Tag: recipes

May 8, 2024 – It’s Not the Time…

May 8, 2024 /

In December, one of my culinary book club peers gave me a sourdough starter. He is a tremendous bread maker and everything that he has shared seems nearly perfect. He says that the starter is over forty years old. Clearly, his efforts are the result of years of effort.

I didn’t ask for it, so I suspect that my wife did. Because as far as I knew, it was unsolicited and therefore I felt a sense of duty to keep it alive. Since December, I have made probably ten or so loaves of bread. All of them pretty marginal if I say so myself.

Like many of the things I do, I push the boundaries. I also don’t like waste. About a year or so ago, I accidently purchased some whole wheat flour. People in my house refuse to use it for anything, so I have been doing a half bread flour and half whole wheat flour loaves. The thing about whole wheat is that it does not develop the same gluten reaction and it comes out dense.

As a result, I have been messing around with the rise variables. The problem with sourdough is that left too long, it becomes gummy and thin, not bread at all but pancake batter. If not allowed to rise enough, it is a rock. Neither are desired results.

Ideally, this loaf would be 50% larger. I didn’t have time to let it sit for extra days nor did I actually have time to bake it properly. Hence, chock it up to another failure. But for every failure knowledge is gained. In this case, I used the oven off function because we had a doctor’s appointment to go to. All the while, the oven wasn’t on it continued to slowly dry out. It wasn’t a total puck but a 1/4″, rock hard crust all the way around.

Now to my point about time. Looking at the recipe, the only time listed as the bake time. It needs to bake at 400 degrees for approximately an hour. But, bread by its nature is way more complicated than that. Let us look at the variables and conditions.

First there is proofing time. This has been what has mostly been burning me. I find that in the winter, the kitchen temperature is not warm enough for dough to rise properly over night. This in turn puts it in jeopardy before I get started with meal planning. I think commercial operations use a proofing device or room for more consistent results.

Baking time is pretty straight forward. Some variability is expected but it is more or less along the time of the recipe. Another thing that burns me is bread needs to be done at least an hour before dinner. You cant just take it straight out of the oven to the table. I think if you are planning to eat by 6:00, bread should be done by 4:30.

Working backward, to be done by 4:30 it needs to be in the oven by 3:30. And don forget that the oven needs time to heat, so that means the oven needs to be turned on by 3. This means that the bread has to be risen by 3. If you check your progress at 12:00 and you don’t have the proper proofing, you are likely out of time to make perfect bread. So, you need to know whether you are going to gamble or throw in the towel for another day.

End Your Programming Routine: Now that I have written this all down, it seems simple. Hopefully, I can get my timing down such that all I really need to be concerned about is the proof. I am still working on that too. It is a good thing that I have to waste sourdough starter every week and I still have five pounds of wheat flour. Maybe I will get this figured out.

April 17, 2020 – Making Vanilla Extract

April 17, 2020 /

Enough of the heaviness. Because this has been a hard week, lets end on a happier note.

On my shopping list this month was vanilla extract because we have been doing a lot of baking lately. I almost fell over when I saw the price. I swear it was more like $15 the last time I bought it. Last time I checked, I think it was around $8 for 2oz. at the grocery store. Thirty-one dollars for 16oz. seems reasonable given that comparison.

Interestingly enough ‘America’s Test Kitchen’ did a comparison several years ago comparing real vs. artificial and the various options for vanilla extract. You can watch the video here.

I figured that I could make it cheaper and get the real thing. Will it be as good? Time will tell.

I ordered some beans online. I dug out some old bottles, that I plan on making root beer in the next couple of days. I bought some cheap whiskey, and then I topped it off with cheap vodka. In a couple months, it will be ready.

Researching recipes, I found quite a bit of variation in the ratios. But it all came back to the same theme: Beans, alcohol and time. Some of them suggested refilling the containers when the alcohol is empty… I don’t know about that unless we cant wait to break into the first one.

IngredientUsageCost
Vanilla Beans3 whole beans/cup of alcohol$18
AlcoholBourbon or Vodka or Rum or Brandy, fill to the top$13
Let sit for at least two months

It wasn’t totally sure, but I thought I had 16oz bottles. They turned out to be 24oz. I originally bought one 750ml bottle of Canadian whisky, but I was about 350ml short so I topped it up with vodka. So, I made 48oz of extract for $31.

Using my formula above, I probably should have put all of the beans into one bottle. The other wildcard is whether the bottle I am using will be adequate for dispensing. When I run across another bottle that will work better for dispensing, I may transfer out of the current container.

At the worst, you can drink the bottle if you don’t like the results. Enjoy.

February 5, 2020 – Book Report: Amacord

February 5, 2020 /

A few days ago, I finished reading “Amacord: Marcella Remembers” by Marcella Hazan. This book was selected by the Left Coast Culinary Club to read for January 2020.

I have to admit that I had never heard of Marcella Hazan, probably because of my age. She was a contemporary to James Beard, Julia Child and Robert Mondavi (think 1960s through the 90s). This is a biography about her life and an ode to Italian cooking, culture and living through food.

Preparing Masala Carrots

It is interesting to read a biography when you have no context or even a particular interest in the author or subject. It is probably a ‘You had to be there’ moment because we live in an era where not many things are exotic or unavailable. At the very least items or spices can be ordered on Amazon and the instruction is on Youtube. But during Marcella’s heyday, Italian cuisine and techniques were foreign to most Americans and northern Europeans.

The book jumps around a bit when it comes to a strict timeline, but it is organized in a way that the chapters are broken into phases in life and career which are presented mutually exclusive to the overlap in years. Even though I have been to Italy, I suspect that Italian cooking is much deeper and richer than pasta. Since this is not a cookbook, she alludes to that varied cuisine, but never really gets into recipes.

The chapter that I found most interesting was titled “How to Not get Rich: 1972-1993”. This talks about her various attempts to build branding outside of her cookbooks and teaching, think food products or manufacturing. I will summarize the outcome as she was unwilling to compromise on overall quality to meet the price thresholds to bring products to market. But, I got the feel from reading the book that her life was extremely fulfilling in living in the United States and Italy, pursuing her passion of teaching an building deep friendships with like minded people.

What I would say to that is that we are all in our journey of validation and fulfillment. From where I sit, that sounds pretty rich to me. When I get to my twillight, I think that I would rather be in Marcella’s seat than wealthy.

If you like culinary history or Italian food, you will probably like this book. I enjoyed the peak at a different era and I definitely like to read about success stories. It has inspired me to look a little deeper into Italian food in the future.

December 17, 2019 Stock or Water?

December 17, 2019 /
Making stock requires a few common ingredients

Reading ‘Salt, Fat, Acid Heat’ by Samin Nosrat a few months ago, one of her statements struck me. I am paraphrasing, but the implication is use homemade stock or water if not on hand, do not use pre-prepared or store bought stock. After listening to a few podcasts and reading the ingredients, I tend to agree as well.

The good news is, making stock is cheap and easy. The biggest hurdle is time followed by the end result storage if you don’t use it all in one setting. What I am showing in the picture is two whole chicken carcasses (mostly bones and skin), onion, garlic, celery, carrots, salt, pepper and bay leaves. I also don’t get too fussy about the proportions. I try to get two carrots and two celery stocks with half an onion, but I use what I have on hand. You can save parts on hand in the freezer until you feel like you have enough offal or bones or you need to make stock for a recipe.

For best results, try to keep it under boiling, but that is really for clarity and not flavor. My style is to let it go overnight, turn it off in the morning and stick it in the refrigerator the next evening. I also try to let it cool, skim off the fat and filter the liquid through a coarse strainer if I have the time

When complete, I put about three cups in a quart jar and put them into the freezer. If I have less than three cups, I put it into the refrigerator for current use. You can also pressure can it for shelf stable storage. That is it. In the words of Charlie Papazian, ‘Relax and have a homebrew, it will be alright’.