Cavolo Nero

Like so many ingredients that have reached our dining tables via pioneering Italophiles such as Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray of London’s River Café, the Italians have been eating cavolo nero (black cabbage) for donkey’s years. What’s more they don’t make a fuss about it. We say superfood, they say versatile yet tasty vegetable.

Unlike cabbage, Cavolo nero, also known as Tuscan kale, does not form a head, but is made up instead of long, loose dark green leaves. A British variety, which we could call “Lincolnshire kale”, is now being grown in the fertile, loamy soil of this country.

Like cabbage, the leaves should be boiled or steamed for about five minutes and dressed while warm with peppery oils with chilli, garlic and anchovies. It’s delicious in classic soups such as ribollita, which is traditionally left to thicken for a day before serving to intensify the flavours, tossed through pasta with speck, or served with slow-cooked meaty winter dishes.

For more recipes visit discoverkale.co.uk

Petal power blooms in kitchens

Petal power is blooming in British restaurant kitchens. For a splash of vivid colour, silky texture and exotic aroma, flowers are hard to beat. And they’re seasonal and often local to boot.

At a recent Slow Food workshop, held at Petersham Nurseries in Richmond, Surrey, head chef Skye Gyngell arranged a three-course floral menu featuring figs with goats’ cheese, ricotta, Parma ham and rose syrup; grilled quail with sour cherries, toasted walnuts and ras el-hanout (a, North African blend of crushed dried Damask rose petals and spices), and violet meringues with English strawberries and cream.

At this week’s Hampton Court Palace Flower Show (rhs.org.uk/hamptoncourt), the Growing Tastes kitchen garden, designed by Michael Balston, features three types of edible flowers: Asian hemerocallis, or day lilies, which add a sweet crunch to stir fries or can be steamed like French beans; British nasturtiums which, like marigolds and violets, can be scattered in salads or used to garnish dishes and, from the Mediterranean, the intense blue flower of borage, which is popular in Pimm’s and cocktails. Look out for more floral cuisine in the Growing Tastes cookery theatre.

As a general rule the flowers of vegetables and herbs are safe to eat but some flowers are toxic. In Britain, nasturtiums, marigolds and violets are scattered in salads or used to garnish dishes. Avoid petals that have been sprayed with chemical pesticides and discard the petal’s white base which has a bitter taste.

Dried rose petals mixed with cumin seeds and nutmeg can be rubbed into game or lamb and added to couscous for a fragrant flavour.

Spoon sweet violet confit or rose petal jam into Greek yoghurt or rice pudding and drizzle rose syrup over cakes and pastries.

Petals can also be added to blended teas. Try delicate white tea with rose as a palate cleanser, or black Ceylon tea with violets.

If the back garden fails you, Secretts Farm in Surrey has a range of edible flowers (01483 520500; secretts.co.uk).

While most regions pick a weekend to celebrate their local food, Hampshire settles on a whole month. Highlights for this weekend include Lavender Lust, a chance to see this pale violet plant more commonly associated with the bathroom distilled at Hartley Park and indulge in the farm’s lavender biscuits and cup cakes decorated with lavender water ice.

At home try apricot and lavender compote with crème brulee or Greek yoghurt. The lavender adds a perfumed twist to the sharp sweetness of apricots.

How to eat an artichoke

The globe artichoke appears exotic but is actually harvested in England from late June.

The fist-sized thistle-like heads of the vegetable are best prepared raw and then cooked, but speedy supper this isn’t.

The freshest artichokes, like flowers, are the more tightly closed, bud-shaped ones that are heavy for their size.

The leaves have a subtle flavour and the heart is a just reward for all the patient preparation - trimming spiky leaves, removing the fibrous choke at its core and boiling until tender (20 to 45 minutes).

Once done, pull off the leaves while still warm and dip in hollandaise, lemon butter, mayonnaise, or vinaigrette.

Jamie Oliver makes a vibrant artichoke, pink grapefruit, frisee and pecorino salad; the River Café, in west London, may well have spaghetti with artichoke pesto on the menu at this time of year, and the Roux brothers go to town and serve upside crowns with chopped smoked salmon, crème fraiche and caviar in the hollow.

Can’t be bothered? Carluccio’s (carluccios.com) sells jars of chargrilled artichokes in olive oil which add instant class to an antipasto of deli meats, pasta or salad.

It’s been said that artichokes have a way of making wines taste sweeter. So choose very dry wines with high acidity. Go British with Ridgeview Bloomsbury Merret 2004, from West Sussex (£19.99, Waitrose). It’s a pared down, dry fizz with lively citrus fruit and a toasty note.

Castroville, in California, is the self-proclaimed world, hmm, heart of artichokes. The small town hosts an annual artichoke festival and has a restaurant, the Giant Artichoke, shaped like an oversized artichoke that serves the local speciality steamed, sautéed, french-fried, pickled, poached, and so on.

Courgette flowers

Seasonal courgettes are one of the most versatile of the summer squashes. They are delicious cut lengthways, brushed in garlic oil, char-grilled and served with feta, peas and mint, or sliced in a courgette and Manchego frittata.

But it is their golden flowers that are prized by chefs. If you see these at a greengrocers or farmers' market, snap them up. Female flowers come with a mini courgette attached and male ones with a small stalk. The flowers don’t last so are best bought and cooked on the same day.

Stuff the flowers with batons of buffalo mozzarella, parsley and anchovies and shallow fry. At Salt Yard restaurant, in London (020 7637 0657; http://www.saltyard.co.uk/), they serve courgette flowers filled with Monte Enebro goat's cheese, drizzled in honey, lightly battered and fried with the vegetable still attached.

These tapas-style dishes work well with a Manzanilla Pasada Pastrana (£10.50; Jeroboams: 020 7288 8850). This single-vineyard aged Manzanilla has a crisp but well rounded flavour that complements the sweet oiliness of the dish.

California: destination food and drink

“Welcome to California: Land of Wine and Food” reads the state’s tourist advertising campaign. And for once it’s no exaggeration.

If any region in the US lives up to such a title – simple yet proud - then it has to be the Golden State. It may not be the meatiest swath of the US, but Salinas is known as the “salad bowl of the nation” and the Central Valley as the “nation’s fruit basket”. Note, too, that it’s “wine” before “food” in the tag, after all 90 per cent of America’s wine is produced there at more than 2,700 wineries.

What’s more, global culinary trends start there. Take farmers’ markets, independent farms and gardens growing specialty produce, eco-gastronomy and Slow Food. California has led the way, too, in producing an abundant range of affordable organic, locally grown produce.

California Cuisine comprises two key ingredients. The dynamic, ethnic diversity in cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco, with their international cuisine and world-class chefs, work side by side with the region’s agricultural producers. (Gordon Ramsay will have to be on his best seasonal behaviour when he expands his restaurant empire to LA in June.)

Alice Waters of Berkeley’s Chez Panisse is considered the pioneer of this fusion of world cooking styles with the freshest local ingredients.

“When my friends and I opened Chez Panisse in 1971 we thought of ourselves as agents of seduction whose mission it was to change the way people ate,” says Waters.

“We soon discovered that the best tasting food came from local farmers, ranchers, foragers and fishermen who were committed to sound and sustainable practices.”

Given the favourable climate – both literal and political - some restaurants even grow their own produce. The Parkway Grill in Pasadena has its own organic herb and vegetable garden, and at Zazu, a gourmet roadhouse restaurant in Santa Rosa, plenty of the menu comes fresh from the adjoining farm.

In typically enlightened Californian fashion, this concern to connect the pleasure of eating out with support of the local agricultural community has spawned a new West Coast concept: “locavores”. The aim is to eat only foods grown or harvested within a 100-mile radius of where one lives or is staying.

“It’s simple: we all realise that virtually anything can grow in California and we have a whole culture built around growing, buying and eating it,” says Napa Valley vintner Pat Kuleto of Kuleto Estate Winery.

To get a taste of locavore living, Market Foray tours in Santa Barbara show culinary tourists how to shop, buy and eat like a true local (www.marketforays.com).

Otherwise, check out the piles of freshly unearthed vegetables at Wednesday’s giant farmers’ market in Santa Monica. Or the Ferry Building in San Francisco, a sprawling showcase for seasonal food and specialist cheeses, chocolates, breads, olive oils and wines. Break for lunch at Charles Phan’s nouveau-Vietnamese restaurant, the Slanted Door, whose menu makes artful use of the market’s bounty.

In fact, San Francisco has more Pan-Asian cafés than you can shake a chopstick at, plus destination eateries like The French Laundry, Jewish delis and some of the best Italian restaurants in the States. Just for fun, try celebrity spotting - between mouthfuls of an organic bison burger with rocket and homemade peach relish - at the Hollywood farmers’ market on Sundays.

Out on the road in the surrounding counties it’s not hard to find the idyllic landscape portrayed in the movie Sideways, filmed in Santa Barbara County: roadside stalls piled high with peaches the size of baseballs, bucolic farm-to-fork banqueting in the fields of a vineyard toasted with a glass of one of California’s big reds.

Over the years, food capitals have sprouted up across the state each known for different specialties: Garlic in Gilroy (there’s a festival in July); raw milk dairy produce and artisan cheeses in Tulare, including Bill Boersma’s award-winning Bravo Farms Cheddars; artichokes in Castroville; honeybees in Palo Cedro and horseradish in Tulelake.

Brilliant yellow mustard plants bloom each year between poppies and grape vines in Napa Valley’s vineyards, signalling the start of the annual Mustard Festival (http://www.mustardfestival.com/); while Stockton hosts an Asparagus Festival in April (http://www.asparagusfest.com/), and San Francisco Bay celebrates its Zinfandel Festival in January.

California has optimum wine-growing conditions. “The Mediterranean climate brings a coolness from the ocean while the interior has steady warm weather which consistently ripens grapes; at least eight or nine years out of ten you have a shot at making some of the best wine you’ve ever made,” says Paul Draper of Ridge Vineyards at Cupertino.

Napa Valley, some 50 miles to the north of San Francisco, and Sonoma Valley bordering the ocean stretch of Northern California, are just two of the state’s numerous wine regions. As a rule of thumb – to which there are exceptions – the smaller producers often offer more character, memorable wines and less generic tasting bars than their corporate counterparts that line the wine trail highways.

The ivy-clad Hess Collection in Napa combines a winery with a
modern art museum built by the Swiss multimillionaire Donald Hess. Visitors can browse works by Frank Stella and Francis Bacon interspersed with views of fermentation tanks. If the art is depressingly expensive console yourself with a $10 tasting of four wines. The mountain cabarnets excel.

Go to the “Land of Wine and Food” and you probably will, as Governor Arnie propounds at the end of the promotional video, “be back”. If only to visit the restaurant or taste the vintage that you didn’t get round to on a first visit.

For more information: http://www.landofwineandfood.com/

Tea is the new wine

If your idea of tea and food matching stops and starts with dunking a Digestive in a scalding mug of Tetley then a new exhibition may change that.

A small but informative exhibition on Chinese tea opens today (Weds) at Asia House in New Cavendish Street, London W1 at the start of a national tour (0207 7303 5454, £4). As well as tracing the 3,000 year-old history of tea there are displays of types of tea and exquisite porcelain tea sets.

A temporary outlet of Camden’s Chinalife tea mixology bar offers fresh brews to sample from its stock of more than 70 teas. Try jasmine tea with goji berries that plump up in the cup, popcorn tea, a green tea from Zhejiang province with roast brown rice, or a seasonal iced tea with jasmine, elderflower and mint. All go well with yam flour cookies.

“Tea is now rightly being treated like wine, with serious tea lists in hotels and restaurants that note harvests and vintage. Like wine the microclimate, soil, picking, processing and storage are all vital parts of the production of tea. It is a gourmet beverage that pairs well with all types of food,” says Don Mei, tea connoisseur and creative director of Chinalife (0207 307 5447).

For summertime, he recommends a chrysanthemum tea for its cooling and anti-inflammatory properties. Its delicate fragrant notes partner seafood dim sum or counteract the spiciness of fish with chilli.

The Tea Centre at Tregothnan in Cornwall offers a range of tea tastings and tutoring days (see previous blog; 01872 520000). Earl Grey and Cornish Yarg any one?

Britain's new breed of "bar chefs" mix seasonal cocktails

People are becoming better informed about eating seasonal food but it’s a trickier proposition to drink seasonally, especially where alcohol is concerned.

This is where the summer cocktail comes into its own and mixologists or “bar chefs” are shaking up the scene with ingredients sourced at farmers’ markets.

Drinks are being embellished with mint leaves and edible flowers and infused with elderflower essence and crushed strawberries. They look beautiful, taste even better and presumably leave a clearer eco-conscience than having opted for the cocktail that uses tinned lychees flown in from China.

London’s award-winning Canteen (0845 686 1122) restaurants have a new cocktail list created by drinks’ pioneer Tony Conigliaro. Its Great British Bar offers prosecco Bellinis made with seasonal purees such as strawberry, raspberry or apple with lavender. A Rhubarb Collins has been reworked to create a refreshing pre-dinner drink using gin and lemon with a twist of rhubarb, and the Twinkle is a champagne cocktail with a floral elderflower note.

Canteen’s head chef Cass Titcombe says: “You can experiment with all sorts of berries and homegrown herbs such as mint and basil. Whizz the ripe fruit and and a few torn leaves in the blender and add dry prosecco.”

When the Vyse Room opens at Stoke Place manor in Buckinghamshire (01753 534 790 ) next week its drinks’ list will feature seasonal punches (summer cup garnished with borage) and cocktails made using herbs and flowers grown in the Capability Brown designed grounds. A gooseberry and lemon thyme Bellini adds a citrus bite to picnic favourites such as smoked salmon sandwiches or barbecued mackerel, says Nick Strangeway, cocktail consultant at Stoke Place.

Get fresh wet and smoked fish from Steve Hatt in Islington (020 7226 3963) or from the fish counter downstairs at Wholefoods, in Kensington (0207 368 4500). Both buy from day boats and are committed to sutainable fishing.

A taste of Manchester's food scene

Historically, articles about eating out in Northern England written by London-based journalists have fallen into two categories. The first portrays it as grim up north and a decade behind London in culinary terms; while the second claims that no one eats out anyway for that would be an expensive diversion from the serious business of getting glammed up for a night of high-octane drinking.

It’s true you won’t find a Michelin starred establishment in Manchester city centre – the nearest was Juniper in Altrincham until that closed down last month. But according to Alison Seagrave, head chef at the Second Floor restaurant and brasserie at Harvey Nichols, in Exchange Square, there’s ample Michelin-star standard food to be had, some of it at sub-capital prices.

“Foodwise, Manchester used to be years behind London but we’ve caught up lately in terms of choice and reliable local suppliers. To win a star you have to set that as a goal. It’s judged on many different criteria from the service to the cooking and some of our dishes are Michelin star in all but name,” says Seagrave.

In her restaurant, the slow cooked fillet of Cheshire beef Rossini and the playful sweetshop inspired desserts explain why Seagrave was chosen as Chef of the Year at the 2007 Manchester Food and Drink Festival awards.

“Beef fillet always sells well, even if you serve it with weird ingredients,” she says. “But then so does our corned beef hash served with a fried egg and brown sauce. It’s comfort food basically.” Food to be scoffed not scoffed at.

On the brasserie menu at seven quid a pop is a mini hotpot served in a souffle dish and accompanied by finely shredded pickled red cabbage. It looks good and tastes even better.
“I’ll often have one of these for my tea,” says Seagrave.

She rates the new Michael Caines restaurant that opened at the ABode Manchester hotel on Piccadilly in March and the River Restaurant at the Lowry hotel in Salford – now under a new chef - in the same stellar category as her own restaurant.

Caines, who already holds two stars for his flagship Gidleigh Park in Devon, is on a mission to bring a Michelin star to Manchester. His contemporary British menu (best-end of Herdwick lamb and honey-roast Goosnargh duckling) features international touches (the slow poached sea bass comes with a Thai puree and lemongrass foam) and is keen on the best regional ingredients. A clever lunchtime grazing concept allows diners to taste three mini dishes from the a la carte menu for under a tenner.

According to Manchester’s most-read food and drink blogger Sarah Hartley (http://blogs.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/food/) the city doesn’t have big destination restaurants like London, partly because there’s not a sizeable over-50s spend at the weekend. The “Silver diners” prefer to eat out in the neighbourhood restaurants in leafy West Didsbury and Chorlton or further afield in Cheshire and Lancashire.

For more casual dining in town Sam’s Chophouse is a perennial favourite with its cosy basement glow and Great British seasonal menu.

For feel-good refuelling between shops and sights Love Saves the Day, a deli beneath a railway arch at the south end of Deansgate, lives up to the expectations of its flashing neon “sexy food” sign out front. On the menu are home-cooked meatballs, lamb shanks, salads, its own pickles and beer – a North West Fine Food winner last year – plus monthly tastings including, in May, artisan honey and vegetarian black pudding.

Local lunchtime institution Shlurp! is tucked away beneath an office block just off Albert Square. From a tiny canteen, its walls garlanded with awards and glowing reviews, it serves soups from gazpacho to thick mushy pea and lamb kofta with mint raita – Manchester in a bowl. And how’s this for a sandwich of the day? Fresh sardines roasted in garlic and olive oil.

Another lunchtime classic is This ‘n’ That on Soap Street in the trendy Northern Quarter whose “rice and three” (curries) is part of the local furniture as testified by its cult-like Facebook group. Fans swear it’s the best food for under a fiver in Britain.

The garish, student-crawling Curry Mile is part of Manchester’s culinary fabric but a bit of a lottery. Hartley recommends the Punjab for its interesting range of vegetarian dishes and its low-style old-school ambience. In Chinatown she opts for Red Chilli over Yang Sing for the adventurous Cantonese dishes on the a la carte menu.

Finally, for a pre-dinner drink take the exclusive lift to the 23rd floor of the Hilton at Deansgate. The lanky Beetham Tower that houses the hotel has its fair share of opponents but the views from the Cloud 23 bar are unparalleled and the cocktails pretty good. Try an Ena Sparkles as you seek out Coronation Street below.