Now, I've been quite privileged in my job as a chef to travel to so many different countries.

But there is a place that has it all.

[theme music] From farmers to fishermen.

Planes, trains, and automobiles.

[engine roaring] Woo-hoo!

♪ ♪ And phenomenal seafood.

That is the finest ingredient in the world.

♪ ♪ How good does that look?

And it houses some of the greatest chefs in the world that just happen to be a few of my mates.

How good is that?

That's sensational.

Absolutely sensational.

♪ ♪ It's good, the suspension on the Mini.

[laughter] [engine rumbling] Where is that special place?

Great Britain, of course.

♪ ♪ [rousing choral music] ♪ ♪ JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): My adventure continues, and I've crossed the border from Northern England into Wales, land of song.

♪ ♪ [upbeat music] But don't worry.

You won't catch me singing.

I'm here for the food, of course.

And I've got one of the country's best chefs, Stephen Terry, as my traveling companion.

So are you going to show me around Wales then?

I'm looking forward to this trip.

That's the plan, that's the plan.

Well, it's God's country, James.

It's God's country.

I'm finding that from different chefs every time I go and see them.

I mean, you are spoiled for choice here, aren't you, really, in terms of produce?

Absolutely.

I mean, I've lived in Wales now 18 years, and, you know, I'm an honorary Welshman.

And, you know, you are spoiled for produce.

You've got the obvious things.

You've got the lamb, the leeks, Caerphilly.

People just breeding, growing, you know, making.

And also, what is happening now, the consumer is demanding more.

Yeah.

The consumer is demanding more provenance.

You know, and Wales is responding to that.

There is more artisanal produce that is coming out of Wales than there ever has been before.

You know, it's on my doorstep.

You know, it's in abundance.

- You're very, very lucky.

I mean, just look at this.

I mean-- STEPHEN TERRY: It's nice, isn't it?

--we're at the top of Snowdonia, the national park.

But, I mean, it's just beautiful.

STEPHEN TERRY: It's absolutely beautiful, absolutely stunning.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): We're cruising through the lush country lanes of Snowdonia in northwest Wales, home of Mount Snowdon and designated the first national park in Wales back in 1951.

Our first port of call is Palé Hall in the Dee Valley.

[sweeping music] So here we are.

Palé Hall, a five-star Relais-Chateau luxury hotel and restaurant.

Wow.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): It's the perfect place for our Welsh adventure to begin.

♪ ♪ This sumptuously decorated grand Victorian mansion is perfect for two sophisticated gents like Stephen and me.

Yes, it's fair to say we're really starting off in style.

♪ ♪ But it's in Palé Hall's kitchen where the real magic happens.

Head Chef Gareth Stevenson is cooking up a real treat using the finest Welsh ingredients with a North African twist.

How lucky are we?

Evening, chefs.

Chef, good evening.

- How are we?

- Very good.

Very well.

How are you?

Very well, thank you.

So what do we have here, then, Gareth?

GARETH STEVENSON: Right, so we've got Welsh lamb from the Rhug Estate, down the farm.

We've got loin, a little breast, and then we've got also a tagine from the shoulder.

It's got some harissa chickpeas, baba ganoush, and preserved lemon.

Oh, I love all those things.

JAMES MARTIN: Sounds good.

- Enjoy.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Gareth.

It's not a bad start, is it?

It's incredibly good.

JAMES MARTIN: Bon appetit.

STEPHEN TERRY: And likewise.

Mmm.

Mmm.

This is very refined cooking.

It is.

I mean, the lamb breast as well.

People don't use that too much.

Chefs love it.

- Mmm.

Baba is exceptional.

It's a taste of, you know, North African kind of influence, the harissa, the chickpeas.

Just done perfectly in North Wales.

You know, it's just traveled very well, hasn't it?

It's all right, isn't it?

And this lamb is very, very good.

Sensational.

So go easy because this is just a starter.

I'm cooking for you next.

- Are you?

- Yeah, I am.

Cheers.

I'll drink to that.

No pressure.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): I loved Gareth's Welsh lamb.

And I think it's only right that I have a go at cooking with it for my first recipe.

But I'm keeping the flavors a little closer to home.

How's about that for a Welsh valley?

Absolutely stunning.

When you're in a view like this, you've got to do Welsh lamb.

And I'm going to simply, simply do it and stuff it with some lovely sheep's cheese and pay homage to my guest on my travels, Mr.

Stephen Terry, because the first thing he cooked for me on television was gnocchi.

And I'll never forget it.

And that's what I'm going to serve with this beautiful lamb.

So I'm going to start off with the gnocchi, first of all.

I've got some cooked potato here.

2 egg yolks.

Some salt and pepper.

Don't be frightened with the amount of seasoning as well because you want to incorporate the flavor into here.

Now, you could bulk this out with whatever flavoring you want.

You could put some basil in there, Parmesan.

But I'm going to use some of this lovely Welsh sheep's curd cheese and just stick that in there as well.

Flour.

And then just mix this together.

Just bring it all together, which that is.

I'm just going to take a little piece off.

And then to make your little gnocchi, just break this off so it's easy to work with.

A little bit of flour on your board and just roll it into a little sausage.

Well, long sausage.

There's one.

And it's not till you actually make gnocchi, you realize how easy it is, to be honest with you.

The faffing about bit is the potato bit at the beginning, the cooking of it.

But it's actually really simple to make once you get to that stage.

And there you have your little gnocchi.

So I'm going to just put that on the plate and just get that pan boiling.

Now for the lamb.

We've got these wonderful little cutlets here.

These have been sort of French-trimmed.

The butcher has removed all the fat from it, which is nice.

But I like that bit, you know.

[gnawing] My mother loves these bits.

But they-- it's pretty.

But what I'm going to do is cut a hole right in here.

Hold it nice and flat, put the blade of the knife in.

It creates a little pocket.

Now, rather than stuff this with anything foreign, because I don't want the Welsh shouting at me on the TV and chucking stuff at me, I'm going to stuff it with a nice sheep's milk cheese, just a little bit.

And while I'm doing that, we'll actually get a little bit of it on to cook.

So that's going to go on there.

A little bit of seasoning.

And we'll cook that for a couple of minutes.

Meanwhile, I'll prepare the rest of our veg.

And our veg, I've got-- again, keep it local-- I've got some lovely leeks.

A little bit of spring cabbage, just chopped up.

Carrots, these lovely heritage carrots.

Basically, just cut them up like that.

A few leeks.

Put them on the bias as well.

A few bits of asparagus.

And then these lamb cutlets want to cook for about two or three minutes.

Then I'm going to add my veg.

Throw in our veg.

We just want these in a couple of minutes, something like that.

And then I'm going to add the leeks straight onto the griddle because they don't take very long to cook at all.

[bright music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ So after a couple of minutes, that's all the gnocchi wants, drain this off.

♪ ♪ These go straight into your little pan.

Get a little color on that.

And at the same time, we can take our lamb out.

You can tell when it's cooked.

Look.

That lovely cheese starts to just pop out of there.

Leave that to rest slightly.

Look at that.

Crispy lamb fat.

Mmm.

Bit of that.

You get a little bit of color on this gnocchi.

Nice bit of color on the veg because we're going to make the sauce out of this all in one thing together.

In we go with a few bits of these little spring greens because we're nearly there with this.

It happens quite quickly now.

But this sauce is like butter and lemon juice and mint.

So we grab a little bit of mint.

Chop this up.

Sprinkley over a little bit of mint.

And now a good knob or two of Welsh butter.

Just a nice squeeze of lemon.

You can use a little bit of lemon zest as well is very nice.

Obviously, that spring green is going to take literally a minute to cook.

Just mix it all together.

A bit of black pepper.

Some salt.

Grab yourself a plate.

And then just to bring it all together, just a little bit of water.

♪ ♪ Then we can lift this out with our greens, with our nice carrots, leeks, and our asparagus.

When you look at the gnocchi, it's, like, charred as well with that lemon and butter and a little bit of sauce.

I mean, that's just a lovely plate as it is, but topped with this fine Welsh lamb.

♪ ♪ That is a fine plate of food, which needs tasting.

♪ ♪ Steve, as I say, Chef, I'm going to call you.

Off you go.

Go on then.

Can I just gnaw on one of these?

JAMES MARTIN: Yeah, well, this is your kind of food, innit, really?

The gnocchi.

I know you love your Italian sort of food.

Oh, my God.

That is amazing.

That is incredible.

[laughs] How good is that?

STEPHEN TERRY: That lamb is insanely good.

That cheese, that's sensational.

Absolutely sensational.

It is, with the gnocchi as well.

I mean.

That sauce.

But you can tell why Welsh lamb is the best in the world, just by looking behind you.

STEPHEN TERRY: Best lamb in the world.

JAMES MARTIN: It is good, isn't it?

By the way, you're tasting gin next.

So go easy.

- Am I?

- Yeah.

- Happy days.

Better line my tummy, then.

Right, I'll be off.

Cheers.

[rousing choral music] ♪ ♪ Now, if I'm honest, I wasn't very good at school.

I wasn't very academic.

I was OK in the kitchen.

But there was one thing that fascinated me in my childhood more than any other, and that was bird of prey and falconry.

I was just obsessed with it.

So this is a boyhood dream come true.

And if I'm honest, I'm slightly nervous.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): But fear not, because I've been taken under the wing of professional falconer Clive Jones.

What he doesn't know about these wonderful creatures isn't worth knowing.

Clive, good to see you.

I'm looking forward to this.

So tell me about the history of falconry anyway, because it's a fascinating history.

It's been running thousands of years.

CLIVE JONES: Absolutely.

6,000 maybe.

It was the unique way of bringing back food, wasn't it?

Which it is.

Falconry is the art of catching your dinner using a trained bird of prey.

We're going to start with this little fella.

This is an American kestrel.

This is called Pip.

- Pip?

- Pip.

He's got a sister called Squeak.

They were quite noisy when they were young.

Right.

So how do you hold a bird of prey, then?

Because I've never done this before in my life.

OK.

Well, what we're going to do, you're going to be the branch, basically.

And I'll tie him on.

Make a fist.

Although it's a kestrel, genetically, his closest relative is a peregrine.

And if he goes up in the wind, if you put it in perspective the distance, he looks like a little peregrine.

He's just so aerobatic.

JAMES MARTIN: Beautiful.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Falconry is a fascinating part of Britain's heritage.

And even today, many falconry phrases are still used in conversation, such as "under the thumb," "wrapped around your little finger," and "hoodwinked."

Other species in Clive's flock include the European kestrel.

CLIVE JONES: He's really relaxed with you.

He's preening, which is really relaxed.

Putting a bit of oil on his feathers.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): A lovely little lanner.

Look at his face.

He's got his eye on everything.

If you were a pigeon flying over here, you'd proper brick yourself, wouldn't you, at this moment in time.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): A 23-year-old buzzard called Charlie.

JAMES MARTIN: I've never seen one of these as close up as this.

CLIVE JONES: If you rock your hand slightly, he'll get his wings right out.

JAMES MARTIN: Oh!

Look it!

CLIVE JONES: I say he's not looking his best.

He's pretty good, but he's got a couple of secondaries there waiting to come through.

- Don't upset him.

He's on my arm.

He's-- absolutely.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): And last but by no means least, a step eagle called Kiera.

JAMES MARTIN: And we've got more heavy-duty gloves on for this one.

This one-- CLIVE JONES: We have.

We've got triple-skin glove now because they are extremely powerful with the feet if needed to be.

Bad habit she's got is biting.

Bite what?

Anything, really.

Bare flesh.

You'd never pick her up without a jacket.

She's always got-- looking for flesh to-- she has done my ear a couple of times.

She's around about the 10-pound mark.

Would you like to hold this, James?

Not particularly, but you know.

How big is she then?

She's 6 foot across the wingspan.

You'll notice when I take the hood off, she'll let go of your hand a little bit better.

JAMES MARTIN: What is the hood related to?

CLIVE JONES: Purely to keep them calm.

JAMES MARTIN: She weighs a ton.

CLIVE JONES: She's very heavy.

She's overweight because she's molting at the minute.

Overweight?

I mean, what would she eat?

How much would she eat?

Well, I mean, when we first got her, she was eating up to nearly 3/4 of a pound.

And we're feeding them mainly on rabbit and quail at the minute.

- All right, I'll let you-- I'll let you take her because she's quite heavy.

OK.

Just open your hand up.

She's very heavy.

JAMES MARTIN: She's unbelievably heavy.

CLIVE JONES: She's ridiculously heavy.

It's quite rude to ask a lady how much she weighs.

But it's proper-- I wasn't going to argue with that one.

I mean, amazing.

CLIVE JONES: Although she's fat and not flying weight at the moment, we're still flying her through the fist every day, just to keep her in contact a bit.

JAMES MARTIN: So talking of flying, can we see some of these in action?

- Absolutely right.

- Let's go for it.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): I've decided to let Clive put Kiera safely back on her perch.

Not that I'm scared or anything.

Yeah, right.

I just think little Pip is the bird for me.

JAMES MARTIN: So this is the bit that I've been looking forward to, to be honest with you.

We've got a camera mounted up so you can see this little fella in action.

But it should come low and fast.

CLIVE JONES: [whistles] Look at him.

Really low, really low.

Wow!

There's something amazing about this.

Incredible.

Send him off.

[majestic music] [whistles] JAMES MARTIN: Yeah, he's had enough of the rain.

CLIVE JONES: No, that's the way he comes from there.

That's quite cool, actually.

JAMES MARTIN: Pip!

[whistles] How incredible is that?

What a magic, magic bird.

It's a dream come true for me.

♪ ♪ [upbeat music] JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): It doesn't get much better than that.

But I'm going to cook a wonderful Welsh dish that comes pretty close.

You'll like this one.

A cheesy potato and lamb pie.

So first of all, it starts off with some onion.

Now, think of this like a shepherd's pie with a Welsh rarebit topping.

That's what we're doing with this.

Some butter in the pan.

Now, I'm just going to soften up the onions.

You don't need to brown them too much.

Meanwhile, I've got some minced lamb here.

Now, try and get the best quality you can afford because the better quality ones are always leaner.

And I want to brown this slightly.

So that's why it's a good idea with the onions not to brown them too much to start off with because you want to color the meat a little bit.

[sizzling] So once your onions and your lamb is in there, then we're going to add a little bit of Worcestershire sauce for a nice flavor and some stock.

Now, it's quite difficult to get lamb stock nowadays.

So you can either use beef stock or chicken.

But cover it over, bring it to the boil, and cook that for about 15 to 20 minutes.

While that's cooking, we can make our rarebit.

And for that, you need some really good quality cheddar cheese and grate it up.

To be honest, you can make rarebit with anything you want.

Any hard cheese, anyway.

But you need plenty of it.

We can then make this with either milk or beer.

My preference is the brown stuff.

Don't ruin this and use lager.

It's got to be a proper ale.

Now, before we heat this up, you can spice this up with some Tabasco, a bit of Worcestershire sauce, and some English mustard.

It's quite hot and fiery, is English mustard.

But it's a must for this.

Turn the heat on now and melt this.

What you mustn't do with this is boil it.

If you boil it, it splits and separates.

Start it off on a low heat and allow the cheese to melt first, and then gradually turn it up.

And while that's melting, we can prepare our tray.

For that, we just want a little bit of greaseproof paper, which is a good job because that's all I've got.

Stick that on there.

That's fine.

Now, it's all about this cheese.

As soon as it's all melted, which this nearly is anyway-- you don't have to be too precise with it-- take a touch of flour.

Keep it on the heat.

Now, this will cause the mixture to thicken up slightly.

Before it boils again, you can take it off the heat.

And that's kind of the texture that you're looking for.

See that?

It almost looks like sort of choux pastry, really.

Now, before I put it onto our tray, you can season this up.

Black pepper, a pinch of salt.

And then we need 2 egg yolks.

Straight into the mix.

What the egg yolks are going to do is nicely color this when it's under the grill.

And then we just pop it straight onto our paper.

Leave that to cool slightly.

And now for our potato topping.

For that, you're making quite a firm mashed potato.

I've been quite criticized over the years about my mashed potato, mainly because I think it should be equal quantities potato, cream, and butter, to be honest.

But I'm making it with slightly less butter and cream for this one.

I'm just going to top it with cheese.

But look, a bit of double cream.

Seasoning.

These are basically just baked potatoes that I've put through a little potato ricer, just to make sure they're nice and smooth, really.

And I'm going to finish off the lamb with a good bunch of chopped parsley.

Season it up with salt and pepper.

Then when your lamb is about there, have a quick taste.

Mm!

I'm happy with that.

We can then transfer it onto our oven dish.

[bright music] ♪ ♪ Take some of the juice in there as well.

And then you've got this warm mashed potato that you can just basically dollop on.

It's looking good.

But the best bit is yet to come.

What you do is you stick your dish on your oven tray.

Take your big bit of cheese.

♪ ♪ You just know that this is going to be off the charts.

And then if everything's hot, all you need to do is pop this under the grill for about five minutes.

♪ ♪ If you want, you can cook it from cold in an oven.

It'll take about 40 minutes.

And you could do that with salad.

But what you really need is frozen peas.

In the pan for no more than about 20 seconds.

And then you just take a wedge out of it.

♪ ♪ And not forgetting the peas.

Just to finish this off.

♪ ♪ That dish is now complete.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Welsh rarebit meets shepherd's pie, a match made in heaven and just the thing on a drizzly Welsh day after a spot of falconry.

Or any time, really.

It's that good.

[gentle melody] ♪ ♪ I sent my traveling companion, Stephen Terry, off in search of a small batch gin distiller in a secret location.

Hopefully, he's found it by now.

So I'm literally here in North Wales in the middle of nowhere.

And I'm here to meet Chris Marshall, who is the founder of Forager's Gin.

And as the name would suggest, we're going to be doing some foraging.

♪ ♪ Hey, Chris.

- Hello.

- How are you?

- Very well, thank you.

So, what's going on here?

What have we got here?

So we've got elderflower here.

We don't actually use elderflower in Forager's.

But we do use elderberry, which will be a couple more months.

STEPHEN TERRY: Uh-huh.

So what other botanicals make Forager's, Forager's?

CHRIS MARSHALL: So we use six in total for Forager's Yellow Label.

So everything from juniper, which grows on the side of Snowdon-- - Wow.

--sea buckthorn that grows around the coastline.

We then get this kind of central sweetness from apple and elderberry.

And then the floral notes come from gorse flower and heather.

So it's all in abundance, all around us.

All on the doorstep, all within a few miles from the distillery.

STEPHEN TERRY: Fantastic.

[moody music] There's so much of this around.

I mean, it's just everywhere.

Yeah, absolutely.

So this is gorse.

As you can see, it hasn't got its yellow flowers on it now.

Actually, the flowers have now kind of turned brown.

We actually foraged these already this year.

So gorse is very much a kind of a spring flower.

And what we get from that is an aroma which is quite tropical.

It's got almost like a coconut smell when you walk past a gorse bush, when it's in full bloom.

But the flavor it gives us is a soft, subtle kind of mountain floral note.

Sounds amazing.

So how long will it take you to harvest, you know, the gorse, for instance, you say is thousands of flowers?

Yeah, so we probably forage and deep freeze about 80,000 gorse flowers each year.

So 80,000 flowers will take our small team of two or three people about three or four days.

Absolutely amazing.

And you're not running out of it, are you?

Not yet.

CHRIS MARSHALL: We're not running out of gorse, no.

There's plentiful supply of gorse and elderberry and everything else we're using, apart from perhaps juniper.

Juniper is the one which in the UK is suffering a little bit.

Yeah.

And so what we're going to do with juniper is we're actually going to start a juniper conservation project.

It's going to be 10 years until we have a berry that we can use.

But it's about making sure that we protect the landscape that gives us our flavors when we're taking botanicals from it.

Well, it's been amazing, absolutely amazing to come here at source and see, you know, your botanicals growing and where all the ideas are born from.

So I think let's go and taste and get out of the rain.

Let's go see the distillery.

Yeah, fantastic.

So looking forward to that.

So how big is the still?

Is it big?

So our still is 150 liters.

It limits batch size.

But actually, that's important to me.

Absolutely, yeah.

♪ ♪ CHRIS MARSHALL: OK, so this is our top secret location, where it all happens.

And really, what I want to do is just take you through the two Forager's expressions.

Please do.

So Black Label is the gin with two botanicals, juniper and the sea buckthorn.

- Absolutely.

Yeah, spot on.

So very, very bold in its nature.

We wanted to create a very bold gin that was really a celebration of the botanical which makes gin, gin.

Here it goes.

Oh, hello.

- Good, eh?

It's still going.

I mean, it's only just beginning.

You know, it's all, like, the receptors on, you know, my tongue.

Now it's coming down here now.

It's beautiful.

And it's like, you know, that classic juniper.

Yeah.

And then right at the back, you almost get kind of an orange peel kind of feel to it, which delivers that nice undercurrent of citrus, warming citrus.

But also kind of what you probably find is kind of that mouthfeel.

STEPHEN TERRY: Yeah.

We wanted a gin with a really, really high viscosity, almost kind of like 2% fat milk feel to it.

That's exactly what that does.

Yeah.

And this comes-- this comes from a few things.

One of them is that we use very, very long maceration periods.

So all those botanicals that kind of we talked about and we went to see, we actually let those rest for six weeks in spirit.

Most distilleries will probably do 24 hours.

That, you could drink that neat, you know, quite happily.

I mean, that's just insanely good.

That's incredible.

CHRIS MARSHALL: So this is Forager's Yellow Label.

This is the one now with six botanicals.

It's a lot more about summer.

So just have a little taste of this.

[sucks teeth] It's got that viscosity again, a great viscosity.

But as soon as it's in your mouth, you can feel it's lighter.

Yep.

Yeah, there are more characteristics because of, obviously, the six botanicals as opposed to the two.

Of course.

But you should still pick up on kind of that nice drying juniper.

Yeah.

And then kind of right at the end, once it's kind of been in the mouth a little while, that's when you really start detecting those kind of mountain floral notes coming from the gorse and the heather.

STEPHEN TERRY: It's absolutely delicious.

I'm torn between the two, if I'm honest.

[laughter] CHRIS MARSHALL: This is why we have two in the range.

It's just like in the wine world.

You have white wine and red wine.

They're polar opposites.

Well, Chris, it's been absolutely amazing meeting you.

What you create with the Welsh botanicals is fantastic, you know, just being pure, sticking to your guns, and no compromise.

You know, it's amazing what you can achieve.

And, you know, it's pretty much perfection.

And in Wales.

And in Wales.

And to you, James, I know you like your gin.

Get some of this.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Don't worry, Stephen, I have done, mate.

And I've got the perfect recipe in mind for the Black Label stuff.

Now, in the world of recipes, you wouldn't think you could do a lot with gin.

But what it goes brilliantly with is cherries.

And I'm going to do a cherry, chocolate, and gin cake.

This is proper.

So the first thing we're going to do is make a syrup and make a jam.

So the syrup, we're just going to use neat gin.

And I mean neat gin, straight into the pan.

And just a little bit of sugar.

And I'm going to get this boiling away nicely.

And the jam is done exactly the same way.

Sugar and gin.

As soon as this comes to a nice little thick syrup, then we throw in the cherries.

And we boil this rapidly for about five minutes.

Once cooled, it goes into this amazing jam.

Fabulous.

Over here, you need to watch that.

Now, as soon as your stock syrup is ready and the flames have disappeared, we can then add the cherries with the stalks.

They're going to infuse in that syrup.

But I'm going to use these cherries as a little garnish to go with it.

All the while, you can see how quite simply it is to make this jam.

So as soon as that's come up to the boil, cook this for about three or four minutes, switch it off, and leave it to one side.

Meanwhile, we can turn our attention to the cake.

For this, we need 9 eggs.

[bright music] ♪ ♪ Now, at the same time, we can add sugar and whisk this up first of all.

♪ ♪ Now, once the mixture is nice and light, which that is, we can incorporate a little bit of vanilla bean paste.

It will just take about a teaspoon.

It's quite strong, this sort of stuff.

So you don't want to use too much of it.

And then for this next bit, I'm going to roll my sleeves up.

I've been a pastry chef for 25, 30 years, and I've always done this by hand.

I've never done it with a spatula and messing around like that, mainly because we didn't have time in commercial kitchens.

It's to incorporate the flour and the cocoa powder all in together.

And for that, I'm just going to use a sieve.

Now, a lot of people say by sieving the flour, it makes it lighter.

I don't believe that.

It's just with cocoa powder, you end up with lumps in.

So you can just press them through.

Open up your fingers, in.

This is where the letters start to come, mainly because I've left my bracelet on as well.

[laughs] This mixes in so much quicker than if you're doing it with a spatula.

And the quicker you mix this, the better it is, because the sooner it gets to the oven.

And then pour this mixture into the tins.

♪ ♪ And then pop it in the oven.

♪ ♪ And after about sort of 30 minutes in the oven, we take them out.

And this is what you end up with.

Now it's all about filling these.

And I'm going to take some double cream.

A little bit of gin to make the filling.

♪ ♪ Now, there's no need to put any sugar in this because we've got plenty with the a syrup, remember.

You've got your nice little piping bag.

And now, really, it's an assembly job.

So I'm going to cut this probably into three.

Much easier if you do it this way, just to turn the cake every time you do it.

Lift this off.

Then do the same again.

Like that.

And I suppose this is a little homage to the great Black Forest Gateau, that 1970s dish that we all fell in love with that you don't really get nowadays.

And of course, we've got this gin compote here.

I'm going to take some of this liquor to soak in our sponge.

Like that.

We can then grab our cream.

And you can just put a little bit of cream on it.

And then, of course, we've got this jam out of the cherries and the gin.

This is where you need to allow this to cool down nicely as well.

Take your other bit of the sponge.

Some more of this syrup.

A little bit more cream.

♪ ♪ Now, always in the back of my head when I'm making this sort of thing, you've got a little voice going, less is more.

But I ignore it a lot.

♪ ♪ Less is more.

Now, before I top it with the cherries, take a bit of cocoa powder on the top.

And then this is what it's all about, the gin-soaked fresh cherries.

And there you have it.

A gin, black cherry, and chocolate cake.

Less is more, James, less is more.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Aside from drinking it, I can think of no better way to use that Welsh Forager's Gin than in this stunner of a dessert.

[jaunty melody] ♪ ♪ JAMES MARTIN: Now I'm en route through Snowdonia, which is one of the biggest national parks in Wales, covering some 832 square miles.

And I'm here to go to a town called Llangollen-- I think that's how you pronounce it-- to kind of fulfill another boyhood dream, driving a steam train.

♪ ♪ JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Llangollen is nestled under the barren mountains beside the Dee River and is home to the historic Dee Bridge, dating from 1345.

It's a picture postcard tourist town, with plenty of tea rooms, stacks of fudge, and maybe too many consonants.

But I'm here to see the town's historic railway.

Ticket, please.

One ticket to Llangollen.

There you go.

Thank you very much.

♪ ♪ I love steam trains.

Not in a weird way.

I'm not trainspotting or anything, all right?

I'm just waiting for a train.

But a special train.

[train whistle blows] Here it comes.

♪ ♪ [steam hissing] JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Before this wonderful old train can depart to Corwen, driver Ian and fireman Charlie have to reposition the locomotive to the other end of the train.

And then, yes-- - [blows whistle] JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): --it's my turn in the driver's seat.

JAMES MARTIN: Do you know what?

There's still something magical about a steam train.

The power of it!

That raw power!

[train chugging] So basically, on a steam train, you need two people to work it.

You've got Ian, who's the youngest train driver for this, and then our fireman.

I've got a pizza oven at home.

It gets about 400 degrees.

I think I've been officially top trumped.

[train whistle blows] ♪ ♪ So how does this work?

IAN: This is the regulator.

It lets the steam into the cylinders.

That's like your accelerator, yeah?

Yeah, that's it.

Makes the wheels go round.

That's putting water into the boiler.

IAN: We take it straight out the river and put it in the tank.

CHARLIE: It's better than the town water.

[laughs] IAN: Want to swap places?

Right, I don't know what I'm doing.

IAN: So we're aiming to get up to 25 mile an hour.

So if you open the regulator a little bit more.

JAMES MARTIN: This way, up?

IAN: Yeah.

That's it.

JAMES MARTIN: I can feel it going a bit, yeah?

Yeah, that's it.

So you're just letting in more steam through into the cylinders.

How cool is this?

Actually driving a steam train.

Can I do that?

IAN: Yeah.

[train whistle blows] That's all you wanted to do, isn't it?

That's all everyone wants to do.

Just about to go into the tunnel here.

So just give it a whistle as we're going in.

[train whistle blows] JAMES MARTIN: [laughs] [train whistle blows] IAN: See, you're a natural.

You know what to do.

[laughter] JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Well, what can I say?

That is something I've wanted to do for a very long time.

JAMES MARTIN: When I was a young kid, my granddad used to work on the railway.

He'd be looking down at me now, smiling.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Well, all good things have to come to an end.

But what a fantastic experience.

Brilliant.

Cheers, guys.

Mega.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Time to get back to Llangollen, where the sun has come out to play.

And what better location to cook my final dish?

JAMES MARTIN: It looks like a film set, but this platform is absolutely beautiful.

And if you think it looks good that way, just look at it that way.

I mean, you've got the church, the river.

The river feeds the locomotive, which then powers the whole town.

It's just an amazing, amazing story, this.

And I thought of a dish that brings back memories of my childhood, really, particularly my granddad because he used to work on the railway.

This was as fancy food as it got for him, Chicken Kyiv with leeks.

So, nice and simple for the Kyiv.

We start off with some garlic, obviously, because this is a garlic butter.

Now, you can either cook this beforehand, but I actually like it raw.

And then I couldn't resist this amazing wild garlic that when it's in season, you really have to get some.

And obviously, we've got a bit of parsley.

This is quite unusual for Wales.

This is hot at the moment.

So my parsley's gone limp.

But we just chop that up.

So you've got this mixture.

Now, chuck it in a bowl together with some Welsh butter.

You can tell good butter.

Look.

So mix all this lot together.

Bit of black pepper.

And then what we'll do is we'll take our piping bag.

So you've got this nice garlic butter.

Now, make a little hole.

And I'm going to leave that to one side because this bit is all about our chicken.

Always using the breast meat.

We remove the skin because we don't want that bit.

Now, try wherever possible to buy the chicken with a little fillet underneath.

It's this little fella over here.

We just pull this off.

And then we can basically just cut this into two, like that.

And then carefully with the knife, make a little pocket.

And then all we do is we take our little bit of butter and we just squeeze it in.

And it puffs up like a little-- I was going to say like a balloon, but this is going back to my childhood, like a space hopper.

Those people under the age of 30 will have no idea what I'm talking about.

Just google it.

Another one.

Little puffs up.

There you go.

Now, you can take your little pieces of chicken, your little fillets, and you can almost plug the hole, because the whole point about a little Kyiv is that it wants to retain that butter.

There you go.

And then really, it's our flour, egg, and breadcrumb part of this.

Seasoned flour, egg, breadcrumbs.

So flour, then in the egg, and then back in the flour.

Use a separate hand, like that.

Back in the egg and then in the breadcrumbs.

You can make these in advance, of course.

Pop them in the fridge.

Right, once you've done your chicken like that, and then what you want is the oil.

Medium sort of heat, about 165, 170 for these little fellas.

You don't want it too hot.

Otherwise, what's going to happen is your chicken will brown before it's cooked in the middle.

Now, with this, I'm going to serve leeks.

Now, if you are going to wash the leeks, the best way to do that is slice it from the top to the bottom under the tap.

Rinse it so you get no dirt going inside your leek.

But we're on a platform in the middle of nowhere in Wales.

So I ain't washing them because these look pretty clean to me.

A little bit of oil.

We're just going to stick them in the pan.

Just a little bit of color on the leeks.

That's all we need.

Just that.

And they take very little time to cook.

You don't have to be too fancy with them.

So we'll get our remaining bit of parsley.

We've got the leftover bits of garlic.

And then just to finish these off, we got some double cream.

Bit of black pepper.

What I will do is add a little bit of this garlic butter.

Why not?

In here.

And then finally, we add the parsley and the wild garlic.

Touch of salt.

Tiny bit of lemon.

They sell big lemons in Wales.

Bit of lemon.

And then just bring this all together, nice and simple.

Now, the leeks are cooked.

I can tell this chicken is starting to cook.

So we're ready to plate this.

And we can lift our chicken out.

Look at this.

Look at this.

Mmm!

You know the butter's not come out because you could hear it.

Otherwise, it would start sizzling in our deep fat fryer.

Mm, mm, mm, mm, mm.

Golden loveliness.

And then we can just lift our leeks out.

Look.

[enchanting music] ♪ ♪ We've got this lovely bit of wild garlic with it.

It's so simple.

And it really is a dish in its own right, is this.

But it's all about the retro Kyiv.

And there you have it.

Look, look.

Look in there.

Look.

Look at that.

♪ ♪ JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): So that's my chicken Kyiv with Welsh leeks.

All I need now is a couple of hungry train drivers to taste it.

Well, what do you know?

♪ ♪ JAMES MARTIN: Perfect timing.

IAN: Yeah, definitely.

Looks marvelous.

You probably want a cold beer after this.

He certainly needs a cold beer after this.

Charlie, you've been working, mate.

You tuck in first.

JAMES MARTIN: Welsh leeks, Chicken Kyiv.

Should have washed my hands.

Yeah, you should.

[giggles] Go on, go on.

Get your mouth in.

Go on.

Do the same.

Borrow your knife?

♪ ♪ See, look, when you just-- when you just-- look, look at this.

Ready?

Watch this, watch this.

It's like the steam coming out.

Look at that.

Garlic butter.

- That's lovely.

- I'll leave you to enjoy it.

Cheers, gents.

- Thank you very much.

Thank you.

IAN: Marvelous, that is.

CHARLIE: Yeah.

Absolutely gorgeous.

This is just what you need after a day on the footplate as well.

- It is.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Well, North Wales certainly didn't disappoint.

And I'm going to leave this beautiful place with some fantastic memories because it's been the best boys' day ever.

Not only did I fulfill my childhood dream of practicing falconry and seeing birds of prey close up-- [blows whistle] --but I got to drive a steam train.

[laughs] JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): And to share the day with my good mate, Stephen Terry, as well, it's been great.

And luckily for Stephen and me, our Welsh adventure isn't over just yet.

So that's it for North Wales.

Now we're heading south into, really, what is your neck of the woods.

- Absolutely.

South Wales, here we come.

South Wales, here we come.

May take a little bit longer than the norm in this car, but.

[laughter] - It's much more fun, though.

- It's good fun, though, innit?

- I love it.

I love Minis.

My bum hasn't been so close to the tarmac for a long time.

[laughter] [theme music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪