Bruschetta

Once you have hooked on to Ryland Peters & Small's cookery books, you will find it extremely difficult to cast off as each one has a valued place on your cook's bookshelf. They are compulsive and Maxine Clark has done her best to continue this tradition in her two latest books, Bruschetta and Tarts.

A leading food writer and teacher on Alastair Little's Tasting Places holidays in Sicily and Tuscany, she has brought together the best recipes for these Italian appetizers that go down so well with the first drink of the evening. To start with the basics, what is the difference between bruschetta and crostini?

Bruschetta is a slice of country bread toasted over a wood fire and then rubbed with a clove of garlic and drizzled with olive oil.

Crostini is a slice of bread or polenta, brushed with olive oil and cooked in the oven, grilled or fried in olive oil or butter.

To this you can add all manner of toppings to suit the occasion and this is where Maxine Clark comes into her own with some delicious ideas. For starters, imagine crostini with pea purée and cubes of pear tossed in balsamic vinegar and finished off with a shaving of Pecorino. Or think about artichoke, pesto and pine nut bruschetta. The pesto and pine nuts provide a sweet foil to the slightly bitter artichokes.

Polenta crostini make a change and it is worth cooking up a batch, allowing it to set and cool before slicing. Fry in butter and cook until crisp or grill. This goes particularly well with Italian sausage with radicchio and Taleggio, which is almost a meal in itself. The Italian sausage and radicchio are cooked gently in a pan until cooked. Assemble the fried polenta crostoni (the larger sized version) with sliced sausages and radicchio and top with thick slices of Taleggio. Grill until the cheese has melted and is bubbling nicely.

To ring the changes on the smoked salmon front, why not take up Maxine's idea of smoked salmon and lemon pepper cream crostini. Mix freshly ground black peppercorns with equal amounts of mascarpone cream and milk, together with the finely grated rind and juice of a lemon. Spread this mixture onto the crostini, arrange a mound of smoked salmon and finish off with a squeeze of lemon juice.

If that is not enough, read through the section Other Italian snacks and be tempted by parmesan crisps, which can be made equally well with Grana Padano (cheaper than Parmesan), deep fried sage leaves and more. To mention it here, would be to give too much away. And don't forget to savour Gus Filgate's scrummy photographs.

Cocktail sausages may soon be a thing of the past if we all take note and buy Maxine Clark's Bruschetta, crostini and other Italian snacks.

Publication details:
64 pp. Photography by Gus Filgate. £8.99
Published by Ryland Peters & Small
ISBN 1841723991
2003

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