Wednesday Night Pizza

One of the things I dread most is a dinner rota. It's Tuesday, it must be spaghetti. Thursday night is curry. And Sunday? Sunday is the dreaded roast dinner, with the same meat and vegetables as we cooked badly last week.

Individually, there's nothing wrong with any of these for dinner. The banality comes from the inevitably of the same seven dishes wheeled out each week, rather than the food. Back in catered halls, I was initially impressed with the variety and quality of the menus. It was only after a few months when vegetable bake rolled round yet again that I began to dismay.

We didn't have a full rota when I was child, but there were some days that had dinner assigned. Saturday would be fajitas (My father eats everything with a knife and fork, even fajitas. He would go out on Saturday nights so we would take the opportunity to eat with our hands.) The horror of the Sunday roast, followed by a light dinner of taramasalata and pitta bread.*

I looked forward to Wednesday though. Wednesday was pizza night. My dad always cooked on pizza night, using a slab of stone to get extra heat in the oven, and gently pushing the dough to fill the pizza trays. I'd help make the tomato sauce, or mix the dough. I'd be first to volunteer for cutting up the kabanos, sneaking the end slices in to my mouth when I thought no one was looking.

Pizza with peppers, kabanos, olives, mushroom & an egg.

This recipe is far from authentic. It features the aforementioned kabanos (usually we'd buy it from the Polski Sklep, but in this part of Scotland I have to make do with ambient kabanos. Nice.) and a tinned tomato sauce. I'm sure most Italians would probably laugh in disgust. It's invented by a man who hadn't tasted pizza until his late twenties, and garnished with whatever leftovers can be scavenged from the salad drawer.

Ambient Kabanos. Next week - trance wiejska

*looking back, I realise this is quite a weird thing to have for dinner once a week for around 10 years.

Wednesday Night Pizza
Serves 2

Dough
175g plain flour
pinch of sugar and salt
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp dried yeast

1) Place all the ingredients in a bowl, and add a splash of warm water.
2) Mix until a smooth dough is formed - you may need to add more water.
3) Knead for around 5 minutes until soft and supple. Place in a oiled bowl, then cover with a damp cloth. Leave to rise for at least 30 mins.

Tomato Sauce
1 small onion
1 clove of garlic
1 tsp anchovy paste
1 tbsp tomato puree
1 can of chopped tomatoes
Sprinkle of dried oregano
Salt and pepper

1) Chop the onion and garlic as finely as you can. Gently fry them for 5 minutes, until soft but not coloured.
2) Add in the anchovy paste and tomato puree. Cook for 1 minute.
3) Pour in the chopped tomatoes, oregano and season.
4) Bring the pan to a gently simmer, and stir occasionally.
5) The sauce is ready once it's very thick and the chunks of tomato are almost totally broken down. Dragging a spoon through the pan should leave a clean line. This usually takes around 20 mins.

Thick tomato sauce

Toppings
I like kabanos, peppers, anchovies, capers, fresh egg, olives, mushrooms and mozzarella. Not necessarily all at once.

Assembly
1) Preheat the oven to the highest setting.
2) Gently stretch the pizza dough over an oiled baking sheet*. You'll need to prod and poke it in to place. Make it slightly bigger as it will shrink a little as you put the toppings on.
3) Spread a thin layer of sauce on the dough, and add your toppings.
4) Blast in the hot oven for 8-10 minutes.
*If you are really clever, you can stretch the dough on to a floured plate, and slide it directly on to a scorching hot baking sheet. This makes for a crispy crust, but runs the risk of your pizza disintegrating in to a heap.

Italian Bread

After taking T's brother and his girlfriend to a couple of restaurants over the long weekend, we decided that Saturday night should be a bit quieter (and cheaper!). We decided on a games night, with pizzas, beers, and perhaps even a bit of X-Factor thrown in.

I wanted to make something for people to nibble on, that was a bit more interesting than a bowl of crisps or nuts. Riffling through Leith's, I found a recipe for "Italian Bread". I'd also seen this post on Wild Yeast, which made me really want focaccia.

Italian Bread served with olive oil

The recipe itself is pretty quick to pull together, although the kneading time of 8 minutes is a bit of a killer if you are lacking in upper body strength. I mixed in a handful of chopped sun-dried tomatoes and some fresh basil, but rosemary, cheese or olives would also be tasty.

My two food fears are baking with yeast and deep-frying. Luckily this recipe didn't involve deep frying, but it did involve yeast. The last few times I've used yeast, I've seemed unable to get any rise out of it. However, on this occasion, an hour in a previously warmed oven seemed to do the trick.

Italian Bread flavoured with Sundried Tomatoes and Basil

I was initially a bit disappointed, as the bread was quite hard and crusty. It was still tasty, but it wasn't as soft as I was expecting. Left overnight, it softened up a bit, but still was a bit too tough and crusty for my liking.

Slightly too crusty.

I think if I was to make this again, I'd give the Wild Yeast recipe a go instead. It's fairly similar to the Leith's one, but the photos look less crusty so the small tweaks obviously make a difference.

Italian Bread (Leiths Cookery Bible)
Makes 1 large loaf

30g fresh yeast (I used a 7g sachet of quick yeast)
225ml warm water
450g strong flour
2 tsp salt
4 tbsp olive oil
coarse salt to sprinkle over the top

1) Dissolve the yeast in the warm water.
2) Put the flour and salt in a large bowl and make a well in the centre. Mix in 2tbsp of the oil and the yeast mixture.
3) Once a dough in formed, knead well for 8 minutes. (After kneading, I added a handful of sundried tomatoes and some chopped basil.)
4) Roll the dough out until it is about 2cm thick. Place on to a greased baking sheet and cover with greased clingfilm.
5) Leave the dough to rise in a warm place until it is soft and fluffy looking. Preheat the oven to 200C
6) Make some indentations in the dough with your finger, and drizzle over the last 2tbsp of oil. Sprinkle over coarse salt, or you could use woody herbs like rosemary.
7) Bake for 20 minutes, then remove from the tray and bake directly on the oven rack for a further 10 minutes.

Orangey Honey Buns

My obsession with the latest Valentine Warner book continues. The Orangey Honey Buns had caught my eye straight away, and the quest to use up as much stuff in the cupboards before moving meant I had a packet of instant yeast wanting a home.

The buns were pretty easy to make, although the dough seemed to want to travel up my whisk in to my mixer instead of staying on the beaters. After a few attempts to scrape it out of the top of the beaters, I gave up and mixed it by hand.

The dough rose easily, and tiny blobs in each of the muffin holes soon grew to almost overflowing. Given my last attempt at baking with Valentine Warner ended in a burnt meringue, I went for the lower timing estimate.

Valentine Warner must be testing his recipes using the coldest oven in the world! I never normally have trouble with baking (my oven is pretty new and accurate) so I rarely check things too closely. After 12 minutes the buns were very very very black. Oh dear. However, after letting them cool, they hadn't hardened up too much. Even though they weren't golden, they didn't seem to be charcoal either.

Orangey Honey Buns

I forged on with making the syrup, which was very easy (and so tasty that I had a few spoonfuls while making it... just to test obviously). I served a couple of the buns straight away with the hot syrup, and put the rest in a jar in the fridge.

The buns were a little chewy on the outside, but the inside was still soft and spongy. It reminded me a lot of a rum baba. While it would have been slightly tastier (and much prettier) without the black tops, it didn't really completely ruin the dish either. The sticky syrup soaked in to the buns quickly, and they crumbled easily when attacked with a spoon. The ones that have been left to soak are almost liquid inside, with each bubble in the sponge containing syrup instead of air.

I'm having to resist eating these all the time. The jar in the fridge is calling me. I even ate some for breakfast, which is definitely not good for my health. The recipe suggests serving with whipped cream, but I think a nice blob of vanilla ice cream would also be lovely, especially if the buns are still warm. I've been having mine with creme fraiche and a chunk of the candied orange peel used in the syrup. The sourness of the creme fraiche cuts through the syrup well.

Still golden inside

I would recommend this recipe, but if you have a halfway decent oven, I would check the buns after 8 minutes and then proceed carefully. Don't worry too much if they do get a bit dark, but if food aesthetics are important to you, watch closely...

English Muffins

Sometimes while perusing the internet, or reading a magazine or cook book, a certain recipe will jump out at me. Not in a "I should make this later" kind of way, but "I MUST MAKE THIS NOW" kind of way.

They tend to be simple, and use store-cupboard ingredients. Just as some people emotionally eat, I emotionally bake. When it's late at night, and you give me recipe using things I have in the cupboard, I'm totally going to go for it.

The last time I had an impulse bake I made raspberry muffins, but this time it was cinnamon raisin English muffins. I started just after midnight, so that was a good idea. Washing up at 3am was not fun. Watching Psychoville on iplayer while waiting for the batter to rise was more fun, although that is not the best show to watch on your own late at night!

However, the muffins were really easy to make, although I didn't have enough milk so I used watered down fromage frais instead. I have no idea what effect this had on the muffins, but the batter looked the right consistency so I ploughed on regardless.

The ongoing dilemma of the misshapen frying pan meant that it was hard to get the muffins to stay round and cook at the right speed, but they came out of the pan looking presentable enough. I left them overnight to cool, and toasted them for breakfast.

Bad muffins!

They were not good at all! They were still yeasty and uncooked inside, and unpleasantly chewy. I think I must have had them over too high a heat, as the outside was burning but the inside wasn't cooked through yet. This should teach me to attempt yeasted goods at 2am.