Sides

Hairy Bikers ratatouille isn’t the usual stew, because it’s a salad of griddled aubergine and courgette with roast pepper, tomatoes and olives. And their Mediterranean Adventure version serves 4 at about 245 calories each by my sums, in around 90 minutes. Hairy Bikers admit they’re “not great fans of stewed ratatouille”, so here all the …

Hairy Bikers sage and onion stuffing is a simple, traditional mix of soft fried onion, fresh breadcrumbs, sage and lemon zest, bound with an egg. And you’ll find it in their Chicken & Egg cookbook, serving 4 at 130 calories each by my sums, in about an hour. This is one of “two of our …

Hairy Bikers onion gravy is a rich beef gravy of onions caramelised in butter, then simmered with red wine, thyme, bay and beef stock. And their Everyday Winners cookbook version serves 4, taking about an hour at around 170 calories each, by my sums. This version reduces 100ml of red wine by at least two-thirds …

Hairy Bikers pilau rice is white basmati simmered in stock with butter, onion, turmeric and lightly pounded whole spices. From Great Curries it feeds 5 to 6, while I count a sixth of the pan at about 280 calories, ready in 40 minutes. The 5-minute stand at the end is the bit the bikers won’t …

Hairy Bikers homemade baked beans swap the tin for 500g of dried haricot beans, simmered with a clove-studded onion and finished in a tomato sauce. And the Veggie Feasts recipe serves 6 at my estimate of 335 calories each, after an overnight soak and just under 2 hours of cooking. “Making your own with dried …

Dried sage in the batter and sliced onion in each hole make Hairy Bikers sage and onion Yorkshire puddings taste like stuffing and Yorkshire together. And the recipe is from their BBC series Go North, making 12 muffin-tin puddings at about 95 calories each in roughly 1 hour 40 minutes. “We still reckon Dave’s mum’s …

Dave’s mam’s recipe from Mums Know Best makes this Hairy Bikers Yorkshire pudding, with flour, 2 eggs and full-fat milk poured into smoking-hot fat. And I get 12 small puddings from it at about 90 calories each, in about 1 hour 35 minutes including the batter’s hour-long rest. “Dave learned to cook this when he …

Hairy Bikers piccalilli is filed in the book as hot mustard pickle, which is why it is so hard to find. So five jars come out of it at roughly 295 calories each, built on cauliflower, green beans and courgette salted overnight. That recipe is from Perfect Pies, and it runs to 25 hours once …

Celeriac is the surprise in this Hairy Bikers coleslaw recipe, cut into fine matchsticks alongside cabbage, carrot, onion and grated apple. That whole bowl comes from Meat Feasts, where 4 servings work out at about 140 calories after 20 minutes of chopping. In Perfect Pies, Si and Dave call their rainbow version “a salad for …

This Hairy Bikers red cabbage is braised for fifty minutes in cider, vinegar and muscovado sugar until the liquid has gone completely. Half a cabbage feeds four at about 170 calories, and the recipe appears in both British Classics and Meat Feasts. Two books print it almost identically, which tells you they were happy with …