January
| Published: 6th January 2008 21:06 |
I find January is the most difficult month to eat seasonally, there is a lack of fresh tasting foods. After all of the excesses of Christmas you really want something refreshing and you're probably on a diet too. The foods I have featured this month are the lighter produce available. In season are still the root vegetables of winter potatoes, celeriac, swede, turnips, beetroot and Jerusalem artichokes. Game is also still available hare, venison and partridge are particularly good. Shellfish are still good clams cockles, oysters and mussels are all still in season. On the 25th you can enjoy a traditional Haggis with neeps and tatties, to celebrate burns night. Towards the very end of the month there is the very first of the rhubarb and Seville oranges.
Celery
I love the fresh clean flavour of celery, especially after the excesses of December. There is a commonly held belief that Celery is so hard to digest that it takes more calories to process than it actually contains, but as an average stick of celery contains only 6 calories, you'd have to eat an awful lot of celery to burn any calories. Celery can be eaten raw to add flavour and crunch to salad, or cooked in stews or braised as a vegetable in it's own right. Celery is so versatile you can use the seeds, leaves, root and stalks. Try adding a few celery leaves to a salad for a mild celery flavour.
See our Creamy Celery Soup recipe
Red Cabbage
There is something quite exotic about a red cabbage, maybe it's the colour but I always think of them as special even though they're British. On acidic soils, the leaves grow more reddish while an alkaline soil will produce rather blue coloured cabbages, the same happens during cooking to keep your cabbage red add a little acid (lemon juice or vinegar) to the cooking liquor. Red cabbage takes longer to mature than green or white cabbages, making it slightly tougher. Red cabbage is great raw in salad or coleslaw, or cooked as an accompaniment to pork.
See our Braised Red cabbage with apple recipe
Leeks
A distant cousin of the onion, leeks have a milder sweet flavour which means you can use them as a main vegetable. Leek works well with just about all meat, fish and shellfish. I use leeks as the base in my stews to bulk out the stew and reduce it's calorie content without losing flavour. Leek and Potato soup is a particularly good winter dish served with crunchy croutons.
See our Chicken, leek and carrot pie recipe.
Grapefruit
Just what you need in January to kick start the New Year, juicy, fruity, sweet and amazingly sour grapefruit are invigorating and good for you. You can have them cut in half, sprinkled with brown sugar and grilled for breakfast, cut into segments for a punchy fruit salad for lunch and Duck with grapefruit for supper. Grapefruit are underused in England we should really embrace them more.
See our Winter Salad with Grapefruit Vinaigrette recipe.
Guinea fowl
The ideal game bird for those who insist they don't like game, having a very mild flavour and similar texture to chicken. Guinea fowl are low in fat and cholesterol so take care not to let them dry out while cooking. You can use Guinea fowl in place of chicken in pretty much any dish, Guinea fowl make a fantastic Coq au vin the smaller pieces make for a more elegant dish.
Roast Guinea fowl with garlic and rosemary.
Lemon sole
People say that Lemon sole is not as flavoursome as Dover sole but I really like this delicate fish. Sole is best cooked on the bone as is any fish but you can also fillet it really easily and the fillets can be rolled and stuffed or made into goujons. Lemon sole is currently not on the Marine conservation society's ‘Do not eat' list and has a sustainability rating of 2, making it safe to eat. To check the sustainability of any fish you want to eat have a look at the MSC website at www.fishonline.org for the latest information.
See our Lemon and pepper sole goujons with tartare sauce recipe.
Passion fruit
Originally native to Brazil, but now widely available farmed mainly in Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii. Passion fruit is available in the supermarket all year round but it is in season now. Passion fruit is a good source of vitamins A and C, as well as potassium and iron. One passion fruit has only 16 calories. When eaten with the seeds, a serving is an excellent source of fibre. If you eat them under ripe they are eye-wateringly sour, but there is a very simple way to tell if they're ready to eat. If they look really wrinkly they're ready, if they're smooth then leave them in the window sill for a few days until they wrinkle.
See our Passion fruit Pavlova
By Emma Allsopp
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