Thirty Minutes

2 weeks of Bread

I'be been trying a new recipe for the last 3 weeks.  It's pretty fantastic, actually, and today's bread was the best yet. 

One thing that really makes a difference is to eat it on the day it's made.  It is everything one wants in a bread -- thin, crispy and crunchy crust, soft light crumb, lots of air bubbles, definitely a sourdough though not too sour.  Lovely!!

Here's today's

The recipe is a half quantity of Susan's recipe from Wild Yeast blog, mentioned in the last bread post. In that last post (16 July) I baked the bread on the pizza stone.

Last weekend and this, I baked it in my Le Creuset.  I mentioned this in my first bread post, and it certainly gioves you consistently good results.  I think this is because you don't have to worry about spraying the bread and oven with water to get a good steam.  In the Le Creuset the moisture from the dough creates a steam and thus you get a perfect crust.

I've made a few tweaks.  I actually use 200g starter rather than the 180 she suggests.  As well, I read nother post of hers where she said she felt the the high protein flours make for a chewy and rather firm bread.  She recommends a protein strength of 10.5 to 11.5.  The Kialla Mills flour I use is 13.0.  So I found some flour (organic, unbleached) with a protein strength of 10.8 and used that this weekend, and I definitely think it has made a difference.  The crumb was lovely and soft, everything you want in a home made bread.

I'm using the same tchnique as I described in the previous post, as it works well for me.

Saturday

2pm- make the dough, let it rest for 30 minutes.

2.30 - add salt and mix for 3-4 mins on low speed.  Turn out into an oiled bowl and leave in a warm room, covered.

3.30pm - (50 mins later)fold bread a few times, cover and leave another 50 minutes.

4.20pm - fold bread a few times, cover and leave another 50 minutes.

5.10pm - shape into a round, lightly flour the top and loosely cover with plastic wrap. Leave 15 mins.

5.25pm - shape into final shape, place in banneton or lined colander at room temperature for 1.5hrs.

6.55pm - place in fridge and go out for dinner!!

Sunday

7am - remove from fridge and leave 1 hr in a warm room.

8am - oil and put a little polenta in the bottom of a Le Creuset. Place dough in the Le Creuset, slash, and put in a cold oven. Turn the temperature to 240C and bake for 45mins after the oven comes to temperature.

Wait to cool before eating.

Today's crumb

The bread crackles as it cools.  What a fabulous sound! My cousin from London was staying the night, and he said there was nothing nicer than waking to the smell of freshly baked bread!!

 

 

Cookbook Review -The Urban Cook, Mark Jensen

Quite a few of the blogs I follow recommend or review cookbooks.  Since I own so many and just keep buying more, I thought I might follow the example of others and write and talk about some of the cookbooks I own.

Many foodies, I know, can read a cookbook as if it was a novel, and I am absolutely one of those people!!  When I get a new cookbook I usually read it from cover to cover and then put it away with all the others (maybe it's a possession thing?).  Sometimes I mark a recipe with a sticky note or a book dart, other times I just hope I remember that there are good ones in whatever book it is I've just read. 

What I'm going to try and do from now on is write about one as soon as I've read it, and it's still fresh in my mind.

So today's review is of the book mentioned above.

This is a very readable book (see comment above re novels).  Mark is passionate about sustainable and ethical food production - the book is subtitled Cooking and eating for a sustainable future. In each section of the book Mark talks about the sustainability of the product in question, and these 'essays' are absolutely fascinating to read.  The Vegetables chapter talks about food miles and the power of the supermarkets to enforce that only certain brands are available (have you ever seen Russet, La Motte, Atlantic or even Dutch Cream potatoes in any of the big ones??) and only perfect shapes are required (tho this is partly the buyer's fault too, because it's what they demand).  Imperfect fruit and vegetables often can't be sold because the farmer's contract with a large chain supplier means he can't sell to anyone else.

Then there are the very interesting recipes in this section - roasted pumpkin with pine nuts and sage burnt butter; roasted beetroot salad with witlof, chives, yoghurt and walnut; broccoli, chili and anchovy taglierini; green papaya salad with snake beans and tomato; steamed asian greens with temari and fried shallots. 

There is a very interesting mix of Asian and Western dishes throughout the book.  I confess that I'd been a bit worried they'd all be tending towards the Asian side, as Mark is the head chef at Red Lantern, but my fears were groundless and all the Asian dishes sound really tasty and interesting.  I'm certainly going to give some of them a try!

The meat and poultry sections were eye-opening.  Of course I've seen Food, Inc and read Michael Pollan's book, and watched Jamie Oliver's Bacon special, and been aware of intensive chicken rearing.  But I didn't really know that free-range doesn't always mean that the chickens go outside, just that the door is left open for them.  But with food and water and shelter inside some rarely go out.  Organic farms and farming methods are subject to such intense scrutiny to get and keep their organic certification that this is really the only option for concerned cooks who want to make a statement about ethical food production  methods.  Unless, of course, you know your producer, as there are some farmers who do actually raise their produce to organic level but just don't have the actual certificate (because being truly organic means no pesticides and no fertilisers). 

Biodynamic is the best of all, as even organic means chickens are kept indoors at night and stocked 25k per square metre.  Mark says we have to realise that if we want good meat we have to be prepared to pay for it, as the cost of raising organic or biodynamic meat and poultry is much higher for the farmer.  Cage chickens are raised to slaughter weight in almost half the time that an organic or biodynamic chicken takes to reach the same weight, so there's quite a bit of incentive to go with the big chains.

More scary still is the lack of genetic diversity.  Because consumers like white meat, chickens have been bred to have big breasts, strong bones and a docile temperament.  Thus almost all cage chickens in Australia are derived from selective breeding of just three breeds.

The seafood chapter has a very interesting essay on aquaculture and intensive fish farming.  Mark has certainly done his research about the different ways fish, as well as beef, lamb and chickens are raised, and the book is recommended as much for these interesting and thought-provoking articles on food production as for the recipes.

What I cooked from Mark's book:

Chicken Braised with White Wine, Thyme and Cream

4 organic chicken marylands
2 Tb olive oil
2 carrots cut into 4cm lengths then quartered
8 french shallots or very small new season onions
1/2 small bunch thyme or lemon thyme
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed with the side of a knife
250ml white wine such as reisling
125 ml pouring cream (35% fat)
salt and pepper
pinch cayenne pepper

Brown chicken pieces in oil, skin side down, for 3-4mins until it is brown.  Turn over and cook another 2 minutes. Remove chicken and wipe out pan with paper towels.

Return chicken to the pan. Add carrots, shallots, garlic, thyme and wine.  Turn heat to high and bring the wine to the boil.

Cover and turn the heat to low.  Cook 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes remove the lid, season with salt and pepper and add the cayenne pepper.  Cook another 20 minutes on a low heat with the lid off - watch to make sure the cream doesn't boil away.

Mark's recipe said to thicken the sauce with a roux of butter and flour,  but I found I didn't need to, as the cream cooked down and thickened and made a delicious sauce all by itself.

Serve with jacket potatoes and a green vegetable.

It was totally delicious, and very easy.  I'll be making this one again!

The Urban Cook
by Mark Jensen
published by Murdoch Books. 

And here's an interesting post from Mark at their blog site:
http://blog.murdochbooks.com.au/blog/a-note-from-mark-jensen-author-of-the-urban-cook.html

 

Sourdough 16th July

I've had to start naming these copious bread posts with a unique identifier, as we say in the computer world, so that I at least can tell them apart!

Firstly - here's a photo of my culture as it was before I took out some to make the bread:

This weekend the bread was baked at 8am Saturday - how's that for a labour of love - so that my dear ones could try it and give me lavish praise before disappearing down to the Snowy Mountains (Charlotte's Pass) for a week.

This time I tried a new recipe from Susan at Wild Yeast - 'My New Favourite Sourdough' she says. She calls it Norwich Sourdough as she adapted it from a Jefferey Hammelman recipe for a Vermont Sourdough.

I'd recently read that bread can be a little tough if it is overworked when proving.  I wondered if this is what I've been doing?  So one reason to try Susan's recipe was that it has very little working.

I halved the recipe to make a 1.2k loaf.  You mix:

450g white flour
60g rye flour (or all white, or stoneground wholemeal, whatever you like)
300g water @ 22C
180g ripe culture @ 100% hydration

in a mixer until just combined, then leave to autolyse for 30 mins.

Now add 13g salt and mix again for 3-4 mins on medium speed.

Transfer the dough to an oiled container, cover and rest at 22-24C for 50 minutes.

Fold the dough in the container.  To do this, use a dough scraper and starting at the 2pm position, fold the side into the middle, move around to 3pm and do the same.  Turn the bowl as you fold into the centre.  Once you have folded 12 times, turn the dough over so the folds are on the bottom.  Cover again and let rest for another 50 minutes.

Now fold 12 times again, as above. You could also watch and try Susan's technique in this video on her site.

Cover and let stand for another 50 minutes (2.5 hrs altogether).

Turn onto a lightly floured board and shape into a boule.  Dust wth flour, cover with plastic wrap and let rest for 15 mins.

Shape into your final desired shape and let prove in bannetons or a cloth-lined colander. Cover with a plastic bag and place in a warm room.

Rest for 2.5 hours.  Alternatively, and this is what I did, you can prove for 1.5 hrs in a warm room then place in the fridge, in the plastic enclosed banneton, for 2-16 hours.  Although Susan says you can bake straight from the fridge, I took mine out at 7am and let it sit in the kitchen (at about 17C) for just over an hour.

Heat the oven to 250C with a pizza stone in it, for an hour to get the stone really hot.

Remove the bread from the banneton and tip it onto an oven tray lined with baking paper that has been lightly sprinkled with semolina flour (to stop the bread sticking). Slash the top.

Here's a closeup of the dough through the slashes, so you can see the development under the crust:

Spray oven well, slide onto the stone, spray oven and bread again and reduce temperature to 230C.  Spray often for the first 10 minutes.

Here's a shot of the slashes opening up for the internal dough to rise.  This is the reason why you spray the oven before you start, to keep the crust soft enough for the internal dough to begin its rise.

Bake for 35 minutes, then for a final 5 minutes with the door ajar held open with a wooden spoon (unless you are lucky enough to have an oven whose door can stay ajar).  The crust should be a deep brown - if not, bake in 5 minute increments until it looks good then do the 5 minutes with the door ajar.

Turn the oven off and leave the bread in with the door slighly ajar for another 5 minutes to help dry out the bread.

Leave to cool before cutting.

The crumb shot:

Verdict - good springy crumb, lovely light crunchy crust.  Definitely try this one again.

 

 

High Tea at the Waterbar, Blue Hotel, Wooloomooloo

Yesterday 5 of us booked in for the High Tea at the Waterbar at the Blue Hotel in Wooloomooloo, which is on the beautiful Finger Wharf redevelopment.

 

(These 2 are from the Blue Hotel website, as I forgot to take a photo myself - it was cold wet and windy!)

There was a slight comedy of errors beforehand, but we managed to all make it there only half an hour late.

The staff had set up a lounge area for us, rather than seating us at the restaurant tables - 3x2-seater lounges and a couple of fat stools around a large coffee table, bracketed by 2 standing heaters - a very comfortable and intimate arrangement.  It is amazingly cold inside the Waterbar, which is actually in the middle of the Blue Hotel, itself in the middle of the Finger Wharf. The wind seems to whisper in through every crack, and as it was a cold rainy day in Sydney we were so glad of the heaters!

The Waterbar started High Tea in May this year.  Since we were the only ones there we wonder how long it will last!  Part of the comedy of errors alluded to above was that there was no booking for us at all, but the staff said they could easily fit us in and they looked after us fabulously!!

Two bottles of champagne and some still and sparkling water were waiting nearby.  After pouring us each a glass the food arrived, served on those delightul afternoon tea tiers

There were 2 of these tiered arrangements, and sadly we'd eaten most of them before I remembered to take a photo!!

The top tier had small pieces of chicken wrapped in pandan leave, so juicy and flavourful, along with small skewers of grilled prawns and some tandoori chicken pieces.  An unusual combination for High Tea but as it was 12.30pm we were grateful for the savoury tastes.  The bottom tier had ham, cheese and mustard finger sandwiches, and smoked salmon, brie, tomato and rocket triangles.  There were about 2 sandwiches each!!

The middle tier held the sweet offerings - scones with lovely strawberry jam and sweet cream, cheesecakes in tiny wafer bases, miniature rhubarb and nutmeg muffins, chocolate muffins, plum slices, and more champagne!! 

The staff were amazingle attentive, the venue very attractive (though cold!) and the High Tea extremely good value for money at under $50.00 per head.  We drank the champagne and had coffee afterwards - one of the girls saying it was the best coffee she had had for a long time.  I had an espresso and it was strong without being bitter, a great treat.

Highly recommended!

High Tea at the Waterbar
Blue Hotel
Cowper Wharf Road
Wooloomooloo

Mon-Fri 11 - 4pm
Sat & Sun 12 - 2pm

 

Sourdough again

This Saturday's Sourdough was good, and different.

What did I do this time?  Brought forward the baking times so I could make it on Saturday afternoon.

Because I wasn't organised in time I had only 2 discards from my culture.  But this made 138g starter with which to begin my ferment.  So I think it was enough.

I made the preferment on Friday morning and left it in the loungeroom where the heater was on all day.  The temperature, even with the heater, was around 22C. I left it all day and made the rest of the dough at 10.30 that night.  I added 25ml more water than last week.

I left it out in the kitchen because the overnight temperature in Sydney at present has been around 1 - 3C, which is colder than my fridge!! However, Friday night was a warm 7C so the bread rose up in my bowl.  I'd also forgotten to add salt, so there was nothing to inhibit the rise.  The next day I had to knock it back severely in order to add the salt, I did this about 9am on Saturday morning.  Bashed it on the bench a few times to incorporate the salt, then shaped it into a baguette and left it in the banetton to rise.

Around 3.30pm I turned the oven on to 250C with a pizza stone inside.  At about 4.15 I turned the dough onto a floured sheet of baking paper on a rimless baking dishm slashed it and slid it onto the stone.  I have a steam oven so gave it 2 shots of steam and for added bonus I squirted the inside with some extra water.  I'd read, in Richard Bertinet's fabulous book, Crust, that the reason for steam is to stop the crust from forming immediately in the heat, so that the interior dough has a chance to rise and break through.

40 mins at 250C

I think I should have turned it down to 240 or 230 after 30 mins, and left it a bit longer.  The interior was a trifle 'moister' than usual.  The interior temperature should reach 200C at which stage the bread is done.

However, nice bubbles on the outside, you can just see them in the above photo, and a good crumb structure.

Although it was the same recipe as last week, excepot for the additional 25ml water, the bread was higher and not quite as wide.  Whether this is due to the water or cooking on the stone instead of in the Le Creuset only further experimentation will tell.

 

Baking Sourdough Bread

Late last year, spurred on by beautiful posts from one of my favourite bloggers, Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial, I began a sourdough starter culture.  I made a couple of loaves, following recipes I'd read on various blogs (see the post for links), but I wasn't pleased with the result.

I had to move out of my house for a couple of months whilst we were renovating, so that culture died and I began a new one in early February this year.

I followed Dom's instructions at Sourdough.com and also Mike's at Sourdough Home, and created a lovely live starter culture.  I've been making bread with it ever since, and have passed some onto my brother and sister who also wanted to make bread.

My culture is at 100% hydration, because I feed it by weight - 35g flour and 35g water.  Other cultures may be at 166% hydration, when they are fed at volume - 1/2 cup water to 1/2 cup flour.  This makes a difference to the bread recipe you use - you can't take a recipe for a bread with a starter at 166%  hydration and make a recipe for a bread with a starter at 100% hydration, unless you tweak the water and flour measurements to take account of the water and flour in your starter.  More on this at the Aussie sourdough website and blog, Sourdough.com.

Although I thought I was pretty good at maths, I seem to have a black hole where this sort of calculation is concerned, so I've usually just followed a bread recipe and hoped it turned out.

Now, one thing I've discovered about breadmaking, by 5 months of trial and error, is that you can't just pick up a recipe and follow the instructions and hope it comes out right.  I have always been able to do that with sweet and savoury recipes, generally I consider myself a good cook.  But bread ain't like that.

It has become apparent to me that there are a lot of variables, and you sort of have to compensate for these yourself.  How hot your oven gets, how well you can make steam, how well you knead/rest/shape.  It's a game of practice, practice, practice, then practice some more until you can consistently turn out good bread.

So after 5 months I've decided to start posting about my bread journey.  Because I've found a good recipe and technique that works for me, and I'm passing on the benefit of my experience.  Though I know I've got years and years to go!!

Lesson Learned 1

Begin with a sponge.  Quite a few of the recipes one reads begin with a sponge or a biga or a preferment.  Probably these words don't all mean the same thing, and for that I apologise. What I mean is taking a little bit of the starter culture you've been feeding, and put it in a bowl ready to be the base of your load.  One positive about beginning with a sponge is that is evens out the hydration, so I don't think it matters whether your starter culture was 100% hydration or 166%, the end result will still be good.  Because you are only using the starter culture as the raising ingredient.

The sponge is usually made by taking some of your culture and adding some of the water and flour that will be in your bread to it, and getting that whole thing lovely and gloopy and active.

The sponge will sit from 10-12 hours getting active, before you use it to make bread.  For my bread, I use the discarded culture from 3 feeds, which will give me between 100 and 150g of starter.

Lesson Learned 2

Kneading develops the gluten.  For my bread I've found that it needs about 30 mins of the 'slap' technique, where the dough is slapped onto the bench and stretched at the same time.  You should do this at 10 minute intervals for 30 minutes.  On an oiled bench, so that the bread takes in a little oil at the same time.

Lesson Learned 3

Bake it only when it hasn't got any more rise.  You can tell when this is by poking it with a floured finger.  If the dough leaps back into the indent, its still got a lot of rise left in it.  If it fills in slowly with a bit of forethought, its ready to bake.

Lesson Learned 4

You always get fabulous results cooking in a cast-iron casserole dish.  I learnt this trick from the fabulous Clothilde @ Chocolate & Zucchini and many others cite it as a good trick too. The enclosed dish captures the moisture from the bread and it bakes with those little bubbles under the crust that indicate a great bread.

Of course there are other tricks you can do, such as spraying the oven and bread well, throwing ice or wet cloths into the oven, and even using a steam oven, which I have.  But I always get consistently great results using my Le Creuset casserole.  Apart from the bubbles, you can also hear the little crunch of the bread cooling, small crackles as the lovely crust cools.

Lesson Learned 5

Don't cut until cold.  I knew about this, but others don't.  Never cut the bread whilst warm, as it will go soggy.  Hold back until the bread is cool.

My recipe

To bake on Saturday afternoon

(times to suit yourself ;-), and bring forward a day if you plan to bake on Sunday arvo.)

Thurs 7am: Remove starter from fridge on Thursday morning.  Feed, and place discard into a container.  Put that in the fridge but leave the culture on the bench for the day.

Thurs 7pm: Feed culture, add discard into the container from the fridge, leave the culture on the bench overnight.

Fri 7am: Feed culture, add discard to the container from the fridge.  Put the culture back in the fridge.  Take the container with the - by now, 3 - discards and tip this into a large glass bowl. (Note: you should have between 100 and 150g discard.)

Add:
300g water
250g strong flour
to the glass bowl and mix them together with the discarded starter.  When it is all combined cover withe plastic wrap and leave on the kitchen bench for the day.

Fri night/late afternoon 6pm: Add 300g flour and 12g salt to the gloopy mixture and mix all together.  when it has basically come together leave to autolyse for 10 minutes (this lets the flour absorb some liquid).

6.10pm: Tip onto an oiled bench and slap about 20 times, stretching and pushing as you slap.  (I'm adding another link to Celia's fabulous tutorial on this, which can be found here.)  Roughly clean the bowl that you mixed everything in, oil it lightly and place the dough back in.  Cover with plastic wrap and leave 10 minutes.

6.20pm: Tip onto an oiled bench and slap about 20 times, stretching and pushing as you slap.  Place the dough back into the bowl, cover with plastic wrap and leave 10 minutes.

6.30pm: Tip onto an oiled bench and slap about 20 times, stretching and pushing as you slap. Place the dough back into the bowl, cover with plastic wrap and leave 10 minutes.

6.40pm: Tip onto an oiled bench and slap about 20 times, stretching and pushing as you slap. Place the dough back into the bowl, cover with plastic wrap and put in the fridge until morning.

Sat 7am: Remove glass bowl from fridge and place dough in a warmish room to come to room temperature, about 2 hours.

Sat 9am: Lightly flour bench and tip the dough onto the bench.  Press out with your fingertips into a squarish shape and pick up a bit of dough from the side and fold into the centre, as if they were petals of a flower (go back and watch Celia's tutorial again, as she shows how to do this).  Do this around the edge of the dough until it is all folded in, about 6-8 turns.  Turn the whole thing over, and spin on the bench, with one hand going forward and the other going backward (see Celia's tutorial again, here).  You are trying to create a tight surface on the top of the dough, and to smooth out the bottom where you made all the tucks.  Leave for 10 mintues sitting on the bench.

Sat 9.20: Shape and place in the resting container.  If you are making a round bread, place it in a floured teatowel (rye flour is best) in a colander, or into a floured banneton.  If you want to make a batard, then at this point push it out into a square with your fingertips again, and then fold the top section (a bit more than a third) to the centre, fold the bottom section up to overlap it then turn it so you can push down with the heel of your hand to squash the edges together.  Turn it over and you should see the tight surface on the top. There's a great video from Theresa at Northwest Sourdough showing how to do it properly.  Let it rest 5 more minutes.  Now place the bread so that the seam is uppermost and the smooth side is resting on the bottom.  Cover with a plastic bag which is sealed with a peg and leave for about 4-6 hours.  You can tell when it is ready to bake by poking it with a floured finger, see Lesson Learned 3 above.

Sat 3.30-4pm.  Get your casserole dish (mine is an oval, all the better to bake a batard in) and oil it lightly.  Sprinkle with some polenta (instant is fine) to stop the dough sticking.  Tip the bread out of the banneton or colander into the casserole.  Sprinkle with some flour then slash the top with a lame or razor blade or a very sharp instrument (knives don't seem to be sharp enough).

Put the lid on the casserole.  Put it into a COLD oven and turn the oven on to 240C.

Bake it for 45 minutes calculated from after the oven reaches temperature.

After 45 minutes take the casserole out, close the door and look at the bread.  If it looks like it can take it, put it back for another 5 minutes, otherwise take it out of the casserole (with oven mitts on!!) and put on a rack to cool.  Turn off the oven.  I've made loaves of 750g and also of 1.2k and they take the same length of time to cook.

Today's bread:

Last Saturday's:

They look pretty spectacular, don't they?

The test comes when you finally cut them open.

It should be light and airy, preferably with holes.  I just cut this one and had a slice, and its very good.

But I'd like a little more light and air, so back to practicing for me!

I will be adding photos of the intermediary stages as I remember to take them!!!

Stay tuned!