Yeah, we've taken the main bones out. That's quite important.

We've got our nice softly poached quail eggs like so.

-OK.

-And hopefully our puff pastry lids...

-It is, it's there.

-Wahey.

Sits on the top.

Lovely, light mustard sauce just to go over like that.

Often when people think of pies,

you'd have to make this and bake it in the oven, but this is simple.

It's a good dinner party thing. All the prep can be done in advance.

-Yep.

-Five minutes and it'll be on the table in front of your guests.

And you have this as a starter?

-I serve it as a starter in the restaurant.

-Right.

-But you can do it a little larger as a main course.

-There you go.

Thank you. Then, of course, we have to make it stargazey.

That's why you have these little holes in the pastry.

Exactly. There we are.

One little head there and one little tail.

-I like a little bit of meat on the tail as well.

-Yeah.

-There we go.

Let's just pop it in.

It's like those arrows you get to put on your head as a kid.

THEY LAUGH It is like that!

Culinary arrows. There we are. That's a stargazey pie.

Looks like the arrows, like he said. Look at that.

There you go. You get to dive into this.

I don't know where you're going to start with it. Have a seat.

Looks great, though. Looks fantastic.

Look at that! There you go.

Maybe something that you would try?

Would you try this for a dinner party?

-LAUGHTER No.

-That does put you off a bit.

It does. Cos he's looking at you. "Are you going to eat me?"

-"Help."

-I'm glad they don't do it with, like, a beef pie!

With a big cow's head and tail. There you go. You can start on that.

LAUGHTER

-What a chicken!

-You're the guest.

-Dive in.

-Let's have a go.

Let's have a little... Stop looking at me. Can I do that?

-I'll move this. There you go.

-Yeah. What am I doing here?

And the eggs will break down, so that goes into the sauce as well?

-Yeah, it enriches the sauce.

-There we go. I can't do this.

The sardine will tell you. It's looking at you.

-It is nice.

-You are very nice.

-THEY LAUGH

Tasty stuff and love it or loathe it, there's no denying

that dish would be a great talking point at any dinner party table.

Now it's that time of the week

to join the fabulous late great Mr Keith Floyd.

He's on the Welsh coastline today,

cooking creamy cockle and mussel chowder.

Keith, this is big. We're in the kitchen, but this is reality, OK?

Those boys in green are mad. That's all they want.

They don't want beef stroganoff, they want blood and guts.

Now, it's up to you, right. You're the man, you're the number one.

You create. You make us good, OK?

The Black and Ambers...

'In order to understand the cooking of a foreign country,

'it is necessary to uncover the roots of its culture.

'And where better to start this culinary encounter

'than on the playing fields of Kidwelly?'

Come on, boys!

And I saw in the turning so clearly a child's forgotten mornings

when he walked with his mother through the parables of sunlight

and the legends of green chapels.

That was Dylan Thomas.

You see, it's easy to become so quickly influenced

by this old, strange land,

but without being bogged down by history and by poetry,

or a 27-year crash course in Welsh mythology,

it's very hard to sum up the enchantment of this place

in a few seconds. But here you can feel it.

I was walking on the beach with my old chum, Colin Pressdee.

He's a kind of professional beach bum, if you like.

Well brought up, well educated,

but his days of happiness are strolling along the Mumbles coast

under the black clouds, looking for winkles, looking for cockles,

digging for crabs and enjoying himself.

WELSH CHORAL SINGING

They seem to be about right. Are they about right, Colin?

Yes, they're coming to the boil nicely.

-Looking rather good.

-Let me just try one there.

What exactly have you done with these little winkles in here?

They're boiled in a really good bouillon with plenty of flavour.

Onions, carrots, celery, the standard three,

but I've put fresh lovage from the garden

and a few other fresh herbs, bay leaves,

plenty of salt and pepper to really give them a good flavour.

If you can, even boil them in sea water.

-Would that not be too salty?

-No, no.

I would say the water for winkles should be as salty as the sea.

-Mmm, and they are jolly good too.

-They are, absolutely splendid.

But we've got a lot of problems here, in the ebb tide, that song.

I'd love to sing it, I don't know the words.

The tide's rushing in, the table is sinking in the sand,

and I have to cook something really brilliant.

As you've seen, we've been collecting cockles and mussels

and all that kind of stuff,

so I thought I'd make a brilliant cockle and mussel chowder,

a soup of potatoes, onions and carrots,

and things that you can pick up...

By the way, do you mind if we let people know

that you pick up things from this beach?

Are you afraid that hordes of the dreaded perfidious Albion,

will descend on your lovely Welsh coast

and rape it clean of the wonderful...?

Well, this is always the worry, but the great thing is

the beaches here have got abundant supplies

of cockles, mussels, winkles.

I'd be a bit more secretive about showing you

too many of the lobster holes

or where we catch the bass, but cockles, mussels, winkles,

there are plenty of them and they're good.

Rabbit on, these Welsh people.

Anyway, usual business, Richard - quick spin round the ingredients,

close-up right down here on your right, first of all.

Finely chopped carrots, onions, potatoes, cubed rather like that.

Across to your left a bit, camera left, we call it,

cockles, mussels which we...

Back up to me, please. ..we've already boiled in a little water

and kept that water to one side

and we've shelled the cockles and mussels down over here,

so that they're like that - totally fresh cockles and mussels, OK?

They next thing we did... Back up to me again, please.

Don't linger too long. ..into this pot we put some butter.

We melted the butter, we put the chopped onions,

the chopped carrots, let them soften.

Then we added the stock from the mussels and the cockles.

Pay attention, cos I want to ask questions afterwards.

Then we added the potatoes,

let them simmer for about 20 minutes till they were soft and delicious.

Then we go on to our next phase,

which is, very simply, to add some cockles.

OK, a few spoonfuls of these beautiful, fresh cockles.

A few of the mussels as well.

I've done that the wrong way round, you see.

I hope you're all paying attention.

Then we add a drop of milk and it isn't easy doing these things...

Richard, thank you. ..not easy doing these things on the coach.

It's not the coach, is it? The day we went to Bangor.

Remember that one, on the coach? We were doing all of that?

The wind's high and the weather's coming in and the table's sinking

and it's very difficult to do. We now put some milk in.

OK, milk like that.

Some lovely, fresh thyme goes into the pot.

Some fresh marjoram goes into the pot.

My old chum Colin's chopping some parsley. That goes into the pot.

We'll add a few little chives as well.

And this is, don't forget, something you can all do,

not exactly at home, but on your merry hols.

On The Beach. Remember that awful novel?

Something terrible comes out of the sky and blows everybody up.

Anyway, that goes on.

Just one last lingering look at that, Richard.

That goes on for about 20 minutes and we're going to go

and catch some bass or try to do something like that.

Maybe even catch a lobster.

-Shall we go and do that?

-Let's go and have a try.

-Let's spin off into the sunset over the rocky shores.

-Right.

The sun isn't the only thing that's sinking in the west today.

The table has all but disappeared, but it doesn't matter,

because our soup, I think, is ready.

What I'd like to do... It looks good, doesn't it?

Looks OK, it's bubbled up nicely.

And if you want to see that really close, Richard,

I've taken a lot of trouble to make this

under very difficult circumstances, OK?

My finished soup for the punters, please.

OK, but this is spectacular, isn't it?

This has cost us nothing to make,

apart from a few potatoes, a drop of milk,

a bit of onion and stuff like that.

-The rest we have pillaged...

-From the sea.

-...from the sea.

-Indeed. Here it is, from the seashore itself.

Tell me about this soup now.

Mmm!

As I would say, le gout de la mer, the flavour of the sea.

The French would go mad over it.

And here it is, it's all on our very shores here.

You don't have to go to France.

-THUNDER RUMBLES

-It's here, along the shores of Wales

and beautifully cooked, I must compliment you.

Wonderful, the flavour. I love this style of soup.

I think it's something which really does give

that wonderful flavour of the sea.

-THUNDER RUMBLES

-As natural as it could be.

There's the thunder again.

One of the big problems we have is they can't taste this.

You lot can't taste it. Try to explain.

Imagine you were a wine critic or something like that.

Well, the colour is superb.

Look at that, the mixture of colours.

The colour of the cockles, the mussels,

the chives and the milk and those little dots of butter on top,

and then...

..the aroma is of the sea.

That wonderful flavour of cockles and mussels

and the herbs all mixed together.

Is this Wales on a plate?

This is, to me, what it's all about, because this is the seashore.

I was brought up on the seashore and I love it

and this is the flavour of the seashore.

The French would go mad over this.

Do you really want to go back to work tonight

-or shall we go and do something else?

-Something else, yes.

Who wants to work? Work is a very hard thing to do

when you can enjoy something like this for nothing.

Here it is on the seashore, just here.

There we are, Bill and Ben, the Flowerpot Men, on the coast,

from Swansea, good night.

Not really good night, cos we're going back in a second.

These programmes ought to be renamed Gullible's Travels.

I keep meeting fishermen who shoot me a line.

They tell me their river or their stretch of coast

is heaving with fish and I've set my heart on a plump bass,

but as the tide ebbed and the sun set,

I returned home with just a bucket of seaweed,

known here as laverbread.

I was going to open this section of the programme

with the much-maligned Welsh rabbit, but I couldn't be bothered.

When I came into Colin's wine bar, here in the Mumbles...

And the Mumbles mean things like that, you see?

Really nice things. Work on it.

..I was impressed by the fact that this isn't only a wine bar,

it's a place where great artists used to come.

Wynford Vaughan-Thomas used to come here.

He wrote to me cos he had trouble with his pollacks -

I replied with how to cook them properly.

And Kingsley Amis comes in here quite frequently.

And he wrote one of his books here in the Mumbles,

which became a fabulous film, Only Two Can Play.

Those bloody stags on the walls, Peter Sellers and all that.

Anyway, we haven't come here for all that -

we have come here for something very special. Cockles.

Richard, right in on the cockles.

Now, these aren't little things in jars of vinegar

that have been packed in Holland, 500 miles away,

and left stewing on some supermarket shelf for ten years.

These have been picked... What are you doing there?

These have been picked... You didn't do that right, did you?

Back on here. These have been picked by loving, caring people.

They haven't been salted or vinegared. They're fresh.

Come up to me, Richard, please.

They're sweet and succulent and delicious.

The other brilliant things that come from the Mumbles

and around here is stuff called laverbread.

Laverbread... Look at this, Richard. You've seen how we do this already.

This has been cooked for about six hours

and it's kind of like slimy spinach.

It's very nice and very good for you.

Colin here makes a fabulous little dish -

a gratin of cockles and laverbread.

It's very easy to do. So, Richard, pay attention.

Spin round the ingredients.

Some simply poached cockles,

some fresh breadcrumbs with a bit of Welsh cheese grated into it,

some laverbread and a bit of garlic butter which I've got down here. OK?

Can you look at me a bit, please? I am talking to my custo...

We're having a lot of trouble with Richard today. Always gets excited.

Anyway, you put a bit of laverbread

into one of these little gratin dishes.

Which is very simple, like that.

We put lots of lovely, lovely, fresh cockles on, like that.

We sprinkle our breadcrumbs and cheese over the top...like that.

A little bit of garlic butter and... Up to me again, please, Richard.

..we pop that under the grill.

You all know what a grill is, so you don't even need to look at that.

That goes under the grill for three or four minutes

till it's golden brown, crunchy and delicious.

In the meantime, have a look at this.

It's...really interesting, and do pay attention

because I'll be asking questions afterwards, OK?

Now to the gentle art of cockling.

Well, it should be the gentle art.

All you need is a humble rake,

a plastic bucket for the filling of,

a vast expanse of unpolluted shoreline

and a sixth sense of knowing where the little monkeys are hiding.

But I didn't know that you also needed a licence.

And I think it's a bit mean, not to say excessive,

of the White Fish Authority to call up the cocklebusters

in their specially-developed twin-oystered UB40s

to drive these worthy citizens from the beaches.

One of the important things about us, when we make a TV programme,

we don't interrupt business

by locking the door and closing it down for three days -

-customers must come in, life must carry on.

-That's right!

-Of course!

Anyway, you've enjoyed the cockle beds.

You've enjoyed all of that and I have to tell you,

when I first came to Swansea, I, quite frankly, thought

that the Mumbles was a television puppet show. But never mind!

Anyway, we must now go back to the very important thing, laverbread.

Imagine, like the guy who first tasted an oyster -

who was the first man to eat a piece of laverbread and why did he do it?

Anyway, enough of that. You'll find the answer on page 94, as usual.

We've stewed the laverbread for about six hours.

It's been rinsed in water and, as you remember,

I put it into the gratin dish with the cockles on top,

the breadcrumbs, the cheese on top,

garlic butter and now, about five minutes later -

and four or five bottles later - it is, in fact, ready. Right...

And the only proof of all of our... Ow!

Burnt my fingers again. Close up on that, Richard.

I really want them to see it sizzling.

Look, it's beautiful, it's delicious, it's golden, it's crunchy

and I'm going to have some...

Now, you can look at me because they really love me eating, these people.

-Great, isn't it, ladies?

-Yes!

-Absolutely supreme.

Mmm! Anyway, that's really good. These are my new friends.

Television's a great way to pull birds.

On to the next sequence for you. I'm going to enjoy myself.

Anyway, what are we going to do tonight?

Classic work, as always.

As ever, on Best Bites, we're looking back

at some of the tastiest recipes from the Saturday Kitchen larder.

Still to come on today's Best Bites,

Rachel Allen and the great Tom Kerridge battle it out

at the omelette challenge hobs, but how would they both do?

Find out in just a few minutes' time.

Matt Tebbutt serves an old-fashioned favourite - a Monmouth pudding.

Its creamy custard and breadcrumb base

is topped with sticky raspberry jam and fluffy meringue.

And George Lamb faces food heaven or food hell.

Would he get his food heaven,

sea bass with courgette ribbons and mussel soup,

or would he get his dreaded food hell, a warm salad

of pan-fried pigeon breast, wild mushrooms and beetroot?

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

Now, whether you're in the need of a simple supper

or a delicious dinner party idea,

Ching-He Huang has the perfect recipe lined up -

sticky pork parcels. Enjoy this one.

-Welcome back, Ching.

-Thank you!

-On the menu for you, we've got pork.

Yes, I'm going to make sticky belly pork rice -

not sticky belly!

-Sticky belly pork rice, OK.

-Yes.

-Fire away then.

We've got the belly pork and it's already diced.

-I need you to grate some ginger for me.

-I can do that.

And chop the shallots. And I'm going to chop some Chinese mushrooms.

These have been soaking in some hot water for about 20 minutes.

You can always use the liquor to make a nice soup or a stock.

Would this be just standard belly pork

or you can get it from Chinese supermarkets or shops now?

Yeah, this is just belly pork that's been diced up,

or you could use dry-cure bacon lardons,

which are really nice and salty and will work really well.

It takes the fuss out of it cos you don't have to chop anything,

-you see.

-Sounds good.

With Chinese cooking, there's a lot of chopping involved.

Tell me about it! SHE LAUGHS

Making you work hard today, aren't we, James?

-But you love that!

-Yeah, I don't mind it.

So we've got the shallots in there.

You've basically put those dried mushrooms in hot water.

Yeah, you just need to soften them down. But in Chinese cooking...

Ken and I travelled across China.

..the same things came up again and again.

One of the classics is lots of dried ingredients,

cos it's a way of preserving the ingredients without them going off.

But actually it really intensifies the flavours.

Yeah, you don't want to make it taste bland, like a souffle!

LAUGHTER Do you, David?

Did I say the word "bland"? I'm sorry!

-It was a bad choice of word.

-You don't want it like that, do you?

You could put ginger in the souffle, which would make it taste nicer.

That would be quite nice, ginger souffle.

So yeah, just finely chop it. The trick is to really finely dice.

You want the texture, still, of the mushrooms.

-Yep.

-And that's the trick,

whether it's making good dumplings for Chinese New Year

or a good stir-fry, it's those balance of textures and flavours

which are so important.

-Right.

-Lovely, thank you, Chef.

So we've got the ginger, the shallots,

the dried mushrooms and the pork.

I've also got some sticky rice cooking in there.

I'm using glutinous rice.

It doesn't have gluten, it just means it's sticky.

So that's just been cooked in the absorption method,

but before that, you need to wash the rice really, really well.

Absorption, you basically mean you measure out

-the rice and the liquid?

-Yes, exactly.

So basically, if you did 300g of rice, do about 600ml of water,

so double the amount of water.

Just put it in the pan, bring it up to the boil,

and as soon as it comes to the boil, pop the lid on,

turn it right down and let it cook in the steam for 15-20 minutes.

-OK.

-Or do like the Chinese do, get a rice cooker. Right, Ken?

-Get a rice cooker?

-You don't have to worry about it.

-Cheating, cheating.

OK, so...

-Need some groundnut oil.

-Yep.

This is a dish that...my grandmother used to make.

So just any oil, peanut oil, vegetable oil.

The garlic, the shallots...

-Sorry, not garlic, I mean the ginger.

-Garlic's for the next one.

And then the mushrooms...

..go in there.

Were you taught from the love of your parents' cooking at home

and that kind of stuff?

Yeah, I grew up in southern Taiwan at my grandmother's,

and cooking was such a pleasure and such a joy.

But I was still really young,

so I was more like a hindrance to my family at that time.

But I guess that's where a lot of my food memories come from,

growing up during that time, watching them...

cook and kill chickens and...

-..gut fish.

-Nice, yeah, nice childhood(!)

Kill chickens and gut fish, nice(!)

Right, so...

So this rice, I can lift this off and show people what it looks like.

We just want a good colour on the belly pork,

get it sort of nice and...browned at the edges.

-Then with the rice, you just need to fluff it up a bit.

-Yeah.

Of course, as Ken said, when you're making fried rice,

it's best to use cooked rice that's been chilled already.

I'm going to be cooking this

straight from the pan because it's sticky anyway.

This is sticky rice so it doesn't really matter.

-It's still warm though?

-It's still warm, still fine.

And in a sense, what we're making here is a glutinous, oiled rice.

In Mandarin Chinese we call it yo fan.

So, if my grandmother was making this,

she would just add all these ingredients,

chuck the raw rice in, put them in the parcels

and then steam them for an hour to cook the rice.

But I wanted to show you that, if you can't get lotus leaves

or you can't make the parcels

or you just want really good stir-fried sticky rice,

-this is a great one.

-OK.

So, five-spice goes in.

-Some rice wine.

-I'll prepare this for you as well.

-Light soy.

-Yeah.

-Dark soy, everything in. Bit of sesame oil.

-So, that's gone in there.

-Just throw that in.

And tell us about these prawns, cos these look great.

-Look at these little fellows.

-Yeah, these little river prawns.

-They come dried.

-If I just put one up.

At Chinese New Year, you need to have prawns.

-Look at those.

-Cos prawns... Pretty, aren't they?

Look at those tiny little things.

Yeah, prawns symbolise laughter, don't they, Ken?

Cos "xia" sounds like laughter.

-You making this up, you two?

-Don't look at me like that!

You making it up? I don't know if you're telling me the truth.

-OK. Now for the fun bit.

-The fun bit.

Yeah, so this is the lotus leaf.

-So, imagine the lotus flower sitting on there...

-Yep.

-..in nature.

Then you just slice it in half. You need to pre-soak this,

and you get this in all the Chinese supermarkets.

You need to wash it. How you wash it -

just pour boiling water from the kettle to soften it.

Make sure you clean the inside bit as well. Then you take rice.

You see, that, in itself, is sticky belly pork rice.

-You can eat that now.

-Just as it is.

-But this is a great dish to do...

..if you're cooking for a crowd, cos you could make it in advance,

you can even pop it in the freezer.

-Also it gives it a nice flavour.

-Then just steam it before serving.

So these are dry until you soak them?

Yes, and when you steam them they give off a lovely,

almost bamboo aroma.

-You want me to...?

-OK, if you cut for me.

-There you go.

-Thank you. This is the tricky bit.

So, this is the traditional bit about New Year,

-the sticky rice, is it?

-Yeah, sticky rice is important because...

We say because..."niangao" or "nuo mi fan".

-It's sticky because you'll stick to your family.

-Right.

So, you just do that.

-Not very good at wrapping Christmas presents.

-There you go.

-Exactly, so that's ready to eat but we want the fragrance.

-OK.

So we've got one here that's already been steamed, that's piping hot.

If I open that one, you can do your veg to go with it.

All the ingredients are there, and I'll just take the string off.

-Brilliant.

-So this doesn't take long at all.

-Garlic, ginger, chilli. Got some pak choi.

-Yeah.

Going to do some nice veg with this.

-This is really quick.

-This is really quick.

-Does that mean hurry up?

-No...

-OK.

OK, garlic, ginger, chilli.

LAUGHTER

And then the pak choi in, thank you.

The thing is, if you do this in March,

these guys are waiting in another country, waiting for us to finish.

-There you go.

-OK.

We've got some rice wine.

Oh, sorry, that was sesame oil, they look the same.

And some soy sauce.

-Tiny bit of water.