Pork and watermelon, chicken and cherries – Nigel Slater’s sweet and sour summer recipes

Celebrate summer with substantial salads made with refreshing fruit, plus apricots and creme fraiche, and courgette lemon cake

A deep bowl of roast chicken salad with pea shoots and cherries; another of spiced pork with wedges of watermelon, ice-cold from the fridge. A platter of marinated mackerel for eating chilled with soft green leaves and a dessert of apricots baked with sugar and white wine. The summer kitchen, it seems, is here.

There is much to celebrate – bunches of white-tipped radishes in little bowls of ice; fat, butterhead lettuces to calm the spiciness of watercress or rocket. There are crisp cucumbers and plump bunches of mint for long summer drinks, and the first of the summer fruit is here too.