HAPPY Birthday BIGA!

I have just realised my Sourdough biga which is also called a 'starter', 'ferment' or 'mother' is a year old, that means I have been making my own bread for the past year and I have eaten no bread other than Sourdough. Sure, it takes time, effort and a little love, but I can never go back to mass produced shop bought bread.  Behind every good loaf of Sourdough is the starter -  this is the way bread has been made for centuries, making use of the wild yeast spores that are found on the surface of sugary ingredients.

The starter is made using flour, water and something sweet, such as fruit. The idea is to introduce simple sugars, which the wild yeast spores and natural bacteria can ferment easily, and bubble quicker. The starter is a fermenting dough or batter, the term sourdough broadly applies to breads raised with wild yeasts. When you make a dough on this starter, the acid produced by the lactic bacteria helps to strengthen the elastic gluten and intensifies the flavour of the finished bread. The first time you make your starter, you need to be patient, as you will need to feed it every day, and it could take a few weeks until it is bubbling happily and smells sweetly acidic before it is ready to use with your first loaf. This is how I made my starter and kept it bubbling away happily to this day.

Mia's FRITES (V)

Chips, fries, or frites – whichever name you prefer to use – they’re Belgian! And they take this responsibility very seriously. Made with potatoes, cooked twice and served in a paper cone with a side of mayonnaise, these Belgian treats embody potato perfection. Whether enjoyed at a Michelin star restaurant or right off the street, this Belgian specialty is not to be missed.

Belgian Frites are part of Belgian culinary and cultural heritage. Even if they are sometimes referred to as French Fries there is nothing French about them. Apparently the name originated due to a linguistic misunderstanding, because in old English ‘to French’ meant ‘cut into sticks’. According to the Belgian historian Jo Gerard, chips appeared on the dining tables in Namur, French speaking Ardennes and Dinant in the latter half of the 17th century. Poorer inhabitants in these towns used to fry tiny fish. When the river froze in the winter the fish were replaced by sticks of potatoes cut to the same small size of the fish.

The following recipe is my take on Belgian Frites at home, at the request of my four year old daughter Mia, who incidentally was born in Belgium.

STEAK the PARISIAN way

(Chateaubriand, Mushroom a la Crème, Gratin Dauphinois and Salad with Vinaigrette)

Cooking this dish for the first time was inspired by a very recent and memorable trip to Paris. I puréed the mushroom a la crème and although really delicious not the most appealing visually, so I won't do that next time, trial and error...