April guarantees a plentiful supply of chocolate eggs, hot cross buns … and broccoli. There are plenty of fresh, affordable vegetables this month, and the green brassica stands out for all the right reasons.
“[Broccoli] is cheap, affordable and something that most families enjoy,” says George Vasilevski, the owner of Yarraville Square Fresh Market in Melbourne.
“You can find a rougher-grade broccoli, which doesn’t look as pretty but is just as fresh, for as little as $2 a kilo but you shouldn’t be paying more than $6 a kilo for the best.” In supermarkets it can be found for about $4 a kilo.
Roasting is one of the best ways to cook broccoli – the high heat gives a complex, nutty savouriness to the florets and stalks. With one large batch of roasted broccoli, the chef Alex Bluett has created four recipes: a salad, a blue-cheese gratin, a soup and a toastie.
If you need to be broc-convinced, the vegetable goes (almost) incognito in Yotam Ottolenghi’s orecchiette with broccoli and rocket. For the converted, Rachel Roddy’s broccoli ripassati tossed through casarecce is the green pasta of choice.
Elsewhere in the brassica family, Vasilevski says there are plenty of bargain buys this month.
Cauliflowers are back, and a steal at about $2.50 to $3 each. Get ahead with Felicity Cloake’s guide to cooking the perfect whole-roasted cauliflower before spinning off with Nigel Slater’s roasted cauliflower with lemon harissa sauce or Meera Sodha’s cumin-and-chilli-spiced number with pilaf. And let this be the season for cauliflower tacos.
Kale is fresh and crisp at about $4.50 a bunch; a bunch of silverbeet will set you back about $5.50. Half savoy cabbages remain steady at about $3 each in supermarkets, while whole womboks can be found at $4.90 each and are destined for your next homemade kimchi.
Keen for zucchinis
April’s zucchinis are gourd’s gifts.
Vasilevski calls them “great value and very versatile” and is selling them at $2 to $6 a kilo, depending on quality. In supermarkets, they are about $4.50 a kilo.
Mattie Taiano’s zucchini lasagne is meat-free; Alice Zaslavsky’s zucchini fritters are gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free and nut-free; while Aleksandar Taralezhkov has created a zucchini multiverse with Bulgarian dolma, moussaka and koftas.
At the Greener Grocer in Maroubra in Sydney’s east, its manager, Adam Balloot, says April is also the time to watch for grey zucchinis (often sold as Lebanese zucchinis). They are so named for their grey-coloured seeds and have a slightly sweeter flavour than green zucchinis.
Red and green capsicums are abundant and can be found for $7 to $8 a kilo in supermarkets. Yellow capsicums, the sweetest of the lot, are about $12 to $13 a kilo. They’re pricier because they have spent more time on the vine before harvesting. If your capsicums have spent a little too long lingering in the fridge, give them a second chance at life with Rachel Roddy’s sweet and sour capsicum and potatoes.
Also in stable supply are Asian greens, eggplant, corn and fennel.
After a late-summer glut, it’s wise to leave tomatoes off your shopping list. “About a month ago, we were selling 1kg bags for $2.50,” Balloot says. “Today, we have a 1kg bag for $4.”
In supermarkets, most varieties have risen to $7 or $8 a kilo for loose tomatoes. “If you can get your hands on a prepacked one, that’s going to be a better deal right now,” Balloot says.
He says avocados are “still a bit iffy” and, while prices are slowly going down each week, the much-loved Hass variety is not expected to return soon. Which means now is the time to embrace Shepards.
A is for April, autumn and apples
Last month’s picks – grapes and watermelons – remain at a good price but April is the apple’s time to shine.
Royal Galas are cheapest at about $3.90 a kilo, with Jazz, Kanzi and Fuji apples at about $5 a kilo. The latter variety is good for baking into these cakes, tarts and apple crumble muffins.
“The most popular are Pink Ladies, but they’re one of the last apples to come in. They’re about a month away,” Vasilevski says.
Pears have also started falling in price, from about $2.90 (on special) to $5 a kilo. Combine the two autumnal fruits in Tamal Ray’s apple and pear tart with a rum and star anise glaze. The recipe calls for conference pears, which can be hard to find in Australia – substitute with William Bartlett or beurre bosc.
Autumn also brings persimmons. At about $3 each, they will come down in price as supply comes in, albeit for a short season. Some prefer the jammy, astringent, teardrop-shaped variety; others prefer the firm Fuyu specimens, which work well in Alanna Sapwell’s persimmon tarte tatin.
High on local citrus supply
While vegetable supply and prices will largely remain steady, Neha Thaker, owner of Vince and Charlie’s Fruit Market in Ferny Hills, north-west of Brisbane, says fruit is not as consistent in cooler months.
“The new season fruit is at peak prices at the moment,” she says. “Mandarins are coming – they’re beautiful - but they’re quite high in price still, like $10 a kilo.”
Local citrus will enter the market towards the end of April, bringing an end to imported navel oranges. They’re now in supermarkets for $6 or $7 a kilo but soon customers will find premium-quality oranges for about $5 a kilo or less. We have this upside-down orange cake bookmarked, just in case.
For now, berries, “one of the most expensive fruits”, are unlikely to come down in price and mangoes are well and truly gone.
Keep the summer dream alive with good stone fruit – the last of the season – which to Thaker’s surprise, are still good quality.
“Usually by this time, they’re going black inside and rotting … I think customers should make the most of it.”
Buy:
Apples
Asian greens
Bananas: stable year-round
Broccoli
Broccolini
Cauliflower
Cabbage
Corn
Eggplant
Fennel
Grapes
Green beans
Kale
Lemons
Lettuce
Limes
Pears
Silverbeet
Watermelon: rising in price, but still cheap
Wombok
Zucchini
Watch:
Cucumbers: rising slightly in price
Persimmons: coming down in price
Pomegranates: coming into season
Stone fruit: at their end, so get in fast
Avoid:
Mangoes: gone
Tomatoes: expensive
Berries: expensive
