Posts Tagged ‘Butter’
Thursday, June 30th, 2011
A couple of weeks ago it was East 17, and now blam! I’m hitting you with an Ultravox reference. High brow shizzle I think you’ll agree. And why did up this 80s relic? Because last week we started the Viennoiserie section of our course.
Viennoiserie is the name given to all kinds of yeasted, enriched doughs. From croissants, to Danish pastries, sticky buns to brioche, we’re talking about doughs enriched with sugar, eggs, milk and butter. Lots of butter. I’ve never seen so much of the stuff than in the past week.
We’re going to be getting in to lamination next week, the technique for making croissants amongst other things, but the breads we made last week were mixed in a similar way to what we’ve become familiar with, even if the formulas were in some cases a lot more complicated.
We started off the week slowly, making a range of products based around brioche and sweet roll doughs. With most of these we had to adjust our mixing to incorporate the sugar and butter after the dough had developed in strength in the mixer. The reason for this is that both inhibit the development of gluten, and if added at the beginning you end up mixing for bloody ages and your dough comes off the mixer too warm, which in turn effects fermentation. Best avoided in other words.
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Tags: Bakewell tart, Bostock, Brioche, Buns, Butter, Columba Di Pasqua, Croissants, Danish, Dough, Enriched, Gibassier, Hot Cross Buns, Kugelhopf, Pain au lait, Pan D'oro, Pannetone, Roll, Sticky, Sticky Buns, Stollen, Sugar, Sweet, Viennoiserie
Posted in Reviews, Sweet Stuff, Travel, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, April 19th, 2011
Apologies for the radio silence. We’ve been moving out of our flat, and it’s been brutal. I never want to see those boxes again. But enough of my woes, back down to business.
I’ve been meaning to start a new series of posts on Hand To mouth for quite some time about the simple food pleasures in life. The kind of unfussy stuff that needs little or no preparation, has few ingredients, but always delivers in terms of taste (at least in my opinion).
Prompted by being sent some lovely London Cure Scottish Smoked Salmon by the very generous people at Forman & Field, here is the first of these posts for your delictation. Smoked Salmon.
Before you start grumbling, I’m not just writing this because I’ve been sent some free stuff. Like any product I give airtime to on this blog, I genuinely love smoked salmon. And for me, the less it’s messed with, the better. I like to let the salmon do the talking.
The ritual is simple. Brown bread, plenty of butter, smoked salmon, a generous squueze of fresh lemon juice, and a few turns of freshly milled black pepper.
Absolute heaven, and would be a dead cert (if you’ll pardon the pun) as a starter for my death row meal.
Tags: Black Pepper, Brown Bread, Butter, Forman & Field, H Forman & Son, Lemon, London Cure, Pleasures, Simple, Smoked Salmon, Taste, Unfussy
Posted in Dinner, Lunch, Opinion | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, April 12th, 2011
I was talking with a few people on Twitter the other day about Food Trucks, and was wondering why the UK hasn’t cottoned on to the trend like they have in the States. Admittedly we don’t really have a tradition of them, the closest thing we have is probably the ice cream van, but there are flickers of something going on with the likes of The Meatwagon (before his trailer got stolen) and a few mobile coffee pioneers like the super stylish Attridge & Cole.
And then, straight out of left-field comes The German Baker. My mate Javed has been telling me for some time about these bread vans that pitch up at locations around London (and the rest of Southern England) and ply their doughy wares. He swears by their breads, so I thought it was high time I got my act together and paid them a visit.
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Tags: Attridge & Cole, Bauernbrot, Bread, Bread Van, Butter, Food Truck, German, German Baker, Kaiser Roll, Meateasy, Meatwagon, Mobile, Pretzel, Pumpernickel, Rye Bread, Sandwich
Posted in Opinion, Reviews | 1 Comment »
Sunday, August 29th, 2010
Last weekend I went up to Shropshire for Hogfest ‘10, which you probably won’t remember from this previous post is a yearly chance to meet up with mates, chat, booze and dine on swine in beautiful surroundings.
As in previous years, it was a a good crack, and the pig, sensational. A bit smaller than the previous year’s, and cooked over a fire fueled with only oak wood, it had a beautifully smoky flavour and moist tender meat. As usual, my favourite bit was the belly. Slammed in a bap with some coleslaw that I whipped up, and some home made apple sauce (the recipe for which is below), we were all in hog heaven.
I’m not a huge fan of shop bought apple sauce. I find it’s often too watery, too sweet, or both. So for this years Hogfest I decided to see if I could to better. The following recipe makes about 4 jam jars full, which you’re unlikely to need for a Sunday roast, so adjust the quantities accordingly. You’ll also need to adjust the quantity of sugar based on how tart your apples are. Go easy to start with, as you can always add more towards the end.
Ingredients
2kg cooking apples
20g butter
7 tablespoons Muscovado sugar
3 tablespoons cider vinegar
1.5 teaspoons Chinese 5 spice
200 ml water
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Large pinch of salt
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Tags: Apple Sauce, Butter, Cider Vinegar, Five Spice, Hog, Hogfest, Lemon juice, Muscovado sugar, Party, Roast, Salt, Shropshire
Posted in Lunch, Recipes, Travel | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, August 24th, 2010
They’ve been repeating the Jamie Does… series on More 4 recently, and aside from the shocking title sequence, I think it’s a pretty enjoyable show. I like the idea of zeroing in on a region’s cuisine as opposed to skimming the surface of a whole country, something that the late great Kieth Floyd did so well.
One of the dishes that got my mouth watering the most was the tomato risotto he cooked in Venice. There was just something beautifully simple about the risotto and the tomatoes cooked in olive oil that made me want to give it a go. I’m sure there’s an accompanying book for the series, but I haven’t bought it, so this recipe is a approximation of what I saw of the idiot box. It worked for me, so should do for you too.
Ingredients (serves 2)
For the risotto
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 large celery stalk, finely chopped
100g arborio rice
100 ml white wine
1 litre vegetable stock
Handful of grated Parmesan (about 25g)
Olive oil
Unsalted butter
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
For the tomatoes
15-20 mini plum / cherry tomatoes, halved
1 large clove of garlic, finely chopped
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Tags: Basil, Butter, Celery, Jamie Does..., Jamie Oliver, Kieth Floyd, Olive Oil, Onion, parmesan, Risotto, stock, Tomato
Posted in Dinner, Lunch, Recipes, Reviews | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, July 20th, 2010
Whilst my Mac is being re-habilitated I don’t have access to my holiday pics, so I’ll have to come back to the stuff I rustled up in France at a later date. But my camera is still working, and I’ve bought my schizo old mac back from the dead, so I can do a bit of posting in the meantime.
This recipe is my take on the tapas classic Gambas al Ajillo, and It’s pretty simple and quick too. Buy the biggest, fattest prawns you can afford. Serves two as a main course.
Ingredients
8 King prawns / Tiger prawns
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 dried or fresh red chilli, chopped
20g unsalted butter
35ml extra virgin olive oil
Juice of 1/2 large lemon
Salt to taste
Handful of flat leaf parsley, chopped
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Tags: Butter, Chilli, Garlic, King Prawns, Lemon, Olive Oil, Parsley, Salt, Sourdough, Tapas, Tiger Prawns
Posted in Lunch, Recipes | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
I’m going to be away for Easter in Australia visiting the future in-laws, so am going to miss out on the traditional treats that I’d be indulging in with the family down in Cornwall.
Food wise, the main thing I’m going to miss is the Hot Cross Buns. I love them. Toasted, slathered in melting butter and a good dollop of course bitter sweet orange marmalade. Anyway, I told myself that I wasn’t going to miss out, so decided to make my own for the first time. This recipe is lifted pretty much lock, stock and barrel from here on the BBC Food website, and the results went down a storm.
Ingredients
625g strong white flour, plus extra for dusting
1 tsp salt
2 tsp ground mixed spice
45g unsalted butter, cut into cubes, plus extra for greasing
85g sugar
1 lemon, zest only
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Tags: Baking, BBC Food, Bread, Butter, Easter, Hot Cross Buns, Marmalade, Sweet, Treat
Posted in Recipes, Sweet Stuff | 5 Comments »
Sunday, January 10th, 2010
I was in Paris with the missus for a few days over the New Year period. The weather wasn’t great, but it’s still one of the greatest cities in the World (IMHO). As you might expect the food has a great deal to do with this, and I’m a huge fan of the traditional French bistro.
I love the simple, tasty food, the still tobacco stained walls, the atmosphere and the tradition of it all. Maybe it’s because we don’t have many good examples of this type of place in London, but I’d honestly prefer to sit down at a chequered tablecloth in a back street bistro to a plate of oeufs cocotte and an entrecote, than some foam drenched nonsense from an Alain Ducasse restaurant. No offense Al.
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Tags: Bistro, Bistrot De La Grille, Butter, casserole, French, Garlic, Lentil, Morteau, Paris, Red Wine, Snails, Tarte, Tatin
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
