Here are some of our BBQ favourites.
You can griddle these aubergines, grill them or just blitz them in the heat of the barbecue: it's entirely up to you. The point is this: once your slices of aubergine are cooked and cooled, you pile u…
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I love these sweet and meaty quail, conker-shiny in their vaguely Chinesey marinade. As often as not, I grill them rather than barbecue them; even a blitz in a very hot oven will do. The thing is to m…
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Despite the title, this recipe doesn't actually come from New Orleans, but is named in honour of the wonderful pecan trees I admired on a visit there eons ago. I've been making this, or a version of i…
View recipeI made this coleslaw and I ate half of it before the guests came!
This is quick to make, absurdly easy in fact. The strange thing is that it is as easy to eat, even first thing. I can wolf this stuff down.
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This is so simple — scarcely a recipe really — but so good. Unless you get figs straight from the tree they sometimes need the blistering heat of an oven or grill to bring out all their honeyed sweetn…
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There's no other way to put this: these are fruit kebabs. I know how this sounds, but that's not how they taste. These skewer-threaded chunks of pineapple are sprinkled with sugar and blitzed on the b…
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The pomegranate juice mentioned here is out of a bottle, but if you're using out-of-season strawberries, add a squeeze of real juice to steep the berries and replace the mixed seeds with a gloriously…
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There's something about mint juleps that I associate with the deep heat of midsummer. I have to say this association is an entirely literary one: I've never sat in the wilting sun drinking a mint jule…
View recipeI have made this more than once and it is summer heaven. Perfect combination of soft flavours and textures finished with the freshness of mint. Go ahead and try, you won't be disappointed.
This is a bit before my time, but I have vague nursery memories of a friend of my grandmother's making a version of this, which she would serve with a warm sauce made of pineapple juice thickened with…
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I find fresh horseradish easy to come by these days but, if you don't, add the same amount of hot horseradish cream or sauce from a jar for the marinade. If you want to serve lamb skewers alongside, t…
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Although I call this chilli jam, I don't mean by this that it's the sort of thing you'd spread on your toast at breakfast (though smeared inside a bacon sandwich, it could be a real help one hungover…
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I don't think I could write a book that didn't include a recipe for trifle somewhere — and this, I tell you, is the trifle to end all trifles. The shiny black of the berries, the soft whiteness of the…
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This chilli sauce is big — big flavour, big kick, big reward. The name, however, derives from the fact that the recipe was given to me by my brother-in-law, Jim, Jimbo to me, but often known teasingly…
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This is a cinch to make, and easy-easy-easy to eat. If you want to serve it in glasses with rims dipped in sugar and salt, by all means do. But it is so good that, even as someone who is not a committ…
View recipeI love this recipe! I've made it a few times and every person who tries it adores this ice cream! So easy to make and eat ... One of my favourite treats!
It's not hard to think of a pudding that can be made in advance. But mostly the advantage is simply that all the effort is upfront and early. The thing about this recipe is that you do it in advance —…
View recipeI'm not a natural in the kitchen and this was easy to make, tasted indulgent and lovely, and I can't believe I made ice-cream. Thank you Nigella.
Just as with ice cream, the glorious thing about home-made sorbet is that you can make flavours you could never buy in a shop. And the texture is so much better, too: smoother, richer, without all tha…
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A Greek Salad in the summertime is one of those classic dishes that needs no tinkering. And yet, I confess tinkering is just what I have done here. The only substantial alteration I’ve made to the tra…
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I found this salad in a lovely little book — 'a memoir with recipes' — called Apricots on the Nile, by Colette Rossant. And although it sounds a lot of bother blanching and peeling the tomatoes, all i…
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You may have come across Sunblush Tomatoes in delis; these are my homespun version. I halve cherry tomatoes, sprinkle them with herbs, a little salt and a pinch of sugar and drizzle over oil, put in a…
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This tomato salad is all you need for a summer starter. What I do is sit the tomatoes in the sun, uncut, on a flat plate or two, for an hour before I want to make the salad: it takes any chill off the…
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I am convinced that it is when raw that beetroot is at its best, and this recipe offers the most persuasive evidence; I promise you that it is loved even by those who were traumatised by putridly swee…
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This is not the place for in-depth social history, unless you take the view — as I do — that all food is social history, but I do need to provide a bit of provenance. Once upon a time there was Biba,…
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As improbable as it might sound, this combination is utterly fantastic, both savoury and refreshing at the same time. You can pare it down to the essential contrast, and serve no more than a plate of…
View recipeFor more recipes ideas, visit our Summer and Picnic food pages.