If there’s one thing you can guarantee about any recipe written for the first week of a new year, it’s that it will be full of fresh ingredients. With the passing of midnight on 31 December, we all get a clean slate. All those images of roast potatoes and mince pies are quietly erased, to be replaced by lemon zest shavings, bright green leaves and gently steamed fish.
But when I look at the ingredients listed at the top of my own new slate, it strikes me just how many of my 2015 favourites are still here: tarragon, basil, walnuts, capers, cauliflower, apples, kale, chicory. Come to think of it, my contribution to the (predictable but necessary) break from last month’s excesses is, in fact, dishes that I could, and do, eat day in, day out, all year round. Yes, these dishes are so light, zesty and full of goodness that they’ll make you want to bounce but, crucially, they are also satisfying and delicious. Happy new year!
Fennel, orange and herb salad
Delicious as a stand-alone starter, but also alongside fish or meat: fried mackerel, baked salmon, roast chicken, to name just a few. If you’re looking for inspiration as to what to spend that Christmas voucher on, may I suggest a mandoline? It will make slicing veg as thinly as you need them for this sort of salad so much easier. Serves four to six.
4 large oranges
60ml lemon juice
60ml olive oil
Salt
2 large fennel bulbs, trimmed and sliced into very thin 1-2mm rounds
20g picked tarragon leaves, left whole or roughly chopped
50g picked coriander leaves, left whole or roughly chopped
10g picked mint leaves
2 tsp fennel seeds, toasted and lightly crushed
Use a small, sharp knife to top and tail the oranges. Cut down the sides of each orange, following its natural curves, to take off the skin and pith. Holding the orange over a large bowl (to catch the juice), cut in between the membranes to remove the individual segments, discarding the membrane and pips as you go; break up the segments slightly as you add them to the bowl. Add the lemon juice, oil and a teaspoon of salt, and toss to combine. You can make the salad in advance up to this stage, but don’t add the remaining ingredients until just before you want to eat. Once everything is in the bowl, toss again gently, transfer to a large platter or individual plates, and serve at once.
Raw winter vegetable salad
Winter veg packs a fair crunch, so make the most of it by serving them uncooked, too. Serves four to six.
½ red onion, peeled and thinly sliced
3 tbsp white-wine vinegar
¼ tsp caster sugar
Salt
2 tsp wholegrain mustard
1 garlic clove, peeled and crushed
3 tbsp olive oil
½ cauliflower, florets separated and sliced 0.5cm thick
1 cox apple, quartered, cored and thinly sliced
80g walnuts, lightly roasted and roughly broken
1 red chicory, trimmed and sliced thinly on an angle
1 green chicory, trimmed and sliced thinly on an angle
10g picked parsley leaves
5g picked dill leaves
60g baby kale leaves
Put the onion in a small bowl with the vinegar, sugar and an eighth of a teaspoon of salt. Mix and set aside for half an hour, stirring a few times, until the onion turns bright pink.
Drain over another bowl, to save the liquid, then tip the onion into a large serving bowl. Put two tablespoons of the onion liquor into a separate bowl, add the mustard, garlic and a third of a teaspoon of salt, stir, then whisk in the oil until the dressing has emulsified. Add the remaining salad ingredients to the onion bowl, pour over the dressing, toss together and serve.
Steamed salmon with caper, egg and pine nut salsa
Make the full quantity of salsa here, even if you are making the dish for just one or two – the leftovers are delicious piled on top of bruschetta, either by itself or with some slices of good mozzarella. Serves four.
4 skin-on salmon fillets, pin-boned
1 tbsp olive oil, plus 2 tsp extra for serving
Coarse sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 lemon, cut into 4 wedges, to serve
For the salsa
3 tbsp olive oil
40g capers, rinsed and patted dry
2 large shallots, peeled and finely chopped
30g pine nuts, toasted
2 tsp sherry vinegar
4 hard-boiled eggs, peeled, lightly crushed, then broken up into four or five pieces
1 tbsp lemon juice
5g dill, roughly chopped
5g chervil, roughly chopped
First make the salsa. Put the oil in a small saucepan on a medium-high heat, then fry the capers for three to four minutes, until golden brown and crisp. Using a slotted spoon. transfer the capers to a small plate lined with kitchen paper, leaving the oil in the hot pan. Fry the shallots in the same pan for six minutes, stirring a few times, until soft and caramelised, then add the pine nuts, sherry vinegar, eggs, half a teaspoon of salt and a good grind of pepper. Stir gently, remove from the heat and set aside.
Drizzle a tablespoon of oil over the salmon fillets, then sprinkle them with half a teaspoon of salt in total and some black pepper. Quarter-fill a steamer with water and put it on a high heat. Once the water comes to a boil, steam the salmon skin-side down for five to six minutes, covered, until it’s cooked through.
A minute or two before the fish is ready to serve, warm through the salsa on a gentle heat, then stir through the lemon juice, dill, chervil and capers. Serve over or alongside the salmon, with a final drizzle of olive oil and a wedge of lemon alongside.
Meringue nests with apple and celery sorbet and fresh herbs
The beauty of this dish is that it works as well at the start of a meal, as a palate cleanser, as it does at the end, as a pudding, though if you do serve it to begin with, you won’t need the meringue. You’ll have some sorbet left over, but it’s really not worth making in smaller quantities, and anyway, it keeps well in the freezer for at least a couple of weeks. Serves six.
300g glucose syrup
1 tbsp lemon juice
3 large celery stems, trimmed and roughly chopped
3 small cox apples, peeled, cored and roughly chopped
15g parsley leaves, roughly chopped
5g tarragon leaves, roughly torn, plus extra to garnish
5g basil leaves, roughly torn, plus extra to garnish
180g creme fraiche
2 tsp dill, roughly chopped
For the meringue
110g caster sugar
60g egg whites (ie from 2 medium eggs)
½ tsp vanilla extract
In a medium bowl, whisk the glucose and lemon juice with 60ml water until the glucose dissolves. Transfer to an upright blender (or put the mix in a deep bowl and use a handheld stick blender) and add the celery, apple, parsley, tarragon and basil. Blitz smooth, then pass through a fine sieve, pressing through all the juice; you should end up with about 550ml of liquid (discard the pulp). Transfer the liquid to an ice-cream machine and churn for about 30 minutes, until semi-frozen (or put it in a suitable container and freeze, giving it a good stir every half-hour or so, until soft-set). Transfer the ice-cream mix to a chilled freezer container, cover and freeze for at least three hours.
Now for the meringue. Heat the oven to 120C/250F/gas mark ¼. Spread out the sugar on a small baking tray and roast for four minutes, to warm. Put the egg whites in the clean bowl of an electric mixer and whisk on a medium speed until they foam up. Slowly pour in the sugar and continue whisking for at least five minutes, until you have a firm, glossy meringue mix. Add the vanilla, then stop the machine.
Put six large even-sized spoonfuls of the meringue mix on an oven tray lined with greaseproof paper and bake for 50-60 minutes, until the meringues are hard on the outside but still a bit soft inside. Remove the tray from the oven and leave the meringues to cool completely before lifting them off the tray with a palette knife.
Twenty minutes before serving, remove the sorbet from the freezer, so that it will soften slightly. Place a meringue on each plate and gently crack open the centre (don’t worry if it breaks up a bit– it’s all part of the dish’s charm). Spoon creme fraiche into the middle of each meringue and top with a scoop of sorbet. Scatter over some tarragon, basil and dill, and serve.
