Episode 98 Saturday Kitchen Best Bites

Good morning. The heat is on in the kitchen as we prepare for another

helping of Best Bites.

Welcome to the show.

We've got some eager chefs lining up to cook for some very ravenous celebrity guests this morning.

Lawrence Keogh roasts grouse in the traditional way and serves it wrapped in bacon

with grouse liver pate, top croutons, and bread sauce.

Remember the first time Lancastrian chef Nigel Howarth

joined us in the kitchen?

Luckily, he sourced his meat from the right side of the Pennines.

He cooks Yorkshire Roebuck, dock pudding, damsons and juniper sauce.

Atul Kochhar cooks up a feast of fish.

He makes a unique South-Indian-style fish sandwich which is two

pieces of oven-baked place, either side of a delicious crab masala

and he serves it all with a lovely tomato salad.

And Dick Strawbridge faced his Food Heaven or Food Hell.

Will he get his Food Heaven, lamb,

a hearty roast shoulder of lamb with roasted veg ratatouille,

or will he get his dreaded Food Hell, tamarind -

which was my inspiration for a tangy tamarind chicken salad.

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

But first, it's time for some Mediterranean sunshine

from one of the finest Italian chefs, Francesco Mazzei.

Right, borlotti bean soup, pasta fagioli, like pasta fasul,

-this is beautiful.

-Pasta fagioli?

-Pasta fasul, like - you know the famous song? That's Amore.

-Dean Martin?

-Oh, Dean Martin!

-Beautiful. Look at that. That's fantastic stuff.

And if you don't mind to clean for me, they are really right in season.

-Do you mind?

-Right, OK.

And you can do also with the dry one, if you want.

So the famous Dean Martin song was all about the pasta?

-I think it was about love.

-Amore, was it? Amore.

-It's a very good song.

-Yes, it's a very good song.

Look at you!

He told me, "Is that beans there?"

I'm so cultural!

How are you doing, is that all right? There you go, right.

My best friend Pino remembers about that, I'm sure.

Anyway, so, we do some pasta here, which is

as I was saying before, eggless pasta.

It is very simple, very easy to make.

-Now this is not 00 flour you've used?

-No. This is rimacinata di semola, basically.

-It's kind of semolina family, right?

-Semolina, but finer?

Finer, much more finer. And as I said, it doesn't need much work.

Just warm water, a bit of salt if you need,

but we didn't put nothing here because the soup is fine by itself.

-That's warm water in there?

-Yes.

So when it's done, just put a bit of clear film.

Leave it to rest for about a couple of hours.

Francesco, the beans, can you serve them raw,

or do you have to cook them?

No, actually they are a bit poison if you serve raw.

You have to cook all the time. You should not give to your kids at all.

-OK. Put the pasta.

-These are hugely popular in southern Italy, aren't they?

I've seen these in the markets quite a lot.

The pasta fagioli is one of the most classic Italian dish,

as you probably know, and of course, like a few things in Italy,

"It's from the south, oh, no, it's from the north,"

all the different style of different school, really.

But it's definitely an Italian dish.

So, I'm going to do a bit of marinade here with the chilli,

garlic and basil.

As you can see, this is probably the difference between north

and south, because if you go around Venezia, Veneto area,

what they do, instead of putting olive oil the way

I will do at the end, they fry garlic and rosemary all together

and then they bleach with the borlotti beans.

-All right, so a paste?

-Not that light. Yes, yes, yes.

So I've got a bit of lovely chilli there, which we love.

-Now, these often come into this as well, don't they?

-Yes. You can use tins.

But now you are in season, and they are not like the dry one.

You have to soak overnight, then cook for a couple of hours. This one, just put in the pan

and cook for 45 minutes to one hour and you've got the most beautiful soup.

The main thing is cook them, don't eat them raw.

-Shame, because they look so beautiful raw.

-They're beautiful, but please don't.

These go grey, don't they, when cooked. Well, you're about to see.

They are also great for salad. I'm going to put some olive oil.

What's that famous salad with the beans? Beans and tuna?

Beans, tuna, and red onion. Beautiful, really.

It is great for a summer day like today, if it's sunny outside.

-OK.

-Somewhere!

It may be in Italy, mate, where you've just come back from!

It really is gorgeous.

A little bit of salt and a little bit of pepper, just mix together.

You're doing a great job, James.

-Thank you very much.

-Yes! I really enjoyed this.

I know. Shall I give you a hand?

Anyway, so I'm going to put carrot, celery, a bit of onion,

and bay leaves, and we've got this other fantastic stuff here which is guanciale.

"Guancia" means "cheek", OK, in Italy.

And, it is basically salami cubed, like a bit of a pancetta really,

but it is this side, plus a little bit of neck.

So it is not the pig's cheek itself?

No, pig's cheek, plus a bit of neck and a bit of this side.

It's a very, very well-known from the Amatrice area.

Amatrice is basically a town where the most famous Amatriciana

pasta sauce comes from, which is guanciale, tomato, peccorino, salt and pepper.

-I mean, that is famous for carbonara?

-Yes.

I need the peeler now. We're going to peel this carrot.

-There's your beans.

-Yes. OK. Beans inside.

-You want me to do the pasta?

-Yes, please.

If you roll out the pasta, that would be fantastic and I'm going to add some water.

When you put the water, make sure it's two thirds of the volume of the beans.

And as I said, they don't need to cook for long. So when you eat borlotti beams, which they

-call cranberry beans, in this country, do you think?

-Called what?

-Cranberry beans?

-Cranberry beans? I don't know. Are they?

-Something like that, no?

-Cranberry beans? Have you heard of that?

-Please, call borlotti.

-It's a new one.

-OK?

-No idea.

So, we peel this, so when we're going to bleach it,

it will come up nice and creamy.

This is a bit firmer than normal pasta.

A bit firmer than pasta, but it is very, very light.

You will see, when we meet it nice and thin,

it will look like glass noodles, but it's not really.

So we're going to cook this one

and I am going to add a little bit of plum tomato.

Of course, if you've got the beautiful Italian San Marzano,

-then you can just...

-Now I learnt that San Marzano

-is the best tomatoes to make pizza.

-Pizza, of course.

Tinned San Marzano tomatoes because they contain less seeds.

Yes, they do, actually. Have you been to Naples?

Yes. I was there a couple of weeks ago.

OK, bay leaves and a piece of beautiful guanciale here.

So we cover that.

If you can't find that, could you use pancetta?

You can use pancetta, yes, but please don't use any smoked one.

It will really cover all the flavours. It will change everything.

Not that it is bad, don't get me wrong,

but we need the plain one here. So, fantastic.

-I am nearly there. One more.

-Fantastic.

What I have got here,

is the soup that we did previously which we need to bleach a bit,

PASTA MACHINE SQUEAKS

So, what I am basically doing, I'm going to take out the...

Sounds like our director's car!

LOUD SQUEAKING

I'm sure she puts steam in it!

-All right.

-She's got to start it like this as well!

-Right, is that enough?

-Wow!

You're the best, man. Look at that!

-Have you got pasta on your menu, or what?

-No.

-It's a British restaurant.

-It's like a scarf.

-He could have pasta.

I'll do that, I'll do that, I'll do that!

Thank you very much so you can all run. What we do, we take this.

-You've just ruined it!

-We don't need all that. But look, nice and silky.

Fantastic. Well done. OK, do you mind if I take this one here?

So, just put a bit of flour all over the place.

-Do you want to mix the vegetables for me, with a bit of...?

-There you go. You can have a look.

-Oh, let's have a feel!

-That's eggless pasta.

-Ooh, wow!

And because there is no egg, is that why the consistency is so good?

-It's a bit firmer.

-A bit firmer, and you see the way it cooks?

It is also very, very light. OK. As we do...like a rustic style here.

-Do you want to blend this?

-Yes, if you don't mind.

You can add a little bit of juice of the beans if required. OK.

I'm just going to roll it now.

Cut in the middle and we do pasta as we used to do

when we didn't have any pasta machine, really. OK, like this.

It is kind of, you know, fettuccine,

and the real name of this pasta,

which I didn't say before, is a lagane.

So that goes straight into there.

-That goes straight to the boiling water. It must be this one.

-Lagane.

Lagane, yes, lagane.

-OK.

-Does it mean anything, or not?

-Not really.

-Not really!

It means "pasta". "Eggless pasta". Fantastic. Put some back.

-You can borrow this one here.

-30 seconds away.

Right, we've got our dressing here.

We've got the pasta which is going to boil now.

I'm going to taste the soup. See how good it is.

Mm! That's very good. Wash my hands.

Do you want salt and pepper in there?

-I need a little bit of pepper.

-Some pepper in there.

-I'll let you put it in.

-Thank you very much.

-Oops, sorry.

-That was too many chefs, that's what it is!

-Too many hands!

-OK, fantastic.

-And then we drain that off and put it into our soup.

Yes, put inside the soup.

And I'm going to cut this beautiful guanciale here.

What a great name, "guanciale". Fantastic.

You know guanciale also means "cushion" in Italian, you know?

-Because you sleep...

-Yeah?

-Guanciale.

But, please, use for pancetta, eh? OK, I need a plate there. Yes.

-Soup's there.

-OK, lovely stuff.

So, if you couldn't find pig's cheek...

You could use some lovely pancetta from the supermarket.

Can you get that product in England now?

Pretty sure you could find it but it's not really readily available.

I don't think there is a big demand for that yet,

but, you know, I'm sure after this, everybody will want some.

-Yes. Or probably not!

-This is one of the most...

You're not going to source them as easily, even though they're in season.

Well, no. As I said, Italian dishes, we call like a comfort food,

and we're going to add this beautiful piece of guanciale on top.

And we're going to dress with this beautiful olive oil, garlic.

So while you're dressing, just remind us what that was again?

This is pasta fagioli.

Borlotti bean soup, with lagane, an amazing Italian dish.

-As easy as that.

-Fantastic.

How great was that? Look at that. How delicious as that?

Have a seat over here. There you go. You get to dive into that.

-That's quite warm.

-This would have taken me an hour to make.

-I'm impressed.

-It took us two in rehearsal!

LAUGHTER

So, you take half the beans, you've got half and half.

Yes, half and half, a thicker soup,

but still the same ingredients, really.

And the chilli is a southern thing?

Yes, we use a lot of chilli.

-Lots of chilli.

-Just nod.

-Mmm...

And soup doesn't get much more interesting than that.

Coming up, I'll be making a delicious chocolate fennel

mousse cake for Pauline Quirke after Rick Stein shares

some of his great moments from his Seafood Lovers' Guide.

Mount's Bay was famous for pilchards,

when schools of pilchards were so vast, it is said they would

leave an oily slick that could be seen from the headland.

Now those days sadly have gone, but they still catch a few,

enough to supply the pilchard pressing works in Newlyn.

These salt fish are really prized in Italy -

totally ignored over here, of course.

I think that pilchards look stunningly

lovely in the sunlight, like sort of silver jewels, as they are iced up

to really lower the body temperature and stop them going soft.

Then they're taken out of the ice and put into a big tub

and salt - raw, coarse salt is shovelled all over them

and they are kept there for six weeks to anything up to two years. They will keep perfectly.

Then out of that what is now brine, and into these coffins.

Such a great word, "coffins"!

And then they are layered very neatly and tidily and pressed,

pressed and pressed, to get all the juices out,

or as the Cornish call it, the gravy out of them.

And in the bottom of the box, they have a piece of hessian

that just absorbs some of the oil that comes out of them.

Funnily enough, in the interests of hygiene and health,

they've substituted - or they tried to substitute a hessian with

that sort of holey material they put in the bottom of supermarket

meat trays and all the pilchards went bad so they went back to

using the material they've been using for hundreds of years.

Anyway, how do you eat these pilchards?

Well, for me, how I like to eat them, in the Italian way,

is a bruschetta, and what you do is take a rustic bread

like a ciabatta, and grill it,

and rub that with garlic and then sprinkle some extra virgin olive oil

over the top of that and you take your pilchards, and they like them whole, the Italians,

and so do I because you grill the pilchards, you let them go cold,

and then you flake the flesh off and drop it all over that bruschetta,

and then you cover that in chopped fresh vine tomatoes and red onions,

and more extra virgin olive oil if you love it like I do.

And then either some basil or parsley. Whoof!

If he tastes as good as he sounds, he'll be handsome!

As this is a seafood lovers' guide,

you have to make room for rarities, delicious rarities.

In this case, the ormer,

a gastropod that is cherished in the Channel Islands.

Bip and Billy from Guernsey live for the ormer season.

Up to their necks in freezing water, they can only stay in the water

a short time because they're not allowed to wear wet suits.

That is a conservation measure.

You get this sensation when there's about a month to go before the tide.

You start sort of getting that feeling in your stomach,

you know, and you start preparing all your gear and everything.

I've never missed a tide and I hopefully never will.

I'd have to be very ill to miss a tide, I can assure you. Here we go!

Ah, nice one, Billy. That's not a bad size.

Everybody in Guernsey loves the taste of ormers,

but more important to me is what it means to them.

It's a sort of emblem to them.

It's a sort of link with their past, and that, I think,

is one of the main reasons why they're so passionate

about fishing for them.

And the state parliament here, it's called the "states",

they actually spend more time debating ormers in parliament

than they do on anything else.

Anyway, I had to try them,

so I went to a pub filled with ormer fishermen.

Basically they casserole them in beef stock with carrots,

onions and bacon very slowly.

Do you ever have that feeling that all eyes are on you?

-These taste like nothing you've ever tasted.

-Fair enough.

Well, here goes.

They cook it overnight for about 12 hours in a very low oven,

so it is incredibly tender.

It's more like meat, really, I suppose. Like kidney.

You really have to have more than one mouthful to form an opinion.

They've lost that sort of seafood flavour, so they're quite

sort of steaky and quite meaty, but they do have this flavour...

..which is unique. It's a bit like truffles.

It doesn't taste like truffles, but it's that sort of sought-after

flavour that truffles have, and so do ormers.

This is my friend Henry Gilby.

Henry lives for fishing. In fact, he's completely mad about it.

Last night persuaded me

to go out fishing for black bream off the North Cornish Coast.

I thought, "Well, we certainly ain't going to catch anything."

Fishing, for me, out from Padstow, it's mackerel,

pollock, pollock, mackerel,

mackerel, pollock, just like that.

We never seem to catch anything else.

But you go out with Henry and everything's different.

We caught these fantastic black bream. I'd never seen so many!

You look at the black bream and you think, "Mediterranean".

That's what's so good about fishing off the south-west,

that you do get these species that come from the Mediterranean,

like red mullet, gurnard, black bream, John Dory,

all those sort of fish that you associate with fish soup,

and it's of such great quality.

It's a great eating fish and rare, and I just feel so lucky.

I mean, we've caught so many today.

It was just by chance I was talking last night, and he said,

"Oh, come out fishing with me." I just think every time

I come out fishing, I think, "Why don't I do this more often?

"Why do I spend so much time cooking?" I'm going to take this up,

I'm going to take a few lessons from Henry and keep at it.

Now to cook them.

First of all, a big pan on the stove and in goes loads of seaweed.

A bit of water.

And first one of these bream and another,

and they're about a pound and a half fish, pound and a quarter.

Would be great for one portion. Lid on the top.

Just leave those to cook for about six minutes.

It may seem a bit difficult,

but it's not actually a fish you're likely to get inland,

because they're all rod-caught fish, they're not a commercial catch.

Therefore, the only time you're likely to buy them

is by the seaside, and when you're by the seaside,

buy your black bream and then go and get some bladderwrack seaweed,

and cook it over it, steam it over it.

The thing about it which is so wonderful is the smell

as you take the lid off the pot when they're steamed.

It just fills your nostrils with that lovely ozone-y flavour,

and it does get into the flesh of the fish.

Anyway, now to make the sauce.

It's a fennel sauce, fennel and hot butter sauce.

So I'm just going to slice up one bulb of fennel. There we go.

Now the other side.

Put a pan on the stove and a knob of butter in there.

Just let it melt down a bit.

And then add the fennel.

I think fennel has a particular aptitude for fish,

particularly the Mediterranean type of fish like bass, mullet or bream.

I've added some wine just to sharpen it up a little bit,

and a dash of Pernod to reinforce that fennel flavour.

Just let that soften, add some salt and a little bit of black pepper.

Reduce it down till the fennel's really, really soft,

and then pour that into a liquidiser.

Now, I'm just going to add one egg yolk

and make a sort of hollandaise-type sauce.

But I'm also going to puree the fennel to give it lots of body,

and finally add the melted butter.

I first had this sauce in Versailles with some grilled sea bass

miles from the sea.

I forgot to mention when you're steaming the fish you must

take the scales off the fish and the fins, otherwise - disaster.

Anyway, to finish this sauce

you need some finely chopped fennel herb.

I don't think the tops of the bulb fennel work.

They're not fennel-y enough.

Just chop the fennel very finely and fold it into that lovely,

fluffy sauce.

Now let's have a look at these fish. They should be cooked by now.

Oh, gosh, that's... Oh!

I love that smell.

I mean, it's just so exciting and it's such a simple idea

and it's so effective. They're cooked.

The skin's nicely sort of parted on the top

so you can see that wonderful texture underneath

of the white and the brown outer layer of flesh there.

So, let's just get those onto a serving plate like that.

Look at them.

I'll put a nice dollop of the sauce on there

and a frond of fennel, that'll set it off very nicely.

I'd just like to taste some of that now, I think. A bit of the sauce.

It works very well together.

Really good flavour, that.

Sort of somewhere between a sort of oily fish like a mackerel

and a completely non-oily fish like cod.

It sort of combines the best of both, I think.

Again, one of those underrated fish we seem to keep finding everywhere.

Great stuff from Rick, as always.

Fennel is actually quite versatile as an ingredient.

It works very well with fish, but it also can be used for desserts.

I'm going to show you a very simple yet stunning pudding

which is great for a dinner party. All right? It's really simple.

-It contains no flour, it's a cake without flour.

-OK.

It's a baked chocolate mousse cake.

We're going to use fennel as a base and candied fennel with it.

So it's fennel used twice.

First thing we need first of all,

in here I've got 300 grams of dark chocolate.

When you're using dark chocolate it'll have little percentages

on the packs of chocolate, between 50 and 70%,

that's what you want. If you go too bitter, as in the higher percentage,

it's too strong and you can't taste it.

It's too strong to taste it in this cake.

So, because I've got a little amount of sugar in here.

300 grams of dark chocolate, 150 grams of butter.

It can be unsalted butter or normal butter.

It doesn't matter cos of the amount of chocolate you've got in there.

Six medium eggs.

We want six egg yolks, six egg whites and 50 grams of sugar,

and that's the basis of this recipe. Keeping it really simple.

So I'm going to take the egg yolks out of here and pop them

into a little bowl,

and the whites I'm going to whisk up into a little bit of meringue.

When you're melting chocolate, why does it separate?

Why does it kind of go granular?

Because you've overheated it, mainly.

That's why it's always really important to do it in a bain marie

or a pan of hot water, which I've done here.

As soon as it's brought to the boil I switch it off,

and just leave it sat there.

Don't put it in the microwave cos it can burn quite easily,

so just do it over a bain marie.

Apart from food, obviously, acting...

-Nine years...

-I do the odd bit. I do the odd bit of acting now and again.

But it's been throughout your whole life - nine years old.

Yeah, I started when I was nine. So just 41 years now.

And you went to drama school when you were nine?

Yeah, it was a club that a teacher at my primary school, a lady

called Anna Scher started,

and it was just an after-school club, really.

-I'd go for an hour and a half twice a week.

-But your first...

It was 10p a lesson.

-Your first major part was when you were nine, as well.

-Yes.

Dixon of Dock Green.

How did you manage to get that at nine years old?

Once the drama school was kind of...

Obviously, it was a bit more known about and directors started coming

and watching and what have you, and that was it, I suppose.

At the time, it was good fun and I remember going to Ealing studios

and I'd be very excited cos I saw Reg Varney in the canteen.

-Yeah.

-I thought, "Yeah, I like this."

-You like this.

-"I'll do this for a job."

-I'll do this.

It's fair to say Birds Of A Feather really launched your career.

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. We did 101 episodes and it was over ten years.

It was extremely popular. We stopped when it was still popular,

which I think was the right thing to do.

-Do you think that's the right thing to do?

-I think so.

I think you've got to know when enough's enough, really,

and as I say, I think it's still remembered fondly

because we did stop when we did, as opposed to going on and on.

You know, some shows after a while you just think, "Oh..."

There's rumours you were going to come back for a one-off special

-and stuff like that.

-Well, we keep hearing these things,

but basically, if they were to come up with a really good idea,

then yeah, we'd like to do it again.

We've never said that we wouldn't do any more,

it's just sometimes you've got to know when enough's enough, really.

So, we'll see if they come up with a great idea.

They can have us three old girls in a nursing home somewhere.

But you're keeping busy.

-Tell us about Missing, it's on it's second series.

-That's right.

We're did a series last year, we did five episodes

and we've just finished the second series, which was ten episodes.

So, yeah, it starts on Monday, Monday afternoon.

So, yeah. We had some great guest actors. Roy Hudd plays my dad in it.

The BBC is running in conjunction with that, we've got

-Missing live as well.

-That's right, Missing Live's in the morning.

That's 9.15 and that's, I think the third series of Missing Live,

and I've done some short films for them as well,

which will be running alongside the drama.

Missing Live's in the morning

-and then the series starts in the afternoon.

-Keep the topic going.

Fantastic. Anyway, look, I know you're into your food,

so I've got fennel in the bottom of here.

-This is just raw.

-Raw fennel?

-Raw fennel.

The idea is as it cooks,

it perfumes up into your chocolate mousse or chocolate cake.

You don't have to do this recipe,

but you can do it as a standard chocolate cake.

It works very well with chocolate, though.

In here we've got candied fennel, which is just sugar and water.

Stock syrup in the fennel. We just cook it, that's it.

-You know, I've never eaten fennel.

-Haven't you?

-No.

-Well, you're going to try it.

-I've no idea what it's...

We've got our whipped egg whites over here,

which I'm going to take off.

This is the six egg whites, all right?

You've got six egg yolks, you don't need to whisk these up too much.

Just mix together the sugar and the egg yolks. That's basically it.

You don't really need to do...

Are you not going to do that thing where you hold it over your head?

-Over my head.

-Look.

-Oh!

-Just checking it first, Pauline.

The idea is we just pour this. This is the hot chocolate.

Now, this is the reason why it will split.

If your chocolate's cold at this point it will split,

particularly, what you're doing is you're making a chocolate mousse.

The only difference is I've whipped this up for a lot longer.

This is the exactly the same way as making a chocolate mousse,

but we're going to bake it.

So if it splits at this point before you add the cream,

put it back on the heat and it'll come back.

Now, when I tried to do that before, the last time I did

what you've just done the eggs cooked on me,

-they turned into scrambled eggs, cos I obviously had it too hot.

-Too hot.

But what you need to do is when you mix it in,

mix half of it in like that and then grab the other half.

Don't fully mix the first bit in - half mix it,

and then grab the remainder and forget about that old saying

you need to cut-fold figure of eight.

At school you had to do that, didn't you?

You need to get this in the oven as quick as possible.

So what I could do with this is just pop it in a glass

and it would go in the fridge as a chocolate mousse.

But what I'm going to do is bake it.

And you end up with a chocolate cake.

So you need to do it quickly, you see? Quick as possible.

And then we just pour this onto our tin.

A thing I was reading about you I found fascinating, is this Academy.

-Tell us about the academy.

-Yes, we...

-You set that up with your husband?

-That's right.

It's called Pauline Quirk Academy and we opened our first one

at the end of '07, and we're about to open our 19th.

We're going to open that in Brentwood

and we're opening in Hemel Hempstead.

So there'll be 20 Pauline Quirk Academy of Performing Arts'.

And these are for kids. I mean, do the kids know who you are?

No, not a clue.

They just think I'm the fat lady that makes the tea, really.

And they're absolutely right.

Basically, I started it

because at that time, I'd been acting for 40 years.

We don't run an agency, we don't audition children,

this is about getting back to the basics and enjoying performing arts.

So, there's no pressure, there's no stars of the show,

it's about kids just enjoying what performing arts have to offer.

It's great for kids' confidence and, you know, being articulate,

and they have a good time and it's about fun. Fun, not fame.

So if anyone wanted to get into it, can people get it off the website?

We're all grown up, we've got a website and everything.

-Oh, right.

-Oh, yeah. All proper. Yeah - pqacademy.com.

-There you go.

-In fact, they're Saturday mornings,

so the children will all be getting ready now.

Morning to all the kids getting ready for the academies.

-There's over 800 children now at the academies.

-Fantastic.

They're all hopefully enjoying themselves,

-that's what it's all about.

-Well, this is your cake.

Because it's got no flour in, and you've got egg yolks in there,

er, egg whites in there, it's going to souffle up,

so it will actually rise up like a souffle

and then collapse.

Now this, I've just cooked just before, popped it in the oven

just before we went on air, and you should have this warm.

What you don't want to be doing is put it in the fridge.

It's really important. So once you've made it

it's got to be served at room temperature.

And then this is your candied fennel.

So you just basically just put a little bit of this fennel...

-You can have beetroot cake as well, can't you?

-You can. Carrot cake.

When you think about using all those sort of things, it's fine.

And this lovely liquor, it does work,

and then what we're going to do is just...

I actually prefer a little bit of creme fraiche with this.

You just want a little dollop of creme fraiche.

-James Martin.

-I'll get you a spoon.

Dive into that.

These two girls over here are very jealous.

-I'm a good sharer.

-Don't get in the way of my chocolate!

I'll bring some over, don't worry.

-Shall I do the fennel first or the cake?

-You can do the cake.

-Try not to wear it.

-There you go.

The fennel comes through in the cake. No flour in there whatsoever.

-It's delicious.

-Tastes like a warm chocolate brownie, doesn't it?

-Yeah.

It's just so...full of air. Oh, it's just beautiful.

That's a great dinner party dessert,

and if you'd like to try that chocolate mousse cake,

or try your hand at any of the recipes you've seen on today's show,

they're just a click away at bbc.co.uk/recipes.

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

at some of the fantastic cookery from the Saturday kitchen

back catalogue. And we've passed the glorious 12th of August,

so grouse season is now officially in full swing.

Who better to cook it than Lawrence Keogh.

Now, I'm looking forward to this dish, Lawrence. Welcome to the show.

Now, this dish - grouse. Like you said, bang in season.

Yeah, we're going to do a roast grouse, wrap it in bacon.

We've got the grouse livers,

the chicken livers, port, brandy, Madeira,

and that's all going to go in to make the pate on the toast

and you're going to do a classic bread sauce for me.

Classic bread sauce. The essence of doing a bread sauce is very simple,

it's just onion, bay leaf, a bit of clove, and we just warm up the milk.

Yeah, just warm the milk. I'll take the wishbone out of the grouse.

-There it is.

-Yeah.

-The wishbone's underneath.

-It just makes it easier to serve.

-Yeah.

When you get your knife and carve down,

I always do this with turkeys at Christmas, just whip it out first.

I know it's probably bad luck removing the wishbone.

You'd think, particularly with grouse, you'd do that sort of...

-It's one per portion.

-Yeah, you'd eat about four, wouldn't you?

I would, probably, yeah. I would, actually.

It is a fantastic meat, isn't it, and what it is about game?

Obviously you're a big fan of British food.

Well, the game, grouse mainly, is Yorkshire, Scotland,

some parts of Northern Ireland. It feeds on their heather

and that's where that rich heavy gamey flavour comes through.

You get some people that prefer it hang for a bit longer

than a week so it's quite high, but when you hang game it's important

that it's hung by the neck, not by the feet.

Now, you're a big fan of seasonal produce, like we were saying.

We're cooking with grouse now.

Other seasonal produce people can look out for?

I don't like to talk about this credit crunch thing,

it does my head in, but literally... It does.

Everybody keeps talking about it. But when...

Is it good with milk for cereal? I don't know what it is.

But when you buy food that's in season, it's at its cheapest,

-isn't it?

-It's at its cheapest. It's at its optimum best.

What can people be looking out for, now?

Well, the sprouts are starting quinces are starting,

there's partridge in season, you've got pheasant next month,

getting shot, things like that.

Swede, all the root vegetables are coming through now.

So basically, it's good to eat seasonally

because you're getting all the nutrients from the root vegetables

this time of year, you don't get the berries in the summer,

you get all the nutrients from the sun.

And you get elderberries and stuff like that.

Elderberries are around now, great with game, good with duck,

things like that.

Now, I know people are big fans of the website

that we have on the show, as well.

There's also marrows are starting to come in.

-They're talking a lot about that on the website.

-I love marrow.

-I absolutely love marrow.

-What would you do with that?

I peel it three times around,

and then what I do with it is toss it in olive oil and Parmesan at home.

-But you can use English Berkswell cheese. It's like a Parmesan.

-OK.

Now these, you've just put the bacon on there.

I put a seam on both sides. Going to start doing the pate.

Now, I'm making.. It sounds daft, but heart-shaped croutons.

-That is the traditional shape.

-Very old-fashioned.

It is the traditional shape, isn't it, really,

for croutons with game.

When I was at the Ritz casino back in the '80s

-we were doing all the game...

-Yeah.

-That was it.

-Now, the livers are going in.

-This is for our pate, isn't it?

-This is for the pate.

Classically, you take the livers out of all the game birds

and you serve them on toast.

And the secret with cooking the pate like this is to keep

-the livers nice and pink.

-Nice and pink. Just going to show at the pan.

But I like blending the chicken livers with the grouse

cos it's not too harsh, cos they are quite strong.

So literally just flash them in the pan. Do you glaze it with alcohol?

Yeah. I'm going to use port, brandy, Madeira,

but I better be careful with the red wine later on as well on the sauce.

In rehearsal it went everywhere,

but the essence of cooking pate is really, really simple, isn't it?

It's basically, show it the pan, just so they're going to be pink.

They sort of bubble around that pan, keep them nice and pink

and you want to take them out and drain them,

then I want to put some sliced shallots in the pan,

then the port, brandy and Madeira.

-Ever had a go at making your own pate?

-No, I haven't.

I was actually amazed cos I was just thinking

I have no idea how you make it.

It's actually really simple. I use equal quantities of liver to butter.

Fry off the liver and then throw in the butter.

Sorry, what do you want?

-That grouse can go back in.

-How long does this take?

It takes about 12 minutes to have it sort of medium rare.

-In a nice hot oven, about 220.

-That's like gas mark eight.

We've got one that's in there already.

I'm going to then just get my breadcrumbs on here.

I'll get some more butter in this pan with the shallots,

to soften these. Have you got the other grouse pan there?

Soften these.

-I'll bring this one out.

-Yeah.

We've got the grouse here, lovely grouse, which looks so good.

Stand back.

There you go. I'll cook the brandy off first.

Rest that grouse for me.

If my mother's doing that, step away from your net curtains.

Then the port.

-Just evaporate all the alcohol.

-It's very hot in here.

What have you got in here? This is the...

20 mls of port, brandy and Madeira.

-There's the last bit of Madeira.

-This is for the pate, is it?

It's for the pate. Just cook it all off.

Get all the flavour out the pan, you've got like a sticky glaze

in there, and then back in with the livers.

Can you drop that blood back in there for me, as well? No wasting.

It must be quite difficult devising a menu,

cos obviously you've got different seasons and bits and pieces,

and they happen so quickly in the UK.

I love it because we change the menu the first Wednesday of every month.

The whole menu changes and now I've got three and a half years

of experience, I know exactly what's coming in.

I'm already on the phone to the suppliers organising January

and stuff like that. We're way ahead of everyone else. It's good.

The punters love it,

the regulars love it, cos they know we're all constantly changing.

I've just put some tarragon and parsley in last-minute.

A pinch of salt, a pinch of pepper.

-That's it.

-Over here, bread sauce.

We've just got some milk, the onion is then...

You can see that's got the little bay leaf there with some cloves.

Drain that off, plenty of butter. In we go with the bread.

Salt and pepper and then loads of nutmeg.

-That's bread sauce.

-Plenty of butter in here, as well.

-Explain to us what's happening now.

-That's the pan.

Put some of this stock in there, the red wine.

A pinch of thyme and a pinch of bay leaf.

This is the pan that had the grouse cooking in.

It's important to leave this to rest, isn't it, really.

-Ideally, yes.

-So, you've just got red wine in there?

Yeah, red wine, a pinch of thyme, a pinch of bay leaf.

I'll just gave these livers a blitz, made a mess everywhere.

There's the simple little croutons.

Now, if you want to turn this into a pate,

-literally equal quantities of butter to...

-Yeah, use butter.

I don't like cream, I prefer the butter in there.

But if you want to keep it to stop it going off, put it inside a jar

and just put melted butter over the top.

It lasts for a week in the fridge.

-Stop it from oxidising.

-Yeah. Oh, God, Chef!

-There you go. Right.

-Right.

Let's have a quick taste.

Plenty of nutmeg in this,

and it's so simple to make your own bread sauce, as well.

Nice and easy, there you have it.

Lovely and easy. Do that for Christmas, as well. Really simple.

Just take the string off the bird.

And this is a classic way of serving it.

But also, the classic way of doing roast chicken is with the old

-sliced potatoes, isn't it, almost like chips.

-Yeah, go frit.

-Like crisps, rather than chips.

-It doesn't need a lot.

Cos it's got no fat on it, you need a bit of bacon...

-A bit more seasoning here.

-To help keep the bird and the breast moist.

Game has got hardly any fat all.

That's why it's very good for you, actually.

Pop a little bit of watercress in there.

Diana, you must have found a lot of that

when you were travelling around all over the place.

Grouse isn't as popular, I think

it's hard to get punters to take that,

but partridge and pheasant, loads of partridge in Yorkshire.

In Yorkshire especially, yeah.

There's your pate, nice and simple.

Then we're just going to, literally, press the pate over the top.

There's its own juices over the top.

-Just burning my arm on the flame.

-I'll just switch that off.

You continue doing the rest.

Just basically stuff the watercress inside it as well.

Watercress inside.

-There's the bacon, pate on toast.

-There's the sauce, ready.

Big dollop of bread sauce. That's a nice consistency.

Bread sauce was made, originally, to fill you up,

-to fill the kids up when you had roast chicken, wasn't it?

-Yeah.

There we go. You've got the last pate.

So you've got heart-shaped croutons, you've got classic roast grouse,

bacon, bread sauce, and its own livers on toast.

It's as simple and as classic as that.

I have to say, it smells just brilliant. And look at that.

Most of it was done in real-time, as well.

Have you ever had grouse before? At ten past ten in the morning?

Erm, not at ten past ten in the morning.

No. Gosh, that just looks amazing. Do you just cut...

-I don't know where you start...

-I was going to say, do you just...

You could probably turn it round and carve the breast.

-Yeah, carve a little piece off there.

-Have a bit of pate, as well.

Gosh, that's smells amazing, and I love bread sauce.

Be careful of the shot cos game contains shot.

Oh, yeah, of course they do.

In season at the moment, and runs out about...

About mid-December, yeah. Start getting your pheasants in.

-Is it easy to get hold of?

-Yeah, a good butcher could do it for you.

-It's nice, isn't it?

-Mmm.

You should know this by now to get the whole lot in your mouth

-before you pass it down.

-That's not coming back!

Bread sauce, so simple.

-I still don't know why we use the packet stuff.

-I don't know. Exactly.

It's just lovely with the nutmeg in there. That's the secret.

Plenty of nutmeg, plenty of butter.

It's not actually as gamey as I thought it was going to be.

Would that be something that you'd ever attempt?

I'd never really thought of cooking that, but erm...

My family live in Norfolk near Sandringham,

and there's a lot of pheasants. Lots of shooting,

-so we sometimes have pheasant and things like that.

-Guys?

-That's really juicy.

-Delicious.

It's nice and palatable.

Not too strong, as well.

What better bird to feast on than grouse at this time of the year?

Now, it's time for the late great Keith Floyd to visit

one of the finest wine regions in the world - Burgundy.

He may even get round to doing some cooking.

You've got to admire these chaps.

They make fantastic light and creamy cheese called Citeaux,

named after the monastery and made from the milk of these cows.

And they're totally self-sufficient.

In fact, my grandmother would approve totally of their attitudes.

Early to bed, early to rise, all that bit.

And you know, if it wasn't for the fact that women are sadly banned,

I wouldn't mind spending a few weeks here myself

to cleanse my very weary soul.

And here's one of my producer making an unusually dignified exit

to the Dog and Ferret.

I thought the best way, initially at least, to see Burgundy,

was from a boat on the River Saone,

which flows through this lush countryside.

The Saone is a very important river,

and though not as wide as the Orinoco,

or as long as the Mississippi, the French are very proud of it.

I forget how long it is. Anyway, this isn't a geography lesson.

Oh, look, there's my 900-foot floating kitchen going by.

Burgundy food broadly falls into two categories.

One where it's stewed in red wine,

and one where it's sauteed

and turned into a mustard sauce-y thing to pour over it.

I'm doing the latter, the mustard sauce.

Very simple - Clive, come down here, usual routine.

Two escalopes of veal, some choice Dijon mustard, some unsalted butter,

some wonderful thick double cream,

very rare to find in France cos often cream in France isn't very good,

and the whole thing's going to be finished off with this

wonderful Marc de Bourgogne,

which is a kind of a very strong alcohol sub-brandy

sort of stuff made from the residue of the wine pressing.

But I'm not even doing that just for me, or even for the director

who's behind the camera.

I'm doing it for a very important guy who's coming to lunch,

and who, at this moment, is sitting looking rather bored

on the bow of this barge. So, if you'll come with me...

That is a frying pan.

Stay with that, Clive, while I get my act together.

We put a bit of butter in there, and hopefully, because as usual,

I think we've conned our way in,

I'm not familiar with the equipment here.

We do try to do things in real-time,

so let's hope I've got the butter melting away there properly.

And one of escalope of veal in. Did you get that?

Another escalope of veal in. Fingers in.

Turn it over the second it's got a little bit sealed like that.

Season it with a little bit of pepper.

Exactly like that.

Never add salt to meat until it's sealed,

otherwise it brings the juices out and spoils it.

You'll need to bear with me.

Take a look out of the window if you're a bit bored at this stage.

You'll see some lovely sights.

Beautiful countryside, vines, maidens cavorting on the banks

of the canal and stuff like that, you know,

possibly people cycling past.

Cos one way or another that's got to fry away for a second or two.

# Busy down below in the galley cooking boat

-# Cooking boat

-Down below

-# Cooking boat

-Below

# Out the window looking at the... #

Right, when you buy mustard, you can buy any kind you like.

You can buy dark vinegary-flavoured ones,

you can buy delicate yellow ones,

but for cooking with mustard, use the pale yellow ones,

and always add it to the sauce at the end,

cos if you cook it too hot,

if you make it too rich in the sauce it takes away the flavour

of the mustard, so you warm the sauce up

and then add the mustard at the last bit,

which we shall now do, cos this is a Frenchman,

he likes his meat slightly underdone.

All I do now...

Now, this is going to wreck your camera.

A little Marc de Bourgogne goes in there like that.

Absolutely up to maximum there.

The meat goes onto there.

Let the juice of the meat and the Marc de Bourgogne

reduce a little bit,

stir in some cream like that. Two of those will be fine.

Let's put three in. Now, you let that bubble away for a bit.

They'll probably be editing this down as they go along cos they can't

afford the film to actually cook a dish from beginning to end.

I promise you we are cooking in real-time,

as you can see by my face I'm getting a bit hot.

Stay on that, Clive, while I get some pepper to put in there...

Like that.

Maximum heat. Let it bubble away a bit.

I'll have a swig of wine while that's going on.

Another glass of Beaujolais.

Thicken this excellent sauce with a bit of excellent

French unsalted butter.

Melt that in like that.

This is quite boring, but as I say, feel free to have a walk round the...

Walk across the water and... That's lovely, now.

And just a little bit of mustard, about that much.

You can always look up one of these famous books...

preferably one of mine...

to see precisely how much you put in.

That's it, it's glistening yellow.

It's golden, it's mustard, it says Dijon, it says Burgundy.

Pop it over there like that.

Look at that - simplicity itself.

I tell you what, last time I cooked on a boat,

and you can barely see this one's moving,

it was a trawler in the gales off the south-west of England.

Anyway, here you are.

Escalope de veau a la moutarde du Dijon.

Je vous souhaite une bonne sante, et bon appetit.

And so to lunch, and a short

but meaningful lesson on Burgundy wine from Jean Michel Lafond.

Those monks, you know, when they have established a monastery,

they have received a small piece

of land to produce the wines they needed for their Mass.

And when they arrived to their vineyards,

when they arrived to the nature, they had a religious attitude,

which is based, you know, like any religious attitude, on respect.

And they've decided to respect the soil

and they've decided to respect the character of the soil.

So how have they resolved that?

They chose particular vines

-which were suitable for that area?

-Absolutely!

Little by little they have made a selection of the plant,

and they have noticed that the Chardonnay plant, you know,

for producing the white wine,

and the Pinot Noir plant to produce the red wine

was the best plant for us, you know?

Did monks ever get drunk?

Did monks drink wine to enjoy themselves,

or merely to celebrate Jesus Christ and Mass and religion?

Well, I think both.

They were really using the wine for the Mass,

and really enjoying the wine by themselves.

This Cote de Nuits is very rich and soft and fruity, isn't it?

And what makes the difference to all the Burgundy wines?

Wine is like people. Wine is made by people for the people.

And if you take a group of people, you have some great ones

and some funny ones.

So, that's the kind of things, you know, which happen.

Wine reflects the life of the whole region.

Fortunately, we have some people who really produce good stuff

like this, you know, pretty rich, giving off a lot of aromas.

And a wine, as well, you know, which looks nice.

Because never forget that when you look at the wine -

just one idea to remember - when you look at it, you must like it.

If you don't like it when you see it, you will never enjoy it.

-So, it's like a woman.

-Exactly. Exactly.

KEITH COUGHS

# The wine of Burgundy is red

-# Full and rich and red

-So red

# The wine that lovers just adore

# Parfait pour l'amour... #

This, then, is Dijon.

Not only the home of mustard, but the power base of dukes

in former times, and now the stylish capital of the region.

You know, I'm a cheerful chap most of the time,

but if you think in this next sequence that I'm a bit grumpy,

a bit off-colour, well, you're jolly right.

You see, I've got to cook for about 15 brilliant chefs

in this luxury hotel, and I'm petrified.

OK, what we've got here...

I've got a bit of a problem, actually,

because the meal's been brought forward by an hour, and there's

about 15 chefs of very high denomination waiting outside there.

And I'm trying to make a cream sauce to go with this ham,

which won't be cooked in time, so it's been a bit of a nightmare.

But I've reduced some shallots and juniper berries in vinegar,

and I added those to some flour and butter which I melted together,

and some veal stock.

And now I've got to whack in a bottle of white wine into here

and let that simmer away for quite a while till it thickens

and becomes a rather special sauce.

I've got to shift it onto a higher gas.

Another sauce I've got to make, which is worrying the chefs here,

is using wonderful...

..Gevrey-Chambertin...

..to reduce that to almost nothing,

because that's going to go over my fillets of fish,

which hopefully I will cook in the fullness of time.

But the man from the tourist office, who organised this little party,

has said, "Do you mind bringing the meal forward until four o'clock?

"And I just won't be able... It won't be ready till five.

It's a bit frightening, quite genuinely a little bit worried.

They're sort of gathering round in their dark suits and tinted glasses

like vultures sitting on a telegraph wire, and I'm on a long freeway.

I was so busy cooking, I didn't have time, or the courage,

to go into the dining room, but if I'd known this lot were there,

I wouldn't have carried on.

At least that's all right. That's the...

That's the special piquant sauce that's going with the slices of ham

which might be raw.

And that's that wine which cost nearly £20 a bottle

just evaporating away into nothing,

to make a sauce which is going to go with fresh perch -

fillets of fresh perch, you see,

in a red wine sauce which I've just invented!

And I don't even know if it's going to work.

But if it does, it'll be absolutely brilliant, I can assure you.

If it doesn't, then I'm, er... going home to mother.

CHEFS CHATTER IN FRENCH

LAUGHTER

# I started out on Burgundy

# But soon hit the harder stuff

# My friends said they'd stand behind me

# When the game got rough

# But the joke was on me

# There was no-one even there to bluff

# I'm going back to New York City

# I do believe I've had enough. #

And these guys keep walking in, dipping their fingers in,

and they say nothing, you know?

I imagine that's what the King of France used to say to them

when they went to the guillotines.

Just, presumably, there's some imperceptible sign

they make between themselves that means you're a total jerk.

KEITH HUMS TO HIMSELF

Can you get me a small ladle from up there, anybody?

CHEF SPEAKS IN FRENCH

THEY SPEAK IN FRENCH

OK, merci.

Et puis...

'For those of you not interested in the drama of the situation,

'and still seem to think that this is a cookery programme,

'as billed in the Radio Times,

'I poached the perch for two or three minutes in a little white wine,

'with a knob of butter and a bay leaf.

'Then for the sauce, I reduced some chopped shallots in red wine

'until it was almost nothing,

'and whisked in a bit of butter till I had this smooth, pink sauce.

'It was great.

'And I then waited in the kitchen for the news.

'The waiter came back, thumbs up, "Ca va." It's OK.

'I was so relieved!

'It doesn't matter if you're an accountant, a football player,

'Nigel Mansell, or just a cooking genius like me,

'you need to know what the punters think about it.

'They said it was OK, I felt better.

'Then, the really good bit.

'The French TV turned up, the press turned up, the radio turned up.

'And I gave a rather elegant little interview in French

'and English for the six o'clock news that night.

'It was really great.'

# So, what is the verdict

# How do they feel?

# And what do they think of this wonderful meal?

# Tell me, what do they say?

# Could it be, "Zut alors!?

# As they taste this fine cooking

# I cry, "Encore!" #

So, they can have a small rest now, while I carve the ham.

Most interesting how people treat you.

When I first came into the kitchen, they stood away from me.

But now Clark Kent has suddenly become my new friend,

zipped out of the telephone box, hung up his tights and cape

in the deep freeze, and is quite prepared to give me

a hand, even talk to me as if I was a cook, too.

Which I am, really.

I had that blinking ham soaking in my bath all last night,

so I couldn't get washed before I came this morning,

to get the salt out of it, and I poached it for about four hours.

Should have been five, but it's OK, it's cooked nicely.

Then I made that brilliant cream sauce, slightly piquant.

There you go.

It's absolutely brilliant.

You lot all wish at Christmas, when you've got to carve the turkey...

"I don't want to do it,"

you get father-in-law to do it, get somebody else to do it.

Well, you come here one of these days and carve boiled ham

for 18 very superior gastronauts, and you'll never complain again.

Here. Where's it going to go?

Want me to take it all the way through?

Yeah, go straight through.

Er... HE SPEAKS IN FRENCH

Oui.

Malheureusement!

THEY CHUCKLE

KEITH WHISTLES TO HIMSELF

Highly amusing, isn't it?

HE SPEAKS IN FRENCH

KEITH HUMS TO HIMSELF

Oh, la!

Messieurs, bonjour.

APPLAUSE

This is incredible! I mean, take six cooks,

any television programme in Britain cannot top this, I bet you.

Look at them, 17 of France's best chefs,

and particularly from the area of Dijon. Quite incredible.

HE SPEAKS IN FRENCH

LAUGHTER

HE SPEAKS IN FRENCH

'To see these great chefs,

'and there is one here with the Legion d'Honneur,

'tucking happily into this very lusty meal,

'confirms my belief that the best dishes are the traditional ones.

'And that's what Burgundy cooking is all about.

'Because it's firmly based in the rich and sophisticated background

'that no-one would dare to muck about with it, despite modern trends.'

HE SPEAKS IN FRENCH

'And now, it's prize-giving time.'

Merci.

APPLAUSE

I don't really want to put it on,

because it's got all the signatures of some of the -

as I said, some of the best chefs in France in there,

and certainly the best chefs of Dijon,

but just for once, I'll show off for a second.

HE CHUCKLES

ALL SING IN FRENCH

Bravo.

It's always great to see the man in action.

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

instead we're looking back at some of the tasty morsels

from the Saturday Kitchen cookbook.

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

Jun Tanaka meets Kevin Dundon in a Saturday Kitchen omelette challenge.

Jun was second on the leaderboard,

so Kevin definitely had some catching up to do.

But how would they both fare?

Find out a little bit later.

Atul Kochhar serves up a unique-style Indian fish sandwich.

It consists of two pieces of oven-baked plaice either side of

a rich crab masala, and he serves it all with a rich tomato salad.

And Dick Strawbridge faced his Food Heaven or Food Hell.

Would he get his Food Heaven, lamb, with a slow-roasted veg ratatouille,

or his dreaded Food Hell, tamarind in a tangy tamarind chicken salad?

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

Now, it's time to revisit the first time Lancastrian chef Nigel Howarth

came to the Saturday Kitchen hobs, armed with roebuck,

dock leaves and nettles.

And the man meant business.

-Good to have you on the show.

-Thank you.

I've been looking forward to you coming.

And you're cooking a Yorkshire dish!

Well, I thought for you I'd cook a Yorkshire dish.

-So, I've got roebuck.

-Yeah.

-Straight out of Yorkshire.

-Exactly.

-Which is a great product.

-It's wonderful stuff.

-Nobody told me we had a vegetarian.

-No, exactly, yeah!

You're going to do a little vegetarian dish.

Yeah, we've got a dock pudding, which is

-a 19th-century dish from Yorkshire.

-Yeah.

-Originally made with sweet dock.

-Yeah.

-Which is slightly different.

But sweet dock's in season early, springtime.

So, we're using ordinary dock leaves.

-Which is a bit taboo, but we're going to have a go.

-OK.

And then we've got nettle leaves as well.

So, this is a nice little simple - almost like a cake that we make,

-and then pan-fry it at the end.

-Absolutely.

So, the roebuck. Now, these used to be sort of...

More or less extinct in about 1800s,

but they're back with a vengeance aren't they?

They're back, there's plenty of them.

The deer population's increasing like mad, so they're good to eat.

-It is very healthy as well, isn't it?

-Absolutely.

So, there's your dock leaves,

to prove that we are actually using them. There we go.

And these are ones you can just pick on the hedgerows?

Yeah. Those are the normal dock leaves that you come across.

Are those the ones you can whistle with?

You can make that funny noise, you can go...

WHISTLES I've never whistled with them.

-Give us one, we'll try.

-Too late, they're in the pan.

ALL: Ahh.

Can you do it with a spinach leaf?

-Yeah, you can.

-If you want a green nose, yeah.

So these just get blanched...

You can whistle with anything, actually.

There you go. They just get blanched.

And if you haven't got nettles and dock leaves,

you can use wild garlic, spinach, whatever you want.

But we're going to actually use a little bit of spinach along,

so James... Make sure when you're picking these, you don't

-pick 'em by the side of the pathway, is it?

-Absolutely.

-Make sure they're in a nice place.

-Yeah.

-With the dog walkers walking past.

-So, you're going to do me that onion.

-Not that I'm pushing you or anything.

-Yeah, sorry.

-And I've got my damsons, now.

-Right.

Which - I've stoned the damsons. Taken the stones out.

Great product, damson, particularly with game.

We're going to pop some orange juice and sugar in there.

Are they damsons in distress?

Damsons are in distress.

One of the secrets is not to overcook the damsons.

-Or else they'll all...

-Want that in there?

..what we call, traditionally, they'll blow.

Yep, in there. Better get me butter in first.

Now, talking about your...

Well, it's a hotel and restaurant, that you've got?

Yeah, it's sort of a restaurant with rooms. 14 bedrooms at Northcote.

Yeah. And now you've got this culinary empire,

you're sort of expanding.

Yeah, we've got four pubs, which helps fuel the old manor. Northcote.

Um, and then...we've just opened one in Yorkshire.

Which is the Bull at Broughton. Just thought I'd get that one in.

Right, OK!

OK, so, I've got my onions in, quickly saute this,

and then we've got pinhead oatmeal.

-You'll like this, Alan.

-Yeah.

-So, this is the cake, isn't it, this one?

-This is the cake.

So, we pop that in there, and then we've got some chicken...

Oh, no, sorry, some veg stock.

LAUGHTER

Get off.

-Sorry, Alan.

-Fine.

I'm looking forward to that potato chilli dish.

Normally, James, I was telling you earlier,

we'd put some bacon in, and you can actually use bacon fat

and bacon in it, obviously if it's non-vegetarian.

-Yeah.

-OK.

So, basically, this dock leaf and this nettles,

these are for the cake.

Those are for the cake, yeah. They go in last-minute.

OK?

So that will take about seven or eight minutes to cook,

so we're going to do that and get rid of that, James, I think.

Now, this is quite a famous dish. It's still around, isn't it, really?

You were saying that they do festivals of it

-and all that sort of stuff.

-Yeah.

Yeah, there's a small village in Yorkshire that celebrates

the dock pudding every year. And interestingly...

-We should be getting an invite to open it next year.

-We should be.

There's a nettle-eating competition as well.

Actually eating nettles off the leaf.

I've seen that. Doesn't sound too good to me.

-Chop a bit finer please, James.

-Chop a bit finer.

LAUGHTER OK.

I'll forgive him, War of the Roses and all that.

OK, and then we're going to put the...

Now, to make the sauce, put the red wine in there.

And again, juice of an orange.

Now, you cook this - this takes, what, about ten minutes?

-Yeah, ten minutes.

-And then you put in the nettles and everything else.

Then you put the nettles in at the end.

-And then in the tray.

-But...

-Are you...?

-I'm moving that to one side.

Cos we've got one that we've got...in the fridge.

Which, once it goes in the fridge, it sets nicely,

and we've got one in there.

It's about a centimetre thick, something like that.

Right, I'm going to do some junipers, because again,

Yorkshire's famous for junipers. Er, the Swale, and the Swale Valley.

And...just give them a bit of a pounding.

-Yeah.

-And just drop a few of those into our base reduction.

-Cos, again, damsons, junipers, go terrifically well.

-Yeah.

Now, you've been doing a new programme recently,

that people have been watching.

-The Hairy Bikers, you've been taking part in that, haven't you?

-I have.

Yeah, I did the Hairy Bikers a month or so ago.

-Great show, great lads, actually.

-Yeah.

So, the dock pudding we're going to cut out like so.

-Motorbikers?

-Motorbikers, yeah.

-I haven't seen that.

-Hairy motorbikers.

Right, the spinach is just for a little garnish to go with it, is it?