Flavours of the month: Spring's budding tastes

10 April 2012

It's March and a great time to sample wild garlic leaves, clams, crabs and new season's lamb. Charles Campion reveals where you can buy the best.

WILD GARLIC LEAVES

Delicately flavoured, dark green leaves are also called ransoms and are the first, tender shoots of the wild garlic plant. This year foragers have been out early and there are good supplies - they are available from Tony Booth at Borough Market who supplies many top restaurants with wild mushrooms, exotic fruit and vegetables.
Use them chopped and stirred into an omelette or scrambled eggs for a garlicky tang. You can also add ransoms to salads but wilt them first in a hot pan. Tony Booth, Units 15 and 16 Borough Market (020 7378 8666). Open to the public Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Wild garlic leaves: £10 kg.

CLAMS

Nick Wilson, of Cape Clear Seafoods, is selling all the razor clams and Venus clams he can get, as apparently west London has gone mad for them. The same goes for winkles and whelks. Try grilling razors on the shell with a little garlic and parsley butter. Cape Clear Speciality Seafoods, 119 Shepherd's Bush Road, W6 (020 7751 1609): razor clams: £13 kg; venus clams: £13 kg; winkles: £6 kg; whelks: £4 kg.

SWISS CHARD

This vegetable got its name in the 19th century when seed catalogues hit upon the idea of adding the qualifier "Swiss" to their chard varieties to distinguish them from the more common cardoon. The charm of Swiss chard lies in the crunchy central rib as much as the leaves themselves. The red variant looks beautiful on the plate.
Just steam until tender and serve with a little melted butter. Available from Two Peas in a Pod, 85 Church Road, SW13 (020 8748 0232). Swiss chard: £3.50 kg

CRABS

Usually this time of year sees winter storms with the fishermen trapped in harbour, so crustacean prices rise. This year there's been fair weather and crabs are a particular bargain. A large crab needs nothing more than some good mayonnaise, fresh bread and a hammer for the claws. Available from Covent Garden Fishmongers, 37 Turnham Green Terrace, W4 (020 8995 9273). Large cock crabs from Jersey: £8.80 kg.

NEW SEASON'S LAMB

Actually, "new season's" lamb is something of a racket. Because of low production costs and the ability to send lamb halfway around the world in a chiller ship, the New Zealand Meat Marketing Board persuaded us that young lamb was superior to mutton, a fallacy we are beginning to examine. Spring was sought because mother and lamb had the rich spring grass and lambs grew quickly and stayed tender, but now "new season's lamb" is often born the year before.
Nevertheless, it can be tender and rival even the "milk-fed" lamb from the Continent. Insist on your butcher giving you the smallest shoulder he has. Buy two if you need more. Available from Randall's, 113 Wandsworth Bridge Road, SW8 (020 7736 3426). New season's lamb shoulders: £7.80 kg, legs: £14.50 kg.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in