When I think of the great British summertime, there are several ingredients that come to mind: fresh peas, soft, large-leaved lettuce, tiny new potatoes, broad beans, and of course asparagus and strawberries. Rarely does a day go by without me eating at least one of them. (You could probably add salmon, cucumber and crab to that list, too.) Nothing can match our local ingredients at their best and there has never been a better time to celebrate them.
Crushed new potatoes with herb butter
We do new potatoes so well. Peeled or simply scrubbed they need very little embellishment other than a few sprigs of mint. That said, their sweet nuttiness is only compounded by a brief spell in the oven after boiling. I crush them lightly, smear over a herb butter (or a little olive oil) and bake till the crushed edges crisp lightly. I could eat a plate of them on their own but they might go down better with most people beside a pair of sweet little chops or some salmon.
Serves 4 as a side dish
new potatoes - 850g
mint - 6 sprigs
new garlic - 3 juicy cloves
thyme - about 8 sprigs
butter - a thick slice
Scrub the new potatoes rather than peel them. Boil them in a pan of deep, lightly salted water with the sprigs of mint for 15-20 minutes or so until tender.
While the potatoes are boiling, peel and lightly crush the garlic cloves. Add the leaves from the sprigs of thyme and mash with the butter and a little salt and black pepper.
Once the potatoes are drained, put them on a shallow dish and crush each one lightly with a fork - you want to break the skin and flatten the potato just enough that its flesh will soak up some of the herb butter.
Dot over the butter, scatter with a little more seasoning and some sprigs of thyme if you wish, then bake for 40 minutes till lightly golden at 180C/gas 4.
Grilled lamb, pea and mint mash
I'm no great fan of spring lamb but as the summer progresses the flavour gets more interesting and it is never better than when on the grill with summer herbs. Peas are at their best right now and I love them served in big piles of bright green mash. Use frozen if the fresh ones are anything less than young and sweet.
Serves 4
lamb cutlets - 8
thyme - a few sprigs
rosemary - 1 tbs finely chopped
olive oil
shelled peas - 500g
mint - 6 short, bushy sprigs
butter - a thick slice
Put the lamb cutlets on a plate. Remove the thyme leaves from their branches then mash them with the rosemary needles, salt and black pepper and a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. Rub the herbed oil into the lamb and set aside for 30 minutes.
Cook the peas and mint in lightly salted boiling water till tender. Drain them and tip into a blender or food processor and blitz with the butter till smooth. Grill the lamb cutlets till their fat is golden and their flesh is lightly pink inside. Divide the pea mash between four plates then add the cutlets, hot from the grill.
Braised lettuce with broad beans and bacon
The soft butterhead lettuce - what I call Peter Rabbit lettuce - always feels unmistakably British, possibly because it was the only lettuce I knew until I was in my teens. Their tender leaves make an excellent vegetable when cooked with vegetable stock and bacon. By adding broad beans the dish becomes delightfully summery, more like a light vegetable stew, wonderful with salmon, light, juicy and clean tasting. I always use smoked bacon for this, so that it flavours the juices.
Serves 4
2 medium-sized lettuce
a thick slice of butter
diced, unsmoked bacon - 150g
small, young leeks - 2
shelled broad beans - 500g
vegetable stock - 500ml
Pull away and discard any tatty leaves, then cut each lettuce into quarters. Wash under cold, running water to remove any grit or aphids.
Melt the butter in a heavy-based pan to which you have a lid. Add the diced bacon and leave it to stew in the butter for five minutes or so over a moderate heat. Meanwhile trim, wash and cut the leeks into short pieces, add them to the pan and continue cooking, stirring now and again till they have started to soften.
Tip in the beans, the lettuce, the stock and a seasoning of salt and black pepper and bring the liquid to the boil. Turn it down as it soon as it starts to bubble furiously then cover with a tight lid. Leave to simmer for 20 minutes by which time the lettuce will have sunken into four silky mounds and the liquor will have almost vanished.
Lift out the lettuce, beans and bacon with a draining spoon and place on a serving dish. If there is more than a ladleful of liquid in the pan then turn up the heat and boil furiously to reduce it a little; check the seasoning then pour over the lettuce.
Warm asparagus with melted cheese
Only a few weeks into the season and I reckon I must have had this for lunch half a dozen times already. You could use any soft, melting cheese to grill with the asparagus but my favourite for this at the moment is a ripe Tunworth, the award-winning British cheese that, on a good day, oozes from its box like a Camembert.
Serves 2
spears of asparagus - 24
soft, ripe cheese - 250g
Cook the asparagus in boiling, lightly salted water till it is tender enough to bend. Lift the spears out with a draining spoon and lower them into a shallow baking dish.
Slice the cheese thinly, (in the case of Camembert or Tunworth then cut it horizontally) and lay it over the asparagus. Then place under a hot grill till the cheese melts into an impromptu sauce. Eat immediately, while the cheese is still runny.
Marinated strawberries
When our strawberries are good they are the best in the world, and when I find them at their peak I eat them with nothing but a little unpasteurised cream. But when they are not quite up to scratch, I have a way of making their flavour deepen that includes an extraordinary mixture of cassis and sugar. Use French Cassis if you can't track down the English variety (try www.bramleyandgage.co.uk).
Serves 3-4
strawberries - 400g
caster sugar - 1 tbs (or more to taste)
Cassis or blackcurrant liqueur
Put the sugar in a shallow bowl. Pour in the juice of the orange and 3 or 4 tablespoons of blackcurrant liqueur or Cassis. Cut the berries into halves or thick slices, dropping them into the marinade. Leave the berries in the fridge for a minimum of an hour, maximum of three.
· Nigel Slater's Eating for England is now out in paperback (Fourth Estate). To order a copy for £16.99 with free UK p&p, go to observer.co.uk/bookshop or call 0870 836 0885
