08/05/2016 Saturday Kitchen Best Bites

Good morning, I hope you're hungry because we've got a

mouthwatering show lined up for you today.

Trust me, you won't want to go anywhere.

This is Saturday Kitchen Best Bites.

Welcome to the show.

I might be getting a lie-in on a Saturday now,

but I'm here to deliver a healthy portion of great chefs,

plating up some delicious food with a side order of celebrity guests.

Coming up on today's show, two Irish chefs.

Rachel Allen from the south and she's making a fantastic family

supper - chicken pilaf with a simple green salad.

And Northern Ireland's Paul Rankin

is showing us how to cook the perfect char-grilled steak

with sauteed potatoes.

He serves the dish with some smoked chilli butter,

girolle mushrooms and purple sprouting broccoli.

Moving over to Yorkshire, Brian Turner

is serving a sensational sausage dish.

He braises the sausages with a red wine sauce

and serves it with creamy duchess potatoes.

And national treasure, Celia Imrie faces a food heaven or food hell.

Would she get a food heaven, a lemon curd lemon meringue cake

or would she get a dreaded food hell, Battenberg cake.

Find out what she gets to eat at the end of the show.

But first up, with a perfect plate of pasta,

is the king of Italian cuisine.

It's the legendary Antonio Carluccio.

-Great to have you back on the show.

-Buongiorno, James.

Fantastic, buongiorno. What are we cooking then, Chef?

Something very seasonal, close to your heart.

Did you know we started together, seven years ago, the first one.

Do you know, the first-ever programme that I ever did

you cooked a lamb stuffed with,

I think it was lamb stuffed with cheese...

-With something.

-Yeah, exactly. Feta cheese.

-I discovered, meanwhile, that you can cook now.

-Oh, thanks very much.

-What are we going to do, then?

-This is for you, look.

I'll give it to you immediately because

this is how to treat artichokes.

Yeah, so these are the little baby artichokes as well.

And it will be a raw salad,

you see, you have to take away the

most hard and inedible things.

Look, what a wonderful flower. I'll give it up to you.

-I'll chop it all off.

-Chop it very finely.

I'll chop it in very finely slices.

Meanwhile, I am cooking this sauce...

A little bit more fire here.

Yeah, there.

..with my beloved mushrooms, look at this.

So what is it with you and these mushrooms?

How did it start for you?

-When you were a young kid?

-As a young kid?

No, it was going with papa and with friends,

as everybody in Italy does, I was going to pick mushrooms and then the

sort of passion remains in me and I find mushroom anywhere, everywhere.

-Here I find even some in Hyde Park.

-So what have we got here, then?

We've got butter, first of all, and then we cook, yes,

it will be the sauce for raviolo.

There are two sheets of pasta, which will contain the sauce.

They're in the fridge at the moment,

so we'll talk about those in a minute.

But what mushrooms have you brought along with us, then, today?

These are morels, which is a fantastic mushroom.

You have to be careful when you get morel fresh

because they may have little stones inside. They are hollow.

I will open one to you and show it.

-You see? And they may have stones or something like that.

-Yeah.

Then we have the girolle or chanterelle, I prefer to call them.

These are the girolles, which we put immediately there

after they've been cleaned.

And naturally, we have the most wonderful mushroom of all,

the porcino, the cep. But let me put a few more here.

So you would classify the cep

more so than the morel as the king of mushrooms, would you?

Well, the morel is a very, very fine mushroom.

In fact, to buy, even more expensive, but for me,

the king is really this one here. Look, perfect.

It doesn't have little animals inside. It's vegetarian.

But it's great raw in salads as well, isn't it, this?

In fact, in fact, I have an idea. Look.

If you can cut me the very solid one, this one.

Yeah, I'll do that, yeah.

You can cut it very finely sliced. And this one too.

-We'll do the salad of porcini as well.

-OK.

-So on this show, you can do everything.

-Yeah.

So you wouldn't wash these? How would you prepare them?

No, you never wash mushrooms.

You scratch them from, sort of thing, eventually dirt,

but they are clean.

-You have just to check if there are little microbes inside.

-Yeah.

They may have. This one is perfect, look at this...

..wonderful white.

Now, as well as busy all over the world with the restaurants

-and everything else...

-I am.

-..writing is a huge influence in your life.

-Yes.

So you've written a couple of things recently,

so tell us about those, then.

I've written 19 books altogether, two of which, the last one,

one was called Collection and naturally,

my sort of biography, my life.

Now we put a little bit of sort of... A spoon, a spoon, a spoon...

I can get you one.

So this is tomato puree that you're adding to this?

-A little bit of tomato puree to give a little sort of things.

-Yeah.

And then some parsley. And we chop it like this, direct.

So you've written, like, an autobiography on your life.

Yes, my own biography, starting from birth.

In fact, to write it... I put some wine now.

I asked my siblings,

-if my father and my mother they conceived me in love.

-Right.

To see if the beginning of my life was already positive.

He didn't say this in rehearsal. THEY LAUGH

Well, they told me, yes.

-They told you, yes?

-Yes, they told me, yes.

Listen, the sauce is ready.

-Now we have to put the pasta...

-Yeah.

..and here we have the boiling water.

-Can you get me the pasta?

-I'll get it.

The only time when you can put a few drops of oil on water

for boiling the pasta is when you have two big sheets of pasta.

This is fresh pasta.

It's wonderful to put it to boil in salted water,

which will be 10g of salt per litre of water.

So it's more salty than people would normally do, isn't it?

-Yeah, but 10g is not very much.

-Yeah.

Now this is cooking.

And it will cook the fresh pasta only two or three minutes,

no more than that. In fact, it's just the sauce.

That's wonderful.

You can see the oil on the surface when you put

the pasta down, coated with the oil, so it doesn't stick together.

Now, as well as that, you're doing these food festivals all over

the UK. One in particular which is just round the corner...

You know what? I'm coming to your area, in Malton.

You are, you're coming up north.

And it will be very good because I would like to taste your food.

The Malton Food Festival, which is next weekend, I believe, is it?

-I think so.

-Two weekends' time.

-So we have one sheet of pasta...

-Yeah.

-..we put it there.

Oops, oops. There.

Then we have the... Let me taste.

Yeah, add a little bit of salt because...

-Yes.

-So that's it, it's very quick.

-You put it there. Yes.

It's very quick.

-Italian food is MOF MOF. Minimum of fuss, maximum of flavour.

-Right.

Then we have the other one here, look.

-This is the blanket.

-Yeah.

So we put it there.

Naturally, something like this, you could do it also with

a filling of fish and whatever you like. Oops.

The decoration, let me put the decoration.

I didn't say one of those, but this is lovely.

-We could fry that up, yeah.

-Yes?

-Got some butter in there, if you want it.

-That's there.

So explain to us about the salad, then.

Oh, yes, the salad, let's taste.

So we have very finely chopped artichokes.

If you add the big one, the globe artichoke, you have to

-take all the heart apart and then you have to...

-Just the heart.

-Yes, the heart.

-But with the small ones...

-Ah, wonderful.

-Lemon, olive oil...

-That's it.

..salt and pepper and of course, we've got Parmesan cheese

-and of course, we've got the ceps in there as well.

-Yeah.

-So which part of Italy...?

-You put the ceps in that one.

-That's in there.

-I want them to be separate.

-Never mind.

-I'll do another one.

-No pressure.

-Yeah.

-Follow what the chef says.

-So which part of Italy are you from, then?

Put in this one right there...

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in Piedmont. I was born in the south on the Amalfi coast.

And it was fantastic to have both.

-A bit of salt...

-Yeah.

..and a bit of lemon.

-And of course, we saw a lot of that when you were...

-Olive oil.

Olive oil. ..when you were touring round with Gennaro on BBC Two.

The good old Gennaro.

My desperation.

My des... Right.

-Yeah, that's fine.

-There you go, Chef.

-Lovely.

So we put the decoration here.

-The garnish, as you call it.

-We've got that, that...

And you've got that.

-We've got an extra dish, more than we did in rehearsal.

-Yes.

-And you want a little bit of Parmesan cheese?

-No, yes, yes.

So tell us what the name of this dish is.

So this is open raviolo with mushrooms, with wine mushrooms.

-And in Italian?

-Raviolo aperto con funghi.

-Sounds much better, doesn't it?

-Love that.

-Check that out.

-Poetry.

It looks delicious. I know these, just eaten as they are, fabulous.

-Come on over here.

-Oh, wow.

-Have a seat. Let's dive in.

-I don't know where you want to start.

-Tuck in.

-There you go.

So if you like vegetarian, that's vegetarian.

Italy's brilliant for vegetarian food,

wherever I've been. I've had the most choice in Italy.

We don't have any complication between pasta

and this and that vegetables. You have always some vegetarian.

-But it's so simple if you use the small artichokes.

-Oh, yes, yes.

-Delicious.

-Oh, that salad is amazing.

-The good thing about me is

-I like my food.

-It's very good.

-And nice and quick.

-Happy with that?

-Oh, that's really lovely. Yeah, thank you so much.

Good quality ingredients and freshly made pasta

made by one of the Italian masters, what could be better?

Coming up, I cook chilli lobster spaghetti for actress Julia Stiles.

But that's after a trip to the Mediterranean with Mr Rick Stein.

He's taking a look round a pasta factory today

to see how spaghetti's made.

And so to Palermo and yes, it too was colonised by the Phoenicians

and the Byzantines and the Romans. In fact, it seems anyone who

had an army and a navy made an appointment with history here.

And this gate celebrates Charles V of Spain's victory over

the Turks in the 15th century.

It was Charles who said, "To God I speak Spanish, to women - Italian,

"to men - French, and to my horse - German."

The city centre has all the atmosphere of a Verdi opera -

balustraded buildings, narrow streets,

a faded elegance interspersed with the calls of street traders

selling tomatoes, garlic and lemons.

Well, I always come to the market in any city first of all

and this is a really good one.

-I love all the sort of voices.

-MEN SHOUTING IN ITALIAN

Couldn't be anywhere else but Italy.

THEY SHOUT IN ITALIAN

Just picked up this bit of information that the Sicilian word

for the Mafia is actually cosca

and that's the name of an artichoke.

And the reason is that you've got all these tightly knit leaves

gathered round the centre.

I love these. They've been gathered from the hillsides around the city.

I think eating and really enjoying snails sorts out those who

think they're a bit of a gourmet and those who really are.

I call it the snail test.

This is a bit of a find.

These are tiny little snails from around Palermo

and they feed on wild fennel. You can almost taste it.

That's all they eat. They gather them off the fennel fronds.

In fact, I've seen them in Cornwall. Maybe I've got an idea going here.

But they're delicious, they're just done with olive oil,

garlic and parsley.

And the thing I think anybody that was unsure about snails

would like about these is they're very small.

They're a bit like winkles.

And they don't have that long brown bit at the bottom, which

people don't really like.

So I think these are an absolute must for the first-time snail eater.

Which I suspect HE isn't.

I really like Palermo. I know it has its dark side,

but it's glorious.

It reminds me of Paris or Madrid

and there's nothing provincial about it.

When I told some Italian friends of mine that I was coming here they

said there's one place I have to visit,

even if it's just for a coffee.

Well, this restaurant is called Spinnato

and it's THE most famous restaurant in Palermo.

And it's where all the great and the good

and the powerful come to eat and talk and see and be seen.

And there's lots of people here with very, very sharp,

expensive suits on, if you catch my drift.

This, I love. Do you know what?

I think Sicily is a vegetarian's paradise.

This is spaghetti with little tiny capers

from the island of Pantelleria

right down on the southern side of Sicily,

just with some mint and tomato and a bit of parmigiano.

It is superb.

It's just the sort of thing I love to cook.

When I think of capers, my next thought is anchovies

and the port of Sciacca on Sicily's southern coast.

It's famous for processing these silver beauties from the days

when the harbour was full of Roman galleys.

I suppose you could say this is dreams come true.

I mean, when I'm thinking about Elizabeth David

and Mediterranean recipes and times in the sun by the Mediterranean,

I'm thinking about anchovy boats

bringing in the catch as fresh as that.

They're absolutely stiff fresh.

This is one of the canneries here

and everything's done by hand, really quickly,

mainly by women working like metronomes to their own rhythm

as they take off the heads and

remove the guts with the flick of a finger

and sprinkle on sea salt, the oldest way of preserving fish.

I asked why there wasn't a machine to do this, but the boss here,

Agostino Recca, said in a resigned New York/Sicilian way,

"There's no machine because a machine can't tell

"a good anchovy from a bad one.

"These women can."

So what makes this town, Sciacca, synonymous with anchovies?

The climate is the best here in Sciacca.

Because it's humid and sometimes it's hot.

That's what it needs for the anchovies.

-And the fact that they're caught and preserved in one day.

-Yes, yes.

The only thing we put on is a little salt and that's it.

The rest is all natural. We only put a little salt and that's it.

One of the great things about going on a tour like this is that

you are tasting the real food.

They've just given us a load of anchovies to taste

and some bread to go with it but also some caponata.

Now, I always thought caponata

was a bit like ratatouille with too much vinegar in it,

but now I've tasted the real thing.

And that's what's so good about coming on this tour is that

you could not write a correct recipe unless you've tasted something.

I have to say that. This is lovely and sweet and aromatic.

Basically, it's just aubergine, onion, tomato,

caper and very important, celery,

a little vinegar, sugar and salt,

cooked very, very slowly till it's almost like, well,

almost like a chutney. Delish!

Now, do you remember this?

Richard Dimbleby's little film took the country by surprise

on April 1st, 50 years ago.

This was a time when we knew so little about food.

'The last two weeks of March are an anxious time for the

'spaghetti farmer.

'There's always the chance of a late frost which,

'while not entirely ruining the crop, generally impairs the flavour

'and makes it difficult for him to obtain top prices in world markets.

'Many people are often puzzled by the fact that spaghetti is

'produced at such uniform length.

'But this is the result of many years of patient endeavour by plant

'breeders who have succeeded in producing the perfect spaghetti.'

Well, it was April Fools' Day, but so many people believed it.

It was from the days when Italian restaurants in London had

signs outside saying, "We serve spaghetti, but not on toast."

I'm going towards the centre of Sicily to see how spaghetti is made.

Heading towards the town of Corleone, famous for being

the home of the Mafia don played by Marlon Brando in the Godfather.

I would have come here anyway, spaghetti factory or not,

because of this landscape.

People could hide and never be found for years.

Before I came here, I imagined it to be barren, rocky scrubland

and yet it's very fertile and green.

It's funny walking about.

You can't help but think that every old man

you see on the street corner is a retired Mafia don,

living in a palazzo in luxurious retirement.

In Corleone, everything is Mafia.

And everybody who comes to Corleone becomes Mafia, sir.

Fine, and everybody talks like Mafia people?

Yes, of course,

because when you come here you become the Mafia like us, sir.

Well, that was very illuminating.

I just popped in for a beer and got a dissertation.

But this is what I came to see.

This old spaghetti factory's been churning out pasta

for over 100 years.

Well, I've always wanted to see how proper pasta's made.

I mean, it just looks wonderful just cascading down like that.

And the smell!

All I'm thinking, because it's just before lunch,

is pomodoro sauce, is tomato sauce.

That's all I want. Nothing more.

The smell of that fresh wheat is absolutely wonderful.

I'm just thinking, many, many years in the kitchens

of my restaurant, I'd use one of those little, tiny pasta machines.

And we used to dry the pasta on broom handles all over the kitchen.

That's the sort of thing I needed.

It's just made with durum wheat and water, nothing more.

So that's how it all becomes the same length.

Mussolini, the fascist dictator, tried to change the Italian diet

and wanted to stop the population eating so much pasta

because he thought it made them sluggish and lazy.

Needless to say, he didn't achieve his goal.

Earlier, I mentioned Pasta alla Norma.

It's a classic Sicilian pasta named after Bellini's opera Norma.

Bellini was Sicilian, as you probably gather.

Anyway, first slice aubergines

and cover in salt to take out the moisture. Dry in a teacloth.

Ideally, you want to do this half an hour before you fry them.

The opera Norma was apparently a huge hit.

And the word norma became synonymous with

something that was really good.

Toss them in a pan of hot olive oil, give them a good searing,

and then set them aside.

Chop and crush some garlic in some salt

and fry that off in the same oil.

Add some chilli flakes and chopped tomatoes.

And then put in the ever-so-slightly fried aubergines.

I know it's another vegetarian pasta dish, but Sicily is

famous for them. They've got such great sun-ripened vegetables.

Crumble in some cheese. I'm using feta.

In Sicily, the chefs seem to prefer caciocavallo,

those yellow, pear-like cheeses that hang from the rafters.

Tear up some basil and put in the spaghetti

and toss it around and serve.

Dishes like this hark back to a time when Sicily was a poor country

and everyone had to use what was in season.

Now, you might take the view that this is poor people's food

or you could say it's a splendid celebration of the aubergine,

the tomato, cheese and olive oil.

That spaghetti looked delicious and spaghetti is one of those

things that pretty much everybody loves, especially in this country.

There are so many great sauces that go with it

and don't just do it with spaghetti bolognese.

This is another thing, which I love.

It's with chilli, it's with lemon grass and I know you love lobster.

-I do.

-So I thought I would do a little sort of Thai spaghetti dish

although obviously spaghetti, you wouldn't normally put with Thai,

you'd do this with noodles sometimes

but the idea of it can work together.

So we've got shallots, we've got garlic, we've got

kaffir lime leaves, lemon grass, bit of chilli, some ginger.

We're just going to make a very, very quick sauce

to go with it, to cook with our pasta, which is

cooking away there, which is our obviously spaghetti,

which you want to cook for about ten minutes.

Now, you can do this with linguine if you wish, which takes much

quicker, about three or four minutes.

But we can do this.

Now, I was reading a little bit about you before, well, yesterday.

And I can't believe it,

before you were 20 you were working with the likes of Harrison Ford.

It's an incredible career quite early on.

How did that suddenly start?

I grew up in New York City

and I started working with a theatre company, kind of as a fluke.

And I really enjoyed it.

And then they helped me find an agent

and I was auditioning for movies

and television and then I got lucky.

-Got lucky? That's just basically what it is?

-Well, no.

-It took a lot of persistence, I guess.

-Yeah.

-Yeah, I mean...

Is that what you predominantly went in for

when you first started off? Because a lot of actors

and actresses go for the theatre first and then films develop or

was it just you wanted to focus on films first of all?

No, you know, at 18 years old, I don't think I was really,

I didn't really have a plan, I just enjoyed performing.

And I was lucky that I was living with my parents, so I didn't

have to pay rent or anything. So I could try to be an actress.

But then, while you were young, you of course worked

with the late, great Heath Ledger.

10 Things I Hate About You was just incredible.

The cast and stuff like that, that you worked with in early years...

That was about it, yes.

From there, of course,

I know you mainly from the Bourne Identity films.

When you were doing that with Matt Damon do you actually

realise that it was going to be the biggest hit that it was?

Because Matt, by then, wasn't an action star at all.

Yeah, no, when he was cast in the Bourne Identity, Doug Liman had

this vision of making a sort of European-style action movie

and I think the studio was really nervous about it

because it wasn't a sure bet.

And Matt Damon, you know, I think he had won the Oscar at that point

for his screenwriting,

but he wasn't your typical action star.

And Franka Potente, who was the leading lady in it,

wasn't very well known in the States.

She was known for Run Lola Run, I think, and popular in Germany.

But it wasn't a sure bet by any means.

And of course, you appeared in all three of them.

I was lucky that I appeared in all three of them.

I actually was killed in the first one in the original cut

and then they edited it, so I survived.

I think he threw me up against a wall and I broke, snapped my neck.

-That was nice.

-They... Yeah.

What was nicer was that they cut that part out and I survived.

So I got to make it to the third one.

And while you were doing all that, I mean, I didn't realise

you were actually doing a film with Julia Roberts at the same time.

-Mona Lisa Smile, yes. You really did your research!

-Absolutely!

Absolutely. Your PR team have sent me DVDs of you and all this sort of

-stuff.

-You didn't actually watch them, though.

-No, no, I did actually watch them.

-Someday you'll get to them.

No, I watched Dexter,

which, of course, is the thing that you're doing at the moment,

which is in the fifth, you call it the fifth season in the States.

-Fifth season, yeah. Season five.

-Yes. Fifth series.

You say fifth series. OK.

But tell us about Dexter and what it's about because

I watched a little bit of it.

It's quite hard-hitting, isn't it, really?

Um, he's a serial killer with a heart of gold, maybe I would say.

THEY LAUGH

No, but it's a...it's a, every season, I got hooked on it

last season, season four, when John Lithgow was the guest star.

Every season they have a guest who is like sort of his nemesis.

He plays a guy who kills people but with a conscience.

-He has a code and rules that he follows.

-Nice.

Like he has a lot of aggression in him, but he'll kill...

he'll take out his rage on people who sort of deserve it.

And so it brings up a lot of moral questions about what is right

and what is wrong because the audience finds themselves

rooting for him even though technically what he does is immoral.

The whole story idea has changed.

He's now cast as a goodie, would you say?

Well, he witnessed the death of his mother at a very young age and

that sort of traumatised him and that's what he's working through.

And when he meets my character,

my character has been through a horribly traumatic event

and she's out for revenge and so she's kind of a loose cannon

and he can't control her.

But she also knows about...

It's all about how he's keeping a secret from the rest of the world,

including his late wife and his sister and the people that he

works with and my character actually knows the truth about him.

So they're kind of, they trust each other but kind of out of necessity.

Does that make any sense?

-And your character's got an interesting name.

-Lumen.

-Lumen.

-Lumen.

-Lumen.

-Yes.

-Have you ever met anyone named Lumen?

-Never met, no.

Not anybody called Lumen, no. I haven't, actually.

I'm just going to go through what I've got in here.

We've got the lemon grass, we've got all the basics - ginger,

garlic, chilli, lemon grass, kaffir lime and it's all gone in there.

A little bit of white wine, some double cream.

Double cream?

-Absolutely.

-Mm. Do you ever?

-He's from Yorkshire.

-Coconut milk?

-There's no coconut milk.

-I guess not with spaghetti.

You obviously haven't done your research on this show

cos we don't use coconut milk.

None of that low-fat, creme fraiche or anything like.

No soya milk. It's double cream and butter.

-No, coconut milk's not low-fat.

-Compared with cream.

-OK.

THEY LAUGH We put that in there and we

just cook that gently. We've got our pasta cooking away

with the little lobster I'm prepping up here.

Now, as well as doing Dexter, what else are you doing

-at the moment cos you've just finished a film?

-I just finished

a film called Between Us that is based on a play.

It's sort of similar to Blue Valentine.

It's two couples and the sort of ups and downs in their relationship.

It takes place over the course of two different dinner parties

where one couple is fighting embarrassingly

in front of the other.

It happens quite a lot at dinner parties, doesn't it, really?

Well, one of the lines in it is, "This is why I hate dinner parties."

Because people end up fighting. Not at your dinner parties.

No, it sometimes happens, yeah. Generally it sometimes happens.

Mainly when you invite Nick Nairn there, so you see...

What I am very impressed about is your ability to talk

-and cook at the same time. I can never do that.

-And he's a man.

Men cooking and talking at the same time, it's extraordinary, isn't it?

It's like walking and chewing gum.

You haven't tasted it yet.

THEY LAUGH

We're going to chop some coriander in there and

basically with the lobster,

we're just going to warm up just a touch of it.

We've got the pasta cooking away.

Warm up just a touch of it in a pan, just these little claws here

and I'm going to dice up the shell meat,

just warm that up in a touch of butter.

Now, I know theatre is a bit of a passion for you because you

starred in the West End, was that back in 2004?

Yeah, 2004. A David Marnet play.

I've definitely done my research.

It's not even written down, there you go!

Are we going to see you again in the UK in theatre or

-treading the boards or anything like that?

-I would love to come back

and do a play here. There's great theatre.

I was going to do a Broadway play. I did Oleanna here

and then did it on Broadway as well, but, yeah,

I would love to.

The theatre, there's something so special

about how old they are. Even the dressing rooms.

I mean, I think a lot of times in New York,

the theatres have been remodelled, whereas here you feel the history.

Do the Americans have a fascination for the British theatre

and the history that kind of goes behind it?

Is that something that is conscious in America?

Maybe.

THEY LAUGH

No. The theatre's just...

I'm like the idiot American who is

so charmed by British culture that,

yes, I would say that I have a fascination with it.

I can't speak for all Americans, though.

But it is fascinating.

We fascinate the Americans that our culture and like you said,

the dressing rooms, when you go to these old places,

all the history, you know, the stuff written on the walls

and all that kind of stuff, it's quite fascinating

-when you go into those places.

-Yeah.

Even I remember my dressing room had a fireplace in it,

-which I thought was very...

-Nice touch.

That's cos you haven't obviously done theatre in the winter,

-you need it.

-Right.

Right, we've got our little bit of lobster and that sits on there.

-Beautiful.

-And there you have your little lobster linguine.

-Wow.

Easy as that. You can eat it, but we're not going to go into a tight

shot of you eating it, so you can try it.

Taste the lobster.

-Spicy, lemony-limey.

-Creamy too. Very good.

I used about half a litre of cream gone in there.

-Yeah, it's delicious.

-It's good for you as well.

That dish would be great at any dinner party.

Give it a try if you can.

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

you've seen on today's show,

all of those are just a click away at bbc.co.uk/recipes

Today, we're looking back at some of the most mouthwatering recipes

from the Saturday Kitchen archives.

Now, next up, with a simple supper that would be fit for a king

is the queen of Irish cooking, it's Rachel Allen.

-Good to have you on the show.

-Hi, James.

-So, what are you cooking?

-I'm going to make chicken pilaf.

-Chicken pilaf.

It's classic, simple, gorgeous...chicken.

-Cooked in a casserole pot.

-OK.

With white wine and stock, herbs, carrot, onion and some peppercorns.

So perfect for Nigel's start-off this morning.

Yeah, exactly. Sorry, Nigel. Food for the cats.

OK, so we've got chicken. Let's carry on.

-First of all, how do we start it?

-Just put the whole chicken

into a casserole pot.

And... Or, you know, a large heavy saucepan.

So this is, what, a two-and-a-half-kilo chicken?

Yeah, exactly. Two and a half kilos, five pounds.

Add in some white wine, a glass or two of white wine,

and some chicken stock.

This is very simple.

Fantastic, actually, if you have a large enough saucepan,

put a couple of chickens in, make enough for... You know what?

It makes a little bit of chicken go a long way, actually.

Break a little bit of carrot in for some flavour.

-Now, this is a free-range, organic one?

-Yeah.

Get as good a chicken as you can, obviously, cos that's...

The flavour's going to come through.

A couple of sprigs of thyme and some black peppercorns.

And, thank you, you're chopping up the onion.

Slow cookers are quite trendy now as well.

-You could do it in that, couldn't you?

-Absolutely, yeah.

They seem to be coming back now. The thing my mother used to use.

The wedding presents in the '60s and '70s.

My mother used to use it, and I never understood how

she put it in the dishwasher with the plug.

Until she got elec...

-She always got me to switch it on.

-..electrocuted herself.

-That's what happened?

-Not advisable. Don't do that at home.

So, bring this up to the boil, and then we'll put it into an oven.

Not a hot oven. Just an oven at about,

say, you know, 325, 350, say, 160.

-And...

-How long does that go in there for?

-..allow that to cook.

-It needs a couple of hours.

-OK.

We want it to be really nicely cooked.

As you can see, the leg should feel incredibly loose,

if you give it a tug it'll come out.

-You want me to take this out, then?

-Yeah, thank you.

-OK.

I knew I'd have to do something.

-So, take this out.

-Take the chicken out.

All the juices, we're going to use for the sauce.

So we need to pull the chicken out,

and then I can take the meat off the bones.

And we need to strain the juices cos we're finished with the carrot...

-You want me to strain the juices as well, then, yeah?

-Yes, please.

Shall I just stand here and tell you what to do?

You usually boss me around all over the place.

-But you like it.

-Drain off the fat.

Now, tell us about America. That's exciting, isn't it?

Yeah, it was great.

We were... I went over, with Tourism Ireland, actually.

It was just coming up to Patrick's Day,

so the Americans wanted to see what food is like in Ireland.

You know, what really goes on food-wise.

So I was over there trying show them how good it actually is

and our wonderful produce.

Yeah, I did a few things on...

I was on The Today Show

and the Martha Stewart Show and quite a few radio shows.

Tremendous numbers of people watch these programmes, don't they?

Something like 98 million, apparently, watch The Today Show

-on NBC.

-Really?

-Yeah, it was great. It was busy. It was fantastic.

-I didn't get to see one shop in New York.

-Not one?

Not one. I think my husband organised it that way, but anyway.

So I'm just going to take the meat off the bones.

You would continue on with the whole chicken.

And...and, of course, the brown meat is so good.

Look at this lovely meat from the legs. Thank you, James.

Meanwhile, you're making the whole thing.

Meanwhile, I'm doing everything else. But, go on.

-So you need to then degrease...

-I've degreased it all.

-Perfect.

-Done.

-The sauce is going in.

-Yeah.

So what I can do now is bring it up to the boil,

and you need to boil it down.

Ideally give it about five minutes to reduce a little bit.

You want to make a sauce with that, a little roux?

A roux would be great. Some butter. Equal quantities butter and flour.

-I'll do that.

-A couple of ounces of each.

And I can add the cream into the juices.

Just a little bit of cream for one chicken.

But really one chicken like this would serve about eight people,

-with chicken pilaf, six to eight people.

-Eight?!

-OK, well, you might be...

-Where are you from?

-..a bit of a pig, but...

-Can tell you've got kids.

SHE LAUGHS

Rachel, it's quite nice made the day before as well.

Left in the fridge. Make a

-lovely chicken stock out of it.

-Yeah, really good.

-Just set overnight.

-Exactly.

And it just reheats really gently and nicely.

It's a bit of a classic, isn't it?

-Yeah, it is.

-I love this kind of thing.

-You're serving this with pilaf, yeah?

-With pilaf rice.

And pilaf rice is just made from cooking a small onion,

chopping it finely,

and cooking it in a little bit of butter until it's really soft.

And then adding in the basmati rice,

stir it around in the heat for a couple of minutes

and then add in chicken stock.

And...so chicken stock comes up to the boil,

it gets covered, goes into the oven

or on top of the hob, cooks for ten minutes.

And the rice soaks up all the chicken stock.

-So you've got incredibly tasty, flavoursome rice.

-OK, yeah.

So, there's the chicken.

That's done. Wash my hands.

-The juices and the cream are coming up to the boil.

-Yeah.

-And...

-My roux's happening.

-Give it a little taste.

Yeah, has a good flavour.

Sometimes I add a tiny pinch of... Erm, pinch!

Squeeze of lemon juice into this as well. But fantastic.

I love how you sit there all sort of casual and relaxed

while, you know...the dressing needs to be made.

THEY CHUCKLE

-So, for the dressing...

-For the dressing.

..I'm going to mix together a little bit of olive oil...

Actually, olive oil here.

..and a little bit of white wine vinegar

and then what's so good with this chicken dish

is a little bit of honey, grainy mustard and garlic.

So you've come back from the States,

you've started writing a new book. Is that right?

-Yeah, I started that last autumn and nearly, nearly finished.

-Right.

-And...

-This is to go out with a series that you're doing?

Yeah, which is going to be quite exciting.

It's something quite different and a whole new look.

-A whole new look?

-A whole new...

You're in a bikini or something? What's that?

THEY LAUGH What's that all about, then?

No, it's going to be...it's going to be really quite different

and, you know, really out and about quite a lot.

All the blokes were going to Sky Plus then, but...

THEY CHUCKLE OK, so we've got the chicken.

Got the chicken. Fantastic.

-So the chicken, then once the...

-It's hot that, isn't it?

-It is.

-That's why I actually... I didn't carry on.

-Yeah.

OK.

So with the... The dressing is made for the salad.

The garlic, the mustard, the honey.

A little bit more honey in.

Olive oil, vinegar. That's ready.

And look, for the salad, these gorgeous wild garlic leaves.

-Go on, carry on.

-Lovely.

-And...

-Yeah?

-The chard leaves.

-Now, wild garlic. I love wild garlic.

-It's so good.

You kind of smell it when you're driving along

on these country roads somewhere, but it's fantastic stuff, isn't it?

It so good. It is so good.

It's great in pestos, soups stews, salads.

Adam's there, nodding. You use it as well.

We use it loads, actually. You know, it's a short season,

but it's something that we take as much advantage of as we can.

In a dish I'm doing at the minute,

we actually use it at the moment, make a puree out of it

and fold it into a Chantilly.

-It's fantastic. Really gives a wonderful aroma.

-Oh, yum.

-Lovely.

-Can you pick your own?

-Oh, absolutely.

The secret is when you see quite a lot of it

when you're walking along these pathways, but go further in

otherwise people walk there dogs at certain... It's not advisable.

-But it's fantastic stuff.

-And they have flowers.

In a couple of weeks, it'll have little white flowers.

Lovely shaped leaves, actually.

Yeah, it's got beautiful white flowers on it. Fantastic stuff.

-Beautiful.

-And so good for you. You know, this is natural, wild food.

OK. So there's the salad ready to be tossed.

-And...

-That's coming up to the boil.

-Great.

Yeah, I think we should put a bit of parsley.

-A bit of parsley in.

-Don't worry, I'll chop parsley as well.

Tarragon would be great too, marjoram.

Really, normally, this is quite simple

and without any major flavouring.

-Fantastic.

-This sauce is quite classic, isn't it?

-Like a veloute almost.

-It is, really.

-Yeah, exactly.

-Like fricassee, that kind of stuff.

-Yeah.

Great with wild mushrooms as well.

Actually, yeah, girolle would be great in it too.

Yeah, OK. There's those.

OK. So...

-OK.

-That's ready to go.

-Now, you're putting flowers in here as well.

-Yeah.

Just for a little bit of colour. A little bit of...

-Very girlie.

-Why not?

-THEY CHUCKLE

It's very girlie. Do you hear? RACHEL LAUGHS

-Is that a bit girlie?

-You won't catch me using those.

-"I'm no pansy." Is that what you're saying?

-No, no pansies.

-Flowers go in the... There you go.

-Actually...

You know, it's pretty.

There you go. You've got a bowl here.

So we've got the pilaf rice here already cooked.

-Don't worry. I'm carrying on.

-Where's my spoon? Actually, I can...

Get the old wild garlic on there.

What amazes me, watching as a novice,

if I follow a recipe, which I've done twice in my life,

it takes me hours to measure out the things.

But you just chuck things in, throw oil.

I mean, how do you know, how do you learn how many ingredients to use?

-That's the skill of it.

-I suppose you kind of get used to it.

-You get the feel. I wouldn't know what to feed a snake.

-Yeah!

-THEY LAUGH

-Thank goodness.

-Well, it's just one. It's easy.

-Just one, yeah.

-One mouse.

I suppose it's different to baking where you need to be more precise,

where it's more of a science.

But with something like this, you definitely just get...

You're just sloshing olive oil all over the place.

It's amazing to see.

-A bit of the sauce as well.

-Some lovely sauce.

And the rice soaks up the gorgeous sauce, doesn't it?

-So, Rachel, remind us what that dish is again.

-What you've just made.

Yeah, remind us what I've just cooked.

Chicken pilaf served with pilaf rice

and the really gorgeous wild garlic garden salad.

Done.

Thanks... Sorry.

Right, there we go. Over here.

Sorry, Nigel.

-Nigel, you've got the bowl of salad.

-Oh, thank you very much.

-And then dive into that, girls.

-Thank you very much.

-Dive in, Adam.

-Tell us

-what you think. Jump in.

-I'll go and get my cards.

But you don't have to make that with chicken as well.

If somebody's got guinea fowl and stuff like that, you could use that.

Absolutely, yeah. A bit of pheasant. Rabbit even.

-I can eat the flowers, can I?

-Yes, absolutely.

THEY LAUGH

-The chicken's really moist, stays really moist, actually.

-It does.

Yeah, and the cream is important.

Because you're not losing any juices.

And I think you're right with the lemon juice.

Just cuts the fat in the cream.

Nigel's going to come back again.

He got up at 6.30 this morning just to eat

a bowl of wild garlic with flowers.

-It's great, isn't it?

-It's a good way to start the day.

-The flowers are nice.

-It's lovely, the garlic.

-Nice, isn't it?

-Really is.

If you cook with it, it's fantastic, isn't it?

It's so good. I love it. Wilted leaves, you know?

-Girls, what do you reckon?

-It's lovely. It's really good.

Didn't even get past down to Adam.

It tasted delicious, Rachel.

Now, it's that time of the week again where we get to

join the late great Mr Keith Floyd

as he journeys through Britain and Ireland

on another of his foodie adventures.

So sit back and enjoy the master at work.

Now, are you sitting comfortably?

Because I mean this in the nicest possible way,

and I don't want you East Angliars to get upset

about what I'm going to say. Promise?

Well, you see, this placid region is set in a sort of a time warp.

Even the proud village names are carved in marzipan,

and I feel that the spirit of good King Wuffingas lives

or has in fact never gone away.

But back to the cooking,

and I want to create something which says East Anglia on a plate.

..cos it's the garden centre of England

and peas and things like that,

so I need, if you've got them, a couple of good ducks

and a big chunk of smoked bacon.

-Well, we have. Fresh ducks.

-Excellent. Supreme.

-From one of our local producers.

-Brilliant.

So, we'll have three of those, if you've got three.

And a large chunk of that about... Of that smoky bacon.

-You say where.

-About there. That would be fantastic.

-Right there.

-That would be superb. Thank you very much.

Now, while you're just cutting that,

I've spotted something here which rather fascinates me.

-Now... Can I cut into this?

-You may.

In my programmes, I keep telling you about

the importance of dripping for cooking with.

And what is underneath it is that rich brown jelly

that you can make stocks and sauces from.

Look at this. Here you can actually buy it.

This is what you must all have in your larders all the time.

Can't get it out. Hoist by my own petard.

And there you've got this lovely, lovely brown stuff.

Just melt that over a little piece of fillet steak or a turkey breast

and you've got a fantastic sauce.

Good cooking has sort of good lard. That's the sort of thing we need.

There's something else here which is superb. I'm very fond of.

-This is called brawn. It is brawn, isn't it?

-It is brawn, yeah.

And it's pig's head and stuff like that.

All simmered away straight off the bones

and allowed to set in that pot.

Something which typifies real, real English cooking.

And talking about that, I better get on with my next sketch.

Right, how much do I owe you...?

I really like cooking with real cooks, you know?

I mean, it's good fun, I learn a huge amount from them,

and I like to think that perhaps they learn a little from me.

But it's all very well.

The thing I really enjoy,

even though I've got a dreadful cold today

and it's raining and the river is babbling by and the wind is blowing,

I like to come out in the fresh air and cook something on my own.

It is, after all, my own programme.

But you see, here in Norfolk, you have to share some things.

This is 1988, and today... Well, not exactly today,

but it is an anniversary, it's a birthday of something or...

Animal, Vegetable or Mineral,

if you remember that old radio programme.

Something very important indeed. Guess what it is.

Well, in fact, it's the frozen pea.

It's the 50th anniversary of the frozen pea.

That's why we've made this little green pea-encrusted birthday cake.

But, you know, Norfolk's a great place,

the whole of Britain is a great place.

I've trundled around the thing, and we stay in hotels

and restaurants and bars and pubs.

They all look after us very well,

but we do tend to get the same kind of food.

"When do," I ask myself, "do we get a simple honest

"perfectly ordinary little dish?"

Cos I don't always want

steak and sauce, duck and sauce, chicken and sauce.

Norfolk has the answer.

It has its ducks, it has its green peas,

it has its weather, that's for sure, and it's got me.

So I'm going to prepare a very simple little dish

that I think is Norfolk on a plate.

So, Richard, spin around. As per usual, the ingredients.

A duck. We all know what a duck is.

Over to your right a bit, I've diced it into morsels,

which is lovely.

Norfolk is one of the gardens of England. So is East Anglia.

Some lovely carrots,

back towards me a bit, some little white turnips. OK.

Some stock. Up to me now, Richard, if you will.

Some stock that I've made you all know about that.

The giblets, the feet, the winglets and stuff,

onion, bay leaf and carrots stewed in water.

Back down, Richard. There it is. That's just some basic stock, OK?

You don't have to use a stock cube. You can use the real thing.

Some wonderful bacon.

I've done it in France, I've done it in England.

Some ordinary bacon to give flavour to the whole dish.

Some diced onion, as I've said,

but most importantly, the green pea.

Right, so, without any further ado, in here...

I've got this heavyweight dish

with some butter burning in the bottom.

I'll put my bits of bacon in. OK, in they go.

In my onions go.

Now, the onions and the bacon have to go a little bit golden brown.

My carrots have to go in. Stuff like that.

It's not always easy... Richard, if I may.

It's not always easy to cook in the middle of a field

with wind and rain and rivers and stuff like that.

And we have to speed things up a fraction.

So although I would like those to be now nicely sweated down,

this is the moment to put our duck pieces in.

OK, we let them go nice and brown.

We let that bubble away for a moment

because we've got more things to do today.

But do you remember Lear? Do you remember Shakespeare?

He was a great character.

Well, I actually can't, but I've got it written down here

because when he was up in Norfolk

having a holiday before he wrote the Scottish play,

he said, as he was standing overlooking Next-By-The-Sea's beach,

he gazed down and he said...

Oh, what does he say?

"Hangs one there that gathers samphire. A dreadful trade."

And he probably tossed that off. Later, a BBC assistant

will pick that up from this picturesque scenery.

But samphire. This is it.

This crunchy wild seaside asparagus.

The kind of thing that you could just, if you want,

pickle, as they do here in Norfolk,

or you could toss in some butter for a few seconds

like raw little green beans

and serve it under a fillet of fish

and cover it with hollandaise sauce.

It's a delightful thing.

Anyway, we've now got to create some magic of television.

Wobble into there, Richard.

And we'll get ourselves out of that sequence in a second.

And thanks to the magic of television,

my beautiful duck is cooked.

Do you know, I wish when I travelled around the country

as I checked into bars and hotels and things,

I could have a simple dish like this

whether it's a duck in Norfolk or it's a rabbit in Somerset

or whether it's a piece of breast or neck of lamb in Lancashire.

Some elementary, simple food cooked with love.

And talking of love, have a look at this.

Remember I chucked the duck and the onions and the carrots

and the bacon in and fried them? Yes.

And you remember the stock I made, the simple...?

Back to me, Richard, please.

The simple giblet stock of water, the neck,

the giblets, onion, and stuff like that.

I poured that in, let it cook about an hour,

added my little white turnips, and here is one of those.

-You see on the plate here.

-Ooh!

Added, oh, a lot of lovely Norfolk green peas

and simmered it for...then another 30 minutes or so.

And if I say it myself... OK, the wind and stuff,

it's a bit crashed on the plate,

but it is absolutely delicious.

It's really real simple English/British food.

The sort of thing that you should all be cooking

instead of lasagnes and pizzas and chillies in your wine bars and pubs.

Sorry about that, but you should.

And I know I'm banging my patriotic drum about British food,

but I really do want an OBE, you know.

And talking of tradition, I was very pleased to find

in this less than romantic setting

living proof of other culinary heritage.

A Norfolk dumpling cooked by a Norfolk dumpling, Cath Harris.

-How many dumplings have you made in your lifetime?

-Oh, I don't know.

I couldn't tell you. So many that I've...just lost count.

They call people dumplings here too, don't they?

We're called Norfolk dumplings, yeah.

-You're a Norfolk dumpling?

-I'm a Norfolk dumpling.

-Isn't she a nice Norfolk dumpling?

-THEY CHUCKLE

-And a little bit of salt.

-Salt.

A little bit of pepper.

-And then carry on by putting the...

-This looks very nice bacon.

-Yes.

That is home-cured smoked bacon, smoked locally, you know?

-Oh, brilliant.

-Which we are noted for.

-Is that enough?

-No, a little bit more. I like to have plenty.

-You know, I like to make it nice and tasty.

-Right.

But enough of all this chat.

I mean, the proof of the pudding, after all, is in the eating.

Richard, there it is. Steamed away for a couple of hours, Cath said.

Oh, God, it's heavy too.

And... Now what? This is the exciting...

I've never seen one of these before.

Look at that. Thank you, my darling.

Look at that. That is brilliant. A golden crust.

It's going to tip out, isn't it? Do I need to put the knife round?

Perhaps I'll just loosen it just to make sure.

Oh, it smells so good. I want to get into that.

I don't want you to have a collapsed pudding.

No, we don't want a collapsed pudding. Right.

Tip that out for you. Thank you, darling.

Look at that. That is a pudding.

That is a Norfolk dumpling, my little dumplings.

Cor, isn't that good? Right.

That's what you call a good Norfolk pudding.

-It's real food, isn't it?

-That's true, that's true.

Heart is where your dumpling is.

Right, here we go. Down to the middle.

-Is that OK?

-That's right, yes, cut it right there.

You'll see the layers of bacon in if you pull it apart.

Right, Richard... How I wish you could smell...

I mean, why doesn't the BBC have scratch packs on the Radio Times?

Look at that.

-The bacon, the onions, the steam...

-HE SNIFFS

Look at it, for God's sake! I haven't eaten for hours and days.

That is real, real food.

-That's really filling too and really nourishing.

-Oh, my goodness.

Have a go, darling. See what you think of your cooking.

-It looks lovely, doesn't it?

-This looks brilliant.

What's all this business about the Valentine card I sent you?

-I didn't send you a Valentine card.

-Oh, yes, I had a Valentine card

from "Floyd, with love".

And I thought, "Well, I don't know, somebody's playing me up here.

"Floyd, with love." They know I always watch it.

Then it said, "Your plaice or mine?"

How did they spell place?

-Plaice, like a fish.

-Like a fish.

-Cos you do quite a bit of fish cooking.

-Yeah, we do.

Well, I could leave the fish for this any day.

You wouldn't like to either marry me or adopt me, would you?

Oh, I don't know. I'll think about that.

-Would you think about it?

-I will.

This is really lovely, meeting you today.

I didn't expect to see you today.

Well, I'm afraid I'm not worth the effort

because this is so good I just feel quite...

I mean, it's brilliant.

-The bacon is lovely, isn't it?

-It's smashing bacon.

So, take a tip - if you're going to do this dish,

get some real bacon, OK?

-Really nice, smoky bacon.

-Yeah.

Cos smoky bacon really gives the onions a nice flavour.

Yes, it does. The onions are delicious,

the dough, the pastry is fabulous.

That little bit of seasoning and stock,

and it makes it really lovely and juicy.

Always a difficult for me to wind up a sequence.

I think the best thing to do...

We never have scripts and things, and I've never met Cath before.

We research for seconds on these programmes.

So, Richard, could you work out a nice way

of perhaps drawing the camera back giving us

a nice little, what we call, a two shot,

while we enjoy our supper, or lunch, and leave us in peace?

Classic stuff from Keith. He's certainly a one-off.

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

some of the most delicious recipes from the Saturday Kitchen archives.

Still to come,

Ching He Huang and Tom Kitchin battle it out

in the omelette challenge, but how would they both do?

Find out in just a few minutes' time.

Yorkshire's finest Brian Turner is treating us

to a tasty dish of braised sausages.

He adds mushrooms and ham to a red wine sauce

and serves the dish with creamy duchesse potatoes.

And Celia Imrie faces her food heaven or food hell.

Would she get her food heaven - a lemon curd meringue cake?

Or would she get her dreaded food hell - Battenberg cake?

Find out what she gets to eat at the end of today's show.

Now, he was the first chef in Northern Ireland

to gain a Michelin star,

and he's got a first-class recipe lined up for us.

Next is the great Paul Rankin.

-Mr Rankin.

-How are you?

-Good to have you, boss.

-Thank you, sir. It's nice to be here.

-Good.

-What are we cooking?

-We were talking about it earlier.

-Char-grilled paillard of beef.

-Yeah.

-Smoked chilli butter.

-Yeah.

The smoked chilli, it's a kind of Mexican-American thing.

I used to live in California,

so I sort of picked up that influence there,

and I love it with the smokiness of the barbecue,

the smokiness of the chilli, it really goes well.

Just run through the ingredients. Obviously, smoked chillies.

A little bit of salt and pepper, a little bit of anchovy,

a little bit of that smoky barbecue ketchup type thing.

We've got some rosemary, a little bit of thyme,

parsley, shallot and lemon.

And obviously loads of butter. Salted or unsalted?

I prefer unsalted. I think it gives a slightly better quality.

This is going to be served with two ingredients very in season.

I'm a seasonal man. Purple sprouting broccoli,

one of the greatest antioxidants you can put in your body.

-Italians love this, don't they?

-They love it.

Perfectly in season at the moment.

And just coming into season are these girolle mushrooms,

or yellow chanterelles we call those as well.

Well, this smells lovely. We need to get started.

-What are we cooking?

-Centre cut of beef.

This is kind of like a Chateaubriand sort of thing. I think it's nice.

You go to a butcher, you ask for a centre cut,

and you get that lovely, lean perfect...

So normally, the fillet would be the big Chateaubriand at the end,

-and then as it gets thinner, this would be the centre cut.

-Yeah.

So in restaurants, quite often what we do is we cut a tournedos.

-You're peeling those little Roosevelt potatoes for me?

-Yeah.

Let's try and leave a little bit more of the red underneath.

So just scrape the skin off, and don't ruin them, James, OK?

Don't mess it up.

So, yeah, I was saying, quite often in the restaurant...

I was saying it was great to welcome him to Saturday Kitchen.

-We cut these...

-For the last time. THEY CHUCKLE

We cut these big tournedos.

-But what I'm going to do, I'm going to butterfly it out, actually.

-Yeah.

So that we can cook it really quickly.

Now, a paillard can refer to chicken,

it can refer to fish, beef or whatever.

But basically, it's a thin cut of meat,

and it's going to cook very quickly, so you need a very hot grill.

Now, we don't necessarily need to bash it out with a mallet,

but it sort of evens it out a little bit

-and helps it keep that lovely flat shape, yeah?

-Yeah.

Now, we were on about best of British food.

The Hereford was one of the great cuts of meat.

I mean, the beef, the Hereford breed is really, really good.

What would you go for, really, with beef? What particular breed?

-I like the Angus, personally.

-Yeah.

I think, you know, Irish Angus,

probably the best beef you can get, you know?

-Come on!

-They're happier, they tell better jokes.

THEY CHUCKLE

There you go.

The Angus is hard to beat,

-but basically, what you want is good grass-fed beef.

-Yeah.

You know, good healthy beef, the reared-outside kind of thing.

And it creates marbling of fat on it, doesn't it?

It does, and the Angus has a natural sort of propensity

-to lay down a little bit of fat, yeah?

-OK.

So all we need on this is the salt and pepper, a little bit of oil.

You could put a little marinade on it,

we could put a little bit of the rosemary and garlic on there,

a little bit of...maybe lemon juice.

But I like it just kind of au naturel

but slightly peppery.

Now, you want to get your char-grill really hot.

So turn it up, maximum heat.

OK, so that goes straight in.

How do you like your beef cooked, Sally?

-Er...medium to rare, really.

-Medium to rare?

OK. I think we can do that for you.

Now, did you know, James, I used to be a high hurdler like Sally?

-THEY CHUCKLE

-Why are you laughing over there?

I was a high hurdler.

-Don't you think I look like a bit of an athlete, no?

-No.

-No?

-No.

-You're lanky.

-Put your leg up on the counter and then we can see

-if he's still supple.

-Let's see your muscles.

-Well, how high up? Like this?

-Oh, yeah. Well...

-And it's this sort of action, isn't it?

-Nice.

-And this one coming up.

-That's it. Other side.

They nicknamed him The Twig.

-Do it with your hand on your hip if you can.

-There's no meat on him.

-OK, go on, then.

-Got to get the beef on.

-Get the beef in the pan.

-Yeah.

-We've got about 20 minutes for this, don't we?

-Well, I have no idea.

How am I supposed to peel these but keep them red?

PAUL CHUCKLES

We've got a sink if you want to wash our hands.

-I was only joking, man.

-All right.

No. I do like to keep that little red on.