Chorizo and Thyme Fougasse

Put the flour, salt and yeast into a large bowl and mix briefly. Make a well in the centre of the flour mix and pour in about 250ml (9 fluid ounces) of the water. Mix this together with a fork, then get your hands in there for the final mixing. The dough may be a little sticky at first, so knead it for a bit. It’ll get less sticky as you knead it. If your dough feels fairly tight and not very sticky, add the remainder of the water and knead a bit more, then tip the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. If your dough feels a bit sticky, then don’t add the rest of the water yet.

Knead the dough for a few minutes. Now add the rest of the water if you haven’t done so already (unless your dough is still really sticky, in which case don’t worry about the extra 50ml, it’ll be fine!) and dust the surface you are kneading on with flour again. Knead for about 10 minutes by hand (5 minutes in an electric mixer with a dough hook).

Add the thyme leaves and knead again briefly until the thyme is well distributed. Put half of the chorizo in the middle of the dough, then fold the edges of the dough up around it and seal them, so that the chorizo is hidden in the dough. Knead for an extra minute or so.

Now shape the dough into a ball and then use a rolling pin to roll it out into an oval shape, an inch or so thick. I rolled mine about 1.5 inches thick. Use a sharp knife to cut slashes into the dough and then pull the slashes out wide (they’ll close up again when the dough is rising).

Push the remaining chorizo right into the dough all over the top. The point here is to push it in fairly deep so that it is covered/almost covered once the dough has risen. Transfer the dough to a baking sheet. Lightly oil some clingfilm with the vegetable oil and use it to loosely cover the dough. Leave the dough in a warm place until it has doubled in size (about an hour). Preheat the oven to 200C/400F fan oven when the dough has been rising for about 45 minutes, so that it is ready for the dough once it has risen.

Get your ice cubes out of the freezer. Remove the clingfilm from the dough and brush it with the milk. Chuck the ice cubes into the bottom of the oven (the steam will stop the bread from crusting too quickly, which would hinder its rising) and place the baking tray with the dough on it onto the second to bottom shelf.

Bake for 30-35 minutes (mine took 30 minutes in a 200C fan oven) until the bread is well risen and golden brown. The bread will come easily off the baking tray once it is cooked.

Serve warm with all sorts of yummies. We had garlic and herb cheese, olives (not for me though, bleurgh), ricotta-stuffed peppers, sun blush tomatoes and parma ham. Nom nom nom.