Bread and baking

One of the smells that truly sings of home and home pride to me is bread fresh baked, crunching out of the oven, slightly cooled add butter let that melt on and eat. I hope like me your meltinh with a craving for bread like that of the urge during the hurricane, or breadgate as I viewed it.

I suppose with my background and family where there was great bakers on both sides both grandparents and my own mother, so I suppose I’m predisposed to good bread, bad bread would not be tolerated, that’s shocking or disgusting followed swiftly by a trip to the yard for the birds or the dog whichever got it first. My only mistake in bread at home undercooked.

Some say it’s a science, others an art, others a feeling, then there are those that just know. I’m not in the latter 2 I’m more of it being an art and a feeling, aswell as therapy. To me there’s something about turning your hand into a claw and mixing all the dry ingredients, then it gets fun add the wet and it gets messy for a bit until it all comes together, into a beautiful batter or dough depending on your bread, the brown bread I make is quite wet and the white quite dry, then the yeast breads they need work by my own admission not my strong suit, can I make them yes I can are they gonna make you think OMG this is amazing no, not by a long shot, this is nice is about the reaction I get.
Just a week ago I was making bread and looked at my hand, bits of dough bits of flour and I thought hands like nans, just the way I looked at them its what I saw my nan still bakes a few cakes of bread every few days. Home cooking still brings me down, from the restaurant food I’m used to cooking, makes me more humble and ambitious to achieve this sentiment in tbe restaurant, I want to bring people to their childhood, nans cooking or moms cooking depending on your age will decide where you stand on that one.

As an Irish Culchee there’s an affinity with bread, as a staple for breakfast lunch and dinner, thats fine as long as it’s not possessed to death, if you can’t pronounce any of the ingredients on your recipe or ingredients list don’t get it. My bread has a number of ingredients depending on which I’m making, none of which is 6 syllables in length and looks like a medical condition or its photocopied from a box of antibiotics.

During the hurricane and the storm that ensued I walked into the supermarket and passed the bread aisle, what’s left is gluten free, that’s another story. I picked up 2 of my ingredients as I already had the rest and bumped into an old secondary school teacher, after a short chat which ended in but you’ve the skill to make it, there’s tonnes of recipes out there pick one. The four base ingredients I use are flour, sugar, bread soda and buttermilk. Basic Irish soda bread no salt no tricks no fancy machines bowl and hands and a tray or a bread tin.

To everyone bread is different some like it sweet some not so here’s a rough recipe not exact 500g flour 2 table spoons sugar 2 teaspoons bread soda approx 200ml buttermilk.

Method
Mix all the dry ingredients
Add half buttermilk and mix add little by little until it all forms together into a ball.
Dust a tray with flour or put greaseproof of baking parchment on a tray
Shape the dough to a round or square shape. Score the dough to a cross shape or a square in the middle.

Bake about 45 mins @180
Its done when you can hear its “heartbeat” when tapped it should sound hollow.

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Week 1 in a college kitchen (from butchery to an Irish classic)
As you guys may know by now, I am going back to college under the mentorship of Chef Noel. This week in college we were thrown in at the deep end and went straight to butchery, most people start with stocks, soups & sauces.
Us on the other hand were given a whole chicken and told to break it down (wings, chicken legs, & Supremes). We left one supreme out to use and put the rest away for a further date.
We also made a classic sauce BEURRE BLANC DE CHAMPIGNON (mushroom Beurre blanc). This sauce was made by sautéing diced onions and sliced mushrooms together on a medium heat. Once they were softened I de-glazed the pan with some white wine and slowly added cream, I continuously added butter and finished this dish with some fresh basil. The recipe for this sauce is as follows and very easy to make.
• 10g diced onion
• 2 medium mushrooms sliced
• 125ml white wine
• 125ml cream
• 100g butter
• 4-5 fresh basil leaves
From France to Ireland this week we also covered a classic dish know by everyone BACON & CABBAGE. This was not a typical bacon boiled bacon dish, quite the opposite really, we cooked a bacon steak (bout an inch thick) three different ways while combination cooking. We first seared it in a fry pan on a high heat to give it a nice colour, secondly, we slow baked it at bout 180 degrees for 15mins, and thirdly we added a few ladles of freshly made chicken stock (from the freshly broken-down carcasses) so the bacon steak was now being braised. This was a first for me to cook one item three different ways just for one dish. As for the cabbage we rolled it up and chiffonade it. We sautéed it with freshly cut lardons from left over bacon. The bacon and cabbage were served with a nice light parsley sauce. The recipe for the parsley sauce is as follows.
• 50g butter
• 50g flour
• 100ml milk
• 15g fresh parsley
That’s all for this week folks check back next week for more of my culinary college adventures