DAVE STANFORD shares an irresistible recipe for Parmesan garlic bread.

WHEN I asked my mate, Phil, what he wanted for his 40th birthday there was little “umming” and “aaahing”.

“Your garlic bread”, was his matter-of-fact, you don’t really need to ask, reply. No bottle of Scotch, aftershave or album for Phil, then.

“Garlic bread?” I hear you cry. “Garlic? Bread?”

But this is no ordinary garlic bread. It’s almost a meal in itself because once you’ve eaten one slice I guarantee you’ll eat the remainder. It’s great for barbecues, to serve with some pasta or alongside what would ordinarily be a dreary bowl of soup.

If Carlsberg made garlic bread, then this would be it. Except this was made by Nigel Slater. Well, not actually made by him, but the recipe comes from his book Real Food, which is now more than ten years’ old but remains one of my favourite recipe books.

Parmesan garlic bread

(Serves four, or just one if you’re being greedy!)

Ingredients

100g butter, softened
3 juicy, fresh garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped or crushed
A fistful of green parsley, chopped
50g coarsely grated Parmesan
A small baguette

Method

Mash the butter in a bowl with a wooden spoon, mix in the garlic, parsley and grated Parmesan.

Put the baguette on a large piece of foil and cut deep slashes into the bread.

Push lumps of the garlic butter into the cracks. Be overly generous.

Wrap the bread in the foil loosely and bake in a preheated oven (200C) for 20 minutes. Unwrap the foil and bake for another five minutes until the bread has gone a little crunchy on top, the bread is sodden with garlicky butter and the cheese forms thin strings as you tear one piece of bread from the next.