Episode 43 Saturday Kitchen Best Bites

Good morning. A feast of fabulous food coming your way in today's Best Bites.

Welcome to the show.

We've got these gourmet delights from the Saturday Kitchen

back catalogue for you to enjoy.

This shrimp ravioli with tomato sauce for comedy legend

Ronnie Corbett.

-Beautiful, really beautiful.

-That's it.

Jose Pizarro cooks the very best in Spanish food.

And this pork chop with green beans and piquillo peppers

will have you booking your flights to Alicante

by the end of the show.

Nick Nairn definitely helped define modern British food

and his turbot with razor clams with sauce vierge

is as good as it gets.

Actor Dougray Scott faced his Food Heaven or Food Hell.

There was a Thai-style sea bass with holy basil

and rice noodle salad ready for Food Heaven

and a sweetcorn and crab soup all set up for his Food Hell.

Find out what he gets at the end of the show.

First up today, though, is the brilliant Angela Hartnett

with something down to earth and downright delicious.

Take a look at this.

Top, top food. What are we cooking?

We'll roast off some beautiful corn-fed chicken

with some garlic, rosemary and make a lovely, fresh green bean, leek

and shallot salad with tarragon and parsley.

-Simple food you can easily cook this weekend.

-Easily.

-In season as well,

-little baby leeks.

-I know. They must be on your farm now, surely?

-Still growing, they're about this sort of size now.

-Starting to come.

So just season up your chicken nicely.

-You use the maize-fed chicken, don't you?

-Yes.

Just because I think it's got lovely flavour and all the rest of it.

If you're going to have chicken, you have to have the best.

You don't want anything that's really watery

or doesn't taste of anything. Skin side down. Just lightly.

Keep the skin on. It's quite important, keeps it nice and moist.

Yes, nice and moist. Take that little feather out. Here it goes.

SIZZLING

And then we just crush the garlic.

There's a sink in the back if you want to wash your hands.

-There you go.

-So we just turn that down.

-And just lightly let it roast off.

-Yeah, OK.

OK. And while that's cooking, we'll prepare our veg

so we'll take a handful of the green beans. Where's my knife?

At the moment you've been quite quiet,

quite unusual to be one of Gordon Ramsay's chefs.

-Why's that?

-Well, the Connaught's closed for refurb.

-Yep.

-So we're closed for about six to eight months now.

-This is the whole hotel?

-The whole hotel but they're doing such work to it, they have to.

-They'll put a swimming pool in, a spa, which I'll get to use.

-Right.

I've just finished a TV thing with John Burton Race

-and I've just got my book out.

-Exactly.

-So loads going on.

-And your book,

a similar vein to what Gennaro was doing there.

-Yeah.

-Three generations of Italian cooking.

-Totally, yeah.

It's all about recipes my grandmother had,

my mother's had. Stuff like, you know,

we were brought up as children eating. So it's fantastic.

-I'm really pleased with it. Very, very pleased.

-It's a fabulous book.

I know, I love it.

I had a quick look and I must say it brings memories back.

-It is fantastic book. Well done.

-He likes it. I'll give you a copy!

-Thank you. I was waiting for that!

I've got to beat James in the ratings, so you'll have to buy one!

You have an Italian background

but you did the Great British Menu and represented Wales.

-Yes! There is justification.

-How do you go from Italy to Wales?

-There's a whole community. JOHN:

-Nothing wrong with Wales!

-No.

-Back me up here!

There's a whole community in Italy that emigrated to Wales

and that's where my mother was born, of Italian parents.

-I full agreed with you.

-Exactly, but I agree. Everyone said to me,

"What are you, Welsh, Italian, English?" I was born in Kent.

-That goes in the oven.

-How long for?

-About eight to ten minutes.

-I've chopped your shallots.

-Thank you very much.

-Can I ask a question?

-No!

-OK!

-Yes, carry on.

If someone is health-conscious...

My mother will never cook chicken with the skin on it.

-Yeah.

-Can you take it off after?

-You could do.

-Does that give it the flavour?

-Yeah, I think it protects it as well.

It gives a great flavour. Natural basting cos it's naturally fat

so I think you should, personally.

But you can take it off, you don't have to eat the skin.

And how strict? Cos you know how you have to cook chicken

a certain way, otherwise they say it's dangerous if it has pink bits.

Yeah, you have to cook it through but not dry, like a lot of people.

-It gets too dry.

-They overcompensate and overcook it.

-Exactly, too much.

-What's going in this dressing?

-A lovely olive oil, classic virgin olive oil,

white wine vinegar and some chopped shallots.

A bit of mustard in there as well.

A bit of mustard and we'll add some fresh herbs to it now. OK.

So put some in there.

-Herbs like tarragon and parsley, you'll use as well?

-Definitely.

I love flat-leaf parsley, it's fantastic.

But tarragon is quite a strong herb as well.

I think the chicken can take it. We keep them quite crunchy, the beans.

A mistake that lots of people make.

That classic combination of chicken and tarragon together,

-they put too much tarragon.

-Yeah.

-Particularly dry stuff, it kills it.

No, I know.

Tarragon is like coriander - you need to use it in moderation.

So we'll put our beans...

We've kept them crunchy, we want it nice and light.

-They've just blanched.

-Literally. They'll have a bit of bite to them.

-Two, three minutes.

Then we'll put our dressing over them.

-Do you want some seasoning in that?

-I will indeed.

-Salt and pepper.

-We mentioned your restaurant that's closed.

-Yep.

But you've also got another one in Florida?

Sunny Florida, yes. The one everyone thinks all I do is sit on the beach!

Tell us about that one.

It's basically in a beautiful resort in Boca Raton

between Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach.

It's 27 floors up, it overlooks the sea, the beaches.

It is phenomenal and it's all glass and chrome.

-It's beautiful.

-What's it like getting food out there?

Food, you struggle with, you really do.

I thought in Florida, cos it's sunny, you'd get loads of fresh vegetables

but we have to freight a lot in.

It literally is FedExed all over the place, it's quite scary.

You can't get good food all the time.

-Would you agree with that in America?

-Well, in certain parts.

-My parents actually live in Florida.

-Really?

-Yeah, and the thing is

certain larger big supermarkets, when you go to them, the produce

is always slightly wilted because it's not as fresh as you would,

let's say in the Midwest where a lot of the growing area is,

but most American stuff is flown in, they don't grow their own.

-The heat can also affect it quite dramatically.

-Totally.

-I'll send my parents to the restaurant.

-Do, please do!

If I have them ring, they'll get booked in!

Hmm, yeah, let's see how you go today!

-Good.

-I want to taste the watermelon, you see. Please.

-There you go, beautiful.

-Just sliced over the top.

Just sliced, placed on the beans, bit more of the dressing.

Serve the green beans warm, absorbing the vinegar and olive oil.

She's a genius. Remind us what that is again.

You've got beautiful roasted corn-fed chicken breasts

on a spring salad of leeks and baby green beans.

-Cooked in exactly six minutes. Easy as that.

-Boom boom.

APPLAUSE Thank you.

I'm off now, aren't I?

I promise you, they haven't been drinking over there yet.

-Follow me, there we go.

-They will be!

-Have a seat.

-Thank you.

You get to dive into this.

-When you say Boca Raton, you have to say "Bow-ca".

-Bow-ca!

-From Bow-ca, all right.

-Use this one, there you go.

-Boca Vista.

-It smells great. I like my vegetables crunchy.

-Looks lovely.

-What's the name of that chicken?

-Corn-fed.

-Slightly yellow skin?

-Yes, exactly.

-Produced on 50% maize.

-That is delicious. Do I pass it down?

-Yeah, that's all you're getting!

-You have to share.

-Pass it to the left, yeah?

Also putting the dressing in while the ingredients are still warm,

-very Italian.

-So important, it's like when you make a lovely potato salad,

-it's got to absorb all the vinegar and the olive oil.

-Has to be warm.

-Totally.

-You can actually taste the vegetables

when they're warm as well. Much better when they're cooked.

The vinegar adds a bite to it, doesn't it? And the onion.

-Yeah, it's a nice crunch to it.

-Piquance.

-Oh, la la la la la la!

-Is this all mine?

-All for you, yeah!

Other ingredients - you mentioned potato, we've got beans, leeks.

-Would that work with broccoli, that kind of thing?

-Easily.

I really love crunchy vegetables and I love vinaigrettes on stuff,

it's just perfect.

But you can even do baby carrots, asparagus. So much stuff.

-Napkin, anyone?

-Gennaro's happy!

ALL LAUGH

-He's lost for words!

-I think he likes that!

-This is a first time, grab it quick!

-Quick, quick!

-I will give you three Michelin stars!

-Ahh!

Coming up, I'll be making ravioli for comedy legend

and keen baker Ronnie Corbett, but first

here's the great Rick Stein.

Once upon a time, the herring fishery extended from the north of Scotland

way down to Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft and beyond.

Sadly, all that's declined now, leaving ports like Lowestoft

a shadow of their former self.

Donny Cole, a local fish merchant, remembers how it used to be.

For every man that went to sea on the drifters,

there were seven men ashore backing him up.

The people who built the boats, the beatsters that made the nets,

the people connected in the industry, the box makers,

everybody. And that there is how it used to be.

But if that dock is the one you saw today, right...

and there is not one boat in it. Not one boat in that dock.

I mean, it is...for me, heartbreaking.

There was 200 smokehouses in Lowestoft.

The air was thick with the smell of herrings and kippers.

Everyone ate kippers. It was an era, just a complete era

which unfortunately has disappeared.

Well, I say unfortunately disappeared

because the whole thing's changed

but for me, being in the fishing industry,

I think it's a disaster.

Donny and his brother Michael

own one of the last smokeries in East Anglia

and Colin Burgess who does the smoking

wonders whether anybody will take over from him.

Not even the herrings are local any more -

they come from Norway or Iceland.

There's not many people who do it or who carry on doing it

and it is just nice to be a part of something

that's going to die out. No young person wants to do it.

Um...I'm probably one of the youngest fish curers

and smokers there is left and nobody wants to do it after me.

There's no good doing it for five minutes and thinking

after five minutes or after six months,

you know it or you think you can do it

because that's an impossibility.

You learn something new every day, you know?

It's extraordinary to me that a product which is so good,

which is so skilfully made should be in danger of dying out.

Why is it that we turn our back on the really good things in life

in favour of what - hygienic little fillets?

Stainless steel? Vacuum packing?

Artificial colouring? No bugs? I don't know.

It'd be great if somebody started a campaign for real smoked fish.

Pfff!

That, to me, is a great delicacy.

An undyed kipper hanging on tenterhooks with a good fat content

that all herrings have at this time of year.

Needs to be about 15%.

And this is very interesting to me, this is a bloater.

It's like a kipper smoked for the same sort of time and brined first

but it's smoked with its guts in. Cold-smoked again so it's part raw.

Called a bloater, not cos it sort of bloats up

and gets all sort of off, but because it's slightly puffed up

with the guts still in it and a little bit gamey.

The Victorians used to make a great bloater paste with it.

And this is even more interesting.

That's called a golden, and that's been salted for two days

and smoked for about five to six days and that was for the export trade.

A lot more salt content.

Perhaps a bit salty for today's tastes but a lovely colour.

But this is the most interesting thing.

If I can find it, hanging up here in the rafters. That is a red herring.

That again is salted for about two or three days

but then it's smoked for about five to six weeks

so that you could actually eat this for weeks and weeks

without refrigerating it, and that was for the African trade.

Well, the slave trade in fact because it's something they could eat

on the ships, but it's got into the African culture now

and that's where all the red herrings go.

Hey, Rick, try one of these.

-These are buckling.

-Ah, hot-smoked, aren't they?

-They're hot-smoked in the smokehouse.

-Cor, that's good.

-What do YOU think of them?

-Oh, they're great.

-They're gorgeous, aren't they?

-I mean, that is just wonderful.

The thing people think about herrings

as them being a bit sort of... I don't know, overpowering

but this is lovely and soft and creamy, and the fat content...

It's a bit like eating smoked eel, actually.

It's got that same luxury taste to me.

-It's just absolutely fantastic.

-Lovely texture to it. Mmm.

Lowestoft will probably never see a busy market for herrings again

but instead there's huge landings of plaice,

the most popular flatfish in Europe,

and a fish incidentally at its best in spring.

Well, just look at these plaice.

They're a beautiful-looking fish

with those lovely fluorescent orange and red spots on them.

I think people tend to undervalue it.

You hear people in restaurants say,

"Oh, I think I'll have the lemon sole," because plaice, you know,

you're making a statement of being a bit more upper crust

if you go for lemon sole rather than plaice

cos you see plaice everywhere. But actually it's just as good

and I've got this dish which I'm just really excited about

because I just think it does real justice to the plaice.

I've just got about quarter to half an inch of vegetable oil

in this frying pan which I'm getting really, really hot

and I'm just going to add some chopped onion.

Now, this is for a dish of plaice with a sprinkling

of savoury things and when I thought about this

I thought of deep-fried goujons of plaice

in a light batter, and I'm going to use a tempura batter,

with just dry ingredients with lots of flavour.

So that onion's beginning to brown very nicely.

I'll just add some garlic as well, finely chopped garlic

and some red chilli as well,

some very finely chopped, deseeded red chilli.

Just frying that off together till it's dry-fried.

A bit like the coating of those peanuts you get in bars

but much nicer than that. OK, that's done,

just bring that over here

and pass it through that colander there.

OK, now I'll just pour my colander full of fried bits and pieces

onto this little kitchen paper just to drain off all that fat

and now empty that into this bowl.

Now I'm adding some sliced spring onions and some Szechuan pepper.

It's got a very odd taste, Szechuan pepper,

it's a bit like cloves at the dentist.

It slightly numbs the mouth. It's very satisfying because of it.

Now just a few flakes of sea salt as well.

That's my sort of coating material for the goujons all ready.

Now to cut up the plaice.

I filleted and skinned the plaice already

and I'll cut it into goujons, or gudgeons actually.

It just comes from that English-French word

meaning those little fish, like minnows and sticklebacks,

freshwater fish and about the size of your thumb

so there we are.

Now we'll make that tempura batter and drop the gudgeons in it.

So here I've got some cornflour and flour

and some salt which I'm just going to sift through this sieve into a bowl.

Now, I'm just adding some soda water here. That's all I'm putting in here.

Just cornflour, flour, salt and soda water

and it's ice-cold, the soda water.

Don't ask me what happens with using soda water but it works a treat.

So just before I drop those goujons in,

I've given them a little bit of a season

just with salt. And into the batter.

The whole point of this batter, it has to be made at the last minute,

got to be cold. And the reasons for both those things -

the last-minute and the temperature -

is you don't want to develop the gluten in the flour

because that makes the batter sort of elastic,

and what you're looking for is crispness.

That's the whole point of tempura batter.

So I've put about four or five pieces in at a time.

They only take about a minute each and straight out of that

onto some paper just to drain the excess oil off.

Just look at those, look how thin the batter is.

That's what I really like about tempura,

you can actually see the food through the batter. There we go,

there's the whole batch fried, and now just to make up the dish.

Just plonk all these goujons onto this wonderful, big plate.

Sprinkle this lovely savoury, crunchy, garlic, onion,

Szechuan pepper, spring onion, etcetera mixture all over.

Just turn it in a little bit so it's everywhere.

Just a few drops of lime juice over the top. You don't want to overdo it.

And a final sprinkling of chopped coriander, and that's it.

You know, none of the fish I've been using in this programme

is terribly expensive. And if you get a chance, do try the Cromer crabs.

They're easy to get in supermarkets now.

Now, the fresh shrimps - sadly they don't travel too well

so you've got to make a seafood pilgrimage to the east coast.

And if you get the opportunity,

you've got to try these Lowestoft kippers

even if it's to keep Colin going in his smokehouse.

I suppose I'm very lucky

because not only can I buy and cook great seafood,

but I get the chance to go out and catch it as well.

And that makes writing recipes so much more exciting

because I've got a memory of seeing everything caught and landed.

And it makes me quite passionate about keeping it all simple.

I'd wanted to go to Cromer,

famous for its small, meat-filled crabs for ages

and leaving the town on Richard Davies's boat

at dawn in the summer

was the start of a completely memorable experience.

All right? There's the old sun now, coming up.

Here's a fishery that really works.

There's so many other depressing scenarios of over-fishing

and depleting stocks, but here?

Well, there's only 14 boats and everyone knows each other

and no-one takes more than they need.

'But of course it is helped by the fact that the crabs

'are unusually prolific and live on a chalky shelf rich in food.

'I asked Richard what makes them so special.'

-Shallow waters.

-Yeah.

And it's a good feeding bottom.

You can see that with all the youngsters.

Yeah. I've never seen so many crabs in a pot.

The younger generation are all here eating

so there must be good ground, feeding.

And it's like a submarine.

The deeper you go, you have to have more water in your body

to counteract with the weight of water that's on top of you.

So if you're in shallow waters, the crabs will be full of meat.

If they're in deep waters, they're full of water.

-Really?

-Yeah, yeah.

-I

-think so!

LAUGHTER

-Sounds plausible.

-Sounds good, doesn't it?!

-Anything out of the sea, I eat.

-Yeah?

-Anything, yeah.

What about things like oysters, do you like them?

Ooh, lovely - beautiful.

I don't want 'em messed about, I like 'em raw.

-With a nice bit of cooked samfa.

-"Samfa?"

-Is that what we call samphire?

-Sam... Oh, there you go again!

I can't help it if I's talk proper and you dunt!

LAUGHTER

Well, you seem quite a happy sort of bloke, Richard.

What do you think about the job you're doing, fishing generally?

Cor, the crew wouldn't think that,

nor would a lot of people who know me! Er...

When things are going right, I'm like everyone else, it's lovely.

This job, I love it. I really love it.

But when it's blowing hard, it's a pain in the butt. And I hate it.

But I don't know anything else...

I didn't want to do anything else.

When I was at school, I wanted to be a farmer,

but my father wouldn't let me go there.

Then I realised I got hay fever and you don't get that out here, so...! I do love it.

The sea, as we all know, is a big free-for-all,

and that's the main problem with conserving stocks.

Here, it seems,

there is a sense of ownership much more like the coastal waters

of Japan, where ownership of the sea by fishing co-operatives is common.

Richard describes the fishing off Cromer

as a natural form of fish farming.

And here's the result of it - lovely, plump Cromer crabs,

heavy for their size.

Now, we know some towns smell nice - Burton smells of beer,

Cognac smells of...

Cognac! Well, to me, Cromer has the agreeable smell of crabs boiling

in seawater, which draws you through its narrow lanes to the source.

And Richard's girls get all the meat out of the crab by hand,

which is the best.

Mechanical compressed-air devices, which blasts the meat

from the shell, don't quite deliver the same sweet, firm texture.

Well, this is baked crab with cheese,

but actually, it's not just any old cheese -

it's Berkswell cheese, which comes from near Coventry.

It's made out of ewe's milk and it's really hard, and ideal for grating.

It's as good as Parmesan, really.

Well, this dish we used to have on in the restaurant

for the first ten years we were open.

We gave it up because it wasn't complicated enough.

Well, that was in the mid-'80s and that was the time when you had

sort of fans of thinly-sliced duck breast cooked almost raw

with sort of, you know, strawberry vinegar sauces

and salads with slices of raspberries all over them.

Do you remember those days?

Well, sadly we succumbed to all that ourselves, but now...

Well, I've just realised what a great dish it was.

All it basically is is crab and cheese.

Well, there's a BIT more to it than that.

It needs a little bit of flavouring, so you just take a bowl

and add some melted butter.

Add some lemon juice - about half a lemon -

and about half a teaspoon of English mustard.

Then some cayenne pepper just to give it a bit of sharpness

and some nutmeg - about three or four rasps of nutmeg.

Gives it a good sort of potted shrimp flavour.

You mix all that together

and the point of mixing all the flavouring ingredients

before you put it in the crab is I don't want to break up the crab much.

Think of those girls in Cromer -

and these are Cromer crabs that we're picking that crab out of.

I want to do justice to what they were doing.

Do you know, I timed one of them doing a crab.

It took 2½ minutes to do a whole crab.

If you could do a crab in half an hour, I'd be surprised.

I couldn't do it much quicker. 2½ minutes.

To watch them work in a way that the crab comes out in lovely big lumps.

That's real skill.

To them, it's just a job, but watching them work to me

is a total delight. Anyway,

there's the crab in the bowl. Nice, big lumps.

You've mixed all the flavouring ingredients together,

then you use a big spoon and you've got a big bowl,

so you can just fold the ingredients gently over into the crab

and not break it up. Then you take

big spoonfuls of the crab and fill the crab shells.

That's what's so great about Cromer crabs.

They just make a nice portion for one.

It's very obliging of those crabs.

About two or three big spoonfuls in there,

just tamp it down a little bit and then finish with some breadcrumbs

and this grated Berkswell cheese, which is sharp, but not too sharp.

A bit like Parmesan, but so interesting.

Then into an oven for about ten minutes, and out.

And you eat it, well, just with a couple of squeezes of lemon juice

and a glass of English cider.

This is just a note in my Seafood Lovers' Guide, but 16 miles away

from Cromer are these fantastic blue cockles called Stewkey Blues.

'I went cockling with Joe Jordan.

'We opened the cockles and they had just the most beautiful meats.'

That's beautiful meat.

Do you mind if I eat one?

-Mmm... They're great.

-Did you like that?

-Mm, I love 'em.

'Joe is 87 and he always eats his cooked. He's missing a treat.'

Just the other end of the Wash, near King's Lynn,

the landscape is very exciting to me,

because it's so unlike Cornwall.

You've got these vast areas of marshland beneath a big sky

'and I'm here gathering samphire with Mike Castleton and his missus.

'To me, it's one of the best vegetables ever for fish.

'Well, not unnaturally, because it almost grows in the sea.'

They're getting a taste for it in London now

and we send quite a bit there.

But it's very high-priced in London, for some reason.

So how much are you getting it for, and how much are they selling it for?

We basically get 60p a pound.

I've seen that retail in London on the markets for £3.50 a pound.

-Really?

-Someone's making a lot of money.

I mean, what sort of people buy it, do you reckon?

Anyone from the man in the street to the royalties.

Prince Charles in the last couple of years, he sent his driver

in his Daimler to pick up some samphire for a fete he was having.

Really? 'So now we know that the Royal Family is partial to samphire.

'Not surprising, really, since Sandringham is just up the road.'

But it's actually quite posh, samphire.

A very upper-class lady came to me in the restaurant the other day,

complaining that I'd made it TOO popular

and people were finding out her hidden beds.

But it's fantastic just simply boiled, only for about two minutes.

No salt in the water, of course, because it's naturally salty.

And with a hollandaise sauce.

People say a hollandaise sauce is too difficult to make,

but it's not.

You put water and lemon juice into a bowl over boiling water.

Then an egg yolk or two and whisk up

and keep whisking over the water

to form what we call a sabayon, which is where the egg yolk cooks out

a little bit and gives the sauce a lovely, fluffy volume.

Then in goes some melted butter which you've allowed to clarify,

some cayenne pepper and finally, a little bit of salt.

Honestly, I think this is the best possible treatment for samphire.

It's so British - so understated

and yet deliciously colourful - and appropriate, I think is the word.

Now, just try eating that. You'll be transformed.

To tell you the truth, I'm not always FULL of delight about going out fishing,

particularly if it's in the middle of the night

when the boat leaves, and I think of the nice comfortable bed

back at the hotel with Chalky curled up at the end of it.

So it was that night, when we looked for the boat and couldn't find it.

I thought, "Oh, great, we won't be going out after all." But we did.

We went out all night, trawling for shrimps

and in spite of the way I was feeling, there's always that sense

of anticipation as the first trawl comes in and you think, "I wonder..."

And as more and more of the net appears,

you get a sense of the shape of it, with how much catch is in it.

And the skipper can tell by the drag of the nets through the water

how full they are.

And in this case, it was very good.

But so often on this series of journeys,

I've been depressed by the catches, and so have the crews.

So it was such a pleasure to see the nets bulging

with a harvest of shrimps.

That'll do us!

Wow!

It just looks like a hopper of corn, there's so much of them.

There's actually more in the back end of the net,

cos the cod end - this bit - is completely full.

Like all crustacea, they have to be cooked immediately,

otherwise they go soft and mushy and you can't peel them.

Now, there's nothing to me like tasting a shrimp

straight out of the boiler at sea.

That's how they should be tasted

and you really can't call yourself an expert until you've done it.

The great thing about these shrimps is that they are all destined

for the English market - maybe because they're too small

and too insignificant for anybody else.

They're missing out on a rare treat.

I was just thinking about a dish that could use the shell

as well as the meat of the shrimp, because there's so much flavour in the shell.

Risotto is the obvious choice, as you can use the shell for making

a really good shellfish stock or fumee, as we call it in the trade.

So put a little bit of butter in this hot pan

and just throw in some onions...

Just let them soften in the butter a little bit.

Then all these shells - there must be about 2lbs of shrimp there -

into that pan go those shells, like that.

And just turn those around, let them fry a little bit.

I'm going to add a few blades of mace because this is a British risotto.

That's a very significant taste in a lot of things

like potted shrimps and things like that.

That'll come through in the final dish. Just stir that in.

Now some good quality fish stock. A couple of pints.

Right - there we go. Just leave that to simmer now for about 20 minutes.

We're just going to pour it through this conical strainer.

Get rid of the shells.

Here we go.

Just tap, or tamp it down a little bit with this ladle,

just to force the last

of the juices into the stock.

That's great. And now, to make the risotto.

I like a nice shallow pan for making risotto

so I can see easily what's going in.

With this one, I'm going to start off with a generous amount of butter

and about three chopped shallots...

..and about three cloves of garlic.

I'll just quickly stir that round till the butter's melted

and now in goes the rice - risotto rice. Arborio rice in this case.

In that goes. And just... coat the rice with the butter.

That's a very important point in making risotto.

Then I'm going to add some white wine

and I've chosen a fairly neutral-tasting Italian white wine.

Personally, I love the back taste of wine in risotto,

that slightly tart taste,

which just sets off the other flavours beautifully.

Now to add the stock.

Add it in about three or four stages,

letting it all get absorbed in one stage before you go to the next.

That will take an increasingly long time,

so the first one, it all goes down fairly quickly.

While I'm letting that become absorbed,

I'm going to add the other serious ingredient to this risotto,

which is samphire.

I'm just blanching that very quickly in some boiling water.

All I want is about two minutes,

cos I want it to have that salty crunch,

which is what's so perfect about samphire.

That's just about enough for the samphire.

I'll just pass that off through a sieve...

And that's then ready to be stirred into the final risotto.

So that's another lot of stock there

and the rice is beginning to thicken up nicely

and get creamy.

It's looking great - I might just have a bit of a taste now.

Yeah. Ooh, that's ever so good.

We're just about there.

Might just put a bit of seasoning in - not too much salt,

cos there's a lot of salt in that samphire.

That's fine. Little bit of pepper - always liked pepper. There we go.

And now the samphire.

Just pour that in. That's just got about the right consistency.

A risotto doesn't want to be too wet,

but it doesn't want to be too dry, either.

And finally, last of all, the shrimps.

I say last of all cos they only want to be heated through -

we don't want them cooked any more, cos they'll go all hard.

So now we'll just dish that up.

I don't think that looks too bad.

That's about a portion.

Don't want to get too much. Just take some of those grains out of there.

Couple of shrimps on top...

And that's about it.

A bit of a sort of story on a plate,

I suppose it's a bit like a painting in a way - a bit of a memory for me.

Looked delicious, that dish.

Samphire is quite an acquired taste and not everybody's cup of tea,

but shrimps are fantastic.

I always get mine from Morecambe Bay in Lancashire,

and as Rick showed us, they're great for Italian dishes like risotto.

I'm going to show you my favourite Italian dish using shrimps - ravioli - just for you.

-Lovely.

-I know you love a fish. First things first,

I'm going to make a mixture for our ravioli. I've made some dough here,

which is using 00 flour,

which is a pasta flour, a pinch of salt...

Now, it is a 00 flour for example easily available?

Yes, you can buy that from supermarkets now,

-or a good delicatessen.

-Right.

That's all mixed together, leave it to rest,

through a pasta machine and you end up with ravioli.

Now for our mixture.

-Obviously, the shrimps you saw Rick use are here, peeled.

-Yes.

I THANKFULLY didn't do these!

A little bit of chervil.

Chervil is a herb that is not often found in supermarkets,

-but a great, great herb - like an aniseedy flavour.

-Yes.

Brilliant. Bit of lemon.

Squeeze that in.

Some black pepper, because we don't want any salt in there -

the shrimps tend to be quite salty.

Bit of black pepper, lid on. Blitz.

There we go.

-And then we've got our little puree to go into our ravioli.

-Ah, right.

That's it, really. Just keeps it nice and moist.

You can put a bit of creme fraiche in there.

-What are you saving these for?

-Those are for our sauce at the end.

-Ah, right!

-You're jumping the gun, Ronnie!

-Well, I'm sorry!

We place our little portion of shrimp inside here...

This will be a nice base for our ravioli. So while I fill those up...

-I've been reading your book - it's fantastic.

-Thank you very much.

-Goodnight From Him. Absolutely superb book.

-Thank you.

One thing it tells us is your father was this baker...

Yes, 28 years, Scottish baking

of the...I mean, really, the highest standards.

He could do anything and I ought to have learnt more

while he was with us, but you don't do that sort of thing.

But was he in favour of getting you into the kitchen, or not?

Well, I learned by example watching him.

I find when I'm doing things

with the bread, my hands are like his hands were.

No, he was a bit anti-baking.

It was a very hard job - underpaid, working all night

and I don't think he wanted me to go into it.

It's like miners don't want their sons to go into the mines.

-Although I did love watching him work.

-What made you become an actor?

Um...

-I don't know!

-Cos you had quite a close connection with food...

I know what it was! Yes, I did.

Wasn't it pet food or something?

-No, not pet...!

-What was it?

I was in the Civil Service in the animal-feeding-stuffs department,

because at that stage, they used to ration protein

and cereal for farrowing sows, milking herds and I used to...

We'd inform them of the milk and cream yield

and then give out coupons after the war.

That was in Edinburgh. I didn't enjoy that very much.

Then I did a show in a church youth club and that was it.

Suddenly I was fired up.

But it wasn't so successful all the time, was it?

You have a great story in the book about the Stork Club, was it?

The Stork Club in Streatham, when I was doing my first stand-up.

A rather disapproving table didn't think I was doing very well

and didn't like me and threw dinner rolls at me.

Which of course, for the son of a baker, was a double insult.

HE LAUGHS

The kind of rolls that we used to call Vienna rolls - very crisp,

-shiny outside.

-You spotted them as they were coming towards you?!

They were really injurious missiles!

But I've never had them flung since, no.

Anyway, right - we haven't got any bread rolls here.

Quickly make the sauce - I've got my ravioli in there.

How long do you do that for?

-Literally two minutes.

-Poached?

-Yes, salted, boiling water.

In here, I'm going to make my butter.

Get a hot pan - really important that it's hot -

get it nice and brown. It's called nut brown butter - beurre noisette.

In we go with the shallots - just a few.

Then over here, I've got some more chervil and parsley,

tomatoes and then a few more shrimps.

-Right.

-We'll wait till it goes brown...

We've just got the onions in there to cook those out as well.

Right at the last minute, you start throwing all these in.

Is that a spring onion, or a real onion?

That's a normal shallot, that one. Just a nice, simple shallot.

So I'm doing an Italian dish,

but I believe you're quite into your Italian breads now?

Yes, I want to know how to make...

I make breads at home with my hands, and dried yeast, and I wonder

if I were to make the ciabatta - that lovely crispy stone-baked one,

with all the holes in it, and the floured top -

what do I need to do to make that kind of bread?

I knew this question was coming so...

we've got on the line one of the best bakers in the country,

Mr Paul Hollywood, who's been on the show.

-Are you there, Paul?

-'Yeah, I'm here, James.

-'How are you doing?'

-With his Liverpudlian accent.

PAUL LAUGHS

-Tell Ronnie about the ciabatta.

-'Hi, Ronnie.'

-Good morning.

'Basically, you want to look for an Italian bread flour.'

I know they're... Would it just be called an Italian bread flour?

'Yeah, it's an Italian bread flour. That's the key.

'The flour is the key.

'If you use an English flour, it's got a high ash content

'so it's very grey. The ciabatta in Italy is very white.

'You want something with a lower ash content.

'That's the one you want to use.

'When you're making ciabatta,

'you've got to make a biga the night before and leave it for eight hours.

'You'll find it in most recipes.

'You find a generic recipe - 500g of flour, 1,200g of salt,

'25g of yeast and 380ml of water.'

-Did you write that down?

-I'm recording this at home!

'It's 78% of the water in ciabatta flour.

-'It gives you the big air holes.'

-Ah!

'You mix half the flour, most of the water the night before into a batter.'

Like a leaven?

'Leave it to bubble overnight for eight hours

'and the following morning, add the rest of the ingredients,

'the flour and slowly add the salt at the last minute.

'Add your water very, very slowly. That's they key.

'It'll go very glossy.

'Once that happens, tip it onto a heavily-floured surface,

'leave it to rise for two hours, cut them into strips,

'stretch them onto a tray and into the oven.'

-Fabulous.

-We haven't got any show left, but thank you very much!

See you later, mate. See you soon.

Thank you very much.

-Look at this.

-My God.

-That'll be on the website.

I'm recording it. This looks fabulous.

This is the little ravioli with shrimps. Dive into that.

-Lovely.

-It was nut-brown butter.

We've thrown in shrimps, chervil, lots of lemon juice.

-Nice and simple.

-Beautiful.

-Really beautiful.

-That's it.

If you're looking for the perfect way

to bring back memories of your Mediterranean holiday,

here's some sizzling Spanish food from Jose Pizarro.

What's the name of our dish?

-It's going to be pork with some asparagus.

-We'll run through this.

I know you want to talk about the iberico as opposed to the normal...

This is the normal pork.

This is the iberico pork. You can see the beautiful marbling.

More marbling on this one.

-Say it again.

-Much more marbling.

-All the fat is inside the meat.

-They've been running in the fields.

-They're brought up on acorns.

You can see later the beautiful nutty flavour.

We'll get that on the griddle.

If you compare that with the normal one,

there's a lot more fat on our one.

The Spanish are famous for pork.

Normally, I don't do anything with that.

If you have normal pork, you can put in marinade the day before.

You know, some pimento or cumin, olive oil.

Run through the ingredients.

Asparagus, coming from the Isle of Wight,

the same asparagus we have in Spain.

I was picking this up when I was a child.

This is the thinner one. That sort of size?

-Yeah.

-There.

-Can you chop for me the shallots?

-Yeah.

-I'm chopping chorizo here.

-What is it about Spain and the love of pork?

You walk around any Spanish market...

Chorizo, the iberico, it's just all over the place.

Spain, 40 years ago, was very poor. We had pork.

At home, we had one pork. That meat goes through the whole year.

We make chorizo, we make different sausages and ham.

Is that common in homes, that they make their own chorizo?

Not really any more. 30 years ago, it was very common.

-Asparagus, some oil.

-Now we've got some shallots.

Sorry, you're waiting for me.

That's for the chorizo.

The chorizo is cooked with potatoes.

It will be cooked with these Jersey Royals.

There it is. I normally don't put too much oil in the chorizo.

Tell us about this. Is this the cooking one?

This is the cooking one. This can be cured for three weeks.

What's the difference between a cooking chorizo

and one you can eat raw?

-It's really just the cure.

-A longer cure?

The piccante...

This the piccante coming from Leon. What does that mean?

It's spicy. Leon is in the North of Spain.

They use pimenton piccante.

That means hot paprika.

-You want the asparagus in with the garlic?

-Yeah.

No need to blanch that. You can pan-fry it.

Tell us about these peppers. I love these.

They are from Navarra.

They have been grilled then peeled.

-These are peeled by hand?

-The old ladies.

Old ladies peeling these by hand.

LAUGHTER

Shall we thinly slice these?

You were saying you can serve this medium.

Normally, I serve it rare or medium rare.

-Today...

-Medium well.

You wouldn't do that with normal pork, just the iberico one?

-Yes, the iberico one. Half of that.

-Tell us about the restaurant.

Not many people have heard of Brindisa.

-It started off as an importing business.

-It started 23 years ago.

We opened the first restaurant five and a half years ago.

In London Bridge.

Then we had two more in South Kensington and another one in Soho.

It's just gone from strength to strength.

It's tapas-style grazing.

Beautiful, simple, you know.

People think about food, the love of Italy, olive oil.

How do you rate Spanish olive oil? I think it's fantastic.

Spanish olive oil is amazing.

Spain is the bigger producer and Italy, the bigger importer.

Something wrong there.

We've got the Jersey Royals. You want to crush these.

The chorizo.

-Lovely.

-You've been busy writing a book as well. Your second book?

-No.

I just contributed to a new book. The Book Of Tapas.

250 recipes. It's coming out on Monday.

-The idea of tapas, that could be a tapas.

-This is a tapa.

-Very simple, quick.

-What does it mean?

-Tapa is a...

When we start, it's a glass of wine then they pour something on the top.

-Tapa means "lid".

-Lid?

-Lid.

That means the flies don't go into...

The fly doesn't go into the glass.

You're always learning.

-We need...

-That's all right. There you go.

-To recap, you've got...

-We've got the potatoes with the chorizo.

That's got the shallot in there.

Then we have the asparagus and now I put the vinegar on, sherry vinegar.

-Sherry vinegar?

-Yep.

-OK.

-More salt.

Whenever you come on, there's lots of types of ingredients.

-I bring today the pimento.

-Paprika.

-Is this smoked paprika?

-This is smoked.

To be pimento de la vera, it has to be smoked.

We're ready to plate up. There you go.

Switch all these off.

There.

Some potatoes for the chorizo.

-That chorizo is...

-It's amazing.

-There's plenty of olive oil.

The fat is there.

I'm going to be tasting this. I'll put a bit more of this chorizo on.

I love it.

Here it is. Now we're going to finish with the asparagus.

Voila.

-I think some more salt.

-Yup.

Some Spanish olive oil.

Notice he said Spanish olive oil and looked at you at the same time.

Then some pimento de la vera.

Voila.

It's a pork chop with asparagus peppers, new potatoes crushed

and chorizo.

-Seven minutes.

-Easy.

The smell in here is just wonderful.

-Dive into that.

-You have to try now.

Tell us what do you think.

The Jersey Royal potatoes, and the chorizo.

Potato and chorizo is very popular in Spain.

You'll never have tasted anything like that.

You got a small bit there, Eddie?

LAUGHTER

-Mmm.

-That pork is, it is the world's best pork, iberico.

You can taste the nuts, the acorns.

-You can. It's fantastic.

-It's so tender.

You're looking at £5 for something like that.

-£5. For one piece, but well worth it.

-It's not easy to find it, but...

You'll find that recipe along with loads of others on our website.

Go to bbc.co.uk/recipes.

Here's Valentine Warner with some sensational summer food.

I've been mad about fishing ever since I was little and I can't

think of anything I'd like more for supper than a tasty fishy feast.

During the summer months, I have a love affair with trout.

Watching them, fishing for them, cooking them,

but there's one bit of mythical river lore I've never seen -

the stuff of children's stories - trout ticking.

I've come to East Lothian to meet former gamekeeper

Jimmy McLaughlin who's been ticking trout in these rivers all his life.

-Are you Jimmy half-heron half-otter?

-That's the man. Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you. I feel like I'm eight, I'm so excited.

Good. I'm quite excited myself.

Show me the secret art. Let's do it.

It's only legal to catch trout in England and Wales with a fishing rod,

but in Scotland, if you have a Government licence and the go-ahead

of the person who owns the fishing rights, then tickling is allowed.

From this minute, I am now getting a lesson from the master.

Feel along under the ledge, Oh, what's that? Something slimy.

-Try and work out what end you're at.

-Yeah.

-Cup your hands round it gently.

A wee bit of pressure behind the head with your forefinger

and thumb and gently lift it out.

We'll take a slow walk up here very calmly and see what we can see.

'The trick to tickling is to scare the fish into seeking shelter

'under rocks then using your hands to trap and catch them.' I can't wait.

If I see this today, I'll be amazed.

'On first sight, it's looking good.'

Yeah, there's lots of trout everywhere.

It's teeming.

'If we don't manage to catch a trout in here, there's something wrong.'

There's the classic example.

-Can you see that silt coming out from underneath that rock?

-Yeah.

-What does that tell me?

-There's a fish in there. 'Here goes.'

No, that's you.

GIGGLING

There's another one here. I'm following it up.

-It's gone.

-It's gone.

'It seems the first chance of supper has escaped our clutches.'

Anywhere you think there could be a trout,

that's where you have to look.

'I don't think this is going to be as easy as I first thought.'

Jimmy, this is addictive. I haven't even had my hands on a trout yet.

That's what happens on a beautiful day like this.

You can come walking up a river...

All the time I've wasted bicycling and kite-flying.

I could have been trout-tickling.

Let's have a look under here.

Do you occasionally find horrors under the bank?

I've had mink, eels, rats.

You learn quick enough when you're tickling that that's not a trout.

-Something hairy - get out.

-Yeah.

-Anything like that, just get out.

-We have to get one.

I feel very predatory, Jimmy.

Arrhh!

Aah! Whoa! I didn't expect that. That was hilarious.

-I found a very big trout.

-Well done.

-That was a really decent fish.

-Get back under. Get back under.

-He's maybe still there.

Maybe I've been lucky and he's down to see me.

It's gone. I just got the shock of a lifetime.

I thought I'd be, "Hey, I've got a trout."

It moved and I behaved like a huge big girl.

LAUGHTER

That was amazingly embarrassing.

I was expecting to see a big water rat.

You know what they say about southerners being big girly blouses.

We'll just need to big-girl's-blouse it up here.

'I don't think Jimmy's impressed with my tickling skills and frankly,

'neither am I.'

We have to get one. Oh! Again, I panicked again.

I can't believe it.

Oh, my God. Come on, Warner, you big pussy.

Tickly. Tickle. Here we go.

I've caught a small one. A wee baby brown trout.

Not what we're looking for. But nonetheless, a trout.

-You got one?

-I did.

You've been tickled. That is fantastic.

It's not a myth. It's a reality.

-There we go.

-Hey!

'Jimmy's wee trout is too small for us to eat

'and as he knows how difficult it is to catch trout by tickling,

'he's brought along a whopper that he caught by rod in this river earlier today.'

Jimmy, I'm going to make trout with samphire and then beurre blanc,

-a little butter sauce.

-Lovely.

Pretty simple, but a kind of classy dinner.

-Can I leave you with the filleting?

-Certainly, I'll do that for you.

'Whilst Jimmy fillets the beautiful trout, I prepare my beurre blanc,

'a classic French butter sauce which is perfect for fish.

'Chop up a handful of shallots, a clove of garlic and add to a pan.'

Just going to put a bit of thyme in. Then I'll put a bay leaf in.

Peppercorns in.

'Add white wine and a splash of white wine vinegar.'

So this is a very smooth, velvety, luxurious sauce.

-It kind of slides over the trout.

-Mm, sounds good.

-It is.

'Allow the sauce to reduce and then add chopped-up unsalted butter,

'which makes it very creamy.'

-And it has to be cold butter.

-Uh-huh.

If the butter is room temperature and all soft and pappy,

it won't do its job.

'When the sauce is thick and glossy, pass through a sieve

'and season with salt and a squeeze of lemon.'

-Beautiful, creamy wine and butter.

-Lovely.

-How's that?

-Whoa! Beautiful.

'Now for the filleted trout.

'Lay the fish skin-side down on seasoned flour.'

-I think you should put this in the frying pan.

-OK, I'll do that for you.

-There we go.

-Trout and butter.

-I must say, good. Yeah.

Try and beat that.

'Crunchy, salty samphire is another seasonal treat

'that goes brilliantly with fish. Simply boil.'

-That should be just about ready.

-Getting there.

'When the trout is nice and crispy,

'flip and give it a final 20 seconds in the pan.'

-Ho-ho-ho.

-Looking good.

'Spoon on the beurre blanc sauce and get stuck in to a delicious supper.'

-How's that?

-Looking good.

Jimmy, thanks for a really great day.

-Oh, my goodness me.

-Mmm.

HE CHUCKLES That's really good trout.

'So my first attempt at trout tickling

'has been enormous fun, but as I'm not a man who likes to go hungry,

'I think I'll bring my rod next time.'

Now, we're not cooking live in the studio today.

Instead we're showing you some of the highlights from the Saturday Kitchen recipe archives.

Still to come on today's Best Bites...

it's battle of Britain's best chefs in our omelette challenge,

as Galton Blackiston takes on Glynn Purnell.

Rachel Allen is great at creating fantastic family food.

And these lamb cutlets with chickpea and paprika mash will put a smile

on everyone's face.

The great actor Dougray Scott faced his Food Heaven or Food Hell.

Did he get the Thai-style sea bass with rice noodle salad

that was for Food Heaven,

or a crab and sweetcorn soup with sweetcorn beignets

in line for Food Hell? You can find out at the end of today show.

Now here's Nick Nairn with the trademark piece of Great British cooking.

-What are you cooking, boss?

-James, always a pleasure, mate.

I've got a beautiful little turbot here, it's a farm turbot

and some know these as chicken turbot.

The reason it's fine is because it's small. Turbot gets big.

Yeah, they get to 8-9 pounds, a standard sized turbot.

This is a small one. But if we take the fillets off... When I say "we",

-you're going to take the fillets off.

-Me. When I say "me" - Andi!

THEY LAUGH

Take the fillets off the turbot, then...

Just the top two fillets, so leave the bottom ones off.

That's beautifully fresh turbot. You can check this by rubbing it and smelling your fingers.

It should be really nice and clean, no trace of fishiness,

-just a sort of iodine, seaside kind of smell.

-Lovely.

What we've got here are razor clams and they're called razor clams

cos the shells look like an old-fashioned razor

and I think that these taste better than scallops.

They're one of my favourite shellfish. And these almost certainly come from Scotland.

Two ways of getting them - either you can get them at low tide,

walk along the beach and they hear your vibrations and they pop out and you grab them,

get your hand right down and pull them out of the sand,

otherwise the sucker keeps them quite stuck in the sand.

But you can catch them by putting salt water in the hole, can't you?

Yeah, or what you do is dive down. You get a bottle,

fill it with salt and skoosh it until you see the tiny little holes,

skoosh the salt in and as they pop up, just grab them, put them in a bag.

-So it is true you put salt in?

-Yeah.

They wanted me to catch a bird so put salt on the tail,

so you can catch the birds.

Yeah, or sometimes use an electric shock thing and they all pop up.

The secret with razor clams is to cook them in a hot pan

for a very, very short time, so we're going to steam these a little like mussels.

Half a glass of white wine, on with the lid,

the steam of the wine starts to open them up.

And I just want them until the shells are opening.

You mustn't overcook razor clams or they go really hard and rubbery.

So while they're just starting to steam away,

I'm going to drain them in a sieve set over here

and start making the dressing, an olive oil, very simple

-olive oil dressing.

-Fantastic, these.

-They are.

And just so sweet.

So there's your fillets from the fish.

-You were really concentrating, weren't you?

-I was concentrating.

I haven't done that since I was in college!

We're going to keep the juice, James,

we're going to use a little juice back through the dressing.

-You want the skin off as well?

-Yeah, take the skin off, please.

-Just hold the skin like that?

-Nice and carefully.

Little bit of salt on it, if you want.

Dressing's very simple - olive oil, decent olive oil,

good slug into the pan there.

Some finely chopped shallots and we'll just soften that down, the olive oil.

One of the things I use in this olive oil sauce

is a little bit of coriander

and coriander has a lovely kind of warm, earthy tone to it.

-It's got that orange-y sort of scent to it.

-Yep.

And it imparts a bit of depth of flavour in this.

Just finely chopped shallots, a little bit of chopped garlic in there as well.

There's your fillet. Two nice fillets.

-You end up with a small or a large one, really.

-We use them both.

Not cos of me, it's the way the fish is!

-And then you've got two underneath.

-Now, James, great job for you next.

Got a couple of nice ripe tomatoes there.

If you could just concasse those for me.

Start as I left the show before our break, doing tomato.

-So, this is a classic vierge sauce?

-Yeah, well, the vierge comes from virgin olive oil

and the quality of this sauce depends on using decent oil.

-So we've got the shallots...

-What do you mean, decent oil?

Decent oil? Not, you know, not stuff you'd use for dressing.

-Right.

-Not a 20 quid bottle,

but about five quid a bottle blended extra virgin olive oil.

I love the way you say that, that's the right way to explain it.

Really good oil. Maybe dab it behind your ears before you go for dinner,

just to get the scent of it. But never fry with it, it kills it.

You've always been a big fan of Scottish produce.

You mentioned the razor clams. Another one of Scottish produce - langoustines.

-Why is it we don't eat this sort of food we catch?

-It's a mystery.

Scotland's the biggest producer of langoustine in the world.

We produce something like 25,000 tons a year

and almost all of it, bar about 1,000 tons, gets exported,

either down here or to France or to Italy or to Spain.

You go in the supermarkets and you can buy Guatemalan prawns

and you can buy Norwegian scampi,

but actually on our doorstep we've got the best shellfish in the world

and we should demand more.

People should be chaining themselves to the supermarket checkouts and not leaving

-unless they can get langoustine.

-ANDI: Langoustine is scampi?

Well, it is, yeah. Technically.

They used to use it and put it in a basket, didn't they? Breadcrumb.

-And monkfish.

-Well, when monkfish was cheap,

before it got discovered by chefs and has become expensive.

-In Italy, we call them scampi for langoustine.

-OK.

-Yep.

Dublin Bay prawns, it's all the same thing.

What I'm doing with the flesh is just taking the stomach sacs and livers out.

Actually, I think we were talking about it earlier,

you'd leave them in for the flavour,

and I think it's just a sensibility thing with the British public

that we take these bits out. But they're really actually very tasty.

I can make another dish with the leftovers, it's all fantastic,

all nice to use almost everything.

Yeah. Try a bit of that razor clam.

-OK.

-And just tell me what you think of that.

-It is, I prefer it to scallops.

-Incredibly sweet.

-Smells of the sea, tastes of the sea.

-You've got to season the fillets,

-a little bit of oil, a little bit of butter.

-Yep.

There you go, that'll go in.

So the oil is now taking on the scent from the shallots

and the garlic and the coriander.

And I'm just going to finely slice these up.

You must add the razor clams in back at the last minute.

During the summer you've been busy,

-working in your cook school, expanding it?

-Cook school's really busy at the moment.

One of the things that's happening is that people, with the credit crunch,

are a bit more conscious about budget and spending money.

If you learn how to cook, you're in control.

You can go buy ingredients, cook them at home

and for the amount you'd spend on an average meal these days,

you could live like a king if you spend that money at home yourself.

-Quality, seasoned ingredients.

-And we've got the new book out,

-Gennaro was talking about his book.

-Yep! Well done, we have to!

The cook school book, two years in the making.

It's a collaborative effort between John, Alan and myself.

And when you get chefs together

and you're trying to get a consensus, it takes a while.

-They're the other teachers you have?

-They are, and two fantastic chefs.

It was a great experience for me to actually sit down with them

and work through dishes and see different points of view

and finally arrive, hopefully, at the same...

We came to a consensual thing about recipes.

But working with guys of that calibre has been great fun

and a total inspiration. I'm going to put the razor clams back in,

they just need to be warm through. And I'm going to take

-a little bit of that juice, if I've cleared it away...

-It's here.

A little bit of this juice, but don't put any salt in here

because the juice itself is very salty.

So a little bit of that goes in there.

-Tell us what you put in, what's this spice you've got?

-Coriander seed.

You were busy filleting your fish when I was doing that.

A little bit of lemon zest straight in there, please.

-You want some juice in there as well?

-Parsley as well.

This is actually a very, very simple dish.

All you have to do is fry the fish.

You can make the dressing in advance without the razor clams in,

and then just reheat it at the last minute.

That's...plenty.

This is the secret with vierge, it's the lemon juice and olive oil.

-And tomatoes and that kind of stuff.

-And it's just really nice, simple.

A little bit of flame there.

-THEY LAUGH

-Just to wake you up.

-Just to wake me up, thank you.

-And then the two fish fillets.

And obviously one of the most important things

when you've got beautiful fish like this is not to overcook it.

Total cooking time there was two minutes, no more.

Make sure you've got a nice colour on the outside, that caramelisation

on the outside of the fish. It's one of the things we teach at the school and the people,

suddenly you see the lightbulbs of recognition go on,

it's this caramelisation that gives it the flavour.

-That's the thing that changes it.

-You get that with the butter too.

Yeah, we kind of always talk about oil for heat

but butter for colour and flavour. And then with the dressing,

it's just a very simple spoonful on top and a little drizzle

round about and the juice will separate out from the oil.

While you do that, tell us what this dish is again.

This is roast turbot with razor clam dressing

and it's one of these modern Scottish dishes

-that really does deliver.

-Looks fantastic. Check that out.

It looks delicious, but does it taste delicious? Over here, Nick.

-You're ready for this one?

-I'm ready now.

-You're ready now.

-OK.

-How's your mouth?

-We're getting there slowly but surely.

It's coming back.

-You know you talked about caramelisation?

-Yeah.

That's confidence, just letting something sit in the pan.

It's having the confidence to cook it at the last minute.

Also a little bit of understanding.

As you're cooking a piece of protein, the fibres in it shrink,

squeezes the juices out, the juices lie in the pan and contain sugars.

When they reach the right temperature, they caramelise.

The razor clams are fantastic. They are really beautiful.

That was another highlight from the Saturday Kitchen back catalogue.

And here's one more, this time with two top British chefs,

Glynn Purnell and Galton Blackiston,

having a go at something classically French - a basic three-egg omelette.

Take a look at this.

Let's get down to business. You all know the rules by now.

Let's put the clocks on the screens. Three-egg omelette,

cooked as fast as you can. Ready? Three, two, one, go!

-Have they been practising? Have you been practising?

-No!

Neck and neck at this point!

Look at the concentration on Glynn's face!

They say that it's not competitive!

He's caught you up!

Caught you up! On the flame.

GONG CLATTERS

See, I thought, Glynn, you would be quicker!