June Recipes

June 2009 Recipes

By Natoora Natoora
11/06/2009

It is time to get busy cooking! Natoora's June recipes have just arrived!

Fresh Pea Soup

    500g fresh peas (1kg unpodded)
    200g Creme Fraiche or Double Cream
    Sprig of mint if desired
    Crispy Pancetta (optional)

Pod the peas and blanch for around 2 to 3 minutes. If desired, add the mint to the water to infuse before adding the peas. Make sure they are cooked but retain their lucious green colour or your soup will look dull.
Once cooked, drain the liquid into a seperate bowl as you will need some of it in a minute. Pop the peas into a blender and add the cooking liquid so that it just covers the peas. Blend into a puree and season to taste.
Add nearly all of the creme fraiche or cream, approximately 150g , then pulse with the blended peas. Finally, serve into warm bowls, add a dollop of cream, and sprinkle over crisy pancetta if you fancy an extra crunch and taste.

Fresh Pea Soup

Quick and easy linguine

    250g linguine
    2 garlic cloves, pressed or finely chopped
    3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
    1 red chilli, finely chopped and de-seeded
    Lemon
    Fresh parsley

Cook the linguine in salted boiling water as per instructions on the packet. Whilst that is cooking, sautee the garlic and chilli in the oil for a minute. Drain the pasta and add to the garlic mixture. Fry for a minute and serve with a squeeze of lemon juice and sprinkle with fresh parsley. Easy as that!

Quick and easy linguine

Poached white peaches

    4 white peaches
    400ml white wine
    2tbps honey
    1 vanilla pod

Fill a large pan with water and place on high heat to boil. In the meantime fill a large bowl with iced water. When the water boils turn off the heat, gently submerge the peaches and leave for 30 seconds. Remove with a slotted spoon and place in the bowl with iced water. You should now be able peel the peaches very easily.
In a large pan place the wine, honey over high heat. Cut the vanilla pod lengthways and add to the pan. Once the honey has completely dissolved, lower the heat to minimum and place the peaches into the pan, cover and simmer gently for 15 to 20 minutes, ensuring that you turn the fruit (gently!) during cooking. The peaches will be done when they are tender but firm, so they hold their shape well. Remove the peaches from the pan and leave to cool. Raise the heat to high and continue cooking the syrup until it is reduced at least by half.
To serve, place peaches on a plate and spoon some syrup over the peaches. You can also accompany them with some fresh cream or creme Chantilly.

Poached white peaches