Bienvenue a France.

That's welcome to France to you and me.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): I'm traveling throughout this beautiful country to explore the very best in French cuisine.

Bon appetit.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): It's a personal journey.

It's just about the best place I've ever been to.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): It's where I learned to cook.

Now, this is spectacular.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): And it was the home and inspiration for one of my biggest food heroes, Keith Floyd.

And what's more, I've bought his motor.

This was Keith Floyd's very own car for 16 years and it's now mine.

Gives me goosebumps.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): So join me as I rediscover the food destination that has it all.

Look at that.

[giggles] [theme music] ♪ ♪ Now, I, like many, love Paris.

I love its hustle and bustle.

But you don't have to travel far out of the city center to find somewhere completely different, like this place.

And it was originally built as a hunting lodge.

It contains over 1,250 fireplaces, over 2,000 windows.

This, of course, is the famous Chateau de Versailles.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): And there's more than a handful of helpful buggies to get you around the place too.

[buggy honks] Just look at that.

I love stately homes, but this is ridiculous.

This magnificent example of French architecture was first built by Louis XIII in 1623.

It was then extended and then extended again, and wasn't completed until 1715, some 92 years later.

It's beautiful, isn't it?

And I've checked.

There's more than one kitchen.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): And it has more than its fair share of gold things.

When the chateau was built, Versailles was a small village.

But today, the landscape is very different.

And it's now a wealthy suburb of Paris, 12 miles from Notre Dame.

Suburban living never looked so good.

[upbeat music] When Louis built his pad in Versailles, part of its success was a market providing the best produce available.

This tradition still happens three times a week in the very same place it's always been.

No comment.

♪ ♪ This is delicious.

Not too sweet, not too sharp.

And the dish that I've got in mind for this is quite regal, really.

It's a dish that I used to do when I was at college, and it's a savory dish using grapes.

So often, we would just put grapes in a bowl and in fruit salad.

But when you cook with them, they taste amazing.

Merci.

♪ ♪ Now, wherever you look in this market, it's just full of amazing produce.

And I had to stop at this one as well, because you don't often see this in the UK really, or certainly available to buy.

We use it a lot in the restaurant, but turbot and halibut.

But then, for me, really, the King of all flat fish has to be Dover sole.

It's shaped like a rugby ball.

It's a beautiful, beautiful fish.

And for some reason, and I don't know why, but we export most of the stuff that we catch in the UK.

A lot of it comes from Hastings.

And the French and the Spanish absolutely love it, and buy it all, and sell it here.

We're mad.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): But today, there is one Brit buying some fish of the flat variety, me.

And I'm off to the king's allotment to cook it up.

Well, inside one of his greenhouses.

And there's a very good reason for that.

Now, I've come inside because the weather's turned for the worse.

But I'm going to create a wonderful dish, a regal dish, really.

Now, there are a lot of famous meat dishes in France, but I think the fish dishes are a lot less well known.

But there is one classic one that I used to do when I was at college that I'm going to show you now, which is Sole Véronique, very simple.

It's basically fish with a cream sauce served with grapes.

It's easy as that.

Really nice and simple.

Now, the first thing I'm going to do is prepare our Dover sole.

This is a beautiful Dover sole.

And what we're going to do is fillet this.

Very, very simple to fillet.

So, Rob, get down on this.

There's a natural line down the fish.

Look.

Look at that.

Nature's been really nice to us.

Now, all we do with that is basically take a knife.

What you want is like, a filleting knife really or a knife that bends more than anything else.

Try not to use one that's solid.

And there's two fillets on the top of the fish, two fillets underneath the fish.

And what we do to remove these, really simple, is you take the knife and you follow that line.

So when you start to cut, be quite bold with it.

Don't stop.

Keep going so the knife goes right to the bottom.

If you hear it-- [knife strums] --it's now touching the bone.

All you do is then lift off the knife and carefully with long strokes take the fillet off.

Now, you want to push the knife as close to the bone as possible so all the fish stays onto the fillet and not onto the bone.

It's really, really-- it's one of those things that it's practice makes perfect.

And you're going to end up with a nice little fish like this.

When you start off you'll end up with goujons and nuggets.

But if you persevere, you'll end up doing it very similar to that.

And what we want to do is just repeat the process to the other side.

When you watch a fishmonger do it properly, it really is something great to watch.

It's very simple to take the skin off flatfish and I'm going to show you that now.

Really, really simple.

All you do with this, hold the fish like that.

Knife is staying exactly where it is, and you wiggle it like that.

Backwards and forwards, the knife stays exactly where it is.

That's what happens when you wiggle.

The skin comes off.

So I'm just going to finish off the rest of it, remove the skirt.

There you go.

All I need really for this is two nice fillets.

And then what you're going to do is you're going to roll this.

Now, there are so many different sort of ways you can cook this, but one classically with veronique is what you call a paupiette.

It's basically a rolled fillet.

So you start off at one end and you roll it up.

It's one of the dishes that you kind of learn at college and you forget about, really.

It's not until you come to France and you think, do you know what?

I quite fancy cooking that again.

Because I remember the taste.

I remember the flavor.

But we just flip this over, do the same thing with the other side.

Roll it up.

Now, you will end up with different sizes.

Don't worry about that.

Now, It's kind of like a fish Swiss roll, I suppose.

Aye, you fighter!

Aye!

This is the most dangerous place in France.

I'm not very good-- I've got to be honest with you.

I'm OK at gardening.

I understand the difference between a butternut squash and a bit of kale, but I'm completely lost in here.

So there's going to be people phoning in.

This stuff is red.

It's a red bush.

I don't know what that is.

That looks dead.

And apparently, you can eat that.

This is just lethal.

Aye!

So spiky.

Now, what you want to do is keep the remains of the fish as well.

All the skin, all the bones, it creates an amazing stock that you need for your sauce.

Because that's what Véronique is.

It's poached or steamed paupiettes of sole, but the sauce is equally important.

A little bit of shallot, which we can basically just chop up.

You don't need to chop everything too big with a fish stock because the maximum time it wants to basically boil for is 20 minutes.

Beyond that, it goes bitter, so unlike sort of chicken stock or beef stock, which takes 24 hours to make.

And this is where you can use whatever veg you want really.

A little bit of fennel Some lovely parsley.

Then all we need is a little of white wine, just a touch, a bit of water.

And then, just for added flavor, it's not classically sole Véronique, but I couldn't resist getting these lovely fellas from the market, langoustine.

What we're going to do is basically just take the bodies of the langoustine, basically pop these in there like that.

While that boils away nicely, I can just prepare the veg that's going to go with this in courgettes, a few carrots, a bit of asparagus, and a bit of kale.

Keep it nice and simple.

Nice and classical really with this one.

Trim this off.

You don't want to basically just take too much of the carrot away.

But you can actually keep these trimmings as well because these lot can go into our stock.

So you don't waste anything with this dish.

So take your courgettes, chop these up like that.

Very simply, we're going to cook these just with some water, nice pinch of salt in there.

And while that's happening, I might have a glass of vino.

Does anybody know what that is?

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): I've since been reliably informed that it's a Japanese sago palm, an evergreen perennial with a stout, woody trunk and very dangerous leaves.

JAMES MARTIN: Pan's boiling away.

We'll stick our carrots and courgettes in.

So what we can do once we get to this stage, and the stock's nearly there, I'll get a bit of tin foil handy, like that.

And we'll grab some butter.

And then you take this nice bit of stock.

We can pop our lovely little paupiettes in.

You can sit on there.

They almost sort of clasically poach really, I suppose, but this is kind of poach and steam at the same time.

So we'll take a bit of tin foil like that, and just cook this.

This is going to take about sort of three or four minutes.

Meanwhile, we'll just finish off and prepare our asparagus.

I'll do it cheffy.

But things are not far off.

For our sauce, we keep it really simple.

Over here, Rob.

We've got these beautiful grapes that I've got from the market.

This is the most important thing with this dish.

You don't just put the grapes in.

You have to peel each individual grape, every single one.

The last time I put this on the menu was a function for 155 people.

1,600 grapes.

Two chefs left the kitchen shortly after that.

I've blown the grape, but it's a great dish.

So you've got a nice little pot of grapes here, just delicious, all peeled.

So we'll pop the langoustines in.

Now, lift off our little paupiettes.

These can come out like that.

We can leave these just in their own little parcel to keep warm, I suppose.

Now, over here, Rob, forget about me.

Look.

Look at this-- in this pan.

Look.

You've got all the gubbins, as I call it, all the loveliness in the pan.

What you need to do now is just drain this off straight into here.

And this is the basis of our sauce.

You don't end up with much, but what you do end up with packs a punch in terms of flavor.

What you need to do is bring this to a boil and cook it.

What I mean by that is reduce it.

The whole idea of a good sauce is by bringing it to the boil, and reducing it down.

As you reduce it, you intensify the flavor.

That's the key to this.

A little bit of butter.

Lift off our langoustines.

We just warm this through.

This is the veg, nice and simply cooked.

Just warm it through with a little bit of butter like that.

Take our langoustines and just peel them.

Fantastic nugget of meat.

Now we can start to think about finishing this sauce.

So we've got our grapes and pop them in.

And now we can pop our cream in.

And warm that through.

Just create a simple little sauce, a bit of salt, a bit of pepper, just a touch of kale.

Warm this through again with a bit of butter.

Now, I know what you're thinking.

This is a bit fancy.

It's a bit complicated.

But in essence, it's all about the sole, it's all about the sauce and the veg.

Classic cooking never fades.

Dishes like this should always be on the restaurant menu, you know?

I go in my own little world when I do stuff like this.

You know what I mean?

But you see, look where I am.

I'm in a greenhouse surrounded by lethal plants.

Well, you take a nice little dish like that, and then you take your sole.

Don't forget to take out the cocktail sticks.

And put your fish on.

Ho, ho, ho!

This is straight out of a 1980s cookbook.

Fighter!

Grapes.

[classical music] Now, I know what you're thinking, this is a bit poncy for me.

But, you know, sometimes I like fancy food.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Dover Sole Véronique.

♪ ♪ JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): So here I am in Versailles, in the shadow of one of the greatest chateaux ever built.

It's among this 17th century splendor where great ingredients are king.

And it's where Parisians come to do their food shopping.

This place encompasses everything that's great about this country.

You see, what I love about France, they embrace the old and the new.

Just over there, they're building the new fountain.

And the same can be said about the food.

And you're about to see a chocolatier with a difference.

Nice crane.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): I say chocolatier, but what I really mean is artist.

This is Patrick Roger and he is, shall we say, tactile with chocolate.

[speaking french] I love chocolate.

[chuckles] JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Of that, Patrick, I'm in no doubt.

In fact, he loves it so much, there's tons of the stuff in his studio in Sceaux, half an hour east of Versailles.

Patrick first got interested in working with it after he failed at school as a teen.

And now he doesn't just make amazing chocs, he creates incredible sculptures that start life in chocolate before being cast in bronze and aluminum.

This way, his creations can be appreciated well after their sell-by date.

Nice pumpkin.

As his colleagues produce deliciously shiny luxury chocolates, Patrick is creating a jungle next door.

It's the perfect material to melt, shape, and carve.

And today, Patrick's creating a massive elephant made with 2 tons of the stuff.

You know that crane I saw earlier?

It might come in handy when he tries to get his latest creation out of the studio.

It's only when the sculpture is finished that it gets cast in metal.

And you thought it was hard getting the foil off a normal-sized chocolate.

The highly-prized works are shown in art galleries and his own shop windows, of which there are six around Paris.

And OK, you can't eat the sculptures, but that's no bad thing.

Because if you wanted to buy one, it could set you back as much as 1 million pounds.

But don't worry, Patrick's more conventional chocolates aren't as expensive.

And around 10 million of these smaller creations are sold every year.

I wonder if he saved me one?

[upbeat music] Now, you don't have to be an artist to work with the stuff.

And here's an easy mousse recipe that you don't have to sculpt.

Now, I thought I'd do a dessert, a simple chocolate mousse, a classic French-style chocolate mousse with some amazing Madeleines.

Now, this chocolate is the same chocolate that Patrick uses.

It's around 70% cocoa solids.

The important thing is, I think, with chocolate is it shouldn't be too strong.

It's actually a misconception that the stronger the chocolate, the more bitter it is.

It's all to do with the quality of the chocolate more than anything else.

Now, also with chocolate mousses, you don't often put water in it, but this is a little tip.

To make the chocolate mousse nice and light, I add a bit of water to my chocolate.

Now, the best way to melt chocolate is over a bain-marie.

It's a nice word that otherwise translated to a pan of hot water.

And what you end up with is it's more like a chocolate sauce, really.

And we use this as a base for our chocolate mousse.

But the chocolate mousse is really straightforward.

It only uses two more ingredients really-- eggs and sugar.

And for that, we need to separate the egg whites to the egg yolks.

[upbeat music] Now when your chocolate is all mixed together and dissolved, we'll leave that to one side.

Meanwhile, concentrate on your egg yolks for this one.

So over a pan of hot water, add the sugar.

And then we're going to whisk this together.

That's all we need just like that.

Next, we whisk up our egg whites now.

And I know what you're thinking, why aren't you using a machine?

But there's only three egg whites in here.

Anyway, it's quite quick.

So once you've got to that stage, we'll lose our pan.

Because it's nearly there.

You're just combining all these ingredients together.

So you've got to make sure that the chocolate's melted with the water and then we add our egg yolks and sugar.

And mix this together.

Now, you can see as it's mixing, it's starting to lighten up the mousse.

Now, before you fully mix it in, you incorporate the egg whites.

And then this is where we fold it in nice and carefully.

[uplifting music] And all we do is we just pour our chocolate mousse into our pots.

♪ ♪ Now all we do is just pop them in the fridge.

It'll take about an hour to set, not very long.

Now, while those are in the fridge, I'm going to do another classic French dessert that can be a great accompaniment with chocolate mousse, Madeleines.

Now, these are from, sort of, the northeast region of France.

But first of all, we melt the butter in the pan.

And then in there, we can add our flavoring.

Now, the flavoring for this Madeleine is honey.

You can get different varieties as in flavors.

So what we're doing really is just melting the butter.

Don't get it too hot.

If you add the boiling hot butter to the flour, what you end up with is more like a hot water paste.

It actually cooks the flour.

Now, at the same time, we can throw all the rest of our ingredients into our mixer.

We've got the flour.

We've got the sugar.

We've got two eggs.

In essence, it's actually a really simple recipe.

It's all about the texture and the molds that you bake it in.

Now we can pour this butter and honey inside.

Switch the machine on.

[mixer whirring] The texture is nice and light.

Exactly what we want.

Now, you can flavor this with cinnamon, vanilla.

I've done a classic flavoring of honey.

It's entirely up to you.

The recipe doesn't change that much.

It's just adding whatever flavor you like.

Now, it's actually much easier to pipe these than to spoon them out into a tray.

Because otherwise, you get bits just dripping all over the place and those bits burn on the sides.

♪ ♪ And then we cook these about 180-degrees centigrade for about eight minutes.

And don't let them go too brown, otherwise they go to firm.

Now, what you're looking for is that, just a light color.

Now, leave them for about 30 seconds to a minute.

And then over here, I've got a tray of sugar.

And think of it like a donut really because what you're trying to do is just basically pop these out and roll them in the sugar while they're still warm.

So you can grab your tray and then flick them out.

♪ ♪ And there you have it, chocolate mousse with homemade Madeleines.

I like that.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Yes, I'm here exploring Northern France.

Versailles, to be exact.

Look at that.

Impressive French architecture at its very best.

But I can't help but feel I've seen a place like this somewhere before.

Do you know what?

It reminds me of something.

Brian Turner's got a house like this, but he's ruined it.

He's put a conservatory at the back from a late-night shopping channel.

[sighs] I did tell him.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): And there's even a statue of him.

Look.

But that was pre Ready, Steady, Cook.

Anyway, enough of this sightseeing.

I'm hungry and I hear there's a restaurant in the chateau itself.

And here it is.

Welcome to Ore, Alain Ducasse's latest venture.

The place has only been open for a couple of months and is Alain's nod to casual dining.

Casual dining for royalty maybe.

And this is executive chef, Stephane Duchiron, who's going to be making me a spot of lunch.

Stephane and Alain have created a menu of dishes based in the 18th century but adapted to appeal to today's gourmet tastes.

And Stephane has a treat in store for me, oven-roast spelt with wild mushrooms.

First up, the soaked and drained spelt is doused in a rich, earthy mushroom stock.

And then it's put in the oven while Stephane prepares his mushrooms, chanterelles and trompette de la mort.

Once the spelt is crispy, it comes out of the oven, and is ready to play host to the mushrooms, sorrel leaves, and a sorrel sauce.

All it needs now is for that earthy treat to be sent up to the restaurant and me via the dumbwaiter.

No offense, anyone.

Merci.

[serene music] ♪ ♪ JAMES MARTIN: It's quite interesting this because this whole restaurant really epitomizes, I think, where France is going.

You've got that mixture of old and new.

Just out there, you've got the gold leaf of the Palace of Versailles.

And then this room, it's kind of old but modern.

Different lights, different sort of mirrors, but you've still got the old sort of paneling walls.

And then the food kind of reflects that.

You've got a mixture of old and new.

But this is really where Ducasse plays around with different ideas is food's very, you know, classical but done with a twist.

It's very clever cooking, but that says a lot about the man himself.

In terms of the industry, he's probably the leader, probably the world's greatest or certainly one of the world's greatest.

What he's achieved has been amazing-- one of the first chefs to achieve three different three-star Michelin restaurants in different cities around the world.

He's one of only two chefs to hold 21 Michelin stars in his life at one time, that is.

And now he's got restaurants all over the world, the Eiffel tower, the most famous of which is Le Louis XV in Monaco, but this is his latest venture.

And it's-- it's still pretty good even though he's got restaurants all around the world.

It's kind of weird.

It's simple.

It's clean.

Mushrooms are really nice.

Spelt perfectly seasoned, as you would expect.

It's delicious.

What can I say?

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): And Alain's brilliance and attention to detail has given me an idea for a French fish supper.

Now, there is no way on Earth I'm going to replicate anything that the great Alain Ducasse has on his menu.

So I need a drink for this one.

I'm going to create a dish using monkfish, because he had it on his restaurant menu but roasted with Puy lentils and red wine.

It's a fantastic dish, a combination of ingredients that work so well together.

So the first thing I'm going to do is basically stuff it.

And the easiest way to do that is to do that with lemon and herbs.

So just grab a little bit of lemon and we can cut this up into pieces.

Slice that through there as well.

Insert the knife either side of this bone.

Not all the way through, just about half the way through.

You're creating a nice little pocket for the stuffing to go in.

This was probably my first, I suppose, major fish dish in a lovely little French chateau.

I cooked this with the old grandmother of the house.

And it was one of those dishes that she made for her family, and it was basically just plonked in the middle of the table.

I'll never forget it.

And it was my first taste of monkfish.

And all it was, was kept on the bone.

And you get a little bit of string and you tie it together.

What you're doing really is creating a nice little parcel.

[guitar strumming] ♪ ♪ Look at that.

It's just nice little joint of meat and that's the way you should treat monkfish.

Some pepper, salt.

We'll get a little bit of butter in our pan now, and we can basically just get our fish cooking away nicely.

Just start this off in the pan.

And then, like a roasting joint, I'm going to roast it in the oven.

For a piece of fish like this, it's probably going to be about 20 minutes.

Now with that, I'm going to serve Puy lentils.

I'm going to use some onion and garlic.

But when you think of a garnish to go with monkfish, gone are the days where we used to wrap it in breadcrumbs.

Scampi.

What was us Brits doing?

Scampi!

Next, we'll get a little bit of butter.

Look in the pan now.

Now we're going to add some lardons as well.

Now, lardons are a bit of bacon really.

So what we want to do, first of all, is crisp up our lardons.

Get those frying till they're nice and golden.

Anyway, in we go with our onions into our pan and we can start to cook this down.

A tiny little bit of garlic.

What I love about people nowadays, they've got all fancy gadgets.

You don't get any of that in France.

That's your garlic crusher.

That goes into our pan.

And next, we can add our mirepoix veg, our diced veg.

We've got some parsnip, we've got some carrot, a little bit of leek, and then some fennel.

And now it's all about these Puy lentils, these fantastic classic French black Puy lentils.

There you go in.

No need to rinse them.

So we've got some cracking red wine.

[sizzling] And actually, I'm going to use some chicken stock.

You could use beef stock for this.

You wouldn't necessarily use fish stock.

It's too fishy.

You pour this in and bring this to the boil.

And this needs to gently simmer now for about 15 minutes to cook our lentils.

[upbeat music] Now, these lentils are just about there.

So we're going to finish that off with some chopped parsley.

♪ ♪ Now, what you need to do is season this-- salt, some pepper.

And then what I'm going to do is just finish this off with a little knob of butter.

Just a little bit, and we'll stir that in.

But the key to this dish and the key to cooking with lentils, I think, you add this ingredient.

This is sherry vinegar.

If you can't find it, red wine vinegar will do.

But don't go and ruin this recipe and add a little bit of malt vinegar in it or a bit of white wine vinegar.

It's too strong as in acidic.

It tastes delicious.

But then, of course, we've got our monkfish.

[sizzling] Now, this reminds me of this dish with the grandma of the chateau.

She would then take some lemon juice just in the bottom of the tray, and then grab the juices from the tray, pour those over the top.

It is wonderful, this.

You can see, look, it's like a miniature joint.

I'm going to grab my fish slice.

Look at that.

And then what I like to use is all the liquor from this pan.

So pour our lentils back into this tray.

So much flavor still in this tray so stir all this lot together.

Now I'm going to serve this how mama used to do it in the chateau.

So stick that on there.

Bear in mind, watching this, I was about 12.

[speaking french] JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): I've nearly finished my royal potter around Versailles.

I could get used to these surroundings, you know.

The world class architecture, the abundant market, and the gardens are pretty special, too.

Not that bit.

But there's one part of the garden that interests me more than all others.

This is Potager du Roi or King's Allotment, a market garden originally commissioned in the 17th century to keep a fresh supply of fruit and veg on the royal table.

It survived the revolution some 100 years later, and is now a national agricultural college, preserving the traditions of market gardening.

This is the garden's director, Antoine Jacobsohn to tell us more about it.

Nice veg.

So, Antoine, beautiful garden.

Who was it originally built for then?

Louis XIV wanted a kitchen garden that corresponded to his palace so he expanded his father's from a hectare and a half to over 9 hectares.

And is the garden changed much in terms of size over the years?

The size hasn't changed.

The structure hasn't changed.

What has changed is the plants we grow and how we grow them.

But what got you into a garden?

Because gardening has changed over the years.

What got me into-- I can answer that very easily.

I like to eat.

Sounds good, sounds good.

But you must have witnessed people's tastes have changed over the years, particularly here.

Because you must have read the history books of what kind of stuff did it originally produce, as opposed to what it does now?

ANTOINE JACOBSOHN: During the 17th century, there was a major change from spicy things to more what we would call our aromatic herbs.

In the 18th century, they're going to like pears less and like peaches more.

In the 19th century, the kind of pear people eat is going to change.

They're going to go from crisp pears to melting pears.

What have I experienced here?

I think I've seen people become more adventurous in their tastes.

JAMES MARTIN: So what are these then?

These would be pears.

ANTOINE JACOBSOHN: This is a pear.

JAMES MARTIN: Pear trees.

It's the-- how to say?

It's the major fruit of the 17th century.

It's the major fruit of this garden.

We have about 150 different pear varieties.

But I have a pear tree at home, but mine looks nothing like this.

How old is this?

The trees here, these are about 110 years old.

They're at the end of their life.

I mean, we're starting to lose branches.

Right.

And we are in the process, if you just look a bit beyond, we have younger ones that we've replanted.

We're trying to-- rather than do a typical French thing, which is take everything out and replace all, we try to replace things little by little.

So for the pear, I mean, presuming these are crucial in terms of the insects as well, that's the reason why it's surrounded, framed by this.

There is this-- when you look at a design of the garden, but there's a practical-- there's more to it than just writing lines on a piece of paper, isn't it really?

In this garden, one of the things I'm working with to make it more positive is how can we get-- how can we find an equilibrium.

We're in a garden where everything is made of straight lines, where everything is lined up.

And we know that lined up things are a certain kind of-- take a lot of energy to be kept that way.

And I'm trying to find some kind of equilibrium between the trees and the vegetables and the ornamental plants.

I'm going to give you a bit of advice from an Englishman to an American in France.

Don't go change the French straight lines.

Don't go squiggly.

It'll all kick off.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): And under the watchful eye of the original director, hello there, I'm ready to do my final cook.

Now, out of everything in the garden, I thought I'd use this because it's safer than trying to cook with that thing.

But I thought I'd use this wonderful cabbage to go with some beans to make a lovely little cassoulet.

So come over here, Rob.

I'll run through the ingredients.

We've got some veal chop here, some onions, some garlic, a little bit of butter, some white beans.

You can use haricot blanc.

You can use flageolet beans, rosemary, parsley, tomatoes, and cabbage.

It's a real simple, rustic dish, this.

Proper food as we call it.

In the pan, first of all, we'll just grab a little bit of olive oil.

Now, it's quite important to use oil first when you're cooking, I think, veal chop or steak.

Because you want to get the pan nice and hot.

If you use butter, it can burn too much.

You can add that to it later.

But look at this, beautiful veal chop.

Now, to be honest, I think it's one of the finest cuts of meat out there.

Beautiful thing.

I'm going to cook it like steak.

But whenever possible, get it on the bone like this.

This is a cutlet of veal.

[french], as they call it, just beautiful piece of meat.

So a bit of seasoning.

Black pepper over the top, some salt both sides.

And get this straight into the pan.

Now you can turn up the heat and get it quite hot like that.

Bit of black pepper and salt on the top.

And the cassoulet side of this thing is really simple.

It uses onions and garlic at its heart really.

So just a little bit of shallot finely chopped because this is quite quick.

So chop this up.

Now, I like using shallots for this because they're much milder than sort of the large white Spanish style onions that you find.

So when you cook them, it's not as harsh.

So a bit of that, plenty of garlic.

And obviously, in France, there is no shortage of that.

So plenty of garlic, good maybe three, four cloves will be suffice for this.

But do you know what, I'm going to put another one in as well.

But I love garlic, bit of garlic like this.

And then all we do is grab some butter-- half the block-- get this pan nice and hot, and throw in your shallots and your garlic.

Now, at the same time, you can chuck in the beans.

I've got some white beans here, haricot blanc.

It's entirely up to you which ones you use.

Flageolet beans would be a good one.

Whatever you use, use them out of a jar, drain them off.

They're perfect for something quick and simple like this.

So throw the beans in.

A bit of rosemary.

Now, the gardens around here would have been full-- and still are full of fantastic herbs like rosemary, thyme, sage, that kind of stuff.

So there's certainly no shortage of this stuff around.

So a decent bit of rosemary in there.

Keep your eye on your nice veal chop like that.

If you keep the bone on as well, it's a good idea with this, particularly when you're pan frying stuff.

Because the bone conducts the heat all the way through, it cooks much quicker as well.

You'll find that a big, solid piece of meat.

But also it's nice to chew on afterwards really, when the bone-- you get just so much flavor in there.

So get it nice and hot.

This cassoulet will cook at the same time, really.

Now throw in your tomatoes.

I bought these wonderful little tomatoes from the market earlier.

They can go in.

A bit of cabbage.

And to be frank, there was plenty to choose from out there.

So I'll just take a few of the outer leaves like that.

And then grab your cabbage, wrap it up, and then just thinly slice really.

Nice and thin.

And then the temptation with this is to add more and more bits and pieces.

Now, the thing is, as it starts to dry out, you can get a bit of wine.

Not this one.

Bit of white wine over the top.

If you didn't want to put wine in, bit of water.

Just a touch like that.

And you just keep cooking this down, as simple as that.

Over here, we've got the veal.

We can then turn this over.

[sizzling] Come on.

Look at that.

Mm.

Now we can start putting the butter.

Just a little bit, bit in there, bit in there.

One for me, one for you, one for me.

Look at that.

Now we start to bring this together.

Look at that.

It's just so simple, this.

You've got this wonderful sort of cassoulet like that.

Just sits there nicely with the cabbage nice and green in color, not purple, because it's been in there for an hour and a half.

These guys spend so much time looking after the veg in a place like this, it'd be just a sin to go home and just cremate it and ruin it.

That looks pretty good to me.

That's not bad wine as well.

Bit of parsley.

You can use the French parsley if you want.

So much easier to wash this flat-leaf parsley.

So the parsley is ready.

This is going to taste really good.

[sizzling] Key to this really is, I think, to cook it in oil, first of all.

Don't often say that, but put the butter in it later.

But you get a beautiful color first of all.

And then, of course, with your cassoulet, throw in the parsley, plenty of salt, a good bit of black pepper.

And if it starts to dry out, of course, you've got a bit more wine if you want.

A bit of that.

Switch the heat off.

Now, you don't have to serve this with veal.

This works really well with chicken or it's amazing with fish or just as it is really.

Just like that, you can serve it.

You can grab a platter.

Never mind me, Rob.

Get on here.

Look, look, look, look.

Over the top like that.

[sizzling] And then, of course, you've got your veal chop.

Best thing I find is just roll it around in the butter just before you serve it, so it glazes as well.

There you have it.

[classical music] You feel the need to be a bit fancy, a bit of parsley over the top.

And there you have it, pan-fried veal chop with a cassoulet of beans and cabbage from the garden cooked in a greenhouse.

What a wonderful day in Versailles.

And it's hard to believe that all this was built as a hunting lodge.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): You know what it's like when you get the building bug, and you just want to put an extension here, an extension there?

Then you want a market and your own veg garden.

But do us all a favor, avoid the spiky plants.

Aye, you fighter.

Aye!

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): This is the most dangerous place in France.

And before you know it, you've created your own international tourist attraction and you'll never go hungry again.

Supper.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Luckily, I'm still full from the veal.

[frenetic music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Dover Sole Véronique.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Coming up on my French adventure here in Versailles, we meet a man who likes the sweet stuff.

I love chocolate.

[chuckle] JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): And I'll be making madeleines to accompany a simple chocolate mousse.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): So here I am in Versailles, in the shadow of one of the-- --with homemade Madeleines.

I like that.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Coming up on my French adventure in Versailles, I get to experience casual dining with style.

It's delicious.

What can I say?

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): And I go off on one about what we used to do to monkfish.

Scampi.

What was us Brits doing?

Scampi!

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Yes, I'm here exploring Northern France.

Versailles, to be exact.

Look at that.

[speaking french] JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Still to come as I round off my regal tour of Versailles, I get to experience the biggest allotment I've ever seen.

And I'm back in the greenhouse avoiding those dangerous trees.

This is going to taste really good.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): I've nearly finished my royal potter around Versailles.

I could get used to these surroundings, you know.