WINTER // Recipe for four

Fragrant mandarins and bergamot

Mandarins remind me of school, and that time of year when there was always dried peel lying all over the playground. Kids came in from lunch with mandarin juice all over their uniforms, and we all smelt like mandarins for the rest of the afternoon. This recipe captures those wonderful aromas from the oils in the peel. Occasionally, we find bottles of freshly squeezed mandarin juice in the fridge at small greengrocers – if you come across this, you can use it to make the sorbet and preserved mandarin peel.

MANDARIN AND BERGAMOT CUSTARD

200 ml (7 fl oz) cream

200 ml (7 fl oz) full-cream cow’s milk

1 sprig bergamot

2 pieces mandarin peel

4 egg yolks

60 g (2¼ oz) cane sugar

4 leaves gold-strength gelatine

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Put the cream, milk, bergamot and mandarin peel in a pan over low heat for at least 1 hour. Whisk the egg yolks and sugar until pale and creamy and then strain in the infused cream.

Pour into a baking tray and bake for 25 minutes or until split. Leave to cool slightly, then purée until smooth. Soften the gelatine leaves in water for 5 minutes. Squeeze out the excess water, add the leaves to the purée and whisk until dissolved.

Pour into a shallow tray and leave to set in the fridge overnight.

MANDARIN SORBET

50 g (1³/₄ oz) mandarin peel

160 ml (5¼ fl oz) sorbet base

340 ml (12 fl oz) mandarin juice

Put the mandarin peel and sorbet base in a pan over low heat and cook for about 1 hour until soft. Leave to cool, strain and then add the mandarin juice.

Transfer to an ice-cream machine and churn until frozen. If you don’t have an ice-cream machine, pour into a shallow freezer container. Freeze until semi-frozen, then whisk very thoroughly. Freeze and whisk again, twice more.

MANDARIN POWDER

Peel of 6 mandarins

Dehydrate the peel in a dehydrator at 85°C (185°F) for 6 hours. Once dried, grind the peel in a coffee or spice grinder to a fine powder.

PRESERVED MANDARIN PEEL

400 g (14 oz) mandarin peel

1 litre (35 fl oz) mandarin juice

300 g (10½ oz) cane sugar

2 sprigs bergamot

80 g (2³/₄ oz) lemon aspen

Put the mandarin peel, juice, sugar, bergamot and lemon aspen in a heavy-based saucepan and simmer until the skins are translucent.

PLANTS TO FINISH

Rue