Τσουρέκι time

I made my first τσουρέκι (tsoureki) a year ago. My correspondent in Athens had sent me a marvellous parcel of goodies which included packets of μαχλέπι (mahlepi) and μαστίχα (mastic) and a copy of a recipe for tsoureki. Mahlep is a spice made from the ground kernels of cherry stones and is like nothing else I've ever used. Mastic is a piney resin with a very distinctive taste. Both are used as flavourings in Greek cuisine and both are traditionally used in making tsoureki. It took me a little while to get around to making my tsoureki as I had to translate the recipe first and it had been a while since I'd tackled any Greek - in addition, most mysteriously, the already-tiny text in my pocket Greek dictionary had shrunk to almost unreadable proportions. Tsoureki is a plaited brioche-like bread that is traditionally made at Easter, and we liked it very much indeed.

As it's Easter again, it must be τσουρέκι time, so I pulled out the mahlepi and rolled my sleeves up. This time I chose to follow Vefa Alexiadou's recipe in my enormous cookery book, and this included chocolate, orange peel and almonds inside along with the almonds on top that I'd gone with last time.

I made up the dough with mahlep and orange peel, then after its bulk fermentation, rolled it out and cut it into three strips. These I filled with plain chocolate drops and slivered almonds, then rolled them up ready for their hairdo. I made two three-strand plaits and left them to prove in a warm place. When they were ready, I eggwashed them and sprinkled with more slivered almonds. After cooking, the loaves were very dark, darker than I'd normally like, but many of the images and illustrations of this bread shows a very dark finish.

They were delicious, the orange peel coming through nicely with the mahlepi, and the fillings adding pockets of extra yumminess. Overall, I found the bread on the dry side, which was a nice excuse for spreading it with butter. Next time I think I'd add a spot more butter into the dough.

Beware of Greek bread that doesn't lift

I am determined not to be beaten by this eftazimo. I will make some that turns out all right. I might be 90 by the time I manage it, but I will.

I decided to try Vefa's recipe again, but this time to go for a much looser dough. I achieved that, at least. Much, much looser...

This time I was excited to use my new, specially-purchased-for-pounding-chick-peas pestle and mortar. It's huge and solid and spectacularly therapeutic when it comes to crushing the innocent. It's an absolute monster, weighs half of what Junior did when he was born, and was going to be much more fun than the coffee grinder. With not much effort, the chick peas crumbled at my knees. Well, they split in half and discarded their skins. On the downside, I had to be very precise when attacking them, and give each one its own doink - It's pretty impressive how far a mis-hit chick pea can ricochet round the kitchen. On an entirely unrelated note, stepping on a partial chick pea in stocking feet is not an experience one wishes to try more than once. Or even once, really.

I was left with mostly-in-half chick peas, which I decided was probably ok. I put them in my kilner jar with some salt and boiling water, wrapped it in a towel and left it in the cosy airing cupboard for 25 hours, having alerted the boys that it was meant to be there and didn't need rescuing. After its sojourn in the airing cupboard, the jar showed evidence of extreme activity although the froth that was left wasn't much to write home about. It had clearly risen very high up the jar in a desperate attempt to escape its fate, so I am sorry I didn't peek earlier and rescue it then.

I decanted the froth and the juice and mixed it with a tablespoon of sugar and some of Shipton Mill's finest. Something made me put it in a bigger bowl than last time. A plastic hat, then back in the airing cupboard with it. I did peek this time, just before bed, and saw to my horror (ok, deep joy) that the stuff was almost fermenting its way out of the bowl. I scooted downstairs and decanted it into a bigger one to make sure it couldn't escape. In the morning, it didn't look much different, it hadn't grown any and if anything had fewer bubbles. I think I missed the bus on this one again.

The next morning I wasn't ready to use it, so I gave it a spot of breakfast to keep it going and then made up the dough later on that afternoon. I was more liberal with the water this time and in complete opposition to the tight little mass I made last time, I had the sloppiest slappiest dough which I worked the Bertinet way because there wasn't anything else I could do with it.

I left it to prove in a couple of round bannetons in front of the radiator. I watched it like a hawk but couldn't see any movement apart from when one blew a huge bubble at me in a sticking-out-its-tongue fashion. I decided to bake one on a granite slab in the oven, and one in my smaller dutch oven. Neither of these turned out to be a particularly good idea. The one on the stone spread and spread and didn't look like it would ever stop. 'Pancake' is what came to mind as I peered forlornly through the oven window. The one in the dutch oven didn't fare much better.

Again it has been popular with the boys, so it's not a dead loss. It's just galling that getting the chick peas fermenting seems from the write-ups to be the difficult bit, and that is happening for me. It's what I do afterwards that is drenched in fail.

Next time I am going to be guided by Paula Wolfert so you never know, I might have something neat to show you then...

Behold the power of my granite monster


I'm not sure this adds a great deal, I just quite liked the photo


It didn't seem to smell as weird this time. Maybe I'm getting used to it.


Conclusive evidence of an attempted escape


This wouldn't look any different in 3D


The one on the right looks like a cross between a drop scone and a dodgem car


A valiant attempt at bubble formation

It's all Greek to me

It isn't easy to bake when you've taken a Porsche to the right knee. Prolonged standing is a no-no for a start. And with limited mobility, fitness just seems to evaporate, so all of a sudden kneading a batch of dough is exhausting. It's been frustrating having my capabilities limited but huzzah for healing and being able to stand up and so on. To celebrate being able to do more, I tried something new.

During my enforced sitting-on-my-arse-on-the-sofa-for-several-weeks period, I got a bit trigger happy with the 'add to basket' button and took delivery of a bunch of books, mostly to do with cooking. The most substantial tome is one simply called 'Vefa's Kitchen' by Vefa Alexiadou ('the Greek Delia' according to my source in Athens) and not only does it require a minimum of two hands for lifting, it is unique amongst my cookery books as it is furnished with a full three place-marking ribbons.

Vefa's book does contain a substantial number of chapters devoted to cooking deceased creatures, but is far from being a dead loss as there is plenty to excite a veggie too. The first place I turned to was the bread section, where I was interested by a recipe which required a hit-and-miss process of leaven creation using chick peas.

The deal is that you mess around with some ground up dried chick peas, introduce them to some boiling water in a jar, wrap it in a blanket and leave it somewhere warm for a day or two then see what happens. You're not to mention to anyone that you're doing it else they might put the evil eye on proceedings and scupper your efforts. I had to tell the boys, though. They don't normally go into the airing cupboard as a rule, but you can bet your bottom dollar that if I hadn't said 'That fermenting jar wrapped in a blanket in the airing cupboard, you see, that one there, touch it and feel my fury' they would have been investigating and probing and rescuing it for me.

The bread is called εφτάζυμο (eftazimo) and this caused me a bit of head-scratching because according to some sources that means '7 times kneaded' and according to others it's a corruption of 'self-leavening'. I prefer the latter...

The first difficulty I had (if you don't count the fruitless search for the box containing my Kilner jars which I'd put away as I never use them) was how to coarsely grind half a lb of dried chick peas. They are hard as little bullets and would have taken chunks out of my food processor blade. They'd probably have demolished my feeble little pestle and mortar too, had I been crazy enough to use that. My only course seemed to be my little coffee grinder which has never seen a coffee bean in its life but which makes short work of linseeds and so on. I divvied up the chick peas into little batches and started to zap the first lot. I don't know if you've ever tried to coarsely grind dried chick peas in a coffee grinder, but if you have, you'll know what I quickly discovered - that instead of an even grind, I managed to produce an astonishing array of items on the continuum

whole unscathed chick peas --------------------- finely powdered chick peas

calling at every station in between. Not being entirely sure what a coarsely ground chick pea looks like, I decided to pretend that this was a desired outcome on the basis that they were all probably coarsely ground on average.

I sterilised my newly-purchased Kilner jar by sloshing boiling water at it, then added my averagely coarsely ground victims, a quarter of a teaspoon of salt and three cups of boiling water. A quick stir with my longest spoon and a momentary oh-lord-my-hand-is-stuck then it was on with the swaddling and tucking it away in the airing cupboard. The coldest weekend for a long time might seem to be a strange time to be undertaking something which needs to sit for a day or two in a very warm place, but we have had the heating on quite a lot...

I peeked after twenty four hours and it seemed to correspond with the description of a deep layer of foam on top. The dreaded 'if there's no foam and it all looks a bit orange just tip it away' scenario hadn't hit. Perhaps the silver coating on the inside of the airing cupboard door has anti-evil eye properties? I brought it downstairs to spoon off the froth but realised as I dunked the spoon that the froth contained a goodly proportion of tiny bits of overground chick pea. Ah. As I pierced the top layer, the fermenting pulses fired a plume of spume, good white bubbles with no bits of chick pea in it. Er, maybe this was how it was supposed to be? I spooned out all the froth, both white and full of chick peas. The steeping juice was also required, so I sieved this into my bowl too, then realised this was a more appropriate technology for the froth so after a bit of juggling back and forwards, I ended up with a froth/juice mixture with a negligible chick pea content.

A cup of strong white flour and a tablespoon of sugar turned it into a slack paste and phase two was go. A plastic bag hat then overnight in the airing cupboard as it bubbled away happily to itself.

In the morning I rescued it and peered worriedly at it, wondering if it was ok. The smell wasn't unpleasant, but was pretty strange and not at all like the sourdough starters I'm used to. A house guest who arrived just after I retrieved it enquired with a wrinkled nose what the hell was that smell.

I went ahead and followed the rest of the recipe, adding the starter to more strong flour, sugar, olive oil, a little salt and three quarters of a cup of water. The resulting dough was very tight, but not knowing how it was supposed to be, and following my usual procedure of sticking closely to a recipe the first time I use it, I didn't make any adjustment.

I left it to prove in two portions in my medium round bannetons, which in retrospect was rather over optimistic as there was little evidence after two hours of any increase in size. I think the leaven was ok, but the dough was just so tight it had no chance. Or maybe the evil eye struck after I took phase two out of the airing cupboard...

I went ahead and baked them anyway, and they produced two squat loaves of a density I don't think I've ever seen before. Sampling a slice with our house guest, we decided it was quite tasty but the texture was off putting. 'You could slice it and dry it out in the oven,' said the house guest. 'It would make fabulous biscuits.'

So I did. Now, instead of two dense loaves with their own gravitational fields, I have tooth-defying dry slices of former loaves, each with such density that they appear to be forming their own galaxy in the storage tin.

Over the next week I shall be grabbing every Greek person I can talk to so that I can enquire earnestly into the right texture for eftazimo. And I'm going to have another go with more water, because the taste was lovely (although quite sweet, with a total of 4 tbsp of sugar in the whole recipe, might cut that down a bit next time). Wish me luck avoiding the evil eye...