WE’VE certainly been spoilt with some brilliant weather and the sun continues to shine.
I don’t think we’re quite into the Ambre Solaire and Pimms season just yet, but it’s looking really promising.
I spent a recent weekend with my best friend who lives in B ray, Berkshire, catching up on some much-needed male bonding – translates as sitting around drinking wine and playing on the PlayStation, then watching the Masters golf.
We actually uncorked a bottle of Pauillac he’d bought in Bordeaux many years ago when we were both students there and I have to say it was utterly delicious. We savoured every drop and had a good old time reminiscing about the fun all of us had over those carefree sun-baked months in the Gironde.
Bray, as the keen foodies here will already know, is home to Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck restaurant, as well as two of his pubs, the equally Michelin-honoured Waterside Inn and a couple of other fine eateries. My friend lives straight opposite the Waterside Inn and two mornings running I was gently woken from my slumbers by the sound of not-even-trying-to-whisper Gallic voices as the breakfast chefs came in for their shifts.
A lovely part of the world and a great destination for the gourmet. Do go, it’s charming.
We dined at the cheaper of the pubs, The Crown, and it really was very good indeed as you’d expect, given the ownership.
On Saturday night the place was rammed, with the world and his wife tucking into amazing looking suet-crust pies, plump Dover soles, sweet grilled shellfish and picture-perfect burgers.
I had a terrific steak with marrowbone sauce and a plate of the very newest baby asparagus with a soft-boiled pheasant egg which I think was a first for me. Lovely.
However, what caught my eye and tastebuds, was a very simple dish of a trug of baby vegetables and a bowl of just-warm bagna càuda. It was the perfect way to open a warm springtime meal and, as usual, the choir of angels that sits in my head just waiting for moments like this burst into song, the little lightbulb above my head fizzled to life, and I had this week’s recipe sorted.
Bagna càuda – literally ‘hot sauce’– is a sauce from the Piedmont region of Italy and is a silky-smooth paste of anchovies, olive oil and bread. Oh, and garlic. Clove upon clove of garlic.
Believed to be a descendent of the ancient Roman preserved fish sauce Garum, it is served just warm with raw vegetables (traditionally cardoons, onions, celery and other hearty autumnal veg) and is similar to aïoli in many ways.
On a warm evening with a glass of crisp Riesling it was a lovely way to start the meal. Crunchy cauliflower and crisp, cool peppers, along with peppery cauliflower and sweet baby carrots all dunked into the thick, tangy salty gloop with some good bread and excellent conversation made for a great starter.
Something to bring to the table to get things going, perhaps in place of a more formal first course, as the Italians prefer. When in Rome …! Aprons on!