The flavours of Spring and a valley of snowdrops

Spring across England is beautiful and full of unexpected surprises. London lunch breaks amongst the daffodils in St James' Park; finding a new farm shop on the way down to Cornwall (in St Kew) that sells the most amazing sourdough bread, eggs from their own quail and Cornish rape seed oil; and in Devon, discovering a valley full of snowdrops in the middle of Exmoor...

For me, the smells and flavours that encapsulate Spring are floral. Roses, violets, bluebells, hyacinth and bridal crown narcissus. This salad sums up the taste of the season - light, fresh, tangy goat's cheese (from the cheese monger on Venn Street Market), crisp young pea shoots, the sweetness from baby figs and finished with a wonderful rose-scented olive oil. This oil (from Fortnum and Mason) is pretty pricey at £14 for a small bottle but the flavour is incredible - like eating a bouquet of roses!

Served on a rye and walnut toast and drizzled with a fig balsamic, this salad would work well as a starter or light lunch. A few pink rose petals would also be a perfect spring touch to finish it off. 

Leiths week 4 - pan fried sea bream with sauce vierge & red onion focaccia

This week at Leiths was a busy one... we filleted a sea bream, made bread, and created a sauce vierge.

My sea bream was pan fried on a griddle pan with lots of butter, to ensure the skin was really crispy. This was served with fresh green beans, crushed new potatoes and a sauce vierge. The sauce was made by heating good quality olive oil (200ml) on a low heat for 20 minutes with finely diced shallots, one clove of garlic, a bay leaf and a sprig of thyme. The oil was then removed from the heat and finely chopped parsley, chives and concasse of tomato were added (see Leith's week 2 for concassing method!)

Next, we made a red onion focaccia. The dough for making a good focaccia is notoriously wet so this does make working it fairly tricky. Once we had managed to scrape the mixture off the table, left it to rise and smothered it in roasted garlic and caramelised red onion, the bread was baked in a hot oven for around 20 minutes...

Next week, spatch cock quail with pomegranate molasses and a watercress and feta salad... plus a pear and Medjool date strudel.