Schwäbische Laugenbrezel (bless you)

[taste of home on a dreary Sunday morning]

This morning I woke up with a terribly sore throat and a hankering for salty carbs. Instead of reaching for the crisp packet, I decided to yank myself upright and make Brezeln, as close to the German original as possible. Which is, grantedly, not very close.

I used this recipe from a German site as the basis, but always have to make a few modifications. Strong white flour instead (?) of type 450, unless by some miracle it happens to be the same grade (am sure Google could tell me, but life is too short, especially on an empty stomach), and dried yeast instead of fresh yeast. The dried yeast is always a gamble - I grew up with only fresh yeast at my disposal, so can never quite get the dried stuff right. However, finding fresh yeast in the UK is difficult. Off the top of my head, the only place I know that stocks yeast reliably is a small Polish corner shop on West Oxford.

However, the recipe details the best way to get the Brezeln brown without importing the apparently highly volatile liquid Natronlauge that is usually used.

My preferred way to make Brezeln is also to keep them quite tiny, as they puff up during their bath.

I also let the yeast dough rest in a ball first before shaping the Brezeln, and then quickly shape and dump into water, otherwise they get massive and lose their crispness - but that is just a personal preference.

So, make yeast dough with 500 g strong white flour, 15 g of dried yeast awoken in some lukewarm milk, 250 ml milk in total, 50 g butter, some crumbled Maldon salt and rest for 20 minutes. Preheat oven. Cut dough into bits, and shape as demonstrated:

Make a snake that has eaten a cow. Two thin ends, fat middle, but not too fat. 

Loop up and cross once.

Cross again. 

Fold down, and press on lightly.

Natron or bicarbonate of soda. Can be used for pretty much anything in the kitchen,
including boiling Brezeln to turn them tasty brown. 

Ready to be boiled for 30 seconds. 

While shaping, boil a litre of water with 3tbs of Natron (bicarbonate of soda). Boil the Brezeln for 30 seconds max, otherwise they get doughy, put on non-stick tray, cut a slash into the fat bit, sprinkle with Maldon salt.

In the pot, remove with slotted spoon. 

15 mini-Brezeln for breakfast. Boom!

20 minutes in the oven will turn little ones brown, make them crunchy on the outside and fluffy on the inside.

Obviously the shape is not as perfect as the German big cousin, nor are they as glossy. But in flavour, they are definitely winning, cause I slaved over a hot stove to make them.

Peanut butter and chocolate ice creams

[heart attack in a bowl]

After not buying Ben & Jerry's Peanut Butter Cup ice cream last weekend, I finally caved and made my own. There is only so much time you can reasonably spend thinking about dessert, after all. I have made both chocolate and peanut butter ice creams in the past, but of course did not bother to write down the recipe. Could not remember which exact ingredients, or how much of them. Recipes online all suggested making a custard with eggs, and I really am not a fan of egg in my ice cream. Mostly because I have never made a good egg custard....

In the end, I decided to use an amended version of a trusty mousse recipe, and hope it would not go weird during the freezing process. Enter the Nigella Instant Chocolate Mousse, which is my favourite emergency party food, and it is egg-free. Everybody loves it. As as an aside, have also made it with milk chocolate (not that good, but acceptable) and white chocolate (absolutely amazing) in the past.

I had a lengthy internal debate about mixing chocolate and peanut butter together, but then was unsure about the onslaught of flavours. Went with separate ice cream batches in the end. Using marshmallow as the sugar meant that the cooling process would be a bit tricky. Too warm, and the ice cream machine would have to work very hard to chill it to a reasonable temperature. Too cold, and the ice cream machine would have trouble churning, as the mousse gets quite solid (especially after a few hours in the fridge). After melting the ingredients in two pots (half the cream, marshmallows and some vanilla essence, plus chocolate, in one pot; the other half plus smooth peanut butter in the other), and stereo stirring for about 15 minutes at low temperature to avoid burning, I left them to cool at room temperature for about half an hour. Two sessions in the churner, done.

In the cupcake moulds

My main issue with ice creams is that they get quite difficult to portion out straight out of the freezer, so I used silicone cupcake moulds to freeze them in what I thought were individual portions (half the size would have been sufficient...).

The result is creamy, smooth, rich and sooooo good, but best eaten in small quantities!

Too much of a good thing!

Recipe based on Nigella's Mousse
600 ml double cream (would use single cream next time), half in each pot
150 g giant marshmallows (no small marshmallows to hand), half in each pot
220 g of dark chocolate
150 g of smooth peanut butter (this is a rough estimate - about half a 340 g jar, depending on how peanutty you feel on the day)
splash of vanilla essence
I left out the butter and water, as was not sure what effect that would have on frozen goods...

The pros and cons of chicken keeping

[the moment when you struggle to come up with anything seriously negative]

Yes, I have been brainwashed. Used to read blogs by chicken-fanciers, thinking surely chickens are not that great. They are after all mostly beak and claw, a bit ugly, messy and noisy (there you go, some cons for you). But they are also so much more than that.
Ours are not pets - they have their large run in the garden, and in the winter, they get full access to the whole garden to fertilize and loosen the soil, and to get rid of creepy crawlies, but they live in their space, and and we in ours. They can be handled, provided you can catch them, but they are disinclined to sit on your lap. The only time they like being close to humans is if you have a spade or fork in your hand, and are doing some vigorous digging. Sitting on the spade, sticking their heads through the fork tines, always ready to catch any worm or bug that gets dug up. Scratching on the earth heaps afterwards is apparently the best thing ever.

Now to the list. In favour of chicken-keeping

- Egg, egg, egg, egg, EGG, EGG, EGG, egg, egg (more anon). Nothing compares to home-laid eggs. They are a rich orange colour, creamy, flavourful, and of course, oh so fresh. I can no longer eat poached or fried eggs in cafés, as they tend to be an abomination by comparison.

- No pests in the garden to eat your vegetables. Our chickens have done a great job over the winter to remove all bugs, slugs, ants and critters that might eat veggies in the summer. We have no need for artificial pest-removers, keeping our garden nicely organic.
- Well fertilised and tilthed earth. Eats, poos, scratches - good soil for the following season.
- Low-maintenance to look after. Feed them regularly and check they are ok, clean them out, and that is pretty much it.
- Guilt-free leftovers. They are not particularly picky eaters (I mean, they love slugs), so they get leftover fruit and veg, peels, apple cores, any odds and ends, a bit of rice or pasta on occasion, cheese and yoghurt scrapings, cottage cheese, watermelon rinds to finish off, what is left after making tomato passata etc. And then they turn it into eggs!
- A definite health benefit through destressing by watching chickens go about their business, contentedly plocking to themselves, taking dust baths, pecking at random things.
- Immense enjoyment from looking after some rather strange creatures. After all, they are basically dinosaurs. Ours get a lot of exercise, as they always run towards us when we go into the garden (which is frequently), in the hope of grain or fruity treats. It is quite a sight to have feathery cannonballs charging towards you beak-first. Their claws look scary, too. Hardy the cat shows a lot of respect, with good reason! However, I was most surprised to find out that their feet are actually very soft and gentle. They feel more like hands, in fact, when they grip on to your fingers. Freaky.... but kind of cute as well.
They may not have brains as such (once brain cell does not count, and it is not always actively used), but they have personalities and preferences. They play rugby with bits of cheese, hop for food that is tied over their heads, and twice per day do things together. Joint drinking or grooming sessions are a lovely display. A flock of chickens doing the same thing together, in harmony for a short period of time, before going back to pecking order and flock mentality. Some are bolshy, some are more timid. Pickwick is a haughty little madam, Johnny is a matron. Sid is a beauty and knows it, proudly strutting around with her head and vibrant comb held high. Pock is the crazy old grandmother. If she was a person, she would wear huge glasses, lipstick and red dyed hair, cackling madly on her front porch with a glass of gin in her hand.

Pock, the Dame Edna Everage of chickens

Plink plink I flutter my non-existent eyelashes at you. Sid at her best angle.

Pickwick clearly disapproves. She is also a bit unwell, the poor thing, but is hiding it well. 

Johnny makes sure everybody goes to bed on time. Also looks slightly short-sighted with her comb-over. 

Cons of chicken keeping
- THE NOISE. Specifically, THE NOISE early in the morning. In the summer, they start shouting at 430am. Egg, egg, egg, egg, EGG, EGG, EGG, egg, egg. On repeat. In the autumn and winter, it is more like 530am, 615am or 630am. There is no rule or regularity. No way to tune out the shouting. No earplugs are strong enough. Strangely, no complaints from the neighbours yet... and really, I meant to get up that early anyway.
I call it my chicken alarm clock. Now make your own!

https://soundcloud.com/nat-merry/chicken-oclock

Hedgerow Raid

[Do you know anything better than FREE food? Nope, me neither.]

More jams, this time made from FREE fruit! The hedgerows at the moment are full of it, you just need to take a receptacle of some sort and get foraging.

Last week I made some  rosehip jam for the first time (as well as some elderberry, of which more later).

The recipes I foundfor rosehip jam on the internet variously said to de-seed the hips or to just strain or sieve them; I went for the easy option and a sieve, which is how I ended up not with jelly but with a creamy puree with much of the fruit pulp still in.

This week's production is from a pound and a half of blackberries which took me half an hour to pick, and a kilogram of elderberries which took me no time at all to snip off the tree (though some help from passing friends to reach the berry clusters on the higher branches....).

 

Blackberry must be the easiest jam in the world to make - put into pot, add jam sugar, boil, put into jars, DONE.  

Elderberries require a bit more work - unfortunately, since this may just be my favourite jam EVER, so I tend to make at least a couple of batches each late summer. It is amazing on bread with quark (which you can find at most Sainsbury's and Tesco's and Co-op these days; very good news indeed!). 

Anyway, elderberry jam, the process. First the berries need to be removed from the stalks - a fork is the best tool for this. Don't be worries about any green berries or bits of stalks or even small critters that remain in the berries at this stage - they'll all float to the top when you wash the berries, and you can simply remove them with a slotted spoon.

Washing the elderberries.

Then you need to boil the berries to make them soft enough to get at the juice. Add a couple of cups of water to the berries, and boil for a good 30 minutes or so, until they squish easily. Then put them through a sieve - I use a quirl, which is a German kitchen tool I have struggled to find in the UK, but which is incredibly useful for exactly this kind of work (and which I used on the rosehips, too, incidentally).

A quirl.

You can also mash them up with a potato masher and then use a cheesecloth to strain, but then you'll lose out on all the lovely pulp, and will also most likely end up with bright purple hands since squeezing the cheesecloth seems to be the only way to really get at the juice.

Whichever method you chose, you then measure your juice and add the required amount of jam sugar (I had pretty much exactly 1000ml) - though for this batch I wanted to go low-sugar if not completely sugar-free, so I used Tate+Lyle pectin with only 100g of sugar, and made up the rest of the sweetness with honey. (And the next batch is going to be sweetened with elderflower cordial, how ingenious is that?)

Add the jam sugar or pectin and sweeteners and lemon juice to the elderberry juice, and boil. Use a LARGE pot, the jam mixture has a tendency to boil up really high, so danger of a huge mess if it boils over (not that that has ever happened to me...)

Make the usual gelling test, and then fill into jars as normal (see here for the German trick which requires no sterilisation). Quick trip to Co-op or Tesco or Sainsbury's for a pot of quark, and breakfast for the next couple of months is SORTED.