15/05/2016 Saturday Kitchen Best Bites

Good morning. There's a tasty menu lined up for you today,

so there's only one thing to do - sit back and enjoy the show.

This is Saturday Kitchen Best Bites.

Welcome. I'm getting a lie-in on Saturdays now,

so I'm enjoying the chance to look back at some of the talented chefs

and great celebrity guests we've had on Saturday Kitchen.

Coming up on today's Best Bites...

James Tanner is serving brioche, mustard and maple-coated lamb.

Theo Randall is treating us to his take

on an Italian classic - lasagne.

He uses veal, pancetta and prosciutto for the ragout

and layers it, along with creamy bechamel sauce and fresh pasta.

One half of those Hairy Bikers, Dave Myers,

is cooking poached chicken with chorizo and brandy sauce.

He simply serves his chicken with a buttered baked potato

and fresh green beans.

And actress Rashida Jones faces her food heaven or food hell.

Would she get her food heaven, a dark chocolate fondant,

or would she get her dreaded food hell,

a chicken Caesar salad, with grapes, pecans and rosemary croutons?

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

But kicking things off, with a touch of extravagance,

is the culinary king of Scotland, Mr Tom Kitchin.

What are we making then, Tom? Lobster, obviously.

Yeah, lobster. We're going to do a really nice butter

that people can do at home.

They can prepare it, they can keep it in the fridge or freezer.

Chop the ham up. Which you want me to do. Fennel, mushrooms, shallots.

Sweat all that down and then we're going to whisk the butter

and pop it through the butter, so it's a really good dish

and something that you can make beforehand

and keep in the fridge, OK. Would you call this escargot butter?

In France, when I worked with Ducasse in France,

this is what we used to use with the snails

and I just changed it a bit to work with the lobster. Yeah.

Which works well, if I don't cut my finger off!

Cut that in half, like so.

This is obviously a cooked lobster, but you just blanch it.

Yeah, I just blanched it. You see inside there,

you've got that lovely green, the coral on the female lobster.

I'm going to keep that and put that through the butter,

which will make the butter green

but, once we cook it, it will go red like the lobster.

It changes colour when you cook it for longer. Exactly.

So, it's really nice.

Again, that goes with my whole philosophy of not wasting anything.

You mentioned the seasons of lobster cos, obviously, it's warming up.

You wouldn't notice it out there but it is, technically, warming up.

The seas as well. Yeah, and as the sea does warm up a little bit,

the lobsters come out, they come out to eat more

which, for measly Scots like myself, means the price goes down a wee bit,

so they tend to go on the menu then.

A lot are coming from Canada at the moment, aren't they?

We don't use those, Chef. Yeah. I don't use those anyway.

We take the knuckles off, like so. Yeah.

Just tap your claw and out with the wee one there.

And then, using the back of your knife...

watching your nice new shirt. Yeah.

Take the meat out, like so.

The idea is this will all go back in the shell with the butter.

Yeah, we put it back in and we take the meat of the tail out as well

and it's going to be nice and easy to eat.

I'm going to get these started cos you want this sort of...

Yeah, if you sweat that down.

It's always good, if you're cooking it at home,

to start with the bacon or the ham there,

because all the natural fat will come out

and that will help flavour it really deliciously.

This is what, serrano ham you're using here?

Yeah, serrano ham but you could use pancetta or bacon

or whatever you've got locally.

So, I've taken all the meat out of the tail. Yeah.

I'll now cut that up.

So, if you just blanch that beforehand in boiling water

for about a minute, you'll get to this stage.

Whereas Danny's busy in front of the camera,

you have been as well, haven't you, really?

Cos as well as the restaurants, you've been a busy chap.

I know, I've done a TV series with Theo Randall and Michel Roux Jr,

called the Chef's Protege, which is on BBC2 just now. Right.

It's just been the most amazing experience.

We went back to my old college, Perth College, and...

What's it like going back there? It was surreal. It was really crazy.

They had my picture up on the wall

and the lecturer was the same lecturer as when I was there. Yeah.

And we had these kids and we'd taken them on this incredible journey

to try and find a protege, a mentor,

you know mentoring the kids, like Pierre Koffmann mentored myself,

and that's what it's about. It's about mentoring

and it's been really tasking, testing yourself as a chef,

because you're so used to being in your own kitchen,

saying, "Salt" and you've got the salt, you know.

And this was really teaching these kids, who were just amazing.

It's been really brilliant.

Did you guys ever have a mentor when you were younger?

I was paired with Timothy Spall when I left RADA

and you kind of went out

and had a few drinks with him

and asked him about the industry,

so I was really blessed to get an actor as good as Tim, really.

I think mentoring, it's not so much mentoring,

but having someone that you can fall back on

and ask questions cos it's not easy out there,

especially when you open your own restaurant

or start films or acting for the first time.

I'm going to do my butter now.

I'm going pop it in the blender to soften it,

so it's softened butter and I'm just going to whisk it.

So, the idea behind this is is to, basically, impart your knowledge

and hand it down to the next group.

Yeah, then it's finding the right kid

who's going to take on the knowledge.

You want to pass on your knowledge

but they've got to embrace your philosophy of cooking as well,

so that's where it's really interesting.

Are all these things to get out the house for a certain reason?

Is that...? Cos you've just had... My wife's watching, don't say that.

You've just had two more boys? Two more boys, twins, yeah.

So, that's four boys, now, under five,

so if anyone's got any shows they want me to do or anything...

Exactly!

I'm free but I need a five-star hotel to stay in and, yeah...

I'm sorry, Michaela. Yeah. OK. You just softened the butter there.

I've just put the lobster in,

which we're going to be eating in a minute.

That's gone in the oven. Yeah, we softened the butter.

Yeah. And then we've got one which we... We sweat that all done, OK.

So, that's the mushrooms and everything gone in there. Exactly.

And then we're going to put this green coral into the butter.

Do you want me to chop some...?

A bit of tarragon, which is always good with lobster

and there we can see the butter goes green,

which is really interesting. But once we cook it, it'll go red.

We've got some breadcrumbs and almond powder

which helps stabilise the butter, keep it nice.

So that keeps it on top of the lobster? Exactly.

That stabilises it. Right.

So this one was used in the one that was over in France

with the snails as well? Definitely, yeah.

We used to do it with clams as well or mussels.

I've got two types of herbs there. Got the parsley. Lovely.

Tarragon's gone in. Thank you.

Then all we need after that is a bit of samphire, please.

I'll get on and do the samphire.

If you were doing this at home,

you could obviously have this all ready to go. It's less stressful.

I know it's an expensive ingredient but if you're celebrating something

or trying to impress at a dinner party,

you could have all this ready to go,

so the stress element is out of the dinner party

and you can just pop it in the oven.

Wonderful with scallops, this, I suppose, as well. Yeah, anything.

Yeah. Touch of water in there.

I was trying to use the spatula but I'm just going to use my fingers.

Look at that. Lovely.

This is a dish that's currently on your restaurant menu, I take it?

Not yet cos the price hasn't come down enough yet.

It'll be something similar soon, yeah.

So that's ready to go in the oven.

OK. Are you checking the lobster? Thank you.

I've got the samphire over here,

just with a little bit of water, black pepper.

No need to put any salt in there

cos, obviously, it's quite salty anyway.

OK.

Could maybe have done with a wee minute longer but... There you go.

You've got a little bit longer.

I can just blast it in a really hot oven.

You can look after the samphire. Tell us about that.

Samphire, which is another wonderful ingredient

and it's everything I'm about, seasonality.

So, samphire in season just now and I love to use it.

It's just wonderful.

It's fantastic but don't season it with salt cos it is quite salty.

Exactly. Really important you don't do that at home.

Don't season it with salt cos it's like mussels.

If you're making mussels,

don't season it cos it's naturally very salty, but a bit of butter.

And this dish has got a lot of butter. Old butter boys here.

I don't know what you're talking about(!)

TOM LAUGHS OK.

Yeah, that's better, good.

So you can see how the butter has really stayed on top nicely.

Get you one of these. Don't set that on fire. Thank you.

Let's drain some of that off. Over the top...like so.

Look at that. It's a real...

It is extravagant a little bit but it is really special

and it can be prepared in advance as well

which, I know from experience, cooking at home with four kids,

preparing in advance is a good thing. Tell us what it is again.

We've got the whole lobster, a beurre d'escargot, we call it,

with samphire on top. How good does that look?

It looks good. I know it tastes good

cos I've had it in your restaurant before.

You've got to dive into this. Taste that.

Let's see what Danny thinks of that. You're having that for breakfast!

Looks amazing. Go on, tuck in.

You put the herbs in and you put mustard...

Yeah, I put a bit of grain mustard and the almond powder.

You could probably bake it in a hot oven for five to six minutes.

You'd want to make sure it's cooked. What do you think, guv'nor?

That is lovely! You like that? Go on. Proper that, isn't it?

But, like you say, you can prepare that in advance. Yeah, at home.

And it would go with most fish.

It would go with anything - mussels, it doesn't have to be lobster, yeah.

Butters, making butters up, even ones for steaks,

that's wonderful as well.

I've been trying to tell everybody that for seven years!

Do try that dish at home, if you can.

And if you don't want to splash out on lobster, don't worry,

that butter would work brilliantly with most fish.

Coming up, I serve poached egg hollandaise with asparagus

for Inbetweener star Blake Harrison,

but that's after joining Rick Stein,

as he journeys to the Lake District to meet more of his food heroes.

I went up to the Lake District because I was very impressed

by a man I met at London's Borough Market - Peter Gott.

He brings all his produce down from here

and believes in rearing his pork and wild boar

on a scale which some people would regard as too old-fashioned

for modern farming.

It might seem odd to be enthusiastic about Peter's pigs

when, at the time, there was so much distress around here

from foot-and-mouth disease.

It's hard to understand why upland areas of great beauty

like the Lake District, Northumberland, Dartmoor and Exmoor,

all suffered so terribly during the crisis,

but I am pleased to say Peter Gott's herd of wild boar were lucky.

He has two types here -

the friendly French-German crosses,

if you can call any wild boar friendly,

and lurking in the pines, with their glinty eyes no doubt fixed on us,

are the Russian variety, who want no truck with the television crew.

Hey, stop it!

He's a big boar. Come on, Aubrey. What are you doing?

When they fight, they get their necks and score each other here.

This is the armour protection to stop each other being gashed,

and they literally lock necks together.

That's the massive... BOAR SQUEALS

He doesn't like being interfered with when he's having his breakfast.

That's the massive shoulder pad and that is like an armour plating,

and that's how they fight.

If I let the other Russian out, they'd fight to the death.

To the death? Absolutely.

You respect that they are a powerful animal,

but I'm a supplier of food and they also respect me,

so within reason, so it's a two-way thing.

It's my duty to do my best with these animals.

I don't want to double the size of my herd,

so when I manufacture food out of them,

I want to make sure I'm getting top price,

as much as possible, for the best quality product.

This is some of Peter Gott's wild boar.

It's much darker meat than ordinary pork

and suits this Chinese stew I'm going to do very well

cos it's highly aromatic, flavoured with star anise

and dried tangerine peel, of all things.

Wild boar meat is stronger and more gamey than pork

and perfect in this dish with so many assertive flavours.

So you cut the wild boar up into chunks

and sprinkle a lot of soy sauce onto it. Then comes the interesting bit.

Having marinated the meat in the soy sauce for a bit,

you now deep-fry it in just ordinary sunflower oil.

The point of this is to develop the colour

because it's called red-cooked wild boar

and also the flavour, the caramelised sugars

in the meat and the soy.

Take the meat out with a perforated spoon.

There's enough for about six here, by the way.

Now, you pour off the oil - I'm afraid you have to discard it -

and you return the pork back into the pan

in which you will also see a deep, dark crust from the frying.

Plenty of flavour there.

Add the juices that have come out of resting the meat...

..and lots and lots of finely sliced onions.

This stew is good with ordinary pork if you can't get wild boar.

Mix the onions in and now add a good lot of minced ginger and garlic.

Next, the interesting things -

tangerine peel, star anise, cinnamon

and a big spoonful of Szechuan pepper.

Finally, some sugar - you usually find some in a Chinese hotpot -

and the soy sauce that you marinated the wild boar in,

some water, just to add some extra liquid,

and a good measure of Chinese rice wine.

OK, that's everything.

I'm just going to stir that. It's smelling absolutely wonderful.

This is what's so nice about this stew - it's so unusual

that I haven't ever given it to anybody that doesn't say,

"Wow! Where does this come from?"

I say, "It's Chinese food, actually."

They say, "What?!!" So, there we go.

Lid on and in the oven for about an hour and a half, I suppose.

Now, look at that.

It's amazing how much it's reduced and concentrated

in just an hour and a half.

All you need to do now is just take a bowl

of slightly sticky Chinese steamed rice

and add the arrestingly aromatic and unctuous red-cooked meat.

Later, I went to Langdale to meet Farmer Sharp, who keeps Herdwicks.

If there was ever a symbol for the resilience of the Lake District,

it must be these strange-looking sheep,

that could well be the oldest domestic breed in the country.

It's a very different sheep to the lowland sheep.

They didn't breed these.

They brought these from Norway with the Vikings.

What's special about the meat, then? The meat is so different from lamb

that you get from a commercial sheep,

that it might be the difference between venison and chicken.

It's very, very different meat. Seriously? Oh, yes.

And even as old mutton -

if you hang them and mature them properly,

they eat like butter with a big flavour.

How would you...do you like to eat Herdwick?

I prefer to eat something older. Yeah.

A leg of mutton roasted in the bottom of the Aga all day,

with just salt and pepper, there's just nothing better.

I couldn't agree more.

Mutton is such a rarity and yet it has bags of flavour,

particularly if the sheep have been allowed

to grow naturally on the fells and munch away on wild herbs.

All you need is a few new potatoes and some peas.

And mutton, of course, was MADE for fresh mint sauce.

I learnt this technique of butterflying a leg of lamb

in Australia because they do a lot of barbecuing there.

The point is to make the lamb as thin as possible

so that it cooks quickly on the barbecue.

Now I am going to cut through the thickest part there,

just flatten that out, and you can see why it's called a butterfly.

Give it a good bashing with your fist to flatten it all uniformly.

As you can see, it's all about an inch thick

and that will cook really quickly on the barbecue.

First of all, to marinate the lamb,

take some lemon zest and lots of red chillies, finely chopped,

then add some thyme and rosemary - good aromatic herbs for a marinade -

some bay leaves, thinly sliced,

garlic, then plenty of cracked black pepper.

Next, the juice of about half a lemon...

..some extra-virgin olive oil...

..and finally, a lot of sea salt.

Now work all of that into the surface of the meat

so the flavours all permeate the lamb,

then turn it over and do the same on the other side

and leave for about half an hour to an hour to marinate.

While that's marinating, you light your barbecue,

because it's important to give it about 40 minutes,

and then cook the lamb.

What I always do with a barbecue is to start with an intense heat

just to get very good colour and flavour

into the surface of the lamb.

But the problem with barbecuing relatively fatty meat like lamb

is that after a while it flares up

and, as is so often the case,

you then eat something that is incredibly flamey and acrid.

So what I like to do is push the coals to one side

and cook the lamb in a much more gentle fashion,

using almost indirect heat. It works a treat.

But if you don't want to do it like that,

you can always think about putting the lamb in the oven to finish off.

The idea is to produce a lovely brown, smoky-flavoured crust.

I like to cut this rather thicker than you would for roast lamb

because it's grilled. You can see we've got two different muscles here

so I like to give everybody a few slices of each.

It's such a popular dish with me,

I have to limit the number of times I cook it

because I think I'd have it three times a week, given the opportunity.

So the whole trick here is to keep it simple.

Let the flavour of the lamb do the business,

along with some lightly salted chips

and a thinly-sliced beef tomato salad with onion and basil.

Perfect!

Remember, mutton is in season now,

so you can make a beeline for your butcher

and have a go at that recipe.

In today's masterclass, I'm answering a request

that quite a few viewers have been phoning and writing in about.

Richard Burton, Jane Manning and Amanda Hislop is one of many others

that want to know how to make the perfect poached eggs.

Really simple. You need a pan of boiling water,

salted with a touch of vinegar in it.

I'm using a bit of white wine vinegar in it.

You wouldn't use balsamic for this,

otherwise it will change the colour of the water.

The eggs are really important. Fresh eggs, as fresh as possible.

You know when the egg's not fresh if you crack it in a pan

when you're pan-frying the eggs, fried eggs,

and the white separates. It's cos the egg shells are porous

and they absorb the air around them

and it causes the whites to degrade the older it gets.

So the whites should separate into two parts

and in that bowl I can just see

you've got a central part of the white

and then the outer part. What I do...

Ice-cold water ready, make a little whirlpool

and then pop it into a bowl first - it's easier to handle -

and just drop the egg into the centre.

Keep it boiling, keep that cooking

for no more than about two minutes, a minute probably max, really.

We bring that to the boil and then we can gently turn that down

and the ice-cold water for this is really important

because we want to stop the cooking,

particularly if you've got a dinner party.

You could do this dish for a dinner party.

I'm going to be doing an asparagus with hollandaise.

Really simple dish.

You can have all these eggs prepared in advance

and in ice-cold water.

So, what do you do if you need two or three eggs?

Do you do them one by one? I do them one by one. You stir...

Yeah, you've got time though, Chef. You've got time.

Do you break the eggs when you stir after?

Look, if you've got time to marinate your chicken,

I've got time to do these eggs. OK. Fresh English asparagus, of course.

Bang in season or the start of the season.

A bit of salted boiling water.

Take that out and we're going to char-grill it.

Then all we do with the egg is lift this out...

..drop it into ice-cold water and it sets the egg white,

stops it from cooking.

Turn the heat back up again and repeat the process like that.

We can then lift this out of here, keep these in the fridge as they are

and then just before I serve it to you,

we're going to lift the egg out, trim off the outer part

and drop it into there.

You can drop the egg into cling film and tie it up and pop it in there.

Takes a bit longer but this is a quicker and simpler way of doing it.

So, you basically just repeat the process.

You look as if it's the first time you've seen a poached egg.

I've never poached an egg in my life,

so I'm genuinely taking this in. I'm not surprised

cos your career to date has been a bit of a whirlwind, really,

cos you started very young. You went to drama college.

Yeah, I did. I started off... I'd never really known anything other

than wanting to be an actor really,

so I went to Saturday schools

and all that kind of stuff that my mum took me to.

Is this the same school as Leona Lewis and...?

That was when I was about 14, I went to the BRIT School

and there was Leona Lewis, Katie Melua and Adele and all that lot.

We were all different... You know, just chilling out together(!)

But, yeah, so... You were ten years old

when you first got spotted for your first West End debut, weren't you?

I suppose, in a way. I was in "Oliver!" at the Palladium.

I had my tenth birthday there.

I remember getting a bunch of Power Ranger toys,

then going off and doing a West End show. Like you do. As you do, yeah.

But I was only the chorus and stuff like that.

But I remember just loving it cos you're ten years old,

you're on stage and you've got no fear, whereas when I do the play

that I'm going to do at Trafalgar Studios,

I think I'm going to be too aware of how scary it all is.

Is that because...? The play that you mentioned,

cos you're lead role in that one. Yeah.

You can hide at the back but now you can't. That's it, yeah.

If you get a step or two wrong when you're in the chorus,

hopefully no-one notices but with this,

and Trafalgar Studios is a very intimate space as well,

so the audience is right on top of you,

so you've got to be really on your game and know what you're doing,

cos any small mistakes would be noticed, I think.

As opposed to what we've all known you for - Inbetweeners. Yeah.

I mean, what an incredible success.

It's done really well and none of us really... It's done really well!

To be honest, it's the writing, you know.

Iain Morris and Damon Beesley who write the show,

they are just brilliant. They're incredibly funny people,

but also a lot of the awful stuff that happens to the characters,

the four lads, genuinely happened to one of them or their mates.

Like, basically, a girl propositioning you

and you skidding along a kind of hallway in socks

to try and impress them,

even though they've already propositioned you and, you know...

But the basis of the programme first was, it's a television show -

still is, of course. Three series you've done.

Yeah, and then the film, yeah. And then the film.

You can't have realised, when you did the start of it,

that it was going to go on to be what it is. No. But I still think...

You mentioned the writing but the casting was... Yeah.

The four of you guys seemed to just gel.

The thing is, from the writers and producers,

the atmosphere on set is really kind of...

Basically, everyone regresses, so we're all in our mid-twenties

and we all regress to how we were when we were about 16, 17,

because the writers are so immature and really big practical jokers.

They're also the exec producers,

so they're supposed to be keeping us in line when, really,

they're the ones that will dare someone

to eat a bag of Haribo sweets in two minutes

just before they do a scene

and there's someone having a massive sugar crash

just before they've got their single and stuff like that.

And they're supposed to be keeping us in line.

That must have been part of the chemistry of the filming side of it.

Yeah. It's easier to act if everybody's acting like that.

Absolutely and, as I say, because even off-camera

we're still taking the mick out of each other

and trying to wind each other up, it really helps when you're on set.

Also, the dialogue is written to be spoken so quickly

that you really have to be on it. You can't shut your brain off

and then go into it because you have to be really on each other's cues

and there's a real rhythm to the way the dialogue's written,

so you have to be really on it.

The other thing as well, it is like being back at school

when you're on set

because if you come in wearing the wrong trainers

or something's slightly different about what you're wearing

or something like that, that's you for the day.

You're the guy with the Velcro trainers

or the guy with this or with that,

so you have to be really on your guard,

otherwise you'll get the mick taken out of you for the whole day.

Which is how it feels when I come onto Saturday Kitchen!

It's nothing like what I do to you!

I wouldn't dare turn a pan up at all!

We're just going to show you this quickly.

I've got my hollandaise here. It's quite thick.

All I've got in here is two egg yolks, a bit of vinegar,

tiny bit of lemon juice.

The butter makes it slightly thick, so you just slacken it down

with a touch of water and it brings it back again.

This is just a classic little hollandaise in there.

I've got my asparagus char-grilling.

The eggs are not far off, so if you've got a dinner party like this,

what you can do now is grab your eggs out of the bowl.

These sit in the fridge as they are, ice-cold water as they are.

And you just drop the eggs back in the water, like that.

And you can see it just sets.

You can just peel off the excess bit of whites.

Just drop the eggs in there and they can just sit off the heat like that.

Turn them off for a couple of minutes

while I get ready with everything else.

Like I said, very different role to what you're playing now.

Yes, Keith is like a recovering alcoholic

and he invites his foster parents over

to ask them for forgiveness for all the things he's done

but he still kind of blames them for the person he's become.

He's done a lot of physical and sexually abusive things

to people in the past and the people that have suffered from that

are Alan and Judith, his foster parents.

He actually still blames them,

thinks that they had something to gain

from having someone like him in their house for certain reasons,

so it's going to be interesting, when an audience sees it,

whether they blame Keith or the parents for what's happened to him.

Do you think it's also quite difficult...?

I'm assuming it's quite difficult,

when you're play something like what you've been playing,

that huge role like in the Inbetweeners,

and people know you from that,

to then try and do something serious, or is it...?

Do you almost want to jump out of that and not be stereocast?

Yeah, the thing is that I've...

You know, that role in the Inbetweeners

has done very well for me,

but there's no point in me playing another dumb Londoner

or anything like that, because I've done it and it's done well,

so you want to pursue other things.

But I've been lucky enough to play other roles.

I did a TV series that was over here and in America

called The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret,

where I was playing an evil genius, basically,

and in the second series, it turns out he's the posh lord of a manor.

We had some great people in that,

like the Arrested Development cast, like Will Arnett and David Cross.

We had Jon Hamm from Mad Men in the second series and stuff.

He was basically playing my butler, so that was good fun to be very posh

and bossing around Don Draper from Mad Men. Sounds good to me.

Little bit of salt on here, just over the top. That looks lovely.

Then, when you go to the table, you can serve it,

and every single one of your egg yolks will be like that.

Dive into it. The new season English asparagus

with a little masterclass on how to poach an egg.

These eggs will actually hold really nicely.

They're all exactly the same.

If you do this, you can cut every single one and they all stay.

Little bit messy, dribbling down my chin.

If you follow those steps for poached eggs,

they'll be perfect every time.

If you'd like to try cooking any of the fantastic 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 taking a look back at some of the tastiest recipes

from the Saturday Kitchen archives.

Next up, with a true taste of spring,

is the talented James Tanner. Enjoy this one.

Great to have you back on the show. Brilliant to be back.

Er, so local, seasonal, you know, really in season this sort of food.

Very much so. What are we cooking? Spring lamb loin, some wild garlic,

some flour and butter, make a choux mix. Yeah. Choux potato mix.

Brioche crust, maple syrup and that kind of thing.

First off? If you could start on the garlic.

I'll grab myself a knife. Now, this is wild garlic. Yes.

I don't know if you've seen it before?

Funny enough, I went and picked some last week. There you go.

If you break it. I was picking that one in the New Forest. Really?

Love it! Isn't it garlicky? Wild garlic's fantastic.

Cos it's garlic! When you do pick it, though,

pick it away from the path side, cos dogs have a habit of...

I was walking my dogs at the time. ..cocking their legs up against it.

So here we go. Nice loin of lamb. I'll just do enough for one.

We oiled the lamb up.

It's removed any sinew from it and it's the loin, so the back saddle.

There's two cannons that run down there.

To that, a touch of squashed-up garlic.

It's the piece of meat before lamb chops are cut. Exactly.

Exactly that. So I'll wash my hands off.

And you get seven lamb chops from a piece that sort of size.

Right, I've got my butter and the wild garlic. Mix that together.

That's unsalted butter. Let's season it up a tiny tad.

In there with the wild garlic, salt and pepper.

With the lamb, we're sealing it off.

I oiled the meat. A dry, hot, non-stick pan.

Yeah. And you want a nice browny colour, seal it all over.

In the meantime, I've got another pan on

and we're going to add some water to it. A touch of butter as well.

This is the base for our potatoes, OK?

So you just want the two to start to melt together.

We're going to make a choux mixture with the flour.

This is the potato? It is indeed.

A choux potato. Rolling up our butter there.

Tell us about your restaurant, then.

You've got two down there. This is a third one.

The third is called The Kitchen Cafe,

a brilliant little cafe concept on the Barbican,

below our brasserie, the Barbican Kitchen.

Really, really nice. Just simple pastries, cakes, sandwiches,

delivery service, that kind of thing.

It was great fun. We took over the premises

and took it as a white shell and kitted it all out.

I really enjoy the design side of stuff

and it was a brilliant opportunity doing that. Good stuff.

Next up to the lamb - we've got to cook it in real time.

Mmm, look! Spring carrots! Get away with them!

Choux pastry. Right, choux pastry.

I've just melted the butter and the water.

We've added the flour and you just cook it out

until it just starts to leave the side of the pan.

Now I made this last week for Lenny Henry. We made, um...

You'd have liked that.

Chocolate eclairs. Eclairs.

I saw it, it was really good. Chocolate eclairs.

It's left the side of the pan.

Now, at this stage, we've got a little mixer on the back.

In that goes. We're going to run the mixer now.

And we need to do this to cool it down. Right. OK?

If it's too hot, it'll cook the eggs. Right.

The lamb's gone in and we'll turn it halfway through the cooking process.

It'll be served pink today.

Leave it longer if you want it more well done.

It's quick to cook. Very much so.

So now, I crack a few eggs up. In they go.

In the meantime, you've got flat-leaf parsley.

This is just normal supermarket-bought brioche. Yeah.

Blitz it all up and this is the base for our crust.

So, a lot going on with all this machinery. In with the eggs.

LAUGHTER

The machine will mix the eggs in and, to that, as well,

we've got some pre-done mashed potato, OK? Cold mash.

Are they boiled or baked? Boiled and then riced.

When I say riced, just mashed up, put through a potato ricer. OK.

So these go in. Is it true, when you make mash,

that you should leave it and then, afterwards, add the milk and butter?

Mash it and then...? No.

OK. Oh, right. Wow...awkward! LAUGHTER

No, you... As soon as... You want a potato ricer, really. Right.

So when you push it through, it rices up nicely.

You don't want to use a masher or you get lumps in it. OK.

Put it through a potato ricer. They're, like, a tenner.

That's not too bad. Then add cream and butter and that sort of stuff.

So there we go. This is what you end up with.

GUESTS TALK OVER EACH OTHER

So, with the potato, you want to serve it cold, OK?

All you do is, I'm putting it on a tray,

putting a bit of plastic film over the top.

The reason is, it stops it from getting a skin and a crust.

That's the only reason, OK? In the fridge? Yes, please.

In the fridge. I'm going to check my old lamb.

Give it a little shake and you want to turn it

halfway through the cooking process. A couple of minutes, two minutes.

Right, OK, so we leave that to cook through.

The carrots are roasting, taking a wonderful flavour.

Now, over to the spuds. This is where it's a little bit fiddly.

You can use lots of different fillings for this.

If you can cut tiny little pieces of that.

Half a teaspoon would be fantastic. There you go.

All we're going to do now is flour the tips and palms of our hands.

Take some of the cold pastry...

and just create a little disc, OK.

You flour your hands so, basically, it doesn't stick.

So you get it like this.

Over the course of the year,

I like hazelnut, red wine, butter, shallots.

You can change all the different fillings. Right.

But you must create a seal, otherwise they'll pop on you.

And you don't want them to pop, James, do you? No.

LAUGHTER No! So we're making dough balls?

James, it's choux pastry! It's choux pastry!

Does it taste like dough balls? It's dough balls.

No, they don't taste like dough balls, love, all right? Do they not?

Right. The dough balls.

OK, so, as I said, really, really great on flavour,

especially the different fillings you can put in there.

So, we're going to do about... Why not do another two?

Push the boat out, James! Why not? Let's do another two!

Cook these around 170. Not too hot, cos it won't cook the inside.

You want them light and fluffy. The idea is the filling melts

and pops as you eat it and it's just really great flavour.

So there we go. James, if you'd like to finish that...

I'm doing that. ..and I'll go over to my lamb.

So, apart from that, tell us about your book, then,

cos I'm interested about that.

Was it published in five different countries or something like that?

Yeah, it's hit five countries now, which is nice, obviously. Yeah!

And, um... Going well. Really well.

I'm going to start working on another one soon as well,

which is... You know, a book's a lot of work -

a lot of organisation and prep

and, um, it's, er, it's great.

The one that's currently out is called Take 5.

Simple five-ingredient dishes, all that kind of thing.

Really, um... I've pushed the boat out. I've done six.

Is that all right? Why not?

You could Take 6 next. There you go. Take 7.

Now I'm just finishing the lamb off and the reason why is

I want to make sure it's cooked, so it's nice and pink.

We've got a touch of maple syrup, a touch of Dijon mustard.

Grab myself a spoon.

In they go.

And we're just going to give it all a little mix up.

You can use honey, if mustard and maple syrup doesn't float your boat,

but I think it works well with this. A little bit of sweetness.

Yeah, it is, definitely.

And the Dijon, you get that sweet and sour taste to it. Mmm.

The lamb, here we go. Going to put the lamb on now.

Want me to make the sauce? Yeah.

Deglaze the pan. This is sherry vinegar.

Again, because it's got sweetness,

you want something a bit sharp. Yeah.

And then, here we go. Get the lamb.

Obviously, clean hands, clean board and all that jazz.

If people haven't got sherry vinegar, what can they use?

You could use cider, red wine,

go back to the old school and use a bit of balsamic,

but personally, I think that's so '80s, darling. Really?

So what we do... Just Take 5! We're going to roll the lamb off.

Yeah. Really, really don't be shy. Get a load of crust on it.

A little bit more there on the top. Swap that around. Thank you.

Pop that back in the oven. James is going to keep that warm on the top.

The sauce is reducing. Rapidly boil it really, really quickly.

The potatoes are cooking, so it's time to put the dish together.

Yeah. The carrots - I know you don't like them,

but with the rosemary and the garlic and the other flavours, it's nice.

And this time of year, just so, so sweet.

Yeah. Added sweetness to them.

The donkeys love 'em! LAUGHTER

The donkeys love 'em!

Serving donkeys baby carrots. Oh!

A couple of knobs of butter go in there.

You want cold butter, otherwise it will split your sauce, if not.

And just shake the pan. I'm going to season it up. Touch of sea salt.

I'll finish that off. Brilliant stuff. Cool. You get your lamb.

Now, regards to the lamb, we've got the nice crust, as I said before.

As you can see, just nice and pink.

Ideally, I'd rest it for another minute or so.

And don't worry if bits of crust come off, that's perfectly fine.

Yeah. Just give it a little sprinkle.

Again, bit of sea salt. Dough balls are ready. Sorry!

I mean choux buns...things.

We're just going to lay the lamb across...

..like so.

James, you got a spoon there? Thanks, my man, look at this.

You make a fantastic commis chef! Just get it on the plate! All right!

Some of the sauce. You don't want a thick, gloopy sauce,

because you've got the syrup, remember, yeah?

Then, just to finish things off,

we're going to add some of these

lovely little crispy choux pastry balls.

I'm going to chuck a couple more on,

because you're going to have a little munch, yeah?

Ladies and gentlemen, there it is.

It's a taste of spring on a plate. What is it again?

So, it's maple, mustard, brioche-crusted lamb,

with a nice sherry-vinegar sauce and wild garlic choux Kiev potatoes.

Very nice. As easy as that.

Great stuff. There you go. Looks great. Have a seat over here.

If you dive into one of those choux pastry things. OK, do they pop open?

Yeah. Well, yeah, the idea is... Ready?

Oh, and it does. Look at that!

Lovely. We all like a dough bowl, though, come on.

LAUGHTER

But you dive into that.

But they should be quite strongly garlic with that. Mmm.

Try the lamb. The maple syrup is a really nice touch with that.

It's the key to it because it acts like a glue

and it really helps that crust.

And the sweetness with the mustard,

I think with spring lamb, especially, is fantastic.

I love how Jodie's passed on the carrots anyway. Just pass it on.

Whether you want to call them dough balls or choux pastry potatoes,

they tasted absolutely delicious.

Next up is a certain Keith Floyd

and he's in the Orkneys today for another of his foodie adventures.

To begin, I thought I'd cook an Orcadian chunky fish soup -

a simple affair made with fresh halibut, salmon, scallops and sole.

But as the cooking process is so simple,

a trip round these wonderful islands is essential,

to create an appetite and to give a sense of place.

Here, there are more standing stones and ancient monuments

than any other place of its size in Northern Europe.

Here they came, from unknown Stone Age peoples

to the Picts, Celtic monks, Norsemen,

Vikings and Scots of all types -

from religious refugees to cattle thieves.

Even shipwrecked Spaniards from the Armada sought refuge here.

And in both World Wars, Scapa Flow was the main base

for the British home fleet,

with the rusting remains of sunken cargo boats

deliberately placed at strategic points to impede German submarines.

Orosius, the famous Roman travel writer,

was dead right in his 5th-century guide to Northern Europe

when he said this place was brilliant

for fresh scallops and wildflowers, especially in May.

WHISTLE Ha! Yes! I hope you enjoyed that.

They are beautiful, aren't they, these islands?

No wonder the Orcadians don't really want to be thought of as Scottish.

They're very proud of this place. Anyway, while you've been away,

I've been cooking away busily.

My soup's been simmering delicately away.

Let me remind you of precisely how I cooked it.

First, I chopped up some onions, fried them in a bit of butter,

added some vermouth and white wine, then some fish stock.

Then I thickened it with beurre manie - flour and butter -

then added cream, stirred it, simmered it a bit. It's delicious.

Added my bits of fish - in my case, scallops, salmon, turbot...

All these expensive things because we like to exploit

the BBC mini-breaks to the maximum.

You don't have to go to those lengths at home.

You could use simple fish like cod and conger eel, for example,

and still have a very fine dish indeed.

I think it's time to taste, to see how it is getting on.

It's very delicious, but it needs a little salt.

It's always worthwhile adding the flavouring

to delicate things like this at the end.

You get the best and the freshest flavour.

Incidentally, my director wanted me to make a joke like,

"I don't think this horse will work again."

I thought that was fairly tasteless. This is, in fact, fish stock.

HORSE WHINNIES I'm going to add more to my soup

because it's a bit too thick for my liking.

So I'll add a bit of that, stir that in.

And I think it is absolutely ready to go. A quick slurp for me...

That's better. A silk handkerchief to wipe the drips off my thing.

And let's have a taste, see what we think. Orcadian fish soup.

It's heavenly. It doesn't need to be smothered

with chopped parsley or fresh herbs.

The subtle flavours of the fish

from this wonderful cool, cold sea around these islands

is unimpaired, is beautiful, is delicious.

So, it's off to meet a man from Hoy,

though I'm pleased to say the road was otter-free that morning

and there weren't any serious hold-ups.

David Hutchinson used to be a television cameraman,

restaurateur, nurse and writer.

But he turned his back on the bright lights of Kirkwall

and by painfully gathering driftwood and flotsam,

he set about restoring a tumbledown croft,

in the search for a more meaningful existence

and the serious business of making crab soup -

or partan bree, as the Scots will have it.

In his designer kitchen,

largely made from discarded fish-boxes, he explained.

Making the soup is a doddle. A chunk of butter in the pot, melted...

You didn't rise to me calling this a Scottish soup. No, no, no.

It's very much an Orcadian thing.

In the old days, the people who lived in the little crofts

only had about five hectares of land,

which was enough to grow crops for the cattle and a little meal.

They all had little fishing boats and they went out in the bay.

And they fished for lobsters, which are very sought-after and expensive.

Often, they used to pull up crabs in their lobster pots

and they threw them away. But when times were hard,

they always resorted to the sea again to gather crabs.

And then, of course, by cooking it in a little butter and some milk...

The milk goes in at this stage. You can add it all at the same time.

A lot of people used to make it with the meat from the back,

which is brown,

but sometimes you can put white in. It doesn't really matter.

The brown just gives it a nice colour,

but I often think the meat from the back of the crab has more flavour.

In it goes, too. What, the whole lot?

The whole lot. If you're going to make a soup, do it on a grand scale.

Could you chuck that...? Indeed. Thank you.

Our crew will be well-fed today! Yes. For the first time in a week!

And the secret with this soup is you just simmer it

because it's been cooked already.

Once the cooked crab has been warmed through in the milk,

you add some fresh cream

and thicken it with about four generous handfuls of oatmeal,

which makes a thick, nutritious and body-building meal.

It takes about five minutes to make.

But don't serve it as a starter for some delicate little dinner party.

It's truly a meal in itself!

So, in the words of the old song,

you cooked it so I'll serve it. Very good.

It does look splendid. Here, get your...

Thank you. ..eating tackle around that, as they say.

What do you reckon? Oh, yes.

Can I tell you something funny? Mmm. I haven't made this for six years.

You haven't made it for six years? I haven't made it for six years.

I used to make it every day in the restaurant and I was sick of it.

That's the first time in six years and it's turned out right.

It's brilliant! It's supreme! Thank you.

Just in case, by the way, anybody from the tax office is watching,

this is NOT my yacht! I borrowed it for the day.

But what a fabulous place to be,

against the backdrop of the cliffs and the light of the Orkney Islands.

My diving chums are going to plunge over and raid the sea bed

for lobsters and crayfish and ling and fabulous things.

But I've been to sea before, and they may come back with nothing!

So I've taken the precaution of preparing

a traditional soup here - the Scotch broth.

Look down here. I've got some mutton bones simmering away

in water to make the basic stock.

I've got the obligatory dried pulses -

pearl barley, peas, lentils and stuff like that.

Chopped onions, and then, a variety of root vegetables -

leeks, carrots, turnips and celery.

All of that simmers for about two hours down in the galley

or until they come back with something nice to eat.

OK, lads! Over the side!

The plumage is certainly fetching,

but I'm not sure how long they do stay in season.

I've made it quite clear not to come back if they don't catch anything.

Argh!

These guys were on holiday, diving on wrecks,

a perfectly harmless and fascinating pastime.

And although I had asked them to get me a bit of fish for the pot,

they weren't in the business of plundering the birthright

of the regular fishermen, OK?

But back to our intrepid aquanauts,

like faithful hounds panting from the hunt,

bearing all sorts of gifts.

A plump crayfish - jolly tasty they are!

I might cook that but let's see what else they've got.

A HUGE lobster! A seven-pound lobster! What's that?

An inch a year or a pound every decade? It's an enormous beast!

And a sack of scallops the size of carthorses' feet!

I know this sounds uncharacteristically pious of me,

but we couldn't bring ourselves to cook this one.

Anyway, the pot wasn't big enough.

The divers and the director didn't want to do it,

this is the last programme and it's too fine a beast to sacrifice

for a trivial TV programme.

So it's going back to live and to breed.

It would have tasted really good as well!

FORCED LAUGHTER

The things we do for Greenpeace!

For our nautical cooking sketch number one,

they've given me this spacious galley.

Richard is in a bunk and you couldn't swing a seal in this place!

Anyway, I made the soup, the Scotch broth,

with the chopped carrots, leeks, onions, pearl barley,

dried peas, beans, mutton and stuff like that.

And a rich and warming brew it is, too.

That would cheer up any diver who's been about 50 fathoms deep

in the freezing cold North Atlantic water.

I'll get rid of that, if I may, and get on with the job in hand.

They pulled us up beautiful scallops, lovely crayfish -

in fact, a feast of stuff here.

A feast or a famine, as always, on a Floyd programme.

But what I've decided to do, in this very tiny space,

with the ship wobbling all over the place,

is to cook the captain a fillet of fresh crayfish.

That is the freshest crayfish you will ever get to taste.

In a London restaurant, that piece alone would probably cost 18 quid.

However, it might taste a little better than mine is going to do.

Did I hear myself say that? Of course not!

We pop that into some melted butter, whack the gas up.

The good thing about... Are you slipping, dear?

The good thing about these programmes

is we never rehearse them.

You couldn't possibly rehearse in a space this size.

Into that, we add a little chopped bacon,

while the gas gets up frying speed, little pieces of chopped bacon,

and some little pieces of red pepper, plucked from the mast,

from the window boxes, or porthole boxes they were grown in.

Let that sizzle around for a moment or two.

Sometimes we get letters from people saying,

"You don't really explain exactly what you're doing."

It is difficult on a small ship to give precise cookery lessons.

The point is, if I can make a delicious meal

under these conditions here, you've got no problems at home.

Right, while that's sizzling away, earlier - as they say in the trade -

I made myself some fish stock from some crayfish legs and white wine.

OK. I shall need that in a moment. In fact, I need that now.

So, Richard, a little close-up here, if I may.

Pour my stock into there...

And let that sizzle for a few moments. Keep a close eye on it.

And by the magic of television, we'll rejoin that in a second,

at a stage further on.

That's excellent. That's been cooking,

in real time, for about five or six minutes.

To go over my fish stock again, I merely chopped up some onions,

added some white wine and water and a few crayfish legs,

and let it simmer for about 45 minutes

until it was quite well reduced. I happen to have crayfish legs.

You could use a fish head if you had one.

They didn't catch any whole fish today.

That's the situation at the moment.

We've got a little bit of juice,

our red peppers, chopped bacon, and the crayfish

which is slightly undercooked,

because it is so delicate you mustn't overcook it.

Now we add some chopped leeks,

which have already been cooked in salted boiling water

and chopped quite fine. Stir those in.

Whack the gas up to maximum now.

It's always difficult. This is a tiny little galley.

It's got a good stove, but I'm not familiar with it.

And then we simply take the piece of fish out

to let that rest so it doesn't overcook.

Put it on the plate while we finish off the sauce.

That's gas down to minimum again. Help...

It's very difficult. There we are.

And a little drop of good Orkney cream.

Into there, comme ca.

Stir it round,

check for seasoning, which I will do in a second...

Mmm! That is extremely delicious.

A little bit of pepper.

And, pure extravagance...

Sorry, I'm wobbling. Are you all right, Richard?

I feel a bit sick, actually, Keith.

One of these days, he'll reply to me. He nearly did then.

He's had a long day. I did, Keith.

Right. There's our sauce. I think that's OK.

Mmm! It's a delicious sauce.

It's a delicious fillet...

..of crayfish.

We'll pop that over there like that and around like that.

Try and make it a little bit more decorative.

And what I'm going to do is offer this to the captain, to the skipper.

Naturally, the divers who caught it will have to eat the Scotch broth!

There is a class structure, of course.

They're the paying customers!

We'll call this after the ship - Crayfish Sula Sgeir -

and give it to the captain.

Mmm! Excellent! All right, is it? Delicious indeed.

And can you tell me the name of the ship again?

I just can't pronounce it properly.

The name of the vessel is Sula Sgeir. Sula Sgeir.

You don't need to have had too many Scottish ones to get THAT muddled!

What does it mean? It means "Gannet Rock" in Gaelic.

But this is far better than gannet!

Mmm.

The late, great Keith Floyd there and it's always a treat to see him.

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,

Cyrus Todiwala and Niklas Ekstedt battle it out

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

Find out in just a few minutes' time.

Hairy Biker Dave Myers is cooking poached chicken

with chorizo and brandy sauce.

He simply serves his chicken

with a buttered baked potato and fresh green beans.

And Rashida Jones faces her food heaven or food hell.

Would she get her food heaven, a dark chocolate fondant,

or would she get her dreaded food hell,

a chicken Caesar salad with grapes, pecans and rosemary croutons?

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

Now, lasagne is up next on today's menu

and who better than Theo Randall to show us how it's done?

So, what's on the menu for you then? So, we're going to make lasagne

but the difference is, we're going to use veal.

So were going to use some pancetta, some prosciutto,

some veal, which is not minced, it's just chopped veal. Yeah.

It's much nicer chopped because you get much more texture in the sauce.

Yeah. Basically, it's a ragout and we're going to use sofrito -

celery, onion, carrot. Yeah. Sofrito?

Sofrito. And then we're going to add some rosemary -

it's a nice background flavour, rosemary - white wine and milk.

So, it all seems very creamy and, sort of, light.

I've got to get my sauce on. You're making me a bechamel.

Bechamel. So, the recipe for the bechamel is just milk.

Now, normally, you'd put a little bit of onion in here but you don't,

you just put a touch of bay leaf. Just put bay leaf, yeah. OK.

We've got onion in the base already so we don't need more. All right.

And then, nice... Why veal then?

Because, obviously, traditionally, people would use beef in the UK

but I suppose, is it, you can use anything over in Italy?

Ragouts tend to be veal or beef

but I think this is just a variation on it.

It's quite nice to have something different and if you've got veal,

then it's a good way of doing it.

This is flank, or you could use a bit of shoulder,

and it has a different flavour completely.

If you use the addition of something like pancetta... Yeah.

..it just has a much nicer, richer flavour

because all that fat from the pancetta

sort of seasons the meat. Yeah. So, it's really rather nice.

So, could you peel that carrot for me?

Yeah. Thank you very much. Grate the cheese as well.

So, we've got some celery, carrot and onion...

Looking at this, the proportion of veg to meat is a lot less.

There's not a lot of veg in this. Right.

Cos the veg is just to start it off and get that seasoning going.

So, if we get some olive oil in the pan. Not butter.

Or, actually, you know what? I'll put a bit of butter.

I'll put half and half, just to keep you happy.

OK, so, a bit of butter in there. There you go.

And we are going to add our onion...

Got to be quick now, it's burning! ..celery.

Where's the carrot? I'm just going to slow down!

Add the rosemary to that. There you go.

Bit of rosemary. Not too much, just a bit. Yeah.

Then we add our prosciutto.

You've got prosciutto and pancetta.

So, two really nice, salty cured meats. Yeah.

And then add those in.

And that's going to soften.

You want me to do the sauce for this, don't you?

So, we've got the butter and the flour. That's right.

So, that all goes in together. OK. Now, I'm using a wooden spoon.

This is a special spoon from Simon and Georgina Cook, from London.

A special spoon? Yes. I don't want to burn this ladle.

You burnt this one earlier, didn't you?

THEO LAUGHS

I'm going to hold it in my hand so I don't burn it.

So, all that lovely flavour, all that rosemary and the onions

and the pancetta's about to go in. Yeah.

So, put the pancetta in and then we're going to add the veal.

So, just season the veal.

Now, a lot of foods, in France particularly,

vary from region to region, the same dish. Yeah.

Some use fish, some use meat - the same in Spain.

Is lasagne the same? You have different ones?

Well, in Italy, you have lots of different variations of baked pastas

but I think... Yeah, I think there will be variations

but, essentially, you know, it's a meat baked pasta

with a sort of bechamel. What area would it come from?

I would say this would be from Bologna. Right.

OK, so that's all cooking nicely. We're going to add our chopped veal.

So, it's the same ragout-based dish. Exactly. That kind of stuff.

So, we're going to add this. In she goes.

Just try and lightly break it up so it's not in a big lump.

Have you got my...? Can you see the texture?

It's lovely nice pieces of veal, as opposed to mince.

I don't know what the thing is about veal anymore.

People in the UK still have this thing about veal. Yeah, I know.

I think it's how it USED to be. It's not the same now but it's...

And if you drink milk you should eat veal, really. Absolutely, yes.

Veal isn't very popular in the UK, I don't know why.

OK, so... But it's the rose veal that you need to look for?

It's the rose veal, yeah. In Italy, most of the meat you get,

it's usually 12-month-old cows,

which is, sort of, in between a beef and a veal

and it is this sort of rose meat.

And it has got a very subtle flavour.

But there are fantastic suppliers of veal out in the UK, aren't there?

There's some really good ones, actually.

OK, so we're going to add some white wine.

There you go. So, we're not really getting lots of colour in this.

We're just going to let it stew together.

Add some tomatoes.

Put those in. Just use tinned tomatoes.

You could use fresh but just use tinned ones

cos they've got that richness and ripe flavour.

You're making this with just normal flour, aren't you?

Delia's got that fancy flour. What's fancy about it?

It doesn't do lumps in your white sauce, does it?

What is it? A lump-free flour? A lump-free flour

but I actually use the whisk for this.

You need the right pan, obviously, a non-stick pan, really.

And just keep it over the heat until you get most of it in. OK.

I use a whisk for this, rather than a spoon

cos it takes you way, way too long.

So, I'm just going to add some milk. So, why milk in that? Cos I know...

It's just lighter and veal's quite nice with milk.

It makes it fresher.

You get lots of dishes where they cook with veal or pork and milk.

But you've got the prosciutto, the pancetta, celery, onion,

and then you got that veal, and that tomato and milk.

Just cook it really slowly for about an hour and a half.

I'll just pop that at the back of the stove,

then we've got one that's been made already. Yeah.

I'll move that for you. There you go. Thank you very much.

Lift off the lid. That's what it should look like.

You end up with this nice chunky... Ow, that's hot! It is, very hot.

Thank you very much for that! Chunky, chunky texture.

And I'm going to get this dish.

You always use a cloth. Always use a cloth.

Thanks very much. I've got no feeling in my hands.

I can't feel this sauce. THEO LAUGHS

OK, so, that's got this nice texture of, um...

Can you see that? The meat's all, sort of, chunky. Yeah.

Nice and juicy. It's not too juicy, it's just, sort of...

Looks like the end of my finger! Let's see your blister.

No, it's fine. Oh, OK. RUBY WAX LAUGHS

What we're going to do, we've got our pasta, we've got the dish...

We're going to add olive oil to this,

so it makes it non-stick. Yeah.

And give it a good rub all on either sides.

Then we get our pasta. That's fresh pasta.

This is so much nicer using fresh pasta,

as opposed to those dried packets you get.

Makes a massive difference.

Just cut your sheets in half.

There's that and you want cheese in there as well.

Cheese in there as well.

So, that's a layer of the... A layer of pasta. Yeah.

Often when you're doing this

people would brown the meat off beforehand. None of that?

You don't need to cos you get so much flavour from the ingredients.

And what about those pasta sheets that people use?

They're fine. Cook them beforehand?

Yeah, cook them beforehand but, the thing about them is,

the fresh pasta's got egg yolk in it, so it's got a much richer taste.

So I would always use fresh pasta.

It's got a whole egg. I put the whole... The whole egg? OK.

It didn't matter. Nobody was watching!

LAUGHTER

But normally with an egg yolk in it, yeah?

And then pop that again. One more layer.

And the great thing about this is you can make it the day before

and you pop it in the fridge and then invite your friends round,

whack it in the oven and it is a brilliant, brilliant family dish.

You're doing a lot of festivals around the country.

Is it that you London folk like to get out in the country?

I'm not out in the country, I'm actually in London.

I'm doing a day for Action Against Hunger at Taste of London

and I'm doing some demonstrations at Jamie's Big Feastival

at Clapham Common, which is in...

You call that the country, don't you, Clapham Common?

Well, yeah, it is a bit country. THEO LAUGHS

OK, it's green. Yeah, it's green. On you go then.

OK and then, that's that.

On top, last layer of pasta.

Then finish with the bechamel, more cheese on top.

Plenty of it. Look at that. It's like Blue Peter.

GUESTS CHATTER INDISTINCTLY

A spatula... There you go. Thank you.

Get all those bits out.

And then make sure the pasta's all covered.

The best bit about the lasagne is the crispy bits on the side,

so leave little bits hanging over. Yeah.

And then just finish that off with some fresh Parmesan.

In the oven? And then we're going to pop that in the oven.

Open the oven. How long does this go in for?

This goes in for about 45 to, sort of, 45 to an hour.

It looks amazing.

Dish in. Check that out!

The nice thing about this is there's lots and lots of pasta.

The problem with a lot of these lasagnes is too much mincemeat,

as opposed to the actual pasta. Yep.

It should be really, sort of, puffed up.

And don't serve salad with it, just serve it as it is.

Have the salad to start.

Then pop a nice big portion like that.

That's a starter, OK? THEO LAUGHS

It is where I come from! I know it is.

And then a bit of Parmesan, a bit of black pepper

and there is my veal lasagne.

Now it's perfect. THEO LAUGHS

There you go. It's a little bit of Yorkshire on an Italian dish!

I can see that! Right, you get to dive into this. Oh, God!

That's nice, oh, good.

Tell us what you think of that one. OK. This is the dietetic one, right?

Once you've made it, could you put it in the fridge and then cook it?

Definitely, you could make it the day before.

In fact, it'd be even better.

Do it the day before and then put it in the oven.

Do you mind if I don't burn my mouth this time? It'll be really hot.

Much hotter than the other one.

Can we make 45 minutes go as fast as you just did?

Just eat the little bit of cheese. Or eat the butter.

SHE MUMBLES: It's happened again!

LAUGHTER

Rich, creamy and packed full of flavour.

Now, the heat was on when Niklas Ekstedt faced Cyrus Todiwala

for his first crack at the omelette challenge,

but how would they both do? Let's find out.

It's time for the omelette challenge.

There's Paul, still sitting smugly at the top of our board.

17.5 seconds. So, Cyrus, you're on here as well. I am on there.

27.5 seconds. Really? Niklas, who would you like to beat on our board?

It would be Rene.

King of Scandinavian cooking, I have to beat him.

He would be this gentleman over here. 32 seconds. Usual rules apply.

Three-egg omelette, cooked as fast as you can. Are you ready? Yes.

Let's put the clocks on the screens. Three, two, one, go.

The concentration on their faces. I know! And it's... Wow!

Niklas is making sure he wants to get on the board. That's the key.

TWO CYMBOL CLANGS IN SUCCESSION

Oh, no! Looks like a disaster!

Both really good omelettes, though,

I have to say. Which one shall we taste first?

DO you have to say? Well...

They look awful! Yeah... LAUGHTER

I love omelettes and they look horrid!

Caroline, you need to watch this show a bit more than you have done

because this... That's as good as it gets, is it?

This is as good as it gets. Oh, dear. Yeah.

Most you don't need a fork, you need a straw!

A bit like this one. Mine is a little better, no?

Yeah, a little better.

It's a wonder I'm not ill. You won't get ill with eggs! Right.

Niklas, did you beat your mate over here? Come on, please!

Looks like you did.

You beat him. Yes! Well done. Whoo!

I told you this is really competitive.

Just put him back up there. I'll have a text message in a minute.

You did it a lot quicker.

You did it in 27.2 seconds, which puts you over here. There you go.

So, quite a way up the board. Cyrus, where were you?

There, in the corner. I don't think I'm any better.

Where were you, anyway? Right there. There. On the left, yeah.

You were quicker. Egghead. You did it in 24.8. Oh, wow!

So, substantially quicker. Finally! Puts you about there.

This is so flawed, this whole thing.

If I just put a load of raw egg on a plate...

I could put a raw egg on a plate and I'd win it!