Alfie Ingham's Easy Lockdown Recipes

Hugo's Bistro owner and head chef Alfie Ingham shares a few of his favourite comfort recipes to help take the edge off your lockdown dining.

Grilled Flatbreads

Essentially a hybrid pita/naan bread; the possibilities are endless. You could serve them as part of a mezze with hummus and baba ghanoush or caramelized onions and anchovies make for a great spin on pissaladiere. A current favourite at Hugo’s is with raclette, grilled onions and honey, you could recreate this at home by cooking the flatbreads, adding the toppings and putting under the grill for 2/3 minutes until the cheese has melted and blistered.

225g Warm Water
3g Dried Yeast
125g Plain Yoghurt
5g Salt
350g Bakers Flour
200g Wholemeal Flour

1. Mix together the water and dried yeast and leave in a warm place for 20 minutes until foaming.
2. Put the flours and salt in to a large bowl and stir together Once the yeast mix is foaming, whisk in the yoghurt and pour into the bowl with the flour mix
3. Mix by hand until everything is combined into a shaggy, sticky mess. You don’t need to work this dough very much, just knead until everything has come together.
4. Leave the dough in the bowl covered with a towel in a warm place for approximately 2 hours, or until roughly doubled in size. Once the dough has risen, tip it onto a floured surface and cut into 12 even pieces, and roll them into balls.
5. Transfer to a floured baking sheet, cover with a towel and leave to rest for 2 hours
6. At this point prepare your barbecue
7. Roll the flatbreads about the width of your hand, if you roll them thinner you’ll get crispier more brittle breads, whereas if you leave them slightly thicker they will puff up in to a fluffier bread.
8. Grill over a medium heat on the first side, once you start to see air bubbles and some colour, flip it over onto the hotter side of the grill to caramelise and finish cooking through
9. At this point your imagination takes over, add toppings or serve the bread straight away. Wrap the flatbreads in a tea towel to keep warm whilst you cook the remaining dough.

Vadouvan Butter for Grilled Fish and Vegetables

Vadouvan is a French spice mix of Indian origin. Using whole toasted spices and crispy shallots it is beautifully aromatic with just a hint of heat from kashmiri chilli. Mixed with brown butter, garlic and curry leaves it makes for a great twist on the familiar grilled fish with brown butter and lemon.

Vadouvan Spice Mix

25g Cumin seed
2g Clove
15g Coriander Seed
15g Black Pepper
20g Whole Dried Kashmiri Chilli (use mild whole dried chillies if unavailable)
15g Mustard Seed
25g Turmeric
5 Rasps of Nutmeg
40g Fried Shallots

Vadouvan Butter
250g Butter
Handful of Curry Leaves
5 Garlic Cloves, Thinly Sliced
2 heaped tbsp of Vadouvan Spice
Lemon

1. To make the spice mix toast the cumin, cloves, coriander and black pepper in 160c oven for 10 to 15 minutes or until aromatic.
2. Toast the kashmiri chilies at the same time for approximately 5 minutes but be mindful these will burn quickly
3. Using a spice grinder or a mortar and pestle grind the toasted spices, chilies and all the remaining ingredients until you have a coarse mixture, don’t grind too fine or the mix will burn too easily in the next step
4. To make the vadouvan butter, add the butter to pan and begin to melt over a medium to high heat. Once foaming add the sliced garlic, curry leaves and vadouvan spice.
5. Lower the heat and gently toast the spices, the curry leaves will crisp up and garlic will caramelise. Follow your nose here, you want fragrant toasted spices and garlic, too much heat and they’ll burn and your plans will be ruined
6. This butter is now ready to pour over your grilled fish, we love grilling Flounder or Sole whole over charcoal at Hugo’s, but this will work beautifully with any fish.
7. Vadouvan butter would also help to liven up all sorts of grilled or roasted vegetables, think grilled green beans and asparagus in spring or roasted pumpkin and carrots in the winter.