Greek Salad Plait

For the third part of my Bake Off Bakealong I cheated slightly, though I intended to do the signature bake every week, no questions asked, I found myself thoroughly uninspired by the signature bake, and decided instead to do a filled plaited loaf, like the showstopper, and to use a savoury filling instead of a sweet one, given that my vices are usually savoury.

This loaf is inspired by the flavours and ingredients of a greek salad, salty black olives, crumbly feta cheese and squidgy sun-dried tomatoes, with a lick of olive oil to top it all off.

Start by making your bread dough, add the water and olive oil to a bowl and sift the flour over the top, add the sugar and salt and make a well in the top of the flour, add the dried yeast and mix with a fork until you have a smooth dough, turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead for at least five minutes, return to the bowl and cover with cling film. Leave to prove until doubled in size.

While the dough is rising pit and chop the olives and place them into a bowl, do the same with the sun dried tomatoes, and finally, crumble the feta into another bowl.

When risen knock back the dough onto a floured surface and split into three even pieces. Take the first and stretch it out so that it looks like a small pizza, add the olives and knead until the olive is distributed evenly throughout the dough. Do the same for the other two pieces of dough with each of the other fillings, and then stretch out each piece of dough until it resembles a long fat salami.

Finally press the three pieces of dough together at one end and plait, when done plaiting press the ends together and tuck them under the loaf, transfer to a lined baking sheet and cover with a tea towel, leave to rise for a half hour and then place in a hot oven for 30 minutes until the bottom sounds hollow when tapped, brush with olive oil and serve with a good olive oil for dipping, and a glass of red wine, obviously.

Ingredients

for the dough
210ml water
375g flour
2 tbsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
4 tbsps olive oil
1 1/2 tsp dried yeast

for the fillings
small handful black olives
small handful sun-dried tomatoes in oil
1/3 block of feta
olive oil

The Keaton

I previously said that the only things about which I am snobbish are coffee and wine, and I haven't really changed, I supposed my snobbishness around wine is to be expected. I generally stick to red wine, finding white to be too acidic, and rose to inhabit a bizarre no man's land between red and white.

For those of you who don't know my parents own a small vineyard in the Cote du Marmandais region near bordeaux, producing mainly red wine, and a little bordeaux rose. The red wine is truly fantastic, being thick and rich with a magnificent body and bouquet.

People generally follow very strict rules when drinking wine, rose and white is served chilled, while red is served at room temperature. While this isn't wrong, it's a very crude metric to use when serving wine. Red wine is best served at about 17 or 18 degrees, technically room temperature, but much colder than the average living room.

Conversely white wine is often served too cold, and it should be left to sweat a little before being served so that it can warm up and develop. Serving it too cold will result in the flavours being reduced and the acid in the wine overwhelming the palate.

This bring us to this week's recipe, which is so embarrassingly simple, it can hardly be called as such, given that it uses only 2 ingredients, one of which is ice. This drink was created by actress Diane Keaton during the 1970's who discovered the joys of ice cold red wine during a sweltering summer in New York City.

Though I wouldn't use an expensive wine for this dish, as the ice shocks the flavours into submission leaving a drink that is cool, refreshing and relaxing, perfect for a hot summer day.

Start by filling a highball glass with ice almost to the brim, fill the glass with red wine covering the ice, and serve.