Of all the scents with which summer is associated - freshly cut grass, steaming tarmac, elderflower - it is fresh mint that is king. It has its obvious uses: with lamb, for instance; or on new potatoes or peas; in Pimm's of course; or doused in boiling water for the freshest herb tea. Traditional, perhaps, but perfect in every instance.


Yet mint can be more interesting than we generally allow it to be. Cleverly used, it is the essence of summer itself. It can take you on holiday even when you're stuck at work in August and it's raining. Here's how. Make a bold, bright salad of tomatoes and goats' cheese, with a mustardy vinaigrette. Chop mint finely over the top and it becomes lunch on the beach in the South of France. Roll it with caster sugar, ricotta and lemon peel and scatter over raspberries; or chop into a little balsamic vinegar, add sugar and drizzle over strawberries and England meets Italy. Scatter over hot, grilled halloumi and you'll find yourself in Cyprus. Pound it with sugar and douse with dark rum and ginger ale, and suddenly you're in the Carribean. Poach peaches in Muscat with a spring of mint and you have the fragrance of a long, late lunch on a hot holiday.


There's more: blend with parsley, anchovy, garlic and capers, bind with olive oil and you have a piquant salsa to set off almost anything - meat, fish or vegetables. Mix that salsa with equal parts of mayonnaise, add new potatoes and you will end up with a revelatory potato salad.


Chop mint into salad dressing made of white wine vinegar, olive oil, garlic and caster sugar, and use it to dress cold grilled courgettes and aubergines, and you will think of them entirely differently. Add it to fresh lemonade and it immediately feels home-made.


Even better on a hot day, douse mint and chopped fresh ginger with boiling water, steep, then sweeten to taste, cool and pour over ice, and you have a spiky, yet extremely refreshing ginger-ade. So even if you are not going away, or it's dreary outside, it's still easy to bring a bit of summer holiday to your table.

Man, you sure know how to make an old man drool!

Mint with sugar, rum and ginger ale... yeah, that sounds like something I might enjoy on a hot summer evening!

Quoting from [germex]:

Man, you sure know how to make an old man drool!

Mint with sugar, rum and ginger ale... yeah, that sounds like something I might enjoy on a hot summer evening!