[fun music] Bienvenu a France.

That's welcome to France to you and me.

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

Bon appetit.

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

It's where I learned to cook.

Magical times.

Magical times.

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

This is really, really delicious.

Mm, mm, mm.

[theme music] ♪ ♪ JAMES (VOICEOVER): I love my car.

We've become best of friends on this trip around France, and it's safe to say that there aren't many places that I'd choose to come if I knew I had to leave her behind.

But for this city, I've made an exception.

JAMES: Welcome to Paris, and this has to be one of my favorite places in the world-- apart from Whitby.

It's similar, innit?

[pleasant music] JAMES (VOICEOVER): OK, so we're around 450 miles away and in a different country, but, hey, the region of Whitby-- sorry, I mean, Paris-- covers an area of around 4,000 square miles and is home to a population of around 12 million people.

That's nearly 20% of the population of France.

[fun music] Ah, the sights, the sounds, the selfie sticks.

The cafe culture is just so relaxing, everything a food lover like me could wish for.

But the real reason I came here was for the nightlife.

[vibrant music] [music abruptly stops] You know how much I love a French market, but this is something else.

Welcome to Rungis-- [fun music] --a market with a difference, a market where people get around on bikes.

And it starts when most of us are just about to go to bed.

Now, if I've got a smile on my face, there's a reason for it, because this is like a kid in a sweet shop for a chef.

[fun music] All this is chicken and other varieties of bits and pieces.

In amongst it all, you've got all manner of different sorts of stuff, and I'm just going to-- basically, Rob, you're just going to follow me around for this one.

But we've got rabbit.

I've got venison, haunch of venison, foie gras, every single type of chicken you can possibly imagine, and some.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): And if you're game-- Pigeon.

Anybody for pigeon?

And it gets more interesting the further down you go as well.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): And this massive, refrigerated warehouse is just the tip of the iceberg.

This market is unbelievable, I tell you.

The fish market starts at 1 o'clock in the morning, then the meat market starts.

And then just as the meat market's finishing, that's when the veg market kicks in.

This place is massive, and it's nearly finishing.

It's what?

Half past 4:00 in the morning?

JAMES (VOICEOVER): A city within a city, the market covers a staggering 234 hectares.

And it wasn't until I wanted to find out where the fruit and veg market was, I couldn't believe I wasn't offered my own forklift.

This is just one of the veg units.

There's about eight of these all the way along, and it's just full of stuff.

And look.

Look at that.

Different type of cauliflower, isn't it?

Beautiful-looking thing.

But there's just tons of stuff.

Over here, Rob, just look.

Dive into this.

Over here, we've got different types of parsnips, different-colored carrots, purple carrots as well.

You don't often see these, but look at these.

Just check those out.

Beautiful.

Almost look like beetroot inside, these ones.

And what I wanted to show you is this, because this has become really popular in the UK now.

Chefs have been using this quite a lot, but these are all what we call micro cresses or micro herbs.

We're so used to mustard cress and stuff like that you put in your egg and cress sandwiches.

This is the future right here.

Right here-- in tissue paper.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): Ah, that takes me back to growing cress at school.

Ah, those were the days.

I love it here.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): And elsewhere on this vast foodie campus, I've stumbled across fungi heaven.

JAMES: This place is packed full of mushrooms, and these are just a few.

Look at this.

Pied de mouton, these ones.

We've got chanterelles, little girolles-- amazing little things.

These are quite interesting as well.

Trompette de la mort, trumpets of death.

Not poisonous.

Just taste delicious.

And then there's so many different ones.

Here, look.

White beech mushrooms, enoki mushrooms.

These, masses of these, look at these, ceps.

Often called porcini.

You often get these dried in the UK, but just check that out.

Lovely-looking things, aren't they?

Just follow me.

Look.

[fun music] More mushrooms.

I'm off, 'cause there ain't mushroom in here.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): Ah, sorry about that.

Anyway, as you can imagine, breakfast time comes early for this lot.

There are around 12,000 people here in need of a hot brekkie.

I can't promise to cook for them all, but I'll have a go.

Now, I've got to be honest.

There are so many different things I could cook at this market, and I managed to sneak in the back of one of these amazing wholesalers.

And I could have chosen a variety of different things because there's quite a lot still in here, including this stuff.

Look at this, that wonderful cauliflower.

Look at that.

I don't think I've ever seen one of these before.

Beautiful, little cauliflower.

And then bit of lettuce if you wanted it.

Touch of spinach if you wanted that as well.

So I've narrowed it down to a few things.

I've narrowed it down to chicken and some wild mushrooms, a really simple, little dish, and I've managed to get one of these little fellas, truffle.

I'm going to show you about that and talk about it a little bit later, but it's all about the chicken to start off with.

Now, this is a corn-fed chicken, very different to la bresse chicken, which is the famous chicken of France.

Now, what I'm going to do with this really is basically just take the breast off the chicken and French trim them.

It's a really classic way of doing it, but the first thing I'm going to do is remove the legs.

Basically, you take the chicken like that, flip it over, break its legs-- like that, and then remove the legs and the thigh.

But all we're going to do is take the breast of the chicken off.

Very simple.

You start off with the crown, make sure it's nice and flat like that, and then either side of this part here, insert your knife in, cut all the way down, and then gradually just take the chicken breast meat away, making long sort of simple cuts all the way down till you get to the joint, which is in here.

There's a knuckle in there.

We want to keep that on as well.

Do the same thing with the other side.

It's kind of one of those things, once you learn how to do it, you get more confident at it.

But once you start cutting, the best way to do it is basically make long strokes with a knife rather than sort of small cuts.

You get a much even cut to the chicken.

And there you have your bit of leftover carcass there.

Now, to turn this into French trim, the easiest way to do that is remove this part of the winglet.

Lose that, and lose that bit.

And what you end up with is there's a classic chicken breast with a knuckle attached.

And basically to prepare this now what you do is you hold the knuckle in your hand and cut all the way around, right the way through to the bone really with one.

Do the same thing with the other one.

And then all you do is you pull the meat away from the bone, so when you get to that point, just give it a quick whack to make sure the bones nicely come off.

And you end up with this clean bit of bone on here.

Now, to get additional points at college, what you would do is take this little part of the knuckle and just remove it.

That way, the leg now sticks up, and you can serve it.

The difference is another tenner.

Now, to cook this, we're going to cook it in plenty of butter, so pan on the stove.

[sizzling] And put the chicken straight in, and get this cooking away nicely.

Now, a bit of seasoning, a bit of salt, bit of pepper.

I'm going to turn this one up for no reason other than the fact that we're actually cooking this in a fridge, and it is proper cold in here.

And I'm from the north.

[sizzling] Now, to simply serve this, I thought I'd do this with some wonderful mushrooms.

Now, we've got some ceps, trompette de la mort, chanterelles, some girolles.

It's entirely up to you what you do, and nowadays, you can get oyster mushrooms, loads of different ones.

You can make this with button mushrooms.

It doesn't matter, but the process of it is still the same.

So you start off with some chopped shallot, and the reason why I use shallot is that it's much more milder than like, a large, Spanish, white onion, so nice and finely chopped.

So the chicken is cooking away nicely.

We can keep our eye on it.

What we do here is we take our nice, little trompette de la mort.

Beautiful color as well.

Just look at that.

What you do is just break these open, and we get a little pile of these, little chanterelles.

Wonderful.

Few little girolles as well.

And then these ceps or porcini, really, you often get these dried, sometimes as a powder, nice and sliced in packs.

But this is its fresh form.

Beautiful.

But also, don't wash it.

You see a little bit of mud on it like this, don't worry about that.

Just trim that bit off, and we just basically just chop it up like that.

The key to this really is never, ever let these go anywhere near water.

Basically, what happens is the mushrooms absorb moisture like a sponge.

So the minute you wash them, all the water sort of goes into the mushrooms.

Then they just dump them out into a pan, and you end up with this watery mess in the pan when you try and cook them.

[sizzling] Chicken looks good.

A bit more of this chicken over the top.

And then we'll get the pan on, and what you need to do with this is cook them in a really, really hot pan.

The key to mushrooms is intensify all that flavor by holding it all in.

If the pan's not hot enough, what happens is the mushrooms start to soak out and become wet, and liquid, and horrible.

A little bit of butter.

And then now you've got to do this in the right order, so the shallots going first and then the mushrooms.

No garlic at this point.

The problem is with garlic, if you cook it and it browns, it goes bitter.

So what you do is you actually add it almost half the way through the cooking, really.

Give that a quick stir, not too much.

Now we can put in our garlic, not too much.

Now, a great combination with this, of course, is tarragon.

Tarragon, chicken, mushrooms-- classic combination, and it's almost finished, this.

It's really simple.

That's the key, just cooking stuff like this.

You don't have to over complicate it.

Perfect.

Now, almost at the last minute, because this is nearly ready, we take some cream, but just a little bit of cream in there.

And we've got this wild mushroom mixture.

Delicious.

Leave that gently simmering away for a little bit.

And our chicken, what we can do is basically just-- I love this term-- nappé.

It's not a nappy-- nappé.

It's to coat in butter.

Look at that.

Mm.

It's delicious.

Let it rest a little bit.

We've got our mushrooms.

[fun music] Look.

This is what I love about food like this.

It may appear complicated, but it's actually really simple.

French trim chicken breast with a bit of tarragon, and then finally, I've got a bit of this.

Look at that.

Now, it may appear something that's left in a park.

Look at it.

This is proper.

This is black truffle.

This is a French black truffle.

And even though it's cold in here, and I've got cold, I can still smell it.

You can get French truffle.

You can get Italian truffle.

You can even get truffle from the UK-- not chocolate ones, real ones as well.

The best place for those is in Hampshire, would you believe?

So what I'm going to do is just take a little bit of truffle over the top.

Look at that.

Now, because I'm deemed to be a bit fancy in here now, we're going to take a few of these.

Now, this isn't any fancy herb that you can't get in the UK and only get in France.

These are just carrot tops.

That's all they are.

On there.

And there you have it, a French trim, pan fried chicken breast with wild mushrooms, cream, and tarragon-- and a few carrot tops.

[fun music] And those people that are whinging that I've used too much butter or cream, you can change the recipe.

Serve it with some salad.

There's plenty here.

And I'm keeping this.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): Today I'm exploring everything Paris can offer me, from the biggest market you can imagine to some of the best sights on the planet.

Now, bread, of course, can be made anywhere and found anywhere in the world, but in my mind, if you want to taste some of the best, it has to be in Paris.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): Welcome to the La Poilane Bakery on the Rue du Cherche-Midi, where there used to be five boulangeries until a certain Miche Poilane set up shop here in the 1920s.

[pleasant music] In time, Parisian bread lovers realized they appreciated the offerings here more than those of the other bakeries, and now this is the only one left.

But forget the baguette, because here it's all about traditional sourdough.

And this is Lionel, who's carrying on the tradition of making the bread with a little bit of history in every loaf.

LIONEL: The starter, we make it since 1932.

Every baker who works there and who was working there keeps a little part of the dough.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): The mother dough or starter is passed on every time Lionel makes a new batch of loaves.

It contains natural yeast, and all he needs to do is add flour, water, and sea salt.

And it seems Lionel thinks he's given birth to the bread himself.

You give life to a thing, the dough, and you make it growing like a baby.

That's the magic thing.

There's a scientific way to explain the bread, but you can study the flour, the dough.

You can study all that, but you can't make bread if you don't think it's, like, a magic thing.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): But you don't need a wand to produce such carb-based sorcery.

A good loaf simply needs plenty of rest.

And after two hours, they're ready to be baked in this amazing wood-fired oven.

LIONEL: Every baker has his signature on the bread.

It's always P, but always a different P. JAMES (VOICEOVER): I should sign my loaves.

Knowing my luck, they'd end up on eBay-- or the bin.

Lionel keeps a close eye on the loaves until they're done.

There's no thermometer or timer here, but he knows when they're ready because he understands the magic of baking.

And look at these.

He certainly knows what he's doing.

And good bread needs a good filling, so I've got just the thing for a Parisian-style lunch back home.

Now, I do love sourdough, but if you talk in Paris, it has to be the baguette for me.

And so many different restaurants serve it with so many different fillings, but one of my favorite has to be a steak baguette.

Now, first of all, for our baguette, I'm going to do beer-caramelized, braised onions.

It's kind of like a beer-onion chutney really.

Fire up the pan with some olive oil in it first, and instead of adding water to this or a bit of wine, I'm going to use beer.

So I'm going to take the onions.

And start cooking these down.

Quite a hot pan, first of all.

What I love about this baguette, it's everything that I love in between two slices of bread-- steak, beer, and onions.

Delicious.

[fun music] Now, to help them on their way, we can grab some of this-- just some brown sugar.

What brown sugar.

Is impart flavor to it but also caramelize the onions as well.

[sizzling] Same time now, we can work a little bit of garlic in.

Right, in we go with the beer.

Now, this is beer.

This isn't any fancy lager.

It's beer, ale.

Bit of fresh thyme.

And meanwhile, we can turn our attention to these pieces of meat.

Now, this is the onglet.

There's two different types, really.

You get onglet and bavette.

Classically, these would be served with chips in most cafés and brasseries around France because it's a cheap, inexpensive cut of meat.

But also when you look at it like that, you've got one thick end, one thin end.

So we're going to trim this and cook it in two separate parts because this is going to take longer to cook than the thin part.

Take a onglet as well.

Just season this with some salt.

I'm not going to season it with black pepper yet, just some salt.

[pleasant music] A little bit of olive oil.

Start off with the thick pieces.

We'll get these straight on the griddle.

[sizzling] The key to it is keep it nice and hot.

So a piece of meat like this, no more than three or four minutes.

That's all it wants on the griddle.

[sizzling] That's really important when you use anything like onglet or bavette, that you leave it to rest as well.

It's vitally, vitally important.

Otherwise, it just ends up being really, really tough.

A little bit of oil because I want to keep the juices as well.

I want to get as much flavor in this baguette as possible.

Char them onto the same hot plate as you've done the steak.

Get a bit of parsley.

♪ ♪ We can then grab a bit of garlic.

Just rub the garlic on your baguette.

Grab these delicious onions, bit of mustard, and then the meat itself.

Now, you always cut against the grain like that.

Look at this fabulous cut of meat.

Look at that, charred on the outside, delicious.

I don't often cook baguettes and stuff like that on cookery shows because I feel it's far too simple, but just look at it.

A bit of black pepper.

We're not finished yet.

Some more of these onions on the top.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I give you a French, proper steak sarnie-- using this amazing-- onglet of beef.

Cheers.

[vibrant music] JAMES (VOICEOVER): My trip to northern France has brought me to one of my favorite cities of all time-- gay Paris.

It's home to a gastronomic wonderland and one of the finest bakeries you're likely to find.

It's also the perfect place for a bit of foodie sightseeing.

Now, of course, there's several sights that you must see in Paris-- the Notre-Dame, the Eiffel Tower.

But here, right here on the Champs-Elysées, is one of my favorite places.

And if it's lunch you're after, this spot does the best French onion soup, I think, in Paris.

And if you're after a three-star Michelin, just down that road is the famous George V Hotel.

If you want a bit of shopping, that's not a bad store as well.

The Arc de Triomphe.

And if you're bored and want to show, the famous Lido.

I love this place.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): For a man like me who's led by his stomach, there really is no finer place to be.

Some of the most prestigious restaurants in the world are right here in Paris.

And if you want to know the myth behind a three-star Michelin, you're about to get a behind-the-scenes tour.

[intriguing music] JAMES (VOICEOVER): This is Hotel Balzac, just off the Champs-Elysées in the heart of Paris, and is home to probably the best restaurant in the entire world, and the man in charge, Pierre Gagnaire.

Now, if you want to know the real reason why this man is at the top of his game, 66 years old, still on the pass.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): Pierre has been turning out top-class food here at Restaurant Pierre Gagnaire since 1996, and it's easy to see why his cooking is considered the bee's knees.

[fun music] Today, Pierre and his team are cooking lunch for a school of hoteliers, and right now the hors d'oeuvres are going out to the private party of 40.

JAMES: So the energy of the kitchen is starting to ramp up now.

You can feel it.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): And it's easy to see why they're so enthused.

Observing the great man in his own kitchen is quite remarkable.

JAMES: See, what I love about this is being able to watch.

It's like a-- it's like an artist.

It sounds weird, but when you watch somebody paint, it's just-- and paint, I mean, really, really well, it's like watching this.

[speaking french] It's just a pleasure, a pleasure to be able to see it.

But now you know what I mean about work that goes into stuff.

I mean, just look at these.

Every single one is exactly the same.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): So now the canopies have been served, I wonder what's next.

Got a small, little jelly of Jerusalem artichokes to start with, with a little bit of squid that's been marinated, nice little bits of Visha fish, and rhubarb, which is quite unusual.

And it's all about to kick off.

[fun music] JAMES (VOICEOVER): Pierre's unique kitchen style consists of him preparing a dish for his team so that they can replicate it exactly, like this Dover sole tureen, which apparently takes hours to make.

So this is the next course that's going out.

It's stuffed underneath with wild mushrooms, sauteed red radicchio, and it's beautifully glazed.

And each individual one is tied up.

Looks absolutely stunning.

But what's quite funny about all this is that Pierre's just suddenly changed his mind, and he wanted clementines sliced underneath it.

So you've got six chefs running around just doing clementines.

[laughs] It's the attention to detail to everything, and it's quiet.

Nobody's shouting-- [speaking french] --ish.

Everybody is just-- on it.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): The style and sophistication doesn't just end up on the plate.

Patient and immaculate waiting staff are part of the deal.

In fact, everyone's fashionable.

JAMES: Even the kitchen porter is cool.

[fun music, vocalizing] Cool, indeed.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): But don't take your eye off the job, as there's plenty to wash up.

Because the restaurant's in-kitchen chef's table has two special guests-- just a Michelin star chef from Poland and a French professor of chemistry who often works closely with Pierre on his molecular gastronomy.

JAMES: This is one of the great things about working in the kitchen.

You get to see stuff that you guys probably don't see really.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): Running a kitchen like this takes focus, and determination, but what drives Pierre's unique talent?

PIERRE: Being for me, it was not a passion.

I was in this industry because my father had a restaurant.

But finally, one day, I found that it was possible with product to put in the plate something was beautiful.

It was quite.

And for me, it was like a therapy to cook.

Give me one bit of advice.

There's going to be some young chefs watching this.

PIERRE: Advice?

Give me some advice.

To be yourself.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): Not emulating anyone else and being true to yourself is clearly the recipe for success.

In my life, I've always wanted to cook, all my life, since I was eight years old.

To be in a kitchen in Paris, to watch this man work, it's a privilege.

[speaking french] JAMES (VOICEOVER): Pierre, you're an inspiration.

And what better way to toast the great man than with a drink and a dessert made with a drink?

You see, that guy, to me, is probably a living legend.

That guy is as cool as a cucumber.

And I'm going to start this recipe by not making the food, but a celebratory drink, because never, ever in my wildest dreams did I think that I would be in a kitchen with the legend, Pierre Gagnaire.

The man is a genius.

Now, if I was working with him, this is probably the drink that I would need, a gin and tonic.

Because I'm going to use the flavors to make a variant on a French classic, because that's what Pierre is all about-- modernist French food.

And I'm going to use the flavors from this into a classic dessert.

But first off, it's all about the batter.

So we start off with some flour, and we enrich the batter with some sugar and two eggs, but also butter.

All that goes in, a little pinch of salt.

Because we've got quite a bit of sugar going in at the end, the salt cuts through the sweetness.

And get this on gently mixing together.

Now, another part of the enrichment process is supplementing water with milk.

All we need to do now is just gently warm this up, and I say gently because we're going to add some of this stuff.

It's not a stock cube, but this is fresh yeast.

You can buy the dried stuff, the powdered stuff, which is fine, but the fresh yeast works so much quicker.

And all we want to do is just warm it.

If we add fresh yeast to too hot a liquid, it'll kill the yeast, so we just mix this together to form a paste.

By mixing it together and warming up the milk, you kind of activate the yeast, which then allows it to make the dough, or the batter, as I like to call this, rise.

So we'll just pour the whole lot in and then get the machine going.

This does two things.

Not only does it mix it all together, but it strengthens the gluten in the flour and gives it texture.

That looks pretty good to me.

Now, you can see the texture.

It's very different to a bread dough.

It has got much more of a softer texture.

That's why I keep calling it a batter.

See, it's stuck almost to the bottom of the machine.

It's very tacky, which is what we want.

Now, to basically make this into a savran, all we do now is on our little board, tiny bit of flour, not too much.

Take some in your hand.

So you bring these together, so you need to work quite quickly like that.

And then to make a simple savran-- because this is what a savran is, it's the shape of the mold.

If you're asking a chef to make a savran, it's usually this-- a massive, like, donut.

And then pop that over the top, so that sits in there.

So now what you need to do is allow this to prove up.

It takes about 45 minutes, an hour-- somewhere warm.

Then bake it in the oven.

It takes about 30 minutes in the oven, and what you end up with is this, this classic sort of savran.

Beautiful, golden brown.

I'm going to turn this slightly modern.

What I'm going to do is take the influences from gin and tonic, and for that, I'm going to use what's in here.

This is a little bit of stock syrup.

There's obviously no need to put tonic in it because you've got the sugar and the water anyway, and let's add the cucumber and the lime.

So you use a melon baller and scoop this out.

Right, in we go with cucumber.

Next, a little bit of lime zest.

[pleasant music] To segment it, you follow the shape of the lime.

Look.

You just go either side of the little line.

One side, the other side.

Gin.

♪ ♪ Next, this is what it's all about, is you take your savran, and you dunk it like a newborn baby.

I'm not saying you dunk a newborn baby in gin, but you know, this would be a great start to your life, wouldn't it, really, if you were christened like this-- in a warm bath of gin, cucumber, and lime with just a hint of lime zest?

And basically, you just dunk it in.

Now we can lift it out.

Now, we don't want it in the syrup too long, otherwise it starts to drop to bits.

We can pop our mixture around the edge.

You take your syrup.

This goes over the top.

Now, it has to be finished off with some cream.

I'm just going to whip up a little bit of double cream with a hint of vanilla.

Now, we're creating creme chantilly, light cream.

And get yourself a piping bag.

So this is one of the things that I love about French cooking.

They just eat food and enjoy food.

And we pipe.

♪ ♪ Cheers.

[fun music] JAMES (VOICEOVER): I'm on a French adventure here in the great city of Paris, a city unlike any other in the world, a city I've essentially been obsessed with for years-- its people, its buildings, and, of course, its many restaurants.

But it's not all café culture and fine dining.

Let's not forget, my Parisian culinary adventure started at a cold market before dawn, surrounded by literally thousands of ingredients.

But not all are my cup of tea.

Now, of all the things I found in this market, there's one-- and thank god there's only one box-- okra, lady's fingers-- the most pointless thing in the world.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): Sorry, okra-lovers.

Well, maybe it's not that bad.

Don't write in.

I just couldn't bring myself to use it for my final cooking sketch You know, it's quite interesting being here, because most of the cauliflower that was here before is now on its way to the UK, and we gained some shallots, some pumpkin.

We've still got the lettuce.

All this, this entire lot, is going over to the UK every single day.

It's fascinating stuff.

But I've been around the market.

I've picked a few bits and pieces.

So follow me for this one, Rob, because what we're going to do is we're going to do a nice, little magret duck with pickled veg.

So over here, we've got some nice little bits of carrots.

These are sort of yellow carrots.

We can use the white carrots if you want, normal, round carrots.

We've got some beautiful magret duck, bit of chili, some sugar, some salt, vinegar, a bit of water, and then variety of different things really.

This is the idea.

You can do a nice pickled veg.

We've got some radishes, some parsnips here, some navet.

When I first came to France, these were never on the menu.

These were pig feed, the French called it.

You would never use these.

So first thing we're going to do is cook our duck.

Now, I've got this.

This is magret duck, and for me, this is the king of all duck.

A lot of people say Aylesbury duck, and I apologize for people in Aylesbury, but this, I think, is better.

And you can see the difference.

Rob, look at this.

Get in here, and you'll see the difference.

Look at the amount of fat in here.

Now, it's almost half fat to meat.

Check that out.

If you want the ultimate sandwich, check that out.

Beautiful magret duck, and look at the size of it.

Look at the size of these things.

Huge.

And to simply cook them, all I'm going to do is put a little bit of salt on the fat, and the idea of this is to render it down in the pan.

So a little bit of salt on here and just pop it into a pan No fat, no oil, nothing.

Just put the heat quite low, and what we're going to do is render this down nice and slowly.

And the idea being, you almost cook it all the way through on one side, so wash my hands.

[sizzling] And often with duck breasts, when you cook them, it only serves one.

But magret duck like this is proper, and it serves quite a few people.

But what we need to do is just allow that fat to come out of it and color the duck breast at the same time.

Now, with all this fantastic veg, I thought I'd do a pickle-- a nice, little pickle.

And this is really simple-- really, really simple.

What you start off with is some vinegar, generally white wine vinegar.

This has got a little bit of honey in there, which is nice, to add some sweetness.

Some sugar-- just some plain caster sugar-- and salt.

And that's kind of your pickle done really.

Now, we're not pickling onions, although, to be fair, we've got enough if you want pickled onions.

This is just a nice, simple, little pickle, using a variety of different veg.

It goes well with fish.

It goes well with meat.

It's just wonderful.

What you need to do, first of all, is start slicing everything nice and thin, so we'll start off with our wonderful turnips here, which you can just take these off like this, and just thinly slice them.

Now, you can use one of these little mandolins.

Be careful.

All you're doing, basically, with this is bringing the sugar, salt, and vinegar to the boil, and just almost evaporating the sugar and the salt, really.

You don't need to boil it too much, just so it all evaporates together.

Now, at the same time, we do the same thing with the carrots.

I kind of wince whenever I use this thing.

Still got my fingers.

Look.

This is almost done, and then all we do is you just grab your veg and throw it in.

So you've got your turnips, your carrots.

We can also take radishes.

These are wonderful.

Just look at these.

Look at that.

Lovely pile of radishes.

And when you taste radishes really fresh, they are totally different to the ones that people are used for, which are very dry in flavor.

When you taste them really fresh like this, they're very peppery.

They're just delicious.

But you're going to slice these as well, like that, and throw those in.

It's just a very simple, instant pickle that goes really well with duck, and you can even use things like parsnips and just thinly slice them.

Now, look.

Look at this.

Never mind me, Rob.

Look, look.

Look, get in here.

I haven't added anything to this.

This is just as it is.

Look.

[sizzling] This is how much fat is coming out the duck breast.

This is what keeps it warm when it's swimming around.

Nice.

Look.

Turn that lower, a little bit lower, just ever so slightly.

Just let it tick away gently.

Grab some black pepper, and then I'm going to make a wonderful sauce to go with this.

So hot pan on the stove, and then we just use a combination of ingredients I use a little bit of vinegar and water-- half and half.

Sugar, decent amount of sugar.

All the sugar.

Look at that.

Pinch of salt.

And then we're going to make kind of like a chili jam, but it's not a chili jam.

It's just-- you know that stuff that you buy in the supermarket, that sort of sticky chili jam that you get?

This is what it is basically.

It's just a mixture of vinegar, water, salt, and chilies.

And you can get hot and spicy chilies if you want, but the key to this really is finely chop them.

So slice them through.

And keep the seeds in there.

I've got no idea why people flick seeds out of chili.

And when you ask them, they go, I don't like it hot.

What the hell are you using chili for in the first place?

Just put the seeds in it.

And then put our chili in with the jam.

See, all the while, the duck is gently cooking away.

Turn it up a little bit.

And this will start to boil.

As it boils, the sugar will caramelize, but the whole mixture will become nice and sticky.

So this needs to cook for about two or three minutes, and this duck for about another six or seven minutes.

[sizzling] Now, the chili jam is just about there, so you can switch it off now.

You can tell when the texture starts to change.

Now, our duck, look at all this fat off here.

Just baste the duck over the top.

This is one of the first things I actually tasted while I was over in France that was properly cooked, if that makes sense.

Before, I always used to go to a restaurant and have everything well done-- or as the French called it, bien cuit Anglais.

So there's basically well done, and there's well done in the style of English.

But this was the first thing I tasted that probably still had a pulse, but it does make all the difference.

So it depends on how well you want the duck breast.

Depends on how long you stand here cooking it, but I'm going to quite happily have mine probably like that-- rare.

[pleasant music] But the way to tell whether a duck is bleu, bien cuit, bien cuit in the style of English is to press it.

When you press this part of your thumb finger, press it again.

That is bleu.

It's still moving.

This one is medium rare when it gets to that texture.

This one is medium.

This one's knackered.

We don't go there in France.

And then I ain't got another finger for cooking in the style of English, which is this one.

But you just have it nicely like that, and then we can take a slice out of it.

That looks pretty good to me.

Look at that.

Mm.

[laughs] Delicious.

I know I get all excited about stuff, but this is just proper food.

Put that on the plate.

Like that.

See, and then you just take some of this pickle and you just put it on there.

A few bits of the radish, bit of the carrot tops.

I'm getting really into carrot tops.

It's not in a weird way.

Just been here too long.

You get this chili jam over the top.

Just look at that.

Rob, just look at that for a plate of loveliness.

Look.

And then the best part of this is I've got one left for me.

And then dip it in this bit as well.

Mm.

♪ ♪ JAMES (VOICEOVER): I will tell you how good this is, but you get the idea.

Cue the music.

[fun music] So there you have it, dinner at breakfast time-- succulent duck breasts complemented by tangy veg and a spicy chili jam.

Different to cornflakes.

What is there not to love about Paris as a city?

Beautiful architecture, stunning scenery.

And if it's food and drink you're after, I still think Paris is the gastronomic capital of the world.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): My eyes have been opened to the hard work and toil of thousands of people behind great food.

This market is unbelievable, I'll tell you.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): I fulfilled a lifelong ambition to witness truly mesmerizing cooking.

JAMES: To be in a kitchen in Paris, to watch this man work, it's a privilege.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): A city that I've been in love with for many years just got closer to my heart and my belly.

What a fabulous day in Paris, and believe me, it has everything-- apart from a lawnmower.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): Oh, well, nowhere's perfect.

[closing music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [pleasant music] Serve it with some salad.

There's plenty here.

And I'm keeping this.

[fun music] JAMES (VOICEOVER): Coming up on my French adventure here in Paris, we meet a bread-making wizard.

LIONEL: You can't make bread if you don't think it's, like, a magic thing.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): And I make a Parisian-style lunchtime treat back home.

[fun music] JAMES (VOICEOVER): Today I'm exploring everything Paris can offer me.

[pleasant music] Cheers.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): Coming up on my French adventure in Paris, I fulfill a lifelong ambition and get in the kitchen with the world's best chef.

[fun music] 66 years old, still on the pass.

[speaking french] JAMES (VOICEOVER): And I celebrate the main man with a boozy dessert back in my home kitchen.

[fun music] JAMES (VOICEOVER): My trip to Northern France has-- [pleasant music] Cheers.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): Still to come, as I round off my French adventure in Paris, back at the market, I discover the elephant in the room.

The most pointless thing in the world.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): And I cook dinner before 8:00 AM.

Look at that.

Mm.

[laughs] [fun music] [fun music] [pleasant music] JAMES (VOICEOVER): I'm on a French adventure here in the great city of Paris, a city--