I have lots of experience of dealing with my own mistakes.
I was mixing dough for a pizza and, despite using my trusty spreadsheet calculator, ended up with nearly two and a half times the intended amount – spreadsheets are only trusty if you put the right numbers in. What should have been 5 x 200g, for some reason, was set to 5 x 460g – bit of a difference between 1000g and 2,300g …
You’d have thought I might have noticed.
So, day one, made the intended pizza plus an additional six 100g buns which still left me with plenty of dough to go back in the fridge overnight.
Next day just happened to be St David’s Day, 01 March. I have my own tradition of baking Focaccia Dewi Sant which varies from year to year using ingredients with a strong connection to Wales.
By chance there were a couple of unreserved leeks lurking in the fridge. Aren’t leeks one of Wales’ emblems? Gave them a good mandoline-ing followed by a long, gentle sauté.
Also in the fridge was a dish of left over onion confit made for topping burgers a couple of days’ before. This is a simple Richard Ehrlich recipe which provides more work for the mandoline and the sauté pan. Thinly sliced onions braised in olive oil with a little sugar for 35 minutes covered, then for another 35 minutes with a couple of tablespoons of sherry vinegar.
Final ingredient in the mix was a good sprinkling of red pepper flakes – to represent red dragon scales, of course. Sadly they rapidly became invisible but the symbolism is still there.
Plus, Carrie‘s prototype Welsh ewes’ milk ricotta (not yet available to the public but we’re very happy to help with testing). At least she got a good third of the finished product in return.
A further lesson is how simple toppings can produce delicious outcomes. The pizza had a smear of tomato sauce, a mixture of fresh chestnut mushrooms and rehydrated shiitakes and porcini, a handful of grated sharp cheese plus, of course, Carrie’s ricotta. For you poor people without access to the ricotta, this could be substituted with something like soft goat cheese, yoghurt or creme fraiche.
Not a white truffle in sight …
The PArtisan Baker 