Get the best out of your winter comfort food with The Hairy Bikers’ warming dishes

We’ve both been cooking since we were children, but our adventures with food really took off when we first met in 1992 while working on the set of a Catherine Cookson drama called The Gambling Man. And we haven’t looked back. We chucked our day jobs and we’ve been cooking and writing and filming about food ever since.

Since we started our cooking lives, the idea of what makes a British classic has changed hugely. Yes, we still love steak and kidney pud, roast chicken, toad in the hole and apple pie, but we’ve embraced the food of other countries too, and we’ve made some of their classics our own. Our choice of classics reflects the way we eat today and the reality of our multicultural land. We Brits have a great ability to cherry-pick the best of the cuisines of other countries. It’s what keeps our cooking alive, fresh and inventive – and it’s why we never get bored in the kitchen. Both at home and on our travels, we’ve met so many great people who’ve inspired us, shared their cooking secrets and introduced us to dishes that have become part of our lives.

We’ve had a lifelong love affair with food and we want to share that with you, bringing you some of the classic dishes that we’ve cooked over the years – and some new ones too. We’ve been involved in the production of more than 2,000 recipes and from those we’ve selected our favourites – and by heck it’s been a job to whittle them down. These are our go-to recipes, the ones we make over and over again at home for our friends and family. Each dish is a stunner and has really earned its place in our hearts and in our stomachs.