danlepard.com
features
features

Crisp, golden, light, salty & oily

by Dan Lepard
Crisp, golden, light, salty & oily

Making a Focaccia Genovese in a commercial bakery

(originally published in British Baker)
Foccacia has a home, in Italy, and a birthplace in the town of Genoa. That’s what Italians from Genoa tell me. But then as every man, woman and child of Italian extraction seems to have a slightly different take on their homeland’s culinary traditions, [...]

Blini-esque American-style pancakes (made with a touch of sour starter)

by Dan Lepard
Blini-esque American-style pancakes (made with a touch of sour starter)

Some people worry about being wasteful when discarding old starter at each and every refreshment. This simple solution may not suit you on a daily basis, but it’s a delicious way to use up something you might otherwise have thrown away.
Makes 6 large thick pancakes:
125g soft white (plain) flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tablespoons caster sugar
4 [...]

Cucurb your enthusiasm: marrow & ginger chutney

by David Whitehouse
Cucurb your enthusiasm: marrow & ginger chutney

This little adventure started when Dan’s cousin Maura and her lovely Mum, Auntie Sheila, gave us a large and fully ripened marrow (Cucurbita pepo) when we visited at Christmas 2009. Most marrows seen on sale in the UK are bright green and look like supersized courgettes, but if you let the marrow reach a good [...]

Oranges are the only fruit

by Dan Lepard
Oranges are the only fruit

They’re doing it again. Warning of the imminent death of marmalade eating and the traditional British way of life as we tweet our way to extinction

Chutney, Mary: red tomato chutney & yellow tomato chutney

by David Whitehouse
Chutney, Mary: red tomato chutney & yellow tomato chutney

Our very small back garden was relatively neglected for the first nine years we lived here… there always seemed to be something more pressing to spend the money on, like new floorboards, or kitchen cupboards, but late in 2008 we finally agreed on what we wanted and got the builders in. We then had the [...]

Has bean: french bean & tomato relish

by David Whitehouse
Has bean: french bean & tomato relish

The thing that has surprised me most with this year’s first steps in growing vegetables has been just how many beans you get from a few plants tucked in amongst the flowers. First to crop were the dwarf beans, then the runner beans kicked in (and have been amazingly productive, even climbing over the fence [...]

Go, man, go!: mango chutney

by David Whitehouse
Go, man, go!: mango chutney

Having got the garden produce under control for the moment, I still had a hankering to make more things for the store cupboard. On a quick trip to my local supermarket, I found large unripe mangoes on sale at a bargain price, so picked up a box full. I left them near the kitchen window [...]

An aubergine walked into a bar….

by David Whitehouse
An aubergine walked into a bar….

Aubergine Chutney:
The Turks have a proper respect for the aubergine, and have probably made more use of it in their cooking than any other culture. A food writer once told a joke about a visitor to Istanbul who, at the end of a veritable feast, was asked if he wanted anything else; ‘A glass of [...]

The loneliness of the long distance runner bean

by David Whitehouse
The loneliness of the long distance runner bean

Runner Bean Mustard Pickle:
It’s odd how sometimes mentioning something, even to dismiss it, can spark a smouldering interest which you find yourself returning to later; and having sorted out my french bean surplus without resorting to the ‘piccalilli’ solution, I still needed to do something with my continuing bumper crop of runner beans. The [...]

Yellow Tomato & Ginger Chutney

by David Whitehouse
Yellow Tomato & Ginger Chutney

I decided to make a spicier version of my original Yellow Tomato chutney, as in addition to a last flush of the ‘Sun Baby’ or ‘Sun Belle’ tomatoes I’d used from our garden earlier this year, we also had a sudden rush of a heritage tomato variety called ‘Yellow Peach’. If you see this variety [...]