Archives for the month of: January, 2015
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Soda Bread

January 7, 2015 //
0

snotty nosed soda bread

“That, my dear, sounds like rather a lot work for a loaf of bread” said Snotty Nosed Prince. But Mouse waived his concerns aside “No, honestly, it isn’t that bad. I put the dough on before the movie starts and I continue in the breaks. I don’t have to watch the dough, or the adverts for that matter. Suits me well.”

“But you can’t quickly whip up a loaf should you get unexpected guests, can you?” Snotty Nosed Prince pointed to a loaf that was sitting in the middle of the table. “Look, my Soda bread is ready to be consumed in 40 minutes and – even better – it doesn’t have yeast in it.”

Mouse was interested as she knows quite a few  people try to avoid yeasts and the loaf looked really hearty. She came a little closer and knocked on it. It sounded hollow under the crust.

“So how do you make it?”

“It’s an old Irish recipe from my wet nurse” Snotty Nosed Prince said proudly. “The only draw back is you have to eat it on the day. But honestly, who could resist!”

“I see you use buttermilk in it” Mouse said when she glanced at the recipe. “What is that supposed to do?”

“That is an additional leavening agent. Yes, I know it is not one of the basic foods you have sitting in your fridge. If you don’t have any at hand, use normal milk and put lemon juice or vinegar in it. I personally prefer lemon juice.”

Ingredients

1 cup plain white flour, 2 cups wholemeal flour, plus a little extra to sprinkle, 1 tsp baking soda, ½ tsp salt, 300 ml buttermilk or alternatively normal milk with 1 tablespoon of lemon juice added.

Method

Preheat the oven to 200 0C.

Put white and wholemeal flours, baking soda and salt into a bowl and mix well with a fork.

Make a well in the centre and pour the liquid in. Stir the flour into the liquid  using your index finger to make it a soft dough. Then move it to a lightly floured work surface and knead quickly and lightly to a dough that holds together. Make sure you don’t overwork the dough, otherwise the bread gets too hard.

Form a ball and place on a greased baking sheet. Flatten it ever so slightly. Cut a deep cross in the top of the loaf (about half way). Sprinkle a little extra wholemeal flour over the top.

Bake for about 30 minutes or until well risen and browned. Test by tapping on the base, if it sounds hollow, it is done. If it sounds dull and heavy, bake for a further 3–5 minutes and then test it again.

Cool on a wire rack and eat the same day.

This bread goes very well with soups, for example a creamy pumkin or carrot soup. It is also nice buttered and with honey. If you have some left over, you can toast it the next day.

“Oh yes, the bread was easy to make,” said Mouse exhausted. “But it took ages to get a reasonable picture with the prince and his loaf. He just didn’t want to smile.”

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Categories Absurd, Art, Books, Comedy, Fun, Hand Puppets, recipes

Basic loaf of bread

January 6, 2015 //
4

mouse bread copy

“I think it’s my turn now. We need a good solid bread recipe” Mouse remarked, after she had tried all the recipes with just water, flour and some sort of fat, but no leavening agent.

“Do you have a bread making machine?” Nitpicker asked. “I don’t need one.” Mouse replied proudly. “I am a purist. I love kneading the dough.” Mouse is indeed constantly baking bread, just in case visitors drop by. As she never knows how much she will need, she usually bakes two loaves. One goes in the freezer and the other one stays in the bread box to be eaten. When the first one is almost finished she gets the other one out of the freezer and by the time it is required, it will be defrosted. Sometimes she bakes three times a week. But it’s not really a big deal as the dough doesn’t need to be handled much. It mainly sits around rising and Mouse can do other things in the meantime.

“I will write down my basic recipe” Mouse said as she put pen to paper. “Once you have done a few loaves you will become more adventurous with your breads. Feel free to experiment with different flours or add linseed or sunflower seeds to the mix, anything you want that your family eats. I personally like caraway seeds in my bread. It helps digestion but it’s not everybodies kettle of fish.”

“So what do I have to watch out for when you can alter the flour as one pleases and add more stuff?” asked Nitpicker, who really feels unsure when instructions are too vague.

“You need to have a good amount of glutenous flour, ie. white flour or whole meal flour, rye flour, spelt or barley. Gluten has a bad reputation but it helps the dough to rise, and gives it shape and a chewy texture. So don’t replace all the flour with gluten free types, though you can add some, for example buckwheat flour.

“And then you have to give it time to rise. Please also be aware that your yeast might be different from the brand I use and might behave differently. For example, some dry yeasts can be mixed with the flour and you don’t need to slosh it up before you knead your dough. The brand I use doesn’t contain anything except dried active yeast and salt and I definitely get the best results when I allow it to foam in liquid first. The same company that produces my yeast puts out a special yeast for bread making and this one also contains wheat flour, emulsifiers (481, 472e), flour treatment agent (ascorbic acid), sugar, vegetable oil and enzymes, as well as yeast. Personally, I am happy with my bread and others love it too, so I don’t see the need to add all that stuff to it. I recommend you try the recipe by the book and if the result isn’t quite what you expect, make some slight changes next time. If the final product clearly tastes yeasty, use less yeast next time. If it doesn’t rise much, use more. But don’t give up. And though you might not believe it, it also mightn’t have worked perfectly just because you baked on a very humid day.

Ingredients

5 cups of white flour and 2 cups of whole meal flour, 2 teaspoons of dry yeast, approximately 3 cups of water, salt (optional). Water to brush on the loaves.

Note: the proportions of the two types of flour are not that important as long as they combine to 7 cups. Use more whole meal for a heavier bread and more white flour for a lighter one.

Method

Combine the two flours in a large bowl and mix thoroughly with a fork. Make a well in the middle and add 1 cup of lukewarm water and the yeast. Let sit for 10 minutes until the yeast looks like sloshy foam. Then mix water and flour together and add the rest of the water. Transfer to a flat surface and knead throroughly for 5 to 10 minutes. I quite enjoy the kneading process. It can be very therapeutic when you’ve had a stressful day.

Place the dough back in the bowl. Cover with a clean tea towel and let it sit in a warm place. The dough will rise to double its size, so it is important you have a big enough bowl. Let it sit for roughly an hour or longer if you want. You can even leave it over night and bake in the morning. Nothing is as nice as fresh bread, still warm from the oven.

Preheat the oven to 210 oC

Take the dough out of the bowl and knead again. Add the salt now, if you want to add salt. Sprinkle flour on a baking tray. Divide the dough into two loaves and place on the baking tray. They will fit side by side on one tray. Let the loaves rise for another 10-15 Minutes until they have has visibly enlarged. The oven should have heated up to the right temperature during this time.

Brush the loaves with water (this will give the bread a crust). Cut the surface diagonally with a sharp knife. I also place a water-filled ramikin on the baking tray for extra crunchiness.

Bake for 45 minutes.

Let cool on a rack.

“I am a little dissappointed” Devil said. “I was hoping you will give us your really yummy sour dough bread recipe. Wouldn’t it be more appropriate here, as sour dough is nothing but water and flour?”

“Yes,” said Mouse, “your are right, but we are only at the beginning. A sour dough starter takes a few days to develop as it works with wild yeasts from the air. Also, you need to use rye flour instead of white flour. We will look at it later. In the meantime let’s take the short cut and use dry yeast.”

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Categories Absurd, Art, Books, Comedy, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life, recipes

Chapati

January 5, 2015 //
0

cahpati2

Nitpicker came into the kitchen when Devil and Mouse tried out the flat bread wrap together. When he saw them looking into the pan at a flat bread and dicussing whether it was done or not he got quite angry. “Are you guys making chapati?” he yelled.

Mouse turned round and said “No, this is Devil’s flat bread wrap, why?”

“It looks damn similar to my chapati” he replied and grabbed a finished flat bread from the plate to try. “Ah no,” he said relieved and added with the air of an expert “there is butter in them. My chapati are non-dairy. They contain oil and water only.”

“So what’s your recipe then?” Mouse asked and Nitpicker handed over his piece of paper. “I just want to point out it says flour on my piece of paper, and of course I mean whole meal flour!”

“You can use white flour or whole meal in any of the recipes, or even a mixture, if the troops baulk at whole meal and you want to sneak in something more nutritious” Mouse said. “But if you use whole meal you might have to use a tad more liquid.”

Ingredients

2 cups of flour, salt, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, 150ml water

Method

In a bowl mix flour and salt together.  Stir in olive oil and water and knead on a flat surface until firm and elastic. If it is too dry, just wet your hands with water and knead again. The dough will feel slimy in the beginning but the water will disappear into the dough when you continue kneading. In this way you cannot overdo the amount of water. Continue until you have the desired result. Let it rest for 5 minutes. Divide into eight balls and roll out as thinnly as possible on a surface dusted with flour.

Heat a frying pan over a medium-high heat (note: no oil). Place the chapati in the pan for about 2 minutes per side. Brush with olive oil before serving.

The three Dedes were cooking the latest recipe together and Mouse and Devil discussed how similar the two recipes indeed are, though Devil didn’t like that the whole meal chapati didn’t puff as nicely as his flat bread. In his mind, of course, his recipe was miles better. Then Detail came into the kitchen said exitedly, “Oh goody, that’s another one I can make for vegan Evan!”

“It’s also good if you simply have no butter in the fridge” Mouse pointed out.”Most people always have some oil in the pantry. I am pretty sure you can use any vegetable oil if you don’t have olive oil.”

Nitpicker shook his head at how loosely Mouse interpreted his recipe. He would never dare stray from what was written down.

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Categories Art, Books, Comedy, Fun, Hand Puppets, recipes

Flatbread wraps

January 4, 2015 //
2

devil flat bread

Devil had to chuckle when he read how much work Socialite went through to impress the others. (If you have followed it too, you know it wasn’t really such a big deal.)

When Devil has to bring a plate or when he wants a quick meal and there is no bread in the house, he throws together his thin pan-baked bread and wraps grated cheese and vegetables in it for a handy meal. All the little Devils love it too. But his signature dish is his devil chilly hot red beans wrapped in flatbread covered with a thick layer of cheese and baked in the oven. It is finger licking good and even the heartiest meat eaters don’t miss the meat. As everybody is so impressed by his skills, he has kept the recipe for his flatbread a secret until now, basically because it is really embarrassingly easy. Honestly, you couldn’t make a faster meal using shop-bought flatbread.

As everybody was queuing to upstage each other with the easiest recipe, he was adamant he will take the prize and handed Mouse a tattered old piece of paper on which he had copied the flatbread recipe from his Grandmother’s personal cookbook.

Mouse can gauge what the result will taste like by just looking at the recipe. “Do you realise this recipe is pretty much the same as Pirate’s crackers?” she asked.

“No way!” exclaimed Devil, “the bread tastes totally different. It’s soft and I make it in the pan”

“Yes,” said Mouse, “that is pretty much the only difference, and I see you are using milk instead of water.” Devil put the two recipes side by side and true enough, Mouse was right. “Actually,” Devil admitted “I have accidentally used water before and I couldn’t taste much difference. So when I don’t have milk in the fridge I don’t worry and just use water. Sometimes I use half and half.”

Mouse agreed that if you use the bread with a thick sauce and covered in cheese, no-one would taste much difference. However, if the bread becomes a wrap for finger food it will have a slighty more interesting texture when milk is used. But that is Mouse’s opinion. She is well aware that other Dedes have different tastes.

“So how many wraps will you get out of that recipe?” asked Mouse.

“That’s a rather silly question” replied Devil. “It depends on how big you make them, doesn’t it?”

Ingredients

2 cups of flour, 50g cold butter, 175 ml milk (or water, or a mixture of both). Oil for the pan.

This measure will make around eight wraps.

Method

Put flour in a bowl, cut butter into small pieces and rub into the flour with your fingertips until it is well distributed. Add liquid and knead to a very elastic non-sticky dough for about five minutes. Place the dough in a bowl and let it rest in the fridge for at least 5 minutes. In the meantime you can chop the vegetables and grate the cheese for the filling. If you eat meat, you can of course also use diced left-overs or fry up a few cubes of meat, or use some cold ham. There is no limit to the fillings. Just chop it up small.

Divide the dough into small balls, sprinkle flour on the working surface and roll out the balls as thin as possible. It is easiest when you always roll from the middle to the rim, rather than going forwards and backwards with the rolling pin.

Heat up a little oil in a skillet. Place one piece in it. The bread starts blistering almost instantly. After a minute or two flip over and do the other side for the same amount of time.

Put on a plate and cover with a clean tea towel to keep warm while you work through the dough one by one. Don’t add more oil to the skillet. The oil you put in at the beginning should last till the end. You will find that the first bread will be a tad more brittle than the others as it soaked up most of the oil. In our house the first one out of the pan is used to feed the lions (ie all the hungry ones that can’t wait any longer).

Note: You can re-heat left-over wraps in the microwave.

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Categories Absurd, Art, Comedy, Fun, Hand Puppets, recipes

Second Life

January 3, 2015 //
0

socialite bun

Right, it must have been a crazy New Year’s day brunch. Socialite didn’t come home till midnight, but she came home alone. When she finally got up at lunch time the next day she was so happy to find her dough still sitting in the fridge, as the bread bin was empty again. You have to be fast around here when you get up late. The others might beat you to the food. She looked at the dough, it had risen a bit, even in the cold of the fridge. It had lifted the lid of the bowl it was in, but as it was oiled it was still elastic.

“What better way to start the day than with a cup of coffee and fresh buns with butter and jam?” Socialite grabbed the piece of dough and looked at it. “If I only knew what to do next!”

Witch happened to be in the kitchen cleaning up after the others who had a long breakfast today. “Oh, Witch” Socialite whispered in her sweatest voice, ”please, make me some buns. I don’t know how to do it.”

“C’mon, you’re nearly there.” Witch wasn’t going to do it for her, but she talked Socialite through. “You have half the dough left from yesterday. That is enough for four buns. Heat the oven to 200 0C. Knead the dough briefly, make four balls, put them on a tray dusted with flour. In 15 minutes the oven should be hot, brush the buns with water, cut a cross in the surface and put them in the oven for 20 minutes. Done!” Then she left the kitchen.

That was all too much for Socialite, but as she was really hungry she gave it a go. She put the oven on 200 0C, kneaded the dough halfheartedly, formed four buns and placed them on the tray. While she was waiting for the oven to heat up she made her coffee. Once the oven was heated, she cut a cross in the surface of the buns and then realised she had forgotten to brush water on beforehand, she didn’t even know where the brush was kept. Witch wasn’t there to ask for advice. To start afresh was out of the question. “Ah well” Socialite sighed, shrugged her shoulders and held each of the buns under the running tap for a brief moment. Then she put them back on the tray and into the oven.

Twenty minutes later she had the most delicious buns. “Oh that worked out well,” she said to herself. “From now on, I will always keep some dough to make buns the next morning. Or maybe I double the recipe to start with” She couldn’t wait for them to cool down and devoured them there and then, even though her mother had always warned her not to eat warm bakery products that contained yeast. It is suppose to give you a tummy ache. Socialite had no problems, but then she might have one very sturdy stomach. Who knows.

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Categories Absurd, Art, Comedy, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life, recipes

Bring a plate

January 2, 2015 //
0

socialite grissini

Socialite was invited to brunch on New Year’s Day. In our neck of the woods, you are often asked to “bring a plate” when you are invited to a social gathering. Don’t be fooled, it doesn’t mean your host doesn’t have enough dinnerware and you have to bring your own. No, you are expected to fill your plate with something edible to share. Now, Socialite is by no means a kitchen goddess, the less time she has to spend in the kitchen the better. To be honest, for her it would be easiest to nip down to the supermarket and buy something. But this is the crux, she rather spends her money on fashion and make-up than to buy classy food to share around. Unfortunately she is faced with a champagne taste on a beer budget. Luckily she found in one of her women’s magazines this simple recipe for Grissini to go with any dip. The name sounded intriguing, she tried it and loved it. Grissini is the Italian name for bread sticks, and by no means difficult to make. But as it is a yeast dough some rising time is involved. Socialite is certainly not known for her patience and it works in her favour that if you want the Grissinis to be crunchy, you shouldn’t let them rise too much. She finds the time the dough needs to rise is exactly the time she needs to make her dip, usually some sour cream based concoction with fresh herbs.

Needless to say, she gets a lot of praise for her bread sticks, otherwise she wouldn’t make them. The noble sounding name might have something to do with it. Don’t you dare to call her Grissini simply bread sticks. Ever!

Ingredients

3 cups of flour, 1 teaspoon of dry yeast, 1 generous cup of lukewarm water, 3 tablespoons of olive oil, pinch of salt if you wish. For the topping: water, mediterranean herbs and sesame or poppy seeds (optional).

Method

Preheat oven to 2000C

Put flour into a bowl, make a well in the middle and pour in most of the water and add yeast. (I always keep some of the water and add later if needed). Let sit for 5 to 10 mins until the yeast has turned into sloshy foam. Add salt and oil and combine everything to an elastic dough, which will take approximately 5 minutes of kneading. In the process add the rest of the water if necessary. The dough should be dry and not sticky. Generally if you knead longer, the flour will absorb the excess water. If it really doesn’t happen add some more flour, but only then.

Put the dough in a bowl, cover with a tea towel and let rest in warm place for 5 to 10 minutes. Knead again and roll out to a rectangle of about half a centimeter thickness. Cut the rectangle into two halves and then into strips of 1 centimetre width. Take each of these strips and roll between your hands to round snakes. (The thinner you roll them, the crunchier they will get in the end. If you make them too thick, they will turn into oblong buns). Then place on a baking tray dusted with flour or on a silicon mat. It is a bit like a jig saw puzzle to place them well on the tray. Leave enough space between the individual pieces, as they will expand during baking. Most likely you will fill two trays.

In a cup or ramekin combine some water and herbs and brush the mixture on the snakes of dough. You might want to do half with herbs and water and brush the other half with water only and sprinkle poppy seeds and/or sesame seeds on the remaining sticks.

Bake in the oven for 15 minutes or until golden brown. If you want really crunchy ones, bake for a little longer.

Cool on a wire rack. Don’t let them cool down in a closed tin. When they cool, water is released, which will form condensation in the tin and make them really soft. Yuk.

Socialite ran out of time to do two trays. That is so typical for her. She didn’t want to waste the rest of the dough and packed it in cling film and chucked it in the fridge. Mouse saw that and mumbled: “I bet she  hopes to score a date today. Then she can turn the dough into nice fresh buns tomorrow morning.” As Socialite was in a hurry and is not the most careful Dede by nature, Mouse thought she better check that she had packed the dough properly.  It doesn’t need to be cling film, but it needs to be airtight, otherwise the dough will get a hard crust. The best is to pour a little olive oil in your clean hands and distribute it on the surface of the dough, then place it in an airtight container and in the fridge.

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Categories Absurd, Art, Comedy, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life, recipes

Pirate’s crackers

January 1, 2015 //
0

pirate snack II

Pirate is pretty difficult to get hold of. Nobody knows exactly what he does or where he hangs out. When he shows up though, you can be sure he is painting the town red. Lucky it was New Year’s eve and sure enough Pirate showed up for the party. When Detail bumped into him she immediately asked him for his never fail cracker recipe.

“Oh dear” Pirate said, “this is one of those things I have made for yonks… Honestly I just throw things together. There is no real recipe” Actually some of the Dedes are adamant it is a sure sign of Pirate’s imminent departure, when he makes his famous crackers. He packs his ration into a tin, shares around what doesn’t fit and off he goes.

Socialite was standing next to them, eavesdropping on the conversation. “If you don’t have a recipe I want to go first. I am invited to a New Year’s brunch and I will make Grissini…”

“You wait your turn,” Detail hissed at Socialite who always wants to jump the queue. Then she turned back to Pirate: “You must have had a recipe to start with.” Detail simply can not imagine that anybody could cook without precise instructions.

Pirate scratched his head: “No really, there are so few ingredients, you can’t go wrong. If you like to eat that sort of thing, it’s the perfect start into your baking career. As with everything practise maketh the master”.

Ingredients

1 cup flour, pinch of salt (optional), 1 tablespoon butter, approx 5 tablespoons of water

Preheat oven to 210o C

Method

Mix flour and salt (if you use salt). Add the butter and work into the flour with your fingertips, so that it is well distributed. Add a little water and knead. Continue to add water little by little and knead well until you have a nice elastic dough. Let it rest in the fridge for at least 5 minutes.

Flour the surface on which you are going to roll out your dough. Divide the dough in two or three balls and roll each of them out as thinly as you like. (Note: the thicker the dough, the longer it will take to bake and the less crisp the crackers will be. I use the noodle machine instead of the rolling pin).

Once the desired thickness is reached, brush water onto the surface. The water makes the crackers crunchier. For extra taste you can sprinkle dried herbs, poppy seeds or sesame seeds on top. Cut into shapes.

Sprinkle flour on a baking tray and place the shapes on the tray. Repeatedly prick the surface of each cookie with a fork. This keeps the crackers from puffing up. (In the picture Pirate demonstrates the difference between a cracker with a pricked surface and one without).

Bake for 7 to 10 minutes. As every oven is different and the thickness varies, watch them carefully so they don’t burn. Get them out when they are just slightly brownish. When they are still warm they are soft, but they will get harder as they cool down.

“I have to try that, it sounds really easy and it doesn’t seem to take long at all” said Detail who had noted down every word. “Imagine you have someone ringing a six, saying they come round at seven. No need to get stressed, with this recipe you have always nibbles at hand.“

“But it is no good for you mum!” Minor interrupted “Remember, your new flame is vegan!”

“Each to his own” said Pirate unperturbed, “just use a good oil instead of butter. Personally I like the buttery taste. You also can mix half white flour with half whole meal, whatever. As I said, you can’t go wrong. Just try it and keep notes of what works for you.”

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Categories Absurd, Art, Comedy, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life, recipes
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