Roasted garlic and parsley flatbreads

Roasted garlic and parsley flatbreads

Apologies for the unscheduled hiatus - life, in general, has continued to be full of good food but sadly lacking in time to write about it.

Anyway.  The other day, my parents visited, bearing the usual offerings.  No, not wine or flowers, those would be strange.  A couple of boxes of mangoes (they are in season so it is compulsory to eat at least a box of 12 a week) and five bulbs of garlic.  Now, usually anyone is welcome to bring multiple bulbs of garlic to my house (please take note) but, in this case, I had bought myself our usual weekly supply (4-5 bulbs) the day before.

What to do?  Well, the situation is ongoing so the full answer remains to be seen but - obviously - part of the answer had to be roasting a couple of bulbs.  While one can dispose of roasted garlic fairly straightforwardly with a spoon (if one is feeling civilised), on this occasion, I decided to make flatbreads and stuff them with roasted garlic and parsley.

To make the filling, I roasted some garlic, mixed it with some chopped parsley, drizzled some olive oil on top and added some salt and pepper.

Mmmm, roasted garlic

I used Nigel Slater's recipe for the flatbreads, which worked fairly well overall.  I love making breads on the hob, it's how most Indian breads are made, and it's just plain more fun than the oven approach.  I am tempted, at some point, to try finishing them on the barbeque to get that slightly burnt, smokey thing going on.

The only tweaks I made were that, because his recipe calls for 10g of yeast and yeast comes in 7g packets, I went with 14g of yeast.  I suspect that's why mine weren't the flattest flatbread of all time but it still worked fine...  I also didn't care for his method of stuffing the flatbread - he suggests getting a ball of dough, putting the filling inside and then rolling them out.  Totally didn't work for me so I switched to shaping them with my hands into a disc, putting in the filling, folding it over again and squishing a bit with my hands.

Dough before it grew immensely

Stuffed flatbreads ready to be cooked

Roasted garlic and parsley flatbreads are go!

I really enjoyed these and am already plotting what to fill them with next..  currently, burnt aubergine and feta is the lead contender..

Pie

I have a friend who has been telling me for years that it's not that hard to make your own pastry but, somehow, I never really believed her. It always seemed like something that only 50s housewives would do. But, actually, it is quite easy. Also, I have extremely cold hands and this is about the only thing that I have ever found that helpful for so I sort of think that it's something I should therefore do.

Grated butter and flour

Grated butter and flour

Grated butter and flour

Grated butter and flour

I found a basic recipe for pastry somewhere and have been using it ever since:  275g plain flour, 225g butter, pinch of salt.  You put the butter in the freezer for about half an hour before you want to start.  Then you put the flour in a bowl, grate the butter into it (quickly, well, that's what the original recipe said, because I have ultra cold hands, the butter really doesn't melt on them and I can kind of take my time!), then gently mix the butter into the flour and gradually add cold water until it becomes dough-like.

You can wrap it by alternating strips

Or you can wrap it up like a parcel

All wrapped up like a parcel

Wrap in clingfilm and put in the fridge for about half an hour.  Then roll it out till it's about 3 or 4 mm thick, put some filling in it, wrap it up, put it in the oven at around 200 degrees for about 30 minutes.  If you glaze it by brushing beaten egg over it, it looks prettier.

Ready made pastry is still a glorious invention and I won't stop buying it for the times when I just can't be bothered to make my own but it does genuinely taste better when you make it yourself and it's actually not that time consuming to make.  I'd say it's only about 20 minutes worth of actual effort (and some freezer and fridge time.)

I have tried out a few fillings.  Last time I made pies, I made two, one spinach, broad bean and feta using the filling from this Nigel Slater recipe.  And mushroom, chestnut and stilton pie from my own invention.  I just kind of made it up but, roughly, what I did was:  slice up some mushrooms quite thickly, fry them up with some sliced garlic, add some chopped chestnuts, fry it for a bit longer, then add some salt, black pepper, parsley and stilton at the end.  Pretty damn good.

Spinach, broad bean and feta filling

Spinach, broad bean and feta filling

Mushroom, chestnut and stilton filling

Roasted tomatoes, inspired by Nigel Slater

Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries has a couple of recipes that involve halving then baking tomatoes with olive oil, a bit of garlic, and chopped fresh herbs on top.  All well and good, I thought, but not enough garlic.  This is quite a frequent thought, I have.  I love garlic and so do tomatoes.  How to get more garlic into this dish?  I decided that the way forward was to try slicing some garlic and then sliding it into the tomatoes.  It works rather well and you end up with lovely roasted tomatoes with little bits of roasted garlic inside them.  I recommend having some bread to mop up the juice with.

Mmm, tomatoes

Putting garlic into tomatoes

Putting garlic into tomatoes

Tomatoes ready to go into the oven

Recipe:  slice tomatoes in half, slide bits of garlic into tomatoes, drizzle with olive oil, fresh herbs (I think parsley and/or rosemary stand up better to baking than basil, myself, but it's up to you - I've also used coriander before as I am more likely to have it in the house and that also works), a little bit of balsamic vinegar, salt and lots of black pepper, bake for about half an hour or until they look tasty.