Zesty shallot cottage loaf

A hearty loaf piquant with browned shallots and spices. A cottage loaf is a traditional English bread consisting a ball of dough stacked on top of another, with a hole in the middle. In this recipe a 'starter' batter is prepared the night before and allowed to ferment overnight. It is then added to the other dough ingredients and makes the bread springy and slightly tangy. Although this recipe includes yeast, sourdough breads can be made that are leavened entirely by airborne yeasts incorporated into the fermented starter. I hope to post such a recipe sometime soon. I will also post a recipe tomorrow for a soup with which you could eat the bread.

Makes: 1 loaf

Ingredients1-1/2 cups wholewheat flour
1 teaspoon dried yeast
2 teaspoons whole-grain mustard
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 - 1 cup/125-250 ml water 
1 teaspoon olive oil
8 shallots, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

For the starter:
3/4 cups wholewheat flour
4 tablespoons yoghurt
1 cup/250 ml water

Method
The night before the day you intend to make the bread, mix together the ingredients for the starter into a thick batter, cover and allow to ferment overnight. The following day, mix the flour, yeast, paprika, salt and sugar in a large bowl. Tip the starter batter into bowl along with the mustard. Incorporate as much of the flour mix into the starter as possible, with your hands or a wooden spoon, then add the water 1/4 cup/60 ml at a time until the mixture forms a soft but kneadable dough (the amount of water you need will vary, depending on the your flour, the starter and the weather).

Knead the dough for 6-8 minutes on a lightly floured surface until smooth and elastic. Place on a board or other suitable surface and cover with an upturned bowl or place in a bowl and cover, and set aside to rise for about 1 hour until roughly doubled in size.

In the meantime, heat the oil in a pan over a medium heat and saute the sliced shallots for 6-8 minutes until they are soft and browned. Stir in the black pepper. Once the dough is risen, knead it well on a floured surface to remove trapped air bubbles. Then flatten it out to a large circle and scatter over the cooked shallots and black pepper, leaving some space around the edges. Bring the sides of the dough over the shallots and fold them down, completing covering the shallots. Knead for a few minutes to fully incorporate the shallots and pepper into the dough.

Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F. Grease a small baking tray. Cut off a piece approximately one-third of the size of the dough. Roll both the large and small pieces of the dough into balls. Place the small ball on top of the large one and press down lightly, without flattening the balls too much. Dip your thumb into some flour so that it is generously coated with flour and push it down the top centre of small ball making a hole almost all the way to the bottom of the large ball. You may have to repeat the process of flouring your thumb and pushing down to make a deep enough hole.

Carefully transfer the loaf to the baking tray and cover with an upturned bowl or plastic cling wrap. Set aside to rise for about 45 minutes until approximately doubled in size. With a sharp knife make about 8 cuts (not more than 1 cm/0.4 inches deep) from the centre to the edge around the top of the loaf, as shown in the photograph. Bake for 40-45 minutes until the crust is brown, hard and dry. The loaf should also sound hollow when tapped at the base. Allow to cool for at least 30 minutes. 

The bread can be quite hot inside while still being cool to the touch. A better way to gauge its temperature is to feel with your wrist or back of your hand. For best results, the crumb should be fairly cool before slicing so that the crumb is dry and does not stick or clump together too much when slicing. Serve at least some of the bread on the day of baking if possible but the remainder can be stored for a few days, well covered to ensure it does not dry and harden.

Pittza

My sister created this recipe with pitta bread as a base for a quick but authentic-tasting version of pizza. Amounts for the ingredients are not given nor is serving size since it is a very flexible recipe that you can adapt and scale based on taste and availability.

 

Ingredients

Pitta Breads

Tomato puree

Tomatoes

Red onion

Orange pepper

Garlic

Dried mixed herbs

Black pepper

Salt

Chilli flakes or sauce (optional)

Method

Preheat the oven to 200ᵒC/400ᵒF. Toast the Pitta breads in the oven for 5 minutes. While they are toasting, slice the tomato, and onion into very thin rings and the pepper into thin strips. Chop the garlic finely. Remove the pittas from the oven, spread thickly with tomato puree (add a few drops of chilli sauce for extra heat if required). Sprinkle over the chopped garlic and mixed herbs, and layer the sliced vegetables on top. Return to the oven for 5-10 minutes, until the vegetables are cooked and starting to brown at the edges. Sprinkle with more mixed herbs, a small pinch of salt, and chilli flakes or chilli sauce if desired.

Orange, chocolate, apricot, almond flat-breads

While it is not overly sweet, its combination of citrus, chocolate, dried fruits and nuts places this bread in the category of sweet breads. Since such breads are most commonly found in the form of loaves, for a change I decided to shape the dough into flat-breads. Just like their savoury counterparts, they are quicker to make, and equally flavoursome as loaves. The dough has a light chocolate flavour infused with orange and has bursts of a richer, intense  chocolate flavour from the chunks along with citrus-soaked apricots and crunchy bits of almond.

Makes: 8 flat-breads

Ingredients

2 cups wholewheat bread flour or chapatti flour/ atta (I like to use chapatti flour for making yeasted breads since it makes softer, lighter textured whole-grain breads)

1 teaspoon yeast

1 teaspoon grated orange zest

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

2 tablespoons brown sugar

2 tablespoons orange juice

2 tablespoons chopped apricots

2 tablespoons chopped, toasted almonds

4 tablespoons dark chocolate chopped into small chunks

A pinch of salt

¾ cup yoghurt

Method 
Toss the apricots in 1 teaspoon of the orange juice and set aside to soak. Mix the flour, cocoa powder, orange zest, yeast, sugar and salt in a large bowl. Add the yoghurt and the remaining orange juice and mix to a dough. It should be soft, sticky but stiff enough to knead. Knead for 7-8 minutes on a well-floured surface, adding more flour if necessary. Cover and leave to rise for 1–1½ hours in a fairly warm place until doubled in size.

Knead the risen dough briefly to deflate it, then flatten to a large circle. Sprinkle with the almonds apricots and chocolate chunks. Stretch and fold the edges of the dough over these ingredients. Knead again on a well-floured surface until the ingredients are fully incorporated. Ensure than the ingredients do not form clusters in the dough but are evenly spaced out. 

Preheat the oven to 190ᵒC /375ᵒF. Place a greased baking tray in the oven to heat. Divide the dough into 8 roughly equal sized pieces (see note). Roll each piece out to a thickness of about ½ cm/1/4 inch on a floured surface. Allow to rise for about 15-20 minutes, until puffy. Carefully transfer on the hot baking tray up to 2 breads at a time and bake them for 10-12 minutes until firm and golden. Serve hot.

NOTE:

The dough will make eight small flat breads. Since the breads are best eaten hot and freshly baked, if you are not serving all of the at once, just make as many as you want and refrigerate the remaining dough for up to 2 days.