[recipe review] simple, crusty bread from the NY Times

I got a chance to make Jeff Hertzberg's simple bread recipe from his book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day that was shared on the NY Times website. It is billed as being even quicker than Jim Lahey's "No-Knead" recipe that appeared in the NY Times about a year ago and it lives up to that billing -- you can follow this recipe and have a decent loaf of bread in about 3 hours.

But that's just it -- the bread is only passable. I can make very good sandwich bread in three hours. This, however, is supposed to be "artisan" bread. It isn't artisan bread by any stretch of the imagination.

When I think of artisan bread, I imagine a slightly sour, very crusty, open-holed bread with wonderfully chewy insides. This bread is more related to white sandwich bread in texture -- maybe slightly chewier due to the wetness of the dough. The flavor was almost too "yeasty," as the recipe requires quite a bit of yeast (1 1/2 TB) to raise 6 cups of flour in two hours.

I prefer doughs (and the breads that come from them) that use less yeast and more time -- the flavor of bread made in this way is tangy and wheaty instead of having an overly fermented taste and smell. Also, time is necessary in order to truly accomplish the "no-knead" trick.

Kneading bread develops gluten, a protein matrix which acts like sheets of rubber than can be blown up like balloons. Gluten can also be developed by the metabolic byproducts of yeast (gas), which slooooooowly stretches the proteins in the dough. Trying to accomplish this quickly leaves one with an under-developed dough. This, in turn, produces small, dense loaves -- exactly what I got when I followed the recipe precisely.

It seems we are still left with two options for bread -- kneaded sandwich-style bread (which can be quite good) or lightly kneaded, long-rising artisan-style bread. Quick artisanal breads still live in the realm of unicorns and ogres -- fantasy.

One more note -- the recipe says that you can make the dough and keep it in the fridge for up to two weeks. This option probably produces a bread that is closer to artisan-style in texture. But I imagine the flavor would still be very "yeasty."

Overall, if you have never baked bread before and don't own a stand mixer, give the original no-knead bread recipe a try. If you're also in a pinch and rushed for time, try the Hertzberg variation just for kicks. You'll quickly be swept up in the joyful meditation of baking your own bread and will summarily graduate to recipes where a little (happy) effort is required!

the ny times loves simple bread recipes

This is the second "simple" bread recipe I've seen in the NY Times food section in a year. I've made Bittman's no-knead bread dough with success and look forward to trying this one, too. Both require a bit of special equipment -- Bittman's needs a dutch oven and Dr. Hertzberg's needs a pizza or quarry stone. Anyway, bread can be daunting for some. These recipes help to bring good, simple, home-baked bread to the table of anyone who has five minutes here and there...

Adapted from “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day,” by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François (Thomas Dunne Books, 2007)

Time: About 45 minutes plus about 3 hours’ resting and rising

1 1/2 tablespoons yeast
1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt
6 1/2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour, more for dusting dough
Cornmeal

1. In a large bowl or plastic container, mix yeast and salt into 3 cups lukewarm water (about 100 degrees). Stir in flour, mixing until there are no dry patches. Dough will be quite loose. Cover, but not with an airtight lid. Let dough rise at room temperature 2 hours (or up to 5 hours).

2. Bake at this point or refrigerate, covered, for as long as two weeks. When ready to bake, sprinkle a little flour on dough and cut off a grapefruit-size piece with serrated knife. Turn dough in hands to lightly stretch surface, creating a rounded top and a lumpy bottom. Put dough on pizza peel sprinkled with cornmeal; let rest 40 minutes. Repeat with remaining dough or refrigerate it.

3. Place broiler pan on bottom of oven. Place baking stone on middle rack and turn oven to 450 degrees; heat stone at that temperature for 20 minutes.

4. Dust dough with flour, slash top with serrated or very sharp knife three times. Slide onto stone. Pour one cup hot water into broiler pan and shut oven quickly to trap steam. Bake until well browned, about 30 minutes. Cool completely.

Yield: 4 loaves.

Variation: If not using stone, stretch rounded dough into oval and place in a greased, nonstick loaf pan. Let rest 40 minutes if fresh, an extra hour if refrigerated. Heat oven to 450 degrees for 5 minutes. Place pan on middle rack.

drying the turkey (but not "dry" turkey)

The turkey, she's a beaut -- 18 pounds of heritage-bred fowl, she's safely tucked away in the refrigerator, air drying in order to ensure crisp skin along with the juicy, flavorful meat that will occur as a result of a day-long soak in brine.

The plan is to slather her in butter and use the roasting method called for by Cook's Illustrated magazine.

We traditionally roast our bird early and let it come to room temperature before we eat dinner. This frees up the oven and gives my mom and I a chance to finish all of the sides. We'll probably have to go that route again, as we don't have two ovens to play around with...

the turkey is in the brine...

I know it's Monday. I know that Thanksgiving is on Thursday. I know you think I'm crazy when I tell you that my turkey, pictured at right, is already submerged in a flavorful brine.

You might ask, "Won't it be too salty?"

No sir, this bird is going to get pulled out tomorrow night, after 24 hours in the drink. Following that, she'll spend a day-and-a-half air-drying in the refrigerator. You see, brining does such a damned fine job of plumping up all of the turkey's protein cells with flavor-infused water that it could make it next-to-impossible to end up with the beautiful, mahogany-colored skin that all of us seek to unveil on Turkey Day. The air-dry enables the skin to dessicate a bit so that it will be beautifully burnished upon roasting.

The long, drawn-out process that I'm willing to go through for my turkey and my family (in that order) requires nothing other than proper planning and the ability to make a lot of space in your fridge.

The brine is easy -- I adapted it from Alton Brown's I'm Just Here for the Food. His original recipe called for a quicker soak, but I reduced the salt in my version to allow me to extend the time-in-brine to 24 hours. This was purely for scheduling reasons -- I don't think there is any benefit to the extra-long brine as opposed to say, the 6 hours that Alton calls for. I just knew when I'd be available to pull it out of the giant Ziploc bag.

turkey brine
3/4 cup kosher salt
1/2 cup brown sugar
handful of herbs (your choice -- I went traditional and used sage, thyme, and fresh bay)
1 gallon of water
8 pounds of ice

Dissolve the salt and sugar in 1 qt boiling water. Bruise the herbs with your hands, add to the water, and allow to steep for a few minutes. Cool this solution with the remaining 3 quarts of water and then add the ice, bringing the brine to a very chilly temperature (hopefully sub-40 degrees F).

At this point, you can put the turkey and brine in whatever will hold them. I find the XL "Big Bags" by Ziploc can handle an 18 pound turkey and the 2 gallons of brine just fine, but you can get creative, as long as it's clean and capable of some way maintaining temperatures under 40 degrees.

In order to maintain full contact, I assembled everything inside the largest stock pot I own and then tied up the zip-top part of the bag (see the photo). This fully immersed the turkey in the brine and it will stay just like that in my refrigerator until tomorrow night.

Continue on for (cue Paul Harvey voice) "the rest of the story..."

fruitcake for people who hate fruitcake

Fruitcake for people who hate fruitcake? It's possible! Most people hate the candied peel (citron) and fake green cherries. This recipe forgoes those for dried real fruit. You can use whatever dried fruits you want -- just use a variety, chop them to roughly the same size, and don't skimp! It really can handle 2 3/4 pounds of fruit.

Fruit
You'll need a total of about 2 to 2 3/4 pounds dried fruit.
1 1/2 cups (7 1/2 ounces) dried pineapple
1 1/2 cups (9 ounces) raisins
1 cup (4 1/2 ounces) dried apricots, diced
1 1/2 cups (7 7/8 ounces) chopped dates
6 ounces dried cherries
1/3 cup 2 1/4 ounces) diced crystallized ginger (optional)
3/4 cup (6 ounces) dark rum or brandy

Batter
1 cup (2 sticks, 8 ounces) unsalted butter
2 cups (15 ounces) light brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking powder
4 large eggs
3 cups (12 3/4 ounces) All-Purpose Flour
2 tablespoons (3/8 ounce) black cocoa (optional - for a darker fruitcake)
1/2 cup (5 1/2 ounces) light corn syrup (or dark if you want a darker fruitcake)
1/2 cup (4 ounces) apple juice, cranberry juice or water
2 cups (8 ounces) chopped, toasted nuts (pecans or walnuts)
rum, brandy, or vanilla syrup, for topping

The Fruit: Combine all of the fruit ingredients in a non-reactive bowl and soak overnight. Alternatively, cover with plastic wrap and zap them in the microwave on 50% power for about 3 minutes and allow to cool to room temperature.

The Batter: Cream the butter until soft, then add the sugar, spices and baking powder. Beat in the eggs one at a time. In a separate bowl whisk together the flour and cocoa (if using). Add about half of the flour mixture and all the syrup to the batter. Then add the remaining flour and the juice or water and mix well. Fold in the fruits, any remaining liquid, and the nuts.

Preheat the oven to 300°F. Grease the bottom and sides of the pans or line them with parchment paper. I use disposable aluminum so that I can store the cakes in them and then just give them away. This recipe makes enough for 8 mini-loaf pans or two 9 x 5-inch loaf pans. Spoon the batter into the pans, filling them about 3/4 full.

Bake the cakes on the middle shelf of a preheated 300°F oven -- about 65 minutes for the mini-loaves and 2 hours, 15 minutes for the large loaves. The cakes are done when a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean.

Remove the cakes from the oven, and brush them with rum or brandy. Let them cool, then remove them from the pans. Brush all surfaces with rum, brandy or vanilla syrup. (If you like just a hint of rum or brandy flavor, add 1 tablespoon of liquor to 3/4 cup vanilla syrup and brush this mixture on the cakes.)

Wrap the cakes in parchment paper, then in aluminum foil or plastic wrap, and store them in a cool, dry place. Unwrap the cakes every week (for up to 5 weeks) and brush them with more syrup. By the fifth week the cakes will have absorbed as much liquid as they're able. They'll keep for several months this way, as long as they're tightly wrapped. The flavor improves and mellows over time. Yield: a possible plethora of fruitcakes.

orgeat syrup

I had never heard of orgeat syrup before reading this post by Serious Eats' cocktail connoisseur, Paul Clarke. But when he described it as "simply almond syrup with a little orange flower water tossed in for ghostly aromatic effect," my interest was piqued.

I did a little research and found that one could easily make this syrup at home if one had almonds, water, sugar, and orange flower water in one's pantry. Since I possessed all of these things, I decided to give it a go. The syrup is just as Paul described. As a huge fan of the flavor of almonds, I can envision using this in cocktails, coffee, or even sparkling water. It's quite sweet, so a little goes a long way. The recipe I ended up using is a conglomeration of suggestions I found. It includes a bit of vodka to help extract alcohol-soluble flavors, but that's optional if you want a virgin syrup.

orgeat syrup
350 g blanched almonds, chopped (about 12 oz.)
1.5 kg sugar, divided (about 7.5 cups)
1 L water (4.25 cups) (preferably mineral or spring - I used Acqua Panna)
100 mL vodka (about 1/2 cup) (optional)
2 TB "natural" almond extract (made from bitter almond oil)
2 TB orange flower water

In a saucepan over medium heat, dissolve 400 g sugar in the water. As soon as the solution reaches a boil, turn off the heat.

Place the almonds in a blender and just cover with some of the sugar water. DO NOT FILL, as the hot syrup will expand when you turn the blender on, causing burns and a sticky mess (trust me). Blend the almonds and syrup until there are no more chunks and the almonds have been pretty well pulverized -- about 4 minutes. Pour the almond mixture into the rest of the sugar water and mix. Allow that mixture to cool to room temperature.

Strain the mixture through cheesecloth or even coffee filters, pushing on the ground almonds to extract as much liquid as you can. Pour that liquid into a clean saucepan and add the remainder of the sugar. Dissolve the sugar over medium heat, just until you see small bubbles forming on the sides of the pan. There is no need to bring it to a full boil.

Allow this to cool once again and then stir in the vodka, almond extract, and orange flower water. Bottle it (I ended up needing two 1L Acqua Panna bottles, as the recipe makes 1.5 L of syrup) and make yourself a Mai Tai!

surprise ingredients, pt. 2 (brian's hawaiian adventure)

This post comes courtesy of my friend, Brian, and is his entry in our three-way Next Iron Chef challenge:

After receiving my ingredients from Gavin, I initially thought that I had this one in the bag; curry, oyster sauce, cabbage, bacon and water chestnuts can all be found swimming through all kinds of Asian cuisine. However, I decided to rule out dividing my ingredients among two unrelated dishes like curried kale soup (bacon/curry/cabbage) with some kind of weird oyster sauce-glazed water chestnut/pancetta kebab. I also threw out the always-trusty everything-but-the-kitchen-sink stir fry, because that’s grade school stuff, man, and although I was confident that I could have made it taste pretty good, I knew that these ladies would be bringing their A-Game.

That said, I focused on dim sum, those small, delicate plates of appetizers wheeled to your table “to your heart’s content” in Chinese mega-restaurants out in the DC suburbs with names like “New Fortune,” “Fortune Chinese Seafood,” and “Good Fortune.” I’ve eaten dim sum a few times and really enjoyed it, but I couldn’t think of any Chinese dishes which used a combination of all five of my ingredients. So, naturally, I did what any fierce competitor would do in a pinch: I turned to the internet and started cheating…I mean researching. Even after scouring food blogs, ingredient search databases and the hallowed halls of Google, no Chinese recipe out there in cyberspace matched my seemingly cohesive ingredient list. One ingredient would always stick out like a sore thumb. However, I bumped into two Hawaiian appetizers that were just tweakable enough for me to fudge my way to success…

manapua

Manapua is a baked or steamed pork-filled bun similar to what you’d find in a dim sum joint, but with some type of weird Hawaiian edge to it. In certain combinations, Manapua can house all five of my ingredients, although I didn’t see anything online suggesting a simultaneous living situation. Anyway, when I think Hawaiian cuisine, I think Spam and pineapples, and you can guess which one I had laying around in a dark corner of my kitchen. Thus was born my version of Manapua - a doubly-porky, spicy, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink stir fry (hey, wait a minute!) wrapped in a bun and baked in the oven. If my girlfriend ate pork and I had arteries of steel, I’d make these things all the time.

Dough:
1 package dry yeast
1 cup warm water
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour
4 parts Bourbon
1 part Sweet Vermouth
Ice

Combine first five ingredients in a large bowl and let stand for 15 minutes. Stir in flour until a dough forms, then knead on a floured surface for 5-10 minutes. Place dough in a greased, covered bowl and let rest in a warm place for 45 minutes. Have yourself a Manhattan.

Filling:
4-5 slices bacon (not smoked), diced
1 small can Spam, diced into 1/4-inch cubes
2 carrots, diced
2 green onions, sliced thin
3 cloves garlic, diced
1 head baby bok choy, chiffonaded
1 small can water chestnuts, chopped
1/4 cup sake, mirin or sherry
2 tsp curry powder
2 tsp oyster sauce
1 tsp sriracha (Thai hot sauce)
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp grated fresh ginger
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp lemon juice

Combine curry powder, oyster sauce, sriracha, soy sauce, sesame oil, cornstarch, ginger, sugar and lemon juice in a small bowl and set aside. In a wok or skillet over high heat, stir-fry bacon for 1-2 minutes, then add Spam and carrots and cook for another 2 minutes. Add green onions, garlic, bok choy, and water chestnuts, and stir-fry for a few more minutes, until bacon begins to crisp. Deglaze with the sake, scraping the wok, and add reserved ingredients, cooking until mixture thickens.

Preheat oven to 350°. Knead dough for a minute, then divide into 12 balls of equal size. Roll each ball into a 5-inch circle and top with 2 tbsp of filling. Bring up the sides to form pleats around the filling, then twist to seal. Place buns on a baking sheet covered in foil, cover and allow to rise for 30 minutes. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until golden brown. Brush with butter and serve.

rumaki

Next is a great 1970’s Hawaiian throwback dish called Rumaki, straight from the “Man-Pleasers” section of the Betty Crocker Recipe Card Library; you’re really missing out if you haven’t seen these monstrosities. Rumaki consists of marinated chicken livers and water chestnuts, wrapped in bacon and skewered into one-bite (dog) treats. They actually turned out pretty good, as the bacon and brown sugar balanced the mineraly taste of the liver, and the heat and tang of the sriracha in the aioli cut through the overly rich porkiness of the bacon. However, if you eat more than a couple of these, you’ll probably need to hang out in a hospital for a while, just in case.

1 small container chicken livers, rinsed
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp grated fresh ginger
2 tbsp packed light brown sugar
1 tsp curry powder
12 canned water chestnuts, drained and halved horizontally
8 bacon slices, cut crosswise into thirds
12 bamboo skewers

Cut chicken livers into 1/2 inch pieces, and combine in a Ziploc bag with the soy sauce, oyster sauce, ginger, brown sugar, curry powder, and water chestnuts, and mix well. Marinate in the refrigerator for an hour while soaking bamboo skewers in water.

Preheat broiler with top oven rack 2-3 inches from heat. Remove chicken livers and chestnuts and discard marinade. Wrap a piece of chicken liver and a chestnut in a piece of bacon, roll tightly and skewer. Arrange on a rack and broil until bacon is crispy, around 5 minutes. Serve immediately with Watercress Aioli for dipping.

Watercress Aioli:
2 egg yolks
2 cloves garlic
1 small bunch of watercress
1 pinch salt
1 tbsp sriracha, or more to taste
1 cup olive oil

In a food processor, combine eggs, garlic, watercress, salt and sriracha, then add oil slowly until the mixture thickens into the consistency of mayonnaise. Or, grind garlic, watercress, salt and sriracha into a paste in a mortar and pestle, then whisk in eggs. Slowly and continually whisk in oil until the mixture thickens.