New Year, new food

New ingredients

Broaden your culinary horizons for the year ahead by trying a new ingredient or discovering new ways of cooking a familiar one. Unlike dieting or getting fit, resolving to cook with something new doesn't involve any pain or sacrifice, so it's one resolution that's sure to please.

Mooli

Connoisseurs of Japanese cuisine will be familiar with the mooli, also known as daikon. It's similar in appearance to fresh horseradish - a long, white, rooty radish - but packs a lighter peppery punch. In Japan, it's frequently pickled and served as a crunchy accompaniment to rice at mealtimes. Mooli is great chopped into salads or made into crudités to serve with your favourite dip. If you're feeling particularly adventurous, you might fancy carving the crisp flesh into pretty shapes, as Chinese and Japanese chefs do, to make your dish a feast for the eyes as well as the palate. It can be cooked too - try steaming it on its own, grate it over Japanese-style fish or add it to stir-fries.

• Steamed sprouting broccoli with grated daikon (mooli) salad dressing by Kimoko Barber from Saturday Kitchen
• Radish, cucumber, mint, coriander and mooli salad by Neneh Cherry and Andi Oliver from Neneh and Andi: Dish It Up
• Rump steak teriyaki with a salad of mooli, pea shoots and mustard by Paul Rankin from Saturday Kitchen
• Lemon, chilli and white radish salad by Nick Nairn from Ready Steady Cook
• Spitalfields revueltos with mooli salad by Oliver Rowe from The Urban Chef
• Homemade pickles by Kylie Kwong from Saturday Kitchen

Kohlrabi

This knobbly bulbous brassica has a peculiar alien-like look with its pale green colour and strange protruding stems. It tastes inoffensive though - somewhere between cabbage and mild turnip with a slight sweetness. It's great steamed, stir-fried, added to soups and stews or dipped in batter and fried to make tempura or fritters. Served cold, it adds a pleasing crunch and mild spicy note to salads.

• Smothered leeks and kohlrabi by Sophie Grigson
• Kohlrabi, cavolo nero, pine nut and tomato stew on sweet potato miso mash by Peter Gordon
• Kohl 'slaw' by Nick Nairn from Ready Steady Cook
• Turkish kofta kebabs with minted yoghurt and kohlrabi and carrot salad by Rick Stein from Food Heroes
• Prawn fritters by Neneh Cherry and Andi Oliver from Neneh and Andi: Dish It Up

Pink peppercorns

Pink peppercorns are technically not really peppercorns at all - they come from a different plant - but don’t let that stop you adding a rosy hue and peppery touch to your supper this New Year. They have a delicate pepper flavour; just crush them in a pestle and mortar to get that peppery aroma going. Use them combined with white, black or green peppercorns as a seasoning for steak or fish, mixed into a salad dressing or even added to minced meat as a filling for burgers. The recipes below use the dried variety, but you can also buy them in brine.

• Fillet of beef with green and pink peppercorn sauce by Burrastow House Hotel
• Miso cod with deep-fried cabbage and pink peppercorn dressed cabbage by James Martin from Saturday Kitchen
• Crisp duck salad by Neneh Cherry and Andi Oliver from Neneh and Andi: Dish It Up
• Peppered steak by Jo Pratt from Nation's Favourite Food
• Spiced pork burgersby Tony Tobin from Saturday Kitchen