It was Nigel’s birthday earlier this month – and that always involves strawberries.  Despite the fact we’d been picking them from the garden for most of June, when Nigel was a child his birthday always signalled the first strawberries of the summer and some things should be respected.

Le Fraisier is a french strawberry gateaux, fraise being the french word for strawberry.  I don’t think it can be a creation of too much antiquity because strawberries in this plump form, as opposed to the wild variety, are a fairly recent arrival.  Amédée-François Frézier (1682-1773) gets the credit for introducing them to Europe, having brought some specimens back from Chile.

Whoever the culinary genius was who created this celebration of the strawberry I can’t say.  I do know where I came across it.  Baking a Frasier Cake was a Mary Berry technical challenge on series 3 of ‘The Great British Bake Off’.

I’m fairly confident my children, with the exception of Liddy who can be trusted not to tell her brothers, will not be reading this .. so I will make a confession.  All those technical challenges … well, they’re a whole lot easier if you are not cooking in a tent, have a complete set of instructions, no interruptions, no tv camera pointed at you watching for mistakes and as much time as you like to cook.

This is fun to make.  Okay, so it’s not something I’d whip up on an average week night, but no stage is complicated – and then it’s an assembly job.  It tastes amazing.

Making a Genoise Sponge is so much easier with a stand mixer.  If that’s not what you have, you need to do it the classic way which is in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water.

Melt 50g/1¾oz of unsalted butter, and allow it to cool slightly.  Heat your oven – 180ºC/Gas Mark 4/350ºF.  Prepare a round 23cm/9″ cake tin – I melt more butter to grease my tin really thoroughly and line the base with bake o’glide.

Then, with the four eggs, finely grated zest of two lemons and 125g/4½oz caster sugar in the bowl – whisk.  I use my kitchen aid  with the  whisk attachment on maximum.

It’s done when you can lift the whisk out and draw a figure of eight with the mixture.  It’ll rest on the surface for a few moments.

If you’ve been whisking over a bowl of simmering water, now is the time to remove from the heat.  Whichever method, sift over half the flour.

Gently – fold in.  The aim is to keep as much air in the mixture as possible.  Use the edge of the spatula (or metal spoon) and use a cutting motion.  Once you’ve incorporated the first half, sift over the remaining flour and fold that in as well.  Then, add the melted butter.  Gently – fold that in, too.

Pour into the prepared cake tin and bake for 25-30 minutes.  In my 4-oven aga, I use the Baking Oven and bake for 20-25 minutes on the rack placed on the floor.

It’s done when the sides of the cake shrink away from the sides of the tin.  Leave it to cool for five minutes, then loosen the side clip and transfer the cake to a cooling rack.

Crème pâtissière is a fancy custard.  In a clean bowl, whisk together 4 eggs, 2 extra egg yolks, the sugar, cornflour and kirsch.

Cut 150g/5½oz butter into cubes.

The best vanilla pods are the nice, fat, bendy ones.

Scrape out the seeds with the back of a knife.

Pour the milk into a saucepan and add the vanilla seeds and pod.  I chopped mine to get maximum flavour into the milk.  Bring to a boil and take it off the heat.

Place a sieve over the bowl holding the eggs and sugar and pour the hot milk on top.  Whisk everything together.

Pour the whole lot back into a clean saucepan.  Over a medium heat, stir until it thickens.

It happens suddenly.  It’ll look like it’s got cellulite.  Whisk out the lumps.  You’re looking for a thick, smooth custard which will pipe.

It’s about to get richer.  You’re allowed to eat this guilt-free because you’ve made it and not bought it.

Cube by cube, drop in the butter.  Stir and let the butter melt.

Once all the butter has been incorporated, it needs to cool.  Pour it into a shallow dish so there’s a big surface area to speed up the time it takes to cool.

Cover with cling wrap to stop a skin forming.  Put into the fridge.  It’ll take about an hour.

This is a lemon sugar syrup.  A warm lemon yields more juice so I pop mine in the Simmering Oven for a couple of minutes, but even rolling a lemon on the work surface does the trick.  Place the lemon juice in a saucepan, holding back a dessertspoon’s worth if you are making home-made marzipan.

Add the caster sugar and a splash of water.  Stir over a low to medium heat until the sugar has dissolved.  Then bring to the boil and let it boil for 2 minutes.  Pour it into a heatproof jug or jar and leave to cool.

The marzipan.  There is no such thing as bad marzipan and you can, of course, buy it.  Home-made is a different texture than the standard commercial product because I don’t have big rollers to pass everything through.  I make it when the marzipan is a ‘feature’.  So, not when I’m covering a cake before I ice it but .. yes, when I’m making Simnel Cake at Easter, or covering marzipan balls in chocolate.

And, this.

So, so easy.  It’s ground almonds.  If you’re really in the zone you can grind your own.  I wasn’t.  I didn’t.  Icing sugar.  Caster sugar.

A dash of vanilla extract.  Another of orange flower water.  Another of sherry or rum.  A splash of lemon juice.

Lightly beat one egg.  You may not need all of it.  You want to end up with a stiff paste.  Lightly dust your work surface with icing sugar, rather than flour (!).

And, knead until it’s all smooth.  This is more than you’ll need but it’ll keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks.  Wrap in cling wrap and then foil.

 

Roll out 200g/7oz of marzipan.  It needs to fit the baking tin – I cut around the bake o’glide I use to line it with.

Slide it on to the base of a big quiche tin and put in the fridge to chill.

Back to the baking tin.  You’re on the final stretch.  Stay with me.  I bought a roll of acetate plastic in John Lewis in the wrapping paper/birthday card department.  It’s great for wrapping plants and bottles of wine (when combined with tissue paper) .. and this.

Cut a strip which is the height of your tin and a bit more.

A clean tin!  Line the sides with the acetate.

The Genoise sponge should now be cold.  You could even bake this the day before, if you’re really organised, and it will slice more easily.

If you slice the cake unevenly it will show so this is my preferred method for getting it even.  My cake measured 5cm/2″- ish.  Four cocktail sticks mark the half way point and I use them as a guide, slicing with a bread knife.

Place one half in the bottom of the cake tin, top side bottomwards.

Now for the lemon sugar syrup.  Brush on half the syrup.

With the back of a spoon press the edges down really firmly.  Coax the sponge up tight to acetate.  It gives a much sharper finish.

The strawberries.  For a ‘wow’ finish you need to have strawberries with a similar height.  How many .. will depend on their overall size.

Hull and slice in half.

The cut side needs to face the acetate.  Push them in really snuggly.  It would be a tight fit.

I use an easy-grip piping bag from Lakeland and a 1cm/½” nozzle.  Fill the bag with two thirds of the cold crème pâtissière into the bag.

Pipe over the base and up between the gaps between the strawberries.  Make sure the crème pâtissière reaches the top of the strawberries.

Aesthetically, I think this would probably look better if you filled the centre with whole strawberries but in the real world of a home kitchen that would be very wasteful.  Save 3 strawberries for decoration and cut the rest into pieces.  Pile them in the centre.

Pop the final third of the crème pâtissière into the piping bag and pipe over the top of the strawberries.

Smooth out the crème pâtissière with an offset spatula.

Top with the second half of sponge.  Cut side uppermost.

Brush over the rest of the lemon sugar syrup.

Push down.  Get the edge of the sponge pushed up snuggly against the acetate.

Slide the chilled marzipan disc on the top and put the cake into the fridge to chill.

Now’s the time to make any chocolate decorations …  but a dusting of icing sugar and the reserved strawberries would be pretty, too.

When you’re ready to serve.  Unclip the baking tin.

Peel away the acetate.

Transfer to a serving plate – the quiche tin base I used to chill the marzipan disc makes it easier than you would think.

Decorate.  Don’t place any cut strawberries on the marzipan too far ahead as they will eventually bleed.

Eat.

Fraisier Cake

Makes one 23cm/9″ cake.

For the cake:

• 4 free-range eggs
• 125g/4½oz caster sugar
• zest of 2 lemons, microplaned or very finely grated
• 125g/4½oz self-raising flour
• 50g/1¾oz unsalted butter, melted and cooled

For the crème pâtissière:

• 4 free-range eggs
• 2 free-range egg yolks
• 500ml/20fl oz full-fat milk
• vanilla pod
• 180g/6¼oz caster sugar
• 1 tablespoon kirsch
• 100g/3½oz cornflour
• 150g/5½oz butter, cut into cubes

For the lemon syrup:

• 75g/2¾oz caster sugar
• juice of 2 lemons
• 70ml/4½ tablespoons cold water

For the marzipan (makes 500g/1lb 2oz):

• 125g/4½oz icing sugar
• 125g/4½oz caster sugar
• 250g/ ground almonds
• 1 dessertspoon of sherry (or rum)
• 1 dessertspoon of orange flower water (brands vary – check the strength)
• 1 dessertspoon of lemon juice
• a couple of drops of vanilla extract
• 1 free-range egg

To assemble:

• 200g/7oz of marzipan, bought or home-made
• 600g/1lb 5oz strawberries

Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF/Gas Mark 4.

Grease and line the base of a 23cm/9″ loose-bottom cake tin.  It really does make life easier if you use a spring-form tin.

Place the eggs, sugar and lemon zest in the bowl of a powerful stand mixer or in a bowl placed over simmering water.  In a stand mixer, whisk on full speed until you reach ‘ribbon’ stage’.  With an electric hand whisk, whisk over simmering water on medium speed until you reach the same stage.  Remove from the heat, if applicable.  The egg mixture will be pale, have doubled in volume and leave a trail when you draw a figure of eight over the top.

Sift over half the flour and gently fold in.  Add the remaining flour and fold again.  Finally, the melted, but cooled, butter.  Fold in.

Pour the mixture into the prepared cake tin and bake for 25-30 minutes or until the edges are pulling away from the sides.  Aga:  grid on the floor of the Baking Oven for 20-25 minutes.

Leave to cool for 5 minutes, before removing to a cooling rack until cold.

To make the crème pâtissière, place the eggs, sugar, kirsch and cornflour in a bowl and blend everything together.

Remove the seeds from a vanilla pod and place them and the pod into a saucepan.  Add the milk.  Bring to a boil, remove from the heat.

Place a sieve over the bowl holding the eggs, sugar and cornflour and pour the hot milk on top.  Whisk together.  Pour everything back into a clean saucepan and stir over a medium heat.  It will thicken suddenly.  Stir until thick enough to pipe easily.  Remove from the heat.  Stir in the cubed butter.

Pour into a shallow dish, cover with cling wrap and chill for an hour until firm and cold.

Make the lemon sugar syrup by placing the water, lemon juice and sugar in a small saucepan.  Heat over a gentle heat until the sugar has dissolved.  Bring to a boil and boil rapidly for 2 minutes.  Transfer to a jug or jam jar and cool.

Make the marzipan by mixing the dry ingredients in a bowl.  Add the sherry, orange flower water, lemon juice and vanilla extract.  Gradually add enough beaten egg to form a stiff paste.  Lightly dust the work surface with icing sugar and knead until smooth.

Roll 200g/7oz of there marzipan into a circle and cut a circle which will fit the cake tin.  Place on a flat surface to chill.

Place a strip of acetate around the inside of your clean cake tin.  There is no need to grease it.

Slice the sponge in half horizontally.

Place one layer of sponge in the bottom of the tin with the cut surface facing upwards.  Brush with half the cold lemon sugar syrup.  Press the edges against the acetate with the back of a spoon.

Select 12-14 strawberries of a similar height.  Hull and cut in half.  Press the strawberries, cut surface against the acetate, around the edge.

Place the two-thirds of the chilled crème pâtissière in a large piping bag fitted with a 1cm/½” piping nozzle.  Pipe over the sponge and between the strawberries.  Make sure you pipe the full height of the strawberries and fill in all the gaps.

Reserve a few strawberries for decoration.  Hull and chop up the remaining strawberries and place them on top of the crème pâtissière.

Pipe the remaining crème pâtissière over the chopped strawberries.  Smooth out with an offset spatula.

Lay over the second sponge half.  Brush over the remaining lemon sugar syrup and press down firmly against the acetate.

Place the marzipan disc on the top and put the tin back into the fridge to set.

When you want to serve, remove the cake from the tin.  Peel back the acetate and transfer to a serving plate.  Dust with icing sugar and cut strawberries.  Serve chilled.

Eat.

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Or Tortilla de Patatas.  Or Spanish Omelette.  It’s the same thing.  With or without onion, warm or cold – it’s delicious.

In my house it’s less of a tapas event and more of a family supper when we’re all rushing in and out and unlikely to be in the kitchen at the same time.  It’s very well-behaved.  Packs up well for a picnic, too.

 

That’s what happened this Friday.  Not a picnic – but the kind of crazy evening where something left on the side was the only way to go.

I’m going to stick my head above the parapet and say I like onion.  I don’t include parsley – but that’s because I think the green flecks spoil the paleness of it all.  I prefer a floury potato and I don’t soak away the starch.

I peel my potatoes.  You can cube or slice them – I slice.  You wouldn’t believe how so few ingredients could divide so many people …

Even the choice of oil is contentious.  Mine is a really unpretentious sunflower oil, but I also use a good but not extra virgin olive oil.  I think olive oil has the edge, but you’d need to be eating examples side-by-side to tell.  I use a large frying pan/skillet (it really is a ‘skillet’ as I’ve embraced the cast iron Lodge import having discovered them in a brilliant shop near Seb’s university) and put in about 2cm/¾” (ish) of oil.  What you want is for the oil to just cover the potato, whether you’ve cubed or sliced it.  I fry in batches, so as not to reduce the temperature of the oil too dramatically.

It’s similar to how I cook my chips.  And, when you stop to think about it, this really isn’t a million miles away from ‘egg and chips’.  No wonder I like it.

Take your time.  Fry gently.  You want the potato to be completely cooked through but with no colour.  Don’t rush it.

When the first batch is done, lift out with a slotted spoon and transfer to a sieve set over a bowl.  Then, on with the second.  I fry my potatoes in three batches.  When my third and final batch of potatoes is almost done, I add the finely chopped onion.  Like the potato, it needs to be soft but uncoloured.

Scooping out finely chopped onion is difficult-to-annoying so pour the final batch of potatoes, onion and the hot oil into the sieve.  Be careful!  Really.  Leave to cool in the sieve.  (The longer you leave the potatoes and onions to cool, the stronger the taste of onion you’ll end up with.)

Break the eggs into a large bowl and add a little salt.  I like ½tsp of malden sea salt, but you’ll have to adjust to your salt (because they are not equally ‘salty’) and palate.

When the potatoes are cold enough to touch they can be added to the egg.  Empty the sieve contents into the large bowl of beaten eggs.

Stir together – gently.  The cooked potato slices are at risk of breaking up if you’re too heavy handed.

Use a small frying pan.  Mine is 20cm, which is a little under 8 inches.  Don’t go larger than 24cm or you’ll have trouble ‘flipping’ and a traditional Spanish Tortilla is deeper than an Italian frittata.  Aim for the potato/egg mix to reach the lip of the frying pan.  Press down.  The potato should be tucked beneath the egg.

When the edges of the tortilla have started to ‘set’, cover loosely.  My milk saucepan has a lid which does the job nicely, plus it has a see-through lid.  That’s useful.  Cook over a gentle heat until the top of the tortilla has set.  As in, very little runny egg left.  How long is a bit difficult to say as it will depend on how high a heat you’re cooking over.  Don’t rush it.  Keep the heat low as that will stop the bottom catching before the top is set.

Getting ready to flip.  Just loosen the edges with a spatula.

Then place a clean plate over the top.  It’s easier if it’s significantly larger than the frying pan.  Until you’re confident it might make sense if you do it over the sink, but it’s really not difficult.  Just do it.

The flipped tortilla has a little bit of juice.  Try and save that.  Put a little bit of the oil in the frying pan and tip in the juices.  Then ease the tortilla back into the frying pan.

Now what was the top is the bottom and the bottom is the top.  Again a low low heat.  Over cooked egg has the texture of leather.  Keep the whole thing moist.

When the underside is set, it’s time to tip it back out.  Even if you’re serving your Tortilla Española warm, give it 10 minutes to settle before you cut it.

If you’re channelling a Spanish vibe you might want to cut into cubes, pierce each one with a cocktail stick and serve with chilled sherry.  But, for a busy Friday night supper, I made three tortillas, served them cold and cut into slices.  I love this with a simple Spanish tomato sauce (Sofrito) and a green salad.

Eat.

Tortilla Española

Makes 20cm tortilla.

• 4 medium potatoes (between 700g-750g), peeled.
• olive oil for frying
• 1 small spanish onion, finely chopped
• 4 large eggs
• ½ teaspoon of malden sea salt

Slice or cube the potatoes.  In a large frying pan, heat enough oil to fry the potatoes.  Fry in batches, over a low heat, until the potato is completely soft and showing no colour.  As each batch is cooked,  lift out the potatoes with a slotted spoon and transfer to a sieve placed over a bowl.  When the final batch of potatoes is almost soft, add the finely chopped onions.  When everything is soft, carefully tip the entire contents of the frying pan into the sieve.  (The oil can be re-used.)  Leave the potatoes to cool.

Break the eggs into a bowl and add the salt.  Lightly beat together.  Add the potatoes and onion and gently stir.

Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a 20cm frying pan and tip in the potato and egg mixture.  Use the back of a spatula to make sure all the potato is covered with egg.  Fry over a low heat.  When the edges start to set, loosely cover with a a lid.   Fry until the top has almost set.

Cover with a large clean plate – and flip.

Add another tablespoon of oil to the frying pan.  Tip the ‘juices’ from the plate into frying pan and gently ease the tortilla back into the skillet.  Fry gently until the underside is coloured.  Keep everything moist.

Tip out onto a plate.  Leave to cool for 10 minutes before cutting.  Serve warm or cold.

Eat.

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We’re in the second week of tennis at Wimbledon.  I can’t in all honesty say it’s something I really get involved with other than I notice it’s all that’s on the BBC.  I suspect it’s the scars of my childhood – my mum, sporty to the core, followed avidly from Queens onwards and I found it very annoying.

On the other hand, I’m very fond of strawberries which seems to be inextricably linked with the event.  And cream.  And love a glass of Pimms.  Or two.

I read the other day that Pimms is now hopelessly uncool.  Since I turned fifty on Tuesday I’m mentally preparing myself, as Jenny Joseph’s poem suggests, for the wearing of purple and the spending of my pension on brandy.  I’m starting with drinking Pimm’s without shame and reclaiming the ice lolly.  It was a short step to my putting the two together.

Why should the children have all the fun?  Grown-ups need ice lollies, too.

These three strawberry specimens are mine.  Mine, in that I grew them.  I would like you to know I treat all my strawberries with an equal lack of attention and have absolutely no idea why they show such individuality.  When they’re particularly small they are very ‘seedy’ and this is a brilliant way of making sure they don’t go to waste.

Chop the strawberries into pieces and let the lemonade go flat.

Put the chopped strawberries in a blender and some mint leaves.  For some reason I’m growing micro mint and I used a couple of sprigs.  If you have a usual sized mint leaf – about 8.

Give it a whiz.

Pass the purée through a fine sieve to remove the pips.

Then add the flat lemonade.

Pimm’s!  Don’t go overboard.  Too much alcohol will stop the lolly freezing well.

The sugar …

Reduce that at your peril.  Sugar is a lubricant between the ice crystals.  Not sure I entirely understand what’s going on, but it’s how you get a smooth lolly.  Stir until all graininess has disappeared and then transfer to a jug.

Pour into your ice lolly moulds.  Mine don’t have a top, so I freeze for an hour before I try and insert the lolly stick.

(You can use any freezable container – paper cups, yoghurt pots …  The only thing you should watch out for is that the top is wider than the base or you’ll meet with disaster when you try and unmould it.)

After that initial freeze, I cover the mould with tin foil and push the lolly stick in.  The foil just gives the stick a little more support.

When it comes to unmoulding my lollies, I wrap a warm tea-towel around the mould to loosen the lolly.  Being as mine are silicone, I then push up from the bottom.

Eat.

Pimm’s and Strawberry Ice Lollies

10 x 80ml lollies

• 500g/1lb 2oz strawberries, hulled and cut into pieces
• 8 large mint leaves
• 50ml/2fl oz Pimm’s
• 250ml/9fl oz lemonade
• 100g/4oz caster sugar

Measure out the lemonade and allow to go flat.

Put the strawberries and the mint leaves in a blender and whiz to a purée.  Sieve to remove all the pips.

Add the lemonade, the Pimm’s and the sugar to the smooth strawberry purée.  Stir until the sugar has dissolved, then transfer to a jug.

Pour the mixture into the ice lolly moulds and freeze overnight.

If using a lolly mould without a lid, freeze for an initial hour before inserting a stick.  Foil placed over the top will give the lolly sticks more support.

To serve, wrap the mould in a warm tea-towel until the lolly has loosened.

Eat.

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This is just one of many, many tomato salads I make over the course the summer.  I love them.  It probably has something to do with the Sunday afternoon trips down my Grandad Dowton’s crazy paved garden path to pick tomatoes from his greenhouse.  Always supervised.  (It wasn’t, you must know, the kind of garden you were allowed to play in.  Wide flower beds were planted, Victorian style, with high maintenance bedding plants all lovingly raised from seed.)

I loved that strong, sweet smell of summer as you opened the greenhouse door.  Then, my brother and I would giggle over the irregular shaped ones before being given a warm tomato each to eat on the way back to the kitchen.

This Greek-Style Tomato Salad isn’t anything my grandparents would have served.  I’m not sure if they ever tasted feta cheese and I’m certain they didn’t eat olives.

When you think about it they wouldn’t have been brought up on tomatoes.  The Victorians thought they caused illness unless you boiled them into submission.  Tomatoes only became a regular part of the British diet during the food rationing of the Second World War when any source of vitamin C was a good thing.

For all we think we’re so much more sophisticated with our food choices now, supermarkets sell some tasteless tomatoes.  On the vine or off it, they’re picked green and left to ripen.  I’m not convinced it’s worth paying the extra money charged for the on-the-vine sort and am absolutely certain there’s no point buying anything that has been transported miles in refrigerated storage units.

Mine came from a local farmers’ market, but the best tomatoes of all are the ones you grow yourself.  Second best, are the excess garden produce you sometimes see placed on tables by front gates.

Here’s the entire cast of characters of my salad, minus the feta which is still tucked in the fridge.  I made this on 1 July and that was a record breaking warm day and my kitchen is South facing.  It was hot.

The round salad tomato is fine.  Don’t put them in the fridge and store root end down.  I have absolutely no idea why that works, but stem end down keeps them better.  When you come to use them, if there’s any decay you should throw the entire tomato away.  No just cutting off the rotten bit.

For a salad like this, I like the skins off.  Put a saucepan of water on to the boil and cut a shallow cross in the base end of the tomato. You’ll find it easier if you use a serrated knife – a bread knife is fine!

When the water is boiling, pop the tomatoes in for 30 seconds.  1 minute, tops.

Drain, then put the tomatoes into a bowl of cold water.

The skins peel off.

There they are.

Cut into quarters and slice out the core.

Then into bite sized crescents.

Season with sea salt and crushed black peppercorns.  A little sugar will help sweeten if you’re not entirely convinced they’re sufficiently sun-kissed.

Then, cover and leave to ‘settle’ for an hour.  I had a fly in the kitchen and spent the next ten minutes or so darting about the kitchen with a dampened tea towel in my hand.  I got the blighter.

Wash, trim any straggly green bits and chop off the roots.

And slice.

Roughly chop a bunch of flat-leaf parsley.

Some fresh oregano, if you have it.  Just the leaves and roughly chop.

I love olives.  Like Globe Artichokes, I met them in my twenties and thought they were so sophisticated.  Yes, I hated my first olive – but I worked at it.  Now I pop them like sweets.

These are Kalamata olives and I buy them stone in.  You don’t need a fancy olive stoner.  I just cut mine in half and ease any stubborn stones out with the tip of my knife.

When it’s time to serve, start layering everything up.  Add the spring onions.

Parsley, oregano and olives.

Not all feta is equal.  I look for barrel-aged feta made from sheep or goat milk and buy in a block which I store in brine.  (The best feta I’ve ever eaten was made at home by a Greek lady living in London, so under EU rules I’m not even sure she could call it feta.)

If you want to tone down the salty edge, you can soak your feta block in a half milk/half water for an hour.

Crumble in the feta and dried oregano.

Add olive oil, lemon zest and the juice of a lemon.

Give everything a mix.  Eat.

Greek-Style Greek Salad

Serves 8

• 12 ripe tomatoes, skinned
• Sea salt and cracked black peppercorns
• 1 tsp of sugar, optional
• 8 spring onions, including the green ends, finely sliced
• Bunch of fresh flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped
• 2 tablespoons of fresh oregano, leaves only, roughly chopped
• 20 Kalamata Olives, stoned
• 150g/5oz feta cheese
• 4 tablespoons dried oregano
• 12 tablespoons of cold-pressed Greek olive oil
• Grated zest and juice of one unwaxed lemon

Core the tomatoes and cut into bite-sized crescents.  Arrange on a serving plate and sprinkle over sea salt and crushed black peppercorns.  Sugar, if needed.  Cover and leave for 45 minutes – 1 hour.

When you are ready to serve, sprinkle over the chopped spring onions, chopped parsley, chopped oregano, stoned olive and dried oregano.  Crumble over the feta.  Add the lemon zest, olive oil and lemon juice.

Eat.

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Yesterday was a record breaking hot day – and this was lunch.  I made some olive bread and put together a Greek-Style Tomato Salad, too, but I’ll post them next week.  I think I must be thinking ‘Greece’ because the news is so full of scenes from Athens.  Tough times ahead for a lovely country whichever way they vote, I fear.

I love Greek food, but then I love the herbs that predominate in it – oregano, mint, dill, bay leaves, Greek basil, thyme and fennel are the ones that spring to mind.  Being a home cook, I have to use what I can buy.  My oregano is not the evocative rigani, as far as I’m aware.  It’s Bart’s.  Greek basil, I can get.  The bitter salad leaves don’t taste quite as bitter as they do under Greek sunshine, but I probably would balk at so many unnecessary air-miles just to feed my children lunch.

Nothing for it, a visit to Greece is in my future.

In the meantime, we’re coming to the end of the British asparagus season.  I have treated my early spears with utmost respect and I’m now putting them in tarts, wrapping in pancakes and making them into salads.

I picked up a couple of bundles – which was a little over 500g.  There’s a point on an asparagus spear where it’ll snap naturally.  That place marks the end of the fibrous bit and the start of the tender, delicious bit.

(Incidentally, I read something the other day about the English style of eating – and cooking – asparagus.  Apparently, we steam the whole asparagus spear and then use the fibrous bit to hold.  I will confess to eating with my fingers on occasion, but I’m afraid I eat the whole thing and would be irritated to get fibrous bits between my teeth.  Plus, I am inclined to lick my fingers when no-one is looking rather than look for a finger bowl.  I would be more disappointed in myself if the writer didn’t labour under the assumption all households own an asparagus steamer but I have never lived in a household which possessed one.)

If you are aesthetically fastidious, you can neaten up the ends with a knife.  I do that.  Sorry!

My asparagus I would classify as ‘medium’.  What chefs call sprue asparagus (that’s the spindly ones) I’d use for something else.  Fatter asparagus will need peeling.  Just the lower part to make sure what you have in your salad is tender.

Whatever you are left with – pop the snapped off ends and any trimmings in a freezer bag.  That’s asparagus soup in the making.

The asparagus spears I give a rinse under running water and fill a wide saucepan with about 5cm/2″ of water.  Just enough to cover the asparagus in a single layer.  Ish.  You can be a little relaxed about it.

When the water is boiling add a little sea salt.  I season lightly, partly because I’m going to save the asparagus water for soup and that will intensify the salt content and partly because these spears are going in a flavourful dressing.

Simmer for 3 minutes.  It’s almost more of a blanch.  Just tender.  Then drain, reserving the water if you want to make soup.  I put mine in a freezer bag for another day.  Usually, I lay the spears on kitchen paper to dry .. but I’d run out.

And the dressing …

Finely zest one lemon.  Put it and the juice into a bowl.

100ml/3½fl oz of cold-pressed Greek olive oil.  Use one you like the flavour of.

1 teaspoon of dried oregano.

Salt and pepper.  This is such a subjective thing, but I used 2 scant teaspoons of coarse sea salt and crushed 1 teaspoon of black peppercorns in a pestle and mortar.

Give the drained – and still perky – asparagus a toss in the dressing.

Finely chop three shallots and add those.

A small bunch of flat-leaf parsley.  I had to use a small supermarket pot and I used it all.  Roughly chop.  It’s part of the salad so I like to see bits of parsley.

Give everything a light toss and leave it at room temperature for all the flavours to get acquainted.  If you want to leave it longer than an hour, pop into the fridge and bring it back to room temperature before serving.

Eat.

Greek-Style Asparagus Salad

Serves 4-6 as a side.

• 2 bundles of medium asparagus spears (about 500g/1lb)
• Zest and juice of 1 lemon
• 100ml/3½fl oz of cold-pressed Greek olive oil
• 1 teaspoon of dried oregano
• 3 shallots, finely chopped
• small bunch of flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped
• 1 teaspoon of roughly crushed black peppercorns
• Sea-salt, to taste

Snap off the tough ends of the asparagus spears and freeze to use in stocks or soup.  Rinse the spears under running water.

Bring 5cm/2½” of water to a boil in a wide saucepan.  Season lightly and add the spears.  Simmer for 3 minutes, or until the asparagus spears are just tender.  Drain and spread on kitchen towel to dry.

Place the zest and juice of the lemon in a bowl.  Add 100ml/3½fl oz of cold-pressed Greek olive oil, 1 teaspoon of dried oregano and season with salt and crushed black peppercorns.

Lightly toss the asparagus spears in the dressing.

Add the finely chopped shallots and the roughly chopped parsley.  Give everything a final toss and serve at room temperature.

Eat.

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