[theme music] ♪ ♪ [engine revving] ♪ ♪ JAMES MARTIN: As a chef, I've been privileged to travel to all corners of the globe.

But there are one small group of islands that, in my mind, has it all.

From farmers to fishermen.

And great seafood!

These are delicious, absolutely delicious.

Joining me on my journey, I'll be meeting some of my mates, who just happen to be some of the finest chefs in the entire world.

[laughs] Butter.

[laughs] ♪ ♪ [engine whirring] Where is that special place?

Great Britain, of course.

Woo-hoo!

♪ ♪ [bright music] JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): I've been on an incredible adventure around Great Britain.

But all good things must come to an end.

And I've reached my final destination.

I'm in glorious Cornwall, a county that I love, with my mate and traveling companion, the Michelin Star chef Paul Ainsworth.

JAMES MARTIN: So I can't think of any better person to show me around Cornwall than a guy that lived in Southampton.

Yeah.

[laughter] What made you choose Cornwall as your home, then?

I'd been working in London for 10 years, which was phenomenal.

JAMES MARTIN: You're quite modest at that.

I mean, you were at three-star Royal Hospital Road, Gordon Ramsay's place.

Yeah, I worked in some amazing restaurants.

JAMES MARTIN: You could have easily just opened a restaurant in a city somewhere.

You decided to open it right on Rick Stein's patch.

Which, yeah, and-- JAMES MARTIN: How did that go down, first of all, when you first got-- came down here?

Do you know what?

Honestly, hand on heart, Rick and Jill Stein welcomed us with open arms.

And over time, we've built the restaurant, we've built the businesses.

And I feel now we complement each other.

Absolutely.

And now you're a staple of Padstow as well.

But land is as important to you as-- as the sea?

- Yeah.

You know, we've got an incredible hogget down here, lamb.

We've got the Cornish duck, amazing pork, because you got-- Cornish duck?

- Cornish duck.

- Have you just made that up?

- No, I haven't.

- Does that exist?

The Cornish duck?

The Cornish duck exists.

It's the only one of its kind.

What, one duck?

No, no, yeah, I-- well, do you know what?

It actually went to the Natural History Museum.

They've got the only-- - That's the duck?

--twin of the duck.

Yeah.

- Is that the-- the twin duck?

- Yeah-- JAMES MARTIN: That's the duck?

PAUL AINSWORTH: --that's here in Cornwall.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): But Cornwall isn't just renowned for its ducks.

The county sits on England's rugged southwest tip, forming a peninsula that covers wild moorland and hundreds of sandy beaches that stretch all the way down to Land's End.

Padstow is the food mecca.

And there's so much to see here.

So we're splitting up and meeting there later.

First, Paul's heading to Rock on the northwest coast.

And I'm heading inland to Bodmin.

[lighthearted tune] [upbeat melody] This is home to Camel Valley, an award-winning family-run vineyard that's been producing fine English wine for 30 years.

JAMES MARTIN: This is it, Camel Valley.

It's been a spectacular year.

You can see the grapes on the vine.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): And there's certainly quite a few.

♪ ♪ This 24-acre site is run by second-generation winemaker Sam Lindo.

And he's keen to show me around.

♪ ♪ Now, it looks like this year has been a great year.

This is a phenomenal year, one of the best years we've ever had.

JAMES MARTIN: On average, how many bottles would this vineyard produce compared to what it produced last year?

SAM LINDO: Well, maybe 250,000 bottles?

And last year, the total was just under 100,000.

So I'm assuming this means a lot more bottles for people to buy.

Well, we have to look after the average.

So if we get all excited and let sales go, we'll run out.

JAMES MARTIN: So it goes in cycles for you, then?

SAM LINDO: Yes, definitely.

Yeah, we get one good year every four years, one terrible year, and two years in between.

And we're not-- literally, we're generally not far off from picking.

You're picking these tomorrow?

We're going to pick these tomorrow, yeah.

JAMES MARTIN: Can we pick a few of these now, then?

SAM LINDO: Yeah, we certainly can.

JAMES MARTIN: So what are these ones going to be for?

Because it's predominantly white wine or sparkling wine you do.

SAM LINDO: White wine, sparkling white, and rosé and sparkling rosé are the-- the main things that we do.

Now, how does producing wine over here differ to the rest of the world?

SAM LINDO: I think most people around the world follow a similar process.

We all have the same set of instructions, basically.

But when you follow those instructions here, it turns out differently to when you follow it somewhere else.

JAMES MARTIN: Right.

SAM LINDO: And actually, when my dad first started making wine, he didn't really know anything about wine at all.

JAMES MARTIN: So why did he end up with this place anyway?

Well, they-- my mom and dad sort of always liked the idea of having a farm.

The only farm they could afford was this one or one on the Shetland Islands.

You know, back then, Cornwall was pretty remote.

It wasn't a place where people were desperate to live.

It turned out it's probably one of the worst farms in the area for growing grass, which is what you need to do when you're farming sheep.

JAMES MARTIN: It is amazing that grapes do thrive on the worst-- dare I say the worst scenario of a weather?

Dryness, they-- Grapes have an-- they have an upper and lower limit.

We're pushing the envelope of the upper limit in terms of the Northern Hemisphere.

But what's great when you get grapes in this country, they make a really special wine because you don't get grapes like this anywhere else in the world.

JAMES MARTIN: I think I've slowed down a bit.

My knees won't reach the bottom of here.

[laughs] How many we got to go?

How many acres are we doing?

Oh, we've got a, yeah, 24 acres.

So, yeah.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Huh, just a few thousand vines to go, then.

Picking all those grapes has inspired me to cook up my take on a traditional dish that's so often overlooked.

Now, as dishes go, this one is kind of a real classic, a variant of a classic.

It was invented probably by the most famous chef and the greatest chef that ever walked the planet, a guy called Escoffier.

And it lends itself so well with what I've got behind me, these wonderful vines.

Veronique is the style of cooking.

It's usually done with sole.

But you can do it with chicken.

But it contains grapes in the sauce.

It's a great way of cooking.

But the first thing I'm going to do is grab our chicken, and I'm going to do what the French call French trim.

So I'm just going to take the knuckles off, like that.

And then before we do anything, we remove the wishbone.

So pull it out.

A lot of people like to do this afterwards.

But the problem is, when you carve the chicken up, it's quite difficult, and particularly if I want to portion it up like this.

So remove the legs.

What you've got to do is you've got to take the skin away from the chicken.

We don't want that fat, that greasiness, to sit on our chicken.

So we'll just give it a quick whack right on that knuckle bit.

[thump] And what this will do, as it cooks, it basically just clears the bone.

You'll see that as it cooks down.

Meanwhile, over here, we can then just trim these off, the little winglets.

But what we're going to do is remove these chicken breasts.

Now, to do that, you pop the knife in the top.

And the knife will fall either side of the breastbone.

You just cut it all the way down.

There's one chicken breast.

And we do the same thing with the other.

Lose that to one side.

And again, remove the skin.

Trim it all up.

Now, to clean the bone up, take the knife and go around the bone, about 2/3 of the way down.

And you peel this back.

It's actually to make the bone nice and clean so it looks nice when you serve it.

And then you take the knuckle underneath, and you just trim the knuckle off.

And that way, it sits straight on the plate like that.

And I can pop this in the pan.

Just water in here, nothing else.

And pop all that lot in there to nicely poach.

Just wash my hands.

Now, into this mixture as well, we can put a few aromats.

We just want this for flavor, really.

I've got some nice chunks of celery.

And we class this as sort of white veg, white veg being leeks, celery, onions, touch of garlic, that kind of stuff.

So slice it all up.

And that can sit in the pot with some nice bits of thyme, a little bit of bay leaf, a bit of peppercorns as well.

So you're creating like a little stock.

And that stock is going to be used to make a lovely little sauce.

So we lose no flavor whatsoever.

Everything's all in one pan.

Now, what you want to do, once all those lovely aromats are in, you just leave that to stew now for about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, the director will just cut to shots of grapes, probably.

See you in a bit.

[playful music] ♪ ♪ See, after about 20, 25 minutes, we end up with what we've got in this pan.

Poaching meats like chicken and fish is just a fabulous way of cooking.

But you can see as it cooks, what the bone does is it reveals itself like that because it's been trimmed nicely.

Just leave that to one side.

And meanwhile, I'm just going to take the liquor from this, because you've got so much flavor in here.

We're going to use this liquor to make an amazing sauce.

But what I don't want is the veg that goes with it.

Get rid of all that.

Just put that back on the heat.

Meanwhile, for our sauce, it's a classic white wine sauce, really.

But it all starts off, first of all, with the butter.

Get the butter foaming.

You don't want to allow it to color.

And while that's foaming, I'm just going to add some plain flour.

A couple of tablespoons of flour, no more.

And then use a whisk.

So we're just going to cook out that flour.

You can see straight away the roux, as they call it, is not as thick as a conventional sauce.

And now we can turn our attention to this amazing white wine.

A good glug of the white wine.

All the while you're doing that, stir it.

Now, what will happen with this mixture as you keep whisking it, it'll get thicker.

And if you use a whisk, it prevents the lumps forming.

And now we can add this chicken stock.

A little bit at a time and whisk it in.

So keep it going, keep it on the heat, and keep mixing it.

What you want to do with this is stabilize it with some double cream.

And this will bring it all together.

This is why it's really important not to add too much flour at this stage.

Throw in a bit more white wine.

And this all starts to come together.

Now we can have a quick taste.

It is so, so good to cook like this.

You just don't lose any flavor.

It's like the best chicken soup ever, but you've got chunks of chicken in it.

Now, I'm following Escoffier's lead for this because he would always finish it off with a little knob of butter.

Only joking.

Little knob of butter just to finish it off.

This is just going to enrich our little sauce to go with it.

And now we can add our chicken back in.

So you can pop in chicken breast, the legs, the thighs.

Look at that.

Just lovely.

You could actually leave this as it is.

But the classic Veronique style is with grapes.

Now, these, I'll be honest with you, are supermarket grapes because I am not wasting these and putting them in chicken.

I want to save that because I want to taste it with the chicken in a few years' time.

And they're far too small to peel because that's what you have to do with grapes for Veronique.

You have to peel them.

Well, I don't.

The crew did it.

A few in there, in with the chicken.

I'm going to take this off the heat now because that's looking good.

And then finally, what we're going to do is add another great ingredient that goes so well with chicken, a bit of tarragon.

And then to serve it, just a few bits of this over the top.

You can see that thickness of this lovely sauce, it enriches.

[gentle music] ♪ ♪ Just a few bits more tarragon over the top.

And if you wanted to, sprinkle a few more grapes on.

Why not?

So there you have it, a classic dish, really, invented in the UK by a famous Frenchman.

Kind of fits, don't you think?

Cheers.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Fruity and delicious Chicken Veronique, made with crisp, fresh green grapes.

I've loved my time at the Camel Valley Vineyard.

But now it's Paul's turn to head off to hunt out some coastal treasure.

Originally specializing in dairy, Porthilly Farm in Rock saw an opportunity to diversify into shellfish 30 years ago.

And now in its second generation, the business is run by Luke Marshall.

And Paul serves his oysters in his restaurant and is keen to find out how they're cultivated.

And it all starts right here on the beach at Porthilly, where he grows oysters in a floating nursery until they're ready for harvest.

And there's one thing for sure.

You need a bit of muscle to cultivate them mussels.

Or should I say oysters?

Luke, is there a better office in the world, a better place to work?

I mean, it's stunning, isn't it?

It is absolutely stunning.

And honestly, no, you cannot get better.

PAUL AINSWORTH: Tell me more about how it all works and what your day consists of.

Yeah, so basically with the oysters, we buy a seed in from a hatchery up in either Guernsey or up near Cumbria.

They come in around about 7 millimeters, go into our floating nursery, which is behind us, for 18 months.

PAUL AINSWORTH: Yeah.

After that, they get split down and put out onto these trestles behind us, where we have to look after them, shake them, turn them to get that perfect shape.

Basically to shape the shell to give you that lovely plump oyster, it's all those-- the flimsy, almost like flint around the outside.

That's it, yeah.

So we call it a frill.

So the edge of the oyster.

PAUL AINSWORTH: Yeah.

So that constantly grows through the summer very quickly.

If we do not shake those bags, then they'll go to horrible shape, horrible to open, flat, very flat so you don't get a very good meat.

So basically, the more you look after them, the more you shake them, the deeper-- the deeper an oyster will go and the better meat-- PAUL AINSWORTH: Yeah.

--and the better meat you get.

Right, Luke, can we get one out, have a look?

Yeah, of course.

Amazing.

There you go.

And it's this-- it's this here, isn't it?

That thick-- like, the thin-- the frills-- LUKE MARSHALL: That's what we're-- PAUL AINSWORTH: --going around.

The shaking, they're all banging against each other.

That breaks that off-- LUKE MARSHALL: Yeah.

--gives you that lovely-- LUKE MARSHALL: That gives you that deeper-- deeper-cupped oyster.

Yeah.

And one of the USPs of Porthilly oysters is we've got this beautiful tide.

LUKE MARSHALL: Yeah, fresh water from Atlantic every day, twice a day.

So when the river's out, there is nothing left.

In it comes.

A bit of fresh water in there as well.

LUKE MARSHALL: Bit of fresh water, yeah.

That mixture, I think, gives them a very unique-- a unique taste.

- Taste, yeah.

- Yeah.

- Can I try one?

- Yeah, of course, you can.

Yeah.

PAUL AINSWORTH: Look at that.

I tell you what, now I've seen you open it like that, can you open them for us before they come in?

Yeah, OK.

[laughter] We'll charge you an extra pound an oyster, but yeah.

You know, that is a thick layer of fat, that black gills.

And it's-- Ah, I love it.

Absolutely delicious.

LUKE MARSHALL: That's one of the freshest things from the ocean, you know.

PAUL AINSWORTH: I consider myself one of the luckiest chefs in the world, because to be able to come down here and see you and just literally get that out of there, just-- I mean, like, it's amazing.

I-- I feel blessed.

It's absolutely incredible.

That's 30 seconds old.

[upbeat music] ♪ ♪ For me, it's the best.

It is the best.

It's like a flavor like no other.

It's incredible.

No better compliment than that.

PAUL AINSWORTH: Hats off to you guys.

LUKE MARSHALL: Thank you very much.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): You cannot beat fresh oysters.

They're delicious, on their own or on the side.

I've got a tasty recipe for them that complements a hearty dish.

♪ ♪ Now, this is a real great British classic.

It's a beef and oyster pie.

Now, I've got some beautiful shin of beef here, which I'm basically just going to seal off in a nice hot pan.

So the first thing we need to do is get a hot pan on the stove.

Dust it with a bit of flour.

Now, I like to use chunks of shin of beef.

But we want to take a little bit of flour over the top and then season this with some salt and black pepper.

And then we lightly coat the beef in the flour.

The flour is going to do two things.

It's going to help brown it, but also help thicken up our beef stew.

Grab yourself some oil in a nice hot pan.

And then I always like to brown this off in batches because if you add all the meat to the pan, the temperature of the pan reduces and it ends up sweating.

This is where you're going to get a lot of the flavor from, but most importantly, a lot of the color.

Once you get it brown, just take it out.

So you got a nice bit of color on there.

And do the same with the rest of it.

Now, while that's coloring off, we can turn our attention to the onions.

You can use whole onions or shallots.

It's entirely up to you.

But either way, decent-sized pieces.

You don't wanna be going looking and searching for veg.

So once the beef is sealed, we can grab the rest of it, pop it all into the pan.

Take the onions, pop them in as well.

Get some Cornish beer.

They do do really good beer down in Cornwall.

Not quite as good as Yorkshire, but that's a conversation for another day.

But a bit of that in the pan.

And then we're going to pop in some beef stock.

Now, you need to bring this to the boil and gently simmer this.

You can do this on the stove with a lid, or you can pop it in the oven.

Either way, it takes about an hour and a half to two hours.

It doesn't matter which.

Then season it, allow it to cool down.

And I've popped mine into little pans like this.

Now, what you can do once you get to that stage is then cover this in puff pastry.

So I've got some homemade puff pastry because I like to make my own.

You can use the bought in stuff.

A little bit of egg wash around the edge.

And then grabbing your puff pastry, a little bit of flour.

And then roll it out.

[gentle music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ You can make this easily in advance, a day or two days in advance.

Pop this in the fridge with the egg wash on it.

And when you want to cook it, set the oven at about 200 degrees Centigrade.

That's about 400 Fahrenheit.

And this wants to cook for about half an hour or 40 minutes to cook the pastry, but also to heat up the filling.

So I'm going to pop this straight in the oven.

Now, you probably noticed this has got no oysters in it.

If you wanted to put oysters in it, you can put it in at that stage.

But a lot of people are not keen on oysters.

So I'm going to serve these separately.

I'm going to cook these quite simply, with lots and lots of parsley and breadcrumbs.

And then I'm going to take the zest of a lemon.

And now to get a real nice color from this, you need to blend it now for about two or three minutes.

♪ ♪ So once you've got this amazing crumb, that beautiful green color, fabulous, we turn our attention to the oysters.

We'll just open them up first.

The easiest way to do this, in the cloth, and then grab yourself an oyster knife.

So often, these have a little guard on it.

It's basically to stop you from cutting your hand through.

But wiggle the knife so you get it in, and then follow the top of the shell.

And they open up like that.

But you want to keep some of that lovely juice in there as well.

So give it a little wiggle, slide the knife along the top.

It pries the lovely oyster open.

So one final one.

And then we just take our crumb.

No need for salt and pepper.

You've got all this lovely flavor of the sea in this anyway.

And then all we do, once your pie is in the oven, with about sort of 10 minutes to go, you take the oysters and cook them.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ How good do they look?

I love these.

They look so great.

I just think they look brilliant.

And then we've got our oysters.

Oh, these look great.

And we can just put a few of those on the side.

And anybody that wants a few more can pop these around.

Now, like I said, oysters are not everybody's cup of tea.

I think try them cooked, at least try the ones.

I think you might like them.

So there you have it, my version of a sort of surf and turf.

A Cornish surf and turf, we're going to call it.

And enjoy it with a nice bit of Cornish beer.

Cheers.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): A tremendous combination, my hearty beef and ale pie served with oysters cooked with parsley and breadcrumbs.

♪ ♪ Next, continuing the seaside theme, I'm heading to the town of St Columb Major, home to Flying Fish Seafoods.

It was founded by Johnny Godden 12 years ago.

He's passionate about sustainably sourcing and supplying the freshest and finest fish from sea to plate.

And let's just say he's got one or two top-notch customers, including myself.

JAMES MARTIN: I've got to say, I love this place.

Whenever I'm down here, you can't help but be excited just by walking around your spot.

- Yeah.

I mean, these are incredible.

What have we got here?

JOHNNY GODDEN: So these are red gurnards.

So these are local to us here.

These come from Looe Market.

So they're caught off the coast of Looe.

You can see by their bright red colors and their really shiny eyes how fresh they are.

I mean, these are literally about 10 hours old to us.

Right.

Maximum freshness.

Because your ethos, really, with all the fish, I mean, literally going in the other room, it's like a who's who of where you supply.

JOHNNY GODDEN: Yeah, I'm very lucky.

The ethos is still the same from when you started this-- - Yeah.

- --way back?

JOHNNY GODDEN: Yeah, so we've been going 12 years.

And our ethos is ship-to-plate in 24 hours.

So we buy off Cornish best fishermen, and we get it back here.

We select it so we know which customer will want what.

And then we put it on a van, and we get it to them by 8:00 AM the next day.

So ship-to-plate in 24 hours is what our ethos is.

I mean, it is really incredible when you get fish like this.

I mean, this is a red mullet as well, beautiful fish.

Stunning fish.

You can see here with the red mullet as well, if you can just see, you can see how fresh it is because you get these yellow stripes.

As the mullet gets older, they disappear.

So if you see a red mullet without those lovely yellow stripes down, you know it's-- you don't want that.

[laughter] You want the sort of fresher stuff.

And all the scales on this, the method they use to catch it, it's been brought up with lovely care.

It's just a phenomenal fish, really, one of my favorites.

One of my-- I mean, one of my favorites as well.

You've got-- I mean, this is amazing.

Beautiful, beautiful.

So this is a lovely brill.

I mean, this is absolutely stunning.

But brill is amazing because you look at-- people will look at turbot or halibut, it's an amazing flatfish, don't get me wrong.

But, I mean, these are just spectacular all around here.

Yeah, amazing.

So they come inshore when they breed.

That's why there's quite a lot of them now.

They come into-- around the autumn time.

Right.

They've already spread their roe.

So there's no roe in them, which is good.

You know, a lot of the fish, if you get them certain times of the year and they've got roe, they're a bit flaky.

They're not very good.

This has spawned its roe, and it's just fattened up.

So it's perfect this time.

Now, if there's one fish particularly that you could say to people we should be eating more of in the UK, what would it be?

Mackerel for me, mackerel and mussels.

I love that as well.

- Mackerel, incredible.

- And we've just-- can I-- yeah, just come over here.

Look, just look at these.

I mean, if that is not fresh.

Look at that.

Unbelievable.

And you see them, they look like tigers, like dark tigers.

They're just incredible and so, so good, such good quality.

They really are.

It is one of the finest fish in the sea, and probably one of the most abundant, really.

It is, yeah.

And it's kind of weird that you say this because, I mean, how much is turbot and-- Turbot, 22 pounds a kilo.

This is 5 pounds a kilo.

And I'd have one of these.

It is-- it is crazy, isn't it, that this is probably, I think, between me and you, our tastiest fish, I think.

- Yeah, I agree.

- It's beautiful.

Lovely.

JAMES MARTIN: Absolutely beautiful.

Well, mate, thanks for that.

I might put a shopping list together for my place.

- Yeah, do it.

- Nice bit of monkfish there?

The monkfish is superb, beautiful quality.

And these lemons, look at these.

Look-- sorry.

- Like a salesman.

- My god, look at those.

- [laughs] Ping-pong bats.

I mean, they are absolutely immaculate.

Look at them.

They're amazing.

Look.

- And that's all you deal in.

That's the great thing about this.

You don't deal in anything else.

Anything that's not good enough-- - Don't have it.

- --doesn't come in here.

If it's not good enough, we don't have it.

if it's not in season, we don't have it.

And if it's not good enough to go out to my customers, we don't buy it.

Just look at this.

Beautiful.

That is as good as you will get ever.

JAMES MARTIN: Do you know what?

I might take some of that, actually.

I'm going to take four of them.

Just gut them.

JOHNNY GODDEN: Yeah.

JAMES MARTIN: Four of them.

I'll have four of them and four-- four mullet.

- Yup, no problem.

- Lovely.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): This stuff's amazing.

And I salute Johnny for his determination to supply the best quality fish possible.

So I've got a super tasty recipe I'm going to cook in his honor.

Now, this is a fabulous dish using these beautiful red mullet to go with some wonderful gurnard.

It's quite an unusual-looking fish.

You don't often see this round and about.

But it's all around, really, the south coast of England.

And on the outset, really, for this dish, it appears quite chefy.

But when you break it down, it's actually quite straightforward.

It's basically braised chicory with orange, cauliflower purée, and a nice little pan-fried bit of fish to go with it.

But it starts off really with the chicory.

So what I'm going to do is use some of this, the purple one and the yellow one.

I say the yellow one, really, because the green ones, when you get them, can be quite bitter.

I actually leave the root on for these.

So cut them in half.

Look at that beautiful red color of this.

And then what I'm going to do with these, you just basically pan fry it.

Just a little bit of olive oil first.

They go in the pan cut side down.

It's fabulous.

If you pan fry this chicory and then braise it, it tastes wonderful.

Because you've got slightly bitter flavors in this, what I want to do is just sprinkle this with caster sugar and caramelize the bottom of the pan.

You'll see it happens quite quickly.

Then we deglaze the pan before the sugar burns with some stock.

[upbeat music] You can see if I flip that over, you get this gorgeous flavor.

Now, into the pan as well, I'm going to add some orange juice and orange zest, just 1 and probably the juice of 2.

Now, by adding the stock and the orange, what you're creating is a sauce as well.

So the whole thing is all in one pan.

So when you squeeze the oranges, make sure you've got no pips in them.

♪ ♪ I can then add a few sultanas.

And they'll start to plump up in the pan as well.

Just a little bit of fresh thyme.

♪ ♪ That's going to cook away just gently.

Now, in this pan over here, I've got some cauliflower.

I'm going to use the outer leaves of the cauliflower.

So just break these out as well.

I'm not going to waste any of it.

So you need to chop it all up, cut it into florets, and then basically cook it with milk, but cook it enough so it's soft.

And if I just show you what I mean by this, look at that.

It is soft.

It is overcooked to many.

But then what I'm going to do is blend this.

And it's this combination of cauliflower and milk, it makes the most amazing purée.

♪ ♪ A bit of salt, bit of pepper, maybe just a touch of butter.

And then just blitz it.

♪ ♪ [blender whirring] ♪ ♪ So when your purée is ready, just pop it into your pan.

Look at that.

Beautiful little cauliflower purée, really simple.

I'm just going to leave that to one side, just to cool down slightly.

Meanwhile, over here, we can turn our attention to our fish.

I mean, this is spectacular.

It doesn't get any better than this, really, when you get fish this fresh.

And simply cooking this, just a little bit of olive oil first, a little knob of butter.

And we can start to pan fry the fish.

♪ ♪ So just get the gurnard in first because that's really the thickest.

Season it up.

♪ ♪ And this needs to cook for about a minute or two.

Now, with the red mullet, the liver of this is really highly prized.

So you can get it whole, keep the liver to spread on toast.

Oh, this is just delicious.

But pan fried, it's just a wonderful, wonderful fish.

Get in some salt and pepper over the top.

Wash my hands.

Now, you can see already in this pan, this has started to reduce down.

You almost got a wonderful little sauce here.

So to finish this off, we can add a little knob of butter.

Because not only is it cooking liquor, you're going to use this and that cauliflower as a nice little sauce to go with it.

Let's just turn the fish over now.

Look at this.

Very meaty fish, gurnard.

It's wonderful.

Look at that.

Now, in the same pan as well, I'm going to take these bits of cauliflower, just cook these in their juices as well.

Just pop them in.

Allow them to cook a little bit.

Then lift off our bit of mullet.

Just look at that.

Beautiful, beautiful fish.

And we're about ready to plate up.

So the cauliflower purée, I'm not going to do any fancy splodges.

Nope, I'm going to refrain.

♪ ♪ And then you've got this amazing-- just look at these, this lovely chicory.

What I love about it is you've got this sweetness, but also this bitterness.

A few bits of sultanas.

You got a little bit of the old mullet I can put on there.

And then a bit of the gurnard.

And then we use these amazing little charred cauliflower leaves.

And then we've got our wonderful little sauce.

We just sprinkle over the top.

I could have done so many different dishes with this mullet and gurnard.

But that is one of my favorites.

Enjoy it.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): And there it is, pan-fried gurnard and red mullet with cauliflower purée and braised chicory.

♪ ♪ [lighthearted melody] ♪ ♪ My epic journey across the UK is sadly coming to an end.

But where better to finish than glorious Cornwall?

I've made it to picturesque Padstow, a quaint little fishing town that in recent years has got itself a bit of a reputation for fine dining.

It's also home to my tour guide, Paul Ainsworth, and his Michelin-starred restaurant, No6.

And as it's nearly the end of my trip, I'm going to put my feet up for a while and let Paul cook.

I can't wait to taste it.

He's making a hogget pudding, which he'll fill with his special ragu recipe, which is made of lamb, veg, tomatoes, wine, port, and even seaweed.

Each pudding is filled, sealed, and steamed for 35 minutes.

And while they're cooking, he roasts salt-baked celeriac on hot coals, which is basting in Marmite butter.

He then pan fries lamb sweetbreads in oil and butter, and then finely slices some precooked tongue and then adds that to the pan.

He really has thought of everything.

But Paul's not just about creative cooking.

Presentation is just as important.

♪ ♪ And the finished dish is a real showstopper.

♪ ♪ All right.

- Thank you, chief.

- No problem.

Thank you.

This looks good.

Is it a local lamb, I presume?

Yes.

So in there, James, you've got quite a few cuts.

We've got sweetbreads, we've got the tongue, we've got the breast, and we've got the shoulder.

So the breast is inside the pudding.

JAMES MARTIN: So where did you get the idea of this thing from?

Where's this from?

PAUL AINSWORTH: Well, I love the classic dishes.

And I love the suet pudding.

And I was like, traditionally, a suet pudding is done with beef and beef fat.

And it was like, well, we get this wonderful hogget down here.

So that's hogget right now that you're eating.

And we were like, well, actually, let's take the fat and make our own suet.

So that's inside the pastry.

So we use our own fat.

And you've got beautiful salt-baked celeriacs because I just think celeriac and lamb is a lovely, lovely flavor.

JAMES MARTIN: I like the lightly pickled cucumber.

Yeah, she gives it a lovely freshness.

JAMES MARTIN: Cucumber is amazing with lamb, innit?

PAUL AINSWORTH: It's brilliant.

JAMES MARTIN: It's delicious.

PAUL AINSWORTH: Yeah.

Paul, this place is a hidden gem.

That is superb.

I would say cheers, but you're going back into the kitchen.

Yeah.

[laughs] Cheers to myself.

[laughter] What's for dessert?

Off you go.

Yeah.

[laughter] I'll crack on.

[laughs] Go on, tally-ho.

Would you like your shoes polishing?

Not-- not quite yet, no.

And just press my shirt for tomorrow.

That'd be great.

PAUL AINSWORTH: [laughs] [folk music] It's quite good having mates like this, isn't it?

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): And now, sadly, it's time to grab your hankies.

Yes, it's with a heavy heart I announce my final cook of the entire series.

But don't get too bleary-eyed.

It's a bit of a comedy ending-- fish with no chips or even a table to cook on.

And the tide's coming in.

It looks a bit like a harvest festival over here.

That's because our director wants to basically see this.

So it didn't really matter about me and a table.

So it's just randomly put on here.

But this is kind of like the perfect place, the perfect ending to end our series.

But the first thing we do, I'm going to make a little mayonnaise.

And for that, I'm going to use a little bit of Dijon mustard.

You can't make mayonnaise, really, with English mustard.

It's way too strong.

And then using a whisk, we'll whisk this together.

And then gradually, you want to pour in veg oil.

Gradually.

Now, you do this in stages.

If you add the oil too quickly, it splits.

So take your time of this.

And we mix this all together.

That looks pretty good to me.

And you've got this lovely thick mayonnaise.

See?

Who'd have thought you could make mayonnaise on the rocks?

Now into this, we've got this amazing brown crab.

Now, the thing is with brown crab, you've got to pass it through a sieve because you get little bits of shell and stuff like that in it.

But we whack in the brown crab and then mix this together.

And this creates a wonderful crab mayonnaise.

Bit of lemon.

Nice little squeeze of lemon, and then some salt.

I would put pepper in it, but I think it's just floated away.

But we just mix this together.

And then I'll pop that in our little pot.

So that is your-- look at that.

It's your beautiful crab mayonnaise.

So, so tasty.

Delicious.

Now, with this, we're going to deep fry the fish.

Over here is a bit of flour.

So we just put a little bit of bicarb in here, just to fluff up this batter.

But the key to this, really, is the sparkling water and what we've got over here.

This is the dulse.

You get it in its sort of flake form.

I served it to my mother once.

She said, it looks like fish food.

But-- which is, in theory, what it is really, I suppose.

It's lovely and salty.

It's like a natural seasoning, really, for this.

And then grab yourself some sparkling water, and you pour a little bit in here to start with.

And just mix this together.

To form a nice thick batter at first, get rid of all the lumps.

And then you add enough water to create this sort of nice thinnish batter.

You want that sort of texture, really.

Almost coats the back of a spoon.

That's what we're looking for.

And then we've got some gorgeous plaice.

I mean, just look at this.

Absolutely amazing.

You can tell plaice because it's shaped like a little diamond, and you've got these lovely little orange spots.

And then all we're going to do is take our fish.

And I'm going to do this in batches, really.

These have just been filleted, and pop them in really hot oil.

Now, if you're doing this at home, of course, use an electric deep fat fryer.

It's much safer.

[sizzling] It needs to be really hot oil.

While that's happening, we can have another drink because the tide's coming in.

[lively music] ♪ ♪ The Cornish Guardian.

"Plastic tunnel proves to be unusually attractive."

♪ ♪ I love Cornwall.

And then we just lift off our fish.

♪ ♪ Oh, look at this.

♪ ♪ And then we go again.

♪ ♪ However, this time, this is a little bit of home.

Scraps.

Scraps!

♪ ♪ We don't want very long in the deep fat fryer, but it needs to be nice and hot.

That's the most important bit.

Well, actually, the most important bit is this next bit-- scraps.

Scraps, scraps, scraps.

I used to go to a fish and chippy once a week at home when I was a young nipper, have one of each and a bag of scraps.

I used to eat the scraps on the way home.

[gentle music] See, I blame that for my waistline, nothing else.

But, look, take the nice little bit of crab, a few bits of lemon.

♪ ♪ Just-- just check this out.

[gasps] Just look at this.

It's like a nugget of gold.

♪ ♪ Now, I can think of no better ending to what was a brilliant road trip around the whole of the UK than to end it with this, fish in newspaper with a nice little crab mayonnaise and a beer.

Cheers.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): And there it is, one of my all-time seaside favorites, battered plaice complete with a delicious fresh crab mayonnaise.

And as Paul cooked for me earlier, I think he deserves a taste.

JAMES MARTIN: All right, go on then, boss.

Grab yourself a bit there.

I'll pass you a bit of fish.

Thank you very much.

Bit of lemon, eh?

PAUL AINSWORTH: Amazing what you've knocked up on a little rock face.

Yeah, it'd be a lot easier cooking it in your kitchen, to be honest with you.

But I wasn't allowed.

[laughs] Wasn't allowed.

[crunching] That is awesome.

That seaweed in the batter is lovely.

It's so light.

This is the perfect way to end the road trip, to be honest with you.

With your mates, that's how it should be, with tasty food, beautiful scenery.

Don't get any better, does it?

It could get a bit hotter.

But that's about it, really.

Oh, no, it's OK.

We started this journey, we were 32 degrees in the Orkney Islands.

PAUL AINSWORTH: I like it like this.

I suffer with prickly heat.

This is nice.

[laughter] JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): And that's it, the end of my amazing adventure across the UK.

And what a brilliant journey it's been.

I've traveled nearly 3,000 miles on planes, trains-- What the hell is this?

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): --and even tanks.

Oh, man, I can't see.

This is what happens when you let a Norfolk guy drive a tank.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): I've cooked with some incredible ingredients-- JAMES MARTIN: Fresh crab from the Orkney Islands, in the Orkney Islands.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): --in some stunning locations-- JAMES MARTIN: Look at that.

How amazing is that?

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): --and under some testing circumstances.

JAMES MARTIN: Just bear with me again on this one.

Look.

[laughs] JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): I've eaten in some interesting places-- JAMES MARTIN: This is random.

I've never been in a field full of cattle where I've been sat in a table having afternoon tea.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): --but had some unforgettable experiences.

How incredible is that?

What a magic bird.

It's a dream come true for me.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): And I've had the pleasure of catching up with some of my best friends.

Another few years, he'll be perfect.

[laughs] JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): I'll never forget this awesome journey across Great Britain.

This place has it all.

It really does.

And above all else, it's home.

[theme music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪