♪ Leith, voice-over: I'm Prue Leith--cook, restaurateur, cookery school founder, and writer of 15 cookbooks.

♪ I'm in my eighties, so, I haven't got time to waste.

This series is all about the things that really matter to me.

Family, fun, food, and friends.

And some of those friends will be joining me.

We'll be sharing simple, home-cooked recipes.

But I don't normally tell people about that bit.

Only people I like.

[Laughs] Leith, voice-over: And celebrating the best produce.

For 47 years, I have been lucky enough to live in the astonishingly beautiful Cotswolds.

Leith, voice-over: And my long-suffering husband John is coming along for the ride.

Can you make that?

Um.

Under instruction.

Ha ha!

Leith, voice-over: In today's episode, John will be planting trees.

It will be quite lovely.

Leith, voice-over: I've got a quick hack for making meringues colorful.

And interior designer Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen will be popping in.

Llewelyn-Bowen: This is absolutely lovely.

Sitting around your kitchen table with a very lovely but very simple thing to eat.

Welcome to my Cotswold kitchen.

♪ Leith, voice-over: This series is all about the important things in life-- great company and great food.

Even better, I get to cook in my own kitchen.

Treating myself and my guests to recipes that are both surprising and mouthwatering is very satisfying.

And this next dish is one of my all-time top desserts.

I absolutely love it when an unexpected ingredient really works well in a dish.

And this is going to be a chocolate mousse cake with pink peppercorns.

♪ To start, I have to melt the chocolate, and I'm going to just stick it in the microwave.

And because it has to have melted butter in it, too, I'll put the two in together.

Put them in the microwave for about a minute, maybe give it a stir, then another half a minute and it'll be done.

That goes in there.

The classic way to melt chocolate is to put it in a bowl over a simmering pan of water.

But that was before microwaves were invented.

But they both work.

Then I'm going to toast the pecan nuts and they just taste much better if they're toasted.

So, they're going into the oven and they'll take about 7 minutes.

Right.

What else do I have to prep?

Oh, I want to crush the pink peppercorns just lightly.

And they're not a very strong taste.

They're not very peppery.

I want them still to be mostly round because they look good, but I want them to be slightly crushed so that you get the flavor.

♪ So, that's pretty well done.

The rest of it will melt very quickly.

Now, I don't want to put the egg yolks in yet because that's hot and it might scramble the eggs.

We don't want that.

But I can put the whiskey in.

♪ Leith, voice-over: This recipe uses 150 grams of caster sugar.

♪ Start by adding 60 grams now.

♪ It's good to put the sugar in while it's still warm, because it'll help to melt the sugar.

Leith, voice-over: This cake and I go back a long way together.

I've been doing a version of this recipe for all my life.

I first made it to make, like, a chocolate Swiss roll, but the joy of it is it has no flour in it.

It is just a flour-free cake, which is very moussey and squishy and light as anything.

So, now I reckon this is cool enough to put the yolks of eggs in without it scrambling.

I've got the egg whites in there and the yolks in here.

Leith, voice-over: I'm using 5 large egg yolks.

♪ So, now I've got everything into the chocolate mix except the peppercorns.

I'm going to reserve a few for the top.

♪ And then I have to make a meringue with the egg whites.

And I'm going to put a pinch of salt in it.

So, about a quarter of a teaspoon of salt.

By now the nuts ought to be toasted.

I'm going to put them in here.

♪ I'm going to grind them up.

♪ You could use walnuts, but I think pecans and chocolate are a better flavor.

Walnuts can slightly-- be slightly bitter, and I just like the taste of pecans.

[Whirring] ♪ So, that's about right.

So, that can go in.

♪ Right.

So, that's the chocolate mixture with the nuts, with pretty well everything in there except the meringue bit, which is what's going to bring the air into it and make it moussey.

So, I've got the egg whites in there and that has to go down and turn on.

[Whirring] A classic way to make meringue is to start quite slowly and then add the sugar.

Not all at once.

Actually, you can put the whole lot together and just whisk it together and it will make meringue, but it makes a moussier one if you go slowly.

Leith, voice-over: Add half the remaining sugar.

♪ Turn it up a bit.

[Whirring speeds up] Then I'm going to put in the rest of the sugar.

[Whirring] [Whirring stops] ♪ Now you're going to put two mixtures together.

What you want to do is to take the softest of the two and mix it into the stiffer of the two, because that will loosen it up a bit... and then the rest can go in.

Ideally, when you're mixing two mixtures, you want them roughly the same consistency, because then it makes folding much more easy.

♪ And when a recipe says fold, the trick is to lift the mixture from the bottom and turn it over like that.

If you just stir, you just beat out some of the air without really mixing it.

And don't worry if you've still got it a bit streaky, because as you put it into the cake tin... you can just rub out any uneven bits or any lumps.

It smells absolutely delicious.

Making my mouth water.

And then you smooth the top very gently, because I'm trying not to knock too much air out, like that.

Then you give it a bang.

[Bang] That's in case there's a huge lump in the bottom there, which will burst the bubble.

♪ Leith, voice-over: Put it in the oven at 140 degrees Centigrade for 25 minutes.

♪ Yeah.

Looks good to me.

♪ You can tell it's done if it's just pretty solid.

It's not wobbling too much in the middle.

♪ Leith, voice-over: Let it cool for 10 minutes.

♪ Right.

This is cool enough now to deal with.

It's still warm.

And because it's like a souffle, don't worry if it sinks.

It's meant to sink.

Do you see?

It's gone down a lot.

♪ It's still a bit warm... ♪ but I mean to turn it over on a tray... ♪ and then take the paper off.

♪ Turn it over... ♪ onto the cake stand.

♪ And then I'm going to put a little bit of icing sugar on it.

♪ I like to see the chocolate underneath.

Don't want it all icing sugar.

And then some more of the pink peppercorns.

I mean, if you really want to zizz it up a lot, you could spread the cream on top and put strawberries or raspberries or whatever you like.

♪ It's very rich, so, if you're serving this for a dinner party and you've already had roast lamb or something, you don't want more than a little slice like that.

♪ That's a blob of cream.

♪ The first taste is the decadent chocolate taste.

Very sweet.

And then a little bit of quite subtle bitterness from the pink peppercorns and that nutty pecan taste.

It really is a great combination.

The blob of cream isn't half bad, too.

♪ Leith, voice-over: Coming up, I've got a surprising use for carrot tops.

It tastes absolutely delicious.

Leith, voice-over: And my guest, Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, will be getting stuck in.

Am I making a frightful mess?

No.

You just need to do a little bit more.

A bit more scrunching.

Scrunch.

[Laughs] ♪ Leith, voice-over: Welcome back to my Cotswold kitchen.

♪ I try to source ingredients as close to home as possible, which is why my husband John has a flourishing veg patch in our garden.

♪ You know, I absolutely hate to waste anything.

So, when John comes in from the garden with a beautiful bunch of carrots like this, I don't really like even throwing away the tops.

♪ They do make good pesto.

So, I'm going to put a handful, just the feathery tops.

Put them in a processor or liquidizer and with a bunch of parsley.

Not perhaps quite that much.

♪ The parsley stalks are so flavorsome I've chopped them in.

♪ So, I've got parsley and carrot tops in here and I'm going to put walnuts in.

♪ Could be pine nuts, but I like a rather English pesto with walnuts.

This is parmesan.

It could be cheddar.

♪ And the inevitable clove of garlic.

♪ Grind all that up together.

♪ [Whirring] [Whirring stops] Add a bit of salt.

A bit of pepper.

♪ [Whirring] And then you just want to add as much oil as you like to make it into either a pouring pesto or a sort of stiff paste or whatever you like.

♪ [Whirring stops] ♪ It tastes absolutely delicious.

I would never have recognized that as carrot tops.

But it's also a flavor I've never had before.

♪ So, carrot top pesto.

Who would have believed it?

It's delicious.

♪ Leith, voice-over: My guest today is known for his flamboyant interior designs.

Unfortunately, cooking isn't his thing.

But we'll forgive him because he's decorated my kitchen.

He lives near here with his wife Jackie and their extended family.

Welcome to my kitchen Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen.

You're supposed to be cooking me lunch, but I gather you don't cook.

Is that right?

I don't cook.

My anticipation just drops when we go somewhere for dinner and someone says, "Well, I'm trying out this new recipe," and it's all very complicated, because you know you're never going to see them.

They're going to be so stressed.

...in the kitchen, In the kitchen panicking.

Whereas actually, if we'd all had a, you know, a takeout pizza, we could have a long evening chatting and enjoying-- enjoying the conversation.

Leith, voice-over: Well, I can't say a takeout pizza is my idea of a dinner party, but I'm hoping I could teach him something today.

So, what's in the box?

So, what's in the box is a rotisserie chicken, which, you know, I think is-- is a good, straightforward thing.

And if we've got a big family lunch or people round, I'll go to a supermarket, get a couple of rotisserie chicken, and then just try and get a bit imaginative with a salad or something or Jackie will probably do some chips and-- chicken and chips.

Food of champions.

I can do chips.

Won't take long.

♪ So, we're going to do chips in an air fryer.

Revolutionized family eating, hasn't it?

It has.

I tell you what I thought we could do as well as the chips.

Have you ever made one of those kale salads which you have to knead with your hands?

No.

Well, that is really good fun.

I'll take this away and shove it in the air fryer.

That's good, because we've got quite a lot of kale.

Well, this is out of our garden, and I have to say, I'm sick to death of kale, but this is going to be good.

You get gluts, don't you?

I'm not going to lie.

We had a kale glut a couple of years ago, and we tried kale ice cream.

That didn't work at all.

That would be disgusting.

Some things work.

Avocado ice cream is quite nice.

Avocado is quite good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Basil ice cream is nice.

So, a bit of salt.

A bit, she says.

A bit of it.

Decent amount.

Juice of half a lemon.

A few pomegranate seeds...

Right.

and some almonds.

Mm-hmm.

♪ And some olive oil goes in there, too.

Right.

Do you want to shove that in?

Do you trust me?

Yeah.

It's all measured out.

You can't go wrong.

And about an inch of parmesan.

Perfect.

And I love the fact it's not even metric.

[Laughs] There we are.

You know, you need to really mangle it.

That's it.

Yeah.

That's what you-- You want to get the juice out of the kale so it makes it softer, because kale can be really scratchy and hard.

Can't it?

While you're doing that, I've got a little challenge for you because I read all about you in the "Cotswold Life."

I know.

For us Cotswold residents, this is--this means you've arrived.

You've arrived.

Well, you certainly have arrived.

But the thing that I'm absolutely amazed at, because I've always found your paintings slightly sinister.

I mean, wonderful and baroque and crazy.

I'll do sinister, I think sinister's a great word.

But there is something sinister about them.

And this painting here.

Yeah.

This person has the front of him facing forwards, Yeah.

and the back of him is facing back.

Well, I seem to have done my job poorly because I would say that's a lady.

You don't see the sort of swell of the hip on the other side.

Does that arm belong to this-- It does.

It's--it's inspired by cast, and, you know, you can do it, Prue.

Come on.

You're still bendy.

But I love you saying they're sinister, because when I finished the whole collection and they were in my studio, Jackie came in and she said, "Oh, my God, it's like Cecil B. DeMille.

It's like film."

It is, it is.

But nothing is properly explained because actually, the explanation is down to you.

It's sort of active participation of the viewer.

It is.

Exactly.

Am I making a frightful mess?

No.

You just need to do a little bit more.

A bit more scrunching.

Scrunch.

Just about everyone we know well wouldn't dream of asking me to do anything in terms of preparation because it would go horribly wrong.

And then people we don't know terribly well then are just a little bit worried that I might start looking a bit too closely at their curtains, so.

[Laughs] Right.

So, since you brought rotisserie chicken, I thought we might jolly it up with a romesco sauce.

You need about half a jar of grilled red peppers.

Right.

And then... Leith, voice-over: Add 3 sun-dried tomatoes.

Right.

♪ [Whirring] That's looking lovely.

A bit more nuts, I think.

We're going nut-tastic.

Olive oil...and garlic.

I forgot the garlic.

Yeah, the garlic needs to go in.

♪ [Whirring] [Whirring stops] ♪ Am I going to put it in this?

Is that what this little dish is for?

Well, let's say that is the romesco ♪ diiish ♪ [Laughs] Sorry about the mess.

I love, I love the kind of slightly paisan serving style that we've gone for there.

Ha!

So, Laurence, the chips are on.

The chicken is done.

Salad's done.

So, you're going to do the table?

Well, let's do something celebratory because I think, you know, if the food's going to be simple, then let's make the experience with the way that it looks.

OK. ♪ Oh, gosh.

♪ These are fun.

It looks like everything you've got can tell a bit of a story.

Yes, well, I'm South African, so, that's where those came from.

Oh, look at this.

That's pretty, isn't it?

You really are drawn to these.

♪ Yeah.

Now, these are great as well.

Course, it's so funny these days that, you know, all this granny china, which everyone was so rude about, actually now everyone's really rediscovering.

I know, and I absolutely love those.

I mean, I bought them for a few shillings, I think.

Yeah.

In a junk shop.

But I just love them.

Let's take these as well.

This is the easiest table set I've ever done.

Throw it all together.

Leith: It's all right.

I love color candles as well.

Now, the other thing that's very interesting is, you know, you can't clash red.

I do put red and purple and orange and pink and all that lot together.

Because you're used to seeing that in nature.

Reds, pinks, oranges all go together.

But blues are a nightmare.

Blues are terrible because you don't see-- ...put two blues together often... That's why double denim is an absolute no-no.

I think that's lovely.

I think that's done.

♪ Well, this is lovely.

So, the last thing is the chips.

Gosh, those look amazing.

They look good, don't they?

Textbook.

Your romesco.

The breast or the leg?

I'd love some breast, thank you.

Lovely.

And I'll have a leg.

I like the leg.

This is absolutely lovely.

Sitting around your kitchen table with the entire contents of your china drawer and a very, very lovely, very lovely, but very simple thing to eat.

Mm.

Do you like the romesco sauce?

Mm.

It's delicious.

There's nothing wrong with pulling things off the supermarket shelf, as long as it tastes great.

Actually, life is incredibly busy.

Mm.

Life is very busy.

Focus on the thing that's important, which is, you know, what you're eating.

I agree with you.

So, we've got supermarket rotisserie chicken... instant romesco sauce made out of jars, chips from the air fryer, and a salad made from our garden kale.

♪ You know what, the best thing about today for me has been seeing the kitchen transformed into a gallery.

So, tell me about these pictures.

One of my big things now is I'm painting a lot of houses, particularly here in the Cotswolds.

People love me to paint their house, but, you know, I can get rid of the pylon at the end of the field, you know, and I can do this, and I can move the valley a little bit to the left, and I can make the lake a little bit more reflective, or I can add a Gothic folly, or I can add an otter or a heron or whatever.

And I love that because actually, why not celebrate where you live in that way?

Laurence, this has been such fun.

Thank you.

Oh, this-- Thank you for coming.

No, I mean, and thank you for not sneering at my rotisserie chicken.

I was slightly concerned.

I've eaten--I've eaten-- Well, I'm going to eat the rest, too.

I was standing on the doorstep with my rotisserie chicken.

Is this the wise thing to do?

[Laughs] I think it's absolutely lovely.

♪ Leith, voice-over: Coming up, I've got a great hack to make twirly whirly bites.

That's a neat trick to make a pudding colorful.

It's the sort of thing I like to do with my grandchildren.

Leith, voice-over: And we discover why moldy meat can be a good thing.

Man: Regulating the drying process, as well as adding its own funky flavors in there as well, which is what it's all about, really.

♪ Leith, voice-over: Welcome back to my Cotswold kitchen.

Since John and I first moved here, it's been our plan to plant a lot more trees.

As well as providing shade for livestock, they are home to a wealth of wildlife and they look so good.

Planting trees is not always as easy as it sounds, and last winter, we lost a few.

So, John is outside planting new ones.

♪ Here we're going to have a wonderful cedar, which has a flat-top crown eventually.

We have chosen a site just equidistant between the kitchen window and rather an ugly pylon so that Prue has perfect vision of a lovely tree that's coming to-- well, will grow beautifully.

♪ Leith, voice-over: Doing the hard work and actually getting their hands dirty are gardeners Ratty and Philippa.

If you could clear a space pretty much from that-- that round.

Philippa: 3 meters round.

[Buzzing] ♪ There we are.

Is that too big?

Philippa: No, no, I'd give it as much as you can, yeah.

They like to be cuddled, don't they?

Yeah.

So, what are we?

We're about 8 inches out from the pot.

Philippa: Yeah.

John: They're cutting a square hole because traditionally, people in the past have cut a round hole for a round pot.

But what tends to happen is that you put the root in with all its earth round it, and the roots tend to come out, hit the side of a round hole, and just keep going.

So, you end up with a root ball, and then 10 years later, when you think your tree should be really getting going, Suddenly, in a wind, you find it on its side because its root balled.

John: When you come to bury me, Ratty, will you remember to put the soil in a bag so you keep the surrounding area nice and clean?

♪ And then we're going to put a scoop or two of really good soil in the bottom.

Now, this is our mix of topsoil, grit, compost, and manure.

♪ Our farm and house is in an unusual windy spot, so, we've discovered we have to put in two posts to hold trees against the wind.

♪ They're growing sort of up and in, up from underneath a little bit.

It actually doesn't matter if you break a couple of roots as well, so, it's probably worth giving it a bit of a-- Are we good?

Can I go down?

Yeah.

Okey-dokey.

We're ready for the magic potion, which is fish blood and bone.

She's put it round the edges so the roots search for it.

♪ John: This is mulch.

Basically, it's all the straggly bits of trees and hedges that they've cut and it lets water in, but stops the weeds or inhibits the weeds.

♪ I would think this tree will be reaching a really attractive stage in 20 years, and by 30, people will be photographing it.

It'll be quite lovely.

So, there we are.

Happy, little tree, and we can see it every day for the rest of our lives.

♪ Leith, voice-over: Next, I'm going to demonstrate a simple kitchen hack that gets wonderful results.

♪ I want to show you how to make meringues colorful.

♪ The first thing you do is stick a piece of baking parchment on a tray so that it won't budge all over the place.

I'm going to use food coloring gel to make stripes inside the piping bag.

So, I'm going to paint about 5 stripes.

And then that goes into the bottom of the piping bag.

And you need to push it down well.

Then we need to put stripes on the inside of the piping bag, too.

♪ It's a slightly wobbly stripe.

It doesn't matter if it's a wobbly stripe.

Needs to be quite thick.

You really need to go over it twice, I say.

If you're really feeling artistic, you could perhaps do rainbow colors.

I would like that, but I'm too lazy.

♪ And then... [Clattering] you want to take your meringue mixture and drop it down there carefully as you can.

♪ Then you want to squish everything down to the bottom like that.

♪ And then pipe your kisses.

♪ When you're piping, the trick is to keep the piping bag nozzle really tight, low against the surface, and just bring it up gradually.

I'm so mean, I always use my thumb to get the last bit out as well like that.

if you want really nice, crisp, dry meringues, you need to dry them out in a very low oven for two hours.

So, I'm putting them in at 100, which should be about the temperature of an airing cupboard, I suppose.

Very low.

♪ Leith, voice-over: Two hours later, let's see how they've turned out.

♪ So, there we are.

♪ You can always tell when meringues are done because they just pick off the paper like that.

So, that's a neat trick to make a pudding colorful.

It's the sort of thing I like to do with my grandchildren, because they love messing around with color and piping and sticky stuff.

Especially if it's sweet.

♪ Leith, voice-over: I always try to source the food for my recipes from suppliers who are right here on our doorstep.

In the current climate, being a food producer ain't easy.

So, I like to sing the praises of local heroes, such as one of my favorite suppliers of salamis and cured meats.

Man: My name is Ben and I make salami and cured meats, charcuterie here in the Cotswolds.

♪ Leith, voice-over: Ben Dulley worked as a chef in some of the best kitchens in the country for over a decade before setting up his own business.

Dulley: Today, we're stuffing our salamis, so, we've made our mixes.

Yesterday, we minced the meat that was destined for each particular type of salami, which is different for each one.

We've mixed it and got a really good bind on it, and then today, we've put that mix into the sausage stuffer, piped it into our sausage casings and natural casings, and now we're tying them.

Some lovely, old twine that we use, you know, trying to keep everything as--as real and as natural and as authentic as it possibly can be.

Leith, voice-over: Ben sources all his pork from local rare breed pigs, which means the meat is fully traceable.

Dulley: There's two main categories, really.

There's a distinction between the sausages and the whole muscles.

Because we're using whole animals, big, lovely Gloucester Old Spot gelds, loads of fat, loads of flavor, we've got the hams and then we've got all the rest, which gets turned into sausages and salamis.

We're not just taking all the trim from the pig and chucking it all in and mincing it up.

Each salami has got a specific ratio of certain types of meats, certain types of fats.

Our house salami, our garlic and pepper salami, it's got hand-diced back fat, the premium fat from the pig.

It's got large dice of lean leg meat, and then it's got shoulder meat to bind it all together.

♪ I'm a sort of chef that needs to understand where everything on the plate has come from, how it works.

You know, I don't just want to put somebody else's produce on the plate.

I like to know a process.

I don't feel like I've fully mastered something until I really understand it.

So, for me, if I was going to put some salami on a menu, I needed to really know how that worked.

What made that salami really, really good?

What made it different from what somebody else is doing?

What could I really champion about it?

Understanding that process really meant doing it, and so taught myself to make charcuterie, to make salami, to make air-dried meats, so that I got a full understanding of it.

♪ This is the air-drying room.

Everything is drying really nice and slowly in here so that those deep flavors, those top notes of flavor really get to develop and everything works as it should.

You can see lovely molds on the outside there.

The molds are a really important part of it.

It's creating a coating which is slowing down the drying process.

It's holding the moisture into the sausage.

That's allowing the sausage to dry out at a really slow, steady rate.

So, it's regulating the drying process as well as adding its own funky flavors in there as well, which is what it's all about, really.

Leith, voice-over: Ben hangs some of his products for up to a year, which removes the moisture, develops the flavor, and makes it safe.

Dulley: We have to do everything as perfectly as possible to make these products and eliminate all those areas for error.

And then once we've done our bit, we need to leave it in this room to--to age, and we need to make sure that it's looked after, but we can't really do much with it in the 6 months that these hams are hanging here.

That's--that's nature doing its thing.

And, actually, the best thing we can do is kind of step away and let nature do its thing, let those lovely natural molds grow on it and impart their flavor and slow down the drying process.

Leith, voice-over: For Ben, the personal touch is also important.

Dulley: When I first started the company, I was very keen to really put a local angle on everything we do.

One of our products, we've got a local Hook Norton beer which goes into it.

We've got a chili grower down the road from us in Oxfordshire who grows all of our chilies for us.

And so, it's those little nods which really make our product unique.

♪ We're a small company, and I think we'll always be a small company.

The hands that make all these products are all skilled, and that takes time to get things right.

So, I don't want to stop getting my hands dirty.

Neither do the other guys.

We just want to carry on doing what we do and improving.

We want to have the best product in the country, the best products in the world.

And I think with the fantastic farming that we've got in this country, we've got the backbone to do that, so, hopefully, that's what we can achieve.

♪ Leith, voice-over: Coming up, my husband John will be joining me in the kitchen and I'll be using some of those delicious meats to make a pizza.

Any luck, this nice, fatty bit will just melt into it.

♪ Leith, voice-over: John shares my enthusiasm for good food, but he's not much of a cook.

So, today, I'm going to show him how to make something easy and simple.

♪ So, John has joined me in the kitchen, and we're going to make pizza, and it's really easy, and what I've got here is 300 grams of strong flour, which is the bread flour.

And I'm going to put into it 165 ml of warm water, but first I'm going to pinch a bit of that warm water and put it on the yeast, because this is fresh yeast.

And if you want fresh yeast, you buy it from a baker.

There are some supermarkets who stock it, but you can use instant dried yeast instead.

This just works a little bit quicker and we're in a hurry, so, we've got fresh yeast.

Don't put boiling water in there because that'll kill the yeast.

You want warm water, which will just encourage it to multiply.

It's a living thing and it grows if it's given nice, warm conditions.

Leith, voice-over: And then add half a teaspoon of salt.

[Clatter] And because this is Italian, a tablespoon of olive oil.

♪ Leith, voice-over: Add some warm water and mix together to make a soft but not wet dough.

♪ Then it's time to get stuck in with your hands.

♪ When you're kneading bread, don't put more flour on it than you need.

Only if it starts to stick to the surface.

The trick is to push it to the heel of your hand, and then bring it back and turn it and push it and turn it and push it.

Do you want to have a go?

I've seen Paul Hollywood do it with two hands.

Yeah, he does it with two hands.

He's a big, strong fellow.

What am I meant to do?

Same thing?

Push with your heel-- Yeah.

That's right.

And then gather it all together... And then I--am I rolling it over?

And then turn it.

Right.

And you have to do it with some willy.

You know, I often see students sort of playing with the dough, and that won't do anything for it.

You're trying to develop the gluten, which means the more you mangle it, the more the gluten will be stretchy.

Do you see?

It's much smoother than it was when we started it.

I had Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen in the kitchen this morning and he obviously never cooks, and I had him kneading and crushing and mangling the kale salad.

Some of your kale, because you've got a forest of kale in the veg garden.

Has he promised to keep doing it?

No, of course not.

Are you getting sick of it?

We can put it... No, I'm just not-- I haven't got your confidence because it steeps-- No, it's not.

It's fine, darling.

I'm fine.

It is getting stretchier, but it's not stretchy enough.

So, if we put it into there, we could stop doing this because it's hard work, isn't it?

[Whirring] And that's a dough hook.

But if you do this for about 5 minutes in the machine, it would be the same as 10 minutes of vigorous kneading.

Shall we have a look and see how it's getting on?

[Whirring speeds up, stops] I'm beginning to feel quite sorry for it.

It had a hell of a bashing.

[Laughs] Yeah.

I have been taught to slap the pizza like this.

You know.

That's how the Italians did.

Anyway, you can see how stretchy it is.

Mm?

That's good.

Is that the finish of the slapping?

Yes, we've done the slapping.

I've never seen you look quite so vicious.

[Laughter] Well, you've been lucky, haven't you?

[Laughs] So, then I'm going to just grease this a little bit, mainly to stop it sticking to the bowl.

And I would put it in there and then I'm going to cover it up with a bit of plastic.

But you could just put a plate on it.

You just want to keep it from forming a skin.

And then you put it somewhere not freezing, not in the fridge, and it's a warm day today, so, that'll be fine.

And it should double in size.

And so, don't start until you've got it twice that size.

♪ OK.

So, here we have the dough that has proved for an hour, and you can see that it's a live thing.

It's all busy bubbling away.

♪ Now...I want to just divide this into two, because you're going to make a classic margherita, and I'm going to make one with some charcuterie on top of it.

I'm trying to be quite tender with it, not squash too much of the air out.

And you can just pull it.

You know, most pizza houses don't use a rolling pin.

They just pull it like that.

Not really round, is it?

You really want it quite thin.

Does it have to be round or can it be...

It can be any shape.

any shape.

It might just be any shape.

I quite like it any shape.

It looks very homemade if it's any shape, doesn't it?

So, then you do the same with the other.

That's pretty good.

It is very difficult to get a good pizza shape because it's so stretchy.

You know, it wants to spring back all the time, but that means you've got good pizza dough.

Can I make mine an odd shape?

Put yours on here.

You can.

[Groans] I don't think mine's ever going to unravel.

[Laughs] Can I have a try?

Well, you need to make it a lot thinner, darling, so, keep going.

Right.

So, now you put some tomato on it.

-OK. -Can you give me a blob as well on mine?

Yeah.

Thank you.

And don't do it right to the edge because you want to leave a good edge all around, about half an inch with no tomato.

This is my classic tomato sauce that I do for everything.

So, it's equal quantities of chopped tomatoes and chopped onions, a couple of cloves of garlic crushed.

And you just simmer them in a pan until you get this.

And you can add a bit of basil if you like or whatever you like, but the basic tomato sauce is like that.

That's a bit too much.

Excuse me.

See, I'm always much happier if I see a decent amount on.

But if you have too much on, what happens is the pizza base does not cook and you get soggy bottom.

OK. Classic soggy bottom.

And if it's good, well-reduced tomato sauce, it will have lots of flavor.

OK.

So, then we need mozzarella.

So, that's John's classic margherita.

But I'm doing one with a bit of 'Nduja, which is an Italian pork sausage that is so soft, it's spreadable, and it's quite spicy.

So, I'm putting very little bits... on all over the place.

♪ And I'm going to put a couple of olives on because I really like black olives on pizza.

And I'm going to put the very thin pieces of smoked spice loin.

But I'm only going to put on the pizza when it comes out of the oven, because the heat of the pizza will still cook them.

And if you put them on now, they tend to dry and shrivel up a bit too much.

How long is it going to be in the oven?

Well, if it was a pizza oven, it would be a minute or even a little less than a minute.

But it's not.

It's a 230.

So, I'm going to put it at 230 for 5 minutes.

Leith, voice-over: Then turn down the oven to 200 degrees Centigrade for a further 15 minutes.

Can you make an ordinary oven as hot as a pizza oven?

No, because a pizza oven can go up to 500.

OK. And an ordinary domestic oven is barely 250.

I reckon our pizzas are done.

So, I'll take my bottom one... ♪ and bake it onto there.

♪ Smells gorgeous, doesn't it?

♪ Oh, brilliant.

Right.

Now I want to quickly put the pork loin onto mine while it's still very hot, and it will, with any luck, this nice, fatty bit will just melt into it.

♪ Think that's enough, really.

And then if you were serving this at the last minute, I would chuck a bit of rocket on top.

♪ But you really do need to do that absolutely the last minute because as you will see... it will wilt very quickly.

But it does look nice.

You know what the test of a good piece of pizza is?

Let me show you.

If you cut a slice like that, what should happen is it should bend over like that.

It should definitely have a bendy edge, but not be raw at the bottom.

You see that bread is cooked underneath.

Let's let them cool for a bit and make the charcuterie board.

Leith, voice-over: If you've got a selection of meats, why not offer them on a charcuterie board with pickles and olives and whatever you like?

I put a little clump.

Clump of olives down.

And this, I think, is artichoke, yes?

You need to have some mozzarella somewhere, don't you?

OK. What about you chop some tomato?

OK. ♪ Ooh!

Bye-bye, tomato.

Yeah, bye-bye, tomato.

Never mind.

Don't skid on it.

One more.

That balances it out.

There we are.

Right.

I think that looks nice.

That looks very nice.

Let's stick it there.

Right.

So, these have cooled a little bit, and so, we could eat a piece of pizza with our fingers.

See, being an odd shape's rather useful.

♪ Mm.

Very good.

That is delicious.

Right.

Are you going to taste my piece?

Yeah, I am.

Can I have a bit that's got everything on it?

Yeah.

Please.

There you are.

Thank you very much.

See if it passes the test.

My goodness me, it does.

Look at that.

Whoa!

That is absolutely delicious.

And a pizza is such a simple thing, isn't it?

And such a good thing.

But it all depends on good ingredients.

I hate to say it.

I'd be eating all round the middle and leaving the crust.

It's so filling.

♪ I love the crust.

That meat is-- just melts in the mouth.

It's delicious.

Chin chin?

Mm.

Chin chin.

[Glasses clink]