Recipe inspiration
As this is the last chapter in this series for now, I want to leave you with a couple of simple recipes that you can make over the coming months
■ I’m sure you’ll start harvesting some gold next month – and by gold I’m referring to new potatoes. A few years ago, I met a great Pembrokeshire new potato farmer, and he told me the only way to enjoy the first harvest of potatoes is to steam or boil them, and I agree. They’re so delicate and sweet that you don’t need to do much to them. However, I recently harvested some potatoes while my little pizza oven was burning strong. I was so excited to eat them, I gave a handful a quick wash and threw them into a cast-iron pan, with a little drizzle of olive oil and a pinch of salt and pepper. I roasted the potatoes for 20 minutes, before removing them from the oven, then used a jar to squash them lat. I sprinkled over a mix of herbs – thyme, rosemary and lavender – then added a touch more olive oil before putting them back in the oven to crisp up. These smashed double-roasted new potatoes are a dream dunked into a spicy chutney.
■ I mentioned earlier about my lovely side salads. A quality salad dressing is essential, and I want to try and sway you away from ever buying salad dressing again. Making your own will save you money too! The perfect salad dressing is balanced with the right amount of salt, fat, sweetness and of course acidity. With those balances in mind, you can play around with lavours. For example, the salt element doesn’t just have to come from salt. You could use miso paste, capers or soy sauce. The fat element doesn’t have to be olive oil, you could use tahini or even avocado. Acidity can of course come from vinegar, but also brine from your lacto-fermented rhubarb, lemon juice or rhubarb juice. A simple salad dressing for me is: one tablespoon of tahini, two tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, two tablespoons of maple syrup, three tablespoons of olive oil, a pinch of sea salt and a tablespoon of garden herbs, such as thyme, oregano, marjoram or parsley. You can also add a little dried chilli and garlic. Make big batches, then you can store the dressing in your fridge for weeks.