Spice It Up 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.

There's nothing like comfort food to put a smile on your face.

Today, dishes guaranteed to turn up the heat.

We're spicing it up.

I've cooked more complicated things, I've got to say,

but it's a taste sensation.

The spice in this dish comes from that.

But it's not just any chorizo sausage.

-No?

-It's a cooking chorizo sausage.

-That means it's raw.

-Yeah, it's raw, and it's filled with paprika,

and cayenne pepper and all manner of loveliness.

And in contrast to this, which is a prawn.

And what we're going to do, we're going to put the two together.

And it's brilliant. But Mr Myers has a wonderful accompaniment.

It's something a bit different, really, to, you know,

to kind of stand with the complexity of Simon's dish.

I'm going to do like an orzo bake.

I'm going to sweat down an onion.

-What are you doing?

-So look, what you do, you see...

..it's quite complicated.

Remove the head, shell, and de-vein the prawns.

Cut the chorizo into 12 slices.

The chorizo slices need to be the same width as the prawns.

And you put...

like that, you see?

And then you put that through there like that.

-It's a prawn and sausage kebab.

-It is.

So, when did you first eat this, mate?

Our Will, my brother, did it when we were in Italy for the whole family.

We just ate loads of it and we couldn't get enough of it.

It was brilliant.

Slice the garlic thinly.

You could eat quite a few of them, couldn't you?

Yeah, as fast as you can make them.

And I think the nice thing about it is that it is really simple,

but the flavours just go really well together.

Right, now the orzo.

It looks like rice but in fact, it's pasta.

Put that in there.

Make sure that the chorizo that you use is a spicy one,

cos that's quite important, and it has quite a big fat content.

The orzo has got a lovely coating of the oil.

So we're just going to kick it off with some stock.

Bring that to a bubble.

Now, this, the most expensive spice in the world.

I love it. Saffron, it's beautiful.

A pinch does go a long way.

Now I'm going to bake this,

cos I think it's just going to make it a nice, tighter orzo.

180 Celsius for about 15 minutes,

and we will magically have a pan of bright yellow orzo.

Right, simple, it does look perfectly executed.

Well, you know, it doesn't get much more simple, does it?

But the thing is, it's the flavours, man, they just work.

With the orzo and then the saffron - lovely spice -

and then you've got the piquancy of that fabulous chorizo, lovely,

lovely cayenne pepper, hot, dry flavours,

and then the unctuous loveliness of the prawn,

which is a sweet note, it's perfect.

-It is.

-Well, I'm going to stick these on.

And look, there's no oil in the pan.

We're dry-frying these because the oil will come out of the chorizo.

And don't forget, it's cooking chorizo that we're using.

Oh, look at this. Let's see.

-Whoo-ho-ho!

-Get in.

-Look at that.

-Oh, yeah.

-Right, herbage.

I'm not sure about the mint.

Lots of herbs. I'm going to stick with the coriander and parsley.

Now, you'll want to cook your chorizo and your prawn little kebabs

in the pan for about two minutes a side,

until the chorizo takes on a little bit of caramelisation and flavour.

And don't be shy about the amount of herbs you put in this.

It's a little bit like tabbouleh, you know, it's part of the dish.

I will put a bit of mint in, just a bit.

-Can I use this bit of the hob, mate?

-Yeah, of course you can.

Cos I need to get a little bit more heat in these.

Do-si-do your partner.

-And swap.

-Swap.

Sea salt flakes. Loads of cracked black pepper.

You can smell those herbs.

Well, don't just smell it, chuck it in!

-You want it in, man?

-Yeah.

I wish you could smell this, you know. It really is fabulous.

Look at them.

Right, so, what we'll start to do is take these out.

So what's going to happen,

all of that fat from the chorizo and the spices and the piquancy

is all just going to start to go into the orzo.

Remember, it's a dry pan he used, so any fat that's there...

..is going to be dribbled onto the orzo.

Top tip, what we're going to do,

we're going to use the zest of the orange,

but just to deglaze the pan a little bit.

Use that and then just tip all of that out.

Look at this.

The palette of flavours with the orzo and chorizo and prawn,

I think the link is orange.

I think because you have the saffron, it's a little softer,

it's a little softer in flavour,

and I just think it's going to link both of the elements together.

It's the bridge, if you like, on your palette, I reckon.

-It's the fruit that binds.

-It is.

Look at that, hey?

-Oh!

-Oh!

I can't wait to tuck into that.

-Do you know what, mate?

-Yeah.

That's a super, super simple way to get spice into your life.

Man, they're good. Aren't they?

I could eat that until I've popped.

Definitely a good one with the orange, isn't it?

It's fabulous. You see, as much as we can get on,

-we've proved sausage and prawn can get on, too.

-Indeed.

With the addition of a bit of spice.

-You need a bit of spice in your life.

-You do.

Cooked with care, the right produce is packed with flavours

that will sing on the plate.

But we think the cooking is the easy bit.

The real work is done by the producers

who put all their passion and expertise

into getting their ingredients just right.

I'm David Simmons.

I'm passionate about cauliflowers.

I'm the fifth generation to be farming brassicas

in the beautiful county of Cornwall.

My family started farming in 1870.

We're now growing over 5,500 acres,

which is quite a lot of cauliflowers,

so we're one of the biggest producers in the UK.

We've learned a lot over the years.

Cornwall itself is a fantastic place to grow cauliflowers.

Because of its subtropical maritime climate,

it's surrounded on all three sides by the sea

and that warms the climate in the wintertime

and cools it down in the summer.

So we can put UK cauliflowers on the shelves

12 months of the year.

This is a typical field of cauliflowers.

You can see that some of these are ready to harvest now.

Harvesting is done by the gangs in the field,

and they get up at the crack of dawn, first thing in the morning

while the dew's still on the crops, and they harvest them

by hand, selecting each cauliflower to make sure it's perfect

for what we want - the best colour, the best size,

the best shape, pest-free.

Then they put them onto the cups

that go up into the back of the rig and they're packed in the tray.

That's the last time that we'll be handling the cauliflower

until they're on the shelf.

The customer can then select the cauliflower they want to take home

for their tea.

It's very hard work.

It's back-breaking work, but it's very rewarding work

being a manual harvesting labourer.

This is a fantastic Cornish cauliflower.

All the outside is the cage of leaves

that helps protect the cauliflower.

The white piece in the middle, the flower part,

we call the curds, the cauliflower curd.

This one is really white in colour.

It's a great shape, great size.

There's a lot of florets in this cauliflower.

That will feed a family of four easily.

It'll have a lovely little nutty flavour

which is great for all sorts of meals.

Beautiful.

I love cauliflower. Nothing could be better

than having a nice cauliflower

draped in cheese dripping off the side with my Sunday roast.

It's perfection.

While Dave's getting on doing the florets,

I'm going to do the spice mix, ready for the cauli.

Pop the florets in here, and we're going to blanch them

for five minutes.

So, what you do, in there, put some fennel seed

and just give it a little bit of a crush.

Just crush those off a little bit...

..and then we want some paprika...

..cumin.

Look at the colours, Dave.

-So lovely.

-It is, it is.

Next...

a good glug of olive oil.

Salt.

And a good twist of pepper.

Now, to go with Kingy's dry spice mix, I've got a few wets here.

So, I've got one deseeded, chopped chilli,

a big spoon of honey and the juice of a lemon.

You see, the thing is that sometimes cauliflower,

-I think it's much maligned, Dave, cos sometimes it's...

-It is.

It's, they say it's bland, but actually it isn't.

There's a really lovely earthy depth of flavour to it.

And with a bit of spice and a bit of dressing up,

it can be a fantastic main meal.

This honey, lemon juice and chilli,

I'll put that in with Si's spice mix.

So, you can see now, we've got quite an engine room of flavour.

Right, well, this is five minutes, so we'll drain this off.

So, the cauli can go straight in here.

And just make sure it's covered...

..as much as you can,

because every bit of that spice you don't want to waste.

And now we roast it. Roast cauliflower is fab.

So, we pop this into a preheated oven at about 180

for about 15 to 20 minutes until tasty and roasted.

Whilst you do that, matey, I'll grate the cheese.

I've got Gruyere, which is one of me fave cheeses, and Emmenthal.

We want about two to one, so I'll use about that much Gruyere,

and about...that much Emmenthal.

-Lush.

-And, you know,

I think we've chosen right with the Gruyere and Emmenthal.

-Yeah.

-Because they're both full of flavours,

they're really good melters as well.

And I think we've got so much flavour going on in the cauli,

this is going to start to simply fizz with flavour.

So, we're going to make some fantastic kale chips-cum-crisps.

What you do when you deep fry them, it goes really crispy quite quickly.

If you don't want to deep fry them, you can also stick them in the oven,

but for our purposes, I'm going to fry them today, so...

LOUD SIZZLING

It sounds more scary than it actually is.

Yeah. I mean, it's great with Chinese five spice powder,

it's great with lemon juice, you know, smoked salt's lovely with it.

It really is a realm of possibilities.

-But it's so tasty.

-It is tasty. It is.

So, that's the first batch out.

-So crispy and light, isn't it?

-Beautiful.

And again, just lower the basket in quite gently.

And albeit that they look quite delicate...

..they're not, you can knock them about a bit.

Oil off.

Right, I'm going to make the dressing, which consists of...

..some lemon juice, a teaspoon of smoked paprika powder...

..some salt, some pepper...

..and a little bit of olive oil.

That's extra virgin olive oil.

Right, that's had 15 minutes, Si.

Lush to dush.

-Oh, yeah, great.

-Look at that, started to catch.

-Catch, perfect.

-Give it a stir.

Now, the cheese.

Oh, yeah.

And finish off with some lemon zest.

The lemon zest, it's like a top note of flavour.

It's just like a nice sort of spiky, citrus hit

and we just pop that back into the oven for about five minutes

until the cheese is melted and completely unctuous.

-Shall we have a little sit down?

-Why not?

Scissors.

Right, then. Ho-oh!

That is really good, appetising food.

I'll just do this.

With all that smoked paprika, lemon juice and olive oil dressing.

A few sea salt flakes.

There we have it.

-It's going to be too hot, isn't it?

-Oh, aye.

Well.

Excellent.

That is so sharp, the lemon juice and the paprika.

And it's strong flavour.

You could almost garnish the cauliflower with that.

It's brilliant. Do try this one at home because it's...

If you like cauliflower cheese, you're going to love this

but the difference is it isn't kind of thick and saucy and heavy.

Because of the roasting, it's quite sweet and light,

and you lose nothing of that lovely cheese.

-Oh, mate, the lovely spice...

-Yeah.

-..just there.

Every family has their favourite dishes.

The comfort foods that remind us of home.

But we're a creative bunch, too,

rustling up scrumptious new recipes to wow our loved ones.

These are our inheritance dishes.

My name's Sanjay and I'm Birmingham born and bred.

Yeah, both me and my mum, we run a small spice company

and we produce spices and blends from all over the world.

We do everything together, from hand blending and hand roasting spices

to grinding and packing

and my mum even makes these beautiful silk wraps for the tins,

which turn them into gifts.

So, my mum's a really passionate home cook

and that's massively rubbed off on me.

I aspire to be as good as her

and I try to replicate the things that she does

but I'm always watching and I'm always learning from her

every time I'm with her and every time we're cooking together.

So, my mum's got this ability to cook masala dosa,

which is a south Indian dish -

even though our family's traditionally from North India -

so it's massively a family favourite.

-What do we need there, Mum?

-I need the turmeric and...

-That much?

-Yeah. Yeah.

The spices which I use now, and when I cook,

it just brings back the memories of home.

And I try to pass those flavours and smells and cooking passion

to my own kids.

So, some of the dhal goes in there and then your curry leaves in there.

I think what I love about the dish

is that it holds amazing memories of growing up.

It's always been one of our favourites.

And, you know, cheers went around the house

whenever my mum announced that she was making dosa that day.

So, it does have really good memories for me.

It's extremely filling. It's really heart-warming.

And all the different flavours and everything come together.

It's just an explosion of flavour.

Sanjay loves to try to make my masala dosa.

It's quite tricky at the moment for him, but he's learning fast.

-Well done, Sanjay.

-The student becomes the master, hey?

The dish that I'd like to add to the family cookbook is a lamb tagine.

It's an amazing dish combining lots of spices, lamb,

some beautiful vegetables, and served with a couscous.

Eight, nine years ago, we travelled to Morocco

for my dad's 60th birthday

and it was really my first encounter of eating Moroccan food

and seeing the combination of eating savoury and sweet.

So, my lamb tagine has things like prunes in it, which, again,

we wouldn't have used the same sort of flavour combination growing up.

So it's actually a relatively new dish in my repertoire.

It's just an amazing dish, which I know that my family love now.

And it's one that I want to pass on

and make sure it's my legacy for the future.

The lamb tagine always starts with making your spice blend.

So you've got to make your ras el hanout blend.

Add some rose petals in.

Ras el hanout is a classic spice blend from Morocco.

It translates as head of the shop.

And what that really means is every spice merchant in Morocco

will have the best spices he has at that time,

he'll make into his own blend, and that will be ras el hanout.

Sanjay has always been very much interested in cooking.

But as he's getting older, he is becoming a real cook.

He has literally taken over my passion of cooking.

The lamb tagine is a beautiful dish.

Really, it's a dish that you would really only want to cook

for a number of people because you can put quite a lot in a tagine.

And it's one that the whole family can love from old to young.

It'll bring people together.

I'm going to make a cardamom tuile biscuit.

Right, first thing, I've got icing sugar,

which I'm going to cream with some unsalted butter.

Fold in the flour, followed by the beaten egg whites.

And vanilla extract.

And just beat this until it's smooth and there's no lumps.

Look at that. Beautiful.

While Dave's doing that, I've taken the top off,

I've taken the bottom off, and I'm just taking the skin off.

And then we're going to take the eyes out.

Sounds quite brutal, really, doesn't it?

-It does a bit.

-Maybe it's his accent.

I think it is.

The eyes, which is these bits, you don't want to eat.

So what you do is, on a diagonal line, right across the pineapple,

you just take it out.

So you're cutting a little V in the pineapple...

..like that, and you just pop the eyes out.

See? And it also gives your pineapple a lovely shape.

And that's the texture you want.

No lumps.

Now, we just pop that to rest in the fridge for an hour.

But, we're not going to have to wait an hour because, shazam!

Here's one I got to rest earlier.

-That's brilliant.

-I know, I know. It's magic!

Now, to make these tuiles, I need some apparatus.

An old plastic lid, a pair of scissors,

two cans with a rolling pin stuck on the top,

some silicon baking parchment, and a couple of palette knives.

So, what we need to do is to make a teardrop shape.

I've marked that out on to the plastic lid

and I'm going to cut it out very, very accurately.

I went to art school, you know?

You wouldn't be able to tell.

Right, anyway, the pineapple.

Cut it into thick slices now.

Place the template down on your baking parchment.

And you take your biscuit mixture...

..and use the template to form your biscuit shape.

And now repeat.

-Good, isn't it?

-Right, while Dave's doing his tuiles,

I'm just going to put the pineapple into the Demerara sugar.

Wow.

Good, thick slices. Don't be frightened.

Now, the cardamom seeds, or they wouldn't be cardamom tuiles.

So, you sprinkle...

..your seeds onto your tuile.

And pop them into a preheated oven, 180 Celsius,

for between five and ten minutes, so, let's go for seven.

And while Dave's doing that, I've got some whipping cream here.

And this is just for presentation and for serving,

but it's so lovely, and some coconut cream.

I'm going to sweeten the cream with some icing sugar.

Whisk it in.

And you want to whisk it to soft peaks.

That'll do, it's grand.

So, we've got about 50g of butter.

Put them in the pan.

Melt it.

And then once it's melted, wait for the butter to foam.

At that point, that's when we stick the pineapple in.

When the butter is foaming, add the pineapple, star anise, lemongrass,

and lime zest, and brown on both sides.

You want the sugar to melt onto the pineapple and turn it a dark brown,

almost black colour.

It's not going to be burnt, but it's going to be dark.

-Trust us, it works.

-It's going to be caramel.

Yeah. Right!

-Beautiful.

-Tuiles, lovely. Beautiful, Dave.

Come off quite easily.

And hot. Let them...

That's the ticket.

And you can buy these tuile hanging devices in most good kitchen shops.

It's time for the flambe.

-That looks fantastic.

-It does. It's going to...

What's going to happen is once we start to flambe it, as well, mate,

it'll just, all the sauce will just go a lot darker, as well,

so it's going to be great.

A top tip is just to heat a ladle.

It's like when you do your Christmas pudding at Christmas.

That sort of thing.

That should be hot enough.

Get that on.

Now, if it doesn't set fire the first time, just light it.

-Nice.

-Oh!

Now, you see, what's happening is it's all going really, really dark,

reducing it even further.

And that syrup is just going to be so thick and unctuous,

-it's going to be brilliant.

-Lovely.

See, I get the delicate job making the cardamom tuiles,

he burns the bloomin' house down.

That took me quite by surprise.

-I love it.

-Right, these tuiles have cooled down.

-Look at that.

-Oh, Mr Myers!

Take that off the heat. We'll take the star anise out.

Look at that. Beautiful, glossy.

The caramel we'll reserve for plating up.

That's us.

-Right, mate.

-Right.

-Tuilage.

-Tuilage.

-That looks a nice one.

We have that sweet coconut cream.

-That's just going to melt.

-There's a lot going on in this, isn't there?

It is, mate, yeah.

Some of that lovely caramel.

That's it. Oh! That's it.

Oh!

To bring a bit of sunshine...

..into the dark winter days that we have up here.

Look at that, Si.

-Chuffed with that, mate.

-I'm absolutely chuffed with it, as well.

I mean, there's a few processes,

it's not really that complicated,

but all those levels of flavour, a bit of finesse.

It's, it's bloomin' brilliant.

And isn't that great? That's the diversity of spice,

both savoury and sweet.

And very, very neat.