Pastry, bread and some enormous flavours

Yes, its Bournemouth Echo "Taste" Blog time again.  If you want to see it in situ, it's here.

PASTRY, BREAD AND THOSE ENORMOUS FLAVOURS

I’ve been a bit quiet over the last week or so, largely because I haven’t really had much to talk about.  It’s been one of those weeks – you know the sort – when you’ve been running from pillar to post dealing with the demands of life.  Inevitably, during times like these, food can take something of a back seat.  You tend to rely on your “family favourites” like shepherd’s pie, or sausage and mash.  They are all dishes that you’ve cooked a thousand times before, you can cook them with your eyes closed – and more to the point, you can do them quickly!

Last weekend, however, I had a very definite urge to make some pastry.  Now pastry is something of a bone of contention in our house, as hubby likes the ready-made stuff in preference to home-made.  Personally, I consider it a duty to hone and perfect my pastry, as we’ve something of a pastry-making dynasty in the family.  My Nanna made the lightest, melt-in-the-mouth shortcrust pastry (with lard, no doubt!) and my Mum has continued the tradition, only substituting a lower-fat margarine for the lard.  I’m quite convinced that you’re either born with pastry-making fingers, or you’re not.  Simple as that.

So I pondered on what to make.  I didn’t have time or money to go out and buy ingredients, so it was a case of “what’s left over with nothing to do”.  I thought about making a sweet fruity tart for dessert, but we hadn’t any cream, ice cream or custard that would have gone with it, so that was out.

 

I decided, eventually, to make a quiche.  In fact, a broccoli, cherry tomato and cheese quiche.  For some obscure reason, when making the pastry, I decided to bring it all together not by use of a few tablespoons of water, but by use of an egg.  It made the pastry crispy (not hard), which seemed to me to go nicely with the texture of the filling.  However, it was all too eggy for hubby, unfortunately.  I think it was the egg that broke the hubby’s palate.  So to speak.

Still, the end result looked nice (I thought) and tasted great.

There must have been something in the water, that weekend, because hubby was suddenly taken by the notion to make bread.  Ciabatta, to be precise.  He consulted that Cookbook to end all Cookbooks, the internet, and compared everyone’s recipes.  He eventually settled upon one from Paul Hollywood.  He reckoned that if anyone was to be trusted to recommend a great bread recipe, Mr Hollywood was the one.

We were calling in at Asda that morning, so I popped along to the bakery and picked up some live yeast.  We’re utter converted to using live yeast instead of dried.  I don’t know, it just seems to be more effective, somehow.

After an investment of some 24 hours – what with making the starter dough, then waiting overnight while it did it’s thing, then making the secondary dough, combining them, kneading, proving … la la  la, chat amongst yourselves … here’s the end result.

Don’t look bad, do they?  Left to right, he made a plain one, a sea salt, black pepper and olive oil one and finally, a cheese-topped one.  They were very successful – and the second batch (yes, he made some more, lol) were even nicer.

Once the week calmed down a bit, we did have one evening meal of note.  On Facebook, they have a game called “Café World”, where you “make” various recipes which gain you varying amounts of points.   (Putting it in a nutshell).  One of the recipes therein, is “Chicken Adobo”.  Now the name got me curious, long before I ever considered cooking it for real.  So I looked it up on the internet and found out that it was a chicken or pork dish, served with rice, that originated from the Phillipines.  It looked simple enough to make, so it was included on our menu list for the week.

It involves the standard beginning, cooking off both onions and garlic (a prodigious amount of garlic).  Then you add your meat (chicken or pork) diced, plus some grated ginger, a cup of water, varying amounts of soy sauce, vinegar (I used both Balsamic and Cider), paprika, a teeny bit of chilli powder and bay leaves.  You then simmer until the meat is tender.  Then comes the deviation from the norm, in that you remove the meat and brown it in a separate frying pan, whilst thickening the remaining sauce.  Re-introduce the chicken, heat through and serve with rice.

I can honestly say that I have never experienced anything that is quite like Chicken Adobo.  To say it has enormous flavours is putting it mildly.  It has the kind of flavours that take you by the throat (nicely, of course), and slam-dunk you into the carpet a few times.  You come up blinking, wondering what hit you.  However, for all that, it didn’t repeat on me, or cause indigestion.  Tummy was very happy at the end of it all.  *chuckle*

I’ll definitely make it again, except this time I will add some corn-on-the-cob to the plate, as you definitely go looking for something sweet and gentle as a counterpoint to those big bold flavours!