Charlotte Pike

Dinner

Beef and Red Wine Pie

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I made this delicious pie some time ago and promised you the recipe, and here it is. It works really nicely with venison, too. Some of you have been asking for a beef pie recipe for a while, and I think I’ve really cracked it with this one. You can use most cuts of beef if you don’t have chuck steak. Just make sure it’s nicely trimmed. I’ve also included enough pastry to make a bottom and a top. I know this is controversial, but I usually just add a top to my pies (I know, that means it’s technically a casserole with a pastry, not a pie), but that’s how I like it. So you can halve the quantity of the pastry recipe if you like. Any excess will freeze well though. I like to roll it and then freeze it in a sheet.

Beef and Red Wine Pie

Charlotte Pike

Serves 6-8

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil, for frying

700g diced chuck steak

20g plain flour, seasoned

200g smoked bacon, sliced thinly

25g butter

2 red onions, peeled and thinly sliced

3 small carrots, peeled and finely diced

250ml red wine

400ml beef stock

4 sprigs of thyme, leaves roughly chopped

1 bay leaf

1 tbsp muscovado sugar

1-2 tsp Aspall Red Wine Vinegar

 

For the pastry

500g plain flour

125g butter

125g lard

Pinch salt

Cold water

One large egg, beaten

 

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 150C/Gas Mark 3.  Place the beef in a bowl, add the flour and season well with salt and pepper. Heat the oil in a large frying pan or casserole dish and add the beef to the pan. Fry over a high heat until brown. Add the bacon and continue to cook.

Turn down the heat and add the butter, onions and carrots and fry for a couple of minutes. Add the wine, stock, thyme, bay, sugar and vinegar. Stir well, bring to the boil.

Tranfer the filling to an ovenproof casserole dish.  Cover and place in the oven for 1.5 to 2 hours. Remove and allow to cool.

Now, make the pastry. Rub the fats into the flour in a large bowl to make breadcrumbs. This can be done very quickly in a food processor. Blend with enough cold water (around 4-6 tablespoons) to make a firm dough. Wrap and chill for 30 minutes.

Pre-heat the oven to 200C. On a floured surface roll out half the pastry to the thickness of a £1 coin. Spoon in the cold pie filling into a pie dish and cover with pastry. Trim the edges and decorate if you wish. Cut a hole in the centre, brush with beaten egg and bake for 35 to 40 minutes until the filling is bubbling and the pastry is a rich, golden brown.

Serve with wilted greens, and potatoes, if you like.

Courgette Fritters

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These delicious fritters are wonderfully simple to make, and are a great use or larger courgettes, which, in my view, do not look as appealing or have the delicate flavour of the first, young courgettes of the season. Chickpea or gram flour has a lovely flavour, but use plain white flour if you don’t have it to hand. This recipe is very versatile, so feel free to try different cheeses and herbs.

Courgette Fritters

Charlotte Pike

These delicious fritters are wonderfully simple to make, and are a great use or larger courgettes, which, in my view, do not look as appealing or have the delicate flavour of the first, young courgettes of the season. Chickpea or gram flour has a lovely flavour, but use plain white flour if you don’t have it to hand. This recipe is very versatile, so feel free to try different cheeses and herbs.

Serves 4 as a starter, lunch or light supper

Ingredients

3 large courgettes, grated coarsely

4 spring onions, very thinly sliced

200g feta, crumbled into small pieces

3 large eggs, beaten

150g gram flour

2 tbsp finely chopped parsley

2 tbsp finely chopped mint leaves

Sea salt and black pepper

2-4 tbsp olive or sunflower oil, for frying

1-2 lemons, cut into wedges

 

Method

It really doesn’t take long to prepare and cook these fritters, so start by doing all the prep, and cooking them just before you want to eat them, so they’re at their freshest.

Start by putting the courgettes, spring onions and feta into a large mixing bowl. Stir together gently. Add the beaten eggs, flour and chopped herbs and season well with salt and pepper. Stir until the ingredients are evenly combined and the flour has been incorporated. The mixture will look a little lumpy, but don’t worry.

Pour half the oil into a large non-stick frying pan and heat over a medium-high heat.

When the oil is hot, spoon in the mixture, one large tablespoon at a time. The fritters may take one to two minutes to become richly browned and slightly crisp underneath, and then they can be flipped over, using a spatula. Once they are turned over, press each fritter slightly, to flatten and encourage the centre to cook through. Once firm and righly browned on each side, remove and place on kitchen paper to blot. Repeat until the mixture is used up. You should end up with 15-20 fritters, depending on size.

Serve fresh from the pan, but keep them warm in the oven on a baking tray if you need to.

Serve with lemon wedges, and maybe a tomato and herb salad. If the fritters aren’t all eaten up, you can keep them in the fridge and eat them cold or reheat in the oven later.

Gazpacho

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Gazpacho

Gazpacho is one of the highlights of summer cooking and eating, for me. Chilled soups are some of my favourite things to eat on hot days, and gazpacho is probably my favourite of all. I first learnt how to make gazpacho when I lived in Madrid. The summer was seriously hot, well into the mid 40s, and this was pretty much all I fancied for my evening meal. Gazpacho is eaten very widely in Spain, and in every deli or supermarket, you’ll see cartons of gazpacho for sale in the chiller.

We ate this every day a few weeks ago, during the heatwave here in the U.K., and it reminded me just why I love it so much. It is perfect for those evenings when it almost feels too hot to bother cooking and eating. It’s cooling, refreshing, nourishing, with such lively and exciting flavours.

This really is a soup to make in the peak of summer, when the ingredients are at their best. Quite simply, it won’t taste the same if you try it at any other time. The flavour of properly ripe tomatoes really make gazpacho sing. Good bread is essential, for body and texture.

For the best results, make this gazpacho in a blender or liquidiser, rather than a food processor, for the smoothest result. When it’s really hot, I often make this in the Nutribullet, meaning there is even less equipment to clear up afterwards. Olive oil and parsley make a wonderful topping, but chopped vegetables are quite traditional.

Gazpacho 

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

½ large cucumber, peeled, roughly chopped

1 large yellow pepper, de-seeded, roughly chopped

1 large red pepper, de-seeded, roughly chopped

6 large, perfectly ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped

2 banana shallots, roughly chopped

3 cloves garlic, peeled and roughly chopped

100g best quality bread, such as sourdough

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

2 tbsp Sherry vinegar

Sea salt

 

Method

Blend most of the cucumber, peppers, tomatoes and shallots to a rough purée in a food processor, reserving a couple of chunks of each vegetable for the garnish.

Add the garlic, bread, olive oil and sherry vinegar to the food processor and blend again until smooth, or to a more textured consistency if desired. Taste and adjust the seasoning.

Transfer the soup to a jug, cover with cling film and chill for at least 20 minutes, or until cold.

Cut the reserved vegetables into small cubes. When ready to serve, pour the gazpacho into bowls and garnish with the vegetables.