Grape Bread and Chestnut Purée

Slightly sweetened and only a little butter enriched bread makes an ideal match to a warm cup of coffee on a lazy weekend afternoon, and topped off with some sweetened chestnut purée spread it’s addictive.

If you can’t manage to work your way through an entire loaf, sandwich together slices of the bread with chestnut purée spread, arrange in a casserole dish. Whisk 3 eggs with 25 g sugar until tripled in volume, stir in 500 ml milk, pour over the bread, leave it to rest for 30 minutes, bake at 180°C until the top is golden and the custard set, best bread and butter pudding ever.

Grape & thyme bread

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The night before
2 Tbsp Raw sugar
300 ml Warm water
100 g Flour
1 tsp yeast


Dissolve the sugar in the warm water then stir in the yeast, leave it to stand for 10 minutes, until the yeast has bloomed. Add the flour and mix thoroughly. Cover with cling-film and leave overnight.

The morning after
50 g Butter, melted
25 g Raw sugar
400 g Flour
12 g Salt
Grapes, about 18
Thyme, fresh leaves
Raw sugar for sprinkling
Butter for brushing


Mix together the dry ingredients, add the flour mixture and butter to the yeast, which should be bubbly and aromatic, stir together and form a rough ball of dough, cover and leave it to rest for 5-10 minutes.

Tip the dough on to the bench and knead until smooth and elastic, about 15 minutes, letting it rest every couple of minutes while kneading helps the flour hydrate and will speed up the process. My preferred method for kneading, at the moment, is to roll the dough out into a log shape, fold in half and repeat. This seems to speed up the kneading process and results in some seriously fluffy bread.

Place the dough in a bowl and cover, leave it to rise in a warm spot for about an hour or until it has doubled in size.

Knock back the dough and leave it for another hour to double in size.


On a lined baking tray, shape the dough by forming it into an elongated rectangle tucking the ends under, use your fingertips to dimple and push out the dough. Push in the grapes into a regular pattern. Cover and leave it for about 30 minutes to rise.

Pre-heat the oven to 220°C.


Brush the dough with melted butter and sprinkle over thyme leaves and raw sugar.


Bake for 40 minutes in the top third of the oven, when cooked the bread should sound hollow when tapped on the underside. Remove from the oven and cover with a clean tea towel, leave it cool for a while, if you can, before tucking in.

Chestnut purée spread

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This is pretty simple and well you could go the extra step and roast/poach fresh chestnuts but they’re not always readily available, but I find a can of plain chestnut purée does the trick.

440 g Chestnut purée
200 ml Water
100 g Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla paste
Decent pinch of salt


Place a pan over a medium heat and add the sugar, leave it to dissolve and slowly caramelise, be careful not to burn the sugar. Add the water to the pan, it will spit and hiss a little so add with caution. When the caramelised sugar has dissolved stir in the vanilla.

Break up the Chestnut purée in a bowl, and little by little whisk in the sugar syrup to form a thick paste, you may not need it all. Taste and season with salt. I like to pass it through a sieve to get a perfectly smooth paste.


It should store in a sealed container in the fridge for a couple of weeks, if it lasts that long!

Walnut Flat Bread

Well as I mentioned in my last post about chicken liver pâté I had also whipped up a batch of walnut bread and pâté de campagne, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a little longer for the pâté de campagne recipe as this is all about walnut flat bread today. Also slightly off topic, I have finally got myself a proper URL, exciting huh, it was hard choosing exactly how to get “good food in a crap kitchen” into an address that was manageable but as I notice most people shorten me to “crapkitchen” I settled on www.crapkitchen.com terribly original i know!

Walnut Flat Bread (Makes 8)
700 g White flour
300 g Whole wheat flour
150 g Walnuts, finely chopped
600 ml Lukewarm water
20 g Yeast
20 g Salt

Stir the yeast into the water and let it sit for about 10 minutes for the yeast to activate, a good foam should form.


In a large bowl mix together all the other ingredients, make a well and pour the liquid into it. Form into a rough ball and leave to rest for 15 minutes. Tip out of the bowl and work the dough into a log about 60 cm in length, fold in half and repeat. Do this for about 10 minutes or until the dough is smooth and elastic, much like the method I use in my hand pulled noodles, you can knead traditionally if you prefer but I find this method is faster and creates a more elastic dough. Place the dough back in the bowl, cover and let rise for about an hour.

Preheat the oven to 180°C, on fan forced. Divide the dough into eight. Take a portion of dough and roll into a round, 2mm thick, repeat with the remaining dough, lay each round between cling film to prevent sticking. Bake each round in the oven for 15 minutes, you should be able to do two at a time if you have a fan oven. When cooked transfer to a rack and cover with a tea towel. The bread will crisp further as it cools.

Mac and Cheese Sliders

Mac and Cheese isn’t really considered healthy, and well it is pretty much starch with starch with cheese, so not really helping out with the 5+ a day vegetable intake that is recommended. So why not gild the lily and coat patties of Mac & Cheese in some tasty potato starch (instant mash potato), fry the little cheese pasta goodness and slide it into a soft bun with some hot sauce and lettuce. Why not indeed, a total carb overload, bread, pasta, flour based sauce, not at all bad for you, well not your taste buds anyway.

Macaroni
Cook to the packets instructions, I prefer the small elbow to the large. Take care not to overcook. Strain and dump into a large bowl. I think I used about 300 grams of pasta.

Streaky bacon
Slice up into little lardons and place in a hot oven until the fat has started to render out and crisp up around the edges, don’t make it too crispy otherwise you’ll have little bacon bullets in your pasta. Tip the bacon, fat and all, on top of the strained pasta and stir through.

Cheese Sauce
750 ml milk (whole milk please)
Parsley
Bay Leaf
Thyme
Peppercorns
Onion (peeled and quartered)

Place all of the ingredients in a pot and put over a low heat, allow it to gently simmer for ten minutes or so, be careful not to scald the milk. Strain into a jug for easy pouring.

Over a medium heat melt 3 tablespoons of butter and then stir in 3 heaped tablespoons of flour, stir until the flour has cooked through, make sure not to colour the roux too much. Pour in a portion of the milk and whisk until it has incorporated and begins to thicken, repeat until all of the milk is incorporated. Cook until thick, stirring often. If the white sauce is lumpy, don’t worry just keep stirring and cooking, the starch in the flour will eventually hydrate and the the sauce will become smooth.

Remove the pot from the heat and whisk in an egg, and two cups of cheese, I like to use a combination of strong flavourful cheese and good melting cheese.


Pour the cheese sauce into the bowl with the pasta and stir through making sure it is evenly coated, taste and season as needed.

Now you can spoon this into a baking dish, top with some crumbs and cook in a hot oven for about half an hour and you’ll have some tasty mac & cheese, or you could wait for it to cool and transfer it to some containers and place in the fridge. When the mix has set and is completely cold remove from the fridge and spoon into ring molds, pressing down with the back of a spoon to make little slider patties, carefully coat each patty in potato starch (instant potatoes).


Heat a good amount of oil in a heavy based frying pan and cook the patties until they are golden brown on each side, you could probably deep fry if you wish but I find shallow frying works perfectly well. Allow the patties to drain on some kitchen towels and serve in a slider bun with shredded iceberg lettuce and hot sauce.

Pizza dough, revised

With the death of my trusty Kenwood mixer, well not death but I need to order a couple of capacitors and get out the trusty soldering iron, I’ve had to revisit my trusty pizza dough recipe, I used to make a pretty standard 60% hydration dough but recently have been experimenting with the water content of the dough and have found nudging up the liquid content to 80% and adding about 5% fat, in the form of olive oil, has drastically improved my crust. I mentioned earlier, the trusty mixer is dead, and quite frankly I’ve become pretty lazy when it comes to kneading dough, I rely pretty heavily on it, and hey I broke a bone in my wrist so kneading is not that pleasant at the moment, excuses excuses, anyway this is my no knead method that doesn’t take 24+ hours but does involve a little more labour than mix and forget. It will require a good 3-4 hours of your time, but probably no more than 10 minutes of attention, the initial mixing, and then hourly folding, and by the end of it you should have a wonderful light puffy dough.

500 g flour
400 g warm water
25 ml Olive oil
5 g salt
2 g yeast
2 g sugar/honey

Stir together the water, sugar and yeast, let it sit until the yeast has bloomed and you have nice frothy mixture.

Mix together the salt and olive oil, make a well and pour in the yeast-water along with the oil. Set aside for 30-45 minutes, this will give the gluten a chance to hydrate.

After the dough has rested, and risen, probably about doubled, use a spatula to bring one edge up to the centre, rotate the bowl 90° and repeat until all four ‘sides’ have been folded over 3 or 4 times, let the dough rest for another hour and repeat. This is a long fermenting dough and the folding will be repeated 3 more times, about 4 hours rising time in total.

Pick off a lump of dough, roll thin, trying to use as little extra flour as possible, and cook in a very hot oven (250-300°C) on a pizza stone that has been preheating for 40-60 minutes until blistered and golden.

Bread salad with haloumi

Bread salad (Panzanella) is a great way to use a chunk of leftover stale of sourdough bread, it can be as light or a heavy as you want and in this case the simple addition of a couple of slices of fried haloumi elevated the salad to a very tasty meal.

The Salad Components:
Stale Sourdough Bread, large dice
Radish, sliced
Cherry Tomatoes, halved
Cucumber, cored and sliced
Mint, chiffonade
Parsley, finely chopped
Red Chilli, sliced
Black Olives, stoned
Capers (in salt, soaked)

Vinaigrette:
Cider vinegar (1 part)
Dijon mustard
Olive Oil (2–3 parts, depends on how acidic your vinegar is)
Salt (not too much as capers and olives are salty)

Mix all the salad ingredients in a bowl (keeping aside a little mint and chilli to dress), add enough vinaigrette to hydrate the stale bread, and allow it to sit for at least half an hour, you don’t want dry bread.

I like to fry the block of haloumi whole with a little oil over a medium heat on both sides until golden brown and warm all the way through and then slice, but if you prefer slice it first and then fry.

Bread, again

Bread is one of those basic staples everyone should know how to make, it’s easy to learn, and takes a lifetime to master. The most simple and basic of loaves is 1 kg flour, 600ml water, 30 grams yeast, and 20 grams salt, mix, knead, let it double in size, shape, rise again and bake. Simple. But there is so much more to the humble loaf than just that set of ratios and steps, you can increase the hydration, add fats to enrich the dough, let the dough ferment for longer, add vinegar, whip it in a beater, not knead it at all, the ideas are limitless when it comes to bread making.

Hydration is probably my favourite way to experiment with bread making, it significantly changes the texture of the crumb, go high enough and the baked bread has an almost plastic-like interior, and you can achieve some pretty light loaves. I’ve also been interested in the order that the loaf is made, does it have to be mix; knead; rise; punch down; shape; rise; bake; or could I let it rise once, then whip it with a dough hook in the beater?

When adding fat, you have to be careful when in the process it is incorporated, too soon the fat will coat the flour and prevent gluten formation, so you’ll end up with a denser shorter crumb, in saying that though, if the total fat is less than 5%, it shouldn’t matter when you add it. If the fat is greater than 5% it’s best to add it after you have given the dough a good knead, so the gluten has already formed. Adding fat to your dough will give you a softer, finer crumb, usually a softer crust too, not to mention the richness it adds.

I recently made a standard 100/60/3/2 ratio bread (see above), with a bit of butter and a longer ferment, it went down a treat.

The night before in a bowl mix together 200 ml of warm water and add 5 grams of yeast, stir it to dissolve. When the mixture begins to foam, stir in 200 grams of flour. Leave overnight, or 24 hours. Leaving the starter to develop adds a pleasant sourness to the bread.


The next day dissolve 10 grams of yeast in 100 ml of warm water, and then add that and 300 grams flour to the starter. Mix together and knead for a good 10 minutes, until smooth and elastic. This is a lot easier with a beater, but you should be able to manage it by hand, mix (or in a beater with a dough hook) in 100 grams of room temperature butter bit by bit. Once it is incorporated let the dough rest for about half an hour, or until it had doubled in size. Punch the dough down, and then shape and let it double in size again.


Preheat the oven to 220ºC. Before putting the dough in, pour half a cup of water on to the bottom of the oven to create some steam. Put the dough in the oven, and turn the temperature down to 200ºC, cook for about 30 minutes, or until it sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom, or until the internal temperature is 90–94ºC.

Hotdog!

Well, you would've thought after two days of food food food, the last thing I’d feel like is getting a little complicated in the kitchen, especially after a five course lunch! Simple intentions, nice 100% pork sausages in a roll with some sauerkraut, easy dinner. The thought of poaching sausages in beer sounded pretty good, but that would require a too much beer for a couple of dogs, beer I had plans on drinking! So then it happened, out came the zip lock bag, couple of sausages placed in there, and half a bottle of beer, now the trick is to fill up the sink with water, do up the zip lock bag except for one corner, then submerge almost to the top, forcing out the air, then seal the corner, you should have a decent air free bag of sausage and beer.


Fill a large pot with water, larger the better, as the more thermal mass you have the easier it is to maintain a constant temperature, it’s also a good idea to fill it with hot water, I know the water out of my hot tap is about 55°C, so it’s a pretty good starting point, as I want to cook the bagged sausages at 62° for an hour, with such a short cooking period and a large enough pot, you shouldn’t have to babysit too much.

The rest of it is pretty simple, slice open a couple of rolls, toast the interior with plenty of butter in a frying pan, heat up some sauerkraut with a little butter, make a bed of cheese in the rolls, brown the now cooked sausage in a hot pan with butter, and then place it in the roll, stuff one side with sauerkraut, pipe on some sour cream and mustard, and sprinkle with a little nigella seed.

It may all seem a bit too much effort for a humble hot dog, and I guess you’d be right, if like me you were only preparing one or two, but ramp up the numbers and this method will save you a lot of time and hassle, as you could prep the sausages early, have them pre-cooked and sitting in the fridge ready to pull out and finish in the pan.

Cornbread

I'm sure the cornbread purists would argue that this is not traditional cornbread, and I would have to humbly agree, although it is indeed bready and corn is the main ingredient (in a form). So where do I stray? I use polenta, it's easier for me to get my hands on than corn meal intended for cornbread use, and I skip the sugar, most recipes I have read have about 1/4 of a cup of it, but that's just not my taste.


Cornbread has become a firm favourite to serve with a hot bowl of chilli, and it's a pleasant change from rice, tacos, tortillas, or nachos. On top of that, the variations you can make are endless.

Base ingredients
1 Cup of Flour
1 Cup of Polenta (or corn meal)
1 teaspoon of baking soda
2 teaspoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon of salt
1/3 Cup of Vegetable oil (or other fat)
1 Cup Butter milk
1 Egg

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Grease/line a loaf tin or lasagne type dish and set aside.

In a bowl whisk together the dry ingredients and set aside. In another bowl whisk together the wet ingredients and other additions (see below). Pour the wet in to the dry bowl and stir until incorporated, do this quickly as the butter milk will react with the baking soda and begin releasing its carbon dioxide. As soon as it has mixed pour it into the baking dish and place it on the middle rack of the oven, cook for 20-25 minutes, or until a knife comes out clean when pierced.


The great thing about cornbread is how customisable it is, the above has had its oil replaced with 50/50 olive oil and melted butter (unsalted), as well as chopped scallions (sounds so much more fun than spring onion) and corn kernels incorporated in the dough with a sprinkle of cheese over it.


And this loaf has had the oil replaced with beurre noisette (brown butter (unsalted)) and incorporated with the dough finely diced parsley, scallions, a touch of smoked paprika and obligatory (well I think so anyway) sprinkle of cheese.


Slices of the moist bread are great for scooping up the sauce of a hot chilli, we had it with a very spicy beef chilli.

Urad Dal, Flat Bread and Bhaji

Urid Dal Curry
Get a pot of water on to the stove with a couple of cups of Urid Dal lentils, an onion cut in half and a couple of bay leaves (do not add any salt as this will toughen the lentils and inhibit their cooking). Bring the water to a boil then reduce the heat and simmer for about 30 minutes, or until the lentils are tender, but not mushy.

While the lentils are cooking get the rest of the curry ready. Toast in a dry frying pan some cinnamon, cloves, nigella (onion seeds), a dry chilli or two, fenugreek seeds, coriander seeds, and cumin seeds. When all the spices are fragrant and toasted transfer to a blender with some fresh chilli, garlic, grated ginger and an onion peeled and quartered. Pulse the blender to form a rough paste.

Fry the paste in a little oil until the onion has softened and it has started to caramelise, tip in the drained lentils and stir through, add a couple of chopped de-seeded tomatoes, half a cup of water, and half a cup of coconut milk, simmer until thick, season with salt. Stir through some chopped coriander and serve with bread or rice, or both.

Flat Bread
I just use my basic bread dough, find the recipe here, and follow the pita bread instructions at the bottom of the post.

Onion Bhaji
Peel and slice a couple of onions in half and then in to thinnish slices, place in a bowl and cover with milk, let the onion slices soak for about half an hour.

Drain the onions. I cheat here and use a pre-made masala mix, but you could make your own, add a generous spoon of the masala to the onions and enough chickpea flour (gram flour) to coat the onions, you may need to add a little water to form a batter, but there should be enough liquid left on the onions.

In a heavy based pan add about a centimetre of neutral flavoured oil (I use grape seed oil), when the oil is up to temperature (you can test with a cube of bread) add a spoonful of the onion mixture to the oil and fry for about 2 minutes per side, take care when turning the bhaji not to splash yourself with oil.

Bread Salad (Panzanella)

Thank goodness there are tasty ways to use up stale bread, we often have some in our pantry, left over dough from pizzas made in to a loaf, baguettes not fully consumed, etc. In the cooler months bread pudding is a good go to for the stale loaf, but when the weather is warm Panzanella is on the menu.


Dice the bread.


Soak the bread chunks in a 1% brine. It should soak for about 20 minutes.


While the bread is soaking prepare the rest of the salad. Start off with the vinaigrette. In a bowl combine together some anchovies, mustard, confit garlic, finely chopped parsley, olive oil and vinegar (I prefer cider vinegar and a ratio of 2 parts oil to 1 part vinegar).


Give it a good whisk, making sure the anchovies break down and emulsify into the vinaigrette.


The salad vegetables are all very optional, and you could stick purely with tomato and basil, but I also added some cucumber, red onion, olives and capers. Mix through the vinaigrette.


Drain the bread and squeeze as much liquid out as you can, it doesn't matter if it crumbles, in fact I think it should.


Fold the bread through the rest of the salad, let it sit for at least 10 minutes so the bread has time to soak up the dressing.

Braised pork

Nothing beats slow cooked meat, it's tender, full of flavour, and once in the oven you can forget about it for a couple of hours. Slow cooked savoury meaty goodness doesn't need to be relegated to a winter only dish, by keeping the flavours fresh and bright, instead of heavy and unctuous it can happily sit within the summer repertoire. The best cuts of pork for slow cooking are the shoulder and belly.

Braised pork with buns

These are great as a light lunch or assemble your own party snacks. I made two types of buns to serve the meat and salad in, steamed and baked, the same dough is used to make both, it's purely the cooking method that separates them.

The buns are made from my basic bread dough (1kg flour, 600ml water, 20g salt, 10g yeast). Take a ball of dough, flatten it in to a disk and then fold in half. Bake at 180°C for 10-15 minutes (until they sound hollow when tapped on the base). To steam, place each bun on a round of baking paper and place in a steamer over simmering water for about 10-15 minutes.


In a roasting pan (or dutch oven) place some roughly chopped onion, carrot, garlic bulb and fennel tops, scatter over some fennel seeds and pour in 500ml of veal stock. Season the pork and brown it thoroughly on all sides. Place the pork in the roasting dish and cover tightly with foil. Cook for 3-4 hours in a 130-140°C oven.

When the pork is cooked wrap it tightly in foil so it remains moist. Strain the liquid and reduce it in a pan, taste often as you don't want to over reduce it as it will become too salty. Slice or pull apart the pork and place it in to the reduced liquid.

We had chunks of the braised pork in the buns with a fennel salad and shards of salty crackling.

Braised pork and figs with parsley couscous

This was cooked the same way as above but with different vegetables, no garlic was used as the combination of garlic and figs in my mind is not a good one.

In the roasting dish place some chopped carrots, celery and red onion. Brown the pork in a pan on all sides, place the pork in the roasting dish and scatter around some figs. Deglaze the pan you browned the meat in with some cider vinegar, then 500ml of veal stock. Pour the liquid in to the roasting pan and seal tightly with some foil. And cook as above. When reducing down the cooking liquid, add a little cider vinegar to cut the sweetness of the figs.

Couscous is simple to prepare, place 1 cup of couscous in a bowl, pour over 1 cup of boiling water, add a little salt and cover. Let it sit for 10 minutes, then use a fork to gently break it up and then rub between your fingers to make it light and fluffy, finally stir through some finely chopped parsley.

Mini Pita bread

We had some company the other day and I whipped up a batch of mini pita breads to serve with salmon mousse and cucumber yoghurt dip. They're very simple to make and make a great alternative to crackers.

I use my basic bread dough recipe for the pitas.


Mix and need the dough until it's well worked and elastic. Then let it rise for about 30 minutes (at least doubled). Pre-heat the oven to 230°C with a heavy tray or stone in it.


Take a portion of dough and roll out to a couple millimetres thick.


Cut out circles with a ring cutter. I wouldn't recommend re-rolling out the cut-offs, instead use them all to form a loaf of bread or other purpose, as re-rolling will make the dough tough and unlikely to puff up when cooking.

Arrange the circles on a tray lined with baking paper and then slide the paper on to the hot tray/stone in the oven. Cook for 2-4 minutes, they should all be puffed up and brown edges. When they're cooked use a tray to slide the paper on to.


The pita's are great to stuff as well. Pictured above is a pumpkin lentil curry with coriander.

Simple pleasures

Ice cold soda the morning after an over indulgent night.


Egg in a hole fried in far too much butter, and strangely my favourite part is the fried hole.


Fresh tomato dressed with olive oil and sea salt on grilled cheese.


And finally purchasing a BBQ.

Beer bread

Whipped up a batch of no knead bread to cook on the pizza stone this weekend. It's so easy, all it takes is a little patience which is rewarded with extra flavour the long ferment brings.


I used a ratio of 10 parts flour to 8 parts liquid (which happened to be an opened and undrunk bottle of flat beer) with about a tablespoon of yeast and enough salt. Mix to incorporate the flour, cover and let sit for 24-36 hours (if you plan on leaving it longer you will need to 'feed' it with extra liquid and flour after 24 hours to keep the yeast going).


Knocked back after 36 hours, very fragrant, I think it almost smells like mashed bananas fermenting.


Shape it the best you can, it's very soft. I placed it on a sprinkling of fine semolina flour so it would slide easily on to the pizza stone.

While the dough is proving (30-60 min depending on how active the yeast is) preheat the oven with the stone in it, I set mine to 250°C and wait for it get up to temperature then drop the dial down to 200°C when the dough is ready to place in the oven.


Slide the bread on to the stone and cook for about 20 minutes, until the bread sounds hollow then tapped.

It had a nice subtle beer taste and hints of sour dough, made a great salami sandwich.