Mediterranean Favourites The Best Dishes Ever

Today's show sees us celebrating some of the best dishes ever

from across the Channel,

with our cast of chefs taking us on a little tour round Europe.

We'll be getting inspiration from France, Italy and Spain,

but we start with a delicious classic from Greece.

Here, we find Paul Hollywood giving us a Bake Off masterclass

with Mary Berry playing his sidekick.

Now, oddly it seems Paul doesn't actually like this recipe very much,

but Mary loves it.

And I think you will too.

I certainly do.

With Paul's simple recipe for a Greek spanakopita,

you too can make your own filo pastry at home.

-Do you like spinach?

-I absolutely love fresh spinach.

I loathe spinach. But I love making this.

-Do you really?

-Yes.

-Oh, it goes so well with feta.

Yeah, it does. I don't like feta either. In fact...

Would you like me to take over?

I'll do the filling and you can do the pastry.

But it's a special thing to make.

I don't mind it actually wrapped in filo pastry,

it works for me as a whole deal.

I mean to be honest you could put many different things in there,

but the classic thing is spinach and feta.

Now, to start with I need to make the filo pastry.

Measure out 200g of strong flour.

There's absolutely no rush at all.

I'm shaking like mad.

Thank you very much indeed.

And to this I'm just going to add a little pinch of salt.

-That was a jolly good pinch.

-It was...

And I would approve of that.

OK.

And then after that, I'm going to add some olive oil to this.

Add a tablespoon of olive oil

and you'll need around 120ml of warm water.

Have you ever made filo, Mary? You must've done.

I have made it when I was at college.

And it was a hilarious time.

We threw it about.

We got there in the end, but I've never been tempted to make it since.

Yes. Pour the water in.

I'm just going to hold some back.

Add a little at a time until the dough comes together.

So, what I'm going to do is just turn it round the bowl.

Get all these ingredients to sort of start binding together.

It's quite a smooth, glossy dough this.

It's got no rising agent in it, as such.

A little bit more in there.

But this thing's going to really stretch.

You have to work it, this dough, to get it quite glutinous.

Quite stretchy.

-You see, all I've done now is bring it together in a bowl.

-Yep.

And I'm going to work that now for a bit.

In about 1966, filo pastry came and we could buy it in the shops.

And I can remember going out

and seeing this pastry being made here for the first time in England.

Yeah.

-And there were huge, great rollers, you know, like a mangle.

-Yeah, yeah.

-And the factory had all women in doing it.

-Yeah.

And it went through all these mangles,

and there were still people turning those

and that was about 1966/67.

And it became available in all the shops.

OK, Mary. Now we're going to start to create the filling.

Could you pass me that large bowl of spinach, please?

This is obviously fresh.

And that will wilt down to next to nothing.

-That will wilt down to virtually nothing.

-How much is in there?

There's 900g. So, it's a couple of big bags in there.

So, I've got a pan here that's getting hot.

You literally just grab all your spinach...

And of course that's freshly washed, so the water that's around it...

That's all you need, isn't it?

That'll create enough steam.

And again the moisture's inside the leaves.

Now, literally you leave that a couple of minutes.

It'll start to steam and it will sweat down.

And once it's sweated down we can drain it and then prepare it

and mix it with feta.

OK, Mary. There we have it.

-There's our wilted spinach.

-Right.

And what I'll do is, I'm just going to grab this lot.

I'm going to pass through here.

Try and get as much liquid out of this as possible.

Using the back of a spoon,

squeeze the liquid out of the spinach.

Cos what you don't want to do is

when you actually come to roll this thing up in the filo pastry

is have all that liquid inside when you do it.

Place onto kitchen roll to soak up any excess.

Well, that's pretty dry now.

It is there. I think it's nearly there.

Put the spinach into a bowl adding the zest of a lemon.

Just a little bit of seasoning there.

The spinach is going to have an inherent flavour,

but obviously you need to highlight that flavour as well.

The lemon's going to cut through this.

And I'm going to have a little bit of nutmeg.

Now, that lemon. Don't let's waste it,

we could just put a bit of clingfilm round it,

put it in the fridge and perhaps use it for lemon drizzle cake,

or a slice of lemon in gin and tonic.

Gin and tonic.

I knew it would come round to that somewhere.

OK, nearly everything in there.

The last thing I'm going to add...

Actually, can you pass me an egg over there, please?

And the egg will be the binding agent in this.

Thank you very much indeed.

And that'll make the whole mixture set.

Yes, exactly.

And then finally...

we're going to break up some pieces of this beautiful feta.

-Do you like feta?

-I love it.

This is about 200g of the stuff.

Carry on, just crumble it in.

I'm going to get my hands in there

and just mix all the ingredients together.

I love doing jobs like this, especially mucky jobs.

This is going to be the main body of the filo pastry.

OK, that's our ingredients for the filling finished.

All we've got to prepare now is the pastry.

Here we go, Mary. We've got the...

The pastry has been rested in a fridge

for at least an hour, it's nice and cold.

And it's quite relaxed now, as well.

Because what I'm about to do to it

is alter its world.

I'm going to stick it through this pasta machine.

Just put a little bit of cornflour.

I'm going to divide this dough into five pieces.

It's like plaiting a loaf.

If I start taking this through

on its highest setting at the moment.

Take it through again...

When you say the highest setting, you mean as thin as it can go

-or as wide as it can go?

-No, this is the widest.

This is the widest. The thickest that it will allow through.

So, take it through a couple of times.

And then begin slowly...

Take it down to three,

take it through again.

And again, take it down.

So, what you do is begin to stretch the dough this way.

And you can see...

-It's like a strudel, you know when you are working with a strudel?

-Mhm.

The strudel itself, you should be able to read a newspaper through it.

And as I gently stretch that...

Shall I go and get a newspaper for you to have a read?

Which one would you like?

Can you hold that side there?

If you can just begin to stretch it this way.

Do you know? It feels like silk.

-Yeah, I know.

-It's really soft.

It's got no yeast in it, so it's got nothing forcing air into it.

Now, what we're doing is gently taking this out,

taking out the sides first

and then what I'm going to do is just pull out the interior, as well.

Nice and gently.

You can see it's not ripping at the moment,

if you do it gently and just wobble it. You're enticing it to come out.

And you see how thin that's getting now?

You can actually start to see the bench through it, you know?

Repeat the rolling out process with the remaining dough

to make five layers.

How would you do it if you hadn't got a pasta machine?

Rolling pin.

Rolling pin, plenty of cornflour.

And just literally just bear with it

and stretch, stretch, stretch, stretch, stretch all the time.

Brush each layer with melted butter before placing the next on top.

So, it's very flexible, isn't it?

It is, even with the five layers on now.

I'm just going to put a little bit of extra butter on it.

OK, so we've coated that in butter

and I think we're good to go with the filling.

Pile the spinach mixture onto the pastry in an even line.

What I'm going to do is just gently fold over the ends

just to seal it up slightly.

What I'm going to do is just roll over the top.

And again, that puts a little bit of stretch on it as well.

It's a bit like doing a Swiss roll at this stage, you know?

I'm just going to stretch...

Hold the dough and just gently tease it there.

Now, we need...

I'm just going to move that paper.

-You give it to me, I'll have it up this end.

-Thank you.

What I'm doing to do is just coil this whole thing up.

The end bit, just tuck it underneath.

Brush it with some more butter.

Could you get an egg for me, please?

I just need a beaten egg, as well.

All right.

So, it's butter and egg?

Yeah, you want that strong colour.

You want that... you know, that really dark colour on the top.

And it'll give it a slight crispiness to it, as well.

For me, there's only one ingredient which is fantastic to go in there.

And that's sesame seed.

And those are untoasted.

Untoasted. It'll roast in the oven.

So, a good drizzle of...

..sesame seeds on the top.

Here we've got our spanakopita ready to go in the oven.

-We've set the oven to 190, fan.

-Mhm.

And this will go in for about 35 to 40 minutes.

Beautiful, golden brown.

There we have it, Mary.

That looks absolutely wonderful.

-It's a bit hot.

-Very hot.

-So, what I need to do...

It's lovely and crispy, you've got that...

I quite understand why you put that butter and egg on top.

It gives a lovely colour.

And what I'm going to do is place it straight onto this.

Right.

The smell is lovely.

-The smell. You can smell the feta, the melted feta.

-Gorgeous colour.

The spinach is crispy, it's got loads of layers.

Full of butter, topped with beautiful sesame seeds.

That will be delicious.

I can't wait.

Here we go then, Mary.

-Oh, I like that.

-Do you like that?

-I really like that.

Do you think it's better than the shop-bought filo?

Paul Hollywood's every time.

We've got another double act for you now.

Those two Greedy Italians.

It's Antonio and Gennaro.

Here we find the pair in a boat off the coast of Campania.

Gennaro has just been diving for octopus.

So, while he gets his breath back,

Antonio is making something basic, but beautifully Italian.

It's linguine with prawns and mussels.

Surprise, surprise.

Let's see what he has got.

Antonio.

Yeah, Gennaro. What have you got there?

Unbelievable!

Wow, look at this.

-All for the love.

-Wow, look at this.

-Hold on.

-Oh, that's wonderful.

-Hey, Antonio.

-Yes.

No, I don't want...

That's for you!

Oh, that's good.

One male and one female.

This is a sea urchin.

What I will do without it?

-Yeah.

-Little quick?

-Yes.

-May I have it?

-Yes.

I like to do it like this.

You want a bit of lemon on top?

No.

Oh, the smell.

And the taste of the Mediterranean all in one bite.

I eat them like that.

"I eat them like that."

I know.

I prefer without the lemon.

Gennaro, now you come aboard.

I cook you something.

I am not going to use Gennaro's octopus for my recipe,

knowing where it's been kept.

I've got my own catch, prawns and mussels with linguine.

Now, he is very hungry and I'm going to prepare for him

a very cucina povera dish which is just a few ingredients,

starting with taking water, because we are on a boat,

from the sea.

Because of the salted water.

And I have here linguine.

And I put it into the salted water, boiling here on the side.

Wham.

In the meantime, I prepare the sauce which is very, very easy.

-Oh, be careful. It's hot.

-Give it to me.

Move a little bit. And it's there.

Now, in this case we have wonderful seafood.

We have the linguine. There, seafood linguine.

We have fantastic prawns which I shelled already and mussels

and a little bit of parsley.

And we put just a little olive oil.

-Yeah.

-And we put the chilli and I like it with the seeds.

People, they just eat the garlic and the chilli in the oil

and it's called spaghetti or linguine aglio olio e peperoncino.

Yeah, and then I put the mussels first because they have to open.

And by opening, they release wonderful sea water which

will flavour, all Mediterranean, the entire dish.

When you put the lid on, the steam is building

and the mussels are opening very quickly.

Opening? No, not yet.

It has to build up a lovely steam so that they open

and they release all the fantastic juices.

It's a little fact we can put a little bit of wine,

which belongs to it.

And so it builds a little bit more.

Erm, steam.

Do you want me to chop the parsley?

Yes.

You can chop the parsley, Gennaro.

Thank you.

You see, I'm always helping you.

Wonderful.

They are open, it's fine.

And now I put the prawns.

Are you going to use a little bit of salt, Antonio?

-Nope.

-OK.

A little pepper.

-Leave... Leave the lid off.

-OK.

I want to taste.

Just a little bit of salt.

-GENNARO LAUGHS

-What do I do without you?

Just a little pinch.

And I believe it's ready in a minute or two.

It's cooked.

I know that you are hungry.

Yeah. Do you want the parsley?

No, not yet.

Just to cook them very briefly.

Do you see?

They change colour and they're cooked.

They look fantastic.

That's fantastic, Gennaro.

You really think of me, eh?

Mmm.

-Just a little bit of olive oil.

-Yeah.

Ah.

Gennaro, look at this.

Now, we want the parsley.

Put it there. Lovely.

-Gennaro, it's all yours.

-Thank you very much.

-One for you.

-Thank you.

-One for me.

-Is the portion enough for you, yeah?

Oh, my goodness.

Here's to the health of the entire world, you know.

You envy us.

They have to suffer.

And this is what makes Italian food different from others

because when you want to have really the original, wonderful thing,

you have to have very good ingredients,

which here are available everywhere.

And the fish has a very special flavour.

The pasta is locally made,

parsley is locally grown and eaten in Minori.

What do you want more?

-You're right.

-It's fantastic.

-Yeah. I'll give it the glamour of lobster.

-And this is poor food.

You can fill quite a few people from here.

Mm. Mm-m. Mm.

Yeah, you can eat it all, Gennaro.

It's all been good. So, I know you worked a lot, you can...

I know.

OK, we've seen cuisine from Greece and Italy,

so let's plump for something French now.

With a gorgeous combination of chicken and morel mushrooms,

this isn't just a hit in France.

Raymond Blanc thinks it's one of the best dishes anywhere.

The dish I'm going to make is one of the great dishes in the world.

Simple as well.

There are a few tricks, mind you, so you've got to go through them.

Some people might want the skin on,

but for poaching I think it's better to take the skin off.

The seasoned breast is browned in a beurre noisette,

foaming batter which smells and tastes of hazelnuts.

What a beautiful noise.

What you want to hear is that gentle, lovely sound.

Delicate.

So, now I've got some lovely colour.

It's still very rare in the middle here, completely red.

It just browns beautifully,

which gives fantastic flavour to the sauce.

And creates a fantastic exchange of flavours, of colours,

but mostly flavours.

That's what I'm really interested in as a cook.

Oh, that's perfect.

Frying has beautifully browned the outside of the chicken breasts.

But poaching will cook the inside.

The meat will poach in the sauce using dried morel mushrooms.

What I've done is rehydrate those morels, pour warm water over it.

So, that will be the main carrier of flavour.

The morels are important, but the wine is as important.

It is Arbois, the Vin Jaune.

That is home, I really...

That's my home.

I get very emotional, you know.

You could use sherry, if you want to.

Dry sherry, OK, in that sauce.

Very easily.

The wine forms the base of the sauce and poaching liquid.

We want to boil the wine, remove the alcohol.

Of course, don't boil it down to death.

I still have 9/10ths of the volume of the wine.

Look, that is perfect.

Chop button mushrooms for texture.

Squeeze the water from the morel mushrooms,

but preserve the juice for extra flavour in the sauce.

I'm not browning my mushrooms, I'm just warming them up.

And I'm converting the starch into sugar.

Into flavour.

Add the reduced wine, morel juice and 200g of double cream.

Voila, c'est bien.

It's a very rich dish, but, my God.

That will become your star dish for your dinner parties.

It is amazing.

Now, we are ready for the poaching.

Voila, tres bien. Completely covered.

The whole process takes no more than seven minutes.

No boiling, no simmering.

I want that chicken to cook so slowly.

That wet heat to go through gently, right at the heart of my chicken.

Taste your food all the time.

There will be nothing left soon.

That's quite delicious. Amazing.

So, temperature.

Just right in the middle of the breast.

It is 60 degrees.

So, it's cooked.

But I want to finish off the cooking, OK, by relaxing the meat.

We're to rest them a little bit here.

And reduce the sauce.

Very fast speed now.

Galloping reduction.

The chicken will be served with sliced leeks.

These can be prepared in advance and heated to serve,

or cooked at the last minute.

Often, one boils vegetables.

One boils them to death actually.

We take away all the goodness,

their beauty, their colour, their taste and texture.

All that goes into the water.

I'm going to show you a little technique which keeps everything.

Taste, texture, colour, flavour and nutrients.

This tip is great for any vegetables that can be quickly

boiled or steamed.

Cut into small and even sized pieces to aid fast cooking.

Add 5g of butter and a splash of water.

When heated this will create an emulsion,

a glossy blend of two liquids which don't usually mix.

The water will create steam and the butter adds flavour.

What is fantastic about this technique

is that the leeks are not boiling in plenty of water,

just a tiny bit of boiling water which will steam them.

And that will create an emulsion with the butter,

creating a wonderful coating. I mean, fantastic flavours.

It should take exactly three minutes.

The leeks are ready just in time to serve.

Let's dress it.

This incredible, beautiful sauce.

Wonderful smell, wonderful aromas.

So fresh, so clean.

So beautiful.

Bon appetit.

OK, so we're going to taste it.

This is the best moment of the day, when you've cooked it,

you've worked for it.

Look what the poaching has done.

It's absolutely moist.

Lovely.

Fantastic textures with those mushrooms.

Beautiful. That shows the art of poaching.

That's kind of a dish you will remember all of your life.

Thanks, Raymond.

And we end today with something very special from James Martin.

Some delicious sardines that he's cooking Spanish-style.

I'm starting with an easy dish

that I first had on a trip to Spain

that involves everything a bloke like me could want.

Food, fire and DIY.

Barbecue sardines and a salsa I'm making

with cucumbers from the bottom of my garden.

Now, one of the first times I tried something similar to this was

sardines cooked in a wood-fired oven.

and I thought was a fantastic way to cook it.

It brings a whole different flavour to it.

The key to it really, is the wood which you nail the sardines to.

Sounds a bit weird, but we're going to serve it

with a raw salsa, so it's something really simple and really quick.

Now, the great thing about this is

you can make it with whatever you want.

When I had it over in Spain it was just sort of carrots, peppers.

But I think when you've got something as good as this

growing at the bottom of your garden, you've really got to use it.

You can do them with sweetcorn.

Tinned sweetcorn, even.

Tomatoes. It's really up to you.

Sardines are often quite fiddly to eat,

you need to make sure the salsa's nice and small,

so it's easy to eat with those sardines.

That's really the key to this.

Throw that in a bowl.

And then we can add the shallot.

Now, it's important to use shallot, not onion

because shallot's much more mild in flavour than onion.

Onion's far too strong for this.

I do this quite a lot since I've come back from Spain.

I just thought was a great way to serve it.

And a brilliant talking point, as well.

Particularly if you want to cook on a fire pit

or a wood-fired oven like this.

It's just fantastic way of serving food.

So, I'm going to add a little bit of garlic to this.

Now, this salsa only really works with seafood.

And everybody knows when you're on holiday,

particularly when you go to Spain or France,

we seem to eat more seafood than we'd ever do in the UK.

Which is a shame, to be honest.

Because a lot of the seafood that you have over in Spain and France

is actually imported from the UK.

We don't really eat as much as we should do.

So, things like sardines,

the more we actually buy, the more demand that we'll get

and the more you'll actually enjoy fresh seafood like this.

After the garlic is added, bind the mixture together

with four tablespoons of good-quality olive oil.

I'm going to upset the Italians here

cos I actually love Spanish olive oil.

It's not just the Italians that produce really good olive oil now.

Next, add some herbs to give the salsa a punch.

I've got some coriander.

Mint works brilliantly with this.

It's quite unusual putting mint with fish,

but when you've got fish this fresh it really cuts through the flavour.

And the oiliness.

You got a little bit of dill.

Really, whatever herbs you want.

You could just use parsley for this.

The main thing is they're classed as sort of soft herbs,

so you won't use things like rosemary or thyme,

which are classed as sort of hard herbs, ones that need cooking.

And then just to bring this all together,

I'm going to take some lime juice.

This is the real key to this.

Because you just need a little bit of zing.

So, plenty of lime juice.

Finally, some sea salt and plenty of freshly-ground black pepper.

And that's it.

Now, it's time for the fun bit.

I often find these are one of the things that Northerners prefer

more than Southerners, to be honest.

My granny used to eat masses of these. I used to eat loads as a kid.

If you're brought up with them, I think you like them

and appreciate them more.

We got these wonderful sardines that have been scaled and gutted.

Now, I'm going to leave these whole, that's the crucial bit.

Because what we're going to do is nail these to a plank of wood.

Now, I did say this was a bit weird, but bear with me.

We got these wonderful logs here,

that I've soaked overnight.

The secret of soaking the wood is you don't get it burnt.

So, the idea is that you take a couple of these on each log

press the nail all the way through and just hammer this...

..in there.

And repeat the process with two more.

When I saw this being done in Spain, I just had to bring it back home.

I just think they're just fantastic.

It's just so simple.

But the flavour you get from it,

particularly when you're cooking in this oven...

And you can cook these by the side of a camp fire, just on the edge.

You want the sardines to cook

and bring all that lovely flavour of the wood.

There's going to be people just tuning in thinking it's a DIY show

and I'm making a cabinet or something like that, but...

bear with me.

But you need to make sure you get really good quality seafood.

And we're going to get letters saying, "What type of wood is it?"

It's wood.

It comes from a petrol station, all right.

And then all we do with that is we just season these

with a bit of black pepper and a bit of salt.

And then all we do now is just pop these inside the oven,

just pointing towards the fire.

I think they just look spectacular.

Now, if you're cooking these by a campfire

they'll take about five to six minutes.

Or in here, about four minutes.

You can lift these out.

Sardines on wood.

Who'd have thought it?

Look at that.

This is a dish I only cook at home.

I'd love to serve these in my restaurant,

but I'd end up with a load of people with white jackets

and clipboards telling me that I can't do it

cos of health and safety and nails and planks of wood,

but I just love it.

I just think it just looks so fantastic.

The flavour of it is just fantastic because they're so simply cooked

and that's how sardines should be cooked.

Every time I taste this, I just get the same memories

of this wonderful little cafe in Spain by the beach,

cooked in a wood-fire pit.

But the flavour is exactly the same.

It's delicious.

Holidays are such a great way of getting inspiration

for new food ideas and is something I do all the time.

Sadly, that ends our little European mini-break.

Hope you've enjoyed the trip

and do join me again next time for many more of the best dishes ever.

Bye-bye.