- I'm Darren McGrady, the Royal Chef.
Former chef to the Queen, Princess Diana,
Prince William and Prince Harry,
and today I'm going to be making one
of the Prince of Wales' favorite dishes,
a rack of lamb with a
wild mushroom risotto.
(upbeat classical music)
One of my favorite stories
of the Prince of Wales,
probably the first time
I met him, Balmoral,
the Queen had something
called a Ghillies Ball.
We were dancing and I didn't really know
the dances well, but one
of the dances I did pick up
was the Dashing White Sergeant.
You get in groups of six
and you spin round and round
and then three go this
way and three go this way.
As we were dancing around in a circle
and then back again, you
then break from your three
and go backwards a little.
As I went backwards, the man behind me
went backwards too and we collided.
And I rubbed my heel
down his shoes, took off
half of his shoe.
Turned around to apologize,
it was the Prince of Wales.
(gasps)
I thought I was gonna
be sent to the Tower.
I said, "Oh, sorry, your Royal Highness."
He said, "Oh, oh!"
That was a scary time,
but something I always
look back on.
He was okay the next day.
For the rack of lamb, I
start off with seasoning,
a little salt and pepper all over
and then once that's
on, I've got a hot pan
with some oil.
Then we're just gonna get a nice sear.
I used to cook lamb a
lot at Buckingham Palace.
When the Prince of Wales was there,
it was often on the menu.
He'd request it, big fan of lamb.
I really like Prince Charles.
He was a foodie, he loved to know
what was being served,
where it was sourced from.
He was into organic farming 30 years ago,
before it was even invented, I think.
So we've got a nice sear now, on the lamb.
Normally, it would go
straight into the oven,
400 degrees and just cook
until we get a perfect
medium-rare, but I'm
cooking mine sous vide.
Sous vide cooking is a
method of water bath cookery
and you actually cook the meat or the fish
or the vegetables in a bag.
Sous vide means under
vacuum, and so that means
taking the air out of
what you've got in the bag
because as it drops into
the water, we need it
to sink to the bottom so that it cooks.
So using the machine, we can suck the air
out of the bag and seal
it at the same time.
(machine whirring)
Once the meat's sealed and
we've taken all the air out,
it then goes into a water bath.
I'll cook this in the water
bath for about an hour,
an hour and a half, and once it's done,
we'll slice into it and the
meat will be medium-rare
top to bottom.
The Price of Wales loves wild mushrooms
and I remember one time
we were at Balmoral Castle
and we heard that he was
coming up to Balmoral
and bringing his chefs and bringing a man
to show them all around the estate
where the best mushrooms
were, the organic,
beautiful wild mushrooms on the Balmoral,
a 50,000 acre Balmoral Estate.
We asked if some of our
chefs could go along as well
and they brought back an
abundance of the most amazing
Chanterelles and cepes, incredible.
And the whole day was spent
just sauteing them off
in a little butter, a little
tarragon and then freezing
them to use through the year.
The following year, we
heard they were coming back
up to Balmoral to get more mushrooms,
but the day before they came up,
the chefs, the Queen's chefs
went out onto the estate
to all of those places and
harvested, I think the whole
estate of wild mushrooms.
When the Prince of Wales
and his team came up there,
they couldn't find any,
and so I'm not sure
what they thought, but
we'd already cooked them
and buried them at the
bottom of the freezer.
The Queen comes first
to the Queen's chefs.
I'm making a wild mushroom
risotto right now,
and I've got some dried porcini here
and I like to mix them
with the arborio rice
for a little while and
let all of those flavors
go into it.
Risotto is one of those
dishes, it's little bit
hard to make, but it's worth the time
and it's worth the effort.
You can't just put the
rice on and leave it,
you've got to stay with it all the time,
and I promise you, that tender
loving care and attention
you put into it will
reward you when you sit
down later and eat.
So start off with a little oil in the pan,
then I'm going to add my rice.
Stir that into the oil
so all of the grains
of the arborio rice are coated.
Once I've done that, I
can start adding my broth,
a nice homemade chicken broth.
I think one of the
things that fascinates me
about the Prince of Wales
from a culinary aspect,
is his passion for organic farming.
They have all of this
incredible produce down
that The Duchy Estate where
he lives at Highgrove.
They have all the
vegetables that he grows.
He has an incredible vegetable garden,
there's all this cattle,
there's all this produce
from his estate, all of
this organic farming,
it's fantastic for the chefs
because the Prince is
really keen about using
the produce from the gardens.
Risotto, and it's ris-otto,
not riso-tto. (laughs)
Risotto is a complicated
dish to make, it really is.
You've gotta keep stirring it.
It's not like when
you're just cooking rice,
you can throw it on
the stove and walk away
and answer the phone or something.
This one, you've gotta
keep stirring all the time
and the temperature of the
stove needs to be on low
and it just needs to be ticking away.
It's almost like the Italian lifestyle.
It's like sitting in the Piazza in Siena,
just watching the world go by.
That's what the grains
of rice are doing in here
and it's just such a
fabulous dish to make.
I just love this dish,
whether it's sort of plain
with some truffle oil in
there and some Parmesan cheese
or some pecorino grated into it,
whether it's some fresh
artichokes in there,
wild mushrooms, sun
dried tomatoes, whatever,
adds to that flavor.
But you do need a good base, you do need
a good chicken broth that sort of gives
the flavor in there, obviously the rice
is not gonna add any flavor.
But each time it starts
to cook, those granules
are opening up and so
you have to keep adding
a little more broth at a time.
The reason you're adding
a little at a time
is because if you add too much at once,
it's going to be soupy and
we don't want it soupy.
We want to be able to have it,
when we put it into the
dish, it just runs slightly
and then sits and holds.
That's the perfect risotto.
One of the things I noticed
about the Prince of Wales
is his love of Italian food.
And whether it was the
wild mushroom risotto
or whether it was polenta
dishes, sort of healthy eating,
that's what Italian food
is, simple, elegant food.
When Prince Charles, Princess
Diana, William and Harry
were all eating together,
often Italian food
was on the menu.
Princess Diana loved it
too, because it was simple
and clean, lots of nice salads and things,
a beautiful risotto like
this one we're making.
And for the boys, some Italian pizza.
I mean, what boys don't love pizza?
I know William and Harry do.
As the arborio rice starts
to take in the chicken broth,
we can now add some white wine,
a little chardonnay in
there or pinot grigio,
if you wanna keep it Italian.
The Prince of Wales loved
painting and I think
going off to Italy and sitting there,
and I think that is where
his passion for Italy
and for the beautiful
countryside and of course,
the food came from.
When he's out painting
in the hills, he'd take
a little sandwich, a little
picnic with him often,
big thick sandwich like
this, and then maybe
a piece of plum pudding that they prepared
at Buckingham Palace.
When it comes to eating,
no two days are the same
for the Prince of Wales.
Normally starts the day with
some fruit for breakfast.
Often some plums from
the garden that have been
lightly poached, a little
juice and some muesli
to go with it.
And then lunchtime, there may be a lunch,
there may not be a lunch.
It could be a sandwich.
Afternoon tea, he's been
known to have boiled eggs.
He's very fond of boiled eggs.
So just a little toast
and some boiled eggs.
And then in the evening,
something a little more substantial.
The risotto's been cooking
now for about 19-20 minutes
and it's just all come together perfectly
and smells amazing.
Those wild mushrooms
and the grains of rice
have opened up.
They're still nutty, that's what we want.
We don't want overcooked rice.
What I need to do next is put
some Parmesan cheese in there,
some pecorino cheese, and
that's gonna thicken it up
and make it the perfect consistency.
Let's add the cheese.
The cheese really brings this together.
So some Parmesan cheese
sprinkled into this.
The perfect risotto.
I've got Parmesan cheese in there,
I've got some black pepper, a little salt
if we need it, but be careful
not to add too much salt
because you've got the chicken broth.
As that reduces down, you
get that strong salty flavor
from that, too.
So add any salt at the end.
And then of course, the truffle oil.
That always makes it
(speaking foreign language).
The amazing truffle oil that
just finishes this dish.
And with the wild
mushrooms, it smells divine.
Look at the consistency in that.
That's the perfect risotto.
All we need now is the lamb.
My lamb's been sitting in
the sous vide water bath
for about an hour and a half now.
I'd love to say it smells amazing,
but one of the joys of sous vide cooking
is that when you're
cooking in the water bath,
there is no smell.
It's not until you actually slit the bag
you get to smell the incredible flavors
that have all been sealed in as it cooks.
The lamb now smells incredible.
The searing is fantastic,
we did that earlier.
If you want to, you can do another sear,
that's a double sear afterwards to make it
crunchy on the top.
But for me, this texture
now of cutting through
into the lamb.
I don't think it gets
any better than that.
Look at that gorgeous, gorgeous lamb.
The cheese is melted
into that chicken broth
and so we can put all of this together.
You see how when we put this in the bowl
is just runs a little?
It's not like soup, it's
not like boiled rice.
It just runs til it finds its own level
and then the beautiful
lamb that we put in there.
It's just gorgeous.
All it needs is a little basil oil.
I've mixed some basil with some olive oil,
blended it together, a little salt
and a tiny drizzle.
For me, that's as Italy,
that's as gorgeous, that's
the Prince of Wales.
That's just beautiful food.
Now it's about the tasting.
This lamb is so tender,
the perfect medium-rare.
And the risotto, it's just gorgeous.
See how it just sits there?
Those flavors together,
the beautiful spring lamb, the risotto,
the wild mushrooms, the truffle oil,
that basil oil coming through at the end.
It's a fantastic dish.
I love Italian food, I
love cooking like this.
I can see why the Prince
of Wales loved it too.
Please follow me on
Instagram, @darren_mcgrady.
(mouse clicking)
