Chef's Summer Special - Hugo Harrison at Pump Street Bakery

I'm a chef and grower from Suffolk, inspired by the country cooking of France and Italy - but through a British lens. The food that excites me most respects the land it comes from and reflects its surroundings. In my mind, there's no greater place to cook in this way than the glorious fields of East Anglia. I've cooked in kitchens from Cornwall to California, all with exceptional produce and an allegiance to the soil it's grown in at their heart.

Almost ten years since I last worked in Orford, I can't wait to return to the building that first taught me the most important thing about food - to truly care; about ingredients, quality and the community you're serving. This simple principle that remains at the core of Pump Street Bakery will define the small blackboard of ever-changing dishes I cook - all guided by the very best produce grown, picked, caught or reared from friends in the county.

Returning to Suffolk after cooking elsewhere for a number of years has been a real eye-opener. The county is full of not only skilled growers working on beautiful farms, but long established farms that are pillars of their community and full of heritage. Maple Farm in Kelsale and High House Farm in Sudbourne  are two examples of this and, in this precise moment, their soft fruit is unbeatable. Loganberries, tayberries, raspberries, blackberries, cherries and currants of all colours are delicious and abundant right now and have infinite uses in the kitchen. 

I'm fascinated by the feeling of a specific time and place - and what foods best represent that. 'Seasonal' is a good word for broadly describing this but really, as we all know, no two days in July or August are the same.

When I write the menu on the blackboard each morning, I hope the dishes that are on there truly showcase the character of that day as much as possible; what the local farms have delivered or whether we're joined by the relentless August sunshine or the mild rolling breeze September always seems to bring. Cooking in this way at one time would have been commonplace, and so more often than not I look to writers of the past for most inspiration - books by the likes of M.F.K Fisher, Patience Gray, Edna Lewis and Elizabeth David. There's a passage in 'The Gastronomical Me' by Fisher about eating a peach pie under a tree in the summer heat of the American South that inspires me like nothing else.

The best technique you can apply to any ingredient when it first arrives home with you is tasting it. When tomatoes are very good (my favourites are grown by Penny at Newbourne Farm) they need very little else but salt. Sometimes though, when they're under ripe or perhaps a little scarred, they may taste a milder and can do with a little help from oregano, basil or lovage, maybe some black pepper or freshly chopped garlic and olive oil. Failing that, roasting them will always make them a little sweeter and more aromatic. In short, there's no one answer, but by spending time sourcing good produce and treating yourself to it, you'll find very little technique need be applied at all. 

When I used to work for Jamie testing and developing recipes, I found that more often that not home cooks would come into trouble for the same reasons time and time again. There are three simple things you can do, for whatever you're cooking, to make it work every time.

1. Read the recipe you're about to cook from start to finish before even picking-up the knife. This sounds obvious, but reading it as you go is a sure-fired way to trip yourself up.

2. Have all of the ingredients you need weighed out and in front of you from the get go. This takes all the stress out of cooking. 

3. Buy an oven thermometer to test how accurate your oven is. For years I was furious at recipes by all manner of celebrity chefs when cooking at home - things were never cooked in the time they said they would be! Turned out my oven was running 20c cooler than it said it should be. 

A green salad is just about the best way to showcase what is growing at a specific time of year. Vibrant green leaves and spicy wild garlic in the spring, hardier whole lettuces in the warmer months and bitter-sweet chicories and endive in the winter. This vinaigrette will work well with them all and is great for dressing all manner of vegetables. Try it drizzled over roasted carrots, or tossed through steamed green beans. 

Salad Ingredients:

• 2 whole heads of lettuce (my favourite varieties include Devil's Tounge, Flashy Butter Oak, Little Gem and Emerald Oak)
• 200g Red Frills mustard leaves
• 100g Purslane
• 100g torn fresh herbs, like lovage, oregano, fennel or parsley

Vinaigrette Ingredients:

• 125ml apple cider vinegar
• 125g Dijon mustard
• 500ml rapeseed oil
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to season

1. Firstly, wash and pat dry all of your leaves. Break larger lettuces into single leaves or small hearts and mix them all together - this is so that when you dress the salad each mouthful is full of flavour (spicy mustard leaves, crunchy purslane and fragrant lettuce... with herbs aplenty mixed, too). Set aside until ready to serve.

2. To make the vinaigrette, add the vinegar and mustard to a mixing bowl or the bowl of a food processor. Add a generous pinch of flaky salt and a few grinds of black pepper. While whisking (or blitzing if using a food processor), gradually add the oil in a thin stream until you have a glossy vinaigrette. Taste for seasoning, adding more vinegar, salt and pepper if you need to. It's important to remember that lettuce leaves are almost entirely water, so the vinaigrette should taste 'too strong' now. Try dipping a lettuce leaf in the dressing when tasting to get a more accurate representation of the final dish.

3. When you're ready to serve, add a mixture of leaves to a large bowl, cover with a generous glug of vinaigrette and toss to dress. Serve immediately, with a few herbs or edible flowers on top, if you like.