Tomato and tapenade tart

The most perfect Provençal-style summer tart from Alex Jackson's evocative book Sardine, named after his former London restaurant

Alex writees: This tart is extremely simple. Given the right tomatoes, it’s a highlight of the summer table. At Sardine, we wait until the heavy, deep-coloured Amalfi bull’s heart tomatoes are in season and throw over some datterini or small plum tomatoes to fill in the gaps. A sprinkling of fragrant basil at the end is essential, as well as a drizzle of your best olive oil. Nyons olives make amazing tapenade, but any soft black olives will do nicely.

Tomato & Tapenade Tart

Makes 1 large tart (enough for 4 people for lunch or lots of small squares for a party)

For the tart:

4 bull’s heart tomatoes

1 x 500-g/1lb 2-oz block of pre-rolled puff pastry

A handful of small Italian plum tomatoes, red and yellow if possible

Olive oil

1 bunch of basil

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the tapenade:

100g/3 1⁄2oz black olives, drained of any brine or oil and pitted

1⁄8 garlic clove, peeled and crushed to a fine paste

1⁄2 tsp picked thyme leaves

1 salted anchovy fillet, washed and patted dry

1 tsp salted capers, soaked well, washed and drained

1 tsp brandy

4 tsp olive oil

1 tsp red wine vinegar

First, slice the bull’s heart tomatoes into thick 1-cm/1⁄2-inch rounds. Transfer to a sieve (strainer) suspended over a bowl and season well with salt. Leave the tomatoes for a good half hour to allow the juices to drip into the bowl. This will prevent your pastry becoming soggy if the tomatoes hold a lot of juice.

To make the tapenade, put all the dry ingredients in a blender. Blitz well.

Add the wet ingredients and blitz further until everything is fully incorporated.

The tapenade should be very smooth.

Preheat the oven to 180°C fan/200°C/400°F/gas mark 6.

Next, roll out – or simply unfurl, if pre-rolled – the pastry to a rectangle to fit your largest, flat, heavy-based baking tray. Cut a rectangle of parchment paper to the same size, then place the pastry on top. Score a 2-cm/3⁄4-inch border all around the edges of the pastry. This pastry border will puff up around the filling.

Put the baking tray (without the pastry) in the oven to pre-heat for 10 minutes.

To assemble the tart, top the pastry inside the scored border with a generous smearing of tapenade. Arrange the sliced tomatoes in a single layer over the tapenade. Halve the small tomatoes, season with salt, and use them to fill any gaps. Drizzle the tart filling with olive oil and grind over some black pepper.

Remove the hot tray from the oven, slide in the tart on the parchment paper and return the tray to the oven. Bake the tart for 30 minutes, or until the pastry borders are puffed and crisp, the base is a light golden brown (lift the tart tentatively with a spatula to check) and the tomatoes are soft, squidgy and just started to take on a little colour.

Remove the tart from the oven, season lightly with a little flaky sea salt and black pepper, and scatter over the torn basil leaves. Allow the tart to cool on its tray, then slice into squares while still just warm. Drizzle with your best olive oil before serving.

What to drink: a Provençal rosé would be the obvious match with this summery tart but you could also enjoy a crisp white like a Vermentino or a Picpoul de Pinet.

Extracted from Sardine: Simple seasonal Provençal cooking by Alex Jackson, published by Pavilion Books. Photograph © Matt Russell

Spiced, Grilled and Swaddled Chicken Thighs with the Works

A great recipe from US food writer Molly Baz's brilliant new cookbook Cook This Book which is full of clever hacks to help you become, as they describe it on the cover, 'a smarter, faster, more creative cook'

Molly writes: I’ve always dreamt of somehow jerry-rigging a shawarma spit setup in my home kitchen. I mean, how amazing would it be to bring the intoxicating scent of spit-roasted meat (if you're a New Yorker, you know – nothing is more delicious than the smells that waft off a shawarma cart) into your home kitchen and to shave off in real time for your guests when you entertain?! Sadly, in a Brooklyn apartment kitchen, that is far from realistic. So when the craving hits, I take things outdoors and make a version of these spiced and griddled chicken thighs, swaddle them in warmed pittas with piles of herbs and pickled onions, and forget, for a second, just how far I am from realising that dream.

Serves 4

PRODUCE

2 medium red onions

5 garlic cloves

2 lemons

1 bunch mint or corianader

DAIRY

420g plain whole-milk yogurt

MEAT

1kg boneless, skinless chicken thighs (about 6 small thighs)

PANTRY

250ml distilled white vinegar

100g sugar

Coarse sea salt

1 tablespoon vegetable oil, plus more for the grill

1 tablespoon sweet smoked paprika

1 tablespoon ground cumin

¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon cayenne pepper

4 pittas

1. Pickle the red onions:

• Slice 2 red onions crosswise into 2mm-thick rings.
• In a small saucepan, heat 250ml white vinegar, 375ml water, 100g sugar and 1 tablespoon salt over medium heat, stirrinq often to dissolve. Once the vinegar mixture comes to a simmer, remove from the heat and immediately add the onions. Let cool to room temperature. The onions can be made up to several days in advance; they only get better with time.

2. Make the garlic yogurt:

• Finely grate 1 garlic clove into a small bowl and stir in 245g plain yogurt. Season with salt and set aside for serving.

3. Marinate the chicken:

• Finely grate 4 garlic cloves into a large bowl.
• Stir in 175g plain yogurt, the juice of 1 lemon, 1 tablespoon vegetable oil, 2½ teaspoons salt, 1 tablespoon smoked paprika, 1 tablespoon cumin, ¾ teaspoon cinnamon and ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper and whisk well to combine.
• Add 1kg boneless, skinless chicken thighs to the marinade and turn to coat. Let sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes white you prepare a barbecue for medium heat (or heat a cast-iron griddle pan over medium heat. If you're going to marinate them longer (which you totes should; they only improve with time), cover and keep chilled in the refrigerator for up to 6 hours and pull them out 30 minutes before cooking.

4. Back to grilling that chicken:

• Once the barbecue is preheated to medium (you should be able to hold your hand over the grate for about 5 seconds before it gets too hot) lightly oil the grill.
• Remove the chicken from the marinade with tongs, letting any excess drip back into the bowl, and transfer it to the grill. Cook, undisturbed, until it's nicely charred underneath and naturally releases from the grates, 5 to 6 minutes. Pay attention to the hot spots of your barbecue or griddle pan, and move the thighs around accordingly to ensure even browning. Flip the thighs and cook until just cooked through, 4 to 7 minutes longer, (An instant-read thermometer should register 75°C in the thickest part of the thigh.) This will vary depending on how large your chicken thighs are, so keep an eye on temperature more than timing in this case! Let the chicken thighs rest on a plate while you grill the pittas.

5. Warm the pittas and serve:

• Warm the pittas on the grill while the chicken rests, about 1 minute per side.
• Cut a lemon into 4 wedges and pick the leaves from 1 bunch of mint.
• Slice the chicken against the grain into 1cm-thick strips and serve on a big platter alongside the pittas, pickled onions, garlic yogurt, lemon wedges and mint for a build-your-own kinda sitch.

What to drink: You can see there are craft beers - possibly alcohol-free - in the pic and that seems a good way to go. Otherwise I'd go for a juicy gamay or other light red. Or a rosé.

Extracted from Cook this Book by Molly Baz published by Robinson at £26. Photograph ©Taylor Peden and Jan Munk.

Simit with lemon and thyme-baked feta

If you've ever toyed with the idea of buying a wood-fired oven Genevieve Taylor's new book The Ultimate Wood Fired Oven Cookbook should persuade you. (And it didn't even cost a fortune. She built it herself!)

The recipes which go way beyond pizza are brilliant too* but I picked this intriguing Turkish bread which she serves with baked feta cheese which sounds ridiculously good*.

Gen writes: "Simit are delicious bagel-shaped bread rings from Turkey, liberally covered with golden sesame seeds and often served for breakfast with cheese and olive oil. Here I serve them with baked feta cheese as I love the soft, almost mousse-like texture it gets when it’s hot, perfect for spreading on the crusty bread. Eaten with a salad of ripe tomatoes and a few black olives, this makes a perfectly simple lunch."

220–230°C (425–450°F) MAKES 4

For the simit

400g (3 cups) strong white bread flour

1 tsp instant yeast

1 tsp fine salt

300ml (11⁄4 cups) hand-hot water 2 tbsp olive oil, plus more for shaping the dough

1 tbsp pomegranate molasses

2 tbsp sesame seeds

For the feta

1 x 200g (7oz) block of feta

2 tbsp olive oil

a few sprigs of fresh thyme, leaves, picked

zest from 1⁄2 a lemon

freshly ground black pepper

You need a fire that has reached a high, steady baking temperature of about 220–230°C (425–450°F), with no live flame, just glowing embers OR if you don't have a wood-fired oven Gen says you can bake the bread in a conventional oven at 220°C or 200°C in a fan oven.

Put the flour, yeast and salt into a mixing bowl and stir together until mixed. Pour in the water and oil and stir together until you have a ragged, loose ball of dough. Cover loosely with a clean tea towel and set aside for 10 minutes for the flour to hydrate.

Lightly oil the worktop and tip the dough on to it, scraping out all the loose bits from the bowl. Spread a little oil on the inside of the bowl and set aside. Use your oiled hands to very lightly knead the dough for 10 seconds, then put back into the bowl and leave to rest for 10 more minutes. Repeat this 10-second knead and 10-minute rest twice more. Cover the bowl and leave to prove on the worktop for an hour. You can also slide it into the fridge and prove it slowly for 4–6 hours if you prefer.

Tip out the dough on to a lightly floured worktop and divide it into eight even pieces. Take two pieces and roll them into long snakes, about 1–1 1⁄2cm (1⁄2–5⁄8in) thick. If the dough snakes are springing back and won’t stay in shape, leave them for a few minutes to relax, then try again.

Twist the two pieces together like a rope, then coil into a circle and pinch the two ends together to join so they look like twisted bagels. Set on a large oiled baking sheet and repeat with the remaining dough so you end up with 4 well-spaced simit. Brush the tops lightly with the pomegranate molasses and sprinkle liberally with the sesame seeds. Set aside to prove again for another 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, get the block of feta ready for baking by sliding it into a small baking dish. Drizzle over the olive oil, and sprinkle on the thyme and lemon zest. Season with a good grind of black pepper.

Once the dough has finished its second prove, slide the tray into the hot oven. Cook for 15 minutes, then check them, turning the tray around if necessary, so they cook evenly. At the same time, slide in the dish of feta alongside. Leave both to bake for a further 10–15 minutes.

Serve immediately, while the feta is hot and melting.

*the Mexican sweetcorn salad (Esquites) we had at the launch is also ridiculously good

What to drink: If you served this as Gen suggests with a salad of ripe tomatoes and some olives a glass of dry rosé would go down well or, if you can find one, the crisp Turkish white, Narince.

Recipe extract from The Ultimate Wood Fired Oven Cookbook by Genevieve Taylor published by Quadrille at £15. Photography © Jason Ingram.

Japanese ginger and garlic chicken with smashed cucumber

A simple but spectacular Japanese-style dish from Diana Henry's marvellous new book A Change of Appetite which I've also reviewed on the site here.

Diana writes: "This dish has a great interplay of temperatures. The chicken is hot and spicy, the cucumber like eating shards of ice (make sure you serve it direct from the fridge).

The cucumber recipe is adapted from a recipe in a wonderful American book called Japanese Farm Food by Nancy Singleton Hachisu. You can also make the chicken with boneless thighs and griddle them."

Serves 4

For the chicken

3 1/2 tbsp soy sauce

3 tbsp sake or dry sherry

3 tbsp soft dark brown sugar

1/2 tbsp brown miso

60g (2oz) root ginger, peeled and finely grated

4 garlic cloves, finely grated

1 tsp togarashi seasoning (available in Waitrose), or 1/2 tsp chilli powder

8 good-sized skinless bone-in chicken thighs, or other bone-in chicken pieces

For the cucumber

500g (1lb 2oz) cucumber

2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped

2 tsp sea salt

2 tbsp pink pickled ginger, very finely shredded

small handful of shiso leaves, if available, or mint leaves, torn (optional)

Mix everything for the chicken (except the chicken itself ) to make a marinade. Pierce the chicken on the fleshy sides with a knife, put the pieces into a shallow dish and pour the marinade over. Massage it in well, turning the pieces over. Cover and put in the fridge for 30–60 minutes.

When you’re ready to cook, preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Take the pieces out of the marinade and put them in a shallow ovenproof dish in which they can sit snugly in a single layer. Pour over half the marinade. Roast in the oven for40 minutes, basting every so often with the juices and leftover marinade (don’t add any leftover marinade after 20 minutes, it needs to cook properly as it has had raw chicken in it). Check for doneness: the juices that run out of the chicken when you pierce the flesh with a knife should be clear and not at all pink.

When the chicken is halfway through cooking, peel and halve the cucumber and scoop out the seeds. Set on a board and bang the pieces gently with a pestle or rolling pin. This should break them up a little. Now break them into chunks with your hands.

Crush the garlic with a pinch of the salt and massage this – and the rest of the salt – into the cucumber. Put in a small plastic bag, squeeze out the air and put in the fridge for 10 minutes. When you’re ready to eat, tip the cucumber into a sieve so the juices can drain away. Add the shredded ginger. You can add shiso leaves if you can find them (I can’t, I have no Japanese shop nearby). Nothing else really tastes like it, but I sometimes add mint.

Serve the chicken with brown rice or rice vermicelli (the rice vermicelli is good served cold) and the cucumber.

Try this with… edamame and sugar snap salad Mix 2 tbsp white miso paste, 1 tbsp rice vinegar, 2 tbsp groundnut oil, 2 tbsp water, 1 tsp runny honey and 2cm (3/4in) peeled, grated root ginger. Toss with 100g (3 1/2oz) cooked edamame beans, 100g (3 1/2oz) raw sugar snap peas, sliced lengthways, 8 sliced radishes and a handful of mizuna. Serves 4.

What to drink: While this type of sweet-savoury dish is delicious it can be tricky with wine. Chilled sake might be your best bet - otherwise I'd go for a strong fruity rosé, a light red like a Beaujolais cru or a New Zealand pinot gris.

You can read my full review of A Change of Appetite here.

From A Change of Appetite by Diana Henry, published by Mitchell Beazley. Photograph © Laura Edwards.