Today on belly we were visited by Nick Dingle – former New Yorker and Pizza Maker extraordinaire to talk to us all about baking with yeast. Pizza, focaccia, bread, and more. Then Kim Kendall joined us from Mullumbimby Community Health to talk about the community health “Bake off” and creating community through food. As we say on belly : “Cooks WILL save the world”.
NICK’S FOCACCIA RECIPE
Focaccia is an Italian flatbread, served in a hundred different ways and with a hundred-or more-different tastes added to the basic recipe. It’s easy to mix olives, rosemary, artichokes, sun-dried tomatoes through the dough, or to sprinkle over the top. Coarse sea salt on it’s own makes a fine focaccia. In New York, where I grew up, we knew a focaccia variant as Sicilian Pizza. It’s simply smeared with sugo (passata) and sprinkled with mozzarella and parmigiano and baked until perfect with slightly browned mozzarella and a soft spongy crust. Add your favourite toppings before baking and dig in…..You often see folks buying a piece of this from Italian bakeries, and walking along munching away. Great portable lunch….I’ve done it myself in Rome, Venice and Brindisi.
So, how do we make the stuff? It’s easy, as long as the recipe is followed.
Ingredients:
1 tsp sugar
1tsp dry yeast
1tsp salt
75ml warm water(like hot)
225gm plain flour(better if you can get pizza flour)
30ml Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Combine all the ingredients together at once. I know many look to activate the yeast in the water with the sugar, and you can do this, but at Your Italian Kitchen time is always a priority.
Mix it all together. Now it needs kneading. Either use a mixer with a dough hook. 10-12 minutes. Medium speed. OR. Knead by hand on a floured board. Only use enough flour to keep the dough from sticking. Too much flour makes a tough dough. By hand, I usually go about 15 minutes.
Put your kneaded dough into a lighty oiled (Olive oil, of course) bowl and cover with plastic or a damp tea towel.
Allow the dough to rise by 2. Take it out of the bowl and punch it down, roll out, and fit into a baking tray lined with paper or brushed lightly with olive oil. I like to let mine rise again, but that’s not always done. Once ready for the oven, top with a sprinkle of sea salt flakes, rosemary, sliced tomatoes, olives, passata and cheese, or, well whatever you fancy, trying and pop into an oven pre-heated to 240 degrees celsius.
Bake until the golden brown, or if topped, the edges are nicely browned.
Done. Slice and add anything else you’d like. I like fresh tomato, and then fresh basil added at the end of cooking, along with fresh bocconcini. Light, fresh and a great starter for a dinner, or an easy weekend lunch addition.
DO NOT EXPERIMENT until you’ve tried it a few times, and understand the process. Cooking, it is said, is an art, but baking is a science.
Would love to see any of you down at YOUR ITALIAN KITCHEN in Ocean Shores for authentic Italian Pasta and real Italian Pizza, because life is too short to eat bad pizza
IN SEASON – AUGUST
Time for winter soups, mushroom everything, hearty pies and more and more of that bumper citrus crop. Sister D is cooking a lot of fish to try and use more lemons, and we have enlisted Di Hart (see her boot muster in the food events below) to give us some in season suggestions too – oddly, she suggests lemons and fish!
See Diane’s blog for her fabulous fish and potato pie, she has included lots of photos. The bellysisters love that she has designed it to be cooked in one pot, and the leeks, fennel and lots of parsley in the recipe, all doing well in August.
“Fish Pie with Mashed Potato –
A few chilly nights and I start thinking of comfort food – this dish certainly fits the bill – and it is so easy to make and very adaptable. It’s the kind of thing my mother used to make with smoked fish – like haddock. I make it with whatever fresh and chunky fillet fish I can get at our farmer’s market on a Friday morning – but you could use fresh salmon or add some prawns if you were making it for a dinner party
So many fish pie recipes involve a lot of different stages and consequently quite a few dirty dishes – with this one you make it and bake it in just the one pan – now, that definitely has to be a bonus! Oh, did I say that it tastes delicious too?”
http://growfoodslowfood.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/fish-pie-with-mashed-potato.html
And here is Di’s sweet suggestion, a very simple looking recipe with lots of good extra tips. Anything with the zest of 5 yes 5 lemons has got to be good.
LEMON, ALMOND AND RICOTTA CAKE RECIPE – by Diane Hart
300g butter
1 1/2 cups castor sugar
4 eggs
2 cups almond meal *
3/4 cup fine polenta
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
Zest of 5 lemons and juice of 1 lemon
3/4 cup ricotta (you need the cake kind and not the creamed)
Icing sugar for dusting
*NOTE: I use bulk, whole almonds, with the skin on, and grind them myself – it’s cheaper and adds extra fibre to the cake.
Preheat oven to 160oC
Line 26cm springform pan with non-stick baking paper.
In food processor beat together butter and sugar until creamy, add eggs one at a time.
Add remaining ingredients except icing sugar and ricotta.
Fold in ricotta so that it stays in lumps (that’s the white bits in the photo above)
Pour into tin and bake for approximately one hour – test with a skewer that it comes out clean.
Cool completely in tin and serve with cream or yoghurt.
BELLY BULLETIN
FOOD EVENTS
Northern Rivers Food is holding a seminar of media training for people who have or are thinking of setting up a food related business.Telling your story and getting the right media coverage is the secret of so many successful companies, they say.
Hosted by journalist and mushroom grower Donna Harper, the event will include talks by : Remy Tancred – founder of Sample magazine and director of the Sample Food Festival. Janella Purcell, ex bayfm presenter – Naturopath and Author –
Janella will provide an insight into how to prepare for being interviewed for print, radio and television. Trudy Johnston – on Writing a Media Release to Attract Attention”. The evening will conclude with a panel discussion involving media experts and successful marketing executives from Northern Rivers Food businesses.
Register online at Northern Rivers Food.
The date is Monday, 12th August, 4.00pm – 7.00pm
Ramada Hotel Cost: Members $20 Guests: $40
And the Sample Festival signs have gone up around town. If you are visiting and love good food, think about coming back soon for the Sample Festival, a big hit with locals and visitors in the last 2 years. Sample 2013 will be held at the Bangalow Showgrounds on Saturday 7 September from 8am to 4pm. There will be more than 200 exhibitors. Food tastings, cooking demos, a farmers market, kids cooking classes, music, all sorts of good stuff, showcasing the food of our region.
See www.samplensw.com The event is free, tasting plates will be $5 or $10, there are some separately ticketed cooking classes and a seafood feast lunch that you will need to book pretty soon if you are interested.
Finally, get yer boots out. Old boots that is, ready for a new life in a garden.
Gardener, fabulous belly guest and blogger Diane Hart wants your boots.
This is what she says:
“I am doing a workshop for the kiddies at the upcoming Living Earth Festival
in Mullum on 1st September and I need all your old boots. I NEED ALL I CAN
GET! I will be talking about the ‘Wonderful World of Herbs’ and then the
children get to plant them out and have something to take home with them
(maybe your old boot!). There are collection boxes at the Mullum Community Gardens and the the Mullum Co-op.
I am sure it will be a fantastic day and hope to see you there. See the
Mullum Community Garden website for details.” Diane’s very informative gardening and cooking blog is at
http://growfoodslowfood.blogspot.com.au
IN THE NEWS – by Sister Deanna
Research from the University of Minnesota has shown that ritualistic behaviours can influence the perception of flavour and consumption of foods. The study found that the rituals performed before eating can change the perception of the food consumed and improve taste. In the experiment, participants were placed into two groups: one group ate a piece of chocolate following a detailed instructions of a “ritual”, the control group were asked to relax for a time and then eat the chocolate in any way they desired. Results showed that the participants who had performed the ritual rated the chocolate higher, savoured it more, and were willing to pay more for it than the control group. Further research found that “intrinsic interest” –rituals drawing people into what they are doing accounted for the positive effects of rituals on the experience of eating. Belly sister Dee notes: this is in line with the concept of “mindfulness” and being fully present in what we are doing.
Recent research has found the surprising result that antioxidants may block the cardiovascular benefits of exercise in older men. Research published in the Journal of Physiology has found that the natural antioxidant found in red grapes called resveratrol blocks many of the cardiovascular effects of exercise including reducing blood pressure and cholesterol. This is a surprising result as there has been recent attention to resveratrol and is available as a dietary supplement due to it’s role in explaining the cardiovascular benefits of red wine and other foods. The authors were surprised to find that resveratrol decreased the positive effects of exercise on cardiovascular health particularly as these results were the opposite of animal studies. Clearly, this study has wider implications for future research, as Micheal Joyner from the Mayo clinic notes “ too often human studies focus on large scale outcomes and clinical trials and not on understanding the basic biology of how we react”
The world’s first in vitro meat- a 250 000 Euro burger made from lab grown beef will be revealed and tasted this week. The burger, which took over two years to make, is being touted as the beginning of a new solution to the problem of population increase and a growing demand for meat products. The burger was created using stem cells extracted from cattle. The tissue is then ground up and mixed with lab grown fat to produce the lab grown burger. Researchers believe this “test tube” meat could lead to the sustainable production of low cost food without the need for livestock. Professor Mark Post, the creator of the burger notes this is a proof of principle project, and that more work is needed before lab grown meats are commercially available.
And finally, on another technology note, NASA has put forward money towards the creation of a 3D pizza making printer. In an attempt to extend the menu for astronauts, NASA is funding a project aimed at creating a 3D printer to create pizza. The printer will fabricate the different toppings from their component ingredients. A digital recipe will be used to combine powders containing proteins, carbs, and oils to create food products that have a similar taste, nutrition, and smell as the real thing. The ingredients will be in powder form, with the moisture taken out, and are predicted to last 30 years. It is hoped this 3D food printing device will be ready by the end of the year….Maybe we are not so far off “food simulators” featured in Star Trek after all…