Edible Cooks: A Spring Soirée

Photos by Michael Piazza / Styled by Catrine Kelty

It’s April and the countdown to spring is in full swing! Warmer, brighter times are just about here, and with them spring holidays—Easter, Passover, May Day, the Kentucky Derby and Cinco de Mayo, to name a few, not to mention celebrations for Mom, Dad and grads.

Lavish meals may mark those days, but there’s no reason not to stage more modest revelries in between, perhaps with a menu of a springy soup and sandwiches to enjoy indoors—or out, as soon as the weather cooperates.

To kick off this menu, delicately spicy watercress imbues a simple soup not just with an emerald hue but with a pleasant, springward jolt to the palate. A little cream counters the green in this soup, which is good both warm and chilled, depending on the day and the locale in which it’s served.

Peppery arugula imprints two sandwiches, both inspired by trips to London, with a springy spirit. When I was young, golden, turmeric- spiked curries were a favorite family meal, and no curry was complete without myriad garnishes, including mango chutney. In our house, though, chutney began and ended with curry, until my father returned from a business trip to London with an idea that was new to us. We watched agog as he slathered pieces of cheddar cheese with chutney, just as he’d encountered during his trip. Unexpected as that combination was to our 1970s suburban palates, as flavor combinations go, it was spot on. The farmstead cheese was rich, creamy, grassy and a touch funky, while the chutney was sweet, tangy and pickley, with subtle spice from ginger and chile. Together they resulted in a symphony of flavors, from just two ingredients. Here that combination anchors a fine spring sandwich, rounded out with salty ham and spicy arugula.

As a condiment, chutney is a wide-reaching and far flung category. Perhaps the most familiar, though, would be Major Grey’s, with its characteristic components of mango, sugar, an acidic element such as lime juice or vinegar, onion, ginger and sometimes raisins. I still remember jars of Crosse & Blackwell brand from my youth, but these days you can do better, cleaner and fresher. And local! Lyndigo Spice, in Dorchester, makes a terrific roasted mango relish that is much like Major Grey’s. It’s available online at lyndigospice. com, and sometimes at the Whole Foods Ink Block (call ahead to make sure it’s in stock.) Another local-ish choice, from southern Maine, is Stonewall Kitchen Major Grey’s Chutney.

The second arugula-spiked, London-inspired sandwich, this one with grilled lamb and “the works,” originated from a trip of my own a few years back. On that agenda was a stop at the Borough Market, a wholesale and retail extravaganza located in the Southwark section of Southeast London, near the London Bridge. The variety on offer was staggering—fruit, vegetables, fish, meats, charcuterie, ciders, cheeses, breads, coffees, teas, cakes, pastry— seemingly every ingredient imaginable.

The displays were bountiful and the quality unimpeachable, but perhaps more important at the moment I arrived—with a growling stomach—were the kaleidoscopic snacking options. Too hungry and overwhelmed to process it all, I put aside any attempt to think and just ate. Before belching “uncle” hours later, I’d feasted on oysters with mignonette, grilled scallops with bacon and Savoy cabbage, coriander crepes from I don’t-remember-which-country, fresh bread with smoked garlic butter, apple-rhubarb cider, a handmade lime-ginger lollipop and a Lamington (a square of sponge cake, split and filled with jam and coated with a thin layer of chocolate and toasted coconut). In the middle of all that was the sandwich I’ve approximated here—grilled lamb on flatbread with yogurt sauce, insanely peppery rocket, roasted sweet peppers, tomatoes and feta. Because it’s spring, I switched out the tomatoes for hothouse cucumber instead.

We may not have local tomatoes yet, but we do have fantastic New England cheeses all through the year. Though fresh goat cheese is most often enjoyed on its own or with a savory skew, here I take it in a sweet direction for dessert. Combined with ricotta, eggs and local honey (check out Carlisle Honey or Ploughed Hill Honey, produced right in Somerville), the cheese fills a tender-crumbed tart shell and wears a crown of local strawberries (use local when they’re available, and until then perhaps local-ish berries from states to our south. Ours will be here before we know it!).

With warm breezes and sprouting green leaves on your mind, dig in, friends. By the time you look up you’ll be wearing shorts and heading for the lakes, mountains, beaches, garden centers—and farmers markets!

This story appeared in the Spring 2020 issue (and was written pre-Covid-19).