Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
This week I have twice made a huge salad of assorted lettuce, steamed broad beans and raw peas and eaten it with a steak sandwich, its bread spread with a basil butter.
Eaten outside, these have been my favourite meals of the summer so far.
Perhaps this is the point at which we can also offer up a simple supper of roast tomatoes and hand-torn mozzarella; a herb-scented shawarma sandwich (with fresh mint and coriander), or a simple poached chicken breast with a bowl of home-made mayonnaise, and for once feel we have done more than enough.
Too much of our eating is about 'big cooking' rather than putting together a plate that celebrates the naked simplicity of good food: courgettes fried with basil and olive oil; raw peas with halloumi; some slices of smoked hamour; strips of cold roast beef tossed with chopped herbs and mayonnaise; a meringue (bought or home-made) offered with cream and stewed summer fruit.
None of this involves much more than a nod towards the cooker, yet this week in our house such 'recipes' have produced a string of simple meals of sumptuous perfection.
Simple food works best when you have thought about the details.
The inadequacies that might be lost in the brouhaha of a complex recipe are laid bare for all to see when ingredients are served unadorned.
Details that may seem insignificant can signal the difference between the sublime and the merely good.
Such small but essential points as whipping the cream to accompany a meringue only until it sits in undulating folds rather than stands in uptight peaks; leaving a chicken or salmon that you have poached to cool in its cooking liquor to retain as much moisture as possible; breaking mozzarella into rough chunks rather than slicing it for a more interesting texture.
They may be small but crucially they are what will make our summer eating memorable or not.
This is the time of year I add new garlic to the mayonnaise to introduce a Mediterranean note; the point at which I will happily throw a nasturtium or chive flower in the salad without a hint of self-consciousness and top my steak with a butter scented with fresh basil as well as the usual mustard.
It matters to me that the cherries are chilled before being served. Only someone with a heart of stone could fail to be delighted by cherries on their stalks served on a plate of cracked ice on a summer's day.
The work of two minutes, yet an unforgettable sight.
Steak sandwich with garlic and basil butter
Ingredients:
(Serves one)
A 200gm piece of rib-eye or rump steak
Olive oil
A small baguette or piece of ciabatta
For the butter:
50gm butter at room temperature
A little lemon juice
A small garlic clove, peeled and crushed a tsp of smooth Dijon mustard
2 tbsp shredded basil leaves
Method:
Mash the butter, lemon juice, garlic and mustard together. I usually do this with a fork in a small bowl or with a pestle and mortar. Stir in the shredded basil.
Cover a chopping board with clingfilm, lay down the steak, spread it lightly with olive oil then cover it with another piece of film.
Now bat it firmly with a rolling pin - or use a cutlet bat if you have such a thing - until it is really quite thin.
You want it to be less than a centimetre thick - ideally half that. Take great care not to tear the meat.
Get a griddle pan or grill hot. Slice the bread in half lengthwise and toast it briefly (under an overhead grill or on the griddle pan) before spreading it generously with the seasoned butter. Season the steak with black pepper then slap it down on the griddle, cooking it for a minute or two only.
In a perfect world the meat will be lightly charred on the outside, pink and juicy within. Season the steak with salt, then immediately sandwich it in the baguette, cutting it to fit where necessary - the hot meat will melt the garlic and basil butter.
