If you can put up with Marco Pierre White's appallingly large ego, his aggressive comments to innocent members of the public and his general grumpy demeanour, then this four-parter is a lot of fun, and quite instructive to boot.
Essentially the chef (pictured) is going back to his roots by creating an all-British menu using all-British ingredients. This gives him the excuse to go charging around the countryside, sourcing fresh foods, shooting pigeons and deer here, fishing for herrings there, often being excessively miserable and smoking copious amounts of tabs. Not en route, mind you. There are strict no-smoking signs in his vehicle, but almost as soon as he's out of the car, he lights up.
Last week we saw how Pierre White chose fish pie to be the main course for his British feast, which he will serve to 200 people. Tonight he's looking for a suitable starter. Having dismissed cockles, pigeon and beef, the shortlist is ham, herring and venison, which we see him meet, catch or kill.
Now comes the real magic. Back at his Yew Tree pub, Pierre White creates soused herring, delicately aged ham with celeriac salad, and, controversially, venison tartare. The recipes are surprisingly simple; why there's even tomato splodge in the venison!
Finally the three dishes are tried out by diners in a taste-testing session at the pub. How will they cope with herring, not an especially favoured British fish? What about the delicately aged ham? And how will the idea of raw venison go down? The results may surprise you, almost as much as the fact that Pierre White is allowed to smoke so much on screen.
Oh, and tonight's top tip - cooking bacon in a microwave - is a real winner.
Like Peter Greenwood before me, I would also love to have the recipe for the rose wine jelly with summer fruits - it looked superb. Well done Marco, a great series and entertaining without being offensive - unlike some Chefs we could mention!!!!
July 23rd - 10:49pmPeter Greenwood said...
Dear Sir/Madam
I would dearly love to have the recipe for the jelly with summer fruits shown in the last episode tonight. Can you tell me where I may find it as I would love to use it this week-end. Many thanks.
July 18th - 12:15amAllan Cameron said...
How do you think Marco would get along with Clarice Starling? He'd be percet for a Hannibal movie
July 11th - 5:20pmPete said...
how do I enter the competition to eat at the feast ??
July 9th - 11:27pmmarilyn Ruston said...
I wanted to apply to go on the show .
July 8th - 3:05pmAndrea said...
Frances, go to www.itv.com and watch the programme again in Catchup but make sure you watch it from IE rather than any other browser (won't work for me in Firefox for example). You can skip the part of the show you don't need by hitting the skip button but you can't skip minute by minute, just part 1 to part 2 to part 3 etc. (I think the fish pie is covered in part 3.) I do have the recipe but I'm not one for displaying my e-mail address on the net! Good luck!
July 5th - 8:38pmdavid hill said...
marco is the best chef in the world.
July 3rd - 5:57pmCarmen Castillo said...
I enjoy watching any talented chef on TV who can impart some of their knowledge and experience in cooking a variety of dishes withmy preference being for Jamie Oliver and his programmes so far due to his excellent presenting and demonstrating the type of dishes and food he likes to prepare. It is true that the Med diet is one of the healthiest there is. As far as Marco Pierre White goes, the most offputting thing for me about him is his unhygienic appearance as a chef with his horrible stringy scarecrow look. Who would want to sample anything cooked by him. He never covers his hair or wear a hat as chefs should do so if he can't conform and do this I do not understand how he could possibly be taken seriously as a chef! So for me it's thumbs down to him and thumbs up definitely to Jamie and one or two others who are impressive but Gordon Ramsay has gone way off track with his awful present series.
July 3rd - 5:03pmfrances budd said...
i missed marco's fish pie reciepe last night,could you tell me if i can find it anywhere.
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