My name is Jo and I have a breadmaker and I love it. There, I’ve said it. I have made – and do sometimes still – loaves by hand but when you just want a loaf for sausage sandwiches or cheese on toast, I find my breadmaker indispensable. I just wanted to get that out the way at the beginning so we’re all clear.
Anyway, the latest find is Bacheldre Watermill’s oak-smoked malted blend bread flour. I bunged it in the machine with the normal amounts that would make up a 750g loaf, set it for a white loaf (I find for some reason on my Panasonic that a granary setting makes the loaf really dry. Answers on a postcard…) and let it go. I had in mind that it would be the perfect setting for Nigel Slater’s idea of smoked salmon, bacon, lettuce and chutney sandwiches.
Reader I was not wrong. I chose a beetroot, horseradish and apple chutney, leaves of Little Gem, smoked salmon with a little pepper and slices of streaky bacon – not too crisp for me. It was amazing. The bread is very delicately smokily flavoured and the malted granary gives a pleasing sweetness. It would be fabulous as a backdrop for smoked mackerel pate and I’m trying it now with the omnipresent sausages with slices of tomato and Dijon mustard. I’ll let you know.
And just on a tangent, last night’s supper was just perfect for this dank cold January. A sausage casserole, simmering the links in chicken stock with sliced onion, two sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped, a peeled, chopped apple. tbsp of flour for thickening and a tin of cannellini beans. Add a good tbsp of Dijon just before serving to counteract all that sweetness and it’s a real body-hugger of a dish. The potatoes crumble and thicken the stock, the apple melts and adds background sweetness and it’s a lovely convivial gathering of flavours.
2 comments:
You didn't smoke your own flour, then?
Ha! No Ben, no I didn't. I barely have time to clean my teeth these days, let alone smoke my own flour.
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