Seasonal Bites

A new way with rhubarb. Teamed up with tahini to make a silky sauce with jewels of beetroot and pickles.

Wild garlic is back. Omnipotent on the leafy floors of woods and hugging streams. On a meander along the peak forest canal it was by my side for about 4 miles last week. Three cornered leek. Alexanders. Nature is offering us its greens to be eating.

Pink and green has always been a favourite colour combination of mine. Reminiscent of Marrakech, beautiful, tropical foliage against dusky pink and brick red walls glowing in the sunshine. Running with this theme and bringing you some wild garlic and rhubarb recipes this month. Not necessarily together!

Next week we’ll be continuing the pasta theme and building on what we learnt from the semolina dough. We’ll be looking at a silky wild garlic emulsion that goes with most things. A vibrant, green sauce for pasta with some beautiful cow’s milk feta and a wild garlic, kale and ricotta lasagne that makes a wonderful vegetarian centre piece served with a crisp salad.

But first the pink, today we are trying to drag beetroot into Spring with pickled rhubarb and rhubarb tahini. Roast beetroot with rhubarb tahini, toasted sesame seeds, pickled rhubarb. A light, bright starter or lunch dish.

I found a recipe in the Lula cafe cookbook for peach tahini served with potatoes and smoked trout and thought how could we adapt that for the seasons to serve at Isca? We have an abundance of the pink neon forced rhubarb right now. The sweetness and acidity could bring the same flavour profile as a peach and a pleasing colour to the tahini dressing as well. Dark red and light pink, the beetroot juice bleeding pleasingly into the pink tahini sauce. Once you have cracked the tahini sauce I think it would work well with other soft fruits. Apricot and maybe even cherry would go well with the earthy sesame. So here is the adapted recipe from The Lula Cafe Cookbook. A wonderful book full of unusual ideas of flavour and texture. If you are after some new ideas I would advise you to give it a look.

Rhubarb tahini sauce

450g forced rhubarb

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp good quality tahini

3 cloves garlic, roasted in its skin in foil

1/2 lemon juice and zest

1/4 tsp coriander seeds

40g brown butter

salt to taste

Pre heat your oven to 160c and slice the rhubarb into 6cm lengths. Place on a lined tray, sprinkle with the sugar and lemon zest and cover with foil. Bake for 10-12 mins until the juices have been released and the rhubarb is completely soft. Don’t worry too much about over cooking it here as it is going to be blended up. Put the cooked rhubarb into a blender with all the other ingredients and blend until smooth. You may need to add up to 50g water but add slowly to help it blend so it doesn’t become too watery. If you’d like a super smooth silky purée and don’t mind a bit of extra washing up, pass it through a fine mesh sieve.