At last the weather has turned and it’s time for some summery food. New season potatoes are coming into the shops at the moment.

Comber Earlies are the best known but every county has a good spud here. Scrub them to reveal golden thin skins and always cook them in their jackets. Potatoes and butter could be our national dish here – we do them both brilliantly well. The recipe here is for a warm potato salad with a brown butter dressing.

The potatoes are scrubbed and cut into discs before gently simmering in salted water. The butter is browned and then whizzed into a dressing of oil, mustard, shallots, garlic and vinegar. Toss the hot potatoes in the dressing with some scallions and parsley for a riff on the classic.

The potato salad would be great with practically everything but here I’ve paired it with pork ribs and a whiskey barbecue sauce. The ribs get a flavoursome rub. The barbecue sauce is rich with tomato, treacle, Worcestershire sauce, vinegar and whiskey. Brush this over the ribs and place on a rack over a toasting tray in the oven.

Keep brushing with the sauce until the ribs are fork tender. Allow to rest before cutting between the bones.

Eat the ribs with your hand and the potato salad with a fork. You could serve with another barbecue classic of corn on the cob which is great brushed with oil and cooked on the grill. Finish with a brush of melted butter. Again no cutlery required – eat this feast outside with a few napkins on hand….

Elderflowers are still in full flow but won’t be around for much more. They’re turn to berries to be picked later in the year. While you have the flowers you can capture their unique scent by whizzing them into a cordial. Dissolve 500g of sugar in a litre of boiling water, add 15 elderflower heads, a thinly sliced lemon and two teaspoons of citric acid. Cover with a tea towel, leave overnight and then strain in the morning. It’ll keep in the fridge for a month but for a longer life, freeze it in bags.

Another way to preserve elderflowers are to place some heads in a clean kilner jar and pour over honey that has been heated to blood temperature.

Honey and elderflowers are a joy together. Another super combination is elderflower and apricot. Italian apricots are in the shops now and like elderflowers are here for limited time. In the recipe here they’re poached with elderflower, lemon and white wine. For something icy a granita ticks the boxes.

Elderflower cordial and lemon are made into a syrup and then frozen with sparking water. Freeze and fluff up with a fork every hour to produce little grains. Spoon them onto poached apricots for a delicious summery dessert to cool you down.