Italian Bread salad with tender stem broccoli, asparagus and sugar peas

This is a really easy and delicious starter to make. It also works well as a side to a meat dish as it includes your greens. If I can say one thing that I really like about this dish, it is the way that textures and flavours combine.

There is the crunchiness of the bread while there is the crispiness of the greens. There is their juicy sweetness that melds with tang of the lemon and the the pungency of the garlic which floats on the mellow pepperiness of the olive oil.

Use a nice olive oil for your dressing, as it really does add to the flavour. I'll share a little secret with you – I have my everyday olive oil and then I have slightly more expensive extra virgin olive oil which I will only ever use unheated and where the flavour of the oil becomes a component of the dish.

Then there is the creaminess and the piquant of the pecorino against the sweet tanginess of the roasted vine tomatoes that just bring the tread of tastes back as they perfectly compliment the clean verdi of your broccoli, sugar snaps and asparagus. Here again you have the colours of the Italian flag - Add a grinding of salt and pepper and what you have is the glory of the Italian flag flying!

The quantities that I have given are enough for two people or four four as a quick little taster.

Ingredients

2 thickish slices of a thin loaf of day-old ciabatta

6 baby tomatoes on the vine

6 tender stems of broccoli

6 Sugar snap peas

6 thin green asparagus (you can use french green beans if asparagus are not in season or - heaven forbid!- you have an aversion to them)

2 tbs good quality olive oil

half a lemon

half a clove of garlic

salt and pepper to taste.

To make

Pop the two slices of ciabatta into the oven on a tray and pop the vine tomatoes on the same tray and drizzle over with a very little olive oil. If you tend to do a million things at once, set the timer so that the bread doesn't burn. At 180 degrees, assuming the oven is hot already and the tray is in the middle of the oven, time for 7 mins. Turn the slices of bread and then set the timer for a further 5 mins.

In the meantime put a saucepan on the stove with a bit of water and a dash of salt. Bring to the boil while you prep your tender stems and your asparagus. By nipping off the bottom ends of the greens and the little stalks of the sugar peas. Pop the asparagus and broccoli into the boiling water and then after you have turned the bread add the peas. The objective is that the greens are just tender but still crisp.

While the greens are being blanched, remove the bread from the oven and rub each side with the half clove of garlic and squash the tomatoes over the bread. Move the squashed tomatoes to the side and then rip or cut the bread into 2 cm strips.

Drain the greens and add one tablespoon of olive oil, add salt and pepper and squeeze over the lemon juice. Toss. Add the bread and the squashed tomatoes and then toss again an dish up immediately.

A little trick for serving

Use tongs to pull out the greens from the bowl and arrange on a plate. Then take a spoon and scoop out the bread and the tomatoes and arrange them on top. It's ok if you get a bit of the bread in between the greens but try to make sure that it is evenly distributed between portions. Then spoon over the dressing at the bottom of the bowl – there shouldn't be too much and then add the last bit of olive oil.

Shave the pecorino over the top and serve.

Wine suggestions

I would definitely go with a white wine for this, one that has quite intense green flavours, in fact (I'd tend to go grass instead of guavas). You could have a Pinot Grigio since it is an easy going and fairly innocuous wine a lot of the time – you'll probably get a little bit of a fruity, maybe lemon tone from this which will compliment the meal. Alternatively a Chenin Blanc would go well – not one that is wooded – as there seemed to be a little trend towards treating the grape in recent times. I think that a little bit of crisp green apple on the palate would be quite nice – especially if you have used a pungent garlic. Also the acidity of this will be mitigated by the cheese but at the same time stand up to the strong flavour of the pecorino.

A little Tuesday dinner at Bizerca Bistro

An odd name to choose for a restaurant, but the evening did turn out to be a little on the odd side, so I guess that that was fitting then.

I was delighted to be picked up for the evening even though my companion's driver was evidently off that night and because he stayed almost adjacent to the restaurant, was told that I was lucky to get a lift. None-the-less, I could live with this considering he was a fellow gourmand who had wooed me into giving him my number with rose water-flavoured promises of an eight course tasting menu at Cellars-Hohenort's Greenhouse.


There was a big walk going on in Cape Town central that held up the traffic and which seemed to complicate parking arrangements. These were eventually reached after circumventing the venue, via Heerengracht Traffic circle... and then through the Adderly street circle because we couldn't get around the first, driving through a police barrier (kindly moved aside by a bergie) and then reversing 100 m down Hans Strijdom Avenue (happily not busy because I assume that the barrier that we had driven through, had now been replaced by an official. I fear that this was something of an oddity for my companion, who is a Joburger and who assumes that one always parks at a venue and not near it.

But, the bistro was just down the road and my heels, high but sensible (as a seasoned Capetionian, I am accustomed to find the first available parking within 500m and then walking to my destination)  were up for the little stroll down to Tilbugh square, where we found ourselves at Bizerca.

The  restaurant is elegant and we were lavishly welcomed by the host in French as we were swept inside and taken to our table.

Starters and mains were chalked on blackboards but we were given the seasonal menu as well. The asparagus with prawns and hollandaise sauce immediately caught my attention. I was in for a treat I thought smugly.

The wine selection is excellent, though don't expect a sauvignon blanc or a wooded chardonnay by the glass.

None the less, the waiter waxed lyrical about the hollandiase sauce pairing with the viognier, which was slightly more on the melted butter side and less on the sauce side and not all together that tasty. And then there were little cubes of tart tomato which I snobbishly ignored and left on my plate. The viognier which the waiter recommended was excellent and a beautiful honey colour, but not with the starter where it became overly acidic. The unwooded chardonnay, whcih was more acidic at first might have mellowed out and proved better at pulling the dish through, especially with the tomato. (Which might have been nice if they were boiled in cream. I can't really comment on the prawns in the dish since they were hardly there.

My companion's veal tongue looked very interesting, but I wasn't sure if it was beyond the boundries of politesse to ask for a taste. He was definitely enjoying it so I didn't want to interrupt.

The courses were well paced and there was a great deal of chit-chat and laughing, as we talked of travel and art and, well, food like old friends.

The main course however was superb! The beef bourguignon was delicious and the malbec which we had with it complemented it superbly! The beef was tender and the little mushrooms, onions, carrots and potatoes that attended the beef were all cooked to perfection. I have to say that I could not leave any of it behind. I did briefly consider mopping up the sauce with a bit of bread but then my companion did that for me.

And how could I deny him the pleasure of tasting that delicious sauce?

Dessert was a surprise as the berry panacotta trifle came in a martini glass. Quite pleasantly it came with an aside of berry sorbet that had a shot of vodka at the bottom of the glass.

Refreshing. I always like a bit of a digestif – in fact I had been craving a vodka martini the whole evening because I had just signed a contract and as everybody knows, a vodka martini is the only way to celebrate. But I fear that the vodka perhaps did me in. Oh who am I kidding? When I mix white and red wine, even with food, I'm a cheap date and I was having a very entertaining time.

That said, the espresso was excellent. Though it does mean that I am still up at 1am writing this post.

Mr Vidulich, you will be pleased to know that after all, that you were indeed right in your estimation and that I would still give the place a 6 out of 10.

 A little harsh, I know, but mostly becuase of the aircon that was suddenly set to artic blast at around 10:30. And that we were constantly asked which dish we had ordered. So service could do with a bit of a dusting up.

No lingering there then, unless you went to go and peruse the cellar, which was slightly warmer than the 14 degrees it should have been but a more comfortable temperature than the restaurant itself, like that of a sunning room in fact, in comparison to the rest of the restaurant. I could have happily sat down and opened one of the expensive bottles of wine (a bottle of boujoulais and the Russell-Hamilton pinot noir caught my eye) and enjoyed it in there. Indeed both the location and temperature were conducive to being a little on the mischievous side - except the walls were glass and the wine would have cost a fortune if we had been caught at it!