Sketches for late summer salads

A dressing for everything, enjoying the last days of relaxed summer dishes

Grilled Shishito peppers, fresh peach, jalapeño, torn mozzarella, lime juice and olive oil (I also threw on some mint after I took this photo, cilantro would be delicious too)

I say sketches because at the end of summer you don’t need recipes. It is the best time of the year for eating, cooking is optional, you can pretty much just toss a bunch of in-season ingredients together and they will be delicious. I have essentially been living on a diet of salads made from cheese, fruit, greens and nuts for the past month, the occasional cooked meal thrown in here and there for good measure.

Although at this time of the year I usually just dress everything with a squeeze of lemon juice and olive oil, I have here a recipe for a dressing that goes with pretty much everything. It has finely diced onion (new season is best!) or shallot as well as garlic for punch and a little honey for sweetness and balance. It is especially good with the green beans and hazelnuts as I outline below, but is also great with a salad of delicate greens, sliced peaches, a touch of dill and soft mild goat cheese.

If you can get your paws on some lovely baby leeks, make the classic French leeks vinaigrette. After washing well, simply poach the leeks until perfectly soft and tender, no hint of a crunch, in nicely salted water, then drain and drench in the dressing. Serve on a platter with a boiled egg or two for extra substance.

Good bread will make any salad substantial, either torn up and added to the bowl to soak up all the juice or on the side to pile everything onto as you eat, using your hands to tear it up as you go mopping up all the flavour from your plate!

Salad Bowl of quinoa topped with cabbage dressed in lemon and olive oil, tomato, feta, Japanese eggplant diced and cooked in a pan with salt and olive oil until soft, pistachios, dill and jalapeño. Heaven!

Plum panzanella: a riff on the panzanella I published a few weeks ago omitting the zucchini and cucumber and adding instead plums, ground pistachios and mozzarella (and a few pea shoots and shishito peppers because they were lying around!)

Green beans, Hazelnuts and Vinaigrette; A green salad with peaches, dill and chèvre dressed with the same vinaigrette as the beans! Spaghetti with tomato sauce made from cooked fresh ripe tomatoes, garlic and fresh oregano and plenty of olive oil.