With the warmer weather making an appearance last week, I decided that I needed to add a couple of more seasonal recipes to my reportoire. So, without further ado, I’d like to introduce you to High Fearnley-Whittingstall’s summer veg stir-fry from his Veg Every Day book. It’s quick, simple – and with a hit of mint – refreshingly tasty too. Hugh suggests using a mixture of mangetout, peas and courgette, but I decided to free-style a little bit and used brocolli, sugar snaps, asparagus, peas, spinach and courgette, and it worked rather well – even if I do say so myself!

Following Hugh’s advice I prepared all the veg in advance. I sometimes get a bit flustered when I make stir-fries because it all comes together too quickly and before I know it the veg starts wilting a little bit too much for my liking. So, preparation is definitely the best policy in this instance. The dish is served with a generous helping of egg-fried rice. Mine didn’t look too clever, it tasted OK though, but i decided to leave it out of the photo.

The verdict from the cook: ‘Delicious, and the hit of mint definitely lifts the whole meal to another level. We’ll be having that again as it only takes a matter of minutes to cook.’

Ingredients

• 1 medium courgette, sliced
• A few spring onions, trimmed and sliced
• A handful of young spinach
• 75g mangetout
• 75g fresh peas
• 1 tbsp sunflower oil
• 2cm ginger, peeled and finely grated
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 1 green chilli, de-seeded and chopped
• A dash of soy sauce
• A dash of toasted sesame seed oil
• A handful of mint, finely shredded
• 1 tbsp lightly toasted sesame seeds

Method

1. Heat the oil in a large wok. Add the mangetout and stir-fry for 2 minutes. The add the courgette, peas and spinach one at a time, giving each vegetable a minute of so of stir-frying before adding the next.
2. When the greens have wilted down, add the ginger, garlic and chilli. Stir-fry for another couple of minutes. remove from the heat and transfer to a serving dish and scatter with soy sauce and sesame oil. Finally add the mint and the sesame seeds.
3. Serve with egg fried rice or noodles.