Inspired by Polish chlodnik, I made this chilled beetroot soup for one of our Twilight Gardening dinners this summer. It was surprisingly popular, I often think chilled soups can be a bit divisive – but that might be because Jo is always a bit suspicious when I suggest a chilled soup. The colour is so gorgeously pink and the earthy beets are balanced out with the tangy buttermilk and little sweetness from the date syrup. If you don’t have date syrup in the cupboard you can use a little honey instead.

The garnishes are everything here – boiled egg wedges, sliced radish, cubed cucumber and plenty of herbs – a little slick of sour cream or yoghurt dolloped on top before serving wouldn’t go amiss either

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Larb (or laap) is a Laotian dish traditionally made with minced meat (either raw or cooked) mixed with lots of chilli, lime juice, fish sauce, herbs, ground toasted rice and other aromatics. It is often very, very spicy and was one of our favourite dishes to eat with a side of sticky rice when we were travelling in Northern Thailand and Laos. Somehow I find eating really spicy food in tropical climes makes you feel cooler, especially if you have a cold beer to sip alongside.

This is our vegetarian version of the dish, using mushrooms instead of meat and replacing the fish sauce with soy. We developed this recipe for our Return to Asia Supper Club and served it as a side alongside Laotian Festival BBQed Chicken, Hue-Style Aubergine, Spicy Carrot Som Tam-style Salad and Sticky Rice. But it would definitely make a great veggie main course served with rice.

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This is my autumnal take on a classic lemon meringue pie. I’ve been inspired by my friend, Clare McQuillan, who is a talented forager and cook. Clare made a number of delicious meringue pies over the last year or so using wild ingredients, a couple of which I have been lucky enough to taste. Making a curd (which is basically the filling in a meringue pie) is a great way to use wild and trickier to process ingredients as you can just boil them up whole (without a lot of peeling, chopping, deseeding) and then strain them through a muslin to get the juice for the curd.  This year the little crab apple tree in my Mum’s garden was laden down with glossy, bright red crab apples, so after making as much crab apple jelly as any one family can reasonably eat I was inclined to do something a bit more decadent and hence this Toffee Apple Meringue pie!

The combination of sharp apple curd and salted caramel gives this pie a Halloween/Bonfire season feel – hence the Toffee Apple name. Admittedly, this is not a quick or easy recipe, there are lots of elements and quite a few processes too, so it is a bit of a labour of love! Totally worth it of course! Continue reading →

As we move into early summer the green salads we grow here at The Edible Flower have more lettuce and less of the rocket and mustard leaves – which grow better from late summer onward. This year we are growing two delicious cos-style lettuce leaves; a bright green variety called ‘Maureen’ and an absolutely gorgeous very dark purple (almost black) variety called ‘Deronda’. Cos-style lettuce is perfect for a Caesar salad as it’s robust enough to hold up to the thick, silky dressing without collapsing at the bottom of the bowl. Continue reading →