Kohlrabi, and how not to cook it

Kohlrabi appeared in my vegetable box this week (photograph courtesy of Lisa Norwood). I'm not familiar with this vegetable - in fact, it's the first time I've seen it. Jane Grigson doesn't think much of it, writing:

"There are better vegetables than kohlrabi. And worse. I am thinking in particular of winter turnip and swede; certainly kohlrabi is a pleasant alternative to that grim pair. It is not a true turnip, but a cabbage with its stem swollen into a turnip shape, a cabbage-turnip, by analogy with the French céleri-rave, celery turnip, our celeriac. We have adopted rather than translated the German name, which indicates a lack of warmth on our part [...]"

Fortunately Luisa, over at The Wednesday Chef, has warmer feelings for this vegetable. She gives a great recipe for a raw kohlrabi and carrot salad dressed with toasted fennel seeds, sesame oil, and chilli. My version didn't have such neat julienne as Luisa's, as I just pushed the vegetables through the fine grater of the Magimix. I substituted white wine vinegar for the rice wine vinegar she calls for, and used a milder chilli than birds eye. Even with these adaptations, it was a very tasty and refreshing salad. Perhaps if Grigson had come across this recipe, she would also have developed some warmth for this interesting vegetable.

The small matter of trifle

I was all set to go into Cambridge to buy baba moulds and try to reproduce the delicious rum baba I had at Au Pied de Cochon in Paris, but I couldn't resist adding strawberries to my Riverford order as soon as they appeared on the extras list. Rhubarb is still in season, and is a great partner for strawberries, so I added that to my order too. The result was these trifles, with poached rhubarb and strawberries, a healthy splash of Marsala, thick home-made vanilla custard, and - of course - topped with Riverford's rich double cream whipped up with a little sugar.

You can make trifle with pretty much any fruit - Fergus Henderson gives a recipe for an apple trifle in Beyond Nose to Tail, and it's his custard recipe I used here. This custard contains whole eggs, so is thicker than a crème Anglaise and more luxurious than crème pâtissière. The sponge takes a lot of whisking - it can be done by hand, but is much easier with an electric hand whisk.

Rhubarb and Strawberry Trifle

For the sponge:

• 3 eggs at room temperature
• 85g caster sugar
• 1 1/2 tbsp warm water
• 85g plain flour
• pinch salt

Preheat the oven to 180℃. Grease a 20cm round cake tin and dust with caster sugar then flour. Whisk together the eggs, sugar and water in a heat-proof bowl. Place over a pan of gently simmering water (the bowl should not touch the water) and whisk until at least tripled in volume. Remove from the heat and keep whisking until cool. Sift in the flour and salt, and gently fold through. Pour into the tin and bake for about 30 minutes. Allow to cool in the tin before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

For individual trifles, take a plain round cutter slightly bigger than the base of the glass and cut rounds of sponge to fit snugly. Place in the bottom of each glass and pour over a tablespoon of Marsala or sweet sherry.

For the fruit compote:

• 100ml water
• 50g sugar
• 1 vanilla pod, split and seeds scraped
• 400g rhubarb, cut into 5mm dice
• 200g strawberries, hulled and cut in half

Put the water, sugar, and vanilla into a pan and heat gently until the sugar has dissolved, then bring to a simmer. Drop in the diced rhubarb and cook until tender. Add the strawberries at the last minute and cook for a couple of minutes, but stop before they start to lose their shape.

Allow to cool, remove the vanilla pod, then spoon over the soaked sponges.

For the custard:

•  450ml double cream
• 1 vanilla pod, split and seeds scraped
• 2 large eggs
• 2 large egg yolks
• 85g caster sugar

Place the cream and vanilla into a pan and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat and leave to infuse for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, whisk together the eggs and sugar. Pour over the warm cream, whisking continuously. Now transfer to a heatproof bowl over a pan of gently simmering water. Stir occasionally until it has thickened.

Allow to cool then pour over the fruit.

For the cream topping:

• 300ml double cream
• 30g icing sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Sift the icing sugar onto the cream and vanilla, then whisk to soft peaks.

Spoon or pipe the cream onto the custard. Garnish with a sliced strawberry, then refrigerate until needed. Remove from the refrigerator 30 minutes or so before serving.

These quantities will make about 6 individual trifles.

Goodbye asparagus, hello strawberries

The English asparagus season is coming to a close - I had my final delivery of asparagus from Riverford last week.  They source their asparagus from Clive Martin in Cambridgeshire, a third generation farmer who has been growing traditional Fenland crops for twenty years. I know you can buy imported asparagus in the supermarkets pretty much all year round (my local Co-op currently has asparagus from Peru on its shelves), but I try to eat mostly local, seasonal food. This guarantees you a varying diet throughout the year, and you are always looking forward to the next treat coming into season. Just as the asparagus comes to an end, the spinach, chard, broad beans, and strawberries are beginning.

I try to eat asparagus at least twice a week during May and June. it is fantastic served with hollandaise sauce, but if the idea of eating that much butter doesn't appeal, try it with Raymond Blanc's lemon sabayon. You can also serve it simply with a soft-boiled egg, using the asparagus tips as soldiers - or why not try the char-grilled asparagus with a slow cooked egg (pictured above)? Still on the asparagus and eggs theme, I also cooked up this pizza - the asparagus needs no pre-cooking, it simply roasts on top of the pizza.

If you're quick, you might pick up the last of the English asparagus, otherwise these ideas will have to wait until next year. In the mean time, you can console yourself some with strawberries. One of my favourite ways to eat strawberries is Eton mess: toss together halved strawberries, Chantilly cream, and broken meringue. Eat right away.

The importance of reading the label

Food labelling has been in the news recently, with the European Parliament voting against the traffic-lights system that gives a simple indication of the levels of salt, sugar, fat, and other nutrients in food. This is the system advocated by the UK Food Standards Agency, and British consumers will already be familiar with the red, amber and green traffic-light symbols on some of our supermarkets' own-brand products.

Unfortunately, such a clear and easy to understand labelling system was not favoured by manufacturers who, according to Corporate Europe Observatory, spent more than €1 billion opposing the scheme. That's an awful lot of money to spend making sure consumers can't see at a glance just how unhealthy are the processed foodstuffs they are peddling.

MEPs caved in to this corporate lobbying and voted instead to adopt the more complex Guideline Daily Amount system, which gives the nutritional content as a percentage of the recommended daily amount. They went further and said that countries should not be able to adopt labelling requirements that go beyond the EU regulations - so it's not clear whether or not our traffic-lights system will survive this corporate onslaught.

It wasn't all bad news, though, as MEPs also voted for compulsory labelling of halal and kosher meat products. In the UK, ritual slaughter of animals is exempt from animal welfare legislation, so animals can have their throats slit and be left to bleed to death without pre-stunning. While this exemption might be justified on the grounds of religious freedom, there is nothing stopping meat produced in this way from entering the mainstream food chain without being labelled as such. New EU regulations will require all meat products to be labelled with the country of birth, upbringing, and method of slaughter, so consumers who put animal welfare above primitive superstition will be able to avoid inadvertently supporting this barbaric practice.

On a lighter note, Michael Ruhlman has an interesting blog post about misleading labels. He was bemused when his wife purchased a carton of half-and-half labelled 'Fat Free'. Half-and-half is supposed to be half cream and half milk (something like our single cream), so how can it possibly be fat free? Check out Michael's blog and read the label to find out what the food technologists have really put in the carton.

Even single cream is banned from my kitchen, where the double cream from Riverford Organic reigns supreme - after all, if you need something thinner, you can always let it down with some milk yourself. Riverford's double cream has a 48% fat content and only one ingredient on the label. It is jokingly described by Rob at Ashburton Cookery School as "52% fat free", but I think it would still get a red light from the FSA.

Tesco is no champion of the poor

Alex Renton, writing in the Guardian's Word of Mouth blog, gives a contrary view on Sir Terry Leahy, outgoing chairman of Tesco. An interesting piece.

Garlic and bread soup

Wet garlic is appearing in the veg boxes from Riverford at the moment. It looks a bit like a spring onion, but has a mild garlic flavour. It is delicious in this soup, which really couldn't be simpler to make. The recipe is adapted from Fergus Henderson's "Beyond Nose to Tail". Henderson uses 8 heads of garlic to 1 litre of stock; I used most of the stem and got away with only 6 heads, just be careful not to use the fibrous part. The recipe calls for the soup to be passed through a mouli - I don't have one, so I whizzed it up in a liquidizer instead.

Fergus Henderson's New Season Garlic and Bread Soup

• 8 heads wet garlic, sliced
• 1 litre chicken stock
• salt and pepper to taste
• yesterday's bread, crusts removed, cut into 1" cubes

Place the garlic and chicken stock in a pan, bring to a boil, and simmer gently until the garlic is soft (about 40 minutes). Liquidize until smooth, then push through a sieve (the fibrous parts will be left behind). Return to the pan and reheat, season to taste, and add the bread to warm through at the last minute. Enjoy!