EARLY SPRING: Seasonal Update
SEASONAL MENUS
See the best of what is in season right now !
Seasonality isn’t a limitation, but the starting point of our creativity
Set menu formats give the kitchen more freedom to respond honestly and creatively to seasonal rhythms and embrace change (mostly every 6-8 weeks).
MORE ABOUT EARLY WINTER & KEY INGREDIENTS
As ExTract from the Pipit Recipe Book (2020), words by Ben Devlin
If you are lucky enough to know where to find them, it is peak mulberry time. The lilly pilly trees are blooming too, and they make a spectacular vinegar or mead. Blue quandong is fruiting and I have often found them near lemon myrtle trees that are flowering, which helps to make a really tasty preserve or a sweet- and sour-style sauce for a savoury dish.
The coastal wattle that started flowering in early winter has started to seed. The seeds are much smaller than those from the more commonly used wattle, so we are able to collect a pretty good amount. We let them dry, then open them and they can be roasted and ground before being used for baking, or you can use them like soybeans for miso or soy sauce.
Things really start to kick into high gear with our suppliers, too. The first of the more traditional summer produce starts to come in, and, due to its slow growth through the milder winter, it has a fantastic depth of flavour and often a well-developed sugar content. The first tomatoes are sweet and umami-rich, broad beans are light on the starch, juicy and sweet. There is usually a glut of radishes, young onions, fennel, flowering cabbages, cucumbers and zucchinis. All crisp, sweet and full of flavour.
Farmed berries, like white and red mulberry, shatoot, Brazilian cherry, grumichama and blackberry are coming in thick and fast. We are also lucky enough to see tropical fruits, like yellow mangosteen, star apple (not to be confused with star fruit), canastel and multiple sapote varieties. Also, melons from Boon Luck Farm, which has, over the years, supplied us with Champagne melon, moon and star melon, Japanese musk melon and Bradford watermelons.