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>> ANTHONY BOURDAIN: In this episode of The Mind of a Chef, we head back to where April Bloomfield cut her teeth as an up-and-coming chef: London.

She cooks walnut tagliatelli with her mentor, Ruth Rogers.

>> ROGERS: If you have few ingredients, every ingredient has to speak for itself.

>> BOURDAIN: Scotch eggs with chef Rowley Leigh.

>> LEIGH: I like the way you try and get me to do your work for you.

It's not going to work.

>> BOURDAIN: Prepares rabbit pie with the legendary chef Fergus Henderson.

>> HENDERSON: There's something so pervy about pie.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Pervy?

>> BOURDAIN: And imagines what could have been if she'd followed her childhood dream of becoming a cop.

Enter The Mind of a Chef.

♪ ♪ >> BOURDAIN: London, England, is where as a young chef, April Bloomfield learned how to cook.

Really cook.

Everything you love about April and her cooking in her restaurants in New York City is in one way or another rooted in her experiences here in London, England.

>> BLOOMFIELD: When I got to London, I knew I wanted to progress.

I didn't really want to go sightsee; I was there to do a job.

I just wanted to work hard.

I wanted to just work.

You know, I wanted to be good at something.

>> LEIGH: I sneak in here when I'm supposed to be walking my dog.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Go for a quick pint.

>> LEIGH: And have a quick pint.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Without the missus knowing.

>> LEIGH: They serve very good beer.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Yeah, this is delicious.

>> LEIGH: They bring a nice pail of water for the dog.

And, uh, I just like it.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Rowley Leigh was my first chef.

Full of knowledge, very passionate guy.

When I went to work for him, there was a group of people that had kind of started to change English food in London.

So this was like 1987.

They just elevated everything.

He was one of those guys that kind of did that.

You know, I grew up in pubs.

Basically my family used to have their birthdays there, or just kind of generally go out to the pub.

>> LEIGH: Yeah, there's lots of sort of autobiographies of morally deprived children who were neglected by their parents, because the father used to sort of take them out on the Sunday and he immediately drove to the pub.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Yeah!

Yeah, see, that happened to me.

"What's going on?"

It's kind of nice that these chefs kind of come in and just redid everything.

>> LEIGH: It certainly is not just chefs, I think.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Restaurateurs, maybe.

>> LEIGH: The best thing here is the Scotch egg.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Well, let's get the Scotch egg then.

>> LEIGH: I never come here without having the Scotch egg.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Very classic English Scotch egg.

It's basically an egg with sausage on the outside.

It's been bread-crumbed.

Well, normally it was baked, but we fry it.

And it's basically a breakfast in one bite.

>> LEIGH: And this is what you call the butt, yeah?

>> BLOOMFIELD: Yeah, this is the butt, part of the shoulder.

This is salt back, which is really nice.

It's basically the back fat that's been salted for a long time.

So this is going to season our meat, which is cool.

It's like one less step.

So we're just going to shove it in like this.

I like making sausages.

So I'm just going to do it once more.

>> LEIGH: You are?

>> BLOOMFIELD: Yeah, just give it an extra, like, fine kind of texture, you know?

Do you want to have a go?

>> LEIGH: No, I'm all right.

(April laughs) >> LEIGH: I learned a long time ago to get other people to do the work.

>> BLOOMFIELD: You can see how the fat kind of incorporates.

>> LEIGH: Yeah.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Just a little bit more.

I like that.

I like that second grind, you know?

So that looks good, huh?

>> LEIGH: Beautiful.

>> BLOOMFIELD: It's nice and incorporated.

>> LEIGH: So simple, it's just lovely, you know, good ingredients.

>> BLOOMFIELD: So what I'm going to do is I'm going to add some sage that I pounded up.

It's really quite smooth.

Do you want to give that a little mix, or shall I?

>> LEIGH: No, I think you can do that.

I like the way you try and get me to do your work for you!

It's not going to work.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Um, I'm going to put something on it.

It's just kind of equal amounts of bread and milk.

Make it nice and smooth, you know, kind of bring it together.

And we'll just kind of mix that up.

>> LEIGH: But you don't want to overwork the mix, do you?

>> BLOOMFIELD: No, not really.

Smells good, huh?

>> LEIGH: Lovely.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Just salty and delicious.

It's going to be porky, can't wait.

I mean, it's just fun.

Sausages, Scotch eggs...

It's about four ounces of sausage.

You know, we worked on this so long, you know, to try and perfect it and make sure that we took out all the variables that could go wrong.

We just didn't want any... >> LEIGH: Yeah, because it's very simple, but it's a technical skill and has to be done precisely.

>> BLOOMFIELD: So basically, I have a little boiled egg that I boiled for seven minutes.

You just drop your egg in like this.

And then you just kind of keep knocking it down like this until it starts to kind of encase.

>> LEIGH: You seem to be enjoying your cooking very much more these days.

And you were always totally passionate about it, but you sometimes used to be sort of intense.

>> BLOOMFIELD: I think I used to be hard on myself.

>> LEIGH: You were very hard.

You were incredibly hard on yourself.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Yeah.

I just didn't ever think I was as good as I could have been.

You know, I was always trying to push myself more, to be better, and when things didn't go right or I messed up a little bit, you know, it'd be torture for me.

Say goodbye to the egg.

Bye, egg!

>> LEIGH: Bye, egg, yeah.

(April laughing) >> BLOOMFIELD: Ta-da!

>> LEIGH: Beautiful.

>> BLOOMFIELD: And then we're just going to put it in the flour, egg, and breadcrumb.

>> LEIGH: Yeah.

>> BLOOMFIELD: And the flour just helps the egg stick, and then the egg helps the breadcrumb stick.

You know how to do this.

>> LEIGH: Well, I do, actually, yeah.

>> BLOOMFIELD: You taught me how to... >> LEIGH: I might have done.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Yeah.

All righty.

That's it!

>> LEIGH: Beautiful.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Let's go fry these babies.

Do you want to give nine minutes' timer on that?

>> LEIGH: I like the idea of me being the technical.

>> BLOOMFIELD: I know.

>> LEIGH: Beautiful.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Aren't they amazing?

>> LEIGH: Yeah.

Okay, let's have a look.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Let's see.

>> LEIGH: Beautiful.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Not bad.

It's still a bit moist, which is good.

Want to have a little taste?

>> LEIGH: I think that's perfect.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Cheers.

>> LEIGH: Cheers.

That's good.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Good?

>> LEIGH: I love the sage.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Yeah, the sage is good.

Very English, the sage.

>> LEIGH: Yeah.

Good egg.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Thanks.

Thanks, Chef.

Oh, great!

>> LEIGH: Oh, look at that.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Great.

Mmm, that looks good.

>> LEIGH: That's a good yolk.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Yeah, I love the orange on it.

>> LEIGH: So I'm inevitably comparing it with yours.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Mmm, smells good.

There's some kind of cinnamon in there, I think.

>> LEIGH: Yeah.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Right?

That's good, because it kinda... >> LEIGH: Bit of cinnamon, bit of clove, bit of nutmeg.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Kinda gets your taste buds watering already.

>> LEIGH: Good crumb.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Mm-hmm.

That's really good!

That's better than mine.

>> LEIGH: I think the egg is better than yours, but I provided the eggs.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Yeah, I like this.

>> LEIGH: To be honest, I actually prefer your purer, less highly seasoned and flavored one.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Because you can taste the pork, you mean?

>> LEIGH: Yeah.

But you know, I told you, I eat these all the time.

They're really good.

They're very, very consistent.

>> BLOOMFIELD: What I got from you being my first chef was you kind of created this consistency in food that really built a great foundation for me as a chef, you know.

>> LEIGH: That's nice.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Like every piece of grilled fish with lentils and salsa verde, every fish had to be cooked perfectly.

Every fish had to be marked... >> LEIGH: That's a nice compliment.

People think learning is about, you know, you do it once.

>> BLOOMFIELD: And you just move on, but it's not.

>> LEIGH: But you know, what craftsmanship is about is because you've done it a thousand times and you know exactly how that fish behaves and a different batch of fish is slightly different.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Right, and then you realize how to cook it... >> LEIGH: And every time your fish comes in, you smell it and you look at it and you prod it and you think right.

So you've got to know it.

You know how it's going to behave, and you do.

And there's nothing you can... you couldn't put that in a manual.

It's just intuitive.

>> BLOOMFIELD: It's instinctive.

>> LEIGH: It's that sort of empathy you have, and that's what craftsmanship is about.

>> BLOOMFIELD: It's about perfecting.

>> LEIGH: It's about doing it over and over again.

>> BLOOMFIELD: And I learned that from you, which was good.

And for being my first full-time professional job, I mean, that was a great job to take.

That was where I learned to cook.

>> LEIGH: It was a happy day for both of us, wasn't it?

>> BLOOMFIELD: Aw, thank you.

I was 13 years old, maybe a little bit older, 14, and my sisters started cooking school.

Both.

And my sister used to come home, and she used to make tons of cakes, lots of cakes.

But the trouble is, these cakes all tasted the same.

It was kind of weird.

I think I was like, I'm not going to do that.

I want to do something that's different.

I wanted to help people too.

I think I originally wanted to be a social worker, and my mom was like, "No, you can't be a social worker, you'll get burned out."

So I had to go back to the drawing board.

And I was into police cop shows when I was growing up.

Like Cagney and Lacy, Chips, I loved all that stuff, I loved the drama of it, I loved the car chases, it was thrilling, you know?

Catching criminals.

So I was like, "Okay, that's what I want to do.

I'm going to join the police force."

So I put in my application form, and I procrastinated a little bit.

I missed my deadline.

I was like, "Well, that's it, I'm, like, doomed.

I don't know what else to do."

And at that point, my sister walked in in her chef whites, and I was like, "Maybe I'll cook.

"Why don't I do that for two years, "and then if I still want to join the police force, then I'll reapply."

So I went off to school, and I loved it.

I loved it.

I loved putting on my uniform, got really excited about all the smells and the kitchens, and everything just looked very professional.

I just lapped it up.

And then I forgot about the police force for a second, you know, and then I ended up just moving to London and working, and then like ten years later, I tried to reapply, actually, to the police force one more time, just to say I've tried.

But I got an application for something weird, like transport police, and I was like, "I don't want to do that."

I think that's probably at the same time that River Café happened.

It's just the timing.

It's like I was maybe always meant to do this.

(laughs): I have no idea.

It's so weird.

I'm here with my very dear friend Fergus Henderson in his home in Seven Dials, London.

He's been living here since he was 15.

>> HENDERSON: On and off.

>> BLOOMFIELD: On and off.

But we're going to make some rabbit pie, and you're the king of pies, I think, in London, right?

You make the best pies.

>> HENDERSON: Well, that's very nice of you to say so.

I'm quite keen on pie.

The whole sort of, you know, pie potential.

What lurks below the crust.

(April laughs) >> HENDERSON: This is a rabbit pie.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Mmm, nice fat, yeah?

>> HENDERSON: Mm-hmm.

Half bacon.

Give in.

>> BLOOMFIELD: That looks like a wild rabbit.

Is that wild?

>> HENDERSON: It's wild.

>> BLOOMFIELD: These ones are shot, then.

>> HENDERSON: Yeah.

This didn't even see what was about to happen.

Poor little bunny.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Vicious.

You're fierce.

>> HENDERSON: I miss meat.

There we go.

We have it chopped up.

And next, we have pie.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Should I put the bacon in there?

Wait?

>> HENDERSON: Like Motown, we'll build up a tune as we go along.

Okay.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Is that olive oil, Fergus?

>> HENDERSON: It's olive oil, a good place to start.

Then there's bacon.

The fat's rendered down.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Mmm.

>> HENDERSON: Shallots, garlic.

>> BLOOMFIELD: How come you cut them in half like that?

>> HENDERSON: They're sweeter, they're happier.

Plop these pieces in.

On the bone but we'll pull it off the bone in a moment.

Now the next step... >> BLOOMFIELD: Pig's trotter?

>> HENDERSON: A trotter weave, caught in its own natural jelly.

(April laughs) >> HENDERSON: Think of it as being in the chorus.

It's the star.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Under the radar.

>> HENDERSON: In you go.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Here you go, Fergus.

>> HENDERSON: Oh, they're really lovely.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Yeah, aren't they nice and juicy?

>> HENDERSON: Amazing, gosh, good prunes.

For good measure, a little bundle of thyme.

Essential ingredient.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Chicken stock, yeah.

>> HENDERSON: Now it's happily doing its thing here.

Should be in the pan about an hour and a half to two hours.

It should then be... >> BLOOMFIELD: Perfect?

>> HENDERSON: Yes, good word.

And I'm going to let it cool, take off the bone, and rest overnight in the fridge.

It'll have some time in the oven.

>> BLOOMFIELD: I'll help you pick it when it's all chilled, Fergus.

>> HENDERSON: They all say that.

>> BLOOMFIELD: He's great at what he does.

When he opened his restaurant, St. John, nobody else in England was cooking food like that.

He definitely changed the way people think about offal.

He's a big fan of cooking them, eating them, and just being super respectful of the whole animal.

>> HENDERSON: There we go.

Pie.

Right, you dove in.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Yeah, smells great.

>> HENDERSON: We lift the lid.

Pie looks happy.

>> BLOOMFIELD: That looks so good.

Thank you.

>> HENDERSON: There's something sort of pervy about pie.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Pervy?

>> HENDERSON: Its sort of bondage nature.

The containment of ingredients.

It's a dungeon.

Well, in any case, it's a pervy thought that comes to me about pie.

(April laughs) >> BLOOMFIELD: I had never thought about pie as pervy before, but now I'm really going to go away with that in my mind.

You make damn good pies, Fergus.

Don't be modest, now.

It kinda just makes me want to go back to New York and take a piece home.

You know, I feel kind of American, but I never forgot where I've come from.

So it's kind of, you know, it's a nice balance.

But it's nice to be here with you.

>> HENDERSON: What a joy to share a pie with you.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Aw.

It's great to break pie, Fergus.

Cheers!

>> HENDERSON: Cheers, that already has some quotation.

>> BLOOMFIELD: I know.

I love walking to work.

Having the opportunity to walk from home to The River Café, which was probably like 30 minutes, more if I ambled, it was the most amazing thing because I had the best job in the world, but I also got to relax before I went to work.

You know, I used to take a nice stroll, and I used to get to see these amazing buildings.

The Cambridge guys would be out here, just kind of practicing for their race.

It was just a great time.

Amazing time.

I'm at The River Café, London, in Hammersmith, with the lovely, most beautiful woman ever, Ruthie Rogers.

And we're going to make a walnut tagliatelli, which is like one of my favorite dishes.

This was the first thing I made at The River Café, and I spent probably a week cracking wet walnuts and making the sauce.

>> ROGERS: It's a very arduous sauce, yeah.

>> BLOOMFIELD: And it was such a simple sauce, and the fact that it was simple blew my mind.

But when I tasted it, it was like somebody had hit me on the head with a black pan.

>> ROGERS: With a walnut?

>> BLOOMFIELD: With a walnut, a very big walnut.

With a black pan.

And it kind of, you know, I ate it, I was like, "Oh, my God, what have I been doing for the last ten years?"

And I finally felt like I connected with something.

And that was amazing for me to experience.

So I don't know if you know that, but you saved my cooking career.

I was almost this close to giving up cooking.

>> ROGERS: Giving up cooking?

>> BLOOMFIELD: And I never...

I don't want to get too emotional, but I never thought I was good enough to work here.

>> ROGERS: Oh, my God, you were great.

>> BLOOMFIELD: So I'm so happy you picked me.

>> ROGERS: Oh, we loved you.

And I always say if you love them, let them go.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Yeah, I know.

>> ROGERS: We let you go, and it's so incredibly exciting what you've done.

So let's talk walnuts.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Yes, walnuts, so wet walnuts.

They're very much more fresh and walnutty, aren't they?

>> ROGERS: Yeah, they're very walnutty.

But they also have that kind of delicate, subtle taste.

But the thing you don't want from this pasta and the thing you want to avoid is it becoming dry, because if you think... you're putting a very dry ingredient, and so you need to wet it.

You wet it with the milk, you wet it with the olive oil.

You want it to kind of smooth over the pasta.

>> BLOOMFIELD: And it kind of reminded me of like a bread sauce, an English bread sauce.

>> ROGERS: Yeah.

>> BLOOMFIELD: I'm going to just... well, you know how to do it.

Do you want to pour some milk in there?

>> ROGERS: I'll be your assistant.

Nothing could make me happier.

>> BLOOMFIELD: So we're just going to blanch these like that.

Bring them up to the boil.

The next step is peeling the walnuts.

And then we can make the sauce.

These look good, don't they?

And they're kind of finicky to peel sometimes.

>> ROGERS: Well now, I have to tell you, the chefs don't peel the walnuts.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Oh, they don't?

>> ROGERS: No, we have our waiters.

They do all the cracks.

>> BLOOMFIELD: I'd love that.

>> ROGERS: You can see them down there.

A lot of unhappy faces when we say we're doing walnut pasta.

>> BLOOMFIELD: And they're all like... >> ROGERS: "Okay, this is really tough."

But they've learned, and when they're serving it, they can talk to the customers about it because they've... >> BLOOMFIELD: They've done it.

>> ROGERS: Now everybody's involved.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Ruthie, do you mind just putting that...

I've strained that milk that the walnuts were cooked in.

>> ROGERS: It's slightly stale, this bread, isn't it?

Need it to be pretty stale.

>> BLOOMFIELD: So it absorbs all that lovely walnut flavor.

All right, so we've got our bread, got our walnuts, garlic salt, got some parsley.

>> ROGERS: Do you have some marjoram?

>> BLOOMFIELD: I have some marjoram.

All right, let's get our walnuts in.

Now, you like a little mixture, right?

You like it a little small, a little kind of chunky... >> ROGERS: I like it quite fine, actually.

It's less dramatic.

I'm not for the drama, I'm more for the taste.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Exactly.

So now how much bread, I forget how much to put.

>> ROGERS: Well, you know, I don't think you can measure.

You just have to look at the proportion.

I'd put one more and that's it.

>> BLOOMFIELD: I like layered food.

>> ROGERS: What is layered food?

I've never heard of that.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Layered foods, you know, where everything's kind of blended together.

>> ROGERS: Oh, yeah.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Like kind of married, you know, like something sitting on top of something else, and you haven't got to think about it, you're just eating with your soul, you know, instead of your mind, and then you have this amazing experience.

Is that good?

>> ROGERS: Divine.

>> BLOOMFIELD: And then olive oil and parmesan.

>> ROGERS: Yeah, parmesan, because you need to loosen it up.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Looks good.

>> ROGERS: I think that's almost enough.

(spoon scraping against bowl) >> BLOOMFIELD: That's a nice sound.

>> ROGERS: Really nice.

Let's go.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Are we happy?

>> ROGERS: I think we are very happy, coach.

>> BLOOMFIELD: I think a lot of people think that rustic and simple food is easy to make.

>> ROGERS: No, it's the hardest.

>> BLOOMFIELD: But it's not at all.

>> ROGERS: It's really thought out, really planned, there's absolutely nothing, no shortcut... >> BLOOMFIELD: It takes a lot of effort.

>> ROGERS: Also because if you have few ingredients, every ingredient has to speak for itself, and if you have something that isn't, then it's... it's not hidden.

>> BLOOMFIELD: All righty.

>> ROGERS: Lovely.

That's divine.

Cooking together.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Brings back memories.

>> ROGERS: Brings back memories, I love you.

>> BLOOMFIELD: I love you too.

I get really emotional when I have to talk about Rose and Ruthie.

I just didn't ever think I was good enough, you know?

So I went there, and it felt like I found what I was looking for.

It's the simplicity of food sometimes where you get the most joy.

And I think that's why I like cooking the food that I do.

(whistling) I got offered this amazing opportunity to move to New York.

I'd been living in London for 14 years or something.

I was ready.

I was ready for a different experience, both cooking-wise and my life.

I mean, there was a little apprehension when I was leaving, because I was leaving an amazing job and I was taking this leap of faith.

When I made the decision, I went full-force and just packed up here and left.

>> Never looked back?

>> BLOOMFIELD: Never looked back.

It's pretty amazing.

I was so young.

I was like this high.

(laughs)