la baguette est reproducible, non?

I have a baguette I make that is finicky. But when it comes out as planned, it is amazing! Razor sharp, thin crust that crackles as it exits the oven with a tender, moist interior. It's not an artisan bread. It's a quick prep, a straight dough. However, it is the most irreproducible bread I prepare. I'm on the verge (I always am) of fixing this problem. I'm afraid this entry may be boring but it's more for my memory than your entertainment. I have to record these observations somewhere, or I'll lose them. Several recent observations guided my most recent success (last night):

1. Flour choice. I don't exactly know which specification(s) is responsible for the flour I find success with. I judge a flour by the way the resulting dough feels when I mix it in a ratio of 1:1.5::water:flour (w/w), e.g., 200 grams water and 300 grams flour. When mixed this way, the dough should not feel tacky. Some flours, no matter
how dry or slack they're mixed result in a tacky dough - not good. Don't know the significance of the observation, just saying when I use flours that exhibit this property, I have a good run. My latest favorite is called Montana Sapphire, unbleached white, 10 lb bag, protein, 10% (purchased from Giant-Eagle).

2. Yeast. I had a series of successful breads recently whose success I attributed to using Pillsbury's all-purpose flour (had "that" quality). But was it actually the yeast? I used Fleischmann's Bread Machine yeast in the 8 oz. bottle. But, interestingly, using the same flour throughout the series, by the end of the bottle, my loaves had less volume at the end of the first rise. I do my mix and first rise in a machine, so the conditions are pretty controlled. The first rise volume is also a pretty reliable indicator of final product success. In the near future, to eliminate any possible aging effects of the yeast, I'll be using the same brand of yeast but in the individual foil packets.

3. Enrichment (the purists cringe). The classic baguette, according to, e.g., Reinhart, is the "60-2-2". Based on a 500 gram flour recipe this corresponds to 60% water (by weight, 300 grams), 2% (10 grams, fresh) yeast and 2% (10 grams) salt. This is a pretty standard starting point for most of my breads. From here, I enrich them for American style white and wheats and keep them lean for European crusty versions. Recently, however, I enriched a lean recipe with butter and honey and instead of cooking the American style white in a pan, I baked it as a baguette and it was fascinating. Not super crackly crust or anything, but rich and satisfying with good exterior color and nice crumb. I started to realize that enrichment with shortening and sweeteners simply provides an unlimited number of variations between a lean crusty baguette and a Duncan Hines cake. My most recent baguette was simply a 60-2-2 with a near catalytic amount of butter. This butter enabled the interior to stay delicate, moist and tender while I got a good crisp crust.

All the ecstatic babbling for now. In the meantime, I'll be doing validation runs and trying to figure out the critical variables.

Just Bread, Cheese and Salad Tonight

Nothing big and fancy to show off today; instead, I promote others.

I'm always on the lookout for some tasty new dishes to try and I'm especially excited if they're vegetarian. Veggie dishes are more challenging to make as flavorful as when there's some meat involved. My two favorite cooks on the web today are Deb, who writes: In My Kitchen and Clotilde, who writes: Chocolate and Zucchini.

Looking a bit into my future (next week), I like to try to plan and shop for at least 4-5 dinners so we can get them prepped fast (kid, daycare, commuting, etc.). I recently spotted two vegetarian dishes and have them on deck for next week. Swiss Chard and Chickpea saute (in my kitchen) is one. The sauce made from the cooking water of the Swiss Chard really caught my eye and I look forward to trying it. And, we absolutely love greens.

The other dish we have in the queue is Velvety Lentil Chestnut Soup (Chocolate and Zucchini). Ever since Thanksgiving, when Trish made an absolutely killer chestnut stuffing, I've yearned for more of these delicate morsels and this soup looks like a tasty place to use them.

Thanks to both of you for the great recipes!

Adventures in Deep Frying - II (Sweet Potato Crisps)

This Saturday, in addition to our simple turkey sandwich, we had a little decadent treat. Occassionally, I make a potato's worth of crisps. I slice the potatoes, skin on, using a mandoline slicer and deep fry them for about a minute. They're unbelievable and surprisingly, not greasy at all.

This time, being the depths of winter and all, I wanted a richer treat and used a sweet potato. I did these the same way. Sliced, skin on, using the mandoline and deep fried 'em. They didn't quite fry the same way a russet did. A russet fries fast, crisp and clean. Not so with the sweet potato slices. These took a bit longer to get crisp and never got quite as crunchy as the russets, but, lightly seasoned with kosher salt they were scrumptious.

Shrimp go swimming . . . in hot oil

If I waited any longer to eat these, I'd have named them.

Deep frying gets an undeserved bad rap. I love deep frying and do so almost once a week. We've grown kind of fond of a small side of fried seafood with out pasta. NO ONE fries fish like my mother. Maybe it's the source of fish (Boston you know) or that special frypan she uses but I can only hope to make fish as good as hers.

But, we must eat fish. My weapon of choice: the Frybaby, loaded with vegetable oil. This thing has nice high sides, keeps the splattering in and gets the oil to a perfect 365F (or so) and holds it. Lately, my favorite sacrificial crustacean has been the shrimp. We found some pretty good quality frozen guys recently and subjected them to a quick dip in egg and coating in very fine breadcrumbs (seasoned with salt, pepper and parsley) and tossed 'em in for a spell. About 2 minutes. The bobbed to the top crispy and brown and barely produced a spot when we blotted them on paper towels. These shrimp were heavenly and not in the least, oily. Give 'em a try.

Outside of the Box and Into the Pot

Whenever I've heard the expression "thinking outside the box", it's been in some mundane corporate context or I've missed it while sleeping through some meeting. But, in the kitchen, this tired cliche means something. It's hard to go beyond one's usual repertoire to create something new.

This Sunday, it's our turn to cook for the gang (8 adults, 3 children, 2 babies). Every two weeks (or so) 4 families on our street take turns cooking a Sunday dinner for each other; a vegetarian dinner. Vegetarian, I said - therein lies the challenge. One of our favorite meals is simple tomato sauce (or as we call it, gravy) with pasta, bread and salad. Oh, and the tomato sauce usually has a piece of meat, or a bone, or some meat-derived morsel to flavor it and give it depth.

Not this time. So, could we serve up the same meal sans-meat and have it be as comforting as it's always been? I thought I'd try to make the sauce a bit more substantial by incorporating veggies, using a long simmer and maybe going a bit heavier on the spices (and fresher, e.g., fresh basil rather than dry). This sauce would then be served with pasta. Add a couple loaves of sesame semolina, salad a desert and presto, a meal. My fear with a chunky vegetarian sauce is all the veggies would make the sauce too sweet; I always felt the meat countered the sweetness of the tomatoes with a depth of other savory flavors. Here goes another experiment, maybe I shouldn't do this to friends???

Here goes anyway: Chunky Vegetarian Marinara

1. To a large stock pot saute in 1/4 cup ex virgin olive oil the following:
-yellow and red bell pepper finely diced
-red onion, large, finely diced
-1 clove garlic, minced
-finely diced portobello mushrooms, 12 oz.

2. Add to the pot:
-4 28 oz cans tomatoes, plum, whole and crushed (2 cans each)
-finely slivered fresh basil, 1/4 C
-salt (2 t)
-pepper (a lot, coarsely cracked)
-bay leaves, 3
-dried oregano, 1 T
-additional dried basil, 2 T

3. Simmer over low heat for 4 hours (barely simmering).

4. Refrigerate overnight, reheat the next day to a simmer for several hours.
During all this simmering, the sauce probably concentrated to about 3/4 of the starting volume (the amount of concentration will depend on the amount of water in the cans of tomatoes).

Results/Comments
I used this to top a whole pile of penne. It was awesome and the guests seemed to enjoy it as well.

The sauce originally tasted really sweet and tart. But over time, I was quite surprised, the sauce mellowed and became much less tart and less sweet. The mellowing of the sauce is usually something that occurs when I slow-cook meat in the sauce. As the fat renders from the meat, the sauce becomes richer and less tart. While this sauce wasn't as good as a sauce using meat as flavoring, it was quite good and we'll have it again.

One other interesting observation. With two bell peppers and nearly a pound of shrooms, I feared the sauce would approximate some kind of bottled "chunky" style mixture. Initially, the sauce was pretty chunky, but by the end of the simmering, the vegetables were not present as huge chunks but small bits. Although this is a poor description, the consistency was very nice. And, it had the obvious benefit of all those extra veggies.

Improvements
Mushrooms are often used in vegetarian dishes as some sort of meat substitute. Since the shrooms I used didn't interfere with the desired consistency, I might look into trying different kinds and amounts next time.

Why weber_cam?

Hi. I'm Dave of Dave's Beer and I live in Columbus, OH.

The story of the weber_cam is an old one. When I started davesbeer.com, I wanted to set up a web cam pointed to my Weber. I often cook on it low and slow. E.g., a 12-15 hour cooking of a Boston butt is not uncommon. I thought I could start one in the morning of a work day, keep an eye on it from work via the web, and have some good eatin' by dinner. I never rigged it up but liked the concept enough to name my food blog the weber_cam.

I love writing about my daily adventures in the kitchen. I used to do elaborate preparations with photographic detail. Now a parent, I cook to survive and get my daughter in on it as much as possible (she rolls out a mean focaccia; been doing so since she was 2). I cook fast now, I think I could survive as a sous chef in a NY kitchen.

I'm a scientist at heart and most every thing I cook is an experiment of some sort; subtle variations on staples, major changes, totally new dishes ... complete flops. Lessons from failure are often more valuable than success. I love baking breads more than anything. And, the baguette is something I'll never tire of making. And, of course, I love 'q on the Weber. Some day I'll break down for a Smokey Mountain.

A few years ago, I was in a commercial for Weber-Stephens. It was a blast. The commercial aired around the country. I barely escaped fame.

But, seriously ...
One big reason I started this food blog is from the question: "Do you have the recipe?" My breads are special to me. When I'm on my deathbed and someone asks me (family bonds notwithstanding) what I am most proud of, it'll probably be my daily bread, my baguette. It's not quite a recipe but a way of life. In order to give an adequate response to the recipe question, I felt I needed to provide a reference in case someone was really ready to tackle the "recipe." I used to write pilot plant directions to execute chemical reactions in 4,000 L reactors. I know how to describe a process. I receive too many communications on my baguette prep saying it didn't work (... "oh, and I didn't use the yeast you said, I didn't use the pan you mentioned, I didn't ..."). No dice. Every detail has a story. If there were a shortcut, I probably tried it. I get lots of mail about the baguette thing and not one has done every thing stated in the recipe.

I live for your participation via comments - good or bad, anonymous or not - leave a comment and make my day.

Thanks for visiting.

I Swear, It's Not Kraft

After a long arduous day of parenting, we were famished, tired of the tryptophan-induced narcoleptic haze of turkey and lazy. There is no shortage of Mac 'n Cheese recipes in the world and lately I've been using a Cooks' Illustrated version that I kind of liked, but it was too much work. I thought about the recipe and streamlined it to a decadent and extremely simple version that can be done faster than you can open a package of that mysterious, dense yellow powder. I think it's safe to say, this has become part of our repertoire.

Wicked Fast Mac 'n Cheese
small elbow macaroni, 224 g (yes, I actually weigh it)
butter, 2 T
condensed unsweetened milk, 5 oz
shredded cheddar cheese, ca. 1 cup
salt and pepper (coarsely ground)

1. Cook macaroni, strain and return to pot.
2. Stir in remaining ingredients. Residual heat from the cooked macaroni should melt everything and it will eventually look just like the stuff from the thin blue box.
3. Enjoy.

Challahs All Around

It's the Christmas season and while I should get off my ass and learn how to make a Panettone, my seasonal loaf is usually a Challah. It's a straight enriched dough made with lots of sugar, butter and eggs. Mmmmm. It's also whipped up pretty quick and hence, makes a good gift in a pinch.

Challah
1. I use a bread machine for kneeding. To the pan in this order is added:
milk, 300g
honey, 40 g
sugar, 30 g
butter (softened), 48 g
yolks, 2
all purpose flour, 500 g
active dry yeast, 2 1/2 t
salt (kosher), 10 g

2. Kneed and 1st rise done in machine (preheat oven to 425F now).
3. Divide dough in 3 equal weight pieces, round each piece and let rest covered with a moist muslin (or flour sack) towel.
4. Convert each piece into a rope about 15" long.
5. Braid into a loaf and place loaf on a sheet of parchment on a cookie sheet.
6. Cover loaf with moist towel for final proof, ca. 40 minutes.
7. Paint exterior of proofed loaf with egg yolk for glaze.
8. Place sheet in lower third of oven and blast once with steam.
9. Let cook until exterior is a rich brown color, ca. 30 minutes.
10. Let rest an hour before slicing. When stale, makes killer french toast.

A Mocha for Me

I love kitchen gadgets. However, gadgets need to be useful to survive. One of my favorite means to make coffee is with the mocha pot. It's a simple device that's inexpensive and makes a decent cup of espresso. I think it's espresso. Some may argue that true espresso is defined by coffee derived from a zillion pascals of steam pressure-extracted ground coffee with a perfect crema. By that definition, it fails. But, with a bit of practice, it produces a good strong shot of coffee. I love it. My old one had degraded to a point I couldn't use it. My lovely wife gave me a spiffy new 2 tasse replacement pot and I'm livin' large.

Farewell Bear

It's the Holidays. That means it's time for another faceless corporate behemoth to swing through town and homogenize a chunk of the local business environment. Giant-Eagle is buying most of the Big Bear grocery chain.

For the past three years or so, I've become pretty fond of our local Big Bear stores. The surly Somalian cashiers, that 60-something-year-old cashier with the disturbing pink bow in her hair who is smitten with Frankie, the pharmacy which took at least an hour to process a single prescription . . . well, maybe they had a bit of room for improvement. But, I've visited these stores at least as often as I've visited my own dinner table for more than three years. I went to their 20% off closeout sale today. It was a frenzy of activity. I felt like I was stripping Scrooge of his bed curtains in the Christmas that was to be. It was sad.

Honey Wheat Pitas

I love Trader Joe's, hell, I even considered working for them. But, their breads suck. I bought some of their wheat pitas the other day to accompany baba ghanoush I was making. By the time I made the baba, I couldn't stand to use the anemic looking little pitas sitting there, just drying up in the bag, so I made some. Used a pretty simple straight dough recipe and they were done in about a couple hours.

Honey-Whole Wheat Pitas
I used a bread machine for kneading and the first rise:
Charge to the bread machine in the following order:
water, 150 g
honey, 15 g
active dry yeast, 1 t
all purpose white flour, 175 g
whole wheat/rye flour (1:1 mixed), 50 g
olive oil, 15 g
salt, 5 g


1. Mix and knead, let rise 1 hour, preheat oven to 500F.
2. Divide dough into 4 pieces, round the dough balls and let rest 5 minutes.
3. Squash each dough ball, using a rolling pin if necessary, to a 7" disc.
4. Place discs on a piece of 15" square parchment and place the parchment on top of a cookie sheet.
5. Cover the rolled out pieces of dough with a moist muslin towel and let them rest about 15 minutes.
6. Place the sheet with the parchment and pitas in the oven in the lower third of the oven.
7. Let them bake until they puff and look like these in the picture.
8. Remove from oven and resist as long as you can.

Yum, Comforting Food

Mmmmm . . . meatloaf. Simple, fast, totally unworthy of being photographed. My meatloaf is simple and surprisingly is the same recipe I use for meatballs. The only difference is meatballs are simmered in tomato sauce (or what we call gravy) and the meatloaf is cooked free-form in a heavy cast iron skillet at relatively high heat to an internal temperature somewhere around 170F. Baking this at high temperature (ca. 400F) in cast iron results in great browning and a heavy "bark" on the bottom layer, yum. My meatloaf didn't get good until I started using 1/2 pork and 1/2 beef. The pork, I feel, is necessary to prevent making one big tough burger. Meatloaf purists would use 1/3 veal, 1/3 pork and 1/3 beef, veal isn't always available at the supermarket. This is my recipe for a meatloaf slightly greater than a lb.

Meatloaf for a cold night
ground beef, 80% lean, 1/2 lb
ground pork, 1/2 lb (sometimes I just use a couple sausages)
egg, 1
parsley, a bunch, chopped
bread crumbs, 1/2 cup
salt
coarsely ground pepper
thyme
milk, 2-4 T

Mix ingredients with hands and shape into an oblong loaf and bake in a 425F oven for about 45 minutes or until internal temperature reaches about 170F. I like to bake this in a shallow cast iron pan because the bottom and sides cook up with a crispy exterior.

Samichlaus, Where Art Thou?

Years ago, I received a most thoughtful gift of beer. Specifically, it was a wicked high alcohol beer called Samichlaus. It's what we, who profess our love of beer routinely, call a "big beer". Samichlaus is roughly 14% alcohol by volume. Most domestic carbonated urine beer is 5% by volume. It's not good because it's high in alcohol. I could drink 4 bottles of Bud for about $2 to get the same kick if I wanted the alcohol; it's the perfect brew. Big beers need to be properly aged or they're vile. Samichlaus has a perfect balance of malt to counter the alcohol and is flavored with, I'm not positive, but I believe spices in addition to hops.

It's heavenly.

The prospect of obtaining this rare brew was dismal for our first few years here in Columbus. Believe it or not, any beer greater than ca. 6% alcohol by volume could not be sold. Some silly law created about 700 years ago. Well, I guess someone finally had enough cash to pay off our govenor, Taft, and now Ohio can sell big beers. We Ohioans are eternally grateful. I still haven't found Samichlaus, but I'm still looking.

Hey Andrea, if I don't find it, maybe you can send me another one? Merry Christmas and thanks again.

Back to Basics

Intro
I'm trying Dan Leader's country french again. It's a lean bread recipe that's reliable and get's me back on my feet when I'm in a "lean bread slump" as I tend to get into once in a while. I often don't have the patience and discipline required for lean/sourdough breads. This poolish method is a pretty good compromise. However, I often change the method over time so once in a while I need to reset myself and go back to the book and do it by the book.

Poolish
Poolish was prepared from 150 grams all purpose flour and 50 grams of a wheat/rye mixture of flour, a 1/4 t of Red Star yeast and 200 grams of water. It was stirred about 50 times with a wooden spoon and allowed to sit on the kitchen counter overnight at room temperature (rt).

Dough Prep
Poolish, 200 grams
water, 400 grams
yeast, 1/4 t
all purpose flour (Pillsbury), 500 g
wheat/rye flour, 100 g
salt, 2.5 t

1. Poolish was diluted with water and stirred until smooth.
2. Yeast charged and mixture placed in pan of bread machine.
3. Remaining flour and salt charged and kneaded by machine for 10 minutes.
4. Dough was not too slack, came together well.
5. First ferment, 2.5 h.
6. Punch and rest, 40 min.
7. Loaf shaped, round.
8. Final rise on parchment, 1.5 h.
9. Baked @ 425F with steam shot for 45 minutes.
10. Cut the first piece about 1.5 hours after the oven.

Results
Pretty happy with this one. Slightly larger than 2.5 lbs. after baking, about 10" diameter, 4" high. Excellent crumb texture; a combination of open holes and good texture. Heavy crust, almost a bark. Didn't get crust crackling on cooling.? Tastes great, but I'll be evaluating this over the days to come. A great bread should taste great, even when it begins to become stale.

I sampled several pieces but as I cut into the loaf, I stumbled on it's big flaw. It's a 2.5 lb ROUND loaf and consequently a lot of the mass is interior. I undercooked it. Afraid of burning the exterior (in retrospect, I had plenty of room to keep cooking), I underbaked it. This is also consistent with the absence of fractures that usually appear on the surface of the dough on cooling.

In conclusion, I think this "failure" was darn close to being stellar. Next time, I'd do half the size loaf. That big a loaf is tricky to bake to completion; those problems never occur with a baguette. I'd probably do two 1-lb loaves or chubby baguettes. However, the big round is a grand looking loaf and is convenient for sandwiches.