Angela Hartnett is Britain's most admired female chef. Renowned for the purity and simplicity of her Mediterranean-influenced cuisine, the Michelin starred chef tells Natasha Faruque about her passion for seasonal foods

"My favourite product is the white truffle from Alba and that only ever comes in from the end of October, through to, if you are really lucky, March. I never use the summer truffles - it's like putting sawdust on your food. Truffles are one of the few products that are still purely seasonal, although I am sure someone is going to cultivate them and make them available in May soon!"

Angela Hartnett is nothing if not passionate about her ingredients. The Michelin-starred chef and protégé of Gordon Ramsay, Britain's most (in)famous chef, is, in contrast to her mentor, a warm and gentle person, but she shares Ramsay's obsession with sourcing and not making food over-fussy. And, with numerous television appearances - including one spearheading her own British TV show, Kitchen Criminals - and an Italian cookbook already under her belt, Hartnett is (reluctantly) becoming the best-known female chef in the world.

Apart from her UK duties, Hartnett is also executive chef at Cielo at the Boca Raton Resort in Florida but though she may be working in two continents, she has her feet firmly on the ground - in this case, the earth that produces what we eat. She is vocal about the use of good seasonal ingredients which she argues are the key to any well-cooked meal.

"We don't seem to have seasons at the moment because the supermarkets have everything all the year round, and I find this very upsetting. You can effectively buy strawberries in the middle of winter which is very, very wrong. You cannot get a strawberry that tastes good in December - they are watery and sour."

She warms to her theme. "Buying seasonally makes a chef's job so much more exciting; and much easier too. Compare the UK where people tend to shop in supermarkets, to France, Spain, which produces a stunning Pata Negra ham, and Italy, from where I bring back enormous quantities of vacuum-packed Parmigiano. Everyone on the Continent goes almost daily to the local farmers' market, buys enough for that day and cooks everything very simply, with a minimum of fuss. When you have wonderful basic ingredients, marinating with olive oil and vinegar is almost overdressing.

"Summer is my favourite season because there is abundance of everything. You have beautiful, fresh fruit coming in; juicy cherries, ripe apricots, peaches, plums, greengages and also the last of the asparagus, peas, broad beans. You can go to a farmers' market and literally smell the sweet, perfectly ripe fruit. As you move towards autumn and through to winter, you start looking at the meats as the gaming season begins. You have delicious venison coming through as well as partridge and pheasant."

Hartnett gushes about little-known elvers - baby eels you spread on toast - with infectious enthusiasm. "You get them on the River Wye and they are only available for four weeks of the year; that is the brilliant thing about them, as the anticipation is huge. You get big boxes of them just swimming around. You know it's a limited time so it makes you excited as a chef."

She says she has certain larder staples: Manni olive oil, anchovies and good Italian tinned tomatoes. Basic vegetables like leeks, carrots and onions are ever-present in her fridge and her freezer is full of pasta: orichette and tortellini, filled with spinach and ricotta or pumpkin; perfect for a quick and easy supper when served with butter, sage and a hefty shaving of Parmigiano.

She says she uses these principles, of using seasonal, local and organic produce, in her professional kitchen as well as her home. "I think there is a definite skill in less-is-more. Sometimes you can go to kitchens and there are 50 million things on a plate; a squiggle there, a dot there and a jelly on the edge. But they all amalgamate into one; generally one flavour is so strong that it overpowers the others. I don't complicate recipes; I believe in simple cooking. That is my way of cooking."

ANGELA HARTNETT is Executive Chef at the Gordon Ramsay Group. Her book, Cucina - Three Generations of Italian Family Cooking, is published by Ebury