Lunch, Tentatively Outside, for 8

In the heat of the summer you don’t want, I think, a rich and odoriferous crab tart. But in those first early days, when it is more hope than convenience that takes you outside, or when the sun is growing weaker but still invites, towards the end of September, this is the perfect lunch: not too filling and not a parody of a picnic to be eaten under those cloudless pre-First World War skies of nostalgic collective memory.

If you think you can’t manage the pastry, buy it, but making the rich shortcrust below is not a big deal, I promise you. I tend to make the pastry the night before and leave it in a disc, wrapped in clingfilm, in the fridge to be rolled out the next morning. If I’ve got time to start it slightly earlier in the evening, I make the pastry, let it rest, then bring it out and roll it, line the flan dish with it and put it back in the fridge, covered with clingfilm again. Then, the next day, all I’ve got to do is bake it blind and then get the filling together, which is not a strenuous exercise.