STIR THE POTS

On the road to find out!

Baking bread is always a challenge, especially when the weather changes. Lately I have been having quite a lot of trouble. They seem dense, even non-reactive. Makes for lousy loaves.

First, I blamed mistakenly mixing spelt into a formula rather then bread flour. And not having marked the flour bin, I ended up with some flat and flaccid hunks of baked dough.  Yesterday I asked MC for some help and she pointed out DDT. Did she mean  agent orange? No, that's when I remembered my school lectures about Desired Dough Temperature! Variables abound in baking and I simply have been throwing out the lessons, preferring to take the "touchy-feely method" of bread baking. Which translates into "the cross your finger route."

Following a recipe or formula in baking is a lot different than in cooking. Whereas the latter is more immediate, baking is a methodically timed process. All to say if you're like me (a stubborn student), spend more time on the basic lessons around bread, then observe and take note of what is happening from time of mix, ferment, shape and finally the bake.

 

Feeding my levains regularly, and even leaving them in the oven with only the pilot light on, makes it easier to escape the cooler temperatures of my apartment. No more mixing up flours or trying to rush the process. Maybe just a loaf at a time, scheduling is important too. Because there is nothing better then a risen loaf!

Levatation (Better baked then never!)

Ever have a bad bake? Lately for me, it's been happening far to often. Admittedly I am no professional baker. Nor do I have  scientific ability to judge what went wrong. But this has been ridiculous and really annoying. Take this weekend.  Lousy weather made it a great time to stay home.

My first attempt was Saturday, when I attempted a triple bread bake. It turned out either jinxed by the cold, bad levain, or the scheduling,or the hydration or just not having a damned clue. The end result was two loaves impossible to salvage or consider ingesting. The third was a baguette, which surprisingly made the cut, so much so we polished it off with some cheese for dinner. The other two unfortunates went into the bin.

I hate doing that, so I went back, fed the starters twice in the same day, and commenced this morning to mix, this time with only two loaves on the schedule. The first was my old standby "mountain," a sort of play on a campagne bread. Today I added poppy seeds into the mix. The other loaf was a hybrid I found on Nils site for quark brot. I adapted it by using some Fage Greek style yogurt, which my wife happened to have bought at zero percentage fat content, which sort of mimics the lighter quark cheese.

Success, two fabulously light loaves and with a picture perfect look as well.  Is it okay to boast? Hope so. Ahhh finally!

 

This whole bake was intended for Zorra's bread bake day, I missed the day and the cut, so I hope she will accept this late entry, my gesture for a wonderful celebration of one of my favorite staples in food.

Kenji Kume

 

Whenever I have worked with other chefs, it's almost most always been me as the student or observer. Cooking tends to be competitive, and there isn't much time for making friends when you're trying to climb the so-called "ladder." 

But recently, begun in travels to Turkey, I've had the chance to "play" with friends in the kitchen. Starting with my good friend, Dilara in Istanbul,  I have met and interacted with cooks in a less stress filled setting. In such a setting, these chefs, like me, seemed inspired by our surroundings and product.

On my last visit just this past summer,  I met and worked with Kenji Kume. Formerly a sushi chef, who worked in Japan, London and currently in Istanbul, Kenji has fused his various experiences to create a more holistic, global view of cooking and food. He balances past training in classic cuisines (which include French,Italian, Japanese and now Turkish cooking), using them as building blocks for anything he does in the kitchen. 

 

Together we collaborated at Abracadabra, creating an impromptu food lab, and then experimenting in Garp, where we fed people with bare bone ingredients. In truth we only worked a short time together. But for me, it was highly memorable. Fun.  Working in a primitive kitchen, we both realized that, though from different places in the world, cooking can bring you so close together.

Cliche as it sounds, food speaks all sorts of languages. We still keep in touch and Kenji still asks me when I am moving to Istanbul to join him on his current project. I will see, my friend. The offer is awfully attractive. In the mean time I am going to twist his arm and get him to talk to me about his fascinating experiences and great story of how he got into this food thing!

1-2-3 Cocktail party, panache minus hassle

Yes, I am still here, busy at work. But I'm also ready to enjoy a night of drinks and food with friends. As I did for the impromptu wine and snack party thrown together the other night. You don't want to spend all day cooking for a festive evening, and then find yourself exhausted, or continuing to prep while they're there. Or, at least I don't! Take it from me, you want to enjoy your company, eating and drinking along with the guests. With this in mind, I winged together some easy hor's deuvre for my guests. I had a pate made earlier in the week, no problem, slice garnish with some lettuce, cornichon and mustard, et voila!

 

Of course a nice loaf of bread or two is nice, with rabbit terrine, so why not a loaf of pain au levain?

 

And, if you make the salsa yourself, who would  blame you for cheating with some purchased tortilla chips? I whipped up a Oaxacan style chipotle sauce and a roasted tomatillo and aguacate salsa - one two three!

 

Then I went for a favorite for parties and bar style eats; Buffalo chicken wings. From a classic I   adapted,I pan fried the wings (avoiding the deep fry) to get some color, tossed them in a Sriracha, Worcestershire and butter sauce, into the oven and baked till golden and yummy, of course with the usual accoutrement of blue cheese and celery sticks! Very old school, but oh, so good!

And leftovers are never a bad thing, great for filling up things. For instance, some mini empanadas on the fly! These bad puppies got some braised turkey leg and mushroom filling, big hit!

 

Moral of the story: when entertaining  you don't always have to pull out every stop to dazzle or kick back. Let the wings cook themselves, have a glass of wine, reheat the empanadas, voila! No one cares if your olives or cheese dip are store bought, just a nip tuck or some adorning of olive oil or oregano makes it delicious. And hell, after four or five bottles of wine, you'll be acclaimed as a master chef. Or cool smooth host.

Mini baguette Paysanne!

Susan of WildYeast asked for some baguettes, so here, a version of Bouley bakery's mini baguette paysanne. It's a bakery where I worked one summer. This version of their baguette is completely 100% levain and are made to an unorthodox size to fit my home oven, as I don't think the deck ovens at SFBI would fit through any doorway in my building or make the 5 flights up to my apartment!

Tarts

Over the summer while cooking at Abracadabra, Dilara asked me to make tarts for my guest chef menu. Figs and various fruits were married with pistachio sable dough, the end result molded into a lemon tart originally created by Marco Pierre White. More recently, I was asked to make a daily tart on my fall menu. At first I was reluctant. My clientele are primarily a business bunch, in and out for lunch, not much time for a pastry. Perhaps they would go for a pudding, a mousse aux chocolat , berries, or sorbet. But why put even the minimal effort required for a tart when it would likely be eaten by staff rather than customers? Then again, even head chefs don't write all the rules, all to say that I begrudgingly accepted another added task on my already long list of "to dos."

It's been a couple of weeks since baking some basic tarts, most of them scratched out of memories of previous time as a pastry cook. Surprisingly we actually sold a few. Maybe "the tart" is catching on. They are actually so easy to assemble. You can fill them with anything, and finish with a glaze or powder with sugar.

Recently on a trip out to Redhook Brooklyn, I bought a Rosemary shortbread and apricot slice at Baked. It's awesome. The savory and sweet married so well with the sable crumb and streusel topping, I wolfed this pastry in minutes...seconds! So I decided to keep a compilation of tarts, a record for me and for some possible recipes coming up?