Cauliflower Arancini and Ratatouille with a Rocket, Basil & Wild Garlic Pistou

Spring is back, at least according to the Met Office it is, and with Spring comes the welcome return of Wild Garlic. It's quite abundant down in Devon already, though you'll have to know where to look. Our usual spot is only lightly covered at the moment, just enough for the wild garlic pistou from the title, but we have found huge amounts growing in another spot nearer Exeter - but that's for another story, and hopefully lunch tomorrow.

Two odd things about this dish, not only the wild garlic pistou but also the arancini, both of which were something of leftover specials, as befits the end of a busy week.

Arancini

If you've not come across arancini before they're an Italian speciality, made with leftover risotto. Quite simple to make, and sublime to eat - one of those things that somehow tastes much better than it deserves too, if that makes any sense! You simply take some cold leftover risotto, and pack it around a small cube of cheese (often mozzarella) or possibly some meat sauce (bit more tricky) to create something the same shape and size as a scotch egg. Next do the usual flour, then egg, then breadcrumb thing to coat (we usually do ours twice, for extra crispyness) and shallow fry for 10-15 minutes until well browned. By now the smell will be driving you too insane to cook any longer, so you'll have to stop cooking them anyway so you can get stuck in.

Ratatouille with a Rocket, Basil & Wild Garlic Pistou

This was a bit of an odd one really. A fridge with one lonely courgette, a half eaten pack of basil, some rocket which had seen better days, two peppers (one with a bit cut off which was ... well, you're getting the picture by now). Basically an ideal start to make something kind of like ratatouille and kind of like pistou.

First the ratatouille ...

1. First off cut a red onion into half inch sized pieces, and get these frying in a shallow pan with a little olive oil and butter. You're looking to get these quite caramelised to bring out the sweetness of the onion.
2. Once the onions are about 2/3rds done, add in the peppers cut into strips about 1cm wide (mixing my measurements a bit here!). I had a green one and a yellow one, but any will do. Green's a good idea though to add a little bitterness into the dish. These need to be cooked for about another 10 minutes, tossing now and then, aim to soften them and add a bit of colour.
3. When the onions and peppers are done, put them on into another deeper dish (this is going to be the one for cooking the finished ratatouille).
4. Now back in the same pan that fried the onions & peppers add the courgette sliced up into average thickness discs. Fry these till golden on one side, flip over and fry till golden on the other side, then into the same pan as the onions and peppers.
5. Now deglaze the pan you used for frying with a half glass or so of white wine, and put this into the other pan. 
6. Add a tin of tomatoes to the onions, peppers and courgettes and cook this mixture for about half an hour till the tomatoes are tender. Break up any large chunks as you do so, and check the seasoning is good.

Now the Rocket, Basil & Wild Garlic Pistou ...

Pistou is kind of like a French Pesto but without the pine nuts, so I'm taking liberties a bit with the name. Very simple to make, and easy to balance flavours to suit your own tastes - or (more likely) to suit what you have in the fridge!

Here's how I did mine this time:

• Half an ordinary bag of rocket
• Half an ordanary pack of fresh basil
• A good handful of fresh wild garlic
• About 25g of freshly grated parmesan
• Salt & pepper
• Olive oil

First mix all the herbs into a food processor together with a good glug of oil to get things started (this is the lazy method - though chopping or a pestle and mortar would be just as good). Give them a few good pulses until they're starting to form a very basic paste. Add in the parmesan and seasoning, a little more olive oil and start to blend until you've got a smooth sauce. The amount of oil you'll need will depend on how much of everything you've got, what you're looking for is a creamy consistency - it shouldn't take much work or much oil. On that note, it doesn't matter if the herbs are a little wet beforehand, it'll just get emulsified in the process.

Only one more thing to do - once the ratatouille is ready, just spoon a good couple of tablespoons of the pistou mixture into it and give it a good stir, and you're done. Lovely cripsy arancini with a herby and aromatic vegetable side dish. Healthy, tasty, cheap - who could ask for more.

P.S. Any pistou left over makes a great sauce for pasta, adding to pizzas, or just added on the side of a meat course. It should keep in the fridge for a week or so, but it depends on the wild garlic a bit.