10 recipes to cook in April

This delicious halibut recipe from Matthew Tomkinson has spring written all over it. Matthew combines four of April’s most prized ingredients in morels, Jersey Royals, wild garlic and asparagus, and matches them with a beautiful piece of halibut. He keeps things simple to preserve the flavour of each item, cooking the wild garlic and morels in foaming butter, boiling his Jersey Royals in salted water and blanching his asparagus, before pan-frying his fish and finishing with a foamy cream sauce.

Chicken, morels and asparagus are a match made in heaven, but William Drabble does something a bit different, eschewing ever-popular chicken breast in favour of the wings. Whilst Matthew Tomkinson’s recipe above keeps things light and simple, William goes down the gourmet route, stuffing his morels with a chicken mousseline, roasting his chicken wings in a thyme beurre noisette, and serving with gnocchi, asparagus and a rich chicken emulsion.

If you’re looking for Jersey Royal inspiration, look no further than Shaun Rankin – the former St Helier-based chef is a wealth of knowledge on Jersey produce, and he has loads of delicious recipes to his name. This is one of our favourites – Shaun’s clever combination of Jersey Royals, pears, walnuts and Roquefort cheese is seamless, balancing sweet, savoury, earthy and salty flavours on the palate. Even better, you can get it on the table in just fifteen minutes if you have leftover potatoes to use up.

You’ll find some fantastic lamb in your local butcher at the moment, and Dominic Chapman’s recipe takes full advantage, pairing rack of lamb with Jersey Royals and a punchy anchovy butter. Dominic keeps things simple and lets the fantastic ingredients do the talking here – his lamb is left to marinate in a classic combination of thyme, rosemary and garlic, and the Jersey Royals are boiled, crushed and mixed with the anchovy butter, before he finishes his lamb and serves the two together. A delicious, no-nonsense spring lamb dish.

Although we’re still a couple of months away from British strawberry season, you can still find good strawberries in April – keep an eye out for Gariguette strawberries from France, which have incredible flavour. Matt Worswick’s Gariguette strawberry and vanilla dish is a lot of work and will certainly test out your skills in the kitchen, but the results are absolutely stunning – cool vanilla parfait marries beautifully with the many different textures of strawberry on the plate. A perfect way to end a dinner party.

Pink rhubarb is more of a winter thing, but we are still very much in rhubarb season, and you should see lots of green rhubarb around. Although underripe rhubarb is green, not all green rhubarb is underripe – some varieties are simply greener than others, but no less sweet. Christoffer Hruskova’s green rhubarb sorbet uses slightly underripe stalks to make a wonderfully tart sorbet that’ll go perfectly with sweet desserts. What’s more, it’s incredibly simple – just juice your rhubarb, make a sugar syrup and then combine and churn in an ice cream maker.

The first sprigs of sorrel appear in April – this lemony herb comes in all sorts of different forms, but it makes a fantastic citrusy accompaniment to rich dishes, where its sharpness cuts through bolder flavours. Helen Graves uses sorrel to add a bright green colour to pasta – she simply blends the sorrel in with her eggs, then mixes with flour and to make her dough. She serves with a buttery brown shrimp sauce finishes with a bit of lemon zest to make a perfect weekend lunch.

Gareth Ward’s bold, brash flavours have made him one of the UK’s most exciting chefs in recent years. His crab katsu dish remains one of the most popular on his elaborate tasting menu at Ynyshir, but the recipe itself is actually pretty straight-forward. Crab season starts in April and extends all the way through to November, so this is the perfect time to impress your dinner guests with a jaw dropping starter. Gareth cooks his crab in a simple dashi, makes a delicious katsu sauce with roasted onion, garlic and ginger and garnishes with puffed wild rice, coriander and garam masala.

Tom Aikens takes advantage of two much-loved British ingredients that both come back into season in April – salmon and watercress. As is so often the case with seasonal ingredients, the two make a wonderful pairing, and Tom brings their flavours to the fore with classic technique. He poaches his salmon gently in white wine, Pernod and herbs, then serves with a simple watercress salad and lemon dressing.