IN SEASON: clementines

Clementines, in season from late October until early January, are the result of accidental cross fertilisation, with the first fruit "discovered" in the garden of an Algerian orphanage. Less acidic than oranges, they are usually sold seedless - achieved by keeping them unfertilised. American growers thought this so important that they once threatened to sue local bee keepers for fear of accidentally pollinating their crops.

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Early celebrity chefs, such as Marie Antoine Carême, liked to fill them with stripes of jelly and blancmange, leaving unsuspecting guests amazed as they cut "ordinary" fruit to reveal exotic surprises within. 

Simple recipes are often the best and my favourite is suggested by early American food writer M.F.K. Fisher in her 1937 book, Serve It Forth:

In the morning, in the soft sultry chamber, sit in the window peeling tangerines, three or four. Peel them gently; do not bruise them...separate each plump little pregnant crescent...Take yesterday's paper (when we were in Strasbourg L'Ami du Peuple was the best, because when it got hot the ink stayed on it) and spread it on the radiator...After you have put the pieces of tangerine on the paper on the hot radiator, it is best to forget about them...On the radiator the sections of tangerines have grown even plumper, hot and full. You carry them to the window, pull it open, and leave them for a few minutes on the packed snow on the sill. They are ready...I cannot tell you why they are so magical. Perhaps it is that little shell, thin as one layer of enamel on a Chinese bowl, that crackles so tinily, so ultimately under your teeth. Or the rush of cold pulp just after it. Or the perfume. I cannot tell.

This simple approach never fails to amaze, and works equally well with satsumas, clementines or tangerines. Alternatively, if you are feeling more adventurous, why not try these delicious Clementine, pomegranate & panna cotta jellies.

RESTAURANT REVIEW: The Elephant

Simon Hulstone is a highly decorated chef. As well as the proud owner of one quarter of the Michelin stars currently residing in Devon he has also captained the UK culinary team, won junior world championships, is a Roux Scholar and designed the British Airways 2012 Olympic menu with a certain Mr Heston Blumenthal. Given this background, it's perhaps a surprise that he is not working in a more lucrative location but he stays because of his family roots and belief that the South West larder is as good as any on the planet - and long may that continue.

That fine dinning is more than a job is evidenced by the decoration adorning his restaurant walls – there are no Turner landscapes or modernist depictions of courgette flowers here. Instead you'll find menus from the various three starred restaurants where he's eaten. Let's be honest, you have to have some confidence to actively encourage diners to compare the food on their plate with the best haute cuisine on the planet, but equally you have to think that the world would be a better place if every chef shared this level of open ambition.

These same standards shine through in the other aspects of the restaurant, from the food to the staff that serve it - in fact, the Maitre D’ is as good as any I have experienced. 

As with many fine dining establishments, The Elephant only serves a multi-course tasting menu designed to show off the best of local ingredients and the skills of the kitchen. On our visit that included a stunning heritage tomato consommé, locally foraged wild garlic soup, and trout mis cuit served with an ingenious squid ink tuile - which, unless you have a dehydrator, don’t even think about trying to recreate at home! Overall the menu was light well-balanced and full of intense flavours as you'd expect from food at this level, making the Elephant a real jewel in the crown for the English Riviera.

The fine dining restaurant is now closed for the winter, reopening in May 2014, whilst the team develop dishes for next season. However, whilst these are refined they are likely to appear on the menu at the more informal brasserie, which shares the same kitchen, and so it's worth visiting this little gem on the English Riviera no matter what the time of year.

 

Childhood memories: homemade sherbet

I was at a fantastic wedding recently and the happy couple handed out favours to the guests containing small bags of sweets from the 1970's - think flying saucers, black jacks and refreshers - leading to drunken reminiscences of childhood confectionery. Sherbet fountains were my particular favourite, partly because they looked like sticks of dynamite, but also because they were two sweets in one. Recreating them isn't exactly haute cuisine, although the Fat Duck (once voted best restaurant in the world) does give all of its guests a retro sweetie bag to take home, so I thought I’d give it a go.

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As any good chemist will tell you, there are four basic ingredients in sherbet:

• icing sugar: for sweetness
• bicarbonate of soda: for fizziness
• citrc acid: for sourness
• dehydrated fruit: for flavour and colour (although this can be omitted if you want a “plain” sherbet)

Just take 100g of icing sugar, 2 level teaspoons each of the bicarb and the citric acid and 15g of whichever dehydrated fruit you prefer (raspberry or strawberry would be my choice - just look in the baking section of your local supermarket). Blitz in a spice grinder and you are done. You can play with this basic recipe depending whether you like a sweeter, fizzier, more sour or more flavoursome result. If you want to go the whole hog you can also make the liquorice, although I just bought a bag from the local health food shop to make this a 10 second recipe.

Just one word of caution though, most online advice is that citric acid can be bought in pharmacies. When I asked my local pharmacist I was told that it is used by drug dealers to “cut” their wares, so UK chemists have been instructed to stop selling it… however, I did find it in the spice section at my local Asian supermarket.

I am not sure if this information is most useful to drug dealers or sherbet makers, but either way it should stop you being embarrassed next time you are in Boots the Chemist...

See strawberry and passion fruit sherbet recipe. 

IN SEASON: Mussels

There's an old saying that you should only eat mussels in months containing an “r” because, like other shellfish, they spawn as waters warm-up during the summer months and so quality declines as they expend energy on reproduction rather than their own well being. Producers tend to harvest from different geographic areas so that they have a constant supply throughout the year but, if you want to enjoy local mussels, then they will be at their best outside the summer months.

Sometimes described as "poor man's shellfish", mussels are abundant and extremely good value for money. In the wild, they grow for up to 50 years on coastline rocks. However, the majority sold in the UK are rope-farmed and harvested at about 18 months. Due to their availability, farmed mussels are some of the most sustainable seafood you can buy.

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As with most shellfish, they should be checked to ensure they are still alive before cooking; once dead, enzymes quickly break down the meat and rapidly make it inedible.  Live mussels should close when tapped on a hard surface and unresponsive mussels should be discarded – it is better to be over-cautious if in doubt. A thorough rinse and removal of the "beard" (the tough fibre used by the mussels to attach themselves to rocks) is normally the only other preparation required.

In terms of their eating, mussel flesh is sex-specific. Bright orange mussels are female and, some argue, tastier than their lighter coloured male counterparts. Either way, they take just a few minutes to cook and, in many ways, are the ultimate fast-food.

For a delicious introduction to mussels, try my recipe for moules marinière.

RESTAURANT REVIEW: Dinner by Heston Blumenthal

Dinner by Heston Blumenthal opened in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, opposite Harrods, two years ago. Despite its relatively short life it was recently added to the prestigious list of restaurants with two Michelin stars and, at number 7, was the highest new entry in the Pellegrino World’s Best Restaurants list. Despite this, it is still surprisingly accessible - particularly if you go for a mid-week lunch sitting.

Executive Head Chef Ashley-Palmer Watts runs the show, as well as continuing to oversee recipe development at the legendary Fat Duck. For years, he has been a leading advocate of using our gastronomic past to develop cutting-edge British cuisine, rather than losing this important body of knowledge forever. Dinner is the result of that work.

The restaurant itself is bright and airy, with floor to ceiling windows overlooking Hyde Park. You also get to see the chefs working their magic with just a glazed wall separating the diners from their hosts. One of the more intriguing aspects of the uber-smart kitchen is the mechanical spit with its unique pulley system, inspired by one that originally appeared in the Royal Courts.

Dressed snails - more art than food...

We are thinking of having our kitchen done like this

In terms of the food, you don’t get the same theatre associated with dishes from its 3-starred sister, but you will find superbly cooked cuisine inspired by the very best historical recipes. The menu comes with a reference list of the books that led to each creation, such as the strawberry tart inspired by the fantastically named “Book of Cookrye Very Necessary for all such as Delight therin” from 1591. We had the fixed price lunch menu (£38 for three courses): vibrant dressed snails with the intriguingly named “salty fingers”, unctuous 36 hr pork belly with smoked cabbage and a millionaire tart with crystallised chocolate. If you want to go a la carte you will also find many of the classics from other Blumenthal establishments such as meat fruit and nitrogen poached ice cream made at the table.

The food was superb, as you’d expect, the setting is beautiful and the service was surprisingly informal – we were served by an unfortunately upbeat Australian, who still believed they were going to win the Ashes – all hallmarks of a great restaurant.

Dinner is definitely a place to try if you want to sample some of the best cooking around, you love classic British cuisine and you are struggling to find “powdered duck breast” at your favourite gastropub…