Spring is upon us, the days are long and the 'hungry gap' is almost over- hurrah! So we wanted to share some lovely green recipes both inspired by Anna Jones and her latest book One Pot Pan Planet. It's a joy when we can get our hands on more locally grown asparagus and we can't wait to start adding it to our best-selling Jerusalem Artichoke Pappardelle pasta as the star of the dish! Wild Garlic is still ALL over our local woodland so we made our frittata with that too. We are fortunate to live very close to the vale of Evesham which is famous for its asparagus and so we'll be sharing lots more asparagus recipe ideas over the next couple of months.
Anyway back to our lovely seasonal recipe share...
The first is a quick and easy lunch idea- Purple Sprouting Broccoli on Toast with a lovely yoghurt and tahini mixture spread on some chargrilled sourdough.
Serves 2
250g Purple Sprouting or Tenderstem broccoli
2 tbsp of coconut or soya yoghurt
1 tbsp of tahini
Juice & zest of 1 lemon
Small handful of wild garlic leaves, roughly chopped
2 tsp za'atar
Handful of toasted walnuts and seeds of choice for garnish
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper
Method:
Simply boil a pan of salted water and blanch the broccoli for a few minutes so it's still firm but not raw. Drain and set aside
Mix the vegan yoghurt of your choice with lots of lemon juice, grated lemon zest, salt, pepper and olive oil.
Heat a griddle pan over a high heat and then char the broccoli evenly followed by the sourdough slices.
Toss the charred broccoli in a generous splash of olive oil, the wild garlic and half the za'atar.
Spread the sourdough toast with olive oil and the yoghurt mix followed by the wild garlic and then the broccoli. Sprinkle with the remaining za'atar and toasted nuts and seeds of choice- we used walnuts, buckwheat and hemp- sunflower and pumpkin seeds would both be great here too.
Asparagus, PSB and Wild Garlic Frittata
This is a dish that would be ideal to take on a picnic or for any kind of al fresco dining on a sunny Spring day now that we can stay outside for longer. It's delicious and not too heavy because of the gram flour batter substitute for eggs. Sometimes I find frittatas a bit bland but the addition of nutritional yeast flakes gives it a lovely umami boost.
Serves 4
Ingredients:
200g gram flour
4 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp nutritional yeast flakes
1 medium red onion, finely sliced
1 small bunch of spring onions, thinly sliced
250g asparagus cut into 3 cm pieces
250g PSB cut into 3 cm pieces
3 large handfuls of wild garlic or another seasonal green (watercress and spinach would also work nicely)
100g vegan ricotta (Tofutti is a brand we like)
Zest of one lemon
Salt & Pepper
For the Salsa:
1 mild red chilli, minced
1 small bunch of parsley
1 tsp harissa
1 tbsp olive oil
Juice and zest of half a lemon
1/2 tsp maple syrup
Salt & Pepper
Method:
Sift the chickpea flour into a warm bowl of water (400ml) and whisk until fully incorporated and there are no lumps. Then whisk in the nutritional yeast flakes. Season well with salt and pepper and then leave covered for one hour.
To make the salsa simply chop the parsley leaves and mix everything together in a small bowl.
Pre-heat the oven to 180 (fan). Heat 2 tbsp of oil in a 24 cm oven proof frying pan and then fry the red onion until it starts to soften and then add the spring onions leaving a small handful for the salsa.. Cook for a couple of minutes and then add the asparagus and PSB and cook for another 3-4 minutes until they start to become tender, then add the greens and sauté for another 2 minutes. Sprinkle the lemon zest over the mixture along with the crumbled ricotta. Season well with salt and pepper.
Whisk in 2 more tbsp of olive oil into the gram flour batter and then pour this over the asparagus, PSB and wild garlic. Pop the pan in the oven and cook for 25 minutes.
When it's cooked through you can use a spatula to carefully remove the frittata away from the edges of the pan and then use a plate to carefully turn it out, and then another plate to flip it back so that the beautiful side with all the greens is showing.
Cut into slices and serve with a generous dollop of the salsa.
