We hope you've enjoyed listening to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall on the May edition of the Organic Gardening Podcast. We're delighted to be sharing a taste of Hugh's delicious garden-to-plate cuisine, with three recipes from his new book High Fibre Heroes (Bloomsbury Publishing, Hardback, £26).

So while you're cooking up some grow-your-own goodies, who not have another listen to his podcast interview. Fiona visited him at the garden at River Cottage to find out more about the joy of growing your own food, the power of healthy soil, and why gardening matters more than ever.

Click here to listen to May's episode

Hugh's High Fibre Heroes recipes

Pressed Cabbage Salad

Pressed salads are popular in macrobiotic or raw food diets because the pressing softens the vegetable fibres and may also preserve enzymes. That may well be true. I just love these salads because they are deliciously tender and take on all the flavours of the dressing beautifully.

Plant count 10

Fibre count 6g

Serves 4

Ready in 1¼ hours

Ingredients

About 400g red or white cabbage (or a mix), finely sliced
About 100g carrot, peeled or scrubbed and julienned or coarsely grated
1 small-medium apple, coarsely grated (skin and all)
4–6 spring onions, trimmed and finely sliced
1 tsp fine salt
50g raisins
75g cashew nuts

Dressing

Finely grated zest of 1 lime (or lemon), plus a squeeze of juice
1–2cm piece of fresh ginger, grated
A pinch of dried chilli flakes
2–3 tsp soy sauce or tamari
3 tbsp cold-pressed walnut or rapeseed oil

To finish

A handful of coriander leaves (optional)

Put the cabbage, carrot, apple and spring onions into a large bowl, mix well and sprinkle with the salt. Toss and massage everything together for a minute or so, to ensure the salt is well distributed. Pile the mixture into a colander or large sieve and place it back over the bowl.
Place another smaller bowl (that fits into the colander) directly on top of the ingredients, and weight it down with something. I use a big granite pestle, but you can use tins of food, metal weights from a set of scales, or anything heavy enough to apply plenty of pressure to the ingredients. Leave in a cool place for about an hour.
Meanwhile, put all the ingredients for the dressing into a jar, screw on the lid and shake to combine.
After pressing, the cabbage mixture should have released some liquid into the bowl. This is obviously full of good things and you can tip it into a glass and drink it like a shot – although the combined flavours are quite quirky! Discard it if it’s not for you.
Tip the pressed cabbage mix back into the bowl and mix in the raisins and cashews. Pour on the dressing and stir through well.
You can serve the pressed cabbage straight away or leave it to macerate at room temperature for another 30 minutes or so, then toss again before serving. Serve scattered with chopped coriander if you have some.
Try cavolo nero, hispi or Savoy instead of the red or white cabbage. You can use any nuts in place of the cashews – try walnuts, pecans or hazelnuts. Swap the raisins for sultanas, dried cranberries or chopped dried cherries – or just leave out if you don’t like fruit in salads.

Fried Rice with Peas, Soy and Sesame

This simple main course is very customisable. The key things are the onion and the soy/sesame/bouillon mix, which brings lots of savoury flavour. You can then use pretty much any veg you like (see below). If your brown rice is a bit clumpy in places, break it up with a fork before adding it to the pan.

Plant count 8
Fibre count 7g

Serves 2
Ready in 25 minutes

2 tbsp rapeseed oil
1 medium onion, quartered and sliced
About 75g extra-firm tofu
1 tbsp soy sauce or tamari, plus a little more to serve
1 tbsp toasted sesame oil
1 tsp vegetable bouillon powder (or ¼ veg stock cube, crumbled)
1 small garlic clove, grated
1–2cm piece of fresh ginger, grated (optional)
100g frozen peas
A couple of handfuls of roughly shredded de-stalked kale, cabbage greens, spinach or pak choi (or a mix)
300g cooked brown rice
To finish
2–3 tsp sesame seeds
A handful of coriander and/or mint leaves, chopped (optional)

Heat the rapeseed oil in a large, wide frying pan over a medium heat. Add the onion and fry for about 10 minutes until softened, stirring from time to time.
Meanwhile, cut the tofu into roughly 1cm cubes. Whisk the soy/tamari, sesame oil and bouillon powder (or stock cube) together in a small bowl.
Add the grated garlic to the onion with the ginger, if using, and cook for another minute, stirring often. Add the tofu cubes to the pan and cook for another few minutes, stirring frequently.
Add the frozen peas and cook for 2–3 minutes until defrosted, then add the shredded greens and cook for a few minutes more until they are starting to wilt.
Add the soy, sesame and bouillon mix, stir and cook until most of the liquid has evaporated (less than a minute).
Add the cooked rice, stir it through, then cover the pan and cook for 3–4 minutes, stirring now and then, to get the heat into the rice and make sure everything is piping hot.
Serve straight away, with a scattering of sesame seeds and herbs, if using. Add a little more soy sauce/tamari at the table if you like.
A handful of mushrooms, chopped fairly small, is a lovely addition. Toss them into the softened onion and cook for a few minutes before adding the garlic and ginger.
Instead of kale or greens, use Tenderstem or purple sprouting broccoli, or green beans – all of these need a little more cooking than leafy greens, so chop into 2cm lengths, slicing broccoli stems lengthways if thick, and add to the softened onion. Cook for a couple of minutes before adding the garlic and ginger.

Leek and Fennel Bruschetta

The alchemy that occurs as leek and fennel slowly cook down together is very special, making this a maximum bang-for-your-buck quick snack meal.

Plant count 8
Fibre count 12g

Serves 2 as a light meal, 4 as a snack or part of a sharing spread
Ready in 30 minutes

Ingredients

1 large or 2 small leeks (about 300g trimmed weight)
1 large or 2 small fennel bulbs
2 tbsp olive oil
1 garlic clove, chopped (plus another, halved, to rub the toast if you like)
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon and a good squeeze of juice
2 large or 4 small slices of wholegrain sourdough
Sea salt and black pepper

To finish
Extra virgin olive oil, to trickle
1 tbsp pumpkin seeds
12 olives, pitted and roughly chopped (optional)
A handful of parsley, chopped (optional)

Clean the leek(s) and slice thinly into roughly 5mm thick slices. Trim the fennel bulb(s), saving any feathery fronds, then quarter and slice each quarter thinly.
Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat. Add the leek and fennel slices and season well with salt and pepper. When everything is sizzling nicely, turn down the heat a little and sweat gently for 10–15 minutes, stirring regularly, until the veg are very tender and the leek has lost any squeakiness. Add the chopped garlic and lemon zest and cook for a few more minutes.
Meanwhile, toast the sourdough slices, then rub with the cut garlic clove, if using, and trickle with a little extra virgin olive oil.
Take the frying pan off the heat and add a good squeeze of lemon juice. Taste and add more salt and/or pepper if needed.
Heap the leek and fennel mixture onto the toasted sourdough. Trickle over a little more extra virgin oil and scatter with the pumpkin seeds, olives and/or chopped parsley, if using, or all three chopped together and mixed with a little olive oil – as a kind of tapenade. Finish with any saved fennel fronds, torn into little sprigs.
Replace the fennel with a handful of kale or spring greens – shred finely and add after the leeks have sweated for 5 minutes. For a proteinaceous boost, spread the toast with a nut or seed butter instead of simply trickling with oil. As well as being a great toast topper, the finished leek and fennel mix is also lovely tossed with pasta, especially if you add the seeds, parsley and olives.

Extract taken from High Fibre Heroes by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (Bloomsbury Publishing, Hardback, £26).