That other problem
- rosemary
- Jan 30
- 5 min read
"Of course, you could wait to eat until after the sun goes down, if you have the backbone." Zoe Williams/The Guardian
This is a problem which wasn't really a problem until we looked at the weather forecast.
Following the return of one half of our family from the USA we decided to host a family get together here. This Sunday evening turned out to be the best time and so it was to be. Then we looked at the weather and saw that it would be 38 degrees - even in the evening it would be well over 30.
How to avoid cooking anything on the day, or at the very least doing some kind of flash cook to accompany a range of cold salads is the problem. Because any cooking, apart from anything else will heat up the house.
Well that last part of the problem has generously been solved by my daughter-in-law who has offered her air-conditioned home with a pool as the venue. I shall still be providing the food however, so what to do?
Well I began by turning to Delia and her Summer Collection the video and book which introuduced me to her and led to her being a major influence in my cooking life. And as I flicked through the pages I came to her Pesto rice salad which I have now made a few times. I thought it a perfect side salad and decided that this would be the dish around which the meal would be built.
I'm not a huge salad lover, but I do love this one, and because it features pesto I decided to try to be sort of Italian in theme. There would obviously be other salads, but what to do for meat. Yes meat because my younger son refuses to eat fish because of all its issues. Besides we are feeding four teenagers and a subteen here and I just don't know anymore how picky they are. And one of them is a vegetarian too. I will come to her shortly.
Obviously I could serve some kind of cold meat - either bought charcuterie kinds of things - or roast something and then serve it cold, either as part of a salad or as the main deal. It is cool, you see in the days leading up to the event. Indeed when you look at all the articles on what to serve in hot weather, most of them tell you to do that. Hardly anyone thinks you should serve anything hot. Now I could be very happy with a terrine, and I would love to make one, but I don't think anyone else in my family would be, so decided that, no, it had to be some kind of hot meat, but cooked very quickly.
I was therefore very pleased today, to read this from Nigel.
"It has always struck me as odd that the hottest countries have the hottest food. Yet once you are there, baking in the Indian heat, the food and its vivid, palate-tingling notes seem totally appropriate." Nigel Slater
And indeed Marion of Marion's Kitchen said much the same thing. So I shouldn't get too hung up on the idea that all the food had to be cold. No David it won't be Chicken Caesar Salad.
Having settled on a loose Italian theme - though Mediterranean would do - I decided that a stir-fry (not my forte anyway) was not the thing. Roasting is out, so then I started thinking along the lines of kebabs. Now I know that my family adores Robert Carrier's beef kebabs but they are a bit Asian and I really don't think they would go with the pesto rice.
So I turned to Jamie Oliver where I was first of all reminded of his Chicken skewers - chicken rolled around cheese, with bacon around the chicken then skewered and grilled, before slicing to serve. I made these for another family gathering and they were indeed hugely popular but I've done them before and I hate to repeat myself. Parties like this are a chance to experiment.
I persevered with Jamie however and found these Spiedini di salsiccia e manzo in his Jamie's Italy book. He does't publish this recipe online, but the website called A Life Lived has it, and I think a couple of other bloggers have tried it too. Definitely a possibility I thought.
But I continued looking, and not quite having given up on the idea of grilling or a quick fry I turned to Nigel for a while. Well I tried Ottolenghi but all of his potential offerings, although wonderful looking did not really match pesto rice. Nigel had three possible offerings: Paprika and mustard goujons; Citrus chilli grilled chicken, the recipe for which can be found on Sarah Cooks and Grilled chicken with fennel seeds and spiced butter which was perhaps the most enticing of the three. A bonus was that one of those recipes also had a recipe for Asparagus and ricotta fritters which I thought could be a possibility for my vegetarian granddaughter, but having seen the price for asparagus today, I'm not so sure. I do have a lot of carrots though, so maybe some carrot fritters?
Then somehow or other I came across a website called Savor with Jennifer and her Grilled chicken spiedini skewers. It ticked all the boxes - Italian based, with a lovely crunchy coating. A kind of gremolata really. By now I had been thinking of just making something up with an Italian flavour for the marinade - you know lemon, olive oil, garlic - that sort of thing. But here was just that but with that extra coating of breadcrumbs, cheese and a couple of other things with the whole thing finished off with a drizzle of butter, lemon and garlic. I was captivated, and when I saw the photo of Jennifer with her spiedini on her Weber with a ridiculously all-American cheesy, come hither, cheerleader pose and grin I just had to go with this. Yes I think I will, although I could always change my mind. I'm pretty sure I can prepare everything so that all my son has to do is cook it in his outdoor kitchen which is undercover so I hope he won't get too hot doing it.
Other salads? Well I'm still thinking on that but I remembered Delia's Roasted tomato salad which might be one of them, as long as the tomatoes in the supermarket are reasonable in price and gorgeous. I would definitely prefer this to the usual Caprese salad, which, honestly I find a bit bland. Or maybe I could do a Provençal kind of topping on the tomatoes instead. Maybe a roasted onion salad. I think I saw an interesting looking Nigel one somewhere. I might look into that tomorrow. Beans? And, of course there will be lettuce.
Dessert. Who knows. But I did see this on Marion's Kitchen website in which she tested out a TikTok recipe sensation with soft serve ice-cream which she improved by using high quality ice-cream. It's just ice-cream doused with crispy chilli oil. Pretty easy. No that's just a dream because hardly anyone likes the chilli, but I could take along my jar of crispy chilli oil and suggest it to anyone who wants to give it a go. That won't be David.
And I have some spiced nuts, and some tinned dolmades that I could take for nibbles. I suspect my daughter-in-law will have watermelon.
Still a work in progress really. Mostly because of my vegetarian - maybe some vegetarian kebabs. I shall report when it's all over. Today it's been peaches - I shall report on that too.
YEARS GONE BY
January 30
2018 - Weekends and food
2017 - Nothing
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