Phat Grissini

It's been a bit of a long week. After SP got over her lurgy, she was happy for a whole entire day before falling victim to another one, so we have been pinned to the couch. Again.
So, first up, a belated addition to Hazel's Winter Wednesday series: Is there anything better than finding a patch of sunlight to flop into on a cold day?


Yesterday afternoon SP was briefly well enough that I was able to whip up some grissini (bread sticks), a seriously underrated food. They're very quick and easy to make, so long as you don't try to be a perfectionist about it and make them all the same size or anything, and you don't need to worry overmuch about how much or little the mix rises because it's not that important. I think they'd be a fantastic one to try with kids.

I based my recipe on this one which I found in a quick Internet search, but as usual I changed it up a bit, not least because I thought that '623g of flour' and '397g water' were very strange measurements indeed.

So, take:

• 320g flour
• 200ml luke-warm water
• 1 sachet yeast (7g)
• 5g salt
• 20ml olive oil

and mix the whole lot together roughly with a fork. When it comes together into a dough, turn it onto a bench and knead it about for a few minutes. You can add extra flavours at this stage, I added about 1/2 a cup of shredded Parmesan cheese (the cheaty stuff out of a packet). When it's all nice and elastic, pop it into a bowl, cover, and leave it somewhere warm for an hour or two until it's doubled in size (on top of the coffee machine is a fantastic place if you have one, otherwise turn the oven on for a couple of minutes to warm it up a little, then turn it off again and leave your bowl in there).
Then have a cup of tea, watch some TV, pop the laundry on, etc, until time has passed and you're ready for the next part.
Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
Divide the dough in half. Roll out the dough to make it nice and flat and as thin as you can manage, then fold it in half and roll it out again. Cut into about 16 long strips, then roll into snakes or twizzle into long rolls.
Place on a tray about 2cm apart.
Sprinkle extra flavourings over the top: a little salt and pepper, or garlic salt, or flaked dry chili, or extra Parmesan cheese.
Repeat for the other half of the dough on a second tray.
Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown. The longer you bake them the crunchier they will be.
They'll keep for a few days in an airtight container, but they might not last long enough to worry about that.


Apparently they are nice enough for even poorly SPs to have a couple at once.


Happy weekend everyone xx