Episode 11 Spring Kitchen with Tom Kerridge

It's spring and we're enjoying the very best of the season's produce

with great recipes and good company.

Welcome to Spring Kitchen.

Hello and welcome.

Some of the best produce is coming out right now,

so for some fresh ideas on how to use it, stay right here.

We're visiting Tom Kitchin and his family at home in Edinburgh

for a really clever take on new season asparagus.

Plus, we take a peek in to the BBC food archive and join

Nigella Lawson for a simple but zingy recipe

using squid, prawns and chilli.

One of the best chefs in the country is Michael Caines and,

with a pantry of great ingredients on his doorstep in Devon,

he's well placed to show us how to make the most of them.

And also with us to talk about which spices

to pair with our spring ingredients,

our very own expert, John Gregory-Smith.

-Hello, boys. How are we doing?

-Good, thanks.

-Springtime, happy with that down in Devon?

-Love it.

Fantastic. Devon is heaven in the spring.

All this wonderful produce coming through.

It really is a chef's period, where we love it.

-Love it. And for you, John?

-Love it.

Light spice, meze food, loads of rose, happy days.

Happy days! Our special guest today does have a spring in his step.

It's everyone's favourite judge from Strictly Come Dancing,

Craig Revel Horwood.

APPLAUSE

Spring jazz hands, darling! I wore this especially for you.

I thought your sofa was a little bit D-U-L-L, darling,

-so I decided to put a little pink in your spring.

-I'm loving it.

You should have been here the whole time. Maybe we'll keep bringing you back with that shirt.

-Not for this amount of money, darling!

-LAUGHTER

Are you a big food fan?

I am. I absolutely love food.

I love eating it, I love preparing it, cooking it, serving it,

-everything.

-Perfect. It should be a great show for you.

Michael, what are you cooking?

I'm going to cook a lovely roasted sea bass.

We are going to rub some Chinese five spice into that and roast it

skin side down with a lid on top.

Serve it with spiced lentils and a lovely fricassee of spring mushrooms.

Going to use mousseron and also St George mushrooms,

a little bit of concasse, some tarragon and chervil.

Sounds absolutely delicious. Can't wait to try that later on.

I'm going to be doing a recipe with pork.

I'm going to cook a pulled blade of pork with some tarragon

and lemon and a coleslaw made with walnut mayonnaise

and serve it in a pitta bread.

Perfect for a sunny Sunday afternoon.

My first recipe is using lots of spices

and John is going to tell us all about that in a minute.

-Craig, bring your lovely shirt and let's get cooking.

-Let's do it.

Sit yourself down. The crew have been looking forward to this recipe.

When we put the recipes together at the start of Spring Kitchen

this is the one they always look forward to, because it's

kind of a crossover between a kebab and a pie.

-A few of my favourite things!

-All rolled into one.

-At three o'clock in the morning.

-A kebab pie.

But it's using lamb mince.

Lamb mince, for me, is beautiful, but it's much underused.

Most people use beef mince.

This way it's going to create a kind of spicy, full-on flavour

and stuff it into...

We are going to do a pie made out of filo pastry.

Firstly we put the lamb mince into a tray

and we break it up a little bit.

Stick it in the oven and roast it.

We're going to roast it until it goes really, really dark.

So it's kind of almost nutty in flavour...

Stick it into a hot oven,

and this goes in for round about 25 minutes, maybe a little bit more.

When it comes out you end up with that - a nice, toasted, dark,

really nutty, really bitter.

It's a beautiful flavour.

And to go with it we are going to make kind of like a gravy,

with some stock.

It's got star anise in it and some toasted cumin seeds.

John, can you tell us a bit more about star anise and cumin?

Star anise is a beautiful starry shaped - obviously - spice.

And it adds a really light aniseed flavour.

So for spring, it's perfect and it'll go really well with this.

The toasted cumin is interesting because the toasting brings

out that flavour even more, that lovely nutty flavour.

So it'll come through in the mince and it will be delicious, I'm sure.

It goes very well with lamb.

That cumin flavour is absolutely delicious.

Craig, you're best known to us

as being one of the judges on Strictly Come Dancing.

And you've been there pretty much since the beginning.

Well, yes, from the beginning, actually. May 2004, bizarrely.

I remember getting the job.

I couldn't quite believe it and I thought,

"What do I know about anything

"to do with ballroom and Latin dancing?"

-Had you not done much of it?

-Not really.

I trained as a classical dancer

and then went into contemporary, jazz, tap and modern.

And it was because I was director of choreography in the West End

and happened to have a few accolades up my sleeve...

-An Olivier.

-An Olivier.

-A few accolades, OK.

One of the major ones!

They decided they wanted someone on the panel, I think,

with a completely different view,

and I think that's probably why I got the job.

I remember going in for the audition

and they showed me a tiny little screen,

and on that screen were two dancers dancing and they said,

"Just write a few things down while you're watching it,

"and then we'll come back for a response afterwards."

Well, they came back and I said, "Darling, please,

"that woman walking down the stairs can't walk, number one.

"Number two, the boy is completely bow-legged.

"I don't know where you dragged him up from, darling.

"The dance gutter, obviously." They said, "Do you think you could

"sum this up, darling, in three words?"

I don't think they said "darling".

I said, "Yes, I can - dull, dull, dull."

They were the first three words out of my mouth,

and the people I was looking at were Natasha Kaplinsky

and Brendan Cole, who went on to win the entire series!

So how wrong was I?

Len and I, I have to say, thought after a couple of weeks

that it would come off air because it was so bad.

And then it just got better and better

and more of the audience loved it, and here we are, ten years later,

in our 12th series and it's just incredible.

It's a huge, huge hit. Massive following.

-But, sadly, Bruce is leaving, isn't he?

-I know!

-And who is going to take over?

-Do you know?

-Yes, it's me.

-LAUGHTER

-No, it's not, really.

I would love Claudia to do it because I think her

and Tess do a fantastic job.

Also someone like Graham Norton would be good.

I think it's sort of cool having someone that doesn't know

-much about dance because...

-Do you know much about dance, Mike?

Well, I was going to give you the exclusive to say it was me! But...

It's not. No, it's not.

Sorry about that.

No, but I think Brucie did a fantastic job

and he's an absolute legend.

He is the last of a dying breed, and I think Strictly

was so lucky to have him for that many years.

-He is just amazing.

-Yeah. He's like a national treasure, isn't he?

Yeah, completely. Takes you back to Sunday nights at the Palladium.

I mean, he has the most incredible energy and verve for life.

And he tours theatres still, doing his tap dancing,

doing his singing doing his one-man shows.

-You do tours as well, don't you?

-I do, yeah.

I wrote a show called Strictly Confidential for Lisa Riley,

which went down last year very well. And that was great.

And now I'm doing P&O Cruise Lines, which sounds a bit odd.

But what happens is, there are two-week situations where the

passengers get on and then they can be the competitors.

So they learn to dance and...

-So this is Strictly Come Dancing on a cruise!

-On a cruise ship.

And it's hilarious.

And of course I go in for the final and judge them.

And are you as brutally honest as you...?

I'm even more honest because it's after 6.30 at night.

So I'm allowed to say what I think.

-Are you critical of food, by any chance?

-I am.

I'm getting a bit nervous.

Well, I left school at 15 and a half to become a chef.

That was my dream.

I was born in a town called Ballarat, in Victoria,

which is in Australia.

And I entered a cooking competition where you had to make up

the recipe, and that recipe was a jellied prawn cocktail,

which sounds horrendous, but it was actually sort of like

a prawn mousse, but I called it a jellied prawn cocktail.

And I entered the heat and won that

then I became the Victoria Junior Chef Of The Year.

And then I entered...

Represented Victoria in Australia Junior Chef Of The Year

and came runner-up in that. And so I thought I'd leave school.

I obviously have some wonderful talent for cooking.

And I left school to do an apprenticeship

and I absolutely hated it, every inch of it.

And that's largely due to the fact that

I had a terrible head chef who absolutely loathed and detested me.

And as you know, when you learn to become a chef

you're in at 6am doing all the prep

and you're the last one there at night, doing the desserts.

-But I still had a passion for it.

-Do you still cook at home?

Yeah, I absolutely love it.

And I entered, you know, the big old show...

-What's it called, darling? I've forgotten.

-MasterChef?

-Celebrity MasterChef.

-In 2007, and came runner-up in that.

-SIZZLING

-And that was, I think,

one of the biggest challenges I think I've ever had,

bar the Maestro thing I had to do,

when I had to conduct at the Royal Opera house. But I was so nervous.

Only because of the time you have to cook.

People at home probably don't know,

they probably think you get a bit of extra time, but in MasterChef

they literally pull the plug on your equipment and that is it.

If you have 30 minutes, it literally is 30 minutes.

And that drove me nuts.

I love being at home, glass of wine, have a sip, prepare something,

talk to your guests and enjoy your cooking.

But that was not enjoyable until I started going through

and becoming a bit more confident, is then I absolutely loved it.

And I can't tell you how much I've actually learnt about cooking.

Cooking is great. Let me recap what I've done here.

I have a very simple filo tart that's been cooked.

Layers of filo baked in an oven in a tart case with a little

bit of a weight in it.

The lamb - we've got the mince, some onion, some garlic, chilli,

little bit of the infused stock that has the flavours from

the toasted cumin and star anise poured on the top.

So this is kind of like the executive kebab state.

We have coriander and some mint gone through it.

We are just going to spoon this on top, so if you imagine...

That smells wildly wonderful.

A lot of that comes from the toasting of the lamb

in the first place, giving it a nutty flavour.

And then I've salted some cucumber,

and all that does is draw a bit of moisture out of it.

And then just going to drain it off.

We are going to mix that with a little bit of yoghurt

and then mix it with the spice, ras el hanout.

Do you know ras el hanout?

-No.

-Have a smell of that.

-Oh, yeah.

-John is going to tell us all about it.

-It's beautiful.

It's a Moroccan spice and it's a blend of loads of spices,

from cumin, cloves, to rose petals. It gives a really big flavour.

Just sprinkle a little bit in and it makes anything from fish

to rice to lamb to yoghurt, just wonderful.

Lots of people bring it back from holiday in North Africa,

-when they go to Tunisia.

-Stuff it in your bag and go.

-What does it mean?

-It means "top of the shop".

All the best bits thrown in to make something delicious.

We're just going to mix some mince and coriander through it,

and this gets spooned on top of the tart.

Guys, come on over, have a taste of this.

So you've got this lovely spicy lamb.

We've got forks and knives here. There we go, guys.

Get in and have a taste of that.

That's a very simple, lovely kind of lamb kebab tart...

-..pie...thing.

-Lamb kebab pie tart!

-Mmmm!

-Happy? Happy.

-Very happy. Crunchy pastry, delicious.

-Delicious. Yummy.

OK, in every show, we get out

and about visiting some of our favourite chefs on their home turf.

Today we join Tom Kitchin and his gorgeous family at home

in Edinburgh for a special recipe using new season asparagus.

Scotland has a larder that is the envy of the world.

And nothing demonstrates that better than spring.

And at the restaurant everything is changing -

the menu is changing, green, vibrant colours.

We even have a little map that allows the customers to

follow their produce around Scotland.

And at home as well, I like to keep it simple,

and spring gives me ingredients that I don't have do much to,

giving me a bit of family time.

My recipe on Spring Kitchen today, I'm doing a dish of asparagus.

Asparagus is the Holy Grail of spring vegetables. Chefs love it.

Six weeks of the year it's in season.

I'm going to do a poached egg with it as well.

I know some people find that a bit tricky but it doesn't have to be.

I going to serve the asparagus with shavings of raw asparagus

as well, which really makes it a celebration of asparagus.

And of course I've got commis chef one and commis chef two there,

so it'd better be good.

OK, first thing we've got to do it the mise en place.

Mise en place, in a professional sense, means the preparation.

So first we are going to prep the asparagus.

I always remove the woody bit at the end.

It's a bit woody, a bit stalky.

And then, with a small knife,

just carefully remove the point up to the tip.

And then bathe it in an ice bath.

That will bring all the green pigment, the chlorophyll,

right to the forefront of the vegetable.

So when we cook it it's going to look vibrant and green.

So I'm just go to make sure the eggs are ready to go.

A little tip - I'm going to crack two eggs into the same bowl.

They will naturally separate when they hit the boiling water.

Give it a nice dash of white wine vinegar.

I've got my chicken stock there. And I've got a pan with a lid on it.

A good quality pan,

because I want that lid to help with the cooking process as well.

Splash of oil in the pan.

That's hot.

SIZZLING And in with the asparagus.

Just roll it gently in the oil

and you'll see how green the asparagus comes.

A little dash of salt in with the asparagus

and then in with the chicken stock, OK?

And lid on.

Essentially, what we are trying to do here is trying to maximise

the flavour of the asparagus.

This is restaurant cooking at home, but it's very easy, guys.

As the asparagus is cooking there, a little knob of the dreaded butter.

And as the chicken stock reduces, the flavour of the asparagus will

come out as well, because eventually that's going to become the sauce.

That asparagus is going to take three to four minutes to cook

and the poached egg won't be far off that either.

So with the poached egg, we've got water boiling nicely there.

With a slotted spoon...

..turn the water to create a kind of whirlpool effect.

And in with the eggs.

And as the eggs hit the vinegary water,

hopefully they'll come out in a kind of teardrop shape.

Now we are getting to the critical point.

The asparagus is seconds away from being cooked.

And there's that poached egg.

Drain it...

Taking the asparagus with a very small knife...

just go into the thickest part of the asparagus,

checking there is no resistance.

The difference between raw and cooked is minuscule,

but that's what perfection is sometimes.

Take these asparagus out of the pan. Look at that.

We just have to reduce that a little bit.

Mmmm! Just asparagus. Little knob of butter. And a dash of olive oil.

And that really is just...

..the essence of asparagus.

But to really open that flavour up, I'm going to add a dash of vinegar.

Vinegar or lemon juice

sometimes can be the difference

between a good dish and not so good.

OK, let's take this over.

Look at that wonderful colour on the asparagus.

It's vibrant, it's green, it's cooked to perfection.

But this is a little bit that makes it just that little bit special -

just a little knob of butter to thicken it

and that vinegar at the end.

Poached egg on top.

All over... Mmm!

And then some very thin shavings of asparagus.

That lovely raw asparagus.

That's going to give wonderful texture as well to the dish.

A little twist of pepper.

So there we have it - seasonal asparagus with poached egg.

But seasonal asparagus with a sauce with a little bit of difference.

This is actually my first asparagus of the season,

so I'm genuinely excited about eating it.

Mmm! Nothing quite beats that first asparagus of the season.

Thank you very much, Tom.

That looked absolutely delicious - springtime asparagus. Brilliant.

Thank you. It's now time for somebody else to cook

and it is the great Michael Caines.

-What are you doing, chief?

-Tom, we've got a fantastic dish.

Lots to do. We are going to do this wonderful sea bass with lentils,

which I've already blanched.

If you could just prep the carrots I'll get on with the lentils.

That's quite important. These lentils have been blanched -

cold water up to the boil.

And we are putting that in the pan...

-These are puy lentils?

-Green lentils.

We've got peeled shallots,

we've got some garlic in there we're putting in.

We've got onions studded with some cloves

and a lovely little bouquet garni.

Normally, you would see this being cooked with lard.

I'm using cinnamon spice - lovely, fragrant long spice.

Important also to recognise that we don't always use cinnamon

just for sweet, we're using it for savoury too.

So, in goes your water. A little bit of chicken stock.

So that cloves and cinnamon,

as opposed to putting in a nice piece of bacon in there,

something that has been cured heavily in spices, like you do for

bacon, you're actually going to use the spice to infuse in the lentils.

Absolutely, and you get a lovely long flavour.

-Will that give it enough flavour?

-It's incredible, really, yeah.

You know, spice gives you lovely persistence on the palate.

What I want to do now is use another spice, Chinese five spice.

While he is explaining the Chinese five spice mix, you will see me

just cut, using a razor blade or a very sharp knife,

lacerate just the skin only. I'm going to rub that spice.

If you're going to use a razor blade, you have to be very careful.

Nice sharp knife. This is quick.

Tell us a little bit about Chinese five spice.

So, you're using quite a classic Chinese five spice, which is

just the five ingredients. We had a little debate earlier on

whether it had chilli in or not, but I don't think it does.

So it is cloves, Szechuan peppercorns, star anise,

-cinnamon and...

-It's either fennel seed or ground ginger.

-Ginger or fennel.

-Absolutely. So you've got anise spice in there, too.

I'm just going to season that with a little bit of salt and pepper.

What we're going to do is cook this skin side down. Just a bit of oil.

Does the spice mix get roasted first before you blend it,

or do you just use it?

You can, but this one is just applied as is,

and we're going to cook this skin side down.

But we're going to just tap it in a little bit of plain flour first.

Just remove that out the way. Careful with that.

Seasoning salt and pepper and then we're going to cook...

-What's the flour for?

-Flour is just to help it stop sticking,

and also to help crispen up the skin.

We're going to cook it in mainly unsalted butter with a dash of oil.

We want to heat it up to the hottest point, just before noisette.

And then we will add the fish skin side down.

Then we will add a little more, and put the lid on

so it cooks in the steam, but also roasts in the pan as well.

-So that's beautiful.

-So, straight into the pan with foaming butter.

Absolutely. Lid on, and then what I'll do is just wash my hands.

-You are using quite a lot of butter, you two.

-Quite a lot.

Quite a lot of butter!

You cook it in a beurre noisette, hazelnut brown butter,

-you leave it behind though. But you want the flavours.

-OK.

And of course that will roast.

The good thing about the lid is you get the steam on top.

Now, I'm going to make the fricassee while that's cooking.

When the lentils are cooked - they take about three hours -

we're just going to drain off these lentils and put them in a pan,

and we're going to add a knob of butter and then finish up with

some chopped parsley, Tom, which you're going to chop for me.

Already done, chef, all over it, all over it.

Right, so a little bit of butter,

and that is just going to emulsify with the starch.

And while we're doing that, I'm just going to prepare these mushrooms.

These are St George mushrooms, which are bang on in season right now.

Yes, St George mushrooms, we had them in a show last week.

We had them on St George's Day, funnily enough.

They are right in season about now, but they have a very short

time span, they are only around for two or three weeks.

They are, whereas mousseron, they are generally longer lasting

and, actually, if you know what you're looking for,

if you leave your garden to grow a little bit long in grass,

you will actually see it. For the fricassee,

we've got those wonderful chopped shallots you've done for me, Tom.

We're going to start off with just butter.

We're going to make an emulsification with the butter using just water.

A good thing about the... sauce is that we know we've got

80% liquid in the mushrooms themselves.

So, I'm just going to take your shallots...

Michael, if you can't get these kind of mushrooms - they are very

springy and now - is there anything you can use instead that would work?

Yes, absolutely.

Normal mushrooms that you get - I mean,

chestnut mushrooms or shiitake mushrooms are fine too.

The other thing to think about if you don't have that is, you know,

perhaps treat yourself to mushrooms that are in season,

girolles or pied bleu, pied de mouton.

Any kind of wild mushroom goes very well with sea bass.

Sea bass and mushrooms is great.

And what I like about this is you can see this steam just starting

to cook the other side.

The lentils I'm going to turn up now, just going to finish that.

I'm just going to check the seasoning.

So these lentils have soaked and then you've brought them

-up to the boil and then...

-No, I don't soak them.

I just literally put cold water up to the boil and we blanch them.

Then cook them very slowly. So you cook in all the flavour, Tom.

So as we cook with those aromatic vegetables,

we cook in all that flavour.

To finish, we're going to add your lovely chopped parsley,

-which we've got here.

-That's the parsley.

And we're going to let that come down.

And over here with the fricassee,

shallots just sweat with a pinch of salt.

We're going to add this mushroom mixture, which I love.

Mousseron are really musky, they've got a lovely smell.

If you put them in the fridge,

they make the fridge smell of mousseron mushroom.

They are amazing. So, Michael, you've been very busy at the moment.

-You've got a very cool new friend, haven't you?

-Yes, Samuel L Jackson.

Samuel L Jackson, just drop that in, he's just a cool new mate.

-Craig, do you want to join the club?

-I'd love to, darling, I'd love to.

Look forward to that.

No, Sam is doing a charity called One For The Boys,

and it's all about raising awareness for men's cancer.

So we're putting on a gig, and he actually asked me to ask you

if you would join us to do a massive launch later on in the year, Tom.

Absolutely. Anything to hang around with you and Samuel L Jackson.

That sounds like a cool thing to be doing.

No, it's great.

It's a great cause, and the good thing about it is it is teaching

men to be a bit more aware of the need to be conscious of the fact that

cancer kills more men than women because we are a bit ignorant to it.

So, lid on. The fish is almost cooked.

So that is frying on the bottom

and then steaming in those buttery juices.

And in here, just a bit of lemon juice,

and now we're going to add some butter.

I'm going to whisk that in, and I've got some chervil.

-Do you need the whisk, chef?

-Yes, please. Thank you.

You want the chervil and the tarragon.

So, you've got possibly a couple of the coolest

gigs going at the moment. You're working with Samuel L Jackson,

-and you're also doing the Monaco Grand Prix.

-Yes, it's a tough gig.

It's a tough gig being a chef from Devon!

It's heaven in Devon!

LAUGHTER

The thing about the Monaco Grand Prix

is I've been working with Williams F1.

This is our fourth season together, and we've been working on

the quality of the food for those wonderful VIP guests.

So I'm very lucky to be able to cook in the motor homes

during the European, or the flyaways at the back.

So, we're ready to go, Tom.

Just get back to this sea bass, which I'm really happy with.

-It smells wonderful.

-It looks fantastic.

-Are you a fan of sea bass, Craig?

-I am, I absolutely love fish.

Absolutely love it.

But I was just thinking, what was going through my head,

my mother actually hates mushrooms,

so what would you do in that situation?

I just wouldn't invite her round!

LAUGHTER

When are you going to be doing Strictly, my love?

You're mixing with all the fame and the glory.

Well, I would suggest, instead of doing it with mushrooms,

perhaps make a nice little red wine sauce instead, or use the lentils

and add a bit of liquid to that and make your sauce from the lentils.

You are avoiding my question. When are you going to be on Strictly?

-Yes, when are you doing Strictly, Michael?

-Is that an invite?

Well, I'm just saying, you're becoming very high up in the world.

You've noticed my footwork?

Next year, Michael is doing Strictly next year.

-That's an exclusive, Michael Caines is doing Strictly.

-That will be fun.

So, the lentils in the middle.

Just finish that with a little bit of butter, and spoon around.

A lovely fricassee.

Adding the tomatoes in at the last minute with the herbs.

Keep those herbs nice and fresh.

Tomatoes have a lovely acidity, don't they? They are great.

Where this dish is relatively rich, that acidity will cut through it.

Beautiful.

And I've cooked two pieces, but have a feel of that, lovely and crisp.

Nice, crispy skin.

Guys, come on over and have a little taste of the sea bass.

Maybe you can convince your mum, Craig. There we go.

Some knives and forks, get in there. Go and have a taste.

-Happy with the sauce.

-Happy with the sauce, happy with the sea bass.

Taste the spice, Craig, the Chinese five spice.

-It's quite a unique spice.

-The five spice is lovely.

-Gorgeous.

Gorgeous, OK.

So, while Craig eats this, we're going to take a trip into the BBC's

food back catalogue.

Today, we join Nigella Lawson

for a simple but spicy dish with squid, prawns and chilli.

Right, I have my squid and my prawns, I always keep a stash of them

in the deep freeze, and they are thawed and ready to go.

Always good to top up on parsley and obviously I'm after some marjoram.

Really sweet and delicate, but it won't be overwhelmed

by the chilli peppers or their gorgeous red grasp.

In a wok, or any big pan, really, put some oil.

And then let me amass my weapons.

I want garlic and I want lemon, and I need a grater. So.

In goes the chilli.

I might leave a bit to be sprinkled over the squid and prawns later.

Now, this - this I can't stop doing.

That is grating lemon zest into hot oil when I cook.

All the flavours, really, of lemon are in the zest, all the oils, and

they permeate the cooking oil, which in turn permeates the food it cooks.

And, what's more, it scents the room beautifully.

Beautiful.

Now, the garlic.

Not so beautiful to look at as that gorgeous yellow, but what a smell.

What a taste.

Chilli, lemon, garlic. These are my heavy hitters.

But I want some delicacy too. The herbs.

I've got marjoram, which I think of

as the softer-skinned cousin to oregano.

A slightly sweeter disposition.

You get more of an aniseed hint from the marjoram, actually.

Always good, in my book. Parsley as well, let's not neglect that.

A bit of iron, bit of vitamin C.

Fling some of this in the pan now.

So, we're moments away now, because this takes hardly any time to cook.

I've got my prawns.

Which I'm tempted to call shrimp, because it goes better with squid.

For me, this is absolutely a perfect girls' night in.

A good chat, a good supper and a bottle of rose wine.

Or, if I'm feeling macho, maybe some cold beer.

You don't need to use a wok.

After all, a wok is scarcely an Italian piece of equipment,

but I'm a messy cook, and it makes spillage less likely.

The lemon zest does really flavour everything,

but now it's the turn of the juice, and why I want this is because

I want a light but still fiery and zingy seafood gravy.

There is something about the drama of this - the pink coral prawns,

the white squid, with the red chilli and the green herbs...

..against this black rice. It's very, very easy to cook.

It's sturdy, so you don't have to fear overcooking it,

and all I do is put a cup of black rice in a pan,

cover it with a cup and a half of cold water and bring it to the boil.

Once it comes to the boil, I turn it down really low, clamp

on a lid, and leave it to cook until the rice has absorbed all the water.

I'm going to heap this seafood over the rice,

and I have to say, this is one of those suppers that probably -

in fact, definitely - takes longer to eat than to cook.

And I am a fast eater.

A bit more herbs.

The remaining bit of chilli.

I will put the rest of this crimson confetti in here.

As far as I'm concerned, we can crack open the wine and we're ready to eat.

We have squiddles.

Delicious, thank you. Rose. Thank you, that looks lovely.

I want to do my hair like this one day.

-Don't you think she looks divine?

-Gorgeous.

-Isn't he fantastic?

Thank you very much, Nigella.

OK, today, I'm going to be doing a recipe using a pulled blade of pork,

served in a pitta bread with a coleslaw and walnut mayonnaise.

Michael is here to give me a hand, and you can get cracking, chief.

You can do the mayonnaise using some walnut oil,

and we're going to do some toasted walnuts as well.

Now, pulled pork is very fashionable at the minute,

one of those American-style crossover dishes that is

making its way all the way through this country at the minute.

I'm going to get the marinade on for it.

What happens is you slow roast pork.

We're going to brine it first, then you slow roast it,

and then it gets mixed into this kind of mix I'm making here,

this kind of unctuous, luscious, gravy and syrupy thing going on.

So, we've got a bit of chicken stock, some white wine,

some white wine vinegar, a load of soft dark brown sugar.

Going to reduce that down with some honey.

-This is like a crazy, rich barbecue sauce.

-A crazy, rich barbecue sauce.

All those kind of barbecue flavours that are very fashionable now,

especially here in London,

are beginning to filter through to the rest of the country.

That understanding of barbecue is becoming a lot more,

rather than it being just sausages you put on a barbecue and burn.

-Coming from Australia...

-Oh, yes, very big.

We had barbecues for Christmas, barbecue for every celebration.

You can guarantee the weather, which is rather nice.

My sister made pulled pork, actually, when I was

in Australia just recently, and it was absolutely delicious.

And it is something you can prep in advance, which I think is perfect.

That is the thing, it's something you can do well in advance.

You haven't got to worry about it, and it just cooks away.

So, I've got some bay leaves,

and I'm just going to crush in the palm of my hand a bit of garlic.

We're going to leave that to reduce. Also, I'm going to make a brine.

The brine in this part is quite important.

What it does is it helps the pork maintain moisture and gives it

a right good seasoning and a really good flavour at the start.

So I'm going to use a 20% brine, which is 20% salt.

So 200g of salt to 1 litre of water.

We kind of... That's about a litre.

We bring it up to the boil and we do it with more bay leaves.

Bay leaves for me are beautiful, they go very well with pork,

very fragrant, very fresh. OK.

Into that, some star anise, more of that aniseed flavour going through.

And all those lovely flavours just get sucked in when you do the brine.

And some thyme, and also a bit more of the lemon zest.

That goes into the brine,

and what you do is you bring the brine up to the boil.

We are going to brine a blade of pork.

So, it's the shoulder blade of pork.

You ask your butcher for it like this, or, you can ask for the skin

removed and the bone taken out and then you can tie it up.

Once you've made your brine, you then...

..pour it over the top of your pork

and you leave it for 24 hours like this.

What that does is it permeates it with loads of lovely flavours,

loads of taste, and it also... keeps it nice and moist,

because now we are going to slow roast it.

I'm going to dry the pork off.

Just on a bit of kitchen roll.

Then we're going to roast it in the oven for about five hours,

four to five hours.

Just dry it off. OK.

Michael, can you chuck a couple of pitta breads on for me to toast?

That would be great.

Dry the pork off, a bit more tinfoil goes on the top,

and bake it in the oven. Now, Craig, Fiddler On The Roof!

Yes, that's on and it's in its last week. That is down in Eastbourne.

It's had amazing success and reviews all over the country

and it stars the Starsky & Hutch guy from...

Well, Starsky & Hutch!

Paul Michael Glaser. He is, I have to say, amazing.

And the bizarre thing is he was in the original film of course,

as Perchik. And now he has replaced Topol well and truly,

playing the part of Tevye.

And he's really made it his own. He is absolutely amazing.

But it is in its last week down in Eastbourne, as I say.

I'm going down there on Thursday night to have a

bit of a company soiree for our final fling.

And we're hoping that next year, because it's in its 50th year

on Broadway, we will go to Broadway.

So we will keep our fingers crossed there with that.

Hopefully it won't conflict with Strictly, but still.

That's the law of the land.

-Michael?

-Good.

We've toasted the pitta bread to the point of...

Well, I think we call them caramelised.

Yes, I think that's a nice way of looking at it.

-I'll put a fresh one on! OK.

-To perfection, of course?

-Burnt to perfection.

-So, pitta breads are toasting nicely.

Now, here is the pulled pork.

So, what happens is the pork goes into the oven wrapped in tinfoil.

It kind of steams itself and cooks itself for about four to five hours.

Then what you do is you get two forks and you just pull it apart,

so you shred all the meat, all the lovely fat with it

and all that flavour, and then we're going to just mix it

with a little bit of this sauce that we're making,

that kind of rich, sugary flavoured sauce and stock.

We're just going to add a little bit to it,

just to let it down so that it grows all those flavours.

Mix it all together.

So, again, this is the sort of thing you can have well ahead.

You can have a little pot of it actually sat on the barbecue

just staying warm. I'm going to open up this pitta bread.

Michael is making just a very simple, beautiful kind of coleslaw.

And will the walnuts just add a bit of extra crunch?

Just add a beautiful bit of extra crunch to everything.

It's a very simple coleslaw, it is onion, cabbage and carrot.

And then in that is a mayonnaise that Michael has made with

some walnut oil. And then toasted some walnuts as well.

So, you could, if you don't want to make your mayonnaise,

get a normal mayonnaise and then add the little bit of walnut oil to it.

Guys, if you want to come over, we are going to crack on

with this lovely pitta bread.

Michael, you sprinkle on a few walnuts.

-And then we just...

-Wow, that looks like a feast.

It's kind of a Sunday afternoon, sat in the garden,

couple of cold stubbies, as they call them in Australia.

-Too right, mate!

-A couple of cold stubbies.

My Australian accent has slightly gone after 25 years here!

-That looks incredible.

-There you go, guys.

Why don't you get in and have a little taste?

Pulled pork sandwich, very simple, very easy to do.

Just stay right ahead of it. Have a little taste.

It's actually quite sweet, isn't it?

Yes, that honey and that brown sugar all mixes very well.

You could grate a little bit of lemon zest on it,

a little bit of tarragon through it, it tastes delicious.

-That is wicked barbecue food as well. Delicious.

-Brilliant.

OK, everyone is very happy. That's all from us on Spring Kitchen.

A big thank you to Michael Caines, John Gregory-Smith

and Craig Revel Horwood. And of course Tom Kitchin up in Edinburgh.

All of today's recipes are available on the website.

Go to bbc.co.uk/springkitchen.

A big thank you for watching and I will see you next time. Take care.

Bye-bye.