Episode 67 Saturday Kitchen Best Bites

Good morning. We have some great chefs

cooking up some brilliant recipes on today's Best Bites.

Welcome to the show. We've got some amazing cooking from the Saturday Kitchen archives this morning.

The one and only Raymond Blanc serves up a delicious Aberdeen Angus sirloin steak

Mama Blanc style, with sauteed potato and a simple but tasty sauce.

Stuart Gillies shows us what do do with violet artichokes.

He creates a tasty risotto and serves it with an artichoke salad.

Daniel Galmiche is another of our favourite Frenchmen.

He has duck on the menu. After honey-glazing a duck confit,

he cooks pui lentils with carrots and fresh chervil.

And actress Emilia Fox faced her Food Heaven or Food Hell.

Would she get her Heaven - potatoes in a hearty cottage pie with peas,

or Food Hell - monkfish, with my lemon grass and lime leaf coconut

monkfish curry with Thai jasmine rice?

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

But first it's time to revisit the time when Andrew Turner introduced us all to the world of meat glue.

Yes, you heard it right - meat glue.

But don't worry, there's some delicious Dover sole and an apple and fennel salad in there too.

Great to have you on the show. Now, meat glue,

-it's going to be used to stick this fish together.

-It is indeed.

Right, off we go. What's the name of it?

Well, we're doing a sole jubilee, a diamond jubilee, as it's jubilee week.

With an apple and fennel salad,

some salsify

and, um...

-A little sauce to go with it.

-A little cheeky sauce.

-This one's got to cook.

-OK.

And then you want me to do the little sauce.

Yes, if you can get the shallots, the mushrooms,

the bouquet garni,

a little bit of the fennel head without the actual dill.

All chopped up. Fish stock and meat stock.

And a little bit of red wine.

That can all go in together.

So there's your Brixham sole. Beautiful and fresh.

-A great British product.

-Lovely.

Great British product.

Ask the fishmonger

to double-fillet it for you.

-Which is basically taking it all out in one piece on the top.

-Yeah.

And always ask for the waste because that's going to make our sauce.

So I just remove the sole.

So that's that. We get the sauce on first of all.

-So a little bit of butter in. We've got some there.

-Yeah.

-We're going to chop the bones up as well.

-Yeah.

-You nicked me knife.

Borrow that a second.

Fish stock is totally opposite to the meat stock we were doing.

-Cook that for about 20 minutes, no more.

-20 minutes.

-Always cold water again.

-Don't boil it.

A bit of white wine

-aromats like that is always good.

-There you go.

That's gone in there as well.

So tell us about this restaurant, Wiltons,

cos there's a fascinating history with it.

Wiltons has been around since 1742.

Iconic restaurant.

Real classics,

from lobster and crab and game when it's in season.

Yeah. You specialise in oysters, don't you?

Of course oysters.

It's our signature dish, really.

-ANd you can't get better oysters than at Wiltons, I have to say.

-A-ha!

Now you know!

-Absolutely.

-He would say that, but there you go.

LAUGHTER

-I'm just wheedling to get in there one night.

-Is that what it is?

Now, tell us about this cos this is the interesting bit.

Double-filleted sole.

We've got some ham or pancetta.

Just lie it down the centre like that.

-Mind your jumper just in case.

-No problem.

The meat glue, again it's important.

Do not inhale it.

LAUGHTER

Be very careful what you do with it.

Treat it with caution.

And just a little bit down the sides of the fish.

This will actually stick the fish together. It will glue it together.

-And you can get this on the internet.

-You can, yeah, indeed.

And it's like a protein, isn't it?

It's a protein, yeah.

It's enzymes that will form the protein to stick together.

And then you place the outside fillet

on the outside, so presentation side out.

Like that. OK.

We then just trim it up

so it's nice and neat.

Again, trimmings in the sauce, lovely.

-Any dark...

-No waste.

No waste.

I think everything in cooking is about using the waste that you have.

-I don't like putting anything in the bin.

-No.

It's all about the money. We have to be careful.

So there's your sole fillet.

Glued together.

And this glue generally...

It will glue it, yeah.

What's great about it is that at times like Christmas time,

um, you can have a turkey leg, bone the turkey leg,

ask the butcher to bone it out.

Put your stuffing down the centre, a little bit of glue,

Cling film out, roll it tight,

let it set up overnight, which is important,

and when you carve it, it will remain perfectly round.

-It won't split open on you.

-Right.

-Does it taste of anything?

-Not at all.

They say the Japanese invented it,

but I've got a feeling that...

-it might be the Danish.

-They use it quite a lot.

-Pop that in the fridge for four hours.

-That's just to leave it to set, is it?

-Leave it to set up, yeah.

-OK.

You're poaching it.

-Turn that down a little bit.

-It's a bit fast, yeah.

Turn it down a touch.

And then you want me to turn that over.

Where did this cling film thing come from?

It's always intrigued me, because you never used to hear about it,

now everyone seems to...you know?

It's a useful product, without a doubt.

For preserving things as well.

For me, I don't want the water

to come in contact. I want it just to taste of sole,

no aromats flavouring it. The sole is just good on its own.

Absolutely. Yeah.

We've got a little salad here.

These are little batons of apple.

Little fine little batons.

-There's a little bit of...

-Celery.

The fennel's gone in there as well.

-Some fennel pollen with that.

-Right, fennel pollen.

I don't think Julie will be doing this, my wife. She hates fennel.

That's her Hell.

You can use celery.

It'll work very well.

-With celery salt?

-Celery...

This fennel pollen is great.

You're going to serve this with some salsify, which is this stuff.

Again, when you're preparing this, gloves on,

give it a really good wash. Peel it,

cook it in salted boiling water with lemon.

Don't leave it exposed to the air and don't undercook it.

-If you undercook it when you fry it, it will just go rock hard.

-Right.

So as you can see it's quite soft.

And put that in the pan just...

You'd normally peel these and put them in...

Salted water with lemonjuice.

-Lemon juice and water. They call them the oyster plant, these things.

-Yeah.

I mean, I love that product.

It's one vegetable

I think is versatile and it's tasty.

It's very seasonal as well.

It's just going out of season now, but it's still just about in.

Right, explain to us the sauce.

That's what we started off with.

-This is what we end up with.

-It's reduced right the way down.

Just pass that off.

And it's gone dark, I'm assuming,

because of the port and the little bit of meat jus in there as well.

And that's a great consistency.

Just put a bit of heat under that.

And the salsify you're just going to brown off.

-Makes a great soup as well, doesn't it?

-I've never tried salsify soup.

-I can understand that would be fantastic.

-Nice little soup.

I've got this salad here,

which has the fennel tops, a little bit of dill...

um...we've got the fennel in there

and the finely... little juliennes of apple.

Vinaigrette,

best olive oil and you can have a very good vinaigrette.

OK. That goes in there.

Right, six minutes on that fish,

so it can come out now. There you go.

-And just colour these?

-Yeah, just colour them.

Again, to check the fish is cooked,

just probe the centre of it or try it with a fork.

Try it on your lip.

If it's warm to hot, you're ready to go.

About the restaurant - do you still do all the old classics

-like the Rossini and that kind of stuff?

-That is definitely

something I could put on the menu at Wiltons.

Rossinis and soles, anything like that. I want to see classic food.

We also have the tasting menus.

In the tasting menus this is the sort of food I used to do that I brought

to Wiltons that also gives that all round of what you can eat

at Wiltons. It's not just the classics.

Right, well, that's done.

This fish is out so I'll leave you to, er...

check that.

I'll just get some scissors.

I've got some paper there.

That's done.

Poached for minutes.

-12 minutes.

-Yeah.

Once these are cooked - that's the great thing about the salsify -

they don't need to be lemon juiced again.

That's still a little bit under.

Yeah.

It doesn't take very long then.

So again, if I was at work, the thing I would probably do with that

is keep it in a vacuum bag...

You with your vacuum bags, you see?

People ain't got vacuum bags at home. Hoover bags, that's about it.

-LAUGHTER

-Vacuum bags!

Right.

And I forgot, how did you do that vegetable there?

It's a root vegetable, so it's cooked in salted water with a little bit of lemon till it's really tender,

-take it out and pan-fry in clarified butter.

-Right.

-Or olive oil if you prefer.

This is ready now.

I'll leave that...

Season it.

-Palette knife...

-Yeah.

And you can see the glue has absolutely stuck it together.

You've got the ham in the centre there.

Down the centre.

Lovely combination. Isn't it a lovely combination?

-Presented on the top.

-Looks great.

-Doesn't it just?

-Yeah.

-Here we go again.

-Our sauce.

-Here we go again! Lovely!

LAUGHTER

It's an easy show, this!

I love it here! Can I come every week?

And then this stuff. We've not used this before on Saturday Kitchen.

No, it's caviar oil and it's named after me -

-it's Turner's Caviar Oil and I literally...

-How sexy is that?

-To have an oil named after you!

-Very sexy!

-I want an oil named after me!

"I want an oil named after me!" Get a life!

-LAUGHTER

-What do you call that again?

-It's, er, Dover Sole Silver Jubilee.

-Oh, well done! That's brilliant!

There you go. Right, we'll dive into that.

Can we start this end, please, because I...?

No, you wait your turn, you! You wait your turn! Let's have a look.

-Literally, you just...

-Oh, look at that!

Tell us what you think of that one.

-Salsify, have you ever had salsify, have you tried that?

-No.

-You've never had it?

-No.

It's a little bit, if I might say, it's a little bit...under for me.

-It is a little bit. Taste the side ones.

-Oh, that's lovely!

Beautiful Dover sole!

Probably needs another minute, to be honest,

but it's cooking in Clingfilm.

I tell you what - that oil's quite interesting cos it's almost

got that little salty sort of taste as well.

-These are great - asparagus-y!

-Salsify.

Really got that kind of texture, like the Spanish ones.

-The white ones.

-Keep diving - she ain't going to get any!

Believe you me, Andrew's Dover Sole Diamond Jubilee

was fit for the Queen!

Coming up, I'll be making crispy breadcrumbed squid

with creamy ponzu dressing for Max Beesley, after Rick Stein

travels England's shores on the hunt for the best seafood he can find.

This part of my journey takes me from West Bay to Whitstable,

right along the South Coast.

What was so memorable about this trip was the fact that the seafood

is all to do with small boats and dead fresh catches.

There's no big fish markets along this coast, but in compensation

everything you get is straight off the beach...more or less.

Like here, in Chesil Beach, where we went out seine netting.

You row right out in a big semicircle, trailing a net as you go,

and come back to shore and then haul in the catch.

If you're lucky, it's the greatest sense of anticipation going.

After all the hard work of hauling,

there's a reward of seeing what's at the end of the net.

They're not commercial fishermen and I asked them why they did it

and they said they'd done it since being young boys

and it was the thing that brought them and their community together.

And long may it last!

This is why I'm crazy about seafood -

you see how beautiful these mackerel are and I'm afraid, as a cook,

I'm just thinking about how I'm going to cook them.

But how better could images

of cooking assail you than

surrounded by jumping mackerel,

bass and dogfish like this?!

As we rowed back across the fleet,

I was thinking how much we take for granted.

Imagine these scenes on the coast of Portugal.

It would seem so romantic, and yet because it's home,

it just passes us by.

Now, I'm just going to grill some mackerel

but I don't want to keep it as a straightforward grilled mackerel.

I'm going to devil it first and I like the idea of devilling fish,

it's very British - it's actually a way of saying it's hot.

In order to get that devilling flavour

into the flesh of the mackerel,

I'm going to cut it very simply with a lot of slashes -

but they're not deep slashes -

right across the fish. You see?

And now to make that sauce or, I suppose, more correctly it would be more like a coating.

It's not a sauce, so much, it's a devilled butter, perhaps,

a warm devilled butter. So there's the ingredients.

Just put a tray on the side of the cooker like that.

Just put one knob of butter into it.

I just thought, let's just come up with a dish that you've got all the ingredients,

even if you went on holiday you'd have all the ingredients.

Just something to have tucked up your sleeve

when you get a glut of mackerel as everybody does -

go out mackerel fishing with the kids,

come back with a couple of strings of them, what do you do?

You make this very simple devilled sauce.

So I've got a couple of teaspoons of salt and some butter in that pan.

I'm just going to add one teaspoon of everything else - some mustard,

some paprika, there we go.

Some cayenne - this is the devilled element, of course.

Maybe add a little bit more there just to make it extremely devilled.

Some ground black pepper, again about a teaspoon. Teaspoon of everything.

And here we've got some ground coriander

and some cumin as well, stir in some of that.

And then a couple of teaspoons of sugar and then a couple

of good tablespoons of vinegar, to give it a little tartness.

There we are. Good tablespoons, as I said. Just stir that together.

The idea here is just to melt the butter,

I'm not trying to cook it at all.

There we go, that's enough. Give it a taste.

Mmm, it's got a nice little fork tail on it, that one!

So into the tray with my coating sauce goes my mackerel.

Just turn it over like that.

I'm going to make sure I've got lots of the sauce in the cavity as well.

Put them on there like that.

And straight under the grill.

Like that.

I do think that grilling mackerel is the best way of cooking it.

The very nice salad I'm going to serve with this mackerel

will also go very well with herring. It's just very simple -

tomatoes, sliced onion, mint and a bit of lemon juice.

Nothing more, but it cuts through the grease, that oil

very, very smartly.

And all you have to do is lay it out.

Tomato, onion, the mint, a bit of salt.

I like these tomatoes quite under-ripe.

And some lemon juice.

Now, I promise you, you won't be disappointed.

It's a fabulous way to do mackerel.

We've moved further on up Chesil Beach to Portland itself.

Portland is famous for its stone and is also famous to me

for something else and that's squid.

Around October every year, the squid swim very close to the shore.

Here they call them "quiddles".

I met Ken Lyneham at a fisherman's do in London last year

and he said I've got to come down and try them.

But where on earth does the word "quiddle" come from?

Being an island and at one time being isolated from the mainland

we had all these peculiar names.

Really? Do you feel like it's still like an island?

Not now, we used to.

We've lost our identity nowadays.

-Really?

-Yeah.

The traditional way on Portland is boiled

and then it's just served up with butter

and eaten with fresh bread and butter.

It was always a teatime dish.

Ken put them in a battered old pressure cooker for 20 minutes

and then served them up just with some butter.

I mentioned olive oil and garlic early on

and that didn't go down very well.

But butter and this very soft textured squid is utterly delicious.

It's a bit like lobster. I think you could do other things with it.

It's very nice with butter, don't get me wrong.

HE LAUGHS

But I think you could sort of develop it in the same way

as you could with lobster, really.

I think it would take...not sauces that would smother things,

but I think it would take similar sauces to lobster quite well.

-It might be worth experimenting doing it cold.

-I think it would.

I can see this in a salad as being exceptionally nice, really.

I promise you you will like this, Ken.

It's quite modern, but there's no garlic in it.

You just cut up these squid which have already been cleaned.

You can get them like this from any supermarket now.

Blanche some French beans for a couple of minutes,

adding a bit of salt.

Meanwhile, put on some olive oil

and then just gently fry the squid with a bit of black pepper.

Now, you take those off the heat and just keep them warm

and then make a salad dressing.

Simply spoon out some English mustard,

white wine vinegar,

plenty of olive oil,

and I mean plenty of olive oil,

and now I'm going to add hazelnut oil

and that makes all the difference.

And then some salt,

and then whisk.

I can't actually see Ken doing this at home,

but anyway build up the salad by layering some lamb's lettuce leaves

and then the squid and then the green beans.

It's so light and summery.

Top with a few sprigs of chervil and some sliced, white, button mushrooms.

A bit more squid

and then a light drizzle with the dressing.

I promise you, Ken, it's delicious.

But I did like your quiddle as well.

Just a perfect starter this is.

We're lucky in this country to have some incredible seafood.

Like Rick, I love squid too and there are so many ways you can use it.

You can stuff it, of course,

like I did with Richard last time I was on the show. You can try to.

Or I'm going to show you another simple way to prepare it, in breadcrumbs.

With like a Japanese, creamy, ponzu, chilli dressing really.

But these use Japanese crumbs - we've got flour, egg and breadcrumbs.

These are the Japanese crumbs, you can actually buy these.

And then I make a kind of mayonnaise,

but I've got some veg oil here, egg yolks,

some rice vine wine vinegar instead of white wine vinegar.

Line, some of this chilli sauce,

which is like this sweet chilli sauce.

And then this, which is yuzu juice, it's brilliant.

First off, we take our squid.

This has already been pre-done and cleaned.

Just cut it into decent-sized pieces

where we can deep-fat fry them, they almost want to be that size.

Score it over the top

and you can deep-fat fry the tentacles as well.

Before cooking, before acting, it was music.

It was music, yeah.

I mentioned at the top of the show musician,

but seriously you toured with James Brown,

-Stevie Wonder.

-I played with those guys.

I went to the Chetham School of Music as a kid.

I got a scholarship when I was 11,

studying classical music and composition, which was an amazing experience.

I was there for like seven years.

Then I went to the Guildhall and it was weird

because there was a lot of actors there.

Ewan McGregor, Daniel Craig in our same year.

It was quite strange that I never really was interested in it

at that point in my life.

I was there for a year and then I went off to play with

Paul Weller, which was an absolutely incredible experience.

-I was only 17, 18.

-Right.

And, um...

What instrument was this? The drums?

I played keyboards with Paul, and percussion.

I sort of like...I played drums, percussion and then piano.

And, yeah, I started a touring life

and at 18 I kind of had a list

of about 20 artists that I wanted to play with before I died.

I've been lucky enough to play with 18 of them.

18 of them!

Literally from there, the Brand New Heavies, you toured with them,

a fantastic band.

Excellent.

But it was kind of like you were in a band, you toured,

you came back and were in your own band

and then decided it wasn't for you.

Yeah, we were with Incognito and we were recording...

and the guy who founded Incognito was producing George Benson's album.

We were in on that, which was an amazing buzz.

And I watched Raging Bull

one night and me dad said to me,

"You've got to check this film out, it's fantastic."

I watched it and I was completely blown away by Robert De Niro's performance.

-I decided I wanted to be an actor then.

-Right!

Quite late on, really, I was 24.

And we were doing a gig in Berlin,

with George Michael, MTV Awards,

and we had all the supermodels coming out on the floor,

we opened the show with Freedom and I asked one of them

if we could find out who was a good coach from one of the supermodels

who was there that night.

And then I got this coach in New York and went out there

and took a big, big gamble.

And the gamble paid off because you started in television,

we've seen you in Survivors, the current thing you are doing,

you're in series two at the moment.

We're doing the second series of Survivors and it was very scary.

I was earning a decent living as a musician.

I spent three years on the breadline, basically, not earning a penny.

But I was very lucky, my first job was Tom Jones

and I had some wonderful actors around me,

Brian Blessed and Lindsay Duncan

and they helped me a lot as a young actor.

Now I feel like I'm dead lucky and I'm doing what I want to do

and very excited about it.

Tell us about Survivors.

Hugely popular when it first came out.

People who haven't seen it, I don't know where they've been.

-I don't know where you've been.

-The storyline is what?

Survivors, post-apocalyptic drama.

The first season covers all of that

and the aftermath of 99% of the population being wiped out.

We follow a small group of people who are trying to survive, basically.

Yeah, it was extremely successful last year.

We got like six million viewers on it. People really loved it.

This is a virus that's wiped out literally most of the population.

-Most of the population.

-And then series two.

It's got even better.

It's actually remarkable.

It's just really exciting drama, the stakes are up,

it's high octane, its action packed and it's very, very sexy.

There you go.

-And is there a series three in the pipeline?

-Maybe.

You never know.

We certainly... Adrian Hodges, who's written it and created it,

has left a massive opening for a third season.

And again, looking at it last night,

when you're in these things the work ethics are so hard

and you're doing 16-, 17-hour days

and you get extremely knackered after a month or two,

but when the finished product is so good, you've just got a buzz to do it again.

Exactly. Not only that, you're going into film as well.

You're producing as well. Tell us about this.

This is great, with Ray Winston, is it?

Yeah, Raymond hopefully will be starring in it

as a flying squad copper.

It's a film set in 1966 in Manchester following a group of safe blowers.

And really looking into the mind of the man

who is the leader of this criminal fraternity.

It's kind of like old-school gangster.

I'm not a big fan of the new gangster movies

we've made in Britain over the last ten years.

I really loved, you know, Get Carter and The Long Good Friday.

-I love all that.

-You know, real good bits of storytelling,

-and that's what we're trying to do with this, hopefully.

-There you go.

And obviously, Survivors is on Wednesday nights.

No, Tuesday, BBC One. Tuesday.

And, yeah, episode three, four, five... Four more episodes.

-And they're all really excellent, actually.

-Good.

We're looking forward to it. I'll just run through my dressing.

This is basically how you make mayonnaise, really.

But I've used this rice wine vinegar, just blended up.

We've got our squid there. Doesn't want very long to cook.

These are these Japanese crumbs, make it lovely and crispy.

That's the secret, are these Japanese crumbs.

Look out for them, they are in the supermarket now as well.

Bit of salt over the top.

Finally, what we're going to do with this

is we're going to take some of this chilli.

This is this chilli paste.

Put a little bit in there. It'll make it change colour.

Pinch of salt. But then this is the special bit.

Bit more of this rice wine vinegar. There you go. This is yuzu juice.

This, I'm going to put this on the British culinary map, this.

-Yuzu juice.

-It's fantastic. Smell that. It's amazing.

-Mm.

Delia's had cranberries. I'm going to be famous for yuzu juice.

This is fantastic. It's a cross between a mandarin and a satsuma.

Smell that, guys. It is just fab. You want a little bit of it.

Now, you buy it online. It is quite expensive, I have to say.

That little bottle there was about £7.50. But it is delicious.

-Absolutely delicious.

-That's really yummy.

-That's your dressing.

And then what we're going to do is grab our plate.

Now, this banana leaf here, which you can also get online...

-Do you need it back?

-Yes, I'm going to get it...

-You just basically warm this up, you see?

-Oh.

-And it changes colour.

-Very nice.

-It goes a deeper, darker green.

There you go. Just warm it up and it goes almost like a sheen on it.

There you go.

I feel very ungentlemanly eating this first before the ladies, but it's OK.

-Don't worry about that. Corrigan's the one you've got to watch, it's not the ladies.

-OK.

-Corrigan's going to wait for no man for stuff like this.

-Beautiful.

-Beautiful.

-And then we've got a little bit of lime.

This is on the blackboard, James, you know that.

-This is on your restaurant menu?

-This is on the blackboard.

Probably about three o'clock today.

And then we've got this dressing.

-Now, this is the key to it all.

-This is the guv'nor.

Yeah. Drizzle that over the top.

-That looks good.

-And it's this pinky sort of colour.

-Dive into that.

-Can I give that a little drizz over there.

-You can give a little squirt, there you go.

-Beautiful. Boom.

-Dive into that. Tell us what you think of this one.

-Let's get involved in that.

-Absolutely sensational.

-It's delicious, isn't it?

-Yes.

-Really amazing, and that is the guv'nor.

-And it's the yuzu juice.

-That's down to the yuzu juice.

-It is down to the yuzu juice.

And a bit of me, yeah. Thanks for that(!)

That really is the perfect starter for your Sunday lunch.

And if you'd like any recipes from today's show

then you can log onto our website - bbc.co.uk/recipes.

We're not alive today, so instead, we're looking back

at some of the classic clips from the Saturday Kitchen archives.

Now it's time to see exactly how to cook a steak

from the legendary Raymond Blanc.

Watch and learn.

-Ca va?

-I will feel very much self-important.

-Everyone seems to be bigger, more important.

-No, no.

He's smaller than you, so don't worry about that.

Right, what are we cooking, Raymond?

OK, some very simple food, really home cooking

-that every British home should be cooking...

-Yeah.

-..at home.

-The dish is going to take, basically, four minutes to cook.

-Yes.

-We'll make it seven because we're going to explain a few things.

-OK.

-This is steak...

-A simple steak, salted and peppered, and pan-fried.

-Wonderful technique, and making a wonderful jus just with water.

-Water.

-And that, of course, can go with veal, with lamb, with pork.

-Yeah.

-Or fish, indeed. So, we are going to have our lovely steaks here.

-OK.

Those are actually Angus Aberdeen.

-And this is sirloin, you're using for this?

-Sirloin, that's right.

But you could use rump, you could use a lot of other cuts as well.

What's your favourite, favourite steak to go for? Sirloin?

I think I would go for rump or sirloin, I like them both.

Obviously, you've got the prime cut, OK...

-OK, faster, faster, James. Come on.

-Yeah, OK.

-Come on, James.

-Now, these are for the sauteed potatoes, yeah?

-Absolument.

-Yeah.

-Tres bien. So, let's put the butter in.

OK.

-Now, straight the way through.

-Tres bien.

-Lovely.

-About one centimetre, so we want to go fast.

-OK, I'm going fast.

Fabulous little dish. OK, faster, come on. Yes, chef. Oui, chef.

-Come on.

-Oui, chef.

-That's what happens when you spend too much time...

-There you go.

Now, Raymond, tell us... I mean, we know about Le Manoir,

I mean, probably the greatest country house hotel

England has ever had, and the restaurant as well.

Absolutely amazing. Your real dream. But where did it all start for you?

You started off, when you came to the UK, as a waiter, didn't you?

I started a very humble way. I was totally, a young man, yes, a waiter.

And the chef fell ill, OK, and I took his place.

So I came disguised in the kitchen, OK, as a chef, OK,

which was a bit of a nerve-racking... Salt, pepper.

Don't put the salt too long in that, because the salt will come out,

-start to take out the water.

-Yeah.

Make sure your butter is... Very, very important.

I was talking to a lady just a moment ago.

They said, "My steak, they are always terrible."

Either you burn the butter if you heat it too much,

which is carcinogenic and undigestible and pretty disgusting.

If it's not hot enough, obviously you are not able to seal

-and get those wonderful caramel...

-Yeah.

So, make sure it's nice and foaming, like this one, OK. A bit faster.

-A bit faster.

-A bit faster, that's right.

And when it's foaming, it means that the solid particles have cooked.

-Right.

-OK? But you don't want to burn them. Voila. Nearly there.

-You don't need very much, OK.

-Yep. It's just starting to colour now.

-Voila. Nearly there. Voila. You see, you can hear it.

-Yes.

-Lovely sound.

Beautiful. And don't move it. Don't move it around.

You want to leave that steak in contact with the pan

so you create some fabulous caramel.

Of course, you could go much faster, but if you go faster,

what's going to happen is that you are going to...

Often, I'm sure in a restaurant, when you've cut your steak,

there's this horrible grey line outside - that's what happens.

So, wonderful heat, nice, medium. You can hear it, OK. Lovely sound.

-That's perfect.

-We've got a sink, if you want to wash your hands.

You could have started with olive oil for the potatoes, OK.

Little bit of olive oil somewhere here. Thank you very much. Not bad.

-Not bad.

-You didn't cut yourself today?

-No, I did all right.

-I'm doing all right there.

-Excellent.

That's the kind of food that everyone should cook at home. It's so simple.

OK?

-OK.

-So, leave it about, for rare, one minute,

for medium rare, two minutes, for medium, three or four minutes.

And for well done, well, let's not even talk about it. OK?

-So, very finely, OK.

-Nice and fine, I'm doing that, Raymond.

Right, when the chef was ill, you went into the kitchen.

-Yes.

-Then what happened?

-You took over in the kitchen.

-Basically, took over the kitchen,

basically with two English... flanked with two English cordon bleu.

-Yeah.

-And I did my very best.

-Two English cordon bleu!

-Exactly. Not a good start.

But I served my chef's apprenticeship at my home

-and I felt pretty ready for it.

-Yeah.

OK, so that's about ready.

Just shake it up. You've got a nice caramelisation, a bit more. OK.

Shake up your potatoes so that they are not burning.

You can lose your reputation on your programme in very little time.

37 years of hard work can be destroyed in one minute.

You only have to look at him.

Yes, I've seen him so many times, messing it up!

-That's enough.

-That's enough, chef.

-Yes, that's enough.

-Come on, James.

Tres bien. Nice caramelisation here. Voila.

-Tres bien.

-But you went into the kitchen...

On a serious note, you went into the kitchen

and you achieved a Michelin star in, what, was it 12 months?

-12 months, yes.

-12 months, from just going into the kitchen,

-from a waiter to...

-Absolutely, yes.

And I remember, because the chef in England...

Chefs in England, people used to hate food, OK.

And to be a chef, you have to have a frontal lobotomy,

you had to be a social outcast and an academic failure

and then you would enter the kitchen.

So, imagine the skills of the chef were none.

Those guys didn't care about creativity, everything was frozen.

So, it was easy enough to take over from him.

Of course, the guests loved the food.

And from the moment I took that frying pan,

I knew what my destiny would be.

I opened my restaurant three months after.

Did it also stem from your mother's cooking?

-You're a big fan of your mother's cooking.

-Very much so.

Very, very much so. And I wish British chefs...

Really, that's what we are missing in England.

We have a lost generation of young chefs, basically,

who have no idea of the produce, and great food starts by a great produce.

Great produce.

You've got, now, Le Manoir, which I absolutely love...

It's famous for the kitchen garden. You mentioned great produce.

Very much so.

You've got almost like a chef's little paradise in the garden.

You are jumping hurdles here.

My first start, actually, was at the Quat'Saisons.

We had very little money, my wife and myself,

and I had about 10,000 quids in my pocket,

which was not very much, even in 1977.

And we opened a tiny little place... ladies underwear in Oxfam, OK.

And I can assure you the ladies underwear was nothing to do

with Agent Provocateur.

LAUGHTER

And we opened... My kitchen was no bigger than that.

-It was a corrugated iron roof.

-Yes.

Hot in the summer, freezing in the winter, but we opened that place.

In one year, we got our star, Michelin,

Which was the most amazing... I was amazed.

-I didn't know it was a Michelin award, OK, so...

-Brilliant.

So now, you see, that's nearly ready here. We've got a nice colour here.

Have a little taste, if you need pepper or salt.

-A bit more cooking here.

-So, I'll crush that. There we go.

Right, so, garlic... You just want one clove, or...?

You see, the way you do it here,

you're going to have a piece of garlic three weeks after, you know.

-Finer, finer, finer.

-I'll do it fine.

You puree, you grate it in.

No, no, no.

Young man. OK, voila.

Hey! LAUGHTER

-OK. Tiny bit of salt.

-Salt.

-A little bit.

And then you grind it all the way.

-It's like being back at school, isn't it.

-Voila.

-Voila.

-Tres bien. The mix here. Tres bien.

I mean, French cuisine, they all love a bit of garlic in the kitchen.

-No problem. Excellent.

-OK.

Quick stir and we are ready.

Now, all we're going to do here is to deglaze with water. Check up...

Yep.

The seasoning is perfect. Excellent. And a little bit of water.

-So, no stock, just the water.

-Just water.

-Is that cold water or hot water?

-That is cold water.

-Cold water.

-Cold water.

-Do you want to put this in there, chef?

-Yes, yes. Voila.

Steak here.

So, this is the raw onion, the garlic, the chervil and the parsley

-going in at the last minute.

-Absolutely, yes.

And not putting too much. Just...

-A bit more.

-OK.

-OK.

-OK. Little bit more.

-Tres bien.

-I'll put the potatoes on as well.

-A bit of your simple jus here. Can we go ahead?

-Yep.

-A simple jus.

And so delicious.

-It's really the essence...

-Look at that!

-Oh, yeah!

Raymond, you are an absolute star. A genius.

No less, huh? No less. From one genius to another.

You're a genius.

I'll switch off the gas, and follow me over. Come on over here, Raymond.

-Right, dive into this, Al. There you go, Raymond.

-Look at that.

Look at that. Dive in.

-Fantastic.

-Yours for 47 quid!

-It smells...!

-LAUGHTER

-No, it's superb. Just superb.

-Steak, perfectly cooked.

-Perfect, isn't it?

I'm going to get the knife and fork ready.

-It is that traditional French food, really simple.

-Exactly.

-The first thing you learn in cooking at home is pan-frying.

-Yes.

OK, and that, you can do thousands of dishes. Any fish, any meat.

-..No, no way!

-Ladies first.

-If I had to sum that up in one word, superb.

-Really, really good, isn't it?

-Superb.

You wouldn't think a little bit of water, a touch of butter...

What you are creating here is an emulsion,

OK, between the butter, because fat and water don't mix.

But if you... If the butter is hot, you actually emulsify the water,

-creating a texture, OK, and a wonderful flavour.

-You like it?

-Mm!

-Superb.

-Delicious.

-You can tell a good garnish

when you're interested in the garnish more than the meat, you know?

The garlic's especially good because I'm going to have to go to college

to learn how to do it properly, but there we go.

Simple but so tasty.

Now it's time for those Two Fat Ladies

to cook for a group of Scouts in the wild.

Dib, dib, dib. Whatever happened to my woggle?

I'm going to make a thing called a shooter's sandwich,

which, in fact, is a hollowed-out loaf stuffed with a great, big thick bit of rump steak

and delicious field mushrooms that, if you're as lucky we were, you've picked that morning.

What I'm doing now is, I've taken out most of the crumb

from the inside of this loaf, and I've cut a bit off,

and I'm keeping that to put the lid on again afterwards.

What we want to do is, we want to grill this fine piece of rump.

You want the pan extremely hot, because you want that char on the outside,

gives that very nice taste and makes it juicy within.

Yeah, it's sizzling. Try and get a first-class piece of rump, I'd say.

Slap that in...

I should think about...

a minute on either side.

It's not very good to season it beforehand.

-The salt is meant to draw the blood or something.

-Yes, it makes it run.

I think that's all right now. Yes, nice and crisscrossed. You see?

-Oh, lovely, yes.

-I'll plonk it there.

And then we'll season this well.

And I'll go and get my mushrooms to do.

Right, I'll get on with what I'm doing.

I'm making a dish called muttachar.

My grandmother, who founded the family fortunes on her back

by marrying three husbands,

all of whom died happy and left her all their money,

married as her second husband a man with a splendid name of Ezekiel Manaziah,

a very illustrious Sephardic Jewish family from Calcutta.

And when he went east, his mother sent with him a cook called Fuzdah,

a black Jew from Cochin.

Fuzdah was famous in my family mythology for his breakfast eggs,

and it took me until almost now to find that it was actually called muttachar.

What I've got here is some onions which are just gilding in the pan.

And I'm now going to add to them some tomatoes,

some green chillies,

chopped,

and some mango...

just sliced. You may think that this is not really a camping dish

but you could use everything out of tins apart from the eggs.

You could use tinned mangoes if you had to,

but do try not to have them in syrup.

Now, the thing with mangoes,

if you're buying fresh mangoes, you'll never buy them ripe

except occasionally in the Asian shops or down the market.

And if you get them non-ripe, the thing to do

is put them in a paper bag with overripe bananas

and shut them in a dark cupboard or a drawer and then they'll ripen.

And now I'm going to add to this some coconut milk and water -

half and half.

How do they come about to be white?

Because when you break open a coconut, it's not like that.

-It's more watery.

-No, it's not the stuff that you find in the coconut.

Coconut milk is, you grate up the flesh of the coconut.

-Of course you do.

-Then you leave it to soak, and you wring it out.

You see, look, it's already taking a golden colour from the mangoes.

And I'm going to add half a teaspoonful each of turmeric,

paprika...

ground coriander...

..and salt.

And stir that all in... Mmm, smelling good already.

Now, I've got some curry leaves and what you want to do is,

you rub them between the palms of your hands...

just to release the fragrances, the oils.

And then just scatter them in.

And some fresh coriander.

Just tear that in.

There we are. Now, just turn this down a bit.

And it's got to simmer for ten minutes to thicken.

-What are you up to next?

-I'm going to stuff my shooter's.

Three, I think my mushrooms are just about ready.

I'll tell you what. I never peel the mushrooms.

I just give them a brush-off or a damp cloth if necessary,

you know, if there's a bit of muck on them.

-But the skin, I think, contains most of the flavour, don't you?

-Yes.

Now it's time to start stuffing the loaf.

We'll get the steak and we'll put it in...

Now we'll put the mushrooms in one by one...

Take all the juices you can.

Look, it's a wonderful sight.

-Isn't it great?

-I'm hungry already.

Now I'm going to put the lid back.

But first of all, I'm going to take the bit of crumb in the lid...

-..and collect all the remaining juices in the pan.

-I'll have that bit.

-No, you won't. It's delicious. Look, black.

-Mmm!

Pop that in.

Now we'll put its little lid on again

and now I'm going to take it away, wrap it up and weight it down well.

Now I'm going to roll this up.

I've got a layer of kitchen towel and greaseproof paper.

They really ought to be wonderful sheets of white blotting paper.

That's what they used to use.

But this will do, I reckon.

Now we take a long piece of string...

..and secure the two ends.

Good practice for Christmas.

I'm rather good at Christmas parcels.

You can tell you've been taking lessons from the Scouts.

Now, that's secure enough for that, I think.

I'll just lean on it a bit.

Then we get a board, a heavy board.

Lean on it again.

And then a really heavy...

basin...saucepan. This fine object will do.

And this we're going to leave for about six hours,

so that it all crushes together and all the juices amalgamate

and make the whole thing very delicious.

-Mmm, can't wait to try it.

-So, we'll have to wait a few hours for that.

And what are you up to?

This has reduced nicely now. Look at that colour.

Isn't that a good colour?

Yes, terrific.

Right, so now all I've got to do,

I've just got to put the juice of half a lemon in.

-It's a most extraordinary mixture, isn't it?

-Mmm.

And now here I've got my hard-boiled eggs,

beautifully boiled, not too hard.

-Not too hard.

-No, no.

-I'm against them being too hard.

Oh, heaven forbid!

You can break a raw egg into the mixture

-and poach it in the mixture, if you want.

-Yeah.

-I think that's what they do in Cochin.

-I'm glad to hear it!

But it's not what I'm going to do at Kielder, though!

-What would you have with it? Rice or something?

-You could.

-Or just really good bread to mop it up. It's a breakfast dish.

-I see.

You have it for breakfast.

There we are, and once the eggs have warmed through,

we can serve it up.

Delicious! Can't wait!

I love onion soup, don't you?

And the great advantage of it is that even the seediest,

most run-down of village shops, you will always find onions.

This is a very good recipe for using up leftover Stilton.

And what I've got softening here is some butter,

and I'm just going to add some onions to it.

They're perfect to take camping

because they're terribly portable

and it doesn't really matter if they get wet.

And you can just chop them up and make a big pot of onion soup.

The colour of onion soup is a matter of caramelisation.

It's really entirely up to you. I don't like dark brown onion soup.

-But that's just me.

-I do.

-Well, that's very good, I'm glad for you.

But you're not getting it today.

So, the darker you cook your onion, the darker your soup will be.

Now, I'm going to add some stock. This is stock mixed with beer.

You can mix it with beer, you can mix it with wine.

You can leave out the alcohol altogether, if you like.

But it's actually better with a bit of something, just to give it a bit of oomph.

And some thyme. Thyme is a lovely herb

and, again, sort of readily findable.

Just a bit of thyme.

Not too much or you'll kill the taste of the onion. And some salt.

And pepper.

Well, this'll be yearning for its Stilton in about 15 minutes.

And in the meantime, Jennifer will show you some dazzling tricks.

Hey, presto! I'm back to my beloved Italy!

I'm making a frittata, which is an Italian omelette.

Very unlike the French omelette which is cooked as quickly as possible.

This is slow, and it's got a lot of vegetables in it.

I'm using onions and tomatoes.

But you can put anything you like in.

You know, leftover courgettes, aubergines, olives, anchovies...

Anything you like.

At the moment what I'm doing is gently frying two pounds of onions.

You may think that's a lot, but it renders down.

And then I put some tomatoes in. It takes a long time...

Those onions take, you know, 10 to 15 minutes to get this soft.

This is about ready now.

And I'm going to remove this to a bowl, to cool off a bit.

I'll just give this a wipe.

Now we start the egg bit.

Throw that on the ground, as we have ground.

Now, I've put about two ounces of butter in.

And we've got six eggs.

I'm going to beat them. Just beat them well, but not frothy -

not like a French omelette.

Just so that they're very well mixed together.

Then we want to put in the onions and the tomatoes.

Two tablespoonfuls of Parmesan cheese.

Mix it all well together...

And I'd better just have a taste.

Yeah, I think that's enough salt and pepper.

We can always add to it. We can't take it away.

Get a handful...

of basil...

and tear it in.

Now mix that all together.

Butter's melted.

And we want to pour all this into the hot frying pan.

And we'll just...

..smooth it out evenly,

so that it will cook nicely.

And it'll take about 15 minutes on a very, very low gas.

I mean, the lower, the better.

So, you can carry on, cookie.

My soup's simmering away nicely now, so I'm going to add the Stilton.

You can use Stilton rind for this, believe me,

because I didn't believe it when I was told it.

Grate up your old Stilton rind and put it in.

But what I've got here is just some grated Stilton.

And I'm going to put it in and leave it to cook down, melt into the soup.

I'll put a lid on and leave it for about another 15 minutes,

while I cook my croutons.

You can never have too many croutons.

It's one of those rules of thumb.

However many croutons you cook, it's never enough.

-It's like bread sauce!

-Absolutely!

-Never enough.

I'll just test the oil.

There's an earwig. Never mind, it's gone.

-There's nothing like a little fried earwig!

-Pop it in!

You can put garlic in with your croutons if you want.

It's bubbling.

-Yeah, it's meant to bubble.

-Yes, it's lovely.

-Mmm.

-It's suddenly got it.

-Good for the cold.

It is, actually. Onions are terribly good for you.

Culpeper says... Culpeper, in 1640, says,

"Onions and garlic burn away the fat that grows round the heart."

-They've always been considered very healthy.

-I know.

But it takes the medical profession that long

to re-remember things, doesn't it?

There we are, now those are done. All golden and lovely.

And now all I have to do is wait for this soup to cook,

so I think I'll come and bother you.

No bother at all, my dear! I'm just checking my frittata.

Mmm.

Lovely.

-Do you see? It's turning into a sort of solid cake.

-Mmm.

Still a bit gooey on top. I think I'll grill it for a moment.

About half a minute should do it.

It is, of course, absolutely delicious cold,

just cut into chunks, and that's how it's often eaten in Italy.

The children are sent to school with a wodge of it,

and a good bit of bread,

and also the workmen take it in their little cans.

I think that's it. There, that's just how it should look.

-Succulent and bubbly.

-Mmm! Perfect!

SCOUTS CHAT TO ONE ANOTHER

If you can't face these eggs for breakfast, try them for brunch.

With a bottle of whisky waters and armed with this,

and you can travel from John O'Groats to Land's End

and cock a snook at both.

A total comfort dish after a long day.

Excellent any time - hot, cold or lukewarm.

Plenty of time for other activities while these are cooking.

May I have the tomato sauce, please?

This fish is quite nice, actually.

Ah! Well, you look very splendid in that outfit.

Very Parisian chic, your headdress.

I'm trying to cover myself from head to toe

because of these terrible midges! This is my helmet bag.

-No?!

-Yeah, my helmet bag!

I hate this camping! I don't understand what you see in it.

Well, it goes back a long way.

My grandmother lived in a tent in her drawing room in Little Venice..

How very sensible of her to put it in a drawing room!

Yes, she was Irish and very eccentric.

It was after my grandfather died.

She was never quite the same again.

Well, I think one should abandon the midges and retire.

All right, then. Beddos for dits.

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

But instead, we've got some amazing recipes

from the Saturday Kitchen archives.

Still to come on today's Best Bites,

the three Michelin star chef, Clare Smyth,

takes on Lawrence Keogh

in the Saturday Kitchen omelette challenge.

Daniel Galmiche, that great Frenchman, cooks duck confit.

He honey glazes it and cooks it with puy lentils,

carrots and fresh chervil.

And Emilia Fox faced her food heaven or food hell.

Would she get to eat food heaven -

potatoes in a classic cottage pie with peas?

Or food hell - monkfish,

with my lemongrass and lime leaf monkfish coconut curry

with Thai jasmine rice?

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

Now, Stuart Gilles took time out

from opening Gordon Ramsay's Plane Food restaurant

at Heathrow Terminal 5

in order to treat us to the world of violet artichokes.

-What are you cooking?

-We're doing a risotto, everyone knows risotto,

and we're doing a risotto with violet artichokes.

You see them in markets, don't really know how to prepare,

so I'll go through with you how to prepare it.

We use carnaroli rice, we use white wine,

a vegetable stock made from all this here,

so it's purely vegetarian.

And then this little salad, we need to get the risotto on first.

So I'm going start that with the...

-Chop the old onions and the garlic.

-..the shallots and garlic.

I'll prep a little bit of one of these artichokes.

Like you said, people don't really go for them.

Italians love them, they're famous in Brittany, of course.

They grow loads, don't they?

I think it's just the preparation they don't know what to do with it,

but it's so easy, all you do is take off those outside leaves

until you get down to the lighter colour,

and that's enough, don't peel any more.

Then we just cut the end off.

Cut the end off, peel the stalks, and then we're going to shave these.

Shave it very fine, James.

We put it in the artichoke just when we finish it.

In the risotto, not the artichoke my tongue's all over the place!

So when we do the risotto, we do it in two stages,

which is what makes it controllable.

I think a lot of people don't realise you can do that.

And we cook it in two stages.

First of all, you sweat the shallots and the garlic

in olive oil.

Now, sweat means you cook it without any colour.

You don't want to brown it or else the garlic goes bitter.

Then to that, you just add the rice.

Now, this rice is quite important,

cos there's three types of rice you can cook risottos with.

When I lived in Italy, in Rome, we used arborio rice.

You also get, er...vianano and carnaroli.

Carnaroli is the kindest, it's very forgiving,

cos it's a slightly longer grain, not as fat.

We use that in a lot of restaurants

because it's more gentle and you can pre-cook it.

This is kind of like the pasta of the north of Italy,

because they use loads of it up north.

So we've got our base in there, which is our rice...

-There's your wine.

-..salt, a pinch of salt,

-shallot and garlic.

-Yeah.

Now to that, we just add a little bit of white wine.

Like so. You've got to have white wine in risotto.

-Its sharpness does help, doesn't it?

-The acidity just cuts through

-the butter and the cheese at the end to keep it light.

-Yeah.

Otherwise it's too heavy and you just can't eat a whole portion.

So the wine evaporates pretty instantly.

-So you've got the artichoke there, James?

-Yeah.

You see how easy they are, just to peel down.

And also with... I mean, the larger globe artichokes,

what you need to do is kind of rub a little bit of oil

or maybe some lemon juice on your hands,

-because they can stain your hands.

-They do stain,

-and also you find your hands taste disgusting after.

-Yeah.

-That's why he's given it to me to do, you see?

-Yeah, so...

Yeah, I've got other things to do later, you can deal with that.

I'm not surprised other things to do,

what is it, about a month away from opening, Terminal 5?

Terminal 5, yeah, actually 27th March, the first flight goes,

4am, so if you're around, I'll make you a bacon sandwich.

You'll be in the kitchen.

But you're cooking... Is it all-day dining, is it that kind of stuff?

It is, 6am to 9pm we run it.

But very different to what you're normally used to,

cos people are just sat there and enjoying their meal,

now they're in quite of a rush, so the food's got to be different.

Yeah, the food has just got to be deliverable quick,

because people have only got 20 to 30 minutes, that's it.

So it's got to be fast.

Now, with this risotto, all we do is we cook this as a base

-with one and a half litres of stock to a kilo of rice.

-Yeah.

-And once that's all absorbed, you put it off and cool it down.

-OK.

That's the first stage, just let it go cold.

This is where people can do it in the morning.

They can do it ahead, yeah.

And the rice is only half cooked at this stage,

so then what you do is before your dinner party

or your little Valentine's dinner...

The stock that you've got in here,

you could actually let it go cold and freeze it.

What you do with the stock is, you take the vegetables,

cook them in some olive oil, sweat them for about ten minutes.

Then you add water, bring it to the boil and only cook for ten minutes.

And you've got in here leeks, celery, onions,

celeriac, fennel, a bit of carrot, some fresh herbs.

Exactly, and you just cook it ten minutes,

because otherwise it tastes stewed, James.

So you only do ten minutes,

and then you leave it to cool down with the vegetables inside.

And then you strain it 24 hours later.

And that way, you get a really light, fragrant stock.

-It's so easy to make, it really takes literally ten minutes to make.

-OK.

So the stock goes back into the pan now to finish,

-and it takes about four minutes to finish this risotto now.

-OK.

Which is perfect, because you still get the bite of the rice,

and you still get the thickness from the starch.

This bit I'm giving you to do, so these are the artichokes.

You see how simple they are,

all that is is peeled and the leaves stripped off.

-Now, can you get a bigger mandolin for next time?

-Yeah!

Now, watch your fingers if you're doing this at home.

Yeah, it's incredibly sharp, what you don't want to do is cut yourself.

Just open that a little bit, James.

Just open that a little bit more for me.

-Don't do it while I'm still doing that. There you go.

-Yeah, like that.

-OK, so we add the artichokes at this stage.

-Yeah.

And we haven't cooked these, these are raw,

and the beauty of doing it like this

is that you get the pure flavour of the artichoke

into the risotto.

-Ever tried artichokes like this or not?

-No.

Never, cos there are two main types, isn't there?

There's the Jerusalem artichoke, which is the root,

not the same plant, but the root.

And you've got the globe artichoke, so treat them very differently.

They're very much a winter vegetable, that Jerusalem artichoke.

These ones here, because they're very tender,

you can just shave them

and put them in lemon juice and they cook instantly.

They've got a lovely bite but you don't lose any flavour,

-like you do sometimes in the water.

-Yeah.

-So we're just going to let that absorb that final stock, James.

-Yeah.

And as that's cooking, all the artichoke just starts

to flavour the whole stock, so it's very pure.

-I'm concentrating.

-OK, stop, that's enough.

I'm scared! I'm scared of what it might cost me!

-There you go, right.

-Every one of your fingers is worth £1 million.

Just show me, five fingers up.

Now the rest of the artichoke here, straight into a bowl there,

and just put some lemon juice, James, please.

-This stops it from going brown.

-Yeah.

-Lemon juice.

Because it instantly goes black, you see, it oxidises in the air.

-Yeah.

-So we add a little bit of lemon juice,

salt and pepper to the artichoke.

We've got a little dressing here, just olive oil?

Just olive oil, incredibly simple.

-Olive oil and lemon juice, that's it.

-Yeah.

So that just goes straight on the top.

And then, if you can just pick some of the curly on the salad, James.

Yeah, I know, when I come on here,

-I always make you earn your money, don't I?

-I know you do, yeah!

You're using the central hearts of the curly,

because the rest of it is quite bitter.

Just the yellow, because the rest of it is very bitter.

-Right, nearly there, I suppose.

-Almost there, I think.

-Yeah.

The salad straight into the bowl.

-Just toss that around with the artichoke.

-I'll do that.

-That's just going to finish the risotto.

-Yeah.

-The risotto is about a minute and a half away.

-It is fantastic, isn't it?

Just lemon juice and artichokes like this, just nicely shaved.

-It's really nice.

-It's really that simple.

And you know, the artichokes are incredibly good value, James,

because everyone thinks you waste the whole thing, but you don't.

How long can you keep the rice cold, once you've done the first stage?

Oh, you can put it in the fridge, you can hold it a day.

And then you bring it back as long as you only cook it halfway,

it's really quite forgiving.

It doesn't get too hard when you bring it out of the fridge again?

No, you just add the same stock it just comes back, just perfect.

-Mascarpone?

-So a big spoon of mascarpone, please.

-A bit more?

-That's it. A touch more.

-A touch more.

-Thank you.

And some butter and cheese, and we're almost there.

-There you go.

-Butter there...

-Cheese can go in?

-Cheese straight in, James.

-There you go.

-Do you have a plate for this?