Blue Nuts

Lately, I've been using bleached white flour and small percentages of shortening and sweeteners in my breads. I haven't endured feelings of guilt like this since the crabby nuns (it would be disrespectful to call them bitchy and mean) of Immaculate Conception cast their Spell of Perpetual Guilt some decades ago.

I have no regrets. My breads have never been better. And they're good for at least 3 days. The lean crusty breads derived from small quantities/no yeast, no sweetener and no shortening of any kind, while good and virtuous, are tough on a busy schedule. So, to assuage my guilt, I've gone to confession.

Ha, ha, ha. Just wanted to know if you were paying attention.

No, I've started using, up to 1/3 by weight of the flour makeup, whole grain flour. Whole wheat, rye and rolled oats, alone or in combination have been used with extraordinarily good results. And just to try to be one with Mother Earth and all that, I threw in nuts; sunflower seeds or walnuts. However, I noticed a purpleish tinge to some of the loaves. Hated it. I like my grain-blend breads to be off-white. I always blamed it on the rolled oats but I realized the other night, it's the walnuts! Google to the rescue. I guess if you don't roast them ahead of time, they are unstable and impart a blueish hue to the food they're cooked in.

Pretty interesting, just thought I'd share.

Of Eggplant, Pizzas and Humility

I think I shed a tear when this pizza came out of the oven.

I've been accused of being overly humble when it comes to my pizzas and breads. Kind of like the kid in class who complains of getting an A but wanted an A+. I vehemently deny this. I know what's good and what needs improving.

This is a pizza topped with a scant bit of tomato sauce, roasted eggplant, caramelized red onion and a bit of chevre. It was decadent. It's one of our favorites (and actually pretty low fat). It was inspired by a trip to Wrigleyville in the early 90s. Trish, her Bro Mike, Nadie and I went out one night for good food and blues and we had this heavenly pizza. The way I make it is different than we originally had, but every bit as good. Anything I bake can always be better - but this is pretty darn good and I am pretty darn content with it. For now.

Roasted Eggplant, Caramelized Onion, Goat Cheese Pizza - one 14" pie
General methods were reported here. Specifics are given below.

The Dough:
water, 200 mL (200 oz, ca. 7 oz)
flour, 300 grams (Gold Medal All purpose, 2 1/4 cups)
honey, 20 g (1 T)
olive oil, 25 g (2 T)
salt, 5 grams (1 t)
yeast, 3 grams (1 t), Fleischmann's Active dry for bread machines

Toppings Prep:
Eggplant. In the two schools of eggplant, I am a NON-salter, so there. The eggplant was sliced in ca. 1/4" slices lengthwise and lightly coated with a scant bit of olive oil, salt and pepper and roasted on parchment covered baking sheets in a 425-deg-F oven till golden brown (15 minutes per side).

Onion. Sliced red onion is caramelized by initially sauteeing on high and immediately crank it down to real low heat and barely touch it for 20 minutes.

Tomato Sauce. Anything will do. I used just enough to color the shell red.

Chevre. I used a pretty dry brand and would rather have used a brand called Chavrie. But crumbled on about 3 oz.

Mmmmm - Pitas

I used a pretty standard recipe and rushed them a lot to get 'em done in time for dinner and they still turned out well. Lots of room for improvement. Below is the recipe I used (and some suggestions for things I'd change).

Pita Breads
Machine kneeded dough. Add to the pan in this order:
water, 200 g (room temp)
yeast, 1 t (Fleischmann's bread machine)
honey, 20 g (1 T)
olive oil, ca. 12 g (1 T)
all purpose flour, 250 g (I used Gold Medal this time, I'm using Pillsbury in the future)
wheat/rye flour, 50 g (1:1 w/w)
salt, 5 g (1 t)

Machine kneed (30 min), 1st rise 60 minutes (this is a restatement of the dough cycle in my machine). The dough was divided in 6 pieces (ca. 100 g each) and each piece was rounded.* They were allowed to rise a second time beneath a moistened flour sack towel on the counter top for 15 minutes. The oven was preheated to 425-deg-F. As you all know, an oven can never be preheated too much. Two cookie sheets were covered with a piece of parchment paper and each of the dough blobs was squished into a squat disc. These discs were allowed to rest again for 10 minutes (didn't bother to cover them). The squat discs were then squashed into little pizza shells (using liberal amounts of flour to prevent sticking), ca. 6" diameter. These little pizzas were arranged on the sheets of parchment and allowed to rest beneath the moistened towel. I let them rest for 10 minutes but would give them at least 20 minutes next time. The sheets were launched into the 425-deg-F oven (lower third rack) using a quick shot of steam (from spraying the oven walls with a high powered squirt gun). They cooked about 15 minutes (and plumped like blowfish), until they were slighly browned. I repeated with the second sheet. The second sheet puffed up better (they rested longer). I removed them and let them rest in the basket pictured until dinner. We ate 'em with hummus. The next day they still tasted pretty good.

*Rounding and related procedures are described in the pizza piece, here.

Flat or Fizzy - Fizzy please.

Many years ago, I had a job that enabled me to travel. I went to the U.K. for a few weeks and was lucky enough to attend a festival on the Thames. I went to purchase a bottle of water and the vendor asked - flat or fizzy?

Don't know why I thought of that but it's about as circuitous an introduction as I can muster for this drink I made up. I like fizzy drinks. I've developed a taste for diet vanilla coke lately - it's actually got a stronger vanilla flavor than the non-diet version. And when I'm feeling flush, I indulge in one of those nifty Italian Sodas at the Barnes and Noble cafe - but come on, what a rip.

Here's my simple cheap version of a

Italian (-American) Soda
sugar, 1-2 T
flavor, e.g., vanilla extract, 1 t
water, flat, ca. 1 oz
water, fizzy, ca. 11 oz

Add sugar to your favorite glass. Add about an once of tap water and swirl to dissolve the sugar. Add the flavor extract to the sugar solution. Then, fill with cold fizzy water. I like mine without ice.

I usually don't care about health or diet, but this drink is quite a bit lighter than a typical soft drink. For instance, when Coke finally oozes out of the can, it has a sugar content around 10% by weight. This version is about 3%.

'Merican Style Honey Wheat/Rye

We all need a diversion, especially in baking. I've been working on my lean breads quite a bit lately. The lean crusty breads are by far the most challenging. Once in while, I get the urge to take a walk on the dark side. Today, I used a full yeast charge, shortening (butter) and sweetener (honey). Maybe I shouldn't sweat it. After all, there exists a French style called Viennoise that uses all these dastardly additives.

American Style Wheat or Viennoise? Depends on the demographic of your cocktail party I guess.

Here's the recipe:
water, 200 g
bleached white flour (Pillsbury all purpose), 250 g
wheat/rye mix (1:1 w/w), 50 g
butter, 1 T
honey, 30 g (1.5 T)
yeast (Fleischmann's for machines), 1.5 t
salt, 1 t
sunflower seeds, handful

Straight dough method, first rise 60 min, 2nd rise 25 min, 3rd rise (proof) 40 min in pan, slashed top of loaf, and baked in abundantly pre-heated 425-deg-F oven (short blast of steam) for 25 minutes. Awesome volume (that's the bleached white for ya). Popped the loaf out of the pan and let it sit out overnight to cool. We'll give details of the tasting tomorrow.

Update:
The loaf was unbelievable. Our favorite store brand for sandwiches is Brownberry Oat Bread. Very good, but this makes that look sick. The only problem is the pan was a tad undersized. The pan I used for this much dough (roughly 560 g) holds 1200 mL of water. I remade the same loaf (using 230 grams white flour, 50 grams of wheat/rye mix, 20 grams of rolled oats and a handful of walnuts, but same everything else) and used a pan of volume I600 mL. This was much more appropriate. The loaf rose above the rim of the pan but didn't mushroom way over the pan. Selecting the right pan size per unit of dough is tricky. For a pan that held 1600 mL water, I'd probably use 600 g of dough next time.

This recipe was really one of the best I've ever done and is really easy, a great starter recipe. But use bleached (Pillsbury All Purpose) flour. I haven't tried Gold Medal yet but will in the future. The bleached flour seems to give a great volume rise and a great texture. And it's just not that evil to use a bleached flour. Especially when it's mixed with a bunch of grains and nuts.

The Baguette is in Sight

The only problem with this photo is it doesn't do much to describe the amazingly crisp crust and deep flavor that has been achieved. I've not been able to do as many trials as I wanted. Been a tad busy lately. I've basically been targeting just the variable of the day in an unsystematic approach but have enjoyed quite a bit of success lately. I'm repeating the prep a bunch lately and will give all the details when I'm convinced of it's reproducibility.

The highlights are: i. a combination of flour (bleached white, wheat and rye) is used, ii. baking method that makes use of that baguette pan (like the one depicted), iii. steaming the oven using a quick general method that can be used in an electric oven as well as gas (without blowing out the pilot), iv. use of a greater concentration of poolish (starter) than is used in Dan Leader's book "Bread Alone".

I'll disclose when I've achieved good reproducibility.

I have died and gone to heaven

This childcare thing definitely has its advantages. Today, I used my favorite slow cooker, the Weber grill to make dinner. I took a bone-in pork loin roast (4.2 lbs, ca. $12) and gave it a quick rub of brown sugar, paprika, salt, pepper, cumin, parsley and threw it on the weber this morning. Indirect heat, dome temp about 240 to 300-deg-F from 10 am to 4 pm (I originally started it in a 250-deg-F oven at 8 am, but just couldn't go through with it), fat side up, thank you. I've done pork butts in the past but this pork loin was by far a superior cut. Much less fatty and after the 8 hours smoking was up, I removed the dark brown-barked piece of meat, let it rest tented with foil for 30 minutes and pulled it apart. Pulled pretty easy. Then simply cut up the meat and dressed it with a quick sauce of ketchup and cider vinegar (the spices and fat coming from the cooked meat). I then let the mixture sit for 30 minutes before putting it on sesame seed buns with coleslaw. Unbelievable.

It was the simplest pulled pork I've ever done. I think the better cut was crucial and also getting a bone-in piece may have helped the meat to cook more thoroughly (in just 8 hours). Traditionally, pulled pork (done by the REAL (not the dysfunctional gang at alt.food.barbecue) pit masters) is done for 18 hours at a much lower temp. This is a pretty darn close approximation.

Clubbing Baby Seals with a Baguette

Had a bit of a breakthrough but not ready for any big disclosures / recipes. I actually have been playing around with bleached white flour. In many baking circles, if you use bleached flour, you may as well knead dough with one hand and beat baby seals with the other. Motivated by food-loving curiosity, I decided to investigate why bleached flour is so bad.

I read several patents from General Foods and found that bleached flour is not necessarily bad. In some processes, portions of the wheat kernel are lightened (bleached by various means) to remove unwanted bitter flavors. In many processes, this doesn't interfere with the health benefits afforded by the wheat kernel and in at least one instance enhanced the availability of anti-oxidant components within the bran. It seems there's quite a bit of demand for whole wheat derived flour without the flavors associated with the dark color. The problem most people have with bleaching is most of it is currently done with chlorine containing agents which may introduce unwanted by-products. Most processes now are trying to achieve bleaching using non-chlorine containing methods.

But in some recent tests in my kitchen, I've been getting some serious volume in my rises (a good indication of the outcome of a bread) using bleached flour. I still have a ton of comparisons to do but have narrowed down the flour, yeast, yeast charge and basic recipe I want to concentrate on for the comparison. Results eventually.

Country Wheat

This is a bread I made this weekend. I used Dan Leaders' Bread Alone book using a poolish method. The specifics were as follows:

1. Poolish was prepared from 75 grams water (2.5 oz), 75 grams white flour (1/2 C) and yeast 1/4 t (Fleischmann's active dry) and mixed like a batter and let set for 12 hours.

2. The final dough was mixed in a bread machine (for 10 minutes, use mixer of your choice) by mixing all of the resulting poolish, water (300 mL, 1 1/4 C), white flour (Pillsbury all purpose, 400 grams), wheat/rye flour (1:1 by weight, Pillsbury, 50 grams), additional yeast (1/4 t) and salt (8 grams, 1.5 t).

3. The first rise, 2 hours at 75-deg-F, punch down and rest 20 minutes, punch down again and shaped by placing into a banetton* and letting rest for 1.5 hours (while oven preheated at 450-deg-F).

4. Inverted on peel, slashed the surface and baked on clay tiles in oven (with shot of steam from a squirt gun on the walls) for 35 minutes. It could have cooked another 10 minutes, the center was a teeny bit under - this is a nearly two lb loaf.


I did the dough twice, the second time I made a baguette shape. I donated it to a friend's dinner before I got to take a picture but it was good and looked even better. I haven't used Leader's book in a while but was glad I did. I revisit old baking books to test out new flour and anything else I do differently to see how the loaf changes as my methods evolve. This one recipe (it's his most basic poolish recipe) never really seems to change. And that's why it's a good one to start with in case anyone wanted to try it. I recently saw his book for $10 used on Amazon.

*Note: A banetton is what's used to hold the final shaped dough in an inverted position while it rises prior to baking. They are available for a zillion dollars from King Arthur's flour but I use some cheap round basket from Pier 1 and line with a flour sack towel, liberally dusted with flour. the dough is placed in it and covered with the other half of the towel to rise.

Le Frickin Baguette

Our daily bread is a simple loaf but the most challenging. It is a basic french baguette made by a simple recipe using a straightforward process. The recipe is trivial:

200 grams water
3 grams active dry yeast
300 grams unbleached white flour
5 grams salt.

It is made by adding the ingredients, in that order, to the bowl of a mixer (or bowl of a bread pan - I like bread machine mixers) in what is called a straight dough preparation. Basically, a straight dough prep is mix everything together for the final dough (no starter, poolish, biga, etc.), let rise, punch, let rise again, punch again, let proof (another rise) in the form of the final loaf and launch into the hot oven for final baking. This simple recipe has been tackled by Julia Child (and many others) in some, but not exhaustive detail. The process is deceptively simple. Some of the factors diffcult to control are: flour (I hate King Arthur's), yeast (there is no rigorous and quantitative quality check for home bakers), kneading method, baking method (cooking surface, how to steam the over, type of oven, ...), etc. Even the way the final loaves are vented prior to baking can have a profound impact on the final oven spring and consequently appearance and taste of final loaf. But despite these and many other factors I can only try to control, I tirelessly pursue reproducibility. Another big problem is frequency of baking. While baking several times a week may sound like enough, baking several hundred times each day is probably the only way to observe reliable trands. So the infrequency of the method actually becomes a parameter to deal with. Very frustrating. I won't deny this is a total obsession but one of my more healthy and fun outlets. I only mention this in case someone asks "what's the recipe for your simplest bread?".

It's not a recipe, it's a lifestyle.


p.s.: Short of a full experimental design approach to finding a better method, I'm currently looking for a surrogate endpoint to make an evaluation of some of the parameters I now believe to be the most critical. I'll be considering the brand of flour, brand of yeast, yeast charge, kneading method and relating those to the volume of the dough after the first rise in a controlled environment chamber (probably the bread machine). I'll keep you all posted on the results.

The Most Amazing Scones on Earth

The Sunday morning ritual in our house is some kind of special breakfast. Waffles, biscuits, etc. This past Sunday, I made these oatmeal scones. The recipe is nothing I had anything to do with. It was perfectly worked out by the gang at Cooks Illustrated. They were unbelievable.

Bread # 1 / Country French - poolish: a comparison

First in a series of baking log entries:

5:45 am - poolish prep
To the pan of bread machine, added Pillsbury Organic Unbleached White (UBW, 150 g) and water (150 g) and 1/4 t yeast (RedStar dry active). Mixed a bit and let sit till this afternoon covered with a moistened cloth.

2:15 pm (7.5 h) - dough / first rise
To the same pan, charged water (150 mL, rt), yeast (1/4 t), UBW (250 g) and salt (7-8 g) and placed in machine for 30 min kneed (too long but out of my control - preprogrammed dough cycle) and 60 minute ramped temp rise (rt -> ca. 90-deg-F).

4:05 pm
Dough (barely risen) was removed from the machine, punched down, rounded and allowed to rest on the counter beneath and inverted bowl. The bowl keeps the moisture in without having to cover the actual surface of the dough. After this rest, it was punched down again and formed into a squat ball and placed into my version of a banneton (I'll define this later) lined with a muslin cloth liberally dusted with flour and covered with the other half of the muslin cloth. This was the final proof in the shape of a loaf. The oven was turned on to 425-deg-F and the loaf proofed for 45 minutes.

5:00 pm
Removed from banetton, slashed, baked on clay tiles in lower third of oven with a blast of steam for 45 minutes. Crap. Squat, dense, looks ok but I'm not optimistic it'll taste good. I'm only publishing the result because it will make a good run look that much better and my integrity forces me to.

Post-Mortem
A flaw in every scientist is not writing down EVERY OBSERVATION during an expt. All that is written is what seems pertinent at the time. I didn't record relative humidity because I didn't measure it and didn't believe it was important. Part of this is just practical (it's too hard to record EVERYTHING) and some of it comes from personal bias. So I'm going to reflect and try to figure out what went wrong and repeat the prep.

Reflecting on this prep, the poolish, at the end of it's rise looked pretty lame, not fluffy and voluminous like it usually does. I think it's because I didn't use a full 1/4 t yeast, I used old yeast or I mixed it in my bread machine pan where it's difficult to mix and I just kind of swished things around. So from the poolish on, everything was kind of small. Pitiful rises. I was relying on the final oven spring to come through and save me. It didn't. This loaf came out about 8" in diameter with barely a dome in the middle. It tasted ok and had good color, it's just the volume was pretty bad. Volume or more importantly, density, of final loaves is a critical outcome measure that I haven't been able to determine. To get this number, I'd have to cut a significant cube of the bread out and weigh it. It destroys too much of the bread. Ultimately we do cook this stuff to eat it. In the future, I may decide to bake double and use one loaf for measurements.

Voila! I repeated the exact same prep changing only the poolish prep. For the poolish I used Fleishmann's bread machine yeast (a reliable dry yeast) and a full 1/4 teaspoon and also mixed the poolish in a separate bowl and mixed it better (kind of like stirring a batter of brownie mix) and let it set for 8 hours and proceeded exactly as in the remainder of the procedure above. Note the new loaf! Although there's nothing in the photo to guage relative size, these loaves are almost exactly the same diameter, but the second one rose like a pillow. Also note the (what I call) stress fractures on top highlighted by the flour. These cracks in the crust arise from a rise in the oven and a contraction on cooling. I've observed them on all great lean crusty loaves (mine and others). And I think I could've cooked the second one a tad longer, I like 'em dark.



Side by side comparison of the profile of the dense vs. bigger volume loaf.

Couscous Salad

I like couscous salad but have never found one I like. In general, when I look for recipes, I like to gather many contributions and to see if there's some consensus on ingredients and methods. Once I see which sections are flexible, I set out to create my own version or a hybrid of what seems to make sense.

Most couscous salads start with preparation of the couscous by adding boiling water to the grain and letting it set for 5 minutes off the heat and then putting in the other stuff. This works for eating it hot (within 20 minutes) but for some reason, it just doesn't stop cooking quickly enough for purposes of a cold salad application. Maybe it's just me but I end up with mush by about the 30 minute mark. It wasn't untill a trip to my friend Marie's wedding last year (in the south of France) did I find a nifty trick. My french is horrible (speaking and comprehending) but I was able to find out that they made (the best) couscous salads using only room temperature liquids.

The crucial piece of information absconded from the conversation, I was off to find out the critical volume of liquid used to hydrate the couscous. After some playing around, here's a version of a couscous salad that can me ready to eat within 30 minutes (including a brief chill time) and can be made vegetarian or not. The only critical quantities in this recipe are the grain (couscous) and liquid. All the other goodies added are flexible.

Couscous Salad - a size good enough for a potluck

Step1
couscous, 1 1/4 cups (250 grams)
liquids (add these liquids to a 2C measuring cup sequentially):
    juice of 1 orange
    honey, ca. 1 tablespoon
    cider vinegar, ca. 3 tablespoons
    water, enough to complete the total volume to 400 mL (on the side of the measuring cup)

Add liquids to couscous and stir once in a while. Couscous will absorb all the liquid within 10 minutes or so. It's kind of cool to watch the grains plump up. It's almost exothermic.

Step 2
Add the following ingredients or your favorites:
pine nuts, lightly toasted, 2 T
fresh mint, 1-2 T
olive oil, up to 3 T (good stuff)
salt and pepper
green onion
finely diced tomatoes
raisins or apricots (plumped in boiling water and drained if too dry), 1-2 T
non veggie version: pan seared boneless chicken breasts, cooled and chopped into big chunks.

Step 3
Blend and refrigerate. I like it slighly chilled and served atop a bed of lettuce (with cheese and olives).

The Miracle Worker

Having restored world peace, Bush now tries to cure baldness.