Red Pepper Cheese rolls

I finally perfected this recipe, which is basically a cinnamon bun, but with cheese and red pepper flakes instead of gooey sugar mix.  For the dough, I used the ciabatta mix in the same pdf I used for baguettes, but with some changes, so the ingredient list reads:

Biga:  180g bread flour, 225ml water, 1/4 tsp yeast
Bread: Biga, 100g whole wheat flour, 80g bread flour, 80ml warm water, 1.5tsp salt, 1 tsp yeast, 1tsp sugar, 1tb milk powder, 2tb olive oil

The big was quickly mixed and left overnight under a damp towel.
The next morning I first dissolved the sugar in the warmed water, and sprinkled the yeast on top.  Then I added everything else to the Biga.  The yeast/water/sugar mix followed after 10min, and I set the bread machine on "dough".

This took me up to the equivalent of the end of the first rise, at which point I upended the dough onto an oiled silpat, and using my oiled hands, gently spread/pulled it into a 8x12 in rectangle.  The first time I did this, I rolled it out, which did not work nearly as well as a very gentle shaping, which preserves the large air bubbles.

Ok, at that point you just layer cheese and red pepper flakes (or the filling of your choice) gently on the dough and roll it up, cut into 6 pieces, and right them onto the silpat/parchment paper/ what have you.  Lastly, I sprayed them with a thin mist of oil from my Misto and a little water as well, to keep them from drying out during the 1 hour second rise.  (I also covered them with a sheet of parchment paper, but I think this retarded vertical rising.)

After this, I sprinkled on some Parmesan cheese and baked at 425 for 25-30min. (I re-misted them right before putting in the oven.)

They are very delicious, but the crust looses some of its crunch if stored in an airtight container.

Candied peppers

I ADORE pepper jelly; the hotter, the better.

I also like candied fruit peel because of the pretty jewel like tones.

I decided to combine these loves by candying various peppers.  For this trial run I got jalapeños, habaneros, and "red chilies" from WF.  All of them were washed, seeded, and cut into thin pieces before being left to simmer for 45min in a mix of 1c sugar and 1c water.  AT the end I was left with pretty jewel-like peppers, some of whichIi then dipped in semi-sweet chocolate.  Here are my reviews:

1. The jalapeños were the most flavorful without chocolate, but the most easily overwhelmed by it.
2. Citrus peel is usually dried in a warm oven post-candying, and I tried this, but it changed the peppers from gummy to thin and leathery
3. The chocolate overwhelmed the pepper flavor.

Next time:

Cut the peppers into bigger pieces (like just in 1/2) and do not dry them after candying, so get a thick gummy pepper and smaller chocolate the pepper ratio.

Ribs

Today I used my slow cooker as a water bath to cook ribs.  As previously mentioned, it will stay at exactly 160F when on "warm".  This is near the temperature at which collagen melts, which made me think that it would work well for "sous vide"ing certain types of meats.

The recipe was simple, a rack of pork ribs were left unwrapped in the fridge with a dry rub of mustard, brown sugar, various peppers, and salt for 48 hours; placed in a ziploc bag with all the air removed and 1/2 tsp of liquid smoke added; then cooked in the slow cooker for ~6 hours.  During that time they gave off 30% of their weight in water and rendered fat.

To give some malliardy char I seared them in a hot pan right before serving.  They were great!  Not at all fatty, but very moist with a soft but not mushy texture, and way less work than any oven or bbq ribs I have made.  This is definitely a nice weekday meal in terms of 15min total effort and it can cook while I am at work.  I also believe the same principle would work for pulled pork or any meat with lots of fat and connective tissue.

I tried reducing the liquid from the bags to make a bbq sauce with some molasses and cider vinegar, but this did not work well AT ALL.  I think because of the high fat content.  Luckily I love Trader Joe's bbq sauce and can use that in the future.

Baked Mackerel

We had a whole Mackerel in the fridge that needed to be cooked before it turned, so even though T was working all night, and I didn't get home until 8pm, I did something quick with it:

I mixed the juice of 2 lemons and the peel of one with 1 cup of pitted green olives and some olive oil and basil in a bowl, stuffed this mix into slits in the fish and baked at 350F for 30min, flipping after 20.

Ok, well to be more accurate, I at first put a meat probe in the fish which registered something like an internal temp of 190F at 20min (I was cooking it to 145F). So then I took it out, but it was clearly not done, so I flipped it and threw it back in for 10 more min, until it was more fragrant, and juices were spattering int he oven.

Next time I definitely need something like 2x the olive mix, but overall I was happy with it.  It was not too mackerelly in flavor.

Misc.

It turns out my Hamilton Beach slow cooker will maintain a  temperature of 160F exactly with the ld on and the house temp at 60F.  I used this fact to fake sous-vide a brisket in a ziploc of BBQ sauce and it was surprisingly good.

Also, two nights ago I made potatoes lyonnaise / home fries/ potatoes fried in a skillet, and for the first time ever they did not break apart while frying.  I credit On Food and Cooking, which suggested that placing vegetables in 130F-150F water for 20-30min will cause their cells walls to harden due to the activation of an enzyme which is denatured at 160F.  I brought the slow cooker to 150F, and then turned it off with the potato slices floating in a bag, and it fell to 135F after 30min.  They were noticeably firmer and fried up beautifully.

Crêpes

My second food project of the weekend was to make the crêpe recipe out of my "Breton Cuisine" cookbook.  These are dessert crêpes, and have a notably sweet taste.  (In Brittany savory crêpes are made with a  hig percentage of buckwheat flour.)  This is 1/3 of the listed recipe and made 5 crêpes, but one was small.

• 1 egg
• 165g pastry flour (whole wheat was what I had)
• 1 tbspn buckwheat flour
• 80g sugar
• 20g butter
• 400ml milk

According to the recipe, you mix every ingredient except the flour together, and then gradually add this mix to the flour.  On Food and Cooking says that with thin batters you want to minimize gluten formation and thus minimize mixing, so I am guessing that is why.  You then let it sit over night to allow the water to be properly absorbed.  I noticed that come morning I needed to re-stir everything for 2-3minutes because it had separated out into a glooey bottom layer and a wattery top layer, but then the mix stayed emulsified.

I served this with thawed frozen fruit and poached pears (taken from this recipe--must remember that 1 quart water to 1.3c sugar ratio), and though the photo looks hideous, it was quite yummy.  Previously I have made crêpes by over-diluting pancake mix (I use Red Mill buckwheat pancake mix for savory versions), and I will say that these were definitely finer and more delicate, which also made them harder to cook.

A final note on the actual cooking:

1. grease your pan liberally with butter and heat it until there is ample smoke over medium heat
2. Ladle on 1/2-1c batter and immediately spread this around to make an even thin layer.  (It should look as if the batter is floating on the butter.)
3. Flip as soon as you can do so without tearing the crêpe.

Toasted Cheese

This isn't really a recipe, but it has become my standard breakfast this week, so I will post it here anyway.
Toasted cheese is basically an open-faced grilled cheese made in a toaster oven.  Mine uses 3 ingredients:

1. Wheat french bread
1.  (this is my baguette recipe, but with 40% of the flour whole wheat and made entirely in the bread machine)
2. Jarlsberg cheese (sliced)
3. Romano cheese (shredded)

So basically I just put the thin slices of Jarlsberg on the bread, spread a layer of Romano on top, and place it in the toaster oven at 400C for 10min, closer to the top broiler than the bottom.

I cannot describe the deliciousness.

Boiling an Egg

I decided to blog doing one of the most basic cooking tasks.  I boiled a series of eggs in 1 minute increments from 3min to 14min.  They were put directly in boiling water from the fridge, and into ice water when their time was up.  I was specifically looking to replicate the following eggs from "On Food and Cooking":

• ouef  à la coque: a 2-3min semi-liquid egg
• My 3min egg matched the perfectly, and it tasted interesting, like a rich soup.  It would be better if not chilled by the ice water
• soft boiled: a 3-5min egg with three distinct parts (hard outer white, liquid inner white, liquid yolk)
• My 4min egg was exactly like this, and I enjoyed it quite a bit
• mollet egg: a 5-6min egg with a liquid yolk but hard white
• My 5min egg was this dead on, and was the first egg I could peel.  It reminded me of a poached egg, with a less watery white
• hard boiled egg: a 10-15 min egg that is solid throughout
• This wide time span seemed strange to me, so I wanted to see what changes happened in there. based on my 10-15min eggs the yolk changes color, but surprisingly, not texture, which went from  1/2 liquid 1/2 gelatinous at 9min directly to standard HB texture at 10min.

I can understand why OF&C doesn't mention egg types for 6-9min, because all of these eggs were strange chimerical beasts, with yolks half solidified.  I am somewhat sad that there was no stage at which the entire yolk resembled the bright orange outer yolk of 8min and 9min, which is my favorite texture.  Maybe I could cook the egg for 9min and then let it rest at RT?

According to my book the egg white semi-solidifies at 65C as ovotransferin coagulates, then becomes firm at 80C as albumin coagulates, and the yolk harden between 65 and 70C.  So maybe I need to try cooking an egg at exactly 65C to get the yolk I like. (Or maybe I am over-thinking this).

It was both kind of neat and a little annoying to get boring as-predicted results.  Since I prefer poached eggs to soft-boiled, the big take home for me was that 11min is where I want to stop boiling eggs for deviled eggs.

Hmm, now off to go make egg salad.

Cinnamon Buns

Another baking post, and this one an unmitigated success!

I wanted cinnamon rolls, and after looking around decided to try this recipe, but with the quantities adjusted to make 6 rolls.

I basically just threw everything in the bread machine, then rolled out the dough, brushed on melted butter and sprinkled on the sugar mix, rolled it up, cut out 6 rolls and let them rise in a greased cake pan, covered by a warm wet towel for 45min.  Then I baked for 25min at 350F, with a little water spritz.  They were VERY fluffy, not to sweet, and quite yumm.

The only real complication was that they weren't done until 1pm, so next time I would refrigerate them after the rise step and see if that works for fresh morning buns.

This blog is kinda boring when things go well.

Baguettes

For Christmas I received a Sunbeam bread machine and have fallen in love. <3
Today is my third attempt at a bread that needs to be shaped and baked outside the machine.  Historically these attempts have run into problems because the winter air is SO DRY that a skin forms on the rising bread, but this time. . . this time things will be different because I have a mister!



Ok, so I am using this recipe from King Arthur flour, and my goal with these posts is to document the changes I make and how they work:

1. I measured all of the ingredients by weight.  I am a scientist by profession and really like to be exact in baking.  Also, I discovered that my liquid measures can't agree on what 2/3 a cup of water looks like.
2. The "poolish" was made in a bowl and stirred with a fork.   It looked much doughier than the one pictured when I set it out, and I was worried about the overnight humidity loss, so I misted it down and covered the bowl with a damp towel.  In the morning it looked just like the photo. (yay)
3. I then skipped all the precise directions for mixing and kneading times, and just through everything in my bread machine in its 90min dough setting
1. Note for hypothetical-future-super-rich-self:  Buy a  bread machine with manual control over kneading and rising 
4. I lack all the fancy equipment mentioned, and don't even have plastic wrap, so I put my shaped baguettes onto oiled parchment paper (bunched to make dividers as in photo) sprayed them with water and put another oiled sheet of parchment above them before placing the bread in the over for the final 40min rise.
5. Halfway through, I misted again because I detected some drying.
6. My first real stumbling block:  My knife wasn't sharp enough to cut the dough, and instead of the classic baguette cuts that break to let the dough expand, I just got lame dimples.  This may also be because my baguettes were already quite wide.

As you can see below these came out less like a round baguette and more like some type of weird flat loaf.  Clearly I need to try again, maybe with less misting, so the dough holds shape better in the second rise.  Also, next time I think I will try 1/3 whole wheat flour.  On the plus side I think they will make for great sandwich buns, and the "poolish" gives them a delicious and distinct flavor compared to white bread.