Nigel Slater’s recipe for roast chicken and watermelon

I made a roast chicken salad this week, spiking the dressing with ripe chillies, lime juice and the juices from the roasting tin. A tumble of ingredients both warm and cool – roasted chicken from the oven, chilled tomatoes and watermelon – it was one of half a dozen main-course salads that have recurred regularly this summer. There was feta cheese with black olives, fried croutons and large, knobbly tomatoes, dressed with thick green olive oil, basil and red-wine vinegar. Cantaloupe, whose progress toward ripeness I had checked daily, finally made an appearance with crumbled, crisp bacon, roasted red peppers and cucumber. I deglazed the bacon pan with white wine vinegar and chopped parsley.

Wednesday, I went to the Turkish greengrocers to collect some of their ripe apricots. I warmed them on the sunniest window ledge, then stoned and sliced them and forked them through couscous with handfuls of parsley, mint and a scattering of toasted pine kernels.

There is almost always a chubby salami in the fridge, a chewy hit of fat-freckled umami whenever we need one. A snacking salami. I also bring it out for summer vegetables. Rather than slicing it thinly to snack on, it is cut into strips, like thick matchsticks, then warmed in a frying pan over a low heat until the fat runs. In go handfuls of lightly cooked broad beans and chopped parsley or thickly shredded little gem lettuce and chopped tarragon. To accompany grilled halloumi, I used the method with peas, cooked first in lightly salted water, and seasoned with a fluffy grating of parmesan or pecorino that lightly coated the peas and salami.

The end of the week brought cherries by the bagful. The first shared a plate with a baguette and an ash-rolled goat’s milk cheese, the delightfully fudgy Brightwell Ash. More cherries on Friday, in another salad, this time with strips of speck and some bitter wild rocket leaves. At the risk of turning into a bowl of salad, we roasted a shoulder of lamb at the weekend, throwing peas and lots of mint into the roasting juices as they bubbled on the hob with some white vermouth and a splash of balsamic vinegar.

The coolest thing we did this week was filling glass jugs of chilled, still water with slices of cucumber, sprigs of basil and mint, slices of orange and ice cubes. They accompanied almost every meal, keeping us sane in the heatwave and, it must be said, looking rather beautiful on the table.

Roast chicken with watermelon

Watermelon, or indeed an apricot-fleshed cantaloupe, is a luscious and refreshing addition to a chicken salad. Even better when the chicken is still hot from the oven and you can use its roasting juices in the dressing. I included cucumber, seeded and peeled for a contrast of texture and a smudge of finely grated ginger and chopped chillies for an underscore of warmth.

Mint is a must have here, but you could use Vietnamese basil if you don’t like coriander. I used both. This is probably more of a side salad and would be a fine accompaniment to a spanakopita, perhaps, or a dish of roast tomatoes, the grains soaking up the warm juices.

Serves 3-4. Ready in 35 minutes

chicken breasts on the bone 1kg

olive oil a little

ginger 1 x 35g piece

spring onions 3

watermelon 300g

celery or cucumber 250g

small tomatoes 400g

mint leaves 20, small

coriander leaves a large handful or Thai basil leaves if you prefer

pak choi 1 head

For the dressing:

small, hot, red chilli 1-2

Thai or Vietnamese fish sauce 2 tbsp

rice wine vinegar 2 tbsp

caster sugar 2 tsp

large lime 1

Set the oven at 200C/gas mark 6. Place the chicken in a roasting tin, rub with a little olive oil and season lightly. Finely grate the ginger. After the chicken has been roasting for 40 minutes, check it is cooked, then remove it from the oven, and stir the ginger into the roasting juices.

Thinly slice the spring onions. Cut the watermelon into large pieces, removing the skin and seeds as you go, and put the flesh into a large bowl with the spring onions. Thinly slice the celery. Peel the cucumber, cut in half down its length and scoop out the cores with a teaspoon and discard. (You don’t have to do this, but it prevents the salad becoming “wet”.) Cut the cucumber flesh into thick slices. Add the celery and cucumber to the salads with the roughly torn mint and coriander leaves. Slice the pak choi into thin strips.

Remove the chicken from the roasting tin, reserving the roasting juices. Pull the meat from the bones in rough edged pieces and add, still warm and with any chicken skin, to the salad.

Make the dressing. Finely chop the chilli, removing the seeds if you wish. Mix together the fish sauce and rice wine vinegar, then stir in the sugar and the chopped chilli. Pour any excess oil from the roasting tin, put the tin over a moderate heat, pour in the dressing and bring to the boil. Stir to dissolve the roasting juices and any crusty caramelised bits of chicken, then remove from the heat. Squeeze the lime and add the juice to the dressing.

Gently toss the salad and roast chicken with the dressing and serve.