Wild Mushrooms & Truffle
Morels are coming in readily from Turkey, beautiful quality; small, fine and clean. The conditions on the ground and the plate are great so we are dropping price again this week. We are expecting the Turkish season to stretch to mid-May before we move on to Bulgarian morels in June.
Trompettes & Chanterelles are still coming from the US; like everything American they are larger than their European cousins, but still great quality; clean, dry and complete, beautiful mushrooms to stay on the plate until a new mushroom season starts.
Girolles and Pied de Mouton have finished for the season. We do have small, clean, frozen Girolles for those who still want to keep them on the menu until the start of the new season in May. We are also looking forward to the arrival of Mousseron and St. Georges’ mushroom by the end of this month.
We’ve had a short season for Spring truffles and the fleeting season has now been and gone, and our Winter season has now finished. However, our first Italian Summer (black) truffles have been in for a fortnight now, and getting better each week. This week’s delivery had a great nose; delicate and nutty with improved marbling.
Fruit & Vegetables
This is an advantageous time of year for fruit and vegetables; the last of the great winter produce; roots and tubers including chervil root, Jerusalem artichokes, parsley root, salsify and horseradish.
In addition to our blossoming line of spring produce, including broad beans, peas and white, French asparagus, which have seen a price decrease as we step further into the system.
We are looking forward to the arrival of the following produce in our warehouse this week:
- Ficoide glacial leaves; a delicate iodine flavour with mild salinity and sparkling leaves
- English green asparagus grown in the heart of the Cotswolds, full of flavour and a must for any seasonal menu at this time of year
- Metisse baby leaves; baby red rocket style leaves with a full beet-like flavour
- Moroccan Borlotti beans
- Franco Castel with a soft bitter note, perfect with blood oranges, toasted nuts and bayonne ham
- Round hand grenade Courgettes from Italy
- French courgette flowers
- Beautiful Italian round aubergines with an incredible beautiful purple hue
- Alfonso mangoes lovely deep golden flesh colour with a sweet honey, floral flavour and Thai mangoes
- Italian tomatoes with incredible colour, aroma and taste, reminiscent of childhoods spent in a parents greenhouse! Including baby plum, cherry on the vine, adult plums and merinda tomatoes, with beautiful ridges and colouring from green to red.
- Jersey Royal potatoes as featured in this week’s Caterer magazine, another must for this season
- French gariguette strawberries; beautiful taste and floral aroma
- Egyptian wet garlic
We still have a great array of citrus fruits, including delicious Spanish blood oranges and Italian leafy lemons.
And of course our foraged produce including Sea Purslane, Alexanders , Wild Garlic and, now, Nettles, we are expecting sea beets by the end of this week; all coming from the Norfolk coastline. We are excited to announce our new involvement with a Scottish forager and are looking forward to our first delivery on Monday of wild leeks, a range of local seaweeds from the Isle of Bute including; sea lettuce, serrated and chanelled rack, royal Kombu and sugar kelp
And in the coming weeks we are looking forward to our own Garden of Eden, awash in stone fruits, Charentais melon, traditional, English strawberries and wild strawberries.
Have a great week Chef, and enjoy the sunshine!
