The Knobbly Plate

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Wild Garlic Pesto

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It’s getting around to my favourite time of the year when there is so much free food to forage for. I love making recipes with wild garlic and walking in woods where there is a huge abundance of it at this time of year. The heady smell in the early morning is intoxicating. I took this shot on a walk through a wood near Butler Hill in Hampshire in the heart of the Southdowns National Park not long after dawn. I have yet to come across anywhere else where the wild garlic is so proliferous. I always like to leave plenty behind for others to forage and to not destroy the crop and so damage it for next years growth but there is absolutely no problem with that here as you can see by the image. It’s absolutely everywhere. What a find!

Wild garlic boasts a nutritional value rich in vitamins A and C, calcium, iron, phosphorus, and copper. It also contains organosulphur compounds, phenolic compounds, steroidal glycosides, lectins, and a variety of essential amino acids, contributing to its garlic nutritional value.

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Wild Garlic Pesto
Author: 
Recipe type: Foraged
Cuisine: Mediterranean
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
 
Ingredients
  • 150g wild garlic leaves or young nettles, or a mixture (foraged – see tip)
  • 50g parmesan or vegetarian alternative, finely grated
  • 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
  • ½ lemon, zested and a few squeezes of juice
  • 50g pine nuts, toasted
  • 150ml rapeseed oil
Instructions
  1. STEP 1
  2. Rinse and roughly chop the wild garlic leaves.
  3. STEP 2
  4. Blitz the wild garlic leaves, parmesan, garlic, lemon zest and pine nuts to a rough paste in a food processor. Season, and with the motor running slowly, add almost all the oil. Taste, season and add a few squeezes of lemon juice.
  5. STEP 3
  6. Transfer the pesto to a clean jar and top with the remaining oil. Will keep in the fridge for two weeks.

 

Garlic and rosemary focaccia

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One of my absolute favourite breads to make is Rosemary and Garlic Focaccia. It’s so simple to make using my food mixer as an all in one mixer. Simply add all the ingredients to the mixer and switch it on using my K beater. An absolute favourite of my ex wife it never failed to please and today I make it at least every other week to dip into my winter vegetable soups.

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Garlic and rosemary focaccia
Author: 
 
Ingredients
  • For the dough
  • * 500g/1lb 2oz strong white flour
  • * 7g instant yeast
  • * 1 tsp salt
  • * oil for greasing
  • For the topping
  • * 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, plus extra to drizzle after baking
  • * 3 rosemarybranches, needles only, finely chopped
  • * 2 large garliccloves, finely chopped
  • * 1 tsp flaked sea salt
Instructions
  1. Make the dough: Mix the ingredients together, and then knead the dough by hand or with your mixer.
  2. Let the dough rise: Place dough into a greased bowl, cover tightly, then set aside to rise for about 2–3 hours.
  3. Flatten dough out onto a baking pan: Punch down the risen dough to release the air, then use your hands to flatten the dough out onto an oiled baking sheet. If the dough keeps shrinking, cover it for 5 minutes to let the gluten settle.
  4. Let the dough rest in the refrigerator: The cold temperature slows down the rising. In fact, there’s so little yeast that the dough will hardly rise at all during this step. Let it rest in the refrigerator for as little as 1 hour and up to 24 hours. The longer it rests, the better the flavor. I recommend at least 12 hours,.
  5. Remove from the refrigerator: Let the dough hang out on the counter as you preheat the oven and prep the toppings. It will rise a little bit, but not much.
  6. Preheat oven: Focaccia bakes in a very hot 450°F (232°C) oven.
  7. Dimple the dough: A good stress reliever! Use your fingers to dimple the entire surface of the dough.  The dimples give the olive oil and toppings “a place to go.” This step is fun!
  8. Add toppings: A simple blend of fresh garlic, rosemary, thyme, and basil is a favorite, but I have plenty of focaccia topping suggestions listed below. No matter which topping you use, drizzle olive oil all over the surface.
  9. Bake: Bake until golden brown. I set the oven to broil for the last minute to really crisp up the surface. Highly recommended!

 

EVERYBODY LOVES PIZZA, DON’T THEY?

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It says it all in the title really. But there are those out there who simply do not like pizza. I suspect it’s because they have never made their own pizza but have always bought those horrible massed produced frozen ones from the supermarket. Even when you are just buying the base to put your own topping on your not getting that real pizza taste. Here at Knobbly Plate we absolutely love our pizza’s. They are a brilliant way to use up leftover vegetables and so so simple to make as you will see. They can also be as affordable as you like from costing just a few pence to those of you who like to add those special ingredients such as fresh anchovies and capers where the cost goes up to maybe a whole £1 for a 12 inch pizza.

Some historical  facts for you now….. Here at Knobbly Plate we think facts 6 & 7 fit in with our philosophy perfectly.

  1. The word “Pizza” was first documented in the Italian city of Gaeta in 997 AD.
  2. The ancestors of modern-day pizzas were simple flat breads, known asfoccasia in Italy that were sprinkled with different toppings.
  3. Foods similar to pizza can be traced back to the New Stone Age Period.
  4. Early pizzas were often sweet dishes, not savoury!
  5. Many historical records show that people have been adding different ingredients to bread to make it more appetizing.
  6. Most would never guess it, but pizza originally started off as a dish for poor people, sold in the streets and not a food for upper class people.
  7. It was in the 18th century that the poor around the area of Naples got accustomed to adding tomatoes to their yeast-based flat bread, and that’s how the modern pizza began!
  8. Today’s pizzas are characterized by a soft flatbread base, tomatoes and cheese.
  9. Pizza was introduced to the United States with the arrival of Italian immigrants in the 19th century.
  10. The first pizzeria in the United States was opened by Vincent Bruno in Chicago, in the year 1903.


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EVERYBODY LOVES PIZZA, DON’T THEY?
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
Serves: 4 Persons
 
Ingredients
  • For the Base
  • 10g Instant Yeast
  • 10g Salt
  • 300g Strong White Flour
  • 200ml Warm Water
  • For the Topping
  • 400g Tinned Tomatoes
  • 2 Garlic Cloves
  • 1 Ball Mozzarella
  • Few courgette ribbons( I used 6 on a 12 inch pizza)
  • ½ Red Pepper
  • ½ Red Onion
  • Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  • Handful Torn Basil Leaves
Instructions
  1. In a bowl mix together the flour salt and yeast.
  2. Add the water and mix into a dough. Knead the dough until silky smooth and it forms a ball.
  3. Cover and leave to prove in a warm place until doubles in size.
  4. Roll out to 12 inches on a floured surface and place on your pizza try.
  5. Whilst the dough is proving make your tomato sauce by heating the tomatoes and crushed garlic until the tomatoes have thickened.
  6. Spread on to the pizza base.
  7. Scatter your toppings on top and bake in a very hot oven Gas Mark 9 for around 10mins until the pizza has puffed up and is bubbling.

 

Rosemary & Garlic Focaccia

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So here we are again! A year after The Knobbly Plate was hacked out of existence we rise from the ashes once again to bring you the very best in vegetarian and vegan cooking for your everyday life at an affordable price.

So what has been going on in the year that we have been away? Well sadly I have split from my wife but there is a silver lining in that. I don’t have to answer to anyone being single so have been able to develop and experiment with recipes to my hearts content. This Focaccia recipe though is an old favorite in this house with everyone who has tried it and has never lasted long enough to go cold being eaten usually within minutes of it coming out of the oven. So I felt that it was a very good recipe to start off the new blog with.


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Rosemary & Garlic Focaccia
Author: 
Recipe type: Bread
Cuisine: Italian
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
Serves: 6
 
Ingredients
  • 500g Strong White Flour
  • 4 Garlic Cloves Crushed
  • 4 Tablespoons Rosemary Chopped
  • 10g Fast Action Yeast
  • 10g Sea Salt Plus More for Dusting
  • 50ml Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  • 300ml Tepid Water
Instructions
  1. Place all the ingredients in a food mixer with a dough hook and mix until smooth and elastic.
  2. Oil a bowl and transfer the dough to bowl, cover and prove for 1 hour until doubled in size.
  3. Knock back and roll out to around 1 inch and cover and prove until doubled in size again.
  4. Dust with salt and drizzle with extra olive oil.
  5. Bake in an oven at gas mark 9 for 10 minutes
  6. Turn the oven down to gas mark 4 and cook for a further 20 minutes.