[upbeat music] Bienvenue en France.

That's "Welcome to France" to you and me.

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

Bon appetit.

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

It's where I learned to cook.

Magical times.

Magical times.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): And it was the home and inspiration for one of my biggest food heroes, Keith Floyd.

And what's more, I've bought his motor.

This was Keith Floyd's very own car for 16 years, and it's now mine.

Gives me goosebumps.

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

This is really, really delicious.

[clearing throat] [jazzy uptempo music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ JAMES (VOICEOVER): Today, my French adventure brings me north, to a region famous for all sorts of things-- Calvados, stripy jumpers, and my all-time favorite ingredient, butter, of course.

Welcome to Normandy.

Now, a lot of people don't really understand Normandy-- I mean, the real Normandy.

They get off the ferry and head straight down south.

But this place has so much more to offer when you have a look around, like this place.

This is steeped in history.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): A bit like my car.

Normandy sits bang in the middle of France's northern coast, just a few hours' ferry ride from good old Blighty.

360 miles of stunning cliff-edge coastline brings it an abundance of phenomenal seafood, whilst inland, it's all lush green pastures and fertile hinterland.

And in this area, there's also a big slice of wartime history.

Now, on the 5th of June in 1944, a small select group of British servicemen-- 181 in total-- set out from the UK at night to take this strategic area in France.

This is Pegasus Bridge.

Now, the original bridge sits in a museum over there.

This was rebuilt in the 1990s.

But what started off as just a small group of servicemen ended up in the biggest seaborne invasion in history-- D-Day.

And it all started right here.

[suspenseful music] JAMES (VOICEOVER): 181 men of the British 6th Airborne Division landed by parachute and glider to seize the bridge.

Under the command of Major John Howard, Operation Deadstick succeeded in holding off German forces, preventing them from crossing the bridge and attacking the D-Day landings at Sword Beach.

[smooth music] A roam around Normandy is like a journey into our wartime past.

But now, as my French adventure is about food, I'm off to a beautiful orchard, where the crew have been busy setting up for my first cook.

[car engine rumbling] Now, I was contemplating what to cook, to be honest.

And I'm taking my jacket off before we get letters, because there'll be plenty.

But I thought I'd do a wonderful artichoke dish.

Now, I remember this when I used to come here to France.

It's fabulous.

But it uses these amazing globe artichokes.

I'm going to do globe artichokes with a classic hollandaise sauce.

So in here, I've got a big pan of water.

You're going to put a fair bit of salt into it, a few pinches of salt, just a little pinch, and then a few aromats.

We've got some white peppercorns.

They're going to go in.

A bay leaf, stick that in.

But most importantly, whenever you're cooking artichokes, lemon, that's the key.

So take some pieces of lemon.

Squeeze them so you get the juice out of them as well.

Now, you need lemon whether you do either globe artichokes or Jerusalem artichokes.

This stops the artichoke from going brown.

Pop the lemon in.

Stick the lid on.

And then all you have to do with this, to cook and serve them whole, is basically remove it from the stalk.

And to do that, just crack it like that.

And that is the beautiful artichoke.

People often sort of wonder what to do with these back in the UK, but these are served all over France in bistros.

It's really simple.

And I think that's the reason why they have it on the menu.

It's so simple to cook.

Basically, the person eating it does the most amount of work, and I'll explain that a little bit later.

But all you do with the artichokes is chuck them in and stick them in the pan.

Bring it to the boil and cook these for about 25, 30 minutes, something like that.

Now, with this-- we're in Normandy.

We've got to use butter.

So get on away from me, Rob.

Get into this.

Look.

This is pure Normandy butter.

Now, the ingredients for our nice hollandaise is butter.

Then you need some aromats.

We've got this wonderful vinegar here, which we picked up from, to be brutally honest, a petrol station last night.

But it's wonderful.

It's local.

It's honey-cider vinegar.

It's delicious stuff.

You can use white-wine vinegar.

We've got some white peppercorns, some shallots, a little bit of bay leaf.

And we're going to make what they call gastric shallots.

And then what I'm going to do first of all is get our butter on.

So you throw the butter in.

This is the classic hollandaise.

You have to make it with butter.

If you start making it with margarine, the French will escort you right back to Dover.

And all you, do first of all, is bring the butter to the boil.

You're not deep frying in butter.

What we're trying to do is separate the impurities of the butter, i.e.

the salts from the butter, really, to create the nice flavor from it.

So all we do to do that is just bring it to the boil.

Gently simmer it.

Try not to stir it too much.

You can give it a bit of a shake.

But you can see the little white impurities that come off the butter.

There's nothing wrong with that.

These are just the natural salts that occur in the milk when they make the butter.

But you just want to basically just bring this to the boil like that.

And as soon as it comes to the boil, let it simmer for about 2 or 3 minutes, just simmer.

Don't boil it too much.

Otherwise, it goes nut brown and burns, and you aren't going to get the nice taste.

So once we get to that stage, you just basically take it off the heat and leave it to cool.

That's the key to this, really.

Now, at the same time, we can get on and make the base for our hollandaise-- shallots, some of this vinegar-- there we go-- a few white peppercorns.

You can use black peppercorns or pink peppercorns if you want, but a few white peppercorns.

They're going to go in, and a bay leaf.

It's called a gastric.

And it's a very strong mixture that you use to flavor a hollandaise.

Bring this to the boil.

Let it simmer for about 2 or 3 minutes.

Now, for our hollandaise sauce, the butter is starting to cool down.

This is clarified butter.

Some people call it ghee as well.

It's used in a lot of Indian sort of cooking as well.

That's clarified butter.

Exactly the same thing.

First of all for this, we need egg yolks.

So about three egg yolks will be enough for this, probably.

Now, you can do this over a bain-marie, as the French call it, or as we call it up north, a pan of hot water.

Similar sort of thing.

But all you do with this, egg yolks.

And then we can turn our attention to the butter.

And we take off this little bit of butter, this little layer.

You don't have to be too certain with it.

Just remove most of it more than anything else.

But this is the impurities.

These are the salts and everything else.

Part of them will stay on the top.

The other part will sink to the bottom.

So just lose most of it like that.

And then all you do now is gradually pour it in.

You pour it in gently, gently, slowly, little by little.

If it goes in too quick, it separates.

Now, my best advice for this-- if you've got kids, pocket money, a quid-- just get them to stand there and whisk it.

And you're just contemplating about life while you pour the butter in.

You're nearly there now.

DIRECTOR: Could you use a machine to do this?

Could you use a machine to do this?

That's what our director has just said.

Yes, you could use a machine to do this.

That's if they put me into a kitchen with a plug.

Not in the middle of a barn.

"Could you use a machine."

This is it.

Now look at this.

It's worth the wait.

Trust me.

Look.

And then what we end up with is this gastric.

Now, it's tiny, tiny amount.

You can use a sieve.

And we've got this sieve with me like that.

And we just have this flavor that you just put in it at the last minute.

So you almost end up with-- it's the very, very small amount as you reduce this down because it's quite strong.

And you end up with this amazing sauce, like that.

Quick taste.

[smacking] And a little bit of lemon juice.

Now, this is what we call one of the mother sauces.

It's one of the sort of classic four or five sauces that they have in France that you can make into additional sauces from it.

So if I was to put a bit of parsley in here and a little bit of blood orange, you'd end up with what we call maltaise, great with fish, great with asparagus, that kind of stuff.

If you put things like mint in it, you'd end up with a paloise, which is the French equivalent, I suppose, to mint sauce.

But if we just leave it as it is and chuck it into a bowl, we have this classic hollandaise sauce, which you need plenty of as well.

We put that on the side.

And then all we do now is lift out our wonderful artichokes.

Forget me, Rob.

Look.

Just get in this pan.

Look.

Look at this.

Mm-hmm-hmm-hmm!

These have been cooking for about sort of 20, 30 minutes, and they soften up as well.

All you do is lift them out.

Tip them the other way up.

It drains out all the water like that.

And you just put them on the plate.

You can put one like that with a nice little bit of the sauce.

Really simple to eat as well, because all you do with this-- this is served in bistros all over France.

All you do with this, you just take a leaf as you break off the leaf like that.

You've got a bit of the choke that's in here like this.

And you dip it in.

And you eat it by pulling it in between your teeth.

Delicious and so simple to prepare.

[bright music] If you've got a machine or a plug or electricity.

♪ ♪ Good that.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): Don't be intimidated by these little beauties.

All you need to do is just plonk them in a large pot while you make a delicious dipping hollandaise, electricity or no electricity.

I'm on a French road trip around Normandy, taking in the sights, the history, and the food.

This area is not like the rest of France.

It's not hot enough here to be wine territory, so the locals have turned their hand to something else very close to my heart.

Now, if you know me, there's one ingredient I love more than any other, and that's butter.

Cream's a close second, but butter.

[jazzy french music] ♪ ♪ JAMES (VOICEOVER): And I'm in luck, because Normandy is rightly famous for its delicious dairy products.

Butter has been made in these parts for hundreds of years and hopefully will be for many more years to come.

And here's a man who loves butter almost as much as me.

Laurent and his family have 50 cows on their organic farm.

And he gave up working in a butter factory so that he could craft the butter by hand the way his mom taught him.

So come on, Laurent, show us how it's done.

Every week, we make cream in the morning.

And we must wait a week for the maturation.

It's better for the butter.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): That's a lot of cream.

10 liters of the good stuff goes into the churn.

[bright music] After just a few minutes of churning, the cream is transformed into butter and buttermilk.

The butter is rinsed three times, and now it's looking tempting and, well, buttery.

It just needs a good squeeze.

And after a quick clear-down, Laurent is ready to knock the butter into shape.

When he worked in the factory, they made 6,000 packs of butter an hour.

This has got to be much more satisfying, the traditional way.

♪ ♪ I learned to make butter when I was a child with my mother.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): She taught you well, Laurent.

There's a lot to be said for passing the love of butter down the generations.

You see, I was trying to remember when-- the first time I fell in love with butter as an ingredient.

And I kind of-- I don't blame my grandparents.

I want to thank my grandparents, because it was my grandmother.

She was really the matriarch of the family, really, the cook, the best cook of the family.

Excuse me, Mother, but it was.

And she used to rub butter and flour together while watching an episode of Cory.

It used to take 1/2 an hour to rub it by hand.

But it was all about proper ingredients and proper-tasting food.

The only fancy thing she had once every month was probably a trip out to a Berni Inn.

She never got to France.

But it was all about the quality of ingredients.

And for her, one of those was butter.

[bright music] JAMES (VOICEOVER): So to celebrate my grandmother, along with my favorite ingredient, here's a French-inspired treat to get your taste buds tingling.

You see, now you know how to make butter.

And the French do love butter as much as I do.

And there's so many classic recipes that you can use it.

But I'm going to go with the ultimate classic using butter, and that's make a croissant dough.

I'm not going to make croissants.

I'm going to make a variety of them called pain au chocolat.

But it all starts off with the dough itself.

So run you through over here.

We've got some flour, a bit of salt, a bit of sugar, some yeast, and water.

Now, what we need to do with this is basically warm up the water.

And then we grab our fresh yeast.

You can get the dried stuff, but the fresh one is better, in my opinion.

Now mix this together til all the yeast sort of disappears.

And then we pour this into our machine and get this going.

[whirring] And what you're after is a bread-dough texture.

And the key to making a really good bread dough is this stuff-- water.

So many times people make the bread dough too dry.

It actually takes more water than you think, but that can vary from flour to flour, even though you buy it from the same manufacturer or the same make.

What you're after is something-- it's difficult to describe.

It should just be slightly tacky to it.

So that is.

Grab a touch of flour and then tip this out.

Bring all this lot together.

Now, this is where the hard work starts because this bit takes elbow grease.

Now, first of all, what you need to do is pin out the pastry.

And it's actually one of the joys of making stuff like this at home, is that it takes a while.

You can eat six of these to make up for the weight that you've lost while making it-- well, maybe two.

Maybe one, actually.

Right.

That's fine for that.

We've pinned it out nicely.

Now it's all about the butter because to make pain au chocolat croissants, you use quite a bit of butter.

1, 2.

[bright music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Think of that next time you put chocolate spread on it.

Then you fold it up to look like a book.

And then you fold it over again.

Now what it's all about is building up layers.

So what we now need to do is pin it out again and do the process a second time.

Now, every time you're doing it, these pieces of butter, these chunks of butter, that are trapped in between the dough-- you can see in there-- these will get dispersed all around the dough in layers.

And it's those layers which creates the flake in our croissants and pain au chocolat.

It's good, isn't it?

So we then flip it over, flip it over, over again.

[bright music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ So it's had three book turns.

Take some cling film, wrap it up, and pop it in the fridge for about 2 or 3 hours.

Now, I've got one that's been in the fridge.

You see it starts to soften up slightly.

You see that?

This has had three book turns now.

And then what we need to do is to do another one-- [bright music] ♪ ♪ --and another one.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ What we need to do now is roll it out into, like, a large oblong.

♪ ♪ Right.

Next, so you want it cut straight through like that.

Now what we're looking for is kind of an oblong square.

And I'm going to use these chocolate batons.

And we cut the dough to the same width as the baton.

And then we grab some egg wash and just brush the bottom edges of each line.

And then get your chocolate baton, put it in the top, and roll it up.

Now, the difference between a croissant and a pain au chocolat is it's all about the shape.

It's really the same recipe.

And it starts off with a triangle, and you roll it into a croissant.

These are my favorite pain au chocolate.

You see, the crew here, I foolishly told them that I really like pain au chocolat.

You can tell because I did eat, one day, 24 by 9:30 AM.

I'm not saying that I'm sort of camouflaged now, really, but I was certainly a big lad then.

[bright music] And what you do before the egg wash then is just press them down a bit.

If you don't do this, what happens with the underside of the pastry is it kind of flips open if you're not careful.

Push them down.

A bit of egg wash over the top.

Then what you need to do is leave these to prove for about an hour.

They should about double in size.

And then pop them in the oven to cook for about 20 minutes.

[bright music] ♪ ♪ There you have classic pain au chocolat.

You see, I told you it was worth it.

I cannot believe that I used to eat 20-odd of these, though.

Well, I can.

What a shame.

One for me.

[crunch] [upbeat music] JAMES (VOICEOVER): My journey through Normandy has revealed an area rich in history.

And I've discovered pure culinary gold.

Mmm.

And just when you think it can't get any better, you discover idyllic nooks like this-- Beuvron-en-Auge in the heart of the Calvados area.

Its half-timbered houses and its relaxing way of life have long been a draw for tourists from all over the world.

Now, although small, this village is quite famous.

It's known as one of the most beautiful villages in France, and it's easy to see why-- beautiful little creperies, fantastic-looking houses.

This is a really special place.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): And it's made all the more special because of its relationship with Normandy produce.

Local cider washes down many a snack in these parts.

And bang in the middle of things, there just happens to be a Michelin-starred restaurant.

Now, we've seen some amazing butter, but I couldn't resist coming to this place, Le Pave d'Auge, because it's famous for dairy, dairy, and more dairy, and more dairy.

It's the reason why he's put double doors in, because this is for your way out.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): I get the feeling I might benefit from those later.

And the man responsible for the expanding waistlines of the people of Normandy is this guy, Jerome Bansard, a man who trained under the great Michel Roux in England and began this restaurant 25 years ago, naming it after a local cheese.

And this nod to dairy continues throughout the great man's cooking.

The food here is mostly meat heavy, cooked with cream and plenty of butter.

And on the menu today are butter-fried calves sweetbreads.

To accompany the sweetbreads, Chef has harvested one of my favorite root veg, salsify, which is stewed in the juice of local apples.

And in case you were in any doubt, they're going in the same way as the sweetbreads.

Apple is added and fried until golden brown.

And even the salad has a dairy-based theme.

Fresh leaves are mixed with a dried buttermilk crust, made crispy in the oven.

Not everybody likes sweetbread in particular, but it's very nice.

It's a bit soft.

And it's crispy on the outside.

[upbeat music] In fact, the French people love the [inaudible].

I know English, not as much.

[laughs] They should try it.

JAMES: Well, this Englishman is armed and ready.

Bring it on, Jerome.

JEROME: Merci.

JAMES: Thank you.

- Bon appetit.

JAMES: Well, here we go.

Sweetbreads.

Now, they've kind of got a love-hate relationship, I suppose, sweetbreads, with most people.

And I think most people haven't tried them, and that's the reason why, or at least they've tried them being cooked wrong.

This is perfect.

And it's going to be perfect because this is a perfect restaurant.

This is beautiful in here, the log fire, double-height ceilings.

And this is right, slap bang, in the center of the village.

This is really good.

You've got a bit of apple in there.

Now, this is quite an interesting veg.

It's called salsify, very simple to cook, but it's otherwise known as oyster plant because it does taste like oysters.

Mmm.

This is seriously good.

The sauce is nice and sticky.

The veg is nice and caramelized.

You've got that nice fruit in there with the apple.

A glass of cider, a roaring fire.

Just need a sofa [snorts] and my dog.

[vocalizing] ♪ ♪ [upbeat music] JAMES (VOICEOVER): And talking of food you can eat by the fire with your dog, I've got the perfect dish, one that celebrates everything Normandy has to offer.

A cook after my own heart-- attack.

That's what that restaurant is.

It's absolutely beautiful.

The place was stunning as well.

And the food really shone out.

It really was fabulous.

And I thought I'd do a dish kind of similar, really, not using salsify, certainly not using the sweetbreads, but using scallops, black pudding, and apple.

But I'm still going to incorporate the butter into all this.

And it's a wonderful apple and Calvados sauce, really, like a butter sauce.

It's really, really nice.

[smooth music] So first of all, we just peel the old Bramley apples.

We want two of these.

Dice the apples down into small pieces.

This is all going to get blended anyway.

They can go straight into our pan.

Get this on with a little bit of butter because that's the predominant flavor in this dish.

Now, to help this along, instead of adding water, it's got to be Calvados on it, really, just a nice glug-- [sizzling] --a little bit.

And then flame it quite quickly because we want to get rid of the alcohol.

It's going to take about sort of 5, maybe 10 minutes to soften the apples.

And I'm just going to leave this ticking away.

Meanwhile, I can crack on with the rest.

And I've got some wonderful black pudding here.

The key to, I think, a really good-quality black pudding is to be able to see the bits inside.

You don't want it absolutely wafer smooth.

But it's all about the cooking.

And one of my pet hates is when you go to sort of service stations, and you see those sort of mounds of black pudding sort of shriveled underneath the hot light.

And so often with this, there's more moisture in this wooden board than there is in the black pudding that you find at these places.

So cook it properly.

Cook it quickly.

Cook it simply.

Now, the key to this is not cutting it too thin, because it's going to dry out, and not too thick.

So a nice piece like that.

Into our pan.

We're going to pan fry the apple.

I've just got some of these-- these are called Pink Lady-- and a little bit of butter.

You don't want to overcook these, a bit like the black pudding.

Otherwise, they're just going to fall apart.

Grab a little bit of kitchen paper and just pop our apples on here.

[sizzling] And using the same pan, we add a bit more butter, because this is how you cook black pudding-- in a pan, with butter.

It's not designed to be low in fat, black pudding.

Just turn it over once.

You don't need to keep turning it over.

And it's just cooking it.

That's all it's doing, just cooking it.

Lift it out.

And we leave it to one side.

Meanwhile, we've got our apples.

I'm going to take the entire lot and stick it in this blender.

[scraping] A little bit of butter.

Put the lid on and blitz it.

[whirring] What we're after is a nice sauce.

We're not after soup.

We just want a lovely sauce, which that is.

It's like the best apple sauce all together.

So to cook the scallops, a little bit of oil in the pan, first of all.

And we've got these beautiful king scallops.

Straight into a hot pan.

Now, what you have to do with scallops is leave them.

So many times, people will fiddle around with food too much.

Just leave it.

A bit of salt, a bit of pepper.

Look at that.

Turn the scallops over now.

Add a little bit of butter.

[sizzling] [clunking] And then keep the pan on the heat.

So what you do just to finish these off is take the butter and nappe them.

It's not nappy.

Nappe.

It's a French term to baste.

All you do now is just plate it up.

You've got a lovely plate here.

You grab some of this puree.

[uptempo acoustic music] ♪ ♪ 15 euros, that.

And what we're doing is a black pudding and apple burger.

Look at that.

And then you can grab your scallops, beautiful, beautiful hand-dived scallops.

♪ ♪ Two more things.

We're going to take some of this.

This is chervil.

It's, like, got an aniseed sort of flavor.

Now, just to finish it in this pan, you can take chicken or beef stock, those little packets of fresh stock, reduce it down, two of those, to almost nothing.

And it thickens it up.

And I've added a little knob of butter to this.

The French call this [french] just to finish the sauce with butter.

You just take a little bit of this.

♪ ♪ 30 euros.

[upbeat music] JAMES (VOICEOVER): I'm on a tour of Northern France, sampling everything Normandy has to offer, from wartime history to fine dining.

This region has it all, including its fair share of orchards.

Yes, I'm in Calvados country.

There's a distinct whiff of apples in these parts, and this is why.

It's harvest time, which means the Calvados-making process is just beginning.

And here at Domaine Dupont, Jerome is in charge of proceedings.

His family have been making it for generations.

So I think he knows what he's doing.

This really is a beautiful farm.

You've got an amazing place with loads of fantastic outbuildings.

But you're not the first generation here.

No, that's right, James.

It all started with my great-grandfather, Jules, who settled here in 1887.

He was followed by my grandfather, Louis.

And then my father took over.

And now it's me and my sister who are running the place.

And always apples?

Always apples.

There's always been apples in the Domaine, cider, Calvados, and more specifically, bitter, bittersweet apples, which is really the typical apple from Normandy.

And then how do you end up from getting cider to Calvados?

How does that happen?

Once the cider is fermented, dry, you then transfer the cider into steel.

And thanks to the steel, you extract the spirit, the Calvados, that will then age in oak barrels for a minimum of 2 years.

And that's how Calvados is produced.

JAMES: What makes this area so special?

I think for a long time, Normandy, because of the weather, the weather condition, has been more inclined to have apples than grapes.

And the other thing is that in this terroir, historically, there has always been these bitter, bittersweet apples that are really special.

You don't find them in a lot of other parts of the world.

And because of their sugar and their tannins, they really give a cider with a very strong and a lot of character that makes the signature of Normandy ciders.

So there's four generations that you're in now.

Is there going to be another one?

Is there going to be a fifth?

Well, we'll see.

Fingers crossed.

I've got some boys, and I've got a girl.

So-- Well, put them to work.

JEROME: If they want to do it, why not?

[bright music] JAMES: Well, let's hope they do want to join the family business, because those apples won't ferment themselves.

Well, I suppose left long enough, they will.

Anyway, while the harvest continues, Jerome has let me have a spot by the farmhouse to set up my final cook.

What a wonderful place Jerome's got.

It's pretty impressive, isn't it?

And I thought I'd do it justice, really, using all the food from the area.

Literally, we've got orchards surrounding this entire farm.

And I thought I'd do a wonderful sauce with Calvados, cider, with these, wet walnuts, and some wonderful pork.

It's nice to see pork fillet like this, in it's raw, unprepared state.

And to do this and to prepare it, what you have to do is just-- just remove a few things, first of all.

What you have to do is remove this little tendon from the pork, because inside this, there's a tendon that goes right the way through the middle of it.

Here, look, Rob.

Dive into this.

You'll see right in the center there this little tendon and sinew you need to get rid of.

Otherwise, if I cook this, it's going to shrink and shrink the pork.

Also, what's going to shrink the pork as well is this little sinew in here.

And to remove it, very simply, just insert the knife underneath and just lift off this sinew.

Now, so often nowadays, this is all done for you, but it's nice to see it in its raw state like this.

So we just lift this off.

You don't have to be too thorough with it.

Just get rid of that.

I actually like this bit of fat on it as well.

So often with pork fillet, it's almost overtrimmed, really.

And because of that, when you cook it and certainly when you overcook it, it becomes too dry.

And you'll notice that when you get a nice pork loin and roast it in the oven, that hasn't got the fat on the top, and you eat it, and it's dry.

Now, that can be an accumulation of being overcooked, but also, because it's got no fat in it, it doesn't keep it moist.

However, this way of cooking it will.

So when I get to that stage, I'm just going to cut this into chunks, really.

So about decent-sized pieces.

Now, you can see where this sort of joint of meat equal cousin is the fillet of beef.

Just this eye of meat contains no fat, really, around the edge.

So to keep it nice and moist, I'm going to create a lovely little sauce with it.

But first of all, we're going to seal it off in a pan.

So grab a little bit of butter, a nice hot pan, and basically just chuck the pork in and get that cooking away nicely, first of all.

Now, so often with this, you would cut it into small pieces.

And by doing so, it can overcook quite quickly.

By doing it this way, it keeps the moisture in the meat.

And then with the shallots, keep these whole as well.

On the end of the shallots-- these have just been peeled.

Keep the roots on it.

Just trim the roots off a little bit, not too much.

But keep them whole.

And pop the shallots in as well, cut-side down so you get a nice little bit of mark into the shallots.

A bit of salt, a bit of pepper, like that.

In essence, this is such a simple little dish.

It's just pork, a few onions.

We've got some wonderful apples here, so I can prepare those, which also make this delicious Calvados.

You don't need to be too fancy with it.

You don't even need to core them.

Just put them in.

[sizzling] This is what I love about this dish, is that it's everything from the surrounding area.

And these apples.

Delicious.

Just delicious.

So we can take the pork now, flip that over.

Just a little color on it, not too much.

Keep the onions pointing down as well.

You just want a nice little bit of color.

There's natural sugars in onions, which will start to caramelize them down as well.

So throw the apples in.

And this is the thing with this dish.

Don't mess around.

Don't fiddle with food too much.

Too many times, people prod stuff too much and stir it.

Just leave it.

It's quite simple.

You don't need to do anything with it.

Just leave it in the pan.

Look at it.

I was always taught-- and it's a, really, a lesson when you're cooking.

If food looks good at this stage, it's going to taste good.

It's as simple as that.

And all that cooking in sort of fancy ingredients and in a bag at 52 degrees for 6 and 1/2 hours, we lose sight of what food really is.

This is just great ingredients.

Now, when we get to that stage, you've got 2 ingredients you can put in here-- Calvados, wonderful, wonderful.

Calvados.

Just to glaze it a little bit with the Calvados.

And of course, you have to have a little bit of cider.

You could use some stock if you wanted to, but we're here, and we've got your cider.

So this has got to go in.

Nice little bit of cider.

Keep the pan on the heat.

And then cream.

Now, unfortunately, over in France, they have a lot of things that are good over here, but they don't have double cream.

So you've got this stuff, 20% cream, which goes in as well.

Just a little bit in there.

Give this a quick stir.

Stick the lid on and bring it to the boil.

And just gently cook this for about 2 or 3 minutes.

Meanwhile, I'm going to prepare these.

Now, chefs love these.

These are called wet walnuts.

Sounds peculiar, but when a walnut is fresh like this, straight off the tree, this is what chefs call wet walnuts.

And when you crack them, you'll see what I mean.

They're so much fresher than a walnut you get in a bag.

Look at these.

But you can see inside, the walnut is actually whole like this.

If you carefully peel it, you can keep it whole.

You just slide it out.

That's one thing that I remember when I was a kid.

My auntie used to give me, every Christmas, a bag of nuts, Brazil nuts, walnuts, that kind of stuff.

Father Christmas was kind to me.

He was kind to me one year when we sort of-- instead of shaking it, it looked very different.

And it was different in kind of a weird way.

My auntie was good at a lot of things.

Knitting was another one.

So she knitted me-- and I'll never forget it, and I've still got it at home-- a toilet roll warmer.

Do you remember them?

An action man toilet roll warmer.

That's what she knitted me.

Now, lifting it off and just throwing the walnuts at the end.

And then plenty of parsley, just a small bunch.

You want to chop up the parsley.

The key to this is simplicity.

That's all it is.

It's kind of a fancy dish when you think of it with a bit of Calvados, but in essence, it's really simple.

Parsley in at the end.

A bit of black pepper.

A bit of salt.

So we'll just grab a little bit.

We put it on here.

A few bits of apple in there as well.

Now, I was actually going to serve this all fancy and stuff like that, but I just love food when it looks like this-- simple, tasty.

The pork's nice and moist.

Walnuts start to soften up a little bit.

So there you have it.

I'm going to leave you to take a nice shot of that, all pretty and all.

Ladies and gentlemen, you have pork with apples and Calvados with wet walnuts.

Meanwhile, I'm going to go back to my house.

When you've finished, clear up this lawn.

You're making a mess.

[bright music] JAMES (VOICEOVER): But before you clear up, take a moment to appreciate my celebration of Normandy produce, good, honest ingredients given the respect they deserve.

Well, sadly, we've reached the end of my time in Normandy, a place that's not too dissimilar to our own.

From the sands that hold the key to hope to the orchards that will allow future generations to live off the fruits of the land, it's a place where chocolate-box villages provide the backdrop to truly stunning culinary arts.

This is really good.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): And it's not a bad place to lay your hat down, to be honest.

JAMES: Actually, this is not my house.

My house is around the back, about 3 miles around the back.

That's the gardener's.

And clear up that truck as well.

You're making it look untidy.

[uptempo french jazz] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [bright music] JAMES (VOICEOVER): --electricity or no electricity.

[upbeat music] Coming up on my French adventure here in Normandy, we meet the producers of my favorite-ever ingredient.

[mooing] Well, hello.

And I reveal my obsession for a particular French pastry.

JAMES: I really like pain au chocolat.

I did eat one day 24 by 9:30 AM.

[bright music] JAMES (VOICEOVER): I'm on a French road trip around Normandy, taking in the-- What a shame.

One for me.

[crunch] JAMES (VOICEOVER): Coming up on my French adventure in Normandy, I get to taste a buttery treat by a roaring fire.

This is perfect.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): And I keep the buttery theme going and use plenty of the stuff to cook these beauties in my home kitchen.

[sizzling] [french accordion music] My journey through Normandy has revealed an area rich in history.

And I-- 30 euros.

JAMES (VOICEOVER): Still to come, as I round off my French adventure in Normandy, apples get turned into alcohol.

Oh, yes.

And I have a word with my untidy crew.

When you finish clear up this lawn.

You're making a mess.

[upbeat music] JAMES (VOICEOVER): I'm on a tour of Northern France, sampling everything Normandy has to offer.