When designing menu’s our first port of call is the British seasonal produce chart. Working around seasonal produce allows you to get the very best out of each component. If the key items are at their best there is no need for complicated recipes, you just need to find a good pairing of flavours.
Here are some of our examples:
Seared Bavette steak, horseradish mousse and rocket.
Bavette is a cut from the abdominal muscles and therefore can be tough. It has an incredibly gamey flavour and if you make sure that you cut the meat very thinly (if searing) you get all the flavour and no sinew.
Heritage tomato concasse, braised celery and lovage.
Although the technique involved with concasse can be a little time consuming, this is a perfect example of a good marriage of flavours and simplicity. Heritage tomatoes are available from most farmers markets or good grocery stores in the summer and offer fantastic flavour and diversity in colour. Celery, lovage and tomatoes are a match made in heaven – simple but beautiful.
Lemon thyme shortbread with cream.
We often add flavours to a shortbread dough as it has the perfect texture to take on flavour. Although if I’m adding flavour I tend to roll the shortbread out very thinly rather than the traditional thick cut. We add orange blossom water and orange zest when accompanying chocolate mousse, or black pepper with strawberries and cream. Here we’ve added some lemon thyme, we’ve used very little mind – it’s quite potent but if you get the balance write it’s very good.
Naturally smoked mackerel, roasted beetroot and rye.
The earthiness of the beetroot cuts through the oily fish beautifully. When roasting beetroot always leave the skin on and place in some foil with a little sea salt, this will bring out the flavour of the beetroot.
Sea Buckthorne and fig tart.
Sea Buckthorne is a very hostile plant! In western Europe, it is largely confined to sea coasts where salt spray off the sea prevents other larger plants from out-competing it, although it can be found elsewhere.
I think of this plant as the UK’s answer to the citrus fruit. If only it were easier to harvest….. it’s covered with poisonous spikes. The only way to harvest is to freeze the branches then, wearing gloves shake each branch in a box until all the berries are removed. You must then juice the berries. Kilos of berries yield little juice.
The one saving grace is that the juice is extremely potent and so a little goes far. The flavour is incredible and changes dramatically when cream is added, it is not so tart and totally unique. We use a classic posset recipe, although we seriously reduce the fruit juice.
Woolsery, lambs lettuce and croutons.
This one demonstrates the importance of texture. The lambs leaf and the soft goaty tones of the Woolsery cheese only need to be matched with a little crunch!
Cranberry, hazelnut and pistachio nougat.
Bitter / sweet !
Naturally smoked trout and pickled cucumber.
You cannot compare a naturally smoked fish to one that has been chemically enhanced or forced. The flavour is incredibly delicate and the texture is much lighter. I wouldn’t normally jade the flavour of the fish with a pickle, however our head chef Toby has struck a chord here. We’ve used a very light and sweet pickling method which complements the fish beautifully and adds the texture required.
Pork belly, quince and sage.
There is a bit of a process involved in weighting the belly pork so that it sits pretty like this but it’s only a technique used if you need the belly to take a form or have more structure.
If you make your own quince, reduce the sugar added to give it a tartness. Good pork belly will produce a lot of sugar so you want to marry it up with something carrying a little edge. The sage when lightly fried produces a nutty flavour only slightly reminiscent of it’s former self that works well.
