| April is a classic hungry gap month and for many GIYers, leeks may well be the only fresh vegetable in the soil at this time of the year. Here’s a fresh, healthy salmon and leek recipe.
Ingredients:
Cook the leeks in a saucepan with a few tbsp of water and a knob of butter for 10 minutes, covered. Season well. Allow to cool. Brush a sheet of pastry with butter, then lay 2 more sheets on top, brushing butter between each layer. Place a salmon fillet on top. Mix the crème fraîche with the leeks – put about half this mixture on top of the salmon. Fold the pastry up over the salmon to make it in to a parcel. Repeat this process for the second parcel. Brush them with a little melted butter. Place on a baking sheet and cook for 20 minutes at 200C until nicely browned. Serve with some mixed leaves from the veggie patch.
Tip of the Month – Nettle Fertiliser
Pick huge bundles of tender young nettles - divert around 5oz to the kitchen for a delicious nettle soup and use the rest for an organic fertilizer. Nettles are extremely high in nitrogen so if you soak a large bucketful in water for a week, you produce a brilliant nitrogen-rich fertilizer which will be hugely beneficial for any plants which need leafy growth, for example lettuces, cabbage, kale etc. Put a kilo of nettles in a Hessian bag and soak in 20 litres of water and leave it to stew for a month or so. It gets pretty stink so put a lid on top. Mix one part nettle liquid with ten parts water when applying to plants. |
