Nigel Slater’s recipe for feta, sundried tomato and kefir loaf

If I have yeast, flour and olive oil, I will make a tin tray of focaccia to bring to the table, something for everyone to tear into thick, oily shards with their fingers. I like it with slices of fat-framed ham cut thin and with good tomatoes and freshly ripped basil leaves and soft milky bubbles of burrata or mozzarella. Occasionally I need something more cake-like in texture, a deeply savoury loaf I can slice. A cut-and-come-again cake for eating with sharp white cheese or for a spoonful of glistening chilli jam, a mound of celeriac remoulade or for carrying to a picnic.

I made such a loaf earlier this week, dusting it with sesame seeds and sprigs of thyme before baking. A loaf with the texture of cake, its waxy crumb flecked with preserved tomatoes, crumbs of feta and the crunch of pumpkin seeds. There were herbs in there, too, chopped thyme leaves that smell of Provence and a handful of basil. Less of a faff than focaccia, and a better keeper, I was still eating it several days later. We toasted the last few slices and spread them with cream cheese.

If you are packing a picnic this weekend, such a loaf will serve you well, arriving at your buttercup-filled meadow in one piece. A much better idea than sandwiches that tend to leak, fall apart and curl up. I take everything in bento boxes tightly secured with rubber bands, recycled plastic tubs with lids, each one filled with a salad of some sort – tomato and basil, pistachio couscous and one of haricot beans, matchsticks of fennel-seeded salami and sticky black olives. Cherries, too, in a brown paper bag. It is barely a picnic without a bag of cherries.

Snap a runner bean and hold it to my nose and I am once again a child, sitting in the beanfield of my neighbour’s farm, picking a basket of beans for tea. To look up at the winding tendrils and heart-shaped leaves, piercing scarlet flowers and long, crisp beans was to be in a place of escape. I grew them, as an adult, for years, until the foxes smashed my vegetable garden. This week I ate my first of the year, sliced thinly and plunged briefly into bubbling, salted water, then drained and tossed with olive oil and finely grated lemon zest, a little black pepper.

There was welcome rain last week, enough to refresh the pots of sweet peas but too forceful a deluge for the potted herbs, coriander, chervil and dill, that prefer a gentler watering. A good rainstorm will reduce the soft leaves of basil to a pulp, so I collected the lot and made a salsa verde of sorts with the chopped herbs, olive oil, red wine vinegar and a couple of salted anchovies. I used the thick, green dressing for spooning over grilled lamb cutlets which sat on thick croûtes of toast and soaked up the basil and coriander-scented sauce.

We need to keep our wits about us at this time of year, if we are not to miss the short season of some of our soft fruits. Gooseberries come and go in a heartbeat, though they freeze well enough for out-of-season cake and crumble. A gentle reminder of summer’s brief pleasures. I picked up punnets of red currants this week, not enough for a summer pudding, but enough to decorate a sheet of puff pastry (hot oven 220C for about 10 minutes) spread with whipped cream and mascarpone; the currants stewed on top like a spilled jewel box.

Feta, sun-dried tomato and kefir loaf

Eat this loaf with cheese or folds of smoked ham. Essentially a savoury cake, with its nuggets of feta and scent of thyme, it marries well with ripe peaches. And when you come to the end of the loaf, toast it then brush it with a little olive oil. Alternatively, you could use the mixture in muffin cases, making two for each person. Break them open and stuff a piece of parma ham in each as you eat.

Serves 6. Ready in 90 minutes

self-raising flour 250g

bicarbonate of soda ½ tsp

sea salt 1 tsp

sun-dried tomatoes in oil 50g, drained

pumpkin seeds 2 tbsp

thyme leaves 1 tbsp

basil leaves a handful

kefir 250ml

large eggs 2

olive oil 3 tbsp

feta cheese 250g

parmesan 50g, grated

sesame seeds 10g

thyme sprigs 6, to finish (optional)

You will need a rectangular loaf tin about 20 x 10 x 7cm. Line the tin with baking parchment and heat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4.

Put the flour and bicarbonate of soda into a mixing bowl, add the sea salt and mix well. Roughly chop the sun-dried tomatoes and stir into the flour along with the pumpkin seeds. 

Roughly chop the thyme and basil leaves. In a bowl, beat together the kefir, eggs and olive oil then pour into the flour and mix thoroughly. Crumble in the feta cheese and stir in the grated parmesan, thyme and basil.

Pour the mixture into the lined baking tin and sprinkle the surface with the sesame seeds and if you wish, a few sprigs of thyme.

Bake in the oven for 35 minutes, then test with a metal skewer. If it comes out clean, the loaf is done. Leave to cool in the tin for a good 30 minutes before turning out and slicing thickly – doing this will give it time to settle. The loaf will keep in good condition for several days in an airtight container.