Oliver without the twist

He makes everything look so easy! Or, in his words, easy peasy.

Yup, I am talking about Jamie Oliver. The scruffy, multi-millionaire British chef who became a celebrity with his cooking show, The Naked Chef. Thankfully, he doesn't really strip down in the show. No... the title "Naked Chef" wasn't even his idea, apparently. His producers thought it a clever way of marketing his style of cooking: the no frills, no fuss way of cook. Jamie's was among the first of its kind, a stripped down cooking show about how anyone can just "chuck" a few gorgeous ingredients together and come up with a superb dish.

Yes, Jamie is full of superlatives.

I've been following Jamie on TV off and on for a while. Only "off and on" because I find  I can only take Jamie in small doses. Don't ask me why exactly, its just one of those things.. I've bought some of his books too although its been a while since I touched them.

And then I had a dream of him. The result of watching too much of Top Chef I think. In the dream, I was in a cooking competition and Jamie was a competitor. We were neck in neck in every round. I woke up before the final round of the competition but since it was a dream, I reckon I won. Ha ha.

Anyway, it got me thinking about Jamie. So, I took my Jamie books off the shelf and began looking for recipes that appealed to me. It was my turn to write the cookbook review for Don't Call Me Chef (a column I co-produce with Marty Thyme and Hungry C) and so I decided I'd write about Jamie since he was my present focus.

As I tried a number of his recipes out, I remembered why I bought all those books. The boy can cook. His recipes are easy and always turn out well. The food always tastes fantastic. They aren't exactly sublime (that's fancy talk for fancy gourmet food) but they're good wholesome food that is good for a family dinner or a feast. Your friends will be impressed.

I tried out more than a dozen recipes in just one week. My favourites were the Sweet Garlic, Bread and Almond soup which I wrote about in the book review and these Focacia loafs which I kinda played around with.Both are from the book Jamie's kitchen.
  

Jamie's recipe was for a tomato focacia for which he used cherry tomatoes: green, red and yellow tomatoes and basil. I had some basil but I didn't have any cherry tomatoes. What I did have was a whole bowl of chunky tomato sauce which I made a couple of days ago to douse some burgers in. I decided to use the sauce instead.

I also decided to make two types of focacia instead of one. My new favourite flavour is that of roasted garlic so I decided to go with roasted garlic and rosemary.

I've made focacia before and though it wasn't too complicated, Jamie's recipe simplified it further. It really was easy peasy and the result was a deliciously soft  bread that can be eaten like pizza: on its own sans any spreads, topping, dips or filling. Just smashing.

Focacia, two types

A: Prepare the bread dough
1 tbsp instant yeast
1 tbsp honey
315 ml tepid water (you may need about 50 ml more, depending on the flour)
500g bread flour
1 tbsp salt
some extra flour for dusting

Dissolve the yeast and honey in half the tepid water.
In a bowl, mix the flour and salt. Make a well in the centre and pour in the dissolved yeast mixture. With four fingers of one hand, make circular movements from the centre moving outwards, slowly bringing in more and more of the flour until the yeast mixture is soaked up.
Pour the remaining water into the centre and gradually incorportae all the flour to make a moist dough.
Now its time to knead. Roll, push and fold the dough over and over for 5 mins. This develops the gluten and the structure of the dough. If the dough sticks to your hand, rub a little flour and go on.
Done? Flour both hands and the top of the dough and shape it into a footnall. Place it on a floured surface, cover with clingfilm and allow it to proof till it doubles in size: about 40 mins.

B Prepare the toppings

2 cups cherry tomatoes

handful of basil

5 tbsp olive oil

salt and pepper

With a small knife, core the tomatoes. Score the tomatoes in boiling water for about 30 seconds. Remove with a slotted spoon and peel off the skin. Cut in half and remove seeds. Place in a bowl with 1 tbsp olive oil. Cover.

2 heads garlic

1 tbsp dried rosemary

5 tbsp olive oil.

Roast two heads of galic in the oven at 180C for 30 mins. Cool and squeeze out the jammy garlic from the skin. Set aside.

C. Back to the dough

Once the dough has doubled, remove cling film and knock the air out of the dough but punching it with your fingers. Divide into half. Place on a floured surface and roll both out till 2.5 cm thick. Transfer onto oiled trays.

Pour the olive oil over. Place the tomatos and basil/garlic and rosemary and push your fingers to the bottom of the tray accross the whole expanse of the dough. Use your fingers like a poker: push them through and flatten them out when you hit the tray. This gives the bread the classic focacia shape with indentations all over. 

Let it double again and bake in a preheated oven (220C) for about 15 to 20 mins till the outside is nice and brown and crispy and the inside is soft.

Drizzle some olive oil on top when out of the oven. Cook and eat.    

All in knots

He said my garlic knots tasted like fried chicken. 

"Ermmm, okay,"  I said. "Thank you."

I knew It was a compliment, though a very strange one, because my man loves his chicken. Real chicken. He isn't a Veggie Dude. 

Anyway, he then explained that the glaze topping for the buns - Oregano, garlic and butter - reminded him of a fried chicken meal I once cooked. Ahhh, ok. 

This was a first attempt at making these buns. I was browsing through some food photography sites and I came Zoom Yummy and a recipe for these garlic buns. Zoom Yummy's photographs are lovely. Browse through her blog and I bet you'll want to try some of those recipes too. Since I love making bread, I was tempted by her pictures of these garlic knots. Go check em out and you will understand why. 

Turns out, these buns are really easy to make with relatively brief resting time for the dough to rise, about 1 hour and a half in total. With a prep time of about 30 mins, the knots can be in the oven in a little over two hours.  

ZY's Soft Garlic Knots

3 cups bread flour

1 tbsp granulated sugar

2 tsp instant yeast

11/4 tsp salt

2 tbsp olive oil

1/4 cup milk, tepid

1 cup + 2 tbsp tepid water

The glaze

2 cloves garlic, minced very fine

2 tsp dried oregano

3 tbsp butter

Whisk the flour, salt, sugar and yeast together by hand. Add the oil, milk and water and stir to combine, either by hand or if using a stand mixer, at speed 2. Next comes the kneading. If you're using the mixer, fasten the dough hooks and mix for about 8 mins (speed 4). If you like kneading by hand, it may take about 15- 20 mins. What you are aiming for is a smooth, elastic dough. 

Once the dough is ready, transfer it into a well-oiled bowl. Roll the dough over once to make sure its coated all around. Cover with cling film and let it rest and double it's size. About an hour.  

Now comes the fun part.

Roll the dough out of the bowl onto a slightly floured surface. Divide into eight equal balls. The dough is kinda sticky so you'll have to flour your hands just a bit. Using the palm of your hand, roll each ball into a rope about, about a foot long (or 30cm). Now, as you would a rope or shoe lace, tie the rope into a knot.

I know, I know, I should have pictures but I was alone and my hands were sticky and floury. Plus, ZY has awesome shots, remember? So, please refer to her for the step by step visuals :)

Tuck the egdes into the centres of the knots as kneatly as possible: the left edge goes over the top and into the centre and the right goes under and into the centre.  

Lay the knots out onto a lined baking sheet and cover with a kitchen towel. Let it rest for about 45 mins. They will rise a little and puff up wonderfully.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 175C.

Prepare the glaze: Melt the butter and simply add the garlic and oregano and stir to mix.

Before putting the knots in the oven, generously brush them with the garlic butter  glaze.

Bake for about 15- 30 mins.

Garlic for dinner

It's been a while since I last posted anything up on this blog. It's not because I've finally thrown in my apron after numerous failed  cooking projects (there have been many, the latest being an eggless chocolate cake which turned out lumpy -- go figure!). No. I recently got married and have had not much time to fool about in the kitchen as a result -- as it turned out, planning and execuing a disaster-free wedding takes a lot longer than I estimated as does recovering from planning and executing a disaster-free wedding. It was worth it in the end:  the day was really fun and my wedding cake (pic below) was just yummy.

Bride and Groom on the cake.
Cake (by JustHeavenly) was yum!

So anyway, almost settled in, I am ready to post my first entry, post-marriage. Now, I may not have been able to muck about in the kitchen but I did manage to score a couple of cookbooks during my honeymoon (yeah, how romantic is that!). Turns out, I have now in my hands two of my current favouritest cookbooks: Mastering the Art of French Cooking (Vols I and II) by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck.



Vol I



Yes, this is the book that inspired the Meryl Streep movie Julie and Julia. No, that's not the reason why I decided to buy the book. After all the movie has been out for about  a year already. The books have recently been reprinted into paperbacks (divided into two volummes) and Marty recently reviewed Volumme One for our Don't Call Me Chef column (Every Mondays in The Star: shameless plug, I know). I took the chance to browse through the book which Marty so cruelly flaunted on her desk (she got it for free as she was reviewing the book!) and I was immediately hooked.

The book isn't visually stunning. In fact, there are no pictures. At all. Its all text with some hand sketches of how the various (not all, mind you) dishes are to be prepared. Not at all visually attractive. But the book is really a very good instructional. It strips away all the pretensions that are sometimes falsely associated with French cooking. If you've seen any YouTube clip of Child in action, you'll know that she isn't about fancy presentation. She is, however, all about technique which, Child promises, once mastered will enable anyone to cook almost any dish. All it takes is passion and practice. 

Garlic soup... who would have thought.

I decided to start at the very beginning: with the chapter on soups. I like soups even on sweltering days like today. I chose to make the most unlikely of soups: Aigo Bouido or Garlic Soup. Uh-huh. Its a soup made with, well, garlic and seasoned with herbs, salt and pepper. Egg yolks add some bulk but that's really it. I am a huge fan of garlic and use it unsparingly in almost everything I make. But never once did I imagine making garlic soup. But, as Child promises, the bold after-taste one often gets  when cooking with a lot of  garlic is absent from this soup because of the method used. And, as she also promises, the flavour  is exquisite, aromatic and almost undefinable. 

  

The recipe

I seperated head or about 16 cloves of garlic

Drop the garlic gloves in a pot of boiling water and boil for about 30 seconds. Drain , run cold water over them and then peel.

1.5 liters water (Childs uses 3 pts)

2 tsp salt

pinch of pepper

2 cloves

1/4 tsp sage

1/4 tsp thyme

1/2 bay leaf 4 parsley sprigs

3 tbsp olive oil

A 5 pt saucepan

Put the garlic and the rest of the ingredients in the saucepan and boil slowly for 30 minutes. Correct seasoning.

A wire whisk

3 egg yolks

 2-3 tbsp olive oil

Whisk the egg yolks till they are thick and sticky. Drop by drop beat in olive oil  till well incorporated. It is important to add the oil literally a few drops at a time for it to blend well into the yolk mixture.

Strainer

Rounds of hard French bread

Swiss or parmesan cheese

Just before serving, beat a ladleful of the boiling soup into the egg mixture, bit by bit. Strain the rest of the soup in beating and pressing the liquid out of the garlic. Serve with bread and cheese immediately.

You had me at Aglio Olio

My friend Premah asked me a couple of days ago if I had a recipe for Pasta Aglio e Olio. Unfortunately, I didn't, although the Angel Hair pasta with garlic and breadcrumbs I often make is a variation of the classic Aglio e Olio. Well, it's been two days and I haven't been able to get Aglio Olio out of my mind. Not that I was particularly craving for it, but I was itchy to try and make it. It isn't complicated and it's essentially vegetarian; vegan even as it  doesn't have cheese.

Aglio Olio has neither a tomato base nor a creamy base. It's a simple, straightforward, rustic pasta dish but that really doesn't mean it's a no brainer.

Aglio Olio is Italian for garlic and oil. And that's basically what it takes to make this dish what it is. Parsley is also an essential ingredient as is chilli flakes or dried chillies while seasoning is salt and pepper.

Linguini is supposed to be the original pasta of choice for Aglio e Olio but I had angel hair so I didn't have the luxury of choice.

Cooking the pasta: I decided to cook the pasta in vegetable stock to add flavour. At the World Gourmet Summit I attended in Singapaore a month or so ago, I attended a cooking masterclass by Italian Chef  Andrea Berton who cooked his pasta in stock to wonderful results. So I decided to follow suit. It was a great tip as the pasta soaks up the stock well. I would think a thicker noodle would perhaps be better but I made do with what I had.  As usual, cook in al dente.



In a skillet, heat about 4 tbsp of olive oil and add the garlic (8 cloves, squished and minced) and chilli flakes (2 tsp) and 2 tsp chopped flat leaf parsley (opt for the Italian flat leaf parsley as it's more flavourful).  Toss the ingredients around and make sure you don't let the garlic burn.

When it's all toasty and fragrant add the cooked pasta. You can add the pasta straight from the saucepan or stockpot you boiled it in so that it's still moist. Also add 3-4 tbsp of the stock in with the pasta. Season with salt and black pepper. Toss the pasta so it's coated with the olive oil, garlic, chilli, parsley and the seasoning.

Cook on low heat for a few minutes, adding a little more  parsley. The pasta will be a little wet, but it should never be soupy.

Remove and serve.

Now, this is the basic Aglio e Olio and you will find variations like  adding seafood like  prawns or mussels, tomatoes and sometimes even minced meat. I tried it with some sauteed mushrooms -- it tasted good but honestly, I preferred it plain with no frills.