Episode 2 The Box

Across the country, lots of us are working out what to cook tonight

from the ingredients in our cupboards.

To inspire you, we're throwing away the cookbooks

and going back to basics.

We're pitting three resourceful and creative home cooks

against one another to see what they can come up with.

Whoever does it best will be our cook of the day.

Ready to show they can think on their feet are today's three cooks.

Janet, a grandmother from Essex who proudly photographs

all of her culinary creations.

I wake up just wanting to bake and cook, basically.

I love teaching my grandchildren to cook as well. I just love it.

Robbie, a film-maker from London who hates to waste food.

I just like to cook with what's left in the kitchen,

leftovers in the fridge,

make it into something new and exciting.

I'm just going to put some mayonnaise on it and some Tabasco.

It generally tastes all right.

And Dianne from Bolsterstone near Sheffield

who works at a local drop-in centre for the elderly.

I have to make their soup,

two types of soup, one vegetarian, one not.

And nowt fancy!

Their first test will be to cook from a box of ingredients

put together by today's guest -

Lord Sugar's right-hand woman, the formidable Margaret Mountford.

-Margaret, welcome.

-Hello, thank you.

-Now, I'm looking forward to this.

So am I.

I know you're a bit of a foodie, but are you any good in the kitchen?

-No!

-No! You like to eat, then?

-I like to eat.

But I am not the one who's going to be in the kitchen, am I?

-I'm really looking forward to it.

-I'm intrigued to know what's in the box.

I haven't got a clue, to be honest, like our home cooks.

So... We've got two types of meat. What's that in there?

That's minced lamb. We've got some minced lamb

and we've got a chicken breast.

-OK, a few figs and a cooking apple.

-Cooking apple.

So what inspired you to choose these ingredients?

Well, I have got a combination here of things that

I liked from my childhood

and things that I like from my, well, adult life, I suppose.

And when I was growing up, it was all home-grown.

The carrots would have been proper dirty carrots out of a field.

Well, I'm hoping for great things out of this

cos it is an interesting box of ingredients.

Shall we find out what they'll do with it? It'll be fun.

-I'll see you in a bit.

-Thank you.

It's going to be interesting, this one.

Margaret will be watching our home cooks sweat it out,

from the comfort of the guest room.

OK, ladies and gentleman,

welcome to The Box.

Well, you're all here for one reason and one reason only,

because you're enthusiastic home cooks.

So I'm expecting great things.

We want one plate of food in 50 minutes. Good luck. Open the box.

Oh!

In my box I put some chicken breasts, some minced lamb, peas,

carrots, courgettes, aubergine.

I come from Ireland. Choice of starch? It has to be potatoes.

I put a loss of herbs. I have put cooking apples, PX sherry, figs,

and shortcrust pastry.

Janet, the sherry's for cooking!

As well as Margaret's ingredients, I have given them a store cupboard

of the sort of things many of us tend to have at home.

Some of the UK's most popular ingredients are inside this box.

There are so many different options that you can use with these.

We all cook chicken at home and the tendency is

that we stick by the same routine over and over again.

With chicken you can impart so many different flavours in there.

Me, personally, when you've got garlic in the back like that

and some butter and nice herbs, you can do a wonderful chicken kiev,

that famous 1970s dish which is so simple to do.

Stuff the chicken with a garlic butter,

coat it in some crumbs and then just pan-fry it.

It tastes fantastic.

Our home cooks need to impress Margaret,

because she'll be choosing the winning dish from round one.

I suppose people who know me from The Apprentice see me as rather

a hard judge. I am not really like that in reality.

But on the other hand I don't like dried out,

overcooked food either, so we'll see!

-Janet, how are you?

-Hi, James. I'm fine, thank you.

-Good.

-What are you making?

-I think I might do a Spanish chicken.

-It's one of my favourite dishes.

-Why is it Spanish?

Well, I just call it Spanish chicken. I could call it Essex

chicken. But it doesn't go down too well, does it? Essex chicken?

Spanish sounds a bit more... like, a la carte.

So, what's in the Spanish chicken?

Well, you've got carrots, aubergine, potatoes and tomato puree

-when I can find it.

-Are you going to use this sherry, as well?

-Are you going to put that in?

-You don't normally, but I will today.

OK. You don't do that normally.

MARGARET: Looks quite dangerous, the way Janet's chopping.

-Can I give you a bit of a word of advice with that?

-Of course you can.

A bigger knife?

A bigger knife is better because when you're chopping anything,

-you use less pressure using a bigger knife.

-Right, OK.

-That means if it slips, you don't cut yourself.

-Right, OK.

In there, we've got just a little bit of oil.

-Are you going to put some salt and pepper in there?

-I've just...

-I just did. Did you not see?

-No.

-I can see you're going to be trouble, aren't you?

-Definitely.

-Right, OK.

-Well, I'm from Essex, aren't I?

-JAMES CHUCKLES

Janet hasn't browned the chicken.

I'm not sure she's going to brown anything,

because you wouldn't normally do all that at the same time.

I don't know what part of Spain this dish comes from,

but you could so easily glam up a chicken breast

and actually do a Spanish-style chicken breast

if you just take the sherry and put a little bit of paprika in it,

particularly smoked paprika if you can get it,

add the chicken to it and just pan-fry it

and serve that with a squeeze of lemon, it tastes fantastic.

I hope all this was washed before they were given it.

Have you got any idea what you're going to create?

-I'm going to go for ravioli.

-What about my potatoes?

-You're going to make ravioli?

-Well, this is pasta, right? Is that right?

Yeah.

Robbie seems to think the pastry is actually pasta.

Have you tried that to see if that really is pasta?

-Is it pasta or is it something else?

-I don't know!

Maybe you should try that first...

What's it? Maybe it's polenta or something.

That's well sniffed, that pastry.

Yeah, that pasta. I think it's pasta.

He's convinced it's pasta.

Meanwhile, Dianne's opted for the lamb instead of the chicken

and is going to make Indian spiced fritters with a pea puree

and fondant potatoes.

I'm going to do something with the mince

in that, that I think is pastry.

Right. Pastry or pasta?

-I don't think it's pasta.

-It pastry, is it?

-I don't know. It could be.

Oh, God. I'm making pasta!

-Now, you celebrated your 60th birthday recently.

-I did.

-I cycled Land's End to John O'Groats.

-Who did you do that with?

-With my partner.

-Is this on one of those tandem bikes?

-One on the front end...

-No, no, no. I don't do tandems.

-Oh, no?

-Why's that?

-Too much loss of control. No, I couldn't do tandem.

-And how long did that take?

-It took us 21 days.

It takes very little time to get through England.

-Seven days and we were through England.

-Right.

But Scotland's massive. It took us much longer to do Scotland.

So are these roast potatoes, then, that you're going to do?

-These are kind of fondant potatoes.

-Fondant potatoes.

-Yes.

So the best advice with this is you get a little bit of stock in there,

half of the potato, and then get it roasting in the oven.

I'll get that in, then.

Dianne's got a real fusion of different dishes going on here.

We've got a little bit of Indian,

a little bit of authentic British and then we've gone to France

with the fondant potatoes or the fancy roast potatoes

called a pommes fondants.

It's potatoes that are pan-fried in butter to give it a lovely colour

and then you add stock to the pan and roast the whole lot.

The idea is the potatoes soak up that stock like a sponge

and they just taste divine.

Almost as good as my mother's roast potatoes.

-OK, guys. Halfway through.

-CLATTERING

Halfway already and some of them a lot further on than others.

Robbie is determined to make pasta out of the pastry dough.

Maybe a word of advice before you fully start it.

-Right, get a little pan of water on.

-Yeah.

Just cut a little bit and put it in the pan and see what happens.

If it is shortcrust pastry, what do you think is going to happen?

-I don't know. Maybe it'll just go...

-The fat's going to go...

Because pasta hasn't got any fat in it.

Falling apart. Doughy.

-So I should make some pasta dough.

-Do you know how to make it?

There's not a lot of time left for Robbie to make pasta now.

He's wasted all of that time. A bit like The Apprentice in a way, this,

quite scary.

It really is simple to do your own pasta.

The trick is, really, you want 00 flour, which is

often called tipo flour. It's just a finer grain of flour.

The more egg yolks you add, the richer the pasta becomes.

A touch of olive oil, a little bit of salt and a bit of water.

That should combine it all together.

Now, the thing about pasta, when you're making it like this,

-you need to let it rest for a little bit.

-Right. Then knead.

Consistency and texture more than anything else.

So just do a little bit...

You've now made your own pasta dough.

-ROBBIE LAUGHS

-Well, I've made it!

With 15 minutes to go, the heat's on for Dianne and Robbie.

But Janet's well ahead of the game and is as cool as a cucumber!

Janet's serving hers out already!

It's going to be a bit cold by the time I get in to try it, I think.

You don't want your meal to be ready too late,

but you don't want it to be ready too early either, do you?

Back at Robbie's pasta station, it's all hands on deck.

Janet's not only served the dish, but she's tidied up as well!

I've done all the washing up now. All done.

Is that a martini Janet's got?

A bit of a premature celebration, possibly.

So what have you got in the sauce?

Lime, rosemary, a bit of thyme, onion.

-OK.

-I'm a bit worried about tasting what Robbie's made

if he hasn't cooked it properly.

45 seconds left.

Hurry up! We've got our guest waiting.

-If Robbie's rescued something, it's a miracle.

-Time's up!

Stop cooking.

Well done, guys. An interesting selection of dishes.

And you're probably wondering who's put those ingredients together.

Well, the wait is over. It's going to be a tough one today,

because this lady is a lawyer, a businesswoman, a TV presenter,

and was once a certain adviser to Lord Sugar.

-Oh, my goodness.

-Margaret Mountford.

Hello, everybody.

-ALL:

-Hello!

-The pressure's on now, Janet, isn't it?

-Er...

-piece of cake!

-Were you impressed by everybody?

I was amazed at the range of things that they cooked.

The whole key to this is what it tastes like,

because you get to decide which dish you'd prefer.

So should we start off with Janet here?

This is my Essex chicken.

Chicken breast and carrots, potatoes,

onions, peas, herbs, spices.

-So not the courgettes or the aubergines in that?

-Oh, yeah,

-courgettes and aubergines.

-Right, everything!

-Yes, everything.

-This is a sort of...

-Everything.

-Everything's gone in.

-There isn't much spice in there.

-Mm-hm.

It's got an unusual combination of sort of crunchy potato

-and overcooked peas.

-The chicken's nicely cooked. It's not...

It's sort of poached at the right consistency.

And you got it done in time -

-even earlier, I think.

-Yeah, and time to spare.

Good effort. Well done.

So we got there.

-We got there in the end.

-So what is it?

It is a lamb ravioli on a bed of courgette and mint and pea,

with a kind of light lamb ragout.

-How long did you cook the lamb for?

-Er...

ten minutes?

That a promise, is it?

I think you'll be surprised, Margaret.

First of all, the lamb is perfectly seasoned.

-Mm, it is. It's nice.

-Perfectly seasoned.

-The use of rosemary in there, which you've got in there as well...

-Beautiful with lamb.

-It's great.

But I feel that the sauce really doesn't do anything for me.

-Right.

-I would much prefer, like, a tomato sauce with it, really.

-But certainly, seasoning-wise...

-That filling is really good.

-I think you got the filling absolutely spot-on.

-And I quite like

this contrast, with the peas and the mint underneath.

100% for effort. Well done.

-Dianne.

-James.

-Meet Margaret.

-Margaret.

-Hello. How'd you do?

-Nice to meet you.

-Big sigh of relief there, I think...

-Yes.

..for the finished dish. But what have we got?

-We've kind of got Delhi meets Barnsley via France.

-LAUGHTER

-What have you done?

-So I've used the lamb in a pasty with mint.

This is a fritter rosti with carrot and coriander and courgette.

These are fondant potatoes and a mint and pea sauce.

Well, dive into that one, tell us what you think.

There's quite a lot of pastry for the amount of filling.

Could have been a bit spicier.

-Salt is definitely what this entire dish needs.

-Mm.

But I think, on the whole, to do three things

like what you've done, and a sauce to go with it,

-I think a great effort.

-Yeah, fantastic effort.

And all done and nicely presented.

Well, Margaret, three very, very different dishes

from all around the globe, really.

That makes it very hard to decide,

actually, cos they are all so different.

It's easier to compare three versions of the same thing, isn't it?

The power is in your hands. You've got to pick

one which is your favourite.

Of all the things that I've tasted, the thing I liked the best...

..was the filling in the ravioli.

APPLAUSE

-Robbie, well done.

-Thank you, James.

But remember, for the rest of you, it's only just begun.

Because in the next round,

I get to pick the three boxes of ingredients.

The second round gets a little bit more interesting.

We've got three boxes - we've got a posh box,

fish box, and a global box,

each containing three different types of ingredients.

But what Margaret has done, Robbie, is give you

the power to choose what everybody else is cooking

as well as yourself.

Which one would you like Janet to cook with?

Bear in mind what she cooked the last time - you could be nice,

you could stitch these two lovely ladies up.

I'm going with fish. I'm making a tactical decision.

-Janet, you've got the fish box. Are you feeling happy?

-No.

-HE LAUGHS

OK. And Dianne - eagerly waiting to find out

what she's going to be cooking with.

-The global.

-Global. Thank you.

-Are you happy with that? The global box?

You have no idea which country of origin it could be.

That leaves you, Robbie, with the posh box,

but it also leaves you with 50 minutes

to create a dish to impress me.

Off you go.

I've got high hopes that these three cooks can all think on their feet.

What style of cooking are you impressed by?

Do you like French style, do you like Indian style, what...?

I like Indian style. I don't think the French can cook at all.

-I don't like that.

-Really?

-Yeah.

-OK.

And I don't like all those sauces.

So I think when we come to some of these things,

what you think's wonderful I'll think's horrid.

The main ingredient in my fish box is the sea bass.

I've also included lemon grass,

coconut milk, rice noodles,

samphire, fennel,

pak choi, and some chilli.

-What are you trying to do?

-Fillet the fish.

Where's its head gone?

I've chucked it in the bin. I don't want to cook its head.

See, that - that's a good bit of the fish.

Makes amazing sort of stock.

-What are we trying to do? Fillet it?

-Fillet it, yes.

-Well, it's much easier if you keep the head on, the tail on, to start off with.

-Right.

But when you fillet it, you always start from the top end. Sharp knife.

-Yep.

-Hand flat, and then you put the knife in and start at one end...

-Right, OK.

-Like this.

-Work your way down the backbone.

-Ah, yeah.

-Carefully, carefully.

Now that knife, listen...

-Is on the bone, yeah?

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

So you want to keep it as close to the bone as possible,

and then gradually you just ease it off the bone like that.

And use the top bit, don't you?

And then you've got this beautiful fillet.

And then what you can do is

just trim this off.

-That's it. Lovely. Thank you, Chef.

-You need another one.

-Can you do that as well?

-Can I do what?

-SHE GIGGLES

-Can you do that one as well?

Now, my best advice with filleting fish

is start with something like a mackerel, cos it's inexpensive,

the bones are nice and soft, and it's easy to take the fillets off.

It's actually quite difficult with sea bass to actually fillet it,

and it takes time and takes practice.

But once you master it, it's actually pretty simple.

Inside the posh box, I've got a lot of people's favourite ingredients.

I've got a cooked lobster, some saffron, asparagus,

avocado, watercress, risotto rice,

Parmesan cheese, and tarragon.

Now, I put these ingredients together

with a particular dish in mind.

And one dish I love is a risotto,

but the curveball in this is the use of saffron.

I wouldn't put it with the lobster,

because saffron is very, very strong.

You've got to use it really sparingly.

I chose the posh box - I didn't expect lobster.

I've never cooked with lobster before.

-We've got the tail, that's all right.

-Got the tail.

-Nicest bit.

-And sort of...

-Bits.

-Sort of a chewed up a bit of claw.

So I'll just do a risotto with a kind of lobster veloute.

If I've got time, I'll do a quick arancini.

Arancini, of course, you allow the risotto to cool down,

-then ball it up and then fry it.

-Yeah.

-What have you put in there,

-in the risotto?

-There's some saffron in there.

-Some?

-Yeah.

-There looks to be quite a lot.

-Very yellow. How much saffron did you get?

Well, I put in a good sprinkle.

Well, there was enough saffron in that box for about 20 portions.

I'm going for a saffron-heavy dish.

Looking at what everybody else got, and what you passed over,

-do you think you made the right decision?

-Yeah.

Maybe. We'll have to wait and see.

The great thing about lobster is you can use the entire thing,

and let's face it, it is actually quite a luxurious and posh product.

It's quite expensive. Don't throw away the shells,

because you can create a lovely oil with it by adding some chilli

and vegetable oil and roasting the entire lot in the oven

with a touch of tomato puree and some fennel,

and use to flavour dressings. But also,

you can create some great stocks with it

by just throwing it all into a pan,

boiling it all up, and you get the most amazing flavour.

And you can freeze that until you want it again.

Dianne's got the global box. I've gone for a Chinese influence.

You've got pork medallions, dried shrimp, spring onions,

cabbage, rice, hoisin sauce,

some chilli and Chinese five spice.

I've put these ingredients together to really test them,

because it's all in the preparation, is Chinese food.

You've got to get as much stuff prepared

and cooking at the last minute, so it keeps it lovely and fresh.

It looks like Dianne's taken on my challenge,

and she's busy preparing tempura pork, sizzling pork,

stir-fried chilli cabbage and rice.

These are frightening me a bit.

What do you mean, they're frightening you?

Well, I don't know where to put them.

-The dried shrimps?

-Yeah.

You can use them in so many different ways.

It improves the flavour of sauces, bits and pieces...

I'm going to leave it to you, really. Entirely what you want to do with it.

-Are you going to use all the pork, or...?

-No, I don't think so. Would you use...?

I don't know, you're cooking for me.

Looking forward to this one.

This would be my favourite box to cook with.

-So try not to mess it up!

-Thank you.

Guys, we're halfway through. Halfway.

-What have you got in the pan now?

-I've got some chillies,

samphire and...I can't pronounce it. Pa-choo!

-No fennel yet.

-No fennel?

-No.

-Do you like fennel?

-Love fennel.

-Yeah.

You either do two things with it. Slow-cooking,

where you cook it whole, so it's great with meat and stuff like that.

-Yeah.

-But with fish, what's particularly good with this

is a raw salad. Want you to taste this.

-Wow, that's aniseed.

-Mm.

Mmmm. Oh, that takes me back to my childhood. Aniseedy.

-It's nice, though, isn't it?

-Mm.

-Cos if you do that

-with some of these lovely little fennel tops, you see...

-Yeah.

Makes a great little salad.

I don't quite know how the vegetables and these noodles

and everything are going to go together, but we'll see.

-I don't think Janet knows yet.

-No, I don't.

-Don't you go putting that fish in that pan!

-Why?

-Cos you've got 20 minutes left.

-Oh.

-I thought you said it takes...

-Two minutes, it takes to cook.

Right, two minutes, not twenty. Right.

Dianne also needs to be careful.

Her sizzling pork and shrimp is looking pretty good,

but the tempura pork may be ready too early.

I think it needs dusting and then throwing into the batter

and then in the fryer, not just sat in it

like it's been for the last 30 minutes.

OK, five minutes left, guys. Five minutes.

Robbie, you've got to hurry up.

-Pressure's on now, isn't it?

-Certainly is.

They all look a bit tense.

OK, that's it. Time's up.

Stop cooking.

I'm hungry.

Janet was given the fish box.

Her pan-fried sea bass is served

with stir-fried pak choi, chilli and samphire,

and a raw fennel salad with rice noodles.

How did you find it?

Well, the rice noodles are a little bit...soggy.

There's something a bit...

It's a bit warm, isn't it, really?

I don't mean the temperature of the food, I mean the spiciness.

You've got some severe... How much chilli have you got in there?

Two, James. Two little chillies.

-You know the smaller they are, the fierier they are?

-Mm.

-Yeah.

-Yeah?

-I know that now, don't I?

-THEY LAUGH

And these are noodles?

Think they may have been in a bit long.

Where have they gone?

-They've sort of evaporated into...

-I've never, in 30 years of catering,

have I ever seen somebody take noodles and turn them into rice.

How long did you cook them for?!

Too long.

It's quite an unusual taste, isn't it, really?

And texture more than anything else.

To me, that fish is absolutely perfectly cooked.

Thank you, Chef. Somebody must have been telling you

not to put it in the pan till the last minute. It's just the fact

that you burn your mouth on the rest of the ingredients.

Those vegetables are lethal, aren't they?

It's quite hot, but a good effort on the fish. Thank you, Chef.

Right, well done. And an interesting thing with the noodles.

Next up, it's Robbie, who chose my posh box to cook from.

I've done a lobster and saffron arancini, and some lobster risotto.

-So you managed to get the arancini done in time?

-I did.

-OK.

-Right, shall we have a try of this?

-OK.

It's very hard for me to judge, cos I hate saffron.

OK, so I have to try and think, ooh, if it hadn't got saffron...

I'm not that keen on lobster, and if I never ate asparagus again,

it wouldn't worry me. I like the way the asparagus is hardly cooked.

I like that, it's nice and crunchy.

And I like the outside crunchy bits on the arancini.

Right, I absolutely love risotto.

You've got to get the texture right first of all.

Too many people make it too dry - that's too dry.

If we could switch the lights off in this studio,

that would glow in the dark.

I would've personally liked to have seen

-the other nine quid's worth of lobster onto the plate.

-Yep.

On the whole, I think it's a very balanced dish,

-but to me, the risotto - the base of it - lets itself down.

-OK.

Finally, it's Dianne, who was given the Chinese global box.

Well, there's two-way cabbage

and two-way pork.

This is mostly Chinese cabbage with chilli and spring onion.

-And just steamed rice?

-And just steamed rice with a hint of cumin.

Right, dive in.

Interesting. You've done exactly what you should do, really,

in terms of preparing everything in advance,

and leave everything till the last minute. And it's paid off.

The pork is a little bit dry, but I love the shrimps in there.

The real high point of this dish is this cabbage,

cos this is just absolutely perfect.

Exactly how you want it. Little bit of bite to it as well.

It's very easy to cook cabbage for too long, isn't it?

Especially that kind of cabbage, yeah.

On the whole, you should be very pleased with it.

-It's a very nice plate of food. Well done.

-Thank you. Thank you.

And I reckon on the basis of that,

-I've got some thinking to do.

-Certainly have.

OK, firstly, I'm going to say well done,

because that was an interesting selection of ingredients

that I put in front of you there.

The dish that I would like to eat,

and certainly go back for more of...

-..would be Dianne.

-Oh!

-Congratulations, you're our cook of the day. Well done.

-Thank you.

-APPLAUSE

Is that for my jewellery?

-SHE LAUGHS

-You can have it for your jewellery if you want!

-Very well done.

-Thank you, Margaret. Thank you very much.

-Really good.

-I thought it was a great effort.

-Yes, absolutely delighted.

I think once you get focused into it,

and I think it was the last-minute thing that was a little bit scary.

-Great job.

-Thank you, James. Thank you.

Come on over here. And you, Janet.

-Congratulate each other.

-Thanks, Robbie. Thanks for my box.

-You're an absolute star, well done.

Well, there you go. That's all we've got time for today,

but join us next time on The Box,

where we've got three more enthusiastic home cooks,

just like this one, loads of boxes of ingredients,

and some great celebrity guests. I'll see you soon.