Category: bread

pesto, salami and black olive tear and share bread

Post author By Gary @ BigSpud
Post date October 9, 2014
10 Comments on pesto, salami and black olive tear and share bread

Somewhat inspired by recent challenges on Great British Bake Off, I thought about making some tear and share bread. When left to my own devices things often take a Mediterranean direction. I’d not tried tear and share (or pull-apart to my American friends) before so started with a basic bread recipe and moved out from there.

I was off round a friend’s so though about taking some nice savoury bread with me. (As it turned out he cancelled so poor old me, I had to eat the whole thing myself.)

I started with a standard yeast dough, no surprises here.

Left to rise until doubled…

Folded in my deli ingredients and shaped. I made the swirls first (just a sausage shape wrapped around itself – I’ve been making my daughter’s hair into a bun lately so it kinda reminded me of shaping that). The leftover dough was left as a round roll in the centre.

And whaddya know, it turned out great.

I’ll definitely be making variations on this tear and share recipe again. PS. I was making mine ready for about 8 people so made a fairly large one (about 30 cm across!), so do scale up / down your ingredients as required.

pesto, salami and black olive tear and share bread

Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

750 g bread flour
2 x 7 g sachets yeast
1 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning
5 slices salami diced
12 black olives halved
100 g green pesto I like Sacla'

Instructions

In x warm water add the yeast and sugar, whisk lightly to combine and leave while you get the dried stuff ready.
Mix the flour and salt together in a large bowl. Make a well and add half the yeasty water. Combine well then keep adding water until everything in the bowl comes together. Turn out on a floured surface and knead for 10 minutes into a smooth, pliable dough. Cover and leave in a warm place to rise for about 45 minutes.
After this time, knock it back and incorporate the herbs, salami and olives. Divide the dough into 6 pieces. Take one piece and roll it into a sausage shape. Spread this on one side with some of the pesto (like toast), then twist the dough into a spiral shape. Repeat for 4 more of the pieces, and leave the sixth as a smooth ball. Arrange on your baking tray and leave to prove for an hour.
Preheat the oven to 180C. Bake for 25 - 35 minutes, until the bottom sounds hollow when tapped. Because the bread is an irregular shape, you should check all over the bread, and it's probably a good idea to rotate the loaf 180 degrees mid-bake to keep it even.

Want more bread recipes?

Try my tiger bread

Or for a special occasion, Heston-inspired mushroom parfait and walnut bread

My Custard Pie’s courgette loaf looks like a right treat

Something sweeter? Try Utterlyscrummy’s cinnamon pull-apart bread

Perhaps a more recognisable deli-topped bread? Check out Greedy Gourmet’s artichoke and sun-dried tomato pizza

Tags social

bacon bread egg food mushroom

fry up in a cup

I do love a full English, but obviously isn’t something you can indulge in too often, so here’s another way to get your bacon-mushroom-toast-egg fix. You just need some little ramekins, darioles or if you’re not middle-class, teacups. I call it a fry-up-in-a-cup!

The mushrooms and bacon require a tiny bit of pre-cooking to get them started, but after that you stuff everything into a cup and bake it. Bread at the bottom forms a little base, and bacon creates a wall around the outside. Should take less than 20 minutes start to finish, and half of that is just leaving it in the pot to bake.

This would also be a good one to wrap up and take with you. If you bake the egg a little over the whole thing should go solid, leaving you with the most savoury of ‘muffins’.

You could make a few interesting substitutions here I bet – a small layer of baked beans would be interesting (despite being my least favourite food), and a pinch of oregano or paprika would take it into another direction. Give it a whirl!

fry up in a cup

Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

1 slice of bread
4 rashers smoked bacon
4 chestnut mushrooms diced
2 eggs

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 180C, and put a frying pan over a medium heat.
Add the bacon to the pan and cook gently until just starting to colour. Remove and pop the mushrooms in instead.
While the mushrooms cook down, using a pastry cutter or an upturned glass cut out discs of bread to put in the bottom of your moulds. Bend the rashers around the inside of the mould to form the wall of your breakfasty pot. Season the mushrooms and add to the bread. Crack an egg on top and bake for 7 - 10 minutes, until the egg is cooked to your liking. Either eat out of the cup or scoop out if you dare.

Want some more alternative breakfasts? Try one of these…

CakeyBoi’s Elvis Breakfast Muffins are hilarious. I love ’em.

Or for something perhaps a little more healthsome may I suggest vegan breakfast pancakes?

These Scottish Tattie Scones will work alongside any cooked breakfast. And, y’know, potatoes.

Let’s BAM it up a notch, with Kavey’s bacon pancakes.

And finally here’s a stunner: Helen’s Full English Tarte Tatin. Brilliant stuff.

bread chicken food tomato

incredible chicken sandwich

Post author By Gary @ BigSpud
Post date June 6, 2014
6 Comments on incredible chicken sandwich

He takes a lot of flak, but I like Valentine Warner. I certainly like his recipes, which are usually easy to make, easy to eat and make you think “I think I’m going to give that a go…”

His latest book, What To Eat Next, is packed with these types of recipes. Duck legs with cucumber, spicy cracked crab claws, deep-fried hotate scallops… all eagerly plastered with post-it notes ready for the to-cook pile. Lots of these are interesting and comforting, with plenty of flavour. A few of the recipes are a little bit filler – do we need a listed recipe for quiche lorraine in 2014? – but the majority are really worth it. I particularly enjoyed his steak sauce, bursting with umami-rich ingredients like tomato ketchup and Worcestershire sauce. Polenta with kale and porcini was also a delight.

One big area of the book letting it down is the desserts, many of which are so simple as to be pointless. It’s a part of the book easily skipped though, as there’s only 15 pudding recipes.

Here’s my take on one of the recipes from his book, a chicken sandwich with slow roast tomatoes and coleslaw. It’s really moreish and absolutely delicious. Take it into work the next day and be the envy of your colleagues. The slow roast tomatoes can be made in advance, and in quantity. Can’t be bothered? Put them in a high oven for 30 minutes. Not as rich and sweet, but nearly as good.

Click here to buy Valentine Warner’s What To Eat Next on Amazon

incredible chicken sandwich

Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

For the slow-roasted tomatoes:
2 tomatoes
1 teaspoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon red wine veingar
Small knob of butter for each tomato
Pinch dried thyme
For the coleslaw:
1/2 white cabbage
2 carrots peeled
1 red onion peeled
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon wholegrain mustard
Lemon juice to taste
For the sandwich:
4 boneless skinless chicken thighs
2 gherkins sliced
2 ciabatta rolls

Instructions

For the tomatoes, preheat the oven to 100C. Halve the tomatoes and place cut side up on a baking tray. Dot with sugar, vinegar, thyme and butter and a little salt and pepper. Roast for 4 hours or until soft and sticky. Allow to cool in their juices.
Season the chicken all over and squash out flat. Fry in butter until crisp and browned on one side, then flip and repeat.
Meanwhile, shred the coleslaw veg in a food processor. Combine with mayo, mustards and lemon juice along with salt until it tastes yummy.
Toast your ciabatta on the cut side. Add the chicken, gherkins, tomatoes and a blob of coleslaw. Devour, and don't forget to wipe your chin.

Tags valentine warner

bread carrots food pork sandwich

banh mi muffuleta

Give me an excuse to do a posh sandwich, and I’m there. Inspired by a recipe in a recent issue of the Jamie magazine, this recipe crosses the Vietnamese baguette with the New Orleans superbap. Truth be told it’s only a little of both, but gives you an idea where it’s heading.

One of my colleagues came round for lunch and I had to make this for him. He loves Asian inspired flavours so it was right up his street. This also marked the first time I cooked with and tasted pork cheeks. Much more offaly than I was expecting, though the texture was sticky and tender. I liked them, but I’d rather have pork belly. I felt it pushed this sandwich in an odd direction; I’d like to try it again with a more conventional pork cut such as shoulder or leg.

Read my colleague’s Richard blog at Everydayleader. Thanks to Farmison for the pork cheeks.

Banh mi muffuleta (serves about 6 – 8):

1kg pork cheeks

1 onion, sliced

8 cloves garlic

500ml chicken stock

4 tablespoons soy sauce

4 tablespoons fish sauce

1 bag stir fry veg

Spiced rice vinegar (any sweet vinegar would work well)

1 large square loaf (I used a sour dough pave)

Preheat the oven to 220°C. Layer the onions and garlic in a baking dish. Season the pork all over and put this on top of the onions. Put the pork in the oven for 15 minutes to get the meat warmed up. Remove from the oven, turn down to 160°C and add the chicken stock. Cover with foil and roast for 1½ – 2 hours, until tender and juicy.

Remove the pork from the oven to rest and strain off the liquor, reserving for later. Leave the oven on and gently warm the bread for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile heat a large wok as hot as it will go, add a splash of oil and stir fry the veg for 3 – 4 minutes until starting to to go tender. Add the onions, garlic and cooking stock into the pan, adding sweet vinegar to taste. Simmer for 2 more minutes before straining off the juices.

Slice the pork cheeks and season with a pinch each of salt and sugar. Cut the bread horizontally and drizzle with oil. Layer the pork on the bread, then the veg on top. Drizzle over a little of the reserved cooking juices to taste, plonk the other half of the bread on top, press down and serve in thick wedges.