St David's Day and traditional Welsh food herald the month of March. And what with St Patrick's Day on the 17th, there are plenty of excuses for throwing a springtime party

March is an awkward month for the cook, as there's nothing new on the home-grown produce shelves. But at least leeks and potatoes are plentiful, and both vie for the title of most versatile vegetable.

Leeks are good in early spring, and I like to use them, not only as vegetables to accompany poultry, meat and fish, but in soups, salads and tarts for first courses. You can also use them to make excellent purees and sauces for fish and grilled meat.

Together, leeks and potatoes make a classic soup, vichyssoise, traditionally served chilled - with a garnish of snipped chives and plenty of cream - but equally good hot.

Use the potato/vegetable combination as a base for other velvety soups. Try carrot and potato, spiced with a little curry paste, all cooked together with a little onion in some vegetable or chicken stock, or simply semi-skimmed milk. When cool, blend and reheat before serving with your chosen garnish.

Early imports
New season's artichokes from Italy, Cyprus and Egypt are making their first appearance on the shelves, together with the first of the tomatoes with taste from Sicily and the black volcanic soil of Tenerife and Fuerteventura. Fast on their heels will be new potatoes from around the Mediterranean, asparagus from the Murcia and Valencia provinces in Spain, and strawberries from Huelva in Andalucia.

I love to use these early spring vegetables in succulent casseroles. New potatoes, asparagus and prepared and quartered artichokes are wonderful together. Cook them in stock, white wine, water or cider, and serve warm as a first course with garlicky mayonnaise, or hot as an accompaniment to poultry, baked fish or even a Sunday roast lamb.

While I prefer to buy home-grown vegetables, I have to admit to buying Spanish asparagus. The reason is that, sadly, it often reaches us much fresher and in better condition than English asparagus in season.

Over the page: Eating artichokes

Occasionally, you may find tiny artichokes, the size of a baby's fist, and these can be cooked and eaten whole. Otherwise, you need to boil the large ones for 40 to 60 minutes, depending on size and freshness, until you can easily pull off a leaf.

Artichokes make a sociable and easy main course, one for each person, with a bowl of hollandaise, mayonnaise or vinaigrette in which to dip the leaf base. To eat, simply scrape the flesh off with your teeth and discard the rest of the leaf. Work your way through the leaves down to the hairy choke. Carefully pull this out to reveal the prize: the tender, intensely flavoured base, which you simply eat with a knife and fork.

Oysters and mussels are still good, as the weather is cold; one of my all-time favourites for St Patrick's Day is oysters with Guinness hollandaise. For a less expensive dish, I recommend a mussel and potato salad (read my February seasonal for details of how to prepare mussels). Once cooked, remove from the shells when cool enough to handle, mix with cooked and sliced waxy potatoes, such as Charlotte, and with plenty of mayonnaise and chopped chives or spring onions.

Lamb is classic for Easter as well as St David's Day, but I also like duckling at this time of year. It is a rich meat that you might not want to eat as the weather gets warmer, but I find it perfect for cool March days (see my Cured Spring Duckling recipe). Sometimes I stuff and roast it, other times I divide it into legs and breast, making a casserole from the legs, and a quick stovetop dish with the breasts.

Just desserts
If you're bored with rhubarb and Bramleys, and have had enough orange salads, consider dried fruit for a variety of desserts. This month's menu includes a spiced compote, but you might also consider a prune and chocolate cake, apricots soaked in Muscat wine, or a dried fruit crumble, using the compote mixture and topping it with the usual butter, sugar and flour crumble, into which you have mixed some ground and flaked almonds for extra crunch.

March menu
This month's menu can be adapted to a delicious Easter luncheon, despite its somewhat Welsh overtones of leek tart and cured duckling.

When you read this duck recipe it might sound like a French confit (meaning 'preserved'), but curing it in salt is, in fact, a traditional Welsh way. The whole duck used to be prepared this way and served hot with onion sauce. Here, I've cured just the breasts; I've reserved the stock to cook the accompaniments of asparagus, onion, artichokes and peas, and I'd use the legs in another dish. The meat is delicious hot or cold. If I plan to serve the dish hot, I cook the breasts slowly, just in their own fat and juices, like a confit. For a cold dish, I poach the meat, cool it and then slice it thinly; a fruit chutney makes a most perfect accompaniment.

The first two recipes are based on ones in my new book Entertaining, published this month by Macmillan.

Leek Flan

Cured Spring Duckling

Spiced Fruit Compote

Tom Bissell’s wine recommendations
An Alsace wine is the perfect choice to serve with the leek tart, which has some affinity with the onion tarts of that region. Choose a light and fresh Sylvaner, or the more heady and fragrant Tokay.

Duckling is one of those versatile meats that is happy with a wide range of red wines. I would go for a young red Burgundy, or a pinot noir from California. A Bergerac, or Corbières from southwest France, where they eat a lot of duck, will also go very well.

The fruit compote has rich full flavours, on which a Sauternes or Barsac would be lost. A fortified Muscat wine is the answer, and the Portuguese Moscatel de Setubal is particularly delicious.

Got any questions about Frances and Tom's March recipes? Post your comments to them on the All About Food & Drink message board.