Bread Baking in Strange Times (Pain de mic)

Tartine/King Arthur Olive Loaf June 19, 2020

The Covid-19 pandemic, and the attendant lockdown, has been a crazy experience. I have been cooking almost every night, and we've been home for lunch, too, so in three months I have done nearly a year's cooking. Which I like and which keeps me sane.

Like many other people, I have been baking. Notwithstanding a few cakes and cookies, this means BREAD!

Luckily, since yeast was not available in the markets, I use levain (Tartine Bakery's version of sourdough) and a very slow-rising technique. King Arthur, my former go-to place for starter, was out, so I got starter from Breadtopia on line, and it is a very vibrant starter from the moment you get it. I feed it regularly, using the Tartine formula of 50/50 bread and whole wheat flours. And that's how I started my pandemic baking.

After She-Wolf Bakery came to the Upper West Side Sunday farmers' market, I virtually stopped baking bread, since there's was better and all I had to do was to pay for it. However, this changed when the pandemic arrived, and I decided to go back to baking my own.

To get my bread-baking chops going, I started with Tartine's

Basic country bread.

Country loaf April 3, 2020

More than once.

Country loaf April 7, 2020

Not surprisingly, the second effort was more successful.

Then I moved on to some of Tartine's more advanced breads:

Oat porridge bread:

Oat porridge bread April 13, 2020

A good-tasting, gorgeous bread, but heavy and a bit flat.

Semolina bread with fennel, sesame and poppy seeds:

Semolina bread with fennel, sesame and poppy seeds April 20, 2020

One of my all-time favorites, but a little flat. My technique was not quite there yet.

Country rye bread:

Country rye loaf April 26, 2020

Farro porridge bread:

Farro porridge bread May 1, 2020

Then back to my favorite

Semolina bread with fennel, sesame and poppy seeds

Semolina bread with fennel, sesame and poppy seeds May 8, 2020

Success!

While wandering around on King Arthur's website, I came across a recipe for sourdough bread made in a way similar to Tartine's but with easier timing. You make the dough the night before (it has to rest and be folded once an hour for three hours before spending 8-48 hours in the fridge). On baking day, you just shape it, plop it into your covered iron bread baking pan (I use a Lodge Combo, as recommended by Tartine), wait three hours for it to come to room temperature and bake.

King Arthur's sourdough bread:

King Arthur's sourdough bread May 14, 2020

And it was good. Lighter than Tartine's and almost as tasty.

Now a detour. A high school friend's daughter, Beryl Forman, sent me the recipe for her well-publicized olive loaf.

Beryl Forman's olive loat (modified) May 26, 2020

Beryl uses the regular oven with a few sprays of water, rather than the Dutch oven method, to keep the moisture level right, but I opted for a hybrid of the Tartine and King Arther methods. A very nice loaf but not as olive-y or salty as I would have liked.

Then back to Tartine. Yet another go at

Semolina bread with fennel, sesame and poppy seeds:

Semolina bread with fennel, sesame and poppy seeds June 6, 2020

Now I determined to use Tartine's formula for olive bread, which uses more olives and in bigger pieces than Beryl's (two cups mixed green and black olives, quite coarsely chopped), but with the King Arthur sourdough method.

Tartine/King Arthur sourdough olive bread:

Tartine/King Arthur sourdough olive loaf June 13, 2020

It was great, lots of salty olive and olive oil taste with a lovely crumb. Just a tiny bit flat, though. So I tried again today, and nailed it! See the first picture at the top. And the recipe below.

Next I'm going to try the same thing but with toasted walnuts instead of olives. Will report back.

Bobby Jay
 

No-knead Sourdough [Olive] Bread

(King Arthur and Tartine for olives and/or walnuts

Make one big loaf
Ingredients		Directions
·       1 cup (227g) ripe (fed) sourdough starter ·       1 3/4 cups (397g) lukewarm water ·       5 cups (602g) King Bread Flour ·       1 tablespoon (18g) salt ·       Optional: 1 cup cured black and 1 cup green olives, coarsely chopped and/or chopped toasted walnuts ·       2 teaspoons diastatic malt powder, optional for a more golden color and stronger rise (I don’t use) Day 1 time 0:00 1       Weigh your flour; or measure it by gently spooning it into a cup, then sweeping off any excess. 2       Combine all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl, or a large (6-quart) food-safe plastic bucket. 3       Mix and stir everything together to make a sticky, rough dough. If you have a stand mixer, beat at medium speed with the paddle attachment for 30 to 60 seconds. Or just stir with a big spoon or dough whisk until everything is combined. Day 1 time 0:00– 3:00 4       Leave the dough in the bucket or 6-quart bowl, cover it with the bucket’s lid or a piece of plastic wrap, and let rise for 1 hour. 5       Gently pick up the dough and fold it over on itself several times, cover it again, and let it rise for another hour. 6       Repeat step 5 and place bread in bucket/bowl  in the fridge for 8-48 hours		Day 2 time 0:00 7       When you're ready to make bread, turn the dough out onto a well-floured work surface, and shape it into a rough ball. Leave the dough seam-side up, cover it, and let it rest on a floured surface for 15 minutes. Day 2 time 0:15 8       Next, shape the dough to fit the vessel in which you’ll bake it: a 13” log for a long covered baker, such as KAs glazed long covered baker; or a large boule (round) for a round baker or Dutch oven. Place the shaped dough into the lightly greased base of the baker and cover it with the lid. Let the loaf warm to room temperature and rise; this should take about 2 1/2 to 3 hours. It won't appear to rise upwards that much, but will relax and expand. Day 2 time 2:15 9       With a rack positioned in the middle, start preheating the oven to 500°F one hour before you’re ready to bake. Day 2 time 3:15 10     Just before baking, dust the loaf with a fine coat of flour and use a lame or a sharp knife to make one or several 1/2” deep slashes through its top surface. If you're baking a long loaf, one arched slash down the loaf lengthwise is nice, or if baking a round, a crosshatch or crisscross pattern works well. 11     Cover the baker with its lid and place it in the oven. Reduce the oven temperature to 450°F and bake the bread for 45 minutes. Day 2 time 4:00 12     Remove the cover of the baker and bake the bread for 10 to 15 minutes longer, until the bread is deep golden brown and crusty, and a digital thermometer inserted into the center of the loaf reads at least 210°F. Day 2 time 4:10-4:15 13     Remove the bread from the oven and transfer it to a rack to cool completely. VARIATION: ADD 2 CUPS COARSLEY CHOPPED GREEN AND CURED BLACK OLIVES AND/0R TOASTED WALNUTS AFER STEP 4.

Great Ingredients Make a Great Sandwich

Sunday I went to the wonderful greenmarket on Columbus Avenue and West 77th Street, and bought, among other things, a fantastic sesame wheat loaf from She-Wolf Bakery, sprouts and baby lettuces,  a shockingly good tomato and a red onion. For lunch I made open sandwiches , covering the bread  a very thin layer of tofu cream cheese, some smashed avocado, hot-smoked salmon, sprouts, red onion and tomato. Pure heaven.

Hot-smoked salmon and avocado sandwich

If you have great ingredients, let them tell the story.

Bobby Jay

What I've Been Cooking - 4

Chocolate orange tart

As is our custom, we spent the end of the year in Paris. We mostly eat out when we're there, and what I cook there is often not very photogenic. In fact, most meals are half cooked and half provided by the excellent traiteurs and charcutiers and fromagers in the neighborhood.

Until Christmas, that is. As is our custom, we invited our Japanese ceramics artists/friends for Christmas dinner.

We started with salted pork tenderloin from the Vosges, which I found at Maison Plisson, not far from where we live and an easy visit during my daily walks. Very tender and perfectly seasoned.

Salted Vosges pork tenderloin

This was followed by Serendipity Chicken Livers, invented by the renowned Dorie Greenspan the day we shopped and had dinner together en famille at her apartment. We were shopping at a very fine volaillerie in the Richard Lenoir market, near the Bastille, when Dorie spotted some gorgeous chicken livers, which she said were a favorite of her husband's. So she bought a bunch and prepared them that day, roughly chopped with various Asian flavors: a wildly successful improvisation! After refining the recipe a bit, she graciously furnished it to me under strict orders not to share it unless and until she published it. So I have jealously guarded the recipte, but I did make and share the chicken livers themselves, and they were almost as great as when Dorie made them. We had them for lunch several times in the days after Christmas.

Serendipity chicken livers

For the main course, I made slow-cooked lamb shoulder over pommes boulangère, a classic from Tom Kerridge, the owner-chef of the only pub in the world to hold two Michelin stars. Starting with amazingly good (and expensive) lamb from Boucherie Gardil, on the Île Saint-Louis, what could go wrong? And nothing did.

Lamb shoulder with pommes boulangère

After a light green salad with a perfect Vacherin du Mont d'Or, my absolutely favorite cheese, only available in the winter months, I served a chocolate orange tart from Milk Street TV. Pretty and tasty if a bit too sweet for my taste. (Pictured above.)

We finished with some Armagnac and then more or less collapsed.

Bobby Jay

How to Make Great Chicken Stock

One of the main reasons that my food tastes better than it used to is that I use homemade chicken stock rather than store-bought. The collagen-rich stock adds richness and body to pan sauces and soups and generally raises the level of the underlying dish perceptibly.

I use a pressure cooker and you should, too. But my recipe works without it. Either way, it takes just five minutes to get the ingredients in the pot and little maintenance thereafter (none if you use a pressure cooker).

Chicken stock ingredients in pressure cooker - before and after cooking

Bobby Jay's Chicken Stock

I have a million recipes for chicken stock, but here's what I do:

Ingredients (you don't have to be very precise about any of these):

• 2 1/2 lbs of chicken backs, 1 1/4 lbs of chicken feet (it's REALLY better if you can get feet, but otherwise use wings - much more expensive and a lot less collagen)
• 1 medium onion, quartered (I like to keep the peel on, which gives a darker stock, but you can peel)
• parsley (most importantly the stems, but I use the leaves, too) - about 10-15 stems
• 1/4-1/2 tsp of black peppercorns
• 1 or 2 whole cloves
• A couple of medium carrots, cut into medium pieces
• A couple of stalks of celery cut into medium pieces

Directions:

Put everything into a pressure cooker, then cover with water. If you don't have a pressure cooker, use a big pot. Bring to a boil under pressure (or not, in which case you need to skim the impurities as the chicken comes to a boil), then cook at pressure for about 45 minutes or simmer slowly for a couple of hours -- three is even better -- making sure the chicken stays covered. You can also put it all into a slow cooker and leave it all day on low, but I prefer the pressure cooker.

NOTE: I don't use garlic or salt. which most recipes call for. I prefer to do that when making the dish in which the stock is used.

When done, strain, then reduce by 1/3. Let cool overnight, then take the fat off the top and discard (or use for schmaltz, if you're into it). 

Chilled stock with fat layer on, then removed, showing gelatinous stock

Next, put the stock into 1/3 cup muffin pans (I use silicone), and freeze. If you've done this right and uused chicken feet, this will have a gelatinous consistency.

Stock in 1/3 cup muffin pans

Store the 1/3 cup stock disks in a big (2-gallon if you can find them) ziploc bag for future use.

Frozen 1/3-cup chicken stock disks

To use, add enough water per disk to get to 1/2 cup, so 2 disks = 1 cup of very rich stock. You don't have to reduce, but my muffin tins are 1/3 cup so it fits if reduced by 1/3. If you have different units to freeze in, adjust accordingly. You probably will have about 18 disks, i.e. 6 cups of frozen stock, or 9 cups of stock once diluted. 

You can also freeze the cooled stock (reduced or not) in freezer grade ziploc bags. Put a cup or two into a quart bag, then gently squeeze out as much air as possible and lay on its side in the freezer.

Homemade stock is so precious that when I am making a recipe that calls for a huge amount of it, such as chicken soup or chicken in the pot, I use homemade stock for half and Swanson's for the remaining half. Totally fine.

Of course, you don't have to reduce or freeze the stock at all. You can use it right away or store it in the fridge for a few days. You're going to boil it anyway when you use it.

Dark stock option: if you want a dark stock, you can roast the bones, carrots, onions and celery in a hot over for an hour or so and then use all (adding the parsley, pepper and cloves) as above. It will be less gelatinous but have stronger taste. I generally don't do this for chicken, but do for turkey stock.

Try it. But seriously, get a pressure cooker; it makes your stock better and faster, and lots of other things, too. And today's pressure cookers are totally safe, despite what your grandmother may have said.

Bobby Jay

Bobby Jay Sandwich: Summer Surf and Turf

Bobby Jay Sandwich: smoked trout, ricotta, tomato, etc. on sprouted rye

Inspired by a wonderful dense sprouted rye loaf from She-Wolf Bakery that I found at the Upper West Side Sunday farmers market, I made this sandwich for lunch today. I spread hand-packed ricotta on thin slices of the bread, added very thin slices of jalapeno pepper thin slices of red onion, thin slices of super ripe heirloom tomato, flakes of lemon pepper smoked trout and chopped dill. A big success, and a nice concept, but what made it better than good was the bread from She-Wolf, the Brooklyn bakery that makes the best bread I have found in New York.

And here it is:

She-Wolf Bakery's sprouted rye loaf

This would alos be fine with smoked salmon, of course. The key is to use the best and freshes ingredients you can find.

Bobby Jay

Périgord -- Girolles

We spent a few days in le Périgord with good friends who have a magnificent home in the heart of the region. This year, a neighbor gave our friends a massive quantity of girolles that he had foraged on his own land. I made a dinner appetizer with half of them, but the really special thing was to make girolle toasts for breakfast. Nothing but an obscene quantity of mushrooms sauteed with a little garlic, lots of thyme, salt and pepper, served on slices of toast made with perfect country bread.

Sauteed girolles on country toast

Easy but hard to beat. All you need is loads of spectacular fresh girolles.

Bobby Jay

Cherries and Berries with GINGER!!!

I love, love, love ginger, and I like to use lots of it with fruit. So I grabbed a beautiful bunch of early but sweet and firm cherries from Washington and some Florida-grown blueberries, and concocted dessert.

Cherries and blueberries with ginger five ways

I pitted the cherries and cooked them in a small amount of Monin Ginger Syrup, with a dusting of powdered sugar and a nice pinch of powdered ginger. When the cherries were soft but maintaining their shape, I folded in blueberries and diced organic (spicy) candied ginger. Then served it with ginger ice cream that I made with fresh ginger into which I also folded diced candied ginger. So there you have it: ginger syrup and powder, candied ginger, and ginger ice cream (containing fresh and candied ginger). Four or five forms of ginger, depending on how you count.

(Other enhancements I have tried include chopped toasted almonds, almond syrup or kirsch liqueur instead of ginger and ground Amaretti di Saronno or other cookies, but the technique lends itself to endless variations depending on your taste and what's in your pantry.)

Need I say the dish was excellent, bursting as it was with cherry, berry and ginger tastes? How could it not be if you're a ginger lover?

Bobby Jay

Périgord - Grilled Veal Rack

One of the great cooking pleasures that I am denied as an urban dweller is grilling. Our friends in Périgord have a lovely gas grill, set up overlooking a beautiful valley, which was calling me from the moment we arrived.

I had recently come across twin recipes in Bon Appétit for grilled rack of veal and grilled rack of pork, both of which called for rubbing the meat, searing it on the grill, then roasting it slowly on the grill, then removing  the loan from the bones and finally separating the bones and grilling them at high heat for a few minutes. The loin is great and the bones even better. I determined to give it a try with wonderful French veal from the nearby Limousin, rubbed with a porcini powder, sugar, salt and pepper melange.

The first order of business, and perhaps the most fun, was a trip to the local butcher to get the veal rack. My friend said I needed to get Jean-Louis to wait on me, but a younger butcher asked to serve me and I didn't want to be rude. When I described what I wanted -- a four-bone rack of veal trimmed but not Frenched, with the chine bone removed -- he said I needed to wait for Jean-Louis. When J-L heard what I needed, he brought out a side of veal and we jointly decided on the perfect cut. He was rightly extremely proud of his veal, which he emphasized is raised complete "sous la mere" (under its mother) (this is the most humane way to raise veal and, not surprisingly, results in the tastiest meat). When I described what I planned to do, he was pleased, and since our roast was too big for four I joked that he should come for dinner. What vegetable are you making? he replied. As I have described in other posts, I just love going to the butcher in France.

The second problem was the rub. After searching in vain (as expected) for porcini powder, I finally found dried porcini (cèpes in French) at a supermarket, which I ground into powder in our friends' excellent blender. The rub itself was simple and all that waited was the grilling.

Here is the beautiful roast being seared on the grill . . .

Rack of veal on the grill

and here it is in the kitchen after it was fully roasted.

Roasted rack of veal

And then there's the proud me, getting ready to cut the roast off the bones prior to grilling them.

A boy (me) and his veal rack

I was too busy having fun at this point to remember to get a picture of the grilling or grilled bones, which were truly spectacular. So I and my hosts will have to settle for the memory and you will have to use your imagination.

The next day I returned to the butcher and loudly told Jean-Louis how well the meal had come out and how much I appreciated his meat. He was beaming and one of the many ladies on line in the shop said my visit was well-timed, producing a perfect commercial for Jean-Louis and his excellent butcher shop.

Bobby Jay

Jerked Pork Chops and Smoked Potatoes

J has been after me to make smoked potatoes, which we discovered recently at a restaurant that I can't remember. Last night I made them, using the tried and true recipe that I got from Laura Calder and eight minutes in my Cameron stove-top smoker.

The potatoes spurred me to fill out the menu with Caribbean Jerk Pork Chops, rubbed with a jerk paste and, again, smoked in my stove-top stuffer. The sauce is from Big Bob Gibson, the procedure is the product of experimentation by yours truly.

It's easy to dry out pork chops, especially when smoking them, so it's important to find moist ones with some fat. The other approach - brining them - helps but does not produce the rich flavor that rendering fat produces. I made the trek to the Essex Market to find chops at Heritage Meat Shop (the retail space of Heritage Farms), and was rewarded with these gorgeous Tamworth chops.

Tamworth pork chops from Heritage Meat Market

Now it was just a matter of rubbing them with the jerk sauce, smoking them and finishing first in the oven and then under a broiler. Here's the result, with the potatoes and some sauteed zucchini; not a great picture, I'm afraid, but the tastes were there. The accompanying jerk-spiced barbecue sauce tied the plate together a bit and brought the chops to life.

Smoked potatoes, Tamworth pork chop and grated zucchini

The recipes for the pork chops and the smoke potatoes follow:

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Caribbean Jerk Pork Chops

(Big Bob Gibson)

Ingredients

·       1 habañero chile, seeded and chopped

·       1 small onion, coarsely chopped

·       1 scallion, thinly sliced

·       1 garlic clove, thinly sliced

·       1 teaspoon ground allspice

·       3/4 teaspoon dried thyme

·       1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

·       1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

·       1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

·       Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

·       1 tablespoon vegetable oil, plus more for brushing

·       1 cup store-bought Kansas City–style barbecue sauce

·       4 pork rib chops (12 ounces each)

·       2 ½ TBS hickory, pecan or oak chips

Directions

1.     In a mini food processor, combine the habañero, onion, scallion, garlic, allspice, thyme, ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon. Add 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt and 1 teaspoon of pepper. Process until finely chopped. Add the 1 tablespoon of oil and process to a smooth paste.

2.     In a small bowl, whisk 1 tablespoon of the paste with the barbecue sauce. Spread the remaining paste all over the chops and let stand at room temperature for 30 minutes.

3.     Put wood chips into Cameron smoker. Cover and let the chips begin to smoke, about 5 minutes.

4.     Cook the chops in smoker over moderately high heat for 30 minutes.  Check temperature with a meat thermometer close to the bone. If necessary, put into 400 oven and roast for a few minutes, until they are lightly charred the temperature is about 140°. Transfer the chops to a platter and let rest a few minutes.  Then broil on one side until they get a nice color, about 3 minutes, and serve with the spiced barbecue sauce on the side.

NOTE 1: This is a very hot sauce.  Best to put less jerk mix into the BBQ sauce.

NOTE 2: Big Bob uses the jerk rub for slow-cooked pork.

Smoked Squished Baby Potatoes

(Laura Calder, Bobby Jay)

Ingredients

·       2 lbs baby Yukon Gold potatoes

·       Kosher salt and pepper

·       olive oil

·       2 TBS hickory, pecan or oak chips

Directions

1.     Scrub the potatoes and place them in salted water. Bring to a boil and cook until tender, but not totally soft.

2.     Flatten the potatoes a little with a mallet, a ramekin or your hand.

3.     Put wood chips into Cameron smoker. Cover and let the chips begin to smoke, about 5 minutes.

4.     Cook the potatoes in smoker over moderately high heat for 7-8 minutes.

5.     Put the potatoes on a baking sheet and bake in 400° oven for about 35 minutes, until they are crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.

Enjoy!

Bobby Jay