Feta and Olive Scones
Ingredients
- 400g self raising flour
- 200ml milk
- 85g butter
- 85g feta cheese (drained weight)
- 40g pitted black olives
- 40g sun dried tomatoes in oil
- Salt and black pepper
Get your shit sorted out. I like to have stuff ready beforehand so that I'm just reaching for the next ingredient when I need it. There's a lot of flour in this recipe, so make sure you have a full bag to play with before you start.
- Weigh the ingredients
- Drain the feta cheese if it comes in a lot of liquid. Mine came in rectangles that I was able to slice into lines and then break into rough 1cm cubes.
- Drain the sun dried tomatoes on a piece of kitchen roll to remove the excess oil and then cut them into strips with scissors.
- Chop the olives up into tasty olive chops.
Method
Preheat oven at 220c / 425f / Gas Mark 7
The book says you should grease a baking sheet, but we just use Baking paper, which does the same job by stopping your scones from refusing to leave the thing you're cooking them on. Do whatever you find easiest.
Chuck 1/4 tsp of salt and a generous few grinds of black pepper into your flour, and then sieve it into a bowl. Push any big pepper bits through the sieve until they break up.
Rub the butter into the flour mix with your fingers until it's all rubbed in and looking fine and tasty. DO NOT EAT YET. You may be swayed by the flour's sudden golden allure, but you must resist the temptation to push your head into the bowl and inhale.
Throw the olives, feta and tomatoes into the flour mix, and add the milk. It's best to do this in stages as you don't want a big sludgy dough. I found I needed just a little extra to get the flour sitting at the bottom of the bowl to join in with the bread party. It's easy enough to stir it with a fork or something, as this shit is STICKY. The finished dough should be soft and smooth.
Flour your surface and work the dough out onto it. The book says you should roll it out, but you can probably just mash it down with your hands and shape it into an oblong at this point. It's quicker and you have more control over the shape this way. I made mine just over an inch thick.
Cut them into eight.
MAREVEL AT YOUR HANDIWORK.
I brushed the flour from the bottom of these before I transferred them to the baking sheet, 'cause otherwise they would turn into hard-asses, literally. Glaze with milk.
Stick into your preheated oven for 12-15 minutes, or until golden. If you're using a fan oven you might want to check on them sooner, or turn the temperature down by 10c or so. Remove from oven and place on a cooling rack so that they don't go soggy and nasty.
OM NOM NOM at your leisure. I ate mine warm from the oven with a bit of butter, but you can probably fill it with cold meats or other savoury fillings.
