Anne Hegerty sees food as a “treat” and “not just something to fuel the body with”.

Known as The Governess in ITV’s The Chase, this Christmas Anne will once again be in pantomime this year, playing Fairy Rose The Good Fairy in Beauty and the Beast at Scarborough Spa Theatre.

Anne admits since her “life got good”, she likes to treat herself, and when I caught up with her, she was in the middle of doing some batch cooking in preparation for her season of pantomime.

“I am on holiday this week, so it’s the perfect time to do this,” says Anne, who in 2022 took part in Cooking with The Stars, where she was coached by a professional chef but admits, “It wasn’t really my thing.”

Anne has two different eating regime patterns when she is working – one when she’s in pantomime and one when she’s recording The Chase.

“I don’t have breakfast when I am working on either job. A few years ago I decided to try just having a cup of black coffee with a spoonful of sugar, and it works wonders for me.” Anne’s first meal of the day is lunch.

“When we are recording two or three shows for The Chase, the studio provides some great and tasty food, but they are such big portions, so I put what I cannot eat in a container and take it home and have it for my evening meal, usually with a salad,” says Anne, who makes salads that include everything from cheese, lettuce, hard-boiled eggs, and tomatoes to just about every salad ingredient. “I always make sure as well I have plenty of protein in my diet.”

Anne never really did any cooking until she was a student in Edinburgh. “I learnt to cook on one gas ring in a bedsit with the help of Katherine Whitehorne’s book Cooking in a Bed Sitter.

Even now she admits she dips into that book along with Delia Smith’s ‘One is Fun’, a book of “These are perfect when you are just cooking for yourself.”

Anne makes lots of different foods, including macaroni cheese, cheese soufflés and stews. “I always make sure I have plenty of protein.” She also loves to bake cakes and is renowned for her delicious tray bakes and sticky chocolate muffins.

When she eats out, she likes to visit either an Italian or Chinese restaurant. “I just love all the dishes but tend to steer away from anything that has hot spices in it. When I am doing pantomime in Scarborough, there’s a lovely Turkish restaurant not far from where I stay which I found by chance one day, and I sometimes eat there.”

Some of Anne’s most memorable meals were as a student in Edinburgh. “My cousin Eddie was a chef, and I used to go round and see him at his place, and he would make the most fantastic food – from an amazing chunk of bread with egg to more complicated dishes. It was a wonderful atmosphere in his flat with its high ceiling, but strangely enough he didn’t have a dining table – and neither do I – something I copied from Eddie.”

Anne admits she sometimes tries to recreate his dishes – “especially his mayonnaise”.

“Pantomime can be exhausting. You spend 10 days rehearsing, and then it’s on with two performances a day and little time between each one.”

“I eat at any time between 10 and 2 depending on performance times, and then between shows I will have either a ready meal or one of the batch-cooked meals I have prepared earlier. When I get home at night, I usually end up with a snack and maybe some chocolate.”


Chicken Chop Suey (serves two)

Ingredients
1 piece frozen chicken breast (defrosted)
Approx 4 leaves pak choi
Half a decent-size carrot
One big flat mushroom
Half a bell pepper
Half an onion
1 clove garlic
Bean sprouts (see below)
1-2 tbsp dark soy sauce
1 tsp ground ginger
Slosh of oil, doesn’t have to be sesame oil
½ cup rice
Fistful of frozen peas and another fistful of frozen sliced green beans

Method

About four or five days before you plan to make this, get a glass jar that can lie on its side without rolling off the counter. Put about a tablespoonful of dried mung beans in it. Add enough hot water to cover them. Put a little hat on it, which can be made out of the toe of a discarded (but clean!) pair of tights, and secure it with a rubber band.

Next morning, pour the water out through the little hat, and add more hot water (through the little hat). For the next few mornings, rinse the beans with cold water, pour it straight out again and keep it lying on its side. By the time you come to make the stirfry, the beans should be sprouting, and there shouldn’t be any hard ones left that haven’t sprouted (which will break your teeth if you’re not careful).
(Or you can buy them, but shop-bought ones go slimy very fast if not used.)

Put the rice on to boil along with twice as much water as rice, some salt to taste, and the frozen veg. When it boils, simmer it till water has boiled away.

Chop the chicken into bite-size pieces, dice the onion and squish the garlic. Heat oil in saucepan, add chicken and stir till all the pink has gone. Add onion and garlic.

Add ginger (I use ready-ground stuff in a jar) and soy sauce. Add diced pepper, sliced pak choi, grated carrot and beansprouts. Stir and simmer.

When rice and stir-fry are both nearly done, add the washed and diced mushroom. Any earlier and the entire thing will go a dark brown colour.
Serve.

Beauty and The Beast is at The Spa Theatre Scarborough from 6th December to 1st January.