Unusual Combinations The Best Dishes Ever

Today sees our chefs showing off recipes with

a combination of ingredients that seem a little unlikely.

You'll soon be convinced that they make absolutely perfect sense.

Well, in most cases anyway.

Michel Roux Jr combines beef, pears, garlic and chocolate. Wow!

The pear is there for the texture and its lovely sharpness.

Nigel Slater has an interesting take on apple and cheese.

We'll see a blackcurrant

and liquorice creation from the Bake Off tent.

This basically comes from flavours of my youth,

things that I loved when I was a kid.

Rachel Khoo is cooking up figs and chicken livers.

And there's a real curiosity you might not

go for from the Two Greedy Italians.

You want to taste it?

No.

But first, let's get started with Lorraine Pascale,

who has got a quick guide to some of her favourite unusual combos.

Sometimes, I come across unusual flavour combinations that

really work.

Here's some ideas that I reckon

will definitely stand the test of time.

Onions, balsamic and sugar.

Put everything in a pan, sweat it down for about 20 minutes

and you'll have the tastiest onions ever.

Great with burgers.

Mashed potatoes and nutmeg.

Mix the mashed potatoes with loads of butter, salt and pepper,

and then grate over some fresh nutmeg.

Absolutely beautiful.

Avocado, bacon and blue cheese.

Now, I'm not going to pretend this is the healthiest

thing in the world, but my goodness, it tastes good!

Basil, lemon and vanilla.

Take some lemon zest, vanilla, and mix it with some Greek yoghurt.

Then pop it in the freezer until it's almost firm.

Bring it out, rip up some fresh basil and pour over some limoncello.

Delicious.

These fresh and easy combinations bring together some of my very

favourite flavours.

Classic.

Some great suggestions there.

Next, we've got a really interesting dish from Michel Roux Jr.

He loves pears and here, he's combining them with beef,

garlic and chocolate for something really unusual.

What I love about pears is that they're brilliant in savoury dishes.

Now, I'm going to cook a really unusual combination -

braised beef cheeks with pears and bitter chocolate sauce.

Beef cheeks are a really unusual cut,

but they're coming in to fashion now.

They are a muscle that works a lot,

so it's a really tough piece of meat.

You can't just sear it and eat it like that.

It needs long, slow cooking

to tenderise it.

Start off with a good heavy pan and get that hot,

with a generous glug of oil.

Then, season the meat.

Once the oil is piping hot, sear the beef.

Now, it's very important to get that caramelisation

because that is where the flavours are.

Once the beef is beginning to brown, take it off the heat and set aside.

Chop up the onions and garlic and gently fry them.

For extra flavour, add orange zest.

Now the onions are nice and soft and brown, we put the meat back in.

You can put all that juice in there as well.

That's delicious.

Add a very generous glass of port.

This will give a sweet edge to the dish,

followed by the juice from the orange.

This may sound a very weird combination.

You've got orange, onions, garlic, port, beef,

chocolate and pears, but believe you me, it is absolutely heavenly.

Once the port has evaporated, add beef stock.

Then cover and put in the oven for some long, slow cooking.

About three hours at 140 to 160 degrees.

Right. Now to prepare the pears.

This is a comice pear, which I'm chopping into cubes.

Heat some butter in a pan.

Pears... They only last for about a day when they're at their optimum,

so maybe we should be thinking about cooking pears more often.

Squeeze on some lemon juice and cook until they're softened.

That's the pears done. Now I have to wait until the beef is cooked.

It's smelling beautiful already.

All the onions have melted down, the garlic has completely gone,

the sauce has reduced down and has intensified with flavour.

And the beef has reduced down to almost bite size morsels.

Remove the beef from the pot, but keep it warm.

I'm going to put a little bit of foil on there,

so as it doesn't dry out.

And pop it back into the oven.

And switch it off.

The final element to this recipe is the sauce.

Add the leftover pear trimmings to your pan and bring to the boil.

You could actually serve this as it is, with the onions

and these bits of pear, but I think the sauce will look far nicer

if it's finished off like you would in a restaurant

and that's to say, passed through a fine sieve.

So now we have a lovely rich braising sauce that's reduced

and intensified in flavour.

All we need to do now is add the chocolate.

Which will add a subtle rich flavour to the dish.

I'm tempted to eat this, but no. Not too much.

It's not a chocolate sauce, but nonetheless,

you want to be able to taste that lovely chocolate.

Followed by a knob of butter and stir in on a low heat.

And it's done.

So let's put this dish together.

I'm serving with a puree of white beans,

which I've blitzed with butter, rosemary and a bay leaf,

glazed onions and soft buttered pears.

And there we have it, braised beef cheeks with pear

and bitter chocolate sauce.

Mm! This looks absolutely divine.

Mm!

The beef just melts in the mouth. It's sweet and succulent.

That chocolate sauce gives a slight bitter edge to it,

but we've got the fruitiness from the orange and the port

and of course, the pear is there for the texture.

And its lovely sharpness.

It really is a marriage made in heaven.

I urge you to try this.

Wonderful!

Thank you, Michel.

Now, here's a combination that's perhaps a bit more familiar -

cheese and apple.

But what's unusual with this next recipe is how Nigel Slater's

bringing them together.

Old favourites being used in a new way.

I'm not the sort of cook who travels the world, trying to find

weird things to eat.

But I do like to ring the changes

and much more fun to my mind is to take something I know very well,

something familiar, and give it a new lease of life,

give it a surprise.

So I'm taking an unusual approach to one of my favourites -

apple crumble.

I want to play with the flavours and make a savoury version.

Something to try with a Sunday roast,

or even alongside some sausages.

Half a dozen apples should be enough.

There's two ways to approach the filling for a crumble.

You either cook the fruit from raw,

with the crumble topping on it, or you just give the fruit a few

minutes in a pan with a little bit of butter to start with.

So often,

cooking is about getting something on the table at the end of the day.

It's about feeding the hungry horde,

but I think it also can be about having a little bit of fun.

A rainy afternoon, a few ingredients and just playing a bit.

These apples just need a few minutes to stew.

Plenty of time to make my crumble topping.

It starts in the usual way, with butter and flour.

Now, I'm just going to rub the butter into the flour, which you can

do in a food processor and it takes seconds,

but I like the feel of food in my hands, particularly baking.

I just end up with a good rich basic crumble.

Check the apples, see how they're coming along.

Now, they're looking good. They're looking nice and soft.

I'm going to put in a little bit of Madeira. You could use Marsala.

Just something to give it a grown up flavour.

So far, so traditional.

But I want my crumble to be a bit different.

Time for the savoury twist.

Apples and cheese are one of life's perfect marriages.

So, I'm going to grate into that a little bit of Parmesan cheese.

A good strong Parmesan will add real flavour to this.

You probably need three or four tablespoons.

Breadcrumbs will add to the savoury edge and crisp up beautifully.

I'm just thinking of something that will work with the apples.

Maybe a little bit of thyme. I've actually got some lemon thyme.

It just adds that little bit of freshness.

Lemon thyme works well in stuffing and will add a delicate freshness.

So, the apple's really quite soft and it's soaked up a little

bit of that alcohol and then it gets its crumble topping.

A final shower of Parmesan and into the oven it goes.

I'm grateful for the rain today.

It's a wonderful excuse to stay inside, pour myself a drink

and just enjoy the scent of baking.

It's deeply savoury from the cheese and thyme,

but there's definitely the sweetness of apple in there too.

It looks like a crumble.

Something very familiar and friendly about that.

I'm expecting pudding,

but I'm actually getting something that reminds me of an old

fashioned ploughman's lunch, with a big lump of cheese and an apple.

It would be a

really nice thing to have on the side with cold roast meat.

Quite unusual, but it's a success.

The cheese has made a classic apple crumble into something intriguing,

for very little effort.

I'd happily eat this for supper any day of the week and

especially with sausages.

Thanks, Nigel.

Well, that felt halfway between a pudding and a main to me.

So, now, let's go for something that's definitely savoury.

This is Rachel Khoo, with a salad of figs and chicken livers.

'In my little restaurant, I always liked to make simple food

'which showed off the best ingredients.'

Warm salads are popular in Paris and make an elegant starter.

When figs are in season, I go to my local marche,

my little fresh produce market, pick up a bag and usually

they don't make it home, cos I eat them all on the way home.

But if there's some left over, I love to make this salad.

So, what do I need? I need a red onion. I'm going to cut it in half.

Oh, little trick, when you want to scrape the board,

always turn it round, so you're using the back, like this.

Never scrape the board, like this.

That always... When I hear somebody doing that, I'm like...

SHE INHALES

The poor knife! You know, cos you blunt the blade

if you do it that way.

So, I'm going to chop this finely.

I'm not the fastest chopper, but I get there in the end.

Throw that all in there with a bit of butter.

On the hob.

We're actually going to caramelise the onions.

Oh!

-SHE BLOWS

-I'm on fire.

OK.

So, butter's starting to melt. Then I've got a fig.

I'm going to just cut it in half and then in quarters.

And I'm going to need some red wine vinegar for later.

What you're looking for with these red onions is they'll turn

translucent, soften, and get a beautiful

kind of golden caramel colour.

So, these onions are ready.

I'm going to put them in a bowl to set them aside.

In they go.

MUSIC PLAYS ON RADIO

Now for the chicken livers, which always go well with fruit.

When I was a kid, I absolutely hated livers.

My mum would try and disguise it in mince to make me eat the livers.

And you literally want...

They're small livers, so about 30 seconds to a minute on each side.

I'm just adding a little bit of salt.

You can see it's started to caramelise around the edges.

And then, a splash of red wine vinegar. And that's the livers done.

So, hopefully, we'll have a little look,

they should be nice and pink in the middle. Let's have a look.

Yeah, that's perfect.

You want to serve it fairly quick.

Just bung the salad in there.

Then put the figs on too.

Your livers...

and some onions.

Oh, forget it. Just use your hands.

Add a pinch of good quality sea salt

and drizzle over extra virgin olive oil.

And a bit of black pepper.

The French like to put hot bacon or freshly poached

eggs in their salads, but this combination is my favourite.

Et voila! My French, fast-food, healthy lunch.

Perfect.

Mm, that looked delicious, Rachel.

Now for our next recipe, from Gennaro, of the Two Greedy Italians,

is a very unusual pudding.

I suspect few of you are going to be tempted by it,

but despite that, I'm including it here, because there's

something fascinating about it, particularly one of the ingredients.

This is a pudding which I used to eat at your age and now,

after so many years, yeah, I'm doing again!

Flour, straight in.

-Sugar, zucchero.

-Yes.

Mm!

HE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE

-Cocoa powder, yeah?

-Yeah.

Go on, go, taste some cocoa powder.

OK. Straight in.

Yes.

Milk.

Pig blood. Mm!

Do you want to taste it?

-No?

-No.

-Do you want to taste it?

-ALL:

-No!

Slowly, slowly.

'The kids are not keen,

'but this was my favourite pudding when I was a kid.'

Mm!

'And the blood is so full of goodness.'

Make sure you use every little bit.

The reason why, because it's blood.

The animal was living once, why should we waste it?

Do you want to help? Go on, you do it.

Go, you do it.

Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on!

More, more, more! You try now, you try.

HE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE

When it's all mixed together, so easy,

you put it on the gas, OK? Keep stirring it.

Yeah, look how thick.

THEY GASP

Yeah. Me first.

Why am I so good at cooking? Pig blood and chocolate.

It's ready now.

-HE GASPS

-Oh, yes.

THEY SPEAK OWN LANGUAGE

Do you not want any more?

We finished it.

'It was so good to see children enjoying what I used to enjoy

'when I was a little boy.'

BOY SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE

Fantastic.

He said, "Now that I've tasted the pig blood and chocolate,

"I will ask my grandma to make it every time."

THEY CLAP

Hm, not sure what to make of that.

Maybe I'll just stick to regular chocolate pudding.

Now we've reached our final dish, liquorice and blackcurrant.

It's definitely a combination that you can get in old school

boiled sweets, but I bet most of you have never

come across it in a cake before, particularly in a Swiss roll.

-THE GREAT BRITISH BAKE OFF NARRATOR:

-'Paul's take on the first

'signature challenge is a striped,

'liquorice and blackcurrant Swiss roll,

'filled with blackcurrant jam and liquorice butter cream.'

This, basically, comes from flavours of my youth.

Things that I loved when I was a kid.

I think this is going to be sensational.

-We'll see.

-Well, hopefully, it'll start us off on the right path.

-Now, to start it off I need to make the stripes.

-Yeah.

And then, on top of that,

we're going to have the white of the traditional sponge.

So, can you weigh up for me 70g of unsalted butter?

I want 70g of icing sugar in there as well, please.

You notice that I'm much more careful than when you do it.

You get it all over me.

-There you are, off you go.

-Lovely.

Now, I need two egg whites doing.

-What are you going to do with the yolks?

-I don't know,

I might make an omelette later. Do you fancy something?

-You can tell these are really fresh eggs...

-Yeah.

..the way the white is clinging to the egg yolk.

I've had a few of your Swiss rolls in the last few years,

I hope you like this one.

Well, it certainly seems different.

'Cream the butter and icing sugar together.'

I'm going to add the egg whites.

And then whisk this through.

'Weigh up 80g of plain flour, ready to fold into the mix.'

What was all that about the peace in the tent and nobody here?

-You've made enough row about that.

-My arm's killing me already.

Right, so in there you've got the butter, icing sugar and egg whites.

Egg whites. Now I'm going to put the plain flour straight in here,

into the mix. Thank you.

Mix those ingredients all together.

-You see how white it is, without the egg yolk?

-Mm-hm.

It's quite a pale mixture.

Now I'm going to put a teaspoon of the liquorice essence in here.

-It looks like medicine.

-It does. You wouldn't want to eat that, Mary.

That is really strong.

And here, I've got a teaspoon of black food colouring.

Now, liquorice essence is dark,

but I really want to make the point that this is liquorice,

so using black food colouring will give your senses another kick.

So you then mix this all together and it'll go a grey colour,

bit like concrete.

Gosh, the smell of that is very, very strong.

It'll pipe, that, now. I should get a bit of a stretch from it.

Do you know what that looks like?

I was brought up in Bath and it looks like Fuller's earth.

You use it for poultices. It's exactly that colour.

-Sorry about that, but I can remember it.

-It's fine.

You used to have it put on sprains and things. That's Fuller's earth.

It looks like it's for a poultice. Charming(!)

Right, we're going to pop this straight into the piping bag.

Now, I've already got a small nozzle on there.

-That's about a half inch, isn't it?

-Yeah, it's about a half inch long.

If you haven't got a nozzle and you've got these piping bags,

-you can just snip it.

-At the end.

-It'll still do the job.

With all this food colouring in here, you want to avoid it with

your hands, cos it'll probably stay on your hands for about three weeks.

So, this is a Swiss roll tin which you've lined with non-stick paper.

So, you've got butter on the bottom and on the sides.

I've just folded over the edge and I'll show you why now.

When you pipe, go inside and then draw it out.

So, nice and steady with the piping.

I'm doing diagonal lines across the sponge.

Are you meaning to get it all over the table?

You're whingeing about the state of the bench now as well?

'These lines will eventually

'be the liquorice stripes on the outside of the roll.

'The consistency is thick, so when the main sponge mix is poured

'over them, they should keep their shape.'

Right, Mary, we're going to make the sponge now.

Can you give me three large eggs in a large bowl, please?

-You weigh up the 75g of caster sugar.

-Catch.

-Thank you.

75g coming up.

My guess is you're doing a whisked sponge.

I'm going a whisked sponge, yeah.

So, I'm going to get the eggs, crack it straight in here,

get my whizzer going.

Now, while I'm doing my whizzer, can you weigh me

up 75g of self-raising flour as well, please?

In one of those little bowls.

I'm going to whisk this up till ribbon stage

and then I'm going to sift in the flour.

'Ribbon stage is reached when the mixture is light and frothy

'and you're able to make a ribbon-like pattern on the surface.'

Now, the next thing to go in is the self-raising flour,

which I'm going to sift in. Unusual for me to sift.

Anything that's got air, it's got to keep the air in it,

like a Genoise or a whisked sponge, there is only one way of doing it.

-HIGH PITCHED:

-So, it's round the outside

and cut though the middle.

It always used to be with a metal spoon,

but now we've got flexible spatulas.

-Did you have plastic when you were a kid, Mary?

-No.

-What was it, flint?

-Things have changed, as you keep telling me.

'Once the mixture is thoroughly folded, pour it over the liquorice

'stripes, making sure it fills all the gaps and is perfectly level.'

'The sponge needs to be completely flat when baked.'

-What about this little corner down here?

-It's coming over there now.

-It's coming.

-There we go, it's like a river. It's like a wave of sponge.

Piling over to the corner.

Now, this will go into the oven at 180 fan for about ten minutes.

-There it is, Mary.

-That's a beautiful, perfect colour.

I'm just going to leave that for five,

ten minutes for it to cool down slightly.

Now, in the meantime, I want to make up the butter cream.

'To make the liquorice butter cream, weigh up 75g of butter,

'then add in 225g of icing sugar.'

And we've got a little bit of milk there as well.

Why have you put milk in it?

I'm just going to wet it down, so it doesn't go all over me

when I start to mix this.

'Finish off with a half teaspoon of liquorice essence

'and beat together.'

Are you looking forward to trying this? Do you like liquorice anyway?

-I've never asked you that.

-I love liquorice.

When I get a packet of Allsorts,

the plain liquorice is the one that I always go to.

-I don't, I always go for the coconut.

-Oh, no. I certainly don't.

Now, there we have it.

That's the perfect consistency to go inside the Swiss roll.

-Mm-hm.

-We've got some blackcurrant jam.

-I think blackcurrant and liquorice together...

-Lovely.

..is a fantastic mix.

I've got a tray here and over here I've got a piece of paper.

Would you mind scattering lots of caster sugar over there for me?

Normally, you would tip it straight onto the caster sugar.

That's what I was just thinking.

But, because all the decoration is on the underside,

we have to flip it first and then flip it out.

So, we're going to flip all this over. There we have it.

That is a great reveal, isn't it?

What I'm going to do is flip this straight over onto that sugar.

I'll hold it.

So, I'm just going to pop this butter cream onto there.

It's very important that this is cool, because, otherwise,

the butter cream will melt straight into the back of the sponge.

I'm happy with that. Now I'm going to add the blackcurrant jam.

I think it looks lovely.

And, again, take the blackcurrant jam to the outside.

Wait till you try this with the liquorice,

you've never had anything like it before, it's so unusual.

-I'm happy with that.

-Looks pretty even to me.

'And, with a decorative sponge like Paul's,

'you need to be especially careful.'

Well, that's the same sort of rule that you have with all Swiss

rolls, just make an indentation,

not quite to the bottom of the Swiss roll and actually crack it over.

It's jolly important, that first bit of roll,

-to get it like a Catherine wheel, isn't it?

-Exactly.

And then I can begin to roll up the remaining sponge.

Look at that, Mary.

That looks pretty good.

-You've managed not to get any blackcurrant on top.

-Exactly.

-I was trying to be careful with that.

-That was pretty clever.

There it is then, Mary. Blackcurrant and liquorice Swiss roll.

-It does look stunning and so different.

-Excuse the fingers, Mary.

SHE GASPS

The liquorice comes through.

Who would think of having liquorice in a cake?

And, gosh, it goes well with the blackcurrant too.

Liquorice is one of those flavours that you love or hate, isn't it?

But I think it proves the point that you can bring any

flavour into anything you want, but just enjoy baking it.

I am going in for some more.

Mm.

Well, I'm afraid there's no time for some more.

So, thanks to Paul and Mary and all today's chefs.

And make sure you join me again.

Until next time, take care now, bye-bye.