Saucy Dressings aims to complete this post – four weeks’ menus and recipes, plus a few spare by the end of 2020. Every year an additional week’s menu, with the links to the individual recipes, is added.

For food in season in April, follow this link.

For music to listen to while cooking in April, follow this link.
In April we have (usually) Easter, St George’s Day, ANZAC day, and,  April Fools’ Day. So you might also be interested in these posts:

• Happy Easter! Super-slow cooked lamb
• Chocolate and caramel dead-cinch cake with golden eggs
• Would Harriet Salt’s blue eggs taste different to Burford Browns?
• Rhubarb sensible
• Champagne: English sparkling wine throws down the gauntlet
• English-style gambas al ajillo – prawns with gin and garlic
• It’s ANZAC day today so we’re eating ANZAC biscuits

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Week’s menu for April: number 1

“With the young men walking with the gold low light on their limbs, and the young girls with radiance on their faces, and the young blossom bursting among the apple-boughs, and all that is young there glorying in the morning.”

Lord Dunsanay, The Curse of the Wise Woman

Saturday lunch:

• smoked salmon and new potatoes – the first of the Jersey Royals if you are lucky

OR

• A spring salad of artichokes and asparagus; of mint and mozzarella with
• garlic bread

FOLLOWED BY

• simply the best brownies

OR

• how to make the perfect Victoria sandwich cake

Sunday evening:

• Kerala fish molly

OR

• sausage and artichoke orzo with witty pine nuts

OR

• Pimpernel Smith tuna sauce for rice or tagliatelle aka tuna à la king

Monday evening meat:

• leg lamb steaks and courgettes with feta – quick, unusual and always a winner

Tuesday evening:

• leftovers or night out!

Wednesday evening poultry:

• chicken cacciatore with olives and a crunchy-mashy olive-pervaded salad – an improvement on Inspector Montalbano’s rabbit version

Thursday evening dinner party:

• with drinks: crostini with blue cheese and honey
• starter: salad 625 – with prawns and the first of the juicy mangoes from India
• main course:  Turkish lamb pilaf made with tomatoes a la crème – an exotic way to use up leftover lamb
• pudding: rhubarb sensible with ginger biscuits – super quick

OR

• pudding: chocolate swirl cheesecake – served with Seville orange wine

Thank God It’s Friday drink:

•  Vodka Martini
• savoured with smoked oysters on pumpernickel

Friday evening fish:

• turbot with asparagus and a cream sauce – impressive dish using the king of fishes

OR

• monkfish roasted with rosemary and garlic
• new potatoes with a lemony lovage pea sauce

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Week’s menu for April: number 2

“To tackle April you needed to be fit. April was packed with celebrations: the Megalensis and the Floral Games, the Games and Festival of Ceres, the Vinalia, the Robigalia and the Parilia, which was the birthday of Rome itself.”

Lindsey Davis, Poseidon’s Gold

April is a wonderful month – the blossom is unfolding, the buds are sprouting and from a culinary point of view herbs are starting to come to life. From April Week 1 posts (above) we have some cracking, simple recipes – an Inspector Montalbano inspired chicken dish – and a simple Turkish lamb pilaf to name just a couple. And leading on from that, this month I’m off to Istanbul and, inspired by another detective, Jason Goodwin’s nineteenth century Yashim the Eunoch, we’ll be looking into the history of the pilaf, simple, exotic, unexpected. In addition there’ll be a whole plethora of creative ideas on offer adapted from modern Turkish cuisine.

And, of course, there’s Easter – and that means lamb… and eggs.

In addition we’ll be looking at butter as a source of sauce – fulsome flavour, straightforward and simple.

Saturday lunch:

• salad of spring vegetables

OR

• Courgette carpaccio with blousy burrata

OR

• Avocado eggs on toast

FOLLOWED BY

• Anzac biscuits

OR

• Lorraine’s fabulous vanilla cupcakes

Sunday lunch:

• roast beef, roast potatoes, broccolini with mustard seeds and lemon, cream of horseradish sauce, Yorkshire pudding

Monday evening chicken:

• poule au pot with aïoli

OR

• go-to, super-quick recipe for leftover chicken with chickpeas, black olives and feta

AND

• fennel salad punctuated by pomegranate seeds

Tuesday evening:

• leftovers or night out!

Wednesday evening:

• pilaf – with haloumi and fresh green herbs

OR

• puffy, rosy soufflé-omelette with a luscious lime and walnut avocado salad

Thursday evening dinner party:

• with drinks: berenjenas fritas con miel de caña; aka crispy fried aubergines with molasses
• starter: surprising Shakespearian spinach sacks or canny crab croquettes
• main course: gold-encrusted Greek 16 hour lamb with tomatoed-kritharaki, or alternatively with potatoes with preserved lemons, artichokes and carrots
• pudding: lascivious zabaglione torte with rude raspberries

OR

• pudding: really soft, gooey, apple and caramel cake with which to celebrate

Thank God It’s Friday drink:

• chocolate lime absinthe cocktail

WITH

• Tomino on Toast – aka crostini of capers, pesto and Piedmontese cheese

Friday evening fish:

• James Bond’s pearl fishers’ Japanese rice with tuna (or sea bass) and seaweed

OR

• brill with braised celery

AND

• green beans treated with a mushy-miso dressing

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Week’s menu for April: number 3

“Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.”

A E Houseman, A Shropshire Lad

Saturday lunch:

• Cauliflower cake and ham

AND

• Super-simple, slightly Asian carrot and fennel salad

FOLLOWED BY

• surprising and forbidden dark Easter cookies

Sunday supper:

• pasta with gorgonzola sauce

OR

• peppers stuffed with smokey mince and slathered with minty yoghurt

Monday evening meat:

• Not-quite-Turkish kebabs…with tahini sauce and fried peppers…. which also go really well with not-sauerkraut

OR

• A Neolithic meat pie for a hungry young man… and everybody else

Tuesday evening:

• leftovers or night out!

Wednesday evening poultry:

• chicken with apple and cider
• State secret mashed potato
• braised cabbage with nutmeg and cranberries

Thursday evening dinner party:

• with drinks: Mr and Mrs Smith’s empanadillas
• starter: smoked salmon and avocado and sundried tomatoes
• main course: rare lamb neck steak
• vegetable: baby corn courgettes with apple balsamic
• pudding: lemon and gingernut tart

OR

• pudding: Iain Longhorn-inspired macerated rhubarb with wobbly panna cotta

Thank God It’s Friday drink:

• magnificent Mayfair cocktail á la Blue Bar
• mushrooms and quails eggs to pick at as you sip

Friday evening fish:

• cod with minty pea mash and braised flageolets and celery

OR

• Salmon moist with lemon – with a creamy salad and roasted new potatoes

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Week’s menu for April: number 3

“Now spring’s own woods go robed in green
And chiming birds unloose their throats
To fill each tree with April rain
The branches staves, the leaves the notes”

Ann Wroe, Francis: A Life In Songs

Saturday lunch:

• ham hock jelly with gebiche sauce, or with piccalilli

OR

• palm heart, slightly salty, salad with tomatoes

OR

• a cracking good chicken and cauliflower salad with pistachios and other good things

FOLLOWED BY

• Dutch apple pie

Sunday supper:

• Prawn, tomato and mozzarella/burrata sauce for pasta

OR

• golden couscous, sour cream, meatballs, and a magnificent medley of nuts and seeds

Monday evening meat:

• lamb steaks with braised celery and haricot beans

Tuesday evening:

• leftovers or night out!

Wednesday evening poultry:

• Firecracker chicken with two peas and pumpkin seed salad

Thursday evening dinner party:

• with drinks: red and green crostini
• starter: hot smoked salmon with oatmeal

OR

• starter: quick, classic avocado mousse
• main course: prosciutto-wrapped pork in rich tomato sauce
• pudding: orange and apricot cream

Thank God It’s Friday drink:

• Islayllujah at Detective Agency Evans & Peel

OR

• a whisky sour

….. and to eat with it:

• Nymph Hotel twice-cooked potato wedges with aïoli

Friday evening fish:

• lacquered haddock with aubergine

OR

• baked Asian sea bass

OR

• fabulous flavourful fish pie for shameless cheats

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