Food & recipes

Soul-nourishing recipes

Take inspiration from Ella Risbridger and create these fresh, summer-inspired dishes for your table

Impromptu green tar

This tart is like a doodle in pastry with pretty things on top: green tomatoes and green asparagus curling under burrata or mozzarella or feta; whatever you have; crispy greens, crispy broccoli, tiny little pastry flowers and leaves.

Serves 4

1 sheet of puff pastry
50g of mascarpone
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 tbsp pesto
200g asparagus
200g Tenderstem broccoli
4 green tomatoes
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp of salt
1 x 150g burrata

Unroll the pastry onto a baking tray, then cut it into a square. Use the offcuts for pretty things: cut-out moons, hearts, stars and flowers – use whatever cutters you have.
Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.
Spread the pastry with mascarpone, leaving a 2cm border around the edge for decoration later. Press the edges with a fork and brush with a beaten egg. Spread the mascarpone with pesto, leaving a 2cm border of mascarpone around the edge.
With a potato peeler, sliver the asparagus and Tenderstem broccoli then set aside in a big bowl.
Slice the tomatoes, reserving any delicious juices and seeds. Lay the tomatoes atop the pesto and mascarpone, fanning each one out in a line, like fallen dominoes.
Shake the tomato juices, olive oil, vinegar and salt together in a screw-top jar; toss with the slivered green vegetables. Heap onto the tart, spreading them out evenly.
Arrange the hearts, moons, stars and flowers around the edges. Bake for 20 minutes until the pastry is glossy and golden, then top with a whole burrata as you serve, looking ready to spill at the touch of a knife.

Big summer sandwich

People worry too much about pesto. You can use different proportions, miss stuff out (goodbye, pine nuts! no thank you, lemon!) and still have something extremely delicious.

Serves 1 (With extra pesto for later)

Any sandwich filling (meat, cheese, antipasti or roasted vegetables)

For the pesto:

1 peeled garlic clove (do not use more, I don’t care what the internet says about garlic)
1 tbsp flaky sea salt
Big bunch of basil, around 80-l00g
50g pine nuts
35g Parmesan or pecorino, finely grated
150ml extra virgin olive oil (the nicer the oil, the nicer the taste of this pesto, and because you aren’t cooking it, it really is worth it, I think)

You need a pestle and mortar, heavy and soothing in the hand – you can do it with a food processor but it’s not as much fun. If using a food processor, use the smallest bowl and whizz all the ingredients for the pesto together. If using a pestle and mortar, start with the garlic and the salt. Use the salt to help pound the garlic into a smooth paste.
Add the basil leaves, bit by bit. They, too, will get there surprisingly quickly. Pound them smooth, which you don’t think will happen, but it will. There will be bigger flecks of basil leaf, but that’s ok. That is very delicious.
Then the cheese – pecorino is traditional but Parmesan is often cheaper – and then, slowly, the oil. Keep pounding and twisting the pestle in the mortar until it all sort of comes together, but it will look course, not smooth. Taste it. More cheese? More salt? I trust you.
Assemble sandwiches, holiday-style. Cheese. Meat. Slabs of ripe tomato. Lettuce. Mysteries from the fridge. Maybe olives. Everything is optional except generous swipes of this pesto. Maybe more olive oil, maybe salt. Probably pepper.

Yuzu sunshine bars

Makes 25

For the base:

250g butter
250g plain flour
120g rice flour
120g golden caster sugar

For the curd:

100ml yuzu juice (or zest and juice of 3 unwaxed lemons)
40g butter
90g caster sugar
4 egg yolks

For the meringue:

200g caster sugar
½ tsp lemon juice
4 egg whites

Start by making the base: a shortbread, basically. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/ Gas 4. Blitz together the butter, flour and sugar in a food processor. It will make a dry, crumbly dough that you’ll press into place with your hands.
Line a 30cmx23cm baking tray with baking paper. (I also make this in a 20cm round cake tin for birthdays.) Tip the crumbs into the prepared tin and press into all the corners. Prick it all over with a fork, then bake for 30 minutes or until golden.
In a double boiler, or bain-marie (a Pyrex bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water over a low heat), stir together the yuzu juice, butter and sugar until the sugar is dissolved. Then, slowly, whisk in the yolks. Keep whisking. You’re looking for a custardy texture, and then a jammier texture still.
Get to spoon coating level and keep stirring. It will thicken, I promise. It will get there. You want something that you could take a spoonful of, and it would sit proudly above the level of the spoon without threatening to spill over. When it’s reached this point, set it aside; take the shortbread from the oven and let both curd and base cool while you make the meringue.
Take the whisk attachment and the metal bowl of a stand mixer, and wash them very thoroughly. Grease ruins meringue.
Set up (yet another) bain-marie; this time with the metal bowl from your stand mixer set over the water, and a kitchen thermometer resting in the bowl. Put the sugar, lemon juice and egg whites into the bowl, and stir. Keep stirring, using the mixer’s whisk attachment in your hand, until the sugar is fully dissolved and the thermometer reads 81°C. Then, turn off the heat and take the thermometer out of the bowl. Attach the bowl and whisk to the stand mixer, and beat the meringue thoroughly for 3-5 minutes, until it’s perfect and glossy. We need what they call ‘stiff peaks’.
When you achieve this, take the shortbread base and the curd and spread the curd thinly over the shortbread, then dollop the meringue on top of that. Use a spoon to bring it up to a series of swirls and peaks, just for prettiness.
Turn the grill on to high and slide the meringue under it for a few moments, keeping a close eye on it, until it is bronzed and, in some places, delightfully charred. 9. Allow to cool as much as you can bear, then slice into squares with a knife dipped in boiling water, for extra ease.

Recipes About Love and Grief and Growing Things by Ella Risbridger (Bloomsbury, £22 Hardback) Photography Copyright Haarala Hamilton