“We’ve been conned into eating more sugar than we even have a genuine appetite for,” he says, good-natured outrage bubbling from his words.

“Of course, a lot of us have a sweet tooth – I would say I have a really sweet tooth. But what I found is even my sweet tooth is completely satisfied by much less sugar than conventional recipes, and certainly industrially produced biscuits, cakes, sweets and puddings tend to include. We definitely need a sugar rethink.”

Recipes in his new book, River Cottage Good Comfort, might have a less tooth-rotting amount of sugar in them, but you won’t necessarily miss anything. “Dialling down the sugar and the refined ingredients is part of it, but dialling up the whole ingredients is what the book’s more about,” Fearnley-Whittingstall adds.

This is all part of the 57-year-old chef and food writer’s mission to get us eating a bit more healthily – and that doesn’t mean you have to miss out on your favourite, stodgy comfort foods. “We shouldn’t be guilt-tripping people into eating healthy food, we should be tempting people to healthy food,” he says.


Chicken and chorizo rice recipe

Ingredients:

(Serves 6)

1 large or 2 medium onions, sliced

3 red, orange or yellow peppers, deseeded and sliced

2 fat garlic cloves, sliced

100g chorizo, diced

1–2tbsp olive or rapeseed oil

1 bay leaf

250g brown rice (such as basmati), well rinsed

1 small chicken, jointed, or 6 bone-in chicken thighs

200ml white wine

About 500ml well-flavoured chicken stock

200g cherry tomatoes, halved if large

Sea salt and black pepper

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C/170°C Fan/Gas 5.

2. Put the onion(s), peppers, garlic and chorizo into a large roasting dish with just a trickle of oil (the chorizo will release its own fat so you don’t need much). Add the bay leaf and some salt and pepper and toss together well. Place in the oven for 25 minutes.

3. Tip the rice into a saucepan, cover with plenty of boiling water and bring to a simmer. Cook for 20 minutes, until almost al dente (still firm to the bite), then drain.

4. Heat a trickle more oil in a large frying pan over a medium-high heat. Season the chicken skin. Put half the chicken pieces into the pan, skin side down, and season their other sides. Fry the chicken for around eight minutes, turning occasionally, until each piece is nicely browned. Transfer to a dish. Repeat with the remaining chicken pieces. Everything should be coming together at roughly the same time now: veg, rice and chicken! If the veg or rice get a few minutes more cooking, it doesn’t matter.

5. When you’ve taken all of the chicken out of the frying pan, add the wine. Let it bubble while you scrape up any caramelised bits from the base of the pan, and simmer for three minutes or so, until reduced by about half. Add the stock and bring to a brisk simmer.

6. Take the tray of roast veg from the oven. Stir in the part-cooked rice then add the cherry tomatoes. Use tongs to place the browned chicken pieces on top, skin side up. Pour the hot stock around the chicken – it should just about cover the rice. Cover with foil and return to the oven for 30 minutes. Take off the foil, give the rice a gentle stir and finish in the oven for a final 15 minutes, or until everything is bubbling nicely and the chicken is cooked through.

7. Dish up the chicken, rice and veg with any juices from the tray spooned over. This is pretty much a complete dish, but some steamed greens, such as purple sprouting broccoli, cavolo nero or shredded Savoy cabbage, will go well with it.

Squeak and bubble recipe

Ingredients:

(Serves 2-3)

1tbsp olive or vegetable oil (or lard or beef dripping)

1 large onion, thinly sliced

1–2 garlic cloves, chopped (optional)

About 150–200g cooked potatoes or cold mash (you can also use a mixture of roots such as spuds and celeriac or parsnips), ideally still skin-on

Sea salt and black pepper

Veg and flavourings

Flavour bombs (optional): 1–2tsp curry paste or powder, or sliced olives, capers and/or chopped anchovies

Cooked greens: About 150–250g cooked kale, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower and/or broccoli, roughly chopped or shredded

Uncooked greens: A handful of raw spinach, rocket or lettuce and/or 100g frozen peas

Herbs (optional): 1–2tbsp chopped parsley, chives or chervil, or a tiny bit of lovage

To serve (optional)

2–3 fried eggs

Method:

1. Heat the oil or other fat in a non-stick frying pan over a medium heat. Add the onion with a pinch of salt and some pepper and fry gently for about 10 minutes until it starts to colour. If you’re adding garlic and/or curry paste/powder, stir them into the onions now and cook for a minute or two.

2. Tip the spuds into the pan. If they aren’t already mashed, crush them roughly with a fork or masher, but keep the texture quite chunky. Let the heat penetrate the potatoes for a minute or two then add all the other veg, and any herbs or flavour bombs, with a little more seasoning. Stir together then press the whole lot down into a rough cake.

3. Now leave the veg cake to cook for several minutes, so that it can form a good golden-brown crust on the base. It’s tempting to move it but try not to: it’s better that the base is a little overbrowned than that the whole thing is underdone and sticks to the pan. (It still might stick a bit, but you should get some really good colour this way.)

4. When the cake is nicely browned underneath, flip it over with a spatula and cook the other side. (If you are scaling up quantities, and making a larger cake – one that pretty much fills the pan – you can cut it into halves or quarters when the first side is crisped, and flip over each half or quarter, one at a time.) Start to finish, your S and B might take 20 minutes or more.

5. Serve hot, topped with a fried egg if you like. Mustard or chilli sauce are also very good on the side.


Hot chocolate pudding recipe

Ingredients:

(Serves 4)

100g dark chocolate, broken into pieces

100g butter, cut into pieces, plus extra to grease the dish

3 medium eggs

50g soft light brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

75g ground almonds

A pinch of salt

To serve

Raspberries or other berries, or plum compote

Yoghurt or cream (optional)

Method:

1. Put the chocolate and butter into a saucepan and melt gently over a very low heat, watching all the time and stirring often so that the chocolate doesn’t get too hot. Set aside to cool a little. Preheat the oven to 190°C/170°C Fan/Gas 5 and butter a small oven dish.

2. In a large bowl, or the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk the eggs, brown sugar and vanilla extract together until pale, thick and mousse-like. Using a stand mixer or hand-held electric whisk on full speed, this should only take a few minutes, but whisking by hand with a rotary or balloon whisk will take a lot longer! The mix should be significantly paler, thicker and increased in volume.

3. Turn the mixer down to a low speed and, with the motor running, slowly pour in the tepid melted chocolate and butter mixture (or whisk it gently by hand). Use a rubber spatula to scrape the last drops of chocolate into the mix, and then to fold the mixture fully together.

4. Combine the ground almonds and salt. Add to the chocolate mixture and fold in carefully, using the spatula.

5. Turn the mixture into the prepared oven dish and shake the dish a little to spread it out. Bake in the oven for 12–15 minutes until the pudding is set on top and firm at the edges, but still wobbly and gooey in the middle.

6. Serve straight away, with fresh raspberries or plum compote, and a spoonful of yoghurt or a trickle of cream if you like.


River Cottage Good Comfort by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is published by Bloomsbury.