Café de Paris cockles and milk bread
- Prepare
- 1-2 hours
- Cook
- 10 to 30 mins
- Serve
- Serves 4
- Dietary
- Nut-free
Simply steamed cockles are tossed with Café de Paris butter and served with milk bread for soaking up all of those delicious juices.
Ingredients
For the Café de Paris butter
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 2 banana shallots, finely chopped
- 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
- 1 red chilli, finely chopped
- 1 tsp capers, chopped
- 6 anchovy fillets, mashed into a paste
- 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1 tbsp tomato ketchup
- 2 tbsp finely chopped parsley
- 1 tsp finely chopped tarragon
- 1 tsp finely chopped chives
- 1 tsp finely chopped thyme
- ½ tsp mild curry powder
- ½ tsp smoked paprika
- 1 tsp Dijon mustard
- 1 lemon, zest and juice
- 1 blood orange, zest only
- cayenne pepper, to taste
- 250g/9oz unsalted butter, softened
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
For the demi brioche milk bread
- 875g/1lb 15oz strong white bread flour
- 125g/4½oz caster sugar
- 19g fresh yeast
- 63g/2½oz milk powder 125
- 16g salt
- 300g/10½oz tangzhong paste (50g/1¾oz strong white bread flour mixed with 250ml/ 9fl oz boiled water to form a paste)
- 125g/4½oz softened butter, plus extra to glaze
- 2 free-range eggs
- 300ml/10fl oz milk
For the cockles
- 1kg/2lb 4oz cockles, cleaned
- 100ml/3½fl oz dry white wine
- 400g/14oz purple sprouting broccoli, trimmed
Method
To make the butter, heat the olive oil over a medium heat and fry the shallots and garlic until soft. Set aside to cool.
Combine the shallot mixture with the chillies, capers, anchovy paste, Worcestershire and tomato sauces, herbs, spices, mustard, zest of the whole lemon and juice of half, blood orange zest. Add cayenne and salt and pepper to taste. Mix well then stir through the softened butter.
To make the milk bread, in a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients with the tangzhong and softened butter and mix.
Add the eggs and milk and mix again.
Turn out onto a clean surface and knead for 10 minutes.
Roll into balls, place on a baking tray, loosely covered and leave in a warm place to prove for an hour.
Preheat the oven to 200C/180C Fan/Gas 6.
Place the dough balls into small loaf tins and bake for 8–10 minutes.
Remove the bread from the oven, glaze with some butter and set aside.
To make the cockles, discard any cockles with broken shells and any that refuse to close when tapped. Heat a large lidded saucepan over a medium-high heat and add the cockles, broccoli and wine to the pan and cook for 2–3 minutes until cooked. Discard any cockles that remain closed.
Drain the cockles and coat them with the Cafe de Paris butter.
Serve with the brioche alongside.
