‘I’ve become so obsessed with being out in the woods,’ Harriet Mansell laughs. ‘I’ve really dedicated my life to it. At primary school we were immersed in the woods and learnt that the hedgerow has a bounty to offer.’ It's a lesson which has certainly stayed with her; today, Harriet celebrates foraged produce at her Lyme Regis restaurant and wine bar Lilac, regularly venturing into the woods with her team to unearth its natural treasures. Her most cherished find comes from pine trees, the needles of which she weaves into everything from oils and vinegars to creams. And she is far from alone – chef Jackson Boxer pairs his pine oil with beeswax ice cream, Santiago Lastra peppers his menus with pine and René Redzepi, of three-star Noma in Copenhagen, has been singing pine's praises (likening it to rosemary) for years. Up in Northumberland, it's so prized by chef Cal Byerley that he even named his restaurant Pine after it. 

Though talk of pine might conjure wintry – and, in particular, Christmassy – images, pine trees (a type of conifer, of which there are 600 species) are evergreen, holding onto their needles all year round. That availability makes them perfect for winter foraging, when there can be little else to gather. Though there are over 100 types of pine in the world, the most common in the UK is Scot's. ‘Where I live and, broadly speaking, a lot of places in the northern hemisphere, it grows throughout the year,’ Harriet says. ‘As a forageable item, it’s very accessible.’ But while it might be readily available, there is a knack to properly identifying it. ‘Even chefs can easily mistake pine for spruce or fir,’ Harriet agrees. ‘But you can recognise pine because the needles come out of the branch in bunches of two, three or five. Spruce and fir are in singular needles, spruce needles are also typically square and fir needles are flat.’

The risk? Stumbling on a yew tree, which contains a deadly toxin and needs to be avoided (yew needles are generally flat and have pale green or white bands on the underside). Spruce and fir, however, can be used in cooking – at Ollie Dabbous' HIDE, it's set to feature in an spruce and pear cider float for a New Year's menu. For its group executive chef Josh Angus, one of pine's strengths is the range of flavours to be found in different varieties. 'You can use pine in desserts infused into a parfait or ice cream, or you could use in savoury dishes in a cure, oil, gel or an essence,' he says. 'It gives a fresh grassy, herbal flavour to any dish. I also like to use pine in presentation for dishes – it looks visually stunning, but the aroma it gives off can also complete a dish."

So you're back in the kitchen, looking at your heap of safely-foraged pine needles. What next? Though most of us are familiar with the sweet nuttiness of pine nuts (seeds which are harvested from certain pine tree species), we’re probably less au fait with pine needles, which have a citrusy (sometimes almost apple-like), tannic and woodsy flavour. That's often infused into oils, vinegars and creams, but the needles can also be used as a bed for grilling meats, or finely-chopped and added to doughs or batters, while the young needles that grow between March and May can be tender enough to be eaten in salads. Chef Leandro Carreira makes a whey and pine sauce to serve with lobster, while Alex Bond creates a pine oil for a frozen yoghurt dessert. At Michelin-starred Pine, the needles – which Cal says add a ‘strong perfume’ note which, if overused, can veer into bitterness – are ground and dried in salt as a cure for meat or fish (‘whether a quick cure on a side of trout for a day, which keeps that fresh floral, citrus flavour, or a long cure for charcuterie, where its complex depth is tasted deep in the end result three months later,' he says), as well as in kombuchas and lemonades.

Keen to get off to a fool-proof start? ‘If you want to go home and get the flavour of pine and the health benefits really quickly, just go and make pine needle tea,’ Harriet suggests. ‘Steep them and just enjoy it – it’s one of my favourite things. It tastes like the woodland, and it’s packed full of vitamins A and C. It’s a really nutrient dense thing.’ From there, a pine oil is a great next step – use a neutral oil (‘I wouldn’t say you need olive oil because you’ll get such a herbal, grassy note I wouldn’t want to interfere with that,' she says), and blitz it at about 70C or 75C – it’ll be brimming with woodsy flavour and a vibrant green hue. Harriet also seasons plenty of her dishes with a pine vinegar. ‘We take a vinegar like an apple cider, a light, delicate one, and then we’d do the classics, sweeten it and season it with salt; whatever that particular vinegar needs, and let the pine sit in there – the more the better.’ she explains. ‘Then we’d work on ageing the vinegar and let it sit there.’ Harriet has also experimented with woodland broths, using fresh mushrooms and pine needles to create a warming, earthy soup, and often infuses it in desserts like panna cotta and yoghurt sorbet. She'll even pick the young pine cones, cover them in brown sugar and let science get to work for mugolio, a fermented brown sugar syrup. 

Cal agrees that pine can play a starring role in sweet treats. ‘A really easy way to use pine is to make sugar,’ he nods. ‘Take some fresh pine needles and pulse them five or six times in a blender to release their natural oils and fragrance, add a couple scoops of sugar and blend on full for a couple of minutes. Sit the sugar in a warm place in your kitchen and allow it to dry for a day. Once dry it will have set into a block. Blend this again back to fine sugar and pass through a coarse sieve. You will be left with a beautiful pine sugar you can swap into any old cake recipe for a pine twist.' Take it a step further by boiling some of the sugar with lemon juice to pour over the cake for a lemon pine drizzle. Cal's favourite pairing for pine is blackberry, which he says ‘never fails to deliver’, but it works as well with fruits like gooseberry, which he uses in his evergreen pine sour cocktail, a regular on Pine’s bar menu (follow his recipe below). ‘Using the fresh pine that grows all around the restaurant adds a layer of freshness and unique flavour to this sour, while the gooseberry juice brings some body and more complex sourness, and also lifts the crisp juniper in the gin.’

It's no wonder that the use of an ingredient with so much potential and one that's so readily available dates back centuries, particularly when we factor in its health and medicinal properties (it's said to contain five times the concentration of vitamin C found in lemons, as well as vitamin A and decongestant properties). Brush up on your foraging and pine needles will become a staple in no time, whether you use them to smoke mussels, whip up your own pine needle butter or perfume sugar for baking with a twist.