What's in Season

Red gurnard, furred game, winter cabbages, elvers, pike wolf fish, cod chitterlings, cuttlefish, native oysters, pink prawns, sprouting broccoli, new season garlic, beetroot, pink fir apple potatoes, bittercress, chickweed, sea purslane, wild watercress, wild garlic, wild sorrel, garlic mustard, Alexanders, forced rhubarb

February is one of the leaner months for homegrown produce, so we need to be a bit more inventive in the kitchen. We’ve said goodbye to the game bird season until August, but we do have our year round game—like rabbit, hare, pigeon and venison, all of which make good eating. Hare, can of course, be a bit messy with all that blood and guts, but once cleaned by your butcher or yourself, the meat has the most delicious flavour and texture.
Like rabbit, it isn’t necessary to slow-cook or braise the whole animal. The saddle gives you tender fillets for flash frying, the legs and shoulders are ideal for braising and pies, and any leftovers can go to make a nice game broth.
The use of the word ‘venison’ can be misleading as it is a generic term, covering all breeds of deer. But, like buying beef, you need to know what you are eating—whether it is roe deer, red deer, muntjac or fallow deer. With increased farming in recent years, there is plenty of venison of all types to go round—and prices have levelled.
Rather like beef though, many game dealers and butchers still don’t get the most out of these beasts. The haunch for example, tends to get sold in one or two pieces, or diced. But like a rump of beef, a haunch can be broken down into several muscles, some of which can be as tender as a piece of fillet, while the rest belong in a stewing pot along with the shoulder.
Cabbages are plentiful now, as indeed they are through the year—from tender spring greens, though summer cabbages, to the robust firm-centred winter cabbages. And they are really not the dull brassicas they make themselves out to be...
One of the best cabbage dishes I have ever tasted was a pointed hispi roasted in a wood-fired oven, served topped with lots of black truffle shavings are Nobu. SO you can see how something as humble as cabbage can be uplifted beyond it’s normal staus with other good ingredients at hand. Ok, we haven’t all got truffles in our fridges and not many of us have wood-fired ovens, but you could team the flavour of a simply roasted cabbage with several partners.