St David's Day

Land of plenty

With its varied landscape of rolling moorland, craggy mountains and huge coastline, Wales' landscape reflects the freshness and variety of its food. Whether you serve leek pie, boiled mutton or traditional cawl, we've got plenty of recipes to choose from.

Welsh meat

The diversity of terrain in Wales lends itself to a mixed agriculture of sheep, cattle, dairy and a small, but strong pork industry. Welsh lamb is particularly renowned. There are three types of lamb to look for: lowland lamb, which is available eight months of the year; salt marsh lamb, which is best from areas covered by the tide at least twice a day; and mountain lamb, which is reared high in the mountains for the summer, where the animals feed on mountain herbs and grass.

Chefs such as Giorgio Locatelli, Mark Hix and Tom Aikens have praised salt marsh lamb. Chef Matt Tebbutt, who grew up in Wales and has a restaurant in Nantyderry, says: "It's a particularly flavoursome meat with a slight salty, iodine taste. It partners well with some of the ingredients it grazes on, such as samphire and sea beet, and because it's lowland grazing, it's not a hardened creature. I think all Welsh lamb is superb, and I like to use local hogget (year-old lamb) and mutton, too".

Try these recipes with Welsh lamb and beef:

• Welsh honeyed lamb
• Roast leg of lamb with garlic and rosemary (video recipe)
• Salt marsh lamb, samphire and broad beans, with balsamic meat juices
• Roast loin and braised shoulder of salt marsh lamb with caper jus
• Poached fillet of Welsh black beef with sautéed snails and asparagus on cauliflower purée

Seafood

Wales is a small country with a long coastline. There's a great diversity of fish and shellfish to be found along its coast. Great shoals of herring and mackerel are caught off the west coast, perfect for frying in bacon fat for a simple supper. Sea trout, locally called Sewin, swim up from the estuaries from June and partner particularly well with Welsh shellfish. Welsh Mussels, cockles, winkles, crab and lobsters are all highly prized.

Available already cooked and prepared, laverbread (seaweed) is a Welsh speciality that is often served rolled with fine Welsh oatmeal into little cakes and fried into crisp patties with eggs, bacon and cockles for a traditional Welsh breakfast.

Try these recipes with Welsh seafood:

• Cockle cakes with laverbread and bacon
• Sewin (sea trout) and soused vegetables with cockles and wood sorrel
• Mussels with wine and parsley (video recipe)
• Penclawdd cockle chowder

Cheeses

Spurred on by success stories such as Rachel's Dairy (a Welsh organic dairy based in Aberystwyth whose products are widely sold in the UK) many Welsh producers are now supplying large supermarkets and food halls. Caerphilly is the best known of Welsh cheeses, but there are many more acclaimed cheeses to choose from.

A Welsh cheeseboard Peter Jackson, Chairman of the Welsh Culinary Association, recommends "Perl Las or Celtic Blue for a blue cheese, Celtic Promise (which is cider washed), Perl Wen - which is a bit like Camembert, with the same chalky flavour - and then a smoked Caerphilly, Snowdonia Chedder and something like a Merlin or Pantysgawn for the goats' cheese".

Try these recipes with Welsh cheeses:

• Caerphilly, leek and bacon Welsh cakes
• Glazed goats' cheese and beetroot, with salad of Welsh herbs and beetroot dressing
• Welsh cheese bake
• Caerphilly cheese and thyme pastries

St David's Day dishes

Cawl, a meaty broth made from ham, lamb or beef - whatever's going - is traditionally eaten on St David's Day. Like Irish stew and other country casseroles, it's a variation on the same thing: a hearty stew made with cheap cuts of meat designed to feed lots of people. Most versions use neck of lamb, roast vegetables and leeks.

Colin Pressdee, author of Food Wales, says, "St David's Day is an awkward time for the best seasonal ingredients: it's too early for spring lamb, but it's great for hogget or mutton. This year, I'll probably cook something like a boiled leg of mutton with caper and leek sauce and serve it with leek gratin. I might start with Welsh cockles or mussels with laverbread, or a few slivers of Carmarthen ham, a dried cured ham".

Leek is, of course, one of the national emblems of Wales and a leek (or a daffodil) is traditionally worn on the lapel on this day. Pay homage to this seasonal ingredient with a leek soup or pie.

Try these recipes for St David's Day:

• Cawl
• Perfect Welsh rarebit
• Boiled mutton with caper sauce
• Chicken and leek pie (video recipe)
• Leek, potato and bacon soup
• More about leeks (and other seasonal foods for March)

Speckled bread and other sweet treats

Although no longer a daily indulgence, the traditional Welsh tea was a mainstay. A mammoth baking session would take place once a week in most households. Bara brith is a rich tea loaf (sometimes known as 'speckled bread') and is still the centrepiece of many a Welsh table at teatime. Welsh cakes are a bit like a flat scone, baked on a griddle and with a distinctive flavour and texture, usually served hot spread with butter.

Try these Welsh tea recipes:

• Welsh cakes
• Strawberry soufflé with strawberry sorbet and Welsh shortbread
• Toast wy of bara brith with baked plums and yoghurt ice cream
• Monmouth pudding