Sage and Onion - Tear and Share Loaf (The HBs)

Hairy Bikers Sage and onion tear and share loaf.
 

I must say this one was supposed to be done at the same time as the fougasse, but a funny thing happened on the way to the theatre, I in my pure stupidity used fresh yeast instead of quick acting dried yeast, for reasons that I myself don’t really understand as I had about 5 sachets with me and the piece of yeast that I did use cost about €0.10. I suppose it was me just being thrifty and as I had this piece of live yeast left over from the fougasse thought I may as well use it. Result being it didn’t react so well and in fact didn’t come up to proving until the next morning. But one thing is sure when I did bake it , it was fantastic, light and so tasty, I shall try it this weekend with the fast acting yeast and compare, but I cannot see it being any better.

So let us get baking.

I will give you the recipe from Si and Dave with an asterisk* of any changes that I made and a reason why.

150 ml of fresh full milk * (we only had low fat) and a bit for brushing the top.

400g of strong bread flour * (Germany 550 mehl).

1 sachet (7g) of fast acting yeast * (I used normal bakers fresh yeast about 20g).

1 tsp caster sugar * (I used normal as I had no caster, for Germans this is fein rafinade).

1 tsp of fine sea salt * (all salt came from the sea at one time so I used what I had).

15g butter.

1 tbsp sunflower oil * (I used peanut oil).

1 large onion (how big is large?? Always baffles me when they cannot be a bit more exact, such as 150g) peeled and chopped.

1 clove of garlic crushed.

15-20 sage leaves * (I only had about 10) plus the 8 to decorate.

Fresh ground pepper.

Method

Heat 150ml of water and the milk in a saucepan until it is blood heat (now in the HB original list of ingredients there is no mention of water! Why?).

 

Sift the flour into a large baking bowl (I have one of those nice beige coloured ones just like “Wor Mams and as you notice so has Linda), mix in the yeast *(in my case crumbled), the sugar and salt.

 

Make a well in the centre of the flour, and add the water and milk mixture into flour and mix well (I suppose you could have used a processor with a dough hook, but the lads said a wooden spoon).

 

Gather it into a ball and turn out onto a floured board * it may well have been my fault but the dough was exceedingly wet, now I don’t mind this as a wet dough will normally lead to a light and airy bread.

Knead for 10 minutes, it was like massaging flubber (can anyone remember flubber).

Place the dough in a well oiled bowl covered with oiled cling film for 45-60 minutes until doubled in size, now here I discovered my mistake, it had not doubled it was just showing signs of increasing in size, as I wanted it for that evening, I just let it get on and do its proving.
 

I did cook the onion, garlic and sage in the butter and oil over a low heat. Seasoned with plenty of black pepper, this I set aside to cool (until the next morning).

 

Next morning after I had been to pick up my car, I had a look at the dough and as it was now doubled in size, I now proceeded as directed and spooned the onion mixture on top and kneaded it in, the lads said use a bit of flour if it becomes too sticky and boy did I need that extra flour.

Here the instructions said form into 8 neat balls by pulling equal pieces from the large ball, this was not as easy as it sounded, in fact it was neigh on impossible, the dough was that soft and sticky I was glad to get 8 mis-shaped balls out of it and onto the baking tray covered with baking paper. I put one in the centre and surrounded it with 7 others (of varying shapes and sizes, I thought, this is going to be a right pigs ear). I covered with an oiled piece of cling film, hoping upon hope that it did not live up to its name.

I placed on top of the cooker to prove for 45 minutes (the cooker was not on and the kitchen was quite warm so it was ideal proving conditions. I went to watch a bit of tele (I do like the Andrew Mare show on a Sunday morning). On returning low and behold, I kid you not, it actually had formed into a relatively uniform loaf, I was so chuffed.

On went the oven at 180°C and when it came up to heat, I placed a sage leaf on the top of each ball, milk washed the top and popped it into the middle of the oven for 20 minutes checking half way through (for the mathematicians amongst you that is 10 minutes), I turned it so that it got an evening browning. (a sunset tan??)

I was quite impressed with the finished result so I slid it out onto a cooling rack (well Linda doesn’t have a proper one so it was a roasting rack that came to the aid).
 

Now I must say I do not know how it was meant to taste and feel but this was light and airy, had a nice moist crumb and tasted absolutely fantastic. Linda was impressed when I gave her a piece with some left over shrimp butter, well that’s what it is all about this tear and share bread lark. Well done lads, I shall try it again this weekend.

A Fougasse

Fougasse stuffed with olives, sundried tomatoes and anchovies.

First I made the fougasse dough according to St. Raymond, that’s Raymond Blanc in case you live on another planet.

The dough starter needs to be prepared 12 hours in advance.

You shall require

Ingredients:

For the dough starter

5g fresh yeast

135ml cold water

100g strong white bread flour (in Germany 550)

100g rye flour

For the dough

680ml tap water

940g strong flour, plus extra for dusting

130g rye flour

15g fine salt

22g fresh yeast

Filling

5-6 pieces of soft sundried tomatoes chopped quite small

3-4 pitted black olives diced

6 anchovy filets, diced

For the topping

1 tsp. Rosemary chopped

Some sea salt crystals

Fresh ground black pepper from the mill            

I made my starter on Friday evening a good 12 hours before I needed it, whisk the yeast into the water, mix the two flours together and then add the yeast/water mixture and mix to form a thick paste cover and set aside to ferment.

Next day

Mix the water to the starter (I whisked it) it should become a dirty clay colour any one that has done any pottery will know when I say slip glaze consistency.

Place both flours into the food processor with a dough hook, add the salt to one side and crumble the yeast to the other side, add the starter dough mixture and set it going on low for 5 minutes until well mixed, you can now increase the speed, but as Linda’s processor only has 2 speeds, I left it on this speed a further 7 minutes, it had by this time formed into a silky smooth ball.

I removed to a baking dish and covered with cling film and allowed to prove for an hour.

 It will by this time have doubled in size.

As Raymond had said I cut it into 4 pieces,

It was at this point that I realised that I had far too much dough (this is what happens by following a recipe blindly, I should have read a bit further on when it says it is for four fougasse loaves, ah well Linda has now 500g of fougasse dough in the freezer)

I next put the oven onto maximum (250°C) and put 2 baking trays into the oven. I then rolled the dough out into a typical fougasse shape, here I made my variation I cut part of the way through the triangle from top to bottom. Like this:

On one half of the centre line I put half of the filling and flapped the other half over sealing the edges and enclosing the filling in an envelope. Roll out to the required shape, I now made the typical slashes through the dough, brushed with olive oil and sprinkled with rosemary, sea salt and fresh ground pepper. Repeated the same procedure with the other piece of dough, placed it also on baking paper. Cover and set aside to prove for 45 minutes.

I put the whole lot including the baking paper onto the hot baking trays, put a bowl of water in the bottom of the oven, do this all quickly so that the oven doesn’t cool down too much. I baked at maximum for 10 minutes and then swapped the position of the trays, which was the lower to the top and vice-versa, baking for another 7 minutes then check, this ensures that they both get the same degree of browning.
Tap the bottom of the loafs, when they sound hollow, they are then done, remove from the oven and place on a cooling grid.

Game burgers and carrot & cumin buns

Makes 12 patties.


Ingredients:

750g of game (the choice is yours) I used Red deer & wild boar (there may have been a bit of pigeon breast in to make up the weight)

250 g pork collar

Game spices *

10ml of gin

10ml of Cinzano bianco

5ml of cassis

1 stale roll soaked in milk

1 large onion sautéed

Small handful (if you have a large mitt) or a handful (if you have a small mitt) of dried cranberries

Salt to taste

*See my standard recipe for game spices

Put all of the meat into a zip lock bag, add the game spices and shake to mix well

Mixed game and pork collar

The ingredients ready to be marinated

The mixture in the marinade

Add the gin, Cinzano and cassis

Shake it all about and place in the fridge over night(or in cold weather on the balcony, for those that are hardy and picnic in winter)



Mince the meats and the bread


add the cranberries mixing by hand

Now sauté the onion add this along with the chopped cranberries and mix well (at this point I will taste the raw mixture and adjust the seasoning, for those not able to do this (the wimps of this world) heat a little oil in a frying pan and fry a small disk of the mixture, this way you shall be able to adjust the seasoning to your taste.

Me being a wimp (I had already tried the raw mixture)

Form into patties, I use Chefs rings, this way they come out all the same size and there are no fights over the biggest one.

12 nice formed patties

Now doesn't that look good enough to eat?

You can fry these on a very hot skillet (or even in a little oil in a frying pan), but for me the best way is out in the open on a real wood fired BBQ, adding a few sprigs of Juniper and rosemary to the glow (no flames).







Slice a Gillthepainter (to Dan Lepards recipe) Carrot and Cumin burger bun in half, smear with a good relish (homemade), mustard, aioli or any thing else you fancy, place the game burger (now done to how you like it, mine has to be juicy and still a little pink) plonk a bit of gherkin, tomato or what ever else on top and away you go.

Link to Dans recipe for Carrot and Cumin burger buns:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/jul/11/baking-recipe-carrot-cumin-buns

My Dan Lepards Carrot and Cumin buns




The Ingredients



The wet ingredients ready to be added to the dry



The mixed dough



Dough ready to prove

Doubled in size



Forming the six balls

Popping them into the oven



The finished Burger Buns

These excellent buns went together with the game burgers like they had been paired in heaven, fantastic and thanks Gill for putting me onto them!

In between footy

This weekend was a bit of a footy weekend, but I did mange to get in a bit of baking and smoking some trout.

The bread was a sourdough/yeast  wheat/ rye flour mixture what is called here in Germany Mischbrot.

500 g of strong (505) bread flour
200 g of rye flour
100 g of  rough ground rye grain (called Scrott in Germany)
2 teaspoons of herbs and spices consisiting of
ground fenchel seed, ground marjorum, a twist of chillies, ground rosemary, cumin and anis all ground to a powder
20g of yeast
12g of dried sauerteig powder
500ml of hand warm water
2 teaspoons of runny honey
heaped tea spoon of salt

Mixed all of the flours together with a desert spoon of the mixed herbs and spices, crumbled 20g (half a block) of yeast into the middle of the flour, added the honey to the water, stired until desolved, then added the sour-dough powder and stired added this to the yeast in the middle pulled some flour over it and waited until it started to bubble (this happened almost immediatly), then pulled all the flour into the pond so as to speak, added the salt and mixed on full power with my hand mixer for about 10 minutes,

 covered and left to double in size, gave it another mix for about 5 minutes and left again for about an hour, turned out onto a floured baking tray, formed into an oval and covered for about 30 minutes (until doubled in size).

Popped into an oven pumped up to full heat (sprayed inside oven with water and put a tray of water in the base to make steam) turned oven down to 220°C and after 10 minutes turned down to 180°C. Baked for 30 minutes, gave it a knock, then removed to a cooling tray.

and some nice crusty bread to go with the smoked fish

Bread baking on Ascension day

Well as part of the general day (weather not nice no where open and I don't have a bike). It was a cooking baking day (it actually started last night but ran into today)

First I had a go at ciabatta.

Turned out  very nice, we had a little for breakfast.

Next was  a Rye, whole meal, sour dough.  bread that turned out beyond all expectations.

First disolved the sour dough and yeast starter in 500ml of warm water with 50ml of orange juice and 2 teaspoons of runny honey ;-).

Then mixed 375gr of rye flour, 275gr strong wheat flour and 100gr whole meal flour. to this added 2 table spoons of dried, roasted onions (the ones that you add to the top of hotdogs in Ikea) added the starter to the dry mixture and mixed for about 3 minutes and then added  2 teaspoons of salt and mixed for a further 2 minutes.

Covered and left to rise for 1 hour.(until it had doubled in size).

Then I divided the dough into 2 and formed these (very gently) into two loaves on a floured baking tray, gave them the Sweeny Todd effect (it does look nice). Covered and left to do their thing for another hour.

Into oven at 250°C for 10 minutes then reduce to 200°C for another 50 minutes. I placed a dish of water in the bottom of the oven to give it a bit of steam. Turned out and left to cool on a rack (well we did give it a try with a bit of butter. mmmmmmmmmmm, it was rather nice.

And the bread for the coming few days.

Notice the hole at the bottom, ahem! that is what happens when you try to cut bread when it's still warm, BUT, it does taste nice with butter melting into it.