A Spanish feast in Springtime

Spring in Spain is a season of abundance: juicy artichokes, fresh green peas, wonderfully robust asparagus and, of course, bright, leafy spinach – a staple in many Spanish dishes. My mum used to whip up a fresh mayonesa to go with our artichokes and we would all sit round the table in silence as we tucked in, engrossed in our ritual of pulling off leaf after leaf to dunk in the creamy dip. And after the green, comes fish. Whole baked turbot is extravagant, but it’s a perfect dish with which to gather friends round the table for a feast.

Whole baked turbot with onions, lemon and caper salsa

All recipes serve 6
turbot 1 x 2kg or 2 x 1kg, trimmed and gutted by your fishmonger
olive oil a good drizzle
For the salsa:
sweet onion 1
lemon juice of 1
capers 2 tbsp, drained and rinsed
parsley a handful, finely chopped
lemon thyme 2 tbsp
extra-virgin olive oil 4-5 tbsp
Heat the oven to 200C. Place the turbot(s) in a large roasting tin and drizzle with oil. Season well and roast for 20 minutes for a 1kg turbot or 30-35 minutes for a 2kg turbot, until just cooked. Insert a knife into the thickest part of the meat near the bones and if it comes away from the bones easily it is cooked.
To make the salsa, very finely slice the sweet onion and place in a bowl with the lemon juice, capers, herbs and olive oil. Season to taste.
Once the turbot is cooked, you can either pop it under the grill to crisp the skin or remove the skin.

Spring leaves with curd cheese

Spring leaves with curd cheese. Photograph: Jean Cazals/Observer

full-fat milk 1 litre
cloves 3
black peppercorns 10
lemons juice of 1 or 2
baby salad leaves
extra-virgin olive oil to drizzle
squeeze of lemon juice
To make the cheese, heat the milk with the cloves, peppercorns and a pinch of salt in a saucepan over a medium heat. When it starts to bubble, around 98C, remove from the heat. Don’t let it boil. Add the juice of one lemon and stir. Stand for 10 minutes until the curds have separated from the whey. If you need to you can add a little more lemon juice, a tablespoon at a time.
Line a colander with muslin, add the curds and whey and strain into a bowl. Leave for 30 minutes, squeezing gently to remove most of the liquid from the cheese. Leave to cool then scoop into a container and chill until needed.
Toss the salad leaves with the olive oil and a squeeze of lemon juice and crumble the cheese all over. Season with sea salt and pepper and serve.

Artichokes and broad bean estofado with jamón ibérico and mint

Artichokes and broad bean estofado with jamón ibérico and mint. Photograph: Jean Cazals/Observer

baby artichokes 12
lemon 1
olive oil 100ml
banana shallots 2
garlic 3 cloves
broad beans 400g, fresh
jamón ibérico 100g
mint 2 tbsp, fresh, chopped
Trim the baby artichokes, removing any tough outer leaves, and cut in half. Place in a bowl of water and squeeze in the juice of half the lemon.
Heat a little of the oil in a deep frying pan. Finely slice and fry the shallots until softened then add the garlic and fry for a little longer. Drain the artichokes and add to the pan with the broad beans. Season well and add the rest of the olive oil, the juice of the other half a lemon and just enough water to cover.
Put on a lid and simmer for 20 minutes until tender. Remove the lid. Finely slice the jamón and stir through with the mint. Serve warm.

Almond and pear cake, slow-roasted rhubarb and Pedro Ximenez ice cream

Almond and pear cake, slow roast rhubarb and Pedro Ximenez ice cream. Photograph: Jean Cazals/Observer

unsalted butter 150g, softened
caster sugar 125g
free-range eggs 2, medium-sized
ground almonds 150g
baking powder 1 tsp
plain flour 2 tbsp
pears 2, ripe but firm
demerara sugar 2 tbsp
rhubarb 800g
caster sugar 150g
whole milk 300ml
vanilla pod 1
free-range eggs 6 yolks
caster sugar 175g
double cream 600ml
Pedro Ximénez sherry 120ml
Make the ice cream. Heat the milk with the vanilla pod – split in half and seeds scraped out – until almost boiling. Whisk the egg yolks and caster sugar until really thick and fluffy. Pour in hot milk and stir well then strain back into a clean pan.
Cook over a medium-low heat until you have a thick custard. Remove from the heat, cool slightly and then add the cream and cool completely. Once cold, stir in the sherry and churn in an ice-cream maker until solid. Scoop into a tub and freeze. If you don’t have a machine, cool and freeze the mix until it starts to become solid, then whisk with an electric hand whisk and re-freeze. Repeat 3-4 times then freeze overnight.
Heat the oven to 140C. Cut the rhubarb into lengths and place in a roasting tin. Scatter with caster sugar and pour over 80ml of water. Cover with foil and roast for an hour until tender but still holding its shape. Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the juices.
Increase the oven to 180C. Grease and line a 20cm round cake tin. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating together, then fold in the almonds, baking powder and flour. Spoon into the cake tin. Peel and core the pears and cut into wedges. Place all around the cake, pushing in a little but not completely. Sprinkle with the demerara sugar. Bake until risen and golden – about 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Allow to cool for 10 minutes, remove from the tin and cool on a wire rack. Slice the cake into wedges and serve with the roasted rhubarb and a scoop of the PX ice cream.

Jack Monroe’s tom kha gai soup recipe

I first had this delicious, spicy coconut soup on a pavement outside a pub in Shepherd’s Bush, London. Thai food has become popular in pubs over the last few years; on a recent adventure up north I found more pubs offering Thai cuisine than hotpots. I had my second taste of tom kha gai in a boozer in Bolton. Then a bowl at Thai street food place Jane-Tira in Soho sealed the deal – I decided it was time I made my own.
Soft, sweet, spicy and satisfying, it has become a work lunch staple, simmering away behind me on the hob as I write at my kitchen table. I’ll add a pile of shredded chicken if there is a carcass left from the weekend, but more often than not I’ll do without. I use ginger in place of hard-to-find galangal, and lemongrass paste to speed things up – it is easy enough to make, and freezes well or keeps in the fridge for around a week.
(Serves 3-4 for lunch)
2 stalks lemongrass, chopped
2 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for lemongrass paste
10g fresh ginger root, minced
2 fat cloves of garlic, minced
100g spring onions, finely sliced
400g mushrooms, sliced
1 small red chilli, deseeded and sliced
Zest and juice of a lime
1 tbsp light soy sauce
400ml coconut milk
700ml chicken or vegetable stock
A small handful of coriander
Put the lemongrass pieces into a blender with oil and blitz until you have a smooth paste.
Heat the oil on medium with two teaspoons of the lemongrass paste, the ginger and garlic.
Add the onions, mushrooms, and chilli. Cook on a low, slow heat for a few minutes to soften the onions and take the raw edge off the garlic.
Add the lime juice, soy sauce, coconut milk and stock – you may not want all the stock, so taste as you go.
Bring to the boil, reduce to a simmer and cook for a further 15 minutes to let the flavours infuse.
Serve garnished with coriander and lime zest.

Don't tip it, dip it: delicious beetroot hummus and cavolo nero dips made from 'food waste'

Several years ago, Tristram Stuart’s food waste campaign (now called Feedback) asked me to create a pop-up banquet using surplus food. They wanted me to cater for no fewer than 200 covers. I was shocked that Feedback thought it possible to feed so many people on surplus ingredients, but was up for the challenge.
I needn’t have worried. In the lead-up, I was inundated with edible donations of remarkable quality: organic vegetables (end-of-life produce donated by a national box scheme), kilos of gherkins (made from a glut of cucumbers saved at an allotment), and fish by-catch (fish caught outside of a fisherman’s quota, which they are usually forced, by law, to throw back into the sea to die). I was astonished to learn that such high-grade food was being wasted.
In time, this revelation led to the launch of my seasonal tapas restaurant, Poco, in Bristol. I am obsessive about never wasting food, and at Poco we employ steadfast green policies, recycling and composting more than 95% of our waste.
Supermarkets are terrible culprits. As a skint art student, I remember looking through supermarket bins in the hope of a free meal, where the likes of tuna sandwiches with expired best-before dates and perfectly good apples (save for the unidentifiable bin juice coating them) languished sadly, spoilt by supermarkets keen to restock their shelves with newer, glossier-looking goods.

I find it deeply upsetting that supermarkets believe they have a right to lock away and destroy food that is perfectly fit for human consumption, especially when food poverty is such an extensive local and global issue. Through food waste campaigns such as Feeding the 5000, an international event that feeds 5,000 people using food that would otherwise be wasted, and Food Cycle’s community cafes, large-scale food retailers have been forced to address their food waste issues more publicly. Working directly with both large and small food producers to save their surplus was enlightening and helped me to realise how we can all have a dramatic effect on the food system through where we shop and how we value our food.
Before cooking banquets with “rubbish”, I worked with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall at River Cottage in Dorset, where I was taught to care about the quality and provenance of ingredients above all else. Hugh would scold us every time a non-seasonal vegetable entered the kitchen and, with meat, we had to be able to recite, like Rain Man, the exact breed, farm and age of the animal. I gained a strong understanding of butchery and the patience to cook seasonally.
Some mornings I’d arrive at work to be confronted by the medieval scene of a whole deer hanging by tendon hooks in a freezing barn. I’d spend the morning butchering and organising it into cuts for the week’s menus, and none of it was wasted. I use relatively little meat in my cooking now, but that training in nose-to-tail cooking at River Cottage has changed the way I cook irreversibly.
The nose-to-tail philosophy refers to eating the whole animal – complete consumption: nose, tail and absolutely everything in between. In my own cooking, I’ve extended this to encompass all food, celebrating the whole ingredient – a practice I have come to describe as “root-to-fruit”. This saves both food and money, and in turn, enables you to buy better quality, higher welfare ingredients. My leftover lemon rind tart is a classic example of where I put this ethos to use at Poco; another being my beetroot “hummus”, served with beet-top crisps. The often-discarded leaves and stalks of a beetroot are full of nutrients and flavour, and make a brilliant accompaniment to the dip. This vibrant purple dip sits beautifully alongside my cavolo nero pesto, which utilises the tough stalks of the vegetable (also often thrown away) and, for extra texture, can be fortified with bread that’s going stale. Together, they are magically moreish.
Beetroot ‘hummus’ with beet-top crisps
If you can’t find beets with the tops on, make the crisps using kale or chard.
For the hummus
350-400g of whole beetroots, washed
¼ lemon, juiced
4 tbsp thick live yoghurt
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 tsp cumin seeds, toasted and crushed
Salt and black pepper, to taste
For the crisps
1 bunch (about 500g) beetroot leaves, ruby chard, or kale
1 tbsp honey
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Salt, to taste
1 Put the beetroots into a small saucepan and cover with plenty of water. Bring to the boil and reduce the heat. Simmer for 50 minutes, then drain and leave until cool. Rub off the skin and remove the rough tops. Put the tops aside for the crisps.
2 Quarter the cooked beetroots and put them in a blender. Add the lemon juice, yoghurt, olive oil, garlic and cumin seeds. Blend to a smooth puree and season to taste. Allow to cool.
3 Meanwhile, make the beetroot crisps with the tops you cut off. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Drizzle the beetroot leaves with honey and oil, then sprinkle with salt. Massage the dressing into each leaf.
4 Spread the leaves out on baking trays and put into the oven for 15 minutes. 5 Separate the leaves and remove any that are already crispy. Return the rest to the oven for another 5 minutes. Check, and repeat if necessary.
6 Serve the cooled hummus dressed with olive oil, the beetroot crisps for dipping and seasonal crudites. Store the hummus in the fridge.
Tom Hunt washing cavolo nero in a warehouse.
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‘Cooking from root-to-fruit saves food, money and enables you to buy better ingredients’ … Tom Hunt. Photograph: Elena Heatherwick/Guardian
Cavolo nero and walnut dip

Makes 500g
250g cavolo nero (or green kale)
120ml extra virgin olive oil
Juice of 1 lemon
1 small garlic clove, peeled
2 tbsp thick live yoghurt
50g strong hard goat’s cheese, diced
50g walnuts
20g stale bread, torn into pieces (optional)
Salt and black pepper, to taste
1 Place the blanched leaves and stalks in a blender with the rest of the ingredients, except the walnuts.
2 Blend to a rough puree, stir in the crushed walnuts and season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve.