Episode 4 Spring Kitchen with Tom Kerridge

It's springtime and we've got some great recipes

and guests to celebrate the new season. Welcome to Spring Kitchen.

Hello and welcome.

We have a great line-up of food and chat for you this afternoon.

We're heading to Padstow in Cornwall to join Jack Stein,

yes, that is Rick's son, who cooks up a special razor clam treat

with some early spring herbs, especially for us.

And his four-legged companion gets stuck in too!

Plus, we are dipping into the BBC archive for a pear

and almond tart from the lovely Lorraine Pascale.

Now, joining me in the studio is a chef who is a great friend of mine.

People call him the Yummy Brummy, I'm not so sure, it's Glynn Purnell.

-Hello. You all right?

-Not too bad.

As usual, we have a spring kitchen guest to tell us

about the glorious produce available at this time of year.

Today it's our very own green-fingered maestro,

Diarmuid Gavin. Hello to the two of you.

-You OK?

-A fantastic time of the year.

It is a fantastic time of year. We're very happy to be here.

Joining our spring table today is a British actor best known

for his role as PC Peter Noakes in the BBC drama, Call the Midwife.

-It's Ben Caplan. Hello.

-Hello.

-Welcome to the show.

-Thank you very much.

-Big food fan?

-I'm a big food fan.

I'm here to get some tips.

Plenty of tips from Glynn, I'm sure. What is your favourite thing?

Fan of chicken and fish, a bit of lamb. Experimenting with stuff.

-Trying new things.

-I know what is coming up.

A bit of fish and lamb is good.

Experimenting, there will be a couple of things

coming from Glynn's way you may not have seen before.

Glynn, tell us what you'll be doing?

We are going to poach some fish in coconut milk, turbot with chilli and lemon grass.

We will serve it with confit asparagus in salted butter

and serve it with frozen lettuce.

That looks amazing and incredible.

Later on, I'll be making a spring recipe using watercress.

I will make watercress soup using a soft pickled quail's egg

and garlic croutons to garnish it.

There it is. Bright green, lovely spring flavours.

Hopefully we'll get it the same as that.

-Looks fantastic.

-It looks great.

Diarmuid, you brought in lovely stuff for us today.

Things in the garden. Things that you are growing. What do we have here?

Incredible time of the year. The soil is heating up.

Everybody wants to have a go. Luckily, we had sunshine recently.

I brought a couple of unusual things that I'm sowing at the moment.

Radish rat's tails. They grow out of the ground.

You don't eat a bulbous root. They grow on a little stem.

-Can you eat the leaves?

-It's mainly, for the radish, funnily enough!

-OK.

Cucamelon, this incredible plant. It's only a tiny little thing there.

That will grow into a plant that produces little globe cucumbers

that taste like a melon.

They look like tiny little watermelons.

-But they are a cucumber.

-And they're delicious, as well.

Great taste of them.

We have strawberry spinach and a sunflower.

That will grow into a sunflower?

That will be all the way up there by the end of summer.

It looks like we have a way to go.

Something that is readily available now is wild garlic

and wild garlic leaves.

I will cook with that. We will make it into a pesto. Ben, come with me.

-Let's do a bit of cooking.

-Good luck, Ben!

First thing we'll be doing is wild garlic, some Jersey Royal potatoes and some lamb.

Lamb is fantastic. Perfect this time of year.

We have the new season lamb just beginning to come through.

First thing is we have three French trimmed lamb chops.

French trimmed means... What does it mean, Glynn?

It has turned all nice and posh.

-It's all nice and posh.

-They trim all the fat off it.

A lovely clean bone.

Beautiful clean meat with enough fat coverage to enjoy that flavour.

Straight into an episode of Game of Thrones, isn't it?

Meaty, gore, ribs.

Lamb is beautiful. This time of year, it is perfect.

French trimmed, there is a beautiful fat covering.

We will cook on the plancha here and render it out.

You can do it in a frying pan if you want.

Get a big metal thing, it draws the fats from the meat nicer.

We will caramelise it and cook the lamb nicely.

Hopefully, it will have plenty of time.

With that we will cut out these Jersey Royal potatoes.

Jersey Royal potatoes, for me, are this time of year,

absolutely perfect.

The thing about them is the soil they are grown in?

-Is that right?

-Wonderful fertile soil.

20 farmers in Jersey grow these potatoes discovered in the 1880s.

They feed it with seaweed. They get it from the beach.

They start some off to get very early potatoes under glass.

They are wonderful.

You can't grow them outside of Jersey and call them Jersey Royals.

-They are a distinctive flavour, I think.

-That comes from the soil.

-Are you a Jersey Royal fan, Ben?

-I certainly am.

-They are fantastic.

You are best-known as appearing in Call the Midwife. How is that going?

Yeah, great. Honoured to be part of such a successful show.

It's a wonderful show to shoot. We have a great cast.

-Great cast, fantastic cast.

-Really great cast. We have fun on set.

Really privileged to be part...

Miranda Hart, a big star, big part of the show.

-Is she that much fun to be around?

-Yes, she is that fun to be around.

We play husband and wife in the show. We have a lot of fun on set.

We also take the work really seriously. It's...

It was a big sort of jump for Miranda to move from

comedy into serious drama.

She's done that seamlessly, really.

We have respect for the show, the writing and the characters.

We do have fun, but we make sure when we are filming the dramatic scenes

we do kind of take the time to give it its respect.

-It has been a huge success, hasn't it?

-It has.

I mean, I think it has got something for everybody.

I meet people who say, I can sit down with my whole family

and watch the show rather than going into separate rooms

and watch different shows that don't appeal to everybody.

It has themes that everybody can relate to.

It's one of those old school classic shows that on Christmas Day

the whole family can watch it together.

It's lovely to know we are bringing families together again to

sit down and watch the telly on a Sunday evening.

What series are we filming now?

We finished filming series three at the end of last year.

That just aired on BBC One. We start with series four in a month's time.

What is currently going on right now?

I'm currently doing a new play. It's a

musical called Sunny Afternoon, it's about The Kinks.

Story of the band The Kinks, their rise to stardom from,

kind of, growing up in Muswell Hill and discovering the sounds, writing

the songs to becoming successful over in the UK and then touring America.

It, basically, it's got all their music and it tells their story.

-It is a musical?

-It is.

-Do you sing in it?

-I do.

-Are you a good singer?

Yeah, I can sing... I think! I can sing.

It's been a while since I have sung live on stage. In fact it's been

over 10 years since I sung.

I was nervous when I began.

-I'm sure.

-As well as singing we are playing instruments.

I'm playing the drums in quite a few numbers, acoustic guitars.

Multi-talented. Are you a big fan of The Kinks?

I used to pinch my dad's cassette and play it on my paper round

on my Walkman.

It used to get chewed up and we had to spin it back.

You have been there?

I have. I remember that.

It's a lot of fun to do.

We started previewing a week ago.

We are playing Hampstead Theatre

until the 24th May. It's a fun show to do.

A real buzz. The audiences are loving it.

Everyone knows the music, an added bonus.

There are a lot of songs people won't know.

As well as the famous songs, there are songs

I didn't know before we started work on the show.

I have become a massive fan of the lesser-known hits.

-It's a great show to be part of.

-What I've done here. The wild garlic.

-Are you a fan of wild garlic, boys?

-Yes.

-I thought it was spinach for a moment.

-It's wild garlic leaf.

Basically, I have picked, taken the leaf from it.

Then I've just blanched it quickly in some salted boiling water.

Then I've drained it, refreshed it.

I will squeeze it out in this clean cloth.

We'll just make a pesto with it.

-You blanch it because it's a strong flavour, isn't it?

-Absolutely.

It has a strong flavour, very pungent.

I have some toasted pine nuts.

Like you would make a normal pesto.

The nice toasted smell coming from the pine nuts.

-It's the leaves of the wild garlic that you are using?

-It is the leaves.

We will keep the flower. We can garnish with the flower.

Into this, like any normal pesto, we will put some Parmesan cheese,

which is absolutely fantastic.

Then we are also, I will turn this down, getting a little bit hot.

-How long did you cook the lamb for?

-The lamb has been in and out.

It's quite thin, there is a job...

If you did it as a rack you would cook it a bit longer.

Because it's chopped we cook it, colour it either side, take it off.

We will leave it for a minute or two to relax, chill out.

Then into this we just put some garlic,

some lemon and then I will pour in olive oil as we put it together.

A nice technique by grating the garlic.

The point of grating the garlic is it releases the oil a little bit.

Which is fantastic.

The oils are some of the most important stuff that comes

out of cooking.

I will turn the potatoes off.

These Jersey Royal potatoes have been blanched and cooked.

Then into the Jersey Royal pan I will pour a little bit of that pesto.

Coat them with it.

We are used to seeing new potatoes being served with maybe mint

or something like that.

-Instead of mint we are using wild garlic.

-Fantastic idea.

-Wild garlic.

-Come on, boys, have a little taste. Can you smell it?

-Smells fantastic.

I love the idea of using the wild garlic rather than mint.

We will come over with the lamb chops.

Knives and forks.

Grab me a small spoon, as well, Glynn.

We will put the lamb chops on the top. These have been seasoned.

We will dress it with a little bit of this.

Get in there, guys, get a knife and fork. Feel free.

We will garnish it with a little sprig of the wild garlic

flower as well.

-It tastes fantastic.

-Fantastic.

-It looks great. Very, very simple.

In you go, come on, guys, get in there.

-The wild garlic is in woodlands at the moment.

-Beautiful, isn't it?

-Yes.

-We have been treating you to special Spring Kitchen field trips.

This time we are heading to Padstow in Cornwall.

No, we are not visiting Rick Stein,

but his son Jack and his very misbehaving puppy, Bocca.

The wonderful thing about spring is you can

come out to this wonderful scenery here, even given this

non-spring-like weather we have we will find new season shoots

and herbs coming through.

We will find some on this farm to use later in a recipe.

BOCCA BARKS

Hey! Hey!

One of the young spring leaves is borage.

These are borage leaves that have over wintered. Quite unusual.

It has been a mild winter.

Even more unusual is to have borage flowers at this time of year.

They taste like cucumber really. It's the easiest way to describe them.

They really lend that freshness to any spring dish, which is delicious.

I will use them later in the dish I will be making.

As with any wild food you should consult a good guide book to

make sure you are doing it safely and within the law.

Ronald, have you got a hose pipe?

Here we have a selection of the new spring shoots coming through.

Here we have mustard frills.

They have a mild mustard flavour.

A little bit of shiso, a Japanese herb, very hot, very pungent.

Similar taste with nasturtium leaves.

A great favourite of ours, goes beautifully with lamb.

But what I really want is this borage.

I'm going to combine that simply with butter

and the most fantastic razor clams.

So delicious and just singing of spring.

We are back from our rather blustery spring walk out on the farm.

Bocca has been put outside for the time being.

The best place for him while we go through my Spring Kitchen dish,

which I'm really excited to show you.

We have some of the herbs here which we will turn into a spring

herb compound butter to complement these wonderful razor clams.

These come from the estuary down from the restaurant.

As a child I thought they were only caught in spring

because we used to catch them on a spring tide.

Now I know a spring tide is a big tide when the beds are exposed.

To go with that we will very lightly pickle some shallots,

a few pine nuts for texture

and these wonderful over-wintered borage flowers for some garnish.

The first thing is

make the compound butter. That's a chef-y term for mixing butter with

something you want to put in a dish later on.

In here I have the borage, chives, curly parsley and chervil.

I'm going to blanch these in some boiling water.

20 seconds maximum.

Straight into some ice water just to cool them down to prevent them

from going brown and keep the vibrant spring green colour.

I'm going to pass the water off

and pop that into the mixer and add some unsalted butter.

Blitz that.

So now it starts to homogenise and become a lovely green colour.

Add a bit of lemon juice for acidity and season it with salt.

The reason I use unsalted butter then add salt so it, sometimes pre-salted

butter can crystallise and not give you smooth butter when you finish.

Now I'm going to use some clingfilm to wrap the compound butter up

and let it chill.

You can use any variation of herbs.

I used the borage because it was so young and fresh.

I'll roll that into like a sausage or ballotine as chefs like to call it.

Then just tie that off.

Put it the fridge for a minimum of an hour but overnight preferably

so it gets nice and hard and is easy to work with.

OK, the next element I'm going to do is the pickled shallot.

I like having a really lightly pickled element on any dish.

It cuts through some of the richness of the butter

and gives a different taste sensation.

All I'm going to do is a very few small roundels, shallots.

Cut them anyway you fancy. I do this cos it looks nice, I suppose.

Pickling is a great technique, simple to do. Basically using some vinegar.

We've got some cider vinegar.

Then equal quantities of sugar and salt.

Then you can add whatever herbs or spices you like.

Here, I've put some thyme, star anise, some juniper berries

and black peppercorns.

All I'm going to do is I'll pop it on the heat and bring it to the boil.

The moment it's boiling, take it off. Dead simple.

No need for a long pickling or putting it in Kilner jars,

it's just to get the small hint of acidity that's going to add

an extra element to the dish.

So now that is up to the boil, take it off the heat and let it sit.

You can use them straightaway or in half an hour. It's up to you.

Now on to the razor clams.

To start with I'll pop them in a pan with a tiny bit of boiling water.

Let them steam in there for about three minutes with the lid on.

That is them done. Still a bit undercooked.

Just cooked hard enough to be able to get out of the shell.

Pop them on to the board.

Now I'm going to take them out the shell and then going to pan-fry these briefly. Some vegetable oil.

A lot of shellfish, when you fry it, scallops, oysters, mussels, if you

fry the flesh, you get this beautiful brown, almost caramel note coming out of them.

As with any fish, lay it away from you

so you don't get any fat coming back to hit you.

Tiny bit of sea salt. Quickly flip it over to the opposite side.

For as little time as possible.

I'm going to bring them over to the board to lightly prep them.

Razor clams have a few areas that aren't so nice to eat,

so this bit at the end, we like to take that bit off.

Then in the middle is a stomach area, a brown sack area, remove that bit.

Slice the rest of the body up.

Tiny bit of salt just to finish.

Now, we'll start to put the butter back into the shells which

I've already cleaned.

So now I'm going to lay the fried pieces of razor clam

into the shell on top of that butter.

Then flash them through the oven to combine it.

The smell of hot shells has an ozone-y, seaside nature

and there is a multisensory element to something that's basic.

I'm going to pop them into a very hot oven to melt the butter

and warm the flesh through.

The butter's started to melt. You get a lovely aroma of the shell.

To finish them, I'm just going to pop some of these pickled shallots.

And then these toasted pine nuts for a bit of texture.

Finish it off with these wonderful over wintered borage flowers

to give a fresh cucumber note at the end.

There we have my razor clams with young spring vegetable

compound butter and some lovely borage.

A real celebratory dish,

I urge you to do it at home because it's beautiful.

Absolutely stunning, beautiful food. Thanks, Jack.

I'm not sure about how stunning the dog was!

Poor thing.

Right, it's down to Glynn to cook for us.

What are you going to make for us today?

Turbot, poached in coconut milk which is different but classical

by cooking it in milk.

I've put a Brummy fusion on it, fusion without confusion!

-If you want to crack on with some asparagus for me.

-I'm doing some asparagus.

We are going to cook that in pure salted butter.

-I like the sound of that.

-This is shown to me by a chef who is

my mentor, Claude Bosi, and he taught me

how to cook things without using water. So cooking

things in butter so the asparagus will keep its full flavour.

-A very classic French way of cooking it?

-I think so, yes.

To cook French classic asparagus with a very Brummy influenced turbot dish.

So we are taking the one filet off.

-Poaching it in...

-coconut milk.

-..coconut milk.

-Take that off and the skin off.

Serving it with?

We're going to serve it with the asparagus. Put lemon balm in there

for a bit of citrus.

We're going to serve it with frozen spring lettuce.

-Frozen lettuce?

-Frozen lettuce.

-Dust it with a bit of icing sugar.

-Best thing you can do to lettuce!

Are you not a big lettuce fan?

I grow lettuce cos it's so easy to grow.

You are showing off. "It's just so easy."

I can't grow a house plant!

Six weeks and you have a lovely crop of lettuce

but I can't stand eating it.

It tastes of nothing to me. Char grilling or freezing is good.

What are you doing freezing lettuce?

Talk us through it, Glynn, and the point of it?

Why are you freezing lettuce?

-Because it's 80-odd % water roughly.

-87.53.

87.53. I knew Dermot was here for a reason. That is absolutely perfect.

-That much butter?

-Completely submerged in butter.

Fish has been dropped in. We need to put a bit of lemon grass on that.

Split it or bash it. Just to release the flavour.

This is a complete mix of flavours that

I wouldn't normally put together, me personally.

The idea of using lemon grass and chilli and then coconut

and then asparagus.

-Then freezing lettuce!

-What do you want me to do with this lettuce?

You can play catch with Diarmuid with it or you can cut it into nice

pieces for me.

That's it. We're going to dust that with a bit of icing sugar.

-Sorry?

-Dust that with icing sugar.

Are you listening to this?

Have you ever heard anything like this before,

lettuce frozen with icing sugar?

-I haven't.

-So dust that and freeze it.

It's going to give you an explosion of juiciness that's

going to cut through the milk of the coconut to go with the rich fish

and it's just spring.

Look at all the greenness.

I'm frightened to get it on my Roger Federer T-shirt.

You do look like you have turned up for a tennis match.

-Bit early for Wimbledon yet!

-Talking about strawberries over there!

-Strawberry spinach.

-Dust that on there, Tom.

You whack that in the freezer.

-So iceberg lettuce, something called ice lettuce?

-Yes.

-Which is?

Which is lettuce with droplets of water, which are blistered,

which are delicious and we serve them at the restaurants.

It's got little knobbles on and tastes delicious.

-Comes out from the freezer like that?

-Yes. I'll turn that fish over.

Couple of minutes on the fish.

Tell me what is going on with you at the minute then?

What's going on at Purnell's?

It's nearly seven years old now.

Did you have a lot of hair before you opened?

I was fully lush, fully curly.

Looked a bit like Diarmuid.

I'm becoming more like yourself!

Yes, we have been open nine years, this is what happens!

I've only got two to go.

Purnell's, seven years.

-Got a book coming out on 22nd May.

-Exciting.

-It's called

Cracking Yolks and Pig Tails.

That's a great title. Glad I gave it to you.

Thank you, Tom.

Basically it's stories about the kitchen,

recipes in there and things that happened to me when I was a comis.

Story about you, as well, Tom. I won't talk about it. Let people buy it.

-I'm sure it's very complimentary.

-Of course it is.

We can start dressing the dish now.

So get rid of that for me.

-Get rid of this?

-Chuck it off for us.

-I'll move the board.

Get it completely out of the way.

Then basically, the asparagus, which is nearly there.

Asparagus this time of year, perfect.

Perfect. Yes, spring is here, asparagus has a short season.

People think it's around for ever but it's not.

Fantastic Evesham asparagus which is not far from myself.

-Midlands good for that sort of thing?

-Fantastic for that.

Although people don't think we've got the sun, we do!

This fish is poached.

Season that with a bit of salt and then a bit of powdered

ginger which you just dust over the top.

Maybe a little squeeze of lemon.

These are all very Asian kind of flavours then going with

Evesham asparagus and frozen iceberg lettuce.

-A complete mix of a fusion of the Midlands?

-Of the Midlands.

So we've got some asparagus which we'll put on here.

-Big asparagus fan, guys?

-Yes.

-Come up and have a little try.

You can see this, it's been cooked perfectly in butter and salt

and I can't think of a better way of cooking things.

-Can you grab a bit of the watercress.

-Big fan of watercress.

-Yes.

-A bit of the coconut milk.

-You are using the coconut milk as a sauce.

Then we've got our frozen lettuce. We are going to put that on.

There we are.

Very green, very spring-like, makes it feel like summer's here.

Root vegetables have gone

and everything coming out of the ground is all green.

-It's all green now, chef!

-Knives and forks.

Knives and forks, guys.

A very refreshing looking plate. But the sugar...

Try this frozen lettuce.

-There we go.

-Thank you.

-Get in there. Get eating there.

Let me know what you think of the frozen lettuce with icing sugar,

especially you, Diarmuid because you are not a big fan.

Easy to grow, not a fan of eating it.

The asparagus is delicious.

-The flavour really comes through.

-Try the fish, as well.

-Lovely.

Difference in flavours and tastes and textures, completely different?

-Something new? Something you would try at home?

-Absolutely, yes.

The best bit of cooking that, freezing a bit of lettuce, love it.

We're going to carry on with this and while we do that you can

take a dip into the BBC food archive and join the lovely

Lorraine Pascale, making a beautiful pear and almond tart.

'Now for a gorgeously simple pudding,

'that's become an every day classic in my kitchen.

'It's ideal for making at the start of the week and tucking into it

'whenever you fancy a treat.'

Thank you.

Look at that.

Perfectly ripe pear which I'm going to use in my next dish which is

great for every day or for when mates come round.

So, this next recipe is for my pear, almond

and amaretto tart with lemon and stem ginger mascarpone cream.

You wouldn't think that a recipe with all those ingredients is easy

but it really is.

It starts with pastry.

'You could use ready-made, but my sweet short crust pastry is

'so simple.'

You'll need 125g of butter, 275g of plain flour, sugar,

ground almonds, pinch of salt and one egg.

Then blend into a soft dough.

Wrap the pastry in clingfilm and put in the fridge for half an hour,

until firm.

Roll out into a rectangle, on a floured surface. Place into the tin.

And slice off any excess pastry.

I like to crimp the edges using the

handle of a wooden spoon for a professional looking finish.

Then leave in the fridge for 30 minutes or so to firm up.

Now, I will make the filling. It starts with 100 grams of soft butter.

100 grams of caster sugar. 100 grams of ground almonds.

And three tablespoons of flour. Just plain flour.

This is a frangipane, an almond filling used in French patisserie and cakes

and other bakes.

It is ridiculous easy to make.

Bung everything in a bowl and mix it together.

And now some amaretto.

It's an almond-flavour liqueur.

It is rather tasty. Just a splash.

Then, grab a spoon and mix it all together.

That's ready to go into the pastry.

Right, this is lovely and firm.

I will fill it with the frangipane mix.

I like to use a palate knife.

But you can use the back of a big spoon,

to just spread it right into those corners.

It doesn't have to be perfectly level, but just make sure that

it's spread over and covering the base of the pastry.

Take three ripe conference pears.

Peel, halve and de-core.

You know, you can use tinned pears for this as well.

But, if you use really firm pears, then even though it

bakes for 45 minutes in the oven, they won't soften.

That's all the pears in. Now it goes into the oven.

And now the lemon and stem ginger mascarpone cream.

You need 250 grams of mascarpone cheese.

50 grams of icing sugar.

And then stem ginger. Chop it up as finely as you can.

You know, you can use fresh ginger and grate it in too.

Fresh ginger will give a slightly stronger taste.

This taste is much softer.

And then vanilla.

Just a pinch of lemon zest.

That should do it. Then just mix it all together.

Now the thing with mascarpone, if you over mix it,

it becomes really grainy.

Just mix it with as few stirs as is needed

to make sure everything is combined.

Let's get that gorgeous golden tart out of the oven.

This just gets a little finishing touch.

I just think that looks so beautiful.

Thank you very much, Lorraine.

Absolutely love pear and almond tart.

-You can't beat it. Frangipane, juicy pear. Brilliant.

-Beautiful.

Throughout this series we are showcasing some real key seasonal

spring ingredients that are at their absolute best at this time of year.

Today, I'm going to do watercress soup

with soft pickled quail eggs and garlic croutons.

Glynn, I need you to give me a hand. You can crack on with the

garlic croutons. Also, some pickled quail's eggs.

I'll get the lads started with them.

I'm going to start by making the pickle mix.

Which is equal parts of water and vinegar and caster sugar.

I will put it into a pan and bring up to a boil.

It is making a kind of sweet pickle to go with the eggs.

Are you a big fan of pickled eggs?

Not as such but I'm intrigued by this.

This seems a little bit more interesting than the ones that

sit on the chip shop shelf for three months.

That is what it's inspired by. I love chip shop pickled eggs.

These seem more delicate so I'm intrigued to see how they turn out.

Are you a pickled egg fan?

-Never had a pickled egg.

-They are posh, they are quail eggs.

We have some water coming up to the boil.

Glynn, you need to cook and peel the quail eggs for me.

I'm going to cook them and I've got a surprise for some people over there.

They will peel them and see how far they get.

Ever peeled a quail egg before?

You are today.

A little tip whenever boiling eggs.

Sometimes when you drop them into the water they crack

and they blister out the sides.

If you put a towel in and then put the eggs in,

the tissue will stop them bouncing on the bottom of the pan.

-The outside skin won't crack and you will be all right.

-Yep.

Into a pan I will put onion, celery and rosemary.

I'm going to make what chefs call a nage.

It's a stock really. A posh stock.

Vinegar and sugar has come up to the boil, almost.

In it I've got some fennel seeds, some coriander seeds

and white peppercorns.

These are the flavourings that are going to go through that pickle.

Little bit similar to Jack Stein's one.

Pickling is fantastic. I'm a big fan of pickling stuff.

It's something we do very, very well in this country.

That acidity as well. We like vinegar.

-We like it on our chips and eggs.

-We do.

It goes a long way. Into that, grated garlic. That goes in there.

Then this has come up to the boil.

We will keep this pickle mix to one side.

Make sure the sugar is dissolved.

We will put a frying pan on for you, Glynn.

You can do some croutons in that.

-You want garlic as well with this.

-Garlic croutons.

You have the garlic on there and the grater. I have garlic in here.

A little bit of water. I'm going to bring this to the boil.

This is a basic vegetable stock. I mean as chefs we call it a nage.

You call it a stock, no bother. Into that, this is the watercress.

-Big watercress fans?

-Watercress is a funny one for gardeners.

People don't realise you can grow it yourself in water.

A lot of people feel you have to have a fast running stream.

It will grow very well there.

If you keep soil very, very moist you can grow it.

It's difficult to store, to ship around the place, to get to shops.

We are only, us gardeners, getting use to it as an alternative veg.

It does break down very quickly.

-As chefs we have to get it in on ice blocks. Comes in almost frozen.

-Yes.

It has a beautiful peppery flavour. It creates a fantastic colour.

It's brilliant for this soup.

Here I have the nage.

Which is the celery, some onions, some rosemary, garlic.

I will put the watercress stalks in and infuse it to make a stock

that comes back like this.

It has a watercress flavoured stock.

Quite bitter, peppery, all the flavours we want.

-Do you have to use a huge amount to get stock from that?

-This is the problem

when using green leaf kind of things.

You always have to do spinach, wild garlic, like earlier,

when it goes into water, when you cook it, it breaks down a lot.

Now, for the soup I have here boiling salted water.

I'm going to put...

-Are you all right there, guys?

-I've dropped the eggs over there.

They are there sitting doing nothing. Let us utilise these young men.

Are we talking too much? Is this to shut us up?

Cook the quail eggs for two minutes.

-Look at the concentration on their little faces.

-Brilliant.

How to keep two naughty boys quiet. Give them quail eggs to peel.

They were cooked for two minutes.

Into ice water.

What's happening is they will peel the outside of the egg.

Hopefully, we will end up with a perfectly little quail egg.

The challenge is are we going to get one?

If we can get one by the end of doing this recipe, it's a bonus.

The watercress, just like the wild garlic earlier, I blanched it.

It is going into ice water to stop the cooking.

What it does is it also keeps the colour.

We are looking for a beautiful, vibrant green coloured soup here.

Do you know what the Anglo-Saxons and the Romans used to say

-about watercress?

-I have an idea. I know what you are about to tell me.

Obviously, you haven't been eating a lot of it.

I am a big fan of it but I probably haven't eaten enough.

-Is there a reason for this?

-It's good at preventing hair loss.

-It's a cure for hair loss!

-Get some down you.

I will need more than that.

It's not a cure, it's preventative.

A preventative.

Like closing the gate once the bull's bolted.

I can't put it on my head and use it like a wig?

You'd look like Diarmuid now, wouldn't you!

I will squeeze out the watercress.

What I've done, in this sauce pan here, I have used this stage...

This nage, this stock.

That's a cross between stock and nage.

I used it to cook some potato and onion.

Like the base of any soup is potato and onion, pretty much.

-What I will do...

-Do you like shell on your eggs?

No, I don't like shell on my egg.

If that is the way it comes today, we will go with it. Don't worry.

-You want some diced apple, as well?

-I want diced apple as well.

Into this I will pour some of the potato

and onions that's been cooked in the nage.

Add it to the blanched watercress.

I will put the lid on, make a lot of noise,

hopefully not a lot of mess.

Not on my white shirt, you won't!

You turn up looking like Roger Federer.

I'd hate for you to take your lovely white shirt home looking green.

We've got this blending.

It will turn lovely and green.

Bit of diced apple can go into the bottom of the bowl, Glynn.

-Croutons, do you want them tipped out?

-We are almost ready on those.

-How are we getting on with the eggs?

-Have you got one?

-Bring it over now.

Let us have a look at it. We will have a look at the egg.

-Bring them over. Come on, guys.

-It's a competition.

We've got this beautiful soup.

A pinch of salt. Where is the salt?

-You have two.

-There are three there!

That is incredible. We have got...

Thank you very much, chef. We have the pickled eggs.

You can put them into the pickle mix we have here to one side.

Drop them in there.

If you leave them in there for an hour you end up with pickled

eggs, the apple, we will pour the soup into the bowl.

Look at that colour. How green is that?

That's with blanching it first.

The Granny Smith apple in there gives a lovely acidity to the dish.

A little bit of the watercress oil that we made earlier.

That is just...

Blended, just like the soup.

Some of that. A pinch of that on the top.

-Wow.

-We have spoons. Get in there and taste it.

Make sure you get the apple from the bottom.

Have a try at the pickled egg. Get a go of the pickled egg.

It's not quite like the chip shop egg.

-Fantastic.

-Happy?

-Delicious.

-Taste nice?

-An explosion of yolk as well.

-Beautiful.

-The vibrant green is fantastic.

The apple goes so well.

That is all from us on today's Spring Kitchen.

Thanks to Glynn Purnell, Ben Caplan, Diarmuid Gavin

and of course Jack Stein.

All of today's recipes are on the website.

Please o to bbc.co.uk/springkitchen. Thanks for watching.

We will see you next time. Bye-bye. See you later, guys.