On a knead to know basis...

I love bread, and making it, although it can take a while due to the rising and proving stages, it doesn't usually involve much "hands on" time.  This is especially true now I can use my kitchen aid mixer to do the kneading - my left wrist has never been the same since I severed the tendon in my ring finger 13 years ago and kneading can be a bit painful. 

Granny and Mum always made delicious brown bread with my Grandpa's flour in my childhood, and Mum made great focaccia with rosemary and olives on, so breadmaking runs in the family. My cousin who is a proper chef and studied at the Culinary Institute of America is a fabulous baker and has an artisan bread Facebook page, check out "Nessa's Artisan Bread".

Anyway, today I decided to make fig, fennel and walnut bread, inspired by a friend, but I didn't have any sort of recipe.  I did a bit of googling, and most recipes used dried figs, but I had got some fresh ones, I found a recipe and adapted it, also substituting the rye flour for normal wholemeal along with the strong white and guessing the amount of yeast and water!  It was difficult mixing the fresh figs into the dough (cut into chunks but they were quite squishy) but I managed it and proved my two loaves on the front room windowsill as it was a sunny day.  Considering all that it wasn't at all bad!  Slightly overdone perhaps, but a great crust - the recipe suggested I put a mug of water in the oven to create a steamy environment and it seemed to work.  I liked it!  Goes well with cheddar cheese.

before cooking...

...and after.

 

I'm a big fan of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and always use his "Magic Bread Dough" recipe for pizza bases and flatbreads, the latter dry fried and drizzled with garlic oil. It uses half strong white flour and half normal plain.  Nigella also has a great recipe for "lazy loaf" which uses muesli and doesn't need kneading or proving. You just mix everything up to a thick porridgy mixture and chuck it in a lined tin, put in a cold oven, turn on to 110 degrees C, then after cooking for 45 minutes, turn up to 180 degrees C and cook for another hour.  Almost fool proof! - although a certain friend of mine managed somehow to make it go wrong!  Another Nigella favourite is Irish Oaten rolls made with stout and honey (only I used golden syrup) - the only soda bread I've made that's been successful - see later.  I've made a loaf with Weetabix too.

I used to have a bread machine, the good points being waking up to the smell of freshly baked bread in the morning and just chucking in the ingredients and pressing a few buttons.  However the downside was it took up too much space on the worktop for something that didn't get used very often, the little paddle that mixed the ingredients always got stuck in the bottom of the loaf, and the tin was a pain to clean, also you only get one size of loaf. It doesn't keep well either.

Attempts at making soda bread have not been too successful, with the exception of the Irish oaten rolls -  it always seems heavy and never done properly in the middle, even Riverford's carrot, walnut & thyme version. My attempt at naan bread was also a complete disaster, I'm blaming it on the fact that I haven't got a tandoor oven to cook it in.

 So all in all a mixed set of experiences with breadmaking - I've still got lots to learn but my top tip is don't cover your bowl of proving dough with a tea towel, in case it goes bonkers and sticks to the tea towel - SO hard to wash bread dough out of cotton tea towels"!!  At the risk of being slightly less green, use cling film.

 Thank you for reading - more soon!

 Caroline :-)

 

Souper!

I'm aware that the title of this post sounds like the title of a Jilly Cooper novel, but the similarities should end there. My daughter has recently been making soup at school, and I have been enjoying the results. She made a vegetable soup, and a pea and pancetta soup, and they were both delicious. The next week she made hedgehog bread, which was fab too.  I'm a big fan of soup, though my husband doesn't class it as any sort of  meal, more as a drink... but I disagree and think you can definitely class a hearty soup as a main course.

Also, last night I made a very special soup, for the starter of a family dinner with my parents today - using two (frozen) lobsters. Here is the end result:

 

 

It may not look like much, but it is the soup equivalent of understated glamour - 2 hours of cooking, brandy, wine, flambéing, double cream and a lot of love went into it!  It's the second time I've made it and it's definitely been the pinnacle of my new recipe project.

 

First I removed the meat from the defrosted lobsters and set it aside.  That part was fun, I used cherry stoners and poultry shears with a skewer to get the claw meat out. Then I broke up the lobster shells and cooked them with carrot and onion in butter, flambéing in brandy (Armagnac left over from the Christmas goose recipe) and then simmering in fish stock and white wine for 20 minutes.  Meanwhile I made a roux with butter and flour, adding boiling milk to make a thick white sauce.  This sauce was then added to the lobster and vegetables and simmered gently for an hour to allow the flavour of the lobster to go into the sauce.  After that, I removed the big pieces and sieved the rest, adding a bit more hot water as it was a bit too thick, and there wasn't very much of it for six of us! However, after reheating with a splash more Armagnac and some double cream and adding the chopped lobster meat it was perfect.

 

 

 

This is how much meat you get out of two smallish lobsters - shown in a cereal bowl - definitely quality rather than quantity.

 

 

Before the flambéing stage... I think next time I'll use a rolling pin to break the shells up a bit more. Note the bay leaves from my tree.
 

Nearly there...just the sieving to go. 

Last autumn half term, we went to visit my Uncle in North Lincolnshire, who is a keen gardener and he sent us home with a huge box of his home grown tomatoes, so after having eaten some just as they were, I set about turning the rest (three and a half kilos of them) into tomato soup. I made it in my massive stock pot (see below) and based it on a recipe from "A Celebration of Soup" by Lindsey Bareham - cooking the tomatoes (no need to bother skinning them as the skins will be sieved out later) with softened shallots, garlic and a bouquet garni with seasoning until mushy, then adding vegetable stock and simmering for 20 minutes, before sieving and reheating with a splash of cream and a pinch of sugar, which really brings out the flavour of the tomatoes.  There was such a lot I froze some for another day.

 

One of my other favourite soups was from celebrity Come Dine With Me - Linda Barker made cauliflower soup with goats cheese and truffle oil and I loved the sound of it - and I served it to my friends at my own CDWM night where it was deemed the highlight of the meal.  The goats cheese is passed through a tea strainer and mixed with truffle oil before a little dollop of it is placed in the centre of the soup and garnished with chives.

 

Another favourite started life as an Annabel Karmel baby puree but was so yummy that with a bit of extra seasoning and larger quantities became an adult meal - using red lentils and sweet potato.

 

I also love green soups, a fast and healthy one is maltese pea and cumin soup, made in minutes using frozen peas; also pea and tenderstem broccoli where you blitz half and not the other half to give it a bit more texture.

 

You can't go wrong with a nourishing chicken soup, made with the leftovers from the Sunday roast, or a miso prawn soup with noodles and spicy chilli, leek and butterbean soup with herb butter.. the list goes on.  Other soups I've made and enjoyed include beetroot & orange, fennel, pumpkin, celeriac, parsnip, and carrot & ginger.

 

Presentation can be fun too, okay it's just a liquid, but serving it in teacups or shot glasses, garnishes, fried onions, breadcrumbs, bacon bits, herbs, serving it with cheese toasts or interesting bread can make it look a bit more special.

 

 

 

One thing I've never tried making is a chilled soup, but I plan to give that a go when the weather warms up.

 

Thank you for reading,

 

Caroline :-)