Episode 149 Saturday Kitchen Best Bites

Time for some of the greatest food you'll see on TV.

This is Saturday Kitchen Best Bites.

Welcome to the show.

We've got some of the best chefs in the business cooking this morning

and an entourage of peckish celebrities ready to tuck in.

Coming up on today's show,

master chef and master of meat John Torode

makes a delicious beef rendang.

He slow-cooks beef shin with chilli, ginger, lemon grass

and coconut cream and serves it with sticky rice in an Asian-style salad.

And Shaun Hill brings fish to the table.

He prepares and cooks monkfish and serves it

with mustard and cucumber sauce.

And Bryn Williams slow cooks lamb.

He creates a hearty lamb stew using fresh Welsh lamb

and baby onions and serves it with fragrant rosemary dumplings.

And Cheryl Baker faced her Food Heaven or Food Hell.

Would she get her Food Heaven, prawns

with my marinated griddle prawns

with roasted lemon mayonnaise and chargrilled asparagus?

Or would she get her Food Hell, a home-made beef burger

served with tomato ketchup, fries and corn on the cob.

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

But first, let's step back in time

to the very early days of Saturday Kitchen Live

when a certain Ainsley Harriet was a guest

fresh from Ready Steady Cook.

This time though, I was in the driving seat

and I could put him on the spot for a change.

How are we doing? It's great to have you on the show.

-It's great being on your show.

-Eh, it's good.

-Role reversal now, isn't it?

-I know! Absolutely.

-You can ask me all the questions now.

-Exactly.

And I'll say, "Out of the way, how long to go?"

I can interfere now. It's like...

-Tell me what we are doing.

-OK. Soy-poached chicken.

Nothing could be simpler. I sometimes think you're looking for dishes

that you can quickly do, you know?

You get some brilliant chefs on the programme

and people are reducing things.

The audience can be a little bit confused. No doubt about it.

So, I've gone for something a little bit simple.

I've got my soy-poached chicken. Let's get that on straightaway.

-Chicken goes in first?

-Chicken in first.

Ideally, I'd have infused it with all of the flavours, but...

-What flavours have you got in there?

-What we're going to be doing...

-Move that out of the way.

-Please take that away for us, James.

I've got a nice bit of fresh ginger here,

which I think is always nice to have.

You could use a bit of galangal if you liked, you know?

Galangal is that thing that you often get in a mixed bag

-of Thai spices, isn't it?

-Absolutely. Absolutely.

It's like ginger, but quite a smoother skin, isn't it, really?

And with ginger it's important that you get a smooth skin

on the ginger, not wrinkled, cos it's dry.

Absolutely, and when it dries out...

One thing I will say to people is a great tip

is I actually keep my ginger in the freezer.

And the real beauty of that is that you can take it out

with the skin on, grate it using a grater

and then put it back in the freezer. Don't leave it out.

It ends up like a sponge. You don't want to do that.

-A little bit of chilli through there.

-You've got some garlic in there.

Garlic. A few slivers of garlic and we've got here a bit of the old...

Kaffir lime leaves, these. You can buy... You're using dried,

but you can get fresh nowadays, can't you?

-You certainly can, yeah.

-Oriental supermarkets selling them.

That's very good. Now, I've got that all done.

I'm going to turn up that heat a bit

cos we're up against time a little bit. Normally, on that side,

you're going to poach that for about four, five minutes.

Then at the end, another three or four minutes.

We'll try and crack that away. Of course, yeah. One of the things...

I was going to talk about that before. A bit of light soy.

Light soy, not the dark soy.

Not too intense. It's light. You want to poach...

You've got lots of lovely flavours going through there.

All of that's going in there. Just let poach off.

OK, the reason I've got my steamer on top here, James,

I'm going to be doing a bit of pak choi in there shortly.

-In the...in the top, yeah.

-OK. Let's get the old rice on

and whilst I do that, chef, do you want to just transfer those?

-Which is sugar, rice vinegar...

-In here?

..light soy, a bit of cornflour, and some rice wine there.

Into there. If you haven't got rice wine, use vinegar.

-Basically, equal quantities...

-A bit of sherry will work, as well.

Sherry. Absolutely. A bit of sherry would be absolutely perfect.

-This is our sauce to go with it, is it?

-This is... No...

That's it. All of that is going in there

and then we're going to transfer that into a saucepan.

As that heats up the cornflour will thicken it up.

And you'll get that lovely, kind of shiny glaze to accompany the chicken.

What about the old basmati rice?

Well, they call it Himalayan rice, basically.

We know about that, don't we, James?

And we'll just soak that to remove a bit more of the starch.

-It has a lovely, kind of aromatic quality.

-So, moving...

So, I mean, often when we're doing Ready Steady Cook,

we never get a chance to ask you a question.

Where did all the cooking start with you?

-You're too busy, aren't you?

-Cos you ended up being head chef

at Lord's Cricket Ground, doing functions,

but you worked all over the place.

Yeah, well, constantly, I was always on the go, you know?

You kind of decide, when you make a decision

like any young chef out there who wants to go into the industry,

you got to decide whether you're going to go into a hotel

or you're going to go into a restaurant situation.

Or whether you're going to go into plumbing or something like that.

-Or you could go into plumbing in the kitchen, couldn't you?

-Exactly!

We need a plumber half the time. What am I throwing in here?

A bit of water into the pre-soaked basmati rice

and that's 300ml of water and 150 of the coconut.

And you used a mixture of water and coconut milk

cos it's quite thick, that coconut milk, isn't it?

It is quite thick and one of the reasons I soak it

to remove a little bit of the starch if you put it all in there,

it becomes quite globby in your saucepan and I find that, you know,

people can get a little bit put off by that.

They see it and it ends up looking more like a coconut rice pudding.

-Yeah.

-All right. And it is a little bit sticky.

You know, on my travels, when I was out in Thailand

and stuff like that, you do get sticky rice.

It all binds together and you can get all the food and everything.

It's quite sticky and quite moist in the mouth. Lovely flavour.

Chris, do you use Oriental food in your cooking or that influence?

Not really. Predominately, we're French-based,

but then again the French colonized a lot of Asian areas.

And so, you see Asian ingredients creeping into French cuisine.

But I like to stick to French regional products.

-Although I love Asian food. Nice and clean.

-It's so simple.

Just the simple flavours. OK. Fire away. What have we got here?

Yeah, you can see that, the old pak choi. Do you know this is...

Pak choi is from the cabbage family

and yet it's got the most un-cabbage-like flavour.

It really is just so simple and, you know, of course,

we have on the programme quite a bit. You have it on Saturday Kitchen.

Lots of people use it. Throw into stir-fries...

And if you can't find that, you can mix...

Bok choy, pak choi, it all comes in...

-It's all the same.

-What about the old lettuce?

I think that's fantastic. You know, your little baby gems.

-Little gems is great.

-Whack those in half, put them in there.

That can be equally inviting, too.

So, lots of different things going on.

You have to be a little bit patient with this, James.

-I know...

-I'm patient.

You can leave it if you want. You don't have to stir all the time.

-Is it on?

-Yeah, it is on, mate. It's got to come up to the boil.

Turn up the boil. Boil, baby, boil!

-Right, so what else have we got in there?

-50 seconds to go.

-All right.

-Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

-THEY LAUGH

Now, I don't know about everyone at home,

but I kind of think when it comes to presentation,

I think it's always nice to kind of show a little dome of rice.

You can squash it down if you want afterwards.

That's exactly what we're going to do.

-This is for the presentation, James? I'll use this plate?

-Yeah, go on.

Are you into your domes of rice, Graeme?

Do you bother with that? Or just dollop it on?

Yeah, I tend to make like a little canal.

A channel through it, you know?

This is TV, Graeme, we've got to do something different.

-Yeah, do something special. Some garnish, as well.

-Absolutely.

OK, then. I'm going to take my chicken out now.

I think another minute or so,

but we're going to be cracking on with this anyway. OK. There you go.

Let's whip that out. Here we are.

And smell that broth. Can you smell that broth there

with all those lovely flavours?

This sauce is just heated up and then it's thickened

-with a little bit of cornflower.

-The cornflower in there.

It's got a lovely glaze to it. If I get a spoon here,

you can show everybody. It's got a really lovely texture to it.

How long would people cook this rice for cos you brought it to the boil?

I brought that to the boil.

Literally, once you brought that to the boil, reduce the heat.

I've got one here precooked already.

You're talking eight, ten minutes. No more than that.

It really does cook quite quick, basmati rice.

-Lovely. OK.

-All right then.

Let's just cut through our chicken here.

Look at that, absolutely beautiful.

That's it. Now.

-The old rice here, Chef?

-Yep.

-Thank you very much.

All right, I'll cup this down.

And I love when you're sort of going out to...

No need to season that cos you've got the coconut milk.

Well, I've got all the coconut milk and stuff like that

going through there. You can put a little bit of seasoning,

but look at the big flavours that we've got going around there.

You don't need to do too much with that. OK. On here, Chef?

-All right.

-There we are. A little dome of rice.

Let's get that there. That's OK.

-Great presentation.

-It's great the presentation that, isn't it?

-Lovely.

We do like great present... It does!

There's lots of people at home who want a little thing like that.

What are these blokes like? Aren't they horrible, guys?

Aren't they nasty? Ruining TV.

-Look at that cook through, James. All right?

-Yeah.

That's it. Just put that on here.

Do you want me to slice this for you...? Oh, no.

-You've done it already.

-What's that, Chef?

-There you go.

Here we are. A little bit of drizzle here. There you go.

And just kind of...

I like a little bit going around here, too.

Just kind of...finishing that off.

It almost smells like a sort of hoisin sauce, that.

That's exactly... And do you know what?

If people don't want to do that.

If they can't be bothered to buy the rice wine vinegar or the sherry

and all of that, a bit of hoisin sauce would be absolutely perfect.

So, don't be frightened of that. Just a little...

So, what have you got on there? Just a bit of chopped...

-Yeah.

-..spring onion?

All it is is just a bit of chilli, spring onions. Yeah.

If you can't be bothered to put them in ice water,

if I left that a little bit longer it'd really curl up nicely.

Yeah, and just a little bit of these toasted sesame seeds. Just...

-Ains, just remind us what that dish is again?

-Yeah.

This is soy-poached chicken with pak choi,

coconut rice and hot and sour sauce.

In eight minutes, not 20. Look at that!

Lovely. Let's have a look. Let's dive into this.

-It's absolutely lovely.

-There you go.

-Have a little bit of this, guys.

-Mm. This looks amazing!

You get to dive into that, mate. Look at that.

-Taste a little bit of that. There you go. Dive in.

-I certainly will.

-The smell is fantastic.

-Do you like it?

And what's nice is I normally serve a little sort of...

-a little dish of the... A bit more of the...

-Sauce.

..if you like, hoisin sauce just to accompany that.

Now, you travel around quite a lot. You just got back from...

-Was it Majorca you been?

-Mm-hm Majorca, yeah.

I spent quite a lot of time in Majorca.

Are you influenced with everything abroad?

The food there is fantastic.

Obviously, the seafood, good fresh fish.

shellfish, but they also have a really goo local lamb, as well.

Erm, and again, it's down to sort of seasonal varieties

and using good, fresh vegetables.

Is that a plug to the Lamb? Is that what you are...?

It's a plug for the Lamb.

I'm hoping there's enough Chelsea supporters out there.

-Julia, like that?

-The spring onion is gorgeous.

-Especially the sesame seeds. Lovely.

-Such a simple dish, but...

I know, well, I sometimes think that's what you should get.

Doreen's diving in. Can you let Chris have a taste?

Chris is waiting at the end!

I'm here like Oliver.

THEY LAUGH

And not a green pepper or a red tomato in sight.

Coming up, I make cream-filled meringues with fresh strawberries,

for Sean Maguire after Rick Stein gets passionate for pork pies.

The first time I found a patch of chanterelle on the way to Bodmin

from Padstow was of the same order of excitement

as seeing my first kangaroo in the Bush.

It's that jolt of being there and seeing it with your own eyes.

With mushrooms, you never forget that musty smell of dead leaves,

autumn and earth.

I'm in a secret wood in the middle of Norfolk with Clive Holder,

a mushroom hunter extraordinaire,

and he showed me a host of golden chanterelle -

enough for 1,000 risottos.

They're supposed to smell like apricots, these.

-Maybe it's just the colour...

-And they do.

-Oh, they do a bit.

-Yeah.

-They're so fresh.

-Yeah.

They're quite peppery, aren't they, when they're raw?

A lot of chefs won't like a mushroom, for example, this large.

They've got what I call 'supermarket syndrome'.

Everything has got to be small, with baby vegetables, baby...baby...

-Yeah, absolutely.

-..baby mushrooms.

And what they would like, they'd like something about this size.

-Oh, what a shame.

-That they can present as a little button girolle

-on the side of a plate.

-Yeah.

These ones, unfortunately, would have to be -

and it seems sacrilegious to do so - to be torn,

but when you do that white colour in the middle there

denotes that this is a true chanterelle

as opposed to the false chanterelle, which is yellow all the way through.

I've been searching for mushrooms for more than ten years now,

but have never come across such a developed patch as that.

That really knocked my eyes out. You live for something like that.

It's like finding the first cep of the season. It's so exciting!

So, what way do you like to cook chanterelles?

-I just like them plain fried with olive oil and butter.

-Yeah.

'I love the names that mushrooms have been given over the centuries.

'Look at these amethyst deceivers.

'They, like all mushrooms, have to be cooked using a lot of heat

'and very quickly, otherwise they stew,

'and as they are 90% water they tend to turn sloppy.

'So, it's really not a good idea to wash them.

'Just give most of them a brush.

'Here, I sauteed them with kidneys, a great breakfast dish.'

So, first of all, the kidneys.

Take about three kidneys, cut them in half

and that gives you three halves per person.

If you're fastidious, take out the sort of fatty bits in the middle,

but, you know, you don't need to.

It's really quite nice, particularly in a lamb's kidney,

which is quite delicate.

I've tossed the kidneys in seasoned flour

and now I fry them in hot butter.

Not long, because I like them rosy pink on the inside.

Now, turn them over once.

Halfway through, throw in the mushrooms and some salt.

I've always been a bit cautious with wild mushrooms.

It's great in France where you can take them

into a local chemist for identification.

Just try taking them into Boots!

Now, take the kidneys out of the pan to continue cooking the mushrooms.

Add a little more butter. Put the kidneys back in

and toss everything together and pour over some buttered toast.

And that's all there is to it.

Finally, sprinkle a little bit of parsley and serve.

So simple and so good.

I mean, another great combination is mushrooms and garlic,

but in this case it's mushroom and kidneys.

If you haven't tried it, you jolly well should.

Oh, yeah. That's those common earthballs I was on about.

-Oh, yeah.

-There's loads of them.

-I just want to...

This is really interesting, actually, as a chef and restaurateur.

Clive was just saying, that

if you look at these common earthballs, which are worthless,

look at the inside - what does that remind you of?

Well, black truffle.

And some unscrupulous chefs in London

take thin slices of this common earthball,

obviously, take the outside off

and just steep it in truffle oil -

you know, it's not very expensive,

sort of olive oil flavour with white truffle -

and call it black truffle. These are worth nothing.

And...well, 10 quid for that? Thank you very much!

In the grounds of this detached house in Cropwell Butler in Nottinghamshire

are three brothers to make the best pork pies I've tasted in a long time

from a recipe going back 150 years.

Can you just smell that, Rick?

I think pork pies are regarded generally as the butt

of many a British rail joke, which went with the curled up sandwiches.

In fact, I've noticed that in most of the pork pies I've had recently

there is a serious absence of jelly.

This is the heart of a pork pie -

jelly made from pigs trotters, which have been simmered

till they fall apart.

This mixer looks as though your grandfather may have...

Yeah, sure. This mixer has got a lot of history with it.

And my grandfather, when he was in business in Nottingham,

he had 16 of these in a row

all working, mixing pastry, mixing meat.

And I think this is the only one left, probably, in England today.

We can get our hands into it

and mix it at the pace we would like to mix,

and then, when the hot boiled lard and water and salt go in...

-Yeah.

-..I can mix it well with my hands.

So, it's a hot water paste your making now.

Yeah, boiling water, which we're going to tip now.

-English lard, sea salt...

-Sea salt?

-Sea salt.

And we're going to slowly tip it in there.

And all that should mix in with that pastry

and really hit it with some power.

-Brilliant. Thank you, Rick.

-That's all right.

So, what's the secret of a really good pork pie, then?

Well, I think the secret is the ingredients,

the quality of the ingredients.

We hand-butcher everything.

-Chop it in a mincer, but chop it in a big mincer.

-Yeah.

So, you've got the quality of the meat there. Big chunks of meat.

That's mixed perfect now. No need to mix that no more. Job done.

Everything about this is sort of apt, this pork pie,

because the pigs are local

and it's tied in with the cheese, isn't it, with Stilton?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, the history goes back years ago

where everyone produced...

Little farmers produced the pigs. The cheese was being produced.

They needed something to feed the pigs on,

so they fed them with the whey.

Of course, the quality of a pig when it's fed with whey

is beautiful, the meat.

And so I think they had so much pork around they said,

"Right let's make a pie."

And then they just made it by hand,

which is a Melton Mowbray pork pie when it's made by hand.

They look fantastic.

Ah, beauties. You know they're cooked.

-You see they're ready?

-They're bubbling up.

They've been in there an hour.

A simple question, but what do pork pies mean to you?

Oh, everything really. It's my life!

Sadly, you know, at 2:30 in the morning

you can wake up wondering if you jellied the pies.

If they're ready to be sold the next day and it's...a passion.

And once you've picked the pie, you've cut it

and you've got that segment in your hand ready to eat

and you bite into it and you get that lovely crunch of the pastry

and then you're into the softness of the jelly

and then you're back into another texture with the meat.

So far in my gastronomic journey,

I feel I haven't done justice to the vegetables we grow here.

I've come to Coleshill Organic Farm

to meet Peter and Sonia Richardson.

It must be a very nice place to work.

I mean, it's really nice, all these flowers everywhere.

Yeah, that's our singing gardener, yeah.

Why, cos she's so happy working this...?

-THEY LAUGH

-That's it, yeah.

She likes being in a walled garden.

There's something timeless, isn't it?

And, yeah it's just a very special place to work.

What we try to do when we do our boxes

is we send out newsletters with recipes and things,

just so that, perhaps when people get an unusual vegetable,

like a celeriac, you know, "What's this knobbly swede?"

they can actually do something with it

that they're going to, you know, enjoy, hopefully.

Whoever thought up vegetable boxes is a genius.

Paying a small sum of money each week to a local farmer

for a selection of his fresh produce.

Well, it inspired me to come up with this dish -

leek cannelloni with provolone picante cheese.

First of all, melt some butter in a non-stick pan,

then add three or four sliced leeks.

Stir the leeks around in the butter and add some thyme.

I'm using lemon thyme here.

Continue to cook gently while you crush some garlic.

These organic leeks taste hotter and more peppery than ordinary ones.

Now I add a small amount of water, a little more stirring

and then some salt and freshly ground black pepper.

I need a good concentrated tomato sauce

to spread under the cannellonis.

Just take some olive oil and some chopped onion,

finely chopped onion and chopped garlic.

Sweat off the onion and garlic in the olive oil,

then add a can of chopped tomatoes. Italian chopped tomatoes.

Don't bother with fresh British tomatoes.

They won't taste good enough.

Then you just knock that down,

so in other words you sort of reduce it right down

and you make a thing called a gastrique

and this is a real little tip.

And what it is is just a little bit of vinegar,

about two tablespoons of vinegar with about a teaspoon of sugar.

And you just boil that down to a real essence and add that.

Then a bit of salt and pepper,

but a gastrique really gives the tomato sauce a real lift

and people say, "Gosh!

"What is it that's so special about that tomato sauce?"

Don't get me wrong, I really like English tomatoes in the summer

and they're perfect for this sauce then,

but not the hothouse winter ones - you're better off with tinned.

Now I add some ricotta cheese to the nicely softened leeks

and roll about a tablespoon up in some soft lasagne.

Now, to finish the dish off, a simple bechamel sauce.

First I need to infuse flavour into the milk.

I tip it into a saucepan, add half an onion,

studded with three or four cloves.

Then I add a bay leaf or two and a few peppercorns, and then I simmer.

But I don't let it boil.

I take it off the heat and in another saucepan melt some butter,

add some flour and stir to make a roux.

I'll cook this gently for three or four minutes.

Now I pour the milk through a sieve and into the roux

and whisk briskly to make a smooth sauce.

Bechamel is the easiest mother sauce to make

and goes back to Louis XIV.

There's loads of rows whether it was French or Italian in origin.

I'm not too bothered - it just works for me.

I add a bit of cream and some grated provolone.

It's a cow's milk cheese from southern Italy.

Finally, I add an egg yolk for an extra bit of richness

and to make the sauce brown on top in the oven.

Then I whisk in some salt.

I have to admit that the idea for this dish came from our own

leeks in plain white sauce, which goes so well with roast lamb.

I pour the sauce right over the cannellonis

and sprinkle over the cheese.

So, all that remains to be done is to bake in an oven

at about 200 degrees for...

centigrade, that is - for about half an hour.

Now, this, of course, is a vegetarian dish.

I feel a bit sorry for Christopher, our cameraman.

He's a vegetarian and he suffers awfully bland food

with such stoicism on our travels.

It's so rare to get something good.

This is for him. He really liked it.

I'm not sure the cameramen on this show would be quite as excited.

They're all a bunch of carnivores, really.

Rick is right and it's great to celebrate

the great vegetables we grow in this country.

But it's not just veg we should be proud of.

At this time of year there are other great produce like British fruit, for instance.

And they don't get any more British than these fellas here,

the first crop of English strawberries. Do you want one?

-Yes, please.

-Go on. Proper English.

If you've been to LA for too long, you'll have missed them.

Proper English strawberries.

Absolutely delicious throughout the whole season.

Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.

What I'm going to do is a proper dish with strawberries.

Not an Eton mess, not that kind of stuff.

I'm going to do meringue and I'm going to do meringue

stuffed with strawberries and fresh cream.

Very, very simple.

I'm going to first of all make meringue.

We need four egg whites for this.

I'm just going to crack the eggs into our little pot.

I'll just lose that.

Now, we mentioned at the top of the show about EastEnders

and, obviously, Grange Hill.

But it was before then that you worked, five years old,

-with Sir Laurence Olivier?

-Yes. I hear he was thrilled to work with me.

Exactly. At seven, you played with at seven years old?

Monty Python?

I was one of the children singing Every Sperm Is Sacred

in The Meaning Of Life,

which my Catholic school teachers were delighted about!

-And your career kind of took off from there, really?

-Yeah.

You know, like every actor you have peaks and troughs but, yeah,

I think you're really, really just fortunate

if you manage to keep working.

I mentioned the fact that you must work incredibly hard

because I've read your biography.

Literally, you've done everything from theatre, television,

-back into film and music.

-Yes.

When was this music thing. 1996, was it?

Yeah, I just felt like the music industry needed a little help(!)

To be honest, it was one of those things after leaving EastEnders.

It's a long story but I resisted it many times.

I was asked if I wanted to do it and I was like,

"I don't have any musical talent."

They were like, "That's not a problem. Not in pop.

"Don't let that hold you back!"

And I ended up having a bad motorcycle accident

and I was lying in bed in hospital and I thought, "I'll give it a go.

"It will probably one record and then disappear."

-Three albums! Four tours!

-Yeah.

It was one of those things that I didn't foresee it lasting

as long as it did, and I apologise.

I apologise for putting you through that.

The bright lights of Hollywood took you to LA, like a lot of actors.

-It must be very difficult out there.

-Yeah. I didn't really...

It wasn't a strategy or a plan.

I was just sort of, you know,

going about my business here and a manager saw me in something

that I did on the BBC and said, "Would you like a manager?"

And I was like, "Yes, that would be nice."

And one thing led to another and we did an audition on tape here,

sent it over there. The director liked me, flew me over and then...

-Got the lead role.

-Yeah.

-In Meet The Spartans, it was?

No, this was about nine years ago. It was...

I actually went to Warner Brothers and they just sort of liked me,

for some reason.

I think they probably drink a lot there.

And I sort of got a deal to make a show for them

and it lasted for about a year and a half and by then

I sort of liked living there, so I stayed.

And the rest is history. Quickly make a meringue. Whipped egg whites.

You can have this after your Sunday lunch. Sugar.

No need to follow the old recipes of folding in a figure of eight.

Just get the sugar in as quick as possible. There you go.

Now, if you want sticky meringue it's what you do next.

You put in either cornflour or white wine vinegar in it

and that way when you cook it it'll go very sticky in the middle.

-Crunchy on the outside.

-Vinegar in meringue?

Vinegar in meringue. That's how you get sticky meringue.

Now, if you've got a fan oven, like I have,

a bit of meringue on there sticks the paper down.

Otherwise, if you have got a fan oven,

your meringues will be flying around the oven when you open the door.

But it just sticks to the bottom.

And all we do with that is just lift these.

Pop them on. Like that.

And they just literally sit on top like that.

So, from Hollywood, now you're back into the UK.

-This new...it's like a comedy, isn't it? Fantastic.

-Yeah.

It's a co-production between an American channel and the BBC here

and yeah, it's a sort of action-adventure fantasy comedy.

-We've tried to squeeze as many genres as we could.

-What's it called?

This is always the fun part.

-It's called Krod Mandoon And The Flaming Sword Of Fire.

-Right.

-Yes.

That's normally be reaction I get.

"And that's the title they're sticking with, is it?"

It was actually, funnily, that was the thing that nearly put me off.

Who's going to watch Krod Mandoon And The Flaming Sword Of Fire?

And then I read it and I was like, "Actually pretty funny."

What's different about it, then?

They're saying it's this new form of comedy.

I don't know if it's anything new, per se.

Everything's just a regurgitation of the same thing

but I don't think it's been done or seen.

It's sort of a little bit Monty Python.

It's sort of a bit Blackadder.

And it's got Matt Lucas,

who I think is probably the funniest guy I've ever met.

So it's worth looking at just for that.

-And it's going to be out on the BBC?

-Yes, on the BBC on 11th June.

-Will it go across to America, as well?

-Yes.

It just aired there.

It aired their first and now it's going to start here.

-You mention Matt Lucas. It must give you a big boost?

-It's amazing.

I'm just, you know, like most people, I'm just a huge fan of his and

when you're standing opposite him trying to do a scene, and he...

I always thought that funny people managed to not get the giggles

but he is a giggler!

And if he laughs, you've got no chance have you, really?

Right. Just finish this off.

Got our meringue. In we go with the strawberries now.

There you go. Good old fresh English strawberries.

Bit of whipped double cream. There you go.

What I've got in here is just some strawberries in here,

in the blender.

We just blend roughly into a little paste.

-It's a nice little mini one, isn't it?

-You like a mini blender?

-Yeah.

-Nice. Sweet.

-Very sweet.

Then we can take our puree and throw that in, as well.

The idea is we give this a quick mix

and then this is where it gets better.

You take a dollop of your meringue, which got here. Look at these.

You've made one earlier.

Yeah. It takes an hour-and-a-half in the oven, low oven.

These were done this morning.

There you go. I was up at six o'clock making these.

Me too(!)

I need a bunch of meringues before I left the house(!)

And then pile that on top. If you're into Michelin star cooking,

like John, a bit of icing sugar on top.

-Is that it?

-That's an extra fiver in his restaurant!

-THEY LAUGH

-Dive into that.

-How do you? What is the correct, polite way?

-There isn't one.

-Do I just pick it up like a hamburger?

-You can use...

You pick it up like a hamburger if you want.

I don't want to look uncouth on a cooking show.

Cos I am, obviously, but...

-You can just dive in.

-That's a pre-dessert in Yorkshire, James?

This is a petit four in Yorkshire, mate.

-Wow! That's really good!

-Look at that. Proper.

There you go. John is into this side of cooking.

There you go. Bit of that. There you go. This is for you, John Campbell.

You want your icing sugar? Make you feel at home.

-There you go.

-Thank you.

-What do you think that?

-THICKLY: So good!

-Happy?

-Yeah!

-Yeah, lovely.

If you are cooking meringues and they turn out a bit rustic,

just crush them and put them with some strawberries and cream

and call it Eton mess.

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

on today's show, all the recipes are a click away at bbc.co.uk/recipes.

And today we're looking back at some of the classic cooking

from the Saturday Kitchen back catalogue.

It's meat time now and John Torode is here

with possibly the best recipe

you're ever going to see for beef shin - beef rendang.

-Welcome to the show.

-G'day. How are you?

-G'day. What are we cooking?

Well, I'm going to use some British ingredients

and I'm going to do an Indonesian curry called a rendang.

And basically what it ends up being is beef in like a jam,

a coconut jam. A spicy jam.

I'm going to serve that with a little salad served in lettuce leaves

so you can pick them up and eat them

-so it's something quite fresh but still spicy.

-OK.

I've got some shin beef

because it's gelatinous and I want it to cook for a long time.

We'll talk about beef later on.

Lots of chilli, lemon grass, some ground cumin and turmeric. Ginger.

-Lots and lots of ginger.

-You want me to do the ginger.

-I'll get you to do the ginger for me.

-OK.

Some onions, coconut milk and some stock

-and I'm going to dice some onions and get those on to fry.

-OK.

The deal with these kind of curries is you sort of start them off.

You do all the work now, all the preparation

and get all of flavours in and then you let it go.

And the idea is that you just let it cook away and have a bit of fun

and don't do anything really, stir it occasionally,

and it turns into this lovely soft, beautiful, lovely curry.

It's really the part of the animal that does the most amount of work.

It does take the longest amount of cooking, doesn't it?

You know, I was reading a new book out by John Torode

called John Torode's Beef And Other Bovine Matters...

-They're all at it!

-That's it.

The idea is that, with an animal,

the muscles that do all the work, like the legs and stuff,

need lots of slow-cooking, and the muscles that don't do any work...

-Like the fillet and bits and pieces.

-They just sit around.

They need fast cooking.

But the ones that do all the work have all the flavour.

So there's sort of a dichotomy here.

Anyway. Onions. And I've got some coconut cream here.

This is the essence. The coconut is key to this, isn't it?

Well, yeah. The coconut cream, the first bit, gives us a sweetness

to the base of the actual curry.

Put some oil in there together and that sort of melts away.

Ginger. You're very, very fast today.

And then in here as well, I want to sort of spice it up a little bit

so I'm going to add into my pan some spices.

Before I put the spices into the actual curry itself,

I need the flavour of those spices to come out.

-You want me to do the lemon grass?

-Please. That would be great.

Cumin and turmeric together in a pan,

and also some coriander seeds, and you have to roast them.

You've got to get the flavour out of them.

It's really important the flavour comes out and the way to do that

is to get a bit of heat beneath them and the oils to come out.

So, that's really, really important. Now...

It also draws out the moisture

and intensifies the flavours so it works better in oil.

Here am I telling a man who knows more about spices than anybody

-how to do spicing!

-I wasn't going to say anything!

What can I say? Lemon grass in there.

I'm going to put in this garlic and ginger, as well,

which I'm going to ask you to pound like a paste.

I use a mortar and pestle because the oils come out better.

And then I'm going to chop up some chillies.

Now, long chillies like these have a little bit of heat

but not a huge amount,

so if you don't want it really spicy take the seeds out,

and if you like it spicy, like me, leave the seeds in.

-Are you done?

-Yeah. You want chillies in, as well?

-Chuck them in.

-There you go. Away you go. Thank you.

While you to that little bit of pounding,

I'm going to do some grinding of my spice. Smell that?

-And see the smoke coming off it?

-Yeah.

-It just makes it come alive.

Onions, fry those off.

You don't want any colour on the onions, just to be nice and soft

and the flavour of the coconut to come through.

And then in here, I love these things! My little spice grinder.

Can you chuck that paste inside that with the onions, please?

-Will do, yeah.

-HE GROANS

You're working very hard.

It'll build up your muscles, mate, to impress Katherine even more now.

Anyway! Sorry, did I say that?

THEY LAUGH

Sorry. Put the lid back on. Sorry, darling!

No, I'm not saying a word.

-Like this. Ha! You're going to get me back in a minute.

-Yep.

-Oh, yes, I am.

-I can't reach that. That's what you're doing to me.

Add the spice in there and then fry that off.

Now, at this stage, this is the stage, because we've already

roasted off our spaces we don't have to do to much more.

And this is where the beef goes in.

I don't really want the beef to be coloured because I want the flavour

of the meat to come out but I want it to cook well.

-Add the shin beef into there.

-Now, the shin of beef.

-Shin of beef.

We need to explain. In fact, I tell you what...

Because in rehearsal...

Come on. Come here. Vivek will now explain.

There you go. The shin of beef is this part here.

-This part.

-And for those people who want to know, literally...

-Stock and coconut milk are going in.

-This is your book.

This is quite a clever thing, actually.

You are calling something I've done clever!

For an Australian, it's pretty clever!

For an Australian to do something like this is pretty clever.

-Look at that.

-It's my beef chart.

That tells you now, if you buy the book, you can go to the butcher

and say, "I know what I'm talking about."

And the idea is to give people a bit more trust in what they're buying.

Better-looking than the front anyway. There you go.

-John, would you be able to buy it off a supermarket shelf?

-Yeah. Yeah.

-They're available everywhere.

-They do sell it.

-Braising steak.

-It is for sale.

-It's not just the only copy in the country.

-Not the book, I meant shin beef!

-Oh, I'm so sorry.

Sorry. Promotional.

No, shin of beef, actually, in supermarkets,

they label it as stewing steak and it comes in little trays.

All you can see is little round discs and it's really cheap.

Best thing in the world. Now, a little salad here.

I've got some little herbs and bits and pieces.

Pea shoots and cabbage and bean shoots and peas.

Lots of lovely herbs.

And I'm going to make a dressing with some chopped chillies, lime juice and fish sauce.

So, cabbage and then, James, into there, some pea shoots.

Maybe some mizuna? Little lovely leaves.

-Then some bean shoots.

-Pea shoots. OK.

-I love bossing you around.

Makes me feel so excited!

Now, chillies, lime juice, fish sauce.

The idea of an Asian cuisine dressing is simply sour and hot,

a bit of salt which comes from the fish sauce

and then sweetness which is coming from the herbs and bits and pieces.

-Raw beans in there as well?

-I'll chop those beans up for you.

And I'll chop up some mint and basil, as well.

And you can put anything you like in here,

as long as it's not too powerful.

Because you want it to be able to just

be lovely and fresh with your quite dense curry.

Often with stews like that, people would say,

"Can I put it in the oven?"

They're a bit worried about leaving it out like that for a few hours.

For me, I've got a large cooking vessel

and it's important that a large cooking vessel is allowed to boil

and evaporate all the mixture, and I'll show you why in a second.

Put this dressing in. Thank you very much. Pour that over.

-And if you can take that cos, that little gem lettuce...

-There you go.

Take the bottom off and make little nice little cups and then,

whilst I mix the dressing together... That's it.

I'll take the big plate and you take the little plate.

Whatever you like. Or whatever way you want.

-And then if you put a little bit of salad into each cup.

-Into each one.

Now, are you going to serve this with, what? With the rice?

I'm going to serve this with sticky rice

and there's a really easy formula for sticky rice.

Half Thai fragrant rice and half Japanese short grain rice

or even pudding rice or Arborio rice, which has more starch.

You wash it three times in clear water,

until the water goes clear, and then after that,

you just cover it with water, bring it up to the boil

and when it comes up to the boil, boil it for five minutes,

leave the lid on, don't touch it at all,

and then turn the heat off and leave it for 20 minutes

and, look, perfect rice. It's almost as good as your rice.

Right. That one there. And then our curry.

And you see what's happened now?

And this is from, you know, before and after.

You've got all this liquid inside this pan

and now it's boiled down to, literally, this is it.

This lovely jam and beef and the beef in there has cooked for two hours

and become really soft and actually beautifully spicy.

And this, my friend, is one of my favourite things in the world.

It's a strong flavour, cos I've got a cold

and it's coming through even that. It smells fantastic.

It's absolutely one of my favourite things in the world

and it's not expensive.

You can feed six people for about five quid

and I think in these times, that's important.

Remind us what it is.

-Beef rendang with sticky rice and an Asian salad.

-Easy as that.

There you go. Right. Over here. Katherine, don't look at this.

You're turning your nose up again. There you go. That's yours.

-Thank you.

-Katherine, I need to tell you a story, you see -

because when I was doing the book,

the girl who was designing it was a vegetarian.

And after one day with us doing the photography,

I've now converted her and she eats meat.

-It was 20 years she didn't eat meat for.

-Really?

-Yeah.

-Maybe you should try it.

-Maybe not! Just have that.

THEY LAUGH

But if you didn't want to use beef,

what about venison and stuff like that?

-Actually, you could make the sauce and you could use tofu.

-Exactly.

The secret is the long, slow method of cooking.

Nice and slow, really gently and then all the flavours come through.

Slower the better, longer the better.

-That's the mantra, isn't it?

-Vivek, what do you reckon?

Have a taste and tell us what you think.

Is that good? I'm pleased.

-The flavour certainly comes out. What about the salad?

-Lovely.

-Lovely crisp, fresh flavours?

-Sweet, rich, deep flavours.

That's me, mate - deep!

That dish is perfect if you've got a cold.

If you've got a blocked nose you can still taste it.

Now it's time to join Keith Floyd in the US of A.

Today he's in Memphis,

where music seems to be more important than food.

What's all that about?

Memphis was so named by General Jackson after the capital

of ancient Egypt because the river reminded him of the Nile

and, more importantly, Memphis is the kitchen of rock'n'roll.

What would you eat for your dinner, for example?

-I would say the barbecue.

-Barbecue.

-Barbecued ribs or shoulder.

They are both Memphis specialties and they're very good.

And what about the women? Have you got some pretty women in Memphis?

We've got some pretty women in Memphis. Fact is we're outnumbered.

We've got around nine to each man in the city.

Nine women to each man!

Tell your Ma, tell your Pa, I'm going to take it back to Arkansas!

# Tell your mamma Tell your pa

# Tell your uncle Tell your aunt

# Tell your brother Tell your cousin

# Tell the Queen!

# I want to go back to Arkansas All right

# Hey-ey

# All right, baby

# See the girl with a diamond ring

# She knows how to shake that thing all night

# He-ey All right... #

I'm going to play little piano for you, boy.

What do you think about that?

# Go, go Little Queenie, go Whoo!

# Go, go Little Queenie, go

# Go, go Little Queenie, go... #

If the overwhelming ambience of this place doesn't get to you

then you are brain-dead.

I mean, I know this is a cookery programme

but rock'n'roll is like cookery too.

Ask any good cook, he'll tell you what he needs.

He needs three things. He calls it his trinity.

In Louisiana it's bell peppers, onions and celery.

But for rock'n'roll you need blues, you need gospel, you need jazz.

And that's exactly what they did here.

This is the kitchen of rock'n'roll and this is the microphone

that Elvis used for his first song, so let's get cooking.

# It's all right, Mamma

# That's all right for you

# That's all right, Mamma

# Just anyway you do

# That's all right

# That's all right

# That's all right now, Mamma

# Anyway you do... #

if you want what the call dine home cooking, Buntings is the place.

Elvis used it for the odd half dozen cheeseburgers.

Anyway, this restaurant celebrates southern cooking with fried chicken,

okra, black-eyed peas, turnip greens, the whole nine yards.

It's like the Ode To Billy Joe and it's always packed.

If you ain't there by 12, try another place.

GOSPEL SINGING

Nobody wants to play rhythm guitar behind Jesus.

Everybody wants to be the lead singer in a band, so the song goes.

But where would we be without gospel?

There would be no rock 'n' roll, for a start.

This church belongs to an old chum of Martin Luther King,

the Reverend James Carter and his wife, Portia.

One day he told a man, he said,

"If you is asked for a gold, one might."

He said, "Gold, too."

He said, "If somebody asked you for your coat,

"don't only give him your topcoat, give him your overcoat.

"And if they slap you on one cheek, turn the other cheek."

We all outta step with Jesus. Y'all know that's true.

You hit me, I'm going to hit you back!

GOSPEL SINGING

This here... This here is...

..smoked hen, chicken.

Now, this was smoked with a Texas briquette type of wood

in one of the things back in the church there.

Y'all try that. I want all of you to try that.

Now, this, if you don't believe this is good, I dare you to bite into it.

This is prime beef, and it's smoked, too.

This was smoked in a certain special gravy by me.

Now, over here...

I don't ordinarily go to church on Wednesdays,

but this is no ordinary church.

It's a family affair, and they call it the eating church.

This place is always full.

After a fun session of praising the Lord it's time to praise the cook

and the cooking smells seep through the little church.

So I thought it would be a brilliant idea to cook for him

in his own kitchen, but I feel like I'm knocking on Heaven's door.

OK, Clive. Down to the business. This is Floyd's American Pie.

This is the cookery spetch...sketch. Let's go for it. OK.

Over here we're going to start with some yams, the sweet potato.

This is what we need. We need some peppers.

We're going round to your right, Clive. OK.

We need some black-eyed peas.

Remember that song, Tallahatchie Bridge?

Black-eyed peas? The turnip greens.

The greens that we would throw away and feed to the animals in Britain.

Swing on over here if you can, Clive, to some tomato sauce.

OK, then to my little trinity.

My trinity of onions, peppers and garlic.

And over here to my red pepper and my chilli powder.

Over here to nutmeg, sugar and butter and vanilla essence.

Over here to my diced little bits of fat pork -

smoked or salted, it's up to you.

But what is the star of this dish, I hear you cry?

The star is something that most of you would be horrified

to even think of. Look at it. This is chitlins.

I was brought up in a village near Milverton in Somerset, England,

and chitlins were big there and chitlins are big in Memphis.

OK, Clive, you've got to walk around here

because I have to do some business. This is quite tricky.

This is a real take, we are doing it for real. There will be no cuts.

I've never cooked this dish before.

I'm cooking for some real, real people.

I've got to start things going.

Clive, if you could come very close into this strange looking mess.

Those are my pieces of chitlin which I cut up

and blanched for about three hours in gently simmering water

with onions and bell peppers until, in fact,

they are like little pieces of squid

or little pieces of calamari or something like that.

I have to make a sauce for those.

Leave those where they are for the moment.

In goes my trinity into the pan, here, straight away. Right.

They're going to bubble and simmer in a soulful and meaningful way.

And I'm going to take you around some of the other things I've been doing.

In here I've got my yams.

Notice I've tried to cut them in a nice way,

just to make the presentation look good.

And I've got some things to go in there to make these yams,

they're going to be called candied yams.

Stay with it, Clive, because into our yams we put a couple of ounces

of butter, like that, in their cooking water.

We are going to put a load of sugar and a little grated nutmeg.

We will just let that all melt down and simmer softly.

These are the famous black-eyed peas, OK?

I have soaked a load of these peas in water overnight

and then I fried off a few little pieces of that smoked pork,

the back pork, the belly of pork.

Covered them in water and simmered them for about three hours

until they're nicely gently going.

That is simmering away. Right.

What's going to happen here,

because I don't understand the controls of this cooker

and things like that, every now and again,

Clive might have to take a wonderful shot of one of those slow

southern fans that spin around the kitchen.

When you see that, you know that I might have muddled something

or forgotten something. Clive, the fan's turning!

Ladies and gentlemen, the mighty,

mighty Rhythm Hounds from Memphis Tennessee.

We hope you're having a good time here this evening.

Hope you stick around because we have some R&B music for you.

Y'all are having a special night here this evening.

We're doing some filming for a special show.

A special cooking show, ladies and gentlemen.

This is the Rhythm Hounds' Salute To Vegetables, ladies and gentlemen.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Don't worry! Be happy!

The music hasn't died, it's merely stopped for a moment.

Just to recap on my yams.

Remember I boiled them in water and I added sugar, butter, nutmeg and a

little drop of vanilla essence and a little tablespoonful of tomato sauce.

They're simmering away.

Down to my trinity, remember, the onion, garlic and peppers,

I've also added some tomato sauce to that.

I must now add a little red pepper.

In we go to make it a little bit spicy. And a little paprika.

OK. Stir. Twiddle, twiddle.

Right, I've now got to do the turnip greens. Very simple.

Into the hot pan go my little lardons. OK.

Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle. I'll steer those around a second.

Get them whizzing around like that.

The turnip greens, which are going to reduce down an awful lot.

A bit like spinach. They go on top.

OK, you might like to add salt to this or you might not want to

because they are quite bitter.

A little bit of water into there.

And up to the fan.

In days of old when knights were bold and telegraph poles weren't invented,

and indeed, even before Sainsbury's and Tesco,

a man from Memphis invented the world's first supermarket.

He called it Piggly Wiggly. He must have been off his trolley, John.

Right. So, now we are down to the real critical business here,

I'm flouring, egg washed, my little pieces of chitlin,

which have to be deep-fried in this very hot fat.

One, two, three, four, five, six.

The other trouble is I have got to try and get this food absolutely hot,

absolutely right for some people who were raised on this kind of food.

I'm a Brit in Memphis.

Some of those of you at home who do quite like me,

I'm fighting for this, OK?

I want the Reverend Cutter and Portia, his wife,

to eat my food real.

It could go wrong because I've got about 30 seconds to fry,

deep fry these things.

In the meantime I've got to set up the rest of it. OK, right.

Leave that alone. Come over here.

These are my turnip greens.

-BANG

-Oh!

Never mind anybody kicking the table. That's turnip greens, OK?

Cooked my way.

These are yams, cooked my way. OK.

I'm worried about my fatty...

These are my black-eyed peas, my way.

And I left the whole big piece of rind there to get all the flavour

into the black-eyed peas, OK?

This is a go situation. This is real.

I have lost a spoon. OK. That's all right.

-Don't forget the sauce.

-And my sauce.

The sauce goes on the plate.

I don't know what they're going to say to me because this is a spicy

chilli sauce made from the trinity, made from the peppers and spices.

And what I want to do is put these chitlins right on the top.

Here we go.

And this is where it's at.

And this is either where it's at, or where it's not at, OK?

Dr Cutler, please come and try it.

Please tell me - and, Clive, back to me as I do this -

and try and get these...

Sit down, my darlings. Please do.

Please try and taste this, and when you do,

Clive, that is my Memphis on a plate.

-Can I call you James?

-James is fine.

James, please, and Portia, try what I have tried to do for you.

With no knowledge, with no understanding

except just a belief that it could happen.

That I could cook you some food.

And you can tell the truth about this.

-I will try the chitlins.

-OK. Cos he likes chitlins.

I love the Southern chitlins.

-Mm.

-Mm.

The green veg is great.

The chitlins, I'm going to give you your honorary citizenship

to cook it in America.

-It's Memphis, isn't it?

-Black-eyed peas is good.

-Mm.

-Is it all right. I mean, is it roughly right?

-It is.

-Or is it 100 miles away?

-No, the black-eyed peas are delicious.

-So, what about my yams?

The greens is delicious.

-It's passed delicious.

-Now, let's taste the yams.

I can appreciate someone that

can do a job and like for it to be well,

and I think you've done a good job on this food.

This tastes like the greens, if the camera could just show that,

the greens taste like the good old Southern greens.

You have nothing to be ashamed of.

And the chitlins is delicious.

Delicious.

And they are hot but they're not hot enough for my wife, Mrs Cutler.

And the black-eyed peas, my mother used to make them like that.

That's brought back memories that I shall ever be grateful for

in the black-eyed peas. They're just right.

The touch is there. And also the candied yams.

The flavour there is strictly Southern.

It's always great to see Mr Floyd on his culinary travels.

As ever on Best Bites, we're looking back at some of the fantastic

cooking from the Saturday Kitchen archives.

Still to come, it was Clash of the Titans when Stuart Gillies,

who had once been top of the omelette challenge leaderboard

met Michele Roux,

who had previously cooked the best omelette in the competition.

But who would beat who? Find out in a short while.

Later in the show, Bryn Williams slow cooks lamb

and creates a hearty lamb stew using fresh Welsh lamb

with baby onions and serve it with fragrant rosemary dumplings.

And a very chirpy Cheryl Baker faced her Food Heaven or Food Hell.

Would she get her Food Heaven - prawns?

My marinated griddled prawns with roasted lemon mayonnaise

and char grilled asparagus?

Or would she get her dreaded Food Hell - home-made beef burgers

served with tomato ketchup, fries and corn on the cob?

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

Now, before Michael Caines took over Gidleigh Park,

Sean Hill was in charge

and he was creating some of the finest food around.

Here he is in a very early Saturday Kitchen clip

and is serving up a tale or two about the legend, Mr Keith Floyd.

Delight to have you on the programme.

I'm really pleased that you've come on.

Tell us a bit about the dish you're cooking today.

It's very straightforward. It's monkfish but it needn't be monkfish.

You can use haddock or cod, whatever you want to use,

but a white fish, generally.

And it's sealed in a very hot pan, cooked off quite quickly.

I want a little bit of colour on the outside.

The other two components of the dish are the sauce which is...

-What have you got in here?

-This is wholegrain mustard.

This is a bit of fish stock but you could use white wine

or tap water and it wouldn't make a great deal of difference.

Some creme fraiche and some butter.

If you wanted a healthier option,

you could make the sauce in a liquidiser

and use a little bit of olive oil.

A bit of lemon, and then for the salad a little cucumber salad?

Salad will need to be sliced, peeled, sliced and pressed a little bit

so that the shape starts to change and the liquid starts to go out.

-Then it's tossed in vinegar, sugar and a bit of black pepper.

-Lovely.

The idea of that is that it cuts through the creaminess of the sauce.

Fantastic. Fire away. Monkfish first of all.

How do we prepare our monkfish?

Well, you know, sensible people get a butcher or

a fishmonger of somebody to do it for them.

You just loosen the sides of this here and you can pull off the skin.

With monkfish there is quite a fair percentage of waste,

isn't there, with monkfish?

Yes, but if you are not in a TV studio and you're at home,

you might do this a minute or two earlier, bring this to the boil

in the stock or the water or the wine and you'd get all the flavour.

You wouldn't actually have wasted it.

We mentioned the restaurant in Ludlow, where I actually went.

That's gone now and you're opening a new venture.

I am, I'm opening a brasserie in Worcester.

I've sort of done very posh food for a long time

and I'd like to have a go at something slightly more democratic.

Fantastic. Good.

Did you cook for any animals when you worked at London zoo?

I cooked for quite a few people who'd qualify...

LAUGHTER ..as animals.

I used to... I lived in Primrose Hill at that time

and I was going to school just off Baker Street,

and so what happened was I had to walk past the place

where they recruited casual staff on the way

to go and do Virgil or whatever else I was translating.

And you got 37 and sixpence a day for frying fish or something.

And you're still getting it now!

What's happening with this monkfish?

-Sorry about this. I digress.

-Right. You are taking...

-There's an inner skin inside, as well.

-There is.

And I'm taking that off because it shrinks as it cooks.

-We don't want anything like that.

-Yeah.

So monkfish, often called angler fish, as well?

It used to be called all sorts of things when it wasn't popular.

-The name sort of settles after a while.

-Yeah.

It wasn't popular because of the appearance or not?

How do you think that is?

People were quite fastidious about what they'd eat.

They've got a great big ugly head on them

so they weren't terribly popular.

Initially they were famous as being a substitute that chefs

-did for lobster.

-Yeah.

-It's a meaty fish as well.

-Yes, it is.

It was meant to be that if you

cooked it much the same way as scampi or something, you could...

I'll get that out of your way.

I've heard it said it was called poor man's lobster.

I know, but lobster is getting a bit cheaper now

and monkfish has got very expensive so maybe...

Shaun, what's the best way to kill a lobster?

Well, I'd get Gordon Ramsay to do it.

Exactly. Give it to a helper in your kitchen.

Right, fire away. We've got our fish cooking away, lovely.

-Just get a bit of colour on each side.

-Lovely.

Doing our sauce now?

Yes, put a little bit more butter on it. I just put in the oven.

Do you want me to peel this cucumber?

That would be very, very good because...

Now, we go back onto this Ludlow thing.

It was the biggest collection of Michelin-starred

-restaurants in the county at one point? Is that right?

-It was.

In one place.

I mean, it's a tiny town of 10,000 people, it's a lovely town.

It really was a lovely place to live.

I enjoyed being there.

But all the restaurants in Ludlow had a maximum of 24 people

so it didn't take a lot of people to fill all of us up.

-Right. Just remind us what we've got in there.

-A bit of stock.

-Yep.

You're going to get a bit more mustard.

We mentioned if it wasn't stock you could use wine.

One big wine lover you have a connection with,

-quite a long time ago, is of course Mr Keith Floyd, wasn't it?

-Good man.

Good man, cracking guy.

He is. I had just started at Gidleigh

when he was doing his first series, Floyd On Fish.

So tell is a little story. Some great stories.

He came at nine o'clock in the morning

and had a very large scotch to get himself in the mood for this.

We had to do lots of takes

as we made mistakes and things went wrong.

For each of them, his trademark was having a glass of wine

so by lunchtime we were quite drunk.

-Then you had to cook the service, as well.

-I did.

I was feeling that things were going really well at this point, as you do.

Yeah.

And I'd forgotten that anybody was recording this

so we had a good time, he went off to lunch in the pub.

I did 20 people in the restaurant.

Then we finished by eating the food.

-Yep.

-Neither of us really very hungry at that point!

He'd just had lunch and he ordered very expensive wine,

which went down a treat.

It's not just him you've got a connection with this well, a certain

-Delia Smith, she refers to you quite a lots and all your recipes.

-Well...