Welsh Rarebit (or Rabbit)

I'm feeling mighty guilty for picking a Welsh recipe whilst holidaying in Scotland.  I did do a Scottish recipe on Burns night - and missed St David's Day.  And I'm hoping that during this holiday (this post may auto-publish if I've got no interweb) that I'll have swapped out one of my planned recipes for some lovely, locally sourced Scottish produce.  But with two weeks of quick, speedy recipes to come up with, I'm now getting desperate.

Cheese on toast.  Whod've thought it could be so complicated?  But even in our house, I cook it two different ways.  The husband only likes his bread toasted on one side.  The soft side must then be buttered before being covered in sliced cheese.  The cheese must melt and not have a single speck of brown on it.  He then eats it with a knife and fork.

I, on the other hand, really prefer my cheese unmelted.  Give me two nice pieces of toast that have been left in the toaster until they've cooled a little and gone crispy.  Butter with butter that's out of the fridge, but not too hard or too soft (Lurpak spreadable makes this so much easier - but the toast has to be totally cold or it makes the bread soggy with its higher water content).  I then like my cheese grated on the fine grater setting (never the thick one) and piled on top.

Or, if I'm making proper cheese on toast, then I like a smattering of brown specks, but not so much that it tastes of toasted cheese.  We're a fussy pair, aren't we?

I wondered how I could challenge our foibles.  Sometimes the simple things are the best and can't be improved on.  But I'm all about change this year.  So Welsh Rarebit (Rabbit) it was.

A quick Google turned up so many recipes that I started out with Felicity Cloake's article on how to make the best Welsh Rarebit (Rabbit).  It seems like anything goes with different cheeses, liquids, breads and seasonings.  I just wanted something simple.  The husband was pleased to let me try it as it meant I bought him some beer for the evening - I only needed two tablespoons.

I plumped for egg yolks, a dash of Worcestershire sauce and some Dijon mustard - it was all I had.  And it wasn't half bad.  The husband had a bit and said it was 'too cheesy'.  I think he meant it was too tangy for him.  We always have Double Gloucester as the husband doesn't like really mature cheddar.  The combination of flavours ended up making it tangy like a stronger cheddar but with a beautifully soft, melty texture thanks to the liquid and the eggs.

This is something to experiment with when I get home.  After I've had a bit of a holiday food detox.

You can read Felicity's article here.

Simple Wholemeal Bread

Now I'm trying to stay away from cake baking, I've been bitten by the bread baking bug again.  So this is my second bread post in two days.  Pretty much all of the bread I've made during the writing of this blog (until yesterday) has been based on white wheat flour and so I thought it was time I gave wholemeal bread a whirl again.

My copy of Short and Sweet is still in the boot of the car where it's been since I gave my presentation entitled "Lil Ms Squirrel's School of Economics" on Wednesday so I thought I'd do some research on the web for a good, basic recipe.

After discounting Delia Smith's 100% wholewheat bread, I happened across an article by Felicity Cloake on the Guardian Website.  On a regular basis, she'll test the wise words of many famous cookery writers with the goal of finding the best method for making a dish, thereby writing her own recipe.  Back in the early days of writing this blog, I thought I might do similar.  In some ways, I've done that with naan breads and meatballs, but not really with anything else yet.

First ever wholemeal loaf

On this particular occasion though, she ends up in conceding that Dan Lepard truly is the master of bread making and literally using his recipe to make her own bread at the end of the article.  The only difference is she claims to use more salt and water in the ingredients list. Although if you actually read it, she says to start by adding the same 300ml that Lepard recommends and then adding in some of the remaining 100ml but only if you need it.  I found that 300ml worked perfectly well for me.

Lepard advocates the use of vitamin C to help keep the crumb soft.  I seem to remember this advice for making brown bread from back in my childhood - probably a tip picked up from my mother when she first tried to convert my family to eat homemade wholemeal rather than Mother's Pride sliced white.  She never quite got there as my Grandad is an ardent anti-Lentil-muncher and still insists on white bread to this day.

Anyhoo, I made my wholemeal loaf slightly differently as I'm still using up my thrifty tub of Active Yeast.  That cost me 89p for enough to probably make around 15 loaves whereas if you buy the sachet stuff it's £1.09 for six loaves.  This meant that I did slightly change the recipe, reactivating 2tsp of the yeast in the water (two parts chilled to one part boiled) with a teaspoon of sugar.  I also didn't use vitamin C as I had none to hand.  I wasn't too sure what would happen if I stuck a Berrocca tablet in with the yeast.  That's an interesting experiment for another day.  

I followed the rest of the recipe, with the 10 second every 10 minutes kneading and then baking at 220c for 20 minutes before finishing off at 200c.  And I got a pretty good looking loaf.  

Due to a change in plans, we've not road-tested it at the time of writing.  I have a brief respite from parenting so wanted to get the blog mostly blogged now so that I can have a quiet evening.  We had lunch out (hence why the loaf didn't get eaten) and that means I won't have to cook dinner tonight.  Instead, the loaf will probably be used for sausage sandwiches later on.  If it is, mine will be laced with Chilli Jam.  Yummy!

I'll update the blog with the verdict later and will definitely try the Vitamin C thing another day if this loaf isn't up to scratch.  And the Berrocca method - purely for the entertainment value.

You can find the article by Felicity Cloake here.  It also contains a link to Dan Lepard's recipe for a simple wholemeal loaf.