Commuter food:There's nothing quite like slicing into a home-made loaf, writes Catherine Cleary
The smells of sun and salt are on your skin and something fresh is on the table. You are miles from life on the road, the tyranny of tarmac. You are on your summer holidays.
We all start counting the days to the annual break, whether at home or away, in these promising days of early summer. The school yards will be silent soon, and there should be at least a week's peace before the back-to-school ads begin. There is time to draw breath. There is time to think and play and cook.
How much of the recuperation that we associate with holidays is connected to the kinds of food we eat when we have more time? Do we feel better because we eat better? Holiday meals are typically made from fresh local ingredients bought that day and cooked under the skies on a barbecue or in a basic apartment or cottage kitchen.
Long days in fresh air reinvigorate our appetites. We are ravenous in a way that we can never be while surrounded by checkout snacks and coffee-break biscuits. Looking back on great holidays we remember the meals: mackerel fished out of the Atlantic and thrown on the pan, langoustines eaten with lemony fingers, or even just the humble ham sandwich on the beach with the butter warmed by the sun.
Food becomes part of the fun of the day rather than a chore that stands between you and the comfort of the couch. The difference is usually not in the length of time spent cooking but in the amount of time available to think about what you will eat.
This kind of planning and thought is one of the holiday habits you can import back into working life. When you are tired and under pressure the instinct is to reach for something easy and convenient. We are programmed to associate quick food with a supermarket freezer cabinet.
The idea of making a loaf of bread on a working day might appear about as realistic as running up a quick outfit for work on the sewing machine. But when you just pour milk into a bowl of ready-mixed ingredients, stir it and throw it into the oven it becomes almost as easy as pouring a bowl of cereal. In the evening you can toast a couple of slices, drop a poached egg on the top, and serve with your favourite cheese and a little home-made onion jam on the side. It's holiday food on a humdrum day.
FIVE-MINUTE BROWN BREAD
These quantities make enough for more than two kilos of brown-bread mix. You can store the bread mixture in a tin or plastic container, then just scoop out the amount you need for an individual loaf. You do not even need weighing scales - once you've made this a few times you can do it without having to think. This will make eight loaves in a typical rectangular bread tin. Try the new silicone loaf baking containers available in Dunnes Stores and other kitchen shops for easier removal than from a tin.
650g wholemeal flour
500g rye flour
500g white flour (or you can use white spelt flour)
250g wheat bran
Two large handfuls each of pumpkin seeds, linseeds, sunflower seeds and sesame seeds.
Mix the flours, bran and seeds together well and store in an airtight jar or tin. When you want to make the bread, turn on the oven on to 180 degrees. Using a large mug as a measuring device take two mugs of the flour and seed mixture and put into a bowl. Add a teaspoon of bread soda, a pinch of salt, an egg and (using the same mug you used to measure the flours) a mug of milk. Then add a generous dollop of olive oil and mix the whole lot together until it is nice and sticky, but not too runny. You can use buttermilk, but it is not always available. Bake in the oven for about half an hour, until the bread has browned on top and so that, when you tap the bottom of it (after popping it out of the tin), you hear a hollow sound.
RED ONION JAM
Makes four servings
Olive oil and a knob of butter
2 medium red onions
2 dsp raw cane sugar
2 dsp balsamic vinegar
4 dsp red wine
Peel and slice the onions into rounds. Heat the olive oil and a knob of butter in a pan. When the butter has melted, put the onions in and cook over a high heat for three or four minutes. Lower the heat and sprinkle the sugar over the onions and allow to carmelise. Then add the vinegar and the red wine. Reduce the heat to a highish simmer and let the liquids reduce as the onions cook to a soft stickiness. You can double or treble the quantities and make enough to keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks. Serve hot or cold with cheese, or as a relish for meat.
DENIS COTTER'S LAKSA
Serves four
Denis Cotter, of Cafe Paradiso in Cork, suggests making this nutritious dish when time is short. "This highly spiced and fragrant dish is one I recently adapted for the new reprint of Joy Larkcom's classic Oriental Vegetables," he says. "The ingredient list might seem long, but the preparation time is short, and you can adapt the recipe to suit whatever vegetables you have."
200g tofu, cut into 8 slices
2 garlic cloves, sliced
2 red chillies, sliced
1 tbsp grated fresh ginger
½ tsp ground turmeric
4 stalks lemon grass, thinly sliced
2 tins/800ml coconut milk
800ml vegetable stock or water
2 tbsp light soy sauce
1 medium cauliflower, in florets
1 head of pak choi, sliced
2 tomatoes, chopped
225g rice vermicelli noodles
225g bean sprouts
small handful of fresh coriander, chopped
small handful of mint or Thai basil leaves
2 spring onions, finely chopped
2 limes, quartered
Fry the tofu in a little vegetable oil in a wok or pan until it is lightly coloured and crisp. Drain on kitchen paper. Heat some oil in a pan, add the garlic, chillies, ginger, turmeric and lemon grass, and fry for two minutes. Add the coconut milk, stock and soy sauce. Bring to the boil and simmer for five minutes. Add the cauliflower, pak choi and tomatoes, and simmer for five minutes more.
Meanwhile, soak or cook the noodles, according to the instructions on the packet. Drain and divide them between four warmed bowls. Top with the bean sprouts and tofu slices.
Divide the vegetables from the soup between the bowls and then ladle over the hot coconut soup. Sprinkle a generous amount of herbs and spring onions over the soup and serve.
Offer the cut limes to be squeezed over the laksa at the table.