Shropshire The Hairy Bikers' Food Tour of Britain

-We're the Hairy Bikers!

-We're finding recipes to rev up your appetite!

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

-Come on!

We're here to find the true taste of Shropshire.

Look at that - the rolling hills of Shropshire.

And Ludlow below.

It's so old, even Henry VIII's brother Arthur,

-his heart is buried in a silver casket in a church there.

-Really?

-It's a city of legend and food.

-Of myth and majesty.

-And Michelin-starred restaurants.

-And more delis than you can shake a stick at.

-I know. I'm hungry.

Let's go! Let's get stuck into it.

On our quest to find the true flavours of Shropshire,

we cook up an old county favourite to tempt the hungry people of Shrewsbury.

And we leave the bikes behind to hunt down the freshest food available on a local pheasant shoot.

We rummage in the hedgerow with a jam maker whose conserves

and jellies are made from the county's wonderful wild fruits.

And representing Shropshire in the cook-off is Will Holland.

Will we be able to beat him using the county's finest ingredients?

Ludlow, a half-timbered paradise on the Welsh borders.

We love it, don't we? It's great.

We do. There's fine restaurants, there's a food festival. Everywhere you look, it's food, food, food.

But we're here to investigate what Shropshire food actually is.

Yum-yum!

What's the iconic food of Shropshire and Ludlow? No pressure.

-Sausage.

-Sausages.

-Sausages.

-So there's a pig vibe going on?

-Yeah.

Look at that, Si, that's a proper butcher's.

-Oh, I can smell sausages. Look at that.

-Oh, wow!

Oh, eh? What have we got here?

-The plain Ludlow sausage.

-Right.

-Beer and mustard.

-And pork and leek.

-I'm going to start with...

I'm going to go with the plain one as well.

-Oh, lovely.

-Absolutely...

-It's a very old recipe, that is.

There's a nice texture to it. Sorry, I'm talking with me mouth full!

-That's a good sausage.

-That's juicy.

-Thank you.

'I think bangers are only part of the story here.

'We need something that represents the whole of Shropshire - a real county classic.'

How many local cheeses do you actually have here?

A section in the counter down there has got a lot of local cheeses in.

We've got a famous Stinking Bishop which is fairly close to here.

It's a personal favourite of ours, the old Stinking Bishop, and just purely because of the name, really.

-That's right, yes!

-You must know a lot about Shropshire food.

What would you say is a traditional Shropshire dish?

One of the main things is the fidget pie.

-Fidget?

-Fidget, yeah.

-As in "twitch"?

-It's made with gammon.

-Right.

-So apples and herbs.

I think we've struck gold here.

I think we have. You get a feeling in your bones. It's great.

-See you.

-Thanks.

-Bye-bye.

-Do you know about a fidget pie?

-Oh, yeah, fidget pie is delicious.

Do you know what's in a fidget pie?

Yes, I've made it meself but I can't remember. There's bacon.

-Potatoes.

-And potatoes, I think...

But honest to God, I can't remember.

'The word on the street is there's someone in here who knows about fidget pie.'

-Dude, what's the craic about the fidget pie?

-It's an old recipe.

It's got sweet cured gammon in it, potato, it's got sage. Some people put cider in a fidget pie as well.

Some sugar, so probably Bramleys.

Hey thanks, guys. Thanks very much.

Thanks a lot.

Fidget pie it is, then. Let's hit the road and find the ingredients.

Just down the road is the Ludlow Food Centre, in the Earl of Plymouth's Oakley Park Estate.

It's an important outlet for the local producers to get their produce direct to the public.

It's a one-stop shop for all things fidget!

What a wonderful place!

Really well presented as well. Love all this. This is fab.

And the whole point of the shop is that we're sourcing from the locality

and try and support the local growers in the area.

So it's from field to deli, then.

-Right the way through, yes.

-Can we go out and have a look?

You can do that. Yeah. Fine, OK.

This is barley we're feeding them, isn't it?

Yes, a bit of barley that we sort of had left over.

I like pigs.

What else do you have here, Sandy?

We've got a kitchen where we're making hams. We're also doing pies

and we're doing cooked meats and pates and all sorts of bits and bobs.

We've got a bakery where we are scratch baking all our bread.

We're producing four cheeses and we've got a jam and pickle room.

It's a farm shop on steroids, isn't it?!

-It's just, it's fabulous.

-They certainly seem very happy pigs.

Yeah.

Obviously pigs are pork, but people don't necessarily relate pork and gammon together.

People think it's a separate meat. It's not.

-We're going to cook a fidget pie, and we need some gammon, so the birth of the pie starts here...

-Yes.

And then we can learn how to make gammon.

Here in their own butcher's, they salt, cure, dry and hang their cuts of pork.

The farm's gammon is made by Shirley.

-Hello, how are we?

-Hi.

-Pleased to meet you.

-Pleased to meet you. I've got my gloves.

-This is a gammon.

-It is.

-What's the next process?

-Right. I put it into the bag...

-Yes.

-With some onions, a few bay leaves...

-Yeah.

-Some black pepper.

-Seal all the flavour in, keep everything in.

-Yep.

The flavours you're adding to that are quite simple, aren't they?

Yes, yeah, we don't want to take away from the meat.

I put it into the water, boil it, then put it into the blast chiller to bring it down to temperature.

How long do you boil it for?

-Four to five hours, depending on the weight.

-After you've blast-chilled it, what's the process?

-We either bread them or marmalade glaze them.

-Wow.

-Oh, what?! Shirley, is that pastry?

-Yes.

Oh, you've gone and saved us bothering making.

Take those. That's us, then. We've got gammon, we've got the pastry.

All we need now is nice local Estima spuds.

Oh, local cider, pillows of love!

-Edward IIIs.

-He built a castle. I need a bunch of them, then we're off.

-Yeah.

That's what you call a one-stop shop.

Watch out, Shrewsbury, we're going to make you fidget!

I'm really excited about this pie, and we're cooking it in Shrewsbury.

-Don't you mean SHROWS-bury?

-Oh, we'll find out when we get there.

Back to business. Fidget pie is a hearty, traditional dish, made with layers of apple, potato and gammon,

finished with a splash of cider and encased in a lovely shortcrust pastry. Get me into that kitchen.

-Hello, Shropshire!

-ALL: Hello!

Let's get this straight before we start, is it SHROOS-bury or SHROWS-bury?

-SHROOS-bury.

-There you are, you see!

-It's very, very beautiful.

-It is lovely.

-Nights are drawing in, mind.

-Oh, aye, then we better get on, eh?

-Aye.

Anyway, we're cooking a traditional Shropshire dish.

It's a fidget pie.

-It's a pie with a twitch.

-From what we can gather, traditionally it's a gammon and apple pie.

Now, when you make a pie very often, a lot of liquid in the apples,

it'll go soggy, so you need to make a pastry case and bake it first.

-That's called blind baking.

-And you don't want a soggy bottom, do you?

We've cheated. We bought our pastry off a woman in a shop.

You need to make what you call a cartouche.

Look at that.

Cartouche, you see? Look.

You prick the bottom, so it doesn't all kind of...soggy bottom.

Right-o, now it's time for the cartouche.

-Push it in there, like that.

-Carefully.

-And then what you do...

-You fill it with a pulse of choice. Or rice.

Now then.

That keeps the pastry stuck to the bottom, and you end up with this lovely shell.

It's like Blue Peter, this.

Put that in the oven, it'll come out just like Tracy Island!

About 180 degrees for about 10 to 15 minutes.

He's a worry, isn't he, really?

While that's doing, we could make the filling.

There's a fella over there on the phone. Have you seen him?

You all right there? How are ya?

Come back, come back, it's not that inter... Come back.

It's a private conversation, we shouldn't be listening in.

And anyway, really, he's not that interesting, is he? No.

That's enough taters.

So we just throw those in the boiling water now and blanche them for about five minutes.

Any chefs in?

-Yay!

-We're in trouble, Dave!

-And wait for that to come t'boil.

-We could, however, get on with the apples.

-Got some good grub here, haven't we?

-Really good. Do all of you support your home producers and stuff, your local producers?

-Yes!

-Yeah? Good.

Look at the mess you've made down there. Honestly!

Right, I think those potatoes are blanching down well. Yeah.

Now we have the onions.

Why you blanche the onions, I sometimes think if you cook them in a pie

they can just be a bit strong and the blanching just takes the edge off them a bit.

They're a cooking apple, an old English one called Edward IIIs.

We got them because we know he built the castle in Ludlow.

Hello, girls! How are you?

Right, time to drain the onions and the taters.

Now, I'm going to get on dicing this ham.

Local ham, Gloucester Old Spot, cured in Ludlow. And this one has a coating of marmalade on it.

So what we're going to do is chunk this into quite large chunks

because it's important that you get a good mouthful.

A bit like meself.

I'm just going to season the potatoes and the onions.

Lots and lots of salt and pepper.

I'm just going to sprinkle flour on.

This is going to dry them up and it's going to help us thicken the cream we're about the put on.

This will mix with the flour and it'll just put a nice creamy coating on the potatoes and the onions.

There's a great herb, sage.

We're just going to take the leaves off and kind of chop them quite finely.

Yeah, I think this pastry case is just about... Yes!

See all that excess there, we're going to trim it off and make it tidy,

but if you trim it before you bake it and it shrinks,

you're left with a bald pie, but as it is I know I've got plenty.

Right.

-I think you might be right.

-I'll just trim this.

Nice and tidy.

They must be quite hungry - they've stayed a long time, these guys!

-I know.

-You know.

-Now a top tip.

When you're making an apple pie, there's a lot of water in the apples

so there's a danger of getting a soggy bottom.

So you put a couple of dessert spoons of semolina in the bottom of the pie case,

which will ensure you'll get nice, thick apple gloop but no soggy bottom.

-Job's a good 'un.

-Apples!

-As quick as you like.

What you do is you put a layer of apples on, on top of your semolina,

-and then what we do is just layer that up.

-It's like Maverick Playing Cards, isn't it?

And then what we do,

not too much, but just a little bit of sugar.

You probably wouldn't need as much sugar as you would with Bramleys.

Now the potato and onion mixture...

goes on there. Now to that just sprinkle some fresh sage onto the potatoes, nice and sagey.

Now...the ham.

The jamon jamon.

Shropshire's finest.

Just fill all the gaps in.

I'm just going to press that down.

And we put that under a bit of pressure so that, when you cut it,

-it's going to be solid.

-It looks nice.

-Thanks. Come again.

-You're welcome.

Some more potatoes.

Some sage. Right-o. Apples.

Then we layer it up as neatly as we can...

-..with some apples.

-That's very Raymond Blanc, Mr King!

-Isn't it?!

-Right.

-Right.

Some cider.

Local Ludlow cider, slightly sparkling, not too sweet, not too dry.

-Can I have a taste?

-No!

-And then we just put not too much on.

-Remember there's a lot of water in those apples.

And then what we do is put a little bit of sugar on, not too much again.

Every good pie needs a lid.

That's me lid. Eggy wash.

-No baking is complete without an eggy wash.

-You're not wrong, dude.

Now, just lay that on the top, like so,

press it down, trim off the excess.

Now, classic pinching technique, it's like that

to get that good old English pie finish.

Look at that.

If you put that in the oven, that seals the top. It could all swell up and go pop!

So we put one gash there,

one there,

one there, and all that remains to do now is to cover it with an eggy wash.

And there we have a pie.

Look at that. You take your pie...

-Stick it in the oven.

-About 40 minutes, about 180.

It'll come out golden, then it's done.

Here's one we did earlier.

APPLAUSE

Look at that.

This is the bit where you do the spring, and it just goes bloop!

It's like taking a corset off!

LAUGHTER

ALL: Oooh!

Go on, dude, go on!

Yes!

Well done.

Look at that!

Good old fidget pie. 'But the proof is in the tasting.

'Have we done their county dish proud?

'They seem to be tucking in, but do they like it?'

-That's great.

-Delicious.

-I love it.

-Yeah? Good, good.

-One of the best pies I've ever had.

-Honestly?

-Yeah.

-You have seconds?

-It's lovely with a bit of mustard, it cuts through that, doesn't it?

-The pastry is delicious actually, isn't it?

-Lovely.

Apple inside, it's beautiful, yeah.

Mmm!

Are we allowed to have a bit more?

-Help yourself.

-Delicious.

-Thank you. Thank you very much.

Our fidget pie was an absolute hit.

It tasted great, if I do say so meself.

Now, enough boasting - we need to get on with our biggest Shropshire challenge.

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 Shropshire.

Our opponent today is...

29-year-old Will Holland is head chef of La Becasse in Ludlow.

It's only been open 18 months, and already it's got a Michelin star.

Will handpicks the finest local produce for his dishes

and prides himself on his presentation and creative flair.

For as long as I can remember I've wanted to cook.

From making cakes at home, to home economics at school - the only boy in the class.

As soon as I finished college I got a job in a Michelin-starred kitchen

and worked my way up through the ranks.

In Shropshire there's a lot available on our doorstep.

I've got a duck egg supplier. He actually writes on the cartons the name of the duck that's laid the egg!

There's not a better example of traceability than that.

This year I've really, really started to define

what I'd class as my style of food.

When a plate arrives at the table, I really want the guests to say, "Wow, that is something different,"

and that's before they've tasted it.

I've got a puree that I'm doing with a venison dish that's blackberry and beetroot.

The tastes complement each other incredibly well.

-Hello, mate.

-Hello.

-Afternoon, gentlemen.

-How are you doing?

-Nice to see you.

-Yeah, very well. You're late.

-What do you mean?

You missed lunch service. We're going to have to do this for dinner.

-Oh, well.

-Afternoon tea.

-Any sandwiches?

You look like you've had a bit of afternoon tea going on there.

Eh? Eh? You know what they say, "Never trust a thin chef."

That's all I'm saying, dude.

-Come on in, the kitchen's nice and warm.

-Oh, thanks...

What are you going to cook?

Well, today for you I'm going to do a beautiful roasted loin of venison

and I'm going to pair that with some beetroot,

local blackberries and bitter chocolate.

Dude, it's a mole.

We did that in Mexico.

I've got to say I'm massively impressed with that saddle.

It's a long saddle of venison, it's from a roe deer.

I'm just going to quickly make a marinade for it so it gets going.

-OK.

-I've got some mirepoix, roughly cut which I know you boys do quite a bit of mirepoix.

-Yes, we do.

What are you trying to say, Will?

You cut things up roughly quite a bit. So...

Oh, no, I'm a Virgo, mine's really quite tidy.

-Mine, however, isn't.

-Anyway...

-Yes.

-Basically you've got the mirepoix and the juniper berries, black peppercorns and a few cloves

and I'm going to put a bottle of red wine in and that's all there is.

Right, all I'm going to do is just go directly down the backbone

taking the loin off the saddle.

So we're just following the backbone.

That's a nice bit of butchery. It's that good meat.

-I'm going to take one side off today...

-Yeah.

John, there you go. Can you stick that out the back, please?

So all I'm going to do is just cut that through into nice sections that

we're going to get three portions out of each one of these.

Three portions? I could eat one of those meself.

You're not wrong, dude, you know?

We're going to put that into the marinade and I don't marinate this for too long.

One hour maximum. If it stays in too long

the alcohol will start cooking the meat

so you'll end up with a grey ring around it

So that would make twelve portions, that meat?

-Yeah, definitely.

-You see I've got my portion control wrong.

-We put too much on the plate.

-You're not wrong.

-We've got to forget this Northern generosity.

-We have.

I'm going to stick that in the fridge and I've got one that's been marinating

so I'll get that and we'll bring that out now.

-Fantastic.

-Thank you very much, Johnny.

This is the one that's been it the fridge.

-You can see it's changed in colour.

-Yeah.

-Might be dry though when he cooks it like that.

-It could be dry.

It's not going to be dry. Because there's very little fat in this

we're going to wrap it in smoked, streaky bacon

that we've sliced thinly and put it on a piece of grease-proof paper.

-Right.

-The smoked bacon is really, really thin.

-Yeah.

-By the time it's cooked it's almost not going to be there, it's almost seasoning the meat

because of the saltiness and the smoke in there will be very nice.

-Yeah.

-That's the loin of venison.

I'm going to put veg oil in here.

We're not deep frying the meat, we're just cooking it gently.

-In the meantime while that's cooking I'm going to get on with some bits and pieces of the garnish.

-OK.

In this pan I've got some stock syrup, just water and sugar, and I've got some blackberries.

I'm just going to gently poach those in the syrup.

-Right.

-In there for a couple of minutes.

And the puree that I'm going to make is beetroot and blackberry puree.

-Right.

-Oh, interesting.

When I've turned this over you can see the colour that's happening.

I'm going to put a few knobs of butter in

just to lower the temperature so the venison starts cooking evenly.

The blackberries have poached really nicely.

We're going to go to the liquidiser and turn this into a puree.

I'm going to put the beetroot trim into there.

-I've taken the blackberries out of there...

-Yeah.

-Then I can add as much syrup or as little as I need to...

-To taste.

Yeah. Just to get the consistency.

We'll come back in a minute when it's nice and smooth.

We're going to do a few other bits of garnish to go with it.

-This little fella, salsify.

-Ah!

-I've got some cold water and I'm just going to squeeze a lemon into there...

-Right.

because the salsify goes brown really quickly.

And I'm going to peel that as if you'd peel a carrot or something

-and you'll see that it's bright white inside.

-Wow.

Straight into the acidulated water, that's all I'm doing there.

For this dish we need this in nice little neat batons.

-At this point I'll cook this in chicken stock and red wine.

-Oh, right.

-Right.

And braise it in which is what I've got going on in this pan over here.

It's exactly the same vegetable but it's taken on that red from the wine.

We're going to stop that and as you can see the puree's got all the seeds from the blackberries in it

so I'm just going to put it through a very, very fine sieve

and I'm just going to push that through with a ladle.

-So you've got a nice puree.

-Wow!

-Do you want to have a taste?

-Yes, please.

-Lovely.

-Get stuck in and have a taste.

That is awesome.

It is awesome.

-It halves your palate, it's really odd. Because you can taste both.

-It's a bit sherbet-y.

We're ready to assemble the dish. I've got one more final bit of the garnish to do.

-Basically I've got some beetroot I've cooked...

-Right.

-And I'm going to Parisienne them, or melon ball them.

-Yeah.

-And I've got the beetroot liquor they were cooked in...

-Yeah.

-So I'm going to start warming it up.

-Right.

So we're going to put them into the beetroot liquor to heat them up

and, again, the beetroot liquor's got sugar in it so it's nice and shiny.

-So I've got braised red cabbage here...

-Right.

And I've cooked that with port, some orange zest, some star anise,

finished it just with a bit of redcurrant jelly to give it sweetness.

As you can see, the colour of my dish coming together, it's purple.

And then some more of those local blackberries which I'm just lightly poaching in stock syrup

-and the sauce I made with venison bones...

-Yep.

-..juniper berries...

-Yep.

-..and two ingredients that we're going to finish the sauce with.

-Right.

The first of which is blackberry liqueur.

We're just going to put a small amount of that.

I've got some really, really bitter chocolate here, I'm using Valrhona,

and I'm going to grate some bitter chocolate into the sauce.

Right.

Basically it will add bitterness to counteract the sweetness

but it will also make the sauce really shiny

because the fats in the chocolate will all emulsify the sauce.

I'm going to put that back on a low heat so I don't boil it once the chocolate's in there

because it will go grainy.

And that's everything ready for the dish. We'll plate up now.

This is a little bit of blackberry sauce I've made, again just with the neat blackberries.

Do you do front rooms?

So we're putting the red cabbage into that tier.

So first of all the beetroot.

Red-wine-braised salsify,

then really lightly poached blackberries.

Then we've got the half beetroot and half blackberry puree

and I'm going to do what's known as a dragged quenelle

just along the plate.

-It makes me giggle.

-I know.

-It is fantastic.

I don't suppose there'll be any kind of Birmingham sprinkles going on here?

We've got a sprinkle because I didn't want to disappoint you.

-I've got some beetroot powder here.

-Beetroot powder?

Which we're just going to put a little bit onto the plate.

I've also got here a salted bitter chocolate twirl which we're

going to pop against the beetroot, and then the venison loin,

put that on the cabbage.

We're going to sauce it with the sauce that we finished with the creme de muir and chocolate.

Do you know what? I've got to say, we could beat it but it's impressive.

So that's the finished dish.

-Unbelievable, man.

-It looks lovely.

Roasted loin of venison with some beetroot, local blackberries and bitter chocolate.

It looks stunning doesn't it? Beetroot powder.

Oh, God, that is good.

Right, venison.

The star anise is coming through under the cabbage.

Yeah. But this sauce, the one with the chocolate, is fabulous, isn't it?

Will is a very, very clever young man.

Yes, he is.

-Oh, it was worth coming.

-Shall we go home now?

-This is not the attitude.

-No.

-Let's get to the battle stations, man the furnaces.

Let's get, let's, let's, let's get going.

It's the locals who will decide who's dish is best in a blind tasting coming up.

The pressure's on.

What can we cook that's the real taste of Shropshire to beat that, dude?

Well, we saw loads of game in Ludlow's butchers, let's hunt some down.

It's a crisp, beautiful morning and we're heading for the hills

to get the freshest game Shropshire's got to offer.

Gamekeeper Neil Wainwright has invited us to a pheasant shoot.

-Morning.

-How are you doing?

-Good morning, Neil, how are you?

-Nice to see you.

-Morning, everyone.

So, um, have we got far to walk?

Ah you see that far skyline? Well, we start there and then we'll go over the top...

What do you mean you start there?

Start there? I'm a slave to the internal combustion engine, me.

We'll crack on and see how we go.

-Okey-doke?

-Brill.

-All I can say is, this is one way to get proper produce, isn't it?

-Oh, yeah.

It's local, it's natural...

We could have gone to the butcher's. Oh, man.

That's not the point, Kingy.

Oh!

They're a little behind so we're just waiting for them to catch up.

It's quite important to keep a straight line,

we can see where everybody is then.

GUNSHOTS

If you're going to eat meat, then this is where it comes from.

-Yeah.

-It doesn't come in a plastic bag from a supermarket, it's here.

You know what, Si? I'd sooner eat meat that's come from here...

-So would I.

-..than has come from a factory.

Well done.

Simon's just sending his dog out to retrieve it.

WHISTLING That's his stop whistle,

he wants his dog to stop now, he's sending it further back

to get it to the place where the birds fell.

-The nice thing is you get something good to eat at the end of it.

-Absolutely, yeah.

-Everything goes into the food chain that you shoot here.

-Yeah.

The birds that we get on a shoot day go off into the shops, supermarkets, butcher's, etc, etc.

One bird, there you go.

We wing-tag most of them but there's nothing to stop them

going in any direction as far as they want to

and we've even had them shot five or six miles away with our wing-tag on.

-Yeah.

-They're quite amazing.

-It's a glorious morning, isn't it?

-Super yeah. Birds are heavy at this time of year. They're fat and...

-Beautiful.

Can we get some that have been shot a day or two ago?

-Yeah, of course.

-That would be great.

What would you serve your pheasant with?

-Just roast pheasant, cranberry sauce, gravy, a nice glass of red wine.

-Lovely.

We need to find our own special garnish for the pheasant.

Just across the valley is Stiperstones Nature Reserve.

We're meeting manager Tom Wall who's going to show us what wild fare the heathland has to offer.

It might give us the edge against Will Holland.

What we're going past here is bilberry, which local people would call windberry.

-They're gone now but these are the plants.

-Wow.

-Presumably the season, we've missed quite a lot of berries.

-That's right, yeah.

-These are black fruit called crowberry.

-These are crowberries.

Just have a taste of that.

-It's a bit insipid to my mind and very pippy.

-You know what's great?

You have to look and then once you look your world becomes very small

because you're concentrating on picking the berries.

-So what are these now?

-These are cowberries.

Local people call them cranberries.

They are edible and to my mind quite tasty.

Wonderful colour.

Thanks, Si.

In Sweden 200,000 tons of these are collected each year

and in this country we pretty well ignore them.

They're very good.

They'd make a fantastic garnish on that pheasant.

That's a good idea that, Dave.

-There's a lovely pop texture really to it.

-And that bright red colour.

Red is a warning colour and you shouldn't necessarily eat red or black things

so people need to know what they're eating and generally to wash things before they eat them.

Well, I think we've found a very nice balancing nature with these cowberries with our pheasant.

Food for thought, dude, food for thought.

We'll do a stuffed pheasant breast garnished with those cowberries

and served with a three root mash and a quenelle of spinach.

And now for the final touch.

We've heard about a cottage industry that's around the corner.

-You'll find her foraging around every corner, dude.

-Her name is Sarah Bruff.

-She's turned her love of making jams at home into a thriving little business.

-Hi.

-Ah, now there you are.

-Hello.

-What you going for?

-I'm picking some rosehips from a wild rose.

-And what are you going to do?

-I'm going to make a rosehip and apple jelly.

-Yes?

-I've got some wild crab apples

and then I'm just going to mix them together and make a savoury jelly.

Mum's passed down a few recipes because we used to pick the rosehips

and Mum would make rosehip syrup.

-You're a family of foraging rummagers really, aren't you?

-Yeah!

Will you show us how to make them?

Of course I can, yeah. Do you want to come down to the kitchen?

-You are a woman in the know.

-I am. Sort of.

Hey, listen, do you want a lift?

It's all right, it's just at the house there.

It's like jewellery. Can we try an interesting one?

Of course. Do you want to see what you fancy?

-Oh, quince and lemon.

-I love the smell of quinces actually, it's one of the things...

-Oh. It's so fresh.

-Tingles.

-Oh, it gets you here.

Yeah, it's the lemon juice.

Apple and horseradish sauce.

It's great on grilled mackerel.

-I can see it with mackerel.

-I think it would be great with beef.

-Chunky pear and walnut.

-Yeah.

Oh, that's exquisite.

-Absolutely.

-Good with cheese.

-Oh, yes.

-A strong cheddar.

-What have we got here?

That's the, um, crab apple and rosehip jelly.

So we got some crab apples earlier...

And these rosehips that I picked before so it's reached its setting point now

and ready to go in the jar.

I just fill the jar up to about a couple of mil from the top really.

-Chutney I always fill a little bit higher because they shrink back a bit.

-Mm-hm.

Where do you sell them?

I do the local Ludlow market so it's sort of my sort of the closest market.

-It's quite well established.

-Great.

It's satisfying to see it sell and people to like it so...

-Yes, absolutely.

-Yeah, it's going well.

-So that's the preserve ready.

-It is indeedy.

With this fruits of the forests thing,

I bet this is really good with game, isn't it?

-This would lend itself more to go with pork.

-We've got a challenge.

-We're cooking against a really, really top chef and we're going to be cooking pheasant.

-Yeah.

-What do you reckon?

-I would say a hedgerow jelly would work well

because it would lift it and give it a little bit of sweetness as well.

You could always warm it as well so it's liquid.

-If we use the carcasses, make a nice heavy stock...

-And push it through.

-Float the jelly into it.

That would be lovely, yeah. It would be really good.

We're in with a shout here, dude.

-Sarah, what have you got?

-There's a hedgerow jelly.

Let's have a taste.

Oh, that's fantastic. That savoury aftertaste.

-It's not like a sugary sweet...

-No, no, I think, yeah.

What's in this, Sarah?

It's crab apples, wild blackberries, brambles and then elderberries.

-Delightful.

-It's great.

-We've got it.

-We've got it. Can we have 400 of those, please?

-Yeah.

-Just a big jar would do us.

-I've got a big jar.

That'll be fine. Come on, to infinity...

-..and beyond! See ya, we're off.

-See ya.

It's local, it's a symphony of Shropshire on a plate.

It's a pheasant breast stuffed with sage, onion and chestnuts and then we're going to serve that

with a three root mash with a swash of a hedgerow glaze, served with a quenelle of spinach.

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

Look at these fantastic, locally-caught pheasants.

We need the breasts but we're going to use the carcass and the bones,

-and make the sauce with this hedgerow glaze.

-OK, lovely.

It's famous, Shropshire, for sausage

so I'm going to put some sausage meat through for the stuffing.

It should be a simple eat really.

I'm just tempering the butter with a little oil so the butter doesn't burn.

Are you going to leave the skin on or are you going to...?

Yeah, I'm going to try and get the skin off.

I'm going to sear the skin so it's golden.

You've got the celery, carrot and onion in there?

Yeah. Sweating like me uncle watching the Lottery.

-How are you doing, Kingy?

-Not bad.

-On the last breast.

-Oh, brill.

Right, do you have an oven I could use?

Give them to me and I'll get that in a nice, hot oven.

Shall we get on with the veg? It's a combination of three flavours.

Celeriac, a ugly fella, but tasty, potatoes and Jerusalem artichokes.

I've got three pans of boiling water, I'm just going to boil them up until they're done,

but separately, because they all cook at different times and we don't want watery celeriac.

-Cream, salt and pepper, and butter.

-Oh, lovely.

-Tomato puree to this.

So you've got the three veggies in three pans there.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

-Is that how you would do it?

-Possibly.

We need to make the stuffing now.

-OK.

-Great. Now with these lovely sausages,

-we'll take the meat out of the skin.

-What kind of sausages?

Plain pork sausage from Ludlow.

-You've got fantastic butchers here.

-It's a pleasure, isn't it?

-Especially now with all the pheasants and rabbits hanging outside.

-Yeah.

-You know it's game season, don't you?

-Yeah.

Right. So all we want to do is just crumble this in,

and once the heat goes through the fat with the sausage...

-It's what we want.

-..it should break up slightly.

We've got some vac-packed chestnut.

Just get a handful, really,

and then we're just going to roughly chop them.

-We want the texture of the chestnut through the stuffing.

-Lovely.

So I've just kind of cooked it through so it's not raw

but I don't want it kind of crispy so put that in there.

I'm going to put the chestnuts in there and the zest of a lemon.

That's looking really, really nice.

-Do you think just two or three sage leaves, Kingy, chopped fine?

-Yeah.

-It'd raise Lazarus, this stuffing.

-It smells lovely.

-There's no salt yet.

Doesn't need it.

-How's it going? Let's have a look.

-Perfect.

-Oh, yum, nice.

Now we put the bones into the saucepan

with that lovely carrot, onion celery and tomato puree I made.

Look at that juice.

-Yeah, very clean.

-That's all right, you want it to be in there, in with his mates.

-Great.

-That's all right.

Now, some good English red wine, a good splurge in there,

couple of bay leaves, sprig of parsley.

Thyme.

Not too much rosemary because that can paralyse it. All of that in.

Now we've got to confess, this chicken stock is Will's.

-It's really, really good.

-So if you win, it partly goes to me?

-Yeah.

Credit where credit's due, fella.

We want that to bubble up and just make love in the pan for a bit.

I just thought I'd go all Michelin here, dude.

More like a balti house than Michelin!

Get all the elements, dude, all the elements.

Look at that. If we can't get a good sauce out of that, we want shooting.

Veggies are done, Kingy.

-Lovely.

-Celeriac.

Jerusalem artichokes.

-Just get the taters.

-The potatoes.

Put them back in the pan to preserve their integrity.

We thought we were going to pipe the stuff into the pheasant breast.

-So you're going to make a pheasant Kiev.

-Oh, what?

-This is a taste of Shropshire, not Russia.

-Exactly.

-A piping bag.

-Are we sure?

Yes, of course we've done this a thousand times, don't be ridiculous.

Right, let's take a breast.

Look at that, man.

I need to enlarge the aperture in order to facilitate the passage of the stuffing.

Right, put it in and squirt.

I think it's there, that's it.

-Look!

-I thought the stuffing was meant to be inside the breast.

That's all right, isn't it?

Onward to the next.

-It's all about technique.

-Are we laughing?

-Yeah.

Let me try and get it...

-THEY CHORTLE

-Hey, man!

Well done, mate, well done. Hairy Bikers' chaos Kievs.

-Don't push too hard because you burst the last one.

-Oh, hoh-hoh!

That's it. Marvellous.

Right, there we've got our stuffed pheasant breasts.

I'm just going to season those a little bit.

-Now, I bet you're thinking, "That's going to be dry."

-Never.

It's not because what we're going to do is we'll put a piece of butter in there

and then wrap it in caul fat, you know that string vest that comes from the inside of a pig's stomach.

Have you got the butter? You put a sliver like that and then we put that breast-side-down, like that.

-I'm WRAPPING like Puff Daddy.

-You are.

Pheasant, sage and onion chestnut stuffing, wrapped in caul, smothered in butter.

It's not looking such a disaster now, is it?

I think the caul's probably saved you a little bit there.

-Hide the butchery and the stuffing with caul.

-He knows how to hurt, doesn't he?

-He does.

-And you've been on a course.

-I have.

-Will, would you put those in for us?

-What sort of temperature do we want?

-About 180 centigrade.

Twelve minutes.

Now this is so thick and unctuous and bursting with flavour.

You'd go to no harm with that. Taste that, Kingy. That's intense.

It is. You need to strain the fat off.

Oh, that's all right.

We'll let that bubble away then. I'll do the puree, the mash.

Good. Now then, these are the berries that we picked on the hillside, the cowberries.

-We'll poach them lightly in some stock syrup.

-Like my blackberries.

-Yeah, exactly.

-That's where we got the idea,

-I have to say!

-How long are you going to poach those for?

Two or three minutes, no more than that, nice and gentle.

-Yeah.

-Look at that puree.

-Nearly done those berries, aren't they, mate?

-Mmm.

A splash of cream.

Can we take the pheasant out now, please?

Ha-hey!

Now that's a good golden colour.

And this is some crab apples, brambles and all sorts of wilderness berries.

-So you're going to finish the...

-Yes, just going to add it to taste.

In true Hairy Biker style - a big knob of butter.

Now that spinach is going to come down pretty quickly.

That's there.

That's it.

-We've got all the elements. Some nutmeg on the spinach, Kingy?

-Please, mate.

No more on that now, look.

-Greener than Alan Titchmarsh. Right, plating up.

-Here we go.

-First off, don't forget it, small, small.

-Small.

-All right, yeah?

-Too much.

-That's a portion of food, isn't it?

Great. I'm just going to cut these breasts.

Creating the spinach meteorite.

-On the top here?

-I think so.

The stuffing's perfectly in the middle of the breast, isn't it?

-It's good, eh?

-Very nice, that.

-A dribble over the top and just down the side.

-Over the top, down the side.

-All right, I'll do that yeah.

-And now our berries.

-Beautiful.

-That's it.

I think that's it, it's ready to go.

Yeah. There we have it, Shropshire on a plate.

Stuffed pheasant breast on a three root mash and a quenelle of spinach,

garnished with cowberries and a hedgerow glaze sauce.

But what will Will's Michelin star mouth make of our county flavours?

-Go on, tuck in, be brave.

-I need to be brave to try this, huh?

Oh, you may be surprised.

It's really, really nice.

I'm surprised. No, I'm not. Three veg in the mash is really, really nice.

Moisture in the bird still, acidity and sweetness from the berries.

-So are you happy? Good?

-Very good.

That's high praise indeed, Will.

It's the moment of truth. The diners here will taste both dishes

but without any idea of who cooked which.

First up is Will's venison.

-Mmm!

-Nice.

Definitely chocolate in there.

Mmm!

It's lovely.

The venison looked just so delicious sitting on top of the red cabbage.

Excellent presentation.

The chocolate colour and the dark purple went really well together I thought.

I thought the venison was delicious, it just melted in your mouth.

Interesting use of the chocolate biscuit as well. Not sure that that worked.

I loved the chocolate biscuit because I love chocolate.

Presentation I thought was absolutely superb to look at and when it came to taste it didn't disappoint.

They seem to be pretty impressed with that. Now it's our turn.

Let's hope our stuffed pheasant hits the spot.

I can taste all the roots.

The meat is pretty dry, it's pleasantly dry.

Enjoyable flavours, especially the mash.

That's only the second time I've ever had pheasant but it was lovely.

I do like pheasant and it was very well cooked.

What I like about this dish is that all the ingredients

could have been picked or gathered on a long country walk.

When the plate arrived, it screamed, "Tuck in, eat me!"

It could be served in any restaurant but really it could be served in any home as well.

-Hello. Hello, how are you?

-Hello.

Thank you so much.

-You do live in a beautiful place don't you? A beautiful county.

-Yes.

-We're very lucky.

-You are. We've had a great time here.

We've all tried to do our best with proper Shropshire produce as much as we can.

Shropshire on a plate you've had both times.

Now, um, what we now need to do is we've now got to choose which dish is the best.

Just because you've got two hands doesn't mean you can vote for both.

OK, so for the venison, please.

One, two, three, four, five.

And for the pheasant.

One, two, three, four.

You've pipped us. Well done.

Well done. I have to say that's actually how it should be.

We are very pleased with that result because what comes out of this man's kitchen is just superb.

'We didn't quite manage a win but we came pretty close. I'm happy with that.

'Well, he does have a Michelin star after all.'

'Our ride around the county

'of Shropshire's really spoiled us.

'I don't know about you Dave but I'm full up.'

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