NOW is the glorious time of the culinary year when we shake off the starchy dishes and vegetables of winter and late spring, and step lightly and delightedly into our own primavera, the first true vegetables of summer.
Announced, of course, by the triumphant asparagus, this is also the time when fresh bulbs of white turnip and sweet baby leeks appear. Spinach is at its best, and the early potatoes with their dusty overcoat of soil arrive. From the sea there is a regular supply of wild Atlantic salmon, while newly grown pastures give an early summer sweetness to lamb.
Meals for May are simple to cook, because all we need to do is showcase the fresh ingredients. A steak of wild salmon, generously dusted with salt crystals and crushed peppercorns, can be seared in the pan then shoved into a hot oven for a few minutes. Spinach, meanwhile, should be washed and destemmed, cooked quickly with only the water clinging to the leaves, then pureed with some good olive oil and some chopped parsley trickled into the mixture. The young potatoes can simply be steamed. Serve the fish sliced - much like a steak, its interior should be tremblingly pinky red - placed on a bed of the spinach puree and the potatoes laid alongside. This is perhaps the ultimate Irish primavera meal.
The young white turnips are a perfect accompaniment to grilled lamb, but they should be fried in butter, gently, after they have been par boiled in water, for this dries them out and makes them even better. They can also be peeled and grated, squeezed of their moisture, then scattered in a dish, dressed with cream and covered with buttered breadcrumbs before being baked, for a melting gratin.
But here is another great accompaniment to grilled lamb, from Eugene Callaghan of Wexford. A stoemp is a classic Belgian peasant dish in which, writes Ruth Van Waerebeek in her splendid Everybody Eats Well in Belgium Cook book, the basic idea is a hearty combination of mashed potatoes and other cooked vegetables, often enriched with bacon, cream, or butter and seasoned with herbs and spices, most notably, nutmeg. Uncomplicated and utterly satisfying, stoemp, a cross between a vegetable stew and a puree is the ultimate comfort food of Belgium."
Eugene Callaghan's version is, he says on the creamy side of a puree; part vegetable, part starch, part sauce".
Eugene Callaghan's Leek and Potato Stoemp
500g peeled potatoes
350g white of leek
2 dl cream
1 dl chicken stock
50g butter
Salt and pepper
Cook and puree the potatoes. Finely shred the leeks and put in a pot with the stock, butter and cream. Cook for about five minutes. Strain, reserving the liquid. Reduce the cooking liquid to approximately one third its volume.
Fold the leeks and cooking liquid into the hot potatoes. Season and serve.
AND here is another delectable idea for those slender leeks, a brilliant, colourful, summer fresh idea from The Greens Cookbook. This idea is so simple and so good that I promise it will immediately become one of your kitchen mainstays. The sweetness of the dish will suit both lamb and salmon.
Spring Leeks and Yellow
Peppers
6 leeks, about an inch across, white parts with some pale greens
4 yellow bell peppers
2 tablespoons butter
Salt
1 tablespoon virgin olive oil
Small handful fresh mixed herbs: parsley, marjoram, etc
Additional butter (optional)
Pepper
Slice the leeks into thin rounds and wash them well. Halve the peppers lengthwise, remove the seeds, stems, and veins, and slice them thinly into strips. If they are very long, half them crosswise first.
Melt the butter in a saute pan with a few tablespoons of water, and begin cooking the leeks over medium heat with a little salt. Cover and stew until they are tender, about six to eight minutes; then add the olive oil, and raise the heat.
Add the peppers and saute briskly for two minutes; then add a little more water, lower the heat, and cook another few minutes, until the peppers are soft. Add the herbs toward the end of the cooking, and, if you wish, another spoonful of butter. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. There should be a sweet yellow sauce in the bottom of the pan when the vegetables are done. Serves four to six.
WHAT these recipes all share is a mixture of early summer zest and sweetness, and none more so than this deliciously pleasing idea from Simon Con nor, of Adele's in Schull, Co Cork. Mr Connor will dollop it onto roast lamb, toss it up with the new potatoes, or use it as a pasta sauce. It keeps well, but if you do intend to keep it, then don't add the cheese until the day you serve it.
Simon Connor's Parsley
Pesto
4oz parsley
1 oz fresh rosemary, de stalked and chopped
8 cloves garlic
6oz pine nuts three quarters pint extra virgin olive oil
4oz freshly grated Parmesan
Salt and pepper
Put the parsley, nuts, rosemary and finely chopped garlic into a blender or food processor. Add quarter of the oil and blend to a smooth puree. Add the rest of the oil in a fine stream, as if you were making mayonnaise, blending all the while. Finally add the grated Parmesan and season.
BUT of course, the king of the primavera vegetables is asparagus. If you want to do anything more to asparagus than simply steaming them and scooping some good butter on top, then bear in mind the advice of Stefan Matz, the gifted chef of the Erriseaske House Hotel in Ballyconneely, Connemara.
Mr Matz never pairs the shoots with strong ingredients, for otherwise you lose the delicate flavour of the asparagus. His choices are to marinate warm asparagus in a vinaigrette made from extra virgin olive oil white wine vinegar fresh herbs (parsley, chervil, chives, tarragon), shallots, pink peppercorns and tomato concasse. He then garnishes the salad with cubed hard boiled eggs.
Another nice idea of his is to jizz up the famous combination of asparagus with scrambled eggs by adding some ribbons of smoked salmon. And here is a splendid concoction where a hollandaise has the subtle nutty flavouring of beurre noisette.
Asparagus with Sauce
Noisette and Chicken
1.2kg white asparagus salt and sugar
3 egg yolks
250g butter crushed white peppercorns
2 shallots, finely chopped
175ml white wine
25ml tarragon vinegar
Juice of 1 lemon
Salt and pepper
Skin and carefully boil the asparagus for 18 minutes in water that has been lightly salted and to which you have added a pinch of sugar.
To make the sauce: Boil wine, vinegar, shallots and pepper to reduce to one quarter of its volume. Strain the reduction into a round bowl. Add the egg yolks. Bring butter to the boil to clarify. Boil till lightly browned and nutty.
Whisk egg yolks with the reduction in the bowl over a saucepan of boiling water until the mixture is airy and foamy. Beat the slightly cooled clarified butter drop by drop into the foam. Correct the seasoning with salt and lemon juice.
Keep warm until the asparagus is boiled. Pour sauce over the asparagus and serve with sauteed white meat, such as chicken breasts, veal or poussin.