Three Girls Cook Spring Recipes
Who wants to read three spring recipes from three Masterchef finalists?
If you’re not following Three Girls Cook on instagram… what are you doing? These 3 Masterchef finalists serve up some glorious foodie snaps, thrown in with lots of laughs and a pinch of girl power – all of which we are totally into. We noticed them last year on instagram serving up some delicious food on our Krem + Kuro plates and after lots of heart emojis we got in touch to see if they would share some spring recipes for our customers! (You can thank us later!)
Over to you girls!
Spring has (almost) sprung and we’re finally starting to come out the other side of a pretty brutal winter. It’s such an exciting time in our kitchen because it’s the start of the growing season, which means lots of lovely ingredients coming through. We’ve chosen our three favourite seasonal ingredients and are sharing three spring recipes that we think capture the essence of this wonderful season.
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Clams with wild garlic and chickpeas
The appearance of wild garlic is a sure sign that spring is on its way. If you’re lucky, you can find it poking it’s head up around the end of March in wooded areas around the country. If not, you can usually find it at local farmers’ markets. If you can’t get hold of it you could replace it with spinach and add a clove of crushed bulb garlic to the clam broth.
Ingredients (serves 4):
1kg small or medium clams (littleneck or palourde clams work really well)
1 large bunch wild garlic, stalks removed
1 large banana shallot, thinly sliced
knob of butter
large glass white wine
500g chickpeas (tinned are fine, the navarrico ones in a jar are best)
Good quality olive oil to serve
Method:
- Soak the clams in cold water for at least 30 minutes to get rid of any grit. Discard any that are open or have broken shells.
- Gently fry the sliced shallot in the butter until soft and translucent in a large pan that can accommodate the clams.
- Add the clams and the wine to the pan and put the lid on. Steam until the clams are open.
- Add the chickpeas and cook for a further two minutes to heat through.
- Add the wild garlic, stir in and take off the heat. The leaves will wilt in the hot broth.
- Divide between four bowls, discarding any clams that haven’t opened and drizzle with a little olive oil.
Slow roast hogget shoulder with herbed pearl barley, peas, broad beans and goats curd.
Spring is synonymous with lamb but it’s really hogget that we should all be eating at this time of year. Hogget is meat from a sheep that is between one and two years old and has a much deeper flavour than new season lamb. It really lends itself to slow roasting and makes for an excellent spring Sunday lunch. A few good butchers will sell you hogget, but the best way to get them is directly from the producers – from farm shops, farmers’ markets or by mail order. If you’re still not convinced, this recipe works perfectly well with lamb shoulder.
Ingredients (serves 6-8):
Whole, bone in hogget or lamb shoulder
Large glass white wine
300g goats curd
300g pearl barley
Handful each of dill, mint and parsley
200g peas (frozen are fine)
50g broad beans
2 tablespoons hazelnut oil
Pea shoots to serve
Method:
- Pre-heat the oven to 130C.
- Remove the hogget from the fridge at least 20 minutes before cooking and take it out of any packaging. Rub with salt and pepper and place in a deep baking tray with the white wine.
- Cover with foil and roast for at least three hours until the meat is soft enough to pull apart with a fork. For the last 15 minutes, turn the oven up to 190C and remove the foil.
- Cook the pearl barley according to the packet instructions until soft but still retaining some bite.
- Finely chop the herbs and stir through the cooked barley with the hazelnut oil.
- Shell the broad beans and cook in boiling water for five minutes. Add the frozen peas for the last minute to defrost. Remove the white outer shell from the broad beans and add along with the peas to the pearl barley.
- Shred the meat with a fork and mix in some of the cooking juices. Serve with the pearl barley, a spoon of goats curd and some pea shoots.
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Rhubarb, vanilla and orange fool with ginger shortbread
We’ve technically had forced rhubarb all through the winter but garden rhubarb really comes into it’s own in the spring. We’ve paired it with orange and fiery stem ginger in this super-easy pudding that looks much more impressive than it actually is.
Ingredients (serves 4):
115g butter, at room temperature
55g caster sugar
Good pinch of salt
130g plain flour
50g crystallised ginger, chopped into little pieces
600g rhubarb
6 tablespoons caster sugar
600ml double cream
2 egg whites
Vanilla pod
Juice and zest from two large oranges
Method:
- Make the shortbread first. Pre-heat the oven to 150C. Put the butter into a large mixing bowl, and beat with a wooden spoon until soft. Beat in the sugar and salt.
- Sift over the flour and ground rice and mix to a smooth dough; if it doesn’t come together, add a little more butter.
- Roll out the dough to around 1cm thickness and cut into rounds or rectangles. Put in the fridge to chill for 15 minutes.
- Bake for around 20 minutes until slightly golden but not browned.
- For the fool, roughly chop the rhubarb and place in a saucepan with the orange juice.
- Split the vanilla pod lengthways and scoop out the seeds. Add both the seeds and the pod to the pan with half the sugar and heat gently.
- Cook until the rhubarb is soft but not completely falling apart.
- Whisk the egg whites with the remaining sugar in a large bowl until they form stiff peaks.
- Add the orange zest to the cream and whisk until it just hold it’s shape, being careful not to over-whip.
- Fold the egg whites into the cream then gently fold in the rhubarb mixture without fully mixing, reserving a little for serving.
- Serve a large spoon of the fool with some of the remaining rhubarb and a couple of the shortbread biscuits.
If you’ve enjoyed these spring recipes, make sure you’re following Three Girls Cook on instagram and stay up to date with their various events and supper clubs – not one to miss!