How to live without Maltese bread

Let me let you in on a secret. You can't. Once you've tasted proper Maltese bread from Gharghur, no other bread will ever match up. And forget making it at home, because it's all about the oven!! There's something about those massive stone ovens that you see in all the bakeries in Malta, that bakes the bread in an incredible way that imbues them with a distinct flavour that I've never been able to replicate. I think it's to do with them never being cleaned...that way flavour can be passed on from generation to generation of bread.

Ok...I know it's not actually the ovens that do all the work. Maltese bread is so fabulous because it's a type of sourdough, made from a starter (natural yeast) that has been built up over years and years. Flavour comes from the development of the yeast over time, and apparently different bakeries throughout the country have their own 'secret recipe' starter - hence the different varieties of Maltese bread.

So how do you make a starter? It's pretty simple, and I recommend Paul Hollywood's version if you want to try it out yourself. But be warned, it takes a while to develop a good starter, and it will die a death if you neglect it for more than a few days. I suppose you can say that it's worth it if you really miss Maltese bread, but I have an alternative solution.

If you need a sourdough...go to the supermarket - they sell it there. It's nothing like ftira but it is really tasty and makes great toast.

What I can recommend, it you want to make delicious bread at home, and you want something a bit more exciting than a white loaf, go for ciabatta or olive&rosemary focaccia. They're absolutely my favourite and rather Mediterranean. Here's the recipes:

Ciabatta

500g strong white bread flour
380g water
15g yeast
12g salt
10 tbsp olive oil

Mix half the flour with all the water and half the yeast. Leave for half an hour or until the yeast has clearly activated and created some bubbles in the mixture

Combine the rest of the ingredients with the initial mixture. Knead (or use the dough hook on your mixer) until the gluten has developed and the dough is super elastic and stretchy

Place in an oiled bowl and cover with cling film, and place in a warm place. Leave for six hours or overnight if possible. It should rise by a substantial amount.

When risen, tip onto a flour surface and shape, handling it as little as possible. Try not to let any air escape from the dough, as all those air bubbles are what make it so beautifully ciabatta-like.

Place on a floured baking tray, and put in a 200C fan pre-heated oven, for 45 minutes, and then lower to 180C for another twenty minutes.

Place on a wire rack to cool. Et voila!

My first, and certainly not last attempt at ciabatta. I think it looks quite rustic

Olive & Rosemary Focaccia

500g strong white bread flour
380g water
15g yeast
12g salt
10 tbsp olive oil
many olives (green, black or both)
much rosemary

As above, create a starter allowing the yeast to activate, and then add the rest of the flour and yeast, the salt, the chopped olives and two tbsp olive oil

Leave the dough to rise until double its original size and then knock back on a floured surface. Place the dough on a floured baking tray and flatten out across the tray. Use your fingers to make dimples in the dough, stick rosemary into the dough in random places and drizzle with oil

Leave to rise for a further half an hour and then place in a 150C pre-heated oven until golden-brown (about 40 minutes). Leave to cool on a wire rack.

Olive and rosemary focaccia. I put some sea salt on the top before cooking, and more olive oil post cooking

A Review of Maltese Cooking II

So picking up where I left off the other day with a bit more insight into traditional Maltese cuisine: fish. I love going to the fish market in the fishing village of Marsaxlokk early on a Sunday morning, and picking up some beautiful super fresh fish for dinner. You have to know what to pick out, but you're usually safe with fish that you know is Mediterranean. I love finding beautiful, thick cut tuna steaks, and cooking them on the BBQ with nothing but a little brush of olive oil. But if you really want to go the traditional Maltese way, you'd pick up a lovely fish called the Dolphin fish, or lampuka and turn it into lampuki pie. I'll get round to putting a recipe for that on this blog at some point in the future.

fresh lampuki

lampuki pie

And of course there's plenty of other fish that you can pick up super fresh from the market. They are always salt-water fish, because as you all know, the Mediterranean is filled with salty sea water, and we have no rivers or lakes in Malta to pick up fresh-water fish. Here's a great list of all the fish that can be found in the Mediterranean, including their English and Maltese names. Cerna (or grouper) makes for a handsome meal, and Dentici (Dentex) and Dott (Wreckfish) are also popular with the Maltese. BBQ them, fry them, bake them, make Aljotta (fish soup) - we do it all! Yum!!

Let's move on from fish. One very popular thing in Malta is the alternative to the chippy. We call it the pastizzeria and no, it absolutely does not sell fish and chips. It sells Maltese baked and fried savoury pastries and other snacky items. They're very cheap. They're totes delicious. And some of them have more calories than you can imagine!!

So what are pastizzi? Image cornish pasties, but oval or triangular shape, made of filo pastry, and filled either with mushy peas (pastizzi tal-pizelli) or ricotta cheese (pastizzi tal-irkotta). They are extremely popular in Malta, and amazingly delicious. And they only cost about 20 cents each!! The downside is they are both addictive and high in calories so you need to steer clear of them when on a diet.

pastizzi

Other items obtainable from the pastizzeria include square slices of pizza, usually either margherita or with tuna and olive toppings. They have little trays of imqarrun or ross fil-forn (see my previous blog post for a description of these). They've also got more traditional items, such as little pies, sausage rolls and other such items that you find in Greggs here in the UK. But pastizzi are certainly their top sellers.

The local pastizzeria

I've given a pretty hefty overview of some favourite tasties in Malta now, but of course I've barely made a dent, as Maltese food has so many varieties and flavours that it would be impossible to cover them all.  However, I would class any meal as a Maltese or Mediterranean dish as long as it has most of the following characteristics:

-tomato based

-fresh meat or veg as the main ingredient

-high in flavour, with herbs, olives, capers, garlic and good quality olive oil contributing highly

Further examples of such dishes are the Maltese Kapunata (essentially a ratatouille) and Soppa ta l-Armla (Widow's Soup), filled with the delicious Maltese cheese gbejna. I promise to present the recipe for this one very soon!

Which brings us to the end of my whirlwind tour of Maltese food. Next time, I'll start talking about how I bring my Maltese personality into the British kitchen, to make the most delicious meals I can imagine.

A Review of Maltese Cooking

Before I start overwhelming you all with my delicious sounding and ever so unusual Malt-British recipes, I thought I'd give a quick overview of the typical kinds of foods found in a Maltese kitchen, and in Malta in general. Some of these dishes may sound quite typically Italian, and some may have a more Moroccan or Arabic twist, and some may just sound weird, but trust me - they're all delicious.

When thinking about Maltese food, I always begin with Maltese bread, or hobza Maltija. Although 'normal' white bread can be bought in Malta, we prefer our traditional bakers and the uber fresh bread that we get from them., often still warm. Maltese hobza is a sourdough, which means that each baker has a unique flavour associated with their bread. The bread is extremely crusty, and comes in two main varieties: one which can be cut into slices and the other which is known as ftira and is used to make the unique Maltese sandwiches. Both types are absolutely delicious, and I have no doubt that many of the chunkier Maltese locals will attribute their weight to the copious amounts of hobza that they have eaten before, during and after their meals all their lives.

From hobza we naturally move onto hobz biz-zejt (hob-zz biz zeyt) which translates literally into bread with oil. But it is so much more than that. We like to make up a mixture of stuff that we place into the bread, usually a combination of kunserva (tomato paste), fresh chopped tomatoes, capers, olives, salt, pepper, copious amounts of olive oil and sometimes canned tuna. Everyone has their own version of this mixture (or tahlita) and it is the most divine thing you can imagine. Give it a go - I had hobz biz-zejt for lunch every day of my childhood, and I would still if I could get my hands on some fresh hobza on a daily basis.

My own version of Hobz biz-zejt

All this talk of hobz biz-zejt is making me salivate so it's time to move on. Next I'm going to describe a traditional Maltese fenkata, which means rabbit feast. This is a very traditional local way of eating that goes back years, and it's so much fun to go out to restaurants in some of the small villages with a big family or a group of friends, and stuff yourself in this way.

At the beginning of a fenkata, you start with olives, hobz biz-zejt, more fresh bread, and bebbux (beb-boosh), which are snails cooked in garlic and butter. Yes, snails. Divine. Freakin' love them!! After this we move onto the starter, which is always pasta. You can either have spaghetti or ravioli filled with ricotta, traditionally served in a rabbit sauce. Then, in case you're not already full, the main course comes out.

The main course is obviously rabbit, and this can be cooked in two ways: as a stew or fried in garlic. The latter is, of course, my favourite way, and it is so flavoursome. You can't be a lady when eating rabbit, because there's lots of bones (and the head for the strong of heart), but it is so tasty that it's worth dripping rabbit juice down your fingers. The rabbit is served with thick-cut Maltese chips, and that's it!! No nasty vegetables at a fenkata - there simply isn't space to fit any in!

Rabbit stew

Finally, to finish the evening, they bring out peanuts in their shells (karawett) and helwa tat-tork (sugary mixture of crushed almonds). Some people even have space for mqaret (minced dates in pastry) with ice cream, but I certainly never do. By then, you've drunk the rest of the wine or beer (Maltese cisk is a local lager and I recommend you try it - yum!) and it's time to roll yourself home!

If rabbit isn't for you, there are plenty of other options to eat at a fenkata. You could have something relatively low key (they always serve chicken as an option), or you could go for another old favourite: horse stew!! Not easy to find, but there are a few select places on the island where they serve this up, and it is sooooo good!!

Fried rabbit, with lots of garlic

Let's move onto something a little less unusual. The Maltese don't actually dine on rabbit super regularly, so we do have a few more normal dishes. Baked rice (ross fil-forn) and baked pasta (imqarrun) are two very popular dishes, especially with children. I won't describe them in more detail here, since I will certainly be cooking them in the near future and will give the recipes in future blog posts. But *spoiler*: they are nothing like the rice/pasta bakes found in the UK!

imqarrun

Now, what kind of Mediterranean cuisine would be complete without fish and seafood. The Maltese bring in plenty of local, fresh fish all the time, and there is quite the appetite for prawns, calamari and octopus. I can't think of any specifically Maltese way of presenting these, although spaghetti with an octopus sauce is a firm favourite, but you can bet that fresh tomatoes, capers, olive oil and the like are commons ingredients served with the fish.

I'm going to bring this blog post to an end now, as I don't want to drive you all to a madness beyond control, caused by the description of all this tasty food. Go away, make yourself some hobz biz-zejt, and come back tomorrow for a description of Maltese fast food (unlike anything found elsewhere), and some Maltese desserts. I'll also tell you about some popular veggie dishes which draw influence from many countries, but all with the standard Maltese twist.

A Grand New Beginning....In the Kitchen

So here it goes....blog number 2. Those of you who have been avidly reading my other blog: Je t'aime le Chicken, will know all about me and the crazy stuff I like to talk about: holidays, cooking, life in London and previously in Preston. For those of you who have never heard of me but have stumbled across this because they happened to google 'Maltese' and ' cooking', or something along those lines, well, here's a brief intro.

By the way, those who have read my other blog might also like to read this quick intro. Just because.

If asked to describe myself in three words, the answer is easy. I am Maltese, I am an astrophysicist and I am a child in an adult's body. Ok, more than three words. But close enough. The first descriptor is the most important, the second the most interesting (see my other blog or my website if you're curious) and the last (phrase) the most obvious when you first meet me.

So, why have I started a new blog about cooking? Probably because when I started university in the UK over eight years ago I couldn't cook anything more exciting than a pot noodle (and I totes lived on those) and now most people I know will describe my food as being exciting, tasty and, most importantly, containing a great Maltese twist. Maltese food, and Mediterranean food in general, contain all my favourite aspects of good cooking: it can be healthy (but not necessarily so), it's mega flavoursome and it's so easy to do.

And to really sum up the reasons for this blog: I want to encourage Maltese people who have left the island to maintain the part of their heritage and culture that deals with food, and I want to give the opportunity for non-Maltese people to cook their own versions of tasty Maltese treats.

Also, in case you were wondering whether this blog would be all about how to make home-made pastizzi (pea cakes) and mqaret (fig desserts), well, think again. This is about how a chef brings the flavours of Malta to her (his) kitchen, not about spending hours filling and baking filo pastry with a delicious pea mixture. You want pastizzi?? I know a place in London. Just not my kitchen.

Mqaret

Pastizzi

Last, but not least, here's a picture of my home. Malta. It's in the Mediterranean. And it's awesome!!