Beer and Bruschetta

Everyone knows about my love of wine but my secret pleasure is watching Channel 4’s Come Dine With Me! It amazes me that some of these contestants exist and are willing to appear ridiculous on TV. The Edinburgh Come Dine with Me was rather a classic with a self styled cougar, a rock chic, an unfortunate young man constantly being harassed by the “cougar” , a Polish lady and an Italian food snob Toni. It was amusing to watch Toni criticise Michel for her rather un-Italian Tiramisu and then come up with a rather strange version of the Italian classic Bruschetta, himself . However, it did inspire me to cook a slightly more authentic Bruscetta this lunchtime (shame that I had no Italian bread) and as ever at lunchtime I went for a beer pairing rather than wine.

For this quick but delicious lunch I diced three medium tomatoes per person and added some salt and fresh herbs. I then toasted some bread and rubbed the bread with a garlic clove. The tomatoes were added to the bread and some olive oil (or in my case rapeseed oil) and good quality balsamic vinegar (but not too much) sprinkled on top.

The beer was another excellent bottle conditioned beer from the Hammerpot brewery which like the other I reviewed recently had a lovely historic motor racing themed label – this one was a 1952 Cooper-Bristol just like local hero Mike Hawthorn used to drive. The beer was Madgwick Gold, a lovely hoppy golden ale, quite light but the citrus undertones matched well with the tomatoes. In Tongham we are blessed with our own excellent brewery but it is always nice to try others as well such as this beautiful example from Sussex. We bought it in Secrett’s farmshop but it is available elsewhere – do try some.

Never watched Come Dine With Me, look it up on www.channel4.com/programmes/come-dine-with-me.  A guilty pleasure but fun!