Category: bread

pastrami sandwich

pastrami sandwich with pickle and mustard mayo

I bloody hate rubbish sandwiches. Particularly those sweaty little things in a triangular plastic box that are both cold and miserable (very British I suppose). When the weekend comes, I demand a decent sarnie.

There’s loads I love, but I really dig salt beef, and in particular it’s butch cousin pastrami. Not a big deal in the UK, this peppery meat with it’s ruby flesh it’s utterly moreish and wonderfully carnivorous. So I fancied some today.

To make it as perfect as I could, I prepared ahead and made some bread too. Quite a bubbly and crusty one, so plenty of mouth feel. Then I added a little butter to each open side to prevent the bread getting soggy. I mixed some English mustard with a little mayonnaise to get that creamy colour, and slapped that most American of sandwich ingredients on top: slices of crunchy, sweet pickle. (Or ‘gherkin’ if we’re going to be British about it). Then waves of tasty meat.

There’s so much flavour going on here, it’s marvellous. Chewy bread, crunchy gherkin, the tang of mustard and tear of meat… that’s a sandwich.

bread food rosemary

barbecue bread

After watching a fascinating article on Rick Stein’s Far East Odyssey, I grew into the idea of cooking bread on a grill. Not something I’d done from dough – I’d grilled existing bread but not taken it straight from the proving on to the fire. What the hell.

Went with a pretty basic bread recipe – might as well start simply – and allowed a hefty double-proving. Then whacked blobs of it on to a mega-hot barbecue until darkened on both sides. After turning once I used a rosemary sprig to douse them with olive oil. The results were puffy and interesting, not doughy at all considering a total of about 4 mins cooking time. My only complaint was that I was after something a bit more flatbready. Next time before second proving I would roll flat and pitta-esque to achieve that Turkish-style puffy bread.

Barbecued bread:

400g strong white bread flour

1 packet dry yeast

Pinch salt

Pinch sugar

300ml warm water

Mix the dry ingredients together and add water until a sticky dough is formed.

Continue to work the dough, kneading and stretching for about 10 minutes.

Leave in a bowl drizzled with vegetable oil covered with a damp tea towel for about an hour.

Punch the dough back down and allow to prove again for another half-hour or so.

Preheat a barbecue as hot as it will go.

Tear off pieces of dough and place on a flat grill.

Turn when it has darkened on one side. Use a sprig of rosemary to baste the cooked side with olive oil.

When done on the other side, devour like an animal.

bread food

french baguette

Another week, another adventure in breadery. This week, the humble french stick.

Made with the usual bread ingredients, but there was a careful folding process: after rising it was rolled flat then folded back in itself and left to rise a little longer. I repeated this three times and it seems the net result is a softer bread, a lighter texture and a gentler crust. Perfect with pâté!

bread food

hot cross buns

There was no breakfast for Sunday 🙁 So I refused to go to the shop and make something instead.

I had no idea where to start – I remember Paul Hollywood making some on the superb Good Food Live years ago, and that’s as far as I went. I decided to start at a malt loaf recipe and work outwards from there.

I’m writing the ingredients here for my own benefit really: 350g bread flour, packet of yeast, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp sugar, 2 tsps cinnamon into which I rubbed in 15g butter. Then I added a couple of handfuls of mixed dried fruit, 200 ml water, 2 tbsps golden syrup and blended until bound. Then turned out, kneaded and stretched until smooth and elastic. After proving and shaping into buns, I gave ’em a milk wash and ovened.

Hot cross buns are traditionally basted with thinned down apricot jam. I possess no such odd preserve so improvised a caramel glaze: water and sugar and a tablespoon of golden syrup boiled until sticky, then the freshly-baked buns were doused in sugary gloop whilst cooling. I have to admit, they were great! Nice toasted the next day too.