When this article was posted in the Evening Standard, i started joking with Ant (@gubgub08) that we should eat them all in one day, thus killing all the birds with one burger binge stone. Due to a quiet (unemployed) period in my life i had the time & motivation to do it, Ant had the burger addiction and a couple of days extra holiday and so it was arranged, i would fly in on a . . . →10 Burgers 1 day]]> It seems every time i travel to London i eat very well in very nice restaurants, but i always come home and end up watching other people posting pictures of epic burgers and wishing i could try one/all of them. And what bothered me was that, given the choice, would i ever opt to go for a MotherFlipper rather than say, Roganic? If i ever ended up at Goodmans, would i really turn down a fat steak for a burger? Something had to be done…

When this article was posted in the Evening Standard, i started joking with Ant (@gubgub08) that we should eat them all in one day, thus killing all the birds with one burger binge stone. Due to a quiet (unemployed) period in my life i had the time & motivation to do it, Ant had the burger addiction and a couple of days extra holiday and so it was arranged, i would fly in on a Tuesday morning and leave on Wednesday afternoon.

We edited the list slightly, Hawksmoor needed to be booked which was impossible because of the uncertain time schedule, the Burger & Lobster is supposedly overpriced and the temptation to go for lobster was too great. We added Goodmans (glad we did) and MeatMarket (not so glad), and set up an order & travel schedule… 11 hours of travelling around London and eating burgers…

In the end we were able to form a top 5:

1. AdCod – This was simply the best and most harmonious burger, everything worked perfectly. A side of macaroni & cheese was also perfection.
2. Joint second for Goodmans (best tasting actual burger, personally didn’t enjoy the tomato) and Patty & Bun (this was the ninth burger and i wolfed it down, amazing bbq sauce)
4. Honest Burgers – great small burger served with rosemary fries, a dolop of sticky caramelised onions brought everything together very well, the meat patty was slightly under seasoned
5. Lucky Chip – a double cheeseburger (don’t know why we went for the double?), great burger & bun but too much sauce, scrapped some off and it was much better…

The other 5 burgers we can’t easily rank, The Ship was certainly towards the top and Meats Market and Liquor towards the bottom. But in any case, here are the burgers in the order that we ate them…..

To make a Holy Fuck Kiev you will need to make a Holy Cock (Holy Fuck butter), this recipe makes more than you need so there’ll be plenty left for spreading on lovely warm bread.

For the Holy Cock:

For the Kiev”

To make the Holy Cock, Whip the butter and salt in a stand mixer until light and fluffy, turn the mixer speed to low (so as not to splash) and pour in the Holy Fuck, keep mixing until well combined.

Spoon onto a large sheet of cling film and shape into a large cock shape, wrap well and chill until needed.

To make the kiev, lay . . . →Holy Fuck Kiev]]> Warning, this post contains swearing (mostly “fuck” and “cock”)

To make a Holy Fuck Kiev you will need to make a Holy Cock (Holy Fuck butter), this recipe makes more than you need so there’ll be plenty left for spreading on lovely warm bread.

For the Holy Cock:

• 300g butter at room temperature
• 100g Holy Fuck
• 1tbs sea salt crystals

For the Kiev”

• 1 chicken breast per person
• Panko breadcrumbs
• Salad and homemade mayonnaise to serve.

To make the Holy Cock, Whip the butter and salt in a stand mixer until light and fluffy, turn the mixer speed to low (so as not to splash) and pour in the Holy Fuck, keep mixing until well combined.

Spoon onto a large sheet of cling film and shape into a large cock shape, wrap well and chill until needed.

To make the kiev, lay the breasts skin side up and remove the skin. Make a long 40 degree incision from the top to the bottom of the breast, making sure not to cut all the way though. Butterfly the breast and lay in as many thin slices of Holy Fuck butter as you want. Reform the breast and use a wooden skewer to seal the chicken up. Put the breasts through flour egg and panko breadcrumbs then chill until ready to cook.

Fry the kievs on a medium heat for about 5 minutes each side. Some of the Holy Fuck butter will leak out, you can use this to coat the breasts; thoroughly lubricating everything with Holy Fuck. When done, wrap in tin foil and rest for a few minutes while you sort out salad and mayo and bread.

Amuses

- smoked veal cheek on sourdough toast - chicken chowder & chicken crackling - panko fried polenta, wild mushroom ragu & sage

Bread

- Lemon & thyme rolls - White & brown sourdough

Starter

A kind of caesar salad; crispy boneless wings, ravioli, Caesar sauce, croutons & landcress mayo

Main course

Roast duck, confit leg bitterball, confit potato, curried split pea purée & sauce

Cheese

- oude remeker - Pyrenees sheeps cheese - very mature but soft Gorgonzola

Served with malted rye & wheat sourdough

Pudding

Warm bakewell tart with clotted cream

However, after the One night in London dinner last week I suddenly found myself in possession of a nice lobe of some of the best bottarga available from the Melograno Deli, weighing about 120g. Excitedly, I brought it home and over the weekend I set about making this dish.

I asked Dino if he could send me the recipe, but he insisted on a phone call to ensure I understood the . . . →Spaghetti con bottarga a secco]]> Over a long and excellent dinner last August, Dino Joannides relayed a recipe from the great Italian chef Roberto Pisano for Spaghetti con bottarga a secco, or Spaghetti with dried mullet roe. At the time I was fascinated by the method and the strict way it should be carried out, and although I vowed to try it I was unsuccessful in finding anywhere locally and the idea kind of fell by the wayside.

However, after the One night in London dinner last week I suddenly found myself in possession of a nice lobe of some of the best bottarga available from the Melograno Deli, weighing about 120g. Excitedly, I brought it home and over the weekend I set about making this dish.

I asked Dino if he could send me the recipe, but he insisted on a phone call to ensure I understood the principles of creating the dish, they were, as best as I can understand, as follows:

• The pasta must not touch fresh water
• The sauce must be a perfect emulsion
• Do NOT skimp on the bottarga

This last point being perhaps the most important; the problem with so many versions of this dish (I am told) is that they’re trying to save money by reducing the amount of bottarga. You will in fact need about 20 – 30g of bottarga per person for a nice portion, and a generous amount of thinly sliced bottarga as garnish.

In the end the discussion about creating the dish went on for days, i had to make it and re-make it over again because i’d got things wrong; the wrong pasta, the wrong method, not enough sauce, too much sauce et cetera…

But anyway i am now finally happy with it (and i hope Dino is). And so to make this extremely addictive dish, you will need:

• The best bronze die spaghetti you can buy (90g per person)
• Intense fish stock made from mullet or bass, enough to boil the pasta in
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Bottarga; about 20 – 30g per person total depending on personal taste, about 2/3 of which is finely grated or microplaned in advance, plus about 8 thin slices as garnish
• Finely chopped flat leaf parsley, preferably from Italy but any sunny country will help the flavor

Simmer the spaghetti in the stock until cooked but very firm. Meanwhile warm a frying pan over a very low heat, it shouldn’t be hot enough to fry anything.

When the pasta is almost done, cover the bottom of the frying pan with olive oil, then a sprinkling of the pre-grated bottarga. Lift the spaghetti out and into the pan and start tossing to coat in the oil and bottarga. The stock will now be nice and starchy from the spaghetti, add a couple of spoons into the pasta with a little more oil and bottarga, keep tossing the pasta, add a little more stock, oil and bottarga as you go; gradually you will form a thick emulsion which generously coats the pasta.

Emulsion starting to form

When you’re happy with the sauce, add a little flat leaf parsley and toss it all together again. Transfer as neatly as possible to a serving dish, grate more bottarga over the top and dot with slices of bottarga – how much is personal taste but i personally prefer a LOT!

A starter portion

A more generous lunchtime portion

The Emulsion

So it’s all over; 6 months of planning culminated in a whirlwind of restaurants, black cabs, knives, langoustine mass-murder, bread dough’s, booze, blood and burns… But at the end of it all, there were 32 happy diners and many tired but happy cooks and servers. If you want to read about how One night in London came about, check part 1 of this post.

After lunch at Roganic on Saturday, we headed over to The Chancery to get a tour of the kitchen and restaurant, have a quick beer and grab what we needed to do prep that night at Keith & Lolli’s. We took a cab over and started on the unenviable task of dispatching the live langoustine from Rex goldsmith.

We were welcomed with a glass of sparkling English wine from (I think) Kent, they chose it in a blind tasting with Champagnes and indeed it was very good, a curious kick from a little added pinot blanc to the grape mix. We had two amuses, the first was smoked cream cheese with squid ink crisp bread and caraway seeds. Lightly smoked, lightly creamy, nice contrast . . . →Roganic Revisited]]> My only regret about my last trip to London was that i only had the six course menu at Roganic. This time I happily opted for ten courses, but the funny part is now, looking at the print out they gave me at the end of the meal it seems we had a total of seventeen courses (counting the amuses as one course and bread as one course). Joking with Ben Spalding on Twitter en route to the restaurant, he said he was going to “stuff me like a little piggy”, and he did…

We were welcomed with a glass of sparkling English wine from (I think) Kent, they chose it in a blind tasting with Champagnes and indeed it was very good, a curious kick from a little added pinot blanc to the grape mix. We had two amuses, the first was smoked cream cheese with squid ink crisp bread and caraway seeds. Lightly smoked, lightly creamy, nice contrast with the black squid ink bread.

The second amuse was a breaded and deep fried lambs sweetbread, topped with (I think) radishes and something sharp which cut nicely through the fatty sweetbread. This passed the one mouthful test with flying colours. A bottle of Puligny Montrachet was ordered to ease us into the meal.

Next came the bread, I was anxious to get my hands on a pumpernickel roll but as well as this we had some soda bread rolls topped with oats and sugar (delicious, expect yet another Roganic roll rip-off at the next supperclubJ!), buttermilk and potato rolls, and rosemary crisp breads.

Never again will I neglect to photograph the inside of a roll at a restaurant…

Next we moved onto the menu proper; Millet pudding with grains, burnt pear and Devon blue. A similar dish was on the menu last time around but now Stichelton has been replaced by Devon Blue cheese. I loved this before and again this time, I still don’t get how something burnt can taste nice, but the creamy blue mould flavour from the cheese really works together with the burnt flavours of the pear. This time a slightly sharp green sauce was added which I couldn’t quite identify but helped balance the dish.

Next up was a smoked Braddock White duck egg with pickled roots, fried seeds and chervil dressing. There was also some home cured beef tucked under the yolk. The whole dish was delivered under a smoke filled glass dome and was wondrously smoky.  I’m not sure I personally liked the dish (perhaps too smoky for my tastes), but as with all of Bens cooking, it was flawlessly made and presented.

Salad of warm oca (artichoke family), artichoke cream, Jerusalem artichoke crisps, celery and malt crumbs came next, this was about as wintry as a dish can get, strong earthy flavours, the oca was almost potato like, sitting on a strong puree and with good texture from the crisps. The malt crumbs added some flavours of coffee and chocolate which really well complimented the other flavours.

Roasted langoustine, purple sprouting broccoli, deep fried kale, crispy shallots and chokeberry vinaigrette was a favourite. The langoustine was fat and rich and creamy, the acidity of the chokeberry was a perfect pairing and I think this is where our Montrachet really shone.

Time for more wine, we accepted a recommendation from Jon Cannon and went for a Californian Esprit de Beaucastel blanc; as it turns out an excellent accompaniment for the following courses.

The last time I ate one of Bens Mushroom dishes was in August at the Critical Couples dinner. At the time I was blow away by the intensity of the pom pom mushroom; it seemed to taste more like mushrooms than mushrooms can. I was surprised again now by the poached and roasted king oyster mushroom, puree of roast chestnut mushroom and dried porcini, served with beetroot and sea leaves. Again the intensity of flavour in the mushroom was outstanding; strong and rich. Quite unique.

The next dish was caramelised cauliflower, sour cream, charred lettuce and pennywort. This was very clever; again intensity of flavour you wouldn’t get from the vegetable on its own, this had been roasted and burnt around the edges, beautifully complimented by the charred lettuce.

Theatre came next, a little clay pillow was presented to us, this contained a Kind Richard leek, it had been baked for many hours and was now to be served as our next course. They whisked it away and returned a few minutes later with the leek, presented with rosemary, shallots and bacon cream. This was further garnished with some finely microplaned dark chocolate; the only non-british item on the menu. This dish was another outstanding example of intensifying the flavour of a vegetable. Marvellous.

Next up was another dish I recognised from my previous visit; potato cooked in chicken fat, served with snow peas, clam juice and crispy chicken skin. Outstanding dish the first time I had it and just as good this time around; someone remarked it was like all the good bits of a roast dinner, and I think that just about sums it up.

Next we veered back to fish (or was the last course another fish course? I don’t know but I love that it’s not important). This was Cornish plaice with sea beet, preserved leek and sprout leaves, also some little brown shrimps to garnish. It was here we realised that this was only the second actual piece of flesh we’d eaten during the meal and none of us minded. Nicely cooked plaice, lovely accompaniments.

A change in wine in preparation for the next dish; a Sonoma county Zinfandel that was more Primitivo than Zin; delicious, chewy yet unoaked red.

Then the main event; 52 hour braised longhorn shortribs, pumpkin, mayweed and smoked redcurrants. This was a damn fine bit of cooking; rich and strong sticky beef, sharp currants and a sweet pumpkin puree. I’m afraid this too passed the one mouthful test (albeit in two mouthfuls).

They were kind enough to leave the sauce on the table, so I created my own Roganic dish called “gravy and roll”. I imagine Ben will steal this and put it on the menu next week.

Next came a selection of British cheeses and chutneys, all ripe and delicious but I’m afraid I can’t remember the names.

After some more wine, the desserts came thick and fast, A fresh mint granite, warm spiced bread with buckthorn curd, salted almonds and smoked clotted cream (I love this dish, but the mini meat fruit style sea buckthorn blobs went back to the kitchen untouched, I guess that’s an acquired taste). Warm salted original beans, toasted almonds and apple sorbet was light and fresh, Yorkshire rhubarb with almonds and apple sorbet was delicious; complex and fruity, and another dish to pass the one mouthful test.

I believe if I didn’t have to leave to prep for my supperclub the next day, the food would have kept coming indefinitely and I probably would have just kept on eating. I loved my second trip to Roganic as much as the first; Lovely to come across Bens cooking again, and especially to experience it at the exact opposite end of the year, and in January when seasonal and foraged produce is at its minimum.

I can’t really imagine a trip to London without going to Roganic, Maybe I’ll pop back in May. Hmm, that could work, let me check with my wife.

Enter Dan (@FoodUrchin), we met during my last trip to London and shared a sweaty hangover over a bowl of chilled soup at Jose. A few emails were exchanged, some light Skyping, and the deal was done… Luc & Dan @ The Chancery; One night In London was born.

Once we announced our intentions on Twitter, we quickly recruited some more help; Both . . . →One night in London Part 1]]> When I started planning a London Supperclub about five months ago it was to be a small dinner for about twelve people, maybe in a restaurant, or any place that would take me.  When Zak from the Chancery got wind of my plans, he immediately offered his entire restaurant and kitchen and himself to help in whatever way he could… This obviously opened up a lot more possibilities and the number of seats at the dinner went first to 20, then 30 (now 32), and it was obvious I’d need help to pull this off.

Enter Dan (@FoodUrchin), we met during my last trip to London and shared a sweaty hangover over a bowl of chilled soup at Jose. A few emails were exchanged, some light Skyping, and the deal was done… Luc & Dan @ The Chancery; One night In London was born.

Once we announced our intentions on Twitter, we quickly recruited some more help; Both halves of @Wenniesaffairs, for front and back of house, and Paul AKA @nonsensepipe who would bake a cake, bring a shopping trolley and act as a Kitchen Consultant (still no idea what that is). Sandia Chang, best in the business, agreed to run front of house for the night and finally Zeren (@Bittenwritten) was unleashed on the wines…

I set up an email address and asked people to email me if they wanted a ticket, and they did; I had a total of 78 ticket requests, the most recent of which was on Monday… We decided that with such demand, and so few spaces, there was an opportunity to make this a luxury event and since we’re not doing this for profit, all profits should go to ACFUK.

With this in mind I approached a trusted contact to find the best meat, fish and vegetable suppliers in London. All suppliers I spoke to were extremely helpful and were happy to be associated with what is essentially a charity event; they all agreed various deals and discounts and so on. Many agreed to donate some products to a raffle, and we now have some great prizes; rare cured meats, cheese vouchers, special edition double strength Holy Fuck sauce and some exceptional knives from Chroma knives.

A menu was written and added to, and added to again. Some more late night Skyping and we had an almost finished product; in fact this morning I sent it over to Zak for printing so there’re no more changes possible!  We have two amuse courses, a starter, fish course, main, cheese, dessert and petit fours baked by a very special guest. It’s going to be a LOT of food so I hope everyone is hungry.

I don’t yet have all of the invoices for the produce and I don’t know what last minute items we need (Staff dinners??? ARRGH!), but I hope we have a tidy profit at the end to hand over to ACFUK.

So before we get started, a big thank you to everyone who has helped and will be helping over the weekend… See you Sunday!

(EDIT: if you want to see how this turned out; check part 2 of this post here)

There are three components to the dish;  the pork, the hot sauce and the cheesy rolls. The cheesy rolls are a Dan Lepard recipe which can be found here. I follow this recipe, leaving out the mustard and instead of shaping into torpedoes, shape into about 8 large rolls of 150g each.

For the pork:

To prepare the pork, lay it skin side down and remove any loose bits of meat and fat, also cut away any of the meat . . . →Roast pork belly with hot sauce and cheesy rolls]]> Six months ago i wrote this post on rolled and roast pork belly but in the last couple of months i’ve been perfecting my rolling technique, crackling and serving method.

There are three components to the dish;  the pork, the hot sauce and the cheesy rolls. The cheesy rolls are a Dan Lepard recipe which can be found here. I follow this recipe, leaving out the mustard and instead of shaping into torpedoes, shape into about 8 large rolls of 150g each.

For the pork:

• A nice chunk of pork belly, mine was 2.3kg
• Sea salt
• Pepper
• dried thyme and garlic powder to season

• 6 tomatoes
• 2 red peppers
• 2 red chillies
• Bunch of coriander
• 6 cloves of garlic
• 1 onion

To prepare the pork, lay it skin side down and remove any loose bits of meat and fat, also cut away any of the meat which separates the rib bones; you want to get it as flat as possible. Flip the belly over and score the skin to a depth of 0.5 – 0.75cm, depending how thick the fat layer is under the skin – don’t cut through the fat into the meat. i like to do my scoring quite close together and in different directions, this seems to give best results in the final crackling.

Grind sea salt all over the skin and rub it in to all the cuts. Leave it skin side up on a tray for about an hour, drying the skin off every 10 minutes with some kitchen paper. After an hour your pork should be very supple and flexible, it’s now ready to roll.

Do a few test rolls to figure out which direction the roll should go, there always seems to be one way of rolling which is better than the others. When you’re happy with how you want to roll it, rub the flesh side with salt and pepper and the dried herbs.

Before you can roll and tie the meat, you need some string (preferably proper meat tying string), and you need a knot. I’ve never been able to grasp a butchers knot; i managed it once but forgot it almost right away. Instead i do a modified shoelace type knot; the first under and over part i do three times before tightening, then follow up with a single knot which tightens the first one brilliantly… It’s not easy to explain, but there’s a video here you can watch which explains it.

I start with one knot in the middle, then add the rest, allow about 2cm between each knot and this will become portion control in the finished roast. Tie all the knots as tight as you can and when done, cut off the first one as  it will have become too loose, and re-do it with a tighter knot.

rub some more salt into the skin for good measure and place the joint on a rack in a roasting tray, this stops any part of the joint sitting in fat or juices while roasting.

Roast on 160 degrees with fan, for a total of three hours. After the first 90 minutes, you can start to turn the joint; rotate about 90 degrees every 20 minutes. By the end of the cooking time you will have a giant tube of pork filled crackling. When done, rest for a good 30 minutes with some tin foil to keep it warm.

Halfway point

To make the hot sauce: grill the peppers and chillies until the skins are charred and place in a sealed plastic bag for 10 minutes; this releases them from the skin. Meanwhile, roughly chop the rest of the ingredients and fry in hot oil. Chop the peppers and chillies and add to the rest of the ingredients, simmer with a lid on for 2o minutes. Blitz to a fine sauce consistency with a stick blender and pass through a sieve. Check the seasoning; at this point you could add some smoked paprika or more chilli if you like.

To serve: Remove the string from the pork and carve into nice big chunks, i’m pretty sure you can figure the rest out for yourself

You will need:

400g strong white flour

300g lucwarm water

7g dried yeast (this is a little bit too much but it tends to come in 7g packs, easier to use a whole one than save it)

7g salt

1 tsp each of dried herbs you like; rosemary, sage, thyme, or spices like cardemon seeds, aniseed etc.

Using the handle of a spoon, mix all the ingredients together; clean the bowl down, cover with a towel and rest for 10 minutes.

Next; generously oil a work surface and your hands. Pull the dough out . . . →Tweet-along rolls]]> Last Sunday i tried to help some people make small dinner rolls in real-time via Twitter. Since the actual tweet along a few people asked for the recipe so here it is…

You will need:

400g strong white flour

300g lucwarm water

7g dried yeast (this is a little bit too much but it tends to come in 7g packs, easier to use a whole one than save it)

7g salt

1 tsp each of dried herbs you like; rosemary, sage, thyme, or spices like cardemon seeds, aniseed etc.

Using the handle of a spoon, mix all the ingredients together; clean the bowl down, cover with a towel and rest for 10 minutes.

Next; generously oil a work surface and your hands. Pull the dough out onto the surface and press out to an oblong of about 50x40cm. fold the top third down, the bottom third up, the left and right thirds inwards. Place in a clean bowl for 30 minutes. Repeat this step after 30 minutes.

Next, on a floured surface cut the dough into about 16 pieces of 45-50g. Pat these down gently and form them into rolls by folding the outer edges in repeatedly. Cup your hands around the base of the dough and pull one side towards and the other away from you. This closes the roll and leaves a small nipple.

Place the rolls nipple side down on a baking tray lined with baking paper, cover with plastic and leave to rise for around an hour or until nearly doubled. Meanwhile heat the oven to 230 degrees with a metal tray in the bottom.

When ready to bake, dust the rolls with flour and make a small 45 degree cut in the top with a pair of scissors. Pour around 300ml of water into the tray at the bottom of the oven and put the rolls in to bake for 14 minutes. Drop the temperature to 170 and bake for a further 4 minutes or until they are golden. Cool before eating.

The restaurant in question was Roganic and the roll was their very special soft pumpernickel roll, served warm with whipped butter and Maldon salt; heaven, and technically impossible to make.

The pumpernickel rolls at Roganic (at the front)

What makes pumpernickel bread so unique and impossible to turn into a soft roll is the cooking process involved and the chemical reactions that take place; Pumpernickel is a 100% rye bread, leavened partly with a sour starter. It’s baked for anything up to 24 hours at a low temperature, this converts much of the starch into sugars which turn . . . →Roganic style soft pumpernickel rolls]]> Six months ago i had a bread roll in a restaurant which has haunted me ever since. Normally I might eat something and figure out right away what is in it and how it’s made and if I enjoyed it, recreate it at home and enjoy it again, but this bread roll eluded me.

The restaurant in question was Roganic and the roll was their very special soft pumpernickel roll, served warm with whipped butter and Maldon salt; heaven, and technically impossible to make.

The pumpernickel rolls at Roganic (at the front)

What makes pumpernickel bread so unique and impossible to turn into a soft roll is the cooking process involved and the chemical reactions that take place; Pumpernickel is a 100% rye bread, leavened partly with a sour starter. It’s baked for anything up to 24 hours at a low temperature, this converts much of the starch into sugars which turn dark, dark brown. The resulting loaf is dense and sweet and satisfying, but in no way small or soft.

I initially tried two methods to recreate them; the first was to blitz actual pumpernickel  and add this to the rolls at the dough stage together with sugar for sweetness. Terrible. The second was to make a rye roll and cook it for a very long time but this ended up like brown concrete.

I kind of gave up on the whole idea but recently found a new windmill selling flour that I wanted to try out. On their website they mentioned that they sell malt rye powder… I know malt from beer brewing, but imagine my surprise when I looked it up in McGee’s On Food and Cooking, to find that it was processed grain husks, roasted and ground to a fine powder. This process released all of the same flavours and most importantly the colour of pumpernickel. According to McGee, malt comes from barley but the windmill was selling rye malt; it was like a lightbulb went off.

Anyway. I bought the malt, but with no idea how much to add I started slowly with some simple wheat and rye rolls and a tiny amount of malt, it was clear right away that a tiny amount wasn’t going to do it.

By the time I got to version 4 of the rolls, I was adding 6g of malt to 400 of flour (3:1 wheat to rye) and a good spoon of dark sugar to help the colour and sweetness. These rolls came very close in flavour but were not dark enough inside, this was confirmed by Ben Spalding (Roganic chef), who said they should be much darker. I checked my own pictures and I asked Twitter, but of all the thousands of people who’ve been to Roganic, no one photographed the inside of a pumpernickel roll, so I was a bit in the dark. So to speak.

With version 5 I upped the malt and the sugar, I also switched out half the rye for wholemeal spelt  but left it as a mostly white roll. I still don’t know if I have the internal colour right, nor if my recipe comes close but Ben will check and let me know how close I got, so without further ado, version 5 of my Roganic soft pumpernickel rolls:

-          300g Stoneground organic white flour

-          50g course rye flour

-          50g wholemeal spelt

-          12g of rye malt

-          30g dark muscovado sugar

-          8g salt

-          7g dried yeast

-          300g lucwarm water

Use a handwhisk to mix all of the dry ingredients together, then add the water and combine with a spoon handle into a messy dough, scrape down the sides of the bowl and rest for 10 minutes. Tip onto an oiled surface and press out to an oblong of about 50x40cm. fold the top third down, the bottom third up, the left and right thirds inwards. Place in a clean bowl for 30 minutes. Repeat this step after 30 minutes.

Next, on a floured surface cut the dough into about 16 pieces of 45-50g. Pat these down gently and form them into rolls by folding the outer edges in repeatedly. Cup your hands around the base of the dough and pull one side towards and the other away from you. This closes the roll and leaves a small nipple. Place the rolls nipple side down on a baking tray lined with baking paper, cover with plastic and leave to rise for around an hour or until nearly doubled. Meanwhile heat the oven to 230 degrees with a metal tray in the bottom.

When ready to bake, dust the rolls with flour and make a small 45 degree cut in the top with a pair of scissors. Pour around 300ml of water into the tray at the bottom of the oven and put the rolls in to bake for 16 minutes. Drop the temperature to 170 and bake for a further 5 minutes or until they are very dark in colour. Cool before eating.