Bacon & Wild Garlic Bread
Bacon & Wild Garlic Bread
Wild Garlic & bacon Bread
Wild garlic, one of the fabulous free things I get from the local wood that I love to walk in with my dog.
You must know me by now, and if you do, you’re aware how much I love a good forage.
Right now, it’s for one of my favourite things, wild garlic.
I do love this, and it’s a good job that I do because the ground is covered with the elongated green leaves of wild garlic giving of the unmistakable sweet and pungent smell that only wild garlic gives.
You’d be surprised how easy this fabulous ingredient can be found, and you’ll probably find it close to you.
In city areas, look in parks with some shady damp areas or along a canal path . Of course in the country, you’ll find blankets of it growing in woods, which is where I get mine.
Here is when i do the whole, don’t take too much, speech, and it’s true and needs to be said.
Don’t over-pick if you find your source and double check you’ve got the right plant before you eat and you’re not eating or even touching something thats poisonous or an irritant.
But once you’ve found your wild garlic, washed it really well, you’re all set to get cooking with it.
This bread is as easy to make as it is delicious to eat, and I say that from a place of not being the best bread maker in the world, each time I use this recipe, it works and its always light, airy with a great texture.
Why cook it in a cast iron pot?
That’s an easy one.
A cast iron pot means that the heat is distributed evenly, which in turn means that it cooks evenly making it a perfect bread cooking receptacle.
It’s also great for giving the bread the shape you want.
A round pot gives a round loaf, etc obviously.
I love the bacon in this too.
I love bacon in anything, but in this bread, add it to the garlic and it has a balance of flavours that is perfect.
Of course, lashings of butter on every slice, but that’s just me.
Go on, give it a go
Enjoy your sweet life.
Bacon & Wild Garlic Bread
What You Need
8 x Rashers of Smoked Streaky Bacon –Cut into small pieces
30g Wild Garlic Leaves – Washed, patted dry and roughly chopped
415g Strong Bread Flour – Plus Extra for Dusting
2 x tsp of Sugar
1 x tsp Salt
2 x tsp Dried Yeast
30g Salted Butter
300ml x Warm Water
Second rising in cast iron pot
How It’s Done
In a frying pan, cook the bacon pieces until crispy.
Add the chopped garlic to the pan and cook for a couple of minutes until the garlic has wilted.
Set them aside on kitchen paper to drain until needed later
In a bowl, combine the flour, sugar, salt and yeast – See Tip Box
Melt the butter in the warm water and add it to the flour mixture.
Mix until it comes together to form a ball.
Knead by hand or with a dough hook in an electric mixer for 5 minutes.
Add the bacon and garlic and knead for another 5 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic.
Shape the dough into a ball, place it into a lightly oiled bowl, cover with cling film and leave somewhere warm for about 1 hour or until tripled in size. – See Tip Box
Set the oven to 210c and place the cast iron pit into the oven to heat up for 10 minutes. Remove the pot from the oven and line the cast iron pot with non-stick baking parchment.
Once tripled in size, knock back the dough, shape it into a smooth ball and place into the cast iron oven pot – See Tip Box
Cover the cast iron pot with the cling film and place back in the warm place for about 30 minutes until puffy and grown
Once ready, place the pot onto the top shelf of the hot oven for 25-30 minutes until the top is a good golden brown and the bottom sounds hollow when hit.
Out of the oven
Tip Box
Adding the yeast – When adding the dry yeast to the bowl, keep it separate from the salt and the sugar. If the yeast is in contact with the sugar, it may kill off the yeast, making it impossible for it to work.
Leaving to grow- When leaving the dough to grow (prove) you can choose to transfer the dough to a different lightly oiled bowl or oil the bowl you have been using. I always choose the later.
Knock Back – This is a term which just means to get rid of any large bubbles that may have formed inside the dough. To do this, just give the dough 2 or three very light kneads.
Ready for lashings of butter
