recipe and cooking video: November 2011

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Thai Style Salmon Fritters

A perfect party starter, these salmon fritters are coated with batter and deep fried until crisp and golden brown. They are best eaten fresh out of the oil while they're still hot and crisp.

I have substituted a few ingredients as I don't happen to have them on hand. Please do visit I Just Love My Apron for the authentic and original recipe.

2 Eggs
150 ml Whole milk
1/2 tbsp Fish sauce
1/2 Lime, juiced
150 g All purpose flour
2 tsp Baking powder
1 tsp White pepper

1 tbsp Red curry powder
1/2 tbsp Lime zest
1 cup Frozen green peas, thawed and drained
1 tin /225 g Alaska redhead wild sockeye, drained and flaked
250 g Fresh salmon, sliced
Oil for frying
Some fresh celery leaves
Salt and Cayenne pepper for dusting

Beat eggs, milk, fish sauce and lime juice in a mixing bowl until everything is incorporated. In another bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, white pepper, red curry powder and lime zest.
Add the flour mixture into the egg mixture. Stir until just incorporated. Add in drained green peas, tinned and fresh salmons to the batter. Stir until well combined.
Add oil to a saucepan and heat it up to 190C/375F. Line a baking tray with paper. Preheat your oven to 100C/210F.
Drop by tablespoon into hot deep oil. Don't overcrowd. Once they are nicely brown, remove from the pan and keep warm in the oven and repeat the process until you have finished the batter.
Sprinkle the fried fritters with salt and cayenne pepper. Use same oil to fry fresh celery leaves until crispy. Place the fritters on a platter and top with celery leaves. Serve salmon fritters hot accompanied with preferred yogurt dressing.

Monday, November 28, 2011

Gumbo

I decided today to end my new-recipe drought and cook something I liked the look of that I found in a colour supplement this weekend. It was a prawn and okra "gumbo" and it looked like my kind of thing. Stealth vegetables: tick. Spicy: tick. Easy: tick.

So after raiding Waitrose, I potato-sacked Kitty into her cot at 1pm, waved cheerio and thundered back to the kitchen with more enthusiasm than I've had in... months and months... to set about cooking this thing.

And it was - it still is, sitting down there greasily in its pot - DISGUSTING. It is like an orange glue-soup studded with chunks of raw onion and warmed-up red pepper. And the thing about red peppers is that they're fine raw and they're fine cooked long and hard, but anything in between is tastes like a microwaveable pizza from a service station.

Is that what gumbo is supposed to be like? Does anyone have a good gumbo recipe? I like the sound of it, mostly because the word "gumbo" is good. But this was just a travesty.

I'm racking my brains, here. I followed the recipe - from a staggeringly famous, usually terrific chef. I didn't shirk or get impatient or skip anything out. Just a bad, bad recipe. Maybe an error? A few of you may have seen it this weekend. Don't bother with it. I mean, like, FUCK I could have been asleep this afternoon! And what if I didn't have an alternative dinner?! What a waste of time and money; literally all going to go on the compost.

I'm in a simply foul mood about the whole thing. But at the very least you may as well benefit from this horrible misadventure, because I certainly haven't.

On a lighter note these are amazing. No, they didn't send me any freebies, but if they'd like to, it would cheer me up enough to prevent me from sending Yotam Ottolenghi his gumbo back to him in the post. On fire.

Friday, November 25, 2011

Cinnamon Spelt Ring aka Estonian Bread Kringel

This cinnamon bread, also knows as “Bread Kringel”, has been baked for hundreds of years in Estonia, for holidays, birthdays celebrations and special occasions. It originated in Germany and is basically a sweet enriched bread that’s twisted into the shape of a pretzel or a simple ring.

Recipe inspired by Chocolateoblivion

Dough	Filling
125 ml Milk, lukewarm 1 Egg yolk, small 30 g Walnut oil 1 tbsp Maple syrup 100 g Wholegrain spelt flour 200 g Spelt flour 7 g Instant dried yeast	50 g Butter, melted and cooled 3 tbsp Sugar 2 tsp Cinnamon powder 2 tbsp Slivered almond, optional Powdered sugar, optional

Place milk, egg yolk, walnut oil and maple syrup in the pan of your bread machine. Add in flours and the dried yeast. Select the “Dough” cycle, and press “Start”.
Mix together the cooled butter, sugar and cinnamon powder in a bowl. When the “Dough” cycle is finished, transfer the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and knead it briefly.
Divide the dough in half. Using a rolling pin, roll each out into a 1cm thick rectangle. Spread the 1/3 cinnamon butter mixture evenly over the dough, leaving a 1cm border. Roll dough up, starting lengthwise to form a Swiss roll. Seal edges well by pinching close and slice it in half lengthwise, leaving 5cm intact.
Turn each half cut-side up and carefully plait the halves together, keep the cut-side up to expose the filling. Join both ends to form a round wreath and transfer to a baking tray lined with parchment paper.
Brush the bread top with the remaining cinnamon mixture. Scatter the silvered almonds over if used. Preheat the oven to 190C/375F. Bake for about 20 minutes or until golden brown. Dust with powdered sugar if desired.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Christmas and fish pie (again)

I wouldn't say that I was panicking about Christmas - Dr O has put paid to the worst of my anxieties (and at only £120 an hour! Bargain!) - but I would say that it was definitely on my mind.

We are having everyone here. And when I say everyone I mean two sets of parents, two sisters, two infants, two cousins an aunt and an uncle. It adds up to 14 people. The fact that we don't have enough chairs for that many people is the least of my problems. I don't think we have enough glasses, either. Or cutlery.

We're so worried about the food that we are having a practise run on November 30th. We are doing the whole thing - brining the turkey, bread sauce, roast potatoes, the lot. I might even take the opportunity to put up a few Christmas decs to see how they look. I'm going for a very barnyard theme this year - all brown twine and chipped red jingle bells - you know the sort of thing I mean No tinsel, perhaps a bit controversially. I hate tinsel.

So I will report back after November 30th with top tips on how it all went.

For now, because I promised, I wanted to run through a childrens' fish pie recipe for a reader who requested it.

People make a lot of fuss about giving children fish pie - they think it's so marvellous and middle-class; but I do think that some children don't like it. Or at least don't like some elements of it. Very fishy fish, like salmon, is often not especially appreciated. And a proper fish pie is made with smoked haddock, which is very salty - so you might want to leave that out if you're touchy about stuff like that.

Personally, I make mine as bland as possible. When I was little I never, ever had to eat anything I didn't want to. I literally lived on baked beans, alphabites, scrambled eggs and spaghetti bolognese. My mother has a theory that small children can't digest brassicas (spinach, broccoli) very well and so that's why they don't like them. I'm not going to say anything pathetic like "It never did me any harm" because who knows?! But certainly I am very grateful to my mother for not being an "eat up your veg" nag. And I don't have a problem with vegetables now.

Anyway, I'm drifting.

Any fish pie is simply fish poached in a white sauce and covered with mashed potato or pastry and that's it. Anything else you add is entirely up to you and frankly, although it's not for me to tell you what to do with your child, I would be guided by any preference my child shows - eg parsley or no parsley, egg or no egg. I don't think you're supposed to give babies shellfish under a year but thereafter you could chuck in some brown shrimp. Yummy.

So the contents of a fish pie might look like this:

(makes several freezable portions)
1 quantity of white sauce (for recipe see "How to make a white sauce" - on this blog) - about 3/4 of a pint
1 quantity assorted white fish, eg haddock/cod/scallops - smoked fish if you want, salmon if you want
a few mushrooms if you like
2 eggs

1 Make the white sauce.

2 Chop up the fish into small chunks - about the size of dice (depending on child's age of course) and then plop into the white sauce. Let this stew together over a low flame for 15 minutes.

3 Hard-boil and chop your eggs, if using. Dice your mushrooms, if using, and throw those in too.

4 Decant this mixture into your bowls for freezing and top with either pastry or mashed potato. On re-heating defrost and cook for a good 25 minutes.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Gingerbread Porridge

I was sitting on the kitchen floor the other day with my iPad, half-in and half-out of the doorway to get some of the feeble WiFi reception that dribbles down from the modem upstairs; my husband was nearby, pushing tiny strips of fish finger into Kitty's sparrow-mouth followed by a spoonful of beans.

"Na naaaaaaaaa," said Kitty, her mashed-up food slowly collapsing from its position on the roof of her mouth to flop onto her tongue. She then keeled forward gently to rest her forehead on her highchair tray, her fat grubby hands splayed on the plastic either side of her face. She's been doing that a lot recently; I don't know what it means.

Then an email arrived from someone I used to work with at The Times, called Claire. That makes me sound terribly grand, doesn't it? Like we used to write long witty pieces about the increasing popularity of traditional parlour games at Notting Hill dinner parties. In reality I worked part-time on the Times Magazine's reception desk and she was the chief sub-editor, which meant that if everything went perfectly no-one thanked her but if anything went wrong it was all her fault.

It wasn't the easiest place to work, the Magazine, especially not when you were a) the receptionist and b) part-time; it made you officially the lowliest person at the entire newspaper because at least the messengers got a bit of paid holiday and knew their way around.

And there were some horrible people. Not horrible, horrible - people always think working at newspapers is like All The President's Men and working at magazines is like The Devil Wears Prada but in actual fact it's just some grubby open-plan office with towers of dusty paper and the faint smell of lick.

Most newspaper or magazine offices could be anywhere. And the horrible people were just boringly horrible. They didn't make catty, arch, comments that sent you racing to the ladies' to sob, they just sort of refused to acknowledge you because you were so lowly and shit.

But Claire was always lovely to me. She looked me right in the eyes when she talked to me and never did a thing where I'd say something and she'd look at me as if my chair had started talking. Among other people who were nice to me were Hannah Betts, (with whom I became obsessed and started copying the way she dressed), and my husband.

I only spoke to my husband once on the phone when I was working at The Magazine - when he had so much post that I had to send a parcel van to his house to take it all and had to ring him to ask when he'd be at home to receive it. We had an unexpectedly nice chat. He is terribly friendly, my husband - much friendlier than you think he's going to be and I was astonished at his bothering to make jokes on the phone. When you work on reception and send people their post, no-one bothers to waste jokes on you or or tries to be charming. And when they do, you notice.

So I hunted him down and married him. Ha ha! (No, seriously.)

Anyway, so Claire emailed me and said Hiya, I'm working in PR now - do you want some free stuff? I usually absolutely catagorically say no to any freebies because it makes all this feel far too much like work. And it feels so self-important and crass to mouth off in some kind of superior way about what I think about this brand of biscuits or that kind of oat-free snack.

But you remember people who were nice to you when you were really little and shitty and want to do them a favour, for what it's worth.

So: Dorset Cereal's Gingerbread Porridge is actually pretty excellent. It comes in a chic brown box with a cute picture of a runaway gingerbread man on it. In the box are 10 sealed paper sachets of porridge that you can mix with milk and cook in the microwave or on the stove. I thought it was delicious and I don't even really like porridge.

Although it says it's limited edition, which probably means that it is only available in a few select branches of Waitrose within the M25.

That's the thing about PR: 50% of it really works - you just don't know which 50%.

Amy I haven't forgotten about your request for child-friendly fish pie. Coming soon. Like, tomorrow.

Monday, November 21, 2011

Poppy Thumbprints with Lemon Curd

Those buttery cookies, which are rolled in poppy seeds and filled with homemade lemon curd or with your favourite jam., are perfect for the holidays. You can replace poppy seeds with finely chopped nuts or coconut shreds. Thoroughly delicious and a welcome addition to any cookie tray.

Lemon Curd	Cookie
2 Eggs 130 g Caster sugar 65 g Butter Juice and zest of 2 lemons	280 g All purpose flour 1 tsp Freshly grated lemon zest 1/5 tsp Salt 200 g Unsalted butter, at room temperature 60 g Granulated white sugar 1 Large egg yolk 1 tsp Lemon extract 50 g Poppy seeds

Whisk the eggs and sugar in a saucepan until smooth, then place pan over a low heat. Add the butter, lemon juice and zest and whisk continuously until thickened. Strain through a sieve into a sterilised jar. Lemon curd keeps, covered, in the fridge for 2 weeks.
In a mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, salt and lemon zest. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy with a hand mixer. Add egg yolk and lemon extract. Beat until combined. Sift the flour mixture into the creamed butter mixture and mix until the dough starts to come together. Dump on a floured board and roll together into a flat disk. Wrap in plastic and chill for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Line a large baking tray with parchment paper. Roll the dough into 1-inch balls and lightly roll it in poppy seeds. Place on the prepared baking tray and press a light indentation into the top of each with your finger. Drop 1/2 teaspoon of lemon curd into each indentation. Bake for 15-18 minutes until lightly browned. Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool.

Friday, November 18, 2011

Reginette with Radicchio and Hazelnut Cream Sauce

A really simple pasta dish with crunchy bitter radicchio, that’s balanced by the rich, earthy taste of roasted hazelnuts and luscious, fresh cream. Some chopped roasted nuts would be a nice addition sprinkled on top. Serve with some garlic bread for a complete meal.

Reginette with Radicchio and Hazelnut Cream Sauce

Inspire by Robyn Cooks and All Recipes

100 g Reginette
1 Radicchio, rinsed and sliced
40 g Ground hazelnuts, toasted
30 g Butter
120 ml Low-fat cream
1 tsp Brandy
Salt and freshly mulled black pepper

Cook the reginette in in a large saucepan of rapidly boiling salted water until al dente, about 9 minutes.
In the meantime, toast the ground hazelnut in a small skillet over medium-high heat for a couple of minutes, stirring constantly. Lower heat, then add the butter, stir until melted, then add the cream and brandy. Stir to combine, and cook until thickened, 5 minutes. Taste and season with salt and pepper.
To serve, pile some radicchio into the bottom of a rimmed soup bowl, then top with reginette. Spoon the sauce over the top. Serve immediately.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Rye Rolls with Poppy

Those dinner rolls, made from egg white enriched rye dough, have a really shiny and beautiful crust, partly because of overnight proofing in the fridge, partly due to the egg white wash applied prior to baking at high temperature with steam.

Starter	Starter	Others
120 g Bread flour 45 g Dark rye flour 165 g Water 2 g Fresh yeast	80 g Wholegrain rye flour 80 g Dark rye flour 165 g Bread flour 130 g Water 30 g Egg white 1 tsp Malt extract 6 g Fresh yeast 8 g Salt	2 tbsp Poppy seeds 1/2 Egg white 2 tbsp Water

Dissolve the fresh yeast in the water. Stir in bread and rye flours until well combined. Cover and leave it at room temperature for 2 hours, then transfer to the fridge for 12 hours.
Place all the dough ingredients together with starter in the mixing bowl of your stand mixer. Stir at low speed until all ingredients have been incorporated, then increase the speed and mix until the dough gathers into a ball. Add more water, a tablespoon at a time, if too stiff.
Cover with a plastic and set aside until it doubles in size, 1-2 hours. Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured work surface. Lightly press down the dough and shape into a round. Divide the dough into 10-15 pieces. Shape each piece of dough into a round or an oval. Place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Cover and proof until double in bulk. This will take about 90 minutes.
Preheat oven to 230C/450F and place an old baking pan on the bottom rack. Combine egg white and water in a bowl. Brush the top of bread rolls with egg wash and sprinkle with the poppy seeds. Slash a 1/4-inch/5-mm deep cut across the top of each roll. Place rolls in the oven on the next shelf up, pour 1 cup of water into the old baking pan and close the door quickly. Bake for about 20 minutes until richly brown.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Butternut Squash and Red Lentil Soup with Five Spice Shiitakes

A quick, easy and tasty recipe for a thick and soul-warming pumpkin soup fragrantly spiced with curry and served with 5 spice shiitake mushrooms.

5 Spice Shiitakes	Soup
12 Dried shiitakes, soaked and diced 1-2 tbsp Bacon dripping 1 tsp Garlic, minced 1/3 tsp Five spice powder 1-2 tsp Maggi seasoning 1/2 tbsp Medium sweet sherry	3 tbsp Olive oil 1 Onion, finely chopped 2 Garlic cloves, crushed 2 tsp Curry powder 700 g Butternut squash, cut into 1cm pieces 100 g Red lentils, rinsed 1l Vegetable stock Salt and pepper to taste Fresh parsley leaves, to serve

Soak dried mushrooms in warm water until plump, about 30 minutes. Drain well, then dice the softened mushrooms. Heat the bacon dripping in a skillet. Add in minced garlic and diced mushrooms. Sauté briefly, adding in five spice, maggi seasoning and sherry, and continue stirring until mushrooms are tender and coated with the sauce. Keep warm until ready to use.
Heat a large saucepan with olive oil over medium-low heat. Add the onion and cook, for 5 minutes or until soft. Add the garlic and curry powder and cook, stirring, for 1 minute or until aromatic. Add the butternut squash, red lentils, and vegetable stock. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat to low. Simmer for 20 minutes or until the butternut squash and red lentils are soft.
Remove the soup from the heat and puree with a handheld blender or whirl in batches in a blender until smooth. Return the soup to the low-medium heat and cook, stirring, until heated through, about 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Ladle among serving bowls. Top with the stir-fried mushrooms and parsley to serve.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Shepherd's pie

My least favourite thing that people say to me is that they are tired. "I'm so tired," they say. Or, worse, "I'm just so tired." It's that "just" that really fucks me off.

I never tell anyone that I'm tired. Ever. Or ill. I keep it to myself. If you are tired, go to bed earlier. Take a sleeping pill. Inhale some lavender, bang yourself smartly on the head. Be really glitzy and hire a private doctor to dose you with propofol. Just don't tell me about it - because I don't care.

(Unless you have a small baby, in which case we will keen and wail together and I will make you tea and say there there.)

My second least favourite thing people say to me is "I'm so busy." Because when you say that, what I hear is "I am incredibly disorganised, I do not know how long an hour is and I don't know how to say 'No'. I am probably also late all the time, but think it makes me seem glamorous."

I do not respect that. I spend my whole life being the fucking bad guy, saying "No, I can't" because I know how long things take; I know what you can reasonably achieve in one day. And it's not very much.

But these days, I sympathise a bit more with people who describe themselves as being a "busy mum". I seem to be in a screaming spin all the time just now, (even though I hate my own guts for saying that), constantly patting my pockets for my keys and racing back into the house five times for bottles, nappies, wallets, shoes. I always seem to be in the car at traffic lights, revving the engine saying "Come on, are you fucking dead or what???!!!!" to the car in front.

Last night I went up to bed - although I didn't actually get into bed and go to sleep - at 8.30pm in order to re-create the kind of idleness I took for granted before I had a baby.

The thing is, Kitty is eating proper food now. Fish fingers and beans, peas, baked potatoes, fish pie, chicken. The whole lot. Nyum nyum nyum, she goes. So I can no longer get away with surviving on cheddar, own-brand chocolate mousse and tea, while spooning shop-bought puree into Kitty's weeny petulant mouth and doing no cooking beyond peeling the lids off takeaway. I have had to hit the stove again. And while I'm cooking for her, I might as well cook for me. Which is good because it means I eat something. But bad because it means I'll probably get fat again. And it's so fucking time-consuming.

Anyway, that's a long way of saying that it's nursery food a go-go around here right now and today it was shepherd's pie. I've only ever made one once and I muffed it by thinking that I was making a bolognese and adding canned tomatoes, which doesn't work at all.

So here we go, shepherd's pie. Take 2.

Serves about four I'd say.
2 packs lamb mince - about 500g each
1 stick rosemary
2 bay leaves (optional)
2 small onions, chopped
some celery, chopped
1 carrot, diced
2 large potatoes
chicken or veg stock if you have it - about 300ml
red wine if you have it - about a large glassful

1 Fry the onions, celery, rosemary stick, bay leaves and carrot together very gently for about 15 minutes. I say this every time because there's always ONE person out there who is very impatient and puts their onions on a really high heat and burns them and wonders why their dinner tastes horrible. Once the onions look translucent and sort of soft around the edges, throw in your glass of red wine and then turn up the heat high and bubble the wine down.

2 In another pan, fry off the lamb mince, then combine your lamb and veg and stock and simmer on the hob, very low, for 45 minutes. Chuck in some salt and pepper.

3 Now you can, of course, just boil and mash your potatoes, but if you steam (25 mins) and rice the potatoes instead, you will get a delicious crunchy potato topping. You can fashion a steamer out of a colander over a pan of boiling water. If you haven't got a potato ricer or a mouli legume then I suppose you're a bit stuffed.

4 Put your lamb mixture in a baking dish and cover with your potato, dot with butter and bake at 180C for about 25 mins.

Then go to bed, for fuck's sake.

Monday, November 7, 2011

Crusty Hard Rolls

Those bread rolls, known in Germany as Brötchen, are crunchy, richly golden brown rolls with a soft interior, and flavourful thanks to an overnight sponge. Serve them warm with jam or/and butter for the breakfast or with a bowl of piping hot soup as dinner. You can always freeze them and re-crisp in the 150C/300F oven.

Starter	Dough
125 g All purpose flour 140 g Water 5 g Fresh yeast	140 g Water, lukewarm 5 g Fresh yeast 375 g All purpose flour 1 tsp Malt extract 2 tsp Salt

Combine together the flour, water and yeast in a mixing bowl. Cover and leave the starter at room temperature for 16-20 hours.
Whisk together the water and fresh yeast in the bowl of your stand mixer. Add in the rest of ingredients together with the sponge. Mix until a soft, smooth dough forms.
Shape the dough into a ball and return it to the mixing bowl. Sprinkle a bit of flour over the top of dough. This will keep the dough from sticking. Cover with a plastic and set aside for 90 minutes to rise.
When the dough has doubled in bulk, turn it out on a lightly floured work surface. Lightly press down the dough and shape into a long roll. Cut the roll into 12 - 15 pieces. Take each piece of dough and form into a round or oval shaped roll.
Place rolls on the baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Cover and let rise until double, about an hour. Preheat oven to 230C/450F and place an old baking pan on the bottom rack. Slash a 1/4-inch/5-mm deep cut across the top of each roll.
Place rolls in the oven on the next shelf up, pour 1 cup of water into the old baking pan and close the door quickly. Turn oven down to 220C/425F and bake for 20-25 minutes until they're richly brown. Remove them from the oven, and cool on a wire rack.

Friday, November 4, 2011

Vanillekipferl Vanilla Crescent Cookies

Vanillekipferl are simply sugar cookies in the shape of crescents that are traditionally as a part of the typical Christmas baking in Austria, Hungary and Germany, but can be enjoyed all year round.They usually contain ground nuts, mostly almonds and hazelnuts, flavoured with vanilla, and often served dusted with confectioners’ sugar.

Recipe adapted from Ulrike Kraus -"Kekse und Gebäck rund ums Jahr"

300 g All purpose flour
250 g Butter, cut into small pieces
125 g Sugar
3 Egg yolks
125 g Ground almonds
1 tbsp Vanilla sugar
2-3 tbsp Powdered sugar

Sift the flour into a large mixing bowl. Add in butter, sugar, egg yolks, and ground almonds. Mix until the dough has become smooth. Form the dough into a ball and wrap well with a cling film. Chill for one hour.
Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Line two baking trays with parchment paper. Divide the dough into 80 pieces. Shape each one into a rope, approximately 7mm thick, and bend into a crescent.
Place the kipferl on a baking trays, and bake for 10-12 minutes until lightly golden.
Mix the powdered sugar together with the vanilla sugar. Roll the crescents in this mixture while they are still hot.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Yeast Corn Bread with Chilli, Capsicum and Cheddar

Unlike many other cornbread recipes, this one uses yeast as the leavening agent other than baking soda and baking powder, so the texture is different from the cakey quick bread. This cornbread has a crispy cheesy crust and a flavourful, moist interior, which is generously studded with sweet corn kernels, capsicum, chilli threads, and paprika salami.

Inspired by WDR

200 g Cornmeal
300 g Water, hot
60 g Olive oil
1 can / 300 g Sweet corn
300 g Red capsicum, peeled and diced
10 g Chilli threads
10 g Freshly mulled black pepper

250 ml Water, lukewarm
20 g Fresh yeast
500 g All purpose flour
120 g Paprika salami, thinly sliced
15 g Salt
200 g Cheddar slices
Cornmeal

Measure the cornmeal into a large bowl. Pour in hot water and leave it to soak for about 20 minutes. Prepare two baking sheets with parchment paper.
Heat olive oil in a skillet until hot. Add in sweet corn and red capsicum. Stir briefly, and add in chilli threads. Cook until softened. Season with black pepper. Remove and leave it to cool until ready to use.
Place water, fresh yeast, cornmeal mixture and flour in the bowl of a table mixer fitted with a dough hook. Stir at slow speed for 3 minutes, then increase the speed and mix for another 3 minutes.
Cover the dough in the bowl and leave it to rest for 10 minutes. Now add in the corn capsicum mixture and paprika salami. Use your hand to mix them evenly into the dough. Cover again and rest for 20 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 220C/430F. Divide the dough into 3 large portions for loaves or 12 small portions for smaller buns. Shape each small portion of dough into a round. Place Cheddar in a heatproof bowl. Put over a saucepan of simmering water and heat, stirring constantly, until the cheese melts.
Spread melted cheese all over the surface of bread and sprinkle cornmeal over the dough and lightly press in with your hands. Bake buns for 15 minutes at 220C/430F, then reduce the oven temperature to200C/400F and bake another 20-25 minutes.