Kitchen Gadget 10. Kenwood Chef

Earlier this year we wrote a post about the accessories that we use with our Kenwood Chef and the time has finally come to talk about the main beast!

Afforded pride of place on our worktop since it was given to us as a wedding present we've used this for all sorts over the years. Before we got a bread machine this was our main workhorse for kneading our bread; now it has a slightly easier life but is still called on to whip up cakes, pastry, scones, profiteroles or whatever tickles our fancy.

It's great for those jobs where a longer period of effort is needed. Such as the constant whipping needed for a good meringue...

Italian Meringue

4 Egg Whites
160g Sugar
160ml Water

1. Using the Kenwood, whisk the egg whites into a soft peak.

2. Meanwhile, dissolve the sugar in the water over a high heat. Once dissolved, continue to cook the sugar syrup over a medium heat until it reaches 121C.

3. After bringing the sugar up to temperature turn the mixer speed up to high and slowly pour the sugar syrup into the egg whites.

4. When all the sugar has been incorporated turn the mixer down to a medium speed and keep whisking until the meringue is back to room temperature. You should now have a lovely glossy meringue ready to use however you like; though if I could make a suggestion, perhaps to top off Joe's Strawberry Layered Cake.

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Kitchen Gadget 7. Kenwood Chef - The Accessories

 

I'm sure one of these days we'll do a Kitchen Gadget post about our Kenwood Chef, but in a rather back to front sort of way we're going to start with a post about all the wonderful attachments you can get for it. We have three out of a wide selection and while they don't get daily use they certainly make life seem so much easier when there's lots to be done. These are kitchen gadgets that we can easily do without, but by no means regret having in the cupboard. A bit of luxury.

Firstly we have the shredder/slicer. Large bowl of coleslaw for a BBQ? It takes longer to top and tail the carrots than it does to chuck them all through the machine! We also use this one for dauphinoise potato type dishes - it really is so quick to do. (Plus it avoids the temptation to slice potatoes on that wide bit on the cheese grater - don't do it. Just don't.)

We also have a juicer. While this is the most under-utilised in our cupboard we hold out high hopes for the day when we get to turn a bumper apple harvest into beautiful fresh juice.

Today though, we have a recipe for you that we get out the mincer for: falafel. As with lots of our kitchen gadget recipes you can make this without a mincer - just mash it all up the best you can by hand.


Falafel
Serves 4

2 Tins Chickpeas
2 Onions
4 Cloves Garlic
4 Tbsp Plain Flour
2 Tsp Ground Cumin
1 Tsp Salt
2 Tsp Paprika
1 Tbsp Fresh Herbs (we used Coriander and Thyme)
1 Large Egg - optional, it does help to bind and we have no shortage of eggs so chuck one in.

1. Set up your mincer and feed through the chickpeas, onions, and garlic.

2. Stir in the rest of the ingredients to make a firm dough.

3. Fry off tablespoon sized dollops of your dough in batches until you've used it all. Pop the finished ones in a warm oven while you're working.

4. Serve with toasted pittas, houmous, salad, olives, mayonnaise... or whatever you fancy!

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Kitchen Gadget 3. Bread Maker

We eat quite a lot of bread, lovely fresh bread. For a while we made it all by hand (with a little help from our trusty Kenwood Chef), but then one day we were offered a bread machine that was gathering dust in a friends kitchen and we've never looked back. We're now onto our second having worn out that first gift.

While we do regularly use it's normal cycles, we also love it's range of dough cycles. This gives us the flexibility to make more unusual loaves and achieve a range of bakes but saves us having to do any of the hard work! The machine will mix, knead and hold the dough at the right temperature to get a good rise all with the push of a button. All that leaves us to do is to turn it out, pop it in a tin or on a tray with any added flavours and put it in the oven. We can have the satisfaction of making bread ourselves, without having to pay much attention to the process.

One thing we find it very useful for is pizza dough. The shortest dough cycle on our machine is 45mins long so we can get this on when we get home from work without having to wait hours for our dinner. While we don't claim to have done anything particularly original here we thought we'd share what we do when homemade pizza is on the cards.

Homemade Pizza (with doughball starter)

Serves 4

500g White Bread Flour

6g (bread machine friendly) Yeast

6g Salt

15g Sunflower Oil

300ml Water

1 500g carton Passata

A large handful of Grated Cheddar Cheese

1 ball Mozzarella

Plus toppings of your choice. We went for:

2 Mushrooms

1 Red Pepper

1 slice of chunky Ham

1. Put the flour, yeast, salt, oil and water into your bread machine and put it on a short dough cycle (ours happens to be labelled "pizza dough" - but we use it whenever we just need a quick turnaround).

2. While the bread machine is running, empty the passata into a saucepan and leave on a low heat to simmer in order to thicken it a little. A whole carton of passata is too much but we cook the whole lot down and then pop the spare in the fridge to add to whatever our next tomato needing meal is.

Once the bread machine has finished and the passata has thickened:
3. Preheat the oven to 220C.

4. Empty the dough out of the bread machine onto a floured surface. Bring it into a ball and then split into three fairly equal sized pieces.

5. Split the first piece of dough into 8 small balls and place on a lightly oiled tray. Put these in the oven. They will bake for approximately 10mins.

6. Roll out the remaining two pieces of dough as thin as you can that will fit on your baking trays. We use non-stick silicon baking sheets between our baking trays and our pizza at this stage - but if you don't have them then just remember to grease your baking trays to make things easier later.

7. Spread a thin layer of the passata over the rolled out dough. Add a thin layer of grated cheese followed by torn mozzarella pieces to the tomato. Finish with your choice of toppings.

8. Hopefully your doughballs will now be cooked and looking a good golden brown colour. Take them out of the oven and put your pizza in.

Enjoy your doughballs with a little butter. 

9. After 10 mins check your pizza. Hopefully it should be starting to look cooked by now. If the dough is starting to feel stable at this point we slide it off the baking tray onto the oven shelf and leave it for another 3-4 mins. This helps to produce a crispier base.

10. Once the pizza crust is looking golden, the cheese bubbly and the toppings cooked then your pizza is done. Remove it from the oven and enjoy.

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