Sun Dried Tomato Pesto and Grana Padano Pull Apart Rolls

If there's one thing that cheers up the hubby it's the smell of bread baking. He'd been bugging me to make bread at home for quite some time but for one reason or the other it just wasn't happening. This morning I decided nothing was going to get in the way - I was going to bake some bread no matter what. Something simple, comforting, and easy to put together with whatever I had in the fridge and pantry. 

After rooting around I found a jar of sun dried tomato pesto and a wedge of Grana Padano cheese among a whole lot of other things and thought of using the two in pull apart rolls. Pull aparts are among the easiest breads you can make at home, and if you're a beginner with breads, these rolls will boost your confidence for sure. Simply make the basic dough, knead for a bit, let it rise, roll out, slather with filling, roll up, slice into portions, place in baking tin, let rise again, and bake. That's it. It's just the initial kneading that requires some attention, and once that's done it's a matter of following a simple procedure step by step.

I've made pull aparts with many different fillings - some sweet, some savoury - and there's no end to the variety of possibilities. Tomato and cheese is a classic combination and it works very well in breads too. In these rolls I used Grana Padano, a hard cheese from Italy that is similar to Parmesan. In fact, you can use Parmesan instead if you prefer. 


Sun Dried Tomato Pesto and Grana Padano Pull Apart Rolls


200 gms all purpose flour
2 tsp instant yeast
2 tsp sugar
3/4 cup lukewarm water
2 tsp butter, softened
1 tsp salt
3-4 tsp sun dried tomato pesto
1/2 cup Grana Padano, grated
extra butter for brushing

Mix the sugar and yeast in a bowl and then pour the luke warm water over both. 

Take flour in a clean mixing bowl. Make a well in the centre and pour in the yeast-sugar mix. Bring it all together with a pastry cutter (it's less messy) or simply mix with your fingers. You will have a sticky dough. Remove from the bowl to your floured work surface. 

On the side of your work surface mix the butter and salt with your fingers, rubbing in a light circular motion, fingers parallel to the surface. Once the butter looks pale and foamy mix it into the dough. Now knead gently till you have a soft pliable dough, stretching and folding as you go. Dust with dry flour as required if the dough is too sticky. Knead for 10 to 12 minutes. 

Roll the dough into a ball and place it in a clean bowl to rise. Cover with a damp cloth and leave it to double. This should take around 20 to 30 minutes depending on the weather. 

Once the dough has doubled remove it onto your floured work surface. Deflate it gently and knead it for a minute. 

Roll out the dough into a largeish rectangle. Try to get a uniform shape or you will have lop-sided rolls. Spread a generous few dollops of the sun dried tomato pesto going to the edges of the rectangle. Try to drain out as much of the oil as possible from the pesto (when baking, the oil will settle to the bottom of your baking tin and you will end up with 'fried' bits). Grate the cheese over the pesto uniformly. 

Now carefully roll the rectangle Swiss-roll style. Do this gently or your roll will be lumpy and loose. Tighten the roll as you go. You will have a long roll of dough. Cut into rolls with a sharp non serrated knife or a dough scraper. Arrange the rolls loosely in a baking tin, cut sides horizontal, leaving enough room for the rolls to prove and swell till they are double, or just squashed up closely with each other. Use more than one tin if they don't all fit into one, but don't crowd them. 

Once they have proved pop them into a preheated oven at 200C and bake for around 20 minutes till the tops are a nice golden brown. Brush with a bit of butter as soon as you take them out of the oven. 

Serve them warm or enjoy them at leisure with a bowl of soup. 

Ham, Cheese and Leek Quiche

The hubby spied leeks in the veg box in the fridge and asked me to make a ham and leek quiche. I had, of course, scant memory of what lay in that veg box and was quite surprised to find out that we had leeks. Well, there was no excuse and I set out to make the quiche.

I have never made quiche before and had absolutely no idea where to begin. Vague ideas of sautéed leeks and chunky ham baked in an eggy custard floated around in my head and I had no clue how the crust should be. Puff pastry seemed requisite but it turned out that shortcrust would do as well.

I trawled the Net for some basic recipes and then looked through my cookbooks for more ideas. I cobbled together a workable recipe for the pastry case and the filling and this is what I made.

Ham, Cheese and Leek Quiche

1 cup grated cheddar or Grano Padano cheese
250gms ham, diced or in chunky cubes
1 cup sliced leeks
2 tbsp Olive oil

3 eggs
200ml Amul cream
salt
pepper

1 1/2 cup maida or white flour
100gms butter, very cold, cut into small cubes
2 tbs chilled water
1 egg


Start with the tart shell. In a clean bowl put in the flour and the cubed butter. Combine with a fork or a pastry mixer till crumbly. You can also do this in a food processor. Add the egg and a tbsp of the cold water and mix gently to form a loose dough. Turn out on a lightly floured surface and knead very lightly to bring together into a ball of dough. Work it minimally and quickly with just your fingertips. It just needs to stay together. Wrap in cling film and refrigerate for 20 to 30 mins.

Dust your work surface lightly with flour and roll out the chilled dough into a large disc at least 15 inches in diameter. Lift gently and place over your loose bottomed pie ring. Gently press the dough into the sides and the base of the ring. Trim the edges with a sharp knife or simply pinch off with your fingers. Press into the sides so the dough sticks to the fluted edges of the tin. Cover the pie shell with parchment and fill it with dried beans, rice or baking beads - whatever you have. I used black eyed peas.

Bake the tart shell blind at 200C for 15 minutes in a preheated oven. Remove and take out the beans and the parchment paper carefully.   Put the tart shell back in the oven and bake for another 7 to 10 minutes till it is a pale golden colour.

In the mean while  heat the olive oil in a pan and sauté the leeks and then the ham lightly. Remove to a plate and set aside. Grate your cheese and keep it ready. In a clean jug whip the cream with the eggs. Season with salt and pepper.

Once the pie shell is baked to a pale gold it is time to assemble the quiche and put it to bake. First scatter the cooked leeks and the ham. The sprinkle the grated cheese to cover. Finally pour the eggs and cream all over. You can add some fresh or dried herbs if you like.

Now bake the quiche at 180C for 20 to 25 mins. It will be puffed up considerably but will settle as it cools.

Let it cool for 5 minutes and then remove to a pretty plate. Cut into wedges and serve hot.

You can use a slightly smaller pie ring so the filling is deeper. You will also have some pastry left over. Just pop it into the freezer and use it later to make a mini quiche or a fruit tart or something. Be careful while handling the baked pie shell. The constant putting it in and out of the oven is a delicate operation - I cracked my pie a bit and so some of the egg custard dribbled out leaving me with a flatter filling than I would have liked. But this was my very first time and it's a lesson learned :)

Use a jug to pour the egg custard. This is something the hubby saw Jamie Oliver suggest on one of his programmes and it's a genuinely handy hint that ensures less mess.

The egg cream custard is a must in a quiche. You can fool around with different combinations for the rest of the fillings - use chopped and cooked salami, chunky sausages, vegetables, shredded chicken, whatever you like.

Marathon Bloggers Project 52

Potato, Rosemary and Pecorino Bread

We have a friend who is a food importer and every once in a way he summons us to his warehouse and we come back laden with goodies. Cheeses, meats, condiments, varieties of flours and fancy ingredients - it's like an Alladin's Cave of foodie treasures! Summons came again this week and the hubby came back laden with a mountain of goodies once again.

Among all the loot were these wedges of Pecorino Romano cheese. Hard and salty, this Italian cheese is made from sheep's milk and, according to the Wikipedia article, is one of the oldest cheeses of Italy.

Now that I had a pile of this cheese I started looking around for recipes and as I wandered around the Internet I chanced upon this recipe via Pinterest. As I read through it I realised not only was it a very easy bread to make, I also had all the ingredients. It was perfect! Well, I didn't have fresh rosemary so I used dried, but that much adjustment is always allowed.

Potato, Rosemary and Pecorino Bread

(This recipe makes two loaves)

1 cup boiled potatoes
20gms Instant yeast
1 tsp sugar

1/2 cup melted butter
1/3 cup olive oil
2 eggs
3 tbsp sugar
2 cups grated Pecorino Romano cheese
2 tsp dried rosemary
6-7 cups plain white flour

Boil the potatoes with a good pinch of rosemary. Reserve 1 cup of the water that the potatoes have been boiled in.

In the reserved potato water sprinkle in the yeast if you're using active yeast or fresh yeast and a tsp of sugar. Though I used Instant I forgot it didn't need soaking, but that didn't harm the bread, thank God!

In a clean mixing bowl or in the bowl of your stand mixer mix the boiled potatoes, butter, oil, eggs, cheese and the rosemary. Roughly mashing up the potatoes before helps if you're using a stand mixer. If you're mixing by hand make sure there are no lumps of potato in the mixture. Once roughly mixed add the yeast water and stir to combine.

Add two cups of flour sprinkling it in, a little at a time and mix till you get a sticky dough. I used the paddle blade till this stage.

Add the remaining flour slowly, cup by cup, letting the dough firm up. I changed to the dough hook at this stage and it didn't take more than a few minutes for the dough to come together. Roughly 6 cups of flour were enough to get a soft dough.

Clean your work surface and sprinkle some flour on it. Knead the dough for 5 -7 minutes and once it is smooth you can put it aside to rise. Transfer the dough into a clean, floured bowl and cover with a cloth. Let it rise for an hour, undisturbed.

Once the dough has risen all you need to do is punch it down, divide into two and bake. Since my oven could accommodate just one loaf at a time I refrigerated half the dough while the first loaf baked.

Preheat the oven to 180C. Line a baking tray with baking parchment and place your loaf on the tray. Cut a square on top of the loaf and put it in to bake for 30 to 35 minutes. Let it cool and then slice and serve with butter if you like.

Potted meat and memories

Most of us read Enid Blyton's books when we were kids and I did too. What wonderful tales she could spin! My favourites were the more real ones with adventures and mysteries, not so much the ones with magic and fantasy. And I think the reason was the descriptions of the suppers and teas and tuck boxes and all the goodies that would star in these descriptions - Hot buttered scones, bowls of jam, meat pies, potted meat, potted shrimp and I remember, in one book it was Christmas and Cook comes in at the end of a grand meal carrying a Christmas pudding that had been flambéed with brandy!

For a kid growing up in Bombay with fairly non-adventurous parents (at least about food) most of these foods were completely alien and I guess, because it was up to me to imagine what I liked, they became even more wonderful.

A few days ago K came home with a surprise for me. He had found out that a friend's mom makes potted meat and so he requested her to make some for us. Can you imagine my delight?! Here was one of those nearly mythical foods from my childhood.. not that I'd ever tasted it or even had a clue what it was supposed to look like, but still. It was way up there on my list of things I'd like to taste in this life time.

The potted meat is made using beef mince, bacon mince, shredded bread, onions and spices and is a lovely flavourful meaty paste.

Now breakfast is yummier than usual. My favourite way to enjoy the potted meat is on toast with a slathering of cream cheese like this -

Thank you Mrs. Baptista!

Marathon Bloggers Day 11

Noodles with bacon bits and cheese

Noodles! The word takes me back to those wonderful years in Pune that I spent living in the Deccan College hostel. I was officially studying there but you know how it is.. life offers so many better options :)

One of the best things I brought back with me from those years of hostel life was a hundred ways to cook noodles. The short cut kind of course. Those days my preferred brand was Top Ramen. I found the noodles to be finer than Maggi and they didn't clump up as much.

Now, if you've ever lived in a hostel you have a fair idea how desperate one is for good food. Not lavish stuff but basic good food. Our campus had a students run mess and the food was strictly so so and on some days downright awful. No surprise there.

Since the college provided no official mess arrangement many students opted to cook their own meals in the rooms. We could use a hot plate or even set up a full fledged kitchen with a gas stove and everything! I had a wonderful hotplate with 3 temperature settings which made cooking even easier. Predictably khicree and noodles were the most frequent stars on the menu and there was no end to the innovations that these basic preparations were subjected to.

Here's one beloved recipe for noodles.

1 pack instant noodles - any flavour
2 slices Britannia cheese
fried onions
fried garlic
bacon bits
tomato sauce

Boil a cup and a half of water in a saucepan and add the sachet of noodle flavoring to it. Sprinkle the bacon bits and add the noodles at the same time. Break up the noodles if you prefer smaller strands.  Once the noodles are about half cooked add the fried onions and the fried garlic. Stir to mix and add the tomato sauce too. Once the noodles are cooked put in the two slices of cheese and stir to mix. Add a few more bacon bits  and serve hot!

 The wonderful thing about the cheese is that it makes the sauce wonderfully thick and smooth and incredibly delicious. I like the noodles to have plenty of sauce just like this.


Park yourself in a comfortable chair, find that book you're reading, put aside the world for a bit and sink into this bowl of absolute comfort.

I just did.

Marathon Bloggers Day 6

The Triumph of the Toasted Sandwich

The Toasted Sandwich is such an integral part of Mumbai life. Right from school when one begins to discover the forbidden delights of street food, the toasted sandwich has been one of the star attractions.

Since I work from home there's not much street food that I get to eat. What better solution than to bring the street home? Granted, one can never quite replicate those street flavours in a sanitised home kitchen but there are magical flavours to be found at home too.

While the classic road side sandwich is replete with sliced veggies,cheese and spiced potatoes, the home version is more 'gourmet' and can be just as fulfilling.

Bored with the usual oatmeal/ fried eggs and toast/ muesli breakfasts Kurush decided to make something different for breakfast this morning. Of course overcoming the morning inertia took a while and we had brunch instead.

Whole wheat bread with Apple Smoked Mozzarella and slices of Spanish chorizo sandwiched and then toasted in the sandwich toasting contraption that used to be a part of every kitchen in Mumbai. It's not that common these days but it's not that rare either. After all, with the local sandwich wala dishing them out why would you bother making them yourself? But then, he won't be serving these yummy babies that we had for brunch today!

My love affair with the toasted sandwich grew in the years spent in the hostel in Pune. We didn't have the toaster but we were never short of toasted sandwiches. Get the makings together, pull out your trusty clothes iron and a roll of aluminium foil and you're in business. Assemble the sandwich, slather on the butter outside, wrap tightly in foil. Heat the iron up nicely and press down on the sandwich. The heavy irons of our parents' generation would be ideal as you don't have to put on much effort then. Toast both sides nicely, unwrap and take a bite of sheer heaven!

We used slices of salami, boiled potatoes, capsicums, cheese slices, tomatoes, whatever was available and suited our tastes.

Get yourself a simple sandwich toaster and treat yourself today. Simple pleasures in the simple things of life...

The Perfect Breakfast

Hubby cooked this breakfast a few days ago...

Scrambled Eggs with ham, Smoked Ham and Cheddar Cheese

Take 3 eggs, a knob of butter and a couple of slices of ham along with a tablespoon or so of milk.
In a pan melt butter and add the milk, stir and add the eggs, whisk around. Add a little salt. Add the ham, cut into small bits. Stir up till scramble is the consistency you like.

Serve in a plate with some smoked ham and a wedge of Cheddar and a couple of slices of bread.

Voila!!! The Perfect breakfast is ready!!