Fried duck's egg with morels and wild garlic

Serves 4

March sees the arrival of two great ingredients: morel mushrooms and wild garlic.

Along with eggs laid by quail and specialist breeds of chicken, duck eggs seem to be becoming more popular. They have a large, pale yolk and are great for frying or scrambling.

Fresh morels start appearing at this time of year in small quantities. They are quite a rare fungus, hence their shocking price. Give them a careful wash as they often contain small stones in the hollow honeycombed body. If you can't get hold of fresh ones, dried morels are also available but can be a bit overpowering and take a lot of cooking, halve the quantity and simmer in stock for about 30 minutes.

Wild garlic can be commonly found throughout the British Isles in damp woods and lanes and is free.

400g Morel mushrooms, halved, washed and dried
60g unsalted butter
30g wild garlic, roughly chopped  
4 duck eggs
Olive oil for frying

Melt half the butter in a frying pan and gently cook the morels for 5 minutes until they begin to soften. Add the wild garlic and the rest of the butter and season with salt and pepper. Meanwhile gently fry the duck eggs in a non-stick frying pan until just set and season the white with a little salt. Turn the eggs out on to plates, spoon over mushrooms and wild garlic round the eggs.

You could also add few peeled shrimps with wild garlic and morels.