Buckwheat galettes with spinach béchamel

Although you can find any kind of recipe online these days nothing beats a beautiful cookbook and the new Fern Verrow book by Herefordshire farmers Jane Scotter and Harry Astley is one you're definitely going to want to own.

This recipe comes from the spring section and it's good to be reminded what a delicious meal pancakes can make.

Scotter and Astley write: The nutty taste of buckwheat flour is key for these traditional French savoury pancakes. There are many different fillings, but we particularly like this one.

Serves 4

125g buckwheat flour

50g plain flour

a pinch of sea salt

1 egg

175ml milk

175ml water

25g butter, melted

For the spinach béchamel

500g spinach, tough stalks

removed

500ml milk

1 small onion, finely chopped

1 bay leaf

a little grated nutmeg

40g butter

40g plain flour

150ml double cream

100g Comté or Gruyère cheese,

grated

sea salt and black pepper

Put the buckwheat flour, plain flour and salt into a mixing bowl and make a well in the centre. Break the egg into the well and whisk while you slowly add the milk and water. Keep whisking out any lumps as you gradually draw all the flour into the liquid. When the batter is smooth, stir in the melted butter. If you can, allow the batter to sit in the fridge for half an hour before you cook the galettes.

Meanwhile, prepare the spinach béchamel. Bring some salted water to the boil in the largest pan you have. When it is boiling rapidly, immerse the spinach in it for 30 seconds, using a pair of tongs to dunk the leaves so that they all soften. Drain the spinach through a colander and run some cold water over it until it is cool enough to handle. Squeeze out as much of the moisture as you can, then chop it up and set aside.

Put the milk, onion, bay leaf and nutmeg into a small saucepan and bring to a simmer. Remove from the heat and leave to infuse for 20 minutes or so. Then, in another saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the flour to make a roux. Cook the roux over a gentle heat for a minute or two, stirring with a wooden spoon, until it starts to brown and smell nutty, then gradually strain the infused milk into it, whisking until the sauce thickens. Simmer for a few minutes, then add the cream and simmer for a minute or two longer.

Remove from the heat and stir in half the grated cheese plus the chopped spinach. Season to taste and set aside.

Next cook the galettes. Heat a 20cm frying pan or pancake pan over a medium heat and use a wad of paper towel to rub a little butter around it. Ladle in about 2 tablespoons of the batter, quickly lifting and tilting the pan to spread the batter evenly. Once the underside of the galette is brown, flip it over and cook for a minute or so longer, then transfer to a plate. Repeat the process, adjusting the heat and the cooking time until you find a good rhythm.

You can pile the galettes on top of each other as they’re done; they will not stick. You should have 8–10 galettes altogether.

Heat the oven to 190°C/Gas Mark 5 and lightly butter a baking tray. Place a heaped tablespoon of the spinach béchamel in the centre of each galette and spread it out a little. Fold the galette in half and then in half again, so you end up with a triangle. Arrange the parcels snugly on the baking tray, add any remaining filling and sprinkle the remaining grated cheese on top. Bake for 10–15 minutes, until thoroughly heated through. Serve with a green salad.

What to drink: I prefer white wines to red with spinach and would probably go for a Chablis or a dry Italian white such as a Gavi

From Fern Verrow: a year of recipes from a farm and its kitchen by Jane Scotter and Harry Astley. Photography by Tess Traeger. Published by Quadrille at £25. You can buy their produce from the Spa Terminus in Bermondsey every Saturday. For more information visit fernverrow.com

Menestra

I first had this wonderful vegetable stew - a northern Spanish equivalent of a spring vegetable minestrone - in a restaurant in Pamplona and dreamed about it for several years before managing to recreate it.

This version comes from winemaker Maria Martinez of Bodegas Montecillo in Rioja who I was interviewing for a feature in Decanter. We bought the ingredients together from the market in Logrono.

Like cassoulet and bouillabaisse, menestra is one of those dishes about which huge arguments rage. Basically it can be made from any seasonal green vegetables, “from two up to twenty” as Maria puts it, but the ideal time of year to prepare it is in the spring when artichokes and spring vegetables such as peas and beans are in season.

There are apparently certain ground rules though. You mustn’t use dried beans or other pulses or peppers (too slimey). Jars of vegetables are permissible but should not be mixed with fresh ones. Spinach is fine if added at the end. Opinions differ as to whether you should use onions, garlic and herbs, whether the vegetables should be cooked separately or together and whether or not hard boiled egg should be added. The consistency should be more that of a stew than a soup though some cooks like to make it more liquid.

Serves 6-8

10-12 baby artichokes
2 heads of borraja* (borage)
1/2 a large head of chard
250g asparagus, trimmed
250g green beans
3-4 potatoes cut into small dice
125g thickly cut panceta (streaky bacon), diced
A thick slice of dry cured Spanish ham (about 100g)
About 75g chorizo, diced
4-5 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
Olive or corn oil
Salt and pepper

Trim the artichoke bottoms and strip off the outer leaves until you are down to the yellow leaves at the heart. (Handling artichokes can stain your hands black so you may want to use plastic or rubber gloves for this). Trim off the very top of the remaining leaves and cut the artichoke hearts in half and drop them into a pan of acidulated water. (Water with lemon juice added to stop them discolouring).

Cut the top and bottom off each stalk of borraja then peel away the fibrous strips (rather as you would the edge of a runner bean). Remove the green part of the chard leaves saving them for another recipe and chop the white stalks. Trim and chop the asparagus and roughly slice the beans.

Tip all the vegetables into a large pan of boiling, lightly salted water and cook until tender - about 30-40 minutes (Some cooks cook each vegetable separately) Meanwhile fry the cubed potato and cook until tender, then add the panceta. Once the fat starts to run add the diced ham and chorizo and finely chopped garlic. Drain the vegetables and tip the fried potatoes and ham into the pan. Mix well, adjust the seasoning and serve.

What to drink:
Breaking one of the cardinal rules of food and wine matching that red wine and artichokes simply don't go, we drank a 1975 magnum of Montecillo Gran Reserva Especial throughout this meal, including the menestra. As you’d expect for a wine of that age it was quite delicate but still full of seductive damson fruit which we were surprised to find worked perfectly well with the soup. Whether that was due to the long cooking time, the smokey notes provided by the chorizo or the age of the wine we weren't sure but the experiment would be hard to repeat successfully. A more conventional pairing would have been a white Rioja or Rioja rosado.

Asparagus soup topped with ricotta, chives and crispy chicken

A clever recipe from Tom Kitchin's Kitchin Suppers making the best of the short homegrown asparagus season. I love the twist of adding shredded chicken wings and ricotta as a topping which both poshes it up and makes it more substantial.

Tom writes: "I treasure asparagus during its short six-week season in late spring/early summer as it’s the only time I eat it; the flavour of imported asparagus is so inferior by comparison. If you have an asparagus farm nearby you may be able to buy ‘soup asparagus’, which is cheaper because the spears aren’t perfectly shaped, but are just as flavourful. You can serve the soup hot or cold. Shaved raw asparagus and crispy chicken with ricotta and chives give a lovely contrasting finish.

Serves 4

800g asparagus spears

olive oil for cooking

1 white onion, peeled and sliced

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

450ml homemade chicken stock

50g baby spinach leaves

Chicken and ricotta garnish

12 chicken wings

olive oil for cooking

1 teaspoon caraway seeds

150g ricotta

1 teaspoon chopped chives

To finish

4 asparagus spears, trimmed

extra virgin olive oil

freshly cracked black pepper

To prepare the asparagus for the soup, snap off the woody ends of the spears and peel the lower end of the stalks. Finely chop the asparagus. Heat a heavy-based saucepan over a medium heat and add a drizzle of olive oil. Add the onion, season with a little salt and sweat gently for 2–3 minutes to soften. Meanwhile, bring the chicken stock to the boil in another pan.

Add the asparagus to the onion and sweat together over a high heat for 1–2 minutes. Pour in enough of the hot stock to just cover the asparagus. Simmer for 5–6 minutes until the asparagus is just cooked, adding a little more stock to keep it covered if needed. Add the spinach and cook very briefly until it just wilts.

Tip the soup into a blender and blitz until smooth. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Unless serving hot straight away, transfer to a bowl and cool quickly over another bowl of ice to preserve the lovely vivid green colour, then cover and refrigerate.

Heat the oven to 180°C/Gas 4. For the garnish, put the chicken wings into a bowl, drizzle with olive oil and toss to coat. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and the caraway seeds. Heat a large non-stick ovenproof frying pan over a medium-high heat and add a drizzle of olive oil. Add the chicken wings and colour for 3–4 minutes on each side. Transfer the pan to the oven for 8–10 minutes until the wings are cooked through. Set aside to cool slightly.

Once cooled, pull the meat from the bone. Tear into strips and put into a bowl with the ricotta and chives. Mix together and season with salt and pepper to taste.

When ready to serve, trim the 4 raw asparagus spears (as above), then cut lengthways into fine slices, using a sharp knife. Rub with extra virgin olive oil and season with salt and pepper. If serving the soup hot, reheat it gently.

Divide the soup between bowls and top each portion with a generous spoonful of the ricotta mixture and the raw asparagus slices. Top the ricotta with a sprinkling of cracked pepper and drizzle a little extra virgin olive oil around the soup.

What to drink: not the easiest dish to match with wine. I think I'd probably go for an Albarino or a young, unoaked Austrian Grüner Veltliner but a Sancerre should work well too.

Recipe from: Kitchin Suppers by Tom Kitchin (Quadrille, £20). Photograph: Laura Edwards. Another recipe I'm tempted to cook from the book is the smoked salmon and spinach lasagne though it's Tom's wife Michaela's rather than Tom's.

Rhubarb & strawberry crumble sundae

It was the savoury dishes that initially attracted me to Henry Dimbleby and Jane Baxter’s excellent Leon: Fast Vegetarian but this is a cracking dessert with in-season rhubarb.

Jane and Henry write: "So easy. So good. This is basically an assembly job, with just a little cooking at the beginning"

SERVES 4

PREPARATION TIME: 20 MINUTES • COOKING TIME: 20 MINUTES

150ml double cream, whipped

4 scoops of vanilla ice cream

4 tablespoons thick custard

FOR THE CRUMBLE

50g plain flour

30g cold butter, cut into small pieces

2 tablespoons caster sugar

50g amaretti biscuits, crushed

FOR THE RHUBARB COMPOTE

150g strawberries, quartered

1 x Rhubarb & Orange Compote recipe (see below)

FOR THE SAUCE

100g strawberries

1 tablespoon caster sugar

a drop of vanilla extract

juice of 1 orange

1. Heat the oven to 160°C/325°F/gas mark 3.
To make the crumble topping, put the flour into a bowl and rub in the butter until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar and crushed amaretti. Spread on a baking tray and bake in the oven for 20 minutes. Set aside to cool.

2. Stir the quartered strawberries into the rhubarb compote.

3. Blend all the sauce ingredients to a purée in a blender, then pass the purée through a sieve.

4. To assemble, divide half the compote between four sundae glasses and top with the cream. Next add the strawberry sauce and ice cream, followed by the rest of the compote and the custard.

5. Top with the crumble mix, then serve.

VARIATIONS

This sundae can be made with all sorts of fruit combinations. All you need is a fruit compote and/or sauce, custard, ice cream, or whipped cream and something for texture such as crumble or nuts. Serious adult versions could have booze in, too. Try the following combos:

• Banana with toffee and chocolate.

• Raspberry, peach and flaked almonds.

• Pear with caramelized pecans and butterscotch or chocolate sauce.

Rhubarb & Orange Compote

SERVES 4

PREPARATION TIME: 5 MINUTES • COOKING TIME: 10 MINUTES

200g rhubarb, trimmed and cut into 2cm pieces

125g caster sugar

1 tablespoon grenadine

50ml water

juice and grated zest of 2 oranges

Put the rhubarb, sugar, grenadine, water, orange juice and zest into a pan. Cook gently over a medium heat for 10 minutes, or until the rhubarb is soft.

What to drink: A tricky one. This dessert is already quite orangey so I'm not sure I'd go for the obvious choice of an orange muscat. (The orange in the pudding will strip out the orange in the wine). Try a late harvest sauvignon blanc or a young fragrant moscatel.

Recipe from Leon: Fast Vegetarian by Jane Baxter & Henry Dimbleby, £25, Published in March 2014 www.octopusbooks.co.uk