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The taste of sunshine

Top chefs from home and abroad share their favourite hot weather recipes.

Dani Valent
Dani Valent

Fruit burner: Yotam Ottolenghi loves to see stonefruit on the barbecue.
Fruit burner: Yotam Ottolenghi loves to see stonefruit on the barbecue.New York Times

The best summer meals feel like you're eating sunshine, captured in the massive flavours and rollicking colours of seasonal produce.

Summer cooking is about easy, expressive dishes that wouldn't know fussy if they fell over it. It's also about finding time to relax with favourite recipes and, perhaps, try a few new dishes that slap summer on a platter, plate or, as the case may be, a piece of warmed pita bread.

YOTAM OTTOLENGHI

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Israel-born and London-based Yotam Ottolenghi's vibrant, accessible approach to Middle Eastern cooking has made his recipes favourites around the world, especially when thoughts turn to shared tables, interesting ways with vegetables and, in my case, double chocolate fudge cake.

"I'm not the first to dust down the picnic blanket or light the barbecue but I love to chargrill," he says. "Whether it's slices of butternut squash, giant prawns or peaches, apricots and figs: those chargrill lines herald the arrival of sunny days for me."

We don't often think of throwing fruit on our Australian barbecues but Ottolenghi has a tip on how to dress up stonefruit. "A simple peach or nectarine can become a celebration of summer. Scent some plain yoghurt with orange blossom water or geranium water and swirl through some floral honey to drizzle over the grilled fruit."

Yotam Ottolenghi's latest cookbook, <I>Jerusalem</I>.
Yotam Ottolenghi's latest cookbook, Jerusalem.Supplied

Sometimes one simple addition is all it takes to say summer. "Lemon features in a lot of my summer cooking," he says. "The long peeled zest of a lemon often makes its way into my soups as they are cooking, removed before the soup is blended. I love to roast thin slices of lemon in the oven as well: they are wonderful in a sweet tomato or fregola salad."

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And while he shivers in London, does Ottolenghi have any tips for us to make the most of our Australian summer? "Enjoy the ease with which you can get hold of verjuice: it's really hard to find in the UK."

Na'ama's fattoush

Arab salad, chopped salad, Israeli salad – whatever you choose to call it, there is no escaping it. Wherever you go in the city, at any time of the day, a Jerusalemite is most likely to have a plate of freshly chopped vegetables — tomato, cucumber and onion, dressed with olive oil and lemon juice — served next to whatever else they are eating.

There are plenty of variations on the chopped salad but one of the most popular is fattoush, an Arab salad that uses grilled or fried leftover pita. Other possible additions include peppers, radishes, lettuce, chilli, mint, parsley, coriander, allspice, cinnamon and sumac.

Each cook, each family, each community has their own variation. A small bone of contention is the size of the dice. Some advocate the tiniest of pieces, only a few millimetres wide, others like them coarser, up to two centimetres wide. The one thing that there is no arguing over is that the key lies in the quality of the vegetables. They must be fresh, ripe and flavoursome, with many hours in the sun behind them.

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This fabulous salad is probably (business partner) Sami's mother's creation; Sami can't recall anyone else in the neighbourhood making it. She called it fattoush, which is only true to the extent that it includes chopped vegetables and bread. She added a kind of homemade buttermilk and didn't fry her bread, which makes it terribly comforting.

Try to get small cucumbers for this as for any other fresh salad. You could skip the fermentation stage and use buttermilk instead of the combination of milk and yoghurt.

200g Greek yoghurt and 200ml full-fat milk or 400ml buttermilk (replacing both yoghurt and milk)
2 large stale Turkish flatbread or naan (250g in total)
3 large tomatoes (380g in total), cut into 1.5cm dice
100g radishes, thinly sliced
3 Lebanese or mini cucumbers (250g in total), peeled and chopped into 1.5cm dice
2 spring onions, thinly sliced
15g fresh mint
25g flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped
1 tbsp dried mint
2 garlic cloves, crushed
3 tbsp lemon juice
60ml olive oil, plus extra to drizzle
2 tbsp cider or white wine vinegar
¾ tsp coarsely ground black pepper
1½ tsp salt
1 tbsp sumac or more according to taste, to garnish

If using yoghurt and milk, start at least three hours and up to a day in advance by placing both in a bowl. Whisk well and leave in a cool place or in the fridge until bubbles form on the surface. What you get is a kind of homemade buttermilk, but less sour.

Tear the bread into bite-size pieces and place in a large mixing bowl. Add your fermented yoghurt mixture or commercial buttermilk, followed by the rest of the ingredients, mix well and leave for 10 minutes for all the flavours to combine.

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Spoon the fattoush into serving bowls, drizzle with some olive oil and garnish generously with sumac.

Serves 6

Extracted from Jerusalem, by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi (Ebury Press $49.95). Photography: Jonathan Lovekin.


ANNA HANSEN

Chef patron of The Modern Pantry in London, Anna Hansen grew up in New Zealand and spent a year in Melbourne cooking with Stephanie Alexander, so she knows a thing or two about the southern hemisphere swelter.

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"The summer months in Australia are full to bursting with an abundance of wonderful produce, ingredients that are vibrant and colourful and ones that can stand up to spices and bold flavours," she says.

Right now, Hansen is roasting chestnuts and braising red cabbage in the depths of a London winter but she's happy to recall summers past. "In hot weather, I like to keep dishes simple, allowing the ingredients to speak for themselves. Keeping some ingredients in their natural state – raw – is often the best way to enjoy them, perhaps by marinating fish to make ceviche for lunch on a hot day."

On the other hand, summer flavours can be captured through slow cooking, as with this seafood recipe below.

Salad of slow-cooked octopus with confit artichoke hearts

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I learned this wonderful Italian technique for cooking octopus from Giorgio Locatelli's brilliant book, Made in Italy: Food and Stories (Fourth Estate, 2006).

We had this dish on our opening menu at The Modern Pantry and it remains a real favourite, yielding a delicately flavoured, firm yet giving meat, with accompanying juices which jellify when left in a cool place. The juices are oh-so-delicious when greedily kept to one side and then later blobbed on to warm, garlicky toast.

The key to success is in the title: "slow-cooked". Remain true to that, and this technique will never let you down. I prefer to serve the octopus at room temperature, so I take it out of the fridge 30 minutes before I plan to serve it. Chill or heat the octopus as you so desire.

OCTOPUS
1 x 1.5kg octopus, thoroughly rinsed and patted dry (frozen is fine but be sure to defrost it fully before cooking)
5 garlic cloves, crushed
2 large red chillies, split lengthways
4 star anise
bunch parsley stalks, roughly chopped
125ml extra virgin olive oil

TO SERVE
3 confit artichoke hearts (that is, preserved in olive oil), each cut into six wedges
175g goats' curd
400g podded broad beans, blanched, refreshed in cold water, then slipped out of their skins
2 bunches sorrel, shredded (or use baby spinach)
2 punnets pea shoots
1 lemon, cut into six wedges

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Place the octopus in a snugly fitting pan with a lid. Scatter all the remaining ingredients around and about, give the pan a good shake, then cover with the lid and turn the heat on low. It should never create more than a gentle simmer.

Leave to bubble away gently for 30 minutes or so, then check how it is getting on. Continue to cook for 5-10 minutes, until just tender, checking every so often to ensure that it does not become overdone.

When cooked, take the pan off the heat, remove the lid and leave to cool, then remove the octopus from its juices and store in a container in the fridge until ready to use.

Strain the juices through a fine sieve and refrigerate.

To serve, cut the octopus tentacles into generous-sized chunks.

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Gently layer the octopus, wedges of artichoke, goats' curd, broad beans, sorrel and pea shoots on a serving dish.

Blob the now-jellified octopus juices around and serve immediately with the lemon wedges.

Serves 6


GEORGE CALOMBARIS

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George Calombaris takes a classic Greek wrap – the souvlaki – and glams it up with deluxe seafood. Marron is a medium-sized crayfish native to West Australia. The tails are often sold frozen in eastern Australia. Defrost them in the refrigerator before blanching in plenty of boiling water for a couple of minutes. The shell comes away easily from the body (you can snip the underside with scissors to get started if needed).

This recipe also works wonderfully with prawns. Cheat with bought mayonnaise if you like: spark it up by whisking with Dijon mustard and lemon juice.

Marron souvlaki with pickled cucumber

MARRON
50g olive oil
1 lemon, zest only
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
4 marron tails, blanched and shelled

Stir the olive oil, lemon zest and garlic together in a small bowl. Add the blanched, shelled marron tails and marinate for an hour.

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PICKLED CUCUMBER
50g chardonnay vinegar
10g sugar
1 star anise
2 peppercorns
150g Qukes (baby cucumbers), peeled and left whole

In a small saucepan, bring the vinegar, sugar, star anise and peppercorns to a gentle boil, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Set aside in the refrigerator to chill. Strain the liquid through a sieve and pour over the cucumber, then cover and refrigerate for 6-12 hours to infuse the cucumber. To serve, strain cucumber, discarding liquid and cut into batons.

MAYONNAISE
2 eggs
15g Dijon mustard
1 lemon, juiced and finely zested
1 clove garlic
salt and pepper to taste
300g extra light olive oil

In a blender, combine all ingredients except olive oil. While mixing, slowly add the oil until the consistency is thick. Adjust seasoning to taste.

TO SERVE
4 pita breads
¼ bunch dill, leaves picked, washed and dried
¼ bunch parsley, leaves picked, washed and dried
¼ bunch coriander, leaves picked, washed and dried

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When ready to serve, heat a barbecue or grill pan and grill the marron until warmed through. Grill the pita bread until warm and fluffy. Spoon mayonnaise down the centre of each pita bread. Arrange the cucumber, marron and herbs. Roll and serve.

Serves 4

CHUI LEE LUK

Sydney chef Chui Lee Luk’s new restaurant Chow Bar and Eating House puts a contemporary spin on Chinese food. Her cold chicken dish is simple to eat but the cooking method ensures it keeps on giving through layers of flavour in both the chicken and the slippery noodles with their enigmatic black dressing.

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Salt-baked chicken and summer noodles

CHICKEN MARINADE
2 teaspoons peanut oil
3 garlic cloves, smashed
4 shallots, roughly chopped and bruised
4cm piece ginger, roughly chopped and bruised
2 tablespoons dry sherry
2 tablespoons light soy sauce
100ml light chicken stock
4 coriander stems
2kg whole chicken

Make a marinade by heating the peanut oil in a frying pan over high heat. Add the garlic, spring onions and ginger. Stir-fry until fragrant and wilted. Add the sherry, fry for a few seconds then add the soy sauce, chicken stock and coriander stems. Cool marinade before proceeding.
Carefully fill the cavity of the chicken with the marinade. Sew or skewer shut any openings, then sit the chicken, covered with a cloth, in a cool place for about 2 hours.

SPICED SALT
3kg rock salt
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
2 star anise, roughly crushed
3 cloves, roughly crushed
1 teaspoon Sichuan peppercorns
2 teaspoons coriander seeds
4cm piece cassia bark, roughly crushed
1 large piece (about 200 grams) caul fat (to wrap chicken)

Preheat the oven to 180C. Put the rock salt in a Dutch oven or similar ovenproof dish that is big enough to hold all the salt plus the chicken. Put the salt in the dish and place in the oven, uncovered, for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

Add the fennel seeds, star anise, close, Sichuan peppercorns, coriander seeds and cassia bark to the pot and return it to the oven for 10 minutes so the salt becomes fragrant. Remove one third of the salt to use as a covering and make a deep cavity in the remaining salt.

Wrap the chicken up well with the caul fat and sit it in the nest of salt. Pour the remaining salt back in to totally cover the sides and top of the chicken. Cover the pot and return to the oven for 1 1/2 hours.

Remove the chicken from the salt and brush off all the salt stuck to it. Remove the caul fat. Drain the marinade out of the chicken’s cavity and allow chicken to cool before cutting into serving pieces and serving with summer noodles.

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SUMMER NOODLES
2 garlic cloves
2 shallots
150ml vegetable oil
2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
pinch sugar
few drops sesame oil
50 grams fresh egg noodles per person

First, make garlic and shallot oil. Peel and thinly slice the garlic cloves and shallots. Heat the oil in a small saucepan or wok. Fry the garlic and shallots until golden. Strain the garlic and shallots, retaining oil.

Make a black dressing by mixing 2 tablespoons of the flavoured garlic and shallot oil with the dark soy, light soy, sugar and sesame oil.
Blanch the egg noodles. Drain and toss the hot noodles in the black dressing. Set aside.

TO SERVE
8 tablespoons preserved mustard greens, chopped, available from Asian grocers
coriander sprigs
sliced spring onions
When the chicken has cooled, remove from the bone and slice. Mix the noodles with a few slices of chicken per person, a tablespoon of chopped preserved mustard greens, some sprigs of coriander and sliced spring onions.

Serves 8 (as part of a multiple course meal)

DAVE VERHEUL

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Dave Verheul is chef at Melbourne’s Town Mouse where his delicate desserts display a restrained attitude to sweetness. Sugar is used to highlight and intensify fruit and spice flavours rather than to scream ‘dessert!’ This dish makes the most of cherries: they’re not around for long so should be celebrated while they’re here. It can mostly be prepared ahead of time: have the jelly in the fridge, the sorbet in the freezer and then you’ve only got 10 minutes of berry work before you plate up.

Verjuice jelly, blueberries, cherries, elderflower and cherry sorbet

VERJUICE JELLY
2 gold-strength gelatine sheets
150 grams verjuice
35 grams elderflower syrup (cordial)
60 grams water
1 star anise

Soften the gelatine in cold water until hydrated, then drain and squeeze out any water. Combine the gelatine, verjuice, elderflower syrup, star anise and water in a small pot and warm until the gelatine melts. Take off the heat and leave to infuse for 15 minutes. Strain and pour into a shallow container. Chill until set.

CHERRY SORBET
130 grams water
50 grams glucose syrup
30 grams sugar
65 grams verjuice
250 grams cherries, pitted

Combine the water, glucose and sugar in a small pot and warm until sugar has dissolved. Combine sugar solution, verjuice and cherries in a blender and blend until smooth. Chill for 2 hours and then churn in an ice cream machine. Alternatively, pour the mix into a sturdy, shallow container, place in the freezer and stir every 30 minutes until frozen.

TO SERVE
24 cherries, pitted
2 punnets blueberries
6 strawberries, diced
20 grams sugar
elderflowers, optional
purple basil leaves

Cut the cherries in half and toss with the blueberries, strawberries and the sugar. Leave to macerate for 10 minutes. Divide the jelly into 6 and scoop onto serving plates. Arrange the berry mixture around the jelly. Place the basil leaves on top and scatter the elderflowers around. Scoop cherry sorbet onto each plate.

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Serves 6

DANI VALENT

I do not put myself in the same company as the chefs above but I do think this salad is a pretty good, wholesome way to get a face full of summer.

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Gleaming leek and grain salad

Grain salads are great side dishes for barbecues but they make easy, complete summer meals too. They’re endlessly adaptable. Leave the burgul out for a gluten-free version. Walnuts, pistachio and pine nuts sub nicely for the almonds. Radicchio is great instead of (or as well as) the silverbeet. Persian feta or chevre can be used in place of haloumi. Leek and butter are firm friends and I love sneaking butter into salads for a summery gleam.

80 grams quinoa
100 grams small green lentils
20 grams chia
80 grams burgul
50 grams olive oil, plus extra for frying haloumi
30 grams sherry or red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon flaked salt, plus extra
40 grams butter
1 large or 2 small leeks, in ½ cm slices
20 raw almonds, roughly chopped
½ teaspoon ground fennel
½ teaspoon ground cumin
6 leaves silverbeet, washed and shredded
½ bunch asparagus, woody ends snapped off
½ lemon
handful mint leaves
cracked black pepper, optional
100 grams haloumi

Mix grains, rinse them and steam for 25 minutes or until cooked but still toothsome. (If your steamer compartment has large holes, line it with baking paper to prevent losing grains through the holes). Tip cooked grains into a large bowl and, while still warm, toss with olive oil, vinegar and flaked salt.

While the grains are cooking, melt the butter in a large saute pan and add the leek, almonds, fennel and cumin. Add a little salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until leek is almost soft. Add the silverbeet and asparagus and gently saute until wilted and glossy.

Warm a little olive oil in a fry pan. Cut haloumi into strips and fry on both sides until golden. Chop into small pieces.

Add the leek mixture to the grains and gently mix. Squeeze over the lemon juice. Roughly chop the mint and toss through. Check for seasoning and add pepper if desired. Top with haloumi.

Serve warm or at room temperature.

Serves 6

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Dani ValentDani Valent is a food writer and restaurant reviewer.

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