A Taste For All Seasons by Humphries Carolyn

Author:Humphries Carolyn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: cooking, seasonal
Publisher: W. Foulsham & Co. Ltd

July

This is the time of year to indulge in such delights as a lobster or crab salad (just your favourite salad ingredients with the fresh cooked seafood and some mayonnaise). You have a wide choice of glorious vegetables and fruits – from courgettes and cauliflowers to gooseberries, raspberries and tomatoes. You might even be lucky enough to take a stroll over the hills to pick tiny blue bilberries or whortleberries. Even with the glut of home-grown produce it’s still worth checking that you’re buying British because we’re still importing mountains of the foods we also grow here – how mad is that? Look out for all the sweet juicy soft fruits, at their peak now, but it’s also a good time for imported fruits like peaches and nectarines. English veal is excellent now. It’s not reared in crates, as in some other countries, so is not such a pale colour. It’s simply very young, tender, male beef. Try it.

Foods in season

Foods in italics are foods from the UK at the peak of their season.

Vegetables

Aubergines, beetroot, broad beans, broccoli, carrots, cauliflowers, courgettes, cucumbers, Florence fennel, garlic, globe artichokes, green beans, green garlic, herbs, kohlrabi, lettuces, mangetout, new potatoes, onions, peas, peppers, potatoes (old, maincrop), radishes, rocket, runner beans, samphire, sorrel, sweetcorn, Swiss chard, turnips, watercress

Meat, poultry and game

Lamb, quail, rabbit, veal (English), venison, wood pigeon

Fruit and nuts

Apricots, avocados (Fuerte, Hass), bilberries/whortleberries, blackberries, blackcurrants, blueberries, gooseberries, greengages, kiwi fruit, loganberries, lychees, mangoes, melons, nectarines, peaches, raspberries, redcurrants, strawberries, tomatoes, white currants

Fish and seafood

Bream, brown shrimps, cod, crabs, crayfish, Dover sole, Dublin Bay prawns (scampi), haddock, herring, John Dory, lemon sole, lobster, mackerel, plaice, pollack, prawns, river trout (brown, rainbow), salmon, sardines, scallops, sea bass, sea trout

Artichokes with black olive and oregano dressing

Artichokes can be served hot with melted butter or cold with plain French dressing. Alternatively, the small leaves and hairy chokes can be removed after cooking and the centres filled with a savoury stuffing. I like this more exciting dip for a change. Have a bowl on the table for the discarded sucked leaves and the hairy chokes.

Serves 4

4 globe artichokes

1 tbsp lemon juice

For the dressing:

6 tbsp olive oil

3 tbsp red wine vinegar

25 g stoned black olives, chopped

1 tbsp chopped fresh oregano

2 tsp clear honey

½ tsp Dijon mustard

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 Hold the flower heads firmly and twist off the stalks (the strings will come away in the stalks).

2 Trim the points off the leaves, if liked. Cook in boiling, lightly salted water, to which the lemon juice has been added, for about 25 minutes or until a leaf pulls away easily from the head. Drain, rinse with cold water and drain again. Leave to cool.

3 Meanwhile, make the dressing. Whisk the ingredients together with salt and pepper to taste. Spoon into small serving dishes.

4 Place the artichokes on serving plates with the little dishes of dressing to one side.

5 To eat: pull off each leaf, dip in the dressing then pull the base through your teeth to suck off the fleshy part.

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