Grilled pork salad

I find a bright-tasting, aromatic salad does wonders for my sense of wellbeing, lifting the spirits on a grey and rainy day. Sometimes I add bean sprouts to the green leaves and herbs for extra crunch.

serves 4

for the salad:
mint leaves - small handful
coriander leaves - small bunch
little gem lettuce - 2 or 3, depending on size
1 lime
1 large red chilli
bean sprouts - 4 small handfuls

for the pork:
1 small pork fillet
lemongrass - 2 medium-sized stalks
garlic - 3 cloves
Thai fish sauce - 2 tbs
sesame oil - 1 tbs

Cut the pork fillet into slices. They should be no thicker than your little finger. Remove any tough outer leaves from the lemongrass then slice the tender insides into wafer thin rings. Put them into a bowl with the peeled and finely crushed garlic, the fish sauce and the sesame oil. Toss with the pork and leave for a good hour. Make four individual bowls of salad with crisp lettuce, whole mint and coriander leaves and, if you wish, beansprouts. Halve the chilli and remove the seeds, then chop the chilli flesh finely. Toss the chillies and the juice of the lime into the salad. Drain the pork from the marinade, then fry in a non-stick pan till golden and glossy on both sides, spooning over a little of the sauce as you go. It will take little more than a minute or two. Mix the pork into the salad and serve immediately with any juices from the pan poured over.

Baked onions with parmesan and cream

I normally eat these deeply savoury baked onions as a side dish to cold roast beef, and that is probably when they are at their best. But they make a sound main course, too. I eat them and their cheesy sauce with mounds of blandly comforting brown rice, steamed with a cinnamon stick and a couple of cloves. Wet weather food of the first order.

serves 2-3 with rice

onions - 4 medium to large
whipping or double cream - 300ml
grated Parmesan - a good handful
to serve: steamed brown rice for 4

Set the oven at 180/gas 4. Peel the onions and bring them to the boil in a large, deep pot of water. Leave them at a bright simmer for about 25 minutes, until they are tender, then lift them out with a draining spoon. Slice the onions in half from root to tip and put them cut-side down in an ovenproof dish, snugly touching one another. Tip the cream over the onions. Season with salt, pepper and the grated cheese and bake for 25 minutes, till golden and bubbling.

· Nigel Slater's biography Toast (Fourth Estate, £16.99)