Sunday 31 March 2013

My greatest kebab

Kebabs are things of beauty.

Not a hint of irony there, kebabs really can be a fantastic example of simple flavours expressed and combined in a remarkably complimentary way.

I went to university in Manchester and lived there for 15 years, the peculiarly Mancunian combination of chicken or lamb tandoori with red onions wrapped in a naan bread with salad and chilli, mango, yoghurt, mint and garlic sauces is a true gastronomic wonder.  I urge anyone who's discounted kebabs following a sorry 'elephant's leg in a pitta' affair to head somewhere inside the M60 and give one a go.

The title of this blog is however "My greatest kebab" and you may get an inkling from my picture that this isn't Fallowfield but somewhere farther afield and the kebab's a very different beast indeed.

My greatest kebab was consumed in the Djemaa el Fna in Marrakech, was very different from my previous Mancunion favourite and is fortunately much more amenable to home preparation.  It's simple cubes of marinated lamb barbecued over charcoal and served with a tomato sauce and bread. This is my guess at what went into my Moroccan kebab and it makes a deliciously simple supper, obviously you'll just have to imagine the snake charmers and North African drums....

Ingredients (makes 4 kebabs);

Cubed lamb (shoulder's fine but use fillet if you want a more tender mouthful) 500g
Juice of 1 lemon
Ground cumin 2 tsp
Garlic 2 cloves

Ripe tomatoes (overripe's fine) 500g
1 red onion
Juice of 1 lemon
Small bunch of coriander herb

Directions;

1) Mix together the lamb, lemon juice, cumin and garlic.  Place in the 'fridge and leave to marinate for at least 4 hours and up to 24.

2) Remove from the 'fridge and allow to come to room temperature.  Light the barbecue or place a heavy griddle pan on a high heat until smoking.

3) Thread the lamb onto metal kebab skewers (or pre soaked wooden but metal's best), remove excess marinate and lightly oil the kebab.

4) Barbecue / griddle the kebabs until they are browned on the outside and still pink and moist inside.

5) For the sauce; blitz the tomatoes in a food processor, finely dice the onion, add the lemon juice and finely chopped coriander.  For absolute authenticity don't add salt (although I usually do as I prefer the flavour).

6) Serve the lamb with the tomato sauce and some bread, along with simple chargrilled onions and peppers or salad.

In Morocco food's always served with salt, pepper and ground cumin to season to your own tastes.

Simple, but remarkably effective definitely worth a try (chips are strictly optional)!

Saturday 30 March 2013

Sourdough... don't be scared now...


This is going to be fairly involved and possibly only one for the real foodies as it will take your life over.  

All baking's an art, and making sourdough bread's more of an art than most but once you start you won't look back and even any failures that you may have are usually edible and delicious.  There are deliberately lots of options and few quantities during my instructions, I make no apology for this it really is a case of trial and error!

Sourdough is one of the ultimate slow foods and is extremely rewarding to bake, there's nothing difficult about making it and it requires little work but some patience waiting between the stages.

There are a million and one ways to raise a sourdough loaf and this is just a very quick guide to how I make mine, again don't be afraid to experiment!

What separates sourdough from conventional loaves is that you create your own yeast culture from naturally occurring yeast (in the air and flour) and then use this to raise your loaves rather the commercial alternative, this creates an amazing flavour.

This first stage, "brewing" your starter's going to take a week or more, so don't wait until your hungry before you start!

First buy a bag of strong white bread flour, ideally unbleached, organic etc. etc. similar that from Maud Foster mill pictured above (local to me in Boston, Lincs).  This untreated flour should have more naturally occurring yeasts, but to be honest I used commercial flour to "brew" my starter and it worked just fine, so it's not essential.

Take your flour and mix with water to form a watery paste (about 300g flour to 1 litre of water but quantities really are unimportant) in a clean vessel such as a kilner jar, mix well and leave in a warm place.  After several days you should notice some bubbling in your jar, let this continue until it's really quite "fizzy" if shaken, open your jar enjoy the sour, yeasty aroma.  At this point discard half of the paste and top up with flour and water, this just mellows your starter a little the first "brew" is often a little strong if used for baking.

That's it.  Simple.  It really is that easy.  You now have a sourdough starter that can be with you for life.  Your own particular culture's a very special thing and will taste just that little bit different from anyone else's, some bakeries and breweries have cultures that have been going for decades / centuries.

Every time you use some starter simply top it up with flour and water and let the yeast multiply again, if you're not going to use the starter for a while (more than a few days), store it in the 'fridge to slow it down.  If your starter's too slow tip away half, add some more flour and water (to feed the yeasts) and leave in a warm place to speed it up again.

Now, what to do with your starter..

This is one of my everyday sourdough loaves.  They have a lovely loose texture, an amazing a flavour, a slightly chewy crust and keep much better than shop bought bread.  I make about 2 per week to feed myself and my family, I've been doing this for a couple of years and I'm still perfecting my technique.

As I've already mentioned, this is an art not a science and hence these are only very loose directions, most of the fun's in the experimentation!

Take half of your starter and add to a large bowl, top up the starter as described previously.  Add a little extra flour and water to your mix in the bowl to form a double cream consistency and around 500ml volume.  Cover this "batter" and leave in a warm place to activate for around 12 hours (I usually leave mine in the airing cupboard overnight).

After 12 hours your "batter" should be frothy and smell deliciously yeasty, add a teaspoon of salt for flavour and enough strong flour to make a very loose dough.  You can use any flour at this stage I occasionally make wholemeal or spelt sourdough, but initially it's probably easiest to stick to strong white bread flour.  On of the common breadmaking errors is to have your dough to dry, it should be very wet and sticky at this point, you should need to flour your hands and surface to allow you to knead.  I always knead by hand and actually find sourdough requires less kneading than normal bread (I guess because of the long timeframe  some of the gluten's already developed) 5 minutes (or one track and a link on 6music) usually does the trick.
Place your dough back in the bowl and leave for at least an hour in a warm place until it's approximately doubled in size.  I say at least an hour, but all of your yeast's will be slightly different, mine often takes 2-3 hours.

Knock your dough back, enjoy that aroma again and shape, either stretch back under itself to form a ball or use a proving basket (the well floured basket in the top photo) and shape to fit.  A proving basket has the benefit of shaping your loaf, but really isn't necessary when just starting out, just form the dough into a tight ball.

Place your dough either on a well floured board / tray or directly on a baking tray (or leave in the proving basket that you've used) and leave to rise for further hour or more likely 2 or 3 until it's doubled in size again.

Once the loaf has risen, heat your oven to as hot as it'll go and put your loaf at the top.  I use a baking stone and place the loaf directly onto it from the proving basket but again, you can either slide from your board / tray or place your baking tray into the oven, the key thing is that the oven's VERY hot.  You can slice the top of your loaf with a razor blade to help it rise and look pretty at this stage, this is not essential.  I also add a cupful of water to the oven to create steam and develop a crust, again this is not essential.  After 10 minutes turn the oven down to 160-180C (depending on the colour of your crust) and bake for a further 20 minutes until the bread sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom.

Transfer your finished loaf to a cooling rack and allow to cool, or rip apart and consume warm with lots of butter if you can't resist!

Sit back and feel very smug that you've conquered one of cooking's great enigmas, and continued an ancient art.

Don't be scared to try this, it's endless fun to play with and keeps the family in delicious bread!

Spikey Slaw


This is a real favourite...  Again you can modify with anything that you have to hand, it adds a lovely twist to any cold meat and is a great accompaniment or snack in its own right.

Ingredients (serves 6 as a side);

Half a cabbage (red or firm white is best)
Carrots, around half of the weight of the cabbage
25ml fish sauce
1 clove of garlic
1 teaspoon of soft brown or palm sugar
Juice of one lime
A small bunch of coriander leaf / basil / mint
Half of a red chilli, deseeded

Directions;

1) Shred the cabbage with a knife to a few millimetres width (I find it's too mushy if grated) and then peel and grate in the carrot.

2) Grate the garlic clove on the finest side of your grater and finely chop the chilli, add to the mix.

3) Finely chop the herbs and add to the mix. Any two of the three herbs works well and add plenty, there are big flavours here (the one caveat is the mint, you have to be a little wary of toothpastiness!).

4) Mix the juice of the lime with the fish sauce (they should be roughly equal volumes) and sugar until well mixed and the sugar has dissolved.

5) Add the dressing to the slaw and mix well, ensuring the garlic and chilli is spread throughout.

This slaw's delicious if eaten immediately but I find that the flavour develops over a few hours and so usually try to make it in advance and remove it from the 'fridge a little before use so that it can warm a little.  If the slaw seems a little watery drain any excess liquid prior to serving.

After you've made this once you can modify it to your tastes, especially the dressing / herbs. Use this recipe only as a guide and don't be afraid to endlessly alter, try new things and make the recipe your own, what's the worst that can happen?!

Braised lamb shoulder with potatoes and onions

This recipe's an ever giving gift, endlessly tweakable, barely even a recipe, just a rough idea / guideline.  You may choose to heavily spice your lamb (using cumin / coriander / ginger / chilli / paprika) and forget about the herbs, or deglaze with wine / beer / cider or even vinegar, you can swap the potatoes for any other root vegetable and even add fennel or celery for extra depth of flavour.  Every combination tastes different, but provided it's cooked long and slow it will be delicious.

Ingredients (to serve 6);

1 whole lamb shoulder (around 2kg; this tastes better with older autumn / winter lamb or hogget)
6 cloves of garlic
1 bunch of rosemary
1 bunch of thyme
1 small tin of anchovy fillets
1kg of potatoes
1kg of white onions
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper

Directions

1) Remove your lamb from the 'fridge at least 1 hour before cooking, unwrap and allow to dry and come to room temperature.

2) Preheat your oven to 220C.

3) Wash your potatoes (you may choose to peel your potatoes but it really is a matter of preference) and peel your onions, cut both into chunky slices.

4) Strip the herbs from their woody stems and chop roughly with the anchovies and garlic, combine with the oil from the anchovy tin adding more olive oil if necessary to achieve a loose paste.

5) Place the onions and potatoes in the bottom of a large roasting tin and place the lamb on top, scoring the skin lightly (not into the flesh) as you go.

6) Smear your herby / garlicky paste all over both sides of the lamb rubbing it well into your scores in the skin.

7) Drizzle another tablespoon of olive oil over the potatoes and onions and season well, don't oversalt the lamb (remember the anchovies in the paste!).

8) Cook for 30-40 minutes at 220C until the potatoes have started to brown and the lamb has a delicious crispy skin and then add 250ml of boiling water, reduce the heat to 120C and cover tightly with tinfoil.

9) Leave the lamb in the oven at 120C for at least 3 hours, but it will continue to improve for up to 6, check periodically and top up with water if the roasting tin's dry.

10) Remove from the oven, it should be tender enough to shred with forks rather requiring a knife.  The joint will have produced its own gravy during the long cooking so I take the roasting tin to the table for all to share and serve with a simple green salad or steamed veg (often with homemade sourdough bread to mop up the juices!).

Time consuming but very tasty, and almost impossible to screw up this one's definitely worth giving a go and you can always go to the pub whilst the lamb's doing its thing in the oven, and it makes the whole house smell amazing!


A brave new world....

OK, so I may be very new to blogging, but I've made cooking very tasty food my focus for many years now...

I'm a keen home cook not a chef, with a proper day job and a longstanding hunger for local, usually simple food that's easily achievable for all.

I was fortunate enough to appear on this year's MasterChef and any viewers will be aware that whilst my food isn't always the prettiest it's always packed full of flavour!

My plan for this blog is to post everyday recipes for the food that I prepare at home.  I'm a firm believer that any recipe is a starting point and part of being a cook is modifying recipes to your own ends, using up available ingredients that in their prime.

Well, if anyone follows this you can watch as it evolves!

Toby Elkington