Some menu items for the week...

First of an occasional series. I thought I'd share a few of our weekday menu items.  If lucky, I do some of the prep Sunday mornings:

Add your own in the comments.

1. Thai (well, not really) beef in romaine boats served with lentils on the side.  Just some seasoned beef (ginger, garlic, sugar, lime juice, fish sauce, etc.) served in the sturdy portion of a romaine leaf.  Lentils or bread on the side.

2. Roasted butternut squash risotto.  Toughest part here is cutting the damn squash.  I got it cubed in the fridge.  I'll roast the fine dice till slightly browned and toss it in the risotto at the beginning of cooking just after the rice is sauteed in oil.[update]  This one is going to have bacon and the squash sauteed in the rendered fat.  That's what I prepped this morning.  Then I'll add it to the cooking rice half way through.

3. A staple.  Simple hummus and flatbreads.  Hummus made ahead (even quicker with immersion blender) and flatbreads made just before the meal in my plasma furnace.

4. I'm practicing my tortillas lately, so pulled pork tacos is a fun dinner and, cheating with the stove, too easy.  I'll cook the pork shoulder in a 225°F oven overnight the night before dinner, refrigerate it before work, pull and warm it briefly before dinner.  Pickled veggies on the side.  

VFR100 reworked assay

Another in a series of incredibly tedious posts guaranteed to scare away even the most dedicated of readers. To refresh your memory, this is to get an aggregate metric to characterize a combination of yeast, flour and any additive by the volume of the first rise.  Once analyzed it will be applied to see if this volume (VFR100) is predictive of final baked bread attributes.  See background of measurement in previous post.  I reworked my assay a bit.

1. add:
-salt as a 10% w/w solution
-vitamin C as a 0.1 g / mL solution
-qs to volume, 90 mL
-yeast 1/2 t (assuming bulk solid density for yeast is constant)
-soy oil delivered by pipette
-flour 150 g
2. knead 10 minutes via machine
3. scale a 100 gram piece and round it
4. let rise in cylinders like these, tall narrow to elongate final reading for precision, coated on inside with floured oil spray so the maximum height is marked after maximum rise falls, e.g., see typical final rise volume in image below.

click image for close up, left two are fast rise yeast and right has an extra 100 ppt shot of vitamin C

flour = Montana Sapphire unbleached white
C = vitamin C
yeast (charged at 2%):
salt for these 250 total dough runs, 2.5 g

fat (% v/w)	yeast	additive	V of 100 g rise (mL)
0.0 soy	RedStar	0	262 261 260 258 260
2.0 soy	RedStar	0	308 313 263 280 301
2.0 soy	RedStar-f	0	255 275 278 280 301
2.0 soy	RedStar	C 1000 ppm	338 320 320 310 333
2.0 soy	Fleischmanns-f	0	275 280 274 275 295
2.0 soy	RedStar	C 2000 ppm	321 326 338 345 360
Preceding runs anova=> R results Significant effects: -oil in the dough gives greater volume than no oil, consistent with literature for baked bread volume - may be worth evaluating more concentrations -Big vitamin C effect but not so much between 1000 and 2000 ppm -fast rise yeast bigger volume than active dry *Additional values added after anova tabulated below
2.0 soy	RedStar	C 1000 ppm, lecithin 1t	380
2.0 soy	Fleischmanns-f	lecithin, 1t	280
2.0 soy	Fleischmanns pizza	L-cysteine in yeast	296
4.0 soy	Ff	0	???

The sloppy discussion (by sloppy I mean I'll keep adding to it as I think about it) 

1. The volume effects, despite the unbalanced design, reflect a lot of what's observed in the literature. A low concentration of oil in lean dough is well-documented to result in bigger volume loaves and this is what's observed in the dough as well.

2. One of the biggest effects is the vitamin C (ascorbic acid)* added to dough.  Vit C addns. gave structurally sound, huge dough volume on rising.  As far as concentration, I killed it, 1000 ppm is a lot more than the more conventional 50 ppm seen in the literature.  However, I haven't yet found articles relating to the specific increases in volume of final baked breads as a function of vitamin C concentration.  In my hands, breads made with 1000 ppm (100 mg vitamin C per 100 g flour) have consistently crappy oven spring, it's a real bummer of a result.

3. Point 2 is leading me to believe the VFR100 just isn't predictive of the things I'm looking for in a final loaf.

4. This assay, to do with enough replicate runs is laborious, all the practice I did was interesting and useful.  I'm considering a way to make it a faster analysis.  That way I could crank many more effects and be able to see parameter interactions.  Maybe some pilot work and then take a look at reducing vitamin C/fat to try to figure out the interactions.

* Note: There are some who believe vitamin C and ascorbic acid are not the same.  They are, atom for atom, stereocenter for stereocenter, etc. etc. identical in every single way.

breadcrumbs

Obviously, there's no shortage of raw materials for breadcrumbs here. My need for breadcrumbs is primarily in the breading of smelts. I like the crumbs fine and uniform to give tenacious coating to the deep fried delicacies of the sea. Believe it or not, I usually buy my breadcrumbs because every method to make them sucks. I won't use the Cuisinart since it was designed to be irritating, 4 pieces that are difficult to clean isn't worth my time. Pounding the stale bread with a mallet is messy and often breaks the bag. Before going to the market to get some (Progresso), I tried this...

honest. I placed the crisp bread in a heavy plastic bag and made some use of the several ton piece of modern life in the driveway. I pushed the car back and forth over it about 5 times. Aside from a little fear that the neighbors would think I was insane, it was pretty easy. But, uneven particles. If they're not fine enough or uniform in size, the breading can fall apart in the fryer. Darn, another genius idea failed. I'm off to market.

On the Development of a Predictive Metric for Bread Loaf Volume, the VFR100

It is generally recognized among food scientists that greater volume in a baked bread is associated with favorable properties like tenderness, desirable mouthfeel and reduced rate of staling.*

Personally I like bigger volumes in my breads and the pursuit of achieving that continues today for my white and wheat breads.  Bigger volumes are most commonly obtained with a small fraction of fat, ca. 3% w/w percentage of the grain bill.*  In addition to the oil, a functional ingredient, I have also noticed the brand and type of yeast have a significant impact on the dough (structure during rise, tackiness, rate of rise, etc.).  Further complicating this is my unsubstantiated loyalty to a particular flour.

Evaluating the effect of various combinations of fat, yeast and flour on the final baked loaf is a daunting task.  After the ingredients are mixed, many factors, e.g.,  the number of rises, the proof (final rise), docking, baking method, baking sheet, oven humidification method, etc. can have a significant effect on the results.  In an attempt to support these preferences with something more quantitative, I'd like to find a reproducible and relatively fast assay for these ingredients that correlates with a final baked product.

My hypothesis: Given a selection of dough ingredients, the volume of the first rise will lead to a predictable outcome of the final baked loaf of bread, presumably the greater the volume of the first rise, the better the loaf.  I'd like to stop at the first rise because I think it's the optimal point of intervention.  All the ingredients are included and working. One serious potential flaw is there is no way to evaluate the effect of oven spring.  This volume will be called Volume of First Rise of a 100 grams sample, the VFR100. 

Method for obtaining the VFR100

1. make a dough comprised of flour (150 g - not defatted), salt (2.5 g), water (90 g), fat (variable), yeast  (1 t, 3 g).

2. machine knead for 10 minutes using an Oster xxxx on the simple white bread cycle

3. scale 100 g from this and add it to a graduated cylinder

4. measure maximum final volume of rise - the meniscus of the dough adheres to the graduated side of the cylinder at the highest volume using this apparatus

The data collection phase will take a long time.  I'll populate the table as results become available.  Feel free to suggest additional parameters in the comments.  I can't promise I'll include them in the testing, but I'd love the input. 

After this data collection, I'll be trying a full preparation of a baguette using a few of the combinations, good and bad candidate mixtures.

data collection underway 


Table Abbreviations
ap, all purpose
b, bulk
C, ascorbic acid
f, fast
F, Fleischmann's
GM, gold medal
MT, Montana Sapphire
RS, Red Star
ubw, unbleached white

* http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1745-4530.2008.00282.x/abstract (this paper and references cited therein provide a lot of the background on bread loaf volume and functional fats)

A DIY Uncrustable, Kid Lunch Edn.

Well, kids are back in school and I'm working to figure out new things for Frankie's lunch.  Remember seeing those peanut butter and jelly pockets on tv called uncrustables?  While discussing this odd food during dinner, I was wincing and Frankie was wriggling with delight over the thought of them.  After I tried a version of my own...

using a ravioli press, some wheat bread and some intense muscle power with a rolling pin, I failed miserably.  I made squashed bread with oozing fillings.  It looked even worse than this picture by the time I finished.

Then, Frankie helped.  I needed to "clamp down the side of the sandwich."  Hmm. Here's how it went once she jumped in to help.

First I layered the peanut butter on both sides, that is peanut butter, jelly and peanut butter.  This double layer protocol insures no sogginess of the bread.  I layered the pieces together and Frankie took me through the "clamping."

Using a butter knife as a blunt rod, each side of each of the compartments holding the pb&j were pressed until the bread was mashed together and flat.  I then took the pizza roller and trimmed the crusts and separated the units.

Each side of the sandwich was then reclamped thusly.  Notice the complete absence of oozing.

Each side reclamped, trimmed, inspected, wrapped and placed in a ziploc bag.  I tossed it in the bag with some veggies, a Ferrero Rocher and a bunch of other crap and she was off to school clam happy.  I was ecstatic not to see the uneaten sandwich return. I hope it wasn't traded for enimens (m & m s).

Richard Stephen, CEO of Weber, can I get a grant for working on this simulator?

(... or a new Easy Bake oven for pizza)
I have at least one lingering issue regarding my Firedome project: Does the intake of air from the bottom hemisphere matter? What happens to inside if I take air in...
a. through the bottom center?
b. through the sides?
c. both?
d. is there a swirly kind of convection of air going on?
e. can I get higher temps by optimizing this pattern of vents?
etc.

Instead of carving up a zillion bottom halves of grills, I figured it was time for a simulation vessel.  I'll use tea lights initially for a heat source and measure temp differences with a thermocouple in the lid and try to use a smoke source (incense?) to visualize air flow patterns.  Of course, if I didn't dislike reading so much and I could figure out the math, I might be able to make a more sophisticated hypothesis, but this is more fun.  Also, there is a flat disc in the middle (cooking surface) that might screw up calculations, so here goes...

Bottom half drilled out bottom and side vents.
It is also affixed with a lower grate that will hold the fuel source.

Lower grate in the bottom half with tea lights, a proposed initial fuel source.

The bottom half now equipped with the upper grate, or in the real grill this is the cooking surface.  I need a teeny tiny clay surface for this.

The top half is affixed to the bottom with binder clips.  The top half is a model of the Firedome with 1" hole vent in lid and the famous hinged door.

Just an image of the chrome bad ass monster.  The entire apparatus will be suspended in a stand above the "ground" using a plant stand.

The simulator sitting on a rack suspended so air can travel in through the bottom and side vents.

Update:  Not learning much, I really need a good voluminous smoke source.  Incense isn't enough and it attracted hippies.

Waafer thin pizza

My preference in pizza is a medium crust, not cracker thin, not thick.  In my terms, about 225 g per 10-12" diameter.  

My preference is changing to a thin crust; I thought you might appreciate my reasons for the change:

1.  In the book Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink, he describes experiments that clearly demonstrate our ability to take a cue when we've eaten enough - stinks.  We pretty much eat all that is served.  Read the book, the experiments are awesome - especially the Pringles experiment.   One related  observation on this is we'll be just as satisfied when eating two meals of approximately the same volume, e.g., a double burger might make us just as satisfied as a single burger stuffed with veggies; there are better examples in the book.  I figured a thinner crust might serve as a substrate for the same 12" pizza with fewer calories.  Note: I realize I'm dangerously close to a low carb thing here, but I'm simply trying to find a great satisfying food with a few less calories.

2. I really love (some) thin crust pies, especially those of California Pizza Kitchen.  Thin, yet good bubbles on the surface, tender and wonderful flavor.

3. A higher veggie to carb ratio can not be bad (again, dangerously close to low carb stuff - warning! mid age belly burgeoning).
4. The wife and kid like the thin pies too.  

I want to make a thin crust pizza rivaling my current favorite, CPK.

The number of experiments - given my current understanding and experience making pizza at home - are limited.  I want some oil in the dough for tenderness, but the big question is a slack or stiff dough (high moisture or low moisture respectively) better?  The only way to start this investigation is pretty easy: try both. 

Commercially, a shop would use a sheeter to get dough this thin and even.  I'll just weigh the lump of dough, push it to half the diameter by hand and finish with a rolling pin.  Prior rounding of the lump of dough will give a disk of dough with adequate symmetry (important for density for the two pizzas).

The dough recipes:

Slack Dough (depicted below)
water, 220 g
unbleached white flour (Montana Sapphire), 300 g
sugar, 5 g
olive oil, 25 g
salt, 5 g
yeast, Red Star instant active, 7 g
Mixed, 1 rise, scaled to 150 g and rolled to 12" diameter (pretty exact)
topped with fresh thinly sliced tomato, chevre and basil, baked at 450°F

Stiff Dough
water, 180 g - all else the same
...stay tuned...

..

Simple dinner with the slow cooker

Cooked a split breast over potatoes on the kettle, indirect at about 300-350°F for 2 hours, pulled and wrapped chicken while potatoes finished up directly over coals.  Wow.  I wish I could've done the whole thing  sloooowly, but weeknight's are weeknights.

Wheat sandwich bread

I've had a love affair with soft squishy white bread since since I was about 1 [note 1].  Sunbeam was best, but Wonder was ok in a pinch.  The crust is merely a darker version of the middle, it has a twinkie-long shelf life and it practically withers in the presence of moisture, but it's still a fine substrate for bolony with mustard, pb&j or sopping up bbq sauce.  Y'all like it more than you'll admit.


But, it is an enigma of baking.  I can buy this stuff if I want and occasionally do, but it is the challenge of recreating a recipe based on my perception and palate that drives the pursuit to duplicate it in my kitchen.  More importantly, once I get the gist of the soft bread, I could elevate it to something special and that is the reason for this post.  I have and I did and now I will share with you.

This is a straight dough method, mixing, rises and proof is as described in  Wayne Gisslen's Professional Baking.  Basically toss all ingredients in and mix and knead.  The big break in this loaf is the use of a softer (lower protein) flour to to blend with the unbleached white to afford a softer loaf.  Note: My preferences are to use a scale to weigh ingredients, a bread machine to knead, and I use instant (aka fast rising, any brand except Kroger) active dry yeast [note 2].

This particular loaf is the white bread version using cake flour.  The crumb and interior is the same for the whole wheat pastry flour variant.  When I get an image of the wheat, I'll replace it.

Preparation:

Add the following, any order to the chamber of a bread machine or a bowl:

water, about room temperature, 180 grams
salt, 5 grams
vegetable oil, 20 grams
sugar, 10 grams
instant active dry yeast, 1 pkt, 7 grams
unbleached white flour, Montana Sapphire, 225 grams
whole wheat pastry flour, 75 grams

Mix and knead by hand for 5 minutes or spin about 5 minutes in a bread machine's dough cycle.
Plop out and let rise for about an hour.
Preheat the oven to 375°F.
Punch down and round the dough, let rest about 5 minutes.
Form into a oblong loaf big enough to just fit in a 8.5" x 4.5" loaf pan lined with parchment.
Let rise/proof in this pan about 20-25 minutes uncovered (uncovered so the surface dries out, this will enable a cleaner slash when docking the dough) [note 4]
Slash once across the length with a knife (I use serrated) and place in oven to bake 30 minutes.
Remove from the pan and let cool on rack about 30 minutes before jumping in.

Notes:

1. I was raised on great bread; Esposito's scali was the staple in our house.  A thin-sliced scali with mortadella and fine hams was how we survived, but since I was one of 4 hungry kids, my mother used white bread when necessary to fill the bellies of the masses.


2. When communicating a recipe, I like it to be specific so the person has a good chance of hitting the same success I did.  Using a yeast with perfect integrity in a small packet is as close as I can get to a reproducible source to convey to someone conducting the prep for the first time.  I have no idea how a 3 month old jar of bulk yeast will behave, nor a 6 month old, nor any other yeast.  Given the rigorous specifications a company must comply with, using a small quantity with perfect airtight packaging is the best a home baker, with no micro lab, can do to insure a consistent starting point [note 3] (sorry Rachel).

3. I can almost guarantee 9 out of 10 will completely disregard my babbling on yeast, my mother is one of those 9 because she "has been baking forever."  Whenever I get an email that declares the procedure "didn't work" they all admit to a significant change in the method because they felt it was unnecessary; I'm off the hook in that case, to repeat something, you must do the control or you have no argument.

4. This is a fast rise loaf.  Don't over proof or the final crumb will be grainy instead of feathery.  It will also have pretty darn nice oven spring.  Longer rise is not always better, it depends on the loaf.

brisket, finally

I never make brisket because it's tough to do well.  I've made a couple in my day, 1 mediocre, 1 really bad, but both so long ago, I forget the details.  The challenge of brisket is the long cooking time, about 18 hours with good temperature control.

Some time back I happened on the BBQ Pit Boyz video on brisket.  It's over 18 minutes long and worth every minute spent watching.   I was inspired.  I forgot all my past attempts and ran to get myself a 6 and half pound brisket with a good fat cap.  I did absolutely everything they did on the vid, so this post isn't anything more than a validation of their method.  Mustard coat, good spice rub, refrigerated a few hours, set the grill for indirect, minion method, water bath (I never do water baths, and I think maybe it was responsible for the good temp control I achieved), 225-250° for 14 hours, wrapped it for 2 hours at ca. 150°F, and finally let it rest, still wrapped, for a final 2 hour rest.  Started it Wednesday night and it was ready just in time for dinner Thursday.  Spend the time, watch the video and make this!  Thanks BBQ Pit Boyz.

Fat side up, rubbed, grill set for indirect with water pan.

After about 14 hours cooking at 225-250F

Just look at it!

Pizza dough

Making pizza is as much about the cooking method as it is the dough.  So that's the caveat with which I share this not very special prep.  The baking of the pie is a little different as many will attest to.

But, many still ask for the dough prep, here's mine - and sorry, it's in grams, get an Escali [Note: this is not an affiliate link] for $20 and get over it.  Weigh things when you cook, you'll be surprised how much better your intuition becomes in cooking and in everyday interactions with the world when you know a few common weights.

In addition to a balance, get a bread machine to be a dedicated kneading machine.  These things are about $5 in a thrift store and they are ALWAYS in stock, the kneading is all the same and it's better than a Kitchen Aid, way better.  Oh, and they absolutely suck at baking bread, hence the abundant supply in thrift stores.

To the bread machine pan add in any order:
unbleached white flour, I am dedicated to Montana Sapphire, 575 g
water, 400 g
Adriatic sea salt evaporated from the shell of a tortoise, 10 g (kidding, any salt)
olive oil, 50 g
sugar, 10 g
a pack of INSTANT active dry yeast.  Don't use the bottle, don't worry about price, you're making 4 pizzas worth, don't use the bulk bottle, don't use it no matter what, instant active dry yeast, not the bulk bottle.  Got it?

Set to spin on dough cycle, remove when it looks like the video:


When it's kneaded about 5-10 minutes, dump on counter, flour the ball so it won't stick and store in fridge.  I cut off 1/4 of the ball, about 250 g for a 10-12" pie.  This will stay in the fridge for a week or keep in the freezer for longer.

Enjoy

Tortilla or piadina?

I haven't been thrilled with my tortillas of late and decided to search for a flour tortilla instead of masa to see if I liked them better. I found one of Bayless' many recipes. I wanted to just try a little batch to see what they were like. I made a math mistake and scaled the fat wrong, but the experiment was fun.

I cut lard (20 g, should'be been 10 g) into white wheat flour (60 g) and salt (ca. 1 g) and to this added water (40 g). The 100 g of dough was divided, rounded and pushed into squat 4" diameter disks to rest. I pushed them into ca. 8" discs using a tortilla press and tossed 'em in the fridge (fatty dough sticks, it's easier to handle when slightly chilled) and fired up my gas grill with the cast iron grate.

I cooked them a minute or so each side. We probably should've let them sit a bit, but ate them both immediately. They were really good, but a tad doughy tasting. I may not have aged the dough sufficiently before cooking.

I think these were a success, but they raise a few of questions:
1. This is essentially the same recipe (only white, not wheat flour) as the Piadina of Emiglia-Romagna. Piadina were graciously served to us by dear friends some time ago and I'm not sure if they taste similar because it was long ago. I'll be consulting with them soon when I remake these.

2. Are they satisfactory tortillas? Again, I think they have to be repeated with unbleached white.

3. Are they good? Heck ya, no matter how they're used, they were good.  I'm still not sure if this is the way I want to cradle my taco fillings though.  Again, precooking resting is in order as is the use of white flour.

Here's a couple images of the pressed out tortillas and final cooked product:

Guest blogger Frankie: On the international appeal of meat and potatoes (and cheese)

Relaxing at her Clintonville ranch, Frankie talks about tonight's casserole and the bigger scene in simple foods.

Not creme de menthe

Me: When did you get the idea to prepare and serve us Tater Tot Casserole?
Frankie: Yesterday at camp (Kids in the Kitchen, OSU's Camp Recky) we made it and split 1 casserole for two tables. We had 2 or 3 tables and 1 piece each and you won't believe how good it is!
Me: How much cheese?
Frankie: A lot! We used the whole bag yesterday.
Me: What goes in first?
Frankie: First the meat, then the tater tots and then cheese and then it's cooked.
Me: Should I cook the meat first?
Frankie: Yes and I'll put it together.
Me: [meat is browned and Frankie places it in an even layer in the baking pan] How many tater tots go on top?
Frankie: Rows of 5 until it's filled, then tons of cheese.
Me: Toss it in the oven.
Frankie: No you, it's too hot for me [I toss it in].
Me: Do French kids eat tater tot casserole?
Frankie [exasperated]: I don't know, and could you make me a bigger lunch for tomorrow?
Me: Peanut butter, jelly then peanut butter?
Frankie: Duh.
Me: Got it.

Voilá
Fin