Spiced No-Knead Bread

This bread is slightly adapted from something I found online. You do need a tin or something with fixed sides, as this won't work a well as a baguette shape on a flat tray.

Tip: US/UK 'cups' are fixed standardised volumes , but when an entire recipe uses cups this isn't so important. While every measurement is in cups, they can be used as a ratio... So if easier you can substitute the word cup for mug, glass, jar or any available fixed volume container.

Bread is a procrastination bake. It doesn't take as much effort as you might remember it being if you ever did it in school, particularly no-knead to need recipe.

For the dough:

Three cups of Plain Flour + spare, Lidl, ( 45 p / 1.5 kg )
One and a half cups of water
One sachet of Easy Bake Yeast, Lidl, ( 59 p / 8 x 7 g )
A little brown Sugar
Casserole Dish with Lid
or a tin with high sides and something oven proof to cover it with.

For optional spice: 

Cumin
Cumin Seeds

To start my dough I started with warm water and yeast in a large mixing bowl. You want the water to be tepid - not much warmer than body temperature, and not much colder either; this is the temperature which will activate or wake up the yeast, but not too hot to start killing it. I used a sachet of 'Easy Bake Yeast' - it is actually cheaper to buy yeast in a little tin with a plastic lid, usually labeled as 'Quick Yeast', half a teaspoon of this is plenty.

Once the water-yeast mixture is ready it will smell very slightly of bread, and maybe have a very few bubbles at the surface. This isn't crucial if you have somewhere nice and warm to keep the dough once it is mixed.

Then I measured out the flour, and stirred or folded this into the bowl. It is important use a strong spoon or spatula, cheap wooden utensils might snap. The sugar I added to speed up the growth of the yeast, if you want to leave the dough a long time and bake the next day then you can add a little salt instead to slow down the yeast, but it isn't necessary to use both. This is also the point to include herbs or spices. I used about a tablespoon of cumin and the same of cumin seeds, for a really spicy bread with a slightly yellow crust.

We've noticed bread behaves differently at different temperatures and pressures, if it is too runny you may need to add a little extra flour. Before handling the dough make sure your hands are well floured and you don't cling to the mix. If you hold it too tightly then the dough will stick to you. Rather, have a clean well floured surface ( really well floured ), and scoop the dough out. Then I would pat the outside with flour until you have a floppy ball, all in one piece, which no long tries to glue itself to every surface-the outside should be soft like skin. This still needs to be handled quite carefully, don't squeeze it.

I've then greased my casserole dish with a little butter, and sprinkled flour over that so the bread doesn't stick too badly. Possibly using baking paper if you have some.

Tip: Don't forget the sides. 

Then leave the bread, covered, and somewhere warm for as long as it takes to double in size. This is probably about an hour. Bake for 25 minutes at 160C with the lid on, then 10-15 minutes with the lid off to get a good crust.

Tip: You can get an even better crust if you can find something to place next to it in the oven with a small amount of water in.

The loaf is done when it sounds hollow to knock on. Hopefully it will drop straight out of it's container, but if not leave it to cool where it is. Try and resist the urge to cut into the bread while it is still warm warm, if you aren't planning on eating it all now. If the bread has stuck- then that is really sad, you are going to have to try and pry it out with a butter knife, carefully.

May all your loaves forever spring freely from their metal prisons.

Really really lazy chilli-mac.

This has been a busy Sunday, and so this is an incredibly lazy, unhealthy meal.

Tin of macaroni cheese, Tesco, ( 45 p / 385 g )
Stale bread - crumbled up
Tabasco
Black pepper

So my dinner this evening is literally all of the above stirred together and microwaved in a mug for 3 minutes. That's it.




I also did my food shop today. I've actually got quite a stocked up fridge/freezer at the moment, so this is definitely NOT all the food I will eat this week.

Plain flour, Lidl, ( 45 p / 1.5 kg )

Yeast, Lidl, ( 59 p / 8 x 7g )

Seedless Red Grapes, Tesco, ( £ 2 / packet )

Pressed Apple Juice, Tesco, ( £ 1.40 / 1 L )

________ 

£   4.44 

I'm going to be making a really easy bread this week, ( which is actually a strange form of procrastination for me ). The fruit is for snacks.

Risotto, or is it Paella?

What really is the difference between an Italian Risotta and a Spanish Paella? I'm neither Italian or Spanish, so maybe I should just call this 'wet rice'. Really nice Paella's come with alot of seafood, meat and cream, but unfortunately we are on a budget here. Anyway, this short grain rice is an easy way of making a filling meal out of virtually nothing. Today I had something more of a 'one pot wonder' - which could be a sort of fall back dish for those who are sick of pasta, but not very inspired. After opening and closing the cupboard three or four times... hungry and hoping that I will magically see something that wasn't there five minutes ago, I remember I have a packet of Risotto rice.

Risotto Rice, Lidl ( £ 1.49 / 1 kg )
Small amount of cooked left over chicken breast, Superfoods ( £ 2.20 / large breast )
Cooked and peeled King Prawns, ASDA ( on offer at £3 / 180 g )
A tablespoon-ish of filling mix from the gyoza
Sliced black olives in brine, mystery jar
A tablespoon-ish of Balsamic Vinegar, Tescos ( £ 1 / 250 ml )
Red Wine Vinegar, Sainsburys ( £ 1.15 / 100 ml )
Small amount of milk
Some water

I actually weigh out 100 g of rice, as this rice expands and I'm never really sure by how much. Then I scoured the kitchen for other ingredients. The chicken breast was left over from one I cooked for it's sandwich meat, so I diced this. Then I cut off the tails from five prawns that had been left from something I had meant to make with the gyoza. Everything listed including the brine went in to a wok, stirred about bit, made sure the rice was submerged, then I placed a pan lid over the rice and left it to simmer for ~15 minutes. Then I served with a tiny bit of grated cheddar. The whole process was barely more effort than a microwave meal.

This kind of meal is where a few spices, and strong flavours, like the vinegars make up for a lack of some of the more expensive ingredients. Next time I will remember to take photos.

Gyoza to share

These made about 40 gyoza, with left overs. The cost before extra flavours was about £3.70. Unrushed prep took just over an hour, cooking takes less than ten minutes.

For the dough:

300g of plain wheat flour, ASDA ( 45p / kg )
200g of hot water

This was measured out into a mixing on a set of digital scales, ( 200 g of water is roughly 200 ml ). Then water and flour were mixed, first with a spatula then rolled into a ball with clean hands.

Tip: Lightly covering your hands in flour first, helps to stop the dough sticking too badly to your skin.

This was left to rest on the side in cling film, but the fridge is fine.

For the filling:

Pork & Beef mince, ASDA Smartprice ( £ 1.81 / 500 g )
Soya Mince, Tesco Wholefoods (£ 1.90 / 375 g ) ( optional ) 
Three onions, ASDA ( 70 p / kg )
Water

Really this can be anything you like or have in the fridge or cupboard. I made rather alot of filling. Which is fine because my left over mix will not go to waste, but you could happily half the ingredients.

Into the mixing bowl went all the meat, roughly a third of the bag of Soya Mince, three onions chopped as small as I could manage and roughly two tablespoons of water. I squidged the whole lot together with my hands.

At this point any other flavours should be added.

For 'dough glue':

A heaped teaspoon of flour
Some water

Other options, if easily to hand, could be used to help the parcels stick together; egg white, milk, corn starch... But a mixture of flour and water is cheap and easy. The flour won't dissolve, so just re-stir this as you go.

To make the parcels:

The dough was rolled out (with a floured rolling pin on a flowered surface), to about a 3 mm thickness, and circles pressed out with a drinking glass. Extra dough can be re-rolled immediately to 

form more circles.

A small teaspoon of the filling was placed in the circles. With a pastry brush ( or clean finger ), draw gently around the edges of the dough. 

Each Gyoza was folded up like a Cornish Pastie and pinched around the edges to seal.

These parcels can then be refrigerated or frozen and cooked for snacks as wanted later in the week.

To cook:

Place in a hot frying pan with a tiny amount of oil for 2-3 minutes standing up, then 2 minutes on each side.

Extras

We decided to split our filling into quarters before adding spices - to appease the pickier eaters. These ingredients were added to each quarter of the filling mix:

1. Just as described above ( still delicious ) 
2. Garlic, Spring onion, Chives, Worcester Sauce
3. Garlic, Turmeric, Ginger and Fennel seeds
4. Three Green Chillies, Garlic, Chilli flakes, Chilli powder, a little oil

The filling can be adapted to almost anything.

In China these are a type of Jiaozi which might be boiled, steamed or fried then served with a dipping sauce.  As Japanese Gyoza they can be fried or steamed then served with soy sauce. In America they are called pot-stickers. In Poland with cabbage added to the filling, and sour cream on the side these are Pierogi. With similar dishes in most of eastern Europe. Pierogi can even be made with sweet filling. 

To make it even cheaper:

The dough was really simple and cheap to make, so various ingredients can be added to make the filling go further, depending on what is available or reduced in your shops. Would also be a handy way to parcel left overs into something appetising. 

The meat in the filling has been made to stretch further with Soya Mince. The mince I've bought is dry, so remember the more you add, the more liquid is needed. You can also add more onion, celery chopped really finely, chopped cabbage and leaks. I've used meat in these dumplings, but there is no reason why the recipe could not be completely vegan, vegetarian.

I really can't emphasize how adaptable this is.

Pre-Christmas Crackling and trimmings

Just before Christmas I did a roast dinner for our house + the usual guests. This added to about twelve people in the end, but could easily have been more. We had already celebrated Thanksgiving, and being nearly Christmas anyway nobody wanted a third Turkey in such a short space of time, but somebody did request Crackling... so a shoulder of pork it was. ROAST DINNERS ARE NOT THAT DIFFICULT. The key is all about timing, and delegation. I didn't have to touch a peeler. 

Being Christmas, I got a little over excited and spent £28 on this piece of free range pork from the butchers- kind of enjoying queuing up to put my name down in the reservations book. ( This might be expensive, but as I asked everyone to put in £3. The actual boned and rolled joint saved for me was about a third bigger than this, but he trimmed it down. When I got 'him' home, I had completely forgotten the weight, and our scales were incompetent at dealing with anything this large. So advice a quick comparison to our recently weighed cat, we decided I had 4 kg of pork.

Rolled Pork shoulder, Local Butchers, ( £ 28 / 4 kg )
King Edwards Potatoes, Sainsburys, ( 80 p / kg )
Carrots, donated by unknown housemate.
Celery, found in the fridge.
Parsnips, donated by a friend, given to him by his Mum.
Apple sauce, donated by a friend.
Paxo Stuffing Mix, Sainsburys, ( on offer £ 2 / 2 packs )
Four Onions, Sainsburys ( 80 p / kg )
Small amount of flour, sainsburys ( 55 p / kg )
Lo Salt, Sainsburys ( £ 1.50 / 350 g )

Kitchen Craft Roasting rack, Cargo ( £ 4 )

For the Pork:

This was a huge piece of meat, and alot of people. I was anxious not to undercook the pork, and the timings I had in my head were for 3-5 people. Not for a massive beasty bit of meat like this one ( to serve 12, plus left overs for sandwiches ).

Our oven an electric fan oven, old, slightly unreliable. After some research, I decided I would give the pork 25 minutes at 220C+, then ~ 4 hours in the oven at ~ 170C, then ~ 30 minutes to rest. So the meat needed to be in the oven 5 hours before serving. So that was the maths step.

However before the pork goes in the oven I wanted to ensure really good crackling. So the night before I took the shoulder out of the fridge and unwrapped 'him'. There was plenty of fat on the top of the joint ( at least 3/4 of an inch ). Most boned joints usually come held together with string as this one was, you do not need to remove the string; it is there for a reason. The fat is scored with shallow cuts through the skin and into the fat layer. If you have a really sharp knife, I would advise scoring the skin even further, into half centimeter strips across the piece of meat ( I find this the easiest way of serving ). The more cuts there the crispier the crackling will be. Now you want to get the pork skin as dry as possible - patting 'him' down with kitchen towel, then I packed him with Salt ( don't be mean with this, the main purpose is to draw water out of the fatty layer and won't stay on until serving ).

Note: Lo-Salt is not a con. It contains Potassium Chloride rather than the Sodium Chloride in table salt. Unless you are suffering from kidney disease or other Potassium controlled diet, Lo-Salt is normally healthier. 

Roughly 5 hours before serving, I came back to the kitchen and turned the oven up as far as it goes. Most of the salt was then rubbed off, and the rind patted down again with kitchen roll dry it out as much as possible.

For the Gravy:

The base a large roasting tin was filled with about an inch of water, along with:

Two onions were peeled and cut into rough quarters
A clove of garlic
Three sticks of celery

Now and then I checked on this, and topped up the water level.

For the Pork and Gravy:

The 'dried' out pork was placed on a rack, over the water in the large roasting tin, and the whole thing placed in the oven. Remembering to turn the temperature down after 25 minutes. If any bits of pork are starting to look a little two crispy or brown at any point then cover these in foil (shiny side out), to stop them from burning.

For the Potatoes: 

To get roast potatoes which are both soft in the middle and crispy on the outside, they need to be peeled, chopped into serving size pieces, then pre-boiled, and then dried out.

I would allow at least an hour in combined cooking time for the potatoes, meaning they should go on to boil ~40 minutes before the pork comes out to rest. Once the potatoes are soft to the stab of a fork, drain and put to one side in a colander. I shake my potatoes in potato flour with a tiny bit of salt, and leave them to dry them out a little.

The moment the turkey comes out to rest, put a tray of fat (oil, goose fat, pork fat... whatever) in the hot oven. I used sunflower oil, because it was to hand and fairly cheap, but this really isn't the best. When the fat is sizzling, quickly tip in the potatoes shaking them a little so get as much of the surface in contact with the oil as possible. It is helpful to use a tray with high sides for this, to get the best 'shaking' with the least burns, but I didn't have one so just had to be careful.

Tip: To test if the fat is hot enough drop a tiny amount of the potato/flour/salt from the colander ( a tiny pinch, not a tiny potato ), into the fat and see if it sizzles. 

The potatoes stay in the oven for ~30minutes, hopefully until crispy and golden.

For the Stuffing:

Packet stuffing can be a little boring, and we had learnt from Thanksgiving that this group of people get through the stuffing very fast. So I mixed up too trays of stuffing mix with hot water as instructed on the packet, then I added: extra onion, left over mince meat, pearl barley, half a stale baguette turned into crumbs, garlic cloves, rosmary, some flour and an egg... and any number of other things that were to hand. Really anything goes here as long as you make sure all of the ingredients are properly mixed in, and you allow enough time for anything potentially dangerous to cook. This was a good chance to clean out the fridge before Christmas. Each of the two trays of stuffing mix were slightly different, and really tasty.

My stuffing was in the oven for about 25 minutes.

For the other veg:

Any other vegetables that need peeling/chopping can really be done at any convenient point before the pork comes out to rest. Peeled vegetables should be stored under cold water, maybe with a squeeze of lemon juice if you have it.

Peas or runner beans if you want them, boil in water for about 5 minutes, then strain.

Carrots boil in about 20 minutes, then strain. ( Ours were terrible carrots, so maybe would been improved by roasting. )

Parsnips boil in the same time, but you may want to crisp them up in the oven aswell. I make a point of chopping these in such a way that they absolutely cannot be mistaken for a roast potato - surprise parsnips are never fun. I finished mine off for the last five minutes in the oven with a little bit of cheese, but honey is also really tasty.

For resting the pork:

When you take the pork out of the oven, the first thing you do is close the oven. From this minute on their is sure to be opening and closing of the oven door to check on what is going on inside... but you want to keep as much heat in as possible.

The meat should be well cooked by now, if you have a meat thermometer stab this as close to the center of the joint as is reasonable to check the temperature. Then you look at the crackling. If there are pieces too chewy for your liking then cut these off and put them on an oven tray -  even if this means removing all the crackling. This can go back in the oven to crisp up. Then remove the piece of joint to a dish or carving board, cover it in foil and then a dry tea towel, and ignore this while you sort out the vegetables and stuffing.

For the gravy:

I used a little of water that had been used to boil carrots, the contents of that roasting tray under the pork, a bay leaf, and a little flour to thicken. This mixture will look pretty gross at first, and with my gravy their was an awful lot of fat. We let the pan settle... and one my guest-turned-useful-assistant calmly skimmed the fat off with a ladle, ( there was about half a pint ).

Tip: If the liquid from the roasting tin is too salty add a raw potato cut in half, this should absorb some of the salt. You can then remove and discard the potato - or do whatever you like with the potato really none of my business. 

What is left after you have removed the fat can be left to simmer for as long as needed, then thickened up with more flour.

Serve