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 Ingredients

(serves four)

For the duck

2 whole ducks (take the legs off and use for confit)

Salt and pepper

2 oranges (with their zest very finely julienned and segments kept)

275ml duck stock (jus)

For the spinach and watercress mousse

200g washed spinach

100g watercress, picked

175ml double cream (infused with ½ clove of garlic, nutmeg, salt and pepper)

3 size 2 egg yolks

Salt and pepper + knob of butter

For the crushed olive-oil Jersey Royal potatoes

275ml white chicken stock

275ml water

450g medium-sized Jerseys (scraped and chopped evenly)

50g finely chopped shallots

110ml olive oil

1tbs chopped parsley

Salt and pepper

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Method

Prick the duck skins all over with a skewer, then truss. Pour boiling water over the breasts to loosen the skin, then pat dry and refrigerate for as long as possible. Season with salt, pepper and orange zest. Place the ducks in a dry pan over a low heat, then roast the ducks on top of the stove until golden all over. This may take 10-20 minutes.

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Transfer the breasts to the oven, skin-side up, and roast for about 10 minutes at 200ºC. It should be cooked medium and crispy. Drain the fat from the pan and deglaze with the reduced duck stock and juice of one orange. Taste the sauce and finish with a knob of butter.

To make the crushed olive oil Jerseys, place the stock and water in a pan, along with the potatoes. Bring to the boil and cook until soft. Drain well, then return to the pan and crush potatoes. Keep aside. In another pan sweat the shallots in a little olive oil. When soft, throw into the pan of potatoes along with the rest of the olive oil, chopped parsley and knob of butter.

To make the mousse, blanch the greens in boiling water and refresh. Then squeeze dry. Bring the cream and garlic to the boil.

Place the greens in a blender with the egg yolks and heated cream and allow to infuse and season. Blitz and pass through a medium sieve. Pour the mixture into four buttered dariole moulds or ramekins. Place in a bain-marie and cover with clingfilm. Cook in a low oven (120ºC) for about 30 mins or until just set.

Carve the duck into thin slices, place on the watercress mousse, and garnish with the segments, julienne and crushed olive-oil Jersey potatoes. Pour the sauce over and around the duck.

Galton Blackiston, chef patron, Morston Hall, Norfolk

Soft-boiled gull's egg with flaked wild salmon belly, Jersey royals and asparagus, by Philip Howard
 
There are four components to this dish: the salmon, the gulls' eggs, the asparagus and the Jersey Royals. Each is cooked separately, the Jerseys requiring two different preparations (a foam and an écrasé). They come together to make a soft, sensuous, delicious seasonal starter.

Ingredients

Serves 4

1/2 white onion
175g butter
Salt and pepper
500g Jersey Royal potatoes (for foam)
750ml milk
2 sprigs mint
200g Jersey Royal potatoes (for écrasé)
1tbs crème fraîche
2 spring onions, finely sliced
1 sprig dill
8 spears extra select English asparagus
4 gulls' eggs
275g wild salmon belly
2tbs lemon olive oil
1 lemon wedge
Pinch celery salt
Caviar (optional)

Method

Get the two potato preparations going and, while they cook, carry on with the remaining components.

 
Jersey Royal foam: sweat onion in butter with pinch of salt until softened. Add 500g of potatoes. Sweat for a further two minutes. Cover with milk and cook until tender. Remove from the heat, add some mint, allow to cool slightly, then blend in a Thermomix-type blender until completely smooth. Season, put into a gas gun, charge, test and set aside in a warm place.

Jersey Royal écrasé: place 200g of potatoes in a small pan, cover with water and season. Bring to boil and cook gently until potatoes are tender. Remove from heat, add some mint and allow to cool in the cooking water. Drain potatoes, reserving the cooking liquor, crush gently with a fork and bind with the crème fraîche, adding enough cooking water to give an unctuous, creamy texture. Finish with spring onions and a pinch of chopped dill. Season. Reserve warm.

Peel asparagus with a fine-gauge peeler. Cut coarse ends from asparagus. Plunge asparagus into a large pan of heavily salted boiling water. Cook until al dente. Refresh briefly in iced water and place on a kitchen cloth on a tray to drain. Reserve at room temperature.

Cook gulls' eggs in boiling water for four minutes. Peel and reserve in fresh water at room temperature.

Place the salmon on a tray, season with salt and pepper. Coat generously in lemon olive oil. Cook on a plancha or non-stick pan until each side is lightly caramelised. Should fish require further cooking, finish under a gentle grill. The salmon must be cooked "pink". Once cooked, transfer to a fresh tray to prevent further cooking, season with a squeeze of lemon juice and leave to rest.

All components of the dish need to be served warm. Pass asparagus and eggs briefly through some hot, seasoned water. Check temperature of the other ingredients. Gently tease salmon belly into soft, succulent flakes.

Place a pool of écrasé in the centre of each bowl. Dress the gull's egg - cut in half and seasoned with celery salt - on top. Place asparagus tips alongside and finish with flakes of salmon belly. Complete dish with a generous squirt of Jersey Royal foam. A dollop of caviar would be a fine addition to the dish.

Was the venerable MJ singing about sea beet? Probably not. Has he heard of sea beet? Probably not. Have you? Hopefully.

For those who enjoy beeting it - in the cleanest possible sense - there's good new: grisly bearded foragers in souwesters and waxed hats are harvesting the coastal plant as we speak. For professional chefs, it's available from Chef Direct (01275 474707) for £8/kg.

The coastal weed is the wild ancestor of common vegetables such as beetroot, sugar beet, and Swiss chard and a tasty. It's around from April to October and it's best to use the smaller top leaves in salad and the bottom leaves as a vegetable, boiling then buttering.

Mark Hix has got a cheeky recipe for sea beet and wild fennel soup with crab here.

Okay, okay - he hasn't got a Michelin star at the moment. But he is the youngest ever recipient of one, and that's enough for this blog. Plus the shaven-head Scouse owner of the Church Green in Lymm (pictured here sinisterly relaxing with a doomed sea trout) is about to make his first real foray into the world of TV on the BBC's Great British Menu. So here's a cheeky little recipe now that the first sea trout of the season are appearing, taken from his stonking cookbook Made in Great Britain, published by New Holland last year:

Sea Trout with Crab and Ginger Mousse, wrapped in Lettuce with Carrot and Lemon Grass Sauce

Serves 4
1½ chicken breasts, diced
1 egg white
250ml double cream
25 g fresh ginger, peeled
150 g picked white crabmeat
100 g chicken mousse
10 coriander leaves, finely shredded
finely grated rind of 1 lemon
2 round butterhead lettuce
4 portions of boneless, skinless wild sea trout, 120 g each
6 stalks of lemon grass
300 g new season carrots, peeled and finely sliced
75 g butter, diced
2 star anise
1 litre white chicken stock
200 ml double cream
juice of 1 lemon
salt and pepper
coriander leaves, to garnish

For the chicken mousse, place in the diced chicken breasts in a chilled blender bowl and blend until very smooth. Add the egg white slowly, then add two-thirds of the cream while the blender is running. Add a tablespoon of salt and the remaining cream and blend until the mousse is a light consistency. Place in a bowl and reserve. Dice the ginger as finely as possible, place in a small saucepan, cover with cold salted water and bring to the boil. Drain and repeat the process about six times until the ginger is soft. Dry on kitchen paper. Place the crabmeat in a large bowl and add the chicken mousse and coriander leaves and ginger. Season with salt, pepper and lemon rind, cover with clingfilm and leave in the refrigerator for a couple of hours. Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil, add one tablespoon of salt and plunge eight large lettuce leaves in for a few seconds. Remove and quickly place into iced water, drain when cool and place on kitchen paper to dry. On a sheet of clingfilm lay two large lettuce leaves end to end to create one large leaf. Sit a piece of fish in the centre of the leaves and spoon a quarter of the mousse-crab mix on top of the fish with the softened ginger. Fold over the lettuce to create a parcel, using the clingfilm to get a tight seal. Repeat to make four parcels and reserve in the fridge. To make the carrot purée, bruise the lemongrass with the back of a chopping knife and chop into small pieces. In a large, covered pan sweat the carrots with the butter, lemon grass and star anise for 10-15 minutes without letting them colour. When the carrots are soft add the stock, reduce by half, add the cream and again reduce by half. Transfer to a blender and blend until smooth. Pass through a fine sieve twice. Season with salt, lemon juice and sugar, if necessary. Place the fish in the steamer and cook for 6-7 minutes, then leave to sit for a further minute. To serve, reheat the carrot purée and spoon onto each plate. Cut each piece of fish in half widthways and arrange on top of the carrot purée. Dress each dish with some coriander leaves.

We're so ruddy close to spring, here's what the man from Chelsea (pictued here popping into someone's acid trip) cobbled together last year with some peas and a leg of ham that he found in his garden (unconfirmed fact).

Salad of peas and Parma ham

Serves four

2 leaves gelatine
600g shelled fresh peas
caster sugar
200ml double cream semi-whipped
small bunch of mint
2 long shallots diced finely
3 punnets pea shoots
4 slices Parma ham

For The Dressing
1 egg yolk
zest and juice of 2 lemons
225ml olive oil

Soak the gelatine leaves in cold water. Cook 400g peas in boiling salted water for about four minutes with a large pinch of sugar and salt to taste, then drain and plunge into iced water, leave for a few minutes then drain.

Cook the remaining peas in the same way, retaining their cooking water then place this last third in to a blender with 150ml of the cooking water add the soaked gelatine and make a purée. Pass this purée through a fine sieve and then place in to a bowl and into the fridge . Stir from time to time until it has nearly set, then add the cream which should be the consistency of thick custard, season and add a tbsp of chopped mint and you may need to add a pinch of sugar or a squeeze of lemon juice. Then chill.

To make the dressing place the yolk in to the blender with the juice and zest of lemon then blend for a minute, slowly add 200ml olive oil and a little water if it gets too thick , season then add a pinch of mint.

Cook the shallots in the remaining oil until soft but not coloured, then place in to a bowl to cool. Add the rest of the cooked peas another large pinch of chopped mint with a little dressing to bind them together. Place the shallot and pea mixture on to the plate with a little dressing and then the pea mousse, pea shoots and Parma ham.

Tom Aikens

One from the man with the lived-in face:

Gordon Ramsay's pot au feu of pigeon de Bresse poached in a bouillon of cèpes served with choux farci

Ingredients

(Serves four)
For the cèpe consommé
100g shallots
75g dried cèpes
1 bay leaf
1 sprig of thyme
Black peppercorns
1 litre chicken stock
For the clarification
1 chicken leg, boned and minced
25g shallots, minced
25g carrots, minced
50g dried cèpes, minced
1 bay leaf
1 sprig of thyme
Black peppercorns
1 celery stick, minced
2 egg whites, beaten
Chopped truffle
Seasoning
12 baby carrots, prepped
6 baby navets
4 baby leeks
50g peas
50g broad beans
1 celery stick
4 pigeons (450-500g)

Method
To prepare the cèpe consommé sweat shallots until golden brown add cèpes bay leaf thyme and peppercorns and cook out. Add chicken stock and simmer for 25 minutes. Strain stock

Mix the clarification ingredients add egg whites and mix well. Add this to cèpe stock and bring to the boil stirring constantly. Simmer for 20 minutes then pass through a muslin leaving the crust in the pan. Finish with chopped truffle and seasoning.

Prepare blanch and refresh all the baby vegetables in water. Trim and clean the pigeon removing the innards. Poach pigeon in chicken stock or cèpe consommé for six to seven minutes. Allow pigeon to rest for five minutes then remove from the bone.

Reheat pigeon and vegetables in consommé and serve in a bowl.

For those of you who haven't been to the Coach and Horses in London's Clerkenwell is a fab little gastropub with head chef Henry Herbert (pictured here doing an impression of Cate Blanchett doing an impression of Bob Dylan) big on his foraging. And he's foraged up this cheeky recipe using bang in season produce; crab and wild garlic.

Wild Garlic & Crab Tart

Ingredients for the Pastry:

125g Unsalted Butter
250g Plain Flour
2 Egg Yolks
Pinch of Salt
2 Tablespoons Cold Water

Ingredients for the Filling:

2 Whole Eggs
4 Egg Yolks     
400ml Double Cream
200ml Milk
50g Grated Parmesan
Salt and Pepper
200g White Crab Meat
30g Shredded Wild Garlic Leaves
10g Tarragon
20g Flaked Almonds

For the pastry, rub the butter into the flour. Mix in the yolks, salt and cold water until the pastry comes together. Wrap in cling-film and rest in fridge for 2 hours. Line a greased 10inch tart case and bake at 180C for 12 minutes, remove from oven, brush pastry with egg wash and return to the oven for a further 5 minutes. For the filling whisk together the eggs, yolks, cream, milk, parmesan and seasoning. Fold in the crab meat, wild garlic and tarragon. Pour the mix into the tart case and sprinkle the almonds on top. Bake at 160C for 30 minutes.  Cool and serve with a green salad.

Henry Herbert, head chef, the Coach and Horses, Clerkenwell, London

For those of you unfamiliar with Glynn Purnell's food, it's culinary embodiment of the idea that you are what you cook. As much as Jamie Oliver's food is simple, friendly, media savvy nosh, or Bruce Poole's warm, appealing, big-hearted grub, Purnell's stuff is playful, mischievous, Brummie fare from a man as Birmingham-centric as Friday night curry vomit.

After sneaking through to the final with a strawberry dessert last year Purnell (pictured here enjoying a choc-ice with his pal after successfully retaking his maths GCSE) is back again. This year he's up against Daniel Clifford from Midsummer House in Cambridge in a Midlands heat and he's got a lot to live up to after not only becoming not only the first chef to pick up a perfect score for a dish on last year's dessert but also gaining the arguably-somewhat-better accolade of a Michelin star this January at his eponymous Birmingham restaurant, set up in 2007 after he left his position as head chef at Birmingham's Jessica's restaurant (where he also gained a star).

Anyho, this is first and foremost a food blog, so scroll down for a recipe of Glynn that is, just maybe, one of my favourite dishes I've eaten. It's definitely the only one to have made me smile while I'm eating it. Which is more than Purnell's joke has ever done: Q: What do you say to a man with no arms when you want to know the time? A: Do you have the time on you cock?

About a year ago I was romping through God's own country - or Yorkshire to those of us who possess all our own teeth - and it was effing everywhere. I'm talking about wild garlic, or ramsons if you prefer. So i started wolfed a load of it down and repelled all form of human, animal and vampire for the next two to three hours.

For the next month if you see a bit of wild garlic, probably in woodland near a lovely old patch of bluebells, chances are you'll see a whole host of it. If you're unsure, give it a whiff, and if it smells of a Frenchman's breath you've got the right leaf.

It's a personal highlight of Spring and a gem of an ingredient with a whole host of food - lamb or venison for example - or great just as a spring-time broth. How to harvest it, use it and pretty much everything you could hop to know about the plant is available from this excellent blog post two years ago from the ever interesting Food Fun blog.

There's a ray of light breaking through winter's dying clouds right now, so keep your eyes open and try it with gurnard in this recipe, another from Oliver Peyton's excellent National Cookbook:

Pan-roasted red gurnard with wild garlic and clams

500g small clams, such as carpet shells
2tbsp vegetable oil
1 shallot, finely chopped
100ml dry white wine
8-12 red gurnard fillets with skin, weighing 600-700g in total
2tbsp plain flour
30g butter
100g St George's mushrooms or oyster mushrooms, sliced
100ml whipping or double cream
400g wild garlic leaves or baby spinach leaves

Serves four

Gurnard is the T-bone steak of fish. Chunky like halibut and monkfish, it has a
strong enough flavour to hold its own against the pungency of the garlic in this
dish. The season for wild garlic only lasts a few weeks, so go mad with it when
you can. It's powerful, but it doesn't linger on the palate like garlic cloves do.

1. Scrub the clams clean under cold running water. Discard any that
are open, or that do not close when tapped on the work surface.

2. Heat a large saucepan until hot, then add 1tbsp of the oil and cook
the shallot for about 2 minutes. Add the clams and wine, cover the
pan tightly and cook until the shells open, which will take about 5
minutes. Lift out the clams and set aside, discarding any that are still
closed. Strain and reserve the cooking liquid.

3. Dust the fish fillets with the flour on the skin side only.

4. Heat half of the butter in a flameproof casserole and cook the
mushrooms for about 3 minutes or until soft. Add the cooking
liquid from the clams and boil to reduce by half.

5. Heat a large frying pan (or two pans) over a medium heat and add
the remaining oil and butter. Season the fish and cook, skin-side
down, for 2 minutes. Turn the fish over and cook for 2 minutes.

6. While the fish is cooking, add the cream to the mushrooms and
boil for 1 minute, then place the clams in the pan and top with the
wild garlic. Cover and cook for about 2 minutes or just until the
garlic leaves wilt.

7. When the fish is cooked, turn it over onto its skin side again and
remove from the heat. Serve the mushrooms, clams and garlic in
four warmed bowls, topped with the gurnard.

Rhubarb tart

Serves eight

For the filling

1kg rhubarb (forced or new season's)
200g caster sugar
250ml crème fraîche
125ml double cream
3 egg yolks

Rhubarb tart
Here, the quintessential English pairing of rhubarb and custard is cooked in a pastry case that looks like a sweet quiche. Instead of cooking the rhubarb beforehand, which would turn it to a pulp, it's macerated in sugar. This leaves the rhubarb with its natural colour, a little bit of crunch and an intense flavour.

1. Trim the rhubarb, then cut the stalks across into thin slices (this helps break down any stringy fibres). Mix the rhubarb with 150g of the sugar in a bowl. Leave at room temperature for at least 1 hour.

2. Meanwhile, make the tart case. Roll out the pastry on a floured surface to about 5mm thick. Use to line a 25cm flan ring placed on a baking sheet covered with greaseproof paper (or use a fluted loose-bottomed tart tin). Let the surplus pastry hang over the edge of the ring, and do not stretch it or it will shrink during baking. Prick the bottom all over with a fork, then leave the case to rest in the fridge for about half an hour before baking.

3. Set the oven at 170°C. Line the bottom and sides of the pastry case with a disc of greaseproof paper. Fill with baking beans or uncooked pulses or rice and bake for 20 minutes. Slide the baking sheet out of the oven and lift out the paper and beans. Brush the pastry with beaten egg and return to the oven for 5 minutes.

4. Tip the macerated rhubarb into a sieve and let the liquid drain through, pressing and squeezing the rhubarb tightly with your hands to extract as much liquid as possible - the pieces should be compact and dry.

5. Increase the oven to 180°C. Trim off the surplus pastry from the edge of the tart case with a sharp knife. Mix the remaining filling ingredients with the remaining sugar. Pile the rhubarb in the tart case and slowly pour in the filling. Bake for 20-25 minutes until the pastry is lightly coloured. The filling should be just set, with a slight quiver in the centre when you gently shake the tart.