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Category Archives: Baking
Uncommon Brown Sugar and Cheddar Biscuits
When it rains in Los Angeles, the whole atmosphere of the city changes. The earth sighs acceptance and glee, and the ordinary dustiness of every other person’s front yard glimmers with emerald slickness: life! Reprieve from the desert we pretend we haven’t built over! The roads become jagged, glistering, tar and oil stained slip’n’slides on which people drive either too slowly – avoiding disaster through excess caution – or too quickly – rushing to get off the highways as soon as possible. The sky is unused to gray billows here, or at least it seems that way.
But for me, the end of this week felt like home. It was a strange mix of homesickness and invigoration. I am accustomed to working in this climate. It feels natural. Habitual. My fingers and my brain and my skin – they fit into this overcast world.
Seeking the comfort of familiarity, I decided to leave yeast alone for this week and fall back on something I know: biscuits. Butter. Flour. Buttermilk. Salt. Baking powder. The blessed fundamentals. But I know the fundamentals. I wanted more.
In Ratio, Ruhlman calls these Chicago biscuits because their ratio 3-1-2 is Chicago’s area code. 3 parts flour, 1 part fat, 2 parts liquid. I’m calling them Uncommon because their pairing – brown sugar and extra sharp cheddar cheese – might not be anyone’s first inclination. It made sense to me, though, if you reinsert the missing link of apple pie in the middle. Cheese and apples are perfect. Brown sugar and apples are perfect. What would happen if you took the apples out of the equation and left the savory richness of cheese chewing against the molasses-deep hum of brown sugar? They are also Uncommon because they take a little extra time (almost 3 hours from start to finish) and produce a slightly different product than your ordinary dinner biscuit.
Adapted, obviously, from Ruhlman’s Ratio 312 Biscuits.
Uncommon Brown Sugar Cheddar Biscuits
scant 2 cups flour (9 oz)
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
2 TB brown sugar
6 TB butter (3 oz)
½ cup ¼-inch chunks of cheddar cheese, the sharper the better
¾ cups buttermilk (6 oz)
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder, and brown sugar.
Using a pastry blender or your fingers, cut in the butter until it is incorporated throughout in chunks the size of small peas.
Add the cheddar cheese and buttermilk and mix to combine into a rough, sticky dough. I find using a fork works well for this step.
Here’s where things change up a bit. Instead of rolling this out and cutting rounds, stretch a piece of plastic wrap across your counter and dump the dough onto it. Using the plastic wrap, form the dough into a rectangle of approximately 4×6 inches. Mine was bigger because I am impatient. This didn’t seem to have dire consequences. Once the dough is shaped, wrap it in the plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
After an hour, the butter has firmed up again and the dough has relaxed. Pull it out and free it from the plastic, plopping it carefully onto a well floured board. It’s a very sticky dough, so flour your rolling pin and the top of the dough itself well to avoid irritation. Roll the dough out until it is three times its original size, maintaining the rectangular shape. Fold it into thirds, press down well, and then roll it out again. Fold it into thirds for a second time. I did mine in the opposite direction of the first fold, which was probably wrong, but again, produced no discernible taste consequences. Press down firmly, wrap up the dough in plastic wrap again, and put it back into the fridge for another hour.
While it chills, here’s what’s happening with all this bother: you are creating something akin to one of those biscuits that comes out of the tube. You know, the cardboard tube you anxiously peel the wrapper from to reveal a twisting seam, then judiciously smack on the edge of the counter until it pops and dough appears in great bulges? Those biscuits are composed of dozens of flaky layers, and that’s what you are doing by folding and rolling and folding and rolling. You are, Ruhlman notes, following a similar procedure to that used for making puff pastry, except in our case the butter is irregularly placed, which results in craggy puffs, whereas puff pastry requires a smooth, even layer of butter in between each floury fold to reach its incredible signature height.
With another hour gone, liberate the dough from fridge and plastic, return it to your well floured board, and repeat the procedure: roll out, fold in thirds, roll out, fold in thirds again. At this point, you should also preheat the oven to 400F.
You’ve now folded your dough a total of four times, which means you’ve made twelve layers. Now, roll it out to ½ inch thick and cut it into 6 pieces. You could do rounds with a biscuit cutter, but it seems easier and less wasteful to just trim up the edges (which you could roll into a homely little extra biscuit to taste on the sly) and then cut into squares.
Pop these onto a greased baking sheet and into the oven for 20-25 minutes. They will emerge lightly golden on top, with cheese oozing out from between the layers to form crispy lacy edges against the cookie sheet.
We ate these as an accompaniment to a honey mustard roasted acorn squash and chicken apple sausages. I know, I had to get the apple back in there somehow. My assessment? They were delightful. The exterior was flaky and crisp, and I was impressed by how the layers really did make a difference in the texture of the biscuit: they were moist and chewy and distinct. The cheese wasn’t as noticeable as I’d thought it would be, though the crispy edge bits were lovely – much like the lacy brulée that adorns the outside edges of a good cheese bagel. At first I thought I couldn’t taste the brown sugar at all, but as I took my third and fourth bite, gasping around the steam, I realized that the complex lingering warmth at the end of each bite was probably the effect of the brown sugar. It carried the depth and richness of a caramel without being sweet.
So the verdict is: if you need biscuits to go with a weekday meal, these are probably not the ones for you. It’s asking a bit much to devote three hours to six biscuits, when you could just roll, cut, and bake the same ingredients straight from the mixing bowl. But if you are planning for something special, or if you were thinking of baking bread anyway and are willing to replace rise time with refrigeration time, try these instead. The layers are really remarkable, they stay warm for some time, they are all kinds of tasty, and they would reheat – I suspect – very well in a toaster oven, though they are best on the day they are made. But you probably won’t have any left over, so that’s an issue barely worth discussing.
I hope you are warm and well, wherever you are.
Smoked Salmon Burgers and Not-Ciabatta
In 2009, as N. and I were working through the Oral Examination phase of our graduate program – one of the most difficult aspects, as far as I’m concerned – a little restaurant opened on the south side of town. Sharing space with a small bakery called the Humble Bagel, and run by the bagel shop owners’ daughter Anni and her husband Ari, the Humble Beagle quickly became our favorite restaurant in Eugene. The feel is an intriguing blend: casual neighborhood gastropub, seasonal local food, layered with Israeli influence. Macaroni and cheese, Caesar salad with amazingly lemony dressing, or penne with fresh pesto share menu space with shakshuka, house made pita, and lamb pizza dolloped with labneh. In the summer, weekly specials are determined by what is producing best in Ari and Anni’s backyard garden. In the winter, Ari makes his own pastrami and quick pickled cabbage for their take on a reuben. The beers on tap are mostly from Oregon, and even the soft drink selection is carefully chosen for its local, natural ingredients. The check comes with homemade, sugar dusted shortbread cookies. It’s a pretty good example of the slow food movement in delicious action. If you want a quick meal, don’t bother. You’ll be there at least two hours. If you want a place to bring your sixteen unannounced relatives, don’t show up without reservations. This is a small, local pub, not a diner or high volume chain. If you want tasty, thoughtful, belly-warming food at a relaxed pace, get in your car right now. For a while, as N. and I neared the dates of our respective exams, we were going to the Beagle every Friday evening for dinner. Almost without exception, I got the Fisherman’s Stew, a lovely collection of shellfish and moist, flaky halibut in a tomato and fennel broth with garlic aioli melting achingly over the top. We could barely afford the luxury of these weekly visits, but we also couldn’t stay away.
The Beagle entertained us for the next three years. We went there for birthdays – N.’s 30th, when Ari let me bring a cake I’d made at home, gave me the biggest chef’s knife I’ve ever seen to slice and serve it, and then took a leftover piece back to the kitchen where he shared it with the cooks. We went there for the yearly day-after-Thanksgiving meal with my family. One year, fifteen minutes into the meal we were the only patrons, and it was like our own private restaurant. Ari came out and told us stories about his family’s holiday, and we were suddenly not in a restaurant anymore, but in the home of our friend. We went there for dinner after my dissertation defense too, and even though we ended up being an annoying group – people arriving late and leaving early, special menu substitutions and requests, perhaps slightly-too-boisterous behavior – our server said it was okay, and that Ari had told him we were royalty.
On their Summer 2010 menu, the Beagle introduced an item I was instantly drawn to and still haven’t gotten enough of: the Smoked Chinook Patty. This was a salmon burger on fresh ciabatta (made in the bakery next door), but what pulled me in was its blend of fresh and smoked salmon. It’s immediately richer, deeper, brinier than any other salmon patty I’ve tasted.
This week, needing both a new dough challenge and a taste of that chilly, rain-soaked, allergen-laden city I still think of as home, I decided a recreation was in order.
The Beagle’s patty comes on freshly made, perfectly crusted, well-toasted ciabatta rolls. Looking in Ruhlman’s Ratio this week, I noted that the only difference he gives between ciabatta and a standard baguette or boule is the shape and cooking time. This seemed promising and so, despite my claims last week about fear and being unready, I decided to dive in. What else is a Thursday morning for?
I dutifully mixed, then kneaded, bread flour, water, yeast, and salt. I tore off a chunk to perform the windowpane test, and I cuddled my ball of smooth, elastic dough in an oiled bowl to rest and rise.
Ruhlman doesn’t give any suggestion of how long to bake individual ciabatta rolls, only a full loaf, so I went to the internet for help. I quickly discovered that what I was making wasn’t going to be the bread I’d had in mind: the tremendous bubbles that bake into cavernous holes, the flour-dusted, almost gravely crunch of the crust, and the soft, perfectly chewy texture of the interior are achieved through a slightly different ratio of ingredients, and a more involved process, as this article on The Kitchn depicts. Since I was starting on the day of baking and didn’t have a biga waiting in the wings, I was just going to have to work with my mix.
Ultimately, though what resulted was more like a super crunchy, slightly flat mini boule, it was crisp and buttery golden delicious and an excellent vehicle for the smoky/briny/rich/tastes-like-home burger it enclosed.
Not-Ciabatta
10 ounces bread flour (or 2 cups)
6 ounces warm water
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon active dry yeast
Sprinkle the yeast over the surface of the water and set it aside for five minutes or so to come back to life.
While you wait, whisk flour and salt in a mixing bowl. Make a little well in the center and pour in the yeasted water. If using a stand mixer, beat with the paddle attachment just until things come together, then switch to the dough hook and knead at medium speed for 10 minutes. I had never executed this switch between tools before, but it worked really well.
After 10 minutes, the dough should be stretchy and lovely and firm, and all traces of unincorporated flour on the sides of the bowl will be gone. Do the windowpane test to see if the bread is ready. If it’s not, continue kneading. If it is, transfer the ball of dough to a lightly oiled bowl and place in a warm, draft-free place to rise. I like to put it in an oven that’s been warmed for five minutes, then turned off for five minutes.
Let the dough rise until doubled in size – mine took 1 hour and 45 minutes.
Punch down the dough gently and then knead it on a floured board for a minute or two to deflate it a bit.
Let it rest for 15 minutes.
At this point, divide the dough, shape it into the bun shapes you want, and let it rise on an oiled baking sheet for another 1½ – 2 hours. I ended up with seven mismatched, homely little balls, but I lovingly covered them with a clean kitchen towel and went about my business. (I think I went about my business a bit too long – 2 hours became almost 3½, and the resulting buns didn’t puff much during baking because they’d expended so much of their rising power as they sat on my counter.)
When the buns have risen again, drizzle them with olive oil and bake in a preheated 450F oven for 10 minutes, then turn the heat down to 375F and continue baking for another 20 minutes, or until golden brown and done in the center (with a full-size loaf you can thump the bottom and if it sounds hollow it’s done, but I suspect these are too small to yield satisfying results with this method. Since I had 7, I just tore into one to see if it was done, and when it was, I ate it. No one else has to know).
Set aside to cool while you make the salmon patties.
Smoked Salmon Burgers
These are robust in flavor but, especially if you are using canned salmon, must be handled with some delicacy to prevent breakage. They are, I think, a perfect blend: rich, fatty salmon, salty smoky deepness, and the sour zesty bite of capers and lemon. If you don’t want to bother with the buns, you could certainly encase these in crisp leaves of butter lettuce.
15 oz. canned salmon, picked through and bones removed, or about 1 lb. fresh, finely chopped
4-6 oz. smoked salmon, flaked with a fork
2 cloves garlic, *pasted with salt or grated
3 green onions, finely diced
1 TB capers, minced
1 TB fresh dill, minced
1 tsp each lemon zest and lemon juice
Pepper to taste
1 egg, lightly beaten
If you are using canned salmon, combine all ingredients except the egg and taste for seasoning. That way your mixture is perfectly seasoned before adding raw egg to the party. You will likely not need any additional salt, because the smoked salmon and capers are briny already, and if you paste your garlic you will already be adding salt to the mixture.
If you are using fresh salmon, combine all ingredients, mix well, and then fry about a tablespoon of the mixture until cooked through to taste for seasoning.
*To paste the garlic, mince cloves, then sprinkle with salt. Using firm pressure, draw the blade of your knife across the garlic on the board several times. It will begin to lose its integrity as the salt breaks it down, until you are left with a paste that is much easier to incorporate into your salmon mixture.
When it is seasoned to your liking, quarter the mixture and form four equal sized patties of 3-4 inches in diameter. Pop these in the refrigerator for at least half an hour to let them firm up and meld – they will hold together in the pan much better this way.
Before cooking, let your refrigerated patties stand at room temperature for about 10 minutes, just to take the chill off.
Warm olive oil in a skillet over medium heat and gently fry the patties. They should take 5-8 minutes per side. Cooking time will depend upon whether you have used canned or fresh salmon and how plump your patties are.
To serve, enclose in buns lovingly with some spring mix and your choice of condiments. I suggest horseradish or wasabi mayonnaise. If you had homemade mayonnaise that would be a lovely splurge here.
We had ours with paprika spiced kale chips, but to really get the Beagle experience you would need to serve with garlic French fries.
Parsley Pie Crust
I’ve never been one to start at the beginning. Stories require backing up and wait- wait- let me explain who that was. Dreams are recalled near the end, and only slowly do the initial details return. Directions often skip a step or come in fuddled order. I don’t know whether this is a consequence of a disorganized brain, or whether it’s a signal of confused genius (hah!). The Odyssey, with its in media res trope, was an enormity to my teenage brain when I first encountered it during high school. What a wonderful way to present information, and how validating and revelatory it was to find out that this was a classical method!
So it was no big surprise that, when facing the first week of my dough challenge, I couldn’t start at the beginning. Ruhlman arranges Ratio with doughs first, true, but he seems to traverse the category in a solids-to-liquids order. Bread comes first, pate-a-choux closes the chapter. To me, this was even more intimidating than the idea of tackling dough at all. Bread is something I want to build toward, not race into headfirst.
I flipped ahead in the book to take on my own personal Waterloo: pie crust. Supposedly “easy as.” But I’ve never found it that way. My crust is somehow tough AND crumbly. It collapses, it sticks, it refuses to roll in a smooth circle, it requires patching and crimping and pressing and it’s just easier to buy Pillsbury. But now I’m in it, and I’ve got to conquer this thing.
Despite this personal beginning, it wasn’t enough for me to just make a pie crust. You guys have probably all made pie crust. How boring would it be for me to just report on the quiche I made? At the end of the pie crust section, Ruhlman lists a number of alternatives and additions. Ground nuts, cracked peppercorns, a dusting of spices, parmesan cheese? I had never considered this. I had to try it out.
Our quiche would have a parsley crust. Coincidentally, this made my experimentation a perfect candidate for submission to Weekend Herb Blogging.
(I started with parsley, and then I started imagining adding lemon zest, and big particles of cracked black pepper, and then I realized that I just wanted some of the herbed buttermilk biscuits I so heralded when I made them for my Bittman project. Biscuits are in our future, friends.)
The ratio for pie dough – at least this one – is 3, 2, 1. Three parts flour, two parts fat, one part water. This is by weight. The problem here is, despite my desire to conquer this beast, and despite the impressive (read: verging on ridiculous) collection of kitchen tools I’ve amassed over the years (pot sticker press, anyone?), I don’t have a kitchen scale. That makes it hard to work in weights.
Fortunately, though he advocates it persistently, Ruhlman provides the general weight range for a cup of flour, so I worked with that.
Every pie crust recipe I’ve ever read, Ruhlman’s ratio included, calls for the water to be ice cold. I get this: you want the fat to remain cold during this construction phase so it can melt and leave flaky pockets as it bakes. Ice water keeps things frosty. I decided to skip the ice cube middle man and stuck my water in the freezer for a few minutes.
Usual procedure here: cut in the butter, add salt (and parsley, in this case), incorporate just enough water to bring things together, form into a disk and refrigerate to firm the fat back up. Then you can roll out, fill, and bake.
That all sounds pretty simple, but somewhere in there things tend to go wrong for me. This crust was (relatively) easy to work with. It didn’t disintegrate, it didn’t melt, it didn’t even crack in too many places. I think playing with biscuit and cracker doughs this past year accustomed me to the feeling and delicacy required to not destroy a circle of dough. It was barely moist and not exactly elastic, but it did have a bit of give. It baked to a lovely golden color, the flecks of green were intriguing and special, and the quiche that rested just wobbling between its sturdy walls was delicious.
But the crust was tough.
I can assume a few reasons for this.
1.) It’s possible my ratio was off. Because I didn’t weigh my flour, I may have had too much or too little in the mix.
2.) More likely, I overworked the dough. I pressed and kneaded and folded until the dry bits at the bottom of my mixing bowl were willing to play along, and perhaps I was too insistent about that demand for inclusion.
Like everything else, it seems pie crust needs a revisit to get it right. The feeling of the dough between my fingers is familiar, but I have to learn its textural intricacies. How much water is just enough? How crumbly can it be and still hold together? How much of the dryness do the fat and water absorb while the wrapped disk rests? Without another attempt or three, I won’t know.
But it tasted good. It crunched against the quiche and while it didn’t shatter at the slightest fork pressure, it did have that dryness against the teeth you expect from crust. The parsley contributed a grassy freshness and made the flavor more complex, especially the following day. I could see this working similarly well with dill, or thyme, or maybe even marjoram, all of which pair nicely with broccoli and mushrooms.
Onward, then.
Broccoli mushroom quiche with parsley pie crust
(The quiche recipe is my mom’s. I’m sure she got it from somewhere, but I don’t know that she even knows where anymore. I’ve changed very little here, though her version usually contains bacon instead of mushrooms)
Crust:
1 heaping, lightly fluffed cup of flour (or 6 oz., if you’re doing this properly)
1 stick (8 TB, 4 oz., etc) butter, cut into 16 or so pieces
2-4 oz. very cold water
Pinch salt
2 TB chopped parsley (or dill, or oregano, or marjoram, or thyme… whatever you like best, I expect)
Filling:
1 cup small broccoli florets
6-8 crimini mushrooms, sliced thinly
¼ cup green onions, diced
Olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
4 eggs
1 cup milk
1 ½ cups grated extra sharp cheddar cheese
½ cup grated swiss cheese
First, make the pie crust. Measure out your water and put it into the freezer while you assemble your other ingredients.
In a bowl, combine the flour and butter pieces. With your hands or a pastry blender (I always use the pastry blender – I hate the too-dry feeling of slowly crusting flour on my hands), cut the butter into the flour until it is pea-sized chunks and smaller. Add the salt and herbs and combine gently.
Dribble in some water – 2 oz. to start with – and combine. If the dough really isn’t coming together, add more water. When you can press a few teaspoons of the dough between your fingertips and it stays together, turn the whole mass out onto a floured board and work lightly to bring it together into a disk.
Wrap the disk in plastic wrap and stow it in the fridge for half an hour or so.
When the dough disk is cold and firm, bring it back to your floured board and remove the plastic wrap. Roll it out, moving a rolling pin (or wine bottle) in a few strokes straight away from you and back toward you only. Avoid diagonal movements. The dough will become a long oval. Then, flip the dough over and turn it 90 degrees so you are facing a fat, flour-drenched oval instead. Roll again, still moving the rolling pin straight away from and back toward you. Repeat this process until you have a rough circle an inch or two larger than the diameter of your pie plate.
Lightly roll half of the dough around your rolling pin and drape it loosely into the pie plate, unrolling as you go, letting the crust settle into the dish. Trim, crimp, or fold over any dangling edges as aesthetically as you are able.
Set aside (or perhaps return to the refrigerator?) while you make the filling.
Preheat the oven to 350F.
Heat some olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. When it is shimmering, add the mushrooms and give them a good stir, taking care that as many as possible have contact with the bottom of the pan (that is, don’t leave them piled atop one another if you can help it). Then leave them alone for a good five minutes, or until they begin to develop a golden crust.
While the mushrooms are getting golden, steam or microwave the broccoli florets until they are just crisp-tender and still very bright green. Set them aside.
Turn your mushrooms and let them sizzle for another five minutes or so. When they are golden on both sides, turn the heat down to medium and add the onions. Cook until soft and translucent. Toss the broccoli in the pan, then add salt and pepper to taste. Mom often adds tarragon or marjoram at this point as well – start with ½ tsp and see what you like. Remove from heat and set aside to cool for a few minutes.
While the vegetables cool, beat the eggs and milk together. Add a dash of grated nutmeg, if you like, or some cracked black pepper. As the quiche bakes, this will become a lovely firm custard.
To assemble, fill the pie crust with the vegetables, spreading them in an even layer. Gently pour the custard over the vegetables. Toss the shreds of cheese together and spread them evenly across the top of the filling.
Bake for 50-60 minutes, or until the cheese is golden and the quiche has puffed in the middle. If it’s not puffed yet, it’s not done. The ingredients will be cooked through, but when you cut into it you will find a disappointing watery layer at the bottom. Give it another few minutes.
With the center puffed and the cheese sizzling, remove the quiche from the oven and let it sit for 5-10 minutes so the cheese can solidify a bit and doesn’t string all over when you try to cut through it.
Slice and serve. 
Rolling in Dough
Okay, 2013, here we go.
This year, I have a few changes to announce. First, you may have noticed that we’re at a new address. Update your bookmarks, if I’m lucky enough to be there, to http://blackberryeating.com. As I understand it, the old address will still work, it will just redirect you here. As I mentioned a few days ago, I’ve been wanted to upgrade to an address that makes more sense for what I’m doing here. Blackberries, their mystery and decadence, remind me of all that is good about food: what is sweet, what is juicy, what is challenging, what is delicate, what is persnickety and strong. The Galway Kinnell poem from which the title of this blog is taken celebrates juxtaposition and excess, likens these jeweled fruits to words and the consumption of those fruits to the search for meaning and significance. This is a little piece of significance for me – this collection of words thrust with crossed fingers and squinted eyes out across the internet – and so I wanted to make it more connected, more applicable, but really, more mine.
Who ever thought so much consideration could go into a new address?
With the Bittman project over and a new address settled, it’s time to submerge myself in a new challenge. As you know if you’ve been reading for a while, dough – particularly pie dough and yeasted dough – is one of my big fears. What if it doesn’t rise? What if it crumbles apart? What if it tears or burns or collapses or comes out tough or doesn’t bake right? What if it’s (gasp) imperfect?
I decided I need to get over this.
This year, each week, I will make something out of dough. It might be pie crust. It might be cookies. It might be pizza or foccaccia or flatbread. It might, as terrifying as this is to me, be a real, honest-to-goodness loaf of bread, bloomed and kneaded, baked until crusty in a loaf pan. I have a crazy notion that I want homemade bagels. I have a yen to make doughnuts, and not just cake doughnuts, but the beautiful puff and chewy crumb of a good yeasted twist.
I don’t – and this is important to note – promise absolute success. You’re going to see what crumbles along the way. You’re going to see the scraps and scrapes and disasters I produce. I think this is an important part of learning, and that’s part of what this blog is for me.
I have a few guides in this project, one hoped for and long awaited, one unexpected but delightful. From my in-laws, I received Michael Ruhlman’s genius book Ratio. This isn’t a cookbook. It’s more than that. It’s more exciting, it’s more foundational, and ultimately, I think, it’s more useful. It doesn’t tell you how to make cherry pie, it tells you the essential equation of pie dough. Three parts flour, two parts fat, one part water. That will always equal pie dough. Suddenly, you can use any kind of flour – more than one kind, if you want. You can use lard instead of butter. You can make one pie or you can make thirty-five pies, and you don’t have to think as hard about multiplying or adding or fractioning. You have a ratio, and it is always going to work.
That’s the theory. And I believe it, but I haven’t tried it out just yet.
From my parents, I received a bread machine. I’ve never used a bread machine before, and while my immediate thought is that to really master dough, I will also have to make it by hand so I understand the kneading and the cycles of rising, and so I will come to know the feeling of the right kind of stretch and the windowpane test and the knowledge beneath my fingers that yes, this is bread, having a machine help me along the way is going to be nice. The idea of dumping, in pajamas at 10pm, a series of ingredients into a pan, plugging in a machine, and telling it I want a fresh, hot loaf of bread at 7am, delights and astounds me. I want to understand, but I also want the magic.
So that’s the plan. If all goes well, it will mean more of this:
It will certainly mean more of this:
It may even mean some of this:
I don’t expect it will mean all dough, all the time, just as the past two years were not exclusively Bittman concoctions. If something amazing comes along that doesn’t involve flour or eggs or butter, I will still report on it. But the goal this year – the resolution, if you will – is to conquer this dough thing. I want to have conversations with you about it. I want your feedback and advice and experiences. And I hope you enjoy.
Happy New Year!
Oh friends, it happened. I made it. Yesterday I made the last two Bittmans on my list and completed, albeit a year later than I’d originally intended, my project. I have reflections to share, certainly, and I have changes and excitement and promises for the new year, but first, I think, let’s work with the program. Two Bittmans. Two reports:
“14. Steam or poach 2 cups of pumpkin cubes until tender. Meanwhile, sauté 1 cup sliced shiitake mushroom caps in vegetable oil with a few drops of sesame oil. Boil 4 cups water and whisk some of it with ⅓ to ½ cup of miso. Stir miso mixture, pumpkin and mushrooms into water and heat everything through, then serve, drizzled with more sesame oil.”
Because we were planning to reach midnight by eating as many snacks as possible eating our way to midnight snacking, I wanted a light dinner to precede the countdown. This seemed to fit the bill. And it had to, after all, since it was the only soup left and the calendar was screaming December 31st.
2 cups peeled, cubed butternut squash (I had some in the fridge, and suspected pumpkin would be hard to find)
1 1 oz. package dried shiitake mushrooms
1 TB vegetable oil
¼ tsp (or to taste) toasted sesame oil, plus some for drizzling
3 packets instant tofu miso soup mix (all I could find at my grocery store)
water
white wine
To reconstitute my shiitake mushrooms, I soaked them in a mixture of white wine and almost boiling water for 15-20 minutes, until they were plump and soft.
While the mushrooms soaked, I cubed up my butternut squash and submerged the pieces in a pan of salted water. I brought this to a bare simmer and cooked it just until the squash pieces were tender – 10-15 minutes – then drained the pieces in a colander. Don’t overcook them, because they will start to fall apart. Set the squash pieces aside.
When the mushrooms were tender, I scooped them out of their bath and decided the remnants shouldn’t go to waste. I poured the soaking broth into a little pot to bring to a boil, so I could use this already flavored liquid as the base for my soup. While it heated, I stemmed and sliced the mushrooms.
Since the shiitakes were now basically cooked, I probably could have skipped Bittman’s sautéing step. But honestly, I’m not one to pass up the opportunity to ingest sesame oil, so I dutifully dribbled vegetable oil with a few (or a few more than a few) drops of sesame oil in the (drained and dried) pan I’d used to simmer my squash and sautéed the mushroom slices over medium heat until they dried out a bit and started to take on some color.
While this colorization happened, slowly and so aromatically, I made the broth. I poured all three miso soup seasoning packets – tofu and seaweed and all – into a small dish, then mixed in about ½ cup of my heated mushroom soaking liquid and whisked gently to dissolve the powdery soup mix. This created a slightly thickened slurry, which I poured with the rest of the liquid and the butternut squash cubes into the mushroom pan.
After a few moments of reheating, we dipped up bowlfuls and ate.
N. wasn’t sure (he sometimes takes issue with the texture of reconstituted mushrooms), but I inhaled it with devotion. I love the flavor of miso soup, and the mild sweetness of butternut squash against the salty umami and fleshy squish of the mushrooms was lovely.
It was light but still satisfying, and the tofu and vegetables from the soup mix were so welcome that I’d advise you, if you are using straight miso rather than a pre-mixed, additive laden packet, to consider adding some tofu or seaweed or green onion just to contribute a little substance and contrast to the soup.
Dinner done, we moved on to the second stage of the evening.
“89. Vegetable crackers: Slice beets, sweet potatoes, plantains or parsnips or all of the above into 1/8-inch disks (a mandoline is helpful) and toss lightly in olive oil. Spread the slices on baking sheets, sprinkle with salt, pepper and, if you like, other seasonings and bake at 400 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes. When browned, flip the chips over and bake for another 10 minutes or so.”
This sounded tasty, and I’d always intended to make it for a party. With a dear friend coming over to ring in the new year with us, and since hunks of cheese alone might be deemed a slightly imbalanced offering (though so, so delicious…), this seemed like a perfect opportunity. Beets were out of the question (N.’s nemeses since childhood), and I couldn’t find plantains in my grocery store’s produce section, so we were left with the nutty herbiness of parsnips and the always dependable earthy sweetness of sweet potato.
3 medium parsnips, peeled
½ large sweet potato, peeled
generous dose of olive oil (maybe ¼ cup?), plus more to grease the cookie sheets
1 tsp each (or to taste) salt, pepper, and garam masala
To prepare for roasting, preheat the oven to 400F and line two cookie sheets with aluminum foil. Drizzle with olive oil and spread to cover the surface of the foil evenly.
While the oven preheats, tackle the vegetables. I don’t have a mandoline, but I do have a ruler, and I must confess I did bring it to the kitchen to give myself a better idea of what 1/8 inch looks like. My slices were not quite even, but they did verge on passable. I tossed them – big coins of harvest orange and speckled white – in a glass bowl with the olive oil and the spices until they were evenly coated.
Spread the vegetable coins across the cookie sheets in a single layer, not overlapping, not in piles. If they cook in a stack, they will soften but not brown or crisp. Stow them in the oven for 12-15 minutes, or until they are just beginning to brown.
This next step is a true exercise in patience. Unless you are far more talented with a spatula than I, you will have to flip each piece over individually. You have to, because otherwise one side will burn and the other side will flutter limply into cooked-but-not-crisp status. Trust me on this one. When you have laboriously flipped each coin, shove the tray back into the oven for another 10-12 minutes.
At this point, you’ll have to use your judgment. My offerings were, after this additional time, cooked through but not remotely cracker-like in texture. Another five minutes in the oven might have done the trick. Putting them back in, failing to set a timer, and heading to the couch to eat dinner (I was trying to multitask) is not advisable. I didn’t remember them until I smelled the slightly spicy aroma of parsnips, and by then it was too late – many of the little coins had gone from crackers to briquets.
I decided to pick out the worst offenders – Lucy reports that she didn’t mind a bit of charred flavor – and eat the salvageable ones anyway.
To make them a bit more exciting (and disguise any lingering burned taste) I made a little dipping sauce. You’ll need:
juice from 1 lime
2 TB honey
1 tsp garam masala
½ – 1 cup Greek yogurt
Whisk the first three ingredients together with a fork until they are smooth. In increments, add Greek yogurt until your sauce reaches the desired thickness. Mine was about the consistency of ranch dressing, but much more interesting in flavor.
These crackers (with and without the sauce) were – if you were able to overlook the overcooking – a nice alternative to crudites or store-bought crackers. They weren’t quite as crispy (except the ones that were too crispy), but they had a lovely deep flavor and none of the powdery, processed taste some crackers can have. They are also a gluten-free offering and, minus the yogurt and honey sauce, vegan as well.
I served them alongside a cheese platter,
Joy the Baker’s chili spiced sharp cheddar cheese crackers,
assorted sweets,
and my appetizer version of Bittman’s “Marshmallow Topping for Adults” dish: thick discs of sweet potato roasted until tender, topped with a dollop of cream cheese and sprinkled with a pecan brown sugar blend before being broiled until the sugar bubbles and the cheese slackens toward melting.
And champagne, of course.
Happy New Year. I hope you celebrate your achievements, meet your goals, and find happiness in your own self. I’ll be checking in again later this week with some reflections and announcements. Welcome to 2013.
"blackberry-eating in late September" 