Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Last month, the lovely Yiota from Dulwich Hill Gourmet Meats gave me her recipe for beef short ribs. It sounded amazing, with the ribs slow cooking in a low oven for 8 – 10 hours. Here’s her version, in case you’d like to try it…

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As usual, I was in a rush.

So I pulled out my trusty Römertopf baker (if you’re new to our blog, you can read about my obsession with these wonderful clay pots here), presoaked it for 20 minutes, then filled it with…

• 1½ kg of grassfed beef short ribs
• 1 large chopped onion
• 2 large chopped carrots
• a peeled knob of ginger
• 1/3 cup soy sauce
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1/3 cup rice wine vinegar
• a splash of fish sauce
• 1 star anise (my family don’t love the flavour, so I didn’t add 6)
• 1 cinnamon quill
• ½ teaspoon roasted sesame oil
• 500ml (2 cups) water (or more, to cover)

Short ribs need a long slow braise to get that fall-off-the-bone tenderness that they’re renowned for. Once filled, the covered pot went into a cold oven, then the heat was turned up to 200C with fan. After an hour, I dropped the heat to 150C with fan and left it for a further two hours (leave it longer if necessary), then finished with a final 30 minutes in the oven with the lid off to thicken the sauce. Watch it carefully during the uncovered stage, as the exposed pieces of meat can burn. De-fat the sauce carefully, then taste and season – I added a little bit of salt at the end to compensate for the lack of beef stock.

This is an incredibly lazy version of Yiota’s recipe – I don’t bother browning anything first, nor do I cook down the sauce separately at the end to thicken it. But it works brilliantly in the Romy, and it’s simple enough to assemble and throw into the oven if you have a bit of time midweek.

My three men loved this dish – Big Boy and Small Man both commented on how the flavours reminded them of Japanese teriyaki. The meat was unctuously tender, falling off the bone as we were ladling it onto plates. It was eaten so quickly that this was the only photo I managed to take – I dawdled a bit to get the light right and the boys were on to seconds. Definitely a dinner we’ll make again!

Sorry about the dead link, folks – clumsy fingers on my part!

I’ve been messing about with my high hydration dough (detailed tutorial here) and I’ve come up with a fun and easy way to turn it into little focaccia rounds.

Make the dough following the instructions up to the preshaping stage. Preheat the oven to maximum. Divide the dough into 500g portions, and shape each into a ball. Allow to rest for about 10 minutes, covered with a tea towel.

You won’t be able to bake all of the dough at the one time – either adjust the quantities accordingly, or divide it up, then shape and bake the rest later…

After a short bench rest, flip each ball of dough onto a sheet of parchment paper, seam-side down. Oil your hands and flatten them out. Make sure they’re the right size to fit inside your enamel roaster. Drizzle more oil over the top and scatter with flaky sea salt…

Allow the flattened dough to rest for a further 15 minutes or so while the oven heats up. Just before baking, dimple the dough by pressing your fingertips right in to the paper…

Place each shaped oval into an enamel roasting pan, then cover with the lid. Place it into the oven and reduce the heat to 220C with fan. Bake for 20 minutes with the lid on, then remove the lid and give the loaves an additional 15 minutes baking time. The oiled tops will turn a deep, dark brown – make sure you let them cool before eating (if you can).

These focaccia rounds are much less oily than our regular sourdough version. They have a very open crumb structure, coupled with a chewy, slightly crispy crust. The boys went a bit mad for them…

I tried this again with smaller balls of dough (it helps that I can fit three enamel roasters side by side in my 90cm Smeg oven), and found that a 300g round was the perfect size for two stuffed sandwiches…

These are best eaten on the day they’re baked. If you have any leftovers, cut them into fingers, sprinkle on a little more oil and salt, and bake them in a 100C oven for two to three hours until completely dry and crisp. They’ll keep for ages in an airtight container, and make a very moreish accompaniment to dips…

I will often turn part of my dough into a loaf, and the rest into focaccia rounds. We love them split in half and slightly hollowed out to form a pocket for a hot filling!