Served with a side dish of green beans and some boiled potatoes, this was a formative event in moulding the likes and mores of an eager youth. Or so I thought. For today, proper, humanely reared veal is making something of a long-overdue comeback. Much British-reared veal is very good, and a pot roast as described here makes it both special and, of course, delicious. To complete this charming dinner, or even long, languid lunch, it seems prudent to make use of that quintessential British fruit, the gooseberry.
All recipes serve six.
I have seen tins of asparagus, and have even heard of it being sold frozen. Stuff and nonsense, really, if not downright heresy, for British asparagus is with us for so brief a time that it must be eaten in abundance while the going's good - it will, after all, be gone for a whole year in a few short weeks. As with most vegetables, asparagus is best eaten as soon after plucking from the ground as is humanly possible. When it's this fresh, you will not even need to trim or peel the stalks. However, it's more usual to find asparagus that was picked a day or so before, and this will almost certainly require some preparation.