Now, I've been quite privileged in my job as a chef to travel to so many different countries.

But there is a place that has it all-- [adventurous music] From farmers to fishermen, planes, trains and automobiles-- ♪ ♪ Woohoo!

--and phenomenal seafood.

That is the finest ingredient in the world.

♪ ♪ How good does that look?

And it houses some of the greatest chefs in the world.

They just happen to be a few of my mates.

How good is that?

That's sensational, absolutely sensational.

♪ ♪ It's good suspension on a video.

♪ ♪ Where is that special place?

Great Britain, of course.

♪ ♪ JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): It's the penultimate leg of my incredible Great British adventure.

And I'm in Devon with my old mate, Michael Caines, MBE, no less, who just happens to be one of the UK's finest Michelin-starred chefs.

So why did you pick this area then?

Well, I born in Exeter, James, and grew up here.

And this is my home.

This is where my family is.

And I just wanted to stay in this region, stay in Devon, which is, of course, my home county.

And if you could-- you could sum up your hotel, your baby, your-- your pride and joy, because it is unique.

MICHAEL CAINES: Yeah.

Well, I like to describe it as a country house for 21st century guests in terms of trying to make sure that we give the-- the guests what people expect.

Now, it's not shabby chic.

It's chic and glamorous.

It's-- it's trying to simplify that by saying luxury and food and also accommodation brought together in this unique landscape.

It's 28 acres overlooking the River Exe estuary.

And it is just beautiful.

It's not a bad place.

It's all right, isn't it?

[laughter] JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Nestled down in the Southwest with the Bristol Channel to the north and the English Channel to the south and acres of national park in between, Devon is famed for its coastline and often referred to as the English Riviera.

The River Exe runs to the south.

And on its banks is the harbourside village of Lympstone, which Michael now calls home.

And what a place.

This is Lympstone Manor, a grade II listed Georgian mansion, which is now his country house hotel, Michelin-starred restaurant, and 10 and 1/2-acre vineyard where Michael's kindly allowed me to set up my mobile kitchen.

It is amazing, this place.

He's only had a few years.

But what he's done and what he continues to do is really his ethos in life.

He's just never happy to sit still, particularly what we've got behind us.

He's planted these since I was last here.

These are champagne grapes.

That's what he's hoping for, a little bit of rosé, possibly, but white wine, but acres and upon acres of vines for wine.

And I thought this would be a perfect dish, really, to celebrate everything that's around here.

Beautiful brambles I've got here.

I've got some amazing guinea fowl.

But this is an amazing dish.

This is like a little casserole, a little stew, very, very simple to make.

I've got some beautiful bacon.

Just check that out, big, fat back bacon, perfect for this.

And I'm going to use some guinea fowl for this one.

I'm going to get on to this little fella in a minute.

But the first thing I'm going to do is fry off the bacon.

So I'm just going to chop this into pieces.

[chopping] Now, what you want to do with this, if you want to have a go at home, is use the dry-cured bacon.

What they do is dry cure it.

What it's not done is put in a brine, which when fried, that brine turns to this horrible sort of foamy stuff.

What you want to do is fry this in our pan so it goes lovely and crisp.

So while that's frying in a pan-- it's going to take a couple of minutes-- we can prepare this little fella, the humble, little guinea fowl now native to Africa.

But this is now found right across the UK.

It's a fantastic bird.

But this, cooked, is fantastic.

And it's a great way to get into game, really.

If you like the idea of tasting game but don't want that strong flavor, this is a brilliant way to start.

So it's kind of like a pheasant, but kind of like a chicken.

Slightly darker skin, as you can see here.

And what I'm going to do is just cut this down into portions to make it easier to pan fry.

So we'll just take off the legs like that.

So you're equating it to, like, a little pheasant, really, I suppose.

And you can see because it's been corn-fed, you get this beautiful yellow to the fat as well.

So I'm just going to trim this up into legs and thighs.

Give that a quick whack.

We'll lose that out of the way.

So just break this down into little portions.

Now, unlike a lot of wild game birds, because this is farmed, you can eat the legs.

So many times with things like grouse and pigeon and that kind of stuff, because the nature of it roams around a lot, the meat, particularly on the legs, is quite tough, full of flavor but quite tough.

So I'm just going to break this down into portions, take off the little wings like that, lose those to one side and then break this carcass down.

So this is, like, for a stew.

So I'm going to do is chop it straight through the center here, like that, leaving the breast meat still attached.

Break it open and then just whack it either side like this.

Now, your butcher will do this for you.

It's just removing that center carcass.

You can use that for stocks and soups and stews.

Now, with this, there's quite a lot of skin on this.

So we just remove this a little bit.

I don't want too much.

Otherwise, that skin is going to turn into fat.

It's going to basically just grease up our nice, little stew.

All I'm going to do with this one is basically just trim this straight in half.

So insert your knife in, give it a whack, [banging] Right the way through, and cut all the way through the center like this.

So you've got two nice pieces of meat-- the legs and the thighs.

[sizzling] So once your bacon starts to crisp up a little bit and brown nicely, that'll give us our fat that we need to color our bit of guinea fowl.

But to thicken this sauce up, it's a good idea to use a touch of flour.

So a little bit of flour over the top of the meat.

We can season this up as well if you wanted to, salt and pepper, to start with.

But we're going to season it at the end anyway and just lightly coat the guinea fowl in the flour.

Just use plain flour for this.

You don't want too much.

This is not thick, heavy stew.

And what we're going to do is just pop our guinea fowl in here just to brown nicely.

[sizzling] Meanwhile, because I respect the viewers on this show, [sighs] I've gotta wash my hands.

[playful music] ♪ ♪ So once your guinea fowl starts to color a bit, so we're just going to seal off this wonderful, wonderful guinea fowl.

This is an amazing bird, this sort of stuff, the guinea fowl.

If you ever google it, it's got a face that only its mother would love, pretty ugly thing, to be honest with you.

But it's a great way to start, particularly with game.

Look at this nice, little bit of guinea fowl.

So when that's cooking away, we can turn our attention to the veg.

I've just got a little few aromatics here, some carrots, some shallot and leek.

And all I'm going to do is just chop these up nice and small.

At least I think they're nice and small.

[chopping] They're going to go into the pan, a few carrots, a few shallots.

The predominant flavor of this comes from the guinea fowl and the brambles that I'm going to put right in at the end.

There is a touch of sweetness as well, with a nice little bit of honey.

But I'm just going to use a few nice aromatic veg, particularly from the leeks, carrots, and onions.

So again, make sure they're quite small because we're not going to pass this through a sieve or get rid of them.

They're all going to go in there.

[sizzling] I love cooking food like this, very honest grub, simple grub.

A little bit of stock now, just a touch of stock, I'm going to pop that in there.

And what we want to do now is to basically just bring this to the boil and let that gently simmer.

Now, you can do this with a lid, which I've got on here just to help it along its way.

Gently simmer this for about 30 minutes.

[coughs] [slow tempo music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ So after about 20, 25 minutes, what you'll end up with is this.

Oh, just look at this.

It's just beautiful piece of meat there.

It's just nicely cooked.

But I'm going to flavor this with just a tiny little bit.

Now, this is unlike me, a tiny bit of cream.

What you'll find over this-- forget about me for a minute.

Look, get in here.

You'll see this little layer of fat.

This is the corn-fed part of the Guinea fowl.

This comes from the skin.

You get a little bit of this coloring on the top.

Now, it sounds really weird that you add fat to get rid of fat.

But you do, you add a touch of cream to get rid of it.

But we're just going to add double cream to this, only a little bit at first, and then mix this together.

And it will turn a nice stock into a wonderful sauce.

♪ ♪ And then we can think about adding the final few flavors, really, as this starts to come back up to the boil.

And I love to add sweetness with this.

So just a little bit of honey, I think, goes really well with gamey meats, so just a little drizzle of honey.

I'm going to add a touch of sweetness, of course, with the brambles in a minute.

But we can season this up with some black pepper-- [grinding] And some salt.

And what game does, it creates and goes with quite gutsy flavor.

So that's why the brambles are perfect for this but also herbs like tarragon.

Just put a touch of tarragon in at the end.

This really is just good enough to eat as it is, to be honest with you, like that.

But I'm just going to leave this simmering just a little bit longer before I add the brambles.

You want this liquor as it cooks to reduce down.

You can tell the meat is nice and cooked because the meat just comes away from the leg bone like that.

Means it's nicely cooked inside.

So a bit more-- ah, honey just makes all the difference.

You don't want it too sweet because we've got these amazing brambles.

Now, these are fabulous, these wonderful, little brambles, gardener's nightmare but chef's delight.

That's how I class brambles because they are horrendous to get rid of in your garden.

But what I've got in here is a beautiful selection of brambles.

Now, these want to go in at the last minute, really.

So once you get the seasoning in there, almost turn it off.

Now, I'm going to lift this off, pop this on our board.

♪ ♪ And then finally, just serve it up.

What you want with this really is crusty bread or mashed potato, that kind of stuff.

But I kind of equate this to a classic French stew, really, which lends itself so well together with this place behind me, because Michael is so classically French-trained.

♪ ♪ It's just colorful.

It says everything about this time of the year.

See, I love food like this.

♪ ♪ I love its honesty.

It sounds ridiculous.

But everything's cooked in one pan.

You haven't decanted anything.

You haven't lost any flavor.

You've got beautiful guinea fowl in there.

It's an ingredient that we should use a lot more of.

It's farmed in the UK now.

So if you see it, buy it and use it.

Because when it's cooked like that with those brambles, that is a fantastic plate of food.

Cheers.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): My hearty, bramble-infused Guinea fowl and bacon stew.

Delicious.

[lively music] Now, I'm at Michael's country house hotel.

This place is proper posh.

It's got all the bells and whistles.

And now he's invited me to the engine room, his Michelin-starred kitchen, where it's fair to say, I'm expecting great things.

So what are you going to be making, then?

Well, first of all, the first story to tell is Exeter crabs.

These are from the Bay of Lyme.

So literally, as you look outside, these are cock crabs which we've got.

We cook them in simple aromats of thyme, bay leaf, and peppercorns and coriander.

So that-- that then gives us this lovely-- I'll get rid of that.

So you're making-- you're making a tortellini, technically.

- Yeah.

So this is great.

So we're going to basically make a tortellini of crab with lemongrass and ginger sauce.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): This is one of Michael's signature dishes, all thanks to an abundance of fresh, local ingredients.

This is what's amazing about the crab from down here, the massive flakes of crab, aren't they?

MICHAEL CAINES: They're huge.

They're from the claw meat, but also in the bodies themselves.

It's not overcooked.

There's still a bit of moisture because we're going to cook this tortellini again.

So you don't want that crab to go away.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Michael's only been open two years.

But I'm not surprised he's got people flocking here in their droves.

JAMES MARTIN: I've known you for what, 16 years, something like that, 17 years.

And this is probably the most relaxed I've seen you cook.

I don't think the team will agree with that.

But-- MICHAEL CAINES: Everything about Lympstone is a product of my imagination.

So I've created a place where I feel at home.

So if I can't feel relaxed about the food I cook here, then I'm not going to find that relaxation anywhere.

And here, that's really, really what I wanted to create, a place where I feel comfortable cooking the food I enjoy cooking but also I know my customer enjoys eating.

And it's very much related to this wonderful landscape that we have, which is important too.

So-- - Nearly-- nearly there, then.

MICHAEL CAINES: Nearly there.

[light classical music] We have the tortellini, which we put in here.

And then just take our pink grapefruit around the plate.

And then we have our batons of ginger.

And then we have our sauce, which we've monter'd au beurre and drizzle that around.

And then we have our coriander oil.

And then we have some coriander shoots, which we're just going to use.

♪ ♪ And then that's it.

So there we have, crab raviolo with lemongrass and ginger.

Not bad, that, is it?

It's all right.

Simple enough.

Go on then.

JAMES MARTIN: Go on then.

♪ ♪ Seems a shame to ruin them, but hey.

♪ ♪ That's fantastic.

Great combination.

You're not bad at this, are you?

Well, you know, not a bad day job.

I'm not going to give it up just yet.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Michael is also famous for his afternoon tea.

So in his honor, I've got something planned that's right up his street.

I'm going to make a lovely lardy cake because it's said to originate from Devon.

So the first thing we're going to do is take our flour.

I've got some plain flour in here.

And then we add our lard.

We do have something similar to this up north called dripping cake.

But that's more like a fruit cake, more like a fruit loaf.

It doesn't have yeast in it.

But this must be done with lard.

Now we can add our sugar and a pinch of salt, [whirring] Just a little pinch of salt.

That's going to go in.

Now, the rising agent is fresh yeast.

There's no eggs in this.

So we want a little bit of fresh yeast, touch of that.

You can use the dried yeast, the sachets, which are fine.

But fresh, to be honest, I think is best.

Grab some water.

Now, as long as the water is not hot, you're fine.

One thing that will kill yeast is heat and pop it in to the mixture.

And then slowly add enough water to form a dough.

It's all to do with visibly looking at it and seeing the texture of the dough.

Now, once you get to that stage, this is perfect.

You can see that.

Now, to a lot of people, when they're making bread at home, I think this is the common mistake, is they don't put enough liquid in.

You can see the texture of this.

It's tacky, which is exactly what it should be.

That's the moisture content that we need in there that's going to keep our cake, our bread, nice and moist when it's cooked.

If it's dry when it goes in the oven, it's going to be really dry when it comes out of the oven.

So a little bit flour on here, [bright music] And then we can incorporate our bits of dried fruit.

I've got a little bit of sultanas, some raisins, a little bit of candied peel, a little bit of flour, and just carefully fold this in.

You don't have to be too precise.

I quite like the idea of it being layers as well.

You want to mix it enough so it's not one solid lump.

By doing this, the fruit doesn't break up.

Try not to be tempted to add too much flour to this.

And then once we've got to that stage, pop it into our little mold.

And then you need to leave this to prove.

Now, you can cover it if you want, just with a cloth.

But either way, leave it somewhere warm, like an airing cupboard or somewhere like that.

And what you end up with after about an hour is this mixture here.

Don't tap it, just leave it because that's the yeast that's making it rise like that, like bread.

But what I've done is set the oven about 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

That's about 160, 170 degrees centigrade.

And pop this in the oven.

And this is going to cook now for about 45 minutes.

Now with this, we're going to make a wonderful little glaze.

And for that, we need some water in the pan and caster sugar, not icing sugar.

And we bring this to the boil until you get a nice, thick syrup.

♪ ♪ And then I've got one that's been cooled down nicely easily over here.

So what we have to do now is glaze it.

You get this lovely, thick syrup.

And it creates this wonderful glaze on it.

♪ ♪ And then I can lift this off and then serve it.

You've got to serve this, of course, with a little bit of raspberry jam and some clotted cream.

But it's not until you carve it where you get the unique texture, a sort of lardy cake.

Kind of looks like a panettone, really.

You can change this slightly if you want to put spices and stuff like that in it, and turn it more like a panettone.

♪ ♪ And usually at this point, the director likes to take pretty shots of this.

Not now.

This is my moment.

A bit of jam.

Now, we've got people from Cornwall watching this.

We've got people from Devon watching this.

I'm going to put it on the side.

I'm going to do another thing.

I'm going to fold it up into a sandwich.

♪ ♪ It's kind of like a pimped up scone, if there is such a thing.

That's what it is, a pimped-up scone.

And there it is, my twist on a conventional afternoon tea, lardy cake with dried fruit.

I wonder if Michael would ever put it on his menu.

[light music] JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): I'm in Devon, where I've been hanging out with my mate and Michelin-star chef Michael Caines.

♪ ♪ And now I'm heading inland to Dartmoor, where there's a very special farm hidden away near the town of Chagford.

I'm meeting Ed Hamer, who set up Chagford Community Market Garden back in 2010.

But this is no ordinary allotment.

With five acres of luscious Devonshire land, he grows enough veg to supply over 100 local homes with amazing fresh produce every week.

It's what you might call the ultimate veg box scheme.

JAMES MARTIN: Well, firstly, can I say, I think this is such a great idea.

It's brilliant.

Yeah, well, it's quite unique in the UK, the model of getting people to subscribe for a veg box.

There's several veg box schemes.

But the idea of people signing up for a year in advance really helps to give small farmers like us the security we need to guarantee a market throughout the year.

But often veg boxes are, dare I say, not a gimmick, but they're shipped all over the place.

This is very much local.

- Absolutely.

Every one of our members is connected to the farm in some way.

All our boxes go out within about a seven-mile radius to five different villages.

And yeah, members can come and get involved on the farm.

Or they can just receive a veg box if they want as well.

JAMES MARTIN: You've got a whole mixture of different things here.

Yeah.

we're growing 100 different types of veg across five acres here.

We grow everything from spuds through to the leafy greens and onions and squash and tomatoes and things.

JAMES MARTIN: So this is what, once a week?

ED HAMER: Yeah.

So we do a veg box every Thursday.

We're doing about 110 veg boxes a week at the moment.

- Really?

- Yeah.

So there's still a lot of work for you.

Yeah, of course.

Yeah, it's plenty of work.

But yeah, we're young and fit for now.

JAMES MARTIN: So what I love about it, it's kind of people-- people like the idea of allotment but don't realize how hard it is.

So something like this is the best of both worlds.

Essentially, yeah And they have the opportunity to come out on the farm and get involved if they want to.

But likewise, if they just want to receive the veg box, that's equally fine with us.

Yeah.

Well, talking of getting involved, I've seen some spuds.

I've spotted some over there.

Can we dig some up?

ED HAMER: Yeah.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): I love the fact that Ed's members can pitch up and help out.

It's a great way to connect people with their food and where it comes from and, most importantly, how it's produced.

It's hard ground, isn't it?

It is hard ground.

Well, we have had a dry summer, see, so it's made the ground pretty difficult for a lot of things, but finally dried out enough to get the spuds out, which is great.

JAMES MARTIN: So what variety have we got here?

ED HAMER: So these are called Nicola.

They're quite a good second early organic variety.

And we grow them for the second earlies this time of year.

But we also grow them as storers.

So we'll put them in the potato clamp and keep them going right the way through till March next year.

And on an average, how many different types of veg have you got for people who do this a week?

ED HAMER: So it varies-- JAMES MARTIN: What would be looking for in their box of goodies.

ED HAMER: So about this time of year, it's kind of peak season.

So people are getting 14, 15 different varieties of veg in their boxes each week.

But obviously throughout the season, it kind of goes down, so from December, January onwards, down to about seven or eight.

But we always keep a good variety of roots and leafy greens going through the season as well.

You get many digging up their own spuds?

Yeah, we do.

Regularly on our harvest day on a Thursday, we get at least five or 10 other volunteers of our members come and get involved as well.

They love it.

I think it's a brilliant idea.

ED HAMER: Thank you.

- Brilliant idea.

It's good, that.

Thank you, boss.

You're welcome.

[bright music] JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Members don't just find out where their food comes from, they get to know what is grown in which season.

JAMES MARTIN: Well, this looks good.

Yeah.

There's a variety of kale called nero di Toscano or cavolo nero.

We grow a lot of it for our winter boxes.

Yeah.

It helps to keep the boxes full sort of in January or February, when other things are a bit lean.

Lovely.

And it is delicious to eat, ain't it, this stuff.

It's fantastic.

Fantastic stuff, yeah.

You can do it in a stir fry or in a stew.

Or we often do it raw with lemon juice.

It's quite a nice way as well.

We do it.

JAMES MARTIN: Please don't tell me you supply recipes as well, this.

ED HAMER: We do.

Yeah, we do recipes in boxes each week.

Yeah, absolutely.

Just to give the members a few ideas of what to do with what's in the boxes.

Yeah.

I love that you call it the members.

I think it's a unique club.

- Absolutely.

- Fantastic club.

ED HAMER: It kind of takes the emphasis away from them being customers and more part of the farm, you know.

- Yeah.

See, look at that, freshly picked.

And I'm assuming down into the villages-- - Absolutely.

- --this afternoon.

Yeah, this afternoon.

Yeah.

You don't get any fresher than that, do you, really.

Without the hassle.

What a great idea.

I'm going to leave you to carry on.

Can you grab me a few more bits and pieces?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Meanwhile, I want to see something.

I've spotted something on this farm.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): I'm seriously impressed with everything this farm has to offer.

And I'm not just talking about its produce.

Now, this trip so far around the UK has been amazing.

But I cannot tell you how excited I am.

As I drove up the lane here, I spotted this, a Massey Ferguson 135.

This is exactly the same tractor in exactly the same nick.

But literally, I used to drive this.

This is my first experience of driving a vehicle on my own.

Literally, when I was about six years old, I was in this seat, driving one of these on the family farm.

I couldn't even sit and reach the pedals.

I used to stand and drive it just by jumping my left and my right foot down on the clutch, literally three forward gears.

It's exactly the same-- reverse, high and low, throttle.

It's ace, simple, simple engineering built between the '60s and the mid-'70s.

This is proper.

I've got to have a go.

I've got it.

[engine starting] I always wanted my own tractor.

Right.

It's quite simple.

You've got a throttle here.

Select high.

This really does bring back memories of my childhood.

Here we go.

A bit of throttle.

[upbeat music] Here we go!

How cool is this?

Come on, you beauty!

This is so wicked!

[lively music] ♪ ♪ The best thing ever made, JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): It really is, I promise you.

What an amazing place.

And it's got me really excited to cook something very special using some of that great veg.

Now, this is really a great dish.

This is calves' liver with this beautiful cavolo nero, black cabbage with an onion gravy.

I'm just going to make a nice, little mashed potato with it.

But it's all about the sauce to start off with because we've got these amazing onions.

Now, first of all, we want to slice these nice and thin.

Once you get the onions nice and thin, turn the heat up.

And then to start with, we use just a small amount of oil.

Just some normal veg oil will be good.

And these are now just going to brown off.

They take a couple of minutes.

[sizzling] I'm going to turn my attention to the mash now.

So these amazing potatoes that I picked, all I've done with these is basically just peel them, brought them to the boil, and then dried them out.

So once they've drained off, put them back in the pan, give them a quick mix till all the water evaporates off, and then pass them through a potato ricer.

I'm just going to add a little bit of butter and some double cream.

You can make this with milk.

So heat this up, mix it all in.

So a quick season of that because it doesn't take very long, bit of pepper, [grinding] A bit of salt.

But you can see that mashed potato is now ready.

That's the texture that you're looking for.

We'll leave that off to one side.

Just keep it warm.

And then over here, you can see we've got these lovely onions.

Now, at this stage, we can then start to heat up our pans.

Now, to add some liquid into this, I'm going to turn my attention to some Madeira.

You don't have to use Madeira.

You can use a little bit of red wine.

Flame it.

Just gets rid of the alcohol.

We don't want too much.

Now, I can add this stock.

This is ready-made stock.

It's brilliant, this stuff, nowadays.

You can see the texture of it.

It's gloopy, gelatinous.

It's perfect for a quick and simple sauce to make at home, saves you so much time as well.

[light music] Now, the calves' liver, what we're going to do with this is just cut this into like, scallops, really, I suppose, for this one.

Calves liver just tastes fabulous.

But it has to be cooked nicely.

You've just got to cook it really simply.

You've got nice slices of the liver there.

All I'm going to do is just season it with salt and pepper, plenty of seasoning over the top like that.

And instead of using the oil, which I used to make the onions and the sauce by adding butter to the pan when it's nice and hot like that, we can get this beautiful color.

So, really hot pan, in we go with the liver.

♪ ♪ You see you get this lovely, foaming brown butter, which is what we want.

Quickly wash my hands because this liver is almost cooked.

Now, what you want to make sure is that it's nice and pink in the middle.

And to do that, watch it cook halfway up the side.

Then, and only then, do you turn it over.

So we can just flip this over now.

And you can see we've got this gorgeous color.

[sizzling] And just gently let that cook away nicely.

It's going to take a couple of minutes on that side.

Meanwhile, we can turn our attention to the cavolo nero or black cabbage.

Really simple to cook, this.

Water.

And we create an emulsion with this.

And it's a mixture of water and butter.

And if you mix this together more or less equal quantities, it makes a lovely little sauce.

And all we do with the cavolo nero is you can chop this up.

Now, when you get it this fresh and it's really good in season, you can basically trim it all the way.

You can eat all the stalks and everything.

And then nice hot pan and then we throw in our cabbage.

Liver is just cooked now.

We'll just leave that off to rest.

Black pepper, that's the key to this as well.

[grinding] And a pinch of salt.

Now, just keep it on the heat.

It'll wilt down a little bit as well.

So you can see it just emulsifies into this wonderful little sauce.

Talking of the sauce here, this is finished.

And the French have this wonderful name called "monter au beurre."

It's to add butter to a sauce to enrich it.

Stir it around.

[tapping] And then finally, what we're going to do-- this is the crucial bit, I think-- sherry vinegar, just a little drizzle of sherry vinegar.

And then we've got our lovely mash.

And then we can just simply plate this.

So get your mashed potato.

You've got your lovely cabbage.

And this just simply cooked from that freshly picked organic veg.

They're so lucky, those people who live around that village, to have food like this, I think that way of having an allotment but without the grief because I've got a veg garden.

And I realize how much work it is to produce the veg for your table.

But look at this, [light music] Gorgeous onion gravy over the top.

Now, that is one of my favorite dishes to eat.

It's just delicious, JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): And there it is, my calves' liver with onion gravy served with mash and cabbage.

No tractor.

[upbeat music] I'm in Devon.

And now I'm heading back to the coast to meet a man with some serious mussel.

♪ ♪ This is Miles of Exmouth Mussels.

He and his team have a sustainable method of collecting mussels.

So it's time to hit the estuary to find out how.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Now, I don't know what I'm looking at, really, and what it's supposed to do.

[laughs] Right.

It's not started up yet.

What is it, this thing?

Basically, this is a bottom culture fishery.

Right.

So this is the way that mussels have been designed by nature to be fished.

They settle in beds.

- Yeah.

And this is what I call the proper British way to-- to farm mussels.

Now when I've been on a mussel boat before it's so-- it's been ropes, so that you literally attach the rope to a crane, lift them up.

That's-- I remember.

I've never seen anything like this.

Is anybody else doing it like this, like the way that you're doing it?

- Yeah.

There's a couple of boats that do this around the country.

There's one in Poole Harbor, been doing it for a long time.

But this boat has been developed by you, though, ain't it?

You can't just go out and buy this thing.

MILES: No, you can't.

You can't really go and get one of these.

And you certainly couldn't run one without quite a lot of experience.

What happens in this river is that the baby seed, the mussel seed, lands on the sandbanks at the mouth of the river.

And it always gets smashed up.

It always gets smashed up.

It's what they call an ephemeral bed.

And this is seed from the mouth of the river this year.

And you can see it's come out of the plankton there.

It's absolutely stunning.

JAMES MARTIN: Yeah.

MILES: And there's an awful lot of it.

You left that now where it is now, and it'll all be smashed up and lost.

So what we do is we go down there and we take this.

And we move it in here.

So we're not damaging-- we're not damaging the environment where we're taking it from because it would be lost.

And then we're putting it in the river here where it will provide habitat solutions and feeding opportunities for the next two years for the birds and the fish and the prawns and everything else and all the crabs.

I mean, the fishermen who do the peeler crabs here, what we do is we provide a stable supply.

And so their crab populations get bigger and bigger.

And they like it when we put the mussels in because they're getting tremendous amount of peeler crabs.

They're not so keen when we start taking them out again.

But obviously, to be commercial, to be able to do this, you need to be able to take them out when they're full size.

Now, I'm amazed to see this thing work.

Can you fire it up?

- Yeah, yeah.

We'll stick it on.

Yeah.

Brilliant.

[lively music] JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Apparently, this thing is a self-fluidizing elevator, a sort of shellfish stairlift or escalator.

It's different to conventional dredges, as the mussels are gently teased from the riverbed without damaging or disturbing the surrounding environment.

♪ ♪ That's quite a haul.

So it's time to head back to the docks where Miles and his team clean, grade, and purify today's catch.

♪ ♪ Once properly prepped, they're packaged, ready for the customer.

♪ ♪ I can't wait to cook with some.

♪ ♪ And what better backdrop than the glorious grounds of Lympstone Manor.

It is an amazing place, this, you know.

It really is.

And you see it, particularly if you're here for the whole day, the weather changes massively.

But you can see how tidal this is.

You wouldn't believe there's all those mussels underneath the water.

I'm going to keep it really simple.

I'm going to do mussels cooked with cider and bacon, nice and simple.

So we're going to start off with a simple array of veg.

I've got some onions, some garlic, and celery, just a few base veg to start.

Now, when you're cooking mussels, particularly like this, the style of moules mariniere but it's not, have all the ingredients prepared beforehand.

And it's a good idea with this to dice them nice and fine because mussels only take a couple of minutes, three, four minutes max, to cook.

So you want to make sure all the veg that you put in the pan cooks all evenly as well.

So take some onion, [slicing] Nice and thinly sliced and then finely chopped.

[chopping] Chop that all through there.

Garlic, do the same.

So garlic-- garlic, of course, great combination with mussels, so a couple of balls of garlic is perfect for this.

Just peel it nicely Kind of, you know, you're here, beautiful river behind me, amazing seafood.

Look, simple simple, simple stuff.

A bit of garlic, and what I'm going to do with this is just basically use a knife and press it.

But this is because it all cooks nice and quick.

Right.

A little bit of garlic.

And then I've got some celery.

Now, you don't often use celery nowadays.

I think it's all fallen out of favor.

People who are on diets sort of eat celery.

But we're just going to chop this up, again into small pieces-- [chopping] Like that, so nice and diced.

So everything's kind of ready, really.

And then I'm going to use some bacon for this.

Now this is smoked, streaky bacon, slightly salted again.

So what we have to do, really, is get that bacon the same sort of size as everything else.

So I'm going to grab some butter, nice, little knob of butter, and get frying the bacon.

[sizzling] Just get a little bit of color on the bacon first.

[tapping] And now we can put in our onions and garlic and our celery.

And we want to cook this down a little bit.

But even before we add our mussels-- again, these mussels are only going to take two or three minutes-- so sweat the veg down, get all that flavor out of it first with the bacon.

And when your onions, garlic, and celery start to soften nicely, you can then think about the rest of the ingredients, really.

It's just the side of the cream of the mussels.

This is sea aster, wonderful, wonderful, purpley, pinkish flower around the coastline around July, September.

It's a fantastic ingredient to throw into here as well.

And it's actually, like, a natural seasoning.

But then the liquid side of it-- again, we haven't put the mussels in yet.

We're going to deglaze it with some of this wonderful little cider.

That's going to go in.

And then I'm going to add some double cream.

So it's usually about equal quantities of each, roughly.

Double cream.

Black pepper.

No need to put any salt in here whatsoever.

We'll give this a nice, little stir around.

You almost finish the sauce, as it is really.

And as this starts to come up to the boil, I'm going to add a nice, little knob of butter because you cannot cook this kind of food without a little knob of butter in there.

And then, really, it's the turn of the prize ingredient, these mussels.

And it's the perfect place to do this because if you think about how much preparation there is in there, look at these, beautiful.

They're so clean.

And this is because they're all done by hand and that fantastic machine that rotates and pulls out the beards, means that all you've got to do is just simply cook them.

You don't have to prepare them at all.

And it's all from literally just over there, inspiration enough.

You can see that now.

It's just starting to come to the boil.

Perfect.

We can throw our mussels in-- [clatter] Michael's got a big appetite-- and then give this a quick stir to get all that lovely flavor in.

Oh, these look good already.

Look, the color of that.

And then all we do, really, is close the lid and wait for about four minutes-ish.

[bright music] So when these mussels are just about cooked-- and they're not far off, keep the lid on-- all I'm going to do is just throw in a little bit of parsley.

So I've got some chopped parsley.

It's going to go in there.

Keep the lid on because it blows away.

And then I'm going to take this amazing bread.

Now, if you ever come down to this hotel, you have to taste the bread.

It is just off the charts.

I've got this beautiful bread that I actually nicked from the kitchen, to be brutally honest with you, when Michael was on his lunch.

♪ ♪ But this is delicious.

I befriended the baker.

A little bit of oil and just toast this on here.

Mm.

I'm not going to do anything with garlic or anything.

I'm not going to rub it with cloves of garlic.

It's a totally different dish, that.

I'm just going to keep it nice and plain, just with some olive oil and a little of this toasted amazing bread.

♪ ♪ Look at the bread.

And you want plenty of bread with mussels, particularly like this, because you've got all this lovely sauce inside as well.

So stick a bit of that on it.

♪ ♪ And then this is it.

Lift this off.

Give this a stir.

Oh, look at that-- the cider, the mussels, the cream, the sea aster.

♪ ♪ And then grab our plate.

And it's literally just-- [clatter] ♪ ♪ This dish has got no pomp and ceremony, you know.

It's just fantastic ingredients.

Look, over the top of that.

And then this bread, you can just chop it up all the way around.

This is the kind of cooking that I love.

Look.

Pile it up.

♪ ♪ And everybody helps themselves.

Good honest grub, I love dishes like that.

And it's the kind of perfect setting for it, really.

These mussels, from just over there.

Cheers.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): What a treat, fresh Exmouth mussels cooked in cider and bacon.

I wonder what the local boy makes of them.

Right then.

I suppose we've got to taste these.

[laughs] What have you been up to?

You should be in the kitchen.

You haven't got time to be doing this.

This bread looks familiar.

Yeah.

Well, you know, thanks to your baker.

Yeah.

I mean, you gotta admit, these mussels are delicious, aren't they?

Oh, absolutely ace.

It's literally straight from over there.

It's a magical place, this, boss.

It is, isn't it?

But this is what it's all about.

It's that connection from the sea and the land and a sense of place but-- as you perfectly demonstrated with this wonderful dish.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): I've had an amazing day in glorious Devon.

I've met a community farmer and relived my childhood.

How cool is this?

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): I've been fishing for delicious mussels out on the River Exe.

And this is what I call the proper British way to farm mussels.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): And I've spent time with a very talented, Michelin-starred chef and my mate, Michael Caines.

I will be back.

I look forward to having you back.

It's always great to have you here.

This is delicious.

Thanks for a great day.

- Pleasure.

[theme music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪