Play the field

Farm to fork with chef Skye Gyngell

PICTURE A WASTELAND. It wouldn’t, I’d wager, begin with a wild-flower meadow, a path meandering through frothy pastel blooms towards a vegetable garden of courgettes, fennel and beans, with banks of sunflowers and an orchard beyond. Yet that’s the term Jane Scotter uses as she scans the scene below Heckfield Place in Hampshire. ‘The M4 is only over there,’ she says, gesturing at woodland bordering sunscorched fields. And despite the rural idyll – and no suggestion of our proximity to Reading nine miles away – the biodynamic farmer tasked with turning further acres of infertile land into a productive estate is right. It just happens that this particular wasteland is in excellent hands.

Standing among the sunflowers, eyeing up stems for cutting, Skye Gyngell joins Scotter and the team of women who will be instrumental in its transformation. They are the growers, gardeners and chefs behind Heckfield Place, a hotel that should have launched in time for the London Olympics but, thanks to six years of delays, will finally open its doors next month. ‘We wouldn’t have been ready before now,’ says Gyngell, who has been the hotel’s culinary director from the off. General managers and chefs signed on and stormed off while its owner, the Hong Kong-born private equity magnate Gerald Chan, took his time restoring the Georgian manor house, once home to the Shaw-lefevres and the Walpoles.

Of Heckfield’s 435 acres of land (almost 40 of them ‘pleasure grounds’

Clockwise from right

Inside the hotel’s Marle restaurant; vegetables and flowers flourish in the market garden; pigs are reared on site; produce from the market garden; lamb cutlets with fennel purée and summersavory tapenade; culinary director Skye Gyngell; Heckfield’s lambs on the farm; one of its glasshouses with lakes, fountains and rare trees planted by 19th-century horticulturist William Wildsmith), only three currently produce fruit, vegetables and flowers to serve the hotel and its restaurants, Marle and Hearth. Another six will eventually be overhauled for growing, and in Scotter, Gyngell has her ‘partner in crime’.

The pair have worked together for five years, since the chef asked the farmer to provide produce exclusively to her London restaurant, Spring in Somerset House. Each business wastes barely anything now that supply and demand work in tandem, and Gyngell

‘What they create on the farm is the most important thing. They design the menu, and we go with the flow’

has the same aim for Heckfield. ‘It’s a challenging project,’ admits Scotter, who has cultivated 16 acres at Fern Verrow, her farm in Herefordshire, for 22 years, but whose heart soared when she first saw the Hampshire site in April last year. ‘And I don’t soar about much!’ The virgin soil was completely devoid of nutrients so horse manure is a shortterm fix until cattle arrive ( joining the resident pigs, sheep and chickens) as part of further estate plans for a dairy, and a permanent source of ‘black gold’.

Lamb cutlets with fennel purée and summer-savory tapenade

Serves 4

Ask your butcher to keep the rack of lamb whole but to prepare the cutlets in what is known as ‘French trim’.

For the tapenade

— zest of 1 orange

— 1 garlic clove, finely chopped — 3 good-quality anchovy fillets, finely chopped

— 2 tbsp picked summer-savory leaves, roughly chopped — ½ tbsp capers (preferably packed in salt), rinsed well — 100g good-quality pitted black olives, finely chopped — 1 tbsp sherry vinegar — 120ml extra-virgin olive oil

For the fennel purée

— 3 fennel bulbs — 50g unsalted butter — 4 thyme sprigs

— 2 tbsp crème fraîche

For the lamb

— 1 rack of lamb (allow 2-3 cutlets per person) — purple basil and edible flowers, to finish (optional) Place the orange zest, garlic, anchovies, summer savory, capers, olives and vinegar in a bowl. Stir well to combine and leave to macerate for 10 minutes.

Pour over the oil and stir well to combine again. Taste and adjust the seasoning to your liking – it may need a little salt. Set aside while you prepare the purée.

Trim the ends off the fennel bulbs using a sharp knife. Remove the tough outer leaves and chop each bulb into 2.5cm pieces.

Place the butter in a pan over a low heat. Once it has melted, add the fennel, thyme sprigs and a good pinch of salt. Stir once or twice then place a lid on the pan and cook the fennel until soft and tender (it is important to keep the heat low so that it cooks gently and doesn’t brown).

Meanwhile, season the rack of lamb well all over. Set your grill to high and grill for six minutes fatside up before turning and grilling for two minutes on the other side. Remove to a warm place and let the meat rest for 10 minutes.

Once the fennel is soft, remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly, discarding the thyme sprigs. Purée in a blender until completely smooth then return to a clean pan. Warm through gently, add the crème fraîche and season to taste.

Spoon three tablespoons of warm fennel purée on to each plate. Slice the rack of lamb into cutlets and arrange alongside. Spoon over a little tapenade and finish with the purple basil and flowers, if using.

River Test trout with heirloom tomatoes, tarragon and horseradish cream

Serves 4 — 20 ripe heirloom tomatoes

— 100ml crème fraîche

— 2 tbsp freshly grated

horseradish

— 2 tsp red-wine vinegar

— 4 fillets of trout, 180g each

— 60ml good-quality extra-virgin

olive oil, plus extra for cooking

— 1 tbsp picked tarragon leaves

— edible flowers, to finish

(optional) Preheat the oven to 180C/ gas mark 4.

Place a large pan of salted water on to boil.

Using a small sharp knife, make a cross at the base of each tomato. Once the water is boiling, plunge in the tomatoes and then immediately remove them using a slotted spoon. Place directly into ice water to stop the cooking. Remove the skin from the tomatoes and set aside.

For the horseradish cream, mix the crème fraîche, horseradish and vinegar with a small pinch of salt. Stir well to combine.

Place a non-stick, ovenproof pan over a medium heat. Season the skin side of each trout fillet generously with salt and pepper.

Once the pan is hot, add olive oil and place the trout fillets in the pan, skin-side down. Cook for 3-4 minutes without moving – the skin should be really golden and well coloured.

Transfer the pan to the middle shelf of the oven and cook for a further two minutes – the flesh should just be cooked through but still translucent.

Put the peeled tomatoes in a small pan and add the 60ml of oil along with a pinch of salt. Place over the lowest possible heat, and gently and patiently warm. You are not looking for the tomatoes to be hot, just evenly warmed through (blood temperature).

Once they are warm add the tarragon leaves and remove from the heat. Divide the tomatoes and pan juices between four warm plates. Lay the fish alongside and spoon over the horseradish cream. Finish with edible flowers, if using.

From topHeckfield Place’s Aprille Ager, Jane Scotter, Skye Gyngell, Kar Imms and Sarah Johnson in its grounds; River Test trout with heirloom tomatoes, tarragon and horseradish cream (recipe overleaf)