Discovering new recipes

Tweet

One thing I have learned is that if we have a lot of some sort of produce (generally from the garden, although sometimes perhaps we might buy a big bag of something that seemed like a bargain!), I simply have to learn to like it. And almost always I find some solution. For example when we moved to our last house there was masses of rhubarb in the garden. Of course I suppose we could have just ignored it, or even dug it out, but that didn’t even cross our minds. Instead we tried lots of different ways to prepare it. I remember my parents used to like stewed rhubarb, but as a child I was never that keen. My mother also remembered when she was a child, being given a stick of rhubarb and eating it raw dipped in sugar. My ‘mad old friends’ ate lots of rhubarb and ginger jam. With our own rhubarb glut my favourites turned out to be roast rhubarb with orange juice, rhubarb and lentil curry, and rhubarb and strawberry compote (for this I had to freeze the rhubarb until strawberry season came along). This approach of trying out all sorts of different recipes until I find the ones I like has worked with all sorts of things I was previously never that keen on – gooseberries, kale, and Brussels sprouts, for example. The current test is redcurrants (excuse the pun). We have many tubs in the freezer and if you look for redcurrant recipes about the only thing that comes up is redcurrant jelly, to serve with roast lamb, which we rarely eat. Or else just using a small bunch as a decorative garnish on top of things like cheesecake, which is all very well but we’d have to eat an awful lot of desserts to use up all the currants if we just added a small sprig to each! At last I have found two favourites that I’m happy to eat repeatedly. One is the combination of raspberries (which we also have a decent store of) plus redcurrants in crumble or sponge pudding or even bread-and-butter pudding – delicious! The other favourite is this redcurrant tart which is made with lemon pastry filled with a redcurrant meringue. Have you tried different ways of preparing produce you have a lot of? Did you find dishes you liked? All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2023.