Recipe: Red Pepper and Feta Pizza with Capers and Chilli

This makes enough for two good sized pizzas (roughly 30cm diameter). The quantities of the topping ingredients can be changed to taste.

Ingredients:

Base

-330g strong white bread/ pizza flour

-5g dried yeast

-220ml luke warm water

-1 tsp golden caster sugar

-1/2 tsp fine salt

-1tsp olive oil

Topping

-2 tbsp tomato puree

-5 tbsp passata (or tinned chopped tomatoes)

-2 tsp oregano / herbes de provence

-Seasoning

-1 clove garlic, sliced

-Thinly sliced onion, red pepper

-1 tsp capers

-Sundried tomatoes, chopped

-A few slices of feta

-100g parmesan shavings

-Chilli flakes

1. To make the base, pile the flour and salt onto a work surface or into a large bowl and make a well in the centre. Add the yeast and sugar to the warm water and mix. Leave for 3-4 minutes, then pour this into the well with the olive oil. Using a fork, start to mix the flour into the yeast by gradually pulling in the flour from the sides. When it gets thick, use your hands to form a ball shape. Knead this for 10 minutes (I did this in a machine). Cover with cling film and leave for 30 minutes to rise.

2. In the meantime preheat the oven to 220 C. Make up the the sauce by mixing together the tomato puree, passata, herbs, salt and pepper.

3. Divide the dough into 2 balls, and roll each out into a 30 cm round, and place on a baking tray/ pizza trays. Leave for 10-15 minutes.

4. Spread the tomato sauce onto the bases and then add the topping ingredients. You can either add the parmesan before or after cooking.

5. Drizzle with olive oil then bake for 10- 15 minutes or until the base is crisp and golden. Serve with a rocket salad.

Recipe: Arancini

This is a great way to use up leftover risotto, but it is so nice it is worth making some up especially.

Ingredients:

-650g leftover risotto (I used mushroom)

-2 medium eggs, beaten

-100g fine breadcrumbs

-oil for shallow frying.

1. Put the beaten egg and breadcrumbs in two separate shallow bowls. Start heating the oil in a large frying pan.

2. Take large spoonfuls of the risotto (ideally chilled) and form croquette shapes. First dip in the beaten egg, then roll in the breadcrumbs. Repeat this.

3. Carefully lower the croquettes into the oil and fry gently for 5 minutes or until golden brown on all sides. Serve with salad or as a starter.

You can also make arancini with a melting cheese centre. For this you also need 50g of mozzarella/ fontina/ gruyere or other similar cheese, cut into cubes. When shaping the arancini, take a cube of cheese and mould the rice around it. Fry gently and serve immediately.

Cheese of the month: Camembert de Normandie (AOC)

Camembert comes from the Pay's d'Auge area of Normandy in Northern France. This cheeseboard favourite originated in Crouttes in 1761 by Marie Christine Harel,who perfected her cheese recipe taking advice from a priest from nearby Brie. The cheese was famously issued to French troops during World War I, becoming firmly fixed in French popular culture as a result.

Today, because of it's AOC status, it is made to very strict specifications. It can only be made in three territories in Normandy, and from normand cows.

As a young cheese, Camembert has a creamy taste but as it matures the taste becomes stronger and even quite pungent (I have had to put very ripe Camembert outside in solitary confinement before, the smell was so strong!)

Some people say that Camembert goes best with white wines, if eating with red wine then a light one low in tannin would be best, as strong red wines can give a metallic taste.

Web Camembert

Just for fun- your photo on a box of cheese!

http://www.webcamembert.com/

This quirky website allows you to upload a photo/ use a webcam to create your own Camembert label, with a range of traditional styles to choose from.

You can even order personalised plates, mugs, stickers etc. - that may be going a bit too far...

Recipe: Rosettes

Rosettes are thin, waffle-like deep fried batter pastries, of Scandinavian origin. They are traditionally made at Christmas time, but are also served on May Day in Finland. To make them, intricately designed irons are heated in hot oil, then dipped into a sweet batter, then back into the oil and fried until crisp. They are usually just simply served with a dusting of icing sugar.

There are many different iron designs, and different batter recipes to try. With the irons I received for Christmas I tried the following recipe:

Basic Batter - makes 36 rosettes

-225ml milk

-1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise

-3 tablespoons granulated sugar

-1/2 teaspoon coarse salt

-1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom

-175g all purpose flour

-2 large eggs, beaten

-Oil for frying

-Icing sugar for dusting

1. Scrape the seeds from the vanilla and whisk with the milk. In a separate, larger bowl, mix together the sugar, salt, cardamom and flour. Add the milk and eggs and whisk until smooth. Chill the batter for 30 minutes.

2. Heat the oil in a deep frying pan or large saucepan until the temperature reaches 375°.

3. Carefully dip the irons (with handle attached) into the oil and leave to heat for 2-3 minutes. Blot on a paper towel. At this point it is handy to have some paper towels laid out on the work surface, as it can get messy!

4. Dip the hot iron into the batter up to the top edge of the iron- do not totally submerge. Then dip into the hot oil for around 15 seconds or until golden brown. Remove from the oil and gently remove the rosette, using a fork if required. The rosette may detach itself from the iron whilst it is still in the oil, in this case carefully remove from the oil with tongs. Drain the rosettes on paper towels then serve dusted with icing sugar.

A video on how to make them can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxAKDEV3UuM

Recipe: Blitva (Swiss chard and potato side dish)

This week we got some Swiss chard in our veg box, and at first I wasn't sure what to do with it. Then I remembered my Dad saying he had had a nice Swiss chard dish when he was working in Croatia.

So here it is, 'Croatia's most popular side dish' !

Blitva

Ingredients:

1kg Swiss chard (or mangold as they call it in Croatia), sliced into 3cm pieces

2 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into 2cm chunks
3 tblsp olive oil or to taste
1 - 2 cloves of garlic, to taste
Salt & pepper to taste

1. Boil the potatoes until done (around 10 minutes). Towards the end of the cooking add the chard and cook for a further 3-4 minutes.

2. Drain the chard and potatoes. In the pan heat the olive oil and sautée the sliced garlic, making sure it doesn't brown (this will make it taste bitter).

3. Return the chard and potatoes to the pan, add the seasoning and stir through.

Cheese of the Month: Appenzeller

Appenzeller is a Swiss cheese from the Appenzell canton. Known as 'the spiciest cheese in Switzerland', it acquires it's unique flavour during the ripening process, when the rind is regularly washed with a herbal brine. The unique herbal brine is made from distilling a selected mixture of herbs, roots, leaves, flower petals, seeds and rinds. The recipe for the brine is so secret, that apparently there are currently only 2 people who know the exact recipe.

There are three main types of Appenzeller, the difference between each being the amount of time the cheese is ripened for:

Appenzeller Classic: 3 months

Appenzeller Surchoix: 4 months

Appenzeller Extra: 6 months

Cheese enthusiasts will be glad to know that there is a show-dairy in the mountain village of Stein, where you can learn all about the cheese and the production process.