There will be blood

No, not a film review, but a pretty good guess at what might happen in the kitchen should I choose to make beetroot crisps. Mandolines are excellent at producing beautiful, paper-thin slices of vegetable but notorious for also producing beautiful, paper-thin slices of finger. Not today, however. I managed to avoid setting myself up for a life of crime but instead produced -- quickly, easily, and cheaply -- a bowl of fab crisps, the sort that I would pay pounds for in the local upmarket provisions store. A recipe? Peel a couple of beetroot, slice using a mandonline, heat a couple of inches of sunflower oil in a pan until it is very hot (or a piece of beetroot starts bubbling immediately you put it in), drop in handfuls of beetroot slices and fry until they turn orange. Scoop them out onto kitchen towel to drain and then toss with sea salt. Truly finger-lickin' good.



Talking of colorful veggies, we've also been blessed this month with bags of purple sprouting broccoli. We're fans of the green variety, but this is just so much prettier. And when lightly blanched and then fried with several cloves of garlic, some chopped anchovy fillets, and a sprinkling of dried chilli flakes, it tastes divine.



On the dessert front, I caved this weekend and made ice cream. In this weather? Ah, well this was an ice cream that gave you a distinct glow after eating. Winchester is home to a branch of fab chocolate shop Montezuma's, and my current favorite from their range is white chocolate with ginger and chilli. I decided to make an ice cream inspired by this bar and again, it was super easy. Finely grate a 1-inch piece of fresh ginger and add to it about 250 ml of double cream. Whip till it reaches the soft-peak stage, throw in some small pieces of crystallized ginger and then fold in about 110 gm of melted white chocolate. Stir together, pour into a container with a lid, and stick in the freezer for a few hours. It wasn't quite frozen by the time we ate, thanks to a truly useless ice-box freezer -- roll on April and all-new appliances! -- so I'm calling it my white chocolate and ginger semi-freddo. Next time, I might even try adding a few chilli flakes ... No pictures, it disappeared all too quickly.