Champ

The first spring onions at the market are the signal. They arrive in loose bunches, still a little muddy, the white parts firm and the green tops bright enough to look lit from inside. That's when champ makes sense. Not before.

This is not a complicated thing. Potatoes, boiled and mashed. Spring onions, gently warmed in milk. Butter, more than feels polite. You beat it all together and put it in a warm bowl with another knob of butter melting on top, and that's it. That's the recipe. It takes less than half an hour, uses five ingredients, and produces something that makes people close their eyes on the first bite. I don't know why it works as well as it does. The spring onions bring a sweetness and a freshness that ordinary mash doesn't have, something green and alive in all that warm, starchy comfort.

Champ comes from the same kitchen as colcannon, but it's lighter, simpler, more of a spring dish than a winter one. No cabbage, no kale. Just the onions and the butter doing their quiet work. I make it when the evenings are still cool but the light has started to stretch, and I want something beside a piece of fish or a chop that doesn't ask too much of anyone. I wrote it down in the notebook years ago: potatoes, spring onions, butter, April. It hasn't needed updating since.