Something Different

This is a pancake made with some extra dough from The Bread.

When I patted the dough into shape before the second rise, I decided I had a bit too much for my new little casserole, so I mixed up a lump with some milk, sugar and cinnamon and made it gloppy like normal pancake dough. Then I let it rise again, and a couple of hours later made myself some lovely pancakes.

They had a completely different structure and mouthfeel from normal pancakes. I could have added a bit less milk, but they were tender and crispy and absolutely delicious dotted with the last of my Canadian Maple Syrup.

Working Like the Proverbial Dog...

There's lots of spice in my life right now...

Just not the right kind

The company I work for is in the midst of a merger.

Personally, in terms of anything other than an increase in work for me, this means nothing.

• Am I getting an increase in pay? No.
• Am I getting additional perks? No.

But all this nothing actually does mean something…

My office computer and I have increased the depth of our relationship and we spend many hours sinking soulfully into each others gaze – merging ourselves if you will…

And just so you understand, I am not a bigwig in the company, just a secretary. Personal Assistant to the CEO, if you want to make a big deal out of it. Which I don't.

This intensified bond has had a negative effect on my relationship with my significant other – my personal computer. In fact, I have been returning home with my eyes swirling around in my head like Ka's in the Jungle Book. My bare necessities are now sustenance and unconsciousness (with no phones ringing). Forget cultural enrichment or even a night out with friends – my social skills have been reduced to incomprehensible monosyllables…

I do admit to going to my pottery class once a week - mainly so I can take out my anger management issues on the lumps of clay. I can't complain though, there are some decent dividends too.

Mind you, my quality eating moments have decreased significantly too… Actually, they seem to have disappeared.

I honestly can't bring myself to blog about the Israeli version of Kraft dinner (which is what I ate twice last week – once freshly made and once with leftovers). My supplies of homemade frozen meals have been reduced to 0 which is why I resorted to WackyMac.

Spagetti ali oli, is another quickie, or sticky rice with satay sauce, if I remember to soak the rice in the morning – in the morning coffee gets precedence, naturally.

But I digress.

My brainpower, creativity and resources are nil by the time I get home. Weekends are now used to recover so I can work another week.

Admittedly I did make another batch of The Bread this past weekend,

mainly so I could use my newest, smaller sized, casserole.

I wanted to check out how it works, which turns out to be really well.

This time around The Bread was made with white, spelt and whole wheat flours. I used a pair of scissors to cut the top - very effective and made the presentation most professional looking, I thought.

And I did make chili crabs for my Friday night dinner.

But I added red cabbage which lost its colour in my iron wok.

Everything turned an unappetizing shade of blue-grey, which I should have realized would happen, except that my brain was still hiding under the duvet, never having joined my body when I got up on Saturday.

And the cloud ear fungus that I mixed in generously, though it added a great crunchy texture to the dish, didn't add any visual oomph.

Overall, it tasted great, but looked absolutely appalling {the picture was taken about 3 seconds before everything turned blue}

Good thing I didn't have company. Blue food is not as cool as it sounds - it looks cyanotic and even a bit dangerous.

Oh, and just so that you know, I have come home drenched more than a few times in the past couple of weeks – scooters and rain are not a great mix, and all I want to do is get dry, eat something hot and quick, and crawl into bed with my buckwheat heating pad.

Maybe one day, not in the foreseeable future, but sometime sooner rather than later, I hope, I can re-establish my acquaintance with my computer and be more faithful with my blogging.

This is known as Jewish guilt,
Because who is really concerned about this, other than me?

Hope III

Nobody should go hungry in this world.

Nobody...

Like anybody who is even remotely human, I like to have affirmation. Think Sally Fields' Oscar acceptance speech "... you like me - right now, you like me!" Well, that's how I have felt every time someone has donated to Menu for Hope IIII and said they want to have a chance to win my prize. Thanks y'all (you know who you are...)

There are still 6 1/2 days left to put your money where your heart is, namely the right place, and make a donation for the UN World Food Programme. And of course I know there are people out there who have been shy up 'til now, but I know you like me, and I know you'd love to get your mits on my amazing prize.

Just think, you could be the owner of an original, hand-made-in-Jaffa plate with an original drawing - your choice of demure or provocative, that can be used to serve on, bake with and just display - and if you need to clean it, just pop it into the dishwasher... how great is that. And not only that, but there are a pile of packages filled with exotic spice mixtures (and some recipes to boot). And if that isn't enough, there is also some of the most amazing halvah tucked in there as well. You've never had anything like it, really!

So c'mon, dig deep and help us make this years Menu for Hope even more of a success than it already is (almost $20,000 and counting!).

And just in case you're wondering how I spent my Saturday...

This time it was 2 cups AP, and 1/2 cup each whole wheat and rye flours.

Don't you just love The Bread?

A Genuine Hit

How many of you have noticed that Mark Bittman wrote another column on The Bread?

Kind of cheating, if you ask me
I think he should have had it as an addendum,
but that is me being persnickety...

Well, it is that time of year again, Jack Frost is nipping at the noses of northern hemispherites, Christmas caroles are filling the airwaves and spontaneous generosity pervades the blogosphere.

Of couse I am talking about the Menu for Hope

Once again Pim of Chez Pim fame will be hosting the Menu for Hope charity raffle. This year's donations will be going to the United Nations World Food Programme. Last year I donated/bid on a couple of prizes, but even though I didn't win anything, I did come away with the feeling that I had made a contribution, even if small, to a worthy cause. This year I will be giving again - and if the prizes are even close to what were up for grabs last year, it will be a tough choice...

If you were thinking of giving a donation this holiday season, this is the way to go, so watch this space for more details...

Cleaning House

No pictures today - Blogger Beta is giving me problems...

As some of you have noticed I was not posting this week - apologies proferred... work & stress got in the way. Hopefully that is done for.

What has been going on? Well, I have another 2 casseroles in the kiln, they need decorating, but I have some ideas - completely irrelevant to their intended use - but why not?

I have made another Sullivan Street No-Knead bread - this time using 1/4 whole rye flour. It turned out incredibly. This time I let it sit for about 20 hours (I just couldn't face getting up at 6am on a Saturday) and then I got caught up in cleaning house and only threw it into the oven at about 11:30 - so it had a second rise of about 3 1/2 hours. It came out light and full of holes, with an extraordinarily crisp crust and a sourdough flavour that put it into what I think of as a stellar state. It has been the most succesful combination to date. I ate a slice just with butter and a touch of Maldon salt, and then I had another slice with avocado, and then I couldn't resist and had a third slice for dessert with creamed clover honey and butter. Delicious!

I did get to the Carmel market on Friday - what is Friday without that? But I didn't buy anything, just took pictures. Everything seems to be orange at the moment - persimmons, clementines, oranges, orange peppers, pumpkin, even the egg yolks are bright orange at the moment... Good thing I like things that are orange!

I have been cleaning house all day - including trying to clear out the fridge a bit. I made a lovely smoked salmon, goats cheese and broccoli quiche - so that is lunch dealt with for the entire week - though I might freeze a slice or two and have some ready for a day when I don't get a chance to cook.

I took a piece of beef shin with attached tendons out of the freezer and, inspired by Chubby Hubby, made a Vietnamese style dish. Very simply, you braise the meat with water, soy sauce, ginger and garlic for about an hour. Don't be dismayed if it is still tough - it is supposed to be. You then chill it completely in the stock. You then slice it VERY thinly (it is much easier to slice when it is cold) and rebraise it briefly in a sauce made of caramelized sugar, soy sauce and fish sauce. The meat is supposed to be a bit chewy, but because it is sliced so thinly that is not a deterent, it adds interest. The tendon bits go unctuous and slithery. We have a word in my family that is used to describe steamed ho fan noodles (thick white rice noodles)- glibbery. And that is how the tendons were. This oozes umami. I served it on crushed butter beans tossed with sesame oil, green onions and coriander, and the whole dish was drizzled with chili oil for some kick.

The leftovers will be frozen and then go onto instant ramen soup for another quick and easy lunch.

Also being cleared out of the fridge were lots of potatoes (sweet and white) from the CSA. I am roasting them in the oven with a generous glug of olive oil and then I will have some for dinner with preserved herring roe, they crunch like tobiko - flying fish eggs, but are sweet and salty - Russian style, and a fried egg. I think of it as a deconstructed taramosalata. Also in the oven is a small slice of pumpkin with some maple syrup, cinnamon, savory, sage, cayenne and allspice. I'll dash some Maldon on top for the final touch. And I'll have a mixed baby greens salad with a squish of lemon and some Syrian olive extra virgin oil.

I'm Seriously Disturbed

That is the conclusion my friends came to when they heard I got up at 05:30 in the morning in order to bake a sweet bread that I didn't intend to eat.

I love baking. Of all the culinary arts used on a regular basis by normal cooks (we aren't talking making sugar flowers, or fancy-dress food, just normal everyday stuff) baking is as close to making mudpies as you can get. Like a pot that starts out as an unprepossesing lump of clay, a loaf of bread starts as a pile of goo and ends up as the staff of life.

Having been completely successful with the Sullivan Street No-Knead bread recipe, I decided that I would try another variation, this time trying to speed it up a bit and making a sweeter dough. One of the reasons for this was a small plastic baggie of hawai'ij for baking that an Iraqi friend of mine gave me. Unlike regular hawai'ij, this smelled strongly of sweet spices, primarily star anise, with a background of cardamon, cloves and cinnamon. Christmas season coming up I have been thinking of panettone and stollen and I thought to myself "Aha! Why not a Middle Eastern version of Christmas Bread?" So that's what I did.

Christmas BethLehem (Christmas House Bread)

• 2 1/2 cups AP flour (plus more for sprinkling)
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 tsp instant yeast
• 1/4 tsp 5 spice powder
• 1/2 tsp powdered ginger
• 1/4 tsp mace (I ground my own)
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg (freshly grated if possible)
• 3/4 cup mixed dried fruit finely chopped
  (I used crystallized ginger and chopped white raisins)
• 1 1/4 cup milk
• 1-2 tbsp vegetable oil, 200 gr butter, softened

Put flour, sugar, salt, spices and yeast into a large bowl (I used the bowl from my KitchenAid mixer), mix well.

Pour milk onto fruit and warm until blood temperature. Pour into flour mixture and stir until incorporated. Mixture is fairly sticky and rough looking. Pour on oil and using a spatula try to get it all around the dough, underneath as well as on top - this will help to keep a skin from forming on dough while it rises. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and then cover the bowl with a tea towel. Place bowl in a warm spot where it can rise for at least 12 hours.

If you want to cut back on a few hours of rising time, put the bowl in a microwave together with a cup of very hot water. Keep changing the water in the cup when it gets cold. The dough will double in size and spring back when poked gently.

The next bit can be a bit messy if you don't have a mixer with a breadhook attachment - but it is mudpies in its purest form.

Take dough and punch it down. If using a mixer, put the speed on slow and beat for 2 minutes, then add 1/3 of the softened butter, beat until it is well incorporated - another 2 or 3 minutes, then add another 3rd of the butter and mix well again and then add the final third.

If you don't have a stand mixer, then take the dough and put it onto a very clean counter top. Pat it out until it is about 1/2 inch thick (this doesn't have to be accurate and you can smear the dough out if needs be). Smear about 1/3 of the butter onto the dough and then with a scraping/smearing/folding motion incorporate the butter into the dough. Do this twice more until the butter is well incorporated.

Work the dough very well, either in the mixer on low speed, or by hand. The dough will be very smooth and shiny and slippery from all of the butter.

In a deep cake tin (I used an Angel Food tin) spread the dough out evenly (use a buttered spatula or your buttered hands). Cover the dough with plastic wrap and the tin with a clean tea towel. Put this into a warm place and leave it sit for at least 8 hours, or until doubled (again, I speeded things up with the hot water in a cup trick).

Heat the oven to 400f with the rack on the second lowest level. Put the tin (without plastic wrap or tea towel) into the oven and turn the oven down to 375f. Bake approximately 35 minutes, until golden brown and the bread sounds hollow when tapped.

This is, like all yeast breads, best eaten warm.

But toasted the next day, it is still pretty darn good!

The Bread

A variation on a theme...

Ok, maybe I have become a bit obsessed with this bread. Or maybe I have become a bit obsessed with using my own pottery to cook in. Or, just maybe, this bread is so forgiving that even with my cantankerous oven, what starts off looking completely unpromising turns into something I can be proud of.

Maybe it is a combination of all three and, just to top it off, there is nothing like the smell or taste of freshly baked bread warm from the oven.

I started a regular batch of The Bread (aka Jim Lahey's Sullivan Street Bakery No-Knead Bread) on Thursday night after I had been stood up by a blind date. Nothing like anticipating for the future when the present has given you a raspberry. But it was my gain on Friday when a beautiful loaf came out of the oven just in time to share with SistR and her family for Shabbat dinner. Blessed by providence and a great recipe!

Friday evening I decided I would try a variation on a theme and made a mixed grain version. I did start out by following the original recipe but because I used a mixture of different textures and types of grains, I realized, at the 12 hour mark, when I took a peak to see how things were progressing, that something wasn't right... my oops somewhere. The recipe below is after correcting my mistake (I threw in more food for the yeast).

No -Knead Bread - a mixed grain version
Adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery
Time: About 1½ hours plus 14 to 20 hours’ rising

• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
• 1/4 cup each ground barley and millet
  (I put mine through an old fashioned coffee mill twice)
• 1/4 cup each buckwheat and spelt flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• ¼ teaspoon instant yeast
• 1¼ teaspoons salt
• 1 3/4 cups water
  (getting the original 1 5/8 is difficult for me...)
• Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed (I used a mixture of both).

Pour 1/2 cup boiling water over barley and millet & let soak until cooled.

In a large bowl combine flours, yeast and salt. Add 1 1/4 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

I was a little dubious about this because the dough was very, very wet (I guess the other flours don't absorb water as easily) , but this came out of the oven looking amazing, smelling irresistable and tasting phenomenal, with a light fluffy interior made chewy and rich by the various grains and a crust that shatterered when bitten into. Who needs butter?

My other project for the day was to finish making my chestnut puree. I gently warmed the cooked chestnut and cream mixture that I prepared yesterday evening (when it was cold it was thick and claggy and would have choked my stick blender), and then used the said stick blender to puree this until it was smooth as satin. This took a fairly long while because there was about 500gr of peeled chestnuts and 1/2 cup cream. But my patience was rewarded, because there is nothing grainy or coarse about this stuff.

So what am I going to do with this? Something I haven't had in about 15 years, but can still taste... This is one of my favourite desserts of all time. I think of this in conjunction with gleaming silver and shining crystal because my mom only ever made this dessert for guests. I don't think I ever had this except as a leftover. Which is kind of a good thing because, if you like chestnuts, this is completely addictive!

My Mom's Cold Chestnut Souffle

• 4 eggs + 2 egg yolks
• 1/2 c sugar
• 1 tbsp gelatine
• 6 tbsp rum
• 1 c sweetened chestnut puree
  (if you are using unsweetened, adjust amount of sugar)
• 1 c heavy cream whipped until stiff

Have ready a 3/4 litre souffle dish with a standing collar made from silicone or waxed paper

Dissolve gelatine and rum over hot water, let cool while you beat the eggs, yolks and sugar until very thick and pale (at least 10 minutes)

Beat the cooled rum mixture quickly into eggs, then add the puree slowly, so as not to lose air.

Gently fold in the whipped cream, then scrape the mixture into the souffle dish (don't forget to put the collar on first!). Run a knife carefully through the mixture to get rid of any big bubbles, then chill thoroughly until set (6-8 hours)

My mom's original recipe said to serve this decorated with whipped cream rosettes and glaceed marron halves before carefully removing the collar. But I always remember this being served in a beautiful Orrefors crystal bowl with nothing more than a circle of whipped cream piped around the edges.

This is just another gratuitous picture of the chestnut puree...

in anticipation of the souffle.

Friday

My favourite day of the week.

Everything was so bright and cheerful at the Carmel Market, even the tomatoes seemed to be on parade today. I didn't get alot - I don't really need anything, what with my organic CSA delivery on Mondays, but it is always fun getting little extras. Todays treat was a tiny container of gorgeous, bright orange ikura - Russian style salmon roe to be eaten on a bowl of steamed rice with some shredded Nori. My version of almost heaven.

I got a few vanilla pods too. I paid 12 shekels (about US$2.75) for one, and then I found somebody else doing a 2fer, so I got a pair from him. One of them already has a destination - my creme de marrons. The others have a fate that varies from minute to minute. In other words, I don't have the faintest clue what I will do with my bounty of beans. Last of my purchases were a pair of alligator pears - Hass, my favourite.

Dinner tonight was a chicken and chestnut soup with some fresh The Bread..

Simple and satisfying.

Going Potty

This means going crazy in British English, so please don't get me wrong!

Israeli drivers have to be some of the worst I have ever encountered. They make the drivers I encountered in Cairo, Kathmandu, Delhi, Mumbai, Mexico City and New York look polite, considerate and law-abiding. The number of times per day that I have some maniac yell at me after I point my finger symbolically and shoot them dead, is ridiculous. After all, they have just cut me off not once but twice, wavering across the road and driving in 3 lanes at once. They think that they have the law on their side (which they don't in theory, but in practice they do because the cops never ever stop them or ticket them) and they act like I am just some little scooteriste who has no right to be on the road.

And on rainy days, like today, they are even worse - either driving at 10km/hr or at 140 in a 40 zone... I have no clue how they got their licenses, but in the majority of cases I am confident in saying that baksheesh passed hands. So that is one reason why I am going potty today.

At the urging of Tanna of My Kitchen in Half Cups and Lindy of Toast (whose blogs are most excellent and if you haven't already, you should go and visit them) I am going to attempt to make an oval casserole for The Bread.

But I need to practice first and make a couple of regular ones; refresh my memory on how to make the lid fit properly, getting the height right, what kind of handles, etc. So tonight I started and have 2 on the go: one full sized one and one half-sized (for single people loaves or pots au feu). Progress reports will be posted...

And that is the other reason...

Home Sick

What do I do when I'm feeling under the weather?

I make chicken soup and I bake.

I saw this recipe in the New York Times and I just knew I had to try it. They said it was child proof, and seeing as I'm a big kid, and I wasn't up to anything too complicated, I figured this would be just up my alley.

Knowing my weakness for fresh bread, I cut the recipe down by half and then I mismeasured the flour (I know I shouldn't do anything that needs exactitude when I'm not feeling great) so the below recipe is my take on the NYTimes one. But it worked BEAUTIFULLY.

New York Times No -Knead Bread
Adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street BakeryTime:
About 1½ hours plus 14 to 20 hours’ rising
Yield: One small loaf

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
• 1/8 teaspoon instant yeast
• 5/8 teaspoons salt
• 3/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons water
• Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.
2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.
   

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal (I used cornmeal); put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

   

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 3 quart heavy covered pot (I used a ceramic casserole that I made and that I have been waiting to use, but cast iron, enamel, or Pyrex would do) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

This really was as easy as they said. And just like they promised, the flavour was amazing and the crust was as crispy and crackly as anything you could get at a bakery.

Trust Mark Bittman to get it right!

Just a note to say that this is also an incredibly forgiving recipe - my oven decided after about 30 minutes to turn itself off and cool down almost completely before it let itself be turned back on. Even with this delayed baking time my loaf turned out perfectly, not overcooked, beautiful texture and crumb. If I only have one bread recipe to use for the rest of my cooking life, this would be it!