Hot Food Summer? Nope!

There are no real rules about what to eat on a hot summer evening, despite what the Guardian food pages may tell you. Yes, no one wants to stand in a front of a hot stove, stirring soup or basting a chicken, but if the Guardian food page is to be believed, then please explain to me our British summer-time obsession with smoky BBQs? I have never understood why anyone would want to invite all their friends around to watch them sweat and burn plates among plates of low quality meat. However, as I might already be on a few people’s hit list after my last post about garlic, I’m not going to come for another much loved British foodie tradition. BBQs genuinely do have a place. But that place, for me, is twenty-two degrees max, two/three very well seasoned meat dishes, and mostly salads and shandies. It should not be twenty-five burgers, twenty-five sausages, one bread bun each and three half-used bottles of ketchups. But I’ll leave that there.

No, even I must say that there are no rules. Summer is a hot and heavy free- for-all of socialising and company-keeping, and the last thing we need when planning a summer event is a set or arbitrary regulations. However, cooking in summer can be challenging. It can be the last thing we want to do when we are hot and sticky, and can feel like a cruel and unusual punishment. So, let me help.

No one asked, but I delivered anyway. You’re welcome.

Below, I have set out four of my top tips for cooking and hosting in summer. They aren’t offensive or opinionated, but they do perhaps break it down when one is staring, sun-stroked and slightly tipsy, at the supermarket shelves, having just remembered they invited their ex-colleague round for dinner.

Tip no.1: Think colour

Hot, yolky sunshine. Cafe latte clouds. Emerald grass. Floral prints, polka dots, splashes of red, orange, pink, against white. Raspberry ice-creams and cherry blossom. Aperol Spritz. Summer is bright and renewing and gives us license to use colour in a way that winter scoffed and rolled its eyes at us for. Summer is delicious; it smells, tastes and looks good.

We are encouraged by the abundance of sunshine to use food that ripened in its rays. It is no coincidence that the most colourful food is food that thrives in the heat and sunshine. Tomatoes, strawberries, lemons, green olives, peaches, apricots. These are foods that are best served cold, or room temp, and burst upon the first bite.

If you want a summery plate of food, simply pick up colourful produce — silver anchovies packed in oil, pillarbox red tomatoes, green parsley and capers.

Blitz a forest green cucumber and its minty innards with two large spoonfuls of sheet-white yoghurt, black pepper and a dash of red wine vinegar for a refreshing cucumber soup, straight from the blender.

Soft boil two orange-yolked eggs and peel, serve with half a fresh green avocado, handful of coriander, sprinkling of shiny red pepper flakes and a drizzle of your favourite chill sauce.

Every meal can be a combination of bright, light colours — snowy feta cheese falling on crushed green peas, blueberries smashed onto wooden sourdough, topped with slices of brie and a slick of amber honey. Colour feeds you, it rejuvenates you, it injects the sun into you.

Rule no.2: Anything can be a salad

Well, not anything. But it is certainly the case that any necessary criteria is very limited, at least in my eyes. A salad is pretty much anything that is probably mostly cold/room temp, and probably has a vegetable base. But apart from that, salad doesn’t need to be diet food. It doesn’t need to be slimming or healthy. It doesn’t even need to contain salad, and by that, I of course mean those little green leaves that divide families and make children scream.

The reason salad = summer is not because we are all trying to get in shape for Hot Girl Summer (it goes without saying, everybody is a bikini body), but that salads are mostly cold and mostly colourful, which as already stated, are two key components of delicious, summer food. Also, I am totally, totally including potatoes as a vegetable, and you’ll be pleased to hear that one of my favourite summer “salads” is a simple potato salad, but made even better with the addition of a tablespoon of wholegrain mustard and a squeeze of honey. Garnish with lots and lots of dill, leave to chill, and enjoy filling your boots with creamy, sweet, savoury, zingy potatoes, all the while feeling the stupid smugness of eating a salad.

I also want to stress that the great thing about summer salads is that they can be an excuse to consume copious amounts of cheese. I personally favour Alison Roman’s burrata with peas, crushed black olives and greens, which is basically just huge chunks of oozing burrata with a sweet green backdrop. If you’re not a fan of the cloyingness of burrata, my dad opts for golden, grilled halloumi, covered with copious handfuls of chopped coriander and fresh lime juice while it’s still hot. Simple, effective. If you’re a feta fan, all you need to do is chop up chunks of watermelon, sprinkle over a block of feta, drizzle with olive oil, black pepper and a garnish of mint.

I do have to say, though, and I don’t want to sound like an influencer, but there can be beauty in a classic salad. Many people think salad is a dull option because it lacks flavour and uses too much filler. How wrong these people are! A good salad is defined by its dressing, and if there are only two salad dressings you need in your life, they are a balsamic vinaigrette (balsamic, oil, honey, wholegrain mustard), and a caesar dressing (egg yolks, anchovies, neutral oil, mustard, lemon juice, salt, pepper). Make buckets of it, and chuck it over any combination of leaves, protein and enjoy.

Rule no.3: Herbs are your friends.

There is no tragedy like an herb-less fridge or windowsill. I know people often buy herbs out of necessity. They have a recipe in mind and, often begrudgingly, will pick up a packet of coriander, dill, or mint, thinking “what a waste!”. Some people, the more frugal amongst us, will forego the herb all together, and either opt for dried that will produce the same flavour (it doesn’t), frozen (it doesn’t), or, substitute it for a similar one they already have (not the same).

I’m here to defend herbs as not just an addition, but as a necessary ingredient. At Ottolenghi’s restaurant Rovi, he puts herbs front and centre in his starter of tempura herbs and stems with a mandarin and lime leaf vinegar dipping sauce. Caution must be urged, do forego this if you aren’t a fan of the tingling, aniseed of szechuan pepper — but the use of dill and mint as the crispy, fragrant star of the show proves how underserved the herb is.

Summer is all for the herb, winter is for the spice. Spice warms you, adds depth to meat and strong flavours, bringing out peppery, sweet and hot undertones. Herbs, on the other hand, cool down your palette and offer acidity and freshness. They taste like plants. And plants = summer. That’s science!

Absolutely any fish dish should be covered in dill, fistfuls of fronds. Baked potatoes require dill which is swept away in pools of hot golden butter. Anything with a sour cream or yoghurt based can take a large scattering of chopped chives. Don’t be afraid to combine your herbs as well — dill and chives work wonderfully together, fresh and sweet, but so do basil and oregano in any tomato dish, and parsley and mint, chopped up together in olive oil; drizzled luxuriously over any fruit dish.

Rule no.4: Feast!

This one comes with a key caveat — make sure your guests are double vaccinated. But summer is for sharing. Sharing the same tongs to pick up cold chicken legs, the same spatula to grab a slice of funky quiche, or grabbing beautiful little toasts covered in pungent fish pate and jewels of amber roe the old fashioned way, with your hands. The beauty of summer lies in the vision of a long glass table, perhaps at a party, covered in colourful plates and bowls with different dishes. One should look at the table and feel overwhelmed with delight. When you announce the food is ready, people should impolitely elbow each other out of the way to get the largest hunk of melon shrouded in prosciutto, or 3 slices of the bresaola, even though, per person, those portions are quite clearly a little generous.

90% of these dishes are cold. Because cold food is the perfect excuse to excel yourself in the kitchen. Without worrying about timings, hot food, or overcooking some things whilst others are barely reaching the boiling point, you can experiment with flavours, colours, presentation.

Same goes for drinks. Summer calls for jugs of the stuff — whatever it is. Simply by mixing the right proportions of sugar, citrus, and any spirit of your choice, you have stumbled across the perfect summer cocktail. I’d suggest purchasing a lemon squeezer, and making your own sugar syrup (2:1 sugar to water), and then simply chill your jug and glasses in the freezer, throw the ingredients together, and keep your guests topped up. Oh, and guess what goes really nicely, and looks really good, in these cocktail jugs? Herbs!

Summer presents an opportunity to sit back, and relax. Put your sunglasses on, and grab a cold drink. Don’t fuss over the food, let others do that. Get someone to fetch you a plate — a little bit of everything. There is no time for rushing, or sweating, or boiling hot barbecues with people you don’t like. Look at the roses. Smell the roses. Now design a meal around the roses. That’s summertime cooking.