Best salsa verde and spring vegetables recipe

It sure is a pretty sight watching a gang of newly born calves run around the green paddocks together: exploring, carefree, amazing how quickly they become independent. And don't worry, these aren't eating cows, well I guess every cow is edible but these are Texas long horns and wouldn't be the first choice as they look skinny, long legged and able to protect themselves with those horns. The bull obviously came to visit last summer. Mr Magnificent, as my wife was wont to call him – funny, I can't recall her referring to me with such hyperbole – not one of those huge testicle-laden prize bulls you'll see at the Murrumbateman field days, but impressive just the same. We checked each other out over a fence one day and decided to stay each on our own sides, the wire fence somehow looking like it could do with a few more strands of barbs.

So now, nine months later the calves are coming thick and fast and it is a very calming experience watching them hoot around in a pack. The warm and wet spring has ignited the grass and plants into growing very fast. This is the best time for getting out into the garden and looking for the new season growth on the herbs: we have rosemary, oregano, thyme, sage, maybe the first showing of tarragon plus new shoots of parsley. If you wish to propagate herbs, this is the time to pick this new growth and plant it out or get harvesting as the flavour is never better.

One of the best, most useful sauces you'll find is the green sauce. It goes under many names in different cultures: Italian salsa verde or gremolata with anchovies, capers and olive oil; French sauce vierge is a mixture of herbs, lemon juice and chopped tomatoes or sauce verte, a herby sauce bound in an emulsion and persillade, the simplest of the green sauces, just chopped parsley and garlic, so good sprinkled on pan-fried scallops or delicate fish. Even the South American chimichurri sauce is very similar, just spiced up a little. The common theme is a mixture of chopped herbs, oil and lemon juice or vinegar dressing plus a few aromatics like garlic, onion and mustard.

Everyone agrees, even the French, that the green sauce is the perfect accompaniment to meats and seafoods, hot or cold. They are quick to make, all you really need is a chopping board and sharp knife and access to a good range of new season shoots.

The markets are full of spring vegetables too: I got some great locally grown asparagus, the big fat ones I love so much. Trimmed, the thicker skin peeled off and then just poached in water that's had some butter blitzed into it, perfect just on their own seasoned straight out of the pot. If I can keep the kids away from them they really are the base of a great spring salad along with similarly cooked broad beans and roasted kipflers. Baby fennel which is probably growing near you, like the weed it is, is peaking now; young bulbs don't even need to be cooked, just shaved very finely.

All this together is absolutely fine, tossed with lettuce, of which I'm leaning towards the more old school butter or bib lettuce, more substantial than the general mesclun mix, rinsed. Dressed with a freshly chopped spring herb sauce, it's a joyous arrangement, one that will have you galloping about like our little cows.

However, if you want to make this a truly memorable and substantial dish, we need to add something special. For me the perfect meat to go with a green sauce is cold corned beef hash but stepping it up a little more, a pickled tongue is like the zenith. It's a bit of work but cheap as all get out. You can buy them corned already but will no doubt have nitrates in the cure so here's a very easy brining process. The choice of tongue is entirely up to you. Beef or veal is readily available, pork less so and lamb, which is by far the best, almost impossible unless you know someone who slaughters their own lambs. Luckily I do. So a spring salad based on new season herbs and a tongue to boot.

Salad of tongue, butter lettuce, spring vegetables and salsa verde

1 cow's tongue or 6 lamb's tongues, brined and rinsed
2 litres chicken stock
1 head of butter lettuce, washed and dried
2 bunches asparagus
1 small bulb fennel
20 broad beans, shelled and peeled
10 small kipflers potatoes, scrubbed
Butter

Salsa verde to serve, see recipe below.

Cover tongue/s in chicken stock and simmer gently until tender. Weight down and chill overnight.

Trim asparagus and peel ends if needed, bring a small pot of salted water to the boil, whisk in 60g butter and poach asparagus until tender, scoop out and add shelled broad beans and cook until tender, finish with cooking kipflers, then cut in half.

Peel the tongues and cut into bite sized slices. Melt some butter and fry the tongues, just on each side for a few minutes to get a little colour and crispy on the edges.

Then cook kipflers on their cut side until crunchy.

Salsa verde

1 cup mixed herbs: parsley, oregano, rosemary, a suggestion of sage
4 anchovy fillets, chopped
2 tbsp capers, chopped
2 eschalots, peeled and finely sliced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 lemon, zest grated and juiced
50ml olive oil

Chop the herbs fairly coarsely, mix with all the other dry ingredients and then add lemon juice and oil.

Taste to see if it needs more seasoning.

Brine

1 cup salt
1 cup brown sugar
3 star anise
20 black peppercorns
10 juniper berries
1 head garlic
1 bunch thyme
3-4 sprigs rosemary
4 litres water

Bring to the boil, cool completely before using. Submerge tongues in this for 3 to 10 days. Rinse in fresh water, the longer in the brine the more changes.