How do you cook in a holiday rental kitchen with almost nothing?

Every holiday rental kitchen has the same personality. One frying pan with a scratched base, a saucepan without a lid, a knife that couldn't cut butter, and a cupboard holding half a bag of rice from a previous guest. The view is lovely. The equipment is optimistic.

The good news is that holiday cooking doesn't need much. You are probably in a place with good bread, good produce and a shop full of things you can't buy at home. Let them be the stars.

A small packing list

These take up very little space in a suitcase and change everything.

• A good small knife, with a guard or wrapped in a tea towel. Check your airline's rules if travelling with hand luggage only.
• A vegetable peeler. Rarely found, often needed.
• A small chopping board, if you have a thin flexible one.
• A corkscrew and a bottle opener, if you like a glass with dinner.
• Salt, pepper and chilli flakes in small, well-sealed containers.
• A clean tea towel or two. Rental tea towels can be mysterious.
• A few zip bags and a roll of foil for leftovers and picnics.
• Optional: a small grater, a lemon squeezer, and your favourite spice or dried herb.

Buy olive oil, vinegar and other basics on arrival rather than packing liquids.

Let the local shop do the cooking

The best holiday meals are often half assembled, half cooked.

• Bread from the local bakery, the cornerstone of most meals.
• Cheese and preserves: whatever the local speciality is, plus olives, pickled vegetables, marinated artichokes or peppers.
• Ripe produce: tomatoes, peaches, melon, figs, salad leaves, whatever the market is proud of this week. See farmers' market shopping for how to shop a market well.
• Ready-made helpers: fresh pasta, a jar of good pesto, tinned beans, a tray of focaccia.

A table of good bread, ripe tomatoes with oil and salt, a wedge of cheese, some olives and a bottle of local wine is a complete dinner, and no apology is required.

One-pan dinners

When you do cook, keep it to one pan or one pot.

• Pasta with a quick sauce: cherry tomatoes softened in olive oil with garlic and chilli, tossed with pasta and a splash of its water.
• Eggs in tomato sauce: a pan of tomatoes, a few eggs cracked in, lid on (or a plate as a lid). Bread for mopping.
• A frittata: whatever vegetables you have, eggs, cheese, gentle heat.
• Beans and greens: tinned beans warmed in olive oil with garlic, a handful of greens wilted in, a squeeze of lemon.
• Grilled vegetables on a griddle pan, if the rental has one, dressed with oil and herbs.

For hot evenings when even one pan feels too much, cooking when it's too hot has no-cook ideas. For the extreme version of this problem, a single burner outdoors, see camping stove cooking.

Working with the kitchen you have

• Check what's there on the first evening, before you shop: pans, oven, hob, fridge space.
• Blunt knives: use them for soft things and tear the rest. Herbs, mozzarella and bread all tear beautifully.
• No lid: use a plate or a baking tray.
• No colander: lift pasta out with a slotted spoon or a fork, or pour carefully using the lid of another pan.
• A tiny fridge: shop little and often. Holidays are the time for daily market visits anyway.

Keeping it easy

Plan one or two cooked dinners per week and fill the rest with assembled meals, picnics and eating out. You're on holiday. The kitchen should support the holiday, not the other way round.