bread – ALMOST ITALIAN

In My Kitchen, October 2022

I find it hard to tear myself away from the garden at this time of the year. I’m enchanted and energised by its wondrous growth as a response to the increasing light and warmth. The work is also demanding and my body hurts so much I have begun to tape up my shouder and wrist. Yes, I am my own task master: the garden is a joyous and productive space but I also hold a large whip. Gardening and Self Flagellation! My food garden is at that annual crossroad where the productive winter crops are becoming vertical towers of small leaf and flower. Most of these need pulling up, robbing the happy bees of their bright floral pleasure. We’re eating more greens this week as we prepare new garden beds for summer crops. The sight of big bundles of leeks, silverbeet, spring onions, endive lettuce and kale entering the kitchen can seem overwhelming, but most greens match very nicely with light cheeses, such as ricotta or fetta, or a generous sprinkling of parmesan cheese. The Italian pies of Spring, always associated with Easter in the northern hemisphere, are very appealing, such as Erbazzone, or Torta Pasqualina, requiring only a simple pastry crust made with flour and olive oil. I also use greens in Egyptian Eggah and Italian frittate, or substitute mixed greens for spinach in Palak Paneer, a favourite Indian dish. Greens and potato go well in hand pasties. Or in my favourite soup with with white cannellini beans, anchovy and rosemary, an old favourite recipe from Marcella Hazan.

The chooks are back on the lay and about time too. This year we lost fourteen hens to a fox attack, the first time since moving to our house in late 2009. We were left with five hens and two roosters. The hens went on strike due to shock and the cold weather. I was forced to buy eggs and didn’t enjoy them at all, despite the ethical promises on the packets. We returned from our recent South Australian trip to find some new arrivals -Andrew, Android and Andrea under the bantam Orpington. I’m hoping for girls. Getting rid of roosters is a cruel but necessary business.

The three Andrews are now one week old. Hoping for girls.

I was very pleased to discover that this lone fennel plant has become a perennial in the vegetable garden. The central stem, now quite thick and woody, continually produces little pups at the base. Small delicate ones in winter, large bulbous finocchi now in Spring. They are lovely shaved into salads, especially with the last of this season’s oranges, or cooked gratinata in a bechamel sauce. It’s such a shame that Mr Tranquillo doesn’t enjoy fennel as much as I do, but I’m working on him.

The most rustic and simple displays are often the best. As I pulled up most of the calendula, it was an excuse for a little floral arrangement in this old green kitchen jug.

The sourdough bread story continues in my kitchen but also in other kitchens when I’m away. I travel with an old cast iron Dutch oven, a small jar of levain, some bags of pre-weighed mixed flour, a razor blade and some oven parchment. I made three loaves during my last trip around South Australia, so didn’t need to resort to indigestible bread. While I don’t eat a lot of bread, I do like some each day, especially with soup or alongside a sauced meal where the bread becomes a scarpetta, a little shoe to scoop up the lovely juices. There are a few annoying trends in Australian restaurants where the bread is offered prior to the meal, or it’s not offered at all, or it’s costly and slathered in other stuff, or it’s inedible. Since when did one eat bread as an entree, spoiling everything that follows, robbing appetite, and then requiring a further purchase of more bread to make that little scarpetta for a lovely sauce? And yet we all do it: the bread arrives first and we pounce on it, dunking it in olive oil, or celtic salt or savoury butter. These days, I try to keep a little crust aside, surreptitiously disguised behind a napkin, hiding it from my ravenous companions, to accompany my meal. Companion, company, companionship- these lovely warm words derive from the Latin with bread. I still expect bread to be served with a meal, paid for or otherwise. Many of my home baked loaves travel to others, sometimes as hand luggage on domestic routes interstate. I export free loaves to those who desire them as a matter of companionship. It doesn’t make sense for me to only bake one loaf at a time. Their happiness comes back to me in bucket loads. Some of my very special sourdough mentors have taught me this.

A few fishy meals arrived in my kitchen over the last few weeks. Mouclade is one of the best ways to use small sweet black mussels. The dish is famous around Brittany in France, where the mussels are tiny and cheap. The creamy sauce is made with a hint of curry powder. The French recipes use creme fraiche, a product that is affordable and common place in French supermarkets, but not so in Melbourne. I thicken regular pouring cream with a little cornflour to obtain a similar consistency. Of course one needs lots of good bread to slurp up the juices. No little scarpette for this dish.

Mouclade, mussels in a lightly curried cream sauce.

The other fishy dish that I enjoyed immensely from my kitchen was a pescatarian version of Spaghetti Carbonara. In a suburban district of Adelaide, known for the plethora of wonderful looking Vietnamese restaurants, I found the most exciting fish market, The Fish Factory, at Grand Junction Road, Athol Park. I purchased some smoked squid tentacles, which were rather moreish as a snack: they were lucky to make it back to my kitchen. The smoked legs have a similar mouth feel and flavour to guanciale. Along with our own eggs, parsley, and a good hunk of Reggiano Parmigiano, I felt that this was a fine replica of that most famous spaghetti dish, carbonara.

Spaghetti with smoked squid tentacles, in the style of carbonara.

I hope this post signifies my return to blogging as it seems like such a waste to pay for a Premium package with WordPress if I’m not using it. I enjoy writing these little In My Kitchen summaries as it forces me to marry some of my photos to a few rambling thoughts on gardening and cooking, two passions of mine. Thanks Sherry, once again, for hosting this monthly series, Sherry’s Pickings.

Header photo features a lovely vegetable Tian I made in the Semaphore Kitchen, after finding an alluring French earthernware gratin dish tucked away in the cupboard. It begged me to use it.

Bread Pilgrim

Five years ago I began making sourdough bread. Little did I realise at the time that this would become an obsession. My days are now organised around the living dough: while bread making doesn’t take much time overall, you need to be monitoring its activity. I now dress for bread: an apron keeps my clothes in order while a little timer keeps me on track, the tick ticking in my pocket reminding me to stay vigilant. I wake eagerly, often rising before first light, not out of any obligation to tend to the bread but simply my own anticipation and excitement: at 5 am I can’t wait. I am attracted to the discipline of the craft as well as the science and yet I often stuff up. I am a novice: there is still much to learn. When I look back at photos of my bread from 5 years ago, I smile. They’re like my bread children- simple, perhaps a little clumsy, but also unpretentious and homey. They tasted fine despite their awkward appearance. My sourdough loaves these days look more streetwise, although there are many occasions when my shaping is sloppy, or my scoring goes haywire, or my new experiments don’t pay off. All failure is knowledge. It’s hard to explain that to a perfectionist (or a Maths teacher) but you can only learn from your mistakes. The ugly bread still gets eaten, even if in the form of garlic croutons or crumbed onto a vegetable gratin. The funny ones get named- Glenn Close ( badly slashed), Ugly Baby ( an off center boule ), Bob Menzies ( a loaf with one big ridged eyebrow), Happy Baby ( big open-mouthed grin) and Frisbee- a flatter boule, usually made from a large percentage of rye flour with less than desirable oven spring. Some breads snarl, others emerge with crispy ears, batards become bastards. And many emerge looking fabulously bespoke, dressed up artisan style and ready for a photo. Mistress of Slashing, ( technically scoring, but slashing sounds better here), Maree Tink, impresses me daily with her beautifully scored breads and patches of artistic char. If you’re keen to learn more about sourdough, join her Sourdough Baking Australia group on Facebook or ask about her monthly workshops.

If I could pin point the most hazardous aspect of sourdough baking, it would be timing. Many fine guides will outline an excellent programme that will take you from cold starter to loaf in a 24- 36 hour time frame. These suggested regimes don’t work for everyone: controlling once’s enthusiasm or chaotic lifestyle is part of the learning curve. The weather plays havoc with timing and so does exhaustion. Once dinner is over, I no longer want to have anything to do with my kitchen. I am tired and the couch calls: it has been a long day and bread making no longer interests me. My dough babies need to be shaped and tucked into bannetons, ready for their rest in the fridge before 6 pm. They can happily stay there for 12 hours or longer. And yet it is a lesson I often forget and one that annoys me intensely when I wake at 3 am, like a wandering half mad Lady Macbeth, cursing the over fermented dough.

The Weekender. Apricot, walnut, anise. Flours- stoneground T85, bakers white, wholemeal, malt.

There’s a wealth of knowledge out there to tap into. One favourite free resource can be found at The Perfect Loaf. Maurizio’s recipes and techniques always work well for me: his suggested timing is spot on for those who can stay awake till 9 pm. Paul Merry, of Panary, is an Australian/ English baker located in Dorset. A professional baker for 40 years, Paul has always baked with a wood fired oven and has always used organic flour. His baking notes are a good resource. His recent post, Milling with Stones, provides an interesting appraisal of stoneground flour. Paul’s research is impeccable: his bakery and teaching studio is based in a working flour mill, Cann Mill, in Shaftesbury, UK, which gives him daily contact with the milling process and the commercial side of flour production. See my previous blog about Paul’s bread here. There are sourdough internet groups on Facebook and good books to borrow or buy. Tartine Bread by Chad Robertson is a must read.

The other learning curve involves the choice of flour. One of my recent concerns about bread flour supplies in Australia, and I am sure this also applies to flour supplies in most wheat growing countries, is the industry’s dependence on the herbicide, glyphosate. There’s nothing on your flour packet that mentions this and there probably won’t be for some time. At present, there’s no other viable weed inhibitor on the market. Some farmers are worried, while many do not believe there’s a problem. The science is muddied by big business. Perhaps Monsanto/Bayer need a few more nasty court cases before there’s a demonstrable shift in opinion and a less toxic alternative is developed. This article, by Erin Brochovitch, is a good read on the topic. The weedkiller in our food is killing us. The ABC’s investigation on Four Corners, Monsanto Papers, is also worth viewing. In the meantime, some organic and biodynamic flour alternatives can be found at the Preston market, for those bakers who live near the centre or north of Melbourne. For example, Powlett Hill biodynamic stoneground flour comes in a 20 kilo bag for AU$60. This is a huge bag and it might be worth sharing this with a bread making mate. At AU$3 a kilo, this bumps up my loaf costs to around AU$1.50 each plus the cost of oven heating whereas my previous budget buy, Manildra baker’s white flour at 12.5 kilo for AU$15 produced loaves for around 60c per unit. Finding out more about the flour I use is next on my agenda.

The other obsessional aspect of sourdough bread baking is its very tangible link to the past, to the bread makers throughout history, the Medieval and Renaissance bakers, the Scottish, Irish, French and Italian bakers who have passed on their methods, and to the the modern day artisan bakers who happily share the gift of knowledge and their starters. To all those before me who lovingly tended an ancient ferment and crafted loaves from nothing other than flour, water and salt, I share your passion and your pain.

Artisan Bread. Sourdough Cinnamon Raisin Swirl

I’m not sure about the title of this post. The word artisan, or artigianale in Italian, has become the word of the decade. Once indicating a handmade product to distinguish it from the quotidian factory or machine-made version, it now stands for something else, something more desirable and elite, carrying with it a certain snob appeal and a price tag to match. Kevin McCloud, of Grand Designs fame, sprinkled his series with the terms artisan, bespoke and atelier, giving rise to various Kevin McCloud drinking games at the time. And so while I’m loathe to sound like a braggadocio,¹ I accept that the term ‘artisan’ may not carry the same overtones of wank that it once did. And so the title remains.

I received a copy of a wonderful book for my birthday, Artisan Sourdough Made Simple, by Emilie Raffa. The book is a gem, a wonderful addition to my bread book library. I’ve known about this book for some time- many of the sourdough bread makers I’ve met through Celia’s blog, Fig Jam and Lime Cordial, have also bought this book. The opening bread recipe is identical to the one I use everyday- I think Celia and Emilie may have collaborated on this basic loaf. The other wonderful bond we share is our sourdough starter. Some years ago, Celia sent her starter around the globe, to Emilie in New York, to me in Melbourne, and to hundreds of others, and in doing so, created a bread making community, all using a clone of her bubbly starter, Priscilla. I’ve also shared this starter as, no doubt, many others have too. Perhaps there are now thousands of Priscilla clones out there. Emilie’s recipes are straight forward and accessible: the book is useful to the beginner and the experienced sourdough baker. Once the basic recipe is mastered, outlined in detail in the first chapter, the proceeding chapters explore sweet and savoury artisan loaves, pan loaves and sandwich breads, whole grains and specialty flours, foccaccia, rolls and flatbread, bread art, leftovers and a few extra recipes.

My plan is to work through each recipe and settle on my favourites. The two loaves I’ve made to date have both worked really well. Emilie’s Golden flax and spelt sourdough is a good everyday loaf, while her Cinnamon Raisin Swirl brings back childhood memories. It is a fitting loaf for Easter and an alternative to hot cross buns. And it’s fun to make. Don’t be put off by the longish recipe below. It really is rather easy. This is Emilie’s recipe, though I have Australianised the ingredient list.

Cinnamon Raisin Swirl

Before starting the recipe, feed your starter over a day or so till active and bubbly.

Dough

50 g bubbly active starter
365 g warm water
480 g bakers flour ( bread flour)
20 g wholemeal flour ( whole wheat flour)
9 g fine sea salt ( not iodized)

Fillings

65 g raisins
65 g walnuts
50 g sugar ( I used caster sugar)
6 g powdered cinnamon

Make the dough: In a large bowl, whisk the starter and water together with a fork. Add the flours and salt. Cover with a damp towel and let rest for 30- 60 minutes.

Meanwhile, while the dough is resting, soak the raisins and walnuts in just enough water to cover. Drain well before using.

Add the fillings: Add the raisins and nuts to the bowl. Gently knead the fillings into the dough to incorporate, about 1 minute. The dough will start to feel slightly sticky at this point; add a sprinkle of flour to adjust the consistency if needed.

Bulk rise: Cover the bowl and let rise at room temperature, 21°C, until double in size, about 8-10 hours.

Shape and rise: Remove the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Let it rest for 15 minutes. A longer rest at this stage will relax the dough, making it easier to stretch into a rectangle. Line a 25 cm oval proofing basket with a towel and dust with flour. Combine the sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Set aside.

With floured hands gently stretch the dough into a long rectangle, about 40 x 20 cm. Lightly brush the surface with water. Then evenly sprinkle the cinnamon mixture over the top, leaving a small border at the top, bottom and side edges. With the short end facing you, roll up the dough into a lob, pinching in the ends to seal. Place it into a basket, seam side up.

Second rise. Cover the dough and let rest until puffy. ( 30- 60 minutes) Preheat the oven to 230 C. Cut a piece of parchment paper to fit the size of your pot. Place the paper on the bench, gently invert the dough onto the paper. rub the surface with flour and slash diagonally, making two or three cuts, keeping the depth shallow to preserve the filling. Use the parchment to lift the dough into the baking pot.

Bake the dough on the center rack for 20 minutes with the lid on. Remove the lid and continue baking for 40 minutes. When finished, remove the loaf to a wire rack and cool before slicing.

( Note, I found the loaf required less time with the lid off)

¹Braggadocio- empty swagger. Originating from Spenser’s Faerie Queene, 1596, the name given to his personification of vainglory. English writers at the time were taken with sprinkling Italian words throughout their works. From the Italian, braggadocio, meaning bravado, haughtiness, boaster, braggart. “I wrote the Art of the Deal. I say that not in a braggadocious way,”Donald Trump 2016. Now who would ever want to accuse Trump of braggadocio?

Emilie Raffa, Artisan Sourdough Made Simple. A beginner’s guide to delicious handcrafted bread with minimal kneading. 2017. I highly recommend this book to all my sourdough making friends and readers.

In My Kitchen, January 2019

Happy New Year, dear friends and readers. We toasted the New Year with Bellini made from fresh peach juice and Prosecco. This cocktail tasted so healthy I could happily drink it for breakfast. Salute.

January is a busy month in my kitchen as the summer crops pour in through the back door. After 9 years in our current abode, most of our fruit trees are now in their prime. To date, I have picked 10 kilo of white peaches. Another few kilo remain while the Mariposa plums are beginning to flush. The zucchini are in full swing- I never tire of a good zucchini soup. Last night’s pizza included a topping of grilled zucchini ribbons and other assorted treasure.

Uncooked pizza. Grilled zucchini, red onion, a handful of shrimp, olive, anchovy, herbs

Same pizza, out of oven. Netflix and pizza night again?

Yesterday’s lunch, La Mouclade, is my favourite way to eat mussels. Melbourne has several mussel farms- one on Port Arlington and the other in Mt Martha. Mt Martha mussels grow in deep clean water and are an organic and sustainable seafood.

Before Christmas I made heaps of cakes, breads and simple bowl meals. I intended to write brief posts on each of these but didn’t have time. The problem is, I love taking photos of food but rarely note down precise ingredients.

Favourite Chinese fish meal. Does it have a name? I lost the book.

Was meant to be included in my **pasta della settimana** series.

Some new Weck jars, found in Aldi, are perfect for making levain for sourdough. I baked like a banshee during December. A new favourite is the cranberry and walnut bread, especially when toasted for breakfast. Fortunately I froze about 8 loaves of different varieties, giving me a little bread making breathing space this month.

Weck Jar

Wholemeal Levain

Bubble Bubble

This is the month when things move outside. Daisy liked this Pizza Bianca and was impressed with the taste of capers.

Lunch in the garden with Daisy. Pizza Bianca ( potato, mozza, capers, olives)

Thanks Sherry, at Sherry’s Pickings, for hosting this series. Once again, may I say that it’s a great way to focus on all that happens in the kitchen, the engine room of the home. May the domestic gods and goddesses shine on you all this month.

The Classic Pasta and Fagioli

There are so many versions of Pasta e Fagioli in Italy and on the web, it almost seems superfluous to add my two bob’s worth on the topic. Anyone who has an Italian nonna makes a more traditional/better/regional/authentic version. During winter, Pasta e Fagioli, (pasta and beans) is one of the most useful dishes to know. Is it an entrée, a soup or a main dish? It can be all of these but given the heartiness and distinct lack of brothy elements, I tend to make this dish as a piatto unico, a stand alone dish, to be served with bread, a few drops of new oil, and perhaps some Parmigiano. Most versions are thick with beans and pasta and very little broth: some are made slowly with fresh borlotti beans, while less desirable versions are thrown together with canned beans, canned tomato and cheap industrial pasta. It is a timeless classic rustic dish, Cucina Povera Italiana, made in the past through necessity using simple ingredients stored for winter. Today, it satisfies that need in us all for comfort food on a cold winter’s day.

Like many other Italian dishes, this one also starts with a classic soffritto, that holy trio of flavour, emerging from the slow sauté of carrots, onion and celery. The soffrito vegetables must be chopped very finely so that they almost disappear once they are cooked. Another element often added at the soffrito stage is pancetta and lardo. I omit these ingredients given my dietary preferences but try to find other umani elements to flavour the dish, either through rich stock, herbs, garlic or even anchovy fillets, reduced to a salty mash. I also reserve a little deep vegetable stock to thin the mixture.

First pressed and just delicious. The first harvest of Cobram’s new oil. Only for dressing up.

Ingredients

200 g borlotti beans, either fresh or dried
250 gr tomato passata or finely diced tomatoes
80 gr onion finely chopped
30 gr celery finely chopped
30 gr carrot finely chopped
1 garlic finely chopped
1 small branch fresh rosemary
3 Bay leaves
10 g EV olive oil
black pepper
fine sea salt
100- 200g of pasta ditalini, depending on your preference for a thick or thinner version.

Method

Cook the beans. If using dried borlotti, soak overnight then cook in water for around 80 minutes. Add the bay leaves to the water but no salt which may make the beans remain hard. If using fresh borlotti, there’s no need to soak them and they should cook in under 30 minutes, depending on their their freshness. Keep the cooking water.

When the beans are done, make a soffrito with the onion, celery and carrot. Add the oil to a large heavy based soup pot and gently saute these vegetables until soft and golden, adding the chopped garlic and finely chopped rosemary towards the end. (Traditionally, the garlic would be added to the cooking oil first, cooked until just golden then fished out before adding the soffrito ingredients. If you don’t love garlic as much as I do, consider that method. I like to keep the garlic for more flavour)

Add the beans and a little of the cooking water. Then add the tomato and heat through gently. Remove two ladles of the mixture and puree with a hand mixer. Return this back to the soup pot. If too thick, add a little bean cooking water or vegetable stock.

Add the pasta, and cook until al dente. Watch the pot at this stage as the pasta and beans have a tendency to stick when this thick. Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper.

Serve in lovely wide and shallow bowls with a drizzle of fine oil and some good bread.

Bread of the day with Pasta of the week.

Other Pasta of the Week ideas:

Maccheroni Rigati with Sweet Pepper Sauce

Ditalini with Cacio and Eggs

Gnocchi Sardi with Gorgonzola, Silver beet and walnuts.

Pantacce with Borlotti Beans and Rugola

Sourdough Panmarino. Memory and Beatrice d’Este

There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember.

Ophelia, Act 4, Scene 5, Hamlet.

The most exquisite and evocative bread of my sourdough repertoire is Panmarino. Now that’s a big call I know but it might have something to do with the fragrant mixture of Rosemary and Salt, the soft comforting texture of the bread, or the dramatic diamond encrusted star on its baked dome. I have only recently converted this yeasted bread to sourdough, and must make sure that I don’t make it too often. I prefer to think of it as a festive bread, perhaps best associated with reminiscence and memory. It would be a lovely bread to make for the anniversary of a loved one. Pray you, love, remember me.

This bread was first popularised by Carol Field in her classic work, The Italian Baker.¹ According to Field, it was invented by a baker named Luciano Pancalde, the baker with the perfect hot bread name, who created this bread as the encapsulation of one he had read about in a biography of the d’Este family of Ferrara. I really like this idea on many levels. That he read about a Renaissance bread, visualised it, then recreated it makes it rather special but that this bread was eaten at the courts of my favourite historic family makes it even better. I plan to come back in my next life as Beatrice d’Este. In the meantime, I’m enjoying a virtual memory. Rosemary does that. It’s the time traveling herb.

Beatrice was here. Castello Sforzesco. Vigevano.

The recipe listed by Field is for a yeasted bread: it is easy to make, and it tastes good too. But to my mind, the bread made in the Renaissance courts of the d’Este family would have been made with something like a biga or lievito madre. Using my standard sourdough starter, a very fine traditional Panmarino can be made. Some of the recipes I have drawn on suggest a long gestation time of 4 days. I’m happy with a 24 hour time frame, given a ready starter, one that has been refreshed over a day or so. I also like to add a little wholemeal to mine, in keeping with a loaf of the past.

Slices and keeps very well, if it lasts.

Sourdough Panmarino, un pane per la bella Beatrice d’Este.

I have simplified this bread for speed and ease of making. I’ve played with the proportions of starter and am happy with the results so far. If you would like to follow one source of this recipe, see here. Before making this recipe, refresh your starter three times over a day or so, then start the process in the morning.

150 g bubbly active sourdough starter
150 g water filtered or tank, at least not chlorinated
150 g whole milk
500g baker’s white flour or a mixture of baker’s white flour, ie 400g and wholemeal plain flour 100g
5 g diastatic malt 5g ( optional)
10 g sea salt
40 g olive oil
20 g or less chopped fresh rosemary
salt flakes such as Maldon for the shaped loaf

Directions.

Weigh the the starter, water and milk then add to a large mixing bowl. Add the flour (s) and malt and mix roughly with your hands. It will look like a shaggy pile. Cover with a shower cap or plastic film and leave for 20 minutes or so.

Mix the chopped rosemary, olive oil and salt and work this through the dough with your hands. You will feel the gluten begin to develop. Cover with cap. Leave the covered dough at room temperature.

Do some stretch and folds every 20- 30 minutes, inside the bowl at least three times. You will feel the dough become smoother each time. Now leave the dough on the bench, covered, for 8 hours. It should be well risen by this time.

Place the covered bowl into the fridge for an overnight rest, coinciding with a rest of your own.

In the morning remove the dough from the fridge, have a peep at it, then let it come to room temperature, again still covered.

Using a bread scraper, place the dough onto a large silicon mat or good bench top, adding a small amount of fine semolina to the work surface. Stretch and fold the loaves a few times again, then shape the dough into a nice boule shape. Let this sit for 30 minutes or so, then place the boule into a round shaped and dusted banneton. Cover for 30 minutes to an hour. It will rise a little more.

Meanwhile preheat your oven to 225c FF. Turn the bread out onto a sheet of parchment paper, then lift the paper with the dough and place inside an enamel roaster/baking tin. Using a lame with a sharp blade, slash a star shape on top of the loaf and sprinkle generously with salt flakes. Cover with the lid of the roaster and place in the oven for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, remove the lid and continue baking for a further 20 minutes.

Remove the bread to a wire rack and let it cool completely before slicing.

Thanks Maree for alerting me to the sourdough version of this bread.

‘Then, when a memory reappears in consciousness, it produces on us the effect of a ghost whose mysterious apparition must be explained by special causes.’ Henri Bergson. Of the Survival of Images. Memory and Mind.

Heaven and earth!/ Must I remember. Hamlet, Shakespeare

In My Kitchen, May 2018. One Cup of Nostalgia

I’ve been procrastinating over this month’s In My Kitchen, concerned that my posts are becoming repetitive and barely newsworthy. I buy very few new products or gizmos: my tastes are simple. My pantry is full of staples that complement things from my garden. My freezer stores the fruit bounty from summer. I bake bread and a weekly cake or dessert. My home cooking is the antithesis of restaurant cooking: I no longer aspire to cook that way. It is informed by the simplicity of cucina povera, Italian country cooking of the past, along with that of Roman trattorie and is becoming more frugal as time passes. And as for things, lovely kitchen things, I’m in the process of de-cluttering and reducing, not gathering more.

But I’m not quite ready to throw in the IMK towel yet. In My Kitchen has been a part of my blog repertoire for more than four years, providing at least one platform of discipline in my untidy life. When I look back at my old posts, I see some recurring themes and plenty of growth. My first IMK, written in December 2013, concerned decor and green kitchen ware. Back then, I had a two-year old to cook with, (not for- Daisy has always participated in the kitchen) and during those earlier years, a tribe of young grandchildren spent hours in my kitchen, licking spoons and making concoctions, cranking fresh pasta, asking for their favourite barley soup or begging for flathead fish. They’ve featured in some of my old posts, especially Daisy, my little cheffa whose sense of taste and smell developed in my kitchen and herb garden. How I miss those years: required school attendance has a lot to answer for!

The fine art of sourdough bread making came along when Celia, of Fig Jam and Lime Cordial, sent me my first packet of dehydrated starter in June 2014. Most of you are familiar with Celia’s generous spirit: she is responsible for perhaps thousands of sourdough home bakers around the world today. Now she’s leading the way in campaigning against waste and plastic in a gentle, non proselytising way. Teaching not preaching.

Yesterdays pick. May 6, 2018. Radicchio, rugola, curly endive, green cicoria. Parsley, wild fennel, dill, red basil, borlotti beans ( 4 kilos) Roma tomatoes, late Adelaide tomatoes, yellow pear tomatoes, zucchini. cucumber, snake beans. I love my garden and she loves me.

When I look back on posts featuring my early sourdough loaves, I have to laugh-they looked so odd and yet they tasted OK. These days, with better technique and the understanding of how dough behaves in my kitchen and overnight in my fridge, my loaves look much better and taste really good: it is a passionate pastime that takes commitment. Somewhere along the way, I met Maree, first through this forum on her occasional blog and more recently through her facebook site, Simply Sourdough Trafalgar which includes regular updates of her latest loaves. Maree’s sourdough bread is wonderfully enticing, she is a sourdough artist. Talk about bread porn! Her experimentation with hand- milled grains is inspiring, as is her energy, running a small bakery and teaching sourdough bread classes. My entry into the sourdough baking community began right here in this very forum, for which I am eternally grateful. These days, I also enjoy passing on this skill to others. I recently spent a week at Peter’s place in Far North Queensland. We spent a few days playing with sourdough, adapting it to his humid climate, and making home-made yoghurt and cheese together. Now he is totally obsessed, baking bread like a banshee and churning out fabulous labneh. His first herby labneh came about from one of his stuffed up yoghurt attempts. It’s the best labneh I’ve ever tasted. Peter, like me, wastes nothing. We are kindred souls in the kitchen. Now he makes all these goodies for his B&B. How good is that? Thanks Peter and Steve for your amazing hospitality and enthusiasm for life.

Frugal is nice. Cicoria well cooked, with garlic, olive oil, chilli and white polenta. In a Roman trattoria, you might find this green alongside some form of protein. I like bitter leaves straight up, a challenge for some.

And so back to my kitchen this month. What’s happening? Red and pink things are pouring into the kitchen from my garden, begging to be cooked into simple dishes and not wasted. Crunchy and bitter radicchio leaves, my favourite salad ingredient of all time, are picked daily, washed and popped into ziplock bags. ( yes, heavy-duty plastic bags that get washed over and over and seem perfect for maintaining crunchy salad leaves ). Pink scribbled borlotti beans ripened all at once this week, some to cook now, some to store, and some to pop aside for next year’s planting, dark red frilly mizuna leaves, tasting a lot like wasabi, tomatoes galore still in early May, chillis to dry for the year, to crush and make into hot chilli oil, the first new red radishes, and plenty of green things too.

For those of you who love Radicchio and have a vegetable garden, may I just mention that once radicchio acclimatises to your environment, you will have it for life. Let the bee attracting blue flowers go to seed after summer. The hard bullet like seeds will fly about and become little radicchio at just the right time. Mine pop up everywhere and some of the best ones grow between cracks in the paths. Look underneath the large green leaves for pups. Elongated Treviso leaves like to hide in the dark, producing delicate white and pink crunchy leaves. Pull out a small cluster and another one will appear in its place. So colourful, bitter and bounteous, they make me want to sing like Michael Hutchence. They only need a grind of salt, a drizzle of new oil and a drop or two of balsamic.

Routines and rituals are precious in my morning kitchen. While the bread bakes, I roughly chop up a pile of vegetables and herbs to add to the bottom rack of the oven. It’s a shame to waste all that stored heat. My stock mix includes carrots, onions, garlic, small tomatoes, dark fleshed mushrooms that need using up, mushroom stems, torn bay leaves, a sage leaf and a branch of thyme. These are all glossed with a little EV olive oil and baked for 20 minutes or so. Once caramelised, they come out of the oven and into a stove top pot, along with a little chopped celery, parsley stalks, and two litres of water. After cooking steadily for 25 minutes or so, the stock is strained off and popped into a jar for later use. This is a super rich stock with a deep colour, the smell permeating the kitchen.

Stock ingredients baked before simmering.

If we don’t have soup for lunch, we’re bound to have pasta. This one, Maccheroni Rigati, is coated with a rich tasting creamy red capsicum pesto. Recipe here. The sauce is also wonderful spooned under a nice wedge of grilled fish.

Maccheroni rigati con pesto di peperoni rossi.

Thanks Sherry, at Sherry’s Pickings, for inviting participation in this series. If you wish to join in, follow the link and add your own kitchen story.

The Three Chimneys Restaurant, Skye, Scotland

Today, dear reader, we will be travelling by car to the remote north-west of the Isle of Skye, to my favourite restaurant of all time. Come along and tell me what you enjoy the most.

Views along the way. Isle of Skye near Corbost

The Three Chimneys Restaurant has always been famous and deservedly so. It is situated nearby a Loch in Corbost near Dunvegan, in an area that is surrounded by cliffs, green wet hills, sheep and distant white stone houses. Despite its rural location, it is well-known and popular so a booking was made many months in advance.

Simple and Scottish, a vase on our table, Three Chimneys, Skye

Inside the metre thick stone walls, even at lunchtime, the lighting is moody and dark, and a small candle glows in the nearby fireplace. A beautiful smiling woman who looks uncannily like Geillis Duncan brings bread. Her eyes sparkle, and her sweet sounding Scottish accent is beguiling, while the breads take me back in time. Freshly made each day, there are three different types- seeded, dark and oat coloured. They are soft and evocatively celtic, and come with different butters, one containing salty sea flecks of dulce seaweed. More arrives without question.

More courses arrive, mysterious little bowls of land and sea, brought by the amber haired Geillis. For me, a Peat Smoked Haddock Ravioli, leeks, a quail egg with Smoked Sea Dashi, the latter poured at the table by a chef’s assistant, transports me to another heaven.

Peat Smoked Haddock Ravioli, leeks, a quail egg . Smoked dashi broth.

For main course, we choose beautiful seafood caught from that Loch just outside the window. For me, a roasted Salmon with fennel, Sconser scallop and lemongrass, and for him, the Three Chimneys Seafood Platter, consisting of West Coast Chowder, Dunvegan Dressed Crab & Langoustines, Sconser Scallop, Loch Harport Oyster, Lemon Mayonnaise and Bridget Glendale Salad.

The seafood platter attracts a 15 pound supplement.

Some things never change. Shirley’s signature dish, the Three Chimney’s Marmalade Pudding with Drambuie custard, is still available. We first tried this in 2000 and even though I vowed to make it at home, I never did. It was time to try it again. The weather in the Isle of Skye goes very well with an old-fashioned pudding, a traditional ending to a modern Scottish meal.

As I wandered out to the bathroom, I noticed three long hooded capes hanging on pegs. Simple in style and made from Harris Tweed in muted tones, I’ve been dreaming about those Hebridean capes ever since. I wonder if I’ll return to the beautiful stone buildings of Corbost, the Lochs and the green hills, the sheep on roads, the superb but invisible attention, and the glorious food of Three Chimneys, and to Skye, my beloved Skye.

The Three Chimneys has been named UK Restaurant of the Year for 2018. It won a similar award when we visited in the year 2000. Booking well in advance is essential. https://www.threechimneys.co.uk/

My other Skye posts.

Skye boats to Elgol

Speed Bonny Boat

In my Skye Kitchen

The Baker and the Water Mills, Shaftesbury

One of the nice parts about travelling is catching up with old friends along the way. Even though many years separate visits, our countries being a day away by air, conversation resumes from where we left off, as if the intervening years are a mere second in time. This was certainly the case when we stayed with our old friend Paul Merry and his partner, who live in a small village near Shaftesbury, Dorset. It was a pleasure to find them unchanged and well, but also especially wonderful that he had done a large bread bake the day before and had a few spare loaves. At last, some good bread, though good is hardly an apt word for his long fermented sourdough made from stoneground organic flour. Paul Merry is the doyen of artisan bread making in these parts.

I don’t need to preach to you, dear reader, about the sad and sorry state of modern commercial bread, that awful product so nutritionally empty and bland, that chemicals need to be added to make it edible. You can either eat it or you can’t. I can’t. It makes me ill. So during my travels, I mostly go without bread, with only an occasional and regrettable lapse. Munching into Paul’s sourdough cob was a moment of ecstasy. That first bite reminded me how nourishing and deeply satisfying good bread can be.

Paul is a master baker who runs bread making classes from his bakery, Panary, located inside an old working water-mill near Shaftesbury, Dorset. His classes have been operating from this site for more than 30 years. He also bakes a commercial batch weekly. Before moving to Britain, Paul built and then ran the famous St Andrews bakery on the outskirts of Melbourne, Australia. That lovely mud brick building with its antique wood fired oven was where Paul mastered his baking skills. His bread nourished our souls throughout the 1980s. His bread is even better today.

A familiar sight. Paul in baker’s uniform, attending to his craft.

Our first sourdough loaf lasted well and was still fresh and delicious after five days. Good wholesome bread, slow bread, made with nothing else but the best organic flour, water, salt, and plenty of time, Paul’s loaves are made with exceptional skill as well as passion for the craft.

The photos below show scenes taken around Cann Mills. Panary is located within the mill. The water-mill is still functioning and runs some days, along with other milling methods. Paul’s classes deal with a variety of techniques and many professional bakers hire Paul as a consultant. If you live nearby or are travelling in that beautiful country, not far from the Cotswolds, inquire about Paul’s one day classes. You can choose from topics including the basic beginners, British, flatbreads, French, Italian, Nordic Germanic, Patisserie/Viennoiserie, sourdough, and festive breads.( see full details here. ) Or if you love breadmaking and can’t make it across the globe to attend his classes, take a look at his blog. There’s plenty to learn. https://www.panary.co.uk/panary-blog/

It all starts with great flour. Paul uses this one to add to his starter or levain.

Panary at Cann Mills
Cann
Shaftesbury
Dorset
SP7 0BL

Panary’s location and course information. https://www.panary.co.uk/about/cann-mills/

In My Kitchen, July 2017

In my kitchen, there are signs of packing frenzy. The kitchen table has become a convenient sorting ground for the paraphernalia one now requires for a long overseas trip: regional power plugs, battery chargers for cameras, phones, computers, Kindle and tablet, mini speaker, extra SD cards for cameras, car chargers for phones, different lenses for cameras, plastic sleeved folders for itineraries and bookings, medical supplies. Have I forgotten something? On and on it goes with this weird tangle of stuff, the clothes and shoes almost an afterthought. As you may gather, I’m getting organised for 4½ months of global roaming: the kitchen is the best place to sort, iron, and edit, repack, write more lists and dream.

Laguiole set, lucky find. Reconstructed chopping boards from one large flexi poly board.

One kitchen-esque packing item that I am enjoying putting together is the picnic set, although picnic friendly verges and green public spaces are not so easy to come by in France and Italy. I found a Laguiole set of 8 at my favourite second-hand shop. They are new, probably a discarded gift. Those little bees are now heading back to France. I’ve cut down a flexible poly chopping mat into 3 pieces to fit the picnic box. Of course there’s a Swiss army knife and a bottle opener, two wine glasses, two large table napkins which double as tea towels, a little cheese box, a few lengths of wax paper for wrapping cheese, some rubber bands and a few zip lock plastic bags. The box now weighs 1.167 kilo. Anal packarama. I am being restrained: what I really want is a picnic set like Marlena de Blasi’s. ( See extract at the end of this post).

Picnic box packed. Laguiole set of cutlery, found at my favourite second-hand shop . A corkscrew, a Swiss army knife, two napkins and two wine glasses, some re-constructed chopping boards and other odds and ends complete the set.

I have cut three ½ metre sheets from this roll of waxed paper, ready to wrap some lovely cheeses that we will find en route. I purchased this paper online a year ago and it goes a long way. It keeps cheese very well.

I am now counting the sleeps and imagining the farmers’ markets in small villages and the new kitchens that will inspire, or perhaps frustrate, my kitchen creativity along the way. Initially, the escape from daily cooking will be very welcome, but after a while I know that restaurant food will begin to jade the palate. And so we are renting small apartments and houses over the next four months, little places with kitchens, a small garden or a terrace, a place to call home for a few weeks at a time and to enjoy some home cooking. I’m also looking forward to the French and Italian bakeries for our daily bread. I recently purchased this strong fabric bag at the National Gallery of Victoria’s Van Gogh exhibition. Note the long length. Perfect for a baguette or two in France.

Carry bag from Van Gogh’s seasons, NGV, Melbourne.

My future posts for the rest of 2017 will be written en route, assuming that WiFi is free and fast, something that I take for granted anywhere in Asia but not necessarily in Europe. I hope to attend a cooking school in Chiang Mai, visit some Hong Kong kitchens, write from an old stone bothy house in Skye, and cook in the houses we have rented in France and Italy. My posts will include a walk around some French and Italian markets. I couldn’t imagine travelling to these countries without purchasing some lovely local produce to take ‘home’ and cook. I’m dreaming of some freshly shucked belon oysters in Brittany, miniature fresh and aged goat’s cheeses hand shaped by a grand-mère in the Dordogne, perhaps washed down with a Bergerac red. And some autumnal produce from the stalls of a medieval bastide market town in Languedoc. The anticipation is enormous. I hope you will join me, at least vicariously, in my travels.

Today’s bread. Celia’s High Hydration, with ears.

In the meantime, I have made our final loaves to see us through the last week, as well as dehydrating some sourdough starter to tuck away for our return.

I am also enjoying this little corner of the kitchen since the new plaster board was installed last week, covering the dated 80s pine boards. I attached the monkey face calligraphy to the end of the dresser, a gift from Brian.

Another little calligraphy corner , gift from Brian, on the end of my dresser.

Thanks to Sherry for hosting of this ongoing series. You can check out other kitchen posts on Sherry’s Pickings.

Marlene de Blasi’s picnic basket.

‘Always ready in the boot is a basket fitted with wine glasses, two of our most beautiful ones, plus two tiny bohemian cut-crystal glasses, napkins made from the unstained parts of a favourite tablecloth, a box full of odd silver, a wine screw, a good bottle of red wine- always replaced immediately after consumption- a flask of grappa, a Spanish bone handled folding knife, a pouch of sea salt, a small blue and white ceramic pepper grinder, plates of various size… ‘ Tuscan Secrets, A bittersweet adventure.

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