— See Prue Leith's Cotswold Kitchen Tuesdays 7.30pm on SBS Food 25 June to 27 August, with episodes also streaming after they air —
With a long and successful career as a cook, restaurateur, cookery school founder and author of 15 cookbooks, Prue Leith could obviously cook fancy food without blinking. But in her gently enjoyable TV series, Prue Leith’s Cotswold Kitchen, that’s not what’s on the menu. Instead, it’s hugs and laughs with a range of friends, cooking banana bread and brownies, pies and pasta, and the odd boozy dessert or cocktail.
“I’m in my eighties so I haven’t got time to waste,” she says. “So this series is all about the things that really matter to me – family, fun, food and friends.” (Watching the brightly dressed Leith in her killer glasses, the ‘eighty’ bit is extremely hard to believe!)
Prue and John on their Harley. Credit: Prue Leith's Cotswold Kitchen / Yeti Television
While most of the action happens in the kitchen, we also get to see some of the glorious countryside in the Cotswolds, as her husband John heads out and about, joining locals to try everything from beekeeping and fishing to making a traditional Cotswolds wreath.
Sandi Toksvig and Prue Leith with the ham and egg pie Toksvig makes in the show. Credit: Prue Leith's Cotswold Kitchen / Yeti Television
Ellie Simmonds and Prue Leith with Simmonds' banana bread. Credit: Prue Leith's Cotswold Kitchen / Yeti Television
Some of Leith’s dishes are familiar comfort food – pizza, , a classic French stew. Likewise, Toksvig, who has a passion for food history, cooks up an based on some slightly vague instructions in a 1920s pamphlet; Simmonds makes what she calls “heaven on a plate”, ; Hammond makes decadent , and food campaigner Henry Dimbleby makes a .
But one of the most intriguing dishes, and the first recipe Leith makes in the show, is what she calls .
“I’d like to start by showing you one of my family’s favourite recipes, my late brother Jamie’s red dragon pie. It’s a vegan dish, and Jamie would make this for the children when they came home from school, and they all have memories. I have no idea why it’s called red dragon pie, but that’s what they used to call it," she says. “It’s really simple, an adzuki bean pie, a bit like a shepherd’s pie. You can use other beans, it doesn’t have to be adzuki beans. ”
Prue Leith with her red dragon pie. Credit: Prue Leith's Cotswold Kitchen / Yeti Television
This is the sort of comfort food we can all relate to – even meat eaters. “This is a great dish for people who think they don’t like vegan or vegetarian food because it has masses of flavour. It’s got punch. Even the most dedicated carnivore would like that.”
Brownie lovers should make sure to watch episode two where Alison Hammond (who Leith describes as an “irrepressible force of nature”) shares the hugely popular she made when a contestant on a celebrity version of GBBO in 2020, which includes chopped Daim bars (those delicious Swedish bars made with a thin layer of caramel covered in chocolate) to give chewy crunch.
Prue and Alison Hammond with Alison's brownies. Credit: Prue Leith's Cotswold Kitchen / Yeti Television
And if you’re after a comforting chicken soup to ward off the cold this winter, look out for Leith’s , which features in episode 8.
There’s a lot of laughter and smiles shared in the kitchen in this series along with the recipes. As Leith says, when taking the baked red dragon pie out of the oven, “food brings comfort and joy”. And it doesn’t need to be fancy to do that.
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