La vie à la petite ferme
Life in France, our voyage of discovery
Wednesday 24 July 2024
Courgette burgers/bites/fritters
Thursday 4 July 2024
Saturday 15 June 2024
The best (yet) naan recipe
200g pizza ‘00’ flour (or plain flour, but something with a bit higher protein is better, this was 11%)
1/2 packet (2.5g) instant yeast (or 5g if you in a hurry or it is cold in the house)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
75g kefir (or plain yoghurt, if it is v solid add a little water)
50ml lukewarm water
1 tblsp milk powder
15g soft butter
Saturday 1 June 2024
Chilli Oil Recipe
250ml olive oil
25g hot chilli flakes (or more or less to taste)
Put oil and flakes in a saucepan and heat gently until small bubbles are appearing. Don’t boil or overheat the oil.
Let cool and bottle.
I like using small 250 ml bottle of oil and bottling back in to the same bottle, it has a pouring spout…
Saturday 11 May 2024
Naan and pita
Lifelong attempt to get naan bread right. I managed it once, but never repeated the feat! I’ve searched the internet for hints, I’ve now decided it isn’t relly in the exact recipe, the cooking technique is just as important (or more so!).
I’ve had a lot come out more like pita bread in that they get one big bubble (so a pocket) rather than the multiple bubbles so distinctive of naan.
The conclusion I have come to is that you need a bit of a dryer dough for naan than pita, and a hot enough surface to cook before it gets a chance to blow right up and ideally this is helped by it sticking to the cooking surface.
These ones came out great…
200g bread flour (or plain flour)
4 tbsp yoghurt + cold water to make up to 125g
1 tbsp olive oil
Salt
2.5g quick yeast
Knead everything together for 10 mins in kitchenaid or by hand
Put in a covered bowl in fridge (overnight or just a few hours)
2 hours before you are ready to make the naans take out of fridge and rise for an hour, then divide in to 4 (or more if you want smaller naan) pieces and make into balls and cover. Leave at room temperature until doubled in size.
Roll out and cook
I cooked on a pizza stone on the cadac bbq with the dome lid over them. The stone was 270°C when i put them on, before slapping them on I ran the top side under the tap to wet and help it stick…
Monday 11 March 2024
Fun with the solar thermal panels
We’ve been having a bit of a nightmare with the solar thermal panels. Just replaced the propelene glycol
Out of the bottle it is
In the system it is
This is because we have washed the system through with water a few times and it is impossible to get all the fluid out the system!
Hopefully still has low enough freezing point
Sunday 31 December 2023
Chocolate Fondue Recipe
150g dark chocolate
100g double cream
Splash of some spirit (Quattro, whisky, whatever)
Lots of chopped fruit.
Heat the cream in a pan, don’t boil. Add the chocolate and stir until melted.
Put in to the fondue pan