Hand rolled semolina pasta filled w ramp, ricotta & walnuts and Baparoma baguettes to accompany dinner

All to be served w/ minted pea puree and grilled lamb. Perfect. Simple.

Crusty breads in a pan using passive steam

Recently I was poking around Ruhlman's Ratio and noticed his raving of the cooking a boule in the covered, then uncovered, pot as the most valuable part of Lahey's no knead bread. I've had some luck with this, but the results weren't always consistent, but I think it's because of the hydration level of the dough inside. I wanted to explore this more.

Last weekend I made a sourdough starter. I don't know if this really counts as a sourdough starter, but it's close enough. I made a poolish of 1:1 flour:water (w/w) and a ca. 1/8 t yeast and let it ferment overnight, dumped out all but ca. 50 g and refreshed a few times over the next few days with 1:1 flour:water (100 g each) and by the 2nd-3rd refresh, considered it a starter. Purists, go stomp on grapes or dissect a rasin or whatever it is you do to get a starter, I'm busy.

I plopped a 100 g of the starter into water (300 g) and unbleached white flour (Montana Sapphire, 500 g) and salt (9 g) and let it knead in a bread machine.* The first rise went overnight and formed it into a boule and placed it in a covered sauce pan to proof until "double," always a tricky estimation on a sourdough - in this case 5 hours, but it's tough to overproof a sourdough, so don't fear. I baked it in a simple 3 3/4 qt sauce pan covered for 40 minutes at 425, removed the cover and baked until brown on top.

*Bread machines are abundant and about $5 in any thrift store.

Notes to me
-Cast iron isn't needed for this capture of steam (steam from the dough alone is referred to by some as passive steam), in this case, I only used a medium heavy saucepan.

-Cooking like this, as in the Baparoma steam pan, doesn't even require the oven to be preheated

-This covered/uncovered method appears incredibly robust compared to any baking on a stone or other surface I've tried (with regard to spring and crust).

-I don't like the size of the Baparoma steam pan and may fabricate my own covered aluminum/ss/? pan, more efficiently sized for the oven based on this and ongoing expts.  Lowes has some conveniently sized pieces of metal to work with.  I'm thinking about 24" long and cylindrical with a slightly flat bottom and loose fit lid ...

-If anyone has ever heard of another term for passive steam in this context, please let me know via the comments, thanks.

(Did anyone catch the white squishy hot dog rolls in the background of the first image?  Hah, I'll eat anything.)

Roasted Legumes: lima bean edition

Given my recent fear of the purported evils of high glycemic foods, I've been interested in anything to prevent my 2 pm attack on the vending machine for that 2 oz pack of Cheese Its I lust for. Some time ago, I posted an interesting snack of roasted cannellini beans. They were a great roasted legume and clearly a good snack even Atkins might approve of.

I've dabbled with the recipe since then; some problems during roasting caused irregularities in the final bean. Some were soft, others ethereal and crisp. This time, I chose Lima to practice with. Aside from over salting them, the texture on these is what I was looking for, uniformly crisp. I think the key is overcooking the bean prior to roasting.

A pound of small lima beans were cooked overnight at barely a perk on the stove. They were overcooked but still hanging together. See final pot of cooked beans.

cooked very well, no al dente here

I drained the beans (carefully, they're kind of fragile) and dumped them in a big roasting pan, squirted them with olive oil and sprinkled salt (mistake, they were cooked in salted water and didn't need this final dash of salt). I didn't work to hard to break up the plopped pile o' beans. As the oven dried them out, I started giving the pan a shake every 30 minutes or so. Eventually all the beans separated into their own crispy goodness and the batch was finished in about a couple hours. Here's the final product. For those couting calories, the oil added prior to roasting was only about 20 grams per pound and the dry-roasted weight about 90% of the starting bean weight. So, I'd estimate a 30 gram sample (1 ounce) to be about 90 calories, 22 grams carbs and 7 grams fiber. Other beans would definitely be good too, but cook them well for a uniform final roasted texture.

final product (go away Cheese Its!)

The Baparoma Steam Pan and my first baguette with it

I recently learned of a pan called a Baparoma steam pan. The company is out of business and the pans can only be found for sale used. I scored one recently on Ebay, pricey. It was $80, but I've been pursuing crusty baguettes for too long not to get it. It's a historical artifact to me.

It's a simple idea.  Two tablespoons of water in the bottom (far left pan, 15 ml center, 7 mL on either side), the middle pan goes on top of that, the baguette sits in the middle of the second pan and the lid goes on while the loaf proofs.  Uncover, dock the loaf, cover and place the assembly into a 425F oven for 20 minutes, then take off the cap and let it cook another 10-12 minutes, remove and crackly, shiny goodness.  A near flawless baguette.  Superior volume, crackly razor-sharp crust, lovely taste.

Nice ears from the oven spring

Frickin' perfect

So, why am I pissed?  It's a crutch.  A (low output) link from a pro steam deck oven to a home oven that I haven't been able to duplicate in any of my attempts.  I'm frustrated.  Look at the damn perfect loaf.  Just frigging awesome.  So. Angry.

PS I learned of this at The Fresh Loaf, one of the best bread baking forums I've ever read. I think mostly home bakers, but pretty darn skilled bakers and nice people.

Was it worth the $80? To me? Knowing the result, I'd have paid 10X that. Now I need to crack it and figure out a home oven workaround.

simply sublime

sorry for the mediocre image

During the great 2011 baguette giveaway The Kate was kind enough to stop by and give me some precious loot - Jam!!  This one,  now depleted, was Strawberrry.  It was sublime and got our mornings off to a special start.  Thanks Kate.

My version of the famous and rare Baporarma steam pan (more later)

Free Stuff! The Olive Orchard

Got some freebies the other day from Michele at The Olive Orchard, curators of olive oil located in our fair metropolis. The staff here at weber_cam are cheap, but not easy, we do not varnish our opinions. I told Michele if we in the test labs didn't like the product, we'd say nothing and cast the samples back, with anger. Not the case. Pictured here, arranged like Stonehenge, are their 5 bottle sampler of flavored oils and a larger bottle of extra virgin olive oil.

To use these I decided to make something simple to highlight the flavors of the oil. I've been reading about low carb diets (hence the beef jerky) which sent me into a frenzy of anticipatory anxiety at the thought of losing carbs in my life. Henceforth, I am disregarding any health information gleaned from said reading and will be joining a local monastery to survive on beer and bread while wearing a less than flattering, yet slenderizing robe (sorry @TheOtherZach). I will, however, make my carbs as complex as possible (porter in place of lager). To that end, the recipe I'm using is a simple lunch salad that's wicked easy. It's been developed and varied this week. I used both the basil flavored olive oil and the lemon flavored oil in two different salads.

A bulgur salad for work
bulgur, 1/3 cup
water, 2/3 cup
olive oil, 2T
cider vinegar, 1T
salt and pepper (not much)
+ anything else you like

Procedure
Mix everything the night before or in the morning. Bulgur doesn't need to be hydrated by hot water, room temp is just fine and easier. By lunch it's pretty wonderful.

I made this salad with only the first 5 ingredients (salt and pepper is one) using the basil oil. The basil flavor was surprisingly bold, even in a chilled salad. The basil flavor was even more pronounced at room temperature. When I made the salad with a few additions, pine nuts, slivered carrots, etc., I used the lemon olive oil and it was killer. The lemon oil is not something I'd have bought for myself, but I'm lucky to have had the chance to try it. Might be a fun gift to give.

I am saving the evoo for a special bread and salad night, simple dipping is the only event in its future. Can't wait.

the henge of oil

ingredient labels like this are too rare

sorry, my images are not good today

Easy boeuf jerky

Wow, you need to do this.  It's cheaper than anything you can buy, just as good or better because of the varieties of spices that can be added and it's really easy.

I got a flank steak and cut it up into thin pieces (across and/or with the grain) and trimmed all the fat.  It's really important to trim ALL the fat.  It looks gross in the finished product and it does NOT render out.  I think I'll be choosing a less marbled cut next time like a top or bottom round.  And, cut it thin.  The more plump pieces don't have a good mouthfeel when eating them.

Take the trimmed pieces and marinate in a bag.  I used 1/3 soy, 1/3 worcesteshire and 1/3 mirin for about 4 hours.  I removed them pieces and lay them on the depicted cooling rack.  This was placed on top of a roasting pan and placed on a low-setting hotplate.  I adjusted the temperature on the hotplate so the air above the rack was about 90-120, hotplates have sloppy cycling.  I gave the pieces a final sprinkle of coarse salt and went about my way for a day.  No fancy airflow, just relied on convection.  A day later, jerky bliss.  We all liked it immediately.  It is Scoopy's favorite!

Twitter baguette giveaway...

Update Mar 25 
Thanks to all who stopped by or received in some way the demi baguettes this week.  I gave away about 15 in a couple days.  The ratio of flour to water (1.67 w/w) so far is the dominating factor in the volume and taste.  I also varied the shaping a bit this morning, 130 g (precooked weight, ca. 110 g final) was a nice size for a petit dejeuner.  I'll probably work on the final proof next, since the oven spring was too much.  I was baking in the morning of a busy day and rushed it a little.  Stay tuned for more giveaways...

Original post
My breads of the past months have, well - sucked.  Not real bad, just not good.  I just got into a slump of sorts that I couldn't figure out.  Based on my previous manic outburst, I climbed out of the rut with a new (or rediscovered old) ratio.  I'm up and running again and the volume is perfect.  Now, the crust is sometimes soft, sometimes perfect.  For a baguette, the perfect crust is razor thin, sharp and crackles as it leaves the oven.

At 20 liters per tablespoon of water, steam is an abundant commodity, even for a hack no matter what awkward technique one uses.  The real challenge for the home baker without an oven equipped for steam injection and evacuation is to remove the steam sometime into the baking cycle.  Therein lies the much bigger challenge for the home oven.  Ovens vary and this may be the source of reproducibility problems from person to person, recipe to recipe, etc.   The breads need to steam a bit and then bake in a dry environment.  I'm not going to go into to too much detail on this.   All I'm saying is that I'm in experiment mode and I'm baking faster than we can eat.

So, I'm introducing the first in an occasional series:  I bake early in the morning and you get to taste my experiments.  Tomorrow morning about 6, the dough will have risen overnight and I'll produce, by 7 am, some demi baguettes.  About 100-110 g with or without a good crust.  Don't worry, they'll taste good even if the crust isn't right.  DM me on Twitter and I'll reserve one for you and give you the address.  Just stop by at 7 and I'll toss one in your car.  For tomorrow, I should have about 8-10 available.   With your mini, you get a little pat of butter and jam.  Enjoy - and thanks for helping me not waste food and get some experimentation in. I love you guys.

On the importance of ratio

click to make big enough to read

A friend has suggested 1.618.. , I'm on it.

Saucisson Sec (finally)

Some time ago, I was muddling through my attempt at preparing one of the simplest dry cured sausage in Ruhlman's Charcuterie, saucisson sec. It's not fermented, just a simple mix of ground pork, garlic, salt and pepper and some curing salt.

I have a way of turning simple things into a 3 body problem. But, when I finish, I usually have a robust solution in which I know more about the process variables than if I nailed it on the first try. It's a frustrating way to learn, but learning is rarely uneventful.

The key environmental variables are 60°F, at least 60-70% relative humidity and some air movement. I won't rehash all the past attempts buried in my archives spent trying to find that environment. I will simply cut to the chase: I stuffed the sausage in beef casings and lay the links on a cooling rack suspended over some water in a plastic cooler in my basement. The open top of the high-walled container permitted air movement. The sides of the container coupled with the puddle of water in the bottom created a naturally bounded localized cloud of moisture that registered ca. 70% according to an accurate humidity probe and the temperature in my basement is about 60°F +/- 8°F almost all year 'round.

4 weeks of aging and voila. The sausage looks a little squat because it was on its side. So what. After I tasted it, didn't die, I fed it to others who enjoyed it immensely. The only changes? I didn't like the appearance of the wide beef middle casings - the biological reality of the appearance of these things is not pretty, I'm going back to simple small hog casings. And, I'll be using a finer grind. I like coarse for fresh sausage, it keeps them moist on cooking, but the dry cured, I believe, needs a finer grind.

A peek at the newest run (smaller casings, finer grind) about a week in:

Fermented cider

My efforts in the kitchen are often inspired by Rachel, thanks! She recently made cider and I couldn't resist co-opting my existing equipment to give it a pilot run. I used a couple bags of Gala organic apples from Kroger (not the beauty hand-picked ones Rachel used) and pushed them through a vigorously cleaned meat grinder. This option was interesting. It was fast and seemed to sheer the apples nicely. Then, using a vigorously cleaned sausage stuffer, pushed on the pulp to get some juice. I used a screen on the inside of the piston to prevent the pulp from getting in the juice.

I was curious to learn the juice extraction efficiency using this setup and to know just how sweet gala apple juice is for fermented cider (it tastes amazing before fermentation!). From 3 kg of the pulped apples, I got about 1.5 kg of juice and by refractometer 12° Brix. I skipped the campden tablet step and pitched a wine yeast. I should get a nice 4-pack of cider that's about 6% abv. I'll bottle with 2.5 volumes of carbonation. Here's the photo shoot.

galas and one granny smith

apples after the grinder

using a *cleaned* sausage stuffer

squished apples (apple cake?)

takes a lot of apples, ca. 50% by weight extraction of juice, meh

• Oops, had I read in advance and used pectinase, I'd probably have gotten a 6-pack out of this effort.  Next time.
• Book I used was Art of Cidermaking.
• Update 25-Feb-2011, most activity subsided and gravity around 00.  Small sample tastes really good.  I'll bottle in a couple weeks, once clarified.

Firedome refinements

A while back I outlined a few goals for the Firedome project. I want it to behave so I can feed the masses. Ideally, I'd like to be able to use downed wood from my lot (cheaper for long cooking sessions and little residual ash) and I really needed it to be charged on the fly.

I live by the tagline on this blog, yet I'm not a perfectionist. Developing an idea, for me, is a practical matter. Get the job done as good as I can given the timeframe. 80% of ideal is good enough - time to move to another project. Sometimes I wish I were a perfectionist, but life's short. Anyway, I think I'm finished with this. I'll cut one more dome out - no hinged door - Kate's generously donated Weber dome, your time has come, meet my angle grinder, you two go have fun.

So, here it is. Note the door stays open throughout the cooking. This enables a nice constant temperature and prevents the neighbors from being smoked out. A dancing fire prevents one from determining the headspace temperature accurately. All I could do is measure surfaces. The clay base was steadily in the 950°F range, ca +/-30F, the inside of the dome surface, about 700°F. It was windy so the heat wicked off the surface, but the base was pretty stable. All I needed to do was toss in chunks of wood from the front to maintain a fire. I only had little pieces and they burned quickly, so I'll be repeating this with bigger chunks (see bottom image).

This is one of two test breads I ran today. The first came off the grill and I tossed it straight to the neighbors for their breakfast. I think they liked it.

Before the next run, I went through our neighborhood and dragged back a bunch of fallen wood, chunked it down and am ready. But, not this weekend. I'm too ecstatic to face any irreproducibility. I'm taking a break to bask in the glory.

Pizza casserole

After a big pizza bonanza, the toppings get mixed in to some pasta and baked. Just don't call it Mac n cheese.