Tarta de Santiago for the Feast of St James

Slice of Tarta de Santiago

The Feast of St James is celebrated in the Basque Country and Galicia by a public holiday on 25 July so it seems appropriate to post this piece now.  Not that the Spanish need such an excuse to bake Tarta de Santiago.  You can find it throughout Northern Spain at any time of year.  It is mostly associated with Santiago de Compostela in Galicia where the town's cathedral is reputed to hold the relics of the apostle St James the Great.  A network of pilgrim routes originating in Western European countries lead to this place of Christian pilgrimage in the north-west corner of Spain.  The trails are marked by the symbolic scallop shell for St James the Great, the fisherman apostle.  The tarta, or torta in Galician, has been offered to pilgrims as a journeys-end food for hundreds of years. 
  

Tarta de Santiago

Tarta de Santiago is a fragrant almond tart or cake.  Sometimes it's baked with a pastry base, other times without.  Having a long history, naturally its origins are disputed.  The splendid writer Claudia Roden believes it has its roots in a Jewish Passover cake and arrived in Galicia with jews fleeing Moorish rule in Andalusia. 

Tarta de Santiago is easily identifiable by its coating of icing sugar with a cross of St James picked out.  Some versions can be quite bland, and others too dry, but a good recipe really delivers.  This one is a adapted from a version I have enjoyed at Barrafina tapas bar in Soho.  They have more than one version and this is based on the recipe for "Santiago Tart 2010" in the cookery book 'Barrafina - a Spanish cookbook'.  It produces a moist, sweet tart lifted by fresh citrus and the heady quince paste.

Much as I like the idea of a version made without pastry - not least because it would be easier to make and would offer a gluten-free version - I love the contrasting textures you get from this tart.  If you want to try a recipe without a pastry base then I can think of no better authority than Claudia Roden.  Here is a link to a Guardian article for Claudia Roden's recipe for Tarta de Santiago which also appears in her new book The Food of Spain

Tarta de Santiago
(makes a shallow 23cm tart)

PASTRY:
115g (4oz) plain flour
40g  (1½ oz) icing sugar
70g (2½ oz) unsalted butter, cubed
1 egg yolk

FILLING:
115g (4oz) membrillo (quince paste)
175g (6oz) whole blanched almonds
1 tablespoon Amaretto (optional)
Zest of 2 oranges & zest of 2 lemons
Juice of 1 orange & 1 tablespoon of lemon juice
80g (3oz) icing sugar
150g (5½ oz) softened unsalted butter
2 egg yolks
1 whole egg

For the pastry, mix icing sugar and flour.  Rub in the butter until the mix resembles breadcrumbs.  Stir in the egg yolk until the mixture comes together  (add a few drops of milk if the mix doesn't come together).  Use your hands briefly to form it into a ball then wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for a couple of hours.

Preheat the oven to 180C (160C fan).  Lightly butter the 23cm shallow tart tin and dust with flour.  Lightly flour a worksurface and roll the pastry thinly into a round a little larger than the tin.  Place in the tin with the edges overlapping  (don't worry if the pastry breaks up, just patch it in but do keep it thin).  Line with greaseproof paper, weight down with baking beans and bake for 15 minutes.  Remove the paper and beans and return to the oven for a few more minutes if the base is not cooked.    Trim off the excess pastry to neat edges and turn the oven down to 140C (130C fan).

Melt the membrillo with 1 tablespoon of water in a bowl over a pan of simmering water.  Spread it over the tart base. 

Pulse the almonds, zest, juices and Amaretto (if using) in a food processor until mixed but fairly chunky.  Mix the soft butter and icing sugar until creamy.  Add the almonds and mix in well.  Mix in the egg yolks then the whole egg.  Spoon the mixture into the pastry case and bake for about 35 minutes.  Allow to cool before turning out.  *Dust with icing sugar and serve. 

* A template for the cross of St James can be downloaded from the internet if you would like to have this symbol on your tart.  Cut out, place in the centre of the tart, dust with icing sugar and carefully remove the template.

"Polpo - A Venetian Cookbook (of sorts)"

Polpo - A Venetian Cookbook (of sorts)
Russell Norman

  

This book was born out of a love affair.  Anyone who has visited Venice has special memories and for Russell Norman a one week stay in his youth kindled a love for the city, the food and the drink which has never dimmed.  Several years and many more visits and a plan began to form.  Inspiration did not come from the restaurants of Venice, which Norman points out in the tourists areas are".. about as authentic as the plastic golden gondolas for sale on the Ruga dei Orsi .." but the tiny Bàcari (wine bars) of the authentic Venice.  Here locals meet to chat, eat chichèti (Venetian tit-bits) and down a Prosecco or Spritz, or two.  A dish of warm octopus was the catalyst that lead Norman to open a sixty-seater Bàcaro in London in 2009.

I recognise the Venice of Russell Norman and I know Polpo the Bàcaro so I'm familiar with some of the dishes in the book.  Reading it takes me right into the heart of the kind of Venetian food I love.  Not all the recipes are strictly Venetian but the influence is clear.  The dishes are deliberately uncomplicated, made with admirably few ingredients and most are quick to prepare.  Some are hardly recipes at all but a ".. delicious exercises in assembly .." of good ingredients. 

Polpo's Broad bean, mint
ricotta & bruschette

Anchovy and Chickpea Crostini is an inspired coupling.  Broad Bean, Mint, Ricotta and Bruschette is fresh, light and summery and whilst I think the flavours would overpower a good fresh ricotta, it works brilliantly with the type available to most of us.  Pork Belly, Radicchio & Hazelnuts produced a dish of tender fatty pork cut by a sweet, sharp vinegar and bitter leaf, the crackling and hazelnuts providing the essential crunch.  Mozzarella Pizzaiola uses tomatoes slow-roasted with oil, vinegar and oregano.  Pairing them with a milky mozzarella makes for a deeply comforting dish.  The recipe for Rìsi e Bìsi is quite similar to my own but the simple addition of mint lifts this Venetian classic to a higher plain than any I have previously achieved. Recipes I have book-marked for cooking include Spicy Pork and Fennel Polpette, Pilgrim Scallops with Lemon and Peppermint, Burrata with Lentils and Basil Oil, and a Blood Orange and Campari Cake.

The photography by Jenny Zarins captures both achingly beautiful Venice and the simplicity of the dishes very well.  I must mention the design which blew me away on first sight.  An Old Venetian style typeface is used and the stripped-away spine reveals bright green stitching.  The book is lovely to handle, looks good and is eminently practical for kitchen use as it sits flat without breaking the spine (would that some of my other books were like this).

So, if you're planning a trip, how do you find the authentic Venice.  Well, there's help on that here too.  A Gazetteer at the back of the book includes two of my favourite places in La Serenissima.


UPDATE 23 July 2012: Alessandro Swainston @touchfood read this piece and very kindly got in touch to offer the use of his beautiful video of Russell Norman talking about how Venice influenced Polpo.  Here is a link  https://t.co/CnGBt2SZ


Book courtesy of Bloomsbury Publishing

Gooseberry Elderflower Syllabub

Gooseberries 'Invicta'

If you love rhubarb, chances are you also appreciate gooseberries which share an acidity that people seem to either love or hate.  This sharpness does mean both fruits need quite a bit of sugar to make them palatable to most.  You could add a leaf or two of the herb sweet cicely which is a natural sweetener and reduce the amount of sugar.  At this time of the year gooseberries have a grassy tartness which I love.  A week or two from now they will have mellowed to a yellow gold colour and need less sugar.  There are a few red varieties, such as 'Pax', which are sweeter and look pretty but the old variety green 'Invicta' is good for me.  It fruits reliably and prolifically and has good flavour.  Having picked these beauties from my allotment I couldn't wait to get cooking with them.

Like rhubarb, gooseberries are good with oily and smoked foods such as mackerell and are useful for cutting the richness of fatty foods such as pork, duck and goose.  Their possibilities for puddings are many, from crumbles, tarts, jams, jellies and sorbets to creamy panna cotta, fools and ice creams.  They make a fine take on Eton Mess and are gorgeous in a Gooseberry Meringue Pie.  Pair them with cream for a luscious pudding, such as this rich syllabub which complements the poached fruit perfectly. 

Toasted Hazelnuts

With a history going back to at least the 17th century, originally syllabub was a frothy drink made by milking directly from the cow into a bowl of wine, cider or ale which you consumed on the spot.  It progressed to a firmer textured cream by the whipping in of tart fruit syrups or wine.  As the resultant dish was more stable it was possible to keep it for a day or two.  Hannah Glasse describes a recipe for 'Everlasting Syllabub' in her book The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, first published in 1747 which calls for  "Rehnish wine, half a pint of sack and two large Seville oranges".   She also stipulates the addition of calf's foot jelly.  A step too far for me.  

Here then is my easy version.  Wine or elderflower cordial to flavour the syllabub? The choice is yours. If you opt for elderflower then you might want to leave it out of the poached gooseberries. 

Gooseberry Elderflower Syllabub

Gooseberry Elderflower Syllabub

for 4-6 servings

100ml sweet white wine or elderflower cordial

Finely grated rind and juice of 1 lime

50g caster sugar

300ml double cream

600g Gooseberries

125g caster sugar (if you add sweet cicely, reduce the sugar content to around 100g, taste and adjust as necessary)

2 tablespoons elderflower cordial

50g hazelnuts, toasted, skins removed and roughly chopped

Mix the first three ingredients together and leave to stand for several hours or overnight so that the flavours are fully blended.   

Wash and top & tail the gooseberries.  Gently melt 125g caster sugar and the elderflower cordial in a heavy based pan and add the gooseberries.  Cook gently until the fruit is soft but not mushy (about 10 minutes).  Leave to cool completely then refrigerate.

 
Start to whip the double cream and, as you do so, add the liquid.  Continue until soft peaks form.  This will happen very quickly (the mixture will stiffen further in the fridge).  Spoon gooseberries into serving glasses top with the syllabub.  Refrigerate for at least 2 hours (will keep in the fridge for at least 24 hours) and, when ready to serve, scatter with the toasted hazelnuts to add texture.


A version of this article also appears on James Ramsden's blog

Trullo Restaurant, Highbury Corner

Pappardelle Beef Ragu
at Trullo

With a lunch offering of a main course primi plus either a starter or dessert priced at £12 the only wonder is why it took me so long to get to Trullo.  Everyone I know who really likes their food, as opposed to just liking to eat out, had told me to go and now I know why. 

At that price we had to try the bargain lunch and with five starters, three pasta courses and four desserts to choose from we didn't feel we were missing out.  We ate Braised cuttlefish with chickpeas and escarole.  The cephalopod was as tender as could be and came with whole chickpeas in a lovely seafood broth  Norfolk asparagus with Gorgonzola fonduta was passable though the aspargus lacked the strength to stand up to the sauce.  Normally I wouldn't expect to see English asparagus on 3 July but I know from my own allotment experience that it's a weird year for crops so I went with it.  Pappardelle with beef shin ragu was a plate of perfectly cooked ribbon pasta with good, sticky long-cooked beef and Fettucine came with broad beans and a pecorino sauce lifted beautifully by Amalfi lemon. 

Caramel Pannacotta
at Trullo

We did break away from the bargain lunch for a couple of desserts.  A Caramel pannacotta was the best example of this classic Italian dessert I have tasted.  The vanilla seed-spotted pudding just on the point of set covered in plenty of dark caramel.  A request for an Affogato instead of the listed Vanilla ice cream with apricot sauce was readily met and appreciated.


Head Chef Tim Siadatan was an early graduate of Jamie Oliver's Fifteen and, after spells at St John and Moro, presides over a perfect neighbourhood restaurant serving simple, seasonal Italian influenced food.  The room is pretty non-descript, probably an ex-pub, plainly furnished in brown and white with a kitchen off to the side.  It's just off Highbury Corner and cheek-by-jowl with pizza and kebab shops.  Don't go expecting fancy or atmospheric, though when it's busy I'm sure you won't notice the room.   It's very welcoming, whether your a twosome, a group, or eating alone.  The food is the thing and these guys are doing a lovely job of it.  The rest of the menu has headings of 'Oven' and 'Charcoal Grill' which I intend exploring next time.  It's open for dinner every day and also for lunch except Sundays.  Wines start at below £4 a glass. Three courses, home-baked bread and two glasses of wine each brought the bill to £25 per person plus service.  Extraordinary value in my book.

Trullo
300-302 St Paul's Road
London N12LH
Tel: 020 7226 2733

Forage Fine Foods - Food Find

Forage Fine Foods has been on my radar for a few weeks as a font of knowledge about British wild herbs and flowers so it was a nice surprise to see some of Liz Knight's products on the sideboard at The Butchery in Bermondsey yesterday.  There are quite a few "foragers" out there - some people buy in to it, others don't.  Forage Fine Foods strikes me as the real deal.  What caught my attention was the fact that Liz has allied a long-held passion for cooking wild food with knowledge she has picked up from talking to her countrywise elders.  She has found working in a day centre for the elderly a fascinating education in folklore and some almost forgotten practices.  Gathering wild herbs, berries and petals in the Herefordshire/Welsh Borders area, in the shadow of the Black Mountains, she produces Elderberry and Lavender jam, Rose Petal Syrup and Jelly, A Wild Herb Rub and an exotic Wild Rose el Hanout to conjure up Marakkesh.  Or there's the piquant 'Pontack' sauce made from elderberries soaked in cider vinegar which I'm looking forward to adding to a beef casserole.  Forage Fine Foods currently have a handful of stockists including The Butchery but you also can buy on-line and at special events and festivals.  Or you could take advantage of Liz's enthusiasm to pass on her knowledge by booking a foraging course.

Forage Fine Foods

My Bakewell Pudding

My Bakewell Pudding

At the end of my previous posting A warm bowl of raspberries on the longest day I promised to give you a recipe suggestion for using up that jar of last summer's raspberry jam.  I planned to write a well researched piece on the classic English dish Bakewell Pudding before offering my own version.  Well, time is against me as I pack for a trip to Lisbon but a promise is a promise.  Some of you will know, the original recipe is much disputed.  Even the name - is it a 'tart' or is it a 'pudding'?  The thoughtful piece of writing will have to wait for another day.  Here is my recipe and it tastes good.  What more could you want?

My Bakewell Pudding

PASTRY (makes 2 x 20cm x 3.5cm deep tart cases – you’ll need one for this recipe):

250g (10oz) plain flour
25g (1oz) ground almonds
Pinch of salt
150g(6oz) cold butter
75g (3oz) icing sugar
Grated rind of half a lemon
1 egg yolk
3 tablespoons milk

FILLING:

150g room temperature unsalted butter
150g caster sugar
2 medium eggs
150g ground almonds (if you grind your own, leave some of the skins on)
150g raspberry jam (or a little more if it's good)
25g flaked almonds

Sift the flour into a mixing bowl and add the ground almonds and salt. Add the butter and rub in with fingertips. Sift in icing sugar and add grated lemon rind and mix. Lightly beat the egg yolk and milk together and stir it into the dry ingredients. Mix just until the dough just comes together then turn out and knead gently to smooth the surface.  Wrap half of the pastry and rest in fridge for just 30 minutes (wrap and freeze the other half for another time). 

Pre-heat the oven to 200C (180C fan oven) Lightly butter a 20cm x 3.5cm deep loose-bottomed tart tin.   Roll out the pastry thinly and line the tin, smoothing off the top and pricking the base. Rest in the fridge for a further 15-30 minutes.  Line with greasproof paper and dried beans and bake the tart blind for 10 minutes.  Remove the lining and beans and return the tart to the oven for a further 4-5 minutes to make sure the base is cooked.  Remove from the oven and put to one side.

Turn the oven temperature down to 180C (160C fan oven).  Mix the butter then add the caster sugar and mix well.  Mix the eggs together and add gradually to the mixture beating well.  Gently fold in the ground almonds.  Spread the raspberry jam over the base of the tart.  Gently spread the almond cream right to the edges of the tart and top with the flaked almonds.  Bake in the centre of the oven for 35 minutes (check after 30 minutes ad if it’s browning too much, place a piece of foil over the pudding).

A bowl of warm raspberries on the longest day

Tender II
Raspberries

It's hard to believe we've reached the longest day of the year as I sit here looking out at thick grey cloud and a steady drizzle.  On the positive side, there's no need to water the crops.  Soon we growers are going to have gooseberries, strawberries, raspberries and currants in abundance.  Time for a larder clear out to use up all the bottled fruits and jams from last year to make way for the new.  Hopefully you haven't still got fruit squirrelled away in the freezer - an admission of one forgotten pot of raspberries just unearthed here, and not for the first time. 

My solution at times like these is to blitz them frozen with a little honey to make a simple sorbet or turn to page 1088 of Nigel Slater's Tender II - 'A dish of warm, heady berries'.  Nigel's recipe calls for fresh berries (raspberries, loganberries, tayberries) but his very easy recipe will rescue defrosted ones too.  Essentially the recipe is this: 

Weigh your berries and put them in a heavy-based saucepan. 
Add 1 tablespoon of caster sugar (less if your fruit is already sweet) + half a tablespoon of eau-de-vie de Framboise + half a tablespoon of water for every 100g of fruit
If using frozen fruit you won't need the added water. 

Bring slowly to the boil, then simmer 2-3 minutes, just until the fruit is about to burst. 
Serve warm over ice cream, or double cream and perhaps a crisp merinque if you have it.

If you don't have eau-de-vie, Nigel suggests a raspberry liqueur.  Strawberry and blackcurrant flavours go well with raspberries too or you could use a little rosewater at the end instead.  I experimented with a pomegranate and rose cordial which worked very well.

Last year's raspberry crop was abundant on my allotment.  Particularly from an unidentified summer fruiting variety - possibly Malling Jewel - gifted to me by an allotment neighbour.  A wet autumn sadly reduced much of my late fruiting more fleshy Autumn Bliss crop to a soggy pulp.  This year I've noticed the canes of the summer fruiters haven't grown as tall as normal.  They look rather stunted but are heavy with the promise of fruit. 

As for those jars and bottles in the larder, I need to use them up now as I'll need plenty of empty ones over the next three months to take all the fruit we can't eat or share.  I feel a gooseberry meringue pie coming on.  As for that raspberry jam, I'll be posting a recipe using it in a few days time to banish the weather blues.   

Alphonso Mangoes 2, English Cherries 0 - Food Find

Some successes and some failures at market today.  The shockingly unseasonal weather continues to affect the English asparagus crop.  Some good tasting asparagus is coming in from Suffolk farms but Kent asparagus proved very hard to find again this week.  Even the Isle of Wight grown asparagus didn't get their usual two week head start this year.  As good growers normally stick to a pretty strict 6-7 week season for the health of the plants, it will be interesting to see when harvesting stops this year.  The English cherry season is also delayed.  Normally we would be seeing the early varieties starting to appear around now but we probably have a couple of weeks to wait yet.  I did finally manage to buy a couple of authentic Alphonso Mangoes. Bad weather on the Indian subcontinent severely reduced the crop this year. Some unscrupulous passing off of inferior varieties has resulted in good greengrocers refusing to stock mangoes labelled 'Alphonso'.  No sign of European apricots yet but I did at least get to taste a Lebanese apricot today - small, pale and unpromising to look at but surprisingly sweet, they have a very short season.  You can find them at Panzer's deli in St John's Wood. 

Please can we have some summer sun now!

Moro Restaurant

Wood roasted pork
at Moro

Yes, this is a terrible photograph, but quite honestly I was far too interested in eating the food on the plate to worry about such aesthetics.  If you'd been there to experience the aromas coming from this dish you would have felt the same way.  What's more, it lived up to its promise.

There's a confidence about the food at Moro that's been there from the first day they fired-up the wood-burning oven and opened the restaurant doors.  From your first taste of their distinctive bread, the wood fired oven imparting an almost liquorice flavour, you sense these people know what they are about.  It's a confidence borne out of apprenticeships at the River Cafe for both husband and wife Sam and Sam Clark.  Having learned all about the very best food of Italy from Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers, almost 15 years ago they took the decision to pursue their own shared passion for Spanish and Muslim Mediterranean food.  After much travel and many experiences Moro was born to marry the robust style of Spanish food with the exotic lightness of the Muslim cooking they encountered.  As at The River Cafe, the emphasis is on good ingredients simply cooked.

So why have I been absent from Moro for so long?  The fault is mine.  I have a bad habit.  I don't like to pre-book a meal if there is the option of eating at a convivial bar.  I like spontaneity, though I seem to be in the minority on this judging by many of the food critics.  OK, so sometimes you're going to be turned away, and that's disappointing, but it's not the end of the world.  Mostly it works out.  That said, after failing to secure seats three times in a row at the 'no-bookings' bar I flounced out.  Well, more fool me.  A return this week (and I still hadn't learned my lesson so I didn't book) reminded me just how good this noisy, vibrant, unfussy restaurant is.  The long, narrow room is furnished plainly, a splendid bar running virtually the whole length of the room.  An open kitchen spans almost the full width at the far end.  Moro engenders loyalty and a sense of family.  Some of the staff have been here many years, and so have many of the diners. 

The wood-fired oven not only bakes the daily loaves but some of the dishes too.  The menus are seasonal, currently starters might include a Lebanese spring vegetable soup, Salt cod with broad beans and mint or English Asparagus with almond sauce and sherry vinegar.  On our visit, mains embraced Wood roasted chicken with méchouia and chermoula, Charcoal grilled mackerel with tomato, celery, lemon and red chilli salsa with fried potatoes, and there was a Mixed vegetable mezza.  The dish I swooned over was not Iman Bayildi, it was a plate of Wood roasted pork with lentils, asparagus, peas and broad beans with grilled onion salad and thyme.  Succulent meat, melting, crispy crackling, the sweetest of onions and a mix of lentils and vegetables pepped-up with a stunning sherry vinegar sauce.  It didn't stop there.  A rosewater and cardomom ice cream, made with condensed milk, came with poached rhubarb and mulberries and scattered with preserved rose petals.  It was a heavenly assemblage and made the Malaga raisin ice-cream with Pedro Ximinez seem ordinary - but only by comparison.  Other desserts on offer included Yoghurt cake with pistachios and pomegranate, Chocolate and apricot tart and Alfonso Mango (a rare fruit this year thanks to poor weather).

Service was as good as ever and the wine list as solid and interesting as I remember.  You can also eat small dishes at the bar for most of the day.  A three course meal with a glass of wine and service will cost you around £45.  It's not cheap but you won't come away hungry, and may not even make it to dessert - though I will find the rosewater and cardomom ice cream dish hard to resist if it's on offer next time.  Oh yes, there will be a next time, and I might even book ahead to avoid disappointment.

Moro
34-36
Exmouth Market
London EC1R 4QE
Tel (to book a table): 020 7833 8336
No bookings taken for the bar

Moro has a baby which I reviewed earlier, Morito, right next door and serving tapas sized dishes
You can also read my review of Moro the Cookbook

Purple Artichokes with black olives

Purple Artichokes

As the spring broad beans and peas begin to appear at market you might expect me to be regaling you with stories of abundance on the allotment by now.  Well, it doesn't work quite like that.  Some domestic growers do manage to bring in Spring crops early, but that's because they've raised their plants under glass before planting out.  For those of us who have to sow our seeds directly in the ground things happen a little later, especially if the weather is as unreliable as it has been this year.  For biodynamic growers there is the added complication of planting to the biodynamic calendar in less than ideal conditions.  Generally, the best guide for starting to sow can be taken from the weeds.  Once they start to appear you can start to plant the hardiest of your seeds - broad beans, peas and spinach.

The positively hot weather in early April saw me sowing seeds for three types of spinach.  All grew happily through a cool, wet May and are currently my only harvestable crop.  A first planting of broad beans and peas the second week in April is just flowering, so I'm a little behind.  The next few weeks should be much more productive with Charlotte potatoes, broad beans, peas, onions, shallots and garlic all growing well.  My gooseberries will soon be ready for a first picking and the blackcurrant bushes are laden with unripe fruit.  I'm determined to get the currants before the birds strip every last one, as happened last year.  Pink Fir Apple potatoes, carrots, parsnips, Borlotti beans, courgettes and squash have now been planted and my nursery bed of brassicas is, as yet, untouched by slugs, flea beetles or pigeons.  I'm particularly looking forward to my Long Red Florence onions which I grow from seed.  Harvested when thick-necked, they are gorgeous to the eye, sweet in flavour for salads and silky in texture when gently fried.

Purple artichokes with black olives

Artichokes are a crop I've never tried to grow as they are perennials which need quite a bit of space.  If you have the ground to devote to them, they require very little attention.  Plant rooted offsets in spring rather than seeds which can be very variable.  The deep purple varieties are, unfortunately, not very hardy.  Cover the crowns with dried leaves in winter to protect from frost.  You should divide the plants every three years to keep them healthy.  Growing them in a flower border is a good option as they are tall, stately and compact with blue-grey thistle-like leaves.  Leave a few unpicked and purple thistles heads will appear from the choke to add a bit of drama to your planting.  As well as the main heads they produce smaller satelllite buds which are perfect for the recipe given here. 

While I wait for my own vegetables, I couldn't resist buying some of the beautiful egg-sized Italian purple artichokes pictured above.  The heads were tightly closed indicating freshness and their small size meant they had very little hairy choke.  I wanted to serve them as simply as possible and this recipe is based on one in 'Chez Panisse Vegetables' by Alice Waters. I piled the stuffed artichokes onto salad leaves for a light lunch but they make a good accompaniment to roast or grilled lamb.  They would probably be good with green puy lentils.  You can keep them in the fridge for a couple of days in the cooking juices.

Purple Artichokes with black olives

(Serves 2)

6-8 small purple artichokes

A handful pitted black olives

1 garlic clove

A few parsley sprigs (plus the stalks)

1 Bay leaf

A splash of white wine

A splash of good olive oil
Salt & pepper
A little lemon juice or vinegar

Strip off the outer 2-3 rows of leaves (more if the artichokes are larger), trim the stalk end. Slice off the top third of the artichoke and use a teaspoon to remove the hairy choke from the centre.  Artichokes contain tannic acid so, once prepared, stop them turning brown by popping each in a bowl of cold water with a good squeeze of lemon juice or a tablespoon of vinegar while you prepare the filling.

Chop stoned black olives, a clove of garlic and a few parsley leaves, mix together and stuff the artichokes.

Put about 1 inch of water in a pan, add a splash of white wine, the parsley stalks and a bay leaf and add the stuffed artichokes, standing upright.  Season and pour a tablespoon or two of olive oil over.  Bring to the boil, then cover and simmer for about 30 minutes.

Serve at room temperature with the juices spooned over.  A few parings of parmesan on top would be a good idea unless you want to keep it totally vegetarian.