spelt | Always So Hungry

Crisp Bread for Crisp Days

Bread, Crisp bread, Easter, Rye, Seeds, spelt, Stockholm, Sweden | 15/05/2013 | By alwayssohungry

I was back in Stockholm over Easter for a friend’s 30th and to catch up with relatives. I left behind a London that had just started to wake up to Spring to land in the middle of an icy Scandinavian winter, where the mercury barely teetered over zero most days. Having said that, the sun stayed out and I didn’t see a cloud the whole time I was there. The snow gradually started to melt, freezing overnight to create sheets of lethal, slippery glass over the pavement and roads.

You know it’s cold when water freezes straight out of the drainpipes

The Swedes do Easter with a bit more pizzaz than their southernly neighbours. They love an excuse to get crafty and break out a bit of colour in order to liven up the last days of winter. Feathers, dyed lurid tones of yellow, pink and blue, are the decor of choice, but many paint eggs and hang up wreaths too. There’s usually a family get-together for a big Easter meal, but we eschew lamb in favour of a smörgåsbord of traditional feast food- pickled herring, salmon, eggs, meatballs, potatoes, Janssons temptation. Rich, indulgent dishes, originally created to fuel the manual labour that farming the land required. Not quite as necessary these days, of course, but still absolutely delicious.

Although we, too, like to give Easter eggs (generally decorated cardboard ones brimming with sweets), I’m always more interested in the baked goods category when it comes to festive eating. Whether it be the spiced breads and biscuits at Christmas, the berry-filled tarts at midsummer or the cream filled cardamom buns available during Lent. Snappy crisp breads, although enjoyed all year round, particularly come into their own with the rich foods served during the holidays. Over Easter, my godmother, Margareta, very kindly shared her technique for making home made rye crisp breads. Over an afternoon, we rolled, poked holes and scattered various toppings over the dense dough that gets slowly dried out in the oven. It is quite a physical, painstaking job, but absolutely worth it. Not least because the results could probably survive a nuclear holocaust. Make a big batch, wrap it up in an airtight container and you’ll have delicious bread or canapé bases on tap.

Melting ice on lake Mälaren

Easter decorations for sale on Mariatorget

Rye Crisp Breads

(a big batch, recipe can be halved)

You will need:

25g fresh yeast

600ml water (blood temperature)

1 tbsp honey

3 tsp salt

500g rye flour

300g spelt flour

100g sunflower seeds

50g linseeds

100g sesame seeds

Method:

1. Crumble the yeast into a large bowl and add the water, which should simply ‘feel wet’ (i.e. not hot, not cold, just the same temperature as your finger when you test it). Stir to dissolve. In a separate bowl, mix together the seeds.

2. Add the rye flour and 200g of the spelt flour to the liquid and yeast mixture, reserving the rest for later. Add half of the seeds, mix well and knead together for a few minutes to form a sticky dough.

3. Leave to rise in a warmish place for at least an hour.

4. Preheat the oven to 210 C. Divide the dough into 15 bits and roll into balls. Dust your work surface with some of the reserved spelt flour and roll out each ball into rounds about 1/2cm thick. It will be quite sticky, so do keep dusting more reserved flour. Make a hole in the center of each round (using a small glass or jar) for traditional crisp breads or, alternatively, roll and cut out long rectangular shapes.

5. Place onto a lined baking sheet. Poke each bread with a fork to dimple. Sprinkle with the remaining seeds.

6. Bake in batches for 10-12 minutes. Once each batch is done, turn off the oven and place all the breads onto a couple of baking sheets. Put these into the oven and leave to dry out completely for a few hours.

Spelt and Chorizo Supper

Basil, chorizo, feta, lemon, peppers, spelt, tomato | 29/07/2012 | By alwayssohungry

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I’m lucky to live just the other side of the park from the Deli Downstairs in Victoria Park Village (or Lauriston Village to use its proper name). It’s a wonderful place to pop in for a treat- they do beautiful pies, quiches, sausage rolls and cheeses. I’m a fan of their black pudding scotch egg. You can also bring your own bottle to fill with some red or white from Borough Wines. But the real reason why I love it is because it stocks the odd unusual ingredient that is just a bit harder to source- wild garlic or goats curd for example. Or a bag of pearled spelt grain for the bargainous price of £1.50.

I’d never cooked it before, but this ancient grain turns out to be fantastic stuff. It has a slightly nutty flavour, but much more neutral than something like pearl barley, which I always think tastes like musty, damp socks. You simply boil it until tender and then use it as a side dish, instead of rice or in a salad as you would do with cracked bulgur wheat or couscous. I decided to go down a more risotto-esque route by stirring in some creme fraiche, feta cheese, lime zest and thyme. Along with a colourful salad of tomato, peppers and chorizo, this made for a satisfying supper which I highly recommend. You just might have to pop down to South Hackney to get all the ingredients.