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May produce

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Beef Wellington

Beef Wellington

The defining British dinner-party showpiece, somewhere between French haute cuisine and English roast tradition, made famous in the modern era by Gordon Ramsay even if the Iron Duke himself probably never ate it. You sear a centre-cut beef fillet hard for colour, smear it with English mustard, wrap it in a tight blanket of mushroom duxelles and prosciutto, then encase the lot in all-butter puff pastry and roast at high heat. The pastry insulates the beef so it cooks gently to medium-rare while the crust crisps to deep mahogany above. The one technical trick the recipe insists on is drying the duxelles thoroughly so the pastry stays crisp underneath rather than going soggy from leaking mushroom water. Sliced at the table into thick rosy rounds, with a red-wine jus and roasted root vegetables on the side, the kind of plate that makes the evening feel like a special occasion before anyone says it.

British 1 hour 55 minutes Serves6
Bobotie

Bobotie

Bread is soaked in milk; mince is browned with onions; curry powder, turmeric and Cape Malay spices bloom. Apricot jam, mango chutney, vinegar and lemon balance the spice with sweet-sour notes. Raisins, toasted almonds and the soaked bread are folded through. The mixture is pressed into a baking dish; eggs are whisked with the leftover milk and poured over; bay leaves are stuck into the surface; the lot is baked until the topping is just-set with a faint wobble.

South African 1 hour 25 minutes Serves6
Pesto Babka

Pesto Babka

Babka - at its sweet best as the chocolate version - turns out to be a wonderful vehicle for savoury fillings. The dough is the same enriched milk-and-butter base: pillow-soft, gold-yellow, kneaded long until it pulls smooth. The filling here is pesto (basil or, in season, ramp/wild garlic) and a generous grating of sharp cheddar. The dough rolls into a long log, gets sliced lengthways down the middle so the cut sides face up, then twisted into a rope and curled into a wreath on the tray. Risen, egg-washed, baked. The cut faces of the twist open as it bakes, exposing layered green-and-yellow swirls.

Sides 4 hours 20 minutes Serves8
Sambousek Bil Lahm

Sambousek Bil Lahm

The meat-filled half-moon that sits next to the cheese version on every Levantine-Arabian table. You roll a soft butter-and-yogurt dough thin, stamp it into nine-centimetre rounds, and place a teaspoon of spiced lamb mince in the centre of each. The lamb is fragrant with baharat, onion, toasted pine nuts and a touch of pomegranate molasses that adds a sweet-sharp depth you can't quite place. The rounds fold into half-moons and crimp with a fork. From there they go either route: deep-fried at 170°C for three or four minutes per side, or baked at 200°C for eighteen to twenty minutes with an egg wash for shine. The pastry blisters lightly, the filling stays juicy. Eaten warm with a wedge of lemon, often as part of a meze spread alongside hummus, mutabbal, salata and warm flatbread.

Snacks 1 hour 55 minutes Serves6
Shish Barak

Shish Barak

A simple wheat-flour-and-water dough rests for 30 minutes. The filling: onion fries; lamb mince browns with baharat, allspice, cinnamon, salt and pepper; cooled. The dough rolls thin, cuts into 5 cm rounds; a small spoon of filling sits on each; folded in half to make a half-moon; the corners pinched together over the back to form a tiny tortellini. Lined up on a tray; baked for 12 minutes at 200°C to firm and lightly colour. A warm yogurt sauce simmers gently, thickened with cornstarch (or whisked egg white) so it doesn't split. The baked dumplings drop in and warm 5 minutes. Garlic-and-mint butter sizzles on top.

Palestinian 1 hour 30 minutes Serves4
Shish Barak

Shish Barak

The lamb filling fries with onion, allspice and a touch of cinnamon; the dough rolls thin, stamps into 4 cm rounds; each gets a small ball of filling, folds in half, then the two corners are pinched together into a tortellini shape. The dumplings bake at 200°C for 15 minutes to brown the tops. Whisked yogurt stabilises with cornflour and egg white, simmers gently with crushed garlic. The dumplings drop in for the last 5 minutes. Final flourish: sizzled garlic-mint butter.

Syria 2 hours Serves4