EASY SALAD ROCKET

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EASY - Quick to grow (hence it's name) and utterly delicious on pizza and in salad. Click on 'more details' to see how to grow rocket.

Quick to grow (hence it's name) and utterly delicious on pizza and in salad. Rocket - As popular now as it was in Roman times due to it's wonderfully strong and peppery flavour. I often wonder in amazement how a thing that grows in earth from a tiny seed, can have such a strong flavour rocket, be so fragrant like coriander, be so sweet like beetroot or a strawberry, or be as flavoursome as basil or parsley, or as crunchy as a carrot !!!  Rocket is easy to grow as it's a single leaf which sticks out of the ground, it grows quickly and we've already covered the taste. It does have a quirk in that it is prone to 'bolting' or going to seed. Luckily though, the flowers are edible too, and they look very pretty in a salad. It has a long sowing season from Mar-Aug , so you can get lots of quick successive cuttings. You can do it in a pot or in the earth, and a little goes a long way, and it just needs to be sprinkled just under the surface, ½cm down. Adding a little sand will help if you have heavy soil. It can suffer from a pest called the flea beetle. This turns the leaves of you rocket into lace. It'll be full of pin sized holes with brown edges. Cut it back, re-sow, but don't dig it back into the soil as you'll attract even more flea beatle. Just one of those things.

It has a lot of uses in the kitchen. You can throw it into a salad, a sandwich (try prawns or roastbeef with rocket), it goes well with strong cheeses like Roquefort or Dolcelatte, in frittata (Italian omlettes), on 'Bruschetta' and on the classic pizza 'Rucola e Bresaola' (cured filet of beef). If you like pesto, instead of using basil, use rocket. This makes a good dip and an even better pasta sauce. But be careful as there are 2 types of rocket, and one is stronger than the other, so adjust your recipes accordingly. They are:

Cultivated Rocket - Also called salad rocket. It works like this….sow, eat, sow, eat, sow……it's an 'annual', and once you've picked it you'll need to re-sow it again. The leaves are larger than wild rocket leaves and the seed is much bigger too. It has a milder flavour and is the rocket we see and use most in the UK. Very easy to grow.