Episode 80 Saturday Kitchen Best Bites

Good morning. There's something tasty in the kitchen, so get ready

for a sumptuous line-up of food in today's helping of Best Bites.

Welcome to the show.

We've got an amazing array of world-class

chefs from the Saturday Kitchen archives for you this morning.

And some pretty hungry celebrity guests too,

including Dougray Scott and Jodie Prenger.

Northern Ireland's very own Paul Rankin char-grills lamb fillet

and creates a unique salad with garlic puree, borlotti beans,

rocket and wild garlic leaves.

And the toast of Cornwall, Nathan Outlaw, serves up sea bass.

He serves it with some delicious home-made crab mayonnaise,

orange and fennel.

Fresh from Morston Hall, Galton Blackiston

dares to make crispy shrimp risotto cakes

in front of the master of Italian cooking, Theo Randall.

After making the risotto, he fries the cakes and serves them

with a tomato and radish salad and singer

and actress Jodie Prenger faced her Food Heaven or Food Hell.

Would she get her Food Heaven? Chocolate in a naughty

but nice chocolate and strawberry roulade?

Or would she get her dreaded Food Hell, carrots in a carrot Lyonnaise

with Vichy carrots and coriander and goat's cheese?

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

But first, Scotland's favourite son, Nick Nairn, takes influence

from the Far East and shares with us his sesame chicken kebabs.

Right, so what's on the menu for you, then?

Right, sesame chicken kebabs. Very, very simple.

All done in the food processor except for the mango salsa, which

-if you will indulge me.

-Yeah, I can do the mango salsa.

Finely-diced mango, chilli,

coriander, mint leaves,

dress it with a little bit of oil and lime juice and a bit of lime zest.

It sounds good to me.

We're going to use chicken breasts for the kebabs.

-We're going to blitz them down in the food processor.

-Yeah.

Because they're so lean I'm going to put a little bit of smoked bacon

in there, a bit of pancetta.

Now, this is the Italian cured smoked belly pork.

But they're actually doing it in the UK now, aren't they?

Yes, buy it in the supermarkets.

You can either buy the little cube di pancetta,

or lardon, as the French say,

-or in Scotland we say "wee bits o' bacon".

-Wee bits of bacon.

It doesn't quite have the same cachet. But it is indeed what it is.

You get a lot of producers who are actually making their own

pancetta in the UK, so you don't have to buy it from abroad.

Yeah, no, there are.

There's an increasing number of artisan producers doing all

kinds of cured meats.

Just roughly chopped up chilli, some spring onions in here as well.

This is one of these dishes that it's not very chef-y. It's quite nice.

I've been cooking a lot of chef-y food recently with my mate

-Mr Paul Rankin.

-Oh, right.

We've been away on a boat doing some filming

and, you know, the food has got really quite chef-y.

This is quite nice.

-Yeah, OK.

-You looked surprised there for a minute, James.

I'm surprised you get any cooking done

with you two on a boat together.

Some water chestnuts going in there as well.

And we've got some salt, some sugar and a little bit of cornflour.

The cornflour just helps to hold the whole thing together.

Then some sesame oil, and it's the dark, roasted one.

-It's quite strong, isn't it?

-Quite a lot of favour, so go easy with that.

And then, just a little bit of egg white.

just to hold the whole thing together.

So, what's the idea of this new series that you're doing?

Well, it's Paul and I on a boat,

sailing around either side of the Irish Channel.

We're looking at the commonalities between Irish and Scottish food.

We meet some great producers.

And we're cooking in real-time for real people.

-As opposed to unreal people?

-Studio-style.

-Yeah... As opposed to unreal people.

-Yeah.

And it's been really good fun, I have to say.

-We've been quite well-behaved, you'd be surprised.

-It surprises me.

Big, long days.

-Soak the... What are these called again? Skewers.

-Wooden sticks! Yep.

-We're having a great day.

-It's complicated, this cooking lark!

Soak them in water first so they don't burn when you cook them.

And you squidge it on to the stick.

Sometimes, if it gets a little bit dry and sticky,

put some flour on your hands, but these are working just fine.

If you need to cook them quickly, you can squidge them down flat.

-You want to put those on there.

-We'll roll them in sesame seeds.

And then we'll shallow fry them. A bit of oil on for that.

There we go.

-Just get about half an inch of oil in a pan.

-Quite a lot of oil, then?

Quite a lot of oil, shallow frying, yeah.

-How's that salsa going on?

-It's getting there.

You're quite good at the chopping, you surprise me sometimes!

You just get abuse on this show, Julia, all you get!

That's why we're here!

I have a question, is "squidge" a technical term?

-"Squidge" is a very chef-y, technical term.

-Thanks, I'm taking notes.

-I'm squidging as we speak.

-It's about as technical as Nick Nairn gets

at this time in the morning. We did ask for a better quality chef,

but, you know, nobody else would get up that early in the morning!

LAUGHTER

James and I go back a long way.

-15 years.

-And, in the old days,

I had a bit of a reputation for staying out late at night.

But I'm a dad now, I've got kids.

I've grown up. HE LAUGHS

Yeah, right(!)

OK, so you've squidged...

I'm squidging nicely, and I'm going to roll them in sesame seeds.

You could maybe do the other two for me, or one of them at least.

I'm going to flatten them down so they cook a little bit more quickly.

-That's quite hot.

-Can I ask,

why did you put sugar in with the chicken?

Just that sort of sweet and hot flavour.

The heat from chilli and the sweetness from the sugar.

You use quite a lot of sugar in Asian cooking.

The Asian thing is about hot, sweet, salty, sour.

Trying to get those flavours in balance and in harmony.

You used caster sugar, but you could use palm sugar.

Palm sugar would be more,

-sort of true to the region, I suppose.

-Yeah.

-How's that salsa looking?

-I'm going as quick as I can!

-Yeah!

-Salsa.

-There you go.

So, most of my work is done now.

-Do you want me to give you a dig-out with the salsa?

-No, it's fine.

I'll just give you a hand there.

So, apart from your TV series, what else are you doing in Scotland?

You've got your Cook School.

Cook School, which is flying away at the moment.

I might do another one this year if things work out well.

And working really hard in our restaurant

at the Dunblane Hydro, The Kailyard.

We've been there for three years now

and it's been a really busy season which is nice,

because you can't really say that for everywhere else in Scotland.

It's been quiet in some places. So it's great that that's flying.

We've got a cafe in Erskine Hospital Garden Centre

which is going along nicely.

So, yeah, all the ducks are lined up in a row which is, I think,

quite often a bad thing.

Everything seems to be going well,

something's going to go horribly wrong.

-And I did a mountain bike race the other week.

-Oh, right?

-Yeah.

-You're supposed to be impressed, but you're not.

-I'm impressed.

Three old codgers up in Ben Nevis. Top fun.

Are you into mountain biking? No?

-Er...

-Hasn't got an engine?

-It hasn't got an engine, really.

-Or a propeller.

-I've got a mountain bike.

-Have you?

-Yeah.

-Where is it?

-In the shed?

-Under the stairs.

-The stairs!

With all the other...

See, most people have a drawer with a foot spa

and a Breville sandwich toaster, stuff they never use.

You've probably got a shed with cars and tanks.

I got carried away in a shop,

and you go for one of those all-suspension things.

I've got one of them, yeah. And you're not a fan, no?

Yeah, it's all right.

Just too many big hills where I live.

That's the whole point of mountain biking! The clue's in the title.

It's a mountain bike for going up big hills.

-It's better off downhill.

-Right.

OK. Kebabs are good to go.

I'm getting there. What else do I want? Olive oil.

Olive oil. Have you got some lime juice in there as well?

I've got lime juice here.

-A bit of a lime for a bit of garnish.

-I've got that.

Plate.

To plate up on here.

So, just dipping sauce.

Proprietary brand sweet chilli sauce for this.

It's good we can buy that sauce, it's perfectly all right, isn't it?

It's just sugar and chilli and vinegar.

And a little bit of soy. Pop that over there.

And that light Japanese soy, which is delicious. I love it.

And a beautiful... Look at the quality of the dicing in there!

-James Martin...

-Just get it on the plate.

-..you surprise me sometimes.

So, a nice dollop of salsa at the side.

Then, of course, these are crunchy on the outside from the sesame seeds.

And all these nice flavours and textures.

Sometimes I'll dice up some prawns and put those through.

Prawn and chicken are really good. Pork and chicken together.

You find that a lot in Asian cooking.

Maybe another neat pile of salsa on there as well

because you've done such a good job of the salsa, James.

Remind us what that is again then.

That's sesame chicken kebabs, a very nice mango salsa.

Some very nice, little wedges of lime there, James,

-that's a nice touch, mate.

-Thank you very much. Check that out.

It's a good job we've known each other for a long time.

It is indeed, yes. We love one another underneath all the bravado.

-There you go. You get to try this if you want it.

-Absolutely.

-Or I can just pass it down if you want to.

-No, no.

It will be very hot.

Bear in mind you've got lobster linguine next that I'm cooking,

so if you don't want to try it, you can easily pass it down.

So...

THEY LAUGH

So, James, you finally get Hollywood A-list,

and you get linguine which is messy to eat. And hot kebabs.

So how do I eat this?

I would take a little bit off the end.

Break a little bit off the end, try a bit of the salsa.

-A bit of lime with it as well.

-I'm going to take it off the skewers.

You mentioned doing it with prawns,

you can actually put prawns with the chicken.

Dice the prawns, fold them through at the end.

so you've got the texture of the prawns through.

And you get prawn toast. It's a very similar mix to prawn toast.

-Is lime OK with it?

-Yeah, lime is good. We love that stuff.

A little dip in either the soy or the sweet chilli sauce.

-Breakfast of champions.

-It's hot. It's hot.

I don't like it when people watch me eat!

LAUGHTER

That's the idea of a food programme!

-Just nod.

-No, it's very good.

-The sesame is great.

-She's a good actress, I told you!

No, it's the truth!

I don't even like chicken that much. That was delicious.

All that squidging was definitely worth it.

Coming up: I'm making a Goan-style lobster curry for Dougray Scott

thanks to a great recipe from the brilliant Atul Kochhar,

but first, Rick Stein takes us to a town that's been called

Britain's curry capital, Bradford.

Curry has become one of the nation's favourite dishes,

and a must for this series

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

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

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

He wrote a book called An English Journey,

which was written in 1933, but still very relevant today.

But I love this piece on the base of the statue.

Written by JB Priestley, it says,

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

"bristling with tall mill chimneys,

"with its face of blackened stone, Bruddesford..."

That's obviously Bradford,

"..is generally held to be an ugly city.

"And so, I suppose, it is.

"But it's always seemed to me to have the kind of ugliness

"that could not only be tolerated, but often enjoyed.

"It was grim but not mean."

I really like that.

Chalky, where are you? Chalky?

I think good old cheap JB, who was a seriously down-to-earth Yorkshireman,

would approve of the Karachi Restaurant.

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

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

being cooked freshly on the spot.

I ordered lamb karahi with spinach.

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

Like balti, the karahi is named after

a battered, robust cooking pan they serve it in.

-Mumrez, is there any English food that you like?

-Erm...

I can't think of anything because, erm...

there is a religious matter, when you go for English food.

But, I do like fish and chips.

The food here is uncompromising.

It doesn't tailor itself to western taste.

This is just wonderful.

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

It's just, there's nothing superfluous about it.

It's simple and it's elegant.

I've just been around the kitchen there.

There's no sort of flimflammery of equipment, like in my kitchen.

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

A table for rolling out the bread.

A tandoor oven for making this fantastic naan bread and chapattis.

That's it. I've just been talking to this guy, and he said

it's been the same ever since it opened in 1963.

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

And he said, "It's right."

And I thought, that's such a good thing to say.

So this is the recipe I got from Mumrez Khan's very nice restaurant

which we thought was called The Karachi Cafe. It sounded very trendy.

But it was just called The Karachi Restaurant in Bradford.

And I had this lamb karahi which is really THE dish

that everybody loves at that place.

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

A lot of people are very secretive about recipes.

But not Mumrez, he was quite happy to send it.

And, actually, it's done slightly differently from the way

us westerners do curries.

And very nice it is because of it.

So first of all, I'm cutting this lamb up into inch-and-a-half cubes.

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

Shoulder gives you a slightly more tender cut,

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

Pays your money, takes your choice.

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

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

Next, tons of onions, well chopped up. I'm using three big ones.

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

and it's new and exciting to me.

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

then loads of garlic, about 15 cloves.

Chopped ginger, roughly chopped.

Water.

And lid on the blender, and blend for about 30 seconds.

I'm always relieved when that moment comes.

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

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

So, I pour the puree into a casserole on the heat,

and add the meat.

Now, this is interesting, you see,

because I would have expected to brown the lamb first with the spices.

But it goes in like this, just with some salt.

And just cooked very gently.

So, that lamb has been cooking in that puree for about half an hour.

I must say, there's no spice in there but it's still,

even though there's no spices, smelling wonderfully like a curry.

There's only ginger and garlic, one or two other things.

Now I'm going to add some spice.

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

Ground coriander, cumin.

And now some chilli powder.

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

Then, some paprika, and finally some turmeric.

Stir all that in. Now, look at the colour of that and the smell.

I'm really looking forward to this.

Now, you can see that the ghee starts to rise to the surface.

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

So you don't need to taste it, you know.

You can skim it off, but there's no way I'm going to skim it off,

because it's just too nice to eat.

The other interesting thing about the karahi is the way

the chilli is added towards the end of the cooking.

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

They use fresh spinach leaves near the end.

But, in addition, they use a puree of spinach.

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

that makes the dish look so appetising.

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

but what I like is all of it

because I really like hot curries.

At the last minute, I'm adding some coriander,

and a teaspoon or so of fresh garam masala

to just lift the spice flavour.

And now the rice.

I've made a pilau rice.

I've put cinnamon and cardamom with it.

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

So many of us try to recreate the cooking of a good Indian restaurant

but there's something missing.

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

It's 7.15pm,

I've just been off for a few pints of beer with David and the crew.

But they've all gone off to see Planet Of The Apes.

I don't really want to see Planet Of The Apes,

I'm not really interested in it.

I'm just taking Chalky for a walk.

And I don't know what to do,

because I don't want to go and have anything to eat

because I had an enormous curry in Bradford at lunchtime

and I'm in Leeds now.

People think being on the road's quite glamorous.

But, well, this is the reality, really.

And I don't want to go to bed.

I suppose I'll just walk Chalky round and round

endless city blocks in Leeds.

That curry looked delicious.

My favourite Indian dish is made by the great Atul Kochhar

and he serves it in his restaurant Benares in London.

It's a Goan-style lobster curry.

And I've borrowed it/nicked it from him.

So I'm going to show you it right now.

It's actually really easy to do at home.

But I'm wearing an apron. I need this,

because lobster went everywhere in rehearsal. Now, the ingredients.

We've got a cooked lobster here. You can tell it's cooked, cos it's red.

Uncooked, they're blue. So we've got in here lobster.

We've got some coriander.

We've got a little bit of ground or rather a puree of ginger and garlic.

Onion. Little bird's eye chilli. We've got some dried chillies.

Coriander seeds, peppercorns and cloves.

Fresh coconut, which is grated. Some tamarind paste.

A bit of turmeric, coconut milk and water.

That's it, a very simple little curry.

But first off, we take the fresh coconut

and we toast the coconut in a dry pan.

There we go. Fry that off,

just nice and dry, get a nice bit of colour on there.

That's going to dry up.

Next, I'm going to chop up my onion. Chop that nice and fine.

Now, curries, I don't know whether they have much curry

up in Fife where you were brought up as a kid?

-Were you brought up on curries?

-No, I used to go to Glasgow for curries,

that's the first time I had a curry. It was very good.

It's quite an industrial place where you were brought up?

Yeah. Lots of different industries,

a farming industry, a fishing industry.

There used to be a lot of mines as well, opencast mines,

underground mines. There was paper mills.

Wasn't there pressure on you as a kid to do that as a job really,

when you were growing up?

-Acting wasn't really an option...

-Exactly.

-..where I was brought up.

But there were many different things I could have done.

I could have gone and worked in the dockyards,

the Rosyth dockyards was a big thing for kids to do in my area.

The Army, the Navy...

So how did you end up getting into acting seriously?

College was it, or what?

I did a play at school and I remember thinking...

First of all I wanted to be a footballer, but I wasn't good enough.

So I had to think about something else.

I did a play at school, and it just fitted, it felt very comfortable.

It was something that I kind of had to do.

It wasn't something that many other people did from where I came from.

I went to college, and then moved to London.

And did some plays in the theatre and then did some TV.

Then was lucky enough to do some movies.

One led to the other.

So, it was an interesting journey, that's for sure.

You say one led to another. You got quite a few acting roles early on.

-Taggart was one of them.

-Taggart was my first television job, yeah.

I remember that.

-But, Soldier, Soldier, wasn't that your big break?

-Soldier, Soldier.

Yeah, I guess so, in TV.

And then I did a movie called Twin Town, which was kind of a cult hit.

That's the one... You say a cult hit, but it launched you globally.

Wasn't it the fact that Tom Cruise actually watch that film

-and then cast you in Mission Impossible II?

-Yeah.

He watched that and he watched Ever After

which I'd done just after Twin Town.

The two roles were completely different.

I mean, no-one thought I could play Prince Charming.

But I managed to convince them that I could.

A lot of your roles are quite dark and quite intense.

Mission Impossible II, you trained quite heavily for that,

you trained in the SAS, stuff like that.

To get that physicality to the character.

Yeah, in Enigma as well, learning to break codes.

Ripley's Game, where I learned how to make picture frames.

They're all very interesting.

The great thing about my job is you get to learn to do things

that you wouldn't necessarily learn how to do.

And so that's what I enjoy, the research and the process

of being an actor as much as I do actually being on a film set.

I'm not going to start this up until you stop.

We've got in here coconut, spices have gone in there.

Chilli. A touch of water, that's going to go in there.

I'm frying off my onions now.

-A little bit of water to make a nice little paste.

-Very good.

This fries off nicely.

And that's it. And we add that to our cooking onions.

In there, I've got my garlic, my ginger, my onions and my chilli.

We'll give that a quick mix once it's in the pan.

-Throw all that lot in as well.

-It looks very nice.

I mentioned dark characters

because that's the role in your new movie as well?

Yes, Newtown Killers.

He's a banker, and he works in the finance world in Edinburgh.

And he invents this game which is basically a cat-and-mouse game.

He goes to this young kid, this very vulnerable kid,

and offers him some money if he can evade him for 12 hours in Edinburgh.

And he sets it up as being just a fun game, and if the kid loses,

then he just gives back the money. And if he wins, he gets £12,000.

But it turns out to be a lot darker than that,

and the game gets darker and darker and darker.

And he involves this other banker

who wants a job in my character's firm.

And he begins to realise that Alistair, my character,

is not all what he appears to be.

And so, well, I won't give it away, but it's an amazing thriller.

Do you go looking for roles like that,

or is it something that you pick up in a script?

They kind of come to me, I don't know why.

I like to play all different kinds of characters.

-You were in Desperate Housewives for a couple of episodes.

-Yeah, I was.

I did a whole season of Desperate Housewives, which was great fun.

That was very different from anything I'd ever done before.

You know, I really enjoyed that. But I like diversity.

I like playing different characters.

And not just for film, but also stage as well.

-And the BBC, you've just done something for the Beeb?

-I did, yeah.

Day Of The Triffids, a remake of Day Of The Triffids,

which was great fun as well.

It's a classic novel, Day Of The Triffids, a John Wyndham novel.

-Was it '50s, was it?

-Yeah, 1951 it came out.

This is obviously a remake of it, a reinterpretation of it.

We filmed for three-and-a-half months in London, and we had a great time.

A lot of CGI, a lot of green screen. I really enjoyed doing that.

Of course, Father And Son which, I think, is in edit?

Father And Son, they've actually just finished it,

that comes out, I think, in the autumn sometime.

That's about gangsters in Manchester. I play a gangster.

-It's gone back to the dark side again.

-Back to the dark side!

Although he does have a few redeeming features.

But I'm playing a nice guy in my next, I'm going to do a movie

with Roland Joffe who did The Killing Fields and The Mission.

So I'm off to Argentina on Friday.

And I'm playing a kind of a good story.

Best of luck with that. I'm going to run through what I've done.

We've got my curry. This cooks for about 10-15 minutes in there.

I've got my lobster which I'm frying off in a titch of butter.

If you want, you can use a little bit of ghee which Rick talked about.

We've got the juices from our lobster, which we don't waste.

They go into our curry as well, they go straight in.

The idea is we're going to bring that to the boil now,

and add some chopped coriander.

What I've done is removed, inside this shell here,

inside, there's what looks like a little tendon, there you go.

Just remove that because it's quite nasty if you eat that bit.

So, it's not poisonous or anything, it just sticks in your teeth.

Chopped coriander. grab some coriander,

and we throw the coriander into the pan.

Give that a quick mix.

Our lobster is nearly there.

A quick mix together. A quick seasoning.

Of course, you must be used to these strong flavours like this,

curries, weren't you a vegetarian for quite a while?

I was a vegetarian, yeah, for about seven years. I occasionally ate fish.

After a spare rib?

It was midnight one night, in London,

and I went to the Chinese and got some spare ribs.

The next morning, I woke up and I felt really dreadful.

So I thought, instinctively I thought I should give up meat for a while.

So it went on for about seven years.

I used to cook a lot of vegetarian dishes

and really enjoyed being a vegetarian.

But I couldn't put on any weight. I was really skinny.

So I started to eat meat again.

I was in a restaurant once, one night in Notting Hill,

and decided there was wild boar on the menu,

and it seemed very attractive.

So that was the end of my vegetarian days.

The end of your vegetarian days.

We've got the lobster here. You can pile this up.

It's just literally warmed up in the butter there.

And you can pop it all on, why not?

There's 28 quids' worth of lobster there, but it doesn't matter!

A little bit of...coriander over there.

And there you have, well,

it's not MY lobster carry, it's Atul Kochhar's lobster curry.

-It looks very nice.

-See what you think of that one.

-See what you think.

-I will. Is it going to burn my mouth?

It shouldn't do.

OK, here we go.

-That's very nice.

-Good?

-Mm.

Thanks for that recipe, Atul, it's a great one for you to try at home.

And if you'd like to have a go at cooking that lobster

or any other recipes from today's show,

then they're just a click away on our website.

That's bbc.co.uk/recipes.

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

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

Next up, Paul Rankin shares the perfect recipe for spring lamb,

which is all his own work.

Well, with a little help from Thomas Keller, that is.

Welcome back, Paul. What are we cooking today then?

Something slightly seasonal?

Yeah, it's a warm lamb salad, but it is very seasonal.

We're just coming into the start of spring lamb.

This time of year, you can pick this stuff,

if you get out walking in the woods,

This is wild garlic.

We're serving that with borlotti beans, a bit of lamb's lettuce,

garlic puree, etc, with a bit of balsamic vinegar.

You're going to talk about that. Meanwhile, I'm going to...

One of the first things we'll introduce, to make the garlic puree,

what you want to do is to blanch the garlic, to soften it.

You can do that by cooking it for quite a long time.

What we're doing is we're blanching it three times.

So, that's blanched once. Drain it into this pan.

-Then we throw that water away.

-Exactly.

Or you can put it in a stock.

Now, these are our lamb fillets.

So just like filet mignon, this is the inside fillet of the loin.

And these are great value, and very, very tender.

-So, great little product.

-They're also inexpensive, aren't they?

I don't know what they cost, I think they're about £12 a kilo.

So, for beautifully tender meat that you don't have to trim at all,

no fat at all on them, they are a magnificent product.

Sometimes difficult to find.

-If your butcher sells a lot of those double loin chops.

-Yeah.

Because, a lot of butchers

can sell as much of those chops as they can get.

So, they don't take very long to cook. Straight onto a griddle pan.

I've got my garlic here. Remember, if you're doing this at home,

please use the guard that comes with the mandolin.

We want to get this really thinly slice.

-Yeah, really thinly sliced, James.

-You cook that garlic three times?

-Boiled it three times - blanched it?

-Yeah, three times.

We're going to be boiling it in different pans to soften it.

Then we'll finish it with cream and puree it.

-You'll taste it later.

-Yeah.

It's how you do it for your chicken Kiev.

To do a chicken Kiev, you'd do it similar to that,

-you get that nice flavour from it.

-Yeah, yeah.

I'm going to make a little vinaigrette.

Some top-quality balsamic vinegar going in here.

We're just going to dress the borlotti beans with this,

and then a little bit of the salad.

Borlottis, you can cook them yourself,

or you can buy very good borlotti beans in a tin,

especially if you go for the organic ones,

they tend to be a slightly better quality.

Ideally, you don't want them in brine,

just go for the ones in water?

Yeah, very much so.

The garlic for the chips, I'm just blanching in a bit of milk.

Yeah, this is a technique that I noticed in Thomas Keller's book,

who's the famous chef from The French Laundry.

I think it's interesting the way chefs pick up on each

other's ideas. We nick little things from each other.

Yeah. Pure stealing.

I'm not sure it is.

Living on plagiarism.

I mean, I used to do this salad with the puree of celeriac

and then celeriac crisps on it.

And when I saw Thomas Keller's little crisps, I thought,

"Mmm, be nice, that."

So we're blanching it the third time

it's going in there, that's garlic.

And we need that pan for the cream.

The last time you do the last one,

you do it with the double cream?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

So is this the third time?

-Third time.

-That's the third time.

You know what, James, I've been watching Saturday Kitchen...

Here we go.

I've been noticing you've been

wearing a waistcoat a lot, you know?

No, he's been stealing my look.

You can only get away with it if you're thin.

Did your mum say you weren't getting away with it?

His mum calls him up and says,

"James, you didn't look quite right in that."

Moving on, how is this lamb doing?

The lamb's doing grand.

She's actually watching.

Is your mum watching?

-She is.

-Hi, James' mum!

We're good mates, actually. We're good mates.

She is watching. Right, we've got our garlic.

A little dressing at the end.

I mean, this is not necessary.

It's quite a chef-y sort of thing.

I take a little bit of lamb gravy

and I boil it up and then take

it off the heat and add your quality balsamic vinegar to that.

Some people boil balsamic vinegar and it's one of

the biggest wastes ever.

You need good quality balsamic, that's the key to it, isn't it?

-Yeah, very much so.

-Because you use less of it.

So explain to us about wild garlic, then,

cos it's great stuff.

If you see me out walking in Belfast, folks,

and I'm down by the River Lagan

picking stuff, this is what I'm picking.

Either that, or wood sorrel, at the moment,

-or spring nettles at the moment.

-Yeah.

I love getting out there and picking my own mushrooms.

You do have to be careful,

know what you're picking. Let's just say.

And I don't know quite well enough

and I need someone to take me out

and teach me, Julia.

Well, OK. You've twisted my arm.

I was thinking of calling one of the local guys up at the National Trust.

-Get a warden or someone.

-You know, and take a few of the chefs out.

Because the chefs love it. You see them transform.

They turn from these grumpy chefs into these light-hearted children,

out walking, foraging. It's wonderful.

That's what happens when you go outdoors, you see.

And last year, my 12-year-old boy came back with about

-ten kilos of chanterelles.

-Wow!

He was 11 years old, I'd shown him the patch,

he visited a month later and came back with ten kilos.

OK, we're pretty much ready here.

Sorry, if you've just tuned in, this is the Paul Rankin Show.

LAUGHTER

Aren't you supposed to be asking me questions?

I couldn't get a word in edgeways.

About what I'm doing and stuff.

Yeah, sorry, I'm doing it all!

You need to get this.

Have you noticed?

I was just having a good time.

Yeah, it's all right, don't worry, I'll finish it all off.

-So the lamb's on.

-Lamb's on, we just need to puree this up.

Ideally, that should reduce down a bit. It'll thicken.

You know what, I'll chop the parsley.

-Yeah, yeah.

-While you're chatting.

You did that in rehearsal.

I don't know what you've been doing all this time, James.

Dump all that in, cos it goes too thin.

-It goes too thin?

-Yeah.

HE LAUGHS

Ideally, you need to reduce it a bit.

The garlic really should be cooked very soft, very soft.

-There you go.

-Didn't you do this in rehearsal, too?

-I did, yeah.

-I don't know what you've been doing.

-You carry on.

BLENDER WHIRRS

So the garlic and the cream have gone in there.

You blend that with a bit of salt.

A pinch of salt.

Parsley's going in there with some fresh thyme.

Balsamic's gone in. Where's your...?

You've got the julienne of wild garlic, that's good.

BLENDER WHIRRS

Your amount was slightly better in rehearsal.

It's a bit thin.

That's just the way I like it.

I love it like that.

So, just a little shine,

not too much dressing on lamb's leaf.

Lamb's leaf is really quite fragile.

So, if you dress it too much,

it'll just end up very flat

and tired on the plate.

-OK, so now...

-There you go.

Now, with these, I love to slice them at a long angle.

You need to be quite careful sometimes slicing meat,

because it always has a grain to it.

And what happens sometimes is, you know,

some meats need to be sliced against the grain in order to be tender.

Ah...

-Fresh spoon.

-Ah.

There you go.

So you didn't need to leave that to rest, that meat?

No, no, not at all.

And the rest, what we do, we just put that in a little squeezy bottle.

Squeezy bottles are banned here.

-Are they?

-Yeah.

-Why would that be?

-They just are.

LAUGHTER

I don't like to put too much

salad on this, you know.

You can put the whole thing out

if you want it to be a main course.

We serve this as a starter in the restaurant,

it's on the menu currently.

-JULIA:

-A substantial starter.

Yeah, but that's the way it is in Northern Ireland.

You've been there.

A few garlic crisps on the top.

Plenty of garlic crisps on the top.

They've been blanched in milk, remember.

Drained off and then crispy fried.

Pinch of salt. You've got that, as well.

One more thing. Yeah, yeah.

That's just the wee sort of

balsamic jus around the outside.

Easy as that. So remind us what that is again.

That's my warm lamb salad with spring garlic, garlic puree,

garlic crisps, borlotti beans, balsamic vinegar.

I like how he said "my".

-It's "our".

-Ours.

-Take that.

-Ours.

There you go. Over here.

I tell you what, it just smells delicious.

Garlic puree is just...

If you didn't want to go out this weekend,

you could eat a whole bowlful of that just with some bread.

You'd probably get away with it OK because of the blanching.

OK.

If people can't find that lamb, that's the fillet

of lamb, I suppose they could use loin, would be fine.

-Loin is...

-More expensive.

-..fine, you know.

Rack, which is an extension of the loin, would be fine.

Rump would be fine, also.

-Happy with that?

-More than happy.

The texture of the beans with the lamb works so well.

And lamb and garlic is just always a winning combination.

Now, that was hectic, but worth it.

What a great salad we all prepared.

Now, then, it's time for a classic slice from those Two Fat Ladies.

Today, they're visiting Scotland to see those magnificent men

in their flying machines.

Wonderful to be in Scotland again and so close to home for me!

Here we are!

East Fortune Airfield.

Fortune favours the bold.

Very apt for pilots in our air race.

Which way now, dear?

Well, we're looking for Hangar Two.

I think it's at the end of this piece of road.

Turn left here,

should be just ahead, I think.

PLANE ENGINE RUMBLES

Did you hear a noise?

Right, I'd drive into this hangar

and see if there's anyone about.

Aha! It's a dashing pilot working on an engine.

-Hello.

-Hello.

-Morning.

Are you connected with this air race that's taking place?

-Yes, I am, I'm the air race organiser.

-Is it going well?

-How many planes have you got?

-Yes, it's going very well.

We've got six aeroplanes.

We've got the Yak-52, which is the aeroplane I'll be flying.

1940 Cub, which was done up in invasion colours.

Ho, takes me back!

I remember the mashing in the skies for hours

and hours over Hampton Court,

before they went off in a great sweep!

-Very exciting.

-Yes, calm down, dear.

LAUGHTER

-There's a Magister, which is a 1940 trainer.

-Is that the open one?

-That's right, yes. Open cockpit.

-I wouldn't mind a go in that.

-They're very dashing.

-Wonderful.

Enough of that. We've got to find a place to cook.

Yes, of course. All right, you're going to cook for us.

It's on the other side of the airfield.

-I'm afraid it's quite a distance.

-It's all right.

-Can I come with you?

-Do, do.

-Absolutely, why not?

Pillion, great stuff.

Chocks away! Stand by for takeoff!

Here we are, this must be the place.

I once worked for a wonderful woman

who was completely addicted to chocolate.

During my time cooking for her,

I had to learn to adapt all my puddings to the chocolate variety.

So, what I'm going to make today is chocolate snowballs.

You've all heard of oeufs a la neige, this is the chocolate version.

And what I've got here is some egg whites

which I've just been whipping stiffly.

Excellent for the wrist muscles,

to whip your egg whites by hand.

Strengthens the wrists splendidly.

Actually gets more air in, too, doesn't it, than an electric thing?

There we are. All I'm going to do now is take this over to the stove

and poach it in some milk that has just come up to simmering point.

No hotter. Don't let it boil.

Is it just ordinary milk,

or have you shoved in a vanilla pod or something?

No, just ordinary milk. But real full cream milk.

So I should hope.

Take a couple of nice, large spoons.

It's a sort of quenelle technique,

this is, really. You just...

You're going to go plop.

I am indeed, yes.

Just put them onto the milk.

-Beautiful.

-Float about.

You can just do this with one large island,

but I think it looks nicer with sort of smaller islands.

It's great the way they do float.

Isn't it magic?

There we are.

All you have to do is just cook them until they're set on the bottom.

And then you can turn them over.

Well, I've got several more of these to do,

so what are you chopping there?

I'm having a treat, I'm chopping dill. I love dill.

And I'm going to cook that lovely piece of salmon.

I'm going to roast it with the addition of scallops in

melted butter, lots of dill

and two great spoonfuls of mustard.

Grain mustard, you know, like Meaux.

So we've got our lovely dill,

which do try and get the fresh,

it does make an enormous difference, actually.

I don't think dill dries all that well.

But, if you have to use dried dill,

use about half the quantity, because it will swell up.

Also, you can grow it on the fire escape.

It comes up and self-seeds itself, I was delighted to find last year.

Here, I've got a nice little saucepan full of melted butter.

We'll add that.

Now, we have two great, good spoonfuls, like that,

of the Meaux mustard,

or any grained one, really, but not too strong,

because, sometimes, you can get a very strong one

and then everybody weeps.

I've always been a bit muddled about the Bible story

about the mustard tree starting as the smallest

and then growing into a huge tree

and the birds of the air rested therein.

I don't know what sort of mustard that was.

-Black mustard.

-Black.

-It's a different type of mustard.

-It's only found in India and the Far East.

-Oh, I see.

There we are, we've got that ready.

And we'll pour it over our salmon.

Smooth it all over. Look how beautiful it is.

That looks lovely, yes.

Looks like a monster from the deep emerging from a bed of seaweed.

The kraken wakes. Wonder who the kraken was. There we are.

Now, I'm going to pop this in the oven.

And, for heaven's sake, let's not overcook it.

About gas 8, equivalent to a hot oven of 450F, I think.

Got to cook some more, anyway,

when I put the scallops in.

Well, I've got to get on with the custard bit now. The chocolate bit.

In this bowl, I've got six egg yolks.

Look at that. Lovely colour yolks, aren't they?

I'm just going to meld them about a bit.

And then, into it, I'm going to put two ounces of sugar.

Mix that all in.

And here I've got a dear little double boiler with

some hot but not boiling water underneath.

And in it I've got some melted chocolate

and I'm just going to mix the egg yolks and sugar into the chocolate.

It's a dear little thing, isn't it?

Isn't it? It's sweet. I love them.

I collect them whenever I see them.

They're so useful.

Yes, I was looking for one for you the other day in a country fair,

a sort of antiques place.

And I thought, "Now, I must look for a porringer for Clarissa."

I'd like to find you a really little one.

That would be sweet, wouldn't it?

For tiny sauces.

CLARISSA LAUGHS

And here I've got my milk,

which I've strained off and it's just cooled slightly.

Now I'm just going to take it over to the stove and make a custard with it.

I just want to let it thicken

until it's the consistency of thin cream, really.

And just keep stirring so that the chocolate mixes through.

You can see the colour changing.

Now, these are very fine scallops.

Good old Scotland again.

I got the king-size and the little baby queens.

And what I'm going to do is separate the corals which is their roe

from the main scallop. Just pull it.

And you've got this membrane

and it peels off very, very easily.

And you've got the little white scallop there.

Pretty, pretty shells.

We could pin them on our hats and go on a pilgrimage.

-What, to Compostela?

-Yes, I think pilgrims wore scallop shells.

-It was the sign of a pilgrim.

-It was their sign?

"The pilgrim staff

"The pilgrim shell

"Merrily we'll avoid hell."

Or something like that.

Now, I've got these littlies

and they've only got a tiny little bit of coral on them.

You can just pull it off.

Some people think these are little baby scallops

but of course they're not. They're a completely different variety.

They're the sort of pygmy, the little pygmies of the scallop world.

You wouldn't catch Venus coming up in one of these shells.

-She'd be a pocket Venus.

-So witty. So witty.

Now, I think that's about right. We do not want overcooking.

Now, what we do is just arrange the scallops daintily around.

It smells good too.

-This is a very good sauce.

-Mmm!

Luscious.

Just see that they're all coated.

Now, I'll put them back

but really only for five minutes.

Watch it like the hawk. Answer no telephones.

There you are. Hey presto.

There I am. Look at my little floating islands. Aren't they pretty?

-They're wonderful.

-I think they go rather nicely on the chocolate sauce.

You're after a bit of venison, dear, aren't you?

Yes. Off to the Highlands to see my friend Nichola.

She runs a venison farm.

Careful here. Very tight corner.

Oh, yes.

-That's it.

-A bit of a skedaddle.

Yep. That's right. Off you go.

-Here's Nichola now. Hello, Nichola.

-Hello, Clarissa.

-Hello.

-Nice to see you.

-Yes. And you. Jennifer Paterson. Nichola Fletcher.

-Good morning. Very nice to meet you.

-Nice to see you. Welcome.

What can we do for you?

-Well, we've come to see if we can take some venison off you.

-Ah, right.

-Well, I think I'll find something for you.

-Just the odd haunch.

-For the odd pilot.

-OK. Well, I was just going up to feed the deer.

-Would you like to come see them?

-Love to. Yes. Magnificent, they'll be.

This is a field of mixed sex

yearling animals. These are our venison mob.

So they're not such individuals as the big stags.

-Here they come.

-Look at the legs.

Right the way across. Whoo!

-Terrific.

-A lot of noise, too.

-Like a stream.

Isn't that strange?

They look beautiful.

Like the wildebeesties. They give birth on the run.

-Surely not?

-They do.

I've seen it on Attenborough stuff. Out they come,

pick themselves up and away they go.

THEY LAUGH

Would you like to go and see if we can get the big stags

-to come and say hello and you might be able to feed them?

-I'd love it.

-They're rather handsome at this time of the year.

-Beautiful.

-Dressed in velvet?

-Dressed in velvet, yes.

-All right, Jennifer.

It's not the rut, yet. Jennifer gets a little anxious about the rut.

No, I'm not anxious.

I'm fascinated.

-This is Magnus.

-Hello. How do you do?

-Hello.

-Morning.

Come on. Come on.

-Clarissa, would you like to feed one?

-Yes.

-He's behaving reasonably well.

-That's extraordinary.

-Good lad.

-I wouldn't be doing this in six weeks' time.

-No!

CLARISSA LAUGHS

-How fast do those antlers grow?

-They're incredible.

They shed their old antlers in March, April,

and immediately start growing the new ones so about...

-three months to grow that lot.

-Extraordinary.

I think it's the fastest-growing mammalian tissue, so I'm told.

-What do you do with the ones that fall off?

-A nice man comes

and takes them away and they get turned into knife handles,

buttons and pepper pots and all the usual things.

Reach up. You might be able to grab hold of that

and you'll feel the heat.

Yes. He's going to hit you.

Yes. Attaboy! Take your time. Take your time.

That's a good boy. Good boy.

-He's got a hair on his chinny chin chin.

-A bit like myself.

-One long hair.

-He needs a shave this morning.

-Aren't they magnificent?

-Handsome creatures.

-Ah-ha! Look at this.

-Will that do?

-That should do.

-Brilliant.

-Is that odd enough for you?

-Oh, yes.

That's great. Look at that. Thank you very much indeed. Great to see you.

-See you again soon.

-Hope so.

-Indeed. Thank you so much. So sweet.

-Enjoy cooking that.

-We will. Strap it to the bonnet.

-Well, here we are. Back again.

-Hello there.

-Hi there. Nice to see you again.

-Did you get back safely?

-Yes, I did. Thank you.

-Did you hitchhike or something.

-No, no, no.

-He flew.

-That's it. By aeroplane.

We think we've got a spare seat for the air race.

-Wondered if you'd like to come along.

-Yes, please. That would be great.

Not to be left out, Jennifer, would you like to come along with me?

Yeah, I'd love it. I'd adore it. I've never been in one.

-OK. It's a deal.

-Is it entirely fair, though?

We have a handicapping system and two people in the aeroplane

doesn't make that much of a difference

-to the aeroplane performance.

-Some of us are not as thin as others.

It's based on the aeroplane's true airspeed, so superior airmanship

-will determine the day.

-Absolutely.

-I'll speak to someone up there.

-She's a terrible handicap.

These bits, slacken them off so you're nice and comfortable.

Oh, good. I'm so glad.

I feel like a trussed pig.

-The weather's looking a bit foreboding.

-It is.

-We can do about 100 miles an hour in this. We'll get away from this pretty quickly.

-Oh, great!

And win the race as well.

Keep your feet off the pedals. That's the rudder pedals.

-Oh, my God. Where do I put my feet?

-Bring your feet back a bit.

Hazardous, dear. Hazardous.

-Neil, there's only one slight problem.

-Yes?

Why am I sitting in the front? Am I driving?

Yes. There's a better view from the front.

OK. Here's your headset.

And the mic up close to your mouth and you know about the...

-I can't hear you now.

-OK.

-What?

Right. Let's go for it.

We'll show Jennifer.

If the engine does fail, we'll land in a field or on the beach.

Let's go to a beach.

Here we go, Jennifer. Just waiting for the starter.

Hold onto your hats.

-JENNIFER:

-Wow. Off we go. My first air race!

Come on, Neil. Don't let Jennifer catch us.

Clarissa's ahead. She's behaving like the Red Baron.

Oh, this is fantastic. Better than sex.

What's that Yellow Peril? Give her full throttle.

Wheeeeeeeeee!

Whoo!

Give it all you've got.

Really tight, Neil. Really tight.

Home stretch. Really rip. Yes! Come on, Neil. Yes!

Yippee.

They've got there before us.

-Congratulations, Neil. Very well done.

-Thanks very much.

Who was the handicapper?

Add a piquancy to the now common salmon.

Towering icebergs on a chocolate sea. Every chocoholic's Titanic.

The best plane in the air, of course, was the Spitfire.

But they weren't much good on the ground.

-Very exciting, going up in those aeroplanes.

-I know.

-I loved it.

-And you won.

-Yes, my plane.

-I'm afraid I got Harry Wooders.

-Harry Wooders?!

-Harry Wooders, the wooden spoon.

Would be good for the kitchen day, anyway.

Useful to have a wooden spoon.

We'll have more from those Two Fat Ladies next week.

Now, we're not cooking live today. Instead we've got some great recipes

from the Saturday Kitchen back catalogue for you instead.

Still to come on today's Best Bites, it's Ireland versus Italy

in the Saturday Kitchen Omelette Challenge.

Kevin Dundon takes on Gennaro Contaldo in a messy match

of extraordinary proportions.

Galton Blackiston makes crispy shrimp risotto cakes,

watched by an honorary Italian, Theo Randall.

But what would he think? After making the risotto,

he fries the cakes and serves them with a tomato and radish salad.

And singer and actress Jodie Prenger

faced her Food Heaven or Food Hell.

Would she get her heaven - chocolate in an indulgent chocolate

and strawberry roulade?

Or would she get her food hell - carrots in a carrot Lyonnaise

served with Vichy coriander carrots and goat's cheese.

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

Now, there's a reason why multi-talented two-Michelin-starred chef Nathan Outlaw

is admired the world over for his amazing knack with seafood.

If you don't believe me, take a look at this.

I think you're the only one, are you,

the fish chef with two Michelin stars?

-I think that's right, yes, in the UK.

-Now you've got to prove it.

-I've put you up on a pedestal.

-Pressure.

-So, what's on the menu?

We've got this lovely sea bass fillet.

You've got a nice brown crab here already cooked.

We're going to put it with some fennel, orange, tarragon

and make a nice mayonnaise sauce with brown crab meat.

That's basically the dish. It's nice and simple.

-I know you need to get the sea bass on first.

-Yes.

-This is a line-caught sea bass, isn't it?

-That's right.

It's beautiful. Beautiful piece of sea bass.

All I'm going to do is just trim it up, really.

This is a nice sized piece of sea bass as well.

Farmed sea bass is a good alternative. There's nothing wrong with that.

But if you can get wild sea bass, it's obviously much better.

All I'm going to do is I want the skin to be quite crispy

so I've dried the skin off and that gets rid of all the moisture.

I'm going to add a little bit of salt on the flesh side.

-Is that just with a cloth, you dried it off with?

-Yes.

If you prep it, add it on a cloth and leave it in the fridge

-for about half an hour, that'll just dry the skin off.

-OK.

Now, you want this fennel just sealing off in a pan, really.

-Thinly sliced.

-That's it, yes.

All you do is wedge the fennel there and roast them off,

put them through the oven, a little bit of seasoning.

That's just the vegetable part of it.

-OK.

-Just to get a little bit of colour on there.

The next thing we're going to do is the crab.

Now, the size of crab like this will take about 14 minutes,

12 to 14 minutes to cook.

Best way to do it is to cook it in salty, salty water.

Almost as salty as the sea. Then you don't lose any of the flavour.

-Then let it cool down.

-So, you wouldn't refresh it?

-A lot of people...

-Yeah, I don't refresh it.

I just leave it in a cool place to cool down.

As soon as you can handle it, physically, that's when you pick it.

So you just take off the claws...

..and remove all the legs as well.

They just snap off. You can get meat out of all of this in here.

But we haven't got that amount of time to do that.

Would you go for the smaller brown crabs

or would you go for the larger ones?

I'd go for the smaller ones, personally.

I think there's more flavour inside. Just take that there. Crack it open.

-You loosen the top shell by going in the back?

-Yep.

Then just pull it open.

Then it reveals inside there these dead man's fingers.

Dead man's fingers, people say they're poisonous.

They're not poisonous. They just don't taste very nice.

Just pull them off. You'd pick all that out.

But what I'm after is the brown crab. That's the flavour of my sauce.

Inside the shell there, you've got a membrane which you don't want.

Then towards the back of the shell, you've got lovely brown crab meat

which is where all the flavour is.

-Now brown crab's for the sauce for this one, isn't it?

-That's right.

We're just using a bit of brown crab for the sauce

and it just gives it some extra flavour.

-What you're doing there for me, James, is the mayonnaise...

-Yep.

..which is egg yolks, then you've got a little bit of generic

sunflower oil and a touch of olive oil as well.

-Obviously, in France it would be vegetable oil.

-Yeah.

But you can buy that rapeseed oil nowadays

which is around in the UK but quite strong for this.

A bit too strong for this dish.

It's a good product but it's a bit strong for this.

I want to remove the meat from the claw. Just pull that off.

When you're cracking crab, you want to get it in one bang, really.

The less breaking of the shell,

the less chance you've got of getting shell in your actual crab meat.

Now, I mentioned your place,

-two Michelin star restaurant in Rock in Cornwall.

-Yep.

You were there last night and arrived here on the sleeper train.

That's right. I had seats for five. I'm a big lad.

I don't really fit on the sleeper train. It was an experience.

But the menu itself, when people go there, basically,

you don't have no choice, you pick the freshest produce on that day.

What we've got is about an eight or nine course menu,

whatever I decide to do on the day. Then we just...

I've got a few very good suppliers who I rely on

and they bring it in and we cook it.

I think when you're by the sea, the big advantage is that, obviously,

and that's why it makes sense to just do a fish restaurant.

Of course, as well as a fish restaurant, a fish book.

-That's right.

-Which, funnily enough, this recipe might be from.

Yes, there's one very similar to it.

Yeah, that came out last week

which has been a bit of a challenge for me to write.

I'm not the sort of person that can sit at a desk.

I don't think any chefs are, are they?

I still find it a bit of a struggle but...

The book is based, obviously, on fish

and you've got 30 different varieties?

Yeah, just over 30 different varieties in there,

broken down into oily, to flat, to round, into shellfish.

It's a nice book.

The reason why I wanted to write a book was to show people that

fish is actually easy to cook. It's actually a convenience food.

-It cooks very quickly, as you can see here.

-You're copying me.

-I did a little masterclass on how to cook fish properly.

-Did you?

Yeah. And I'm glad I'm doing it right

cos that's how I did it last week.

-A little bit of oil, but you don't turn it over at all?

-No, no.

What I'm doing is being patient.

There's so much heat in that pan, it does all the work for you, really.

What I'm doing here is just a little garnish.

We've got some orange segments.

-You want a bit of lemon zest and lemon juice?

-That's right.

So we've got a nice citrussy note to the sauce.

What's nice about this style of sauce is that it doesn't

have to be what I'm doing here, you can use anything you want.

You could use different stocks, fish stock.

You might just use juice, like cucumber juice, and add to it.

It's quite versatile. The most important thing about doing

mayonnaise sauce is don't boil it, obviously, cos of the eggs in there.

-The eggs will scramble.

-A little bit of lemon juice in there.

-There you go. Blitz that up for a second.

-OK.

Talking about fish, do you think a lot of people are put off

by the presentation... Sorry, the preparation, rather than...?

I think any good fishmonger really should do a lot of the work for you.

But the fun is with fish cookery is the preparation, having a go at it.

It's quite a fun thing to do as well. Right. So, the fish is getting there.

Use a fork to turn it over. What we're after is a nice, crispy skin.

Be patient. I'll give it another...

We'll turn it over now.

There's enough heat in that plan just to finish it off.

Now, crab mayonnaise. So, we've got mayonnaise.

-Half of that I need for my sauce.

-Half in here?

Yeah, half in there and half in the sauce, please.

So I've got some crab stock which has been made

from all the bones of the crab,

a few vegetables, simmered for about an hour.

To that, we add a touch of cream, just to stabilise it.

Then the rest of the mayonnaise goes into the sauce.

I take it cos it's got the egg yolks,

it'll thicken it up a little bit?

Yeah, as it heats up, it slightly thickens it.

But what this does as well, apart from the cream, there's only a little

bit of fat, but there's no butter.

So it's quite a light sauce, which is obviously not what you like to hear.