This delicious recipe was written by Clementine Day of @somethingsiliketocook to eat alongside our Slow Cooked Lamb Shoulder.
I have a lot of appreciation for cabbages, in general, but also especially sugarloaf cabbages. They are delicious. Charred on the barbecue or in a hot pan they become deliciously caramelised and are so sweet and lovely inside. I know radicchio can be quite a divisive ingredient, when raw they are bitter, and that’s not for everyone, but have you tried charring these too? The bitterness mellows right out. Lastly, it’s no surprise that I have a lot of care and admiration for leek, if you’ve followed any of my recipes before, they probably involved leek in one form or another. No, the green ends don’t need to be tossed into the compost and yes they go delicious when charred or grilled. Throw on a fun salsa verde and some nice, creamy goats cheese and you’re bound to have a good time. This dish is great standalone but also a substantial sidekick to a lovely piece of slow cooked meat.
Ingredients:
1 head of sugarloaf cabbage
1 head of radicchio
3-4 baby leeks or 2 regular leeks
3-4 tablespoons of olive oil
A good pinch of flaky salt
About 200g goats cheese
Salsa verde:
½ cup olive oil
2 lemons, zest and juice
1-2 tablespoons of baby capers, roughly chopped
1-2 teaspoons dried chilli flakes, or 1 fresh chilli of your choice, diced
¼ cup chopped soft herbs, parsley, coriander, chives, mint are all good
2-3 spring onions, sliced thinly
Optional: a pinch of caraway seeds and nigella seeds in here is fun
Method:
Chop your sugarloaf and radicchio into quarters, slice your leeks in half longways, keeping all stalky bits intact. These will help things hold together.
Ideally, you’d heat up your barbecue nice and hot and grill your veg in some olive oil until nice and charred. If you don’t have the luxury of a functioning bbq at the moment, heat your oil nice and hot in a frypan and grill them, in batches, until nice and caramelised on both cut sides. No need to grill the outer edges. Once you’re happy with them, place on a plate to cool a little and sprinkle with your flaky salt.
Now to prepare our salsa verde. In a small bowl, add in all of the ingredients except for the olive oil, stir to combine and now add olive oil, you may need to add more, you want it to be a saucy consistency that verges closer to the edge of liquid than gloop. Stir well and taste! This is important! Feeling too salty for you? Add some more lemon or add a splash on vinegar. Too tart? Add some more salt or some more capers, or finely chop up a couple of anchovies and add these too. Maybe you’d like to add some more chilli? Remember that this is going to be drizzled over the veg, so it may seem intense while you’re guzzling entire spoonful’s of the stuff on its own, but it will be much more mellow lathered over its buddies leek, cabbage and radicchio.
To assemble, lay out your veg and place slices or crumbles of goats cheese all around. Drizzle generously with the salsa verde and serve the bowl of spare goodness on the table so people can add more as they desire.
