How to turn beetroot tops into a delectable Japanese side dish – recipe

The ohitashi method is such an elegant way to enhance the natural flavours of leafy greens, while also reducing food waste. This traditional Japanese technique involves blanching and chilling leafy greens, then steeping them in a simple seasoned broth that imparts a wonderful and rounded savoury umami flavour. Most recipes for such greens use just the leafy part, but with ohitashi the stems are cooked first.Ohitashi is a wonderful way to prepare vegetables in advance, because the vegetables need to steep in a delicious broth for at least a few hours and up to five days, soaking up the marinade as they age. You can make ohitashi-style vegetables with just about any leafy greens: spinach, kale, chard, radish leaves, turnip tops or nettles

There’s a lot more to lettuce than salad | Kitchen aide

My garden has produced an abundance of lettuce (mainly butter lettuce) this year but there’s a limit to how much salad I can eat. What else can I use them for? Julian, by email“Start thinking of lettuce, and especially butter lettuce, as bread or a taco shell,” says Jesse Jenkins, author of Cooking with Vegetables, and happily this is a “highly adaptable” strategy, too. Sure, you could pile in grilled spicy pork belly and herbs, but this dinner fix also works well “with everything a big green salad does: a piece of nicely grilled protein, some sauce, a few pickled crunchy things, all wrapped in a big, beautiful green leaf”. But why stop there? “I also like to use butter lettuce to wrap cheese toasties,” Jenkins says. “It catches all the fatty goodness and acts as a barrier between the crunchy bread and the roof of your mouth

José Pizarro’s recipe for sweetcorn, chorizo and piquillo pepper fritters

It’s easy to forget that ingredients such as corn, peppers and even the pimentón in our chorizo all came from the Americas in the 15th century. Many of them first took root in Europe in Extremadura, where I’m from. In La Vera, peppers were smoked and ground into what became pimentón de la Vera and is now part of our food culture. These fritters, which are simple, quick and full of flavour, bring together all these ingredients with long journeys behind them and a solid place in the modern Spanish kitchen.Prep 10 min Cook 30 min Makes About 12125g cured chorizo, skinned and finely diced75g jarred piquillo peppers, drained and finely chopped2 corn cobs, kernels shaved off with a big sharp knife125g plain flour 1 tsp baking powder Sea salt and black pepper 2 large eggs, beaten 160ml whole milk Olive oil, for fryingPut the chorizo, peppers and corn in a large bowl, add the flour and baking powder, and toss to coat

‘They’re not chic!’ How did BuzzBallz become the undisputed drink of the summer?

Reef, Hooch and Bacardi Breezers are back in favour with gen Z – and BuzzBallz are the biggest hit of all. Why are they the essential alcopop at this year’s picnics, parties and festivals?When Merrilee Kick invented BuzzBallz in 2009, she was a 47-year-old teacher from Texas who needed to make some money fast. “I was about to get a divorce and was terrified of becoming homeless,” she says. “I was a high-school teacher not making enough money to survive, much less put two sons through college.” She had the opportunity to do an MBA through a teacher-enrichment programme, and came up with the idea for BuzzBallz one hot afternoon while marking homework

Rukmini Iyer’s quick and easy recipe for charred corn salad with halloumi, broccoli and black beans | Quick and easy

This is my version of a chopped salad, and I love the textural contrast of the crisp broccoli against the soft black beans and squeaky halloumi. The lime-and-spring-onion dressing makes everything sing, while the slightly bitter note of the charred corn keeps things interesting. A filling rainbow salad for warm days.Prep 15 min Cook 15 min Serves 2-32 tbsp olive oil300g tin sweetcorn, drained225g halloumi, cut into ½cm slices200g Tenderstem broccoli, cut into ½cm pieces400g tin black beans, drained and rinsedFinely grated zest and juice of 1 lime20ml extra-virgin olive oil1 tsp flaky sea salt 3 spring onions, trimmed and finely slicedPut a tablespoon of oil in a large, heavy-based saucepan on a high heat. When it’s almost smoking, add the sweetcorn (stand well back!), then fry, stirring occasionally, for five minutes, until charred all over (stand back when you stir, too, because it’s going to try to pop at you like popcorn)

Mitch Tonks’ sardine recipes, both fresh and tinned

Sardines are one of our most underrated fish, even though UK stocks are healthy and the fishery in Cornwall is certified sustainable. They are caught by seine netting at dusk just a few miles from shore, and the way they are fished means they’re in perfect condition when landed. My favourite way of eating them is left whole, guts in and heads on, topped with a healthy sprinkling of coarse salt and then grilled – they’re wonderful eaten just with your hands or on bread, but today I offer up two alternatives ways with sardines.You will see these delicious cicchetti, or snack, in bars all over Venice, where they sit piled high on the counter, ready to be served with a glass of wine or on top of a slice of bread. They make a great starter or light supper, and it’s a very good way to preserve the fresh fish for a few days, because the flavour gets only better with time