Tuesday, December 7, 2010

The Cookbook Compulsion

I think cookbooks and my soul go synonymously with each other. We get along fabulously well. I now am the proud owner of 6 cookbooks. I think this i have inherited straight from amma. She and i both love flipping through recipes and referring to them while we cook. I love the precision and the fact that i can follow one and i have a decent understanding of how its going to turn out.
I dont trust the "andaaza"factor completely. With things like salt and pepper its okay. But with the more complicated things like pastry dough and cakes i find that following a recipe is always easier. The fine balance could be thrown off by anything!! So when i call mamama/bapamma (my grandmothers) for a recipe i get very frazzled when they say a little bit of chilli and a bit a coconut milk. 

Getting back to my cookbooks. These are a few of them.



 We're missing the "1080 recipes" ( the book i bought in spain with all the POSSIBLE spanish recipes.) and my very basic Madhur Jaffery. The "Curry Easy" By Madhur Jaffery and Jamie Oliver's "The Naked Chef" are my latest addictive additions. I say addictive because within a day of buying the book, i wanted to try something from it. 

So here's to : Basil and Olive Oil Focassia!


Ingredients
15 gms dried yeast ( fresh seems to be difficult to get here!)
15 gms ( about 2 tsps) of honey
half a cup of warm water 
500 gms of good maida ( havent tried wholewheat yet. but i will soon!)
some salt


So the process is actually very simple. Mix the yeast, the honey and half of the warm water in a bowl. Cover and put aside for 15/20 mins. By doing this, the dry yeast becomes active and starts bubbling out of the bowl. It sounds scary, but all you have to do it put it into a fairly LARGE bowl.



Scrub your counter super clean and dry it. Dump all your flour onto the counter and make a well in the center.


Another lesson i learnt here: MAKE YOUR WELL DEEP/WIDE. I had a mini crises when the yeast flowed out of the well onto the counter and i had to rush behind it with the maida. So knead all of this together. Once its come together and not sticking to your hands( if it does, just add some of the warm water) knead it for a good 5-8 mins. Have fun with the dough. knead it and toss it back on the counter. Shape it into a roundish shape, make a cross on the top and a couple of gashes and let it rise for 40 mins.


While its busy rising, cut up 3 handfuls of basil and some garlic cloves ( you can vary this depending on the flavour that you want). Mix the garlic, basil some olive oil and some salt and chilli flakes in a bowl.



After 40 mins, the dough would have doubled in size. Knead it for a 2-3 mins more. Make it into a flatish-roundish shape about 1/2 an inch thick. Spread the basil and oil mixture on the top and press holes into the bread once more.



Leave to it rise for another 40 mins, so the flavours infuse and the dough doubles in size (again!). In the meanwhile preheat the oven to the highest setting. I thought mine was 210 degrees Cel, but it turns out it was more! (eeeks.) Bake for 15/20 mins on this setting. Take it out and let it rest for 10 mins. Eat it the same day its made. Or atleast try to. ( i have a quarter frozen now!)


 Thats it for now. Need sleep and i NEED to make it on time for tomorrow's shoot!

3 comments:

  1. Simple...and well written...
    Persuasive too, in a very very subtle way...
    Loved it... when can i come over? ;)
    ...renuka

    ReplyDelete
  2. woo hooo waiting for more xenox!

    ReplyDelete