GREEN PARTY
Culinary experts serve up a selection of recipes showcasing the season’s most verdant produce
A delectable collection of vivacious spring flavours from five British chefs
ROSIE BIRKETT
‘Asparagus is a wonder ingredient – it has an incredible flavour,’ says Rosie Birkett of her favourite springtime vegetable. ‘We have such fleeting seasonality in the UK that tasting it fresh feels like a special treat.’ The Hackney-based cook and food writer grew up in Kent, where her family had a flourishing kitchen garden, and she recalls enjoying the just-cut spears dipped in butter at mealtimes. Her asparagus tart recipe shows off the vegetable at its best: married with a creamy goat’s curd, tangy with pink pickled onion and set upon a crumbly, nutty buckwheat pastry.
Birkett also loves to collect wild garlic, which grows in abundance in spring across Britain, for use in pesto, or paired with gnocchi. ‘Wild garlic can be really strong, but in this context, the creaminess of the potato mellows it out, so it’s not overpowering,’ she says. In her latest book, The Joyful Home Cook, Birkett shares advice on methods that have changed her own practice for the better, such as pickling and fermenting. She insists that ‘anyone can cook’, as long as they have ‘a decent knife, a chopping board and a good cast-iron skillet’, and her food philosophy centres on the pleasure to be found in the process. ‘Cooking is something you can do for yourself that is fun, physical and freeing for your mind,’ she explains. ‘Plus, you get to eat something delicious at the end of it.’ brooke theis ‘The Joyful Home Cook’ by Rosie Birkett (£20, Harper Collins) is out now.