Cool cucumber soup

Serves 4

8 cucumbers, peeled
a tablespoon of white wine vinegar, or half a lemon, squeezed
a small clove of garlic, crushed
a small white onion, sliced into rings
2 teaspoons of olive oil
sea salt and pepper

Split each cucumber vertically and use a teaspoon to scrape out all the seeds. Chop the remaining flesh into chunks and process to a coarse purée. Pour the whole lot into a saucepan and set over a low heat to bubble and reduce. If you don't have a processor you can just chop the chunks up a bit more and heat them in the saucepan like that - it will just take a little longer to break down. Give the cucumber purée a stir every now and then and check it is not burning. Taste it too - if it tastes grainy and crunchy then it needs more cooking. The cucumber should soften, smooth out and thicken up, this takes about 20 minutes of gentle heat with little bubbles blip-blip-blipping away.

When you think the cucumber is cooked enough, pour it into a blender with the raw onion rings and crushed garlic in the bottom. Add a pinch of salt and pulse then blend into a smooth consistency. If you have one of those blenders where you can take the top off while its blending, then do that and slowly drizzle in first the vinegar or lemon juice and then the olive oil. Taste the soup and adjust the seasoning. It should be a tiny bit more salty than you like as this will lessen as the soup cools. When you are happy with the taste pour the soup into a serving bowl and chill until cold.

To serve, pop an ice cube into each bowl for extra chill (or you could put the soup in the freezer until its just starting to freeze) and ladle over the soup. Scatter torn mint and basil leaves over and serve.

You could eat this with crusty bread, or put some little dishes with chopped chillis, toasted seeds, fried bacon bits or anything else you fancy on the table for people to help themselves.

Marinated cucumbers

I’m back in Tuscany, celebrating a glut of cucumbers and getting reacquainted with flavours that took a backseat during the winter months. Eating here feels like emerging from some kind of taste-hibernation, remembering forgotten pleasures and rediscovering dishes as though meeting old friends. None of the artisan tomatoes from farmers markets in the height of summer in London tasted as richly delicious as the sun drenched examples from Sibilla’s garden. We feast on them every morning, sprinkled with a little red wine vinegar, torn basil and a splash of fruity olive oil. Yesterday there was creamy sheep’s milk ricotta from the dairy to go with our tomatoes. Sitting in the sunshine listening to cicadas I wondered why anyone would ever want to eat anything else.

We used home-grown Italian cucumbers with quite a tough, thick skin and spiky nubbins, so peeling is essential, however if you might decide not to peel yours if their skin is thinner.

Serves four as part of a summer's lunch

3 cucumbers, peeled and sliced into rounds about as thick as a pound coin (roughly half a cm)
One medium sized white onion, peeled and sliced into rings as thick as the cucumber
A generous teaspoon of sea salt
Half a teaspoon of sugar
A small clove of garlic, crushed
Good quality white wine vinegar
Fresh basil and mint
Extra virgin olive oil

Black pepper

Combine the cucumbers and onion rings in a bowl large enough to let you toss and mix around your ingredients. Add the salt and sugar and mix everything up. Taste a piece of cucumber – it should taste a tiny bit too salty. If not add a bit more salt. Add the garlic, toss again, then pour over enough white wine vinegar to just about cover the cucumber. The salt will draw moisture out of the cucumbers and together with the vinegar this will be your marinade.

Cover the bowl with cling film and leave it in the fridge overnight.

The next day, just before you serve the dish, tear up a small handful of basil and mint leaves and scatter them over. Add a good splash of olive oil, grind over some black pepper and give the whole thing one last toss.

The cucumbers are lovely and refreshing eaten on their own, perhaps with a slice of cold roast pork and chilled glass of white wine. Or add them to chopped up tomatoes, and throw in some cubes of dry, stale bread for a more substantial panzanella-style salad.

A jar of Asian pickles, or four

Its taken me a while to post this recipe because the very nature of it is always changing. I have finally realised that, rather than trying to produce the perfect brine immediately, this is something that has to evolve slowly over time, like a personality.

I have been eating pickles all summer long, while watchjng TV, for breakfast, dipped in chilli sauce, rolled into Vietnamese spring rolls, or to add a sour crunch into any recipe. In fact I'm eating them right now.

The beauty is, if you're not happy with the taste of one batch, you can change the seasoning and taste the difference in less than a day. Keep eating and changing the mix and you get a feel for how to achieve what you want. You can experiment with added a sliced fresh chilli, a spoonful of spices, some garlic, or anything else that takes your fancy. I have four jars of pickles now and each one tastes different depending on what I feel like.

You can use any crunchy vegetable. Daikon is my favourite as it soaks up the vinegar quickly, in just a day, and has a lovely crisp crunch and clear taste. I also like carrots although they usually need to sit for a day or two more. I bet you could use any radish, cucumber would be lovely, cabbage of course, just to name a few options. I have been so in love with daikon I haven't wanted to try anything else yet, but I will...umm...soon?

This basic recipe makes enough to fill one 850ml jar.


Ingredients:
300ml rice vinegar
300ml water
2 tbsp Chinese rock sugar
1 tbsp sea salt
400g daikon, peeled and sliced into finger sized sticks
2 tsp rice wine

Combine the vinegar, water, salt and sugar in a pan, cover and heat until all the crystals dissolve. Bring the liquid up to the boil then remove from the heat and allow to cool to room temperature, still covered.

While the liquid cools, put the jar and lid into a big pot of cold water, bring to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes or so to give them a good clean, then drain and allow to cool. Its best not to try pouring in cold liquid when the glass is hot as it could crack.

When everything is back to room temperature, pack the jar loosely with the daikon, add the rice wine and fill it with liquid up to the neck. Make sure all the vegetables are submerged in the vinegar before sealing tightly, then put it in the fridge.

The daikon only needs a day to marinate before it's ready to eat. This is when the fun begins - each time you eat, top the jar up again with more vegetables, taste the brine and add more vinegar, sugar, salt, wine or any other seasonings depending on your tastes.

Over time the pickling liquid takes on some of the characteristics of the vegetables you put it. I have one jar exclusively for daikon, and others are a mix of daikon and carrot. You can also add garlic, spring onion, chillis, Sichuan pepper, star anise, cinnamon, green peppercorns, or anything else that takes your fancy.

You could try packing the jars while they are hot and pour in hot liquid - this gives the pickles a more translucent appearence, different texture and stronger flavour. I prefer using cold jar, cold vegetables and cold pickling liquid as I find the taste is fresher, more raw.

This method of pickling is perfect if you eat the pickles fairly regularly, and is not meant for long term preservation. The pickles should always be kept in the fridge or they may spoil. Sometimes I find one of my jars tastes a little fizzy - the result of lactic bacteria fermenting the sugar in the liquid. It is not harmful, but if, like me, you don't like the taste, strain the liquid, bring it to the boil, allow to cool and return.