Five Simple Favourites for Summertime

v  Spaghetti with Crab, Chilli, Coriander & Lime

v  Rare Fillet of Beef with Lemon & Mozzarella Salad

v  Broccoli, Raisin, Red Onion & Bacon Salad with Balsamic Mayo

v  Asian Slaw with Peanut Chicken

v  Lemon Cream Pavlova and Roasted Rhubarb served with a Ginger Prosecco Cocktail

At last, it’s Summertime; the season in which I have romantic notions of long, rickety garden tables laden with pot-luck dishes that friends have brought along for a spontaneous summer’s day feast. When the weather is warm I want something light, usually a simple and sensational salad, and I endeavour to make food that take literally five minutes to prepare. The hardest task you will need to perform for my suggested meals of the month is to toss a handful of ingredients into a bowl and keep an eye on the oven timer.  After all, who wants to slave over the proverbial hot stove in a heatwave ?

These delicious suggestions will not tax your cooking skills, and will hopefully give you ideas and inspiration, as many of the dishes are interchangeable. Try the broccoli salad with cold roast chicken, or use the left-over beef cut into strips in the Asian slaw. The salads stand proudly alone as light meals in their own right, and do not demand a meat accompaniment.

So put some flowers in a rustic jug & a crisp white cloth on the table in the garden, alongside a cold bottle of something sparkling, put on an Ibiza chill out CD, and indulge in some easy summer entertaining. Then get on your knees and pray it doesn’t rain!  All meals serve four healthy appetites.

 Spaghetti with Crab, Chilli, Coriander & Lime

Boil a pan of salted water and cook spaghetti (or linguine) for four people according to the instructions on the packaging. Chop a couple of large fresh red chillies and 2 cloves of garlic and gently fry in a generous splash of olive oil. Meanwhile open a couple of tubs of fresh crab. I use 1 x white, 1 x brown meat which is sufficient for four meals; add an extra 100g pot if you are crazy for crab. Finally chop a bunch of coriander.

When the pasta is cooked, drain and then add in the oily garlic & chilli, plus the juice of one lime, and season to taste. Top with the crab & coriander and another drizzle of olive oil.  And that’s all there is to it !

Ingredients:

2 or 3 100g pots of crab meat

2 cloves garlic

2 large red chillies

Small bunch of coriander

1 lime

Spaghetti or linguine for 4

Olive oil

Salt & pepper

Rare Fillet of Beef with Lemon & Mozzarella Salad

This is my dinner party signature dish, so simple but never fails to impress. I know beef fillet is a luxury item, but it is worth it. I don’t think you can beat Morrison’s meat counter for value. At just under £24 for 1 kg of fillet, this will feed 4 very generously and leave a decent sized hunk of beef for sandwiches, cold meat platters and salads the next day.

Place the beef in a plastic bag with a huge splash of olive oil and lots of sea salt & freshly ground black pepper, and massage into the fillet within the bag. Heat a griddle pan or similar, using no oil, until smoking hot. Remove meat from the bag and sear the beef on all surfaces, with a couple of cloves of garlic. This process should take 5 to 10 minutes. Remove the steak & garlic and wrap loosely in foil, securing all openings tightly. Pop into a pre heated oven on a baking tray at 220 - 200C (depending on the power of your oven) for approx 15 minutes. Remove - and this is where the magic happens – let it rest for at least 20 minutes in the foil. This will then slice into the softest, most tender rare steak imaginable. The cooking times suggested will give you rare beef, if you prefer it medium rare - another 5 minutes in the oven will do the trick.

The salad that I like to eat with this is a really effortless combination of little gem lettuce, chopped celery, radish, spring onion and ripped up chunks of buffalo mozzarella.  Lavish the salad with lemon juice & olive oil, then season. An Italian tip: My pal Nancy, who lives in Tuscany, tells me that the Italians soak their Mozzarella in warm water for 5 minutes or so before serving.

700g – 1kg of beef fillet

2 cloves of garlic

Sea Salt & Black Pepper

4 heads of Little Gem lettuce

Half a chopped celery heart

A dozen radishes

4 chopped spring onions

200g Buffalo Mozzarella

Juice of one lemon

Olive Oil

Broccoli, Raisin, Red Onion & Bacon Salad with Balsamic Mayo

I cannot stress how delicious this salad is; I almost live on it. I add some nuts (macadamia, pecan) or seeds (sunflower, pumpkin) to give another crunchy texture. Dice the red onion, cut a head of broccoli into small florets, throw in a fistful of raisins, and pieces of crisped streaky bacon. Add your nuts or seeds. Mix up a couple of tablespoons of balsamic vinegar with a tablespoon of sugar, then mix into two tablespoons of light mayonnaise until combined. Stir this dressing into your broccoli et al, and it’s ready to eat. Heavenly, healthy, sweet and salty – good for you but tastes so naughty !.

A head of broccoli

1 red onion

A fistful of raisins

A packet of nuts or seeds

10 rashers of crisped streaky bacon

2 x tbsp of light mayonnaise

2 tbsp of balsamic vinegar

1 tbsp of sugar

Salt & pepper

 Asian Slaw with Peanut Butter Chicken

I adapted this from a recipe on the Uma Wylde website (www.umawylde.com). Uma runs a highly acclaimed cookery school in Tetbury. She created this sharp and addictive Asian Slaw and serves it with a chicken satay, the raw chicken having been cooked in mere minutes in the bubbling sauce. However I suggest a alternative; my adaption has the sauce poured over slices of simply roasted chicken, as I like to use the remainder of the bird up over the next few days, and it also offers a chicken & slaw option to those that cannot eat nuts, or don’t like peanut butter.

First things first; roast your chicken. I would hazard a guess that you all know how to roast a chicken therefore I’ve not included the method for this. When the chicken is cooked and resting, finely slice approx 100 g or so of white cabbage, and grate 100g of carrots. Add approx 1 “ of grated fresh root ginger and a couple of crushed cloves of garlic. Combine rice vinegar and fish sauce and sugar to make the dressing and bind together with the vegetables. For the peanut sauce, heat the chillies and a couple of cloves of garlic in sesame oil for one minute on a medium heat, then add the coconut milk, 2 tbsp crunchy peanut butter and mix until smooth. Add the juice from 1 lime, 2 tbsp fish sauce, 1 tbsp sweet chilli dipping sauce and 2 tsp ketjap manis and reduce to a low heat. Spoon the sauce over slices of chicken and serve with the slaw, which is incredibly refreshing and “zingy”.

Ingredients for the Slaw:

100g cabbage

100g carrot

15g coriander leaves

2 tbsp rice vinegar

1 tsp fish sauce

1 garlic clove

1 inch piece of fresh ginger

1½ tbsp caster sugar

½ lime

Ingredients for the Peanut sauce:

1 tbsp sesame oil

2 red chillies

2 cloves garlic

 1 tin of coconut milk

2 tbsp crunchy peanut butter

2 tbsp fish sauce

1 lime

2 tsp ketjap manis

1 tbsp sweet chilli dipping sauce

Roasted  Rhubarb & Lemon Cream Pavlova served with a Ginger Prosecco Cocktail

Firstly, roast some chopped rhubarb. Lay it on a baking tray and sprinkle with a generous amount of brown sugar. Pop into a preheated oven at 200C for 15 minutes. The rhubarb should not be overly sweet as the Pavlova and the lemon cream are sugary, and the sharpness and slightly sour quality of rhubarb is needed to cut through the sweetness.  Meringues are easy – never let anyone tell you otherwise. Personally I don’t bother with recommended tricks such as adding Cream of Tartar or white vinegar into the whipped egg white and sugar. The best tip is to ensure your whisks and bowl are totally free of grease (wash beforehand in very hot water) as any trace of fat will give you flaccid meringues. For an 8” Pavlova, you’ll need 3 or 4 egg whites and approx 50g of castor sugar per egg. Whisk the egg whites on slow speed for 2 minutes, then pump up the power for another minute until the mixture is light and fluffy and forming peaks. Gradually introduce the sugar, one tablespoon at a time as you continue to whisk. Then add a couple of tablespoons of lemon curd and combine well. You can use the leftover yolks to make your own, but when short of time, I just use a good quality shop bought curd.  Assemble, stand back and admire, then tuck in with gusto.

Ingredients:

3 or 4 egg whites

6 oz castor sugar

2 tablespoons lemon curd

300ml whipping cream

A couple of sticks of rhubarb

Brown sugar

As a final flourish, enjoy a Ginger Prosecco cocktail with your pudding. This is a slightly sour cocktail, but a perfect partner to sweet Pavlova. Muddle some chopped ginger, approximately 1” of fresh root, a spoonful of castor sugar and the juice of one lemon (muddling is apparently Cocktail Mixology lingo; I bung it in a pestle and mortar and bash it about). Strain this into a glass and top with Prosecco, or if feeling ultra decadent, champagne. Serve with a sliver of root ginger to decorate the glass.

Ingredients:

Fresh root ginger

Sugar

Juice of 1 lemon

Prosecco

So there you have it – a few of my favourite meals for Summer, but they all taste so wonderful I am certain that they will be added to your repertoire and eaten throughout the year.