This weekend I am planting up the herb and salad planters, building on the success of the sorrel last year some new things for this burnet, garlic chives and lovage. Depending on weather I may nip out for a quick wild green forage but til then I am happy to buy large bunches of fresh radishes , barbie pink with the leaves still on and thicken stemmed British watercress.
I really like bitter salad leaves ( most strangely watercress in cheese and marmite sandwiches) . I wanted to make some leafy salads but I thought I better get some protein into the dish hybrid falafel-meatballs (chickpea and lamb) seasoned with plenty of onion, garlic , ground coriander and cumin, following my fear of frying I baked these in the
Since the oven was going on made up some flatbreads, it’s so nice watching these pop up in the oven. I dressed the salad with plain yogurt and a sprinkling of sumac .
I cannot wait to eat this dish in the warm sunshine but it’s certainly a taste of things to come.
Lamb and Chickpea Balls
Makes 20 small balls
200g of minced lamb
300g of chickpeas
1 onion finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic
1 tsp of coriander
1 tsp of ground cumin
1 tsp of dried chilli flakes
- Mix together all the ingredients.
- Using 1 heaped tablespoon of mix form it into balls.
- Bake at 180degC for 15 minutes, turn halfway through.

Oven Flatbreads
Makes 6 flatbreads
300g of strong plain flour
1 tbsp of dried yeast
100ml of warm water
3 tbsp of olive oil
- Mix together the flour and dried yeast
- Add the olive oil and slowly add the warm water until a dough is formed
- Knead the dough until smooth about 5 minutes.
- Leave for 2 hours in a warm place to rise
- Preheat the oven to 220degC, with a oven tray to warm
- Knock back the dough divide into pieces and roll out to as thin as possible ( a few millimeters thick)
- Place the rolled dough on the hot oven tray and place it in the oven , the breads will puff up and brown in 5 minutes

Ingenious: lamb and chickpea falafel. Thanks for a great idea. 🙂
This entire meal looks incredible and I can’t wait for my radishes to be ready. Bring on the summer!