Sriracha sardines on sourdough

This is a great and tasty snack and so easy to make too. Pan-fry some tinned sardines in a little bit of their own oil, with a generous helping of sriracha powder (or sauce) – as much as you can handle. Lay them on some toasted sourdough and drizzle with olive oil. Garnish with some chopped chives (if you have some, I didn’t). And serve.

You should also play around with this, make it your own. Substitute sriracha with any other spicy masala mix. Use any other toasted bread, seeded, brown, multigrain, whatever takes your fancy. Butter the toast if you don’t have good quality olive oil to hand. Or do both. Add some roughly mashed avocado or finely chopped onions. Open sandwiches rule and the world’s your playground!

Gibassier, a delightful french bread with orange and anise

This month, the ‘We Knead to Bake’ challenge set by Aparna was to make some Gibassier. This is a sweet bread, almost a pastry, from the Provence region of France. At first glance, the flavours of orange and anise seemed a delightful combo, and I wanted to make this straightaway. Then I read the recipe, and realises it was not as straightforward as the other breads I have made. In fact, this is the most complex bread recipe I have ever made so far. And that was daunting, but exciting at the same time.

Gibassier, a french bread with orange and anise

The key challenge here was the soft, super enriched dough, and the use of a pre-fermented starter dough or ‘Biga’. So this called for some careful planning and preparation. And the recipe also introduced me to a new ingredient; orange blossom water. I’d never used it before, but was intrigued. I must admit, we had problems with the rise on the first proving. After two hours, there was no sign of any activity. So I left it overnight and by morning it had become a monster!

Don’t know if I will go through the whole hassle again, but in the end, it was a great experience (though the journey was trying) with an excellent end result. The house smelled divine, with aromas of orange and anise wafting through the kitchen as the bread baked. and the breads tasted perfect, slightly warm, with a hot cup of coffee.