This recipe looks interesting – I’ve had similar salads in Thai restaurants so now is the time to try it at home, using the spring onions in this week’s veg boxes.  It’s from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s book River Cottage Veg Every Day!

Serves 6-8

Preparation time: 20-30 minutes

‘Relaxing time’: 10-20 minutes

Ingredients
1 bunch spring onions, trimmed and sliced
4 medium carrots, peeled
1 small white cabbage
For the dressing:
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp clear honey
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 Tbsp finely chopped ginger
2 Tbsp white wine or rice vinegar
2 Tbsp toasted sesame oil
2 Tbsp olive oil
To finish:
A handful of coriander, roughly torn
Lime juice

Method
Put the sliced spring onions into a large bowl.  Cut the carrots into fine julienne with a mandolin or grate them coarsely and add to the bowl.  Remove any blemished outer leaves from the cabbage, then quarter, cut away the core and shred the leaves as finely as you can.  Combine with the spring onions and carrots.

For the dressing, whisk all the ingredients together, making sure the honey is dissolved.  Pour the dressing over the vegetables and toss thoroughly.  Leave for 10-20 minutes to soften and ‘relax’.  Serve the coleslaw scattered with coriander and sprinkled with a few squeezes of lime juice.

We have spring onions and home-grown bean sprouts in this week’s veg boxes. My husband Frank adapted Felicity Cloake’s perfect pad thai recipe as we were lacking several other ingredients! If you haven’t got palm sugar he recommends using soft brown sugar. If you want a vegetarian pad thai just leave out the prawns.

Serves 2

Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 10 minutes

Ingredients
120g 2-3mm wide flat rice noodles
60ml fish sauce
60ml tamarind water (you can use tamarind concentrate, thinned with a little water)
60g palm sugar
Pinch of chilli powder, to taste
80ml groundnut or vegetable oil
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
100g firm tofu, chopped into small cubes
8 large prawns
2 large eggs, beaten with 1 tsp sesame oil
100g beansprouts
1 bunch spring onions, chopped
50g roasted peanuts, roughly chopped, lime wedges, chilli flakes, fish sauce and sugar, to garnish

Method
Cook the rice noodles as directed on the packet until pliable but al dente. Drain and rinse with cold water.

Meanwhile, make the sauce by combining the fish sauce, tamarind and palm sugar in a small pan. Heat gently to dissolve the sugar and taste – add more of any of the ingredients as you wish. Season with chilli to taste and set aside.

Lay out all the ingredients within easy reach of the hob in the order they’ll be used. Put a wok on a high heat and add half the oil. Add the beaten egg and stir fry until cooked, remove from the pan.  Add the rest of the oil and the garlic and spring onions, stir fry for a few seconds. Add the prawns, stir fry until they are starting to turn pink, then add the beansprouts and tofu and stir fry for 30 seconds or so.

Add the noodles, the cooked egg and the sauce, then stir until heated through and the noodles are soft enough to eat.  Serve with the garnishes for people to add as they wish.

This taken from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s book River Cottage Light and Easy.  Hugh says “Crisp, crunchy and pretty, this colourful little side is delicious with chicken or fish.”

Serves 4-6

Preparation time; 10-15 minutes

Ingredients
150 g radishes
5-6 spring onions, trimmed and sliced
2 Tbsp chopped mint
2 Tbsp extra virgin rapeseed or olive oil
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method
Trim the radishes, roughly chop them and put in a bowl.  Add the remaining ingredients, leave for 10-15 minutes if possible, then toss well and serve.

This is from Jamie Oliver’s second book, the Return of the Naked Chef.

Serves 4

Preparation and cooking time: 30-40 minutes

Ingredients
255 g couscous
285 ml cold water
3 red peppers
1 handful asparagus, trimmed and peeled if need be
2 or 3 small firm courgettes, sliced
1 bunch spring onions, trimmed and finely sliced
2-4 fresh chillies, deseeded and finely sliced
3 good handfuls mixed fresh herbs (basil, coriander, mint, flat leaf parsley)
4 Tbs lemon juice
10 Tbs olive oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper
red wine vinegar

Method
Place the couscous in a bowl with the cold water.  This will start to soften the couscous and you will see the water disappear as it soaks in.  While the couscous is softening, blacken the peppers.  Either place the peppers directly on to the naked flame of a gas hob or blacken under the grill.  Both ways you need to blacken the peppers on all sides, so turn when need be.  When fully blackened cover in a bowl for 5 minutes until cool.  This will steam the skins and make peeling and deseeding easier.  Remove the skins and seeds and roughly chop.  On a very hot ridged grill pan, lightly char the asparagus and courgettes on both sides then toss them into the bowl with the couscous with the peppers, spring onions, chillies and ripped up herbs.  Mix well.  Make a dressing with the olive oil and lemon juice, add and toss well.  Season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper and a couple of dribbles of red wine vinegar for a slight twang.

Potatoes and spring onions are the principal ingredients of this traditional Northern Ireland dish. This version comes from Irish cook Ita on allrecipes.co.uk. She says: “Great on its own, served steaming hot with extra butter which will melt through it. But it’s also the perfect side dish for good quality sausages.”

Serves 4

Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 25 minutes

Ingredients
1kg (2 1/4 lb) potatoes, peeled and halved
250ml (8 fl oz) milk
1 bunch spring onions, thinly sliced
1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
50g (2 oz) butter
freshly ground black pepper to taste

Method
Place potatoes into large pot and fill with enough water to cover. Bring to the boil and cook until tender, about 20 minutes.

Drain well. Return to very low heat and allow the potatoes to dry out for a few minutes. (It helps if you place a clean tea towel over the potatoes to absorb any remaining moisture.) Meanwhile, heat the milk and spring onions gently in a saucepan until warm.

Mash the potatoes, salt and butter until smooth. Stir in the milk and spring onion until evenly mixed. Season with black pepper. Serve piping hot in bowls. Hollow out the centre to hold a big knob of extra butter.

A good way to use this week’s spring onions and some spring greens – from Nigel Slater’s Tender (Vol. 1). As he says, ‘Of all the flavours that seem to bring out the best of the cabbage family’s earthy greenness, few work as effectively as those of Southeast Asia. Ginger, spring onion and garlic have a natural affinity with chlorophyll-rich vegetables of any sort …’

Serves 2 as a side dish

Preparation and cooking: about 15 minutes

Ingredients
about 12 stems or small leaves of chinese greens or small cabbage leaves
2 large cloves garlic
thumb-sized piece of ginger
6 spring onions (though maybe a few more of our CSA baby ones)
2 tbsp groundnut oil
1 tbsp nam pla (Thai fish sauce)

Method
Put a saucepan of deep water on to boil and salt it slightly. Wash the greens thoroughly. Peel the garlic and ginger, finely chop the garlic and shred the ginger into matchstick strips. Trim the spring onions and cut each into two or three.

Warm the oil in a shallow pan or wok. Toss the garlic, ginger and spring onions in the oil till deep gold, verging on being lightly browned and fragrant. Drop the greens, whole or shredded as you wish into the boiling water. Leave for only a minute or so before draining. Pour the fish sauce in with the garlic and ginger – it will spit and sizzle – then toss with the greens and eat.

More seasonal veg recipes from Camel CSA

Bulgar wheat salad has an earthy taste and uses an abundance of parsley, which features in Camel Community Supported Agriculture’s veg boxes this week.  This well-tried version of tabbouleh comes from Claudia Roden’s classic A Book of Middle Eastern Food.

Soaking time: 30 minutes
Preparation time: about 15 minutes

Serves 6

Ingredients
250g fine bulgar wheat
3 tablespoons finely chopped spring onions
Salt and black pepper
About one and a half teacups finely chopped flat-leaved parsley
3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh mint
4 tablespoons olive oil
4 tablespoons lemon juice
Cooked vine leaves, raw lettuce or tender cabbage leaves (to serve)

Method
Soak the bulgar wheat in water for about half an hour before preparing the salad.  It will expand enormously.  Drain and squeeze out as much moisture as possible with your hands.  Spread out to dry further on a cloth.

Mix the bulgar wheat with the chopped onions, squeezing with your hands to crush the onions so that their juices penetrate the wheat.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.  Add the parsley, mint, olive oil and lemon juice, and mix well.  Taste to see if more salt, pepper or lemon are required.  The salad should be distinctly lemony.

Tabbouleh is traditionally served in individual plates lined with boiled vine leaves, or raw lettuce or cabbage leaves.  People scoop the salad up with more leaves, served in a separate bowl beside it.

Notes
Claudia Roden adds: “As with most dishes, the preparation is highly individual.  Quantities of ingredients vary with every family, but parsley is always used abundantly.  This is a great Lebanese favourite.”  More about Claudia Roden.

Compare her relaxed approach to Yotam Ottolenghi, chef/patron at Ottolenghi in London.  He insists there’s a right way and a wrong way to make this refreshing summer salad.  Click here to find out what he claims is the right way to do it.

Click here to see all the recipes that Camel CSA members have recommended so far.