Herb mayonnaise Serves 8-10 1 medium free-range egg 1½ tsp Dijon mustard ¾ tsp sugar ½ tsp salt 1½ garlic cloves, peeled and crushed 1 tbsp cider vinegar 130ml hemp seed oil 60ml sunflower oil 15g mixed dill, coriander and parsley (if making by hand, these should be chopped) Put everything, apart from the oils and herbs, into a mixing bowl or a food processor. (If you're using the latter, you may well have to double the ingredient quantities in order for them to reach the level of the processor blade, so if you're feeding fewer mouths, you may want to make it by hand). Whisk or process for a few seconds, then start trickling in the oils.
Carol Klein: Summer herbs Summer's herbs are fresh, green, packed full of aroma and bursting with taste. Not only do they bring a depth and intensity to summer cooking, they add texture, colour and perfume to the vegetable garden. Oregano, or marjoram, is a British native that comes from an extended international family. For those who prefer them, there are golden-leaved and variegated forms, perennials that can be divided endlessly to make attractive edges and add flavour to pizza and tomato sauces. And even at this time of year there is still the chance to sow annual herbs afresh. There are plenty of seeds in a packet, and if you are canny why not allow one or two plants to flower and set seed? Even without a garden, herbs flourish in containers. Summer's most emblematic container herb has to be basil.
Nigel Slater's herb recipes I lost a lot of herbs last winter. Several varieties of thyme (lemon is always a little vulnerable), a couple of the marjorams that are so useful on pizza, and a fine-leaved tarragon all gave up the ghost during the cold snap. Tucking a new tarragon plant into a favourite old pot last night it occurred to me that I have been growing herbs, in one form or another, for most of my cooking life. Initially in a plastic pot by the sink in my first bedsit, then on the window ledge of my flat and now in the garden, the kitchen potherbs have met with mixed success. Some, like the lemon verbena whose citrus leaves are so refreshing when used to make a pot of tea, have lasted a decade or more. My garden soil is rather richly composted, which makes it a poor home for most herbs, so I grow everything other than lemon balm and parsley in pots. The soft-stemmed tender herbs – dill, coriander, tarragon, mint, chervil and wonderfully acidic sorrel – are the most appropriate to summer cooking.