Monday 18 February 2019

Brioche – a recipe from Crust by Richard Bertinet.

- Bread and buns: The foolproof baking guide | Weekend | The Times
Rum and sultana brioches
























Strawberry croustillant from French chef and baker Richard Bertinet

French Memories from French chef and baker Richard Bertinet

Chicken with fennel and herbs from French chef and baker Richard Bertinet.

- French Memories from French chef and baker Richard Bertinet
This is all about baking a whole meal in one dish, which you can bring from the oven to the table.
I love the aniseedy flavour of fennel.

For 4-6
Ingredients
125g butter
1 corn-fed chicken
2 large fennel bulbs
4 large tomatoes
4 garlic cloves
16-20 small new potatoes
few sprigs of chervil, parsley, rosemary
and thyme
sea salt and freshly groud black pepper
1 large or 2 small unwaxed lemons
2 whole star anise
125 dry white wine
6 tablespoons olive oil

Preparation
- Preheat the oven to 200°C.
- Take the butter out of the fridge to let it soften.
- If you have bought a whole chicken, joint it into 10 pieces so you end up with 4 breast pieces (on the bone), 2 drumsticks, 2 thighs and 2 wings.
- Cut the fennel bulbs in half lengthways to give 2 identical halves (as if you had opened out the fennel like a book) and cut each piece lengthways into 4.
- Halve the tomatoes.
- Crush the garlic cloves with the back of a knife.
- Wash the otatoes.
- Finely chop the chervil and parsley; leave the rosemary and thyme sprigs whole.

Method
- Layer the tomatoes, cut-side up, in a very big roasting dish.
Lay the fennel on top, followed by the garlic cloves and a few sprigs of rosemary and thyme.
Put into the oven for about 20–30 minutes to start them cooking.

- If the butter isn’t soft enough, bash it with a rolling pin! Mix all of the chopped herbs into it.

- Put the chicken pieces into a bowl and season with salt and pepper. Add the herb butter and really massage it well into the chicken.

- Take the roasting dish out of the oven and put the chicken pieces on top of the vegetables.
Cut the lemon(s) in half and squeeze the juice over.
Tuck the squeezed halves in amongst the chicken.

- If using whole star anise, crush them in a pestle and mortar (or use the end of a rolling pin to crush them on a chopping board).
Sprinkle the star anise over the chicken and put the potatoes on top, so that they can brown.
- Pour over the wine and olive oil and put in the oven for 30–45 minutes.
Halfway through take the dish out and turn the chicken over.
The potatoes will tumble underneath, but that is fine.
At the end of the cooking time, check that the largest piece of chicken breast and the biggest thigh are cooked by inserting a sharp knife into the meat.
The juices should run clear.

Tapenade from French chef and baker Richard Bertinet.

- French Memories from French chef and baker Richard Bertinet
I like to use Kalamata olives for this, but you can use any good-quality black olives.
The tuna and anchovies give a really deep ‘meaty’ flavour, but if you want to do a vegetarian version you can leave them out and just add some more olives and capers instead.

Makes enough to fill 2 medium (250ml) jars
Ingredients
Kilner jars
300g black olives
75g tinned anchovy fi llets, in oil
75g tinned tuna, in oil
150g capers, in vinegar
1⁄2 lemon
5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Preparation
- Drain the olives, anchovies, tuna and capers.
If you are using Kalamata olives they will usually be in oil – if this is good-quality oil, use a few tablespoons in the tapenade in place of the olive oil.

- Stone the olives: with a small, sharp knife make three incisions in each olive from end to end – keep the cuts at equal distances – then pull away the three similar-sized segments from the stone, without tearing or bruising the fruit.

- Juice the lemon.

Method
Put the olives in a food processor and make good use of your pulse button to chop them quite roughly.
Add the rest of the ingredients and keep pulsing in short bursts until you get a coarse paste.
I like tapenade to be quite coarse, but some people prefer it smoother, in which case just process it a little more. It really is up to you.
You shouldn’t need to add any salt because the anchovies should make it salty enough.