Basic bread Making bread is hard; making bread is easy. A lot of that is because making bread requires both exact attention to detail, and experience to recognise the condition of your dough. All of which means that you are going to fail a lot: at first. So as to minimise this, I’m going to try to describe a basic bread recipe that should work, with minimal opportunity to fail.
Ingredients 30ml/2 tbs oil 1 tin tomatoes (400g) 1/2 onion 1 clove of garlic Equipment spatula medium sized saucepan Method This is a sauce mainly for pasta, but it works very well with all sorts of other dishes: on plain boiled rice, with chicken (plain grilled or breaded), fish, pork chops, or with burgers or meat loaf. I’ll start with the core basic recipe, and suggest a few variations.
This is what I would want to find in any kitchen.
Knives. 0) a good quality sharpening steel. 1) An 8-10" cook’s knife, with sharpening steel, and some form of storage, is the bare minimum. Most people don’t take enough care with their knives, and keep them blunt - that needs fixing. I can do most things comfortably with a 10" cooks knife, including peeling vegetables (by scraping, which works better than paring if the knife is sharp).
This is the generic recipe for any kind of (sweet) crumble - the loose, slightly crunchy, topping that is more satisfying than a straightforward pastry crust. My favourite filling for a crumble is pear and banana.
Crumble topping, stolen from Nigel Slater:
120g plain flour (4oz) 85g butter (3 oz) 4 tbs golden caster sugar (4oz) 4 tbs ground almonds (2oz?) Rub in the butter and flour to a breadcrumbs texture.
This is the sort of thing usually served with roast pork, pork chops, or goose. I’ll give a couple of variations, plus a family recipe that I have never seen elsewhere. It also makes a great filling for crepes/pancakes - put several in a buttered dish, glaze with sugar/caramel, bake for 10 minutes and serve.
Traditional Apple Sauce Take one Bramley (cooking) apple, core, peel and slice it. Put in a small saucepan with a couple of tablespoons of water, and a tablespoon of sugar (at your discretion).
Shortcrust This is sufficient for a double crust 23cm / 9" pie.
220g / 8 oz plain flour 110g / 4 oz fat (either all butter, or half/half butter and lard) pinch salt approx 45ml/3 tbs cold water Make sure that the fat is straight from the fridge. Sift the flour into a mixing bowl, and cut up the fat with a cold knife into the flour, so that it becomes coated with the flour as you cut it.
Enough for a generous serving for one person.
300g/ 1.5 cup macaroni (half pint size) a dessertspoon plain white flour same quantity of unsalted butter; can use oil or other fat in a pinch 3/4 pint milk (half litre) 55 - 110g/ 2-4 oz cheese, grated (enough for 3-4 good sized handfuls) Equipment:
spoon spatula small and large saucepans small/medium Pyrex casserole/dish grater (you can use a potato peeler if stuck for one) First, make the cheese sauce.