This is really where spelt comes into its own as the ingredient that suits today’s high-speed lifestyle. If you often have to eat on the hoof, you’ll find our spelt recipes light and nutritious, perfect for keeping up your energy levels.
Here, you’ll experience just how versatile spelt can be. You can use it to create herby dumplings or croûtons for soups, the pastry for a quiche, oatcakes or crispy seeded crackers for dips and spreads, and, my absolute favourite – Cheese Straws (see page 92).
One of the main ingredients in this chapter is pearled spelt, created by polishing off the outside of the grain, leaving it looking much more like rice but with an absorbent exterior (although unlike rice it doesn’t congeal if cooked for too long). The beauty of pearled spelt is that it soaks up the natural flavours of whichever ingredients it accompanies. I love it in our Grilled Aubergine with Fig, Herb & Walnut Salad (see page 73).
Flatbread is another spelt special. We have perfected ours to be a little bit like pizza, but really thin and crispy. We have suggested three toppings – Blue Cheese & Caramelized Pear, Chorizo & Pepper, and Caramelized Onion & Goat’s Cheese (see page 85) – but you can just keep inventing (we’re well into double figures in our Pantry restaurant at Kilver Court!). You can also do a batch of bases and freeze them, to be used as needed.