Sweet and sour poached leeks

This is a very nice side dish from the second Moro book.

I think the real key here is the make sure you use young and tender leeks. I used some bargain but borderline superannuated ones from Ridley Rd and their outer layer turned out to be extremely chewy. They were edible but after a going over the soft inner bit disappeared and just the stringy outer bit left with its gentle throttle on the way down.

The key to the poaching liquor is the sweetness from the sugar and the sourness from the lemons - I used chopped preserved lemons here and it worked well. Their salt-sour taste made the liquid extra jazzy. The books suggests using other green vegetables you may have to hand - peas, broad beans, cabbage or artichoke.

Ingredients

• leeks, young and slim
• sugar, water, garlic and lemon

Old school

Fry a few chopped garlic cloves in olive oil lightly and then added the trimmed and cleaned leeks. Add a couple of hundred mills of water, a tablespoon of sugar and either the juice of a lemon or some chopped preserved lemon. Poach until done - around fifteen or twenty minutes. Get some young ones and save the big woody leeks for the soup pot.

With grain salad again

I made this a week or so ago and, lo, what appeared on Ridley Rd this week but packs of tiny leeks!, snaffled naturally. In a bizarre reversal of the laws governing vegetable behaviour the leeks looks like small spring-onions whilst the actual spring-onions have gone rogue: giant, tough and whip like, barely fitting in the fridge. The little ones worked a treat with this dish.