Sunday, January 29, 2012

Mini-Brötchen with Olive Chutney

Winter this year in frankfurt is relatively mild. And, different. Different in the sense that, it is not snowy and white, as i have witnessed the last three years. It is just cold, gloomy, rainy and windy. Last winter, Frankfurt saw record level snow fall. In December 2010, it snowed in Frankfurt like never in the last year 40 years. It caused complete chaos in the highways, trains ran with unbelievable delays and even the international airport saw a complete still stand. This time, we hardly spot snow fall. I just wonder what's happening. Anyways, there is still more than a month to go, before we could say Winter is over. Let's see!!


Ok. Let's move on to the topic. What I'm going to share this time is a speciality in one of our favorite eat-outs. Pizza Pasta Factory is a chain of restaurants and they specialize in Italian dishes, like the name says. After we order our favorite pasta, we get this lovely combination of Brötchen and Olive Chutney as our starters. I like it so much that I wanted to make it at home for a long time. Last weekend the idea materialized. Believe me it is damn easy and tastes awesome.

Basically, Brot means bread and Brötchen means bun in German. German breads and buns are quite different from those in other places, especially in North America. The Germans like their buns to be a little hard with crisp crusts. During my initial days here, I used to wonder why are breads and buns so very hard here and it is a pain to just chew them. I was used to only the soft "Modern Bread", "Milka Bread" and the milk buns and coconut buns, back in India. Here, white breads are not common, if not rare. Crisp crusts are seen as a sign of good quality bread/buns. I got slowly used to these and I'm just loving them now.

These little buns or Mini-Brötchen are such crusty buns made out of the basic pizza dough. Well, we just have to prepare pizza dough and roll some of it into small berry sized balls and bake it. The rest of the dough can, of course, be reserved for our favorite pizza. I'm providing the recipe anyways, just in case, you haven't prepared pizza dough on your own.

Mini Brötchen:

Recipe Source: Adapted from Jamie Oliver's Pizza Dough
Preparation Time: 15 mins
Setting Time: 1 hr
Baking Time: 30 mins
Makes: around 30 pieces

Ingredients:
All purpose flour - 400g
Dried Yeast - 1 packet
Brown Sugar - 1 Tbsp
Extra Virgin Olive oil - 2 Tbsp
Sea salt - 1 tsp
Lukewarm water - 300 ml


Method:
Sift the flour and salt together in a large bowl. Add yeast, brown sugar and olive oil to the luke warm water and leave for about 5 minutes. When the water becomes frothy, start adding it little by little to the flour and mix well. Knead well with floured hands for about 5-10 mins until the dough becomes soft and springy.

Place the dough in an oiled bowl. Cover with a wet clean cloth. Set this in a warm place for about 1 hour or until the dough has doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to about 180C. Now, take the dough in a well-floured clean surface. Punch the air back and knead a little. Start taking berry sized balls out of the dough. Roll them a little and arrange the cute balls in regular intervals on a baking sheet placed on a baking tray. Bake them for about 25-30 mins or until the upper crust turns golden brown.

Olive Chutney:

This one is absolutely easy to prepare and tastes awesome with any type of bread.

Preparation time: 5 minutes
Makes: 1 1/2 cup chutney

Ingredients:
Olives - 300 g, pitted
Red Chili - 1, like the one shown in picture, chopped
Garlic - 3 small pods, chopped
Juice of 1 lemon
Olive oil - as needed


Method:

Blend everything except oil in a blender until coarse. Store in refrigerator until serving time. Just before serving, drizzle enough olive oil as needed for the consistency you like. This goes well with any bread.

We loved the combo very much. This is so simple, yet it would be a show stealer when inviting guests or in a party. Hope you enjoy them as well as we did.

Sending this as an entry to Zesty Palette's New U and Girlichef's Bake Your Own Bread. Also sending to Taste of Pearl City's Anyone can Cook: Series 40 and to Now Serving's Dip In - Chutney Chow Down.




20 comments :

  1. Olive chutney sound and looks good, nice combination.

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  2. The clicks are so lovely that literally conveys "Pick me up", what are you waiting for?" and I never knew that olives could be made into chutney. thanks for sharing the recipe.

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  3. Excellent preparation. Feel like I could taste the chutney.

    Deepa
    Hamaree Rasoi

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  4. I am totally loving this..YUMMY

    Aarthi
    http://yummytummy-aarthi.blogspot.com/

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  5. Your pictures are so beautiful...and your brötchen and olive chutney sound like something I would love. I'm so glad that you shared them BYOB this month! :D

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  6. Olive chutney looks marvellous,those mini rolls looks absolutely stunning,wat a wonderful platter..

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  7. Excellent presentation and gorgeous clicks. Thx for linking to the event.

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  8. The bread and the chutney both sound delicious. I'm new to your blog, so I took some time to browse through your earlier posts. I'm so glad I did that. I really like the food and recipes you share with your readers and I'll definitely be back. I hope you have a great day. Blessings...Mary

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  9. wow....the bread & olive chutney make such a delightful yet simple combo!!! Excellent clicks as always... :)Bookmarked right away..
    Prathima Rao
    Prats Corner

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  10. Btw...the 1 packet yeast u used..how many gms was it..?? Not sure if we get the same qty here in my town..
    Prathima Rao
    Prats Corner

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  11. that was an interesting trivia on German buns and breads! ty. glad you enjoyed them so much. the recipe reads delicious and the pics are lovely and so dainty; perfectly in tune with the dreary-not-so-dreary winter!

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  12. @All: Thanks for all your lovely comments. They are really motivating!!

    @Prathima: The packet of yeast did not contain a notification about the weight (unfortunately). But, I think it must be weighing something around 10-15 grams or about 1 tablespoon. The packet says, it is enough for 500g of flour. I hope this helps. :)

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  13. Olive chutney looks delicious.., of course the bread too.., lovely clicks too..

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  14. These look and sound delicious. I must admit I had not heard of them before. That has to be remedied. I hope you have a great day. Blessings...Mary

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  15. I love olive marinades!! They are so incredibly delicious with bread -Looks really delicious, not to mention the perfectly baked bread! We are having 70 degree weather here too - this is fooling all the flowering plants to start coming up - hopefully there is not sudden frost or it will kill then :(

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  16. Thanks sweetie - could you please add the logo of the event to the post - tyvm :))

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  17. absolutely delicious! never knew olives could be used as Dips. feels like eating it right now :) Brötchen looks equally tempting too !!!

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  18. Olives chutney, never heard of this. Both look & sound great! Very tempting clicks :)

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  19. Olive chutney sounds delicious........

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