As pleasing as all the tomato reds are the muted green of a silky courgette and basil puree is a beautiful sight. Contrasting with the thinly sliced raw yellow courgette it makes a sunshine plate. There are many different varieties, shapes and sizes of courgette but like squash I think only a few actually have a decent flavour and are worth bothering with. Many are flavourless and quite simply watery. I’ve never found many round ones to have much going on.

Are you fed up of courgettes yet? I’m always excited to see them but am now busy making gluts into chutneys. This dish has been popular on our menu over August so we thought we’d bring it to you this month to enjoy at home.

Courgette cavatelli with parmesan and crispy sage

Semolina pasta dough

100g flour, Maris Widgen, spelt or other heritage grain strong flour

300g semolina, finely milled

140g-200g water

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A couple of seasonal plates from our kitchen coming up on the newsletter this month with a guest wine pairing from El who is back temporarily with us from the vines of Wiltshire.

We had a great weekend for Levenshulme Pride, now in its 9 year, and are now enjoying some slightly cooler temperatures in the kitchen, busy preserving some beautiful tomatoes from Cinderwood market garden. We’ve fermented some for our pickle plates and made the rest into chutney for Christmas cheese boxes.

Our set menu is taking break as the team takes holidays over summer but will be a back in mid September as we start looking towards the festive period. Our space is available for hire for festive celebrations if your mind is starting to wander in that direction.

In the absence of toasties on our menu for the summer months we often find ourselves with left over bread ends and in need of ways to use them up. Pair that with all the sunshine we’ve been having and the resulting glut of ripe tomatoes from our suppliers and a Panzanella salad has found its way on to our menu for the last few weeks. The sweet spice from our harissa dressing is a lovely flavour combination to balance the acidity of the tomatoes and the bread soaks it right up too. We use Lamiri harissa at Isca, made in Tunisia with only the best baklouti chillies that are dried in traditional log ovens to bring you that rich smokey flavour. You don’t need a lot as the chilli heat is intense and the smokey flavour from the log ovens works so well with many dishes.

Harissa dressing

1 tbsp Lamiri harissa

1 lemon, juice only

2 tsp maple syrup

100ml cider or white wine vinegar

300ml rapeseed or mild olive oil

water to let it down

I find it easiest to do that in a blender to break up the chilli chunks in the harissa as we put it in a squeezy bottle at Isca, but I think for home use just shaking it up in a jam jar or giving it a good whisk in a small bowl would work just as well.

Miz everything but the water in a jar, blender or small bowl and shake, blitz or blend until it has all come together, add a splash of water to loosen it until you get a good consistency. This will keep in the fridge for a few weeks.

Panzanella salad with halloumi + harissa dressing

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We’ve tried fermenting most things at Isca. From the beginning when we made out own kimchis + sauerkrauts to sell in jars, to misos, kombuchas, fermented sodas and endless jars of pickles for our pickle plates. Some have been more successful than others but it’s all a journey of preserving and working out what you like to have on hand in your fridge.

If you have a glut of anything you’ve been growing fermentation is your friend. Pickled courgettes spiced with turmeric from the Zuni cafe cookbook are a favourite in our kitchen. I tentatively tried fermenting green beans with unexpected success, just make sure you catch them and refrigerate before they go mushy, they are not the most beautiful ferment but they have a wonderful flavour.

Today’s dish is a great way with summer greens and has the added bonus of probiotic benefits from the yoghurt. I think we sleep on warm brown butter and creamy yoghurt too much in our cuisine. Nutty, warm richness paired with cool, creamy, acidic yoghurt is always a winner. This will taste great topped with sauerkraut, possibly one laced with leek trim to give it an allium hit. We’ve also been known to ferment the stalks from chard, kale and cavolo nero. Any of these would add a lovely fermenty hit to this dish. Simply finely slice the stalks once you have removed the greens, rinse and then place a small, sterilised jar on the scales and zero it. Add the stalks and then add 2% of its weight in salt and top up with water. This is a basic lacto fermentation formula that will work for lots of bits of veg that you might needs to use up or preserve. Although fermenting isn’t just about using up waste bits, its an art of its own and works best with good quality organic produce that has natural yeasts and healthy bacterias in it.

You can use any greens really, I like chard but have been known to do this with whatever needs using up in the fridge, spring cabbage, kale and I love the crunch of green beans in it too. Fermented green beans would add a new angle to it also. Any of these ferments can be achieved using the guide above.

Spiced greens, sauerkraut + brown butter yoghurt

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A focus on fermentation this month. Fermentation has always been fairly central to the way we work at Isca. What started as a way to use up vegetables has become at the forefront of our food, most di…

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Having just got over the excitement of stone fruits making their way over from Europe now cherry season is here. If pushed I think I might say cherries are my favourite fruit. I have fond childhood memories of eating them from a brown paper bag on shopping trips to Brixton market, with stained fingers and no where to put the stones. Raw cherries, cooked cherries, preserved cherries and sour cherries all hit the spot, even the fluorescent glacé cherries on old fashioned cherry Bakewell tarts.

I recently an amazing pork belly curry with sour cherries at Bangkok Diners Club in Exhibition in Manchester a few weeks ago, the sour cherries slotting into the sour Thai flavour profile very well. I urge you to try it.

For this month we’re focusing in on some beautiful produce from a recent visit to Cinderwood market garden and a bonus cherry, chocolate, almond an hazlenut galette using your spelt rough puff recipe from April.

We recently visited one of our suppliers Cinderwood market garden to see how it had all progressed in the last couple of years and were very impressed by the hard work that is going into to increasing the crop varieties, including heritage varieties and the commitment to pesticide free growing which is no mean feat with the current weather conditions. The basil they grow is so fragrant, we will be featuring it a lot on our menu this summer. For our first recipe today we used the lemon basil but if you can’t get hold of this normal basil will definitely work, add a little bit of lemon balm if you have any in your garden.

We’re firing up the BBQ this Saturday as part of Stock Party in the square at Robinson’s brewery with Track and Cloudwater. Serving BBQ chicken and BBQ courgette sandwiches, salad plates, natural wines by the glass and snacks. Pop by and see us and all the other great traders on Saturday between 12pm and 9pm.

Broad beans, asparagus, ricotta + Cinderwood basil on sourdough

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The first of the UK tomatoes are starting to come through on our menu and with this week’s sunshine it’s the perfect time to serve them. Balmy warm evenings when the sun is nearly gone but its warmth remains are definitely my favourite time for relaxing in the garden and piling plates high with salads, dips and breads and not turning the hob on once. Over the years I’ve managed to grow quite a few herbs in my garden and the joy at picking them and adding them straight to my dinner plate has not got old yet. Herbs are generally quite forgiving to grow, often come back year on year and can be grown in a small pot on a window sill or a doorstep if you don’t have much outside space. Sad herbs from the shops so often go to waste so picking your own can be a great waste saver, if you can’t grow them recipes like this herby salsa verde will use up any odds and ends of shop bought herbs and will keep in the fridge for a few days to dress up salads, a cheese sandwich or a bowl of soup.

If you can grow a few pots of herbs try ones you don’t see on the supermarket shelves as much. Oregano, chives and fennel herb come back year after year without much care and attention and can bring so much to your dishes for flavour and decoration.

Before we get to the recipe a reminder of our evening with Hern next Tuesday at Isca. Carys and Ben are travelling across the Pennines for one night only on June 2nd cooking and pouring wine with Issy and Caro at Isca. Hern is one of our favourite restaurants in the North serving thoughtful, seasonal, well sourced food with a great natural wine list to drink alongside Rab and Carys’s creations.

We’ve been working on a collaborative menu we can’t wait to serve to you. More info on the menu can be found on our Instagram post. Places are filling up fast, book your spot here.

Marinated tomatoes, whipped tahini sauce + salsa verde

For the first of the Isle of Wight tomatoes we fancied trying a new combination. Always such a good pairing with a creamy soft cheese, we wanted to try a vegan option that still had the same richness. Although there is no saying you couldn’t crumble some feta or ricotta over the top of this or sneak some anchovies into the salsa verde. Read on for the recipe and a great trick to make tomato essence from any trim.

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Some photos from a wine trip to Germany visiting 3 of our most loved producers that Issy has just returned from. She visited 2Naturkinder, who some of you may remember from our 6th birthday celebrati…

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We had the pleasure of being part of Yan Tan TaThera Farmer’s market over at Track Brewery last weekend. These types of events are so important to bridge the gaps in our food system between producers and consumers and highlight where our food is coming from. Manchester City Centre is really lacking in any sort of independent green grocers since the sad closure of McCall’s so it is as important as ever to support endeavours like these where fresh, organic fruit, vegetables, cheese and meat is for sale, connecting us to the farms that surround Manchester instead of all of our spending power going to the supermarkets who have systematically strangled out the competition.

Read on for our recipe for spelt rough puff pastry and the courgette + sheep’s cheese galette we served at the market and a bonus idea for tomato season, a cherry tomato and wild garlic tart using the same pastry.

Before we get into this month’s recipes a reminder of our event at Isca next Wednesday. We’ll be serving Isca’s take on Poutine and everything else maple, pecan pie, asparagus, fresh raspberries drenched in maple and more with a soundtrack dreamt up by DJ Luv who is visiting from Montreal.

Book in

Spelt rough puff

100g spelt/rye/wholemeal pastry

200g strong bread flour

175g butter, cubed and chilled

100g milk

50ml water

1/2 tsp sea salt

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Today it finally feels like Spring after some wild weather over the Easter weekend. I’m thinking about finally sowing some seeds in the garden, herbs are popping back up and salads are back on the me…

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We are writing to you this week from what feels like a January day. Hail has been bouncing on the kitchen roof all morning. You wouldn’t think we were in t shirts with the door open letting the Spring air in this time last week! I was worried this first dish I had planned would feel too wintery when I planned to write about it but looking at the forecast I think comforting dishes are still on the menu for now.

A lovely customer brought as some Jerusalem artichokes from a glut on their allotment and this is what we made with them. So creamy and delicious with a delicate flavour, I have picked up a slight floral aroma whilst steaming them. A versatile vegetable. Crisps, silky purees, steamed and grilled. This dish does it all. A show case of their different facets. Strange, nobbly creatures. Americans call them sun chokes. They are a relative to the sunflower and can be cooked in a similar way to potatoes and parsnips as well as eaten raw or pickled. I’ve even made them into an ice cream, as they really lend themselves to a creamy based recipe.

If you ever have a glut of anything you are growing please do let us know and we can give you some ideas or take it off your hands in return for some coffees, jams or chutneys.

Coming up second a bonus recipe pictured above we’re working with the (January) King of cabbages. It’s leaves are always tempting with their delicate green and purple hew. Cabbage has been in the headlines lately, becoming trendy now but it has always been on our plates.

Before we get in to the first recipe a reminder of our wine tasting series Travels to…

We are beginning in Alsace this Sunday with 4 wines from the region and a discussion about terroir and the journeys, meals and wines shared.

Book here

Jerusalem artichoke, wild mushrooms, brown butter and gremolata

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Wild garlic really makes you believe that Spring is finally here. The vibrant green leaves poking through the crispy winter woodland floor, carpeting river banks and wooded nooks in parks and fields.…

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In Spring. A Cookbook, I came across a recipe for potato and porcini soup that got me thinking. Earthy dried mushrooms, hard herbs like rosemary and thyme, good quality olive oil are sometimes all you need. Always on the look out for vegetables that give a meaty quality to a dish that some may feel is lacking on our menus.

Squash and mushroom have always been a combination I’ve been fond of, the sweetness of squash balanced with the savoury, earthy mushrooms.

So from all this the squash, farro, rosemary + porcini stew was born. Farro is an ancient grain full of nutrients and is high in protein, iron and magnesium, a favourite of ours in salads all year and we’ve had a go at fermenting it before and then cooking it as a rice substitute for a risotto base but never in a stew.

This month’s pairing to go with this dish is a beautiful orange wine made in Catalunya by Lucy Chilvers. Caro had the privilege of visiting Lucy last November and we have been lucky enough to welcome her to Isca twice for a winemaker evening.

Although farro is a grain containing gluten it doesn’t produce much starch when cooked as it tends to be eaten in it’s whole form, so I had to think about how to thicken the stew.

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Coming out of our winter hibernation and happy to be back at it. I’ve been away recharging in the south east, delighting in pizza made with the best produce at Landrace bakery. Enjoying a cosy post walk feast at arguably one of the best pubs in England, The Woolpack, Slad and being lucky enough to visit their newly opened sister restaurant, Juliet, in Stroud. The farmers market in Stroud was also heavenly, a joy to see local producers offering a variety of baked goods, fruit + veg, dairy and much more to a swarming crowd so soon after Christmas.

A little note about how our approach to newsletters is changing, to streamline and not bombard you with too many emails we’ve moving everything over to Substack. We’ll still be sending recipes and wine info your way to free subscribers on an ad hoc basis and our paid offering will change to one monthly email with our thoughts on food, recipes, wine pairings, wine makers, restaurant recommendations and deep dives into bottles on our shelves for a more affordable price of £4 per month, the same as a coffee these days.

Sadly the sun we were treated to at the beginning of the year has dissipated somewhat but Europe is bringing us all the colours from lemon, citron, blood oranges, pomegranate and radicchios. All crying out for some creamy cheese and bright green mint or dill leaves to ramp the flavour up.

For me the more sour the better, my love of blood oranges comes from their sherbety flavour. I’ve never been a fan of marmalade but blood orange marmalade I can just about tolerate. The bitter and the sweet is a strange marriage to me, it almost tastes acrid and burnt. Give me a bitter leaf any day.

Beetroot and orange is nothing new and it is a wonderful combination. Earthy beetroot, creamy ricotta, aromatic notes from the mint. If you are feeling fruity I think the pop of a jewelled pomegranate seed would add an extra something to this to. It is a simple dish but sometimes, in fact more often that not in this world, that is all you need. This week we’ve been using a variety of beetroot called Egyptian beetroot which is a bit more luminous pink in colour and slightly sweeter, not from Egypt, grown in Lancashire in fact.

Beetroot, ricotta, blood orange + radicchio salad

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A hearty dish to really fill you up against the cold. The roasted squash adds a sweetness to the gnudi and enhances the texture. This recipe uses ricotta but I think it could work with cream cheese or another creamy soft cheese if you were struggling to get hold of some. You can of course make your own with any leftover milk you have and a lemon, but that will add a few hours to the process!

On the search for a new dish for the menu and to have a break from pasta whilst we wait for a new delivery of good quality semolina from Landrace bakery I had a think about making gnudi. I have been put off before by the large amounts of ricotta and semolina needed and the over night resting time. They would work with potato added in so why not squash? Roasted in its skin it caramelises and the sweet flavour concentrates until the raw vegetal element has gone.

Squash gnudi with oyster mushrooms, brown butter + greens

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As regular readers may remember I love a fresh, crunchy leaf and colder temperatures don’t mean we have to miss out. Autumn and winter bring us bitter leaves from the continent and increasingly being grown here too. Mustard frills, radicchio, Castelfranco, chicory and many more are here to keep our palates cleansed and fresh with all the rich food that is around.

I love a well dressed leaf to cut through a velvety sauce or a rich, slow cooked meaty dish. Higher Ground have satisfied this craving from the start by serving well vinegared mustard leaf grown at their farm, Cinderwood, with the meat main course on their sharing menu.

Bitter leaves signal the start of winter’s abundance from Europe, figs, the first bergamots, blood oranges won’t be long, puntarelle, treviso, pomegranate, such vibrant pinks, purples, yellows and oranges will be coming to your plates soon. Whilst I embrace the beige I do love these colour pops too.

For this week’s recipe we are working through a dish on our current menu. Roast squash, radicchio, hazelnuts, gorgonzola and crispy sage. If you have an abundance of radicchio it pickles very well for a soft leaf.

We usually stick to British and Irish cheeses but this Gorgonzola we get from The Courtyard Dairy is worth the deviation. They only stock a few continental cheeses as their main business is supporting small scale farmhouse cheese making in the UK, this Gorgonzola, a fantastic Parmesan and Vacherin Mont D’Or are the exception. If you ever in the area I strongly advise a visit to their cheese shop in Settle. A cheese lovers paradise with a cheese museum!

Pickled radicchio

Trevisso radicchio or other red variety

250ml white wine vinegar

150g sugar

2 sprigs rosemary

Start by brining the last 3 ingredients to the boil with 150ml water and then stir to dissolve the sugar. Allow the mix to chill before pouring it over the leaves as they will turn to mush with the residual heat. Separate and wash your radicchio leaves and place them into a sterilised jar leaving a little space in between for the pickle mix to get amongst it all.

Once the mix is cool pour it over and make sure the leaves are submerged under the liquid, these will taste best after curing for a few days, store them somewhere cool and away from sunlight or in the fridge should you have the space.

Now onto the whole dish. A nicely balanced sweet squash, bitter radicchio, earthy sage and creamy cheese.

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Having spent last Halloween in America I am now looking at it through a different lens. It is hard to ignore the enthusiasm mustered up for the beginning of holiday season and I must say I did get on board with all the decorations adorning people’s drive ways. Trader Joe’s takes things to a new level with a pumpkin spice Chardonnay, don’t be expecting anything like that on the shelves at Isca but I have definitely softened to the cinnamon and nutmeg sensation in baking and have created a pumpkin spice custard tart in an attempt to get on board with the season using our sweet pastry base with a squash custard infused with cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger.

Let’s start with the sweet pastry. You will need to make and rest your pastry and line that tart case ahead of time.

Sweet pastry

175g flour (we use a mix of plain white, wholemeal, rye or spelt, what ever is to hand really. 100g plain and 75 of whatever you choose or happen to have in your cupboard)

117g butter chilled and cut into small cubes (preferably organic)

20g caster sugar

1g salt

Splash of water

There are two ways you can tackle this. Either mix the dry ingredients in a bowl then rub in the butter or whizz them together in a food processor. You want to have little chunks of butter, like breadcrumbs in the mix, these will give the pastry a nice flaky texture. Depending on the flours you’ve used and the water content of the butter you may or may not need to add any water. To test for these grab a handful of the flour, sugar and butter mixture and squash it together in your hand.If it holds and forms a dough then don’t add any water, if it’s too dry and crumbly add a splash until you have a good consistency. Bring it all together and wrap in parchment paper, clingfilm or a wax wrap if you have one.

Resting is very important here, this pastry can be hard to handle but it’s worth it for the flavour.

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I lied actually another thing I like about now is the abundance of kales and cabbages that start to come through from the farms around now. Any type of stewed green is a winner for me and I crave something green with most meals. Broccoli, kale, cavolo nero, chard even peas can satisfy that thirst for health on my plate.

With Autumn rushing in we have made a few changes to our menu adding some heartier dishes to keep you warm and cuddled. Cheese toasties are back as well as a new take on our favourite butter beans.

Cavolo nero is currently what we are using on this dish but it would work well with kale, chard or broccoli. A take on an Italian style ripassati that we are serving with butter beans but works just as well on a sandwich or stirred into some pasta or spooned over thick greek yoghurt and devoured with a slice of bread.

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Beginning his voyage in vinification in 2011, Gregory originally moved to Ardèche to explore the caves, stumblin…

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