[inspiring music] [engine whirring] As a chef, I've been privileged to travel to all corners of the globe.

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

From farmers to fishermen and great seafood.

These are delicious.

Absolutely delicious.

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

[laughs] Butter.

♪ ♪ Where is that special place?

Great Britain, of course.

Woo hoo!

♪ ♪ [rock music] JAMES (VOICEOVER): My epic adventure around the UK continues.

And today, I've made it to Kent, the county also known as the Garden of England, where I'm catching up with my old mate, local boy, renowned chef Mark Sargeant, who spent 13 years working for Gordon Ramsay.

JAMES: What got you into food in the first place?

Was your parents into it?

No, not at all.

Much like you, really.

I mean, I wanted to be a chef from the age of eight.

And then I went out-- instead of getting a paper round, I went and worked in a local steak house.

But I stepped out of the kitchens.

I don't pretend that I'm in the kitchen.

I'm more of a restaurateur, restaurant owner now, than I am a chef.

But I always come from the restaurants, from a chef's point of view.

And really, what that's given me is a freedom to actually explore more food, learn more things.

And I spent 20 years cooking.

That's a long time, 13 of which were Gordon, which is like dog years, really, isn't it?

Seven years to one normal year.

It's quite interesting when you think about Kent, because people do call it the Garden of England, but you've got much, much more.

Not just drink wise, with the hops and the barley-- Ciders.

Ciders and all that kind of stuff.

But also the coastline, and the coastlines are phenomenal.

Amazing I mean, it's incredible.

I mean, we're all fishing and getting produce from the same coastline.

And there's just so much of it.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): The County of Kent sits on the southeastern tip of England.

To the northwest is the hustle and bustle of London.

And over to the east is the English Channel and the port of Folkestone, which is where today's adventure begins.

But I'm not going anywhere until I've sampled Mark's take on my favorite coastal classic.

So what is it about you fancy chefs opening fish and chip shops?

Well, first of all, I've kind of got the location for it, I have to say, yeah.

You know, this was by no means an afterthought.

I mean, you know, one of my heroes, other than you, of course, James, is Rick Stein, the great Rick Stein.

And you know, what his model, what he does down there, my view was always to make Folkestone maybe like a modern-day version of Padstow.

We're much closer to London.

Obviously, I've got Rocksalt, which is my baby.

But we had this amazing old smokehouse, and it was just begging to be turned into a decent chippy.

JAMES: So, once we've eaten these, you're going to go off and see a supplier of yours.

Yeah.

So last year, obviously all the redevelopment of the harbor, they've got some of the old shipping containers.

And some guy set up a bakery over there.

In a shipping container.

MARK: Literally there.

You can see it from here.

And it's called Docker's Bakery.

And he makes the most amazing sourdough.

I'm telling you.

I'm going to go over there and talk to him about his sort of starters and all the different breads.

While you're over there, I'm going to go to an orchard.

As you're in the Garden of England.

Well, that's negotiable.

Yorkshire is still the Garden of England.

So, I get to eat bread and you get to drink cider, then.

That's what happens when your name's above the titles.

Fair enough.

What happens, isn't it?

It is lovely fish and chips, though, mate.

MARK: Thank you.

Especially for you.

JAMES: Enjoy your bread.

- Excellent.

Thanks.

- As I enjoy my cider.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): I can't wait to explore Kent.

It's got all sorts to offer, but I can't leave the coast without cooking up a bit of fish.

And what better place to do it than the beach?

I just wish the sun would come out.

Now, for this dish, I'm going to keep it really simple.

I'm going to use herring.

It's a fantastic fish.

And have you ever had a kipper?

That's what one of these little fellas is.

It's basically cured, salted in a little brine, and then hot smoked.

Now, I'm going to serve this on the barbecue.

And I'm going to do this really simple little salsa, this kind of panzanella idea, really.

But keep it really simple just with some fresh tomatoes.

Just a few of these.

And use, obviously, in-season tomatoes as well, and particularly with herring, because this is available all year round, really, herring.

But it's actually one of the most inexpensive fish out there.

I bought six of these for literally about 65, 70 p each, so it's unbelievable, the value that you get.

So in we go with the tomatoes.

Keeping it nice and simple, I'm going to add some shallots.

But we're not going to cook this.

So when you're doing the shallots, you probably want to cook this a little bit smaller.

Dice these up like that.

And then just a tiny little bit of garlic because this is like a little raw salsa, really.

Just a bit of fresh garlic.

Just a little bulb of garlic.

And we just want a clove.

Give it a whack, and then just chop this up.

You don't want too much, just a little bit of garlic in there.

Now, you're going to get a sort of acidity, really.

You can use a little bit of lime.

But I'm going to use some cider vinegar for this.

Obviously, all around Kent, you have amazing orchards.

But just a bit of cider vinegar over the top.

A little bit of oil.

I'm going to use some olive oil for this one.

Black pepper.

Some salt.

And then parsley.

And rather than just chop the parsley, I've got this flat leaf parsley here.

And what I'm going to do is just rip this up.

Just put the parsley in.

Just take the tops of parsley, really.

And then using some capers, I'm going to throw these in whole, really.

These are just normal capers in brine.

You can use the salted ones, but wash off the salt, really, for these.

Throw in the capers.

It's kind of like a rustic salad, really.

And the same with the bread.

You just want to rip it all up.

So rather than chop everything into fine dice where you go searching for it, you just rip it all up.

Now, what the bread will do is soak in that vinegar, soak in the oil.

So rip it all up like that.

Save a little bit for the cook.

Mm, nice.

Mix this all together.

It's really simple, this, but goes really well with stuff like herring.

And this is kind of like the perfect place to get them.

So I'm just going to leave that to one side.

Meanwhile, turn our attention to our herring.

So we'll grab a different board.

Now, a lot of people are put off by these little fellas because the bones.

They've got similar bone structure, sort of mackerel.

They're an oily fish, beautiful fish as well when they're nice and fresh.

But it's very simple to get rid of the bones.

And what you want to do, first of all, is remove the head.

So just get rid of the head like that on all these little fellows over here.

So we'll just trim this up, lose that.

Now, these have been scaled and gutted.

So if you can get these from your fishmonger, get them scaled and gutted, it's much easier for you to prepare them.

And then what you do to remove the bones really simply, very similar to how you prepare a sardine-- press the back of the fish all along the backbone, all the way down like that.

And then turn it the other way and just lift out the rib cage.

And you can see you won't get them all out like this, but you'll get the majority of the bones out.

And then right at the end where the tail is, just use a pair of scissors and just snip these out.

You see, you've got a lovely clean bit of fish.

Most of the bones have been removed, not all of them, but mainly the fiddly ones.

So again, all you do is just press the backbone like that.

You want to do this when it's really, really fresh.

And this is the great thing about these.

Beautiful, beautiful fish when you get really fresh like this.

But lift out the bones.

You just remove the majority of the bones.

You can see they come out quite simply.

Using a pair of scissors, just snip that back bit.

Now you're going to get most of them out, not all of them.

But you've got these beautiful pieces of fish here.

Now, all I'm going to do is just grab a little bit of oil over here, because they don't take very long to cook at all.

So just rub a little bit of oil on the skin like that.

These little fellows on here on the barbecue, no more than about sort of two minutes.

But under the grill, you could cook these, on a tray, again for a couple of minutes.

But they're just going to sit on here and just cook gently for a couple of minutes.

[gentle music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ So, with these they're going to catch a little bit.

But don't worry about that.

So I'll just turn these over, and then we want another minute on the other side.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Now, don't worry about them catching, really.

If you're doing this at home just under a grill, cook them with the skin side up.

But on here, they're going to catch a little bit, but don't worry about it.

When you get fish this fresh, it's going to fall apart anyway, particularly with herring.

But just lift these out.

I love food like this.

And then you've got some of this salsa-- salad, really.

Just serve this with it.

Just a little drizzle of olive oil.

♪ ♪ Do you know what?

I can't resist.

So I'm going to grab some of this.

But do you know what?

I don't normally do this because normally, the director takes a pretty shot of the food first.

But when you get herrings this fresh, they are so, so delicious.

That is a little ray of sunshine in Folkestone through the cloud.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): Simple yet delicious-- grilled herring with a cider-infused salsa salad.

Delicious.

[folk music] I'm having fun in Folkestone with my friend and personal tour guide, Mark Sargeant.

And now he's letting us in on a local food secret and introducing us to one of his favorite suppliers.

Now, as a chef who owns a restaurant in the heart of Folkestone, I love to support local producers, and I'm really, really spoiled for choice.

One of my favorite producers happens to be Docker's Bakery, who makes the most perfect sourdough for my restaurant, and he just so happens to be on the harbor arm in a shipping container.

[maritime music] Hey, Wes.

- Hey, Mark.

- Good to see you.

Are you OK?

- Yeah, good, thanks.

OK.

So you know I love your bread.

We use it at Rocksalt.

But I'm here to learn how to make it.

Good?

- Yeah.

Fantastic.

Let's go make some starters.

MARK: Thank you.

Wow, what a great space.

This is us.

Yeah, amazing.

So, Wes, you're going to show me the beginning process of the bread, which is a starter, right?

So just explain to us exactly what a starter is.

So this is the naturally occurring yeast and bacteria that we use to leaven the bread.

And it's just basically a mix of flour and water.

And that gets cultivated into this, basically.

So, hold on.

You just said flour and water?

Yeah, it's just literally just flour and water.

So I've basically used recipes before.

I've put natural yogurt, flour, water, orange juice, grapes.

You don't really need any of that.

That stuff's there to try and get the culture going.

But actually, that's all there in the flour.

It just needs to be brought to life.

Maybe that's why my bread doesn't work very well.

We have to maintain this every day.

So this is-- if we run out of this, we've got no bakery for a while, so we have to make sure we've-- - And I've got no bread.

- Exactly.

MARK: So you're taking a bit of this every time you're doing it.

WES: Perpetuating it.

MARK: Constantly.

That's quite incredible.

How old your baby in there?

Well, I think it's about 10 years old.

Really.

Isn't that amazing.

It was in my fridge at home for quite a while.

MARK: It's like Trigger's broom a little bit, isn't it?

Yeah.

Obviously, it's a new generation each time you make it, but-- MARK: But there's particles, bits and bacteria and stuff in there-- I like to think so, yeah.

--that are from the original.

And I imagine that started off in your kitchen in your house?

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

MARK: Cool.

OK, right.

So show me the process.

So we're going to mix in this starter here that we put into the water.

And then after that, we're going to add some flour and mix it all up and leave it to do its thing.

And the amazing thing about this at this stage, you're talking about beautiful artisan loaves of bread.

And the only thing you've got in here is flour and water.

I find it's quite mind-blowing.

That's it.

And then actually, all we add to this is some more flour and water and some salt.

And love.

That's the missing ingredient.

And the time, the time it takes, because these take 36 to 48 hours to make.

And I think that's where we've really lost our heritage of bread making, isn't it?

With all the fast, fast, fast white sliced.

Yeah.

And it's a big difference to the commercial loaves that are made in about an hour and a half from-- literally from when they start mixing it to when it goes into a bag.

This is really extraordinary.

So this is basically the process of flour and water fermented, added to more flour and water just left.

I can already see there's tiny little bubbles appearing where that starter is already working with the flour in there.

It's really quite phenomenal.

That is some seriously strong stuff in there-- - It's good, yeah.

- --which is incredible.

So we've got to this stage now.

This is mixed.

Now what happens?

This is basically done.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is done for now.

So we're going to just put a lid on it and leave it overnight.

And then when we come in tomorrow morning, we'll start making the dough up.

And then that ends up being shaped into the loaves that we then put into the chiller overnight and get baked the next day.

So kind of a two-day process.

It's not just your daily bread, then, in that case.

It's your three-- or yeah, two or three if you count that.

Yeah.

- Yeah.

Fantastic.

So we get the lid on and then that's done for today.

OK.

Let's go and see the final product, then.

Let's try the bread.

[upbeat music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ So we've got the finished product here.

And for me, what sets this apart by talking to you in there is just the time for a three-day process.

Two days, I know, from the dough, but you end up with this.

And it's incomparable to the bread that you can buy in other places, let's say.

Anyway, I'm bored of talking about it.

Can we eat it?

- Do you want to try it?

Yes, please.

I mean, I've had it many times, obviously, not freshly baked out of the oven.

Literally, this is just flour, water, and salt.

That's all that's in here.

And so there's no additives or preservatives.

And this will last four or five days without any problems at all.

So do you recommend that in the fridge or in the bread basket, or what do you recommend for that?

Look at that.

I mean that's amazing.

WES: We normally just keep it in a bread basket.

The flavor.

See, the crust.

You've got a crust quite-- not dark, but it's got a really nice golden crust on there.

WES: You want to get that nice, even crust around it as well so you're not too thick on the bottom.

But it's amazing to think of bread as being moist, which is-- usually, that's why you put-- you can eat that.

You don't even need butter on it.

So good.

Well done.

- Good.

- Good boy.

- Glad you like it.

Thank you.

Right.

Producers like this making this fantastic artisan sourdough just make me so proud to be part of the Folkestone food scene.

James, you have to try this.

It's fantastic.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): It does look good.

And it's inspired me to make a pudding classic, made with a few slices of the good stuff.

Now, this dish, I thought I'd do a dessert, and I thought I'd do a classic dessert, really, a bread and butter pudding.

So the first thing I'm going to do is butter the bread.

I'm going to do it old school.

I'm going to do the custard slightly modern, but always it has to be white sliced bread for me for bread and butter pudding.

And we just butter it.

You see, there's going to be people tuning in now thinking, what on Earth is he doing?

No, it doesn't look like a cafe, really.

Yeah, just a queue of people.

I'm just making ham and cheese sandwiches, really.

Actually, to make my life-- it'd make it a lot easier, to be honest with you, if we just had a cookery show of just cafe food.

Look, take the crust off, and we just alternate the bread in the dish.

Now, you can do this with sultanas if you want, but the custard to me is the important bit.

Slice it up like this.

On there.

We've got our eggs.

And this is where the custard really changes with this.

We've got whole eggs, to which we put four in here.

And then we need egg whites.

Look, egg whites in here, egg yolks go in here.

It's roughly that many, seven or eight, something like that.

That'll do.

Anyway, moving on.

Look, we throw in our sugar.

Bit of that.

Some vanilla.

Now, I use this vanilla bean paste now because vanilla pods are like a million pounds a kilo now.

Mix this together.

In we go with double cream.

In we go with the milk.

And this creates our lovely custard.

We take our mixture.

Now, this is the important bit with bread and butter pudding.

To do it nicely, to do it properly, it takes time.

So what you want to do is you need to pour this mixture on it.

You'll have some left, and then you leave it to sit in the liquid.

After about sort of 20 minutes, it'll start to soak up a lot of that liquid.

Refill it again, so you cover it all up.

Then what we do to cook this, you set the oven about 325 degrees Fahrenheit.

Quite a low oven, about 140, 150 degrees centigrade.

And we take this lovely beauty and pop it in the oven.

And this is going to cook for about 35, 40 minutes.

And what you want is this slightly baveuse mixture on the top.

Now, baveuse means with a little wiggle.

Look at that.

It's got a little wiggle.

Now, with this, I thought I'd do an amazing little compote.

That goes in here.

In we go with the sugar, and it's about half the amount of sugar to cherries.

And then what we do is just heat this up, and all the juices of the cherries start to come out of it.

This is going to take about 10 minutes to cook.

I'll see you in a bit.

[upbeat music] ♪ ♪ And then to finish this off, we top it with icing sugar.

Now, like I was saying, the mixture of this will be quite loose.

It'll be a bit like a thin custard, which is exactly what we want.

Not one that a lot of people will be left scarred with when they're at school.

She put it on the tray, and your tray went like that.

This is a much lighter bread and butter pudding, so plenty of icing sugar.

Grab yourself a blowtorch under the grill.

You can do this.

Make sure the grill is hot, though.

What you do is you just do this in batches.

It creates a wonderful caramel.

It's much easier with one of these.

Look at that.

♪ ♪ So we can just serve this now.

And ideally, you want to allow this just to cool a little bit before you serve it because it is pretty harsh if you get a mouthful of boiling hot sugar.

But you get this lovely toffee with it.

But above all else, you see that lovely sauce you get with it?

You get like your own homemade custard.

♪ ♪ Look at that.

I love this dessert.

Some people say he loves it too much.

And then you take this lovely little compote of cherries on the side.

Now, don't put the cherries inside the bread and butter pudding.

They turn it purple.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): And there you have a true British classic-- bread and butter pudding with Kent-inspired cherry compote.

[exciting music] My travels have brought me to Kent, and I've been hanging out with renowned restaurateur Mark Sargeant, who's a proper local boy.

Earlier, I sent Mark off to meet his local sourdough baker while I hunt out another local treasure.

No visit to Kent would be complete without coming to see an orchard.

This area is so famous for its produce, not just from the sea, but from the land.

And I'm in luck because this orchard produces its own cider.

[jaunty music] At Woolton Farm, just outside of Canterbury, Sam Mount is a fourth generation apple farmer, and he's shaking things up on his 100-year-old orchard.

Cider is traditionally associated with the southwest, but he's founded his very own brewery, Kentish Pip, which churns out no less than six different varieties of local cider.

♪ ♪ Well, this is an impressive orchard.

This, I mean, very different to the one that we've just gone through.

Yeah, definitely.

So, this is a young cider orchard.

These ones, we want them really ripe.

Let all the tannins develop and the different flavors that you get from these bittersweet, bittersharp varieties.

So we let them drop on the floor.

That's when you know they're fully ripe.

And then you see the row's a lot wider.

JAMES: Yeah.

SAM: That's because these are machine harvested.

In Kent, we're very famous for our dessert apples, our culinary apples.

Down in the southwest of England, it's globally renowned for its bittersweet, bittersharp, traditional cider apple varieties.

What do we look for when we're tasting one of these ones?

So, these are majors.

These are bittersweets.

They're coming into ripeness, so they're still to develop a little bit.

But if you have a go of that.

Take a nice big bite of it, and we'll see what happens.

So you feel the-- - Really moist.

Really moist.

Really juicy still.

Quite unusual.

You get this bitterness at the end.

That's it.

You get the astringency, the drying of your tongue-- JAMES: Yeah, drying.

--from the tannins and things.

And as this ripens a bit more, that will develop.

It'll get stronger and richer, and the sugars will fully develop as well.

So you get a nice, sweet, but very bitter, you know, tannic cider apple.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): As well as growing cider apples, Sam also produces traditional Kentish dessert apples, which he combines to make his own unique blends of cider.

Both our High Dive and Skylark, they use a lot of Cox cider in those.

So these would be your sweeter ones, really?

Yeah, they're generally-- they're sweeter.

They haven't got too much acid in them.

You know, that varies from variety to variety.

JAMES: And then, of course, the famous Bramley apple at the end, really.

The nation's favorite cooking apple.

Also brilliant for cider.

Absolutely, absolutely.

I mean, one of the key things with cider is getting enough sugar.

So getting your sweet, but also getting enough acid, so you're balancing-- you've got a good pH.

So, we use Bramley juice sometimes to add acidity to a cider to help the fermentation go along.

So this is-- it's kind of like blending a wine, because you're using different varieties to blend the perfect flavor.

Precisely, yeah.

So what making cider is is exactly the same processes as making wine.

You want to try a Bramley?

Go on, then.

One that's been on the floor.

Yeah, why not?

Is that a five-second rule or-- probably a 50-day rule?

Cut a nice bit off there, yeah.

So the Bramley we're using for the acidity.

So again, it has that real nice freshness to it.

So this will be very different to a conventional Bramley apple that you'll buy in the supermarket.

SAM: This won't be quite as sharp.

The skin will be a little bit softer.

And a lot of acid.

You can feel it stinging, the malic acid stinging your tongue.

Yeah.

Whoa, that's unbelievable.

The aftertaste of that.

Yeah, yeah, it keeps going.

Keeps going.

So what about, how do you make the perfect cider, then?

Because we've got two different types here, two of your biggest sellers, opposite colors.

Yeah, so the Skylark on your left, that's made with a blend of Cox.

So the classic eating apple.

And then a bittersweet blend of cider apples, so you should get some nice fresh apple notes.

And then as that washes through your palate, you get some tannin, a bit of bitterness, get some sort of raisin rummy notes.

And then we wanted to do something completely different.

So that's when the High Diver came.

That's Cox and Bramley.

So it's cooking apples and eating apples.

Really fresh, really, you know, light, crisp.

JAMES: It is a lot lighter.

Yeah.

Well, it doesn't taste like cider used to do.

It's proper cider, which is good.

I mean, most of our ciders, they're between 80% to 100% fresh apple juice content in the finished-- finished product.

So commercially, ciders can have as little as 35% apple content in them and still be called a cider.

So the difference between one producer to the next, there's a huge range.

So I've got to end on this, then.

Who produces the best cider?

Oh, I wouldn't want to put a stick in there.

It's very different styles.

I think we're both learning from each other.

- He said Kent off camera.

- Kent.

You see?

It's very nice.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): Sam sure knows what he's doing with his apples, and I can't fault him.

But I want to use some for a delicious pudding that's often overlooked.

Now, I thought long and hard about a dish to cook with these amazing apples.

I thought I'd do an upside down cake together with another bit of fruit that I'm going to get onto in a minute, but it's all about the cake, first of all, for this.

It's a simple cake, really.

It's a combination of sugar, flour, butter, and eggs.

This is kind of like a tarte tatin, usually done with apples, but a cake.

And then we mix this together.

Now, it's important, this bit.

This is where you'll get the texture of the cake, but so often you'll get the lightness from it as well.

So don't be frightened to give this a real good mix.

[gentle music] So once you get to this stage, you get this texture of the butter and the sugar.

Now that's enough.

Then we're going to add our eggs.

By adding the eggs one at a time and allowing the mixture to come back again will mean you end up with a much lighter cake.

So, add one at a time straight in.

Now, the mixture will actually split a little bit like that.

Looks like a little bit like scrambled eggs.

Don't worry at that point because this next bit, we're just going to add the flour by hand.

Now, I think this is the crucial way to mix the flour in.

This is where you get that light sort of sponge at the end.

So you mix this together to form a nice creamed batter.

Look at the color of that.

So all I'm going to do is grab some of these lovely apples.

These are eating apples.

It's important that you do use eating apples rather than cooking apples.

We don't want it too bitter.

But what I want to do is slice these, first of all, and then pop some of our apples straight in to the mix.

Look at that.

This texture.

I like the chunks of apple.

By keeping the apples like that, they're perfect.

So just move that to one side.

Meanwhile, I've got in here a little cake tin, a little 8-inch cake tin.

I've just put a bit of grease-proof in the bottom so it's easier to take out.

A few more apples in the base.

And then really, it's about the damsons, these lovely little damsons.

I've got first introduced to these over in Kent.

They're amazing fruit.

We're just going to put a few of these damsons in here, and then take our wonderful cake mix and pour it on the top.

[soft music] We put this in the oven.

This temperature is 350 degrees, so quite a low oven, about 160, 170 degrees centigrade.

Middle shelf.

And cook this for about 45 minutes.

Now, while that's cooking, we're going to make our custard.

This is a slightly different custard.

So we'll grab some cider and cream.

Double cream for this one.

Straight into our pan.

I'm going to use some of this lovely Kentish Pip cider.

Not too much because the rest of it, funnily enough, is going to go in a glass.

And you can have a taste of it while this is coming up to temperature.

And then we've got these beautiful egg yolks.

I've got eight lovely egg yolks here.

Gorgeous color.

And then pop in the sugar.

Now, when you add the sugar to your egg yolks, you need to make sure everything's about ready.

So, this is almost boiled because when you add the sugar to this mixture, it starts to cure the eggs.

You'll notice that if you've ever made a cake before and the telephone rings, you go wandering off at this stage and come back, you've got little yellow specks in it because the egg yolks simply just cook with the sugar.

And you'll never get rid of them.

You'll never get them out.

So as soon as this is boiled, we then pour this onto the egg yolks like that.

Give this a mix.

Pour that back into the pan.

So many times, people find custard quite difficult to make.

There's really no complication when it comes to this, other than the fact that you've just got to make sure that this is heated enough.

Too much and it goes scrambled eggs, not enough and it goes too thin.

And you see the little bubbles that are in there now.

As you mix it while it's heating up, those bubbles should start to disappear as the mixture starts to thicken up.

As soon as this thickens up nicely, we pass this through a sieve.

As you can see, all the little bubbles have disappeared, and you know when it's about there, if I just tip the pan in here, look at that.

You can see it's just starting to scramble in the base of the pan.

That's why you don't want to overcook it, because otherwise, the whole lot will be like that.

So we just leave this to one side.

You can serve it hot.

You can serve this cold.

What I'm going to do is just pop it into a jug.

But you see it's lovely and thick.

A nice cider custard.

And then I've got one of these cakes that have been in the oven.

These beautiful cakes.

Look at this.

What you can do is just lift this out.

And take our bit of paper off the edge, and then you want to turn it upside down, and then just take the paper and the lid off.

[gentle music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Never in any doubt.

I was shaking a little bit.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): And there you have it-- my mouth-watering apple and damson upside down cake, complete with cider custard.

[maritime music] I'm in Kent, in the southeast.

My tour guide for the day, Mark Sargeant, has been showing me around, and now he's invited me to swing by his restaurant right on Folkestone Harbor, where lunch is often the catch of the day.

♪ ♪ Mark opened Rocksalt in 2011 after a 13-year stint working for Gordon Ramsay.

This place has become an iconic part of the Folkestone restaurant scene, and the views aren't bad, either.

♪ ♪ - That looks good.

- Hey?

Literally local lobster.

Now, you said when your restaurant was close to the sea, I didn't realize it was in it.

Well, interestingly enough, when we filmed the lobsters being landed, I didn't even know they were for us.

So when I walked into the kitchen and saw the same box on my pass, I thought, I've got to cook you one, even though that's not what we agreed.

It's fantastic.

Literally, it's just here, isn't it?

It's literally brought out the sea on the plate and that's-- these are only on the specials, so that's what happens every time.

JAMES: What have we got here then?

So we just for this, we've just done simply with some nice garlic butter and smoked paprika fries, a good bit of garlic mayonnaise.

And then here, this basically is kind of like Folkestone in a bowl.

So it's-- JAMES: Folkestone in a bowl.

MARK: Folkestone in a bowl, yeah.

We've got a nice classic fish soup.

We've poached some huss, which is one of my favorite fish alongside mackerel.

We poached that in the soup.

Now, tell me about huss, then, because a lot of people don't know about it and very rarely see it and use it.

Well, in the old days, you'd have called it rock, so you'd have had rock and chips and things like that.

Wonderful meaty texture, but beautiful.

It's just so tasty.

It's quite gamey.

That doesn't sound right for fish, but it's got sort of a powerful taste to it.

And then I've just lightly grilled the rest of it.

So we've got a little bit of plaice.

We've got some sea bream, we've got a little bit of mackerel, and then we've got a escabeche style of red mullet on top.

Red mullet as well.

Yeah, so that's marinated in the escabeche garnish, kind of like olive oil, saffron, white wine, fennel, and things like that.

And then we just lightly grill this.

And this is some of your-- I mean, literally, you've just given it-- it is Folkestone in a bowl because you've talked about the fish.

The bread, as you say, from over there.

This toast is a Docker bread literally from over there.

And this is the perfect place for you, isn't it?

Yeah.

I mean, you know, what's not to like?

The bread, by the way, is amazing.

And finish this off with some local wine.

MARK: Yeah.

- Well, cheers.

What a great day.

- Cheers.

Thank you.

My pleasure.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): With all that fresh seafood on its doorstep, Folkestone really is a hidden gem.

So what better place to cook a fish dish to rival Mark's than the beach?

This is actually the perfect dish to cook here because of what I've got underneath me-- this shingle.

I'm going to do a wonderful sole.

Now, the director said, cook it here because we've got an amazing view.

Now, you did, until about 10 minutes ago, see France over there.

I've got some beautiful lemon sole, wonderful, wonderful fish.

But simply I'm going to cook this with some lovely cider and some mussels and some saffron.

I'm going to get onto the saffron in a minute because it is local as well.

So for this, first of all, whenever I get fish like this, always flat fish, I try and cook it on the bone, ideally whole, but all I've got is a little pan.

So what I'm going to do is cut this into little steaks, or as the French call it, little darnes, really, for this one.

So we're just going to remove the fins from the fish.

They'll just catch in the pan as well.

So with a pair of scissors, just trim these up like that.

This fish is so fresh, I can't tell you.

And then all I'm going to do with this is basically just chop it into pieces.

So remove the head like that.

And then I'm just going to cut this into chunks, so straight through the bone like that.

Now, the French have a wonderful name, call this.

They call this a darne.

And you cut this straight through the bone.

But whenever you get fish like this, particularly flatfish-- halibut, turbot, which is also caught all the way around here a little bit further out, mind, and much bigger-- try and keep it on the bone.

You've got this beautiful chunk of meat either side like that.

It's absolutely fantastic.

It keeps it lovely and moist as well.

Now, with the monkfish, we've got to remove this from the bone.

However, with monkfish, there's only one bone, and it's running right through the center.

So all I'm going to do with that is just trim it either side of this bone like that.

Nowadays, this is quite expensive, this fish now.

But back in the '70s, we used to be eating this all along the coastline of the British Isles, because this would be used for scampi.

There's a little film all the way around the tail.

It's a good idea just to remove that.

Otherwise, it sort of shrinks while it cooks and toughens up.

But all you do with this is just cut this into decent-sized chunks.

Now, I'm cutting it through here so it cooks nice and quickly.

So I'm going to pan fry this.

Just cut little pieces out of it, really.

So just to help it along its way, just cut it into pieces.

A bit of salt and pepper over the top.

Some salt.

And then cook this in a combination of oil and butter.

So a bit of oil and a good knob of butter.

Get it nice and foaming in the pan, and then pop the fish in.

Now, the reason why monkfish is so expensive nowadays-- there's about 60% waste on this.

But when you get it, it really is fantastic.

Very similar to any fresh fish when you get it like this.

But this really-- to me, fish, flatfish on the bone, is spectacular.

No need to skin it.

We're just going to pan fry this for a couple of minutes.

[sprightly music] ♪ ♪ That's an interesting fish is sole, but it's caught mainly in abundance on the south coast, all the way from here up towards Dover, of course, round from Dover as well, but also along the south coastline, all the way down to Hastings.

And we need to eat much more fish and appreciate what's on our doorstep.

Just look at that.

Just look at it.

Now, this fish will only take about three or four minutes to cook both sides.

While that's cooking, we prepare the rest of our ingredients because this is going to be like a little sauce that goes with it.

So grab yourself some shallots.

You can use onions if you want.

Either way, nice and finely chopped, because I'm not going to pass this sauce.

This is really simple to cook.

So a few bits of this.

And some garlic.

Garlic's purely optional.

It's entirely up to you whether you want to put garlic in it, but I think with this, particularly with the mussels, I think it really works.

Just a little bit of garlic.

I only want about a clove.

That's enough.

My first real experience of a glamorous holiday was visiting a beach like this.

We used to queue up for a deckchair.

Don't need to do it anymore, clearly.

Look.

But look at this fish.

Don't have to do anything with it.

Just simply pan fry it.

Lovely.

Beautiful monkfish as well.

Nicely cooked.

A few bits of that.

Now, leave all the juices in the pan as well, because for that, we're just going to make our sauce.

So in we go with the garlic and shallots.

And just cook this for about 30 seconds.

Now, so often with this, you would add white wine.

But in this neck of the woods, we're going to use some cider because cider in a sauce with fish is fantastic.

But you need really good quality cider.

It's no good with that cider that gives you a massive hangover when you're at college.

Not that cider, not the clarified cider.

You want the cloudy cider, the fancy cider, the nice cider.

So while the cider is reducing, I can turn my attention to the mussels.

You could use some clams for this.

Obviously, just around the corner, you've got oysters as well-- Whitstable.

Oysters are one of those things.

You either love them or hate them.

It's like horseradish.

It's the food of the devil.

Just remove this little beard like that.

And then finally, we can add a touch of saffron.

Now, saffron is an amazing ingredient.

And would you believe it's actually been produced in the UK.

Further around the coastline in Norfolk.

We just put a little bit of saffron in here.

Just a tiny bit.

People always use too much of it, and the food also looks like you've just had a spray tan.

It's a tiny, tiny little bit.

That's all you want.

Touch of double cream.

Like that.

Lid on and wait.

While we're waiting, try and see France.

Look, it is over there.

Look.

[gentle music] So just as your mussels are starting to open up, grab yourself some parsley.

Just a bit of flat leaf parsley.

I remember when it was curly parsley.

That's all you could get.

Now it's flat leaf parsley.

It's all gone fancy.

Look.

Look at this.

[gasps] The parsley over the top.

Stir this all in.

The mussels just start to open up as well.

Mm.

[chuckles] Little knob of butter, just to finish that off.

Just to enrich it nicely.

This is so, so good.

Tiny, tiny little bit of saffron is all you need.

Take this off.

♪ ♪ Put this over the top with your mussels, the cream, the cider.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ See, I love food like this.

I absolutely love it.

And it's kind of apt, really, because being here in the shadow of France over there, a country that's so renowned for its food and cooking.

Because I think right now in the UK, we can do it better, because I think we've got better ingredients.

Bon appetit.

Cheers, I mean.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): What could be more fitting to the coast?

Delicious lemon sole, mouthwatering monkfish, and mussels in a cream and cider sauce to give them a Kentish twist.

[guitar music] What an amazing day I've had here in Kent with my tour guide and local boy, Mark Sargeant.

He sampled the finest sourdough.

You can eat that.

You don't even need butter on it.

Yeah, so good.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): And I've tasted a delicious local brew.

It doesn't taste like cider used to do.

It's proper cider, which is good.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): And I'm genuinely impressed by everything this county has to offer.

But do you know what I like best?

And that's Mark and his restaurant.

It's taken me seven years to get here.

I've never seen a restaurant so close to the source of its produce.

Literally, the fish is landing here.

You've got the nets, the boat's here, the restaurant's there.

They even knock on the kitchen window when the turbot lands, saying, do they want it?

For a chef, it doesn't get any better than this.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪