THERE’S something special about eating in a garden, especially when the garden, with its soaring glasshouse, is home to an inspirational restaurant run along organic, self-sufficient lines. Restaurant De Kas is set in parklands 15 minutes from the heart of Amsterdam (Kamerlingh Onneslaan 3, Amsterdam, 0020-462 4562).

Gert-Jan Hageman, a former Michelin-starred chef, opened De Kas in 2001 because, he says, he once tasted an heirloom tomato and realised that all food should taste as good and as natural as it did.

Now he has three full-time gardeners, and all 12 of his chefs spend one day a week in the garden. There is no menu, and no choice: everything is dictated by what has been picked from the garden that day. It is such a template for the perfect restaurant that it makes you look anew at celebrity chefs who have no desire to grow their own produce.

Next week Ronald Kunis, De Kas’s River Café-trained chef, will hold two one-day cookery courses at Sarah Raven’s Garden and Cookery School in East Sussex, where he will demonstrate some De Kas specialities: tomato confiture with yoghurt ice-cream and basil syrup, two tomato tartes tatins (sweet and tart), basil ice-cream, “reusable” goat’s cheese soufflé, warm strawberries and lemon thyme — with ingredients from Raven’s gardens.

Prep: 15 min
Cook: 30 min, plus cooling
Serves: 4

1kg waxy potatoes
4tbsp olive oil
1tbsp finely chopped chives
1tbsp finely chopped shallots
1tbsp grated lemon zest
1 garlic clove, crushed
3tbsp chopped nasturtium leaves
Sea salt and pepper
4 large langoustines or prawns

METHOD:



Peel and cube the potatoes. Bring 2 litres of salted water to the boil. Add the potatoes and cook until tender. Drain well. Mash the potatoes, then beat in the olive oil, chives, shallots, grated lemon zest, garlic and chopped nasturtium leaves. Season to taste.

Let the potato mixture cool, then form into small round cakes. Heat a little extra olive oil in a pan and fry over medium heat until golden and crisp.

Brush the langoustine with a little extra olive oil and grill on the barbecue until cooked. Serve the nasturtium cakes with the langoustine and a herb salad (eg, tarragon, flat-leaf parsley, chives, wild fennel, rocket, nasturtium flowers, borage, sage, dressed with lemon juice and olive oil, sea salt, pepper).



Sarah Raven’s Garden and Cookery School: 0845 0504849. Evening course, including meal, July 8, £70; one-day course July 9, including lunch, £165.

jill.dupleix@thetimes.co.uk

www.timesonline.co.uk/foodandwine - for previous recipes from T2

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