Eleanor STEAFEL

With the weather up and down, it’s wise to plan a meal that can suit all conditions

Does anyone else torture themselves during difficult weather by obsessively checking the meteorological status of other locations? Central Norway has been blissfully clement for the past couple of weeks, the west of Scotland has mainly been sunny and breezy, the south of France hot and dry.

The air in London has either been thick enough to spread on toast, or damp with drizzle. And now, to top off surely the strangest summer in living memory, Britain awaits the arrival of Storm Ellen and her 75mph winds. Because it’s 2020, and anything goes.

What you really need when your house oscillates between feeling like a sauna and a draughty bothy is to have the kinds of ingredients knocking about the fridge that can suit all weathers and all appetites. Tupperware filled with welldressed slaw is a great addition to a late-summer fridge. Make it today, and it will get better and better as the weekend goes on, sitting just as well alongside a picnic dinner as a hot meal (a jacket potato, grated strong Cheddar, and you’re away).

I love it piled into soft brioche buns with crunchy chicken schnitzel, American mustard and pickles. Proper buttermilk fried chicken would be even better, but a bashed-out breast, breaded and fried until golden is a glorious thing. You could serve the schnitzel and slaw just with a mustardy potato salad, but there is something about mercurial weather that permits you to “lean in” to messy food. You’re already muddled. You might as well get mustard down your front, too.