Foraging and Cooking on the Cornish Coast: A Day with Top Chefs 🌿🥘
Discovering the Wild Delights of Cornwall
Whatever floats your boat… There are folk who prefer spending a November day in a crowded shopping mall, but I am not one of them. Give me a clean, remote, rocky, Cornish beach and a couple of top chefs to go foraging with, and I am one happy old newspaper hack - one who happens to love the idea of cooking with wild ingredients. 🐚
The Joy of Cooking with Wild Ingredients
One of the joys about being a keen home-cook is that there’s always plenty of new and exciting stuff to explore. Of course, even top professional chefs never stop learning but, for us amateurs, the field is very wide and diverse indeed. We tend to be jacks-of-all-trades and masters-of-none - which is why cookery schools and courses run by experienced chefs are hugely popular. You’re likely to come away with a kitchen drawer full of new tips, shortcuts, and skills. 🍳
A Day with Jude Kereama: Foraging and Cooking
Imagine my excitement then, when well-known Cornish chef and restaurant proprietor Jude Kereama invited me to spend a day foraging for wild coastal ingredients, which we’d then use in his kitchens. How good does life get? I’d spend some time out on a particularly wild (and therefore unpolluted) part of the Cornish coast and also get to see how experts use things like rock-samphire, seaweed, and even hottentot-fig.
Porthleven: Cornwall's Culinary Haven
Regular readers might recall that early in the Hesp Out West series, we featured the culinary wonders of Porthleven - the Cornish harbour village that punches way above its weight when it comes to food and drink. I promised I’d return one day after my new chef pals, Jude and his colleague Ross Sloan, invited me back for a cookery masterclass after the busy summer season was over. 🌊
The Culinary Magic of Kota Restaurants
In April, I was writing about the reasons why Porthleven had become such a foodie destination and, in doing so, I highlighted an extraordinary multi-course tasting menu prepared by Ross at Porthleven’s Kota Restaurant, where he’s head chef. The article also mentioned the neighbouring Kota Kai restaurant - both establishments are owned by the charming and highly talented Jude, who helped set up Porthleven’s hugely successful annual food festival. He has played a large part in why this small coastal town has become such a food Mecca. 🍽️
Jude Kereama's Culinary Journey
New Zealand born Jude honed his kitchen skills with one of NZ’s top chefs before coming to the UK, where he met his late wife, Jane. Searching for a restaurant, they settled in Porthleven and opened Kota in 2006, before launching Kota Kai in 2011. Kota (meaning ‘shellfish’ in Maori - Jude is half Maori, half Chinese-Malay) and Kota Kai have since become stalwarts of the Cornish food scene. Jude was also a favourite on the Great British Menu 2021 and was named ‘Chef of the Year’ in the 2019 Trencherman’s Guide Awards.
"The Rockpool": A Coastal Inspiration
No wonder I was looking forward to spending time with Jude in a kitchen - and my excitement hit enthusiastic schoolboy levels when Jude announced that his plan was to… “Put the beach on a plate.”
“The inspiration for my dish 'The Rockpool' came while I was on Great British Menu,” he explained. “It’s a tribute to time I’ve spent with my son. We would often go rock pooling together, sampling seafood right there by the shore. This kind of family experience inspired me to create a dish that captures the essence of a rock-pool on a plate, celebrating the diversity and richness of the sea.” 🦀
Cooking Techniques with the Jasper Grill
Jude also wanted to show me how chefs at Kota Kai, perched above Porthleven’s inner harbour, take food to another level by using the kitchen’s charcoal-fuelled Jasper Grill. “It imparts an incredible smoky flavour that really enhances every ingredient. For instance, as part of the base for this dish, I charred some carrots in the Jasper until they were blackened, then peeled them to reveal a sweet, concentrated flavour inside.”
Sustainability and Respect for Ingredients
Jude’s approach is all about maximising the potential of each ingredient. “I also utilised components that might otherwise be discarded, like red mullet bones and a monkfish tail. Roasting these brings out their gelatine and flavour, adding complexity to the broth. I love this kind of cooking because it respects every part of the ingredient. The bones, the scraps - they’re rich in flavour, and when treated properly, they can transform a simple broth into something deeply satisfying and complex.” 🌱
Foraging on the Cornish Coast
With Ross Sloan, we set off to clamber down to remote rocky beaches along the coast, not far from Porthleven. None were easily accessible, and we had to watch our step, so I was glad to be in the company of two local chefs who come out along this stretch on an almost daily basis.
Harvesting Seaweed and Hottentot-Fig
“We’ve got some sea lettuce, which is one of my favourites - and some purple dulce,” said Ross after a few minutes. “Seaweed is as seasonal as everything else. In autumn, it starts to come off the rocks and float away - just like you see leaves falling from trees - so we are doing well with this little haul.” 🌿
A Unique Culinary Experience
A few carefully placed fingers of pickled hottentot-fig - alongside some sea-purslane and strands of edible seaweed - certainly helped to give Jude’s Rockpool on a Plate the genuine look, feel, and taste of the local seashore. I loved the dish. Indeed, it is such an authentic representation of the Atlantic coastline I think it should be declared Cornwall’s “national dish”.
Jude Kereama’s Rockpool on a Plate Recipe
This recipe is for the bisque sauce served on the Rockpool dish. You could make the seafood element with any fish or shellfish you have to hand - adding some sea-vegetables or seaweeds as a garnish. Rock or marsh samphire, sea purslane, or indeed pickled hottentot-fig all go very well, not only adding to the appearance but giving a sharp, acidic, almost sweet kick, to the salty seafood. 🍲
Ingredients for the Bisque
Cold pressed rapeseed oil for frying
600 gms red mullet bones, heads, eyes removed and gills cleaned
2 banana shallots diced
½ fennel bulb diced
1 carrot peeled and diced
1 stick celery diced
2 cloves garlic crushed
½ thyme ginger grated
2 sticks lemongrass chopped
3 leaves Kaffir Lime leaf
1 shot of Pernod
100 gms chopped tomatoes
1 tablespoon of red miso paste
Pinch of cayenne pepper 2 pinches saffron strands
1 ½ litre fish stock
Salt and pepper to taste
Method
Fry off the fish bones in the oil in a pan until golden. Add all the vegetables, garlic, ginger, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaf, and cook until softened. Deglaze with the Pernod and flame. Add all the other ingredients and cook for ½ hour. Blitz in a high-speed blender and pass through a fine sieve. Bring back to the heat and reduce until you have a nice consistency and season with salt and pepper.
Hesp tucks in to a Rockpool on a Plate
