Episode 120 Saturday Kitchen Best Bites

It's time for some of the best cooking you'll see on TV. Saturday Kitchen Best Bites.

Welcome to the show. We've scoured the Saturday Kitchen archives

and rounded up some of the best chefs to cook for you this morning.

And we're joined by some pretty hungry celebrities too.

Richard Corrigan makes a delicious salad with suckling pig

and deep-fried oysters, and serves it all with crispy crackling.

Mark Sargeant comes up from the south coast

to share his take on Asian-style squid.

He griddles the squid and serves it with a citrusy sweet and sour Oriental sauce.

And of course the pride of Ireland, the lovely Rachel Allen,

serves up a real winter warmer.

She makes home-made pork sausages, colcannon and apple sauce.

And actor David Haig, star of Four Weddings And A Funeral,

faced his Food Heaven or Food Hell.

Would he get his Food Heaven, venison, with my smoked roast

loin of venison with beetroot tarte tatin,

or would he get his dreaded Food Hell, cauliflower,

with my hearty cream of cauliflower soup

with parsley and apple gnocchi, apple puree and apple crisps.

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

But first up, twinkle-toed Hairy Biker Dave Myers shows us

a fantastic Asian dish,

from the time before he swapped spring rolls for Strictly.

Good to have you on the show.

-It's lovely to be here.

-Right. What are you cooking?

-I'm doing some Morecambe Bay shrimp and tamarind spring rolls.

-Yeah.

To go with that, a little kind of lime and peanut vinaigrette.

-It's kind of...you know, it's Irish bay rim food.

-Irish bay rim!

It's a bit Australian, you know.

You can't say things like that at ten o'clock in the morning!

It's like the Pacific rim but cold.

THEY LAUGH

Go on. What are we doing?

I like spring rolls, I like fried things.

-Right!

-So we need to make the basis.

-Yeah.

-Lovely Morecambe Bay shrimps, little brown shrimps,

and they're great for Asian food, Singapore noodles...

-Yeah.

-..cos they've got loads of flavour. Whack those in.

-Some bean sprouts...

-Famous for potted shrimps, up in Morecambe.

-Yeah, lovely.

-Which is butter and mace...

-I like them with lime zest and black pepper.

-Yeah.

-Pot them up, brown bread and butter.

-What's the difference between a shrimp and a prawn?

-One's bigger than the other. Sorry.

-Yeah.

No, shrimps are very different,

cos there's the Mediterranean ones that you can eat with the shell on

-and they're very sweet.

-I always thought shrimps absorbed

-liquid like butter and things like that.

-Yeah.

-Prawns don't, do they?

No. It's like tiger prawns, a lot of them taste of nothing, really.

Do you want me to chop that up?

Oh, yes, please. Could I have a couple of centimetres of galangal?

Couple of centimetres of galangal.

-I love galangal.

-Which is like the Thai ginger, isn't it, really?

Yeah, it's spicy, it's lemony, it's very aromatic.

I used to go out with a girl like that.

THEY LAUGH

-Thai ginger?

-No, galangal!

THEY LAUGH

ALL TALK AT ONCE

Bash your lemongrass first, you want to release the flavours.

And chop finely because it gets caught in your teeth.

-I knew when I woke up this morning it was gonna be like this.

-Sorry, James. I'll try harder.

-Right, OK. You've got the lemongrass.

-Oh, I have, yes.

-OK.

-So these give it the citrus kind of flourish,

and overtones and undertones and over the bedpost.

Don't...!

Now to that, a bit of spice, a chilli.

Now, apart from riding your bike all over the world,

you live near Morecambe, don't you?

I do, I live on a place called Roa Island,

which is like, 22 houses and no trees cos nothing would grow there.

It's a bit bleak.

JAMES LAUGHS

It's windy!

The locals call it The Rock.

Is that the same as Alcatraz(?)

Well, it's got that same charisma really.

-Hey, it's great. You love it.

-But the food's good in Morecambe Bay.

It's like, in Mont Saint-Michel you've got the salt marsh lamb -

we've got the salt marsh lamb in Cumbria.

We've got sea bass, good fish, shrimps. It's fab.

Yeah, it is good, mate.

Chilli. Now, the liquid part.

Right, OK.

I've got some tamarind,

which is, you know, it's like the core of the dish.

If you can't find tamarind, use lemon,

but tamarind's lovely kind of tangy.

You can get it from Asian supermarkets.

-You can get it in a paste as well...

-Thanks, James.

It's a pod, isn't it, really?

Yeah, it's a pod, and the pod's put into a paste.

-More?

-No, that's fine. I don't want it too liquid.

-This is sake going in there, yeah?

-Yeah.

Or you can use the mirin rice wine, it's cheaper.

I'll tell you what, Dave, that's a first for you, mate, isn't it?

-What, going cheap?

-No, no, just...

-Soy sauce.

-Soy sauce.

And white pepper. I love white pepper.

It's totally different to black.

THEY LAUGH

Know what I mean?!

You know, it's lovely with chicken breast sandwiches

and nice best butter.

THEY GIGGLE

-Chuck that in.

-We do have a laugh.

-Right, OK.

-Can I put my hands in?

Yeah, you can put your hands in, go on.

Ideally I'd have left the tamarind to soak with the sake

-for an hour or so.

-Overnight!

-And it'd really infuse. Lovely.

Now, you can taste this, and if it's too sour put some sugar in.

Blow me, it's fabulous.

THEY LAUGH RAUCOUSLY

Go on!

-I've washed me hands.

-Can we do the spring rolls?

-We are live so we haven't got time. Go on.

-Sorry, mate.

This is like back to being a student.

You take your paper, put it down.

Now, a top tip is, when you do an eggy wash, use plenty of egg.

Egg's like glue, and you've got a fair chance of it not decomposing.

I always do both sides, it's belt and braces.

-Yeah. Right, OK. Do you want me to do another one?

-Oh, please.

-Right.

Get a spoon.

Nothing's ever to hand, you know. Maybe it's just me.

-Dave?

-Yes.

-I think you might be right, dude.

Well, it's working with you!

-Well, yeah...

-Don't put too much filling in, cos they'll blow up.

Now, I can't believe, looking at your biog -

I can understand one bit that you used to be a furnace man.

Well, just like a student job, yes...

Then the other part of it, you were a make-up artist.

Well, I was working as a car park attendant, anything I could!

And the BBC took me on as a trainee make-up artist.

He still wore his clogs, though, from the furnace.

When I applied to the BBC,

one of my references to become a make-up artist was from

the British Steel Corporation,

and they said his tonnage is ace,

and his timekeeping's excellent.

So they took me on.

Right.

OK, so we're making these little spring rolls.

Yeah, like that. Lovely.

Now, you can do them in spring roll wrappers, but we've got

these little won ton wrappers as well, which work.

Cos the spring roll wrappers they had here were all dried up

and it was like trying to roll up cardboard.

Now - another trick is now, once you've done them...

-Do you want me to do those?

-Great.

-Right, you crack on with that.

Put them in the fridge for an hour.

-If you don't do that, they'll explode.

-Right.

James has some we made earlier. They've been in the fridge for an hour. If you fry them...

-Just get the thing made.

-My vinaigrette!

Lime juice.

This is lovely. It's rather Japanese, really.

Fish sauce, Vietnamese.

You'll have to go on the website for this recipe,

-I've forgotten it already. Go on.

-I haven't, it's all there. Chilli oil.

He's written it... You have, haven't you?

All those years with the sun on me helmet, I can't remember nothing.

-He's written it all on his hand, it's outrageous.

-Sugar.

With lime, you need sugar.

Palm sugar's best, but we haven't got any.

Dave! We want to be invited back!

Shut up!

You know?

Know what?

-OK, right, these are ready.

-I'm there, James.

It's like Ready Steady Cook! Fresh herbs.

-Fresh mint.

-Watch your fingers!

-It's cos you went on with your adobe.

-I did not.

-You did.

It was quick, that.

The network giveth, then they take it away.

-Fresh coriander.

-Right.

-Right, I'm ready.

-Are you?

-Yeah, they're cooked.

Well, I'm ready too.

-Nuts, crushed nuts.

-Steady.

-JASON DONOVAN:

-Oh, that's the secret.

Can you remember that, Dave -

when we crushed the nuts... BANG

-Hey!

-Bloomin' heck.

D'you use that policeman's truncheon in Mexico? It was good, that.

We serve this on a bed of watercress,

ideally with samphire which is God's salt and pepper.

-And there you have it.

-There we have it.

-Wow.

Cos football'll be on in a minute!

So remind us what that is again.

That's Morecambe Bay shrimp and tamarind spring rolls

with a lime and peanut vinaigrette. It's delicious.

If you can follow that you're better than me.

Right, over here.

-Voila.

-Dive in.

-Wow.

-Oh, yes, it's me favourites, these.

They are beautiful. They're a really good eat. Thanks, James.

They'll be hot, they'll be hot, they'll be hot.

Be careful.

Yeah, I mean, the Morecambe Bay shrimps are fantastic.

Oh, I love them.

You know, sometimes you get them where they pick them by hand,

and they taste much better

because if you pressure-hose the husks off it takes all the flavour.

-I mean, my auntie used to be a shrimp picker.

-Did she?

Yeah. She got Parkinson's, but then...

You know, there's a great tradition up there.

What do they taste like?

-Fantastic.

-They taste... Yeah.

-The vinaigrette's lovely with them, isn't it?

-I love that sweetness.

-Asian fusion is...

-Have you ever tried Morecambe Bay shrimps?

-No.

-Something you need to.

-I've never been big on Morecambe shrimps,

-because they are quite a potent flavour.

-No, they're delicious.

And they'd have taken half the time if he'd been concentrating.

Coming up, I'll be serving Holby City actress Jaye Jacobs

mackerel with a vibrant beetroot sauce

after Rick Stein visits some more of his fantastic Food Heroes.

So far in my television series I've only cooked fish.

But I love game, and that's why I've come here to the middle of Cornwall

to meet Chris Green, a man who loves this countryside and all the edible things in it.

When you're pigeon-shooting in a hide like this, it's nice and quiet.

Nothing but a distant sound of a combine cutting the fields. That's why I love it. It's brilliant.

Go back! Go back!

Where is he?

WHISTLE

Fetch him off. Good boy!

-So how would you like to cook pigeons, then?

-Well, we've got so many different recipes.

This time of year, harvest time, you can't go any better than getting yourself half a dozen pigeons,

breasting them just like you would a chicken,

straight on a barbecue with a little bit of garlic and...

a bit of redcurrant sauce perhaps. There's nothing like fresh food!

Pigeon and peas. I first had this bourgeois French dish in a bistro called L'Ami Louis,

a famous bistro in Paris. But there it was long slow-cooked.

But you can get breasts of pigeons quite easily now, and I thought,

why not make it into a quick dish

but keep the principles - pigeons, red wine, a good stock and peas?

So first of all you just take a good shallow dish

and get some butter really hot in the pan.

Then add some shallots or small onions and turn them over

with some good dry-cure, smoked streaky bacon.

You want to cook the onions fairly well through

because the breasts are not going to take that long.

Now add some finely chopped garlic, about three cloves.

It won't burn too much, because you have all that other stuff in there.

Push everything to the side and add the pigeon breasts,

skin-side first, and then brown them all over.

Now, you can... We have to look after our game dealers, you know.

I mean, it's a bit like fishmongers.

A good game dealer is worth his salt.

Next, season with salt and lots of pepper.

You can put quite a lot of salt in, the peas need seasoning as well.

And now brandy. I should use a good quality cognac.

The better the quality, the better the flavour.

It gives it a lovely, lingering, rich aftertaste.

Can you smell singe? It's my hair.

Next, some fresh thyme and bay leaves -

a couple of sprigs of thyme, a couple of bay leaves.

Then some red wine - five or six fluid ounces

of a good, strong red wine, like an Australian Shiraz.

That's really best for robust red wine sauces.

An equivalent amount of chicken stock,

but if you've used the whole pigeon, make a nice game stock with it.

Now, I'm adding butter and flour,

or as the French call it, "beurre manie", to thicken the sauce.

I know some people would add gravy browning here,

but I think that's awful.

It just overpowers everything and makes it a funny colour.

And then the peas. About a pound of peas. I've used frozen peas,

but it's terribly nice, too, and almost nicer,

if you can use those tinned French petits pois.

It normally says "a l'etuvee" on the tin.

They really, really taste so, sort of, evocative of Parisian bistros.

Now, you just leave that to simmer -

not very long, because you don't want to cook the pigeon breasts right through.

Probably about four or five minutes just to cook the peas, a bit less if you're using the tinned peas.

And there you have it. Just spoon it out into a nice deep bowl,

it's a perfect dish for a deep bowl.

Just sprinkle with a bit of parsley.

And there's a perfect symmetry about this dish -

imagine pigeons swooping down and eating all the peas!

Well, we eat the pigeons AND the peas.

As a kid, whenever I was leaving Cornwall, crossing the Tamar bridge,

then that was it, the holiday was over.

Sullen silence along the A38, on the way back towards Oxford and home.

For any Cornishman crossing the Tamar, it's like entering alien territory.

But for the rest of us, it's like re-entering the real world,

from what Betjeman described as the nostalgic land

with the sand in the sandwiches and wasps in the tea.

I've come here to the clean waters of Start Bay in the South Hams.

Why? There's a pub here that serves locally caught fresh fish.

All the locals on the South Devon coast know about it.

Paul Stubbs' hobby is diving for fish and shellfish in the bay

and bringing it back in time for it to be cooked and served for lunch.

A lot of publicans, when they're not in the pub, are off playing golf,

but he prefers to go out into the bay

and catch plaice like this.

I mean, straight out of the sea,

it smells so brilliant.

I'd just like to cook it with some chips. Nothing more!

This is just a small crab, but...

And you use them, I mean,

-do you use everything?

-Oh, we use crab, yeah, we sell a lot of crab.

It must be so satisfying to be selling fish straight out of...

Oh, yeah, it gives me great satisfaction. Yeah, I love it.

Actually, it gave me a lot of satisfaction too.

Freshly-caught skate, fried in light batter

and to eat it outside, in the sunshine,

with the distinctly cool sea breeze, is a definite plus.

A very English thing to do.

Well, I've got some very nice, rosy pink skate wings here

or, more correctly, actually,

these are ray wings,

but we always say skate.

And I'm going to make a warm salad of skate with Moroccan flavours.

It's rather nice.

First of all, just cut the wing

into two to make some nice portions.

I'm going to poach them off in this little court bouillon I've made,

which has got some onion, bay leaf, peppercorns

and a bit of vinegar in it.

So I'll just leave that poaching away very gently

for about ten, 12 minutes

while I make the sauce vierge.

Now, as I was saying, this is Moroccan flavours

and I really like the flavours of Morocco.

By that, I mean things like cumin,

coriander, saffron, chilli,

all mixed together with olive oil.

But I've roasted some red peppers here

and I'm just going to cut them

into very thin slices.

So just slicing that pepper.

Into my pan.

And then, some other flavours.

Well, I've got some mildish chillies

which I've cut into neat little dice.

And next, some saffron,

which I've steeped in a bit of warm water, just to bring the flavour out.

And now, some chopped tomato.

Concasse, we call it.

And then, some garlic, quite a lot into my sauce vierge.

And now, particularly Moroccan flavours.

First of all, some coriander

and then, mint, often serve those two herbs together.

They work together very well.

Juice of half a lemon.

And now, some coriander seed,

like that.

And some cumin, a nice pinch of cumin.

And some extra virgin olive oil.

And finally, some salt.

A good pinch of salt.

And some pepper. And that's it.

Nothing to it.

I'm just going to put that on the cooker

and just bring it very gently up to a heat.

'And the fish should be very lightly poached, in no way overcooked.

'And the sauce vierge,

'the extra virgin olive oil sauce,

'just bring it up to blood heat.

'Then, all the flavours come through.'

I must tell you that it's smelling absolutely lovely at the moment.

And of course, you can't go wrong

with all that colour from the peppers

and tomatoes and chilli,

a little bit of green.

It just looks so appetizing,

it's light and it's very modern.

I'm very pleased with it.

Two great dishes from Rick there.

Right, I've got another kitchen skills masterclass for you now.

I'm going to show you how to fillet and look for the best mackerel.

Now, the idea of filleting a round fish is the same

whatever fish you choose, really.

But you see it more on a mackerel, really,

what you need to look for on a fresh fish.

First of all, smell it if you can do.

It shouldn't smell of fish at all,

but most importantly with mackerel,

they need to be fresh as anything.

And you'll see that.

Now, this one is a UK-caught mackerel, it was caught last week.

This one is a Spanish mackerel.

It was caught about five days ago.

-Look at the difference.

-Right.

Literally, they need to be firm like that.

And also, when you look at it in terms of the eyes,

the eyes on this fresh one

are really, really nice and bright

and the older it gets,

the more they sink and cloud over.

Also, if you can check the gills, look inside - bright, red gills.

That's what we're looking for on a mackerel. Both are still edible,

but ideally, you want to get the really fresh mackerel.

So why is the Spanish one bendy?

-Cos it's older, it's taken it a long time to get here.

-Older!

Right, you need a fresh-as-a-daisy one,

but what you need to do to fillet this.

Now, there's two fillets on a round fish. Four on a flat fish.

We'll explain how to fillet a flat fish later on,

but what you do is you make a little 45-degree cut,

just the other side of the gills.

Turn the knife the other way,

but the knife you use is important.

This is a filleting knife

and it bends like that.

Normal knife, filleting knife.

The filleting knife bends,

which enables you to turn the knife

when you're filleting it.

So you fillet that underneath,

you turn the knife the other way

and carefully, all in one movement,

-don't sort of do a jaggedly cut.

-OK.

You go all in one movement, all the way down.

And the fillet just comes off like that, right?

You do the same on the other side.

45-degree angle.

In, turn the knife the other way

and again, just cut through

and holding the knife

perfectly flat to the board.

OK. I feel like I've just trashed that really good-quality fish.

Well, that's the idea of filleting.

Obviously, we'll move that to one side, but you've got

the little fish there and what you need to do is

just trim this up and to trim this up, we remove the ribcage.

There's a little ribcage of bones in here and you just use the knife.

-Again, use the filleting knife, just underneath.

-OK.

And the ribcage bones just come straight out like that.

It's very simple and you can

also practise on a mackerel,

cos really, when we're at college,

you would practise on this.

-Adam is nodding.

-Yeah.

-Where did you go to college?

I went to college in Bournemouth, actually, down in Bournemouth.

I was on an apprenticeship and they sent me down to Bournemouth...

But you'd always practise on something like a mackerel,

-because they were quite cheap.

-Cheaper...

I always practise my own fish cuts on sardines and mackerel.

So what you do is you just get these bones.

There's a pin bone right throughout the centre,

you can remove these with even a potato peeler,

but you can get fish pliers. Alternatively, you can use

one of those things you pluck your eyebrows out with...

Tweezers. But what you do is you make a little V-cut inside.

There's little bones in the centre there, you can pull them all out.

But by doing this

-and creating a little V-cut...

-Yeah.

..either side, just at an angle,

you can then pull the centre part out.

There's no bones in that fish at all now.

Now, the idea is not to cut through the skin, so a little V-cut again.

Just at an angle.

Turn the fish the other way.

-So it's a three-stage process.

-Yeah, that's it.

-Good.

Just nice and simple,

straight through, bones come out,

and you've got two pieces of filleted mackerel, like that,

and the bones. You don't use these bones for fish stock.

Purely the fact that they're oily fish,

so you'd always use salmon bones

or white fish bones, really.

Not oily fish like tuna or mackerel.

So we just cut these up into pieces,

cos I'm going to cook that with some beetroot, some pickled shallots

and just do a nice little salad with it, with croutons and a little

beetroot dressing, but there's your little pieces of beetroot.

Little pieces of mackerel.

I'll wash my hands...

-I'm a big fan of mackerel.

-Sorry?

-I'm a big fan of mackerel.

-Are you?

-That's good.

-I have a lot in my household.

-It's a good job, cos I'm cooking it. There you go.

-First of all, congratulations to you on your new job!

-Oh, thank you!

-Waterloo Road.

-Yeah.

-Tell us about that then, exciting.

It's in the eighth series at the moment,

so hugely popular show and it must be great to come out

of something like Holby and go straight into this job. Lucky!

It was amazing, yeah, yeah.

I'm really, really grateful still.

So it's six months I did last year.

Yeah.

I'm about to start the next series. But it's so different to Holby.

So what's different about it then, the hours or...?

Um...the hours are pretty much the same.

I'm going to have to move to Manchester for six months,

which was scary, I've never lived kind of away from London,

really, since...in my adult life.

And so, that was quite scary...

They've got air and stuff like that, you know, up north!

We've got shops as well if you go out, it's brilliant!

-Loads of shops in Manchester.

-Yeah.

-But it's quite different and the food is very different.

-Yeah.

-Catering, I mean, we had pie every day.

-Sounds good to me, exactly!

Not my favourite. But yeah, it's just a great job, great job!

Great crew, great cast.

You know, it must be quiet daunting to take on a role in a popular show

or is that something that you're kind of used to

-doing something like Holby. Good grounding, I suppose.

-Um, yeah.

It was and she's such a different character to Donna

that I was playing in Holby City and that's kind of why I took the role,

because it was something so opposite, if that's the right way to say it.

And I love it, I love playing something different for now.

Cos literally, you came into the role in Holby City

-straight from acting college, didn't you?

-Yeah, I did...

-Is that?

-It must be quite unusual though, isn't it, really?

-Yeah.

It was quite unusual.

You know, I was just so grateful,

and so grateful then to go into Waterloo Road.

It's been an amazing journey so far.

It must be quite difficult,

otherwise, you're just portrayed as that kind of role.

So it's good to do it in a way,

but then good to get out of it, don't you think?

Yeah, I could have stayed at Holby.

I was so happy there, it was like home.

I knew everyone, I loved everyone.

You met knew people because you had so many guests coming through.

It was brilliant but, like you say, I didn't want to get typecast

I didn't want to turn around and be 45 and think, "I'm still here and I've never done anything different."

Cos you had a thing where you're superstitious - you never put anything personal

in your dressing room. Cos you didn't figure you'd last that long, is that right?

Yeah, I did. How did you find that out?

Oh, we know more about you than we know about me!

Yeah, even after seven years,

I wouldn't put anything in my dressing room.

You know, people had pictures, people had throws,

people had sofas brought in, a telly.

But I wouldn't do anything, because I kept thinking, "They're going

"to call me into the office and say, 'Sorry, it's not working out.'"

-Thanks, but no, thanks.

-Yeah, thanks but no, thanks.

So for so many years, I never had anything. It was bare and barren.

When you were a kid, you were good at everything.

What's this, singer as well?

Because you are quite an accomplished singer, mezzo-soprano?

Yes, I used to sing quite a lot and that is kind of what I studied

and what I trained in and stuff,

so that was fun, and then I just ended up not doing it

because I got a role in Holby and I thought, "This is great."

I was having so much fun, I just, like I say,

I didn't really want to branch out before now.

Looking at your list of achievements,

we've got two things in common.

-One of which is Strictly, of course, because you did that.

-Yes, with you.

Out the second week, I got through to the semifinal.

SHE LAUGHS

-I'll just take that one.

-I can trump you on that one.

-How long ago was that?

-Another thing in common, we were both gymnasts.

A long time ago. When did you stop gymnasting?

I actually wasn't a gymnast, can't you tell?

Do you remember those rings they used to have at school?

I used to stand there like this, like an orang-utan from a zoo,

but stuck there. They used to leave me up there.

-I think it is the hardest, hardest sport in the world.

-Do you?

I was always quite flexible and quite fearless, so I would go for it.

That I am definitely not, I don't think.

I'll just run through what I've got in here. I've got my mackerel

cooking away nicely, just gently cooking away.

Now, obviously, most fish swim a lot, well,

all of them do to be honest, but mackerel in particular is a prey,

so because of that, it swims more than a lot of other fish,

shoal fish, to get away from the others, and because of that,

when you put it in the pan it curls up,

because it is quite muscular is mackerel.

What you need to do is just press it down when you pan-fry it.

We're just going to lightly cook it like that.

I made a dressing here out of beetroot,

a little bit of white wine vinegar,

some olive oil and some Dijon mustard.

It just gets blended, passed through a sieve.

Pickle shallots we've got there, some chopped beetroot as well.

I'm just going to dress it all up with some croutons

and some inside of some celery leaves as well.

Are these home-made croutons?

Well, not home-baked bread but, yes, fried croutons. Is that good enough?

I know you are a bit of a keen baker as well.

Yes, I love baking. It's a nice, relaxing pastime I think.

Looking at your list of achievements,

theatre was another thing you had a go at as well.

Is that something you want to pursue at some point after this TV thing?

Yes, I would love to do theatre, definitely.

I used to do it a lot, solidly, and I do miss it.

-That kind of live feeling is amazing.

-There you go.

-Well, you can come and do this show when I am off.

-All right.

I'll do a baking version.

We've just got our mackerel here and we're going to pop that on.

You've made it look quite posh.

It's because all these fancy chefs are here, you see.

I have to do something. At home, I'd just serve this with chips.

-Well, you are from the North.

-Exactly.

-Kidding!

I learnt a great salad the other day, a Glasgow salad.

-What is that, baked beans on toast?

-A plate of chips. Fantastic.

Well, the show is moving to Glasgow. I'm really scared.

It's amazing, I love Glasgow.

And you go along the coast, up the north part of Scotland,

from there it is just beautiful. Beautiful shellfish all the way up

there as well. The west coast of Scotland. Delicious.

I just went to the Highlands for the first time.

Celery over there, a bit of watercress.

Just going to pop this on there.

We can see the new series of Waterloo Road, which I believe

-comes out on 22nd February.

-This is what you are telling me.

I did not know that until about five minutes ago.

Somebody is telling me in my ear.

-That's good. I'm so excited.

-And there we have it.

-You have your nice little sort of...

-Easy on the oil. Easy.

From the North. Like, what is going on?

If you're going up North it's dripping they put on there, love.

-There you go. It's olive oil.

-Thank you.

-Dive into that one.

That's quite a lot of oil. I love a pickled anything.

-You've got little pickled shallots to go with it as well.

-Lovely.

Please don't get the bones.

Hopefully they shouldn't be left in there.

-Will it make your breath smell for three days?

-Possibly, yes.

-That's lovely.

-It is nice. A nice and quick dish.

And that's a great light lunch

if you are steering clear of a Sunday roast today.

If you would like to try that mackerel dish or

try your hands at cooking any of the food you've seen on today's show,

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

We're not live today, so instead we're looking back at some of the

great cooking from the Saturday Kitchen archives

and now it is time for a salad and not just any salad. A decadent one,

Richard Corrigan style.

Great to have you on the show.

-I was like a horse trying to get out of the stables.

-You were bolting.

Now is your opportunity. What are we cooking first of all?

First of all, we are going to cook roast suckling pig with

fried oysters, watercress, a little bit of wild garlic,

-honey and black pepper with some of the pan juices.

-OK.

We're going to get straight on. This is suckling pig.

You're using the fat from this.

This is how to make good crackling on this.

Yes. Very important,

just put it into the pot, cover it with water,

a couple of carrots, celery,

leek, thyme and just cook it for three hours.

Then take it out when it goes soft.

-Let it go dry.

-That's about two, three hours?

-Three hours.

Let it go dry and then put it on a trivet, a little bit of metal,

-into the oven...

-And then roast it.

-For around half an hour.

But if you wanted, once you have boiled it,

you could actually freeze it before you roast it?

If there's too much of it, you can put it in the freezer.

Just a bit of clingfilm, put it in the freezer and off you go.

-There you go.

-Thanks, James.

Without being too gruesome, explain to us what suckling pig is.

Suckling pig, in this case, is a 5kg baby pig. It sounds awful.

It comes from a wonderful farm, from friends of mine in Tipperary,

an organic farm. They are wonderful chaps called TJ Crowe.

You know the great pork movement that has happened in Britain overall

is just starting in Ireland with a couple of farms,

so we are a bit slow on the take, but certainly following the great lead

-what has happened here.

-But if you can't get the suckling pig,

what cut of meat could you use instead?

You could use a piece of beef or something.

Beef and oysters would be lovely.

There you go. But like you're saying,

that mixture of meat and oysters is a classic way of cooking.

I think it is very, very classic, James.

What you want is that in there for three hours.

Very important just to get...

-This is the reduction. This is the dressing for it.

-Cider.

-Is that a dry cider?

-Dry cider. Some vinegar.

-Just white wine vinegar?

Yes, white wine vinegar.

Let that cook down nearly totally, just honey and mustard.

And we've got this one, which is reducing down nicely.

Just goes in the oven for 20 minutes and at least 20 minutes resting.

OK. Straight in there.

Tell us about your restaurant then,

because we're going to move onto oysters. I mean, Bentley's -

it's kind of like an institution really, isn't it?

Bentley's is an institution.

For people who don't know where it is, Piccadilly area...

We have one in Piccadilly and one on St Stephen's Green

in Dublin, which we opened last year in the midst of the recession

and it just shows you, people like to eat simple, fresh seafood.

And what is the secret of oysters then?

Tell us about the secret of oysters, because you sell how many a week?

Up to 10,000 a week on the busy times of the year.

-And I know you like oysters.

-Love them.

There is nobody, only Bentley's that would serve that amount of oysters.

So oysters fried. I will take that out of the way.

But when you are looking at oysters, they've got numbers on them as well.

Those numbers relate to sizes.

What would be the one that people should look for?

I really think the wild oysters are the ones, twos and threes.

We use a lot of twos in Bentley's. The ones are delicious.

-The ones are the bigger ones.

-Around 150g.

The twos are 125g and I just think the threes,

if you are a real foodie,

the word three in the oyster, the number three,

at least 24 of them, I just feel so good. So, a little bit of the garlic.

What you could make is a little bit of dressing, James.

This is the wild garlic shoots. Just starting to come in season these.

Yes, these are from Cornwall.

OK. What I'm doing in here, James, is the pan that I've rested

the pork in... the reduction.

What have we got in there? How long does this take to cook again?

20 minutes and rested for another 15.

Right. And then we've got the juices from the pan in there.

What I could put in there is a little bit of honey, James,

and a little bit of this one here.

-OK.

-Just to sweeten it up a bit.

-And a little bit of black pepper as well.

There you go. Are you following this?

-I'm just going to put the oysters on that.

-So, just deglazing that.

-The oysters don't take very long.

-Just pan fry them really quickly.

What we need to do is get the dressing.

The dressing is a really important part of this. It's just the juices.

-Sweet and sour. There's a piece of lime in here as well.

-Yeah.

Where does the inspiration for this come from then?

I got the inspiration from a very old English cookbook,

I think it was from the late 1600s,

about a kind of a mutton sausage and an oyster, and I thought,

"Oysters and meat, why not?"

Oysters have been used as a seasoning from Roman times.

-They used to be like a free food, didn't they?

-Yes.

So that is your crackling. Just remind everybody.

Comes out of there.

If you want to freeze it, you can freeze it as it is.

-Alternatively, pat it dry.

-I'll take a little bit. Take it out like that,

let it go dry, onto a trivet, in the oven for half an hour.

-The perfect crackling.

-That's reducing down.

A nice little glaze there.

-A little bit of lime.

-And then the pork.

The suckling pig is just...

When people buy suckling pigs, they can often be quite expensive,

-whole suckling pigs.

-I am lucky.

I get this exactly straight from the farm, otherwise, it can be up

to £95 for at least a 7-8 kilo pig, which is very, very expensive indeed.

And on there. And the oysters, James, on the top.

That is just cooked through and the salad, James,

-you could just put a little bit on there.

-I will leave that with you.

-Thank you very much. OK.

-A nice little bit of peppery watercress.

And then the dressing. Just the juices, the vinegar, the honey.

It's nice to see you cook meat, because so often it's

fish, fish, fish with you.

But I think suckling pig and oyster as well, there is

-something kind of vaguely, "Hmm, I wonder does it work?"

-Exactly.

Well, we will soon find out. Remind us what that is again.

Roast suckling pig with English fried oysters and a watercress salad.

It's as easy as that.

There you go. Don't forget the crackling. Crackling over the top.

-The crackling on the salad, yes.

-Right. I will bring it over.

-Do you want to put a bit more on?

-Yes. Lovely.

-You join us over here.

-Max, you get to dive into this.

-Do I?

This is a different breakfast that you are not used to.

-Oysters and suckling pig, but dive in.

-Right.

I am still trying to get my head round the speed

that you opened those oysters.

-Incredible.

-They were open already.

Never seen anything like it.

Yes, when you go to the restaurant, it is fantastic.

The great thing about a great oyster bar, anyone's great oyster bar

is the oyster barmen only open the oyster.

Chefs do not come near opening the oysters.

It's also important, when you buy an oyster from a restaurant, you go to

one selling a lot because that way you get the fresh ones coming in.

And not only that, the oyster farms that supply us

from Helford, Colchester to Maldon to Galway Bay,

they handpick our oysters because we sell so many.

They handpick everything before they send them to us.

-Is anyone else having a go on this?

-They are supposed to be, yes.

What do you reckon to the mixture of meat and oysters? It is old school.

I do apologise. I'm very, very apologetic.

It's interesting. I have never eaten a cooked oyster before and I dig it.

I really like that texture and I like the vibe there,

but that is a great little melee of taste coming through there.

Absolutely sensational.

If you couldn't get suckling pig, you could use...

A piece of beef, a piece of sirloin, a piece of fillet,

same way with the fried oysters. Beef and oysters is a classic.

And with the watercress as well. What do you reckon, guys?

That's lovely. Absolutely gorgeous.

Dig it, Max? I can't believe you haven't had a cooked oyster before.

Now it is time for a classic piece of the great man

Keith Floyd On Food.

Today, he is in a rather blustery looking Cornwall.

Well, if you think I'm going to stay here and talk about pilchards,

you must be out of your tiny minds. This is absolute madness.

So I'm going to hitch a ride with my mate Enzo who is a pilchard expert

and talk about it in the comfort of his little bar or kitchen, we'll see.

Why, whenever we come to Cornwall,

and this whole programme is in Cornwall, does it always blow a gale?

You might have gathered that my director has to throw a six before

he starts thinking, especially when it comes to pilchards.

You'll remember the debacle of the last time we tried to find them.

Anyway, apart from the weather,

he has got his act together so here we go, pilchards mark two.

How are you? Sorry we missed you on the quay.

Well, in this sort of weather, I didn't stay very long.

-Pilchards.

-Right.

-Did you find any?

-No, of course we didn't.

-No?

-The last time we went out with some Cornish dogs you see,

old sea dogs, we caught three, that was all and they said,

"We catch tons of them," but I haven't seen any.

Well, they come and they go.

The only way really to keep pilchards is to have them salted

and this is how we do them in Cornwall.

Don't they look beautiful?

This is exactly the same way they have been done for the last,

just over 100 years.

The fish are salted and then pressed to get the oil out.

We had a lady in the shop last week,

said everybody knew how to do pilchards.

-There it is salted.

-How many of you know how to do pilchards?

-They don't, do they?

-That's it. This is one way of doing it.

You take the head off, you just take the gut out...

These are preserved with the gut in them.

You must notice that, my dear gastronauts.

It might upset you but that is what is happening.

It's a salted fish, very similar in taste to an anchovy.

You just wrap it up in tinfoil and put it in the embers of your fire.

Richard, come to me, come to me.

Because we've heard from Nick all about that kind of thing,

but how would we eat them, how do we prepare them?

I want to introduce you to my friend Enzo. You saw his van earlier today.

This is Enzo. Thanks for letting us come here, and cheers by the way,

-because it's nice to meet you.

-Nice to meet you.

Tell me about what you do with pilchards.

The Naples way, what we do is soak them in vinegar.

-For a couple of days.

-These are Nick's salted ones, aren't they?

Yes, we don't do them in Italy.

And we prepare them in a couple of days...

We prepare them as an hors d'oeuvre.

And you can mix them with anything you want, with potatoes,

haricot beans, artichokes, and make a nice hors d'oeuvre.

Years ago, in my father's time, when there was no television,

people used to play cards

and in the middle of the table they would have pilchards or sardines,

things like this, with a little glass of red wine to go with it.

Of course, again, you wouldn't drink a delicate white wine with

a delicate fish like this, you want a rumbustuous,

and this Barbaresco is absolutely splendid.

It's a good one, yes.

But antipasto, let me explain,

antipasto, of which this is one kind, there are many, many others.

If you want to come over here, you can see some of the things

that Enzo has prepared for us by way of hors d'oeuvres.

By way of antipasto.

Those are sardines, fried.

And they we do a sauce with garlic, mint and vinegar.

A little bit of black pepper. And you serve them cold.

They look absolutely fantastic.

Richard, look at this, this is brilliant.

Mm!

Garlic, mint, lemon juice and vinegar and oil into a fried sardine,

which at 4.5 inches becomes a pilchard.

Didn't know that, did you?

-Bring on the next one. What have you got next?

-Peppers, pepperonata.

-Here's one for the vegetarians.

-Yes, they arrive. Peppers.

Cooked with onions, garlic, black olives and bit of parsley.

And a bit of oregano, just a touch of oregano.

That, my dear gastronauts,

should satisfy all of those of you who are vegetarians.

Why have a pile of brown rice or stale spaghetti

when you can have super-duper peppers cooked that way.

That's absolutely brilliant, sunshine dish, the sunshine dish.

-Would you like to try some octopus?

-I would, I love octopus.

That's octopus, they've got to be boiled.

-And when you boil them, you put a cork in it.

-You put a cork in it?

Yes. I don't know if it's superstition or something,

I never try different because my mama told me to do it like this.

For the first 25 minutes, you don't take the lid off the saucepan.

Because they get tough. It's got to be for 25 minutes like that.

Brilliant, now, superstition, or because it's the way Mama told me to do it,

you must do it, boil your octopus with a lid on it with a cork inside.

The essential.

Then you strain it and make a wonderful dressing of peppers,

lemon juice, parsley and garlic.

And boy, oh boy, isn't this fun?

I tell you the other thing. Richard, come back down to my plate.

I have mixed my fish and peppers and my octopus

and the essential thing is a piece of bread to dip up the sauces with.

Because, you know, come back to me, my dear.

One of the things that I find really sad about English cooking is

we spend more time on our place settings and our elegant crystal

and our fine decanters than we do on what's actually on the plate.

So this is the way to eat, my friends.

I hope you are enjoying it like we are.

Pilchards, fried mullet.

And some prawns.

I usually finish the dress with a sauce.

As I said, it's all garlic, vinegar, parsley and mint.

And it's absolutely ready for you to try, Keith.

-Enzo, Enzo, Enzo. That is fantastic. Thank you.

-Use your finger.

-I will, I will.

-Because people have spent too much time

I think with a knife and fork.

Prawns should be eaten with the finger.

Actually it's quite true. This is how you eat a prawn.

You rip off the head. Even though it's burning my little

artist's fingers, peel off the skin...

-I don't feel anything.

-You feel no pain?

-No.

-There's no pain in good fun is there?

Beautiful.

-Here.

-Thank you. One thing. That's a beautiful dish.

No question about it.

Do people in your restaurant react properly to that?

-Do they get frightened about heads and things?

-All the time.

All the time. Head off, tail off, they make so much fuss,

instead of just sit down and enjoy themselves.

When my mum was here last month

she saw somebody eating king prawns with a knife and fork.

She was going mad. She said, "What are they doing?

They should eat with their finger." Like mussels.

They try not to get dirty their T-shirt or their tie. Stupid.

People should make noise and be rude. That's the way to enjoy food.

Not to look elegant. I personally think so.

You are so right. Listen, step out of the way.

Let's have a look at these other brilliant things that we've got here.

Enzo, talk me through these. Tell me

-what these are made of.

-This is aubergine.

I peel them, then fry and slice.

When they are cold I put some ham and mozzarella cheese.

Which is that. That's the mozzarella cheese. There's the ham underneath.

Yes. Tomato sauce and Parmesan cheese on top.

And then bake it again until the cheese is melted.

And this is courgette. The stuffing

is as they do in Naples, the cannelloni.

Instead of using pasta I use courgette.

It looks more interesting.

The stuffing is, you saute the onions, then you put mincemeat in it, white wine,

salt and pepper, then you mix with cheese, mozzarella, Cheddar, Parmesan.

Then you stuff the courgette and you bake it again. It's very good.

-Sorry about that.

-Bye.

-If the pictures don't tell you, I can't.

MUSIC PLAYS

And here's another one of me having a bracing stroll along the cliffs

to clear my head before meeting restaurateur Ann Long.

Actually I don't like walking.

They make me do it to satisfy the director's obsession with tin

mines and landscapes.

I reckon he thinks he's David Lean.

# The King was in his counting house Counting out the money

# I am in the kitchen... #

Yes. As a matter of fact, hello, I am in a counting house.

I am the Count House at Botallack right on the edge of Cornwall with

the sea over there and the wind blowing us all over the place.

Today I'm going to cook you a rabbit,

because my director tells me,

and I don't believe everything he says, but he

says all tin miners used to eat rabbits in the olden days.

But we don't eat them anymore and that's a great shame

because they are a cheap and economical and quite delicious thing.

So, Richard, if you'd like to come down,

to my ingredients, I'll explain what we're going to have.

First of all we need some chopped fatty bacon,

some finely diced carrot.

Ha-ha! that's not carrot is it? That's onion.

Never mind. It doesn't matter. We all make mistakes like that.

Anyway, if you can't tell the difference between onion

and carrots switch over to Sesame Street or back to Crossroads or whatever you were up to.

If you are interested,

rabbit, then a bay leaf, fresh rosemary, chervil, and some thyme.

Some prunes, which we've had soaking in white wine,

but you could soak them in tea or water if you wanted to.

We're going to need a drop of cognac later and a bit of white wine for cooking in.

Then I've rolled up some butter

and flour later for thickening the sauce.

Parsley, tomato puree, finely chopped garlic,

and the liver and heart from the rabbit which we'll put into the sauce.

OK, Richard, come on over and we'll gets things going a little bit.

This is the pan it's all going to go in.

With a quick slurp here and a quick slurp there.

In we get the bacon. Maximise the speed of the gas.

That's all right. In with the onions. In with the carrot.

In a few moments those will start to bubble away.

They're not going to, are they? Sorry about that.

Bit of a slow take off there. I wasn't up to frying speed.

Anyway, we are now. Everything is going fine.

As you can see it's bubbling nicely away, turning golden.

It's at this stage... Ow! I've burnt myself.

That will delight you! We put the rabbit in like this...

..into the oil and bacon and bits of onion. Stay there please, Richard.

A quick grind of pepper over all of that.

Like so.

Brown these off very quickly. And then

because this is the slightly fun way of doing things

in we go with a... There we are. Hurrah!

In with the garlic.

In with our bay leaf, a little bit of rosemary, a little bit of thyme.

And a little bit of chervil. Doesn't that look really attractive?

A little bit of parsley. In with our prunes.

Like that. Drop of white wine.

SIZZLING

I hope you can hear me above all this fizzling and fuzzling. A little bit of white wine.

A tiny bit of tomato puree. Stir that in.

Like so.

Then a tiny pinch of salt into the sauce.

Our rabbit's liver to give it the stock flavour.

And we now just let that simmer gently away

turning from time to time. Richard, come back,

I think they've seen enough of that. I haven't got all day.

Let that simmer gently now for about 35 minutes.

Every now and again turn the rabbit over.

I'm going for a walk out in the countryside.

Actually, I'm going to the pub for a quick one.

You're going for a walk round the countryside or whatever these whimsical directors dream up for you.

It will probably be a jog across the moor for all I know. I'll see you in a while.

MUSIC PLAYS

A lot of you think I have a fantastically good time just

drifting around the South West of England cooking, eating

and drinking and stuff like that.

Sometimes I can't think of what to say and today is one of those things.

I don't really know how to introduce this rabbit which I've cooked.

I know it's cooked properly. I know it's delicious.

I'm a bit worried that my friend Ann here,

halfway through the cooking told me, "I don't like meat with bones on."

-I don't know how I'm going to get over that. Ann.

-Yes.

-Never mind all of that.

Would you please try it despite the fact that you are a bit

worried about the bones.

I know your style of cooking is much more refined

than my style of cooking, isn't it?

Not any better though.

What are you doing after the show?

Tell me a bit about the way you like to cook.

I really find bones very irritating.

I think that reflects in all of my cooking and so I would tend...

-Mind you that looks beautiful.

-Thank you.

-Very nice indeed.

I would tend to bone a rabbit and then cook it

and then slice it so that you have a stuffing

-with the skin all round it.

-I must say I agree with you,

but you are a professional and dedicated cook.

A lot of people don't have time for what

they think is that prissy approach to things.

And I would... How would you say about the fact that it would be better

that they made use of simple ingredients like rabbit at least...?

The difference is that that is superb,

but people are paying to come and eat my food

and so therefore I feel that I owe it to people to present it

and spend a lot of time on cooking it and preparing it.

A lot of kids... One of the funny things about the Floyd programmes is

we have attracted the attention of children.

I mean children from seven years old to young college students

who are really desperately enthusiastic about cooking

and eating, but it seems to me

they're not going to have a lot of chance in getting to open

-their own restaurant, because nobody is really encouraging them.

-Oh.

-What can we do for kids?

I think today you ought to encourage youngsters to help.

I've been onto the Master Chefs Association and they are trying

to encourage youngsters to come and learn to cook in kitchens.

I would like to go and cook in famous chefs' kitchens.

I'm sure that anybody that really enjoys cooking,

they would love to show youngsters how to do things.

I think that I get so enthusiastic about it

that I would love somebody to come and bang on the door,

and then you would show them all about it.

-I haven't got a deep freeze full of...

-Oh?! Hooray to that!

A lot of you could take a lesson from that, OK?

This place is in the middle of nowhere.

In fact, it's only halfway in the middle of nowhere

cos the rest of it doesn't exist. She hasn't got a deep freeze.

-Too many people live out of the deep freeze.

-I think so.

And they make too much use of microwaves.

-And you've got...

-That's my advertising contract gone!

Never mind.

LAUGHTER

It's so wonderful to see the great Keith Floyd there.

We're not cooking live in the studio today.

Instead, we're looking back at some of the great cooking

from the Saturday Kitchen larder.

Still to come,

Toby Tobin and Matt Tebbutt were neck and neck

at the omelette challenge leaderboard,

so the tension was hotting up when they faced each other

in the ultimate culinary battle.

Find out how they both did a little later on.

And Rachel Allen keeps us warm with a really rustic Irish treat.

She makes homemade pork sausages,

colcannon and apple sauce.

And David Haig faced his food heaven or food hell.

Would he get his food heaven - venison, with my smoked

roasted loin of venison with beetroot tarte Tatin -

or his dreaded food hell - cauliflower,

with a hearty cream of cauliflower soup

with parsley and apple gnocchi, apple puree and apple crisps?

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

Now, Mark Sergeant brings us a little Far Eastern sunshine

all the way from Folkestone.

Welcome back. On the menu, we've got squid

with a little spice to it.

Yeah, lovely, cos this is really good.

It's quite a light dish,

but you wouldn't think of having this at this time of year.

Squid's one of these things you can get all around the UK.

-It's inexpensive.

-And sustainable,

which is a big thing at the moment.

So we're going to serve that with a citrus dressing,

so I'll clean these out quickly. If you could just zest

all of those citrus fruits, and I want the juice from half of those.

OK. I can do all that.

Thank you very much.

-Can you eat squid's eyes?

-I wouldn't but you probably can.

Cos they're big, aren't they?

-Would you like to try?

-Show people how you prepared that

because there's a beak in there.

Yeah, you pull that out, and it brings out most of the guts

and you've got this little blade which, as I'm on television,

is not going to come out perfectly in one go.

So that blade just slides out.

I often wonder if you could dry that and do something with it. Like write

-or a knife, yeah.

-I'm thinking of all the people switching on the TV

with a hangover looking at this.

-But you just cut it where the tentacles...

-Just below the eyes.

I'm not really a big fan of the tentacles,

but I put them on because I know people do like them.

Yeah.

Now, you can get different sizes.

I've seen the tiny little baby squid.

-What are they called? Chi...

-When you go to Asia, they deep-fry them.

They deep-fry them whole.

-Would you go for the medium size or the large?

-Medium size is perfect.

It'll give two per portion.

It's really important you get some of the insides out.

It's fresh fish. If there's a little bit left inside,

it's not the end of the world.

-And you put it in water to get rid of the ink?

-Exactly.

These aren't very inky - well, that one is -

but you can save the ink, put it into risottos

or pasta, or thicken sauces with it.

Anything like that.

-So I'll just give those a nice wash...

-Could you write with it?

-Sorry?

-Could you put it in a pen?

You can make a pen out of the little plastic thing

and then write with the ink.

-Have you ever tried that?

-No.

-Why not write your menu out...

-in squid ink?

-In squid ink, yeah.

-So you're washing it and then...

-Get it really nice and dry.

Just get right into there...

Because we're going to grill them.

We don't put oil on the griddle.

We'll put these into a bowl

and put the oil in the bowl with the salt and pepper

-and then give them a nice griddle.

-Tell us about the restaurant.

-You are right on the coast.

-We are, yeah.

It's a pretty stunning location.

Folkestone's definitely on the up...

in terms of the building work that's going on down there.

The regeneration of the harbour is pretty amazing.

So we're very luck to be kind of the first part of the jigsaw puzzle.

But the boats literally come...

Right underneath the restaurant.

Pretty much.

We had to have these big wooden pillars put up in case...

The tide gets a bit rough and the boats smash into the restaurant.

That's how close they are. Quite incredible.

-So you want...

-Excellent, thank you. Thank you very much.

Right, so we put the squid tentacles in there

and then a little trick, something we do at the restaurant...

We do this two ways, actually.

At the moment we've got this on as "salt and pepper squid",

but with exactly the same dressing,

and this is something we do back in the summer.

We get a wooden spoon or something that fits...

Thank you, sir.

Slide that in all the way through,

and that stops you cutting all the way through,

so then you can just cut down

so it's going to be similar to a concertina.

-The idea is to keep the squid whole?

-Keep the squid whole.

It helps it cook quicker as well,

because, obviously, the heat gets in.

Also, as you see, we're going to put the squid, once it's cooked,

hot, into that marinade, so it absorbs all that dressing

and it'll flood into the centre.

So just on the one side?

Just the one side, yeah. Through again.

Now, the preparation of this is the opposite to octopus.

-Yeah.

-You cook it for a lot longer.

The fantastic thing about this is, you can cook it two ways -

slowly or quickly - that's it.

It can be like a rubber band.

My chefs, when we first opened,

a whole group of new people,

squid was the hardest thing for them to get right,

because 10, 15 seconds over, that's it, it's like a rubber band.

-You use quite a bit of squid?

-Yes,

-either grilled or cooked in the tandoor as well.

-It's lovely.

Beautiful.

It's one of those things, it's very Mediterranean,

no-one really eats squid here and yet, as soon as they go on holiday,

they have calamari with garlic mayonnaise, or something.

-I like it raw.

-Beautiful raw. Like a ceviche.

Actually, you can put that sliced raw into here.

-Shall we just do that?!

-In here, we've got the ginger,

-your grating the ginger, not chopping it.

-Yeah, grating it,

cos you get all the juice from there.

-It's the only bit of ginger left in London.

-For the next recipe(?)

-You're about to see, when he starts cooking, over there.

-It's all good.

I'll get our tentacles on there, as well.

You can put this in a frying pan. A hot non-stick frying pan.

-James, you're being very helpful today.

-I'm trying.

-So, seriously hot grill?

-Yeah, very hot grill.

-And just leave it?

-Yeah.

I've got the zest of the lemon, orange and lime.

The ginger's gone in there.

The juice of half of each.

And I'm going to do a whole chilli.

-A bit of sugar.

-Just with the chilli,

a little tip - and I leave the seeds in as well -

cos I like it nice and spicy,

-but it's horses for courses.

-Yeah.

-Do whatever you fancy.

Right, for the chilli, a good little tip

is leave it whole,

leave the green top on,

and slice down

and then down again,

so that's kind of holding it together

so you haven't got to fiddle around,

then if you want to get it smaller,

you just go through the individual layers, like that,

so then, when you dice it, it all holds together nicely,

and you can whizz through and you get this nice diced chilli.

You got that from Delia.

You're getting much better at doing that now, James, aren't you?

I can do it without looking.

-So we've got mint and coriander going in.

-Two of my favourite herbs.

I don't understand why people don't like coriander.

It's one of the nicest flavours going.

-Atul uses a lot of that, and mint.

-Yeah.

They're really lovely. You can grow them inside.

-Or ask Vic.

-I've had trouble growing them outside.

-They tend to...

-Frost?

-They get big and stalky.

-Oh, right.

And then get feathery, wispery bits at the end.

-You've got to use that for oil, then.

-Mint you have to grow in a pot.

Should I contain it?

-Yeah, contain it, cos it grows everywhere.