July
Broad Beans
Tender young broad beans make the most delicious summer soups, purees and salads. Cook simply to maximise their fresh taste - perhaps roughly crushed with a hint of garlic, olive oil and lemon in a dip; or tossed into a mustardy green salad with a little crumbled Feta cheese. Broad beans are one of oldest of all our beans, recorded back to the stone age. Mystics believed that broad beans, if eaten before a birth ensured the birth of a baby son. And these kidney shaped beans were important enough to warrant the death sentence for their theft from open fields.(nice!)
In the past the broad bean was a staple food of the poor and often roasted and ground to make flour. The hard little bean offers such a robust flavour and is highly nutritious; full of phosphorous, vitamin A and C and is notably rich in protein. The pods should be pale green and feel soft and tender. The beans need to be eaten within a couple of days of picking and kept in a cold place otherwise the carbohydrates in the beans turn to sugar which in turn changes the flavour of the bean. They do however freeze very successfully if frozen soon after gathering, then shelled and placed flat on a tray.
Young beans can be cooked whole, rinsed and boiled for about 3minutes, but if older their skins become pretty tough and chewy so the best way to tackle this is to de-skin them – there is no quick method but its worth it – you can either blanch them and let them cool a little then simply squeeze them out of their skins or you can do this when they are raw but it’s a little more fiddly.
Gooseberries
Cooking gooseberries (as opposed to sweeter dessert varieties, which you can eat raw) are only around for a few weeks, but they freeze well and make excellent sweet pickles, jams and curds. They are scrumptious lightly poached in sugar and syrup and scattered into custard with floating islands of poached meringues, or pureed into a sorbet. Best of all, fold them into a whipped cream fool. 'Gooseberry' has been the common name for this plant in the English language from at least as far back as the 15th century. It is known that gooseberry preserve was favoured when serving a goose (no goose here though!). Perhaps an even earlier name, certainly used through the middle ages in some regions, was 'Feaberry' or 'Feverberry'.
The fruit had a reputation for its cooling property; an ability to control fevers. In the 18th century these cultivated members of the Ribes family were commonly referred to as bush trees, or frequently simply as trees. This name reflects that the plants were commonly pruned in a standard shape on a short trunk.
Recipe: Gooseberry and Raspberry Jelly
Peas
The English season for legumes starts in July. Peas, in particular, should be eaten as soon after purchase as possible for maximum sweetness. They taste wonderful, try cooking them with olive oil, shallots,a little wine, a good stock, bags of mint and lettuce, scattered with deep fried crispy halloumi A Pea is a plant grown chiefly for its round edible seeds, Peas are also used a lot in the feeding of livestock a good source of protein and vitamins A and C. Pea plants have vines with soft stems that measure 6 inches to 6 feet long. Most pea plants have white flowers. Some have reddish-purple blossoms. Pea plants bear pods that contain four to nine or more seeds .Several species comprising hundreds of varieties of herbaceous annual plants belonging to the family. Peas belong to a large family of plants called legumes, which produce pods. Other Legumes include beans, peanuts, and alfalfa.
Also in season
raspberries
tomatoes
watercress
strawberries
sage
cauliflower
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