Episode 142 Saturday Kitchen Best Bites

Good morning. You're in the perfect place for first class cooking.

This is Saturday Kitchen Best Bites.

Welcome to the show.

Don't go anywhere for the next 90 minutes because

there's loads of great food, chefs and celebrities on the programme.

Coming up on today's show,

Hairy Biker Si King demonstrates his cheffy side, he flambes langoustines

in a whisky sauce and serves them with a dill and potato cake,

a micro salad with a citrus dressing. Very fancy.

Atul Kochhar creates a delicious wild mushroom and sweetcorn biryani.

He serves the amazing dish with a blackberry raita

and sauteed wild mushrooms.

And we get all Spanish with Jose Pizarro as he cooks up

probably the best tapas we've ever had in the Saturday Kitchen studio.

He deep-fries chicken wings with some chilli and garlic

and serves it with the best ham in the world with peas and egg.

And Blur band member Alex James faced his Food Heaven or Food Hell.

Would he get his Food Heaven - artichokes? With my artichoke

and three cheese pizza made with his very own home-made cheese.

Or would he get his dreaded Food Hell - rice?

With my version of a Moroccan spiced rice-coated chicken

and a preserved lemon salad.

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

But first Adam Byatt is here to tell us exactly why

we should all get very excited about the glorious 12th August.

Well, we might be, but grouse might not.

-Great to have you back.

-Thanks, James.

Something seasonal as well, very, very seasonal.

People have been talking about this quite a lot.

Grouse, 12th August, they're in.

For me I wait a couple of weeks and I give it until September.

For me I think they're better in September.

These are wild grouse, you know, they cost a pretty penny

so they need to be treated properly.

The gamekeeper said that because the fat ones get shot first.

-Possibly right, yeah.

-And then the quick ones get shot later.

I mean, the glorious 12th, of course, is the season.

-Yeah.

-Great flavour but actually these are quite expensive,

these little fellas.

They are a lot of money but these are a really distinctive flavour.

People say game is really gamey and it's not generic, you know?

Grouse has a really distinctive flavour of its own.

What's going with it, then?

We're going to do it with some blackberries. It's no big surprise

that blackberries go great with grouse

because that's the time of year.

They eat the blackberries in the hedgerows and that's what they...

-So they work really well with blackberries.

-OK.

Put a little bit of bacon over the top

and all that does is help keep it nice and moist actually.

It's often done a lot with game birds, little bit of bacon on.

Yeah, it just keeps the bird really moist which is important.

So we tie the legs up like that.

The reason I'm tying it is not just because it's sort of fancy

but the reason we tie it is to create and make sure that it's

as thick at the leg end as it is at the breast end

so the whole thing is more even, more even cooking.

-Cooks evenly.

-That's right, yeah.

That's it, slice the shallots for me, going to cook with them.

Adam, you could also probably infuse the grouse with heather.

Yeah, you could put some heather inside, fresh thyme, yeah.

That'll be on Trinity's Restaurant later.

He's recorded that one, got that one.

Any more ideas? We need a dessert.

I like that.

So we've got the coriander salt going on, so I like that too.

That's it.

Put oil in a nice, hot pan.

Season the bird inside as well, really important,

inside and out, all over.

Season there. You just want to...

-On the leg side first, get it in there, push it down.

-Yeah.

-Push the legs down like that. Let's get rid of all this.

-There you go.

Now you want me to separate the egg whites, do you?

Yes, please, because what we're going to do...

-This is quite a...

-This is a very, well, it's not...

I say it's a cheffy thing but it's often done a lot with fish.

We've done it on the show before.

Yeah, fish and we've just taken it, adapted it to vegetable really.

Celeriac is a fantastic vegetable.

People can get a little bit lost with the celeriac, I find,

but it's a fantastic vegetable to serve all year round,

roasted, mashed.

It's great raw, isn't it? Celeriac remoulade being the most famous.

We make a great celeriac coleslaw.

-Yep.

-And this is just a little bit different.

This is a salt-baked celeriac.

So we all we do is take some egg white, straight egg white,

chopped rosemary.

Can you chop that a little bit finer for me?

-It's been a while, hasn't it, James?

-It's been a while.

Some salt in there. Lots of salt. Just your normal table salt.

-Is that fine enough?

-A little spatula.

That's beautiful, yeah, that'll do.

-There you go.

-That's it.

And we just mix that together.

It ends up a bit like wet sand, to be honest,

bit like that sort of thing so we just mix that together.

Now your restaurant itself,

anybody that's not heard of it, Clapham Common?

That's right, in the old town in Clapham there, yeah.

Lunch turns into dinner, would that be right?

-Or changes, the restaurant sort of changes.

-Eh?

Well, you know what I mean? I've been there, it's like lighter

and then in the evening it's more formal.

Yeah, but we have a lunch menu that's...

-You know, a lighter, simpler lunch menu, yeah.

-Yep.

Then in the evening we run a straight a la carte menu and tasting menus.

So this goes in the oven yet or not? Oh, you've got the blackberries.

-Just a couple of minutes first.

-OK.

-That's it.

I'll take the one out of the oven

but you've mixed that together with a paste, yeah?

Into a little paste and what we do, over the top of the whole celeriac,

it looks like a lot of salt, but all this is going to turn...

-Looks like a lot of salt!

-Yeah.

-But it's going to turn into a crust.

-Let's lift it over here, so you can see what you're doing.

-OK.

I think you guys have got too much time on your hands to be doing this.

No, no, no. This looks all a bit hard

-but what happens at the other end of it...

-It's the flavour, isn't it?

-The flavour you're after.

-Yeah, it penetrates right through

into the celeriac and do you know what the salt does?

It draws out the moisture,

so actually the celeriac can be quite wet.

Pack it on really nice and tight.

There we go. And that wants to go in the oven for about three weeks.

If I had a carrot and a bit of coal.

-Have you got the other one?

-Yeah, I've got the other one.

How long's that go in there for, then?

-It wants about an hour and a half to an hour 45.

-I'll put this in.

I've got to put some stock in there, James.

-Blackberries?

-Blackberries are in there.

Little bit of brown chicken stock.

-Is that all right?

-Beautiful. That pan's hot, by the way.

This goes in for how long?

-That wants about ten minutes, James.

-Ten minutes?

-Yep.

-And the celeriac?

-Ten minutes at 190

and the celeriac wants to see about an hour and 45 at 200.

So yeah, it takes a long time, but lovely thing to do for your roast.

There you go.

Now keep this bacon, if you leave this bacon here...

What, you just serve it like that?

-You wait until you taste it.

-Do you serve it like that or what?

No, no, no. All you need to do now is cut the top off.

I was going to put a sparkler in it now, there you go.

Don't be nervous.

-We could put a candle in it.

-It's great, isn't it?

-Yeah.

In the middle of the table, what a lovely thing to share at the table.

-Yeah.

-This stock, James, this sauce that's all come out,

left in the blackberries, this is our sauce, right?

Now this is all those juices from the grouse gone inside there.

-Now I mentioned the restaurant...

-And the blackberries.

..You have been given quite a prestigious title recently.

We were listed this week on the Hardens Guide which is,

you know, extremely reputable food guide that comes out every year,

in the top ten restaurants in London

-which, you know, is a fantastic achievement...

-Well done, you.

Yeah, you can all clap now if you like, it's up to you.

I'm too busy playing here.

-But no, it's fantastic, James, really great for the restaurant.

-It is.

-Yep.

Great for the team as well.

Great for the team and we're in great company.

-There's a lot of restaurants in London.

-Exactly.

What are you doing here? Just taking it off the bone?

-I'm taking both breasts off the bone, taking the legs off first.

-Yeah.

Take that off and we're going to dice a little bit of the bacon

which was on the back and pop that through...

You don't use the little legs but you use the thighs?

I don't use the drumstick at the end but I use the thigh.

I also don't serve the skin, I'm not a big fan of the skin.

-What am I doing here? Chopping that off?

-Yeah, like an egg.

Take the top off, that's it.

Take your top off. There we go.

-Take your top off.

-I actually understood that.

-Not you.

-Look at that. Happy with that?

-Yeah, I'm happy with that.

-Spoon?

-Spoon.

-Mix it all around.

-Spoon, mix it around.

-But you do...don't you do beetroot like this as well?

-We do, yeah.

-Surely you can use other veg, so...

-He will be.

We cook whole beetroots raw in salt in Le Creuset

and then you take them out and it all goes crust like that

and you just peel them and the salt permeates through the beetroot.

-It's delicious.

-You can also infuse, like I've done there,

you can infuse a salt crust as well so you get lovely flavours through.

That's a good tip actually.

Yeah, I just chop the... you can take that, Sat.

-I'll just chop the bacon up.

-It's 4-1.

-Yeah.

Right, we chop the bacon up.

Now, as well as this, your book's going well?

Yeah, book's selling really well.

Talking about starting the second one later on in the year

which will be fantastic, but this one's selling brilliantly

and yeah, really happy with it actually.

So what do I do with this now? Just leave it?

That's it. What we're going to do now,

-add a little bit of lovely rich olive oil into there, all right?

-OK.

You don't want any butter in that?

-You could add a little bit of truffle oil.

-Right.

I like the oil thing, this is kind of classic, it's a really...

I know what you mean with the butter and I know what you're like with

the butter, but for me actually, I just want it to be a bit oily.

-Happy with that?

-Yeah, really lovely. Beautiful.

-That's it.

-Right, we're ready to serve.

-Yeah, we are, yeah. Bring that over.

-So spoon that onto the plate like that.

-That looks great, doesn't it?

If you put that in the middle of the table...

You'll look a bit odd going to the supermarket

-and buying all that salt though.

-Yeah, I know.

All right in the winter, people think you'll put it on your path.

Season the...

-Season the grouse a little bit.

-Yep.

Bit of seasoning on there.

Yeah, season the grouse underneath

cos they haven't had any seasoning, it's quite important.

Pop a little thigh on there at the bottom

and then we use our lovely cooking juices.

-That pan's a wee bit hot.

-There you go.

-Thank you.

That's it. Lovely cooking juices.

That's just natural cooking juices, a tiny bit of brown chicken stock.

We don't use veal stocks and stuff,

we just tend to cook like this really.

Little vinaigrettes and sauces that are all cooked in the pan.

Some fresh blackberries in there, the lovely shallots, some thyme and

I've just monteed it or put a little butter in the end just to give it...

-Yes, you see.

-Just a little bit.

-It got in there.

Remind us what dish that is again.

That's roast grouse, salt-baked celeriac and blackberries.

How fantastic does that look?

There you go. Right, over here, Adam.

You get to dive into this

after that celeriac's been in the oven for about a fortnight.

Yeah.

But, I mean, fantastic. Great flavour from that as well.

I think so. The way it dries it out is great for me.

It just makes it a bit more intense, the flavour.

I've cooked sea bass like that but the flavour is fabulous.

I like the idea, like family serving, that's brilliant.

We do it in the restaurant as a family thing

-in the middle of the table.

-There's no washing up either.

-No washing up?

-Like a bowl in itself.

That's Heidi's method of cooking, no washing up, that'll do,

we'll have a bit of that.

What do you reckon?

-It's gorgeous. So tart with blackberries.

-Nice?

-Beautiful.

Definitely not going to be some for all of you.

It's not going to get to Sat, I know this one.

That's a great way to serve celeriac.

Coming up, I make my controversial take on a Victoria sponge

with strawberry jam for Dawn Steele,

after Rick Stein shares a recipe not for fish, but a great curried lamb.

I'm in near Yorkshire near Wakefield.

You know I'm fascinated by signs that sing the praises

of a particular community.

In this case rhubarb because the village of Carlton

lies at the very centre of the country's rhubarb production.

The word rhubarb sounds so comical,

it's like something from The Goon Show.

But the Oldroyd family take this fruit - or is it a vegetable? -

very seriously indeed.

This particular variety of rhubarb is called Timperley Early

and like the name rhubarb,

it's got such a sort of British feel to it and I just love rhubarb.

I just think my favourite pudding of all time is rhubarb crumble

so I just had to come here to see where it's grown.

-And now the secret world.

-Oh, wow. It looks really weird.

It's like sort of a ghostly host of rhubarb, they're so pale.

So, Jenny, why did this forcing of rhubarb happen sort of only here

in this part of Yorkshire?

It came to Yorkshire in 1877

and it became known as the rhubarb triangle, the centre of the world...

-Like the opium triangle?

-..for rhubarb production.

And you'd get lost here as you get absorbed into the sheds,

but it was immensely important.

It was a major industry at its time.

Links, everything fit together perfectly,

you've got the soil that was perfect for rhubarb production,

the links with the coal industry

obviously gave us the power to heat the sheds

-and the shoddy which is...

-Shoddy?

It's a by-product of the woollen industry.

At the carding and combing process,

you get woollen debris being taken out

and as the wool decays, it releases high amounts of nitrogen.

The rhubarb loves nitrogen

and it maintains this energy store within the root.

I mean, you just speak so wonderfully,

passionately about rhubarb, why does it mean so much to you?

It's been immensely important to our family obviously.

I've grown up with rhubarb

and it's something I think that gets in your blood.

Is it true you can hear it growing?

Yes, when they're triggered into growth

and the first leaf bursts out of that bud for the first time,

it then can grow at an inch a day,

so you hear the creaking of the sticks as they grow,

so put that in a dark, candle-lit environment

and it's an eerie, secret world of what's happening here.

Rhubarb crumble, it's about as British as you can get actually.

Call me old-fashioned, call me what you like

but I like rhubarb crumble in the winter

with a beef or a roast duck

and I like gooseberry fool in the summer

after the poached salmon and the mayonnaise.

But actually I find something like rhubarb crumble is a real test

of a good cook cos we all know what rhubarb crumble should taste like

and therefore the little nuances of what you do

with your rhubarb crumble are so important.

I mean, if you're making a sort of Thai stir-fry, I mean nobody knows

what to judge it by, but they certainly do with rhubarb crumble.

So I really take care when I'm making mine.

First of all you need to add some sugar,

just enough so it's moreishly, but no clawingly tart

then a tablespoon or so of flour.

This makes the liquid a little bit viscous which is very pleasing.

The crumble topping, you start by making shortcrust pastry

but there's a lot more butter in it

so it always ends up a little bit more lumpy

than the granular texture of shortcrust.

Then sugar, it needs to be quite sweet.

Into the pie dish goes the rhubarb, flour and sugar and then the topping.

I find the easiest way to distribute the topping

is with your fingers, then just give it a little shake like that

and into a hot oven for about 45 minutes.

What I really like about a good crumble is the way

that as it crisps up the top, it sort of splits

and you can see the sort of rhubarb welling up

from underneath and you've got that lovely smell of butter

and cooked flour and the slightly sour smell of the rhubarb.

It's, you know, it's the stuff of Sunday lunches really.

This is one of my desert island dishes,

particularly with clotted cream

which melts into the hot crumble so lusciously.

I've heard this story about Albert Roux.

When he interviews a chef for a job,

he'll say, "Right, just fry me an egg."

And...because you can tell so much from how a chef fries an egg.

As far as I'm concerned, I think I'd say, "Make me a rhubarb crumble."

Not far away is Bradford, a haven for Indian food.

Curry has become one of the nation's favourite dishes

and a must for this series

because it's now as British as roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.

This is a statue to JB Priestley, a writer and a native of Bradford.

He's having a bit of a resurgence at the moment.

Wrote a book called An English Journey

which was written in 1933 but still very relevant today.

But I love this piece on the base of the statue written by JB Priestly.

It says, "Lost in its smoky valley among the Pennine hills,

"bristling with tall mill chimneys, with its face of blackened stone,

"Bruddersford", well, that's obviously Bradford,

"is generally held to be an ugly city and so I suppose it is

"but it's always seemed to me to have a kind of ugliness

"that could not only be tolerated but often enjoyed.

"It was grim but not mean."

I really like that.

Chalky, where are you? Chalky!

I think good old JB,

who was a seriously down-to-earth Yorkshireman,

would've approved of the Karachi restaurant.

It's been going since the early '60s.

In the kitchen it was a real joy to see simple Pakistani dishes

being cooked freshly on the spot.

I ordered lamb karahi with spinach.

Mumrez, the owner, said it was the mainstay of the restaurant.

Like balti, the karahi is named after the battered,

robust cooking pan they serve it in.

Mumrez, is there any English food that you like?

I can't think of anything because...

There is the religious matters, you know,

when you go for English food

but I do like fish and chips.

The food here is uncompromising,

it doesn't tailor itself to Western taste.

Well, this is just wonderful.

This is the sort of cooking I'm always looking for.

There's nothing superfluous about it, it's simple and it's elegant

and I've just been round the kitchen there

and there's no flimflammery of equipment there like in my kitchen.

There's just a stove with about eight burners on it,

a table for rolling out the bread,

a tandoor oven for making this fantastic naan bread

and chapattis and that's it.

And I've just been talking to this guy

and he said it's just been the same ever since it opened in 1963

and I said, "What's special about the food?" And he said,

"It's right." And I just thought that's such a good thing to say.

So this is the recipe I got

from Mumrez Khan's very nice restaurant

which what we thought was called the Karachi Cafe,

it sounded very trendy,

but it's just called the Karachi restaurant in Bradford.

And I had this lamb karahi which is really THE dish

that everybody loves at that place

and he sent me the recipe which is very nice of him.

You know, a lot of people are very sort of secretive about recipes

but not Mumrez, he was quite happy to send it

and actually it's done slightly differently from the way

us Westerners do curries and very nice it is because of it.

So first of all, I'm just cutting this lamb up

into about inch and a half cubes.

I'm using leg of lamb here but you can also use the shoulder.

I mean, shoulder gives you a slightly more tender cut

and leg gives you a sort of meatier cut, bigger pieces of meat.

Pays your money, takes your choice.

This is ghee which is essential for northern Indian and Pakistani food.

It's really just clarified butter but it tastes a little bit rancid.

Next, tons of onions, well chopped up.

I'm using three big ones.

Now I've never known a curry cooked this way before

and it's new and exciting to me.

You tip all that into a blender and follow with a tin of tomatoes,

then loads of garlic - about 15 cloves -

chopped ginger, roughly chopped,

water and lid on the blender

and blend for about 30 seconds.

I'm always relieved when that moment comes.

It's a great blender but I have had the odd occasion

when the top's come off and it's gone all over the ceiling.

So I pour the puree into a casserole on the heat and add the meat.

Now this is interesting, you see,

because I would've expected to brown the lamb first with the spices

but it goes in like this,

just with some salt and just cooked very gently.

So that lamb's been cooking in that puree now for about half an hour

and I must say there's no spice in there

but it's still, even though there's no spice,

smelling wonderfully like a curry and there's only ginger and garlic,

one or two other things, but now I'm going to add some spice.

First of all some coriander, there's about a tablespoon of each of these.

Ground coriander, cumin and now some chilli powder.

I'm going to add extra chilli at the end.

Then some paprika and finally some turmeric.

Stir all that in.

Now look at the colour of that and the smell.

I'm really looking forward to this.

If you look, you can see the ghee's starting to rise to the surface

and that's the sign, as Mumrez says, that the lamb is cooked

so you don't need to taste it - you know.

And you can skim it off but there's no way I'm going to skim it off

because it's just too nice to eat.

The other interesting thing about the karahi is the way

the chilli is added towards the end of the cooking

and it's liquidised with some water to make a lovely green puree.

They use fresh spinach leaves near the end

but in addition they use a puree of spinach

and I think it's that mixture of green and red

that makes the dish look so appetising.

Now the chilli puree, of course you put as much in as you like,

but what I like is all of it because I really like hot curries.

At the last minute I'm adding some coriander and a teaspoon or so

of fresh garam masala to just lift the spice flavour.

And now the rice, and I made a pilau rice.

I put cinnamon and cardamom with it,

it makes a perfect accompaniment to the amazingly aromatic karahi curry.

So many of us try to recreate the cooking

of a good Indian restaurant, but there's something missing.

Well, next time, try it this way and see what you think.

I definitely will do.

Today, I thought I'd do a masterclass on something that

I suspect quite a few of you will have on your tables this weekend,

although you might need to cover it with an umbrella.

It's a classic Victoria sponge cake.

However, this is not a classic Victoria sponge cake because

the WI will be phoning in cos I got banned from a competition once.

There was ten points that you have to abide by.

I think abided by...one of them.

And I got disqualified.

So this is my version of a Victoria sponge cake.

I'm going to make it with duck eggs cos I like the colour of it.

First, we take some butter. It's nine ounces of butter.

That's the key to this. It's got to be butter, as well.

-That's unlike you, James?

-Exactly. It's normal. Nine ounces of sugar.

And we put this down and we blend it.

The secret of this is it's the creaming method.

Normally, you can whip up the eggs and the sugar

and then you pour in a little melted butter and the flour.

This is more like a bun mixture, really.

That's what you want to produce.

Once you've got this mixing away nicely,

make sure the butter's at room temperature.

Yes, mistake a lot of people make.

Where Tom's from, you're likely to put it in a microwave.

-She's Glaswegian.

-Exactly.

Room temperature might be a bit hard up there!

But we've got a little bit of vanilla essence in there

-and then these are the duck eggs.

-OK.

The idea is we just take the duck eggs,

we can break these in our bowl.

-So, they make the...sponge...?

-They're going to make the sponge.

-The colour, I mean.

-Yeah, the colour,

but what you have to do is use slightly less duck eggs.

I would use six hens' eggs for this recipe, but I'm reducing it

-to four duck eggs cos they're one and a half times the size.

-OK.

These are between 90 and 110 grams apiece.

Hens' eggs are about 70, so slightly smaller.

And then you whisk this up. What I would do,

before you actually combine all these ingredients together,

just take a spatula and go round the edge here, that's the key to this.

Just mix it round the edge, drop that down, and add that again.

What you do is you slowly add...

Just got my sugar on for a little garnish at the end.

We slowly add the eggs, one by one.

So these just go into the mix. We don't add them all at once,

otherwise it will separate the mixture.

We slowly add these, one by one.

-It's having all the equipment, isn't it?

-It's a food mixer.

-You've got one of these, haven't you?

-No!

My kitchen's so small, I can barely fit into it.

-You can do it by hand, but it might take a long time.

-Yes.

The Jubilee weekend might be over by the time you've done it.

All we do is you just take that off, like that, just reduce that down...

Cool that down a touch.

There you go.

And then we can lift this off and then we add our flour.

Now, ye olde recipes will tell you to sieve the flour, but that's

-only cos it used to have little bugs and stuff like that in it.

-Really?

-So, obviously, you don't need to do that any more.

-Not any more, no.

-I hope not.

-The flour was finer.

-Ah.

-I thought it was just to get it finer.

-No, no.

-It's just to get the beasties out.

-You quickly fold it in.

This is as British as it gets, isn't it?

Some people say you sieve the flour to make it lighter,

but when you've mixed it all in, I don't think there's any real need.

And then we've got lined cake tins,

a little bit of greaseproof on the bottom,

and then you pop this mixture in the base of the cake tins.

And by using these duck eggs, you get, I think,

it changes the flavour slightly,

but what I do like about it is you get the colour from it as well.

And you get really rich organic duck eggs,

which you can get this really nice colour from as well.

In there, reduce the oven temperature down for these

cos you're not cooking buns. Buns would be about 180.

These are about sort of 160. You cook these for a good 25 minutes.

In the centre of an oven, as well. Straight in there.

-Allow them to cool.

-This is just what you want to eat today, isn't it?

That's the bit that you should be doing.

This is the bit that got banned.

Victoria sponge should be raspberries,

I'm doing this with strawberries.

Strawberry jam, instant strawberry jam as well.

Jam sugar, water,

strawberries,

lemon.

Throw it all in. Cook it for about 20 minutes.

-You've got an instant jam.

-The flavour's a lot more intense.

Yeah, because it's cooked very quickly, a bit like your soup.

-So, it's better, really.

-But it's not about the jam, it's about you.

-Yes.

-You're busy today.

-I'm just hoping my boyfriend's watching this.

In this Noel Coward play, which is...

Now, I love Noel Coward cos he was in The Italian Job.

Yes, which I just admitted I've never seen.

You've got to watch that one, as well.

-He was in The Italian Job and he's written this play, as well.

-Yes.

-Tell me about the play.

-It's called Volcano.

It's never been performed in his lifetime.

-We're very lucky to be doing it at the moment. We're in Windsor.

-Right.

It's basically set in 1958 on a volcanic island,

a fictional island in the Caribbean.

They say it's fictional,

but critics have said that it could be like an autobiographical thing.

Yeah, and I think that's why it wasn't performed in his lifetime,

because it does reveal quite a lot of secrets about his life

-and Ian Fleming and...

-What do you think?

When you're playing it, do you think it is that?

Yes, I think it is, yeah.

The more I read about it, the more research you do about it...

-Fascinating character, wasn't he?

-Yeah.

So, it centres on a character called Adela Shelley,

who's played by Jenny Seagrove, and she's a widow living out there.

She runs banana plantations and lots of ex-pats live out there.

It's basically her life, what they got up to out there,

and my husband is having a bit of a fling with Adela

and I get wind of it

and come straight over from London to sort them out. But only to find out

he's having a bit of a fling with quite a lot of people, not just one.

But it's great. It's a brilliant character for me.

I'm getting to play a really posh English upper class woman.

How do you find the theatre? We're so used to you on television.

I love it. It's so different from...

Talking about food, even the way you eat is different,

compared to when you're doing TV.

And you just can't really compare them.

We're doing this play till August, so it's quite a long run.

It's a different discipline as well. Different audiences every week.

I always get nervous. That never goes.

Which you don't really get on TV.

You came straight out of acting school

and university into a massive part in Monarch Of The Glen.

It was amazing. Imagine getting that part straight from drama school!

-And then I did that for...six years?

-Six years.

-God, you know that.

It was so long ago, I'm forgetting now.

So, it's six out of the seven series.

-And went straight into another one.

-Then I moved to London, I thought,

"I need to move to London, it's going to be a big change,"

and then I got the part in Sea Of Souls,

so I had to move back to Glasgow, as you do,

and I did that for two years, playing a parapsychologist.

And then I've always done a bit of theatre.

I like to do a bit of theatre, bit of telly,

keep your hand in both to kind of prove you can still do both.

And then Wild At Heart as well.

And then Wild At Heart, yeah, which is in Africa,

so back out there again.

The series has finished now, but you're doing a...

We're doing a Christmas special, so they cancelled the show

and they've let us do a Christmas special, which is great.

-We get to finish it.

-You're in Africa, yeah, it's great.

Get to be in the sun for six weeks.

-We get Kennington Road, you get Africa.

-Ha! I know.

-Right, this is where it all...

-Look at that!

If the WI are listening, please don't phone in.

because I know that it should be done with raspberry jam,

but this is strawberry jam.

It shouldn't have cream on it. But it's the Jubilee and...

-You shouldn't have cream on?

-No.

-What should it have on it?

-Just raspberry jam.

-It does look mighty good.

-Oh, my God.

But this is for me, look at that. Then we take the sponge.

-Can we try some?

-Right.

You just dust it with a bit of caster sugar.

They've all been dipped in that nice sugar.

-So they are all crispy.

-Look at the crew, they're all ready to pounce!

-Lamb's tongue, what you want.

-THEY LAUGH

-Would you like a piece?

-Of course I would like a piece!

What size of piece are you giving me? Oh, OK.

-Scottish portion.

-Thank you! THEY LAUGH

-Get me ready for the two shows then.

-So you're in Windsor tonight,

where's the play going after?

I've got two shows to do Wednesday till Saturday, then we're going

to Richmond and then Bath and then we go to Cambridge so I'll be going

to hopefully Danny's restaurant.

Hopefully I will come and see it

because I was a huge fan of Noel Coward. There you go.

OK. Come on, where am I supposed to start? Take a bit here?

-Just pick it up.

-Like a burger.

THEY LAUGH

-It's not the classic Victoria sponge, but it's...

-It's delicious.

-It's pretty good.

-I'm just going to have another bit.

-Thought you might!

I'm glad you liked it, Dawn, just don't tell the WI, of course.

If you'd like to try cooking any of the studio dishes you've seen

on today's show, all the recipes are just a click away

at bbc.co.uk/recipes.

Now we're looking back at some of the great cooking

from the Saturday Kitchen back catalogue.

Now it's time for a little madness from one half of those Hairy Bikers.

Si King introduces us to a few of his little friends, langoustines.

-What are we cooking?

-Say hello to my friends, langoustines!

Scottish langoustines. We're doing this dish in honour,

-in homage, to the great actor that is...

-Brian.

You know, I know he likes fish, but we've got shellfish.

Tell you what, it's very simple.

-West Coast of Scotland?

-Fantastic, we discovered these

on our food tour of Britain,

which happens to be out on Monday, 5.15 to six o'clock!

Three-quarters of an hour every night. One of the programmes

was in Argyll and Bute, in which

he went fishing with Big Hughie for langoustines.

Fishing for langoustines. Right. What's the name of this dish?

OK, well, it's langoustines flambeed in a great, er, Scotch whisky,

and, um, it's served with a...

with a dill and potato cake, basically...

So it's like a little rosti, really.

Yeah, sorry, I was concentrating on not losing the claw

but as you can see, it's fallen off!

Right, so you have partly cooked potatoes.

With the skins on.

If you can do those for us, I've just halved these,

these are raw langoustines, I've halved them,

and we're going to grill them with some garlic butter.

As a lovely side to this gorgeous dish.

Now, tell us about the programme.

-Is there 80 counties...?

-86 counties in the UK.

-How mad is that?

-How many did you get round on your travels?

30 in 15,000 miles during the winter.

We now have shares in haemorrhoid cream.

THEY LAUGH

It was funny, we'd get off the bike somewhere and they would go,

"We didn't think you'd turn up on the bike", and the state of us,

I could barely walk while he could barely move!

-It's me knees that get me.

-It's your arthritis!

Me knees are like celery!

Do you know, I felt my age creeping up this winter for the first time.

-For the first time ever?

-Yeah.

-He's been saying that the last 20 years.

But you have got a little bit cheffy

because you were up against a bit of competition.

Part of the programme is that we cook against Michelin-starred chefs.

I mean, you know...

This is why we've got rosti and bits and pieces.

We've learned so much and it's been a great learning curve for us.

Normally we're used to cooking on grass without a roof over our heads.

This time we've cooked in professional kitchens

and caused havoc across the country.

We can do foams and smears and squidges.

Go through those things that you can do with the quenelle.

You can drag it, you can smear it, you can drop it,

you can do whatever you like.

Even, if push comes to shove, you can eat it!

We fondanted everything on this programme.

Fondant is like a posh cooked in butter and stock potato,

but we'd fondant turnip, sweet potatoes,

-you name it, we fondanted it.

-That's why you're doing it later.

-Cos you've actually worked with these two boys?

-I have.

I knew him when he was not a hairy biker.

-THEY LAUGH

-When he was...

it's so extraordinary to see him today

because he was... Well, it was alopecia.

-He was bald.

-I was bald as a coot! I had eyebrows, that was about it.

I had this vision of Dave looking in the mirror and saying,

"One day I'll be a hairy biker!"

THEY LAUGH

It didn't cross my mind either!

Little bit of garlic butter on this.

Run through what we're doing.

So, what I'm going do is, I'm just prepping a bit of garlic butter,

that's just all lovely.

I've got in here a little bit of dill, some egg,

the potato has gone in there.

-Some lemon zest, because I forgot it in rehearsal.

-Yeah.

Some butter.

And all I'm doing, it's really simple,

that garlic butter goes onto those langoustines,

we're going to season it a little bit. Just get...that.

Do me little handaroonies. In case Mrs Miggins writes in

and goes, "Those bikers are terribly dirty!"

When we went out fishing for langoustines,

you get them like lobsters in pots

and we halved nearly 100 pots - that was hard work, James!

We had guns, dude.

They've got them in the ocean, but they do them in the lochs as well.

Oh, we went ocean, dude!

Now that goes under there for...

A little birdie tells me he pulled about 86 pots, you pulled four up.

How dare you! You know. He was standing in the right place.

So, we need a little bit of butter.

So, you've just make a little bit of garlic butter.

We've just seasoned those, they only need to be under the grill

for about three minutes, luckily, cos we've only got eight!

-Where's me oil? There it is.

-Oil's there.

-You're a very nice man.

Now what we do,

we can make that, have you got a little bowl there for me

so I can just put these in?

-Perfect.

-You can wash your hands.

-I'll wash my hands again.

These langoustine shells, you can actually keep these,

you can get fresh langoustines, they make amazing stock.

Wonderful oil as well.

Yes, yes.

So a little bit of olive oil in there, now.

These are raw and what you want to do is you just want to put them in -

listen to that - isn't there something lovely about that?

-Ah!

-Langoustine popcorn.

-What's next?

We turn the heat up a little bit and you know what we do?

See, I've learnt that.

Look at that, eh? Not every day you do that, you know!

You need to wash your hands again.

-What for now?

-You touched them again.

-I didn't!

-Your mother will be watching.

-It's not like this in real life!

No! You wipe it on your pants and get on with it.

THEY LAUGH

Right, where am I?

-You've put us off now.

-He goes all repetitive thingy syndrome.

You start to get focused on washing your hands

instead of doing your job! It's you, putting us off.

Right, put that whisky in, you know what you do there?

You go like that, set it on fire and the sprinklers come down.

No, we don't want that.

And then, you see, what we do, as we are flambeeing them,

we take a knife or a chopper.

-I'll take these ones.

-Where is my spoon? Get out of the way, you.

-So...

-It's hot, that.

-It is hot, you just burnt my elbow.

-We put a bit of creme fraiche in here.

-Teach you a lesson.

A bit of creme fraiche in there, take that off the heat now

and that just sits.

At this point, viewer, you need to adjust the seasoning.

Take said pinky, put it on the said spoon...

-Yes, definitely.

-And then wash said pinky.

-Thanks for that, Brian, I may have nearly forgotten there.

-Right...

We'll do that. Then we just leave that to sit there like that.

I tell you what, seeing as it's Mr... Oh, you've broken it now.

-All right, carry on, nobody's noticed.

-Nobody's noticed.

We'll put a bit more whisky in.

-Yes.

-Just a little dribble. Right, smashing.

I'll wash my hands again because I've touched the whisky in a glass.

LAUGHTER

-And what we'll do...

-Kingy, you're a martyr to personal hygiene.

Oh, personal hygiene and me,

girls, see, I smell nice and everything.

-So we're just going to do the juice of an orange.

-Yes.

-OK.

-We're going to do...

-Lemon and orange.

-Juice of half a lemon.

Like that.

And this is the very own Hairy Bikers shake-it-a-lot, mix-your-own

what's-it-up salad dressing.

Look, this is rapeseed oil, a fantastic product from the UK.

It is, it's brilliant.

What's one of the best things you found on this travel?

What's the most interesting fact that you found?

-The most interesting fact we found...

-It is such a diverse place.

It is, the diversity of product that we have in the UK.

If we were French or Italian, we'd be shouting it from the hilltops.

But because we're British and a little bit more reserved,

we say nowt. Which is mad because it's fantastic.

There's still a lot of beef and cheese produced in Britain.

Because we had a long time to get into the programme,

we went to, like, six native breed of beef.

The Belted Galloways, the Herefords, Lincolnshire.

-And it really does taste very good.

-Look at these babies.

We're going to put these on in a cheffy garnish kind of thing.

Like that, building the plate up as we go.

-Do you want me to put the rosti on it as well?

-That would help.

You're a top man.

So this has just been cooked literally for a couple

-of minutes both sides. There you go.

-Where's my spare claw?

There it is. I knew that would come off.

A pile of that. Lovely, all dressed and gorgeous. Look at that.

Next, a bit more of that. You can tell you're from Yorkshire.

-We went to Yorkshire.

-We did.

-North Yorkshire.

-We cooked with Andrew Pern, he's good.

-He's a good lad, isn't he, Perny?

-Yeah.

I tell you what though, I bet he doesn't give us

anything off his rate for his hotel for mentioning him.

-Right, in goes the langoustine.

-In goes the langoustine.

They are just beautiful. You don't need to cook these for long cos...

It's such a sad thing that we used to turn these into scampi once.

How mad is that?

The days of chicken in a basket and that sort of stuff.

There's nothing wrong with that. Look at that.

Then you drizzle that on there like that.

You want a bit of this drizzled around the top.

-We've gone all Michelin star.

-Remind us what that is again.

The dish is langoustine flambeed in whisky

with a dill and lemon potato cake

and some nice side salad.

-We got there in the end.

-We did.

There we go. We get to taste this. Have a taste of this, Brian.

-Good God!

-Langoustines.

It's just gone 10 o'clock in the morning, but dive into that.

The great thing about these is they are full of flavour.

They are sweet, they taste of the sea, brilliant.

I had langoustines, it must have been 30 years ago,

-near Campbeltown, in Argyll.

-Yeah.

In those days, the guys would keep it secret, where the langoustines were,

because they didn't want to tell anybody.

-Is that still the same?

-Yes.

We export so many of them, that's the problem.

-We export more than 95% of what we catch.

-Which is insane.

Everything goes to Spain and France because they pay for them,

-but you CAN buy them.

-That's delicious.

You just get that little hint of whisky.

The whisky just really brings it out.

Try putting a little velvet cushion on your seat next time, Si,

that'll do the trick. It's Keith Floyd time now.

Today he tries his hand at fishing and he's as bad as me,

he just tries.

Actually, I've got more chance of being

struck by lightning than I have of catching a pike.

So rather than go hungry, I've enlisted some specialist help.

-There he goes.

-There he goes, this is the tense bit, isn't it?

Yes, he can easily drop it, you see.

When are you going to give him the gun, as it were?

-You have.

-Look at it.

There's a swirl, it's a big fish, isn't it?

You're not going to believe this, but this is not set up in a way at all.

This is real,

we're actually catching fish, it's unbelievable.

Let's see his head.

You don't seem to be applying any...

You're letting him tire himself out, you're not forcing him

to do anything, just putting a bit of gentle restraint on it.

Is that the technique?

Well, it will vary a little bit,

but I'm anxious to land this, it's my first pike this morning.

-Oh, he's quite big.

-Yes, indeed.

Try and make a special effort on this one.

Now wind up, wind up. Straight up.

Wow!

-It's 10 or 11 pound.

-That's the size we want.

-It may be more.

-Well done, well done.

-That could be 12 or 14 pounds.

-Splendid, isn't it?

Can you see, Clive?

Now, this one is going to have quite dangerous teeth.

Very nice. That's splendid.

This fine specimen is far too big for my lunch.

I haven't got the heart to kill a fish of that size.

Let's put it back in the water and we'll try and catch another.

This is my biggest pike to date, 16.5 pounds.

And we'll put him back to fight another day.

Mind you, our French neighbours aren't so sentimental.

They'd have had that beauty skinned and pounded into quenelles

before you could say bon appetit.

And even the medieval monks wouldn't have been so compassionate.

From Fridays, they feasted on fish.

The refectory tables groaned with pewter platters piled high

with braised carp, fried perch, steamed tench, stewed eels

and a baked pike.

You all thought I was a complete and utter poser,

but I've actually caught one and you can't do better than that.

It is quite... Oops.

Let it go a bit, right.

It's such a little fish.

How can they say that to me on my first ever pike hunt?

Colin is saying it's only a little one. It is a jack, isn't it?

-Something like your first one.

-Yes.

-But they are very lively.

-Yes, they are.

I do think he's ready to come in, actually. But we...

Ah, I've lost him.

Oh, he's gone, oh dear! My absolute moment of glory is ruined.

I want to go home, I hate fishing. I've had enough, cheerio.

I think we'll have another one.

Oh, heavens above, I'll just have to show you a photograph of a pike

at this rate, which, by the way, is on page 27 of my new cookery book.

Then I shall... He's definitely taken.

He's run across the other side.

I think we're about ready now. Mind your head back.

They don't always stay on.

And there's another one moved.

-There's another one we just disturbed.

-Yes.

Well, well, well. This is called playing the fish, isn't it?

-You tire it, so you don't...

-It's only a small one. A catfish.

Yes, because what would be the biggest one you would expect to get?

Well, we've had them 20 pounds.

What's this one going to be, about four or five pounds?

This is about four pounds.

-Maybe four or five.

-What a handsome looking thing.

-But they are evil, in fact.

-They can be, yes.

If you put your hands anywhere near their mouth, they can do you...

Oh, he's possibly six, he's five...

-A bit bigger than I thought he was, actually.

-Well, well, well.

-Is there a size limit that you can...?

-Yes, 21 inches long.

-So that's well over.

-Nose to the tip of the tail.

-So he's well over the limit for taking.

-Oh, yes.

Great. Thanks to Colin and Malcolm's skill, we've got the lunch.

And the right size too. What a fine morning it's been.

The excitement and the fresh air have given me quite an appetite.

I think it's time for a spot of breakfast

and a glass of cider or two before I get back to the hot kitchen to cook.

-Are you both married, by the way?

-Yes.

-Do you get in trouble with the wives?

-No, I think we're both fortunate.

They are glad to have us away sometimes.

Colin and I get out regularly in the week.

I mean, why... There's this a big secret

that you're keeping from me about how you can spend so much time fishing.

I take it you're just millionaires.

No, it's just a matter of being...

That's the joke of the century, that! Poor as a church mouse.

Yes, we ignore as practical...

We're just enthusiastic about our hobby.

Other things got to take a back seat.

It's not a hobby, it's a passion with you then?

-It is.

-Very much a passion. It has to be.

-We can't resist a nice day.

What is your dream?

You must have lots of ambitions for the biggest pike,

the biggest tench, but it's not necessarily the biggest,

you're not hunting the biggest, are you?

-What is it you dream of doing?

-It's the company, the environment.

You're with nature, you're competing your wits against nature.

And we've been fortunate today.

Days can be when you won't catch fish,

if they don't want to feed, they won't feed.

I think you are being modest, I don't think you've been fortunate today.

I think you've been watching the river very carefully,

watching the migration, if that's what roach do,

the migration of the shoals, you're using years and years

of country lore and understanding, aren't you?

-And even that side of it alone, they can still...

-They can still fox you.

Oh, yes, they can still fox you.

I think that you, for me,

relived some of my most important and imagined boyhood moments.

I told you earlier that I spent months and years trying to catch

a pike when I was 12, 14, 15 and so on in this area and I never did.

You've brought back for me all the wonderful memories that are

associated with fishing - farmhouse Cheddar cheese and cider and stuff.

And for my part, I'd like to say to you both

thanks very much for a really wonderful day.

-It has been magical.

-We've enjoyed it.

It seems to be a terrible thing to do to your family,

but I always wanted my mother-in-law on one of my programmes.

And it's taken me 25 years to catch her, actually.

When I was a small boy, I went to try and catch a pike.

I didn't. It's taken all of this time to catch this beautiful fish,

which in the Loire Valley in France, is esteemed as a gastronomic delight.

A beautiful pike.

Brochet de quenelles,

or pike steamed with paprika sauce, things like that.

But what do we do with it? Practically nothing.

Although my fine fishermen friends eat it all the time.

I'm going to show you how to cook this magnificent beast.

One of the first things you have to do is cut him.

It's already been gutted.

We are going to take a superb fillet off here.

Run the knife, hopefully, up the bone...

I'm sorry, I have just done that completely the wrong way round.

You must always start filleting fish from its head

and run with the flow of the fish.

Although it's on film, this is actually a live programme.

You know, we do borrow kitchens, we do come in, we don't take things

out of the oven and say this is already cooked, we do it properly.

And in the heat and passion of the moment, I really made a rick.

I'm sorry. But I'll do it properly from here on in.

First, I'm going to have a little slurp

because I'm a bit nervous today.

I'm hot, tired, trying to do it right and making mistakes.

Please excuse me.

Anyway, all that said, I've now got the fillet we're looking for.

OK, a perfect fillet cut from the flow of the fish.

PHONE RINGS The telephone is ringing

because we're in a real restaurant

where people are booking tables to come in tonight.

Can't help that at all.

The other ingredients I'm going to use are going to be red peppers,

onions, garlic, fennel,

fresh parsley.

My veloute, which is a kind of a roux really, it's sort of butter, flour,

and then thickened with a bit of water.

I'm going to use that to thicken my sauce

which is going to be made from my fish stock here,

which you could have prepared by cutting off the head

of the pike earlier, poaching it in water.

And then my red pepper sauce,

which is peppers poached in a little fish stock and liquidised.

I had to do those in advance to make this a sensible lesson.

I'm going to finish off the sauce with some double cream,

which you all know what it looks like,

so you don't need to come down here.

And a supreme egg yolk at the end.

So now, if you'll excuse me,

I'm going to go over to the stove

and start the cooking process.

And I want you to forgive me for doing the unforgivable,

which is cutting the fish the wrong way round.

So there we are.

I'm back at the piano, which is what we gastronauts call the cooker,

and I'm sorry for the cock-up earlier,

but now I'll get down to the serious business of turning a pike,

a fish which some people just throw to their cats or even throw

back into the river, or generally despise, into a gastronomic delight.

If you come back to the stove, or the piano,

I'll show you what we are doing.

As with all fish, if you are poaching them,

the liquid must be still.

This is cooking, it's not bubbling away,

if the liquid is bubbling, it will destroy the flesh of the fish.

But it's been on for a little while.

Stick your finger in - it's firm, it's cooked, it's OK.

So we can go over to the sauce now, which is the most important thing.

Our little red pepper sauce.

Adding a sort of a teaspoonful.

You've got to come really close here

because he gets, our director, THE director,

always makes us do it again if people aren't seeing what's happening.

So our veloute going in is thickening that sauce.

You'll notice throughout the programmes to come

and the ones you've seen already

that sometimes we use veloutes,

sometimes we use egg yolks to thicken sauces.

Today we're using the veloute and enrich it with the egg yolk.

And a little cream.

Again, the gas is low, no real bubbling must take place here,

otherwise it will separate.

Stir it around.

OK, we can let that reduce a little.

Now, if only one of my assistants - they've all gone away -

can find me my...

If you heard any noises there, it was just the cameramen

tripping over their equipment.

It's a very hot, tight kitchen. And it is a working situation.

We are going to take out our little fillet here,

slip it into this elegant white plate.

I always insist on white things because fish is the star,

the plate is the extra.

You'll hear me say that many times. Taste the sauce.

It's coming quite good.

Actually, it is quite nice,

but it needs to be reduced a little more.

A little grind of pepper for seasoning purposes.

And now, I've got to turn it right down

because we are adding the egg yolk,

not for the thickening purpose, but for flavouring this particular dish.

And that mustn't be bubbling away,

otherwise you'll get kind of scrambled eggs.

So one egg yolk in. Plop!

Come on in. And then whisk like mad.

On a low heat, don't give it chance to congeal into lumps.

You don't want scrambled eggs, you want a smooth sauce here,

which, I'm pleased to say, we've achieved.

We'll what the French call nappe, which is a lovely word,

we are going to call it coat. Coat the fish. Like that.

And you'll see the importance of the white plate here

because that beautiful light pink, salmon pink sauce,

covered with a bit of parsley.

And there, my freshwater gastronauts,

you have what the French call brochet a la canotiere.

which means the pike cooked by the wife of the pike fisherman.

Isn't that pretty? And what a wonderful way to celebrate spring?

What a wonderful way to celebrate freshwater fish?

You can do this with perch, you can do it with trout,

you can do it with carp, you can do it with pike,

you can do it with anything.

But there's only one thing to do.

One little mouthful.

For those of you who might be fishermen and catch a pike

and throw it back or feed it to your cat or say it's inedible

because it's full of bones and tastes earthy,

I have to tell you, you are quite wrong.

This fish is as fine, almost as fine as a bass,

and that is really saying something. It's a beautiful, firm-fleshed fish.

With this delicate sauce which I prepared -

and I almost caught the fish myself anyway -

I can tell you, you can have a really fine gastronomic delight.

It's great seeing Mr Floyd in action.

As ever on Best Bites,

we're looking back at some of the best cooking

from the Saturday Kitchen archives.

Still to come, it's France versus Ireland

in the Omelette Challenge

as Daniel Galmiche takes on the brilliant

Danny Millar.

But would either make a decent omelette?

Find out a little later.

Tapas king Jose Pizarro cooks some amazing lunchtime treats for us.

He deep-fries chicken wings with chilli and garlic

and serves it with Iberico ham with peas and egg.

And Blur band member Alex James

faced his food heaven or food hell.

Would he get his food heaven - artichokes - with my artichoke

and three cheese pizza, made with his very own home-made cheese?

Or would he get his dreaded food hell - rice - with my version

of a Moroccan spiced, rice-coated chicken

and a preserved lemon salad?

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

Now, if it's Indian inspiration you're after, look no further.

because Atul Kochhar is here.

He makes the most of the classic British wild mushrooms.

-Good to be back.

-Welcome back. I love your food.

-Thank you.

-You still don't give me discount in the restaurant

but I still like your food.

Right, what are we cooking?

We are making wild mushroom biryani

with blackberry raita and sauteed mushrooms

-to go with that.

-OK.

-So first thing, you want me to chop the onions.

-Chop the onions.

You're going to fry off the spices, aren't you?

That's your favourite knife.

Run through the ingredients for this one first,

cos there's quite a few in here.

Wild mushroom, there's quite a mix of mushrooms at the moment.

They're coming into season big time.

The spices - I've got cumin, bay leaf and cardamom.

And the powdered spices - coriander, red chilli,

garam masala and cumin powder.

I've chosen spices very carefully, James,

because there's only so much strong spices you can put with mushroom

because mushrooms have their own flavour

and you really want to bring that out.

A little bit of garlic.

Don't overdo it. Mushroom, garlic, mustard,

these are the flavours which really work well.

If I had my way, I would actually cook this biryani in mustard oil.

In mustard oil?!

Yes. It would be really, really cool.

Do you cook that by putting mustard seeds in olive oil?

-How do you make it?

-No. Mustard oil is actually pressed mustard.

Pressed seeds. There you go.

Talking of mushrooms, they're right up your street.

-Coming into season in Scotland.

-In abundance in Scotland.

Often out on a Sunday picking girolles - little chanterelles.

What's around at the moment? Girolles?

Girolles are in abundance and then the ceps are starting as well,

which are the porcini, the king of mushrooms really.

What we've got is a selection.

-Run through the selection.

-We've got field mushroom.

-I've got that one.

-A little chanterelle.

This is like a Mastermind of mushrooms.

We've got these black ones here.

The black ones are called "trompette".

-A blue one.

-The blue ones are called "boletus".

-Yeah.

What's this one?

-That's a girolle.

-Girolle.

So we've got four varieties here.

Four varieties. There you go.

You're going to get plenty in the coming time.

I was just reading great chef Carluccio's book,

and in that he had claimed that there are truffles in India.

-Oh, really?

-Which even I didn't know. So was very chuffed to know.

-Truffles in India?

-Yeah.

He says that in the foothills of the Himalayas

you've got loads of oak trees and truffles grow under oak.

So it was quite a nice thing to know.

So the irony of this... You're going to cook this in two separate...

-This is the garnish I'm doing.

-Yes.

-This is the filling.

So what is the definition of biryani? What is it?

Does it translate to anything?

Biryani translates to something, I guess, in Persia.

-Do you want me to tell you?

-Go on.

Fried or roasted...

-Anything.

-That's what it means, "anything". Anything. Anything.

It's originally a Persian dish

and it came to India through the Persian rulers.

And I think the basics of biryani is you have to have

-a kind of baking element to it.

-Right.

So whether it's meat or vegetables,

you should be able to bake your biryani, that's very important.

It's often served in pots and bits and pieces

-but you're going to cook it in a parcel.

-Yes.

-OK.

-A dash of water.

-Dash of water.

-Yes.

The mushrooms are just done -

they've sweated nicely. And the spices I'll add now

are all the four spices - red chilli, coriander, cumin and garam masala.

And the two pastes I have here are tomato paste

-and black truffle paste.

-Black truffle paste?

Just to intensify the mushroom flavour.

If you can't buy black truffle paste, you'd be looking at

something like truffle oil, something like that?

You can add truffle oil, absolutely.

Or essence. A bit of cream.

You don't want these frying, you want them dry-roasted?

Just dry-roasted, please.

These little nuts on there.

-OK.

-So you have to have a slightly creamier version of the...

-Some moisture in there.

-Exactly, exactly.

You need the moistness in biryani.

The worst things are to go to a restaurant and have a dry biryani.

-So this is cooked rice.

-Cooked rice.

I always use low GI rice for my biryani because this grain

stands up really well and it works perfectly well.

And also, you know, you've got a fuller feeling for a longer time.

So you've got good value for your money.