Recipe of the week with Lawrence Murphy Try these simple eco-friendly palm oilfree crackers with cheese or in salad
Palm oil-free cheese crackers
Before opening the restaurant many years ago, Julia and I spent three weeks trekking through the jungles of Borneo, in south-east Asia.
We were fortunate enough to see a wild orangutan as we entered a huge cave that was home to a colony of bats. The image of the huge powerful animal climbing above the entrance to the cave is still very clear in my mind and was a highlight of the trip.
The scary images of huge areas of deforestation, all in the name and growth of palm oil also come to mind when I think of that trip.
Our excessive use of palm oil has had a massive impact on the fragile ecosystems in areas like Borneo and I made a conscious decision not to buy anything with palm oil in it.
It’s actually quite hard to do, just look at the ingredients of things you buy – it’s in so many of the products we eat. So here is a simple palm oil-free biscuit recipe that is fab with cheese or thrown into salads.
Ingredients (enough for 20 biscuits) 50g ground semolina
50g polenta
20g finely grated Parmesan cheese
1 egg Pinch sea salt Dessertspoon olive oil
Method
Mix all the ingredients together to form a dough (if it feels a little dry add a splash of water).
Rest for 10 minutes in the fridge.
Roll out as thinly as possible or run through a pasta machine.
Cut to any shape you like and place on a lined baking tray.
Bake for 12 minutes in a preheated oven 170C/gas 4.
Allow to cool and store in an airtight container until ready to eat (they will keep for a week). n Lawrence’s restaurant is Fat Olives, Emsworth. Visit fatolives.co.uk