Simit with lemon and thyme-baked feta

If you've ever toyed with the idea of buying a wood-fired oven Genevieve Taylor's new book The Ultimate Wood Fired Oven Cookbook should persuade you. (And it didn't even cost a fortune. She built it herself!)

The recipes which go way beyond pizza are brilliant too* but I picked this intriguing Turkish bread which she serves with baked feta cheese which sounds ridiculously good*.

Gen writes: "Simit are delicious bagel-shaped bread rings from Turkey, liberally covered with golden sesame seeds and often served for breakfast with cheese and olive oil. Here I serve them with baked feta cheese as I love the soft, almost mousse-like texture it gets when it’s hot, perfect for spreading on the crusty bread. Eaten with a salad of ripe tomatoes and a few black olives, this makes a perfectly simple lunch."

220–230°C (425–450°F) MAKES 4

For the simit

400g (3 cups) strong white bread flour

1 tsp instant yeast

1 tsp fine salt

300ml (11⁄4 cups) hand-hot water 2 tbsp olive oil, plus more for shaping the dough

1 tbsp pomegranate molasses

2 tbsp sesame seeds

For the feta

1 x 200g (7oz) block of feta

2 tbsp olive oil

a few sprigs of fresh thyme, leaves, picked

zest from 1⁄2 a lemon

freshly ground black pepper

You need a fire that has reached a high, steady baking temperature of about 220–230°C (425–450°F), with no live flame, just glowing embers OR if you don't have a wood-fired oven Gen says you can bake the bread in a conventional oven at 220°C or 200°C in a fan oven.

Put the flour, yeast and salt into a mixing bowl and stir together until mixed. Pour in the water and oil and stir together until you have a ragged, loose ball of dough. Cover loosely with a clean tea towel and set aside for 10 minutes for the flour to hydrate.

Lightly oil the worktop and tip the dough on to it, scraping out all the loose bits from the bowl. Spread a little oil on the inside of the bowl and set aside. Use your oiled hands to very lightly knead the dough for 10 seconds, then put back into the bowl and leave to rest for 10 more minutes. Repeat this 10-second knead and 10-minute rest twice more. Cover the bowl and leave to prove on the worktop for an hour. You can also slide it into the fridge and prove it slowly for 4–6 hours if you prefer.

Tip out the dough on to a lightly floured worktop and divide it into eight even pieces. Take two pieces and roll them into long snakes, about 1–1 1⁄2cm (1⁄2–5⁄8in) thick. If the dough snakes are springing back and won’t stay in shape, leave them for a few minutes to relax, then try again.

Twist the two pieces together like a rope, then coil into a circle and pinch the two ends together to join so they look like twisted bagels. Set on a large oiled baking sheet and repeat with the remaining dough so you end up with 4 well-spaced simit. Brush the tops lightly with the pomegranate molasses and sprinkle liberally with the sesame seeds. Set aside to prove again for another 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, get the block of feta ready for baking by sliding it into a small baking dish. Drizzle over the olive oil, and sprinkle on the thyme and lemon zest. Season with a good grind of black pepper.

Once the dough has finished its second prove, slide the tray into the hot oven. Cook for 15 minutes, then check them, turning the tray around if necessary, so they cook evenly. At the same time, slide in the dish of feta alongside. Leave both to bake for a further 10–15 minutes.

Serve immediately, while the feta is hot and melting.

*the Mexican sweetcorn salad (Esquites) we had at the launch is also ridiculously good

What to drink: If you served this as Gen suggests with a salad of ripe tomatoes and some olives a glass of dry rosé would go down well or, if you can find one, the crisp Turkish white, Narince.

Recipe extract from The Ultimate Wood Fired Oven Cookbook by Genevieve Taylor published by Quadrille at £15. Photography © Jason Ingram.

White onion and bay leaf soup with Ogleshield and hazelnuts

I ordered this amazing soup at one of my favourite local Bristol restaurants Wallfish (now Wallfish & Wellbourne) and begged the recipe from the chef, Seldon Curry. It's tastes like the sweetest of oniony fondues and is soooo delicious.

Serves 6-8 (it's rich so you only need a small bowl)

125g butter

1250g white onions, peeled and finely sliced

5g salt

2 bay leaves

25g plain flour

600ml full cream milk plus extra if you need it

175g grated Ogleshield or Raclette cheese

For the garnish

3-4 tbsp rapeseed oil

75g roughly chopped roasted hazelnuts

2-3 tbsp finely chopped parsley

Melt the butter in a large pan and tip in the onions. Stir thoroughly to coat with butter then add the salt and bay leaves. Put a lid on the pan and cook over a low heat for about 45 minutes until deliciously soft and sweet.

Sprinkle over the flour, stir and cook for 5 minutes then gradually add the milk, stirring until smooth and continue to cook over a low heat for about 15 minutes. Remove the bayleaves, add the Ogleshield then take off the heat and pass in batches through a blender until smooth. (You can sieve it for extra smoothness if you want). Return to the pan, check the seasoning, adding a touch more milk if you need to thin it down.

To serve ladle the soup into warm bowls, drizzle over the rapeseed oil and sprinkle with chopped hazelnuts and parsley.

What to drink: You could either drink a crisp white wine like a chablis or an albarino or a dry cider.

Fridge- or freezer-foraged cheese, onion and parsley pie

This is the kind of recipe (or rather idea) that I used to put on my old blog The Frugal Cook. But as I’ve given up on it (I know - I shouldn’t have done) I’m posting it here.

It stemmed from having bought a massive bunch of parsley in our local French supermarket for 85p about which I subsequently had a lively discussion on Twitter as to whether you could buy the same amount in a UK supermarket for the price. (I still maintain you can’t!)

Anyway having bragged about how much I’d bought I felt obliged to use up as much as possible and decided to create a makeshift supper combining it with some ingredients that had been lurking in the freezer since our last trip to France at Christmas.

Although this is inspired by the Greek pie spanakopitta - not least because I mistakenly thought I had some feta lurking in the freezer - it can basically be made with whatever you have to hand but you basically need some kind of herbs or greens, some kind of onion and some kind of cheese. And pastry of course!

Serves 4

2 tbsp olive oil

20g butter

1 bunch of new season’s onions (about 300-350g) or a bunch of spring onions or a large sweet onion

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

a big bunch of flat leaf parsley (about 200g, I’m guessing) or a similar quantity of spinach or other greens, washed and roughly chopped. Include some stalks if they’re not too tough.

About 175g feta or other sheep cheese (I used Manchego and a bit of Cantal). Basically whatever you have in the fridge.

1 egg, beaten

A sheet of ready-rolled or a block of puff pastry, thawed (about 250g although the pack I used was a circular tart base that weighed 230g)

Preheat the over to 220°C. Heat the oil in a frying pan, then add the butter. Once it starts foaming, tip in the chopped onions and fry for a couple of minutes. Add the crushed garlic, stir and take off the heat. Leave to cool for 5 minutes then tip in the chopped parsley or greens and the grated cheese and half the beaten egg. Season with pepper and a little salt, depending how salty the cheese is.

Unroll the pastry onto a floured table or board, rolling it out a little more if you can. Work out how you’re going to make your pastry parcel, spoon the filling onto the middle of the pastry sheet or circle and fold over the sides, brushing the exposed edges with the remaining beaten egg to help it stick together.

Brush the surface of the pie with egg then cut three slits in the top. Bake for about 10-12 minutes then turn the heat down to 190°C and cook for another 10-15 minutes or so until nicely browned. Remove the pie from the oven and rest for 10 minutes then serve with warm steamed asparagus (as I did) or a salad.

What to drink: I think this is more a white wine dish than a red. We drank Picpoul but any other crisp dry white would work. Assyrtiko if you want to keep the Greek theme going.

Smoked trout with griddled lemon, cucumber & sourdough croutons

A fresh, simple, clever recipe for two from one of the most charming of last year's cookery books, Rosie Birkett's A Lot on her Plate

Rosie writes: "This dish, Scandinavian in tone thanks to the pickles and smoked fish, takes ingredients that you may have lying around – lemon, cucumber and bread – and transforms them into something special, by charring them to add a smoky dimension and intensify their natural flavours. I get my smoked trout from Mike Scott, the chef at Hackney’s wonderful Raw Duck restaurant, who smokes it himself at home, but this would work with any good-quality smoked fish, be it trout, mackerel or hot-smoked salmon.

Serves 2

1 tablespoon caster (superfine) sugar

1 tablespoon cider vinegar (get the good unpasteurised stuff if you can)

2 radishes, finely sliced

sea salt

2 baby or Lebanese cucumbers, cut in half lengthwise and halved across the middle

1 lemon, cut in half

1 slice of sourdough bread

6 tablespoons olive oil, plus extra for grilling

2 tablespoons roughly chopped dill

2 smoked trout fillets, skin removed

borage flowers, to garnish (optional)

4 teaspoons plain natural yoghurt, to serve

Dissolve the sugar in the vinegar in a small bowl and quick-pickle the radish slices in the mixture.

Heat a griddle pan over a high heat until it’s stinking hot. Scatter with a pinch of sea salt. Brush the cucumber pieces, cut sides of the lemon and sourdough bread with olive oil and griddle for about 8 minutes, until there are black grill marks on them, turning the bread and cucumber over once.

When the ingredients are grilled, remove from the heat and squeeze the lemon juice into a bowl with the olive oil. Whisk with a fork, add the dill and a pinch of salt, and whisk some more, until well combined. Cut the sourdough into croutons.

Drain the radishes from their pickle liquor and place on kitchen paper to absorb the excess vinegar. Divide the cucumber between two plates and flake over the smoked trout. Top with the radish slices and drizzle over the dill and lemon oil.

Scatter over the sourdough croutons and borage flowers, if using, and finish eachserving with a couple of teaspoons of natural yoghurt.

What to drink: I think you want something equally fresh-tasting with this. A crisp dry white like a Picpoul or an Albarino would be good or try a (genuinely) dry young riesling

From A Lot on her Plate by Rosie Birkett (Hardie Grant, £25.00) Photography: Helen Cathcart. For more recipes see Rosie's website.