Flat Bread---Piadine

A simple Italian flat bread, ideal for the barbecue season, quick to make and a great alternative to soft bread buns. The basic recipe below can be adapted to include herbs, garlic, chilli, shallots or bacon etc to add interesting flavours or extra texture to the breads.

350g Plain flour
10g Salt
30ml olive oil
100-110ml Luke warm water.



Simply place the flour, oil and salt into a bowl.

Add most of the water and mix everything together by hand to form a soft ball of dough. If the dough seems dry then add a little more water to it to make the soft ball. Adding too much water will give a dough that is too sticky to roll.

Turn the dough out onto the work top and knead for about 5 minutes to give a smooth, well mixed dough.

Lightly oil a bowl, place the dough into it, cover with cling film and set aside to rest for about 20 minutes.

When the dough has tested, heat a griddle or heavy bottomed frying pan/ skillet ready for use.

Divide the dough into about 12 equal pieces, lightly flour the work top.

Take each piece of dough and using your hands, knead it gently,up into a ball. Roll out thinly to approx 12-15cm.

Lightly oil the griddle/pan and place the rolled dough disk onto it. leave for about 2 minutes to brown, turn over and cook on until both sides have browned.

The Piadine is now ready to enjoy and is at its best warm and freshly made. They can be kept warm for a short time, or frozen for later use but do then lose a little of their character.

Enjoy.

Garlic bread

Garlic bread

Well, having made the garlic butter it would be a shame not to make garlic bread! Be warned though, once you have made your own, you will never want to have that poor greasy and bitter tasting shop bought alternative again. Imagine the wonderful aroma as you open this up at the table for your guests to tear at with their meal.

Simply take a french stick or baguette and cut it three quarters through, every 2cm all the way along its length. In  each cut place a generous helping of garlic butter, wrap in foil and bake for 10 minutes until all the butter is melted, serve and enjoy. 

See the pictures, simple to make and a pleasure to eat.

A visit to Paris

Smoked Duck, Confit and Foie Gras

Just returned from a visit to Paris, and well, whilst in France its great to sample some classic dishes and then be able to bring some home too. Some years ago we were fortunate enough to stay in the South West of France in a small town called Aiguillon, where many of the local farms produced Foie Gras. So a great pleasure to find these familiar offerings in Paris too, of course theres more to food in Paris than i had time to enjoy, but what i sampled was superb. From crepes in Versailles through the range of local breads, croissant and pastries to the homemade noisette ice cream in Montmartre it was a pleasure throughout. Then theres the markets laden with delicacies, honey, macaroons, cheeses and spices reflecting the cosmopolitan nature of the area, or maybe a chance to try the smoked pigs ears or chicken gizzards that are so good on salads. The flavour of Fleur de del adds delicate compexity to any food that you season, being hand harvested, sun dried and unique in qualities, its all here to sample. Most visits to Paris will understandably take in the museums, galleries and shops on offer, enjoy these but remember to refuel regularly on at least some of the above.  If you are lucky enough to visit then go try, you'll be pleased that you did, and don't forget to bring something home to remind of the visit.

Bon appetit

Sourdough Bread

Freshly baked bread, what a welcoming thought, what a superb smell in the kitchen and what great reaction from everyone who eats it. Even better if you know that all of the flavour is coming from the sour dough culture that you have been maturing for some weeks. And thats where most people stop in this age of instant food satisfaction, they just nip out and buy it, but why when with a little time and care, you can be enjoying the fruits of your efforts on a regular basis. We tend to bake sour dough twice a week now that both our cultures are established and we have a simple routine to look after them. The beginning processes of sour dough baking do however take a little patience and planning, but we hope that you try out the following and are rewarded with a little gem of your own.

Your sour dough starter

75g Wholemeal bread flour.

75ml Warm water.

Large lidded or Kilner jar.

1. Simply mix the flour and water into a paste. Pour into jar, loosely seal and stand to one side in the kitchen, leave for 2 days.

2. Weigh out the same ingredients as above, and stir into the jar too, place in the safe spot again and leave for a further 2 days.

3. Repeat number 2, leave for 2 more days.

4. By now the mix should be showing the first signs of life, bubbles should be evident. This is the natural yeasts getting to work, the mix will probably have a sour type of scent too. At this stage the culture can be placed in the fridge.

Thats it, the messing around is over and you now have a living culture that will mature over time, giving ever more character to your breads at each use. You can of course use plain strong bread flour, which will result in a slightly creamier textured starter with a less sour taste.

Sourdough bread

This is a good weekend project or mid week treat. Plan this next stage for a Friday night.

Your starter mix will now weigh 450g, take 75g and place it in a new clean jar. This is now your midweek starter, place this in the fridge.

Leave the rest of the starter out overnight, during which time it should begin to bubble more strongly. On Saturday morning, remove 75g of the mix and place in another clean jar, seal and place in fridge, this is the next weekend culture. You are ready to make your first sourdough loaf.

Ingredients

450G Strong plain(bread) flour

200ml Warm water

25g Butter

10g Sea salt

300g Sourdough starter culture(this is what is left in your jar)

Ground semolina or rice 

Simply place the flour, culture and butter into your mixers bowl and combine using the dough hook. Add most of the water and continue to knead until you get a slightly tacky but not sticky dough, if too dry add some of the remaining water to correct.

Cover and leave for 10 minutes, then add the salt and mix for 5 more minutes. Cover and leave to gently rise for 3 or 4 hours at room temperature.

Prepare a shaped container(bowl, bread basket etc) by lining with cling film, oiling lightly and then dusting generously with the ground semolina.

Knead the dough, then shape, place in the container, sprinkle exposed top of dough with ground semolina, cover lightly and place in a warm spot to rise for 6 to 8 hours.

Preheat oven to 190 degrees centigrade.

Turn out gently onto a prepared baking sheet, quickly slash the top skin with a very sharp knife, splash with water and bake in the oven for approx 25 minutes or until golden and well crusted.

Looking after your culture.

This first run through is the most complex and from here onwards it gets easier, promise.

After a couple of days in the fridge, take out your cultures and beat in the 75g strong flour and 75ml warm water combination, return to the fridge till you are ready to use it. The culture benefits from use and feeding, but can survive for several weeks in-between uses too.

The night before you intend using your culture, remove it from the fridge, beat in the usual flour and water mix again. Leave out overnight, it will be ready to use the following morning.

Simply follow the recipe above, remembering to place 75g starter back into the fridge, keep jars clean. Remember that in the early weeks your culture is still developing its own unique characteristics and that these change over time too.

But most of all 

Enjoy.

PS This is only the beginning, if you get truly hooked on sourdough then take a look at www.northwestsourdough.com its an eye opener.

Croutons

Its lad again, I got in from school and decided to make dinner. I made a simple stuffed jacket potato meal with a salad. So to make the salad have a better flavour and texture I just made a few croutons. These are very basic to make but some people find them a bit dull so i decided to add interest to them as detailed below.

All you need is;

• A couple of slices of bakery style bread
• 2 cloves of garlic
• Couple pinches mixed herbs
• olive oil

Then to make them you simply;

1. Cut the bread into equal bite size pieces.
2. Heat oil in a large frying pan.
3. When oil is slightly hot add the garlic, it can be crushed or sliced, and it should start to sizzle.
4. Add the bread and it might stop sizzling so turn it up a bit so it sizzles again, add herbs.
5. Wait for them to crisp and brown and serve on top of the salad with a nice italian dressing.