Hummous

This is adapted from Jersualem by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi to make it quicker and easier with tinned chickpeas. It came as a revelation to me that it tastes better without oil.

Ingredients:

• 400g tin of chickpeas
• About 150g of tahini
• Half a big lemon
• Ice cold water from the fridge
• A huge clove of garlic

Drain the chickpeas and put in a food processor. Chop and pound the garlic in a pestle & mortar and add to the chickpeas with the lemon juice. Do not add any salt if the chickpeas were in salted water. Add about half the amount of tahini compared with the amount of chickpeas. Whizz up and slowly add iced water until it becomes a smooth paste. Add more lemon juice or other flavourings to taste – smoked paprika and cumin are big favourites here but this is so simple and delicious it really doesn’t need anything else.

Flatbreads

Adapted from the superb River Cottage Handbook No.3: Bread by Daniel Stevens.

• 200g plain flour
• 300g strong white bread flour
• 5g powdered yeast
• 10g fine salt
• 325ml semi-skimmed milk
• 1 tbsp olive oil

Put all the dry ingredients in a food mixer with a dough-hook attached. On a slow speed, add the oil and gradually add the milk. Knead for about 10 minutes and cover the bowl with clingfilm and leave in a warm place for about an hour or until it has doubled in size.

Knock the dough back and on a well-flowered worktop roll out shapes that are big enough to fit in your frying pan – any size will do, about 4mm thick. Heat a dry pan as hot as you can get it, open doors & windows to temporarily quieten the smoke alarms with a juicy bone.

When the pan is really hot, pop a rolled-out piece of dough in. It will start to bubble and when slightly charred onderneath, flip it over until cooked on both sides. (Daniel Stevens uses the stove and a grill for the tops but I found this too much bother, and indeed I was getting too hot!). Serve with the hummous you made above. This is a half-quantity from the original recipe but it still made about 10 small flatbreads, plenty to feed all 5 of us.

Ok – not a recipe, but this was so tasty I had to share. A BLT with melted cheese. Slice crusty bread in half, spread with a little mayo. Add ketchup & American mustard to one side. Slice sweet small tomatoes on one side & cover with black pepper. When you flip the bacon over, add a thin slice of your cheese of choice to the cooked side & let it melt in the frying pan. When the cheese is gloopy, add the bacon to the bread and stuff in some leaves – rocket would be good but I used lettuce & baby spinach. Assemble and eat. The weather justifies it.

Praise be to @ginandting for alerting me to the savoury possibilities of chollah bread. I couldn’t find chollah buns locally, but Waitrose in Beckenham sell delicious big chollah loaves. Chollah is a sweet, soft bread, almost like brioche but a bit finer and firmer.

Tonight we used thickly-sliced chollah for our burgers – home-made, of course, topped with melted cheese, home-made dill pickles, secret sauce*, lettuce, tomato and a sliver of onion. By popular consent – the best burgers I’ve made yet.

@ginandting also tells me, chollah bread is amazing for a bacon sandwich. Not exactly kosher, but it’s got to be tried.

Only one problem – which IPA to wash them down with..?

We also tried making Byron-style courgette fries to this recipe from Domestic Sluttery. They were ok, but not as nice as Byron’s. I think they must use a herb or spice I haven’t yet identified.

*secret sauce is a mixture of mayonnaise, Heinz tomato ketchup and French’s American Mustard. It’s the business on burgers. But don’t tell anyone – IT’S A SECRET.

• crusty white bread
• 1 lime
• some wasabi paste or powder made up with warm water
• fresh crab meat
• mayonnaise

Butter the bread with mayonnaise – if that’s not a contradiction in terms. Spead the crab meat over one slice. Squeeze lime juice aplenty over. Then spread a very thin layer of wasabi paste over the other slice. Bring together, right now, over me.

I discovered Waitrose sell fab little pots of Cornish crab from Seefood & Eat It in Newlyn (see what they did there?). They do pricey pots of 100% white meat, cheaper ones that are 50/50 white and dark (that’s what I went for) and cheaper-still pots of 100% dark meat.

Nom nom nom. I love crab and prawns and lobster so much, I always forget I’m a bit allergic – until my lips go numb and my throat gets a bit prickly. But it’s worth it!

The recipe I followed is here: http://www.rivercottage.net/recipes/classic-soda-bread/ – I didn’t have quite enough buttermilk so I topped it up with cheap supermarket live yoghurt. I also used Sainsbury’s Basics plain flour, so the overall cost was very low.

It really does take under an hour to make a delicious loaf of bread. There’s hardly any kneading – a mere minute! No proving, no resting, no rising. And I can honestly say it gave me the most delicious bread and jam I have ever tasted. The kids loved it too.

It was so nice, sweet and light, I don’t think I’ll ever be buying another loaf of ‘artisanal’ bread again.

Next I think I’m going to have to try the Guinness, Apple and Cheese variety.

• 1 egg
• 1 thick slice of soft bread
• splash of full-fat milk
• pinch of cinnamon – more if you fancy
• maple syrup to taste
• knob of butter
• heart of gold

Beat an egg and cinnamon with a splash of milk – and a fork. Put the butter in a hot frying pan. Put the eggy mixture on a plate and soak each side of the bread in it. Put the bread in the pan and fry until a beautiful mottled brown colour. Eat immediately with maple syrup – bacon on top is perfect too!