STIR THE POTS

What's in a bread?

A friend the other day tasting a bread I made was asking if I put different ingredients or surprises in a loaf. Evidently she thought bread needed something more then depth of character of my levain. I wondered if she considered the time consumed in preparing the levain. The harnessing of wild yeasts to lift and flavor a loaf. Most recently a pain au levain I recently baked,with some difficulty. Not that I didn't know how to make a pain au levain, just my levain was telling me something else. Some how I decided to neglect my levain, chucking it in the fridge, not feeding it adequately and thinking that it would respond to whatever I felt like using it for. Not happening. So, if you want good bread, learn the fundamentals, stick by the rules and what the bread, levain and atmosphere tells you. Respect and follow the rules you learn in the craft of baking. Bakers harness  and maintain the different elements in baking, fermentation, shaping, baking. You can elevate your bread literally, with simple ingredients create amazing flavors, and of course throw in some special surprises and twists for those difficult friends who want a treat.

Puff Pastry

When graduating from culinary school, our test was to make two recipes picked randomly from the course repertoire. Luck gave us a hot June day, and I was tasked with making puff pastry. I still remember the heat of the air and the cool marble kitchen table tops starting to sweat. Or maybe that was me.

This past weekend I had a craving for chausson, commonly referred to in this country as turnovers. All to say, back to puff pastry. I thought of going 100 percent whole wheat, but winged a formula by splitting half white and whole wheat for pastry. Fillings were inspired by baker  Craig Ponsford, who always has mouth watering descriptions of his turnovers. For filling I used kiwi, pineapple, mango with Chinese 5 Spice, along with traditional, rhubarb, apple and strawberry. My technique is a bit rusty on the puff pastry, but this first revisit was a success.

Chestnut Pasta

Seeking new flavors leads me to old ones. Pasta is a perfect foil for alternative flours. Since I've made bread with Italian chestnut flour, why not some chestnut pasta?  For dinner I wanted to marry the earthy flavor of chestnut with king oyster mushrooms. Chestnut flour is challenging to work in a pasta machine, but with good resting time, it worked well. Should I try rye my next try?

Grind Your Own

Since I had a grain mill attachment for my Kitchen Aid, I decided to mill my own flour. I had milled some grains before, primarily rye, when I wasn't able to get access to certain types of grinds that aren't readily available in stores.

On a recent visit to a farmer's market, I had purchased farro and rye, intending to use rye in German style breads and farro for salads. Milling farro to make my own flour didn't come into my mind. In truth, I wasn't so sure what farro was, whether it was emmer, spelt or einkorn? William Rubel, bread historian and author, had originally introduced me to farro, writing about this Italian based "ethnobotanic." According to him, it "encompasses three hulled wheats: einkorn, emmer, and spelt," each very "different from each other, especially einkorn." But often, farro is mislabled for spelt. To clarify what type of farro I had, I got in touch with Gregory Mol,from Trumansburg Flour, who works for the mill which produces Cayuga's grain.  It checked out that my farro was indeed emmer. 

My grain milled, I decided to try making both pretzels and an adaption of an Italian bread "pane di farro". Like freshly milled whole grain flours that I had purchased before, emmer had similar characteristics to spelt. It was a very active dough. I decided using a higher level levain in the final dough, thinking that without added commercial yeast, it might give it a boost, since it was whole grain. The difference in the flour is also evident in comparing it to store bought flours, which always have a conditioned feel and flavor. My foray into home milling will continue with grains I have purchased, including, freekeh( a green spelt that is roasted), rye, and whatever local grains I can find.

Photos below are the result's 

 

 

 

Curds

Cheese - For me, it's one of the final frontiers in food processing, or just a good excuse to make my own. Last year on a whim, I bought a bottle of rennet at Murray's Cheese. A liquid that is extracted from the stomach lining of cows, sheeps or goats. The complex enzymes(protease) are what coagulates the milk in cheese production, seperating the curds and whey. In this case, mozzarella, which can be made with  cows milk, but also with goats milk. A version described  by Canadian Chef Derek Damman calls "goatzarella." It didn't turn out so well as my first cheese project.

More recently I decided to finally make some mozzarella. I started with milk from a huge bulk grocery supplier. It's good to use local, and while pasteurized is okay, avoid ultra-pasteurized. I failed somewhere in my first attempt. And so instead of my curds coagulating perfectly, the first batch turned into a bad version of ricotta. But I would not be deterred and went out for new basics; using New Jersey milk, local enough, not overly pasteurized, and well..success!

 

Footnote: My fathers family were dairy men, I still have the dairy boxes with the name Shapiro and son's, this feels like full circle, cheese, milk......

 

Post It

Luck on Facebook led me to find Chef Aaron Patin of Wisconson, who is capable of creating some fabulous charcuterie. Over time, we decided to move from email to snail mail, as it would allow us to share more than recipes and actually send each other some food; my bread for his cured pork lomo. From virtual to postal networking - ah the delicous possibilities of modern life.

I figured a rye would travel better than a wheat loaf, which could easily go stale. And since I had made some German breads, including a rye, I sent it out. A day later, a package of Aaron's lomo arrived. I just had a slice, slightly melted on a new Landbrot. Delicious.  thank you Aaron, thank you Facebook, thank you U.S. mail!

Broa Makeover

Making a perfect loaf of bread takes tweaking and persistence. Take the loaf of Broa, a Portugese corn bread, I recently made. Though it had a rustic feel, I wanted a better looking bread, as well as better expansion in the crumb. So I took out my notebook from The French Culinary Institute, my training ground from years ago, and found a Broa formula.

Though similar to the recent formula I had used from Azelia's Kitchen, there were difference in hydration, as well as a pre-gelatinization of the corn meal, kind of like polenta. The biggest difference was my school's had a higher ratio of wheat over rye in the final dough, and it wasn't leavened with sourdough.   

 

600g maize

100g wheat
300g rye
700g water
20g salt
20g fresh yeast

Here is my adaption of FCI's  straight dough version, with a rye levain.

Corn Soaker

100% Coarse corn

200% Water

6% salt

12% Olive oil

Final dough:

83% Wheat, or bread flour

17% rye (Whole grain or medium)

30% Rye levain

106% Corn Soaker

2% Yeast  (Optional, but useful)

You need a lot of rye in your bannetons for this dough. In addition, it's tacky and difficult to shape. I left it seam side down for a more volcanic look.

 

Slice of Germany

I have a real hankering for German bread lately. It may come from nostalgic memories of living there, or just from an overstock of rye on a recent flour purchase. Not a problem. And with a local butcher in my neighborhood who makes good wurst and Westphalian ham, well, you need a good brotchen, pretzel or some rye bread. I've yet to make it to the new Landbrot bakery, so in the meantime, I'm making my own bread and liking it. Here are some of my recent bakes.

Krustis- A wheat rye roll, hybrid that's wonderful with a great sausage.

For a quickie with added yeast to the rye starter, it's really crisp and tasty. Though I will adapt to total sourdough perhaps?

Currywurst, just like in Stuttgart, just forgot the bier!

Buttered and with some ham...breakfast!

Landbrot mit Sauerkraut

This is a Dan Leader formula from the bread program he started at French Culinary Institute many years ago. Though there were lots of errors in the original formulas, and we had to tweak throughout the course, this a fabulous bread with deep flavor. It's made deliciously moist from the sauer and sauerkraut.

And now here is big hurdle that was achieved, a 100% Vollkornmehl, or whole grain rye bread. Though feeling like cement when mixed, it turns out a formidable champion of rye breads in the final bake.

Ramps

You know when ramps come around, you have got to use them. The season is so short and the window to enjoy this delicacy is just a memory till the next year. So my latest batch were used for specials at work, especially my fish dishes. Luckily, I had just a bit left, enough to pickle a few and make pesto. Pickled ramps are just delicious just as is, or in salad, on bread with cheese. The pesto is green, and sharp. I have to get some for my own home use, in bread, grilled. Ramps!!

A Baking Conundrum

Most bakers agree the first bulk ferment gives more flavor development to the dough. But in my experience, that rarely happens. So often I start a project bread dough on a whim. Then, half-heartedly looking at the clock, I have to rush or retard the dough.

With the bread, below, I did the opposite. A sourdough wheat formula from Alain Coumont's Cook + book, I was using my wonderful half white flour from Trumansburg. I baked it at home, during a break between my first and second shift. In need of a knead and a new loaf, I had a levain build at the last stages of a long ferment, and had just under two hours to make the dough. That was a short time for full bulk ferment; ideally an hour and a half to two for a kilo of miche.

Given my schedule, there would not be time for a preshape, just straight into banneton and a long final proof. I asked Daylesfords Organic's Head baker Eric Duhamel about my cunundrum regarding short bulk versus long final rise. He advised me to give it a longer bulk, adding that this is a subject about which "you could talk the beard off a billy goat if you like." Anyway, I went for it. In this first cut the crumb showed large holes. But as I sliced the crumb seemed more dense like the Miche I've had at Le Pain Quotidien. It worked.