Beef And Dairy Network - Episode 11 - Cliff Trent-Roberts

Episode Date: May 23, 2016

Mike Wozniak joins in for this month's episode in which we do some cooking with TV's “Mr Beef”, Cliff Trent-Roberts.   By Benjamin Partridge and Mike Wozniak.   Music: “Morning Mist” Brett Van Donsel   Stock media provided by Setuniman/Pond5.com and Soundrangers/Pond5.com 

The Beef and Dairy Network podcast is sponsored by Grazex, the latest grass replacement pellet from Mitchell's. If it's not Mitchell's, get back in the truck. As well as being friendly on your finances, Grazex is also environmentally friendly. This month, for every 100,000 tons of feed we sell, we'll plant a daffodil next to our mine. For 10% off your order, use the code BEEFANDDAIRY in a colleague's retirement card. Hello and welcome to the Beef and Dairy Network podcast, the number one podcast for those involved or just interested in the production of beef animals and dairy herds. The Beef and Dairy Network podcast is the podcast companion to the Beef and Dairy Network website and the printed magazine brought to you by Grazex. This month we're doing something

we've never done on the podcast before, cooking. And who better to lead us in our cooking than Cliff Trent Roberts. TV's Mr Beef, Cliff Trent Roberts has been cooking beef on television since the mid-80s and was almost single-handedly responsible for the beef renaissance of the 90s. A relentless campaigner to get beef to feature more heavily in school meals, he's still going strong. In fact, the final episode of his most recent television series, Around the World in 80 Beefs, in which he ate a corned beef sandwich with Dalai Lama, was watched by more people than the moon landings. Best known for his flamboyant beef recipes, and of course his high-profile fling with

Princess Diana, we've been waiting to set this up for some time, but it was only this month that Cliff had some space in his diary, due to a cancelled court hearing after the unexplained death of the plaintiff. My visit to Mr Trent Roberts' central London penthouse apartment also coincided with the publishing of new research in New Scientist magazine, which suggested that eating beef for every meal is unhealthy. We're taking that piece of research with a pinch of salt, some pepper, a boat of onion gravy and a beef wellington, followed by a dessert wine and a generous helping of fruits of the forest trifle. But we thought it provided us with a nice challenge for Cliff, cooking something that isn't beef.

If you haven't had dinner yet, and have a well-stocked larder, or a pause button in a shop nearby, why not cook along? Aha, there he is, come in Cliff. Come in, come in, yes. Before we got down to cooking, I took the opportunity to have a look around Cliff's kitchen. So Cliff, I'm here in your kitchen. Welcome. And I must say, it's an absolute privilege to be in the actual kitchen where I imagine you've invented some of your most famous dishes.

That's true. I've travelled all around the world, come up with all sorts of ideas, but it's here. This is the nerve centre. This is where beef comes to life as i say as i'm looking at this hob i'm just imagining i mean this is the hob where you probably first cooked steak at a garden center is that garden center was on that hob right there german mince cakes yes although that was yeah well we workshopped that in bavaria for about three months first but then it was perfected here this is where we got the the mix just right of uh of suet and beef and milk yeah that's incredible and i mean obviously there's so many recipes that you're well known for. But the one that's feeling very special for me in here is the idea that I'm in the same room where you came up with the famous hat of beef.

The beef hat, yes. Okay, yeah. Is this the place where? You're standing on the very spot where I first tried it on. Now, that's obviously what brought you your early success. Yeah yeah you brought out the book about how to make your own beef hat that was huge and the tv show um and then we went to america for a little bit of while and um and it was yeah it was great it's so exciting and it's just grown and grown the beef hat of course because i mean i'm sure most people would know of it it's the classic bowler hat which is how

the beef hat started. That was the one that you cooked on television on Christmas Day in 1997? Exactly, exactly. That had already taken me about five years to perfect. And it was the rim that was the trickiest bit. Getting the actual shape of the bowl over the top is actually very straightforward. It's just sort of mashing some soft, nice mince of beef together, but actually getting a rim that will hold.

You have to get steak fillets and fry them at extremely high temperatures. wonder whether you could give us a little beef and dairy network exclusive and uh maybe you won't be able to tell me this but there have been rumors obviously for for years that um the queen mother was buried in a hat of beef made by yourself you've never publicly denied it or confirmed it come on okay okay it's okay the room is circulated because when she was buried as you know uh the the coffin was six foot long and she was she was not a tall lady uh but yes you're quite right uh she was buried in a in a beef centurion's helmet obviously i mean you're famed for cooking beef um and you're best known you know you're kind of mr beef aren't you really uh the most recent campaign uh reach for beef at breakfast has been huge yeah yeah well that's actually that's the thing i'm probably proudest of in my career

reaching out to kids and saying you know reach for beef okay beef is the way forward so many malnourished kids in this country and their education is suffering and we're going to suffer when we're old if these kids aren't eating enough beef when they're small and it's about making beef accessible it's about making it fun okay so uh breakfast beef for example we package it much like their favorite cereals okay with and there'll be uh toys action figures that kind of stuff that they can eat on the bus to school to engage with beef yeah i mean i've i've met lots of children since you began the campaign who, you know, now cannot get up in the morning without reaching for the beef shards.

They reach for the beef shards. And you can turn the beef shards into any cool manner of, you know, a dinosaur, a crocodile. You can just eat them. You can do whatever you like with them. Would you eat them with milk? I can do. You can eat them straight out of the packet just as they are.

Some people heat them up porridge style. I like to have a bit of milk because I feel like that's the complete cow meal right there. It's like a bit of porridge, maybe a couple of sultanas to sweeten it. What about people who say, look, you know, I'm getting up in the morning, I'm busy, I've got to get to work. I simply haven't got time to be messing around with beef. Well, then grab a Go Beef Go Bar. Okay. I mean, they're all over the place now, right? And a single bar is enough for a fully grown 13 stone man.

Okay. So, you know, if you're under that, then you're good, right? Save a bit for lunch. When it comes to beef, I mean, you've got an answer for everything. I sure do. I sure do. But you've got me in a bit of a non-beef challenge today. Well, that's true.

Yes. So we've put you on the spot a bit because tell the listeners what you're going to be cooking today. I think they're going to be surprised. As much as I, like most of your listeners, I'm sure, would like to eat beef for every single meal, you know, science has gone in the way a bit. And increasingly there is scientific evidence that, you know, eating beef for every single meal will eventually cause your colon to blow up and explode like a poorly marshaled hot air balloon. So, as a result of that, I'm going rather against my own grain and I'm going to be cooking you a chicken.

Wow, a world first probably. Yep. You've cooked a chicken before? Oh, yeah, back in the day, of course. Yeah, I mean, when you train, you have to go through all the four meets, of course, before you specialise. So I think it's like riding a bike. I think the old skills will kick in. Well, let's get the chicken on.

Okay, let's go. Okay, so here we are. Here's our chicken. Pretty standard. It's a lovely bird, isn't it? It's just, well, it's all right, isn't it? It's just a whole medium-sized chicken. There's nothing that gets the cybergrands going quite, is there, like that?

The smell of a raw chicken. We've just taken the cellophane off. It's evocative. It's evocative, yeah. I feel like I can smell the factory. Smell the battery farm. That's what I feel. You can imagine it, can'tell the battery farm. That's what I feel. You can imagine it, can't you?

I mean, you just mentioned battery farms. Chemical boot cleaner. Is this chicken a free-range chicken? What are you looking for when you buy a chicken? I see that that's the chicken's business, not my business. I'm in the business of cooking the chicken, which for this chicken, I suspect, is probably a highlight of its existence. It doesn't look like it's had a very happy life so far.

I'm going to try and turn that around. I'm not too worried about its background. Okay, here we are now. Let's get on with it. So you've got a kind of equal opportunities policy when it comes to meat. Yes, and also I quite like to be able to spend £1.50 on an entire chicken. Is that how much this one cost? Well, that was £1.50 for three chickens, actually. So, you've got your chicken. It's out with the packaging.

What's your first step? Well, the key to cooking chicken, if memory serves me right, is the stuffing. Of course. Some people might put a bit of lemon in there, herbs, sage, maybe whatever you like, really. But today we're going to be using burgers.

Just there we go. So, how just normal beef just your lovely rich beef burgers nothing normal about them my friend in they go you're just stuffing them into the stuffing them and they will start to disintegrate as you do it uh to anyone who's uh joining in and cooking along back at home but it's important not to let that put you off keep stuffing them in you'll be amazed um but even with quite a small bird you could get upwards of 30 burgers and this one i think we've got here is uh i think we're gonna get about 40 45 burgers it's really beginning to sort of this chicken balloon there it really is but the more it balloons, the better, because the pressure within, the flavour of the beef within the burgers

will really start to punch through the flesh of the chicken and start to make it taste like something you actually want to eat. Right. That's it. I mean, that's really taken it out of you, isn't it? Yes. Stuffing those burgers in. I'm working on an appetite, let me tell you that.

You've really run that chicken's anus to its limit almost barely holding together isn't it it's it is but that's why i mean we should have covered this earlier on of course but when you are stuffing in upwards of 40 burgers into a chicken i would advise you to spigot first um as we did i mean this is audio isn't it? But get your anal spigots, just dilate that anus first, and the first few burgers should go in nice and slow, and then it's at the end there that you're really going to thunder them in. Before we

put that chicken in the oven, here's a message from one of our partners. Podcasts. Podcasts. Podcasts. They're audio programs that tell smart stories. In innovative ways. Using editing techniques like this. Like this.

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The stupid show that smart people love. Find it on iTunes or MaximumFun.org Okie dokie. So we're all ready to pop that in the oven. And we go so we're looking you're putting it there on 180 is that right that's right and uh we're going there for about an hour and a half i'd say all told and then bob's your uncle so what if um i mean most people will but what if you haven't got an oven is there a way you can cook this at home on the barbecue oh yes you could

barbecue it you could cook it in a in an open fire and i'd advise you if you haven't got an oven? Is there a way you can cook this at home, maybe on a barbecue? Oh, yes, you could barbecue it. You could cook it in an open fire. And I'd advise you if you do that to let the fire die down a bit. Bury it deep into the embers. Let it smolder. It's going to take a bit longer than an hour and a half, add an hour maybe to that. And you know when it's ready because the anus of the chicken will start whistling.

Whistling. It sounds like the gentle howl of an injured wolf, say, or a lovelorn wolf. Right. Okay. But not a big, emphatic howl. If you get to the full emphatic, like the hunter's howl of a wolf, then you've probably overdone it. Your chicken's probably going to be a bit dry.

But it'll still be okay. But, yeah, don't get it to full throttle, so to speak. Very good. Just like a wolf that's stubbed its toe. So, if you're cooking along at home, now is the time to press pause on the podcast until the tricking is done in about an hour and a half. In the meanwhile, go off, do whatever you like. Myself and Mr. Trent Roberts will be sitting down and having a couple of drinks, I think.

I thought you might like to try my home-brew beef wine. I thought you'd never ask. Okay, great. Well, let's crack open again. As we tucked into a few cans of his famous homemade fizzy beef wine, Cliff and I talked about his time promoting beef in the Far East.

I mean, I mean I mean my only regret really is that I didn't push it harder with the the beef sushi Japanese people absolutely wonderful I never quite clicked there, you know.

I don't think they're closed-minded. I think that's quite the reverse when it comes to, you know, culinary experiments. But I think I approached it in all the wrong way. I think I should have been more aggressive. And I also, I should have eaten some of it myself. That's why I went wrong. When push came to shove. Yeah, hounded out.

But I intend to return at some point. Of course. So, it's time to get the chicken out, I believe. You betcha. Let's get around. Okay. My word. Now that smells absolutely fantastic.

Yeah, well you can tell from the smell that it's moist because of all the burgers, it hasn't dried out one bit. Look at that, it is beautiful. Now, it's out, it looks great. How would you recommend serving this? Well, hold your horses. You mustn that, that is beautiful. Now, it's out, it looks great. And how would you recommend serving this? Well, hold your horses. You mustn't serve it right away. You've got to let it rest for a few minutes. And this is absolutely key. Then

you need to discard the chicken entirely. You're going to get rid of the entire chicken? That's right, yeah. So what are you going to do with the actual chicken? I's right, yeah. So what are you going to do with the actual chicken? I would normally just sort of

chuck it in the outside bin, but you could feed it to a dog or a pig. It's up to you, really. So just to be clear, you're getting rid of the chicken entirely? Absolutely, yes. And you're just eating the burgers? Just then dig in.

Dig in to the old lovely burgers. And the burgers will have taken on some of the flavours eating the burgers. Just then dig in. Dig in to the old lovely burgers. And the burgers will have taken on some of the flavours of the chicken. Oh, no, no. They'll just taste of burgers. I mean, that's the wonderful thing about burgers. It's a strong flavour. It's not going to be interfered with at all. I mean, I think some people listening might be thinking,

in what way is this eating a chicken? Well, we just roasted the chicken. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Okay. Well, if you're cooking along at home, just take that chicken, put it in the bin.

Get rid of it. And then enjoy that lovely plate of chicken-infused... Just beef. It's just beef burgers. Just a taste of beef. But it's been through this lovely process where it's cooked inside a chicken, so it's taken on... It's a hero's welcome. It's been on a journey and now it's come back and it's just beef. Okay. Well, if at home, send us your pictures of your creations.

And thanks, Cliff. It's an absolute beefy pleasure. Let's go and eat those bloody burgers, eh? Yes, please? Thanks to Cliff Trent Roberts for letting us into the Inner Sanctum, and I hope you all have a great time cooking that dish. Chicken stuffed with burgers. I haven't eaten anything else since.

So that's all we've got time for. But if you're after more beef and dairy news, get over to the website now where you can read all the usual stuff, including our big review of this season's tractor seats, and details about how you can send away free yogurts of the world wall chart. And of course there's our off-topic section, where this month we find out whatever happened to the cast of Titanic. Until next time, beef out. Big thanks to Mike Wozniak. What I like to see is children getting into beef.

We run a workshop for children who've come out of sort of borstels, really. Children in foster care. We do a sort of mince workshop where they can make beef patties into any shape they like. And they tend to be quite simple shapes. They tend to be squares, circles, triangles. These people have had very limited education. But now and again, I mean, just three weeks ago, there was a little girl, only 12, 12 years old,

slight little thing. She made a hexagon patty. And I was moved to tears. It was in a regular hexagon of course and it was sort of fat in one end and thin in the other. It would have been an absolute nightmare to cook

and she put too much garlic in. It's programs like that that I think are really important, and that's what beef is about. Hi, I'm Lisa Hanawalt. And I'm Emily Heller. And if you're not listening to our podcast, Baby Geniuses, you're missing out on stuff like...

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