Charlé Visser: Making the Ultimate Short Ribs At Home

Feb 8, 2026 | Stop making short ribs that taste like pot roast. This braised beef short rib recipe uses a secret ingredient (dark chocolate) to create the stickiest, richest glaze you've ever tasted—all in the oven.

Most people just braise the beef and serve it wet. That’s a mistake. In this video, I show you the "Double Sauce" technique. We reduce the braising liquid into a gold-standard base. We finish with a Dark Chocolate & Liquid Smoke BBQ glaze for that "sticky," fall-off-the-bone texture.

It’s better than Michelin, better than BBQ, and easier than you think.


For the full recipe, please click here.

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The Chicken Pie Chefs Don't Want You to Know about

Jun 11, 2026 | Flaky, golden chicken pie with a crust that shatters when your fork goes in. If you've ever wondered why your chicken pie crust is soggy or fails to rise, this chef's technique for a short-crust pastry is the solution.

After 20 years in professional kitchens, this is the method I actually use — including the one butter trick most home cooks skip that makes the difference between soggy and crisp. We cover the pastry, the filling that stays creamy instead of gluey, and how to get that deep golden top every single time.

This is a proper homemade chicken pie — no shortcuts that sacrifice texture, but nothing you can't do in a home kitchen with regular equipment. …


Click here for Charlé’s full recipe.

South African Pepper Steak Pie

Jul 5, 2026 | The real South African pepper steak pie recipe — flaky rough puff pastry, slow-braised black pepper beef, and all the garage pie nostalgia, made properly at home.

If you grew up on garage pies*, this one's for you. I'll show you how to make pepper steak pies from scratch: a cheat's rough puff pastry that bakes into shattering golden layers (no pastry degree required), and a rich, glossy steak filling built on toasted black pepper and coriander — the same duo that seasons biltong**, so you know it's going somewhere good. Every step, every temperature, and the tricks that get you a pie that blisters and glistens like the ones from the pie warmer.


* Whatever “garage pies” are! Are those, perhaps, ready-made pies you stop in the filling station on the way home from work to buy for a quick dinner and save you standing over a hot stove when you get home after an exhausting day’s work, I wonder? 😊 — Mark Alexander

**Biltong: “Biltong is a traditional South African cured and air-dried meat. Similar in appearance to beef jerky but thicker and more tender, it is made by marinating premium cuts of meat in vinegar and spices (like coriander and black pepper) and then air-drying it slowly without heat.”

Google informs us that “the word biltong comes from the Dutch words bil (rump or hindquarter) and tong (strip). The method was developed in the 17th century by Dutch settlers (and adapted from indigenous Khoisan preservation methods) to keep meat from spoiling during long, hot journeys across Southern Africa.” [Source: Google AI]