Hotchpotch

The peas came in this week. That's the signal. When the first proper peas are fat enough to pod, and the broad beans are tender enough that you don't resent the skinning, and the lettuce in the garden is growing faster than you can eat it, then it's time for hotchpotch.

This is Scotland's summer soup, and it wrong-foots people who think all British broths belong to winter. It's light, clean, and green, built on a quiet lamb stock and then filled with whatever the garden is offering at its most generous. Young turnips. Small carrots. A cauliflower. Peas and broad beans go in near the end so they stay bright. The lettuce, shredded and stirred through at the last moment, wilts into something silky and sweet. It tastes like June in a bowl.

The trick, if there is one, is restraint. The vegetables go in at different stages so nothing overcooks. The broth stays clear and delicate, not muddy with hours of boiling. You want to taste each thing separately, the sweetness of the peas, the earthiness of the turnip, the lamb quiet and tender underneath. This isn't a stew. It's a broth with ambitions.

I wrote it down in the notebook years ago, the first time I made it from the garden alone: lamb, peas, beans, lettuce, long evening. I've made it every summer since. The market decides what goes in, but the shape of it never changes. Right food, right evening.