Episode 6 The Chef's Protege

Getting to the top of any profession

takes not only skill and determination,

but a few breaks along the way.

Show me what a good cook you are.

Tom Kitchin, Theo Randall and Michel Roux Jnr

have all been helped in their careers

by someone who believed in them.

I think it would be very difficult for any chef to achieve greatness

without a mentor.

Put it through one more time.

Now they want to give someone else that same chance.

Out, out, out, out, out!

By going back to catering college to find a young student

they can each take under their wing as their own protege.

It's such a gruelling industry.

If you want to get to the top, you need to work with the best.

Look at you, you're excited, eh? You're excited.

Hallelujah!

Tom, Theo and Michel are searching for someone

who they think is a worthy apprentice.

-Happy, Chef Shonagh?

-I think so.

They each have a week to select and train up their strongest candidates.

Two things on the go at the same time. Come on, come on, come on.

Or even three things on the go. Multi-task. Come on.

Before they compete against each other

to see who has the best protege.

Away one set beef, one monkfish.

This week, it's Theo Randall's search.

Theo's love of Italian food was nurtured

by the legendary Ruth Rogers and Rose Grey at the River Cafe,

where he spent 10 years as their head chef.

His own London restaurant has recently been named

the number one Italian in the country

and now he is ready to pass on his passion.

It's very important for a young chef to find a mentor.

Restaurants and catering is a very difficult industry.

You need to have someone who can really push you

and get the best out of you.

Theo is returning to his old catering college -

Brooklands in Weybridge...

Where they have shortlisted some of the best students.

What we teach here are the basics, the nuts and bolts.

So being exposed to a chef such as Theo is going to be

a massive opportunity for some of our students.

Really good memories. I really enjoyed my time here.

It was one of those places where I learned a huge amount.

Gosh.

Hasn't changed a bit!

-Hi.

-Hello.

-I'm Phoebe.

-Theo Randall, nice to meet you.

I'm head of the department for catering.

-Welcome back, first of all.

-Thank you.

-Has it changed much?

No, hasn't changed at all.

-So I've chosen seven students for you.

-OK, OK.

Some of them are a bit lively, some of them need to be coaxed out,

but on the whole, they've all got that something

-that I feel you can work with.

-Right.

-And they're all hungry to learn.

-They all sound quite confident.

Very. I'm confident in them.

Today, Theo will meet the first three students,

but he can only take two forward in the competition.

First, he will spend 30 minutes getting to know each one.

'If you can find people that have the same feeling as you do

'about food, then I think'

that's the magic you want.

To showcase his style to the students,

Theo has brought in some typically southern Italian ingredients

for them to cook with.

Sea bass,

fennel, olives,

capers,

Datterini tomatoes

and potatoes.

These are very young students. They have very little experience.

They are probably very nervous as well,

so it is going to be an interesting task to see how well they do.

20-year-old Monika is originally from Poland.

She's been studying at the college for three years.

-Hello.

-Hiya.

-I'm Theo.

-Monika.

-Monika, come in.

-How are you doing? You OK?

-I'm not bad.

-What's your favourite kind of food?

-Italian.

-Is it?

You're doing very well today.

That's my worst fear.

-Fish?

-Yeah.

-Have you done much filleting before?

Filleting, yes. But cooking...

'I've never been interested in cooking at all.'

Like, I wanted to cook, but it wasn't a passion.

I always wanted to run after the football.

So I started doing catering from entry levels.

So it's pretty much for people that have no idea what they're doing.

And I actually started liking it.

I found the passion for that and at the end of the day,

I can't see myself without cooking any more.

That...

..is pretty good.

My test is, if you can see through the fish,

you haven't wasted too much.

Thank you. I tried my best.

It's very important that today I get an idea of what they're capable of.

I'm going to find that from their personality when I talk to them

and see what they like about food,

how ambitious they are and how skilful they are.

What do you want to do? Do you want to have a restaurant?

Erm, I always thought to myself, basically,

get as much qualifications as I can and go to America

and get famous and become a famous chef.

Go to America and get famous.

Wow! That is something else.

I'm going big, but I reckon I can do this one day.

I'll give you a hand. There are stones in them.

You just push these down and take the stone out.

-I never knew olives could have stones in them.

-Really?

-No.

-That's your dish?

-Yes.

-OK, let's taste.

As far as a plate of food goes, the fish is really nicely cooked.

It is juicy.

You've got a nice, crispy potato, your tomatoes aren't burnt.

You haven't had any real disasters. Your fish filleting was good.

-All in all, you did all right.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you.

She's obviously quite determined.

I mean, she wants to become some superstar in America!

So she needs to get on with it!

She's got something, but whether I can develop her, I don't know.

For instance, the olives.

I mean, she'd never seen an olive with a stone in it.

It's very easy for me to say that, but it's quite extraordinary.

But that's down to her exposure.

I've got to really teach her to understand about food.

Me and Theo made a good connection

because we both like Italian-style food

and I think when I get to cook Italian,

he'll finally find out why I cook today.

At 18, Ellis is in her second year of college

and also works part time in a golf club kitchen.

-Hello.

-Hiya.

-I'm Theo.

-I'm Ellis, nice to meet you.

-Nice to meet you.

Come in the kitchen.

So, you're at college one day a week, then, are you?

No, I'm full time at college. I work at weekends.

-Saturday and Sunday, and Friday nights sometimes.

-OK.

So you are literally working seven days a week. That's impressive.

-Yeah, I didn't think...

-That's what I did.

-Really?

-Yes, it's what I did.

'I'm willing to work hard all the time and I want to impress.

'I'm quite bubbly, chatty.'

A bit ditzy sometimes, but I'm cool.

-See how much fish is left on the bone.

-Yeah.

-How much is on there?

-Quite a bit.

All the cats in the neighbourhood will be very happy.

They'd have a good old feed on that one.

So, what next?

-I was thinking of maybe slicing those potatoes.

-Yeah.

Frying them, maybe halving these. Maybe make a bit of a compote.

-You do whatever you want.

-Yeah?

'I think the magic of becoming a good chef

'is them understanding food and really living food.

'It is all about dedication and it's just loving what you do.'

Just think, before... Are you tasting as you're going along?

-I'm going to taste it once I season.

-OK.

-Tastes good?

-Mm-hm.

-Good.

-Be careful, it's very delicate.

-Yeah.

If you knock it around too much, it's going to break.

Treat it with utmost care.

Looks delicious. Sort of.

Would you serve that to your best friends?

They'd probably be quite impressed, yeah!

Right.

-Your filleting wasn't good...

-No.

..but you've created a nice mouthful of food.

-You've got the olives coming through.

-The capers.

You season quite nicely, actually.

Potatoes have got a bit of colour on them,

-so they've got sweetness with the tomatoes.

-Yep.

I think you did pretty well, actually.

-For your first attempt, you did pretty well. Well done.

-Thank you.

I liked her. I thought she was, she had a nice character about her.

She obviously likes food.

She was excited about going to work, which is a great sign,

because that's what I was like.

I think, given the right kind of mentoring,

she could probably do very well.

It would be so fantastic to work beside him,

to learn so much off him.

I feel inspired just to go home,

whip up something as quick as I did in there.

It's fantastic.

18-year-old David grew up in the area

and hasn't missed a day of college in two years.

-Hello.

-Hello, you all right?

-I'm Theo.

-I'm David.

David, come in. Come in.

-How are you doing?

-Not too bad. You?

-Good.

You've got a nice big knife case there.

OK, let's see what you've got.

'I live with my dad.'

He used to be a chef.

He taught me my first basic knowledge of cooking.

That led me to come here to do catering.

Be careful you don't go all the other side.

See, what you've done there, you started at an angle which is wrong.

You should really be flat.

Get the knife, put it back on that bone and then just carry on.

Do it gently. Just feel the fish.

-How do you feel that went?

-Not very well on the first one, but...

Left a little bit on that bit.

-My old teacher would not have been happy with that.

-No.

-So, what's the next thing to do?

-Pin bone it.

-OK.

Why did you put yourself forward for this?

I think it will be a great experience

-and it's to gain more knowledge as well.

-Absolutely.

-Just doing this, this is more practice for me.

-Yeah.

-Practice makes perfect, as they say.

-It does, yeah.

-I'm obviously in need of it as well!

-THEO LAUGHS

'I'd like to think I'd be a good teacher.

'I feel I like to nurture people.

'I like to take the underdog and make them great.'

I don't know how much...

Taste the caper, see what you think, because it's all in the taste.

That's it.

-How do you think that went?

-It started disastrous.

-Filleting was pretty, pretty terrible.

-Yeah.

But it looks like you cooked that fish quite nicely.

It's actually quite juicy.

What you've created is a nice sort of juice

-from cooking those tomatoes. Pretty good, pretty good.

-Thank you.

-But we can improve it.

-Yeah.

-Definitely. Especially with the filleting.

-Yeah.

-Anyway, well done.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you.

That was one of the worst fish filleting I've ever seen,

but, you know, he could have felt really intimidated

and I think, erm, he came back quite well.

There's obviously a bit of fight in him.

And what he created was actually quite nice.

Whether he is the right candidate to take forward, I don't know.

Terrifying.

Really, truly terrifying.

It was so nerve-wracking and I was just shaking

because I've never cooked for anybody of that calibre before.

Having a mentor means more than just being taught basic cookery skills.

Whoever Theo chooses as his protege will have to share his love

for the rustic Italian food that is at the heart of his style.

Using ingredients bought in daily from markets in Italy,

simplicity is key.

Theo can't take all the students through today,

so to help him decide who to keep,

he wants them to cook an Italian staple,

wild mushroom risotto made with porcini,

trompette de la mort and girolle mushrooms.

So I'm going to be making a mushroom risotto.

I absolutely adore making risottos.

It's what I'm all about,

the simplicity of food, but getting really bold flavours.

So first of all, we've got our mushrooms.

We've got some dried porcini, which in Italian food

is the most important mushroom.

And we're going to cook the mushroom with the garlic

and then start using that juice.

We want to reduce it down so we get pure, pure mushroom flavours.

As well as the porcini mushrooms,

Theo is sweating down the trompettes and girolles.

Smell that, it's a lovely, sort of woody kind of smell.

OK, so we're just going to drain these off.

And that's the basis of the flavours we want.

Now we're going to start the risotto.

A bit of celery. A little bit of onion.

And then we're going to add our rice.

It should go slightly translucent.

That's when you know that it's hot enough.

And then we're going to add a little bit of white wine.

Start adding our stock.

When you're cooking risotto,

it's important you cook it ladle by ladle.

You don't put two or three ladles in, stir and reduce.

You do ladle by ladle. Then it cooks more evenly.

-What's your favourite risotto?

-I do like the mushroom one.

My mum made it at home one time and it was amazing.

Maybe not as well!

'I think my style is quite hard to emulate.

'The hardest thing is getting the chef to understand it

'because it is quite different.

'I'm not using loads of sauces.'

I'm not getting intense flavours

from reducing things for hours and hours.

I'm trying to use the natural produce,

but it kind of makes more sense in its simplicity.

What are you guys thinking at the moment?

-Just trying to count how many ladles of stock you've put in.

-Yeah!

Really? Let's have a look at the rice again.

The rice is puffing up, it's becoming plumper.

This is where we're going to bring in the butter and the Parmesan

really to melt into the risotto

and give it a really lovely, creamy texture.

-That's quite a lot of Parmesan.

-Yeah.

You've got to really stir it.

It's like making a sauce, you don't want the sauce to split.

You want it to be really creamy, like that.

And then the rice sort of sticks to the spoon.

You want the risotto to sort of ooze into the bowl.

It shouldn't have a rim of juice,

it should be really...

..creamy.

That's my mushroom risotto.

-Nice.

-Wow!

I'm in love.

Can you repeat that?

It's all quite new to me.

Although my mum makes a good mushroom risotto,

I have never made it in this style before.

OK, now, this is what you've got to be careful of.

I didn't see that one.

You've got a pine leaf in your mushrooms.

You've got to be very careful.

Imagine having a mouthful of risotto, "Oh, it's delicious,"

and then you get that in your mouth.

-It won't be pleasant.

-It won't be nice, will it?

I'm feeling good. I'm feeling confident.

It's my kind of style, so hopefully I'll do really well.

And I hope I can make it as perfect as he did.

With their mushrooms prepped, both Monika and David

have started cooking their rice.

To avoid the harsh taste of alcohol,

Theo added the white wine early, before the stock.

White wine?

-White wine.

-Don't worry, it's too late now.

I'll just add a little bit once it's reduced right down.

'David put the first ladle of stock in and I said to him, "Wine."

'He went back and put the wine in.'

The problem with that is, you're always going to have

the taste of wine in the back of your palate.

But he can recover with the mushrooms and the seasoning.

-It looks like you're enjoying this.

-I am, I really am.

This is pretty much what I want to do in the future.

-I've got lots of passion.

-You're cooking with confidence.

I am confident.

You've got to be careful you're not too confident, though.

-Yeah, I know that.

-If you're too confident,

too much confidence is not good.

Monika seems to be quite efficient. She works well.

She could be a challenge,

or she could develop into something quite good.

Ellis is the last student to get her rice onto the heat.

Little bit nervous at the moment

but I hope, I'm sure it'll come together.

Watching them two ahead of me.

-I think you need one of these.

-Yes, thank you.

Never stir a risotto with a metal spoon,

and definitely not a palette knife. Not a good thing.

Also, you're rubbing metal on metal

and that will impair flavour into the risotto,

so always use a wooden spoon.

If the students have listened to Theo,

they will know that the final few minutes of cooking are vital.

And they must judge when their risotto is at the right consistency

and texture to serve.

Here comes Monika's.

You're the last to plate.

Oh, don't use a metal spoon. Why are you using a metal spoon?

-You've been cooking with a wooden spoon all the time.

-True.

Mine looks a bit wet.

I'm not going to say it was easy.

It was a little bit tricky.

It was a different way than I cook risotto.

I think the rice tastes like the rice he cooked.

It has the same consistency.

I'd love to go on. I can't express to you.

It would be amazing to carry on learning with him.

Right, Ellis.

Nicely cooked rice, mushrooms taste good,

seasoning's pretty much spot on,

but you were quite slow at the beginning.

You need to speed up or you're going to get in trouble.

So you need to kind of work with a bit more, you know, eagerness.

-You need to be a bit more determined.

-Yeah.

But on the whole, you did pretty good.

I think, you know, there's something in there.

'It was good fun.'

I know I've got to be faster.

As Theo said, I'm quite slow.

But other than that, I think it went quite well.

So, Monika, I mean, looking at it, appearance-wise,

it hasn't combined together.

It has got a slightly soupy look to it.

The rice is, erm, it's chewy.

Never mind, it's got a nice bite to it.

You have skill in your cooking.

Maybe you could become a little bit too confident

and I think if you had paid a little bit more attention

to the last couple of minutes of the risotto,

you'd have had a much better result.

'It was emotional today because'

it's hard to predict what he expects from us.

It is hard to impress him and, basically,

we might think we've done well, but in his taste, it might not be.

You fried the rice, you added the wine later, but funnily enough,

I can't really taste the wine, so you got away with that one.

I think the problem is,

-you added too much of the porcini mushrooms.

-OK.

You're not going to get the sweetness from the girolles

and the trompettes de la mort,

because it's overpowered.

It's nice, but it's not refined.

-It hasn't got that lovely, even mushroom flavour.

-Yeah.

I'm generally pretty good at cooking risottos,

and that just didn't happen.

I really hope that he does let me go through.

But I wouldn't hold it against him

if he did chuck me out for what I did today, basically.

'Well, this is quite tough.'

They've all got strengths and weaknesses.

Monika, she's one of those people that's driven.

I think she may not have all the tools,

but she seems very determined.

I liked Ellis. Ellis seemed to understand about food.

I think she'll understand about me.

The person that was not the strongest was David.

But I just feel there's something there, there's something in him.

I'm a fan of the underdog and I think today, David was the underdog.

Which two of these three should I choose?

Ultimately, Theo is only looking for one protege.

He must now let the students know who is still in the running

and who is going home.

Oh, my God!

I've kept all three of them. I want to keep both girls.

I liked them.

And there is something in David that I think will come out.

It would be such a shame for him to go

and not discover what he's got.

Well done to you two.

Whoo! I'm so proud of myself.

I must say, after today, I feel quite good.

I feel more comfortable now.

It's not a disaster. We can work!