Lengthening days and hints of Spring warmth

Lots of new items from Italy this week. Cime di Rapa, Pomegranates, Quince, Bergamot Lemons and my favourite, Puntarelle.

A delicious winter salad – Puntarelle or Cicoria de Catalogna has light green stems in a heart surrounded by leaves shaped like dandelions. This is a favourite dish in Rome where they blanch the initially bitter inner leaves in iced water before dressing with olive oil, garlic, anchovies and vinegar. It sounds slightly odd but is a perfect combination of sharp, savoury and clean flavours – perfect to refresh the jaded winter palate. An even odder sounding twist is to replace the acidity of the vinegar with a squeeze of juice from either a Seville oranges or one of the new Bergamot lemons we have in the shop – some kind of magic happens as the sharpness of the citrus works to mellow the bitterness of the Puntarelle leaves.

For those wanting to taste new flavours from closer to home, we have beautiful, pink forced rhubarb from Yorkshire or some incredibly early Wild Garlic leaves delivered to us from Cornwall.

We look forward to greeting you at the farm this weekend