Cheese, Tomato and Red Onion Rolls

These are a bit like savoury Chelsea buns - I had some cheese (mozzarella and taleggio), tomato sauce (tin of tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, herbs, sugar, salt and pepper reduced down to a thick sauce consistency), cherry tomatoes and red onion left over from some pizza making so I thought I'd see how these turned out - rather delicious as it happens! The filling could be varied according to your tastes and what you have in the fridge.

For the Dough:

500g Strong White Flour

7g Fast-action Yeast

10g Salt

310ml Water (room-temperature)

1 Tbsp sunflower oil

For the Filling:

Approx. 100g of Cheese (I used mozzarella and taleggio)

3 Tbsp Tomato Sauce (see above)

Half a Red Onion

A Handful of Cherry Tomatoes

1) Weigh out the flour in a bowl, and add the yeast and salt, keeping them separate  Add the water, mix, bring the dough together. Add the sunflower oil, and knead for 5-10 minutes. Form it into a ball and leave it in an oiled bowl covered with cling film to rise for 1-3 hours, until doubled in size.

2) Once risen, gently tip the dough out of the bowl onto a floured surface, trying not to knock too much air out of it. Stretch it into a rectangle (approx. 30x20cm). Spread your tomato sauce all over the dough, then place strips of cheese and thinly sliced red onion on top. Roll up the rectangle, keeping it as tight as possible. Once rolled, secure it by sealing the join with your fingers. With a sharp knife, cut the roll at 3cm intervals - you should end up with 10. Place the rolls on a baking tray lined with baking paper, leaving at least 1.5cm between each roll. Put the tray into a plastic bag (a clean bin liner works well) and leave to prove until doubled in size - between 30mins and an hour.

3) Once proved, dust the rolls with flour and push half a cherry tomato (cut side up) into the middle. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 220/200(fan) for 25-30mins. Leave to cool slightly on a wire rack, then tuck in while they're still warm.

Recent Bread Baking Exploits

Last year I got in a bit of a rut with my bread baking - I was baking two white bloomers, once a week, and if I'm honest it all got a bit boring. This year, I'm being far more adventurous, helped in part by a baking stone, a shiny new food mixer (with a dough hook) and a couple of excellent books (namely 'The River Cottage Bread Handbook' and Paul Hollywood's 'How to Bake'). Here are a few of my recent experiments:

Ciabatta

A very difficult bread to make without a food mixer - ciabatta requires an incredibly wet dough in order to get the aerated texture. I made this one with some local flour from Gilchesters Organic - a mixture of 'rare breed' strong white bread flour and fine semolina. It's lovely flour that gives a noticeably different flavour to anything else that I've tried. Being home-grown it's not quite as high in gluten as some of the imported strong flours that I'd normally use, so it seems to benefit from a little extra kneading. I was quite pleased with the results - light and crusty, and richly flavoured from the olive oil. It made great panini the next day too!

Pizza Bread

An experiment in using a very wet ciabatta style dough as a pizza base. This was topped with mozzarella, blobs of rich tomato and garlic sauce, and some crispy fried bacon. It was very tasty and the ciabatta base was very light and crisp, but because of the nature of a wet dough the transfer from wooden board to baking stone proved a little tricky - precious buffalo mozzarella fell off onto the baking stone, only to be instantly cremated. A little practice is needed!

Seeded Bloomer

This was a case of using whatever I had in the cupboard - some Shipton Mill malted wholemeal flour, some strong white bread flour, a handful of seeds....

Brioche

Not a bread to bake if you're on a diet - this brioche contains 5 eggs and a whole pack of butter! As you would expect, it is light but rich - it virtually melts in the mouth, and although it's sweet it's still equally nice with cheese as it is with jam or marmalade. It's also remarkably easy to make provided you have a food mixer with a dough hook. Flour, salt, yeast, sugar, eggs and milk are kneaded together, and the butter is beaten in once the dough is formed. It's then chilled overnight in the fridge before shaping into balls and arranging in a deep cake tin. It then proves for 3 hours and bakes for 30 mins or so. I had a little dough leftover, which I topped with sesame seeds and baked in a muffin tray, - it came out looking like a brioche toadstool!

Toad in the Hole

The rather magnificent sausage that I used for this was a Cumberland style whirl from my local supplier of rare breed middle white pork - Ravensworth Grange Farm . If you live in the North East then you owe it to yourself to try their pork - seriously tasty meat from seriously happy pigs! A classic toad in the hole was the obvious choice - I browned the sausage in a hot oven for 10 mins with plenty of oil, then poured in the batter (75g plain flour, 1 egg, 130ml milk, salt & pepper) and cooked for a further 30 mins. It was served with caramelised onions, roasted carrots and parsnips and steamed savoy cabbage. It was all over far too quickly for my liking! Comfort food for a cold night, just a shame the end product looked slightly rude to a childish mind....

Challah Bread

After the fun of plaiting a loaf last week I thought I'd have a go at baking Challah - a traditional Jewish type of bread which is somewhere between a normal white loaf and a brioche - the dough is enriched with eggs and a little milk and sugar, which makes it deliciously rich without losing the light airiness that we associate with yeasted breads. I followed Paul Hollywood's recipe for this, using a three strand plait shape - a total breeze after the eight strand fun last week! The shaped dough is egg-washed, left to prove and then baked for about 25 minutes. It does take on colour quickly so it's worth watching it - I put a sheet of foil over mine after the first 15 minutes to stop it browning any further. Here it is in all its glory:

It's great toasted and buttered, and I reckon any stale leftovers would be great in a bread and butter pudding (not that there's much chance of stale leftovers in this house!).

Burns Night

25th January - the one day of the year when, traditionally, Scottish people are allowed to consume more alcohol and saturated fat than is recommended by their doctor....

I have a real fondness for Burns Night, perhaps because as an expatriate Scot living in the North East of England I feel I ought to celebrate my Scottish roots when I can, lest I become converted to the ways of the 'sassenach'! I like the fact that the food we eat for this celebration isn't the excess of the prime cut of meat or the enormous roasted bird that we associate with other annual festivities - in true Scottish spirit the haggis is a humble, thrifty food that all of us can afford, and in my view every bit as delicious as leg of lamb or a roast turkey. The main ingredients, of course, are the heart, liver and lungs from a sheep, plus beef suet, oatmeal, onion and spices. We get a little squeamish at the idea of offal these days - haggis comes from a time when we would never have dreamed of wasting any part of an animal, especially not when it tastes so good. Team this "chieftain o' the puddin' race" with 'bashed neeps' (mashed swede) and 'champit tatties' (mashed potato) and you have a meal fit for Rabbie himself, for little more than £1.50 a portion. For our Burns night we had a three course Scottish feast. First up, homemade oatcakes:

....with some Strathdon Blue highland cheese, homemade chutney and mustard pears:

Next, the main event! Macsween haggis, honey roasted 'bashed' neeps, buttery 'champit tatties' and a whisky cream sauce:

Bashed Neeps

The Chieftain

Making the first incision

Gently does it!

Thar she blows!

Let battle commence!

And, to finish, a seasonal take on a classic Scottish desert - Rhubarb and Whisky Cranachan! Rhubarb, honey, whisky cream and toasted oats in perfect harmony:

Happily, we had leftover haggis for the next day, which naturally enough found itself on top of a pizza, along with the rest of the strathdon blue and some shredded brussels sprouts. Even I was dubious about the wisdom of this combination, but I'm happy to report that it was delicious, although I fear it may not catch on in Italy:

Just like Granny used to make...?

Oh, and we had a little leftover rhubarb and cream, so a 'deconstructed cranachan' followed:

A good weekend for food, a bad weekend for my arteries!

Broccoli Pasta

I do enjoy the challenge of creating a satisfying meal from whatever you have in your fridge and cupboards. This was a good way of using up some broccoli that needed eating, and it required nothing more than what most people already have in their cupboards.

Serves 2

Half a head of broccoli, broken into small florets

1 onion, sliced

1 garlic clove, finely chopped

Parmesan

A little full-fat milk or cream

Herbs (parsley, basil, oregano - whatever you have to hand)

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

200g Pasta

1) Get a large pan of salted water on the boil. Cook the broccoli in the water for about 5 mins or until just tender. Remove it with a slotted spoon, leaving the pan of water on the boil. Add the pasta to the water and cook until 'al dente'.

2) Sweat the onion in a little olive oil until soft. Add the garlic, fry for a minute. Add the cooked broccoli, stir to coat in the oil, then add the milk, parmesan (to taste) and herbs. Remove half of the contents of the pan and blend until smooth. Return to the pan. Season the sauce with salt, pepper and more parmesan to taste. If it's too thick add more milk or some of the pasta cooking liquid. Stir into the pasta, serve with more parmesan and black pepper.

Very green!

Pigeon Breast, Puy Lentils, Winter Veg

I've written before about how highly I rate the meat of the wood pigeon. Basically, if you like venison, you're bound to like pigeon. Flavoursome, plentiful, cheap, healthy - there's really nothing not to like. Here, I've teamed it with puy lentils (flavoursome, plentiful, cheap, healthy.... sounds familiar!) which I love. They soak up flavour brilliantly provided you dress them while they're still hot, and their earthy flavour goes really well with the richness of the pigeon breast. You might want to serve two breasts each, although we found one was satisfying enough, with plenty of other flavours going on. You could even serve it without any meat, perhaps with a chunk of crusty bread to mop up the lentils.

For the Pigeon Breast:

1 or 2 Pigeon breasts each

Olive oil

A knob of butter

Salt & black pepper

For the Puy Lentils:

75g Puy lentils per person

1 Bay leaf

A few parsley stalks

Half an onion

(For the dressing):

2 tbsp Olive oil

1 tsp English mustard

1 tsp Honey

Lemon Juice
1 Garlic clove, crushed
Salt & black pepper

For the Winter Veg:

2 Carrots, peeled and sliced into medium chunks
Half a celeriac, peeled and diced
Half an onion, sliced
2 sticks of celery, diced
30g butter
A pinch of sugar
Lemon juice
Flat leaf parsley
Kale or cabbage (optional)

1) Wash the lentils thoroughly under cold water. Put them in a pan with the bay leaf, parlsey stalks and onion, add enough cold water to cover, bring to the boil and cook for 20-30 minutes until tender. Meanwhile, shake up the dressing ingredients in an empty jar, taste and adjust as necessary. When the lentils are cooked drain them, remove the bay leaf, return to the pan and add the dressing. Set aside.

2) Put the carrots, celeriac, onion, celery, butter and sugar in a pan with a pinch of salt and pepper. Add enough cold water to cover, bring to the boil and simmer with the lid off until the water has evaporated. The carrots should be tender and buttery, and the celeriac should have collapsed into a sweet puree. Finish with lemon juice and parsley. If you're serving kale/cabbage too then boil until tender and dress with olive oil and lemon juice.

3) When you're nearly ready to serve, heat a pan on a high heat. Rub salt, pepper and olive oil on the pigeon breasts then cook in the hot pan for 4 - 5 minutes, turning every minute. Add the butter for the last minute, basting the breasts. Set them aside on a warm plate to rest for 5-10 minutes. Serve!

I hid my lentils under everything else for some reason - lentil surprise! Presentation has never been my strong point.....