Technically Challenging The Best Dishes Ever

Today, the best dishes ever

are more than a little bit special.

We've got four recipes that really

push things to the limit.

They're technically challenging,

require some care and attention and could inspire you to

tackle something new or just leave you marvelling

at the skill on display.

Either way, enjoy.

To get things started, here's the king of the kitchen,

Raymond Blanc, with his lobster with red pepper and cardamom jus.

First, Raymond removes the claws.

It's a big one.

We have the tail and we have the body.

We're going to keep the body to do the sauce,

and I can assure you,

delicious and very dramatic as well.

Next, he removes the intestines, leaving in the lungs,

the dead men's fingers.

There are so many preconceived ideas.

"Dead men's fingers.

"Oh, my God, poison!"

No, it's the lungs of the lobster.

All you have through here is seawater passing through.

Next, he cuts the body into small pieces.

They will form the base for the sauce.

You are going to do an incredible sauce just with the shell,

roasting it until a wonderful lobster flavour comes through.

The shell pieces are set aside to be roasted later.

So, now, we are going to blanch the tail...

..plunging it in boiling water for 15 seconds, cook the outside

and then you can easily remove the tail.

The intestines of the lobster

you can move away.

That's the curry oil that I made for the scallops.

It's not that I'm short of ideas,

it simply just happened to be that way.

Having cooked the claws in boiling water for five minutes,

Raymond cracks the shells to release their meat.

Voila. So, that one has just burst out here.

I want to keep that in the fridge until I need it.

So, let's put that away.

Adam, presentez.

Merci.

Next, Raymond begins the base for his sauce -

roasting the lobster shells to intensify their flavour.

I want to caramelise them, I want to brown them.

I want to really taste that amazing flavour of that lobster

and I can only achieve that if I brown it

and caramelise it beautifully.

-You can hear it.

-SIZZLING

That tells you exactly what's happening in here and, of course,

confirmed by this instrument here.

The body of the sauce is made from red peppers, roughly chopped

and blitzed until smooth.

Voila.

Once liquidised, the peppers are sieved into a pan

and Raymond adds his spice -

aromatic ginger...

I will crush these cardamom seeds so they can release their flavour.

..and cardamom.

He adds reduced white wine to the lobster shells to bring

a little acidity.

See the glaze, all the lovely pan juices.

Voila.

I put all that in here...

to simmer very slowly.

A gentle simmer will release maximum flavour.

I don't want to boil.

I want an infusion.

I want something where all these flavours emerge

and marry each other.

It's a marriage, it's a marriage, it's a wonderful,

simple alchemy here, which is exciting.

Cooks feel truly excited.

The sauce is strained through a fine sieve and reduced by half,

making it even more intense.

Look at that.

Ooh, la, la. Let me tell you about this flavour.

It doesn't need no salt.

Really, no salt.

Cos the spice is here...

the fruit of the red peppers is here,

the ginger is there, the cardamom just marry everything

and that lustre jus is wonderful.

It's like a painter.

You feel like you want to take a canvas and throw it on it.

Actually, no, not really.

I prefer my cooking.

Now Raymond can cook the lobster.

First, he puts the claws in a preheated oven at 180 degrees.

Next, he grills the tail.

So, just here, that's OK.

A frying pan could be used.

And the lobster is ready to be served.

Caviar and yoghurt-topped new potatoes are surrounded

by a drizzle of curry oil

and splashes of the aromatic red-pepper jus.

And what you do, you take it from the tail.

Beautiful.

Some crispy potato skins for texture, and to finish, herbs.

Then these wonderful baby chives.

This dish is not only colourful, it's fresh, it's clean,

it's got amazing superpose layers of flavours.

Anything that the lobster or a great dish should be -

the promise is kept...

It's honest.

Nice texture as well, nice texture.

That little dish is really a lovely expression.

It's beautiful, fantastic, vibrant colours,

great flavours inside, fresh and clean.

That's a great dish to woo your loved one, there is no doubt.

She will break, she will crack, she will say,

"Yes, yes, yes!"

OK, Raymond, now something else for you to say yes to -

more seafood that's a little bit fiddlier,

but well worth the effort, I think.

It's sushi, here created by the two Hairy Bikers.

We're going to show you how to make a few sushi dishes that look

fantastic, taste beautiful and are a bit fiddly,

but are a lot of fun and well worth it.

Sushi starts with the rice.

In fact, "sushi" means rice, it doesn't mean raw fish.

It's vinegared rice

and it has taken us blooming ages

to get this right in a domestic environment.

This seems like a faff with your rice, but it works.

This is Japanese sushi rice.

It's a short-grain rice, it's a bit sticky, it's a bit firm.

It's just right.

Now, it needs treating with respect.

First off, the washing process.

And you wash it not once, but thrice.

Right.

We'll just leave that to stand now...

..for 15 minutes.

'Now, we need to boil up some water with, if you can find it,

'some kombu seaweed.'

We pop the rice in...

stir it once.

Put the lid on,

bring it to the boil, simmer for ten minutes.

'Whilst that's cooking, we need to make some rice dressing.'

So, we start with rice vinegar.

200ml of vinegar.

Pop that into a pan. Into that vinegar

we want four tablespoons of sugar...

and four teaspoons of salt.

Heat that up until it dissolves, which won't take long, then

set aside for it to cool, and this is what we dress the rice with.

'After ten minutes, the rice should have absorbed all the water.'

Now we turn the heat off

and we leave that for 20 minutes, just to settle in its own steam.

Don't take the lid off.

-Cup of tea.

-Yeah.

# I wanna go to a sushi bar

# Sushi, sushi, sushi bar

# Going to a sushi bar. #

Right, the time has come.

The rice is done.

Using a wooden rice paddle, you put the rice into the bowl.

As you can see, it's cooked through,

there's no water in the bottom, there's no mess.

'Now, let's dress the rice.'

And basically, you sprinkle it over the rice and kind of cut it

through with a slicing motion, but hopefully not mashing the hot rice.

'And then it's got to be cooled, not in the fridge, but with a fan.'

This process is known as pearlising the rice

and it kind of produces this sheen on the rice.

So, you want ten minutes like this,

-then using the rice paddle, turn the rice over...

-Yep.

-..fan for two minutes...

-Yep.

..turn it over two minutes, turn it over two minutes

and then it should be fine to use.

Done this at home sometimes, I've just put an electric fan there,

but it's not right, really, though, is it? You know...

-Well, it's wrong, Dave, it's wrong.

-No, no, no. It's perfect.

'We're going to make some nori rolls.

'How's that rice coming along, Kingy?

'That's got to be ten minutes by now, mate.'

Look at that stick.

Oh!

That's the sushi rice we know and love.

-That's it.

-Yeah.

It's absolutely perfect.

'Take a sheet of nori seaweed and cut it into strips,

'then cover your bamboo rolling mat in clingfilm.'

So, take your nori.

Now, you start with its shiny side down.

We want to cover - this is a narrow roll -

..up to there with the rice.

Leave about a centimetre and a half, two centimetres,

and don't put too much rice in.

It's got a good stick, but every grain's separate.

Just a little smidge of wasabi down the middle.

'Wasabi is a Japanese relative of horseradish and, be careful,

'it's powerful stuff.'

You don't want to create a pocket of wasabi,

it's going to give somebody a dreadful fright.

'Next, add some sliced raw salmon and cucumber.'

Now, just wet that edge.

We want this to form the seal.

Roll it, try and keep that in the middle.

I'll turn it over.

Keep it tight.

With your mat, squeeze it like so.

And your nori roll.

Just cut into bite-size rolls.

And, again, these are fresh and sticky.

It's a million miles away from the supermarket dried-up stuff.

Another variation using nori seaweed is gunboat sushi.

Simply make a patty of rice, wrap a strip of nori around it

and then fill it with salmon or herring roe.

For nigiri, or finger sushi, create an elongated patty of rice.

Take your third finger and your thumb...

..like so.

And you make the shape of a patty.

'To go on top, we've got tuna, salmon

'and some king prawns on skewers,

'which I'm going to poach in a flavoursome mixture of

'two tablespoons of sake and 500ml of water.'

This will just sweeten the prawns up even more.

Comes to the boil. Try and put them in all at once

so they cool all at the same time.

Instantly, they start to change colour.

One minute.

And out they come.

Now place a dot of wasabi.

Now, take a piece of fish, this lovely tuna,

put it on the top like so

and, again, take it back to your hand -

third finger and thumb -

and kind of shape the fish around the rice patty.

That's the first finger sushi

and that's home-made nigiri sushi.

How beautiful does that look?

Oh, aye. But get your rice right...

the rest of it,

it's just culinary macrame.

Now an old-fashioned classic fit for a queen,

or king if you like, it's a crown of lamb,

cooked here by James Martin.

I'm going to make an extravagant crown of lamb with duchess potatoes.

It's a Michelin-star-quality showstopper

that you can cook at home.

I'm going to serve that with a lovely stuffing

of mushrooms and tarragon.

'To start the filling, blitz an onion in a blender until it's

'very finely chopped and sweat it down in a warm pan with butter.

'Next, blitz 300g of brown-cap and button mushrooms

'until a fine dice.

'Add it to the pan and turn up the heat.'

There's quite a lot of moisture that comes out of mushrooms,

so don't be tempted to add too much liquid to this,

particularly butter.

You're, actually, sort of dry-frying it, really.

'Once the moisture is cooked away, put the mix in a bowl...

'along with some chopped tarragon...

'..and 50g of breadcrumbs.'

Mix this all together.

Really, the binding agent, you could put egg in here,

but what I'm going to use is some lamb mince.

So, I think it just basically holds the structure together

a lot nicer than adding egg, so chuck in the minced lamb.

Give this a good mix.

At this point, we can season it.

Decent amount of salt.

This is where seasoning's really quite important.

When you're doing stuffing, you can't season it afterwards.

You've got to season it properly.

And then we can just leave this just to one side.

Meanwhile, we can prepare our lamb.

To make our crown of lamb, you need two best ends of lamb.

If I join these together, with the spine running down the centre,

this would be a saddle of lamb.

When you separate them, obviously you've got your racks of lamb.

If I cut through these chops, you get your lamb chops.

What you need to ask for is one that's done French trimmed.

French trim means that the bones have been cleaned

and they've removed what they call a chine.

It's a bone that runs underneath here,

and if they don't cut that off, you'll never be able to cut

through the chops when it comes to serving it.

Now, to turn this into a crown of lamb,

what we need to do is just make little nicks in between each joint.

'I'm doing this so I can shape it more easily,

'then all I need is to tie some string around the racks,

'which will form a crown as I tighten the string.

'Now start adding the stuffing into the centre.'

I'm going to serve that with a potato dish

that's also not really often done very much.

This is pommes duchesse, as the French call it, or duchess potatoes,

and for that, we want some, basically, baked potatoes.

'For this, I'm using my trusty potato ricer.

'Scoop out the flesh from the baked spuds

'and with a good squeeze, it's velvety smooth.'

There are so many fantastic

old-fashioned potato dishes out there

that are good enough to put on any menu, really,

whether it's for a dinner party at home or in a restaurant,

and this is one of them.

You will find this in three-star Michelin restaurants

and you will find it's easy to do at home.

So, we've got the mashed potato

and now all we add is just a little knob of butter.

'Adding the three egg yolks

'gives the duchesse a richness and sophistication

'that is a cut above your average potatoes.'

And you can see the colour of the egg yolks just transforms this.

Now we need to season it with some black pepper.

Now, this is a dish,

like so many dishes that you can do for a dinner party,

that, really, you can make these in advance,

and that's really the downfall, I think, of a lot of home cooks.

They don't actually know what to make in advance

and what to leave at the last minute.

'Then it's all about presentation,

'so I'm shaping them with a piping bag for some extra finesse.'

That may appear a little bit fancy.

It probably is, to be honest.

And all we need to do now is pop this in the oven,

but not that one, this one.

Now, you can cook this conventionally in the oven,

but I'm going to use one of these,

which is about the same sort of temperature, about 200 degrees.

This wants to cook for about half an hour.

Now, I love cooking on this,

purely the fact that it gives the lamb a brilliant flavour,

almost like a barbecued flavour,

because you've got the charcoals underneath,

so, to me, it's the ultimate outdoor oven.

'After half an hour in my oven-cum-barbecue

'the lamb is ready and, with five minutes to brown off,

'the potatoes don't look bad either.'

Now, you've got to admit,

this is seriously impressive with the stuffing in

and particularly with those duchess potatoes.

It is so easy to carve as well,

you just take a slice and each chop comes off, but also,

you've got some of this great stuffing,

which still keeps it nice and moist

cos the lamb has surrounded it as well.

Just when you thought roast dinners couldn't get any better...

..try this.

That is delicious!

'I think we've lost the art

'of cooking food with a sense of theatre.

'Why have an ordinary rack of lamb when you can turn it into a crown

'and the usual mash when you could have duchesse?'

Our final dish of the day is a pudding,

a beautiful chocolate cake Showstopper

that Mary and Paul set as one of their Bake Off challenges.

Now, this cake is something I've been making for years.

I call it my chocolate fudge cake.

It's a very good base for a cake, it's lovely and moist,

it's really chocolaty and I find,

to make a good chocolate flavour, to use cocoa.

So, if you can measure me 125g of cocoa,

and that gives a strong chocolate flavour.

Into the cocoa stir 200ml of boiling water.

And it should be a thick paste.

Add six large eggs, 100ml of milk,

350g of self-raising flour

and a tablespoon of baking powder.

That is... There you are, 15ml, one tablespoon.

One tablespoon, OK. I never heard of it, I never heard of it.

-But...

-I'm doing it now! What are you like?!

-Nagging. I'm seeking perfection.

-Yes, you are.

Add 550g of caster sugar and 200g of softened butter.

So, down with the top.

Then just speed that up for a moment.

Mary's all-in-one method using extra baking powder

means you only need to do one mix of the ingredients

to guarantee you a rich, chocolaty sponge.

So, what are you looking for when you are mixing it -

what sort of consistency, what sort of texture?

It's a soft, dropping batter.

That looks right to me.

Can I just have a look at that inside?

It's such a nice colour.

Mary gets the perfect cake height

by filling two 20cm sandwich tins to halfway...

-It's a lovely mixture, isn't it?

-It is.

..and one 10cm and one 15cm cake tin

to 2/3 full.

The 20cm tins need 25 to 30 minutes.

The 10cm tin needs 35 to 40 minutes.

The 15cm tin needs 45 to 50 minutes.

So, our fudge cakes are beautifully baked, nice and level on top

and they need to be stone-cold.

I'm now going to make some white-chocolate ganache.

Now, that can be very tricky to make,

but I've evolved a recipe that is foolproof.

I've got 300ml of double cream here.

Pour the cream in a pan and heat until it is hand-hot,

then break up 400g of white chocolate.

I'm not accounting for any that you might eat en route.

Add to the pan and stir until it's dissolved.

You see, I've still got my hand here, touching the side of the pan,

so you realise it's not getting too hot.

Because of its high fat content,

white chocolate can easily split, so be careful.

As soon as the chocolate is fully melted, pour into a bowl

and let it set in the fridge.

I'm going to get that last little drop out.

-Looks like curd, doesn't it, at this stage?

-Lovely.

So, that needs to get absolutely cold.

Once cooled, beat it into 300g of cream cheese, a spoonful at a time.

Do you want to mix and I'll put it in?

-I think I'd rather you mixed and I put it in.

-Oh, OK, then.

Now, that looks absolutely perfect,

the consistency that we want. Look, it's just sort of spreadable

and we'll be able to get a nice finish to that cake.

Tempering is the process of heating and cooling chocolate

to create a high shine and a good snap.

Once it's melted, we take it up to 47.

Once it reaches 47, I'll just take it off the heat

and then it needs to cool down to 31.

At 31 degrees, you can then pipe it, do something with it,

and then it will set.

Tempering creates new, small crystals in the chocolate

that gives it its professional-looking finish.

Nearly there, 46.

Going over 47 degrees risks burning the chocolate

and making it lumpy and bitter.

47 and off it comes.

The rest of the buttons will go in there

and we need to cool that down to 31.

Paul is using the seeding method of tempering, adding cold chocolate.

Like adding ice cubes to your gin and tonic. You remember that, Mary?

I do, very well. And there is no sign of any now!

If you look at that now, it's just dropped below 31,

so we are now good to go.

Pipe directly onto acetate

which has been marked out to the height of the collar.

And what sort of shop would sell acetate?

-Model shops would have it.

-Model shops.

-OK.

Acetate provides a flexible template for your tempered chocolate,

allowing you to wrap it around the cake.

Literally just doing circles.

Excuse me, Mary.

And then once I've done that, then I'm going to strengthen it

by just going over the bottom bit a little bit thicker,

you know, because what we don't want to do is see this thing collapse.

Could you straighten out that acetate for me, please?

That's it, thank you, just to flatten it down a bit.

You could do anything on acetate, you could do someone's name.

"Mary."

You don't need any help with the spelling?

I've got a long way to go, you know!

But I'll still be here to keep an eye on you.

The piped chocolate needs to be left to set at room temperature.

Time to assemble the cakes.

-Gosh, they feel lovely and squidgy and fresh.

-Yes, they do.

These are quite soft at the edge, which is as they should be.

Slice in half the 10cm and the 15cm cakes.

Sawing action, backwards and forwards.

So, we've got a bowl full of icing here.

Half will do to cover the whole cake

and the rest will do to sandwich the layers.

-Spreads beautifully, doesn't it?

-It does.

Sandwich each layer together.

This is going to taste good, Mary, I just know it is.

And then we have our diddy little...

Been just a little bit too generous there, haven't I?

Now we come to the assembly.

Heated and sieved apricot jam is used to stick the cakes together.

Right, that's on top.

Also known as masking jam,

it helps prevent the crumbs getting into the icing.

So, I'm going to start here.

Take your time to ensure your icing is even.

Paul, this is taking me a long time

because it is very, very fresh to do.

-How about you starting on the other side?

-I'll try!

We'll put the bowl between us.

So, I'm just finishing that off.

So that is fine, it's all ready for your beautiful finish.

What we are going to do is start at one side here,

feed this...

I'm going in a bit blind. Am I still on target there?

You are on target and you're level.

Put the bottom one on now.

Gently...coax it round.

What I'm going to do is just gently peel off...

You've got to be careful.

It's looking good!

I feel like giving you a big clap.

If you don't have a thermometer,

Mary has a simple tip to produce elegant chocolate curls.

I've been doing a bit of experimenting

and I find a combination of half chocolate cake covering

and half a less expensive chocolate

with about cocoa solids between 35 and 40,

that is put in a bowl over hot water,

melted together, then poured out like that

and then, if you take a cheese parer...

This one was bought for £1.50.

And then you just drag it across the top.

I think that's rather pretty,

-with the little pleating on it.

-I like that, yes.

So, press it down really, really hard, give it a little wriggle.

Really big, bold rolls.

I think you could put some on the top.

Just pile them up.

You are known for dusting flour all over the place with your hand.

I will do it with icing sugar over the top.

It just gives a little finish, like snow.

Such a special occasion.

That, I think, is a true Showstopper.

That looks great. You'd certainly be through to the next round,

possibly even Star Baker, well done.

Thank you!

Well, Paul, this is our Showstopper chocolate creation.

The snap on that chocolate is beautiful.

And you've got such a good shine from it.

-There's your piece.

-Lovely!

I'm just going to get my knife in here.

Get myself a wedge too.

Now for the eating. That sponge looks great.

I think it was right that we filled the middle of each one,

because otherwise it would be too solid and chocolate.

Gosh, that white-chocolate ganache

goes really well with the simple chocolate cake base.

So you've got a sponge chocolate, you've got ganache,

you've got tempered chocolate,

three different types of chocolate going on in there

and three different textures.

But all together, the flavours really work well.

Well, I hope you found that cake

and all today's dishes suitably impressive.

Make sure you join me for more next time.

Until then, take care now. Bye-bye.