I was enjoying a delicious lunch with friends on Friday, as part of our book club, when I said I had planned making a pavé. I explained what a pavé loaf is but not in french:
'Un pavé est un bloc solide en pierre, en béton ou en bois utilisé pour le revêtement des rues, des cours ou des terrasses'. With the criss crosses in my mind I had the dark bricks that you sometimes find in victorian stables. The loaf is only shaped like this, and is definitely light and delicious.
A pavé loaf, or pain pavé, is a rustic French bread named after the French word for "cobblestone" due to its flat, low-profile, and blocky rectangular shape.
Of course I followed Jack's step by step demonstration via the Homebaker's Club, and I followed the final shaping demo twice to get it just right. I didn't have the full 150g green olives as required but found around 100g in a couple of pots I had, some of which were marinated in a hot spicy mixture, which I partially washed off. As several of the bakes use fine semolina, I was pleased to find it online.
The dough is pretty sticky but I kept to Jack's technique, and found leaving it a few minutes before continuing with the hand kneading effective. It makes for a large loaf of around 800g with slices having a good oblong profile.
We had some for lunch today with red peppers, tomatoes and cured meats, which followed a delicious chicken and asparagus soup. That had been made a week or so ago, and came out the freezer this morning. It was a lovely lunch to follow a long morning working in the garden.
Each month with the bread recipes, Jack who is also a chef, gives extra recipes and tutorials on using the breads. Jack is such a good teacher it is worth joining the club, if only for a month or two to decide if this is for you, here is his offer regarding using this bread to make Crisp Bread with a tasty Avocado dip:
'Odds and ends of bread are a useful and fortunate byproduct of our life enriching hobby as homebakers if we have a library of recipes to help us create something delicious with them. When these crispbreads are properly dried they keep really well, indefinitely perhaps. Keep them in an airtight container or food bag and they will be there, ready for dipping or spreading or just snacking whenever you need. Our Green Olive and Semolina Pave is the perfect match for a creamy avocado dip topped with insanely tasty oil of chilli, mint, basil and garlic. Try not to be put off by what seems like a big, long list of ingredients, once you break it down there really isn’t that much there. I have no shame in telling you that I ate this entire dish for my lunch on the day of filming. It was wonderful.'
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