Picnics The Best Dishes Ever

Today, our chefs are rustling up a selection of recipes to help,

not hamper when you're planning the perfect picnic.

This is food that's easy to carry around

and ideal for the great outdoors.

We've got quail's egg pork pies from the Bake Off tent...

-It's important, as soon as they're cool, to peel them.

-Yeah.

Because if you leave them for half an hour,

it's difficult to get the shell off.

..and my own mustard, bacon and onion tarts.

But, let's start with James Martin, showing us

and his watercress-growing friend Tom how to make a sandwich.

No, no, no, really, stick with this. This is really good.

'As he's only up the road, Tom's very kindly brought

'some of his freshly-picked crop for me to cook with.

'Health benefits aside, for me, it has always been

'the watercress's unique flavour that we should be celebrating.

It's great to see you.

We have this fantastic watercress that you produced.

Was this cut this morning?

It was. It's fresh today. It's the best way to have watercress.

You've got to eat it fresh and keep it green. That's the key part.

'Well, we'd better not hang about then!

'Perhaps the simplest prep now, eat later dish

'is the humble sandwich.'

'But there's certainly nothing humble about my giant salmon

'and watercress pan bagna.

'Pop one of these in your rucksack

'and you have the perfect picnic dish for up to a dozen of you.'

The first thing I'm going to do is get on

and put our salmon in the oven, really.

So, for this, I'm going to use a whole side of salmon.

'We're going to poach this with some lemon.'

It's kind of weird, inviting you here and just cooking you a sandwich,

-but this is a posh sandwich, you see.

-Not a small sandwich, I don't think.

No, it is a decent-sized sandwich, Tom.

Bit of salt, like that.

'Chuck in a few whole peppercorns, then half fill the tray with water

'and place in a pre-hated oven at 200 degrees C

'for about ten minutes.'

So, tell me about this stuff. Why Hampshire, particularly?

Well, Hampshire has been growing watercress now for about 100,

120 years now.

And it was a period when it moved out of London

and around some of the larger cities in the UK.

And they came down here for the water.

If you look in the water in London, you wouldn't anticipate watercress,

which needs fresh, clear water to grow...

Yeah. I think once there was... obviously, that was there.

-Not on the River Thames now.

-No, definitely not.

'The main ingredient for this sandwich will be this delicious

'watercress pesto.

'It's really simple to make.

'All you have to do is blend a few generous

'handfuls of watercress with some garlic, toasted pine nuts,

'salt and a generous glug of good olive oil.'

Is there any part of the year where you can't produce watercress?

We tend to harvest British watercress from April right the way

through to November. So, it's a long season for British farming.

-Good for you, though.

-It's great, yeah. Love it.

Right, so we're just going to make a little pesto, really.

What you do is, just blitz this.

And you end up with an amazing colour.

Now, you do need plenty for this

because I've got a decent-sized loaf.

So, don't be frightened to put in loads and loads of pesto.

-So how do you eat yours, then?

-I have it most mornings for breakfast.

-For breakfast?

-With toast, yeah.

And Bovril. So, that's my favourite.

A lot of people have it with a bit of salt and oil cos it...

You know, that bitterness, some people just don't like the

intense bitterness that they get.

And my boys are nine and six.

They love it with salt and olive oil.

-So we have it in our evening meals.

-It is...

I mean, people sort of equate it to roquette, really,

but it has got a flavour of its own.

It's not the same as roquette, in my opinion.

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

Rocket can be that intense flavour,

where watercress is a little bit more subtle.

We eat more watercress in the UK than anywhere else in the world.

That's unusual, when you think...

You walk around the supermarket, really, you see a little bit

of it but not so much as you should do, in my opinion.

It's entirely up to you what goes into this sandwich, but the

whole point of this... This is why you need a decent sort of loaf.

This is why. It's enough for me and you, I think, Tom.

I'm happy with that!

You need a decent piece of bread, but you need to hollow it out.

Now, the best way to do that, really,

is think about how you're going to fill it, first of all.

Don't make the hole too big.

'Once you remove the lid,

'start hollowing out the loaf for your filling.

'The breadcrumbs won't go to waste.

'I'm going to use them in a dish a bit later on.'

I'm going to get this done this weekend.

-You're going to make this, are you?

-Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah!

It is good.

It's one of these things that you could, you know, literally make

today, sit it in the fridge and have it three or four days later as well.

I've heard on the grapevine, you actually produce wasabi.

Is that right?

Yeah, that's us. Not a fan, I know.

It's the food of the devil, Tom.

What are you doing?! What are you doing?!

Well, we've got to come up with something new.

One of my mates decided it would be a good idea to plant me,

as a joke, some horseradish in the bottom of the garden.

-It's a nightmare.

-Yeah. If it takes over?

-Yeah.

Yeah. What you want to try is the wasabi leaves,

because they are very different.

You don't get the heat. You'll probably enjoy that.

-Do you get the flavour?

-You get a little bit of flavour.

That's good enough to put me off.

We're going to char-grill the courgettes now.

The salmon's out, we just allow that to cool slightly.

And that's the key to this.

I mean, using salmon, of course it goes great with watercress.

But you can use chicken, whatever you want, really.

And then it's entirely up to you how you kind of layer this up.

'I'm going to start my sandwich with a good dollop of watercress pesto,

'followed with some thinly sliced raw red onions...

'..flakes of the poached salmon...

'..and then some of these sweet grilled Spanish red peppers.'

I love these. I bet you've never tried these before.

These are Spanish peppers. They're not hot, not spicy...

-They're sweet.

-They're wood-roasted.

They're absolutely delicious and they come in jars.

But also the great thing about this is you can have this hot.

So, if you were going to do it hot, I would put layers of cheese in.

Maybe some mozzarella, that kind of stuff in there as well.

We're just going to pop in even more of this.

Every time you do it, of course, a good amount of seasoning.

Black pepper and a bit of salt.

And off you go. And you've got some of this amazing sort of pesto.

Now, the good thing about the watercress is the

pepperiness from it as well, which will give this a real kick.

When you're doing sort of farming, you actually sow the seeds.

How on earth do you sow a watercress bed

that's just water and gravel? How do you do that?

With precision. Yeah, we developed it... Yeah.

That's not the easiest...

Can't be the easiest sort of task, with it washing away all the time.

That's it. We used to scatter the seedlings into the bed.

So, grow the seedlings separately and then scatter them in.

Now we have something that is a little more precision-based

so we can actually put the right amount of seed in that we need.

But we grow all our seed ourselves, you see.

You can't buy tonnes and tonnes of watercress seed easily.

So we have to do that

and we do that separately over in Spain every summer.

Well, this will fill you up, you see. This is a proper sarnie now.

It's taken a whole side, has this. So it's good enough for 2-3 people.

Yeah!

We call this a canape up in Yorkshire, Tom. I don't know...

Once you get to the top, each layer, you press down more of this pesto.

Don't be frightened to use plenty of this. So, pile it all up.

Just pop the lid on.

It's great, really, because you can make this in advance.

It lasts for a whole week.

And wrap it up in clingfilm, leave it in the fridge

and you can take slices of it as and when you want it.

But the best part of this is this next bit.

This is the bit that makes it all worthwhile.

Slice it all the way through.

And when you open it out...

Just check out this for a sandwich.

Oh, my word. It's a work of art.

That's a proper sandwich. I mean, just look at that.

You've got all the lovely layers in there as well.

Just tastes delicious.

And then, the longer you keep it in the fridge, really,

the more easy it is to carve.

Now, this will actually sort of fall apart a little bit.

Now, I'm going to give you proper portion of this. Just one slice?

I think that'll be fine.

Right, we get to dive into this.

I don't know where you start with something like this...

..but with the salmon and the peppers and the pesto...

Amazing. Perfect.

Mmm! Amazing. Well done.

'For a man who use watercress every day of the week,

'I take that as a compliment.'

Wow, that looked great. But man cannot live on bread alone, oh, no!

Even when on a picnic.

So here's a savoury alternative from the Bake Off kitchen.

It's a bit of an epic, this one, but the end results do look good.

It's Paul Hollywood's pork pie with quail eggs.

So, we're going to start with the hot water crust pastry.

We need to weigh up the FLOURS.

So I'm using two types of flour - plain flour and strong flour.

Overwhelmingly plain flour.

In fact, 200g to 40g of strong.

'Gluten is the wheat protein in flour that gives it its elasticity.

'Plain flour contains less gluten than strong flour

'and is used when a crisper texture is needed in the finished bake.'

That little bit of strong will give it

a little bit of extra gluten to bind it together to give it that quality.

So when we're rolling it out, it stays quite rubbery,

which is what you need.

The next thing I've got is 50g of butter and 60g of lard. All right?

A little job for you in a minute, Mary.

-Is it?

-It's just melting the lard in boiling water.

Oh, I can just manage that.

60g. You need to melt that in 100ml of boiling water.

One teaspoon of salt in that water, please.

In here, I've got the butter and the flour.

While you're doing that, I'm just going to rub this flour...

-That's melted for you.

-Thank you very much indeed.

Now, this needs to go in here.

Obviously, at this stage, this is going to be rather hot.

The last thing you want is boiling hot fat in your hands.

So, again, stir it round first, incorporating all the flour,

and you can see it starting to turn into a proper paste now.

I can touch that now.

It's cooled off as soon as it impacted on the flour.

Make sure you rub round to get everything out of that bowl.

Beautifully clean bowl.

All on that lump.

Just going to put a little bit of flour on there, cos it's going

to take a little bit of working just into a ball

so it's more of a smooth paste.

-Just gently work it...

-So that's to work in the fat evenly?

That's right, yeah.

'Hot water crust pastry requires the mixture to be hot rather than

'cold, so as to make the dough easier to roll out.'

OK, now, this one needs to be rolled out with a rolling pin.

It's in there. Flatten it with your fingers first as much as you can.

'Flatten the dough lightly with your fingers and then roll out

'evenly with a rolling pin until 3-5mm thick.'

All I'm doing occasionally is just putting a little bit of flour on.

I tell you why - it relaxes the dough

so it can skid back to where it should be.

I could go out rolling this to the size of this tray with no

flour underneath and what will happen is, when you put the lids in,

it'll just shrink back while it's trying to rest.

These are the trays that we're going to use.

These are the trays that the bakers had.

The main thing is, they've got to have almost each straight sides.

They're not sort of bun tins that are sort of round.

You don't want the shallow ones. You want straight sides.

That's the key thing. Six of these.

Now, what I'm going to do, I need to make the cut for the base,

obviously to line the base, to line the side

and then to line about 5-10ml away from the edge of that.

Find something round the kitchen that will fit that size.

-A small saucer, you could run round.

-Yeah, yeah, that would be fine.

Make sure it's relaxed. Get a little knife, just cut gently round.

You want to get it smooth as you can.

Press up against the side and get right down to the bottom.

Get it down there as much as you can.

There's your overlap, there's plenty of extra if you need it.

So there is no need to grease the tins when you're making these pies?

Not these particular ones, no.

This has got so much fat in this mix,

it should just slide out anyway.

The chances of this thing sticking are very rare.

'Form the excess pastry back into a small ball.

'Roll out again to the same thickness as before

'and using a small cutter, cut out six lids large enough

'to just cover the top of your pie cases.'

On the top of every lid, we need to have a hole,

and that's to get the gelatine in later.

You get a little piping bag nozzle, put it into the middle,

make your hole and just gently open it up.

It has to be quite a big hole in order to be able to pour

-the gelatine in.

-Yes, yes, it does.

'Line a baking tray with grease-proof paper

'and lay the lids on.'

These are going to go in the fridge now.

Just for about half an hour, just to chill down slightly again.

Harden the lard and the butter.

'Placing the baking tray in the fridge helps firm up the pastry.'

While they are chilling down, we're going to make the filling.

There's some streaky, unsmoked bacon, 100g, and 300g of pork loin.

Now, pork loin has got very little fat in there

and that's the reason why we've added the streaky bacon again,

to add the little bit of fat, a little bit of flavour to it as well.

It does make a difference in the pork pie.

So, would you mind chopping up that as finely as you could, please?

I will. Nice and fine. And I'll remove this bit of sinew here.

Yes, lovely.

Sinew pieces will never go tender, and I would just trim it off.

Also what's going in there is the onion, and a small bunch of parsley.

I'd much rather cut this by hand. You get a better texture.

If you do this in a processor, it could easily get like sausage meat.

And every little piece is going to be tender

because the loin is the most tender part of pork.

Exactly, yes.

The binding agent will be the pork. It will bind everything together.

You're looking for a dispersion of onion blended with the pork

and, again, a good blend of the bacon in there.

And finally, a little bit of zing coming from the parsley.

I would use quite a bit of salt.

The only seasoning, really,

is actually going to come from the bacon.

Give that a good mix,

because what you don't want is all that salt to stay in one place.

The next job is quail's eggs.

-Right.

-I need to boil these quail's eggs.

Some of them had difficulty about boiling quail's eggs.

-Apparently, yeah.

-They weren't quite sure how long to do them.

I do mine, for hard-boiled, two and a half minutes.

It's important, as soon as they are cool, to peel them.

Because if you leave them for half an hour,

it's difficult to get the shell off.

So, that's the last one peeled.

-There you are.

-Beautifully done. Thank you very much, Mary.

OK, they're the shells and they're the lids.

Now it's a case of starting to put it all together.

Put your fingers into the side, encourage them

to have a flat side where it hits the base.

And while it's cold, it's the best time to do it.

It'll give you bit more leeway in there, you know?

-And, of course, it gives more room for the meat.

-Exactly, yeah.

Take a spoon for the mixture, drop it into the bottom.

When that's in,

you need to push that down to the bottom with your fingers.

Push down the bottom, build up a bit of the mix around the side,

that is where the quail's egg is going to sit.

'Once all six quail's eggs have been placed, fill the remainder

'of the cavity with the rest of the pork meat, ensuring it's

'packed in tightly around the sides and on top of the eggs.'

It's really essential to press it down.

I think some of them had some gaps through not pressing it down.

Yeah. And cutting the pie open, you saw the egg floating round with

a little bit of pork because they never compressed all the pork down.

Now, the next stage is to actually put...

egg wash it and then pop the lid on.

Now, if we start here,

all I'll do is just delicately brush a little bit of egg round here.

This is just so that the lid can adhere to the base.

So, now, we're ready to put the lids on this.

'Once the pies have been topped, trim the edges with a knife to

'neaten and seal with some decorative crimping.'

Fingers in, lift up the side.

You could do it with a fork

if you're no good at crimping, couldn't you?

Yeah, of course you could.

'Top each pie with egg wash and they are ready for the oven.'

Going to go into a fan oven at 190 for 40 minutes.

They look amazing!

A lovely, golden brown colour on top.

What I want to do is pop a knife in there...

and just open that hole up a bit.

Over in this pan, we've got 100ml of water

we're just bringing up to the boil.

In there, we've dropped one chicken stock cube.

OK, what I've got here is a leaf gelatine.

You can use the powdered gelatine, although this tends to be a bit

easier cos it just softens in the water.

Powdered gelatine, you have to do bring back with boiling water

and dissolve it. I'm just going to squeeze the water out there.

And this will then go inside the stock and dissolve.

It's pretty much instant with this stuff.

'Once dissolved, transfer to a jug

'and gradually fill the pork pie cavities.'

You've got to be really careful, haven't you,

and pour very, very gently and watch when it comes anywhere near the top.

Exactly.

And then you need to chill them, preferably overnight.

And the pure reason being is that you want to solidify that gelatine.

But don't put these into the fridge until they're cold.

You can't put warm pork into a fridge.

Leave them out till they're pretty cool,

then pop them in the fridge overnight.

In the morning, you'll end up with some beautiful pork pies.

They look so tempting.

I am dying to taste one.

-There you go.

-That does look very, very good.

-You like?

-I am savouring every bit.

-It's nice, isn't it?

Well, what I like is the pastry is really, really crisp. Mmm!

Wonderful, but a little bit challenging, too.

So, if something simpler suits you better,

I've got the perfect recipe for you that'll put a spring in your step.

Yes, this is one of mine -

my mustard, bacon and caramelised onion scones.

But, before the baking begins, there's a little look at which

mustards get the public's taste buds tingling.

Sales of foreign-style mustards are on the up,

which kind of baffles me because we have a number

of British varieties which are so much tastier.

-What type of mustard to you buy, then?

-I like Dijon.

-You like a Dijon mustard?

-I do.

And what about the good old British mustard, then?

My husband loves it. He has it.

But it's a bit strong for me.

-I buy Dijon.

-You buy Dijon mustard?

-Yes.

-So you like a little bit of French influence?

-Yes, yes.

-Yes?

You go for Dijon. Is there a reason for that?

Really nice on pork with some breadcrumbs and, yeah, in the oven.

-And, yeah...

-OK!

-..in vinaigrettes.

And what about you, ladies? Mustard...?

-No mustard.

-We don't like it.

-No?

-Don't like mustard.

-So, have you ever tried it in your life?

-I tried it on a sandwich.

Well, it certainly looks like we're creatures of habit, doesn't it, eh?

Most of us just want to go out there

and buy a bit of Dijon mustard or English mustard

and slap it on your ham sandwich or on your bit of roast beef.

Yet there's a whole variety of mustards out there,

British mustards,

and I want to inspire you to get it onto your plates

and really make a difference.

In the Revival kitchen, I've got just the recipe to start you off.

And I bet you never thought of using mustard

in this tea-time favourite.

Now, for my first recipe,

I'm going to be using the good old classic English mustard powder.

It really has got a lovely sort of pungent aroma.

Especially when you knock it down with a little bit of water or milk,

you get a fantastic taste.

And this is going to be used in my mustard,

bacon and caramelised onion scones.

Put your plain flour straight in there.

Little touch of baking powder. You only need a pinch of it, really.

Most people never think to use mustard in baking,

but this recipe puts a savoury twist on an all-time classic.

Little pinch of salt in there.

And what about that mustard?

This has got so much flavour and it is so versatile,

as I'm about to show you.

We're going to get a heaped teaspoon of that, sprinkle that in.

A real maximum amount of flavour. Mmm!

Next, add your butter and rub in the flour and mustard powder.

This way of using mustard is actually quite tame.

Going back in time,

I suppose it just wasn't necessarily about adding it to food.

You would pop it on your body if you had a cold or a head cold

or something like that.

Little compress if you had a chesty cough.

And I am sure it worked, actually. I think there was some truth in it.

Now, my scones won't cure your cold but they will cure your hunger.

Next, I beat some milk and eggs together

before chopping up some crispy bacon.

And that just works so beautifully.

Ham, when you talk about ham and mustard, bacon and mustard, any

of those sort of sliced cold meats with mustard just works so well.

And in scones, it's absolutely perfect.

Right?

Bit of the old caramelised onion here.

Probably be enough there.

I know, yeah - you're probably thinking, I'm using a jar.

There's absolute nothing wrong with it at all.

It just, obviously, it saves time, you know?

Otherwise, you have to put it on the stove,

cook it down very slowly, put on a little bit of sugar on top.

Very, very easy - grab hold of a jar, pop it in there

with your bacon and that mustard

and all those different flavours work together beautifully.

I add the beaten egg and milk and mix together to form a kind

of softish dough before flattening it out and dividing it into wedges.

Now, you can actually pop them in the oven just like this

and they'll be perfect.

But - oh, no -

I like to add a little bit more of an extra kick.

And, for me, it has to be a little bit more mustard.

It's not going to blow your head off.

It's a little bit subtle but, boy, does it deliver.

To finish off, I glaze the scones with egg and milk

mixed with caramelised onion and mustard,

and then they're into the oven for about 15 minutes.

And then you have it - freshly baked scones.

Now...

what about serving them?

How about a lovely bit of cheese with a few pickles,

a little bit more chutney, if you like,

and pop that gorgeous scone on the top.

I just can't resist it.

Mmm!

That's just so good. For any of you who bake,

whether you're making soda bread or hard dough bread or even your own

fresh bread, or indeed scones, you know what it's like,

that smell when something comes out of the oven.

But, with the mustard and the caramelised onion,

it just gives it that extra lift.

A little knob of butter or, dare I say, a bit of cheese...

mustard heaven.

Now, just as a rambler can stray away from the path, we are

straying a bit too with our final recipe.

It's not a dish at all, it's a drink,

and one that sounds perfect for a picnic.

Mary Berry is back again, this time with her elderflower cordial.

The summer is a great time to go foraging for tasty ingredients

to bring home.

And in May and June,

the hedgerows are full of one of my favourites - elderflower.

When it's in bloom, it's hard to miss.

So this is a perfect flower to make elderflower cordial.

It's fully out except for the odd bud, and when I shake it,

none of the flowers drop.

Here's one that has yet to come out.

And, of course, when it's brown, it's spent,

and that doesn't give the flavour and it makes a dark cordial.

I always look for elder trees well away from the road,

as the flowers become tainted with petrol fumes.

You can of course buy elderflower cordial,

but it's so easy to make your own.

It's such a shame that elderflowers are in season for such a short

time, because elderflower cordial is one of my most favourite drinks.

Add 1.5 kilos of caster sugar to 1.5 litres of water

and leave on the heat to dissolve.

In the meantime, finely slice two lemons.

The great joy about making elderflower cordial

is that it's free.

And the children love it.

You know, you give them a basket and say,

"Go and find 25 heads," and they manage jolly well.

Once the sugar has dissolved and the syrup has turned clear,

set to one side to cool.

Now place the lemons into a 3.5-litre container.

Pips and all, doesn't matter. Then in goes the elderflowers.

Now, you may not have time when you pick the elderflowers

to actually make the cordial, because it does take a little while

and you may pick more than you need.

So, take the heads, squeeze them into a bag and put them

straightaway in the freezer exactly as they are.

No blanching, no nothing.

Then, when you want to make the cordial, you drop them frozen,

crispy into that jug.

If you thaw them first, they will go brown.

So, in goes the elderflowers.

That's it.

And then I'm going to add citric acid. And I've got 50g.

Elderflower cordial will only last about a month, but I have

got a little trick that will make it keep for a good long time.

You add Campden tablets.

This is something they use in winemaking and in beermaking,

and it kills the bacteria and the natural yeast.

So, a couple of tablets.

Once the sugar syrup has cooled a little, pour it in.

That's it.

Then give it a good stir, cover and put in a cool place to steep.

After 24 hours, all those lovely flavours will have blended together.

The aroma from this is amazing.

It really smells just like the flowers that we picked.

And look at those elderflowers.

They've darkened in colour but the aroma is...so strong.

Lovely!

Once the liquid has been strained,

decant the cordial into sterilised bottles.

Now, I usually dilute this with sparkling water,

and it makes the very best summer drink.

Ohh, how refreshing, Mary!

Thank you for that,

and I'll be back with more of the best dishes ever very soon.

So, hopefully, you will be too. Take care now, bye-bye.