Bienvenue en France.

That's Welcome to France to you and me.

I'm traveling throughout this beautiful country to explore the very best in French cuisine.

Back of the net.

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.

Cheers to the great man.

It's where I learned to cook.

Magical times.

It's a personal journey.

I feel like a groupie.

So, join me as I rediscover the food destination that has it all.

Vive france!

Today, my French adventure brings me West to a region with understated charm and world famous produce.

But for once, I'm not talking wine.

Welcome to Charente.

Now, it may not be at the top of everybody's list as a tourist destination, but for those who have got a nose for food and drink, this is a special place.

Whoops.

You'll be forgiven for thinking the French were keeping this stunning place to themselves.

Now, where's a flippin' map when you need one.

That's better.

Poitou-charentes lies at the top of Southwest France, between the Atlantic Ocean and the massif central mountains.

That's massif with an F, not a V. It's a landscape of green rolling hills, sunflower fields and fertile farmland, hiding stunning medieval villages where Sharon's deep culinary heritage is proudly preserved.

But there's another reason to fall in love with this area, and that's because it's the home of one of my favorite things in the entire world.

You see, these are not wine vineyards.

They are, in fact, cognac fields.

Because we're in the cognac region of Charente, the home of well, cognac.

I've come here to meet master blender Jean-Luc montembault, the Alchemist of alcohol.

Yes, Jean-Luc I feel the same way about it, too.

Cognac actually starts life as white wine made from specific types of grape.

It's then poured into special copper pots like these and distilled not once but twice, resulting in a clear liquid.

The French call eau-de-vie.

Water of life.

Now, this smells amazing.

Yeah, you can smell inside, yes.

You don't want to dive in there, but it's.

You could dive but avoid to drink it.

It's exactly 70% alcohol.

So, this is the basis through distillery of cognac.

And then what happens to it.

Because this is very clear.

So, from that they will put these fresh ottavi into a barrel, and the barrel will bring the color and it will smoothen along the years, and it will reduce the alcohol grade by evaporation.

And after 50 years it will reduce to 40% alcohol, which is very drinkable, but it will reduce by 50% volume.

That's why it's so expensive.

So can I have a taste?

Of course, you can zip because it's a rather strong.

- Zip?

- Yes.

What does zip mean?

Swallow?

Just a bit like a candy.

Just a very, very minimum drop.

At the very beginning it will be very strong.

It will-- and then it will be full in your mouth, full in your throat.

It's got my throat.

Then you start to get the burn in the eyes.

You could run a car on that.

Yes, but what you could do, see what you could do.

You could do that.

Perfume.

And you can smell it.

Exactly like a perfume, you smell and you get the flavors.

Very freshly.

You get the grapes.

Grape flavors.

- Stings as well, doesn't it?

- Yeah.

You obviously don't shave as much as I do, I think that's a French thing.

Yeah.

It's an acquired thing.

It's why we would drink.

Come on, show me some more barrels.

OK.

Let's go.

Wow, this is incredible.

And the smell.

Yes.

That's the Angel's hair.

Evaporation from the barrel where the cognac is aging.

First, it will age in small barrels like that.

That is the most common.

And then it can move to this type of VAT.

In fact, it's very different.

Here you will have very different aging from the ground floor.

More humidity than on the third level.

And sometimes they can decide to empty the barrels to put in here to make a kind of balance.

So, the bigger the barrel, the slower the process.

Exactly, because you have less surface of wood, so you have less exchange of outside with oxidation and inside with the alcohol.

Can we taste this one?

Yes.

So, how many liters are in here?

Oh, around 10,000.

- 10,000l?

- Yes.

It could keep us happy for a few years, couldn't it, really?

It's a one batch for one specific year.

It's from 1989.

Do you know what I love about this.

If this was in the UK, this would be a film set.

I'm not kidding you.

There's cobwebs everywhere.

But this is proper.

This is how things should be.

Oh, now this is my kind of guy.

We've got a pint of cognac.

Now we're talking.

No wonder you've got a smile on your face all the time.

Yeah.

You can see the color.

After 27 years from the very transparent liquid we got, we get that.

And the browner it is, the older it is.

So, what year is this?

1989.

And what were you doing in 1989?

1989, oh, my first divorce.

Your first divorce?

Yes.

Hopefully I get that to forget.

Do you know what, 1989 what was I doing.

I passed my driving test.

I was at college.

I was in France.

I was training as a chef in France.

Good.

I'll have another drink.

Now, I know what you're thinking.

It's not quite the done thing, drinking pints of cognac.

So Jean-Luc has kindly given me a bottle of his 1989 vintage, which I'll be using in my first dish.

See, I've got to be honest, I could actually just enjoy this view and not really cook, to be honest.

But I've got to do something.

So, I thought I'd do a wonderful steak with a nice little sauce, and it's done with a little bit of mustard, some peppercorns, nice cream using some of this fabulous cognac.

But first of all, I'm going to do the garnish for this, which is basically just sauteed potatoes.

So just take new potatoes for this one.

It's a good idea rather than baking potatoes, which kind of drop to bits while you're cooking them.

Wherever possible keep the skin on.

So just chop them all up.

Now I've got two really, really hot pans on because when you chop them small like these are going to take about 10 minutes to cook.

Not much more than that.

So, we've got all the potatoes chopped.

Next, a good glug of oil and I mean a glug of oil.

Decent amount.

Take the potatoes straight in.

Now, the definition of shallow frying is to half immerse in oil.

So, make sure you put plenty of oil in.

Now while that's cooking, I'm going to flavor over the potatoes with a little bit of garlic.

Just whack the garlic and throw that in.

Now, when it comes to steak we've got Limousin beef.

This is where it's from as well.

This area this famous beef.

And this is a fillet of Limousin beef.

Now you can tell how tender it is.

Look when you, look Rob get in there.

Look you just open up this and it just should melt in your mouth.

Now, when you cook it, you've got to cook it properly.

Don't ruin it.

So to cook it properly is this another really, really hot pan on the stove.

You oil the meat, not the pan.

Total opposite of what I've done in here.

Always cook it at room temperature.

So for this, it's about 32 degrees outside but room temperature into the pan.

And then we leave it now with a fillet of beef.

Because it's so tender like this.

We've got to treat it with respect.

So, just simply, simply cook it.

Now, the key to this is to oil the meat first.

Get the pan really, really hot.

It's the opposite of doing potatoes.

The reason why there's a lot of oil in there.

We want them to cook all the way through with beef, we want it to seal on the edges.

So, as soon as it cooks like that, we can then get the old tongs.

Not until.

And turn this over.

Look, you've got a beautiful caramelization on the beef.

Look at that Rob, get in there.

And we've turned it over once.

No more than once.

Now, this is the key to this.

And I get really excited over a steak because this is so simple.

But I do like this sort of cooking.

Look, you take butter.

Very, very important.

You take a little bit of butter.

Now this, will add flavor but also color to the meat.

So, when we get to this stage, we take the butter and it caramelizes in the pan now.

You can see all those lovely juices.

It starts to change color the butter.

Then at this moment in time you then nap the beef to coat the beef in butter.

Now you know something's good when you coat it in butter.

All the while, keep your eye on the spuds.

Now, at this moment in time, it's ready so I can take it off the heat.

You keep snapping it over with butter.

Look at the color of that.

It just looks amazing.

Now, at this moment in time, we then take it out of the pan, because just as important as cooking it is resting it.

So we leave that to rest.

However long it's gone in the pan for about half it.

That's how long it should be rested before we serve it.

There's going to be some fancy chef out there with some professorship behind him and all that kind of stuff.

They'll tell you some chemical reaction that takes place in the meat.

It's very simple.

You allow it to rest because the tendons relax.

If I put your backside into that pan, it would clench.

If I left it for five minutes, it would relax.

Same thing with this piece of meat.

All right, get that.

A shorter version, similar sort of thing.

Next, we're going to make our sauce with this.

And the sauce is really simple.

It's like a cognac, mustard, peppercorn cream sauce.

And for that, I'm just going to take some shallot.

Now I like to use shallot because they're much milder than large Spanish style onions.

And the steak is just sat there quite happy.

You don't need to reheat it.

Nothing you just leave it as it is.

Now the shallots go in the pan.

And then we've got our 1989 cognac.

Just put a little bit of this in here.

That's quite a lot that'll do.

That goes in there.

Just burns off some of that alcohol.

Now, at this point in time, now we can concentrate on the rest of it.

In we go with a little bit of beef stock in there.

Touch of mustard.

We've got some Dijon mustard in here.

Now I say you touch.

It is a mustard sauce.

So a decent amount.

Some peppercorns, pink peppercorns.

If you're using the black peppercorns crush them first.

Really, but just crush them in your hand really with the pink ones.

They're going to go in nicely.

And then just to bring the sauce together I'm going to add some cream.

Just a little bit of cream.

I'm just going to bring all this sauce together.

Now, this sauce like cognac needs a little bit of time.

Not the herb, but time.

And this cooks gently for a couple of minutes.

Meanwhile, I'm going to show you a little trick that my dad taught me when I was younger, and he didn't teach me to drink it.

This was to make me go to bed, basically because my dad and mom used to have quite a few dinner parties, not fancy dinner parties.

We lived on a pig farm, but I used to sneak down and watch my mom cooking in the kitchen, and my dad always said, you need to get that lad to bed.

I was only about six or seven years old.

So, I always used to do this to me.

So, take a little bit of the old cognac or armagnac and I blame him for this because this is where of obsession of this came from.

But what you do is you warm it in your hands.

Now, this is called the Angel's share.

This is the best part of the cognac.

This used to send me to sleep with a smile on my face.

But, I'm not going to do this time.

We've got another camera over here.

Look, this is.

This is Melvin.

Melvin's a proper man.

Look, this is Melvin.

He wears his cap the right way around and everything.

Melvin's now going to breathe in and breathe out three times properly.

Get those ribs final time.

Breathe out as fast as you can and then stop.

Don't breathe until I tell you.

But breathe in through your nose.

Breathe in.

Oh, pretty good.

It's all right that he's happy.

You see, it clears your sinuses out.

It's proper stuff.

Is this.

Look, it's had the same reaction to me when I was about seven years old.

Look, you've got this source starting to reduce now.

Now we've got our potatoes, which are not far off, look nicely cooked.

They're nice and soft as well, lightly colored as well, which is exactly what we want.

So, now we can season these a bit of salt, some parsley.

You grab the parsley into the potatoes.

Now, we've got a plate somewhere in here.

Convenient isn't it.

Look then I'm going to take our steak.

And now this is the moment where we season it.

black pepper and salt.

We take our little bit of beef.

And then our sauce as it starts to come down, you see that.

It starts to get nice and thick.

Quick taste.

Now to enrich the sauce.

Just a little bit of butter.

Just a pinch of salt.

And we'll grab our spuds.

It's just a simple little dish but one that just tastes delicious.

But this is really, it's kind of like the icing on top of the cake if there is such a thing with steak and spuds.

But, Rob, just check that out.

Now, this is a dish that I really wanted to do on this trip, and I'm so chuffed that it's here.

Using cognac because this is a place where I've always wanted to come to.

I'm quite pleased with that.

How better to complement vintage cognac than creating a rich sauce to go with a gorgeous Limousin fillet steak.

Delicious.

And I'm keeping this because I know these camera crew.

My quest to uncover the heart of Charente cuisine has dragged me away from those glorious cognac fields and northeastwards to Verteuil-sur-Charente, a stunning village liberally sprinkled with a confection of buildings stretching back to the 12th century and topped by the majestic towers of Cháteau de Verteuil.

And as my director was quick to point out, it's also on a river.

You see, arrive by boat, they said.

This is not what I had in mind.

You know when you do something and you think it was a good idea at the time.

This is one of those times.

Because it's quite.

I mean, it's not the Canadian Rocky Rapids, but you know [non-english] I'm 44 you're like 54.

Stupid idea.

But that rowing's made me a bit peckish.

But before we get on to food, how about a little sightseeing.

Now, Charente is an area of beautiful countryside dotted with amazing medieval villages.

And amongst it all are places like this.

It's not bad, is it.

It's all right, I'm not trespassing.

Honest, the owners of Cháteau de Verteuil, the delightful Monsieur and Madame de Rochefoucauld, have invited me to take a look around and to find out about the history of this amazing place.

Bonjour - Hello.

Hello.

Hello.

What a fabulous place.

And a big door.

A serious door.

- Serious door.

- Serious door.

Now, tell me about the family.

Because this has been in your family for-- For 1,000 years.

1,000 years?

Yes you can see it on this thing.

It begins in 980.

And how long have you lived here?

Well, we inherited in 2003.

It was given by my Uncle John Marquis de Amodio who had married my aunt, Anne de Rochefoucauld.

But we used to come much earlier, since 1980, when she died.

Although it's remained in the Rochefoucauld family since the 12th century.

The Chateau has survived a few bumps and bruises along the way.

Battered by the Brits during the Hundred Years' War and ravaged by fire during the French Revolution.

So, this place was basically just burnt, almost burnt to the ground.

When all the roofs and-- But at this time the castle when it's burnt, it's burnt only the defensive part, before you had, how do you call it in English.

I don't know in front.

Now all the moat, the like a fortress.

The bridge.

I was never very good at charades, but yes, I know what he means.

The drawbridge.

What is it like living here?

Honestly.

It's nice in the summer, it's more difficult in the winter.

You can't hate that sort of castle.

Lots of jumpers.

So, which room am I in?

Queen mom.

Oh, Queen Mother, that's fine.

We've got Queen mom room because she came here in 1980.

I'll take any, right.

It doesn't bother me.

She never slept.

But she-- how do you say?

- She had lunch.

- She had lunch And she made up wig.

She make up.

So, she did the makeup and had lunch.

Yeah.

Sounds good to me.

Well, I'm not so much to makeup, but the lunch I'd like.

And luckily, I've got an idea for my own dish, fit for a Queen or Queen mom.

Now, as French soup girls, this has to be the ultimate classic.

It's a classic French onion soup full of rich flavor, some fantastic onions and great stock.

But there's a few little bits to make it even more special that are in a proper French onion soup.

But the first thing, obviously it's all about the onions.

And what you need for this is large white onions, I think.

Now, normally when you're doing this at home, you'd be crying all over the place.

But the key to this is use a sharp knife.

You get less spray from the onions.

Next, hot pan on the stove.

Olive oil and butter.

I like to use a combination of the two.

One gives flavor, the other one basically stops it from burning.

So, throw the onions in the entire lot.

Now, this is one of the soups that I love making at home because it freezes fantastically well.

First of all, it's all about caramelizing the onions.

So, we'll get the onions cooking.

Now, at this moment in time, we add the garlic, but you don't want too much.

One clove of garlic will be enough.

Chop it nice and fine.

Now as the onions start to soften slightly, we can help them caramelize a little bit by adding some of this.

This is some of the Secret ingredients, I think, that are really important with the French onion soup.

This is demerara sugar.

But most importantly, at this time when you add the sugar, keep your eye on it.

We're not burning them, just ever so slightly caramelizing them.

Now, we can add the thyme and throw that in as well.

So crank it up.

Now don't worry about the bits that stick to the bottom.

All this is flavor in the base there.

All this is going to come off when we deglaze the pan.

So keep cooking the onions a bit more.

Now, at that stage you can see it's nicely caramelized.

That's the kind of stuff that you get on your hot dogs.

Look, nice a little bit of caramelized onion.

What we need is a tiny bit of flour.

Tiny, tiny bit.

But this is just going to thicken our soup.

Probably about half a tablespoon.

No more.

Now at this point, we can get our white wine and deglaze our pan a little bit.

And then for me, there are two different types of alcohol you can put in to enhance the flavor now.

One is Sherry the other one is cognac.

Sherry.

This basically lives in my house just for this dish.

That goes in and then we can throw in some stock.

It should be a really good quality beef stock.

And we're going to cook this for about five minutes.

Now, it's all about the topping.

And for that you need just some normal French bread.

Nothing too fancy.

Just cut up into pieces on the track.

We're just going to whack this under the grill just to lightly toast them.

Not too much.

On there.

And of course, the cheese.

Now, you can use Emmental.

You can use Gruyere.

It's entirely up to you, whatever you want in terms of flavor.

But I'm using Gruyere for this.

Don't be tight with the cheese.

You need plenty of it.

Chunks of cheese will do.

Next, we're going to put some seasoning in this.

Salt, black pepper.

Now then you've got your nice dishes.

And then fill your pots full of the soup.

So many people would worry about skimming this and skimming all the gubbins off.

You want the entire lot in there.

You take the pieces of bread, pop them in, and then it's all about the cheese.

Chunks of cheese over the top.

Fill it up.

Look at that.

Take the cheese under the grill.

And now we wait.

Ladies and gentlemen, the classic French onion soup.

The greatest soup in the world.

I'm on a foodie adventure through Charente in Western France.

It's a region filled to the brim with historic gems, and one of its most treasured traditions is a particular kind of bread.

Now, this building is really special in the heart of the town.

This is the old flour mill.

It's from the 17th century, and recently it's been restored.

And now the flour is used to produce one of France's most famous dishes, the brioche.

But just as I'm about to head in, I get hijacked by an ex-pat in a Model T. This is a bit impromptu.

Well, there you go.

You seized the moment.

Go for it.

I'll tell you what, I'll let the crew go on ahead.

I'll catch up later.

Did you hang out the window to get a better shot of you.

This is impromptu.

Brits abroad.

Boys, off you go and film that brioche bit.

This is Francois Lenstra, a master baker and quite a mover who spent a whole nine years restoring the 300-year-old Moulin de Verteuil.

Breathing new life into the machinery that once supplied flour to the town and its neighbors back in the 1700s.

Water diverted from the current river drives the wheel, which powers the giant network of cogs churning, grinding and separating the grain to produce three grades of the highest quality, environmentally friendly flour.

And he knows it.

But Francois doesn't flog off all of his flour.

He keeps plenty aside to craft his wonderful award winning brioche, a sweet bread made with lots and lots of butter.

Brioche has a flaky, pastry like texture.

The reckon it was brought over by Vikings who invaded France in the 10th and 11th centuries.

But one thing's for sure the methods Francois uses to make it have been around for centuries.

Nice one Francois, great bake.

And how about this for a slice of history.

1924 Model T Ford.

Brits abroad.

How cool is that?

And that little road trip has given me time to think up a sweet idea for my next recipe.

One thing I thought I'd do is a classic French dessert.

Probably the most famous classic dessert of them all, Gáteau Saint-Honoré which is named after the patron Saint of pastry cooks.

And it all starts with a classic choux pastry.

So first of all, you start with the water, and then you dice the butter.

The dice in the butter is quite important, really, because what you need to do is bring this to the boil, and the butter needs to be melted when it does that.

So if you dice it, it speeds up the process of the butter melting.

Pinch of sugar.

Just a touch and a pinch of salt.

So, what you have to do now is bring this to the boil.

You need to pay attention to what makes choux pastry rise.

And that's the water mainly because the water creates steam and it gives choux pastry its lift.

So, when it comes to the boil, you need to act quite quickly.

Chuck in the flour, keep it on the heat and just keep working this flour into the mixture.

All of a sudden, it'll start to thicken up.

Now there's a key thing to look for when you're doing this and you can actually hear it.

You can just hear it start to pop, but also when you look for it, it should all just combine together, almost come away from the edges of the pan.

Looks pretty good to me.

We're going to tip that onto our tray.

I can see that texture is about right.

There's no lumps in it.

You can see already that steam.

That's what we want in the oven.

So, what we need to do now is rapidly cool it.

So we keep all that moisture inside our choux pastry.

So just leave this for about two or three minutes.

So transfer the whole lot into our bowl.

Then all we need to do now is just on a gentle speed.

Not too fast.

We just crack each egg in one by one.

Now the panic is to speed this up to combine it, but the secret is to leave it alone.

Now, as you've got all the eggs in can start to turn up the speed to combine the eggs together with the choux.

Now, what you're looking for is a smooth paste.

Piping bag.

Then you've got this smooth mixture, which you can pop it all in.

To pipe it properly, you start off in the center and just work round.

When you start don't stop.

Next choux buns.

So, you got one, stop piping, curl.

One, stop piping, curl.

Stop piping, curl.

All the same.

Take a little bit of water and you press the little point down.

The reason why we do this is that it burns on the top.

If you don't.

This now goes in the oven for 20 minutes.

There you go.

The choux buns are all right.

Don't worry about that.

I know what you're thinking.

That'll be fine.

We have ways of solving that.

I'm going to do is just put that on here just to cool down.

But with this, you just take the choux buns now.

And what we're going to do is create a filling for this.

So, you get a decent amount of double cream.

And we're going to flavor it with some vanilla.

I'm going to use this vanilla bean paste, which is really good because it's got quite a bit of sugar in it.

So, it's going to sweeten up our cream as well.

But also I'm going to put in some of this cognac because I love it.

Absolutely love it.

That's the reason why I'm putting it in here.

So, what you want to do with this is just partly whip it.

Not too thick and not too thin.

Now, what you need for this is a caramel.

And you can do caramel several different ways.

You can do this with just sugar and water.

Alternatively just sugar into a hot pan, nothing else.

Just keep your eye on it at this stage because if you don't put water in it, you really do need to pay attention to what's happening because it will caramelize quite quickly.

As you can see, it's actually going darker and darker.

So, this one just take it off the heat.

Meanwhile, we can start to turn our attention to our choux buns.

So what you want to do with this is turn them upside down.

Then just use a bottom of a spoon or something like that, and just press a little hole at the bottom of each one.

And then you can get your piping bag and we can fill each choux bun full of cream.

What you need to do now is dip each one in there and that's dip the choux bun not your finger because this is about 130, 140 degrees Celsius.

So way hotter than boiling water.

And then, as I say carefully.

Leave that to cool down a little bit, because then if you turn it over, each one has now a nice little flat top to it like that.

It's like a shoe toffee apple.

Now, this is where we finish this off with what the French call quenelle.

It says dish in its own right.

But quenelle is also a shape.

And it's a shape using spoons, warm spoons.

And I want to show you this because it's the little things in life that are important.

This is important to me, this little trough, because this is my spoon warmer.

But you want a particular shape to the spoon like that.

So, I'd like a deep spoon.

Quinnell Final one.

And then what you can do is turn your attention to these shoe.

Because these go all the way around the edge.

Now, you could leave this as it is, but just to finish this off, I've got some flowers.

You can just get daisies, a bit of green stuff, a rose.

Gáteau Saint-Honoré the patron Saint of pastry cooks.

There's one left for me.

I'm coming to the end of my adventure in Charente, a region of tucked away historical gems.

An age old culinary delights.

Perfectly embodied by the beautiful village of Étoile-sur-Rhóne.

But I'm not the only Brit who's been lured to this magical place.

I've met some new friends.

David phizackerley and his daughter Helen, husband Alex and their lovely family.

They've invited me to the Moulin for a taste of that famous brioche.

Dave and family, by the looks of things.

Lots of family.

- Lots of family.

So, how long have you been here, then?

Because-- Well, I've had the house 26 years.

Living here for eight.

And of all the places that you could find in France.

I mean, this is pretty spectacular, I've got to admit.

It's not a bad view.

Is it really?

Special.

What drew you to this place in particular?

We just decided after a P&O ferry crossing, when we saw a house for sale for 10,000, euros we thought that's a mistake.

Now it must be.

And is it the dream you always wanted?

It is.

How far have you guys come out here then?

We do a little annual trip, so we come out every summer.

Is that invited or uninvited?

You just.

Uninvited.

Uninvited.

So tell me about this brioche thing.

What makes it so special?

It's the only brioche I've ever had.

When you're finished, you feel lighter than when you started.

Are you kidding me or what?

I'm serious.

We'll see.

I'm serious.

That's amazing.

So, all my visitors have to come here for brioche, and then maybe Francois the pizza.

And here's our chef.

[non-english] Bonjour wow.

All right.

This is the reason why you come and see your dad.

Nothing to do with you.

It's all coming out now.

You see.

You see.

So this is the famous brioche.

It's a very different texture.

Brioche that you have at home is, it's almost close grained.

It's very different [non-english] Local produce.

Local produce from the heart.

From the heart.

It's going on your waist as well.

Which is fantastic.

I love it.

I love a man who's modest.

Look at him.

He just.

He's put it down, I say nothing.

I don't need to say nothing.

Taste it.

You'll understand.

You'll understand if you come here.

This unique brioche is delicious on its own, but it's also a wonderful ingredient for my final dish.

You see, this is what I love about cooking on location is that I have a group of people behind that have different ideas, opinions I like to call it, and what I should be doing next.

Now, ideally, what I want to do to celebrate this amazing bit of brioche I want to do magret duck or some nice goose.

Clearly, we're not allowed to do that because we'll get letters.

Then I decided, I thought, we'll do trout.

There's trout in here, so we'll get emails.

It'll be all over my face and all that kind of stuff nowadays.

So I thought, I'll play safe, I'll do a salad.

And what better way to do a salad than stuff it full of pork fat from these amazing Toulouse sausages.

So the first thing cut these into decent chunks.

You don't want it too small, into thick pieces.

Really with this one.

Throw a little bit of oil and obviously we're in Bordeaux.

So, I've got a little bit of raisin oil, touch of oil in here and get this started.

So, look in we go with the sausages.

Next, we're going to take these are chicory or endive.

Now so often these are quite bitter to take away the bitterness.

There is a trick that you can do with it.

Now these are brilliant.

Served as a tart to tan that classic French dish that's normally done with apples.

As a dessert.

You can serve this savory and it's superb with a little bit of scallops, or even a great vegetarian alternative with a little bit of beurre blanc, which is a fancy sort of sauce thickened with a bit of butter.

But there is a way of getting rid of that bitterness, particularly in a salad like this, and that's to do this.

So, all you do is take a knife, cut it, but keep the root on.

So what you're doing is just cutting it straight through the middle and cut it into quarters.

Now, you get different colored ones over here as well the Italian one is particularly different.

It's quite funny at the top, but it's just delicious.

These and all you do is just slice these up, cut it like that.

And then what I'm going to do is to get rid of the bitterness is to take some sugar.

And for this you use a little bit of Caster sugar.

Just sprinkle it over the top like that.

Keep your eye on these sausages because you want them to cook quite gently.

So, you can tell these sausages are good because they're full of meat and fat.

You need a decent combination of meat and fat in a sausage.

To many times people always go for the ones that are too lean and it becomes too dry and not very pleasant to taste.

And the Toulouse sausages have got that perfect blend of basically pork, but together with pork fat.

And you get that perfect mixture.

But just roughly chop them up like this doesn't have to be too fancy.

And now, at the same time, we can throw in our endive.

Now, just when we put these in, we don't want to turn them over.

So as soon as they go in, I must leave them in the pan because you want them to caramelize a little bit.

That's it.

Just roll it around in the sugar and just leave those in the pan.

Far too many times people mess around with food too much.

You just look.

Leave the stuff alone.

That's the key to it.

Now, while that's cooking in the pan, we can turn our attention to our dressing.

Now, dressing is a simple sort of dressing, really.

So, we've got some mustard.

A little bit of Dijon mustard.

And then the vinegar.

Obviously, dressing is vinegar and oil, but we use different types of vinegar so often it's not just balsamic vinegar.

That's what the Italians do over here.

Oh no.

We use a little bit of white wine vinegar or Sherry vinegar.

This is Spanish Sherry vinegar.

But the producer over here as well.

But it's fabulous.

One part vinegar to three parts oil.

But the oil that you use in a classic French dressing isn't olive oil.

It's a little bit of veg oil.

So just pop that in as well.

Now, one of the greatest French chefs of them all, a guy called Pierre Koffmann, taught me this dressing.

And he said, whenever you're doing a French dressing, add a little bit of water to it as well.

Just a tiny little bit of water.

Bit of seasoning, salt and pepper.

And a bit of salt.

Mix that together.

You can see this classic French style dressing.

And I'm just going to season this chicory bit of salt, touch of black pepper like that.

And then get the chicory out first before we toast off the brioche.

But, you can see what happens with the chicory.

Look, if you get in there, you get all the sugars that are put on there that caramelize from the chicory as well.

But look.

Now, you see, this tastes amazing.

Either like this on a salad or brilliant with goose.

It's just fantastic.

But, what we're going to do is we're going to finish off this now.

Now, this is my kind of salad.

A salad that uses the fat from the sausage.

So, what we do is just mix that together.

And now instead of using croutons, it would be rude not to use this amazing brioche.

It is fabulous.

And all we're going to do with that is just cut it up.

It's a different texture to the norm.

Now, I have to say, I've been a pastry chef for many years.

Too many years to be honest.

But I've tasted some amazing stuff in my life from different chefs from all over the world.

But this is the best I've ever tasted.

It's a unique taste, unique texture.

It's lovely and creamy.

It just looks fabulous.

Now I'm going to do is just do this nicely toast that.

But I'm going to take our sausages.

While that's toasting and just pop these on as well.

For me this is one of those dishes that you kind of chuck in the middle of the table.

It's a sharing dish, really.

So, you've got the toasted bit of brioche, and now I'm going to grab some capers.

Just a few capers in there.

A little bit of lemon.

Just a touch.

Touch of parsley.

Almost roughly chop this as well.

Not to be too fine.

Straight in.

Lift off our toasted bits of brioche.

You can see that.

Decent chunks.

So, this is how salad should be.

Salad shouldn't be one of those things that you try and hide everything or try and find everything.

It's like a treasure hunt to find the crouton at the bottom of the bowl, and you grab this dressing and this dressing goes in here.

Now, we can switch this off.

And we're going to use this warm dressing with everything else and also all the fat from the pork as well.

Look, you've got all the sausage fat.

That's the best bit.

Throw that in there.

A little bit more oil.

And then I'm going to pour this dressing over the top.

But before I do that I've got some eggs.

I'm just going to cut these.

These are soft boil.

So, this isn't a fancy salad.

It's kind of a sharing salad.

You put this in the middle of the table and everybody just helps themselves.

But of course, you've got this dressing over the top, which is warm as well.

But I love food like this.

Now, I've been here for a couple of weeks.

I'd love to open a little French bistro.

I was told that an English couple have just got a restaurant just around the corner, and the horror on people's face when they realize that it's owned by Brits, suddenly disappears when they taste the food.

Because our whole attitude and our whole ethos of food has changed.

And also the opposite way and the way how the French think about us in terms of food.

Now, that is a proper plate of grub, a tasty plate of food.

And there you have it, my delicious Toulouse sausage, an endive salad with soft boiled eggs, and Le Moulin de Verteuil luscious light brioche.

Delightful, just like this place.

And that's it.

It's the end of my adventure in Charente, a region of quiet beauty with food and drink that's prized the world over.

Now, this is my kind of guy.

We've got a pint of cognac.

A place where history and cuisine are deeply entwined, and where good food and good company are easily found.

It's also a place where the director has bright ideas for a dramatic closing shot.

This is quite nice here.

Actually, it's the only bit of peace and quiet that I've had for the last two weeks.

[music playing] I'm keeping this because I know these camera crew.

Coming up on my French adventure in Charente.

I visit an ancient village with a fairy tale Chateau.

So which room am I in.

And in my home kitchen I'm serving up what I think is the best soup on the planet.

My quest to uncover the heart of Charente Cuisine has dragged me away from those glorious cognac fields.

And northeastwards to-- The classic French onion soup.

The greatest soup in the world.

Coming up on my adventure in Charente.

I got an impromptu ride from a local expert.

Brits abroad.

We get a taste of one of France's fondest traditions.

And my sweet tooth goes into overdrive back home.

I'm on a foodie adventure through Charente in Western France.

It's a-- It's one left for me.

Still to come on my French adventure Charente.

I finally get to sample Francois's deliciously different brioche with some newfound friends.

Which is fantastic.

And I'll be rustling up my stunning final dish overlooking the equally beautiful Charente river.

Now that is a proper plate of grub.

I'm coming to the end of my adventure in Charente.