Berry Crisp

One of my favorite food authors lately is Mark Bittmann. He's a regular contributor in the New York Times Wednesday food section and is referred to as "The Minimalist". He's the kind of cook I can relate to. Takes risks by venturing into new cuisines but seeks out the basic principles and shoots for the simple recipes that capture the cuisine in a few ingredients.

Today's post isn't about any exotic cuisine, but it is simple. The Crisp. A cornerstone of traditional American Desserts. Recipes are all over the place but Bittman's looked really good. I tried it, lost the recipe and then modified what I remember of it. I used less butter than in the original recipe and I shouldn't have. The original "crust" was excellent, this one was ok but could have been better. I also used a tablespoon of corn starch over the fruit to make it less runny. That part I liked. Held together nicely. I'll have to go back to Barnes and Noble to find the original recipe and jot it down; sorry Mark, raising a kid's expensive and cookbooks are a low priority.

Also note the use of self-rise flour, of which I've become a fan or. Makes the recipe go a lot faster.

Blackberry Crisp, big one, enough for 12 people or so
1. oil a 9x13 glass dish, preheat oven to 350F.
2. toss 2 bags (16 oz) of frozen blackberries, 1/2 C sugar, 1-2 T cornstarch and dump in prepared dish
3. cut 2 sticks butter in 3 cups self-rising flour (original recipe used 1 stick butter/cup of flour)
4. mix flour mixture with 5 beaten eggs
5. plop flour/egg mixture on top of berries
6. bake @ 350F for an hour
7. yum

Cinnamon and Raisin Scones

The local coffee place in Columbus is called Cup 'O Joe. The coffee is ok but their pastries are inedible. They sell these big brown colored lumps of hard dough embedded with chunks of fossilized fruit. They're stale, I suspect at least 3 days old, and they call them scones. If you're unfortunate enough to be lured into buying one of these horrid blocks of starch it's kind of funny to hear the cashier ask if you want it heated up. As if a microwave is going to breath a bit of flavor into these dried up stale pieces of crap.

I knew it wouldn't be hard to do better.

Mine are a modification of the biscuit recipe that's posted on the side of every baking soda can in the world. For convenience, I've been using self-rising flour too. Self-rising flour is simply a fixed mixture of flour:baking powder:salt. I've been using it for biscuits and related baked goods lately. It's pretty awesome.

Cinnamon & Raisin Scones - makes 6
self-rising flour, 2 C
sugar, 3 T
butter, unsalted, 6 T
milk (I used 1%), 2/3 C
cinnamon, ca. 2-3 t
raisins, handful

1. Preheat oven to 450F.
2. Mix self-rise flour and sugar
3. Cut butter into self-rise flour (or use 2 C flour, 1 T baking powder, 1/2 t salt)
4. Sprinkle cinnamon and add raisins to the mixture.
5. Add milk, mix with wooden spoon until the mixture clumps into a ball.
6. Knead briefly and squash into a ca. 6-8" squat disk.
7. Cut disc into 6 pie pieces.
8. Arrange triangular pieces on parchment lined baking sheet.
9. Brush each triangle with milk and sprinkle a bit of sugar prior to baking (for a nice crusted glaze)
10. Bake 15-18 minutes.

Day 4

A slice of the loaf I made Sunday is pictured here, 4 days later. It tastes as good today as it did then. Not quite as crunchy but still full flavored.

In Reinhart's book, he speaks of the famous Poilâne family of Paris. They make a wheat bread that is shipped all over the world. I've had it. It's very old school. Every baker in the Poilâne family of bakeries sees each loaf through from "cradle to grave". From development of the starter to final baking. Reinhart even claims that Max Poilâne believed his bread to be better by the fifth day than on the first. He made and sold a loaf that was several pounds in mass and was meant to feed a family for a good fraction of a week.

I'm not saying I've achieved anything close to a Pain Poilâne, but that rustic country loaf was darn good and fed us a good chunk of the week with a hearty bread that was still tasty 4 days later. I'm proud of it and will try to repeat it soon.

Country French

Pain de Compagne, or country French is something Trish and I have had all over France. It's the most common bread offered while dining in France. Although its quality and characteristics vary from brasserie to brasserie, it has some common features. It's usually wheat, a round loaf, crusty with large holes and is derived from a starter of some kind but does not have a strong sour flavor. I've yearned to make this style forever (to a level I was satisfied with). I tried again this weekend. Twice. The first, unfortunately, was not as good but we brought it to dinner anyway (sorry Gail and Roger for taking a less than perfect loaf but thanks for an exceptional dinner!). The second attempt, I was absolutely thrilled with. It reminded me of the better loaves I've had in France.

The breakthrough came as I caught the end of America's Test Kitchen on our local PBS station a couple weeks ago. They were making Rustic Country Bread. Breads like this have extraordinarly simple recipes. Flour, water, salt, a trace of yeast and optionally, low levels of enrichment (honey and/or olive oil). It's ALL process. You have to see these loaves prepared to appreciate the subtlety of the methods involved. What caught my attention on this show is how long they baked it. A final internal temp of at least 210F but more importantly, they cooked it to a dark brown. Dark. This method calls for a sponge, but I believe the way in which it's described, it's actually a poolish.

This site is free but requires a registration; absolutely worth the time. Their recipe is probably sufficiently detailed to follow. I made a couple critical changes: i. I used Montana Sapphire unbleached white flour and some wheat and rye, ii. to prepare the final dough, I used a bread machine to knead and do the first rise (this is a slack dough and I don't have the patience to knead a slack dough and it's messy). A bread machine is great at kneading slack doughs. The honey addition looks a bit odd but the concentration is small enough to not make the loaf sweet. I also baked my loaf at 425F and cooked the crap out of it. I believe I baked it a full 50 minutes. I let it cool an hour and sliced it up. Julian's parents and Trish and I savored this rustic loaf with a bit of Egyptian feta for a quick snack. Reviews were quite favorable.

It's in the Details

Before I went to the hospital this past weekend to have my chest hair removed by little sticky adhesive electrode patches, I was doing a couple of final runs for the baguette piece. I wanted to remove two items in the procedure to make it a prep anyone could perform with little or no special equipment.

The two items I thought might give some people trouble were: i. the use of a bread machine for kneading/first rise and ii. the use of the special baguette pan I use. So, I decided to try to validate the procedure removing each variable, one at a time. I discovered something interesting. Even though this particular bread recipe is only a straight dough method, it's complexity is astounding. By replacing the bread machine 30-minute knead cycle with a 5 minute hand knead (a timed full 5 minutes of vigorous kneading), I changed the final loaf significantly. It had a tad less volume, the crackly crust was a little different but the big difference in texture AND taste resulted from the finer crumb. The machine kneaded crumb is delicate and cloud-like in appearance, but tasty. The hand kneaded interior was finer in appearance and the taste was "mealier" for lack of a better characterization. It surprised me. I'm going to stick with what works for now and stay with the machine. This bread is worth pursuing at any price.

Yay!

Guess what happened today? No, Conagra Foods didn't offer me a job baking all day because I endorsed their flour, Montana Sapphire; our local supermarket turned into a Giant Eagle and it has its grand opening today. I stopped in on the way back from daycare because it would make me even more late for work.

I love supermarkets. Trish and I always check out the local supermarket whenever we visit a new place (Paris, Lyon, Amsterdam, LaGrande, Oregon). Even huge chain supermarkets can't help but reflect local aspects of the community in which they're placed. Today, for the grand opening our local Giant Eagle is having a big presentation for the press and all kinds of fancy activities. Their produce section is greatly expanded compared to the last store that occupied that spot and they even have rehired the surly Somalian cashiers. It's just like home again.

I Have It

For as long as the Weber_cam has been in existence (plus about 15 years prior to its launch), I've been damn close to reproducibly baking a baguette that would rival some of the best French bakers. Not an artisan loaf derived from carefully nurtured natural yeasts; a quick loaf with a good crust (for the adults), soft tender inside (for the kids) and neutral enough in flavor to accompany any food perfectly.

It is here.

I'm just thinking about when I'll have time to present it in its entirety. I'd like to produce something like the Pizza piece, but I'm still organizing things. Frankie introduces an element that complicates things as well. She's a rowdy kid and I can't just fuss obsessively with photos and stuff while I'm putting together a loaf - so it might be a while. But I do like to share and hopefully, someday, you'll all be taking a shot at this awesome creation in the comfort of your own kitchen.

(ps I've corrected some of my awefully placed apostrophes, thanks my love)

Doughnuts

Trish jumped into the action this past Saturday with a nifty treat. From the Better Homes and Gardens book, she made doughnuts (or donuts, whatever). Pretty easy recipe. Yeah, they're deep fried but we had a couple people over to help eat the goods even though we really wanted to finish them ourselves. Frankie even ate a piece.

In the donut spectrum of krispy creme glazed on one end and a kind of hard cake-like on the other, these came in closer to the krispy kreme end. Kind of soft but slightly crispy on the outside and very tender inside. We just coated them with a little sugar and cinnamon. I tried to get a crunchier exterior by frying one a bit longer (that one in the front slightly to the right) but it just got darker, not crunchier. Anyway, a success. Not exactly healthy enough to do too much, but a lot of fun once in a while.

Still Going Well

The baguette is still going well after a revelation, 4 days and about 4 straight attempts. Before the big blizzard hits tomorrow, we got out today and shopped for plenty of my favorite flour (it's Montana Sapphire, unbleached, more on that later) and yeast. Tomorrow I begin trying to figure out critical variables that would interfere with ease of execution. First, I'm going to try to wean myself from rapid-rise yeast. It's expensive. Then, I'll probably try to determine if can substitute hand-kneading for the machine-knead I currently use. As always, I'll keep you posted. This pic is last night's loaf. Had it with Deb's curried garbanzo bean soup. Thanks for the recipe Deb and congrats on the new kid!

Thinking of Pork

Look at it. It sucks. My Weber. It's just sitting there unused and cold while the temps drop into the teens. Last night I had a bit of pulled pork from the freezer from the last time I slow cooked the living crap out of 21 lbs of pork. It was nice to reminisce of warmer times; times that allow slow cooking outdoors. For now, we're stuck in with persistent colds. At least we have good bread.

Got It

I've reproduced it and I'm repeating the prep daily and enjoying every crumb of it. Weighing in at 409 grams and 16 inches, this baby is a masterpiece. Notice the stress fractures on the left side of the baguette. These occur on cooling as it leaves the oven. The exterior is crispy and the interior white, puffy and tender. I'll be continuing to reproduce it and will eventually do a long piece on it. Although, I may do separate techniques in a more modular form (kneeding, baguette formation, etc.) but I'm still thinking about it.

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.