Nothing says summer quite like a strawberry, and with Wimbledon kicking off on June 28th, we asked Chef Patron Mark Birchall to share a delicious recipe to best celebrate these little bursts of sunshine à la Moor Hall…

Mark Birchall's strawberries, kernel mousse, almond and lemon verbena ice tea. Serves four.

Ingredients

300g strawberries
100g sugar
¼ lime juice
For the apricot kernel mousse:

• 12g apricot kernel oil
• 225g milk
• 150g egg yolk
• 80g caster sugar
• 150g honey
• 3 gelatine leaves
• 650g whipping cream
  For the pumpkin seed crumb:
• 65g butter
• 50g sugar
• 50g demerara sugar
• 50g plain flour
• 50g ground almonds
• 25g oats
• 15g chopped pumpkin seeds
  For the tea granita:
• 30g lemon verbena
• 160g sugar
• 700g water
• 1 whole lemon juice
• 8 x Darjeeling tea bags

Method

For the apricot kernel mousse:

• Heat the milk up in a pan to just under boiling. Remove from the heat and add the kernel oil
• To make the anglaise, strain the hot milk through a sieve into a saucepan then add the egg yolk, sugar and honey and cook on a low heat to 75°c or until the mixture thickens and leaves a clear path on the back of a spoon when a finger is drawn across (will take around 5 minutes, do not boil and stir constantly)
• Whilst cooking the anglaise put the gelatine leaves in a bowl with cold water to bloom
• Once cooked remove from the heat, drain the gelatine leaves and mix well with the anglaise. Put the mixture in a bowl and chill in the fridge
• Whisk the cream to soft peaks
• Fold one third of the whipped cream into the anglaise. Then add the rest of the cream making sure you don't overmix
• Chill the mousse until serving (at least 2 hours)
  For the pumpkin seed crumb:
• Combine all the ingredients together in a bowl
• Mix until all comes together into a ball
• Crumble the mixture onto a greaseproof lined baking tray so you have little clusters of crumble
• Bake at 160°c for 20 minutes or until golden brown
  To make the tea granita:
• Boil the water then add lemon, sugar, verbena and Darjeeling tea
• Infuse for 4 minutes then pass through a sieve
• Allow to cool, place into a 1 litre container and freeze. You will need to do this 6 hours before you make the dish
  To macerate the strawberries:
• Remove the green from the strawberries then slice into quarters half
• Put them in a large bowl and add the sugar and lime juice
• Gently roll the strawberries over with a spoon. Do this 10 minutes before serving the dish to allow the sugar to soften and sweeten the strawberries

To serve

• Start with a large dessert spoon of the kernel mousse in the middle of the plate
• Arrange the macerated strawberries around the front of the mousse
• Add the crumble mixture to the top of the mousse
• Then get a fork and scrape the top of the granita so it creates crushed ice
• Add a heaped tablespoon to the top of the dish just before serving
• Garnish with lemon verbena leaves