MENU dorset issue 20 MENU20..dorset pdf issue 20.final | Page 10

 P
Dorset
L E N T Y 
From Farm to Fork
Five seasonal ingredients you should be eating this month
1
Apples
A groom, the apple is the bride who keeps her partner waiting. Blackberries have been
pples and blackberries are the perfect marriage, but if the hero of the hedgerow is the
hanging around for a month, while apples arrive fashionably late in September, just in time
for you to make the best pie or crumble. Once the berries have disappeared for another year,
pair them with blue cheese and bitter leaves, bake them with raisins and cinnamon, or cook
slices in a pan with your pork chops..
2
Parsnips
P you probably wouldn’t want the tuberous roots in your crumble, they make a great
arsnips come in just as apples and blackberries go on a break until next year, and while
couple in a soup or even a cake, the sweet vegetable adding moisture to your sponge. This is
the time of year when we start eating Sunday dinners with all the trimmings again, and you
don’t get a better trimming than a roast parsnip with honey and mustard. You can also mash
them with potatoes or celeriac..
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3
Celeriac
A parsnips and potatoes, but celery’s down-to-earth cousin brings an extra element to the
nother top trimming comes into season this month. Most roasts are accompanied with
plate, its milder flavour benefiting from an extra hit of sweetness as the sugars come to the
fore in the hot oven. Celeriac is also great in a beef and plum stew or a slow cooked pork
casserole – both can be served with celeriac and potato mash, too.
Leeks
4
5
I not necessarily in the main role. Given that the leek is the national symbol of Wales,
n film credits, getting the ‘and’ is a big deal – it shows that an actor is a star name, if
we like to think of these tasty alliums as the ‘and Sir Anthony Hopkins’ of vegetables. Not
often the star of the show (at least not these days) but still a very important supporting act
– think of a comforting chicken and leek pie, or a potato and leek soup. It does occasionally
get top billing though – steamed leek pudding with suet crust is a North East classic, while
Zeytinyağli Pırasais is a Turkish dish in which leeks and carrots are sautéed in generous
amounts of olive oil and mixed with rice..
Peppers
E in the fridge? Don’t! Along with garlic and celery, the undervalued, slightly bitter green
ver bought one of those packets of three peppers and left the green one to go wrinkly
capsicums are part of the holy trinity of creole and cajun cooking that forms the basis of a
jambalaya or a gumbo. The red ones, meanwhile are sweet enough to be enjoyed raw, and
when roasted with onions, courgettes and aubergines for a ratatouille, they become even
sweeter. As for the yellow, that’s just a slightly under ripe red pepper – with tomatoes, they
make for a colourful salsa..
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