Forever Summer (4 page)

Flavour the vermicelli with the rice vinegar, soy and fish sauces, and then add the chopped herbs, cucumber and spring onions. Mix gently with your hands to try to combine the noodles, herbs and vegetables.

Soak the rice pancakes (again, according to packet instructions) in a shallow bowl of hot water and then lay each one on a tea towel to pat dry. Run a fairly narrow strip of noodle mixture down the middle of the pancake, fold over one half and then carefully roll it up as tightly as you can. Slice each roll into four and then arrange them on a plate.

If you want, pour some soy sauce into a few little bowls for dipping the rolls into as you eat. They are also fabulous with the
Vietnamese dipping sauce
, in the form of the dressing.

Makes 48 rolls.

GINGER-CURED SALMON

I know that suggesting you cure anything sounds as if I am about to get you in a mob cap sitting in a pantry for days on end, but just think marinade: the ingredients and the fridge do all the work. And look at it this way: the steeping, which asks very little of you in the first place, means you then dispense with any actual cooking later.

I suppose this is a tentatively Asian gravadlax, but I think it’s important not to get bogged down in post-hoc definitions. All you need to know is that you end up with fleshy salmon, salty-sweet and infused with the hot breath of ginger, edged aromatically with a grassy green covering of coriander. Eat it finely sliced as it is for a starter, or with a salad and maybe some steamed new potatoes as a light lunch.

1kg salmon fillet, skinned, pin boned and of equal thickness throughout its length

50g fresh ginger, coarsely microplaned (or otherwise minced or grated)

4 tablespoons Maldon salt

4 tablespoons caster sugar

juice of 2 limes

bunch fresh coriander, chopped

Put the salmon into a dish large enough for the fillet to lie flat, skinned side down. Combine the ginger, salt, sugar and lime juice and press it on to the top of the salmon, spreading evenly. Sprinkle over the chopped coriander so that there is a thick layer of dark leafy green.

Cover the dish with clingfilm, weigh the fish down – I just sit three or so unopened cans of tomatoes on top of the clingfilm – and stick it in the fridge for three to five days.

When you want to eat it, just remove your weights and the clingfilm, transfer the lawn-bordered piece of fish to a wooden board and slice across at an angle as thinly as you can manage.

Serves 6–8.

BABY OCTOPUS AND POTATO SALAD

You really need the teensy weensy, almost miniature-sized baby octopus for this, which means you need a fishmonger, and a good one at that, to prepare this. Failing that, just alter the focus a little and buy squid – grown-up ones – and chop them into 3cm slices, cook them for about half the time of the octopus and add a few peas along with the potatoes at the end. But if you can get baby octopus, count yourself fortunate. I love the tender, warm graininess of this; the way the garlicky, chilli, mellow seafood juices ooze their way into the potato. For this reason I use maincrop potatoes, and peel them, but by all means cube waxier-fleshed new potatoes if you are not as greedily keen as I am on all that floury absorbency.

I’ve stipulated marinating the octopus for an hour, but to be honest, the longer the better. A day in the fridge will do it no harm whatsoever.

6 tablespoons olive oil

juice of 2 lemons

2 cloves garlic

1 long red fresh chilli

750g baby octopus

2 large potatoes (approximately 750g total weight), peeled

salt

small bunch fresh parsley, chopped

Get out a dish or, easier, a large freezer bag, and pour in the olive oil, squeeze in the lemon juice, mince in the garlic and deseed and finely chop the chilli and bung that in too. Add the octopus, tie up the bag and squelch so that the octopus gets turned in the marinade, then leave it to steep for at least an hour. Unless you’re giving it a day or so, and it’s not too hot, it’s better to let it marinate out of the fridge.

Cut the peeled potatoes into rough 2cm cubes and boil them in salted water until tender. Heat a wide, heavy-bottomed pan, and tip the octopus into it. Fry for about 5 minutes to colour the octopus a little, pushing them around in the pan as you do so, but don’t worry about adding any more oil at this stage as there will be enough clinging to them from the marinade. Turn the heat down, scrape in what remains of the marinade, then cover the pan and cook slowly until the octopus is beginning to become tender, which will take about 45 minutes though you could optimistically check after 30 minutes. Then add the potatoes and continue cooking, for another 10 minutes or so, by which time the octopus should be soft and tender and the potatoes blurry around the edges and fused flavoursomely into the whole, but not actually disintegrating. Turn into a dish, sprinkle with chopped parsley and leave to get to room temperature before eating.

Serves 4–6.

FLATBREAD PIZZAS

I don’t mean to mislead you with the term pizza: I mean to evoke more the style, the way of eating these, than to invoke the Italian original. I have to say, I also love proper pizza cooked this way, on the barbecue, but in high summer, making up batches of yeasted dough can seem uninviting at the very least. Besides, while shopbought flatbreads are fabulous, prepackaged pizza bases most definitely are not.

These vaguely Eastern Mediterranean versions of pizza are perfect for adding to a full-flown barbecue or to cook in a very hot oven or under a blistering grill to go with drinks any time.

The flatbreads I use here are labelled ‘white bread khobez’ but I don’t see why you can’t substitute any flatbreads you can lay your hands on. Za’atar – or zhatar – is a highly seasoned spice mixture of dried thyme, sumac and sesame (see my
Za’atar Chicken with Fattoush recipe
); halloumi is a hard Greek cheese, squeaky and salty, like edible polystyrene, which is the only way I know how to describe it, and wholly addictive: both are commonly available in supermarkets. These three suggested toppings are merely a start: the method lends itself pretty much to whatever elaboration you like.

I tend to cut these flatbread pizzas into spindly wedges, but leaving them whole is also an option; whatever, they’re best eaten hot straight off the barbecue as they tend to dry out and go splintery once they’re cold, but I’m also aware that this admonition is likely to be an unnecessary one.

for the za’atar flatbread:

1 tablespoon of za’atar

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 flatbread

Mix the spice in the oil, and pour it over the flatbread. Place on a sheet of foil and cook for 2–3 minutes on a hot, preferably lidded, barbecue, in the hot oven or under the grill.

for the halloumi and tomato flatbread:

3 tomatoes, deseeded, roughly chopped

1 flatbread

50g halloumi cheese coarsely crumbled or grated

half a teaspoon dried mint

drizzle olive oil

small handful fresh mint

Spread the tomatoes over the flatbread (again, placed on a foil sheet) and crumble or grate the halloumi over the top. Sprinkle over the dried mint, drizzle with oil and place on the barbecue (or again, cook in a hot oven or grill). Roughly tear the fresh mint and scatter over the hot bread.

for the chilli and coriander flatbread:

1 flatbread

half a teaspoon ground coriander

1 long red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped

1 tablespoon olive oil

small handful fresh coriander, chopped

Place the flatbread on a sheet of foil. Mix the ground coriander and chopped chilli in the oil and spread it over the bread, dibbling and spreading it with your fingers. Cook as above, and once it’s had its couple of minutes and is blistering hot, remove to a plate – or just to your hands – and sprinkle over the fresh coriander.

SQUID SALAD WITH LIME, CORIANDER, MINT AND MIZUNA

OK. First off, don’t worry if the word mizuna means nothing to you. It’s a tenderly peppery Japanese salad leaf, which some greengrocers, and even supermarkets, stock these days, but you can easily use rocket instead.

This is rather different from the
seafood salad
: the tender, pink-tinged baby squid are quickly fried, and then coated in a pungent dressing made simply by puréeing a peeled lime along with some coriander, mint, fish sauce, garlic and sugar in the processor. It makes a wonderful starter to a full-blown summer dinner party, but I love it, with nothing before or after, except perhaps a bit of fruit, when I’ve got a couple of friends coming over for lunch.

500g baby squid (cleaned weight), cut into rings

2–3 tablespoons groundnut oil for frying

salt

for the dressing:

1 (approx. 125g) bunch fresh coriander or mint, or a mixture of both

1 clove garlic, peeled

1–2 tablespoons fish sauce

half a teaspoon caster sugar

1 green finger chilli, deseeded (optional)

1 lime

6 tablespoons groundnut oil

for the salad:

200g mizuna (or rocket) leaves

1 small red onion

Tear the coriander and mint leaves from the stalks, not worrying if a few stalky bits are attached and throw into the food processor along with the garlic, fish sauce and sugar, plus the chilli if you are using it; this is completely up to you and simply depends on whether you want any heat or not. Peel the lime by first cutting off a slice at the ends so that you can make the lime sit on a wooden board and then just cut strips downwards so that peel, and pith, come off cleanly. Add the peeled lime, halved and with the pips removed, to the bowl and process everything until it is a smooth pulp, then drizzle the oil in, down the funnel, with the motor running, to emulsify the sauce. Scrape into a bowl to use later.

Arrange the salad leaves – mizuna or rocket, whichever you’re using – in a bowl or on a large plate. Peel the onion, cut it in half and then slice into very thin half moons and sprinkle them over the greenery.

Slice the baby squid, leaving the tentacles whole, and fry in a large pan with a little groundnut oil; you will have to do this in a couple of batches. Remove the cooked squid to a bowl, sprinkle with salt, then, once you’ve got all cooked and cooled a little, toss in the lime and herb dressing and arrange over the waiting leaves and onions.

Serves 6.