When it comes to a modern and delicious meal, I’ve always been more than satisfied at Pollen Street Social, the flagship amongst Jason Atherton’s global restaurant empire.  And the food experience is always enhanced by the warmth and friendliness shown to me by chef Jason personally.  Naturally I was keen to try Jason Atherton at Home during the pandemic, but I missed a few of his offerings because I’d already ordered something for the weekends they appeared on his website.  But I planned ahead, and ordered the “Jason Atherton at Home for Mothering Sunday” box in February for delivery on 12th March ’21, at a price of £220 for two people, packed and distributed by Lake District Farmers.  That’s a little more than my average boxes recently, but I noticed that most sites had increased their prices for Mothers’ Day, and added some ‘extras’.  BTW this meal was for me and Mr A: my mother was not in any way involved!

The delivery arrived on schedule, revealing lots of ingredients and elements, well packaged and clearly labelled, together with a detailed list of the ingredients, a reminder of the menu and a page of cooking instructions.

There was a good sourdough loaf from Hedone bakery for me to heat in the oven for 5 minutes, and some lovely cultured butter. 9/10  The first course was “Provence asparagus, parmesan sable, blood orange dressing, and brown crab mayonnaise.  All I had to do was blanch the asparagus for 5 minutes, then dress the plates.  Note: aged parmesan shavings were missing, so I just shaved my own, but in all honesty they weren’t really needed because the sable (sand) delivered sufficient parmesan flavour.

This was a terrific dish, presenting simple fresh asparagus in a manner I’ve not had before. The crab mayo and the blood oranges made this light and very delicious. 10/10 Very delicious!

Just look at this (separated) rack of lamb !  So beautiful, and clearly an advantage of working with Lake District Farmers.  But the preparation for the main course of “Spring Herdwick lamb, braised shoulder, jersey royals, peas, broad beans, wild garlic and pickled mustard seeds” was pretty complicated in comparison with my other make-aways, but was actually easily achievable (and very satisfying to do so). The thing which daunted me was a requirement for 8 pans, which I reduced to 6, and reduced my anxiety.  The lamb rack took 10 minutes to cook on hob and in oven, plus 10 to rest, and everything else was heated and prepped whilst that was happening.

This was another fantastic plate of food: the lamb rack was perfectly cooked, super-tender and tasty with a crisp fat; the mini Jersey Royal potatoes cooked in lamb fat were lovely; the braised lamb shoulder was soft and tender; pea puree had great flavour; the peas, beans, pea shoots and wild garlic were so fresh; the pickled mustard seeds offered subtle acidity; and the lamb gravy was to die for and perfect for bread-dipping!  10/10

Dessert was “Gariguette strawberry and elderflower Eton mess” and all I had to do was whip the elderflower cream to soft peaks, fold in some mini meringues and the Gariguette strawberry compote, place in a bowl, and add strawberry sauce and shards of meringue.  This early in the year, I think the Gariguettes were frozen examples, but they still packed that great flavour the varietal is known for. The strawberry sauce was definitely from frozen, but it too was still very nice.  We enjoyed this dessert for its lightness, its great flavours, and the meringue wasn’t too sweet for me. 10/10

To finish our special meal we each had a chocolate macaroon (very chocolatey and a nice sticky meringue), and blood orange pate de fruit (jelly) which had both a subtle taste of orange juice and a more intense hit of mandarin. Very good 9/10

This was a truly excellent meal which could have been called “spring in a box”, containing as it did several new season elements including the asparagus, the lamb and the vegetables.  I’m giving an overall score of 10/10 to reflect my satisfaction with this Jason Atherton at Home box, and I can’t wait to order again, and to book into Pollen Street Social when it reopens in May.