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Last of the leeks in March’s kitchen!

It’s great to be on the road again with the Potting Shed stage and our first trip out was to the fabulous gardens at RHS Harlow Carr for their Spring Gardening Weekend.

Martin and I had great fun with our talk about growing your own fruit and veg and cooked up a couple of dishes with the last of the leeks out of the veg plot and the last few stored apples.

Here’s the leek dish if you fancy having a go!

  Leeky beans on toast with leek oil drizzle

Serves 2 takes about 15 minutes

Glug of oil

Knob of butter

2 small leeks, trimmed

100ml stock

1 garlic clove chpd

1 bay leaf

1 strip lemon zest

1x400g tin cooked white beans drained

Bunch parsley, chopped

1 tspn wholegrain mustard

2 tbspn crème fraiche

Squeeze lemon juice

S&P

2 slices of crusty bread (sourdough works well), toasted

Leek oil (optional extra!)

  • Warm the oil and butter in a frying pan then add the leeks, bay leaf, garlic and lemon zest
  • Cook over a gentle heat for 4or5 minutes until softening
  • Add the beans and the stock and simmer for about 6 minutes, stirring occasionally until the stock has just about cooked away
  • Remove the bay leaf and lemon zest and stir in the mustard, parsley and crème fraiche. Taste then season with salt and pepper and a good squeeze of lemon juice
  • Toast your bread then pile the creamy leeks on top
  • Drizzle with some leek oil if you’ve made some or scatter over some cheese and pop under the grill to melt

This makes a really good and filling soup if you want to make some extra. Add a bit more stock then blitz with a blender until smooth and heat.

Leek oil

A perfect way to use up the top dark green leaves of the leek.

Use to drizzle on soups, risotto, pasta, pizza or roasted veg.

2 cups finely sliced leek tops

1 cup water

A tsp salt

1 cup mild oil

  • Bring the cup of water to a boil then plunge in the leek tops and the salt.
  • Blanch for just 90 seconds then drain and plunge into ice cold water for a couple of minutes then drain again
  • Put into a liquidiser along with a cup of oil and blitz until well blended
  • Pour into a bowl and leave to infuse overnight
  • Pour into a muslin lined sieve et over a bowl and leave overnight
  • Store in a sealed bottle of jar in the fridge or freeze in cubes