Letter V The A to Z of TV Cooking

This is the show where we bring together

the nation's top TV chefs and, letter by letter,

serve up some of their greatest ever dishes.

It's as easy as A, B, C on The A To Z Of TV Cooking.

Today, we're looking at things linked to the letter V

and here's just some of what we've got on the menu.

Those Hairy Bikers have some vital tips on venison...

It's lean, it's flavoursome,

but you've got to be careful how to cook it.

..Ainsley Harriott has some vibrant vegetable rostis...

They look so good. You just want to get stuck into it, don't you?

OK, here we go.

..and Sophie Dahl's adding to a classic Victoria sponge.

With an orange buttercream icing oozing with home-made raspberry jam.

So, let's get things going with a bang,

cos our first V is for vindaloo.

Goa's most famous export is now on virtually every restaurant menu

in the UK, but this authentic dish couldn't taste more different

to its British cousin.

The main dish, the vindaloo.

When I say vindaloo to you, what does it mean?

-It means hot!

-It means hot. Does it mean anything else?

Er, just one of the hottest curries.

If you talk to a Goan in Goa today, they will say,

"Yes, use eight red chillies and ten Kashmiri red chillies,"

cos they want that really deep, rich colour.

Translated here it just became a really hot dish, but it shouldn't be.

Like any dish, it should have as much heat as you want to eat.

Chilli is just there to bring out flavours

-and to give it some heat, which is pleasant.

-Mm-hm.

-This is going to be one of those dishes.

-OK, cool.

-Five black peppercorns...

-OK.

..two green cardamom pods, a couple of cloves,

-if you put these in the spice grinder...

-Yes, sure.

..and a teaspoon of coriander and a teaspoon of cumin seeds,

the cinnamon...

..and that's pretty much all the spice that's going in it, so

-it's not so spicy, it should just be enough to flavour your meat.

-Yeah.

'Although the Goans have staked claim to the vindaloo,

'the dish is thought to have originated from Portuguese sailors

'who preserved pork for their journey to India in garlic and vinegar.'

Yeah, that's perfect.

-This dish is mainly characterised by the vinegar.

-Right.

A lot of the Portuguese and Goan dishes do have vinegar, but a lot of

the pre-Portuguese dishes would have been soured with tamarind.

Vinegar was used by the Portuguese to preserve meat,

not only on the ships, but also in India's hot climate.

Today, it's used extensively by Goan Christians in their cooking.

The sour flavouring gives a tangy and tart kick to meat and fish dishes.

The two most common vinegars used in Goan food are

white wine and palm vinegar.

-Is it called vindaloo cos of the vinegar?

-Yeah, I mean, there's been

so much speculation as to what vindaloo really stands for, so a lot

of Indian restaurants put potatoes in it because "aloo" means potatoes.

-Right.

-I think the thought now is that "vin" was from vinegar.

-Yep.

-And "aloo" is from garlic.

-Right.

Cos I think it's similar to the Portuguese word for garlic and,

yes, this dish definitely has a lot of garlic,

but because it cooks down for 45 minutes,

-it's not at all garlicky, it's just really beautiful and rounded.

-OK.

To make the paste for the vindaloo,

we're using seven cloves of garlic and a generous helping of ginger.

How many chillies? Bearing in mind,

I'm not trying to make it a spicy dish...

-I think we should make it really hot.

-No, I refuse. Three?

-Yeah, three sounds good.

-You know what? I'm leaving the seeds in,

since you want the heat.

Next, I'm adding three tablespoons of white wine vinegar.

'I'm mixing this paste into the chopped pork along with

'the freshly ground spices.

'And a little bit of salt to season.

'If you've got time, you can leave this to

'marinate for a couple of hours, but it's fine to cook straightaway.'

-So far...

-Right.

-..simple.

-Yes.

-OK.

Now...

you want to start searing the meat a little bit,

just gently, just take your time. The masala starts to get cooked,

the meat starts to brown a little bit and you can see already

-there's a bit of water in there.

-Yeah.

And it'll just get more.

-It smells really good, don't it?

-It does already, actually.

It's just the garlic hitting the pan, the ginger and the spices.

When you cook it, it just gets...

deeper and fuller and richer.

-That's done.

-OK.

'Cover the pan and leave to cook for about 45 minutes.

'This will allow the pork to stew in its own juices.

'If it does dry out, you can always add a splash of water.'

-Looks good, don't it?

-It's done.

It's amazing what you start with and what you end up with.

This has just become a really beautiful sauce, now

-that is our traditional vindaloo pretty much done.

-Right.

'But I want to make this dish extra special,

'so I'm going to fry some mustard seeds...'

We just have to wait until they spit, isn't it?

-Talk to us!

-Yeah, exactly, yeah.

THEY CRACKLE

'..along with some cashew nuts.'

-It's looking good.

-That smells lovely.

-OK, and we're done.

-That does smell really good, that.

-Pork vindaloo.

-You want to have a try?

-I think so, yeah.

-OK. It's hot.

-That is too good.

-Yeah?

-That is really, really good.

Anything like the vindaloos you're used to?

No. That's got much like a... It's almost a richer taste.

-It's that garlic you were worried about.

-Yeah, I thought it was going

to blow my head off as well, but that's really nice.

And we've kept the spices really mild and the flavour of the pork.

It's just got really like a nice flavour.

This is going to be the piece de resistance of that table.

It has to blow their socks off.

She won't believe I've cooked it, if it's anything like that.

Your vindaloo's going to be exactly like that.

I have faith.

Can I have some more?

Next, V for venison, a meat that not enough people are familiar with

according to another one of my favourite Vs - Valentine Warner.

I first tried venison in my early teens

and fell in love with it from the very first bite.

I now cook with it a lot.

There's so much that can be done with it in the kitchen,

it can produce so many varied and delicious dishes,

but what I don't understand is, that with such a readily available

and sustainable source of meat, why we're nervous of it, why we approach

it any more differently than the everyday meats that we're used to?

-Do you know what venison is?

-No.

Honestly, I think of it like it's kind of a bit gamey

and a bit rich and...

-Yeah.

-..I don't know...

like it belongs in a Tudor banquet. I don't know!

The perception I get is it's probably eaten by

the Prince of Wales and his royal circle.

Many of you view venison as a rich man's food,

hunted and eaten by the upper classes.

Well, it certainly used to be

and it's easy to see why we still think this way

when our most visible deer still live in deer parks like this one.

I'm at historic Burghley House,

which has a long association with fallow deer.

I've come to visit Miranda Rock, whose family has lived in this

extraordinary house since the times of Elizabeth I.

'Back then, hunting was the favourite sport and

'every self-respecting estate had to have a deer park

'in case important guests dropped in.'

Looking at all the ferocious faces staring down at me,

do you think that many of these people enjoyed a good plate of

venison and looked a bit more cheery when they'd finished it?

I think he would have done. That's Henry VIII.

Yes, he had an appetite, didn't he?

'Deer were first introduced to Burghley in the late 16th century

'and the herd has been an important part of the landscape ever since,

'as seen in this rare 18th century picture.'

What have we got here?

We've got a lovely drawing of the park at Burghley

before Capability Brown made the changes here.

-So, we're kind of over here.

-Exactly.

-And here's that Great-Uncle Bob...

SHE LAUGHS

-Um...

-Up a tree.

-Up a tree.

It's a bit of a dead cert, isn't it? This poor stag.

Well, it looks like he's missed all of them, actually.

The others are running away. It's funny.

That really does kind of give a really clear idea...

of what might have been going on.

'And venison would have featured regularly on the menu,

'cooked up for hungry hunting parties in this magnificent Tudor kitchen.'

-Here we are - the Tudor kitchen.

-Oh, my goodness me.

Wow-ee.

What I wouldn't give to come back in time and...

just this bustling kitchen with hierarchy

and everyone doing a job and urgency and fat and smoke and...

-Oh, fabulous and the noise, the smell...

-Yeah.

-Everything.

Well, maybe we should make a plan to do a...

to do a dinner one day that honours the deer

and get everything fired up and come and do ten deer dishes.

-A deer tasting menu.

-That would be fun, wouldn't it?

A hoof and tongue evening.

-I'll skip the hoof!

-OK.

The deer at Burghley are no longer hunted for sport,

but limited space makes it necessary to manage their numbers every

once in a while and the venison is fed back into the food chain

via local markets, restaurants and butchers.

So, Valentine's made the case for venison and here to show us

how to cook it are the Hairy Bikers.

'Nowadays, you don't have to be a member of the Royal family

'with six wives to enjoy some venison, the most majestic of meats.

'We're diving back into The Best Of British Kitchen to rustle up

'a feast fit for a king...well, on a 21st century budget.'

Isn't that beautiful? Look at the colour of that meat.

It's lean, it's flavoursome,

but you've got to be careful how to cook it.

That's because it's lean. Anyway, game on!

HE GROANS What?!

We're going to make...

a venison dish which is truly for princes, kings, paupers alike.

-It is, it is.

-A venison cobbler.

-Oh, you see? You see that mix?

-Royal meat, cobbler, common as muck.

-Aye.

-Oh, ho!

Now, what is a venison cobbler?

-It's a stew that's kind of got like savoury scones on the top.

-Yes.

And the scones come together like cobbles, but it's rather like,

-you know how a dumpling gets the nice bits, the gravy...

-Yes.

-Cobbler's the same, it soaks up from underneath.

-Right.

First off, we've got to make basically a venison casserole,

but a blooming good one.

Now, this dish, you could substitute for shoulder of lamb,

-stewing steak...

-You could.

-Either would work perfectly well,

but then it wouldn't be a venison cobbler.

No, it'd be something else then, you know.

Right, I'll tell you what I need. I need two onions...

and a carrot.

And I need a pan, some oil, and celery.

And we're back to that old chestnut - the Mirro pot.

Yes, it's the basis of all things lovely.

So, all I'm going to do is prepare these onions in a way that

we've prepared many thousands of onions before us.

We're going to take the skin off and we're going to slice them, all right?

The sunflower oil goes in a pan.

Two sticks of celery.

Put that in to fry.

-There's nothing more noble when you see deer, is there?

-Oh, no.

It's just such a beautiful animal and there's lots of different types,

isn't there? There's fallow deer, which is good for meat.

There's roe deer, which is good for meat.

There's red deer, which is good for meat.

But my favourite is the tasty little one - the muntjac.

Oh, yes, the little fella.

Chunky carrots...

Now, we just cook this gently for about ten minutes,

until the onion is soft and...

to that I add two tablespoons of flour

and one teaspoonful of English mustard.

And the flour sticks to the onions

and that's going to be our thickening agent.

The next thing...

is 500mls...

-of beer.

-That's a pint in old money, near enough.

-Ooh, that's thick.

-Isn't it?

And then we add 250mls of water

and we'll bring that back to the boil and then we'll add the venison.

Look at that.

Now, in goes this lovely cubed...

bit of venison.

Look at how rich the colour of that meat is. Look at that - fabulous.

-That'll be full of iron, that.

-Absolutely. We'll give it a stir.

Two tablespoons of chopped thyme are added to the pot.

Pop that in.

And it's just the leaves, not the stalks,

cos we're not going to strain this.

What goes in will end up on your plate.

And then we add two bay leaves, just crumpled.

And then some redcurrant jelly.

Once that jelly's dissolved, we put that into a casserole dish,

put that into an oven, preheat it at 160 degrees Celsius for a fan oven

and leave it there to moulder for, well, about two hours, really.

-Yeah, near enough, two hours, yeah.

-Two and a half if you want.

-Yeah.

As long as you turn it down, leave it for three.

As long as it doesn't go dry, you'll be all right.

The longer you leave it, the tenderer it's going to be.

Oh! How lovely is that?

Now, we hope that does cook down a bit or else

there's no room for our cobbles!

Right. Beautiful.

Beautiful. Lovely job.

-Pepper.

-Thank you.

-Salt.

-Thank you.

-And we use lemon juice,

about a good tablespoon of lemon juice.

We frighten with the old pepper.

Ah!

Let it in.

-Perfect.

-The lemon juice sharpens it up nicely.

Have a taste?

-It sharpens it up all right.

-Good.

Time to get cobbling.

Into a food processor put in self-raising flour.

Think a cobble is like making a scone.

It has to rise.

The baking powder in the flour will enable this to happen.

Some salt goes into this. About a teaspoon.

Some butter and whizz just the crumbs.

Now, I'm not going to make the dough in the processor,

because I feel, using the milk, it's quite a soft dough,

it would actually just...well, it'd just go to mush,

so just whizz this to a crumb-like form.

The pulse is better because if you just...let it go.

It could just go terribly...

sort of smeary.

I mean, there's not much butter to the flour on this one, it's

not like when you're making pastry where there's a lot of butter.

Et voila!

Put the flour, butter and salt mixture into Granny's bowl.

Every house used to have one of these, didn't it?

-Yes, they did, yes. We still have.

-Yeah.

Ours was used for everything from hotpot to baking bread...

to soaking me mother's feet.

Everything was done in that bowl. Right. Add milk.

And just form a dough. This can be quite rustic.

Ooh, woo-woo!

-Oh, no!

-It's all measured.

Oh, ho, ho, ho!

That's it. Lovely.

Little Mr Sifter.

Ho-ho! Lucky!

-Sack the juggler!

-Ho-ho! Wait a minute. Are you ready?

-We're not here in Downton Abbey.

-Phew!

Just roll it out. Now, we're aiming for quite chunky cobblers,

so just start cutting them out. A little cookie cutter...

Little chunky cobblers.

You get about a dozen.

-There you are - look at that!

-They're lovely.

-Isn't it sweet?

HE HUMS

Then pack the cobblers tightly round the edge of the stew.

And they're going to rise up...

-..like a scone.

-Shall I get another one in?

-Oh, aye.

Can you get one...? Aw!

-Just.

-Well done.

-Right. Now then.

What I want to do is just brush the top of each cobbler.

A little bit of egg.

And they're going to have a lovely finish on them when they rise.

And it's lovely if you're doing this for a dinner party,

you can cook the venison part of it the day before,

let it go cold and just set the cobblers onto the top,

onto the cold dish and then bake it off.

It really doesn't matter.

Now this...goes into the oven.

-Topless.

-160 degrees Celsius...

for 30 minutes till your cobblers are brown

and your stew's reduced a bit.

Ah!

That's got to be ready, mate.

Ready?

Ah!

A beautiful thing.

Look at that.

-That is a triumph.

-It is, isn't it?

Those little cobblers have swollen up a treat.

-Beautiful.

-And that's reduced nicely, actually...

It has...which will intensify the flavour

-and, in due course, give you greater satisfaction.

-Indeed.

-Indeed.

-Shall we have a dibble?

-Should we? Let's have a dabble-dibble. Oh, yes!

HE EXHALES

This would be lovely, say, with mashed potatoes and runner beans...

-Oh!

-..British runners, now...

-It's the cobbler I've got to go for, isn't it?

-Yeah.

-Oh, listen to them, man.

-Yeah, they're light.

Look at that - one fork and in pieces.

HE BLOWS

Mmm.

Mmm-mmm!

Good? Oh!

That venison - look at that, it's just...it's falling apart.

-Oh, man! It's good, innit?

-Mm-hm!

We should eat more venison, you know.

It's very plentiful, it's very sustainable

and it's as free-range as you like.

I mean, you never get a battery deer, do you?

No. Whoa!

And, you know, when you get tired of dumplings...

-make yourself a cobbler.

-Oh!

Now that is wonderful. Great British game -

-cannot whack it.

-Aye.

MUSIC: "(I'm Always Touched) By Your Presence Dear" by Blondie

# I am still in touch with your presence, dear

# Dear, dear, dear, dear. #

So, we've spent a lot of time on meat so far

and it's time to bring in the big V for vegetables,

and here's a little veggie selection starting off with Nigel Slater.

'As the autumn draws in, what you can grow in your garden

'becomes a little limited, but there are some vegetables that will

'survive the cooler, darker months, that also make a cosy meal.'

You know when the evenings start to draw in and the weather gets

a bit damp, what I really look for in my suppers is a bit of sweetness.

And when I'm talking about vegetables,

the sweetest of them all is some sort of squash.

It doesn't matter whether it's a great big golden pumpkin,

a little acorn squash or a butternut, it's just that golden flesh

that turns really sugary when it's cooked in the oven.

Tonight's winter warmer is Stuffed Squash.

Slice your squash in half and spoon out the seeds.

It takes quite a lot of heat to get right down into

a thick bit of squash, so I score them...

..which means that the heat can get right down into the fibres.

I'm going to roast these with a little bit of butter.

I could use olive oil, but there is something right about

pumpkin and butter.

It just works.

A little bit of salt and pepper.

And then that can go straight into the oven.

'Roast them for a good hour. In the meantime, start your stuffing.

'The base is a couple of big strong onions.'

And I've tried everything, and I mean everything...

to prevent me from crying.

And there's just nothing.

I've done some very sensible sounding things

and I've done some really daft ones,

real old wives' tales that you're just glad there's no-one else

in the room when you do it, but nothing works.

Put the lid on so that they cook very softly and very gently.

With the sweetness in the dish, I want something to balance it.

I'm going to put in...

..just a few spicy things, nothing hot to blow your socks off,

just something that kind of...

welcomes you in from a cold, wet day. Just a little bit of gentle ginger.

I'm going to keep these pieces quite big, like matchsticks,

so that when you eat the sweetness of the pumpkin

and the sweetness of the onions,

and then you've got these little blasts of citrusy hot ginger...

Cinnamon's always welcome with pumpkin.

Any members of the squash family,

whether it's a butternut like these...

or a good old-fashioned, big, orange pumpkin,

cinnamon always works beautifully.

And a bit of cumin for the earthiness and then just...

..a little bit of smokiness...

..from some paprika.

Throw in a handful of sultanas for a sweet, fruity zing.

And then that...

..goes into my squash.

This is kind of autumn day cooking, sweet and buttery.

A little bit spicy and, every now and again,

you get that little hit of ginger when you're eating it.

This is the sort of thing I want to eat with a glass of

very, very nice red wine.

Something quite soft and velvety.

And I'll pop that in for a little while.

'Pop it all into the oven for a further 10 to 15 minutes

'for the juices to trickle through the squash.'

You know, this smells sumptuous.

It's sweet...

..it's savoury, it's spicy...

..and I must have some of those golden juices,

bright golden food for a dark evening.

Don't forget to score the squash first - this helps it cook evenly,

and to produce that golden toasty appearance and taste.

Thanks, Nigel. Now for a Parisian take on vegetables.

Let's get some salad recipes from Rachel Khoo.

Carrot salad, celeriac and apple salad doesn't sound very exciting,

but, actually, sometimes the simplest ingredients can be the tastiest.

Crudites, raw vegetables like peppers, cucumbers and,

of course, there's carrot salad, is a menu staple in French bistros.

It's not all heavy sauces and stews.

This idea...comes from seeing carrot salad everywhere.

The French are a bit obsessed with carrot salad.

It's the simplicity which I think the Parisians enjoy the most.

Top and tail your carrots, then slice them into matchsticks on a mandolin.

You can also make this salad with courgette or baby turnip.

That looks pretty beautiful, and...

..pretty crunchy too.

Put your carrots to one side,

then get on with the delicious vinaigrette.

This one starts with lemon.

Give it a little squash and a roll, helps with the juices.

I'm using sunflower oil.

What you're looking for is an oil which doesn't taste of anything.

Five tablespoons.

'Using a neutral oil will help the sweet flavour of the carrot

'shine through your citrus dressing.'

For the salt,

I think it's really important to use good quality salt. A bit of pepper.

Yes!

You want it to have a little zing to it. Pour it all over. Mix it in.

Quality control.

Finishing touch is a bit of parsley.

You want to finely chop the parsley...

..sprinkle it over, give it a mix around.

Et voila! There's your carrot salad.

So fresh, it's crunchy...

Just looking at it you feel healthier,

so forget about going to the gym, just eat a bowl of this.

All right, ready to go on salad two.

I've got the ugliest vegetable ever...

..celeriac.

Yes, it doesn't look that great, but I'm going to do a bit

of a vegetable makeover and make it into a fantastic tasting dish.

I need a quarter, it's about 250g for this salad.

Begin by chopping off the rough skin.

If you've never tasted celeriac before,

then...in terms of flavour, it's very similar to celery,

but, unlike celery, it doesn't have that watery taste.

I'm going to chop this up into more manageable pieces.

'Celeriac also has a much milder flavour than celery.'

OK, now let's make the vinaigrette.

You need some lovely grainy mustard.

I'm using a heaped teaspoon of Moutarde de Meaux, whose seeds

haven't been fully ground, but any wholegrain mustard will be fine.

Add five tablespoons of sunflower oil.

White wine vinegar.

Actually, I think I had rose wine in this as well.

It's kind of a bit pink. Two tablespoons...

'Add a little sugar, a pinch of salt and black pepper.'

Give it a good mix.

Yum. Good.

My salad...

'Mix in the dressing and grab the final ingredient - an apple.'

'Use one that's tart enough to contrast well

'with the mildness of the celeriac.'

No! I failed!

What does that mean? I bet in some culture it means, um...

I'll never get married or something like that.

'The apple and celeriac will discolour

'if you don't mix it with the dressing quickly.'

That's the apple done.

Whack it in your bowl.

Mix in the ingredients and that's your salad. Have a little taste...

It tastes pretty good.

Simple, healthy and delicious.

Serve it as a side dish with a sandwich or with your steak.

Next up is Ainsley with his pea and courgette rosti.

Look at this. I've got some really delicious fresh peas here,

along with my courgette, which just kind of reminds me of summer

and that's inspired me for my next dish.

That's a fresh pea, courgette and Parmesan rosti

with a nice tangy tomato dressing.

Podding's one of those strange things, isn't it?

It feels like it's going to be one of those jobs that's going to

go on for ever and ever and ever, but, whoa,

it really brings all the family together.

I sat round with my brother or sister,

sometimes there was aunts or uncles there - people just podding peas!

And it was a great way of having conversation.

I put my peas into boiling water, which gives me

just enough time to shred the courgette and squeeze in a tea towel.

That's it. We want to make them nice and...dry.

So, when you cook your rostis,

they're going to be lovely and crispy and crunchy.

Peas and courgettes go into a large mixing bowl.

Ground rice,

toasted pine nuts,

and freshly grated Parmesan are added to the mix.

Then use two eggs to bind the ingredients.

And I'm going to get my hands in there now.

I'm just going to work that through.

Look at those peas. Don't they look wonderful?

And you could use frozen peas here,

now there's nothing wrong with frozen peas.

Don't think I'm having a go at you, saying,

"Hey, you can't use frozen peas."

Because, let's face it, you know,

fresh peas are only in season up until about September

and that's pushing it, to be perfectly honest with you,

but, you know, frozen peas are great

and often it's one of the few ways that we have of getting

vitamin C into our kids and then there's the orange juice

and stuff like that, but kids tend to like peas as a vegetable.

Fresh or frozen, this dish is all about the pea.

Let the rice flour absorb any liquid, then add the basil.

Then it's time for the real fun.

A little bit of a squash down with the palm of your hand.

I'm using the palette knife just to kind of shape them,

to bind them, pull them together.

The peas tend to kind of fall away, and if you go,

"Oh, it's all going to collapse!" - that won't happen.

Once it hits the pan, that egg begins to set

and that crispiness of the lovely ground rice begins to,

sort of, cook out and it's just absolutely fab.

Not too hot here, there's a tendency, you know,

when you're making things likes rostis,

you turn up the pan just a little bit too much and it'll brown before

it actually starts to cook, so just at a nice controlled heat, all right?

And then we can talk about

getting a little bit of colour with them afterwards.

Now, there's a tendency that we tend to overload our pan a little bit,

so don't do that, and when you take them out,

just put them on some absorbent kitchen paper,

keep them warm in the oven, but you're going to eat them

quite quickly anyway and they're not too bad even at warm,

to be honest with you. Really nice.

It doesn't take long for the rostis to turn a golden brown,

with the green peas shining through.

Now, it's time to work on the tomato dressing.

To plum and sun-dried tomatoes, I'm adding some olive oil,

shallots, and a dash of Mike's pea pod wine.

If you haven't got pea podded wine, don't worry.

A bit of red wine vinegar, a tablespoon of that,

or two, would be absolutely fine.

'You can serve them individually,

'but I like to stack them in a tower, then drizzle on my lovely

'tomato dressing and finish with some fresh, chopped basil.'

Wonderful.

They look so good. You just want to get stuck into it, don't you?

OK, here we go.

A pea rosti, then, that's OK.

The fresh peas, they just burst in your mouth,

it really, really is exciting.

Now, there's a little bit of ground rice in there just holds it together,

gives it another dimension, another bit of a sort of texture,

if you like, and we've got that tangy tomato dressing that just

lifts everything, just brings those peas out beautifully.

You've got to try it.

We should be proud of our peas.

Staying with veg, this is V for vichyssoise,

a chilled vegetable soup.

Here to demonstrate are the Two Fat Ladies,

who find themselves in a kitchen by the sea.

Now, I thought it would be nice to take for the picnic some Thermoses

full of really cold iced soup and I'm going to make a vichyssoise.

Everyone thinks it's French.

Well, it's French in a way, but it was made in America,

originally, but by a French cook.

And what we've got to do...

..is slice the leeks.

We only want the white part of the leek,

because this is a very white soup, but don't waste the greens.

If you wash them and chop them up nicely,

and fry them in butter and oil with old, cold potatoes,

they make a sort of form of bubble and squeak, and they're very good.

Now, what we will do is put a good lump of butter in

and we stir that around till it's melted.

Isn't it lovely being in a lighthouse? I adore it.

I'm a little Grace Darling at heart.

-Huh!

-I'm waiting to rescue...

..the stranded ships coming over the bay.

I think I have maybe more the wrecker in my soul, really.

-We can wreck as well.

-Can we?

-Oh, yes, on holidays.

Right, the butter is melted.

I've put in the leeks first.

Now, I'm just stirring the leeks into the butter and what I want them

to do is just soften a bit, but I don't want them to go brown at all.

We want everything white.

Now we can add in the potatoes.

We want them to soften a bit also.

It's the most glorious view across the bay, isn't it?

It's absolutely splendid. You would dive in for your afternoon swim.

-Like a Samoan?

-That's right.

-400ft down into the depths.

And I'd throw you silver pennies off the top.

I remember doing that coming back in the boat from China.

It was somewhere like...

-Not Portside, somewhere...

-Mandalay?

# On the road to Mandalay!

# Where the flying fishes play

# And the dawn comes up like thunder... #

-Something?

-# Out of China across the bay. #

You could say sort of across Colwyn Bay.

Stirring. Stirring times for stirring songs for stirring soup.

Now, we've got this...

starting...

to get along. We're going to add some stock...

..or water. Water's perfectly all right if you haven't got good stock.

What you want is really a light chicken stock, not too strong,

but if you haven't got it, use water, not cubes - they leave a nasty taste.

We've got about two pints here suitable for this amount

of leeks and potatoes.

Sea salt.

Now, that's all mixed together and I'm going to let it boil for

40 minutes because I want everything to be very soft before I whizz it.

Now, I've cooled this down enough to start doing the whizzing,

cos I don't want to do anything terrible with this object.

Terrible things with the kitchen vibrator, Jennifer?

I don't want to spatter everything in boiling hot liquid.

I want to make it into the thinnest possible puree, I mean,

smooth, smooth, smooth.

No lumps.

There. That should do it.

Do you like those things instead of a Mouli mixer or a...?

Well, they're terribly useful.

I actually like a blender, but a blender will only take

a certain amount and this is easier to wash up, of course.

Now then, it's all nice and smooth and what we've got to do is

really chill it well, at least six hours, or overnight is even better.

Actually, it's not a bad idea to chill the bowls you're going to

serve it in, but I don't expect we'll have them in the picnic.

Then you add some chilled cream cos you don't want the temperature

to go up again, a nice amount of cream,

and then taste it for seasoning and have a good grinding of black pepper.

And then, right at the end, snip chives all over the top

and it's very charming, it's white with these green specks.

You can, of course, eat it hot, but I wouldn't.

-It's much nicer cold, I think.

-I agree.

-Yeah.

SEAGULLS CALL

Are you eating that one, Gwyn, are you? Oh!

CHATTERING

Creme Vichyssoise Glacee - very refreshing on a hot summer's day!

Now, pudding time!

And here, with a V for Victoria sponge is Sophie Dahl,

but what's she putting in it?

I've decided to make a Victoria sponge

with an orange buttercream icing, oozing with home-made raspberry jam.

So, we're going to start with the sponge

and we want 225g of caster sugar.

Cake-making is a total science.

Got to be accurate, got to get measurements right,

the creativity bit can be had with what you ice it with,

what you put in the middle, but the actually basic recipe -

science. 225g of butter...

I actually used to hate making cakes

because my cakes were always rather rock-like...

but...

I think the thing is with baking is that you accept that

it's a science, but also practice.

SHE SIGHS

So, you've got your creamed butter and sugar.

To that, you're going to add an equal amount of flour.

So, 225 of self-raising flour.

Into that mix, I'm going to add the zest of one orange

and that's what makes it a sponge with a bit of a difference.

It's the sort of thing you could make for someone else's homecoming.

What more to remind them of home and England?

You want four eggs.

And...

in order to keep the sponge light and fluffy,

you're going to whisk the eggs.

Back to the mixer.

So, you've got this lovely smooth orangey mix.

A word to the wise for sponge baking -

don't go to all the effort of creaming everything to then

put it into an unprepared pan, take it out of the oven,

and by then it's all stuck to the sides.

It makes your life much easier if you grease and flour your cake tins.

Into the oven, 180, and you want it to go in for 25 to 30 minutes.

You want it to be golden on the top.

MUSIC: "Golden Brown" by The Stranglers

So, because this is an because extra-special cake

for an extra-special occasion homecoming,

I'm going to make a home-made raspberry jam.

It's very, very easy. 300g of raspberries...

The orange that I zested...

..add the juice and

a good tablespoon of golden caster sugar.

So, the good thing about this jam, it really takes care of itself.

We're going to just give the raspberries a bit of a squash.

Cook it down till it's jammy!

So, while that's doing its thing, I'm going to get on with my buttercream.

Again, lovely and easy to remember. 250g of icing sugar. Ooh!

SHE LAUGHS

That's what happens every time I do it and then I get a lung full.

Hoo!

250g of butter.

And I'm going to start the blender

and then add the juice of half an orange and you want this on a low,

so that explosive icing sugar doesn't cover you.

That's our syrupy, sticky jam.

Zest...one orange.

This is the tarting up bit, this is the lipstick on the cake.

You've got your basic formula

and now is the time where you can afford to have a bit of fun with it.

So, you could do the same thing with lemons, coffee, chocolate.

Time to get the cakes.

Hurrah!

A trick of telling whether a sponge is ready - it's spongy,

it's springy to the touch, and it's golden on the outside.

Or, still not sure, insert a skewer - if it comes out clean, they're done.

So, I'm just going to leave these to cool down

and then it will be time to ice.

MUSIC: "Wonderful Life" by Black

# ..and hide, it's a wonderful, wonderful life

# No need to laugh and cry... #

So, we've reached the end of today's A To Z Of TV Cooking.

Thanks again to all our amazing chefs and I hope you feel inspired.

Make sure you join me next time for more delicious food. See you soon.