Happy International Picnic Day!

Ok, so the sun couldn’t make an appearance today, on International Picnic Day 2019, but that’s all the more reason to believe that it will be here soon. We hope!

So get ahead of the game and be prepared: the lovely Sue Stoneman has come up with a quick and easy recipe sure to brighten up any picnic, come rain or shine. As Sue puts it, “Any day is good for food of any sort when it involves cooking and eating”, and even the weather can’t argue with that.

Exmouth’s Sue is a local legend. As well as being a food writer and blogger, part of the Dining Devon team, she was South West Chef of the Year‘s winner of the Home Cook category in 2016 and 2017. Not content with that, she also makes time for the day job at Big Fire, at The Shops @ Dartington. She is renowned as the South West’s queen of cooking and baking on fire al fresco, and can be seen generously sharing her knowledge at cookery demonstrations throughout the region.

This is Sue’s recipe for a variation on the traditional street food from Nice, Pan Bagnet. All very fitting as we’ve just come back from France; our first family holiday for four years. A more traditional recipe can be found here. Sue has used our Taste of the West Gold award-winning Coronation Sauce as a base for this recipe. It’s great on its own, or it can be mixed with mayo for a less concentrated result, or if you’re counting points/calories – it’s up to you.

Ingredients:

Amounts will vary with size of appetite/picnic basket and the number of mouths to feed, so don’t feel restricted.

One loaf of un-sliced bread – pain de campagne if you want to go truly French; or you could adapt the recipe to fill a baguette.

Cooked chicken

1 jar of Otter Vale Coronation Sauce

+/- mayonnaise

A few of your favourite salad leaves

Sweetcorn

Red pepper; green and yellow too if you like – the choice of colour is yours!

Method:

Mix some Coronation Sauce with sweetcorn in a bowl; or mix 1 part Coronation Sauce to 2 parts mayonnaise/to taste with the sweetcorn in a bowl.

Cut a “lid” off the un-sliced loaf.

Layer the Coronation Sauce/sweetcorn mix with the leaves and peppers inside the bread.

Pop the lid back on, place in the fridge wrapped/with some weight on to help keep it all together until you’re ready to go.

Cut, serve, and enjoy – preferably with some sunshine, and with thanks to Sue!