Recipe for the day: Recent Episodes
Paul Peacock
A recipe each day to inspire and have a lot of fun in the process.
All the recipes are easy to make, and there are a few surprises along the way.
Traditional Ciabatta
For the starter - biga
150 g plain white flour
1/2 teaspoon dried active yeast
110 ml warm water
Put the yeast and half of the water in a small mixing bowl and mix in
Add the rest of the water and whisk in the flour, which is sieved into the bowl until a dough forms
Mix with your hands or a wooden spoon to get a very smooth dough
Cover and leave at room temperature for at least 8 hours (overnight will do)
For the main dough
1/2 level teaspoon of yeast as before
40 ml warm milk
2 tablespoons oil (olive or sunflower)
175 ml warm water
250 g strong bread flower
1 level teaspoon salt
Stir the yeast and milk together and cover - leave for 15 minutes
Combine the oil and water
Sieve the flour and salt into a mixing bowl
Make a well and add the starter, the mild and yeast mixture and the water and oil
Stir well with a spoon or your hands
The mixture will be quite wet, knead for ten minutes in the bowl
Cover and leave to prove for 2 hours or until it has doubled in size
Folding the dough - keep it in the bowl and fold the end over backwards, rotate the bowl a little and repeat. Repeat this process about 8 times
Rest the dough for 20 minutes and then repeat
Flour a surface well and tip the dough out. It will be a little wet but don’t worry.
Shape the dough onto a large or 2 smaller loaves.
Fold the dough over on itself to form a rectangle and lay on baking paper and rest for 20 minutes.
Preheat the oven with a baking tray inside to 220ºC, 450ºF, Gas 7
Place the bread along with the paper on the hot baking tray and bake for 35 - 45 minutes for a large one, 25 - 30 minutes for smaller ones
Test by hitting the bottom for a hollow sound
BBQ marinaded pork skewer kebabs
A simple dish served on rice, Can be as low fat as you like.
To make the marinade
1 dessert spoon sesame oil
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon honey
1/2 teaspoon sesame seeds
1/2 teaspoon poppy seeds
2 grated garlic cloves
Mix the ingredients together
Cut 400 g pork pieces into 1 cm strips and add to the marinade, coating all the meat
Leave overnight for the flavours to develop
To assemble the kebabs
Choose vegetables of your choice
8 Mushrooms
1 large red capsicum
1 courgettes
Pieces of onion, anything you enjoy and skewer together with the pork.
Tiy can then BBQ them, or griddle them.
Use the left over marinade to brush over the kebab whilst they cook.
Serve with a sauce made fro 3 tablespoons Hoi Sin sauce, 3 tablespoons water and 1 tablespoon soy, heated together in a small pan.
Pour over the kebabs and onto a bed of boiled rice.
Of course you could serve with pitta and salad!
Ginger Loaf
Spices and Autumn (Fall) seem to go together. They are hibernation food, getting all cosy food. This ginger loaf just fits the bill.
You will need
Preheat the oven to 170ºC, 325ºF, Gas 3
200 g butter
1 1/2 tablespoons syrup
Melt these together and mix
Sieve together
180 g Self Raising flour
25 g wholemeal flour
1 rounded teaspoon ground ginger
1 level teaspoon cinnamon
Whisk together
150 g soft brown sugar
3 eggs
1 heaped teaspoon of grated fresh ginger
Having whisked the eggs etc in a large bowl, whisk in half the flour
Then whick in the butter / sugar mix
Fold in the rest of the flour
Grease and line a loaf tin and pour the batter into it
Bake for 40 - 45 minutes
Test by using a skewer, giving an extra 5 minutes where necessary.
Mash the potato Sieve the flour and salt and mix
Add the egg and form a dough
Leave the dough to rest for a while and then cut off strips which are then rolled out to 1 cm sausage shapes
Cut each roll into 1 cm pieces
Cook in boiling, salted water – it takes 3 minutes for them to rise to the surface, when they are ready
For the sauce
You will need
Oil for roasting
15 small ripe tomatoes
4 garlic cloves peeled and halved
1/2 small red onion
1 teaspoon fresh origano (or 1/2 teaspoon dried)
1 tablespoon fresh chopped parsley
Salt and black pepper
400 ml passata
1 teaspoon paprika
Preheat the oven to 200ºC, 400ºF, Gas 6
Place 2 - 3 tablespoons oil into a roasting pan
Halve the tomatoes and garlic
Chop the onion finely
Add to the pan and coat with the oil, add salt and pepper
Roast for 20 minutes until the tomatoes are browning
Transfer to a pan and on a low heat add the passata and herbs and simmer for 3 minutes - do not boil
Serve with the gnocchi
The taste of summer, though you can make these all the year round these days.
Makes 12 large cup cakes
150 g frozen (but defrosted) black cherries
50 g caster sugar
You can use up to 100g sugar depending on how sweet you like it
Bring both to the boil and then leave to cool in the pan
For the sponge
180 g butter
165 g soft brown sugar
1 tablespoon Greek Yoghurt
1.5 teaspoons almond extract
2 eggs
170 g self raising flour
30 g ground almons - stirred into the flour
2 - 3 tablespoons flaked almonds
Place 12 muffin cases into a 12 hole tin
Preheat the oven to 170ºC, 325ºF, Gas 3
Cream together the butter, sugar, yoghurt and almond extract
Sift 4 tablespoons of the flour and almond mixture over the creamed mix
Add the eggs, beaten together lightly, and beat into the mixture
Add the rest of the almond and flour mix and fold in
Share the mix equally into each of the muffin cases
Lightly swirl a teaspoon of the cherry mixture and sprinkle a few almonds on top
Bake for 18 minutes
Mushroom and Blue Cheese Pasta Sauce
A simply wonderful treat, well worth the expense of the best blue, and of course, the very short time it takes to make.
You need for 2 people
3 tablespoons oil + big knob of butter
10 chestnut mushrooms, sliced
3 cloves of garlic, chopped finely
50 g Blue Stilton, crumbled
100 ml double cream
50 ml milk
Gran Padano or Parmesan
How to do it
Heat the oil and butter on a low to medium heat heat and fry the garlic and mushrooms until the juices run from the mushrooms - then cook for another minute.
Stir in the cheese
Add the milk and the cream and stir well over a low heat
Allow to bubble for a minute then turn off the heat.
Serve with pasta and top with grated Gran Padano or Parmesan
Opera Cake
This is our 400th Recipe for the Day!!!
Sorry it took a week to get it out - we have been really ill!
This cake was said to resemble the Opera in Paris. It is a lot of worth, but really is worth the effort.
You are basically making a sponge, a coffee syrup, a creme de beurre and a ganache, then layering.
So here goes…
Jaconde Sponge
3 Egg whites. (You’ll use the yolks later)
15 g Caster Sugar
100 g Ground almonds
100 g Icing sugar (sieved)
3 whole eggs
30 g Sifted plain flour
30 g melted butter
Method
Whisk the egg whites until stiff
Add sugar a teaspoon at a time until glossy
Cover and set aside
Mix almonds and icing sugar in another bowl and whisk in the whole eggs until very frothy
Whisk in flour and the melted butter
Fold into the merangue in batches
Pour into a prepared tin and level the top
Bake for 5 - 7 minutes in a preheated oven , 200ºC, 400ºF, Gas 6 until golden and springy
Coffee Syrup
30 ml Hot water
2 teaspoons coffee
30 g Sugar
Heat the water in a pan and then add the other ingredients, leave to cool.
Chocolate Ganache
120 g 56% Chocolate
120 ml double cream
Heat the cream until it is very hot, but not boiling
Add chocolate pieces and stir carefully, adding until everything is mixed
Leave to cool
Creme de beurre
3 egg yolks
220 g Melted butter
75 g Caster sugar
3 tablespoons water (ONLY 3)
Put the yolks in a bown and whisk gently
Put the sugar and water in a pan and carefully bring to a boil to create a syrup, which you then allow to cool for a few minutes.
Pour the syrup into the egg yolks while whisking and then add the butter, little by little.
To create the cake
Take your sponge and cut carefully four pieces of identical size
Lay one slice on a platter or serving plate and brush some of the coffee into it.
Then a layer of Creme de beurre (Half the total)
Then another sponge
Brush with more coffee
Then a layer of Ganache (About half of it
Another layer of sponge
Brush with coffee
The second layer of Creme be beurre on this
A final sponge layer
Ganache to cover the top
Baked Aubergines
A really nice dish you can make either as vegetarian or otherwise as you please!
You will need for 2 people
2 large aubergines
oil for glazing
oil for frying
1 small red onion, chopped
8 (or more) cherry tomatoes - halved or quartered
2 chopped garlic cloves
1 small red pepper chopped
1/2 to 1 teaspoon oregano
salt abd black pepper
100 g grated cheese of your choice or tofu if you prefer
1 tablespoon pine nuts
Slice the aubergines lengthways and brush both sides with oil, season with salt and pepper
Bake on a tray for 20 minutes at 190ºC, 375ºF, Gas 5
Meanwhile chop the onion and galric and fry lightly in a little oil
Add chopped pepper and fry for 3 - 4 minutes
Sprinkle in the oregano and season with salt and pepper
When the aubergine is ready spoon the mixture over the surface (which should have sunk a little) and and add the cherry tomatoes, cheese and pine nuts and bake for a further 5 minutes until the cheese is bubbling
It’s harvest time and that means preserving! This preserve is fairly easy to create and just as tasty!
You need
1 kg apple pulp - (so you need to peel core and chop more than 1 kg apples!)
450 g chopped pumpkins
2 medium onions, chopped
200 g sultanas
550 ml malt vinegar
400 g soft brown sugar
2 level teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 cm piece of fresh grated ginger
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
2 level teaspoons salt
For added heat optionally add 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Caramel and Apple Cake
Caramel and Apple Cake is a seriously yummy cake. Just perfect for the autumnal glut of apples, and once eaten, you’ll want to make it again and again.
Grease or oil and line a cake tin.
You will need
For the caramel apples
50 g soft brown sugar
45 g butter
2 cored, peeled and chopped dessert apples
Add the sugar and butter to a shallow frying pan and heat on a low light to allow the sugar to melt - don’t stir it.
Add the apples and increase the heat. Stir all around and when the bubbles are getting bigger, turn the heat off and cool.
For the cake
200 g butter
150 g sugar
1 tablespoon youhurt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons maple syrup
3 eggs and 3 tablespoons of milk
210 g self raising flour
1 level teaspoon cinnamon
Grating of nutmeg
Add the butter, sugar, yoghurt, vanilla, maple syrup and beat together
Sieve the cinnamon and flour and nutmeg and fold a little of the mixture into the butter mix
Beat in the eggs and the milk
Fold in , beat in the rest of the flour into the mix
Line the tin with the apples
Bake at170ºC, 325ºF, Gas 3 for 30 - 40 minutes depending on the size of the cake
When cooled, spike the cake and drizzle the topping over the top
For the topping
1 heaped tablespoon icing sugar
3 tablespoons maple syrup
Making Biltong
There are lots of recipes out there for Biltong, it’s completely up to you really how you do it, but the two essential ingredients are salt and no water.
What I mean by ‘no water’ is the meat is dried, completely. That with the saltiness of the meat is enough to preserve.
Now of course you can get it in little packets, not very much for quite a lot of money.
Living in a wet climate, we use the dehydrator to force the water from the meat. Traditionally, so the story goes, biltong was made by putting meat under the saddle and it was then rode on all day. That way the meat was salted by horse sweat. No idea if this is true! I have also heard it about kebabs and Ghengis Kahn’s men, so who knows?
In this recipe you need
Very thin slices of beef - around 2 - 3 mm thick
Carraway seeds
Fennel seeds
Curing salt - with nitrates already added - we used Weschenfelder Continental Cure, which is very low in nitrates. But then I feel it is important to have some in this uncooked product to guard against botulism.
Balsamic vinegar
Put a sprinkling of salt in the bottom of a container and lay out some strips of beef on top
Sprinkle a layer of curing salt on top of the meat
Then sprinkle a layer of carraway seeds
Then a layer of fennel seeds
Then splash the laters with balsamic vinegar (Some recipes call for Worcestershire sauce instead)
Then lay another load of beef on the top and repeat the process until your beef is finsihed
Cover with food wrap and refrigerate for 24 hours
After 24 hours wash off the seeds and place in the dehydrator and process until completely dry and moisture free
You can freeze it - in vac bags preferably, otherwise eat them within about a week - which is no problem with us. Of course, if you live in a dry windy environment you can dry them outside - it is probably better that way.
This is an easy meal for anyone, quick and very tasty!
You need
3 Tablespoons oil
2 medium onion
2 cloves of garlic
550 - 600 g pork tenderloin
1 1/2 teaspoons paprika
1/3 rounded teaspoon sage
300 ml stock or water
150 g button mushrooms
Salt and pepper
1 dessertspoon cornflour slaked in a little water
Fry the vegetables until soft but not coloured
Add the meat and cook for a few minutes
Then all the rest of the ingredients
Cook for about 40 minutes at a strong simmer