“COLLAGEN DISSOLVES TO GELATINE, BECOMING SUCCULENT AND JELLY-LIKE, THICKENING THE LIQUOR IT’S COOKED IN”

It’s in the eye of the beholder, isn’t it, this beauty thing? Indeed, as an (ethical) carnivore I struggled a little when tasked with seeking an ‘ugly’ slab of meat at the Market. Where some might see blood and gore, I see a quick sear or char and a tender chew; and where others balk at marbling, fat and sinew, I see a slow-cooked, melting mass of flavour. All meat looks pretty wondrous to me, whether it’s a prime rib or tough shin.

Or does it? Sitting in the left-hand corner of Ginger Pig’s counter is an armful of lumpy pork jowls, and a mound of smoked Bath chaps, with their mix of five o’clock stubble and heavy, droopy flesh and fat. No one ever uses “you’re looking very jowly at the moment” as a compliment, do they?

Over at Northfield Farm, a pile of beef cheeks lacks the firm, proud crimson stance of a fillet steak, or the conviction of a t-bone. Sometimes they’re masked by a layer of shiny sinew (and are as viscerally unappealing as the photo suggests). Mostly, though, they’re cleaned and cut through, yet display three or four lines of connective tissue, which scream camera-shy rather than selfie stick.

To make matters worse, these ugly ducklings don’t turn into swans when they’re cooked. Whereas loins and sirloins brush up nicely, with their golden crusts, clean lines and blushing pink cut-throughs, cheeks contract into clenched fists, all lumpy and indented. If you close your eyes when you eat them, however, it’s a different matter altogether.

A pig or cow’s cheek muscle pretty much never stops working. Consequently, it’s a tough and fibrous muscle packed with tightly knotted strands of protein, intramuscular fat, remarkably resistant sinew and dogged collagen – which should all be music to the ears of the seasoned cooks among you, as you will know that if treated with a low, slow, gentle touch, those things can be converted into a massively flavourful, unctuous and crowd-pleasing meal.

In particular, collagen dissolves to gelatine, becoming succulent and jelly-like, thickening the liquor it’s cooked in.

Most often, cow’s and pig’s cheeks are braised in wine, stout or dark beers. Over a period of time at a low temperature, the alcohol and meat juices combine to create a rich, viscous gravy. Sweet and sour ingredients like root vegetables and pickled walnuts go well in the mix.

I’ve also had pork jowls that had been cooked as a confit in masses of lard until soft, then crisped up and served with an Asian salad, and beef cheeks patiently smoked until bouncy and tender which, when sliced, revealed joyous seams of jelly.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a hot smoker or buckets of fat at home, so a slow braise is pretty much my standard option for beef cheeks. I’m reminded of recent trips to Spain, where beef cheeks in rich sherry and rioja braising liquor with sweet peppers. When I recently bought a bag of cheeks, that’s exactly how I cooked them, serving the rich and wobbly meat with a gentle, milky cauliflower purée, plus its fresh green leaves.

See Ed’s recipe for braised beef cheeks & cauliflower puree.

“DESPITE MY LOVE FOR IT, I OFTEN FIND HALF A BUNCH OF TARRAGON WASTING AWAY IN MY HERB BOX”

Image: Ed Smith

I came to tarragon quite late in life. Not because we didn’t eat it when I was a child. Rather, I just don’t think I appreciated the anise notes until my taste buds ‘matured’.

The turning point was at a wine tasting event, which served a huge bowl of purple sprouting drenched in butter and more than a generous sprinkling of tarragon. Totally divine. I’ve not looked back, and I’d probably use this herb on every green vegetable I eat, if I wasn’t worried about overkill.

So, yes, this long leaved green herb has strong hints of anise, but also a little vanilla too. Which makes it the perfect match for white fish, chicken and eggs, among other things.

Despite my love for it, I often find half a bunch of tarragon wasting away in my herb box – it’s so powerful and dominant that you don’t need to use much at once; and unless you make a conscious effort to use the originally intended use, time can run out for much of it.

So have a read of the suggestions below, and see if you can make the most of your next bunch. 

Storage

Tarragon is a soft green herb and relatively fragile. Don’t leave it out or it’ll dry and wilt; and don’t freeze it or it’ll go soggy and black. It last for about a week in the fridge if wrapped in a damp towel.

Theoretically you can wrap tarragon in damp paper towels, place in a sealable bag and put in the freezer. But I personally haven’t found that to be a great preservation technique – most of the flavour goes and the leaves appear bruised. Similarly, while you can dry tarragon, it’s not nearly as good dehydrated as the likes of rosemary and thyme.

You’d be much better off tapping five or six stems with the back of a knife to release some of the oils, and infusing olive oil, sugar syrup or vodka with this herb.

Cooking tips

In most recipes, it’s the leaves that you’ll use. Pick them from the stems until you’ve got enough (they can be ‘stripped’ relatively easily if you run two fingers in the opposite direction of growth). Then roughly chop. The leaves are soft and could be left whole, but a little slicing seems to extract more flavour.

The stems are, however, well scented. Which means that on occasion they’ll be useful, not least if you’re infusing a liquid with tarragon as mentioned above. The woodiest sprigs also retain a little power when cooked. Whereas the soft leaf is, as a general rule, best added at the last minute, so as to remain fresh or just wilt under latent heat, tarragon stems can handle higher temperatures, so you could add to casseroles or when steaming, without wasting the herb.

Cooking uses

Tarragon has a number of classic (mostly French) partners. Chicken and tarragon are best friends. The most traditional of the recipes is tarragon chicken blanquette – poached chicken with an egg yolk thickened tarragon, cream and button mushroom sauce. I remember making this at catering college and thinking, whilst cooking, that it was just another old, dated, slightly naff dish. But the results are timeless.

The same was true when we made baked tarragon eggs – individual egg ramekins finished with a little cream, cheese and tarragon. So old school. So indulgent. So good.

Any number of chicken and tarragon and chicken and egg dishes can be added to those examples. The flavours work incredibly well. If you want to modernise, how about buttermilk fried chick pieces with a tarragon mayo dip? Or luxurious, creamy, tarragon scrambled eggs on brioche toast? I understand the Balkan states often ‘ferment’ sprigs of tarragon for a few days in salt, then use this to flavour pancakes and omelettes.

Other favourable flavour combinations and tarragon tricks do exist, though. I like the double layering of anise when you match tarragon with fennel: finely slice fennel bulbs, toss with lemon juice, a little olive oil, chopped tarragon and serve with baked white fish.

On which note: tarragon and any white fish works very well. If the chopped herb through sliced fennel trick is too subtle for you, make a tarragon heavy green sauce by blitzing it with lots of olive oil, perhaps bulking with a little fresh parsley, some capers, garlic, lemon juice.

It’s a match for red meat, too. The classic (possibly best?) steak sauce is béarnaise – basically clarified butter, egg yolk and chopped tarragon.

And tarragon goes extremely well with rabbit – chopped through a rabbit pie or terrine, perhaps?

Moving away from traditional matches, as implied earlier on, you can totally put tarragon in a cocktail, thanks to those anise and vanilla qualities.

Finally, you’ll be relieved to know that tarragon works in desserts too. Strawberries are a particularly favourable match – macerate some with sugar and tarragon before using in a trifle or fool. I’ve also used a few sprigs to flavour milk before adding that to an anise and vanilla custard, match with almond flavoured desserts. Or, if you really want to educate your friends in slightly savoury desserts, just sprinkle some chopped tarragon and sea salt over vanilla ice cream, followed by a good drizzle of peppery olive oil.

Market herb hero

A few mentions here. First for Fitz Fine Foods, which stocks an excellent tarragon vinegar. Then The Olive Oil Co and Oliveology, from whom you should buy some quality (but not overbearing) olive oil, bash and handful of tarragon sprig, and infuse into the oil, to use as a dressing or simply to dip your bread in at a later date.

A recipe suggestion

While it was tempting to suggest a recipe for one of the odder dishes mentioned above (that ice cream or custard idea?), sometimes the smartest thing to do is stick to tradition. Well, mostly.

A classic chicken and tarragon blanquette requires the cook to ensure there’s absolutely no colour on the meat. So you effectively poach a portioned chicken until tender, and keep the cream sauce as pure and white as possible.

But there’s so much flavour that comes from browning a chicken that it seems remiss not to. This easy recipe does that, starting the process in a frying pan and finishing it in the oven. It just uses thigh meat, so it’s affordable and fairly fool proof. Appropriately for this series, there’s tarragon at pretty much every stage: as the chicken cooks, in the sauce, and as a garnish at the end.

Should help you get through much of your bunch. Don’t waste the rest.

See Ed’s recipe for chicken thighs with tarragon creme fraiche sauce.

“WE HAVE A PARTICULAR WAY OF GOING ABOUT OUR BUSINESS: NO SHOUTING. IT’S JUST NOT OUR WAY TO SHOUT”

Interview: Ellie Costigan / Portrait: Orlando Gili

Fergus Henderson and Trevor Gulliver set up the original St John restaurant in 1994. Their pared back, no-frills, nose-to-tail approach to cooking and dining revolutionised the London restaurant scene. Its influence can be seen internationally, not least through the successes of St John’s stellar alumni – several of whom can be found at Borough Market.

Did you always agree on what you wanted St John to be?

Fergus: Not entirely. I had a healthy discussion with Trevor…

Trevor: There was never a ‘no’ moment, though. It just made sense.

Fergus: It was a thing of fate. I was cooking at The French House down in Soho and Trevor had the Fire Station. We found this site, and it was one of those things – true love.

Was it a deliberate act, setting up in Smithfield, right next to the meat market?

Trevor: No, not at all. It was derelict and run down. The market, like all markets then, was really falling by the wayside. There was tumbleweed. There was a hint of medieval, particularly at the market at two or three in the morning. Unlike the romance of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor drinking in pubs in Covent Garden, nobody came to drink in the pubs around here.

Fergus: We did.

Trevor: Excuse me. Yes, we did!

You’re famous for your nose-to-tail approach to meat, which was little seen in London restaurants at the time. How did people react?

Trevor: You have to put it into context. We opened in 1994. What the ‘food scene’ is now, whatever that might be, is nothing like it was then. The media came up with every pun possible: “You are offal, but we like you really.”

Fergus: Yes, but then they looked at the menu and it was all delicious. It was also difficult because of where we were…

Trevor: No one ever came to Smithfield, so it was an act of faith even to come here. You walked down this long corridor and hardly anything was open. Now food media is a geometric compression, but there weren’t many food writers then, and there was this misunderstanding: they assumed this was all City boys, testosterone driven and full of men – not true. Then when they eventually came, they saw what we meant. Now everyone’s opening up restaurants with meat, fire, offal and gore, whereas hopefully we’re a very balanced restaurant. We have lots of vegetarian customers and there’s a very simple reason for that: we can cook vegetables. And if you were a vegetarian then, it was very hard to find somewhere to eat. Baking bread is also a big part of what we do.

Indeed, you were baking your own bread on site way before most restaurants. What prompted that?

Fergus: We butcher the meat and do everything else ourselves, so it seemed sensible to make bread ourselves.

Trevor: It’s too grand a word, but it’s a dynamic environment here. The brigade come in in the morning, and the bakers are already baking. Our kitchen is tiny, but it’s efficient. We change our menu twice daily, lots of our ingredients have been caught or shot and sent to us directly and is being hung or dried or butchered. The butcher’s block is at the heart of the kitchen. It’s a great environment for youngsters to learn. We did all sorts of things everyone does now, but they seemed a bit crazy at the time. It took us five years, but we were stubborn. Stubborn in a nice way.

Fergus: As I said once before in an interview, the accusation was that we were luddites – we’re not luddites, but a little bit luddish.

The alumni of St John are impressive, to say the least. You must be very proud of that.

Trevor: People always ask us, “When the boys and girls that work for you go to work elsewhere, what do you say?” We’re delighted, because that means there’s somewhere else for us to go and eat. There’s a network – strings, veins. We can say, go and see this person and they’ll be waiting for you at the other end, you can go and work there. We are also delighted that they sing with their own voice – from Padella, to Lyle’s, to Hereford Road, to the Marksman, they all have their own personality, but they’re all part of our little world.

They all speak highly of their time here, too – clearly the attitudes you have instilled in them have had a lasting impact, which would perhaps suggest they’re not prevalent elsewhere.

Trevor: We have a particular way of going about our business: no shouting. Not because ‘there’s no shouting’, but because it’s not our way to shout. Lots of our friends have happy kitchens, but unfortunately, it’s quite apparent that there are still a lot of ills in kitchens. It’d be foolish to say it doesn’t exist – every ‘ism’ you shouldn’t do is still obvious and still there. I don’t really like chains as restaurants, I regard them as food retail, and there are various reasons why: how they conduct themselves and go about business, how they treat their staff, which is not conducive to developing individuals. To us, it’s important to protect and develop people’s skills.

Why is it important to you that staff are happy?

Fergus: When a chef is happy, you can feel it in the food. At St John, the whole chain is a happy one: the animal, the people who deliver it, butcher it, and do the cooking. And you can feel the happiness in the food when you eat it. 

Trevor: If you don’t like people, don’t be part of this business. You think that’s a silly thing to say, but sometimes you just wonder. And it affects not just the people you work with, but the customers too. It sounds a bit trite, but a restaurant is an old friend. It’s a place you go to if something big has happened in your life. It’s where you first met your partner, or once a year when you’re in London it’s the place you always go. It’s something you can look forward to. People come to us because that day, it’s a St John day, and that’s a good day. And we’re delighted that they make that decision. When they come in smiling, we smile too.

How do you manage to stick to your guns and remain relevant?

Trevor: It’s important to understand that our next new menu is happening right now, and the next menu after that will happen this afternoon. We’re not fixed in what we do. We are as bright and forward-looking today as when we started, and that culture is there among all our people. Every day, different things occur. A recipe will never stay the same, because ingredients change. As Fergus says, nature writes the menu. We don’t want to be seen just as the ‘offal palace’.

Fergus: We don’t follow the latest trends. We’re not trendy at all. Trends and food don’t go together; trends have nothing to do with a real restaurant.

Trevor: We do things we like to do. Sometimes they don’t work, sometimes they do. There was a seven-year quest for the right chocolate. It’s the same with wine: we spent two years on a project making a new St John Mâcon. It came on Tuesday and it’s great. And it’s immensely reasonable. Then a few years later we’ll move on again. There are always different things going on.

Speaking of wine, all the ingredients on the menu are British, yet all the wine is French. Why’s that?

Fergus: They’re our nearest neighbours who make good wine.

Trevor: If you see a menu and it’s got pasta, curry, something with chips, fish, steak, spaghetti, you think, I’m not going there. Why would you look at a wine list from all over the place and think, that’s exciting? One, we want to work directly with the vineyard, and two, if you’re drinking Burgundy it’s quite nice to stay with that when you move to a second bottle. It makes absolute sense. Once you start mucking around with wine menus, it usually means you’re either chasing profit or trends. Legend has it we are still the only Michelin-starred restaurant in the world that does bag-in-a-box wine.

Is it important to you that your cooking is accessible?

Trevor: Some people can come every day and some people come once a year, it doesn’t really matter – we’re always here. You can have a nice dish here and a glass of wine for less than 10 quid. And it will hopefully be well cooked, well made, well reared. I feel there’s a misnomer to say it’s expensive, when you know where it comes from: the price is just a function of what we have to pay for our produce. We get all kinds of people here, the great and the good, and no one’s famous at St John. Sometimes people just come in to buy their bread, and never eat here. I don’t think we’ve ever been accused of being elitist.

You have a lot of fun with food, but you’re clearly very serious about it, too.

Trevor: Yes, we’re mightily serious. There’s no room for error. You can hopefully sense that. There is an air of confidence. When you walk into a restaurant that knows what it’s doing, you can feel it.

Fergus: We’ve become an institution, in the good sense.

Trevor: It’s an institution that’s about to fall down, the building is so cracked. It’s characterful – you can put your hand through some of the holes in the wall.

Do you have a defined set of ethics?

Trevor: It’s just common sense. We care about everything we do, and the provenance. Also, if you’ve got a whole animal and you’ve killed it, it only seems respectful to eat it all. We do sprout tops, because when you look at a sprout stick, there are also leaves. It’s just common sense. And it’s just dull, eating processed meat that’s come over as cargo from Brazil: crap meat from farms and cows that are taking out rainforests and crapping everywhere…

Fergus: Don’t say ‘crapping’ – say ‘producing methane’.

Trevor: Producing methane. It isn’t a ‘movement’ or ‘back to nature’ or any of that kind of stuff, it’s just about working with the farmer directly and learning how to butcher, which makes for a much better chef. And the quality of the meat is better. Using a whole animal allowed us in the old days to save some money. But if you aspire to be good people of the planet, as much as you can, it all rolls together. We can only hope that people are coming in here not because we’re cheerleaders, but because we can cook and they’re confident in how we source.

Why do you think we ever moved away from eating seasonally and utilising all of the animal?

Trevor: It’s a big question. People have been shipping in food to eat in London for hundreds of years, so ending up with supermarkets was perhaps a natural progression. I think supermarkets are fully responsible.

Fergus: Everybody wants everything cheaper. They want an orange in summer and they want it to be the perfect orange; milk to be homogenised. People don’t sit at the table. It’s very sad. The problem is people don’t see the animal. The butchers, greengrocers, fishmongers – all of those single distribution shops have all gone.

Trevor: I asked a genuine question at the fish counter in the supermarket recently, and he said, “I haven’t done the course yet.” Having a dialogue with the butcher or fishmonger, it no longer happens in most places. The trouble is, people won’t support their local butcher, eat better meat but maybe eat less of it – instead, they’ll be straight into the supermarket. And they’ll lose the butcher, and the farmer will then find it difficult to make a living. It’s a worrying time. Those farmers matter. Maybe we’re luddites after all.

Are people still surprised by what you do?

Trevor: Occasionally we see an old couple come in and open one of our ‘sensibles’, a bottle of white, at the bar, then ask each other, “Shall we eat in here?” They look at the menu and say, “Ooh, actually I’m not sure about this.” And you can see them getting flustered, because there isn’t a lot of narrative. The reason we keep it simple is because the first hors d’oeuvre, if you will, is the server – the conversation you have with them.

Fergus: You see the change in their face when they start to eat… and then they say, “This is really good.” Then they relax.

Trevor: It’s been more than 25 years and we’re lucky to do what we do, but sometimes it still feels everything is against you. It’s a tough business. A good restaurant takes time. It takes patience. A good restaurant has a lot of regulars, which we have – a regular can be every week or once a year, it doesn’t matter. When they want to come, we will be here.

“I ALWAYS AVOID THOSE TRAFFIC-LIGHT TRIO PACKS BECAUSE THE RED PEPPER IS USUALLY THE ONLY ONE I’M AFTER”

Peppers shout of summer. Although dedicated British growers will be crossing fingers for sweltering sunshine and won’t begin harvesting until late August, markets are awash with southern Mediterranean peppers by June.

I’m talking about the ubiquitous bell peppers, or perhaps the sweet and slender romanos, rather than any of the more bijoux, mini varieties, Mexican specialities or feisty chilis. Bell peppers do, of course, come in plenty of colours, but I always avoid those traffic-light trio packs because the red pepper is usually the only one I’m after. Green peppers are, in fact, just immature peppers and that lack of ripening results in a rather bitter, grassy taste that only really gets to shine alongside rich ingredients such as lamb or pork and has disastrously indigestible consequences when blitzed raw in a gazpacho. Yellow, orange and purple peppers seem to be little more than a gimmick to me as they have neither the acidic punch of the green nor the natural sweetness of the red.

Raw peppers may offer welcome crunch to a salad or colour to a platter of crudités, but it’s not until they’re roasted that peppers really deliver their magic – at once velvety, smoky and sweet. And, if you’re preparing a couple, why not make it half a dozen?

It’s vital to char the skins for that depth of flavour, whichever way you decide to roast the peppers. If you’ve been cooking over coals in the garden you could make use of the barbecue’s dying heat by throwing on half a dozen peppers to blacken and blister while you eat your meal. The naked flame of the gas hob is often suggested as a means of charring the skin, but frankly my life’s too short to be turning individual peppers over the heat (and cleaning up the sticky juices afterwards) when an oven does the job just as well.

Get the oven really hot, at least 200C, and roast the peppers on a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper. Your kitchen will smell glorious after about 20 minutes, when it’s probably time to turn the peppers, but do remember you want the skin to blacken. Once the peppers are thoroughly blistered and charred, remove the tray from the oven and pile the peppers up in a heap that you can cover with an upturned bowl or pan – you need to create a steamy environment in which the pepper flesh sweats away from the skin, so there’s really no need for plastic bags or cling film. Once cool enough to handle, but not completely cold, slip the skins off the pepper flesh and remove the stalks and seeds. I strain the remains left in the tray, catching all those pepper juices that I’ll add to a soup or stew later.

How to use your roasted peppers

— As is, in a large sliver, on top of bruschetta with goat’s cheese or piled up Spanish-style on bread with a slice of fried pork loin as a ‘montadito’ (serve with sherry and you’re essentially in Seville). Added to any number of sandwiches for a layer of juicy sweetness, in place of (or as well as) more calorific mayo.

— Chopped into ribbons, bathed in extra virgin olive oil and served in salads, with deeply savoury or piquant ingredients, highlighting their sweetness, such as anchovies, seaweed, olives or capers. A prerequisite for salade Niçoise and superb stirred into cooked haricot beans with fresh tomatoes, basil and a good slosh of vinegar. With ribbons of roasted, skinned aubergine and generous quantities of garlic for a traditional Catalan escalivada.

— Sliced and thrown in with fried onions and garlic for a quick and especially delicious starting point for all those pepper stews such as peperonata, pipérade or chakchuka (the pre-roasting is an absolute game changer when it comes to the depth of flavour) or simply to throw in to a pasta sauce.

— Blitzed in the blender (and if you’re feeling lazy you don’t even need to remove the skin) with garlic, chilli, breadcrumbs and olive oil for a classic Provençale rouille, perfect with fish soup or just served as a dip. Whizzed up with harissa to tame its heat or blended into hummus for a welcome change. Or quite possibly in, my all-time favourite roasted pepper dip from the Middle East, muhumarra, where the subtle smokiness sings alongside walnuts, garlic and sweet-sour pomegranate molasses.

See Jenny’s recipe for muhumarra.

“OUR LONG SUMMER DAYS NURTURE A CORNUCOPIA OF INTENSELY-FLAVOURED BERRIES AND CURRANTS”

France may have superb peaches, Turkey luscious figs and India exquisite mangoes, but Britain has the most delicious summer berries imaginable. For six blissfully long months, our gentle weather and long summer days nurture a cornucopia of intensely-flavoured berries and currants, from fragrant strawberries and raspberries to tart gooseberries and blackcurrants. Their pure sweet-sour taste needs nothing more than sugar, cream and the occasional foil of buttery pastry, sponge or white bread to taste wonderful.

The British soft fruit season traditionally starts with strawberries. Just as every builder strips off his shirt at the first sight of sunshine, so every Briton feels compelled to eat the first strawberries with lots of sugar and cream. Only after being suitably satiated – it usually takes several weeks of strawberry gluttony – do cooks begin to use strawberries in different ways, turning them into fools, ice creams, sorbets, fruit salads, cobblers, pies and, of course, jam. And it is at this moment that the true magic inherent to all summer fruits is revealed – they take on an irresistible, deep flavour when exposed to gentle heat.

Happily, this realisation coincides with the arrival of other soft berries and is usually initially manifested in that classic 18th century dish ‘hydropathic pudding’, now better known as summer pudding, with bread used to replace the original rich suet pastry, which was far less effective at containing all those lovely, colourful juices.

The concept of gently heating a mixture of currants, strawberries, raspberries and blueberries with sugar can be easily transferred to serving them warm with pancakes, waffles and pain perdu. They also taste good cooked with other fruits, such as peaches with redcurrants or blueberries, rhubarb with strawberries, or apples with raspberries, especially when baked with a scone or sponge topping.

The stronger-tasting fruits such as gooseberries, blackcurrants and raspberries make incredible ice creams, fools, jellies (both the pudding and the preserve), tarts, curds (as in lemon curd) and jams. Blackcurrants taste particularly good when flavoured with rosemary, raspberries with distilled orange flower water, and gooseberries are delicious with elderflowers or elderflower liqueur. I for one cannot resist a blackcurrant curd meringue pie or a gooseberry curd sponge cake, never mind a wobbly raspberry jelly or a crisp, buttery gooseberry tart.

All soft fruits have an affinity with homemade custard. If you have the time, create islands of poached meringues (oeufs à la neige), floating in a sea of custard, and serve with a scattering of raspberries or redcurrants. Alternatively, make a summer trifle – where you pool custard in each serving bowl, then scatter with a mixture of summer berries, and top with a small pile of sponge diamonds and a blob of syllabub.

As the summer progresses, so the compulsion to preserve will grow. Everyone loves homemade jam. Naturally, there are jellies to make too, as well as pickled gooseberries and blackcurrant or gooseberry cordials. It’s also worth making the English version of shrub – a refreshing drink where a sweet fruit-flavoured vinegar is served iced and diluted with soda. All soft fruits make good shrubs.

But perhaps the greatest pleasure lies in simply mixing different combinations of soft berries with sugar, maybe with the slightest dash of kirsch, and eating them just as they are for pudding. They always taste heavenly.

Strawberries

Strawberry fashions come and go, but London chefs currently love the sweet, soft-textured scarlet berries of early fruiting garigette (from late April), and the gorgeously perfumed woodland strawberry mara des bois that appears from late May onwards. Two quirky strawberry strains are the strasberry and the pineberry. The former has small, dimpled fruits that resemble a raspberry and the latter has tart, supposedly pineapple-flavoured, small white fruits with red seeds.

Gooseberries

There was a time when gooseberries were categorised by their size, colour and hairiness – coming in shades of green, yellow, white and red, both large and small, smooth and hairy. Today, gooseberries are rather hard to find, so should be bought whenever spotted.

Tart culinary gooseberries usually appear just as the elderflowers finish towards the end of May or beginning of June, followed in July by their sweeter, muscat-flavoured dessert cousins. The latter need no cooking, only washing, topping and tailing. Both are utterly delicious. The former freeze well, both raw and cooked.

Raspberries

Traditionally the British raspberry season started in July, but these days they’re grown undercover and so fruit from June to October. Tulameen, with its perfectly balanced ratio of sweetness to acidity, remains a popular summer variety, with autumn bliss taking its place in the later months. Look out for white, yellow and black raspberry varieties, all once treasured for their subtle flavours.

Red, white and pink currants

These jewel-like strings of currants fruit in Britain in June and July and have a much more intense, sweet-sour taste compared to their imported cousins, which are available for much of the year. They add a delicate acidity to other fruits, both raw in fruit salads and cooked in pies and preserves.

Blackcurrants

Depending on the weather, blackcurrants come into season in July for four to six weeks. Always choose plump, undamaged fruits and wash thoroughly before stripping from their stalks. They freeze well and have a fantastically rich port-like taste once heated with sugar. They make superb ice creams, syrups, jams, sorbets, fools and summer puddings.

Blueberries

Families once gathered the bilberries (also known as blueberries or whortleberries) that grew wild on the acidic heaths and moors of Britain for intense-tasting August pies, tarts and jams. Today, we buy the milder cultivated blueberries adopted from America. The English crop will fruit in August and September, before being replaced by foreign imports for the rest of the year.

Blackberries

There are more than 400 micro-species of blackberry growing wild in Britain, which can fruit from August until November. Their fruits are smaller than those of domesticated blackberry varieties, with myriad different flavours and tastes. Domesticated berries have large juicy fruit, but a tendency towards sourness that requires a generous sprinkling of sugar. They are at their best in August and September.

“HANNIBAL LECTOR’S IMMORTAL LINE MAY HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO MANY PEOPLE’S RELUCTANCE TO TASTE THIS MEAT”

Many cuts of meat qualify as offal, but I suspect our tastebuds and desire for offal in general have been tarnished by the over-cooking of two specific cuts: kidneys and liver. Hannibal Lector’s immortal line, “I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti… ffffffffffffffssttsttt”, may also have contributed, even if only subconsciously, to many people’s reluctance to taste this meat. At the very least it highlights the visceral nature of the organ, maybe even humanises the organ of other animals too.

Yet not everyone is repulsed by the idea of eating liver, and I may as well let you know from the very beginning of the piece, that I think you should give it another try.

What does liver taste like?

The liver does three things: it cleans toxins from blood; it produces bile; and it stores sugar (as glycogen). It should be no surprise, given this organ deals in blood, that the overriding and often negatively associated taste people are left with is ‘metallic’; the ferrous nature of the red stuff is well known. The fact liver also produces bile, however, can perhaps also help to explain the slightly bitter aftertaste of this type of meat.

But its role as a store of sugar might also help to explain why, actually, liver ain’t so bad after all. A hint of sweetness rounds things out and ensures weirdos like me keep coming back for more. There’s a richness to liver, which explains some of its appeal. It shines alongside soft, buttery, mashed potato and paired with onion gravy, or next to a sharply dressed bitter leaf salad, where there’s plenty of acidity to cut through the meat.

Texture-wise, when cooked right, liver is smooth, silky and cuts almost like butter. There’s little or no gristle, fat or bone impeding an easy bite through, though because it’s very lean, it’s important to cook it medium rare, lest you be left with a tough old leather boot.

How does the flavour differ between animals?

Every animal has a liver, and while the generalisations above ring true to all of them, there are some subtle differences in taste and toughness.

Two of the most prized livers are calf’s liver and chicken livers. Both are on the sweeter end of the offal spectrum, mild in their meatiness and relatively tender and delicate, though for obvious reasons, chicken livers are much, much smaller than the other meats mentioned here. As well as starring in their own dishes, they are often used to enrich a ragu or stew – look to Italian and Persian cuisine for examples of this.

Beef liver is meaty, but also darker and quite a lot tougher than a calf’s liver. Lamb is mild, a little sheepy, and goat is similar – perhaps milder still and also sweet, particularly when from a kid goat.

Pig’s liver seems to be the least desired of all – it can be particularly pungent and bitter, requiring lots of hot spices to make it palatable (to westerners, at least).

Finally, of course, there’s the matter of goose and duck livers in the form of foie gras. Through force-feeding, these livers become bloated and extremely rich. Personally, I’m not a fan; though that’s more for matters of taste than ethical reasons.

Cooking options

In my experience, there are three ways to cook and eat liver:

— Slice into 3-4cm steaks, then cook to medium-rare on a dry heat, ideally achieving a crust on the outside while keeping things soft and blushing pink within.

— Brown rapidly (but keep rare), then blitz or mix into a pate or terrine, allowing residual heat, or the gentle heat of a secondary cooking stage to finish the job.

— Cut into small pieces and include with other meats in something like a faggot or sausage.

Whichever way it’s cooked, it’s pretty essential to ensure liver is not ‘well done’, as by then, any textural enjoyment is long gone, and the iron and bitter tastes are exaggerated.

You’ll sometimes read of liver being left in milk to remove bitter flavours. I only think this necessary with beef and pig. Other than that, it’s only necessary to trim a few sinews and nuggets of fat from the surface.

Classic western dishes tend to match liver with onion or pepper-heavy sauces, perhaps with a cream or fortified wine base. From the east, the power of a pig liver is often masked by Sichuan peppercorns or chilli. If I turn to my recipe books for specific ideas, though, I spy a number of eye-opening ideas to try:

Fergus Henderson’s dried salted pig’s liver, radishes and boiled eggs in Nose to Tail Eating stands out as being particularly bonkers.

I also like the three liver recipes in Simon Hopkinson’s Roast Chicken and Other Stories, not least calf’s liver, Venetian style, which seems to be similar to most liver and onion recipes, save that the liver is exceptionally thin and barely cooked, and there’s a dash of red wine vinegar and parsley for good measure, so it’s perhaps a little lighter than the average Anglo version.

See also Hopkinson’s version of Richard Olney’s terrine of poultry livers, and his duck livers, crepes Parmentier and onion marmalade – both from the same book.

Claudia Roden has a recipe for Catalonian calf’s liver with onions and brandy in her Food of Spain (swap in chicken livers and oloroso for an Andalusian version).

David Thompson’s seminal Thai Food includes an intriguing recipe for calf’s liver, in which 5mm-thick slices are dipped in an out of gently simmering water until just cooked, and then dressed with lime juice, fish sauce, and a variety of fresh herbs. This is based on a classic Thai grilled pork liver dish (dap warn), which he doesn’t seem to like very much.

You must try Itamar Srulovich and Sarit Packer’s chopped (chicken) liver in their Honey & Co cookbook. This is a dish typical of Jewish cuisine, which is rich and sweet and milky and so much better than it looks and sounds – particularly if you’ve soft bread to scoop it up with.

And, I’m mighty keen on Olia Hercules’ chicken liver, buckwheat and crispy shallots in Mamushka. Not to mention Ukrainian enriched buns stuffed with chicken hearts and liver, flashed in madeira.

“THE LEGS OF OUTDOOR REARED, FREE-RANGE PIGS ARE SALTED, DRIED AND MATURED FOR A TOTAL OF THREE YEARS”

Ibérico de cebo de campo

Produced by Castro y Gonzalez, the century-old family firm that supplies Brindisa, the legs of outdoor reared, free-range pigs are salted, dried and matured for a total of three years in curing rooms in Guijuelo – the most northerly Ibérico ham-producing region – resulting in a full, rich aroma and balanced sweet and savoury notes that linger on the palate. Eat with pan con tomate and a glass of rioja crianza.

Speck alto adige PGI

Seasoned with juniper berries, rosemary and bay leaves, this speck embodies the South Tyrol region – and the fare available at Alpine Deli. Unlike most hams, the curing process takes place once the meat has been taken off the bone. Having been marinated for three weeks in cool rooms, the ham is cold smoked over beech wood and dried in the fresh mountain air. Not too salty, with a rounded, smoky flavour.

Mountain cured ham

In a move that’s good for both planet and palate, PGI pigs from the Franche-Comte region are fed on whey left over from the production of the region’s famed cheese, imbuing their meat with rich flavour and contributing to its silken texture. Cured with coriander, pepper and bay leaves, then left to dry for 10 months, this sweetly salty ham from The French Comte pairs perfectly with a fruity riesling.

Prosciutto di Cormons

The D’Osvaldo family of curers have near-mythic status in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region of Italy. The meat is salted and massaged by hand, then pressed and – unusually for prosciutto – smoked with logs of cherry and laurel. During ageing, which takes 16 to 24 months, the legs undergo various ‘larding’ procedures, ensuring a supple finish. Buy it by the expertly-cut slice at The Parma Ham and Mozzarella Stand.

Ham

Simple of name, but no less spectacular for that, Ginger Pig ham is ‘wet cured’, meaning it’s submerged in a brine bath for just over a week, allowing the cure to penetrate to the bone. This draws moisture out, drying the meat before it’s gently simmered in water until cooked. This is ham that needs nothing but a couple of slices of pillowy bloomer, good butter and a dab of proper mustard.

“ARBEQUINA OLIVES ARE SMOKED OVER HOLM OAK WOOD IN A PROCESS THAT TAKES 15 DAYS TO COMPLETE”

Smoked olive oil

Produced on the Netasa family farm in La Vera, Extremadura, Finca La Barca smoked olive oil is made with the oil of arbequina olives that have been smoked over holm oak wood – using the same method applied to La Vera’s prized paprika – in a process that takes 15 days to complete. Each bottle is numbered and sealed with wax. Available from Brindisa, it is a creamy and delicate finishing oil with a subtle smokiness.

Lemongrass and tarragon oil

This special olive oil from Oliveology is made with a blend of three olive varieties, grown and harvested by hand on an organic farm in Sparta, Greece. The olives are cold pressed with the lemongrass and tarragon at 22C to ensure that maximum flavour is imparted. Use the oil to lift scallops, grilled fish or seasonal Mediterranean vegetable dishes.

White truffle oil

Made with extra virgin olive oil from Puglia, south Italy, mixed with white truffle essence and bottled on site at Tartufaia, this is the most pungent and popular of the stall’s truffle oils. Owner, chef and truffle expert Mario Prati suggests adding a tablespoon to mayo, mustard or pesto, or stirring a few drops into mash, risotto or pasta. Don’t cook with it, though – it’ll lose all those lovely flavour notes.

Basil olive oil

Danilo Manca’s family has been producing fine olive oils in southern Italy for generations. For this particular nectar from The Olive Oil Co, he harvests coratina and ogliarola olives in the autumn. The oil is then infused with his homegrown basil come March. An aromatic oil with a distinct peppery note to the finish, it’s best enjoyed on its own rather than in a vinaigrette to get the full punch of flavour.

Garlic rapeseed oil

Noel Fitzjohn at Fitz Fine Foods takes cold-pressed organic rapeseed oil, gently heats it with garlic and leaves it to marry for about a month. It’s brilliant for cooking, given the oil’s high smoke point (try rubbing it on chicken before roasting or frying), but works just as well in dressings: Noel likes his with French mustard and balsamic vinegar, poured over a salad of mozzarella, cherry tomato, basil and spring onion.

“THE FEELING OF SOMEONE HAVING MADE SOMETHING FOR YOU, THAT CONNECTION VIA FOOD – THAT IS TRULY LASTING”

It was in a group discussion with his fellow psychotherapy students that Stefan realised the full extent of bread’s power to connect people. “We’d been asked to bring in something symbolic – and I was a bit stuck, to be honest with you. But I’ve been working here for a long time, so bread is fairly meaningful to me.”

Stefan has sold bread at Borough Market for more than a decade – first at Bread Ahead, then Olivier’s Bakery, where he has been working while studying part-time at a local university. He’s loved the course – “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever done” – and he’s loved seeing the theory play out in his work at the Market. “I’m not analysing people,” he laughs, “but everyone, from all walks of life, buys bread and I have a lot of rapid-fire interactions with people. I’ve become much better at reading emotions.”

The group discussion took place on an away weekend, and Stefan had taken one of those huge sourdough loaves you find at Olivier’s. With no knife readily available, Stefan had broken it into hunks and passed them around. “I actually don’t think it would have been the same had I been able to cut it into neat slices. At the end of a very long weekend of exploring our psyche it became a focal point – something really special and ritualistic.” Everyone there understood that this experience – breaking and sharing bread – was about far more than having something to eat.

Stefan’s tale got me thinking. If even the act of buying and sharing bread promoted mental wellbeing, how much more so would making it? People talk a lot about the restorative, calming nature of cooking; about the connection between the creative process and what is commonly called ‘mindfulness’. Few people can have more of an idea of this than the Borough Market producers, who spend almost every waking moment making and working with food.

When I speak to David at Brindisa, who spends hours carving beautiful jamón, he describes the entire world disappearing the moment he has his knife in his hand. “Even when it’s noisy and busy with customers, I am zoned in on the leg of ham. It is my craft, and I want to pay respect to the pig and all the other people in this process.” After all, Dave’s is the last step in the leg’s five-year journey: the iberico pig being bred in Extremadura, cured in Salamanca and transported from there to Borough Market. It takes him three hours to carve one leg, but he doesn’t notice the time. “To call it an art sounds pretentious – but it is an art and I like to do it beautifully.”

I leave him running his knife expertly along the rich, scarlet leg, and head up the road to the Kappacasein dairy in Bermondsey. “I’ve recently been reading a book about mindfulness and meditation,” says owner Bill, when I catch him at the end of a day’s cheesemaking. “It talks a lot about being present – about engaging with where you are at the moment, rather than where you want to be in the future.”

It’s an approach that proves applicable, he continues, to making his alpine-style cheeses. “I always thought a tea ceremony was about the tea. But it’s not. It’s about the simplicity of the leaves, the hot water, the stirring, the cup, the temperature – the process. And the flavour comes from that.” Similarly, Bill continues, when he makes his Bermondsey Hard Pressed or raclette, he is not really thinking about eating cheese.

“There is a repetitive element, but to imagine it’s all repetitive ignores the complexity of something multifaceted and complicated.” To work with raw milk and a native starter culture is to be constantly alive to changes in the sight, smells and textures of the junket and curds, and respond accordingly. “When the cows are in lactation, what they were eating, who did the milking, what time I picked the milk up – all those things can vary,” says Bill. “I have to have faith in my process and in nature.”

Bill is a big fan of making (and eating) food that takes time to make. “I’ve tried to do that with cheese by making my own starter, picking the milk up fresh, and ageing it for 24 months.” In our fast, busy lives, carving out space to slow down and create has become increasingly difficult – and yet it is a key aspect of being human, says Charlotte Hastings, a BACP-accredited psychotherapist who offers ‘kitchen therapy’ as part of her practice.

To pass over the process of making something to eat, via takeaways or supermarket ready-meals, is to miss out on “that beautiful and incredible human process: the alchemy of cooking, and the act of creating a meal for someone. The food will be eaten. The flavour will be over. But the feeling of someone having made something for you, that connection via food – that is lasting,” she heatedly explains. “Food is our first experience of love in the world. It is a very primal need and to be in touch with that in a multisensory way is to connect with your fellow humans and your environment.”

It’s why Matt Jones set up the Bread Ahead school. “We’re getting people back into using their hands again – using their senses,” he enthuses. “You need to smell it, see it, feel the changes in tension as the gluten transforms. It is like a sailing ship. You have to be super-aware of your surroundings, of what’s going on.” During the mixing and kneading there are constant “minute changes,” says Matt. “In temperature, in texture, in moisture. Feeling those as you knead, you feel connected to it.”

At the same time, he continues, the energy of his baking students changes as the class ensues. “For the first 20 minutes they don’t know what to expect. They’re hesitant. Then there’s this wonderful moment where they just click into it,” he smiles. “I was in the school yesterday and walked past Kevin taking a class and they were opened-mouthed, just hanging on his every word.”

Of course, no one leaves the Bread Ahead school having mastered baking. “It’s a life’s journey. You’re never going to fully conquer it.” That’s the joy of working with a live product, Matt continues. Like Bill’s cheese at Kappacasein, his bread “will always be somewhat in the lap of the gods. It’s a good foundation for real life. Like the seasons, it works at its own speed – and you can’t hurry it up,” he grins. “You have to work around it, and attend to it at certain times.”

Bake every day, as Matt does, and you’ve “a giant clock, which runs to its own time”. It provides structure: a central point around which you can plan your day’s work and activities, and some respite from them when it comes to kneading. All that before you’ve even got to the symbolism and ritual, the warm, homely smell of baking, and the crusty, squidgy, sweetly-sour taste of homemade bread.

For Matt, as for Bill, as for so many traders, the production of food is a part of their identity – a craft they have spent decades perfecting. Being part of Borough Market means being part of a community of artisans, all of whom have great respect for each other’s field.

“They are interconnected. The butcher doesn’t have to bake bread, because his neighbour does that. The baker can buy his bacon off the butcher. They can both buy cheese from the cheesemaker,” observes Charlotte. Humans are social creatures. That’s why the cult of the individual is so worrying, she continues. “Being part of an interdependent community, which exchanges information and produce and skills, is something everyone living on this planet needs.”

“FAR FROM BEING THE WORST EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE, IT TURNS OUT THAT PENIS AND TESTICLES ARE ACTUALLY PALATABLE”

Image: Ed Smith

It was when I said “actually, I think I prefer penis to kidney” that I knew I could legitimately say I’ve eaten the bits that others might not stomach. Not least because this was to camera on a Channel 4 prime-time show.

Some context is required. Along with a few other ‘bloggers’, I was being filmed at the dinner table with Jimmy Doherty for a piece about offal to feature on Jamie and Jimmy’s Food Fight Club. We were fed three courses, each time without knowing what they were.

The first course involved meatballs braised in a rich tomato (and perhaps red wine?) sauce. It turned out that those balls really were, well, um, you know. The second was a pretty fantastic steak pie. Lovely suet crust. Intense, yielding pieces of beef. A deep, viscous, well-seasoned sauce. And tender, spongy, perfectly pleasant tasting sections of a bull’s most private part. For dessert? Candied cockscomb on top of chocolate and blood ice cream. Mmmmmmm.

Far from being the worst eating experience of my life, it turns out that penis and testicles are actually pretty palatable. Slightly wince-inducing if you overthink it, but good nonetheless. Which all serves, I hope, as a reasonably eye-catching introduction to the subject of this month’s offal project: the unmentionables.

Eating penis, testicles and sweetbreads. What the?

No need to introduce the function or look of the penis and testicles. More question marks surround the preparation and taste of them. For that, read further down the page. Suffice to say, though, that there aren’t masses of these long masses of vascular tissue and egg shaped glands on the market.

Animal husbandry leads to the removal of the nether regions, often because it’s believed animals taste better without the added complication of testosterone. If you do want to get hold of them, bull’s pizzle and lamb’s cahoonas are probably what you should ask for.

Sweetbreads, on the other hand, need further clarification. While they’re a relatively common sight in butchers’ counters or on restaurant plates, they remain a mystery to many. In fact, they are throat and pancreas glands taken from the neck or heart and stomach area of an animal, and were perhaps labelled ‘sweet’ as they’re a milder, less savoury flavour than rich lamb or beef.

I find them succulent, near creamy. I’ve no idea about the etymology of the ‘bread’ part. Perhaps stale bread soaked in milk or water and then fried bears some comparison to taste and texture.

Calves’ sweetbreads are the most prized – they’re really creamy and light in taste, smooth and velvety in texture. But lambs’ sweetbreads are most common, better value and, to my mind, a perfectly good option.

How to prepare and cook

Brace yourselves, gents.

The general approach to cooking a penis requires a number of stages of washing and cleaning and blanching and washing and cleaning and blanching and chopping and then finally stewing/braising and perhaps some slicing and frying at the end.

The result for all that effort? If you’ve blanched and braised properly, then a relatively soft, near unctuous meat, but one without a huge amount of flavour.

For balls, no need to do the blanching bit. They’re good slow-braised, but also just cooked aggressively on a grill (charring and crisping the outer membrane) or breaded and deep fried. You know, for extra crunch. Their texture is a little like large fresh scallop. And lamb’s balls do taste pretty lamby. You might want some red wine to wash it down.

Sweetbreads need to be soaked in cold water for an hour or so before cooking. This helps to remove much of their fairly obnoxious odour. Then you blanch them for five or 10 minutes, before plunging into cold water and peeling membrane and any fat from the outside.

Finally, the drained and dry sweetbreads just need to be fried, quite aggressively, so that they get a nutty and sweet brown edge, while remaining tender and relatively mild inside.

Classic uses and recipes to look out for

It’s an understatement to suggest that penis doesn’t have a particularly prominent place in western cuisine. There’s lots of love for it throughout Asia, though.

My normal reference for authentic Chinese cuisine is Fuchsia Dunlop, who initially immersed herself in Chengdu and Sichuanese cuisine, and is now an authority on many other regions too. She’s a recipe for Chongqing penis soup, which involves about 10 hours of stewing, goji berries, Sichuan peppers and Shaoxing wine.

Korea is another country that cooks quite a lot of pizzle (I’m told this is actually how they refer to it). Sadly, the most authentic and best Korean cookbook I have, Our Korean Kitchen, by Jordan Bourke and Rejina Pyo doesn’t include any recipes though.

Testicle recipes are even harder to come by. None of my 200 or so books seem to refer to them – not even Fergus Henderson’s Nose to Tail. However, after some research I’ve found that there is a whole cookbook devoted to them. So if you want to seek it out: Cooking with Balls, by Serbian chef, Ljubomir Erovic. Battered testicles, testicles pizza, goulash with stallion testicles… it’s all in there.

And so to sweetbreads, which I suspect hold more interest. There are lots of examples of sweetbread recipes in classic French cooking. For example, Elizabeth David has two recipes for veal sweetbreads in French Provincial Cooking: larded and braised with cream and mushrooms, or braised then fried, and finally “united with sorrel at the moment of service”.

Spankingly fresh

Simon Hopkinson is the person to turn to in times like these, though. Sure enough, Roast Chicken and Other Stories, includes ris de veau aux morilles (“one of the richest dishes it is possible to eat”); breadcrumbed veal sweetbreads with tartare sauce; and blanquette of lamb’s sweetbreads. Hopkinson advises buying lamb’s sweetbreads as spankingly fresh as possible. Which is absolutely correct.

In Modern Cookery for Private Families (1845), Eliza Acton suggested Victorian cooks either stew the heck out of sweetbreads and serve with maitre d’hotel sauce (made from lobster corral), or batter them.

I have to say I prefer the more modern British approach of blanching and then browning in nutty butter, and serving with something fresh and lively like grilled gem lettuce, wild garlic or sorrel purée. Elliot’s at Borough Market is somewhere you might find sweetbreads being cooked.

I suspect that if I (or you) asked nicely, any of the butchers at the Market could get their hands on the private parts of a pig or lamb or bull.

Simple and decent

But for all the bravado so far, when push came to shove and I started thinking about what to cook for this post, I realised I actually just fancied keeping things simple and decent, and plumped for sweetbreads. These are a more accessible prospect than penis and testicles, both in terms of getting others to eat them with you, but also tracking them down.

In fact, Ginger Pig almost always has a pot of lamb’s glands in the counter facing into the Market, the one that also contains calf’s liver and lamb’s kidneys (it’s a veritable treasure chest of offaly delights).

What to have with these glands? I decided that, as it’s summertime, the sweetbreads would be the warm, almost buttery part of a fresh, colourful, sharp and peppery salad.

Citrus cuts through the richness of offal, so some bright green sorrel leaves stood out as a basis for the dish. It’s good to contrast offal like this with fiery flavours too (mustard is a common condiment), and I decided on some peppery breakfast radishes as a way to raise the nostril hairs, and to add a striking colour to the mix.

A coalition of vibrant vegetables

I also felt that there should be fresh mint and chervil to lift things. And then added to that a coalition of vibrant vegetables, including fresh peas, mangetout and ribbons of yellow courgette, all of which are sweet and crunchy.

The result? It was a winner. The sweetbreads were bouncy, but also soft. A little metallic in taste, but still relatively mild, even sweet and particularly good when eaten on the same fork as the summery salad. The freshness and crunch of the peas and courgettes were also welcome alongside the texture of the offal. Give it a go!

Read Ed’s recipe for lamb sweetbreads, sorrel, herb & summer vegetable salad.