Yipee, asparagus season is upon us! I really love love love asparagus.

When I was growing up in Luxembourg, my mum would cook with asparagus every springtime. They were white asparagus, typically cooked with in northern Europe. She’d simply boil them and serve them with a creamy béchamel sauce and new potatoes. If there were any leftovers, she’d prepare a soup with them the next day.

Since moving to the UK, I discovered the delights that green asparagus have to offer. They’re slightly different from their white sisters – more intense in flavour, more ‘green’, and slightly bitterer. Green asparagus are perfect for grilling – just throw some on a hot griddle pan or on a BBQ, and let them release a smoky, chargrilled flavour that’s just amazing.

I still like the idea of making asparagus soup, so I decided to make one with green asparagus. I’ve added potatoes to create some texture, and made a few heavenly butter croutons to go with it. As always, there’s a dash of wine in my cooking (just adding a great dimension). If you prefer not to cook with wine, just substitute it for water or vegetable stock.

A heavenly springtime dish – ideal for the cold weather spell we’re experiencing in the UK at the moment.

Cream of Asparagus Soup

Serves 4

2 bunches of green asparagus
2 potatoes
1 onion
15g butter
100ml white wine
1 tbsp crême fraîche
2 tbsp chopped chives (optional)
2 tbsp toasted pine nuts

For the croutons:
4 slices of sourdough bread
40g butter

Wash the asparagus, cut around 4cm at the ends off and discard those hard ends. Cut the asparagus into 5 cm long slices.

Peel the potatoes and cut into cubes (around 3cm cubes).

Peel the onion, cut into cubes. Melt the butter in a pan and fry the onion for around 5 minutes, or until transluscent.

Put a pot of boiling water on the hob. Add 2 tsp of course cooking salt. Boil the asparagus and potatoes for about 10 minutes. Fish out 8 asparagus spears with a slotted spoon, put into a colander and cool down under a tap of running cold water. They’ll be used as decoration later.

Add the onion to the boiling potato and asparagus and keep cooking until the potatoes and asparagus are soft (about another 7 minutes).

Drain the vegetable cooking water until it’s the same level as the vegetables. Puree the vegetables in the water with a hand blender. Now, pour the thick soup through a fine sieve, so that you get rid of the asparagus fibres.

Put the sieved soup back on the hob, and add 100ml of white wine (or vegetable stock), season generously with salt and pepper and bring to a boil. Once the soup is boiling, turn off the heat, and add a tablespoon of crême fraîche. Keep warm while making the croutons.

To make the croutons: cut the bread slices into little 1cm cubes. Melt 40g butter in a frying pan, add the bread cubes and fry until golden. Sprinkle with sea salt flakes and pepper.

To serve, sprinkle some chopped chives, toasted pine nuts and croutons over your soup and enjoy.

Right guys, it’s salad time! After the EHEC/ecoli thread is finally over, Europe can let out a sigh of relief and devour raw vegetables again. Not that I ever stopped eating them. Here in Britain we were quite shielded from the whole outbreak – phew! Back at home in Luxembourg people were a bit more suspicious (or so I hear), so guys, it’s time to chuck out the soups and stews and celebrate the lovely “comeback” of salads!

Sceptics, brace yourself: this salad is awesome! Super duper mega awesome! You could actually forget you’re munching on raw veggies – that’s how great it is! I fed it to my dear friend E. – or Agent Orange as I call her (hint: she calls me wasaaaaabi… YouTube video geeks will get the reference) – and she loved it. To put it into context (and make it more dramatic): E. was starving, totally grinding her teeth when she arrived at mine to do some evening editing work. So I whipped up this colourful salad (with a bit of a bad consciounce – come on, this girl was starving, and you don’t serve salad leaves to a starving friend). Anyway, I put it in front of her and she totally loved it – so much that she whipped out her iPhone and started putting pics of it onto Facebook. Nice one.

Anyway, the magic of this salad lies all in the fact that it’s playing with textures, colours and degrees of temperature. First of all the onions are fried until they reach a state of translucent caramelized meltiness – lovely. Then, the quinoa is added whilst still lukewarm. Add some al dente broadbeans and edamame, some fresh lambs lettuce, tangy mint leaves and creamy goat’s cheese and sprinkle it all with toasted pine nuts (for some crrrrrrrunch). Then chuck over some great gremolata (vinaigrette) and dig in. Absolutely legen – wait for it – dary!

Quinoa and Broadbean Salad

Serves 2

50g broadbeans (fresh or frozen)
50g edamame beans
1 small knob of butter (1 tsp)
250g quinoa
500ml chicken stock (or vegetable)
1 tbsp pine nuts
1 red onion
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp sugar
2 handful lambs lettuce
a few springs of mint
a few springs of cress
100g welsh goat’s cheese (or any soft goat’s cheese)

Mint and basil gremolata

1 handful mint leaves
1 handful basil leaves
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp icing sugar
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp basil oil (or use some more olive oil)
Salt and pepper and a sprinkle of dried chili flakes

Cook the broadbeans for 5 minutes (or until softening up). Drain and hold under some cold running water until they’ve cooled down. Now shell each little bean: cut a little opening into the skin with your fingernail, then gently push the tender flesh out – try not to squeeze it too much, so that it doesn’t come out as mush. The little broad beans should ‘pop’out.

Cook the edamame beans for 5 minutes or until aldente. Drain and set aside.

In a saucepan melt the butter and add the quinoa. Briefly fry. Add the chicken stock and cook until soft (you might need to add a bit more water).

Dry-roast the pine nuts in a frying pan. Take off the heat, pour into a little bowl and set aside.

Cut the onion in half and cut into slices. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and fry the onions until translucent (about 5 mins), add the sugar and briefly caramelite. Set aside.

Make the gremolata: finely chop the mint and basil. Add the lemon juice, icing sugar, olive and basil oil and season with salt, pepper and chili if you like to add some heat.

Set the plates: Put a few spoonfuls of quinoa into the middle of the plate, sprinkle with broadbeans and edamame. Put some of the onions on top, decorate with lambs lettuce and mint, sprinkle with pine nuts and cress. In the end crumble some goats cheese over it all (or make quenelles like I did), and splash generously with gremolata. Voila.

Tip: To make this more substantial you can fry some pancetta until crispy and add to the salad – yum!

I’ve never been a fan of meatballs. The word alone sounds silly: meat – ball, I mean, come on, bring on some sophistication! Why not call it a “meatsphere” or a “meaty globe”? Ok, those sound silly too. But, it’s weird, aren’t they just the round equivalent of a burger pattie?! And still they’re so much less popular than their burger equivalent. Probably because they come without the bun. Instead, you sometimes find them in spaghetti – featuring in romantic meals (Lady and the Tramp) and being one of the flagship staples of Italo-Americans.

Anyway, I decided to give the good old meatball a go! But I decided to jazz it up a bit. A 21st century cool meatball, with lots of nice flavours fighting for your attention. These were inspired by Moroccan nights and Istanbul days, a play on two great places with even greater flavours: dried sour cherries, roasted pine nuts, mint and ras-el-hanout (- Morocco’s answer to curry powder, a very unique spice mix that comes in many, many versions). Amazing. Seriously, now I’m a meatball fan! Hopefully you will be too after you’ve tried these! ★

Moroccan Meatballs

Makes 12 golf-sized balls

500g lamb mince
1 onion, finely chopped
3 galic cloves, pressed or finely chopped
50g dried sour cherries, chopped
50g pine nuts
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp allspice
2 tsp ras-el-hanout
1 tsp ground cumin
1 egg-white
small bunch of mint, chopped
salt and pepper
olive oil to fry

In a large bowl mix together the lamb mince, onion, garlic and sour cherries.

Dry-roast the pine nuts in a frying pan and add to the lamb mix.

Add the spices, egg white, mint and season well.

Form the meat mix into golf-sized balls. At this stage you can put the meatballs in the fridge overnight, so that they absorb the flavours more, but you can also fry them immediately.

Heat 1 tbsp of olive oil in a pan and fry the meatballs for 10 mins on all sides or until nicely browned and cooked through. Serve with a dollop of yoghurt or sour cream.

Tip: you can freeze the meatballs once they’re cooked. Just take them out of the freezer on the day you want to eat them, let them fully thaw and quickly fry again in a pan with olive oil.

I sometimes wonder why Chicory is not more of a beloved vegetable. It certainly has got the potential to rival the likes of leeks and lettuce. I have a feeling that people are often put off by Chicory’s bitterness, unfortunately so. They don’t know what they’re missing!

When I was little we regularly had chicory – or chicon as I know it. Most often my mum would prepare a chicory and apple salad – the sweetness of the apple would perfectly balance the bitterness of the chicon.  On other occasions we’d have a chicon gratin, covered in a thick bechamel sauce with slices of cooked ham and handfuls of cheese on it. Heaven.

I’ve never really come across much chicory in the UK. But my little fruit and veg shop up the road can be trusted to always surprise me with delights I’d nearly forgotten about! So when I caught sight of some chicory heads my heart jumped with joy! All the delicious dishes I could make with them, my head started racing. I settled on variations of the two dishes I loved from home: I made a chicory and beetroot salad, which was absolutely great except for the fact that the chicon turned out bright pink once it touched the beetroot. I also decided to bake with the chicons, but I instead of making my mum’s cheesy gratin I wanted to add a crunchy pastry dimension to my chicons. The idea for a Tarte Tatin was born.

I don’t know what is going on with me at the moment or what my body is trying to tell me, but I’ve been eating a hell of a lot of feta lately! Feta with butternut squash, feta in a savoury baklava, feta with beetroot – it must be because it’s the perfect ingredient to combine with autumn flavours.

So when I designed this Tarte Tatin in my mind, I decided it would need some feta. You see, once the chicoree is baked, it fully loses its bitterness and turns buttery in flavour, almost comparable to cooked leeks. It’s astonishing how versatile this vegetable is! So I figured that the mellow flavour of the chicon could do with a slight punch, a cheesy punch, a feta punch!

Just a quick word about Tarte Tatins. I am well aware of a Tarte Tatin phobia existing in many households. I myself suffered from this condition for a long time. Until I discovered that it’s as easy as pie (literally). All you need is a round cake tin! Forget the heavy ovenproof pans (if you’re blessed with one, use it by all means!), just use what you have! You can prepare the base – caramel and caramelizing of the chicory – in a heavy-bottomed pan, and then just transfer the whole lot over into a round cake tin. Just make sure you catch most of the caramel, otherwise it turns out quite diappointingly uncaramelized. But for the rest, easy peasy!

Chicory Tarte Tatin with Feta

Serves 4

50g unsalted butter
1 onion
25g sugar
small bunch of fresh thyme (or 2 tbsp dried thyme)
3 chicory heads
100g feta
one handful toasted pine nuts
1 roll of ready-rolled puff pastry (or about 250g puff pastry that you roll out yourself)
2 tbsp honey

Preheat the oven to 200° celsius.

Finely chop the onion. Melt half of the butter in an ovenproof pan (around 22cm diameter), and gently fry the onion in it for about 10 minutes until transluscent. Remove the fried onion from the pan and set aside.

Now melt the remaining butter and evenly spread the sugar on the butter. Let the butter sugar mix caramelize for a few minutes on a medium temperature.

In the meantime, wash the chicory heads and cut them in halves.

As soon as the sugar has caramelized, sprinkle the thyme leaves over and top with the chicory halves (cut-side down). Let the chicory caramelize over a low heat for a few more minutes.

Remove from the heat and sprinkle the crumbled feta over the chicory. Top with toasted pine nuts and onions. Then drape the puff pastry over the chicory mix, tuck in the edges on the side and prick the pastry with a fork in a few places.

Bake for 30-35 minutes.

Once baked, take the pan out of the oven, turn onto a serving platter and sprinkle with runny honey, then decorate it with a bit of feta and some thyme. This goes really well with a rocket side salad.

This weekend it felt like summer in London. 26 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. Londoners, including me, could hardly believe their luck. After months and months of grim grey skies, the weather had finally decided to take a turn for the better! Parks filled with happy families, ice-cream vans playing their merry tunes and children running around with water pistols.

In London, sunny warm weather means picnic time. I got at least three invitations to join friends on their picnic blankets in the various parks. I love picnics, I really do. Sitting in the sun, drinking wine and nibbling on lots of little snacks, it’s great. I especially love picnics for all the great things that you can make to go into a picnic basket. Little finger sandwiches, homemade dips, fruity cakes and

Lately I’ve really gone for savoury cakes and quiches. Quiche is great whether it’s warm or cold. It’s just one of those baked goods that will always be a showstopper, but a very rustic one. That’s what I like. Good old rustic homemade food. And if it looks pretty, then that’s even better!

Right, over  to this courgette and Taleggio tart. Quite an intriguing combination, ey? Yes, I thought so too when I came across it in an issue of Delicious magazine. For those who don’t know it yet, I’m addicted to cookery magazines and cookery books. I read them during my lunchbreaks, on the tube and before going to sleep. It’s gotten out of control. But hey, at least my addiction tastes good, right?!

So, I was marked this recipe with one of my little yellow sticky notes, put it aside and rediscovered it last weekend when flicking through my stack of cookery magazines for inspiration. Taleggio.. hmmm, I wonder what that cheese tastes like. I love cheese and I love discovering new cheese. So this recipe was perfect to try out a new cheese variety.

I was quite surprised to find that Taleggio is a really mild cheese with a very round taste and a strong aftertaste. The first impression reminded me of a very creamy Saint d’Albray, but then the pungency hit me and it reminded me of some cheese I had when I was little at my grandparents. No idea what cheese that was. Maybe that was even Taleggio. Although, I doubt that. R. thought it tasted like blue cheese, which really surprised me. But on second thought, yes, the pungency definitely has some blue-cheeseness to it. Strange. But delicious.

So Taleggio, prosciutto and courgettes. Let me warn you, this quiche is quite salty. A bit too much for my taste. So for those who don’t like it too salty, let me recommend using a bit less cheese (say 150g) and cut down on the prosciutto. I have already cut down the amount of prosciutto from the original (which used 150g). Also, I found the recipe just too heavy, so I’d recommend swapping the creme fraiche for low fat one (something I never ever do, but in this case I would actually!).

For the rest, delicious. I found the whole flavour combinations very unusual, but surprisingly fitting. The courgette topping and basil (which I added to the original recipe) add a necessary freshness to the tart, balancing out the heavy heartiness of cheese and prosciutto. I like the polenta pastry, although it  crumbled quite a lot, but hey, once it was in the mold and reattached (by just squishing the various loose bits back together) it actually baked quite nicely and didn’t break when removing from the mold.

A lovely tart, which I would have loved to take along to this weekend’s picnics. Alas, it didn’t actually last – we had devoured it before leaving the house… ★

Courgette and Taleggio Tart with Polenta Pastry

Makes 1 tart for 8 people

For the pastry:

75g fine polenta
225g plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
150g cold unsalted butter
30g parmesan
1 egg yolk
a dash of water

For the filling:

1 red onion
1 garlic clove
1 red chili
85g parma ham or prosciutto slices
200g half-fat creme fraiche
2 egg yolks
1 handful of basil leaves
250g Taleggio cheese
2 courgettes
2 tbsp roasted pine nuts

Prepare the pastry. Rub together the flour, polenta, salt and butter until it resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in the parmesan and egg yolk and add a dash off water to bind the whole thing. I found it quite crumbly and not a very easily workable dough, so add enough water (4-5 tbsp water) to get it to form into a ball without falling apart.

Wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for 1 hour.

Meanwhile, prepare the filling. Chop the onion, chili and garlic. Fry the onion in a pan with a tbsp of oil. Once it becomes transluscent, add the garlic and chili and fry for another minute. Remove from the heat.

Preheat the oven to 180°.

Once your dough has chilled enough, take it out of the fridge and roll out the pastry on a floured surface. Mine broke quite a bit, so I ended up transferring rolled parts into my pastry tin and just joining the various parts together in the tin by pushing the dough to stick together. Whatever you decide to do, it will be fine in the end (no one will notice you didn’t roll it the Martha Steward way, seriously!). Prick some holes into the base with a fork and top with a small square of baking paper, then fill the case with baking beans (or I used dried kidney beans, they’re cheaper than the professional baking beans – oh and don’t confuse these hard clay beans with baked beans!). Blind bake the case for 10 minutes.

Remove the baking beans and spread a layer of the onion mix on top. Then tear the prosciutto into little pieces and sprinkle over the onion mix.

In a bowl, mix the creme fraiche, egg yolks and basil and pour over the prosciutto onion mix. Top off with slices of Taleggio. I kept the rind since it was very soft and mellow in taste, and I think that you don’t really need to discard it in this cheese’s cake, unless it’s turned hard and has some mould on it…

Bake the tart for about 40 minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare the courgette topping. Use a vegetable peeler to cut thin slices off the courgette. It works surprisingly well, just make sure to choose quite thin courgettes, otherwise your peeler gets stuck if they’re too wide. Once you’ve got your batch of courgette ‘ribbons’ toss them in some olive oil and add a dash of sea salt. Heat a griddle pan and grill the courgettes on each side for about a minute (or until you can see dark griddles shining through).

Once the tart is done, toss the lukewarm courgette ribbons over it and sprinkle some pine nuts to finish.

Voila. Enjoy!

I finally got a well-deserved break from all the stress in London. Oh what a joy to leave the city over Easter and swap it for the laid-back lifestyle of the South of France. Where food is part of the national culture, where runny cheeses melt away in front of your eyes, where tomatoes still taste of the real thing and where people do their shopping at the local market. Every time I’m in the South of France I really appreciate this relaxed joie de vivre. In fact, my whole stay just involved lying in the sun, walking along the beach promenades and eating. Lots of eating. The first stop: Cannes’ local market (Marché Forville).

Really, don’t you find that the nicest thing about going abroad is to go to the local markets? They say all about your holiday destination’s place: its people, its regional and seasonal food, its way of life, it all transmits itself to you while you wander around the busy market stalls.

The flower stalls made me feel like spring is finally here. All the beautiful colours and scents. Very nice

France really is a paradise for all things meat and cheese. So much to choose from, it’s hard to decide what to go home with in the end…

One of the absolute must-eats in the South of France are these little ‘ravioles’.  They’re really delicate tiny ravioli, either stuffed with cheese or meat. My favourite local restaurant serves them with a creamy pesto sauce. They’re really just toooooo good! So when I bought some at the market I decided to take some pictures of those little delicacies. I told the man serving me “J’adore les ravioles” (I love ravioles), whilst taking photos. And he just answered “Et les photos aussi.” (And you love taking pictures too). Very sweet that guy!

Amongst the numerous beautiful stalls was a busy merchant selling all things olive and olive-related. This is where we always buy olive tapenade to spread on our baguettes for lunch. Today, they also had some wonderful looking pesto, so we decided to get some and maybe add them to the ravioles for lunch. However, once we got home I had another idea. “Why don’t we make a cake? A pesto cake?” Et hop, un deux trois, a cake was made. Very simple. Very miam, like the French say.

Pesto Pine nut Cake

makes one loaf

180g flour
3 eggs
100ml milk
50ml olive oil
100g grated gruyère cheese (or mature cheddar)
3 tablespoons of pesto
2 tablespoons of pine nuts
2 teaspoons of baking powder

Preheat the oven to 180°

Roast the pine nuts in a pan until golden.

In a bowl mix the eggs with the olive oil, milk and pesto. Add the flour, baking powder, cheese and pine nuts. Season with pepper and some salt (I didn’t use any salt since my pesto was already very salty, but it depends on how yours is). Pour the batter into a buttered cake tin and bake for 50 mins.

Soooo easy, and soooo yummy!