Culinary

[oursin]

Saturday breakfast rolls: basic buttermilk with cornmeal.

Today's lunch: plaice fillets, rolled around a stuffing of breadcrumbs with crushed coriander seeds and Bristol Blend peppercorns and salt tossed in melted butter, baked under foil; served with fine green beans roasted with slivers of baby fennel in pumpkin seed oil and splashed with tarragon vinegar before serving, and broccoli steamed with ginger.

This week's loaf: a version of Clement Freud's Mixed Wholemeal Loaf from The Sunday Times Book of Real Bread - 4 parts wholemeal to 1 of strong white and 1 of a mixture, in this instance, of wheatgerm, coarse cornmeal and Waitrose Mixed Seeds, made up with the remains of the buttermilk + yeast, salt, water, etc. I had another go with the Rumertopf Pane loaf pan, though trying to find hints and tips produced a number of contradictory suggestions, including heating the (soaked) pan to a high heat before greasing and adding the proved dough, and putting the knocked-back dough in the greased (soaked) pan and putting it all straight into a cold oven and then turning it on at a high temperature. What I did was thoroughly soak the pan (digging out my very large mixing bowl for the purpose), prove the dough in the floating pan, and (I think this was the most useful idea) line the pan with greaseproof paper first (is this actually the same as baking parchment? anyway, it pretty much worked) and put the risen dough into a cold oven which was then turned on at a high heat (Mark 8) and reduced at intervals.
I am not honestly convinced that all this turns out a nicer loaf than my old pal Superstone Loaf pan.