‘Wee, sleekit, cow’rin tim’rous beastie’ can only mean one thing…it’s Burns Night this Thursday and the perfect excuse to celebrate the quality and variety of hardy UK winter roots available from our farms. Taking centre stage this week is the humble swede. Relative of the turnip but with a denser, darker flesh, our supply is coming from the Wasses in Yorkshire, Royal Oak in Ormskirk and Francis Sampson in Cornwall. We’re fans of the simple steam and mash method of cooking, but it is also delicious roasted; we urge you to give this side-lined root a whirl this week, they are tasting great.
Alongside the neeps we’ve a great selection of other roots too. Yellow and purple carrots from Royal Oak are sweet, juicy and vividly coloured; we’ve also got an impressive 14 varieties of potato passing through the building this week. The UK brassica selection remains full of vigour too, so plenty to choose from.
Although nothing like as bad as last year’s #courgettecrisis, we are seeing Spanish ratatouille prices taking a pretty significant leap upwards. Courgette and aubergine harvests have both been down due to poor weather and demand is high, expect scarcity for the next few weeks. Despite this, there’s some really beautiful and good value produce arriving from the continent; special mention must go to the Spanish fennel we’ve been seeing of late – clean and bright heads with the perfect anise crunch – raw or cooked they have a freshness which suggests spring is just around the corner…
