Hot cross buns

One way of celebrating Easter is to dress up in a Ku Klux Klan costume and march around the street in the middle of the night carrying a giant statue of the Virgin Mary to the accompaniment of a discordant brass band:



Or you can just make some hot cross buns:

Ingredients 

For the dough
375g warm milk
15 g of fresh yeast (or 7 g of dried active yeast)
30g brown sugar
2 tsps mixed spice
150g large raisins
zest of 1 lemon
3 tbsps sunflower oil
1 egg
650g strong white flour
5g salt

For the glaze
100g light brown sugar
100g water

For the pastry cross
75g plain flour
75g water

Method

1. Measure the milk into a large bowl. Add the yeast, whisk well so that it is dissolved. Add the sugar, mixed spice, raisins, lemon zest, sunflower oil and 1 egg, and whisk to mix. Add the flour and salt, and mix well.
2. Work the dough in the bowl or on a worktop until it is smooth. Return the dough to the bowl, cover, and leave to stand for an hour.
3. Transfer the dough to a well-floured surface, bring it together into a ball, then divide it into 12 portions. Form each portion into a small round boule or bun, and place the buns, evenly spaced, onto a lightly oiled, floured baking sheet. Put the sheet inside a large plastic bag, making sure that the plastic is not in contact with the dough. Leave the buns to rise for 1 hour.
4. When the buns have been rising for 30 minutes, set the oven to 190°C. 
5. To make the glaze, mix the brown sugar and water, and heat gently until all the sugar has dissolved to form a very runny syrup. 
6. Mix the plain flour and water together to make a stiff batter, then pipe it slowly onto the buns to make crosses. (If you don't have a piping bag, just use a freezer bag with the corner snipped off.)
7. Glaze the buns with plenty of the syrup.
8. Put the tray of glazed buns in the oven and bake for 20 minutes until they are golden brown. 
9. Remove the buns from the oven, apply a second coat of glaze and eat hot or leave to cool on a wire rack.

Scotch pancakes

After many years of staunchly preferring thin English pancakes or French-style crepes, my kids have suddenly flipped over and been converted to the juicy wonders of Scotch pancakes (or fat pancakes, as they call them). This is the recipe they use.

Ingredients
200g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
300g milk
2 eggs
1 tsp vegetable oil

Method

1. Sift the flour into a large bowl. Add the baking powder and salt, mix well.
2. Whisk the eggs thoroughly.
3. Add the milk, eggs and vegetable oil to the flour and mix until you have a smooth, thick batter. Leave to stand for 5 minutes, until the surface is covered with little bubbles.
4. Heat a lightly oiled, non-stick frying pan. When it is hot, pour half a ladle of pancake batter into it and cook for between 30 seconds and 1 minute. Flip over, and cook for another 30 seconds or so.

Fried forest oysters

I love the big oyster or similar mushrooms (sold as 'setas' in Spain) but I'm never quite sure what to do with them, other than grilling or frying them with garlic. Recently, however, as part of our family's River Cottage addiction, I saw Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall breading and frying some wild mushrooms, and thought I would give it a try. The result was great - there was a really good contrast between the juicy mushroom and the crispy coating, and none of the bitterness you sometimes get with mushrooms - all of which just confirms the value of the motto: "when in doubt, fry it".

 

Dragon balls and lion's heads
I also like the fact that these look exactly like the pollo empanado or breaded chicken fillets, so beloved by Spaniards. And so, in the best spirit of Chinese restaurant menus everywhere, I have dubbed them fried forest oysters. (Thanks to Madalen for helping me work out what they were - see comments below. I am a complete mushroom ignoramus, so anything beyond a button mushroom has me stumped!)


Ingredients
0.25 kg oyster mushrooms
4 eggs
plenty of dried breadcrumbs
salt
olive oil for frying

Method
Wipe the mushrooms clean, remove any woody bits of stalk and trim the ends if the mushrooms are not in tip-top condition, then cut each mushroom lengthewise into 2 or 3 wide strips. Dip the mushrooms in egg, then breadrcrumbs and fry in plenty of olive oil until golden and crispy on both sides. Remove to a plate, sprinkle with plenty of salt, and serve.

Portion control
The oyster mushrooms are light and soak up a lot of egg (in their gills) and breadcrumbs, so 1/4 kg goes quite a long way and would be a reasonable main course for two hungry adults or a starter for four.

A taste of Serbia
I sometimes have a quick google to see if something I have come up with is already out there. I've been gratified so far to find that my rabbit dhansak and snail pakora are unique creations, but it's also nice when the opposite happens. Apparently breaded oyster mushrooms are popular in Serbia, where they go by the name of Pohovane bukovače. Not a lot of people know that!

Homemade baked beans

I got back from a great day at the beach and, although Gemma had supper in hand, my creative juices were flowing so I decided to have a bash at making my own baked beans. (I can buy the Heinz variety here, but they are fiendishly expensive and my gastronome kids refuse to eat them anyway.)

Kitchen impro
I wanted something that was sweet, salty and a little spicy, and this was what I came up with. I was pretty pleased, as it was exactly what I had been aiming for. Like all my best kitchen improvisations, I started with a clear idea of what I wanted the final dish to be like, then paused for a few minutes and thought about how to get there. A lot of perfectly competent cooks rarely improvise, and I think part of the reason why is because they get stuck between two extremes: carefully following a time-honoured recipe, or more or less randomly throwing together whatever ingredients they happen to find in their fridge and cupboard. Of course, if you take the second approach then nine times out of ten what you produce will barely be worth eating and you will slink chastened back to your cookbooks, but the solution is just to gather your thoughts before you get going and to think about how the ingredients you use will combine together.

Ingredients
olive oil
2 small onions
2 cloves of garlic
2 tins of chopped tomatoes
4 tsps paprika
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp hot chilli sauce
1 tsp salt
2 tbsps dark soy sauce
2 tbsps honey
3-4 tins of cannellini beans (1200g drained weight)

Method

1. Chop the onion very finely and fry gently in plenty of olive oil. When the onion is done, add the peeled, finely chopped garlic cloves and continue to fry until the onions are just starting to brown.
2. Add the chopped tomatoes, paprika, ginger, chilli sauce and salt, bring to a boil, turn to minimum, cover and simmer for 30 minutes.
3. Add the soy sauce, honey and drained beans, cover and cook at minimum for another 10 minutes or so.

To complete my 'homemade' feeling, I decanted my beans into jars.

Carmela's BBQ chicken kebabs

As Sammy has his own kebab recipe, I thought it only fair that Carmela should have one too, so this is what we came up with. We took these camping with us and we didn't get any shots of the food, but I did catch Carmela loosing off an arrow.

Ingredients
1 kg skinless chicken breast
4 tbsps tomato sauce
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp sesame oil


Method

1. Cut the chicken into chunks.
2. Mix the tomato sauce, soy sauce, honey and sesame oil together.
3. Pour over the chicken pieces, mix well and leave to marinade (anything from 30 minutes to overnight).
4. Preheat the oven to 220oC, and line an oven tray with lightly greased foil.
5. Thread the chicken pieces onto skewers, and cook in the hot oven for 12 minutes.

Sammy's chicken kebabs

Sammy and Carmela are gradually doing more and more cooking, and right now this is Sammy's favourite thing to do with chicken.

Ingredients
1 kg skinless chicken breast
juice of 1/2 lemon
6 tbsps of natural yoghurt
2 tbsps of chickpea flour
1-inch piece of ginger, peeled and finely chopped
4 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp salt

Method

1. Cut the chicken into chunks, put in a bowl and mix well with the lemon juice.
2. Mix the yoghurt and the chickpea flour, then add the ginger, garlic, spices and salt, and mix well. Pour over the chicken pieces, mix well and leave to marinade (anything from 30 minutes to overnight).
3. Preheat the oven to 220oC, and line an oven tray with lightly greased foil.
4. Thread the chicken pieces onto skewers, and cook in the hot oven for 12 minutes.

Rabbit dhansak

I have mixed feelings about market shopping: it's time-consuming and can be both physically and mentally exhausting, as you struggle to make sure the stallholders don't palm off shoddy produce on you and have to adapt your cooking to what's available. But when I'm in the right mood, I find it really stimulating. I often have great recipe ideas while looking at what's on display, sometimes directly inspired by whatever is laid out in front of me, and sometimes taking advantage of a bit of daydream time while I wait to be served.



When I got back to Spain from Italy the other day, the first thing I did (after frantically feeding the washing machine and hanging up wet clothes) was to pop down to the market. In the fish section, I bought a kilo of clams. And at the butcher's I picked up a beautiful free-range chicken, which I intend to do al ajillo but with the added twist of a pickled lemon, and I also got some pork ribs, which I plan to pressure cook with chilli and ginger. My final purchase was a free-range rabbit, but instead of doing my usual coniglio alla cacciatore, I thought I would do a bit of fusion cooking, so I came up with this rabbit and brown lentil curry. I don't know if this really qualifies as a dhansak or not (usually, I think, a meat curry where the sauce is thickened with red lentils) and I don't care either.

Ingredients
1 onion
4 cloves of garlic
2-inch piece of fresh ginger
6 tablespoons of vegetable oil
4 teaspoons of mild curry powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 free-range rabbit, jointed
250g brown lentils
800 ml of chicken stock
juice of 1/2 lemon
small bunch of fresh coriander

Method

1. Peel and finely chop the onion, garlic and ginger, and puree in a food processor with the vegetable oil.
2. Gently fry the puree in an open pressure cooker, being careful not to burn.
3. When the onion is turning golden, add the curry powder and salt, fry for another 30 seconds, then add the rabbit pieces and fry for a minute or so, turning them so that they become well coated with the onion and spice mixture.
4. Add the lentils, chicken stock and lemon juice, close the pressure cooker and bring up to full pressure (2 rings). Cook for 15 minutes, then cool the cooker under runninng cold water.
5. Open, check for seasoning, add chopped coriander and serve.

Googlecooked!
Googlewhacking is the sport of trying to find an elusive query (two words - no quote marks) with a single, solitary result. Googlecooking is the art of producing a recipe (two-word title - yes quote marks) for which there are no other hits. I give you "rabbit dhansak"!