Nigel Slater’s perfect high-summer recipes

Keep cool in the kitchen and on the plate with Nigel Slater’s white peach jelly, roast chicken salad with sweet cherries and asparagus and prawn tart

High summer, and the point in the cook’s year when the kitchen can relax a little. There is a need for dishes that are better eaten warm than hot; a dessert that can be made the day before, and drinks just as suited to Sunday breakfast as they are to Sunday lunch, all using the summer’s best ingredients.

So here we have it, a shellfish tart just as good whether it is eaten warm or cool; the weekend roast turned into a big, cherry-flecked salad; a jelly shimmering with ripe peaches and a fruit drink to which you can add gin or vodka as the mood takes you. Easy, good-natured food for the dog days of summer.