Lancashire The Hairy Bikers' Food Tour of Britain

We're the Hairy Bikers! And we're on the road to find regional recipes.

-We're riding county to county to discover, cook and enjoy the best of British. Come on!

-Wahey!

Today we're in search of the real taste of Lancashire.

Oh, look at it, Kingy. It's fantastic!

I live just the other side of that wind farm.

But that's Cumbria, this is Lancashire and it's fantastic.

You cannot come to Lancashire without coming to Blackpool.

It's a very good place to start.

To the north you've got the ancient city of Lancaster.

The Dukes of Lancaster, the Wars of the Roses.

To the east, great national parks, rolling countryside, great farming,

and down south you've got great cities like Preston and Wigan,

the Northern Soul, the Wigan Casino. There's fantastic traditional food.

It's not all fish and chips, cow heel, tripe, rock, sticky lollies and candy floss.

We've got great treasure here and there's a plethora of Michelin-starred restaurants.

Hold on, what's the matter with that? I like that.

I like tripe and cows' heels and I like rock.

Nor is there anything wrong with a candy floss

and I'm not coming to Blackpool and I'm certainly not leaving without having a bit of both.

To find the true flavours of Lancashire, we head up to Blackburn

to cook up a county favourite that really warms the cockles.

And we go quackers in the search of the best duck in the North West.

-Look at that, man.

-Help yourself.

And we dig for the diamonds of the dirt, Ormskirk new potatoes.

The first of the season.

And representing Lancashire in the cook-off later is Nigel Howarth,

but we will we be able to beat him in a blind tasting judged by local diners?

Well, we're right in the heart of Lancashire. This is Accrington.

There is Accrington Market and it's one of those real traditional

Lancashire markets where we'll find good old-fashioned Lancashire food.

And just over there in the Town Hall is the Lancashire Food Festival.

So, you see, we've got the past, the present and the future.

Put that together, we're gonna get Lancashire on a plate. Come on, let's go traditional first.

-The best of both worlds, dude.

-I know.

-Tripe, I love tripe.

-I hate tripe, I hate tripe.

-Why? It's nice, man.

Oh, no, it's horrible. It's disgusting stuff...

Lancashire food on a plate, to you, what is it?

Cheese and onion pie.

-Oh, right.

-Oh, yes. Yeah. Anything else?

-Corned beef hash pie.

-What other treats do we have in Lancashire?

I like Eccles cakes. They're tasty.

-What is an Eccles cake?

-It's pastry with raisins in.

Oh, we used to call it dead fly pie.

What are these here, look?

-Butter pies.

-It's mashed potato, onion and butter.

-It might be nice with a slice of that.

-Yeah. There you are.

Give it here, give it here and I can have a look, love.

So, this isn't jelly like the other?

Yeah, this is in jelly.

That's set - boiled together in a mould and then put in moulds, you see, with butter.

You're buying tripe!

-I am buying tripe.

-And what do you do with it?

Cut it up, salt and vinegar, pepper.

In front of the telly on a Saturday afternoon watching the match?

-Oh, no, not in front of t'telly.

-Do you sit at the table, proper?

-Yes.

-Oh, well, good, good.

Oh, lovely. Yes. Yes, that bit.

-Dave, do you want a bit?

-Absolutely not.

-Why? It's nice!

I've eaten scorpions, coconut grubs...

No, I couldn't.

Don't!

I tell you one thing, though, that I do see that was a treasure of my youth.

-What's that?

-A savoury duck.

-A what?

I haven't seen those for years. Now, Kingy, here's some real food.

Put that obscene obscenity away.

It's a bit like a faggot, a rissole or haslet.

Now, that's a thing of beauty. Do you know what's in a savoury duck?

-Pork and seasoning.

-Pork and seasoning.

-And herbs.

-And herbs.

-Kingy?

-What?

Prepare to taste something lovely.

Try that. That's proper.

I like that.

It goes well with the tripe.

What to you is a famous Lancashire dish? What's the great produce?

The hotpot, I would imagine. Yeah, the hotpot.

-Lancashire hotpot.

-How do you make your hotpot? Any tips?

Good quality meat, skirting.

Skirting? Do you do a beef hotpot?

-Yes.

-BOTH: Ah!

-What meat do you have in your hotpot?

-You can have lamb.

-Right.

-Lamb cutlets.

-That would be a posh hotpot.

-It would.

I like it done with bacon, hotpot.

-With mint sauce in it.

-Mint sauce?

-If you're cooking it, yeah.

-Right.

Oh, that's a nice little take, isn't it?

-What's it going to be, mate? It's got to be hotpot, hasn't it?

-It has got to be.

But it's incredible, every family's got their own traditions.

One thing my mother used to do, she always put black pudding in it to make a gravy.

My mam used to put lamb's kidney in it.

We just need the wherewithal for a good hotpot. We've decided on chump chops. So we need about 2kg.

-Two kilos of beef.

-Two and a half, mate, please.

-Yeah, that would be grand.

-What do you tend to use for hotpot?

-Something similar.

-Yeah?

-Similar - boneless lamb, yeah.

Or we do use the beef, stew beef.

-Yes, a lot of people like beef skirt.

-Yeah.

-Do you like Lancashire food?

-I love it.

-And what's your favourite?

-Black peas, probably.

-What are black peas? I've never heard of them.

Black peas are...

Well, we've got... We're selling them outside.

-Are you?

-They're absolutely lovely.

-Are these yours?

-You want me to show you?

-Can you?

-Great.

-Oh, brilliant.

-Is this your stall?

-Yeah.

He said the favourite thing to eat in Lancashire is Lancashire black peas and I've no idea what one is.

They're like the green peas, but they're black. They're maple peas.

-Maple peas?

-Maple peas.

-Thank you. Wow!

-Try some of them.

-Oh, they're lovely.

-Oh, hey, they're great.

-Nutty, aren't they?

-Yeah, they're like mushy peas, but nutty.

-Yeah.

-They're lovely.

-We've got to find something to do with these, mate.

As cooks it's our responsibility to bring the black pea to the nation.

You're not wrong.

Oh, hey, well done, Jordan.

-Thank you.

-Well done.

-Thank you very much.

Come with us.

This is Accrington Town Hall and this is the Lancashire Food Festival.

So, it's off to find the last of our ingredients for our take on the legendary Lancashire hotpot.

Why is black pudding such a Lancashire tradition?

-Because it wholesome.

-We need some, Kingy.

-We do.

Could we just have four of the traditional fatty ones?

-Fatty ones? You certainly can.

-Are there any other delicacies

that we should know about in Lancashire?

Oh, yes! There's a very famous Wigan kebab.

What's a Wigan kebab?

-It's five meat and potato pies on a poker!

-THEY LAUGH

That's a pie eater's delight.

A pie eater's delight.

We're off to Blackburn, home to a beautiful cathedral

and the perfect place to cook up our take on this county favourite.

Traditional Lancashire hotpot.

We're in Blackburn outside Blackburn Cathedral

and we're cooking Lancashire's favourite, the hotpot.

He's not wrong! Now, the thing is, everybody in Lancashire

and every Lancashire family has a different recipe for a hotpot.

But what we've done is combine them together and we're going to give you the Hairy Bikers' family hotpot.

It may be controversial, but there's no carrots in our hotpot.

-No! Controversial it may be.

-My mam's tip is, she used to put black pudding in the hotpot.

The black pudding disintegrates and gives you a thick, black pudding gravy.

My mam, she used to put kidney in it just for a little textual difference, you see?

The first thing we've got is lamb. We're using chump chops

because there's a lot of meat - it's extravagant but we don't care.

The first thing we've got to do is to brown the meat and the kidneys.

Ooh! I think that's a bit hot.

It's the only thing that is!

Right, core them kidneys.

That bit's chewy. You get ahold of the little end of it,

then you just cut across it like that, you see?

Look, like that. That bit there we don't want. So, then you turn it over

and you cut across like that, you see?

And there you go, that's it out. Simple enough.

This kind of rindy, fatty bit, I'm cutting the majority of this off

because I don't like stringy bits in food.

Now, this needs to be brown, so we put that on there and I'll do my first batch.

Don't crowd the pan with this because what we want to do

is to brown the meat, we don't want to poach it.

-Right.

-Oh, garlic... I'll carry on skinning.

A hotpot is one of the most lovely dishes, isn't it?

It's comforting, it's lovely.

The longer you cook it, the better it gets.

But you see, what's beginning to happen is already

all those lovely meat juices are in the pan

and we just keep building that up and using those flavours.

Dude, just as well we're not cooking rabbit!

Oh, darling!

I didn't mean it. I didn't mean it! I'm sorry, God. I'm sorry.

-Do you like hotpot?

-Yeah.

Yeah? Does your mam make it at home?

-Dad does.

-Your dad does.

Have you got any top tips for me for making hotpot, sir?

Put carrots in!

LAUGHTER

We've browned the meat and now we'll just colour the kidneys.

The kidneys are browning nicely.

Next step is to sweat down the onions, but we don't want to brown the onion.

A brown onion is not a good thing.

Here we are skinning a black pudding in Blackburn,

which is as fine a place as any to skin a black pudding, I suppose.

It's time to start making the gravy.

We want good, thick gravy, none of your drizzly staff. So,

to do the thickening, I put in about two tablespoons of plain flour.

Put the flour in straight on the onions

and stir the flour with the onions.

Now, the thing is, the flour clings to the onions, cooks a bit,

and every morsel of stock, liquor and juice that clings to an onion

will miraculously become thick and luscious.

To this add some good lamb stock.

Now we start building the flavours. A couple of bay leaves. These are only little ones.

And some thyme.

Now, the secret ingredient, Worcester sauce.

A nice big slug. This is thickening up a treat.

-Can you smell that? I've just got a waft. It's lovely, isn't it? Oh, ho, ho!

-Salt and pepper.

That's all the meat juices. You put them in

and that's going to make more and more gravy.

There's a few escapees in there, but they're fine.

We need to butter the pan.

This is the pan for the hotpot and a mighty fine pan it is, too.

-Right, mate, I'm going to slice the potatoes.

-So, grease the dish.

It's a layered dish, the hotpot,

and it's important you do the layers in the right order

because you want some potatoes soggy, some whole and some crispy.

So, butter in the hotpot, start layering the potatoes.

So, layer two, the meat layer.

I want half of the meat and kidneys in there.

That goes on to the potatoes.

Now, we cover that with a layer of black pudding.

Look at the size of this hotpot!

Now, big blobs of the onion gravy with the herbs. They go on there.

Now, it's worth hanging about for, isn't it? I mean, it is.

-Are you're getting it now?

-Are you getting it?

And more potatoes. Layer it up.

Salt and pepper, mustn't forget that.

Finish up topping with the meat.

All of it's gone in now.

-This is the Rolls Royce of hotpots.

-Oh, it is.

Top up with the remainder of the thick, gloopy onion gravy.

There's plenty of liquid in the potatoes.

I need another potato.

I'm going to murder you, I am.

Now, this is the one that has to be done carefully, so it's like some beautifully arranged fish scales.

Just spiral them like that. It takes a little while,

but it's worth it.

And when it goes golden it will all be crispy and lovely and dead appetising.

Salt and pepper.

Look at that, it's like a chrysanthemum's head.

You could show that at the Chelsea Flower Show.

So, we dot this with little cubes of butter, and this will make the potatoes go golden.

Now, the moment has come that, rather than wait three hours, what happens now? What do we say?

One, two, three!

ALL: Here's one we made earlier!

-Yes!

-You could be a choir, you lot, couldn't you?

-That's a hotpot.

-That's a hot, hot, hot handle.

Time to have to look what's been going on inside.

-Oh, look at that, Dave, man. Look at that!

-And then we dig down.

Look at that. Have you seen that bit there?

Yeah. And look at the onions.

And, with this, a big chunk of crusty Lancashire-baked bread.

I'll just put a few sprinkles just to... Just a bit of herbage.

There we are. Now, that's a nice plate of food to come home to.

Love it or loathe it, it's the Hairy Bikers' family hotpot.

Now, it's the moment of truth. What will the locals make of our Hairy Lancashire hotpot?

-What do you think of the hotpot?

-Nice.

-Yeah?

-It doesn't need a carrot in.

-No, it doesn't.

-See, told you!

Fantastic. Absolutely brilliant. Better than my grandma's.

The black pudding just adds a bit of spiciness to it.

-Really nice.

-I didn't even miss the carrots.

It's different, because I wouldn't have put black pudding in it.

I've put kidneys in before, but I will do now, I'll try that. It's good. Really tasty.

-It's the first time I've had hotpot.

-Is it?

-Yeah.

-Really?

-Yeah.

-Oh, well, that's fantastic!

-Will it be the last?

-No.

-No.

Actually, it's something that makes you feel like all your problems would go away when you're just eating this.

-Yeah, nice comforting food. What about you, son?

-Perfect.

-Yeah?

-I don't even like black pudding, either.

Our Lancashire hotpot went down a treat with the people of Blackburn.

Next, an even bigger challenge

is just around the corner. As always, we're taking on one of the county's top chefs

in their restaurant, using local ingredients to see who can best define the taste of the region.

It will be up to local diners to decide whose dish best represents the true flavours of Lancashire.

Our opponent today is...

Nigel Howarth.

Head chef and owner of Northcote near Blackburn.

Nigel has been championing local food long before it became fashionable.

Northcote has become a favourite destination for foodies and chefs alike.

The restaurant is all about modern British cooking with roots firmly in Lancashire.

I think my approach to food here is to try and serve the food

as beautifully as I can, but I'm really all about flavours.

Presentation is detail, but I don't like to over-gild the lily.

We've just got a bounty of produce. It's such a wonderful area to work in.

We've got great cheesemakers in the Beacon Fell area,

over to the Fylde Coast for our shrimps,

and then we've got fantastic beef, lamb and pork, indigenous breeds such as Lonk Lamb.

Andrew, the gardener here, is absolutely fantastic and we grow ten months of the year here.

We won a Michelin star in 1996.

We've also been voted the best food in Britain, which was this year, so I think we're doing OK.

To take on the Bikers, my taste of Lancashire is wood pigeon breast,

leg parcel, new season's mushrooms and spinach and a celeriac sauce.

I feel the Bikers are in for their toughest challenge yet.

Hey, hey!

-Hiya, Nigel.

-Hi, Dave, good to see you.

-Nice to see you.

-Nigel, all right, man? How are you?

-How's things?

-Good, man. And you?

-Yeah, good. Do you fancy a brew?

-Oh, not half!

-It's Lancashire! It's Lancashire!

-He said the magic words!

-Come on in, then.

-Fantastic.

Headline your dish. How would it appear on the menu?

Right, wood pigeon breast, leg parcel, mushrooms, spinach with celeriac sauce.

Does that sound Lancashire?

-No.

-No!

What I'm going to do with the pigeon is whip its legs off,

turn it on to one side... Crack it open,

and then I'm just going to take the undercarriage off, like so.

What I do then with those is whack them into a vacuum-pack bag.

Dave, put them in the water bath at 68 for 24 minutes.

-At 68 degrees, Chef.

-The timer's on there, Simon,

if you'd like to operate the timer.

-Right. Yeah, no problem.

-The legs, as we bob them in there,

we put some fresh thyme and some sea salt on,

then we're going to leave them for four hours, wash it off and slow cook them,

-and then, hey presto! We've mixed it with some livers...

-Right.

-And we've made balls.

What sort of liver's that? Chicken liver and pigeon liver.

So, what we could do now, is we could make the leg meat parcel.

We've got a little bit of this brick paste. It's like filo, but it's...

Well, what's it for, Nigel?

-You can wrap anything in it...

-Putting windows in!

-We're going to cut it into shreds...

-Ooh!

..then we're going to fry the parcels in it.

-I like this. This is tricks.

-Pop that through and wind it.

-You pop, I'll wind.

What's the matter with a knife?

Yeah, but you get a uniformity that a Michelin-starred chef at this level commands.

-Exactly.

-Oh, God!

Behind you is that butter and the brush.

If you just loosely brush the paste... That's it, loosely brush it.

-Did you invent this?

-Sort of...

Sort of borrowed off a mate of mine,

I think is the best description.

Right, and then what I want you to do, Dave,

is just wrap it loosely round.

-Right.

-Just strands. Then we'll deep-fry those on about 160, 170.

-Right.

-For how long, Nigel?

About two to three minutes.

We've got some celeriac puree here. We've cut down a lot on the cream.

It's mainly sweated off with a little bit of butter.

-That's fabulous.

-A touch of cream.

-Huge flavour.

-Fabulous.

-And milk in there.

All I've got in here is just caster sugar and a little drop of water.

-Right.

-We need some hazelnuts.

I've peeled them, so I'm hoping now that this should be like a thread.

-Yes! Can you see that?

-You can see that, that's it.

-Yeah.

-Put the pan into the iced water...

-A double act!

-..to stop it cooking.

One for your fingers, the other for your pan.

Pop the hazelnuts in and mix them around there,

-and then I've got some Maldon sea salt.

-Yes.

I'll put that onto there.

Just get a few in there.

OK? Right, just shake them in the salt there

and there you go. You see, you just leave them to cool down and, hey presto!

-Within minutes...

-Within minutes they're there.

So, I'm going to put them in. Lads, don't eat them.

-No.

-No, no. No, we won't, we won't.

-We'll hold back.

Because this could be the killer part of my dish.

All right, so that's that, really. Take the pigeons out, wonderful.

And while they're in those bags there, those sous-vide bags, it will keep warm and fine.

So, I need that to settle for five or ten minutes, which just

gives us nice enough time now to get our garnish ready.

A knob of butter in here,

and I've got my lovely cultivated mushrooms here.

So, I'm just going to bob those in.

-Raw meat board.

-Raw meat board!

-Cooked meat board.

-Cooked meat board.

-Wood pigeon, shall we get that?

-Yeah.

-I like it here, Nigel.

-You like it?

-It is nice. It's comfortable, yeah.

-Isn't it cosy?

I'm going to season those mushies up a bit and I'm going to pop them into there.

Just put a little bit of that clarified butter in there.

And I've got these little roast potatoes.

I've just done them with a melon baller and, like a roast potato that you do for home,

bob it in some boiling water, bring it up to boil, boil it for a couple of minutes,

get the water off and then shake them.

Stick those in there and I've got a little bit of duck fat here,

because I like a bit of duck fat or goose fat on my roasties.

So, bob those on. I'll take these off the bone.

-All we do is go straight down.

-Yeah.

-OK? And then pull away from the top there.

-Yeah.

And then just cut down.

Turn it around. Almost just prise it away because it's like butter.

-Yes.

-Absolutely like butter. OK, and whip those off.

-Beautiful.

Oh, that's lovely that, Chef.

And then I just pop that in that. Just keep them nice and warm.

I'll get my roasties out now.

-Wow, look at those.

-Look at those little beauties!

Ah, you're going to get that one!

I have made up my sauce beforehand, but what I would do is use the pigeon carcasses.

Just wash them with a little bit of chicken stock and then put the same celeriac puree into it.

I'm going to pop my pigeon sauce at the back here, so it's...

You know, just gets nice and warm.

-Right, I'm going to put the pigeon breast now...

-Beautiful.

..into that little bit of butter in there.

And I just want to let them just warm gently there.

I don't want them swimming in butter.

And I'm just going to now just put a little bit of seasoning on there.

I'll whack these in now. That's our deep-fried leggies.

So, that's the pigeon leg meat, the pigeon liver, chicken liver,

in a bowl, wrapped in brick pastry that's shredded. It sounds fab.

The plates are probably ready now.

Let's shift that board out of the way and that knife can go, as well.

I've got my pan.

A little bit of spinach in there

and then a little bit of pepper.

And then, did you notice I'm using what we call a marise, these are the plastic spatulas?

Now, you just keep the pan down.

Don't touch the pan and just move the spinach is the key thing.

It keeps it... I don't want to... That's beautiful.

I want to keep it and it keeps it warm there so it gives me an opportunity to plate things up now.

You know, if I pop my potatoes...

That's our vegetables on there.

And pop the mushrooms...

And I've got my little bit of the celeriac puree.

Hazelnuts just to go on there.

So, here comes, you know, your colour change.

There's juices here.

Right, lovely.

And you get those colours just running into each other.

-Look at that. Gorgeous.

-Fantastic, man.

-Oh!

-Oh, look at that.

-That is cooked beautifully.

-Oh, that's awesome.

The boil-in-the-bag gig works amazingly well,

but then he's finished it off in the pan with the butter.

Oh, hey, man.

I've got that hazelnut sweet, savoury,

salt with the duck breast. It's just awesome.

What is that like?

It's different league.

The textures are unbelievable.

-That's awesome.

-That is awesome.

-Yeah.

We're in the poop again, aren't we?

-We'll do our best.

-We will, we will. We always do, dude, we always do.

It's all very well what we think but the real judges

are the locals who will decide who's dish is best

in a blind tasting coming up.

Nigel's a tough competitor, so nothing but the best will do.

We've heard about some fowl that's getting some attention

from the likes of Gordon Ramsay and Albert Roux.

Goosnargh ducks are gaining a great reputation,

so we have to meet Reg Johnson and find out more for ourselves.

Hello, boys!

Aw, look at that.

Day-old ducklings, Kingy.

-How old are these?

-These are less than a day old.

-Are they?

These have just hatched, yeah.

-Where do we put them?

-They go into the nursery shed.

Right. Come on, we're going into the nursery shed, look.

-Come on, now.

-These are so healthy, aren't they?

They're fabulous, man. Off you go, look.

That's it, lad, just tip them out.

So, these birds, we're looking to harvest these in eight weeks' time.

All natural food. They grow at their own pace and in eight weeks they're ready.

-So, it's all natural?

-All natural foods?

There's no additives or growth hormones.

We don't medicate unless they get a bit of a chill.

-Oh, I love a duck.

-We love a duck.

Well, you've come to the right place.

These are the eight-week-old ducks.

This is the next batch that's going to be harvested.

-The ducks are ready?

-Yeah.

We're looking for a five pound duck.

We want an eight ounce breast, eight, nine ounce leg.

Reg, what's happening now?

We do this every day.

The ducks have got clean bedding every day.

He's spreading clean bedding all over.

-Every shed has to be done like this.

-Are they mucky?

Oh, ducks love being mucky.

-You see a duck in a pond and it's paddling in muck.

-Yes.

They naturally play in muck.

If there's none, he'll create some. It's what ducks do.

Is the Goosnargh duck a breed, a type?

These duck are a selectively bred duck, as all commercial ducks are in the UK and throughout Europe, really.

These are an Aylesbury-Peking cross. They are selectively bred to...

-Big breasts.

-That's what you're looking for, lads.

-He's finished. Shall we have a look?

-Yes, please.

-We've two type of duck. These are a wheat-fed duck.

-Yes.

And we have a maize-fed duck where their diet is predominantly maize.

-It's a corn-fed. Yeah.

-Right.

The textures and flavours are quite different.

-These are the corn-fed ducks.

-Oh.

You can see the beaks and legs are different.

These have got a different texture.

The maize comes through and it keeps...it keeps the breast moist.

-This is for us, mate.

-It is. Corn-fed.

I think the best thing now, we'll go back and see some of the glamorous girls

and get some whites on you instead of this racing gear

and you can go and cut your bits up and select your own perfect bit.

Here we've got the corn-fed. Two nice, meaty corn-fed.

-There's a difference in colour.

-Absolutely.

That's a big-ish duck, a five and a half pound duck, about two and a half kilos.

-A belter.

-So, we take the legs off first, just trim round, but you don't cut.

Break the joint. Break the joint.

-It's easy, just follow the bone round.

-Yes.

-There's no effort.

Keep your finger out of the way. Just follow it round.

You're following round, just feel it round the bone. Twist...

Until you get a shaped portion.

And the breast bone. Gently ease into it, just ease back, follow it back.

Same on the other side. Ever so gently.

Follow back.

Down. Now we just quietly move it away from the breastbone.

Push it away and just gently follow it round.

No rush, no rush.

-Gently follow it round.

-It's clean as a whistle, that.

The other side, as well. Take it away.

Take it round. Take the wishbone.

Just ease it round. Just crack the wishbone away from the body.

That's then attached to the wing, then you're steering round it.

Again, round the end.

Get the wishbone out. Then you turn it over.

-Just trim them up. There's the two breast portions.

-Lovely.

And we've got our leg portions.

This looks great. I'm excited. Any chance of eating some?

-We've got a kitchen full of the stuff.

-Brilliant.

-Do you want to have a nibble?

-Oh, yes.

Oh, listen, you know, it's driving me quackers, this!

-Proof of the pudding, boys, here we are.

-Oh, thanks, Reg.

Oh, I knew you'd go for that crispy bit.

-Have a look at that bit.

-That is awesome.

Oh, look at that, man.

-Bone, clean out.

-It tastes so ducky.

All I can say is, Nigel's a genius, but his pigeon doesn't stand a chance.

Wipe the floor with it.

Reg's duck is going to taste brilliant.

Let's serve it with some of the black peas we saw in the market.

And I can remember some other great local specialities I used to enjoy as a boy. It's time to get digging.

Colin Nelson has farmed potatoes all his life,

but believes that to get the freshest taste

his spuds must go from plough to plate in less than 12 hours.

And, guess what?

We're about to get our hands on the very first of the season.

-Hello, there!

-Dave.

-Great to meet you. How are you doing?

-Spring has sprung!

The first new potatoes of the year!

-What is a new potato?

-A new potato is something you've harvested straight from the field,

skins are not set, just the right size.

I always think if you have to put a knife in a new potato it's too big.

Get your fork underneath and dig down.

Oh! Look at those!

And then pop them in your box and you've got them.

Oh, yes! It's firm, it's fresh, it's straight from the soil and it's going on the plate.

When I was a little boy my dad would come back with a bag of these.

He would say, "The Ormskirk potatoes are in, son."

And we'd have this big feed of new potatoes just with a bit of butter, and I can remember the taste.

I can remember that smell, and peeling them, or not, you just wash them, and look...

You should be able to take the skins off washing them.

Look at that, Dave. It's like digging for diamonds.

It's wonderful. What's so special about these potatoes though, Colin?

The first key thing is to get the right variety and I always use Ulster Chieftain.

And then get a bit of good farmyard manure and that gives them the taste.

-And then get them early, nice and tender, and you've got a lovely, lovely meal.

-Oh, look at this.

I always think it turns a good cook into a brilliant cook.

Well, if you've got good stuff you can't go wrong.

All I can say is, in our panel of tasters

you'll be having these potatoes within six hours of being dug.

Now, you can't get any better than that.

When you get enough in your box we'll take them to my mother, who has been cooking them

for 60-odd years, and she'll show you how to cook them really well.

-Shall we put them in?

-Oh, aye, go on.

The magic moment.

Stand up for the potato.

-Yes, the Ormskirk new potato.

-Oh, definitely.

-The first ones.

-The first earlies, yes.

-Yeah.

And we'll try them with some butter on.

-Definitely.

-It's kind of waxy

and when you split into it that aroma hits you.

Oh!

-Wonderful.

-So, Anne, do you think it makes a difference eating the potatoes straight from the ground?

Straight out of the Lancashire soil, it does.

They don't get dried up then, you see, when they're fresh.

They're so tender when you first get them up.

So, Colin, who gets these fabulous potatoes?

-Do you sell them around the country, or...

-Just in the local area. We keep them to ourselves.

They're our local pearls, they are, our golden pearls.

Keep them to ourselves.

I think there might be a few more people know about them now.

Sorry, Colin!

We've risen to the challenge. We're doing three ways with Goosnargh duck.

And then we're going to serve them...

We dug today Ormskirk potatoes.

And just lying provocatively on a bed of Lancashire black peas.

But will the local diners think our dish is good enough to beat Nigel's in the blind tasting?

-Black peas!

-Could you pass them, Nigel?

Now, they may look like pet food because they could also be known as pigeon peas.

Because they're used to feed your pigeons.

The first thing we're going to do though, Nigel, is we're going to show the good people at home

-how simple a confit duck can be.

-Yeah.

This is the leg and the thigh. Take three. Now, it needs to be salted.

-And then we add some pepper on both sides.

-A bit of sliced shallot goes on.

-Yeah.

And then there's some sliced garlic.

-About two, three cloves.

-About half a dozen sprigs of fresh thyme.

See that? That's a star anise

and it smells slightly aniseedy.

-It does, doesn't it, yeah?

-Lastly...

-A bay leaf.

-Or two.

Cover that and leave that in the fridge for 24 hours.

After 24 hours it looks like this.

Now, what we need to do is to brush the solids off.

Here I've got a pan of melted duck fat

and you plunge the newly brushed duck portion in the duck fat as a preserving method.

You know, you could confit pork, confit salmon, and...

because once the duck's been confited, cooked in the duck fat,

you can leave it to set in the duck fat and it'll last for months in the fridge.

-Put that in an oven, about 140, and you leave it to rumble away for about three hours.

-Exactly, yeah.

This is what it looks like after three hours.

We put them in the oven for about 20 minutes to finish off, you see.

-And that will crisp up and any fat that's in there will kind of roast out.

-Yeah.

The pigeon peas.

That's the pea. You soak the pea, just like making your marrow fats.

-Yes, he's not wrong.

-You can put a bit of bicarb in if you want.

Because all bicarb does is accelerate the process,

but the longer you leave them in nice water the better it is.

Now, that you stick into a saucepan and boil for about three hours.

-Right, yeah.

-We need to kind of rinse them off.

-Well, just strain them.

All these need to do is to be warmed through with a jumbo knob of butter, a couple of bay leaves.

-How are they cooking, Si, how are they cooking?

-Some salt.

-Right.

-We'll just let that sweat down now for... Well, as long as we like.

As long as we like, really. Look at that.

So, what's next, mate?

Nigel, Nigel, Nigel, the most perfect potato you have ever seen.

-You haven't got...

-Ormskirk.

-Ormskirk!

-New potatoes, dug this morning.

-You got the first Ormskirks before me.

-Yeah.

-I can't believe it.

-It's true.

-Now, that's a new potato.

-It is.

Boil them for 20 minutes, taste of paradise.

It's like a savoury duck.

It's a Lancashire thing. We're going to do cocktail ones, but we're going to do a duck savoury duck.

-We hope it works!

-A duck savoury duck!

These are lardons, which are pieces of streaky bacon cut into strips.

-Just fry those off until they've just gone golden.

-Yeah.

We're going to put these gorgeous lovelies in the pan, as well.

Very quickly, don't cook them.

Look at this, man. It's gone a lovely golden colour, look.

-Beautiful.

-To that we're going to add a finely chopped onion.

We simply want to let them go translucent, soften them.

So, there's about 200 Gs of livers in here, look.

We'll get it on the heat and colour them slightly.

What we're going to do now is we're going to blitz them with various other ingredients.

They're just starting to colour up now. There we go, look at those.

-Mr King!

-Oh, Matron!

We add some breadcrumbs.

A pinch of sage. Dried herbs for this one.

A pinch of dried thyme and a grinding of nutmeg.

-An egg yolk.

-A bit of pepper, as well.

-Oh, aye.

A bit of salt. And then the egg yolk.

What we're aiming for, the consistency of this,

we're aiming for a kind of firm, nice paste.

-I'm just giving it a quick blast... That's it.

-That's what we want.

Have you got a blast chiller?

-Yes.

-Now, this would be great if we put this in the blast chiller for a minute or two to firm it up.

-Is that chilled down?

-Yeah.

This is pig caul, also know as pig clingfilm. I'll just cut that.

This is brilliant.

Not only will it stop the duck savoury ducks from falling apart, it'll keep them juicy.

Get a piece about the size of a walnut and start to roll it up.

There it is, cocktail-sized duck savoury duck.

-And repeat...

-Several times.

We're going to do roasted plums to go with the duck breast.

-Roasted plums, yeah.

-We half and de-stone the plum.

-Yeah.

We're going to add some pepper.

Some sugar in, not too much, about a teaspoon.

A lovely sprig of thyme underneath those plums.

-That's it, and they'll go in the oven for about 10 minutes.

-If that.

That's the savoury duck ducks.

Reg's duck breasts. The first thing is you should trim them off.

We need to get these confits in.

Now, all I'm doing is prepping Dave up some thyme. Just finely chopping it.

I'm criss-crossing the duck.

This is going to enable the heat to penetrate to the meat

and also to crisp the skin up.

Lots of pepper. I'm going to use some frozen peas, a pat of butter, and warm them through.

-I'm just going to season them slightly.

-The pan's nice and hot.

The duck breasts go in skin side down. Fatty, fatty, sizzle, sizzle.

-Look at that!

-Oh!

There you go.

And just sear till golden.

Absolutely beautiful.

That's done.

Now, we pop that in the oven for about eight minutes.

We're going to put the plums in and the duck savoury ducks.

Now, we've got to keep an eye on these. They won't take long.

-The plums will need turning after about four minutes.

-Fantastic.

We just want to crush these potatoes a little bit just so that the butter

and the mint and the seasoning will just leach in.

-The plate's under the grill.

-Thank you very much.

Butter.

White pepper with potatoes.

-Are you going to let me have a taste?

-Yes.

-These are the first of the Ormskirks.

-Yeah!

Look at that, with a bit of salt and butter in.

-They're awesome.

-They're heavenly, those. Are those plums ready?

-Not yet they're not.

-Balsamic vinegar, that's what we need.

-Yes.

-That's good, the balsamic. I like that, the balsamic on them.

-Pigeon peas, they're done.

-Lovely.

-They can rest.

Get the duck savoury ducks out?

Yeah.

Right, just leave those to rest, now.

-Lovely.

-Shall we turn the plums?

-We'll have to go for it.

-I've turned them once already.

-Have you?

Yeah. They're hard.

Do you have a little bit of syrup? Have you got any?

-I've got rhubarb syrup.

-Great. Back in the oven?

-Yeah.

-Dave, I'm going to flash the plates again for you.

-Ooh! Thanks, Nige!

There's nothing like a flash of your plates!

Whilst you're flashing, could you find some Madeira?

Madeira? So, you want some syrup and you want some Madeira now?

-Well, you know.

-Come on, lads.

There's nowt the matter with that. Let's take them plums out.

Plums out.

Right.

And, guess what, we've found you some Madeira to go with your rhubarb syrup.

Thank you very, very, very much.

What would we do without you?

-What would you do?

-I'm going to start serving up.

There we have it, three ways with Goosnargh duck.

Duck, duck.

Served with, dug today, on the plate, new potatoes from Ormskirk.

Come on, the boys! All finished off with Lancashire pigeon peas.

I'll have a little bit of duck confit and black peas.

Really nice duck confit that. And the duck duck.

The duck savoury duck. The texture's good.

-To be honest, you can't go wrong with duck breast, Goosnargh breast.

-You just cannot.

-It's just the best, isn't it?

-It is.

Just taste those potatoes, Nigel.

I like the savoury duck. It's something a bit different.

The only thing I would say is it's a big portion, but, I mean, I'd probably eat it,

-but it is a big portion. For me it's a lovely dish.

-Thank you.

So, here's ducking to you, chaps.

Thanks very much, Nigel.

It's crunch time.

The diners here will taste both dishes,

but with no idea who cooked which.

First up is Nigel's wood pigeon breast, leg parcel with spinach, hazelnuts and a celeriac sauce.

It's difficult to get wood pigeon right. Often it's tough if it's overdone. That was perfect.

I was surprised how light and flavourable it was.

The mushrooms are very, very nice and creamy.

The puree, I've never had anything like that before.

The parsley had a nice salty flavour that complemented the wood pigeon.

The hazelnuts were a surprise. They were quite nice, a little bit sweet.

I wouldn't have said wood pigeon particularly was something that I would associate with this area.

Traditionally, not quite maybe Lancashire, but maybe nouveau Lancashire, you know?

The top end of the market. As a Lancastrian I welcome it.

That seemed to be popular. How will our dish go down?

Let's see.

-Oh, that is nice.

-Gorgeous.

-Very flavoursome.

-The confit of duck on the bone I thought was absolutely delicious.

It just fell from the bone.

The savoury duck and the plum I thought were lovely. And the black peas, very, very tasty.

The highest point for me was the duck breast and the black peas.

-I love black peas.

-As far as presentation was concerned, it was a bit lacking in the two veg.

You know, we're meat and two veg people up here.

There is a strong Lancashire tradition with black peas

and, for me, that said more about Lancashire on a plate

because that had one ingredient that you could identify as very strongly Lancastrian,

whereas the other meal didn't.

APPLAUSE

Well, thank you so much for coming.

-I mean, we've had a ball.

-It's been great.

Aye, it has been a good laugh, hasn't it?

It's been messy, but good fun.

We had a great time in Lancashire. We've kind of explored everything, from Blackburn Cathedral...

We've been everywhere.

Blackburn Cathedral! When did you go there?

We were cooking hotpot outside it.

It was brilliant. It's just been fun.

The food's great, the people are great.

OK, now, thank you for your patience.

Now what you're voting for is the taste, the flavour, of course,

but also the representation of Lancashire.

Can we have a clear show of hands, please, for the pigeon?

One, two, three, four for the pigeon.

Could we have a clear show of hands, please, for the duck?

So, that's one, two, three, four, five for the duck.

OK. The pigeon was Nigel's and the duck was ours.

APPLAUSE

Hey! Hey! Hey!

Sorry. Keep your dignity!

'That was a very close call, but the local ingredients,

'especially the black peas, swung it for us, Dave, I reckon.'

'You're right, Kingy, but isn't Nigel a star?

'It was a real privilege to cook alongside him in this brilliant county. We'll be back!'

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