Letter C The A to Z of TV Cooking

Fantastic ingredients, delicious dishes, and some of the nation's favourite TV chefs.

Get ready for a gourmet's greatest hits,

because this is The A-Z of TV Cooking.

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

But we start today with C for chicken

and it's Nigel Slater giving his chicken the spicy treatment.

When the weather gets cooler, my cooking gets a little bit spicier.

I don't mean really hot. I mean just a lovely, earthy warmth.

And for that I use the mild spices.

And I could add them straight to the pot.

But sometimes, if I've got a little bit more time, I like to give

the spices a chance to get to know the ingredients that they are with.

So I make a little spice rub.

You can use this spice rub in many dishes

but tonight it's the basis of a Moroccan-style chicken casserole.

To start off, crush a few cloves of garlic in a mortar and pestle,

and add some salt to help get a grip on the garlic.

When you've got a nice, squidgy mass of garlic and salt,

then I can put in a few spices, like a little bit of paprika.

This has got quite a smoky flavour to it.

The most earthy of them all, turmeric.

These are not hot flavourings at all.

What they add is just a warm back note.

And a little bit of cumin seed.

So that I can rub my paste into the chicken,

I'm going to add a little bit of oil.

It can be olive, it can be groundnut, it can be whatever's around.

You can experiment with the different spices to suit your own taste.

Just make sure the mixture is runny enough to pour,

but thick enough to coat the chicken.

That literally all gets mixed together. I love this bit.

For a deep flavour, leave your chicken in the fridge overnight.

But if you are in a rush, just let it sit for as long as you can.

This is quite cool-weather food, so it needs a little bit of depth to it.

And there's no better way to introduce sweet depth to your cooking

than with some onions.

Throw the onions into the pan and then add your marinated chicken.

To bring some freshness into this dish,

add some thinly sliced lemon halves.

Keep them thin and the lemon will take on a sweetness.

You could add some stock,

but I'm just using water to create an uncomplicated sauce.

And that'll be fine as it is.

But I feel like just being a little bit extravagant and putting

in one of my favourite spices which is a little bit of saffron.

Saffron adds warmth.

A little bit of salt. A little bit more black pepper.

Leave it all to simmer for about 15 minutes.

That's got a kind of North African scent to it with the lemons

and the spices.

So to contrast with that, I'm going to add some salty olives

and some fresh coriander.

That's what I want to come home to

on quite a cool day.

Something earthy and sweet and a little bit spicy.

Use chicken on the bone as the meat will stay moist and succulent.

Now here's Ching-He Huang with her great-looking chilli crab.

I cook this crab for about seven minutes, and I'm going to cook this

with some gorgeous noodles for the ceilidh tonight.

Now, this is still quite hot to handle but I'm going to cook or make

the sauce actually first,

so for that I've got a few

tablespoons of ketchup, and it is surprising to use ketchup but it's

this delicious sweetness that I want, so it's going to be spicy,

it's going to be savoury, it's going to have this gorgeous sweetness, and also gives great colour as well.

Put that into a bowl of water to dilute. Add some light soy sauce.

Some sugar.

And some cornflour to thicken.

And give that a good stir.

Now, for the crab,

all I want to do now to prepare it is just take the claws off.

They come off quite easily.

OK.

And this bit is the tail of the crab so we just snap that bit off

because it's not very tasty. There's no meat there.

In case the juices of the crab splat everywhere,

I've got a tea towel.

Just place that over like that. And then I just want to...

..chop it down the middle in half.

And then we've got bits of the body like so, and the other half.

All I want to do now is just get rid of this bit.

This has got the gills and lungs of the crab

and there's a bit of the brown meat as well, cos that's the brains.

And so this is what we want to discard.

And then the other bit that you need to make sure you get rid of is this,

what's called the dead man's fingers.

And that's not edible.

And on this one as well.

And then I need a hot wok.

Crack the crab claws but leave the meat in the claws.

Roughly chop a chilli...

The wok is nice and hot.

A little bit of oil. You can use groundnut oil or vegetable oil.

Into the oiled hot wok, with ginger, garlic and chillies.

And the crab.

Keep stirring to avoid it catching and burning.

The crab is already cooked so won't need long in the wok.

Fantastic. I can get all the garlic and the ginger and the chilli.

Smells amazing.

Add the tomatoey sauce prepared earlier.

Roughly chop some greens, spring onions, and coriander.

Add some lime juice for a bit of a zing.

Then some precooked noodles.

In with the noodles...

A good handful or two.

And then give that a good stir.

Make sure that the delicious sauce just coats all the noodles

and the crab, and then add in the coriander and the spring onions.

In China, we have a whole plate of a dish like this and just really get stuck in.

Mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm! Mmm!

It's fiery, it's sweet.

The freshness really comes through with the crab but again,

the crab absorbs all those wonderful flavours and it just works so well.

It's fantastic.

OK, it's ready to serve.

And now it's time for salad, and the Cs in this recipe are for celery

and its close relation, the celeriac.

Let's see what Jamie Oliver makes of these two.

I'm going to knock up a couple of salads.

I reckon this one's pretty unusual really.

Celery.

And like, I think people look at celery slightly the wrong way around

cos most people think like, this is the stuff that's the best, yeah?

I use these stalky bits for like, stews, base for risottos,

in stocks, washed with cheese and grapes and that malarkey.

And then when I get down to this, this stuff is like the best thing in the world for salads

and what you have to do is I trim it off about there

and like, pick out... See all those lovely yellow leaves?

They are really fantastic. You don't want the green ones though.

-So lose the green ones.

-Why's that? They're bitter?

-Yeah. Absolutely.

Seen too much sunlight.

So what I do is just get your peeler and peel the outside.

That's all the stringiness, yeah?

And inside there, they're all little baby ones,

so they're not stringy at all.

And once you've lost that, you can peel the base.

Just keep peeling it until it goes clean and white.

And it's that lovely white bit that is the best bit. That's fantastic.

Just slice up the end, as normal.

Down to about there, yeah?

And then what I do is I turn it around and slice it lengthways,

so slice it a bit and get on a flat edge.

And just slice it as thin as you can, really.

Get it in the old bowl.

Right? And then these leaves, you can cut up quite...chunky.

Yeah? They're just beautiful, right.

So the next thing to do is celeriac. Same family.

Different kettle of fish though. Tastes completely different.

And I just take the ends off that and just slice the skin off.

You can use a peeler,

but the skin's quite thick and it's quicker this way anyway.

This is fantastic in salads because it's quite crunchy, quite fresh.

So what you do is you get on a flat edge again

and slice it really thinly. That's the key really.

You want it to be really nice and thin, so then it's really crunchy.

But if you're a bit worried about slicing it,

just get the peeler and sort of just...peel it.

It's probably easier actually. A lot of people don't really use peelers.

They only use them for peeling the old carrots and turnips

and stuff like that and they're quite good for like,

Parmesan shavings or for like, salads like this.

But listen, that's all done.

And you just want to kind of get that in there.

I've got some nice parsley, which is flat leaf parsley,

which I think is brilliant in salads.

I'd get rid of the horrible stalky bits, right?

But kind of leave the delicate stalky bits, nice thin ones.

I just sort of chop those fine.

-What's the difference between the flat leaf parsley and the curly stuff?

-I don't know.

I've gone off curly parsley

because it always seems to attract more grit

and you have to wash it so much more

and I don't think the taste is quite as fragrant and delicate,

so flat leaf parsley is definitely my favourite.

A good pinch of salt, a good pinch of pepper.

A good lug of olive oil, just enough to dress.

Probably about four tablespoons. I want a nice lemon.

Just get that in there.

Lovely. I want to dress that up, yeah? And just toss that over.

I'm going to whack it on a big plate, just pour it in the middle, right?

And then just kind of pull it all about a bit

and you want it to kind of hang all over the plate.

And that way, it looks better and also I'm going to do

a couple of little tricks to make it taste even more fantastic.

That is amazing as it is already, but I want to make it even better.

I've got a pomegranate here

and I think pomegranates are pretty underrated really.

You just...chop it all up...

You just kind of chuck it all over the place!

I just sort of open them up

and then just kind of like, sprinkle the sort of juices...

Cos they're like little capsules really and they are really sweet

and they've got a fantastic flavour. That's just about perfect now.

But I want to make it a little bit more substantial,

so I've got some nice goat's cheese and I'm just going to

kind of crumble it over and I think everyone's going to love that.

I'm just going to take the skin off cos it's a little

annoying in the salad.

I don't know if I've got any veggies coming,

but they'll be well chuffed with this.

Lovely. So that's it. Fantastic. All done. Well sexy.

And finally, C is of course for chocolate.

We've got two great puddings coming up.

First, here's Rachel Khoo,

with a mouth-watering chocolate lava cake.

Moelleux au chocolat is one of my favourite desserts.

It has this amazing, oozing chocolate centre.

I've added my own little touch, which is salted caramel.

I'm going to make the gooey caramel filling first.

For that I'm going to need 150g of sugar.

To start off with, you just want to sprinkle enough sugar

to cover the bottom of the pan.

If you add it all in one go,

then you're most likely to mess up your caramel,

because the sugar will crystallise,

it will become one big lump, and it won't melt properly.

Add all the sugar, and cook until it reaches a kind of cola colour,

then pour in 150mls of double cream.

Now, when you put the cream in, stand back a bit.

Don't stand over the pan, otherwise you'll get a facial.

Ooh, it's gone a bit crazy!

Add your salt.

A teaspoon just adds a bit more sophistication to your caramel.

The story goes that salted caramel was created in Brittany in the '70s.

I'm using fleur de sel.

It's hand harvested and fairly expensive,

but you can also use coarse sea salt.

Caramel can crack if you overheat it.

A temperature of 108 degrees

or when it coats the back of the spoon should do it.

Pour it into your bowl,

and that now is going to go into the fridge.

Careful.

And while the caramel chills, get on with the chocolate sponge.

Most important ingredient, chocolate.

I'm using a dark chocolate.

Minimum cocoa-solids is 60%,

just because we are diluting the chocolate taste with butter,

with sugar, with flour,

and if you use a milk chocolate

you don't get that strong chocolate taste.

Add 85g of butter.

The Parisians tend to use unsalted butter for cooking,

but if you want a more intense flavour, go for salted.

It's starting to simmer away. You only want a light simmer.

While the butter and chocolate melts, grease some ramekins.

Tip a bit of cocoa powder in there, about a tablespoon.

What you want to do is tip it in your hand,

so it coats all the way on the side.

Then mix 170g of light brown sugar, and 85g of flour.

How's this doing?

Resist the temptation of just dipping your fingers in there.

And I'm just going to pour it in here,

with my flour, and my sugar, and you just mix it together.

Into my lovely chocolate mix goes six eggs.

So give it a good scrape at the bottom.

And that's it.

And you want to fill it about three-quarters.

Reason being is you need to leave a little bit of room

to put your caramel in the middle.

Essential part to making moelleux au chocolat is chilling it.

Because when you come to bake it, the middle will stay uncooked,

and you get your oozy centre.

The desserts need to chill for about an hour,

which gives me time to do my least favourite job.

OK.

They're chilled.

My caramel in my piping bag.

All you need do at this point is just put it in the middle,

and then you just squeeze.

Like that. There you go.

Dollop in the middle.

Like that. There you go.

That looks pretty amazing.

Put the puddings in the oven at 180 degrees for 15 minutes.

You're looking for them to be cooked around the edges

and gooey in the middle.

They look like they're ready.

Careful, it's hot.

They're puffed up a little bit.

Ooh!

Wow. Caramel there.

Oh! That's pretty awesome.

Look at that.

That's a perfect moelleux au chocolat.

You just want to eat it straight away.

It's a bit hot!

Mmm!

Thanks, Rachel, and if you've still got room for it,

we are finishing with a Masterclass from Raymond Blanc.

Maybe not one you'll try at home,

but anyway, sit back and enjoy his incredible cafe creme.

A cup sculpted completely from chocolate,

filled with iced espresso parfait,

topped with cherry liqueur sabayon,

with sugar-coated truffles.

I am going to whip up a very special dessert.

It is one of my oldest desserts.

It took me about six months, solid work, on this dessert to realise it.

And you will understand exactly why. OK?

You have to love someone so very much to make this dessert,

and that's certainly a proof of love.

There's no doubt about it, but it's possible.

You get 500g of chocolate, which is melted at about 50, 55 degrees, OK,

which I have...

HE MUMBLES

OK, it was getting too hot.

No, it was off. OK.

Can you just...

Why don't they do a bloody thing which would stick to it?

They give you a thermometer, and you put it on the side,

and the first thing it does is slide in the chocolate, great,

instead of putting a little catch maybe here on that side.

So again, choose your equipment well.

A good thermometer is useful,

as the chocolate needs to reach the right consistency to sculpt.

First, heat the chocolate to 55 degrees centigrade.

Add chopped chocolate to reduce the temperature,

then reheat to 32 degrees.

Voila.

This is known as tempering.

It refines the chocolate by melting unstable fat crystals,

making it smoother, easier to shape, and shiny.

So now I'm going to start building up my chocolate cup.

To create the cup, use a flat rectangular plastic sheet,

which you can buy from cookery shops.

With the ladle here.

Tres bien.

I'm going to pick up one of these here.

Tres bien.

Voila.

Voila.

Place the chocolate-coated plastic into a circular mould.

Parfait. I'm pressing on it here.

Then afterward, I'm opening it up completely, so it's a perfect circle.

So I'm going to do the joint.

Take a little bit of chocolate here.

Voila.

Voila. Tres bien.

So I'm going to do my saucers now.

I tried all sorts of surface - glass, china,

and they all stuck, because they are porous.

So I saw a piece of clingfilm,

I say, "Eureka. Of course."

First thing you need to do is to oil your saucer,

so the clingfilm actually can slip on it.

Just squeeze, then I am going to dip it.

Voila.

And then I'm going to move away the excess,

and I'm going to create a lip to release later my chocolate saucer.

So now we do the handles.

Make a cone, using greaseproof paper.

Pour in melted chocolate,

cut a hole in the end,

and shape your handles.

Voila, tres bien.

You never put them in the fridge to set, they get all white.

Room temperature is perfect.

All the chocolate moulds will need at least five hours to set.

Now I'm going do the sugar cubes,

and the great thing about sugar cubes is the ganache.

A ganache is the same as chocolate truffle filling,

and is a great way to make home-made chocolates.

Burst through the skin and boil over.

To make, boil double cream,

add 70% dark chocolate and stir.

We get that lovely "satine", that lovely quality, silky quality.

It's so beautiful.

Clingfilm, so then voila, you put it in here.

Voila.

The ganache is now ready to put in the fridge to set for six hours.

So, the ganache has cooled down, nicely,

and all what I need is a hot blade.

Cuts like butter. OK.

Tres bien. We have the lovely sugar cubes here.

Now we are ready to build the cafe creme, OK?

Just unfold very carefully.

That's it. Voila.

And you've got your perfect saucer.

Raymond's using his solid-top cooker to weld all the pieces together,

but a hot pan will do the job just as well.

That cup becomes coffee-proof.

Gently, gently, press slowly.

So now, the little handle.

Voila...

Line the base with a biscuit soaked in espresso.

Tres bien, in the bottom here.

Now for the filling.

This is an iced espresso parfait,

just egg yolk, frothed up with espresso coffee,

and with cream, which you freeze.

Frenchman can't help it, a little bit of alcohol...

Add a dash of cherry liqueur to the sabayon foam,

to make the espresso topping.

Voila!

I hope you've enjoyed all of today's recipes.

A big thank you to all our chefs today,

and do make sure you join us for more next time.