“IF YOUR PULSES TAKE AN ABSOLUTE AGE TO COOK, THEY MAY HAVE BEEN LURKING RATHER TOO LONG IN THE CUPBOARD”

Cooking up a pot of pulses – in this case, chickpeas – is an absolute no-brainer if you’re wanting to get ahead with the building blocks for a few meals. And there’s the added bonus that any surplus pulses can be frozen in small quantities for quick fixes at a later date.

It’s a good idea to soak your chickpeas overnight if you remember: soaked pulses cook more quickly, soften more evenly and are more digestible than dried (once you’ve poured away the soaking liquid and started afresh). Don’t worry, all is not lost if you forget to soak before you go to bed – you can use the quick-soak method. Just cover the chickpeas with about 10cm water (they will eventually triple in size) and bring the pan up to the boil. Leave them to soak for 1 hour and then drain away the water.

Once ready to cook, pour the chickpeas into a large pan with some fresh water – I like to cover them by just about 5cm liquid at this stage so that the cooking stock is not too diluted, as I may use this starchy liquid (known as aquafaba) in another recipe. More on that later. Bring the pot up to the boil, cover, and then simmer for anything between 45 mins to 1 hour until cooked through, topping up with water if necessary, to keep the chickpeas submerged.

When preparing chickpeas specifically for hummus it’s worth continuing until their texture becomes really soft and creamy, if you want a silky-smooth result, but generally I prefer a slightly nutty bite. If your pulses take an absolute age to cook, they may have been lurking rather too long in the cupboard, but they will eventually soften up – just be patient. Adding half a teaspoon of baking soda is an option if your water is especially hard (it’s loaded with minerals such as magnesium and calcium, which strengthen the cell walls and hinder moisture absorption).

I tend to salt my chickpeas once cooked. It’s not that the salt will toughen your beans, that notion has been disproven, but I do sometimes use pulses in deserts and have no need for salt at all. Store the chickpeas in their own stock in a large pot in the fridge and use within five days.

How to use your cooked chickpeas

— Roast vegetables such as carrot, aubergine, red peppers, onions and potatoes with cumin, coriander and cinnamon, then add a spicy tomato sauce and chickpeas for the classic Turkish dish turlu turlu.

— Whizz up a simple hummus with garlic, extra virgin olive oil, tahini, lemon juice and seasoning. Jazz up the hummus by blitzing in roasted veg such as carrot, parsnip or beetroot, or inject some green with handfuls of fresh herbs.

— Add them to a bowl of long pasta such as linguine with plenty of extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice and zest, parsley, parmesan and black pepper.

— Fry chorizo with onion and then add a can of tomatoes and plenty of chickpeas for a super-quick supper. You could add spinach at the last minute, or even crack in a couple of eggs to poach/ steam in the pan with the lid on.

— A ladle of chickpeas will make any salad more substantial – perfect for lunch boxes.

— How about going Indian with a traditional chana chaat?

— Do try whisking up the aquafaba (the cooking water). You may have to boil the stock to reduce it down to a thick, gloopy, egg white consistency, but I usually find that it thickens up beautifully as the chickpeas sit in it in the fridge. The starchy stock will beat up to a frothy foam (admittedly it takes some serious beating – I’d definitely be thinking electric) which can be used as an egg replacer in meringues, cakes and even yorkshire pudding.

See Jenny’s recipe for chana chaat.

“I PERSONALLY THINK THIS IS A CRAFT THAT CAN’T BE LEARNED BY MOST PEOPLE – IT TAKES EXTREME DEXTERITY”

Interview & illustration: Ed Smith

The finest jamónes are those that fall under the four formally classified grades of jamón Ibérico, which is what we focus on at Brindisa. You’ll see a mass of legs hanging in our temperature-controlled chamber, with one or two of our skilled carvers each working on a leg throughout the day.

Jamón Ibérico is made from pigs that are native to the Iberian peninsula. Diet, breed and living conditions determine which grade of jamón their meat will be. Each leg that we import will have been aged between 18 months and four years. To do justice to the time, effort and knowledge needed to produce the meat, the carver has to be well skilled and have the best tools: a sharp, flexible knife, and a quality stand to hold the ham still.

The simplest and most traditional form of ham stand is basically just a clamp, which fixes a ham in place and allows you to carve without having to hold the meat steady. More sophisticated stands have an adjustable, rotating collar. This allows the carver to turn the ham through 360 degrees as they work, making both the preparation – trimming off the skin and fat – and the carving much easier. It allows the carver to be dexterous and skilled. It’s safer too, as they can always work at the optimum angle for their knife.

The stands we use at Borough Market also allow us to move the jamónes forward and back and from side to side, which means people of different heights can work in comfort. If they’re standing there for several hours, that’s really important.

It will take a skilled carver about two to two-and-a-half hours to carve a whole jamón. I personally think it’s a craft that can’t be learned by most – it takes extreme dexterity. And maybe there’s something of the art in it too. Certainly my Spanish colleagues think so – the best of them would say they feel a real connection with the meat.

Our guys are true experts. They carve the meat into beautifully thin slices and present them in intricate concentric circles while they work; it looks amazing and because it’s been sliced so skillfully, tastes incredible too. The better the meat is carved, the better it is to eat.

“THEY WASH THE CHEESES EVERY OTHER DAY FOR FOUR WEEKS, TURNING THEM FROM CREAMY WHITE TO SUNSET ORANGE”

It may be a small, unassuming rural village in Somerset, but Kelston – and the century-old dairy farm it is home to – has a couple of claims to fame. The first is as the home and burial place of Sir John Harington, godson of Queen Elizabeth I and inventor of the first flush toilet; the second is as the origin of a multiple award-winning range of cheeses.

Bath Soft Cheese is the name – both of the company and the eponymous cheese which was so renowned in the 18th and 19th centuries, it was recommended to Admiral Lord Nelson. The Padfield family have been making this and other cheeses here for four generations, so it comes as no surprise that they should want to reflect some of the area’s rich history in the cheeses.

One of the more recent additions to their stable is Merry Wyfe: a cider-washed version of their gouda-like, semi-hard cheese, Wyfe of Bath. Those familiar with Chaucer will recognise its name – so-called because the Padfields, the family behind the cheese, are a literary lot. “And, like the tale, when you cut into a Wyfe of Bath you will get a taste old England,” says Hugh Padfield. “It’s made in the same way farmers would have made simple cheeses with milk that wasn’t sold for drinking: by putting curds in a basket.”

“We’ve quite the team of cheesemakers here,” he continues, “and all of us like to experiment.” As a result, the number of test cheeses lurking around the ripening rooms had increased exponentially over the years. “One day I said to the staff, we need to be more focused – we need to decide on a new cheese and do it properly.”

After a heated tasting session, the team alighted upon the alluring pungency of a washed-rind cheese. “When you wash the rind, you aren’t washing off what is there. It’s about adding moisture and nutrients to the rind,” says Hugh patiently. It’s why washed-rind cheeses are so richly imbued with flavour: the washing encourages the growth of yeast and bacteria, lending the cheese its pungent smell and distinctive colour and texture.

Merry Wyfe was a while in the making: “We knew we wanted a washed-rind cheese, but wanted to experiment with the liquid,” he continues. “We are all about local provenance, so ideally we wanted to use something produced in the area.” In the end, the answer was on their doorstep: cider brewed by Hugh’s father, from the apples of the three ancient orchards on their farm. “Back in the day the apples would have been used to brew cider for local pubs, but they were just dropping to the floor and being eaten by the cows until dad started fermenting cider two or three years ago.” They had a few litres to work with “and we found it produced this beautiful colour and rich smell when combined with Wyfe of Bath.”

They wash the cheeses every other day for four weeks in the ripening room, transforming them from creamy white to sunset orange. “It’s very labour-intensive, but it tastes great,” Hugh continues. Merry Wyfe has even won a couple of awards, including Best Organic Cheese at the recent British Cheese Awards – “but what we’re most proud of is its consistency. Awards come and go, but it is something to build up regular customers for a consistently good cheese.”

The name also took some developing. “It was one of the farm workers that suggested Merry Wyfe – ‘the Wyfe of Bath has been soaked in cider, hasn’t she, so she’s tipsy,’ he pointed out.” At the same time, Hugh’s friend told him about Queen Elizabeth I’s visit to Kelston in the 16th century. “I thought we might be able to have an Elizabethan reference in the name of the cheese.”

Given the context, Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor stuck out immediately. “I will rather trust a Fleming with my butter, Parson Hugh the Welshman with my cheese, an Irishman with my aqua vitae bottle, or a thief to walk my ambling gelding, than my wife with herself,” quotes Hugh, laughing. “It all tied together: the cider, Kelston village, our love of literature” – and, of course, their cheese.

“GENERATIONS OF BRITISH CHILDREN WERE ONCE GIVEN A SHRIMPING NET AS SOON AS THEY ARRIVED AT THE SEASIDE”

As the summer heat cranks up, Londoners often turn their thoughts to the seaside. Scrunched up and wilting in a sultry train, the idea of sauntering along a beach, exploring rock pools and dashing into the sea becomes irresistible. Most of us, however, cannot easily escape the city’s baking hot streets, so we have to find other ways of conjuring up the seashore.

Indulging in piles of some sweet-fleshed crustacean, such as tiny brown shrimp or succulent pink prawns, is a good start. Picnic on potted shrimp and crusty bread or kick off your shoes and dip some cold prawns into a pot of home-made mayonnaise as you sip a chilled beer or white wine – it will make your toes wriggle in delight. By setting their table by an open window and serving chilled gazpacho garnished with delicate ozone-flavoured langoustine, apartment-dwellers will be able to imagine a salty breeze drifting on the night air as the sea gulls swoop and cry from their London chimney pots.

Curiously, in our food-obsessed culture, few of us give much thought to the source of such delicacies as brown shrimp, prawns and langoustine. Yet, generations of British children were once given a shrimping net with their mandatory bucket and spade as soon as they arrived at the seaside. Countless happy hours were spent dipping it into rock pools trying to catch the colourless common prawn (Palaemon serratus), which would shoot away from the stealthy net.

During the summer months, this prawn can be found in great numbers inshore around the British Isles, although few are now sold in the UK. As winter approaches, they move out into deeper waters where they walk along the seabed in search of algae and other treats.

Most of the cooked prawns sold in Britain are Northern deep-water prawns (Pandalus borealis), which are caught in the icy waters of Norway, Greenland and North America. It is these that find themselves in sandwiches, classic prawn cocktails (best when the pink mayonnaise is seasoned with a dash of brandy) and simple rice salads, dressed with mayonnaise and chives and mixed with diced cucumber, radishes and fresh button mushrooms.

For many families, no trip to the seaside is complete without a quayside stroll to eat some scampi and chips. In reality, these cheeky little nuggets of pink-fleshed scampi are Nephrops norvegicus, known in more expensive restaurants by their French (as opposed to Italian) name of langoustine. These were once sold as Dublin Bay prawns or Norway lobsters and were discarded as a by-catch by British fisherman.

Langoustine belong to the lobster family and despite their pretty coral pink colour, live in muddy burrows, hunting for worms and small fish by night. They are found around the British Isles, although the majority are caught in Scottish waters, the finest being sustainably fished by creel, as opposed to the more destructive dredging. The creel baskets are left on the seabed for the langoustine to take up residence. They tend to be sold alive or very lightly blanched.

Their bodies have a delicate, sweet flavour that is gorgeous eaten cold with cucumber mayonnaise or tossed into the simplest of tomato sauces with pasta. Their shells make a superb seafood soup or broth.

Nor should Londoners forget crayfish – a form of fresh-water lobster that tastes equally exquisite. They are a summer delicacy and, should you buy signal crayfish (Pacifastacus leniusculus), you will also be helping keep down the numbers of this invasive and voracious American species in our rivers. They are particularly good plainly boiled and accompanied by beer and schnapps. Allow at least 500g per person, as most of the meat is in their tails.

For many years, another seaside indulgence was snacking on a bag of brown shrimp. In Jane Grigson’s Fish Book (1973), she recounts “a rare food pleasure I remember from the war years was walking along Morecambe Bay with my sister, each of us with a bag of shrimps. They were small and brown, the best kind. We chewed them without bothering to peel all of them. Something of their vivid sweetness came through in potted shrimps when they went on sale again as food became easier.”

Many cooks today might squeal at the thought that, as they splashed in the sea, they were literally stepping on the underwater world of Crangon crangon, otherwise known as the brown shrimp. During daylight hours, this small five to six centimetres-long, short-legged crustacean hides beneath the sand or mud to prevent discerning fish devouring it. Only one antenna betrays its presence. As darkness falls, it swims out in search of food, feasting on dead marine animals, organic matter, algae and fish eggs. Strange that such a useful waste disposer should taste so delicious.

Morecambe Bay remains a brown shrimp stronghold today, along with parts of the East Anglian and Welsh coasts. The shrimp are harvested from March until the first week in June and then again from September until the first week of December. All are quickly frozen, hence their sale throughout the year.

Traditionally, these were thought to be the sweetest of shrimps. They taste exquisite potted in spiced butter, eaten in sandwiches and turned into sauces to accompany white fish such as turbot, cod and brill. Twist off their heads and shells (reserving their flesh) and simmer briefly in water before liquidising and straining through muslin. This intensely flavoured liquid can then be whisked into a rich roux-based cream, marsala and tomato sauce. Add their flesh just before serving.

Today, we can eat prawns from around the world, as all are quickly frozen on harvesting, whether they’re farmed or wild. In Britain, large prawns tend to be favoured over small ones, making wild Madagascan prawns, red tiger prawns and wild black tiger prawns all popular.

However, it is the deep red cardinal or carabineros prawns (Plesiopenaeus edwardsianus) that are currently regarded as among the sweetest and most intense in flavour. Beloved in Spain and Portugal, they stretch across the east Atlantic from Portugal to South Africa. They are worth savouring plainly grilled with lemon, but can, of course, be added to risottos, paellas, pastas and seafood salads.

Truth be told, you will find escapist happiness in eating any type of crustacea – no matter where you happen to be at the time – they just taste so good!

“YOU’LL SEE RECIPES USING COFFEE GRINDS IN RUBS FOR DEEP SOUTH-STYLE MEATS OR IN BRAISING LIQUORS AND BRINES”

Image: Regula Ysewijn

Coffee doesn’t get the respect it deserves. So often, it’s in our consciousness because of its role as a stimulant, rather than its potential as an ingredient. If I had a coffee bean for every time I heard or read “I can’t do anything before my first coffee” or a variant on that theme, well, I’d be in beans for the rest of my life.

As it happens, my store cupboards are usually well appointed with coffee. By and large that’s to suit my morning ritual, but those beans also have a place in my kitchen as a way of adding flavour to food. There are, of course, a few classic dishes that require coffee: tiramisu, mocha-style coffee and chocolate pots, coffee ice cream. But the modern home cook can think beyond those. Coffee is superb as either the star or supporting act in anything frozen (ice cream, sorbet, lollies, granita), anything chocolatey and cakey (tarts, brownies, fondants, cupcakes, layer cakes, sponges), and anything involving cream or dairy (panna cotta, flavoured creams and butters to go with or on top of the aforementioned cakey things).

There are also some unconventional but surprisingly pleasing matches. Niki Segnit, author of The Flavour Thesaurus, pitches coffee with blackcurrant, cherry and orange – blood, burnt or marmaladed. And you shouldn’t be surprised to see recipes using coffee grinds in rubs for Deep South-style meats (for pork ribs, chops or butts; beef brisket or steak), often in the company of things like paprika and chilli, or in braising liquors and brines. Here, the coffee tends to offer a savoury background note, adding a richness that’s not necessarily noticeable until it’s pointed out. Similar to how you might add Marmite or soy sauce to a stew or marinade – it’s there, it makes the dish better, but it doesn’t (or shouldn’t) dominate.

To my mind ‘coffee’ is a flavour that food writers and recipe developers need to be more specific about. In sweet dishes in particular, where they’re a key flavour, the coffee used by the home cook is likely to be vital to the success of the dish – what, specifically, should the user of the recipe be looking for? Is the coffee instant, espresso-based or filter brewed? What are the characteristics of the beans that the writer used? Where in the world are they from? How were they roasted? We write ‘milk’ or ‘dark’ chocolate (at the very least); ‘dry’ or ‘off-dry’ white wine. We should be more specific about coffee types, too. To be honest, we could be even more specific on the chocolate and wine fronts as well.

At Borough Market you can see, smell and taste variances in coffee first hand – go to the front counter at Monmouth Coffee, for example, where there are big buckets of beans from Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Nicaragua and beyond. A few moments choosing beans there is time well spent – if you find yourself a fan of their Costa Rican beans, you’ll probably discover that beans from that country always hit the spot. That said, different coffee beans grown within the same country will have different characteristics – like grapes, coffee berries and the resultant beans vary dramatically dependent on variety, terroir, altitude and climate.

I have recently been working my way through beans roasted by The Colombian Coffee Company. All their beans are from the same country (a clue is in the name), but they sell a number of different varieties, each grown on different soils and at different altitudes. Typica – with honey and caramel notes – would be perfect as the flavouring for a panna cotta or ice cream. The borbón is strong, forthright, a little bit chocolatey, and ideal in a cake. Caturra and yellow caturra (my favourite) are acidic, almost tart, with hints of things like grapefruit and passionfruit – spot on, in my opinion, for a filter-style coffee, served black, or indeed for an iced dish; something pure and unsullied by chocolate or cake crumb. Try using these beans in a granita (effectively the ultimate iced coffee), piled on top of light and voluminous coffee cream, itself piled on top of whichever Borough Market brownie you like the most.

“OLIVES PICKED AND PRESSED EARLY IN THE HARVEST ARE GREENER IN COLOUR AND THEIR OIL IS FRESHER AND GRASSIER”

Image: Regula Ysewijn

“Finish with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil”, like “season with salt and pepper”, is one of those throwaway lines we see at the end of a recipe so often that we barely take it in. And while the instruction is a clear one, it also horrifically undersells this vital action: good extra virgin olive oil is not an optional seasoning; it’s a crucial ingredient that can have a disproportionately positive effect on a dish. Oh, and more often than not you need a ‘glug’, not a ‘drizzle’.

By my count there are around 40 different pure, cold-pressed extra virgin olive oils available at Borough Market (not including the flavoured ones). There are bottles and tins from Greece, oils from Umbria, from Calabria, from the north and south of Spain and from Croatia, too. Some are blended, some are unfiltered, some come from a single variety of olives, some are extracted from olives from just one small orchard. All of them really taste of something. Here is an incredible natural ingredient that can add depth, structure, aroma and spice to your food.

But what is that taste? It’s actually quite hard to usefully express the character and flavour of extra virgin olive oil. There are plenty of adjectives bandied around: ‘assertive’, ‘rounded’, ‘fruity’, ‘spicy’, ‘olivey’. Do those help? By my reckoning, the quality of an oil comes back to two core characteristics – ‘peppery’ and ‘grassy’ – and, specifically, when those notes hit and for how long they persist.

The peppery hit of an extra virgin olive oil can be really quite aggressive and sometimes fairly astringent, depending on the olive variety but also when those olives were harvested; early, less ripe olives produce more peppery oils. It’s all down to levels of oleocanthal, a compound that’s responsible for the burn, but also olive oil’s famed anti-inflammatories and antioxidants. These qualities will fade in the bottle over time, and also through exposure to warmth and sunlight – a good reason to use your oil liberally.

As well as having that astringency, olives picked and pressed early in the harvest are greener in colour and their oil is fresher and grassier in flavour than those that ripen on the tree. This is because those qualities are largely due to the levels of chlorophyl in the olives when the oil is extracted, and chlorophyl content decreases as olives get riper.

You can imagine, I’m sure, the myriad factors involved in all of this. However, it is relevant to note that all extra virgin olive oil comes from the first pressing of a fruit, and the temperature of the oil through that process must not exceed 27C. To do so would mean it couldn’t be called ‘cold-pressed’. The higher the temperature, the more flavour and character is removed. I highly recommend trying Oliveology’s oils extracted at 17C, 18C and 22C to taste this for yourself.

So how and when to use it? Well: on cooked meats and fish, on risottos and pasta, on soups, soft cheese and charcuterie, too. Oh, and also on vegetables, green ones in particular, particularly if they’ve been grilled, charred or barbecued; though boiled, steamed and raw enjoy a slick of oil as well.

You know this already, I think. Did you also know about adding extra virgin olive oil and a few flakes of salt to a morning bowl of Greek yoghurt with seeds or granola? Try it. Also, over good vanilla or chocolate ice cream, not to mention bitter chocolate tarts and mousses…

The point I want to make is that it’s really worth (a) finding an extra virgin olive oil that you enjoy, and then (b) using it with abandon. If ever you wonder whether that steak or pork chop or piece of cod or mound of vegetables might benefit from some oil, the answer is: “Of course, what are you waiting for?” Yes, some oils feel expensive, but even when poured liberally they go a long way. Celebrate the flavour and viscosity of an extra virgin olive oil puddle. It’ll bring the dish together and make it better, too. As ever, the best thing to do is to use Borough Market’s setting to your advantage: walk a few steps to taste oils from around the world, ask questions, taste again and settle on one. Then splash it, pour it, glug it. Before returning to try, buy and use more.

“I HATED TOMATOES: THE WAY THEY LEAK THEIR COLD GUTS ACROSS YOUR PALATE LIKE SOME LONG-DEAD SEA CREATURE”

Image: John Holdship

Like many of my gender, I have a well-defined and confidently expressed position on pretty much everything, and I hate it when anything messes with that. For example, my stance on musicals was always clear: I loathed them. All either turgid melodramas or banal comedies, with the slightest hint of narrative drive punctured by the kind of terrible songs that Louis Walsh probably likes. Of course, I’d never actually seen a musical, but that was beside the point.

Then I was made to watch Jane Horrocks in Annie Get Your Gun and it was, of course, amazing. A few weeks later, I went to see Matilda and that was great too – and that even had performing children in it. Now I don’t know what to think.

The same thing has recently happened with tomatoes. All my life, I hated them. Cooked, they’re fine, but raw they leak their cold, insipid, jellified guts across your palate like some long-dead sea creature. I dragged them from sandwiches and sifted through salads with my lips pursed.

Then, on a hot day in Italy, I ate an insalata caprese – slices of firm, slightly green tomatoes, treading that line between sweet and acidic, a sprinkle of salt drawing out their juices, which coated the rough hunks of mozzarella and sparked against the small, intense basil leaves – and discovered to my horror that I actually love tomatoes. Or at least some tomatoes.

Force me to eat a fridge-cold supermarket tomato, picked in its infancy and ripened using ethylene gas, and I’ll hate it as much as I’d doubtless still hate Cats or that Queen musical. But offer me a meaty marmonde or a tangy green tiger, grown in summer sunshine on the Isle of Wight and picked yesterday at the absolute peak of its ripeness and I’ll reluctantly accept that on the subject of the tomato, my previous position was (and I really don’t say this lightly) not 100 per cent correct. Damn them all.

“CHEWY HONEYCOMB MELTS TO A SPREADABLE CONSISTENCY WHEN SMEARED MESSILY ON HOT CRUMPETS OR CROISSANTS”

Image: Joseph Fox

Devon flower honeycomb

The waxy, cratered ‘shelf’ in which the bees store their honey is an edible delight in itself: naturally chewy, but melts to a spreadable consistency when smeared messily on hot crumpets or croissants. This one from From Field and Flower comes filled with delicately lemony honey from South Molton, Devon, courtesy of the Wallace family, who make sure to leave the bees enough honeycomb to prevent them being bereft over winter.

Lavender honey

Croatia has both a rich history of honey production and an abundance of lavender – it made sense, then, to combine the two. Acacia honey is infused with the scented purple blooms to create a light, floral honey that works perfectly either stirred into chamomile tea or paired with kozlar, a goat’s cheese soaked in olive skins, the slight bitterness of which acts as the perfect foil for the sweetness of the honey. You’ll find both at Taste Croatia.

Propolis

For bees, propolis is the glue that holds the hive together, quite literally. For humans, its natural antiseptic properties make it a useful cleanser, healer and moisturiser all in one. De Calabria’s comes from organic agriculture farmers Doris and Pasquale, who use beekeeping as a way of naturally pollinating their fields. Their honey and propolis are a happily sustainable biproduct.

Wax wrap

We all know the problem with single use plastic, but it’s not always easy to find alternatives. You can dispense with clingfilm, sure, but then what to use? Borough Market has teamed up with Bermondsey Street Bees to solve that problem. These wraps, now available at The Borough Market Store, are made using 100 per cent cotton, infused with beeswax and natural oils – making them slightly sticky, washable, and safely compostable.

Bee pollen

To make just one small globule of pollen, bees have to visit around 1,500 flowers – but they (and we) are rewarded for their hard work with an excellent source of protein. Oliveology’s pollen is collected by honeybees from the forests and flora of northern Greece, before being carefully dried until powdery in texture. Melt it into cold milk, juice or smoothies, or simply scatter on yoghurt for texture.

“TURMERIC IS A SPICE THAT HAS BEEN UTILISED BY BRITISH COOKS FOR CENTURIES, MOST NOTABLY IN PRESERVES ALONGSIDE MUSTARD”

Image: Ed Smith

These three spices – a triptych of related roots – evoke memories of food from south-east Asia and the Indian sub-continent. Which should be no surprise, as they’re native to those lands. Yet ginger (in particular), turmeric (in part), and galangal (just a bit) get used in western cooking, too, which reflects the fact that they have been traded for as long as any other spice – galangal even gets a mention by Chaucer.

When researching this piece, it became clear that many of the ‘authentic’ eastern recipes that use these three spices use them in their raw or ‘fresh’ form. However, for the purposes of this column, we’re more interested in what happens when we use them once dried. In fact, the recipes and techniques that involve dried and ground turmeric, ginger and galangal are actually more likely to be well-established western ones; conceivably because once the spice had travelled across oceans, the roots were no longer ‘fresh’, and were actually best if already boiled, baked, dried and later on ground.

As always, ground spices keep for six to 12 months in an airtight container before they start to lose potency (of flavour, if not colour).

Turmeric

Due to its yellow colour and belligerent staining ability, turmeric is sometimes known as ‘Indian saffron’ or ‘false saffron’. Yet it has nothing to do with the stamens of the crocus flower. In fact, the ground turmeric powder you have at the back of your spice cupboard derives from a root in the ginger family, mostly grown in south Asia.

As with ginger, it is possible to find turmeric roots in fresh form. Masses of turmeric roots (rhizomes) are harvested around 10 months after being planted. The finger-sized stubs that are collected are boiled then baked until dry, and (generally) ground into the powder you’re familiar with.

The taste is a fairly bitter, near acrid one, though it is also quite mild and tends to be used alongside other spices to add a layer of flavour to a savoury dish, rather than act as the star as things like cumin, fennel seed and black peppercorns might.

Turmeric can be purchased in dried root form – Spice Mountain advises grating it like nutmeg. If you plan to use a fair quantity of it, it’s best to buy when already a powder.

Ginger

Like turmeric, ginger is a flowering plant whose pungent roots (rhizomes) are harvested and used the world over to flavour foods. The plant is thought to originate from the Indian sub-continent, but it’s been farmed across the world for centuries and is vital to multiple cuisines. It is, of course, often used fresh, where its piquant, fiery, near sour-citrus yet soothing flavour is unmistakable.

Young ‘stem’ ginger, candied before it becomes fibrous, is popular too. Dried ginger is processed in the same way as turmeric, and is particularly well used in spice mixes, curry powders and in baking. It’s possible that its tongue-tickling heat is intensified when dried and ground, and it certainly provides a warming background whenever it’s used.

Again, ginger can be purchased in dried root form – again, Spice Mountain advises grating it, but you will find it more practical in pre-ground form.

Galangal

Galangal is also a plant in the ginger family, and the flavoursome part, again, come from the mass of rhizomes that grow under the ground. It is paler and woodier than the ginger root you’re well accustomed to (almost ivory-like), and again is boiled and then baked before being ground (if not used in raw form).

Technically there are two main types of galangal: ‘greater’ galangal from Indonesia and Laos, and ‘lesser’ from south China. The Laos variety is most common over here and, indeed, its peppery, citrusy, piney flavour is something we associate with south-east Asian cooking: Thai, Indonesian, Vietnamese and, of course, Laotian.

Most Western interpretations of recipes incorporating galangal suggest it in raw form. To be honest it is best like this, though you could use dried roots or ground galangal as a substitute which, unless your home cooking is regularly pointed at south Asian cookbooks, also means you can have the flavour in your cupboard for the rare occasions you require it. It’s a tricky one to grate or grind, so you may want to buy it pre-ground. It’s often a flavouring for coconut-based soups and stews – you could try to add the dried root and hope the liquid helps to reconstitute it, releasing the flavours while that happens.

Culinary uses

Turmeric is used in a variety of cuisines, though notably those of India, Kashmir and Pakistan. It’s almost certainly not the nailed on super food that health gurus would have you believe; though it’s not bad for you either. Still, its reputation does mean that the use of this spice has had something of a renaissance in recent years.

Ingredients that enjoy turmeric include eggs (scrambled and omelettes), haddock and rice (think kedgeree), lentils (dal), carrots and cauliflower.

It’s a spice that has been utilised by British cooks for centuries, most notably in preserves alongside mustard seeds – perhaps for colour as much as flavour – and as a key component of curry powder. Piccalilli is one thing that immediately comes to mind. See also coronation chicken.

Contemporary recipes featuring turmeric generally seem to be in liquid form: turmeric lattes, turmeric smoothies, turmeric chai. It’s also regularly a required spice when making your own curry pastes.

Dried ginger pairs well with a number of different ingredients. The first that spring to mind are pumpkin and butternut squash. I like to add pinches and teaspoons of ground ginger to pumpkin soups, any pumpkin-based stew (whether curry or tagine), when roasting squash on their own, and also when making into a sweet pumpkin pie too – along with cinnamon, ginger is one of the sweet spices.

On which note, ground ginger is often used in sweet, baked treats, both in Indian and western cuisine. British gingerbread men and German lebkuchen being two key examples. Think, also, of steamed suet puddings and ginger cake, and old English spiced dried fruit puddings, which more often than not have a hint of ground ginger in them.

Dried ginger is also fantastic when sprinkled on fresh mango or melon. It adds a certain piquancy and tang. The flavour matches well with rhubarb too – add a pinch to the sticks just before you stew.

Galangal has a tart, zingy and peppery flavour, associated with south-east Asian cooking, and particularly fish dishes – whether a dry or wet curry – or to spice up a fresh green papaya salad.

Dried galangal roots or powder can be used to bump up a coconut-based soup, curry or minced pork or beef laap – it’s certainly better than not using it at all, particularly if you’re after an authentic taste of Laotian, Thai, Malaysian or Indonesian cooking.

Recipes to look out for

— The classic Thai recipe using galangal is tom kha gai: poached chicken, squash, coconut and galangal soup. As with most recipes, really it’s fresh galangal that you’re after. But dare I say it, you could substitute that with dried root – whole or a good pinch or two – in someone like Sebby Holmes’ instructions in Cook Thai.

— Look to Justin Gellatly (of Bread Ahead)’s Bread, Cake, Doughnut, Pudding, for things like ginger snaps, ginger and clementine pudding and ginger cake. 

— Consider Jessica Seaton’s gingerbread in Gather Cook Feast, which she serves with Gorwydd Caerphilly cheese – available at the Market, of course. Sticky, punchy, treacle enriched ginger bread paired with chalky, mild, mushroomy caerphilly. Sounds wonderful.

— Mrs Beeton’s ginger-spiked tomato sauce, mentioned in Niki Segnit’s The Flavour Thesaurus, would be nothing without the fiery spice.

— Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich’s Honey & Co: the baking book has a fantastic pear, ginger and olive oil cake. Worth a bake.

— Anna Jones’ books A Modern Way to Cook and A Modern Way to Eat are big on turmeric. She’s the one to turn to for turmeric-based drinks, but also things like curry leaf and smoky celeriac, and avocado fritters served with a hollandaise turned bright yellow by the spice.

— Head to Packer and Srulovich again for the turmeric cauliflower pickle in Honey & Co: Food from the Middle East.

Market spice heroes

Look out for Bread Ahead’s ginger cake – which tops up stem ginger and syrup, with a fair pile of the ground stuff too.

See Ed’s recipe for mango, coconut, turmeric & ginger ices.

“WHAT MAKES THESE SHEEP PARTICULARLY SPECIAL IS THAT THEY’RE A RARE BREED, INDIGENOUS TO THE AREA”

It’s 10am in Borough Market and Brindisa employee Stuart Green is describing one of his favourite products. “There’s a fudginess to it, with honey, almond – even vanilla notes,” he enthuses. “It has a caramelly, almost white chocolate taste,” his colleague Hugh excitedly chips in. Naturally, anyone listening in would imagine they’re discussing the torta de Santiago, or some rich and squidgy turron – yet Stuart and Hugh are cheesemongers, and the object of their passion in this case is neither cake nor biscuit, but Payoyo de Oveja: a rare, semi-hard and fully flavoursome ewe’s milk cheese.

“Even the Spanish can struggle to find it, it’s so rare,” says Stuart. Similar in its style of production to a manchego, it’s made in the mountains of the Sierra de Grazalema, Andalucia: “An alpine valley, with exceptionally high levels of rainfall.” The result is an abundance of herbs, wild grasses and flowers which, if you’re a sheep, constitute a perfect meal.

For any cheese, this is a good sign: the richer the diet, the better the milk will be – but what makes this breed of sheep particularly special is that it’s a rare breed, indigenous to the area. They’ve been here thousands of years, and play a vital role in the local ecosystem (their grazing maintains the land and prevents forest fires) and the community. “Most breeds of sheep are bred for meat, wool or milk. Grazalema sheep are a good source of all them,” says Stuart. Indeed, between the 17th and 19th centuries, Grazalema was one of Spain’s main sources of wool.

By the late 20th century, however, the breed was registered as endangered and put on the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity list. Establishing their Payoyo dairy in 1995, Andalusians Andrés Piña and Carlos Ríos set out to preserve both the area’s historic cheesemaking methods, and its imperilled livestock. “They wanted to make cheese in the traditional, artisan way,” says Stuart, “and this was a good way of also supporting the breed.” 

Though the yield is low, the quality of milk Grazalema ewes produce is beyond compare, thanks to the high, fertile pastures. Using the same methods employed by shepherds and goatherds through the centuries, the rennet is made and poured into moulds by hand, and the curds gently pressed: more gently than they are with manchego, making for a crumblier texture. The rind is then covered with a mixture of pork lard and wheatgerm: a local grain heralded here as a ‘health food’, but which at the Payoyo dairy is a nod to the cheesemaking of yesteryear.

Back then, the making of cheese would have coincided with harvest time, and “the mound of harvested crop would have provided the stable conditions in which the cheese could be kept to mature.” These were the days before the advent of cheese rooms or fridges to control temperature and humidity, Stuart continues, so the young cheese would have been buried inside the mound of wheat. Today, the wheatgerm rind is largely symbolic – “a history note” as he puts it, though it does provide a slight maltiness to the taste and adds crunch to the texture.

“I wouldn’t pair it with too much,” he cautions. “Keep it simple, and let the cheese shine.” Some good bread, toasted, or fresh figs or grapes should do the trick – though if meat’s non-negotiable a delicately cured lomo will work nicely, says Tom Robertson, who works with Brindisa’s cured meats. As for drinks, Stuart’s money is on manzanilla sherry “ice cold, for light, fresh, summery fruit flavours – or maybe a sweet pedro ximénez sherry as part of a dessert cheeseboard.”

We enjoy it on its own, because we’re impatient and because it’s too early to be popping the cork. Needless to say, it’s everything we expected: a cheese which looks like a cheese, tastes like a cheese, feels like a cheese – yet in one of those bizarre quirks food can throw at you sometimes, sounds a lot like an almond torte.