What do you cook when it's too hot to cook?

Picture a heavy August afternoon on the Italian coast: nobody is turning on the oven. Shutters are half-closed, lunch is late, and the food on the table was largely made in the morning or not cooked at all. That is the model. Hot weather is not a reason to eat badly; it is a reason to cook differently.

Room temperature is a feature

The single most useful idea: plenty of food tastes better at room temperature than piping hot. To us the flavours read more clearly, textures relax, and the cook gets to sit down. Think roast peppers in oil, a frittata, a bowl of beans dressed in olive oil and lemon, grilled vegetables, a pasta salad, panzanella. All of them can be made in the cool of the morning, kept in the fridge, and brought out a little while before you eat.

No-cook plates

Real summer cooking is often shopping and assembling.

• Tomatoes, properly. Ripe tomatoes, sliced, salted and left for a few minutes so the juices run, then olive oil and torn basil. With bread, it is a meal.
• The assembled plate. Mozzarella or burrata, good bread, olives, raw fennel and radishes, slices of melon or peaches, a jar of roasted peppers. A board, not a recipe.
• Bean salads. Tinned cannellini or chickpeas, red onion, celery, parsley, lemon and lots of oil.
• Cold soups. Blend ripe tomatoes, cucumber, pepper, a little garlic, bread, oil and vinegar into a chilled soup. Or blitz cucumber with yogurt, mint and garlic.
• Carpaccio of vegetables. Courgettes or fennel shaved paper-thin, dressed with lemon, oil, salt and shavings of parmesan.

One burner, one short burst

When you do want something warm, keep it to a single burner and as short as possible.

• Pasta with a raw sauce. While the pasta cooks, chop ripe tomatoes, garlic, basil, olive oil and salt in a bowl. Toss the hot pasta straight in. The heat warms the sauce just enough.
• Pasta with lemon, olive oil and parmesan, loosened with the cooking water.
• Eggs. Soft-boiled eggs over a tomato salad or with asparagus. Or a quick frittata in the morning, eaten cool in the evening.
• Couscous only needs boiling water from a kettle poured over it and a lid, then herbs, lemon, oil and whatever vegetables you have.
• A quick sear. Halloumi, a few slices of courgette or peppers on a very hot griddle, done in minutes, ideally with a window open.

Strategy for the heat

• Cook in the morning. Roast a tray of vegetables, boil potatoes, cook a pot of grains while the house is coolest, then dress and assemble later.
• Buy help. Roasted peppers in a jar, marinated artichokes, good tinned beans and fish, ready-made hummus, a rotisserie-style deli counter: all fair game in a heatwave.
• Make the fridge your sous-chef. Chilled bowls, cold plates and a jug of water with lemon slices make a cool meal feel deliberate.
• Eat later. When the evening cools down, food tastes better.