Archive for the ‘Produce Focus’ Category

Taste: Now in peak season, this radicchio has fleshy red leaves with white ribs that form a compact bunch, perfect for grilling or roasting. Its bitterness is extremely pleasant as a contrast to fatty or powerful flavours.

Region: Our Radicchio Trevisano Precoce is of course from Italy! Specifically it is from Treviso in the Veneto region of Northern Italy, where some of the best radicchio varieties come from.

Quality: We make sure we only offer you the absolute finest grade radicchio available in the market. It is simply incomparable to the radicchio you might find in the salad bag at the supermarket.

Season: Radicchio is a winter leaf, but this “precoce” variety (precoce means “early, precocious” in Italian) is available now almost all year round. It is at its best from the autumn months all the way through the winter.

Cost: We always let you know the price per kg so you can easily compare our prices, but bear in mind you’ll struggle to find this radicchio anywhere else!

Natoora “Radicchio Trevisano Precoce” £1.48/190gr (£7.80 per Kg)

Our beautifully creamy haas avocados are tasting superb at the moment. They are wonderful enjoyed very simply, but if you are in need of some avocado inspiration – look no further!

1. Take a big slice
Avocados love a salad. They match wonderfully the flavours of meaty tomatoes and creamy buffalo mozzarella, simply slice, drizzle with good olive oil, salt and lemon juice and enjoy.

2. Rock the Guacamole
Simple and simply delicious, guacamole is of course the perfect accompaniment to mexican food. It’s so easy to make, just blend the avocado with spring onion, lemon juice and chillies.

3. Get toasty
Toast a lovely bit of sourdough bread, then just mash the avocado on top, sprinkle with sea salt and pepper and a good dash of lime juice – great for breakfast.

4. Spice it up
Create a refreshing salsa with diced avocado, onion, chilli, lime and coriander – this is great with grilled meats.

5. Take a big bite
We love a good sarnie at Natoora, and one with avocado is always a good choice. It goes superbly well with the fresh flavours of crayfish, crab meat, or prawns. Don’t forget the lemon juice!

Buy avocados online today!

Our incredible fresh pasta is made on site by Vittorio Maschio and his team. Many top Michelin-starred chefs regard it is as the finest in the UK, and thankfully, through Natoora it is always available direct to your kitchen! Our close connections with Vittorio Maschio fresh pasta means that you can get an inside look at how this superb pasta is made…

Vittorio and his team create the pasta using the finest ingredients; from the carefully selected Italian unbleached flour to the best quality eggs. Two types of flour are used to give the perfect elasticity, bite and structure and Italian eggs for that perfect yellow colour.

As a small producer, Vima uses bronze dies to extrude the pasta, a set of specially designed discs with different shaped openings.

As the pasta is passed through by hand, the bronze dies give it a rougher, powdery surface that holds sauce better. Industrial pasta is usually made with Teflon-coated dies which result in a poorer, smooth, slippery pasta.

The pasta is made the same day of the order – this means incredibly fresh and completely incomparable to the “long life” pasteurized pasta which dominates the fresh pasta market and the supermarket shelves. These pastas undergo a process of pasteurization, which sterilizes it through a process similar to the steaming. This process gives the pasta a very long shelf life (commercially very profitable) but strips it of its natural flavour and texture. It also stops the pasta from absorbing the sauce in the pan and reduces its natural elasticity.

The process involved in the production of this type of pasta creates something completely different to the real fresh pasta that Vittorio produces and that the top end of the market knows. This is, unfortunately, what the majority of us believe fresh pasta is and this is why Vittorio Maschio’s pasta will always try to be something different.

Try it today

“Forget Atkins. The best carbs in 2007 comes in the form of Vittorio Maschio” (The Sunday Telegraph)

“He knows that to make pasta is an art in itself” (Giorgio Locatelli).

“He makes the pasta I can’t…” (Giorgio Locatelli).

“Ingredients for both plain and stuffed pastas are natural and the flavours perfectly judged” (Rose Prince).

“London’s best fresh pasta…” (The Evening Standard)

“This is the best fresh pasta in London. Vittorio and his team are outstanding…” (Paul Gayler).

La Bonnotte potato is infamous in the spud world. Appearing on lists such as ‘The World’s Most Expensive Foods’ along with Wagyu beef and white truffles, it is well known for being a bit on the pricey side, according to some sources reaching as high as €500/kg.

All great chefs fight for their share of the season’s crop, but this year the Bonnotte can make your way to your table thanks to the hard work of our expert buyers at Rungis market. What’s more, they are at the incredible price of just £4.98/kg!

The King of Potatoes

So what makes La Bonnotte so very tres bonne?

An island lover: It is grown only on the island of Noirmoutier in France
Handpicked: These delicate little potatoes are too fragile to be harvested by machine so they are hand picked by around 2,500 people during the first week of May.
A bit of a rarity: Only around 100 tonnes are harvested each year (compared to an average of 35,000 tonnes for Jersey Royals).

But surely most importantly, they taste incredible. The soil they are grown on is regularly covered by the beautiful French sea and is fertilised by algae. This gives the potatoes a hint of sea-salty flavour, with hints of earth and even lemon.

To get the best of of these precious potatoes, rub with coarse sea salt in a clean teacloth instead of running under water (if you do wash them, be very gentle). To enjoy their full flavour, steam gently and enjoy as they are or with a pinch of fleur de sel. Try them today!

It is not often that I find myself at a loss for words when speaking of vegetables. For years now I’ve confidently argued the finest tomatoes around are the winter/spring varieties from Sardinia and Sicily – both regions produce a tomato which although different in physical appearance have precise similarities which speak of their unmatched flavour.

The crunchy thick skin which many chefs pick up on, lends a wonderful texture to these tomatoes. This crunchy texture adds a phenomenal quality when eating them raw – the only way a purist would argue. Colouration is very particular having a deep, dark green head which leads to the orange belly and red bum. As the tomato matures it takes on more and more of the classic red appearance; however, the dark green head must remain visible if the tomato is of superior quality. Over ripening of these tomatoes is not desired, the firmness to touch is critical, and maturing ivariably softtens the tomato. Size is small.

The particularity of these tomato lies in the flavour – why the hell else do we eat them, if not for how they taste – which is developed via the unique soil used in both Sardinia and Sicily. Fields are used whcih lie close to the sea and thus the soil is nurtured with sea water, in turn the tomatoes develop an almost meaty flavour which is something magical. Umami is possibly the best way to define it.

There are four main varieties within this style of tomato – the Sardinian is the Camone which is sligthly more acidic and beautifully, perfectly round. In Sicily we find the Rolls of tomatoes, the Marinda and its lesser sibling the Marmandino. Finally the Costoluto is a larger version, excellent in its own right, but nearer an Audi.

So onto this year’s crop – it’s been so bloody good that I did something I thought would never happen. I convinced, or the better said the Marinda did, The River Cafe to put tomatoes on the menu in April. Hardly a more difficult feat is available for challenge in the UK restaurant world. No doubt some of the Marinda’s I’ve tried over the past weeks are likely to be some of the best tomatoes I’ve ever had in my entire life. Some of the Riccio Fiorentino tomatoes I had in Sicily were so damn incredible they seemed to be infused with the sweetest nectar, and as much as I would buy an Aston over any other car, the most elegant, dignified, and leader of the pack remains the Rolls.

To serve simply cut into wedges, sprinkle with excellent sea slat like Maldon, and drizzle a little olive oil (yes, extra virgin, top quality….). If you must a gentle sprinkling of proper dried oregano.

Bergamot has got to be one of the most phenomenal fruits and by far the most interesting of all the citrus fruits. Mostly unknown to both consumers and the professional trade, its scent and flavour are simply superb – beautifully floral with the most delicate scent. This delicate element is key in its ability to work incredibly well with langoustine. Its versatility is impressive – last year (the time I discovered this gem) I did a version of classic Tortellini in Brodo. I made simple tortellini filled with caciotta served in a delicate vegetable broth, and finished off with grated bergamot zest…it worked beautifully.

So why aren’t these green orbs flooding the supermarket shelves? Leave supermarkets aside, we’re the only company in the UK able to supply them…so perhaps a better question is, how did we get our hands on them…?

It actually has an awful lot to do with their alluring scent. As equally alluring to tea makers as it is to perfumiers, you will find bergamot essence listed in the ingredients of Earl Grey Tea and some of the best known perfumes (1/3 of all men’s and half of all women’s fragrances contain bergamot). Bergamot is not widely produced and pretty much the entire production goes straight to the perfume companies. In addition, production of bergamot has been declining over the past 20 years, so whilst it’s widely available to buy as an essence, to find the actual fresh fruit is extremely difficult.

At Natoora we couldn’t let such a delicious citrus be kept off the menu. I still remember where I was when I first tried fresh bergamot, and I knew this was a phenomenal product which our chefs would want. There is no way I would ever leave it to chance to find fresh bergamot,  so thanks to our expertise we began sourcing producers very early on this year. Now we source ours straight from a farmer in Calabria where the best bergamots are grown. No other supermarket, online grocer or wholesaler has the same expertise and sourcing capability and for this reason, Natoora is the only place you can buy bergamot in the UK.

Since we started importing the bergamot and introducing it to the restaurants we supply, bergamot dishes have been appearing on the menus of some of the best restaurants in London. Antonin at The Greenhouse served me a brilliant langoustine dish, while Jacob at Bocca di Lupo makes a delicious and refreshing bergamot granita, topped with mereingue, and Claude at Hibiscus made a bergamot pie…I have yet to try it.

Now, you can also try it at home! The skin at the moment is a bright green, showing that they are at their best. These are picked early in the season when the fragrance and aroma are the most floral. Logically they are unwaxed so you must take advantage of the skin as well as the juice to flavour dishes. Enjoy the fantastic flavour of bergamot from now in to the new year – the season will last for a few months. We recommend them with shellfish, foie gras, made into marmalades and sorbets…simply use it as you would lemon, and place a few slices into a jug of iced water. Of course, that same slice into a cup of tea….well…..

Try it today

On Wednesday I watched a very insightful program on Channel 4; Food, presented by journalist and food critic Jay Rayner. There was a great expose on the production of cherry tomatoes in Morocco for UK supermarkets – the resulting analysis poses the delicate question of water shortages vs. labour creation for the Moroccan people.

This a moral and environmental issue which, rightly, dominates the discussion. However, an often overlooked issue within this topic, and one I find it difficult to comprehend – is why, as consumers, we have come to accept foods (in this case tomatoes) which, moral issues aside, are completely lacking in taste and yet come at vastly inflated prices. Take a major supermarket’s cherry tomatoes on the vine at £5.73/kg. Top quality cherry tomatoes grown outdoors in Sicily, even from Pachino which is arguably the finest tomato producing region in the world, can be bought in the wholesale markets for £2.00/kg – even if you buy one lonely box. Given the disagreeable quality of supermarket tomatoes the price is ludicrous, an absolute rip-off. Consumers are paying for needless packaging, labelling, long storage and transit times. The tomato itself represents a meagre amount of the total paid.

Italian supermarkets, and for that matter those in many of our continental neighbour’s countries, are fully capable of sourcing a wide array of fresh, extremely local produce. These are the same supermarkets which source the majority of their meat from Ireland. On my recent holiday in the country, the Coop managed to display courgettes with their flowers still on which would have been harvested no more than 12hrs prior – this is magnificent.

You can read Jay Rayner’s article on the above issue here

Continuing our bread theme in support of the Real Bread campaign, we thought we should take a closer look at the bread we supply. Thankfully, our producers care as much about real bread as we do. Today, we’re getting inside the production of Poilane breads. If you haven’t yet had the chance to try their rich sourdough creations, click here to explore our range.

Traditional Bread, Made by Hand

Poilane bread is special in that it is an old fashioned style bread. They bake it in an oak-fired brick oven which gives it a beautiful thick crust. Most importantly though, what goes into this fantastic bread?

The Ingredients….

Poilane use 7 basic ingredients to make their different varieties of bread. Each have been carefully selected to respect tradition and to ensure Poilane’s unique flavour:

1)       Wheat Flour: From near-organic farming, their wheat is exclusively stone ground.

2)       Leaven: This is the crux of the method used to make Poilane breads. The leaven comes from a starter reserved from the previous batch.

3)       Rye Flour: Cultivated in the central region of France, their rye flour is 100% wholemeal.

4)       Water: Nothing special, just tap water which they analyse once a year.

5)       Sea Sat: From the Atlantic coast.

6)       Raisins: Dried in the beautiful Greek sun.

7)       Walnuts: Sourced from Perigord in France.

The Method….

Poilane bread is leavened bread, created using an ancient fermenting technique, discovered about five or six thousand years ago. Legend has it, the lady who discovered it had forgotten to bake her dough so she cooked it some time later and found to her delight a lighter, tastier result! So sometimes forgetfulness is a good thing!

A portion of the previous batch of dough is preserved to “start” the next batch – a leaven. Mixed with flour, water, sea salt and plenty of tender loving care, this natural starter means that no yeast is needed. This gives Poilane breads a greater resistance to mould without the need for nasty additives.

Baking

After weighing, shaping and making sure everything is perfect (by hand!), each Poilane baker gently pops their loaves in a wood-heated brick oven. They even make sure to use only recycled wood.

Try it for yourself!

So, now you know exactly how it was made, try some of Poilane’s fantastic bread for yourself. Choose from the basic  sourdough loaves through to moreish walnut bread and super healthy rye loaves. Click here to explore the full range.

Last month we sent out some of our fresh spring selection boxes to our favourite food bloggers. These people seriously love food, and we wanted to see what their discerning taste buds thought of our favourite spring delights. So…what did they say?

The Intolorent Gourmet

Lovely Pippa created her blog to showcase what have to be some of the tastiest allergy friendly recipes on the web. She made a superb dish of Pesto New Potatoes with our Jersey Royals and had lots of fun podding our fresh peas!…

“The quality of the fruit and vegetables I received was unbelievable.  I cannot expound enough on the intensity and savour of my spring box and oh, the options and inspiration it produced.  I immediately set to podding the peas and have to hold up my hands and say that I managed to eat most of them before they got to the bowl!”

Taste Bud Travels

“If you struggle to remember what strawberries used to tasted like, then these are sure to jog your memory. They were exceptionally sweet and gloriously fragrant and for that reason are best served naked. (No not you, the strawberries!) I sliced some over my morning muesli and ate them in the garden as the sun shone through the trees – bliss.”

Greedy Gourmet

English asparagus has arrived at Natoora – one of the greatest of Spring treats. We searched far and wide to find the absolute best that this country has to offer and in South Lincolnshire we found it!

Nick and Ros Loweth at Abbey Parks Farm have been producing asparagus for 10 years and it is truly some of the finest asparagus we have ever had the pleasure of tasting. We’re obviously not the only ones who think so as they also supply the prestigious London restaurant The Ivy!

Each spear is individually cut by hand whilst still young and tender so however you decide it cook it, it’s going to taste fantastic.

We recommend you peel the asparagus’ outer skin down about 2″ from the tip, cook for a couple of minutes in boiling salted water until slightly tender, and then serve with creamy melted butter and a dash of lemon or try quality extra virgin olive oil, sea salt and freshly ground pepper.

Another great way to dress your asparagus, brought to us by Stevie from Dock’s Kitchen, is to make a light anchovy sauce. Mash some anchovies in a pestle & mortar with excellent olive oil a dash of vinegar, salt and pepper. Then pour over your cooked asparagus. Simply superb!

Find out more about our English asparagus and buy online today!