An icy drink for hot days
Plus spatchcock chicken from DJ BBQ
Hello Friday!
One of the things I have learned in this warmer weather is that when Dom does a BBQ (he LOVES them), I cannot be faffed with making anything hot or fiddly to accompany it. Chilled glass of rosé in hand, my new take on the family BBQ game is to cook up a batch of wild rice (I’m currently using a brown basmati and wild rice mix) then spread it out on a tray (to cool quickly). I then gradually chop or accumulate bits and bobs I have to hand to make it tasty. Perhaps chopped pecan nuts, dried apricots, pul biber chilli (mild) and a little chopped mint. This weekend I will replace the pecans with toasted pine nuts.
I also make a bean salad with white or cannellini beans (this weekend it will be butter beans). I drain and rinse them before adding copious olive oil, lemon juice, chopped cherry tomatoes, basil leaves, a little finely diced red onion and some chopped cucumber. I then dress green lettuce with a honey, olive oil, lemon and Dijon mustard dressing and am ready.
Ok so this isn’t rocket science, but it somehow feels simpler because everything is served cold. The other hot weather recipe I’m sharing in this newsletter (see my delicious hack below) is what we term watermelon coolers, which I adapted from a recipe in the Jane’s Patisserie Everyday book. It’s best to chop watermelon flesh and freeze it the day before you intend making them. They’re a real hit with the boys and are guaranteed to cool things down.
Summer #11
Friday: Prawns, warm buttered Jersey Royals and salad (same as last week)
Saturday: DJ BBQ’s za’atar and honey glazed spatchcock chicken with 3 salads: white bean, lettuce and wild rice
Sunday: Sticky spiced meatballs, noodles and pickled watermelon with tenderstem broccoli (below)
Monday: Puy lentils with asparagus, mangetout, hazelnuts & blue cheese served with flatbreads
Tuesday: Oven-baked feta, fresh flatbread and salad
Wednesday: We were out
Thursday: Spelt spaghetti with tomato sauce, cheddar and carrot salad
Find tips below with links to recipes where possible (click the name):
Here is a link to the method I used to spatchcock a chicken (I actually went out and bought a new pair of scissors for this as the old pair I had were wrecked when Dom ran his hotbin experiment and started chopping all our food waste - another story. They need to be strong!).
Here is a video for the DJ BBQ za’atar and honey glazed spatchcock chicken recipe, taken from his book Fire Food, which comes highly recommended.
The sticky spiced meatballs are a weekend treat as they require blitzing up and a fair amount of prep. They are an Asian-style recipe from one of my favourite books and writers Stirring Slowly by Georgina Hayden. I used pork mince this time. The pickled watermelon works so well with them and we really enjoy Biona spelt Asia noodles. The recipe isn’t online but if you fancy trying any of her other fab recipes they’re on her website. She’s a genius with flavours.
Puy lentils with asparagus, mangetout, hazelnuts & blue cheese is a recent recipe from Waitrose Weekend. I confess, the boys did NOT appreciate blue cheese. I tried a gorgonzola and kept it to one side rather than stirring through but it was a firm no. They ate the rest, especially because I made frying pan flatbreads from my Feed Your Family Chefs in Schools book as an accompaniment.
I used this method for the oven baked feta, using halved cherry tomatoes too this time which made the feta extra soft and made my regular oven flatbread recipe.
The tomato sauce for spaghetti is just made by coating the base of a pan with good olive oil, heating, gently sizzling sliced garlic (as many cloves as you like) and then turning up the heat and adding the tins of tomatoes so the oil spatters and spits. Don’t ask my why that’s so important – I watched Gennaro Contaldo make sauce once in a test kitchen and realised that a) he used far more olive oil than I did and b) everything spat everywhere because it was so hot. The sauce was very good. Do be careful not to burn the garlic. Simmer for 15-20 minutes and add basil once it comes off the heat.
The delicious hack - Watermelon coolers
Cube the flesh of half a watermelon, removing any obvious seeds then freeze until solid. Overnight tends to work best. The next day, add to a blender with a large punnet (say 250g minimum) of raspberries, the juice of a lemon and a slosh of fresh orange juice. Blend. Taste and adjust as you prefer. Then serve in glasses with spoons. The texture is perfectly slushy and the raspberries and lemon add a nice tang to the sweet watermelon flavour. Serves about 4 ppl.