Sides and asides!

Sides

You don't have to serve the fishcakes with the slaw.

Asparagus is in season and would make an excellent companion. If you wanted to serve a mixture of veggies – how about a stir fry – you can buy punnets of small sweet peppers - orange, yellow and red. De-seed and slice the peppers – blanch and refresh your asparagus and stir fry for 2/3 minutes in a drop of rapeseed oil, add salt and black pepper and a pinch of sumac would work really well. Use anything that you like – a sliced sweet onion, courgettes.

Samphire is just coming into season. For those who are wondering, samphire is classed as a sea vegetable – I think of it as a type of seaweed. It's salty if you use it raw. It needs to be either boiled or steamed for a minute or two.

Try it mixed with baby asparagus – steam them both together for a couple of minutes and serve with the fishcakes and a sauce.

Two notes :

Don't forget to snap your asparagus – any woody inedible ends will snap naturally – discard them or, if feeling virtuous you can turn them into soup.

To save your aching feet – samphire is usually found on the fish counter.

Asides

Here's what the girls said about the class :

“The most amazing Coronation Slaw and Fishcakes. Pudding delicious!”

“The mushrooms were so flavoursome and would make a fantastic dinner party starter.”

“A totally wonderful meal. Mushrooms so tasty, fishcakes and coleslaw a delight, sweet – unusual mixture and terrific.”

“Wonderful food and ideas!”

The recipes for both the Champignon au tartines and the Hazelnut Hodgepodge are posted on the blog.

Went down well I thought!