JULY: Seasonal foods and menu choice (From Worcester News)

JULY: Seasonal foods and menu choice

8:12am Friday 3rd July 2009 in

• Skip social links
• Print
• Email
• Comments(0)

July:

This month you will find cucumbers at their best as their skins are soft and the flesh is slightly perfumed and juicy. Victoria plums are great this month, and are nice halved, stoned, roasted in a little butter and brown sugar.

Foods for this month are:

Vegetables: Aspargus, advocado pears, Beetroots, Celery, Courgettes, Fennel, French Beans, Globe artichokes, horseradish,lettuce peppers, shallots, spinich, potatoes, corn on the cob, cabbages, broccoli, cucumber, watercress, garlic, kohlrabi, broad beans, chillies.

Meat: Chicken, lamb, duck, guinea fowl, quail, rabbit.

Fish: Brill, Cod, crab, sea bream, Clams, Haddock, Lobster, Prawns, Red Mullet, Salmon, scollops, Rainbow Trout, Dover sole, Herring, Halibut, Eels, sea bass, sea trout, mackerel, plaice.

Fruit: Apples, apricots, black currents, loganberries, plums, raspberries, red currents, strawberries, rhubarb, blackberries, melons, blueberries, tomatoes.

MENU

(Serves 4)

Starter : Lettuce Soup

Main: Noisettes of Lamb Shrewsbury, new potatoes, green beans, sweetcorn

Dessert: Clafoutis Limousin

Lettuce Soup

8 oz Lettuce
1 small Onion, chopped
1 ½ oz Butter
¾ pint of Milk
¾ pint Chicken Stock or vegetable stock
Salt and freshly ground pepper, caster sugar and grated nutmeg
1-2 egg yolks
2 tbspn single cream

Wash lettuce leaves, blanch in salted boiling water for 5 mins.
Drain, rinse under cold water. Chop the leaves. Peel and finely chop the onion. Melt butter in saucepan and fry the onion for 5 mins or until soft. Add lettuce shreds, setting a few aside. Pour the stock over the onions and lettuce and bring soup to boil. Season to taste with salt, fresh ground pepper, sugar and nutmeg.
Allow soup to cool slightly before liquidizing. Add milk to soup and reheat gently for 5 mins. Lightly beat together the egg yolks and cream. Spoon a little of the warmed soup (not boiling) into this and blend thoroughly. Pour the egg mixture into soup and simmer gently until soup thickens. Soup must not reach boiling point otherwise eggs will curdle. Just before you serve add a few of the lettuce shreds and crispy croutons.

Noisettes of Lamb Shrewsbury

8 to 12 noisettes of lamb
2 ½ oz unsalted butter
1 tbspn olive oil

For the sauce: 1 small carrot
1 small onion
2 sticks celery
1oz lean bacon
1 ½ butter
Lamb trimmings
1 oz plain flour
1 pint brown stock
½ pint of red wine
1 rounded dessert spoon tomato puree
1 sprig of rosemary
salt and black pepper
2-3 tbspn redcurrent jelly

Sauce – Scrape carrots, peel onion and clean celery and dice them all. Cut rind off bacon and chop the flesh in to small pieces. Blanch for about 5 mins.
Melt butter in large frying pan over a moderate heat. Fry the diced vegetables and bacon for 10 mins. Remove pan from heat. Stir in flour, return pan to a low heat and cook for a further 10 mins, stirring continuously until mixture is light brown. Remove pan from heat.
In a separate saucepan bring stock and wine to the boil then whisk into the vegetable mixture, stir in tomator puree and add some of the fresh rosemary.
Simmer sauce over a gentle heat for at least 2 hours, stirring occasionally. When sauce is thick enough to coat back of spoon remove from heat.
Strain sauce througha course sieve, Reheat about 30 mins before serving adding the redcurrent jelly until it has melted and season to taste.
Heat butter and oil in a heavy based frying pan and cook prepared noisettes over a moderate heat for 4-6 minutes on each side. They should be well browned on the outside and slightly pink on the inside.
Now serve the noisettes with the brown sauce poured over them and with fresh green beans, sweetcorn and new potatoes.

Clafoutis Limousin with raspberries

1lb raspberries
2 medium eggs
5 oz plain flour
salt
a few drops of vanilla extract
4 ½ oz caster sugar
¾ pint of milk
2 oz unsalted butter
1 tbspn dark rum (Optional)

Wash and drain fruit thoroughly. Beat eggs lightly together in a bowl, blend in the sifted flour,sugar, vanilla extract and pinch of salt before adding 3 oz of caster sugar.
Heat milk until luke warm then add to the egg mixture stirring continuously. Add rum at this point if you wish to.
Butter a round ovenproof dish 25cm(10 inch) Pour the batter into the dish, dot any spare butter in the mix, spread the black cherries, dust with sugar. Bake for 25-30 minutes. 425F (Mark 7).
When the dish is cooked the raspberries would of risen to the top and the batter would of set like custard. Sprinkle the pudding with the remaining sugar and serve warm.

(Alternatively you can used stoned plums, strawberries or blueberries)