Charlie Bigham's

What's the connection?

Published on March 28, 2010

Beetroot, brownies and beef & ale pie. How could these three lovely foods be connected? 

As you can see from above I recently knocked up some brownies. A part from tasting unusually good the other unusual thing about them was they included a generous quantity of beetroot. Not your regular brownie ingredient but well worth a go - it works surprisingly well. I'd love to claim the accolades for a good idea here but I borrowed the recipe out of Hugh's latest River Cottage cookbook. Check it out and give it a go. 

However, I did use an ingredient not recommended by Hugh. Some very special chocolate that has become a bit of a regular in our house - Willies Cacao (some of you may have seen the great TV series that featured Willie and his Herculean efforts to get his chocolate factory up and running). This is no ordinary chocolate – made with 100% cocoa it is savoury rather than sweet and perfect for all sorts of cooking, including for making the richest and most delicious chocolate puddings.

All of which leads me on to Beef & Ale pies. I hope some of you might have tried the Charlie Bighams variety - 2 lovely pies in china ramekins that are perfect for a great night in. We've been making them for a few years now and have had lots of lovely comments, especially about the rich and sumptuous sauce. Why does it taste so good? Well we think one of the secrets is that it contains an unusual ingredient - yes, you've guessed it - a little hint of chocolate (100% cocoa of course!).

or why not tell a friend?

Crab mousse

Published on February 25, 2010

As some of you might know one way or another I eat a fair amount of fresh crab. The one problem I have with this is that I find most people have a bit more of a penchant for white crab meat, rather than the brown meat. If you fall into this category here is a great thing to do with the leftover brown meat ...

Start by making a nice tomato sauce: a little bit of onion, a clove of garlic and some high quality tinned tomatoes. Once cooked and tasty put in a blender with your brown crab meat and blend to a fine mousse like texture. Pop it in the fridge for a couple of hours and hey presto - tasty crab mousse!

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Pasteis de Nata

Published on November 3, 2009

For some peculiar reason these delicious Portuguese custard tarts are not widely available in the UK so I though they deserved an outing.

Living in West London I’ve always enjoyed an early morning visit to one of my favourite food haunts Café Lisboa on the Goldhawk Road where they are famous for their Nata tarts. They go particularly well with a breakfast espresso.

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Chanterelle tarts

Published on November 1, 2009

There is something unbeatably woody about chanterelles – they look wonderful, smell alluring and taste delicious. I’m always looking at different ways to cook with them so thought I’d give it a go making a few little tarts.

I used an egg and cream base for these ones, then popped in some garlic sauteed chanterelles and sprinkled them with a little parmesan and some fresh parsley, along with a liberal grind or two of black pepper. Pretty good but I’d love some more chanterelle recipes if you have any tucked away.

or why not tell a friend?