It seems not that long ago that there were only two types of plain flour on the supermarket shelves : branded flour like WhiteWings, or the cheaper ‘home-brand’ stuff. Last week I was in the baking aisle and noticed several new types of flour available. An Italian OO flour for pasta, an organic range and even a sponge flour (which I quite excitedly picked up and hope to trial soon). One thing that mystifies me though, is why does bakers flour come in such large (5kg) sacks. Doesn’t anyone bake with just a 1kg bag? Or maybe it’s true, once you get the (bread) baking bug, there’s no looking back.

I’ve recently been inspired by a baker who visited us at work. He was there in hope to sign us on as a future customer. He brought two large boxes of freshly baked bread on the first day, and rather impressively, turned up unexpectedly the following day with yet another large box containing a completely different selection of bread. Never have I tried so much bread in one sitting! Turns out, he’s self taught, and started out with a bakery on Oxford Street which must have done pretty well as he now also has a shop in Leichhardt. His breads are one of the finest and most interesting I’ve had in Sydney so far. Take the carrot bread for example, which has a great tanned crust and bright orange flecks of carrot through it. My boss and colleagues at work were as enraptured as I was, when listening to this man talk about bread and his passion for bread making.

Apparently one of the secrets of good bread, is a long proving time, which helps develop the complex flavours within the bread. In a recipe for a walnut fougasse I tried recently, the bread was proved and punched down at least four times before being baked in a hot oven. It tasted divine straight from the oven, and just as good, several hours later, with a little piece of stilton. However, it did also take almost half a day to make.

For a quick home made bread fix, I still like using the easy recipes that generally need no more than two proves and allows you to be snacking on freshly baked bread in no time at all. The flavour might not be as developed, but it still beats having a loaf of commercial bread any day of the week. The best thing is being able to customise the bread to your requirements. Take hot cross buns, which these days don’t really require Easter to come round before they’re already stacked in the aisles. In my experience, the commercial ones are never spicy enough, or fruity enough. This recipe by Sue Lawrence works really well and I love the use of golden syrup as a glaze. These glossy buns are perfect especially for this time of the year when there’s nothing like the drifting scent of spices to warm up a wintery house. As I’ve omitted the traditional cross of dough on top and because a bite of these with a cup of tea makes me smile, I’ve renamed them…

Hot Happy Buns :
(makes 12)

500g unbleached strong white flour, sifted
1 teaspoon salt
40g light muscovado sugar (or brown sugar)
1/2 teaspoon mixed spice
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
55g unsalted butter, chilled and diced
100g raisins and currants
25g mixed peel
7g sachet dried yeast
300ml mixed milk and water, heated to tepid

1 tablespoon golden syrup (for glazing)

Place flour in a bowl, then stir in the salt, sugar and spices. Rub in the butter until it resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in the dried fruits and peel, then stir in the yeast. Slowly stir in the tepid liquid and bring the mixture together in your hands to form a ball. Turn out on to a floured surface and knead for 10 minutes.

Place in a lightly oiled bowl and cover with oiled clingfilm. Leave for about 2 hours until well risen.

Lightly oil a baking sheet. Knock back the dough and divide into 12 pieces. Roll into balls and placed on the prepared baking sheet. Put in a warm place for about 45 minutes or until well risen again. Meanwhile preheat the oven to 220’C.

Bake the buns for 18-20 minutes or until puffed up and golden brown. While the buns are baking, gently melt the syrup in a microwave or a small pan over a low heat. Lift the buns on to a wire rack and brush the tops with the syrup. Leave to cool.

(Becke of Columbus Foodie is holding this month’s round of Bread Baking Day, and lucky me, she has picked one of my favourite additions to bread : Fruit.)

Usually when I think of pumpkins, the Butternut pumpkin comes immediately to mind. An hourglass-shaped pumpkin which makes for a decidedly tasty and wintery soup, paired with condiments like fried bacon, chopped parsley or even an indulgent little drizzle of pure cream. If not reserved for soup, it’s puree can be transformed into scones, muffins and spiced pumpkin pie (though the latter is not very prevalent here in Australia). It is also great cut into wedges (leave the skin on, it actually has a really nice flavour, once roasted), tossed in olive oil and spices, roasted until tender, and served as a side dish (Jamie Oliver has a good recipe for this). The Queensland Blue and Jarrahdale, two regional varieties of pumpkin you also see frequently in the shops here, remind me more of the pumpkin my sister and I once carved for Halloween. Carved pumpkins are meant to ward off evil spirits, but ours seemed to attract a few pests and after a couple of days, I was starting to get creeped out by the rot and mould that had set in, making the facial features sag.

When not being taken to with a knife for such artistic endeavours, all types of pumpkins are high in Vitamins A and B, and their seeds contain a lot of Zinc, which is good for the prostate and the immune system. And here’s an interesting little bit of trivia that I also learnt from Wikipedia : apparently, you can roughly guess the number of seeds contained in a pumpkin by multiplying the number of fruiting sections by 16!

This pumpkin salad, from a recent issue of Gourmet Traveller is, in my opinion, an absolute winner. I like it served warm, as befitting the current weather, and don’t stinge on the tahini sauce – generous lashings of it really make the salad.

Roast pumpkin and chickpea salad :
(recipe by Joseph Abboud from Rumi)

100g dried chickpeas, soaked overnight in cold water, then drained
1 cinnamon quill
1/2 onion, halved
1.2 kg pumpkin, peeled, seeds removed and cut into 2cm pieces
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 cup (loosely packed) flat-leaf parsley leaves
1/4 cup Dukkah

Tahini sauce :
125g tahini
1 clove garlic, pounded to a paste with a pinch of salt
90ml lemon juice
15ml (3 teaspoons) orange juice
15ml olive oil

Combine chickpeas, cinnamon and onion in a large saucepan, cover with water and bring to boil, simmer for 20-30 minutes or until tender. Drain and discard cinnamon and onion.

Preheat oven to 220’C. Place pumpkin in a roasting pan, season with sea salt, drizzle with oil, scatter with allspice and toss to combine. Roast, turning occasionally, for 25-30 minutes until golden and tender.

For the tahini sauce, place tahini in a bowl and slowly stir in 90ml cold water, then whisk in remaining ingredients and season with sea salt. Makes about 250ml. Sauce will keep refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks.

Gently combine pumpkin, chickpeas, parsley and Dukkah in a bowl and season to taste. Spread 1/4 cup tahini sauce over a plate, top with salad, drizzel with an extra 2 tablespoons tahini sauce and serve.

This week’s WHB is hosted by Susan of Food Blogga. Nevermind the healthy and delicious sounding wild rocket pasta recipe she features for WHB, you should check out the insane-sized lobsters she had recently. The claw alone might have fed me for a week! (if only…)

I’m in love with all the relatively affordable restaurants B and I have been visiting recently. Mind you, we also recently ate at the fabulous Sushi-E and spent $100 on two entrees and one main course, but that was worth it also. Besides, it was either eat, or spend 2 hours trying to catch a bus back home amidst all the rail chaos of last Thursday evening.

The Sunday before, we had a family dinner at the ever busy Red Lantern in Surry Hills. Most people know it as the third restaurant that was featured on SBS’s Heat in the Kitchen. I now know it as a place that serves amazing Vietnamese food in a city usually more obsessed with Thai or Japanese cuisine.

Rather atypically, we managed to over-order from an extremely tantalising menu, and received no duds. I could live on salads alone, in a restaurant like this. A special of a Crab and Pomelo salad, was a suitably light and refreshing way to start our journey that culminated in a rich and mouthwateringly tender red beef curry. In between, were other soul-satisfying salads like Roast Duck and Banana Blossom with Pickled Vegetables and Green Papaya with King Prawns, Pork and Fresh Herbs; a construct-yourself dish of grilled pork tenderloin with vermicelli and herbs, and even a crispy chicken dish to rival its Chinese counterpart.

It amazes me to be able to get this much satisfaction from a meal that is so modestly priced, when there are a lot of restaurants out there charging stupid amounts of money for dishes I could eat and forget in a blink of an eye. It’s not that I expect less and therefore am easier to please, just because there isn’t linen on the table and the menu is written on the wall with nothing above $15. It’s that I go in, am amazed by the food, and then am blown away by how little it all costs. Pasteur on George Street is a case in point. After an $11 bowl of Special Beef Noodle Soup, B mused that it was theoretically possible for us to work through the entire 26 item menu if we wanted to. And yes, we do want to. Not all in one day, of course.

Pasteur
709 George Street
Sydney 2000.

Red Lantern
545 Crown Street
Surry Hills 2010.