Yotam Ottolenghi's recipes for char-grilled sprouting broccoli with sweet tahini, plus gingery fish balls in miso soup

Char-grilled sprouting broccoli with sweet tahini (V) This salad is loved even by those who claim not to like tahini. Serves four. 550g purple-sprouting broccoli 1 tbsp olive oil Salt and black pepper 40g tahini paste 1½ tsp honey 2 tsp lemon juice 1 small garlic clove, peeled and crushed 1 tsp each black and white sesame seeds, toasted (or just 2 tsp white) Trim any big leaves off the broccoli and cut off the woody base of the stems. Blanch for three minutes in boiling, salted water until al dente, refresh, drain and leave to dry. Toss the broccoli in the oil, a teaspoon of salt and a large pinch of pepper, then cook on a very hot ridged griddle pan for two minutes on each side, until slightly charred and smoky. Set aside to cool. Whisk the tahini, honey, lemon juice, garlic and a pinch of salt, and slowly start to add water half a tablespoon at a time. At first, the sauce will look as if it has split, but it will soon come back together. Add just enough water to make the sauce the consistency of honey – around three tablespoons in total. Arrange the broccoli on a platter, drizzle with sauce and scatter with sesame seeds. Serve at room temperature. Gingery fish balls in miso soup Miso makes a soup loaded with flavour that saves you the hassle of making stock. Serving the soup with just the noodles is a perfectly decent option, but if you're not vegetarian, I urge you to try the fish balls, too. They have the most charming, bouncy texture and taste fishy in the best sense of the word. Use fresh or frozen lime leaves – you'll find them in any decent south-east Asian grocer – as they have more flavour than the dried ones you get in supermarkets. You can prepare everything in advance and then put the soup together in 10 minutes. Serves four. 150g white fish fillets 150g prawns, peeled and deveined 1 tsp fish sauce ½ red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped 1 tbsp chopped fresh ginger 1 small egg, lightly beaten (you'll need only half of it for this dish) 1½ tbsp corn flour 75g french beans, trimmed and very thinly sliced 1 spring onion, thinly sliced 10g chopped coriander, leaves and stems 4 lime leaves Salt and white pepper 100g soba noodles For the miso soup 1 litre water 50g white miso paste 4 tbsp light soy sauce 5g ginger, julienned 1½ tsp rice-wine vinegar 15g picked coriander leaves 1 spring onion, thinly sliced 10g Thai basil leaves Sesame oil Put the fish in a food processor and pulse until roughly chopped – don't overprocess or it will go gluey. Tip into a bowl, then pulse the prawns and add to the fish bowl with the fish sauce, chilli, ginger, half a beaten egg, corn flour, beans, spring onion and coriander. Shred the lime leaves and add, too. Add a quarter-teaspoon each of salt and white pepper, and mix well. With your hands, roll into 16 balls the size of ping-pong balls. Blanch the noodles in boiling, salted water until al dente – about five minutes – drain and refresh. Put the water, miso and soy in a medium pan, bring to a boil and set aside. To serve, return the soup to a boil, reduce the heat and add the fish balls, one at a time, and ginger. Simmer gently for five minutes, until the fish balls are just cooked. Add the rice vinegar, coriander, spring onion, basil and a couple of drops of sesame oil. Divide the noodles between four bowls, top each with four fish balls, pour over the hot soup and serve. • Yotam Ottolenghi is chef/patron of Ottolenghi and Nopi in London.