British Pie Week

Practice your plaiting skills with today’s pie!

Savoury Potato Plait

Serves 4-6

Dish: shallow dish, glass dish, greased

Accessory: enamel shelf in lower position, greased

Ingredients

1 small potato, thinly sliced

200g puff pastry

1 small onion, sliced

1 small apple, peeled, cored and sliced

Salt and pepper for flavour

75g cheese (Stilton or Roule etc), grated or crumbled

1 egg, beaten

Method:

1. Place the potato in a shallow dish with 3 tbsp water. Cover and place on base of oven. Cook on HIGH MICROWAVE for 3 mins and the drain.
2. Roll out pastry into an oblong shape, 25 x 27 cm. Lift onto enamel shelf. With a knife, cut each side of the long edges diagonally at 2.5 cm intervals, to make strips which will become plaits.
3. Arrange layers of potato, onion and apple down the centre of the pastry. Season and sprinkle with cheese.
4. Brush pastry strips with beaten egg and fold alternately over the mixture to form a plait.
5. Preheat the oven on CONVECTION 210℃.
6. Glaze with beaten egg.
7. Place enamel shelf in the lower position and cook on CONVECTION 230℃ + SIMMER MICROWAVE for 15 mins, or until crisp and golden.

The Kitchen Team

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British Pie Week

Here is another recipe for British Pie Week. You can’t beat a good old apple pie with custard!

Apple Pie

 

Serves 4-6

Accessory: anti-spark ring + wire shelf in lower position.

Dish: 20cm pie plate

 

Ingredients

25g caster sugar

1tsp cinnamon

50g sultanas

2 large cooking apples, peeled, cored and sliced

1tbsp lemon juice

350g puff pastry

 

Method

1. Preheat oven on CONVECTION 210˚C. Mix together sugar, cinnamon and sultanas.

2. Toss apples in lemon juice. Sprinkle sugar mixture over. Divide pastry in half. Roll out half and line base of the pie plate.

3. Place apple filling on top of pastry. Roll out remainder of pastry and cut to a circle for a lid. Seal edges, crimp and brush top with egg. Pierce top once. 4. Place pie on anti-spark ring on wire shelf and cook on CONVECTION 220˚C + SIMMER MICROWAVE for 18-20 mins or until cooked. Turn pie half way through cooking.

The Kitchen Team

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British Pie Week

Here is another of our tasty pie recipes for you to try…

Chicken and Stilton Pie

Serves 4

Accessory: no accessory then wire shelf in lower position

Dish: 22.5cm gratin dish

Ingredients

25g butter

300g leeks sliced

50g plain flour

450ml milk

150g Stilton

400g cooked chicken, cubed

450g puff pastry

1 egg beaten

Method

1. Place the butter and leeks in dish and cover with a lid or pierced cling film. Place on the base of the oven and cook on MEDIUM MICROWAVE for 5-6 mins or until soft.

2. Add the flour, stir well, then gradually add the milk and cook on HIGH MICROWAVE for 4 mins stirring throughout or until the sauce has thickened.

3. Preheat the oven on CONVECTION 210˚C. Finely chop the cheese and add to the sauce, mix in the cooked chicken.

4. Place the chicken mixture in to the gratin dish.

5. Roll out the pastry and place on top of the chicken mixture. Brush with beaten egg, pierce the top of the pastry and place on shelf and cook on CONVECTION 210˚C + SIMMER MICROWAVE for 20-25mins or until cooked and browned.

The Kitchen team.

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British Pie Week

It’s British pie week this week from the 5^th to the 11^th March, so get baking!  Everyone loves a pie so here is the first of our pie recipes for the week…

Minced Beef and Onion Pie

Serves 4

Accessory:  no accessory, then anti-spark ring and wire shelf on lower level.

Dish: Large casserole with lid and 20cm pie plate.

Ingredients

350g lean minced steak

1 med onion chipped

450ml hot beef stock

1tbsp tomato puree

1tsp yeast extract (Marmite®)

Salt and pepper

2tsp corn flour

350g short crust pastry

Beaten egg to glaze

Method

1.    Combine all filling ingredients except cornflour in casserole dish.  Cover, place on base of oven and cook on HIGH MICROWAVE for 5 mins then MEDIUM MICROWAVE for 15mins. 

2.    Mix cornflour with water and stir into the meat.  Leave to cool. 

3.    Preheat oven on CONVECTION 210˚C.  Roll out half the pastry to fit the pie plate. 

4.    Remove mince with a slotted spoon, reserving gravy for serving and place on pastry base. 

5.    Roll out remaining pastry for a lid and place on top of mince, sealing the edges with water.  Cut two slits in the top of the pastry and glaze the top with beaten egg.

6.     Place on anti-spark ring on wire shelf and cook on CONVECTION 220˚C + SIMMER MICROWAVE for 20mins or until cooked.  Turn pie half way through cooking.

The Kitchen Team

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Doves Farm Barleycorn Flour

Here in the Home Appliance Innovation Centre we love to try something a bit different.  Many of you have rung to tell us how much you like a grainy flour.  In response to requests from you we have tested Doves Farm barleycorn flour, with great results as you can see below.  It makes a delicious light loaf following the malted brown or granary recipe in your operating instructions, baked on the wholewheat 5hr cycle.  It also makes great rolls following the basic white roll recipe and mixing on the Basic Dough cycle of 2hr 20mins.  Exchange the strong white flour for barleycorn flour. 

 For other grainy flours we have tested please see our flour tests.  http://theideaskitchen.co.uk/bakery/basic-ingredients

 We particularly liked the new Waitrose Love Life flours.

The Kitchen Team

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Our chef stars on BBC Saturday Kitchen

I was really excited on Saturday morning when I switched on the TV and saw Daniel Galmiche, Panasonic’s resident chef for the Ideas Kitchen. He was on BBC’s Saturday Kitchen demonstrating his duck confit recipe from his French Brasserie cook book. If you are one of the lucky ones who received one of these books, when we had a promotion with the Panasonic flatbed machine, you will find the recipe on page 92. We would recommend you cook this recipe in your flatbed on convection using the timings in Daniels book.

The Kitchen Team

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St David’s Day

Yesterday I met a lovely Welsh lady at a friend’s birthday tea. She was fondly called the Queen as she looked so much like her majesty. A fascinating lady with lots of stories about her days growing up in Wales.

We soon got on to recipes and St David’s day. She told me about ways that her friends and family would celebrate St David’s day and the two national emblems that many people wear on this day.

The daffodil I was familiar with and always associate with March, but she then spoke about the ‘leek’ being worn as the second emblem on this day. This is St David’s personal emblem. The leek was worn by a troop of Welsh soldiers to identify each other from a troop of English enemy dressed in very similar uniforms. (That I didn’t know).

She is also a keen cook. She said that she still makes a good leek cawl (a leek soup/stew) and Bara Brith and insists that it is made with strong black tea. I hope you approve of our St David’s day recipes below Queen (I wish I had found out your real name).

Crunchy topped Bara Brith

Ingredients

400g mixed dried fruit

75g dried cranberries

300ml hot strong tea

75g butter

2tbsp marmalade

3 eggs med

250g plain flour

1tsp ground cinnamon

1tsp ground ginger

1tsp bicarbonate of soda

50g crushed white sugar cubes

Method

1. Place the fruit, cranberries, tea, butter and marmalade together and heat until the fat has melted and the liquid is hot.  This can be done on the hob or in the microwave oven. (High power for 4 – 5 minutes)

2. Allow to cool slightly, and then add eggs, flour, spices and the bicarbonate of soda.  Mix well.

3. Remove the kneading blade from the bread pan and line the bottom and sides with baking parchment.

4. Place the mixture into the bread pan, being careful to ensure that the mixture is inside the baking parchment.  Top with the crushed sugar cubes.

5. Select bake mode and enter 55 minutes on the timer.

6. After baking test with a skewer to see if the cake is cooked. If the cake does require extra time, select the bake mode again and enter a further 3- 5 minutes on the timer. If it is still just slightly sticky this will cook through during the stand period.

7. Take the bread pan out of the bread maker using oven gloves. Leave to stand for 5 – 10 minutes before removing from the bread pan and allowing to cool.

Potato and Leek Soup

Serves 4

Ingredients

350g leeks sliced (prepared weight)

350g peeled and cubed potatoes

25g butter

300ml chicken stock

300ml whole milk

30mls crème fraiche

Salt and pepper

Method

1. Place the leeks, potatoes and butter in a large bowl.  Cover and cook on HIGH MICROWAVE for 5mins.

2. Gradually add the stock and seasoning.

3. Re-cover and cook on HIGH MICROWAVE for 15mins or until the vegetables are tender. Stirring halfway.

4. Allow to cool slightly.

5. Place in a liquidiser and blend until smooth.

Stir in the crème fraiche and season to taste. Heat on MEDIUM MICROWAVE for 3 mins or until piping hot.

Enjoy!

The Kitchen Team

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Dairy Free Bread

A customer phoned the advise line today because she wanted to make bread that was dairy free. She wondered what would happen if she omitted the milk powder from her SD 253 bread recipes.

We explained to her that our more recent recipes no longer use milk powder as customers wanted less in the way of additives in their bread. It is possible to make successful loaves with or without milk powder it is a matter of choice.

Milk and milk powder will enhance the flavour of the bread as well as increase its nutritional value but it is not essential to successful bread making. Never use fresh milk on the overnight programme because it may sour during the rest time, spoiling the final flavour.

The Kitchen Team

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Cupcakes for Mother’s Day

Spring came early today in the Panasonic test kitchen. We had great fun creating Mothers day recipes. Something for the kids to surprise you with. Hopefully dad will surprise you even more by clearing up the mess! Here is a sneak preview. The recipe will be in the seasonal recipe section shortly.

The Kitchen Team x

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