He took those
vegetables and he
poured the contents of
the pan on my head it was Brussel sprouts
of the best guys I know in this country
but there are others also, I know Gordon
Ramsey and I have met Jamie Oliver
a few times. I hold them in all huge
respect and, yeah, if I ask any questions
or need help I always get an answer and
I think that’s good enough.
So, who’s the worst tempered chef you’ve
worked with?
Ha, nobody in the UK! We might see
different people behaving very differently
but when I worked in India, I used to
look after a French restaurant at that
time, the restaurant was called La
Rochelle, and they had invited a French
chef to be a chef for the restaurant for
two years. I can’t remember his name.
He was a middle aged guy in those
days and I’m going back 24 years. He
liked me a lot but one day he asked
me to cut the veggies for the evening
service and that’s all he said and then
he left. So I went to the store and got
the veggies and he came back, he was
from the south of France, and a very
patriotic French guy and he always
wanted everything French, Parisian
beef, chicken, everything was flown in so
it was no wonder that restaurant never
made any money because the food cost
was 90% and the rest of the 10% was
his salary! I think we were all working
for free! So… I prepared the vegetables
and I was very proud of them. I thought
they all looked great on the plate and
16
it was fantastic, and he came back
and he said; “Oh, what vegetables did
you prepare?” so I showed him and he
looked at them and he said: “You need
to throw them.” And the pan was still hot.
He took those vegetables and he poured
the contents of the pan on my head - it
was Brussel sprouts - there are still
scars. He said, “How many years will it
take for you to learn that Brussel sprouts
come from Brussels not from France.”
He was a very rude guy.
You do some live television, do you ever
worry that things are going to go wrong?
Is there quite a lot of pressure?
It’s a pressure. I think one thing about
live television, anybody who aims
to do it any time in their life, you’ve
got to choose the recipes which are
simple and easy and you’re doing it
for somebody, you’re not doing it for
yourself. You’re not satisfying yourself.
You are actually telling the mass… the
masses of people how to cook this
recipe - but if you start with a recipe
that should have started three days ago,
people are going to give up. So you
have to go with a recipe that happens.
And a live example is Saturday Kitchen.
I have a seven-minute slot and I have
to finish the recipe within those seven
minutes… yeah, some of the prep
work can be done in advance but the
cooking process you have to show them
in seven minutes because there’s only
so much time on the show. So I think
simplicity is the best policy and that’s
what I follow, that’s what I do. I never
try doing my complicated recipes on
the show or I would take an element
of that recipe and just cook that. Like
in the last show, we have a chicken
recipe, a chicken dish which is a threepart process, so I just took one part of
that recipe and I cooked it on the show
in exactly seven minutes. It worked
incredibly well, it was fine. It was all
live and from scratch to finish in seven
minutes… so I think that’s what one
should remember. And things go wrong,
yeah, if they go wrong. Lap it up.
Omelettes always go wrong.
You had to do the omelette challenge on
Saturday Kitchen...
Yes, I had to. I was rubbish this time but
on the board look how competitive we
are, we just want to beat each other.
So… I’m on 22 seconds at the moment.
So now I want to get it inside the pan. I’m
outside the pan. I started within inside the
pan but people have beaten me so I’m
out now. Only six or seven people can be
in the pan. So my aim is to beat the m and
be in the pan. So next time...
Do you practise?
Yeah, of course, everybody does. Anybody
who says they don’t, they’re lying.