Simple, seasonal recipes for late Summer

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At Slow Food UK, we’re excited to bring you seasonal recipes each month, featuring fresh fruits ,vegetables and herbs that are at their peak. By cooking with in-season produce, you’ll enjoy more vibrant flavours and maximum nutritional value, all while supporting local growers and reducing your environmental impact.

In collaboration with two experts in their field, we’ll show you how simple it can be to prepare delicious, seasonal meals that celebrate local ingredients and reconnect you with the natural cycles of the year. Whether you’re new to seasonal cooking or already a Slow Food enthusiast, these recipes are sure to inspire and elevate your meals.

Masala Cauliflower Cheese by Laoise Casey

Cauliflower cheese, with an aromatic and spicy hit! I love the soothing comfort of cauliflower cheese, but I do find sometimes it can lack a little flavour. Enter my Masala Cauliflower Cheese. Cauliflower is the perfect seasonal vegetable to act as a flavour vessel for all the spices, absorbing all the aromatics.

Cauliflower florets paired with leeks covered in a spiced, cheesy sauce then bakeduntil golden and bubbling. An ideal comfort food dish. You can play around with the spice levels according to how you like it. The addition of seasonal sweet leeks is a
lovely pairing here, you could also use onions or shallots if you prefer. Use the cauliflower leaves as a garnish too, simply roast them in the oven with a little oil and a pinch of salt and pepper – they crisp up beautifully.

Ingredients (serves 2)
1 cauliflower, chopped
1 leek, sliced
50g butter
1 tsp cumin seeds
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tbsp tomato purée
2 tsp turmeric
2 tsp curry powder
50g plain flour
500ml whole milk
150g grated cheddar
50g grated mozzarella
A pinch of smoked paprika
Small handful fresh coriander, leaves & stalks chopped
Crispy onions, to serve

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C Fan.
2. Chop the cauliflower into bite-sized florets.
3. Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil, add half the turmeric and cook
the cauliflower in it for approx. 4 – 5 minutes, until just tender.
4. Thinly slice the leek, then add it to a bowl and pour boiling water over it for a
few minutes to help soften it, then drain and set aside.
5. Meanwhile, make the masala cheese sauce. Melt the butter in a pan on a low-
medium heat. Stir in the cumin seeds and garlic and cook for a minute until
fragrant
6. Add the tomato purée, turmeric and curry powder and cook for 2 minutes, until
it starts to darken.
7. Stir in the flour and cook for 2 minutes. Gradually pour in the milk, whisking all
the time to ensure you have a smooth sauce.
8. Once you’ve added all the milk, bring it to the boil and let it simmer for 2
minutes.
9. Stir in 2/3 of the grated cheese and mix well.
10. Add the cauliflower and leeks to an ovenproof dish. Pour over the masala
cheese sauce and top with the rest of the grated cheese and the smoked
paprika.
11. Bake for 20 minutes until golden and bubbling. Scatter over the chopped
coriander and crispy onions, then dish it up and enjoy.

Ingredients sourced from Borough Market and herbs from my garden

Blackberry ripple, brown butter and bay leaf ice cream by Cheryl Minton.

The time to start picking blackberries is August and September. For me, they conjure up nostalgic memories of carefree summers as a child. Playing outside, we’d come across patches of brambles and cautiously collect the ripest of berries, laughing at our purple stained fingers and mouths afterwards.

The bittersweet arrival of blackberries, signals the fading days of summer and the beginning of Autumn. For August’s seasonal desert, I’ve tried to capture the comfort of autumnal flavours with the toasty notes of brown butter and aromatic freshness of bay leaves. To hold on to the last embers of summer, I’ve used an ice cream recipe, rippled with tart, sweet blackberries for a bright contrast.

My ingredients were sourced locally in my home town of Ludlow from @myriadorganics using ingredients from @propergood_dairy milk, Titterstone clee honey, @grassrootsdairy salted butter and @planton_farm eggs.

Ingredients

Blackberry sauce

300g of blackberries
2 tbsp honey / or 50g sugar
50 ml of water
½ juice lemon (optional for if your blackberries are shop bought as they are sweeter than foraged ones)

Ice cream mixture

100g salted butter
300g double cream
225g whole Milk
50g sugar
3 egg yolks
2-3 fresh bay leaves
1 vanilla bean (or vanilla extract)

Recipe

To make the blackberry sauce

Put the blackberries and honey and a little water into a small pan, on a medium-low heat. Stir until honey has dissolved and continue to stew until the berries are soft and jammy. Wild blackberries are much more tart than shop-bought ones, so taste the mixture to see if it’s your desired sweetness and add more honey or sugar if needed.
Take the blackberry mixture off the heat and let it cool before blending and straining it through a sieve to remove the seeds. Now is a good time to taste and add lemon juice if the mixture isn’t a balance of tart and sweet. It’s likely that wild blackberries won’t need it.

To make the brown butter and bay leaf ice cream

Start by placing the butter in a small pan on a medium heat. When it turns golden brown with a nutty smell, turn off heat and let it cool.
Place the cream and milk in a medium sized pan.
Split the vanilla bean lengthways with a knife and scrape out the seeds to save for later. Add the leftover vanilla bean husk, along with the fresh, torn bay leaves to the pan.
Bring it to a gentle simmer, remove from the heat and leave the bay leaves and vanilla husk to infuse in the cream mixture.
Add the egg yolks to a medium sized heat proof bowl, and whisk in the sugar until it incorporates and becomes paler in colour.
Slowly add half of the infused milk and cream into the egg and sugar, whisking continuously. Once fully mixed, add the remaining milk and cream.
Add the mixture back to the pan on a gentle heat, stirring it continuously with a spoon. The mixture thickens and will be ready when the back of the spoon is coated in a custard-like consistency and doesn’t run off.
Take the custard mixture off the heat and add the vanilla seeds, along with the brown butter, slowly whisking it in to ensure it emulsifies with the custard mixture.
Add the liquid to a heat proof container to cool to room temperature, before covering to place in the fridge to cool completely.
To make the ice cream, strain the custard to remove the bay leaves and vanilla husk and add to an ice cream maker and follow your model’s instructions until the mixture is thick and has the consistency of ice cream. If you don’t have an ice cream maker, you could freeze the mixture and blend it after a few hours.

To create the ripple effect

Add a layer of half of the ice cream into a plastic container, followed by half of the blackberry sauce.
Use a blunt knife to gently swirl the blackberry sauce through the ice cream. Repeat with the remaining ice cream and sauce.
Put in the freezer until frozen solid. Take out of the freezer and leave out for 10 minutes before serving.

Topping and serving ideas