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Summer Round-up

Diana Basto

Summer’s coming to an end and this year mine was very quiet. Whereas in previous years, summer used to be the busiest time of the year for me (even last year was a surprise being the first pandemic summer), this time, apart from two weeks working in Comporta, I spent it mostly at home.

This summer I also celebrated 5 years of working exclusively with food. Over these years, I tried doing many things, from workshops, alone or in partnership, to pop-up dinners by myself or with another chef, retreats, events, consulting, teaching, styling, and private cheffing. One thing I hadn’t tried was to work for another chef, in a traditional kitchen setting. And that’s what I started doing this summer. Well, it’s not exactly a traditional kitchen setting since it’s a completely outdoor experience, and within a pop-up context, but still, I’m working for a known Portuguese chef and with his professional cooking team. 

I must say it’s something I felt I needed but dreaded experiencing. I felt I needed to leave my extremely curated working bubble and expose myself to what I have to call the real world. I dreaded experiencing it because of all the harshness, aggressiveness and standards that characterize the restaurant industry, so misaligned with what I want for myself, as a person and with what I want to put out into the world as a professional.

I’m now a month and a half into this experience and I have to admit it hasn’t been as dreadful as I thought. On the contrary, I’m finding it exhilaratingly challenging. True that I’m only doing this part-time, and for a limited period of time, but still, the experience has been pleasently far from what I expected.

Summer cooking

With summer being the time of the year where we can get away with eating mostly raw foods, there are still a lot of things I love to cook, like a hearty Niçoise salad, with roasted potatoes, tomatoes and peppers, perfectly blanched green beans, thinly sliced raw cucumbers, boiled eggs, lots of olive oil, capers and parsley, baked whole fish, stuffed with herbs and lemon, pasta salads with ratatouille or cold noodles with soy sauce, coriander, lime and chili dressing, and anything with strawberries, figs or peaches, like these tartlets I’ve adapted from the book “More Home Cooking” by Laurie Colwin.

Flat peach tartlets
Adapted from the recipe Leslie Friedman's Peach Pizza, from the book "More Home Cooking"

For the pastry:
1 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp sugar
a pinch of salt
1/4 cup + 3 tbsp butter, cold and cut into pieces
2-3 tbsp ice-cold water

Assembling the tartlets:
1/2 cup almond meal
2 tbsp sugar
4-6 flat peaches

Start by making the pastry, mixing the flour, sugar and salt in a medium-sized bowl. Add the butter and incorporate with the dry ingredients using the tips of your fingers. When the mixture resembles breadcrumbs, add the water, tablespoon by tablespoon, until it forms a dough. Avoid over mixing and kneading, just gather the dough with your hands, cover and let it rest for at least 30 minutes in the fridge.
Grease 6 tartlet pans. Divide the dough into 6 and roll it over each of the cases. Refrigerate for another 30 minutes. Pre-heat the oven to 170ºC. Make the filling by combining the almond meal and sugar in a small bowl. Peel and slice the peaches. Divide the almond mix between the 6 tartlets and place the sliced peaches on top of them. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the edges of the tartlets turn golden brown. Serve at room temperature plain or with a scoop of ice cream.

Makes 6

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