Daily Grind Of Still Water

After 3 minutes add the mustard and cr? fra?e and turn up the heat. Stir once or twice and allow the sauce to thicken and reduce by a third Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary. Don’t wash them in water as this washes away a lot of the flavour as well as the dirt Watch out for bugs Melt the butter in a pan large enough to hold the morels. When the butter is foaming, add the morels and squeeze over the lemon juice, a little salt and pepper and allow them to cook down.

Don’t play around with them too much, just let them do their own thing. Spoon over the chilli oil and squeeze over some lemon juice if you want to. Morels with cr? fra?e on toast Serves 4 1kg/2lb of morels 40g/11/2oz of unsalted butter Juice of one lemon 11/2tbsp Dijon mustard 150ml/5fl oz cr? fra?e Salt and pepper 11/2tbsp very finely chopped parsley 4 slices of sourdough bread (toasted, with a clove of garlic and drizzled with olive oil) Start by cleaning the morels I use a mushroom brush but you could use a pastry brush. Meanwhile once the butter has melted and is beginning to foam in the second pan add the garlic and cook, stirring quickly until the garlic shoots are wilted but still beautiful and mossy green – this takes just a few seconds Season with salt and pepper. 3 generous handfuls of wild garlic shoots, washed and lightly patted dry 50g/2oz of unsalted butter 4 eggs 50ml/2fl oz of extra-virgin olive oil 1 medium red chilli with the seeds removed and very finely diced 1 lemon to squeeze over the eggs Start by combining the chopped chilli with the olive oil and set aside until ready to use Place two saucepans on the heat. Add 10g/1/2oz of the butter to one and 40g/11/2oz to the other. Crack the eggs into the one with the smaller amount of butter and fry without turning until the eggs are cooked to your liking.

It is important to use the very best eggs that you can find – they must be organic and free-range. Skye Gyngell is head chef at Petersham Nurseries, Church Lane, Richmond, Surrey, tel: 020 8605 3627 Two fried eggs with wild garlic shoots and chilli Serves 2 This makes a delicious brunch, light lunch or, for that matter, supper. New season or wet garlic is another ingredient I wait for with great anticipation. Its soft bulbs can be eaten whole when roasted, as its aroma is far stronger than its sweet, young taste. Here I have served it with the young, lemony goats’ cheeses to be found at this time of year, but you can try them in a soup with young Jersey royals, lemon and thyme, and finished off with cr? fra?e and plenty of parsley – a really memorable late spring dish. He made a delicious omelette filled with wild hops pan-fried in butter.

He is a forager in the true sense of the word – his knowledge of wild food is second to none and it is always a joyful and life-enhancing experience when he comes to visit.
Two of the ingredients I am using this week can be found this way – wild garlic shoots often grow beside bluebells in woods. The soft, dark green leaves are garlicky and punchy when raw, but wonderfully mellow when quickly saut?. And morels – ruffly almost coral-like mushrooms – are the essence of spring. They stay with us only for a short while and my favourite way to serve them is how I have done here on garlic-infused sourdough toast.

The clocks have gone forward and I am desperate to move my food on to a lighter, more vibrant place. Last week I was encouraged by a visit from our friend Claudio Bincoletto who had walked along the tow path from Hammersmith to Richmond and had collected wild hops, borage, angelica, dandelion and sorrel on the way. Daniel Vencker’s Alsatian origins show in the signature tarte flamb?(onion and bacon tart) and Alsatian pork knuckle.La Fourchette105 Western Road, Brighton, tel: 01273 722 556 This Brighton bastion of all things Fran?se is very near the border with Hove. Service is diner-friendly and Gallic, as is the menu, running from soupe de poisson to steak tartare, cassoulet, grilled chicken with white beans and rabbit in a mustard sauce.Email Terry Durack about where you’ve eaten lately at t.durack independent.co.uk. Expect a good range of fresh fish dishes, as well as classics such as duck confit with onion confiture, and c?de boeuf with B?naise sauce.Racine239 Brompton Road, London SW3, tel: 020 7584 4477 It is now hard to imagine Brompton Road without Henry Harris’s chic but cosy bistro.