I come back from the market with a shopping bag that is entirely green. Bunches of mint and basil; the first peas and young broad beans from Italy; courgettes too. There are bunches of asparagus, lower in price now as the season comes to an end. Those gentle, early season flavours are worth celebrating – some of the asparagus will end up braised in olive oil and vermouth, to be eaten on toast soaked with the cooking juices. The courgettes will be grated and made into little cakes with parmesan and spring onion, and the peas will appear in a vivid green chutney to eat with crumbed and fried prawns.
I think of early summer as the green days in the kitchen, before the arrival of scarlet tomatoes and crimson summer fruits, those first few weeks of glorious sunshine before the real heat hits and all I want to eat is watermelon and feta cheese. These next few weeks are about cheering all that is new and vibrant, a shopping basket of new green shoots, pods and leaves. A time for uncomplicated cooking, of simple flavours, pure and new.
Summer vegetables, olive oil (pictured above)
The moment the new broad beans arrive, Italian first, then locally grown, I want to crack open their bulging pods, flick the tiny kidney-shaped beans from their downy swaddling and scoff them raw. Any bigger than your little fingernail are better cooked, plunged into furiously bubbling water for 3-4 minutes, then drained and tossed with olive oil and chopped mint to be eaten with a scoop of milk-white ricotta.
Another way is to cook them with the season’s other early risers, peas and asparagus and cloves of the waxy new garlic, so sweet and mild you wonder what it, too, would be like raw. I use it to scent olive oil – just a passing whiff – then simmer the vegetables with a dry white vermouth, such as Noilly Prat, or a slightly fruity white wine. The resulting braised vegetables are piled on to open textured bread, such as sourdough or ciabatta, lightly toasted and saturated with the green-gold juices from the pan. If you have some young, soft-leaved herbs to hand – mint, parsley or basil – now is their moment, so their fragrance wafts up from the warm vegetables.
Serves 4
olive oil 75ml
courgettes 1 medium
asparagus 12 spears, trimmed
garlic 2 cloves of new season
white vermouth or white wine 125ml
broad beans 250g, podded weight
peas 200g, podded weight
parsley, basil and mint a good handful
sourdough bread 4 slices
olive oil
Warm the olive oil in a large, deepish pan (mine is 30cm with 5cm-high sides) over a moderate heat. Slice the courgettes and add to the pan, then cut the asparagus into short lengths and add them, letting the vegetables colour lightly – the courgettes will become slightly translucent – but not brown. (Move them round the pan a little as they cook and expect this to take about 8 minutes.)
Peel the garlic and add whole to the pan, then pour in the vermouth or white wine. Add 250ml water. When the asparagus is almost tender, add the broad beans and peas, and continue cooking, covered with a lid, for 3-4 minutes. (If your beans are especially large they will need a little longer.)
Roughly chop the parsley, basil and mint, or if the leaves are small leave them whole. Season with black pepper and a little salt, then stir in the herbs.
Toast the bread then tear up into large, rough-edged pieces and place in the bottom of 4 shallow bowls. Ladle the vegetables and their cooking liquor over the toast, then finish with a trickle of olive oil.
Asparagus, summer herb pesto
Now the season is coming to a close, I feel free to move on from the classic hollandaise sauce for my asparagus. A pesto of some sort, literally pounded herbs, garlic and olive oil, is a change from the traditional buttery sauces, and easy too. I will pound it by hand if I have the time, if only for the fragrance that fills the kitchen, but a perfectly good sauce can be made in seconds in a food processor if you prefer.
Serves 2
garlic 1 juicy clove
basil leaves 35g
mint leaves 15g
coriander leaves a large handful
olive oil 150ml
lemon juice to taste
sugar a pinch
asparagus 2 bunches
Bring a deep pan of water to the boil. Peel the garlic and crush to a paste with a pinch of salt using a pestle and mortar or the flat side of a large kitchen knife. If you want to continue by hand, pound the basil, mint and coriander leaves into the garlic to form a firm paste, then introduce, slowly, the olive oil. Season to taste with a little lemon juice and, if the sauce seems a little bitter, a pinch of sugar.
Salt the boiling water, trim any dry ends from the asparagus, then add to the pan and cook for 6-8 minutes, till the asparagus is done to your liking. I tend to cook mine a little longer than usual, until the spears will bend a little, because that’s when the flavour is at its best.
Put the pesto in a small, deep bowl and eat with the asparagus, either as a dressing or a dip.
Broad beans with cream and dill
The most effortless and calming of summer dishes, an accompaniment to baked salmon or fried fish, to lamb cutlets or a roast leg of lamb. Gentle flavours here, just beans, herbs and cream. It is a recipe I cooked over a long summer at a restaurant in the West Country, when the beans were delivered from a local farm (along with deep red mulberries as fat as bumble bees) and the dill was picked every evening from the herb garden before service started.
Serves 4
broad beans 500g, shelled weight
butter 30g
spring onions 4
cream 150ml
dill fronds 10g
lemon 1
Put a deep pot of water on to boil and salt the water lightly. When the water is boiling, add the beans and cook for 4-5 minutes till tender (test one every minute or so), then drain the beans and cool them immediately under cold running water.
If you wish, pop the beans from their skins. It takes a few minutes, but it is a pleasing enough job. Melt the butter in a saucepan, finely chop the spring onions and add to the butter, letting them cook over a moderate heat for 5 minutes till soft. Add the beans and the cream, and bring to the boil.
Chop the dill fronds and stir into the beans. Simmer for a minute only, then season with salt, black pepper and a squeeze or two of lemon juice.
Courgette cakes with red pepper sauce
I have always enjoyed making little cakes, sometimes courgette, feta and dill, or carrot and coriander leaf, partly because they are the sort of thing you can cook with a friend at your side, sitting and chatting at the hob, while you fry and eat them fresh and fluffy from the pan. These are different, much more savoury than the others, the courgette being mixed with parmesan and spring onions.
The sauce is a simplified rouille, a sprightly, garlicky dip of brilliant orange-red and made with those peppers that come in jars or cans, ready grilled and skinned. Make your own grilled red peppers if you wish, but I’m not sure it is that much of a necessity here.
Makes 8 small cakes, enough for 2 people
For the cakes
courgettes 350g
spring onions 3
parmesan 75g, grated
egg 1
plain flour 4 tbsp
For the sauce
jarred red peppers 160g
garlic 1 clove, peeled and sliced
fresh breadcrumbs 50g
olive oil 6 tbsp
Wipe the courgettes then grate them coarsely into a sieve or colander (I use the coarse side of a box grater). Sprinkle a teaspoon of salt over them, turning them over as you do, then set aside over a bowl for about half an hour.
To make the sauce, put the jarred red peppers in a food processor or blender, then add the garlic. Process briefly to a thick and slightly coarse purée, then add the breadcrumbs. Introduce the olive oil to the mixture, slowly, with the machine turning, then taste and correct the seasoning to your taste with a little salt or even a pinch of sugar. Transfer to a bowl and set aside.
Finely chop the spring onions. Squeeze the grated courgette firmly to remove most of the juice. If you fail to do this your cakes will be wet. Put the courgette in a mixing bowl and add the spring onion, the grated parmesan and a little ground black pepper. Break the egg into a small bowl or cup and beat briefly with a fork to mix yolk and white, then add to the courgette. Sprinkle in the flour and mix thoroughly.
Make 8 small cakes from the mixture. There is no need to shape them particularly neatly or pat them smooth, they are more charming if a little rough in texture. Pour a thin layer of vegetable oil into a wide, shallow pan and warm over a moderate heat. When the oil is hot enough to sizzle gently, add the cakes, or as many as your pan will hold comfortably, and let them cook for 5 minutes or so till the underside is pale gold, adjusting the heat as necessary. Using a palette knife, turn the cakes over and cook the other side. They are done when the outside crust is golden and they feel lightly springy to the touch.
Lift the cakes from the pan, then cook a second batch if necessary, and eat with the red pepper sauce.
Panko prawns with pea and coriander chutney
I like getting messy in the kitchen, in particular the process of crumbing something that is to be fried. Dipping whole, peeled prawns or rings of squid first into seasoned flour, then beaten egg and breadcrumbs to give a crisp, savoury coat, leaves your hands as stickily egged and crumbed as the prawns. It is much the same hands-on, tactile cooking as rubbing butter into flour for pastry or kneading a bread dough by hand.
The chutney can be made in seconds in a blender or food processor, but I like to pound the leaves, garlic and oil with a pestle and mortar. It’s a fragrant job, the scent of coriander and garlic and green peas wafting up from the mortar, but it is harder work than the processor version. Much will depend on the time you have.
Serves 4
panko breadcrumbs 6 tbsp
eggs 2, lightly beaten
plain flour 4 tbsp
large peeled prawns 400g, defrosted if frozen
groundnut or vegetable oil 150ml
For the chutney
coriander 75g (leaves and stems)
vegetable oil 25ml
ginger 50g, peeled
garlic 2 cloves, peeled
green chillies 2 large
lime juice 60ml
water 3 tbsp
sugar a pinch
peas 100g podded weight, raw
To make the chutney, chop the coriander leaves and stems and put them in a blender or food processor. Pour in the vegetable oil. Reduce the ginger to a purée with a fine grater, then add to the blender with the garlic, chillies, lime juice, water and a pinch of sugar. Process to a thick paste. Add the peas and continue blending until you have a green, nubbly chutney.
Put the breadcrumbs on a plate, the eggs into a shallow bowl and the flour in another. Season the flour with a little salt and black pepper. One at a time, roll the prawns first in the flour, then the egg, turning them over to thoroughly coat, then in the breadcrumbs, pressing them down so the crumbs stick to them.
Warm the oil in a sauté pan or similar high-sided frying pan. When it starts to bubble, lower in the prawns, without packing them too tightly, and let them cook for a couple of minutes. When the underside of the prawns is pale gold, turn them over with kitchen tongs and colour the other side. Remove and keep warm while you cook the rest, then eat them with the pesto.
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