Crispy Greek-style pie

One of my main source of inspiration is the BBC Good Food website (I'm sure you've noticed that already) and for the past few months I've bought the magazines as well. I have to say that some recipes appear both online and in the magazines, but there is nothing better than flicking through the glossy pages and earmarking everything I want to cook in the near future. And trust me, there are a lot of recipes I've marked so far.

As I bought the latest edition and went through it, the Feta pie just looked too good not to give it a go. So I got the ingredients and made the pie and I have to say it was just divine. Incredibly crispy on the outside and the filling just melted in my mouth - even my other half who's not big on Feta helped himself to a second serving! I also love the fact that there's no added salt in this pie as Feta is salty enough to flavour the whole pie.

It is a lovely summery dish and makes a great lunch or dinner or even a starter. Serve it with generous amounts of green salad for a healthy and quick meal that is guaranteed to leave you satisfied at the end.

Ingredients

(Serves 4)
- 200g spinach leaves
- 175g jar of sundried tomatoes in oil
- 100g Feta
- 2 eggs
- Green salad, to serve
- 125g filo pastry

Directions
Put the spinach in a large pan with 2 tbsp water and cook until just wilted. Place in in a sieve and leave to cool for a bit. Squeeze out the excess water and roughly chop the spinach and place it in the bowl. Roughly chop the tomatoes and then add to the spinach along with eggs and crumbled feta. Mix well to combine.

Preheat the oven to 160C (fan) and prepare the filo crust. Carefully unroll the filo pastry (let it thaw a bit) and cover it with damp sheets of kitchen towel to stop it from drying out. Take one sheet of pastry and brush it generously with the sundried tomato oil. Place it oily side down into a springform tin so that some of the pastry hangs out over the side. Repeat that until you have 3 layers. Spoon over the spinach mixture and pull the overhanging sides into middle, crunch them up and make sure the filling is covered (if necessary place another sheet of pastry on top before folding the edges) and brush with little more oil on top.

Bake for 30 minutes until the pastry is crispy and golden brown. Remove from the tim, slice into wedges and serve with a green salad.

Recipe from BBC GoodFood Asian Edition May 2013

Wholemeal bread with mixed seeds

As I've had quite a bit of free time in my hands lately I decided to give bread-making another go. As I absolutely love my rye bread patties I wanted to give making a wholegrain loaf a go. We all know the benefits of eating wholegrain - more fibre, meaning that we'll feel fuller for longer and also fibre aids digestion. However, I've not quite found the perfect wholegrain bread here in Singapore and so as I'm on my summer holiday I just decided to give it a go. And the speed at which the first loaf disappeared I just had to make a second one few days after. I can honestly tell you that it is nearly impossible to resist fresh and warm homemade bread so it is not surprising that we finished over half of the loaf within 30 minutes of me taking it out of the oven. We had the bread with slightly salted butter and some turkey ham and I can tell you that it felt like a big pile of goodness had just melted in my mouth the moment I took the bite.

Compared to the store-bought breads this is a lot denser and has a slight nutty taste to it, which in my opinion makes it taste even better. And as to the denseness, that just means that you need to eat it less than the store-bought stuff to feel satisfied (but as said before, it didn't stop us from eating over half the loaf in one go).

Obviously this isn't proper proper bread in the sense that I still used yeast and not a started, but frankly I'm a bit impatient and when I decide to make something I want to make it now and not wait for like a week before I can finally get down to baking my bread. So call it cheating if you want to, but I promise that the moment you try the bread you couldn't care less whether it was made with starter or yeast.

I'd love to tell you for how long it keeps, but as you might have guessed already it disappears pretty fast. So far it's kept nice and soft for 2 days in a airtight container - I sliced up the bread and keep them in small batches in ziplock sandwich bags. This is obviously best enjoyed when fresh, but it is also divine toasted. Eat as a snack, make it into a filling sandwich, serve on the side of a soup or warm it up and serve with some butter - any way is delicious.

Ingredients

(Makes 1 loaf)
- 500g strong wholemeal bread flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp honey
- 1 tsp dry yeast
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 380ml warm water
- Mixed seeds, to sprinkle

Directions
First mix the flour, salt and dry yeast. Then add warm water and honey. Mix the dough and when its still a bit lumpy add the olive oil. Knead it well until it feels nice and smooth. Place in a bowl and cover with a tea towel and let it stand for 1,5 hours in a warm place for it to double in size.

Place the dough on a floured surface and knead once more (for around 3-5 minutes). If you wish to have seeds in your loaf then this is the place to add them. Line the bread making tray with baking parchment or just cover with a small layer of olive oil and place the dough in the tray. Sprinkle over with some mixed seeds (I used sunflower and pumpkin seeds this time) and cover the tray with a tea towel. Preheat the oven to 200C (fan) and let the bread rise for another 25 minutes. I find that this is approximately the same amount of time needed for the oven to heat up. Bake the bread for 35-40 minutes.

When ready remove from the tray and place on a cutting board and cover with a towel and let it cool down a bit before cutting (just makes it easier and this way you'll avoid burning yourself as well). Enjoy!

 

 

Tom Yum soup

I'd like to apologise for leaving such a big gap between my posts, but I was away on a family holiday and decided to leave my laptop at home (at first it felt like I was missing a limb, but after few days I realised I had made a great decision) and ever since I arrived back in Singapore I've been battling with one of the worst jet lags of my whole life (this explains why writing this post has taken so long).

I haven't forgotten my little promise to myself to try out some Asian dishes before I move back to London and as I got six cookbooks for my birthday (my friends know me way too well) and one of them was about soups I decided to treat us for a nice Asian soup. And as I was flicking through the soup book the Tom Yum soup caught my eye. And it did so because firstly the pictures looked really nice, secondly because the ingredient list was a lot shorter than I would have ever expected and thirdly I've really wanted to try making it at home and it was my luck that I did not have to shift through dozens of recipes on the internet to find the one that I wanted to try.

What I really love about Tom Yum is the interplay between flavours - its sweet, sour, salty and spicy all at the same time. To be honest, that tends to be so with most Thai dishes, but that doesn't make it any less special. Taking into account that everything in this soup is freshly made it is actually quite quick to make - the most time consuming part is making the prawn stock. It really fills you up and even in this hot climate it makes a perfect dish to finish your day. Also, the thing with home-made food is that you can easily vary the spiciness level (always feel free to reduce the amount of chilli you put in) and you can basically tailor the food to your liking. So, if you're looking for a nice oriental soup this one is definitely worth trying out.

Ingredients

(Makes 4)
- 300g fresh prawns
- 1.25l water (plus 1.5l for the stock)
- 2 stalks of lemongrass, thick part sliced diagonally
- 4-5 bird's eye chillies, bruised
- 3 thin slices of galangal
- 4 kaffir lime leaves, washed and torn
- 2-3 tsp fish sauce
- 75ml freshly squeezed lime juice
- Salt, to season
- 2 tbs olive oil

Directions
First make the prawn stock. For that remove and reserve prawn heads and shells, but leave the tails on. Devein the prawns by making a cut along their back and remove the vein. Also, doing this will make them curl up nicely during cooking.

To make the stock, heat the oil in a large pot over high heat. When its hot add the prawn shells and heads and stir fry for 1-2 minutes until they are bright pink. Then add 1.5l water and bring to boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 20 minutes (25 minutes max). Then use a potato masher to crush the shells against the bottom of the pot to get the maximum flavour. Strain the stock through a sieve and discard the shells and set it aside.

The pour the strained stock into a clean pot and add lemongrass, chillies, galangal and lime leaves. Bring this to boil over medium heat. Add the prawns to the pot and cook for 2 minutes (or until they are just cooked and curled). Switch off the heat and stir in the fish sauce.

Season the soup with lime juice (taste it so the sour-salty balance is perfect for you) and add little salt if necessary. Serve immediately and enjoy!

Recipe from C. Tan's book "Slurp"