Monthly Archives: August 2007

Fast food: pizza

I am not a fan of Domino’s pizza (unlike my husband) and will go to some lengths to avoid it. So when I feel the urge for pizza at the end of a hot day, and have some energy in reserve, I go ahead and make  it at home. The only tiresome part about this is the production line nature of it – I tend to make small ones, which means a tantalising wait between mouthfuls as we wait for the next one to bake.

Tomato sauce:

  • 1 can tinned tomatoes
  • 1/2 jar passata
  • 1 garlic clove, sliced
  • 1 tsp olive oil
  • 15g butter
  • 1 tsp fresh thyme

This is loosely based on Marcella Hazan’s tomato sauce recipe. Simply put everything in a saucepan together and simmer slowly for about 30 minutes. Make the dough first, and then pull this together while it rises.
Pizza dough

I have been using this recipe from a Guardian cutting for years. You can make it, put it into an oiled plastic bag in the fridge and just take portions out and bake pizzas all week long. Or you can take the leftover dough and shape it into rolls or foccacia and bake it as bread.

  • 500g strong white bread flour
  • 200 g/ml warm water
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 packet (7g) instant yeast

Put all the ingredients into a bowl and mix until there is a single shaggy mass. If this doesn’t happen, add more water until it does – if it’s too sticky, add a little more flour. Knead for a few minutes until the surface of the dough becomes very smooth. (I use my KitchenAid mixer with the dough hook for this – by hand is fine, or you can also use a food processor). Cover with a tea towel and leave to rise for about an hour (perhaps longer if it’s cold).

Divide the dough into anything between 4 and 8 pieces (depending on how large you like your pizza), and roll each piece into a little round ball. Set aside again, covered with a tea towel, for 15 or 20 minutes while you prepare the toppings (grate cheese, slice veg, etc.). Preheat the oven as high as you can get it, with a thick baking sheet in the bottom of the oven.

When you’re ready to go, remove one ball at a time, flour a worktop and roll out firmly with a rolling pin, picking the dough up and rotating it between rolls, to make sure it doesn’t stick. Try and get it as thin as you can. Spread with a spoonful of tomato sauce, your toppings and finish with salt, pepper and a drizzle of olive oil.

Use a flat baking sheet (or anything else heatproof without a rim), sprinkled with a little polenta, to slide the pizza into the hot oven and onto the pre-heated baking sheet. Bake for about 8 minutes, or until it looks ready.

Repeat with each subsequent ball of dough until you’re so full you can’t move. 🙂

Greengage Jam

A few weeks ago I transported a box full of greengage plums, plus my mother’s old preserving pan back from my parent’s house in the back of a mini. There was around 1kg of fruit that we had picked from the large tree in their garden. At home, you could always tell when the fruit was getting ripe by the soft ‘splat’ from the plums as they fell from the tree and onto the patio below, to be nibbled on by wasps and other insects. That was when the ladder would have to come out, to reach all those fruits that would inevitably be just beyond your fingertips, forcing you to tiptoe on the top of the ladder in a particularly precarious way.

I never sought these plums out when I was little (being somewhat fruit-averse as a child) but now, older and wiser, while I still don’t fancy eating them raw from the tree, I can appreciate their worth as cooking material. First thoughts would be as roast fruit, a crumble or a jam. Having roasted plums very successfully when they arrived in my organic box a month or so ago (using Gordon Ramsay’s recipe from ‘Just Desserts‘) I went for jam this time.

As so often when stuck for a recipe, I went to my Google customised search, which covers blogs as well as recipe sites like the BBC and Waitrose.com. There, I found a beautifully simple recipe on Orangette. This follows the simple principle of macerating the fruit with the sugar in advance (something that I believe is supposed to keep the fruit whole), and then boiled until a set is reached. This only made 2 jars of jam, but considering the small amount of fruit I had and the tastiness of the jam, that’s just fine with me.

Recipe

  • around 875g plums or greengages, to give 800g stoned fruit
  • 400g granulated sugar
  • juice of 1/2 small lemon

Mix everything together in a non-metallic bowl and macerate for at least 2 hours, and up to 6.

Sterilise jam jars (I only needed 2) by washing them in hot water, or in the dishwasher, then placing on a tray in a 140C oven for 30 minutes.

Transfer the fruit & sugar mixture to a preserving pan or wide saucepan. Bring to to a boil and boil for 30 minutes. Skim the foam from the surface about 10 or 15 minutes in. Test the set briefly on a cold plate, then pot and seal.

As plums are high in pectin, you shouldn’t have any problem with the set – in fact, mine was quite firm, so I could probably have got away with a shorter boiling time.

Easy ribs

I have a dilemma: I like slow-cooked food, I like to cook whenever I can, but I seldom have more than half an hour after getting home before I’m so hungry I can’t wait any longer. My favourite way to get around this problem is to prepare the slow-cooked stuff in several separate stages. Pork ribs (spare ribs) adjust well to this approach, benefiting from a three stage process:

  1. Marinade – flavour the meat
  2. Braise – cook with liquid to dissolve the collagen into gelatin, and make the meat tender
  3. Glaze – caramelise the meat and create a sticky glaze

There are two ways you can go with ribs (although many would disagree and say there are many more than that): Chinese-influenced or American-influenced. My most recent attempt saw me take the Chinese route, following a recipe from Nigella Lawson’s “Forever Summer”. To adapt this to a different flavour, simply play with the spices and liquid in the marinade. You can also make the marinade a ‘dry rub’, by tossing the ribs in spices and salt, and then adding liquid just before braising.

Spare ribs

  • 16 pork spare ribs (around 1.5kg)

Marinade:

  • 4 tbsp rice wine vinegar
  • 3 tbsp soy sauce
  • 2 tsp dried red chilli flakes
  • 5cm piece fresh ginger, peeled and sliced
  • 2 tbsp runny honey
  • 2 star anise
  • 1 stick cinnamon, broken in 2
  • 1 tsp sesame oil
  • 2 tbsp sunflower oil
  • 4 spring onions, roughly chopped

Divide the ribs between 2 large freezer bags. Mix together all the marinade ingredients, and divide between the bags. Seal up the freezer bags and squish everything around. Put into a container and leave in the fridge for at least 24 hours.

The next evening, empty the bags into one or two roasting tins – give them enough room to sit in one layer. Cover and seal with foil – you want to keep the steam in. Heat the oven to 180C, and cook for 1 and a half hours. Allow to cool before putting in the fridge.

Glaze:

  • 2 tbsp honey
  • 2 tsp five-spice powder (see note)

On the third evening, put the ribs, uncovered, back into a cold oven and heat to 200C. After 10 minutes, remove the ribs and gently toss in the honey and five-spice. Glaze for 30 minutes, turning once. Sprinkle with finely chopped spring onions and chillies to serve.

Note: I didn’t have any five spice powder when I made this, so left it out. I have since looked it up and found that I could have made it myself with my spices-only coffee grinder. To make it, toast and then grind together: 2 tbsp peppercorns (Szechuan, or substitute black), 2 tbsp whole cloves, 2 tbsp fennel seed, 2 cinnamon sticks and 6 whole star anise.