The problem with food blogging. Ukrainian flatbread with Sorrel and Dill.

Variable, becoming west, 3 or 4, then backing southwest 5 or 6 later.

Smooth or slight.

Fair.

Good, occasionally moderate.

The problem with recipes is that any confident cook doesn’t follow them. The problem with food blogging is that you cant remember what you have changed. Since I blog, I use a scale. I never used a scale before (for cooking; for baking it was different). But even if you did weigh the ingredients when you started: much flour did you really use? If you make a dough and knead by hand, and sprinkle your hands or the surface with flour, can you really tell a cooking novice how much flour was incorporated? How would he know when a dough is right? Only if you made plenty of  dough, you know how a non-sticking-yet-smooth dough feels beneath your hands.
And there is another problem.  I might sound like a very old person who mutters: When I was young things were better, but I do believe this is true in regards to recipes. You had cookbooks and before they were published, the recipes were tried and tested. I know that because a friend of mine was an editor for cookbooks and a very confident cook, so she was in charge of the testing ”brigade”. On at least two occasions she asked me to test some recipes because she ran out of time. It was not about if I liked it or not, it was if the measurements are right and provide from the written words alone a guidance for a person who is not familiar with that dish. This does not seem to exist anymore. Add to that sloppy editing in newspapers and printing mistakes and 2gr of salt become 20gr. Even the 2gr might be too much because no one tested the original recipe.

I made a dough today. I cant really tell you how much flour I used, I reckon it`s about 93.6gr (only kidding). But then I am not alone. Today`s recipe is an adaptation of Olushka Hercules` wonderful book “Mamushka: Recipes from Ukraine & beyond”

She promoted her book the first time last year in the Guardian with a recipe of “pampushki and green borsht”

I liked the idea and set out to make it. Halfway through I thought: And where is the oil? No oil. And then I read through the comments and saw that someone asked her why there is no oil and she said that she was so stressed making the video that she forgot about it. Fortunately there are very few mistakes in her book. Not more than in any other cookery books. Dont get me wrong, it is a wonderful book and will broaden your mind and introduce you to new exciting flavours. It will challenge your idea that the “Eastern Block” had no food beyond Soviet food allocations and that Eastern European food is stodgy. She writes beautifully and you can feel the love of cooking and the desire to evoke forgotten recipes of her ancestors. And if you know how to cook you wont weigh things like salt or sugar anyway. You taste. But sometimes I wish there would be still old fashioned editors who try out the recipes as they are about to be printed. And no, it is not the recipe which was featured recently in the Guardian and where she forgot again (or the editor) to mention the oil.  Its from her book, from a recipe which works. If it would not work, I would drown my sorrow on wine and keep quite tonight.

Ukrainian bread with sorrel, dill and cheese

Preheat oven to 200C.

Kefir dough:

60ml kefir or buttermilk

1 dash (a dash is less than a glug, kind of 3 to 4 drops) of distilled vinegar

1 dash of oil

1 pinch of sugar

1 pinch of salt

80g plain flour, plus extra for dusting

1 pinch of bicarbonate of soda

Add the kefir, oil, vinegar, sugar and salt to a large bowl and mix well with a fork. Sift the flour with the soda into the kefir mixture and mix to obtain a soft and quite wet dough. Heavily flour your work surface, tip out the dough and start kneading, incorporating more flour as needed. The dough should stop sticking to your hands, but it should also remain soft.

Flour the surface again really well. Roll out the dough into a 20cm disc. Let it rest while you deal with the filling.

For the filling

1 handful of fresh sorrel, finely chopped, or one teaspoon of tinned sorrel, which can be bought in Polish food shops under the name of Szczaw

1 spring onions, finely chopped

3 sprigs of dill, chopped (stalks and all)

80gr of crumbled feta or labneh

1 teaspoon of sunflower oil, plus 100ml for frying

moisten the surface of the pastry with about 1 tsp sunflower oil (come on, use your hands and don’t bother with a brush!) and then add the sorrel, dill, onion and feta on top (it is easier if you mix these ingredients before and crumble the feta or whisk the Labneh.)

Fold opposite sides of the pastry to make a parcel. Left, right, top, bottom. Make sure all of the edges are firmly pinched inside, flour the top lightly and gently flatten the parcel with your rolling pin or with your hand. Flip over, so the side with the most dough is at the bottom. Heat the remaining 100ml of sunflower oil in a pan until hot and gently lower in the flatbread, with the bottom side down. Cook for 2 minutes, and put it in the oven for 10 minutes. After about 5 minutes brush the top with the oil from the bottom. Dont worry if the filling is bursting out. If after 10 minutes it doesn’t look right, give it some more minutes . We are talking bread here, not a pancake. So if it doesn’t look like bread or smells like bread, it is not done. Serve with a tomato salad.

Additional info:

Sorrel is hardly available to buy but you can easily forage it. Just go for a walk and look out for a plant which looks like in the picture above. Hey, I did not even alter it in order to make sure you know what you are looking for. Try a leaf, if it tastes sour it is the right plant. If you are not convinced don’t worry. There is a similar looking plant with boring tasting leaves but it is not toxic. Just try. You will be surprised how many sorrel plants actually grow in your neighbourhood.