250g extra fine beans
4 slices of pancetta
50g butter
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. brown sugar
2 tsp. soy sauce

Preheat the oven to 200 C.

Top, tail and wash the beans. Blanch in lightly salted water for around 4 minutes so that they are still crisp.

While they blanch, melt the butter and mix it with the sugar, salt and soy sauce.

Drain the beans well and place around 10 on each pancetta slice, then wrap the pancetta around them and place on a baking tray covered by baking paper. Brush with the soy sauce and butter mixture.

Bake for about 10 minutes, or until the pancetta is crisp and golden.

Taste: You can really taste the freshness of these springy Italian Green Beans. Subtly buttery, they are rich in vitamins and are best lightly boiled of stir-fried.

Region: Our delicious green beans come from the Milan market in Italy, where green beans have just come in season.

Quality: We only source the finest green beans available on the market. Simply wash them, remove the tops and tails and boil them for 3-4 minutes to enjoy their healthy freshness.

Cost: We always let you know the price per kg so you can easily compare our prices. Bear in mind that you’ll struggle to find EU-grown beans for less!

Natoora “Extra Fine Beans”: £1.98/250gr, £7.9/kg

Prices checked on 10th May 2012

Black Pearl Camone Tomatoes – tasting incredible this week

We have a real love affair with tomatoes at Natoora, and this incredible variety from Sicily is fuelling our passion further.

The Black Pearl is truly in a class of its own. It is a hybrid variety, similar in size and flavour to the wondrous camone, but with areas of darker, purplish skin and flesh. The taste is incredible- salty, sweet, full and intense, with a thick skin and tart flesh.

BUY NOW – £5.50/500g. Save when you buy 1kg!

These plum-sized purple heads are tasting incredible at this time of year. They are beautiful to look at, perfectly formed, tiny, tender artichokes that we source from Southern Italy where the plentiful sun has imparted a wonderfully unique flavour.

Baby artichokes are incredibly tender – you can even eat them raw after simply peeling the outer layers. Their petite nature also makes them absolutely ideal for preserving whole…

Click here to read our Artichoke Preserving Masterclass

BUY NOW – £3.90/300g

Taste: Small, sweet and delicious, Jersey Royals are true hidden gems. Their appearance can be off-putting at first, as they come covered by healthy Jersey soil, but after a good clean they will turn into fine little swans indeed. They are perfect simply boiled and seasoned with butter, and become irresistible when roasted or sautéed.

Region: As the name suggests, these little treasures are grown on the isle of Jersey in the English Channel where the temperate climate creates the perfect environment for them. We get ours from our trusted supplier in the London market, who sources them directly from local small-scale farmers in Jersey.

Quality: We only source the finest grade available on the market, in close contact with producers who actually still use seaweed harvested from Jersey beaches as a natural fertilizer. Our buyers only select what is looking and tasting best.

Cost: We always let you know the price per kg so you can easily compare our prices – bear in mind you will struggle to find Jersey Royals as good as ours.

Natoora “Jersey Royals”: £2.39/500gr, £3.99/1kg
Abel & Cole “Jersey Royals”: £3.75/500gr, £7.5/kg

Prices checked on 1/5/2012

Market Report: Fresh Loquats now in season – just £2.99/4

Loquats, or Nespole as they are also known, are certainly one of our more unusual stone fruits. As the first of the stone fruits to arrive in spring, they are a welcome nudge towards summer.

In appearance, they are similar to an oval apricot, but with a smoother skin which is ideally peeled before eating. They may have some areas of discolouration, but this does not affect their lovely, delicate flavour.

When eaten raw, they are lightly sour, juicy and reminiscent of a mixture of pear and apricot with a hint of the floral. They are also delicious enjoyed cooked – try a loquat tarte tatin, compote, or a delicate jelly.
Try our recipe for loquat heaven cake today – click here

BUY NOW – £2.99/4

BUY NOW

Jersey Royals are in peak season and tasting incredible. They are delicious treated simply, but this delicious dressing will really jazz them up. It will also work well with any new potatoes and makes a wonderful side dish for bbqs or light lunches.

800g Jersey Royal potatoes
1 tbsp. Maille Dijon mustard
2 tbsp. acacia honey
half an Amalfi lemon
50g butter
20g parsley

Wash the potatoes thoroughly but make sure to leave the skin on.

Bring a pan of salted water to boil and add the potatoes, cooking them until tender – it usually takes about 12 minutes.

In the meantime, prepare the dressing. Heat the butter, honey and mustard in a small saucepan, mixing it well, and blend in the juice of half an Amalfi lemon.

Once you’ve drained the potatoes, pour the dressing over them, add some chopped parsley and stir gently. It can be served warm as the perfect partner for roasted joints or fish, or cold for a sunny spring picnic.

Sejal Sukhadwala draws us into India’s national obsession with this fantastic mango…Be warned, reading will most definitely lead to mango cravings…

Read a section below or the full article online at The Guardian – click here

As anyone who’s tasted an Alphonso mango knows, its short season, from now until the end of June, is a major cause for celebration. Often making an appearance on “1,000 things to eat before you die”-type lists, this Indian variety has become more and more popular in the UK.

It’s easy to see why. Alphonso’s voluptuous shape and sunshine-yellow skin reveals succulent saffron-coloured flesh that’s smooth and buttery: imagine a cross between peach, nectarine, apricot and melon with notes of honey and citrus. But better.

[...]

A national obsession in India on a par with Bollywood and cricket, the start of the mango season signals the beginning of summer and makes headlines. Newspapers give continuous updates on prices and availability. It’s customary to send boxes of Alphonso mangoes to friends, colleagues and bosses as a mark of love and respect; and many courier companies in India even offer a separate mango delivery service.

Many Indians eat little more than the fruit for breakfast, lunch and dinner during its short season. In Mumbai, top restaurants put on mango festivals, and street vendors sell freshly squeezed mango juice. Indians celebrate with “mango parties”, using the fruit in dishes such as pakoras, curries, mango leather, drinks like lassi and falooda, sweetmeats like barfi and desserts such as shrikhand.

Perhaps the most popular way of eating Alphonso is pulped, thickened with milk or cream, into which puris (deep-fried discs of puffed bread) are dunked. They are often available in large supermarkets and excellent online retailers like Natoora, but are cheaper from Asian greengrocers.

Spring brings many delicious things to eat – rhubarb, asparagus, wild garlic and the first broad beans. For me though, nothing beats the Alphonso mango.

Sejal Sukhadwala, The Guardian, “Do you know Alphonso mango?“

This wonderful recipe has been provided by Santino, head chef of Mennula restaurant. Click here to read more about Mennula and Santino.

Serves 4
1 shoulder of lamb (bone in)
good quality extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves of garlic (root removed)
sprig of fresh thyme
2 bay leaves
1 small carrot, roughly chopped
2 white Italian onions, roughly chopped
2 sticks green celery, roughly chopped
5 ripe San Marzano tomatoes, seeds removed and roughly chopped
2 glasses dry white wine
1 ltr good quality vegetable stock
Sicilian Pecorino Fresco
40g summer truffle
320g fresh pasta

Preheat the oven to 140C.

Seal the meat in a casserole dish. Make sure that the fat is properly cooked through by turning down the heat. This should take at least 10 minutes.

Add the thyme and garlic and let them caramelise a little.

Now add the carrots, onions and celery and continue to cook until the vegetables start to become translucent, then add the chopped tomatoes and increase the heat. Add the wine and let it evapourate.

Add the vegetable stock and cover the casserole dish. Place in hot oven for about 4hrs (the meat must be soft and very tender before removing from the oven.

Now take the meat out of the casserole and reduce the stock with vegetables if needed you don’t want a liquid ragu.

Bone the shoulder and chop the cooked lamb meat shredding the meat.

Pass the stock, herbs and vegetables through a kitchen Moulin.

Put the stock and shredded lamb meat back into a casserole and gently reduce if needed.

Cook 320g of fresh Maccheroni or eggless strozzapretti pasta and mix into the ragu, finish by stirring into the pasta a good slug of the best quality cold pressed extra virgin olive oil, a little grated pecorino and finally served with grated truffle.

Try more of Santino’s delicious recipes by visiting Mennula restaurant

Santino cooking in the Mennula kitchen

Mennula is a little gem of a restaurant, with a chef/owner who is as passionate about great, fresh, seasonal food as I am. Last week I paid Santino a visit with plenty of wonderful fresh fruits and vegetables my arm – I try and visit him at the very least at every change of season. What happened next is one of the many reasons what I do should not really be considered work – Santino and I went on to spend the next hour eating our way through the produce.

The unreal Marinda tomatoes which I carry around everywhere I go this year were dressed with some of his own fantastic extra virgin olive oil which he imports directly from Sicily (his real home), some sea salt and nothing else. To this we then decided to add his freshly made ricotta – made every day in the already small kitchen with fresh milk (on Fridays it is goat’s milk…) – and both agreed fresh pepper was needed. One of this year’s great spring vegetables is the Romana courgette, Santino grilled it and we tried it straight of the grill, then with olive oil and salt, and finally with the Marinda and ricotta. We finely sliced a stunning spiky artichoke from Albenga, a little bergamot juice, salt and olive oil, then fresh borage was lightly poached and served with ricotta, and flavourful Friggitelli peppers from southern Italy were quickly grilled and again dressed simply with olive oil and salt.

Santino’s butcher arrived with his delivery of thick veal chops and fortunately there was a little end piece; it rightly made its way onto the hot grill. After a bit of banter with the butcher who had no intention of trying raw tomatoes, Santino said I had to try the freshly made Sicilian Tarocco blush orange granita. Brilliant. As we went on discussing how he marinates the chops in herbs for several hours, we went back to the ricotta subject and logically onto the home made cassata. This cassata redefines the Sicilian dessert, the fresh ricotta is incredibly delicate and smooth with a wonderful sponge and yes, even the bloody candied fruit was made by Santino with the peel of the Tarocco oranges.

Few people cook like this these days, absolutely everything made by the kitchen, a kitchen which is so very small but incredibly full of passion. The cooking which happens at Mennula is immensely seasonal not by fad, but quite the oppsite, it drives the cooking rather than reacting to it. I can’t urge you enough to visit Santino and his little gem of a restaurant in the heart of Charlotte Street – he’s always there, where he wants to be, in the kitchen doing what he loves most.

Click here for Santino’s recipe for Lamb Ragu

Exclusive offer for Natoora customers

Marinda Tomatoes

If you visit Mennula over the coming weeks and mention Natoora when booking, Santino will kindly offer you a complimentary glass of fizz, a plate of delicious marinda tomatoes, Mennula’s homemade salted Tuma cheese and green Castelvetrano olives to try on the house*.

Call 020 7636 2833 now to make your booking, or visit www.mennula.com

*Offer expires 31st May 2012. Subject to availability. Mennula reserve the right to end this promotion at any time and without notice.