Seasonal foods in April

I love seasonal foods: they’re fresher, they’re tastier and they’re usually cheaper too. Here’s what’s good at the market (or in the back garden or allotment) in April:

Fruit: early strawberries, rhubarb, last apples and pears from store. Imported Alphonso mangoes towards the end of the month.

Vegetables: asian greens, cabbage (green), chervil, chicory, chives, cucumbers, early asparagus, early Jersey Royal potatoes, lettuce and other salad leaves, morel mushrooms, nettles, purple sprouting broccoli, radishes, sea kale, sorrel, spring greens, spring onions, watercress, wild garlic.

Fish and shellfish: brown crab, brown shrimp, cockles, john dory, langoustine, lobster, red mullet, pollack, prawns, native oysters, sea bass, sea trout, wild salmon.

Meat, poultry and game: Spring lamb, Welsh lamb.

Cheeses: early British fresh-flavoured goats cheese, ewe’s milk cheeses.

Can’t wait for the first Jersey Royals. I’m also looking forward to buying a crate of mangoes and having them for breakfast, for dessert (try them sliced into a rice pudding with a couple of green cardamom pods), in salads, in smoothies and just maybe in a cocktail or two with some lime and coconut. Mmmmm.

What are you going to cook?