Episode 81 Saturday Kitchen Best Bites

It's time to put your feet up and get some inspiration for lunch,

and see what whets your appetite on Best Bites.

Welcome to the show.

We've got some fantastic food from the Saturday Kitchen recipe book

for you to try this morning, as well as some great chefs

and celebrity guests, including Stacey Solomon and Stephen Mangan.

Stuart Gillies joined us in the kitchen armed with a Lancashire quail,

which he portions, griddles, covers in a tangy sauce

and serves with a Jersey Royal potato salad.

Talented eco-chef Arthur Potts Dawson

creates a delicious pasta con sarde.

He simply fillets the sardines and creates a rustic Italian dish

with linguine, fennel, raisins and pine nuts.

And Marcus Wareing treats us to a taste of his youth

with a recipe from his mum.

He makes a hearty beef hotpot and covers it with pastry

and serves it with vinegared onions.

And Stephen Mangan faces Food Heaven or Food Hell.

Would he get his Food Heaven -

black pudding with black pudding fritters

served with grilled pork chop,

wilted spring greens and a scrumpy cider sauce?

Or would he get his dreaded Food Hell -

figs with roast figs and fig chutney,

to go with a home-made chicken liver pate and ciabatta?

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

First, here's a recipe for perfect alfresco dining - John Dory -

and it's on the menu, thanks to the brilliant Tony Tobin.

-How are you?

-Good to have you on the show.

John Dory, tell us about that. What are you cooking?

I'm going to spice it up a bit -

well, sweet and spice. We'll add a lime marmalade,

a couple of spices but fragrant spices -

cumin and coriander, which we've toasted and crushed up.

Then I'm going to brush it and get it seared off.

John Dory is a beautiful fish, it's a flat white fish.

Often not as big as this, this is a huge one.

You know, I didn't want to let you down, so I got my rod

and went out at three o'clock this morning and this is what I caught.

The reason it's called John Dory?

-It's often called St Peter's fish as well.

-The French call it St Pierre.

The tale has it that St Peter picked the fish up like this

and left the mark of his thumb and his finger on the fish.

That's the way the story goes, and who are we to disagree?

-I'm going to fillet this.

-He has washed his hands.

Lovely. Decent sized fish. John Dory, it is often smaller than this.

-You use it a lot, Galton?

-I'm really into it at the moment.

Probably since Atul showed it off famously on television.

-It's such a great, versatile fish.

-Atul Kochar, of course.

The reason you say it's versatile, it does take quite strong flavours.

That's why it loves Indian spices and that kind of stuff.

It does because normally with a flat white fish, you find the flavour is

a very delicate flavour

and you have to work very hard not to overpower that.

This, for a flat white fish, has a strong fish flavour,

so it does hold its own against those kinds of powerful flavours,

which is why I'm using it today.

I'm just going to get rid of one of these fillets here.

-Obviously, your fishmonger can do this.

-Preferably.

When I eventually got it off the rod this morning,

my fishmonger was still in bed.

Let's get rid of that.

There you go.

Since you were last on, you've opened another restaurant.

What's this post all about?

It's not one restaurant, it's kind of two in one building?

I've got two restaurants. It's an old Post Office and sorting office.

Behind the Post Office counter was where they would sort the letters.

Where the Post Office counter used to be is now a delicatessen.

Behind that is a 100-seater brasserie.

Upstairs where the postmen used to have their chill-out rooms

and their changing rooms, that is now a fine-dining restaurant,

a 50-seater restaurant. It's keeping me very busy, out of trouble.

You can tell he is spending more time in the kitchen now -

-where are your wrists?

-I've got some burns and some marks.

Never used to have that before, five years ago. Let's have a look.

I'm going to cut this into little...

If we had smaller fillets, we wouldn't need to do that.

I'm going to whack that at the back

and I'm going to make a little marinade. Just wash my hands.

This salsa, we've got a little bit of mango, tomatoes.

Little bit of red onion, we use red onion because it's a bit milder.

-And then some green chilli.

-Right at the end. For my fish...

start off with my... You like using...

Marmalade and jams, people wouldn't normally put with fish,

-but you like mixing it.

-It gives it a little bit of caramelisation...

I'll put some orange and lemon zest on there.

..so when we cook it, it gives it a lovely caramelised colour,

and a nice sweetness to the spice. We've got some quite aromatic spices.

Not hot spices, they're not going to burn our mouths

-but they will add a nice flavour to it.

-What spices are you putting on?

Coriander and cumin, which have been toasted first.

A little bit of orange and lemon zest.

You're a fan of buying spices whole and then toasting them yourself.

Toast them off as you need them, because the flavour is fantastic.

A lot of the time you buy spices, you open up the jars that you

normally get when you got married as a wedding present 20 years ago...

When you open up the jars, in three months, they are kind of ruined.

Three months? I can tell you, there's probably viewers watching

that have still got them and they've been married 25 years!

Once the label changes colour, yeah!

They get the cornflakes out, the spices fall off the shelves

and on the floor, they pick them back up and put them back on.

We are going to caramelise that off.

You're going to cook it all the way through like this.

The weather is turning a little bit, when the weather does get better,

-this might be nice on the barbecue.

-It works really well on the barbecue.

If I was going to cook it on the barbecue,

I would put some tinfoil over the coals,

brush it with a bit of olive oil, in case it sticks, as it has

a tendency to stick, because of the marmalade that we've used.

You can use... Using marmalade to marinate it is a great way

of introducing an unusual flavour.

If you are doing something with duck you might want to use

orange marmalade. I'm using lime because it goes nicely with the fish.

You are just pan frying. Look at the colour on those - fabulous.

This is the lovely glaze that you get on the fish.

I've turned it over and I'm going to switch that off,

because the heat of the pan will carry on cooking that.

Little bit of seasoning.

That's the common mistake with fish in general,

when they pan-fry, they put it on one side, cook it on the other,

by the time it's served on the table it's overcooked.

Fish is made up of protein and we don't cook the fish to tenderise it,

we are cooking it to set those proteins.

It is like poaching an egg.

if you imagine you are poaching an egg and you want a soft centre,

think of that when cooking fish - you'll never overcook it.

Here's the salsa, I'm going to put some fresh lime juice in there.

Some olive oil.

You are chopping up some parsley or you could use coriander

if you wanted to.

Particularly salsas with meat for barbecued food is great,

because you can chop everything up.

The other thing about a salsa is that when you have made it,

don't refrigerate it.

You can make it a couple of hours in advance but don't refrigerate it.

When you put onion into the fridge, it takes on a horrible flavour.

It almost smells like you have left the gas on.

Make it in advance but leave it out, sitting on the side.

You're learning there, Jessica, there you go.

I'm just thinking about the onion, when you put it in the fridge.

Does it soak up the smell of the fridge?

It takes on a whole different taste.

It makes everything else in the fridge smell of onion, and taste.

Right.

I was working in a hotel making an onion soup,

and we'd sliced the onions the day before and put them in the fridge.

When one of the chefs opened the walk-in fridge

it smelt like someone had left the gas on.

It's a really horrible smell.

I heard that if you put a lemon in the fridge,

it stops the fridge smelling bad.

No, just clean your fridge!

Isn't it easier just to put a lemon in there?

It's much easier just to clean your fridge!

I've got some of my... John Dory on the top.

I'm just going to give it a little drizzle of olive oil over there.

-And then just some little pea shoots on the top.

-That looks spectacular.

-That's gorgeous.

-Remind us what that is.

-That's spiced John Dory with mango salsa.

-Cooked in what? Six minutes.

-And we filleted the fish as well.

-You're a genius!

-Lovely. Follow me.

-Who gets that?

-I am afraid you get it, Jessica.

-Brilliant.

-The secret is to get a big mouthful, because by the time

it gets down to the end, you don't get a second look at it.

-This is amazing.

-Nobody has quite learnt yet.

I know it is ten o'clock in the morning and it's fish...

I like eating unusual things for breakfast anyway.

Cutting the chillies bigger, you can take them out.

-It allows you to pull them out.

-It's absolutely delicious. So good.

-That John Dory is superb, isn't it?

-I feel I should offer it around...

-That's all you're going to get, that's it.

-No!

-Go on, taste it!

You can have that bit! What other type of fish could you use?

Unless you've got a fishmonger close to you,

you might find it hard to get John Dory.

Your local shops or supermarkets, if that is where you buy your fish,

salmon and tuna most definitely would work and hold up to the spices.

If you didn't... If you don't want to put spices on it

and just use the marmalade, then you can go down the white fish thing

because all it does is it gives a nice, sweet glaze on top.

That chicken breast would be quite nice, with that glaze on the top?

-What do you think?

-Really good.

-I love the lime marmalade idea.

That was delicious. Coming up, I'll be making

a vodka and buttermilk panna cotta for Stacey Solomon.

But first, Rick Stein goes on a Mediterranean escape

and samples the food from the heel of Italy.

After a couple of lovely months travelling through those leafy

green tunnels of south-west France,

exploring great food along the way, I finally reached the Mediterranean

on one of those silky pink mornings where the sky and the sea become one.

I realised then that I wanted my journey to continue,

to explore the food of this great sea.

So I exchanged one boat for another,

not quite as intimate, and went from Marseille to Corsica.

I took Paul Theroux's Pillars Of Hercules,

his travels around the Med, and I found it inspiring.

Like him, I arrived in Bastia, the old capital, and discovered great

mountain dishes, good charcuterie and wonderful sheep's cheeses.

And then I crossed that choppy little strait

that separates Corsica and Sardinia.

This is where pecorino is king, suckling pig and fish,

and lots more fish.

Sardinia is softer

and this view epitomises the very essence of the Mediterranean.

From there I caught an overnight ferry to the largest island, Sicily.

And now it was Italy big-time -

fabulous markets full of colour and inspiration, and lovely pasta.

And big fragrant lemons, which the writer DH Lawrence,

a great observer on the Italian way of life, said, "Lemon trees,

like Italians, seem to be happiest when they're touching each other."

This is Taormina on the north-east coast.

It is a pretty big resort now,

but Lawrence loved it here in self-exile.

It was a magnet for the English aristocracy wanting to live

the Mediterranean dream, and this is where he wrote Sea And Sardinia.

Lawrence lived here with that view.

You can't see Etna particularly well today

because it's rather hazy, but I've been here before at night and you

see the glow in the distance and it's quite threatening, quite ominous.

I think anybody that lives from Taormina right down to Catania

has the same feeling of living in the shadow of the volcano.

It erupts quite frequently. Indeed, I'm told, it's about to do so again.

Lawrence also noted there was something that people

who live under the shadow of volcanoes have in common and that is,

"They never leave off being amorously friendly with almost everybody,

"emitting a relentless physical familiarity

"that is quite bewildering."

He also notes, presumably because of the fertile soil and the big crops

it nourishes, that the men are "quite fat, with great macaroni paunches."

The Mediterranean has got so much we could learn from.

It makes me slightly sad, really,

because what I love about the Mediterranean is the fresh produce.

In particular, the markets.

I was in a market in Catania the other day and I was thinking...

The director asked me to film yet again in a fish market.

I was thinking, "What possibly could I say that I haven't said

"25 times before in all the fish programmes that I've made?"

He just said, "Wait till we get there."

Of course, when we got there, it was the whole Italian sense of theatre,

sense of occasion, the way they lay everything out,

the incredible artistry of everything they do.

I'm driving along probably the most famous road in history,

the Via Appia, or the Appian Way.

It goes over 300 miles, more or less, in a straight line,

all the way from Brindisi to Rome. And it still works.

I wouldn't mind betting that the food around here has remained pretty much

the same as when the Roman legions march down it 2,000 years ago.

They'd have had wine, wheat, sheep and oxen.

They were great cultivators of vegetables.

The fishing, of course,

would have been considerably better than it is now, but the olive tree

ranked supreme in their culture, as it still does today.

I'd been here, to the village of Marittima di Diso, quite a few times.

It's where I'd been on my holidays for the last three years.

The Convento di Santa Maria is an old 15th century convent,

converted into a rather posh bed and breakfast.

The reason I came here is because I really like the food.

It's uncompromising, really good Pugliese cuisine.

And what I like, too, is that there aren't any menus.

You eat what you're given. It's run by Lord and Lady McAlpine.

-Hi.

-Hello.

He was treasurer of the Tory party when Mrs Thatcher was in power.

-Hello.

-Very nice to see you.

-How's things?

-Very well, thank you.

Their cook, Pierluigi,

had been preparing a chicken diavolo - devilled chicken.

First, he spatchcocks the chicken by cutting through the breastbone

and flattens it out and gives it a good bashing.

Now for the marinade, which is made of crushed black peppercorns,

crushed dried chilli, olive oil, lemon juice, crushed garlic

and sea salt.

That's it, and he leaves it for an hour.

Another reason I like coming here is because of Alistair McAlpine.

He was brought up in the Dorchester Hotel

and when he was a little boy, he used to spend a lot of time

watching the chefs at work in the vast kitchens.

It's really good to witter on with someone who really knows about food.

The chicken is very simply grilled over hot charcoal

and left to cook for 40 minutes.

Yes, it does take that long,

because you don't want the fire too hot or it will burn the chicken.

And you baste it from time to time with the leftover marinade.

That's the secret. And also, turning it to keep it juicy and moist.

Just like that.

This chicken is wonderfully fiery,

it goes tremendously well with this wine - the pure Primitivo,

which is hard to get, but it is the oldest vine.

It was here when the Romans came.

No-one would put as much pepper on chicken in England as this.

It's not possible. This has got life to it.

You eat the chicken, it goes with the wine. It goes with the climate.

It goes with the people. Wonderful place.

Indeed it is a wonderful place.

Tuscany has been in the spotlight for some time now, since the '80s.

Umbria is still preening herself with the fame she found in the '90s.

So maybe Puglia, with her really simple, uncluttered food is next.

I think this dish fits well into the landscape of Puglia.

It's fennel sausages with lemony potatoes.

These are very slim sausages, as you can see,

and I'm making them into tiny little chipolatas.

The dish looks much better if you can use these little sausages.

You should be able to get them from any good Italian deli.

The thing about them which is so important is that

they're not like British sausages.

It's not that I've got anything against British sausages,

but they've got no cereal in them, so they're very meaty.

I think the whole point about them being very meaty is because you need

sausages that have quite an intense amount of flavour in themselves.

They need to be able to shine through

and declare their existence without disappearing into the overall dish.

I found this little dish at lunchtime

in a restaurant in a place called Marittima di Diso.

What I liked about it,

it came with a whole load of other vegetable dishes,

because the Pugliese are very famous for their vegetable dishes -

they do lovely things with broad bean puree, for example.

Lots of aubergine dishes and courgette fritters, things like this.

I really like this, I like the sausages and the potatoes

and the flavour of lemon - not just the juice, but the zest as well.

In the same pan, just soften down some coarsely sliced onion.

You don't need to cook them right out at this time,

just let them become a little transparent.

Then add a couple of cloves of sliced garlic.

Cut some potatoes into chunky pieces.

Preferably a waxy variety, because you want them to hold together.

The floury ones will fall apart, of course.

Put them in with the onion and garlic and turn them over to get them

nicely coated in that flavoured oil.

Now put those tasty little sausages back in again.

Add a bit of water for a bit of cooking liquor, and season it well.

I think this dish will be done by lots of people.

I've been making these series for a long time

and I get to talk to people.

What I discover is it's really the simple dishes that people do at home

and actually, it'll be the simple dishes that I do at home as well.

And the thing about this that's interesting is you've got

the sausages, the potatoes, onions, all cooked together with olive oil

and a bit of garlic and a hint of lemon zest.

It sounds interesting and it sounds doable.

But just remember this, use good sausages!

Use a good fresh lemon too, with unblemished skin

because it will be obvious in the finished dish.

Squeeze the juice into the pan and put in half a dozen bay leaves.

Now, put the lid on and wait until the potatoes are done.

Finish with chopped parsley and serve.

We may not have the constant sunshine that they have in Puglia,

but that doesn't mean we can't have the wonderful flavour.

And what's more, we can have the Primitivo too.

From now on, this dish will always remind me of the McAlpines

in their bed and breakfast convento and their enthusiasm for Puglia.

They told me there's an old Pugliese saying which runs,

"Nessuno e piu felice di noi" -

"Nobody's happier than us."

I'll drink to that.

I just may have a go at that recipe myself this weekend.

Sometimes, the simplest dishes really are the best

and I've got a simple dessert recipe to show you right now.

A lot of people are worried about making panna cotta,

but it is really simple. It translates to cooked cream

and really these are the ingredients here.

I'm going to make a buttermilk panna cotta, but sometimes

you can make panna cotta with just double cream or cream itself.

We always need a bit of sugar, some vanilla, a bit of gelatine

and I'm going to use vodka.

I'm doing a vodka and vanilla panna cotta.

First, we grab our vanilla pod, split it right down the middle.

And then we're going to remove the seeds,

so carefully just scrape out the seeds like that.

That sits in a pan. Remove those off.

And then just add our cream on the heat and this is where it

translates to cooked cream, so this is double cream.

Put that on the heat there and warm it up

with some sugar, keeping our vodka separate.

Now, we've got our gelatine here. This is leaf gelatine,

it's better to use leaf gelatine cos you can measure it better.

Can you get gelatine from anywhere?

-Yeah.

-I've never seen it in my life.

-That's gelatine.

-Wow!

-And we eat that? It's like plastic.

-Yeah. Well, it won't be in a minute.

But you can buy it as a powder. You need to soak it in cold water.

Different recipes, the all-star recipe books, like Debbie

has in her collection, will tell you to have one leaf of gelatine.

If you look, leaves of gelatine over the years have shrunk.

So different recipes will need different amounts of gelatine.

If you've got an old recipe book, you may need a little more gelatine

than you would do normally. I'm just going to whisk that up like that.

And then we're just going to melt this just simply.

Now, we first saw you on X Factor, but first,

what made you join the queue? When you look at that show, it's massive!

How long did you have to wait when you were doing that?

We were there from, like, the night before. It was just all my family.

-The night before?

-Yeah.

We went up there and were like, "Oh, let's give it a go!"

I'd been a couple of years in a row before that anyway. I'm a bit sad!

-No, I mean, it worked though, didn't it?

-Yeah. Well, third time lucky!

They finally felt sorry for me and thought, "Put her on!

"Poor cow!"

Did you always want to sing? Is that what you always wanted to do?

I love singing so much.

Just the whole industry, I really enjoy being a part of,

and I feel so lucky.

I love it all.

-From that, you came, what, third? Olly Murs...

-Joe McElderry.

Joe McElderry, that was it.

Then you went on to the tour. The tour must have been amazing as well.

The tour was amazing.

It was 53 days back-to-back, so by the end, all of us were like,

"Bye!" Crawling out of the tour bus, going in to bed!

But you went to some amazing places. The O2, all those places.

Yeah, I can't believe it. We did every single arena you can think of.

You never in your life expect to be singing at the O2 or Wembley,

or even places like Liverpool Arena. It was brilliant.

But also, that quick.

You go from standing in a queue to that in a matter of months.

Yeah, literally, in about six months,

you go from standing in the queue, just praying to see someone

and hoping they'll let you through to standing in front of 7,000

people in an arena.

-It's just crazy.

-There you go.

-Oh!

-That's what happens to gelatine.

-Looks a bit scary!

-Scary?!

I've seen the stuff that you've eaten in the jungle!

What do you mean, scary?

-Gelatine's like a dream!

-Exactly! It's easy. There you go.

Now tell us about that cos obviously, X Factor,

you did the tour, and then I'm A Celebrity. I have to say,

my instant reaction would be to say, "Never, ever, ever!"

What made you want to do that?

Well, my instant reaction was the complete opposite.

"I'd love to try that! I wonder if I could do it!"

I love experiencing things and I feel like you only live once,

I've got to do everything.

Everything that comes along, I just want to give it a go

and enjoy it, and I had such a good time on there.

Even though people think, "Oh, that's horrible," actually,

you get to the end and think, "I did that!" And you're really proud. It's a really lovely feeling.

-It was great to watch cos you were the most popular person they've ever had on there.

-Oh, I don't know!

It was! Right, the gelatine's gone in there, the vodka has gone in...

Then what we do is... An ice-cold bowl.

I use this because it stops the vanilla pod,

and particularly the seeds, from sinking to the

bottom of your panna cotta. So you pass it through a sieve,

mainly to get rid of any little bits of gelatine that are in there.

You whisk that up and then we've got our buttermilk here.

And we pour the buttermilk in. Right?

Now, instantly, once the buttermilk is cold, it sets.

It starts to set in the ice-cold bowl.

And then we just pour it into our mould,

like that.

And that is as easy to make panna cotta...

If I was at home, it would not be that clean!

I can't believing you're pouring it in and not one bit is spilling!

-That's not normal, is it?

-That's not normal!

It's practice! So that sits in the fridge

and you want that to go in the fridge no more than...

It can sit in there overnight.

But we've got a nice little bit of panna cotta.

I'm going to do raspberry sauce as well.

But as well as doing X Factor and everything else,

you've had time to write a book.

-An autobiography. At how old?

-I squeeze it all in!

-How old?

-I'm 21.

I'm really proud of it.

I can't believe everything that I've managed to do in the past two

years and I couldn't not write it down, I couldn't forget any of it

and I just love writing and saying what I did and saying how I felt.

I can't wait for ten years' time to look back and think, "Oh, yeah!

"That's how it really was, was it?"

So it's out now, then, is it?

Yeah. I'm doing a signing actually in about an hour.

I'll be over at Brent Cross!

I'm going as quick as I can!

-Right.

-Oh, yeah, it's really exciting. I'm on a book tour.

So it's really nice to meet everyone and go out and see people.

Yesterday, I was in Southend, which is quite local to me.

It was really nice to see... Well, most of them I knew!

"Oh, hello!"

-Invited all your mates.

-Yeah. No, it was lovely.

It's been such a great tour. I've really enjoyed it.

And on top of that as well, this ITV thing you've been doing.

-This is the final show tonight.

-I can't believe it's the final already.

-With the fabulous Keith Lemon.

-Isn't he just the best?

-He's a genius!

I love him. He's such a great man. And the show is so much fun.

Obviously the people that do it are up for a laugh

and all in aid of charity, so it's brilliant, it's so much fun to do.

And it looks great as well. Best of luck with it.

This is the panna cotta. Warm water.

Sits in there.

And all we do is just grab a knife.

You cut round the top of the mould only.

So just loosen the top bit.

Hold it at an angle and what you want to do is allow the air

to get to the bottom of the mould. Don't shake it all the time.

-Hopefully, it just pops out, like that.

-Oh!

So there's no point pressing and messing around for ages.

I can't wait to do this at home.

I'll have, like, half a panna cotta!

We're all going to come round and film it!

-A few bits of raspberries on the top like that.

-Ooh!

There you go. And then basil, this is this little basil cress.

You can put basil with desserts as well.

-Is that just to make it look nice, or does it...?

-No, you can taste it.

-Oh.

-There you go.

-Mmm.

-Cos mint's quite strong, you see?

-This is the best show ever!

But English raspberries as well. Dive in, tell us what you think.

They're coming in season. The best raspberry plants you get

from the west coast of Scotland, if you're up there.

They're hardier. I've got them in my garden.

You get raspberries right throughout the season.

-Mmm.

-English raspberries, panna cotta.

Well, don't mind if I do take another bite!

Now, she was one satisfied customer,

although I'm not too overconfident about her cookery skills.

If you'd like to have a go at that dessert or try your hand at any other recipes from today's show,

they're just a click away on our website - bbc.co.uk/recipes

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

back at some of the fantastic cooking from the archives.

Next, Stuart Gillies brings a brace of quail to the table,

and before you ask, I'm not wearing heels.

Stuart Gillies, good to have you back on the show, boss.

-Thanks.

-And armed with two quail.

-How are you?

-I'm very well.

So this dish is, apart from the potatoes, cooked in real time.

-Yeah, and from Lancashire.

-Lancashire quail.

-Up north.

-Up north, aye.

-Wrong side of the Pennines, but go on.

-Are you getting taller?

No, I think it's the age thing. You might be getting shorter!

Right, OK. What are we doing with the quail?

Take the legs off the quail first. You start that one.

-Right.

-So, legs straight off, like so.

And then we're going to chargrill this and we're going to take the

breasts off as well, so you haven't got all that fiddly bone at the end.

This is what people find fiddly. Literally, to eat these whole,

people don't really want to tackle these.

People eat the eggs, quail eggs, but they never really get

offered the quail cos they're quite boney.

So we're going to show today how you can get them boned

by your butcher, carefully take the breast off the carcass.

It's simple. It's treating it like a whole chicken, really.

Same principle. Same structure. Just like that, like so.

You shouldn't really have to cut through many bones,

-that's the key to this.

-We're going to grill these

and make a dressing from a little bit of ketchup, Worcester sauce,

Tabasco, finely chopped shallots, Dijon mustard,

chives and a little bit of basil. Mix it all together, raw,

and put the hot food into the cold dressing and it just sits.

It's a great little picnic dish. Or a buffet at home.

We've got three kids and often you serve the food

and they eat instantly.

With this, you put on the table and they leave it there.

-What's the French name for this?

-This sauce is called Bois Boudran.

It's quite a classic French... French barbecue sauce, really.

So what we do, if you start chopping the shallots for me.

I'm going to season up this quail - salt and pepper.

-Start to chargrill this.

-So this is a great barbecue thing, like we said,

but the secret of it is don't overcook it.

With quail, like pigeon and those birds that are very lean, they're too

lean, they've got no fat in them, so if you cook it all the way,

it becomes very dry. So you just leave it a little bit undercooked.

It's not like chicken, you're not going to poison yourself by leaving it a little bit pink.

What it does is it keeps it lovely and juicy. Just turn that grill up.

Don't you think they're more popular now, game birds?

People are starting to eat more game.

-Absolutely. People are less intimidated now.

-Yeah.

And they're more confident,

-they know what they're doing in the UK more than before as well.

-Yeah.

I think stuff like pigeon is getting back on the menu more regularly.

-Rabbits.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

Also, you've got suppliers there who are making

dishes now that are fantastic, the quality is so much better.

So Jersey Royal potatoes, classic Jersey Royals.

These have been scrubbed lightly.

I'm putting these into cold water. Always cold water for potatoes.

A good sprinkling of salt.

And they just go on the gas like so. Wrong gas.

These take about 15-20 minutes to cook.

-You do all potatoes in cold water?

-All potatoes in cold water.

Bring it up and all the impurities and scum comes to the top.

It doesn't cook into the potato.

Always taste the water as well, make sure it's salty enough.

Most veg that grows below the ground, cold water,

-above the ground, hot water.

-Yeah, pretty much.

With this quail, you want to really caramelise this quite well, James.

Get lots of colour on the skin, it gives it a lot more flavour.

-Yeah.

-So shallots straight in there.

-Tell me about your new venture.

The Savoy, I keep driving past it, they seem to have been building it

and building it and they've eventually got it ready.

They've been redoing it for, like, two-and-a-half years now.

It's been a long project, that's for sure.

It finally reopens this September/October.

-After two-and-a-half years, you can give them a month's grace.

-Yeah.

So huge project, they've redone the whole building

and we're going to do the Grill Restaurant.

And I take it back to a proper old classic grill.

Lots of theatre at the table, lots of carving at the table.

I mean, this is serious history. This is where Escoffier cooked.

-Yeah, exactly.

-Yeah. You've kind of got to keep

-to that tradition anyway.

-A lot of it started there.

And I think also if there's a room anywhere you want to have theatre

and show and be wowed by technique and talent, it's the Savoy Grill.

-It's got to be.

-You don't just go there for a bit of cheese on toast.

You go in there for a proper dining-out experience.

You can, but it'll probably cost you 35 quid!

I'll do cheese on toast! You know what I mean?

If they want it, I'll do it.

You've made this dressing and nobody's seen.

What have you got in there?

I don't want to give it away! It's so good!

We've got the chopped shallots in there, the tomato ketchup,

a brand ketchup, OK?

Tabasco, a bit of Dijon mustard there, goes in like so.

People watching think, "Tomato ketchup?!" But chefs...

-Three Michelin starred restaurants you've cooked at.

-Absolutely.

It's a great seasoning. It's not a cheat.

It's a seasoning and it brings out all the other flavours.

-A bit of olive oil in there, James.

-OK.

A bit of Worcestershire sauce has gone in there as well.

That quail, the colour's nice. Just turn that over like so.

Right.

The only bones you've really got in this quail now is the little thigh

bones in the tops of the legs, which are quite easy anyway to pull out.

So there's nothing going to stick in your throat.

Right, Jersey Royals, James. They've been cooking over here.

So drain the potatoes off.

This potato salad doesn't contain mayonnaise or cream or anything.

It's a real Italian dish we used to do for staff when I worked in Italy.

You put the dressing on, which is lemon zest, lemon juice,

olive oil, basil and black pepper and then you just leave it to

cool down, and as they cool down they suck up all that lovely flavour.

So you want me to grate some lemon on there.

I'm going to grate a bit of zest for you.

The quail's just about done there, James.

You see a nice colour on there.

Chuck that straight into the bowl of dressing.

And as this quail cools, it just releases a bit of the liquid,

it rests,

and the same as the potatoes, it just starts to soak up the marinade.

So it's actually better eaten at room temperature.

You want a bit of lemon juice in there as well?

Juice of half a lemon, James. And all that zest in there.

Black pepper's in. A good slug of olive oil.

-There you go.

-This is great summer food.

You just do it beforehand, don't put it in the fridge.

But put it in a dish and just leave on the table.

And then you can get on with doing your canapes or drinking Champagne,

whatever you do. Divorce parties!

Dry-cleaning your net curtains cos if you see the amount of smoke

coming off this, it'll ruin your kitchen.

-Right. Caramelisation!

-Caramelisation, yeah!

So we've got some basil, lemon and lemon zest in there.

Yeah, that's right. And then all we do, we just stack this up.

That shallot gives it a really nice crunch as well.

So legs go on like so.

And you kind of want one per portion. You probably want two?

We've got two quails in here.

-Yeah.

-I mean, in London, you'd probably have one each.

Up north, you'd probably have a couple. Two or three.

A dozen probably! There's now on 'em. Look at that!

I mean, they are small, the quail,

but you have it as part of a nice mix of other things.

But they're lovely and juicy, the quails. And tender.

-Goes like so.

-Nice to eat with your fingers as well.

Yeah, just pull the meat off. Exactly that.

-It's just so tender.

-Yeah.

-Thank you, James.

-There we go.

-Right, on goes your potato.

-Like so.

-They're great warm, you could have those for a barbecue.

Yeah, and just then to finish, nice little finish,

-some of these celery leaves.

-They're just great.

People often throw them away, but they don't taste bitter,

they taste fantastic. Just sprinkle those on like so.

Remind us what that is again.

So we've got the grilled quail with sauce Bois Boudran

and the Jersey Royal lemon potato salad.

-Coming to the Savoy in October, possibly.

-Yes!

-Maybe November.

In a silver dish!

-There you go.

-In a silver dish, like you said.

I don't know how you feel about quail at - what is it? -

-quarter to ten.

-Usually, it's 6:30am.

-Dive in!

Tell us what you think.

If people don't want quail, you could use chicken.

Chicken, salmon, prawns.

Even for vegetarians, but some broccoli in there.

-Yeah.

-Stuff like that, cos it works.

-Still keep the dressing the same.

It's a spicy, lovely, sharp dressing.

Mmm! That's good!

I think if you keep it up, you could go places.

LAUGHTER

-Dive into that.

-That's amazing. Sorry.

Like you said, chicken, anything. Is it something you'd have a go at?

It's pretty straightforward.

The presentation and the way you've actually cooked it,

probably tastes a lot better than me making it, but I loved it.

-It tastes incredible.

-Just letting it cool is the main thing.

Yeah, you can have that cold as well. Lovely.

-Yeah, cold as well.

-Exactly.

And now it's Two Fat Ladies time. Today, they're in Shropshire,

cooking for the lockkeepers of Grindley Brook.

Well, now, dear, are we in England or Wales?

The bloody Marches, poised between the two.

We're headed for a lock on the Llangollen Canal.

I love canals, but they always look a bit too much like hard work.

All those locks to navigate.

Not when you've got lockkeepers like Les Molyneux to give

you a hand. We're cooking a celebration meal for his father.

Here we are.

My, that must be a powerful bike to bring you two young ladies up there!

Are you casting aspersions?

-Come and meet my father.

-Hello.

-Hello, how do you do?

Mr Molyneux. How do you do?

-How do you do?

-Does lock keeping run in your family?

It does indeed. Yes, we've been doing it for a few years now.

How long's your father been at it?

I had 32 years on the waterways.

-Good heavens!

-Good Lord!

-And now you've taken over.

-I've taken over.

-Great.

-Stepped in his old shoes.

-Do you cook yourself, Mr Molyneux?

No, my wife does that,

-when she's at home.

-Where is she?

-In Blackpool.

She's gone on a spree!

We're going to get caught in the rain.

Yes, we'd better go into the kitchen.

This way to the kitchen, round the back, help yourself.

-We'll go and cook you something smashing.

-Oh, very good!

-See you later.

-See you later.

I'm going to make a dish that was invented for the slaves,

I suppose, in the Deep South.

It's called Hopping John.

First of all, I've got this salt bacon, or salt pork,

if you can get it. I'm just cutting it up into little chunks.

Like that.

And take it over to cook it.

This is very hot, this Aga.

Beware.

Now, I've got a little oil in the pan.

Pop the bacon in.

These need to fry a little bit - not too much

because we're going to do quite a lot of cooking with them.

Oh, goodness! It doesn't matter how many times I do it,

-I love that smell of frying bacon, don't you?

-It's wonderful, yes.

I should think this was a great treat to have a bit of pork.

I'm sure they didn't give them much pork.

Beastly so-called Christians, treating people unbelievably badly.

Now I'll add some onions.

And give it a stir around.

And some garlic.

You want to cook these until they're soft-ish but not too browned.

Some fresh thyme.

There we go.

And a good pinch of cayenne.

They're just browning,

so I will add the beans.

Now, these, I've soaked overnight.

And make quite sure that they boil fiercely for a good ten minutes

and then simmer them for about an hour.

There she blows.

Then we add some skinned, de-seeded tomatoes.

Now we have the beginning of our Hoppin' John!

Stir together, then we leave it for about 20 minutes,

while I go over and deal with the rice, which I shall add subsequently.

I'm going to make a dish called Burnett's Woodcock.

In fact, I'm doing it with pigeon on this occasion cos it's

the wrong time of the year for woodcock.

And I've just been putting these potatoes through a ricer.

It's a very good way of making sure that the potatoes are properly

mashed and you haven't got any lumps in them.

And into it, I'm going to put some double cream, an egg yolk,

and some capers, which I've just chopped.

Mix this all in.

You have to make sure that the potatoes dry off very well.

Leave them to stand after you've strained them, before you mash them.

Don't touch them till all the steam has come off them.

-And now some stiffly whipped egg white.

-Really?

-Yes.

That'll be good. It'll make it rather like a souffle.

Well, you know, it gives a bit of lift.

What I'm going to do is I'm going to make some potato cakes with them.

-Ah.

-Just fry them brown, and then when the pigeons are done,

-I'm going to stand the pigeons on top of the potato cakes.

-Charming.

-Those are fun little pigeons.

-Aren't they nice?

-Did you know that's where squabbling comes from?

-Squabbling?

All the little young pigeons in the nest going at each other.

They were taken to squabble.

I had some friends who had them and there was a lavatory by the side of

the house where the dovecot was, and when you went to the lavatory,

they'd all be sitting on the ledge outside the window.

All making that terrible bra-ra-wa-ra noise, you know?

Drives you mad!

Yes, I should think it does. No peace at all.

There we are. Pop those out of the way.

And I'll fry those up while the pigeons are cooking.

And here I've got a tray of pigeons.

Is there some way of telling if they're young or not?

Feel the bones, make sure they're sort of a bit supple.

And press down on the breast bone and you'll feel it give.

Smear them well with butter.

The one thing you want to avoid is the pigeon drying out.

It's fascinating, this whole thing of pigeon racing, isn't it?

-I mean, the Queen is a very keen pigeon racer.

-I know.

I think it's rather nice, seeing her in her cloth cap, out there,

-racing her pigeons.

-SHE LAUGHS

And a bit of butter within each cavity, just to keep them moist.

My father used to have his pigeons flown from Cairo.

How extraordinary! Particularly good pigeons from Cairo?

Yes, they breed them especially for the table.

There we are. And then... nice bit of streaky bacon

over the top of them.

Again, to make sure that they keep moist and lubricated.

There we are, just tuck it down.

And these will go in a hot oven, gas seven or thereabouts,

for 10 to 15 minutes.

As long as you like them, but they must be pink. Don't overcook them.

No, they'll turn into leather, won't they?

-And a great treat here, these are actually pigeon livers.

-Delicious.

Because they've been shot, you get them with all the stuff inside them.

Otherwise, if you can't get pigeon livers,

and you very often can't, then you can always use chicken livers.

I'm just going to put them through a sieve.

And all I've done with these livers is just saute them

in a little bit of butter until they're barely cooked.

And I'm going to use these to thicken my sauce.

When your father's pigeons came from Cairo, what did you do with them?

-Did you keep them somewhere?

-They were dead.

-Oh, they were dead.

I thought they arrived like the quails in that wonderful film,

-Babette.

-Babette's Feast. Wouldn't that have been good?

They arrived all packed and indeed frozen.

I suspect that he had them sort of sent on a plane that was

supposed to be carrying medical supplies.

Cos I don't know what the official attitude would be

to importing pigeons from Cairo.

I once had to bring back the ashes of a dead friend from Bahrain,

because even though they were just ashes, because it was the remains,

you had to pay an enormous sum of money to put them on an aeroplane.

Quite ridiculous. So I wrapped them in a petticoat and brought them home.

SHE LAUGHS

I'm going to put these pigeons in the oven and go over here

and make my sauce.

Very hot, be careful.

Thank you, Jennifer.

All I'm going to do now for making my sauce...is put a little

white wine in this pan...

..and some juniper berries,

which I've crushed. You must remember to crush them.

Throw them in, willy-nilly!

Indeed!

And I'm just going to put in my pureed pigeon livers

and stir that around.

And some stock. Some good pigeon stock or other game stock.

A bit of pepper and salt.

Keep stirring it, so that it dissolves and thickens.

When you make game stock, do you have any feelings about mixing game?

Any old game I eat, I save the bones and I keep them

in the deep freeze until I have enough to make a good stock.

-I don't mind if they're mixed.

-Not at all.

I've got a bag in the freezer and just sort of add to it,

-as I get carcasses and things.

-Yes, so do I.

To lift it at the end, to finish it off, a squeeze of lemon juice.

Time for my Hoppin' John to be mixed with my hoppin' rice.

THEY LAUGH

Hoppity-hoppity-hoo.

Put that on there.

-Looks nice.

-Smells delicious.

There's a nice fragrance coming out.

And we'll add the rice.

This is ordinary long-grain, the Patna.

Not the Arborio, not risotto rice.

And then, I don't suppose they did it in the USA,

but I'm going to put all that parsley on it. I always like that look.

-It looks nice.

-Mm.

There we are. My Hoppin' John is ready.

-Yes, so is my sauce.

-It'll go very well with that.

Mm! Yes, I think so.

What a luscious landscape!

Perfect for Welsh cows and Welsh butter.

I've organised a little educational trip to the dairy.

Here's the place!

-Gareth!

-There's Gareth. Hello.

-Good morning, ladies, how are you?

-I'm very well, thank you. How are you?

-Marvellous to meet you at last.

-How nice to meet you.

-Lovely.

Take a look at this, girls. What do you think of that?

That's fermented fresh milk for you.

-That was walking in the field this morning.

-Fermented fresh milk?

-Yes.

-Not cream?

-With cream.

-With cream?

-Yes, we add a bit of cream.

About 20% cream into that.

And what do you ferment that with?

-We keep a little bit of culture from the butter we did before.

-Ah.

-Ah!

And I watch after that culture better than the wife!

THEY LAUGH

Right, we've got to pour it into this butter churn.

-Look how thick that is.

-Oh, wonderful.

-Lovely.

It looks, always, so beautiful.

How can people resist it?

Idiots!

Right, let's get my home-made contraption.

-I love it!

-Wonderful.

Pure Heath Robinson.

-How long will it take?

-It'll take about 20 minutes.

Oh, my dear, you'll be exhausted!

I feel you should be sitting down with it between your knees.

They did, actually, in front of a fire in the old days.

And you either sing lullabies or, just like my father,

who had a great tenor voice, he used to sing, "A oes gafr eto?"

"Is there any goats in the hills again?"

THEY LAUGH

Can you sing it?

# Oes gafr eto

# Oes heb ei godro?

# Ar y creigiau geirwon

# Mae'r hen afr yn crwydro

# Gafr wen, wen, wen

# Ie fin wen, finwen, finwen

# Foel gynffon wen Foel gynffon wen

# Ystlys wen a chynffon Wen, wen, wen.

Ladies, which one of you would like to take a chance at this job?

-I'll have a go.

-We could take it in turns.

-Yes, take it in turns.

Or you'll get milk churn elbow.

-Quite enough of that, dear!

-Right, I'll carry on.

Washed and salted, let's give it a fair bit of bashing.

-Take another scotch hand.

-They're great, good old pedals.

-Scotch hand, did you call them?

-Yes. Here we go, ladies.

And not a bad job on a Monday morning if you don't like somebody.

You just have to think about them, and wham!

-You see the water bouncing out?

-Yes, look at it coming out of it.

-Right, who's the first to volunteer for this job?

-I'll have a go.

Look at this, ha-ha!

Belt the life out of it. We might make a dairy maid of you in the end.

-Do you reckon?

-Yes, well...

-Course you can!

-It'll take time.

It's got that nice, rugged look of the amateur.

-It does, doesn't it, my dear?

-THEY LAUGH

There we are, ladies, your labour of love here today.

-A wonderful piece of butter.

-Thank you very much. Isn't that lovely?

Looks like heaven! Wonderful. It was lovely to meet you.

Thank you, it's been my privilege. Ta-ra, everyone! Ta-ra!

Just sit there, and I'll give you a ride.

So much easier than when I weighed nine stone, this is.

That was a lot of fun.

I tell you what I'd really like to do...

I'm sure that could be possible!

It's all right, dear, I'm not making indecent proposals to him.

-You never know with HER!

-You never know!

# Left foot in

# Put your right foot over... #

-BOTH LADIES:

-# Left foot in Put your right foot over. #

I feel like a chorus girl!

Two, three, kick!

# Oh, she had to go and lose it at the Astor

# Wouldn't take her mother's good advice

# Now, it isn't as though every girl has got one

# And she wouldn't let it go at any price. #

THEY LAUGH

So, what are we doing, Les?

Well, we call it legging. This is where they used to do it years ago.

There was no such thing as engines and things.

That's how we did it, and that's where the term came from, "Leg it".

-You couldn't take the horse through a tunnel, could you?

-Exactly.

The horse had to walk over the top

-and the boat had to be pushed through by legs.

-Lucky old horse!

Must have built up their calf muscles beautifully.

The light, the light!

-We made it, Jennifer! Almost there.

-All done.

-Just one last shove. Push!

-Oh!

-Oh!

MEN CHAT INDISTINCTLY

-CLARISSA:

-A really good way to deal with a small bird.

JENNIFER: A meal in itself - and pretty, to boot.

-MEN CHATTING

-Well done, George.

-Cheers, George!

Well, here we are, the end of this little journey.

-Nice to be going home, yes.

-Ah, no more driving!

-It's so kind of Les to give us a push. Hi, Les!

-Hello!

-Well done, Les.

-This is great.

-This is the life.

We've got more from those fabulous Two Fat Ladies next week.

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

Instead, we've got some fantastic cooking from the Saturday Kitchen back catalogue instead.

Still to come on today's Best Bites, Martin Blunos shows us

how keen he is to make an impact on the Saturday Kitchen

omelette challenge leaderboard alongside Patrick Williams.

'Find out who beat who a little later on.'

Marcus Wareing borrows a recipe from his mum.

He makes a pastry-covered beef hotpot and serves it

with vinegared onions.

And Stephen Mangan faces Food Heaven or Food Hell.

Will he get his Food Heaven - black pudding

and a black pudding fritter with grilled pork chop,

wilted spring greens and a scrumpy cider sauce?

Or will he get the dreaded Food Hell -

figs and a roasted fig chutney -

to accompany a home-made chicken liver pate and ciabatta?

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

Now, if you fancy a rustic Italian treat this lunchtime,

then look no further, because Arthur Potts Dawson has just the recipe.

-Welcome back.

-How are you doing?

Great to have you back on the show. I love your food when you come on.

-So what are we cooking today? Something different?

-Fresh sardines.

Look at them. You can see the scales.

They've still got the scales on, they've just come out the water.

Fennel, fennel seeds, white onion, a bit of chilli, some raisins,

white wine, some pine nuts.

Now, this is a Sicilian dish?

Yeah, I picked it up in Sicily when I was there.

-I like cooking with linguine.

-Linguine. So, fire away.

You want me to do a lot of chopping?

If you can help me with the white onion, simple as that.

I'm just go to take the outside off this fennel,

cos it's sometimes a bit tough. The rest of it, we're going to use.

I'm really just trying to get these flesh flavours to sing out.

I don't want to cook it for too long.

These fennel seeds,

I want to toast them up with a little splash of olive oil.

What is it about sardines? We used to eat a lot of them in the UK,

and now they are deemed as a poor man's fish.

-But they're fantastic, aren't they?

-They are very, very good for you.

They're absolutely delicious, so they should be eaten a lot.

We had a massive fishing fleet that used to run out of Penzance,

but they didn't pull out the sardines to eat,

they pulled out the sardines for oil to light the lamps of London,

if you can believe that, back in the day.

Would've been a very fishy smell.

Seriously, we should eat a lot more of these things,

cos they are absolutely superb. Good for us.

Is there any reason why we don't eat so much? The old tinned sardines?

People say, "I don't like the bones."

I just don't think we're great with fish in the UK, actually.

We're not big fish eaters the way they are in Spain, Portugal...

It's crazy when you think, you know, an island as we are.

As a chef, I would have to say that the fish in Ireland and the UK

is the best I've ever worked with.

But a lot of our best fish goes to the continent, don't they?

The Spanish buy it, the French buy it.

They come in big lorries and they steal it!

Right, in there, we've got a little bit of fennel and onions in there.

Onion, fennel, fennel seed and some chilli.

I just want to get this down quite small.

I've put the linguine in early. I want to check that won't overcook.

-Now, I mentioned your eco-credentials.

-Yes.

But you take it hugely seriously. You make your compost.

Yeah, we're composting, I've got my own wormeries,

I make sure I've got no packaging coming in, I've got...

-Sarah's going, "Wormeries?!"

-Yeah!

That's amazing. I'm so impressed.

Yeah, I wouldn't mind some goats, actually. Goat cheese is delicious.

-Are you mad?

-They've got three freezer-fulls of it.

Up till now, I thought you were very wise, but now I don't think you are.

I want to ask you something.

-With compost, can you put cooked food into compost?

-No, not cooked.

Well, you see, why? That's what I want to know, is why?

Why? It usually attracts flies and rats and lots of things...

But it will compost, won't it?

It rots differently and gets all the chemicals and microbes going crazy.

-What about bread?

-Bread?

-Yeah.

No. Only raw... I mean, this all goes in compost.

That's really annoying, cos that's what my husband tells me.

I say, "Oh, be quiet, it'll be all right!" and stick it in.

-No, no, no, It'll start smelling really bad.

-It does, you're right.

-Cardboard's what you want.

-Houseful of rats as well. It's great, lovely!

OK, look, this needs to cook for about 20 minutes.

Let me just get that off. I've got one here.

-Just gently simmer that down?

-Yeah, simmer for 20 minutes.

And look, that's it. Simmering for 20.

I want to get...

Now, if you just see these bones.

Pull that bone out and put this in whole.

I want to put a few fillets in, then I want to put some raisins

-and pine nuts in. Yeah, just drop those on there.

-There you go.

And look at the colour.

What I love about sardines, their skin just shimmers.

I mentioned in Italy and Spain, they use masses of these things.

They are absolutely delicious.

There is a secret way of preparing them

and I think most people are put off by the bones.

I'll show you that next. The pine nuts go in. Raisins, in.

I'm going to put all of these in. Beautiful. A splash of white wine.

Is it those three ingredients that make it feel Sicilian?

Yeah, I think so, maybe that North African influence going on there.

You know what else would be great? Could you grate a little bit

of lemon zest into there and a squeeze of the juice?

I want to show you something. I want to show you something.

-This is how to prepare one of these things.

-This is how we do it.

I'm going to put my thumb down this side of the backbone

and pull my thumb down, just pushing against the backbone,

and it just exposes the flesh.

And you pull out that backbone and lift out the flesh.

Phwoar! Lovely. That's the first one. It takes out...

Look at all these little bones, can you catch those little bones?

When you go around the markets and stuff,

-you see the ladies doing these for the fishermen.

-That's exactly it.

It's a very quick way of doing it. If you get a knife, it takes so long.

-It's a bit brutal looking. >

-Yeah, it is.

I'm not ending up with beautiful fillets,

because this will be broken down in the dish.

This is all about getting the bones out. I think that's probably enough.

I'll just wash my hands.

What I'm going to do is I want to bruise these ones.

I know they're cooking in there. I'll check my pasta.

Try to keep some of the liquid from this pasta water, just don't

throw all of it away, because that helps to bind the dish together.

Let's see how these are doing. Fantastic.

Use anything to break up these fish, but they're cooked.

That was literally 1½ minutes, and that is cooked.

-Then you're going to put a second lot on?

-That's all broken up.

Let's get this, just trim this off a little bit.

-One...

-I'll turn this up.

-..two.

Just turn it over again, beautiful.

If you don't want to do this yourself,

you can ask your fishmonger to fillet your sardines, no problem.

Apart from your eco-restaurant,

you are also doing this new trendy thing, this pop-up restaurant.

I'm doing a pop-up restaurant next week with Jo Wood.

We are calling it Mrs Paisley's Lashings, a bit of rock'n'roll.

-Sort of 30 people a night for ten nights.

-Where is it popping up?

In Richmond, at Jo's house, actually, so it's pretty flash.

Today I've got 500 cupcakes cooking as we speak,

I'm doing a charity picnic in Camden.

I've got to get from here to my cupcakes. So that's cooking.

-Have we got a plate to serve on?

-Yeah.

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

What I'm going to do, if I just grab a spoon... Check this out.

Lift this out, take some of this liquid...

You see how quickly this fish is cooking.

You take the ones underneath?

I'm just taking a little bit of the broken-up sauce.

It smells delicious, I have to say.

Don't put that in there - your mother's watching.

-OK. Thank you. There you go. Just watch me, James.

-I am.

Keep me under control, please.

I need a little bit more salt and pepper.

The secret of that type of food is its simplicity, really?

It's very simple, very easy.

In Italy, they put a little bit of the sauce in with the pasta.

You put the pasta on the plate.

I don't know why in the UK,

we seem to have that thing with spaghetti Bolognese,

you put a load of pasta on it and a dollop of sauce.

-It should be mixed in together.

-Yeah, yeah.

That pasta has cooked al dente. It's loose, it's not sticking together.

This, now, is perfect. If I just lift that over, can you see the fish?

The fish is cooked, but it's cooked so fast.

It's so fresh. JUST ready.

OK, perfect. What we've done, we've kept some of those fennel fronds.

Just get this on here. I'm just going to get all of it on, look at that.

-That's ONE portion, then(!)

-That's one portion for me(!)

That's how you get to be six foot six!

All right, look, the fennel fronds, don't throw them away,

they're absolutely valuable. Put them on top like this.

I always finish my pasta dishes, especially if you're doing

something from Sicily, with a bit of extra virgin olive oil.

-It's already shining.

-Remind us what that dish is again.

This is linguine, sardines, fennel, chilli, pine nuts, raisins,

olive oil, in a Sicilian style.

It smells delicious.

This smells, like I said, absolutely amazing.

There you go, have a seat over here, Arthur. You get to dive into this.

I don't how you feel about sardines at ten past ten in the morning!

I love sardines. This is quite sardine-y for ten past ten

but I've already had a bacon sandwich.

Prepare them that way, you shouldn't have any bones.

There will be occasionally one or two.

I've always had this slight theory that linguine, the problem is,

this will flick across my face and I'll get sardines there and there.

-Yes, or mine.

-Or yours!

I'll try the top because I want to look elegant.

The dried fruit in there adds a bit of sweetness as well.

Mmm. Mmm! That's delicious!

Is it something you would attempt at home,

preparing those sardines like that?

Do you know, I'm a bit scared of fish.

I sort of think, you can ruin fish, you can overcook it.

I think the biggest mistake people make with fish, including myself,

is that you kind of treat it like it's meat.

I'd cook fish for about 25 minutes, and it's always revolting.

-That was about four minutes.

-This is the key. I might have a go at that.

-What do you guys think? They're all nodding.

-Lovely, yeah.

-Fresh as a daisy.

-It's actually fast food.

You say this dish is simple, and in a way it is simple,

but there's all those little nuances that are quite complex

and have depth, and that's kind of difficult, isn't it?

You've got to caramelised the vegetables,

you've got to get that early caramelisation.

Remember, sardines can be surprisingly easy to fillet.

It's omelette challenge time now and we look back at the time

when Martin Blunos battled against Patrick Williams

in the hope of getting a decent placing on the leaderboard.

But how did they do?

Let's get down to business.

All the chefs on this show battle it out against the clock

and each other to test how fast they can make a three-egg omelette.

Martin, you've got quite a bit of catching up to do.

Four attempts and he's still here, down here somewhere -

-one minute, two seconds.

-It's not for want of trying.

-Yeah, because the last three were useless.

-Yeah.

-Can you get quicker than a minute?

-I'm not worried...

I'm just worried about cooking something that's edible.

-Yeah, and quicker.

-Slightly quicker.

-Anybody you want to beat, Patrick?

-No, James, I don't really care, I just want to take part.

-Yeah, yeah!

Choose what you like from the ingredients in front of you,

I'll taste them to make sure they're omelettes and not scrambled egg.

Are you ready? Clock stops when the omelette hits the plate. Three...

Get your hands out of it! Three, two, one, go!

They say the chefs are not competitive, look at them!

They were arranging the eggs on the bowl

so they could lift them up quicker.

This is the secret. How quick can you cook the egg?

-It has to be three eggs, Mr Blunos.

-That's three eggs!

-Otherwise, disqualified again.

-That's three eggs!

GONG

SECOND GONG

Oooh! Just, just, just!

Switch it off. There we go.

-That's got to be egg soup, surely. >

-Not again, not again.

-I'll tell you what...

-Oh, no.

Got any toast?

He's been disqualified three times, is it going to be a fourth?

Yes.

LAUGHTER

That's not an omelette, look at it!

Not NOW - look what you've done to it!

That is an omelette, look at that. That's an omelette.

It is his first time on Saturday Kitchen, it's an omelette.

-I didn't see him use the seasoning, though.

-It's too far away.

-Trying to make me lose.

-It's cooked, though. We like that one.

-Patrick - the person who said he didn't care.

-I don't.

-And he's not practised.

-I've not.

-How quickly do you think you've done?

-15 seconds.

-15 seconds?

-It's got to be.

-Who did you want to beat on here?

I wanted to win.

You'll have to come back again,