Recipe: truffled quail eggs

Very easy, once you get hold of the ingredients (readily available in Dordogne).

Take some quail eggs and lay them in a tupperware with a good sized truffle for a few days in the fridge.

Break them in small dishes and add some raw foie gras.

Salt, pepper and grill for about 10 mn.

Serve warm and enjoy!

Sourdough Instructable

I found a nice instructable for Sourdough Bread, with lots of pictures. The blog post from

Personally, I have tried the "Dutch oven" method with in a cast iron pan with a lid but not everyone has one.
I prefer "freeform breads", with a thick crust: I preheat my oven to the max temperature and use a tray with ice cubes: I posted the receipe here.

I also keep using the same sourdough: I keep it in a litre glass jar and refresh it every week. If it smells too much, I throw away half and refresh again. If it turns orange or green, you would have to throw it away and start again.

Over the last 2 WE, I've added 2 handfuls of lineseed and another 2 of sunflower seeds, and used either my favourite Shipton Mill's  "malthouse" flour I got from Olivers in Kew or the Doves malthouse flour (Waitrose).

Tags: bread, sourdough, recipe, foodings.blog.uk

Ready for the pizza party!

I just came up with a new entertaining concept!
As I bake bread almost every week, I just thought about doing a pizza party -it's the same dough after all!
It's been a hit with the littlelings... and adults too.

SET UP
- dough mix: 1 kg strong white bread flour, 35g fresh levure, 3 tbs olive oil, 450 water
- knead (see previous posts on bread)
- let prove for 2h, cover with linen
- shape some dough balls, about the size of a tennis ball
- let prove 1h
- set-up all the ingredients, see picture
--> creme fraiche, chopped oignons, lardons
--> origan
--> tomato passata
--> seafood mix
--> chorizo, ham
--> mozarella, blue chees, goat cheese, emmental (not cheddar!), parmesan for a 4 cheese pizza
--> anchovies, capers, olives
--> spinach, mushrooms, peppers, fresh basilic (add at the end, just like rocket)
--> fresh and cooked eggs
--> etc, check the picture

THE PARTY
Start with baking small sough balls, about the size of a wallut, dunked in oil and chopped gardlic for the aperitif. You can also bake some brushettas by stretching some of your dough balls, brushing with olive oil and adding chopped tomatoes, oregano and basil, salt and pepper
You will then need two baking trays, abundantely floured or with a silicon cooking mat. Each guest makes their own piza and bakes it in a very hot oven. Just keep in mind that the best pizze are often the simplest one -avoid the dog's dinner by setting the example!

SOME SUGESTIONS (MAYBE BEST TO WRITE A RECEIPE LIST BEFORE)
- passata, anchovies, capers, seafood, origan, pepper (no cheese on seafood for traditional Italian pizze though I am not too sure about where this rule comes from)
- four cheese (see above), on a tomato base, no salt!
- creme fraiche (no tomato), oignons, parsley, pepper (no salt)
- tomato base, chorizo, mozzarella, peppers
- Florentina: tomato base, lardons raw egg (w/o the shell ;-), capers

ENJOY!

My no-knead sourdough bread

I've now been baking bread almost every week-end for well over 3 years and have tried many different recipes, including this one or that one, but also ciabattas, lardons breads, walnut and apricots breads, etc etc etc.

I've got several books just , including the "ultimate" The Bread Bible, a very concise and good book in French called Les recettes du boulanger : Pains et viennoiseries.

My current routine is to refresh my sourdough starter which I keep in a jar in the fridge on Thursday night, mix the ingredients together on Friday and bake on Saturday. I always keep some dough if it's a white bread to make pizzas for the Sunday night.

So far, I was using the proportion that Joanna gave me:

• 675 g strong organic white bread flour + 75g organic rye flour, or any mix I like of different flours (such as spelt, malted, buckwheat, etc...) but keeping the total at 750g
• 270 g sourdough starter, usually using rye flour or wholemeal or white bread flour -I keep them at around 100-120% hydratation, which is same weight water and flour or a bit more water
• 495 g water
• 15 g salt -regular, coarse sea salt doesn't make a difference except sprinkled on the crust
• Note that you can also add up to 20% of "whatever": dried apricots and walnuts, sunflower and other seeds, lardons (pancetta cubes) and rosemary, etc...

The rest of the recipe is:

• Knead for 15 mn (that's a whole blog post on the subject...)
  
• Leave overnight to prove on a silicon sheet on an oven tray
• Pre-heat the oven to the max (275 Celcius for me)
  
• Bake for about 50-55 mn with a metal tray and 7-10 ice cubes on the oven bottom but NOT under the bread -makes it all soggy
• Reduce heat to about 180 degrees after 20 mn
• Wholemeal, spelt, rye breads take more time to bake: to see if they're done, tap on the bottom to hear if it sounds hollow, if not continue for 5-10 mn.
  

Now, 750 + 135 = 885 g flour for 495 + 135 = 630 g water, which is about 70% hydratation or 66% if you don't account for the sourdough starter.

Over this bank holiday WE, I've tried my new toy -a very nice electronic scale and have altered the proportions to go well over 70% hydratation:

• I've kept the flour at about 750 g (using a mix of my favourite Dove's Organic StrongWhite Bread Flour and about half of the lovely Bacheldre Smoked Malted Flour)
• However, largely due to a handling error I've ended up with over 320 g of starter
• Thinking back of the "no-knead" NYT article I had read some time earlier, I decided to experiment and added about 600 g of water.
• Now, this makes a very soggy dough which you can't knead -just leave proving for about 14-18 hours or thereabouts
  
• Shape as best as you can trying to to add too much flour or you'll see the seams inside the bread
• Mark and prove for 2 hours (on the photo, I had only the time to leave it for 1h but the result is still good).
• Bake as above (again, on the picture, I did not have time to pre-heat the oven really hot, so the bread is softer but it's still OK, kids loved it)

Notes:

• The NYT recipe suggests baking it into a cast iron pan. I've tried it and like the result but prefers my bread to be more wonky and hand shaped. The ice cubes (thanks god I have an fridge with an ice machine) seem to do the job.
• If you use yeast, either frest or dried, you need to reduce the proportions or your dough will deflate back due to the long proving time. You can also do a biga or a starter the day before with a bit of yeast and a 100% hydratation flour-water mixture.
• Sourdough can be started but you need a week to develop it.
  

Links:

• Recipe: No-Knead Bread - New York Times
• Apartment 2024 » Blog Archive » The Famous No-Knead Bread
• Joanna's French sourdough loaf (and lots of lovely holes!!!)
• Smitten Kitchen's no-knead bread

If ever you can find eels....

The Richmond and Twickenham times relates the story of a rare local British dish, the Richmond Eel Pie.
Interesting tale, dating back to King Henry VIII: apparently Eel Pie Island is named after that dish. The ait was also famous for music in the sixities -I wish I was there!

Coming back to the Eel pie, it's apparently not that difficult to cook, the main issue is to find eels (and also to skin and bone them). Here's the recipe on The Great British Kitchen.

Tags: richmondtransit.blog, foodings, recipe, fish, Richmond