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Chicken Rice Salad

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Chicken Rice Salad with cucumbers, fresh herbs, crispy onions and a light hoisin-chicken juice dressing

I was deep in my chicken phase — the kind where a rotisserie bird somehow ends up in the fridge every other day — but all I actually wanted was something fresh, zingy, and cold enough to survive a heatwave.

This rice salad was the answer. Shredded roast chicken, crunchy cucumber, a fistful of coriander, and a hoisin-lime dressing that’s equal parts savoury and sharp. The only thing that touches the stove here is the rice, so it comes together fast and stays completely painless, even when it’s too hot to think.

It’s the kind of salad that manages to feel light and properly filling at the same time — my go-to lunch for the entire summer.

Chicken Rice Salad – About the dish

This salad borrows from flavours you’ll find across Chinese and Southeast Asian kitchens: shredded poached or roasted chicken tossed with rice, finished with crispy fried shallots, sesame, and a bright citrus-forward sauce.

Hoisin sauce, the salty-sweet base of the dressing here, is a Cantonese staple traditionally used to glaze meats and flavour stir-fries — its deep umami and gentle sweetness pair perfectly with the sharpness of lime and the nuttiness of sesame oil. Combined with the leftover fat from the roast chicken, it turns into a dressing rich enough to coat every grain of rice without weighing the salad down.

Using a store-bought rotisserie chicken keeps things simple, but it’s just as good with any leftover roast or poached chicken you have on hand.

Chicken Rice Salad – Recipe

Ingredients – Advice & key points

  • Rice: jasmine recommended for its fragrance and fluffy texture once cooled. Rinse it well before cooking to keep the grains separate.
  • Roast chicken: 1 small rotisserie chicken, shredded. A store-bought one keeps this a no-cook protein — swap in any leftover roast or poached chicken you have on hand.
  • Cucumber: Adds crunch and freshness against the richness of the dressing.
  • Spring onions: Use both the white and green parts for more flavour.
  • Coriander: roughly chopped. Adds a herbal lift — swap for mint if you’re not a fan.
  • Fried onions: Store-bought crispy fried onions or shallots work perfectly and add crunch.
  • Sesame seeds: toasted if you have time, for extra nuttiness.
  • Chicken fat: 3 tbsp of the fat and juices from the roast chicken. It adds incredible savoury depth to the dressing — don’t skip it if you can help it.
  • Sesame oil: for nutty depth in the dressing.
  • Garlic: grated, for a punchy background note.
  • Hoisin sauce: The salty-sweet backbone of the dressing.
  • Soy sauce: for extra savouriness alongside the hoisin.
  • Lime: 3 tbsp juice plus the zest of 1/2 a lime for the dressing, with extra wedges to serve.
  • Chili oil: for serving, adds heat and shine to the finished salad.

Recipe – Advice & key points

  • Cook the rice ahead: Cook it as usual, then spread it out and let it cool completely before assembling — warm rice will wilt the herbs and turn the salad mushy.
  • Prep while it cools: Shred the chicken and whisk the dressing while the rice cools, so everything is ready to toss at once.
  • Mix the dressing separately: Combine the chicken fat, sesame oil, garlic, hoisin, soy sauce, lime juice, and zest in a bowl, and taste before adding.
  • Toss gently: Fold the dressing through the rice and salad delicately, without crushing the grains.
  • Serve topped, not mixed in: Add the fried onions, chili oil, and lime wedges just before serving so they stay crisp.

This is the kind of salad that looks a little fancy but takes almost no real effort — the rice can be cooked well ahead, the dressing keeps in the fridge for days, and the actual assembly takes minutes. A perfect make-ahead lunch for hot days.

Enjoy !

Cold Curry Noodles

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thin noodles in a orangey cold red curry broth topped with fishballs, cilantro, cucumber and lime

I ate what inspired me for this dish on a plastic stool somewhere in central Thailand, at a stall with no name, where a woman tossed rice noodles into a bowl and drowned them in a curry sauce that had clearly been sitting out since sunrise. I went back the next day. And the day after that.

That dish is khanom jeen, and it’s a treasure in its own right. But when a heatwave rolled through my kitchen a few weeks ago, I didn’t want a hot broth. So I made my own heatwave-friendly version.

The whole sauce comes together raw: coconut milk, red curry paste, a good hit of fish sauce, lime, and a kaffir lime leaf that does most of the emotional labour, all blitzed together and chilled. No simmering, no reducing, no watching a pot. Just noodles, sauce, a couple of ice cubes, and dinner in under twenty minutes.

It comes together in three moves:

  • Blend your sauce base, no cooking involved
  • Cook your fish balls and noodles in the same pot
  • Assemble, top with herbs and a lime wedge, and eat right away

Cold Curry Noodles – About the dish

Khanom jeen is one of Thailand’s oldest noodle dishes, built on fermented rice noodles that are pressed into soft, tangled bundles rather than boiled fresh to order. Street vendors ladle a curry sauce, often fish- or coconut-based, straight over the top, alongside a tray of raw vegetables and herbs to pile on as you like. It’s typically served at room temperature, which makes it one of the few Thai noodle dishes that already feels tailor-made for a heatwave.

This version leans into that logic. I couldn’t get my hands on real fermented khanom jeen noodles here, so I used fresh rice noodles instead, and built the curry as a cold, blended sauce rather than a simmered one. It keeps all the punch of a good red curry with none of the time spent standing over a pot.

Cold Curry Noodles – Recipe

Ingredients – Advice & key points

  • Red curry paste: Homemade is great if you have it, but a good store-bought jar works perfectly well here. This is your spice dial, so start on the lower end if you’re unsure (see the note below on adjusting it).
  • Coconut milk: use full-fat here. It’s what gives the sauce its body and keeps it from tasting thin once chilled.
  • Fish sauce: the salty backbone of the sauce. A good Thai brand makes a real difference here.
  • Lime juice: adds the sour lift that balances the richness of the coconut milk. Freshly squeezed only, please.
  • Galangal or ginger: galangal is more traditional and has a sharper, more citrusy bite, but ginger works fine as a substitute -that’s what I did here. Use about the same amount as the garlic.
  • Garlic: just one small clove here. It’s a background note, not the star of the sauce.
  • Kaffir lime leaf: don’t skip this one. It brings an enormous amount of fragrance for something so small. Find it in the freezer section of any well-stocked Asian grocery store.
  • Cilantro sprigs: more fragrant than leaves-only, and they blend smoothly into the sauce instead of turning it stringy.
  • Shrimp paste (kapi): optional, but adds a deep umami note if you already have some sitting in your fridge.
  • Rice noodles: fresh ones cook in about a minute; dried ones work too, just follow the packet and use roughly three-quarters of the weight.
  • Fish balls: frozen ones from the Asian grocery store are the easiest route, and they only need a few minutes in boiling water.
  • Cucumber, cilantro, mint: your fresh toppings. Feel free to add bean sprouts or thinly sliced shallots too, if you have them on hand.

Recipe – Advice & key points

  • Blend, don’t cook, the sauce: everything for the sauce goes into the blender raw. Blitz until smooth, then chill it in the fridge, or serve it right away over two ice cubes per bowl if you’re short on time.
  • Mind your ratios: this makes about 400ml of sauce, roughly 130ml per bowl. That’s enough to coat the noodles generously without drowning them, so resist the urge to add more.
  • Cook everything in one pot: drop the frozen fish balls in first, about 5 minutes, then the noodles right after, about 1 minute if using fresh ones. One pot, two ingredients, no extra dishes.
  • Build the bowl, don’t drown it: noodles first, then pour the sauce around the edges rather than straight on top, so the noodles don’t turn soggy before you get to the table.
  • Taste your curry paste before you commit: this can run quite spicy depending on the brand. If you’re not sure, start with half the amount in the recipe, just don’t go lower than that, or the sauce loses its depth.

This one is built from the bowls of khanom jeen I kept going back for on the hottest days of a trip through Thailand, reworked here for a heatwave that doesn’t come with street food stalls on every corner. It’s fragrant, it’s fast, and it asks almost nothing of you except a blender and five minutes near a stove. Enjoy!

Garlic Chili Noodles

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Rice noodles coated in a shiny, garlicky and spicy semi-transparent sauce, topped with scallions

I was scrolling through Hungry In Thailand’s site late one evening, completely minding my own business, when their chili garlic noodles showed up on my screen. That was it. Within the hour I had a pot of water boiling and a pile of dried chilies waiting for the food processor. I needed something loud, garlicky, and aggressively spicy, and I needed it fast.

What sold me instantly was the ratio: maybe fifteen minutes of actual effort for a bowl that tastes like it took a lot more thought. Blitz chilies and garlic into a paste, fry it for a minute, stir in a handful of pantry sauces, toss with noodles. That’s it. That’s the whole trick, and it works every single time.

Garlic Chili Noodles – About the dish

Chili and garlic pastes fried in oil are one of the great building blocks of Southeast Asian and Chinese cooking, showing up under different names in different kitchens: nam prik in Thailand, sambal across the Malay world, or the chili oil that sits on nearly every table in Sichuan. What they share is the same basic move, toasting chilies and garlic together until the raw edge burns off and something deeper and smokier comes through.

This version skips the soup or the condiment jar entirely and turns that same fried paste into a full noodle sauce, sharpened with a little vinegar and rounded out with oyster sauce and dark soy. It’s closer to a dry stir-fried noodle dish than a curry, and it comes together in one pan in the time it takes to boil the noodles.

Garlic Chili Noodles – Recipe

Ingredients – Advice & key points

  • Dried chilies (large): These bring most of the base heat and a deep red color to the paste. Snip off the stems, and shake out some seeds first if you’d rather keep things milder.
  • Dried chilies: Mixing two types of dried chili builds more depth than using just one. No second variety on hand? Fourteen chilies of a single kind works just as well.
  • Garlic: Twelve cloves looks excessive on paper, but garlic mellows and sweetens once it’s fried into the paste. Don’t be tempted to cut it back.
  • Oil: A neutral oil works best, it needs to carry the chili flavor without fighting it. Don’t rush the frying step, that’s what actually cooks the rawness out of the chilies and garlic.
  • Oyster sauce: The savory backbone of the whole sauce. Spring for a decent quality bottle, cheaper ones can taste thin or overly sweet.
  • White vinegar: Just enough acidity to cut through the oil and the oyster sauce. Rice vinegar makes a fine, slightly milder substitute.
  • White sugar: Balances out the heat and the salt. Don’t skip it, even this small amount rounds out the whole sauce noticeably.
  • Dark soy sauce: Adds color and a faint molasses-like depth. It’s a small quantity, used mostly for that dark, glossy look rather than for saltiness.
  • Roasted sesame seeds: Adds a nutty crunch that plays well against the heat. If yours aren’t pre-toasted, warm them in a dry pan for a minute or two until fragrant before using.
  • Dry rice noodles: Prep them according to the package instructions, usually a soak or/and a very quick boil. Don’t overcook, they’ll keep softening once tossed with the hot sauce.
  • Green onions: A handful of chopped green onions gives a fresh, sharp finish that cuts through all that richness. Don’t skip it, it makes a real difference.

Recipe – Advice & key points

  • Blitz the chilies and garlic first: Add the dried chilies and garlic to a food processor and blitz until you get a rough, even paste.
  • Fry the paste properly: Heat the oil in a pan over medium heat and cook the chili-garlic paste for about a minute, stirring so it doesn’t catch. This step takes the raw, sharp edge off both the chili and the garlic.
  • Build the sauce in the same pan: Stir in the oyster sauce, vinegar, sugar, dark soy sauce, and sesame seeds. Cook for another minute so the flavors meld, then take the pan off the heat.
  • Cook the noodles separately: Prepare the rice noodles according to the package directions, then drain, saving a bit of that precious cooking water.
  • Toss while everything is hot: Place the drained noodles in a large bowl, add the chili-garlic sauce, and toss thoroughly so every strand gets coated. Warm noodles absorb the sauce far better than cold ones.
  • Garnish and serve right away: Top with chopped green onions and dig in immediately, this dish is best eaten hot, while the noodles are still glossy and the garlic is fragrant.

I’ve made this more times than I can count since that first late-night craving. It’s loud, it’s messy in the best way, and it disappears from the bowl faster than it takes to cook. Weeknight logic: a food processor, one pan, and twenty minutes.

Enjoy !

Dumpling Salad

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Wonton salad coated in a luscious oily sauce, topped with carrots, cucumber, cilantro, scallions

I have a genuine weekly dumpling habit, and for years that habit only ever showed up in one form: steaming hot, dumped in their dipping sauce ; or maybe sometimes in a large bowl of broth, an ideal cold-weather food. Then summer hit, but I still needed my fix. I asked myself the obvious question: why not a cold version?

So yes, I built one. Believe me when I say it turned out to be an absolute revelation. The sauce is the whole point here: fresh, punchy, deeply savoury, with just enough heat and funk to make plain boiled dumplings taste like the best thing you’ve eaten all week. Toss it all with crunchy cucumber, carrot and a big handful of herbs, and you get something that’s cold, gourmande, and dangerously easy to make on repeat. I recommend this a thousand times over.

Dumplings — jiaozi in Mandarin — have been a staple of Chinese cuisine for centuries, with roots often traced back to the Han dynasty. Wontons (餛飩, húntun) are their thinner-skinned, silkier cousin from southern China, traditionally boiled or served in soup rather than pan-fried. That’s exactly why they’re the better choice for this salad: their delicate wrapper soaks up the sauce instead of turning heavy or greasy, which is the whole point when you’re building something meant to be eaten cold.

Dumpling Salad – Recipe

Ingredients – Advice & key points

  • Wontons: Ideal here, but choose whichever dumplings you have in your freezer. 10 pieces -maybe 12 depending on their size- for one bowl. I really recommend wontons over dumplings here — their thinner, silkier wrapper works much better once everything cools down and gets tossed in sauce.
  • Light soy sauce: the salty backbone of the whole sauce.
  • Chili oil: with the crispy chili flakes included — they add texture as well as heat.
  • Sesame oil: just 1 tsp — any more and it completely overpowers everything else in the bowl.
  • Vinegar: ideally straight from a jar of pickled chilies for extra depth, or plain white vinegar if that’s what you have on hand.
  • Oyster sauce: for a deeper savoury note.
  • Sugar: just enough to round out the acidity and the salt.
  • Garlic: fresh, not the jarred stuff, it really makes a difference here.
  • MSG: optional, but it rounds everything out beautifully — don’t be scared of it.
  • Dumpling cooking water: 2 tbsp, whisked into the sauce. Don’t skip this — it loosens the sauce and ties it back to the dumplings.
  • Cucumber, carrots: for crunch.
  • Scallions, coriander: or pick either, to add a nice overall flavour and freshness.

Recipe – Advice & key points

  • The sauce is everything: make it first and taste as you go. This recipe lives or dies on the balance between salty, sour, sweet and spicy, so adjust before you touch a single dumpling.
  • Save your cooking water: boil the wontons as usual, then scoop out 2 tablespoons of the starchy cooking water before draining. It goes straight into the sauce and gives it body.
  • Serve it lukewarm, not fridge-cold: toss the freshly boiled dumplings with the sauce while they’re still a little warm, then let everything come down to room temperature. Truly fridge-cold dumplings turn slightly gluey.
  • Add the vegetables last: toss the cucumber, carrot, scallions and coriander in right before serving, so they stay crisp instead of going limp in the sauce.
  • Scaling up: this is written for one generous bowl, but the sauce multiplies perfectly if you’re feeding more people — just keep the ratios and taste as you scale.

Enjoy!

Chicken Tarator Tacos

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Chicken tacos with tarator sauce and pico de gallo

There’s a very specific kind of heatwave logic that takes over my kitchen in the middle of summer: I want something that feels like an actual meal, but I refuse to turn on a stove for more than the time it takes to warm a tortilla.

Chicken tacos felt obvious. What felt less obvious was reaching for a jar of tarator instead of salsa verde.

It shouldn’t work on paper — a Levantine garlic-tahini sauce has no business anywhere near a Mexican tortilla — but it does, spectacularly. Shredded rotisserie chicken, a sharp lime pico de gallo, and that thick, garlicky tarator holding it all together. One weird craving later, this became the taco I actually want on a 35-degree afternoon.

Chicken Tarator Tacos – About the dish

Tarator turns up in more than one kitchen, and it means something slightly different in each. In the Levant, it’s a thick sauce built on tahini, garlic, and lemon, traditionally spooned over grilled fish or falafel. Tacos, meanwhile, need no introduction: a Mexican street-food format built to hold whatever filling makes sense that day, wrapped in a warm corn tortilla.

Putting the two together isn’t traditional anywhere, but the logic holds up: tarator’s garlicky richness does the same job a creamy salsa or crema would, while a bright lime pico de gallo cuts through it the way it always does. I use a store-bought tarator from Jana Mezze because it’s simply very good, but a homemade version, or even garlic-lemon Greek yogurt in a pinch, gets you most of the way there.

Chicken Tarator Tacos – Recipe

Ingredients – Advice & key points

  • Tortillas: small corn tortillas are traditional here — warm them briefly so they stay pliable and don’t crack when folded.
  • Chicken: a store-bought rotisserie chicken keeps this fast — shred it into bite-sized pieces once it’s cool enough to handle.
  • Tarator sauce: a thick, garlicky tahini-based sauce. Store-bought works well (I like the Jana Mezze version), or swap in garlic-lemon Greek yogurt if you can’t find any.
  • Tomatoes: ripe and diced small, so the pico de gallo stays scoopable instead of watery.
  • Red onion: finely sliced so it seasons rather than overwhelms.
  • Cilantro: roughly chopped, added generously — it does a lot of the fresh, herbal lifting here.
  • Lime: freshly squeezed — it ties the pico de gallo together and keeps everything bright.

Recipe – Advice & key points

  • Make the pico de gallo first: combine the tomatoes, red onion, cilantro, lime juice, and salt, then let it sit for 10–15 minutes so the flavours meld while you prep everything else.
  • Shred while warm: chicken shreds much more easily straight out of the oven or rotisserie bag, while it’s still a little warm.
  • Warm the tortillas properly: a dry skillet for about 30 seconds per side, or straight over a gas flame for a light char, keeps them soft and pliable instead of stiff.
  • Keep tortillas wrapped: stack warmed tortillas in a clean kitchen towel as you go — it steams them just enough to stay soft until serving.
  • Layer in order: tarator first, straight onto the warm tortilla, then chicken, then a generous spoonful of pico de gallo on top.
  • Taste before serving: the pico de gallo can always use an extra squeeze of lime or pinch of salt — adjust right before you assemble.

Ten minutes of prep, no real cooking to speak of, and a fusion that really shouldn’t work as well as it does. Enjoy !

Shrimp Couscous Salad

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Couscous salad with onion, tomatoes, cucumber, chives and shrimps

There’s a very specific kind of summer survival mode I fall into every festival season. No proper kitchen, no fridge worth trusting — just a cooler bag and whatever can handle a few hours in the heat. Most years that means cold sandwiches from the nearest stand and a suspiciously pale tabbouleh made with cold water and canned vegetables, eaten out of a plastic cup while someone’s guitar solo runs three minutes too long.

This year, in the middle of another heatwave, that memory came back to me — but I wanted better. No stove, no boiling water even, just the lazy soak-in-cold-water couscous trick I picked up from years of festival survival, upgraded with actual flavour. Curry, a chili-garlic-ginger paste, plenty of lemon, and proper shrimp instead of whatever was left in the tin. It’s the no-cook classic, given some manners and a plane ticket east.

Shrimp Couscous Salad – About the dish

Couscous itself is one of North Africa’s great culinary exports — tiny steamed semolina grains, rooted in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, where it’s traditionally simmered for hours over a rich broth. This version skips all that patience. It leans on the modern trick of simply rehydrating couscous in cold water, which works beautifully for a fine or medium grain and turns a normally slow, steamed dish into something you can put together in the time it takes to chop a tomato.

The seasoning wanders further east from there : curry powder and a chili-garlic-ginger paste (or harissa, if that’s what’s in your fridge) bring warmth and a little heat that plays beautifully off the sweet shrimp and bright lemon. It’s not a traditional couscous by any stretch, but it borrows the format — grain, vegetables, protein, sauce — and dresses it up with flavours that felt right for a scorching day and an empty stove.

Shrimp Couscous Salad – Recipe

Ingredients – Advice & key points

  • Couscous: medium grain couscous rehydrates perfectly in cold water — no boiling required. Fluff it with a fork after a few minutes so it doesn’t clump.
  • Shrimp: mini grey shrimp (or any small peeled, cooked shrimp) work best here since they need no cooking. Thaw frozen ones in the fridge overnight, or run them under cold water and pat dry.
  • Tomatoes: use the ripest ones you can find — this salad leans on their natural sweetness and juice. Diced small so every bite gets some.
  • Cucumber: diced small too, for crunch. No need to peel or seed it unless yours is particularly watery.
  • Red onion: sliced thin so it seasons the salad rather than overwhelming it. Soak it in cold water for 10 minutes first if you want to mellow the bite.
  • Chives: a generous bunch, finely chopped, for a fresh oniony lift that pairs perfectly with the curry.
  • Chili-garlic-ginger paste: brings heat, depth, and aromatics in one go. No paste on hand? Swap in 2 tsp of green or red harissa instead.
  • Lemon: both the zest and the juice go in — the zest for aroma, the juice for acidity to balance the curry and the olive oil.
  • Feta: added right at serving so it stays in nice crumbled chunks instead of melting into the salad.

Recipe – Advice & key points

  • Rehydrate, don’t cook: cover the couscous with cold water and let it sit for a few minutes until fully absorbed, then fluff with a fork to separate the grains. No stove necessary.
  • Build the dressing separately: whisk the olive oil, lemon juice, salt, curry, and chili-garlic-ginger paste in its own bowl before adding it to the couscous, so the spices distribute evenly.
  • Layer before dressing: toss the tomatoes, onion, shrimp, and chives through the couscous first, then pour the dressing over so nothing gets soggy before its time.
  • Give it time to rest: at least 30 minutes at room temperature, but ideally 2 hours in the fridge — the couscous soaks up the dressing and the flavours round out considerably.
  • Finish just before serving: scatter the feta and a final drizzle of olive oil over each plate right before serving, so it stays fresh and doesn’t get lost in the mix.
  • Make it ahead: this salad keeps well in the fridge for a day, making it an ideal make-ahead lunch for hot days when cooking is the last thing you want to do.

No stove, no stress — just a properly delicious bowl for the next heatwave. Enjoy !

Chilled Lemon Soba

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Soba noodles in a very clear broth, topped with extra thin cucumber slices and lemon slices, sesame seeds and two ice cubes

It’s officially cold noodle season, and I’m fully committed to the trend. Lately I came across the recipe for cold lemon somen from harus_cuisine and knew immediately I had to make my own version.

So I tweaked it to make it heatwave-friendly: no dashi step, just instant granules, a punchy homemade mentsuyu-based broth, and plenty of lemon. That’s really it.

It hits the spot incredibly well — refreshing and light, while still being satisfying enough to count as a real meal, not just a snack.

Chilled Lemon Soba – About the dish

Soba (そば) are Japanese buckwheat noodles, eaten across Japan since at least the Edo period (17th century). Served cold in the warmer months, they’re one of the country’s oldest and most cherished noodle traditions, traditionally paired with a savoury dipping sauce called mentsuyu.

Mentsuyu itself is a concentrated sauce built on dashi (Japanese stock), soy sauce and mirin. Making dashi from scratch is traditional, but here we lean on instant dashi granules and a bottled mentsuyu concentrate to keep things fast — not really a shortcut, just smart, heatwave-appropriate cooking.

The lemon is where this version drifts from tradition. Instead of dipping noodles bite by bite into a separate sauce, everything sits together in one chilled, citrusy broth — closer to a cold noodle soup than the usual zaru style. It’s a small change, but it makes the whole dish brighter without adding a single extra step at the stove.

Chilled Lemon Soba – Recipe

Ingredients – Advice & key points

  • Dried soba: 180g is enough for two servings. Follow the package timing closely — soba overcooks fast, and a few extra seconds turns it gummy. Any buckwheat or blended soba works.
  • Very cold water: needed for rinsing the noodles after cooking. The colder, the better — it stops the cooking and washes off the surface starch that would otherwise cloud the broth and make the noodles clump.
  • Concentrated mentsuyu: the base of the broth. A bottled concentrate from an Asian grocery store already carries the soy sauce, mirin and dashi flavour, so you’re not building anything from scratch.
  • Instant dashi granules: optional but recommended. A small pinch deepens the umami without needing to simmer a proper dashi from scratch.
  • Lemon: both zest and juice go into the broth, plus a few thin slices as topping. Use an untreated or organic lemon if you can, since the zest infuses directly into the liquid.
  • Ice cubes: added to each bowl at serving. Don’t skip them, this dish only works properly cold.
  • Cucumber: adds crunch and freshness. Slice it thin so it doesn’t overpower the noodles.
  • Toasted sesame seeds: a finishing touch for texture and a nutty note. Toast raw seeds yourself in a dry pan for a minute or two if needed.

Recipe – Advice & key points

  • Let the zest infuse properly: 20–30 minutes in the fridge is the sweet spot. Any less and the lemon flavour stays shallow.
  • Taste before adding ice: the broth will be diluted once the ice cubes go in, so it should taste slightly stronger/saltier than you want the final dish to be.
  • Shock the noodles hard: rinse them under very cold running water right after draining, rubbing gently between your hands. This removes excess starch and gives soba its clean, springy bite once chilled.
  • Assemble at the last minute: pour the broth over the noodles only when you’re ready to serve, and add the ice cubes straight into each bowl so nothing has time to go lukewarm.

Credit to harus_cuisine for the original idea — this version is just a heatwave-friendly remix. Enjoy!

Cold Courgette Pasta

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Two weeks ago, I went to Paris to see a System of a Down concert, right in the middle of a heatwave. That night, back at the hotel, inspiration struck out of nowhere. I woke up in the middle of the night and mumbled at my boyfriend to remember it for me: the recipe stuck in my head was cold courgette pasta. Zero idea why, zero idea how — I just adore cold pasta, and I basically think about food non-stop, apparently even mid-concert.

This one came together exactly as it appeared to me that night: a blended raw courgette and basil sauce, poured cold over pasta, topped with cherry tomatoes and feta. No stove required beyond boiling the pasta itself — perfect for a heatwave lunch.

Cold Courgette Pasta – About the Dish

Courgette (or zucchini, depending which side of the Atlantic you’re on) has quietly become a summer staple in both French and Italian kitchens, prized for how much flavour it can carry once blended raw. Treating it as the base of a cold, pesto-style sauce — with basil, garlic, olive oil — borrows lots from the classic Genovese pesto, with a hit of anchovy for umami and a dash of lemon + lemon zest to make it FRESH SO FRESH, EXCITING.

The result sits somewhere between a cold soup and a sauce: bright, herbaceous, faintly spicy, and cold enough to make a heatwave bearable. Add short pasta, juicy cherry tomatoes and salty feta, and you’ve got an absolute banger of a meal without almost zero heat.

Cold Courgette Pasta – Recipe

Ingredients – Advice & where to find them

  • Courgettes: use them raw — no need to cook. Two small ones or one large (350–400g) is enough; pick firm, glossy ones with no soft spots.
  • Tiny anchovy fillets: they melt into the sauce and mostly add depth, not a fishy taste. Good quality oil-packed fillets make a real difference here.
  • Garlic: one large clove is plenty when used raw — start with less if you’re sensitive to raw garlic.
  • Basil: 25–30g, about 30 leaves. Fresh only — this isn’t a dried-herb situation.
  • Lemon zest: use an unwaxed, untreated lemon if you can find one, since you’re using the skin directly. This step matters more than it looks.
  • Gochugaru: Korean red pepper flakes, smoky and only mildly hot. Easily swapped for Espelette pepper for a milder, French-pantry version.
  • Pasta: any short shape works — fusilli, penne or casarecce all hold the sauce well.
  • Feta: go for a block you crumble yourself rather than pre-crumbled — it holds its texture better against the cold sauce.

Blending & Serving Tips

  • Blend the sauce until completely smooth; add a splash of cold water if it feels too thick to pour.
  • The two ice cubes go straight into the blender — that’s what gives the sauce its cold, just-made freshness, no fridge time needed.
  • Cook the pasta, then rinse it briefly under cold water and drain it very well — leftover water dilutes the sauce.
  • Toss the pasta and sauce together in one big serving dish -easy peasy, and pretty, too.
  • Add the tomatoes, feta, olive oil and gochugaru only at serving time, so everything keeps its own texture instead of turning mushy.

And that’s it! Dig in.

Burrata Sandwich

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Burrata sandwich with confit tomatoes and pesto

I still think about my first trip to Italy, in Rome, where every sandwich I ate somehow outperformed most restaurant meals back home. That’s where the “less is more” idea really clicked for me. I’ve stuck to that rule ever since — four or five ingredients, max, per sandwich. None of that Americanized pile-up of cold cuts for me.

This one leans on three things that each have to shine on their own : homemade pesto, slow-roasted cherry tomatoes, and a genuinely generous burrata. Skimp on any one of them and it’s just fine. Get all three right, and it turns into something a little unreasonable, in the best way.

Burrata itself comes from Puglia, in southern Italy, where cheesemakers in Andria are said to have invented it in the 1920s as a clever way to use up mozzarella scraps : the leftover curd, torn into strands, gets mixed with cream and sealed inside a mozzarella pouch so nothing goes to waste. It’s since become one of Italy’s most exported cheeses, and for good reason — cut it open and the whole thing collapses into a pool of cream. Damn.

Burrata Sandwich — Recipe

Ingredients — Advice & key points

  • Cherry tomatoes : pick ripe, in-season ones — they’re what turns into the confit, so their natural sweetness matters more than usual.
  • Olive oil : go for a good extra-virgin, since it pulls double duty here — one part goes into the confit, the other is a finishing drizzle right before serving.
  • Salt : a couple of generous pinches on the tomatoes before they go in the oven. Don’t be shy — they need it to balance the sweetness.
  • Pesto : homemade if you possibly can (check out my Mortar-and-pestle Pesto recipe). It’s worlds apart from anything jarred.
  • Bread : a proper, crusty one. Baguette is lovely, but pick whatever is freshly baked in your location. Make sure to pick a bread thick enough to hold all that generous filling.
  • Burrata : buy the freshest, most generous one you can find — this is not the place to cut corners. Look for one that feels heavy and soft, packed with stracciatella.

Cooking process — Advice & key points

  • Confit low and slow : it lets the tomatoes soften and concentrate without turning bitter or dry. Check on them around the 25-minute mark.
  • Make the pesto while the tomatoes roast : it’s the perfect use of that oven time, and everything comes together at once.
  • Toast the baguette hot and fast : 200°C for about 4 minutes warms and crisps it without drying it out completely — you still want a bit of chew.
  • Assemble right before serving : burrata waits for no one. Once it’s cut open, you want it going straight onto warm bread.
  • Tear, don’t slice, the burrata : tearing it open lets the cream and stracciatella spread naturally across the tomatoes instead of sitting in one place.
  • Finish with a last drizzle of olive oil : it ties the pesto, tomatoes, and burrata together and adds a bit of shine.