With the end of summer holidays on the horizon, and back to work for many, perhaps there is time for one last glorious day at the beach. Make it a party. Avoid the fast food stalls. Don’t think about going home to eat.
Instead, plan a portable feast and give the cool box, ice blocks, Thermos flasks and beach blanket one last outing. Instead of sandwiches and hot dogs, plan something a little more elaborate and invite your friends for a late summer party.
A chilled soup is both satisfying and thirst-quenching on a hot day, and at this time of year it makes sense to use some of the wide variety of ripe fruit and vegetables available, and use them raw, not cooked. Gazpacho is the blueprint to use, bearing in mind that apart from the classic version with tomatoes, peppers and cucumber, southern Spain has a rich repertoire of these wonderful soups.
Almonds make the gazpacho famed in Cordoba. Beans are used in another version, while green melon and ham was a version developed by young Spanish chefs a decade or so ago. More recently, at the excellent Cafe de Paris in Malaga, I tasted a strawberry and tomato gazpacho.
This summer, I have been using ripe orange-fleshed melons with carrots, and giving the soup an extra punch with a grating of fresh ginger. Other combinations to consider might be carrot and peach, fennel and apple, tomato and watermelon, cucumber, mint and green melon. The most successful soups are those where the fruit and vegetable are complementary rather than hugely contrasting in flavour. And, of course, the colours must be similar. Otherwise, if you cross a green vegetable with a red fruit, you finish up with a dull and muddy-looking soup.
Some early morning baking will provide an unusual savoury centrepiece for your picnic if you want a change from cold roast chicken. Bread loaves and rolls have long been used as containers; chilli con carne or black bean soup served in large sourdough rolls are a staple of casual outdoor eating in the US. Elegant crustless sandwiches are packed back into the loaf from which they were cut and served just so.
For receptions at the Sloane Club in London, the chef prepares miniature honey-glazed sausages and serves them in a hollowed-out cottage loaf accompanied by a mustard dip. Here, I bake a quiche-like filling in a hollowed-out round loaf.
It looks and smells wonderful, is sturdy enough for transporting and is not as rich as a pastry-based savoury custard tart.
Fruit again ends the picnic, this time in sweet wine, either single fruit or a fruit salad mixture. For a non-alcoholic version, use pear or white grape juice to macerate the fruit.
For an even simpler dessert, consider a basket of strawberries. Pile a leaf-lined basket with strawberries interspersed with sprigs of mint. Carry, in two separate jars, light muscovado sugar and thick cream for dipping.
It will not have escaped your attention that all these recipes will be just as good for a Sunday lunch at home or in the garden. And with no sand in the soup.
Melon and carrot gazpacho with ginger
2 ripe canteloupe or charentais melons
4 or 5 medium to large carrots, scrubbed and/or peeled
2cm piece fresh ginger
Half to 1 tsp Gozo salt
50ml extra virgin olive oil
1-2 tbsps sherry vinegar
2 tbsps ground almonds
6 ice cubes
For this recipe, a sturdy blender and/or juicer are useful. Set a sieve over the open top of your blender.
Halve the melon and scoop the seeds into the sieve and rub the juice through, discarding the seeds.
If you have a juicer, juice the carrots and the ginger and put the juice in the blender. If not, roughly chop the carrots and ginger and put in the blender.
Scoop out the melon flesh and place in the blender together with the olive oil and sherry vinegar. Traditionally, gazpacho is thickened with soft breadcrumbs, but I like to use ground almonds.
Add the ice cubes to the blender and, starting on a low speed to crush the ice, gradually blend everything until smooth.
Sieve or not, as you please, and for a picnic, pour into a large Thermos flask to keep it cold. Otherwise, transfer to a glass jug or other suitable container and refrigerate until ready to serve. Toasted flaked almonds can be used to garnish. If the soup is very thick, you may want to stir in a little iced water.
Herb and blue cheese picnic loaf
(Serves 6)
2 large mild onions, peeled and finely sliced
50ml extra virgin olive oil
1 large ħobża
2 or 3 garlic cloves, peeled
2 tbsps pesto
200g pecorino, coarsely grated
100g soft goats’ cheese, crumbled
3 eggs
125ml cream
125ml milk
3 tbsps herbs, finely chopped, including chives, parsley, sage and thyme
The first thing to do, because they take so long, is to sweat the onions in the olive oil until soft and beginning to turn golden brown, but take care not to burn them and stir frequently. Drain any liquid from the onions into a jug.
Slice across the loaf to remove the top third. Pull out as much as you can of the soft middle of the remaining two-thirds and use in another recipe, such as bread and tomato salad, or for thickening a classic gazpacho. What you are left with is a crusty bowl.
Bake it for 10 minutes at 180˚C and allow it to cool on a wire rack. When it is no longer too hot to touch, rub the garlic cloves all over the interior and then smear with the pesto or other flavouring, using the back of a teaspoon.
Put the loaf on a lined baking sheet. Distribute the cheese over the base of the bread bowl and spread the onions over the cheese. Beat the eggs, cream and milk together with any onion juice and stir in the herbs.
Pour a third of the custard into the crust and let it settle for a couple of minutes before adding half the remaining liquid, and then the rest of the liquid after a couple more minutes.
Bake at 180˚C for 10 minutes, then turn the oven down to 170˚C and bake for 30 to 35 minutes until the custard is set.
It may take as long as 45 minutes, depending on the depth of the custard. This is a much deeper container than the standard quiche dish.
Let it cool for 45 minutes or so before serving. Like any quiche or custard tart, this is best served at room temperature. If you are taking it on a picnic, allow to cool completely before wrapping tightly in foil and placing in a refrigerated container. Remember to take it out 20 minutes or so before serving and cut into wedges.
Cook’s note: This would be excellent made with ġbejniet, but it is the wrong season for buying them fresh from the farmers. You could also use ricotta and Parmesan or blue cheese. And a non-vegetarian version might see you adding diced pancetta or chorizo. Instead of pesto, you can spread the interior of the loaf with Dijon mustard, kunserva, tapenade or sun-dried tomato paste.
Summer fruit in sweet wine
(Serves 6)
750g ripe apricots, peaches or nectarines, cherries, raspberries, blueberries or seedless red grapes in any combination
375ml Monbazillac, moscatel or another sweet white wine
Prepare this a few hours before required. Halve the apricots, slice the peaches or nectarines and stone the cherries.
Put the fruit in a large preserving jar, cover with the wine, seal the jar and refrigerate. Remember to take long forks or skewers to spear the fruit – fondue forks are ideal.