A Better Burger in a Better Bun
The May Day Bank Holiday might have been a bit of a washout, but the impulse to eat outdoors is on the up - surely brighter, warmer days are ahead! We're wheeling out the barbecue and standing by.
Before the current chill, the soil warmed up and the garden surged - we've had our first edible asapragus crop since moving down to East Sussex. A traditional May marker, we've been enjoying the bounty simply steamed with salt and a twist of pepper, or, of course, barbecued.
Our favourite alternative to a garden picnic is to go, for a treat, to the Ship Inn on the Strand in Rye. It's a great place for lunch, and no doubt also great for dinner, but sadly our crazy bakers' hours don't allow for that pleasure... The food has a saesonal flavour, as you can see from the sample menus on their website www.theshipinnrye.co.uk . The Ship's ethos is the same as ours: laying out good quality, simple, interesting, local food in pleasant surroundings. The pub's proprietor, Karen Northcote, is rather savvy - she's introduced a decor that is subtle and relaxing, combining the old building's original features with designer-chic wallpaper and characterful furniture in a way that's not "in your face" but nonetheless is a feast for the discerning eye.
At the quayside spot our food preferences come to the fore: Rachel prefers the fresh fish, while Liz's lunch of choice is usually a hamburger (she is American after all). The Ship's hamburger - served in what else but a Lighthouse Bakery burger bun? - scores 10/10 every time. Good bread provides a balance to the meaty goodness of a burger. To play its part, a bun should be soft enough to fill up with oozy juices, and yet robust enough to remain intact. You want to be able to get the full depth of the complete package - burger and bun - easily into your mouth, which is why a sourdough or ciabatta roll is not the answer: too crusty, too much bulk. If you want to have a go at making your own buns, see our recipe below.
Meanwhile, can we also make a plea for home-made burgers? They take very little time to prepare: some good quality mince from your local butcher seasoned simply with salt and pepper and pan-fried works a treat. At the Ship they use a mixture of 1/3 each flank, brisket and chuck mince, with some red onion, gherkin, caper, chilli and coriander leaf thrown in for good measure. Put that in your pan and fry it!
Lighthouse Bakery Hamburger Buns (makes approximately 12)
This is a two day bread that begins with a starter using white sourdough culture (batter style). If you don't have any sourdough, simply omit it and increase the other liquids accordingly, or try an equivalent amount of plain yogurt.
Day 1: Starter
25g fresh / 12g active dried / 10g instant Yeast
125g Milk
125g White Sourdough
125g Water at room temperature
300g Plain Flour
Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl or lidded container until smooth. Cover, and leave at cool room temperature overnight.
Day 2: Final Dough
300g Plain Flour
7g Salt
60g Caster Sugar
30g fresh / 15g active dried / 12g instant Yeast
1 large Egg
25g lightly salted Butter (softened)
All the Starter from the day before
To finish: Sesame seeds (optional)
Mix all the ingredients together to form a rough dough and knead until smooth and silky. Add flour judiciously as necessary to form a smooth dough.
Put the dough into a deep bowl or lidded container, cover and leave to bulk-ferment for 1 hour. The dough will double in bulk.
Pre-heat the oven to 200° C / 400° F
Scale the dough into pieces of 95g and mould into rounds. Place them well-spaced on a baking tray. Cover loosely with a linen tea-towel topped with plastic (carrier bag, or polythene bag) to prevent skinning and leave them to prove in a warm spot until well risen and puffy.
Just before baking, mist with water and sprinkle with sesame seeds if desired, or leave plain, and bake for 12 - 14 minutes, turning the tray mid-way through baking, until the top half of the bun is golden brown.
Baking with Oven Stones
In industrialised and metropolitan contexts, the evolution of domestic cooking has given us self-contained gas, electric and microwave ovens, but in many parts of the world wood-fired ovens remain the norm. The so-called "black" oven is a masonry (or cob, or adobe) box that is heated by burning solid fuels. Food is cooked either adjacent to the fire, or in the empty chamber, which retains the heat after the remains of the fire have been swept away. ("White" ovens have the fire in a separate box.) In either case, the cooking benefits from the heat-retaining properties of the clay-based oven materials that are able to take on and sustain kiln-like temperatures. For breads and pizzas, this sort of baking has huge benefit for the production of crisp pizzas and crusty breads with beautiful golden colour and maximal oven spring (that final whoosh of yeast activity that produces the rise of the bread in the oven).
There's been a bit of a resurgence of build-your-own outdoor wood-fired ovens, led by enthusiasts who have rustic breads and pizzas in mind. For many of us, though - time-poor, flat-dwelling, rain- and DIY-averse - bulding your own oven may seem like just too much hard work. A nifty alternative is the oven stone, a weighty slab of unglazed ceramic that can be placed in an ordinary domestic oven to replicate some of the qualities of a brick oven. The stone should be pre-heated slowly along with the oven itself, and the stone can easily be left in the oven permanently, saving the worry of remembering to put it in each time you bake. It's a really simple technology - so simple that some people take ordinary unglazed (lead-free) ceramic or quarry tiles and lay then out on the rack of the oven.
If you want something more readily handlable, we are delighted to announce that (finally!) we have a new batch of deluxe, thick, lovely oven stones available for sale. Unfortunately, due to their weight and relative fragility when it comes to transport (no matter how well we package them, bad things seem to happen in transit and no courier company will insure ceramics...) we are unable to ship them. However, you are always welcome to phone us on 01580 831 271 to reserve one and collect it from us directly. Be sure to measure you oven before ordering. We have two sizes of stones: standard (40 x 32 cm £30.00) which fits most regular domestic ovens, and large (48 x 34 cm, £35.00) for a double oven or Aga.
Dellicious magazine's May edition (www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk/magazine), in the shops now, is an Italian special that showcases a diversity of foods from fresh versions of pesto to classic desserts. There's a feature on pizza which may spark your enthusiasm (and, as the article stresses, making pizza with kids is a great way to get them involved in the kitchen). The Kitchen Talk section highlights some essential tools of the trade for cooking Italian style, and you'll see our oven stone listed there.
Here's a recipe for a delectable potato pizza, an example of inspired rustic cookery that boosts simple ingredients into a tasty lunch via a detour through the herb garden!
For the Pizza Dough
This amount of ddough will make a big faimly-sized pizza, but you can easily divide the dough into the quantity you require on the day and freeze the rest - well-wrapped - for up to 2 months.
750g Plain or "00" flour
5g Salt
15g Olive Oil
18g fresh / 9g active dried /; 8g instant Yeast
500g cool water
For the Topping
500g - 1kg (depending on how big a pizza you are making) potatoes (almost any variety will do) sliced very thin
2 - 4 sprigs of fresh rosemary, leaves chopped roughly (or you could use thyme or sage)
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
Sea Salt
Mix all the ingredients together and knead to form a smooth and elastic dough. Resist the temptation to add much more flour - the dough should be relatively slack. Put the dough in an oiled, deep bowl or other container, cover with cling-film, and leave it to bulk ferment (rise) in a cool place for several hours (at least 2 and up to 6 or you can even put it in the fridge and let it rise overnight. Bring the dough to room temperature the next day before proceeding).
1 hour before baking pre-heat the oven and oven stone to 230°C
Just before you are ready to make the pizza, toss the potatoes with the herbs and oil and set aside. Roll out the dough to the thickness you prefer and transfer the dough to a semolina- or conrmeal-sprinkled peel or up-turned baking tray. Alternatively you can - carefully - take the hot oven stone out of the oven, sprinkle on some semolina or cornmeal, and place the dough directly on the stone. Working quickly spread the potato and herb mixture in a thin layer over the dough and sprinkle with salt. Slide the pizza onto the hot stone and bake for 15 - 20 minutes, turning the pizza half-way through baking to ensure an even bake.
Hot and Cross but not Bothered
Half for you and half for me,
Bewtween us two shall goodwill be!
If the Guardian's recent report is accurate, and the trend for this season's hen parties really is away from extravagant weekends abroad and towards more creative activities http://wwww.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/mar/o7/hen-parties-on-budget then we can imagine reprising a friend's jolly gathering. On a few occasions last year, the bakery was full of wedding chatter as our visiting hens baked bread and cupcakes. At this time of year, party bakers might fancy having a go at hot cross buns. At the very least sharing a hot cross bun with someone (half for you and half for me) is supposed to ensure friendship througout the coming year.
Any artisan baker will tell you that these delicious little spicy buns present a sad and sorry face to the world if they've been mass-produced using an industrialised process. Limp and woeful they sit in their plastic wrapping on supermarket shelves - not only at Eastertide, but all through the year. We, however, relish the benefits of a traditional baking approach, bringing together white and wholemeal flours, spice, fruit, sugar and yeast and letting them ferment naturally over the course of an hour or two. We also make a spelt version, which, with its nutty wholemeal flavour, really suits a spicy bun.
While the U.K.'s traditional recipes feature raisins and currants, on the other side of the pond candied citron or dried cranberries and cherries might be included. The means of crossing the tops also varies widely from place to place. Our crosses are made with a flour and water paste, but crosses are often made of icing or marzipan. Then there are those who cross their buns using only a knife to cut the shape into the dough. The allusions to the Crucifixion are obvious, but there are even more ancient antecedants for decorating small pieces of dough. The Greeks, Romans and Egyptians all offered decorated "buns" to their respective gods. [Somewhat] more recent.ly, the Saxons marked their buns with a cross in honour of Eostre, the goddess of Springtime (who has generously donated her name to Easter). Some people wonder whether these crosses may have represented the moon's four quarters. All this fascinating lore and more can be found in Alan Davidson's magesterial Oxford Companion to Food (revised 2006), a hefty tome well-worth owning.
During the remaining Lenten Sundays, as temperatures (hopefully) continue to rise, we'll be planting out onion sets and the chitting potatoes now patiently gathered on our kitchen windowsills in our organic garden (the source of much of the produce for the Bakery School's lunches). The chives for our cheese and chive scones are poking their way ever-upwards, and all manner of growth is becoming apparent - if somewhat delayed due to the cold winter. As the season turns and the clocks go forward, hot cross bun production speeds up as Easter approaches, and then, just like that, they are gone, only to return in a year's time.
Why not have a go yourself and try the following recipe, with a nod to the goddess Eostre?
HOT CROSS BUNS
Makes 30 buns
Dough
650g Strong White Flour
300g Wholemeal Flour
5g Salt
15g Milk Powder
75g Brown Sugar
10g Mixed Spice
5g Cardamom
45g fresh/ 22g active dried / or 18g instant Yeast
75g Butter
1 Large Egg
80g Sultanas
80g Currants
80g Mixed Peel
Zest and Juice of 1 Lemon
375g Water
Crossing Paste
220g Strong White Fllour
Pinch of Baking Powder
Pinch of Salt
20g Milk Powder
40g Vegetable Shortening
125g Water
Glaze
200g Milk
1 Whole Egg
20g Caster Sugar
Soak the fruit in a small amount of water for at least 1 hour before making the dough
Combine all the ingredients and knead until smooth and elastic. Add the fruit toward the end of the kneading (whether by hand or by machine).
Pre-heat the oven to 220°C (420°F)
Leave the dough to rise, covered, for 1 hour. Divide the dough into pieces of 65g and mould round. Place the rounded balls of dough on a baking tray, spaced quite closely together, but not touching. Cover the tray with a cloth topped with plastic and leave to prove for 30-40 minutes or until well risen and slightly puffy.
While the buns are proving, make the crossing paste: rub the fat into the dry ingredients, and whisk in the water. The paste should be free-flowing but not runny. Adjust the consistency as needed and place the paste into a piping bag with a small hole, or a re-sealable plastic bag (cut off one corner).
When the buns have proved, pipe one continuous line of paste over an entire row of buns, the pipe another continuous line across each column of buns to form the crosses.
Bake the buns for 15 - 20 minutes until a dark brown colour. Rotate the baking tray half-way through the bake. While the buns are baking prepare the glaze by whisking the ingredients together.
As soon as the buns come out of the oven, brush them lliberally with the glaze, several time over. Cool the buns on racks and enjoy!
February: The Optimistic Month
In the media it's all about gloom. The first Monday of February is the year's peak day for sick-leave, so they say. But in our book, February is the moment for an outbreak of optimism. The days really are longer, and soon the "weeds, in wheels" really will "shoot long and lovely and lush". Here in our home herb garden, we spend the beginning of February clearing away frost-damaged leaves and tattered old stalks to allow the plants the maximum light and air as they grope skywards.
Tansy is poised to sprout and unfurl; the bees' favourite, verbena - now neatly cut back - awaits its spring surge. Artichokes have had their rich mulch of manure and we've added more to the rhubarb bed, where the sight of bright pink shoots so soon after a blanketing snow truly does raise an optimistic sigh. While the heat-lovers, such as thyme and sage, take a back seat for the moment, our rosemary is standing proud and glorious, surrendering fragrant snippets for a Sunday feast of lamb. Chives poke their green shoots tentatively up through the soil, encouraging our forward thoughts of the purple pom-poms that will be their creative flowering crescendo come summer.
Meanwhile, at the bakery our optimism is channelled through St. Valentine: some of our moulded breads take heart-shaped forms in mid-February - Chocolate breads rich with chocolate chips, chewey bagels, sumptuous sweet brioches and our Sussx flutes - are twisted into heart-shapes to celebrate the ultimate optimism that is romantic love!
Our customer, Helen Truman of Plenty Provisions on St. Leonards' airy seafront choses products that fit her model of local, eco, organic, and fair-trade. "Quirkiness", she says, is both a flavour of St. Leonards and a feature of our Valentine's creations. Her whole shop is a heartfelt enterprise: her policy is to sidestep the mass-production "practicality" of supermarkets, laying out - amongst the pots of violets and primroses - a range of products that evoke pure pleasure. We love the way she handles and presents our bread - in white tissue and, just now, alongside some little vases of narcissi.
Back at Bodiam the papers used to line the baking trays bear the hart-shaped footprints of the loaves that are part of February's ever-optimistic fare.
Plenty is at 16 Grand Parade, St. Leonards on Sea TN37 6DN. Tel 01424 439 736 www.plentyprovisions.co.uk