Spring pizza

Ramps were the one I hadn't tried in the Northeast Spring trinity (the other two in the trinity being fiddleheads and morels). They are essentially wild leeks, and while they grow in other places too people seems to be particularly nuts about them around here. I'd given up hope of eating ramps this year: Spring is basically over, and I thought my last chance had come and gone in Philly. But then they were selling them in the canteen at work (about the last place I would have expected!): they weren't in the best nick but good enough and I couldn't resist, so I bought a bunch.

But then, what to do with them? I settled on pizza as a good way of extending a small quantity of a fancy ingredient. I decided they would go well with hazelnuts, but otherwise wanted to keep that one simple. But figured we would need more than one pizza, so made enough dough and a second pizza with a riot of colourful (mostly green) Spring tastes on it. I wanted to explore a few more things regarding pizza: hoping for a good, quickish dough recipe, using 00 flour (bought by accident a while ago when looking for pasta flour, but probably perfect for pizza?), pre-heating our cast-iron pan / sliding prepped pizza onto hot pan, and freezing dough for future use. Decided to try out Jamie Oliver's recipe, as it contained both 00, semolina and olive oil, all of which seemed right in pizza, and also it proves in one hour (not unreasonable).

For the dough:
(makes enough for 4 smallish or 3 bigger pizzas)
3 1/2 cups strong white bread flour / 00 flour
(or 2 1/2 cups strong white bread flour / 00 flour plus 1 cup finely ground semolina flour (pasta flour))
1/2 tbsp fine sea / desert salt
1 3/4 tbsp dried yeast
1/2 tbsp raw sugar
2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 1/4 cups lukewarm water

Toppings for ramp pizza:
~4 tbsp tomato puree
1 tsp dandelion-ramp miso
1 tsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp olive oil
salt and pepper
1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 bunch (5) ramps, cleaned, trimmed, separated into bulbs and leaves and chopped
~8 hazelnuts, toasted and chopped (add after baking)

Toppings for green pizza:
1/2 cup frozen broad beans (without jackets), defrosted
1/2 cup frozen peas, defrosted
1-2 tbsp mint leaves
1 tsp olive oil
1/2 tsp lemon juice
salt+pepper
1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 small bulb fresh spring garlic, trimmed and chopped (including green parts)
bunch of spring greens: nasturtium leaves, radish leaves, rocket leaves, roughly chopped (~1 cup when chopped)
5 black olives, de-pitted and chopped
1 tbsp sunflower seeds
1 piece of dry tofu, thinly sliced
flowers from 2 chive flowerheads (add after baking)

Mix the flours (I used the mixture of 00 and semolina) and salt with a fork, then dump on a clean work surface and make a well in the middle. In a large measuring jug, mix the yeast, sugar and olive oil into the water and leave for a few minutes. Add some of the liquid mix to the well, then bring in the flour, continuing to add the liquid and bring in the flour gradually until you have used all the liquid and the dough starts to come together. Knead for about 10 min, until the dough is smooth and springy. Put the ball of dough in a large flour-dusted bowl, cover with a damp cloth and leave somewhere warm for about 1 hour until the dough has doubled in size.

Meanwhile, prepare the toppings. For the ramp pizza, mix together the tomato puree, vinegar, 1 tsp olive oil, salt+pepper and miso, then thin with a little water until a good spreading consistency. Heat 1/2 tbsp olive oil in a frying pan, then add the white parts of the ramps and fry for a few minutes until starting to soften. Add green parts, season and fry for a minute or two more until wilted. For the green pizza, put the broad beans, peas, mint, 1 tsp olive oil, salt+pepper and lemon juice in a blender cup and blend until they become a smooth, green puree. Cook the garlic and spring greens together as for the ramps, adding the garlic first and then the greens.

Punch down the dough. Divide the dough into 3-4 balls (one per pizza). You can either use it immediately, or keep it, wrapped in clingfilm, in the fridge (or freezer) until required (I used two balls for this and put two more in the freezer*). For immediate use, roll a dough ball out to a rough circle about 1/4 inch thick. Transfer to a piece of baking paper scattered with semolina on top of a large wooden board. Put a pizza stone, cast iron pizza pan or baking sheet in the oven and heat to 450F. Arrange the toppings on the dough circle: smear the puree or sauce across the surface, taking it right up close to the edges, then sprinkle with the remaining ingredients (except stuff to be added after baking). Open the oven and carefully slide the paper and pizza onto the heated stone or pan. Bake for ~20 min, until the pizza is lightly browned and puffy around the edges. Remove from the oven, allow to cool for a minute or two, then sprinkle with the final toppings (hazelnuts on ramp pizza, chive flowers on green pizza) before eating.


Both came out pretty good. The sliding onto pizza pan worked out pretty good, and the dough puffed up nicely (although there is definitely a sweet spot with thickness - it is possible to go too thin and end up with something super crispy that doesn't really puff up and browns instantly at the edges). I liked both topping combinations: ramps and hazelnuts definitely go well together, and the radish/nasturtium/rocket mix was very tasty with the green puree, sunflower seeds and pretty purple chive flowers.

*To use dough from the freezer, take frozen dough balls out to defrost ~2 hours before you want to use them (I had no problems with them sticking to the clingfilm or anything like that). When they are soft, you can roll them out as for the fresh dough and proceed from there. 

Fresh, eggless pasta

S loves pasta, but not the eggy variety: good quality dried pasta is his favourite. I thought it might be fun to try making him fresh pasta without egg. I used this recipe as a reference, and then guessed from there

(makes enough for two people)

1 cup plain flour
1 cup pasta flour (extra fancy durum wheat plus unenriched golden semolina)
1 tbsp gram flour
1 tsp salt
water

Put the flours and salt in a pile on a clean work surface and mix them a little with your fingers, keeping it together as a heap. Make a hollow in the middle and pour in a few tbsp of water. Mix with your fingers. Add more water, mixing and kneading until the dough just comes together. Knead for a few minutes until it is smooth and pliable. Wrap in cling film and put in the fridge for 20 min or a bit longer.

Pull off about 1/3 of the dough and make it into a little ball. Dust a clean work surface generously with flour. Roll the dough out with a rolling pin until it is thin: 3 mm or less.

Cut the rolled out dough into pieces of the shape you want. I just made fettuccine type strips, cutting with a dinner knife from S's grandmother's set. Move the shaped pasta to a well-floured baking tray until you are ready to cook it. Repeat the rolling and cutting steps until all the dough is prepared.

Bring a large pan of slightly salted water to a boil. Add the fresh cut pasta. Cook for 3-5 minutes, until it is al dente. Drain and toss with some olive oil. Serve however you like.


This worked pretty well: the dough rolled out quite thin, better than I expected, and was not at all sticky either before or after cooking. It was whiter in colour than egg pasta, due to the lack of orange egg yolks in it. Perhaps adding a couple of tbsp gram flour would be a good thing to try (edited in as I tried this and liked it)? Infinite scope in the shapes we could make too: perhaps some ravioli, or pappardelle, or anything really. I dried some we didn't cook by spreading it out on a floured baking tray and putting it in the oven (off, but it has a pilot light so is always a little warm) overnight. We ate it the next day so not sure yet about how long it lasts when dried but S I think preferred cooking it from dried.

Valentines Biscuits I: Lemon, lavender and semolina

I love this flavour combination, and these tasted great, but the texture is off: perhaps needed a bit more fat or a bit of lemon juice. This recipe needs some work - these ones were similar but better, although I do like the idea of including semolina.

3 oz plain flour
1 oz semolina
1 tsp lavender flowers, coarsely ground
grated zest of 1 lemon
1 oz sugar
small pinch salt
4 tbsp olive oil

Heat oven to 350F. Mix semolina, flour, lavender, lemon zest, salt and sugar in a bowl with a fork. Add olive oil and rub / mix until it comes together to make a dough. Shape into small, flattened discs and place on a greased baking sheet. Bake for ~20 min.

Squash, chanterelle and sage flatbread / pizza

My lab hosted a pumpkin themed happy hour on Friday, and it was out of control. We ran a pumpkin carving competition, delivering pumpkins to each lab / group (17 in total) a week in advance and then fanning a wildfire of competing posters from different groups advertising why you should vote for them (in homage to the upcoming election). Then on Friday we made a feast of pumpkin based food, decorated the department in orange and black, ran the ballots for the competition and awarded the trophies (gold-painted gourds on pedestals). The food making was epic: I hacked up 11 butternut squashes with a crappy knife and I've got a blister to prove it. Everything we made contained something squash: pumpkin bruschetta (baguette slices with a smear of baked squash, plus some combination of goat cheese, cranberries, pumpkin seeds, fresh coriander and seasoning), 'squashamole' (dip made with mashed baked squash, lime juice, chopped red onion, ground cumin, chopped coriander and seasoning) with hexagonal multigrain chips (Paul's special request / invention), roasted butternut squash and tofu chunks with rosemary / sage, wild and brown rice mix with toasted pumpkin seeds and fresh coriander, roasted squash seeds with cajun spice, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin pie, and pumpkin-white chocolate muffins. We bought the baguettes and the pumpkin pies but we made pretty much everything else from scratch.

So, I couldn't imagine eating another squash after all that, what with the blister and the overexposure. But a lazy Sunday rolled around and S popped up wondering what was for lunch, and I remembered an idea I had of using baked squash instead of tomato sauce on pizza... And also that I had a tub of baked squash left over from happy hour in the fridge, plus a batch of bread mix, the last of the chanterelles and some rosemary and sage from Andrea's yard - seemed like an irresistible plan!

2 orange-sized chunks of dough
1-2 cups of baked squash (peel removed)
1-2 tbsp olive oil
salt+pepper
1 small onion, finely sliced
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped
8 black salty olives, pits removed, torn into quarters
3/4 cup chanterelles, checked for imperfections and torn into large pieces (sliced chestnut mushrooms would be a decent out-of-season substitute)
1 tsp chopped sage leaves
1 tsp chopped rosemary leaves
semolina / corn meal for lining the baking trays
(optional cheese - S is still eating his way through the cheese mountain his mum left behind, so he put some brie and parmesan on his bits)

Heat the oven to 450F. Roll or stretch out the dough as thin as you can - try to get down to ~2 mm thick.  Move the pizza base to a baking tray pre-sprinkled with semolina or coarse corn meal (this quantity is for 2 pizzas).

Mash the baked squash with olive oil, salt and pepper. Smear the bases with the squash mixture, making an uneven covering 2-3 mm thick. Scatter the onion, garlic, olives, chanterelles and herbs over the top, and season / drizzle a wee drop more olive oil over the top.

Put the baking trays in the oven and bake for about 20 minutes / until the crust is crisp and starting to brown around the edges and the toppings are cooked. Remove, let cool for a minute and then eat.


This was a very successful experiment all round. It was a lovely, rich, colourful pizza topping combination that tasted great, and the base came out really crisp. The high speed bread mix worked great as pizza base (which is brilliant news - that stuff is super useful); lining the trays with semolina / cornmeal was much better than using flour; and the squash made a wonderful, very seasonal sauce (less wet than tomato although still moist, perhaps this contributed to the crispness).

Royal wedding afternoon tea

We decided to have an afternoon teaparty to celebrate the Royal Wedding (William and Catherine). It was kind-of Nick's idea, then I ran with it, with Seb's encouragement. I made loads of Union Jack bunting of all sizes, and a ridiculous collage - all from scrap paper and a few print-outs. We bought six teacups and saucers and a teapot and 2 tablecloths all from thrift stores (about $15 total). And then made lots and lots of food and drink...

Green tea buns (L); cucumber+mint sandwiches (top), savoury scones (middle), tomato+basil sandwiches (bottom)

Savoury:

Cucumber and mint sandwiches (on light wholewheat bread that I thought would be white)
Tomato and basil sandwiches (on wholewheat bread)
Tomato, olive and rosemary scones (GF)
Pretzels (Seb's)

Sweet:

Tealoaf
Green tea buns
Orange, semolina and orange blossom cake
Raisin scones with strawberry jam / lemon 'curd'
Peanut butter cookies (GF)
Whole, fresh strawberries

Drinks:

Mint tea (from Bella's watering can)
Various black teas (mostly Earl Grey) - thanks to Nick and Alvin for lending teapots
Pimms (with lemonade, fizzy grapefruit juice, mint, strawberries, oranges and cucumber)
Lemon slices, sugar, almond milk to go with

Other people brought:

Scones (Beth + Per)
Blueberry and Apricot pies (Luis and Ana)
Hummus, falafel and pitta from Rami's (Kishore, Suzanne and Ramil)
Gingersnaps (Andrea)
Digestive biscuits, cake stand, teapot, tea and milk (Nick)
GF chocolate cookies, teapot and tea (Alvin)
Mini cupcakes and lemon sugar cookies (Katy)
Prep and washing-up skills (Andy)


Tealoaf

2 Earl Grey teabags
125g golden caster sugar
300g mixed dried fruit (raisins, golden raisins, currants and candied peel)
225g plain flour, sifted
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
Zest and juice of 1 unwaxed lemon
2 tbsp clear honey, to glaze

Place the tea bags in a heat-proof bowl and add 300ml boiling water. Leave to steep for 5 minutes. Remove the tea bags, add the sugar and stir to dissolve. Add the fruit and leave in a cool place to stand for between 4-12 hours, depending on how much time you have.

When ready to cook the tealoaf, preheat the oven to 180°C / 356F / gas mark 4. Line a 1kg loaf tin with baking parchment.

Drain the fruit and mix in some flour (to coat raisins and stop them sinking). Add the flour and the zest and juice of the lemon to the tea mixture and beat well. Add the fruit back in and beat some more. Pour into the lined tin and bake for 1-1¼ hours, or until golden on top / a skewer comes out clean. Allow the loaf to cool in the tin for 10 minutes. While it’s cooling, warm the honey slightly in a small pan or microwave then brush the honey over the top of the loaf with a pastry brush. Serve thinly sliced, with tea.


Green tea buns

1 1/4 cups plain flour
3/4 cups sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
3-4 tsp green tea powder (I just ground up some dried leaves)
1/3 cup canola oil
1 cup rice milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
juice of 1 small lime (~2 tbsp)

For icing:
~1 tbsp margarine
1 cup icing sugar
1/8-1/4 tsp green tea powder
1 drop green food colouring
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
~1 tbsp rice milk

Flaked almonds to decorate

Heat oven to 350F. Mix the dry ingredients with a fork. Add the wet ingredients and mix til just combined. Fill cups 3/4 full and bake for 20-25 min.

For the icing, beat the margarine then add the sugar and tea powder. Add the vanilla, food colouring and enough rice milk to make a good pouring (but not too runny) texture.

When buns are completely cool, cover tops with icing (it's OK if it runs a little), and decorate each with flaked almonds (I tried to arrange these to look a bit like a heart).


Semolina, orange and orange blossom cake

Followed this recipe (veganized).

For the cake
300g/11oz semolina
175g/6oz soft brown sugar
175g/6oz plain flour
40g/1½oz ground almonds
1½ tsp baking powder
1 orange, zest only
75g/3oz fake butter, melted, plus extra for greasing
225ml/8fl oz fake milk
16 blanched almonds / almond flakes

For the syrup
150g/5fl oz acacia honey
110ml/4fl oz water
1 tbsp orange blossom water

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4 and grease a 20cm/8in
loose-bottomed square baking tin (used 2 x 8in cake tins lined with foil).
2. For the cake, mix the semolina, sugar, flour, ground almonds, baking
powder and orange zest together in a bowl until well combined.
3. Gradually stir in the melted butter and milk until you have a smooth
batter.
4. Pour the batter into the greased tin and carefully arrange the
almonds on top in 4 rows.
5. Transfer to the oven and bake for 30-40 minutes, or until the cake is
golden-brown on top and a skewer inserted into the middle comes
out clean.
6. Meanwhile, for the syrup, heat the honey, water and orange blossom
water in a saucepan over a low heat, stirring constantly, for 2-3
minutes, or until the mixture is smooth and has thickened slightly.
7. When the cake is cooked, remove it from oven, prick the surface
several times with a toohpick, and slowly pour the syrup over the
surface of the cake. Set the cake aside to cool and absorb the syrup.
8. To serve, cut the cake into 16, so that there is an almond in
the middle of each piece.  Serving suggestion with whipped cream (or greek yoghurt) if not vegan.


Scones

From this recipe.

Ingredients
225g/8oz self raising flour
pinch of salt
55g/2oz fake butter
25g/1oz caster sugar
150ml/5fl oz fake milk
1-2 oz raisins
~ 2 tbsp fake milk to brush on top

1. Heat the oven to 220C/425F/Gas 7. Lightly grease a baking sheet.
2. Mix together the flour and salt and rub in the butter.  Mix in the raisins.
3. Stir in the sugar and then the milk to get a soft dough.
4. Turn on to a floured work surface and knead very lightly. Pat out to a
round 2cm/¾in thick. Use a 5cm/2in cutter to stamp out rounds and
place on a baking sheet. Lightly knead together the rest of the dough
and stamp out more scones to use it all up.
5. Brush the tops of the scones with fake milk. Bake for 12-15
minutes until well risen and golden.
6. Cool on a wire rack and serve with fake butter and jam.

I also made a GF / savoury version leaving out the sugar, using gram flour instead of normal flour, adding tomato paste to the milk mix, and adding chopped olives and fresh rosemary.

For both sets of sandwiches, took sliced bread, removed crusts (made these into breadcrumbs for future use), then lightly (fake) buttered one side, then added veg + herb filling, seasoned with salt and pepper, closed sandwich and sliced into quarters.


The tealoaf was excellent - really simple and really moist / excellent flavour.  Definitely a keeper.

I was really pleased with the green tea cupcakes / buns too - when I opened what I thought was a packet of green tea powder I found it was actually leaves, so decided to risk grinding them in my spice grinder to make powder.  It worked quite well, to my surprise, and I think the amount of green tea was about right - definite taste and colour without being too much.  The frosting was pretty good too - colour was a bit icky without the food colouring, but with it was fine.  And they looked pretty cute in the end I thought.

The semolina cake was alright.  I liked the semolina and orange / orange blossom, but it was a very dense, almost rubbery texture.  The syrup was really a lot when I added it - it was drowning in it.  But after I left it to cool there didn't seem to be any problems with that.  Perhaps using the wrong container to cook it didn't help?  I was relieved that it came out of the container quite easily though.  I kind of like this as a vegan cake recipe, and like the use of semolina - worth playing around with?

The scones were awful.  The sweet ones were edible with the addition of jam or curd, but didn't rise or colour properly.  Was the oven temp too high?  The savoury ones were overpowered by the gram flavour and texture (better to use half and half gram and cornmeal?)...  Beth's were much better!

The sandwiches were surprisingly good, esp the cucumber and mint.  Seb had a pretzel embarrassment - he was very disappointed.

Pancake Day! Dosa and normal pancakes

I love pancake day - one of my favourite annual foodfests...  I had eggless pancakes in India so was pretty confident they'd work out...  And seem to be in the mood for Indian food at the moment (perhaps compensating since Jilly is there now). Both these recipes are the result of some Googling: dosa.

Rava dosa

1 cup semolina / rava
1/2 cup rice flour
1/2 cup plain flour
3/4 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp grated ginger
1 tbsp coriander leaves
few curry leaves (optional)
1/2-1 finely chopped green chilli
salt to taste
water - 3 cups (approx)
veg oil as required

Whisk together all the ingredients (except oil) and leave the batter to stand for half an hour to an hour.  It should thicken up a bit as the rava swells.

When ready it should be a good pouring consistency.  Heat a frying pan on high until it sizzles when water splashed.  Reduce to medium heat.  Pour a ladle of well-mixed batter around the outside and then fill in the middle.  Pour 1-2 tsp oil in drops around the edge of the dosa.  Increase heat to a medium flame and cook for 3min.  Increase flame to high and cook for ~2min.  Flip and cook another 30sec.  Dosa done.

We ate these with dry yellow potatoes.  It was super tasty and really tasted like dosa we've eaten out / in India - soooo good!

Pancakes (British style)

(makes about 20)

225ml fake milk
225ml water
6oz / 175ml plain flour
2 tbsp chickpea flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp veg oil
pinch of salt
additional oil for frying

Whisk all the ingredients except the oil for frying together.  Heat a little oil in a frying pan and then pour in a ladle of batter, tipping the pan to spread it out thin.  Cook for about 3 min on the first side, flip and cook a minute or so on the other side.

They were really good too!  We couldn't figure out the point of animal products in pancakes at all...  We ate them variously with maple syrup and fresh blueberries, lemon and sugar (classic - can't go a pancake day without one of those), and blueberry jam.

Happy pancake day!