Mother’s Day: Top chef shares recipes for two tasty creations to treat your mum on her special day

Make this spring pea, thyme and lemon ricotta tart, and berry pavlova to treat your mum to something special on Mother’s Day.

If you are looking for some last-minute Mother’s Day ideas to cook up something delicious, then a top Scottish chef could have the answer.

MasterChef contestant David Hetherington has teamed up with supermarket Aldi to provide recipes for restaurant-quality dishes you can recreate at home.

And as well as making some amazing food, you won’t be breaking the bank with the former MasterChef contestant’s dishes feeding four people for less than £1.50 per person.

David, head chef at Glasgow’s Locker Hyndland, Provenance Chef of the Year 2018 and winner of Inspiring Chef of the Year 2020, has developed a variety of recipes using local Scottish produce from Aldi.

Healthy meal ideas

Starting with a Mother’s Day spring pea, thyme and lemon ricotta tart and berry pavlova, over the next four weeks David, former head chef at the Bridge of Orchy Hotel, will release a series of healthy meal ideas for four.

Weekly recipe suggestions and step-by-step cooking guides will feature across David’s (@chef_hetherington) and Aldi Scotland’s (@aldiscotland) Instagram and Facebook pages.

David said: “It has been brilliant to see everyone get more involved in cooking at home and by partnering with Aldi, who lead the way on Scottish provenance.

“I aim to build on this culinary excitement and share both affordable and nutritious recipe ideas for everyone to enjoy.

“By taking advantage of the selection of fresh Scottish produce available at Aldi, my weekly recipes will help guide both experienced cooks and kitchen novices to produce an array of tasty meals.

“Along the way, I will also provide some top cooking tips on how to find the best produce in your local Aldi store and how to be more adventurous in your own kitchen.”

Graham Nicolson, Aldi Scotland, group buying director said: “Over the past year, David has done an excellent job in engaging with people to encourage cooking at home but recognising at the moment that keeping dishes affordable is also of key importance.”

Why not try David’s recipes for Mother’s Day?

Spring pea, thyme and lemon ricotta tart, mixed leaf and cherry tomato salad

(Serves 4) 

Ingredients

• 1 bag frozen garden peas
• 1 lemon
• 2 sprigs of thyme/pinch of dried thyme
• 250g Ricotta
• 1 roll puff pastry
• Good twist of salt and black pepper
• Splash of olive oil
• ½ pack of cherry tomatoes
• 1 bag baby leaf salad

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C/ gas mark 4.
2. Line a rectangular baking tray, or a round one, with baking parchment, then line with pastry.
3. Next up, line the puff pastry with baking parchment, and fill with baking beans (this could be lentils, raw chickpeas, or you can buy real baking beans online, I choose to use lentils), this stops the middle of the tart rising while you bake the pastry. Leave a little pastry lip hanging out the top for a wee bit of crunch. Pop the tart in the oven and bake for around 20 minutes or until the pastry is looking golden.
4. While the pastry is cooking, chuck the ricotta into a bowl, add some chopped thyme (or a pinch of dried thyme), squeeze of lemon juice, some lemon zest and some salt and pepper.
5. Put a pot of water on to boil. Once boiling add in the frozen peas and allow it to come back to the boil and immediately strain off the water and chill, this is important to keep the colour, nutrients and flavour in the peas.
6. Once the pastry is cooked, and cooled, fire in the ricotta mix, smooth it out to the edges and fill the pastry, toss the peas with some olive oil, salt, pepper, thyme and a squeeze of lemon, and pile them on top.
7. For the salad, wash the salad leaves gently under cold water, toss in olive oil, salt, pepper, halved cherry tomatoes and serve up everything with love and a big smile.

Berry Pavlova

(Serves 4) 

Ingredients

• 4 egg whites
• 250g caster sugar
• 250ml double cream
• ½ punnet of Wonky strawberries
• ½ punnet of Wonky blueberries

Method

(This recipe will always work better if you have an electric whisk)

1. In a clean dry bowl place the egg whites, and whisk on a high speed until they become stiff. Place the sugar onto a baking sheet, and place in a hot oven at around 180°C, you’ll want the sugar to heat until it becomes too hot to touch with the palm of your hand. This is a culinary trick so please be careful.
2. Carefully pour the sugar into the egg whites, mixing at a fairly high speed, again we are working with hot sugar here, so be careful and take your time.
3. Continue to whisk the eggs on a high speed once all the sugar is in and keep whisking until the mix is cold. It should be shiny and hold itself together.
4. We need to make a small meringue bowl for our pavlova, so divide the mix into four onto a parchment-lined tray. Now the best way to do this would be to pipe a little nest, but you can plop a dollop on a tray and make a wee well in the centre with a hot spoon.
5. Now switch off the oven, it should still be hot from the sugar warming.  Pop in the tray of meringues and wait for about 10 minutes before you close the door and leave overnight. It is really important we dry out the shells of our meringues without colouring them.
6. When you are ready to serve, whip up the double cream, and spoon into your meringue nests, chop up your berries and arrange on top.

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