Category: Brioche


Dec
2019

Coronation Chicken “Brexit” Rolls

categories: 1950's recipes, A Moveable Feast, Brioche, Cantina, Chicken, Leftovers, Tasty Reads

For me, closing out a recipe book is almost as satisfying as marking up the pages of a new one!  The very last recipe I had to cook out of A Moveable Feast by Katy Holder was Coronation Chicken Baguettes with Apple Slaw.  It took ages to make because leftover roast chicken seems to disappear from my fridge before I ever find the time to mix it with mayo, curry powder and chutney to make up some Coronation Chicken.


Coronation Chicken

I did not have baguettes. I had these gorgeous Bretzel Rolls which are, I assume a cross between a Pretzel roll and a Brioche.   These made me laugh because I made them on the day after the British election.  Whilst  I knew that technically they were Bretzel rolls, in my head, they were only ever Brexit rolls!

For those of you not familiar with the bright orange concoction that is Coronation Chicken, it is the best of British combined with a little bit o’ spice from the days of the Raj.  Martin Lampen quite cruelly describes it as follows:

“A combination of chicken breasts, curry powder and mayonnaise, Coronation Chicken was created by flower-decorator and author Constance Spry ( the Nigella Lawson of powdered egg, nylon chaffing, sexual repression, back street abortions and locking women in the attic for thyroid problems and ‘hysterics’) in 1953 to celebrate the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II….Cheap chicken in a sickly yellow curry gunk with six sultanas.  God save the Queen”

Coronation Chicken3

It is actually quite delicious –  a little bit spicy, a little bit sweet.  And the slaw on the side suggested by Katy Holder is a great accompaniment to cut through some of the richness.

Coronation Chicken6

 

You could also make these with turkey if you still have any leftover from Christmas!  The homemade is also a whole lot nicer than the “sickly yellow curry gunk” that comes in those plastic tubs in British supermarkets. So why not make your own.  With, a Brexit roll if you can get one!

Coronation Chicken4

For a vegetarian version, Yotam Ottolenghi suggests his curried egg and cauliflower salad.  It lacks the sweetness of a regular Coronation chicken – which could be resolved, if you wish, by adding a little dollop of mango chutney or those sultanas reviled by Martin Lampen.

Curried egg and Cauliflower Salad

So this will be my last post for 2019.  Apologies for being absent recently.  I had a mad 6 weeks at work before the break, then got sick, and since then have been busy trying to socialise the new addition to the family!

Holly1

Holly joined us about a week ago.  She has had a terrible life, first on a puppy farm who then sold her to medical research. So even though she is nearly 11 years old, she has never been a house dog.  She is very timid but is learning very quickly how to dog!  We already love her to bits.  She will need ongoing training but has already come a very long way in a short time.  And every second is worth it as she is an absolute joy!

Anyway, all that has meant that the blog has been on a back burner for a while but for 2020…

 

Now that I have cooked through A Moveable Feast, another aim for 2020 is to cook through Cantina.  I did not entirely enjoy this book when we tackled it in Tasty Reads back in 2015.  I found the recipes were too long and complicated and many of the ingredients were hard to come.  Alhough the results were generally delish.  I still have 30 recipes left to cook from it which equates to around 1.5 per week during 2020.

It might be a long year!

The upside is delicious Mexican food 30 times in the year which can’t be a bad thing!!!

 

Thanks for reading and being a part of this in 2019. Wishing you all a wonderful 2020!!!!

 

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Oct
2015

Braving Brioche

categories: 1970's recipes, A-Zof Cooking, Bread, Brioche, France

They say you should do one thing every day that scares you.  Well, this week we are jumping ahead to the letter H in the A-Z of cooking and I am doing something that terrifies me.  The reason for the leap from E to H and the sudden boldness on my part will become apparent in the next post….Huh…instead of a cliff hanger ending I think I just gave you a cliff hanger starting!  Anyway, want to know what scares me?  That third episode of Limetown still makes me shiver  but cooking wise, one of the things that frightens me is bread.

Brioche1And not only did I made bread this week but ooh la la, I made French Bread!  Brioches to be exact.  And they were very good!  They looked kinda like brioches, they smelled like brioches, and they tasted like brioches!  I cannot tell you how pleasantly surprised I was because the manner of making seemed odd.

I have never made brioche before but maybe, possibly this is how it is done.  It seemed to work!

You made your bread dough then divided it into 12 pieces which you rolled into balls.  Then you pinched off a small ball of dough from each of those so you then had  24 balls, 12 small and 12 larger.  The recipe then called to make a hole in the large ball and stick the small ball inside.  I found it easier to flatten the large ball and wrap it around the small ball.

BriocheThen into the baking pan for a rest and rise:

Brioche CollageAdd a glaze, pop in the oven and a short while later:

BRIOCHE!!!!

Brioche2If I’d known brioche was going to be this easy I would have been making it for years!  I love that high shine glaze!  And to copy a phrase I learned from the Great British Bake Off, the bread also has “good crumb”.

Even though I had specifically made these for another purpose, I couldn’t resist having a little taste.  Brioche and apricot jam for afternoon tea?  Yes please!

Brioche and Jam

As for the rest of them?  Stay tuned.  You’ll see in a couple of days!  And it’s worth the wait!  Meantime, get your brioches ready!

Print

Brioche

Brioche1
Print Recipe

Ingredients

Scale
  • 1 tbsp plus 1tsp sugar
  • 3 tbsp hand hot water
  • 2 tsp dried yeast
  • 200g plain flour
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 50g butter, melted and cooled

Egg Glaze

  • 1 egg
  • 1 tbsp water
  • pinch of sugar

Instructions

  1. Dissolve 1/2 tsp of sugar in the water. Sprinkle over the yeast and whisk it in with a fork. Leave in a warm place for 10-15 minutes or until the mixture is frothy.
  2. Sift the flour and salt into a bowl. Mix in the rest of the sugar, the yeast mixture, the eggs and butter.
  3. Mix by hand until the mixture leaves the side of the bowl.
  4. Knead on a lightly floured board for 5 minutes.
  5. Put the dough in a warm place and leave to rise for about 1.5 hours or until it has doubled in size and springs back when lightly pressed.
  6. Preheat your oven to 230C.
  7. Divide the dough into 12 portions. Break off a small bit of each portion and roll into 12 small balls.
  8. Roll the remainder of the portions into 12 larger balls.
  9. Poke a hole in each of the larger balls with your finger and place the small ball inside. Close the hole by pressing the dough together.
  10. Place the balls in your baking tin and leave to rise for about an hour or until light and puffy.
  11. Mix the ingredients for the egg glaze together and brush over the brioches.
  12. Place in your preheated oven for 10 minutes.

Have a great week!

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