Charlotte Pike

Food & Drink Expert

Recipes

Potato Soup with Parsley Pesto

By Leave a Comment

This is such a simple soup, but it is amazingly rich and complex in flavour. Somehow, it really is greater than the sum of its parts. It makes a terrific lunch with some fresh bread or even cheese scones.

Potato Soup with Parsley Pesto

Serves 6

Ingredients

50g butter
1 large leek, washed and thinly sliced

2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
500g floury potatoes, peeled and cut into 1cm cubes
Sea salt and lots of freshly ground pepper
800ml vegetable or chicken stock
100ml cream

 

Method

Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan. Add the leeks and potatoes. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and sweat on a gentle heat for 15 minutes. Add the stock and cook until the vegetables are just soft. This should take around 20 minutes. Add the cream, blend the soup, taste and adjust the seasoning.

Put a swirl of parsley Pesto on top of each soup before serving.

Parsley Pesto

Serves 6

Ingredients

75g parsley

50g parmesan, grated

Large pinch sea salt

150ml (approximately) extra virgin olive oil

 

Method

 

Put all the ingredients together into a blender and whizz together until evenly combined and they form a dropping consistency. Taste and adjust the salt if it needs a little more.

Strawberry and Rhubarb Galette

By Leave a Comment

This is a particularly delicious summer fruit galette. The galette is a flat, free form tart, which is made from one sheet of pastry that is topped with filling and the edges folded in to encase the filling ingredients and all their lovely juices. It’s a particularly quick and easy way to bake with pastry.

The combination of strawberries and rhubarb is especially delicious, and one I’d urge you to try if you have not already. It is a particularly good combination to try at this time of year when the first english strawberries arrive, giving sweetness and fragrance to this sublime tart.

Strawberry and Rhubarb Galette

This is a wonderful fruit galette that can be made with any seasonal fruit. Try rhubarb, strawberries, plums, apples, for example.

©Charlotte Pike

Serves 8-10

Ingredients

 

For the pastry

375g plain flour

50g cornflour

100g caster sugar

200g butter, chilled and cut into 1cm dice

75g Greek yoghurt

1 tbsp lemon juice

Pinch of salt

2 large eggs, beaten

3 tbsp demerara sugar

 

For the filling

1kg total prepared weight of sliced rhubarb, and hulled, sliced strawberries

100g caster sugar

 

Method

 

Start by making the pastry. Place the flour, cornflour and caster sugar together into a bowl and stir together to combine. Add the diced butter and rub well to form a rough breadcrumb consistency. Add the yoghurt, lemon juice, salt and one beaten egg and mix to bring all the ingredients together into a smooth dough. Bring the pastry into a ball, flatten it into a disc, wrap well and chill in the fridge.

Meanwhile, prepare the fruit. It can be sliced as thickly or thinly as you wish, where appropriate. Sprinkle the sugar over the fruit and leave it to macerate.

Once the pastry has been chilled for at least 20 minutes, preheat the oven to 180C/Gas Mark 4 and roll out to form a circle around 40cm in diameter. Transfer to a large non-stick baking sheet, covered in a piece of non-stick baking paper, or a silicone mat. Pile the fruit in the centre of the pastry, scraping all the sugary juices out of the bowl onto the fruit. Fold the edges roughly in around the fruit, leaving the centre uncovered by pastry. Brush the remaining beaten egg over the exposed pastry edges before sprinkling the demerara sugar over the pastry.  Bake for 35-45 minutes until the fruit is tender and pastry is golden brown. Serve warm or cold, with cream, ice cream or custard.

Chorizo, Butterbean and Cabbage Soup

By Leave a Comment

This wasn’t ever going to be a post here, but last Sunday, I made this soup for a quick lunch on a bitterly cold day, and sent out a Tweet saying how underrated cabbage is. I had bought a lovely local Savoy cabbage for just pence that week. 

Many of you agreed and asked me for this recipe, and so here it is. I often make soups like this for a quick and nourishing lunch in the depths of winter. And when you’re out shopping next and see a lovely fresh cabbage, pick it up and give it a go.

Chorizo, Butterbean and Cabbage Soup

This is a truly delicious winter soup that really is quick and easy to make. It’d be excellent made with bacon, too.

The trick, I think, with the cabbage, is to put it in at the very last minute and stir so it just softens. I wouldn’t put the lid back on once it is in the pan. This means that it will just soften, but retain its bite and colour. 

Serves 4

Ingredients 

1 tbsp good olive oil

2 large brown onions, peeled and chopped

1 hoop of cured chorizo (around 200g), peeled and cut into 1cm cubes

Sea and black pepper, plus a pinch of sugar (optional)

1 x 400g tin butter beans, drained and rinsed

1 x 400g tin good chopped tomatoes

1 litre chicken or vegetable stock

½ Savoy cabbage, thinly sliced and tough stalks removed

Fresh parsley, chopped, to serve (optional)

Method

Take a large, lidded saucepan, and add the oil and onions. Over a medium heat, gently cook the onions until they soften slightly. This should take 5-10 minutes, at least.

Add the chorizo and season, and continue to fry for another 5-10 minutes, until the fat starts to render from the chorizo.

Next, add the butter beans and tomatoes and stir well, followed by the stock. Simmer for 15 minutes or so, until the flavours have had the chance to come together. Taste and check the tomato tastes sweet and flavourful, and not too acidic and raw. It may need another 10 minutes if so. Now, add the sliced cabbage. Stir well and gently simmer for another three minutes or so, until it has just softened. Taste, check the cabbage is cooked to your liking and the soup is adequately seasoned. Serve immediately.