The land of the eternal stripey list returns.

Lemon_Tree

congratulations on the job front
and a belated Helloo to you too Greying

Karmacat

Morning! Hope you're not too tired after all the busy-ness of the weekend it looked amazing!

Greying_Pilgrim

Hail Pippi and the Stripey Gang :hello:

Ah, I am just returned from a week sojourn to the sea. It was won.der.ful. Clothes all laundered and dried, so no excuses left to not embark on a week of DIY house and garden stuff plus there are the walking boots to clean :( Walking, picnic-ing in gardens and on the beach seemed a lot more fun.................

Am loving all the talk of regional flat bread recipes and endeavours. I recently took up making soda farls, as bread is so expensive that I only ever buy YS'd stuff. But as we only have a small freezer, I can never take advantage of gluts.

Soda farls have proved the solution and reading the recipe, are similar to bannocks. I'm just waiting for them to receive a 'cheffy' makeover, and have the glossy food mags in the broadsheets imploring you to make them, with flour from wheat that was planted on a quarter moon day in rising aquarius, harvested on the new moon following St Jane's day, that is then ground by a miller called Nathaniel (no miller substitutions allowed) and bagged up in bags made from preloved editions of foreign language newspapers........... :rotfl:

Of course, as with any regional flatbread, the whole point is that the cooks would of made them with the flour that was available to that area, whether it was made from cereal, beans or seeds. I have a good recipe that I follow - it uses plain flour (and yes, Aldi and Lidl flour works), but I often put a dollop of whatever wholemeal flour I have to hand in. And by far the BEST tip that I have ever read to get lovely puffed up farls is....... NOPE, not to endlessly sift your flour through descending grades of mesh, but purely and simply to put a lid over whatever frypan, griddle or saucepan you are cooking your farls in on the stovetop. I've not got a lid for my frying pan, so I used the tray I bake pizza on and it works brilliantly. If you need to keep the farls soft/warm whilst you cook other things, the lid helps you with that too.

Good job we bought a jar of plum jam from the WI stall on hols. Soda farls are a integral part of snap boxes now for the working week (they freeze well too).

Anyway, loving the food talk. We stayed more or less in budget for the week (gotta love self-catering), but it might well be a diet of chickpeas and lentils until payday crawls around

Have a great week all - here's hoping Andy Murray can do great things in the tennis! :j

Right, can't procrastinate any longer.....:D

Greying

Karmacat

Greying! Hi! Glad you had such a lovely holiday (except for cleaning the walking boots ) - but you know, you can't write such a wonderful post as that and then leave us without the recipe! Go on, post it here, Pippi won't mind ... it sounds wonderful, especially the puff. I wonder if puff would work with the bannock recipe. Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeze!

Greying_Pilgrim

Hey Up Pippi, Karmacat & Stripey Gang


No worries,the SODA FARL recipe is;

200g Plain Flour (see note 1)
1 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
1/2 tsp Salt
160ml Buttermilk (see note 2) - or water & vinegar/lemon juice can be used, see post #314

Method: Stir the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Add the buttermilk bit by bit (very important see note 3), stirring all the time with a spoon, until the ingredients come together in a ball. Knead for a minute or so (if the dough is sticky, a little extra flour on the worktop does no harm). Using your hands, flatten the dough into a rough circle, about 1.5 cm thick (don't go too thin, or it will never rise). Cut this circle into 4 pieces (quarters).

Heat up the frying pan/skillet/griddle or saucepan (non stick is easiest) and sprinkle in a light dusting of flour (wholemeal is very good for this). Place the farls into the pan. Cover the pan. cook on a medium heat for between 5 -7 minutes on each side, until golden brown and nicely risen. The farls will feel 'firm' to the touch when cooked through. Serve immediately*, or allow to cool completely and then toast as required. (*keeping the farls warm keeps them soft, if you are cooking them to serve with other things, wrap them in a tea towel, or leave them covered in the pan, but removed from the heat source).



Note 1 - don't be fussy with the flour, I've used 'basics', a*di plain and I'm currently using L*dl plain flour (45p a bag) and they have all worked. I also like to add in wholemeal flour, usually about 50g, but the last ones I made had over 100g of wholemeal in them coz I ran out of plain flour - they still rose beautifully. I have used spelt and rye flour as the 'wholemeal' constituent of the farl - lovely nutty taste and great texture.

Note 2 - I don't use buttermilk. I acidulate ordinary semi-skimmed milk. I use 1tsp of lemon if we're flush, or 1 tsp of vinegar if we're not :rotfl:all vinegar will work, although I think I'd avoid balsamic........... Put your acid in your milk and allow it to stand for 10 mins. The result is...... worrying to look at :eek: but trust me, it is not harmful. I've also lobbed in a leftover spoonful of natural yoghurt and that works too.

Note 3 - daft as it sounds, if you add all the liquid in at once, your dough goes sticky and unmanageable - ask me how I know this :rotfl: so instead dribble, or splash your liquid in bit by bit and your dough will be ok to handle.

Happy soda farl making, and remember folks, when Nige, Jay-mee or Gordy start with the 'first source your artisan miller.......' you can say bof! and have a batch of farls rustled up before they've explained the family tree of their particular favoured artisan miller....

Hope it works. Any glaring omissions let me know, I tend to improvise when it comes to cooking - not always a good thing, and particularly not when it comes to recipe pass-ons :rotfl:

Greying (who has got lovely shiny walking boots again....:D)

taxi73

both recipes sound lovely

Karmacat

Thats brill, Greying, thank you! It sounds like one of those really flexible mse recipes, like Twink's HM hobnobs, which I do actually cook nowadays, and chuck all sorts of things in, as it takes my fancy I checked out another version online (but didn't write it down) - wondered about the buttermilk, so I'm so glad to see your note up there Do you know, I saw some reduced milk in our Sainsbo on Sunday, 25p a pint, wondered if I should get it but didn't, bad me! There'll be more.

Thanks for this! Shame Pippi's gone walkabout, but she'll be back soon, I'm sure

xxx

turfy6

Sound lovely might pinch that recipe if thats ok.;)

Greying_Pilgrim

Turfy - ain't no 'pinching' about it - use away and I hope it works for you.

Karmacat - I assume that it's buttermilk, because that is what the folk who originated soda farls would of had to hand from making butter - plus we all take fresh water for granted these days, it's not always been the case... But also, buttermilk is acidic, which causes the raising agent, bicarb in this case, but baking soda or cream of tartar appear in recipes of this nature, to work. I think I would like to experiment making the farls with water, but including a dash of vinegar or lemon juice to activate the bicarb. That way the dish would be even more MSE :money:

Right, I'm supposed to be making DP's brekky.......

Greying

turfy6

Thanks GP plenty of buttermilk to be had in this neck of the woods so will give it a go. I make soda bread quite regularly too as DH loves it.:)