The Slightly more than Basic Saturday Lunch for 6–8

• Lemon chicken
• Pecorino and pears, or sticky chocolate pudding

This lemon chicken is a not too anglo version of the Greek kotopoulo lemonato, that’s to say chicken roasted in portions in the oven with wine and water to make an aromatic liquid to produce, along with eggs and lemon, a sharp but deeply flavoured avgolemono sauce. Obviously, you can serve it with just a green salad, especially in hot weather, but otherwise I’d do a bowlful of buttery basmati rice (quite the easiest rice to cook and the fastest) and some peas (which in my house means frozen petits pois, with some sugar added to the water along with salt and some basil with butter, a nut of which I add to the drained hot peas: chop the basil at the very last moment or else use some basil-infused olive oil). Or you could substitute for the rice and peas a large bowlful of broad beans. Fresh if you can, but if you are using frozen, thaw first and then slip off the skins. Then just steam the already soft beans or, better still, sauté them in some butter or olive oil with garlic and parsley, or mint, or indeed both.