A combination of the warmer weather, dusting off my sunglasses and the impending release of my new book, MEDesque (out on Thursday!), has got me fully focused on sunshine food and Mediterranean flavours. OK, so I’m not quite in rosé-in-the-garden territory just yet, but it’s close. And I am counting down the days. At home, I am leaning heavily on recipes from the queen of all things Med, Claudia Roden, to get my fix. Big hitters such as her bean stew with chorizo and bacon and chicken traybake with olives and boiled lemon deliver on all fronts, and immediately transport me to my favourite region. And gone are cold, slow days spent labouring over a lasagne. Instead, I am gravitating towards lighter pasta dishes such as Georgia Levy’s broccoli and anchovy farfalle, Giorgio Locatelli’s pasta con le sarde (with sardines, anchovies, fennel, raisins and pine nuts) and Yotam Ottolenghi’s straccetti with red mullet, harissa and black olives – all effortless yet flavoursome. If you’re not quite ready to give up on wintry ragu and bolognese just yet, then Anna Tobias’s lamb shanks and orzo are a joy – it’s how many pasta dishes are cooked in the eastern Mediterranean and north Africa, where the pasta is stirred through the meat and absorbs all those juices and flavours. It’s my favourite way to eat pasta.
While I’m not quite ready to eat outdoors, I have started cooking outdoors, and last week I reawakened our wood oven. It was heated out of its winter slumber especially for Greek Orthodox Easter, because my yiayia (grandma) had requested kleftiko for Sunday lunch. Nothing screams summer and Med cooking as much as when I get that wood oven going, and not just for pizzas (although they do taste pretty elite when cooked outdoors). Nigel Slater’s pizette recipes are a great place to start if you are giving homemade pizza a go, and The Ultimate Wood-Fired Oven Cookbook, by Genevieve Taylor, was a bible when we first got acquainted with our new toy. I’m yet to dust off the barbecue, but that will undoubtedly be the next step, and I cannot wait for the smell of perfect pork souvlaki and charred, spiced adana kebabs to waft through the garden.
