Wild desires

Produce gathered in the wild can provide the finishing touches to a meal.

Foraging while on evening walks with my dog has yielded handfuls of lush watercress and slender flowering wild garlic. I was suspicious of the “mushrooms” I found, preferring to leave them in situ lest I ended up on the coroner’s table. I used the watercress in a chicken salad, but, sadly, the cress is now going to seed. Sampling a few of its delicate white flowers, I was surprised by an intensity resembling white pepper. The three-cornered stalks of wild garlic, also known as onion weed, have been mashed into a butter that was used to lavishly baste a free-range chicken. I have also lightly steamed them before quickly tossing them into a frying pan and serving with a grilled steak. These polite yet pungent-smelling leaves have been most successful made into a pesto to drizzle over mushrooms that have then been baked under a thick layer of mozzarella cheese. The pretty flowers added an intriguing garlicky sweetness when tossed through the simple salad of rocket leaves that accompanied it.

I first ate a version of this straightforward dish many years ago at a restaurant in Sydney where it was served with a sorrel pesto. The sorrel provided a piercing sharpness that was in stark contrast to the woodsy notes of the mushrooms. Wild garlic leaves would be a similarly unusual addition.

MUSHROOMS BAKED WITH MOZZARELLA

2 onions

a handful of rocket leaves

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Finely chop the onions. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and slowly cook the onion until soft and translucent. Chop the garlic and rosemary leaves then stir into the onion. Finely chop 2 mushrooms, then stir into the onion and cook until soft and fragrant. (Note that quite a bit of liquid will be released from the mushrooms.) Stir in the breadcrumbs and season with salt and pepper.

Trim the stalks from the mushrooms and lay them gill-side up on a flat baking sheet. Dribble olive oil over the top and sprinkle with salt. Divide the onion stuffing between the mushrooms. Slice the mozzarella, then place the slices on top of the filling and drizzle with olive oil. Bake for 40 minutes until the mushrooms are tender, the filling hot and the cheese golden and crisp. Remove from the oven, divide between 4 serving plates. Scatter the rocket leaves over the top of the mushrooms and serve.

Serves 4.

THIS RECIPE also uses breadcrumbs, an ingredient that has all sorts of uses in the kitchen. They are a great way to use up leftover bread; just blitz them in the food processor and freeze until needed. They make a wonderful addition to a bowl of warm pasta when sautéed until golden brown then seasoned with salt and the zest of half a lemon. Just add raisins, parsley and a few capers and you have a lovely summer lunch.

The combination of raisins with olives, capers and pine nuts is not a new idea, and I love the way the sweetness of the raisins balances the salty-sour flavours. The mixture can be inserted under the skin of a chicken, sprinkled over grilled aubergine or stuffed into a squid tube and baked. This dish needs a fish such as hapuku, groper or bluenose that will break into large, juicy flakes. It also works well with whole fish such as snapper; just stuff the belly with as much filling as space will allow.

BAKED FISH WITH OLIVE AND PINE-NUT STUFFING

4 x 160g fillets of fish

salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Pat the fish dry with absorbent kitchen paper. Take a sharp knife and push the point into the fish, then move it from side to side to create a small cavity. Put aside.

Put some olive oil on to heat in a frying pan. Chop the onion finely, then add to the frying pan and cook over a low heat with the garlic until soft and translucent. Stir in the breadcrumbs and cook until golden brown – 4-6 minutes. Roughly chop the olives and pine nuts, add to the pan with the lemon zest, juice, raisins, chives and capers and season judiciously with salt and pepper.

Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly. Stuff the filling into the cavities of the fish. Place the fillets in a shallow roasting pan, spooning any leftover stuffing in and around the fish. Drizzle the fish with olive oil, season with salt and bake for 20-30 minutes. Remove and serve immediately.

Serves 4.

IN THE NORTHERN Hemisphere, pomegranates are seen as a harbinger of Christmas, and there is definitely something festive about this dessert. If the imported whole pomegranates or the convenient tubs of pomegranate seeds that are available at my supermarket are around long enough, I will be serving this on Boxing Day.

To prepare a pomegranate without the juice running everywhere and staining everything, first remove the crown (or top), cutting far enough down to expose the white flesh. Score the skin from top to bottom in quarters, then place in a bowl of cold water for 30 minutes. Lift the fruit from the water, pull the quarters apart, remove the seeds and store in the refrigerator. They will keep for several days.

POMEGRANATE AND CHAMPAGNE JELLY

750ml champagne or sparkling wine

cream to serve

Pour the champagne or sparkling wine into a saucepan and add the sugar. Cut two of the pomegranates in half and squeeze the juice and seeds into the saucepan. Add the zest and juice from the lemon, bring to a gentle simmer over a low heat then cover with a lid and remove from the heat. Allow the mixture to cool for about 15 minutes. Soak the gelatine sheets in a bowl of cold water until they have softened. Drain the water and squeeze the excess liquid from the sheets.

Strain the pomegranate and champagne juice into a saucepan and stir in the gelatine sheets until dissolved – a matter of seconds. Whisk the mixture to dissolve any stubborn leaves of gelatine. Pour into a clean container and refrigerate for 4-5 hours. Break open the third pomegranate and remove the seeds. Set aside. Remove the jelly from the container and cut into 2cm cubes. Divide between 4 bowls. Pile the seeds on top and drizzle cream over the top.

Serves 4.