Classics The Hairy Bikers' Comfort Food

We've travelled the world and eaten everywhere

from roadside bars to restaurants with Michelin stars.

But there really is nothing like a bit of home cooking.

Coming into a warm kitchen filled with the aroma

of a tasty meal bubbling away.

It's one of life's great pleasures.

Lovingly prepared dishes with flavours that pack a punch.

It's the perfect way to put smiles on the faces

of your nearest and dearest.

We also uncover why some recipes are so special that they're handed down

through generations of the same family.

-Who makes the best spaghetti?

-You.

-Right answer.

Who's going to have the first piece? Ooh!

Drop in on some of the UK's homeliest tearooms and cafes and...

-BELL RINGS

-Service!

..find out what chefs like to cook on their days off.

ALL: Ooh!

That looks amazing.

It's just much easier and much quicker.

There's nothing quite as comforting as simple home cooking.

Today, some dishes always hit the spot.

Guaranteed to put a smile on your face.

These are our favourite comforting classics.

When you talk about classics you think of Beethoven, Bach,

Rembrandt and Titian.

-Yes!

-But what we're cooking is classics of the culinary world.

And we've got a few tricks to show you about the burger.

We're going to show you how to make the perfect burger

but with one addition.

This - bone marrow.

It supercharges the flavour of that beef and makes that burger soft,

juicy and tender and full of meaty, flavoury goodness.

This is chuck steak and it's just at the point of nearly being frozen.

Now, we mince it while it's nearly frozen because it keeps the texture

more intact. You want to have a bit of bite with your burger.

Now, you'll see where the bone ends and the bone marrow starts and what

you do is you just put your spoon in there like that and run it down

the length of the bone.

And the bone marrow

will come out nice and easily.

You know, Dave, I don't know what you've found,

but bone marrow's quite popular now, isn't it?

I mean, we've been using it for quite a lot of years.

-Yeah, yeah.

-And it's such a great ingredient.

And all I'm doing, while Dave's mincing his steak,

I'm just chopping the bone marrow really nice and fine.

I mean, there really is no comparison between a burger made

with bought mince and making burgers like this.

And also making burgers from scratch,

there's something lovely about it, because you can get the kids

involved in it and then building burgers, it's just great, man.

This will make about four half-pounders,

in old money. Or, in new money, four 200-grammers.

Now, you can see how fine I'm chopping this bone marrow.

Mate, the bone marrow is ready when you are.

Well, here we go.

No eggs, no rusk, no odd additives apart from bone marrow.

And it's funny, isn't it, you know how you forget the classics,

how you forget the taste of what it should taste like?

-Yeah, yeah.

-So, clean hands.

What we do is we make sure that that...

Should I start to season as you go?

Yes, please, Dave, that would be great.

-Lots of black pepper in these burgers.

-Deffo.

Look at the technique here -

turning the meat in on itself so that bone marrow is evenly

distributed throughout every single piece of meat.

Going to half it...

..and then quarter it.

These are massive. Do you think they're too big?

Nah!

No!

DAVE LAUGHS

Right, so, very simple, the formation of the burger.

So, into a round,

just like you're making a bun.

And because we've got the textures right, we don't need any eggs,

any breadcrumbs or anything to pad it out.

This will hold together perfectly well.

That's a fine burger.

Number one.

I do get excited with stuff like this.

Now, let's put some heat on the griddle.

Now, treat your burger like a fillet steak, OK?

Your griddle needs to be hot.

BURGER SIZZLES

-Look at that.

-Now, we're just going to put two on at a time.

Yeah. You're looking at about three to four minutes per side.

You're just going to stand there and gaze lovingly at it, aren't you?

-Should I make the sauce?

-Go on, do, go on.

Right, this is a brilliant burger sauce.

And what we do is we get mayonnaise,

two big spoons of tomato ketchup -

tablespoons will do...

This is chipotle paste.

Chipotle's a chilli but it's got

a real smoky flavour and so a teaspoon

of this in a sauce gives it a really good kind of chilli, smoky flavour.

..garlic powder...

..a gherkin, diced fine.

In fact, what we're doing, Si, this is our secret recipe.

-I know.

-We shouldn't be telling people this.

-No, we shouldn't. No.

And all that's needed to finish this off is a squeeze of lemon juice.

Squeeze!

I'll just stir all these wonderful ingredients together.

Now, cheese again, it's a matter of choice.

We're going classic because these are classic burgers.

We're doing gruyere.

It's a good melter and it adds something to the burger.

It's not just a decoration.

You could use mozzarella but, hell, you want to taste cheese,

and gruyere...

-It just works, doesn't it?

-I know.

Now, if you're making a cheeseburger I would suggest that you add

the cheese at this point so that it's got time to melt and ooze.

-Are you ready?

-Yep.

-Yep!

And don't be shy.

-Toasted baps.

-Absolutely.

We're using brioche buns.

It's kind of newfangled but this is something that's newfangled

that I believe works beautifully.

I'll pass this to toastmeister.

Thank you, sir.

Onion rings, tomatoes, it's got to be done.

I want these quite thick.

I want onion rings, I don't want onion fragments.

There you go.

So, first off,

I would start with dressing and lettuce and then the burger.

Now, I defy anybody to say that that's possibly

the best burger you have ever seen.

Yes!

Now, I would probably go for a knife and fork with this burger.

The texture is superb.

The beefiness is superb.

The seasoning's superb, the gruyere...

This is the perfect burger.

Every dish tells a story.

It may be about the ingredients that define it,

the memories it evokes or the people who created it.

This is the story of Giovanni and Luca's risotto.

Luca and myself grew up in the same tiny hamlet,

which is called Carimate between Lake Como and Milano

and we've known each other

since we were five or six years old, no?

-Yes, yes, yes, yes, we meet in the primary school.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

And Luca, what is the best risotto you ever tried in your life?

Oh absolutely the best risotto was the risotto of my grandmother,

Nonna Lina, the risotto Milanese, the yellow risotto with saffron.

Now we're going to make the best risotto alla Milanese -

saffron risotto in English -

according to the traditional recipe as it should be.

This is the first secret for a good risotto.

For a good broth you have to use this kind of meat.

We have the scamone, we have the bianco...

-Which is flank.

-The biancostato.

-The rump.

-Cappello del prete.

-Feather blade.

-La gallina vecchia.

Which is old hen, it has to be old.

-El ossobuco.

-Bone marrow.

Now we are able to prepare the best broth.

Just two carrots and tomato.

One onion.

And the celery.

This is what we need for the meat broth.

The hen first because it's big.

Biancostato.

And this one.

-Perfection.

-Voila.

Now that the broth is ready,

which rice are you going to use for the risotto alla Milanese?

We will use the famous carnaroli -

the only rice you can use for the good risotto.

The starch is contained in the white part and the heat is going to take

out the starch out of the rice and is going to make the risotto creamy

and that's the beautiful texture that everybody loves

about risotto alla Milanese.

This is another little secret.

You have to use the Italian butter.

My mother taught me and we make risotto I think

till four generations.

-I'll put the rice in.

-Thank you.

THEY CONVERSE IN OWN LANGUAGE

This is for four person.

The nice thing is that the rice when you toast it is going to become

translucent, so when it becomes almost transparent it means

that this is the right moment to add white wine.

We have to wait till the wine is completely absorbed by the rice,

then we're ready for the broth.

And we are ready now.

THEY LAUGH

SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE

Here we are.

How long do we need to cook the rice in the broth by adding,

stirring the broth?

We have to put broth continuously for about 18 minutes.

-OK.

-You have to...

Stir continuously.

Yes, continuously because it's very dangerous that the rice...

-Is going to touch.

-..touch on the bottom of the pot.

Now, I have to prepare the saffron.

Take a little bit of broth.

Why are you adding the broth to the glass?

Because I need something warm for the saffron

to release the colour and the flavour.

Take a little bit this way.

And like magic the risotto becomes yellow.

-OK.

-It's like alchemy.

-Yeah.

-The risotto's going to turn yellow.

This is another little trick for a creamy risotto -

a glass of milk, cold milk.

Usually Grana Padano like Parmesan to complete it and make it perfect.

We can relax for five minutes because the risotto has to rest.

OK.

Look at how creamy it is, amazing.

-Yeah.

-And the colour.

-Yeah.

-I can still see the bits of saffron inside.

OK.

Oh, this is great.

Cheese melt in the risotto.

Let's put it here.

Wow.

HE LAUGHS

My favourite dish.

Do you think your Nonna Lina would be proud of this risotto?

Yeah, yeah.

-I'm proud of this risotto.

-That's good.

You try it.

Delicious. The best risotto alla Milanese that I can find in London.

THEY LAUGH

Very good.

You see, there are some classics that are around that, quite frankly,

I think we could make them a bit classier.

How dare you?

I mean the Pavlova was said to have born...

-inspired by Anna Pavlova the ballerina.

-AHH!

And the meringue is meant to represent her tutu.

God knows what the kiwi fruit on top represents.

-ATTEMPTING NEW ZEALAND ACCENT:

-It represents New Zealand.

-Let's not go there.

-But then the New Zealanders say they invented it,

the Australians say they invented it.

Well, I tell you what, we have invented the Pavlova

with black cherries in Kirsch with a spiced plum topping.

Look at all these beautiful, beautiful cherries.

-Are they dried sour cherries?

-Dried sour cherries.

We're going to put them in the pan,

put some Kirsch on them and just simmer away until they become plump.

Kirsch, by the very nature of what Kirsch is, is a cherry liquor -

not liqueur, because it's not sweet and it's great.

This is what makes your Black Forest gateaux a classic.

Right, so I'm just going to leave these to simmer.

Now, I need five egg whites in here.

I'm going to have to make some noise.

These need whisking to soft peaks.

Right, while you're doing that, mate, I've washed these plums.

I'm just going to quarter them and stone them.

The meringue consists of egg whites, sugar, cinnamon,

and white wine vinegar.

The white wine vinegar helps with the texture of the meringue.

So I can put the cinnamon straight into the sugar.

That'll make basic cinnamon sugar.

I'm now going to pare an orange,

which basically means I'm going to try and get the orange zest off.

I think that's spot on. So now lastly, the white wine vinegar.

This will make this a mellow mallow.

And we can just fold this in.

While Dave's stirring this through,

I'm going to start to make our syrup.

So, the juice of a whole orange...

The meringue is going to be light and this is tissue paper.

So, we've got a fan oven, so what could happen is

the whole thing would just take off and be blown

around the oven, so I just take a dab there of meringue, dab there,

dab there,

dab there on me baking parchment.

-Genius.

-And just turn it over and stick the grease-proof down.

But what I've done is, because I want some artistry to it,

I've drawn a template for the perimeter of me meringue.

I've just drawn around a plate.

We paint this loud and proud within the confines of my template.

What I want to do is I want to build it up so it's thicker on the outside

than the middle because I want a well for all those wonderful plums.

We're going to do a cream as well,

and the most fabulous cherries to sit.

Just make a little crater there,

place that in a preheated oven, a low oven,

at 130 Celsius for about an hour and a quarter.

Now, while Dave's doing that, I'm going to get on with the syrup.

So, we've got the juice of an orange, the orange peel

that we pared, some sugar.

Look, some red wine!

OK, so you want a good glug of red wine.

It's about 200ml, I think.

Aye, it's about that, isn't it?

-Yeah. Yeah, about 200ml.

-I always think 200ml is about a mugful.

Cinnamon. And we take some allspice and some cardamom.

And we just crush them a little bit. Mmm.

And the great thing is as winter's gone on, you know when you get...

If you get all bunged up, you just get your friend to do this and just,

it clears the passages.

Pop that in there.

That's practically Christmas in a pan, isn't it?

It is, it's lovely.

That's a wonderful spiced syrup for those plums.

So, what we're going to do is bring this to the boil

until the sugar's dissolved.

They go into there.

And we'll cook those down until they're lovely and soft,

gorgeous and unctuous.

The meringue is done.

I'm whipping me cream. I'm going to add some icing sugar -

about a tablespoon.

Now, this blew up like Vesuvius.

It has gone down a bit and there are some cracks, but don't worry,

because it's nice and mallowy in the middle and that's what you want and

basically all these cracks are going to be hidden with the spiced cream.

OK, little sprinkle of cinnamon.

Push that through the cream.

Mr Myers, there.

Is that stiff enough, do you reckon?

Oh, aye, look at that.

Could you put us a dob on here?

Top tip, this. This is a classic cake stand,

commonly known as a tazza, T-A-Z-Z-A.

The meringue goes on this and because of the cream,

it won't slip around.

There you are, mate.

-Thank you.

-And all of this cinnamon sugary cream goes on in a mountain

of loveliness.

While Dave's doing that,

I'm going to take some of the syrup from the plums and mix that

with our cherries.

Oh, and look - look what's happened when you put that syrup and

the cherries together -

they've got a beautiful, beautiful sheen on them.

Oh! This is going to be good.

This is fragile but that's of huge benefit when you're eating it.

-These plums are great.

-Thanks.

And the spicy fruit and the sharpness,

it'll cut nicely through the sweet meringue and the spiced cream.

Oh, they're good, eh.

If that's one of me five a day, bring it on.

-Beautiful colours, aren't they?

-Yeah.

What a great, great option if people don't want

-a heavy Christmas pudding.

-Yeah.

And then just before you're ready to serve your guests,

or indeed yourself, just build it at the last moment.

And look at that.

This is a new classic.

Nothing beats homemade comfort food,

but every now and then, it's nice to have someone else cook for you.

Thankfully, all over the country, there are places

that make us feel right at home and keep enticing us back.

My name is Jonathan Botham, although I'm just always known as Joe.

We're a family business, based around a bakery,

bakery shops and tea rooms.

It was founded 150 years ago by my great-grandmother.

She had ten children of her own,

so she really had to put the food on the table, quite literally.

She was baking and selling tea cakes and pies.

She had a green handcart, which she would take down

to the market in Whitby to sell her goods.

Eventually, she rented a shop.

That did OK and it went from strength to strength.

The whole of Whitby has an air of yesteryear.

It really hasn't tried to...

keep up with the times.

It's just kept what was good and looked after it.

Our tea room, I think, other than changing the wallpaper

and the paint, it's really remained the same since

probably the early 1920s.

People like the peaceful,

fairly sedate and quiet atmosphere,

and it's really just very traditional.

-Are you ready to order?

-Yes, could we have tea after three, please?

We still do the black and white uniforms and table service

and just a sense of an old-fashioned, quiet grandeur.

We sell a whole range of cakes that we make in the bakery.

One of my favourites, of course, is one with beer.

I enjoy making that as well as eating it.

So we've got a blend of

fruits, vine fruits and cherries and peel,

which have been soaked in beer overnight.

We're going to be blending that with sugar and almonds and butter.

That combines with some egg

and then we'll be blending through this blend of flour and spices.

And then, lastly, we'll fold in fine fruits and cherries and peel.

We have visitors, we have locals,

they could be young, they could be old, families.

It appeals to everybody, I think.

The food is lovely.

We live in Scarborough now, but we always come back to here.

I've been coming for 60 years, so...

No, 70 years, beg your pardon,

and they still do a very mean cream horn!

We've got the fifth generation of the family working in the business.

It really is part of the fabric of Whitby.

We've been doing this for around 150 years.

There can't be many people left in the town

who haven't either worked here or have a close relative

who's worked here at some point.

You know, looking at what my family have managed to do

in a relatively small town, I'm immensely proud of the heritage.

Do you know, loads and loads of great dishes

are rooted in the classics.

I mean, you've got your coq au vin, your boeuf bourguignon,

your navarin of lamb and then you've got...

Duck a l'orange.

This is wonderful. it's a magret of duck's breast,

but with kumquats, star anise, all manner of fine things.

But gentle cooking techniques that I think really freshen it up.

I mean, duck a l'orange in the '70s, what was it?

A duck covered in marmalade and cremated.

-Fundamentally.

-Well, it was at our house.

Anyway. First off, I'm going to make a syrup,

and I'm going to slice my kumquats and kind of candy them.

While you're doing that, I'm going to get the roasties on,

-cos that's what we're serving them with.

-Oh, yes.

So, what we're going to do with these roasties,

we're going to do them in duck fat.

Now, what we want to do, we've put the roasting tin

on the heat, because we want that duck fat to sizzle,

and then we stick the roasties in.

But while it's coming to temperature,

what I'm going to do is I'm going to take a head of garlic,

take the cloves out, and just give them a smash

with the palm of your hand.

Because we're going to put them into the roasting tin

with the potatoes, just like that.

Lovely. Great. Now.

Our roasties. Dead simple.

We've just quartered them,

parboiled them for five minutes, take them out, cool them down,

ready to go. Right.

So I'm going to put them in.

-Watch the duck fat cos it can spit.

-It does spit, yeah.

And just coat all of those potatoes in that lush duck fat.

Now, I'll chuck my kumquats into that syrup.

I'm going to simmer them until they're soft.

And after a while, you know you get glace cherries,

I'll have glace kumquats.

I like saying kumquats.

In anticipation of stage two, I'm going to finely dice two shallots.

Throw in your cloves of garlic.

-With positive gay abandonment.

-Absolutely.

Rosemary.

Now...

liberally season...

..with some salt and some pepper.

And stick them in a preheated oven at 220 degrees

for half an hour.

And that gives me half an hour for my sauce to reduce to a thick,

unctuous, syrupy loveliness,

and for Kingy to prepare the star of the show.

The duck breast.

-These are beautiful, aren't they?

-They are, aren't they?

-Absolutely beautiful.

-You see, I kind of like cooking duck like this.

I think duck is a bird of two parts.

You've got the thighs and the legs,

which I think need long, slow cooking, but the breasts,

you want them juicy. It's a quick hit of fire.

Now, look at these.

They've kind of gone candied and that's exactly what I want.

I'm going to set those aside for after.

I'm going to use this syrup as the bitter sweet foundations

of rather a wonderful sauce.

Pop that back on the heat and I want about 200mls of red wine to go

in there, which is lucky cos that's about all I've got left.

And the juice of two oranges.

What I'm doing is I'm just crisscrossing the duck breast.

Then I'm not scoring it right down to the flesh.

I'm just going into the fat layer.

And just let the weight of the knife draw through the skin.

Right, there's my orange juice.

Pop that in to join the red wine.

And to that, the shallots.

And that needs to boil away until it's reduced in volume by half.

I mean, duck a l'orange, it was always a classy dish, wasn't it?

You went to that bistro and, you know, "I'll have duck a l'orange."

Oh, yeah.

A lot of the time, it was the only French people could speak.

Oh!

Now, my next stage, I put in my stock...

..and again, that's got to reduce by half,

and a tablespoon of red wine vinegar.

Lovely.

And the little star of flavour that is the star anise.

We put two of these in...

..and that's the base of the sauce finished,

but we need to reduce that by half to get it more, more intense.

Right, here's a top tip.

You know how Dave and I always tell you to put heat on the pans

before you cook anything? Well, with duck breast,

it's slightly different, because what we want to do

is bring the duck breast and the pan up to temperature at the same time,

so the fat underneath the skin renders out.

So, we put them into a cold pan.

We want about five to six minutes skin side down, turn it over,

then about four minutes,

and then we'll put them to the side and let them rest.

So, how do you like your duck's breast?

Pink. But not very pink.

Just pink.

I like it a poir, as they say. Just so.

Right, I'm happy with that, Kingy.

-I'm going to turn that off...

-OK.

-..and pop in my kumquats.

And they're going to sit, loud and proud, so not only is it a sauce,

it has got a built-in garnish.

Beautiful.

How's them potatoes doing, mukka?

They're crisping up a treat.

I wish I could see anything!

Right, mate, I think they're done.

Ingots of duck gold.

I'll just take them out, let them rest for a little bit.

They're tense in that pan, aren't they?

They just need to relax and go,

"Phwoar, it's a bit cooler out here. Oh, thank goodness for that!

"Oh, what can be better now than to be swathed in kumquat sauce?"

Greens are done, as well, mate.

Oh, yes!

Oh, gosh, this is so full of flavour.

But the duck can take it.

Mr King, that is how I would like my duck in a restaurant.

-Yeah, that's how I like it, man.

-Just so.

-Yeah.

Those potatoes are sublime, aren't they?

-Absolutely.

-We don't mind if the odd bit of garlic gets in there, too.

Le sauce!

-Over the duck?

-Absolutely.

Oh, yeah, well done.

-Yes.

-It's classical, it's sensational.

But with that sauce, it's really pretty special.

Oh, it's great.

That makes me smile.

Oh, it does, doesn't it?

The flavours are so traditional, but just supercharged.

Oh, man, it's good.

Duck a la kumquat.

It doesn't have quite the ring to it, but it does on the plate!

Britain has an army of creative chefs

who, day after day, send out sensational dishes

to customers in their restaurants.

They work long hours, toiling over their stoves.

But back at home, what's their idea of comfort food?

My name's Michael Smith.

I'm the executive chef of this restaurant here -

Porthminster Beach Cafe - and also two more in the town

of St Ives, here in Cornwall.

So, we're sending lobster cocktail, crab cake and a mackerel,

-table four please.

-Oui, chef.

I'm from Australia originally, from a little town

down on the Great Ocean Road.

I didn't start cooking for the normal reasons, usually.

I was washing dishes in a restaurant,

and these chefs were coming in at two o'clock in the afternoon and,

you know, they had this fantastic life.

They seemed to have all the morning off.

They used to drink beers all night and surf all morning and I thought,

"This looks like a pretty good lifestyle to me."

I think I was originally attracted to cooking for those reasons,

but then after time, like after the first couple of years

of my apprenticeship, I found that I really had a passion for it,

and I ended up working, at the time, a one of the best restaurants

in Melbourne, I'd say.

Like a lot of young Australians,

I came back to Europe and just wanted to see, I guess,

where my family originally came from.

And I heard of Rick Stein down here and heard little bit about

surfing, as well, and I thought, you know,

that sounds like a place to check out,

and 15 years later I'm still here!

We do specialise in seafood.

The majority of it here is caught locally.

We get great mackerel out here in St Ives Bay,

and it's a great talking point for our restaurant waiting staff to say,

"Just out there, that's come from just out there", you know,

and I really like that, that we can say that.

Not many places can.

OK, soup of the day, monkfish will be finishing.

The one dish that sort of stands out here, not by design,

was a curry I came up with a while ago, a monkfish curry.

It's a Thai-ish sort of Indonesian-ish-style curry,

and I just made it up and put it together.

And whenever I take it off the menu now, everyone's in uproar,

so people come in specifically for that dish.

OK, monkfish curry.

Another thing that drew me to Cornwall was the fact that

there's some waves.

I lived in Australia and was brought up on the ocean surfing

from a young age. I still haven't got much better than when I was

a young age, but I still really enjoy surfing.

In my spare time, whenever there is waves, it keeps me sane.

Going for a little splash in the water, definitely!

Home time for me, when I get away from the restaurant and kitchen,

I love cooking roasts at home.

I try to take Sundays off, and because I've never actually

cooked roast dinners in any of the restaurants,

that's kind of my relaxed time.

Get a glass of red wine and just cruise.

There's no stress about creating the food, you know.

I can take all the time in the world,

it's just feeding myself and my wife and my boys.

-Do you want a beer?

-Yeah, please.

Roasts sort of take over in the winter, but you know,

in the summertime, on my day off and the weather's great,

I get out and cook a barbecue, being Australian, of course, you know.

Really lucky that one of my partners in the business, Roger,

has a fishing boat in the harbour and he often goes out

catching mackerel, and a great thing to do is grab a bit of mackerel

off Roger and then come down.

That's kind of the ideal thing for a barbecue in St Ives.

Well, we've got beautiful British beach weather here,

so we thought we'd come down and do a barbecue with that

lovely mackerel that Roger's caught and I've got a couple

of my mates here, so I've got a few Cornish ciders and beers out.

These are Padron peppers and they're great if you just blister them.

I just took a little bit of a stroll up around the garden

and I found some apples and some fuchsia berries and some rosemary,

and I've got some Cornish new potatoes, as well.

So we're just going to put it all on the barbecue and bring it

all together and squeeze some lemon juice on it and make it lovely.

Someone else? Mackerel.

Cooking, for me, is a really joyful experience,

because there's nothing better than seeing a raw product

and turning it into something that people enjoy.

And that can be the people that actually made it,

to the people that are eating it, and I think that's...

Being a part of that whole experience is fantastic

and that's why I still love being a chef.

LAUGHTER

This is one classic that sees you from cradle to grave.

-Yes.

-As a boy, I tucked into this classic - the banana split.

-Oh.

But we've kind of taken the banana split to new levels.

We've thought about textures, flavours.

This is like the ultimate banana split.

I'm going to get on to make a chocolate sauce.

I've got 100g of dark chocolate that I'm going to split into cubes

and, if you notice, we're just putting it straight in the pan

this time. We're going to do it over a very, very, very low heat.

So just break it straight in there.

And I'm going to candy the hazelnuts.

So, basically, I want to make a caramel, run the hazelnuts,

which have been skinned and roasted, or you can buy them like this.

I'm going to set them out to make, like, toffee hazelnuts,

so that's your crunch.

I start with a knob of butter, just like that.

Butter, sizzle down.

Cream.

Golden syrup.

Ooh, look at that.

Can you remember your first banana split?

-Yeah.

-Where was it?

-It was in Bins in Newcastle.

-Right.

My Auntie Hilda took us because we used to go on a Saturday

and they had this cafe. She got us this banana split.

I could not believe it!

Cos we didn't... I don't know, in our house we just didn't

-have that sort of thing, you know.

-No, no.

-It was funny

and it was a big treat, a banana split.

-Yeah.

-I loved it.

Sugar goes into the butter and we're just going to let that cook down

and don't really stir it too much, just let the sugar do its own thing.

Right, so that's our chocolate sauce.

-That didn't take long?

-It doesn't take very long, mate.

And what we're going to do is we're going to whisk some butter in.

Whisk that in like that.

-And look at the sheen on that now, lovely.

-Oh, yeah.

Throw your nuts in.

And just wait till that lot's caramelised.

-Now, what we're going to do is add about a tablespoon of rum.

-Ooh.

About a capful.

Now we whisk that in.

I love rum. It's got very popular again, hasn't it?

It's almost had a renaissance, there's been rum from

all over the world coming in.

So, what we'll do is we'll just turn the heat off that now,

and we'll just keep it warm, because otherwise it'll melt the ice cream.

-There we are, look at them.

-Beautiful, Dave.

Spread them out.

And they'll go dry.

-Beautiful.

-Nice one, Dave.

Guess what?

Banana time!

So, first off, you peel a banana.

Now, we're going to put some butter in the pan.

And I'm going to slash my bananas laterally.

This is the split in your banana split.

When the butter starts to foam, and that'll happen in due course,

we then put our bananas in some sugar.

I love these.

Look at that. Nut brittle.

But if you don't break them up now, they can be too hard.

The butter's starting to foam.

There we go. Right.

One banana, two banana, three banana, four.

And then, add some Demerara sugar.

And, because we're trendy, some salt, to make salt caramel.

So, the whole thing about caramel is you've just got

to be patient with it, and it'll happen.

It's so lovely when it does.

-That's it.

-Just roll it.

-That's really hot.

-Yeah, be careful, watch your fingers,

because the last thing you want to do is stick them in hot caramel.

Amazing.

-I think we're there, do you?

-Absolutely, mate.

-Shall we kind of deglaze with some juju juice?

-Yeah.

Now, creme de banane.

It's a banana liqueur and what you do, is you just go...

Oh, melt my bananas!

So, the elements are there.

-You bowl and I'll cream.

-Perfect.

Oh, yes!

I tell you what, Kingy, we never had banana splits like this

when I was a kid.

-And last but not least, three.

-Oh!

One, two...

three.

And there it is - our take on a classic banana split,

with all sorts of marvellous things going on.

Look at that. The bananas are shiny and...

Oh!

This banana split should be X-rated, strictly for over-18s only.

Oh, hey, I tell you what, Dave,

the crunch with the hazelnuts is amazing.

They make such a difference, don't they?

THE banana split.

Hairy Bikers stylie.