theordinarycook

The Ordinary Cook loves to cook. If I am not cooking or baking then the chances are I am thinking about cooking and baking. I love sharing recipes and ideas and my website is my space to do this.

Hot cross buns

10 Comments / yeast cookery /

Easter will soon be on us and, if you believe the supermarket shelves, has been with us for some time. Hot cross buns are traditionally eaten on Good Friday.  My eldest daughter loves hot cross buns and since she has seen them by the entrance to the supermarket on a buy-one-get-one-free offer she keeps asking me to buy them.  They are much, much better when they are home-made, so this week it was time for my first batch of the year.  They are very good warm out of the oven, but equally good toasted the next day.  My recipe is based largely on Daniel Stevens’ in his Bread book (River Cottage Handbook No. 3) but with a few tweaks.  I didn’t have an orange in the fruit bowl for the finely grated zest of ½ orange that he states so I replaced a couple of tablespoons of milk with orange juice (out of the carton which is not as good as freshly grated zest, but needs must) and rather than glazing with sieved jam I used my favourite glaze of sugar syrup.

These were my most successful hot cross buns to date, probably helped by the lots of practice in bread making recently and also the lovely new KitchenAid doing all the hard work, (and of course to Daniel Stevens’ lovely book).

If you haven’t made hot cross buns before, I urge you to make them as soon as possible and enjoy them split open and spread with lots of butter, warm from the oven – heaven.

250g strong white bread flour
250g plain white flour
1 tsp mixed spice
125ml milk, (less 2 tablespoons if you are using orange juice instead of zest, see my comment above)
125ml water
7g sachet of easy-blend yeast
10g fine salt
50g caster sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
50g butter, softened and cubed
100g dried fruit (I used a mix of cherries, raisins and cranberries)
grated zest of ½ orange or 2 tbsp of orange juice

For the crosses:
plain flour
water

For the glaze:
2 tbsp caster sugar
2 tbsp water

Method

Warm the milk, water (and orange juice if you are using it) in a pan until hand hot.  Mix the flours, yeast, salt, sugar and mixed spice in a large bowl. Add the milk mixture and mix to a stiff dough.  Add the egg, the butter, the zest (if using) and the dried fruit and mix well.  Knead for about 10 minutes until elastic and smooth. If you have a free-standing mixer, simply add the dry and the wet ingredients together and combine using the dough hook and then add the dried fruit (and zest) and mix until the dough is smooth and elastic.  Place into a lightly greased bowl and cover with a bin liner or clingfilm and leave until doubled in size (1½-2 hours or longer depending on the warmth of your room).

Deflate the dough gently using your fingertips and split the dough into eight pieces and shape into buns.  Place onto a floured board and leave to prove for 20-30 minutes under the bin liner or cling film again.

To make the crosses you can mix the flour with enough water to make a stiff dough and roll out and cut strips that you stick to the top of the proved buns with a little water.  Alternatively, you can add water to the flour until it makes a paste that has the consistency of double cream and then fill a food bag with this, snip off one corner and pipe a cross on top.  I find this latter method much easier and I find the doughy crosses are too obtrusive and too bland tasting.

Place in an oven preheated to 200°c (gas mark 6) and bake for 15-20 minutes until golden and hollow sounding when tapped on the bottom.  Whilst they are cooking, heat the sugar and water for the glaze over a gentle heat until the sugar has melted and then brush over the buns as soon as they come out of the oven – finger licking good!

Hot cross buns Read More »

New addition!

10 Comments / The Ordinary Cook /

There are no recipes for this post, just a happy report on a brilliant new addition to my kitchen.  It’s my birthday today and this is what Mr OC got for me:

Yippee, hooray! Have you ever seen such a thing of beauty?

I have coveted a KitchenAid for many a year and now I am the very happy owner of one.  Tonight, I will definitely be dreaming of all the brilliant times that me and my KitchenAid will be sharing together.

I am one very happy Ordinary Cook!!!

New addition! Read More »

Granola

8 Comments / breakfast, The Ordinary Cook /

I still have some Total Yoghurt!  Well, they did give me a lot.  I have been meaning to make granola for ages.  Mr OC eats a lot of muesli and I have a sweet tooth so this is something that pleases both of us.

Before I made it I did a Google search to find different recipes that I could adapt to suit us and I was really pleased to see that Margaret’s post on her lovely blog Kitchen Delights came near the top.  My recipe is very similar to the one that Margaret uses, (if it meet’s Margaret’s expectations then who am I to argue?) just with a tweaking of added extras and a little less maple syrup.

It didn’t really clump together,maybe more maple syrup would have helped (so perhaps I should call it toasted,sweetened muesli instead?) but it tastes really good.  It is very good sprinkled over yoghurt or with milk.  It’s also lovely to dip your hand into when passing. The only problem I have with it is that I keep eating it.

300g porridge oats
100g pecan nuts
100g cashews
50g pumpkin seeds
50g pine kernels
20g macadamia
50 g dessicated coconut
40g dried cranberries
40g dried blueberries
40g dried cherries
100ml maple syrup
2 tbsp groundnut oil
2 tbsp local honey

Method

Spread the oats, nuts and seeds onto a baking sheet.  In a jug mix together the maple syrup, honey and oil.  Drizzle this over the oat mixture and stir.

Place the baking tray in the  centre of a preheated oven at 180°c and set the timer for five minutes.  It will take the mixture about 20 minutes in total to cook but you do need to stir it every five minutes because the mixture will cook quicker at the edges. When you have fetched it out and stirred it two or three times (about 15 minutes into the cooking) and it is beginning to colour add the desiccated coconut to the mix and stir to combine.  Cook for a further five minutes. When it looks and smells lovely and toasted take it out of the oven and leave to cool.  Add the berries and mix well.

Granola Read More »

Onion bhaji

18 Comments / chickpea, vegetarian /

Regular readers will know that I went a bit crazy in the flour aisle a few weeks ago and bought lots of different flours, including gram flour (ground chickpeas). Onion bhajis are, of course, the perfect way to use gram flour and as I had never made them I thought it was time to give them a go.

I am in no way claiming authenticity with this recipe as I read a few and made up my own on that basis, but these bhajis were very good, so do please give them a go. I think next time I will add more than 1 tsp of crushed chillies as they were fairly mild; necessitating Mr OC to chomp on a raw chilli to make up for it – but then he is addicted!

They went perfectly with the cucumber and cumin dip that I made to go with them.

2 onions
100g (4 oz) gram flour
1 tsp crushed chilli (or more if you want a greater kick to your bhaji), or you could use 1-2 fresh chillies chopped finely
1 heaped tsp cumin seed
1 heaped tsp coriander seed
1 tbsp oil
100ml warm water
salt to taste

Method

Put a frying pan onto a medium heat until hot and then add the coriander and cumin seeds and cook until they release their scent. Pour them straight into a mortar and pound them to a fine powder with the pestle (or a bowl and a rolling-pin will do the job just as well).

Sieve the gram flour into a large bowl. Add the coriander, cumin, chilli and salt.  Pour in the oil and water and mix to combine to a smooth batter. Leave to stand for 30 minutes.

Cut the onions in half and slice thinly. Add the onions to the batter and mix well.

Heat 4-5 cm of vegetable oil in a large pan until it reaches 170°c on a kitchen thermometer (or until a cube of bread turns golden brown in a few seconds).

Add spoonfuls of the batter, and you will need to do this 2-3 at a time or you will overcrowd the pan and they won’t cook properly.  Remove as soon as they turn a golden brown and drain on crumpled kitchen paper.  Keep warm until all the bhajis are cooked and serve as soon as possible.

Onion bhaji Read More »

Cucumber and cumin dip

3 Comments / curry, dip, yoghurt /

This post is very much related to the one about onion bhajis.  As regular readers will know Total Yoghurt have very kindly sent me a tray of samples  with which to cook.  So far I have made scones and buckwheat pancakes and this is recipe number three, giving the yoghurt centre stage.

This dip is a bit of a twist on a cucumber raita.  It’s not the time of year for mint in my garden and last year I failed to make my usual jar of mint concentrate and I refuse to pay the price of a pot from the supermarket when I have it rampant in my garden for most of the year.  So this is a winter version of a raita, replacing the fresh herb with a spice. It was very good and suited the onion bhajis perfectly.

200g Total Greek Yoghurt
8-10cm chunk of cucumber, diced
1½ tsp cumin seed

Method

Heat a frying pan over a medium heat until hot and add the cumin seed.  Cook for a few seconds until the smell is released.  Pour straight into a mortar and grind with the pestle to a rough powder (you still want the bite of the seed in there).

Mix the cucumber, yoghurt and cumin together and enjoy as a dip for crudites or bhajis or samosas, as a side for a curry or however you fancy eating such a delight.

Cucumber and cumin dip Read More »

Buckwheat pancakes

13 Comments / buckwheat, pancakes /

I started writing this blog because I love cooking and I think that writing this blog has made me love cooking even more.  I have always experimented and adapted but now I have even more reasons to do this.  Before I started this blog I didn’t follow other blogs, in fact it was a whole new world to me, one in which I am diving ever deeper all the time.  Reading other food blogs has sparked inspiration in many ways.  Choclette and her Chocolate Log Blog sparked an interest in using different types of flour and so I started with spelt, which I and Mr OC both love.  So whilst on a shopping trip to the supermarket which sells such things (well I do live in Shropshire!) I decided to make the longer trip worth our while and bought some buckwheat, kamut and gram flour too. So expect recipes featuring these soon!

Anyway, pancakes are not just for Shrove Tuesday in this house, they are a regular feature of the weekend breakfast, so on Saturday I decided to try buckwheat pancakes.  I also have lots of Total yoghurt sitting in the fridge, so this was another good reason to try out a slight variation on my usual scotch pancakes/ drop scones recipe.  Mr OC and I enjoyed them very much; they have a nutty sweetness to them.  The children who were expecting their usual recipe enjoyed them less, but that can be explained by the habitual nature of my children’s palates.

I served them with grilled bacon and maple syrup, which really set us up for the day.

225g (8oz) buckwheat flour
½ tsp baking powder
2 eggs
275ml (½ pint) whole milk
2 tbsp Total yoghurt

Method

Measure the flour  and baking powder into a bowl and make a well in the centre.  Add the eggs.  Mix the yoghurt and the milk together and pour half into the well with the eggs.  Whisk the mixture to a smooth batter and add the rest of the milk and whisk again until smooth.  The mixture should drop off the whisk with ease but be quite thick.  You want it to sit in small puddles when you put it onto the pan.  If you think it is too thick, then add a little more milk.

Heat a pan until hot.  If your pan is not non-stick or seasoned then you may need a dot of oil wiped over the pan with a piece of kitchen towel. Using a ladle spoon on four pools of batter.  Cook for a minute or so, small bubbles should appear all over the surface. Turn the pancake and cook for another minute.  Serve with the topping of your choice.  Butter and maple syrup are good, as is jam, or lemon curd, or indeed bacon and maple syrup.

Buckwheat pancakes Read More »

Cheese, herb and yoghurt scones

11 Comments / bread, scones, yoghurt /

As a result of my membership of the UK Food Bloggers Association I found out that Total yoghurt were giving away a selection of their yoghurt in return for bloggers coming up with recipes that use yoghurt.  Having been a long-time fan of Total yoghurt I had to put my name forward for this one.  Sure enough a hefty delivery of yoghurt arrived, including the full-fat version, 2% and 0% fat, and even ones with corners of honey to drizzle straight into the waiting yoghurt pot.  My first foray into yoghurt cooking are these scones.  I have wanted to make soda scones (or indeed bread) with yoghurt instead of buttermilk for a while, so this was the perfect opportunity.  I had made minestrone soup and left it to simmer gently in the simmering oven of the Aga whilst I took the girls to the local play pit for an afternoon of racing around with their friends.  So, when we came in all I had to do was add the pasta, warm the soup bowls and make these scones to go with the soup.

They take very little time to make and are a delicious accompaniment to soup.  They were also good the next day, reheated and refreshed by a five-minute burst in the oven, and spread thickly with marmalade.

You could do almost endless variations of these; leaving them plain, or adding olives, chopped crispy bacon bits, chopped Peppadew peppers, your favourite herb or spice, or you could add currants and raisins for a fruity scone.

The addition of yoghurt made them more dense than I think they would have been had I used buttermilk (or milk with added lemon juice, if you don’t have any buttermilk, see my post on soda bread for an explanation) but I think in this case this was a bonus as it suited the minestrone soup perfectly.  You may not be quite so happy with your tea-time scone being this heavy, though.

I used half plain and half spelt flour as I love the nuttiness of the spelt, but you could use all plain flour for a lighter scone or use half plain and half wholemeal.  Feel free to experiment.

220g (8oz) plain flour
220g (8oz) spelt flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda (bread soda or baking soda)
1 tsp salt
½ tsp dried thyme
50g (2oz) grated cheese (I used Red Leicester)
500g Total yoghurt
100ml milk
juice of ½ lemon

Method

Mix the flours and salt in a bowl and sieve in the soda.  Sprinkle in the thyme and the cheese and mix well with your hand to get it all evenly mixed.

In a jug or bowl, mix the yoghurt, milk and lemon juice and then pour this into the flour mixture.  Mix with your hand until combined.  Place on to a floured surface and roll to a depth of about 2-3 cm.  Using an 8cm cutter cut out scones with one tap.  Don’t turn the cutter or the scones will fail to rise. Try to do this as quickly as possible as you need to get these in the oven whilst the soda is still doing its magic. Place onto a floured baking tray and bake in a preheated oven at 220°c (gas mark 8) (or on the floor of the roasting oven of the Aga)  for 15-20 minutes until golden brown.   Allow to cool for five minutes, but they are best served warm, with lashings of good butter.

Cheese, herb and yoghurt scones Read More »

Potato, cabbage and sausage gratin

4 Comments / cabbage, potato, sausages /

This gratin came about from a mixture of things.  I love boulangere potatoes, and a few weeks ago I had a cabbage in the cupboard waiting to be used so I added a layer of cabbage and I was surprised at how good it was.  Then Rachel from Rachel Eats did the most amazing take on Rowley Leigh’s Cabbage and Sausage Cake, her majestic oak tree, as it became known.  Now, before I had read Rachel’s words on the Cabbage and Sausage cake nobody could have convinced me to try such a thing.  However, I was convinced by her words and the art of her photography that it had to be a good thing, so I made it one night a couple of weeks ago.  It tasted divine.  Mine didn’t look as good as Rachel’s, well for one thing I nearly dropped it as I turned it out, but it tasted very good indeed and probably even better reheated the next day. So, I thought perhaps a bit of sausage may just work in my potato and cabbage gratin. And, do you know? It does. So, thank you to Rachel for the inspiration.

When Mr OC ‘phoned me today and asked what was for tea, which is his habit (sometimes he asks me this question when he ‘phones as he walks from the train station to work.  The man thinks about his stomach a great deal! ) and I suggested a potato, cabbage and sausage gratin, I could tell from his tone that he thought this may be a bad idea.  But when he was halfway through eating it tonight he declared it “actually quite good, not as bad as I thought it would be”. I suppose this may not be considered high praise, but his plate was wiped clean by the end so I am taking it as such. He even declared that it didn’t need the gravy that I had forgotten to make.  Anyway, my view on the matter is that it is delicious, and that goes for the dish with or without the sausage.

4 – 5 medium-sized potatoes
5-6 leaves from a savoy cabbage
4-5 good quality sausages
2 cloves of garlic
25g butter
570ml (1 pint) chicken or vegetable stock
½ tsp dried thyme
salt and pepper

Method

Bring a pan of salted water to the boil and blanch the cabbage leaves for two to three minutes.  Drain and rinse under cold running water to cool quickly and fix the green colour.  Shred the cabbage.

Peel the potatoes and slice thinly.  Chop the garlic finely.  Skin the sausages.

Generously butter a gratin dish and layer half the potato, topped with a layer of half the cabbage.  Season with salt and pepper and sprinkle over the chopped garlic.  Dot lumps of the sausage meat over. Layer the remaining cabbage, followed by the remaining potato.  Pour over the stock.  Season and sprinkle with the thyme and dot with the remaining butter.

Cover the dish with foil and cook in a preheated oven at 200°c (gas mark 6) for 30 minutes.  Remove the foil and return to the oven for a further 30-40 minutes until the top is golden and crusty. Serve with good bread to mop up the juices.

Preparing the gratin

Potato, cabbage and sausage gratin Read More »

Goat’s cheese ravioli with pesto

10 Comments / pasta /

I am so pleased that this was a success.  Mr OC suggested we should have it for tea on Saturday night and whilst I was all for it in the taste department I wasn’t sure that our pasta making skills had been tested enough for it to be a success.  When I posted about making our own pasta, Wendy of The Omnivorous Bear had commented how her attempt at ravioli had been disastrous.  Bearing all this in mind, I agreed that we would give it a go, but I did avoid the wine until it was on the plate just in case I had to make a last-minute dash to the Indian Take- Away.

I was expecting the seal to not work and the filling to be lost in the water and our dinner to be given to the chickens. But, no, the ravioli was a blinding success, we both loved it and not one of the ravioli split.

The trick is definitely in the sealing; making sure that there are absolutely no gaps.

We made the pasta ahead of time, feeding the girls their portion, getting them to bed and then working together to put prepare the ravioli.  It was a time-consuming exercise and I don’t think we will be doing this on a weekly basis, or for when there are more than two mouths to feed.  But it was therapeutic and the taste of the ravioli was well worth the effort.

I made a pesto sauce to go with it, which was very good, but not really necessary as the ravioli would have been delicious, perhaps more so, without it.

You will find the recipe for the pasta here. I use 200g of plain ’00’ flour and 2 whole eggs (or 4 egg yolks) for 2 servings.

For the filling:

100g goat’s cheese
3 Peppadew peppers
handful of basil leaves

Method

Remove the rind of the goat’s cheese and crumble into a bowl.  Chop the peppers and tear the basil and add both to the cheese and mix well.

Roll out the pasta and cut out into rounds using a 5cm cutter. Place a small amount of filling on to a round and place another round on top and seal very well, making sure that there are no gaps.  Place onto a plate dusted with semolina.  Continue with the rest of the pasta.

Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and carefully tip in the pasta.  Boil for one to two minutes until the pasta is tender.  Drain and dress with oil or with pesto.

For the pesto sauce:

50g (2oz) basil leaves
1-2 cloves garlic
25g (1oz) pine kernels
6 tbsp oil (it is usual to use olive oil, but I use rapeseed oil)
25g (1oz) parmesan or pecorino

Method

Place the basil leaves, garlic and pine kernels into a food processor and pulse to a smoothish purée (or use a pestle and mortar). Add the oil and mix briefly. Scrape into a bowl and add the cheese and mix well.

Preparing the ravioli
Ravioli ready to cook

Goat’s cheese ravioli with pesto Read More »

Fruit salad

8 Comments / pudding /

This is what I call a proper fruit salad, it’s the fruit salad that we used to have as kids after sunday lunch.  This is the very reason I made it this weekend. We don’t have pudding in the week, but we do always have pudding after sunday dinner and we don’t just have one option.  Oh no, there are always at least two pudding options, sometimes three and it has been known to escalate to five if we are having sunday dinner down at my mum’s and there are other guests coming. This week I made chocolate brioche pudding, fruit salad and brandy snaps, and semolina (served with dollops of strawberry jam, of course).

Fruit salad is easy to put together and you can use whatever fruit you have in your fruit bowl, being as exotic or as ordinary as you like.  I much prefer it made in the morning so that it has a few hours for the sugar syrup to take on the fruity flavours and it is lovely the next day too.  Lashings of double cream are almost obligatory and if you have the time then a biscuit such as a brandy snap or a tuile is a wonderful addition.

100g caster sugar ( I always use golden for a lovely caramel colour)
100ml water
juice of 1 lemon
A selection of your favourite fruit, sliced ( I used 1 apple, 1 pear, 1 kiwi, 1 clementine and a handful of grapes)

Method

Place the sugar and water in a pan and heat gently to dissolve the sugar.  Allow to simmer for a minute or so.  Remove from the heat and squeeze in the juice of 1 lemon, this will help to counteract the sweetness of the sugar syrup but also will stop the fruit from turning brown.  Allow the syrup to cool and then add the sliced fruit, giving it all a good mix so that every piece of fruit gets covered in the syrup (to prevent any browning).  Place in the fridge for the flavours to develop, but bring it out about 30 minutes before you want to serve as it tastes much better than straight out of the fridge.

Fruit salad Read More »