A day in the sun: Nigel Slater’s summer recipes

Photography by Jonathan Lovekin

I do think that afternoon tea of some sort is an essential part of summer weekend eating. Maybe iced tea – lemon or hibiscus with lots of ice – and perhaps a plate of cucumber or watercress sandwiches (with or without salmon). But a sweet treat is non-negotiable, which is why I have baked crisp and salty-sweet oatmeal biscuits and crushed them with berries and cream. A proper summer’s afternoon luxury.

However you may choose to eat when the weather is hot, I have some ideas for you, from breakfast – tarragon and lemon mushrooms on toast – right through the day to a summery fish supper.

There are deep red raspberries and glossy cherries, wedges of ripe melon and a bowl of refreshingly sour yoghurt. A plate of prosciutto and a crackle-crusted baguette on which to spread cold, unsalted butter. There may be a croissant that you have split, toasted and topped with sliced apricots or perhaps the remains of yesterday’s summer pudding served straight from the fridge. Summer breakfasts, especially at the weekend, are different.

I still like something hot with which to start my day. In lieu of a full English, there might be French toast, crisp, bronzed and eaten with puddles of stewed berries, blackcurrants perhaps, or strawberries that you have marinated with orange juice and passion fruit. My favourite has always been mushrooms on toast, their buttery pan-juices soaking into the thick sourdough beneath. Introduce a fistful of tarragon and a squeeze of lemon and I could not be happier.

You could use other varieties of mushroom here, but I like the beefy quality of chestnut mushrooms, and the way they lightly caramelise as they fry. If you wish, add a spoonful of olive oil to the butter; it will ensure the butter doesn’t burn. I prefer to use butter only, and to keep the heat at a moderate level, letting the mushrooms brown slowly.

Cut the toast quite thickly, so it can soak up all the buttery juices from the pan.

Serves 2

chestnut mushrooms 150g
small mushrooms 100g (such as shimeji)
tarragon leaves 10g
butter 120g
garlic 1 clove
lemon ½
sourdough 2 thick slices, toasted

Thickly slice the chestnut mushrooms. Cut the roots from the small mushrooms, which have a tendency to come in a cluster. Chop the tarragon leaves. Melt the butter in a shallow pan, peel and grate the garlic and stir into the butter. Add the chestnut mushrooms and cook for about 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until they are soft and starting to turn golden and sticky. Season with salt and finely ground black pepper.

Introduce the small mushrooms and continue cooking for a couple of minutes, then stir in the chopped tarragon leaves and squeeze in a little lemon juice to taste.

Get the toast ready, then spoon the mushrooms and their garlicky, herby cooking juices over it.

Sometimes, it is too hot for the whole bells-and-whistles Sunday roast. Something lighter, more relaxed and easier on the cook might appeal more. Summer vegetables, tossed in a pan with olive oil, a little garlic and some soft-leaved herbs could fit the bill, especially if eaten with pureed chickpeas or beans into which you have stirred some mint or basil or both.

A recipe such as this can be a principal course, or it can sit alongside a roast. It is the sort of dish I like to put on the table with a few other treats: a tomato and basil salad; a platter of sliced meats; a dish of baked ricotta.

I have also cooked this recipe using aubergines in place of the courgettes. They take a little longer to cook, and I tend to introduce a sprinkling of chilli flakes as the aubergines soften.

Serves 4

lemon juice of 1
garlic 4 cloves
thick yoghurt 400g
tahini 100g
olive oil 50ml, plus 3 tbsp
courgettes 500g
mint and dill leaves a handful of each
sesame seeds 1 tbsp

Place half of the lemon juice into a medium-sized mixing bowl and reserve the rest. Peel the garlic and mash 2 of the cloves to a coarse paste with a half teaspoon of sea salt and stir into the lemon juice. Mix in the yoghurt, tahini and 25ml of the olive oil, either with a spoon or, more easily, a small whisk. Set aside somewhere cool.

For the courgettes, trim each one, cut them in half lengthways, then slice into short lengths, about three from each courgette. Warm the remaining 25ml of olive oil in a shallow 25-28cm pan over a moderately high heat, crush the remaining 2 cloves of garlic and add to the pan, then add the courgettes and fry for 6-8 minutes, covered with a lid and turning as necessary to colour their cut edges evenly. Test for tenderness. Add the whole mint leaves and the remaining lemon juice, a generous grind of salt and a twist or two of black pepper.

Place the tahini-yoghurt dressing and courgettes on a serving dish, scatter with the sesame seeds and trickle over the 3 tablespoons of olive oil.

It would be almost sacrilegious not to offer fruit for a summer afternoon tea. Scones with strawberries and cream, a slice of pavlova dripping with cherry juice and whole fruits or a slice of peach tart, the pastry crumbling under your tiny fork. I am very fond of serving a raspberry cranachan for tea on a summer’s day. The fruit is crushed with a fork and threaded through whipped cream and toasted oatmeal.

These biscuits are my tribute to that fine dessert; still a crush of fruit, cream and oats but with a crisp element from sugary oatmeal biscuits. I would offer tea, perhaps something citrus but certainly without milk, and maybe bake a batch of scones. An afternoon tea without them isn’t really worthy of the name.

The dessert is made with crumbly, rather fragile biscuits that will keep in a tin for a few days, should you need to. I have also made this with blackberries, though loganberries would be even better. The biscuits are easily broken, so I like to leave them on the tray for 5 or 10 minutes to settle, then slide the whole batch over to the cooling rack, with the paper, and leave them to cool completely.

Makes 12-14 biscuits

demerara sugar 100g
butter 100g
self-raising flour 80g
rolled oats 40g
fine oatmeal 40g
salt 1 tsp
raspberries 250g
double cream 250ml

Line a baking sheet with baking parchment.

Put the sugar and butter into the bowl of a food mixer and beat until well mixed. Stir in the self-raising flour, oats, oatmeal and the salt and mix lightly. Divide into small balls roughly 25g in weight, then place them, with a few centimetres between each, on to the lined baking sheet (you may need to do this in two batches). Press down on each ball of dough with the back of a spoon to almost flatten them.

Heat the oven to 160C fan/gas mark 4, then bake the biscuits for 12 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave to rest for 5 minutes before carefully transferring to a cooling rack.

Using a fork, lightly crush 125g of the raspberries just enough to allow their juices to bleed a little. In a chilled bowl, whip the cream till it is just firm enough to hold its shape. Gently fold the crushed raspberries through the cream, taking care not to over mix. You just want ribbons of red rippled through the cream.

Place an oat cookie on each of six plates, add a large mound of raspberry cream to each, then crumble a second biscuit on top. Drop a few of the reserved raspberries on top of each. Store any leftover biscuits in a tin or plastic box, where they will keep in good condition for a few days.

A typical weekend supper in this house will often be roast vegetables and a piece of grilled fish or meat. In the summer months, that becomes cold roast chicken with roast tomatoes and peppers, or a piece of cold salmon with roast green beans and broccoli.

When I lived in Cornwall, our Sunday roasts were more likely to be fish-led than meat. Mackerel was a favourite, partly for its reasonable price. But we would have other seafood too, including Cornish red mullet – small, whole fish you could grill or roast. There is a lot of flavour for your money, and a whole fish all to oneself always feels like a treat.

Ask the fishmonger to gut the mackerel but to leave it whole. It takes a little longer to cook than a filleted fish, but cooking the mackerel whole ensures crisp skin and moist, sweet flesh. The roast fennel and orange is the only accompaniment you need with the fish, though I would suggest a wodge of crusty bread with which to soak up the citrus juices.

Serves 2

fennel bulbs 2
garlic 4 cloves
orange 1
fennel seeds 1 tsp
olive oil 4 tbsp
mackerel 2, cleaned but left whole

Heat the oven to 180C fan/gas mark 6. Cut the fennel bulbs in half then slice each half into about four thick wedges. Put them in a roasting tin. Peel and very finely slice the garlic. Cut the orange, without peeling it, into thick slices. Add the orange slices, garlic and fennel seeds to the tin, then pour in the olive oil, season with salt and pepper and toss everything together.

Roast for 35 minutes, turn everything over and roast for a further 10 minutes or until the fennel is tender.

Heat an overhead (oven) grill or a griddle plate. Brush the mackerel with a little of the oil and juices from the roasting fennel, then cook under the grill or on top of the griddle plate until the skin is slightly blackened in places, the flesh tender but firm. Turn the fish over once during cooking – it is ready when you can part the flesh easily from the bone.

Serve the fish with the cooked fennel and orange.

@NigelSlater