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Purple sprouting broccoli soup
Irish soda bread with lovage butter
Rhubarb palmier
Harvest of the day
- Soup: purple sprouting broccoli, wild garlic, nettle, chard, leeks, radish, thyme, parsley
- Butter: lovage
- Palmier: Rhubarb
Purple sprouting broccoli soup, beans and pasta soup
Ingredients (Serves 3 )
- 1 red onion, chopped
- 4 tbsp olive oil
- 6 garlic cloves, minced
- 4 tsp fresh herbs; oregano, thyme, parsley, chopped
- 400g purple sprouting broccoli, chopped finely
- 550g cooked white beans with cooking liquor (2x150g cans of cannellini beans undrained)
- 1 litre chicken or vegetable stock
- 100g pasta, broken spaghetti or tiny shells
- Parmesan, grated (optional)
- Other greens: wild garlic, nettle, chard, leeks
Method
Cook the onion in the olive oil until soft, add the garlic and cook for 2 minutes. Add the herbs and broccoli. Cook over a moderate heat until the broccoli is soft.
Add the beans, liquor and stock and simmer for 15 minutes. Add the pasta and cook it in the soup until al dente.
Season well and serve with the grated Parmesan.
Irish soda bread with lovage butter
Ingredients
- 250g plain white flour
- 250g plain wholemeal flour
- 100g porridge oats
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 25g butter, cut in pieces
- 500ml buttermilk
Method
Preheat the oven to 200C/gas 6/fan 180C and dust a baking sheet with flour. Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl, then rub in the butter. Pour in the buttermilk and mix it in quickly with a table knife, then bring the dough together very lightly with your fingertips (handle it very, very gently). Now shape it into a flat, round loaf measuring 20cm/8in in diameter.
Put the loaf on the baking sheet and score a deep cross in the top. (Traditionally, this lets the fairies out, but it also helps the bread to cook through.) Bake for 30-35 minutes until the bottom of the loaf sounds hollow when tapped. If it isn’t ready after this time, turn it upside down on the baking sheet and bake for a few minutes more.
Transfer to a wire rack, cover with a clean tea towel (this keeps the crust nice and soft) and leave to cool. To serve, break into quarters, then break or cut each quarter in half to make 8 wedges or slices – or simply slice across. Eat very fresh.
Lovage butter
Ingredients
- 4 tablespoons butter
- 2 tablespoons of minced lovage
- salt & pepper
Method
Melt the butter in a small pan and add the salt, pepper, and lovage. Heat gently for 3-5 minutes.
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup raw sugar or white sugar
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 375g (or 1 x 25cm/10in sheet) ready-rolled puff pastry
- 20g unsalted butter, melted
Method
Combine the sugar and cinnamon in a bowl. Sprinkle half the cinnamon sugar on a clean work surface and place the pastry on top. Then sprinkle with the remaining cinnamon sugar.
Press the sugar down into the pastry by moving a rolling pin over the pastry. Cut the pastry sheet in half, then brush each half with some of the melted butter.
Roll up the each long side of a piece of pastry until they reach the middle. Try and roll as tightly as possible. Repeat with the other piece of pastry.
Brush the rolls with the remaining melted butter, then wrap the rolls in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for 30 minutes, until firm.
Preheat oven to 200 C / 400F.
Remove pastry from the fridge and slice each roll into 1cm (1/2in) pieces. Place 2cm apart on a paper-lined baking sheet, and bake for 8-10 minutes, or until lightly golden. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.
Grow Dundee 