All generations of the family are looking forward to a midday feast in a beauty spot. But when catering for a large picnic like this there are many different tastes to be accommodated, as well as the usual uncertainty about the weather. The food is a main event. What should you take with you?
All families have their own favourites, whether it’s cold cuts and salads or particular types of sandwiches. I’m not trying to cover all options but will suggest a few more unusual items that travel well. Make it a bring-a-dish occasion, where a number of people each contribute an item, to give a range of old and new ideas. Remember to pack essential equipment, such as rugs, cushions, chairs, cutlery, plates, paper napkins, wet wipes and bags for any rubbish you might have.
Other things that could be added are:
• A roast of beef. Allow it to cool, carve it into slices, then reassemble and wrap in foil. Take mustard or horseradish cream to serve with it.
• Cold cooked ham. Treat it in the same way as the beef, and remember to pack the mustard.
• Cold roast chicken, whole or in portions. This could be prepared with the barbecue rub (Seasoning Mix for Chicken) but then roasted rather than barbecued.
• Cooked sausages. Drain the excess fat, then cool them before packing in foil or wrapping in greaseproof paper.
Whatever else you take, add:
• Good bread (and a small board and a knife for cutting it), plus butter.
• Some ready-mixed salads (see Coleslaw, Greek Cabbage Salad, Potato Salad, Sweet Pepper Relish, Avocado Salsa).
• Some salad leaves (people never eat as much green salad as you think they will) and a bottle of French dressing.
• A punnet of little tomatoes, to be eaten as finger food, or some crudités, plus favourite dips to go with them.
• Salt, pepper, salad dressing or mayonnaise.
For a dessert on these occasions, cheese and fresh fruit is often more satisfactory than an elaborate cake or pudding. Try, according to the season:
• A piece of quality Wensleydale cheese with some fresh apricots or cherries.
• Perfectly ripe Brie with a beautiful bunch of grapes.
• Blue Stilton or Gorgonzola dolce and a bowl of fresh figs.
• A chunk of Montgomery’s Cheddar with some English-grown pears or apples.
• Take extra bread, butter and biscuits to eat with it.
• You could follow Mrs Beeton’s lead and take stewed fruit (gooseberries, apricots, plums, pears) in jars, with thick cream or yogurt to accompany it.
To drink:
• The Strawberry Cider (contains alcohol). Take, according to taste and the age range, other cold soft or alcoholic drinks and ice to chill them, as well as bottled water.
• Tea was always considered essential at such events in the past, and picnickers – or possibly their servants – would light a campfire or use a portable patent stove such as a Primus to boil a kettle. Camping stoves make this easy, so take one of these, plus a supply of fuel and a kettle. (Today you can buy one of the brightly coloured metal and silicone kettles, which achieve combining good design and cheerful modernity while sturdily maintaining the English ideal of a cup of tea whatever the circumstances.)
• Pack a teapot and leaf tea, plus water, milk, a jug and sugar as needed. Also pack cups (with saucers, naturally – no need to let standards drop because you’re outside).
Serves 6–8
750g small-medium new potatoes, scrubbed
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
75g mayonnaise, home-made or good-quality purchased
150g whole milk natural yogurt
2 tablespoons finely chopped dill, plus a few sprigs to garnish
4–6 medium pickled gherkins, chopped into small dice
a few nicely shaped and coloured lettuce leaves
salt and ground black pepper
dill sprigs, to garnish
Dill and gherkins perk up the flavours in this old favourite.
Boil the potatoes whole until just tender. Drain and, when cool enough to handle, remove the skins. Cut the flesh into cubes or crumble it into irregular pieces.
Put the mustard in a bowl. Add the mayonnaise, yogurt, dill and gherkins, then stir well. Taste, and add salt and pepper as desired. Mix again, then fold in the potatoes.
Line a serving bowl with lettuce leaves so that they project a little way above the rim. Spoon in the potato salad, and garnish the top with dill sprigs.
Makes 1½ litres
500g strawberries, hulled
2 tablespoons caster sugar
juice of 1 orange
1 litre sweet cider, chilled
plenty of ice cubes
Summery and delicious, this cider is perfect for warm afternoons sitting in dappled shade. Prepare the strawberry mixture for your picnic and transport it in a plastic box in a well-chilled cooler, with the cider in bottles and the ice in a flask. Decant the strawberry mix into a jug and add the chilled cider and ice at the destination.
Crush the strawberries lightly using a fork or a potato masher. Put in a large bowl or jug. Scatter over the sugar and add the orange juice. Leave to macerate for 1 hour, then add the cider. Serve over plenty of ice.
Serves 8–10 (120ml servings)
200ml double cream
300ml buttermilk
2 large cucumbers, peeled
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon fresh dill leaves, finely chopped, plus dill sprigs, to garnish
salt
Cooling and delicious, this creamy soup is perfect for a warm day. Serve in small glasses garnished with dill sprigs.
Heat the cream in a small saucepan over a medium heat until it boils. Put the buttermilk in a bowl and stir in the cream, then leave to cool.
Cut the cucumbers lengthways into quarters and remove the seeds. Dice the flesh into tiny cubes and put them in a bowl. Mix with the garlic and oil. Stir in the cooled cream mixture, with the chopped dill and 1 teaspoon salt. Leave for 3 hours or overnight if possible, to allow the flavours to blend.
Stir in 200ml water, or a little more if you prefer a thinner soup. If you like, blend half the soup until smooth for a less chunky texture. Taste and add more salt if needed. Serve in small glasses garnished with dill sprigs. Give each person a teaspoon to scoop out the cucumber pieces at the end.
Makes about 450g
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1.5 kg belly pork
200g pork flare fat or 100g goose fat
2 teaspoons salt
2 star anise
2 garlic cloves, cut into fine slivers
a good pinch of dried chilli flakes
100ml white wine or water
Rillettes are a kind of potted pork traditional to French cookery. They keep and transport well and make robust outdoor food. Eat them with good bread and the little pickled gherkins known to the French as cornichons. Try to buy a fatty piece of pork, or ask the butcher if he has some pork flare fat that you can have to add to a lean piece. If this isn’t possible, some goose fat can be added instead, but don’t be tempted to use ordinary lard. Star anise is not the traditional spice but it gives a good flavour. The cooking time is long, but no attention should be required during this. It’s ideal for the slow oven of an Aga.
Preheat the oven to 130ºC. Grind the peppercorns and coriander seeds in a grinder or mortar and pestle. Remove any bones from the pork by running a knife between them and the meat and removing them in one piece (they can be barbecued as pork ribs). Cut off the skin and fat, making sure that there is no meat attached to the fat. Cut the meat into slices roughly 1cm wide, then cut these across to make chunks 1 × 2cm.
Put the skin and fat in the base of a roasting tin or casserole, then the meat in one layer and add all the other ingredients. Cover with two layers of foil, sealing well, and the lid if the container has one. Put in the oven and cook undisturbed for 4 hours.
Remove from the oven and uncover. You should have very well-cooked, soft pieces of meat swimming in fat and liquid. Put a sieve over a heatproof bowl and pour everything through it. Allow the fat to drain thoroughly.
Put the meat on a large platter or in a shallow bowl. Pick out the skin and the star anise, and discard. Take 2 forks and use them to shred the meat, reducing it to a fibrous paste. When all is done, taste to check the seasoning – it should taste quite highly seasoned. Add more salt and pepper if needed.
Pack the meat into sterilised jars, pushing it down firmly. Spoon some of the fat over the top to form a layer and leave to cool. The rillettes will keep for a week or so in the fridge. To store for longer, transfer to the freezer. Use the jellied juices from under the fat to add to stir-fries or a pork casserole.
Makes about 50g
25g hazelnuts
15g sesame seeds
½ teaspoon black peppercorns
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon salt
Dukkah is an Egyptian seasoning mix, usually based on hazelnuts mixed with salt and various seeds and spices. It is very good with hard-boiled eggs, for dipping bread and raw vegetables and as a seasoning for plain grilled meat. It also keeps well in a cool, dark place.
Preheat the oven to 160ºC. Put the hazelnuts on a baking tray and toast in the oven for 10–15 minutes until pale gold. Put the hazelnuts in a in a clean tea towel and rub off the skins. Toast the sesame seeds in the same way – they may take a little less time, so watch them carefully.
Put the peppercorns and cumin in a dry frying pan over a low heat and toast them until they give off an appetising aroma. Put the nuts, sesame seeds, spices and thyme in a spice grinder or use a mortar and pestle and grind to a coarse powder. Stir in the salt. Store in an airtight jar.
Makes 8
8 medium eggs
1 star anise
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons tea leaves (orange pekoe or Assam)
Hard-boiled eggs are a British picnic staple. If you are catering for a large number of people and want to splash out, acquire eggs of different colours and sizes – deep brown, perfectly white, pale blue – from different breeds of hen, plus smaller bantam eggs and tiny quail eggs, and serve on an attractive plate or in a basket for everyone to peel their own. Alternatively, use ordinary eggs to make these prettily patterned long-cooked eggs. Use the freshest ones you can buy.
Cover the eggs with water and bring to the boil, then boil gently for 8 minutes. Drain and run cold water over them until just cool enough to handle.
Gently tap all over each shell with the back of a teaspoon to create a network of fine cracks. Return the eggs to the pan, add all the other ingredients and enough water to cover. Bring to the boil, then simmer gently for another 30 minutes.
Remove from the heat and leave for at least 8 hours or overnight. Peel the eggs to reveal the marbled pattern. To make them easier to peel, about 30 minutes beforehand, discard the mixture they were cooked in. Roll the eggs on a board or hard work surface so the shells crack more. Put them in a pan of fresh cold water for 15–20 minutes, and the shells should be easier to remove.
Serves 6–8
150g unsmoked back bacon rashers
2 tablespoons finely chopped flat leaf parsley leaves
8–10 medium eggs
1 medium egg, beaten, or milk or cream, to glaze
salt and ground black pepper
tomato ketchup, to serve
For the pastry
250g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
a pinch of salt
125g lard
Bacon and egg pie – something I thought was forgotten – is alive and well and a favourite picnic food in Australia. A friend from Melbourne supplied a few details that make it better than any versions I remember from school dinners. It’s best made in an old-fashioned shallow pie dish or plate with sloping sides.
Preheat the oven to 220ºC and put a baking tray inside to heat. To make the pastry, put the flour and salt in a large bowl and rub into the lard with your fingertips until it resembles fine crumbs. Using a fork, stir in 4–5 tablespoons cold water until the dough just begins to hold together. Bring the dough together into a ball and knead lightly for a few seconds. Wrap in clingfilm and chill for 30 minutes before using.
Cut the bacon into pieces roughly 2 × 1cm and cook gently in a frying pan over a medium heat without any additional fat until the lean is pink and the fat is white and opaque. Leave to cool.
Take two-thirds of the pastry and roll it out to make a circle 25cm in diameter. Use this to line a 20cm pie plate. Scatter the bacon pieces over the pastry and sprinkle with a little of the parsley. Season with black pepper.
Break the eggs one by one into a saucer (trying not to break the yolks) and gently slide each one onto the top of the bacon. Add salt, pepper and parsley to each as you go.
Roll out the remaining pastry to make a circle large enough to cover the top of the pie. Brush the edge of the pastry base in the pie dish with water and cover with the pastry lid, trimming nicely and crimping well together. Cut a hole in the middle and brush over with beaten egg.
Put the pie on the heated tray and cook for 15 minutes, then turn the heat down to 180ºC and bake for a further 10 minutes to set the eggs. The pie is excellent hot, warm or cold. The traditional Australian accompaniment is tomato ketchup, which helps to cut the slightly dry richness of the yolks.
Serves 6–8
60g long grain rice
4 medium eggs
2 tablespoons light olive oil or other oil
200g spring onions, chopped
50g fresh tarragon leaves, chopped
100g spinach or watercress leaves, chopped
1 teaspoon salt
flour, for dusting
500g puff pastry, thawed if frozen
1 teaspoon softened butter
ground black pepper
Transcaucasia has always been a region of good food. On holiday there, I was amazed by the abundance and importance of fresh herbs used in the local dishes, reflected in this unusual pie based on one from the Republic of Georgia. Tarragon, the principal flavouring, varies in strength and can be on the bitter side. Using other leaves helps to soften the effect while retaining a generally ‘green’ note.
Preheat the oven to 200ºC. Cook the rice in plenty of boiling water until tender. Drain and leave to cool. Hard-boil 3 of the eggs and peel them.
Heat the oil in a saucepan over a medium-low heat and fry the spring onions, tarragon and spinach leaves gently for 3 minutes. Chop the hard-boiled eggs and stir them and the rice into the spinach mixture in the pan. Leave to cool.
Stir in the salt and plenty of pepper. Separate the fourth egg and stir in the white.
Dust a work surface with flour and roll out about two-thirds of the pastry to give a rectangle about 45 × 30cm. Neaten the edges. Spread the cooled herb and egg mixture over the middle of this, leaving about 4cm around the edges. Fold these up to make a frame around the filling, making sure the corners are neatly trimmed and carefully sealed.
Roll out the remaining pastry to give a rectangle large enough to cover the exposed filling and overlap the folded-up edges. Brush these with water, then cover and press gently to seal. Transfer the pie to a large baking sheet.
Beat the remaining egg yolk with the butter and use this mixture to brush over the top of the pie. Bake for 25–30 minutes, until the pastry is golden, well risen and cooked through. Leave to cool.
The pie is at its best eaten the same day, fairly soon after cooking while the pastry is still crisp, but it will still be good the following day.
Serves 6–8
50g fresh flat leaf parsley leaves
20g fresh coriander leaves
50g fresh dill leaves
50g fresh fenugreek leaves
50g leek
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
½ teaspoon cumin seeds
seeds of 3–4 cardamom pods
a small piece of cinnamon stick or ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
6 medium eggs
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon salt
40g melted butter or vegetable oil yogurt, to serve
This large, thick omelette consists as much of green herbs as it does of eggs. It contains fresh fenugreek leaves, which are not always easy to find, although they are sometimes available from Asian grocers. A couple of tablespoons of dried fenugreek leaves (not seed) can be substituted if this is all you can find; otherwise, just increase the proportions of the other herbs.
Preheat the oven to 180ºC and line the base of a 20cm pie dish, or a cake tin with a fixed base, with a disc of greaseproof paper. Chop the parsley, coriander, dill, fenugreek and leek together fairly finely (an electric chopper comes in handy for this). Add the garlic to the mixture.
Grind the peppercorns, cumin, cardamom and cinnamon together in a grinder or using a mortar and pestle. Break the eggs into a large bowl and whisk in the spice mixture, bicarbonate of soda and salt. Stir in the chopped herbs.
Pour the melted butter into the base of the pie dish. Then pour in the egg mixture. Bake for 30–40 minutes until the mixture has completely set and is a little spongy.
Traditionally, a kuku is cooked in a large frying pan over a low heat. It should brown a little underneath before being turned. If you use this method, put a large plate over the pan, flip it and then slide the kuku back in so that both sides cook.
Drain the excess oil from the kuku, then cut it into wedges and eat hot, warm or cold with a little yogurt.
Makes about 30/serves 6–8
180g red lentils
4 tablespoons tomato purée
100g bulgur wheat
100ml light olive oil or sunflower oil
1 onion, chopped finely
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh dill
1–2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh parsley, to taste
dried chilli flakes, to taste
ground black pepper
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 teaspoon salt
juice of 1–2 lemons, to taste
1 cos lettuce and green salad, to serve
This traditional dish is made by Turkish women to share among themselves at all-female parties. The Turkish friend who taught me how to make it is very particular about the texture, insisting that the bulgur should be a finely ground type. I make it using ordinary bulgur, which is easier to handle. I’m not sure it would pass muster with Turkish housewives, but it is good at a picnic, or as a cold nibble for a barbecue.
Put the lentils and 500ml water in a pan and bring to the boil. Cover and simmer gently for 15 minutes or until the lentils are cooked but still holding their shape – keep checking so that they don’t overcook. Turn off the heat and stir in 2 tablespoons of the tomato purée and the bulgur. Cover and leave to one side for 1 hour.
Meanwhile, heat the oil in a frying pan over a medium heat and add a generous half of the onion. Stir and fry gently until it becomes transparent. Turn off the heat.
Tip the lentil mixture into a bowl. Stir in the fried onion with its oil, plus the remaining raw onion, and all the other ingredients except the lemon juice. Stir very well, taste and adjust the seasoning, adding lemon juice to taste.
Shape into walnut-sized balls. The mixture should hold together without being overly sticky or dry. Chill until needed.
Remove the leaves from the lettuce. Use each one like a little boat, putting four or five of the balls inside in a row. Serve with green salad.
