Nothing heralds summer more than sausages being cooked on a barbecue

After what has seemed like perpetual rain for months, it was lovely to see blue skies and sunshine this week.

Accompanying it, as always, was the smell of meat cooking over coals in the air. Nothing heralds the arrival of summer more than the scent of sausages cooking in gardens. There’s nothing wrong in any way of cooking sausages or burgers on the grill but there are endless meats that can be given this treatment. Lamb particularly suits the kiss of smoke. Chops are great on the barbecue but can be a bit pricy – for me lamb leg steaks give you more bang for your buck. There’s no bone to manoeuvre around making them easier to cook evenly. In the recipe here they’re marinated in a blend of garlic, lemon, rosemary, oregano and onion before being grilled. Lamb and mint sauce is a classic combination and I’ve pepped the recipe up here with the addition of pistachio nuts and anchovies. Don’t be put off by thinking anchovies are overly fishy – they melt in to the dressing giving it a rich umami flavour. The French often insert slices of anchovy, garlic and sprigs of rosemary into slashes in a lamb leg before roasting to great effect.

There’s a new publishing house in Ireland called Nine Bean Rows who’ve brought out small books on cookies, tapas, soup to name a few. The illustrations and recipes are gorgeous and they’re worth checking out on ninebeanrowbooks.com. They recently brought out a book called “The Gathered Table”, a collection of 55 recipes from chefs, farmers, bakers, producers and shopkeepers in aid of the Peter McVerry Trust, a housing and homelessness charity. I’ve added the recipe I provided for the book – barbecued chicken with beer butter, grilled corn and potato flatbread. The chicken is split down the backbone or “spatchcocked” before spicing and then basting with beer butter. Corn is treated the same way – ideal for vegetarian guests and there’s some potato flatbread for mopping up all the juices. The tag line for the book is “ A Taste of Home” and is full of recipes ideal for convivial and relatively simple dining. Even if it does rain, crank up the barbie, open a brolly and enjoy the slight rise in temperatures.