Andy McGregor: Liven up your cooking with garden-fresh flavour

ANY chef unlucky enough to be covering the Sunday lunch shift tomorrow will have further cause to curse their fortune when they check the calendar. Never morning people at the best of times, with the clocks going forward tonight they'll have an hour less in bed.

The good news for tomorrow's sleep-deprived kitchen staff is that the lighter evenings and warmer weather will mean menus can finally start to be revamped to reflect the arrival of spring.

Bored with preparing the heavier dishes that sustained us during the long winter, restaurant chefs and domestic cooks can thankfully begin thinking about lighter recipes with more emphasis on freshness and flavour.

As customers begin to look for pasta or salad dishes instead of meat joints, pies or casseroles, fresh herbs should start to make more of an appearance.

Thanks to the use of poly tunnels and imports from the likes of Cyprus and Israel, fresh herbs are available in grocers and supermarkets all the year round, but springtime and early summer are generally when those locally available are at their most vibrant and flavoursome.

You could therefore be starting to think about incorporating herbs into your new season's cooking. And if you prefer to grow your own whether in a kitchen garden, a window pot or indoors in a propagator, you may be thinking about sowing coriander, chives and parsley over the next few weeks.

Coriander, with its subtle, mildly citrus flavour is popularly used in meatballs, curries and dressings but is most commonly cooked through summery vegetable soups, often combined alliteratively with carrots or courgettes.

Chives, while very easy to grow, are less versatile, used mainly in potato salads or through butter sauces. They are best chopped and added just before serving as their oniony flavour tends to fade quite quickly.

Parsley is, of course, the classic garnishing herb, though is sometimes overlooked when it comes to cooking. It can actually work pretty well in egg dishes, giving your omelettes, quiches and tartlets a subtle, grassy flavour.

While basil with its pungent flavour is many chefs' favourite herb, the leaves we get are mostly imported thanks to our short growing season.

As spring moves toward summer you may have better luck sourcing locally grown mint, marjoram, sage or lovage.

Take a look in your own garden first though – they might be growing even more locally than you think. If you've never cooked with marjoram, you'll find that it's got a slightly spicy, nutmeg-like flavour and is particularly nice when added to a cream soup.

Sage is the classic herb accompaniment for pork, and is commonly used in chicken or turkey stuffings. Use it relatively sparingly as its bitter flavour can be quite overpowering. Lovage has a strong peppery taste that goes well with strongly flavoured meats such as beef.

Besides the variety of species available herbs have the advantage of being relatively cheap and even cheaper if you're sowing or picking your own. So it surely won't bust your budget to add a few fresh flavours to your cooking this spring.

Andy McGregor is chef/proprietor at Blonde Restaurant, 75 St Leonard's Street, 0131-668 2917