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…

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

It’s a right fag pumping it all out and back in again!

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

Butchering a deer’s hind leg

 I followed a youtube by Outdoor Allie, really helpful!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=HP43Zm1-Jrg

Didn’t really fit on my chopping board, but had to make the best of it :)

The sirloin tip is in the sous vide bag. I’m making salted venison (like salted or corned beef)

Going from there left we have the bottom round - made in to 2 roasts for pot or slow roasting

Next let is the eye of round which looks like. tenderloin but isn’t. Planning on cutting in to medallions and slow frying one of them, the other I am salting to fry rounds of like ham.

Far left is the top round which I cut in to steaks to fry

At the back is the tri tip (triangular muscle off the sirloin tip). That went in to stewing chunks

Also at the back the sirloin butt which is a kind of raggedy cut which I cut up for stir fry.

The front legs I took out the flat irons and the rest was stewing chunks or mince.

Lamb ham

We were wondering the other day whether you could dry cure lamb, I looked it up on the internet and found several recipes!

Dry cured leg of mutton (or lamb)
Boned leg of mutton

The following are per kg of meat
30g salt
1tsp ground pepper
1tsp sugar
4 cloves
1tsp chopped rosemary
1 clove garlic finely chopped

Pinch of curing salt (optional depending whether you want the salt peter which will keep the meat pink or not)

Mix all the cure together
Smear all over both sides of the leg
Put the leg in to a plastic bag and seal the bag (or make sure the end is always above the rest of the bag)
Put the bag in the fridge for a week, turn every day and swish the cure around
After the week, remove leg from the bag and rince and wipe down with vinegar then dry it with paper towel or clean cloth
Roll in to a neat tube, as tightly as you can, and tie in place.
Hang somewhere well aired, humid and under 18°C until the leg loses 30 to 35% of its weight. This is probably about a month (but more or less depending on size of leg and conditions it is hanging in)

Yorkshire Blood Cake (black pudding cooked in a loaf tin)

400ml pigs blood (I used dried 80g dried blood 400ml cold water)

200g of diced pork back fat (or belly pork or sausage meat or lardons)

100g pearl barley (dry weight)

100g rusks (or bread crumbs)

½ large onion – finely diced

(you can vary the spices as you wish but you need salt, pepper, cayenne and nutmeg/mace as a minimum in my opinion)

1tsp ground pepper

1 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp ground coriander

2tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

2 ground up cloves

2lb loaf tin or 3 x 500ml foil trays

Rehydrate blood

Cook the pearl barley

Gently fry the fat and remove from pan

Gently fry the onions in the fat left in the pan. Don’t brown them.

Mix everything together and put in to a greased loaf tin (or foil trays) It should be quite a thick mix which will keep the fat suspended.

Cover in foil and cook in bain marie in 170°C oven or in steamer until set solid. The loaf tin will be about an hour and the foil trays being smaller will take less long.

You can also cook covered in foil in a steamer.

Let it cool and then cut in to slices to fry.

Looks pretty gross before cooking! With fresh blood it looks a lot redder, but easier to get hold of the dried, and easier to work with too…

Thes photos have more wheat than I now have in the recipe…

Finally managed to get started on the pathio tiling despite setback caused by rampaging horses.

I guess I should have closed the gate when we moved the cows - but I was a bit distracted by the cow riot that started when I opened the gate resulting in all the cows running off in to the woods bucking and snorting with me in slow pursuit (fast pursuit just makes them run faster) 

We’ve had a lot of rain so been hard to find time for all the dry weather activities like tiling