If you want menu inspiration for an alfresco feast, where do you turn? To Italy, of course. Or if not to Italy, then to two of the best exponents of relaxed Italian-style cooking: Angela Hartnett and Luke Holder. Hartnett has a Michelin star for her formal Italian cooking at Murano in London, of course, and Holder trained at Enoteca Pinchiorri, a three-Michelin-star institution in Florence, but working alongside one another they bring a more easy-going style of cooking to Lime Wood hotel in the New Forest.
In summer that style becomes even more relaxed with their monthly outdoor Forest Kitchen lunches. Think large sharing plates of fish, meat and sides laid down the centre of the table and prepared in conjunction with their chef friends, who include Valentine Warner, Julius Roberts and Tom Brown.
“We’re not trying to get three Michelin stars here, we just want everyone to have a really relaxed, fun Sunday afternoon,” Hartnett says.
“The food in Italy lends itself very well to that,” Holder says. “When you travel, some of the best meals are when you rent a house with family and friends, and you all go to the market and buy a few bits and pieces and come back and open a bottle of something and start sipping away while cooking over the coals and wood, and leave everyone to help themselves. I think you just want a main protein that you can centre the meal around, then some sort of carbohydrate and a few seasonal side dishes.”
“We’ve just been away together in Majorca,” Hartnett says, “and we picked up a couple of red mullet and had them barbecued with some grilled asparagus, a little tomato salad and sliced red onions with green chilli and olive oil and lime. It was wonderful.”
The chefs host monthly outdoor Forest Kitchen lunches
HARRY ANDERSON
Pudding was simply a bowl of fresh nectarines. “I think, ultimately, chefs are just middlemen between great producers and great guests. We can sometimes get a little bit self-important, thinking that we’re all wizards, but you know, there’s nothing greater than a ripe fig,” Holder adds.
That’s all very well in the Med, with its fantastic fruit and vegetables, but how do you make imported ingredients sing?
“The key thing for any home cook is to use acidity in with their seasoning,” Holder says. “Salt and acid, whether that’s lemon juice, lime juice or good quality vinegar. That’s the secret.”
• Three quick spaghetti recipes
To that tool kit he would add good olive oil, anchovies and parmesan. “Those things are always worth the money, no matter what you pay,” he says. “They help you to create an umami tsunami. If you put tomatoes, whether good quality Isle of Wight ones or under-ripe supermarket ones, on a plate with salt, good oil and vinegar, and top it with anchovies or parmesan, it’s pretty difficult not to sit there and go, ‘This is delicious.’ You’re sort of preprogrammed to just enjoy the mouthfeel of it all.”
Whatever you make, there’s no need to overcomplicate things. “The great thing about barbecuing is that a lot of things, but especially meat, lend themselves to being cooked a little further than you probably would normally, so don’t be afraid of that,” Hartnett says. “Again, use that acidity. When they’re cooking beef particularly, but also pork or chicken, the Italians will finish them with a squeeze of lemon right at the very end.”
Another favourite is grilled whole fish, such as a large sea bass, which will feed up to eight people. In Italy they like to butterfly it to open it out like a kipper (any fishmonger will do this for you).
Serve grilled whole fish with lemon
GETTY IMAGES
“The key rule for cooking fish and it not sticking is temperature and moisture,” Hartnett says. “Make sure your fire is hot, that you take your fish out of the fridge at least 30 minutes before cooking and that you dry the skin with kitchen paper so it is as dry as possible. You don’t need to use much oil — oil won’t prevent it from sticking but the combination of temperature and a dry skin will.” You season the flesh side, not the skin side, and cook it about three or four inches above the white hot embers. The skin should blister and, once it is three quarters cooked, after about ten minutes, turn it over. That’s when you dress the skin with plenty of oil and lemon before leaving it to rest for five minutes.
For carbohydrates to go with either this or a meat course, they are fans of an outdoor risotto. “Well, I guess it’s really paella because you don’t stir it,” Holder admits. He starts by softening onions in oil in a pan, then adds the rice and blended-up tomatoes, a touch of saffron, and allows it to cook down. “Then, if you are feeling bold, finish it with good quality anchovies and a little lick of parmesan over the top,” he says. Don’t forget to scrape the pan. The burnt bit on the bottom, known as the socarrat, is the part most prized by Spaniards.
The rule for leaf salads is to make the most of soft summer herbs, such as mint, basil and tarragon, and dress them with a vinaigrette punchy enough to stand up to any charred meat flavours. They suggest two tablespoons of good quality vinegar, a grated clove of garlic, a teaspoon of honey and a big dollop of mustard, then one part water to three parts oil. “Shake it up and you’ll get something really vibrant and that’ll help any salad stand up, however poor or great your barbecuing skills are,” Hartnett says.
• Lime Wood hotel review: a New Forest grande dame at the top of its game
Note the addition of cold water, a chef’s trick that home cooks would do well to adopt. “It makes the vinaigrette much lighter so you can dress rather than suffocate the salad,” Holder says. “It’s the same with mayonnaise and hollandaise. It makes it much less gloopy and allows the flavour of any herbs that you might add, such as mint or tarragon, really to come through.”
In the absence of nectarines straight from the tree, they suggest barbecued fruit as a finale. “We did it the other day and at the beginning of the barbecue we took an old sieve, filled it with whole strawberries and let them barbecue slightly, then put them in a pan set higher above the flames and allowed them to macerate,” Holder says. “We served them with a pavlova and charred marshmallows, and added a bit of Sicilian passion fruit at the end to provide a bit of acidity that works really well with the smoke.
“Non-chefs tend to get a little bit worked up about entertaining and they treat it as their chance to show off but I suppose, in a way, when we cook outdoors we give ourselves a bit more of a break,” Holder says. “Yes, the food is important, but it’s only one aspect of the meal. Just make sure you’ve invited people you actually like and everything will go well.
The perfect green saladHerby salad with sweet mustard dressing
The key to making a great salad during the summer is to have a good mix of textures and plenty of garden herbs. Don’t get too caught up with which lettuce leaves to pick — I have suggested a few that we tend to use but whatever you have to hand will do perfectly. This is all about the herbs and the sweet mustard dressing.
Serves 6–8
• Three recipes for light and fresh summer suppers
Ingredients
• 2 heads baby gem lettuce
• 1 head Cos lettuce
• 2 heads butter lettuce
• 2 heads oak leaf lettuce (ideally one green, one red)
• 1 small bunch of rocket
• Handful of lamb’s lettuce
• Large handful of pea shoots
• Half a bunch each of tarragon, mint, lemon balm, chervil, oregano, dill and flat leaf parsley
For the dressing
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
• 70ml rapeseed oil (or plain sunflower oil)
• 40ml water
• 2 tbsp white wine vinegar
• 1 tsp honey
• Pinch of table salt
Method
1. Add all the dressing ingredients together and blitz with a hand blender.
2. Pick all of the salad leaves off the heads, cut the iceberg leaves into chunks and toss with the herbs in a large bowl. Pour over the dressing, mix well and serve.
• Three easy no-cook recipes to make this summer
The dessert to makeGrilled strawberries with sweet ricotta and passion fruit
Serves 6–8
Ingredients
• 150g strawberries per person
• Juice 1 lemon
• 500g ricotta
• 100g mascarpone
• 1 vanilla pod, seeds scraped (we like to use Tahitian beans)
• 100g icing sugar
• 100ml double cream
• 1 passion fruit per person
Method
1. Husk your strawberries and leave whole, placing them in a large metal sieve.
2. Make sure the fire on your barbecue is at the embers stage, then position the sieve directly over the embers (or use the grill). Gently toss and toast the strawberries for about 2 min.
3. Tip the fruit into a large fire-resistant tray (cast iron, metal or terracotta) and squeeze over the lemon juice. Ideally you should leave the tray over the barbecue on a shelf while you cook the rest of the dish.
4. Blend the ricotta, mascarpone, scraped vanilla seeds and icing sugar in a mixer, or hand-whisk until smooth. Do not over-blend because the mix will become wet.
5. Soft-whip the cream and fold into the sweet ricotta, then gently mix.
6. To serve, scoop a large dollop of the warm barbecued strawberries into a bowl, add a generous amount of sweet whipped ricotta, then scoop over the seeds of a passion fruit. Drizzle the remaining strawberry juice on top and enjoy.
• Read more restaurant reviews and recipes from our food experts
The aperitivo to serve
Limoncello spritzIngredients
• 50ml limoncello
• Juice ½ lemon (25ml)
• 20ml sugar syrup (the 1:1 version, if buying)
Method
Mix the ingredients in the glass and top up with good-quality tonic water.
Lime Wood’s Forest Kitchen pop-up with Angela Hartnett and Luke Holder plus special guests begins on June 8. Price £160 to include nibbles and aperitif plus four-course lunch. limewoodhotel.co.uk