Salad

Talk of nettles and most folk flinch, recalling run-ins in fields with shorts. The thought of eating or even harvesting them isn’t exactly met with exuberance. Like most things involving gardening, it draws an analogy with life, as I was once taught to “grasp the nettle”. If you aren’t committed and show fear by brushing them, they will sting; but if handled with confidence, the grasp will break the needle and you won’t be affected. Now I handle nettles without gloves in the kitchen. Hardcore.

When buying quinces, a few imperfections are a good sign that the fruit has experienced fewer chemicals and industrialised processes. Quinces, like apples, because of their varieties, have a fairly long season. By the time you work from the top of Victoria down to the foot of Tasmania, and through all the varieties, you should have almost three months of fresh fruit.

This recipe comes from the experience of standing in pintxos bars in the Basque country and eating cold seafood marinated in vinegar. There is something very hospitable about a bar top loaded with morsels of seasonal food. It’s up there with my favourite things about travelling to Spain: little bars overfilled with people and hospitableness.

The dehydrated beetroot in this salad is an attempt to achieve a chewy, gummy bear-like texture. I don’t own a dehydrator at home, so I turn my oven down really low and put the beetroot in for the afternoon. This does more than alter the texture: it also concentrates the flavour.

Traditionally, Brussels sprouts were boiled or steamed for an inexplicably long time. This gave them a grey tinge and a bad name. But then we started treating them with a bit of dignity and bacon, and life was good again.

One of the best ways to cook zucchinis is over coals. I usually split them down the middle and cook them on the cut side only. I cook them until they are al dente, if that term can apply to more than pasta. I season the cut side for 15 minutes before I put them on the coals, and then cook until they are golden. From there, they can be sliced and dressed with most vinegars and any manner of European herbs.