Seafood Special The Best Dishes Ever

AINSLEY HARRIOTT: Today we are serving up a seafood special

and all our chefs are showcasing some delicious fish,

and our catches of the day include

a fish pie from Mary Berry.

I think that is an absolute winner.

There is a crab and leek tart from the Hairy Bikers.

It's a very quick and easy tart, this. It's really nice.

And it tastes immense.

Nigel Slater goes surf and turf

with mackerel and bacon salad,

and James Martin gets to grips with lobster.

Just a quick crack like that

and the claw meat comes straight out like this.

But we start with a great British favourite

from Lorraine Pascale.

It's the good old fish and chips.

We Brits love our batter.

Mark Petrou fries fish at a chippy in West London.

So, Mark, I hear you are the king of fish and chips.

Well, there are lots of ambassadors for the industry.

I would say that I am one of them.

I've certainly got batter in my veins.

So why do you think fish and chips is one of the nation's favourites?

The mandate for fish and chips

has always been to provide affordable food for the masses

and there are very few meals out there

that are as honest and as robust as fish and chips.

It hasn't changed in 150 years

because it just doesn't need improving.

40 years ago, many homes had a chip pan.

Now deep-fat fryers have fallen out of fashion.

But making battered fish at home is actually surprisingly easy.

If you're going to make a batter mix at home,

I would say simply start off with cold water and self-raising flour.

That's absolutely a very, very simple, easy batter to make.

And then, if you want to be a bit experimental or liven it up,

you can substitute water for champagne,

you can substitute water for a nice pale ale and do a beer batter.

What you really want is to mix it for about a minute and a half

and for it to be the consistency of single cream.

-There you go, it's hanging on my finger.

-Oh, yeah.

And then running off like a mouse's tail.

So, why do you think fish is covered in this batter?

Historically, it used to be discarded.

When fish and chips first appeared,

it was actually sold cold by street vendors

and people would finger their way through the fish until they found

one they liked, and crack off the batter to reveal the jewel inside.

I guess at some point somebody tried it when it was still hot

and thought, "This is yummy,

"we're going to start eating the batter now."

That's ready to go. What we need to do now

is get some fish and do some frying.

There is a definite north-south divide

when it comes to our fish and chips.

In the north, we like haddock, and in the south, we prefer cod.

What you want to try and do is get nice even coating.

Let the excess run-off.

Yeah.

Just place it into the oil.

Don't let go of it until it's in the oil.

-So it doesn't slap down.

-That's right.

The batter will temper straightaway and it will puff up

and the fish will cook inside the batter in its own steam.

That's going to take about seven minutes to fry.

Here you have a perfect portion of our number 10 favourite dinner,

but what you have on the side depends on where you live.

The Glaswegians like pickled onions,

Mancunians like gravy and mushy peas

and Brummies love their curry sauce.

I'm a Londoner and I like my ketchup.

Fish and chips, British through and through.

Well, you can't beat fish and chips, can you?

I tell you what, though, we're going to have a bit of a try.

And here is a worthy challenger -

a great fish pie that Mary Berry turns to

when she needs a change from chicken.

If your family gathers for Sunday lunch as often as mine,

you might not wish to cook a roast every time.

A reliable and popular alternative is my three-fish pie

with a leek and wine sauce.

I've been making it in the same way for over 40 years.

I've got a selection of fish here.

I've got some fresh haddock, some smoked haddock

and some fresh salmon.

The total weight is about 750g.

And just cut into pieces

that you can get on a fork and it's one mouthful.

If you cut it too small, it will all go into a mush

in the sauce and you won't be able

to taste the individual pieces of fish.

For the sauce, start by chopping two leeks.

They form an excellent base with a mild onion taste

that compliments the delicate flavour of the fish.

Melt a knob of butter in a pan, add the leeks,

giving them a good stir until well coated.

You want to cook these slowly, gently,

until they are beautifully soft.

If you rush it, they are apt to burn and they don't keep their flavour.

At this stage, I'm going to put the lid on

and I'm just going to let them saute in their own juice

until they are lovely and soft,

and that will take 10 or 15 minutes.

Next, make the white sauce.

Combine 75g of plain flour with 150ml of white wine.

And whisk until smooth.

Once the leeks have cooked, pour in a pint of milk,

bring to the boil, then stir in the flour mixture.

That is a lovely consistency now.

It has had a good boil to drive off the excess alcohol.

Now, if you don't want to put white wine in,

just replace the white wine with more milk.

Now roughly chop a good handful of parsley.

When you want to keep parsley fresh, take your bunch of parsley,

plonk it in a mug, then bag over the top

and you can put it in the fridge.

It will keep for a couple of weeks.

There's the parsley.

Then I am going to add the fish.

Cook the fish for two or three minutes over a gentle heat

so that it holds its shape and doesn't turn to a mush.

Transfer the mixture into a buttered oven dish,

arrange six hard-boiled eggs on top cut into quarters.

And I will just push these down into the sauce.

You can make this fish pie a couple of days ahead,

providing you've got really fresh fish, and keep it in the fridge.

If you are going to freeze it, leave out the hard-boiled egg

because eggs get very leathery once they have been frozen.

Once you have finished placing the eggs,

leave the mixture to cool completely.

Meanwhile, make some mash for the topping.

I am going to spread that all over the top.

First of all, that must be really, really cold.

Let me feel that. That's quite cold.

If it's hot, as soon as you get the mashed potato on top,

it just mixes in with the sauce and it's infuriating.

So, take the mash and put it in blobs on top and then spread it.

All the little ridges get crisp and that's what fish pie is all about.

I just want it fairly, sort of, rough and informal.

Finish the pie off with a good sprinkling of cheese.

I like gruyere, but cheddar works well, too.

Then pop it in the oven at 180 degrees fan.

And after about 30 minutes,

once the top has turned to a glorious golden colour, it's ready.

The smell is... Oh, it's lovely.

I'm going to boldly take a piece out for myself.

So, let's have a taste.

Even though that bit was salmon,

I can taste a hint of the smokiness of the smoked haddock.

I think that's an absolute winner.

Thanks, Mary.

Now, we're focusing on seafood today,

but that doesn't mean we can't let a bit of meat slip into it.

Here in Nigel Slater's take on a surf and turf.

A great-looking salad that tastes amazing

and is easy on the wallet, too.

Traditionally, surf and turf is all about lobster and steak,

but I prefer something a bit less extravagant.

Surf and turf really does smack of hedonism.

The most expensive piece of fish, the most expensive piece of meat.

But I have got something much more interesting than that.

If you go to the other end of the fishmonger's slab,

you find the cheap fish, such as mackerel.

Especially smoked mackerel.

Mackerel is my favourite fish

and a great place to start exploring this perfect pairing.

To keep this really simple, I want to make a classic salad

that mixes the surfy fish with some turfy bacon.

The base of my salad is a few boiled salad potatoes.

It is very beautiful whole smoked mackerel.

If I can't find these, then I just buy mackerel fillets.

It's just whatever is around and whatever is convenient.

But the real joy of these

is that the flesh stays really creamy and soft.

Another reason I love buying smoked fish

is that I don't even have to cook it.

Part of the thing I love about this recipe is that it's exactly

the opposite of what everybody thinks surf and turf is all about.

It's a very humble salad.

So that's the surf, and now I need the turf.

And for that, I'm using streaky bacon.

You can use smoked or unsmoked, streaky or back.

You can even use pancetta, if you wanted to.

I like my bacon crisp, which gives me time to make a salad dressing.

Nothing fancy, just one with a mild mustard base.

Maybe a few capers. Their salty bite feels like it fits in this dish.

Capers really are one of those ingredients

you have to check that everybody likes them.

Because not everybody treats them as a friend.

To the capers and mustard, a splash of white wine vinegar,

pepper and a generous glug of olive oil.

Parsley is a really good herb to put with fish

and to put with bacon, but I'm actually going to use dill.

I'm going to use dill because it works so well with smoked fish.

This salad needs the rustic quality of raw onion.

But to soften the harshness, I am soaking it in white wine vinegar.

Put the onion into the dressing.

It's very slightly softened, but that's not really the point.

The point is to take away those very coarse top notes

that, actually, for me, can ruin a salad.

Once the potatoes are cooked soft to the point of a knife,

they can be introduced to the dressing.

I have left the skins on because I like the flavour

of these very young potato skins,

but if you want to peel them, then do.

Then the whole lot goes in with my lovely mackerel.

And finally, I can mix the meat to the fish.

This salad will be great as it is,

but a few snips of bacon will take it to a whole new level.

The idea for bacon with mackerel actually came from something I had

years ago in Scotland where I had a mackerel

that had been fried in bacon fat and it was so good.

I never forgot it.

That is delicious.

For me, this is surf and turf at its best.

You couldn't get further from a plate of lobster and steak,

but I'd take this humble version any day of the week.

It's cheaper, too.

Next, it's crab.

Something lots of people think must be so tricky to cook with,

they never give it a go.

Well, actually, crab is deceptively simple to get to grips with.

And if you want some proof of that,

check out the Hairy Bikers with their crab and leek tart.

The crab - the crab delivers.

It delivers on flavour, it delivers on texture. It is brilliant.

Yes, the crab is undoubtedly

-the king of crustaceans.

-It is, Dave. It is.

And we are going to show you what to do with it.

Aye, we have created a recipe that combines the crab

with the mighty leek.

Here is how to make our best of British crab and leek tart.

All tarts start with a pastry base.

-This one is half wholemeal, half flour.

-Leeks.

-Leeks.

-Take a leak, Kingy.

-I'm on my way!

-DAVE SINGS

-Two trimmed leeks.

I'll just crack on with them. What we're going to do is saute those off

in a frying pan with a little bit of butter.

The important thing is, we don't want any colour on them.

We simply want them to sweat.

Take wholemeal flour...

in a processor, mix with plain.

To your wholemeal and plain flour, add little knobs of butter, like so.

You can put it into cubes and it looks all posh

but there's no need to.

I tell you what, it's a very quick and easy tart, this.

It's really nice. And it tastes immense.

Oh, it's fantastic, isn't it? It is a fave.

Leeks, you know...

-# They make you sing!

-#

-Oh!

-No, it is. They're meant to be good for your voice.

Emperor Nero believed,

and he was very vain about his singing voice,

that leeks made him sing better, so he ate loads

and his nickname was Porrophagus, which means leek eater.

It doesn't.

-# La-la-la-la-la-la-la!

-#

You'd better get going, son.

-I've eaten loads in my time.

-Not enough!

Blitz the flours and the butter in a food processor

until you get fine crumbs.

Then add the egg in a thin stream until it all comes together.

This is a short pastry.

It's shorter than Ronnie Corbett wearing sandals, this one.

Now, butter your tin liberally.

Put your leeks in for about three minutes.

You don't want any colour on them.

You want them to sweat. Sweat, sweat, sweat, sweat.

Think Benidorm.

So, just roll that flat and put that great big lump in your tin.

Now, you could try rolling it out, get yourself in a kerfuffle.

Just press it in with your fingers in an even way.

It's so easy.

The thing is, it's short, it's full of butter.

It's going to be tasty.

Because sometimes wholemeal pastry, if you don't have

loads of butter in, quite frankly, it can be like a beer mat.

That's them.

Turn them off, take them off the heat, let them cool.

See, no colour on them. We've just sweated them. Lovely.

Look at that, look at that. Hands of a master.

Just get it nice and even.

It's so much easier than trying to wrestle with a rolling pin.

-You know, as a personal touch.

-That's Dave's personal touch.

As you can see, it's beautifully even.

Now all we do with prick this with a fork and just pop this in the fridge

to chill down for half an hour before we blind bake it.

Look at that, beautiful.

Ow! Ooh! Ay! Ooh! Ow! Ah!

If you've just tuned in, you may wonder,

"Why is he baking a bean pie?" It's not.

This is the process known as blind baking.

What happens is we pre-bake the base and, as you can see,

the beans will hold the pastry to the sides of the tin.

Also, apart from giving us a pastry case with a good shape,

it's going to make sure that it's cooked

so you will never get a tart with a soggy bottom.

No, that's wrong!

-Right, make the filling, couldn't we, son? Let's crack on.

-Aye.

Now! Thank you.

Now!

We need three eggs whisked lightly and then...

Creme fraiche, look at that.

That is going to make the tart rich, tasty and unctuous.

Creme fraiche falls in a certain way. Look at that.

Look at that bit there.

And this is truly island life.

An island of creme fraiche in a sea of egg.

I wonder how different life would have been

if we had been connected to mainland Europe

and there hadn't been the English Channel?

-Do you know what I mean?

-German.

We would, we'd be invaded, wouldn't we? Know what I mean?

Right, mate, next.

The brown crab meat.

Now, crab comes in two parts.

The back, which is full of the brown stuff, which, personally,

I think is one of the great gastronomic gifts to mankind.

-Oh, yeah.

-And the white meat.

The brown meat goes into the base.

OK, so we've now got eggs, we've got the creme fraiche

and now we put the brown crab meat.

Don't forget the base. Take the beans out.

Taking care not to burn your mitts.

It's cooked lovely.

What we still need to do is firm it up a bit more,

so we're going to pop that back into the oven

without the beans for 10 minutes.

But keep an eye on it. We don't want to burn it.

-Oh, lovely, mate.

-Yeah.

-Nice.

-Look at that.

It's like a well-formed digestive biscuit, which is what we want.

-Now, in here, our leeks go.

-Put me beans back.

And, again, just whisk them in.

The white crab meat mixture goes into the base

and the leeks and brown meat mixture on the top.

Starting from the middle...

-Look, a couple of little ones, Kingy.

-Perfect, dude.

-Right.

-That is what you call cook's perks. Waste nowt.

-It's a thing of joy, isn't it, really?

-Oh, it's lush, man.

And top with grated cheddar.

Cook's perks. Cook's perks.

I'm not worried about these overflowing. These are just for us.

Pop that into an oven for about half an hour at 160 degrees Celsius.

-Ready?

-Steady?

-Go.

-Smells great.

-It does.

That is... Oh, look at that, man. It's epic.

-Yes!

-That is beautiful, isn't it?

Oh, look how it's bubbling away there, man, Dave. Oh!

The crust is perfect.

-Now, you could serve this warm, couldn't you?

-You could.

I think it needs to cool a little bit, doesn't it?

-Yeah, it just needs to be, like, blood warm.

-Yes, it does.

-Cup of tea, then?

-Aye.

-Might as well.

Time for snackeroonies.

Ooh, the leek and crab tart.

-Mr Myers.

-Thank you. It's a good cutter, isn't it?

And that base is so thin.

Oh, yes. Oh, it's crisp.

-The bottom's crisp.

-It is, isn't it?

-Beautiful. Right.

-Bon appetit.

You know, our great British eating crab.

It's punching through all those flavours

-and keeping a taste of its own.

-Yeah, it is.

A truly great British harvest of the sea, man.

Fantastic.

And finally, another crustacean.

And it's a real crowd pleaser from James Martin - lobster.

Today, it's considered something of a luxury, but did you know that

in the early 1900s, it was often used as fish bait or fertiliser?

What a waste!

And this is James' fruits de mer, or if you like, fruits of the sea.

And he is cooking it for Drew,

a fisherman from the seaside village of Staithes in North Yorkshire.

Lobster has to be one of my favourite foods.

So I've invited Drew into my kitchen

and he has brought some of his catch with him.

Now this is one seriously impressive lobster.

Yeah, he's a really good lobster. He is well oversize.

-How old would that be?

-I'd say he was about 15, maybe 20 years old.

I am fascinated by fishermen, to do it for a living,

-because it's not the easiest job in the world.

-It is very giving.

It gives you a lot. I made all my lobster pots by hand.

Every single one of them pots, I know technically I've made that

and I have caught that lobster all on my own.

Is it just you fishing lobsters there? Or how many boats

are up in that neck of the woods fishing for the same stuff?

Out of Staithes, there's four of us.

Each of us have got nearly 300 lobster pots,

so there's quite a good little fishery

coming out of Staithes at the moment.

One of Drew's lobsters will be the centrepiece for a decadent dish

that isn't cheap.

But it's definitely worth it for a special occasion.

It's a celebration of all that is great

about the seafood around the UK.

This is my fruits de mer with home-made rye bread.

First thing I'm going to do is get the rye flour mixed in.

Add 25g of dark brown muscovado sugar

to half a kilo of rye flour,

followed by a large pinch of salt.

Then pour 10g of instant yeast,

mixed with 350ml of warm water into the mix.

It really is a classic combination, this.

The texture of it lends itself so well together

with the crab and the lobster.

How would you eat lobsters? Do you like lobsters?

Because whenever I meet a fisherman, they don't like what they catch.

Not really, no. I don't eat lobsters myself.

I'm more of a crab man.

When everything is completely mixed together,

roll it out into a long log.

Just press this down,

then grab yourself a rolling pin

and just pin it out a little bit

and then just roll it up.

Now, this is unlike most bread, really,

where it will actually prove within an hour.

This one, you need to leave it to prove, kind of, overnight, really.

It's a long, slow prove.

So just cover it over and leave it.

I've already got some that has been left overnight.

Before baking, I'm going to score some lines along the top

and dust it with a little bit more rye flour.

Then stick it in a preheated oven,

220 degrees centigrade for 30 minutes.

While that is cooking, I can prepare Drew's lobster and crab.

They have already been boiling in water for eight minutes,

cooking them perfectly.

I'm assuming you know how to prepare one of these.

That's your job. We catch them!

Nature has been kind to us, really.

It has created a nice little line on the top of the head.

The easiest way to do this is actually remove the legs off first.

Remove them off and then, holding it flat onto the board

and using a sharp knife, you follow that line.

First of all, you crack it in there, right the way through.

And then turn it the other way, open up the tail

and basically follow that line all the way through it.

Open this out, remove the head part.

Everything else you kind of eat, really.

To remove the claw meat from these shells, all you do is use

the back of a knife.

Just a quick crack like that and it will just crack open

and the claw meat just comes straight out like this.

-Are you the fourth-generation fisherman, then?

-Yes, I am, yeah.

How has fishing changed over the years?

It used to be cod fishing all the way.

But before that it was herring fishing.

Next couple of years, it could be crabs,

could be langoustines, could be anything. We don't know.

You'd never know what you're going to be doing from one

-year to the next, really?

-Not really, no.

But I'd never change it for the world.

Because when you speak to most fishermen,

it's not a livelihood where...

Not a glamorous livelihood where you can earn an absolute fortune,

unless you've got absolute massive trawlers and stuff like that.

That's it. It is a way of life. You work as hard as you want.

If you work really hard, you can make a lot of money.

If you want to spend time with your family, you can.

But you don't earn as much money.

So there you have your prepared lobster.

Crab is prepared in a similar way.

Pull off the legs and crack the claws.

The easiest way to take the crab shell out, really, is to use

the back of a spoon, I always find, and just whack it in,

crack it open like that and then this comes out.

You just want to remove these little dead man's fingers.

They aren't actually poisonous. I don't know where that came from.

But they are just kind of unpleasant to eat, so just remove this.

Take the head off and put all the meat back into the shell.

Everything can now start to be built up.

You need a platter full of ice.

And then, basically, you just chuck everything on it.

You can serve this with whatever you fancy,

but I'm going to use the fantastic array of seafood

that's been caught all around the UK, including oysters,

langoustine and steamed razor clams.

The rye bread is ready to take out of the oven and slice up.

All of this is served with whipped butter and some lemon mayonnaise.

I don't know where we start with this.

One end and work our way through, then, I suppose, do we?

-I'd say so, yes.

-Obviously, I've done enough for us two.

Well, there'll be enough for me, maybe.

Yeah, a couple of Yorkshire folk and all that.

-What do you reckon?

-Yeah, that's nice.

-It's good, this, isn't it?

-Yeah, I like that.

-You've got to get excited about food like this

because it is just everything that is brilliant

about the food caught around the UK.

And it's not until you taste seafood this fresh,

you'll appreciate all the hard work

that these guys go into catching it.

To me, there is no other dish that epitomises

what is brilliant about the seafood around this country.

This is it.

Fruits de mer is a spectacular treat that is well worth the expense

and never fails to impress.

Looks amazing, James. Thanks for that.

And, of course, to all our other chefs.

And do join me again next time for more on the Best Dishes Ever.