Always judge a new food store by how many of your favourite foods they stock. If half of your kitchen is there already, you can trust them to do well by the other half.

Lucky Hove has been queueing to get into the Real Eating Company café, bakery and deli since it opened at 86 Western Road (01273-221441) in January. It stocks some of the very best of British foods (not just because they are British, but because they are great) while also offering an equally quality-driven selection of artisanal European foods.

Now those of us not in East Sussex can play on the outfit’s new website (www.real-eating.co.uk — free delivery to most postcodes until the end of this month). Its offerings read like the ingredients list of a good recipe: chorizo sausages, Tuscan salami, sourdough bread, fat smoked anchovies and piquillo peppers from Spain and Cumbrian bacon. There are also plenty of things I didn’t know I had to have, such as Chegworth Valley ’s hand-pressed apple and rhubarb juice, lavender sugar from Norfolk, British fruit jellies and French wine jellies, and the summery Nyetimber rosé wine from West Sussex.

And yes, they have fine Mancha-grade saffron by the gram, to add a sunny bittersweet tang to this warm salad of roasted vegetables.

Ingredients
Serves 4

Prep: 10 mins
Cook: 50 mins

2 courgettes
2 parsnips, peeled
2 sweet red peppers
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp thyme sprigs
sea salt and pepper
200 g cherry tomatoes
200 g mixed leaves
1 tbsp pine nuts, toasted

Dressing:

Good pinch, eg, 20 threads, saffron
1 tbsp raisins or sultanas
2 tbsp boiling water
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp Dijon mustard

Method: Heat the oven to 200C/Gas 6. Soak the saffron and raisins or sultanas in 2 tbsp boiling water and set aside. Trim the courgettes and parsnip and cut in quarters lengthwise. Cut four “sides” from each pepper and discard the central core and seeds. Toss the vegetables in 2 tbsp olive oil, thyme, sea salt and pepper and tip into a roasting pan. Roast for 30 mins, then remove anything sufficiently cooked, add the cherry tomatoes and roast for a further ten minutes. Remove and leave to cool for ten minutes.

To make the dressing, whisk the olive oil, vinegar, mustard, saffron, raisins and their water with sea salt and pepper in a large bowl. Toss the leaves in the dressing and arrange on serving platters. Toss the warm vegetables in the remaining dressing and strew over the top. Scatter with toasted pine nuts. Serve.

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